A Book of Commandments and Revelations

by John W. Welch (Editor), Robert J. Woodford, Robin Scott Jensen

This issue of BYU Studies features a special series of articles examining the recently published Book of Commandments and Revelations, the first volume of the Revelations and Translations series of The Joseph Smith Papers. The BCR contains the earliest surviving manuscript versions of many of Joseph Smith’s revelations and the only prepublication manuscript copies of some of them. The BCR also contains seven revelations never published as part of the scriptural canon of the Church. These articles, written by members of the Joseph Smith Papers editorial team, flesh out the importance of the BCR in more detail than is found in the printed edition itself. They discuss the dating of the revelations, notes given in the BCR that were not transferred to the Doctrine and Covenants, and other contextual details that give us inisight into the revelations themselves.

Jessie L. Embry looks at twentieth-century LDS history through the lens of church sports in “‘Spiritualized Recreation’: LDS All-Church Athletic Tournaments, 1950–1971.” Embry discusses how the tournaments served spiritual purposes as well as how the end of the all-church sports program mirrors Church growth and internationalization.

Jill Mulvay Derr and Karen Lynn Davidson, editors of Eliza R. Snow: The Complete Poetry, share a handful of Snow’s more than five hundred poems along with historical context and insightful commentary. This new book was copublished by BYU Studies and the University of Utah Press and is available for purchase on this website.

Even though book reviewers always mention the fact that publishing phenomenon Stephenie Meyer is a “Mormon housewife turned novelist,” Jana Riess finds it intriguing that they miss most of the LDS themes in her novels. In “Book of Mormon Stories That Steph Meyer Tells to Me,” Riess explores the theological underpinnings of Meyer’s popular fiction.

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

John W. Welch is the Robert K. Thomas Professor of Law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, where he teaches various courses, including Perspectives on Jewish, Greek, and Roman Law in the New Testament. Since 1991 he has also served as the editor in chief of BYU Studies. He studied history and classical languages at Brigham Young University, Greek philosophy at Oxford, and law at Duke University. As a founder of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, one of the editors for Macmillan’s Encyclopedia of Mormonism, and codirector of the Masada and Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition at BYU, he has published widely on biblical, early Christian, and Latter-day Saint topics.

from http://deseretbook.com/auth/420/John_...

Reviews

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent series of papers from a recent conference on the BCR. Plus, a more interesting than usual collection of book reviews.