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 “The Glory of God Is Intelligence”: Mormons and the Life of the Mind

Terryl C. Givens

in People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture

Education is fundamental in Mormonism. Joseph Smith studied Hebrew, and established a School of the Prophets and the University of Nauvoo. Print culture was central to the Mormon church, and early ... More

Education is fundamental in Mormonism. Joseph Smith studied Hebrew, and established a School of the Prophets and the University of Nauvoo. Print culture was central to the Mormon church, and early leaders like Orson Pratt and Parley Pratt laid the foundations for an intellectual tradition. Early Mormon intellectual culture was capacious enough to accommodate Darwin and evolution, though that would change.Less

Diversity and Development The Bible Moves West

Philip L. Barlow

in Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion

This chapter asks how Mormon views of revelation developed in the second half of the nineteenth century by exploring the Bible's place in the contrasting thought of two men: Joseph Smith's successor, ... More

This chapter asks how Mormon views of revelation developed in the second half of the nineteenth century by exploring the Bible's place in the contrasting thought of two men: Joseph Smith's successor, Brigham Young, and Apostle Orson Pratt, the most prominent Mormon intellectual from the 1850s until his death in 1881. Young and Pratt shared a fundamental assumption of biblical harmony with Mormon views. Their emphases, however, differed. In the three and one-half decades between Smith's death and their own, Pratt worked hard to hold Mormon theology together with the traditional Bible, while Young subordinated the Holy Book even more than had Smith.Less

Orson Pratt’s Enduring Influence on The Book of Mormon

Paul Gutjahr

in Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon

First published in 1830, over the next half-century The Book of Mormon appeared in some dozen new editions. Perhaps the most important edition of the nineteenth century appeared in 1879 and was ... More

First published in 1830, over the next half-century The Book of Mormon appeared in some dozen new editions. Perhaps the most important edition of the nineteenth century appeared in 1879 and was edited by Orson Pratt. When this edition appeared, Pratt had served as a member of the original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a mission president in Britain, and was a member of Brigham Young’s “Vanguard Company” that crossed the Western plains to select a site for Mormon colonization. More important, he was one of early Mormonism’s premier educators and theologians. His edition bore all the marks of a lifetime of study, presenting the book in a highly systematized format and including footnotes that incorporated theological glosses on Mormon history, archaeology, and geology. This essay explores the origin of many of the textual changes found in the 1879 edition and the enduring influence of these changes.Less

Our History, 1869–74

Steven C. Harper

in First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins

As the transcontinental railroad neared completion in 1869, the Protestant establishment of the United States seemed to be on a collision course with Latter-day Saint hegemony in Utah Territory. In ... More

As the transcontinental railroad neared completion in 1869, the Protestant establishment of the United States seemed to be on a collision course with Latter-day Saint hegemony in Utah Territory. In Salt Lake City, Episcopalians consecrated St. Mark’s Cathedral three blocks from the Salt Lake tabernacle less than a month before the dedication of First Presbyterian Church just a block beyond that. The government-backed Protestant establishment seemed to be closing in on the Mormon establishment. In that context church historian Orson Pratt continued to function as the major narrator, repeating again and again the story of Joseph Smith’s first vision in ways that consolidated as a usable past in the context of an embattled present.Less

What’s Up with Mormons and Matter?

Stephen H. Webb

in Mormon Christianity: What Other Christians Can Learn From the Latter-day Saints

Mormonism has a theologically unique view of the nature of matter. This chapter analyses the work of Orson Pratt and how the Mormon view of matter compares to contemporary options.

Introduction: Canonization and Background

Terryl Givens and Brian M. Hauglid

in The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism's Most Controversial Scripture

The proposal to canonize the Pearl of Great Price in 1880 took the form of a six-word parenthetical—“also the Pearl of Great Price”—with not a word of commentary, explanation, or motive. This is ... More

The proposal to canonize the Pearl of Great Price in 1880 took the form of a six-word parenthetical—“also the Pearl of Great Price”—with not a word of commentary, explanation, or motive. This is ironic because the elevation to canonical status of a work first published as a pamphlet twenty-nine years earlier by the president of the British Mission was vastly more significant than the mere expansion of the Doctrine and Covenants, and more far-reaching in its effects than John Taylor’s assumption of the title of church president. A set of texts attributed to Abraham and deriving from Egyptian papyri, along with purported writings of Moses and Enoch the prophet, in addition to autobiographical elements from Joseph Smith’s personal writings, constituted the bulk of this new compilation, giving canonical status to the tradition’s richest—and most controversial—theological writings and to an autobiographical narrative written by its founder, Joseph Smith. There were several precedents to this volume of scripture, but none achieved its breadth or theological significance.Less

Collective Consolidation Begins

Steven C. Harper

in First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins

The process of collective memory consolidation is effortful and slow and can involve a great deal of contest and negotiation. The memories that make it through this process are incredibly durable. ... More

The process of collective memory consolidation is effortful and slow and can involve a great deal of contest and negotiation. The memories that make it through this process are incredibly durable. Orson Pratt was the foremost relater in the process of consolidating a collective Mormon memory of Joseph Smith’s first vision. Like Joseph Smith and everyone else, Pratt inescapably remembered in a sociocultural context that shaped what could consolidate.Less

Collective Consolidation Culminates

Steven C. Harper

in First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins

Many contingent choices determined whether and how Mormons would remember Smith’s vision. This chapter shows how as late as the late 1870s, after the death of Brigham Young, Latter-day Saints had ... More

Many contingent choices determined whether and how Mormons would remember Smith’s vision. This chapter shows how as late as the late 1870s, after the death of Brigham Young, Latter-day Saints had still not consolidated collective memory of Joseph Smith’s first vision. However, the 1880 canonization of a version of the 1838/39 account symbolized an institutional collective consolidation of the first vision. Orson Pratt, a long-time selector and relater of the vision, witnessed its consolidation before his death in 1881. Pratt was the saints’ foremost relater and repeater of Smith’s first vision, making their shared memory usable, a past for the present.Less

An Interview with Joseph Smith in 1859

Steven C. Harper

in First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins

Orson Pratt continued in the roles of selector and relater and repeater throughout his life. As far as the historical record shows, he wrote and spoke more on the topic of Smith’s first vision than ... More

Orson Pratt continued in the roles of selector and relater and repeater throughout his life. As far as the historical record shows, he wrote and spoke more on the topic of Smith’s first vision than any of his contemporaries. He shaped the saints’ collective memory of the vision. Pratt’s many recitals of the first vision were memorable, whereas others’, such as Tullidge’s poem, did not endure. Pratt enjoyed status and authority among the saints, but that alone hardly accounts for his success. His discursive choices brought Joseph Smith back to life and evoked his vision as reassurance that God still favored the Latter-day Saints. Because of his role in the church and his former personal relationship with Joseph Smith, Pratt was more able than others to reach people emotionally and thus memorably.Less

Interesting Account

Steven C. Harper

in First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins

Transactive memories of Joseph Smith’s first vision—individual memories in communication and combination with each other—enter the historical record in the 1840s. The most significant and ... More

Transactive memories of Joseph Smith’s first vision—individual memories in communication and combination with each other—enter the historical record in the 1840s. The most significant and far-reaching of these memories is Orson Pratt’s “Interesting Account,” published in Scotland in 1840 after Smith confided his vision to Pratt in 1839. By sharing his memory, Smith ensured that published accounts of the 1840s consolidated via transaction. Individuals remembered and communicated memories, like Smith telling Pratt, who remembered and communicated via “Interesting Account.” That process placed memories in the saints’ buffer, available for selection, relation to other knowledge, and repetition until they became common knowledge. Otherwise, Smith’s memories would have died with him in 1844.Less

“Not to Be Trammeled”: To Creed or Not to Creed

Terryl Givens and Brian M. Hauglid

in The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism's Most Controversial Scripture

Christian creeds go back to the first Christian centuries. Catholics produced creeds largely to establish the lines demarcating orthodoxy and heresy. Protestants at first were hostile to creeds and ... More

Christian creeds go back to the first Christian centuries. Catholics produced creeds largely to establish the lines demarcating orthodoxy and heresy. Protestants at first were hostile to creeds and often invoked the Bible as the lone and sufficient creed for Christians. Joseph Smith’s hostility to creeds was common, especially among other restorationists. Eventually virtually all Protestants realized that without a creed, boundary maintenance was impossible. Early missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints found it necessary to summarize and define the uniqueness of their message—effectively creating the first creeds. Joseph Smith, explicitly hostile to creeds as too circumscribing of belief, found himself forced by the same imperative to articulate his own summation of Mormon teachings. His Thirteen Articles of Faith are, however, wholly inadequate as a creed, since they omit many of the most core doctrines of the church. They are best understood, in Rodney Stark’s formula, as establishing an optimum tension with competing religious faiths—not too radical and not too familiar.Less

Apostleship and the Authority of Change

Michael Hubbard MacKay

in Prophetic Authority: Democratic Hierarchy and the Mormon Priesthood

In addition to baptism, a second foundational narrative that demonstrates Joseph Smith’s authority was the establishment of the Mormon apostleship. His translations and revelations called for major ... More

In addition to baptism, a second foundational narrative that demonstrates Joseph Smith’s authority was the establishment of the Mormon apostleship. His translations and revelations called for major initiatives that required increasing amounts of commitment from his adherents, but with these major initiatives, the revelations also required a certain amount of malleability. Smith established certain forms of authority, such as priesthood and sacraments, through his revelations and then molded and reformed them through additional revelations to meet the evolving needs of his church. In doing this, Smith demonstrated his ability to control the narrative and shape his authority. As his theology developed and his lay ministry expanded, his prophetic leadership adapted. It was the malleability of his leadership that enabled the relationship between hierarchy and democracy to adjust and find stasis on the waves of change. To demonstrate this point, this chapter explores one of Smith’s most radical concepts of authority—namely, apostleship—in its nearly superfluous beginnings and its ultimate importance within Mormonism.Less