Download or read book The Bible Mormon Scripture and the Rhetoric of Allusivity written by Frederick and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-05-05 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most pertinent questions facing students of Mormon Studies is gaining further understanding of the function the Bible played in the composition of Joseph Smith’s primary compositions, the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. With a few notable exceptions, such as Philip Barlow’s Mormons and the Bible and Grant Hardy’s Understanding the Book of Mormon, full-length monographs devoted to this topic have been lacking. This manuscript attempts to remedy this through a close analysis of how Mormon scripture, specifically the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, integrates the writings of New Testament into its own text. This manuscript takes up the argument that through the rhetoric of allusivity (the allusion to one text by another) Joseph Smith was able to bestow upon his works an authority they would have lacked without the incorporation of biblical language. In order to provide a thorough analysis focused on how Smith incorporated the biblical text into his own texts, this work will limit itself only to those passages in Mormon scripture that allude to the Prologue of John’s gospel (John 1:1-18). The choice of the Prologue of John is due to its frequent appearance throughout Smith’s corpus as well as its recognizable language. This study further argues that the manner in which Smith incorporates the Johannine Prologue is by no means uniform but actually quite creative, taking (at least) four different forms: Echo, Allusion, Expansion, and Inversion. The methodology used in this work is based primarily upon recent developments in intertextual studies of the Bible, an analytical method that has proved to be quite effective in studying later author’s use of earlier texts.
Download or read book The Anatomy of Book of Mormon Theology Volume Two written by Joseph M. Spencer and published by Greg Kofford Books. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few scholars of the Book of Mormon have read this volume of scripture as closely and rigorously as Joseph M. Spencer. And of those, none have devoted as much time and effort as he to a theological reading of that sacred text—that is, as Spencer writes, “how it might shape responsible thinking about questions pertaining to the life of religious commitment” (p. 1:173.) The Anatomy of Book of Mormon Theology divides into two volumes exploring and thinking about these pertinent questions. Whereas the first volume principally contains essays that deal with relatively traditional theological questions and concerns, the essays in this volume ask about what new worlds might be discovered in doing theological work on the Book of Mormon, focusing on what Spencer calls “microscopic” and “macroscopic” theological readings of the text. Essays in the first set examine no more than a verse of the Book of Mormon—more often just a single phrase or two—to see what theological implications lie within the details of the text. The second set of essays ask questions about the shape and intentions of the whole of the Book of Mormon, as this can be discerned through the ways it deploys biblical texts—and especially the writings of Isaiah. A third set of essays follows the two on microscopic and macroscopic styles of theology and are invitations to blur the boundaries that separate different styles of Book of Mormon scholarship. These final essays call on Book of Mormon scholars to move closer to theology and calls on theologians to move closer to the Book of Mormon.
Download or read book A Word in Season written by Joseph M. Spencer and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2023-11-21 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking look at the relationship between two sacred texts The Book of Mormon’s narrative privileges Isaiah over other sources, provocatively interpreting and at times inventively reworking the biblical text. Joseph M. Spencer sees within the Book of Mormon a programmatic investigation regarding the meaning and relevance of the Book of Isaiah in a world increasingly removed from the context of the times that produced it. Working from the crossroads of reception studies and Mormon studies, Spencer investigates and clarifies the Book of Mormon’s questions about the vitality of Isaiah’s prophetic project. Spencer’s analysis focuses on the Book of Mormon’s three interactions with the prophet: the character of Abinadi; the resurrected Jesus Christ; and the nation-founding figure of Nephi. Working from the Book of Mormon as it was dictated, Spencer details its vital and overlooked place in Isaiah’s reception while recognizing the interpretation of Isaiah as an organizing force behind the Book of Mormon.
Download or read book Mormonism and the Emotions written by Mauro Properzi and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-05-21 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mormonism and the Emotions: An Analysis of LDS Scriptural Texts is an introductory Latterday Saint (LDS) theology of emotion that is both canonically based and scientifically informed. It highlights three widely accepted characteristics of emotion that emerge from scientific perspectives—namely, the necessity of cognition for its emergence, the personal responsibility attached to its manifestations, and its instrumentality in facilitating various processes of human development and experience. In analyzing the basic theological structure of Mormonism and its unique canonical texts the objective is to determine the extent to which LDS theology is compatible with this three-fold definition of emotion. At this basic level of explanation, the conclusion is that science and Mormon theology undoubtedly share a common perspective. The textual investigation focuses on unique Mormon scriptures and on their descriptions of six common emotions: hope, fear, joy, sorrow, love, and hate. For each of these emotional phenomena the extensive report of textual references consistently confirms an implied presence of the outlined three-fold model of emotion. Thus, the evidence points to the presence of an underlying folk model of emotion in the text that broadly matches scientific definitions. Additionally, the theological examination is enlarged with a particular focus on the Mormon theology of atonement, which is shown to play a significant role in LDS understandings of emotions. A broad exploration of such areas as epistemology, cosmology, soteriology, and the theological anthropology of Mormonism further contextualizes the analysis and roots it in the LDS theological worldview.
Download or read book Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon written by Elizabeth Fenton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-18 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the sacred text of a modern religious movement of global reach, The Book of Mormon has undeniable historical significance. That significance, this volume shows, is inextricable from the intricacy of its literary form and the audacity of its historical vision. This landmark collection brings together a diverse range of scholars in American literary studies and related fields to definitively establish The Book of Mormon as an indispensable object of Americanist inquiry not least because it is, among other things, a form of Americanist inquiry in its own right--a creative, critical reading of "America." Drawing on formalist criticism, literary and cultural theory, book history, religious studies, and even anthropological field work, Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon captures as never before the full dimensions and resonances of this "American Bible."
Download or read book The Anatomy of Book of Mormon Theology Volume One written by Joseph M. Spencer and published by Greg Kofford Books. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few scholars of the Book of Mormon have read this volume of scripture as closely and rigorously as Joseph M. Spencer. And of those, none have devoted as much time and effort as he to a theological reading of that sacred text—that is, as Spencer writes, “how it might shape responsible thinking about questions pertaining to the life of religious commitment” (p. 1:173.) The Anatomy of Book of Mormon Theology divides into two volumes exploring and thinking about these pertinent questions. Each concerns a different part of the defense of the claim that theology is and ought to be particularly important for Book of Mormon studies. In this first volume, Spencer gathers early essays in which he gestures toward theological interpretation without knowing how to defend it; essays about why theology is important to Book of Mormon scholarship and how to ensure that it does not overstep its boundaries; and essays that do theological work on the Book of Mormon in relatively obvious ways or with relatively traditional topics. The last category of essays divides into two subcategories: essays specifically on the central theological question of Jesus Christ’s atonement, as the Book of Mormon understands it; and essays on a variety of traditional theological topics, again as the Book of Mormon understands them.
Download or read book Foundational Texts of Mormonism written by Mark Ashurst-McGee and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-16 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joseph Smith, founding prophet and martyr of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, personally wrote, dictated, or commissioned thousands of documents. Among these are several highly significant sources that scholars have used over and over again in their attempts to reconstruct the founding era of Mormonism, usually by focusing solely on content, without a deep appreciation for how and why a document was produced. This book offers case studies of the sources most often used by historians of the early Mormon experience. Each chapter takes a particular document as its primary subject, considering the production of a document as an historical event in itself, with its own background, purpose, circumstances, and consequences. The documents are examined not merely as sources of information but as artifacts that reflect aspects of the general culture and particular circumstances in which they were created. This book will help historians working in the founding era of Mormonism gain a more solid grounding in the period's documentary record by supplying important information on major primary sources.
Download or read book Joseph Smith s Gold Plates written by and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-09 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Renowned historian Richard Lyman Bushman presents a vibrant history of the objects that gave birth to a new religion. According to Joseph Smith, in September of 1823 an angel appeared to him and directed him to a hill near his home. Buried there Smith found a box containing a stack of thin metal sheets, gold in color, about six inches wide, eight inches long, piled six or so inches high, bound together by large rings, and covered with what appeared to be ancient engravings. Exactly four years later, the angel allowed Smith to take the plates and instructed him to translate them into English. When the text was published, a new religion was born. The plates have had a long and active life, and the question of their reality has hovered over them from the beginning. Months before the Book of Mormon was published, newspapers began reporting on the discovery of a "Golden Bible." Within a few years over a hundred articles had appeared. Critics denounced Smith as a charlatan for claiming to have a wondrous object that he refused to show, while believers countered by pointing to witnesses who said they saw the plates. Two hundred years later the mystery of the gold plates remains. In this book renowned historian of Mormonism Richard Lyman Bushman offers a cultural history of the gold plates. Bushman examines how the plates have been imagined by both believers and critics--and by treasure-seekers, novelists, artists, scholars, and others--from Smith's first encounter with them to the present. Why have they been remembered, and how have they been used? And why do they remain objects of fascination to this day? By examining these questions, Bushman sheds new light on Mormon history and on the role of enchantment in the modern world.
Download or read book Latter day Saint Perspectives on Atonement written by Deidre Nicole Green and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2024-01-02 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New approaches to a central area of Latter-day Saint belief The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Christians have always shared a fundamental belief in the connection between personal salvation and the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. While having faith in and experiencing the atonement of Christ remains a core tenet for Latter-day Saints, some thinkers have in recent decades reconsidered traditional understandings of atonement. Deidre Nicole Green and Eric D. Huntsman edit a collection that brings together multiple and diverse approaches to thinking about Latter-day Saint views on this foundational area of theology. The essayists draw on and go beyond a wide range of perspectives, classical atonement theories, and contemporary reformulations of atonement theory. The first section focuses on scriptural and historical foundations while the second concentrates on theological explorations. Together, the contributors evaluate what is efficacious and ethical in the Latter-day Saint outlook and offer ways to reconceive those views to provide a robust theological response to contemporary criticisms about atonement. Contributors: Nicholas J. Frederick, Fiona Givens, Deidre Nicole Green, Sharon J. Harris, J.B. Haws, Eric D. Huntsman, Benjamin Keogh, Ariel Bybee Laughton, Adam S. Miller, Jenny Reeder, T. Benjamin Spackman, and Joseph M. Spencer
Download or read book Joseph Smith s Translation written by Samuel Morris Brown and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Among many remarkable claims, Mormon founder Joseph Smith reported that he had translated ancient scriptures. He dictated the Book of Mormon, an American Bible from metal plates associated with Native antiquity; directly rewrote the King James Bible; and produced a scripture, derived from Egyptian funerary papyri, which he called the Book of Abraham. Smith and his followers used the term translation to describe the genesis of these English texts, which remain canonical for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Most commenters see these scriptures as merely linguistic objects; the central and controversial question has been whether Smith's English texts are literal translations of extant source documents. On closer inspection, though, his translations are far more metaphysical than linguistic. These translations express a non-ordinary power of language to connect people across barriers of space and time. Within these metaphysical scriptures, Smith expounded a theology of human deification that he also termed "translation." This one word thus referred to a scripture capable of mediating between the living and the dead and to the transformation of humans into divine beings. Joseph Smith's projects of metaphysical translation place Mormonism at a productive edge of tense transitions later associated with secular modernity, a modernity challenged by the very existence of the Latter-day Saints. Smith's translations and the theology that supported them illuminate the power and vulnerability of his critique of American culture in transition as they set the stage for two more centuries of cultural change"--
Download or read book Understanding Covenants and Communities written by Mark Diamond and published by CCAR Press. This book was released on 2020-08-01 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A joint publication between CCAR Press and Brigham Young University. Interfaith dialogues of understanding are valuable both for challenging individuals to articulate their beliefs and practices in a careful way and for deepening connections between people of different faiths. The Jewish and Latter-day Saint communities have at times been at odds, yet they share a number of significant historical and communal bonds. Understanding Covenants and Communities comes out of the Jewish--Latter-day Saint Academic Dialogue Project, a groundbreaking interfaith encounter between these two religious communities. The fruit of five conferences held semiannually since 2016, the volume addresses such themes as theological foundations, sacred scriptures, lived experience and worship, and culture and politics. Readers will emerge with a deeper understanding of the Jewish and Latter-day Saint traditions and how the two faith communities can engage in a meaningful dialogue.
Download or read book Mormon Women s History written by Rachel Cope and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-11-29 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mormon Women’s History: Beyond Biography demonstrates that the history and experience of Mormon women is central to the history of Mormonism and to histories of American religion, politics, and culture. Yet the study of Mormon women has mostly been confined to biographies, family histories, and women’s periodicals. The contributors to Mormon Women’s History engage the vast breadth of sources left by Mormon women—journals, diaries, letters, family histories, and periodicals as well as art, poetry, material culture, theological treatises, and genealogical records—to read between the lines, reconstruct connections, recover voices, reveal meanings, and recast stories. Mormon Women’s History presents women as incredibly inter-connected. Familial ties of kinship are multiplied and stretched through the practice and memory of polygamy, social ties of community are overlaid with ancestral ethnic connections and local congregational assignments, fictive ties are woven through shared interests and collective memories of violence and trauma. Conversion to a new faith community unites and exposes the differences among Native Americans, Yankees, and Scandinavians. Lived experiences of marriage, motherhood, death, mourning, and widowhood are played out within contexts of expulsion and exile, rape and violence, transnational immigration, establishing “civilization” in a wilderness, and missionizing both to new neighbors and far away peoples. Gender defines, limits, and opens opportunities for private expression, public discourse, and popular culture. Cultural prejudices collide with doctrinal imperatives against backdrops of changing social norms, emerging professional identities, and developing ritualization and sacralization of lived religion. The stories, experiences, and examples explored in Mormon Women’s History are neither comprehensive nor conclusive, but rather suggestive of the ways that Mormon women’s history can move beyond individual lives to enhance and inform larger historical narratives.
Download or read book Joseph Smith s Translation written by Samuel Morris Brown and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-04 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mormonism's founder, Joseph Smith, claimed to have translated ancient scriptures. He dictated an American Bible from metal plates reportedly buried by ancient Jews in a nearby hill, and produced an Egyptian "Book of Abraham" derived from funerary papyri he extracted from a collection of mummies he bought from a traveling showman. In addition, he rewrote sections of the King James Version as a "New Translation" of the Bible. Smith and his followers used the term translation to describe the genesis of these English scriptures, which remain canonical for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Whether one believes him or not, the discussion has focused on whether Smith's English texts represent literal translations of extant source documents. On closer inspection, though, Smith's translations are far more metaphysical than linguistic. In Joseph Smith's Translation, Samuel Morris Brown argues that these translations express the mystical power of language and scripture to interconnect people across barriers of space and time, especially in the developing Mormon temple liturgy. He shows that Smith was devoted to an ancient metaphysics--especially the principle of correspondence, the concept of "as above, so below"--that provided an infrastructure for bridging the human and the divine as well as for his textual interpretive projects. Joseph Smith's projects of metaphysical translation place Mormonism at the productive edge of the transitions associated with shifts toward "secular modernity." This transition into modern worldviews intensified, complexly, in nineteenth-century America. The evolving legacies of Reformation and Enlightenment were the sea in which early Mormons swam, says Brown. Smith's translations and the theology that supported them illuminate the power and vulnerability of the Mormon critique of American culture in transition. This complex critique continues to resonate and illuminate to the present day.
Download or read book Contemporary Mormonism written by Claudia L. Bushman and published by . This book was released on 2008-01-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outlines the history and teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; describes Mormon religious and family life; and discusses missionaries, genealogy, race, ethnicity, class, gender, and other issues, and Salt Lake City.
Download or read book The Vision of All written by Joseph M. Spencer and published by Greg Kofford Books, Incorporated. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presented as a series of down-to-earth lectures, The Vision of All outlines a comprehensive answer to the question of why Nephi was interested in Isaiah. Along the way, the book presents both a general approach to reading Isaiah in the Book of Mormon and a set of specific tactics for making sense of Isaiah's writings.
Download or read book What is Mormonism written by Patrick Q. Mason and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-03-27 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is Mormonism? A Student’s Introduction is an easy-to-read and informative overview of the religion founded by Joseph Smith in 1830. This short and lively book covers Mormonism’s history, core beliefs, rituals, and devotional practices, as well as the impact on the daily lives of its followers. The book focuses on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Salt Lake City-based church that is the largest and best-known expression of Mormonism, whilst also exploring lesser known churches that claim descent from Smith’s original revelations. Designed for undergraduate religious studies and history students, What is Mormonism? provides a reliable and easily digestible introduction to a steadily growing religion that continues to befuddle even learned observers of American religion and culture.
Download or read book Mormonism The Basics written by John Charles Duffy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-10-26 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although often regarded as marginal or obscure, Mormonism is a significant American religious minority, numerically and politically. The successes and struggles of this U.S. born religion reveal much about how religion operates in U.S. society. Mormonism: The Basics introduces the teachings, practices, evolution, and internal diversity of this movement, whose cultural icons range from Mitt Romney to the Twilight saga, from young male missionaries in white shirts and ties to polygamous women in pastel prairie dresses. This is the first introductory text on Mormonism that tracks not only the mainstream LDS but also two other streams within the movement—the liberalized RLDS and the polygamous Fundamentalists—thus showing how Mormons have pursued different approaches to defining their identity and their place in society. The book addresses these questions. Are Mormons Christian, and why does it matter? How have Mormons worked out their relationship to the state? How have Mormons diverged in their thinking about gender and sexuality? How do rituals and regulations shape Mormon lives? What types of sacred spaces have Mormons created? What strategies have Mormons pursued to establish a global presence? Mormonism: The Basics is an ideal introduction for anyone wanting to understand this religion within its primarily American but increasingly globalized contexts.
