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I read an article in the Salt Lake Tribune (from about a year ago) that said Daniel C. Peterson, the well-known scholar and church apologist, was ejected from the board of the Maxwell Instutue, which is trying to go forward with a more unbiased, scholarly approach to its’ publications. It is now lead by Bushman, Givens among other of Mormons top scholars. My questions is, what is the MI? I have heard people put it on par with Fair/Farms, dismissing it as apologetics. Are its publications endorsed by the church? What is the difference between it and Fair/Farms or BYU studies? startpoor wrote:I read an article in the Salt Lake Tribune (from about a year ago) that said Daniel C. Peterson, the well-known scholar and church apologist, was ejected from the board of the Maxwell Instutue, which is trying to go forward with a more unbiased, scholarly approach to its’ publications. It is now lead by Bushman, Givens among other of Mormons top scholars. My questions is, what is the MI? I have heard people put it on par with Fair/Farms, dismissing it as apologetics. Are its publications endorsed by the church? What is the difference between it and Fair/Farms or BYU studies?
FARMS is private doing apologetics, BYU Studies is the publisher of scholarly articles for the university and FARMS is the outlet for the MI doing apologetics and scholarly research. FARMS got a bit of a negative reputation under Peterson because it was so aggressive and dismissive. I think.
I’ve got buddies in MI. Here’s a quick run down from a friend: Quote:“FARMS is an acronym for the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, which was originally an independent foundation organized by John Welch and others in 1979 IIRC. The organization devoted itself at first to collecting and disseminating hard to find scholarly work on Mormon scripture, and eventually began to sponsor and publish original research, particularly on the Book of Mormon. It published numerous books, and eventually began to publish two journals, the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies and the Review of Books on the Book of Mormon (which would eventually become known as the FARMS Review). In 1998, at the invitation of Gordon B. Hinckley, FARMS was brought into BYU. (This was not an easy decision, but it’s kind of hard to say no to the prophet.) Eventually this group was renamed the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, with FARMS as an imprint under that umbrella. Eventually, I think once the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley were all published, there was no further need for the imprint, and it was dissolved. The Maxwell Institute is an umbrella organization within BYU, with various scholarly initiatives. The organization itself as it now exists is not explicitly apologetic, although apologetics may still be found to some extent in some of its initiatives.
The publications of the MI are not endorsed by the Church, but that means little, since the Church is not in the habit of endorsing any publications but its own. BYU Studies Quarterly is the scholarly publishing arm of BYU itself and has been in existence since 1959. Although John Welch is the current editor of BYU Studies, there is no relationship between that journal and the MI.”
Here’s a podcast with my friend Blair Hodges that covers a lot of what you are looking for. While he doesn’t participate here, he welcomes any contact through the Maxwell Institute “Contact Us” site:
http://mormondiscussion.podbean.com/2013/12/02/blair-hodges-neal-a-maxwell-institute/ Thanks Hawkgrrl, that was a great explanation. 🙂 As they say at Chik-fil-a: “My pleasure.” Blair Hodges is really good people. He and his wife lived in my general area for a little while, and I got to meet him at a couple of local events. The changes at the Maxwell Institute, and him being involved there, were good news. What Brian said – word for word. I saw BCC had a think talking about how good the maxwell Institute podcasts are. I have started listening to them since you commented how good they are. For some reason I had them tied a bit closer to FAIR and I think after I got a bad taste in my mouth with FAIR I kind of wrote them off. So I googled to see what the diff was and a thread came up
http://www.staylds.com/staylds/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5030 ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.staylds.com/staylds/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5030 I had to laugh at this
hawkgrrrl wrote:As they say at Chik-fil-a: “My pleasure.”
I have had 3 of my 4 kids work at CFA – including 2 of them that worked in the cougar eat CFA. There is a good chance my last one will also as we now have a CFA within good hunting rifle’s distance from my house (you are from AZ, so that doesn’t shock you I assume
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