Religious Education Commons^™

Joseph Smith Translating Genesis, Kent P. Jackson

BYU Studies

Joseph Smith’s revision of the Bible was one of his signature projects as founder and prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (originally called the Church of Christ). He began it sometime in June 1830, just three months after the first copies of the Book of Mormon came out of the bindery of the Howard and Grandin Company in Palmyra, New York. The Bible project lasted three years, until July 1833, when he dictated the last pages and declared the work finished. The venture was formidable, eventually producing seven manuscripts totaling 446 pages. Two of those manuscripts …

"We Believe The Hand Of The Lord Is In It": Memories Of Divine Intervention In The Zion's Camp Expedition, Matthew C. Godfrey

BYU Studies

On February 23, 1834, Joseph Smith attended a high council meeting in Kirtland, Ohio, and heard Lyman Wight and Parley P. Pratt explain how over a thousand members of the Church of Christ—now The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—had been violently ejected from their homes in Jackson County, Missouri. The Saints had been forced to leave the county—which had been previously identified by revelation as Zion—by irate Missouri citizens who saw Church members and their beliefs as a political and ideological threat. Hearing this report, Smith arose from his seat and declared “that he was going to Zion …

Animals In The Book Of Mormon: Challenges And Perspectives, Wade E. Miller, Matthew Roper

BYU Studies

When the Book of Mormon first appeared, skeptics said that references to horses, asses, elephants, and other animals (such as swine and cows) were out of place. During the first century after its publication, Book of Mormon critics argued that such animals never existed anywhere in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and western Europeans in the late fifteenth century. In time, however, scientific discoveries showed that species of horses, asses, elephants, and other animals had once been present in North America, although dating to an earlier period than that covered in the Book of Mormon. Encouraged by such …

Photographs Of The Fourteen Apostles Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, September And October 1898, Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Ronald L. Fox

BYU Studies

Ninety-one-year-old Wilford Woodruff, fourth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died unexpectedly at 6:40 a.m. on Saturday morning, September 2, 1898, during a visit to San Francisco, California. Woodruff’s well-attended funeral was held six days later, at 10 a.m. on Thursday, September 8, 1898, at the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah. Sixty-six-year-old George Teasdale, one of the Church’s fourteen Apostles, reported, “Weather sunshine and fair Arose early and . . . went to Woodruff villa and saw the body of our beloved President laying in state. . . . saw the body borne into the …

From The Editor, John W. Welch

BYU Studies

A nephew recently asked me, “Why do we care about the Old Testament? Is it even relevant today?” After catching my breath, I got wondering, how many others might share this feeling as the Church Sunday School curriculum returns in 2018 to the study of the Old Testament? And for those who feel that way, might some of the intriguing articles published in BYU Studies over the years on Old Testament topics pique their interest? I would definitely hope so.

American Universities And The Birth Of Modern Mormonism, 1867-1940, Heather M. Seferovich

BYU Studies

Thomas W. Simpson. American Universities and the Birth of Modern Mormonism, 1867-1940.

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016.

The Mormon Missionary: Who Is That Knocking At My Door?, Tim Zeidner

BYU Studies

Robert L. Lively Jr. The Mormon Missionary: Who IS That Knocking at My Door?

Wilton, Maine: By the Author, 2015.

Full Issue

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Mormons In The Piazza: History Of The Latter-Day Saints In Italy, Mauro Properzi

BYU Studies

James A. Toronto, Eric R. Dursteler, and Michael W. Homer. Mormons in the Piazza: History of the Latter-day Saints in Italy.

Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017.

An Edward Martin Photograph Of The Construction Of The Great Tabernacle, Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Ronald L. Fox

BYU Studies

October 2017 marks the 150th anniversary of the first general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held in the Salt Lake City Tabernacle. On October 6, 1867, the first day of the conference, Brigham Young prayed,

O God our Heavenly Father, who dwells in the heavens, in the name of thy Son Jesus Christ we come before thee at this time to worship thee on this occasion. . . .

We pray thee in the name of Jesus to bless this congregation who have assembled within the walls of this house for the first time to …

Catholic And Mormon: A Theological Conversation, Elliott D. Wise

BYU Studies

Stephen H. Webb and Alonzo L. Gaskill. Catholic and Mormon: A Theological Conversation.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Aviophobia, Kim Webb Reid

BYU Studies

The January day SkyWest Flight 1834 smashed into a private two-seater plane midair over my elementary school, I was at recess. Some of us snatched at clothes drifting down from the sky because we thought they should be handed over to the school’s lost and found. We didn’t know yet of all the lost things that could never be returned: a jagged wing blocking my friend’s front door; a pilot’s black leather seat perched on my neighbor’s roof; the lives of ten passengers, captains, and crew. Grown-ups spoke in whispers about the carnage found in backyards and closed roads and …

Reading Competency In The Book Of Mormon: Abish And Other Model Readers, Michael J. Call

BYU Studies

In chapter 19 of the book of Alma, we are introduced to Abish, described in the narrative as one of the “Lamanitish women” serving in King Lamoni’s court (Alma 19:16). Mormon’s account of her experience on the day of the king’s conversion is compelling for many reasons, but I would like to explore here how Abish and other important figures in the text function as model readers, exhibiting the traits and competencies that the Book of Mormon authors expected the future reader of their text to bring to the reading act. In fact, a careful analysis of important reading acts …

Let Your Hearts And Minds Expand: Reflections On Faith, Reason, Charity, And Beauty, Roger Terry

BYU Studies

Let Your Hearts and Minds Expand: Reflections on Faith, Reason, Charity, and Beauty, by Thomas F. Rogers (Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, 2016)

Mormonism And The Making Of A British Zion, Ronald E. Bartholomew

BYU Studies

Matthew Lyman Rasmussen. Mormonism and the Making of a British Zion.

Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2016.

The Mormon Church And Blacks: A Documentary History, Stephanie Fudge

BYU Studies

The Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History, edited by Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2015)

The Lord Is One, Margaret Barker

BYU Studies

This is a lightly edited transcript of a lecture delivered by Old Testament scholar Margaret Barker at Brigham Young University on November 9, 2016. Following the lecture, responses were given by Andrew C. Skinner, David J. Larsen, and Daniel C. Peterson. Edited transcripts of the responses follow in this issue of BYU Studies Quarterly.

An Improvisation On Margaret Baker's "The Lord Is One", Daniel C. Peterson

BYU Studies

It’s a privilege to be here, and I want to thank Dr. Barker for a really, really interesting, dense, and rich paper. What I’m going to do is not so much add to it or comment on it as do an improvisation based upon it. The thought that came to my mind as I was reading it—and as I was thinking about it just now as she was reading it—was that, first of all, Latter-day Saints are naturally going to be very sympathetic to an attempt to view the temple as a model of the universe, something of a scale-model …

Goddess Looking Up, Sowing Mercy, Tyler Chadwick

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.