The Book of Mormon Translation Process -By Joseph Fielding McConkie and Craig Ostler I wanted to include this excerpt from McConkie and Ostler’s book Revelations of the Restoration in order to provide one analysis of the process of the Book of Mormon translation. My understanding from the historical accounts isContinue Reading

Historical Background – Martin Harris By 1827, Martin Harris had built a comfortable life for himself in Palmyra, New York. He married his cousin Lucy in 1808, fought in the war of 1812, and by 1827 Martin had had acquired 320 acres of farmland, made them profitable through his industry andContinue Reading

Moroni chapter 8 is Mormon’s epistle to his son Moroni on the salvation of little children. For more on this doctrine, see Robert L. Millet’s paper entitled Alive in Christ: The Salvations of Little Children.”[1]Robert Millet, Alive in Christ: The Salvation of Little Children, Fourth Nephi, From Zion to Destruction, eds. MonteContinue Reading

Formal Witneses The Three Witnesses The Eight Witnesses Informal Witnesses David B. Haight Emma Smith Harrison Burgess John Henry Smith Joseph F. Smith Lorenzo Snow Lucy Mack Smith Mary Whitmer Oscar McConkie William Smith Richard Lloyd Anderson analyzes the witnesses to the Book of MormonContinue Reading

In these chapters Jesus discusses the name of his church and defines what the gospel is. These simple truths lead to the 28th chapter where Mormon informs his readers that 3 of the Nephite 12 experienced a “transfiguration” (3 Nephi 28.17), something we call translation today. The coming forth ofContinue Reading

Some people do not know that Joseph Smith ran for president of the United States prior to his life being cut short by the assassins at Carthage Jail in 1844. One of the points of is platform was a challenge to the institution of slavery. Joseph saw slavery as beingContinue Reading

This document contains the show notes for a podcast I made in November 2019 about bishops in early Christianity and the counsel in the Pastorals regarding the choosing of a bishop. I was interested in doing something like this for a while, due to the scholarship that exists regarding theContinue Reading

In 1837, Elders Heber C. Kimball, Willard Richards, Orson Hyde, and Isaac Russell were laboring as missionaries in Preston, England. 1 They were sharing a three-story flat on Wilford Street when the unthinkable happened. On Sunday, July 30, sometime around daybreak, Elder Russell rushed into the room of Elders KimballContinue Reading

Recently I had this question brought to me from one of my online students: I’ve always found the baptisms of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to difficult to understand how it all happened, is there someplace you’d recommend going to find out more about this?  How does one baptize withoutContinue Reading