Novel about the gold plates: "Land of the Saints"

Excerpts of New Mystery Thriller 'Land of the Saints' Draws From Mormon Church History, by Ginny Grimsley, Market Wire
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Los Angeles attorney Robert P. DesJardins plumbed the history and mysteries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for his newest novel, "Land of the Saints".

The folding of fact into fiction produced a Mormon-style "Davinci Code" -- so plausible, some readers might wonder where history ends and imagination takes wing.

"As with the LDS church, the book centers on the Golden Plates that church founder Joseph Smith said the angel Moroni gave him in 1830,"

"The Rescue" - a plan to address the difficulties of Mormon history

Note: More about this issue here

Dr. Phillip Barlow (Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University) invited Elder Marlin K. Jensen (Church Historian and Recorder) to speak at USU. Excerpts of the Q&A session specifically having to do with the difficulties Mormons face when learning about church history are included below. This points to an unfolding crisis affecting the church, and efforts to address this issue. Several items of note from Elder Jensen include:

• The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve realize that "maybe since Kirtland, we never have had a period of, I'll call it apostasy, like we're having right now"  
• "What we have in mind is to develop a response to the tough issues – whether that's polyandry, or DNA in the Book of Mormon ... we do have another initiative that we have called, "Answers to Gospel Questions". We are trying to figure out exactly what channels to deliver it in"
  
• Where has the prophet laid his emphasis right now? It's on something called 'The Rescue'
• "There's no sense kidding ourselves. We need to be very upfront with [this generation], tell them what we know, and give answers to what we have, and let them fall on their faith for things that we don't completely understand."

The text below was excerpted from Simple Mormon Spectator

Liberal General Authority to retire as church historian

Elder Marlin K. Jensen holds a first edition Book of Mormon

Excerpts of Changing of the guard in Mormon history by Peggy Fletcher Stack, The Salt Lake Tribune.
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...Jensen helped transform the Utah-based faith's approach to its history. He put thousands of its documents online, oversaw the groundbreaking Joseph Smith Papers Project, reorganized the staff and moved into a new state-of-the-art building. He also pushed for an honest telling of the Mountain Meadows Massacre and lobbied to make the southwestern Utah location of the 1857 siege a national historic site.

William Clayton diaries

William Clayton

One of the most illuminating and elusive Mormon history resources, the diaries are not accessible except, apparently, to some working on the Joseph Smith Papers project (a few pages of the diaries were included in the latest Joseph Smith paper volume).  As part of J. Stapley's review of of this volume, he tells the story of how the Clayton diaries became available to three researchers in the 70s, and how their transcripts have either come into print, or have influenced important works of history. 

William Clayton was in Joseph Smith's inner circle and kept a detailed, personal journal of his experiences.  Recording more than just the day-to-day events, he wrote about his feelings and challenges, as well as those of his associates.  His record provides a frank look behind the scenes of Nauvoo, providing a view of how Joseph Smith's teachings were interpreted and practiced at that time.

Setting the record straight

Historian Michael Marquardt has begun a new series of short articles titled "Setting the Record Straight."  The first two mini-articles are regarding the Doctrine and Covenants:
Revelation headings changed

• having to do with a mix-up of the location of a number of revelations
  

Date Modified, Text Added

• showing that D&C 27 (LDS) was not originally two revelations combined into a single revelation as the section heading states
  

FLDS prophet declares no more sex

Excerpts of Marriages dissolved, sexual relationships banned among FLDS faithful, KSL news.  The FLDS church is a Mormon sect that continues to practice polygamy.  They broke off from the LDS church in the early 1900s after the LDS church banned polygamy. Copies of revelations from Jeffs are being sent to LDS meetinghouses.

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...followers of Warren Jeffs await the apocalypse he has predicted, they're living under a challenging edict: they're forbidden to have sex until Jeffs is sprung from a Texas prison.

"He has predicted that the walls in the prison where he's at will fall and crumble," said Joni Holm, who has many relatives in the polygamous FLDS faith.

Review: "Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World"

John Shelby Spong's reputation rests (or should rest) not only on his achievement of having published over twenty books on religion and the Bible, but also on the fact that he has risen to high rank in his church (Episcopal bishop of Newark, New Jersey for twenty-one years until his retirement) despite religious beliefs and attitudes toward the Bible that would have had him burned at the stake as a heretic only a few centuries ago. Even in our modern and supposedly more tolerant age, Bishop Spong has received eighteen death threats. All from Christians.

The present volume continues the themes of Spong's previous books. In his writings, he claims (and "re-claims" here) that 1) the Bible is a great and valuable book; 2) most Christians are quite ignorant about the Bible, confining their knowledge of it to their Sunday school stories and the passages frequently quoted in their pastor's sermons; 3) the Bible is not - and should not be considered as - the "Word of God"; 4) the Bible is mis-used when cited to justify injustice or cruelty, such as genocide, slavery, second-class status for women, or discrimination against homosexuals.

Simon Southerton on DNA and the Book of Mormon

Publications by Simon Southerton and Thomas Murphy led to a so-called "Galileo moment" regarding DNA and the Book of Mormon. Genetic studies demonstrated that Native Americans were not primarily descended from the Middle East as had been assumed by most members and leaders of the church.  Apologists responded, suggesting the Book of Mormon should be read with the assumption that a larger indegenous population was already here when Book of Mormon peoples arrived, and that DNA evidence of Middle Eastern descent was washed out by breeding with the indigenous population.  The church subsequently clarified the introduction to the Book of Mormon to accommodate this view.

Simon Southerton has begun publishing updates about DNA and the Book of Mormon.

Mormon polygamous sect: must be 'chosen' by year's end or be destroyed

Excerpts of FLDS must be 'chosen' by year's end or be destroyed, Jeffs says, by John Hollenhorst, KSL News
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A "frenzy" of activity has erupted among a polygamist community in southern Utah as imprisoned leader Warren Jeffs has told his followers that they must be "chosen" by the end of the year or be destroyed.

According to outside observers, there has been a flurry of church meetings almost daily, a set of mysterious construction projects and widespread re-baptism as thousands of followers react to apparent prophesies of doom from their imprisoned leader.

Author Interview: John Dinger, 'The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes'

An important new book, The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes makes available for the first time the minutes of the city and church high councils from the Mormon city of Nauvoo, Illinois, 1839-1845.  The minutes were edited into book format by John S. Dinger, assistant district attorney in Boise, Idaho.

He was kind enough to answer a few questions about the book:

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Clair Barrus: Can you provide a description of the contents of the book, I.E. what documents are included, what time frame do they span, where did these councils fit into the leadership hierarchy of Nauvoo.

John: The book contains the records of two of the governing bodies in Nauvoo; the City Council and the High Council. 

SNL Insight on answers to prayers, and the true church

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jesus-politely-requests-tim-tebow-take-it-down-a-notch-on-snl/

Rethinking Retrenchment: Course Corrections in the ongoing Campaign for Respectability

Sociologist Armand Mauss has written an important "update" on the continuing evolution of the modern church.  His article in the most recent issues of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought summarizes his views of LDS church assimilation into the greater culture as presented in his 1994 book The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation. He describes periods of assimilation into the greater American religious culture, interleaved with periods of retrenchment that differentiate the Mormon church from other religions. Periods of retrenchment emphasize differences between the church and society, while periods of assimilation focus on commonality and deemphasize differences. 

Gender gap widens among Mormons

Excerpts of Gender gap widening among Utah Mormons, but why? by Peggy Fletcher Stack, The Salt Lake Tribune.  See here where a BYU researcher questions this survey.
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A new survey shows Mormon women outnumber men in the LDS Church — and the gap appears to be widening, especially in Utah.

James E. Talmage investigation of the Dream Mine

John Koyle said he was shown the
"Dream Mine" (or Relief Mine)
by a heavenly messenger

In the 1880s, John Koyle started having dreams about lost cattle.  Later, his fellow missionaries felt he had the ability to prophesy.  He continued to have dreams about world affairs.  Many Latter-day Saints believed his predictive dreams were being fulfilled, and his reputation as a visionary spread.

Koyle said a heavenly messenger told him of an ancient Nephite gold mine near Spanish Fork, Utah in 1894.  He was given detailed instructions how to mine the site, and was told the mine would aid in the relief of his people during a time of world-wide crisis. In 1910, Koyle was appointed bishop of a ward in Spanish Fork.

Trained geologist and apostle James E. Talmage visited the Relief Mine in 1913 and  reported his is findings to the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. Some in the church heirarchy believed in Koyle's abilities, while others felt he was deluded. 

Polygamy frankly discussed in church publication (Joseph Smith Papers volume)

Excerpts of Thoughts on the introduction to the new JSP Volume: Journals Vol. 2 (1841-43) By: Ben Park, Juvenile Instructor
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...The Joseph Smith Papers just released the most recent addition to their foundational series. Journals, Volume 2 (1841-1843) ... I just want to comment on a single section of the introduction; in fact, only about seven pages of the introduction....  in a little over twenty pages, they had to update their readers on what happened between 1838 (when the last Journals volume ended) to when Willard Richards became Smith's journal keeper in December 1841 ...  about a third of the entire introduction—of discussion on the origin, documentation, and controversy over polygamy. And it's not just the length of the discussion that's surprising, but also the content.

Mormon Defense League now called MormonVoices

Excerpts of FAIR changes Mormon defenders website name by Joseph Walker, Deseret News
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"The Mormon Defense League" is out. "MormonVoices" is in.

That change became official ..., when the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research announced a name change for its website aimed at defending the teachings and practices of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

A Selected Chronology of George Albert Smith

The Priesthood / Relief Society manual "Teachings of Presidents of the Church: George Albert Smith" will be studied by Latter-day Saint men and women in 2012.  LDS-Church-History will present a selected chronology of the life of George Albert Smith, 8th president of the L.D.S. Church, providing further insight into his life.

George Albert Smith was born of a "royal" Mormon heritage.  His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all members of the Quorum of the Twelve and First Presidency.  His great-grandfather was a brother to Joseph Smith Sr., and  George Albert Smith's wife was a grand-daughter of Wilford Woodruff.  Genealogical information of his ancestry will be presented, as well as major events from their lives where available.


His father, John Henry Smith, kept a detailed journal, which sheds light on the childhood and family life of George Albert Smith.  When George Albert Smith became an apostle, he and his father were the first father-son pair serving at the same time in the Quorum of the Twelve.  Entries from John Henry Smith's journals provide valuable insight into the first forty years of the life of George Albert Smith.

Aspects of his life as an apostle will also be drawn from other sources, including his own journals, the journals of his fellow apostles, and also from President Heber J. Grant's.  Major issues dealt with by the Quorum of the Twelve will also be included.

Upon the death of Heber J. Grant, George Albert Smith became the 8th president of the church. This chronology will include aspects of his life, presidency and major events in the administration and history of the church during his presidency.

Each day, several items from this chronology will be posted.  The best way to follow LDS Church History is by subscribing to one of the following:

• Email
• Twitter
• Facebook or 
• Feed

Another Mormon fundamentalist family in the spotlight

Darger Family, Utah Polygamists, Want To Dispel Misconceptions About Their Faith by Ileana Llorens, Huffington Post

Television shows such as "Big Love" and "Sister Wives," have recently brought attention to polygamy in the U.S. Now, one Salt Lake City family is telling their story in hope of dispelling misconceptions about their beliefs.

Between Joe and his three wives, Alina, Vicki and Val -- two of whom are identical twins -- the Dargers have a total of 24 children. While they acknowledge their lifestyle is illegal in the United States, the four say they're willing to risk jail time in order to share their story with the world.

Herod did not complete temple in Jerusalem

New find sheds light on ancient site in Jerusalem, by Matti Friedman, AP

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Newly found coins underneath Jerusalem's Western Wall could change the accepted belief about the construction of one of the world's most sacred sites two millennia ago, Israeli archaeologists said Wednesday.

The man usually credited with building the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary is Herod, a Jewish ruler who died in 4 B.C. Herod's monumental compound replaced and expanded a much older Jewish temple complex on the same site.

But archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority now say diggers have found coins underneath the massive foundation stones of the compound's Western Wall that were stamped by a Roman proconsul 20 years after Herod's death. That indicates that Herod did not build the wall —

Judge affirms Canadian ban on polygamy

Excerpts of Judge affirms Canadian ban on polygamy by Erin Alberty, The Salt Lake Tribune
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A Canadian judge dealt a blow to polygamy advocates Wednesday by upholding the country's ban on plural marriage.

In a landmark decision, British Columbia Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman wrote that the ban prevents "sundry harms" related to polygamy and "minimally impairs religious freedom."