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Volume 14, No. 3

Fall 1981

Articles/Essays

The Fading of the Pharaoh’s Curse: The Decline and Fall of the Priesthood Ban Against Blacks

Armand L. Mauss

Dialogue 14.3 (Fall 1981): 11–45
Mauss situates the 1978 revelation on the priesthood in modern American historical context. Everything changed for the Church during the Civil Rights Movement when people both inside and outside the Church were harshly critcizing the priesthood ban. When the world was changing, it looked like the Church was still adherring to the past.

The Word of Wisdom in Early Nineteenth-Century Perspective

Lester E. Bush Jr.

Did the Word of Wisdom Become a Commandment in 1851?

Robert J. McCue

The Word of Wisdom: From Principle to Requirement

Thomas G. Alexander

Joseph Smith and the Structure of Mormon Identity

Steven L. Olsen

Dialogue 14.3 (Fall 1981): 89–100
Joseph Smith’s 1838 account of the First Vision has taken priority in structuring Mormon identity, despite the existence of different versions. This article explores why that version is so meaningful to Latter-day Saints, reflecting on the symbolic strucutre of the account.