Item Detail
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27376
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2
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0
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English
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Palmyra and Jerusalem : Joseph Smith's Scriptural Texts and the Writings of Flavius Josephus
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Approaching Antiquity : Joseph Smith and the Ancient World
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Provo, UT
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Religious Studies Center, BYU
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356-406
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Several writers have suggested that one source that may have influenced Joseph, especially with respect to his extrabiblical writings like the Joseph Smith Translation, Book of Moses, Book of Abraham, and even the Book of Mormon, is the first-century Jewish historian and apologist Flavius Josephus. While this suggestion has been made on a number of different occasions, it has never been rigorously pursued or investigated. To this end, the present paper seeks to thoroughly consider the potential influence the writings of Josephus could have had on Joseph and whether or not they may have left any discernible influence on the scriptural texts he produced. To conduct this investigation, this paper will proceed in the following order: first, it will begin by defining the scope of the comparison and by offering some clarifying remarks about Josephus and Joseph Smith; second, it will elucidate the reception of Josephus in early America (18th and 19th centuries) and in early Mormonism; third, it will closely compare Josephus's and Joseph's treatment of certain biblical stories and figures to determine whether there is cause to think that Josephus directly influenced Joseph and that the latter directly conscripted material from the former. [From the text]