publication

The Temple in the Book of Mormon

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King Benjamin's Farewell Address - Minerva Teichert, 1935

Robert F. Smith has posted a good bibliography of studies on the temple in the Book of Mormon, which William Hamblin also posted.  I thought I’d do the same, with direct links to the works (some even available for reading online).  Many still believe that the Book of Mormon does not contain much of the temple in it, so this a good summary of some of the best reading on the subject:

Baker, LeGrand L.,, and Stephen D. Ricks, Who Shall Ascend Into the Hill of the Lord? The Psalms in Israel’s Temple Worship In the Old Testament and in the Book of Mormon (SLC: Eborn Books, 2010).

Bokovoy, David, “Temple Imagery in the Book of Mormon,” 4-part BYU Education Week lectures for 2011, summarized on MDDB.

Butler, D. John, Plain and Precious Things: The Temple Religion of the Book of Mormon’s Visionary Men (Amazon/Kindle eBook, 2012).

Christensen, Kevin, “The Temple, the Monarchy, and Wisdom: Lehi’s World and the Scholarship of Margaret Barker,” in Seely, Seely, and Welch, eds., Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem (Covenant Communications, 2004), 449-522.

Parry, Donald W., “Service and Temple in King Benjamin’s Speech,” JBMS, 16/2 (2007), 42-47.

Ricks, Stephen D., “The Treaty/Covenant Pattern in King Benjamin’s Address (Mosiah 1- 6).” BYU Studies, 24/2 (Spring 1984), 151-162

Spencer, Joseph M., An Other Testament: On Typology (Salem: Salt Press, 2012).

Valletta, Thomas R., “Conflicting Orders: Alma and Amulek in Ammonihah,” in D. Parry and S. Ricks, eds., The Temple in Time and Eternity (Provo: FARMS, 1999), 183-231.

Welch, John W., The Sermon at the Temple and the Sermon on the Mount (SLC: Deseret, 1990).  FARMS put out an expanded ed.

Welch, John W., Illuminating the Sermon at the Temple and Sermon on the Mount (Provo: FARMS, 1999).

Welch, John W., The Sermon on the Mount in Light of the Temple, SOTS (Ashgate, 2009).  By implication.

The Rise and Fall of FARMS

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The Rise and Fall of FARMSI’m sure many of you are by now aware of what happened this past week at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University.  I don’t want to rehash everything again here (you can read about it here, here, here, here, here, and here).  Suffice it to say that I am extremely disappointed, deeply saddened, and frankly appalled at the actions of one M. Gerald Bradford, Executive Director of the Maxwell Institute, as well as others at the Institute (some unknown), most specifically for the unimaginably rude and utterly undeserved public firing of Daniel C. Peterson, Editor of the Mormon Studies Review (formerly the FARMS Review), who has served fervently and with untiring dedication for the past twenty-three years since its inaugural issue in 1989, as well as his entire team of associate editors, including Louis C. Midgley, George L. Mitton, Gregory L. Smith and Robert White (some of whom are out of the country and may still not even know yet that they’ve been summarily handed their coats).  There aren’t words to describe how unprofessional, uncalled for, and how exquisitely ungrateful these actions are towards these devoted scholars, and the many other FARMS scholars who have been a part of the organization since 1979, and who in many ways have given their lives in sustaining and defending the kingdom of God.  For that, this is the curt note they got.

One view that has been mentioned several times by those involved is how these inconceivable few days of events has in reality arrived as the exclamation point on a very long internal struggle at the Institute over the last decade in defining its core mission.  That mission has consequently evolved in recent years.   [Read more…]

The Joseph Smith Papers

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The Joseph Smith Papers website

The Joseph Smith Papers website

Every once and a while something comes along that strikes you as absolutely remarkable. The Joseph Smith Papers that will be published by the Church is one of those things. The Church announced the establishment of The Church Historian’s Press today, the first publication of which will be a 25-30 volume series of all extant documents written by or about Joseph Smith. It will be one of the greatest historical projects that has ever been conducted by the Church. This should help lay to bed our critics’ charge that the Church hides its history. All the documents that the Church has found that have been written by Joseph Smith or about him, including journals, revelations, minutes, history, or otherwise will be published in this series, beginning in 2008 and which will take years to complete. The publication will include copies of the actual documents themselves, textual annotation, and contextual annotation. In other words, you will be able to read Joseph Smith’s words and revelations as they were written by the Prophet himself.

These documents will be invaluable to scholars studying Mormonism and its singular history, and strengthen the faith of members learning more about our faith. More particularly, it will also help us learn more about the development and revelation of the temple principles, ordinances, edifices, and importance throughout Church history. I can’t wait.

The website introducing this new publication project is similarly remarkable. See it at www.josephsmithpapers.net.