Maxwell Institute Podcast

Jesus promises in the Gospel of John that he will not leave us comfortless, but that He will come to us. He promises in Matthew that he will give us rest when we are weary and heavy-laden. In my experience, though, that isn’t at the first instance of pain, whether it’s physical, mental, spiritual, or emotional. God asks us to find answers, to knock, to work and watch and fight and pray with all our might and zeal. How do we do that? And how can we think about being comforted by the Divine while also knowing that divine lessons often come in the pursuit of finding that comfort? We’ll discuss that and much more on today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.” The post Abide: Isaiah 40-49 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Richard Bushman once told me that “panic precedes revelation.” Dr. Bushman was discussing the process by which Joseph Smith received the First Vision (recall the line from the Pearl of Great Price that “at that moment of great alarm” that the Father and Son appeared to the boy prophet). While reading, Isaiah, though, I think that the same can be said for Isaiah. He lived in difficult times, with wars, rumors of wars, and the horrors that accompany them. How did he care for his people? How do his revelations affect Latter-day Saints today? We’ll discuss that, and much more, on today’s episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast. The post Abide: Isaiah 13-14; 24–30; 35 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Isaiah. Latter-day Saints have a special relationship to this Old Testament prophet. Not only do we recognize prophets across all dispensations, but his words were carried by Lehi’s family to the Americas. How do we think about Isaiah? What should we know about the construction of the book of Isaiah? We discuss this, and much more, on this episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast. The post Abide: Isaiah 1-12 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs can fall by the wayside when we study them in Sunday School. They don’t always fit into the narratives that we understand about dispensations of authority or give us sustained treatises in the way that a theologian might consider during personal scripture study. However, in preparing for this week, our team recognized the value of these books and understanding the literary, doctrinal, and other beauties that accompany these books. We’ll discuss these topics, and much more, in today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.” The post Abide: Proverbs and Ecclesiastes appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Kate Holbrook, PhD (1972–2022) was a leading voice in the study of Latter-day Saintwomen and Latter-day Saint foodways. As managing historian of women’s history atthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints history department, she wrote, studied,and interpreted history full-time. Her major research interests were religion, gender,and food. Her primary professional activity was to discover, encourage, and celebratewomen’s flourishing in the scholarly and spiritual realms. A popular public speaker, Kate was voted Harvard College’s Teaching Fellow of theYear for her work as head teaching fellow in a course that enrolled nearly six hundredstudents, and she co-edited Global Values 101: A Short Course (Beacon Press, 2006),based on that class. In 2012, Kate co-organized a conference entitled “Women and theLDS Church: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives.” She and her co-organizer,Matthew Bowman, edited a collection of essays that sprang from this conferenceentitled Women and Mormonism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Kate hasalso published essays and book chapters about Latter-day Saint women andhousework, Nation of Islam Muslims, Latter-day Saints and food, religion andsexuality, and religious hunting rituals. Kate grew up at the feet of the Rocky Mountains and returned there in 2006, to liveamong the historic sites, cultural currents, and food environments where herscholarship had its roots. She earned a BA in English and Russian literature fromBrigham Young University, an MTS from Harvard Divinity School, and a PhD inReligious Studies from Boston University. For her dissertation work on Latter-day Saintand Nation of Islam foodways, she was the first recipient of the Eccles Fellowship inMormon Studies at the University of Utah. She was proud wife (to Samuel Brown) andmother (to Amelia, Lucia, and Persephone Holbrook-Brown). Kate and her family developed this endowment together. It was Kate’s wish as shedeparted mortality that these funds serve to help the women of the Church to flourish in their scholarly and spiritual lives. Kate herself benefited from a similar gift (fromRuth Silver of Denver, Colorado) early in her scholarly career, when she and Sam hadminimal financial resources, and she needed time and money to devote to the study ofwomen and religion. She hoped that such giving would become more and morecommon over time. The post Maxwell Institute Podcast #148: The Weight of Legacy, with Kate Holbrook appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

A book has many lives. It’s thought, it’s edited, it’s printed, it’s reprinted, it’s commentated on, and this repeats, if the book merits it, ad infinitum. This is certainly true for the Bible as a whole, but, I suggest, for the Psalms in particular. How do we think about Psalms as an ancient text conveyed for a modern people? The post Abide: Psalms Part Three appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

In the decades before the Civil War, Americans appealed to the nation’s sacred religious and legal texts – the Bible and the Constitution – to address the slavery crisis. The ensuing political debates over slavery deepened interpreters’ emphasis on historical readings of the sacred texts, and in turn, these readings began to highlight the unbridgeable historical distances that separated nineteenth-century Americans from biblical and founding pasts. While many Americans continued to adhere to a belief in the Bible’s timeless teachings and the Constitution’s enduring principles, some antislavery readers, including Theodore Parker, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, used historical distance to reinterpret and use the sacred texts as antislavery documents. By using the debate over American slavery as a case study, Jordan T. Watkins traces the development of American historical consciousness in antebellum America, showing how a growing emphasis on historical readings of the Bible and the Constitution gave rise to a sense of historical distance. The post (Reuploaded) Maxwell Institute Podcast #147: Slavery, Sacred Texts, and Historical Consciousness, with Jordan Watkins appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

In the decades before the Civil War, Americans appealed to the nation’s sacred religious and legal texts – the Bible and the Constitution – to address the slavery crisis. The ensuing political debates over slavery deepened interpreters’ emphasis on historical readings of the sacred texts, and in turn, these readings began to highlight the unbridgeable historical distances that separated nineteenth-century Americans from biblical and founding pasts. While many Americans continued to adhere to a belief in the Bible’s timeless teachings and the Constitution’s enduring principles, some antislavery readers, including Theodore Parker, Frederick Douglass, and Abraham Lincoln, used historical distance to reinterpret and use the sacred texts as antislavery documents. By using the debate over American slavery as a case study, Jordan T. Watkins traces the development of American historical consciousness in antebellum America, showing how a growing emphasis on historical readings of the Bible and the Constitution gave rise to a sense of historical distance. The post Maxwell Institute Podcast #147: Slavery, Sacred Texts, and Historical Consciousness, with Jordan Watkins appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

One of the first things I tell my students, and that I repeat throughout a semester, is that texts do not interpret themselves. Every time a person reads scripture they see it with new eyes and with shifting perspectives. The words on the page may be the same, though, of course, with the Bible, those words may vary, but it is up to us to seek learning by knowledge and through the Spirit. We’ll discuss that, and much more, on today’s episode of Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast. The post Abide: Psalms Part Two appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Psalms! There’s over 150 of them marked in the book by the same name in the Old Testament. How can we read them? Are they more useful as a narrative thread, or as a spice to season our spiritual diet? We’ll discuss that and much more on today’s episode of “Abide: A Maxwell Institute Podcast.” The post Abide: Psalms Part One appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.