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.
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 twenty 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 Latest Book
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
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