“The Names of the Faithful”: Publishing the Book of the Law of the Lord

Naomi Raffensparger is an assistant editor for the Joseph Smith Papers. She has an MA in writing, rhetoric, and media from Clemson University and previously worked as an editor for the South Carolina Review. She also completed an internship with Clemson University Press.

The latest content release on the Joseph Smith Papers website is a treasure trove of Latter-day Saint history. Readers can find multispectral imaging of the original Book of Mormon manuscript and documents related to the trial of the accused assassins of Joseph Smith. My favorite document of them all, though, is the crown jewel of the Financial Records series, the Nauvoo-era record book known as the Book of the Law of the Lord.

The significance of the Book of the Law of the Lord is tied not only to its history as an artifact, but also to the spiritual value it was given in its time. This book stands as a witness of the early Saints’ sacrifice and devotion, and that testimony can speak volumes to Latter-day Saints today.

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Digital News: The Woman’s Exponent Project

Hello JI readers! Please join us in welcoming The Woman’s Exponent Project, a digital history exhibit from Digital Matters at the University of Utah and the Office of Digital Humanities and Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University. We at JI are excited to see the project come to fruition.

The Woman’s Exponent Project is a collaborative digital humanities and public history project between the University of Utah and BYU that explores the content of the Woman’s Exponent (1872-1914) that captures the fascinating, complex, and even contradictory history of suffrage in Utah. The Woman’s Exponent Project aligns with a unique moment in time, as Utahns prepare to celebrate the 150th anniversary of a Utah woman casting the first female ballot in the nation in 1870, a full 50 years before the 19th Amendment guaranteed universal women’s suffrage in America.

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Reassessing the Classics: Armand Mauss’s THE ANGEL AND THE BEEHIVE (part 1 of 3)

For the next several days, the Juvenile Instructor will examine the work of the sociologist Armand Mauss, a pioneering figure in Mormon studies, under the banner of our occasional series “Reassessing the Classics.” For the next three days, several scholars will examine Mauss’s landmark 1994 book THE ANGEL AND THE BEEHIVE: THE MORMON STRUGGLE WITH ASSIMILATION (University of Illinois Press). First: Gary and Gordon Shepherd, sociologists in their own right and the authors of a number of well-regarded works in Mormon studies, including A KINGDOM TRANSFORMED: EARLY MORMONISM AND THE MODERN LDS CHURCH (2nd edition, University of Utah Press, 2015).

            Armand Mauss’s The Angel and The Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation was published in 1994 by the University of Illinois Press.  Angel and the Beehive quickly became a landmark work in Mormon studies that continues to be referenced by scholars of contemporary Mormonism to this day.  This was Armand’s first, full-fledged book—one that had been simmering on the backburner of his mind for 25 years.  In it, Armand applied the sociological notion of assimilation and the economics notion of retrenchment to show how the late 20^th Century LDS Church was attempting to apply the brakes to liberalizing compromises in belief and practice that had been made in the early and middle decades of the 20^th Century. 

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Joseph Smith Papers Conference

The Joseph Smith Papers will release volume 4 of the Revelations and Translations series this year (2018), including the Book of Abraham and other related documents. In conjunction with the new publication, JSP will be holding a conference on 26 October 2018 at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City. Presentations include methods of translation, reception of translation, insights into Smith’s Egyptian-language project, and insights into the Book of Abraham.

The day-long conference is free and includes lunch, but space is limited. For a full schedule and registration, go to the website. 

Update: Registration for the conference is full and has closed.

Scholarly Inquiry: Q & A with Seth Perry

We are pleased to present a Scholarly Inquiry Q&A with Seth Perry, Assistant Professor of Religion in the Americas at Princeton University and a past guest contributor to the JI. Professor Perry earned his PhD from the University of Chicago (whoop whoop!) in 2013, and he maintains an active research interest in Mormonism, which he discusses both below and in his article “An Outsider Looks In at Mormonism,” in The Chronicle of Higher Education 52, iss. 22 (3 February 2006) [subscription required for full access]. He is also the author of “The Many Bibles of Joseph Smith: Textual, Prophetic, and Scholarly Authority in Early-National Bible Culture,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 84, no. 3 (September 2016): 750-75. See my overview of that article here. Perry’s first book, imminently forthcoming from Princeton University Press, is Bible Culture and Authority in the Early United States. 

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Fake News, Leaked Documents, and the Book of Mormon: Part II (1829-1830)

In Part I, I introduced the relevance of “fake news” to the beginnings of Mormonism by looking at the “Golden Bible Chronicles,” a serially published satire of the Book of Mormon published in Paul Pry’s Weekly Bulletin in the summer of 1829 – several months before the Book of Mormon itself was published. Noting that the “Chronicles” fit within a much broader culture of scriptural parodies in early America, but that it differed in one important respect: Unlike Benjamin Franklin’s biblical parodies of the eighteenth century, Paul Pry’s work satirized an unpublished book. It did so, I surmised, as part of an effort to emphasize (and mock) the absurdity of a boy from Palmyra translating ancient records.[1]

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Fake News, Leaked Documents, and the Book of Mormon: Part I (1829)

Fake news has been in the — well — news. Over the course of the runup to the 2016 presidential election, everything from conspiracy theories to wholly fabricated stories about the two major parties’ candidates spread like wildfire, dominating the stories liked and shared on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. And it hasn’t let up since Donald Trump was elected, with his administration labeling mainstream news outlets like CNN and the New York Times “fake news,” all while Trump and his spokespeople routinely lie, contradict themselves, and fabricate wholesale massacres to advance their agenda. 

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What is “Early” Mormon History?

On Wednesday evening, I attended a public lecture by noted historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, in which she talked about her recently-released book, A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870. We have a review of the book forthcoming here at JI (spoiler alert: it’s good and you all should read it), as well as a Q&A with Dr. Ulrich, but for now I wanted to reflect on the final four words of the book’s title: “Early Mormonism, 1835-1870.”

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The Visitors: Jack Chick and the Intellectual History of Modern Anti-Mormonism

In the summer of 2002, while knocking on doors in the sweltering August heat of suburban Phoenix, my missionary companion and I were handed a small booklet by a less-than-friendly individual. Entitled The Visitors, the short illustrated tract told the story of two Mormon missionaries who arrive to teach a woman considering converting to Mormonism. Arriving at Fran’ doorstep with the hope of committing her to baptism that evening, the Elders are greeted not only by their anxious investigator, but also her niece, Janice, also a missionary preparing to do humanitarian work as a nurse in Africa.

A few minutes into their lesson, the missionaries are confronted by Fran’s surprisingly knowledgeable niece about various points of Mormon doctrine, doctrine the missionaries had failed to previously reveal to Fran. Horrified to learn that the Mormons believe, among other things, that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers, that God is a man (and not a spirit) with multiple wives in his heavenly abode, and Joseph Smith was fluent in the occult culture of early 19th century America, Fran asks the missionaries to leave and not come back. But Janice not only saved her beloved aunt that evening. She also, as we discover in the strip’s final frames, sparked the seeds of doubt in one of the missionary’s own minds.

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Summer Book Club Week 7: Mormon Enigma, Chapters 17-19

Click here for part one, two, three, four, five, and six of this year?s summer book club. 

This week?s chapters address Emma?s experiences in Nauvoo after the population of Nauvoo became thoroughly non-Mormon (Ch 19: ?Change in Nauvoo,? 1850-1860) and as her sons (and Joseph Smith, the prophet?s sons) became established as adults and potentially key figures within Mormonism (Ch 20: ?Emma?s Sons, Lewis?s Son,? 1860-1870).

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