I have a different view of what I thought was important, and what I think a lot of people have. Of course, I shouldn’t be the one to define my own legacy–to say “this is…
Title: The Book of Mormon: A Biography
Editor: Paul C. Gutjahr
Reviewed by Blair Hodges
The Book of Mormon, that curious text said to be dug from a hill in upstate New York and translated by the gift and power of God, has been reincarnated over its 180-plus year lifespan into an interesting variety of bodies: from its various print editions, to films in silent black-and-white and full color, as children’s editions and comic books, even inspiring an award-winning Broadway musical. It’s spawned paintings, cartoon show episodes, and action figures. Since its birth in 1830 the Book of Mormon has been argued over and analyzed in print—approaches ranging from polemical to academic and any mix of the two. Most significantly, it has served as a key religious devotional text within the still-growing branches of Mormonism, the most prominent being the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has shepherded the text through translation into 109 world languages from Afrikaans to Zulu, with more on the way.1 All of this and other interesting elements of its impressive life are explored in Paul C. Gutjahr’s The Book of Mormon: A Biography, part of Princeton University Press’s impressive new “Lives of Great Religious Books” series—handsome little clothbound volumes short enough to get through in one or two sittings.
Who is speaking at our “Spirit of Dialogue” conference on September 30th at UVU? Speakers will include Dialogue luminaries Armand Mauss, Darius Gray, Alice Faulkner Burch, Ignacio Garcia, Gabrielle Blair, Patrick Mason, Meg Conly, Greg Prince, Michael Austin, Ben Park, Courtney Clark Kendrick, Paul Reeve, and Eric Samuelsen and more discussing LDS art, the issues surrounding Mormon groupthink, the place of Dialogue within Mormon studies and more. Find biographies of the presenters here.
(This Question and Answer took place between Dialogue and Quincy D. Newell, an associate professor of religious studies at Hamilton College and co-editor of the Mormon Studies Review. Dr. Newell recently finished her new book,…
2019: Blaire Ostler, “Queer Polygamy” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol 52 No. 1 (2019): 33–43. Ostler addresses the problems with what she terms the “Standard Model of Polygamy.” She discusses how these problems…
The newest Dialogue podcast features Dr. Jared Hickman, Assistant Professor in the English Department of Johns Hopkins University. Professor Hickman speaks on his essay “The Book of Mormon as Amerindian Apocalypse,” which was published in American Literature, a literary journal published by Duke University Press. 
From the Miller Eccles website: Recent official statements have left some doubt about the traditional understanding of the Book of Mormon as a history of “the Indians.” This presents us with two especially important tasks: 1) to understand why the “Indian question” seemed important enough, both politically and theologically, in Joseph Smith’s time and place, to claim such attention in a new scripture; and 2) to pay closer attention to the Book of Mormon text, which itself, in emphasizing the “Indian question,” offers a new narrative for understanding what it means. If we read with such questions in mind, we can recognize in the Book of Mormon a vision (or program) for Native American resurgence radically opposed to the European and American colonialism of Joseph Smith’s time.
The 20th Dialogue podcast features Associate Professor of Religious History at Harvard Divinity School David Holland speaking on “Full of Eyes Both Before and Behind: Joseph Smith as American Prophet and Ancient Historian.” From the Miller-Eccles website: “When writing about Joseph Smith, observers almost reflexively invoke the term “incomparable.” The Latter-day Saint prophet can indeed make comparison difficult. And this may be particularly true of his engagement with antiquity. Smith’s forays into the ancient world, from Abrahamic papyri to American Mulekites, often appear so distinctive or peculiar as to resist analogy.
Laurie Maffly-Kipp recently co-edited Proclamation to the People: Nineteenth-Century Mormonism and the Pacific Basin Frontier with Reid Neilson, a book of essays dealing with this crucial aspect of Church history. She shares some of her findings with us in the 10th Dialogue podcast taken from a lecture presented to the Miller-Eccles group.
Drawing from his book, The J. Golden Kimball Stories—the first scholarly analysis of J. Golden Kimball stories in their cultural, psychological, and historical context—professor Eric A. Eliason shares and elucidates old favorites, as well as some little known but quite delightful “Uncle Golden” yarns.
A few years ago I was researching poems written about the Book of Mormon. I had read Eliza R. Snow’s “The Lamanite” (adapted from a poem she wrote before becoming a Latter-day Saint titled “The…