A press conference was held yesterday at the Church History Library to announce the release of a 429 page book titled “Carry On: The Latter-day Saint Young Women Organization, 1870–2024.” It covers the history beginning with Brigham Young’s daughters, up to the present day. And “this is not the end of it; it will continue,” Elder Hugo E. Martinez Jr. quipped as he began the gathering. [Read more…] about New book on history of Young Women program now available from Church Historian’s Press
A few weeks ago, FAIR held a virtual conference focusing on church history. Because “Saints, Volume 4: Sounded in Every Ear, 1955–2020” was about to be published, we invited Matt McBride to give a presentation on it as the keynote speaker.
On October 29, a press conference was held at the Church History Library to announce the release of the book. It is the fourth and final book in the series, and the series is the third multi-volume official history of the Church. This volume spans the years 1955 to 2020 over 831 pages. [Read more…] about Saints Volume 4 is now available
I recently had the opportunity to meet with the editors of this latest volume and see some of the included documents firsthand. The volume covers the first four and a half months of 1844, ending just 43 days before Joseph Smith’s death. There will be one more volume published after this, and then the series will be finished. There are 99 documents, including letters to (mostly) and from Joseph Smith, discourses, a short revelation, and a poem he wrote in an autograph book. During the time period covered, Joseph started the Council of Fifty, announced his presidential campaign, dealt with increasing hostility from various sources including former church members, and brought forth new doctrine, among other things. [Read more…] about The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 14: 1 January–15 May 1844
by Meagan Kohler
Do you believe in God? How do you know?
In their new book, Into the Headwinds: Why Belief Has Always Been Hard―and Still Is (Eerdman’s Publishing), Terryl and Nathaniel Givens recount a story about a friend who was sincerely convinced the Second Coming would take place within twenty years. Yet, why was he actively contributing to a retirement fund that would not be accessible until some twenty years after he believed the world, as we know it, would end? The Givenses make a strong case for an unsettling possibility: many of us sincerely profess beliefs we don’t actually hold, and we can’t recognize the hollowness of those beliefs until they cost us something. [Read more…] about Book Review: Into the Headwinds: Why Belief Has Always Been Hard―and Still Is
This is one of the larger (a little over 9 inches by 12 inches) facsimile editions in the Joseph Smith Papers series. Weighing nearly 10 pounds, with 800 pages, I believe it is the largest single book in the series. It may fit better on a table than a shelf, and is certainly easiest to peruse that way. But it is a fitting presentation of the extant pieces of the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon.
Unfortunately, only around 28 percent of the original manuscript still exists, and most of it is in very poor condition. It was stored for safekeeping in the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House in 1841, but when it was found over 40 years later during a remodel by Lewis Bidamon, it had been badly damaged due to the cornerstone apparently not being weatherproof despite precautions that had been taken. Bidamon gradually gave bits and pieces of it away over the years to visitors, but most of what remains is thought to now be at the Church History Library, the Wilford Wood Museum, and the University of Utah. [Read more…] about Book Review: The Joseph Smith Papers Revelations and Translations Volume 5: Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon (Facsimile Edition)
This biography of Dallin H. Oaks was written by Richard E. Turley, Jr., who has been associated with Oaks throughout most of his (Turley’s) professional life. Turley has served as the Director of the Church History Department (originally selected to work for the department by Oaks), Assistant Church Historian, and Director of Public Affairs. He has previously written or co-written several other books, including Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hoffman Case and Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy.
Dallin Harris Oaks was born August 12, 1932 in Provo, Utah. He got his middle name from his mom’s side of the family, who was descended from a brother of Martin Harris. He grew up in Provo; Twin Falls, Idaho; Payson (where he stayed with his grandparents at times due to the death of his father when he was 7); and Vernal. He came close to dying several times in his childhood, beginning with his birth, with miraculous preservation of his life occurring each time. [Read more…] about Book Review: “In the Hands of the Lord: The Life of Dallin H. Oaks”
This volume of the Joseph Smith Papers contains 96 representative documents from the period of March – July 1841. During this time period, Joseph continued having legal problems with Missouri, the Kinderhook Plates were found, he led the Nauvoo Legion, construction continued on the Nauvoo House and temple, and he taught about the temple, eternal marriage, and plural marriage. Meanwhile Nauvoo continued to grow, and the church grew outside of Nauvoo and outside of the United States.
One document that I thought showed an interesting side of Joseph Smith’s personality was a response to a letter he had received from Abraham Jonas of Columbus, Illinois, asking to borrow a cannon. He wanted it for use in celebrating the failure of the establishment of a new county. Joseph’s response was to grant permission, along with a note at the end saying “Five hund[r]ed cannons you should have if I had them” (page 112). [Read more…] about Book Review: The Joseph Smith Papers Documents, Volume 12: March-July 1843
This volume of the Documents series of the Joseph Smith Papers covers a period of time when Joseph Smith hid from attempts to arrest and extradite him to Missouri while trying to lead Nauvoo and the Church. He then had a legal victory which enabled him to come out of hiding and attend to many items of business, including continuing to teach the Saints and becoming mayor of Nauvoo. The collection of 105 documents includes letters, poems, discourses, deeds, notices, meeting minutes, affidavits, songs, etc. These combine to paint an interesting picture of a very busy time in Joseph’s life.
Among the illustrations in the introduction is a sketch of Joseph Smith by local artist Benjamin West, done during an extradition hearing in Springfield, Illinois, in January 1843. It is unknown whether it was meant to be accurate or more of a caricature, but it does match written descriptions of Joseph (see https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/2005/12/what-did-joseph-smith-really-look-like?lang=eng). [Read more…] about Book Review: The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 11: September 1842 – February 1843
This book includes a mixture of scholarship about all of Joseph Smith’s translation projects, including the highly anticipated paper by Thomas A. Wayment and Haley Wilson-Lemmon on the use of the Clarke Commentary in the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. We had the opportunity to discuss the book with Michael Hubbard MacKay and Mark Ashurst-McGee. A review of the book will be forthcoming.
Q1: What is the purpose of the book?
Mike and Mark: The book was conceived as an attempt to cover all of the various Joseph Smith translation projects—not only the Book of Mormon and the “New Translation” of the Bible and the Book of Abraham but also the excerpt from the new account of John (D&C 7), the excerpt from the “record of John” (in D&C 93), the Kinderhook plates, and anything else. This had actually never been done before—at least not at this depth. [Read more…] about Q&A with editors of Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity
This is the first in a series of books from the Neal A. Maxwell Institute meant to seek “Christ in scripture by combining intellectual rigor and the disciple’s yearning for holiness,” (page vii) and focusing on theological aspects of the Book of Mormon. “In this case, theology, as opposed to authoritative doctrine, relates to the original sense of the term as, literally, reasoned ‘God talk’” (page viii). This volume is by Joseph Spencer, an assistant professor of ancient scripture at BYU and the editor of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies.
At 146 pages, the book is indeed brief. It is a small paperback, but it has a lot of nice features. The front cover is embossed and both the front and back covers have flaps that can (almost) be used as bookmarks. There are woodcut illuminations matching those in the recent “Study Edition” of the Book of Mormon, also published by the Maxwell Institute. And the text has orange highlights and notes throughout.
The book has two parts. The first part, “The Theological Project of 1 Nephi,” was the most interesting to me. It talks about the original chapter breaks, and how they made it easier to see that Nephi intentionally structured the book to have two parts. The first part is an abridgment of the record kept by Lehi, and the second part, beginning with the original chapter three (now chapter ten) is about Nephi’s life. “The first half of the book prepares for the second by explaining how Nephi’s family came to possess the two key prophetic resources [the brass plates and the vision of the tree of life] essential to Nephi’s own subsequent ministerial efforts. The second half of the book then recounts Nephi’s ministry to his brothers, built on parallel expositions of the two key prophetic resources from the first half of the book” (pages 19-20). This is all shown in two diagrams, which explain that each of the original chapters had a theme and how they relate to each other. [Read more…] about Book Review – 1st Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction
