My father Blake Ostler is a well-known Mormon Theologian and Scholar (In a addition to being a full-time attorney ) Over the years he has written several articles for scholarly Mormon publications such as Dialogue, FARMS, Sunstone Mag, Element, and others.

What I want to do is take the complex issues in these books and discuss them in a way that makes sense to the average listener. So this is sort of going to be like taking me to school on a lot of these issues and topics.

For the most part we will go chapter by chapter of each book starting with the first one: The Attributes of God

However I wanted to start off with an episode of getting to know Blake Ostler. His background, journey and motivations for writing these books and so forth.

Exploring Mormon Thought

001-Interview with Blake Ostler

The Book of Mormon has both obvious 19th century influences and anachronisms as well as very strong evidence for having ancient origins. The Expansion theory, introduced in an article by my father in 1987, looks at all the evidence and tries to come up with a solution that preserves both. I wanted to find out the nuances of the view and see if it still held up. Enjoy!

Links:
Original Article: https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V20N01_68.pdf

Update: http://www.timesandseasons.org/harchive/2005/04/updating-the-expansion-theory/

Response to Criticism: blakeostler.com/docs/criticexpansionth.pdf

023-The Book of Mormon as a Modern Expansion of an Ancient Source

Exploring Mormon Thought is a weekly podcast that features discussions about Mormon Doctrine and Theology that correlate with topics in the books series of the same name written by scholar and theologian Blake Ostler

023-The Book of Mormon as a Modern Expansion of an Ancient Source

Exploring Mormon Thought

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