Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The First Commandment First, D. Todd Christofferson

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Each of the three synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—recounts a question put to Jesus about the greatest commandment in the law. In Matthew, the questioner is a lawyer of impure motive, tempting the Master. [1] In Mark, it is a scribe asking the question, but one who sincerely seems to want to know. [2] In Luke, we are back to “a certain lawyer [who] stood up, and tempted him.” [3]

The Important Role Of Relationships In Our Heavenly Father's Plan Of Salvation, Brian Mead

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

President Boyd K. Packer was a master teacher who spent both his professional life and his personal time in full-time service to the Church, seeking to build faith and testimony in the lives of youth and young adults. As a teacher, he understood the value of providing students with a “framework upon which the truths they discover at random can be organized into a personal testimony.” [1] Because of this understanding, he invited religious educators to begin each year by providing an overview of the plan of salvation. He believed that this overview would “be of immense value to . …

The Cry Of The Widow, The Fatherless, And The Stranger The Covenant Obligation To Help The Poor And Oppressed, David Rolph Seely

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

On January 14, 1847, President Brigham Young, who was at Winter Quarters organizing the Saints for the trek west, received a revelation from the Lord that would become section 136 of the Doctrine and Covenants. The revelation was entitled “The Word and Will of the Lord concerning the Camp of Israel in their journeyings to the West” and commanded the Saints to “be organized into companies, with a covenant and promise to keep all the commandments and statutes of the Lord our God.” The “covenant and promise” included the commandment to care for each and every one of the Saints. …

Front Matter

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Remembering Christ's Blood Which Was Shed, Ryder Seamons, John Hilton Iii

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Each Sunday, as part of one of the most familiar rituals in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we hear in our sacrament prayers that the broken bread we eat is a symbol of Christ’s body, and the water we drink a symbol of Christ’s “blood . . . , which was shed for [us]” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:79). Most importantly, we are invited to take these emblems “in remembrance” of his body and shed blood, both at that moment and “always.” Integral to the spiritual cleansing we can experience as we take the sacrament is our remembrance …

Full Issue

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Moo At The Moon, Susan Elizabeth Howe

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Cradled, Kevin Klein

BYU Studies

Son, if my breath were mine to give. If I could spend more than a ragged few to welcome and say goodbye to you. If we knew your mother could live

The Happiest Day Of Your Life, Michael Lavers

BYU Studies

You wake up and hear rain. You wake up and think there’s not enough rain, not enough songs about rain or memories of rain. Of being numbed or warmed by rain.

“Truth Is The Only Ground” How Journalism Contributes To Good Government, Edward L. Carter

BYU Studies

Growing up in the years after Watergate, I became a true believer in the power of the press to make society better by reporting on government’s corruption, lies, ineptitudes, and inefficiencies—as well as genuine public service, improvements, and accomplishments. In junior high school, I wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper critiquing the city garbage trucks in my neighborhood that left a trail of trash in their wake. In high school, I reported for the school newspaper about events and people as well as things I thought could be improved. I worked as a journalist during and …

Review: Stretching The Heavens: The Life Of Eugene England And The Crisis Of Modern Mormonism; Eugene England: A Mormon Liberal , Terryl L. Givens, Kristine L. Haglund, Steven C. Walker, Reviewer

BYU Studies

Kristine Haglund’s compact biography, Eugene England: A Mormon Liberal, is an illuminating contribution to the new Introduction to Mormon Thought series. Mormon Thought provides “short and accessible introductions” to those who have “shaped” the many manifestations of “Mormonism” (vii). Haglund situates England historically, as a liberal influence on a developing faith. Born 1933—the year of the deaths of old-style expansive theologians B. H. Roberts and James E. Talmage, and the same year J. Reuben Clark introduced more conservative influence in the First Presidency—Gene was caught in the collision between Mormonism’s original enthusiasm for innovative theology and the increasing rigidity of …

Editors' Introduction, Sharlee Mullins Glenn, Kristine Haglund, Linda Hoffman Kimball, Susan Elizabeth Howe

BYU Studies

It would be nice if Isaiah had enumerated the law into a statutory code, or if Enoch had left some city council minutes behind. While Restoration scriptures give tantalizing hints of societies that have achieved

the kind of harmony God intends, the descriptions are thin and short on practical details. Even the Doctrine and Covenants, which mentions Zion even more often than the Old Testament and has precise directions about many aspects of organizing the Saints in the earliest days of the Church, doesn’t easily translate into a roadmap for governance or citizenship in the many countries where Latter-day Saints—in …

“Things Which Are Abroad” Latter-Day Saints And Foreign Affairs, Patrick Moran

BYU Studies

When the Lord instructed Joseph Smith in May 1833 to “obtain a knowledge of . . . countries, and of kingdoms, of laws of God and man” (D&C 93:53), that counsel may have seemed incongruous to the young prophet. After all, the entirety of the revelation that preceded it dealt with lofty theological concepts of light, truth, progression, and grace, in addition to exhortations to make family and home life more in keeping with God’s will. The sudden commandment to learn about countries, kingdoms, and earthly law might have struck the twenty- seven-year-old Joseph as out of place, even though …

From Stumbling Blocks To Stepping Stones What America Can Learn From Germany About Reconciliation, Melissa Dalton-Bradford

BYU Studies

On December 7, 1970, while in Poland to sign the Warsaw Treaty, German chancellor Willy Brandt visited the memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The towering stone and bronze monument commemorates the bloody confrontation between Polish resistance groups and German military that took place on the eve of Passover in April 1943, when seven hundred Jewish insurgents wielding only pistols and homemade grenades fought against the well-equipped SS, who, in the end, leveled and incinerated the entire ghetto. More than seven thousand Jews died in that uprising, and an additional forty-two thousand were rounded up and deported to concentration camps. …

Bending The Arc Of Politics Toward Zion Voices From Mormon Women For Ethical Government, Jennifer Walker Thomas, Emma Petty Addams

BYU Studies

At the conclusion of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956, Martin Luther King Jr. paraphrased the words of Theodore Parker to situate small battles for justice within a larger movement toward God’s ideal

world. Parker, a Boston abolitionist, beautifully described the ache of discipleship that results when spirits reach for worlds they cannot quite see: “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience.

And from what I …

Women Of Faith Speak Up And Speak Out The Genesis And Philosophical Underpinnings Of Mormon Women For Ethical Government, Sharlee Mullins Glenn

BYU Studies

Good government is ethical government. That is the premise upon which the nonprofit organization Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG) was founded.

Like millions of people across the United States, I found myself growing increasingly alarmed during the 2016 U.S. election cycle as I watched the great rifts in our political landscape widen and deepen, abetted by the divisive and often vitriolic discourse on all sides. This division, combined with the flagrant flouting of basic human decency by some who were running for public office, awakened many of us to a sense of our duty as citizens.

Going Forward With Religious Freedom And Nondiscrimination, Dallin H. Oaks

BYU Studies

Friends:

I feel privileged to be in this honored place. I love this country, which I believe was established with the blessings of God. I love its Constitution, whose principles I believe were divinely inspired. I am, therefore, distressed at the way we are handling the national issues that divide us. We have always had to work through serious political conflicts, but today too many approach that task as if their preferred outcome must entirely prevail over all others, even in our pluralistic society. We need to work for a better way—a way to resolve differences without compromising core values. …

Understanding Joseph Smith's Translation Of The Bible By Kent P. Jackson, Kerry Muhlestein

BYU Studies

Kent Jackson has spent about three decades studying Joseph Smith’s translation of the Bible and has put all that research together in a masterful volume that is informative yet not overwhelming for the nonacademic. While there are a few minor things that could have been done differently, this book, combined with Jackson’s recent Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Bible: The Joseph Smith Translation and the King James Translation in Parallel Columns (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021), have made it possible for us to better use and understand Joseph Smith’s translation than …

Saving A Child (Exodus 1-2), Kevin L. Tolley

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Exodus is arguably the most essential book in the Hebrew Bible because it depicts the pivotal events in Israel’s history and the definitive institutions of its religion. These themes have reverberated through all subsequent Jewish and Christian history.[1] Nahum Sarna wrote that the Exodus narrative “profoundly influenced ethical and social consciousness” in the Torah and was the “motivation for protecting and promoting the interests and rights of the stranger and disadvantaged of society.”[2]

Putting Down The Priests: A Note On Royal Evaluations, (Wĕ)Hišbît, And Priestly Purges In 2 Kings 23:5 And Mosiah 11:5, Matthew L. Bowen

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

The historian who wrote 2 Kings 23:5 and Mormon, who wrote Mosiah 11:5, used identical expressions to describe King Josiah’s and King Noah’s purges of the priests previously ordained and installed by their fathers. These purges came to define their respective kingships. The biblical writer used this language to positively evaluate Josiah’s kingship (“And he put down [wĕhišbît] the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained”), whereas Mormon levies a negative evaluation against Noah (“For he put down [cf. Hebrew (wĕ)hišbît] all the priests that had been consecrated by his father”). Mormon employs additional “Deuteronomistic” language in evaluating …

Experiential Knowledge And The Covenantal Relationship In Alma 7, Godfrey J. Ellis

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

A favorite scripture of many faithful saints is Alma 7 where it describes how the Savior came to Earth to understand, in the flesh, not only human sin, but human suffering. He did this in order to succor and heal us. Despite its obvious appeal, two points may seem curious to some readers. First, the doctrinal power of verses 11–13, which form a chiasm, has as its apex not the “mercy in succoring us,” as might be expected, but the “in the flesh” detail. Why? Upon closer examination, it appears that, in addition to performing the Atonement, Christ needed a …

Liahona: “Prepared Of The Lord, A Compass", Calvin D. Tolman

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

This study assesses some of the interpretations of the name Liahona, which are unsatisfactory from a linguistic perspective. Since a dialect of Hebrew is the most likely underlying language of the Book of Mormon, the approach taken in this study parses the word Liahona into three meaningful segments in Hebrew: l-iah-ona; a Biblical Hebrew transliteration would be l-Yāh-Ɂōnấ. This name is a grammatical construction that attaches the prepositional prefix l- to Yāh, the name of “the Lord,” followed by the noun *Ɂōnấ. The preposition l- in this context denotes the following name as the agent or the one who is …

Developing Discerning Disciple-Learners And Teachers Byu–Hawaii’S Christ-Centered Framework For Learning And Teaching, Jared Marcum

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Even though the sole duty of religious educators is to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ,[1] they cannot shoulder the whole responsibility of spiritual education at the Church Educational System’s (CES) institutions of higher learning. President Kevin J Worthen stated, “If the only insights that students receive on gospel truths are in their religion classes, we will not be that different from other good universities to which an institute of religion is attached. What will truly make us unique—and what we must uniquely do well—is to meet the challenge set forth by President Spencer W. Kimball: ‘That every professor and …

Religious Literacy Practices For Young Readers, Eric D. Rackley, Rebekah Kay Strain

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Although much of our gospel knowledge depends upon our interactions with scripture, misconceptions about reading it persist. One of the most enduring is the illusion of comprehension in which young readers mistakenly believe that reading words is sufficient to understand ideas.[1] To understand the important insights embedded in scripture and other complex texts, “reading must go considerably beyond the words alone.”[2] Words are sketches of ideas—not ideas themselves—so no text, however descriptive or eloquent, can include all the information necessary to understand its most compelling truths. For young readers to take full advantage of scripture and have the truths of …

The Covenant Among Covenants The Abrahamic Covenant And Biblical Covenant Making, Shon D. Hopkin

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

As stated by one biblical scholar, “It is recognized by all serious students of the Bible that the covenant with Abraham is one of the important and determinative revelations of Scripture. It furnishes the key to the entire Old Testament.”[1] Many Christians believe that the Old Testament covenant was superseded with the coming of Christ. Joseph Smith, however, taught that God is always the same, that his plan of salvation does not change, and that his promises in ancient times remain in effect.[2] Thus, for Latter-day Saints, the Restoration of the gospel hinges on “the new and everlasting covenant” (Doctrine …

Nephi's Messiah, Tanner A. Barratt

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

The Book of Mormon powerfully testifies of Jesus Christ. He is mentioned every 1.7 verses and by scores of different names.[1] Among the many names by which Jesus is identified in sacred writings, the name by which we most commonly know him is Jesus Christ. The word Christ is Greek in origin and means anointed one. It is interesting to note that, just like the Greek word Christ, the Hebrew word Messiah is translated as anointed one. Even though these two titles have the same definition, they present themselves differently in the Book of Mormon.

Untouchables, Liza Trépanier

Inscape

No abstract provided.

Greenhouse Vending Machine & Clubhouse At Night, Madeline Rupard

Inscape

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.