READING LIST - CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Header_Romney

insert website name

READING LIST - CRITICAL ANALYSIS



	Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith: Psychobiography and the Book of Mormon by Robert D. Anderson (Author), Signature Books (August 1999) Book Description Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith, writes W. W. Meissner (Professor of Psychoanalysis, Boston College; author, Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint): "is a superb study, approached with the dual advantage of an insider and an experienced psychiatrist. Anderson presents a convincing psychobiographic analysis of a great religious figure, unveiling for us a profound and perplexing question surrounding religious move- ments—how such important figures can translate psychic disturbances into messages of conviction and inspiration. The story itself is powerful, and the questions it raises are thought provoking."


	One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church by Richard Abanes (Author) , Thunder's Mouth Press; Reprint edition (July 2003) Review From Library Journal A conservative Christian writer and director of the Religious Information Center in Southern California, Abanes presents an unvarnished history of Mormonism. As in some of his other works, such as End-Time Visions: The Road to Armageddon, his intention here is primarily to expose falsehoods and contradictions. In the process, he has created a chronological account of Mormonism that includes many things often intentionally suppressed by leaders of the Latter-day Saints (LDS). Abanes knows his facts and documents his material with careful footnotes, creating a good counterweight to the one-sided image presented in LDS-approved histories. He makes use of private journals and secular articles of the times as well as a wide range of scholarly writings. The resulting book gives a piercing historical overview of Mormon teachings and development. It also looks at contemporary Mormonism and the controversial changes in language and policy, which have resulted in the projection of a more mainstream image. This well-researched and readable history will be of interest to anyone seeking an objective Mormon history and is recommended for both academic and public libraries. C. Robert Nixon, M.L.S., Lafayette, IN


	Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Lyman Bushman (Author) Review From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. How should a historian depict a man's life when that man, and his religion, remain a mystery to so many 200 years after his birth? Bushman, an emeritus professor at Columbia University and author of Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism, greatly expands on that previous work, filling in many details of the founding prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and carrying the story through to the end of Smith's life. Many continue to view Smith as an enigmatic and controversial figure. Bushman locates him in his historical and cultural context, fleshing out the many nuances of 19th-century American life that produced such a fertile ground for emerging religions. The author, a practicing Mormon, is aware that his book stands in the intersection of faith and scholarship, but does not avoid the problematic aspects of Smith's life and work, such as his practice of polygamy, his early attempts at treasure-seeking and his later political aspirations. In the end, Smith emerges as a genuine American phenomenon, a man driven by inspiration but not unaffected by his cultural context. This is a remarkable book, wonderfully readable and supported by exhaustive research. For anyone interested in the Mormon experience, it will be required reading for years to come. (Oct. 10) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


	No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith by Fawn M. Brodie (Author), Vintage; 2nd Revisedenlarged Ed edition (August 1, 1995) Book Description The first paperback edition of the classic biography of the founder of the Mormon church, this book attempts to answer the questions that continue to surround Joseph Smith. Was he a genuine prophet, or a gifted fabulist who became enthralled by the products of his imagination and ended up being martyred for them?



	Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer (Author), Doubleday; 1 edition (July 15, 2003) Review from Amazon.com In 1984, Ron and Dan Lafferty murdered the wife and infant daughter of their younger brother Allen. The crimes were noteworthy not merely for their brutality but for the brothers' claim that they were acting on direct orders from God. In Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer tells the story of the killers and their crime but also explores the shadowy world of Mormon fundamentalism from which the two emerged. The Mormon Church was founded, in part, on the idea that true believers could speak directly with God. But while the mainstream church attempted to be more palatable to the general public by rejecting the controversial tenet of polygamy, fundamentalist splinter groups saw this as apostasy and took to the hills to live what they believed to be a righteous life. When their beliefs are challenged or their patriarchal, cult-like order defied, these still-active groups, according to Krakauer, are capable of fighting back with tremendous violence. While Krakauer's research into the history of the church is admirably extensive, the real power of the book comes from present-day information, notably jailhouse interviews with Dan Lafferty. Far from being the brooding maniac one might expect, Lafferty is chillingly coherent, still insisting that his motive was merely to obey God's command. Krakauer's accounts of the actual murders are graphic and disturbing, but such detail makes the brothers' claim of divine instruction all the more horrifying. In an age where Westerners have trouble comprehending what drives Islamic fundamentalists to kill, Jon Krakauer advises us to look within America's own borders. --John Moe


	By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri by Charles M. Larson (Author), Inst for Religious Research (March 1992) Book Description A survey of the controversy surrounding Mormon founder Joseph Smith's claim that he translated the Book of Abraham from an ancient Egyptian papyrus. From the Publisher This book examines one of the most significant events in modern Mormon history - the rediscovery in 1967 of the Egyptian papyri from which Joseph Smith claimed to translate the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price. In the first two chapters of By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus, former Mormon and Brigham Young University graduate Charles M. Larson, recounts the circumstances under which Joseph Smith acquired the two Egyptian scrolls, and his claim to have identified one of them as an account by the Biblical patriarch Abraham of his sojourn in Egypt (as described in Genesis 12:10-20). Then in chapters 3-10 Larson steps the reader through a detailed array of primary physical evidences which establish four major points: (1) the papyri which came to public attention in 1967 (color photographs of which are reproduced in the book) are indisputably those which Joseph had in his possession when he produced the Book of Abraham, (2) Joseph Smith did purport that the Book of Abraham was a translation from one of these papyrus scrolls, (3) the scrolls are now known to date from around the time of Christ, some 2,000 years after the time of Abraham, and (4) the scrolls have been identified by Egyptologists - including LDS scholars - as common, pagan Egyptian burial documents, that do not mention Abraham and have no connection to the contents of the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price.


	An Insider's View of Mormon Origins by Grant H. Palmer (Author), Signature Books (October 2002) Book Description 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. He therefore gives a brief survey of the literature for all who have ever wanted to know more about the New Mormon History.He finds that what we take for granted as literal history has been tailored over the years for missionary purposes--slightly modified, added to, one aspect emphasized over another--to the point that the original narratives have been nearly lost. What was experienced as a spiritual event, something from an entirely different dimension, has been often refashioned as if it had been a physical, objective occurrence. This is not how the first Saints interpreted these events. Historians have reevaluated basic concepts surrounding these foundational stories and restored elements, including a nineteenth-century world view, that have been misunderstood, if not forgotten.


	Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon by David Persuitte (Author), McFarland & Company; 2nd edition (October 2000) Book Description Just as a growing interest in millennialism at the turn of the century has rejuvenated religious debate and questions of the fate of the world, so did Mormonism develop from millennial enthusiasm early in the nineteenth century. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and a provocative, even controversial figure in history, believed that he had been given the authority to restore a corrupted Christianity to the true church. The primary source of Smith's latter-day revelation is The Book of Mormon, and to fully understand his role as the founder of the Mormon faith, one must also understand The Book of Mormon and how it came to be. Unfortunately, the literature about Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon is permeated with contradiction and controversy. This impressive work, now in an expanded and revised second edition incorporating new findings, presents new biographical information about Smith and resolves many of the controversies concerning his character. Through an extensive comparative analysis it posits as a probable conceptual source for The Book of Mormon, a book written by New England minister Ethan Smith entitled View of the Hebrew; or the Tribes of Israel in America. The results of this research were presented together for the first time ever in the first edition of this work and are instrumental in shedding much new light on the path Joseph Smith took toward founding the Church of the Latter-day Saints.


	Early Mormonism and the Magic World View by D. Michael Quinn (Author), Signature Books; Rev Sub edition (December 1998) About the Author D. Michael Quinn was born in 1944 in Pasadena, California. He studied English and philosophy at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah—interrupted by a two-year LDS proselytizing mission to England (1963-65)—and graduated in 1968. From the Author Eleven years ago my Introduction expressed confidence that LDS believers did not need to fear including occult beliefs and magic practices in the history of Mormonism's founders. In 1992 LDS church headquarters affirmed that view in its official Encyclopedia of Mormonism, which mentioned the influence of treasure-digging folk magic (see ch. 2) in five separate entries concerning Joseph Smith. These articles did not list my book in their source-notes, but one did cite an anti-Mormon minister's article about this topic in a Protestant evangelical magazine. Nevertheless, I was pleased to see this ripple-effect from the splash of Early Mormonism and the Magic World View. As Richard L. Bushman recently wrote in a review for FARMS, "the magical culture of nineteenth-century Yankees no longer seems foreign to the Latter-day Saint image of the Smith family.



	Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church by Simon G. Southerton (Author), Signature Books (August 25, 2004) Book Description The Book of Mormon narrates voyages to the Americas by ancient Israelites. The descendants of these ancient seafarers are said to be the tribes of Native Americans who were on hand to greet Columbus, the Spanish Conquistadors, and the Pilgrims. Israelites are also said to be the ancestors of the Polynesians. Enter DNA. With the advent of molecular genealogy, scientists now have a tool to test hypotheses about Indian origins, previously based on skull shapes, blood types, linguistics, and cultural studies. By means of DNA genealogy, Native Americans have been traced to an area surrounding Lake Baikal in Siberia before their migration to the New World over 14,000 years ago. The evidence is definitive and unequivocal. What do Latter-day Saint scientists have to say about this? Professors at Brigham Young University are proposing a radical new reinterpretation of the Book of Mormon to accommodate this new field of science. Explaining the scientific and theological issues in this debate is Dr. Simon Southerton, a molecular geneticist from Australia. He particularly responds to the issues raised by the BYU professors such as the implications of the mysterious lineage X, absent in Mesoamerica, and supposed anomalies in the genetic picture such as Kennewick Man and even the genetic history of the lowly sweet potato. Having been raised Mormon, Southerton knows the theological side of the issue as intimately as he knows the science.


	Rogue Messiahs: Tales of Self-Proclaimed Saviors by Colin Wilson , Hampton Roads Publishing Company (August 2000) Prolific ruminator and ooky novelist Wilson undertakes to find a more or less universal explanation for the phenomenon of self-proclaimed messiahs. Such saviors need not be divine. One chapter considers "The Psychiatrist as Messiah," for instance, indicating that Wilson's coverage takes in persons who profess or exhibit the ability to bend followers' minds, usually with some promise of some sort of salvation as a lure. So Freud shares the spotlight with Koresh, Manson, and Crowley, not to mention Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism. Wilson accords each a brief but detailed profile. He writes with an urgency that surges through the book and bespeaks his apparent commitment to describing the totality or, at least, the metaphysical pith of each individual subject. In the introduction, he succinctly limns his initial sexual experience, perhaps as a way of cleansing his own soul before dissecting those of the assembled messiahs, which would be only fair. Damned interesting stuff on a devilishly vital and timeless subject. Mike Tribby

ExposeRomney.com:

Home | Articles | Forum | Reading List | Video Clips | Links | About Us | Email

RECOMMENDATION
Please read approved Mormon literature in addition to the more critical works.

We want you to examine both sides of the debate.This is a suggestion you will NOT hear from the LDS church; they will have you read only works edited by their institution.

Whenever possible, obtain the current version as well as the original text as they will differ in some fundamental areas.

COMMENTS:
info@exposeromney.com