Mormon Studies Commons^™

Directions For Mormon Studies In The Twenty-First Century, Isabella Markert

BYU Studies

Patrick Q. Mason, ed., Directions for Mormon Studies in the Twenty-First Century (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2016)

Mormonism And The Archaeology Of Media, Mason K. Allred

Mormon Studies Review

Mormonism has a legacy of digging up the dead. It had early desires to excavate the past, not only metaphorically (through meticulous record keeping and strong ancestral ties), but literally by actually digging up dead material. Think Alvin, Zelph, gold plates, treasure, spirits, and angels.2

Jell-O Medium, Kate Holbrook

Mormon Studies Review

Lapel pins are a part of the Olympic cultural experience produced to represent the hosting community, and generally one pin becomes more popular than the others. For the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, the runaway favorite pin featured green Jell-O, and enthusiasts paid $150 or more for pins that originally cost $7.1 Aminco International, the company that makes Olympic pins, recognized that Jell-O was no status symbol. “We were worried that Utah would be embarrassed about being known as the Jell-O-eating capital of the world,” admitted vice president David Hyman. Yet he somehow came to decide that, “Utahans are …

Review Of The Trek East: Mormonism Meets Japan, 1901–1968, By Shinji Takagi, Emily Anderson

Mormon Studies Review

Shinji Takagi’s The Trek East: Mormonism Meets Japan, 1901–1968 is a sweeping and detailed account of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ struggle to establish and sustain a mission in Japan. Organized both chronologically and thematically, it recounts the hardships and frustrations endured by the first group of missionaries who ventured to Japan between 1901 and 1924—the first attempt at establishing the Japan Mission—and the more successful second attempt initiated during the Allied occupation of Japan and further reinforced during a particularly dynamic period of leadership and activity in the 1960s. While earlier studies of Mormonism in Japan …

A Genealogical Turn: Possibilities For Mormon Studies And Genealogical Scholarship, Amy Harris

Mormon Studies Review

There is a growing scholarly field, crucial to Mormon studies, that scholars of Mormonism have yet to engage with: the history of genealogical practices. Mormon studies contains a robust and mature literature on the history of temple theology and the importance of kin to Mormon teachings.1 The connections between this flourishing scholarship and genealogical practices are largely missing, however. Scholarly history of genealogy is currently enjoying a rebirth—a renaissance that comes at a fortuitous time for Mormon studies.

Review Of Out Of Obscurity: Mormonism Since 1945, By Patrick Q. Mason And John G. Turner, Eds., Matthew A. Sutton

Mormon Studies Review

Patrick Q. Mason opens the introduction to Out of Obscurity with a few short words and phrases. They include Joseph Smith, polygamy, golden plates, The Book of Mormon musical, Mitt Romney, and Proposition 8. Mason’s point is that Americans know a lot about the controversial origins of Mormonism and a lot about the impact that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has had on recent American politics. They don’t know much about what has transpired in between. Mason is exactly right. This book represents the efforts of Mason, coeditor John G. Turner, and thirteen other scholars to explain …

Foundations Of The Restoration: Fulfillment Of The Covenant Purposes, Richard Neitzel Holzapfel

BYU Studies

Craig James Ostler, Michael Hubbard MacKay, and Barbara Morgan Gardner, eds., Foundations of the Restoration: Fulfillment of the Covenant Purposes (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2016)

Handcart Trekking: From Commemorative Reenactment To Modern Phenomenon, Melvin L. Bashore

BYU Studies

From an early date, Mormons have remembered and celebrated their history with jubilees, commemorative celebrations, pageants, markers, and reenactments. Only two years after the first Mormons arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, several thousand Church members celebrated the event with the first Mormon Pioneer Day on July 24, 1849. There was a procession, speeches, songs, prayers, and a bounteous feast reminiscent of the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the Pioneer Day celebration had been firmly established throughout the Mormon corridor.

From The Editor, John W. Welch

BYU Studies

I am once again pleased and proud to complete the production of this issue of BYU Studies Quarterly at the beginning of this fall season. These pages represent the harvest of another fine summer season of wonderful writing, reviewing, source checking, editing, and publication. Looking back over the past months and years, I speak for everyone in thanking all the extended family of scholars, friends, and supporters who have made this issue possible.

Reclaiming Reality: Doctoring And Discipleship In A Hyperconnected Age, Tyler Johnson

BYU Studies

Have we counted the cost?

For The Salvation Of Zion, Steven C. Harper

BYU Studies

I climbed the stairs in the Smith Family Living Center at BYU in 1992 and walked sheepishly into the small office that housed BYU Studies. I had been home from the Canada Winnipeg Mission for less than a year but long enough to know that I’d never be an engineer like my father. I still didn’t know what I could become, and I felt anxious about that.

Jane And Emma, Eric Samuelsen

BYU Studies

Jane and Emma Directed by Chantelle Squires

Excel Entertainment, 2018

Foundational Texts Of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources, Gerrit Van Dyk

BYU Studies

Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources, edited by Mark Ashurst-McGee, Robin Scott Jensen, and Sharalyn D. Howcroft (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018)

The Mormon Jesus: A Biography, Andrew C. Reed

BYU Studies

John G. Turner. The Mormon Jesus: A Biography.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016.

Front Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

At Sword's Point, Part 1: A Documentary History Of The Utah War To 1858; Part 2: A Documentary History Of The Utah War, 1858-1859; Vols. 10 And 11 Of Kingdom In The West: The Mormons And The American Frontier, Devan Jensen

BYU Studies

William P. MacKinnon, ed., At Sword’s Point, Part 1: A Documentary History of the Utah War to 1858, and Part 2: A Documentary History of the Utah War, 1858– 1859, vols. 10 and 11 of Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier, ed. Will Bagley and David L. Bigler (Norman, Okla.: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 2008, 2016)

An Introduction To The Book Of Abraham, Adam Oliver Stokes

BYU Studies

John Gee. An Introduction to the Book of Abraham.

Salt Lake City: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2017.

Emmeline B. Wells: An Intimate History, Cherry Silver

BYU Studies

Coral Cornwall Madsen. Emmeline B. Wells: An Intimate History.

Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2017.

Religion And Families: An Introduction, Alison Palmer

BYU Studies

Loren D. Marks and David C. Dollahite, Religion and Families: An Introduction, Textbooks in Family Studies Series (New York: Routledge, 2017)

The Life Of Orson F. Whitney: Historian, Poet, Apostle, As Recorded In His Daily Journals, Neal W. Kramer

BYU Studies

Dennis B. Horne. The Life of Orson F. Whitney: Historian, Poet, Apostle, As Recorded in His Daily Journals.

Springville, Utah: Cedar Fort, 2014.

Understanding The Abrahamic Covenant Through The Book Of Mormon, Noel B. Reynolds

BYU Studies

Latter-day Saint discourse concerning Abraham and the blessings and covenants given to him by the Lord is distinguished by its reliance on the restoration of ancient scriptures and other revelations given to Joseph Smith. The revival of scholarly interest in Abraham in recent decades provides a timely opportunity to explore the contemporary findings of biblical scholars from a Latter-day Saint perspective—which, in turn, invites an in-depth exploration of how the Lord’s covenants with Abraham were understood by the Nephite prophets in the Book of Mormon, how their perspectives compare with contemporary biblical scholarship, and how the Nephite perspective may modify …

The Worldwide Church: Mormonism As A Global Religion, Emily Cook

BYU Studies

The Worldwide Church: Mormonism as a Global Religion, edited by Michael A. Goodman and Mauro Properzi (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2016)

Textual Studies Of The Doctrine And Covenants: The Plural Marriage Revelation, Brian C. Hales

BYU Studies

Textual Studies of the Doctrine and Covenants: The Plural Marriage Revelation By William Victor Smith

Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2018.

Finding Jane, Melissa Leilani Larson

BYU Studies

The first time I tried to find Jane Manning James’s grave was in November 2016. It was a brisk autumn afternoon, and traffic was horrible. My apartment at the time was pretty far east in Salt Lake City, not too far off Foothill Drive, and I had been downtown for a play reading. I couldn’t get home because of University of Utah football traffic, so I took a detour and stopped by the city cemetery to pass the time. When I had the idea to look for Jane, the sun was already low in the sky. I parked the car …

Questions In The Book Of Mormon, Holt Zaugg

Faculty Publications

This article examines how questions are used in the Book of Mormon to teach concepts and principles.

The Abinadi Narrative, Redemption, And The Struggle For Nephite Identity, Dan Belnap, Daniel L. Belnap

Faculty Publications

Though there is no question that the Book of Mormon’s primary purpose is to impart an understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ, this message is generally embedded by its editors and authors in very distinct historical and political settings. This is particularly true of Mormon, who often crafted his narratives so that a given prophetic ministry intersected and interacted with the sociopolitical concerns of the contemporary Nephite population. One such concern emerging again and again in Nephite history was their identity or relationship as Israel. This question lay at the heart of a number of social and religious movements …

Abinadi's Legacy: Tracing His Influence Through The Book Of Mormon, John L. Hilton Iii

Faculty Publications

Eminent author Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote." Identifying these instances of textual weavings is one aspect of a literary field known as intertextuality, an area that holds great promos for Book of Mormon research. Grant Hardy has suggested that it would be fruitful for our understanding of the Book of Mormon "to track various phrases throughout the Book of Mormon to determine which Nephite …

Nineteenth-Century American Religion And Politics In The West: Doctrinal Shifts In Mormonism And The Creation Of Utah, Katherine Manning

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

American religion and politics have always been closely intertwined. Though America was founded on ideals of religious pluralism and tolerance, the actual landscape of American religion often resembled the opposite of these ideas. As a religious majority, Protestants in the nineteenth-century believed in a specific American identity—one which championed the “virtuous” family and a capitalist market system. Yet, some religious organizations challenged these norms, making them the object of intense persecution. One of the most famous of these examples is the Mormons. From their “peculiar” beliefs to their separatist goals, Mormons presented the American people with a religious group which …

"I Was Not Ready To Die Yet": William Stowell's Utah War Ordeal, Kenneth L. Alford Ph.D., R. Devan Jensen

Faculty Publications

In the fall of 1857, young wives Cynthia Jane Stowell and Sophronia Stowell bade fare­well to their husband, William R. R. Stowell, a lieutenant in the Utah militia working to hinder the US Army from entering Utah Territory. That winter they received word that William had been captured and was being held prisoner at Camp Scott, in present-day Wyoming. The Utah War arose from a complex web of causes and motivations: federal and Utah territorial authorities often clashed regarding Mormon authority and influence in the territorial court sys­tem, the mail service, policies regarding American-Indian relations, polygamy, and the moral character …

John E. Davis (William H. Norman) -- A Galvanized Yankee In Utah, Kenneth L. Alford Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

An interesting and intriguing story about William H. Norman, who served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War as an infantry rifleman from Georgia, was captured by Union troops in December 1864 outside of Nashville, Tennessee, and was then incarcerated as a prisoner-of-war in Camp Douglas, Illinois. As a Confederate prisoner, the federal government gave him the option of remaining in the camp or renouncing his Confederate loyalty and enlisting in the Union Army. Like thousands of his fellow prisoners, he chose the second option and became a "galvanized Yankee." A few months later (after the end of …