BYU Studies
Alphabetical by Title

Reprinted in Mormonism and Early Christianity, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley vol. 4, 45–99. Also reprinted in LDS Views on Early Christianity and Apocrypha: Articles from BYU Studies, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book.
Draws upon a host of sources and shows certain parallels between an early Christian form of prayer and that of the Latter-day Saint prayer circle.

In 1875, a few days before the first missionaries to Mexico were to depart, Brigham Young changed his mind: rather than have them travel to California where they would take a steamer down the coast and then go by foot or horseback inland to Mexico City, Brigham asked if they would mind making the trip by horseback, going neither to California nor Mexico City, but through Arizona to the northern Mexican state of Sonora—a round trip of 3,000 miles! He instructed them to look along the way for places to settle and to determine whether the Lamanites were ready to receive the gospel. But Brigham Young had other things in mind: the Saints might need another place of refuge, and advanced exploration was a logical course to pursue, should that need ever arise. The most promising site for such a refuge lay to the south, perhaps Mexico.

Some have argued that Mormonism began with a book, the Book of Mormon. This printed beginning quickly spawned a prolific amount of published material both expounding and defending early doctrines of the Latter-day Saints. Between 1836 and 1860 about ninety Church members authored a variety of written works. Although many publications were based on the writings of Parley P. Pratt and Orson Pratt, some represented original ideas. Most pamphlets grew from missionary efforts, but others countered anti-Mormon literature then in circulation. In promoting truth, Mormons found the press to be a powerful weapon. These early pamphlets developed from the interactions of Church members with themselves, their message, and their neighbors. As Mormonism grew, David Whittaker explains, the press became a key element in providing the institutional glue for helping to hold together this dynamic social and religious movement. Whittaker’s dissertation explores the rise and development of pamphlet literature during the Church’s formative years. Whittaker’s dissertation explores the rise and development of pamphlet literature during the Church’s formative years.

This compilation of articles and book reviews on Mormon polygamy is selected from over fifty years of LDS scholarship published by BYU Studies. This volume features articles on the Church’s legal confrontation with government over polygamy, various aspects of plural marriage in St. George, the perspectives of two prominent Mormon plural wives (Eliza R. Snow and Emmeline B. Wells), and several reviews of books addressing various aspects of polygamy. Contents “Letters on Mormon Polygamy and Progeny: Eliza R. Snow and Martin Luther Holbrook, 1866–1869” Jill Mulvay Derr and Matthew J. Grow “A Strange Encounter: The English Courts and Mormon Polygamy” Kenneth L. Cannon II “Emmeline B. Wells: ‘Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?’” Carol Cornwall Madsen “The Legislative Antipolygamy Campaign” Richard D. Poll “The Mormon Disfranchisements of 1882 to 1892” Joseph H. Groberg “The Judicial Campaign against Polygamy and the Enduring Legal Questions” Edwin Brown Firmage “Probing the High Prevalence of Polygyny in St. George, 1861–1880: An Introduction” Davis Bitton, Val Lambson, Lowell C. Bennion, and Kathryn M. Daynes “Demographic Limits of Nineteenth-Century Mormon Polygyny” Davis Bitton and Val Lambson “Mapping the Extent of Plural Marriage in St. George, 1861–1880” Lowell C. Bennion “Striving to Live the Principle in Utah’s First Temple City: A Snapshot of Polygamy in St. George, Utah, in June 1880” Kathryn M. Daynes “Plural Marriage in St. George: A Summary and an Invitation” Davis Bitton, Val Lambson, Lowell C. Bennion, and Kathryn M. Daynes Review of Elizabeth Wood Kane, Twelve Mormon Homes Visited in Successions on a Journey Through Utah to Arizona Reviewed by Eugene E. Campbell Review of Jessie L. Embry, Mormon Polygamous Families: Life in the Principle Reviewed by Kahlile Mehr Review of Larry M. Logue, A Sermon in the Desert: Belief and Behavior in Early St. George, Utah Reviewed by Armand L. Mauss Review of Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History, 2d ed. Reviewed by Thomas G. Alexander Review of Jennifer Moulton Hansen, Letters of Catharine Cottam Romney, Plural Wife; Maria S. Ellsworth, Mormon Odyssey: The Story of Ida Hunt Udall, Plural Wife; and Stan Larson, Prisoner for Polygamy: The Memoirs and Letters of Rudger Clawson at the Utah Territorial Penitentiary, 1884–87 Reviewed by Kathryn M. Daynes Review of Joan Smyth Iversen, The Antipolygamy Controversy in U.S. Women’s Movements, 1880–1925: A Debate on the American Home Reviewed by Jed L. Woodworth Review of Norman R. Bowen, A Gentile Account of Life in Utah’s Dixie, 1872–73: Elizabeth Kane’s St. George Journal Reviewed by Carol Cornwall Madsen Review of Sarah Barringer Gordon, The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America Reviewed by Nathan B. Oman and Reviewed by Terryl L. Givens Review of Kathryn M. Daynes, More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840–1910 Reviewed by Sarah Barringer Gordon Review of Brian C. Hales, Modern Polygamy and Mormon Fundamentalism: The Generations after the Manifesto Reviewed by J. Michael Hunter Review of B. Carmon Hardy, Doing the Works of Abraham: Mormon Polygamy, Its Origin, Practice, and Demise Reviewed by Kathryn M. Daynes Review of George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: “. . . but we called it celestial marriage” Reviewed by Thomas G. Alexander

Reprinted as “Educating the Saints” in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless, 1978, and in Brother Brigham Challenges the Saints, Collected Works of Hugh Nibley vol. 13.
The compelling mystique of those franchise businesses that in our day have built up enormous institutional clout by selling nothing but the right to a name was anticipated in our great schools of Education, which monopolized the magic name of Education and sold the right to use it at a time when the idea of a “School of Education” made about as much sense as a class in Erudition or a year’s course in Total Perfection. The whole business of education can become an operation in managerial manipulation. In “Higher Education,” the traffic in titles and forms is already long established: The Office, with its hoarded files of score sheets, punched cards, and tapes, can declare exactly how educated any individual is, even to the third decimal. That is the highly structured busywork which we call education today. But it was not Brigham Young’s idea of education. He had thoughts which we have repeated from time to time with very mixed reception on the BYU campus. Still, we do not feel in the least inclined to apologize for propagating them on the premises of a university whose main distinction is that it bears his name.

Twenty-three landmark speeches by Church and University leaders about the religious and academic nature of education in Zion and BYU. These speeches have charted and refined the singular course of LDS higher education. Everyone will want to be familiar with these valuable statements about academic learning in a spiritual atmosphere by some of our greatest educators, including karl G. Maeser, David O. McKay, Hugh B. Brown, Dallin H. Oaks, Rex E. Lee, Jeffrey R. Holland, Boyd K. Packer, Neal A. Maxwell, Gordon B. Hinckley, and Spencer W. Kimball.

There are several names in the Book of Mormon—such as Zenephi, Zenos, and Zenock—that look as though they are composed of scriptural names (Nephi, Enos, Enoch, and so forth) with different forms of a z-prefix that might mean “son of ” or “descendant of.” This article proposes that the names Zenephi Zenos, Zenock, and Cezoram incorporate the names of other Book of Mormon or biblical individuals and the Egyptian pin-tail duck hieroglyph, represented by the morpheme se-/ze-, which denotes filiation with these ancestors. If this hypothesis is accurate, it could provide insight into some aspects of the structure of the language of the Book of Mormon and could also reveal information about Book of Mormon naming practices and genealogical lineages of the people who received these names.

Hymns by Eliza R. Snow—such as “O My Father,” “Behold the Great Redeemer Die,” and “How Great the Wisdom and the Love”—evoke powerful religious imagery. In her hymns and in her hundreds of other poems, Snow captured nineteenth-century Mormonism, where revelation and history intersected and Latter-day Saints labored for the meeting of heaven and earth they named Zion. Snow’s poems convey many sublime truths about the human condition. As Zion’s honored spokeswoman, no public event in the Mormon community from the 1840s to the 1880s was complete without a contribution from her. “Through [Snow’s poems] the names of many of the actors in the drama of Mormonism, will be handed down to posterity,” wrote Emmeline B. Wells. Intelligent, well-read, and articulate, Snow also had an understanding of the scriptures. Through her position in the inner circles of church leadership, her poetry, and her gifts as a spokeswoman, she became one of the most influential and best-known women in Mormon history. As a result, this collection is as much biographical, historical, and theological as literary.

This study investigates Brigham Young and his fellow apostles in the 1830s as they gradually became an effective quorum and moved toward eventual ascendancy. It examines the all-encompassing religious framework from which Brigham Young acted and uses it to shed light on both the complex issues confronting early Mormons and on his emergence as a leader. Young, as president of the Quorum of the Twelve, succeeded in unifying the group and molding it into the effective leadership cadre that received increasing responsibility for general church business. Brigham Young believed his abilities were a gift from God and that his leadership was successful because God was with him and his people. He saw himself as a rough and unpolished instrument with the grit to do his best and the faith to leave the rest to God. Young was certain that in the long run the kingdom would triumph and, as he liked to say, no power from earth or hell could prevent it.

In this article, I will explore the notion of communal ascent to heaven in ancient Jewish and Christian literature and seek to answer the questions, Can an entire community ascend to heaven? and Do we see this theme in ancient texts, or is this a complete innovation on the part of Joseph Smith as he sought to unite his followers around an inspiring and unifying goal? To arrive at the answers to these questions, I will analyze a number of ancient Jewish and Christian religious texts that feature the ascent to heaven motif and suggest that not only did their authors envision an individual ascent, but they also imagined groups or communities raised up to the celestial realm.

This ebook contains three articles from a conference on Enoch and the temple that was cosponsored by BYU Studies in February 2013 at Utah State University and BYU. George Nickelsburg, an eminent biblical scholar, identifies much temple content in the book of 1 Enoch: Enoch’s commissioning and ascension into the heavenly sanctuary. David Larsen discusses ancient sources regarding a community ascending to heaven as a group. Jeffrey M. Bradshaw shows what ties together the stories about Adam, Eve, Enoch, and Noah in the Book of Moses. The answer, unexpectedly, has to do again with temple motifs, all of which culminate with Enoch in Moses 6–7. The original video presentations of these articles are also included. Finally, this ebook contains an article by Stephen D. Ricks discussing the prophetic commission of Enoch, which is a striking example of a “narrative” type of call (see Moses 6:23–36). This study considers the elements of the narrative call pattern; those elements of this form found in the prophetic commission of Enoch are examined and compared with the biblical narrative call passages. Contents “The Temple According to 1 Enoch” George W. E. Nickelsburg “Enoch and the City of Zion: Can an Entire Community Ascend to Heaven?” David J. Larsen “The LDS Story of Enoch as the Culminating Episode of a Temple Text” Jeffrey M. Bradshaw “The Narrative Call Pattern in the Prophetic Commission of Enoch (Moses 6)” Stephen D. Ricks Video Presentations from the conference “Enoch and the Temple”

Joseph Smith taught that the first principle of revealed religion is to know for a certainty the character of God, and his reaffirmation of Deity as the loving, personal Father of the scriptures stands in conspicuous contrast to the confusion and obscurity of traditional and modern theologies. Just as the orthodox doctrine of an incomprehensible God who creates ex nihilo is clearly odds with the prophetic proclamation in both the Old and New Testaments, by the same measure the Latter-day Saint conception of divine creation in terms of the organization of eternal man provides a remarkable commentary on Joseph Smith’s claim to be a prophet of the Living God and on his work in the restitution of all things.

The 1829 “Articles of the Church of Christ” is a little-known antecedent to section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants. This article explores Joseph Smith’s and Oliver Cowdery’s involvement in bringing forth these two documents that were important in laying the foundation for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Section 20 was originally labeled the “Articles and Covenants.” It was the first revelation canonized by the restored Church and the most lengthy revelation given before the first priesthood conference was held in June 1830. Scriptural commentators in recent years have described the inspired set of instructions in section 20 as “a constitution for the restored church.” In many respect, the Articles and Covenants was the Church’s earliest General Handbook of Instructions. Although Latter-day Saints typically associate the Articles and Covenants with the organization of the Church on April 6, 1830, this regulatory document had roots in earlier events: in the earliest latter-day revelations, in statements on Church ordinances and organization from the Book of Mormon, and in the preliminary set of Articles written by Oliver Cowdery in the last half of 1829.

Joseph Smith spent Sunday afternoon, April 7, 1844, in a grove behind the Nauvoo Temple. There he gave a funeral sermon, which lasted for over two hours, dedicated to a loyal friend named King Follett, who had been crushed by a bucket of rocks while repairing a well.1 Known today as the King Follett Discourse and widely believed to be the Prophet’s greatest sermon,2 this address was Joseph’s most cogent and forceful presentation of his Nauvoo doctrine on the nature of God, including the ideas of a plurality of Gods and the potential of man to become as God.3 Several times in the first part of the discourse, Joseph expressed his intention to “go back to the beginning” in searching out the nature of God, and a little before midway through the sermon, he undertook a commentary on the first few words of the Hebrew Bible in support of the speech’s doctrinal positions.

Reprinted in Temple and Cosmos: Beyond This Ignorant Present, Collected Works of Hugh Nibley vol. 12, and Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless, 2nd ed.
When dealing with apocryphal texts, scholars can discount doctrines and themes that appear once or twice. However, themes that run consistently through many or most of the texts should be seriously considered. One such theme is that of a council in heaven in which a plan was presented and the opposition toward that plan. This article details the presence of these themes in ancient texts among various cultures.