BYU Studies
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In 1939 when Hitler’s armies marched into Poland, the LDS missionaries marched out of Germany and eventually out of continental Europe, leaving a strong and thriving Church in eastern Germany. Through personal interviews with East German Saints, this volume documents the moving personal faith of those Saints who survived World War II and rebuilt Zion during the communist years.

On two occasions while he worked on his New Translation of Genesis in 1830, the Prophet Joseph Smith dictated to his scribe Oliver Cowdery a word combination that in English is awkward and umgrammatical, though in the Hebrew it is not: “Behold I.” The first occurrence reads, “Behold I am the Lord God Almighty.” The second reads, “Behold I send me.” Both passages are in the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price, but “Behold I” is not found in either of those passages today because, after the time of Joseph Smith, each was edited out of the text . .

The Frontier Guardian was published in Kanesville, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, from 1849 to 1851. The newspaper was started by Orson Hyde, who used it to maintain contact among the Latter-day Saints and to help keep them focused on their ultimate destination in the West. However, the Guardian’s content reflected the diverse culture of the region. The paper covered local, national, and international news. Information about the westward trek—mostly to the Salt Lake Valley and to the California gold fields—appeared in every issue, and those who traveled west had various religious affiliations. The Guardian is a window into this way station for westward emigration, and the newspaper illuminates the religious, social, economic, and political aspects of this frontier community. The Frontier Guardian connected the Latter-day Saints in Kanesville and recorded their experiences. Including people of all faiths, the newspaper highlights miners, politicians, business owners, and newspaper subscribers, alongside Mormon emigrants, missionaries, and dissidents. Even newlyweds and the deceased emerge from the Guardian’s columns in Black’s annotations, the sum total bringing rich human texture to this period of constant movement. —Jill Mulvay Derr, co-editor of Eliza R. Snow: The Complete Poetry

Published from November 1854 to December 1855, the St. Louis Luminary was started by Apostle Erastus Snow, the Latter-day Saint leader over the region. The newspaper maintained contact among the members, helped emigrating Saints stay focused on their ultimate destination in the West, and played a significant role in the national discussion of polygamy, which had been publicly announced in 1852. Snow’s goal was to produce a paper “devoted to the exposition of the favorable side of Mormonism,” something the “honest inquirer” had longed to read. The newspaper also consisted of a composite of exchanges from other periodicals, and a variety of local businesses—regardless of whether they were owned by Mormons—advertised in it. Furthermore, hundreds of names published in the columns yield a valuable genealogical database. Its forty-two missionary-agents traveled throughout most of the Midwest soliciting subscribers. I believe that this work will benefit readers and researchers alike by helping them explore another Mormon periodical from the mid-ninteenth century. Professor Black has again provided us with a powerful research tool that sheds light on a corner of history which has gone largely neglected. —Fred E. Woods, Professor, Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University and author of When the Saints Came Marching In: A History of the Latter-day Saints in St. Louis

A talk originally given on 26 October 1973 to the Pi Sigma Alpha society in the Political Science Department at BYU.
An argument that political action is desirable, even in an imperfect world, under the condition that it be the pursuit of the common good by reasonable discussion. But such conditions are not often found in the politics of man, which turn out to be instances of force and fraud fueled by money and the desire for power and gain.

In his introduction to Bible Culture and Authority in the Early United States, author Seth Perry of Princeton University writes of “a shared set of symbols, types, behaviors, and vocabulary” that derive from or were influenced by the King James Bible (2). The book discusses the interaction of this shared set with early American society, asserting that the Bible and biblical language were resources that individuals in the nineteenth century used to create legitimacy—that is, authority in their relationships with others. Scripturalization is the term Perry employs to describe how people, language, rhetoric, and other aspects of society obtained this authority by drawing from the stories and texts of the Bible. That the Bible played a major role in the early history of the United States is well known. Margaret Hills documented over fourteen hundred editions of the Bible that were printed in the United States between 1776 and 1850, the vast majority of which were Protestant editions. Perry sees the proliferation of Bibles not only as a reflection of America’s unique culture but also, rightly, as a contributor to that culture.

I have long thought that the importance and role of Joseph Smith in the history of religion in America has been muted more than necessary by the Latter-day Saint church. As his biographer, I was and remain very anxious that his contribution to American culture and religion in general be recognized and appreciated, both by Mormons and by non-Mormons.

This compilation of groundbreaking Book of Mormon articles is selected from over fifty years of LDS scholarship published by BYU Studies. This volume features articles on various believers and nonbelievers, including William E. McLellan, Mark Twain, B. H. Roberts, and Minerva Teichert. Contents “William E. McLellan’s Testimony of the Book of Mormon” Larry C. Porter “‘The Testimony of Men’: William E. McLellin and the Book of Mormon Witnesses” Mitchell K. Schaefer “The Gentle Blasphemer: Mark Twain, Holy Scripture, and the Book of Mormon” Richard H. Cracroft “B. H. Roberts and the Book of Mormon” Truman G. Madsen “Minerva Teichert: Scriptorian and Artist” Marian Ashby Johnson “Minerva Teichert: A Passion for the Book of Mormon” John W. Welch and Doris R. Dant

This compilation of groundbreaking Book of Mormon articles is selected from over fifty years of LDS scholarship published by BYU Studies. This volume features articles on archaeological and anthropological aspects of the Book of Mormon, such as the use of the wheel in ancient America, Hagoth and the Polynesian tradition, the Mulekites, ancient writing in the Americas, and the use of metal plates in the ancient world. Contents “Archaeological Trends and the Book of Mormon Origins” John E. Clark “Notes on ‘Lehi’s Travels’” Robert J. Matthews “The Wheel in Ancient America” Paul R. Cheesman “Hagoth and the Polynesian Tradition” Jerry K. Loveland “The ‘Mulekites’” John L. Sorenson “Ancient Writing in the Americas” Paul R. Cheesman “The Book of Mormon as an Ancient Book” C. Wilfred Griggs “Metallic Documents of Antiquity” H. Curtis Wright “Two Ancient Roman Plates” John W. Welch and Kelsey D. Lambert “A Metallurgical Provenance Study of the Marcus Herennius Military Diploma” Michael J. Dorais and Garret L. Hart “An Analysis of the Padilla Gold Plates” Ray T. Matheny “Mormonism’s Encounter with the Michigan Relics” Mark Ashurst-McGee “Tools Leave Marks: Material Analysis of the Scotford-Soper-Savage Michigan Relics” Richard B. Stamps

This compilation of groundbreaking Book of Mormon articles is selected from over fifty years of LDS scholarship published by BYU Studies. This volume features articles that look at literary aspects of the Book of Mormon, including a lyric reading of Nephi’s psalm, the exodus pattern and Moses typology in the book, the literary context that affected its acceptance in England in 1837, a comparison of the Book of Mormon with the Narrative of Zosimus, and even an analysis of the book’s purported verbosity. Contents “The Book of Mormon in the English Literary Context of 1837” Gordon K. Thomas “The Psalm of Nephi: A Lyric Reading” Steven P. Sondrup “The Exodus Pattern in the Book of Mormon” S. Kent Brown “The Israelite Background of Moses Typology in the Book of Mormon” Noel B. Reynolds “The Throne-Theophany and Prophetic Commission in 1 Nephi: A Form-Critical Analysis” Blake T. Ostler “The Treaty/Covenant Pattern in King Benjamin’s Address (Mosiah 1–6)” Stephen D. Ricks “The Narrative of Zosimus and the Book of Mormon” John W. Welch “More Than Meets the Eye: Concentration of the Book of Mormon” Steven C. Walker “Taste and Feast: Images of Eating and Drinking in the Book of Mormon” Richard Dilworth Rust “The ‘Perfect Pattern’: The Book of Mormon as a Model for the Writing of Sacred History” Eric C. Olson

A stray ink drop and a quirk of nineteenth-century script make the difference between retain that wrong and repair that wrong. More than a decade of meticulous research revealed such insights as Royal Skousen prepared transcripts of the original and printer’s manuscripts of the Book of Mormon for publication.

These newest books in The Book of Mormon Critical Text Project analyze every basic type of editorial change or grammatical variation in the Book of Mormon, beginning with the handwritten manuscripts and considering every major printed edition. Each of the sixty-eight grammatical sections in these books describes the usage in the original text and shows how it has been altered, either consciously or accidentally, over time. Each section also compares Book of Mormon usage with biblical usage.

The Nature of the Original Language (NOL) continues the analysis of the Book of Mormon text that was begun in Grammatical Variation (GV), parts 1 and 2 of volume 3 of the critical text, published in 2016. In that first work, Royal Skousen (with the collaboration of Stanford Carmack), discussed all the editing that the Book of Mormon has undergone, in its manuscript transmission and in the printed editions from 1830 up to the current edition.

In this part 5 of volume 3 of the critical text, we identify one more use of Early Modern English – in fact, a very specific one – in the original text of the Book of Mormon, namely, quotations from the King James Bible.

For part 6 of volume 3 of the Book of Mormon critical text project, we take up what may seem like a mundane subject, namely, misspellings in the manuscripts and in the printed editions. This brief summary of the book will introduce the reader to three important questions regarding scribal misspellings in the manuscripts: First, did the 1830 typesetter adopt Oliver Cowdery’s misspellings in the manuscript when he set the text for the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon? Second, just how good were the Book of Mormon scribes in doing their copywork? And third, can the misspellings tell us anything important about the Book of Mormon text, or are they just innocuous errors? The answers to all three of these questions turn out to be crucial in doing critical text work on the Book of Mormon.

Note: This is the first edition of this book set. The second edition is available here. Parts 1-6 are offered as a six-book set from BYU Studies while supplies last. Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon gives readers detailed access to the central task of Professor Royal Skousen’s Book of Mormon Critical Text Project, the most comprehensive effort ever undertaken to recover the original English-language text of the Book of Mormon. The books in this set consider every significant textual change that has occurred in the English Book of Mormon over the 187 years since Joseph Smith first dictated it to his scribes; it also considers a number of conjectural emendations for specific words or passages. These six large books total 4,060 pages.

We are pleased to announce the publication of the second edition of volume 4 of Royal Skousen’s Book of Mormon Critical Text Project. This six-book set, entitled Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon (ATV), fulfills the central task of the critical text project, to restore the original text of the Book of Mormon to the extent possible using scholarly means. In the six books of ATV, Skousen discusses every substantive change to words or phrases in the text as well as changes in the spelling for about a dozen Book of Mormon names. ATV also includes a brief discussion of every type of grammatical change that the text has undergone over the years. (A complete discussion that lists every individual grammatical change was published last year in the two-volume set Grammatical Variation, also available from BYU Studies.) The changes in the second edition (ATV2) include: 37 new write-ups (34 of these involve suggested changes to the text, nearly all of which have come from independent readers). 8 additional substantive changes to the Book of Mormon text, besides the 606 substantive changes first published in 2009 by Yale University Press in The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text. 60 earlier write-ups in ATV1 now thoroughly revised for ATV2. 101 addenda items in ATV1 now in their appropriate place in ATV2, so that everything reads correctly in a single sequence (there is no longer a need to consult any addenda for later corrections or revisions to previous analyses). This second edition is truly a limited edition: only 250 copies of the six-book set have been printed.

The literary giants of early nineteenth-century England did not foster nor usher in the restoration of the gospel. Indeed, as we have seen, the only one of these giants who knew about Mormonism was Wordsworth, and his sole recorded response, on earth, was hostility. My aim, then, instead, is to explore what happened to prevent the kind of spiritual marriage between the gospel message and English poetry which would seem almost expectable and which Shelley even seems to have envisioned. I will suggest, and suggest only, for proof in matters of mental and artistic and social influences seems impossible, one key ingredient in the literary context of the day which seems likely to have poisoned the atmosphere which in so many other ways seemed so likely to be receptive. The element of the literary context on which I shall focus is the discovery of a variety of treasures of ancient writings, all of which are bound to remind us in one way or another of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.

This ebook contains a variety of articles from BYU Studies on aspects of modern scripture. It begins with a series of four articles by the Joseph Smith Papers editors who were involved in publishing the Book of Commandments and Revelations, which contains the earliest version of several of Joseph Smith’s revelations. Robert J. Woodford, Robin S. Jensen, Steven C. Harper, and Grant Underwood discuss the history of the BCR, its provenance, and some of the most relevant features of this unique document, one of the most significant finds in LDS Church history in recent years. In other articles, Scott H. Faulring examines the 1829 “Articles of the Church of Christ”; Robert J. Matthews discusses text of Joseph Smith’s Inspired Version of the Bible; Thomas Sherry recounts Matthews’s work with the RLDS Church in gaining access to original documents involved in Joseph’s Bible translation; James R. Harris examines changes in the book of Moses and their implications; Hugh Nibley offers an introduction to studying the book of Abraham; Robert J. Matthews discusses the 1979 and 1981 editions of the Standard Works; and Lyndon W. Cook explores a 1902 textual change in the fourth Article of Faith. Contents “The Voice of the Prophet” Steven C. Walker “Introducing A Book of Commandments and Revelations, a Major New Documentary ‘Discovery’” Robert J. Woodford “From Manuscript to Printed Page: An Analysis of the History of the Book of Commandments and Revelations” Robin S. Jensen “Historical Headnotes and the Index of Contents in the Book of Commandments and Revelations” Steven C. Harper “Revelation, Text, and Revision: Insight from the Book of Commandments and Revelations” Grant Underwood “More Than an Index: The First Reference Guide to the Doctrine and Covenants as a Window into Early Mormonism” Grant Underwood “A Study of the Text of Joseph Smith’s Inspired Version of the Bible” Robert J. Matthews “Robert J. Matthews and the RLDS Church’s Inspired Version of the Bible” Thomas E. Sherry Changes in the Book of Moses and Their Implications upon a Concept of Revelation” James R. Harris “Prolegomena to Any Study of the Book of Abraham” Hugh Nibley “The New Publications of the Standard Works—1979, 1981” Robert J. Matthews “Note on the Articles of Faith” Lyndon W. Cook”