By David G.November 30, 2007
This month’s Ensign contains a fascinating little article describing Joseph Smith’s seven journals. The authors, two friends of mine, are editors on the Joseph Smith Papers Project. Mark Ashurst-McGee (MA, USU; PhD. candidate, ASU) is editing journals from the 1830s. Alex Smith (MA, BYU) is editing Smith’s journals from 1841-April 1843. Mark is also editing the journals from April 1843 to June 1844. They’re both excellent scholars and likely know more about these journals, in terms of content, physical description, and provenance, than anyone alive. Alex has worked directly with the Nauvoo journal, The Book of the Law of the Lord, which previous scholars such as Scott Faulring and Michael Marquardt have not had access to.
The 6 page article gives summaries of the seven journals and also includes images of the artifacts. We also get
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By StanNovember 25, 2007
Sitting in front of the fireplace at my in-law’s this evening, I began chatting with my wife’s 93-year-old grandmother about her life growing up in San Juan County, Utah. She began by telling me again about the hole-in-the-rockers, the original Mormon settlers of the Bluff, Blanding, and Monticello region in southeastern Utah who had hacked their way through the desert in one of the most incredible colonization missions in Western history.
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By StanNovember 16, 2007
Recently released from Mercer University Press, Mormonism in Dialogue with Contemporary Christian Theologies, edited by Donald W. Musser and David L. Paulsen, promises to be a tome of interest to both Mormons and Christians alike who are interested in dialogue. Martin Marty seems to think so. “When I agreed to read the manuscript and write the foreword,” Marty writes, “I don’t think I anticipated the scope, detail, and depth of this one. Now I pass it along to other readers who will find that such scope, detail, and depth represent gifts to everyone who has interest and concern for ‘the
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By ChristopherNovember 13, 2007
Welcome to the new home of The Juvenile Instructor. We hope the new features make it easier and more convenient for all of our readers. A big thanks to J. Stapley of Splendid Sun and By Common Consent for creating the new layout.
By Jared TNovember 12, 2007
Carmon Hardy, in his article “Self-Blame and the Manifesto”, draws a parallel between elements of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy and Mormon explanations for the Manifesto. After tenaciously clinging to “The Principle”, and after repeated affirmations of the justness of the polygamous cause, the Mormon people had to account for the cessation of plural marriage. Increasingly, Latter-day Saints looked inward and cited a failure on the part of the Latter-day Saints as the reason the promised protection did not come. An excerpt from the Anthon Lund diaries illustrates this view:
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By StanNovember 11, 2007
As certain babblers in Zion shared everything but their testimonies from the pulpit in Church today[1] (we had stake conference last week so this today was fast and testimony meeting), I began flipping through the hymn book, reading some of those obscure old hymns we never sing. I lighted on Orson F. Whitney’s poetic little reverie “The Wintry Day, Descending to Its Close” and got a good dose of manifest destiny in the 4th verse:
The wilderness, that naught before would yield,
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By David G.November 10, 2007
A friend of mine mentioned to me last week that he hoped that the John V. Long documents would be sold for a million dollars…and then prove to contain nothing of worth, just to prove the conspiracy theorists wrong. The discovery of two original and unpublished Eliza R. Snow poems in the collection may not shed light on Long’s mysterious death, but they do begin to confirm the tangible historical value of the collection. ABC4.com reports that the two poems were found in the scrapbook of Sarah Long, wife of John V. Long.
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By ChristopherNovember 7, 2007
Modern Mormons, it seems, are quite fond of “romanticizing the Reformation,” meaning that Mormons often portray Luther, Arminius, and other Protestant Reformers as being sort of proto-Latter-day Saints. In my experience, this tendency is not limited to seeing Reformers as such, but often extends to Christopher Columbus and America’s Founding Fathers. However, this is far from being a recent development in Mormonism’s worldview. Parley P. Pratt, noted apostle and editor of The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, included the following in the June 1841 (Vol. 2, No. 2) issue of that periodical.
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