Looking At The Doctrine Covenants Again For The Very First Time

Study companion and commentary on the Doctrine & Covenants in the context of places and events in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This comprehensive volume organizes resources, important concepts, and fundamental doctrines around sections and places where each section was revealed.

This study companion to the Doctrine and Covenants provides an insightful and faithful approach for all who desire to learn the restored gospel in the context of places and events in the history of the Church.

This is volume 10 (2014) of Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture published by The Interpreter Foundation. It contains articles on a variety of topics including some notes on faith and reason, dating Christ's birth, Mary Whitmer's witness of the gold plates, the LDS Church's polygamous past, dissenters, Book of Mormon anachronisms, the comma in the Word of Wisdom, Enos's adaptations of the onomastic wordplay of Genesis, Mormonism and intellectual freedom, differing investigative approaches of Jeremy Runnells and Jeff Lindsay, a theological poem in the Book of Mormon, and reading the scriptures geographically.

The easiest scriptures to understand are the ones with stories. Several Church leaders have said that a key to understanding the Doctrine & Covenants is to know its story. This book tells that story. This is an uninterrupted narrative focused specifically on the Doctrine & Covenants. While many books have previously done a good job of telling church history, they are of limited use when it comes to the D&C because they rarely mention even half its sections. And while commentaries often do discuss the historical background of each section, they can only provide that background in chopped up little pieces that are themselves separated from the larger historical setting. The Historical Context of the Doctrine & Covenants solves those shortcomings. For the first time, every single section of the D&C is seamlessly woven into the larger fabric of Church history so that references to people, activities and circumstances make intuitive sense. This book immerses the reader in the historical background so it is not only understood, but also experienced. It quotes extensively from journals, correspondence, histories, speeches and interviews of dozens of early Church members, as well as from contemporary church records and newspapers. This book is well researched and documented. 353 pages of narrative are followed by 62 pages of footnotes (all active in the Kindle edition), 24 pages of bibliography, and (in the paper edition) 40 pages of index. It incorporates new information that only became available in 2010 with the publication of Joseph Smith's first revelation book by the Joseph Smith Papers. Each section of the D&C is briefly summarized as part of the historical background for all the other sections that follow. These summaries point out when a section was written down in pieces, changes who is being addressed, or simply moves from one subject to another. They identify each revelation's principal messages and reflect its train of thought. They discuss the extent to which each section circulated and was known to Church members. And these summaries identify relationships both with other sections and with the historical development of Mormon doctrine. Brigham Young said in a conference only 12 years after Joseph Smith's death that "these revelations, after a lapse of years, become mystified to those who were not personally acquainted with the circumstances at the time they were given" and that "a portion of this congregation have not been personally acquainted with the early experience and travels of this church, and with the sayings and doings of the Prophet Joseph, and it may be that they do not fully understand what this revelation [D&C 58] really does mean." (Journal of Discourses 3:333-34). This book demystifies the Doctrine & Covenants by relating the experience and travels of the Church so readers will understand what each section really does mean. Volume 1 covers D&C 1-70, 74, 107, 133, Moses, and Joseph Smith History.Volume 2 covering the remainder of the Doctrine & Covenants and Abraham will follow.

This text peeks behind the familiar pages of the Bible to find historical, literary and contextual information that bring new vibrancy to old words.

Volume five in The Mormon Delusion series investigates the early Mormon 'Lectures of Faith', comparing the doctrines of the time with the teachings of today - which are entirely different. It then analyses each 'Section' of the Doctrine and Covenants while searching for Joseph Smith 'prophecies' which are evaluated in terms of any evidence of fulfilment. It will come as no surprise to learn that none have any prophetic value or merit whatsoever. However, there is plenty of evidence of Smith's fraud scattered throughout the D&C which is analysed at each stage.