Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Research Support Services For Religious Studies, Trevan Hatch, Ryan Lee, Gerrit Van Dyk

Faculty Publications

This project was part of a larger suite of similar studies being concurrently conducted at fifteen religious studies libraries in US higher education institutions in conjunction with Ithaka S+R, a not-for-profit research and consulting service that helps academic, cultural, and publishing communities. The information gathered in this study will not only be used to improve the research support services at Brigham Young University but also towards writing a larger report from the aggregated results written and publically disseminated by Ithaka S+R.

By Study And By Faith, M. Russell Ballard

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

In a General Authority training meeting, President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) said regarding the teaching of Church doctrine: “We cannot be too careful. We must watch that we do not get off [course]. In our efforts to be original and fresh and different, we may teach things which may not be entirely in harmony with the basic doctrines of this the restored Church of Jesus Christ. . . . We had better be more alert. . . . We must be watchmen on the tower.”

Developing Scripture Literacy: What Good Scripture Readers Know And Do, Eric D. Rackley

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

This article identifies ten practices that can improve youths’ abilities to make sense of scripture in ways that get them underneath the words to the principles and doctrine that they so desperately need but may struggle to understand. These ten scripture reading practices are based on decades of reading research and empirical work that examine Latter-day Saint youths’ literacy practices and the motivations that drive them. I also include examples, where appropriate, from a two-year ethnographic study of Latter-day Saint youths’ experiences with scripture literacy.

Narrating The Scriptures: Using A Literary Approach To Enhance Scripture Teaching, Adam P. Hock

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Evaluating the scriptures from a literary perspective can enhance reading and teaching the scriptures, yet it remains an untapped resource for many religious educators. Bible and literary scholar Robert Alter queried, “What role does literary art play in the shaping of biblical narrative?” The question extends beyond biblical narrative to scriptural narrative and teaching. A literary approach to scripture enhances the classroom experience for teachers and students. Literary analysis allows a class to explore the nuances of a text and identify authorial intent of the scripture while encouraging students to see a complex, beautiful narrative.

The Doctrine Of Inclusion: Reaching Students With Disabilities, Reginald S. Slocombe

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

I remember the first time I walked into a class for students with special needs when I was a teacher at the Logan Seminary in Cache Valley, Utah. I was asked to assist Sister Wendy Parker with her second-hour class. She did not have all of her students with disabilities paired up with their traditional peer tutors, so I needed to help maintain order as she continued to organize the class. As I saw many students within that looked and sounded different than traditional students, I realized I had no idea what to do in this classroom! After a moment, …

The Willie And Martin Handcart Companies: Application And Insights Into A Recurring Rescue, Jeffrey D. Meservy

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

The purpose of this paper is not to retell the stories of the handcart companies, one led by James G. Willie and another led by Edward Martin; many have done that very well. Rather, the purpose of this paper is to draw from their examples and experiences and find application for us today. Context, stories, and quotes of these pioneers are used here only in a supportive effort to identify principles, which can guide us today as we strive to live the gospel. President Gordon B. Hinckley stated, “Stories of their rescue need to be repeated again and again. They …

S&I In-Service Meetings: A Global Perspective, P Nien (Felipe) Chou

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

In-service meetings have facilitated the opportunity for the Seminaries and Institutes (S&I) to teach and train both full-time and volunteer teachers for many decades. These S&I in-service meetings would expand from Utah to the rest of the United States and then to various locations outside the United States. How are these in-service meetings operating and functioning in various parts of the world? What are the perceptions of S&I leaders and teachers regarding how these in-service meetings assist them to achieve the S&I objective and goals? This article examines these questions from a global perspective. It also considers a global perspective …

Book Of Mormon Citations In General Conference, 1965–2014, Sharon Black, Brad Wilcox, Kyle Lyons

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Joseph Smith referred to the Book of Mormon as the keystone of our religion; however, the book was not frequently studied in worship services or in gospel instruction in the early Church. In the 1970s, focus on the scriptures increased as the curriculum for adult gospel study shifted from manuals discussing the scriptures to the actual scripture texts. The Book of Mormon became part of the correlated curriculum for Sunday School Gospel Doctrine lessons, and Seminaries and Institutes also increased their use of scriptural content. In response, Church leaders oversaw the preparation of a fully cross-referenced version of the standard …

End Matter

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Review Of By Study And Also By Faith: One Hundred Years Of Seminaries And Institutes Of Religion, Scott C. Esplin

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

“In the history of the Church,” President Boyd K. Packer taught, “there is no better illustration of the prophetic preparation of this people than the beginnings of the seminary and institute program. These programs were started when they were nice but were not critically needed. They were granted a season to flourish and to grow into a bulwark for the Church. They now become a godsend for the salvation of modern Israel.” Seeking to chronicle this history, the recent volume, By Study and Also by Faith: One Hundred Years of Seminaries and Institutes of Religion, captures the system’s rise from …

Doctrine: Models To Evaluate Types And Sources Of Latter-Day Saint Teachings, Anthony Sweat, Michael Hubbard Mackay, Gerrit J. Dirkmaat

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

In early 1833, the presiding elder of a small branch in Benson, Vermont, wrote to his brother at Church headquarters in Kirtland, Ohio, hoping to receive guidance from Joseph Smith on a very important question: How do I know what teachings in my branch I should accept as doctrine? He was writing because Jane Sherwood, a woman in his congregation, asserted that she had seen visions of angels and of God that had given her revelation “concerning that which must come hereafter, p[u]rporting indeed that the power of God’s Judgment has come & astonishing things soon are to take place.”

Discussing Difficult Topics: Race And The Priesthood, W. Paul Reeve, Thomas A. Wayment

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Wayment: Paul, tell us a little bit about your background on race and Mormonism. What brings you to this discussion?

Reeve: I started research for the book Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015) in 2007. I was familiar with some of the existing historiography in the field of whiteness studies. The whiteness historiography has largely revolved around immigration and labor history. There have been studies of Irish immigrants who were racialized as not white or not white enough. The histories of Irish immigrants trace the ways in which …

Taking Mormon History Into All The World, D. Brent Smith

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

The Mormon History Association (MHA) has sought, per its vision statement, to be “the preeminent catalyst worldwide for encouraging the scholarly study and appreciation of the Mormon past.”1 In connection with the MHA’s fiftieth anniversary and the 2015 MHA Conference in Provo, I surveyed the degree to which MHA, as well as other scholarly and even social media organizations that are engaged in the study and writing of Mormon history, have achieved a broad and integrated global focus. While much progress can be noted, I suggest that more should be attempted with regard to broader international participation and engagement. My …

Full Issue

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Biblical Merismus In Book Of Mormon Gospel References, Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

This study is an extension of previously published work that identifies three inclusios in the Book of Mormon, each of which presents the same six-element definition of the doctrine or gospel of Jesus Christ. However, the six elements are not presented as a straightforward list, but rather in a series of smaller combinations intended to gradually deepen and extend the reader’s understanding of each one and of its role in the larger gospel process. This mode of presentation makes something else clear: Whenever some pair or selection from these six elements is mentioned, the entire set is implicitly invoked. Each …

Chiastic Structuring Of Large Texts: Second Nephi As A Case Study, Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

The experiment conducted in this paper has been the application of the principles of Hebrew rhetoric—as that has come to be understood by biblical scholars over the last half century—to the Book of Second Nephi, self-described as personally written by Nephi, who was educated in Jerusalem at the end of the 7th century BCE, a time and place where these principles are now thought by scholars to have been de rigeur. The experiment did not refute the hypothesis, but instead did produce a plausible division of the book into 13 sub-units that readily organize themselves chiastically as a whole. The …

Out Of The Best Books: Mormon Assimilation And Exceptionalism Through Secular Reading, Lauren Ann Fields

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to explore the relationship between Mormon assimilation, exceptionalism, and their endeavors in secular reading by analyzing Out of the Best Books (OOBB), a 1964–71 five-volume reading guide and reading program on secular reading established by the Mormon Church for its women’s organization, the Relief Society. Examining the approaches to secular literature in the OOBB program suggests that Mormons can respond to their competing desires to separate and assimilate by making efforts that fulfill both aspirations simultaneously rather than moving exclusively in one direction. Yet OOBB’s efforts to achieve both objectives did not amount to an entirely seamless …

Death Being Swallowed Up In Netzach In The Bible And The Book Of Mormon, David Larsen

BYU Studies Quarterly

One way to read the Book of Mormon is to be attentive to ways in which it comes across as a translated text. Being mindful of this is wise, because all translations—even inspired translations—lose something of the primary language, particularly as meanings shift when words are rendered into the vocabulary or idioms of the target language.

Socrates' Mission, Daniel W. Graham

BYU Studies Quarterly

Socrates is the quintessential watershed of ancient thought. He is known as the thinker who turned philosophy away from cosmological speculation to ethics and value theory. In his own time, he was hailed by Apollo’s Oracle at Delphi as the man who was wiser than all others, and he was lampooned by Aristophanes on the comic stage as a quack, a sophist, and a fraud. His followers included two of the greatest traitors Athens produced, Alcibiades and Critias, and two of the greatest thinkers and moralists, Plato and Xenophon. In the end, he was tried on charges of impiety and …

The Bass Coupler, Marilyn Nielson

BYU Studies Quarterly

Being called to play the organ for the first time, as a pianist, felt like being asked to ice skate for the U.S. Olympic team because you did such a good job walking into the arena. “You already know how to walk, after all,” the coaches reason. “This is basically the same thing—a stride lengthened here, a leg elevated there. You’ll pick it up in no time.”

Gathering, Vivian M. Adams

BYU Studies Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Explanatory Power Of Semitic And Egyptian In Uto-Aztecan, Dirk Elzinga

BYU Studies Quarterly

Brian D. Stubbs. Exploring the Explanatory Power of Semitic and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan.

Provo, Utah: Grover Publications, 2015.

Chicano While Mormon: Activism, War, And Keeping The Faith, Jorge Iber

BYU Studies Quarterly

Ignacio M. Garcia. Chicano While Mormon: Activism, War, and Keeping the Faith.

Madison, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2015.

Sublime Physick, Darlene Young

BYU Studies Quarterly

Patrick Madden. Sublime Physick.

Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2016.

Psalms Of Nauvoo: Early Mormon Poetry, Gerrit Van Dyk

BYU Studies Quarterly

Hal Robert Boyd and Susan Easton Black, eds., Psalms of Nauvoo: Early Mormon Poetry (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2015)

A Missionary's Story: The Letters And Journals Of Adolf Haag, Mormon Missionary To Switzerland And Palestine, 1892, Bridget Edwards

BYU Studies Quarterly

Larry W. Draper and Kent P. Jackson, eds., A Missionary’s Story: The Letters and Journals of Adolf Haag, Mormon Missionary to Switzerland and Palestine, 1892 (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 2015)

First Principles And Ordinances: The Fourth Article Of Faith In Light Of The Temple, Eric Samuelsen

BYU Studies Quarterly

Samuel M. Brown, First Principles and Ordinances: The Fourth Article of Faith in Light of the Temple (Provo, Utah: Neal A. Maxwell Institute, Brigham Young University, 2014).

End Matter

BYU Studies Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

BYU Studies Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

BYU Studies Quarterly

No abstract provided.