Mormon Studies Commons^™

Motives And The Path To Perfection, Lindon J. Robison, David R. Just

BYU Studies

Motives and the Desires of Our Hearts

Wandering Realities: The Mormonish Short Fiction Of Steven L. Peck, Scott R. Parkin

BYU Studies

Steven L. Peck. Wandering Realities: The Mormonish Short Fiction of Steven L. Peck.

Provo, Utah: Zarahemla Books, 2015.

Talking Doctrine: Mormons And Evangelicals In Conversation, Christine Wilkins

BYU Studies

Talking Doctrine: Mormons and Evangelicals in Conversation, edited by Richard J. Mouw and Robert L. Millet (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2015)

Meine Suche Nach Dem Lebendigen Gott: Gedanken Aus Dem Leben Von F. Enzio Busche, Roger Terry

BYU Studies

Meine Suche nach dem lebendigen Gott: Gedanken aus dem Leben von F. Enzio Busche, edited by Tracie A. Lamb, translated by Wolfgang Gebauer (Leipzig: Leipziger Universit tsverlag, 2015)

Conversations With Mormon Historians, Allyson Jones

BYU Studies

Conversations with Mormon Historians, edited by Alexander L. Baugh and Reid L. Neilson (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015)

Last Laborer: Thoughts And Reflections Of A Black Mormon, Scott R. Parkin

BYU Studies

Last Laborer: Thoughts and Reflections of a Black Mormon by Keith N. Hamilton (Salt Lake City: Ammon Works, 2011)

By Simple Yet Propitious Means: The Art Of Jorge Cocco Santangelo, Herman Du Toit

BYU Studies

Inspired devotional art always strives for essential meaning, communicating across the widest range of cultural boundaries. This kind of art has always resisted the vanities of idiosyncratic expression, striving instead to subordinate the artist’s personal virtuosity to the sacral nature of its subject matter. There have been few artists of repute who have achieved this fine balance in their work. Jorge Cocco Santangelo, or “Cocco” as he is known, is one such artist who has devoted his professional career to the creation of art as an expression of his testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. His work recently …

The Time It Takes To Age, Rebecca Smylie

BYU Studies

We moved to Africa for my husband’s job, and those first months in Dakar, Senegal, were hard. We had a newborn and were sleep deprived. The antimalarials gave me bad dreams. We were living out of suitcases, we found dead birds in the back bedroom, and our three-year-old couldn’t seem to stop crying. Increasingly, we heard her fighting with a row of new imaginary friends, who were more often than not consigned to time out in the “bird room.” How would I survive two years?

Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings, Camille S. Williams

BYU Studies

Joanna Brooks, Rachel Hunt Steenblik, and Hannah Wheelwright, eds. Mormon Feminism: Essential Writings.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Becoming Divine: An Introduction To Deification In Western Culture, Daniel C. Peterson

BYU Studies

M. David Litwa. Becoming Divine: An Introduction to Deification in Western Culture.

Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2013.

From The Editor, John W. Welch

BYU Studies

True to the long-standing character of BYU Studies, this issue contains something exciting and enriching for just about everyone. Looking over this latest issue, I am grateful for the academic quality and faithful integrity of its contents and for the authors who have worked hard to bring this information to you.

Silent Wednesday, Mark Bennion

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

First Principles And Ordinances: The Fourth Article Of Faith In Light Of The Temple, Eric Samuelsen

BYU Studies

Samuel M. Brown, First Principles and Ordinances: The Fourth Article of Faith in Light of the Temple (Provo, Utah: Neal A. Maxwell Institute, Brigham Young University, 2014).

The Civil War Years In Utah: The Kingdom Of God And The Territory That Did Not Fight, Kenneth L. Alford

BYU Studies

John Gary Maxwell. The Civil War Years in Utah: The Kingdom of God and the Territory That Did Not Fight.

Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016.

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.

A Thoughtful Faith: Essays On Belief By Mormon Scholars, Philip L. Barlow

Books

No abstract provided.

The Lds Church In Taiwan: The First Three Years, John Hilton Iii

Faculty Publications

Located approximately one hundred miles east of continental Asia, the island of Taiwan has a rich and complicated history. The history of Taiwan intersected with the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) when LDS military personnel were stationed there in 1955. This led to the celebrated date of June 4, 1956, when the ship SS Szechuen carried among its passengers four LDS missionaries. While this would be the first time LDS missionaries would begin proselyting efforts in Taiwan, Christian missionaries had sailed into Taiwan’s harbor centuries previously. The purpose of the present study is to …

From The Editor, John W. Welch

BYU Studies

The motto on the title page in each issue of BYU Studies Quarterly reads: "Involving readers in the Latter-day Saint academic experience." As this issue goes to press and to you, our readers, all over the world, I am excited about all that our experienced authors bring to you. How do their articles and other materials involve you in an LDS academic experience?

Two Challenges Facing Brigham Young University As A Religiously Affiliated University, Kevin J. Worthen

BYU Studies

The following message is adapted from remarks given by BYU President Kevin J Worthen at the annual BYU Studies Academy Meeting on March 28, 2015.

A Narrative Approach To The Joseph Smith Translation Of The Synoptic Gospels, Jared W. Ludlow

BYU Studies

One of the first projects Joseph Smith undertook after the organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in April 1830 was a translation of the Bible. Although it was not a typical translation from original Greek or Hebrew manuscripts, the project was often called a “translation” nonetheless. The Joseph Smith Translation, or JST as it is often called, was referred to by the Lord in the Doctrine and Covenants as “the new translation of my holy word” (D&C 124:89). At the top of the manuscript of the revision of Matthew, it reads, “A translation of the New …

Speculative Grace: Bruno Latour And Object-Oriented Theology, Brent J. Schmidt

BYU Studies

Adam S. Miller. Speculative Grace: Bruno Latour and Object-Oriented Theology.

Perspectives in Continental Philosophy Series.

New York: Fordham University Press, 2013.

Discovering A Surgical First: Russell M. Nelson And Tricuspid Valve Annuloplasty, Austin A. Robinson, Curtis T. Hunter

BYU Studies

In an April 2003 general conference address, Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles recounted an experience of receiving sudden inspiration on how to perform surgery during his medical career. The epiphanic image that came to the young surgeon in 1960 led to the repair of a previously inoperable valve defect in the heart of E. L., a Latter-day Saint stake patriarch. As a novel surgical approach, the case is remarkable. However, Nelson did not publish a report of the experience in the medical literature at the time, and, as a result, its place in surgical …

Between Materialism And The Metaphysics Of Eternity: A Reply To Joseph M. Spencer's Review Of Responsibility Of Reason, Ralph C. Hancock

BYU Studies

BYU Studies strives to involve readers in the LDS academic experience. In that spirit, we offer this scholarly exchange between Ralph C. Hancock and Joseph M. Spencer based on Spencer’s “Goodness and Truth: An Essay on Ralph Hancock’s The Responsibility of Reason,” found in BYU Studies Quarterly 53, no. 4 (2014): 61–73.

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 …

The Temple, A Holy School

BYU Studies

The Education in Zion Gallery in BYU’s Joseph F. Smith Building houses two murals, standing nearly twenty feet tall. One is of the Kirtland Temple and the other depicts Brigham Young Academy. It is not by accident that these murals face each other, for both represent houses of learning and the importance of the sacrifice involved in educating the whole soul.

Beholding The Tree Of Life: A Rabbinic Approach To The Book Of Mormon, Richard Dilworth Rust

BYU Studies

Bradley J. Kramer. Beholding the Tree of Life: A Rabbinic Approach to the Book of Mormon.

Draper, Utah: Greg Kofford Books, 2014.

The Journey Of A People: The Era Of Restoration, 1820 To 1844; The Journey Of A People: The Era Of Reorganization, 1844 To 1946, Alonzo L. Gaskill

BYU Studies

Mark A. Scherer. The Journey of a People: The Era of Restoration, 1820 to 1844.

Independence, Mo.: Community of Christ Seminary Press, 2013.

Mark A. Scherer. The Journey of a People: The Era of Reorganization, 1844 to 1946.

Independence, Mo.: Community of Christ Seminary Press, 2013.

Blue, Cindy Gritton

BYU Studies

Air—so tantalizingly close—remained painfully out of reach as I stared frantically up through the serene blueness of the swimming pool water. Such a beautiful color that blue was. Vivid and as permanently etched into my memory as thinking out what I would yell as soon as my head (hopefully) broke the surface of it one more time, because I knew I could only do it once more, knew it was a miracle I’d surfaced twice already, that after this next time, blue would turn to black and after that, I would not be walking home. “LET GO!” I screamed and …

The Prophets Have Spoken, But What Did They Say?: Examining The Differences Between George D. Watt's Original Shorthand Notes And The Sermons Published In The Journal Of Discourses, Gerrit Dirkmaat, Lajean Purcell Carruth

BYU Studies

On a summer day in August of 1867, Brigham Young delivered a powerful sermon to the residents of Tooele, Utah. He urged the assembled Saints to more faithfully live the principles of the Word of Wisdom and cease their attempts to parse out the words of the revelation, seeking a loophole. Young responded directly to such thinking, telling the congregation:

Many try to excuse themselves because tea and coffee are not mentioned, arguing that it refers to hot drinks only. What did we drink hot when that Word of Wisdom was given? Tea and coffee. It definitely refers to that …