For many members of the LDS church, the word “testimony” calls up images stretched over a lifetime: fervent declarations uttered in half darkness around waning campfires, quiet successions of stories and assurances in sunwashed chapels,…
Dialogue 29.4 (Winter 1996): 119–135
The Book of Mormon variously uses “white” and “pure” in the same verse in different editions. This article traces the history of those changes, who was behind them, and why.
Leaving you
leaves me wishing that I could hold you
like a small stone in my pocket
Participants
Todd Compton: Ph.D., classics, University of California, Los Angeles. Dean, Graduate Studies, Park College, Independence, Missouri; Director, Temple School Center, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Independence, Missouri.
Steven Epperson: Assistant Professor of History, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, specializing in American religious history and history of Christian doctrine.
Mark D. Thomas: Scriptural Studies Editor, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.
Margaret Toscano: Ph.D. candidate, comparative literature, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
David P. Wright: Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near East, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts.
Painted on the wall behind the seats where choir sings
See the shining figure in a steep green wood
Angel wears a shirtwaist robe, fabric wing as thin as filament
He looks downslope where Joseph kneels, treasure spread in dirt
To express a belief in more or less than what Christians consider to be scripture has rarely evoked a tolerant or sympathetic response.[1] “Of the Holy Scriptures/’ the Westminster Confession of Faith says, “nothing at…
Dialogue 29.4 (Winter 1998):59–83
THE BOOK OF MORMON HAS OCCASIONALLY been portrayed as a deficient
first novel. Its characters appear flat and stereotypical; the plots and characters seem to lack moral subtlety; and so on. Should we wonder that today’s high literary circles ignore it?
Tonight I wear your dress
like a shell to my most graceless springing.
The brown velvet shimmers with the folds
and the tucks hang like loosely gathered wind,
Recently I taught the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) in priesthood meeting and was, as always, impressed by its beauty, simplicity, and profundity. It seemed to me as if this was the central…
Neither masculine nor feminine a powerful
androgyny like wind surrounding shoulders
of a crowd, drawing in, along, persuasive as scent.