Report from the 1st Annual Expound Symposium

On Saturday the 14th of May I had the opportunity to attend and participate in the 1st Annual Expound Symposium, which was held in Provo at the Brigham Young Academy building.  For anyone who was there, I hope I had a chance to talk to you — I met so many bright and interesting people there. If you didn’t attend, I’m sorry you missed out on a great event!  But no worries, they are already planning next year’s symposium, which, according to current plans, will focus on the topic of temples.

The symposium was very well put together and everyone, both the speakers and attendees, were very well taken care of (we’re talking lots of free food, free drawings for awesome publications, no entrance fee — it doesn’t get much better than this as far as these types of conferences go)!  LDS author Matthew Brown was largely responsible for putting the event together and he did an incredible job of making it a very enlightening and worthwhile experience for everyone involved.  A big thanks to him, his wife, and also to Jeffrey Bradshaw for making this event more than worth it for me to go from Scotland to Provo to be a part of it.  I also want to thank my wife and kids for letting me go and my parents virtually killing the fatted calf for their prodigal son’s return (albeit knowing it would be very short-lived).

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Next Week's BYU Studies Symposium

This notice is likely too late for anyone not living in Utah, but I wanted to share this info anyways. Next Friday and Saturday (March 12 & 13), there will be a great symposium at the Hinckley Alumni and Visitor’s Center at Brigham Young University.

This symposium celebrates the 50th anniversary of BYU Studies and will have a very broad range of presenters and topics.  Of special interest (to me, anyways):

Jeffrey Bradshaw will be presenting on Saturday morning at 9:35am (in the N. Assembly room). His paper is called “The Ezekiel Mural at Dura Europos and the Mysteries of Aaron, Moses, and Melchizedek.” I worked with him a bit on this project and I can tell you that it is very exciting material.

Also, in that same session, starting at 9am, John Hall (BYU professor of Classics) will be giving a presentation entitled “The Anointing of the Gods: Sanctification and Authority from Egyptian Pharaohs to Hebrew Priest-Kings and Beyond.” I heard a version of this paper in London at the Temple Studies Group conference and it was awesome.  You can see my notes on it here.

I also recommend Lynn Wilson‘s paper at 1:35pm in the same room. Lynn did her PhD in Theology at Marquette University and is a great scholar. I heard her speak at SBL two years ago and she has done some very interesting research.

There are many other papers that look very interesting. I just wish I could be there! If you are planning to attend, it would probably be good to register at their website (registration is free and open to the public). See their website below.

The following is some more specific info regarding the symposium, copied from their official website: http://byustudies.byu.edu/symposium.aspx

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