Letters to the Editor
February 19, 2018Dear Sirs: We enjoyed your recent satire on provincial Mormonism (published as a review of The Graduate by one Rustin Kaufman). H. L. Mencken could not have inserted the knife more deftly. It takes an…
DiaBLOGue
Letters to the Editor
February 18, 2018Dear Sirs: Your poemed portraits proveth much(They prove both plus and minus) So let old Ernie have his view—Give deference to his highness. Robert Baer El Cerrito, Calif. *** Dear Sirs: I have read with interest the…
Letters to the Editor
February 18, 2018Dear Sirs: As a Dialogue subscriber, I was recently favored with a letter from the “Lloyd for Congress Committee,” asking for a contribution to support a Dr. Kent Lloyd, Ph.D., who is running for Congress…
Letters to the Editor
February 18, 2018Dear Sirs: . . . . I borrowed the first two issues and have read each one with a great sense of gratitude. I knew it — I knew you were there somewhere, you people…
Letters to the Editor
February 18, 2018Dear Sirs: . . . . Dialogue can become a source of intellectual sastisfaction that will complement and augment the spiritual satisfaction abundantly provided by the Church. To become such a source it must be…
Letters to the Editor
February 18, 2018Dear Sirs: After Udall’s letter, what now? Despite the possible political implications of Stewart Udall’s letter, I hailed it as a welcome voice on a subject generally veiled in public silence. And yet after the…
Egyptology and the Book of Abraham
February 7, 2018 Dialogue, 28.1 (Spring 1995): 143 – 161
The matter which I propose to examine is whether the “present understanding of Egyptian religious practice” supports Joseph Smith’s explanations of the facsimiles found in the Book of Abraham. In addition, I will discuss the contribution which a study of Egyptian history can maketo our understanding of the nature of this book of scripture.
“That Is the Handwriting of Abraham”
February 1, 2018 Dialogue, 23.4 (Winter 1990): 167 – 169
In his stimulating article, “Knowing Brother Joseph Again: The Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith as Translator” (DIALOGUE, Winter 1989), Karl Sandberg seeks to explain the Prophet Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Abraham almost exclusively in terms of seership (where one does not necessarily actually view the material being deciphered, as opposed to using prophetic gifts to bring to light what was previously hidden or unknown).
The Odyssey of Thomas Stuart Ferguson
January 31, 2018Dialogue, 23.4 (Winter 1990): 55–93
The odyssey of Ferguson is a quest for religious certitude through archaeological evidences, an attempt at scholarly verification of theological claims. Early in his career, Thomas Stuart Ferguson was instrumental in reducing our conception of the geography of the Book of Mormon from nearly the whole of both North and South America to the more limited area of southern Mexico and Central America. In the middle years of his career, he organized archaeological reconnaissance and fieldwork in the area of Mesoamerica. But in the last years of his career, he concluded that the archaeological evidence did not substantiate the Book of Mormon, and so he reduced (in his mind) the geography of the book to nothing at all in the real world.
Knowing Brother Joseph Again: The Book of Abraham, and Joseph Smith as Translator
January 30, 2018 Dialogue 22.4 (Winter 1989): 17 – 38
“The problem took another turn when Joseph Smith’s papyri, which had been missing and presumed lost for eighty to ninety years, resurfaced in 1967 and were examined and translated by Egyptologists. One fragment of papyrus was identified as the ostensible source of the Book of Abraham, but it bore no relationship to the Book of Abraham either in content or subject matter.”