sermon on the mount

The Temple in the Book of Mormon

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King Benjamin's Farewell Address - Minerva Teichert, 1935

Robert F. Smith has posted a good bibliography of studies on the temple in the Book of Mormon, which William Hamblin also posted.  I thought I’d do the same, with direct links to the works (some even available for reading online).  Many still believe that the Book of Mormon does not contain much of the temple in it, so this a good summary of some of the best reading on the subject:

Baker, LeGrand L.,, and Stephen D. Ricks, Who Shall Ascend Into the Hill of the Lord? The Psalms in Israel’s Temple Worship In the Old Testament and in the Book of Mormon (SLC: Eborn Books, 2010).

Bokovoy, David, “Temple Imagery in the Book of Mormon,” 4-part BYU Education Week lectures for 2011, summarized on MDDB.

Butler, D. John, Plain and Precious Things: The Temple Religion of the Book of Mormon’s Visionary Men (Amazon/Kindle eBook, 2012).

Christensen, Kevin, “The Temple, the Monarchy, and Wisdom: Lehi’s World and the Scholarship of Margaret Barker,” in Seely, Seely, and Welch, eds., Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem (Covenant Communications, 2004), 449-522.

Parry, Donald W., “Service and Temple in King Benjamin’s Speech,” JBMS, 16/2 (2007), 42-47.

Ricks, Stephen D., “The Treaty/Covenant Pattern in King Benjamin’s Address (Mosiah 1- 6).” BYU Studies, 24/2 (Spring 1984), 151-162

Spencer, Joseph M., An Other Testament: On Typology (Salem: Salt Press, 2012).

Valletta, Thomas R., “Conflicting Orders: Alma and Amulek in Ammonihah,” in D. Parry and S. Ricks, eds., The Temple in Time and Eternity (Provo: FARMS, 1999), 183-231.

Welch, John W., The Sermon at the Temple and the Sermon on the Mount (SLC: Deseret, 1990).  FARMS put out an expanded ed.

Welch, John W., Illuminating the Sermon at the Temple and Sermon on the Mount (Provo: FARMS, 1999).

Welch, John W., The Sermon on the Mount in Light of the Temple, SOTS (Ashgate, 2009).  By implication.

Preview: “The Sermon on the Mount in the Light of the Temple,” by John Welch

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Detail from Sacrament, by Minerva Teichert (ca. 1935). On display in the JSB at BYU.

Detail from Sacrament, by Minerva Teichert (ca. 1935). On display in the JSB at BYU.

Last night at the Third Nephi conference held at BYU, Professor John W. Welch gave the keynote address.  His topic was “New Insights Into the Temple Setting of the Sermon on the Mount in Reference to the Sermon at the Temple.”  It was an excellent address, after which Paul Y. Hoskisson, the director of the Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies, remarked that he was overwhelmed by what he just heard.  You can read my notes on the conference last night here.

One of the things Professor Welch did was give a free handout to all those who were in attendance to outline some of the things he was going to cover, and topics he has written about in an upcoming book.  I have included this handout embedded at the end of this post.  Professor Welch has been studying this topic since about 1988 when he first wrote a FARMS Update article entitled “The Sermon at the Temple,” in which he wrote of 3 Nephi 11-18 as a text which “offers clues to connect the [Sermon on the Mount] with the making of covenants at the temple” ((FARMS Update, March 1988.)).  [Read more…]

Third Nephi Conference at BYU September 26-27

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The Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies at BYU has announced that they are sponsoring a conference next month devoted to Third Nephi.  The conference is entitled “Third Nephi: New Perspectives on an Incomparable Scripture.”  It will be held in the Wilkinson Center at BYU on September 26th and 27th, and will be open to the public.  There will be presentations on the following topics:

  • New Insights Into the Temple Setting of the Sermon on the Mount in Reference to the Sermon at the Temple – John Welch
  • Preparing the Way of the Lord’s Coming
  • Experiencing the Lord
  • The Lord’s Prayers
  • The Lord’s Prophecies
  • Theological Implications
  • The Written Record
  • What we have learned about Third Nephi and the Savior’s post-resurrection ministry in the new world – Panel Discussion

Some of the scholars that will be participating are John Welch, S. Kent Brown, Grant Hardy, Robert L. Millet, Richard Dilworth Rust, Daniel Belnap, Dana Pike, Kristine Fredrickson, Patrick R. Steffen, Daniel McKinlay, and Jane Allis-Pike.  This looks like it will be really good.  I’m planning on going on Friday, September 26th, and I’ll see if I can liveblog it here, like I did for the FAIR Conference.  Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend on Saturday.

See more information on the conference here.