I am shocked and often surprised by the ways some of us often use the word faith. I hear a missionary in Vienna say, “Come on, Elder (or Sister), where’s your faith? Why, if we had the faith we could baptize this whole city!” I watch with some sorrow as the well-meaning but insensitive souls explain to a grieving mother and father that if the family had sufficient faith, their fifteen-year-old daughter, who has struggled with multiple sclerosis for five years, would not be forced to suffer longer. Faith is not the power of positive thinking. Faith is not the personal resolve that enables us to will some difficult situation into existence. Faith is not always the capacity to turn tragedy into celebration. Faith is a principle of power, of God’s power. We do not generate faith on our own, for “it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). We do not act ourselves into faith, for faith comes to us by the Spirit (see Moroni 10:11), given by God to suit his purposes and bless his children.

People act in faith when they act according to the will of God. To say that another way, I can have sufficient faith to move Mount Timpanogos to the middle of Utah Lake only when I know that the Lord wants it moved! I remember very well sitting with my mom and dad watching television one warm June evening in Louisiana only a few months after I had returned from a mission. The phone rang, and my father was quickly summoned to the hospital to give a priesthood blessing to someone. A sixteen-year-old boy, a friend of my younger sister, had suddenly collapsed on the softball field and had been rushed to the hospital. My dad was told that the boy had been diagnosed with a strange, degenerative nerve disease and that if something didn’t happen soon, he would die. We rushed to the hospital, took the elevator to the fifth floor, and hurried through the doors that opened to the waiting room. We were greeted by the sorrowing friends and loved ones; the young man had died. We did our best to console the mourners and then made our way home.

As we walked in the back door, my sister asked, “How is he?” I answered that her friend had passed away. She came right back with: “Well, why didn’t you raise him from the dead?”  Being the seasoned and experienced returned missionary that I was, and having most of the answers to life’s hard questions, I stuttered for a second and then turned to my father: “Yeah, why didn’t we raise him from the dead?”

Dad’s answer was kind but firm. It was also very instructive: “Because the Spirit of the Lord didn’t prompt us to do so,” he said. I have to admit that at that moment a piece of cynicism made its way into my conscious thoughts, and I said to myself: “That’s a bit of a cop-out, isn’t it?” In the years that followed, however, I came to know something about my dad’s faith: he had been with his father when in fact the Spirit had prompted and the dead had been raised to life again. He knew when to move and when not to move. He had faith.

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that working by faith is working by the power of mental exertion rather than physical force. I am persuaded that the mental exertion of which he spoke is not merely a cognitive exercise, but rather a demanding, strenuous effort, a spiritual search to know the will of God and then to accept and abide by that will. “Working by faith is not the mere speaking of a few well-chosen words,” Elder Bruce R. McConkie has written. “Anyone with the power of speech could have commanded the rotting corpse of Lazarus to come forth, but only one whose power was greater than death could bring life again to the brother of Mary and Martha. Nor is working by faith merely a mental desire, however strong, that some eventuality should occur. . . . Faith cannot be exercised contrary to the order of heaven or contrary to the will and purposes of him whose power it is. Men work by faith when they are in tune with the Spirit and when what they seek to do by mental exertion and by the spoken word is the mind and will of the Lord.”

Peace is what it’s all about in the gospel sense. Although most members of the Church know what peace is, I believe peace has not yet been given its day in court; maybe we have not fully appreciated as a people what a remarkable “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22) and what a transcendent manifestation of the new birth peace is! Peace is a priceless gift in a world that is at war with itself. Disciples look to him who is the Prince of Peace for their succor and their support. They know that peace is not only a cherished commodity in the here and now but also a harbinger of glorious things yet to be. Peace is a sure and solid sign from God that the heavens are pleased. In referring to a previous occasion when the spirit of testimony had been given, the Savior asked Oliver Cowdery, “Did I not speak peace to your mind . . . What greater witness can you have than from God?” (D&C 6:23).

Sin and neglect of duty result in disunity of the soul, inner strife, and confusion. On the other hand repentance, forgiveness, and rebirth bring quiet and rest and peace. While sin results in disorder, the Holy Spirit is an organizing principle that brings order and congruence. The world and the worldly cannot bring peace. They cannot settle the soul. “Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him. But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked” (Isaiah 57:19–20).

Hope in Christ, which is a natural result of our saving faith in Christ, comes through spiritual reawakening. We sense our place in the royal family and are warmed by the sweet family association. And what is our indication that we are on course? How do we know we are in the gospel harness? “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit” (1 John 4:13; emphasis added). The presence of God’s Spirit is the attestation, the divine assurance that we are headed in the right direction. It is God’s seal, his anointing, his unction (see 1 John 2:20) to us that our lives are in order. John Stott, a beloved Christian writer, has observed, “A seal is a mark of ownership . . . and God’s seal, by which he brands us as belonging forever to him, is the Holy Spirit himself. The Holy Spirit is the identity tag of the Christian” (Authentic Christianity, 81).

We need not be possessed of an unholy or intemperate zeal in order to be saved; we need only be constant and dependable. God is the other party with us in the gospel covenant. He is the controlling partner. He lets us know, through the influence of the Spirit, that the gospel covenant is still intact and the supernal promises are sure. The Savior invites us to learn the timeless and comforting lesson that “he who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his reward, even peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come” (D&C 59:23). Peace. Hope. Assurance. These things come to us by virtue of the atoning blood of Jesus Christ and as a natural result of our new creation. They serve as an anchor to the soul, a solid and steady reminder of who we are and Whose we are.

God does not expect us to work ourselves into spiritual, emotional, or physical exhaustion, nor does he desire that the members of the Church be truer than true. There is little virtue in excess, even in gospel excess. In fact, as we exceed the bounds of propriety and go beyond the established mark, we open ourselves to deception and ultimately to destruction. Imbalance leads to instability. If Satan cannot cause us to lie or steal or smoke or be immoral, it just may be that he will cause our strength—our zeal for goodness and righteousness—to become our weakness. He will encourage excess, for surely any virtue, when taken to the extreme, becomes a vice.

“Gospel hobbies” lead to imbalance. To instability. To distraction. To misperception. They are dangerous and should be avoided as we would any other sin. President Joseph F. Smith said: “We frequently look about us and see people who incline to extremes, who are fanatical. We may be sure that this class of people do not understand the gospel. They have forgotten, if they ever knew, that it is very unwise to take a fragment of truth and treat it as if it were the whole thing” (Gospel Doctrine, 122). To ride a gospel hobby is to participate in and perpetuate fanaticism.  On another occasion, President Smith taught, “Brethren and sisters, don’t have hobbies. Hobbies are dangerous in the Church of Christ. They are dangerous because they give undue prominence to certain principles or ideas to the detriment and dwarfing of others just as important, just as binding, just as saving as the favored doctrines or commandments.

“Hobbies give to those who encourage them a false aspect of the gospel of the Redeemer; they distort and place out of harmony its principles and teachings. The point of view is unnatural. Every principle and practice revealed from God is essential to man’s salvation, and to place any one of them unduly in front, hiding and dimming all others is unwise and dangerous; it jeopardizes our salvation, for it darkens our minds and beclouds our understandings. . . .

“We have noticed this difficulty: that Saints with hobbies are prone to judge and condemn their brethren and sisters who are not so zealous in the one particular direction of their pet theory as they are. . . . There is another phase of this difficulty—the man with a hobby is apt to assume an ‘I am holier than thou’ position, to feel puffed up and conceited, and to look with distrust, if with no severer feeling, on his brethren and sisters who do not so perfectly live that one particular law” (Gospel Doctrine, 116–17).

True excellence in gospel living—compliance with the established laws and ordinances in a quiet and consistent and patient manner—results in humility, in greater reliance upon God, and a broadening love and acceptance of one’s fellowman. What we do in the name of goodness ought to bring us closer to those we love and serve, ought to turn our hearts toward people, rather than causing us to turn our nose up in judgmental scorn and rejection. The greatest man to walk the earth, the only fully perfect human being, looked with tenderness and compassion upon those whose ways and actions were less than perfect. 

We have been counseled to stay in the mainstream of the Church, to see to it that our obedience and faithfulness reflect sane and balanced living. While we are to be true, we need not be truer than true. While we are not to partake of the vices of the world, we are to live in it. While we are to “be valiant in the testimony of Jesus” (D&C 76:79), we are not to be excessive in our zeal. We will arrive safely at the end of our gospel journey through steady and dedicated discipleship—loving and trusting the Lord, keeping his commandments, and serving his children—not through righteousness crusades or spiritual marathons. True conversion manifests itself in settled simplicity.

I was sitting in a Sunday School class once when the teacher began to address the issue of comparing ourselves to one another. He warned of the hazards of doing so and then added, “We should never compare ourselves or our situations in life to others. If you must compare yourself to someone, then compare yourself to Christ, for he is our Exemplar.” I reflected on that comment for quite a while that day and found myself thinking, “Oh, we should compare ourselves with Christ. Well, that certainly makes me feel better! From now on I will lay my deeds and my puny offerings next to his, and then I can really get (and stay) depressed.”

The fact is, comparing just doesn’t work. Period. We will either maintain a constant feeling of inadequacy or cultivate an inappropriate view of our own importance. Neither is healthy. Even some of Jesus’ chosen disciples were tempted to seek for positions of prominence, and the Master chastened them with the words, “Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” (Matthew 20:26–27; compare Mark 10:28–41). Jesus himself set the standard and abolished all forms of spiritual pecking orders when he, the greatest man to traverse earth’s paths, described his role as follows: “I am among you as he that serveth” (Luke 22:27).

Andy Stanley put this all into perspective when he asked: “When you die, do you get to go to heaven if your good deeds constitute 70 percent of your overall deeds? Or does 51 percent earn you a passing grade? . . . Or what if God’s holiness and perfection outweigh his mercy and he requires that 90 percent of our deeds be good? Or what if God grades on a curve and Mother Teresa skewed the cosmic curve, raising the bar for good deeds beyond what most of us are capable of?” (How Good Is Good Enough? 45–46.) 

While for Latter-day Saints, salvation is a family affair, coming unto Christ by covenant and carrying out the will of God is an individual undertaking. When it comes to standing at the bar of judgment, a summary of our lives (including our good deeds) will not be placed alongside anyone else’s. We are baptized one by one, confirmed one by one, ordained one by one, set apart one by one, and endowed one by one. And even though we kneel in the house of the Lord opposite the love of our life in the highest ordinance this side of heaven, the keeping of temple covenants and ultimately the matter of being conformed to the image of Christ is accomplished one soul at a time. We are all in this together. No one of us is exempt from the examinations of mortality or receives a bye in the game of life. We’re here to do the best we can. The quest for spirituality doesn’t entail our being xeroxed into the image of another human, but rather the quest to have God, through his Holy Spirit, make you and me into all that he desires us to be. Through the years and after the Holy Ghost has fashioned our hearts, after the Lord has educated our consciences, after the Spirit has matured our judgment and enhanced our wisdom, then “when [Christ] shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (Moroni 7:48; compare 1 John 3:1–2).

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the grand news, the glad tidings that through our exercise of faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, coupled with our repentance that flows therefrom, we may be forgiven of our sins and justified or made right with God. Our standing before the Almighty has thereby changed from a position of divine wrath to one of heavenly favor and acceptance; we have traveled the path from death to life (see Romans 5:9–10). “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). Or, as Peter taught, “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon him: for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:6–7; emphasis added). Surely it is the case that we can cast our burdens upon the Lord because he cares for us—that is, because he loves us. But I sense that more is intended by Peter in this passage. We can give away to Him who is the Balm of Gilead our worries, our anxieties, our frettings, our awful anticipations, for he will care for us, that is, will do the caring for us. It is as though Peter had counseled us: “Quit worrying. Don’t be so anxious. Stop wringing your hands. Let Jesus take the burden while you take the peace.”  This is what C. S. Lewis meant when he pointed out that “f you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way” (Mere Christianity, 130–31; emphasis added). 

Following his healing of a blind man, Jesus spoke plainly to the self-righteous Pharisees: “For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.” What an odd statement! And yet it goes to the heart of that which we have been discussing—our need to acknowledge our need. Those who have accepted Christ and his saving gospel come to see things as they really are. They once were blind, but now they see. Those who choose to remain in their smug state of self-assurance, assuming they see everything clearly, these are they that continue to walk in darkness. Thus Jesus concluded, “If ye were blind”—that is, if you would acknowledge and confess your blindness, your need for new eyes to see who I am and what I offer to the world—“ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth” (John 9: 41).

It was Jacob, son of Lehi, who wrote that those who are “puffed up because of their learning, and their wisdom, and their riches—yea, they are they whom he [the Holy One of Israel] despiseth; and save they shall cast these things away, and consider themselves fools before God, and come down in the depths of humility, he will not open unto them” (2 Nephi 9:42; compare 1 Corinthians 3:18; 4:10; 8:2). On the other hand, “the poor in spirit,” those who consider themselves spiritually bankrupt without heavenly assistance and divine favor, those who come unto Christ and accept his sacred offering, inherit the kingdom of heaven (see Matthew 5:3; 3 Nephi 12:3).

Let’s be wise and honest: We cannot make it on our own. We cannot pull ourselves up by our own spiritual bootstraps. We are not bright enough or powerful enough to bring to pass the mighty change necessary to see and enter the kingdom of God. We cannot perform our own eye surgery. We cannot pry our way through the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem. We cannot make ourselves happy or bring about our own fulfillment. But we can “seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written, that the grace of God the Father, and also the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of them, may be and abide in [us] forever” (Ether 12:41). Then all these things will be added unto us (see Matthew 6:33). That’s the promise, and I affirm that it’s true.

For many years I wrestled with how to take a compliment. I don’t know how many hundreds of talks or lessons I’ve given over the last thirty years, but it’s been a lot. And more than once people have come to the front of the room to thank me afterward. Those compliments have been as varied as the personalities of the people themselves. Some simply say, “Good job” or “Great talk” or “I really enjoyed your message.” The more thoughtful compliments take the form of follow-up questions, requested clarifications, or an eagerness to get a reference or source of a thought or quotation. As a speaker or teacher, I appreciate the fact that they would make the effort to provide feedback.

For the longest time, however, I just didn’t handle such compliments properly. I would often say something like, “Well, not really; I thought it was sort of mediocre” or “Thanks, but I only got through half of my material.” My wife, Shauna, noticed my discomfort and suggested that I might take a different approach: I might try saying, “Thank you.” It actually works quite well.

In recent years, I have discovered another way to handle compliments, even gushy ones about how wonderful and inspiring I am. I find myself saying things like, “Thank you. It was a great evening, wasn’t it? The Lord was good to us” or “There was a sweet Spirit in our midst. I’m grateful I was here.” Those aren’t just handy homilies to me, nor are they insincere. The longer I live and the more I experience, the more clearly I perceive the workings of the Lord; if we have an inspiring experience together, all the glory and honor and thanks ought to go to God.

I can still remember very distinctly the words of President Joseph Fielding Smith at the April 1970 conference, in which he was sustained as the tenth President of the Church. “I desire to say that no man of himself can lead this church,” President Smith affirmed. “It is the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ; he is at the head. The Church bears his name, has his priesthood, administers his gospel, preaches his doctrine, and does his work.

“He chooses men and calls them to be instruments in his hands to accomplish his purposes, and he guides and directs them in their labors. But men are only instruments in the Lord’s hands, and the honor and glory for all his servants accomplish is and should be ascribed unto him forever” (in Conference Report, April 1970, 113).

Such words should create feelings of profound humility, feelings of gratitude, of reverence, of resounding praise to Him who holds all things in his power and is the Source of our strength and very being. Elder Gerald N. Lund pointed out that “focusing on the word profit will help us better understand the concept of unprofitable servants. The word implies personal gain or benefit. Profit means an increase in assets or status or benefits.

“That is the crux of the concept of man being an unprofitable servant. God is perfect—in knowledge, power, influence, and attributes. He is the Creator of all things! What could any person—or all people together for that matter—do to bring profit (that is, an increase in assets, status, or benefits) to God? . . .

“That we are his children and he loves us is undeniable, and that situation puts us in a status far above any of his other creations. But we must somehow disabuse ourselves of any notion that we can bring personal profit to God by our actions. That would make God indebted to men, which is unthinkable” (Jesus Christ, Key to the Plan of Salvation, 120–21; emphasis added).

To the extent that we realize who we are, Whose we are, what we can do, and what we can never do for ourselves, our Heavenly Father and his Beloved Son will do everything in their power to forgive us, equip us, empower us, transform us, and ultimately glorify us. We may not have “arrived” yet, but we’re well on the way when we begin to acknowledge our limitations, confess his goodness and mercy and strength, and learn to embody an attitude of gratitude. In the language of the revelation, we are to “thank the Lord [our] God in all things” (D&C 59:7; see also v. 21). In weakness there is strength (see 2 Corinthians 12:9–10; Ether 12:27). In submission and surrender, there is power and victory. Thanks be to God, who grants us that victory through the mediation of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (see 1 Corinthians 15:57).

A few years ago, a colleague and I sat at lunch with two prominent theologians. This was not our first visit together because we had met two years earlier and had had a sweet and delightful discussion of Jesus Christ, the centrality of his Atonement, the lifting and liberating powers of his grace, and how our discipleship is and should be lived out day by day. In that initial meeting there was no defensiveness, no pretense, no effort to put the other down or prove him wrong. Instead, there was that simple exchange of views, an acknowledgment of our differences, and a spirit of rejoicing in those central features of the doctrine of Christ about which we were in complete agreement—a sobering spirit of gratitude for the incomparable blessings that flow from the life and death and transforming power of the Redeemer.

Now, two years later, we picked up where we had left off, almost as if no time had passed at all. Many things were said, diagrams were drawn on napkins, and a free flow of ideas took place. Toward the end of our meeting, one of our friends turned to me and said: “Okay Bob, here’s the one thing I would like to ask in order to determine what you really believe.” He continued: “You are standing before the judgment bar of the Almighty, and God turns to you and asks, ‘Robert Millet, what right do you have to enter heaven? Why should I let you in?’” It was not the kind of question I had anticipated. (I had assumed he would be asking something more theoretical. This question was poignant, practical, penetrating, and personal.) For about thirty seconds, I tried my best to envision such a scene, searched my soul, and sought to be as clear and candid as possible. Before I indicate exactly what I said, I want to take us forward twenty-four hours in time.

The next day I spoke to a large group of Latter-day Saint single adults from throughout New England who had gathered for a conference at MIT in Boston. My topic was “Hope in Christ.” Two-thirds of the way through my address, I felt it would be appropriate to share our experience from the day before. I posed to the young people the same question that had been posed to me. There was a noticeable silence in the room, an evidence of quiet contemplation upon a singularly significant question. I allowed them to think about it for a minute or so and then walked up to one of the young women on the front row and said: “Let’s talk about how we would respond. Perhaps I could say the following to God: ‘Well, I should go to heaven because I was baptized into the Church, served a full-time mission, married in the temple, attend worship services regularly, read my scriptures daily, pray in the morning and at night. . .’” At that point the young woman cut me off with these words: “Wait. . . . Wait. . . . I don’t feel right about your answer. It sounds like you’re reading God your résumé.”

Several hands then went up. One young man blurted out: “How did you answer the question? Tell us what you said!” I thought back upon the previous day, recalled to mind many of the feelings that swirled in my heart at the time, and told the single adults how I had answered. I looked my friend in the eye and replied: I would say to God: I claim the right to enter heaven because of my complete trust in and reliance upon the merits and mercy and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.” My questioner stared at me for about ten seconds, smiled gently, and said: “Bob, that’s the correct answer to the question.”

Obviously a person’s good works are necessary in the sense that they indicate what we are becoming through the powers of the gospel of Jesus Christ; they manifest who and what we are. But I also know there will never be enough good deeds on my part—prayers, hymns, charitable acts, financial contributions, or thousands of hours of Church service—to save myself. The work of salvation requires the work of a God. Unaided man is and will forevermore be lost, fallen, and unsaved. It is only in the strength of the Lord that we are able to face life’s challenges, handle life’s dilemmas, engage life’s contradictions, endure life’s trials, and eventually defeat life’s inevitable foe—death.

This past month Andrew Lawler published an essay on the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Smithsonian magazine (“Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?” [January 2010]: 40–47). The media likes controversy, and Lawler highlights it in this interesting essay.

Since the first discoveries in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have captured the imagination of the public, including Latter-day Saints. The importance of these textual discoveries on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea can hardly be overestimated. They open an important window onto the past, particularly for the period when the paucity of sources made it frustrating for scholars attempting to reconstruct the Jewish world during the intertestamental period. They also illuminate the world of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth, although it is doubtful that either of them spent time at the site where the scrolls were copied.

In the end, some 800 manuscripts were found in eleven caves near the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. Among them were the oldest copies of the Old Testament, except for the book of Esther. Additionally, numerous unknown texts were discovered at the site, increasing our appreciation for the complex and interesting world of Second Temple Judaism. Most of the manuscripts are written with square Hebrew characters (Aramaic or Assyrian script), but a few manuscripts exhibit what scholars call the Paleo-Hebrew script. The dating of the manuscript range from as early as 300 BC until just before the Romans destroyed the site in AD 68.

From the very beginning, many scholars believed those who collected, copied, and hid the massive library were the Essenes, a first-century Jewish sect known only, until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, by what other people had written about them. Scholars never unanimously accepted the identification, although a majority has done so reasoning that it as the best explanation for the documents and the site.

In the latest installment of the debate, some consensus has been reached. There is almost universal agreement that many of the scrolls found at the Dead Sea were not produced at the Dead Sea site. One of the current theories, highlighted in Lawler’s article, is that Jews fleeing the advancing Roman army during the Jewish War gathered at Qumran, a fort, and brought with them the writings they felt were sacred and important. This proposal suggest that “the scrolls reflect not just the views of a single dissident group [Essenes] . . . but a wider tapestry of Jewish thought” (p. 44).

If anyone ever wanted to get inside the world of academia to see how scholars deal with controversial topics, this essay will surprise and depress you as it highlights the intrigues of one such debate. In the end, the debate concerning who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls will continue to attract attention, but it will most likely never be resolved, leading us to consider the possibilities.

Guest blog by Jeffrey R. Chadwick, Jerusalem Center Professor of Archaeology and Near Eastern Studies.

Hanukkah, the Jewish Feast of Dedication, begins this Friday night at sundown. The Hebrew word Hanukkah actually means “dedication.” The eight-day festival in 2009 runs from Saturday, December 12, to Saturday, December 19. It is a holiday period of considerable significance, both religiously and historically, to Jews the world over. But it should also be of some importance to Christians, including Latter-day Saints, for without the events celebrated in Hanukkah there would have been no Christmas.
Here’s the story: The ancient Jewish people in the land of Israel faced a grave threat when the Greco-Syrian despot Antiochus IV became king of the Seleucid empire in 175 BC. Syria controlled Judea at the time, but the Jews had been treated with tolerance by previous Syrian rulers. Antiochus IV, however, saw himself as a Greek deity in human form (he even adopted the name Epiphanes), and he set a goal to convert all the peoples of his realm to the worship of the Greek pantheon.

Seeking this goal with the Jews, Antiochus had his troops occupy Jerusalem and its Jewish temple, replacing the ceremonies that honored the God of Israel with pagan rites, and converting the edifice into a shrine for Zeus. The temple was defiled. Pigs were slaughtered on its altar by false priests in acts of disdain for the law of Moses and Jewish values.

Jewish religion in general was outlawed. The scriptures (books of what we call the Old Testament) were confiscated and burned. Jewish ordinances and practices, such as circumcision and prayer to the Lord, became capital crimes. The historical book of 1 Maccabees reports that “the women who had circumcised their children they (the Syrians) put to death under the decree, hanging the babies around their necks, and destroying their families and the men who had circumcised them” (1 Maccabees 1:60). Had not something happened to change the course of Antiochus’ program of cultural genocide against the Jews, their religion and identity would have been obliterated within a few generations.

But something did happen. In 167 BC, inspired by an Aaronic priestly family known as the Hasmoneans, the people of Judea revolted against the Syrian occupiers. Their war of independence was led by a Hasmonean priest known as Judah Maccabee. Often called the Hasomonean Revolt, or alternatively the Maccabean Revolt, the insurrection gained strength and was ultimately successful in repulsing the Syrian forces. By the winter month of Kislev (around our December) in 164 BC, the Jewish freedom fighters had recaptured Jerusalem’s temple mount, and liberated the temple from the pagan Syrians. As the war continued, the Maccabean forces eventually drove the Syrians out of the land of Israel.

Having freed Jerusalem, the Jews undertook to cleanse and rededicate their holy temple. According to rabbinic tradition recorded in the Talmud (TB Shabbat 21:b), when the Hasmonean priests entered the temple they found only one jar of consecrated olive oil to light the great seven-branched lamp (menorah) in the temple holy place for a single day. But anxious to rededicate the edifice, the high priest poured the oil into the seven cups on the menorah branches, and lit the lamp. The oil that was only enough for one day burned for eight whole days, enough time for new oil to be pressed and consecrated. This was seen as a miracle and a sign that God had been with the Jews in establishing their freedom and saving their religion and identity. The eight-day dedication period was celebrated by the Jews in Israel, and eventually throughout the world, each winter from that very year until the present, beginning on the 25^th day of Kislev, and has always been known as festival of Hanukkah, the “feast of dedication.”

Modern Jews do a number of things in their Hanukkah celebrations. The first, and most important, is the lighting of Hanukkah lights. A nine-branched Hanukkah menorah (known in Hebrew as a Hanukiah) is the main instrument of the lighting. Small candles or vials of olive oil are placed in the arms of the menorah, one of which is elevated above the other eight. On the first night of Hanukkah, the elevated candle (known as the Shamash) is lit, followed by one other candle which represents the first day of Hanukkah. On the second night of Hanukkah, the Shamash and two candles are lit, on the third night three, and so forth until the eighth night of Hanukkah, when the Shamash and all eight candles are lit. The lit Hanukiah is placed in a windowsill each night so that all in the community can see that the Jewish family is celebrating the festival.

Other Hanukkah activities include the preparation and eating of foods fried in oil, such as potato latkes (spicey, fried potato pancakes) and donuts known as sufganiot. The frying in oil is a reminder of the miracle of the oil. The old practice of giving children coins to spend at Hanukkah has evolved into a gift-giving tradition for the holiday season. And children often play a game with a small, four-sided top called a dreidel. Sometimes Hanukkah is called a minor festival, but this is only because it is not mandated in the Torah (the scriptural law of Moses). In practice it is a major Jewish holiday period, widely celebrated and loved.

Those who celebrate Christmas each December may find it of interest to know that Jesus, who was genuinely Jewish, traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate Hanukkah. The Gospel of John reports, “It was . . . the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch” (John 10:22–23). Jesus honored the Hanukkah festival the same way he honored the Passover and other feasts: he taught the people of his own divine identity and mission.

Christians also ought to consider this: If there had been no Hasmonean revolt, and if Jerusalem and the temple had not been liberated and rededicated—if Antiochus and the Syrians had succeeded in obliterating Jewish religion and identity—then there would not have been a Jewish village called Nazareth, nor would there have been a Davidic Jewish village called Bethlehem. There would have been no Jewish nation awaiting the coming of that Redeemer. The entire setting for the birth and life of Jesus of Nazareth would not have existed!

But, thanks be to heaven, there was a revolt, and the Jewish nation not only survived but thrived. And because of these events, the way was prepared for the first Christmas. It seems entirely appropriate at this season that we join in wishing each other “Happy Holidays.” Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas to all!

Guest blog by Eric D. Huntsman, associate professor of ancient scripture at BYU.

The term Advent comes from the Latin adventus, meaning “coming” or “appearance.” Beginning the fourth Sunday before Christmas, Advent helps Christians not only to celebrate the First Coming of Jesus Christ but also to look forward to his glorious Second Coming. Although Advent customs may be foreign to many, like so many other seasonal traditions they are a wonderful way to turn our attention more fully to the true meaning of Christmas.

Many Advent traditions come from Germany, where Martin Luther encouraged its continued observance as a way of teaching children and families more about the significance of the coming of Jesus Christ. It came to be celebrated by both Roman Catholics and Lutherans there and has become a common celebration in many Christian faith communities throughout the world.

One of the best known Advent customs is the lighting of the candles in an Advent wreath, a simple or decorated evergreen wreath with four candles placed in the circle and a single white candle in the center. The wreath itself represents the never-ending circle of God’s love, that he is forever the same in his love toward his people. The green of the wreath, as in the Christmas tree, represents the hope of eternal life that comes through Christ and serves a reminder of the freshness of God’s love and promises. The light of the candles reminds us that Jesus is the Light of the World, that his birth represented the coming of the light into darkness, and that we are called to reflect that light in our lives.

The outer candles are purple, the color of royalty, although customarily the third one is rose or pink. Traditions differ regarding the symbolism of the candles. One is that they represent the hope, love, joy, and peace that come through Jesus Christ. Each Sunday before Christmas an additional candle is lit, creating a beautiful stepped effect as the previous weeks’ candles burn down further. Scriptures can be read and carols sung as part of the lighting, which we do before family prayer. The four candles can also represent the different Old Testament covenants that God made with his servants, beginning with Noah and continuing through Abraham, Moses, and David. The central white candle is known as the Christ candle. It is lit on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and represents the new covenant made possible through Christ.

While formally observing Advent is not part of the Latter-day Saint tradition, individuals and families can often adapt and employ such traditions for their own use. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf has spoken positively of the Advent traditions that he grew up with in Germany in a recent First Presidency Christmas devotional, as have other converts to the Church. As my wife and I were developing our own family traditions early in our marriage, observing Advent was one that we found enriched our Christmas season, and in recent years we have found that it is a wonderful way to teach our children, share spiritual experiences with them, and keep them focused on the true meaning of Christmas.

For LDS families, Advent can be adapted by reading not only from the Old Testament and New Testament but also from the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price (see our selection at my Advent site). While not all families may wish to observe such Advent customs, spending time with the scriptures and enjoying beautiful music on the Sundays of Advent can be uplifting and provide meaningful reflection on the season.

Those who are interested in the Doctrine and Covenants need to roll up their sleeves and begin to mine the treasure in the latest volume of The Joseph Smith Papers, released a little over a month ago on September 22, 2009. This stunning oversized volume, Manuscript Revelation Books (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2009), reproduces the original revelation manuscripts in actual size and color. The binding and design are excellent. The book is a treasure in itself, but the content is pure gold.

Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Woodford, and Steven C. Harper, my Religious Education colleague, edited this particular volume. The introductory essays alone are worth the hundred-dollar price tag.

This week, BYU Studies released its latest issue (48, no. 3), containing excellent essays by the editors and by Grant Underwood (BYU History Department) highlighting the discovery of the manuscript for ”A Book of Commandments and Revelation” (pp. 7–17), a review of the history of the manuscript through publication of the 1833 Book of Commandments and the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants (18–52), a discussion of the significance the manuscripts (53–66), and a review of how the manuscript can help us understand the “process by which Joseph Smith received, recorded, and published” his revelations (67–84). Added to these four outstanding essays is a response by the former archivist of the Community of Christ, Ron Romig (85–91).

Steve Harper notes, “The Book of Commandments and Revelations (BCR) will have an immense influence on the scholarly study of early Mormon revelations” (53). That is definitely true. His work, along with that of his coeditors, will provide current and future historians an opportunity to examine these important primary sources without traveling to Salt Lake City, Independence, or Provo. The publication’s impact on our understanding of Joseph Smith’s prophetic career cannot be fully appreciated now. However, BYU Studies has begun providing the kind of thoughtful consideration of the Book of Commandments and Revelation manuscript that will appear during the next few years and decades. If you own Manuscript Revelation Books, you need to get a copy of the latest BYU Studies—an important and valuable contribution to our understanding of The Joseph Smith Papers.

Guest blog by Clyde Williams, professor of ancient scripture at BYU.

My recollections of general conference as a young boy take me back to the George Albert Smith Fieldhouse and long lines outside the Tabernacle on Temple Square for the priesthood session. I remember in April 1965 as the aging President David O. McKay attended one of his last priesthood sessions. After he gave a brief greeting and expressed appreciation for the priesthood brethren, all stood in the fieldhouse and the Tabernacle and sang “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet.” For me the feeling was electric. There came a powerful witness to my heart that he was the Lord’s prophet on earth.

Since those early days, the personal significance and importance of general conference has continued to grow for me. I remember when announcements were made of significant policies, procedures, or administrative changes such as the inclusion of what is now D&C 137 and 138, the new LDS edition of the Bible, the formation of the quorums of the Seventy, the subtitle for the Book of Mormon, the proclamation on the family, President Hinckley’s statements on body piercing and tattoos, and the stand against same-sex marriage.

How do we respond when reminders of principles and practices are given or new policies are announced? Our initial response can be telling or informative. When we are spiritually in tune, we can, like King Benjamin’s people, be blessed with “the manifestations of his Spirit” and thus “have great views of that which is to come” (Mosiah 5:3). We will sense a need for something to be said on an issue, and when it is said we find ourselves in harmony.

A passage struck me as being profound when applied to general conference:

Son of man, the children of thy people still are talking against [meaning near] thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord.

And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness.

And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not. (Ezekiel 33:30–32)

Clearly, Ezekiel here describes a people who think highly of a living prophet but do not heed his words. It is like people speaking highly of President Thomas S. Monson and how good his talks are and yet, when it comes down to it, not following his counsel.

Another trap one can fall into is thinking general conference is like a buffet table. Commenting on this potential pitfall, Elder Neal A. Maxwell explained: “Our relationship to living prophets is not one in which their sayings are a smorgasbord from which we may take only that which pleases us. We are to partake of all that is placed before us, including the spinach, and to leave a clean plate!” (Things As They Really Are [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1978], 74).

In October conference in 1975, President Kimball was concluding the conference and spoke of the many uplifting and inspired talks that had been given. I was a bit stunned and sobered by what he said next: “While sitting here, I have made up my mind that when I go home from this conference this night there are many, many areas in my life that I can perfect. I have made a mental list of them, and I expect to go to work as soon as we get through with conference” (in Conference Report, October 1975, 164). Who among the Saints did not feel there were many things we needed to work on? I was moved to tears as I thought about this humble prophet who had given so much of his life and would yet give so much more as he sought to do the Lord’s will.

The seriousness with which President Kimball approached general conference was apparent. He also made it clear as he closed the conference that October afternoon how everyone else should view the conference proceedings:

Well, now, brothers and sisters, this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to all who are listening in, we have not been fooling. What we have said to you in these three days is truth, downright truth, and it has a definite bearing upon the salvation and exaltation of every soul that could listen and hear. (click to hear President Kimball’s statement)

As you listened to his voice, you can feel the earnest and affirming power by which these word were said. I believe they hold true for every general conference. I am truly grateful for the profound impact that general conference has had and continues to have in my life.

Guest blog by David Rolph Seely, professor of ancient scripture at BYU.

The Day of Atonement—Yom Kippur in Hebrew—is the most solemn and holy day of the Israelite calendar. It falls on the tenth day of the seventh month, and this year (2009) it will begin at sundown on September 27. Ancient Israelites prepared themselves by refraining from work as on the Sabbath, repenting of their sins, and fasting. The purpose of this day is described in Leviticus: “For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord” (Leviticus 16:30). The high priest performed a series of rituals, including washing himself, offering sacrifices, and taking blood into the Holy of Holies of the temple, where he sprinkled it on the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant. The power of the Lord to cleanse his people was dramatized when the high priest cast lots over two goats. One goat was designated as belonging to the Lord and was sacrificed by the high priest. The high priest took the other goat and transferred the sins of the people to this goat by laying his hands on its head. The second goat, called the “scapegoat” in English, was driven into the wilderness, symbolizing the cleansing of the people from the stain of ritual impurity and sin.

The book of Hebrews in the New Testament teaches the doctrine of the Atonement of Christ through the symbolism of the Day of Atonement. Christians believe that Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice to cleanse his people from their sins. Just as the high priest on the Day of Atonement, Jesus “by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:12). Because Latter-day Saints understand the Day of Atonement was part of the law of Moses fulfilled in Christ, we do not formally celebrate this occasion, but we do regularly take of the tokens of the sacrament as symbols of the power of the redemption of Christ to cleanse us from our sins and transgressions.

After the destruction of the temple in AD 70 the Jews were no longer able to offer sacrifice, and the celebration of Yom Kippur moved from the temple to the synagogue. Today Jews celebrate Yom Kippur as the culmination of the process of repentance that begins with Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the seventh month. For nine days Jews engage in personal retrospection and repentance, reaching out to those around them to confess their sins and ask forgiveness. On the tenth day, Yom Kippur, each individual solemnly presents him or herself before God in the synagogue in fasting and prayer seeking for divine forgiveness for their sins and shortcomings. In light of the absence of the temple, the Talmud prescribes the study and recitation of the biblical ritual described in Leviticus 16 on Yom Kippur. The meaning of Yom Kippur is eloquently expressed in Song of Songs Rabbah 6.11: “Just as a nut falls into some dirt you can take it up and wipe it and rinse it and wash it and it is restored to its former condition and is fit for eating, so however much Israel may be defiled with iniquities all the rest of the year, when the Day of Atonement comes it makes atonement for them, as it is written, ‘For on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you.’”

One year my family and I experienced Yom Kippur in Jerusalem. There was complete silence in the streets throughout the day as all normal daily activities came to a complete stop. It was a vivid reminder of the need to take time, whether once a year, or once a week, to pause and inventory one’s standing with God and with each other, and to seek to find “at-one-ment” with the Lord through repentance and divine forgiveness.

Guest blog by Jeffrey R. Chadwick, Jerusalem Center professor of Archaeology and Near Eastern studies, and associate professor of Church history and doctrine at BYU.

Rosh Hashannah is the annual festival holiday marking the Jewish New Year. The Hebrew term actually means “head of the year.” The festival falls on the first day of the first lunar month of the autumn season. In 2009, Rosh Hashannah will begin on Friday night, September 18, and will be celebrated all day Saturday, September 19. In many Jewish communities, a second day of Rosh Hashannah will be celebrated on Sunday, September 20.

One of the most festive of all Jewish holidays, Rosh Hashannah is one of the two High Holy Days in Judaism, the other being the solemn fasting day known as Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), which falls ten days afterward. The period between these two High Holy Days is known as “the Days of Awe,” a period when the Jewish faithful consider their trespasses, personal and national, reflect upon the need for repentance, and consider the future. It is significant that such a period is commenced with a festival as joyful and full of hope and anticipation for the future as Rosh Hashannah.

On Rosh Hashannah there are different ways to celebrate. Of course, many Jews will attend the special service for the new year held in their local synagogue. A significant act, stated as a command in Leviticus 23:24, is to blow the shofar (Hebrew for “ram’s horn,” translated “trumpet” in the King James Bible) on the festival day. Combinations of short, medium, and long blasts are blown on the shofar up to one hundred times during the day of Rosh Hashannah. Another practice is to enjoy fall fruits, such as pomegranates, grapes, and apples slices dipped in honey, and to give gifts of apples and honey to family and friends. Apples and honey have become an iconic symbol of Rosh Hashannah, recognized by Jews everywhere as an emblem of the festival.

Jews greet their families and friends and wish them Shannah Tovah (“a good year”) and Ktivah Vehatimah Tovah (“may you be inscribed and sealed for good”), referring to being well inscribed in the metaphoric books of life. The Talmud teaches that “three books are opened (in heaven) on Rosh Hashannah: the book of life of the wicked, the book of life of the righteous, and the book of life of those in between” (Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashannah 16.b). This passage is interesting in light of New Testament references to the books from which we are judged (see Revelation 20:12) and resurrections to different glories (see John 5:28-29). The Talmud, in its own way, seems to be referring to three degrees of judgment and postmortal reward.

In the Jewish scripture called the Hebrew Bible (Christians call it the Old Testament), the day of this festival is noted as falling on the first day of “the seventh month” (Leviticus 23:24), and is not given a name. The commandment to observe the festival simply directs that day be regarded as a Sabbath and a holy convocation and instructs that the “blowing of trumpets” take place. In early Old Testament times before the Babylonian captivity, the festival was not regarded as the first day of the new year. So how did that designation come about?

While in Babylon, ancient Jews were exposed to an annual count that began with an autumnal new year, and it became expedient for them to adopt that cycle for their practical yearly reckoning. So counting the year from the first autumn month became something of a second, secular calendar for them. Though the biblical spring new year was not forgotten, over time the autumnal new year became more widely observed. And because that day fell on the same autumn day as the festival of trumpeting mentioned in Leviticus 23, the practice of calling it the “head of the year” (Rosh Hashannah) came into being—all before the time of Jesus. And one more interesting fact: it is quite likely that the “feast of the Jews” mentioned in John 5:1 was not Passover (as mentioned in some footnotes) but actually Rosh Hashannah!

So Shannah Tova to all!

This month’s National Geographic magazine features a fascinating article by Peter Miller (“Before New York: Rediscovering the Wilderness of 1609,” 122–37). The article opens a window to the past—when the first European settlers began to explore and settle the island of Manhattan. Robert Clark provides stunning photographs, and Markley Boyer and Philip Staub add important illustrations to re-create the natural landscape of Manhattan before it changed forever. Certainly native peoples left their footprints on the land as they interacted with the flora and fauna, but European settlement impacted the land in profound ways.

On my next visit to the Big Apple, I am tucking this article in my bag so I can pull it out as I walk around the city to see beyond the concrete and asphalt to a world that once existed in the same geographical location. I am going to visualize New York before Henry Hudson arrived in 1609, looking for hints of that time and place.

The settling of much of New York State was a pivotal time in U.S. history. It witnessed the creation of a new nation (1776–87), the religious revivals known as the Second Great Awakening (1816–26), and the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ (1820–30).

This past weekend I invited a small group from BYU to visit New York State to envision a specific point in early Church history: the spring morning in 1820 when Joseph Smith saw the Father and the Son in the Sacred Grove. Along with Kent P. Jackson, associate dean of Religious Education, and Brent Nordgren, production manager for the Religious Studies Center, I invited Larry C. Porter, professor emeritus of Church history; Donald L. Enders, senior curator of historic sites; and Robert F. Parrot, Sacred Grove manager, to discuss the history and meaning of the Sacred Grove. During our two-day trip, we visualized that important spring morning when Joseph Smith walked from his family’s log home to a place in the nearby woods to pray. Unlike New York City, the Sacred Grove is closer to the condition it was in when Joseph Smith knelt to pray. The story of the efforts to preserve the grove will be told in a future article for the Religious Educator based on the interviews conducted this past weekend.

Although we do not know the exact spot where Joseph knelt to pray, the woodlands near the Smith home remind us of the event and allow us to connect to the past. Visitors to the grove walk where young Joseph Smith worked and prayed. Such explorations help us place diaries, letters, and histories of the past into their real-world context, allowing us to appreciate the story more fully.

Photo of Sacred Grove by Brent Nordgren

The Smithsonian magazine featured an interesting article by Barbara Kreiger on King Herod this past month (see “Finding Herod’s Tomb,” [August 2009]: 36–43). Last year, Ehud Netzer, a famous Israeli archeologist, announced that he had found Herod’s tomb (see RSC blog posting for December 12, 2008)—a startling news report that caught the attention of scholars and the popular media.

Archeologists have been looking for this tomb for a very long time. In this latest update of its discovery, Kreiger provides a wonderful word-picture of the Herodium (the fortress-palace of Herod in the Judean wilderness some seven miles south of Jerusalem) and some stunning photographs, including one of the reconstructed royal sarcophagus Netzer found (see p. 39)

In addition to telling an engaging story, the article provides a view of the original mausoleum reconstructed by Netzer himself (pp. 41–42). He estimates that it was a seven-story building located about halfway up the artificial mountain Herod built for his largest palace-fortress. So dominant was the site in antiquity, that the inhabitants of Jerusalem could see it. This is simply amazing!

When I lived in Jerusalem (1997–98) some 250,000 people visited the Herodium each year. We took our BYU students there each semester. I felt like I was walking up the hill myself as I read this article. Kreiger not only captures the lay of the land in her well-written essay, but also captures the tension that permeates the air today: “I see Arab villages and Israeli settlements in three directions” (p. 39). The conflict between Arab villagers and Israeli settlers has virtually stopped all tourism to the site today. “But to the east,” she continues, “cultivation abruptly stops as the desert exerts its authority, plummeting out of sight to the Dead Sea, then rising again as the mountains of Jordan” (p. 39). The conflict between wilderness and civilization is as real as the conflict between to people who claim ownership of the land. Standing at the Herodium and viewing the scene only heightens one’s awe at what Herod did here when he built his fortress-palace and then built his mausoleum.

In the end, no matter what one thinks of Herod, one must surely admit that Herod was one of the greatest builders in antiquity. His tomb and his fortress-place in the Judean desert demonstrate that fact. The work of Ehud Netzer provides us another window into the world of the first century—a world dominated by kingdoms and rulers who had a different vision than that of Jesus of Nazareth.

Guest blog by Brent L. Top, professor of Church history and doctrine at BYU.

A miracle occurs every August in Provo. I have seen it with my own eyes. In fact, I have been not only an observer but also a participant. The miracle is Campus Education Week. Brigham Young University is transformed almost overnight. For one week each year, classrooms usually filled with young adults are suddenly filled with gray-haired grandmas and grandpas, worn-out moms thrilled to have time for themselves, excited teenagers looking to meet new friends, and dads with wallets full of cash and cards to ensure that everyone has a good time. RVs fill the parking lots, and area hotels are full of families having a vacation, attending classes, concerts, plays, and activities. The class offerings vary as much as the age-groups, body shapes, and circumstances in life. For every student—whether a wide-eyed fourteen-year-old who has never been on a college campus before or a ninety-year-old who has never missed an Education Week (and usually doesn’t even stop for lunch)—there is something that can enlarge the intellect, strengthen the spirit, and comfort the soul.

This miracle is a reflection of Latter-day Saints’ deep commitment to continuing education—a commitment founded on the revelations of the Restoration and teachings of latter-day prophets. Continuing education has both temporal and spiritual benefits—benefits that enrich our lives on earth and bless us throughout all eternity. We are commanded to “seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom” (D&C 88:118) and to seek learning “in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God” (D&C 88:78). In addition, we are to learn “of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and perplexities of the nations . . . ; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms” (D&C 88:79). Our continuing education should be as much a spiritual quest as it is an intellectual or vocational one. The Lord has taught us that learning will prepare us in all things to magnify our foreordained callings (see D&C 88:80) and will rise with us in the resurrection and be to our advantage in the eternal worlds (see D&C 130:18—19).

In light of these scriptures, it is no wonder that education—formal as well as informal—plays such an important role in the lives of faithful Latter-day Saints. Our faith should propel us forward in the quest for truth and knowledge of God. “When all is said and done, we are all students,” President Gordon B. Hinckley taught. “If the day comes when we quit learning, look out. We will just atrophy and die.”

There is great potential within each of to go on learning. Regardless of our age, unless there be serious illness, we can read, study drink in the writings of wonderful men and women. . . .

We must go on growing. We must continually learn. It is a divinely given mandate that we go on adding to our knowledge.

We have access to institute classes, extension courses, education weeks, and many other opportunities where, as we study and match our minds with others, we will discover a tremendous reservoir of capacity within ourselves. (Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1997], 302–3.)

Over the past twenty years, I have been one of many teachers at Campus Education Week. It is always a privilege to participate because I always gain more than I give. It makes me want to be better. My faith in the Lord and love for the gospel are always strengthened as I witness the August miracle—thousands and thousands of Saints from every part of the world who literally “enter to learn” and then “go forth to serve” as better husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, grandparents, sons and daughters, and fellow servants in God’s kingdom. Because their lives have been enriched, they are better able to serve those around them for weeks and years to come. That is indeed a miracle.

I am finishing co-directing the BYU summer study abroad program in Rome this weekend before moving on to Athens for the final week and half of the summer term.

It has been a hot and humid month as Dr. Gary Hatch and I have tried to keep a day ahead of the forty students who joined us. We have seen a lot of Rome and of Italy during the month.

However, Rome has been our base of operation, and during the term, we lived in several different apartments located around Vatican City, the smallest independent nation on earth. Two student apartments, in fact, have direct views of St. Peter’s Basilica from their bedroom windows.

Of course, like other travelers and tourists, we visited the Vatican museums, the Vatican gardens, the Scavi (the first-century necropolis under St. Peter’s Basilica), and inside the church itself. The students also attended a papal audience the very first week. On other occasions St. Peter’s magnificent square was a meeting place for the group before we headed off to some other location in the city. Nevertheless, it seems as though we were in the shadow of St. Peter’s every day no matter where we were in the city.

Even for non-Catholics, St. Peter’s is a must place to visit in Rome. Michelangelo’s Pieta is located in the church, and his dome looms over the skyline of Rome itself, beckoning people to gather at this remarkable site.

According a long-held tradition, Peter was crucified in Nero’s Circus and buried nearby sometime between AD 64 and 66. At some fairly early date, maybe by the middle of the second century AD, Christians marked a tomb they believed contained the bones of Peter. Later, Constantine erected a church on the site in the fourth century. Eventually, Pope Julius II began the construction of a new church, the current basilica, on the site in 1505. Beginning in 1939, the Vatican sponsored several archeological investigations under the Basilica where they found the remnants of the first church building and some first-century tombs.

Today, visitors to the Scavi are shown a specific tomb Catholics believe is that of St. Peter, directly under the current high altar covered by Bernini’s canopy directly under Michelangelo’s magnificent dome. Although most likely not the tomb of the fisherman from Galilee, there is something remarkable about visiting a site that has been the focus of pilgrimages for nearly two thousand years. And while we may never know exactly what happened to Peter (where, how, and when he died), there is something that makes us think about him in the shadow of the basilica named after him in this amazing city on the Tiber River.

Guest blog by Reid L. Neilson, assistant professor of Church history and doctrine at BYU.

Pioneer Day typically invokes images of handcarts and wagons on the westward trail to Utah. Such a myopic view of our Church’s history, however, obscures the pioneering efforts of Latter-day Saints around the world. Thankfully, historian Andrew Jenson did all he could to expand the historical awareness of Church members—something we all should remember during this holiday time.

While working for the Church’s Historical Department in Salt Lake City, Jenson was sent by the First Presidency to tour the Church’s mission field outside North America. The intrepid Dane departed from Salt Lake City on May 11, 1895, and did not return to the City of the Saints until June 4, 1897. Over the course of his twenty-five-month solo circumnavigation of the world, Jenson passed through the following islands, nations, and lands (in chronological order): the Hawaiian Islands, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, New Zealand, Cook Islands, Society Islands, Tuamotu Islands, Australia, Ceylon, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Italy, France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Prussia, Hannover, Saxony, Bavaria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. He traveled 53,820 miles by a variety of steamships and small boats on water; his land conveyances included railroads, carriages, jinrikishas, horses, donkeys, and camels. Jenson became the first Latter-day Saint to visit all the existing non–North American LDS missions after the Mormon evangelization of the Pacific Basin frontier commencing in the 1840s.

Jenson preached the importance of record keeping in his many sermons and general conference addresses. “If it had not been for the writers . . . who belonged to the original Church, what would the doings of Christ mean to us?” Jenson challenged the Latter-day Saints on one occasion. “And if somebody had not recorded them and other beautiful sayings of Christ and his apostles, what would we have known of the ministry of Christ and of his apostles? We would merely have had some vague ideas handed down by tradition that would lead astray more than lead aright.” In other words, if not for the writers and historians of past dispensations, there would be no sacred history in the form of Hebrew and Christian scripture. The same would hold true in this dispensation, he often taught, if church members failed to keep contemporary ecclesiastical and personal histories. This spiritual sense of destiny, coupled with an unmatched work ethic and passion for history, shaped Jenson’s life and work. One merely needs to search the Church History Library catalog for works by Jenson to get a glimpse of his labors.

I have argued elsewhere that global LDS history is Church history. Latter-day Saints need to realize that much of our most interesting history has occurred abroad. We must remember that the “restoration” of the gospel occurs every time a new country is dedicated by apostolic authority for proselyting. In other words, the original New York restoration of 1830 was in many ways replicated in Great Britain in 1837, Japan in 1901, Brazil in 1935, Ghana in 1970, Russia in 1989, and Mongolia in 1992. Mormon historians need to refocus their scholarly gaze from Palmyra, Kirtland, Nauvoo, and Salt Lake City to Tokyo, Santiago, Warsaw, Johannesburg, and Nairobi. These international cities and their histories will become increasingly important to our sacred history. These non–North American stories need to be told with greater frequency and with better skill. In this sense Jenson was a man ahead of his times. In the final years of the nineteenth century, the yeoman workhorse of the Church Historian’s Office had the foresight and willingness to dedicate two years of his life to documenting the global Church and its membership. As Louis Reinwand points out, “Jenson played a vital role in keeping alive the ideal of a universal Church. He was the first to insist that Mormon history include Germans, Britons, Scandinavians, Tongans, Tahitians, and other national and cultural groups, and that Latter-day Saint history should be written in various languages for the benefit of those to whom English was not the native tongue” (“Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Historian,” BYU Studies 14, no. 1 [Autumn 1973]: 44).

The BYU Religious Studies Center promotes research and publication through grants and publication venues. One aspect of the RSC’s mission is to help reconstruct the world of the scriptures and the Restoration to provide helpful context.

Currently, I am codirecting a BYU Study Abroad program in Rome and Athens for the summer with Gary Hatch, associate dean of General Education and Honors. Forty students have joined us on this adventure, and it is an adventure—it is hot, humid, and sometimes difficult to get everyone to a particular museum or archaeological site via a congested and confusing bus, subway, and train system.

As one can imagine, we spend a significant amount of time walking through ancient Rome. In some places we may have even walked in the footsteps of Peter and Paul. This coming week we take a journey further afield—to ancient Pompeii, near modern Naples, Italy.

I have made my way to Pompeii on numerous occasions since my first visit with a group of high school students from York, Maine, in 1972. With each successive visit, I go away more melancholy than the first, so I am not really looking forward to this visit. I am haunted by the images of death in the city, especially by plaster casts ingeniously made of the bodies of the people who died there so many years ago. Nevertheless, I have been preparing for the visit with our students by reading a new book on Pompeii by Mary Beard, The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008).

Beard’s book reminds me that the past is much more complex than we sometimes imagine. This is an important book for anyone dreaming of going to Pompeii or anyone wanting to understand the complexity of history. First, the author tells us Pompeii is more than a city “simply frozen in midflow” (9). Chapter after chapter, the author tells us, “Everything is not as it may at first seem” (13). There was destruction before the famous eruption in AD 79 (she argues against the August 25 date), and there was looting almost immediately after the tragedy. Then in 1943, Allied bombs did even more destruction—it is a very complicated story indeed! Nevertheless, Beard notes, “It is true that the city offers us more vivid glimpses of real people and their real lives than almost anywhere else in the Roman world” (15). However, “the bigger picture and many of the more basic questions about the town remain very murky indeed” (16).

Beard provides word pictures that help us see beyond the modern reconstruction of the city and our Hollywood imagination of what it may have been like, to a nuanced and complex story that is, in reality, what life is like. Next time you read the second part of the New Testament, consider filling in the cultural and historical gaps in the story found in Acts. It will reveal an interesting and complex world, providing context to the writings of Paul, Luke, Peter, and others.

Latter-day Saints are fond of quoting a phrase from modern revelation, “Seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:118). From the beginning of the Restoration in the 1820s, a common theme of the Prophet Joseph Smith’s religious quest was to seek knowledge, light, and understanding. When he went into a grove of trees near his home to pray in the spring of 1820, Joseph Smith was impelled by his trust in the biblical promise found in James 1:5 that he could find wisdom if he sought it. This prayer resulted in the First Vision, in which Joseph saw the Father and the Son—beginning a spiritual sunrise unexpected by men and women of Joseph’s own day, but anticipated by prophets and apostles of old (see Acts 3:20–21).

Gospel truths continued to roll forth through the young prophet as he personally sought wisdom from God. Interestingly, Joseph Smith not only prayed for such wisdom but also studied the word of God and the languages of the biblical world (for example, Hebrew and Egyptian), practicing the command to “seek learning, even by study and also by faith.” His example in this two-part effort set a pattern for Latter-day Saints that continues to challenge us today.

Recently, there has been an explosion of self-help books for “dummies” or books to make something easy. With less time in a busy world, we often look for a quick fix to our problems, even when it comes to scripture study. However, when applied to the scriptures these efforts, even though popular and well meaning, may not necessarily raise one’s understanding of the topic. My colleague Robert J. Millet opined sometime ago that we need the scriptures to be understandable, not easy. I do not believe that he was playing a semantic game but that he was identifying an important difference between the two approaches.

Fortunately, Joseph Fielding McConkie, professor emeritus of ancient scripture at BYU, helps us in making the scriptures more understandable with his latest book, Between the Lines: Unlocking Scripture with Timeless Principles (Honeoye Falls, NY: Digital Legend, 2009).

What I like most about this book is that it forced me to think about how we read and study the scriptures. Sometimes in order to focus our thoughts, it is important to consider how and why we do a routine thing such as studying the scriptures. McConkie is not interested in “procedures,” such as what color of pencils one use to mark the scriptures or whether one should mark the scriptures at all. His goal is to enhance our study by providing “timeless principles that facilitate sound scriptural understanding” (viii).

The book contains more than just ideas about scripture understanding. There are also concrete suggestions. For example, the author suggests that we take advantage of “various study Bibles” (29). He enjoys “the help of an Archaeological Study Bible, The Jewish Study Bible, The Catholic Study Bible, and a variety of Protestant study Bibles” (29) and even provides a brief list of such study Bibles in the section “Sources” (165–66).

There are some light-hearted moments scattered throughout the book as the author has some fun pointing out rather common practices that we have engaged in through the years that may in fact have diverted us from understanding the scriptures. It may be healthy to laugh at ourselves from time to time, especially when we consider that we all have likely endured our “fair share of scripture abuse” (viii). I recommend this book to all who want to improve the quality of their scripture study and teaching.

Luke prepared a two-part work known as the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts nearly two thousand years ago, but the stories are as still as fresh and exciting as any modern story. He may be at his best in the last two chapters of Acts, which contain one of the finest first-century sea travel narratives to have survived from the past (see Acts 27–28). Paul had been languishing in prison for two years at the Roman provincial capital of Judea when Luke begins this well-known part of the story: “And when it was determined that we should sail into Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners unto one named Julius, a centurion of Augustus’ band” (Acts 27:1).

Luke provides a dramatic account of a storm, a warning, and then a shipwreck. Paul, who has been pictured as tireless missionary out to save the world, does in fact save the crew, soldiers, and prisoners. They find safety on an island, most likely modern Malta, and after three months, board a grain ship from Alexandria, Egypt, headed for Rome.

Luke continues, “And landing at Syracuse [in modern Sicily], we tarried there three days. And from thence we fetched a compass, and came to Rhegium [modern Reggio Calabria, Italy]: and after one day the south wind blew, and we came the next day to Puteoli [modern Pozzuoli, just north of Naples]” (Acts 28:12–13).

I have been retracing Paul’s journeys during the last fifteen years. This has been not only a professional project (I teach New Testament) but also a personal quest—Paul has had a hold on me for some time. This past Sunday, I was finally able to visit one site that has been on my agenda for a very long time—Pozzuoli. With an old missionary companion, Steve Smoot, leading the way, we made our way to this quite small Italian seaside town.

Pozzuoli has been in the news lately. Only last week archaeologists unearthed a marble head of the Roman emperor Titus, who destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70 (click here).

At this point, Luke transitions from the sea travel narrative to the land travel narrative with six emotionally laden words: “and so we went toward Rome” (Acts 28:14). Of course, Rome was the final destination of the journey, but more importantly, the climax of his story in Acts—Paul will announce the “good news” in Rome, the heart of the empire itself.

The best part of visiting historical sites is that from that day forward I will feel something different as I teach a particular story. Like Luke, I will be able to provide a word picture to my students. In this case, I will visualize the blue Mediterranean Sea, the shoreline crowded with boats, nets, and birds, and the surrounding hilltop horizon at Pozzuoli. In my mind’s eye, I will picture Paul climbing the bluffs that separate the village from the plain above to begin his journey toward Rome. I will recall the heat and humidity and the smell of the seawater and the fish. My students will travel with me as we travel with Luke and Paul to Pozzuoli while reading the account of a journey to Rome.

Guest blog by Robert C. Freeman, professor of Church history and doctrine at BYU.

Strike up the band, fire up the grill, and get to your favorite fireworks show. This month American Latter-day Saints will join the rest of the nation in celebrating the birth of the United States.  For the past fifteen years, I have been involved in collecting stories of Church members who have served in the military (Click here to learn more: www.saintsatwar.org).

Latter-day Saints have a long history of patriotism to their individual countries, including the United States. Sentiments of loyalty to the principles of the U.S. Constitution were espoused by Joseph Smith himself. He said, “I am the greatest advocate of the Constitution of the United States there is on the earth. In my feelings I am always ready to die for the protection of the weak and oppressed in their just rights. The only fault I find with the Constitution is, it is not broad enough to cover the whole ground” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, comp. Joseph Fielding Smith [SLC: Deseret Book, 1976], 326). The Prophet’s perception of the Constitution’s need to be broader is insightful when one considers that he died well before the addition of such crucial constitutional additions as the civil rights amendments (thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen) and the nineteenth amendment, which extended the right to vote to women.

Today, American Latter-day Saints are as red, white, and blue as ever. Brigham Young University’s hometown of Provo boasts one of this nation’s biggest Fourth of July celebrations—the Freedom Festival. Of course, the influence of the Church stretches across the earth, which prompts us to consider some important questions—for example, what does patriotism mean in view of the global church? Certainly, we are obliged to maintain a proper perspective on patriotism. We celebrate because this is the land of our fathers and the land for our children. We embrace all that is good about our country and hope to make a difference in matters of freedom both at home and abroad. We espouse the principles of liberty and equality anywhere they are under attack.

Several decades ago, at the time of the bicentennial of the founding of America, President Spencer W. Kimball spoke of the militant tendencies of modern mankind: “We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel—ships, planes, missiles, fortifications—and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become antienemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan’s counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior’s teaching” (“The False Gods We Worship,” Ensign, June 1976).

Elder Dallin H. Oaks also warned of other risks of overzealous patriots when he said, “Love of country is surely a strength, but carried to excess it can become the cause of spiritual downfall. There are some citizens whose patriotism is so intense and so all-consuming that it seems to override every other responsibility, including family and Church” (“Our Strengths Can Become Our Downfall,” Ensign, October 1994, 17).

Such teachings remind us of the need to refine our patriotism to ensure it is genuine and within the Lord’s bounds. True patriotism brings honor upon any nation in which freedom and liberty are embraced. Such liberties are needed in order for the kingdom of God to flourish among the Lord’s people. There is much to be celebrated about our blessed country and other countries that strive for freedom. Let the fireworks begin!

Guest blog by Richard E. Bennett, professor of Church history and doctrine.

The success of the Protestant Reformation owes everything to the translation and printing of a book. Surely the efforts of such early martyrs as John Wycliffe and of later reformers such as William Tyndale and Martin Luther to print and disseminate the Holy Bible were indispensable to the ultimate success of the Reformation, also made possible by the previous invention of movable type and the printing press by Johann Gutenberg. No amount of book burnings those many years ago, which tried to destroy the power of the written word, could hold back the oncoming printed tide of religious change.

So, too, the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in large measure depended on the power and printing of another book. On this, the 165^th anniversary of the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, it is appropriate to pause and remember its causes. Historians continue to offer a variety of immediate explanations: the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor, Missourians anxious at extradition, Thomas C. Sharp and the issue of separation of Church and state, the intrigue of John C. Bennett and a cadre of other disgruntled former Latter-day Saints, plural marriage?the list goes on.

However, it may be instructive to remember that in Doctrine and Covenants 135, John Taylor, who was an eyewitness to the event, attributed it not to any one of these things but rather to the power of the pen?or press?specifically to the publication of two new books of scripture. As John Taylor stated, it was the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants that “cost the best blood of the nineteenth century to bring them forth for the salvation of a ruined world” (D&C 135:6).

The published herald and evidence of the truthfulness of the Restoration was ever the Book of Mormon. More than any other factor, it was the Book of Mormon which distinguished the rise of the early Church of Jesus Christ and converted a foundation of loyal and devoted membership upon which the Church was built?and later thrived. Said Parley P. Pratt:

I read it carefully and diligently, a great share of it, without knowing that the priesthood had been restored?without ever having heard of anything called “Mormonism,” or having any idea of such Church and people.

There were the witnesses and their testimony to the Book, to its translation, and to the ministration of angels; and there was the testimony of the translator; but I had not seen them, I had not heard of them, and hence I had no idea of their organization or of their Priesthood. All I knew about the matter was what, as a stranger, I could gather from the book: but as I read, I was convinced that it was true; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon me while I read and enlightened my mind, convinced my judgment and riveted the truth upon my understanding, so that I knew that the book was true, just as well as a man knows the daylight from the dark night, or any other things that can be implanted in his understanding. (In Journal of Discourses [Liverpool: Latter-day Saints’ Book Depot, 1858], 193–94)

And even before Pratt met with Joseph Smith, he visited with his brother, Hyrum, who unfolded to him “the particulars of the discovery of the Book; its translation; the rise of the Church of Latter-day Saints, and the commission of his brother, Joseph, and others, by revelation and the ministering of angels, by which the apostleship and authority had been again restored to the earth” (Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, ed. Parley P. Pratt Jr. [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985], 22).

“Parley Pratt’s experience with the Book of Mormon was not unique,” President Gordon B. Hinckley commented in much more recent times. “As the volumes of the first edition were circulated and read, strong men and women by the hundreds were so deeply touched that they gave up everything they owned, and in the years that followed not a few even gave their lives for the witness they carried in their hearts of the truth of this remarkable volume” (“A Testimony Vibrant and True,” Ensign, August 2005, 3).

And if the work of these two brothers?loyal to each other as they were to the message of Cumorah?began with the Book of Mormon, it ended with it. The final scripture the two men read together before they were shot to death in Carthage Jail on June 27, 1844, was not from the Bible but from the Book of Mormon.

The same morning, after Hyrum had made ready to go?shall it be said, to the slaughter??he read the following paragraph, near the close of the twelfth chapter of Ether, in the Book of Mormon, and turned down the leaf upon it:

And it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord that he would give unto the Gentiles grace, that they might have charity. And it came to pass that the Lord said unto me: If they have not charity it mattereth not unto thee, thou hast been faithful; wherefore thy garments shall be made clean. And because thou has seen thy weakness, thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father. And now I . . . bid farewell unto the Gentiles; yea, and also unto my brethren whom I love, until we shall meet before the judgment-seat of Christ, where all men shall know that my garments are not spotted with your blood. (D&C 135:5)

“He lived great, and he died great in the eyes of God and his people; and like most of the Lord’s anointed in ancient times, has sealed his mission and his works with his own blood; and so has his brother Hyrum. In life they were not divided, and in death they were not separated!” (135:3).

Guest blog by Kent P. Jackson, professor of ancient scripture.

This month we celebrate the 179th anniversary of something that most Latter-day Saints take for granted. It was in June 1830, just two months after the Church was organized, that the Prophet Joseph Smith began working on his Bible translation. Today we usually call it the Joseph Smith Translation—JST for short—but the Prophet himself called it the New Translation. The first nineteen pages, revealed between June 1830 and the end of that year, contain his revision of the first few chapters of Genesis. When the Pearl of Great Price was created in 1851, those Genesis chapters were included in it, and they’re still there today. It is the Book of Moses.

Is there anything new in the New Translation? Let’s take a look at just one chapter, the very first chapter of the translation, revealed in June 1830.

What we now call Moses chapter 1 is the text of a vision that Moses experienced before the Lord revealed to him the account of the Creation. It is thus the preface to the book of Genesis. This is one of the most remarkable chapters in scripture, and it is full of doctrines that set Latter-day Saints apart from all other Bible believers. Although Moses’s vision is a biblical event and takes place in a biblical context, there is no record of it in the Old Testament. It has no biblical counterpart at all. But it is one of the great gems of the Restoration—a real pearl of great price.

In this one chapter, we learn a lot.

Moses speaks with God “face to face” in terms that indicate strongly that God indeed has a face. We learn of God’s Only Begotten Son. As the Father speaks with Moses and teaches him of Jesus Christ, we are reminded in clear scriptural terms that the Father and the Son are separate divine beings. We also learn something of ourselves, that we—left to our own resources—are “nothing,” yet we are sons and daughters of God created in the image of his Only Begotten, endowed with enormous potential.

We learn about God’s glory, the celestial power that emanates from him and surrounds him. Humans must be transfigured to abide God’s glory, but Satan can only feign having it and possesses none of it himself. We see God and Satan juxtaposed in striking contrast, and we learn that Satan has a pathological need to be worshipped and seeks only his own interests.

We learn something of God’s power and of the awesomeness of his creations. Moses, enveloped in God’s glory, was able to see every particle of this earth and to discern every soul on it. He was even shown other inhabited worlds—worlds without number. He learned that Christ is the Creator of all those worlds, and he learned that God’s work and glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of his children who dwell thereon.

Needless to say, none of this was the standard fare of mainstream Christianity in June 1830 when the Lord revealed these things to Joseph Smith.

Indeed, there is much new in the New Translation. But that was only the first chapter.

According to CNN, this past Wednesday, English added its millionth word. Academics argue that is not even possible to count the number of new words and that such announcements are more hype than substance. Nevertheless, everyone agrees that English contains more words than any other language on the planet and is growing rapidly each year. Chinese, for example, is estimated to have some 450,000 words—a distant second to English even with a conservative count. The Oxford English Dictionary has some 600,000 entries.

Today, some two billion people speak English. More documents, articles, and books are translated into English than any other language. One example, there are only about a dozen translations of Homer’s works into French. However, there are several hundred in English. English continues to be the language of business and the Internet.

One reason English is so pervasive is that it accepts new words. While many purists try to put walls around their language, English adopts and adapts words from around the world.

Another reason for its pervasiveness is the influence of the English Bible, which traces many of its words and phrases to translator William Tyndale. David Daniel, professor emeritus of English at University College London and Honorary Fellow of Hertford and St. Catherine’s colleges, Oxford, observes, “The English language, when Tyndale [1494–1536] began to write, was a poor thing, spoken only by a few in an island off the shelf of Europe, a language unknown in Europe” (The Bible in English [New Haven: Yale, 2003], 248).

Tyndale’s translation minted fresh words and phrases that still resonate with emotions. His command of English and the ancient biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek was remarkable, and his “gift to the English language is unmeasurable” (158). The King James Bible translators “adopted his style, and his words, for a good deal of their version” (158).

Several words or phrases he contributed include “atonement,” “Passover,” “Let there be light,” “I am the good shepherd” and “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). Daniel notes the timelessness of this latter translation: “The simplicity of those seven words, in Saxon vocabulary and syntax, matching the original koiné (common) Greek, has continued since 1526, in almost all English Bible translations, in the twentieth century made in their scores, with only occasionally the substitution of ‘today’ for ‘this day’” (133).

Whether or not last Wednesday was a red-letter date for the English language, such an announcement draws our attention to this remarkably resilient language that is spreading to every nook and cranny around the globe.

The book of Exodus preserves the Ten Commandments, including “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). From an early period, the meaning of the fourth commandment has been discussed and debated. Fortunately Craig Harline, history professor at BYU, has written a history of the efforts to set apart a special day each week. The book is titled Sunday: A History of the First Day from Babylonia to the Super Bowl (New York: Doubleday, 2007).

Harline’s story begins on a particular Super Bowl Sunday, focusing on his ninety- year-old grandmother’s reaction to the televised event as the family gathered to watch it. She finally left the room wondering how society had arrived at this point. He reveals his concern too, but for a different reason. Harline recalls that he was “struck by the Sunday part of ‘Super Bowl Sunday.’ How did that happen?” (viii). The book answers that question.

The author is an excellent writer and a thoughtful observer of people and places, including texts, both ancient and modern. He not only tells the story and history of important words like Sabbath and Sunday but also weaves in the life experiences of real people who have attempted to make sense of special time—holidays and holy days. He provides word-pictures of life in the ancient Mediterranean basin; medieval and modern Europe; and nineteenth- and twentieth-century England and the United States.
Among the hundreds of insights, here are two that helped me reconstruct the past so that I could appreciate the present.

First, the creation of the “free Saturday afternoon” in England was the beginnings of the “weekend.” Many “countries adopted both the term and the [English] practice of a ‘weekend’” after World War I (217). This reconstruction of the week, from a six-day workweek, provided additional opportunities to rest and to engage in leisure activities. Some people claimed the purpose of a free Saturday afternoon was to allow people to do what they need to do on Saturday, leaving Sunday for worship and quiet meditation, the traditional English “quiet Sunday” (218). Instead, “those who wished to broaden the English Sunday held that, despite an increase in free time, new leisure opportunities and facilities were not enough to accommodate everyone who wanted to take advantage of them, unless these were available on Sunday too” (218).

Second, for some, engaging in sports on Sunday grew from a noble idea that sports “could be the bearer of moral virtues” like “team spirit, discipline, unselfishness, and more” (261). In one sense, participating (not watching) in “good games” was better than playing cards or wasting time in the pub, as one Englishman argued, “Our games keep us healthy, and mean abstaining from habitual drinking, late hours, etc.” However, participating in Sunday sports for some “meant more work for others” (261). This was specifically true following the shift from participating in sports to watching sports on Sunday.

Harline demonstrates that Sabbath practices continue to change over time, adding, “It seems safe to say that this process will continue: Sunday will change as the world around it changes.” Nevertheless, he opines, “It also seems safe to say that, whatever the changes, Sunday will retain its extraordinary character, however one might understand that” (381).

I have learned a lot from my colleague and will use some of the cogent insights in my Honors New Testament class when I teach the Sabbath controversies between Jesus and the Pharisees as recorded in the Gospels and when I teach the modern revelation (section 59) on the Lord’s holy day in my Honors Doctrine and Covenants class this coming fall semester at BYU.

During the month of Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn to dusk every day and then celebrate with family each evening at dinner. Several years ago during this special season, I was leading a group of BYU Jerusalem students on a field trip into the West Bank (known today as the Palestinian Territories or simply as Palestine). Nablus, ancient Shechem, was just heating up as one of the flash points in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so a BYU Palestinian security guard (all of whom were loved by the students) accompanied us as additional safety precaution for our trip into this Palestinian area. As we made our way back to Jerusalem, the students were surprised when he pulled out his lunch and began to eat it. As he looked around with a sandwich in one hand, he said to the shocked students, “Hey, I’m Christian!” It had not dawned on them that any of the security guards could have been Christians; they were simply assumed to be Muslims.

My experience as tour director to the Holy Land is that most North American tourists assume that all Palestinians or Arab-Israelis are Muslims. Truly the Arab Christians are “the forgotten faithful” (see “The Forgotten Faithful: Arab Christians,” National Geographic, June 2009, 78–97). Surprisingly, in 1914 more than 26 percent of the population living in what is known today as Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestinian territories, and Syria were Christian (87). Not too long ago, Palestinian Christians constituted the majority in Bethlehem, representing about 80 percent of the population. Today they make up about 10 percent of what is now decidedly a Muslim city. The decline in Bethlehem, as well as Nazareth, parallels what has happened in the entire region, where Christians now constitute less than 9 percent of the total population. Ironically, today, much of the West views these Christians suspiciously, and at the same time they are increasingly marginalized and even forced to convert or flee by their Muslims neighbors. They are between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

It may be interesting to note that there have been many well-known Christians from the Middle East or Middle Eastern descent. For example, Abdalá Jaime Bucaram Ortiz, Lebanese Catholic president of Ecuador (1996–97); John Sununu, Palestinian-Lebanese Greek Orthodox Christian U.S. political leader; Carlos Ghosn, Lebanese Maronite Christian CEO of Nissan and Renault; Hanan Ashrawi, Anglican Palestinian activist and spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority; Paul Anka, Syrian Christian U.S. pop singer; Salma Hayek, Lebanese-Mexican Roman Catholic actress; Azmi Bishara, Arab-Israeli Greek Orthodox member of the Israeli Knesset; and Tony Shalhoub, Lebanese Maronite Christian and Emmy Award-winning TV star of Monk.

A few more experiences in the Middle East reveal the unique situation that Middle Eastern Christians find themselves in today.

In a private conversation with a Palestinian Christian friend several years ago, he told me he did not like living under Israeli occupation but he feared that if the Palestinian established their own nation, it would become an Islamic religious state. In what I can only describe as complete but composed despair, he added, “There may be no future for me and my family in this land,” a land where Christianity was born and a land where his family had lived for more than five hundred years as Christians.

During a tour of the Holy Land five or six years ago, several participants talked to a Palestinian during one of our rest stops. Apparently, the brief discussion had begun with a few harmless questions about his opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, as they talked with him, it became clear that they supported the current policies of the political state of Israel, including the expansion of the Jewish settlements into Palestinian lands of the West Bank. As I drew nearer, they asked him, “Why don’t the Palestinians just move to Jordan and allow Israelis to have their own country?” They apparently assumed that Palestinians did not have the same kind of historical connection or claims to the land that Jews did—that the Palestinians, as Muslims, were aliens and foreigners in the Holy Land.

These tourists were surprised when he responded, “Why don’t you Americans think or care about us, your Christian brothers and sisters? Aren’t we followers of Jesus like yourselves? Aren’t Bethlehem, Nazareth, Capernaum, and Jerusalem sacred to us too?” Then he revealed himself as a Palestinian Christian—not a Palestinian Muslim. They simply assumed, like my BYU students, that all Arabs or Palestinians were Muslims. They discovered in their conversation that his family had lived in the land for centuries and had been Christians far longer than their own families, who were most likely pagan peasants living in the backwaters of Europe when his progenitors accepted Christianity in the Holy Land nearly two thousand years ago. Somehow, it now seemed wrong to them that believing Christians who had lived in the land for so long were persecuted, driven, and marginalized by competing political, economic, and religious ideologies of the region.

This month’s National Geographic article on Middle Eastern Christians is a great introduction to their story, highlighting an important insight to the conflict that may not be as familiar to us as it should be. In the end, it is all a lot more complex than we generally assume.

For the past two hundred years, European thinkers such as Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber believed that religion was doomed and that God was dead. However, history always seems to surprise us. Few political leaders and academics in the past would have guessed that people of faith and their institutions would play such an important role in the world today. Even the events of September 11, 2001, demonstrate that what is taught in a religious school in Saudi Arabia is important to understand no matter where you live. Additionally, the 2008 US presidential election revealed that religious beliefs are still very important even though the American Constitution requires no religious test for those seeking office (Article VI, section 3 states, “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”).

One of the latest efforts to understand how and why faith is rebounding in the face of pervasive and profound secularism is John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge’s God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World (New York: Penguin, 2009). Of interest, Latter-day Saints are mentioned on several occasions (see pp. 18, 19, 65, 115, 124, 229, 233, 350, 357, 371).

The authors describe their efforts as a “long journey” and add, “No doubt [this book’s] overall message will depress many secularists; at times it has depressed us too. Some terrible things have already happened in this century in God’s name. More are undoubtedly on the way.” They conclude, “Unevenly and gradually, religion is becoming a matter of choice—something that individuals decide or believe in (or not)” (372). This model, where choice plays a central role in the decision to believe or not believe, is thoroughly American. Hence, the wave of the future is the American model, in which there is no established state church and people decide on their own what they will believe.

• The book offers many surprising insights, including:
  “By 2050, China could well be the world’s biggest Muslim nation as well as its biggest Christian one” (5).
• “Many older conflicts have acquired a religious edge. The poisonous sixty-year war over Palestine began as a largely secular affair. . . . Nowadays, in the era of Hamas, Jewish settlers and Christian Zionists, the Israeli-Palestinian dispute has become a much more polarized, sectarian battle, with ever more people claiming that God is on their side” (13).
• “One poll in 2006—fifteen years after the fall of the Soviet regime—discovered the 84 percent of the Russian population believed in God while only 16 percent considered themselves atheist” (13).
• “Most [statistics] seem to indicate that the global drift toward secularism has been halted, and quite a few show religion to be on the increase. One estimate suggests that the proportion of people attached to the world’s four biggest religions—Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism—rose from 67 percent in 1900 to 73 percent in 2005 and may reach 80 percent by 2050″ (16). “However you look at it, faith is more likely to impinge on you than it once did, either because it is part of your life or because it is part of the lives of some of those around you—neighbors, colleagues at work, even your rulers or people seeking to topple them” (24).
• “The most thorough study of American religious beliefs . . . demonstrates clearly that the world’s most powerful country is one of the most religious. More than nine in ten Americans (92 percent) believe in the existence of God or a universal spirit” (131).
• “Social scientists have produced a mountain of evidence that religion is good for you. . . . Daniel Hall, a doctor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, has discovered that weekly church attendance can add two to three years to your life, . . . [resulting in] ‘a substantially longer life expectancy’” (146).
• “Religion also seems to be correlated with happiness. One of the most striking results of Pew’s regular survey is that Americans who attend religious services once or more a week are happier (43 percent very happy) than those who attend monthly or less (31 percent) are seldom or never (26 percent)” (147).
• “Religion can combat bad behavior as well as promote well-being” (147).
• “Religion seems to provide social bonds. . . . Churches offer a safe place where people can get to know each other and pool information and expertise. They put people with problems in contact with people with solutions” (148–49).

In the end, the authors remind us how wrong past experts have been about God and religion, including Peter Berger, who assured the New York Times in 1968 that by “the 21^st century, religious believers are likely to be found only in small sects, huddled together to resist a worldwide secular culture” (52).

Recently, I visited Powell’s City of Books in downtown Portland, Oregon. Powell’s is one of the remarkable independent booksellers in the United States, reportedly the largest seller of new and used books in the world, covering an entire city block and featuring more than one million titles.

As I wandered this famous landmark, I noticed in the author-autographed section Gordon Hempton’s One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World (New York: Free Press, 2009). The title intrigued me because of my interest in the subject (see my November 3, 2008, posting, “Solitude, Silence, and Darkness“), and I quickly added it to my armful of books. Hempton is an award-winning sound recorder who lives in Port Angeles, Washington, near Olympic National Park—the site of “one square inch” whose sounds and silence he has recorded.

This book tells the story of his epic road trip across the United States to record the natural landscape of America. He filled his 1964 VW van with a decibel-measuring sound meter and recording equipment before starting out for the East Coast. It is difficult to escape the noise of the modern world, as Hempton demonstrates. Even in some of the quietest places in America—our national parks—airplanes break the silence or modern labor-saving devices used by the park’s employees themselves sometimes disturb both humans and animals present.

When he finally arrived in Washington DC, where he met with federal officials to advocate legislation that would preserve natural silence in national parks, he had recorded the sounds, images, and word pictures of some amazing places, including some of the backcountry in Utah (121–56). The book features a CD preserving those sounds.

Certainly, we face noise pollution today. We have to turn the TV, radio, or iPod off if we are to get some peace and quiet. As Hempton notes, “The words peace and quiet are all but synonymous, and are often spoken in the same breath” (12).

Hempton notes the benefits of a quiet, natural place. He suggests that “good things come from a quiet place: study, prayer, music, transformation, worship, communion” (12). He argues that “if we turn a deaf ear to the issue of vanishing natural quiet,” we lose something precious, something irreplaceable (3). He notes, “It is our birthright to listen, quietly and undisturbed, to the sounds of the natural environment” (2).

In an interesting insight, Hempton observes, “Wildlife depend on their sense of hearing to detect the approach of predators and will not remain very long in places where it is difficult to hear” (20). Interestingly, he opines, “Only hearing can monitor every direction at once, even foretelling what may lie around the corner” (56). I could not help but wonder if humans struggle to hear the voice of the Spirit, which could warn them of unseen dangers or what lies around the corner, because of the increasing levels of noise that so often seek to distract us from more lofty and noble thoughts and actions. Maybe we do not enjoy such experiences often enough—the natural silence and sounds required to attune our ears to a heavenly voice. Increasingly, competing voices and sounds seek to fill our ears with advice and sounds that keep us away from the things of the Spirit. These voices and sounds are not only seeking to capture our attention; they want to capture our hearts as well.

The Psalmist said, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). A timeless truth from the past—it was good advice then and is good advice now.

When Jesus came to Jerusalem on what would be his last visit, he walked from the Mount of Olives to the Holy City. As he did so, “the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen” (Luke 19:37). Luke adds, “And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. And [Jesus] answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out” (Luke 19:39–40).

Stones are everywhere in this rugged land. Not only do people see them everywhere; they walk on them and visit places made out of stone, such as the Garden Tomb or the rock-hewn tomb at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; the bedrock where Abraham offered Isaac, now covered by the Dome of the Rock; the rock where Jesus prayed in Gethsemane (part of the altar in the Church of All Nations); and the massive Herodian retaining wall of the Temple Mount. I returned this past week from a visit to Jerusalem. Sometimes church bells, the call of the muezzin, and the Jewish Sabbath siren capture our attention—competing sounds floating through the air. But the real story is in the stones.

On my flight to Jerusalem, I read Simon Goldhill’s latest book, Jerusalem: City of Longing (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008). It helped me in my visit, providing some insights that allowed me to tie together a mass of information and years of experiences in Jerusalem. As I thought about the people I met (guides, tourists, cab drivers, and a host of other people), I realized how often most of us want to see the stories about Jerusalem as “black and white.” However, as Goldhill proves in this well-written narrative, “the city has to be viewed from multiple perspectives if it is to be appreciated” (viii), and the stories are “much more complicated and much more interesting than the stereotypes” (ix).

Instead of producing a chronological storyline, the author provides a look at different places (most associated with rock or stone) connected to pivotal points in the story of Jerusalem. As he tells his story, Goldhill provides some of the “competing narratives” (Jewish, Muslim, and Christian—Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant) providing their own black-and-white versions of the events (282). He adroitly concludes, “The tensions between the three Abrahamic religions [Judaism, Christianity, and Islam] are intently aimed at the holy places, their possession, their guardianship, their symbolic value” (47). In a very real sense, guardianship of each site allows each group to share its own validating narrative.

Goldhill concludes, “Jerusalem has a strange relation to stone” (224). He notes that even “the archaeologists try to make [them] speak” (225). Nevertheless, he acknowledges that there is “the inevitable disappointment of the lost, the fragmentary, the unknowable and shattered past” when relying upon archaeology (225).

Not everyone will agree with the sites and stories Goldhill decided to include, but readers will discover that he “tried to tell this story in as simple and as neutral a way as possible” (281). Whether you have visited Jerusalem in the past, plan to visit Jerusalem in the future, or are only interested in Jerusalem, this book is worth a visit—providing a nuanced approach to a complex city. He concludes, “To be in Jerusalem is always to wander in a city of longing, as one seeks to find one’s own place in the layers of history, imagination, belief, desire, and conflict that make Jerusalem what it is” (332).

Several years ago, a former student wrote me to express his concerns about our doctrinal teaching that the Church of Jesus Christ was the “only true and living church” (see Doctrine and Covenants 1:30). He had come to believe that such a position was arrogant and prideful. Additionally, he questioned the idea that he could have been so fortunate to be in the right church when so many others were not. He thought this was so statistically unlikely that it was illogical to believe it.

Certainly I recognize that, like all nationalities, ethnicities, genders, and any other formal or informal groups, the Church of Jesus Christ contains both good and bad members?some who attempt to live close to the ideals of the gospel and others who do not. However, I have come to categorically reject broad generalizations about any group?whether they be about Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, or the politically liberal or conservative. In my study and experience, I have found that no denomination, group, family, or nation can be so easily defined by such stereotypes.

In the years since this exchange, I have often thought about my former student’s notion that it is illogical for a person to believe that he had been born into the one true Church, because it is statistically improbable that he would have been one of the lucky few, given the billions of people who have lived and will live upon the earth. Consider the logic of his approach. As I told students in a world history class I teach, “No ancient monarch or ruler lived as well as you do?you have clean water, abundant food sources (both in terms of quality, diversity, and quantity), dental and medical services, educational, recreational, and entertainment choices, and finally economic and political freedoms beyond anything that people living in the past could have even imagine.” If my former student were right, it would be illogical to accept that we could be so favored to live in an age of opulence, convenience, and comfort enjoyed by only a tiny fraction of the earth’s inhabitants.

I have reflected often on the idea that believing that we belong to the one true church would necessarily make a person arrogant and proud. Certainly there are plenty of privileged people who are arrogant and proud because of their good fortune. But there are many, many others living in modern pluralistic, democratic, and prosperous societies who instead feel that their many blessings place great social responsibilities on their shoulders. They feel duty-bound to devote their time, resources, and energy to helping others less fortunate. And that is precisely the answer to my former student. There are some, perhaps many, in the Church who are indeed arrogant and proud, but there are many others who understand that the privileges of membership also require us to devote everything we have to helping others obtain the same advantages that we enjoy. Where much is given, much is required.

I do not know why I was born in the West in a time of such unprecedented opportunities with all the miraculous inventions, life-saving technical and medical advances, and expanded freedoms and liberties that are available. But I do know that we are now living a lifestyle that most in earth’s history could not imagine. Such knowledge has humbled me and compelled to me be sensitive to the larger world by learning about the challenges people face and to do something about it by helping, supporting, and donating to other worthy causes that help people have food, shelter, clothing, medical attention, and educational opportunities—beyond contributing to the Church’s humanitarian fund.

What are the odds of being so blessed? I don’t know, but I realize that I have an opportunity to do something with what I have been given.

This week’s blog was written by guest writer Eric D. Huntsman, associate professor of ancient scripture.

During his conference talk of April 5, 2009, President Uchtdorf referred to Sunday morning as Palm Sunday. Looking forward to Easter, he encouraged members of the Church to focus their minds more fully on the great atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. President Uchtdorf said, “It is fitting that during the week from Palm Sunday to Easter morning we turn our thoughts to Jesus Christ, the source of light, life, and love. The multitudes in Jerusalem may have seen Him as a great king who would give them freedom from political oppression. But in reality He gave us much more than that. He gave us His gospel, a pearl beyond price, the grand key of knowledge that, once understood and applied, unlocks a life of happiness, peace, and fulfillment.” In his talk, Elder Holland also pointed to the events of the Savior’s last week: “As we approach this holy week—Passover Thursday with its Paschal Lamb, atoning Friday with its cross, Resurrection Sunday with its empty tomb—may we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Today is Good Friday, observed by much of the Christian world as a day of great solemnity and holiness. As a young boy, aware of the day because of my many Roman Catholic and high-church Protestant friends and neighbors, I thought the term “Good Friday” was an oxymoron. What was so good about the day Jesus died? Only as I became more mature in the gospel did I come to understand that Jesus’ death was holy, a sacred act sealing the atoning journey that had begun the night before when he took upon himself our sins and our sorrows and then, as a sacrificial victim, carried that burden to the altar—in this case a cross—where he paid the ultimate price. Later I came to understand another, linguistic nuance. Many see the use of “good” in Good Friday to be an archaic use as in “good-bye.” Here it may be a synonym for “God,” in which case it is “God’s Friday,” that day of cosmic significance when the Father reconciled the world to himself: “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement” (Romans 5:8–12).

As a Latter-day Saint, so much of what Good Friday commemorate once seemed uncomfortable to me. “We worship a living Christ, not a dead Christ,” was the common refrain I grew up hearing. It was easier to acknowledge that Jesus somehow took upon himself the burden of our sins and sorrows in Gethsemane and then move as quickly as possible through all the unpleasantness of the trial, abuse, and crucifixion to the joy of Easter morning. The cross was particularly unfamiliar, if not uncomfortable, to me. The Church does not rely heavily upon images in our churches and temples, although other kinds of symbolism abound. Not understanding the theological details of the mass being a “real sacrifice” in the Roman Catholic tradition, I did not grasp why the crucifix carried such weight to my friends. Not bothering to ask my Protestant friends what the cross meant to them, until adulthood I was oblivious to the fact that to them the cross was not just a symbol of his death for us, it was also, to them, a symbol of his resurrection because the cross was empty!

Further study, however, has brought a new awareness of the scriptural and symbolic richness of the imagery of Jesus’ death on the cross. Here it is not the cross itself, whether it was an upright pole or simple scaffolding upon which the victim’s crossbeam was tied or nailed. Nor is it the religious iconography of a Latin or Greek cross. Instead, for me, the significance of the crucifixion lies in the image of Christ “being lifted up,” the cross itself as a tree, and in the lasting marks or tokens of his sacrifice that it left.

Three times in the Gospel of John, Jesus says that he must be lifted up as part of his returning to the Father and his drawing of all men to himself (see John 3:14, 8:28, 12:32–33), and the last time he makes it clear that this was a reference to how he would die. Crucifixion was a humiliating but above all a very public form of execution, but what seems to be significant here is that Jesus’ sacrifice is there for all, in every age and place, to see. John 3:14 directly connects it with the raising of the brazen serpent upon a pole in the wilderness (see Numbers 21:9), an image that Book of Mormon authors recognized and expanded (see 2 Nephi 25:20; Alma 33:19; Helaman 8:14–16). Therefore the crucifixion illustrates that Jesus’ salvific death provides healing and life to all who will simply look to him.

But perhaps the strongest endorsement of “lifting up” imagery came from Jesus himself, who told the Nephites: “My Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men be lifted up by the Father, to stand before me, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil—And for this cause have I been lifted up; therefore, according to the power of the Father I will draw all men unto me, that they may be judged according to their works” (3 Nephi 27:14–15).

Recognizing that crucifixion was tantamount to “being hanged on a tree” adds another level of symbolism. Under the law of Moses, cursed was anyone who was hanged on a tree (see Deuteronomy 21:22–23), perhaps explaining one of the reasons why Jesus’ opponents were anxious to have the Romans crucify him. While it is not completely clear what rights of capital punishment the Jewish authorities might have had (the prohibition against putting any man to death in John 18:31 might have referred to Jewish law, since they could not execute on Passover), having the Romans kill Jesus did more than shift blame. Jewish execution for blasphemy would have been stoning, whereas Roman execution for treason or rebellion was crucifixion. The high priest had asked Jesus the night before, “Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” (Mark 14:61), and nothing could have proved that Jesus was just the opposite, cursed of God, than having him hanged on a tree. Nevertheless, this “cursing” was part of the Savior’s descending below all things. Indeed, Paul wrote, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” (Galatians 3:13).

What was amazing, however, was that the cross, the Tree of Cursing, became, in effect, a Tree of Life to us. After Jesus expired, a soldier pierced his side with a spear, “and forthwith came there out blood and water” (John 19:24). Hearkening back to Jesus’ discussion of living water with the Samaritan woman in John 4 or his discourse on the life-giving Spirit in John 7 in which rivers of living water flow out of him, this sign suggests that Jesus’ death brought forth life. Indeed, in medieval iconography there developed the image of the “verdant cross,” or green cross, which was often portrayed as sprouting leaves and fruit.

Finally, crucifixion left lasting tokens of the Lord’s saving act, marks that were used to impart a sure witness that he was the Lord and God of those whom he saved. Although the experience of Thomas after the Resurrection does suggest that we should be believing before we receive such assurance (see John 19:24–29), Jesus’ display of the marks in his hands, feet, and side took on almost ritual significance when he appeared to the Nephites at the temple in Bountiful: “Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world” (3 Nephi 11:14).

For these reasons, as I read, review, and ponder the Savior’s last acts on this day, I am no longer skittish of imagery that was once foreign to me. Instead, I rejoice in what Jesus did for me and see it as a necessary precursor not just to Easter morning but to the great gift of eternal life, the precious fruit of the tree, which “is the greatest of all the gifts of God” (1 Nephi 15:26; see also D&C 14:7).

Recently, many Saints attended one of twelve dedication services for the Draper Utah Temple, the one hundred twenty-ninth operating temple, held March 20–22. Additionally, tens of thousands participated in the Sunday afternoon session through a satellite broadcast to meetinghouses and stake centers throughout Utah. For many, it was a red-letter day full of excitement, gratitude, and great spiritual renewal.

An important feature of temple dedications is the sacred Hosanna Shout, first given at the Kirtland Temple on March 27, 1836 (tomorrow is the anniversary of it’s dedication). This powerful expression of praise and worship has been repeated at all temple dedications, including the Draper temple.

Some years ago I did some research on the history the Salt Lake Temple. I discovered that the sacred Hosanna Shout was given first on April 6, 1892, at the capstone-laying ceremony, and second, at the many formal dedication services beginning on April 6, 1893.

At the capstone ceremony, President George Q. Cannon, a counselor in the First Presidency, said “that there may be no misunderstanding about the manner in which the shout of Hosanna should be given when the capstone should be laid, Pres. Lorenzo Snow would drill the congregation in the shout.” Then President Snow said, “This is no ordinary order, but is—and we wish it to be distinctly understood—a sacred shout, and employed only on extraordinary occasions like the one now before us.” He urged them with these words: “We wish the Saints to feel when they pronounce this shout that it comes from their hearts. Let your hearts be filled with thanksgiving,” adding, “Now when we go before the temple and this shout goes forth, we want every man and every woman to shout these words to the very extent of their voice, so that every house in this city may tremble, the people in every portion of this city hear it and it may reach to the eternal worlds.” He finally told the congregation that the sacred shout “was given in the heavens when ‘all the sons of God shouted for joy’ [Job 38:7].”

B. H. Roberts wrote concerning this shout, “When voiced by thousands and sometimes tens of thousands in unison, and at their utmost strength, it is most impressive and inspiring. It is impossible to stand unmoved on such an occasion. It seems to fill [the site] with mighty waves of sound; and the shout of men going into battle cannot be more stirring. It gives wonderful vent to religious emotions, and is followed by a feeling of reverential awe—a sense of oneness with God.”

Some fifty thousand people were reportedly in attendance at this special occasion on the Temple Block, with thousands more watching from adjoining rooftops, windows, and even power poles. The streets near the temple were filled with those seeking to witness the exercises of that day. “There was such a jam of humanity, however, that everyone was nearly crushed,” Joseph Dean noted. “The whole block was one mass of humanity. After the people had gotten in place as well as they could the ceremonies began.” It was the largest gathering in Utah history, a record unchallenged for several decades.

When this highest granite block of the temple was in place, President Snow led the Saints in shouting, “Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna! to God and the Lamb! Amen! Amen! Amen!” This heartfelt thanksgiving praise was repeated three times with increasing force as the participants waved white handkerchiefs. “The spectacle and effect of this united demonstration,” wrote one witness, “was grand beyond description, the emotions of the multitude being stirred up by it to the greatest intensity of devotion and enthusiasm.”

John Lingren, a visitor from Idaho Falls, recalled, “The scene . . . [was] beyond the power of language to describe. . . . The eyes of thousands were moistened with tears in the fullness of their joy. The ground seemed to tremble with the volume of the sound which sent forth its echoes to the surrounding hills.” Another eyewitness wrote, “Everyone shouted as loud as they possibly could waving their handkerchiefs, the effect was indescribable.”

A year later, on April 6, 1893, the Church held the first of the formal dedication services. “When the great song, ‘The Spirit of God like a Fire Is Burning’ was sung by the united audience,” well-known Utah photographer and Tabernacle Choir member Charles R. Savage wrote, “a different feeling thrilled through me from any one I have ever experienced. The hosanna shout was something long to be remembered and one I never expect to hear again during my life.”

The service included the dedicatory prayer offered by President Woodruff, talks by the First Presidency, and the rendering of the awe-inspiring sacred Hosanna Shout with “the entire audience standing upon their feet and waving white handkerchiefs in concert,” Francis Hammond wrote. For Brother Hammond, “it seemed the heavenly host had come down to mingle with us.” Emmeline B. Wells noted: “This shout of Hosanna thrilled the hearts of the vast multitude, and echoed grandly through the magnificent building; so exultant and enraptured were the saints in their rejoicing that their faces beamed with gladness, and the whole place seemed glorified and sanctified in recognition of the consecration made on that momentous and never-to-be forgotten occasion.”

L. John Nuttal wrote that the shout was “rendered with a hearty good will, my heart and soul were so full of the spirit of the Lord, that I could scarcely contain myself.” At the conclusion of the soul-stirring shout, the choir immediately began singing a specially composed hymn. Choir member Thomas Griggs wrote, “Choir sang Brother Evan Stephen’s ‘Hosannah Chorus,’ the congregation joining in the latter part with the ‘Spirit of God Like a Fire Is Burning.’”

We’ll sing and we’ll shout with the armies of heaven,

Hosanna, hosanna to God and the Lamb!

Let glory to them in the highest be given,

Henceforth and forever, Amen and amen!

The combined effect of some twenty-five hundred people standing together in the upper assembly room of the temple, all joining together in the sacred shout and singing the dedication hymn, was overpowering. Many participants wept uncontrollably; others could not finish the hymn as they were so overcome by the spirit of the occasion.

James Bunting said, “It would be in vain for me to attempt a description of the interior of the Temple or to describe the heavenly feeling that pervaded all the exercises.” One account simply stated, “Each must see and hear and feel for himself.”

President Woodruff later told a congregation of Saints that “the Heavenly Host were in attendance at the [first] dedication [service] . . . and if the eyes of the congregation could be opened they would [have] seen Joseph and Hyrum [Smith], Brigham Young, John Taylor and all the good men who had lived in this dispensation assembled with us, as also Esaias, Jeremiah, and all the Holy Prophets and Apostles who had prophesied of the latter day work.” President Woodruff continued, “They were rejoicing with us in this building which had been accepted of the Lord and [when] the [Hosanna] shout had reached the throne of the Almighty,” they too had joined in the joyous shout.

As new temples are built, more and more Latter-day Saints will be in a position to participate in a temple dedication service, allowing them to shout praise to the Lord!

We are now in our tenth year of publishing the Religious Educator (TRE). When Robert L. Millet (then dean of Religious Education at BYU) asked me to take the lead in this new venture, it forced me to think about the niche TRE might fill. Over the years, I found that it was important to recruit specific authors to prepare contributions to enhance the regular submissions.

Last year, as we approached our tenth year of publication, I decided it might be good to identify some of the best articles in TRE and republish them in a paperback volume. First, it could introduce a new audience to TRE, and second, it would allow those most-requested articles to see the light of day without people having to pay a lot of money to obtain out-of-print back issues of TRE.

Eventually I decided on two separate volumes, the first (Teach One Another Words of Wisdom: Selections from the Religious Educator; published February 2009) focusing on devotional and teaching articles, and the second (By Study and by Faith: Selections from the Religious Educator; published March 2009) focusing on doctrinal, historical, and scriptural content.

This second volume was released this past week. As is my tradition, I took the time to thumb through it, and when I was done about an hour later, I said out loud, “Wow! This is a great volume.” I was surprised at both the quality and quantity of excellent and thoughtful articles that had appeared in TRE over the years. Some of them have become classics, and this new publication will highlight others.

Elders David A. Bednar, D. Todd Christofferson, Jay E. Jensen, and Neil A. Maxwell have given us some things to consider. My colleagues Richard E. Bennett, Paul Y. Hoskisson, Kent P. Jackson, Frank F. Judd Jr., Joseph Fielding McConkie, Robert L. Millet, Kerry Muhlestein, Paul H. Peterson, Dana M. Pike, David R. Seely, and Thomas A. Wayment have given us some thoughtful things to think about that will certainly expand our understanding of the things of God.

I am going to use some of these articles in my classes. For example, Kent P. Jackson, Frank E. Judd Jr., and David R. Seely have provided us a wonderful resource that every person who reads the King James Bible will certainly want to read, “Chapters, Verses, Punctuation, Spelling, and Italics in the King James Version” (203–30). This may be one of the most important helps any student of the KJV could read to help them understand the printed word. In the end, entering into dialogue with these authors can help us appreciate the scriptures and Restoration in new ways and, more importantly, inspire us to greater discipleship.

Recently the Department of Church history and doctrine at BYU hosted a guest lecture by Terryl L. Givens, professor of literature and religion and James A. Bostwick Chair of English, University of Richmond. Such opportunities allow BYU faculty to rub shoulders with well-known professors from around the world.

I was particularly interested in one lecture during his weeklong visit. It was a follow-up to his book People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). I recommend the book for its thoughtful insights about Mormonism and Mormons. It is certainly a tour de force!

You may recall that a paradox is “a seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true” (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language). I have often been drawn to such tensions but have become very comfortable with the notion of paradoxes since I realized the greatest paradox is the truth that Jesus died that we might live.

Givens first discusses “the polarity of authoritarianism and individualism” (xiv), followed by the contrast in the Prophet’s teachings about what we already know and an ambitious “program of eternal learning” (xv).

Next he tackles the Prophet’s insight that “God [is] an exalted man, man a God in embryo.” Givens states, “The resulting paradox is manifest in the recurrent invasions of the banal into the realm of the holy and the infusion of the sacred into the realm of the quotidian” (xv). Then he discusses the “two related tensions in Mormonism: exile and integration, and a gospel viewed as both American and universal” (xv).

During his time with the faculty, Givens discussed yet another paradox—the Prophet’s “competing impulse of assimilation and innovation.” I believe he is correct on this point. Latter-day Saints tend to highlight the Prophet’s innovations (he restored doctrine that had been “kept hid from before the foundation of the world” (Doctrine and Covenants 124:41). Yet Joseph Smith also assimilated truth from the world around him, saying, “[If the] Presbyterians [have] a truth [we] embrace that. Baptist, Methodist etc. get all the good in the world [and] come out a pure Mormon” (The Words of Joseph Smith [Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1980], 234). It would not hurt us to identify those truths he found in other faith traditions, paying attention to how he adopted and adapted them as part of the message he proclaimed. This does not in any way diminish the flood of revelation that constantly flowed down from heaven upon him as the Lord’s anointed.

Mormonism began with a book—the Book of Mormon (published in March 1830). During the next decade, many books were written and published by members and nonmembers to explain, understand, or attack the new faith.

One of Mormonism’s early converts was Parley Parker Pratt (1807–57). He read the Book of Mormon and after a few days sought baptism. This began a long journey with the Saints that ended tragically in Arkansas when Pratt was murdered. Between the time of his baptism and his death, he traveled widely as a missionary in the United States, Canada, and the British Isles. Pratt not only preached the gospel but also took pen and paper to hand and wrote important missionary tracts and booklets. One of his books, A Voice of Warning and Instruction to All People, Containing a Declaration of the Faith and Doctrine of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, Commonly Called Mormons (New York: W. Sandford, 1837), is believed by many historians to be the most important Mormon book, outside the scriptures, in the nineteenth century.

Although A Voice of Warning was not the very first book to explain what the Saints believed, it was the first to compare and contrast Mormon beliefs with conventional Christianity. Some thirty editions in English were released during the next fifty years. Additionally, during this period, the book was also published in numerous language translations, including Danish, Dutch, French, German, Spanish, and Swedish. For many investigators and early converts, A Voice of Warning was the first book they read.

In 2004 the New York book company Barnes & Noble established a new paperback series, the Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading. Their webpage states that the series had been established “to provide access to books of literary, academic, and historic value—works of both well-known writers and those who have been long forgotten. Selected and introduced by scholars and specialist with an intimate knowledge of the works they discuss, these volumes present unabridged texts in a readable modern typeface, welcoming a new generation to important and influential books of the past.” Now numbering more than 250 titles, the series includes Trial and Death of Socrates, Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, St. Augustine’s City of God, and de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.

In late 2008, Barnes & Noble released a new edition of Pratt’s A Voice of Warning. My BYU colleague Kent P. Jackson prepared a thoughtful introductory essay for this new volume based on 1854 edition of the book (Pratt’s last before he was murdered). Reading the 137 pages in this well-designed volume reminds us of the passion and excitement that existed during the early day of the Restoration. Pratt can write well. He is clear and straightforward. The prose sings, and his arguments thunder loud and clear. The book is worth a read, especially for anyone interested in the listening into a conversation from this critical period of Church history. Congratulations to Kent Jackson and to Barnes & Noble!

In a recent blog, I outlined the story of the earliest New Testament manuscripts. Because no original text (autograph) has survived the ravages of time, scholars are attempting to reconstruct the texts through examining more than 5,700 Greek manuscripts (not copies of the original autographs and not even copies of copies of the originals). I also highlighted the fact that some material found in the King James Version (1611) came from manuscripts dating from a very late period (the best available at the time). Since 1611, much earlier copies of the New Testament manuscripts have been discovered, shedding important light on the transmission of the text, including insights on the corruption of the text (deletions and additions).

Regarding a famous passage in Luke 22, Bart D. Ehrman, author of The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), argues that scribes added the detail that the Savior’s “sweat was as it were great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44). Ehrman states, “This image of Jesus ‘sweating blood’ . . . can be found in only one passage of the New Testament, Luke 22:43-44, and this passage is not present in our oldest and best manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke.” He continues, “It appears, in fact, to have been added to Luke’s account by scribes who wanted to emphasize Jesus’ full humanity and great human suffering. For these scribes, Jesus was not merely a divine being who could rise above the trials and tribulations of this life: he was human in every way and suffered the kind of agony any of us might suffer if we knew that we were soon to be subjected to a humiliating and excruciating death by crucifixion. While this appears to have been the scribes’ view of the suffering Jesus, it is not Luke’s” (491). Ehrman and other scholars speculate that this verse was introduced into the New Testament around the fifth century AD.

Latter-day Saints, like many other conservative New Testament readers, continue to accept Luke’s poignant account of the suffering in Gethsemane and have been unwilling to delete this material from their readings of Jesus’ last twenty-four hours. Additionally, Restoration scriptures confirm Luke’s account, providing them additional reasons to hold on to this story (see Mosiah 3:7; Doctrine and Covenants 19:18).

Recently, a bright, articulate New Testament scholar has raised questions about Ehrman’s claim. Thomas A. Wayment, my BYU colleague, published a groundbreaking study in one of the world’s premier journals on the New Testament regarding a third-century papyrus fragment (P⁶⁹). He argues, “The fragment was subject to subsequent scribal correction in at least two instances” (“A New Transcription of P. Oxy. 2383 (P⁶⁹),” Novum Testamentum 50 [2008], 351). He discovered through multispectral imaging (a technology developed by NASA and first applied to ancient manuscripts by BYU) that a third-century scribe copying from another manuscript began writing the account of Jesus’ suffering as in Luke 22 but then corrected himself. This implies that the account of Jesus’ suffering was well known as early as the third century. As a result of Wayment’s careful work, we now must reevaluate the proposal that a later fifth-century scribe added these verses for theological reasons.

This article is significant. First, it signals a new day in Latter-day Saint scholarship. With well-trained Mormon New Testament scholars like Wayment, we can now completely engage in wider scholarly dialogue about the New Testament. Second, this article highlights the importance of multispectral imaging technology in New Testament studies. Finally, it raises a serious question about dogmatic assertions by some scholars about how the original text of the New Testament read. Of course, ongoing discoveries and studies of Greek New Testament manuscripts and fragments may yield more insights into the story of Jesus in Gethsemane.

The New Testament is an amazing collection of many types of documents, including letters, ancient biographies, sermons, and historical narratives. New Testament studies have helped us reconstruct the world of Jesus and his disciples by providing historical, cultural, and linguistic insights. Additionally, textual studies have helped us appreciate the complex and interesting story of the New Testament’s transmission from antiquity to the present.

Today no original New Testament manuscripts, or autographs, appear to have survived. In other words, we cannot visit a museum or library to see the original book of Matthew or the original letter Paul wrote to the Romans. In fact, the earliest New Testament manuscripts that have survived the ravages of time are not even copies of the originals or even copies of copies.

The oldest known New Testament text is a rather small papyrus manuscript fragment (see image) with John 18:37-38 on one side (recto) and John 18:31-33 on the other (verso). Its small size belies its major importance. Produced around AD 125, it suggests an earlier dating of the Gospel of John than traditionally assigned (many scholars assume that John’s Gospel was written in the AD 90s). Additionally, the manuscript was discovered in Egypt, suggesting a rather quick dispersion of the Gospel.

The earliest complete copies of an individual New Testament book date from around AD 200. During the following decades and centuries, scribes continued to make copies of the New Testament—some 5,700 manuscripts in Greek from the early second century to the sixteenth century still exist.

It is not surprising that these manuscripts contain numerous differences because they were copied by hand over the years. In fact, there are some 30,000 variant readings. Most of these variant readings are not theologically significant and likely were a result of human errors—unintentional changes made to the text during the processing of copying them. However, there are rather significant changes that were most likely intentional. These changes were made for a variety of reasons, including (1) to promote theological views, (2) to correct errors a scribe believed was in the text, (3) to harmonize the text to match what was recorded in another passage, and (4) to clarify certain passages that might be confusing or misunderstood.

The King James Version (KJV) of 1 John 5:7 preserves a significant change: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. The KJV translators used the best manuscripts available to them at the time. Since 1611, new discoveries have produce older manuscripts that scholars believe gets us much closer to the original text. This particular verse, which supports a Trinitarian interpretation of the Godhead, is not found in the earliest manuscripts of 1 John, suggesting that a scribe added it for theological purposes.

How we understand the New Testament depends on which variant reading we accept as being closest to the original. In this case, some scholars argue that the New Testament does not explicitly teach the doctrine of the Trinity because this single and most important reference is not found in any Greek manuscript—manuscripts that cover more than one thousand years of New Testament transmission. Because it does not appear before the fourteenth century, some recent modern translations and versions of the Bible do not include this verse.

Today we live in an amazing time when work on the New Testament produces great insights and allows us to get closer to the texts as originally prepared in the first century.

Joseph Smith received a revelation during the organizational meetings of the Church of Christ in Fayette, New York, on April 6, 1830, as depicted in William Whitaker’s painting The Prophet Joseph Smith Receives a Revelation. In this revelation, the Lord told Joseph Smith, “Behold, there shall be a record kept” (Doctrine and Covenants 21:1). The Prophet would spend the rest of his life attempting to fulfill the command, including providing historical narratives that recorded events associated with the rise of the Church of Jesus Christ in the last days.

Doctrine and Covenants section 20 offers one of the earliest attempts to record these events. Although much of the material in this inspired document was gathered over a twelve-month period, “the current version found in Doctrine and Covenants 20 was written April 10, 1830″ (Robert J. Woodford, “Discoveries from the Joseph Smith Papers,” in The Doctrine and Covenants: Revelations in Context [Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2008], 29).

Section 20 briefly mentions the First Vision in the spring of 1820: “It was truly manifested unto this first elder [Joseph Smith, see verse 2] that he had received a remission of his sins” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:5). Most are familiar with the 1838 account of the First Vision, one of ten accounts recorded during Joseph Smith’s lifetime, which emphasizes Joseph Smith’s search for the true Church. However, an earlier version is found in Joseph Smith’s 1832 autobiographical narrative, which highlights the young boy’s search for mercy and forgiveness. He recorded in his own hand, “I cried unto the Lord for mercy for there was none else to whom I could go and to obtain mercy and the Lord heard my cry in the wilderness and while in <the> attitude of calling upon the Lord <in the 16th year of my age> a piller of fire light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I was filled with the spirit of god and the <Lord> opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph <my son> thy sins are forgiven thee” (The Papers of Joseph Smith, Vol. 1, Autobiographical and Historical Writings, ed. Dean C. Jessee (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989), 6.

Next, section 20 mentions the period between 1820 and 1823: “He was entangled again in the vanities of the world” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:5). Joseph Smith’s published history provides more details: “I was left to all kinds of temptations; and, mingling with all kinds of society, I frequently fell into many foolish errors, and displayed the weakness of youth, and the foibles of human nature; which, I am sorry to say, led me into divers temptations, offensive in the sight of God. In making this confession, no one need suppose me guilty of any great or malignant sins. . . . I was guilty of levity, and sometimes associated with jovial company, etc., not consistent with that character which ought to be maintained by one who was called of God as I had been” (Joseph Smith—History 1:28).

The record then moves on to Joseph’s prayer for forgiveness in September 1823: “But after repenting, and humbling himself sincerely, through faith, God ministered unto him by an holy angel, whose countenance was as lighting, and whose garments were pure and white above all whiteness; and gave unto him commandments which inspired him” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:6). The angel was Moroni, who opened a new chapter in Joseph’s life.

The next historical allusion is to September 22, 1827, when Moroni delivered to Joseph the plates and the Nephite interpreters “and gave him power from on high, by the means which were before prepared to translate the Book of Mormon” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:8).

Next is the June 1829 experience when the Three Witnesses (Martin Harris, David Whitmer, and Oliver Cowdery) were shown the plates by a heavenly messenger and commanded to prepare a testimony which is now printed in the Book of Mormon, “which was given by inspiration and is confirmed to others by the ministering of angels, and is declared unto the world by them” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:10).

The most recent event mentioned in section 20 had occurred on April 6, 1830, with “the rise of the Church of Christ in these last days” (v. 1). Thus, section 20 offered those early members and missionaries a basic outline of major events leading up to the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ in the latter days.

This year will bring a major demographic shift on planet earth. By the end of the year, for the first time in human history, more people will live in urban settings than rural. By the end of 2009, more than three billion people will live in cities, a third of them in slums (see Jonas Bendiksen’s haunting photograph of Caracas, Venezuela; used by permission, Magnum Photos). According to the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, the percentage of the world’s population living in urban areas in 2005 was 48.6 percent. By 2010 the urban population percentage will rise to 50.6 percent. Truly, “to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). As human history unfolds, this transition signals a new period, providing new challenges along with new opportunities.

In ancient times, many biblical events occurred in rural areas. For example, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were primarily rural people living on the outskirts of towns and cities. Though Abraham planted a grove in Beer-sheba, he did not live in the city of Beer-sheba. Similar to modern Bedouins who live in the deserts and wilderness of modern Middle Eastern states, Abraham lived on the fringes of Near Eastern urban society.

Likewise, Jesus was raised in Nazareth, a rural village of two to five hundred people. For most of his ministry, he avoided the large cities of the Holy Land, visiting Jerusalem at the time of the pilgrimage feast because it was the site of the temple. The second largest city in the region, Zippori (Sepphoris), is not even mentioned in the four Gospels. In Galilee, Jesus avoided the large cities of Tiberius and Caesarea Philippi, although he visited the coast [region] of Caesarea Philippi (see Matthew 16:13).

At the beginning of the Restoration, the Lord began to move his work forward in the rural areas of America. During the founding events of the Restoration, the Smith family lived in the township of Manchester, not even in the village. The Church was organized on a farm in Fayette Township.

Only after his prophetic call did the Prophet become an urbanite. As Richard L. Bushman and Dean C. Jessee write, “Less than six months after the church’s organization, he sent out missionaries to locate a site for a city that the revelations called the ‘City of Zion’ or ‘New Jerusalem’” (Joseph Smith Papers, Volume 1 [Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2008], xxiii). The Prophet “gave himself entirely to cities and temples. This vision drove him until the end of his life; and after his death the same vision inspired Mormon settlement in the Great Basin” (xxiii). They conclude, “Building cities was a strange mission for a person reared in the rural villages of New England and New York” (xxiv).

Why the move to cities? These gathering places provided central locations to organize the Church and erect temples so that the “fulness of the priesthood” could be restored (see Doctrine and Covenants 124:28). Again, Bushman and Jessee note that the Prophet was involved in numerous activities, but “city building, priesthood, and temples” were the heart of those labors (xxv).

Today the modern Church generally establishes mission headquarters in the major cities of the nations. Soon temples are erected in areas that allow access to the greatest number of people possible. As world demographics shift to an urban world, we will continue to preach to these urban centers and erect temples so that many more of God’s children can receive the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

During December, our thoughts may turn to a wintry day in a small farmhouse in Vermont where Joseph Smith Jr. drew his first breath in 1805. Or we may ponder a hot, muggy Thursday afternoon in June 1844 when the Prophet drew his final breath.

 

During his lifetime, Joseph Smith was many things—a dutiful son, a loving father, a kind neighbor, a visionary community leader. In addition, he was a prophet of God.

 

From the beginning, prophets have had specific duties.  Noah built an ark. Moses led the children of Israel out of bondage. Joshua let the Israelites into the promised land. Lehi and Jeremiah warned the inhabitants of Jerusalem about an impending exile. Peter and Paul took the gospel to the nations of the earth. No matter what specific assignments they have, all prophets stand as witnesses of the Lord.

 

Joseph Smith was no different. He received numerous assignments from the Lord. Nevertheless, his greatest and most important role as a prophet was to be a modern witness for Jesus Christ. In 1820, Joseph Smith recorded, “It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!” (Joseph Smith—History 1:17).

 

In 1832, Joseph and Sidney Rigdon testified, “For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:23).

 

In 1836, Joseph and Oliver Cowdery testified, “We saw the Lord standing upon the breastwork of the pulpit, before us; and under his feet was a paved work of pure gold, in color like amber. His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun; and his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters, even the voice of Jehovah” (Doctrine and Covenants 110:2-3).

 

Joseph Smith’s prophetic ministry can easily be divided into two separate but related duties.

 

First, the Prophet was called to testify of Jesus as Savior and Redeemer. He did this primarily through bringing forth the Book of Mormon and establishing the Church of Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon and the Church focus on the Atonement of Christ, repentance, salvation, and eternal life. This first assignment saw its culmination in the restoration of the first principles and ordinances of the gospel, which allow us to enter the celestial kingdom. This is called the “fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

 

Second, the Prophet was called to testify of Jesus as the “maker and finisher of our faith.” He did this primarily through the revelations he received, beginning in 1832, regarding exaltation and eternal lives (see Doctrine and Covenants 76, 84, 88, and 93). This last assignment saw its culmination in the temple, in which Latter-day Saints receive the ordinances of the Church of the Firstborn that allow them to come unto the presence of Elohim.

 

All the blessings and promises we announce to the inhabitants of the earth come through and by Jesus Christ—God’s own son. Certainly, it is all “good news.” Without Jesus Christ, we have nothing. Joseph Smith said on May 12, 1844, just a few weeks before he was murdered, “The Savior has the words of eternal life—nothing else can profit us” (Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., Words of Joseph Smith [Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1980], 365).

 

As we listen to Joseph’s witness of Jesus Christ, we hear the voice of Jesus because “Jesus anointed that Prophet and Seer” (William W. Phelps, “Praise to the Man,” Hymns [Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1985), no. 27).

Joseph Smith received a revelation the day the Church was organized in Fayette, New York (USA), in April 1830, “Behold, there shall be a record kept among you” (Doctrine and Covenants 21:1). The Prophet’s efforts have provided Church members and interested historians a number of primary sources that allow us to reconstruct his remarkable life. Certainly, anyone interested in Joseph Smith would like to have more material—more letters, minutes, diaries, and other items from his pen, but given the historical realities of nineteenth-century life, we are fortunate to have a rather large body of material to draw from as we study his life and ministry.

 

These important documents are preserved in various repositories in the United States, including the Church History Library in Salt Lake City and the Community of Christ Library-Archive in Independence, Missouri. In the past, historians had to travel to these archives to study the documents in order to prepare interpretive essays and books. Because of space limitations, they could reproduce only extracts from these primary sources—an act of interpretation itself, leaving the reader only a taste of what the original sources reveal.

 

Beginning in the 1970s, Church leaders and scholars realized it would be helpful to provide accurate transcriptions of these primary sources to a larger audience and to help preserve these fragile documents from frequent handling. After a rather long road, the Church announced it would publish two thousand primary documents relating to Joseph Smith’s life and ministry in a thirty-volume set, The Joseph Smith Papers, organized by specific types of material, including journals, documents, histories, administrative papers, revelations and inspired translations, and legal and business items.

 

Drawing from a variety of public and private collections, including those in private possession, these important records will provide a window into the story of Joseph Smith and, as a result, the early world of Mormonism. Church historian and recorder Elder Marlin K. Jensen opined, “The study of these historical sources, particularly in their earliest forms, provides students of Joseph Smith with an enriched understanding of the Prophet’s life and the development of the restored Church” (forthcoming July 2009 Ensign article).

 

The Joseph Smith Papers, Journals, Volume 1: 1832–1839 (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2008) was recently released just in time to celebrate the Prophet’s remarkable life on the anniversary of his birth on 23 December. Next year an important volume in the Revelations and Translations series will appear as the second published volume. In this volume, the earliest known copies of Joseph Smith’s revelations will be carefully reproduced. Elder Jensen observed, “Joseph seemed to regard the manuscript revelations as his best efforts to capture the voice of the Lord condescending to communicate in what Joseph called the ‘crooked, broken, scattered, and imperfect language’ of men” (July 2009 Ensign article). The series will continue from there.

 

When I recently picked up the first volume at the BYU Bookstore, I plowed into the book—some five hundred pages. First, it is an attractive volume, well made—printed on high quality paper and designed to last a lifetime of repeated handling. It includes meticulous transcriptions of the original sources; a variety of visual images (maps, photographs of individuals, and examples of some of the documents); carefully prepared charts (including a detailed chronology, genealogical table, ecclesiastical organization); a remarkable glossary; well-written introductory essays to each document; thoughtful annotations of the texts; and well-researched geographical and biographical directories. It is truly a treasure and worth every penny it cost ($49.95). Although I was familiar with the documents published in this first volume, the annotations and introductions brought to life the meaning and importance of the documents. I found myself marking passages that caught my attention. For example, on 1 April 1834, Joseph Smith wrote, “My Soul delighteth in the Law of the Lord for he forgiveth my sins” (p. 37). Many such entries will surprise and delight readers.

 

Readers do not begin at page 1 and read straight through to the end in the same kind of way we do with a biography. This is a documentary project—the type of effort loved by academics and appreciated by those who love to have an original copy of their grandfather’s diary or their mother’s personal letters. There is something about such documents that allow us to touch the past in a way that an interpretive work cannot do.

 

The Joseph Smith Papers will provide a personal and intimate look at the life of Joseph Smith. Historians will carefully comb through the volumes in order to provide new, fresh perspectives on the Prophet. Already The Joseph Smith Papers offer new insights, correct past assumptions, and get us closer to the original world of Joseph Smith, the latter-day Prophet. It is truly a good time to be alive!

 

For an overview of the project, see http://josephsmithpapers.org/Default.htm.

 

The most recent National Geographic (December 2008) arrived this past week with a cover story announcing the “Real King Herod.” During the Christmas season, we often reflect on Herod because of the story preserved in Matthew: “Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men” (Matthew 2:16).

 

While I found the article insightful, I challenge a few claims. Although the National Geographic author argues that Herod was “almost certainly innocent of this crime” (40), there is significant evidence that Herod, like other Hellenistic kings and the Roman emperors themselves, killed anyone thought to be a threat to the political stability of the kingdom. Matthew’s account is a firsthand, early Jewish source for some of the events in the first century, recorded well before Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, began writing the story of the First Jewish War against the Romans (AD 66—70).  Matthew’s story highlights Herod’s motives and tactics that accord with other primary sources, so historians should certainly be cautious about rejecting him while reconstructing the life of Herod.

 

Nevertheless, this article does provide some important insights to Herod’s reign beyond the few incidents noted in the New Testament. First, it brings to a much larger public the details of the discovery of Herod’s tomb earlier this year. Ehud Netzer, a prominent Israeli archeologist, had been looking for Herod’s tomb for thirty years before its monumental discovery. Second, this interesting article reveals, through word-pictures and reconstructed drawings of some of Herod’s most significant construction projects, that Herod was a master builder. His greatest achievement for his nation and for Judaism was the reconstruction and expansion of the temple, later known as Herod’s Temple, in Jerusalem.

 

This article helps us picture the world of Jesus as we become familiar with the people and places he visited. Shortly after Christ was born, Joseph and his mother Mary presented him to the Lord, according the Torah commandment, in the temple at Jerusalem (see Luke 2:22-40). There, a godly man and woman found him in the temple built by Herod and identified him as the long-promised Messiah. Herod the Great ruled Judea and adjacent territories as a client-king of the Roman Empire—the world that witnessed the birth of God’s Son, a world that has nearly vanished away. Only through the efforts of archaeologists and scholars like Ehud Netzer has that world become partially visible again. The recent discovery of Herod’s tomb southeast of Jerusalem adds another tile into the reconstructed mosaic of the world of the New Testament.

My friend Mark L. Grover is the author of a new book, A Land of Promise and Prophecy: Elder A. Theodore Tuttle in South America, 1960-1965, published by the Religious Studies Center at BYU.

When he sent me an early draft of the manuscript more than a year ago, I dove in and read it completely. I was impressed; this was a thoughtful history that a commercial press like Deseret Book would likely not publish, but it was the kind of project our donors are willing to support to preserve the story for future generations.

A word about the process: Once I am satisfied a manuscript is right for our audience, I send it out for two blind peer reviews. The reviewers do not know who the author is, so their reviews focus on the content and not the author. It helps keep scholars honest. We ask them to carefully read the manuscript and answer some basic questions: Does the manuscript provide new insights to the topic? Does the author have a firm grasp of the current literature on the topic? Is the manuscript well written? Is this the kind of book the RSC should publish? Once we receive these reviews, we then decide whether to accept it for publication. Then we begin the work of turning a manuscript into a polished book—editing, source checking, designing, and printing and binding. When the printed book finally arrives, another flurry of activity begins as we take care of copyright issues, publicity, and distribution.

No matter how many times I have gone through this publication ritual (for my own publications or for those published at the RSC), it is an exciting moment to open the box that contains a new book. I always look carefully at the cover and then begin to thumb through the book, looking at photographs, captions, and other design features. I often smell the pages as I fan through the book. I love the smell of a brand-new book. Eventually, I take the time to read the book cover to cover. Even though I have become intimately acquainted with its content through the nearly yearlong publishing process, there is still something exciting about reading it again as a complete, bound book.

Last night I took my copy of Mark’s book home and began to read. I could not put it down. I was so interested in reading the story for pure enjoyment instead of as a gatekeeper and editor. Mark provides a readable and moving account of Elder A. Theodore Tuttle’s labors in South America during a pivotal period (1960-65). He opines that it was “key to the evolution of the Church because it represented a significant adjustment in approach and direction, particularly from Church headquarters in Salt Lake City” (vi). Mark acknowledges, “It is dangerous to suggest that the evolution of the Church in South America belongs to one person or one period” (11) but adds that “in history there are always pivotal and important moments” (12). The book tells us why the five years between 1960 to 1965 represent a defining moment in LDS history in South America and why Elder Tuttle is central to that story.

Today, there are seventy-one missions, fifteen temples and more than three million members of the Church in South America. This suggests that Elder Tuttle, the mission presidents, missionaries, and courageous converts who lived and labored in the southern continent during this period laid an important foundation that has been built upon by so many more.

History provides context to the present. Mark Grover has provided us something truly significant to consider as we read about the Lord’s work spreading across a giant continent among a diverse people. It is a remarkable story of faith and courage that matches any story from the Latter-day Saint past. I think you will like it!

In a remarkable revelation given through Joseph Smith in 1831, the Lord said, “The voice of warning shall be unto all people” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:4). This command may have seemed overwhelming for the fledgling Church of Jesus Christ. Two years later, in 1833, the Lord expanded the Church’s mission, saying, “Every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language” (Doctrine and Covenants 90:11).

Today, it is estimated that there are nearly 7,000 spoken languages in the world, of which some 2,600 have a writing system. However, linguists project that within a century more than 3,000 spoken languages will disappear. The world is indeed getting small, and some languages are expanding their reach, such as English and Chinese.

The Church’s effort to fulfill the Lord’s command to preach the gospel to the inhabitants of the earth has been remarkable and continues to be so. Our family simply mirrors what is happening across the planet with so many Latter-day Saints. My son Bailey serves in the Switzerland Zürich Mission, and my daughter Marin enters the Missionary Training Center in Provo on December 4, 2008, to begin her preparations to serve in the Hungary Budapest Mission. They follow in the footsteps of two older brothers—Nathan, who served in the Chile Osorno Mission, and Zac, who served in the Costa Rica San José Mission. I completed my own missionary service in the Italy Milan Mission. My son and daughter will join their cousins, Elders Josh Meacham and Ephraim Taylor, who are serving in the Poland Warsaw and Taiwan Taichung missions.

Equally impressive is the effort to provide translations of the Book of Mormon to the world. Today, the complete Book of Mormon has been translated into seventy-nine languages, and selections are available in another twenty-three languages. This represents 99 percent of the languages spoken by Latter-day Saints. Efforts continue to translate this book into more languages to fulfill the Lord’s command.

The Prophet Joseph Smith was on his first historic visit to Jackson County, Missouri, in August 1831 when he heard the voice of the Lord, “Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness” (Doctrine and Covenants 58:27). In this light, the Religious Studies Center has launched a new Web page to reach a wider audience. Finally, in response to the Lord’s command that each person hear the gospel in his own language, we have translated some of the best articles and books from the RSC’s printed library into Spanish and Portuguese, the two most common languages in the Church outside of English. Additionally, we have just added German and will be publishing a landmark book by Dr. Roger Minert, In Harm’s Way: German Latter-day Saints in World War II. We will expand our outreach by translating other books, providing Church members another way to “seek . . . out of the best books words of wisdom” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:118). We invite others to join us in this adventure and spread the word that the RSC Web site is providing valuable articles in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and German.

I enjoy browsing through National Geographic when it arrives in the mail each month. The cover story of the November 2008 issue captured my attention, “The End of Night: Why We Need Darkness.” Before the dawn of the twentieth century, the world had an abundance of three commodities: solitude, silence, and darkness. “In a very real sense,” Verlyn Klinkenborg wrote, “light pollution causes us to lose sight of our true place in the universe, to forget the scale of our being, which is best measured against the dimensions of a deep night with the Milky Way—the edge of our galaxy—arching overhead” (“Our Vanishing Night,” 109).

My own experiences in the Sinai and Negev deserts allow me to imagine the ancient world—a place of vast empty spaces and remarkable and splendid wonder. The night skies are illuminated with intensely bright stars. The canyons, cliffs, craggy mountains, dunes, and mud flats are filled with a deafening silence. It ends up being a place where a person is able to consider the matchless power of the Lord—the Creator of heaven and earth. At the same time, it is a place where humans can contemplate their own dependency on God for life itself.

The ancient world offered abundant opportunities to experience nature and the Lord of Creation. Such experiences provided them perspective of the vast reach of Creation. Moses, who had been raised in the household of Pharaoh, lived in one of the most advanced civilizations of the ancient world. Interestingly, after fleeing into the wilderness of Sinai—where he experienced silence, solitude, and darkness more intensely than he had before—Moses came face to face with the God of Nature. “And it came to pass that it was for the space of many hours before Moses did again receive his natural strength like unto man; and he said unto himself: Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed” (Moses 1:10).

Given the reality of modern urban life, where solitude is difficult to find, where silence is almost impossible to experience, and where natural darkness has virtually disappeared, is there anything we can do—something that will provide us the kind of experiences that Abraham and Sarah, Zacharias and Elisabeth, and Joseph and Emma Smith had that allowed them to find God and thereby find their place in the grand cosmos.

We certainly cannot turn back time, but we can turn off the TV, turn off the iPod, turn off the radio, turn off the lights, and take the opportunity to see the natural world that God created. In the rush and hectic pace of life, we need to slow down and spend some time alone. Prophets have given counsel regarding too much organized recreation and sports, too much TV, and too many scheduled activities, both at church and at home.

We can take a vacation to a place like Utah’s Natural Bridges National Monument, named the first Dark Sky Park, or some other remote wilderness area if possible. Or we can take time to appreciate the magnitude of God’s creations by visiting the temple and experiencing the silence of “the mountain of the Lord’s house” (Isaiah 2:2). I believe these sacred places help us to “be still and know that [he is] God” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:16), renewing ourselves through solitude, silence, and darkness.

BYU hosted the Thirty-Seventh Annual Sidney B. Sperry Symposium on campus, 

“The Doctrine and Covenants: Revelations in Context” this past weekend (24-25 October 2008). It was a beautiful fall weekend in Provo!

Named in honor of Sidney B. Sperry, a well-known and respected BYU Religious Education faculty member who taught from 1932 until 1969, the symposium focuses on the Gospel Doctrine topic for the upcoming year. As a result, this year’s symposium highlighted the Doctrine and Covenants, the “capstone” of the Church. This is one of the strongest volumes in the series and features new insights from the Joseph Smith Papers Project.

Elder C. Max Caldwell, released Seventy and former Doctrine and Covenants teacher at BYU, was the keynote speaker on Friday evening. The remaining sessions on Friday and Saturday were held in the Joseph Smith Building (JSB) and the Martin Building (MARB). For those who missed this opportunity this past weekend, we have printed selections from the conference in our newest RSC publication, The Doctrine and Covenants: Revelations in Context (Provo and Salt Lake City: Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book, 2008).

Andrew H. Hedges, J. Spencer Fluhman, and Alonzo L. Gaskill, the volume editors, provided thoughtful essays—fresh insights to the story behind the revelations and revealing analysis of the doctrinal content of several Joseph Smith revelations. You will not want to miss Robert J. Woodford’s essay, “Discoveries from the Joseph Smith Papers Project: The Early Manuscripts” or Steve Harper’s article, “All Things Are the Lord’s: The Law of Consecration in the Doctrine and Covenants.” Both contributions force us to rethink what we have thought about before on these subjects because the authors have moved the boundaries of knowledge with their meticulous efforts. Personally, I think J. B. Haws’ article, “Joseph Smith, Emanuel Swedenborg, and Section 76,” has provided a definitive response to our critics who have attempted to demonstrate the influence of the eighteenth-century Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg on Joseph Smith. Finally, Grant Underwood’s contribution to the volume, “The Laws of the Church of Christ” is amazing—he gently gets us back to the original setting by providing a detailed analysis of the text, “offering insight into the revelatory process that produced the canonical texts” (p. 135). I will never teach my Doctrine and Covenants classes the same after this symposium.

The Sperry Symposium is always a marvelous opportunity to “teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:118).

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines a classic as “having lasting significance or worth; enduring” or “a work recognized as definitive in its field.” Until the second half of the twentieth century, anyone interested in building a library of classic books from the past would expect to find them in expensive bookstores. Such books were usually bought by academics, book collectors, or wealthy individuals who could afford not only leather-bound books but also a library to house them.

In 1946, the owner of Penguin Books, Allen Lane, decided to release the first book in a new series, “Penguin Classics.” Translated by E. V. Rieu, the book was truly a classic, Homer’s Odyssey. The series produced modern translations of the classics in paperback editions, making them affordable and readable for a new generation of people. Over the years more than 1,300 titles have become part of the now world-famous series.

The most recent addition to the Penguin Classics series is The Book of Mormon (New York: Penguin Books, 2008), with an introduction by Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, a well-known academic observer of Mormonism and associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Penguin Books chose to republish the 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon because it “was the last of three revision undertaken by Joseph Smith Jr. . . . before his death in 1844” (vii). This reader-friendly edition replicates the 1840 edition, which had no verses, few chapter divisions, and none of the student helps in modern editions, such as footnotes and chapter summaries. As I began reading it today, I felt like one of the early Saints who read the book in full-page narrative style, which provided a different kind of experience.

Since 1830, the story of the book’s origins, the historical and cultural context of the narrative itself, and the book’s message have become part of a large and rather sophisticated discussion at all levels. Scholars–both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and those of other faith traditions–have read it, studied, and written about it.

The BYU Religious Studies Center, established in 1975 by Jeffrey R. Holland, has been involved in that discussion, sponsoring conferences and publishing articles and books on the Book of Mormon that have helped many appreciate in new ways this “marvelous work and a wonder.” I hope you will join us in a journey of discovery as we continue to fulfill Elder Holland’s vision, which he recalled in 1986, “When the Religious Studies Center was established at Brigham Young University in 1975, it was intended to facilitate not only the University’s commitment to religious studies but was also to serve those same interests among the general membership of the Church.”