Over the past thirty years, an enormous amount of research has been conducted into Mormon origins—Joseph Smith's early life, the Book of Mormon, the prophet's visions, and the restoration of priesthood authority. Longtime LDS educator Grant H. Palmer suggests that most Latter-day Saints remain unaware of the significance of these discoveries, and he gives a brief survey for anyone who has ever wanted to know more about these issues.

Breathe Life into Your Life Story is an essential read for anyone who aspires to write a life story—but not just any story, one your family and others will actually WANT to read.

In this ground-breaking book, D. Michael Quinn masterfully reconstructs an earlier age, finding ample evidence for folk magic in nineteenth-century New England, as he does in Mormon founder Joseph Smith's upbringing. Quinn discovers that Smith's world was inhabited by supernatural creatures whose existence could be both symbolic and real.

The majority of Smith's wives were younger than he, and one-third were between fourteen and twenty years of age. Another third were already married, and some of the husbands served as witnesses at their own wife's polyandrous wedding. In addition, some of the wives hinted that they bore Smith children—most notably Sylvia Sessions's daughter Josephine—although the children carried their stepfather's surname.

Authentic religious experience includes both meditation and celebration, according to the twentieth-century Indian guru Osho Rajneesh (1931-90). Blending Tantra, Zen, and Western psychotherapy into his teachings, Osho produced incisive commentaries on religious mysticism and devised unique, "active meditation" that elicited emotional catharsis.

Available for the first time fifty years after the author's death, Studies of the Book of Mormon presents this respected church leader's investigation into Mormonism's founding scripture. Reflecting his talent for combining history and theology, B. H. Roberts considered the evident parallels between the Book of Mormon and Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews, a book that predated the Mormon scripture by seven years. If the Book of Mormon...

As children, we were told the stories of Paul as didactic tales meant to keep us reverent and obedient. As adults reading the New Testament, we catch glimpses of a very different kind of disciple—an ascetic hermit whom Tertullian dubbed “the second apostle of Marcion and the apostle of the heretics.” What does scholarship tell us about the enigmatic thirteenth apostle who looms larger than life in the New...

L. Ron Hubbard—best-selling science fiction writer, former naval officer, and people's philosopher—did not initially intend to found a new religion. But neither did he object when followers organized a church based on his teachings. The resulting movement has attracted millions of adherents from around the globe.

Award-winning researcher and writer Devery S. Anderson has brought together in this volume a comprehensive collection of documents relating to Mormon temple worship. These are official communications, most of them never before presented to the general public, limited only by what would be inappropriate to discuss publicly. They include rulings by the First Presidency on changes to the ceremonies, letters to temple and stake presidents and bishops reminding them...

Mormonism is a community with two faces: progressive and conservative. This is true of nearly all faith traditions, which can be alternately open or defensive, traditional or innovative, accepting or judgmental. In the case of the LDS Church, it continues, a century after having shaken off the stigma of polygamy, three decades after embracing blacks as equals, and in the face of international growth, to wrestle with freeing itself...