Mormon Studies Commons^™

Fine, Thanks, Darlene Young

BYU Studies

This doctor, yet another one I hoped would be able to help when others couldn’t, calls me “Sweetheart.” Is there anything more patronizing? He pats my shoulder. He thinks I’m crying because I feel lousy and he can’t figure out why. I’m crying out of fury that he, and everyone in his office, treats me like a child, like I don’t have a brain and a life and better things to do. And fury that I’m crying in front of him. And, yes, a little bit because I feel lousy.

Educated: A Memoir, Angela Hallstrom

BYU Studies

Educated: A Memoir By Tara Westover

New York: Random House, 2018

Journals, Volume 2: December 1841-April 1843; Journals, Volume 3: May 1843-June 1844, James B. Allen

BYU Studies

Journals, Volume 2: December 1841-April 1843 Edited by Andrew H. Hedges, Alex D. Smith, and Richard Lloyd Anderson

The Joseph Smith Papers. Salt Lake City: Church Historian's Press, 2011

Journals, Volume 3: May 1843-June 1844 Edited by Andrew H. Hedges, Alex D. Smith, and Brent M. Rogers

The Joseph Smith Papers. Salt Lake City: Church Historian's Press, 2015

Saints, Slaves, And Blacks: The Changing Place Of Black People Within Mormonism, Alison Palmer

BYU Studies

Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People within Mormonism, by Newell G. Bringhurst, 2d ed. (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2018)

End Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Abinadi's Legacy: Tracing His Influence Through The Book Of Mormon, John L. Hilton Iii

Faculty Publications

Eminent author Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote." Identifying these instances of textual weavings is one aspect of a literary field known as intertextuality, an area that holds great promos for Book of Mormon research. Grant Hardy has suggested that it would be fruitful for our understanding of the Book of Mormon "to track various phrases throughout the Book of Mormon to determine which Nephite …

Questions In The Book Of Mormon, Holt Zaugg

Faculty Publications

This article examines how questions are used in the Book of Mormon to teach concepts and principles.

The Abinadi Narrative, Redemption, And The Struggle For Nephite Identity, Dan Belnap, Daniel L. Belnap

Faculty Publications

Though there is no question that the Book of Mormon’s primary purpose is to impart an understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ, this message is generally embedded by its editors and authors in very distinct historical and political settings. This is particularly true of Mormon, who often crafted his narratives so that a given prophetic ministry intersected and interacted with the sociopolitical concerns of the contemporary Nephite population. One such concern emerging again and again in Nephite history was their identity or relationship as Israel. This question lay at the heart of a number of social and religious movements …

The Abinadi Narrative, Redemption, And The Struggle For Nephite Identity, Daniel L. Belnap, Dan Belnap

Faculty Publications

Though there is no question that the Book of Mormon’s primary purpose is to impart an understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ, this message is generally embedded by its editors and authors in very distinct historical and political settings. This is particularly true of Mormon, who often crafted his narratives so that a given prophetic ministry intersected and interacted with the sociopolitical concerns of the contemporary Nephite population. One such concern emerging again and again in Nephite history was their identity or relationship as Israel.

"The Lord God Which Gathereth The Outcasts" (Isaiah 56:7-8), Dan Belnap, Daniel Belnap

Faculty Publications

During the last week of his ministry, Christ was asked what the great commandment was, and in his answer he suggested two, the last being “love thy neighbor as thyself ” (Mark 12:31). Though not stated by Christ, this commandment, found in Leviticus 19:18, is then followed by a similar commandment to love the stranger “as thyself ” (19:34). These two principles reflected one of the great principles of the law—the care for the marginalized outsider.1 Yet the plight of the marginalized was not only realized in the law, it was also found in the writings of the prophets. One …

Photographs Of The First Presidency, April 6, 1893, Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Thomas R. Wells

BYU Studies

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints witnessed momentous events that directly affected them in 1893. Along with other Americans, the Latter-day Saints in the western United States experienced the terrible effects of the Panic of 1893, one of the worst financial depressions in the nation’s history. The early signs of the economic decline appeared in February 1893 when receivers were appointed for the debt-ridden Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. Soon thereafter, stock prices plummeted, more than fifteen thousand businesses failed, people walked away from their farms and homes unable to pay their mortgages, unemployment rates hit as …

The Work Of Their Hands, Taylor Cozzens

BYU Studies

When I turned eighteen, I took a job as a laborer for a construction company that was building dormitories on a university campus in High Point, North Carolina. It was a new world for me, one of mud, concrete, and rebar. The Lulls, excavators, and flatbeds crawled around the job site, engines roaring, back-up beepers blaring. Meanwhile, the chop saws competed with the quickie saws to see which could scream the loudest as they sliced through wood, metal, and concrete. I soon came to know the tingling in the fingers after using a Sawzall and the smell of hot metal …

Directions For Mormon Studies In The Twenty-First Century, Isabella Markert

BYU Studies

Patrick Q. Mason, ed., Directions for Mormon Studies in the Twenty-First Century (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2016)

Mormonism And The Archaeology Of Media, Mason K. Allred

Mormon Studies Review

Mormonism has a legacy of digging up the dead. It had early desires to excavate the past, not only metaphorically (through meticulous record keeping and strong ancestral ties), but literally by actually digging up dead material. Think Alvin, Zelph, gold plates, treasure, spirits, and angels.2

Jell-O Medium, Kate Holbrook

Mormon Studies Review

Lapel pins are a part of the Olympic cultural experience produced to represent the hosting community, and generally one pin becomes more popular than the others. For the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, the runaway favorite pin featured green Jell-O, and enthusiasts paid $150 or more for pins that originally cost $7.1 Aminco International, the company that makes Olympic pins, recognized that Jell-O was no status symbol. “We were worried that Utah would be embarrassed about being known as the Jell-O-eating capital of the world,” admitted vice president David Hyman. Yet he somehow came to decide that, “Utahans are …

Review Of The Trek East: Mormonism Meets Japan, 1901–1968, By Shinji Takagi, Emily Anderson

Mormon Studies Review

Shinji Takagi’s The Trek East: Mormonism Meets Japan, 1901–1968 is a sweeping and detailed account of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ struggle to establish and sustain a mission in Japan. Organized both chronologically and thematically, it recounts the hardships and frustrations endured by the first group of missionaries who ventured to Japan between 1901 and 1924—the first attempt at establishing the Japan Mission—and the more successful second attempt initiated during the Allied occupation of Japan and further reinforced during a particularly dynamic period of leadership and activity in the 1960s. While earlier studies of Mormonism in Japan …

A Genealogical Turn: Possibilities For Mormon Studies And Genealogical Scholarship, Amy Harris

Mormon Studies Review

There is a growing scholarly field, crucial to Mormon studies, that scholars of Mormonism have yet to engage with: the history of genealogical practices. Mormon studies contains a robust and mature literature on the history of temple theology and the importance of kin to Mormon teachings.1 The connections between this flourishing scholarship and genealogical practices are largely missing, however. Scholarly history of genealogy is currently enjoying a rebirth—a renaissance that comes at a fortuitous time for Mormon studies.

Review Of Out Of Obscurity: Mormonism Since 1945, By Patrick Q. Mason And John G. Turner, Eds., Matthew A. Sutton

Mormon Studies Review

Patrick Q. Mason opens the introduction to Out of Obscurity with a few short words and phrases. They include Joseph Smith, polygamy, golden plates, The Book of Mormon musical, Mitt Romney, and Proposition 8. Mason’s point is that Americans know a lot about the controversial origins of Mormonism and a lot about the impact that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has had on recent American politics. They don’t know much about what has transpired in between. Mason is exactly right. This book represents the efforts of Mason, coeditor John G. Turner, and thirteen other scholars to explain …

Foundations Of The Restoration: Fulfillment Of The Covenant Purposes, Richard Neitzel Holzapfel

BYU Studies

Craig James Ostler, Michael Hubbard MacKay, and Barbara Morgan Gardner, eds., Foundations of the Restoration: Fulfillment of the Covenant Purposes (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2016)