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This book offers a collection of critical studies of major texts used to reconstruct the founding era of Mormonism. The book will help scholars gain a more solid footing in the period's documentary record and enable them to use these and other sources more critically in their own work.
List of contents
- Foreword
- Harry S. Stout
- Contributors
- Chapter 1
- Introduction
- Mark Ashurst-McGee, Robin Scott Jensen, and Sharalyn D. Howcroft
- Chapter 2
- The Gold Plates as Foundational Text
- Richard Lyman Bushman
- Chapter 3
- Textual Criticism and the Book of Mormon
- Grant Hardy
- Chapter 4
- Intertextuality and the Purpose of Joseph Smith's New Translation of the Bible
- Thomas A. Wayment
- Chapter 5
- The Dictation, Compilation, and Canonization of Joseph Smith's Revelations
- Grant Underwood
- Chapter 6
- Joseph Smith's Missouri Prison Letters and the Mormon Textual Community
- David W. Grua
- Chapter 7
- The Textual Culture of the Nauvoo Female Relief Society Leadership and Minute Book
- Jennifer Reeder
- Chapter 8
- John Smith's Sermons and the Early Mormon Documentary Record
- William V. Smith
- Chapter 9
- Joseph Smith's Nauvoo Journals
- Alex D. Smith and Andrew H. Hedges
- Chapter 10
- The Early Diaries of Wilford Woodruff, 1835-1839
- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
- Chapter 11
- A Textual and Archival Reexamination of Lucy Mack Smith's History
- Sharalyn D. Howcroft
- Chapter 12
- The Image as Text and Context in Early Mormon History
- Jeffrey G. Cannon
- Chapter 13
- Joseph Smith and the Conspicuous Scarcity of Early Mormon Documentation
- Ronald O. Barney
About the author
Mark Ashurst-McGee is the Senior Historian and Senior Research and Review Editor for the Joseph Smith Papers Project, where he specializes in document analysis and documentary editing methodology. He is a coeditor of several volumes of the
Joseph Smith Papers and is the author of several articles on Joseph Smith and early Mormon history.
Robin Scott Jensen is Associate Managing Historian and the Project Archivist for the Joseph Smith Papers Project. Jensen is a coeditor of the volumes in the Revelations and Translations series of the
Joseph Smith Papers and is the author of several articles on Joseph Smith and early Mormon history.
Sharalyn D. Howcroft is a member of the Academy of Certified Archivists and an archivist for the Joseph Smith Papers Project specializing in handwriting identification and custodial history.
Summary
This book offers a collection of critical studies of major texts used to reconstruct the founding era of Mormonism. The book will help scholars gain a more solid footing in the period's documentary record and enable them to use these and other sources more critically in their own work.
Additional text
Historical sources have their own histories. This is especially true of the primary texts that shape our fundamental understanding of the foundations of Mormonism. This collection of essays by experts in the field is an invaluable resource for scholars working on early Mormonism or religion in nineteenth-century America, orienting them to the complex histories behind the sources they employ to write their own histories.
