Three years ago this month, Saints, Volume 1: The Standard of Truth, 1815-1846 was published. Saints, Volume 2: No Unhallowed Hand, 1846-1893 followed about a year-and-a-half later in February 2020. If later volumes had followed the same cadence for releases,…
In general, the people who are in a position to be most influential in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been official Church leaders. That’s not always the case, however, since there are a number of members…
The attitude of Latter-day Saints towards the United States government has historically been paradoxical. As Dale Morgan wrote: “The Mormons had a profound respect for government and governmental forms, but disrespect for and outright distrust of ‘the damned rascals who…
The temples of the early Latter Day Saint movement were a place where several strands of Joseph Smith’s theology and doctrine were braided together. In the summer of 1833 (in the revelations we are studying this week for “Come, Follow…
In addition to written records, people leave behind traces of their material lives that can tell us much about who they were. In a recent interview with Kurt Manwaring, Mark Staker (a Master Curator for the Church History Department’s Historic…
“The world is changed. … Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it. … And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and…
One of the paradoxes about the Word of Wisdom is that the name (drawn from the opening line of the text from the 27 February 1833 revelation) indicates that it is good advice while it’s treated as a commandment in…
While studying in a scientific field, two major ideas were drilled into me that have been fairly helpful in interpreting history. First is the belief that nothing can ever truly be proved, only that things can be disproved. If something…
As one of Joseph Smith’s largest revelations, Doctrine and Covenants, Section 88 (or, as Joseph Smith called it, “the Olieve leaf which we have plucked from the tree of Paradise”) has a lot of different talking points. As historian Richard…
I’ve long had an interest in understanding how and why my ancestors chose to practice polygamy. During my time at Utah State University, I spent most of my spare time reading Mormon Studies materials and went on a polygamy binge…
Joseph F. Merrill is an apostle who has largely been forgotten but who, nevertheless, left a major impact on the Church that remains a part of its DNA to this day. Kurt Manwaring recently sat down for an interview with…
Words can be a bit slippery, particularly when we use them in different ways over time. Take, for example, the use of the word “ordinance” in the Church. In its most basic sense, an ordinance is an authoritative order; a…
Joseph Smith’s presidential campaign has been an area of interest for several years now (particularly since the release of the Council of Fifty minutes), and Spencer W. McBride’s recently-published Joseph Smith for President: The Prophet, the Assassins, and the Fight…
In both the Vision studied recently (D&C 76) and the first revelation studied this week (D&C 77) there is a mysterious figure referenced as Elias. Throughout the remainder of his ministry, Joseph Smith would use this name-title to refer to…
One day while I was serving my mission, my companion told me that he knew the name of the Holy Ghost. I told him I was doubtful, but he insisted that it was Eden. He opened his scriptures to Doctrine…
As I was working on my previous post, I had a thought I wanted to explore, but not enough space there: If we believe in eternal progression but also want to argue that there are limits to upward mobility in…
One of the methods that paleontologists use to understand the age of a fossil in relation to other fossils at a site is by looking at layers, or strata. The basic idea is that layers build up over time, with…
It can be easy at times, when studying the early history of the Church through the lens of the Doctrine and Covenants, to forget that there was a whole life and existence in the Church outside of the main gathering…
Some years ago, I attended a course on the Pearl of Great Price at the Logan Institute that could have just as easily been entitled “Teachings of Hugh Nibley.” The teacher was well-versed in Nibley’s writings and frequently used them…
At this point in the year, we’ve finally caught back up with the context of where we began—Section 1. The conference in early November 1831 (at which Sections 1, 67 and 68 were recorded) was focused on publishing the revelations…
