Executive Summary of the Annotated Edition of the Book of Mormon
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Critique of a Limited Geography for Book of Mormon Events
Critique of a Limited Geography for Book of Mormon Events Earl M. Wunderli DURING THE PAST FEW DECADES, a number of LDS scholars have developed various "limited geography" models of where the events of the Book of Mormon occurred. These models contrast with the traditional western hemisphere model, which is still the most familiar to Book of Mormon readers. Of the various models, the only one to have gained a following is that of John Sorenson, now emeritus professor of anthropology at Brigham Young University. His model puts all the events of the Book of Mormon essentially into southern Mexico and southern Guatemala with the Isthmus of Tehuantepec as the "narrow neck" described in the LDS scripture.1 Under this model, the Jaredites and Nephites/Lamanites were relatively small colonies living concurrently with other peoples in- habiting the rest of the hemisphere. Scholars have challenged Sorenson's model based on archaeological and other external evidence, but lay people like me are caught in the crossfire between the experts.2 We, however, can examine Sorenson's model based on what the Book of Mormon itself says. One advantage of 1. John L. Sorenson, "Digging into the Book of Mormon," Ensign, September 1984, 26- 37; October 1984, 12-23, reprinted by the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS); An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: De- seret Book Company, and Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1985); The Geography of Book of Mormon Events: A Source Book (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1990); "The Book of Mormon as a Mesoameri- can Record," in Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited, ed. -
Heartland As Hinterland: the Mesoamerican Core and North American Periphery of Book of Mormon Geography
Heartland as Hinterland: The Mesoamerican Core and North Ame Mark Alan Wright [Page 111]Abstract: The best available evidence for the Book of Mormon continues to support a limited Mesoamerican model. However, Alma 63 indicates that there was a massive northward migration in the mid-first century BC. I argue that these north-bound immigrants spread out over the centuries and established settlements that were geographically distant from the core Nephite area, far beyond the scope of the text of the Book of Mormon. I introduce the Hinterland Hypothesis and argue that it can harmonize the Mesoamerican evidence for the Book of Mormon with Joseph Smith’s statements concerning Nephite and Lamanite material culture in North America. Archaeological and anthropological evidence is used to demonstrate that migrations and cultural influence did in fact spread northward from Mesoamerica into North America in pre-Columbian times. I have been trying to avoid the topic of Book of Mormon geography for several years now, for it is a messy and oftentimes ugly endeavor. The Church, of course, has no official position on where the Book of Mormon took place. Nevertheless, there have been heated debates concerning its geography for the better part of the last century. Currently, the bitterest divide is between those who advocate for a Mesoamerican setting and those who believe that the “Heartland” of the United States is the true location. Despite what my somewhat inflammatory title may suggest, this paper is actually an attempt to synthesize [Page 112]some aspects of these two models and build a bridge between the two camps insofar as possible. -
“They Are of Ancient Date”: Jaredite Traditions and the Politics of Gadianton's Dissent
Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Faculty Publications 2020-8 “They Are of Ancient Date”: Jaredite Traditions and the Politics of Gadianton’s Dissent Dan Belnap Brigham Young University, [email protected] Daniel L. Belnap Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub Part of the Mormon Studies Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Belnap, Dan and Belnap, Daniel L., "“They Are of Ancient Date”: Jaredite Traditions and the Politics of Gadianton’s Dissent" (2020). Faculty Publications. 4479. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/4479 This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. ILLUMINATING THE RECORDS Edited by Daniel L. Belnap Published by the Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, in cooper- ation with Deseret Book Company, Salt Lake City. Visit us at rsc.byu.edu. © 2020 by Brigham Young University. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America by Sheridan Books, Inc. DESERET BOOK is a registered trademark of Deseret Book Company. Visit us at DeseretBook.com. Any uses of this material beyond those allowed by the exemptions in US copyright law, such as section 107, “Fair Use,” and section 108, “Library Copying,” require the written permission of the publisher, Religious Studies Center, 185 HGB, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of Brigham Young University or the Religious Studies Center. -
Vol. 20 Num. 2 the FARMS Review
Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011 Volume 20 Number 2 Article 17 2008 Vol. 20 Num. 2 The FARMS Review FARMS Review Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Review, FARMS (2008) "Vol. 20 Num. 2 The FARMS Review," Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011: Vol. 20 : No. 2 , Article 17. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr/vol20/iss2/17 This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011 by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. The FARMS Review The FARMS Review Editor Daniel C. Peterson Associate Editors Louis C. Midgley George L. Mitton Production Editors Don L. Brugger Larry E. Morris Cover Design Andrew D. Livingston Layout Alison Coutts Jacob D. Rawlins The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship Executive Director M. Gerald Bradford Director, FARMS Paul Y. Hoskisson Director, METI Daniel C. Peterson Director, CPART Kristian Heal Director, Publications Alison Coutts The FARMS Review Volume 20 • Number 2 • 2008 ! The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship Brigham Young University © 2008 Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship Brigham Young University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America ISSN 1550-3194 To Our Readers The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholar ship encour- ages and supports re search on the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, the Bible, other ancient scripture, and related subjects. -
When Pages Collide: Dissecting the Words of Mormon Jack M
BYU Studies Quarterly Volume 51 | Issue 4 Article 10 12-1-2012 When Pages Collide: Dissecting the Words of Mormon Jack M. Lyon Kent R. Minson Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq Recommended Citation Lyon, Jack M. and Minson, Kent R. (2012) "When Pages Collide: Dissecting the Words of Mormon," BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 51 : Iss. 4 , Article 10. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol51/iss4/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the All Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in BYU Studies Quarterly by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Lyon and Minson: When Pages Collide: Dissecting the Words of Mormon Page from the printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon, showing on line 3 the beginning of the book of Mosiah. Courtesy Community of Christ, Independence, Missouri. Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2012 1 BYU Studies Quarterly, Vol. 51, Iss. 4 [2012], Art. 10 When Pages Collide Dissecting the Words of Mormon Jack M. Lyon and Kent R. Minson erses 12–18 of the Words of Mormon have always been a bit of a puzzle. VFor stylistic and other reasons, they do not really fit with verses 1–11, so commentators have tried to explain their presence as a sort of “bridge” or “transition” that Mormon wrote to connect the record of the small plates with his abridgment from the large plates.1 This paper proposes a different explanation: Rather than being a bridge into the book of Mosiah, these verses were originally part of the book of Mosiah and should be included with it. -
The Improvement Era — 1 1 1
IMPROVEMENT ERA MARCH 1952 ELDER JOSEPH F. MERRILL «*» August 24, 1868 - February 3, 1952 «*» THE GAS RANGE HAS IT! IF you want to save time, you'll welcome Can immediately obtain the right tempera- the speed of modern gas cookery. Take ture for every food. And when you turn top burners, for example. When you turn gas down there's no lingering heat to cause on the top burner of an automatic gas boil-overs or scorching. range, you have instant heat. Any of a The best way to enjoy the many advan- thousand or more heats, too, from full flame tages of gas is in a new automatic gas range. for fast boiling to mere pinpoints of flame See the models at dealers'. Look for for keeping foods warm. This visible flame new heat eliminates guesswork. You can always the one that fits your family needs. You'll it costs less to less to operate. see exactly how much heat you have . find that buy, &4S cooks defter, costs /ess MOUNTAIN FUEL SUPPLY CO EXPLORING- By DR. FRANKLIN S. HARRIS, JR. "RffoRE people have spoken Chinese than any other language in the world's history. Billions of people have had Chinese as their native tongue. It has been estimated that until the year 1750 more books had been published in Chinese than in all other languages in the world put together. Though the Chinese spoken language has changed with time and varied with geography, for almost two thousand years the form of the written language has changed very little. -
Book of Zelph.Odt
THEBOOK OF ZELPHANOTHER TESTAMENT OF THE BOOK OF MORMON PRINTED BOOKS NOW AVAILABLE!!!CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS PERSONAL TESTIMONIES!!! THE BOOK OF ZELPH CHALLENGE!!! Title PageIntroduction First Laban (1 Lab.) The Son of Abitch Code (Son.) Second Laban (2 Lab.) Phil (Phil) The Whores (Whor.) Dances with Cureloms (Dance) The People (People) Zelph (Zel.) Poems (Poems) Melph (Mel.) Facsimile 1 The Testimony of Four Witnesses The Testimony of Nine WitnessesTestimony of Josh Anderson (The guy who translated the plates) A Brief Explanation about The Book of Zelph "No man knows my history. No man could write a book like this and live. Joseph Smith did and he got killed. But look at me, I'm not dead!" - Josh Anderson THE BOOK OF ZELPH AN ACCOUNT WRITTEN BY THE HAND OF ZELPH UPON PLATES TAKEN FROM THE PLATES OF LABAN THE YOUNGER, THE WHORES, AND DANCES WITH CURELOMS These leather plates are an abridgement of the record of the people of Laban, The Whores, Dances with Cureloms, and other ancient Americans known collectively as "Lamanites" who mixed their seed and DNA with the Asian women who accompanied Laban the Younger when he sailed to the American Continent, approximately 600BC, in an attempt to avenge the murder of his father Laban at the hands of Nephi. The followers of Nephi became known as Nephites and are a remnant of Jerusalem, and did not mix their seed with Asian whores, and therefore, should have Israelite DNA markers. Unfortunately, the Nephites were destroyed by the Lamanites approximately 400 A.D. and their remains can no longer be found on this continent, not even by scientific means, because they lived in a limited geography which nobody has been able to find. -
LDS Perspectives Podcast
LDS Perspectives Podcast Episode 47: Recreating the Book of Mormon World with Taylor Halverson and Tyler Griffin (Released August 2, 2017) This is not a verbatim transcript. Some wording and grammar has been modified for clarity. Nick Galieti: Hello, welcome to the LDS Perspectives podcast. My name is Nick Galieti, and I’ll be hosting this episode. Our guests are Taylor Halverson and Tyler Griffin. Taylor Halverson is a BYU teaching and learning consultant, he’s also a member of the Book of Mormon Central Executive Committee, and co-founder and co-director of the BYU Virtual Scriptures Group. Tyler Griffin is an associate professor of ancient scripture at BYU. He is a co-founder and co-director of the BYU Virtual Scriptures Group. His research interests include finding ways to make the scriptures more relevant and meaningful for students using technology to deepen learning and improve teacher training. Welcome you two. Thank you very much for coming in and talking to us. Both of you are not only active in Book of Mormon research but also in the distribution of that research. Taylor, you’re with Book of Mormon Central; you both are working on this virtual scripture’s group. Starting with Taylor, what are some of the challenges that you’re facing with distributing scholarship to an LDS mass audience about the Book of Mormon? Taylor Halverson: The first is probably awareness. If we’re talking about Book of Mormon Central, we are a young organization, just barely over a year old officially. Mostly it’s a challenge of raising awareness of what is available. -
A Third Jaredite Record: the Sealed Portion of the Gold Plates
Journal of Book of Mormon Studies Volume 11 Number 1 Article 10 7-31-2002 A Third Jaredite Record: The Sealed Portion of the Gold Plates Valentin Arts Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Arts, Valentin (2002) "A Third Jaredite Record: The Sealed Portion of the Gold Plates," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies: Vol. 11 : No. 1 , Article 10. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol11/iss1/10 This Feature Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Book of Mormon Studies by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Title A Third Jaredite Record: The Sealed Portion of the Gold Plates Author(s) Valentin Arts Reference Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 11/1 (2002): 50–59, 110–11. ISSN 1065-9366 (print), 2168-3158 (online) Abstract In the Book of Mormon, two records (a large engraved stone and twenty-four gold plates) contain the story of an ancient civilization known as the Jaredites. There appears to be evidence of an unpublished third record that provides more information on this people and on the history of the world. When the brother of Jared received a vision of Jesus Christ, he was taught many things but was instructed not to share them with the world until the time of his death. The author proposes that the brother of Jared did, in fact, write those things down shortly before his death and then buried them, along with the interpreting stones, to be revealed to the world according to the timing of the Lord. -
"Lamanites" and the Spirit of the Lord
"Lamanites" and the Spirit of the Lord Eugene England EDITORS' NOTE: This issue of DIALOGUE, which was funded by Dora Hartvigsen England and Eugene England Sr., and their children and guest-edited by David J. Whittaker, has been planned as an effort to increase understanding of the history of Mor- mon responses to the "Lamanites" — native peoples of the Americas and Poly- nesia. We have invited Eugene England, Jr., professor of English at BYU, to document his parents' efforts, over a period of forty years, to respond to what he names "the spirit of Lehi" — a focused interest in and effort to help those who are called Lamanites. His essay also reviews the sources and proper present use of that term (too often used with misunderstanding and offense) and the origins and prophesied future of those to whom it has been applied. y parents grew up conditioned toward racial prejudice — as did most Americans, including Mormons, through their generation and into part of mine. But something touched my father in his early life and grew con- stantly in him until he and my mother were moved at mid-life gradually to consecrate most of their life's earnings from then on to help Lamanites. I wish to call what touched them "the spirit of Lehi." It came in its earliest, somewhat vague, form to my father when he left home as a seventeen-year-old, took a job as an apprentice Union Pacific coach painter in Pocatello, Idaho, and — because he was still a farmboy in habits and woke up each morning at five — read the Book of Mormon and The Discourses of Brigham Young in his lonely boarding room. -
Hebrew Names in the Book of Mormon
HEBREW NAMES IN THE BOOK OF MORMON by John A. Tvedtnes [Editor’s note: This paper was presented by John the preface to the work, David Noel Freedman wrote, Tvedtnes at the Thirteenth World Congress of Jewish “The editor is to be commended for his catholicity and Studies in Jerusalem, August 2001.] courage and for his own original contributions in sev- eral domains including a unique treatment of the Book In the spring of 1830, Joseph Smith, a young American of Mormon.”6 Taking his cue from Welch, Donald W. farmer in the state of New York, published a volume Parry, a member of the Dead Sea Scrolls translation entitled the Book of Mormon. The book purports to be team and contributor to the Oxford series Discoveries an abridgment of the history of a small group of people in the Judaean Desert,7 published The Book of Mormon who left Jerusalem about 600 B.C.E. and, led by a Text Reformatted According to Parallelistic Patterns in prophet named Lehi, came to the Americas. The abridg- 1992,8 just a few years after he published an article on ment was essentially prepared about a thousand years “Hebrew Literary Patterns in the Book of Mormon.”9 later by a prophet named Mormon. Smith claimed that he had translated the text from metallic plates with In 1979, Welch organized the Foundation for Ancient divine assistance. Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS). Although the organization is perhaps best known for producing the While more than twenty thousand people—mostly Dead Sea Scrolls CD-ROM distributed through Brill,10 Americans and British—came to accept the book dur- one of its primary activities is the publication of schol- ing Joseph Smith’s lifetime, most people considered it arly books and papers on the Book of Mormon, includ- to be the work of a charlatan.1 Today, more than eleven ing the semiannual Journal of Book of Mormon Stud- million people profess a belief in the Book of Mormon ies. -
Where Did Joseph Smith Get His Teachings on the Family?
KnoWhy # 285 March 10 , 2017 Mongolian Family via lds.org Where Did Joseph Smith Get His Teachings on the Family? “Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed.” 3 Nephi 18:21 The Know of the gospel. In it men are commanded, “Thou shalt In the early years of the Restoration and on several occa- love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her sions, the Prophet Joseph Smith received tutorials from and none else” (Doctrine and Covenants 42:22). Seven the Lord regarding the eternal importance of families years later, the Prophet likewise taught men, “It is the and how Latter-day Saints should act in regard to their duty of a husband to love, cherish, and nourish his wife, families. Beliefs about family responsibilities became and cleave unto her and none else; he ought to honor an important part of the faith of the Latter-day Saints, her as himself, and he ought to regard her feelings with based largely on the teachings of Joseph Smith. tenderness.”3 As early as July 1830, the Lord revealed to Emma Smith, In November 1831, Joseph Smith received Doctrine through Joseph the Prophet, that she had been called to and Covenants 68, which includes instructions regard- “be for a comfort unto my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun., ing the responsibilities of parents to their children.4 This thy husband, in his afflictions, with consoling words, in 1 revelation admonishes parents who “have children in the spirit of meekness” (Doctrine and Covenants 25:5).