Good news!
 

I submitted a paper to the religion department for a symposium being held in February. My paper is a comparison of the first visions of Joseph Smith, Lehi, and Moses, and uses patterns and similarities of the visions to try to better understand what took place on those occasions.

I got an email back from the religion department today informing me that the paper has been accepted. It will be published as part of the symposium and I will be presenting it to the committee on Friday, February 24th.

COngrats. Any chance of getting a copy on the side?

Congrats! You know its funny as I was thinking about the striking similarities between the Joe Smith and Moses.

Both didn't grow up in the church they eventually led.

Both had face to face interactions with God

Both had noticeable weaknesses (moses speach, JS wasn't learned)

Both never saw their people enter in "Zion"

Both made spiritual mistakes.. Moses not circumsising his son, JS losing the first ~112 pages of the book of mormon

Both brought to light several scriptures

Congratulations!
 

That's excellent. It sounds like an interesting paper too. :)

Sure. Anybody interested in reading the paper, send me a message with your email address and I will send it to you.

Congratulations AA.

I've sent it. If you didn't get the email and still want it, let me know.

Ok, funny story. I just got the paper back along with three review sheets from the judges. Two of the three reviewers found it questionable that I cited an article by one Blake Ostler, given the fact that he's not as authoritative as others that I might have otherwise quoted. The third reviewer did not object to using Ostler's work as a source.

The name of the third reviewer? Craig Ostler.