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BYU Studies

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BYU Studies

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From The Editor, John W. Welch

BYU Studies

With the publication of this issue of BYU Studies Quarterly, I find myself looking back to the end of 1991, when Macmillan’s Encyclopedia of Mormonism was released, exactly twenty-five years ago. That monumental publication, to which over 750 authors contributed articles on more than 1,200 subjects, is still maintained by BYU Studies and is available online at eom.byu.edu. While some of its articles are obviously out of date (such as the entries on the Church in Africa or Temples, where the Church has seen dramatic growth in recent decades), much of the Encyclopedia of Mormonism is still an excellent place …

A Reflection From An African Convert On Official Declaration 2, Khumbulani D. Mdletshe

BYU Studies

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will commemorate in June 2018 the fortieth anniversary of the coming forth of Official Declaration 2. This anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on the legacy of the priesthood ban and the 1978 revelation. The revelation came through the prophet of the Lord, Spencer W. Kimball, and has had critics and supporters. As a convert to the Church and especially as a black African convert, I have experienced a long journey but a worthwhile one. This essay will focus on this personal journey and how I came to understand the background history …

Stephen H. Webb (1961-2016): Universal Scholar And Personal Friend, Alonzo L. Gaskill

BYU Studies

For many Latter-day Saints, their first awareness of the Roman Catholic scholar Stephen H. Webb came through his 2012 First Things article, titled “Mormonism Obsessed with Christ.” In that piece—which surprised Latter-day Saints and non-Latter-day Saints alike—Webb pointed out that “what gives Christianity its identity is its commitment to the divinity of Jesus Christ. And on that ground Mormons are more Christian than many mainstream Christians. . . . Mormonism is obsessed with Christ, and everything that it teaches is meant to awaken, encourage, and expand faith in him.” Within a week of that article’s publication, my inbox was flooded …

The Brigham Young University Football Program And The Analytics Revolution, Nelson Chung

BYU Studies

The Brigham Young University football program is the most visible component of the LDS Church’s flagship school. In 2010, it contracted to ESPN the broadcast of a majority of its games for a reported $800,000 to $1.2 million per home game through 2018. During the 2015 season, its eight games on the ESPN–ABC family of networks reached 14.8 million televisions, an average of 1.9 million each game. In terms of missionary value, the program rivals the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Along with publicity, the Choir has also invited a fair amount of scholarly attention, most notably a study of how its …

Socrates' Mission, Daniel W. Graham

BYU Studies

Socrates is the quintessential watershed of ancient thought. He is known as the thinker who turned philosophy away from cosmological speculation to ethics and value theory. In his own time, he was hailed by Apollo’s Oracle at Delphi as the man who was wiser than all others, and he was lampooned by Aristophanes on the comic stage as a quack, a sophist, and a fraud. His followers included two of the greatest traitors Athens produced, Alcibiades and Critias, and two of the greatest thinkers and moralists, Plato and Xenophon. In the end, he was tried on charges of impiety and …

The Bass Coupler, Marilyn Nielson

BYU Studies

Being called to play the organ for the first time, as a pianist, felt like being asked to ice skate for the U.S. Olympic team because you did such a good job walking into the arena. “You already know how to walk, after all,” the coaches reason. “This is basically the same thing—a stride lengthened here, a leg elevated there. You’ll pick it up in no time.”

Transmitting Religion: A Look At Vern L. Bengtson's Families And Faith: How Religion Is Passed Down Across Generations, Loren D. Marks

BYU Studies

Over the past hundred years, social scientists have tended to take one of three approaches with respect to the topic of religion. Approach 1 typically pathologizes and intellectually scorns religious beliefs, practices, and faith communities, although there are now hundreds of empirical studies that link religious involvement with increased mental health, relational health, physical health, and longevity. Approach 2 politely ignores, minimizes, or marginalizes religion. Approach 3 engages in actively studying religion but typically with a cold, arms-length, agnostic-like feel. For nearly thirty years, sociologist Vern Bengtson, the author of Families and Faith,3 practiced this third approach.

Death Being Swallowed Up In Netzach In The Bible And The Book Of Mormon, David Larsen

BYU Studies

One way to read the Book of Mormon is to be attentive to ways in which it comes across as a translated text. Being mindful of this is wise, because all translations—even inspired translations—lose something of the primary language, particularly as meanings shift when words are rendered into the vocabulary or idioms of the target language.

Gathering, Vivian M. Adams

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

The Online Journal Of George Q. Cannon, Richard Dilworth Rust

BYU Studies

A long-anticipated project is coming to completion. Much of the journal of George Q. Cannon, covering the last half of the nineteenth century, is now freely available online at www.churchhistorianspress.org/george-q-cannon/, and the remainder of the journal will soon be available. As with other Church Historian’s Press publications, meticulous attention has been paid to produce an accurate and reliable transcript. It has been prepared largely according to the editorial procedures developed by the Joseph Smith Papers Project.

Heron Song, Elizabeth Garcia

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Minutes Of The Afternoon Meeting Of The Council Of Fifty, April 11, 1844, Matthew J. Grow, Ronald K. Esplin, Mark Ashurst-Mcgee, Gerrit J. Dirkmaaat, Jeffrey D. Mahas

BYU Studies

In his essay “Understanding the Council of Fifty and Its Minutes,” on the previous pages in this issue, Ronald K. Esplin overviews the history of the Council of Fifty and the three books in which William Clayton recorded its minutes. He tells what these minutes add to our understanding of Church leaders’ concerns about outreach to American Indians, Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign, and the desire to claim religious liberty. The text presented and annotated below is excerpted from The Joseph Smith Papers, Administrative Records: Council of Fifty, Minutes, March 1844–January 1846.

Proselyting On The Rock Of Gibraltar, 1853-1855: The Letters Of Edward Stevenson To The Juvenile Instructor In 1885, Reid L. Neilson

BYU Studies

In January 1885, the Mormon Juvenile Instructor magazine ran a short cover story on the history of Gibraltar, known as “the Rock,” the British overseas territory located on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula bordering Spain. While the magazine aimed to educate Latter-day Saints about the cosmopolitan world generally, the Rock did have a noteworthy place in Mormon history. The editor, George Q. Cannon, wrote, “As in the mother country [Great Britain] all religious societies are said to enjoy perfect freedom. Still when Elders Edward Stevenson and N[athan] T. Porter arrived in Gibraltar in March, 1853, to preach ‘Mormonism,’ …

A Faithful Band: Moses Mahlangu And The First Soweto Saints, Richard E. Turley Jr., Jeffrey G. Cannon

BYU Studies

The faith of the African Saints is legendary, and the story of one man is often repeated to illustrate that faith. Moses Mahlangu waited many years from his introduction to the Book of Mormon sometime in the 1960s until his baptism in 1980. Two significant factors led to his long wait: (1) the laws and attitudes in South Africa affecting race relations and (2) a priesthood restriction of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints regarding people of black1 African lineage. Through it all, Mahlangu and several others who had been converted through their reading of the Book of …

Almost A Psalm, About Inheritance, Benjamin Blackhurst

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

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.

Empathy And The Atonement, Tyler Johnson

BYU Studies

Even as an incurable optimist, I can see the world is often drenched in suffering.

Why And How Did Karl G. Maeser Leave Saxony?: New Documents Offer New Insights, Roger P. Minert

BYU Studies

History and family history are frequently characterized by legends and traditions, some of which turn out to be inaccurate under scrutiny. For example, Roger Minert’s great-grandfather was said to have been a professor of modern and classical languages at the University of Cologne in Germany; he knew seven languages. Yet he managed to live as an immigrant farmer in Oregon for twenty years and die without having learned English. Careful research led to the discovery that he was actually the son of a farmer and grandson of a farmer in the town of Wylatkowo in the Prussian province of Posen, …

An 1860 English-Hopi Vocabulary Written In The Deseret Alphabet, Brian D. Stubbs

BYU Studies

Kenneth R. Beesley and Dirk Elzinga. An 1860 English-Hopi Vocabulary Written in the Deseret Alphabet.

Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2015.

Full Issue

BYU Studies

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Front Matter

BYU Studies

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Seer Stones, Salamanders, And Early Mormon "Folk Magic" In The Light Of Folklore Studies And Bible Scholarship, Eric A. Eliason

BYU Studies

The 2015 publication of an Ensign article on, and especially photos of, one of Joseph Smith’s seer stones still owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints caused quite a sensation in the blogosphere. Many responses focused on the “weirdness” of the stone and its use, the ostensibly alien nature of this odd relic from the past, so out of place in modern religion, and posited it as a troubling problem in need of explanation. Mormon studies as a discipline has struggled to make sense of seer stones too. These responses are understandable, considering how often communities tend …

The Mormon Missionary: Who Is That Knocking At My Door?, Robert L. Lively Jr.

BYU Studies

Robert L. Lively Jr. is dean emeritus at the University of Maine at Farmington and holds a master’s degree from Yale University Divinity School and a doctor of philosophy degree from the University of Oxford. The following are excerpts from his 2015 book The Mormon Missionary: Who Is That Knocking at My Door?, conceived after inviting missionaries to visit his religion classes and realizing that a non-Mormon had never written a book that tells the story of LDS missionaries. His research for this book involved over 275 interviews with past, present, and future missionaries, including individuals who served in every …

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.

Religion Of A Different Color: Race And The Mormon Struggle For Whiteness; For The Cause Of Righteousness: A Global History Of Blacks And Mormonism, 1830-2013, Patrick Q. Mason

BYU Studies

W. Paul Reeve. Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Russell W. Stevenson. For the Cause of Righteousness: A Global History of Blacks and Mormonism, 1830-2013.

Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2014.

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)

The Prophet And The Reformer: The Letters Of Brigham Young And Thomas L. Kane, Alexsandra Foster

BYU Studies

The Prophet and the Reformer: The Letters of Brigham Young and Thomas L. Kane, edited by Matthew J. Grow and Ronald W. Walker (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015)

Full Issue

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.