Gary Boatright discusses the Latter-day Saint “Wagon Box Prophecy” and explains what happens when a false (but faith-promoting) story becomes accepted as fact.
Category: Latter-day Saint History
Learn more about the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including historical findings about Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and more.
Historian Steven C. Harper is one of today’s foremost experts on Joseph Smith and the First Vision. He was the Managing Editor for Saints, Volume 1, a new narrative history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that recounts the the years 1815 to 1846, roughly from the time of Joseph’s First Vision to shortly after his martyrdom in Carthage, Illinois.
Spencer Fluhman and Philip Barlow are co-editors of the groundbreaking Maxwell Institute series, Brief Theological Introductions to the Book of Mormon.
More and more people are becoming aware that Joseph Smith ran for president in 1884. Fewer readers know that Joseph Smith utilized the Council of Fifty and hundreds of political missionaries to spread the word about his presidential campaign—and simultaneously preach the word of God. Historian Derek Sainsbury reveals new details about the Prophet’s campaign for president of the United States.
Professor Lindon Robison is an expert on economics in the Book of Mormon. He is the author of many books and articles, the latest of which can be found in BYU Studies. His analysis of Latter-day Saint economics sheds light on the law of consecration still in force today.
Read “Doing Business in the World without Becoming Worldly” by Lindon J. Robison, David R. Just, and Jeffrey R. Oliver.
Saints Volume 2: No Unhallowed Hand is the second book in a four-volume history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Saint volume 1 covered the time period of 1815–1846. Matt McBride explains what the book covers, how it came to be—and what comes next.
Joseph Smith’s time in Nauvoo was filled with highs and lows. On one hand, he brought his work to a crescendo. On the other, Joseph Smith and other Church leaders were dealing with the raw consequences of polygamy, trying to write a new constitution, and often reacting to one crisis and the other. The difficult season culminated with Joseph Smith’s martyrdom in 1844.
Does religion look any different when viewed through the lens of environmental history? Learn more with Jedediah Rogers, co-editor of Utah Historical Quarterly and The Earth Will Appear as the Garden of Eden: Essays on Mormon Environmental History.
Truman G. Madsen is one of the most influential Latter-day Saints of the last 100 years. The grandson of Latter-day Saint prophet Heber J. Grant, Madsen is know for publications such as Eternal Man and Twenty Questions. In this interview, Barnard Madsen takes readers behind the scenes of his Truman Madsen biography.
Latter-day Saints celebrate 1820 as the year in which Joseph Smith first saw and conversed with God the Father and Jesus Christ. To mark the bicentennial of Joseph Smith’s First Vision, the Joseph Smith Papers Project has released a six-episode podcast, The First Vision: A Joseph Smith Papers Podcast hosted by Spencer McBride.