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Full Issue

BYU Studies

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BYU Studies

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From The Editor, John W. Welch

BYU Studies

As I scan the contents of this new issue of BYU Studies Quarterly, I am gratified by the hard work of the many authors, reviewers, editors, and assistants that has made this latest installment possible. I am also excited to send this issue to you, our readers, all around the world.

Seer Stones, Salamanders, And Early Mormon "Folk Magic" In The Light Of Folklore Studies And Bible Scholarship, Eric A. Eliason

BYU Studies

The 2015 publication of an Ensign article on, and especially photos of, one of Joseph Smith’s seer stones still owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints caused quite a sensation in the blogosphere. Many responses focused on the “weirdness” of the stone and its use, the ostensibly alien nature of this odd relic from the past, so out of place in modern religion, and posited it as a troubling problem in need of explanation. Mormon studies as a discipline has struggled to make sense of seer stones too. These responses are understandable, considering how often communities tend …

Motives And The Path To Perfection, Lindon J. Robison, David R. Just

BYU Studies

Motives and the Desires of Our Hearts

The Mormon Missionary: Who Is That Knocking At My Door?, Robert L. Lively Jr.

BYU Studies

Robert L. Lively Jr. is dean emeritus at the University of Maine at Farmington and holds a master’s degree from Yale University Divinity School and a doctor of philosophy degree from the University of Oxford. The following are excerpts from his 2015 book The Mormon Missionary: Who Is That Knocking at My Door?, conceived after inviting missionaries to visit his religion classes and realizing that a non-Mormon had never written a book that tells the story of LDS missionaries. His research for this book involved over 275 interviews with past, present, and future missionaries, including individuals who served in every …

On Fear, Food, And Flight, Elizabeth Brady

BYU Studies

I’m having trouble eating.

Becoming Divine: An Introduction To Deification In Western Culture, Daniel C. Peterson

BYU Studies

M. David Litwa. Becoming Divine: An Introduction to Deification in Western Culture.

Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2013.

Joseph Smith's Polygamy: Toward A Better Understanding, M. Scott Bradshaw

BYU Studies

Brian C. Hales and Laura H. Hales. Joseph Smith's Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding.

Draper, Utah: Greg Kofford Books, 2015.

Religion Of A Different Color: Race And The Mormon Struggle For Whiteness; For The Cause Of Righteousness: A Global History Of Blacks And Mormonism, 1830-2013, Patrick Q. Mason

BYU Studies

W. Paul Reeve. Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Russell W. Stevenson. For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830-2013.

Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2014.

The First Vision: A Harmonization Of 10 Accounts From The Sacred Grove, Kimball Gardner

BYU Studies

The First Vision: A Harmonization of 10 Accounts from the Sacred Grove by Matthew B. Christensen (Springville, Utah: Cedar Fort, 2014)

The Prophet And The Reformer: The Letters Of Brigham Young And Thomas L. Kane, Alexsandra Foster

BYU Studies

The Prophet and the Reformer: The Letters of Brigham Young and Thomas L. Kane, edited by Matthew J. Grow and Ronald W. Walker (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015)

Full Issue

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

From The Editor, John W. Welch

BYU Studies

True to the long-standing character of BYU Studies, this issue contains something exciting and enriching for just about everyone. Looking over this latest issue, I am grateful for the academic quality and faithful integrity of its contents and for the authors who have worked hard to bring this information to you.

Road To Martyrdom: Joseph Smith's Last Legal Cases, Joseph I. Bentley

BYU Studies

In 1842, Joseph Smith looked back on the events of his life and said, “Deep water is what I am wont to swim in” (D&C 127:2). This was especially true of his experiences with the law. Starting with his first exposure to the judicial system in 1819, at age thirteen, he spent much of his next twenty-five years of life entangled with legal concerns. The Joseph Smith Papers Project team now can count about 220 cases involving Joseph as plaintiff, defendant, witness, or judge. Of those, approximately fifty were criminal cases capable of taking away his liberty, his resources, or, …

By Simple Yet Propitious Means: The Art Of Jorge Cocco Santangelo, Herman Du Toit

BYU Studies

Inspired devotional art always strives for essential meaning, communicating across the widest range of cultural boundaries. This kind of art has always resisted the vanities of idiosyncratic expression, striving instead to subordinate the artist’s personal virtuosity to the sacral nature of its subject matter. There have been few artists of repute who have achieved this fine balance in their work. Jorge Cocco Santangelo, or “Cocco” as he is known, is one such artist who has devoted his professional career to the creation of art as an expression of his testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. His work recently …

Visualizing Apostolic Succession, Meilan Jin, Iliesa S. K. Delai, Geoffrey M. Draper

BYU Studies

For years, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has published pictures and other illustrative diagrams to communicate its message. For example, the children's book Book of Mormon Stories includes an illustrative map indicating the possible route of Lehi's family from the Arabian peninsula to the Americas. Seminary students receive bookmarks showing a timeline of peoples and events in the Book of Mormon. More recently, the Church has published a series of "information graphics" (known more commonly as infographics) on its website. Infographics in a visually pleasing manner. The Church's infographics cover a range of topics such as …

Answering For His Order: Alma's Clash With The Nehors, Matthew Scott Stenson

BYU Studies

From the beginning, Lehite culture was richly oral and often divided over the question of authority (see Alma 1–2, 8–14, 30). On one side of the conflict stood the prophets, and on the other side stood “popular” opportunistic figures, wise in their own eyes, who resemble in a general way classical sophists (Alma 1:3; see 2 Ne. 9:28). The classical sophists, some of whom were philosophic pretenders, sought to subvert on occasion the moral authority and epistemological methods of the actual philosophers. In contrast, the Nephite “sophists” (an encompassing term for our purposes that describes a certain kind of proud, …

"To Dress It And To Keep It": Toward A Mormon Theology Of Work, Walker A. Wright

BYU Studies

In the controversial film Monty Python’s Life of Brian, the protagonist, Brian, finds himself in the market square while being pursued by Roman centurions. In the speakers’ corner of the market, three different prophets are shown attempting to gain an audience with tales of Armageddon. One dust-covered wild man shrieks about “the beast . . . huge and black, and the eyes thereof red with the blood of living creatures, and the whore of Babylon shall ride forth on a three-headed serpent.” Next to him, garbed in red, a more refined preacher boldly pronounces that “the demon shall bear a …