Offensive War in the Book of Mormon

Morgan Deane wrote an interesting essay which appeared in a recent book, War and Peace in Our Time: Mormon Perspectives (Kofford Books, 2013). Deane's essay was recently discussed in a review by Rock Waterman to which Deane responds here. 

Review of Mormon's Codex

Jeff Lindsay who runs the Mormanity blog has written a review of John L. Sorenson's  recent book, Mormon's Codex.

New Issue of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

The latest issue of the Journal of Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 22/2 has just been published by the Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies at Brigham Young University.  This issue also marks the retirement of my colleague and friend Paul Hoskisson as editor of that journal. He will also be retiring from BYU this summer. His treasured association and abilities will be sorely missed. Interested readers will want to avail themselves of a hard copy of the journal or a PDF version. The work of the editors and artists on this issue is exceptional. It is (aside from the contribution of a fellow named Roper)  representative of some of the best scholarship on the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham. Students of Latter-day Saint Scripture will want to continue to take advantage of these and previous work published in this journal over the last two decades. The articles for this issue include the following:

Mark Alan Wright, "The Cultural Tapestry of Mesoamerica."

Quinten Barney, "Sobek: The Idolatrous God of Pharaoh Amenemhet III."

Stephen O. Smoot, "Council, Chaos, and Creation in the Book of Abraham."

Steven L. Olsen, "Memory and Identity in the Book of Mormon."

John Hilton III, "Jacob's Textual Legacy."

Kerry M. Muhlestein and Alexander L. Baugh, "Preserving the Joseph Smith Papyri Fragments: What can we learn from the paper on which they were mounted?"

Matthew Roper, Paul J. Fields and Atul Nepal, "Joseph Smith, the Times and Seasons and Central American Ruins."

Robert F. Smith, "Evaluating the Sources of 2 Nephi 1:13-15: Shakespeare and the Book of Mormon."

John Gee, "Has Olishem Been Discovered?"

And there are some additional things as well.

Animals in the Book of Mormon

Interpreter's Blog recently posted an article I co-authored with Professor Wade Miller, Animals in the Book of Mormon: Challenges and Perspectives which provides some of our thinking on the question.