Religious Education Commons^™

Let There Be Light–, Tyler Chadwick

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

"The Little Head Stones Became Monuments": Death In The Early Samoan Mission And The Creation Of The Fagali'i Cemetery, Reid L. Neilson, Scott D. Marianno

BYU Studies

When the call first went forth, Samoa was as far from people’s minds as the islands themselves are from the rest of the civilized world,” a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wrote from Apia in 1899. “Women were among the Gospel pioneers on these islands; what they endured, their trials and their hardships, even to parting with life itself, it is a story that today dims the eye with tears. Samoa has never been a happy home for our sisters.”

End Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

America 1844: Religious Fervor, Westward Expansion, And The Presidential Election That Transformed The Nation, Benjamin E. Park

BYU Studies

John Bicknell. America 1844: Religious Fervor, Westward Expansion, and the Presidential Election That Transformed the Nation.

Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2015.

Birth And Calling Of The Prophet Samuel: A Literary Reading Of The Biblical Text, Steven L. Olsen

BYU Studies

Chapters 1–3 of 1 Samuel describe the miraculous origins and auspicious upbringing of the first major Hebrew prophet since Joshua, who by all measures lived centuries before Samuel. The biblical account of Samuel’s beginnings forecasts the exceptional ministry of the man who served as Israel’s last complete sovereign. By faithfully filling the crucial roles of prophet, priest, and judge, Samuel helped to transform the House of Israel from a collection of weak and often warring tribes to a relatively permanent and somewhat stable nation in the contentious ancient Middle East. Thus, Samuel is rightly considered to be one of the …

The First Fifty Years Of Relief Society, Karen Lynn Davidson

BYU Studies

Jill Mulvay Derr, Carol Cornwall Madsen, Kate Holbrook, and Matthew J. Grow, eds. The First Fifty Years of Relief Society.

Salt Lake City: Church Historian's Press, 2016.

"An Angel Or Rather The Savior" At The Kirtland Temple Dedication: The Vision Of Frederick G. Williams, Frederick G. Williams

BYU Studies

At the Kirtland Temple dedication on Sunday, March 27, 1836, Presi-dent Frederick G. Williams testified that he saw a holy angel enter the temple during the opening prayer and take his seat between Joseph Smith Sr. and himself in the upper pulpits on the Melchizedek priesthood side of the room, a holy site that had just been dedicated and consecrated to the Lord earlier that morning. This study collects nine eyewitness statements regarding Williams’s vision of the heavenly personage to see if the identity of the angel as well as the purpose of his visit can be determined from their …

William B. Smith: In The Shadow Of A Prophet, Richard Neitzel Holzapfel

BYU Studies

Kyle R. Walker. William B. Smith: In the Shadow of a Prophet.

Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2015.

The Awkward State Of Utah: Coming Of Age In The Nation, 1896-1945

BYU Studies

The Awkward State of Utah: Coming of Age in the Nation, 1896–1945, by Charles S. Peterson and Brian Q. Cannon (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2015)

Postponing Heaven: The Three Nephites, The Bodhisattvaa, And The Mahdi, Spencer L. Green

BYU Studies

Jad Hatem. Postponing Heaven: The Three Nephites, the Bodhisattva, and the Mahdi. Trans. Jonathon Penny.

Provo, Utah: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2015.

The Field Is White: Harvest In The Three Counties Of England, Ronald E. Bartholomew

BYU Studies

Carol Wilkinson and Cynthia Doxey Green. The Field Is White: Harvest in the Three Counties of England.

Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2017.

Pathway: A Gateway To Global Church Education, Benjamin Charles Peterson

Theses and Dissertations

Education and learning have ever been at the core of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Throughout its history that now extends nearly one hundred ninety years, the Church has made numerous attempts to provide educational opportunities for its members. Some attempts have failed, and others were met with some success—though limited, to be sure. In hindsight, most of these efforts were simply laying the foundation for something far greater. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the groundwork for global Church education had been laid, and the seeds planted. Beginning with a pilot administered through BYU-Idaho, a …

Apocalypse: Reading Revelation 21-22, Julie M. Smith

Maxwell Institute Publications

The Book of Revelation has perplexed and fascinated readers for centuries. In particular, its final two chapters—which contain the only extended description of heaven in the canon—beg for close examination and careful consideration. In this collection of essays, six scholars theologically examine Revelation 21–22. With approaches ranging from textual criticism to intertextual readings to conceptual analysis, this book sheds new light on a most enigmatic text.

Reading Nephi Reading Isaiah: 2 Nephi 26-27, Joseph M. Spencer, Jenny Webb

Maxwell Institute Publications

Nephi’s adoration of the words of Isaiah has puzzled many readers of the Book of Mormon. What does Nephi’s reading and repurposing of the biblical prophet suggest about the nature of prophecy and scripture study? Six scholars of the Mormon Theology Seminar address these and other questions in Reading Nephi Reading Isaiah. By shedding new light on this particular scriptural text, these essays provide exemplary models for improved scripture study.

Let Your Hearts And Minds Expand: Reflections On Faith, Reason, Charity, And Beauty, Thomas F. Rogers

Maxwell Institute Publications

“Tom Rogers has lived his faith all over the world. The experiences he relates from far-flung places—mingled with thirty-one years as a BYU professor of Russian—give remarkable insight into the hard work always involved when we practice charity, “the pure love of Christ.” In these essays Rogers is a defender of the faith, but his words move us well beyond typical apologetics. His Mormonism serves as the bedrock for discussions on the life of the mind, the value of literature, and the challenges of religious orthodoxy.”

An Other Testament: On Typology, Joseph M. Spencer

Maxwell Institute Publications

How should we read the Book of Mormon? And does the Book of Mormon itself have anything to say about it? Joseph Spencer follows the lead of Nephite prophets who interpreted Isaiah and other prophets typologically—according to “types” and “shadows”—in order to preach salvation through Jesus Christ. By focusing on history, memory, time, repentance, and conversion, An Other Testament explores what it means to believe God provided the Book of Mormon to change a person like you and a world like ours.

Way Below The Angels: The Pretty Clearly Troubled But Not Even Close To Tragic Confessions Of A Real Live Mormon Missionary, Lisa Torcasso Downing

BYU Studies

Craig Harline. Way Below the Angels: The Pretty Clearly Troubled but Not Even Close to Tragic Confessions of a Real Live Mormon Missionary.

Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2014.

The Israelite Roots Of Atonement Terminology, T. Benjamin Spackman

BYU Studies

When Latter-day Saints speak of atonement, they use vocabulary drawn from the scriptures, including common verbs like atone, save, and redeem, and the corresponding nouns atonement, savior, salvation, redeemer, and redemption. There are other, perhaps more vivid, words for salvific acts, such as the Book of Mormon references to being “snatched” (Mosiah 27:28–29; Alma 26:17).1 Such rare terms in scripture have not found place in LDS discourse, which tends to use the most common terms related to atonement interchangeably. While they are indeed at some level synonymous, their distinctive meanings gesture toward …

Edward Hunter Snow: Pioneer-Educator-Statesman, Benjamin A. Johnson

BYU Studies

Thomas G. Alexander. Edward Hunter Snow: Pioneer-Educator-Statesman.

Norman, Okla.: Arthur H. Clark Co., 2012.

By Divine Design: Best Practices For Family Success And Happiness, Sean Brotherson

BYU Studies

By Divine Design: Best Practices for Family Success and Happiness, edited by Brent L. Top and Michael A. Goodman (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2014)

Ancient Temple Worship: Proceedings Of The Expound Symposium, 14 May 2011; Temple Insights: Proceedings Of The Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference: "The Temple On Mount Zion," 22 September 2012

BYU Studies

Ancient Temple Worship: Proceedings of the Expound Symposium, 14 May 2011, edited by Matthew B. Brown, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Stephen D. Ricks, and John S. Thompson (Salt Lake City: The Interpreter Foundation and Eborn Books, 2014)

Temple Insights: Proceedings of the Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference: “The Temple on Mount Zion,” 22 September 2012, edited by Matthew B. Brown, William J. Hamblin, and David Rolph Seely (Salt Lake City: The Interpreter Foundation and Eborn Books, 2014)

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir: A Biography, George L. Mitton

BYU Studies

Michael Hicks. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir: A Biography.

Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015.

End Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

From The Editor, John W. Welch

BYU Studies

In a revelation that has served as an educational handbook for the Church, Joseph Smith aimed for all learners to “be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient,” so that as they face the “perplexities of the nations,” they might “be prepared in all things” (D&C 88:78–80). In finalizing this issue of BYU Studies Quarterly, I am gratified to see how its helpful array of contents meets these aspirations of the Prophet.

Understanding The Council Of Fifty And Its Minutes, Ronald K. Esplin

BYU Studies

Students of early Mormon history have long known about the once-secretive Council of Fifty in Nauvoo and learned much about it.1 However, the records of the council were never available for research until now. The closest I came to the records of the Council of Fifty before the First Presidency made them available for the Joseph Smith Papers was in about 1977. Elder Joseph Anderson of the Seventy, then serving as executive director of the Historical Department, had served for decades as secretary to the First Presidency. When premeeting conversation around a conference table one day turned to the Council …

Anatomy Of Invention, Larry L. Howell

BYU Studies

BYU Studies has a long history of publishing the annual lecture given by the recipient of the Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Award, BYU’s highest faculty honor. It is with great pleasure that BYU Studies Quarterly publishes this year’s lecture by Dr. Larry L. Howell, a professor of mechanical engineering. His speech was delivered as a forum address on May 17, 2016, at Brigham Young University.

Theological Underpinnings Of Baptism For The Dead, David L. Paulsen, Roger D. Cook, Brock M. Mason

BYU Studies

Lord, are there few that be saved?” (Luke 13:23). This question has troubled thinkers from Christianity’s beginning. The faithful readily accept that, save Jesus Christ, there is “none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Yet, the same loyal followers of Christ wrestle with the puzzling reality that countless persons have lived and died never hearing of Christ, let alone having had an adequate chance to accept the salvation he offers. What is their fate in the eternities? Are they forever excluded from salvation? Thomas V. Morris, former professor of philosophy at Notre …

On Criticism, Compassion, And Charity, George Handley

BYU Studies

This lecture was presented on November 11, 2015, as part of the “My Journey as a Scholar of Faith” series sponsored by the Faculty Center at Brigham Young University.

"This Is Very Historic": The Young Ambassadors 1979 Tour Of China, John Hilton Iii, Brady Liu

BYU Studies

On October 1, 1949, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was established by Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China. While this commenced a new political organization in China, it marked at least a temporary end of the potential for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to directly proselytize in mainland China. While LDS proselyting took place in Taiwan and Hong Kong over the next several decades, there was no formal LDS Church presence in mainland China. The United States government did not officially recognize the People’s Republic of China as the legitimate government of China, causing …