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Tales from the Archive: William Berrett on Scholarship in 1958

William E. “Ed” Berrett (1902-1993)  figures prominently in 20th century LDS education history. He taught seminary, wrote manuals for the Church and served on the General Sunday school board, briefly became assistant US attorney in Alaska before opening his own practice in Salt Lake, and then returned to Church service. He became a BYU Religion professor, served as vice-president of BYU and CES, and eventually head of Seminaries, Institutes, and Church colleges (excluding BYU.)

On July 11, 1958, President Berrett gave an address to Seminary and Institute faculty at BYU, titled “Scholarship.” It’s quite surprising, in some ways. Below, some excerpts.

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Come Follow Me:3 Nephi 11-15

Today we enter into a very interesting section of the Book of Mormon. Like the Isaiah chapters, it closely parallels a section of the Bible. Like the Isaiah chapters, there are some subtle differences. 3Ne 12-15 parallels the Sermon on the Mount, from Matthew 5-7. It’s been lined up so that if you want to compare verses (and you should!), take the Book of Mormon chapter number and subtract 7 to get the right verse in Matthew, e.g. 3 Nephi 12:48  ≈ Matthew 5:48.

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Come Follow Me: Alma 36-39 Notes and Suggestions

The Book of Mormon has a variable pace. Occasionally, we skip through decades or even hundreds of years on a single page. Other times, like today, Mormon’s editing moves us into super slow motion, relatively speaking. What is probably only a few hours in real time for Alma to speak to his sons occupies six full chapters, which we slow down further by breaking it up into two weeks of study. (This will be significant for understanding Alma 43 onwards, and I’ll comment further there.)

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