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Procedural Violations In The Trial Of The Woman Taken In Adultery, Steven T. Densley Jr.

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

The story in John 8 of the woman taken in adultery is sometimes used to argue that Jesus was lenient toward sin and that we should be too. However, when placed in its broader context, we can see the story is not one in which Christ shows indifference or contempt for the law, but rather utmost respect for it.

Read This Book: A Review Of The Maxwell Institute Study Edition Of The Book Of Mormon, Brant A. Gardner

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

The Maxwell Institute Study Edition of the Book of Mormon is an important tool for personal and class study of the Book of Mormon. Not only does it provide a better reading experience, it has important features that enhance study.

Feasting On The Book Of Mormon, Stephen O. Smoot

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship has recently published a new study edition of the Book of Mormon. Edited by Grant Hardy, the Maxwell Institute Study Edition (MISE) incorporates important advances in Book of Mormon scholarship from the past few decades while grounding the reader’s experience in the text of the Book of Mormon. The reformatted text presented in the MISE improves the readability of the Book of Mormon, while footnotes, charts, bibliographies, and short explanatory essays highlight the strides made in recent years related to Book of Mormon scholarship. The MISE is a phenomenal edition of the …

Campbellites And Mormonites: Competing Restoration Movements, Roseann Benson

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

: In October 1830, Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer Jr., Parley P. Pratt, and Ziba Peterson were the first missionaries sent to travel through the western states to the Indian territory at the far reaches of the United States. Pratt, a former resident of northeastern Ohio, suggested they stop in the Kirtland, Ohio, area and visit his preacher friend, Sidney Rigdon. It was Rigdon who had earlier convinced Pratt that the restoration of the ancient order that included faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism for the remission of sins, and the promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit could be …

The Record Of My Father, Clifford P. Jones

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

In 1 Nephi 1:16–17, Nephi tells us he is abridging “the record of my father.” The specific words Nephi uses in his writings form several basic but important patterns and features used repeatedly by Nephi and also by other Book of Mormon writers. These patterns and features provide context that appears to indicate that Nephi’s abridgment of Lehi’s record is the third-person account found in 1 Nephi 1:4 through 2:15 and that Nephi’s f irst-person account of his own ministry begins in 1 Nephi 2:16.

Indigenizing Mormonisms, Farina King

Mormon Studies Review

Over generations, scholars have emphasized the binary of “Mormons and Indians” using racialized terms.1 This language and approach often overlooks complex dynamics and locally specific identities of peoples and communities that engaged with Mormonism in North America and Central America.2 Since the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, many Mormons have identified Indigenous peoples of the Americas as “Lamanites,” comparable to how white settler colonizers categorized Natives as “Indians.” Although colonizers, including Mormon settlers, used such terms to shape Indigenous identities and populations, individuals and communities appropriated and adapted them.

Evolution Of The Research On Mormonism In Asia, Pierre Vendassi

Mormon Studies Review

The first Mormon attempts to put down roots in Asia date back to 1851. Today the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as well as other Mormon denominations such as the Community of Christ are officially present in about twenty Asian countries. While many student dissertations and essays as well as testimonial or devotional books have been written on different aspects of Mormonism in Asia, including both the Latter-day Saints and Community of Christ traditions, the allotted space for this paper as well as my own resources prevented me from providing an exhaustive survey. Instead, I chose a few …

Faith Across Cultures: Research On Mormonism In Oceania, Ian Barber

Mormon Studies Review

Oceania describes the largely marine Pacific basin divided (on moot ethnographic grounds) between Polynesia in the east and Melanesia and Micronesia to the southwest and northwest respectively. The continent of Australia lies on Oceania’s southwestern border. T he first Oceanic settlers arrived in the western Pacific tens of thousands of years ago from Asia. Human settlement of the increasingly depauperate and largely noncontinental islands in eastern Melanesia to Polynesia and Micronesia was accomplished within the last five thousand years. The remote Eastern Polynesian islands were colonized largely if not entirely within the last millennium. These vastly different time scales of …

Review: Brent M. Rogers. Unpopular Sovereignty: Mormons And The Federal Management Of Early Utah Territory. Lincoln: University Of Nebraska Press, 2017., William Deverell

Mormon Studies Review

Unpopular Sovereignty: Mormons and the Federal Management of Early Utah Territory accomplishes a number of impressive feats. In the hands of a less-skilled scholar, these objectives might clash and unduly complicate a book and its narrative. Not so in historian Brent M. Rogers’s fine study of antebellum tensions regarding the Mormon political and cultural experiment in the Great Basin.

Review: Matthew J. Grow And R. Eric Smith, Eds. The Council Of Fifty: What The Records Reveal About Mormon History. Provo, Ut: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City, Ut: Deseret Book, 2017., Janiece Johnson

Mormon Studies Review

Since the late 1960s, the minutes of the Mormon Council of Fifty in Nauvoo have been the Mormon documentary “holy grail” (p. viii). What Mario DePillis called “one of the most secret of the Mormons’ sub rosa organizations” and Klaus J. Hansen labelled the “most important key to an understanding of the Mormon past” was a topic for speculation over decades.1 Lack of prior availability did not inhibit prior commentary, but also spurred on attentive archival work. Code words veiling theocratic claims topped with rumors of a self-appointed king could only be met with great suspicion in a democratic republic. …

Neither Fairyland Nor Dystopia: Taking Western Europe Seriously In Mormon Studies, Julie K. Allen

Mormon Studies Review

Although Mormonism is intimately associated, externally and internally, with American history and culture, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has older ties to western Europe than to anywhere else outside the United States and Polynesia. Without the influx of approximately eighty thousand convert-immigrants from the UK and continental Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, the fledgling church would not have been able to successfully colonize the intermountain West. Although church membership levels in Europe have remained low in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries, a robust network of Latter-day Saint congregations across the European continent and the British Isles supports …

Faith-Promoting History/ History-Promoting Faith, Martin E. Marty

Mormon Studies Review

An excerpt from a long poem by W. H. Auden comes to mind as a framework for assessing these two publications featuring Mormon historian Leonard J. Arrington. He was poised—we might say surefooted—in his Mormon faith and by commitments to the church. At the same time, Arrington consistently made clear that his calling was to be a scholar who excelled in the writing of history in modes acceptable among university-based researchers and writers of many faiths, or of non-faith. There was never any doubt that he pursued his vocation imaginatively and steadfastly through the decades. While these books give evidence …

Prospering In The Land: A Comparison Of Covenant Promises In Leviticus And First Nephi 2, Kerry Muhlestein

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

A careful examination of the Abrahamic covenant, as contained in Leviticus 26, and the covenant established with the Lehites during their exodus to the New World, found in 1 Nephi 2, shows deliberate similarities. These similarities are important to understand, as the role of covenant is central in both ancient Israelite practice and current Latter-day Saint theology.

Recent Reflections While Partaking Of The Sacrament, Daniel C. Peterson

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Sometimes, obedience to the principles of the Gospel and tending faithfully to our stewardships can seem — and can be — a burden. Moreover, we mortal humans are fallible and weak, and we’re free. Accordingly, I’m convinced that the Father (a supremely masterful strategist and tactician) builds in redundancies so as to ensure that his purposes will be achieved even when his mortal servants falter. At the very heart of his plan, though, there could be no redundancy. Only one person could do what absolutely, desperately, needed to be done.

Review: Marjorie J. Spruill. Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’S Rights And Family Values That Polarized American Politics. New York: Bloomsbury, 2017., Colleen Mcdannell

Mormon Studies Review

With polarization in American politics possibly at an all-time high, historians frantically search the past for the origins of our current malady. When did we become so alienated as a people, and why is it that we seemingly cannot understand each other’s behaviors? Marjorie J. Spruill provides another reflection on how we came to be what we are in Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values that Polarized American Politics. Spruill sees gender as the theoretical place where we need to begin our exploration and the 1970s as the defining years. Passing up the easy targets …

The Book Of Mormon: Another Testament Of Jesus Christ, Maxwell Institute Study Edition, Roger Terry

BYU Studies

The Maxwell Institute’s study edition of the Book of Mormon is both an update and an expansion of Grant Hardy’s The Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Edition, published in 2003 by the University of Illinois Press. Among the many differences between the two volumes, I find two most significant. First, the base text for the Maxwell Institute edition is the 2013 version of the Book of Mormon, used currently by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A Reader’s Edition used the 1920 version because it was the most recent edition available in the public domain. The Church …

Kalaupapa: The Mormon Experience In An Exiled Community By Fred E. Woods (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center,, Emily Cook

BYU Studies

As Hansen’s Disease (also known as leprosy) spread rapidly throughout Hawaii in the nineteenth century, the Kalaupapa peninsula was selected as an “isolation settlement for confirmed cases” of leprosy and the location of “a receiving hospital where suspected cases could be treated” (20–21). These individuals were essentially exiled, and one might think that such an isolated community would be a place of loneliness, but Kalaupapa: The Mormon Experience in an Exiled Community explores how, instead, the community was built on love and inclusion and began to thrive and became a sacred space. According to author Fred E. Woods, professor of …

Black, White, And Red All Over: Skin Color In The Book Of Mormon, Jeremy Talmage

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

In June of 1830, the first Latter-day Saint missionary Samuel Smith journeyed through the backcountry of western New York hoping to find parties interested in the recently published Book of Mormon. Advertising the volume as "a history of the origin of the Indians;' he attempted to sell copies of the book his brother Joseph claimed to have translated from golden plates given to him by an angel. An etiological tale of the ancient inhabitants of the continent, the Book of Mormon described the emergence of two tribes: the righteous Nephites and wicked Lamanites. After the Lamanites' rebellion against their relatives, …

"The Lord Slayeth The Wicked": Coming To Terms With Nephi Killing Laban, Charles Swift

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

Many would agree that the most disturbing narrative in all of the Book of Mormon is that of Nephi being commanded to slay Laban. Few encourage their friends to turn to that passage when introducing the book. It is the rather detailed account of what appears to be an unconscionable act. Its closest parallel elsewhere in scripture is the story of Abraham and Isaac, with the all-important difference that, for Nephi, there was no ram in the thicket. How can we justify a man coming upon another man lying in a street, completely helpless, incapacitated because he is passed out …

Reading Race, Reading Scripture: Assessing Recent Historical Works On Race And The Book Of Mormon, Joseph R. Stuart

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

Different approaches to reading The Book of Mormon have influenced the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' teachings from 1830 to the present day. Scholars have long recognized that the definition of "Lamanites," one of the primary groups described in the book, has shaped missionary work, Church policy, and public outreach. Indeed, in the Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph Smith received a revelation sending four missionaries to preach "among the Lamanites," perhaps the first justification for preaching among Indigenous peoples. Recent teachings have expanded the definition of Lamanite to include Native and Indigenous peoples on both American continents as well …

One Hundred Years Of The Art And Architecture Of The Laie Temple

Mormon Pacific Historical Society

PowerPoint slide notes from a presentation by Sharon R. Gray, November 16, 2019, for the Mormon Pacific Historical Society (MPHS) Conference celebrating the Centennial of the Dedication of the Laie Hawai’i Temple.

Slide 1. Title Page 100 Years of the Art and Architecture of the Laie Hawai’i Temple. Image of the Laie Temple watercolor drawing by Paul L. Anderson.

Review: David T. Smith. Religious Persecution And Political Order In The United States. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015)., Charles Mccrary

Mormon Studies Review

In this careful comparative study, David T. Smith develops a useful framework for analyzing US state actors’ reactions to and participation in religious persecution. To set up the problem, Smith identifies three interlocking puzzles: (1) the United States has always valued religious tolerance and has had legal frameworks preventing persecution; and (2) these protections have worked, in large part; but (3) when state agents have persecuted religious groups or encouraged or at least allowed for their persecution, it has been against those we might not expect, namely Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Derived from these puzzles are two basic questions that …

We’Ll Sing And We’Ll Shout: The Life And Times Of W. W. Phelps By Bruce A. Van Orden, Donald Q. Cannon

BYU Studies

Latter-day Saints who know of William W. Phelps tend to associate him with the hymns that he wrote. In fact, the words in the title of Bruce A. Van Orden’s biography, “We’ll Sing and We’ll Shout,” are taken from one of his most famous hymns, “The Spirit of God.” As influential as his hymns have been to Latter-day Saints then and now, Phelps contributed much more than that in his efforts to build the Church. Van Orden’s book is a detailed biography of this interesting and influential writer and Church leader. The book provides insight into both his ecclesiastical contributions …

Seeing Psalms As The Libretti Of A Holy Drama, Janet Ewell

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Psalms was the favorite Old Testament book at Qumran and in the New Testament; the Book of Mormon contains more than three dozen allusions to Psalms. While Psalms contains both powerful, poetic words of comfort and doctrinal gems, many psalms also seem to careen between praise, warning, comfort, military braggadocio, and humility, sometimes addressing the Lord, sometimes speaking in the voice of the Lord or his prophets. The texts that most strongly exhibit such abrupt shifts may yield greater meaning if they are read as scripts or libretti of a sacred, temple- based drama.

Review: Rachel Cope, Amy Easton-Flake, Keith Erekson, And Lisa Olsen Tait, Eds. Mormon Women’S History: Beyond Biography. Madison, Nj: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2017., Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp

Mormon Studies Review

“Women shaped Mormonism from its outset.” Simple, isn’t it? With all that scholars now know about the distinctive emphasis on family and childbearing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint tradition, it seems obvious that women have played a crucial role in the development of Mormon history and community life. Yet, as the framing essays in Mormon Women’s History: Beyond Biography so amply demonstrate, the broader narrative histories of the tradition remain willfully fixed on its patriarchal organizational structure and male leadership. Despite an abundance of work in social and cultural history beginning in the 1970s, women’s roles …

Review: Max Perry Mueller. Race And The Making Of The Mormon People. Chapel Hill: University Of North Carolina Press, 2017., Brandi Denison

Mormon Studies Review

Max Perry Mueller’s Race and the Making of the Mormon People argues that “for early Mormons, the construction and deconstruction of what it meant to be, to act, and to look black, white, and red were as much literary projects and they were literal ones” (p. 8). Mueller positions his book as both a case study of how nineteenth-century Americans wrote about and constructed race through text as well as a “particular case unto itself” (p. 9). Through the book, Mueller aimed to capture the voices of nonwhite Mormons in the nineteenth century and how they “resisted, acquiesced, and sometimes …

Doing Business In The World Without Becoming Worldly, Lindon J. Robison, David R. Just, Jeffery R. Oliver

BYU Studies

Doing business in the world consists of, among other things, exchanging goods and services. One way people reflect who they are and what they love most is by what they exchange and by the quantities and terms with which they exchange goods and services.

Full Issue

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Sister Saints: Mormon Women Since The End Of Polygamy By Colleen Mcdannell, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

BYU Studies

Because of its freshness and clarity, I predict that Colleen McDannell’s Sister Saints, a history of modern Latter-day Saint women, will become a standard in religious studies courses and perhaps in book clubs among Latter-day Saints as well. It is unquestionably a “crossover” book. General readers will appreciate its lively stories and well-balanced arguments, and students at any level will profit from its detailed endnotes and chapter-by-chapter bibliographic essays. The book is fair-minded but never wimpy. It will provoke discussion in and out of the academy.

The Law Of Moses: An Overview, Dan Belnap

Faculty Publications

During the last week of his life, Christ was confronted by a group of Jewish authorities who asked him, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” (Matthew 22:36). Christ’s answer, that one should love God with all one’s heart, soul, and might (Deuteronomy 6:5), as well as one’s neighbor as oneself (Leviticus 19:18), was then followed by the assertion “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:40). Clearly, in Christ’s day the law of Moses was regarded as providing crucial instruction regarding one’s behavior both with one’s fellow man and with God, and …