Presented at
2025 Abraham and His Family Conference
Saturday, May 3 and Saturday, May 10, 2025
Sponsored by The Interpreter Foundation, Brigham Young University Religious Education,
Scripture Central, and FAIR Latter-day Saints
Download audio recording
Jeffrey M. Bradshaw
Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (PhD, Cognitive Science, University of Washington) is a Senior Research Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Pensacola, Florida (www.ihmc.us/groups/jbradshaw. His professional writings have explored a wide range of topics in human and machine intelligence (www.jeffreymbradshaw.net). Jeff has been the recipient of several awards and patents and has been an adviser for initiatives in science, defense, space, industry, and academia worldwide. Jeff has written detailed commentaries on the Book of Moses, Genesis, and on temple themes in the scriptures. For Church-related publications, see www.TempleThemes.net.
Jeff was a missionary in France and Belgium from 1975 to 1977, and his family has returned twice to live in France. He and his wife, Kathleen, are the parents of four children and sixteen grandchildren. From July 2016-September 2019, Jeff and Kathleen served missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo Kinshasa Mission office and the DR Congo Kinshasa Temple. They currently live in Nampa, Idaho. As a church service missionary for the Church History Department, Jeff is writing histories of temples in Africa, and for Interpreter is documenting selected episodes in the history of the Church in Africa on film (www.NotByBreadAloneFilm.com).
Daniel C. Peterson
Daniel C. Peterson (PhD, University of California at Los Angeles) is a professor emeritus of Islamic studies and Arabic at Brigham Young University, where he founded the University’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative. He has published and spoken extensively on both Islamic and Latter-day Saint subjects. Formerly chairman of the board of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) and an officer, editor, and author for its successor organization, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, his professional work as an Arabist focuses on the Qur’an and on Islamic philosophical theology. He is the author, among other things, of a biography entitled Muhammad: Prophet of God (Eerdmans, 2007). With his wife, he is executive producer of the films Witnesses (2021), Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon (2022), and Six Days in August (2024).
Jennifer C. Lane
Jennifer C. Lane is a professor emerita of Religious Education at BYU–Hawaii where she taught for close to twenty years and served as Dean and also Associate Academic Vice President for Curriculum. She received her PhD in Religion from Claremont Graduate University with an emphasis in History of Christianity and her MA and BA from BYU in Ancient Near Eastern Studies and History, respectively. After moving to Provo, Utah in 2021 she held a three-year position as Neal A. Maxwell Research Associate at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. Her scholarship focuses on covenants, temples, and living a life of holiness as well as additional studies in Franciscan history and piety. She is the author of Let’s Talk about Temples and Ritual and Finding Christ in the Covenant Path: Ancient Insights for Modern Life.
Gary Rendsburg
Gary A. Rendsburg serves as the Blanche and Irving Laurie Chair in Jewish History and holds the rank of Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University. His wide-ranging scholarship covers the history, literature, and archaeology of ancient Israel, though he also has developed a second expertise in the medieval Hebrew manuscript tradition. Prof. Rendsburg has visited all the major archaeological sites in Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, plus he has worked in the world’s leading libraries, including the Vatican Library, the Bodleian Library (Oxford), the Cambridge University Library, and the Library of Congress. He has held visiting positions at the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Pontifical Biblical Institute (Rome), and the Getty Villa (Los Angeles).
John W. Welch
John W. Welch is the Robert K. Thomas Professor of Law at Brigham Young University and was for 27 years editor-in-chief of BYU Studies. Welch practiced law in Los Angeles with O’Melveny & Myers, at which time he founded the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS). From 1988-1991, Welch served as one of the editors for Macmillan’s Encyclopedia of Mormonism. He also has served as the General Editor of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley for 25 years. He organized the bicentennial conference for Joseph Smith at the Library of Congress in 2005 and has served on the executive committee of the Biblical Law Section of the Society of Biblical Literature. He is a co-founder of Scripture Central and serves as the Chair of its Board of Directors.
Welch is among the most prominent pupils of Hugh Nibley, having made several important discoveries and advances regarding biblical studies, LDS scholarship, history, culture, and thought. His publications cover a wide range of topics, including Roman and Jewish laws in the trial of Jesus, the use of biblical laws in colonial America, chiasmus in antiquity, and commentaries on the Sermon on the Mount and King Benjamin’s Speech.
