BYU Studies

Volume 58:2 (2019) - The bell that hung briefly in the first Nauvoo Temple was removed when the Saints left and carried to Winter Quarters and then to Utah. During the harsh winter of 1849—1850, the bell cracked and could not be repaired; it was most likely destroyed in an attempt to recast it. The bell that was installed on Temple Square in 1939 and labeled as the “Nauvoo Bell” was not the temple bell but was instead a bell purchased by Michael Hummer that had hung in a church in Iowa City. Hummer’s bell has a fascinating history of it’s own. This article traces the history of both bells by looking at foundry records, steamship bells, journals, newspapers, and the Temple Square bell itself.

Volume 58:2 (2019) - Volume four of the Revelations and Translations series presents for the first time a transcription and complete photographic reproduction of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ holdings of all the manuscripts, grammars, lexical aids, and other resources that were produced in the process of creating the book of Abraham. The publication of these materials comes at a timely moment for the Church and scholars working on the book of Abraham. The internal dynamics that are obvious in the Church’s Gospel Topics Essay on the book of Abraham are less determinative for this publication; the essay includes the claims that some translations “were not based on any known physical records” and that Latter-day Saint and other Egyptologists “agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham,” but it offers no cogent explanation of how this could occur. The publication of the grammar and alphabet materials alongside the text of the book of Abraham, however, represents a process by which Smith explored an unfamiliar language and sought to interpret it even though the language remained unknown to him. For decades, the grammar and alphabet have remained largely on the sidelines, as unwanted byproducts that were potentially produced by scribes who worked on their own. Now, these products are situated within Joseph Smith’s translation process without discrimination, and that will prove to be one of the most important contributions of this new volume.

Volume 58:2 (2019) - The question at the heart of the exchange between Korihor and Alma in the Book of Mormon concerns knowledge, what Alma calls the real. This essay probes Korihor’s appraisal of the Nephite’s Christian devotion, sorting out the basic stakes of his argument, and then looks at how Alma slowly and belatedly develops a full response to Korihor. Deviating from traditional interpretations of the parable of the seed of faith, Spencer illustrates that Alma effectively displaces knowledge as a core value, arguing that faith not only is not lesser than knowledge but also goes beyond knowledge and produces something of infinitely more value. Although one can know the truth of Christ and know it perfectly, faith continues beyond knowledge because faith aims not at acquiring knowledge, but at eternal life.

Volume 58:2 (2019) - While not described as such, Martyrs in Mexico is a continuation of the story that author F. LaMond Tullis gave us in Mormons in Mexico, a classic work, first published in 1987, detailing the growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the country just south of the United States. Martyrs in Mexico, however, has a narrower scope, focusing on one community—San Marcos, Hidalgo—from which would come well-known individuals of the Church in Mexico. Why did Tullis choose San Marcos? The obvious answer is that this community holds an important place in Church lore. San Marcos was the place of one of the Church’s most remembered (though not necessarily among American Saints) martyrdoms: that of Rafael Monroy and Vicente Morales, who were killed by a firing squad of Mexican revolutionaries for, the story goes, refusing to renounce their faith. The value of Martyrs in Mexico is that it tells more than has been told before about Rafael Monroy’s life and family and how they became a dynastic family in the Church in Mexico. It also tells us more about Vicente Morales, who has been the forgotten man in this story of martyrdom.

Volume 58:2 (2019) - This essay begins with the author’s twenty-six-hour drive from Tucson, Arizona, to Everett, Washington, seven years after he had come out to his parents that he was gay. He was miserable, and his life had become unmanageable. His parents assured him that they would love and accept him, no matter what he decided to do. During his visit in his parents’ home, he arrived at the decision that he would drink his own bitter cup and remain faithful to the covenants he had made. He makes clear in the essay that this is his own decision, not one he is recommending to anyone else. “I am not able to choose whether to have opposite-sex attractions, but I do have a multitude of other choices. As a gay Latter-day Saint, the choice I make again and again is to seek out God’s will for me and then to do it.”

Volume 58:2 (2019) - In her thought-provoking book, On Fire in Baltimore: Black Mormon Women and Conversion in a Raging City, Laura Rutter Strickling captures the complex conversion narratives of fifteen Latter-day Saint women who found space for themselves within a “historically White church”. The book provides powerful accounts of individual spiritual journeys while also grappling with the racial tensions that implicitly and explicitly influence black and white interaction within and without The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Strickling has written a compelling book that encourages readers to consider the forgotten and the overlooked in order to understand religious belief, practice, and experience within the Church of Jesus Christ. Even though Strickling focuses more on sharing the stories of why these women chose to become Latter-day Saints than she does on interpreting and analyzing the historical meaning and significance of these stories, her work does, both implicitly and explicitly, pose the question: what does it mean to be a Latter-day Saint?

Volume 58:2 (2019) - When the author’s wife was diagnosed with cancer, he came face to face with his failure as a husband to be her full partner. “The simultaneous, stark revelation of her mortality and my personal failure left me wanting to sit alone in a room and cry my way through the smothering chaos rather than accept the painful transformation that beckoned. But there was no time to stare, heartbroken, at my pitiful soul, dithering about whether I could be remade, whether we could be made whole. I would have to man up. I would need to keep house.” Hereafter follows an account of the author’s adventures in learning to cook and even to bake, as well as his observations on the Last Supper, the sacrament bread, and the priesthood. After being called to serve in an elders quorum presidency, he learned, with his wife’s tutoring, how to bake what he calls the cookies of the priesthood, to share with his quorum members.

Volume 58:2 (2019) - When the author’s wife was diagnosed with cancer, he came face to face with his failure as a husband to be her full partner. “The simultaneous, stark revelation of her mortality and my personal failure left me wanting to sit alone in a room and cry my way through the smothering chaos rather than accept the painful transformation that beckoned. But there was no time to stare, heartbroken, at my pitiful soul, dithering about whether I could be remade, whether we could be made whole. I would have to man up. I would need to keep house.” Hereafter follows an account of the author’s adventures in learning to cook and even to bake, as well as his observations on the Last Supper, the sacrament bread, and the priesthood. After being called to serve in an elders quorum presidency, he learned, with his wife’s tutoring, how to bake what he calls the cookies of the priesthood, to share with his quorum members.

Volume 58:2 (2019) - “On a cold, blustery day in 1839 in Commerce, Illinois, a small skiff appeared on the Mississippi River. As rain poured from the sky, a woman huddled in the vessel, trying to protect a two-month-old baby in her arms. She was trying to reach Commerce from Montrose, Iowa, hoping to procure a few potatoes and some flour for her six children. The woman was Mary Ann Angell Young, wife of Brigham Young, who was serving a mission in England. Her plight illustrates the difficulties of the wives of early missionaries in the Church, who were often left to fend for themselves and their children when their husbands left to serve missions. This article details some of the challenges these women faced, as well as later policy changes that helped alleviate the suffering of those left behind when their husbands and fathers served missions for the Church.”

Volume 58:2 (2019) - The oil painting Ed’s Slot, Provo River is 34″ × 40″ on linen canvas and was completed in 1994.I had painted a few fly-fishing paintings prior to this one. I was interested in capturing the brilliant light of sunset as it shines up Provo Canyon at the height of autumn color. I asked my friend Sean, who fishes the river a lot, if he would model for the painting. He eagerly agreed and then bought the original painting. I wanted my painting to be authentic, so Sean taught me a little bit about currents and the textures they make on the river and where to cast a line.