Old Testament

Week 2: origins & translation of the Old Testament 

11 September 2025

• Ben Spackman. “Why Bible Translations Differ: A Guide for the Perplexed.” Religious Educator 15, no. 1 (2014): 31–65. This article, published in BYU’s magazine for teachers of religion, looks at the challenges of accurately translating the Bible and how modern translations can help us understand difficult books and passages.

• Joshua M. Sears. “Study Bibles: An Introduction for Latter-day Saints.” Religious Educator 20, no. 3 (2019): 26–57. Sears explains how Latter-day Saints can benefit from combining the strengths of the Church-published King James Bible with the strengths of modern translations and the study aids in academic study Bibles.

• John M. Lundquist, “The Value of New Textual Sources to the King James Bible,” Ensign (August 1983): 42–47. Many ancient texts and sources discovered in recent decades permit us to double-check the texts used by the King James translators.

• Kevin L. Barney, “Reflections on the Documentary Hypothesis,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 33, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 57–99. The Documentary Hypothesis is the leading academic theory about how the first five books of the Old Testament were created. In this article Barney, a Latter-day Saint scholar, explores the Latter-day Saint reaction to, and the doctrinal implications of, the Hypothesis.

• Philip L. Barlow, “Why the King James Version?: From the Common to the Official Bible of Mormonism,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 22, no. 2 (Summer 1989): 19–42. Barlow examines how and why the ᴋᴊᴠ became the official Bible of the Church. (This article later became a chapter in Barlow’s excellent book, Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion.)

• Doctrine and Covenants lesson 15 goes into greater depth on the history and meaning of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible.