The Gift of Tongues: The Propagation of Sermon Texts in Mormonism

Another blast from the past. It seemed appropriate.

In spite of all the talk about remembering what we feel in a sermon experience, not what we hear, as valid as that may be, it is the text that reigns supreme. Recreating a sermon is not possible. But recording the words spoken on the occasion may be valuable. From the very beginning of Joseph Smith’s career, it was the text that trumped all other things. The Book of Mormon saga places the text in the role of savior, preserver and founder of language and true religion. It was to be expected that Mormons would keep records, and by commandment.

New Article on the Vision: D&C 76 in Context

See Matthew McBride’s article on section 76 here

Web-reading at its best.

Books and Printing and Mormons. Part 8.

From its very inception Mormonism was linked to the print trade. In this it followed American Protestantism and especially Methodism, whose Book Concern was fabled for volume printing. The industry served two purposes across religious groups in America: it got the “word” out and it helped to support the church infrastructure.

King Follett and Stuff.

So I promised something on King Follett. Because of BCC persecution, I put it over there.

King Follett Fallout

One of the many interesting things about the King Follett Discourse (KFD) was its nearly immediate (public) effect on church priorities. An early production of a text for the KFD appeared in the church serial of Nauvoo, Times and Seasons. In November, the text was reprinted in Liverpool, England in Latter-Day Saints’ Millennial Star. An editorial appeared in the same issue of the Star which I think is remarkable for both its quotation of the early KFD text and its takeaway from that text.

Church History Symposium – Joseph Smith’s Study of the Ancient World

Nauvoo Food Budget ~1844

So, feeding a family of five in Nauvoo, 1844. How much would it cost you? Here is a very rough approximation, assuming you could buy this stuff at market prices, and assuming these were fairly uniform (both false economies).

Butcher: 2lbs per day at 10 cents per pound: $1.40
Barrel of flour, $5.00, lasts about 8 weeks: 0.63
Butter, 2lbs, 31.5 cents per pound: 0.63
Potatoes, .5 bushel: 0.50
Sugar, 4 lbs at 8 cents a pound: 0.32
Coffee and Tea (yes they did use it): 0.25
Milk, 2 cents per day: 0.14
Salt, pepper, vinegar, starch, soap, soda
yeast, cheese, eggs 0.40
Total for the week: abt. $4.27.

Most in Nauvoo had gardens and these would supplement vegetable intake, though mainly the poor ate vegetables. Many had milk cows so milk and butter came at the price of effort and feed stock.

In a city, other living expenses (clothes, housing and other similar expenses) might total about $6.00. So for the week, cost of living was roughly $10.00.

Let’s say you’re a day laborer. What percentage of wages went to retail food in a week: about 80%. By 1860 this was about 75%. By 1900, about 45%. By 1930, 15%. Food got cheaper.

Nauvoo Groceries: May 1, 1844

Your grocer’s stock. Get it while it lasts, people.

Flour, superfine per barrel $4.25
Flour, fine per barrel $4.00
Corn per bushel $0.33
by the load $0.30
Corn Meal $0.374
Oats per bushel $0.25
Potatoes per bushel $0.31 to 0.374
Pork per barrel $7.00 to 8.00
Bacon per lb $0.04 to 0.05
Hams ” ” $0.05
Lard ” ” $0.06
Butter ” ” $0.124
Eggs per dozen $0.05
Mould Candles per lb $0.10
Dried Apples per bushel $1.25
Rice per lb $0.06
Molasses New Orleans per gal $0.37 to 0.40
Honey per lb $0.06
Sugar ” ” $0.06 to 0.10
Maple ” ” $0.124
Coffee ” ” $0.10 to 0.12
Tea ” ” $0.50 to 1.00
Chocolate ” ” $0.25
Cocoa ” ” $0.184
Saleratus ” ” $0.124
Glass per box 8 by 10, $3.25 10 by 12 $4.25
Iron Pittsburgh per cwt from $6.00 to 9.00
Nails Boston per cwt $6.00

From the Archives: The Length of a Papyrus Scroll

Revival- server problem corrected. Sorry, just forgot about this.

A while ago, someone asked me a question about determining the length of a papyrus scroll  (before you unroll it obviously). The question pertained specifically to, you guessed it, P. Joseph Smith (the document of breathing part). I thought about this for a few minutes and it’s really not a hard problem.

The inverse problem, deciding what a scroll looked like in its rolled state, if you encounter it unrolled may be of interest, but both problems are connected to basically the same set of measurements. A more interesting problem is estimating the maximum length of a scroll when only a fragment is available.

Some of you geeks might be interested in how it goes, if you haven’t already guessed it.  This of course is clearly connected to the name of this blog, if not to the charter, but, rules are made to be broken (again and again).  Have a little sleep-inducing fun (warning, it’s a pdf doc):

Papyrus-length-comp

Election Day at Gallatin

Here’s a bit of 4th of July thinking. But don’t let it get you down.

The rough and tumble politics of the Jacksonian Era has a distinct Mormon example. Precipitating the Missouri-Mormon War, the election day riot at Gallatin, Missouri, August 6, 1838, placed Daviess County Mormons in the position of defending their vote with a little assertiveness. [1]

Joseph Smith, Sermons, and Lived Religion

From the late colonial period to the time of Joseph Smith, important forces were at work that changed the nature of preaching. Most sermons in the late colonial period were read. Whether from small briefs carried into a pulpit, scribbled notes on a quarter sheet of foolscap, or carefully fleshed out thoughts in tempered script, preachers expanded from their notes or read word for word, but in general followed a written pre-planned text. There is a paper trail there.[1]

John Jaques – A life.

John Jaques, whose claim to continuing fame is his composition “Truth,” a poem which appeared in the first edition of The Pearl of Great Price and was later set to music, appearing in the present LDS hymnal under the title “Oh Say, What is Truth,” offered this summary of his life, near its end.

Preaching Manuals, The Eighteenth Century, Jonathan Edwards and Joseph Smith

The Sermon Culture of the America prior to Joseph Smith’s advent was dominated by several important figures. Certainly the most well known of the 18th century was Jonathan Edwards. While Joseph Smith rarely penned much of anything, and never wrote down a sermon, he had stock topics that he returned to with some frequency.

The Riches of Parley Parker Pratt

Franklin Thomas Pomeroy[1] an LDS missionary to the Southern States in the 1890s encountered one John A. Peel. Peel was an eyewitness to the death of Parley Parker Pratt. It’s this fortuitous encounter that led to the present account of Parley’s last words found in the “Journal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” It’s interesting things like this that you’ll find in two new books on LDS Apostle Parley P. Pratt.

Toward a Theology of the Material

[Cross-posted at BCC. But it seems oddly Abrahamic, so here it is again.]

[I was just sitting here - thinking about where the fun speculations of 19th century Mormonism might lead, and this is what came out. Excuse its ragged form.]

Mormonism has a uniquely materialist bent. It posits that the material is necessary for complete happiness.[1] That while the world is biphasic, physical and spiritual, both are material.[2] Modern physics divides much of its attention between the very large (cosmology) and the very small (quantum phenomena). In the large, physics tells us of a universe whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere and yet expanding. That expansion is apparently going on forever, never to stop.