Item Detail
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26819
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4
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3
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English
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The Midrashic Imagination and the Book of Mormon
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Dialogue : A Journal of Mormon Thought
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Fall 2011
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44
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3
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Stanford, CA
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Dialogue Foundation
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44-66
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The Jewish Midrash, which runs to some twenty volumes, is a treasure house of "rabbinical exegeses, extrapolations, interpretations and expansions on the Torah." Traditional midrashim, based on both oral and written tradition, constitute an extensive library of Jewish insight into the possible interpretations of scripture. Here, Rees argues that Latter-day Saints should consider writing midrashim based on Restoration scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon. Since Latter-day Saints believe that the Book of Mormon was written by Israelites who began their long, exiled history in the New World with the Law and the Prophets up to Jeremiah, he stresses that it seems inviting to consider it a source, like the Torah, not only for interpretation but for invention, expansion, and imagination.