John Turner’s well-known biography Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Harvard University Press, 2012) provides one of the most well-rounded and in-depth look at the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It remains today one of the definitive biographies of an incredibly complicated man and leader. Recently, Kurt Manwaring sat down with the author to discuss the book after eight years of time to reflect on the volume and on the prophet it discusses. What follows here is a co-post, with excerpts and commentary on the interview. For the full effect, however, I recommend going over and reading the interview here. In the interview, Turner discussed some of his thoughts about his biography on Brigham Young. He noted that he was “incredibly gratified by the book’s reception,” including many complimentary reviews across the board. He noted that there were “a few dissenting views, but I regard those in much the same way that Brigham regarded dissenters.” When asked if he would write the book differently today, Turner stated simply that “I wouldn’t change anything of significance,” just “a few very minor errors that careful readers brought to my attention.” He also stated that Brigham Young probably wouldn’t “like it very much,” but noted that he (Turner) “wouldn’t want someone to write a warts-and-all biography about me either.” Overall, John Turner still seems happy with how the biography turned out. One aspect of his biography that I appreciated…
Author: Chad Nielsen
The three great intellectual passions of Chad Nielsen are science, history/religious studies, and music. He has pursued a career in biotechnology, but maintains an active interest in both of his other passions on the side. Chad is a four-time winning contestant in the Arrington Writing Award competition held at Utah State University for his essays on Mormon history and has presented at the Logan Institute of Religion scholar’s forum and the annual meeting of the Society of Mormon Philosophy and Theology. He is a faithful Latter-day Saint who has served in a variety of music, teaching, and clerical callings at his church as well as in the music ministry of a Presbyterian church. Currently he is serving as a music missionary as a member of the Bells on Temple Square.
President Nelson’s Favorite Topics and Statements, Part 2: The Church
Last year, the Church released the guidelines by which a committee was evaluating hymns and songs for inclusion in the next hymnbook and children’s songbook and a list of topics they wanted to see more hymns about. What surprised me as I studied President Russell M. Nelson’s general conference talks was how frequently the list of topics the hymnbook committee wanted to see more hymn submissions focus on lined up with what seemed to be President Nelson’s favorite topics: “Praise and Worship”, “The Atonement of Jesus Christ”, “The Plan of Happiness”, “Gospel Learning and Revelation”, “The Family of God”, “Our Families”, “Priesthood Power and Authority”, “The Restoration of the Gospel”, “The Gathering of Israel”, “The Sabbath Day”, and “The Second Coming.”[1] Perhaps it’s coincidental, perhaps it’s just the general waters of the Church’s headquarters, but given that the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve are officially the ones compiling the new hymnbook and songbook (with input and suggestions from the committee), the fact that the initiative was announced shortly after President Nelson’s became president of the Church, and the level of interest that President Nelson has displayed towards hymns in his talks, there is a good chance that President Nelson had some input there. This is the second part of the second part of my analysis of President Russell M. Nelson’s General Conference addresses. In the previous post, I discussed some of the more Godhead-focused topics of interest in…
President Nelson’s Favorite Topics and Statements, Part 1: God and Power
This is the beginning of the second part of my analysis of President Russell M. Nelson’s general conference talks, focusing on his favorite topics and statements. In looking at what President Nelson talks about, I tried to take a few approaches to understand his favorite topics objectively. Approaches included word count analysis of his talks and the titles of his talks, noting topics that come up frequently across his talks as I read them, looking at the focus of initiatives that have come out under his administration, and observing key phrases that come up on a repeated basis. For the sake of post size, I intend to cover these topics in a series of groups, making the overall game plan as follows: Introductory Thoughts President Nelson’s Favorite Topics and Phrases God and Power The Church, Priesthood, and Gathering Israel The Family Plan of Salvation Examining the Sources in President Nelson’s Talks Potential Long-Term Impact of President Nelson’s Addresses Today’s post will focus on his comments about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, and how we can draw access their power in our lives. As for the analysis, one approach I took was to create two word clouds to identify the words that come up most frequently in President Nelson’s general conference talks and the titles of his talks. A word cloud is an image that shows words used in a text or series of texts where the words are different…
President Nelson’s Conference Addresses, Part 1: Introductory Comments
A couple years back—not long after President Russell M. Nelson was sustained as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—Elder Neil L. Anderson spoke of a project his wife undertook: While my wife, Kathy, has known President Nelson personally for nearly three decades and has no question about his divine mantle, upon his setting apart, she began reading all his general conference talks of the past 34 years, praying for an even deeper assurance of his prophetic role.[1] Now, unlike Sister Anderson, I do not know President Nelson personally and, to be frank, he was never one of the apostles who had really caught my attention, so I just wasn’t too familiar with him, his teachings, etc. This was true, even though he has been in the Quorum of the Twelve longer than I’ve been alive or involved in the Church. So, I decided that it would be a good thing for me to go through and study all his general conference addresses to get to know him better. I recently finished reading all of them (well, until this weekend, anyway). It was a good experience for me overall. I came to understand and appreciate President Nelson more fully and felt that there were some important lessons in his words that I need to follow. Now, because I’m a blogger and enjoy analysis, part of my processing the experience is going to result in a series of…
Reconsidering the Curse of Ham
In a candid moment in January 1858, an early Church leader named Zerah Pulsipher told his family that: “Most of you are young therefore you have the advantage of me because [yo]u have less Gentile Traditions to over com[e].”[1] This is an interesting observation from Pulsipher—all of the early Church members (including leaders) were converts to the Church and they brought much of their previous beliefs and traditions with them into the Church, including many good and correct beliefs, but also some incorrect beliefs as well. In the latest volume of the official history of the Church, an example of the latter is brought up in a discussion about the position early converts to the Church that were Black, such as Jane Manning James, found themselves in. We read: “Jane … knew that white Saints generally accepted black people into the fold. Like other groups of Christians at this time, however, many white Saints wrongly viewed black people as inferior, believing that black skin was the result of God’s curse on the biblical figures Cain and Ham. … Brigham Young shared some of these views.”[2] It is significant that this Church publication brings this issue up and to state, point-blank, that the early Saints (Brigham Young included) were wrong to believe this traditional idea. Likewise, Elder Quentin L. Cook recently stated that Brigham Young “said things about race that fall short of our standards today.”[3] I have discussed one part…
“Come, Follow Me” and The Family: A Proclamation to the World
The “Come, Follow Me” manuals for 2021’s course of study are available online now. Looking ahead to the next year, I have been curious to see if they were going to stick strictly to the scriptures related to the history of our modern dispensation (Doctrine and Covenants and parts of the Pearl of Great Price), or if they were going to focus on our Church’s history via the Saints volumes and have relevant sections of the scriptures discussed along the way. The authors the manuals chose to go with the former, focusing on the scriptures—with a major exception. On the week of December 13-19, 2021, rather than studying canonized sections of the Doctrine and Covenants or the Pearl of Great Price, we’re studying “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” The implications of the proclamation being the one of only two documents that is not part of the Standard Works being studied as the central text for a week sends a signal—the manual’s authors seems to feel that the proclamation is on par with the canonized scriptures in importance. Yet, the proclamation is not officially accepted as part of our canon at this time. To me, this indicates that either someone in Salt Lake City has possibly set a goal for the document to join the Standard Works by the end of next year or this is a move in a process of essentially canonizing the proclamation without actually putting…
Calls to the Quorum of the Twelve: An Analysis
For something relatively out of the blue, I want to take a moment to consider potential future candidates for the Quorum of the Twelve. The Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency are the highest in authority in the Church and are important in policy making and in defining the doctrine of the Church, so the people who are chosen to serve in these quorums are important to Church members. I believe that it’s best to not talk about these types of things in the aftermath of a death in their ranks (or when the possibility of such is likely in the near future), so I figure now is as good of time as any to discuss the issue. In the modern Church, most things are run by councils where several individuals have the ability to express their thoughts and often have an opportunity to accept or reject a proposal. That is a part of the administrative genius of the Church that Joseph Smith put in place to insure that things could continue after the death of charismatic leaders, such as himself, and to increase the likelihood that things are being done in accordance with God’s will (more people checking something, the more likely they are to catch errors). This system seems to carry over to the selection of a new apostle. President Hugh B. Brown (1883-1975) recalled that: In calling a new apostle the president of the church…
The Rise and Decline of the Angel Moroni
If you were to ask someone what the founding vision of the Restoration was at different points in our history, I suspect that you would get different answers. Certainly, for us today, the First Vision stands out. Throughout much of the nineteenth century, however, it seems that the visit of the Angel Moroni was what came to mind for Latter-day Saints. While the First Vision was spoken of and appeared in some Church publications from the 1840s onwards, the visit of Moroni was more central to Latter-day Saint thought and proselyting efforts. Yet, it was eventually eclipsed by Joseph Smith’s vision of the Father and the Son in importance, taking a secondary role in the story of the Restoration. Today, we seem to be seeing a similar transition take place in the symbolism of the Church, with the formerly dominant image of Moroni taking a backseat to Jesus the Christ. Early Latter-day Saints seem to have looked to the story of Moroni visiting Joseph Smith and the resulting Book of Mormon as the beginning of the Restoration. For example, when Oliver Cowdery wrote a brief history of the Church in 1834, he described the earliest vision of the Restoration as the visit of the Angel Moroni.[1] Even when Joseph Smith told the story of the First Vision to a visitor in 1835, he described it as merely part of “the circumstances connected with the coming forth of the book of…
Thoughts on the Gold Plates
We round out the 10 questions interview series on Joseph Smith’s translation with a discussion between Richard L. Bushman and Kurt Manwaring about the gold plates. We’ve had a good run of interviews with scholars who have worked hard to examine the essential historical records surrounding Joseph Smith’s translation projects in order to find a greater understanding of what Joseph Smith and his colleagues said and did as they worked on the Book of Mormon, the Joseph Smith Translation of the King James Bible, and the Book of Abraham. These interviews include two interviews with the editors of Producing Ancient Scripture, an interview with Samuel Brown about his understanding of Joseph Smith’s translations, an interview with Thomas Wayment about the Joseph Smith Translation, an interview with Matthew Grey about the Book of Abraham, and now this one about the gold plates and the Book of Mormon. What follows here is a co-post to the full interview at Kurt Manwaring’s site—a discussion with quotes and commentary—but I also recommend taking the time to go over and read the full 10 questions interview with Richard Bushman here. In the interview, Kurt Manwaring probed into one of the biggest concerns about the gold plates these days in different ways with his first three questions—what role did the plates play in the translation if Joseph Smith revealed the text of the Book of Mormon through seer stones? As a bit of background to these…
Hebrew Studies and the Book of Abraham
We’re continuing our discussion of Joseph Smith’s translations and the recently-released volume Producing Ancient Scripture today, turning to the Book of Abraham in an interview with Matthew Grey. This is a co-post to Kurt Manwaring’s interview with Matthew Grey, where he discusses his research about the ways in which Joseph Smith’s study of Hebrew affected the translation of the Book of Abraham. To read the full interview, which I highly recommend, follow the link here. Last week, we discussed how Joseph Smith seems to have drawn upon contemporary scholarship (the Adam Clarke commentary) as part of his translation of the King James Version of the Bible. In that interview, Thomas Wayment made the interesting remark that: “Clarke may be part of Joseph’s heritage of coming to understand how ancient languages work,” since the study of both Hebrew and the Kirtland Egyptians materials followed his main work on the Bible revision project.[1] Matthew Grey adds his insight in this week’s interview that the major catalyst for both the Egyptian materials and Joseph Smith’s study of Hebrew seems to have been the translation of the Book of Abraham. This seems to show, in the words of Grey, “a recurring pattern in Joseph Smith’s translation projects, in which he was inspired by ancient objects (including gold plates, the King James Version of the Bible, and Egyptian papyri) and proceeded in his translations by blending his revelatory gifts with his best academic efforts (such as…
Translation and the Adam Clarke Commentary
Kurt Manwaring has continued his interviews focusing on Joseph Smith’s translations with a discussion with Thomas Wayment about the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. In the interview last week, some of the editors of recently-published volume Producing Ancient Scripture made a point of discussing the findings of Thomas Wayment and Hayley Wilson-Lemmón about the influence of Adam Clarke’s Bible commentary on the Joseph Smith Translation. We’re excited to share a co-post of an interview with Dr. Wayment this week, where he shares more details about their research. What follows here is a summary with some commentary on the interview, but the full interview is available for reading here. Now, the summary of Wayment and Wilson-Lemmón’s findings are that when Joseph Smith was working on his translation of the Bible, he seems to have relied on a commentary written by Methodist theologian Adam Clarke in making decisions about some of his changes. Thomas Wayment has spent years working with the Joseph Smith Translation (JST) and first became aware that something of the sort might have happened shortly after he finished his doctoral work. As he noted in the interview, when analyzing the changes Joseph Smith made, he “saw that in a very few instances the text of the JST agreed with known textual variants. I could not account for this phenomenon at the time.” In general, as Wayment worked with comparing the JST to “what we believe is the closest…
Joseph Smith’s Studies and Translations
It has been a big year for volumes that discuss Joseph Smith’s translation projects, with contributions ranging from Terryl Givens and Brian Hauglid’s The Pearl of Great Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture last October, to William L. Davis’s Visions in a Seer Stone: Joseph Smith and the Making of the Book of Mormon this April, to Samuel Brown’s Joseph Smith’s Translation: The Words and Worlds of Early Mormonism in May, and a few other notable works. One book in particular, however, has recently been billed as groundbreaking and potentially one of the most foundational contributions to the subject: Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity, ed. Michael Hubbard MacKay, Mark Ashurst-McGee and Brian M. Hauglid. The volume is a collection of chapters written by many notable scholars of Mormonism, discussing a variety of topics related to Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and the Book of Abraham. Recently, Kurt Manwaring sat down to interview Michael Hubbard MacKay and Mark Ashurst-McGee (two of the general editors of the book). What follows here is a co-post to that interview, a summary with quotes and commentary on the interview, but to get the full treatment, I recommend going to read the interview here. It is relatively common to describe Joseph Smith’s translations as being revelations. For example, at the most recent general conference, Elder Ulisses Soares stated that the Book of Mormon “was…