Kent P. Jackson

Dr. Kent P. Jackson was born in 1949, grew up in Salt Lake City, and lived in the Netherlands 1961–63, where he first came to know the joy that comes through living and learning outside of one’s homeland. There he also gained a love for people of other lands, for foreign languages, and for the art and history of the past. After graduating from high school, he moved to Germany, worked in a factory for a summer, and traveled around Europe. When he returned home some months later, he reluctantly began his college studies. A mission to Austria the next year broadened his horizons further and increased his curiosity for places unknown. Shortly after his mission he joined the U.S. Army, also reluctantly, and he served for six years in the army reserve.

Jackson’s mission lit him on fire academically, and from the time he returned until now he has viewed the discipline of studying and learning as one of God’s greatest gifts. He began his study of the ancient world at the University of Utah in 1971 and continued it at Brigham Young University, from which he graduated in 1974 with a degree in ancient studies that included Hebrew, Greek, and a variety of archaeology and ancient history courses. While he was at BYU he wanted to enroll in the Jerusalem Center program for 1973, but he did not have the money to do so. He met his wife, Nancy, while he was a student at BYU.

The Jacksons set off for the University of Michigan for graduate school, from which Professor Jackson received a master’s degree in ancient Near Eastern studies in 1976 and a PhD in 1980. Following the completion of his doctorate he was hired by Brigham Young University.

Professor Jackson’s areas of research are ancient scripture and the Restoration. He has published widely in both areas, but much of his focus has been on the intersection between the two. He has authored and edited books in those areas, including Joseph Smith’s Commentary on the Bible, From Apostasy to Restoration, The Restored Gospel and the Book of Genesis, and Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts.

At BYU Jackson served as chair of the Near Eastern Studies program, as associate dean of Religious Education, and in a variety of department, college, and university capacities. He taught Old Testament, New Testament, the Pearl of Great Price, Hebrew, Phoenician, Dead Sea Scrolls, history of the ancient Near East, history and culture of ancient Israel, and Islam.

Jackson’s involvement with the BYU Jerusalem Center began in the early 1980s, when he was appointed to university committees that oversaw the development of the curriculum and the use of the Center’s public spaces. His first teaching assignment there was in 1986, when without his family he taught a summer-term program for graduate students of the ancient Near East. He taught in Jerusalem again in 1988 and 1997. He and Nancy had five young children with them in 1988 and five older children in 1997. Their life was a lot more fun with the older children, two of whom were students on the program. For several years Jackson oversaw the orientation class that Jerusalem Center students were required to take before departing for Jerusalem. As chair of the Near Eastern studies program in the 1980s and 1990s, he frequently helped host Middle Eastern dignitaries who visited the BYU campus, and in the 2000s he had major responsibilities for hosting Muslim visitors as they came Salt Lake City and BYU.

In 2010 Jackson was appointed associate director of the Jerusalem Center, with responsibilities for the academic programs, the faculty, and the students. Having lived in local Jerusalem apartments in previous assignments, he and Nancy were pleased to live in the Jerusalem Center for the first time. Their stay there was interrupted by Nancy’s diagnosis of cancer, so they returned to Utah for surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Following successful treatment, they returned to Jerusalem nine months later and resumed their service there until the summer of 2013. Their experience 2010–13 was their most enjoyable assignment at the Jerusalem Center.

Since his latest assignment in Jerusalem, Dr. Jackson has continued his involvement with the Center and its programs. He organized, recruited authors, compiled, and edited the Jerusalem Center’s textbook for the ancient Near East course, A Bible Reader’s History of the Ancient World. Most of the photographs in it are his, and he created most of the maps as well. A few years later he authored the Center’s Islam text, Islam: A First Encounter.

In 2017, after thirty-seven years on the BYU faculty, Jackson retired, and he now spends his time tending his garden and fruit trees and continuing with his research and writing.