The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship is pleased to announce an exciting agreement with Salt Press. The Maxwell Institute will rerelease all previously published Salt Press books, publish its forthcoming titles, and will welcome Salt’s four founders onto an editorial advisory board for Mormon studies titles.
Salt Press was founded in 2009 as “an independent academic press dedicated to publishing books that engage Mormon texts, show familiarity with the best contemporary thinking, remain accessible to nonspecialists, and foreground the continuing relevance of Mormon ideas.” The mission of the Maxwell Institute is to “deepen understanding and nurture discipleship among Latter-day Saints and promote mutual respect and goodwill among people of all faiths through the scholarly study of religious texts and traditions.” The merger of Salt Press and the Maxwell Institute resulted from mutual recognition of the fundamental compatibility of their aims.
Salt Press titles will continue to be freely available as PDFs as well as inexpensive print-on-demand volumes. Now they will also be available through the Institute’s online and retail distribution channels under the Maxwell Institute Press imprint or the BYU Press imprint.
Adam Miller, cofounder of Salt Press, expressed appreciation for those who helped get Salt to this stage. “We’ve been profoundly encouraged over the past few years by the broad and positive response to Salt’s vision for this niche of Mormon studies,” Miller said. “We’re grateful for the confidence that Salt’s editorial board placed in us and for the many people who have invested their time and money in reading and reviewing our titles. As we’re folded into the Institute, it will be a little sad for us to close Salt’s doors—we more or less started Salt in Jenny Webb’s garage with a budget in the low three figures—but that feeling pales in comparison to how excited we are to move forward with the talents and resources of the Maxwell Institute backing our work.”
BOOKS
The following titles, still available through the Salt Press website, will also be made available through the new Maxwell Institute website when it goes live this summer:
- An Other Testament: On Typology, by Joseph M. Spencer
- An Experiment on the Word: Reading Alma 32, edited by Adam S. Miller
- Reading Nephi Reading Isaiah: Reading 2 Nephi 26–27, edited by Joseph M. Spencer and Jenny Webb
- The Doctrine & Covenants Made Harder: Scripture Study Questions, by James E. Faulconer
Ten additional titles are contracted or forthcoming, including:
- Postponing Heaven: The Three Nephites, the Mahdi, and the Bodhisattva, by Jad Hatem (trans. Jonathon Penny)
- Apocalypse: Reading Revelation 21–22, edited by Julie M. Smith
- The Book of Mormon Made Harder: Scripture Study Questions, by James E. Faulconer
In addition, Adam Miller and Joseph Spencer will edit a series of books called “Groundwork: Studies in Theory and Scripture.”
BOARD
The Salt Press founders and the Maxwell Institute are united in their commitment to foster excellent scholarship on LDS scriptures. The owners and managing editors of Salt Press (Robert Couch, Adam Miller, Joseph Spencer, and Jenny Webb) have been asked to serve as the first four members of the Institute’s Mormon studies editorial advisory board, which will assist with manuscript solicitation and book acquisitions. It is expected that this advisory board will grow to include scholars from a variety of disciplines.
M. Gerald Bradford, executive director of the Maxwell Institute, extended his congratulations to Salt Press. “In its short lifetime, Salt Press has impacted Mormon scriptural scholarship far beyond its modest level of operations,” Bradford said. “We are delighted that their vision and ours of promoting scholarship that joins faith, methodological rigor, and a careful reading of the text has resulted in this union of efforts. We look forward to a bright future of collaboration with them, and we invite other scholars to join with us in our long-standing endeavor to bring the best possible scholarship to bear upon the Latter-day Saint scriptures.”