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DIALOGUE DIALOGUE PO Box 381209 Cambridge, MA 02238 Electronic Service Requested DIALOGUE DIALOGUE PO Box 381209 Cambridge, MA 02238 electronic service requested DIALOGUE a journal of mormon thought 49.4 winter 2016 49.4 EDITORS EDITOR Boyd Jay Petersen, Provo, UT ASSOCIATE EDITOR David W. Scott, Lehi, UT WEB EDITOR Emily W. Jensen, Farmington, UT DIALOGUE FICTION Julie Nichols, Orem, UT POETRY Darlene Young, South Jordan, UT a journal of mormon thought REVIEWS (non-fiction) John Hatch, Salt Lake City, UT REVIEWS (literature) Andrew Hall, Fukuoka, Japan INTERNATIONAL Gina Colvin, Christchurch, New Zealand Carter Charles, Bordeaux, France POLITICAL Russell Arben Fox, Wichita, KS HISTORY Sheree Maxwell Bench, Pleasant Grove, UT SCIENCE Steven Peck, Provo, UT FILM & THEATRE Eric Samuelson, Provo, UT PHILOSOPHY/THEOLOGY Brian Birch, Draper, UT ART Andrea Davis, Orem, UT IN THE NEXT ISSUE Brad Kramer, Murray, UT Brad Cook, “Pre-Mortality in Mystical Islam” BUSINESS & PRODUCTION STAFF BUSINESS MANAGER Mariya Manzhos, Cambridge, MA PRODUCTION MANAGER Jenny Webb, Huntsville, AL Allen Hansen & Walker Wright, “Worship through COPY EDITORS Sarah Moore, Madison, AL Corporeality in Hasidism and Mormonism” Richelle Wilson, Madison, WI INTERNS Stocktcon Carter, Provo, UT Nathan Tucker, Provo, UT Fiction from William Morris Geoff Griffin, Provo, UT Christian D. Van Dyke, Provo, UT Fiction from R. A. Christmas Ellen Draper, Provo, UT EDITORIAL BOARD Lavina Fielding Anderson, Salt Lake City, UT William Morris, Minneapolis, MN Mary L. Bradford, Landsdowne, VA Michael Nielsen, Statesboro, GA Claudia Bushman, New York, NY Nathan B. Oman, Williamsburg, VA Daniel Dwyer, Albany, NY Thomas F. Rogers, Bountiful, UT Ignacio M. Garcia, Provo, UT Mathew Schmalz, Worcester, MA Join our DIALOGUE! Brian M. Hauglid, Spanish Fork, UT David W. Scott, Lehi, UT G. Kevin Jones, Salt Lake City, UT John Turner, Fairfax, VA Find us on Facebook at Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought Becky Reid Linford, Leesburg, VA Blair Van Dyke, Cedar Hills, UT Follow us on Twitter @DialogueJournal BOARD OF DIRECTORS SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS Michael Austin, Evansville, IN Gregory A. Prince, Potomac, MD PRINT: 1 year (4 issues) $50 | international $70 | seniors/students $35 *Molly McLellan Bennion, Chair, Seattle, WA Robert Rees, Mill Valley, CA ELECTRONIC (PDF): 1 year (4 issues) $25 Joanna Brooks, San Diego, CA Brent Rushforth, Potomac, MD DVD ARCHIVE: Volumes 1–44 (1966–2011) in PDF format, $40 Sumer Thurston Evans, Verona, WI *Karla Stirling, New York, NY Fiona Givens, Montpelier, VA Travis Stratford, New York, NY More titles and special offers available on our website: Robert A. Goldberg, Salt Lake City, UT Jonathan Thomas, Chicago, IL Kristine Haglund, Belmont, MA Morris Thurston, Villa Park, CA Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, St. Louis, MO Margaret Blair Young, Provo, UT www.dialoguejournal.com *Patrick Q. Mason, Claremont, CA *members of the Executive Committee Michael McBride, Irvine, CA On the cover: Tom Plummer, Joseph Smith, 17x22, acrylic on paper; Brigham Young, 17x22, acrylic on paper DIALOGUE a journal of mormon thought is an independent quarterly established to express Mormon culture and to examine the relevance of religion to secular life. It is edited by Latter-day Saints who wish to bring their faith into dialogue with the larger stream of world religious thought and with human experience as a whole and to foster artistic and scholarly achieve- ment based on their cultural heritage. The journal encourages a variety of view- points; although every effort is made to en- sure accurate scholarship and responsible judgment, the views expressed are those of the individual authors and are not neces- sarily those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or of the editors. ii Dialogue, Winter 2016 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought is published quarterly by the Dialogue Foundation. Dialogue has no official connection with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Contents copyrighted by the Dialogue Foundation. ISSN 0012-2157. Dialogue is available in full text in electronic form at www.dialoguejournal.com and is archived by the University of Utah Marriott Library Special Collections, available online at www.lib.utah.edu/portal/site/marriottlibrary. Dialogue is also available on microforms through University Microfilms International, www.umi.com. Dialogue welcomes articles, essays, poetry, notes, fiction, letters to the editor, and art. Submissions should follow the current Chicago Manual of Style. All submissions should be in Word and may be submitted electronically at https://dialoguejournal.com/submissions/. For submissions of visual art, please contact [email protected]. Submissions published in the journal, including letters to the editor, are covered by our publications policy, https://dialoguejournal.com/ submissions/publication-policy/, under which the author retains the copyright of the work and grants Dialogue permission to publish. See www.dialoguejournal.com. EDITORS EMERITI Eugene England and G. Wesley Johnson Robert A. Rees Mary Lythgoe Bradford Linda King Newell and L. Jackson Newell F. Ross Peterson and Mary Kay Peterson Martha Sonntag Bradley and Allen D. Roberts Neal Chandler and Rebecca Worthen Chandler Karen Marguerite Moloney Levi S. Peterson Kristine Haglund Dialogue, Winter 2016 iii CONTENTS ARTICLES AND ESSAYS Reassessing Joseph Smith Jr.’s Formal Education William Davis 1 The Holy Priesthood, the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Community Benjamin Keogh 59 A Documentary Note on a Letter to Joseph Smith. Romance, Death, and Polygamy: The Life and Times of Susan Hough Conrad and Lorenzo Dow Barnes William V. Smith 87 The Novel Mormon Doctrines of Ultimate Rewards and Punishments as First Revealed in The Vision: Some Observations on History, Sources, and Interpretation Clyde D. Ford 109 NEW VOICES Flaming Craig Mangum 141 Ecology of Absence Brooke Larson 157 POETRY Elegy / Prayer Conner Bassett 195 Nosebleed (A Mormon Pilgrimage) Tyler Clark 200 FICTION Bishop Johansen Rescues a Lost Soul: Steven L. Peck 205 A Tale of Pleasant Grove REVIEWS The Truth is in the Middle Cristina Rosetti 221 Stephen Carter and Jett Atwood. Mormonism for Beginners iv Dialogue, Winter 2016 Invisible Men / Invincible Women Lisa Rumsey Harris 225 Eric Freeze. Invisible Men: Stories Speaking for Herself Glen Nelson 228 Ashley Mae Hoiland. One Hundred Birds Taught Me to Fly: The Art of Seeking God A Candid and Dazzling Conversation Joe Plicka 233 Patrick Madden. Sublime Physick: Essays An Honorable Testament to a Legacy Dallas Robbins 236 Gregory A. Prince. Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History “The Dean of Mormon History”: One Viewpoint Dennis L. Lythgoe 241 Gregory A. Prince. Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History Old Words, New Work: Reclamation and Remembrance Jenny Webb 244 John Russell. The Mormoness; Or, The Trials of Mary Maverick: A Narrative of Real Events, edited and annotated by Michael Austin and Ardis E. Parshall Alfreda Eva Bell. Boadicea; The Mormon Wife: Life- Scenes in Utah, edited and annotated by Michael Austin and Ardis E. Parshall Nephi Anderson. Dorian: A Peculiar Edition with Annotated Text & Scholarship, edited by Eric W. Jepson, annotated by Mason Allred, Jacob Bender, Scott Hales, Blair Dee Hodges, Eric W. Jepson, Sarah C. Reed, and A. Arwen Taylor FROM THE PULPIT The Intimacy of Fatherhood Patrick Hemming 251 CONTRIBUTORS 261 Editor’s Note: This issue features a focus on new voices contributing both articles and essays. We welcome William Davis, Benjamin Keogh, Craig Mangum, and Brooke Larson. ARTICLES REASSESSING JOSEPH SMITH JR.’S FORMAL EDUCATION William Davis How much formal schooling did Joseph Smith obtain in his youth and early adulthood? Such a question might appear innocuous, but it is fraught with implications that extend beyond a simple historical account of his educational opportunities. The amount of Smith’s formal education, or rather the various assumptions surrounding his presumed lack of it, has been enlisted by followers and detractors alike in order to frame Smith’s life within the narratives of divinely-inspired prophet or deceptive fraud, perhaps most acutely in the context of attacking or defending the origin and authenticity of the Book of Mormon.1 As This essay has greatly benefited from assistance from the following people: Edward J. Varno and Betty McMahon of the Ontario County Historical Society, David Rodes, Sam Watters, Rick Grunder, H. Michael Marquardt, Connell O’Donovan, Brent Metcalfe, Dale R. Broadhurst, Michael Austin, and the anonymous reviewers for Dialogue. I am also particularly indebted to Dan Vogel’s Early Mormon Documents and Richard L. Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling. Any errors are entirely my own. 1. Orsamus Turner’s skeptical statement (1851) connects Smith’s purported lack of education with one of several authorship theories: “there is no founda- tion for the statement that their [the Smith family’s] original manuscript was written by a Mr. Spaulding, of Ohio . but the book itself is without doubt, a production of the Smith family, aided by Oliver Cowdery” (Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents: Volume 3 [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998], 50–51). (Subsequent citations will use the abbreviation “EMD,” followed by volume and page numbers.) By portraying Smith as being “a dull scholar,” “lazy, indo- lent,” “illiterate,” and “possessed of less than ordinary intellect,” skeptics could attribute the existence of the Book of Mormon to some alternative method or source. For “a dull scholar,” see Christopher Stafford’s statement, and for “lazy, 1 2 Dialogue,
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