8:00am – 8:30am registration open at the Conference Center Pavilion or inside if weather requires. Make sure you have your badge so you can access all the day’s sessions. We are excited to see you!

8:30am Conference Welcome and introduction to our morning speaker by Professor Mark Christensen of the BYU Department of History

Resurrecting Scripture: Breathing Life into Voices from the Dust.
Drawing on his work in the fields of faith loss and scriptural reception and rejection history, Dr. Halverson will explore the theme “Resurrecting Scripture: Breathing Life into Voices from the Dust.” His address will explore ways that students of scripture can bring depth and dimension to otherwise flattened scriptural figures, challenging readers to uncover the dynamic voices that turn ancient writings into living word.

Dr. Halverson is an associate professor of Ancient Scripture at BYU. He earned degrees in History and Religious Education from BYU, and later completed an MA and PhD in American Religious History at Vanderbilt University, focusing on secularization, faith loss, and anti-religious rhetoric. He is a frequent speaker at devotional and academic events across the country, the host of the Unshaken podcast and YouTube channel, and a trusted counselor to individuals navigating faith crises.

Our opening panel session will feature presentations from three thinkers who bring specific expertise to an understanding of the peoples of the Book of Mormon.

1) Dr. Mark Christensen – Quetzalcoatl, Nahuatl Annals, and the Book of Mormon

For years, studies into the Book of Mormon, its people and cultures have focused on how they impacted the Americas. Yet Book of Mormon peoples were the minority of the population in the ancient Americas. Thus, it is more effective to focus on how the cultures of the ancient Americas impacted those recorded in the Book of Mormon. This paper employs the Quetzalcoatl-as-Christ myth and records known as annals written in Nahuatl as a springboard into a larger discussion of how scholars might better approach studies into Book of Mormon cultures and peoples.

Mark Z. Christensen is Professor of History at Brigham Young University. He is an award-winning author of six books and various articles and book chapters on the colonial Nahua (Aztec) and Yucatec Maya. His research interests include how Christianity was conveyed and the negotiations inherent in its reception and practice.  He lives in Mapleton, Utah, with his wife, Natalie, and their five children.

2) Dr. Dan Belnap – Monsters, Treaties, and Memory: Reframing Lamanite-Nephite Cultural Encounter

This presentation explores how Nephite authors interpreted Lamanite identity and conflict. While Nephite texts often mythologize Lamanites as chaotic or monstrous “others,” a closer examination of episodes such as Zeniff’s recolonization and the missionary work of the sons of Mosiah reveals a more complex Lamanite political and religious culture. By situating Book of Mormon warfare and diplomacy within patterns of divine conflict (ḥerem) and treaty paradigms, this presentation opens simplistic explanations for Lamanite-Nephite cultural encounters and proposes a richer view of intercultural dynamics in the Nephite record that can expand our understanding of both groups as well as ourselves today.

Dan Belnap is a professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University. Originally from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and raised in Pocatello, Idaho, and Sandy, Utah, Dr. Belnap served a full-time mission in Pennsylvania Pittsburgh Mission. He Received a BA in international relations from Brigham Young University; an MA in ancient Near Eastern studies from BYU; an MA and a PhD in Northwest Semitics from the University of Chicago. His research includes a focus on cultural and sociological influences in the Book of Mormon; use of ritual in ancient and contemporary contexts; doctrines of ascension and theosis in ancient Near East and Late Antiquity; and comparative cosmologies. He married Erin Pinney in 1997 and together they have four children.

3) Bill DeVaney – Buoyed by Faith: The Jaredite Migration

Mr. DeVaney will offer a seaman’s insight into the Jaredite Migration as recorded in the Book of Ether, Chapters 2 – 6. Details concerning the design and construction of their vessels, their migration route possibilities and reasons for their proposed agenda will be covered from his background in the design and construction of native boats to warships. Scriptural references will also be clarified from a seaman and builder’s perspective that give special attention to oft misunderstood facts concerning their procedures and the vessels themselves. This is a rare opportunity to have the scriptures opened to our view in a way that allows even someone inexperienced with the ways of the sea to “liken the scriptures unto ourselves,” and in doing so understand more reasons to know of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.

William Harold DeVaney is a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who grew up in South Central Alaska and Kodiak Island, working as a commercial fisherman with his father from age 7. After serving in the Vietnam conflict (Army MP, K-9), he converted to the Restored Gospel and completed law enforcement training with a minor in Geological Science from the University of Maryland. He spent years as a fisherman in halibut, crabbing, and salmon industries, and later worked as a certified Naval Shipfitter and journeyman welder and pipefitter. He has paddled hunting kayaqs of his own design through the Arctic Northwest Passage, some of which he built for Native associations. A member of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, he continues studies at the Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology. He and his wife, Kimberly, live in Iowa. They served a three-year Outreach Family History Mission in the Canada Halifax Mission. William still designs, builds, and restores boats he loves.

Weather permitting, refreshments will be available in the pavilion or in the hallway. A reminder that no food or drink other than water is permitted inside the Conference Center Auditorium by BYU policy.

Our second panel session will feature presentations from three scholars who will read deeply from the Book of Mormon to understand and explore the cultures of the people we find there.

1) Julie Frederick – Before they were Mothers: Understanding the Context and Significance of the Mothers of the Stripling Soldiers 

Although the mothers of the Stripling Soldiers are perhaps the most often quoted women in the Book of Mormon, their early lives have not been given much attention. We only know three things about these women, but with that information we can place them in their historical context. These 3 things are: 1) they each had a son who was “stripling” in the 26^th year of the reign of the judges; 2) they taught their sons; and 3) they were part of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people. By counting back from when their sons left for war, we can extrapolate much about their lives through seeing the context of their people’s history. We can see what they experienced and perhaps where they learned what they taught their sons. As the largest group of women in the Book of Mormon credited with teaching and living faithfully, we can recognize their significance in the larger picture of women in the Book of Mormon. The mothers of the stripling soldiers were remarkable women, and understanding the complexity and difficulty of their lives can help us see how the Lord fulfills promises to the faithful without misinterpreting what their story teaches or mis-comparing their context to mothers’ contexts today.

Julie Frederick is an adjunct teacher in BYU’s Ancient Scripture department. She received a master’s degree in Comparative Studies from BYU back in 2008 and a bachelor’s degree in Latin teaching and Greek in 2004. (She likes Greek better because the participles are awesome and the letters are pretty.) She loves Kierkegaardian irony, existential discussions, and scriptural exegesis (especially of the Book of Mormon). Her favorite fiction genre is fantasy because it engages so many fascinating existential questions. She and her husband met in a Latin class where they bonded by arguing over grammatical minutia. Her favorite word in the English language is “of” because even though it’s only two letters, it can be interpreted fourteen different ways. She and her husband have 4 children and live in Utah.

2) Dr. David Calabro – Linguistic Diversity in the Book of Mormon: A View from Inside the Text

I will investigate questions of linguistic diversity among Book of Mormon peoples based on a close reading of the Book of Mormon narrative. Issues to be addressed include mutual intelligibility (or the lack thereof) between the Nephite and Lamanite language varieties (Mosiah 24:1-7; Alma 18); the extent of contact between the Jaredite, Mulekite, and Nephite languages (following up on work by Hugh Nibley on the “permanent heritage” of the Jaredites); and language change between earlier and later written varieties of the Nephite language (considering 1 Nephi 17:5, Alma 37:38, and other passages which could indicate one or more speakers of a later variety of the language interacting with the Small Plates of Nephi). My provisional conclusion is that linguistic diversity, both synchronic and diachronic, plays an important though subtle role in the Book of Mormon narrative.

David Calabro is an assistant professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University. He holds a PhD in Near Eastern languages and literatures from the University of Chicago. His research deals with the cultures and languages of the ancient Near East, including topics such as nonverbal communication, language change, and apocryphal literature. David and his wife, Ruth, have seven children.

3) Dr. Avram Shannon – Josephite Identity in The Book of Mormon

According to Nephi, the story of the Book of Mormon begins in the “first year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah” (1 Nephi 1:4). This places the start of the Book of Mormon in a very specific cultural and geographic milieu. In this presentation I explore the idea of Israel in the Bible, especially in terms of Josephite identity among the Nephites. I argue that by the time the Book of Mormon begins in the 7th Century BC Lehi and his family did not retain a distinctive Josephite identity separate from their Judahite neighbors. In fact, it appears that they were ignorant of this identity, since Lehi “discovers” it in the brass plates. Once they become aware of their Josephite descent, Nephi and Jacob build a distinctive Nephite version of Josephite identity based on literary and scriptural ideas rather than historical or political ones. This kind of identity is carried through in the rest of the Book of Mormon. It finds its culmination in Moroni’s commentary in the book of Ether, where rather that considering an eschatological future with capitals at Jerusalem and Samaria, he pictures two Jerusalems.    

Avram R. Shannon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University. He studied at Brigham Young University, the University of Oxford, and The Ohio State University, where he received a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures with Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean. His research centers on the ways in which religious communities deploy scripture in their discourse and formation of identity.

We’ll have 30 minutes to transition from the auditorium at the Conference Center to the Hinckley Center where the keynote lunch session will be held. All-conference pass holders will have a lunch served at the Hinckley Center, free pass holders can use the transition time to grab a bit to eat or bring a brown bag lunch with them to the Hinckley Center.

In this panel session we listen to experts on language, music, and art, as they describe what they find in the text and in our reception of the text today.

1) Brant Gardner – King Benjamin’s Speech in a Plausible Cultural Context

King Benjamin’s speech is one of the highlights of the Book of Mormon. There is so much to learn from it just as we find it, but if we place it in a plausible cultural and temporal context, we can enrich our understanding of why the speech was given and why King Benjamin elaborated it in the way he did. Understanding how it fit into events that preceded it and the world surrounding the Nephite population can created a new powerful way to approach that important text.

Brant A. Gardner did his undergraduate work at Brigham Young University. He received a Master’s in Anthropology from the State University of New York at Albany, specializing in Mesoamerican ethnohistory. He works part time as a Research Associate for Scripture Central. He is the author of the six-volume Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, as well as Traditions of the Fathers: The Book of Mormon As History, The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon, and most recently Engraven Upon Plates, Printed Upon Paper: Textual and Narrative Structures of the Book of Mormon, and The Plates of Mormon: A Book of Mormon Study Edition Based on Textual and Narrative Structures in the English Translation, each published by Kofford Books. Gardner has also contributed a Book of Mormon Minute to the ScripturePlus app, a condensed commentary on two or three Book of Mormon verses at a time.

2) Dr. Paul Anderson – “With a Voice of Singing”: Echoes of Psalms in Nephite Preaching

Music played a significant role in Nephite religious life, and its influence is evident in prophetic teachings. In this presentation, I argue that the concluding section of Alma’s Ammonihah sermon (Alma 12-13) deliberately echoes and amplifies Psalm 95, a call-to-worship hymn that ends with an urgent warning to repent. Through close intertextual analysis, set against a backdrop of Israelite liturgical psalmody, I trace how Alma builds on key phrases — “harden not your hearts,” “the provocation,” and “enter into my rest” — to evoke communal memory among listeners who may have been accustomed to singing those words. This example illustrates how sacred music can provide a powerful shared framework for prophetic instruction.

Paul Anderson earned a BA in music from Brigham Young University, an MM from the University of Illinois, and a PhD in music composition and theory from Brandeis University before embarking on a 27-year career in banking. Since 2014 he has posted more than 4,000 daily scriptural reflections on his blog, Book of Mormon Study Notes (bookofmormonstudynotes.blog). He and his wife, Kristen, live in Charlotte, North Carolina, and are the parents of six children.

3) Dr. Heather Belnap – How Minerva Teichert Became Our Most Beloved Book of Mormon Artist

If Latter-day Saints were asked to name one of the faith tradition’s greatest artists, a fair number would probably say Minerva Teichert (1888-1976). This likelihood would both please and astonish Minerva, who believed that her work, which focused largely on LDS church history and its sacred scripture, The Book of Mormon, did not receive the church support and patronage it warranted. Executed at midcentury, when there was a flurry of artistic and archaeological attention given to the ancient scripture, she considered her Book of Mormon series—composed of 42 large-scale murals—her magnum opus. Despite Minerva’s desire to have the church purchase the series, the artist ultimately donated it to Brigham Young University. Indeed, it wasn’t until after the artist’s death that her work, and her Book of Mormon paintings in particular, began to receive significant institutional attention. How did Minerva go from being relatively unknown to Latter-day Saints to becoming one of our most treasured artists? This presentation will trace the vicissitudes of the reception of Minerva Teichert’s Book of Mormon series within the context of broader developments in Latter-day Saint culture over the last 75 years and argue that her is a cautionary tale for contemporary LDS artists from underrepresented groups similarly engaged in such scriptural representations.

Heather Belnap is Professor of Art History & Curatorial Studies and the Coordinator of Global Women’s Studies at Brigham Young University. She has presented, published, and curated extensively on Latter-day Saint art. Recent scholarship includes the book section, “The Mormon-LDS Art Tradition” in Variations on Christian Art: Mennonite, Mormon, Quaker and Swedenborgian (Bloomsbury, 2024) and an essay on mid-century Mormon women artists for the Latter-Day Saint Art: A Critical Reader (Oxford, 2024), which received a special commendation from the Association of Mormon Letters. She has curated several exhibitions on LDSt art, including Materializing Mormonism: Trajectories in Latter-day Saint Contemporary Art (Mesa Arts Center, May 10—August 8, 2024) and Work and Wonder: Two Centuries of Latter-day Saint Art (Church History Museum, September 26, 2024—March 1, 2025), as is the guest curator for the upcoming show Brave Like Eve: A Certain Women LDS Women Art Invitational, which will open at the Bountiful Art Center in January 2026. She is currently completing a monograph on Minerva Teichert for the University of Illinois Press’s Introductions to Mormon Thought series.

Weather permitting, refreshments will be available in the pavilion or in the hallway. A reminder that no food or drink other than water is permitted inside the Conference Center Auditorium by BYU policy.

Our second afternoon session will explore the moral models of the people of the Book of Mormon and how we can learn from them about our own moral and spiritual development.

1) Joshua M. Sears – “Not Spoken of Our Seed Alone”: The Lamanites as a Model for Gathering All Who Have Left the Covenant Path

Lehi’s vision of the Tree of Life caused him to fear that Laman and Lemuel would be “cast off from the presence of the Lord”—Old Testament language for a rupture in one’s covenant relationship. By the end of the Book of Mormon, “Lamanite” is expanded to mean any of Lehi’s progeny who have wandered from the covenant path. The Book of Mormon is “written to the Lamanites” in the latter days, and speaks much about bringing them back into full covenant belonging. Significantly, these promises to the Lamanites are said to also apply to “all the house of Israel.” We can read the Book of Mormon’s super-narrative about the Lamanites as a template for why and how God will seek to gather any who have left the covenant back into His presence. Because of “the covenants of the Lord, … they are not cast off forever.” 

Joshua Sears is an associate professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University. He has degrees in Hebrew Bible from BYU, The Ohio State University, and The University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of A Modern Guide to an Old Testament (Deseret Book, 2025).

2) Daniel Becerra – Spiritual Development and the People of the Book of Mormon

This paper seeks to contribute to a fuller understanding of spiritual development as it is portrayed in the Book of Mormon. By spiritual development—also sometimes referred to as moral/ethical development/formation—I mean the process by which human moral potential is actualized. In the words of the Nephite ruler King Benjamin, this entails putting off the “natural man” and becoming “a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord”(Mosiah 3:19). Specifically, I will examine how the Book of Mormon conceptualizes morality, the role of commandments, and signs of spiritual development.  

Daniel Becerra is a scholar of early Christianity and holds secondary specialties in New Testament and in Greco-Roman philosophy. He received a PhD in religion (early Christianity) and an MA in religious studies from Duke University, a MTS in New Testament/early Christianity from Harvard Divinity School, and a BA in ancient Near Eastern studies from Brigham Young University. His primary research interests concern moral formation in Late Antiquity (ca. 2nd–7th centuries CE), particularly within Christian ascetic contexts. He also researches topics relating to theology and ethics in the Book of Mormon.

3) Dr. Jenae Nelson & Dr. John White – Book of Mormon Sermons on Repentance: Toward a Model of Moral Change and Development

This presentation proposes a textual analysis of repentance and forgiveness in the Book of Mormon as psychologically and spiritually significant processes that contribute to moral development. Focusing on two foundational narratives—King Benjamin’s sermon and Alma the Younger’s conversion—we examine how these texts portray the internal and communal dynamics of moral change. Our goal is to identify emerging psychological and theological themes that elucidate the mechanisms of repentance and character transformation.

We begin by analyzing King Benjamin’s sermon as a preparatory discourse that cultivates the preconditions for communal repentance. We then turn to Alma’s autobiographical account as an archetypal depiction of the internal experience of repentance. By analyzing these narratives in tandem, we aim to articulate a coherent model of moral formation grounded in repentance. Together, these texts offer a distinctive interdisciplinary framework for understanding repentance as both a corrective process and a transformative catalyst in the development of virtue.

Dr. Jenae Nelson is a developmental psychologist and assistant professor of psychology at Brigham Young University. Her research focuses on character and spiritual development in adolescents and emerging adults, with particular attention to gratitude, moral formation, and the integration of faith and psychological science. She collaborates with interdisciplinary teams at Baylor University and Harvard Medical School and leads several youth-focused initiatives that blend psychological research with mentorship and faith-based practice. Her work has been published in leading journals and featured in community-engaged programs.

Dr. John White is the Harold and Dottie Riley Associate Professor of Practical Theology at Baylor University’s Truett Seminary, where he directs the Graduate Chaplaincy Program and co-founded the Faith & Sports Institute. A theological ethicist with a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, Dr. White’s scholarship centers on moral formation, theology of the body, and the ethical and spiritual aspects of sport. He has authored or edited several notable books, including Sport and Spirituality (Routledge), Sports Chaplaincy(Routledge), and God, Nimrod, and the World (Mercer), with two monographs upcoming: After the Game: Football, Money, and Morality (Eerdmans) and Theology and Sport (Baker Academic).

Dr. White has secured over $1 million in competitive research funding and serves as a principal or co-investigator on numerous interdisciplinary initiatives. His collaborations with Brigham Young University include various grants, serving as a Big 12 Faculty Fellowship, and teaching and developing curriculum. He is dedicated to promoting interfaith and inter-institutional dialogue focused on faith and human flourishing.

Welcome and introduction to Dr. Bushman, TBA

Bushman’s remarks created for this will be entitled Nephi’s Three Futures: The Book of Mormon and the Course of Events

Richard Bushman is Gouverneur Morris Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, having previously taught at Brigham Young University, Harvard University, Boston University, and the University of Delaware. Bushman also served as the first Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University. His extensive scholarship in early American history and Mormon Studies, including his seminal biography, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, has served as a guiding light for rising historians and interested readers for decades.

At the conclusion of Dr. Bushman’s remarks, the conference sessions will be adjourned, and all participants will be invited to join the dinner awards and recognition banquet at the Hinckley Center, beginning at 6pm.

At the conclusion of Dr. Bushman’s remarks, the conference sessions are adjourned and all will be invited to join us at the Hinckley Center for the recognition and awards banquet. All-conference pass holders will be served at dining tables. Free-conference pass holders are also encouraged to join and be seated in the rows of chairs available in the room.