Mormon History

The first part of this paper examines the literary features of the original Lord’s Prayer as both a stand-alone aesthetic object, as a manifestation of the first-century Jewish rhetoric of prayer, and as prayer as biography. This paper relies on the best critical scholarship on the subject in the past 70 years as well as new insights from a range of primary Jewish and Christian texts. The versions of the Prayer under consideration in the first part are the Lucan version and the Aramaic version reconstructed by Bruce Chilton.

Prayer is a form of communication to a deity that exposes fundamental characteristics of the person who prays. The paper therefore posits the following aphorism "Whisper your prayer and I will tell you who you are."

The second part of the paper examines the Lord's Prayer in its primary manifestation among Mormons--- the American version of the Prayer given in the narrative of the resurrected Jesus in the Book of Mormon. The first conclusion in the context of first-century Jewish prayer-language is  that the Lord's Prayer evokes an implied narrative for Jesus' peasant followers: an Exodus through hunger, debt, and trial to a coming Kingdom. It is a case of proxmate pessimism and ultimate optimism. The Book of Mormon version of the Prayer transforms the imagery to fit a lower-class nineteenth-century Christian audience. The Book of Mormon transforms a throroughly Jewish prayer into a thoroughly Christian prayer. The metaphors of the American version of the Prayer  are subtley transformed in the Book of Mormon, revealing a nineteenth Christian understanding and defense of Jesus. Both the early followers of Jesus and of Joseph Smith added communtarian economic pracitises anticipated in both versions of the Prayer as a means of addressing the economic plight of the poor. The paper concludes that a more careful examination of the literary and economic challenges of both versions of the Prayer  are worthy of examination.

Work on tW. he Fermi Paradox, the question of why we have not seen any evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations, has recently focused on the concept of Great Filters, hurdles which a species would have to overcome before it could achieve interstellar status.  A possible filter which has not been examined is suggested by the impending decline in human population due to the current widespread fall in fertility rates.  This is illustrated by the most popular vision of humans' space-faring future, Star Trek, where over the next three centuries the characters reproduce at only a quarter of the rate needed to maintain the species.  Such a diminished aged population would be unlikely to either travel to the stars, or realize any other politically progressive technocratic society. Rather it appears that any future humanity may have lies with the socially conservative religious who are continue to have babies.

General Contributions on Theology advances a universal theological system by positing religion as the constitutive organ of humanity’s relation to abstraction, operationalized through sacralisation and the presencing of the sacred. Against the epistemic fragmentation of theology, religious studies, and comparative religion, it synthesizes these fields into a unified analytic grounded in a tripartite ontology of the immaterial, material, and hypermaterial spheres. The text introduces novel constructs—mythogony (sacral creation of worldspace), hierosmosis (sacred pervasion into civilizational structures), and a taxonomic schema of religious evolution from cultic instantiation to denominational differentiation—while testing them across diverse religious formations, including Falun Gong, Unitarian Universalism, Mormonism, and indigenous traditions. By integrating phenomenological disclosure, metaphysical ontology, and civilizational analysis, the work reconceptualizes religion as an irreducible civilizational force that structures meaning, moral order, and political form. This framework establishes a transdisciplinary basis for a renewed, systematic theology adequate to twenty-first-century global and multireligious conditions.

Joseph Smith’s use of a seer stone and hat in producing the Book of Mormon has been a point of confusion, dismay, and even embarrassment among some believers. These feelings may reflect a lack of understanding of the functions of these objects in enabling Joseph to receive divine revelation. As the term was used in the Bible and commonly used in Joseph Smith’s day, a seer was a “see-er” of visions. Accordingly, a seer stone was a stone used for seeing visions. Joseph was reported to have used seer stones to receive the translation of the Book of Mormon in vision. This is how he reportedly described the experience of translation to others. According to these reports, Joseph said that he read the translation from a manuscript that appeared before him. The revelation of the Book of Mormon translation to Joseph in vision places him in the company of ancient seers such as Ezekiel and Lehi, who also read from sacred manuscripts seen in vision. This paper specifically addresses the nature of Joseph’s hat and its function in the revelation of the translation of the Book of Mormon.

A recent review of Joseph M. Spencer’s book "The Vision of All: Twenty-Five Lectures on Isaiah in Nephi’s Record" made the case that the book contains several challenges and problems, in particular that it advocates a theologically deficient interpretation of Isaiah that denies Isaiah’s witness of Jesus Christ. This response provides an alternative reading of Spencer’s work and suggests these assertions are often based on misunderstanding. At stake in this conversation is the question of whether or not there is more than one valid way to read Isaiah that draws upon a faithful, Restoration perspective. While Spencer may interpret and frame some things differently than some other Latter-day Saint scholars, the prophecies of Isaiah provide enough richness and possibility to accommodate a chorus of faithful approaches.

Após 23 anos como membro e 2 anos como missionário de A Igreja De Jesus Cristo dos Santos dos Últimos Dias, decidi abandonar a fé mórmon por razões estritamente pessoais, ao sair da religião, pude exercer minha liberdade intelectual e fiz diversos estudos com base em fontes independentes e fontes da própria igreja, com tanto conhecimento que eu tinha em mente, decidi realizar esse projeto da carta de renúncia as crenças que não acredito mais, nessa carta, deixo de forma clara porquê eu não acredito mais nos ensinamentos do mormonismo.

Joseph Smith taught that the origins of modern temple ordinances go back beyond the foundation of the world.1 Even for believers, the claim that rites known anciently have been restored through revelation raises complex questions because we know that revelation almost never occurs in a vacuum. Rather, it comes most often through reflection on the impressions of immediate experience, confirmed and elaborated through subsequent study and prayer.2 Because Joseph Smith became a Mason not long before he began to introduce others to the Nauvoo endowment, some suppose that Masonry must have been the starting point for his inspiration on temple matters. The real story, however, is not so simple. Though the introduction of Freemasonry in Nauvoo helped prepare the Saints for the endowment — both familiarizing them with elements they would later encounter in the Nauvoo temple and providing a blessing to them in its own right — an analysis of the historical record provides evidence that signifi...

The sands of time have a way of burying even the most significant events. The Mindanao Death March, a testament to unimaginable suffering and resilience has been particularly vulnerable to this erasure. One of the primary reasons for its obscurity is the lack of widespread accounts from Filipino survivors. While stories were shared with loved ones, the formal recording of these experiences was tragically rare. This book is an attempt to rectify that and to honor the memories of those who endured, and to ensure that their sacrifices are never forgotten by generations to come.

172 THE CONTEMPORARY PACIFIC. SPRING 1994 Underwood win over Republican GUAM incumbent and retired General Vicente Intense activity along the north Pacif-G. Blaz in the race for Guam's congres-ic's tropical convergence zone brought sional delegate seat. ...

During the late nineteenth century, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were faced with the paradox of needing to establish commonality with other Americans while preserving their peculiar identity. With the completion of the first transcontinental railroad and the resulting influx of new settlers, the Rocky Mountain refuge they had built no longer offered the luxury of isolation. As the post-Civil War nation shifted its attention to Utah, the controversial marital and economic practices of Latterday Saints came under increasing public condemnation. The women REBEKAH RYAN CLARK is a historian for Better Days 2020 and serves on the board of the Mormon Women's History Initiative Team. She holds a law degree from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU and a history and literature degree from Harvard University, where her honors thesis was on Utah's national suffrage activism.

The Joseph Smith Papers (JSP) is a treasure trove of information for both academics and Church members who want to know more about Joseph Smith. Although the JSP can seem daunting, there are resources for Latter-day Saints that will help them access the findings and information created by the JSP. These include books and projects that the JSP has influenced, such as Revelations in Context, Saints volume 1, and the revised headings in the 2013 Doctrine and Covenants. Additional resources include the JSP website with its finding aids, research helps, and videos, as well as the JSP podcast. Using these resources, Latter-day Saints can come to know who Joseph Smith really was and see his efforts to bring individuals closer to Jesus Christ.

James Felix Bridger was born in 1804, Richmond, Virginia, His father was an innkeeper. Around 1812 the family moved near St. Louis, Missouri. At the age of 13, Bridger was orphaned, and he was apprenticed to a blacksmith. He had no formal education and was unable to read or write. In March 1822, at the age of 18, Bridger left his apprenticeship and responded to a newspaper advertisement in the Missouri Republican to join General William Henry Ashley’s fur trapping expedition to the upper Missouri River. The party included Jedediah Smith, who later also became a famous mountain man. For the next 20 years Bridger made trips between the Canadian border in the north to the southern boundary of present-day Colorado and the Idaho and Utah in the west either as an employee or a partner in the fur trade.

Jedediah Smith was born in 1799 in Bainbridge, Chenango County, New York. His father owned a general store. Around 1820 his father participated in a counterfeit currency scheme, and he moved his family to Erie County Pennsylvania. At the age of 13, Smith worked as a clerk on a Lake Erie freighter. His family moved to Green Township (present-day Ashland County) Ohio in 1817. Inspired by reading Meriwether Lewis’ and William Clark’s 1814 book about their 1804-1806 exploration to the Pacific, he left his family and moved to St. Louis, where in 1822 he responded to an advertisement in the Missouri Gazette looking for 100 “Enterprising Young Men” to explore and trap in the Rocky Mountains.

In 1843 Bridger and Louis Vasquez establish Fort Bridger on the Blacks Fork of the Green River along the Oregon Trail in what is today Wyoming. The Donner Party or the Donner-Reed Party was a group of 32 members of the Donner and Reed families and their employers who left Independence, Missouri, in May 1846 in nine wagons. In early November the Donner Party reached the Sierra Nevada, but they became trapped by an early snowfall near Truckee Lake (Donner Lake today). With their food supply low, some of the group set out on foot in mid-December to obtain help.

The Mormons, or more officially the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), was founded in the 1830 by Joseph Smith in the so-called “Burnt Over District” of upstate New York.In 1831 the church moved to Kirtland, Ohio, and established an outpost in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri. However, the Missouri settlers violently expelled the Mormon from Jackson County, but the church flourished in Ohio, building the Kirtland Temple there. The Kirtland period ended in 1838, after a financial scandal after Smith and other church leaders created a joint stock company named the Kirland Safety Society, that functioned as a quasi-bank by issuing bank notes and eventually failed. Rather than trying to return to Missouri, especially after 1838, when the Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs ordered that the Mormons be “exterminated or driven from the state” and called up 6,000 men in the state militia, the Mormons founded Nauvoo, Illinois, on the east bank of the Mississippi River. Smith was succeeded by Brigham Young. However, two years after Smith’s death, conflicts escalated between the Mormons and Illinois residents. Young decided to move the Mormons westward, first to Nebraska, and then in 1847 to the Great Basin of the Rocky Mountains in what was then Mexican territory.

After the Mexican-American War in 1848, under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Mexico ceded the territory that includes the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Colorado, and a small portion of Wyoming to the United States, in exchange for a payment of $15 million and the United States’ assuming the debts owed to American citizens by the Mexican government. The Utah Territory was created as part of the Compromise of 1850 in which California was admitted to the Union as a state and the New Mexico territory also was established. Brigham Young was appointed as the first governor of the Utah Territory.

The discovery of gold in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in 1848 brought a large number of migrants traveling through the Great Basin to California. In 1854 the Church of Latter-Day Saints officially recognized the practice of polygamy that was the reason the United States refused to recognize the Utah Territory as a state. In July 1857 President James Buchanan sent troops to Utah to replace Brigham Young as the territorial governor. On September 7-11, 1857, a group of 130 migrants from Arkansas, Missouri, including unarmed men, women, and children, heading to California were attacked a by a local Mormon militia. The Mormons claimed they were attacked by Paiute Indians, but it was proven otherwise. This became known as the Mountain Meadow Massacre.

In 1858 gold was discovered in the Pike’s Peak region of the Rocky Mountains, thus bringing a large number of non-Mormons into what was then eastern Utah. In February 1861 a large part of the eastern area of the Utah Territory was added to the western part of the new Colorado Territory that was established as a non-slave territory. Silver was discovered at the Comstock Lode near Virginia City east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and Lake Tahoe in present-day western Nevada in 1858. This brought a large number of non-Mormon settlers into the Utah Territory leading to conflict between the Mormons and non-Mormons.

In March 1861 Congress established the Territory of Nevada that was carved out of the western part of the Utah Territory. The original capital of the Nevada Territory was Genoa, but it was moved to Carson City. The first provisional governor of the territory was Isaac Roop, but he was succeeded by James Warren Nye. Because of Nye’s frequent absence, the secretary of the territory, Orion Clemens (the older brother of Samuel Clemens a.k.a. Mark Twain) in fact served as governor. Twain traveled by stagecoach on his trip from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. He encountered along the way the Pony Express riders, whom he described as “the fleet messenger who sped across the continent from St. Joe to Sacramento, carrying letters nineteen hundred miles in eight days!” He noted that after the silver lodes were discovered in Carson County, Californians began to flood into the region outnumbering the Mormons. Twain then went to Virginia City in the heart of the Comstock Lode. Twain noted Virginia City had a large Chinese population. His description of them entailed the predominant prejudice of the day.

Thousands of Chinese began to immigrate to the West Coast of North America as early as the 1840s, despite China’s policy of restricting emigration. They were attracted by Gum Saan (Cantonese for “Gold Mountain”), the discovery of gold in 1848 in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. These early Chinese immigrants in the 1850s established the Chinese Six Companies in San Francisco, benevolent societies organized by the six regions from which the Chinese tended to emigrate. In 1860 China relaxed the emigration restrictions, and in 1862 Congress passed an act calling for the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific coast (See, The Sod House Frontier). Charles Crocker, one of the Big Four partners of the Central Pacific Railroad (Crocker, Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, and Mark Hopkins) in charge of construction, faced a labor shortages. In 1864 he contacted the chairman of the Six Companies, and the workers became known a “Crocker’s pets.” At first they worked as graders, leveling the ground with picks and shovels for the rail bed.

The last big gold rush in the Rocky Mountains took place along the Klondike River a tributary of the Yukon River in Canada. The first strike In August 1896, was by Siwash George Carmack who was fishing for salmon with his Indian wife Kate and three of their Indian relatives, Skookum Jim, Dawson Charlie, and Patsy Henderson. They staked four claims and one “discovery claim,” the latter by Carmack. What followed was a rush of prospectors primarily from the West Coast of the United States.

One of the people who took this journey was the writer Jack London. In July 1897, at the age of 21, Jack and his sister’s husband Captain Shepard sailed to Alaska to join the Klondike Gold Rush. At Juneau they joined three other men to travel with Indian guides through the Chilkoot Pass. In the spring they made a raft to go back to Dawson City, and from there Jack returned to San Francisco by way of Vancouver in August 1898. In 1903 London sold the novel titled The Call of the Wild to the Saturday Evening Post for $750 and the book rights to Macmillan.

The Coeur d’Alene mining district was a 30 miles long stretch along the Coeur d’Alene River, tributary of the Spokane River, which itself is a tributary of the Columbia River in northern Idaho. It is on the west side of the Bitterroot Mountains. Gold was discovered there in 1882, but rather than productive gold mining, silver and lead were in greater abundance. In 1887 corporations took over the narrow-gauge railroad that ran along the main canyon. In 1887 the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Company cut wages from $3.50 a day to $2.50 a day, causing a work stoppage that restored the cut.  In 1891 another company cut wages, again unsuccessfully. On New Years’ Day 1892, there was a third attempt to cut wages. The company said that it was to put pressure on the railroad to reduce its freight charges. By March it became a full-scale strike, supported by copper miners in Butte, Montana. In May a federal judge issued an injunction against the strikers interfering with the mining operation, and the companies brought in 300 strike-breakers from Duluth, escorted by 53 armed detectives.

Governor Willey of Idaho on July 13 declared a state of insurrection and request that President Harrison dispatch federal troops. About 1,500 U.S. Army and Idaho National Guard arrived under the command of Major General J. M. Schofield. Unio...

This paper gives a first theoretical formulation to a religious phenomenon which has not received much attention in philosophical discourse so far despite appearing in different highly heterogeneous religions. Vicarious religious ordinance refers to cases in which a living or deceased fully mature human being is knowingly or unknowingly assigned a religious affiliation without their consent or the consent of their dependents. I shall first offer three realworld examples of vicarious religious ordinance from Mormonism, Islam, and Shintoism and then raise some normative concerns. I suggest (i) that vicarious religious ordinance does not fit neatly into current debates about religious epistemology, especially the recent debate on religious disagreement. I argue (ii) that normative questions as to why vicarious religious ordinance elicits indignation in its 'victims' is not easily explained through adducing similar examples. This paper aims to motivate further coordinated research on this topic.

O lugar recomendado para iniciar o trabalho entre o povo alemão": a influência da interseção religiosa dos mórmons sobre os imigrantes europeus em Joinville (1928-1935) "The place to recommend to start the work among the German people": the influence of the Mormon religious intersection on European immigrants in Joinville (1928-1935

This image blends Egyptian mythology with a philosophical message: "The truth has never denied the seeker. It is the seeker who has denied the truth." The artwork depicts Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god of mummification and the afterlife, often associated with the weighing of the heart in the Hall of Ma'at. Behind him, there appears to be Ammit, the devourer of the unworthy-a creature with the head of a crocodile, the forequarters of a lion, and the hindquarters of a hippopotamus. In Egyptian belief, a soul's heart was weighed against the feather of Ma'at (truth, balance, and order). If the heart was heavier due to wrongdoing, Ammit would devour it, ending the soul's journey. The quote in the image parallels this ancient scene: • Truth (Ma'at) is ever-present and impartial. • The seeker (the soul) can reject truth due to fear, ego, or attachment to illusion. • In spiritual or philosophical terms, denial of truth is self-condemnation-much like a heavy heart leading to Ammit's judgment.

This paper tracks Joseph's investigation of Abraham and Sarah, propped on his work in Genesis for his New Translation of the King James Bible and his consideration of their story within the Egyptian project (Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar plus Book of Abraham). Abraham and Sarah, plotted as avatars for Joseph and Emma, magus and good wife, clear the path into secret Nauvoo, punctuated with Joseph's 1843 revelation (DC 132). Joseph and Emma to follow Abraham and Sarah to heaven--with their plural wives. Emma resisting.

The first anti-Mormon book’s emphasis of Joseph Smith’s treasure seeking activities in Palmyra caused Joseph Smith to react in several ways to control the narrative about his early life. I propose the reason specific references to Oliver Cowdery’s divining rod were removed in the 1835 publication of Revelation April-1829-B was to avoid references to early-Mormon treasure seeking practices, a major emphasis of the 1834 anti-Mormon book.

Abstract
Oliver Cowdery's Rod of Nature
Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium, August 2010

This presentation examines the largely overlooked role of Oliver Cowdery's divining rod in the early development of Mormon doctrine and practice. When Oliver Cowdery first encountered Joseph Smith in April 1829, he possessed a rod that had been providing him with revelations—a tool originally termed a "sprout of nature" in early Mormon texts, later modified to "rod of nature," and eventually renamed the "gift of Aaron."

The paper traces the historical context of divining rod usage in early 19th-century American treasure-seeking culture, demonstrating how the Smith family participated in these widespread practices. Joseph Smith's use of seerstones to locate the golden plates and translate the Book of Mormon occurred within this broader framework of folk magic and treasure hunting.

Central to this analysis is the connection between Oliver Cowdery's rod tradition and the religious movement led by Nathaniel Wood's "New Israelites" or "Modern Israelites" in the 1790s. Wood's millenarian group, influenced by English prophet Richard Brothers, established several practices that would later appear in early Mormonism: gathering in America rather than Jerusalem, building a "New Jerusalem," following dietary codes, expecting angelic ministry, speaking in tongues, restoring primitive Christianity, and exercising spiritual gifts through divining rods.

Significantly, Oliver Cowdery's father was not only a participant in Wood's movement but housed Winchell, the man who taught Wood to use divining rods for receiving revelations. This direct family connection explains how Oliver came to possess his rod and the revelation practices associated with it.

The presentation analyzes four revelations (now Doctrine and Covenants sections 6, 7, 8, and 9) that Joseph Smith received regarding Oliver's rod and his desire to become a translator, revealing how this folk magic tradition became integrated into foundational Mormon theology and practice.

This presentation examines the textual evolution and terminology surrounding Oliver Cowdery's divining rod as described in early Doctrine and Covenants revelations. Analysis of sections 6 and 8 reveals that Oliver possessed two distinct spiritual gifts: an existing gift of revelation through his rod, and a newly granted gift of translation to assist in bringing hidden scriptures to light.

The paper traces the changing nomenclature for Oliver's rod across manuscript and printed editions, from the original "sprout" to "rod" to "thing of nature," ultimately becoming the "gift of Aaron." This textual analysis demonstrates how early Mormon leaders gradually modified the language to distance the practice from its folk magic origins while preserving the underlying doctrinal concepts.

Central to the study is how these revelations positioned Oliver's rod as a legitimate tool for receiving divine communication and accessing ancient mysteries, with God explicitly authorizing its use while establishing boundaries on appropriate inquiries. The presentation explores the theological implications of integrating folk magic practices into early Mormon revelatory framework and the editorial decisions that shaped how these practices were presented to later generations of believers.

Early Mormon views on marriage, race, and progeny provide a background to consider the church's new policy banning gay families from church membership. Brigham Young taught that interracial marriage of white Mormon men to black women would bring a curse upon the church, reducing the Mormon people below the descendants of Cain, and recommended execution to these families. He may have banned blacks from the priesthood to protect the church from becoming cursed through interracial marriage. The church now teaches that same-sex marriage would corrupt the divine institution of marriage, and leaders implemented the Policy to protect the church from what is considered a profane form of marriage. 19th century teachings on race and marriage provide a context to the concepts of a cursed people and unholy marriage. Both Young, and today's leaders felt extraordinary measures were needed to prevent a progressive form of marriage from diminishing the authority of the church. In this paper, I will explore teachings of the past that parallel today's policy.

In 2006, the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal published a seminal article by Richard K. Behrens about the influence of the Dartmouth College community and curriculum on Hyrum Smith, and by extension on the Smith family, including Joseph Smith, Jr. This important article presents "a plausible intellectual development view of Joseph Smith from the perspective of his brother Hyrum Smith." It is an intriguing hypothesis that may appeal to those interested in a naturalistic explanation for Joseph Smith's teachings.

However, it lacks supporting evidence to substantiate its fundamental claim that Hyrum Smith conveyed theological ideas from Dartmouth to Joseph Smith. Instead of facts, the article relies on parallelism, assumption, inference and theory. Other naturalistic explanations are better supported by facts.

The article’s hypothesis would be improved by correcting factual errors and providing specific facts to support its assumptions, inferences and theories.

This article traces the dramatic rise and fall of Isaac Bullard and his sect known as the Pilgrims, one of the most radical and unusual American prophetic movements of the early nineteenth century. The story begins in 1817 when Bullard, after a miraculous recovery from illness in Ascot, Canada, claimed a divine mandate to found the Church of the Redeemer. Drawing from American precedents of prophetic transformation through illness, the narrative examines Bullard’s rapid departure from Canada following a fatal medical incident, his assertion that his infant son was the “Second Christ,” and his assumption of prophetic titles mirroring other charismatic leaders of the era.

Bullard attracted around forty followers in Vermont and combined millennialist and restorationist doctrines, preaching imminent apocalyptic transformation. He established an authoritarian communal theocracy that pooled followers’ resources, and introduced a short-lived system of “complex marriage,” featuring reassignment of marital partners and the abolition of surnames, rooted in perfectionist theology and possibly influencing or influenced by other contemporary sects.

The Pilgrims' journey westward involved notable practices, including divining their direction with a rod, ritualized exorcisms, institutional cursing, and severe ascetic disciplines such as fasting, distinctive clothing bans, and avoidance of basic hygiene. Their worship was marked by ecstatic expressions and glossolalia, and they claimed abilities to heal and even overcome death. Despite their spiritual claims, continual hardship decimated their ranks. After failed attempts to settle in Missouri and Arkansas, the movement virtually dissolved, with only a handful of adherents persisting.

The article concludes by comparing Bullard’s movement—a foreshadowing “shadow script” of later groups such as the Mormons led by Joseph Smith—to broader trends of spiritual innovation in early America. While Bullard’s movement ultimately collapsed under the weight of its own extremity, its echoes, and those of similar prophets and movements, prepared the cultural ground for more enduring traditions. This study illuminates the dynamics of charisma, revelation, communalism, and prophetic innovation in America’s religious landscape, and how new faiths can both emerge from and contribute to an environment of profound religious experimentation.

Clair Barrus argues that Joseph Smith's doctrine of plural marriage, formally codified in Doctrine and Covenants 132, emerged not from a single revelatory event but through an evolutionary process spanning fifteen years (1829-1844). This study chronologically examines the development of Smith's marital theology from early conceptual foundations to its complex Nauvoo implementation.

Beginning with tentative scriptural allowances in the 1829 Book of Mormon ("raise up seed unto me"), the analysis traces progression through the pragmatic 1831 "matrimonial alliance" revelation—initially designed to help Mormon missionaries gain legal access to Indian Territory by marrying Indigenous women—to the sophisticated sealing system that emerged in Nauvoo. The study reveals that public statements affirming monogamy in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants coexisted with Smith's developing private revelatory framework.

Central to the analysis are specific revelations tied to individual marriage proposals during the Nauvoo period, including those involving Sarah Pratt, Marinda Nancy Hyde, Nancy Rigdon, Sarah Ann Whitney, and others. These texts demonstrate recurring revelatory themes: divine appointment of spouses, promises of familial exaltation through compliance, mandatory secrecy under oath, and a reconstructed ethics where "whatever God requires is right". The study documents how Smith's "Happiness Letter" to Nancy Rigdon articulated a theological paradigm wherein revelation superseded conventional moral assumptions.

Barrus demonstrates that internal resistance—particularly from Emma Smith, William and Jane Law, and excommunicated counselor John C. Bennett—served as catalytic pressures forcing Smith to consolidate his various revelatory concepts into the comprehensive D&C 132. This document simultaneously justified past actions, commanded submission (especially from Emma), and addressed escalating charges of adultery by redefining the concept through divinely "appointed" partnerships.

The study concludes that Smith's radical reconstruction of marriage and kinship operated through "continuing revelation" as a flexible instrument for negotiating personal desire, theological innovation, and emerging dissent. This process created an interconnected "family kingdom of saints" through sealings transcending death—a system whose legacy continues to influence all branches of Mormonism despite contributing to the political crisis culminating in Smith's 1844 martyrdom.

Life on the frontier was challenging, especially for those without family support-orphans and single women endured especially difficult lives. Lafayette Ball and his foster mother, Editha Anderson, had a full measure of tenuous existences. He was orphaned at the age of 10, and Editha, who was a mature, single woman caring for her elderly mother, took him under her wing in Nauvoo, Illinois in 1845. 1 Warren Lafayette Ball was born on November 9, 1834, in Franklin County, Massachusetts, in or near the town of Shutesbury, a village located just northeast of Amherst. In later life, he was called Lafayette with the nickname of Bally. His father was Jonah Randolph Ball, and his mother was Sophronia Horr. The name Warren likely came from his mother's father, Warren Horr, and his middle name was probably due to the Marquis de Lafayette, a famous general in the American Revolution who died shortly before Lafayette was born. The general was much venerated in the United States and President Jackson ordered that he be given the same death honors accorded, years earlier, to President Washington. Ex-President John Quincy Adams delivered a three-hour long oration in Congress memorializing Lafayette's death about a month after Warren Lafayette Ball was born and named, so the name Lafayette was then much in the news. Little is known about the Ball family in Massachusetts before they moved to Nauvoo. The 1840 U.S. Census lists Jonah R. Ball as living in Shutesbury, and several letters he wrote from Kirtland and Nauvoo to friends in

This thesis by Solomon Brown from 1955 is the only critical edition of the Samaritan Defter. It needs to be supplemented with Fraser's thesis on the stages of development of the Defter. Like everyone connected with Bowman, the author was completely ignorant of the pronunciation of Samaritan Aramaic. The information was largely available at the time, but was ignored. Because of this, the reader needs to be careful to look out for a few slips due to misreading of morphology.

This essay analyses wilderness debates in the Utah Public Lands Initiative (PLI). From 2012–­ 2016, the PLI sought to answer the “question of wilderness” through a holistic, state-­ centric public lands bill. The effort was spearheaded by former Utah Representative Rob Bishop who argued that the state could achieve “certainty” through “compromise,” or that the state’s problems with wilderness and public lands could be resolved by reaching consensus on how best to use those lands. Bishop sought input from seven Utah counties, who would submit their own proposals for how best to resolve pressing land-­ use issues in their respective counties. I examine public discourse about one proposal, from Grand County, analyzing county documents, newspaper reports, and citizen comment letters. Following work in rhetorical studies on wilderness, my analysis demonstrates how local communities construct wilderness and its meanings in a particular cultural moment. Reading the county’s PLI rhetorics for how citizens valued wilderness and their relationships to public lands, I argue that the county had difficulty attaining compromise and certainty because citizens could not agree on the meanings of “wilderness.”

We would like to begin with an Ephrata Cloister trivia question: The Ephrata Cloister as we know it today consists of nine original buildings (ten if you include the barn), two historic structures not original to the site, and a number of other administrative and reproduction buildings. Of the nine original buildings that are standing today, how many were built for celibate sisters? Was it: a. One, b. Two, c. Three or More, or d. None of the above. We bet that most of you answered "a." And, you might be right. But on the other hand, you might be wrong. It is generally accepted that Saron, one of the most prominent buildings at the Ephrata Cloister, is the only remaining celibate women's residence still standing here at Ephrata. According to the Chronicon Ephratense, the chronicle of Ephrata's official history, edited and partially written by Peter Miller and published in 1786, 1 the celibate sisters lived in three different communal structures at Ephrata. The first was Kedar, built in 1735 and demolished at some unknown time. The second house for celibate sisters was an unnamed structure, built around 1739. 2 The location and fate of the second house are unknown. The third house was Saron, built originally in 1743 for married couples who separated to live in celibacy in the two sides of the large structure. Most of the couples resumed marital life at their private homes by 1745, when the monastic house was turned over to the celibate sisters. The house was renamed Saron, to accompany the new name of the reorganized sisterhood, the "Roses of Sharon." 3 Saron was the home of the celibate women until the last original sisters died in 1814. The structure still stands. One surviving building at Ephrata raises questions about the possibility of an additional structure for multiple monastic residents. The building interpreted currently as the Weaver's House at Ephrata Cloister 1 Bach and Siegert: Room(s) for More: A Communal Dwelling or Family Home at Ephrata Published by Hamilton Digital Commons, 2016 52 has been viewed as a single-family house since the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission took ownership of the Ephrata Cloister. For about a hundred years before that it was known generically as the Parsonage, presumably for the minister of the German Seventh Day Baptist congregation at Ephrata. At the time when the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania took control of the property, the house was serving as a parsonage. The house has certain features that suggest that it was built for more than one family during the communal period of the Ephrata community. Architectural evidence suggests a structure for more than a single family. Documentary evidence offers some possibilities for the purpose of such a large building during the communal period. Based on this combination of evidence, the authors propose that the Weaver's House is not a single family dwelling, and may have housed a group of celibates during part of the eighteenth century.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact

The Doctrine and Covenants contains extremely specific instructions concerning marriage for men : In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; And if he does not, he cannot obtain it. (D&C 133: 1-3) When Joseph Smith gave these instructions 16 May 1843 to the Saints in Ramus, Illinois, a forty-four-year-old bachelor was a member of his household in Nauvoo. John M. Bernhisel of Pennsylvania had graduated from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania before he joined the Church in the early part of 1842. He received his endowments from Joseph Smith in late 1843 and boarded with the Smiths until after Joseph's death. It wasn't until 1846 at the age of forty-seven that he married, being sealed to four women on January 20 in the Nauvoo Temple. In February he was sealed to three more women, including Melissa Lott, a former wife of Joseph Smith. In December 1846 John Milton Bernhisel II, his first child, was born to Julia Ann Haight.1 During the Utah period, Bernhisel developed an essentially monogamist relationship with another wife, Elizabeth Barker by whom he had nine children (1849-71) while several wives including Melissa Lott, left him in Utah and married other men. A son David Martin Bernhisel called him "naturally shy and retiring, never obtrusive, but silent and shrinking from public notice. He was a confirmed bachelor, in which condition he would probably have remained, but for the teachings of Joseph Smith, who strenuously urged him to obey the law, which he did." 2 Both Joseph Smith's trust JEFFERY OGDEN JOHNSON is an archivist and historian living in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The goal of The Interpreter Foundation is to increase understanding of scripture through careful scholarly investigation and analysis of the insights provided by a wide range of ancillary disciplines, including language, history, archaeology, literature, culture, ethnohistory, art, geography, law, politics, philosophy, etc. Interpreter will also publish articles advocating the authenticity and historicity of LDS scripture and the Restoration, along with scholarly responses to critics of the LDS faith. We hope to illuminate, by study and faith, the eternal spiritual message of the scriptures-that Jesus is the Christ. Although the Board fully supports the goals and teachings of the Church, The Interpreter Foundation is an independent entity and is neither owned, controlled by nor affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or with Brigham Young University. All research and opinions provided are the sole responsibility of their respective authors, and should not be interpreted as the opinions of the Board, nor as official statements of LDS doctrine, belief or practice.

This thesis describes and interprets Black African students' educational experiences at BYU. The researcher conducted repeated interviews and observations to understand and portray the perceptions, feelings, and activities of African students, and several professors and administrators involved with the education of African students. Using naturalistic inquiry methods, this study discovered challenges and frustrations African students experience in addition to several reasons these students continue to come to BYU. The three major challenges identified were associated with the admission process, conflicting expectations, and social interactions. Recommendations are given for improving the educational experiences of African students. COMMITTEE APPROVAL: David D. Williams, Committee Chair Russell T. Osguthorpe, Committee Member Paul Merrill, Department Chair

"Considerable disagreement exists within anthropology regarding the application of ecological concepts and principles to the study of human social behavior. Although many anthropologists have applied ecological concepts and principles in their study of human populations, (cf. Barth 1956; Rappaport 1968; Gall and Saxe 1977; Leone 1979; Winterhalder and Smith 1981; Abruzzi 1982, 1987, 1989, 1993) other anthropologists have rejected such applications as largely naive and inappropriate uses of biological concepts (cf. Vayda and McCay 1975; Bennett 1976; Lees and Bates 1984; Smith 1984). Such disagreement even exists among anthropologists who have adopted an explicit ecological orientation (see Moran 1984). Ecological anthropologists who view themselves as human ecologists generally sec ecology as providing a testable framework for examining both human and nonhuman social behavior within a unified theoretical perspective. Those who view themselves as cullural ecologists, on the other hand, are more likely to reject a strict application of ecological principles to the study of the human condition on the grounds that culture acts as a mediating force which renders human adaptation to the environment analytically distinct from that of all other species.
For cultural ecologists, ecology serves more as an orientation for the study of human environmental relations than as an operational set of theoretical principles which can be used to explain specific human social behaviors. This is clearly illustrated by the history of the use of such concepts as niche and ecosystem in the anthropological literature. For the most part, these concepts have been extended to human populations completely separated from the theoretical systems from which they derive their utility and meaning. They have, instead, mostly served as metaphors organizing a largely functionalist view of human­ environmental relations among preliterate non-Western peoples (cf. Barth 1956; Rappaport 1968).
Working from the assumption that human communities comprise a subset of ecological communities and that ecological principles apply equally to all living communities, regardless of their specific biological composition, I have shown elsewhere that historical developments among early Mormon settlements in the Little Colorado River Basin of northeastern Arizona conform to expectations derived from general ecological theory (cf. Abruzzi 1987, 1989, 1993). I intend here to illustrate the differences between cultural and human ecological approaches in anthropology by contrasting my analysis of these early Mormon settlements with those of previous researchers who have investigated the same settlements. I conclude from this comparison that ecological theory provides a more precise, testable, synthetic and parsimonious explanation of developments surrounding the settlement process than all other previous accounts and that it places this specific historical event within a substantially broader theoretical framework. Consequently, I believe that it renders all previous explanations scientifically superfluous and demonstrates the advantage of using ecological theory to explain human social behavior"

Review of Charles Swift and Nicholas J. Frederick, eds. They Shall Grow Together: The Bible in the Book of Mormon. Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University and Deseret Book, 2022. xxii + 500 pp. Hardcover: $29.99. ISBN: 9781950304301.

An English translation of Abbe Fournie's only known work, a public domain French language book originally published in 1801. Main interest, despite it's obscure style, is the distinctly Christian perspective of Martines de Pasqually's system.

Describe and analyze a recent or memorable event, experience, or phenomenon you would call "religious". This can be your own or it may be something you witnessed or that you have seen in the news. It should be
something you can describe well.

This is part two of an experience that tested my resilience and discernment.