Review of About the Three Nephites (1992), by C. Douglas Beardall and Jewel N. Beardall.

The article relates the story of Cabeza de Vaca, a European who traversed across what is now Texas in the fall of 1537, and mingled among the Indians and found their traditions and beliefs closely related to Christianity.

Cairns are placed on trails to guide us across trail segments that are unclear and difficult to find. I have described three spiritual cairns today that can help guide you safely through mortality: scriptures, prophets, and temples.

Shows that the Mexican Calendar Stone gives an account and the exact date of the “great cataclysm,” and that it is the same date and account that is given in the Book of Mormon. The “great cataclysm” is the destruction that happened to the land during and after the crucilixion of Jesus Christ.

Volume 4 in the Occasional Papers Series From aiding in the early development of San Francisco, San Diego, and Sacramento to the ministry of Howard W. Hunter as the first President of the Church from California, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have had a rich history in the Golden State. In this volume the experiences of the Latter-day Saints from their first arrival to the year 1996 are outlined. This book celebrates the labors of good people who planted and cultivated in the Golden State—sometimes in hard and unfertile soil. The harvest that the Church enjoys today leads to a greater abundance to come. ISBN 1-5700-8200-6

Instructions by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, September 21, 1856. Reported By: J. V. Long.

Let us have the courage to defy the consensus, the courage to stand for principle. Courage, not compromise, brings the smile of God’s approval.

As I have been working on the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project, people have occasionally written or talked to me about passages in the Book of Mormon that seem strange or difficult. A good many have made specific suggestions about emendations (or revisions to the text). Surprisingly, a large percentage of these have ended up being correct or have led me to come up with an appropriate emendation.

As announced in the last issue of Insights, the Institute invites interested persons to submit papers for possible presentation at an upcoming conference on Latter-day Saint views on the sacrifice of Isaac. The conference will be held at BYU on 11 October 2003.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, February 2, 1862. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Often the Lord calls us to do difficult things that we may not be sure we want to do but that will bring great blessings.

A play based upon Book of Mormon characters and situations.

While some had previously made the journey individually, the first collective emigration of Utah-bound Welsh Latter-day Saints occurred in 1849. They were led by Dan Jones, a Welshman who had joined the Church in Nauvoo and was one of the last persons to see Joseph Smith alive. The three-hundred-plus emigrants in the two ships were part of the three thousand or so souls brought into the Church during this energetic and enthusiastic mission president’s first ministry in Wales. This book contains interesting detail, narrative, and journal entries of those Welsh Saints. ISBN 0-8849-4628-2

This 1996 dissertation demonstrates that the expulsion of the Latter-day Saints from Missouri in 1838-1839 was entirely unwarranted and illegal. Analyzing the history of the seven military episodes of this conflict, especially in terms of the traditional roles of local militias in the United States, Alexander L. Baugh shows that Latter-day Saints as United States citizens had every right to take up arms to defend themselves, particularly when local and state officials failed or refused to intervene in their behalf. While there was wrong-doing especially on the part of some Mormon extremists, this study, contrary to other recent interpretations, places the balance of the responsibility for this antagonism heavily and decisively on the side of the Missourians.

America is a choice land and all who possess it must repent and serve God or be swept off.

Hopeful and heartbreaking, sobering and exultant. A Call to Russia captures missionary life as experienced by a mission president, his wife and daughter, and the sisters and elders who served under him. But above all, this book is an invitation to reflect upon our own lives. Some glimpses from President Rogers: “Every morning Merriam still wakes up and asks, ‘Where am I?’ while I shake off the night’s slumber and involuntarily ask, ‘Who am I?’” “Our senior district president recently asked me, ‘What are your greatest impressions since coming here?’ I answered, ‘Faith and love. Love and faith.’ And the way things seem to fall apart on at least a weekly basis before they’re somehow put back together.” “In our quest to see God’s face, what most matters in mortality is how we face one another—with what patience, tenderness, mercy, and good humor.” “Another great blessing—a mission makes us more aware than otherwise of our personal inadequacies.” “A friend wrote me, ‘You’ve certainly changed.’ It’s good others can see how the gospel has indeed changed us—how we have repented. As a great assistant to the president put it, ‘The best missionary is a repenting missionary.’” “We all confront, all the time, a choice between two paths. One is higher, with steeper terrain, where you often strain to catch your breath or to reach a handhold. The other lies well below it and tends if anything toward a gradual and easy descent.”

I revere the priesthood of Almighty God. I have witnessed its power. I have seen its strength. I have marveled at the miracles it has wrought.

There is no greater call than teaching “all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

Those called, sustained, and set apart are entitled to our sustaining support.

An exapanded version of remarks that were given at the funeral service of Hugh Nibley.
Remarks about near-death experiences and life after death, as well as Hugh Nibley’s calling in this life to be a great religious scholar.

We have been given the great power of the priesthood. It blesses us individually and provides blessings for our family.

If you are humble and obedient and hearken to the voice of the Spirit, you will find great happiness in your service as a missionary.

How blessed we are to have been brought into this fellowship of the Latter-day Saints!

It is not in the proper spirit for us to decide where we will serve or where we will not. We serve where we are called.

To raise our families and serve faithfully in the Church, all without running faster than we have strength, require wisdom, judgment, divine help—and inevitably some sacrifice.

God knows you perfectly. He loves you perfectly. His Only Begotten Son, Jesus, has asked you, “Come, follow me.” Thus, in a real and majestic sense, each of us here tonight has been “called to serve”!

Karl G. Maeser has rightfully been called the spiritual architect not only of Brigham Young University but also of the Church Educational System. As the first superintendent of Church Schools, he helped found and maintain over fifty academies and schools from Canada to Mexico. He helped develop the public education system in Utah and helped establish the Utah Teachers Association. The students he taught personally included future United States senators and members of the House of Representatives, a United States Supreme Court justice, university presidents, and many General Authorities. He translated twenty-nine hymns and about a third of the Doctrine and Covenants into German and founded Der Stern, the Church’s German magazine (now called the Liahona). Based on extensive research, Called to Teach describes the life of this remarkable man and outlines the impact of his legacy. ISBN 978-0-8425-2742-9

An assignment to labor in a specific place is essential and important but secondary to a call to the work.

Remarks by Apostle John H. Smith, delivered at the General Conference, in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Saturday Morning, October 8, 1881. Reported By: John Irvine.

Discourse by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Bowery, at Brigham City, Saturday Morning, June 26, 1874. Reported By: David W. Evans.

Though her parents are divorcing, author finds peace and calm in reading the Book of Mormon.

Through the employment of biblical scriptures, Taylor answers Rev. Heys’s complaints about “Mormonism” Heys argues against Mormon doctrines: the Book of Mormon does not possess equal authority with the Bible; little children are incapable of sin; all without the law are alive in Christ; immersion is the proper mode of baptism; it is a mockery before God to baptize little children.

Volume 3:517-72 introduces the Book of Mormon as a “curiousity of literature” and a “literature of disguise” that was created by Joseph Smith.

Abstract: In October 1830, Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer Jr., Parley P. Pratt, and Ziba Peterson were the first missionaries sent to travel through the western states to the Indian territory at the far reaches of the United States. Pratt, a former resident of northeastern Ohio, suggested they stop in the Kirtland, Ohio, area and visit his preacher friend, Sidney Rigdon. It was Rigdon who had earlier convinced Pratt that the restoration of the ancient order that included faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism for the remission of sins, and the promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit could be found in Alexander Campbell’s restoration movement. Within a few weeks, the four missionaries baptized Rigdon and more than 100 new converts into Joseph Smith’s restoration movement — many of whom had been members of Campbell’s restoration movement. Although both Alexander Campbell and Joseph Smith called their movements restorations, the foundation upon which each was built was very different.

Abstract: Joseph Smith’s First Vision is a favorite target of critics of the LDS Church. Evangelical critics in particular, such as Matt Slick of the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, seek to discredit the First Vision on biblical grounds. This article explores biblical theophanies and argues that Joseph’s vision fits squarely with the experience of ancient prophets, especially those who are given the rare blessing of piercing the veil of light and glory, the Hebrew kabod, that God dwells within.
“I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun…” –Joseph Smith Jr. ((Joseph Smith—History 1:16.)).

Review of Gavin Menzies. 1421, the Year China Discovered America.

Scriptural passages in the Book of Mormon, Bible, and Doctrine and Covenants suggest that forgiven sins may not always remain so. In order to bring safety to the soul one must forgive others and “endure to the end” (1 Nephi 7:69).

A partial revision of Evidence in Science and Religion

Inasmuch as the 1981 edition of the Book of Mormon changes the phrase “white and delightsome” (2 Nephi 30:6) to read “pure and delightsome” (having reference to the Lamanites), the Book of Mormon is not to be trusted.

This article provides several reasons to believe the testimony of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon.

Some in the Church believe they can’t answer Alma’s question with a resounding yes. They do not “feel so now.”

So the process of learning to hear the voice of the Spirit not only refines us and allows us to enjoy the wondrous music of the Spirit, but it also blesses us, directs our steps, and brings us the favor and guidance of heaven.

Abstract: Under the duress of a lengthy war, and prompted by recent Lamanite military successes, as well as incensed at the government’s failure to resupply Helaman’s armies with provisions and to send men to reinforce the city Nephihah, Moroni sent a second scathing letter to the leaders of the Nephite nation in the Nephite capital city Zarahemla. As other scholars have noted, the name Zarahemla likely denotes “seed of compassion” or “seed of sparing.” In this article, I propose that Moroni’s rhetoric in the letter includes an acerbic word-irony involving the meaning of Zarahemla perhaps achieved in terms of the Hebrew verb yaḥmōl (“[he] will spare,” from ḥml, “spare,” “have compassion.” This word-irony points out that although the Lord had spared the people of Zarahemla and the Nephites in the past, the uncompassionate behavior of the nation’s leaders in Zarahemla was creating conditions under which the Lord would not spare the leadership in Zarahemla. Moroni wrote, “Behold, I come unto you, even in the land of Zarahemla, and smite you with the sword … For behold, the Lord will not suffer that ye shall live and wax strong in your iniquities to destroy his righteous people. Behold, can you suppose that the Lord will spare you…?” (Alma 60:30–32). The covenant background of this threat will also be explored.

The essays in this volume address key aspects of Israelite religious development. Cross traces the continuities between early Israelite religion and the Canaanite culture from which it emerged; explores the tension between the mythic and the historical in Israel’s religious expression; and examines the reemergence of Canaanite mythic material in the apocalypticism of early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This book won the Smith-Pettit Best Book Award from the John Whitmer Historical Association. This book gives a panoramic view of the rise and progress of the Church in Canada. It has all the elements of a great saga, including that of early faithful missionaries preaching in eastern Canada without “purse or scrip” in the 1830s and 1840s, and the exodus of early Canadian converts who joined with the main body of the Church in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois, and then trekked across the Great Plains to Utah in the Rocky Mountains. It tells of Mormon pioneers from Utah arriving in southern Alberta after 1887, having made a second grand trek to escape their persecutors, this time north rather than west, and details the settlement of Mormons in Alberta. It is the story of an ongoing missionary effort from late nineteenth century, throughout the twentieth, and into the twenty-first with a vast number of missionaries and the sustained effort of thousands of lay leaders and members laboring relentlessly to build up a Church that now consists of nearly 200,000 members. ISBN 978-1-9443-9423-3

His purpose on Earth was not to achieve his dreams, no matter how good or righteous they were. His purpose was to walk in the will of God. Our plan for five years from now should be to walk in the will of God.

At the time that Captain Cook landed in Hawaii the local people assumed that he was the god Lono. On other occasions and with different characters similar scenes occurred in Mexico and Peru. Such occurrences recall the story that Jesus would someday return to the peoples of the Americas.

A natural tension seems to exist between two important features of the Book of Mormon. On one hand, Mormon includes in his record a version of the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus gave to the Nephites—an address that sets the standard for discipleship and that contains teachings obviously opposed to violence. In it, we hear about not resisting evil, turning the other cheek, going another mile when compelled to go one, loving our enemies—and so forth (3 Ne. 12:39–44). On the other hand, Mormon also presents various Nephite leaders as righteous even though they were immersed in violence. Captain Moroni stands out among these leaders because his wartime activities dominate the last third of the book of Alma: we see him in significant detail. The juxtaposition of these two threads appears contradictory. We see righteous men, including prophetic figures, engaged in the very activities that the text itself seems to prohibit. And this apparent contradiction seems significant even though most of these leaders lived before the Sermon was even given. This is because it is natural to think of the Book of Mormon as a whole—as a collection of significant experiences and teachings that are consistent with one another and that together present a unified, divine message to the world. We thus expect to see the book’s most prominent leaders actually live the standard found in the book’s most prominent teachings— whether they actually possessed the Sermon on the Mount or not. And therein lies the problem. Although these prominent teachings clearly seem to be opposed to violence, we see these prominent leaders very much engaged in violence. It is not necessarily obvious how to resolve this tension. One strategy, of course, would be to ignore the tension and to simply avoid thinking about it. But a sacred text requires more from us than that. So the apparent disparity has to be faced. How is it possible to reconcile Captain Moroni with the Sermon on the Mount?

“Join the ranks and fight alongside Captain Moroni in this in-depth look at the wars, battles, and conflicts in the book of Alma war chapters. In this book, you’ll discover: what made the Nephites successful even when they were outnumbered; how the Nephites’ military strategies provide further proof of the Book of Mormon’s authenticity; why Mormon focused so much attention on the Alma war chapters; how Moroni follows the timeless principles of war; and why these wars transformed both Nephite and Lamanite societies.” [From back of book]

Moroni reports receiving a revelation in which the Lord told him, “If those whom ye have appointed your governors do not repent of their sins and iniquities, ye shall go up to battle against them” (Alma 60:33). Because Pahoran, the chief governor of the Nephites at the time, turns out to be innocent of the charges contained in Moroni’s revelation, it is easy to think that Moroni’s revelation is mistaken in some way. Textual clues, however, suggest the revelation and its accompanying epistle were directed not only to Pahoran but also to many other generals, who were likely guilty of the sins mentioned by Moroni. Thus, contrary to previous thinking, Moroni’s revelation may have, in fact, been accurate.

A youth oriented challenge to read the Book of Mormon. Youth relate testimonial experiences they had while reading the Book of Mormon.

A youth oriented challenge to read the Book of Mormon. Youth relate testimonial experiences they had while reading the Book of Mormon.

The article discusses research concerning a document known as the “Caractors” and its relationship to the “Book of Mormon” and the gold plates associated with the “Book of Mormon,” and its significance to the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS). It discusses the testimony of possible gold plates witness David Whitmer, the interpretative research of historian George Q. Cannon, and whether the document was the same as the document taken to scholar Charles Anthon from LDS convert Martin Harris.

I appreciate this opportunity to talk about BYU’s human resources—about you and me and our friends, roommates, and coworkers. We are truly blessed.

In building the kingdom of God, every positive act, every friendly greeting, every warm smile, every thoughtful, kind note contributes to the strength of the whole.

This article is a rehearsal of primary events connected with the Book of Mormon, including Joseph Smith’s work with the gold plates, the conversion of several individuals (including Thomas B. Marsh, Willard Richards, Parley P. Pratt, and Sidney Rigdon) through the power of the book, and a discussion of the various translations of the Book of Mormon into foreign languages.

As the influences of the world increasingly embrace the evil, we must strive with all diligence to stay firmly on the path that leads us safely to our Savior.

You will be strengthened and yet inspired to know the limits and extent of your ability to serve.