Is Abinadi Trinitarian? (Joseph Spencer 1 of 3)

Is Abinadi trinitarian? Joseph Spencer is one of the leading experts on the Book of Mormon. He'll tackle that question. He's also the incoming president of Book of Mormon Studies Association, and he's written a new book, "A Word in Season," which discusses the Book of Mormon's treatment of Isaiah. As LDS, we are told to study the words of Isaiah, so we'll dive in and talk about how Abinadi, Christ, and Nephi approach Isaiah. It's not the same! We'll also discuss trinity in the Book of Mormon. Check out our conversation...



https://youtu.be/YOh3gyLinK8



Don’t miss our other conversations with Joseph: https://gospeltangents.com/people/joseph-spencer/



 



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BOMSA Leader

Interview



GT  00:40  Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I'm excited to have the incoming president for the Book of Mormon Studies Association. I bet you don't get that introduction very often.



Joseph  00:50  No, I don't.



GT  00:53  So tell us who you are.



Joseph  00:56  Yeah. I'm Joe Spencer. I am an associate professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, author of a bunch of books. We're going to talk about one of those today, apparently.



GT  01:05  Definitely.



Joseph  01:06  My training is in philosophy, but I work, especially, at the conjunction of theology and scripture.



GT  01:10  Yeah. Two things: since I mentioned Book of Mormon Studies, Chris Thomas is a good friend of both of ours.



Joseph  01:17  Definitely.



GT  01:19  I think he put it in a good word for you. Is becoming president of these different associations, you haven't been MHA (Mormon History Association) President or anything?



Joseph  01:29  No, heavens no.



GT  01:29  I think it's one of those things where it's like, anybody willing to do it? Yep. That's just like church.



Joseph  01:36  There's a lot of that. That's exactly right. We look around and go, yeah, who's a sucker here? {both laughing}



GT  01:44  So it's going to be a three-year term.



Joseph  01:46  Yep.



GT  01:47  Why don't you, for those listeners [who don’t know,] I got involved because of Chris. Then he told me he was the president. It's in Logan every year, which is nice.



Joseph  01:55  Yes.



GT  01:56  But you're serving a three-year term, not a one-year term.



Joseph  01:59  Yeah. That's how we wrote our bylaws. It's a three-year term for anyone who's president. Book of Mormon Studies Association has been around. When did we formally do this? Was it 2017?



GT  02:09  I think Chris said he did it for four years.



Joseph  02:11  2018?



GT  02:11  He extended one year.



Joseph  02:12  He did. Yeah, we had him extend a bit. We launched this thing a few years ago, and we meet every year in Logan, in October, and people give papers about the Book of Mormon. It's a lovely, lovely community.



GT  02:24  Yeah, It's a lot of fun. Chris Thomas, I should just point out, it's been a few years since he was on my podcast. He's not Mormon!



Joseph  02:34  Yeah, he is Pentecostal. {Rick chuckling}



GT  02:37  And he wrote a great book called "A Pentecostal Reads the Book of Mormon." If you really want to dive in, I didn't realize when I interviewed him. But he is like a big deal.



Joseph  02:46  He is a very big deal.