Mormon Studies Commons^™

David W. Pattern Faithful Friend Or Heel Lifter?, Mark T. Lewis

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

In 1843 Joseph Smith reflected on his experiences with the original members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in this dispensation, remarking that only Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball had not “lifted their heel” against him. Of the remaining ten members of the Quorum, nine faced documented disciplinary action or openly opposed Joseph, but David W. Patten did not. Patten’s loyalty, martyrdom, and frequent commendations from Joseph, the Lord, and his contemporaries make Patten’s exclusion from Joseph’s 1843praise of Brigham and Heber puzzling. Those who knew Patten spoke at length of his faithfulness and often listed his name …

Brigham Young Unfiltered His Life, Conversion, And Faith In His Own Words, Lajean Purcell Carruth

BYU Studies

On October 6, 1867, the Saints met in the new Salt Lake Tabernacle for the first time. Brigham Young rose, made some remarks about the still unfinished state of the organ, and then dedicated the tabernacle to the Lord. This dedicatory prayer was completely unknown until I found the original shorthand record of it several years ago and transcribed it; prior to that time, the earliest known dedication of the tabernacle was 1875. He prayed, “O God our Heavenly Father who dwells in the heavens, in the name of thy Son Jesus Christ we come before thee at this time …

This Branch Of The Church The Early Development Of Local Administration In The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Part 1, The Emergent Church, 1830–1845, Brandon Plewe

BYU Studies

It is easy for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to read the Doctrine and Covenants, or most basic histories of the Church, and assume that the Church has always operated like it operates today, if a bit simpler. By the mid-1830s, most significant local and general offices and titles of Church leadership that we recognize today were in place, and it is possible to interpret historical texts through a modern understanding. Occasional inconsistencies can be easily dismissed as the vagaries of frontier language.

Stephen Burnett Versus The Eight Witnesses An Exercise In Mature Historical Thinking, Neal Rappleye, Stephen O. Smoot

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

This article critically examines the credibility of the claims made by Stephen Burnett about the experience of the Eight Witnesses of the Book of Mormon. A disaffected Latter-day Saint who lost his faith in Joseph Smith after the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society in 1837, Burnett wrote a scathing letter in early 1838 in which he claimed he heard Martin Harris admit that the Eight Witnesses did not physically see and handle the gold plates as claimed in their printed testimony. This article argues that Burnett is not a credible source for accurately understanding the experience of the Eight …

Can The 1834 Affidavits Attacking The Smith Family Be Trusted?, Daniel C. Peterson

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

The character and claims of Joseph Smith are fundamental to the claims of the Church he founded. Knowing this, critics of the Prophet have contended for more than a century and a half that he and his family were the kind of people from whom nobody would want to buy a used car, much less receive a plan of salvation.

Elder L. Tom Perry Examines The Personalities Involved In The Translation Of The Book Of Mormon And In The Restoration Of The Church

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

In his address to the friends and supporters of FARMS at the Foundation's 1995 annual banquet, Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve expressed his interest in the human chemistry found in organizations and examined the early history of the Church from this perspective. He spoke of the challenges that Joseph Smith faced as a young husband with a skeptical father-in-law who thought Joseph should be doing something more productive than sitting around the house translating golden plates. He reflected on the challenges that Martin Harris faced in helping to finance the work on the Book of …

Honorary Volume Focuses On Church History And Doctrine

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

Richard Lloyd Anderson - known as a devoted teacher, careful writer, and perfect gentleman - has had a great impact on the study of LDS Church history. In The Disciple as Witness: Essays on Latter-day Saint History and Doctrine in Honor of Richard Lloyd Anderson, one of two Festschrift volumes published in recognition of his work, friends and colleagues have written 18 scholarly studies in his honor. Several of these papers were presented on 8 March 1997 at a conference titled "Pioneers of the Restoration."

"Show Them Unto No Man", Barry R. Bickmore

BYU Studies

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) who attempt to educate themselves about the history of their religion can sometimes be confronted with a bewildering array of interpretations made by historians who range in perspective from traditional believers to atheists and include numerous variations in between. When asked about the origins of such discrepancies, the historians will naturally refer to biases exhibited by the others and perhaps even to their own possible sources of bias.

A Chat With The New Editors Of The Maxwell Institute Journals

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

Accompanying this issue of Insights is volume 17 (combining numbers one and two) of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies; however, readers will note that the Journal now carries a new name, the Journal of the Book of Mormon and Restoration Scripture. In connection with this change, the Institute asked Andrew H. Hedges, an associate professor of Church History and Doctrine at BYU, to become the new editor, replacing Professor S. Kent Brown, who served as editor and associate editor for many years, and who recently retired from the university. The new associate editors are Grant Hardy, professor of …

"None That Doeth Good", Walker Wright, Don Bradley

BYU Studies

The First Vision has been a center of both faith and controversy. While millions of Latter-day Saints affirm it as the beginning of the Restoration, others see it as an ever-growing fish tale. The multiple accounts of the First Vision vary in detail, with Joseph Smith’s earliest written account (1832) lacking some of the elements found in his later accounts. However, some of these elements—particularly the appearance of God the Father as part of the First Vision experience—are laced throughout Joseph Smith’s translation of the Bible. These historical threads ultimately culminate in his translation of Psalm 14, which weaves together …

Sally In Three Worlds: An Indian Captive In The House Of Brigham Young, By Virginia Kerns (Salt Lake City: University Of Utah Press, 2021), Julia Harrison

BYU Studies

In Sally in Three Worlds: An Indian Captive in the House of Brigham Young, Virginia Kerns relates the story of the settlement of Utah through the life of Sally, a Pahvant Ute woman who lived in Brigham Young’s household. On its surface, the book is a narrative of the life of one woman, but Kerns argues that “a single life can illuminate an entire cultural and social world, or reveal an unremarked but vital part of the human story.”

A New Witness To The World, By Robert A. Rees (Salt Lake City: By Common Consent Press, 2020), Lane Welch

BYU Studies

This book provides a series of essays that analyze and contextualize the text of the Book of Mormon while providing Professor Rees’s faithful perspective on the text. Though each essay stands on its own as a separate work, the later essays, handling the context of Joseph Smith’s work as a nineteenth-century American writer, do reference and build off one another. These later essays handle the backgrounds and processes of various American writers contemporary to Joseph Smith, providing an effective survey of the literary milieu into which the Book of Mormon first entered; the earlier essays are more focused on the …

An Experiential Pathway To Conversion, Robert K. Christensen, Matthew D. Wride, Neil R. Lundberg

BYU Studies

Joseph Smith’s formal education did not extend beyond the third grade. His life did not extend beyond the final years of his thirties. The person he became and his work in restoring the gospel of Jesus Christ, however, extend into eternity. John Taylor observed that “Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it.”

Joseph Smith For President: The Prophet, The Assassins, And The Fight For American Religious Freedom By Spender Mcbride, Jordan T. Watkins

BYU Studies

In Joseph Smith for President, Spencer McBride provides an illuminating and reader-friendly account of Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign. McBride, who is a scholar of American religious and political history and an associate managing historian of the Joseph Smith Papers Project, firmly situates the early history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints within antebellum contexts. In doing so, he contributes to a body of scholarship that examines the early Saints’ experiences in ways that shed light on and correct assumptions about American historical developments. In one recent example, which addresses some of the same themes, Benjamin E. …

Global Mormonism In Political Context, Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp

Mormon Studies Review

In 1976 Ezra Taft Benson, a long-standing member of the Quorum of
the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
delivered a fireside address at Brigham Young University in Utah. Benson,
born in Whitney, Idaho, and raised as a farmer in the heart of
Mormon country, represented the conservative wing of his religious
community. He had also spent much of his life working for the LDS
Church and traveling throughout the world, so he had a keen understanding
of the challenges of spreading his religious message in international
contexts. His talk that evening was unequivocal: America …

Review: P. Jane Hafen And Brenden W. Rensink, Eds. Essays On American Indian And Mormon History. Salt Lake City: University Of Utah Press, 2019., Christen Mucher

Mormon Studies Review

The past few years in Mormon studies have seen an increase in scholarly turns to critical race, gender analytics, and, even more recently, decolonial approaches.1 Essays on American Indian and Mormon History, edited by P. Jane Hafen (Taos Pueblo) and Brenden W. Rensink, definitively adds Indigeneity to that list of critical terms. The result of a 2015 seminar at the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, Brigham Young University,the collection aims to bring together scholarship on Mormon-Indigenous relations with that on Indigenous Mormons to examine the influence of Mormonism on Indigenous peoples and identities, as well as to highlight the …

Review: Candy Moulton. The Mormon Handcart Migration: “Tounge Nor Pen Can Never Tell The Sorrow.” Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 2019., Megan Ann Stanton

Mormon Studies Review

After surviving the overland trail as a member of the Martin Handcart Company, Heber McBride asserted, “tounge nor pen can never tell the sorrow and suffering” (81). At the age of thirteen, he and his adolescent sister Janetta had tended to their ailing parents and younger siblings while moving the family’s handcart themselves. They buried their father during their journey and, together with other members of the ill-fated Martin and Willie Handcart Companies, they faced life-threatening weather and starvation. Indeed, at least one-seventh of the Willie and one-fifth of the Martin handcart migrants perished during their 1856 treks.

Review: Church Historian’S Press (Church History Department, The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints). The Diaries Of Emmeline B. Wells. 2020. Https://Www.Churchhistorianspress.Org/Emmeline-B-Wells., Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Mormon Studies Review

The Church Historian’s Press has just announced publication of the diaries of Emmeline B. Wells. That is the good news. The bad news is that the current offering includes only the first six of Wells’s forty-seven diaries. Never fear. When I asked the publisher when the rest might appear, I learned that the 1890s diaries that focus on Utah statehood and women’s suffrage would be published in August to honor this year’s celebration of the Nineteenth Amendment. The press hopes to complete the entire project by 2022. In the meantime, scholars can consult the digitized versions of the original diaries, …

A Method For Evaluating Latter-Day Saint History, Anthony R. Sweat, Kenneth L. Alford

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Historical claims about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are repeatedly shared in classrooms, conversations, books, manuals, videos, podcasts, and online in a variety of ways. There is no shortage of information about the history of the Restoration. When you learn about Church history from these various sources, however, how do you know which claims to accept and which to question? Are all perspectives about Church history accurate and trustworthy? And, if all historical sources are not of the same value and veracity, what guidelines can be used to differentiate them?

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.

Conversions, Arrests, And Friendships: A Story Of Two Icelandic Police Officers, Fred E. Woods, Kari Bjarnason

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

In 1881 in Reykjavík, Iceland, two Icelandic police officers, Þorsteinn (Thorsteinn) Jónsson and Jón Borgfirðingur, were sent to arrest Latter-day Saint missionaries. These missionaries had baptized the first three converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Reykjavík a year earlier, and one of those converts, Sigríður Jónsdóttir, happened to be the wife of one of the arresting officers. But a remarkable friendship, one that thrived irrespective of time, distance, and religious differences, developed due to the arrests and the events surrounding them. Although the story and historical context of the missionaries’ experience in Reykjavík have been …

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.]

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.

Leonard Arrington And The Writing Of Mormon History, James B. Allen

BYU Studies

Gregory A. Prince. Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History.

Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2016.

Out Of Obscurity: Mormonism Since 1945, Roger Terry

BYU Studies

Patrick Q. Mason and John G. Turner, eds., Out of Obscurity: Mormonism since 1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016)

Joseph Smith's Iowa Quest For Legal Assistance: His Letters To Edward Johnstone And Others On Sunday, June 23, 1844, John W. Welch

BYU Studies

When Joseph and Hyrum Smith were threatened with arrest on June 22, 1844, they left Nauvoo, Illinois, and went across the Mississippi River in the very early morning hours of Sunday, June 23. As evidenced by the letters and records of that crucial day, Joseph and Hyrum were considering several options that pointed in divergent directions. Recently found sources give new information about a little-known and underestimated purpose for their midnight rowing across the Mississippi River to Montrose, Iowa—namely, to seek and retain the legal assistance of experienced lawyers necessary before submitting to a warrant requiring them to go to …

Saints, Slaves, And Blacks: The Changing Place Of Black People Within Mormonism, Alison Palmer

BYU Studies

Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People within Mormonism, by Newell G. Bringhurst, 2d ed. (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2018)

Seminary And Institute Recognition Pins, Dennis A. Wright, Alan L. Morrell

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

The history of the Church is recorded not only in the words and events o f the past but also in the artifacts left behind by previous generations. Artifacts serve as tangible reminders of our memories and add a sense of reality to our history. The Church History Museum seeks to collect, preserve, and interpret the artifacts that illustrate the history of the Church. As windows to our past, artifacts enhance personal insight and understanding that in turn enlighten our appreciation of our history. The purpose of this discussion is to examine the historical context of recognition jewelry in the …

Praying A Mission Into Existence: Frantiska “Mamousek” Vesela Brodilova, Mary Jane Woodger, Tyler Smith, Kiersten Robertson

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

After hearing about the death of Frantiska “Mamousek” Brodilova, President John A. Widtsoe of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said, “Sister Brodil was a really marvelous woman. Her story must be preserved in Church history.” This paper preserves the memory of a woman whose faith and devotion to the truth and whose love for the Lord opened the door for an entire nation to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ. She was “a woman who prayed a mission into existence.”

The Mormon Church And Blacks: A Documentary History, Stephanie Fudge

BYU Studies

The Mormon Church and Blacks: A Documentary History, edited by Matthew L. Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2015)