Maxwell Institute Podcast #136: Documenting a Relationship: Early Latter-day Saints and the Book of Mormon, with Janiece Johnson

Joseph Stuart: Hey Maxwell Institute podcast listeners, this is Joseph Stuart. As we're continuing to edit interviews, we are releasing a few of the great presentations that our faculty have presented in the past few months. The podcast you're about to hear is the 2021 biennial Laura F. Willes Lecture delivered by Dr. Janiece Johnson entitled “Documenting a relationship with early Latter-day Saints in the Book of Mormon”. Hope y'all enjoy. Thanks.

Janiece Johnson: “Eat this scroll,” the voice said unto Ezekiel, “Mortal, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it. And in my mouth, it was sweet as honey.” Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Revelation all speak of eating scrolls, words, and little books. The imagery is arresting. In Jeremiah, this is a joyous thing: to eat of God's words. The action of eating enacts transformation, it produces a relationship with the Lord God of Hosts. In Revelation, the little book was both sweet in the mouth, and bitter in the belly, yet it still prepared the Revelator for God's will. The words of scripture are never just words, they are a vehicle for change. I see this imagery as an attempt to capture the numinous experience of being changed by the word of God. This is about both the embodied physical action of eating scripture, as well as its effect on the spirit. It's about the whole soul. Now, there is enough intriguing imagery of people eating holy things in the biblical text that we could spend our time tonight with that. However, I want to consider what is left behind. The material markers of the people who have been changed by the word, those changed by a relationship with the sacred text. When believers eat the Word of God and are transformed, what is left behind to document it? Can those remnants tell us something of their souls? The earliest Latter-day Saints were already a people of the book, they were a people of the Bible, they learned to read with Bible primers, they were immersed in the Bible from a young age, and knew it inside and out. As Jeremiah they had eaten God's words, rejoiced in them, and been changed by them. They likened the Bible into themselves long before they heard of Nephi or Joseph Smith. They saw themselves in the biblical narrative, and as Phil Barlow has conclusively demonstrated, they would never leave their Bibles behind.

Yet, with the Book of Mormon, they expanded their notion of sola scriptura, the Bible is the ultimate authority to include a new book of Scripture, and then a new prophet, who could consistently reveal more, they became a people of the books. Initially, a pejorative, these early Saints received their nickname from that first new scripture, the Book of Mormon. Now, Scripture never functions in just one way beginning with Grant Underwood in the mid-1980s, and then bolstered by Jan Ships, and Terryl Givens, scholars illustrated that one of the ways in which the Book of Mormon functioned in early periodicals, tracks, and missionary journals was as a signal or a sign. The books signaled that Joseph Smith was a prophet that the heavens were opened, and that charismatic gifts had been restored. It authoritatively signaled where the faithful should gather for the advent of the Second Coming. The analysis of outwardly facing missionary tracks in newspapers alone does not yet have a sense of what context surrounded those sources. They show how missionaries shared the gospel message. More recently, scholars have shown unto us that the Book of Mormon was a central spring for expanding ecclesiology, liturgy, and missiology. Its content mattered and shaped The Restored Church as it grew. However, to access the soul of lived religion, we still need more. It is possible that theological claims do not center lived religious life. I’m sorry Jim. It is more likely that theological claims inhabit a corner of a much broader scope of religious experience. None of these approaches address the personal role of the Book of Mormon and the daily lives and practice of early Latter-day Saints, and these analyses rely on men's writings almost exclusively. Early American religious trends, historical trends like declension, feminization, and secularization, were all eradicated or at least significantly transformed. When later studies included women's sources. The historical development of theology privileges a certain category of religious ideas, yet does little to reveal one soul implicit within reliance on an era.

A subset of sources are assumptions about who makes theology. For some theology is the dominion of the elites, a privileged academic realm that relishes its seclusion. However, that need not be the case. Perhaps even more particularly for Latter-day Saints. As David Holland has recently argued, “Everyone's a theologian.” Feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruther argued that “Theology is simply God talk, it is how human beings make sense of their interactions with the divine.” As such, we are all theologians, as we work to understand our relationship with God. The primary concern of theology that reflects experience is not articulating complex tenants, but how individuals understand their encounter with the numinous, the spiritual, the divine. Moreover, those voices included will not just be the elites, but the full spectrum of individual voices that make up the body of Christ, if all contribute to the body of Christ, all have a voice that should be heard.

For a people who believe that one of the ways that Joseph Smith acted as an antidote to chaos, was restoring the ability of all to speak in the name of God, an expansive, an expansive notion of theology should be a central concern to us as Latter-day Saints. Moreover, ignoring women's experience distorts our view of the past. This isn't just a matter of token women, of a token woman to avoid charges of gender exclusivity, but our goal is a better, more complete understanding of history. And it isn't just women, but ordinary members of the church, and many lands as the gospel spreads across the globe. Joseph's equitable impulse encouraged others to develop their own relationship to the book and then to share it with others. Male editors publishing church newspapers were never the only ones to accept, read and interpret the Book of Mormon. If we continue to expand our source material, we expand our vision of early converts and their relationship with the Book of Mormon. Now, in 1841, Wilford Woodruff recorded Joseph Smith's now well-known declaration that “the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book -the keystone of our religion- and promised that one would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than by any other book.” This declaration centers the Book of Mormon for the Church of Jesus Christ and extends a promise about practice. One needs to learn precepts, to choose to abide them. Amongst the mundane, glimmer fragmentary scraps of how individuals developed a relationship with this new book of scripture, and when pulled together, we see a cloud of witnesses testifying how immersing oneself in scripture, eating it, can transform one soul.

Despite our best attempts at retrieving the past and understanding the experience of individuals, not all relationships leave behind evidence. A friend of mine often quips he only wrote about his dating relationships in his journal as they ended, his wife didn't make it into his journal. I’m sure that’s only initially. Autobiographies of early Latter-day Saints nearly always include how one converted to the Book of Mormon. However, they're not always explicit about if or how their relationship with the book developed over time. Some purposefully wrote about their relationship with the Book of Mormon, others leave us to scour for significant hints in their writings, and others leave a material record of this relationship. Some saints gained a witness when they touched the book for the first time, in that moment, their own spiritual experience manifested the divine origin of the book. Zeina Huntington later wrote, she felt the sweet influence of the Holy Spirit to such an extent that she knew it was true. Ezra Thayer received a shock with such exquisite joy when he touched the book, he turned to words from an ancient hymn to express that the words themselves were insufficient to describe the weight of his experience. Moreover, as he continued to read, he felt a double portion of the spirit expand that witness. Others likewise struggle to find the Earthbound words that could reveal the weight of their experience with the divine. For some, a witness came quickly, yet for most the practice of reading became a necessary conduit for them to gain their own witness, and it could take time. It didn't work the same way for anyone, yet as they put in the time, they could develop a relationship with the text, and it could change them. The practice of reading could begin such a relationship, some early Saints preferred reading the book themselves, then hearing what a missionary had to say about it. Sarah Darman P. was one of those, she let the missionaries talk to the rest of the family, she took her book and went to the back of the house. Though she only read for a few hours that night, the words stayed with her. She wrote, “It left an impression upon my mind not to be forgotten, or in fact, the book appeared to be open before my eyes for weeks. When there was a shortage of books, some of the earliest converts listened to the Book of Mormon in a group setting, like the earliest Christians. In the Kirtland Temple, it was acceptable to read long chapters of the Book of Mormon out loud as part of the weekly church service. Wilford Woodruff read all of Jacob 5 one Sunday and then offered his interpretation. And no one balked. At least they didn't tell him. Some marked their regular practice with a simple mention. 16-year-old Mary Parker Haskin noted in her journal that she read her Book of Mormon after helping her mother with dinner. Beginning in Kirtland, some saints began to name their children after people in the Book of Mormon. Prior to her baptism, Nancy Tracy named her first son from the Bible, Eli; Samuel’s, priest's mentor and also the name of her brother. She wanted her second son to have a big name out of the Book of Mormon, and she named him Laconious Moroni. And then she named her third son, Moses Mosiah the two sticks of scripture together in one child. This practice became commonplace. After 1844 All of Parley P. Pratt's children, all of his sons and one adopted daughter, were given Book of Mormon names. Beginning with the town of Lamoni, Iowa across the river from Nauvoo. The Saints often named places after the Book of Mormon. When the Saints arrived in present-day Utah, they proposed a massive state of Deseret, invoking the Book of Mormon that would literally swallow up the western United States. They continued to look to biblical names, but alongside Book of Mormon names. All along the Latter-day Saint corridor, these are the names plus another 21 that have Mormon in the name. Place names offer a material marker of practice, more personal were those left, who left material signs of their practice with the book. Some early Saints created their own reading charts to enable them to read the whole Book of Mormon by course, in a chosen period. That means that they plan to read from beginning to end, the Saints were familiar with Bible charts that detailed the number of chapters in each book like we have on the right. An individual could take these numbers and plan if they wanted to read the book in a year, they would need to read just over two chapters a week in their 1837 edition. 4.5 chapters in post-1879 editions. The owner of this book never wrote their name in the book, but crafted their own reading chart. The chart tracks both the number of original Book of Mormon chapters, and then the more than doubled number of chapters with Orson Pratt's 1879 edition. This is an 1837 edition. So apparently, they use different editions of the book in tandem as they read. The single most frequent writing practice in the 19th-century Books of Mormon are just lists of page numbers inside the cover of the book, to remember the location of early passages. Perhaps they shared the book, perhaps they had no expectation they would get another and didn't want to write all over the book. As the 19th-century moves along, writing in books also expands. And as the marginalia of many Latter Day Saints expands, most of it is a synopsis of what's going on in the on those pages, those important pages in their books. These are the types of marginalia that are most frequent: people trying to understand and remember a complicated narrative. The Book of Mormon firstly offered stories through which they worked to understand their own experience. The Saints continued practices that were part of how they interacted with the Bible. Some were practices that had gone on for centuries. On the right, we have the 15th-century index, what today we might call a manicule, a finger pointing to the text signaling something important. Patience Cowdrey drew a small index pointing to what today is second Nephi 15 and Nephi his interpretation of his father's prophecy of the olive tree and the Gentiles that the fullness of the gospel of the Messiah, come into the Gentiles and from the Gentiles unto the remnant of our seed, certainly of central importance to the purpose of the book.

Patience Cowdrey and others crafted their own personal indices first might have been created as she read. P.S. pencil is the worst. Frederick G. Williams crafted his index, alphabetized it, and then inked it inside the back cover and flyleaf, also including a list of books mentioned in the Bible, but not in the Bible. The first index to the Book of Mormon was printed in 1835 and sewn or bound into some first editions. William McClellin had his sewn in. However, he's still created his own. He started his personal index neatly in ink, and seems to have continued it over significant time, consistently adding more to his complex indexing system that covers five pages in the front of this book. Each subject listed, lists every page on which it is found and gives every subject a sign or a symbol. So use his ministering exam… notation as an example. He lists 55 times that ministry, ministry, or ministered are found in the Book of Mormon, and then marks each instance with an equal sign. Here is 3 Nephi, 18, and 19. And we can see all the equal signs in the margins everywhere that “Minister” has showed up in these chapters. This book yields evidence of a relationship that continued to grow over time when that would last longer than his relationship with the restored Church.

When a book became worn, or torn, some saints without the prospect of a new book mended their bindings and even pages. Though the mending in these instances do not always exhibit great skill, they do exhibit great care. Keeping the book together, and the content of the book accessible was of primary importance. One page could not be lost. Families handed down books, and individuals used them over years. Florence Barney was 19 when she received this 1877 edition of The Book of Mormon in 1900. Yet, the chapters were different than those who use the post-1879 editions, so Florence made her copy more accessible. By adding all the new chapter breaks, she could now read in community. This image is of an 1873 German edition, which I have been able to further decipher thanks to a magical research assistant. It belongs to a German immigrant Johann Cowher. I'm sure I said that wrong, I know. Living in Rexburg, Idaho. Extensive marginalia demonstrates that Cowher read this book over and over again over the years. His marginalia includes summaries, cross-references, and theological interpretations. He like Florence, continued to use his book after the publication of the new 1879 English edition. He not only marked all the new chapters, but the 1879 edition of The Book of Mormon was the first to be versified and he marked every single verse on those nearly 600 pages. He was comfortable with his German Book of Mormon, perhaps not ready to switch to English scriptures, but he altered his book, making it possible for him to sit in community and keep track as the rest of Rexburg saints studied together. For some of the early saints, ingesting the word transformed what words came out of their own mouths or flowed from their quills. The Lucy Mack’s first edition of The Book of Mormon doesn't have any writing in it to reveal how she developed a relationship with the book. We have to rely on her own writing and dictations, and they reveal much. In the letter that initiated this project, Lucy Mack described the Book of Mormon to her brother and sister in law in 1831, early 1831, just nine months after the publication of the book. The Smith's family mother tongue was the language of the King James Bible. Yet this letter demonstrates how quickly Lucy's notion of scripture and her own tongue expanded to include the Book of Mormon. The letter is dense with quotes, paraphrases, and echoes of Book of Mormon language. In fact, over half of this letter is distinct Book of Mormon language. Years later, she would continue this practice with her dictated history of her son, demonstrating just how much it changed her whole expression. This is the final paragraph of Lucy's initial draft of the history of the prophet by his mother. We can see how scripture, particularly the Book of Mormon, if you look at the notations that are in yellow, how they weave through her conclusion. These early converts had already seen themselves and their lives through the biblical text. More scriptural narrative offered them additional language for them to understand their own experience with God. Solomon Chamberlain felt a parallel between the experience of Enos in the Book of Mormon and his own experience of converting to Christianity long before his conversion to the church. The words of Enos became his own as he wrote his autobiography, “I cried unto the Lord, night and day for forgiveness of my sins like Enos of old till at length the Lord said “Solomon, thy sins are forgiven thee. Go in peace and sin no more.” When British converts Harriet Goble Byrd read the Book of Mormon for the first time then, she considered it the most beautiful book she ever read. Soon after she heard a Latter-day Saint elder speak for the first time and in her autobiography, she described how, “the scales of darkness fell from my mind, and visions of eternity were open to my view, and tears of joy fell from my eyes. I knew Mormonism was true.” Like Nephi’s prophecy of future Lamanites, the scales began to fall from her own eyes, and enabled her to recognize the truth of The Restored Church. Shortly thereafter, she confronted her former minister and again found expression in Nephi's words, she bought her testimony and called him to repentance, declaring, “If you don't repent, I will meet you before the bar of God with this testimony.”

An affinity with the Book of Mormon could be strong enough to be shared with friends

and family, a seeker who had passed through several different churches, Kirtland resident John Murdock was another example of one who wanted more to read for himself than to hear what the missionaries had to say. After being converted to the book as new scripture, he began preaching the Book of Mormon to his family and neighbors. He then extended his work and began to travel to other towns to preach the book, before ever receiving a missionary call. He only had two books with him. So he appointed meetings to read the Book of Mormon and invited all who wish to come to hear it, and it operated for good. Sharing the book with others was a consistent part of his life. It weaves through his own writings to such an extent that his relationship with the book is indisputable. He felt such a strong kinship with Mormon that he later channeled Mormon and made his own abridgment of his personal writings titled An Abridged Record of the Life of John Murdoch, taken from his journal by himself. His last entry is the 7th of June 1867. He wrote,

“I must soon lay my tabernacle down to rest,” and expressed his hope for resurrection and his thankfulness to God, and ended his words as a prayer in the name of Christ. The next century reads, “I Gideon A. Murdoch proceed to finish the record of my father,” like Moroni, Gideon picked up his father's record, and completed his witness.

Not all experienced the full blessings of the gospel immortality as to John Murdock. However, for early black Latter-day Saints, Jane Manning James and Samuel Chambers, their relationship with scripture assured them that all of those blessings were likewise available to them. Restoration scripture highlighted the emancipatory promise of the gospel that they did not yet experience within their Latter-day Saint community. The daughter of an emancipated mother chain was born a free person in Connecticut in the 1820s. She likely worked as an indentured servant from a young age. Quincy Newell argues that she probably learned to read and possibly write while working. In 1842, she heard a missionary preach and she was soon baptized. She and her family gathered with the saints in Nauvoo in late 1843 after a harsh journey. Jane's two patriarchal blessings use scripture in conflicting ways, perhaps encouraging her own reading of scripture, urging her to find her place in the kingdom of God. Jane's own account in the Young Women's journal describes her personal practice with scripture. “I used to read in the Bible so much in the Book of Mormon and the revelations, and now I have to sit and I can't read.” As her eyesight dimmed, Jane lamented the loss of reading scripture by herself. Yet she had already developed a relationship with scripture, and that relationship continued. This is likely a photograph taken of Jane in Salt Lake. Individuals planned their studio portraits, choosing what they would wear and what objects they wanted to highlight. After examining hundreds of these studio photos, Quincy Newell pointed out that in contrast to most, Jane chose to include a book in her portrait, a book under her left elbow, that is the right size to be an 1870s-era Book of Mormon. Jane chose to emphasize her relationship with a book to document herself to her posterity, and to the world. Echoes and illusions of the Book of Mormon and other restoration scripture pepper her autobiography. When Jane met Joseph in Nauvoo, she remembered him greeting her asking her if she was the head of this little band, the same phrase used in Alma to describe the 2000 stripling warriors. Though small, the shared language of scriptural allusion offers an appeal to the authority of scripture, as well as imbuing her history with the authority of spiritual experience. In 1884, Jane wrote to President John Taylor requesting that she might be sealed as a child to Joseph and Emma Smith. The letter concerning her future salvation was short, and yet included multiple references to each book of the standard works. She did not try to undo all scriptural interpretations that affected her negatively, including interpretations regarding the Mark of Cain. However, she used the language of scripture and argued for herself using the example of scripture most poignantly pointing to Abraham, the same text that other contemporaries used to bolster their arguments that she and all others of African descent should be excluded from temple blessings. She used to argue for the extension of blessings to her and her black brothers and sisters. The Book of Mormon taught Jane and other black Latter-day Saints that all are alike unto God, reinforcing the consistent scriptural claim that God was not a respecter of persons.

Samuel Chambers lived his early life in Mississippi. At the age of 13, he learned of the gospel as an enslaved teenager and was baptized in 1844. Without a local LDS congregation, Samuel attended Baptist church services with other enslaved people from local plantations. After emancipation, he saved for years to gather with the saints in Utah. He along with his wife, Amanda, and her extended family, journey together to Utah in 1870. Samuel had shared the gospel with all of them. The Chamber's had quote, “Mormon books, and nothing but Mormon books” in their home and they shared these books with others. Samuel was not ordained to a priesthood office, as was Elijah Abel and a handful of other black men. In Salt Lake he was set apart as an assistant to the deacons quorum in 1873. The meticulous notes of British convert T.C. Jones documents Samuel Chambers's witness and the influence of scripture on him. Chambers spoke 29 times over three and a half years in his deacons quorum. We see him likening scripture unto himself and focusing on the emancipatory promise of restoration scripture. Chambers frequently and specifically quotes, paraphrases, alludes to, and echoes scripture, the Book of Mormon more than anything else. Though he never explicitly petitioned for priesthood ordination in a multitude of ways, he implicitly demonstrated his worthiness to receive more. His willingness to take on more responsibilities and more blessings as an active member of Christ's Church, as well as opening the way for his sisters and brothers of African descent. On a December night in 1874, Samuel shared his testimony with his quorum, paraphrasing a verse from the Book of Mormon. “I was born in a condition of slavery and received the gospel in that condition.” He said. “I realized I had done right, I received the Spirit of God. It is not only to the Gentiles, but also to the African, for I am of that race.” As Chambers paraphrased, he likened scripture unto himself and expanded the Book of Mormon promise that the gospel would be taken to the Gentiles and also the Jews. As Samuel likened scripture unto himself, he like Jane, found a place for himself in the restoration, and demonstrated his fitness to receive more truth and more responsibility among the people of God. To return to the image that we started with; eating scrolls, words, and little books can all transform the one who eats. As Jeremiah spoke to the Lord, “Thy words were found, and I did eat them. And thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts.” Scripture functions in a multiplicity of ways. As individuals develop a relationship with the text, it opens the possibility of transformation and relationship. As President Nelson has reminded us, immersing ourselves regularly in the Book of Mormon can be a life-changing experience. These early Latter-day Saints offer us a cloud of witnesses that it was transformative for them. It can be for us too. Thank you.

Joseph Stuart: Thank you for listening to the Maxwell Institute Podcast. Could you do us a favor and recommend this show to others, review and rate the podcast on Apple Podcasts or other podcast providers , or share the episode on social media? Thanks so much and have a blessed week y'all.