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My updated bookshelf

Bibles and Translation part 2: Family, Seminary, Institute, and Missionaries

December 24, 2025 /

(Part 1 here)

Just in time for Old Testament, the Church has reshaped its policy around Bible translations. While the KJV remains the official Bible of the English-speaking Church, Latter-day Saints are now strongly encouraged, it seems, to use other translations as well. This has the effect of making scripture more accessible and understandable, and increases the joy and enthusiasm of scripture study. It helps us communicate better with our Christian neighbors, who are unlikely to use the KJV, and helps us avoid the problems that come from only reading the KJV. (See this article in Religious Educator.)

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Let’s Talk about the Bible and Translation

December 17, 2025 /

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re aware of an announcement of changes to the Church Handbook about use of (and attitudes towards)  non-KJV translations.  I’m thrilled about this; I’ve also been on planes and deprived of sleep for the last two days, but finally had a good night’s sleep, so let’s try this while it’s still timely. Caveat: written quickly, unrevised, and under sleep deprivation.

And for anyone new here, I read daily in Greek and Hebrew, and have published on Bible translation.

Much of the conversation around translations can be sidestepped by making sure  we’re all  operating with the  conceptual understanding, which is this:

There’s no such thing as THE Bible.

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FOUR new videos!

December 12, 2025 /

It’s been a busy semester, visiting here at BYU. I have not accomplished everything I wanted, and as usual, the end of the semester sees everything collide. That has left less time for writing about Old Testament prep than I’d intended. But in good news, I have four new videos of different kinds!

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Black Friday and Boston reports

November 25, 2025 /

Logos has two sets of study Bible notes I recommend on sale. I don’t know how long these will last: the Jewish Study Bible notes, and the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible notes, both of which I highly recommend. Per the demo video on this post, you can link these (or others) together to whatever translation(s) you want for your daily reading.

As it turns out, you can legitimately download the former for free in PDF now, though the price is offset by the format. Go here and click on PDF.

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Is the Endowment Best Understood as a “Gift”? And What does Incense have to do with Anything?

May 10, 2025 /

We LDS often say “endowment means a gift.” Yes, but that is both incomplete and not even the main or most important part! As it turns out, “endow” has several hundred years of financial/property/donation/gift ideas behind it, so it’s not surprising to hear that kind of meaning applied to the temple ordinances. This, however, is the tip of a very large iceberg, and all the interesting stuff is below the surface.

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