Religion Commons^™

Five Hundred African Voices: A Catalog Of Published Accounts By Africans Enslaved In The Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1586-1936, Aaron Spencer Fogleman, Robert Hanserd

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

The importance of published accounts by African slave ship survivors is well-known but not their existence in large numbers. Fogleman and Hanserd catalog nearly five hundred discrete accounts and more than 2,500 printings of them over four centuries in numerous Atlantic languages. Short biographies of each African, print histories of the complete or partial life story. Five Hundred African Voices an invaluable resource for scholars, teachers, students, and others wishing to study transatlantic slavery using African Voices.

Life Before Birth: A Thematic Analysis Of Memories Of Coming Into Life Part 1: Recollections Of Another Realm, Jenny Wade

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Autobiographic memories prior to birth remain controversial in psychology because such memories are traditionally believed to begin much later when some sense of self is formed. Prenatal sentience, including fetal learning, occurs in species from arthropods to humans, and evidence for autobiographic memories from pre- and neo-natal humans has typically come from clinical case histories of altered-state regression techniques eliciting records from adults or clinical case histories of children in normal states. This thematic analysis examined 68 “earliest memory” narratives submitted to an independent website to explore the question: what do people who claim to remember how they came into …

Charism Formation In Dominican Institutions Of Higher Education, Jennifer E. Schaaf Op

Doctor of Ministry Doctoral Projects

Using a qualitative approach, this research project examined the practices of charism formation and mission education at institutions of higher education founded by Dominican Sisters in the US. Broad surveys of those in roles responsible for mission at the institutions were followed by select site visits—conducted in person and virtually—and interviews. Websites and published materials about the institutions, curriculum, visible signs on campus and activities that are integral to the mission were examined as part of this project. As the number of Dominican Sisters available to serve in their founded institutions decreases, this research may provide a path forward in …

A Workshop On The Spiritual Disciplines: Teaching Church Members How To Listen To God Through Prayer, Meditation, Solitude And Journaling Developed For The Members Of Eau Claire Baptist Church Columbia, South Carolina, Steven Blair Bouknight

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Listening to God is so vitally important. This project includes five 75-minute teaching sessions where participants learn how to listen to God through use of the spiritual disciplines of prayer, meditation, solitude, and journaling. Participants take part in various home assignments to practice these spiritual disciplines in their personal lives throughout the week. Participants respond to surveys rating their progress weekly in practicing each of the disciplines mentioned above. Results indicated increased awareness of hearing God speak following the intentional use of the spiritual disciplines and the increased practice of these disciplines by participants.

Soul As Sanctuary: Awareness Of God Alone And Assembled At Freedom Alive Church Of Greenville, South Carolina, Paulleatha Bruce

Doctor of Ministry Projects

A Christian practicum was established at Freedom Alive Church of Greenville in Greenville, South Carolina to examine and to promote the depth of influence and impact awareness of God in self, in daily living practices, and in the world at-large have on the congregants’ engagement and participation in corporate worship. Utilizing Scripture and the employment of solitude, meditation, prayer, and worship as spiritual practices, congregants from the generations of Silent, Baby Boomer, Xer, and Millennial were enlisted to participate in a six-week study. Upon the analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data, it was revealed that congregants’ exposure to the …

Creating "Good Government", Linda Hoffman Kimball

BYU Studies

Creating an image that represents the quest for good government was a meaty challenge. There are so many opinions, so many priorities, so many personalities. How do power, choice, cooperation, force, fear, aspirations, and even geography impact how a society will structure itself and relate to others whose priorities vary?

March Morning, New York City, David Passey

BYU Studies

At last the earth lifts the cobbled street between Church and City Hall back in line with the sun.

The Role Of The Article Iii Judge, Thomas B. Griffith

BYU Studies

The Constitution says precious little about the role envisioned for federal judges in the new government that document created: “The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.”

Proclaim Peace: The Restoration’S Answer To An Age Of Conflict, Patrick Q. Mason, J. David Pulsipher, Kristine Haglund, Reviewer

BYU Studies

Let’s start at the end. The achievement of Proclaim Peace is particularly evident in its endnotes, which comprise balanced references to Restoration scripture, the Bible, Latter-day Saint authorities, and academic Mormon studies and peace studies literature. Scholars ranging from early Americanists like Bernard Bailyn to sociologist Max Weber and even geneticists like Marc Haber provide interdisciplinary contextual richness. There are references to thinkers from Catholic, Protestant, Latter-day Saint, Community of Christ, Muslim, Jewish, and Hindu traditions. This broadly informed and carefully applied framework for reading scripture and exploring a key aspect of the restored gospel and Church history is a …

End Matter

BYU Studies

BYU Studies publishes scholarship that is informed by the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Submissions are invited from all scholars who seek truth “by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118), discern the harmony between revelation and research, value both academic and spiritual inquiry, and recognize that knowledge without charity is nothing (1 Cor. 13:2).

The Orchid And The Missile, Paul Alan Cox

BYU Studies

The MX missile program was proposed by the United States as a response to a perceived missile gap with the Soviet Union in the late 1970s. The basing mode, consisting of multiple silos between which a single launch vehicle would be shuttled, would have consumed large portions of western Utah and eastern Nevada. Although touted as a counterforce weapon, the extraordinary accuracy of the MX would have resulted in the USA constructing an invisible first strike system, destabilizing the strategic balance. Stopping or even slowing the MX deployment seemed impossible before two unexpected events occurred: explicit opposition to the MX …

On The Necessity Of Loss, Shamae Budd

BYU Studies

The second night in the hospital after our son was born, I crept out of bed, hobbled a few feet across the linoleum, and curled up on the stiff pleather couch where Daniel was sleeping. Our son was in the NICU with a mild case of pneumonia, so it was just he and I in that little room. My body hurt. My heart, too. Daniel pulled me close on the little green hospital couch, and I wept. It felt like nothing would be good again—like we would never be the same.

New Deacon, Kevin Klein

BYU Studies

It is our son’s first trip down the chapel aisle / steering a silver tray of broken bread. / Repentant faces lift his way and smile.

Why Abraham Was Not Wrong To Lie, Duane Boyce

BYU Studies

The book of Genesis contains two well-known accounts of Abraham lying about his wife, Sarah (Gen. 12:10–20; 20:1–18).1 In each of them, Abraham reports that Sarah is his sister, 2 Sarah is then taken from Abraham, trouble ensues for those who have taken her, and Sarah is then returned to Abraham. The account in Genesis 20 also explicitly tells us that the Lord protected Sarah from being “touched” in the circumstances (v. 6), and the account in Genesis 12, too, tells us that the Lord intervened, presumably for the same purpose (v. 17).

From Cotton Mcgintey's Rain Sermon To Boy Scout Troop 167 At Agassiz Meadows, Hugh Uintas, Warren Hatch

BYU Studies

Remember how rain drummed your tent last night? And when you were outdoors, how it wrapped you up? Brightened every sniff of spruce and lightning-sparked ozone.

What Egyptian Papyri Did Joseph Smith Possess?, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

In early July 1835, Joseph Smith acquired some Egyptian papyri from which he claimed to translate the Book of Abraham. From historical evidence and the papyrus fragments that were returned to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in November 1967, we can piece together a profile of what papyri the Prophet is known to have possessed.

The "Kirtland Egyptian Papers" And The Book Of Abraham, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

Associated with the translation of the Book of Abraham is a collection of documents commonly known today as the “Kirtland Egyptian Papers.” This name was coined by Hugh Nibley in the early 1970s to describe a corpus of manuscripts that can be classified into, broadly, two categories: Book of Abraham manuscripts and Egyptian-language manuscripts (or manuscripts that “focus on alphabet and grammar material that the authors connected to the ancient Egyptian language”). Because some of these documents postdate the Kirtland period of Latter-day Saint history, and because the name coined by Nibley to describe this corpus is somewhat vague, the …

The Plain Of Olishem, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

The opening chapter of the Book of Abraham mentions a location called “the plain of Olishem” (Abr. 1:10). It isn’t clear from the text whether the plain itself was Olishem, or whether Olishem was some city or region in the area to which the plain was adjacent, or whether the plain takes its name from a major city on the plain. In any case, this “plain of Olishem” was near Abraham’s homeland of Ur of the Chaldees, according to the text.

Abraham's Converts In Haran, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

In the Genesis account of Abraham’s sojourning, the text indicates that at the outset of his journey the patriarch “took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came” (Gen. 12:5). This passage is paralleled in the Book of Abraham, with one small but important difference. It reads, “And I took Sarai, whom I took to wife when I was in Ur, in Chaldea, and …

The Plains Of Moreh, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

The second chapter of the Book of Abraham parallels content found in Genesis 12. Both texts narrate the patriarch’s flight into Canaan and provide specific geographic details about the route he and his family took as they fled Haran (Abr. 2:14–18; Gen. 12:4–9). The Book of Abraham describes Abraham as “journey[ing] from Haran by the way of Jershon, to come to the land of Canaan” (Abr. 2:16).1 Thereafter, Abraham and his party “passed from Jershon through the land unto the place of Sechem” (Abr. 2:18).2 This Sechem, the text says, “was situated in the plains of Moreh,” which themselves were …

Did Abraham Lie About His Wife, Sarai?, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

Before he journeyed into Egypt, Abraham was instructed by God: “Behold, Sarai [later Sarah], thy wife, is a very fair woman to look upon; therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see her, they will say—she is his wife; and they will kill you, but they will save her alive; therefore see that ye do on this wise: Let her say unto the Egyptians, she is thy sister, and thy soul shall live” (Abr. 2:22–23).

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

BYU Studies

A careful reading of the Book of Abraham reveals subtle literary and narrative elements in the text that might otherwise go unappreciated. For instance, a running leitmotif—a recurring theme or concept— throughout the Book of Abraham is that of Abraham as a seer, or someone who sees or otherwise has a visual interaction with divine manifestation (typically or usually aided by a divinatory device such as a seer stone). As seen in both the mention of Abraham’s possession and use of the Urim and Thummim (Abr. 3:1) as well as the repeated use of verbs such as see and show …

By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

In the current (2013) edition of the Pearl of Great Price, the Book of Abraham is prefaced with this explanatory head: “A Translation of some ancient Records that have fallen into our hands from the catacombs of Egypt. The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus.” This title is based on the March 1, 1842, printing of the Book of Abraham in the Times and Seasons, with some alteration. As first published, the statement read, “A TRANSLATION Of some ancient Records that have fallen into our hands, …

About The Authors, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

Stephen O. Smoot is a doctoral student in Semitic and Egyptian languages and literature at the Catholic University of America. He previously earned a master’s degree from the University of Toronto in Near and Middle Eastern civilizations, with a concentration in Egyptology, and bachelor’s degrees from Brigham Young University in ancient Near Eastern studies, with a concentration in Hebrew Bible, and German studies. He is currently an adjunct instructor of religious education at Brigham Young University and a research associate with the B. H. Roberts Foundation.

Appendix, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, John S. Thompson

BYU Studies

The following bibliography on the Book of Abraham has been modified and expanded from that found at www.pearlofgreatprice cen tral .org. The purpose of this bibliography is to assemble a variety of works on the Book of Abraham written primarily by or for Latter-day Saints. This bibliography is not exhaustive and does not include more specialized academic literature. Instead, it has been curated with the intent of highlighting works that are more readily accessible to average Latter-day Saint readers. Most of these items can be accessed online by following the hyperlinks collected at Pearl of Great Price Central for the …

Activities Of The Jehovah's Witnesses Organization As A "Litmus Test" For Religious Freedom In Ukraine, Roman Bogachev, Yana Tsymbalenko, Olena Leovkina, Igor Bogdanovskiy

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article deals with the history and present stage of activities of the Jehovah's Witnesses organization in Ukraine. The attitude and actions of a state and the majority of its population towards the activities of the Jehovists and other non-traditional religious communities is viewed as a “litmus test,” which reveals how successfully the principle of religious freedom and freedom of conscience is implemented in public policy. It is emphasized that, unlike during the Soviet period, when the Jehovists were persecuted for their beliefs and missionary work, a required legal framework for free development of this religion has been created in …

Luhansk (Donbas): Religious Freedom Survey, February 2022, Felix Corley, John Kinahan

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Freedom of religion and belief is severely restricted in the rebel Luhansk People's Republic occupying currently (February 2022) about a third of Ukraine's Luhansk Region. Forum 18's survey analysis documents violations including: rendering illegal all Protestant and non-Moscow Patriarchate Orthodox communities; a climate of fear about discussing human rights violations; repeated denials of permission to a Roman Catholic priest to live in the region; and increasing numbers of banned allegedly "extremist" books, including an edition of the Gospel of John published in 1820.

All human rights including the freedom of religion and belief are severely restricted in the rebel self-declared …

Religious Revival Of Pentecostals In The Occupied Territories Of Ukraine In 1941-1943, Anton Shchelkunov, Svetlana Karpova

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article studies the Pentecostal religious revival during the German occupation of the territory of the Ukrainian SSR. The study reveals that the Pentecostal religious organization, destroyed as a result of the Stalinist repressions, revived rapidly in 1941-1943. Analyzing the religious revival of Pentecostals, the authors of the article come to the following conclusions. 1)In the specific conditions of the Nazi occupation, an episcopal structure emerged among the Soviet Pentecostals, which is not otherwise characteristic of this religious movement. 2) At first, the occupation authorities were neutral or supportive of Pentecostals and did not interfere with the activities of Pentecostal …

The Level Of Accessibility Of Inclusive Design Of Christian Temples And Churches In Ukraine, Olga Polumysna, Oktyabrina Chemakina, Valeriy Bulatov

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article explores the issues of accessibility of inclusive design of Christian churches in Ukraine. The principle of accessibility as the main element of inclusive design often causes a conflict of interests in modern Ukrainian society, as it requires changes in the existing state of affairs. To make the subject-spatial environment accessible not only in everyday life, production, but also in the Christian sacred environment is one of the primary tasks of inclusive design. Many Christian churches in Ukraine are not ready to accept people with inclusion since the conditions of accessibility are not met. One of the reasons is …

The Image Of Jehovah's Witnesses In State Publications In The Ussr, Roman Orlovskyi

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The paper presents a description of the image of Jehovah's Witnesses in the anti-religious books of Soviet authors. A comparison is made of anti-religious books from the times of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. The main points that Soviet authors drew upon when describing the Religious Organization of Jehovah's Witnesses and its adherents in the Soviet Union are described. Under Khrushchev, anti-religious texts were imbued with offensive rhetoric in an attempt to humiliate members of this denomination in the minds of Soviet society. In turn, during the Brezhnev era, there was a significant decrease in the emotional and offensive coloring …