Mormon Studies Commons^™

Introduction: Small Means, Great Things, Benjamin Peters, John D. Peters

Mormon Studies Review

Mormonism is a media religion: every contribution to this forum makes this point in some way. Of course, the same could be said of most religions, and yet the Mormon tradition in particular incorporates media. How so?

Full Issue

Mormon Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Communing With Compromise: Mormonism And The Early Internet, Gavin Feller

Mormon Studies Review

As an emerging technology, the internet stirred a fascinating brew of excitement, anxiety, and fear for Jew and Gentile.1 It challenged both grassroots and top-down notions of intimacy, authenticity, and control. For Mormonism, a religion whose chronology parallels uncannily the development of electronic communication technologies, the internet joins a host of media dripping with ambivalence. In tracing the contours of Mormonism’s evolving and uneasy relationship with the twentieth-century internet—from early listserv communities to institutional web development—this brief essay presents only a morsel of the richness the religion offers for the study of technology, culture, and power.

Review Of Natural Born Seer: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1805–1830, By Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mark Ashurst-Mcgee, Mark L. Staker

Mormon Studies Review

Around the turn of the century, Signature Books planned a series of three volumes that would cover Joseph Smith’s life in detail. Richard S. Van Wagoner was commissioned to write the first volume of the trilogy, treating the period from Smith’s birth to his move to Ohio. Van Wagoner’s Natural Born Seer: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1805– 1830 engages Smith’s family and cultural background, his childhood and formative years, his visionary claims, his translation of the Book of Mormon, and the organization of the Mormon church. Much of the work of Mormon history is done by amateur scholars who contribute …

Review Of What Is Mormonism? A Student’S Introduction, By Patrick Q. Mason; Mormonism: The Basics, By David J. Howlett And John Charles Duffy, Jennifer Graber

Mormon Studies Review

Two introductory texts on Mormonism have much to offer scholars, like myself, who are not specialists in the tradition yet regularly return to it when teaching undergraduate classes in American religions and American history. Mason’s volume, What Is Mormonism? A Student’s Introduction, focuses on the Latter-day Saints and explores the tradition’s historical development, global expansion, daily practice, and function as a response to existential problems. Howlett and Duffy’s book, Mormonism: The Basics, surveys the Latter-day Saints, the Reorganized Latter Day Saints (RLDS, now Community of Christ),

and fundamentalist groups with an emphasis on Mormon history, relations with non-Mormons, ritual life, …

Review Of Administrative Records, Volume 1: The Council Of Fifty, Minutes, March 1844–January 1846, Edited By Matthew J. Grow, Ronald K. Esplin, Mark Ashurst- Mcgee, Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, And Jeffrey D. Mahas., Kathleen Flake

Mormon Studies Review

A long-awaited publication, The Council of Fifty, Minutes, March 1844–January 1846 does not disappoint. It comprises contemporaneous notes, most of them verbatim, of deliberations by a religious council charged with devising a millennial government for the Mormon faithful and the non-Mormon righteous. Minutes gives a uniquely intimate view of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ efforts to account for religious diversity in its idealized kingdom of God to be organized in preparation for Christ’s return. Council members became demoralized by the death of founder Joseph Smith, and the record quickly turns into an account of the Council’s efforts …

Review Of Making Lamanites: Mormons, Native Americans, And The Indian Student Placement Program, 1947–2000, By Matthew Garrett, Sujey Vega

Mormon Studies Review

Matthew Garrett begins his history of the Mormon Indian Student Placement Program (ISPP) with a narrative about his own family’s participation and what it meant for him to find an old picture of a young Native American student among his family photos. Thus, Garrett starts his history through this personal connection. Like many historical monographs, however, it moves toward a more seemingly objective stance that provides information without much reflection. While there is peppered subtle critique of the LDS Church’s representation of Native Americans in its doctrine, the ISPP is rescued from much reproach. The book does provide a much-needed …

Review Of At The Pulpit: 185 Years Of Discourses By Latter-Day Saint Women, Edited By Jennifer Reeder And Kate Holbrook., Beverly W. Palmer

Mormon Studies Review

In At the Pulpit—an annotated collection of fifty-four discourses given by Mormon women between 1831 and 2016—editors Jennifer Reeder and Kate Holbrook clearly achieve their stated goal of “representing the varied ways that Mormon women have addressed public audiences” (p. xxvii). The earliest speeches included in this book were delivered in the American Midwest until the mid-1840s; after 1852 these addresses were almost entirely given in Utah (exceptions being Liverpool, England, in 1861; Chicago in 1893; Washington, DC, in 1895; and Mexico City in 1972). The fact that speakers came from places like New Zealand and South Africa, for example, …

Wise Or Foolish: Women In Mormon Biblical Narrative Art, Jennifer Champoux

BYU Studies

Visual imagery is an inescapable element of religion. Even those groups that generally avoid figural imagery, such as those in Judaism and Islam, have visual objects with religious significance.1 In fact, as David Morgan, professor of religious studies and art history at Duke University, has argued, it is often the religions that avoid figurative imagery that end up with the richest material culture.2 To some extent, this is true for Mormonism. Although Mormons believe art can beautify a space, visual art is not tied to actual ritual practice. Chapels, for example, where the sacrament ordinance is performed, are built with …

A House Full Of Females: Plural Marriage And Women's Rights In Early Mormonism, 1835-1870, Lowell C. Bennion

BYU Studies

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women's Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870.

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2017.

The Trek East: Mormonism Meets Japan, 1901-1968, Stephen J. Moody

BYU Studies

Shinji Takagi. The Trek East: Mormonism Meets Japan, 1901-1968.

Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2016.

End Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Martin Harris Comes To Utah, 1870, Susan Easton Black, Larry C. Porter

BYU Studies

[The following is an excerpt from chapter 14 of the new biography Martin Harris: Uncompromising Witness of the Book of Mormon by Susan Easton Black and Larry C. Porter. This biography, published by BYU Studies, will be available in October 2018. For further information, see the advertisement on page 208 of this issue.]

Anaranjado, John Alba Cutler

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

"Why Are Your Kids Late To School Today?", Lisa Martin

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Saints At Devil's Gate: Landscapes Along The Mormon Trail, Herman Du Toit

BYU Studies

Laura Allred Hurtado and Bryon C. Andreasen. Saints at Devil's Gate: Landscapes along the Mormon Trail.

Salt Lake City: Church Historian's Press, 2016.

Race And Making Of The Mormon People, Matthew L. Harris

BYU Studies

Max Perry Mueller. Race and the Making of the Mormon People.

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017.

End Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Timing The Translation Of The Book Of Mormon: "Days [And Hours] Never To Be Forgotten", John W. Welch

BYU Studies

This paper aims to stimulate specific thinking about the intense and complex events during which the Book of Mormon was translated in 1829. Encouraged initially by Elder Neal A. Maxwell, and building on my chapter in the second edition of Opening the Heavens, this article strives to be as precise as possible about the timing of the events and progress of the Book of Mormon translation during the months and days it took place. In 1834, Oliver Cowdery wrote, “These were days never to be forgotten—to sit under the sound of a voice dictated by the inspiration of heaven, …

Back, Mark D. Bennion

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Elvis Has Left The Library: Identifying Forged Annotations In A Book Of Mormon, Keith A. Erekson

BYU Studies

For nearly three decades, the ghost of Elvis Presley has hung over the historical collections of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1989, a copy of the Book of Mormon was donated that contained marginal annotations purportedly by the “King of Rock and Roll.” Word of the acquisition spread quickly by fireside speakers, classroom teachers, and newspaper columnists. Requests to see and touch the book came repeatedly, so much so that by 2002 the book’s binding had cracked and a digital copy was made for visitors who came each week for a peek. In 2007, an independent …

Jane And Emma, Camlyn Giddins

BYU Studies

Jane and Emma Directed by Chantelle Squires

Excel Entertainment, 2018

Feeding The Flock: The Foundations Of Mormon Thought: Church And Praxis, Mark A. Wrathall

BYU Studies

Feeding the Flock: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Church and Praxis By Terryl L. Givens

New York: Oxford University Press, 2017

The Power Of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy And Cosmology, Dan Belnap

BYU Studies

The Power of Godliness: Mormon Liturgy and Cosmology By Jonathan A. Stapley

New York: Oxford University Press, 2018

Voice Of The Saints In Taiwan, Richard B. Stamps

BYU Studies

Voice of the Saints in Taiwan By Po Nien (Felipe) Chou and Mei Wah Sin (Petra) Chou

Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2017

Pioneer Women Of Arizona, Hannah Charlesworth

BYU Studies

Pioneer Women of Arizona, by Roberta Flake Clayton, Catherine H. Ellis, and David F. Boone, 2d ed. (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017)

Abinadi: He Came Among Them In Disguise, Neal Rappleye

BYU Studies

Abinadi: He Came among Them in Disguise, edited by Shon D. Hopkin (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2018)

From The Editor, John W. Welch

BYU Studies

As we send this issue of BYU Studies Quarterly to press, I find myself reflecting on the influences of many people upon my life. Goodly parents and beloved family members always come at the top of my appreciation list. I recently met with many friends associated with BYU Studies and was filled with overwhelming thankfulness for the many editors, authors, advisors, administrators, readers, and subscribers, who sustain this extraordinary publication. And I feel more profoundly indebted to BYU for its increasingly unusual mission. As President Dallin H. Oaks recently said at a BYU leadership conference, the mandate given to BYU …

Photographs Of The Dedication Of Pioneer Square In Salt Lake City, July 25, 1898, Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, Ronald L. Fox

BYU Studies

In July 1898, the Spanish-American War was raging and the people of the United States were remembering the Maine, a US ship that sank after an explosion in the Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898. Nevertheless, the upcoming fifty-first anniversary of the 1847 arrival of the Mormon pioneers in Utah was on the minds of Salt Lake City officials. This anniversary was celebrated off and on beginning in 1849; in the 1897 jubilee year, just a year earlier, the community had “pulled out all the stops.” As city officials considered what might be done in 1898, they focused their attention …

True And Faithful: Joseph Fielding Smith As Mormon Historian And Theologian, Reid L. Neilson, Scott D. Marianno

BYU Studies

Each year hundreds of thousands of visitors to Salt Lake City’s Temple Square make their way to the Church History Museum of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While many of the museum’s exhibits have been rotated over the past three decades, the “Presidents of the Church” gallery, made of individual displays for each previous Church president, is a longstanding exhibit that has generally been refreshed only after a Mormon prophet has died and his artifacts have been added to the chronological display cases. The current museum exhibit commemorating President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972) hangs on the east …