Review: Visions in a Seer Stone: Joseph Smith and the Making of the Book of Mormon (UNC Press, 2020)

Many thanks to friend of JI, WVS, for his thoughtful review! You can purchase the book from UNC Press HERE.

“Regardless of what one believes about its historical or sacral authenticity, the Book of Mormon reveals important information about nineteenth-century American culture, particularly regarding oral culture and the formation of American literature among the non-elite classes of democratic-minded citizens, whose voices often emerged through the spoken word along religious avenues and byways.”(ix)

“I will be exploring how the textual phenomena and internal evidence within the pages of the Book of Mormon reach outside the text to engage with the pervasive oratorical training, practices, and concerns of Smith’s environment in early nineteenth-century America. I believe that this information, for believers and nonbelievers alike, reveals valuable insights about the life of Joseph Smith, his background and religious experiences, as well as the cultural context in which he grew up. I invite the reader to join me in that journey of discovery.”(xi)

Thus, William L. Davis sets the stage for his study of the Book of Mormon, Visions in a Seer Stone: Joseph Smith and the Making of the Book of Mormon (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020). i-xiii, 1-250. Notes, bibliography, index.

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Guestpost–Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects

Mark Ashurst-McGee is a friend of the JI and the Senior Research and Review Editor with the Joseph Smith Papers. He holds a Ph.D. in American History from Arizona State University and has published broadly on Joseph Smith and early Latter-day Saint history. He co-edited, along with Michael Hubbard MacKay and Brian M. Hauglid, Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity, which was recently published by the University of Utah Press.

This collaborative volume is the first to provide in-depth analysis of all of Joseph Smith’s translation projects. The compiled chapters explore Smith’s translation projects in focused detail and in broad contexts, as well as in comparison and conversation with one another. The various contributors approach Smith’s sacred texts historically, textually, linguistically, and literarily to offer a multidisciplinary view. Scrupulous examination of the production and content of Smith’s translations opens new avenues for understanding the foundations of Mormonism, provides insight on aspects of early American religious culture, and helps conceptualize the production and transmission of sacred texts.

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Guest Post: Introducing “Essays on American Indian and Mormon History”

Brenden W. Rensink[1]

In 2019, P. Jane Hafen and I published an anthology of essays with the University of Utah Press entitled Essays on American Indian and Mormon History. I am happy to take a few moments here to explain the how this volume came to be and the principles that guided our editorial approach.

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Latter-day Saints around the world gathering for conference offers perspective on what global citizenship could really mean

This post was written by Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland and an historian with Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. An affordable paperback edition of her China and the True Jesus will be released next month.

On Sunday, 29 March, Russell M. Nelson, president of the 16-million-member Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, released a video from Salt Lake City calling on church members everywhere to join in a fast “to pray for relief from the physical, emotional, and economic effects of this global pandemic.”

Some 71 years before, on 6 April 1949, members of the True Jesus Church around the world responded to the call of their leader, Wei Yisa to fast and “pray for peace.” Communist forces were advancing on the city of Nanjing, where the church headquarters was located. Shortages were severe and prices were skyrocketing.

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“Called Home”: Missionaries and Prophecy in the Latter Day Saint Tradition

By Christopher James Blythe, friend of JI and author of the forthcoming Terrible Revolution: Latter-day Saints and the American Apocalypse.    

On March 20, 2020, the First Presidency and the Quorum of Twelve Apostles announced that “substantial numbers of missionaries will likely need to be returned to their home nations to continue their service.”

The mass return of missionaries to Utah made headlines on March 22 hundreds of friends and family members piled into the Salt Lake Airport to greet their returning loved ones despite directions to maintain social distancing protocols. This was certainly an unfortunate incident but there is another conversation occurring in relation to the returning missionaries that has nothing to do with their controversial homecomings (which fortunately seem to have become more creative than dangerous since the 22^nd.) Latter-day Saints have long believed that one of the major events preceding the Second Coming will be when missionaries are “called home.” My purpose in writing this post is to provide background for a conversation many Latter-day Saints are having and many scholars have been asked to weigh in on.

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Guest Post – Mormonism and Book History: A Search for Sources

Tyler Balli is a master’s student in history at Virginia Tech working on a thesis project that intersects at the history of Mormonism and the history of the book. He can be contacted at tylerab AT vt.edu.

In August of 1877, seventeen-year-old Annie Wells confided to her diary about the “splendid novel” she was then reading, Marquis of Lossie. She wrote, “I never read a good novel, with out I [feel] allmost [sic] jealous of my heroine, and even now I keep building castles in the air about this book only putting my self in as the heroine.” She even composed a poem about her reading experience:

Who ever read the daring deed;

Of some great hero,

Who rode upon his flashing steed

As brave as any hero

Without a thought of admiration

A longing for such a one they feel

And when they close the splendid volume

They recognize their beau-ideal

Concluding her entry, she writes, “Really not a very excellent poet am I, but then that expresses my opinion and no one else need read it.”[1]

Wells’s frank admissions of reading a romantic novel written by a non-Mormon, as well as her fantasies of becoming the novel’s heroine, would have alarmed many church leaders, editors, and other cultural arbiters of the day. Many of them often warned against the dangers of fiction, which could give readers “false ideas about human nature” or inspire “poor, weak-headed creatures . . . [to] assume the character of [a novel’s] heroine, until it passes from recollection, or is superseded by another heroine of a novel read subsequently,” never allowing them to develop their true selves.[2] These are just a few of the ideas about proper or improper reading that swirled around in nineteenth-century Utah, of which ideas about fiction only composed a small part.

I’m interested in uncovering more sources like Wells’s journal. I’m currently a master’s student in history at Virginia Tech working on a thesis project that intersects at the history of Mormonism and the history of the book, and I’d greatly appreciate the help of my fellow scholars in suggesting sources.

I’m specifically interested in looking at Mormon readers from 1869 till the turn of the century: what they read (both secular and religious publications, fiction and nonfiction), how they read, their reactions to reading, how they navigated the contemporary proscriptions and prescriptions of reading, and how reading helped them make sense of the tumultuous transformations going on during this period. I’d like to look at this through the lens of gender as well.

If you have come across a primary source that sheds light on any of these topics, I would greatly appreciate you pointing me toward it. Since comments about reading material and reactions to it are often spread widely across letters, journals, or other places, I won’t be able to scan them all, and I’d greatly appreciate your help if you’ve spotted something.

[1] Annie Wells Cannon, journal, 1877 Jun 30–1881 Sep 4, typescript, MSS 2307, box 2, folder 7, pp. 7–8, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Provo, UT.

[2] “What We Women Do with Our Time,” Woman’s Exponent, February 1, 1878, 132; O. F. Whitney, “The Way to Be Great,” Contributor, April 1880, 158–160.

Review: Brigham Young and the Expansion of the Mormon Faith

Juvenile Instructor is grateful for a JI-emeritus writer, Brett Dowdle, for writing this review! Dr. Dowdle is a historian for the Joseph Smith Papers Project and holds a Ph.D. in American History from Texas Christian University.

Review, Thomas G. Alexander, Brigham Young and the Expansion of the Mormon Faith (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019).

            Despite its immense popularity, few genres of historical writing are more complex than that of biography. Those figures who tend to merit the kind of biographies that will be widely read generally carry with them a host of popular perceptions and myths that either border on demonization or hagiographic adoration. In most cases, the best biographies must ultimately find someplace in the muddy middle, displaying the complexity and humanity of the subject. Thomas Alexander’s recent biography of Brigham Young does an admirable job of finding just such a place for the controversial leader. The result is a highly readable and fast-paced biography that is approachable to both trained historians and the interested public.

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THE ARRINGTON CHAIR: A Reflection on What Could Go into Selecting a Mormon Studies Chair

We’re happy to welcome friend of the Juvenile Instructor, Chris Blythe.

Christopher James Blythe is a Research Associate at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute of Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University. He is a graduate of the Religious Studies program at Utah State University and previously held a predoctoral teaching fellowship in the department.

Over the next few weeks, the three finalists for the Leonard J. Arrington Chair in Mormon History and Culture will have visited Utah State University and soon thereafter the hiring committee will make their decision. Their choice will have a far-reaching impact on the Religious Studies program there and, also, because of the legitimacy and funding that such a hire bestows, on the field of Mormon Studies at large. Currently, there are Mormon Studies chairs at Utah State University (est. 2006), Claremont Graduate University (est. 2008), and the University of Virginia

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Seminar Workshop Hosted by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University (June 3-5, 2019 )

In the last decades of the twentieth century, New Western historians grappled with conceptions of the “Modern” West, encouraging scholars to investigate the region’s history up to the present. They held debates, panels, and conferences on modern American West topics to discuss their findings and publish them in articles, anthologies, and monographs. Several decades have elapsed since those shockable discussions and path-breaking publications appeared. In the interceding decades, the region has continued to evolve. It is time for Western scholars to gather again and consider how the “Modern” West has changed in the 21^st century.

To facilitate this effort, the Charles a Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University will host a workshop seminar (tentatively scheduled) on June 3-5, 2019 entitled “New Modern Histories of the 21^st Century West.” We solicit proposals from historians and scholars who will author article-length essays and gather at BYU campus to workshop them together. Those essays will subsequently be edited and published as an anthology. All historical sub fields are welcome. The geographic scope of the “Modern West” is broadly defined to include the western states and provinces of the United States and Canada, adjacent borderlands, and areas such as Alaska, Hawai’i.   

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Review: Stone, William Bickerton: Forgotten Latter Day Prophet (Signature 2018)

Christopher James Blythe is a Research Associate in Book of Mormon Studies at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute of Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University. He is a documentary editor/historian for Joseph Smith Papers: Documents, Vols. 7, 9, and 12. Blythe is also the Associate Editor of the Journal of Mormon History.

Daniel Stone’s William Bickerton: Forgotten Latter Day Prophet is a biography of a significant nineteenth century Latter Day Saint “prophet, seer, and revelator.” It is largely a religious story, as much about the founding of a church, the Church of Jesus Christ, as it is the life of a man. One of Signature Books’ most significant contributions to the field of Mormon Studies has been its publication of scholarship on non-LDS Restoration traditions. Previous examples have included Vickie Cleverley Speek’s “God Has Made Us a Kingdom”: James Strang and the Midwest Mormons (2006), Will Shepard and H. Michael Marquardt’s Lost Apostles: Forgotten Members of Mormonism’s Original Quorum of the Twelve (2014), Richard S. Van Wagoner’s Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess (1994), and Victoria D. Burgess’s The Midwife: A Biography of Laurine Ekstrom Kingston (2012). These well-researched studies have added to our knowledge of fascinating but (unfortunately) obscure communities and individuals. Stone’s volume rightfully belongs on this list and admirably fills out some of the gaps in our collective knowledge. This volume is particularly significant as the first full-length academic study written by a Bickertonite scholar with interested outsiders in mind. It is exciting to see the contingent of Mormon Studies scholars whose numbers largely consist of LDS and Community of Christ scholars (with the occasional Strangite and Fundamentalist) add another unique voice to the conversation.

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