Table of Contents
Articles
Editor’s Note: Passing of a Polymath, Iconoclast, and Friend
William D. Morain
The editor memorializes a treasured JWHA Journal colleague.
A Matter of Many Wives: Joseph Smith’s Courting in Secret Nauvoo
Susan Staker
Narratologist Susan Staker examines Joseph Smith’s critical shift in voice to justify plural marriage in his sequence of courting. He begins with the right to male pleasure, then recruits God as a gender ally, next offers family afterlife benefits, and finally affirms his own personal absolution in what becomes Section 132.
The First Vision Stories: Their History and Development
Michael Marquardt
Mike Marquardt chronicles the progression of the mutating versions of the First Vision, culminating in a theologically canonized final draft in 1842. Early missionaries promoting the 1930 Book of Mormon knew only of the reported golden plates vision since no mention of an earlier First Vision was ever offered until 1832.
When Science Fails: B. H. Roberts, Polar Lost Israelites, Preadamites, and Other Modern Mormon Legends
Clyde R. Forsberg Jr. and Phillip Gordon Mackintosh
Clyde Forsberg and Phil Mackintosh portray B. H. Roberts’ futile effort to reconcile Darwinian evolution with Mormon doctrine in his book, The Truth, The Way, The Life. The authors compare his conundrum with that of several non-Mormon contemporaries of both secular and theological disposition. Roberts’ book was disapproved for publication by LDS General Authorities.
Ganado Mucho and the Mormons: Seeking for Peace in Troubled Times
Todd M. Compton
Todd Compton relates the eventful life of the peace-loving Navajo leader, Ganado Mucho, in his many interactions with white settlers in the southwest. His relationships with Mormons culminated with a long journey to visit the dying Brigham Young.
Book Reviews
Joseph W. Geisner, ed. Writing Mormon History: Historians and their Books.
Reviewed by John Dinger
Michael Hubbard MacKay. Prophetic Authority: Democratic Hierarchy and the Mormon Priesthood
Reviewed by Bruce A. Van Orden
Letter to the Editor
Response to Paul Edwards’ “Winds of Borrowed Wisdom”
David Irby
