Juvenile Instructor » Categories of Periodization: Origins

From the Archives: “A Sample of Pure Language,” Part II (The Interpretations)

By Ben PDecember 21, 2009

[Continued from Part I]

I sincerely appreciate the three respondents participating in this forum. I’m sure all the readers will agree that all three portions are well-written and enlightening.

Although these three are well-known around the bloggernacle, here are brief introductions: Robin Jensen is an editor for the Joseph Smith Papers Project, recently received his second master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and his name can be found on the cover of the recent Revelations and Translations vol. 1. Samuel Brown is currently an Assistant Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and Division Associate, Medical Ethics and Humanities, University of Utah. Jordan Watkins, theoretically a contributor here at JI, is a PhD candidate in history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

From the Archives: “A Sample of Pure Language,” Part I (The Text)

By Ben PDecember 21, 2009

While JI has not done one recently, we have from time to time written a “From the Archives” post where we pluck from the historical archives an interesting document as a way to highlight an important theme, offer a new interpretation, or merely start an enlightening discussion. This post is aimed to do all of the above, only perhaps even more so because of the interesting nature of this particular document. It offers so many possibilities for interpretation, in fact, that I have asked three knowledgeable historians to give their take on it from their individual backgrounds and expertise.

Book Review: Daniel Walker Howe, Making the American Self: Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln

By Ben PDecember 15, 2009

Building off of Christopher’s recent review of Robert Orsi’s The Madonna of 115th Street, I though I would post a recent review I’ve written on an important historical text that, while not directly addressing Mormonism, offers intriguing questions and approaches that we can apply to Mormon history. The first section is my review of Howe’s fascinating volume, while the second section provides a few paragraphs on how we can relate it to Mormon studies.

Thoughts on Polyandry

By Steve FlemingDecember 13, 2009

I’ve frequently seen complaints that Joseph Smith’s practice of marrying already-married women is “particularly troubling.” That is, that marrying married women is somehow worse than marrying single women. Why is that? Why is men sharing a wife somehow worse than women sharing a husband?

Of Hips and Miracles

By Steve FlemingDecember 13, 2009

My daughter was diagnosed with Perthes yesterday. It’s a condition where blood doesn’t get to the hip bone and so it doesn’t grow, which causes all kinds of problems. She’s been having a lot of difficulty walking recently but the doctor says its very treatable and for this we are grateful.

Her condition reminded me of a few stories from the past that I’ve read recently.

Considering Biography and Thought in Early Mormonism

By Ben PNovember 3, 2009

I’ve recently been researching the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, a late 18th- early 19th-century thinker who represented the transition between German enlightenment and Romantic thought. Schleiermacher, long recognized as an important sage in German culture, has only recently been given due attention in the English-speaking world. Thus, the literature on his theology is somewhat scant in the American academy (save for his demonization by 20th-century neo-conservatives like Karl Barth), especially when compared to someone like Joseph Smith who has long been scrutinized, praised, or overall engaged by scholars both within and without the Mormon tradition. Because of the relative newness of the topic, however, the narrative and frameworks in which to understand Schleiermacher’s thought is still being developed. Several important questions are just now beginning to be asked—questions which, surprisingly, still have relevance to Mormon history today.

Joseph Smith, Thomas Dick, and the Tricky Task of Determining Influence

By Ben POctober 12, 2009

Recent tangential comments on JI lately have briefly touched on the development of Joseph Smith?s theology, the correct context in which to place it in, and determining what influence(s) led to what came to be his Nauvoo doctrinal system. These, as well as other topics, are among those that, in my opinion, were not handled well in the new Mormon history.

Defining Mormon Materialism, circa 1840s

By Ben PSeptember 22, 2009

The more I look at the development of Mormon thought, the more I’m convinced that the development of materialism drastically shaped late Nauvoo and early Utah (and beyond) theology.

“Such an idea is worse than atheism”: Joseph Smith, Proxy Baptisms, and Sectarianism

By David G.September 19, 2009

In preparing my priesthood lesson on baptisms for the dead for tomorrow (lesson 41), I’ve been going through the omissions from the text. As JNS pointed out awhile back, some of these omissions are pretty interesting. Here’s the text of Joseph Smith’s October 1841 speech on baptisms for the dead

Book review: Reid L. Neilson and Terryl Givens, eds., Joseph Smith, Jr., Reappraisals after two centuries. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009)

By matt b.September 10, 2009

This review, originally appearing in a slightly different version in Mormon Historical Studies 10:1, is reprinted here with the kind permission of Alex Baugh and Jacob Olmstead, editor and book reviews editor, respectively.

It is a mark of the fascination that Joseph Smith inspires in students of religion and religious history (the present author not excepted) to the present day that, despite the plentitude of biographies, specialized studies, movies, hymns, visual art and all the rest that his life has evoked even only in the past sixty years, this volume is still welcome.

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Categories of Periodization: Origins