Presenters and Speakers
Matthew L. Bowen
Dr. Matthew L. Bowen is an associate professor of Religious Education at BYU–Hawaii. He was raised in Orem, Utah and graduated from Orem High School. He served for two years in the California Roseville Mission (1994-1996) and graduated from BYU in 2000 with a BA in English and a minor in classical Greek (with post-Baccalaureate studies in Egyptian and Semitic languages, 2001-2003). He earned an MA and PhD in Biblical Studies from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He is married to the former Suzanne Blattberg. They are the parents of three children: Zachariah, Nathan, and Adele. He is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, as well as the recent book Name as Key-Word: Collected Essays on Onomastic Wordplay and the Temple in Mormon Scripture (Salt Lake City: The Interpreter Foundation and Eborn Books, 2018).
Don Bradley
Don Bradley is an author and independent historian specializing in the beginnings of the Restoration. He completed a Bachelor’s in History at BYU and a Master’s in History at Utah State University, where he wrote his thesis on “American Proto-Zionism and the ‘Book of Lehi’: Recontextualizing the Rise of Mormonism.” Don has performed an internship with the Joseph Smith Papers Project working with the earliest Joseph Smith sources. He was the primary researcher for Brian C. Hales’s Joseph Smith’s Polygamy series. He has published on the translation of the Book of Mormon, plural marriage before Nauvoo, Joseph Smith’s “grand fundamental principles of Mormonism,” and the Kinderhook plates. He has forthcoming works on the Kinderhook plates and the First Vision. His first book is The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon’s Lost Stories (Greg Kofford Books, 2019). Don does historical research on his own projects and for clients. He lives in Springville, Utah.
Jeffrey M. Bradshaw
Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (PhD, Cognitive Science, University of Washington) is a Senior Research Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Pensacola, Florida (www.ihmc.us/groups/jbradshaw. His professional writings have explored a wide range of topics in human and machine intelligence (www.jeffreymbradshaw.net). Jeff has been the recipient of several awards and patents and has been an adviser for initiatives in science, defense, space, industry, and academia worldwide. Jeff has written detailed commentaries on the Book of Moses, Genesis, and on temple themes in the scriptures. For Church-related publications, see www.TempleThemes.net. Jeff is a vice president of The Interpreter Foundation and collaborates with Scripture Central, the B. H. Roberts Foundation, and FAIR Latter-day Saints.
Jeff was a missionary in France and Belgium from 1975–77, and his family returned twice to live in France. He and his wife, Kathleen, are the parents of four children and sixteen grandchildren. From July 2016–September 2019, Jeff and Kathleen served missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo Kinshasa Mission office and the DR Congo Kinshasa Temple. They currently live in Nampa, Idaho. As a church service missionary for the Church History Department, Jeff is writing histories of temples in Africa and, for Interpreter, is producing a film series on the history of the Church in Africa (www.NotByBreadAloneFilm.com).
David Calabro
David Calabro is Curator of Eastern Christian Manuscripts at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library at Saint John’s University. He holds a doctoral degree in Near Eastern languages and civilizations from the University of Chicago. His research deals with the languages and cultural history of the Near East. He lives in Saint Cloud, Minnesota, with his wife Ruth and seven children.
Breck England
Breck England (PhD, English, University of Utah), was senior product architect for FranklinCovey Training for 17 years until retirement in 2017. Before that he was director of innovation for FranklinQuest Co. and vice president of Shipley Associates, an international communication consulting firm. A Rohrbaugh Fellow at the University of Utah, he taught strategic communication and religion at Brigham Young University from 1998-2005 as an adjunct. Breck was a research assistant to Leonard J. Arrington in the Church Historical Department for 4 years in the 1970s. His religious publications include The Life and Thought of Orson Pratt and The Bright and Morning Star: Finding the Savior in the Book of Revelation. He co-wrote numerous books with Stephen R. Covey, including The 3rd Alternative: Solving Life’s Most Difficult Problems, Presentation Advantage, Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager, and Predictable Results in Unpredictable Times. In the 1990s, Breck was a member of the Church priesthood curriculum committee that developed the Teachings of the Presidents of the Church series. A former French missionary (1971-73), Breck and his wife Valerie also served a mission in Manhattan supporting Young Singles wards (2017-19). They live in Bountiful, Utah, and have 5 children and 21 grandchildren.
Spencer Kraus
Spencer Kraus graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, modern Hebrew, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies. He works with Scripture Central as a researcher and with Lincoln Blumell on topics relating to early Christianity and the New Testament.
Steven L. Olsen
Steven L. Olsen (BA, Brigham Young University, 1975; AM, Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1978, 1985) is Master Curator of the Church History Department, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where he has worked his entire career (four plus decades) creating museum exhibits, restoring historic sites, and leading organizational change. He has also been president or board member of a variety of state, regional, and national professional service organizations. He publishes widely in the fields of Latter-day Saint studies and museums studies and frequently presents at scholarly and professional conferences.
Jasmin Gimenez Rappleye
Jasmin Gimenez Rappleye is a content manager, web developer, and graphic designer for Book of Mormon Central. She graduated from Brigham Young University in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in Ancient Near Eastern Studies. Jasmin has presented at conferences for FairMormon, Book of Mormon Central, and The Interpreter Foundation. Her areas of academic interest include Latter-day Saint temple liturgy and the cultural contexts of the Book of Mormon.
Neal Rappleye
Neal Rappleye is director of research at Scripture Central. He is involved in ongoing research on many facets of the Book of Mormon’s historical context, including ancient Jerusalem, ancient Arabia, the ancient Near East more broadly, pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and the nineteenth-century witnesses to the discovery and translation of the Book of Mormon plates. His research has been published with BYU Studies, The Interpreter Foundation, Scripture Central, Greg Kofford Books, and Covenant Communications.
Stephen D. Ricks
Stephen D. Ricks completed his BA in Ancient Greek and MA in the Classics at Brigham Young University, and then received his PhD in ancient Near Eastern religions from the University of California, Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union. While completing his doctoral work he spent two years studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is now professor of Hebrew and Cognate Learning at Brigham Young University where he has been a member of the faculty for nearly thirty years.
Brent Schmidt
Brent J. Schmidt teaches at Brigham Young University–Idaho in the religion and humanities departments. He earned degrees in history and classics from the University of Utah and a PhD in classics from the University of Colorado–Boulder, specializing in philology and late antiquity. He enjoys traveling, skiing, gardening, and studying ancient and modern languages.
Daniel Smith
Daniel Smith is a scriptural history enthusiast whose dream in life is to help visually teach others about the scriptures and the Holy Land in a way never done before. He currently works at Scripture Central and leads the Messages of Christ YouTube channel team, the Scripture Plus app team, and the Virtual Scriptures team (a collaboration project between Scripture Central and BYU). His team is currently working to create the most accurate and detailed 3D model of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus along with other important scriptural sites. The 3D models will be used in the channel Messages of Christ, in future updates to Scripture Plus, and other planned apps and publications.
His passion is teaching about Holy Week, the life of Christ, ancient temples, and the Jewish Feasts. He has recreated several ancient artifacts (including the clothing of the High Priest), hosted many ancient Jewish Feasts, and published many videos about these various subjects.
John S. Thompson
John S. Thompson obtained his BA and MA in Ancient Near Eastern Studies (Hebrew Bible) from BYU and UC Berkeley respectively and completed a PhD in Egyptology at the University of Pennsylvania, with a dissertation emphasis on ancient priesthood. He was an employee of the Seminaries & Institutes of Religion for 28 years, most recently as a Coordinator and the Institute Director in the Cambridge, Massachusetts, area. John now researches/writes full-time for Scripture Central. He is married to Stacey Keller from Orem, Utah, and they have nine children and four grandchildren.
