"ceremony" in Mosiah and Scripture Central

In the ongoing pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding, I posted a peer review of an article on Scripture Central about the term "ceremony" in Mosiah 19:24. 

https://scripturecentralpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2025/07/ceremony-in-mosiah-1924.html

Basically, the term makes perfect sense once we see how Jonathan Edwards used the term.

But because the scholars haven't looked at Edwards, we have Royal Skousen speculating that the term is a "scribal error." We have various Book of Mormon "experts" offering a variety of speculative theories based on assumptions and inferences that lead to a confusing spectrum of apologetic theories.

Of course, given the scholars involved, none of them proposed that Joseph translated the plates correctly using his own language...

Except me.

:)

But hopefully my peer review will lead to improvement in this area going forward.

M2C in the Interpreter-again, as usual

I'm always curious if Interpreter readers think for themselves, do their own research, or merely accept what the Interpreter publishes.  

Because I encourage people to make informed decisions for themselves, and to avoid relying on self-appointed "experts" who reject what Joseph and Oliver taught, I did another peer review of an Interpreter article.

This one is the introduction to a new series of article in the Interpreter, which are resurrecting the 2005 Library of Congress symposium on "the Worlds of Joseph Smith."

We've discussed that several times on this blog. 

This series consists of chapters from a book. 

My peer review of the introduction is here:

https://interpreterpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2025/07/review-anachronisms-accidental-evidence.html

As is common with Interpreter articles, this one is well-intentioned. It no doubt reflects the views of many Latter-day Saints who still believe M2C.

But it also is another example of the difference between apologetics and scholarship, in the sense that it contains the expected omission of relevant material that contradicts the M2C narrative.

See for yourself.

:)