Dialogue 52.2 (Summer 2019): 59–84
Due to the fact that visiting with angels isn’t part of the normal human experience, it makes it hard for historians to prove that it happened through an academic investigation. The best way, as discussed by the author, to determine what really happened is by studying other individual’s first-hand accounts about the Gold Plates.
Dialogue 10.4 (Winter 1977): 10–45
A great value of these early manuscripts is that for the most part they substantiate the correctness of the present Book of Mormon text—fully 99.9% of the text is published correctly. In textual criticism, however, evidence should be weighed, not counted, since a unique reading in a reliable source may be better than any number of readings in less reliable sources.
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.
Podcast version of this piece. No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be,Am an attendant lord, one that will doTo swell a progress, start a scene or two,Advise the prince; no doubt,…
Dialogue 47.1 (Spring 2014):24–57
his article will examine hospitality as it is found in the Book of Mormon. We will look at instances when a person (or group) invites an outsider (or group of outsiders) into the home or community, making note of how the hospitality is exercised, what motivates it, what role it plays in the Book of Mormon narrative, and what spiritual or religious dimensions it is assigned.
Dialogue 24.4 (Winter 1993):15–50
n fact, it may be no more than a kind of perversity that brings me to admit what I will tell you now, namely, that when it comes to the Book of Mormon, that most correct of books, whose pedigree we love passionately to debate and whose very namesakes we have, all of us, become, I stand mostly with Mark Twain.
Dialogue 52.2 (Summer 2019):37–58
Ryan Thomas highlights the different metal writing cultures from around the same time as the Book of Mormon periods to see if it is historically likely for the Gold Plates to exist from that time period.
Dialogue 51.4 (Winter 2018): 105–143
Richard Sleegers contrasts 19th century Protestant teachings about salvations to what Joseph Smith taught about life after death.
Dialogue 27.3 (Fall 1994): 233–247
Snow puts Joseph Smith squarely within Joseph Campbell’s famous work The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which is also known as the heroes journey.
Dialogue 40.1 (Spring 2007): 83–136
Watson explains how the secret marriage of Louis J. Barlow to a 15-year-old girl caused a major rift among fundamentalists. Today’s fundamentalist members are still experiencing the effects of that marriage.