The Book of Mormon makes it clear that Isaiah's message is of great importance to the modern reader. In order to facilitate modern and personal spiritual application of Isaiah's writings, spiritual "formulas" or principles may be discovered or formulated. These formulas are statements of truth based on the prophet's writings that may be applied in multiple situations and time periods. Such formulas of truth offer valuable insighst across time. These formulas may be understood by analyzing the historical setting of the chapter(s) under review, and through critical examination of the text itself. These formulas provide a solid foundation upon which can be built the framework of personal application. The burden chapters of Isaiah (chapters 13-23) each offer an important formula that can have powerful spiritual application. This work explores each burden prophecy, using historical research and critical analysis of the text to postulate a formula. Each burden chapter has its own message that can lead to spiritual insight.

A. Purpose of this Thesis:1. To present the variants between the Authorized Version of Genesis and the Inspired Revision of Genesis as published by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and2. To indicated the implications of the most significant variants.B. Significance of This Thesis:1. This thesis helps to clarify the position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in regard to the problem of the Pentateuch. This is one of the most important, if not the most important, of the literary problems of the Bible; and the Latter-day Saint position concerning it needs further analysis and clarification, because many Latter-day Saints consider that the critical view is sound, apparently because they have not been made aware of the basic conflicts between it and the modern Scriptures of the Latter-day Saints. This Thesis reveals the relationship of the Inspired Revision of Genesis and The Book of Moses to the problem of the Pentateuch.2. This thesis also presents the portions of the textual material of The Book of Moses and The Book of Abraham, which correspond to the Inspired Revision of Genesis, aligned vertically with the textual material of the Inspired Revision so the reader can readily see the similarities and the differences.C. Method of Presenting the Data:1. In order that the reader might obtain a clearer picture of the data and their implications, the presentation of the data is preceded by "A Survey of the Origin and History of the Authorized Version of the Bible," and "A Survey of the History and Origin of the Inspired Revision of the Bible by Joseph Smith, Jr.".2. The variants between the texts compared are made to stand out conspicuously by means of a special interlinear system devised by the writer.a. The Text of the Authorized Version is assigned the top position, and the full text of it only is written out. Only the variants of the other texts compared are written out.b. The text of the Inspired Revision is assigned the position beneath that of the Authorized Version; and wherever the wording of the two are identical, the space assigned to the Inspired Revision is left blank. Ditto marks are not used.

That the many elements affecting this book may be studied, it is the purpose of this thesis:1. To give the essentials points in the history of the Book of Abraham;2. To present certain problems dealing with the translation;3. To review certain criticisms and apologetics of the book;4. To ascertain its major teachings – historical, theological and philosophical.

The Book of Mormon contains twenty-one chapters of the Book of Isaiah: two through fourteen, twenty-nine, and forty-eight through fifty-four. The language is primarily that of the King James Version with some variations. The King James Version itself has been translated from the Massoretic Hebrew Text. It is a fair assumption that the variations in the Book of Mormon represent an older, more accurate text than the Massoretic Text.Textual critics are anxious to find ancient texts and versions of the scriptures in the hope that some of these texts may contain readings closer to the original than does the Massoretic Text thereby avoiding some of the errors of transmission to which the Massoretic Text has succumbed during its long history. It is generally expected among believers in the Book of Mormon that the variations in the Book of Mormon will be supported by comparison with the ancient versions and ancient Hebrew texts of Isaiah.

The first objective of this thesis was to examine the Old Testament chronology carefully to see how it is computed. The second objective was to examine the modern scriptures to see what contributions they make in establishing a more accurate, reliable chronology. The third objective was to examine certain hypotheses in archaeology, carbon dating processes, and geology that seem to conflict with the Old Testament chronology with the purpose in mind of learning how accurate their findings are and what possibilities exist for a closer harmony between these sciences and the Old Testament scriptural chronology.

This study has shown that there is a textual relationship between the Doctrine and Covenants and the King James Version of the Bible in that out of 1240 of the 1999 verses examined in Sections 65-133 of the Doctrine and Covenants there were found two paralleled Biblical phrases or clauses. Varying in subject matter, these clauses and phrases were either similar or verbatim parallels in vocabulary, syntax or meanings (denotations and connotations) and, many times, in concept.In analyzing the location of the sources of the textual parallels, it was found that the New Testament is much more similar in subject matter and wording to the Doctrine and Covenants than is the Old Testament. However, paralleled passages referring to the latter days are particularly abundant in Isaiah, Joel, Zephaniah and Malachi.

Images of pregnant women and women in childbirth play an important role in first-century apocalyptic literature. The embodied experience of labor pains and parturition captured the imaginations of male authors of apocalyptic eschatology as they envisioned how the eschaton might occur. These writers, while often critical of the present state of the world, were not isolated from it; rather, as active participants in the broader culture, their visions and fantasies are best understood within the literary and material context of the Roman Empire. Imperial and apocalyptic arguments alike employ discourses of gender, power, and futurity, engaging the reproductive body as a fundamental point of connection between humanity and the divine and between the present and future. At the same time, votive offerings and uterine amulets related to pregnancy and childbearing further illustrate the centrality of fecundity and childbearing to women and their families. Reproduction was a cultural imperative achieved, at least in part, by means of appeals to the divine. Medical writers also addressed successful pregnancy, in this case by associating feminine anatomical inferiority with the ability to become pregnant. Together, this evidence serves as a framework for this study of apocalyptic images of pregnancy and childbirth in the writings of Paul, the book of Revelation, and 4 Ezra. Each of these works employs images of pregnancy and childbirth to assert the power of God over humanity and creation, to emphasize the appropriate societal regulation of women’s bodies, and to describe the end of the known world. The reproductive bodies of women become the ground upon which claims of divine authority and human futurity are made and disputed.

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In the mid 1990's, Aarhus University's Per Bilde detailed a new hypothesis of how Judaism, Christianity and Gnosticism were connected. Bilde suggested that Christianity acted as a catalyst, propelling Jewish Apocalypticism into Gnosticism. This dissertation applies the epistle of Jude to Per Bilde's theory. Although Bilde is not the first to posit Judaism as a factor in the emergence of Gnosticism, his theory is unique in attempting to frame that connection in terms of a religious continuum. Jewish Apocalypticism, early Christianity, and Gnosticism represent three stages in a continual religio-historical development in which Gnosticism became the logical conclusion. I propose that Bilde is essentially correct and that the epistle of Jude is written evidence that the author of the epistle experiences the phenomena. The author of Jude (from this point on referred to as Jude) sits in the middle of Bilde's progression and may be the most perceptive of New Testament writers in responding to the crisis. He looks behind to see the Jewish association with the Christ followers and seeks to maintain it. He looks forward to what he perceives as a shift from early orthodoxy and battles that shift. My thesis is to use the text of the epistle of Jude to uncover its historical situation. I posit that it portrays an early church leader grounded in Jewish Apocalypticism and facing the beginnings of a new "heretical" movement. This is a thesis of connections, and the work lies in using the epistle of Jude to illustrate those connections. This study is significant in two respects. First, it will clarify background issues of Jude. Earlier scrutiny of Jude focused on its unique aspects, such as Jude's use of the non-canonical texts of 1 Enoch and the Testament of Moses. More recent scholarship has centered on the literary and rhetorical analysis of the text. I will concentrate on using the text of Jude within the context of this theory in order to determine a clearer view of the historical setting in which Jude wrote. Second, this work will further the theory of connections between Jewish Apocalypticism, early Christianity, and Gnosticism. Although much work has been done to validate the connections between Judaism and Gnosticism, less has been done specifically with regard to Jewish Apocalypticism and even less with Per Bilde's theory of the critical middle role of early Christianity. And no one has used Jude in this particular discussion. / Religion