Mormon Studies Commons^™

Voice From The Dust, Darren Parry

BYU Studies

Darren Parry is the chairman of the Northwest Band Tribal Council of the Shoshone Nation. On November 8, 2018, at Brigham Young University, he presented this talk for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies.

He is working to create the Boa Ogoi [Big River] Cultural Interpretive Center, an educational center that will share the story of the Bear River Massacre. On January 29, 1863, the U.S. Army attacked the Shoshone encamped at the Bear River, near present-day Preston, Idaho, and slaughtered 250 to 500 Shoshone people, including women and children. Public reports of this massacre were officially given by …

She Will Find What Is Lost: Brian Kershisnik’S Artistic Response To The Problem Of Human Suffering, Cris Baird

BYU Studies

In March 2014, my wife, Janae, and I purchased Brian Kershisnik’s masterpiece She Will Find What Is Lost and immediately loaned it to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for display in the Church’s Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah.1 In this essay, I tell the story of how we came to own the painting, what it means to us, and why I believe the painting has a spiritually important and universally applicable message.

Front Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Missionaries On A Pilgrimage, Or Pilgrims On A Mission? Elements Of Pilgrimage In The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints Missionary Experience, Elisha Mcintyre, Daniel H. Olsen

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The purpose of this paper is to consider the ways in which proselytizing missions by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are pilgrimage-like. After outlining the historical and theological background behind the Church’s missionary efforts and discuss how this missionary work is organized both practically and social, the similarities between Church missions and religious pilgrimage are compared based on six themes: journeying and the sacred, liminality, communitas, hardships, status, and change and failure.

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.

Is Not This Real?, Joseph M. Spencer

BYU Studies

Latter-day Saints often take Korihor, the infamous Nephite anti-Christ, to be a fool, someone perhaps rightly struck dumb for stupidly demanding signs when he knew better. After all, he self-contradictorily trusted “an angel” who told him that “there is no God” (Alma 30:53). One popular commentary remarks: “Wickedness does not promote rational thought!”

Rod Tip Up!, Clark S. Monson

BYU Studies

The figure of a well-known and beloved fisherman is missing from the Provo River. When I turn off U.S. Highway 189 in Provo Canyon, Utah, and cross the bridge to enter Vivian Park, I look upstream and downstream for him, but he isn’t there. A few feet past the bridge, I cross a familiar double bump in the road—the tracks of the Heber Valley Railroad—but no person I might see walking along the weathered railroad ties walks with a stride I recognize. Sometimes I see numerous fishermen on the river, but they’re outfitted in modern gear—GORE-TEX waders, rubber mesh nets, …

Utah And The American Civil War: The Written Record, William P. Mackinnon

BYU Studies

There are two schools of thought about Utah’s participation in the Civil War: it was de minimis, unworthy of comparison to the blood-soaked contributions of nearly all other American states and territories; or, it was larger than the size of its troop commitment to the Union Army and has a record more complex than is often understood. With this book, Utah and the American Civil War, Kenneth L. Alford is squarely in the latter camp, arguing that “the common belief that Utah Territory ‘sat out’ the Civil War is incorrect. Although the territory was removed from the war’s devastation …

Front Matter

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

No abstract provided.

Creating The New Home- Centered Curriculum, Brian J. Hansbrow, Ted Barnes, Paul Murphy, Scott C. Esplin

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Esplin: Thank you for meeting with me to discuss your role in creating the new home-based, Church-supported curriculum. Please introduce yourselves, including how long you’ve been with the Sunday School curriculum or what your particular role is in the department.

Leadership Lessons From The Book Of Mormon: Nephi As A Case Study, Khumbulani D. Mdletshe

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Leaders and scholars in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have, at various times, attempted to identify what constitutes leadership traits. There are no universal leadership traits that predict a leader’s effectiveness in all situations. Elder Neal A. Maxwell, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, made the following comment: “While most of us can recognize good leadership when we experience or observe it, it is hard for us to isolate controlling traits in a clear-cut way.” Each situation requires specific traits relating to the task at hand. These traits will develop uniquely to individuals and …

Scripture Note: “Pointing Our Souls To Him”, Matthew L. Bowen

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

When the King James translators rendered the biblical Hebrew word tôrâ (often transliterated Torah) into English, they almost always did so using the Anglo-Norman word “law” (< Old English lagu¹ < Old Norse lög²/*lagu). The 1830 translation of the Book of Mormon into English appears to have followed that approach. However, the Book of Mormon’s ancient authors, in several instances, also exhibit a conception of “law” consistent with the most basic sense of tôrâ in Hebrew and in so doing, they reveal an important function of divine “law” as it relates to the divine Lawgiver

Front Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Notice: The New Testament: A Translation For Latter-Day Saints, Jason R. Combs

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Thomas A. Wayment provides a new, accessible translation of the New Testament with notes that thoroughly integrate the New Testament with Restoration scripture. Why should religious educators use Wayment’s The New Testament: A Translation for Latter-day Saints? Before I summarize some of my favorite features, let me suggest just two possible answers to this question: (1) greater awareness of issues we might otherwise overlook, and (2) new avenues for personal study and research.

Agency And Same-Sex Attraction, Ben Schilaty

BYU Studies

I arrived at my parents’ home at eleven o’clock at night after twenty-six hours of driving. The trek from Tucson, Arizona, to Everett, Washington, had been miserable. My life had become unmanageable, and I didn’t know what else to do but go home. I sprawled out on the living room floor, exhausted from the drive and emotionally worn out. I was too tired to pretend to be happy and too sad to do much besides complain. I was thirty years old, and it felt like my life would be perpetually filled with loneliness.

Winter Rail Yard, Matthew Scott Stenson

BYU Studies

I hear the coal train’s organ note in the distance, remember the two pigeons circling together and pecking the open ground between ties near the tracks.

Moramona: The Mormons In Hawai‘I, Alec J. Harding

BYU Studies

Moramona is the quintessential history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Hawai‘i. The book journeys from the first missionaries arriving on the islands in 1850 and their initial struggles to maintain a foothold there to the eventual success of the Church on the islands. The book concludes with a summary of the current prosperity of the Church in Hawai‘i, including the successes of Brigham Young University– Hawai‘i, the Kona Hawai‘i Temple, and the rich culture of faith among today’s members.

The Nauvoo Temple Bells, Shannon M. Tracy, Glen M. Leonard, Ronald G. Watt

BYU Studies

June 27, 2002. Nauvoo, Illinois. 6:00 p.m. Six long chimes ring from a bell located within the Nauvoo Temple tower to signal the first of many dedicatory services for the newly rebuilt Nauvoo Temple. The sound seems to announce a rebirth of dreams long wanting to be fulfilled. Now, for the first time in over a century and a half, a bell rings in the dedicated house of the Lord that sits atop the bluff overlooking the neatly planned streets of the lower city. As was its predecessor, this temple was built for the perfecting of the Saints in the …

Ed’S Slot, Provo River, Jan Perkins

BYU Studies

The oil painting Ed’s Slot, Provo River is 34" × 40" on linen canvas and was completed in 1994.

The Creator Praises Birds, J. S. Absher

BYU Studies

Vent and crissum, lores and crest and comb: I made them all

On Fire In Baltimore: Black Mormon Women And Conversion In A Raging City, Rachel Cope

BYU Studies

In her thought-provoking book, On Fire in Baltimore: Black Mormon Women and Conversion in a Raging City, Laura Rutter Strickling captures the complex conversion narratives of fifteen Latter-day Saint women who found space for themselves within a “historically White church” (xiii). The book provides powerful accounts of individual spiritual journeys while also grappling with the racial tensions that implicitly and explicitly influence black and white interaction within and without The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing The Lds Church, Stephan Cranney

BYU Studies

The Next Mormons is a mixed-methods work (that is, it includes both representative statistics as well as interviews) on the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of millennial members of The Church of the Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the United States. Written by well-known religious journalist Jana Riess, with assistance from Benjamin Knoll, a political science academic, the book is built around the results of their Next Mormons Survey. On the whole, the book is an enjoyable read, reflecting Reiss’s skill as a journalist. The book was clearly written to be accessible, with little reference to major theories in the …

Revelations And Translations, Volume 4: Book Of Abraham And Related Manuscripts, Thomas A. Wayment

BYU Studies

Volume four of the Revelations and Translations series presents for the first time a transcription and complete photographic reproduction of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ holdings of all the manuscripts, grammars, lexical aids, and other resources that were produced in the process of creating the book of Abraham. The series has already published full editions of Joseph Smith’s earliest extant manuscript revelations, many of which form the basis of the Doctrine and Covenants (volume 1); the revelations that were published during Joseph Smith’s lifetime (volume 2); and the full printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon (volume …

The Parables Of Jesus: Revealing The Plan Of Salvation, Micah Christensen

BYU Studies

It has been just over fifty years since Elder Spencer W. Kimball gave his address titled “The Gospel Vision of the Arts,” raising the possibility of having a “Michelangelo” of the Restoration. Ever since, many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been looking for their version of a Sistine Chapel. Yet, what if the highest expression of Church art is not a monumental fresco or statue but, instead, an intimate combination of sacred text and art—a Book of Hours for the Restoration? This radical concept is tested in a new book combining an exegesis of …

Joseph Paul Vorst, Herman Du Toit

BYU Studies

The discovery of a Latter-day Saint artist from a former era, who had almost been forgotten to the vicissitudes of history, is a noteworthy event in the annals of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Joseph Paul Vorst’s prolific painting career spanned two continents and two world wars during his short lifetime. Vorst excelled in a variety of techniques and media, producing a significant body of work. Glen Nelson’s painstaking research has resulted in an eminently readable monograph compiled from multiple sources in Germany and the United States. It is the first book to explore Vorst’s life and …

The Expanded Canon: Perspectives On Mormonism And Sacred Texts, Roger Terry

BYU Studies

If you are looking for excellent scholarship and insights into Latter-day Saint scripture, you might want to start with this new compilation from Greg Kofford Books. The authors of the fourteen essays in this volume explore a wide range of topics related to the Latter-day Saint canon and offer a surprisingly consistent level of discourse. Usually anthologies include a few weak links, but that is not the case with this volume.

Full Issue

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Pilgrimage To Palmyra, Reid L. Neilson, Carson V. Teuscher

BYU Studies

The arrival of autumn in 1923 brought more than a mature harvest to the quiet farming village of Palmyra, New York. On a late September weekend, a torrent of visitors flooded the township—a spectacle unlike anything the locals had ever seen. “Trudging along the roads leading into Palmyra today there came a small army of pilgrims,” the local Rochester Herald reported, “each with his pilgrim’s scrip and each wearing slung across his shoulders a banner with the cryptic word ‘Cumorah’ blazoned on it.” Befuddled residents witnessed the young male and female pilgrims arrive—two by two—until they eventually coalesced in large …

Disciples Of Jesus Christ— Defenders Of Marriage, Russell M. Nelson

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Some of you will continue your education and achieve graduate degrees. Some of you will enter the workforce on a full-time basis. Many of you have married or will marry and begin your families. Family life will provide your most enduring rewards. As partners, you and your spouse will work together to achieve mutual goals and enjoy the fruits of your labors. By the way, brethren, you might bear this in mind: Behind every successful man is a surprised mother-in-law. I know mine was!

“They Must Suffer Even As I”: Misconceptions Concerning Personal Payment For Sin, Christopher J. Porter

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Soon after I was called to serve as the elders quorum president of a young single adult ward many years ago, the stake president gave me the difficult challenge to visit each quorum member individually during the upcoming school year. To this day, I remember one such visit to a young man I’ll call Robert. It was evident when I arrived that something was troubling him; his gaze alternated nervously between the floor and his visitor but gave preference to the floor. At the outset of our conversation, he was reticent and guarded, but at my prodding he began to …