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Sperry Symposium on the Scriptures Oct. 27-28 at BYU to focus on New Testament

Elder Alexander B. Morrison to be keynote speaker

“How the New Testament Came to Be” is the theme for the 35th Annual Sidney B. Sperry Symposium on the Scriptures, to be held on the Brigham Young University campus Friday and Saturday, Oct. 27-28.

The keynote speaker will be Elder Alexander B. Morrison, an emeritus General Authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who will discuss “Plain and Precious Things: The Writing of the New Testament.” His address will begin at 6:30 p.m. on Friday in the Joseph Smith Auditorium.

Following his address, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., lectures will continue in the JSB Auditorium and in the Thomas L. Martin Building, with five concurrent sessions held each hour.

On Saturday, a plenary session will be held at 9 a.m. in the JSB Auditorium featuring Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Church history and doctrine professor at BYU. His topic will be “The Da Vinci Code, the Gospel of Judas and Other Bad Ideas.”

Following this session, five concurrent sessions will begin at 10 and 11 a.m. in the JSB Auditorium and the Martin Building. The closing session will feature Robert J. Matthews, former dean of Religious Education at BYU, speaking on “Joseph Smith and the New Testament.” Other presenters include faculty from BYU’s Department of Ancient Scripture and BYU–Hawaii, as well as other scholars.

Material presented at the symposium will be an aid to the 2007 Gospel Doctrine curriculum of the Church of Jesus Christ.

A collection of papers from the symposium will be published in a book and will released by Deseret Book and the Religious Studies Center at BYU.

There is no registration required and admission is free. For more information or a copy of the symposium schedule, contact Patty Smith, BYU Religious Education, (801) 422-3611, or visit religion.byu.edu.

Writer: Brooke Eddington

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