Mormon literature conference is set

Mormon writers and those interested in Mormon writing are about to

gather for the 2008 annual conference of the Association for Mormon

Letters, to be held Saturday, March 8, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., mostly

at the Ernest L. Wilkinson Student Center at Brigham Young University.

The theme is "The Scriptures as Literature, Literature as Scripture."

The keynote speaker is Harold Rawlings, a noted Bible scholar. A

prolific Baptist pastor, author and lecturer, he operates the Rawlings

Foundation in Florence, Ky. He holds a doctorate from Louisiana Baptist

University. He has collected one of the nation's finest private

collections of old Bibles and manuscripts, many of which he brings to

illustrate his lectures.

Rawlings is an expert on the problems of various translators of the

Bible, including John Wycliffe, William Tyndale and modern translators

who have met considerable resistance in trying to modernize the Bible

with language changes.

His book, "Trial By Fire: The Struggle to Get the Bible into English,"

is a popular study of the process of translation. He has also written

"Basic Baptist Beliefs." Rawlings will speak on "The History of the

Bible" from 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. at the Harold B. Lee Library Auditorium.

Some of the speakers on Saturday morning include LDS writers John Hall

("BYU's New Testament Commentary Project); Ron Esplin and Bob Woodford

("The Joseph Smith Papers Project"); William Brugger ("Mormon Maritime

Migration in Meter"); and Don Parry ("Isaiah's Use of Double Meanings