Arts and Humanities Commons^™

On Confirming My Daughter, Christopher Bissett

Inscape

You receive the Holy Ghost so messy— like a catastrophic glitter bomb exploded in the chapel.

Portrait Of A Lady Without Hands: A Postmortem, Scott Hales

Inscape

Lying there, she looks alive, caught mid-blink, between breaths, as if all we need to do is tug at her puffy sleeve and whisper her awake.

Collagen, Erika Price

Inscape

I met Satan today. Actually, his name was Shawn. He was standing outside a beauty product store at the mall greeting patrons, his hands outstretched with moisturizer samples. Now, to be clear, I haven’t purposely set foot inside a mall since leg warmers were cool, and I had no idea that it has turned into an American Ninja Warrior course of high-pressured kiosks and desperate salespeople. I thought Shawn actually wanted me to have free moisturizer.

And Also I Ran, Lance Larsen

Inscape

I wheedled a ten-minute visit from the night nurse. This was Friday, the evening after my best friend hurtled through a windshield at 70 mph, the day before I drove to a numbing family reunion for blue-hair aunts. He had a machine to track his breaths, a tube to collect pee, and a pair of legs that would never again shuffle or glide or dance.

How To Keep House, Kate Davis

Inscape

Alternate your gaze between laptop, drywall, and churning clouds beyond the chipped French door.

Mistress Gu The Tigress: Warrior Women & Knight-Errantry In Outlaws Of The Marsh, Ryan K. Christenson

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

Outlaws of the Marsh, also commonly known as Water Margin, is one of the four most beloved classic novels of Chinese literature, most frequently attributed to the 14th-century writer Shi Nai’an. In this novel, one of the more relatively obscure characters among the 108 outlaws of Mount Liang is Gu Dasao “the Tigress,” a heroic woman who is normally characterized as a “woman general” (nüjiang) along with the other two prominent women in the novel, “Ten Feet of Steel” Hu Sanniang and Sun Erniang “the Witch.” This characterization has endured to this day, perhaps due to tradition or simply convenience. …

Volume 9 Full Issue

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

No abstract provided.

It Looks Like A Firefly, Savannah Brantley

Inscape

No abstract provided.

Blue House, Rylee Nelson

Inscape

Rylee Nelson is a multidisciplinary artist based in Utah. She is pursuing a BFA, and graduation is expected in December of 2024. Rylee resided for much of her life in rural Montana and Idaho, away from the majority of human populations. Solitude drove her to begin making artwork however possible. Rylee creates pieces that resonate with themes of isolation; her inspiration manifests through past homes and experiences. During her years in university, she has shown art at multiple group shows and has been awarded talent scholarships for 3 consecutive years. Rylee’s practices are not limited to specific mediums, but her …

Promise Me, Torrin Omokoh

Inscape

Torrin Omokoh is a Utah-based student at Brigham Young University in her senior year. She is currently pursuing a BFA in Fine Art and has completed minors in Art History and Creative Writing with an emphasis in poetry. She lives happily in Provo, Utah with her loving husband and affectionate cat.

Humanities Girl, Cristie Charles

Inscape

I grew up as a daughter of the BYU College of Humanities. I attended its events; I was trained in its language; I even knew its geography.

The Hankering, Kiri Case

Inscape

You live your life as a math problem. It’s no surprise, given how you graduated with a degree in mathematics and now you work as an accountant. You’re surrounded by numbers every day. You can’t help but see them everywhere.

The Nahom Convergence Reexamined: The Eastward Trail, Burial Of The Dead, And The Ancient Borders Of Nihm, Neal Rappleye

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

For decades, several Latter-day Saint scholars have maintained that there is a convergence between the location of Nahom in the Book of Mormon and the Nihm region of Yemen. To establish whether there really is such a convergence, I set out to reexamine where the narrative details of 1 Nephi 16:33–17:1 best fit within the Arabian Peninsula, independent of where the Nihm region or tribe is located. I then review the historical geography of the Nihm tribe, identifying its earliest known borders and academic interpretations of their location in antiquity. My investigation brings in data on ancient Yemen and Arabia …

Broken Shelves Or Continuing Revelation? Extending The Shelf Life Of Faith, Jared M. Halverson

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Many former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints explain their loss of faith with the phrase “My shelf broke.” This is in reference to a well-known analogy by Camilla Kimball in which her shelf was where she kept the questions she could not yet answer, not as a way to avoid those questions but with faith that God would eventually answer them. Based on Sister Kimball’s analogy and the ninth article of faith, this paper suggests that there are actually three shelves rather than one, with a constant interplay between revelation past (shelf 1), revelation present …

Paul Sighs Under House Arrest, James Goldberg

BYU Studies

I longed to be with you—

to bask in the warmth of bodies

clustered in a kitchen. Cradled

between two conversations,

sipping wine, waiting up late

for an old friend to arrive.

Assuming Stewardship: Notes On The Recent Transfer From Community Of Christ, Keith A. Erekson, Matthew J. Grow

BYU Studies

On March 5, 2024, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Community of Christ jointly announced that “the responsibility and ownership for the Kirtland Temple (fig. 1), several historic buildings in Nauvoo, and various manuscripts and artifacts” had “officially transferred” between the two churches. In the joint statement of announcement, President Russell M. Nelson observed, “We are deeply honored to assume the stewardship of these sacred places, documents, and artifacts. We thank our friends at Community of Christ for their great care and cooperation in preserving these historical treasures thus far. We are committed to doing the same.” …

The Curse Of The Covenant: The Deuteronomic Curses In The Book Of Mormon, T. J. Uriona

BYU Studies

The ancient Near East had a rich and well-developed covenant tradition that helped to define the relationships between covenant parties. Much like modern contracts, which tend to follow a conventional construction, there is within the ancient Near East tradition a prominent covenant construction known as the suzerain-vassal treaty. Covenant treaties of this type stipulated the conditions of loyalty between a lord or suzerain to the vassal or subject. A major feature of this type of treaty was the promise of blessings as well as the threat of curses. The blessings and curses ensured covenant fidelity and maintained the social and …

Lessons We Can Learn From The Mountain Meadows Massacre, Richard E. Turley Jr.

BYU Studies

The Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857 has been called the worst incident in Utah, Latter-day Saint, and northwest Arkansas history. I don’t remember the first time I heard about it, but I coauthored my first publication about the atrocity more than thirty years ago, an article on the subject published in a multivolume encyclopedia set issued by Macmillan Publishing Company of New York in 1992.

Ten Views On The Falling Away, John Gee

BYU Studies

Latter-day Saints have long known about the falling away or Apostasy of Christianity from the Church established by Jesus Christ. The two terms both come from 2 Thessalonians 2:3. Falling away is the expression used by the King James translators to render the Greek word apostasia, which came into English as a loan word: apostasy. The terms are thus synonyms for the same thing. The term apostasia was a later form of the classical term apostasis and a more intense form of the term stasis, all of which mean “dissension,” “revolt,” or “rebellion.” The Septuagint uses both the …

Temple Marriages Are Less Likely To End In Divorce: Insights From The B. H. Roberts 2023 Current And Former Latter-Day Saint Survey, Stephen Cranney, Joshua Coates

BYU Studies

It is a commonly held truism that temple marriages are less likely to end in divorce. But is it true? How do we know? The fact is that this popular belief is primarily based on surveys that are now forty to fifty years old. A popular statistic of temple marriages having a 6% divorce rate is cited by the Gospel Topics essay on “Temple Marriage,” which in turn cites an article from the Los Angeles Times. However, the Times article came from a 1985 Church study that used 1981 data, making this 6% number more than forty years out …

Front Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

What Jesus Didn’T Do: The Discipled Pursuit Of Less, Greg Mckeown

BYU Studies

The soft, muted lighting reflected off wooden pews in a local church building, casting a glow on the faces of leaders gathered for a stake meeting. Among those on the stand was the young bishop of the Sixth-Seventh Ward in the Temple View Stake. Tall, with a commanding presence, he was known for his dedication, but tonight, he felt restless. He had promised to visit an older ward member in the hospital right after this stake meeting was over. As the meeting progressed, he felt a strong impression to leave the meeting and rush to the hospital. The feeling became …

Parental Influence On Adolescent Perfectionism, Jenet Erickson, Olivia Forsberg, Mckenna Schmidt

BYU Studies

I (primary author) will never forget a poignant moment in the mother’s lounge at church when our first child was about nine months old. Two other mothers with younger babies were in the lounge at the same time, and we talked as our babies nursed, then played. As I watched the two younger children crawl around, I became acutely aware that our daughter, who had not yet started to crawl, was clearly behind these other children. A panicky feeling overtook me as I wrestled with what it meant to me that these children appeared to be ahead of mine. I …

Response To Grant Wacker, Richard Lyman Bushman

BYU Studies

As so often happens when Latter-day Saint historians discuss Joseph Smith with their non-LDS compatriots, Grant Wacker wants to welcome Joseph Smith into the company of American prophets, while I insist that Smith is bizarre, strange, and other. Wacker sees Smith as a recognizable figure on the American religious landscape; I see him as an outlander notably because he presented himself initially as a translator. I admit it had never occurred to me to think of Pentecostal speakers in tongues as translators, but of course they were. It seemed a natural connection to Wacker, who is deeply conversant in Pentecostal …

Ward Choir, John Alba Cutler

BYU Studies

We brought no gold to make an offering, no goat, no lamb, no blood on the lintel— only voices.

Like A Fiery Meteor: The Life Of Joseph F. Smith By Stephen C. Taysom, Matthew B. Christensen

BYU Studies

Like a Fiery Meteor: The Life of Joseph F. Smith by Stephen C. Taysom dives into the extraordinary life of Joseph F. Smith, the sixth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Taysom expertly navigates the complexities of Smith’s life, offering readers a comprehensive and insightful biography of this important Church leader.

Empty Spaces, Jolyn Brown

BYU Studies

Sometimes my children slept in his place.

Review: A Word In Season: Isaiah’S Reception In The Book Of Mormon By Joseph M. Spencer, Joshua M. Sears

BYU Studies

This groundbreaking study by Joseph Spencer, who teaches in Religious Education at Brigham Young University, invites both Latter-day Saints and those outside our faith to consider what the Book of Mormon has to say about the relevancy of prophecy and scripture in our modern world.

Appendix

BYU Studies

All unique analyses in the articles “Perfectionism Across Adolescence,” “Parental Influence on Adolescent Perfectionism,” “Perfectionism’s Influence on Adolescent Mental Health,” and “Religion and Perfectionism” were conducted by Justin Dyer. Details of the data collection and analysis are contained in this appendix. All code and detailed outputs are available from Justin Dyer upon request.

Love Is A Law, Not A Reward, Adam S. Miller

BYU Studies

1. Love is the substance of God’s law. As Paul puts it: “If there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself ” (Rom. 13:9). Or, as Jesus summarizes the law: “On these two commandments”—love of God and love of neighbor—“hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt. 22:40). What’s more, this love can’t be treated as a special reward. “Ye have heard that it hath been said,” Jesus acknowledges, “thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies” (Matt. 5:43–44). …