Colby Townsend

COLBY TOWNSEND {[email protected]} is a PhD student in the English department at Indiana University Bloomington. He received two HBA degrees in comparative literature and religious studies at the University of Utah and an MA in history at Utah State University. He is the author of several articles on early American religion and literature.

“The Robe of Righteousness”: Exilic and Post-Exilic Isaiah in The Book of Mormon

Articles/Essays – Volume 55, No. 3

Dialogue 55.3 (Fall 2022): 75-106
As a contribution to the larger project of examining the King James Bible’s influence on The Book of Mormon, this essay focuses on several aspects of the problem of Isaiah in The Book of Mormon as they relate to the more significant issue. I will focus on two problems with the use of Isaiah in The Book of Mormon. First, previous scholarship has assumed that none of Third Isaiah has had any effect on the text of The Book of Mormon and the Isaiah chapters it quotes

Revisiting Joseph Smith and the Availability of the Book of Enoch

Articles/Essays – Volume 53, No. 3

Dialogue 53.3 (Fall 2020): 41–106
Regarding the discussions in Mormon studies and other literary sub-fields related to contemporaries of Smith, the availability of ideas about 1 Enoch and some of the actual content were far more complicated than has usually been assumed in past scholarship.

“Behold, Other Scriptures I Would that Ye Should Write”: Malachi in the Book of Mormon

Articles/Essays – Volume 51, No. 2