Official Website of Trent Dee Stephens, PhD
Bestselling Author
Bio
Trent D. Stephens, PhD: I grew up in southern Idaho and graduated from Raft River High School, Malta, Idaho, in 1966. I served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Michigan and Indiana (Great Lakes, 1967-1969). I attended BYU, where I met the love of my life, Kathleen Brown. We have five children and fifteen grandchildren.
I graduated from BYU in 1973 with a BS in Microbiology and a BS in Zoology. I then earned an MS in Zoology from BYU in 1974 and a PhD in Anatomy from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977. I completed a post doc in Pediatrics at the University of Washington in 1981 and took a position teaching Anatomy and Developmental Biology in the Idaho Dental Education Program at Idaho State University the same year. I retired in 2011 after teaching at ISU for thirty years. I was selected as the ISU Distinguished Teacher (1992) and Outstanding Researcher (2000). I continue to teach anatomy classes at ISU and other institutions. I began teaching Biochemistry at ISU in the Spring semester 2024, and am having a blast teaching a class I had never taught before, but which is my background.
My research is the study of normal and abnormal biological form, including birth defects, and I have published approximately one hundred papers and books on the subject, including several scholarly works on the relationship between birth defects and medieval beliefs.
I have authored or co-authored about thirty-five books, including several leading-selling Anatomy and Physiology textbooks and the critically acclaimed history of thalidomide, Dark Remedy, the Impact of Thalidomide and its Revival as a Vital Medicine. I am considered one of the world’s leading authorities on thalidomide, and have been invited to speak at several international conferences. I have also traveled to several countries to evaluate alleged thalidomide victims who have not been previously identified as such – but now are.
I have also authored or co-authored four books on the relationship between science and religion: Evolution and Mormonism: a Quest for Understanding, 2001; Who are the Children of Lehi? DNA and the Book of Mormon, 2007; The Infinite Creation: Unifying Science and Latter-day Saint Theology, 2020; and The Infinite Fall: A Scientific Approach to the Second Pillar of Eternity, 2021.
My Books
Coming Fall 2025 Cedar Fort
Who wrote the Old Testament? Was it written, or at least approved, word-for-word by God? Or was it written, as I believe, by inspired prophets through the filter of the writer’s mind, time, and paradigms? I believe the Bible to be the word of God, as far as it was translated correctly, through revelations to His prophets, mingled with a family history of the Israelites. I love the Old Testament stories and always have been curious about the science behind those stories. I believe that the stories in the Bible, and our testimonies of God’s revelations to His children, will be enhanced when we come to understand some of the now-known science behind some of those stories. In some cases, modern scientific discoveries (including archaeology) enhance the specifics of some stories. In other cases, as in the case of Jacob’s piebald sheep, modern science helps us understand the tapestry of the cultural mindset and paradigms from which the Old Testament emerged. In either case, it is my intent in writing this book: Science and the Old Testament, that it will help us think and more deeply ponder the scriptures.
Trent Dee Stephens, PhD
My Books
December 2023 Amazon
This book is written with my wife, Kathleen Stephens.
During the twenty-eight months that Ray Albert Brown served in the US Army in the South Pacific, throughout much of WWII, he and his wife, June Lucille Grant Brown, exchanged over fifteen hundred letters. June kept hers in the original envelopes, all tied up with ribbon. Ray took his letters out of the envelopes and kept them rolled up and stashed in the bottom of his duffle bag on his LCM (Landing Craft Mechanized), the Jenora. Most of those letters had not seen the light of day since Ray returned home in the summer of 1945. June suffered a stroke in April 1999 and spent the last three years of her life in a nursing home — where her loving, faithful husband spent the greater part of every day sitting beside her bed. Ray moved in with his daughter Kathleen Rae Brown Stephens and her husband Trent Dee Stephens — where he spent the last ten years of his life. Kathleen discovered the letters in one of his boxes and spent many hours transcribing them. Kathleen and Trent spent numerous happy hours reminiscing with Ray, including discussions of his time in the South Pacific. Trent organized the letters and conversations into Love Letters From the South Pacific — a twenty-five-year project. The book/photo project has won two awards.
My Books
November 2023 Amazon
Perhaps the greatest contributor to the perceived gulf between the Biblical story of the creation and the scientific/evolution story of the creation is the man Adam, who lived around 4000 BC and who is considered by millions of modern people to have been the first human being to ever live. Who was this man Adam, whose life appears to stand so firmly between science and religion? As a scientist and active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I propose that Adam’s critical role in the Plan of Salvation occurred primarily in the premortal realm of spirits and that his mortal life around 6000 years ago was part of the natural flow of life. Adam is Michael, the Archangel, the champion of God and Christ’s premortal plan, who was the general commander of the heavenly forces against Satan’s attempt to overthrow God’s plan for his spirit children. We, those spirit children, could only leave God’s presence and come to our earthly school by voluntarily accepting Adam and Eve’s roles in introducing the Fall and Christ’s role in the Atonement for that Fall. Who is Adam? addresses such questions as was there no blood before the Fall? and was there no death before the Fall?. This book is written from the perspective of science and what the scriptures actually say, and don’t say, rather than from the perspective of traditions that have been around for hundreds of years, without any scriptural foundation. For example, now where in the scriptures are we told that blood entered Adam and Eve’s veins as a result of their eating the forbidden fruit.
My Books
November 2023 Amazon
This Castle Builder's Handbook provides the plans and printable files to build dozens of castles. The first part of the handbook is a History of Fortification, including plans to build an Egyptian Outpost (in wood), Maiden Castle (a hill fort; in toothpicks), a Scottish Broch (in small stones), a Roman Fort (in cardstock), a Motte and Bailey Castle (in toothpicks), a Shell Keep (in wood), a Norman Keep (in wood), Harlech Castle (an Edwardian Castle; in wood), and a Canon Fort (Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine Florida; in wood). The second part of the book provides Castle Components: including Keeps, Gates, Towers, and Walls; which can be built of card stock or wood. The last few pages feature People and castle accessories that can be printed onto card stock and cut out added to the castle.
My Books
July 2023 Amazon
Ted Koppel’s book, Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath (2016), painted a pretty dismal view of the US’s preparedness for a cyberattack. His last few chapters, however, held out some hope; you could either move to Wyoming where people already lived off the grid with their piles of firearms or you could join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with our impressive preparedness program. When he asked for information about the Church’s preparedness program, he was given an all-expense-paid trip to Utah and a VIP tour of our facilities and Church headquarters. However he described our headquarters as resembling the FBI headquarters with men dressed in dark business suits, never mentioning seeing a woman at all. He never mentioned a tour of the Relief Society Building. Even though he described being treated to a lovely meal made entirely from food storage, he hardly mentioned who was responsible for not only the meal but for the entire food storage program of the family.
My book is a largely tongue-in-cheek, but in my opinion, growing up in the home of a Relief Society mother and wife, quit accurate account of the real power behind the preparedness program of the Church. It is largely autobiographical. My hometown had two church buildings: the main meeting house and the Relief Society building. Even though my mother was Relief Society President for ten years, the closest I ever got to the Relief Society building was the front steps. I have no idea what was inside. One of the main events of our community every year was the Relief Society bazar, which brought a huge amount of money into the Relief Society budget and the general Ward budget. When the Relief Society was finally absorbed into the main Church, worldwide, part of the negotiation was that the Relief Society room would have padded chairs and fancy drapes.
Some of the common discussions in our Ward Council meetings when I was bishop were: “How is it that the Relief Society President has already notified the Visiting Teachers and dinner has already been delivered to the family before the bishop even knows that anybody is sick?” “Who is running this ward anyway?” You can ask anyone in the know, when it comes to ministering – who is actually in charge? I think Ted Kopple really missed the boat during his visit to SLC; he got back on the plane and never even saw the White Ops.
My Books
July 2023 Amazon
England was a very dangerous place in 1232. Twenty-four-year-old Henry III, King of England, was an inept king, controlled by the powerful and cunning men who surrounded him and pulled him one way and the other; men like Hubert de Burgh on one side and Peter des Roches on the other; men who would not stop at murder to accomplish their plans. As William rode beside his father to his first tournament, he was largely unaware of the great storm brewing within the English court. Little did he know that soon he would be thrust into the center of that storm. The little “witch” and William’s nemesis, the Maiden Isolde, warned William several times of his father’s pending demise at the coming great Salisbury Tournament, which would be William’s first tournament and his father’s last. He should have listened.
Much of this book, The Last Tournament, is true. Most of the people in the noble families were real people who actually lived in the thirteenth century. A few people, including some from the noble families and all those of the serving class are fictional. All the places are real places and I have attempted to describe them as accurately as I can 800 years after the events described in this book. All the places are given GPS coordinates that match locations on Google Earth so the reader can zero in on each place and see what the places, such as castles, actually look like today. The food described, is taken, as much as possible from descriptions of actual medieval banquets and recipes. The stories told at the banquets and elsewhere in this book are for the most part taken from actual stories told during the Middle Ages.
At the end of the book is a section called, “Learn More About It.” This is somewhat of an illustrated encyclopedic glossary describing in more detail many of the words, names, and places included in this book.
My Books
September 2022 Cedar Fort Publishing
On that very first Easter, after His resurrection early in the morning, the now immortal Messiah walked to the village of Emmaus with two of his disciples, who did not at first recognize him, and sat at meat with them (Luke 24:13-32). Then, that evening, when ten of the apostles and other disciples were gathered in a room in Jerusalem, with the doors shut (John 20:19), Jesus appeared to them, told them to handle him and behold His hands and feet. Then he asked them for meat. They brought him fish and honeycomb and he did eat before them (Luke 24:33-48).
The Savior told his disciples, “I can of mine own self do nothing…I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” (John 5:30) Therefore, we must assume that the Father told Jesus to walk to Emmaus with the two disciples and sit at meat with them. He told Jesus to appear to the apostles and other disciples in the closed room that night, have them handle Him, and to eat before them. From these events we learn at least five things: Christ apparently looked somewhat different after His resurrection than He had in mortal life, He could enter a room without using a door, He had a body of flesh and bones, He still retained the marks of His crucifixion, and He could eat food. These five pieces of information, which are the hallmarks of eyewitness testimonies of Christ’s resurrection, carry huge anatomical and physiological implications, and teach us much about resurrected bodies. The purpose of this book, The Immortal Messiah, is to give us more understanding of God, Jesus Christ, and ourselves by examining those implications in detail.
My Books
March 2021 Cedar Fort Publishing
In a speech given at BYU in 1981, Elder Bruce R. McConkie, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, described what he called, The Three Pillars of Eternity, “The three pillars of eternity, the three events, preeminent and transcendent above all others, are the creation, the fall, and the atonement.” In a 1991 Ensign, article, the then apostle, Elder Russell M. Nelson, stated, “…before one can comprehend the atonement of Christ, one must first understand the fall of Adam. And before one can comprehend the fall of Adam, one must first understand the Creation. These three pillars of eternity relate to one another.”
Elder Tad Callister has done a marvelous job of describing The Infinite Atonement. I have recently authored The Infinite Creation (2020) and The Infinite Fall (2021). These books are intended to help students and others who are interested in or feel a conflict between science and the creation theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
My Books
July 2020 Cedar Fort Publishing
In a speech given at BYU in 1981, Elder Bruce R. McConkie, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, described what he called, The Three Pillars of Eternity, “The three pillars of eternity, the three events, preeminent and transcendent above all others, are the creation, the fall, and the atonement.” In a 1991 Ensign, article, the then apostle, Elder Russell M. Nelson, stated, “…before one can comprehend the atonement of Christ, one must first understand the fall of Adam. And before one can comprehend the fall of Adam, one must first understand the Creation. These three pillars of eternity relate to one another.”
Elder Tad Callister has done a marvelous job of describing The Infinite Atonement. I have recently authored The Infinite Creation (2020) and The Infinite Fall (2021). These books are intended to help students and others who are interested in or feel a conflict between science and the creation theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
My Books
January 2007, Kofford Books
D. Jeffrey Meldrum, PhD and Trent D. Stephens, PhD
How does the Book of Mormon, keystone of the LDS faith, stand up to data about DNA sequencing that puts the ancestors of modern Native Americans in northeast Asia instead of Palestine? In Who Are the Children of Lehi? Meldrum and Stephens examine the merits and the fallacies of DNA-based interpretations that challenge the Book of Mormon's historicity. They provide clear guides to the science, summarize the studies, illuminate technical points with easy-to-grasp examples, and spell out the data's implications.
My Books
Basic Books, Perseus Books Group, December 2001
Trent D. Stephens, PhD, D. Jeffrey Meldrum, PhD, and Forrest B. Peterson:
Scientists discover more every day about how life developed on Earth. Details that stream in from the new field of molecular biology rival the ongoing findings of paleontologists as they fill in the missing pieces in the fossil record. Professors Stephens and Meldrum, aided by the perspective of a non-scientist, Forrest B. Peterson, review the data for a general Latter-day Saint audience.
Their approach comes from a position of faith. They quote from the Creation account in the Pearl of Great Price: “And the Gods said: Let us prepare the waters to bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that have life. And the Gods saw that they would be obeyed and that their plan was good.” In the authors’ view, the passage’s emphasis on process over end result is consistent with modern science.
My Books
Basic Books, Perseus Books Group, December 2001
In this riveting medical detective story, Trent Stephens and Rock Brynner recount the history of thalidomide, from the epidemic of birth defects in the 1960's to the present day, as scientists work to create and test an alternative drug that captures thalidomide's curative properties without its cruel side effects. A parable about compassion-and the absence of it-Dark Remedy is a gripping account of thalidomide's extraordinary impact on the lives of individuals and nations over half a century.
Contact
also visit: buildmodelcastle.com
frolicparties.com
trentdeestephens.com
208-240-4994
