The 2011 BYU Religious Education Student Symposium will be on Friday, February 18. I’ll be presenting in room 322 of the WILK at 1:00 PM. My paper is titled “Taking Upon Yourself the Name of Christ: The Power of the Name in the Ancient World,” and it explores how ancient Egyptians, Jews, and Christians believed that the ‘name’ — especially the name of divine beings — was a powerful and mystical attribute, and that invoking the name of a god allied yourself with that deity’s power, even to the point of making you part of that deity. In my paper I suggest that this ancient mindset is the basis behind the Book of Mormon’s repeated injunction to “take upon you the name of Christ.”

Again, the fun starts at 1:00 PM in 3222 of the Wilkinson Center.