Producing Ancient Scripture

Producing Ancient Scripture PDF Author: Michael Hubbard MacKay
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781607817390
Category : Book of Mormon
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
"In 1830, Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon, a foundational work in the history of American religion that has remained an object of controversy and debate for nearly two centuries. For much of that time, scholars and members of various religious organizations have either defended Smith's writing as the divinely-inspired word of God, or, to varying degrees, called into question its religious authority. That debate, according to the editors of "Producing ancient scripture," is a tired one. What's needed today is a modern scholarly approach to the Book of Mormon and the rest of Smith's writings. To that end, the essays in this volume, as the editors note, analyze "the texts that Smith produced in terms of his personal practices and experiences, his immediate environment and circumstances, his biographical background and cultural context, and the broader contours of early American history." Different methodological approaches and an adherence to, for example, modern theories in sociology, feminism, and comparative religion, are used by contributors to argue points that , in most cases, neither prove or disprove the divine origins of Smith's texts"--

Producing Ancient Scripture

Producing Ancient Scripture PDF Author: Michael Hubbard MacKay
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781607817390
Category : Book of Mormon
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book

Book Description
"In 1830, Joseph Smith published the Book of Mormon, a foundational work in the history of American religion that has remained an object of controversy and debate for nearly two centuries. For much of that time, scholars and members of various religious organizations have either defended Smith's writing as the divinely-inspired word of God, or, to varying degrees, called into question its religious authority. That debate, according to the editors of "Producing ancient scripture," is a tired one. What's needed today is a modern scholarly approach to the Book of Mormon and the rest of Smith's writings. To that end, the essays in this volume, as the editors note, analyze "the texts that Smith produced in terms of his personal practices and experiences, his immediate environment and circumstances, his biographical background and cultural context, and the broader contours of early American history." Different methodological approaches and an adherence to, for example, modern theories in sociology, feminism, and comparative religion, are used by contributors to argue points that , in most cases, neither prove or disprove the divine origins of Smith's texts"--

Joseph Smith's Translation

Joseph Smith's Translation PDF Author: Samuel Morris Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190054255
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Mormonism's founder, Joseph Smith, claimed to have translated ancient scriptures. He dictated an American Bible from metal plates reportedly buried by ancient Jews in a nearby hill, and produced an Egyptian "Book of Abraham" derived from funerary papyri he extracted from a collection of mummies he bought from a traveling showman. In addition, he rewrote sections of the King James Version as a "New Translation" of the Bible. Smith and his followers used the term translation to describe the genesis of these English scriptures, which remain canonical for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Whether one believes him or not, the discussion has focused on whether Smith's English texts represent literal translations of extant source documents. On closer inspection, though, Smith's translations are far more metaphysical than linguistic. In Joseph Smith's Translation, Samuel Morris Brown argues that these translations express the mystical power of language and scripture to interconnect people across barriers of space and time, especially in the developing Mormon temple liturgy. He shows that Smith was devoted to an ancient metaphysics--especially the principle of correspondence, the concept of "as above, so below"--that provided an infrastructure for bridging the human and the divine as well as for his textual interpretive projects. Joseph Smith's projects of metaphysical translation place Mormonism at the productive edge of the transitions associated with shifts toward "secular modernity." This transition into modern worldviews intensified, complexly, in nineteenth-century America. The evolving legacies of Reformation and Enlightenment were the sea in which early Mormons swam, says Brown. Smith's translations and the theology that supported them illuminate the power and vulnerability of the Mormon critique of American culture in transition. This complex critique continues to resonate and illuminate to the present day.

Joseph Smith's New Translation of the Bible

Joseph Smith's New Translation of the Bible PDF Author: Kent P. Jackson
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
ISBN:
Category : Bibles
Languages : en
Pages : 888

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Book Description
This volume--the work of a lifetime--brings together all the Joseph Smith Translation manuscript in a remarkable and useful way. Now, for the first time, readers can take a careful look at the complete text, along with photos of several actual manuscript pages. The book contains a typographic transcription of all the original manuscripts, unedited and preserved exactly as dictated by the Prophet Joseph and recorded by his scribes. In addition, this volume features essays on the background, doctrinal contributions, and editorial procedures involved in the Joseph Smith Translation, as well as the history of the manuscripts since Joseph Smith's day.

The Power of Godliness

The Power of Godliness PDF Author: Jonathan Stapley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190844450
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The Power of Godliness is a key work to understand Mormon conceptions of priesthood, authority, and gender. With in-depth research and never previously used documents, Jonathan A. Stapley explores the rituals of ordination, temple "sealings," baby blessings, healing, and cunning-folk traditions. In doing so, he demonstrates that Mormon liturgy includes a much larger and more complex set of ritualized acts of worship than the specific rites of initiation, instruction, and sealing that take place within the temple walls. By exploring Mormonism's liturgy more broadly, The Power of Godliness shows both the nuances of Mormon belief and practice, and how the Mormon ordering of heaven and earth is not a mere philosophical or theological exercise. Stapley examines Mormonism's liturgical history to reveal a complete religious world, incorporating women, men, and children all participating in the construction of the Mormon universe. This book opens new possibilities for understanding the lived experiences of women and men in the Mormon past and present, and investigates what work these rituals and ritualized acts actually performed in the communities that carried them out. By tracing the development of the rituals and the work they accomplish, The Power of Godliness sheds important new light on the Mormon universe, its complex priesthoods, authorities, and powers.

The Pearl of Greatest Price

The Pearl of Greatest Price PDF Author: Terryl Givens
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190603887
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
The Pearl of Greatest Price narrates the history of Mormonism's fourth volume of scripture, canonized in 1880. The authors track its predecessors, describe its several components, and assess their theological significance within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Four principal sections are discussed, along with attendant controversies associated with each. The Book of Moses purports to be a Mosaic narrative missing from the biblical version of Genesis. Too little treated in the scholarship on Mormonism, these chapters, produced only months after the Book of Mormon was published, actually contain the theological nucleus of Latter-day Saint doctrines as well as a virtual template for the Restoration Joseph Smith was to effect. In The Pearl of Greatest Price, the author covers three principal parts that are the focus of many of the controversies engulfing Mormonism today. These parts are The Book of Abraham, The Book of Moses, and The Joseph Smith History. Most controversial of all is the Book of Abraham, a production that arose out of a group of papyri Smith acquired, along with four mummies, in 1835. Most of the papyri disappeared in the great Chicago Fire, but surviving fragments have been identified as Egyptian funerary documents. This has created one of the most serious challenges to Smith's prophetic claims the LDS church has faced. LDS scholars, however, have developed several frameworks for vindicating the inspiration of the resulting narrative and Smith's calling as a prophet. The author attempts to make sense of Smith's several, at times divergent, accounts of his First Vision, one of which is canonized as scripture. He also assesses the creedal nature of Smith's "Articles of Faith," in the context of his professed anti-creedalism. In sum, this study chronicles the volume's historical legacy and theological indispensability to the Latter-day Saint tradition, as well as the reasons for its resilience and future prospects in the face of daunting challenges.

Joseph Smith's Gold Plates

Joseph Smith's Gold Plates PDF Author:
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197676529
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Renowned historian Richard Lyman Bushman presents a vibrant history of the objects that gave birth to a new religion. According to Joseph Smith, in September of 1823 an angel appeared to him and directed him to a hill near his home. Buried there Smith found a box containing a stack of thin metal sheets, gold in color, about six inches wide, eight inches long, piled six or so inches high, bound together by large rings, and covered with what appeared to be ancient engravings. Exactly four years later, the angel allowed Smith to take the plates and instructed him to translate them into English. When the text was published, a new religion was born. The plates have had a long and active life, and the question of their reality has hovered over them from the beginning. Months before the Book of Mormon was published, newspapers began reporting on the discovery of a "Golden Bible." Within a few years over a hundred articles had appeared. Critics denounced Smith as a charlatan for claiming to have a wondrous object that he refused to show, while believers countered by pointing to witnesses who said they saw the plates. Two hundred years later the mystery of the gold plates remains. In this book renowned historian of Mormonism Richard Lyman Bushman offers a cultural history of the gold plates. Bushman examines how the plates have been imagined by both believers and critics--and by treasure-seekers, novelists, artists, scholars, and others--from Smith's first encounter with them to the present. Why have they been remembered, and how have they been used? And why do they remain objects of fascination to this day? By examining these questions, Bushman sheds new light on Mormon history and on the role of enchantment in the modern world.

Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon

Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon PDF Author: Donald W. Parry
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780934893725
Category : Book of Mormon
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith PDF Author: Susan Easton Black
Publisher: Millennial Press
ISBN: 9781932597264
Category : Historic sites
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The gripping narration of a life fore-ordained for greatness coupled with breathtaking photographs make Joseph Smith, Praise to the Man and extraordinary book. Enjoy a visual look into the Prophet's humble beginnings. Bask in the serenity of the sacred in New York, learn of revelations in Ohio, and witness the heartache of Missori. See the grandeur of restored Nauvoo and sense the pathos of Carthage.

The Saint John's Bible

The Saint John's Bible PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780980016505
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


The Annotated Book of Mormon

The Annotated Book of Mormon PDF Author:
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190082208
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 907

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Book Description
This is the first fully annotated, academic edition of the Book of Mormon in its 200-year history. Modelled after the Oxford line of annotated Bibles, it provides readers with the information they need to understand this classic text of American religious history. This edition reformats the complete scriptural text in the manner of modern Bible translations with paragraphs, quotation marks, poetic stanzas, and section headings, all of which clarify the book's complicated narrative structure. As a result, readers experience a more accessible and readable presentation than the standard version. Annotations explain the meaning and context of specific passages, delineate extended arguments, identify rhetorical patterns, explore theological implications, highlight ancient and modern parallels, and point out intertextual connections, particularly with the Bible. The Book of Mormon is subdivided into internal books; in this edition, each book is preceded by an introduction that discusses its key themes and literary features, at the same time offering a quick overview of major figures, events, and sermons. The three primary narrators--Nephi, Mormon, and Moroni--receive special attention. In addition to the annotations, which focus on the text itself, there are twelve general essays that introduce readers to various ongoing conversations about the text. There are also several maps and charts, as well as a comprehensive list of biblical quotations and allusions. The editorial material is informed by contemporary biblical and historical scholarship; while it deals forthrightly with both the strengths and weaknesses of the narrative, it nevertheless treats the Book of Mormon as a sacred text, worthy of careful study and respect.