In 1998 the format changed from a plain academic journal style into a glossy magazine, intended to make its work more accessible to general LDS readers in addition to scholars.[2] The journal was promoted to the public in 2003 when LDS Church public affairs referenced its recent articles to answer problems of DNA and the Book of Mormon.[9] The journal's publisher changed in 2006 to the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, which had absorbed FARMS.[10]
The journal was first published in 1992 under its current title. From 2009 to 2013 it was renamed Journal of the Book of Mormon and Restoration Scripture. In 2014, the journal returned to its original name and underwent further changes stemming from new directives from the Maxwell Institute. It went from biennial to annual, adopted an academic printing format, and announced a new mission within the larger field of religious studies for both "Mormon and non-Mormon scholars."[5][11][12]
^(Duffy 2004, p. 33): "Work that assumes, but does not necessarily defend, LDS faith claims I prefer to call 'orthodox scholarship.' Henceforth, I will use the term apologetics to refer only to discourse that explicitly responds to criticisms of the faith. ... Orthodox scholarship is the most appropriate term for much of what appears in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies (especially under John Sorenson's editorship)..."
^ abBrian M. Hauglid (2 April 2014). "Dear Subscribers"(PDF). Letter to Subscribers. Retrieved 2018-07-24.
^John-Charles Duffy (2006), Faithful Scholarship: The Mainstreaming of Mormon Studies and the Politics of Insider Discourse, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, p. 71, retrieved 2018-07-24, Around 1984, Maxwell and Oaks initiated quarterly meetings with BYU president (later apostle) Jeffrey R. Holland and faculty members from Religious Education, the Smith Institute, and FARMS. The purpose of these meetings was to urge LDS scholars to produce internally peer-reviewed scholarship that could, in Maxwell's words, 'protect our flanks.'
