Dialogue 20.1 (Spring 1987): 69–75
EVEN A CASUAL REFERENCE to studies treating the Book of Mormon reveals a range of divergent explanations of its origins. At one extreme are those who are skeptical of the book’s claims to antiquity who generally conclude that it is a pious fraud, written by Joseph Smith from information available in his immediate environment.
During the spring of 1984, the editors of DIALOGUE sent a short questionnaire to all of its then-2,300 subscribers plus 600 who had let their subscriptions lapse in the previous year. At that point, the journal had been edited in Salt Lake City for exactly two years.
What kind of God has made this sapphire tide
stroking the white sand mouth of Yucatan,
outrageously extravagant, a place
fit for the baptism of God or kings
God sometimes seems to me quite unreasonable. I’ve thought so especially at times when it appears that the one gift he has clearly given me, the gift of dialogue, is also a source of pain…
The shop smelled of wood’s death-scent
released, by the carpenter’s skill,
in the spring breeze: nature
spread across the afternoon
DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT begins both its twentieth volume and its twenty-first year with the publication of this issue. Launched in 1966 as a daring and earnest effort to transform the serious conversation of…
When it comes to explaining economic matters, Americans have difficulty resisting conspiracy theories and are even more fascinated with their second cousin, the expose. Small wonder, then, that in a single week last July Fortune…
In his introduction to Mormon Polygamy: A History, Richard S. Van Wagoner correctly reminds us that even though “many Mormons are descendants of polygamists, most Church members are often no better informed on the critical…
I sit here by my gate, sniffing the stalk of sage in my hand, and wonder about the leaves drifting down on me. They float past my eyes and settle on my folded legs. Summer…
On the night of 16 November 1985, Halley’s Comet was said to be visible just to the right of the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades, in the eastern sky. That night, ten of us from the…