How Mormon was He?

I decided to take a little break from my weighty posts of the last few weeks and ask everyone if they find anything particularly Mormon in the following passage:

I am proud that I am an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, for my background makes me appreciate more fully the wonderful advantages of this nation. I believe in her institutions, ideals, and traditions; I glory in her heritage; I boast of her history; I trust in her future. She had granted me liberties and opportunities such as no individual enjoys in this world today. She had given me an education befitting kings. She has entrusted me with the responsibilities of the franchise. She has permitted me to build a home, to earn a livelihood, to worship, think, speak, and act as I please-as a free man equal to every other man.

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Ardis Goes Live

Be sure to check out and support Ardis’ new blog, Keepapitchinin.org, which went live today.

Teaching About Racism (Including the Priesthood Ban) in Sacrament Meeting

This is not one of my normal posts, which are usually pretty detached and scholarly. Rather, I’m going to share a personal experience about bringing in academic history to the ward setting. Sunday before last I gave a talk in sacrament meeting, with the assigned topic being scriptures and their value in my life. Initially, the second counselor in my bishopric asked me to address the FLDS situation and continuing revelation, a topic that I was initially excited about but with further reflection I realized that it would be altogether too difficult to do justice in a 10 minute presentation that is supposed to be faith promoting. So I backed off, opting instead to tackle a slightly less

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Book Review: Shall Millions Now Know Brother Joseph Again? (Post Script)

Joe asked some good questions in the comments section of part 4.  As I began to write a response, I found that I had quickly written almost 3 pages of response, so I figured that would make a pretty annoying comment.  I here reproduce his questions and my response.  Now I really am finished with posting on this topic.  I thank everyone for their longsuffering and comments up to now, I didn’t mean to hijack the blog for the last day or so, I appologize.

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Book Review: Shall Millions Now Know Brother Joseph Again? (Part 4-FIN)

Entering chapter 9, I was expecting some level of technical analysis that would be beyond my comprehension but still accessible enough that I could form an opinion of my own, perhaps that was a mistake on my part. Opposite chapter 9’s first page are pictured nine proposed daguerreotypes. I remembered Ardis’ description of a foot-longish file of proposed Joseph Smith photos and immediately wondered why these specific daguerreotypes were chosen for consideration. One of these images even has a beard! Again, being that there is no stated criteria for consideration, it seems that the author alone knows why these images were included for consideration. This opens up the possibility that the author is constructing a series of straw man arguments.

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Book Review: Shall Millions Now Know Brother Joseph Again? (Part 3)

On page 51 and 52, Tracy then summarizes the physical features of Joseph Smith by topic and then chronologically (as given in the preceding pages) within each topic. Descriptions of stature, height, face and head, weight, eyes, hands, legs, feet, nose, complexion, and hair are so arranged. Tracy attempts to show how this arrangement is beneficial by showing that the description of what is described as the “July 1838” Joseph puts Joseph’s weight at 200 lbs.

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Book Review: Shall Millions Now Know Brother Joseph Again? (Part 2)

I’m indebted to Joel for so well presenting what historical methodology consists of and how devotional treatments of history differ from academic treatments. Methodologically, in this book, a number of issues stand out. First, I struggled to understand what kind of book this is. Is it supposed to be a scholarly book or a devotional book, or both?

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Book Review: Shall Millions Now Know Brother Joseph Again? (Part 1)

S. Michael Tracy. Millions Shall Know Brother Joseph Again: The Joseph Smith Photograph. Salt Lake City, Utah: Eborn Publishing, LLC, 2008. x + 264 pp. $39.99. Hardback, ISBN: 1-890718-61-0.

I have to say that from the time I first saw the Scannel image almost 5 years ago, I liked it. With a resurgence of interest in the Scannel daguerreotype in the last year, I grew excited at the possibility of a true image of the prophet Joseph Smith. When I found out there would be a book about it, I looked forward with anxious anticipation to its publication, which would lay out all the evidence and show convincingly that this was an authentic photo of Joseph Smith. I wanted to believe. As discussion increased around the bloggernacle, a number of questions were raised about the merits of the Scannel image as a true image of Joseph Smith. With regards to the Scannel image, I resolved that I would reserve judgment until I could evaluate the evidence for itself in the book.

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Nobody Knows to be Shown in Idaho on May 9

From Margaret Young:

The Idaho Black History Museum is proud to present

Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons

Followed by a discussion with the filmmakers

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Is There a Method to the Madness?

I just wanted.to thank everyone for their comments to my last post about the place of theory in the study of history and its implications for the study of the Mormon past. This post will focus on historical methodology and its implications in the study of Mormon history. Questions about historical methodology and Mormonism are what inspired my recent rhapsodies on process of historical inquiry. I was skimming through Prince’s provocative biography of David O. McKay, which I liked very much in many ways, but I was appalled at the way he described his methodology.

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