Episode 117: Kenneth L. Alford (Using the Book of Mormon Art Catalog)

Y Religion

BYU Religious Education

Whyreligion, Religiouseducation, Religion & Spirituality, Brighamyoung, Lds, Education, Mormon, Yreligion, Byu, Religion, Yreligionpodcast, Christianity, Churchofjesuschrist

4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2024

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In an address to religious educators, Elder Richard G. Scott taught that “the use of an appealing visual aid can clarify truth.” One platform for accessing such righteous and clarifying images is the Book of Mormon Art Catalog (bookofmormonartcatalog.org). As an open-access repository of visual artwork, inspired by Restoration scripture and Church history, this catalog is a valuable resource for gospel teachers, Church leaders, families, and individuals seeking to visualize the Book of Mormon and other Restoration scripture and events. In this episode Church history and doctrine professor Kenneth L. Alford presents ideas accessing and using images from the catalog. He explains the various search filters available—such as scripture reference, topic, artistic style, etc.—and provides a step-by-step example of how to conduct an image search. Further, he highlights additional resources like videos and blog posts that are available on the website. Using the catalog in our personal scripture study can enhance personal interest in the Book of Mormon while supporting scholarly work on religious art.

Publications:

“Using the Book of Mormon Art Catalog” (Religious Educator, 25.1, 2024)
Doctrine and Covenants Insights: Capstone of Doctrinal Understanding (Religious Studies Center, 2025)
Book of Mormon Insights: Letting God Prevail in Your Life (Religious Studies Center, 2024)
“Seminary Life Preparation Lessons” (Religious Educator, 25.2, 2024)
Saints at War: The Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq (Religious Studies Center, 2020)
“A Method for Evaluating Latter-day Saint History” (Religious Educator, 21.3, 2020)
Latter-day Saints in Washington, DC: History, People, and Places (Religious Studies Center, 2021)

Click here to learn more about Ken Alford

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, Why Religion friends. John Hilton here. My dear friend and former Why Religion podcast host, Dr. Anthony Sweat, has a fun object lesson that you may have heard of before. He'll ask students, and you can try this too, to imagine Abinidae standing before King Noah. Just picture it in your mind. Then he'll say, how many of you pictured Abinidad as a muslin
0:22.8	version of Santa Claus? Who saw King Noah as a very large man? What pets did King Noah have?
0:30.5	Anthony's point is that all these details aren't based in scripture. They actually come from a
0:36.2	famous painting. For all we know,
0:38.3	Abinidae could have been 30 years old. The point of this object lesson is that art can shape
0:43.7	how we view scripture. While sometimes this can backfire, especially if the art gives us ideas
0:50.3	that aren't true, in many cases art can expand our understanding of a scene and invite
0:56.0	us to consider perspectives we hadn't thought of before.
0:59.5	For personal study, especially if there's a chapter in the book of Mormon that resonates
1:07.3	with you well, or one that just you know doesn't resonate well you just
1:11.8	don't you don't see a connection to your life with that I'd go up and look and
1:16.0	see if there's some artwork there because sometimes art just triggers different
1:19.9	feelings and different thoughts and so I would you know just check it out I'd like
1:27.4	to just go up take take our Come Follow Me
1:29.7	Block that we can just kind of see what's up there because it does, it just causes you to have
1:34.1	different ideas and just to see the scriptures in a little bit different way. As a teacher,
1:38.4	I love using artwork in the classroom, but I sometimes struggle to find the right piece of art
1:43.1	to include. For some famous scenes, it's easy to find artwork.
1:47.0	But what about for lesser known sections of Scripture?
1:50.0	Well, here's some breaking news that just came in as we prepared to record this episode.
1:55.0	The world's largest database of Latter-day Saint Art just got bigger.
1:59.0	The Book of Mormon Art Catalog
	...

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