Review of The Legacy of the Brass Plates of Laban: A Comparison of Biblical and Book of Mormon Isaiah Texts (1994), by H. Clay Gorton.

Review of The Legacy of the Brass Plates of Laban: A Comparison of Biblical and Book of Mormon Isaiah Texts (1994), by H. Clay Gorton.

Review of The Book of Mormon and the Constitution (1995), by H. Verlan Andersen; and If Men Were Angels: The Book of Mormon, Christ and the Constitution (1995), by Brad E. Hainsworth.

Abstract: This is the first of two articles discussing Missouri’s requisitions to extradite Joseph Smith to face criminal charges and the Prophet’s recourse to English habeas corpus practice to defend himself. In this article, the author presents research rejecting the suggestion that the habeas corpus powers of the Nauvoo City Council were irregular and explains why the idea that the Nauvoo Municipal Court lacked jurisdiction to consider interstate habeas corpus matters is anachronistic. In the second article, the author analyzes the conduct of Missouri Governor Thomas Reynolds in relation to the requisitions for Joseph Smith’s extradition. Even by the standards of the day, given what he knew, his conduct was unethical.

Youth form a daily habit of Book of Mormon scripture study.

Moroni prophesied on 21 September 1823 that Joseph’s name, and by implication the book he would eventually translate and publish, should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues. Many current criticisms of the Book of Mormon trace their roots to the antagonistic critiques by 19th-century authors, beginning with Abner Cole, Alexander Campbell, and E. D. Howe. Campbell in particular was responsible for introducing the environmental theory: that Joseph Smith introduced 19th-century elements into his story. Travelers to Salt Lake City published their exposés, which were mostly critical of the Latter-day Saints and their book of sacred scripture. Mark Twain’s dismissive treatment of the book forged lasting popular misconceptions of the book. Fiction writers of the 19th century contributed to suspicion of and ignorance about Mormonism and the Book of Mormon. In more recent times, Fawn M. Brodie, Thomas O’Dea, and Robert V. Remini perpetuated environmental claims about the book. Recent Latter-day Saint scholars— Hugh Nibley, Richard Bushman, and Terryl Givens— represent those who speak good of the book and try to correct misperceptions about it.

Abstract: LDS discourse vis-à-vis Hagar has changed through the years since the foundation of the Church. Her story has been considered and utilized in a number of ways, the most prominent being as a defense of plural marriage. This paper traces the LDS usages of Hagar’s story as well as proposing a new allegorical interpretation of her place within the Abrahamic drama through literary connections in the Hebrew Bible combined with Restoration scripture.

Review of Quest for the Gold Plates: Thomas Stuart Ferguson's Archaeological Search for the Book of Mormon (1996), by Stan Larson

In this article, the episode about Hagoth and his sea-venturing ships is quoted from Alma 63 and the theory advanced that the Polynesians descended from Book of Mormon peoples who sailed to Hawaii. It also compares rituals and customs of the ancient Hawaiians with the Israelites.

A varied body of musical works inspired by the Hill Cumorah’s prophetic history attests to the dramatic and emotional appeal of this great landmark of Mormonism. The author surveys a variety of musical works, including compositions, anthems, hymns, oratories, plays, operas, and musicals, that show a wealth of musical potential in the Hill Cumorah’s history. Despite the variety and quality of works composed thus far, the author considers the potential largely untapped and hopes that the music of Cumorah has only just begun.

Building upon the foundation of Jesus Christ is essential to our happiness.

Abstract: This article examines the treatment of several personages identified as Hamites in the Book of Abraham. It proposes that, in contrast to traditional readings of the text, Hamites are featured positively in the Book of Abraham. This is particularly true of the daughters of Onitah and of Pharaoh himself, both of whom are presented as righteous people practicing an early form of monotheism. While I do not claim that the Book of Abraham is completely free of elements possibly deemed to be racially problematic, until now, the positive depiction of the Hamites in the text has largely been overlooked.

A comparison of the Ten Commandments with the laws of Hammurabi of Babylonia

LDS missionaries taught the Book of Mormon story to a Navajo spiritual leader and his family. The spiritual leader acknowledged that their story is true and already known in Navajo tradition. 3 Nephi 30:5-6 is applied to this event.

Relics have been discovered in almost every part of the western continent that testify of ancient civilizations. Ancient civilizations of America were highly developed. The Book of Mormon is their record. There are many evidences that indicate this is true: breast plates, elephant remains, architecture, bronze, fine cloth, and many others.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, September 28, 1856. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

A Discourse by Elder Franklin D. Richards, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, October 5, 1856. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

This compilation of groundbreaking articles about the handcart migration is selected from over fifty years of LDS scholarship published by BYU Studies. This volume features articles on the Martin company at the Sweetwater; Francis Webster’s testimony regarding the Martin company; weather, disaster and responsibility; and reviews of books about the handcart migration. Contents “Francis Webster: The Unique Story of One Handcart Pioneer’s Faith and Sacrifice” Chad M. Orton “Weather, Disaster, and Responsibility: An Essay on the Willie and Martin Handcart Story” Howard A. Christy “The Martin Handcart Company at the Sweetwater: Another Look” Chad M. Orton Review of LeRoy R. Hafen and Ann W. Hafen, Handcarts to Zion Reviewed by S. Lyman Tyler Review of Gary Duane Long, The Journey of the James G. Willie Handcart Company Reviewed by Howard A. Christy Review of Allen C. Christenson, Before Zion: An Account of the Seventh Handcart Company Reviewed by Paul D. Lyman

Excerpted from a longer paper published in Epoché, the UCLA graduate journal of history of religions, in 1985.
A study of the religious significance of symbols, signs, and tokens.

Abstract: In this article Matthew Brown examines the possible meaning behind the imagery of the handclasp between God in heaven and the earthly king. He focuses on this imagery as it is articulated in Psalms 27, 41, 63, 73, and 89. He argues that Psalms 41 and 73 feasibly indicate that when the king of Israel was initiated within the precincts of the temple into the office of kingship he passed through the veil of the Holy of Holies (see Exodus 26:33) and symbolically entered into God’s presence.
[Editor’s Note: Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article is reprinted here as a service to the LDS community. Original pagination and page numbers have necessarily changed, otherwise the reprint has the same content as the original.
See Matthew B. Brown, “The Handclasp, the Temple, and the King,” in Temple Insights: Proceedings of the Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference, “The Temple on Mount Zion,” 22 September 2012, ed. William J. Hamblin and David Rolph Seely (Orem, UT: The Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2014), 5–10. Further information at https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/temple-insights/.].

Surely the greatest of those things [required of fathers] will be to have done all they could for the happiness and spiritual safety of the children they are to nurture.

My young friends, remember that marriage is essential to eternal life and that a good marriage and family life is crafted, not found.

Abstract: Most biblical students are familiar with the story of Hannah, who after years of barrenness, finally gave birth to the prophet Samuel. Some will remember her adversary, Peninnah, who allegedly tormented Hannah to tears. My objective in this article is to reclaim Peninnah’s good name by reinterpreting the passage found in 1 Samuel 1:6.

We should not get discouraged when our careful plans and solutions don’t always lead to calm, clear sailing. Joseph Smith, Lehi, and even the Stice family have learned that “happily ever after” means pressing forward with faith, not discouragement.

I promise that if you will feast upon the scriptures daily, especially the Book of Mormon, you will invite the Spirit into your life and you will naturally pray daily, repent more often, and find it easier to attend church and partake of the sacrament weekly.

Our birthright—and the purpose of our great voyage on this earth—is to seek and experience eternal happiness.

Elder Gong teaches that as we follow God’s plan for us, we will find eternal joy with our families. True, enduring joy and eternity with those we love are the very essence of God’s plan of happiness.

Remarks by President Joseph Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, October 11, 1857. Reported By: J. V. Long.

As aspiring Christians but still imperfect Saints, we may not always understand the struggles of others or know how to help. But we can always love them, creating safe spaces where others—and often we ourselves—can struggle with the hard sayings in life.

This article affirms that the only way to clearly understand the great teachings and doctrines of the Book of Mormon is through the Holy Spirit. Science, study, and pure human intellectual pursuits, without God’s spirit, will not adequately relay the full message of the Book of Mormon.

But here’s some bad news: it’s hard work to understand the Constitution. At least it’s hard work if you try to understand what it meant to those who wrote and ratified its provisions. In my view, that is the understanding we must seek.

Discourse by President Wilford Woodruff, delivered in the Meetinghouse, Kaysville, Davis County, Sunday Morning, December 10, 1882. Reported By: John Irvine.

The suggestion of horses and chariots in pre–Columbian America has long been an easy target for critics of the Book of Mormon. In spite of difficulties in defending this claim, and although the evidence is incomplete, the geological and archaeological record does provide support for horses and even wheeled vehicles in ancient America. Several theories that attempt to address the issue of pre–Columbian horses are examined in this article, some of which are mutually exclusive. Therefore, not all can be correct. Evidence presented in this article includes (1) archaeological evidence for large animals used for draft and transportation; (2) wheeled artifacts showing a person or animal riding on an obviously artificial wheeled platform; (3) the possibility that Book of Mormon peoples referred to native animals such as the Baird’s tapir with names such as horse that they were familiar with; (4) early accounts suggesting that Native Americans had horses too early for them to come from strays that escaped the Spanish conquistadors, especially since the Spanish kept very careful records of their horses; (5) the prevalence of the pinto or piebald horse among Native Americans and its relative absence among Spanish expeditions; (6)images in Mesoamerican art that might depict horses; (7) evidence that horses survived far longer after the last ice age than previously thought; and (8) the question of the Bashkir Curly.

A work that attempts to harmonize the geographical accounts contained in the Book of Mormon with the countries of Nicaragua and Costa Rica located in Central America.

True beauty is the result of a subtle alchemy and a delicate balance, which in large part comes from our personal inner light, rather than from aesthetic or physical criteria alone.

The use of the terms “endless,” “forever,” and “everlasting” is consistent in the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and the Doctrine and Covenants.

Review of Mapping the Action Found in the Book of Mormon (1987), by Harold K. Nielsen.

Weighs the probabilities of the viewpoints of Martin Harris and Charles Anthon with regard to their interview concerning the Book of Mormon characters.

After Martin Harris visited Professor Anthon and Dr. Mitchell of New York City he was persuaded to finance the publication of the Book of Mormon. The account of the visit evolved over a ten-year period. The data shows that Martin Harris took only a transcript of the characters from the plates that did not include Smith’s translation nor did the scholars succeed in translating the characters. Harris’s story in the official declaration varies from these findings. Smith arranged for the interview to fulfill the biblical prophecy in Isaiah 29.

One of the largest theological issues throughout Christian history is the fate of the unevangelized dead: Will they be eternally damned? Will they be lesser citizens in the kingdom of God? Will they have a chance to accept Christ postmortally? These issues are related to the soteriological problem of evil. The belief of the earliest Christians, even through the time of the church fathers Origen and Clement of Alexandria, was that postmortal evangelization was possible. One of the origins of this belief is seen in apocalyptic Judaism, in which righteous gentiles are not left to suffer eternally but, however, are given a lesser status than righteous Jews. Early Christian doctrine goes even further through the belief of Christ’s preaching in Hades—all people have a chance, through accepting Christ, to be save in the same state. Later, however, many Christian theologians such as Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin rejected this doctrine and contended that righteousness and unrighteousness are fixed at death.

Review of Are the Mormon Scriptures Reliable? (1987), by Harry L. Ropp, with revisions from Wesley P. Walters.

I testify to you that there is another, a greater One, who lived, who walked the dusty roads of Galilee, who atoned for our sins, who was crucified and resurrected, and who lives again.

Perhaps one of my messages today is to learn from our family histories. Both Howard and Harvey were born in large families in small towns. One became an internationally known scientist, bearing his testimony to large numbers of people throughout his life and while working in New York City. The other quietly served a mission, raised a family, worked hard on a farm in Victor, Idaho, and served the Lord with all of his heart whenever called. Perhaps in the eyes of the world one was great and one was relatively obscure. However, in the eyes of the Lord, I think that both were good. Both were valiant servants of our Lord Jesus Christ throughout their lives.

In the beginning Joseph Smith patterned Mormonism after six groups: Roman Catholicism, Campbell’s teachings, the Pharisees, Masonry, Islam, and Rosicrucianism. Smith’s claims to have translated the Book of Mormon by the power of God have no foundation. LDS doctrines and practices have changed.

News reports from 2013 identify the site of Oylum Höyük with both the city of Abraham and the ancient city of Ulišum. The latter has been identified with the Olishem of Abraham 1:10. While the preliminary reports are encouraging, the evidence upon which the archaeologists base their identifications has not yet been published. So while there is nothing against the proposed identifications, they are not proven either.

Asserts that Kaminaljuyu, ancient ruins located within the present city of Guatemala, is the city of Nephi. Archaeologists and scholars have found evidence “that meets all the criteria with respect to geography and topography which the Book of Mormon gives for the city of Nephi”

Our supreme focus should be on the spiritual miracles that are available to all of God’s children.

A small stamp seal bearing the inscription belonging to Malkiyahu, son of the king, arguably belonged to Mulek, son of Zedekiah, who accompanied one of the Israelite groups that settled in the New World. Jeremiah 38:6 mentions Malchiah the son of Hammelech, which could also be a reference to this same Mulek. Discussion centers on similar seals, the meaning of Ben Hamelek, the possible age of Malkiyahu, and Book of Mormon claims about Mulek. This seal could conceivably have been left behind in Jerusalem and found centuries later, thus representing an archaeological artifact of a Book of Mormon personality.

We each must develop and carry out our own personal game plan to serve with enthusiasm alongside the full-time missionaries.

Discourse by President Joseph F. Smith, delivered in Paris, Idaho, Sunday Morning, August 19, 1883. Reported By: John Irvine.

Discourse by Apostle Moses Thatcher, delivered at the General Conference, Friday Afternoon, April 4, 1884. Reported By: Geo. F. Gibbs.

Exactly at noon on the winter solstice of 1964, the writer stood at the entrance of an artificially extended cave at the place then called Raqim (now Sahab), a few miles south of Amman. He stood with Rafiq Dajani, brother of the minister of antiquity for Jordan, who had just begun important excavations on the spot and duly noted that the sun at that moment shone directly on the back wall of the cave—a feat impossible at any other time of the year. The ancient picture of a dog painted on the cave wall had dimly suggested to the local inhabitants and a few scholars in an earlier generation the story of the dog who guarded the Cave of the Seven Sleepers (which title hundreds of caves claimed), but nobody took it very seriously. Beneath Byzantine stones, older ruins were coming to light, suggesting that the place may have been another Qumran, a settlement of early Christian or even Jewish sectaries of the desert; the region around was still all open country, mostly bare rocky ground. There it was, the beginning of an excavation that might turn up something exciting. Professor Dajani had read the article below in manuscript form and obligingly took me to the place, where I took some pictures, which were published in the Improvement Era. Compare those pictures with what you find there today! Twelve years later, I returned to the spot with a tour group in excited anticipation of the wonders I would now see laid bare. What we found was that the excavations, far from being completed, had actually been covered up, all but the cave; on the spot was rising the concrete shell of a huge new mosque, and a large marble slab before the cave proclaimed in Arabic and English that this was the Cave of the Seven Sleepers. The spot was being converted into a major Muslim shrine; our Christian Armenian guide was worried sick that there would be an incident and, at first, hotly refused to stop the bus anywhere near the place. Naturally, I went straight for the cave and was met at the entrance by a venerable Mullah and his assistant, who were selling candles. I said I wanted to see the holy dog, and they led me to the back of the cave, where the wall was completely covered by a large old commode, through the dirty glass windows of which they pointed out some ancient brown bones and their prize: the actual jawbone of the holy dog. A relic had usurped the place of the picture. So there it was: what had been a few scattered ruins, lying deserted and completely ignored on the heath, was now being promoted as a booming cult center, rapidly foundering in the encroaching clutter of suburban real estate enterprises. To a student of John Chrysostom, nothing could be more instructive; it had taken just twelve years to set up an ancient and hopefully profitable center of pilgrimage. So you see, all sorts of things go on in the haunted desert, as this article will show.

The promise of complete and perfect forgiveness is made to everyone—in and through the infinite Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Access this video on YouTube.
This video asks the question, “Have Latter-day Saints Forgotten Hugh Nibley?” and gives several reasons why his amazing work will continue to inspire others for many generations to come.

Do not play games with the Lord. When you trust Him fully, He is able to bless you richly.

The author proposes that not all the Jaredites perished in the final Jaredite cataclysm. He speculates that some of them fled and joined the people of Mulek.

This is a joyful religion, one of hope, strength, and deliverance.

During a personal crisis of any kind individuals should remember the words of 1 Nephi 15:8, “Have ye inquired of the Lord?” Author cites several stories as examples.

The Hebrew scriptures contain dozens of passages where an inquiry to deity is requested in order to reveal the unknown, or to sanction a proper course of action. Linguistic and narrative similarities in biblical passages involving divine inquiry have been observed by scholars. These divine inquiry incidents are categorized by scholars as a subset of Israelite divination within the larger framework of ancient Near Eastern mantic institutions. Variable narrative elements in these instances include such things as the setting, identity of the requester, identity of the intermediary, reason for the inquiry, and type of oracle employed. Linguistic elements, namely verb choice, correspond to narrative elements in different passages. When these elements are analyzed, prominent patterns of ancient Israelite divine inquiry emerge. The purpose of this paper is to identify dominant patterns of divine inquiry found in the Bible and to show how the Book of Mormon employs the same patterns in varied circumstances, and that these patterns fit all the parameters of typical ancient Israelite consultations of deity. In addition, an understanding of the prophetic inquiry type clarifies and contextualizes certain Book of Mormon passages.

In such times of peace, happiness, and comfort, we are feeling the gift of the Holy Ghost at work with us. When we experience those good feelings, we can rest assured that we are feeling the consequences of possessing the gift of the Holy Ghost, and we are thus feeling the witness to us, on the part of this member of the Godhead, that Jesus Christ is real.

As Latter-day Saints use the words saved and salvation, there are at least six different meanings.

Contains a warning to those who read and pray about the Book of Mormon. “God is not into burning bosom formulas” Spiritual experiences do not come in this way; it may be counterfeit and is very dangerous. The Book of Mormon is filled with plagiarized scriptures from the Bible intermingled with fraudulent material. The Book of Mormon is full of inconsistencies. The Spaulding theory is favored.

If we are to prosper rather than perish, we must gain a vision of ourselves as the Savior sees us.

Sees some elements of Hawaiian myth as correlative to the Book of Mormon. Cites some particulars of Captain Cook.

Sees some elements of Hawaiian myth as correlative to the Book of Mormon. Sites some particulars of Captain Cook.

Review of Is the Mormon My Brother? (1997), by James R. White