Mormon Studies Commons^™

“You Had Better Let Mrs Young Have Any Thing She Wants”, Matthew C. Godfrey

BYU Studies

It was a cold, blustery day in Commerce, Illinois—a town pressed up against the Mississippi River—in November 1839. As the rain poured from the sky, a small skiff appeared on the river, approaching Commerce (later renamed Nauvoo) from Montrose, Iowa Territory. A woman huddled in the vessel, trying to protect a small bundle in her arms from the elements. The rain, coupled with the spray from the river, soaked both the woman and the bundle, which was a two-month-old baby. Despite the rawness of the day, the woman was determined to reach Commerce, hoping to visit the tithing office of …

Review: Mark Ashurst-Mcgee, David W. Grua, Elizabeth A. Kuehn, Brenden W. Rensink, And Alexander L. Baugh, Eds. The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents, Volume 6: February 1838-August 1839. Salt Lake City, Ut: T He Church Historian’S Press, 2017)., Angela Bell

Mormon Studies Review

The most recent volume of The Joseph Smith Papers, Volume 6 is a contribution long-awaited by students of Mormon history, members of faith traditions, and scholars of American religion. The collection chronicles the tumultuous time in Mormon history from Joseph Smith Jr., and Sidney Rigdon’s removal from Kirtland, Ohio, in early 1838 through the establishment and early settlement of Nauvoo, Illinois, during the spring and summer of 1839. In the tradition of the first f ive volumes of documents, this work compiles all known documents written, dictated, and received by the prophet from February 1838 to August 1839 and provides …

Mormon Studies In Africa, Amy Hoyt

Mormon Studies Review

Mormon studies, as understood by scholars, includes the scholarly examination of all of the traditions that have stemmed from Joseph Smith Jr. This essay will review the state of the field of Mormon studies in Africa and pay particular attention to two of these traditions, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ, formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Review Of Irenaeus, Joseph Smith, And God-Making Heresy, B Y Adam J. Powell, Stephen C. Taysom

Mormon Studies Review

Adam J. Powell’s Irenaeus, Joseph Smith, and God-Making Heresy is not a book for the faint of heart or those allergic to theoretical musings. In just over two hundred pages, Powell manages to produce not only a fascinating comparison between Joseph Smith’s nineteenth-century Mormonism and the religious thought of second-century church father Irenaeus, but also introduces an innovative application of the work of Max Weber and Hans Mol to the question of religious conflict management. This is a book about the dynamic nature of religion—how it makes and remakes itself while colliding with ever-present cultural forces.

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 …

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 …

Journals, Volume 2: December 1841-April 1843; Journals, Volume 3: May 1843-June 1844, James B. Allen

BYU Studies

Journals, Volume 2: December 1841-April 1843 Edited by Andrew H. Hedges, Alex D. Smith, and Richard Lloyd Anderson

The Joseph Smith Papers. Salt Lake City: Church Historian's Press, 2011

Journals, Volume 3: May 1843-June 1844 Edited by Andrew H. Hedges, Alex D. Smith, and Brent M. Rogers

The Joseph Smith Papers. Salt Lake City: Church Historian's Press, 2015

Joseph Smith And The Recovery Of “Eternal Man”, Robert L. Millet

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Truman Madsen has been a hero of mine for many years, stretching back half a century to when I was serving in the Eastern States Mission. Several of his talks to the New England missionaries and members made their way into our mission. Truman had a way of blending seamlessly his academic training in philosophy and religion and his spiritual knowledge and conviction. He paid a significant price to learn by study and also by faith (D&C 88:118), and it was that concentrated and consecrated effort that allowed him, like his Master, to teach as one having authority (Matthew 7:29; …

Review Of Joseph Smith’S Seer Stones, Joseph M. Spencer

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

In 1961, Hugh Nibley published The Myth Makers, a creative analysis of Joseph Smith’s critics that exhibits what then-Elder Gordon B. Hinckley called a “Puckish delight” in satirizing those among the Prophet’s contemporaries who had unkind things to say about him. In the book, Nibley imagines a deposition, held preparatory to “the case of the World versus Joseph Smith.” The chairman of the deposition questions the critical witnesses in a sardonic critique of the reliability of the sources. In one scene, the chairman asks to “hear about the peepstone,” and he gets an earful. The witnesses clamor for attention, vying …

Joseph Smith, Robert Foster, And Chauncey And Francis Higbee, Andrew H. Hedges

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

On 7 June 1844, seven dissenters from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—William and Wilson Law, Francis M. and Chauncey L. Higbee, Robert and Charles Foster, and Charles Ivins—published the first and only issue of the Nauvoo Expositor, a four-page, six-column paper whose purpose was to provide “a full, candid and succinct statement of facts, as they exist in the city of Nauvoo, fearless of whose particular case they apply.” Concerned that the paper’s accusations and inflammatory rhetoric would result in violence against Nauvoo, the city council three days later ordered Joseph Smith, in his capacity as mayor …

Joseph Smith Translating Genesis, Kent P. Jackson

BYU Studies

Joseph Smith’s revision of the Bible was one of his signature projects as founder and prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (originally called the Church of Christ). He began it sometime in June 1830, just three months after the first copies of the Book of Mormon came out of the bindery of the Howard and Grandin Company in Palmyra, New York. The Bible project lasted three years, until July 1833, when he dictated the last pages and declared the work finished. The venture was formidable, eventually producing seven manuscripts totaling 446 pages. Two of those manuscripts …

From The Editor, John W. Welch

BYU Studies

The year 2017 promises to be a very exciting year for readers of BYU Studies Quarterly. With many challenges as well as positive developments happening around the world, we expect that our readers are on the constant lookout for solid information and commendable perspectives. The carefully written and rigorously peer-reviewed pages of this journal continue to offer new insights into old problems and to bring old wisdom to bear on new issues. With this in mind, my thoughts returned to the frequently cited section 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Joseph Smith's Dog, Old Major, Alexander L. Baugh

BYU Studies

When it comes to history, interesting information is often found in the little-known, incidental details. Discovering the lesser-known facts in people’s lives helps one understand more about their disposition, character, temperament, motivation, and personality—who they really were and what they were like. One such aspect of the life of Joseph Smith is how he came to own a dog and his close relationship with this canine companion.

Dialogic Faiths: Multi-Genre Expression In Religious Narrative, Rosemary L. Demos

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As persuasive or expository texts, religious conversion narratives tend towards monologic language, and texts that advocate one particular creed or institution often reflect the unity of faith through linguistically totalizing methods. This study, however, examines the dialogic interactions found in certain religious narratives. The texts included in this analysis recount unusual conversion outcomes: not to formally established church institutions, but rather to a heightened religious experience and in some cases a call to leadership in establishing new social orders. In these texts, the dynamic between personal and communal religious experience is tense, sometimes precarious; the difficulties of engaging in social …

Forging The Mormon Myth, Maryanne Hafen

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

The work of the forger Mark Hofmann frames many key problems and changes in Mormon historiography. More specifically, it reveals a tension between versions of Mormon history that are propagated in the religion. On one hand, there is a documented and literal history. On the other, a sacred and engaging myth. However, these two cannot coexist harmoniously.

The Temple: Ancient And Restored, Stephen D. Ricks, Donald W. Parry

Interpreter Foundation Books

Joseph Smith taught that the origins of modern temple ordinances go back beyond the foundation of the world. For example in 1835, as the Saints prepared to receive the ordinances that would be available to them in the Kirtland Temple, the Prophet stated:1

The order of the house of God has been, and ever will be, the same, even after Christ comes; and after the termination of the thousand years it will be the same; and we shall finally enter into the celestial kingdom of God, and enjoy it forever.

“Line Upon Line”: Joseph Smith’S Growing Understanding Of The Eternal Family, R. Devan Jensen, Michael A. Goodman, Barbara Morgan Gardener

Faculty Publications

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” So begins L . P. Hartley’s novel The Go-Between. This statement reminds religious educators to study history as it unfolded and to avoid presentism, or “an attitude toward the past dominated by present-day attitudes and experiences.”1 Latter-day Saint doctrines did not spring up fully formed as we have them today. The historical record shows that Joseph Smith did not begin with a full understanding of the doctrines of eternal families and sealing ordinances as we teach them today. In fact, the Prophet Joseph Smith dictated a revelation on 6 …

From Darkness Unto Light: Joseph Smith's Translation And Publication Of The Book Of Mormon, Steven L. Olsen

BYU Studies

Michael Hubbard MacKay and Gerrit J. Dirkmaat. From Darkness unto Light: Joseph Smith's Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon.

Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015.

Joseph Smith's Polygamy: Toward A Better Understanding, M. Scott Bradshaw

BYU Studies

Brian C. Hales and Laura H. Hales. Joseph Smith's Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding.

Draper, Utah: Greg Kofford Books, 2015.

The First Vision: A Harmonization Of 10 Accounts From The Sacred Grove, Kimball Gardner

BYU Studies

The First Vision: A Harmonization of 10 Accounts from the Sacred Grove by Matthew B. Christensen (Springville, Utah: Cedar Fort, 2014)

Road To Martyrdom: Joseph Smith's Last Legal Cases, Joseph I. Bentley

BYU Studies

In 1842, Joseph Smith looked back on the events of his life and said, “Deep water is what I am wont to swim in” (D&C 127:2). This was especially true of his experiences with the law. Starting with his first exposure to the judicial system in 1819, at age thirteen, he spent much of his next twenty-five years of life entangled with legal concerns. The Joseph Smith Papers Project team now can count about 220 cases involving Joseph as plaintiff, defendant, witness, or judge. Of those, approximately fifty were criminal cases capable of taking away his liberty, his resources, or, …

Documents, Volume 1: July 1828-June 1831; Documents, Volume 2: July 1831-January 1833; Documents, Volume 3: February 1833-March 1834, James B. Allen

BYU Studies

Michael Hubbard MacKay, Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, Grant Underwood, Robert J. Woodford, and William G. Hartley, editors. Documents, Volume 1: July 1828-June 1831.

Vol. 1 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, Richaard Lyman Bushman, and Matthew J. Grow. Salt Lake City: The Church Historian's Press, 2013.

Matthew C. Godfrey, Mark Ashurst-McGee, Grant Underwood, Robert J. Woodford, and William G. Hartley, editors. Documents, Volume 2: July 1831-January 1833.

Vol. 2 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, Richard Lyman …

Joseph Smith And His Apostasy And Restoration Culture, Trevan Hatch

Faculty Publications

Jesus Christ told Joseph Smith Jr. in the spring of 1820 that he must not join any church because they were all wrong: "all their creeds are an abomination in my sight .... Their hearts are far from me [and] they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of Godliness but they deny the power thereo£" This commandment prohibiting Joseph from joining a church due to corruption will be discussed at length in this chapter.

Joseph Smith And Egyptian Artifacts: A Model For Evaluating The Prophetic Nature Of The Prophet's Ideas About The Ancient World, Kerry Muhlestein

BYU Studies

Joseph Smith’s collection of Egyptian antiquities has been the point of much interest, both in his day and ours. Among those things that piqued great attention during the Prophet’s lifetime, and continue to do so today, are his explanations of the drawings (known as vignettes when referring to ancient Egyptian literature) on the papyri he possessed and the connections he made between the papyri, mummies, and biblical characters. While we have few statements directly from Joseph Smith himself, there are a number of accounts from people who heard either first- or secondhand the Prophet’s ideas about his collection of antiquities …

Schooling The Prophet: How The Book Of Mormon Influenced Joseph Smith And The Early Restoration, Mark L. Staker

BYU Studies

Gerald E. Smith. Schooling the Prophet: How the Book of Mormon Influenced Joseph Smith and the Early Restoration.

Provo, Utah: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, BYU, 2016.

Joseph Smith's First Vision And A Culture Of Spiritual Manifestations, Trevan Hatch

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this chapter is not to recount and analyze Joseph Smith's First Vision, as others have already attempted that several times. Rather, it is to juxtapose the First Vision with accounts of other visionaries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and to discuss the religious atmosphere in which these visionaries lived.

John Milton, Joseph Smith, And The Book Of Mormon, Robert A. Rees

BYU Studies

In my Introduction to Mormonism class at Graduate Theological Union in 2013, among other topics we discussed the Book of Mormon and its possible provenances. The assignments for the class included my article “Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the American Renaissance,” in which I compare Joseph Smith with his illustrious contemporaries Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman in terms of their respective literary imagination, talent, authorial maturity, education, cultural milieu, knowledge base, and intellectual sophistication. In that article, I attempted to demonstrate that each of these authors enjoyed a much greater …

From The Editor, John W. Welch

BYU Studies

Dear Readers

Affinities And Infinities: Joseph Smith And John Milton, Rosalynde Welch

BYU Studies

This article is a lightly revised version of a talk prepared for a 2011 symposium organized in honor of Richard Bushman. Titled “Mormonism in Cultural Context: A Symposium in Honor of Richard Lyman Bushman on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday,” the conference was jointly sponsored by the Church History Department, Mormon Historic Sites Foundation, Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, and the Religious Studies Center. Presenters were invited to examine Joseph Smith and the Restoration in relation to large cultural currents and to significant intellectual movements, with the aim of exploring Mormonism in its most expansive religious context.

American Crucifixion: The Murder Of Joseph Smith And The Fate Of The Mormon Church, Alexander L. Baugh

BYU Studies

Alex Beam. American Crucifixion: The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church.

New York: Public Affairs, 2014.