Historian of Religion, Science, and Biblical Interpretation

My studies include Semitic languages, Biblical studies, history of science, and history of Christianity, primarily Reformation and modern American.

My dissertation explores how the “quintessential American religion” — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, i.e. Mormonism— wrestled with the quintessential American crux of creationism/evolution in the 20th century. Placing that conflict within a broader American cultural context, I locate its roots within the non-exegetical nature of the LDS tradition, unacknowledged hermeneutical assumptions, and a religious devotion to education and science.

With most of my content here, I’m trying to cross boundaries by translating the secular, academic, and technical for a non-specialist and confessional community.

I was the University of Utah’s Tanner Fellow for Mormon Studies (2022-23) and defended my dissertation in Summer 2024. The finalized title is “The Scientist is Wrong”: Joseph Fielding Smith, George McCready Price, and the Ascent of Creationist Thought among Latter-day Saints in the Twentieth Century.

All posts, pages, papers, etc. are copyright to Ben Spackman, 2019, all rights reserved.