Jeffrey M. Bradshaw
Presented at the 2021 Book of Moses Conference: Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses.
Friday April 23, 7:00 pm MT: Keynote Session
Session Chair
Matthew J. Grow
Opening Prayer (Cherry Silver)
Mormon, Moses, and the Representation of Reality
Richard L. Bushman
Closing Prayer (David Seely)
Saturday April 24, 8:30 am: Main Session
Morning Session Chair: Kristine W. Frederickson (BYU, The Interpreter Foundation)
8:30-8:35 Welcome (Kristine W. Frederickson)
Opening Prayer (Shirley Ricks)
Introduction (Kristine W. Frederickson)
8:35-9:15 Kent P. Jackson (BYU emeritus)
How We Got the Joseph Smith Translation, the Book of Moses, and Joseph Smith-Matthew
9:15-9:55 Kerry Muhlestein (BYU Ancient Scripture)
The Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Moses: An Outpouring of Revelations and the Beginning of Joseph Smith’s “New Translation” of the Bible
9:55-10:35 David R. Seely (BYU Ancient Scripture)
The Book of Moses: Exploring the World IN the Text
10:35-10:45 Break
10:45-11:25 Stanford A. Carmack (Independent Scholar)
Book of Moses English: A Comparison of Grammatical Usage Found in Old Testament Revision 1
11:25-12:05 Avram Shannon (BYU Ancient Scripture)
The Bible Before and After: Interpretation and Translation in Antiquity and the Book of Moses
12:05-12:45 Lunch break
Afternoon Session Chair: Jo Ann H. Seely (BYU)
12:45-1:25 David Calabro (Saint John’s University)
An Early Christian Context for the Book of Moses
1:25-2:05 S. Kent Brown (BYU emeritus) and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (Independent Scholar)
Man and Son of Man: Probing Theology and Christology in the Book of Moses and in Jewish and Christian Tradition
2:05-2:45 Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (Independent Scholar)
Moses 6-7 and the Book of Giants: Remarkable Witnesses of Enoch’s Ministry
2:45-3:00 Break
3:00-3:40 Jonathon Riley (Independent Scholar)
Archaism or Translation Technique?: Hebraisms in the Book of Moses
3:40-4:20 Stephen O. Smoot (Independent Scholar)
“I Am a Son of God”: Moses’ Prophetic Call and Ascent into the Divine Council
Closing Prayer (Kirk Magleby)
Additional Papers to Appear in the Published Conference Proceedings
● David R. Seely (BYU Ancient Scripture)
“We Believe the Bible to Be the Word of God, as Far as It Is Translated Correctly”: Latter-day Saints and Historical Biblical Criticism
● Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (Independent Scholar) and Matthew L. Bowen (BYU-H Religious Education),
“‘Made Stronger than Many Waters”: The Purported Sacred Names of Moses as a Series of Keywords”
Conference Organizers
Jeffrey M. Bradshaw
David R. Seely
John W. Welch
Scott Gordon
Conference Technical Team
Samuel Bradshaw
Trevor Holyoak
Robert Starling
Zander Sturgill
Stephen T. Whitlock
Abstracts
Moses 6-7 and the Book of Giants: Remarkable Witnesses of Enoch’s Ministry
Jeffrey M. Bradshaw
The Book of Giants (BG), an Enoch text found in 1948 among the Dead Sea Scrolls, includes a treasure trove of stories about the ancient prophet and his contemporaries, including unique elements relevant to the Book of Moses Enoch account. Hugh Nibley was the first to discover in it a rare name that corresponds to the only named character in the Book of Moses besides Enoch himself, a finding that some non-Latter-day Saint Enoch scholars considered significant. Since Nibley’s passing, the appearance of new scholarship on the BG has continued unabated. For example, it was recently noticed that a fragment of one version of the BG describes how those who had been converted by Enoch’s preaching were separated from the wicked and gathered to “cities” that are said to have been divinely prepared for them, echoing some elements of the Book of Moses account of Enoch’s city of Zion. In this presentation, I will summarize evidence for Mesopotamian influences in BG. I will argue that tentative clues about the geography, peoples, and cultures in BG square with those one would expect from a study of Moses 6-7. Next, I will describe and compare the cast of characters in the Enoch accounts of the Book of Moses and BG. Then, I will compare narrative elements in the Book of Moses that correspond to material found in BG. Finally, I will summarize our findings and suggest directions for further research.