Full Journal

Advisory Board Noel B. Reynolds, chair Involving Readers Grant Anderson in the Latter-day Saint James P. Bell Academic Experience Donna Lee Bowen Douglas M. Chabries John M. Murphy Editor in Chief John W. Welch Church History Board Richard Bennett, chair 19th-century history Brian Q. Cannon 20th-century history Kathryn Daynes 19th-century history Gerrit J. Dirkmaat Joseph Smith, 19th-century Mormonism Steven C. Harper documents Frederick G. Williams cultural history Liberal Arts and Sciences Board Barry R. Bickmore, chair geochemistry Daryl Hague Spanish and Portuguese Susan Howe English, poetry, drama Neal Kramer early British literature, Mormon studies Steven C. Walker Christian literature Reviews Board Gerrit van Dyk, chair Church history Herman du Toit art, museums Specialists Casualene Meyer poetry editor Thomas R. Wells photography editor Ashlee Whitaker cover art editor STUDIES QUARTERLY BYU Vol. 57 • No. 2 • 2018 ARTICLES 4 From the Editor 6 Dating the Departure of Lehi from Jerusalem Jeffrey R. Chadwick 71 Wise or Foolish: Women in Mormon Biblical Narrative Art Jennifer Champoux 131 The Development of the Council on the Disposition of the Tithes David W. Smith PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE 52 Photographs of the Interior of the Salt Lake Tabernacle, December 1905 Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Ronald L. Fox ESSAY 94 The Rise and Fall of Portugal’s Maritime Empire, a Cautionary Tale? Frederick G. Williams POETRY 156 Mystery and Dance Daniel F. Teichert BOOK REVIEWS 157 Revelations and Translations, Volume 1: Manuscript Revelation Books, edited by Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Woodford, and Steven C. Harper; and Revelations and Translations, Volume 2: Published Revelations, edited by Robin Scott Jensen, Richard E. Turley Jr., and Riley M. Lorimer Reviewed by James B. Allen 168 Paco by Nathan Thatcher Reviewed by Luke Howard 172 A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835–1870 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich Reviewed by Lowell C. “Ben” Bennion 176 Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History by Gregory A. Prince Reviewed by James B. Allen 185 The Trek East: Mormonism Meets Japan, 1901–1968by Shinji Takagi Reviewed by Stephen J. Moody BOOK NOTICES 189 Settling the Valley, Proclaiming the Gospel Out of Obscurity: Mormonism since 1945 Religion and Families: An Introduction From the Editor John W. Welch ello again, dear reader. I can’t thank you enough for your regular Hinterest in this journal, now in its fifty-ninth year of publication. I trust that you will find the contents of this issue to be every bit as valuable and as fascinating as usual. On these pages, solid traditional interests blend productively with latest developments and our most up- to-date needs. One of the most dramatic changes introduced recently into the everyday vocabulary of members of the Church has been the shift away from perceiving ourselves as teachers and moving toward reconceiving ourselves as ministers. Although true teaching has always been personal and focused on the one, the idea of teaching sometimes can be reduced to just the delivery of information, which can take on a somewhat mechanical character or impersonal tone. The wordminister, however, carries with it a sense of sensitive, heartfelt service. All of this got me wondering what ministering might have to do with our intellectual gifts in general and with this issue ofBYU Studies Quar- terly in particular. And I think the answer is, a lot. Without exception, the following pages are written in a ministering mode—of ministers, by ministers, and for those to whom they minister. Frederick G. Williams recently retired from BYU as a professor of Portuguese literature and history after a lifetime of devoted ministering in both the U.S. and Brazil. He always speaks professionally and person- ally. As a loving minister, he embraces the abounding beauty of other vibrant cultures. He sensitively surveys the history of Portugal’s rise and fall as a world power, whose maritime empire at one time reached 4 BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 2 (2018) From the Editor V 5 into Africa, Persia, Arabia, India, China, Japan, and South America. The story of how Portugal lost much of its empire to Britain, France, and Holland is a cautionary tale told with dignity and admiration. Jennifer Champoux tells of Mary and Martha, whose ministering qualities are artistically shared with viewers worldwide in Latter- day Saint works of art. Champoux elegantly analyzes these portrayals, encouraging us to take a deeper look at these women and the different forms ministering can take. A trustworthy minister stands in awe of the handling of consecrated offerings. David Smith offers a rare insider’s view of the history of the Council on the Disposition of the Tithes. An essential part of being a minister is the dutiful discharge of responsibilities, with all due care and obedience. The handling of sacred tithing by this little-known council serves well as a model for councils of ministers at all levels of ecclesiasti- cal administration. A ministering mind remembers and celebrates noble people. The photographic essay by Richard Holzapfel and Ronald Fox ministers as it keeps alive the spirit of December 1905, when the Latter-day Saints commemo- rated the one hundredth anniversary of Joseph Smith’s birth with a granite memorial in Vermont and also with Churchwide rejoicings centered at the Salt Lake Tabernacle on Temple Square. A few people alive at that time could still remember how the Prophet had lovingly ministered to them. And ministering minds must be mindful. Drawing upon decades of ministering, especially to students on hot archaeological digs and in dusty library stacks, Jeffrey R. Chadwick meticulously combines historical, calendrical, archaeological, and scriptural evidence to construct a model supporting the idea that Lehi departed Jerusalem in 605 BC, exactly six hundred years prior to the birth of the Savior. Several researchers have tried to explain the discrepancies between Lehi’s six-hundred-year prophecy and the often-assumed date of the first year of Zedekiah’s reign. Chadwick strives here to reconcile all the available information to show that the plain wording in the Book of Mormon is accurate. With all of this in mind, may these pages minister to you. These ministering authors do not just talk the talk, or study the studies. They reflect the light and appropriately apply their learning, hoping that you, as ministering readers, will be alert and open to ways in which this new information might be useful in strengthening and encouraging sis- ters and brothers, neighbors and friends. May this help us to mind our Father’s business and to attend to our sacred duties as his witnesses and servants at all times and in all places. The Family of Lehi about 600 Years before Christ by Kelly Hale. Courtesy BYU Jeru- salem Center for Near Eastern Studies. Dating the Departure of Lehi from Jerusalem Jeffrey R. Chadwick ost Latter-day Saints would agree that the prophet Lehi and his Mfamily left their home in Jerusalem and departed into the wilder- ness in the year 600 BC. This is largely due to the presence of an asterisk in 1 Nephi 2:4, present in every official edition of the Book of Mormon from 1920 to 2012, which alerts readers to a “600 BC” chronological notation at the bottom of the page. However, a number of studies over the last forty years have suggested that 600 BC cannot have been the correct date of Lehi’s departure, preferring later dates anywhere from 597 to 587 BC. But these suggestions, as well as the 600 BC notation itself, are all chronologically too late to accommodate the complicated contextual factors present in the text of First Nephi. This study will propose an earlier date for the event, within a quite narrow window of time. In what may come as a surprise to many readers, I suggest that Lehi’s departure from Jerusalem occurred sometime in November 605 BC. This dating, I argue, makes the best sense of two principal data points: (1) the birth of Jesus in late 5 BC and the death of King Herod in the early spring of 4 BC and (2) the prophecy that Jesus would be born six hundred years from the time of Lehi’s departure from Jerusalem. As I write and refine this study, I find myself in “the land of Jerusa- lem,” at Brigham Young University’s Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, with its valuable library of rigorous sources, in my thirty-fifth year of professional research and archaeological work here. Knowing this land and its history is vital in attempting a study such as this. And, as is the case in any study of ancient society and chronology, a great deal of data must be introduced from various sources and fields to address BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 2 (2018) 7 8 v BYU Studies Quarterly all of the issues that arise from a text as complicated as that of 1 Nephi. The 605 BC proposal has previously been only briefly outlined in foot- notes and endnotes of a few of my academic articles.1 This is the first time this particular proposal has been thoroughly explained and sup- ported with contextual references from Nephi’s text as well as historical, archaeological, and geographical information from the Land of Israel and the ancient Near East. At the outset, it will be important to review a sampling of other approaches to dating Lehi’s departure, both by professional scholars and other interested commentators, and to demonstrate why those approaches do not satisfy the contextual demands of the Book of Mormon. Although it may appear, at times, that I am hopping around between different and unrelated subjects, by the end of this study all of the evidence will combine to support the proposed dating of Lehi’s departure in late 605 BC.

Load more