The sixteen interviews in this volume tell the stories of remarkable men and women who have made careers out of researching, writing, and teaching about the past. Friends and colleagues conducted these conversations over a decade or so. All were subsequently published in the Mormon Historical Studies journal or Religious Educator periodical, and now are brought together as a single book of personal essays. As we review and reflect on the personal lives and remarkable careers featured in this volume, we sense that many of these historians feel that they were prepared or given a definite sense of mission. Both editors, who are becoming foremost Church historians in their own right, have been the beneficiaries of many mentors in the field and the recipients of a remarkable heritage of Mormon historians who have taken them under their wings and helped them become contributors to the telling of LDS history. ISBN 978-0-8425-2890-0

Described as “the most traveled man in the Church,” Andrew Jenson had been a lifelong globetrotter since his emigration from Denmark to Utah as a young boy in 1866. Although Jenson’s lifelong interest in the whereabouts of ancient Nephite and Lamanite ruins propelled him to visit the remote areas of Latin America, he returned with a powerful impression that the Latter-day gospel should be spread south, beyond the borders of Mexico. Jenson’s letters help readers better understand some of the events and experiences that seemingly led to the twentieth-century reopening of the South American Mission in 1925 by Church leaders. This book covers this important chapter from Jenson’s life and church history, which has rarely been told in over seven decades and is heretofore virtually unknown by most Mormon historians. ISBN 978-0-8425-2851-1

Since 1990 the LDS International Society has hosted an annual conference on the globalization of Mormonism at Brigham Young University. Noted speakers such as President Dieter F. Uchtdorf and Elder John K. Carmack addressed topics including Joseph Smith and the world, missionary work in a global village, humanitarian outreach and the Latter-day Saints, Church education initiatives in an era of globalization, and international challenges facing the Church. Global Mormonism in the 21st Century offers an unprecedented view of how a fledgling American church continues to mature into a significant international religious movement. ISBN 978-0-8425-2696-8

The 2011 BYU Church History Symposium This book features the winner of the Mormon History Association’s Best International Article Award, Ronald E. Bartholomew’s essay “The Role of Local Missionaries in Nineteenth-Century England.” Just as the risen Christ charged his Apostles, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,” he also charged his latter-day followers to do likewise. Using the Prophet Joseph Smith as his instrument, the Lord created his missionary system early in the Restoration. The Prophet received many revelations regarding missionary work and its urgency. Over the years, policies and procedures of missionary work have varied and grown a great deal, but it is always done under the direction of the Lord. The missionary system today is founded on principles based on revelation. The Church has used every righteous means available to take the gospel to the world, and the ways and means continue to expand. The outreach of the Church through missionary work is nothing short of amazing. This volume focuses on the growth and development of Mormon missionary work since the early days of the Restoration. ISBN 978-0-8425-2821-4

The Autobiography of Andrew Jenson, first published in 1938 by the Deseret News Press in Salt Lake City, Utah, tells the personal story of a Danish Mormon convert who eventually served as Assistant Church Historian of the LDS Church for over forty years. The author mined his voluminous personal journals and assembled Church records to tell the story of the Restoration of the gospel since the 1850s when he arrived in Utah as a European immigrant. Through his synthesized research, writing, and reflections, readers come away with deeper appreciation for the men and women whose lives constitute Mormon history. Jenson told their stories together with his life experiences, creating an important window into the Mormon past. ISBN 978-1-944394-00-4

In 1974, President Spencer W. Kimball called for Latter-day Saints to “lengthen our stride.” When he delivered this landmark address, he encouraged all Latter-day Saints to think bigger, broader, and bolder about the ongoing globalization of the Church. Since President Kimball’s clarion call, the geographical distribution and facial complexion of the Church spread and evolved. The still largely Intermountain West Church that President Kimball began to lead in 1974 looked very different from the Church four decades later. Ongoing global growth continues to be one of the Church’s greatest opportunities (and challenges), just as President Kimball anticipated. This book is a compilation of addresses presented to the LDS International Society, a group that meets to discuss and share their best thinking about the past, present, and future of the global Church. ISBN 978-1-9443-9424-0

On September 6, 1888, three Church history missionaries—Andrew Jenson, Edward Stevenson, and Joseph S. Black—left on a fact-finding mission to the Church’s historic sites in Missouri, Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Iowa, spending a majority of their time visiting the sacred sights of the Restoration. The observations they made were the subjects of a lengthy correspondence to the Deseret News. These letters were later compiled into a pamphlet entitled The Infancy of the Church. Their writings allowed the Saints in the west to vicariously experience the early days of the Restoration and reconnect with their pioneer ancestry. Some notable historical themes from their observations include a desire for the establishment and redemption of Zion and the promise that righteous Saints would be restored to their lands to build up Zion. ISBN 978-0-8425-2960-0

Volume 8 i​n the Regional Studies Series When most Latter-day Saints conjure up images of Church history, their minds are filled with pictures of the sacred sites and peoples of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and Utah. But years before Brigham Young declared the Salt Lake Valley to be the site of future gathering in 1847, Church members had already pushed even further west into the Pacific Basin frontier. William Barratt made his way to Australia on a mission in 1840. Addison Pratt and his evangelizing companions arrived in the Society Islands in 1844, the year Joseph Smith was martyred in Illinois. And during the early 1850s, when Saints in the Utah Territory were clawing for their physical survival in American’s Great Basin, missionaries enjoyed proselyting success among the native Sandwich Islanders in today’s Hawaii. Clearly, the Pacific Isles have played a major—and early—role in the unfolding of the Restoration. In preparation for the 2008 BYU Church History and Doctrine Department’s regional studies tour to the Pacific Isles, faculty members were invited to research and write on the peoples and places of Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, and Australasia. Topics include the introduction of the gospel to Tubuai, the influence of Jonathan Napela in Hawaii, the receptivity of Tongans to the gospel, the Oahu Tabernacle, the contributions of educational missionaries to Kiribati, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s performances in the Pacific Islands, and the destruction fire in the Apia Samoa Temple, among others. Contributors are Reid L. Neilson, Arnold K. Garr, Fred E. Woods, Michael A. Goodman, Matthew O. Richardson, R. Devan Jensen, Dennis A. Wright, Megan E. Warner, Cynthia Doxey, Lloyd D. Newell, Richard O. Cowan, Scott C. Esplin, and Kip Sperry. ISBN 978-0-6152-0037-8

Joseph Smith taught, “Don’t let a single corner of the earth go without a mission.” In response to the Prophet’s counsel, years later, Brigham Young and his counselors in the First Presidency planned a special missionary conference in 1852. At this conference, one hundred Latter-day Saint men were called to proselytize in distant lands—the largest cohort of full-time elders in the church’s three-decade history. This book tells the stories and adventures of eight men called to Wales, Prussia, Gibraltar, the Cape of Good Hope, the Sandwich Islands, China, Siam, and Australia. These faithful missionaries left their families, possessions, and newly settled homes in the West to “seek to fulfill the initial obligation given to that church in the very opening of the New Dispensation, namely, to preach the gospel of the kingdom to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” ISBN 978-1-9443-9472-1

What was the heritage of Jenson’s expedition to Mormondom abroad? How did his two-year fact-finding mission help shape the balance of his life and the Latter-day Saint historical enterprise? Jenson’s global tour was an unprecedented adventure in Latter-day Saint history. Through his own hard work and the seeming hand of Providence, historian Andrew Jenson found his niche as a laborer in the cause of the Restoration. He pursued the goal of collecting and writing comprehensive, accurate, and useful histories of the Church with a rare passion. Acquiring, documenting, and publishing Church history was not purely a scholarly or historical pursuit for him—the untiring Danish-American believed it was a spiritual labor with eternal ramifications. He devoted his adult life to enlarging the institutional memory of the Church and protecting what he considered to be the sacred records of the final dispensation. ISBN 978-0-8425-2820-7

In this book’s four brilliant approaches to the Jewish stress on extending both the vision and the Law of Moses (Torah) to every phase of life, Jacob Neusner points to the kinships of the two traditions: Learning is a form of devotion to God. The Temple and its ritual exercise of purity was the common concern of the ancient Pharisees and was the most systematic Jewish attempt at intense symbolic infusion of intelligence and light. In the absence of the Temple, after AD 70 observant Jews sought to extend the temple purification process to their own homes and then restructured their ritual into “acts of loving-kindness” and patient study not only of the meaning but the structure of Torah. Today the Mishnah is the continual revelation “element” of Jewish study, open-ended and adaptive and bringing into focus the incidents and acts of all-inclusive religious life. ISBN 0-8849-4350-X

Equality and charity are two expressions of the same principle—both require humility and meekness; both are central to the message of the Book of Mormon. With distinct clarity, the Book of Mormon teaches over and over again that “all are alike unto God,” and this simple truth is the antidote for many of the pride problems that keep people from coming unto Christ and from extending service and love to all of His children. Whenever an individual or a nation achieves greatness in the Book of Mormon, it is because the people are free with their substance and treat each other as equals. In contrast, the many tragic pitfalls of pride that the Book of Mormon outlines can be traced to a person or persons withholding charity and thinking they are above another. Alma’s deep sorrow was because of the “great inequality among the people, some lifting themselves up with their pride, despising others, turning their backs upon the needy and the naked and those who were hungry, and those who were athirst, and those who were sick and afflicted”. In the kingdom of God, righteousness and devotion are what matter—not prestige, power, or possessions. Love, compassion, and abundance of heart characterize the real Christian, not acquisitiveness and selfishness. The Book of Mormon declares that the true Saints of God are those who put “off the natural man” and become “new creatures” in Christ—”submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love”.

This volume takes a fresh look at the history, people, and places in Washington, DC, that have affected the Church. Beginning with Joseph Smith’s earliest interactions with the federal government in the 1830s, the Church’s progress has been shaped by leaders and members interacting in Washington. This volume is filled with essays on many topics about the Church’s history, people, and places in the nation’s capital. It also chronicles many of the Saints and statesmen who have worked to bring the Church out of obscurity and onto a national and international stage. ISBN 978-1-9503-0403-5

Tour the historic sites of Salt Lake City from the comfort of your own home. This full-color book includes a virtual tour DVD. Both the book and the DVD explain the historical and modern significance of each site. The authors guide the DVD tours with descriptions and details of historic sites. Also look for the travel-size companion book, Salt Lake City, Ensign to the Nations, Walking Tours. ISBN 978-0-8425-2671-5

This travel-size companion to the larger Salt Lake City, Ensign to the Nations takes the tourist on three distinct walking tours of Salt Lake City. The first tour is of the Temple Square area. The second tour is of the Pioneer Business District, and the third tour is of the Capitol Building and Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum area. Each tour offers explanations of historical and modern significance of sites. ISBN 978-0-8425-2670-8

Also published in ASBYU Academics Presents: Outstanding Lectures, 1978–79, Provo, UT: BYU Press, 1979. 71–88, and reprinted in Old Testament and Related Studies, Collected Works of Hugh Nibley vol. 1, 215–37.
Hugh Nibley dives into the book of Isaiah and how wonderful its teachings are, though they are occasionally difficult to comprehend.

Reprinted in Mormonism and Early Christianity, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley 4. 370–90.
In his volume The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment, Nibley describes in great detail initiation and ritual and coronation procedures among the Egyptians. The appendix in this book includes temple-related lectures of Cyril of Jerusalem and other early documents. In the present essay, Nibley provides a context for this study and his many others, which, almost without his being aware of it, have formed the background of his temple preoccupation over three decades. He shows how incredibly mixed and diffuse and varied are traditions growing out of temple worship in the religions of the Far East, as with those of the Middle East. The power of the temple idea to invade the minutest detail of life is demonstrated. Inconclusive though many scholarly studies remain about a philosophy or matrix to make sense of all the data, Nibley believes there are connections and symmetries and correspondences which again point to one conclusion: historically, civilizations—indeed civilization itself—have revolved around the temple. This essay and his preceding one provide an omnibus introduction to the more specialized studies that follow.

The essays in this volume, including four on today’s world, were selected by a panel of Hugh Nibley’s colleagues. They are singular in their penetration, their originality, and their vitality. Reaching from the apocalyptic visions of original “treasures in heaven” down to the climax of history, they are more than mind-stretching. The delight of Nibley’s brilliant and sometimes biting prose style imparts a sense of the agelessness of what he calls the “three-act play” of human existence. Written specially for this book, the author’s own “intellectual autobiography,” together with his introductory paragraphs for the various chapters, complete the work of making the book a fitting and permanent record of one of the past outstanding historians. The text available here is from the 2nd edition published in 2004. It is available only in PDF format. ISBN 0-8849-4338-0

Reprinted from “What Is a Temple?” (1963 and 1968). Also reprinted in Mormonism and Early Christianity, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley 4. 355–70. This essay was first written in 1958 for the dedication of the London Temple. Those Church Fathers, especially of the fourth century, who proclaim the victory of Christianity over its rivals constantly speak of the Church as the competitor and supplanter of the Synagogue, and modern authorities are agreed that in ritual and liturgy the Christian Church grew up “in the shadow of the Synagogue.” This is a most significant fact. While the Temple stood, the Jews had both its ancient ordinances and the practices of the Synagogue, but they were not the same. The Temple was unique, and when it was destroyed, the Synagogue of the Jews did not take over its peculiarly sacred functions—they were in no wise authorized to do so.
This article makes clear that the sacred purposes of the Temple were understood and its ordinances practiced in dispensations before the great falling away which brought about the disappearance of these important truths.

The Eighth Annual Book of Mormon Symposium at BYU Chapters 9 through 30 of 3 Nephi are perhaps the most choice part of the entire Book of Mormon because this section chronicles the transcendent visit of the Risen Lord to the Nephite Saints, His profound teachings, and His amazing, compassionate ministry. His recorded actions and utterance during this period offer remarkable scope for a reverent and knowledgeable review such as that done by sixteen scholars in this book. The 3 Nephi text, like that of the entire Book of Mormon, is shown to be “remarkably efficient” and to give “extraordinary unity and coherence to . . . its message.” ISBN 0-8849-4913-3

The Sixth Annual Book of Mormon Symposium at BYU Nineteen papers on a variety of topics related to the largest book in the Book of Mormon, Alma, make up this volume. These topics include the relevance of the book of Alma to our modern situation, classic discourses of Alma the Younger, the doctrinal and spiritual understanding afforded by Alma’s counsel to his son Corianton, and an enlightening look at the anti-Christ Korihor. The missionary experiences of the sons of Mosiah and Captain Moroni are also discussed. The conclusions drawn in these papers reflect the authors’ testimony of what Alma himself knew to be true: that God’s word has—and always will have—“a great tendency to lead the people to do that which [is] just.” ISBN 0-8849-4841-2

The Second Annual Book of Mormon Symposium at BYU In a variety of themes and approaches, the symposium papers reproduced in this volume explore the first book in the Book of Mormon—First Nephi. The value of the Book of Mormon, historical background of the plates, and the title page are all discussed. How the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ, how its biblical allusions and its affirmations of God’s dealings with man establish the truth of the Bible; and how textual evidences further verify the authenticity of the Book of Mormon are demonstrated. ISBN 0-8849-4647-9

The Ninth Annual Book of Mormon Symposium at BYU As the final installment in the book of Mormon Symposium series, this volume examines the last four books of the Nephite record: 4 Nephi, Mormon, Ether, and Moroni. Perhaps more than any other part in the Book of Mormon, this section powerfully portrays the cycle through which the ancient inhabitants of America passed many times—the cycle that took them from righteousness to wickedness, from Zion to destruction. Twenty-five contributors here explore the details of this tragic cycle—as it occurred in both the Nephite and the Jaredite civilizations—and also discuss many related doctrinal and historical issues. Realizing the Book of Mormon’s relevance to our day, the writers further take the opportunity to point out the many modern applications. ISBN 0-8849-4974-5

The Seventh Annual Book of Mormon Symposium at BYU “All things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will.” This was the Lord’s glorious promise to Nephi, son of Helaman. The general wickedness that prevailed in much of Nephite society during Nephi’s day was in stark contrast to his exemplary faithfulness. Why was this so? How did the people’s decline come about so rapidly? What specific messages do the book of Helaman and the early chapters of 3 Nephi contain for our day? Seventeen symposium papers collected in this volume address these and other issues related to events and conditions among the Nephites and the Lamanites during the eighty or so years prior to the Savior’s appearance on the American continent. Contributors not only discuss great doctrinal teachings of stalwarts like Nephi, Samuel the Lamanite, and Mormon but also provide detailed analyses of how and why the Nephites moved from a condition of righteousness to one of wickedness during this critical period in their history. ISBN 0-8849-4864-1

The Fourth Annual Book of Mormon Symposium at BYU The remarks of this volume are centered on the small plates of Nephi—Jacob through the Words of Mormon. The greatness of Lehi’s son Jacob is brought out, with special reference to his remarkable grasp of the doctrine of the Atonement, his powerful preaching about Christ, and his affirmations as to the central role of Christ in all gospel dispensations. Enos, Amaleki, and the anti-Christ Sherem are other topics discussed. Clarification is given on the structure of the Book of Mormon in terms of the large and the small plates of Nephi, the plates of Mormon (the abridgment), and the Words of Mormon. Latter-day Saint scholars who have experience the spiritual power of the Book of Mormon share here their insights on specific themes. ISBN 0-8849-4734-3

The Fifth Annual Book of Mormon Symposium at BYU King Benjamin’s monumental address on service and the Savior; the powerful testimony and the martyrdom of the prophet Abinadi; the moving conversion stories of both Alma the Elder and Alma the Younger; the deliverance of Nephites from Lamanite bondage—this is the historically and doctrinally rich material of which this volume’s papers draw their themes. Other questions and issues are explored: What specific, vital lessons about following living prophets, making and keeping covenants, and developing Christlike qualities can parents draw from the book of Mosiah to teach to their children, and how can they effectively teach them those lessons? What political and social insights, as well as warnings, are implied by the similarities between the Nephite system of judges and the constitutional system of the United States? Other topics include an in-depth look at the priesthood calling and practices, the process of spiritual rebirth, and lessons on bondage. ISBN 0-8849-4816-1

The Third Annual Book of Mormon Symposium at BYU In this volume, twenty-two scholars comment knowledgeably on a variety of themes evoked by the prophetic words of Isaiah, Lehi, Nephi, and Jacob as given in 2 Nephi. Contributors discuss doctrines of Christ such as repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, the Fall, the Atonement, hope, endurance, the name of Jesus Christ as revealed to the Nephites, and the Nephite diligence in teaching and transmitting the gospel. Comments on the early Nephite period deepen our appreciation for Nephi’s spiritual strength. Although many perspectives are offered here, its underlying purpose is to illumine, clarify, and reinforce the gospel of Jesus Christ. ISBN 0-8849-4699-1

Comments on the twenty doctrines enumerated in Doctrine and Covenants 20:17-36, and shows that the Book of Mormon enlightens every one. Examples include: existence of God, the commandment to love God, the creation of male and female in God’s image, the Fall and the Atonement; the crucifixion, death, and resurrection, justification and grace, and the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Gleaning from the expertise of an eminent array of Latter-day Saint scholars, a Brigham Young University symposium entitled “Isaiah and the Prophets” has brought to light a diversity of thought-provoking ideas relative to the Old Testament. This book contains ten of the addresses given at that symposium. Isaiah and the Prophets is rich in its outpouring of details. The book probes concepts that are pertinent to understanding the Old Testament as the Lord’s prophetic word and the gospel in its fullness. ISBN 0-8849-4522-7

Ten prominent Church scholars presented at the symposium on the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Their in-depth study of the Joseph Smith Translation and related scriptures clarifies the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and show how Joseph Smith restored many plain and precious truths to that holy book. This volume brings together those addresses, illuminating this inspired translation as perhaps no other book had done.

Shows how God is the same yesterday, today, and forever through his personal appearances, the manner of his manifestations, and the fact that he is no respecter of persons.