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Mormon Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Review Of Natural Born Seer: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1805–1830, By Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mark Ashurst-Mcgee, Mark L. Staker

Mormon Studies Review

Around the turn of the century, Signature Books planned a series of three volumes that would cover Joseph Smith’s life in detail. Richard S. Van Wagoner was commissioned to write the first volume of the trilogy, treating the period from Smith’s birth to his move to Ohio. Van Wagoner’s Natural Born Seer: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1805– 1830 engages Smith’s family and cultural background, his childhood and formative years, his visionary claims, his translation of the Book of Mormon, and the organization of the Mormon church. Much of the work of Mormon history is done by amateur scholars who contribute …

Review Of What Is Mormonism? A Student’S Introduction, By Patrick Q. Mason; Mormonism: The Basics, By David J. Howlett And John Charles Duffy, Jennifer Graber

Mormon Studies Review

Two introductory texts on Mormonism have much to offer scholars, like myself, who are not specialists in the tradition yet regularly return to it when teaching undergraduate classes in American religions and American history. Mason’s volume, What Is Mormonism? A Student’s Introduction, focuses on the Latter-day Saints and explores the tradition’s historical development, global expansion, daily practice, and function as a response to existential problems. Howlett and Duffy’s book, Mormonism: The Basics, surveys the Latter-day Saints, the Reorganized Latter Day Saints (RLDS, now Community of Christ),

and fundamentalist groups with an emphasis on Mormon history, relations with non-Mormons, ritual life, …

Wise Or Foolish: Women In Mormon Biblical Narrative Art, Jennifer Champoux

BYU Studies

Visual imagery is an inescapable element of religion. Even those groups that generally avoid figural imagery, such as those in Judaism and Islam, have visual objects with religious significance.1 In fact, as David Morgan, professor of religious studies and art history at Duke University, has argued, it is often the religions that avoid figurative imagery that end up with the richest material culture.2 To some extent, this is true for Mormonism. Although Mormons believe art can beautify a space, visual art is not tied to actual ritual practice. Chapels, for example, where the sacrament ordinance is performed, are built with …

End Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Martin Harris Comes To Utah, 1870, Susan Easton Black, Larry C. Porter

BYU Studies

[The following is an excerpt from chapter 14 of the new biography Martin Harris: Uncompromising Witness of the Book of Mormon by Susan Easton Black and Larry C. Porter. This biography, published by BYU Studies, will be available in October 2018. For further information, see the advertisement on page 208 of this issue.]

Timing The Translation Of The Book Of Mormon: "Days [And Hours] Never To Be Forgotten", John W. Welch

BYU Studies

This paper aims to stimulate specific thinking about the intense and complex events during which the Book of Mormon was translated in 1829. Encouraged initially by Elder Neal A. Maxwell, and building on my chapter in the second edition of Opening the Heavens, this article strives to be as precise as possible about the timing of the events and progress of the Book of Mormon translation during the months and days it took place. In 1834, Oliver Cowdery wrote, “These were days never to be forgotten—to sit under the sound of a voice dictated by the inspiration of heaven, …

The Power Of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy And Cosmology, Dan Belnap

BYU Studies

The Power of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy and Cosmology By Jonathan A. Stapley

New York: Oxford University Press, 2018

Voice Of The Saints In Taiwan, Richard B. Stamps

BYU Studies

Voice of the Saints in Taiwan By Po Nien (Felipe) Chou and Mei Wah Sin (Petra) Chou

Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2017

Pioneer Women Of Arizona, Hannah Charlesworth

BYU Studies

Pioneer Women of Arizona, by Roberta Flake Clayton, Catherine H. Ellis, and David F. Boone, 2d ed. (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017)

Abinadi: He Came Among Them In Disguise, Neal Rappleye

BYU Studies

Abinadi: He Came among Them in Disguise, edited by Shon D. Hopkin (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2018)

Photographs Of The Dedication Of Pioneer Square In Salt Lake City, July 25, 1898, Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Ronald L. Fox

BYU Studies

In July 1898, the Spanish-American War was raging and the people of the United States were remembering the Maine, a US ship that sank after an explosion in the Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898. Nevertheless, the upcoming fifty-first anniversary of the 1847 arrival of the Mormon pioneers in Utah was on the minds of Salt Lake City officials. This anniversary was celebrated off and on beginning in 1849; in the 1897 jubilee year, just a year earlier, the community had “pulled out all the stops.” As city officials considered what might be done in 1898, they focused their attention …

True And Faithful: Joseph Fielding Smith As Mormon Historian And Theologian, Reid L. Neilson, Scott D. Marianno

BYU Studies

Each year hundreds of thousands of visitors to Salt Lake City’s Temple Square make their way to the Church History Museum of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While many of the museum’s exhibits have been rotated over the past three decades, the “Presidents of the Church” gallery, made of individual displays for each previous Church president, is a longstanding exhibit that has generally been refreshed only after a Mormon prophet has died and his artifacts have been added to the chronological display cases. The current museum exhibit commemorating President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972) hangs on the east …

Approaching Completion: The Book Of Mormon Critical Text Project: A Review Of Royal Skousen's Analysis Of Textual Variants Of The Book Of Mormon And The History Of The Text Of The Book Of Mormon: Grammatical Variation, Grant Hardy

BYU Studies

Analysis of Textual Variants

Let Us Reason Together: Essays In Honor Of The Life's Work Of Robert L. Millet, Austin A. Tracy

BYU Studies

J. Spencer Fluhman and Brent L. Top, eds., Let Us Reason Together: Essays in Honor of the Life’s Work of Robert L. Millet (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2016)

Full Issue

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

The Memory Of The Temple And The Making Of The Rabbis, Avram R. Shannon

BYU Studies

Naftali S. Cohn. The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.

"Ye Are No More Strangers And Foreigners": Theological And Economic Perspectives On The Lds Church And Immigration, Walker A. Wright

BYU Studies

While always a heated topic, immigration has once again taken center stage in political discourse across multiple countries in recent years. The controversial debate surrounding the Syrian refugee crisis was especially critical to the 2016 United States presidential election. In response to the crisis, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced its “I Was a Stranger” relief effort, encouraging members—and the women in particular—to seek out and assist refugees in their local communities. With this contentious political climate in mind, this paper will review the Church’s “I Was a Stranger” initiative as well as its position on immigration. …

The Council Of Fifty: What The Records Reveal About Mormon History, Alison Palmer

BYU Studies

Matthew J. Grow and R. Eric Smith, eds., The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal about Mormon History (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017)

The Development Of The Council On The Disposition Of The Tithes, David W. Smith

BYU Studies

On December 1, 2009, Presiding Bishop H. David Burton spoke to Brigham Young University students about the current opportunities and pressing challenges they would face throughout the world. He observed, “We all have to determine for ourselves if we—in mixed turbulent times like we are currently in—perceive the glass of water to be half full or half empty. I’m a half-full sort of guy. I propose that we are, indeed, living in the best of times.” He then shared one reason he was so full of optimism:

Let me give you a little perspective. Do you know what important event …

Photographs Of The Interior Of The Salt Lake Tabernacle, December 1905, Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Ronald L. Fox

BYU Studies

The United States government’s war on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to a sudden end with the issuance of the Manifesto in 1890. The cessation of the conflict produced a period of goodwill between Latter-day Saints and their neighbors in Utah and with politicians in Washington, D.C. However, the fragile truce began to show cracks in 1896 when Utah achieved statehood, and by 1900, with the election of B. H. Roberts to the U.S. Congress, the final vestiges of the armistice had all but disappeared. Four years later, in 1904, with the election of LDS Apostle …

Lengthening Our Stride: Globalization Of The Church, Jacob Rennaker

BYU Studies

Reid L. Nielson and Wayne D. Crosby, eds., Lengthening Our Stride: Globalization of the Church (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2018)

Canadian Mormons: History Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints In Canada, Brian Champion

BYU Studies

Roy A. Prete and Carma T. Prete, eds., Canadian Mormons: History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Canada (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017)

To Be Learned Is Good: Essays On Faith And Scholarship In Honor Of Richard Lyman Bushman, Hannah Charlesworth

BYU Studies

J. Spencer Fluhman, Kathleen Flake, and Jed Woodworth, eds., To Be Learned Is Good: Essays on Faith and Scholarship in Honor of Richard Lyman Bushman (Provo, Utah: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University, 2017)

A Modest Homestead: Life In Small Adobe Homes In Salt Lake City, 1850-1897, Veronica Anderson

BYU Studies

J. Spencer Fluhman, Kathleen Flake, and Jed Woodworth, eds., To Be Learned Is Good: Essays on Faith and Scholarship in Honor of Richard Lyman Bushman (Provo, Utah: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University, 2017)

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)

Full Issue

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

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)

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.

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)