Digital Commons Network^™

The Worldwide Expansion Of Seminaries To English Speaking Countries From 1967 - 1970, Jon E. Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the initial expansion of the seminary program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints beyond North America from 1967 – 1970. During these years, seminary expanded to Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. William E. Berrett, as the administrator of the seminary and institute program, is involved in each phase of the program's expansion and therefore acts as a constant influence throughout the study. This study explores the conceiving and developing of the home study seminary program as well as the pilot program coordinated by Don Bond in the Midwestern United States. The efforts of …

"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 …

Front Matter, Religious Educator

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

The Sermon On The Mount In The Light Of The Temple, Alan Taylor Farnes, John W. Welch

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

The Jerusalem Conference: The First Council Of The Christian Church, Frank F. Judd Jr.

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

End Matter, Religious Educator

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Vol. 12 No. 1 Religious Educator, Religious Educator

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Editor's Note: A Reason For The Hope, Robert L. Millet

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

A 17-Year Longitudinal Study Of Religion And Mental Health In A Mormon Sample, Jeremy D. Bartz, P. Scott Richards, Timothy B. Smith, Lane Fischer

Faculty Publications

In 1984, 1987, and 2001, data were collected on a religiously devout group of college students (N=53) in an effort to better understand the process of religious development and the relationship between religiosity and mental health. This study analyzes those data by examining the relationship between devoutness and psychopathology over time, the correlations between intrinsic religiosity and indices of psychopathology, the stability of religious motivations over the course of adulthood, and the stability of two different religious development styles that were identified in 1984. This study found that (1) these religiously devout individuals have consistently fallen within the normal range …

"A Considered Conversion": The Conscious Choice To Accept Christianity By The Populace Of Iceland And Greenland In The Era Of Scandinavian Conversion, Robert A. Burt

Theses and Dissertations

A Considered Conversion: The Conscious Choice to Accept Christianity by the Populace of Iceland and Greenland in the Era of Scandinavian Conversion Robert A. Burt Department of History, BYU Master of Arts Most studies of the Christianization of Scandinavia attribute the phenomenon to the influence of powerful kings. However, many times the conversion experiences of Iceland and Greenland are either ignored, or tied to the influence of these distant kings. This thesis unites sociological ideas relating to conversion along social and familial lines, ideas introduced by Roger Stark and Rodney Finke, with historical details of Icelandic and Greenland family genealogies …

Latter-Day Saint Poetry And Songs Of The Utah War, Kenneth L. Alford Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

During the Utah War (1857–58), Latter‐day Saints wrote and published a large number of poems and song expressing their loyalty to the Church, anger at the federal government, and defiance of the United States soldiers who were marching toward Utah Territory. This article places those poems and stories in context and shares many of them.

A New Resource On The Book Of Moses, Brian M. Hauglid

Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011

Review of Jeffrey M. Bradshaw. In God's Image and Likeness: Ancient and Modern Perspectives on the Book of Moses.

Examining A Misapplication Of Nearest Shrucnken Centroid Classification To Investigate Book Of Mormon Authorship, Paul J. Fields, G. Bruce Schaalje, Matthew Roper

Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011

Review of Matthew L. Jockers, Daniela M. Witten, and Craig S. Criddle. “Reassessing authorship of the Book of Mormon using delta and nearest shrunken centroid classification.”

Out Of Obscurity: The Story Of Nibley's “Beyond Politics”, Louis Midgley, Shirley S. Ricks

Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011

No abstract provided.

Beyond Politics, Hugh Nibley

Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011

No abstract provided.

Vol. 23 Num. 1 The Farms Review, Mormon Studies Review

Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011

No abstract provided.

Nibley And The Environment, Terry B. Ball

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

Hugh Nibley cared deeply about creation and was passionate about our stewardship over the earth. His arguments in defense of the environment were informed by the disciplines he knew best: history, philosophy, and theology. From his study, research, and reasoning, Nibley drew several principles that seem to have directed his thoughts and crafted his sense of environmental stewardship. Four of these principles are discussed in this paper: (1) humankind has a divine mandate to properly care for creation; (2) humankind’s spiritual health and environmental heath are linked; (3) creation obeys, reverences, and provides for humankind, as humankind righteously cares for …

An Egyptian Context For The Sacrifice Of Abraham, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

The plausibility of the attempted offering of Abraham by a priest of pharaoh and the existence of human sacrifice in ancient Egypt have been questioned and debated. This paper presents strong evidence that ritual slaying did exist among ancient Egyptians, with a particular focus on its existence in the Middle Kingdom. It details three individual evidences of human sacrifice found in ancient Egypt. Four different aspects of the attempted offering of Abraham are compared to these Egyptian evidences to illustrate how the story of Abraham fits with the picture of ritual slaying in Middle Kingdom Egypt.

A Text-Critical Comparison Of The King James New Testament With Certain Modern Translations, Lincoln H. Blumell

Studies in the Bible and Antiquity

This article renders a text-critical comparison of the King James New Testament and select modern translations of the New Testament. Specifically, it surveys twenty-two passages in the King James New Testament that have been omitted in most modern translations. The article then clarifies and explains why these verses have been omitted and asks whether such omissions ought to be accepted. While this study demonstrates that in most cases the readings in the King James Version are inferior in a text-critical sense and that they likely represent interpolations into the biblical text, there are a few cases where the King James …

On Christ And Covenants: An Lds Reading Of Isaiah's Prophetic Call, David E. Bokovoy

Studies in the Bible and Antiquity

This article illustrates that for Latter-day Saints, the Book of Mormon can function as an interpretive guide to Isaiah’s writings. The analysis explores some ways in which the Book of Mormon can aid in identifying textual meaning in the story of Isaiah’s prophetic commission, especially on the topic of Christ and covenants. Lehi’s call narrative in the Book of Mormon shares much in common with Isaiah 6. Based on analogy with Lehi’s comparable dream, LDS readers can connect the seraph that interacts personally with Isaiah to Jesus Christ—that is, the Being with great luster who descends out of heaven to …

“A Nation Now Extinct,” American Indian Origin Theories As Of 1820: Samuel L. Mitchill, Martin Harris, And The New York Theory, Richard E. Bennett

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

This paper probes the theories of the origin of the American Indian up to the time of the translation and publication of the Book of Mormon. It covers some three hundred years of development, looking at many different theories, including the predominant theory of the lost tribes of Israel, which was in decline among most leading scientific observers in the early nineteenth century. The paper covers new ground in showing that Professor Samuel L. Mitchill, formerly of Columbia College, had concluded that two main groups of people once dominated the Americas—the Tartars of northern Asia and the Australasians of the …

The Book Of Mormon: Passport To Discipleship, Marilyn Arnold

Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011

This Annual Neal A. Maxwell Institute Lecture was originally given on 10 March 2011 at Brigham Young University.

Irish Clergy And The Deist Controversy: Two Episodes In The Early British Enlightenment, Scott Breuninger

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment

D uring the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, an important question facing Anglican divines was the relationship between reason and religion. Initiated by the publication of John Toland's Christianity Not Mysterious (1696), the controversy concerning deism raged across both sides of the Irish Sea and called into question the sanctity of revealed religion, forcing believers to articulate more "rational" defenses of Christianity. Closely associated with the problematic origins of the "English Enlightenment;' Toland's provocative tract valorized reason in matters of religion and drew heavily upon the ideas of natural philosophy. Although viciously attacked for its heretical tenets, Toland's position …

The Four Discourses Of Mormonism, Joseph M. Spencer

BYU Studies

Alain Badiou, an important French philosopher, used a theoretical model of discourses to analyze the epistles of Saint Paul. Joseph Spencer applies Badiou's reading of Paul to Mormonism to answer the question, "What does it mean to be Mormon?"

Badiou viewed Greek and Jewish thought as a closed circle—Hellenistic discourse as a totalizing universalism, and Jewish discourse as an exception to Greek universalism based on "the prophetic sign, the miracle, [and] election." Paul's apostolic discourse broke free from this closed circle, for he was concerned with faith, or fidelity, to a particular event, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Spencer identifies …

By What Authority? The Vital Questions Of Religious Authority In Christianity, Alonzo L. Gaskill, Robert L. Millet

BYU Studies

It appears that I have stumbled upon the answer to Juliet's timeless question, "What's in a name?" (Romeo and Juliet, act 2, scene 2). While a rose, by any other name, may have smelled as sweet to Juliet, the name of a book can make a significant difference for a reader.

By What Authority? is a compilation of papers delivered at a 2006 Brigham Young University conference on religious authority. The subtitle of the book (The Vital Questions of Religious Authority in Christianity) and the preface (authored by Robert L. Millet) imply that the text is …

Bountiful Harvest: Essays In Honor Of S. Kent Brown, Andrew C. Skinner, D. Morgan Davis, Carl Griffin

Maxwell Institute Publications

Over the course of his forty-year career, S. Kent Brown, professor of religious studies, has taught and inspired thousands of students at Brigham Young University and has produced over one hundred publications and several films in the fields of early Christian, Near Eastern, and Mormon studies. Twenty-four scholars, including Leslie S. B. MacCoull, Robert Millett, and Jacob Neusner, have contributed articles to this volume in honor of Brown. Essay topics include archaeology, biblical studies, Coptic studies, early Christian studies, Islamic studies, Jewish studies, Mormon studies, and Quran studies. In addition to these pieces, the book includes a bibliography of works …

Full Issue, Byu Studies

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

"A Mother There": A Survey Of Historical Teachings About Mother In Heaven, David L. Paulsen, Martin Pulido

BYU Studies

Since the 1840s, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) have taught that in addition to a Father in Heaven, we have a Mother in Heaven. This cherished doctrine has been an important, although relatively obscure, part of the Latter-day Saint understanding of the premortal origins and divine nature of humankind. The authors, a professor and a student of philosophy at Brigham Young University, present historical statements by Mormon leaders about Mother in Heaven. Contrary to criticism in some quarters, Church leaders have not relegated this deity to a confined role. Statements from the late 1840s …

Temple Elements In Ancient Religious Communities, Brent J. Schmidt

BYU Studies

The idea of Zion or utopia has fascinated the human race since ancient times. This topic has special meaning to Mormons, since latter-day scripture revealed to Joseph Smith is replete with references to building Zion. What, then, can Latter-day Saints learn from attempts by other groups? One thing we learn, writes Brent Schmidt, is that certain characteristics appeared in some successful ancient communities, characteristics that invoke the temple as known in the Bible and in Latter-day Saint use.

Temple teachings were known and widely dispersed throughout antiquity as a means of forming good communities within religious groups. Indeed, temple themes …

Days Never To Be Forgotten: Oliver Cowdery, Rachel Ozanne, Alexander L. Baugh

BYU Studies

Days Never to Be Forgotten presents the fruits of the 2006 BYU Church History Symposium on the life and work of Oliver Cowdery in honor of the two hundredth anniversary of his birth. Eleven scholars of Mormon history contributed essays about various aspects of Cowdery's life and involvement in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ultimately, the contributors have two goals: to honor Cowdery's memory and to inform believers who may not be aware of Cowdery's importance in the founding of the Church.

This book gives a good sense of Cowdery's extensive presence and activities in the earliest …