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That Ye Might Feel And See: Touch In The First Day Of Christ's Ministry, Dan L. Belnap
That Ye Might Feel And See: Touch In The First Day Of Christ's Ministry, Dan L. Belnap
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
“And God Blessed The Seventh Day And Sanctified It”: The Sabbath At Creation, Dedications, And Christ’S Theophany In 3 Nephi, Dan L. Belnap
“And God Blessed The Seventh Day And Sanctified It”: The Sabbath At Creation, Dedications, And Christ’S Theophany In 3 Nephi, Dan L. Belnap
Faculty Publications
The Creation narrative, found in various places within the canon of scripture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, describes the institution of two different types of time. The first type of time is established in the “fourth day” with the placement of the astronomical bodies, which act as markers “for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years”—that is, common time (Genesis 1:14; Moses 2:14). The second type of time is established in the “seventh day,” when the Lord rests from his labors. Situated as it was at the conclusion of the physical creation and …
The Sticks Of Judah And Joseph: Reflections On Defending The Kingdom, Joseph M. Spencer
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 …
"There Was One Samuel": Possible Multiple Sources For The Samuel Narrative, Dan Belnap, Daniel L. Belnap
"There Was One Samuel": Possible Multiple Sources For The Samuel Narrative, Dan Belnap, Daniel L. Belnap
Faculty Publications
During the second day of Christ’s ministry to the New World, a curious event took place. Having taught and commented on a number of biblical texts, Christ then had Nephi3 present his own record for review.1 The inspection uncovered a missing event that Christ brought to the attention of the gathered disciples: “Verily I say unto you, I commanded my servant Samuel, the Lamanite, that he should testify unto this people, that at the day that the Father should glorify his name in me that there were many saints who should arise from the dead, and should appear unto many, …
“Wicked Traditions” And “Cunning Arts”: Wise Men, Sorcery, And Metalwork In Nephite Society, Dan Belnap, Daniel L. Belnap, Daniel Belnap, Dan Belnap
“Wicked Traditions” And “Cunning Arts”: Wise Men, Sorcery, And Metalwork In Nephite Society, Dan Belnap, Daniel L. Belnap, Daniel Belnap, Dan Belnap
Faculty Publications
In the ninetieth year of the reign of the judges, four years after the ministry of Samuel the Lamanite, the “great signs and wonders” that he had prophesied of concerning the coming of Christ began to appear. Yet even as they convinced some, others expressed doubt as to what the signs meant, believing instead that the coming of Christ was a “wicked tradition, which has been handed down unto us by our fathers, to cause us that we should believe in some great and marvelous thing which should come to pass . . . therefore they can keep us in …
Israelite Inscriptions From The Time Of Jeremiah And Lehi, Dana M. Pike
Israelite Inscriptions From The Time Of Jeremiah And Lehi, Dana M. Pike
Faculty Publications
The greater the number of sources the better when investigating the history and culture of people in antiquity. Narrative and prophetic texts in the Bible and 1 Nephi have great value in helping us understand the milieu in which Jeremiah and Lehi received and fulfilled their prophetic missions, but these records are not our only documentary sources. A number of Israelite inscriptions dating to the period of 640–586 b.c., the general time of Jeremiah and Lehi, provide additional glimpses into this pivotal and primarily tragic period in Israelite history.
Finding Documents On The Joseph Smith Papers Website, Kenneth L. Alford Ph.D.
Finding Documents On The Joseph Smith Papers Website, Kenneth L. Alford Ph.D.
Faculty Publications
The Joseph Smith Papers website (josephsmithpapers.org) is a wonderful resource. With thousands of documents and hundreds of resource pages, though, it can sometimes feel like you’re searching for a needle in a haystack. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how you might use the website to learn more about quotations and documents associated with the Prophet Joseph Smith. This article helps readers learn to use the Joseph Smith Papers website to find specific documents. It also teaches readers how to benefit from the numerous other resources available on the Joseph Smith Papers website.
Beyond Justice: Reading Alma 42 In The Context Of Atonement Theories, Mark D. Ellison
Beyond Justice: Reading Alma 42 In The Context Of Atonement Theories, Mark D. Ellison
Faculty Publications
In Alma 42, Alma teaches his son Corianton about the atonement in a statement laden with legal vocabulary. Terms such as law, judged, just, justice, injustice, punishment, probationary, and penitent dominate the message, in company with such concepts as the execution of the law, the infliction of punishment, and punishment being affixed to violation of law. By all appearances, Alma sets forth what theologians call a juridical view of atonement (one concerned with the administration of justice). The problem as Alma states it is that “all mankind were fallen” and because of disobedience were “in the grasp of justice” and …
Abinadi's Legacy: Tracing His Influence Through The Book Of Mormon, John L. Hilton Iii
Abinadi's Legacy: Tracing His Influence Through The Book Of Mormon, John L. Hilton Iii
Faculty Publications
Eminent author Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote." Identifying these instances of textual weavings is one aspect of a literary field known as intertextuality, an area that holds great promos for Book of Mormon research. Grant Hardy has suggested that it would be fruitful for our understanding of the Book of Mormon "to track various phrases throughout the Book of Mormon to determine which Nephite …
Questions In The Book Of Mormon, Holt Zaugg
Questions In The Book Of Mormon, Holt Zaugg
Faculty Publications
This article examines how questions are used in the Book of Mormon to teach concepts and principles.
The Abinadi Narrative, Redemption, And The Struggle For Nephite Identity, Daniel L. Belnap, Dan Belnap
The Abinadi Narrative, Redemption, And The Struggle For Nephite Identity, Daniel L. Belnap, Dan Belnap
Faculty Publications
Though there is no question that the Book of Mormon’s primary purpose is to impart an understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ, this message is generally embedded by its editors and authors in very distinct historical and political settings. This is particularly true of Mormon, who often crafted his narratives so that a given prophetic ministry intersected and interacted with the sociopolitical concerns of the contemporary Nephite population. One such concern emerging again and again in Nephite history was their identity or relationship as Israel.
The Abinadi Narrative, Redemption, And The Struggle For Nephite Identity, Dan Belnap, Daniel L. Belnap
The Abinadi Narrative, Redemption, And The Struggle For Nephite Identity, Dan Belnap, Daniel L. Belnap
Faculty Publications
Though there is no question that the Book of Mormon’s primary purpose is to impart an understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ, this message is generally embedded by its editors and authors in very distinct historical and political settings. This is particularly true of Mormon, who often crafted his narratives so that a given prophetic ministry intersected and interacted with the sociopolitical concerns of the contemporary Nephite population. One such concern emerging again and again in Nephite history was their identity or relationship as Israel. This question lay at the heart of a number of social and religious movements …
All Kindreds Shall Be Blessed: Nephite, Jewish, And Christian Interpretations Of The Abrahamic Covenant, Noel B. Reynolds
All Kindreds Shall Be Blessed: Nephite, Jewish, And Christian Interpretations Of The Abrahamic Covenant, Noel B. Reynolds
Faculty Publications
A review of current and traditional scholarship regarding the covenant God made with Abraham combined with a thorough review of Book of Mormon references shows that the Nephite understanding varies in important ways from traditional Christian and Jewish interpretations. However, some of the insights of contemporary scholarship are more compatible with the Book of Mormon perspective.
The Ancient Doctrine Of The Two Ways And The Book Of Mormon, Noel B. Reynolds
The Ancient Doctrine Of The Two Ways And The Book Of Mormon, Noel B. Reynolds
Faculty Publications
Scholars have long recognized that a number of ancient cultures shared a traditional doctrine of the Two Ways that could be used to instruct youth and others in the right way to live their lives. While the language of the Two Ways surfaces on occasion in both the Old and New Testaments, the doctrine is not developed or explained in any detail in the Bible. However, noncanonical texts of the Greco-Roman period display a highly developed and stylized form of the doctrine in both Jewish and Christian traditions. The earliest known version of these stylized forms of the doctrine occurs …
On Doubting Nephi's Break Between 1 And 2 Nephi: A Critique Of Joseph Spencer's "An Other Testament: On Typology", Noel B. Reynolds
On Doubting Nephi's Break Between 1 And 2 Nephi: A Critique Of Joseph Spencer's "An Other Testament: On Typology", Noel B. Reynolds
Faculty Publications
This essay rejects the proposal by Joseph Spencer to recognize the true break in Nephi's two books as occurring after the fifth chapter of the second book. The essay invokes standard interpretive practices arguing that while Spencer does present reasoning to make sense of this novel proposal, he does not acknowledge the much greater weight of standard interpretation or provide explanations for ignoring it.
How "Come Unto Me" Fits In The Nephite Gospel", Noel B. Reynolds
How "Come Unto Me" Fits In The Nephite Gospel", Noel B. Reynolds
Faculty Publications
Book of Mormon readers can easily be left wondering in numerous passages where the repeated term "come unto me/him/Christ" refers to unspecified elements of the gospel understood as "the way" by which men and women can come to him. This paper identifies six passages that are presented as quotations from Jesus himself and that have identical rhetorical structures---in which this phrase appears to refer each time to that stage of the gospel described as "enduring to the end." This discovery may offer useful interpretive guidance for the numerous other passages that invoke the same phrase. This paper was updated June …
Biblical Merismus In Book Of Mormon Gospel References, Noel B. Reynolds
Biblical Merismus In Book Of Mormon Gospel References, Noel B. Reynolds
Faculty Publications
This study is an extension of previously published work that identifies three inclusios in the Book of Mormon, each of which presents the same six-element definition of the doctrine or gospel of Jesus Christ. However, the six elements are not presented as a straightforward list, but rather in a series of smaller combinations intended to gradually deepen and extend the reader’s understanding of each one and of its role in the larger gospel process. This mode of presentation makes something else clear: Whenever some pair or selection from these six elements is mentioned, the entire set is implicitly invoked. Each …
Chiastic Structuring Of Large Texts: Second Nephi As A Case Study, Noel B. Reynolds
Chiastic Structuring Of Large Texts: Second Nephi As A Case Study, Noel B. Reynolds
Faculty Publications
The experiment conducted in this paper has been the application of the principles of Hebrew rhetoric—as that has come to be understood by biblical scholars over the last half century—to the Book of Second Nephi, self-described as personally written by Nephi, who was educated in Jerusalem at the end of the 7th century BCE, a time and place where these principles are now thought by scholars to have been de rigeur. The experiment did not refute the hypothesis, but instead did produce a plausible division of the book into 13 sub-units that readily organize themselves chiastically as a whole. The …
Book Of Mormon Costume Resource Guide, Rory R. Scanlon
Book Of Mormon Costume Resource Guide, Rory R. Scanlon
Faculty Publications
This report offers visual costume research support for artists working on Book of Mormon projects, with an historical overview of Mesoamerica and how to understand its historical clothing pieces, an annotated listing of the best research sources, a list of garment and fabric terms for the 2000 BC to 600 AD period, and sample sketches from historical artifacts to suggest how to interpret the original research images the artist will encounter.
The Gospel According To Mormon, Noel B. Reynolds
The Gospel According To Mormon, Noel B. Reynolds
Faculty Publications
Although scholarly investigation of the Book of Mormon has increased significantly over the last three decades, only a tiny portion of that effort has been focused on the theological or doctrinal content of this central volume of Latter-day Saints (LDS) scripture. This article identifies three inclusios which promise definitions of the doctrine or gospel of Jesus Christ and proposes a cumulative methodology to explain how these definitions work. This approach reveals a consistently presented, six-part formula defining ‘the way’ by which mankind can qualify for eternal life. In this way the article provides a starting point for scholarly examinations of …
Gospel Merisms In The Book Of Mormon, Noel B. Reynolds
Gospel Merisms In The Book Of Mormon, Noel B. Reynolds
Faculty Publications
This study extends previous work that identifies three inclusios in the Book of Mormon, each of which presents the same definition of the doctrine or gospel of Jesus Christ. But none of the three definitions is presented in the way modern readers might expect. Rather, each offers a series of statements focusing on different actions or events that are related to each other as parts of the way that leads to eternal life. On first reading, they could easily seem disconnected or even contradictory. But as these earlier studies demonstrate, when all these statements and their repeated elements are examined …
The Gospel According To Nephi, Noel B. Reynolds
The Gospel According To Nephi, Noel B. Reynolds
Faculty Publications
2 Nephi 31 was written by Nephi as a grand finale to his small plates and was placed at the end to signal its premier importance. It is the centerpiece of his concluding sermon as signaled by a series of inclusios. It is presented as a flashback to the great vision received by both Lehi and Nephi in the first camp in the wilderness—over forty years earlier. But only here are we told for the first time that when Nephi witnessed the baptism of Jesus Christ in that early vision, he was simultaneously team-taught the gospel of Jesus Christ by …
A Long, Hard Trial: The Korean Translations Of The Book Of Mormon, Gerrit Van Dyk
A Long, Hard Trial: The Korean Translations Of The Book Of Mormon, Gerrit Van Dyk
Faculty Publications
While some of the story of the Korean translations of the Book of Mormon is told in fragments throughout the documents chronicling the rise of the LDS Church in Korea, most notably Ronald K. Nielsen’s “Hangukeopan Mormongyeong Huesaenggwa Noryeok Kyeoshil,” no one source has the whole story, including the present study. This article will draw on those prior secondary sources as well as accounts from those who lived the events themselves, as told in their personal journals, letters, and reminiscences. The epigraph is a common (mis)conception by members and missionaries who have served in South Korea. In fact, …
“Much Dispute And Wonderful Contentions”: Modern First Amendment Values In The Book Of Mormon, Edward L. Carter
“Much Dispute And Wonderful Contentions”: Modern First Amendment Values In The Book Of Mormon, Edward L. Carter
Faculty Publications
The First Amendment’s free speech clause, like the religious exercise clause, is profoundly counter-majoritarian. So the fact that a religious point of view is unpopular or out of step with a majority of society is not justification to suppress its expression. Rather, the unpopularity of religious views is the very reason why religious expression should be protected from government or private censorship. Free speech, including religious expression, strengthens and stabilizes society, enables the search for truth, provides a check on government power, facilitates self-governance and fosters autonomy. The Book of Mormon teaches Mormons to respect the contributions of free expression …
The Fifth Principle Of The Gospel, Noel B. Reynolds
The Fifth Principle Of The Gospel, Noel B. Reynolds
Faculty Publications
With the 2004 publication of Preach My Gospel as the new handbook for LDS missionaries, the official explanation of Christ’s gospel incorporated a previously unrecognized fifth principle—enduring to the end. This article will review ways in which this principle surfaced occasionally in early Mormon missionary work and writings. It will also demonstrate that the principle is explicitly and consistently emphasized in Book of Mormon presentations of the gospel in passages that are now generally recognized as authoritative foundations for LDS gospel teaching.
Parallels Between Psalms 25-31 And The Psalm Of Nephi, Kenneth L. Alford Ph.D., D. Bryce Baker
Parallels Between Psalms 25-31 And The Psalm Of Nephi, Kenneth L. Alford Ph.D., D. Bryce Baker
Faculty Publications
Chapter 18 of the 2013 BYU Sperry Symposium volume, "Parallels between Psalms 25-31 and the Psalm of Nephi," by Kenneth L. Alford and D. Bryce Baker, highlights numerous similarities in the structure and language of 2 Nephi 4 (also known as the Psalm of Nephi) to wording found in Psalms 25 to 31 -- opening the possibility that Nephi may have consulted those psalms on the brass plates prior to composing his psalm.
This Is The Way, Noel B. Reynolds
This Is The Way, Noel B. Reynolds
Faculty Publications
The limited objective of this paper is to clarify some of the key terminology used by Book of Mormon writers. In particular, I will show that they used such terms as gospel, doctrine, way, and word interchangeably, but that the plan of salvation should be distinguished from these. It is probably inevitable that Latter-day Saint scholars will bring assumptions from their academic studies of the Bible and Christian theology to their study of the Book of Mormon. While the Book of Mormon obviously has a great deal in common with the Bible, I am increasingly convinced that Book of Mormon …
Who Uses The Word "Resurrection" In The Book Of Mormon And How Is It Used?, John Hilton Iii, Jana Johnson
Who Uses The Word "Resurrection" In The Book Of Mormon And How Is It Used?, John Hilton Iii, Jana Johnson
Faculty Publications
While there are only a handful of primary speakers in the Book of Mormon, many voices are heard within its pages. The fact that multiple people speak in the text provides the opportunity to investigate whether these people have varying patterns of speech. The purpose of this study is to report on the word resurrection, which has unusual usage patterns by individual speakers in the Book of Mormon. For example, there are curious patterns in terms of who in the Book of Mormon employs (or does not employ) resurrection, how individuals in the Book of Mormon use this word, and …
"There Arose A Mist Of Darkness": The Narrative Of Lehi's Dream In Christ's Theophany, Dan Belnap, Daniel Belnap
"There Arose A Mist Of Darkness": The Narrative Of Lehi's Dream In Christ's Theophany, Dan Belnap, Daniel Belnap
Faculty Publications
The events surrounding Christ’s theophany as recounted in 3 Nephi describe the creation of a new world, both physically and socially. In particular, chapters 8–18 depict a series of events that are reminiscent of the creation of the earth as described in Genesis and elsewhere. From the all-pervasive darkness experienced during the cataclysmic destruction to the glorious, light-filled arrival of Christ and the institution of new laws and ordinances delivered during his first day among the people, the Book of Mormon text reflects this biblical narrative. Yet the manner in which it is presented echoes a creation narrative unique to …
3 Nephi 9:19–20: The Offering Of A Broken Heart, Dana M. Pike
3 Nephi 9:19–20: The Offering Of A Broken Heart, Dana M. Pike
Faculty Publications
As recorded in the Book of Mormon (3 Nephi 8), the atoning death of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem brought prophesied destruction and darkness in the Americas. Following approximately three hours of terrible devastation (8:19), a “thick darkness” engulfed the land for three days (8:20, 23; 10:9). During this period of darkness the voice of Jesus was “heard among all the inhabitants of the earth, upon all the face of this land” (9:1).