Students at Brigham Young University are required to take religion classes. The first religion class you usually take is Religion 121: Book of Mormon. Religion classes at BYU are usually taught by religion professors. My first Book of Mormon class was actually taught by a Mechanical Engineering professor. 
I was part of what BYU called “Freshman Academy” where you have three or four classes with the same group of students. One of those classes was Religion 121, and since we were all engineering students, an engineering professor taught our Book of Mormon class.
Not to minimize the effect of having dedicated religion professors, but my Book of Mormon class with Brother Jordan Cox was the best religion class I ever had. We basically had one standing assignment in Bro Cox’s class, and that was to read the assigned chapters in the Book of Mormon, and then write a one page paper in which we asked a question and answered it with the words from the reading assignment. He didn’t care how much we wrote, what size font we used, or the size of the margins – it just had to be one page.
The two midterms and the finals were also papers. One on the words of Isaiah, one of the Church of the Lamb of God, and for our final, we were supposed to write about our testimony.
I still have the copies of almost every paper I wrote for that class, and over the next little while I am going to post those papers on this blog. I am really excited to share these papers with you, and I hope you enjoy them.
Since the Book of Mormon is broken into two semesters of classes at BYU, these papers only cover the first half of the Book of Mormon. My goal this year is to continue the Book of Mormon papers that I wrote that Freshman year and write papers for the second half of the Book of Mormon, the same way.
I am really looking forward to it!
How do you study the Book of Mormon? Did you take a Book of Mormon religion class at a Church-sponsored university, or a Book of Mormon institute class?
Thanks Becca
ReplyDeleteI am taking a Book of Mormon class in our ward, we started in Oct. I am really learning a lot and as if to seal the deal, my new Primary class asignment is to teach the Book of Mormon to 11 year old girls. (They are pretty smart so they keep me on my toes).
I have found that I have learned so much from blogs like yours and others that I follow, especially Heather from Women in the Scriptures,Scriptorium Blogitorium (Shout out from your blog)
When you feel that what you are doing doesn't seem to matter, I am here to tell you that it does. I have read a lot of the conference links you post, and I have been inspired to dig a litte deeper. I am excited about the book of Mormom and I find that reading, learning and then teaching it really blesses me.
Thanks so much for your kind comments!
DeleteWhen I was at BYU, I took Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Old Testament, New Testament, and Writings of Isaiah. I loved all my religion classes, but I have to say that I loved my class on Isaiah most because I had been intimidated by/curious about Isaiah for so long. (Whatever you do, be sure you take an Isaiah class!)
ReplyDeleteOne of my study methods these days is to read a page over and over again, asking myself just way that stuff was included, and what we are meant to learn from it. The repetition helps build up my familiarity so that important tiny details come back to me easier when I need them later.
I like your method of study to read a page over and over again - I did that today with a passage in 3 Nephi, but it was more because I didn't understand it!
DeleteI wish I was still at BYU - I would take every single religion class, and probably more than once just so I could have all the different teachers :)