BYU Studies
Alphabetical by Authors

An increasing number of psychotherapists reject traditional psychology’s marginalization of religion. As in the original Turning Freud Upside Down, this second volume looks to Christ’s gospel for direction. With a gospel perspective, the authors have questioned some of psychotherapy’s standard assumptions and have proposed features that should be found in gospel-compatible psychotherapy. “As I read these chapters, I was grateful for the thoughtful contributions of each of the authors. There was a genuine respect for the complexity inherent in trying to view therapy through a gospel lens. If you, like me, find yourself feeling inspired, uplifted, strengthened, and more committed to being true to gospel truths in the context of the relationships we engage in as therapists, then you have experienced the invitation to dialogue about significant issues in helping the clients that come to us. I offer deep appreciation for this opportunity to recalibrate my thinking and actions as a therapist. I wholeheartedly endorse this book in the spirit living the gospel and practicing it with others.” Vaughn E. Worthen, PhD Clinical Professor of Counseling Psychology at Brigham Young University Turning Freud Upside Down is not child’s play. However, I recommend any serious believer who is trained to heal troubled minds to examine this volume. It ably strives to seal clinical psychological thoughts with principles available to us as Saints of the latter days. Unchanging eternal gospel principles fit very nicely into this new examination of old theories. Turning Freud Upside Down really is Turning Truth Right Side Up.” Joseph Cramer, MD Pediatrician for over thirty-five years, past president of the Utah Medical Association

Latter-day Saints often worry about psychotherapy negatively affecting their souls-for good reason. Even religious therapists may promote anti-gospel principles. This hazard is particularly extreme when therapists are unaware of their practicing assumptions. Now counselors-and their clients-can go to Turning Freud Upside Down for a gospel corrective to that problem. No mere Freud basher; this book indicts basic concepts riddling much of traditional psychotherapy. If you want to think about psychotherapy in dramatically new ways, read Turning Freud Upside Down. As its title suggests, this book upends traditional psychological dogma. Far more important it also advances alternative, gospel-based views of human behavior and personality. Latter-day Saint and other Christian clinicians who feel lost in the trenches will find this book an indispensable map for moving further away from secular assumptions and techniques to a more spiritual base. I eagerly await the forthcoming volumes in this series. —Godfrey J. Ellis, PhD Director of the Master’s Program in Counseling Psychology St. martin’s University

On two occasions while he worked on his New Translation of Genesis in 1830, the Prophet Joseph Smith dictated to his scribe Oliver Cowdery a word combination that in English is awkward and umgrammatical, though in the Hebrew it is not: “Behold I.” The first occurrence reads, “Behold I am the Lord God Almighty.” The second reads, “Behold I send me.” Both passages are in the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price, but “Behold I” is not found in either of those passages today because, after the time of Joseph Smith, each was edited out of the text . .

In his introduction to Bible Culture and Authority in the Early United States, author Seth Perry of Princeton University writes of “a shared set of symbols, types, behaviors, and vocabulary” that derive from or were influenced by the King James Bible (2). The book discusses the interaction of this shared set with early American society, asserting that the Bible and biblical language were resources that individuals in the nineteenth century used to create legitimacy—that is, authority in their relationships with others. Scripturalization is the term Perry employs to describe how people, language, rhetoric, and other aspects of society obtained this authority by drawing from the stories and texts of the Bible. That the Bible played a major role in the early history of the United States is well known. Margaret Hills documented over fourteen hundred editions of the Bible that were printed in the United States between 1776 and 1850, the vast majority of which were Protestant editions. Perry sees the proliferation of Bibles not only as a reflection of America’s unique culture but also, rightly, as a contributor to that culture.

In 1828, the H. and E. Phinney Company in Cooperstown, New York, published a quarto-size edition of the King James Bible. This is the version that Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, used in his work when he created a new translation of the Bible. Here the author examines Joseph Smith’€™s marked-up copy of the Phinney Bible as an artifact important to Mormonism’€”some of Smith’€™s corrections and additions appear in footnotes of the Bible that Mormons use today. The author notes that the Phinney Bible’s updated language is more modern than the version of the Bible Latter-day Saints officially use (the King James), and the modernization may or may not have influenced Joseph Smith’€™s word choice in creating his translation. The author also gives biographical information on the Phinneys, describes how their Bible may have made its way into Joseph Smith’€™s hands, briefly traces the history of the English Bible in America, and describes the printing process employed by the Phinneys.

Mapping Mormonism brings together contributions from sixty experts in the fields of geography, history, Mormon history, and economics to produce the most monumental work of its kind. More than an atlas, this book also includes hundreds of timelines and charts, along with carefully researched descriptions, that track the Mormon movement from its humble beginnings to its worldwide expansion. A work of this magnitude rarely comes along. Mapping Mormonism’s first edition proved to be a landmark reference work in Mormon studies; now it is further improved and updated with the latest information in this second edition. This work covers the early Restoration, the settlement of the West, and the expanding Church, giving particular emphasis to recent developments in the modern Church throughout all regions of the world. Of all the books on Church history, Mapping Mormonism may be the single most effective work to date at giving an expansive vision of the rise of the LDS Church⿿a vision as vibrant as those who have led the way in building Zion. In 2012, Mapping Mormonism won the Mormon History Association Best Book Award and the Cartography and Geographic Information Society Best Atlas Award.

Throughout his long life, Martin Harris consistently testified that he knew Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon from golden plates. At first affiliated with Joseph Smith and the main body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for a time Harris associated with a schism led by James J. Strang. He served a mission in England in 1846 for the Strangites, but he claimed to the end of his life that he never preached against Mormonism or against the Book of Mormon. Indeed, he was a powerful witness of the Book of Mormon during his mission.

Much has been written about changes between the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon (the first) and modern editions. But knowledge is less widespread about the variations that exist between different copies of the 1830 edition itself. We are now aware of 41 such changes, and there are certainly others that have not yet been discovered. Three-fourths of the 41 changes were picked up when Alfred Bush of Princeton University Library,using a Hinman collator, compared the 1830 edition copy in the Scheide Library with a copy from Brigham Young University and one from the Historical Department of the Church. Using this list of changes as a base, and adding other changes discovered by other people, 70 different copies of the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon have since been compared.

While much that has been said regarding the origin of the Book of Mormon is beyond the experience of the average searcher, only as he accepts or rejects the credibility of the earliest witnesses, the existence of the book itself provides a common ground for careful investigation. But beyond this, some surviving, badly weathered fragments of the original manuscript permit a consideration of the Book of Mormon from a paleographic standpoint. It is the purpose of this study to review the history, and consider the handwriting and composition of the remaining segments of the original manuscript for what they may contribute to the credibility of early witnesses regarding the Book of Mormon origin.

No abstract available.

The suggestion of horses and chariots in pre–Columbian America has long been an easy target for critics of the Book of Mormon. In spite of difficulties in defending this claim, and although the evidence is incomplete, the geological and archaeological record does provide support for horses and even wheeled vehicles in ancient America. Several theories that attempt to address the issue of pre–Columbian horses are examined in this article, some of which are mutually exclusive. Therefore, not all can be correct. Evidence presented in this article includes (1) archaeological evidence for large animals used for draft and transportation; (2) wheeled artifacts showing a person or animal riding on an obviously artificial wheeled platform; (3) the possibility that Book of Mormon peoples referred to native animals such as the Baird’s tapir with names such as horse that they were familiar with; (4) early accounts suggesting that Native Americans had horses too early for them to come from strays that escaped the Spanish conquistadors, especially since the Spanish kept very careful records of their horses; (5) the prevalence of the pinto or piebald horse among Native Americans and its relative absence among Spanish expeditions; (6)images in Mesoamerican art that might depict horses; (7) evidence that horses survived far longer after the last ice age than previously thought; and (8) the question of the Bashkir Curly.

Women constituted a significant portion of the membership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during its first decade of existence. However, little historical analysis exists to document the contribution and experience of these women as a whole. Janiece Johnson’s work examines the religious experience of some of those early Mormon women through the documentary editing and analysis of nineteen letters written between 1831 and 1843. Three themes dominate these women’s correspondence: spiritual knowledge, bearing witness of the restored gospel, and sacrifice. The women exhibited knowledge of the existence of God as a Heavenly Father, His Son Jesus Christ as Savior of the world, and Joseph Smith Jr. as God’s direct mouthpiece. The women’s conviction was explicitly demonstrated through their personal writings, proffering an intimate glimpse of a unique religion and belief as the motivation of these women.

No abstract available.