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Categories of Periodization: Origins

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

By November 22, 2023


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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2022 JSP Conference – Program and Registration

By July 25, 2022


From our friends at the Joseph Smith Papers:

The Church Historian’s Press invites you to attend the 2022 Joseph Smith Papers Conference, which will be held at the Conference Center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah, on September 9, 2022.

The conference theme is “Text and Context in Nauvoo.” The event will commemorate the publication of volumes 12, 13, and 14 of the Documents series, which feature Joseph Smith documents produced between March 1, 1843, and May 15, 1844. Presentations will explore themes such as politics, theology, religious practice, gender, race, law, and finance in Nauvoo.

This event is free to attend, but space is limited. The conference program and registration are available on the Joseph Smith Papers website.


Guest: Joseph Smith and the Mistranslation of the Kinderhook Plates (4 of 4)

By August 28, 2020


By Mark Ashurst-McGee

Part 1; Part 2; Part 3

In the previous installments of this series, I have given a brief history of the research Don Bradley and I have been conducting over the last three decades on the Kinderhook plates episode in early Mormon history.

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Guest: Joseph Smith’s Mistranslation of the Kinderhook Plates (3 of 4)

By August 27, 2020


By Mark Ashurst-McGee

See Part 1 and Part 2.

As explained in the previous installment (2 of 4), I had found what I believed to be the source of the content of Joseph Smith’s translation of the Kinderhook plates: The Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language (GAEL).

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Guest: Joseph Smith’s Mistranslation of the Kinderhook Plates (2 of 4)

By August 26, 2020


By Mark Ashurst-McGee

See here for the previous installment.

So, as I was saying, in the spring of 1996 I delivered a presentation at MHA in which I argued that Joseph Smith did translate (mistranslate) a portion of the fraudulent Kinderhook plates but that he had attempted this translation by secular methods. (For the basic outline of the argument, see the previous installment.)

A few months after the presentation, I found the source of the content of the translation.

It was in the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language.

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Guest: Joseph Smith’s Mistranslation of the Kinderhook Plates (1 of 4)

By August 25, 2020


Mark Ashurst-McGee is Senior Research and Review Editor for the Joseph Smith Papers and a long-time friend of the JI. He is a co-editor (with Michael Hubbard MacKay and Brian M. Hauglid) and contributor to the recently published Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity (UofU Press), which we highlighted in a recent guest post.

If I remember it correctly, I started studying the Kinderhook plates episode in the fall of 1990, soon after I completed my mission and returned to BYU—and there found the magnificent run of BX8600 books in the 4th-floor stacks of the Lee Library. I spent countless hours between there and the old Special Collections (with its stunning window view of Mount Timpanogos).

A decade earlier, historian Stan Kimball had obtained permission to conduct destructive testing on the one extant Kinderhook plate—in order to determine whether it was ancient or modern. In the late nineteenth century, men from Kinderhook, Illinois, claimed that the plate had been fabricated there in 1843 and then planted near a decomposed skeleton in a nearby American Indian burial mound. This was all in preparation for the excavation and “discovery” that followed. The problem was that, according to the History of the Church, when Joseph Smith was shown the plates he believed they were genuine and even translated a portion of their inscriptions. So, were the plates genuine or bogus? ancient or modern? The destructive testing conducted in 1980 conclusively demonstrated that the plate and its inscriptions were a 19th-century fabrication.

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Guestpost–Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects

By July 13, 2020


Mark Ashurst-McGee is a friend of the JI and the Senior Research and Review Editor with the Joseph Smith Papers. He holds a Ph.D. in American History from Arizona State University and has published broadly on Joseph Smith and early Latter-day Saint history. He co-edited, along with Michael Hubbard MacKay and Brian M. Hauglid, Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity, which was recently published by the University of Utah Press.

This collaborative volume is the first to provide in-depth analysis of all of Joseph Smith’s translation projects. The compiled chapters explore Smith’s translation projects in focused detail and in broad contexts, as well as in comparison and conversation with one another. The various contributors approach Smith’s sacred texts historically, textually, linguistically, and literarily to offer a multidisciplinary view. Scrupulous examination of the production and content of Smith’s translations opens new avenues for understanding the foundations of Mormonism, provides insight on aspects of early American religious culture, and helps conceptualize the production and transmission of sacred texts.

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Guest Post: Introducing “Essays on American Indian and Mormon History”

By June 22, 2020


Brenden W. Rensink[1]

In 2019, P. Jane Hafen and I published an anthology of essays with the University of Utah Press entitled Essays on American Indian and Mormon History. I am happy to take a few moments here to explain the how this volume came to be and the principles that guided our editorial approach.

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REMINDER: Joseph Smith Papers Conference, 2020

By February 5, 2020


From our friends at the Joseph Smith Papers project:

To commemorate the 2020 release of volumes 10 and 11 of the Documents series, which cover the history of Joseph Smith and the Latter-day Saints from May 1842 to February 1843, the Joseph Smith Papers Project will host the fourth annual Joseph Smith Papers Conference on September 18, 2020, in Salt Lake City, Utah. The theme for this year’s conference is “Joseph Smith’s Connections and Networks.”

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2019 JSP Conference: Program and Registration

By August 6, 2019


On Friday, October 11, 2019, the Joseph Smith Papers Project will host the third annual Joseph Smith Papers conference. Due to the overwhelming public interest in past conferences, this year’s event will take place at the Conference Center Theater in order to accommodate all who wish to attend. The theater is located on the west side of the Conference Center (60 West North Temple St., Salt Lake City, Utah 84150).  

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