Digital Commons Network^™

How Did Joseph Smith Translate The Book Of Abraham, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

Multiple sources associated with the coming forth of the Book of Abraham spoke of Joseph Smith “translating” the text from the papyri he acquired. The Prophet himself used this language to describe his own activity with the text. For example, an entry in his journal under the date November 19, 1835, indicates the Prophet “spent the day in translating” the Egyptian records. In an unpublished editorial that was apparently meant to be printed in the March 1, 1842, issue of the Times and Seasons (the issue that saw the publication of the first installment of the Book of Abraham), Joseph …

The Blood Of The Canaanites, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

The first chapter of the Book of Abraham contains a short detail about the ancestry of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt: “Now this king of Egypt was a descendant from the loins of Ham, and was a partaker of the blood of the Canaanites by birth. From this descent sprang all the Egyptians, and thus the blood of the Canaanites was preserved in the land” (Abr. 1:21–22). Although he was a righteous man who “judged his people wisely and justly all his days” (v. 26), Pharaoh could not lay claim to any priesthood authority because of his ancestry (v. 27). …

The Name Of The Lord, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

On two occasions in the Book of Abraham, the Lord reveals to Abraham his true name: Jehovah. The first incident was when Abraham had a “vision of the Almighty,” wherein “the angel of [the Lord’s] presence” rescued him from being sacrificed in Ur of the Chaldees and made early allusions to a future covenant relationship (Abr. 1:15). “And his voice was unto me: Abraham, Abraham, behold, my name is Jehovah, and I have heard thee, and have come down to deliver thee, and to take thee away from thy father’s house, and from all thy kinsfolk, into a strange …

Kolob, The Governing One, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

One of the more memorable contributions of the Book of Abraham is its depiction of Kolob (Abr. 3:3–4, 9, 16; Facsimile 2, fig. 1). According to the Book of Abraham, Kolob is characterized by the following.

The Foreordination Of Abraham, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

One of the most important doctrinal teachings in the Book of Abraham is that of the premortal existence of humankind and the foreordination of many “noble and great ones” to be God’s “rulers” (Abr. 3:22–28). Abraham himself was singled out as one who was divinely preordained to a great mission. “Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; and God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: …

The Son Of Man, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

In the Book of Abraham’s divine-council scene, God proposes to send a redemptive emissary to ensure that those premortal intelligences or spirits who entered their second estate and faithfully did “all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them” would have “glory added upon their heads for ever and ever” (Abr. 3:25–26). When the Lord asked whom he should send to be this emissary, “one answered like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me. And another answered and said: Here am I, send me. And the Lord said: I will send the first” (v. 27). This …

The Fall Of Lucifer, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

Similar to what is depicted in other books of Latter-day Saint scripture (for example Moses 4:1–4), the Book of Abraham’s depiction of the premortal council includes a brief mention of the fall of Lucifer. As readers encounter at the end of chapter 3 of the Book of Abraham, Lucifer’s fall from the divine council was an act of rebellion because he was not selected to carry out God’s plan of salvation.

Creation From Chaos, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

Traditional Christianity teaches that God created the universe ex nihilo, or “out of nothing.” As explained by one scholar, “the most widely accepted theistic explanation of initial creation is the theory that God created the universe from absolutely nothing. . . . Most major theologians in Christian history—for example, Irenaeus, Augustine, Catherine of Sienna, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Karl Barth, and Paul Tilich—believed that God initially created the universe from absolutely nothing. . . . Many influential Christians throughout history have affirmed the theory.”

The Ancient Egyptian View Of Abraham, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

Some might ask how likely it would have been for the ancient Egyptians to have known anything about the biblical figure Abraham. In fact, evidence survives today indicating that stories about Abraham were known to the ancient Egyptians as early as the time of the composition of the Joseph Smith Papyri (ca. 330–30 BC).

Full Issue

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Good Government Begins With Self-Government, Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye

BYU Studies

For nearly a thousand years (from around 960 to 1905 CE), becoming a government official in imperial China required passing a battery of multiday, multisubject, anonymously graded written exams requiring decades of intensive preparation. Eighteenth-century European politi- cal thinkers, including Voltaire, admired China’s system for using meritocratic criteria, as opposed to aristocratic birth, to select government officials. The exams tested not only scholars’ abilities in history, philosophy, government, and literature, but also—in theory at least—their personal cultivation of moral virtues such as benevolence and integrity. Good government required goodness.

Recasting Paul As A Chauvinist Within The Western Text-Type Manuscript Tradition: Implications For The Authorship Debate On 1 Corinthians 14.34-35, Joseph A. P. Wilson

Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

The mandate for women’s silence in 1 Corinthians 14.34-35 is an incongruity within Paul’s undisputed writings. Critical scholars expressed doubts about these verses’ authorship beginning in the nineteenth century. The consensus of egalitarian Paulists today is that vv.34-35 are not Paul’s sentiments. Disagreements about circumstances beyond this fact remain unresolved. Supporters of the quotation/refutation (“Q/R”) hypothesis argue that Paul quoted a letter from Corinth in vv.34-35 and refuted it in v.36. Supporters of the interpolation hypothesis regard the passage as a marginal gloss by a later author, inserted at one of two locations (after v.33 or v.40). The present work …

Common Data Set, 2021-2022, University Of Minnesota, Morris Office Of Institutional Research

Institutional Effectiveness and Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Rice, Reciprocity, And Generosity: Embedded Ecologies In Hindu Women’S Rituals, Zoe Carlson

CMC Senior Theses

Hindu women’s perspectives of the more-than-human world are illuminated through ritual. Researching ecological actions millions of people of different faiths across the world partake in every day, in the context of the climate crisis of our present time, is a vital project I undertake in this thesis. I look to Hinduism, which has traditionally been called an “ecological” religion, but without a clear definition of what “ecological” means. I use Vijaya Nagarajan’s theories about Hinduism, women, and ecology as a theoretical guide. I apply her theory of “embedded ecologies” to analyze how knowledge about the environment is layered in cultural, …

Sikhs And Colonialism: A Study Of Religious Identity Across Time From Guru Nanak To The British Raj, Samrath S. Machra

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis deals with how a religious community shapes itself in the face of powerful external pressures. It explores ways the Sikh religion (code, creed, and cultus) was influenced by its encounters with the British Empire and in process, gave birth to a new combinative tradition. This paper will look at where the Sikh people located themselves during the Colonial period, to understand Colonialism’s imprint on the Sikh tradition. It traces the thread of contact throughout Sikh history and argues that British contact resulted in religious and cultural exchanges which reoriented Sikh creed, code, and cultus. The resulting combinative tradition …

How Excellent Is Thy Lovingkindness: The Gospel Principle Of Hesed, Dan Belnap, Daniel L. Belnap

Faculty Publications

The concept of hesed (pronounced khesed) ¹ is unfamiliar to most Bible readers. This is partly due to the fact that it is a Hebrew word found in the Old Testament; thus, we will never come across the word hesed anywhere in our King James Version (KJV). Moreover, the term is difficult to translate, the KJV providing no less than fifteen different terms to signify the presence of hesed in the text, the most common being mercy, kindness, and lovingkindness.² Yet the principle of hesed may be one of the most important doctrinal concepts in the Old Testament, …

Common Data Set 2022, Systems Intelligence And Data Analytics, University Of Nebraska At Omaha

Common Data Sets

Common Data Set (2022-2023) for the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

The Sticks Of Judah And Joseph: Reflections On Defending The Kingdom, Joseph M. Spencer

Faculty Publications

I wish to pursue two tasks simultaneously in this essay. First, in line with its title, I will address a very old matter of interpretation. I aim to explain as definitively as possible how to make sense of the relationship between Ezekiel 37:15–19, with its talk of the sticks of Judah and Joseph, and the claims of the Restoration, which include somehow connecting the stick of Joseph to the Book of Mormon. Second, in line with the subtitle of this essay, I wish to draw a crucial lesson from the history of how Latter-day Saints have dealt with this issue …

Enduring Traditions: The Collared Pithos Of Transjordan, Trisha Gallimore Broy

Dissertations

Problem

The collared pithos is a very tall, ovaloid, ceramic storage vessel peculiar to the southern Levant. Through the data that has emerged from Cisjordan a general consensus has developed that the collared pithos is part of an Iron Age 1 tradition that ended in the early years of the Iron Age 2. The data from Transjordan, however, is less familiar in discussions of the vessel, as it has only been added to the corpus within the last few decades. Preliminary indications from excavations in Transjordan reveal a different chronological scope and evolution of form than is observed in Cisjordan. …

Indicators Of Typology In The Narrative Of Elijah: An Investigation Into The Predictive Nature Of Biblical Theology, JôNatas De Mattos Leal

Dissertations

Elijah is among the most popular prophets in the Judeo-Christian tradition. In Judaism, the hope for his return has evolved into a plethora of legends in which he functions as a helper to the righteous in the present and avenger to the wicked in the future eschaton. In Christianity, the expectation involving his return has also a multitemporal dimension, but its fulfilment is typologically oriented. More often, scholars study the fulfilment of the Elijah typology from the NT perspective in a backward movement. This dissertation investigates this typology in a forward movement going from the OT to the NT while …

Value Vectors Of The World Local Orthodox Churches Position Regarding Russia's War Against Ukraine, Oleksandr Brodetskyi, Iryna Horokholinska, Mykola Lahodych

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article deals with the religious contexts of the modern civilizational crisis caused by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Among the multitude of thematic lines of this set of problems, the article’s authors focus their attention precisely on the position of the world Orthodox Churches regarding this war. The concentration of such attention is objectively determined by the fact that the majority of Ukrainian citizens position themselves as Orthodox by faith, and therefore, are particularly sensitive to the opinion of the leaders of the Orthodox Churches of the world. The article examines the value aspects of the problem of …

The Discursive Construction Of The Past: The 1686 Resubordination Of The Kyiv Metropolitanate, Ukrainian Autocephaly And The Conflict Of Moscow And Constantinople, Denys Shestopalets

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article focuses on the key historical aspect of the clash between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Constantinople Patriarchate in autumn 2018. It analyzes the conflicting representations of the re-subordination of the Kyiv Metropolitanate from the jurisdiction of Constantinople to the purview of Moscow in the second half of the 17th century. The study explores pivotal historical narratives and argumentative strategies employed by the two patriarchates (and, additionally, by the main ideologues of the Ukrainian autocephalist movement) for framing the events of 1686 and for shoring up their contemporary agendas with regards to the autocephalous status of the Orthodox Church …

The Restoration Of Church Orthodox Brotherhoods And Their Missionary Work In Right-Bank Ukraine, Ihor Opria, Oleksandr Fedkov

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article examines the process of restoring Orthodox church brotherhoods in the 1860s on the territory of the Right-Bank Ukraine, defines the goals and objectives of these organizations, and analyzes the content and consequences of missionary and related educational and charitable work. The subjects of the research are the Orthodox church brotherhoods and their missionary work. The analysis of historiography is carried out and the need for further scientific research in the study of the topic is indicated. The role of brotherhoods in interfaith encounters is clarified, as are the methods aimed at combating Late Protestant confessions. Despite a certain …

Jenny Vorpahl And Dirk Schuster (Eds). Communicating Religion And Atheism In Central And Eastern Europe. (Book Review), Oleg Kyselov

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

A review of Jenny Vorpahl and Dirk Schuster (eds). Communicating Religion and Atheism in Central and Eastern Europe. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020. 312 p. ISBN 978-3-11-054637-8 Hardcover $114.99.

Transformation Of Religious Feelings Of Vulnerable Populations Under Conditions Of Large-Scale Dangers In The Chernivtsi Region, Iryna Lazorevych

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Solving the challenges facing humanity requires the combined efforts of all humanity using a comprehensive approach. This also applies to the problem of HIV. In particular, in the context of the war in Ukraine, the crisis of marginalized groups deepened and people with HIV began to face more challenges than usual (because their treatment, which requires constant supervision and medication, is at risk). This article analyzes a survey conducted at the beginning of the invasion about the level of religiosity and trust in the church among HIV-positive people in wartime conditions. The issue of the problems of marginalized groups and …

Epiphanies, Metaphors, And Liminality: Religion And Mountains In The Seventeenth Century English Mind, Ethan Smith

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

This thesis studies the relationship between religion and mountains as represented in seventeenth century English thought. In particular, it seeks to discover trends of continuity in connections between divinity and mountains. It demonstrates that at least two distinct trends of continuity exist. First, between mountains and divinity as represented by metaphor and allegory, both represented in a variety of mediums, from poetry to letters and books. And secondly, it demonstrates continuity with regards to mountain experiences, which often evoke religion, either as a religious experience, experiences that use religious language, or experiences to religious places. In charting these continuities, it …

Latinas In Leadership In Latino Churches And Christian Organizations, Luz N. Gálvez De Figueroa

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study addressed the lack of understanding of transformational leadership characteristics and skills used by Latinas serving in Latino churches and Christian organizations in the United States. This qualitative research took a case study approach that included the review of biblical and theological framework and the relevant leadership literature research. It employed personal interviews, observations, denominational document review, and online surveys to provide insight into Latinas in authority roles. It was followed by the field research, analysis, and evaluation of the data. The research reflected the narrative of five Latinas in leadership in Latino Christian organizations, five Latinas leading Latino …

A Theology Of Divine Calling In Light Of Karl Barth, A.N. Whitehead, And Meister Eckhart’S Theological Forms, Kin Ting Caleb Cheung

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation aims to show how divine calling can be considered a multifaceted reality. The theory of divine calling includes God, humans, the content of the call, and the interaction between God and humans. It embraces a wide range of data: theology, anthropology, metaphysical considerations, and subjective experience. As this dissertation wants to understand divine calling in a multifaceted way, this dissertation examines it from three different perspectives. The theology/philosophy of Karl Barth, A. N. Whitehead, and Meister Eckhart is utilized. They represent three distinctive theological forms: revelational, metaphysical, and experiential. This dissertation studies their theology/philosophy according to their forms …

Indigenous Climatic Perspectives: A Multidisciplinary Approach To Environmental Discourse Analysis, Linda G. Claros

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation presents a multidisciplinary analysis of climate discourse from Indigenous Climatic Perspectives (ICP). This research highlights how the manner in which we relate intellectually, culturally and spiritually to the environment has been dictated by economic ideology developed within Euro-American capitalistic paradigms. Hence, the origin of our climate disaster is traced to religious and philosophical assumptions about Nature and the environment, that operate unchallenged within spheres of discourse- scientific, religious and cultural. This dissertation presents an alternative means of analysis, Indigenous Climatic Perspectives, by which we can come to understand our place in the biosphere by embedding new theoretical and …

Collected Papers (On Neutrosophic Theory And Applications), Volume Vi, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

This sixth volume of Collected Papers includes 74 papers comprising 974 pages on (theoretic and applied) neutrosophics, written between 2015-2021 by the author alone or in collaboration with 121 co-authors from 19 countries.