To the north of Salt Lake City, two or three miles from famed Temple Square, an odd, knob-shaped promontory rises above the community of Saint and gentile. Since pioneer times, it has been called Ensign…
The Mormon Battalion reached San Diego in late January 1847 with five and a half months of service remaining in its one-year enlistment. Mustered by the Mormon church at the request of the U.S. government,…
Through Perean hills and Arabian desert,
pacing our journey by the pulsing star,
we come here, finally, to this quiet shelter
that houses the holy—to Bayt al-Lahm.
In November 1831, in a small out-of-the-way community in the Western Reserve of Ohio, known as Hiram, ten ordinary looking men met to discuss an extraordinary circumstance—the publication of a Book of Commandments. This book,…
Dialogue 26.4 (Winter 1993): 1–22
The analysis that follos is an admittedly speculative personal reflection on elements that need to be kept in mind in understanding the psychological dynamics of Joseph Smith’s creativity.
Wedged into the same chair,
my husband and son station
themselves, duplicates
of each other.
Too tired to talk,
my son listens.
When did I find the music
of another open-window autumn?
I’ve left more vodka empties near
the wardhouse dumpster.
The rights of women are a contested issue in religious communities which look to the Hebrew Bible, known as the Old Testament among Christians. A serious matter for these communities—Jewish, Christian, and Islamic—is how the…
Lynn Matthews Anderson. The Easy-to-Read Book of Mormon: Based on the Work Translated by Joseph Smith, Jr. Pittsburgh, PA: privately published, 1993. Includes Joseph Smith’s story, testimony of the three and eight witnesses, and “Words…
Prisoner for Polygamy is not simply another volume in the vast collection of diaries, histories, auto- biographies, and biographies of Mormon polygamists. Rather it is a slice of life, a document describing the immediate consequences of…