Mormon Studies Commons^™

John Taylor's June 27, 1854, Account Of The Martyrdom, Lajean P. Carruth, Mark L. Staker

BYU Studies

On June 27, 1854, John Taylor, an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gave what appears to be his first public address sharing his eyewitness account of the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Two scribes, George D. Watt and Thomas Bullock, recorded the meeting. George D. Watt's skill with Pitman shorthand enabled him to work quickly. He recorded these sermons virtually verbatim, only occasionally missing a few words as he strove to keep up with the speakers. Most of what Watt recorded survives in his 1854 papers in a bound notebook. Two-thirds of John Taylor's …

"Thy Mind, O Man, Must Stretch", John W. Welch

BYU Studies

John W. Welch, the recipient of the 2010-2011 Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Award, gave this speech on May 17, 2011, at Brigham Young University. He spoke about the BYU Mission Statement as a guide for infusing an intellectual life with perspective and purpose: students should learn the gospel of Jesus Christ, learn broadly to be able to communicate, learn deeply in one's chosen field, and serve in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Welch placed emphasis on hard work and keeping an open mind while searching for truth. Mormonism thrives, he said, because it welcomes the …

"With God's Assistance I Will Someday Be An Artist": John B. Fairbanks's Account Of The Paris Art Mission, Rachel Cope

BYU Studies

In 1890, John B. Fairbanks and other Utah artists were sent as Latter-day Saint missionaries to study art in Paris. Their goal, which they fulfilled, was to improve their artistic skill in order to return and paint beautiful murals in the Salt Lake Temple. Fairbanks wrote weekly to his family during his two-year stint in Paris, providing a record of the experience. Six letters are included in this article. They tell of his reaction to news of President Wilford Woodruff's Manifesto ending polygamy, describe the program of study at the Academie Julian, and express hope for his own progress in …

Conductor, Lon R. Young

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Bible: The Story Of The King James Version, 1611-2011; Begat: The Story Of The King James Bible And The English Language, Gordon Campbell, David Crystal, Brandie R. Siegfried

BYU Studies

GORDON CAMPBELL. Bible: The Story of the King James Version, 1611-2011. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010

DAVID CRYSTAL. Begat: The Story of the King James Bible and the English Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010

We are celebrating the four hundredth anniversary of the first publication of the King James Version of the Bible, and Oxford University Press has published several books in support of that commemoration. I review two such here, both of which are intended for a general readership, well worth reading on a quiet Sunday afternoon. Each book provides a historical framework for understanding the continued influence …

Almost Christian: What The Faith Of Our Teenagers Is Telling The American Church, Cardell K. Jacobson, Linda C. Dean

BYU Studies

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were pleased about the results of a landmark study of the religiosity of the nation's youth, called the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR). Conducted from 2003 to 2005 by Christian Smith and others, the study was first reported in Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, published by Oxford University Press in 2005. (To read the book review of Soul Searching, see BYU Studies 45, no. 2 [2006]: 167-172.)

The current book, Almost Christian, by Linda Creasy Dean, is a follow-up from the same study. …

Nauvoo Polygamy: " . . But We Called It Celestial Marriage", Thomas G. Alexander

BYU Studies

Although focusing on the introduction of plural marriage by Joseph Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy is also an analysis of the background of pre-Mormon polygamy, a consideration of the expansion of the institution, and the testimony of those who entered it. Significantly, it is the first attempt since Todd Compton's In Sacred Loneliness to provide a critical list and analysis of the women whom Joseph married. It is not, however, an attempt to provide a statistical analysis of plural marriage, and its consideration of the operation of plural family life is much shorter than we find in the works of Kathryn Daynes …

Mormons As Citizens Of A Communist State: A Documentary History Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints In East Germany, 1945–1990, Raymond Kuehne, Norma S. Davis

BYU Studies

From 2002 to 2004, Kuehne served a second mission with his wife in the Freiberg Germany Temple. There he met Henry Burkhardt, who had served as a counselor in the North German Mission presidency for some thirty-eight years and was the first president of the Freiberg Temple. When Kuehne heard Burkhardt speak to the temple workers concerning the history behind the building of the temple, he wanted to read more on the subject. He was told that, although this temple was the only one built in a Communist country, very little had been published on the subject. Burkhardt gave Kuehne …

American Grace: How Religion Divides And Unites Us, James W. Phillips, Robert D. Putnam, David E. Campbell, Shaylyn R. Garrett

BYU Studies

American Grace is the next pivotal work within the social scientific study of religion that LDS readers should find interesting on many levels, including the extensive attention it gives to Mormonism. In this work, Robert Putnam (author of the national bestseller Bowling Alone) teams up with David Campbell (editor of A Matter of Faith: Religion in the 2004 Presidential Election) and field researcher Shayln Romney Garrett to examine the many facets of contemporary American religious pluralism. The authors use data from the nationally representative 2006 and 2007 waves of the Faith Matters survey, in addition to other surveys, …

Think Independently: How To Think In This World But Not Think With It, James T. Summerhays, Chauncey C. Riddle

BYU Studies

Chauncey C. Riddle, emeritus professor of philosophy at Brigham Young University, has placed an attractive capstone on his professional life with a slim and readable volume that will be of great interest to any Latter-day Saint with a strong philosophical bent. Even those without such a bent will find the book understandable and thought-provoking.

Riddle received his MA and PhD from Columbia University, and adds to his education four decades of experience as a philosophy professor. Each thought in Think Independently is carefully crafted; readers will likely have the sense that behind every sentence is a lifetime of examining, weighing, …

The Educational Philosophy Of Eliza R. Snow, Jolene Merica

BYU Studies

Although in her early life Eliza R. Snow (1804-1887) was a school teacher, she gained prominence in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints not as a teacher but as a poet and as general president of the women's organization, the Relief Society. Consequently, her educational thinking and practice remain largely unexplored facets of her contributions to her nineteenth-century Mormon community. But Snow's ideas on education appear repeatedly in her poetry and in her speeches and other writings. The author explores Snow's educational ideas as they appear in four of her poems. "Genius Emancipated" portrays the fruitful effects of …

The Book Of Mormon: The Earliest Text, Robert L. Maxwell, Royal Skousen

BYU Studies

The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text begins with a twenty-two-page introduction by Grant Hardy about the nature and coming forth of the Book of Mormon, together with an inviting call for the further study of that book within LDS, American, and world contexts; and also with a seventeen-page editor's preface by Skousen, describing the nature of the Book of Mormon text and the goals and typographical conventions of this "Yale Edition." The bulk of the book (1-738) consists of a presentation of the complete text of the Book of Mormon itself, a stemma showing the genealogy of the various …

Last Rites And The Dynamics Of Mormon Liturgy, Jonathan A. Stapley

BYU Studies

Jonathan Stapley tells the history of changes in death and burial practices by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a significant departure from Protestant American culture, early Mormons could administer deathbed rituals of placing their hands on the dying, anointing them with oil, and dedicating them to God. In 1922, Church leaders instructed against that practice, but it continues as a folk tradition. Early Mormons washed a deceased family member's body and clothed it and wrapped it in a white shroud; later, bodies were dressed either in good clothing or temple ceremonial clothing by Relief …

"Securing" The Prophet's Copyright In The Book Of Mormon: Historical And Legal Context For The So-Called Canadian Copyright Revelation, Stephen K. Ehat

BYU Studies

The 2009 publication of the Manuscript Revelation Books as part of the Joseph Smith Papers makes available, for the first time, the text of a revelation received in 1829 or 1830 by the Prophet Joseph Smith on securing the copyright of the Book of Mormon in all the world and selling a copyright for its publication in the four then-existing provinces of Canada. This revelation, commonly referred to as the Canadian copyright revelation, designated four of Joseph's associates to travel to Kingston, Upper Canada, to sell a copyright of the Book of Mormon. A group did travel to Kingston, but …

"Entered At Stationers' Hall": The British Copyright Registrations For The Book Of Mormon In 1841 And The Doctrine And Covenants In 1845, Edward L. Carter

BYU Studies

On April 16, 1840, eight members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints met in Preston, England. One of the topics they discussed was the need to secure copyright protection for the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants in England. The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles recognized the key to gaining copyright protection for Latter-day Saint scriptures in Great Britain would be registration at Stationers' Hall in London in accordance with the requirements of the Statute of Anne, Britain's copyright law since 1710. This article explains the legal process …

Full Issue, Byu Studies

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Biography, Lon R. Young

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

"That They May Secure It And Hold It Forever": Bluff's Revival, 1885–1886, David S. Carpenter

BYU Studies

This article is an extract of David S. Carpenter's Jens Nielson: Bishop of Bluff (BYU Studies, 2011). Home to only a couple of hundred people in 2011, Bluff is located in southeast Utah. The experiences of the hardy pioneers in this hostile and forbidding region have become legendary among Latter-day Saints. This extract tells the story of Mormon settlers in Bluff in 1884: their struggles over joint ventures, water, cattle grazing, and whether to maintain the settlement at all.

Should I Keep Trying To Work It Out? Sacred And Secular Perspectives On The Crossroads Of Divorce, Tamara A. Fackrell, Alan J. Hawkins

BYU Studies

While the divorce rate for faithful members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is much lower than the average in the United States, still many Latter-day Saints face difficult decisions regarding serious problems in their marriages at one time or another. This article aims to help couples who find themselves at a crossroads, pondering whether their marriages can be repaired or would best be ended. Alan J. Hawkins, a professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University, and Tamara A. Fackrell, an attorney and PhD candidate in marriage, family, and human development at Brigham …

Hourglass, Dixie L. Partridge

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.