New Content at the Joseph Smith Papers Website

The quarterly release of new document images includes the famous “Book of the Law of the Lord,” formerly housed in the First Presidency Vault. The release also has the 1843 correspondence between Joseph Smith and newspaper editor James Arlington Bennet.

New glossary entries and biographical descriptions appeared and 5 videos discussing accounts of the First Vision. For a more extensive catalog of the new material see JosephSmithPapers.org. Enjoy.

Collector’s Edition of Joseph Smith Papers, Documents 2, Now Available

If you are into nice leather bound copies of JSP volumes, volume 2 of the Documents series is now available in numbered leather bound format. These are nice volumes, I own a couple of them. Documents volume 2 is priced at $165.00, and is available at Deseret Book, contact Heather Graves (hgraves@deseretbook.com).

Preaching in Antebellum America: An Example.

As some of you may know, I am fascinated by Protestant preaching in the decades prior to the Civil War in America. This partly stems from my book project, now nearing publication, A Textual Study of the Funeral Sermons of Joseph Smith. Mormon preaching in Joseph Smith’s time was often modeled on Protestant forms, but there were important exceptions. Much of Joseph Smith’s preaching was the result of the way church government evolved over time. But I won’t digress to that. Funeral sermons in Protestantism during the period often took place in the home of the deceased. This was often true even in the special case of preachers themselves, especially those in smaller interior churches.

Boap.org is down for the moment

BoAP is changing servers, and it will be off the air for the time being. Boap.org should be back in business in a day or two, we hope. Our thanks to Jim Logan and the people at ITWest for hosting us in the past. We will be part of their new server facilities soon.