Final Joseph Smith Papers Volume Published on Anniversary of Prophet’s Martyrdom

In a fitting tribute to the Prophet Joseph Smith, last month on June 27, 2023, the Joseph Smith Papers Project published the final print installment of the landmark documentary editing series. A launch event held at the Church History Library in Salt Lake City celebrated the occasion of the publication of Documents, Volume 15 of … Read more

“Believing Women” Includes Believing Joseph Smith’s Plural Wives

The recent news concerning Joseph L. Bishop, the former president of the Provo Missionary Training Center (1983–1986) who admitted to sexual misconduct with one sister missionary and is accused of attempted rape of another, has rightly outraged many. So “serious and deeply disturbing” are the allegations that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints … Read more

Book Review: The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal about Mormon History

The remarkable work of the Joseph Smith Papers Project has continued unabated since the publication of Journals, Volume 1: 1832–1839 in 2008. Last year the Church Historian’s Press, which publishes the volumes of the series, released Administrative Records, Council of Fifty, Minutes, March 1844–January 1846. This landmark occasion has finally brought to light a set … Read more

As Far As It Is Translated Correctly: Translation, Interpretation, and Revelation

The first half of the eighth Article of Faith reads, “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly.” This simple statement captures the theological position on the Bible accepted by Latter-day Saints. Unlike their Protestant friends, Latter-day Saints reject the doctrine of sola scriptura and instead … Read more

Why Were the Plates Necessary?

By the way, there’s really no reason to think Joseph Smith didn’t actually have these in his possession. A question I’ve encountered from time to time is why, if Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon through revelatory means, were the golden plates necessary. Jeremy Runnells, for instance, wonders how this doesn’t make useless “the … Read more

A Thought on Joseph Smith

Carlfred Broderick (1932–1999) The Latter-day Saint psychologist and family therapist Carlfred Broderick shared the following thought on Joseph Smith in his 1996 volume My Parents Married on a Dare: And Other Favorite Essays on Life. I am impressed with the enormous amount of scholarship that has, in recent years, provided us with a far more textured … Read more

Finding God in Nature

Inside the Sacred Grove. While serving as a missionary in New England, I heard it all the time: “Oh, I don’t need organized religion. I can find God when I go in nature.” I would scoff to my companion after the encounter. “Really, you tree-hugging Vermonter hipster? You can find God in some trees?” Being … Read more

Wrestling the Angel

Alexander Louis Leloir, Jacob Wrestling With the Angel (1865). This evening I (finally) finished reading Terryl Givens’ excellent Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity. (Before I say anything else, may I express my delight in Givens using a story from the Hebrew Bible to symbolize his treatise on Mormon theology?) … Read more

“Joseph Smith: Seer, Translator, Revelator, and Prophet”

Professor Alexander L. Baugh is a professor of Church History at Brigham Young University. He is the author of numerous articles on early Church history and wrote the magnificent dissertation A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri, one of the definitive works on the 1838 Mormon War. You can read the … Read more

Resources on the First Vision

“One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!” (Joseph Smith–––History 1:17) Joseph Smith’s First Vision has attracted considerable criticism over the years. For anyone who may have encountered criticisms of the First Vision and are looking for some good resources responding … Read more