Julie M. Smith

JULIE M. SMITH {[email protected]} graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a BA in English and from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, with an MA in Biblical Studies. She is on the executive board of the Mormon Theology Seminar and the steering committee for the BYU New Testament Commentary, for which she is writing a commentary on the Gospel of Mark. She is the author of Search, Ponder, and Pray: A Guide to the Gospels and the editor of and contributor to As Iron Sharpens Iron: Listening to the Various Voices of Scripture and Apocalypse: Reading Revelation 21–22. Julie is married to Derrick Smith; they live near Austin, Texas, where she homeschools their children. She also blogs for Times & Seasons, where she is the book review editor.

A Double Portion: An Intertextual Reading of Hannah (1 Samuel 1–2) and Mark’s Greek Woman (Mark 7:24–30)

Articles/Essays – Volume 50, No. 2

The Gospel of Mark repeatedly echoes the Hebrew Bible: from the extensive thematic and verbal parallels between Jesus’ calming of the sea and the story of Jonah to the quotation of a single line from a psalm serving as Jesus’ last words while he suffers on the cross, intertextual allusions are frequently recognized by modern interpreters of Mark.This paper considers a reverberation which has, to my knowledge, received no previous exploration:I will show how Mark’s story of the Greek woman echoes the interactions between Hannah and Eli in 1 Samuel 1.

Breaking New Ground | Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide

Articles/Essays – Volume 44, No. 1

In On the Road with Joseph Smith: An Author’s Diary (2d ed., Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007), we get a fascinating peek into Richard Lyman Bushman’s psyche immediately after the publication of his…

BYU Women’s Studies Conference | “I Will Sing to the Lord”: Women’s Songs in the Scriptures

Articles/Essays – Volume 45, No. 3

The scriptures include many references to creative women. Han nah and Dorcas created treasured textiles (1 Samuel 2:19; Acts 9:39), but we don’t know what those garments looked like. Sarah created memorable meals for her guests (Genesis 18:6), but we don’t know her recipes. The daughters of the Lamanites danced in delight (Mosiah 20:1), but no technology could capture their creative whirl. So most of the results of women’s creative efforts have been lost to history. But one form of women’s ingenuity has survived: contained within the canon itself are several examples of women’s sacred songs. This paper will explore some of these songs; we’ll see that sacred songs have been a central venue for women’s theological activity.

Negotiating the Paradoxes: Neylan McBaine’s Women at Church | Neylan McBaine, Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact

Articles/Essays – Volume 47, No. 4

Neylan McBaine’s book Women at Church includes the following interview excerpt:

On one Sunday in my ward, the final assigned speaker was a woman. She seemed flustered to be in the last slot, was apologetic to the audience and lamented that we weren’t going to get the final word in the meeting from a priesthood holder. And then she gave her talk.

The stake president happened to be visiting, and after she finished he stood to make a few comments. He thanked her for the talk, and acknowledged she was just being self-deprecating. But he said it was his responsibility as presiding officer in the stake to correct misinformation. He then affirmed that there is nothing wrong with scheduling a sister to speak in the last slot in sacrament meeting, that that is perfectly appropriate. When we don’t do that, it is just a tradition.