Mormon Heretic

Since today is MLK day, I thought it might be nice to talk about the first Black Mormon leader.  In his book on The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations, Mark Staker spends a surprising amount of time discussing the first Black Mormon Convert–a former slave known as Black Pete, and notes that he was an early leader in Kirtland.

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Dr Jeffrey Chadwick, BYU Jerusalem Center

In his 1915 classic entitled Jesus the Christ, Elder James E. Talmage maintained that Jesus Christ was born on April 6 in the year 1 BC.¹ Talmage was apparently the first LDS writer to propose this particular date.  Nearly a century has passed since his book appeared, and in that time it has become practically axiomatic among Latter-day Saints that Jesus was born on April 6 of 1 BC.

The above quote comes from the January 2011 issue of BYU Studies.  Jeffrey Chadwick has undertaken a study to figure out when Jesus was born, and he comes to the conclusion that December was the correct month.  Trying to precisely date the birth of Jesus is problematic, because Luke and Matthew can’t even agree on when Jesus was born. Read more…

Not sure what to get for someone who knows everything about Mormon history?  Here’s a last minute gift-idea: The Nauvoo City Council and High Council Minutes.  The book is due to be released on Dec 19 and is edited by John Dinger.  This is the first time that the City Council Minutes have ever been available to the public.

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Soon after the publication of the Book of Mormon, critics believed that Joseph must have plagiarized it from another source.  One of the most prominent theories since the 1830’s is the Spaulding (or Spalding) Theory.  Briefly, the theory states that Joseph Smith plagiarized (or at least used as a source) an unpublished book written by Solomon Spaulding.  Spaulding died in 1816, so the book must have been written before then.  There has been a relative resurgence of the theory because Stanford University published a statistical study in support of the theory.  BYU recently posted a rebuttal to the Stanford study.

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I know I’m behind the times. I don’t watch television very often, and I don’t have cable or satellite tv. But I recently got a Netflix subscription, and I discovered that Sister Wives was on. Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched all 18 episodes of season 1 and season 2. It really is entertaining. Over and over, I kept asking myself, “how do they afford such a large family?” Season 2, episode 3 answers the question. Read more…

How do you write a Mormon-themed Halloween post?  Thanks to SamBee at StayLDS, I was reminded that Oct 27 marks the 173rd “anniversary” of the Extermination Order.  Even more gruesome is the fact that today, Oct 30, is the 173rd anniversary of the Haun’s Mill Massacre–a true horror-story fit for any Halloween tale.

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Stephen Taysom put together a collection of essays in a new book titled Dimensions of Faith: A Mormon Studies Reader.  Topics include biographies, theory, experience, memory, and media/literature with authors such as Newell Bringhurst, Larry Foster, and Jonathan Stapley (to name a few.)

Many of us are familiar with Wilford Woodruff’s vision of the Founding Fathers in the St. George Temple.  Brian Stuy gives some interesting background on this story.  Just after the temple was dedicated in 1877, apostle and temple president Wilford Woodruff had a dream on two successive nights.  The signers of the Declaration of Independence said to Woodruff, Read more…

Tom Brokaw during a rehearsal, courtesy http://newsroom.lds.org/article/mormon-tabernacle-choir-tom-brokaw-remember-9-11

The past few days have brought a series of news stories remembering the terrible tragedy that happened 10 years ago.  I was curious to see if there would be any differences in our church services.  On the one hand, Music and the Spoken Word invited NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw to narrate a special tribute to the tragedy called Rising Above.  I watched the re-run of it Sunday night (since my church meetings were scheduled at the same time.)  I also note that President Monson wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post sharing thoughts about the tragedy.

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In 1969 Leonard Arrington asked 50 prominent Mormons to identify the “five most eminent intellectuals in Mormon history.” The list was published in Dialogue.  Twenty-four years later, Dialogue decided to run the survey again.  It was re-published a few month ago in the Deseret News, and it has been a favorite bloggernacle topic for the past few months.  BH Roberts was #1 in both surveys.  In the 1969 survey, Joseph Smith was #3, but fell to #5 in 1993.

Concerning these surveys, Yale University Professor Harold Bloom said, Read more…

Due to a scheduling conflict, Sunstone was forced to find a new venue for this year’s conference. Rather than stay at the Sheraton in Salt Lake City as they have for the past few years, the conference moved to Weber State University in Ogden. I was only able to attend the Saturday conference, but wanted to give a recap of some of the presentations I attended.

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Many people refer to “the Apocrypha” as if it is a clearly defined set of books.  The work “apocrypha” means literally “things hidden away.”  In modern usage, an apocryphal book is any book not part of the Bible.  In that sense, the Book of Mormon could be called an apocryphal book; there is a new book called American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon.  It is a collection of essays by scholars specifically addressing the Book of Mormon.

We often think that the Bible has a set number of books.  However, this is not true.   Read more…

D&C 132 was recorded on July 12, 1843.  In this section, God revealed to Joseph Smith the Celestial Law of Marriage, and showed that a man could be sealed to multiple wives if done with the proper priesthood authority.  On the other hand, women are not supposed to be sealed to multiple men.  However, verse 51 offers a vague reference:

A commandment I give unto mine handmaid, Emma Smith, your wife, whom I have given unto you, that she stay herself and partake not of that which I commanded you to offer unto her;

The subject of polygamy was quite controversial with Emma.  in a previous post, Richard Van Wagoner noted the issue of polygamy Read more…

When it comes to religion, there are 2 main camps:  fundamentalists and modernists.  Perhaps you would prefer the term “conservative” and “liberal”; to some degree, these terms make sense.  Casey Paul Griffiths came out with an article in BYU studies back in January called “The Chicago Experiment” and said “the Church had inserted itself directly into the modernist-fundamentalist controversy”.³

Griffiths describes the battle on page 92.  Theological liberals are Read more…