Our friends at BOMSA are holding their annual conference this week. Be sure to check out all the presentations, but we are particularly excited about the historical presentations (listed below):
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9
10:15 PM-12:15 PM
Robin Jensen (JSPP), “A Preliminary Examination in to the Authenticity of the University of Chicago Leaves of the Original Book of Mormon Manuscript (Alma 3:5-4:2; 4:20-5:23)
Janiece Johnson (Neal A. Maxwell Institute), “Scripturalizing the Book: Book of Mormon Authority and the Material Record”
Christopher Jones (BYU), “A Necessary Book for Dark-Skinned People’: Reading the Book of Mormon with the First Missionaries to the Pacific”
Thanks to friend of JI Matthew Grow for reaching out to us regarding this announcement!Further information can be found at the Communcal Studies Association website.
Sessions will begin at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time and end at 6:00 p.m. Eastern. Each session will be 90 minutes in length, generally with three presenters speaking for 25 minutes with time for questions. Viewers will be able to query speakers in real time via the Q & A tab. There will be 15 minutes between sessions. Our business meeting, election and awards ceremony will occur on Friday evening.
Registration will be on our website at conference registration. Cost for registration will be just $50 for members, $60 for non-members and $10 for students and current communitarians. We hope this low price will encourage many to attend who might not otherwise be able to afford the transportation and lodging expense of an in-person conference. So please spread the word!
Kurt Manwaring has published an interview with Joseph Geisner, over on his site, From the Desk. Geisner has published in Sunstone, the John Whitmer Historical Journal, the Journal of Mormon History, and Irreantum. Joe is an avid book collector of the New Mormon History, and rare and collectible Mormon books. An excerpt from Manwaring’s site on Geisner’s new edited collection, Writing Mormon History: Historians and their Books is available here; click over to From the Desk to read the rest!
CCHSF Autumn Lecture Series: Community of Christ’s Global History
Community of Christ Historic Sites Foundation (CCHSF) is hosting online lectures every Thursday night at 7:00 pm (Central) from October 1 – November 19, 2020. Each week CCHSF will journey, through the pages of church history, to a new area of the world. The 8-week series will feature church history around the globe: Korea, India, England, Southeastern Nigeria, Canada, and the Holy Land.
The online lectures are free and open to the public with any donations received going to support the ongoing preservation and maintenance of Community of Christ historic sites.
Kurt Manwaring has published an interview with Matthew Grey, over on his site, From the Desk. Grey earned his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. An excerpt from Manwaring’s site on Joseph Smith, translation and Hebrew is posted below; click over to From the Desk to read the rest!
Why did Joseph Smith assume he could gain insights into the Egyptian language and Book of Abraham by studying Hebrew?
Matthew Grey: There is evidence that many early Latter-day Saints—including Joseph Smith, W.W. Phelps, and Oliver Cowdery—naturally adopted some of the assumptions circulating in their nineteenth century intellectual climate, including the common views mentioned above that supernatural means were necessary to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs and/or that Egyptian was a linguistic system related to Hebrew (both having descended from the original “pure language” of humanity) that could be illuminated through Hebraic insights.
Thanks to friend of JI K. Pollock for putting this together!
Metamorphosis:
Scattered and Gathered Saints Emerge After Crises
Saturday, September 19, 2020, 5:30 p.m. CDT
Join the John Whitmer Historical Association from the comfort of your own home to see two great presentations on restoration history by Dr. Jane Hafen and Dr. David Howlett, to enjoy an awards ceremony honoring the top books and articles of 2019, and to participate in a hymn sing!
You can read the original announcement HERE. If you were accepted for the 2020 program, please take care to let Joseph Stuart and Anne Berryhill whether you’d like to present your 2020 paper/panel in 2021. You have until November 15, 2020 to confirm you will deliver your paper, but the sooner you can let them know the easier you will make it to map out a 2021 program!
Mormon History Association
56th Annual Meeting
Rochester/Palmyra, New York
June 10-13, 2021
The Mormon History Association is pleased to announce the rescheduling of its Rochester/Palmyra conference for June 10-13, 2021. This 56th Annual Conference continues the previously-planned theme, “Visions, Restoration, and Movements,” commemorating the 200th anniversary of Mormonism’s birth in upstate New York. If health conditions don’t allow an in-person meeting, MHA will make the conference available digitally.
Many thanks to friend of JI, WVS, for his thoughtful review!You can purchase the book from UNC Press HERE.
“Regardless of what one believes about its historical or sacral authenticity, the Book of Mormon reveals important information about nineteenth-century American culture, particularly regarding oral culture and the formation of American literature among the non-elite classes of democratic-minded citizens, whose voices often emerged through the spoken word along religious avenues and byways.”(ix)
“I will be exploring how the textual phenomena and internal evidence within the pages of the Book of Mormon reach outside the text to engage with the pervasive oratorical training, practices, and concerns of Smith’s environment in early nineteenth-century America. I believe that this information, for believers and nonbelievers alike, reveals valuable insights about the life of Joseph Smith, his background and religious experiences, as well as the cultural context in which he grew up. I invite the reader to join me in that journey of discovery.”(xi)
Mabel Knell, age five, joined the Primary in her small southern Utah town when it was organized on 6 December 1880. Eliza R. Snow and Zina Young visited nearly all of the southern settlements, including Pinto, near Pine Valley. The minutes record that Eliza asked the children if they wanted to be organized, and she helped them appoint a presidency. Then she showed them a gold watch that Joseph Smith gave her back in Nauvoo in 1842. (1)
Pinto Ward meeting house, CHL
Mabel remembered something else significant, not recorded in the minutes: a young boy in Pinto was very sick and had been carried to the meeting. He requested a special prayer for his health. “Sister Snow told the children to arise to their feet, close their eyes, and repeat after her the prayer, one sentence at a time. She prayed for the sick boy. When they got through praying he got up, walked home, and got into a wagon without help. He was well from that time.” (2) Eliza certainly cared for the individual–especially this young boy; she also cared for the community, teaching the Primary association how to unitedly pray for one of their members–to draw upon the powers of heaven even in their young ages.
This was just one of Eliza R. Snow’s nearly 1200 discourses, recorded in minute books and in personal writings. The Church History Department is proud to present “The Discourses of Eliza R. Snow,” a website with the Church Historian’s Press. As second general Relief Society president, Snow became a prolific speaker, traveling to nearly every settlement in the Utah Territory. Her marriages to both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young gave her an intimate perspective of the early events of the Restoration. She enlarged the stakes of the church with her visits to the hinterlands, teaching, organizing, and connecting with women, youth, and children. And she returned to Salt Lake City with a more expansive view of the institution she served.
The Discourses of Eliza R. Snow will be a great resources for both scholars and a general audience. The ability to trace a significant female preacher, to understand current events in local areas with specificity to women, and to follow the circuitous trajectory of her theological teachings is unprecedented. Her explanation on personal ministry is personal and intimate. And her efforts to provide order to the various women’s organizations, to teach them about their temple blessings, and their family relationships are indeed poignant.
President Snow spoke with authority in several ways. She was the secretary of the Nauvoo Relief Society and had a clear understanding of the purpose of the women’s organization as set by Joseph Smith. She was assigned by Brigham Young in 1868 to assist the bishops in organizing ward Relief Societies and to instruct the sisters. Snow taught the proper manner in which to organize and she encouraged women to speak publicly–to have a voice. She was a firm supporter of plural marriage, female empowerment with women responsible for their own salvation, and in encouraging women’s education and civic participation.
Eliza R. Snow, studio portrait by Savage and Ottinger, circa 1862-1872, CHL.
While only fifty discourses from 1868-1869 are currently available, batches of 100 discourses will be uploaded quarterly. Snow appeared publicly until a few months before her death in late 1887, often speaking three times a day in different locations even in her 80s. Later batches will include speeches in the form of poetry given to the Polysophical Institute and the Literary and Musical Associations in the 1850s, a speech given to her students in Nauvoo in 1843, and a fiery Pioneer Day diatribe on 24 July 1849. Snow spoke to Relief Societies, Young Ladies and Primary Associations, Cooperative Retrenchment groups, grain committees and silk associations, public meetings, anniversary celebrations, and general ward groups.
An interactive map shows the range of Snow’s travels and links to the discourses. A helpful reference section includes explanation of historical context, Snow’s chronology, and links to her publications. Where available, photographs of the places in which she spoke are available, bringing her discourse alive in a material way.
This new addition to the Church Historian’s Press website joins other endeavors, including the diaries of Emmeline B. Wells, the journals of George Q. Cannon and George F. Richards, and online versions of First Fifty Years of Relief Society and At the Pulpit. Also new is the ability to search across all church history sites.
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