Full Bibliography by Date

A dissertation that draws on Spanish historical accounts, archaeological evidence, and the Book of Mormon scriptures. Draws parallels between Quetzalcoatl and Jesus Christ, suggesting that they may have been the same divine individual. Discusses the problems and possibilities of making the comparison.

A tract claiming that the edition changes of the Book of Mormon have not damaged its message. Similarly, the biblical text experienced a number of changes.

A pamphlet outlining positive aspects of the Book of Mormon, directed to individuals who do not believe its teachings.

Instructional aid to assist LDS missionaries in using the Book of Mormon. The majority of the work contains sample dialogues between a missionary and investigator.

An earlier manuscript draft of the author’s published work entitled Finding Christ through the Book of Mormon.

This is a reprint of Boudinot’s work, originally published in 1816. The work itself is an evangelical essay attempting to demonstrate that the American Indians are descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel. The author examines elements of native American language, customs, habits, known religious rites and ceremonies of worship, and moral code and compares them with similar Hebrew elements described in the Old Testament and the law of Moses. Some Book of Mormon critics have suggested that this work was a source drawn upon by Joseph Smith while writing the Book of Mormon. Ethan Smith’s work View of the Hebrews quotes frequently from the earlier work of Boudinot.

Chapters 1-7 of this work deal with the Book of Mormon. Discusses the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and points out the secretive nature under which the book came forth. Believes that Joseph Smith was ill-prepared for such a work and was given to grandiose imaginations. This work is reviewed in A.161.

Every major leader and character of the Book of Mormon is spotlighted with a short history, a poem, and a portrait.

Contains history and testimonies of early members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who had a signiicant impact on the restoration movement. Includes Joseph Smith, the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, those who were converted to the Church by the Book of Mormon, used it as a missionary tool, and supported and helped in its translation and publication.

A polemical pamphlet that compares the Book of Mormon with the Bible in order to show the falsity of LDS religion.

Contains selected articles from the Newsletter and Proceedings of the Society for Early Historic Archaeology (SEHA) that pertain to transoceanic crossings prior to Columbus. Determines that the ancient inhabitants of the New World consisted of multi-races. Sees a Phoenician influence in the Americas. Archaeologists have found artifacts of many cultures including those of Mediterranean descent who knew Christianity.

A pamphlet that states that the above church believes that the Bible contains the word of God and the Book of Mormon is an added witness. Evidences and scriptures such as Ezekiel 37:19 and Genesis 49:22-26 are cited to support the Book of Mormon.

Pamphlet that explains that the Bible and the Book of Mormon bear witness of the divinity of Jesus Christ.

A pamphlet that declares that the Book of Mormon and the Bible bear witness of Christ’s mission in two hemispheres. A brief history of how the Book of Mormon came forth is given.

A manual for Seminary teachers who teach American Indians. Seventeen lessons cover a variety of topics including, transmission of the Book of Mormon, faith, courage, obedience, and the destiny of the Indian.

A kit containing two manuals and 36 folders for seminary teachers of the Book of Mormon. The manuals contain general instructions and ideas for teaching and the folders contain lesson outlines, devotional suggestions, topical resources, and creative ways to present the lesson.

The different scriptural accounts of the Creation and theories on the meaning of article eternity from a scientific perspective

The term Lamanite applies to the native inhabitants (the Indians) of the American continent, the Eskimos, the Samoans of the Pacific Islanders, and other groups.

[R] 1972. Contains forty-three Sunday School lessons designed for the student. Each lesson contains a commentary on several topics assigned from the reading for that section. Topics include the testimony of the witnesses, the plan of redemption, the allegory of the olive tree, and the abridgment and correlation of sacred records.

Provides a series of tables and outlines identifying Book of Mormon time frames and events; includes Book of Mormon references to many archaeological and doctrinal passages.

A fictional book based upon the exodus of Lehi’s family from Jerusalem and their journey to the promised land, written from the perspective of Lehi’s wife, Sariah.

Provides an outline for studying the Book of Mormon from 1 Nephi through the Book of Alma. Gives a summary of each section and a list of “vital lessons” that may be learned, i.e., the mysteries of God, purpose of the Book of Mormon, tree of life, etc.

A one-page handout that discusses different approaches to studying the Book of Mormon—relate the Book of Mormon to the Bible, study external evidences, consider the theology, and find the “life lessons” in the book.

A tract in which the author bears testimony about the value of the Book of Mormon and provides comments about secret oaths and priesthood.

Contains 1700 study questions with answers, thirty charts, maps, and illustrations, and a summary of the contents of the Book of Mormon.

Deals with the Olmec civilization, Indian culture, the Maya civilization, Tikal, Copan, Uxmal, Kabah, Chichen Itza, Teotihuac‡n, and the origin of American Indians.

A self-published tract arguing that Joseph Smith did not write the Book of Mormon.

A small pamphlet, highlighting chronological events related to the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. Remarks are made about the Three Witnesses and Emma Smith.

A collection of LDS perspectives

A brief statement on how the Book of Mormon answers vital questions.

Author rewrites in poetic version the entire Book of Mormon, employing both rhythm and rhyme.

Reprinted as a chapter in Brother Brigham Challenges the Saints, Collected Works of Hugh Nibley vol. 11.
A dive into Brigham Young’s ongoing battle with the devil.

“The Passing of the Primitive Church (Forty Variations on an Unpopular Theme)” [reprinted from Church History 30, no. 2 (June 1961): 131–54]. “The Forty-day Mission of Christ: The Forgotten Heritage” [reprinted from Vigiliae Christianae 20 no. 1 (1966): 1–24]. “Christian Envy of the Temple” [reprinted from Jewish Quarterly Review 50, nos. 2–3 (October 1959; January 1960): 97–123; 229–40].
Three of Nibley’s important essays on the fate of the primitive Christian church and its institutions and beliefs previously available only in academic journals in 1959-60, 1961, and 1966 are reprinted and indexed for the Mormon audience.

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.

A commentary on the book of Revelation written by a minister of the RLDS church. In spite of the title, the Book of Mormon is scarcely utilized.

An instructional aid that provides effective missionary techniques and gives directions on how to approach different types of people and controversial issues. It also provides a series of hypothetical door approaches that result in the contact reading the Book of Mormon with the missionary.

A critique of the New English Bible

A tract prepared for full-time missionaries that argues that the “Book of Mormon is the most effective piece of missionary literature we have”

Duplicated by author. Considers the 360-day “tun” year and other suggestions in attempting to settle beginning and ending points for Nephite chronology.

Written to correct minor errors in the chronology of the 1920 edition of the Book of Mormon. Book-by-book discussion of the given chronology, suppositions, and variant interpretations.

A self-published history of Joseph Smith and the restoration of the Church, the coming forth of scriptural records, and the exodus of the Saints to Utah. Two chapters feature the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and the internal character of the work. Author does not accept the Book of Mormon as scripture.

Contains maps of Book of Mormon geography that favor the Mesoamerican theory. Book of Mormon scriptural passages provide the criteria for this theory.

The Book of Mormon was influenced by Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason. The LDS church and its Book of Mormon undermine the Bible, and in doing so will destroy the very foundation upon which the Book of Mormon rests. Evidence is presented that shows that modern archaeological finds such as the Dead Sea Scrolls prove the Book of Mormon false in its attack on the Bible.

In French with an English translation by Roger L. Dock. With the idea of being objective, this article focuses on the Book of Mormon teachings concerning polygamy and Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon. A comparison is made between biblical passages and Book of Mormon passages, pointing out the differences. Book of Mormon claims declaring America as the promised land are arrogant and chauvinistic.

An essay claiming that the expansion of Isaiah 29 in the Book of Mormon and in the Inspired Version of the Bible has historical problems related to the “learned” and “unlearned” who would try to read the book.

Lesson manual for teaching youth. Gives objectives, ideas to be taught, and learning activities to be used.

An introduction to the Book of Mormon, its people and records. 2 Nephi 28-30 presents what the Book of Mormon says concerning conditions today.

A workbook for university students to be used in conjunction with instructional television (ITV). The workbook coincides with television lectures in which individuals present materials dealing with the first half of the Book of Mormon.

A four-page tract recommending three methods of studying the Book of Mormon: (1) Read it from cover to cover; (2) read the chronological highlights; and (3) read selected doctrinal passages.

Defines simple, compound, and complex chiasmus, surveys the use of chiasmus in Ugaritic epics, the Old Testament, Homer, and later Greek and Latin authors, and compares the appearance of chiasmus in those literatures with chiasmus in the Book of Mormon. The degree of use of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon is similar to that in the Old Testament.

This pamphlet contains photographs of artifacts and archaeological evidence that the Book of Mormon described long before their discovery. Joseph Smith passes the biblical test of what makes a true prophet of God.

The biographer of Joseph Smith’s early life will know his subject when he relies on sources that know their subject. This truism is more obvious in statement than application, for non-Mormon biography has not faced the severe limitations of the uniformly hostile affidavits taken by a sworn enemy of the Mormon Prophet. The image thus obtained is sharply discordant from the Joseph Smith documented in the 1830’s: a leader of physical prowess and vigorous manhood, a profound idealist with spontaneous humor and warmth, who displayed personal courage under tremendous odds. A similar youth in the 1820’s is discovered, not by editing out non-Mormon sources, but finding those non-Mormon sources that reflect definite contact with Joseph Smith. Such a study shows that collecting informed statements about the Prophet will produce a substantial favorable judgment. Although initial collection of statements against Joseph Smith is an oft-told story, its outline is a necessary background for the affidavits to be analyzed. D. P. Hurlbut, excommunicated twice by LDS tribunals for immorality; became so personally vindictive that he was put under a court order restraining him from doing harm to the person or property of Joseph Smith. He was next “employed” by an anti-Mormon public committee to gather evidence to “completely divest Joseph Smith of all claims to the character of an honest man. . . .” To achieve this goal he traveled to New York and procured statements at Palmyra Village, the largest business center adjacent to the Smith farm and also at Manchester, the rural district that included “Stafford Street.” Cornelius Stafford, then twenty, later remembered that Hurlbut arrived at “our school house and took statements about the bad character of the Mormon Smith family, and saw them swear to them.” The Painesville, Ohio, editor, E. D. Howe, replaced Hurlbut as a respectable author, and published the affidavits in Mormonism Unvailed (1834), laying the cornerstone of anti-Mormon historiography. Howe lived to see the solidity of the edifice, observing forty-four years afterward in his memoirs that the book “has been the basis of all the histories which have appeared from time to time since that period touching that people.” More accurately, Howe’s writing was insignificant, but the Palmyra-Manchester affidavits published by him have introduced Joseph Smith in every major non-Mormon study from 1834 to the present. Yet even supposedly definitive studies display no investigation of the individuals behind the Hurlbut statements, nor much insight into their community.

Parley P. Pratt and other missionaries have taken the Book of Mormon to the Holy Land, but all Jews should have an opportunity to hear the gospel.

The promises of the Book of Mormon found in Alma and 2 Nephi are being fulfilled and the Lamanites are bearing witness of its truthfulness.

Nearly 45,000 copies of the Book of Mormon have been placed in motels, hotels, and businesses. Some conversions have been reported but the total number of converts cannot be known.

The Lord did not need an educated man to translate the Nephite records, but one like Joseph Smith who would capture the spirit and message of the original document through divine aid.

Bears a testimony that is not based on archaeological evidences connected to the Book of Mormon, but on the contents of the book.

Many Book of Mormon prophets delivered a sacred message to God’s people, including Lehi, Nephi, King Benjamin, Alma, and Moroni. When Christ visited the Nephites he revealed his own message and that of his Father.

Jack H. West legally defended the Book of Mormon in a court of law in 1931. The attorney gave credit to God for briefing the case, setting up the evidence, and selecting the witnesses.

Two slightly different versions of this have been preserved and circulated.

Points out that “prosperity can become a curse and lead to moral and spiritual decay.” Several scriptures are quoted and discussed to help teach the correct use of material wealth. “Prosperity in and of itself does not improve a man’s character.”

The name of Hugh Nibley has become a byword within the Church in the past two decades, primarily as a result of his writings published in the pages of the Improvement Era for 21 years. Since 1948, only six volumes of the Era have been published without the by-line of Hugh Nibley, which is usually part of an extended series of articles. His brilliant, incisive mind, fortified on one hand by fluency in some ten languages and strengthened on the other by his strong faith in the gospel’s message, has blessed countless readers. But it is his zest for knowledge, his joy in discovery, and his thrill at uncovering old things for us to view anew that have endeared him to all who have read his works. In this respect, Brother Nibley represents a symbol of the person hungering and thirsting after knowledge, an ideal that most individuals could well adapt for the betterment and fulfillment of their own personal lives. In this spirit, as his current series is concluded, the Era is pleased to feature Brother Nibley as a fitting symbol of one who has truly found many adventures in learning.

It is necessity to reread the Book of Mormon and gain a mature understanding of it.

David Whitmer traveled to Harmony, Pennsylvania, to return with Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to the Whitmer home where the translation of the Book of Mormon would be completed. Whitmer’s fears were allayed by the appearance of a man who told him he was going to Cumorah and then disappeared.

Samuel Smith was the first missionary with copies of the completed Book of Mormon. He gave one copy to Rev. John P. Greene, who was converted, and he passed it on to the Young family, many of whom were also converted. It was also given to Heber C. Kimball.

Book review.

The ruins of Monte Alban (“sacred mountain”)

Discusses the Book of Mormon as an ancient record that was predestined to come forth in this day and is a work relevant to our day.

Five-part series showing how the Book of Mormon is relevant today: all generations need to learn from the past for it teaches of the sorrowing of the damned and the danger of unchastity. Author details some of the “magnificent miscellany” contained in the Book of Mormon, such as the erosion of spiritual experience, reason vs. inspiration, and the importance of two-way communication; shows how the Book of Mormon is congruent with the Bible; details some milestones for modern Christians found in the Book of Mormon in the areas of charity, prayer, and testimony.

Reports the Atlantic crossing by Thor Heyerdahl in his papyrus boat Ra 2. This achievement is seen as important support for Book of Mormon accounts that the Nephites, Jaredites, and Mulekites crossed the oceans on their way to the Americas.

Tells about Ethan Smith and his interest in writing the View of the Hebrews. “Joseph Smith adapted the Indian-Israelite theory for his American scripture. He made the Indian descendants of only one Israelite tribe— Joseph” Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon to prove the existence of God and other theological propositions against popular skepticism.

The Book of Mormon is listed in Robert Down’s Books That Changed America. Down draws parallels between the beginnings of early Christianity, early development of the Church and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.

This article presents an analysis of the five published accounts of Moroni’s visits with Joseph Smith on the night of September 21-22, 1823. These accounts were dictated to secretaries with known record-keeping skills. The article carefully examines eight elements of the vision to create a composite description.

poem

In this environmentalist approach to the Book of Mormon the author believes that it is difficult to treat the Book of Mormon as an ancient historical document. Alleged problems extant in the Book of Mormon listed by the author include: the explicit mention of the name of Jesus Christ before Jesus’ ministry in Palestine, similarities with the Bible, the Deutero-Isaiah problem, anachronistic mention of synagogues, Greek names, pre-Christian baptism, domesticated animals, Old World crops in America, and textual changes. The writer therefore espouses a “nonliteral view of the Book of Mormon”

A comparison of the “characters” from the Anthon transcript with two Mesoamerican scripts. The author concludes that the characters are similar.

Discusses the character of the Three Witnesses, saying that their apostasy from the early Church was “a blessing in tragic guise” since it validated their testimony of the Book of Mormon that they were able to leave the Church but not deny their eyewitness experience.

This article shares new evidence that reveals Phoenician contact with the New World between 1000 to 500 B.C. Phoenician inscriptions record in remarkable detail the voyages of mariners, pinpointing both departure and arrival dates and places. Christensen hypothesizes that the guardian(s) of Mulek may have asked Phoenician friends to aid in their escape from the Babylonians.

Demonstrates Book of Mormon’s influence on youth. Stories of Alma the Younger, Enos, Ammon, Joseph Smith, and Jesus Christ are especially applicable; the Book of Mormon gives youth a “cause” with which to identify.

Shows that Joseph Smith never made a conclusive statement supporting the belief that mounds and the mound builders of Northeastern America represent the remains of Book of Mormon lands or peoples. Discusses the Enon mound, Zelph mound, Adena and Hopwell cultures, and the Kinderhook plates.

Archaeologist Cyrus H. Gordon discussed the two-way traffic between the Old and New World before the Christian era.

Written to tell readers that the Book of Mormon is an authentic and divine work. Readers can determine its authenticity trough personal study and prayer.

Provides the accounts of Joseph Smith’s first vision. Also, contains a description of the religious and economical environment of Palmyra as a background for the first vision. Uses the Book of Mormon as a witness of Joseph Smith’s divine calling. A separate chapter gives a brief account of the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses.

Book of Mormon stories told on a child’s level of understanding. The stories tell of Joseph Smith, the brother of Jared and the shining stones, Lehi’s vision, and Nephi and the brass plates.

The theses and dissertations are listed according to authors and titles. Subjects such as “Lamanites and Polynesians,” “Book of Mormon History,” and “Book of Mormon” can be found in the subject index.

Explains (pp. 204-5) that the Book of Mormon does not consider the ancient inhabitants of America to be from the lost ten tribes, but rather from the period of the Tower of Babel, and Israelites from 600 B.C.

Explores twelve separate aspects of the Book of Mormon, investigating such topics as how “the book speaks of God in history, the book centers on the universal Christ, and the book predicts the ministry of the Holy Spirit”