Welcome to the Maxwell Institute podcast. I'm Joseph Stewart. Have you ever had anyone ask you,

What is Scripture? For such a short question, it has the possibility to open up into thousands of answers.

For Latter-day Saints, it could be defined as whatsoever God's representatives shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost.

This definition is somewhat broader than many other Christian definitions of Scripture,

incorporating both written and spoken modes of inspiration.

At the end of the day, though, scripture must be interpreted by the power of the Holy Ghost, for our edification.

In the past several hundred years, though, some have looked to academic tools to prove the truth of religious texts.

Professionals from fields like history, archaeology, and anthropology have sought to add detail

from the empirical record to sacred texts. Those professionals are often women and men of faith.

But what are the limits of using academic tools to prove religious truth? And how did that

play out in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during the first decades of the 20th century? In today's podcast, Dr. Matthew Bowman of

Claremont Graduate University is going to discuss that with us today. Focusing on his article

entitled Biblical Criticism, the Book of Mormon and the meanings of civilization, in the most

recent issue of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies. We'll include a copy of the article in our newsletter, which you can

subscribe to at m.b.b.u.edu slash monthly dash MI-m-m-Nus. Dr. Bowman, welcome to the Maxwell

2 podcast. Delighted to be here, Joey. Thanks so much.

All right. So you are the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University.

Before we get into your article, what does the Chair of Mormon Studies do?

That is a good question. There are not many of these chairs, and I think we all probably do something slightly different. What I do

here at CGU is a couple of different things. First, every semester, I teach a class that involves

Mormon studies, and I'm sure we'll talk about that term in a moment in some way. Often, these classes

are comparative. That is, I will teach a classic that compares, say,

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