There's a difficulty in reading the scriptures.

I'm not referring to the words on the page, and I'm also not referring to the habit of scripture reading, though both could apply.

No, I'm referring to making the scriptures whose figures and narratives are familiar to many Latter-day Saints,

new and refreshing and insightful.

That includes in trying to find meaning in violence, in trying to learn from stories

that often cause us shock or horror or a lack of understanding. So how do we use the tools

of academic research to better understand what their stories meant to those in the past and use

our disciples' hearts to find out what their stories might mean for us in the present.

We'll explore that today on Abide, a Maxwell Institute podcast.

My name is Joseph Stewart.

I'm the public communications specialist at the Neely Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University.

Christian Heel is a research fellow at the Institute,

and each week we discuss the week's block of reading from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,

Come Follow Me curriculum.

We aren't here to present a lesson, but rather to hit on a few key themes from the scripture block, so as to help fulfill the Maxwell Institute's mission to inspire and fortify

Latter-day Saints in their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and engage

the world of religious ideas.

Today, we are once again joined by Rachel Madsen, one of our research

assistants. Rachel is an English teaching major here at BYU, and after graduating, she plans to teach

in secondary schools and eventually obtain a graduate degree in educational leadership to work in

school administration. Welcome back to the podcast, Rachel. It's great to be here. We are so glad to have you here.

Christian, today we're discussing Judges 2 through 4, 6 through 8, and 13 through 16.

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