BYU Studies

Volume 58:2 (2019) - Years after the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith on June 27, 1844, Amanda Benton Smith, a resident of Carthage, Illinois, and non–Latter-day Saint, recorded an account of the events of that day. Twenty-eight years old and a mother of six, Amanda was the wife of Carthage Grey captain Robert F. Smith—the militia officer responsible for protecting the Latter-day Saint prisoners in Carthage jail and defending the town. In her reminiscence, Amanda describes learning of the Smiths’ deaths and draws a vivid picture of the vacant city as local citizens fled to the countryside in anticipation of the Latter-day Saints’ retaliation, which never came. This account, reproduced in full in this article, presents an alternative viewpoint articulated with courage and even a little humor. If accurate, her sketch also suggests that the leader of the Carthage Greys may not have been complicit in the attack on the jail.

Volume 58:2 (2019) - This article presents the text of a recently located revelation from Brigham Young: “The word of the Lord that was revealed to his people, by his servant the Prophet seer and Revelator, President Brigham Young, February 1874” (spelling modernized). This revelation, commanding the Saints to live the united order, is all the more remarkable since Brigham Young dictated so few revelations in the voice of the Lord while he was a prophet, seer, and revelator of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Blythe examines the historical context of this revelation and explains why Young was often hesitant to place revelations in the language of the Lord and even more hesitant to place them in writing.

Volume 58:2 (2019) - The bell that hung briefly in the first Nauvoo Temple was removed when the Saints left and carried to Winter Quarters and then to Utah. During the harsh winter of 1849—1850, the bell cracked and could not be repaired; it was most likely destroyed in an attempt to recast it. The bell that was installed on Temple Square in 1939 and labeled as the “Nauvoo Bell” was not the temple bell but was instead a bell purchased by Michael Hummer that had hung in a church in Iowa City. Hummer’s bell has a fascinating history of it’s own. This article traces the history of both bells by looking at foundry records, steamship bells, journals, newspapers, and the Temple Square bell itself.

Volume 58:2 (2019) - Volume four of the Revelations and Translations series presents for the first time a transcription and complete photographic reproduction of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ holdings of all the manuscripts, grammars, lexical aids, and other resources that were produced in the process of creating the book of Abraham. The publication of these materials comes at a timely moment for the Church and scholars working on the book of Abraham. The internal dynamics that are obvious in the Church’s Gospel Topics Essay on the book of Abraham are less determinative for this publication; the essay includes the claims that some translations “were not based on any known physical records” and that Latter-day Saint and other Egyptologists “agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham,” but it offers no cogent explanation of how this could occur. The publication of the grammar and alphabet materials alongside the text of the book of Abraham, however, represents a process by which Smith explored an unfamiliar language and sought to interpret it even though the language remained unknown to him. For decades, the grammar and alphabet have remained largely on the sidelines, as unwanted byproducts that were potentially produced by scribes who worked on their own. Now, these products are situated within Joseph Smith’s translation process without discrimination, and that will prove to be one of the most important contributions of this new volume.

Volume 58:2 (2019) - The question at the heart of the exchange between Korihor and Alma in the Book of Mormon concerns knowledge, what Alma calls the real. This essay probes Korihor’s appraisal of the Nephite’s Christian devotion, sorting out the basic stakes of his argument, and then looks at how Alma slowly and belatedly develops a full response to Korihor. Deviating from traditional interpretations of the parable of the seed of faith, Spencer illustrates that Alma effectively displaces knowledge as a core value, arguing that faith not only is not lesser than knowledge but also goes beyond knowledge and produces something of infinitely more value. Although one can know the truth of Christ and know it perfectly, faith continues beyond knowledge because faith aims not at acquiring knowledge, but at eternal life.