Category: books

My updated bookshelf

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

December 24, 2025 /

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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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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Public domain, http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=8577&picture=old-books

Church History/ Doctrine& Covenants Resources (and the blog) for 2025

December 13, 2024 /

(Post with minor updates from four years ago.)

I do not intend to write a weekly post on the Come Follow Me section. D&C is the book I have taught the least, read the least, know the least about, and have the most limited mental bibliography. While I do American religious history, 1820-1850 is not my time period or specialty at all.  Second, I am up to my eyeballs in writing projects: turning my dissertation into a book, some spin-off articles, and some other things. I will continue to write posts, some about D&C and Church history, but approximately… whenever the muse strikes and I have time.

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My updated bookshelf

2024 Come Follow Me Resources: Book of Mormon (Updated)

December 12, 2023 /

2024 update: With my dissertation focus, I’m aware of a lot of new material that’s come out on the Book of Mormon, and I’ve not been able to touch any of it, really. (There is one exception, which merits some highlighting, below. ) Nevertheless, I hope this list will be useful for some people.

I have written elsewhere that you cannot fully learn from scripture unless you are also actively learning about scripture.The first is the act of a disciple and the second that of a scholar, although in an ideal world, they blur together. So this list includes both kinds of thing, and aimed at different audiences. I’ve got a section for Seminary teachers, for example.

The BoM is really kind of a double-edged sword; on the one hand, people haven’t been writing about it for 2000 years, so the bibliography is a bit more manageable. On the other hand, we tend to assume that because the Book of Mormon is easy to read,  it’s easy to understand, and therefore “we don’t really need anything else.” But the Book of Mormon rewards slow, careful, deep reading and teaching.

And of course, this list is all enhancement. I don’t want to imply that if you’re not reading these, somehow you lack all spiritual insight— spiritual in-tune-ness has little to do with Oxford Press— or that you are a clueless chump who knows nothing. I can, however, testify that these books have taught me things and rid me of some of my ignorance. They’re worth reading. 

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