When he jeopardizes his football scholarship, high school student Kaleo is transported from present-day Salt Lake City to early nineteenth-century Palmyra, New York, where he meets the Prophet Joseph Smith and learns for himself the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.

On a summer day in 1828, Book of Mormon scribe and witness Martin Harris was emptying drawers, upending furniture, and ripping apart mattresses as he desperately looked for a stack of papers he had sworn to God to protect. Those pages containing the only copy of the first three months of the Joseph Smith's translation of the golden plates were forever lost, and the detailed stories they held forgotten over the ensuing years--until now. In this highly anticipated work, author Don Bradley presents over a decade of historical and scriptural research to not only tell the story of the lost pages but to reconstruct many of the detailed stories written on them. Questions explored and answered include: Was the lost manuscript actually 116 pages? How did Mormon's abridgment of this period differ from the accounts in Nephi's small plates? Where did the brass plates and Laban's sword come from? How did Lehi's family and their descendants live the Law of Moses without the temple and Aaronic priesthood? How did the Liahona operate? Why is Joseph of Egypt emphasized so much in the Book of Mormon? How were the first Nephites similar to the very last? What message did God write on the temple wall for Aminadi to translate? How did the Jaredite interpreters come into the hands of the Nephite kings? Why was King Benjamin so beloved by his people? Despite the likely demise of those pages to the sands of time, the answers to these questions and many more are now available for the first time in nearly two centuries in The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon's Missing Stories.

Life is messy for each of us. But Jen Hatmaker reminds us that it's okay to admit that we're all in the same boat. Join New York Times bestselling author and honorary big sister Jen as she shares hilarious tales, shameless honesty, and unconditional hope for the woman who's forgotten her moxie. We will endure discouragement, heartbreak, failure, and suffering. All of us. And more than once. But we are the very same folks who can experience triumph, perseverance, joy, and rebirth. More than once. And in more than one category. And in more than one season. And that? That's moxie. Moxie reaches for laughter, for courage, for the deep and important truth that women are capable of weathering the storm. We are not victims, we are not weak, we are not a sad, defeated group of sob sisters. Yes, life is hard, but we are incredibly resilient. Of Mess and Moxie shines a light on Jen's own triumphs and tragedies into a sigh of relief for all normal, fierce women everywhere. Whether it's the time she drove to the wrong city for a fourth-grade field trip or the way she learned to truly forgive, she offers a reminder to those of us who sometimes hide in the car eating crackers that we do actually have the moxie to get back up and face our messes head-on. After all, this race is not a contest--there's enough abundance to go around. This book will give you the encouragement you need to remember that: Your mess is normal You are not in competition with your peers--your seat at the table is secure You have incredible gifts to offer Come alongside Jen as she teaches us that we can all choose to live undaunted and in the moment, no matter what the moments hold, and we really can lead vibrant, courageous, grace-filled lives.

The principal doctrines defining Mormonism today often bear little resemblance to those it started out with in the early 1830s. This book shows that these doctrines did not originate in a vacuum but were rather prompted and informed by the religious culture from which Mormonism arose. Early Mormons, like their early Christian and even earlier Israelite predecessors, brought with them their own varied culturally conditioned theological presuppositions (a process of convergence) and only later acquired a more distinctive theological outlook (a process of differentiation). In this first-of-its-kind comprehensive treatment of the development of Mormon theology, Charles Harrell traces the history of Latter-day Saint doctrines from the times of the Old Testament to the present. He describes how Mormonism has carried on the tradition of the biblical authors, early Christians, and later Protestants in reinterpreting scripture to accommodate new theological ideas while attempting to uphold the integrity and authority of the scriptures. In the process, he probes three questions: How did Mormon doctrines develop? What are the scriptural underpinnings of these doctrines? And what do critical scholars make of these same scriptures? In this enlightening study, Harrell systematically peels back the doctrinal accretions of time to provide a fresh new look at Mormon theology. “This Is My Doctrine” will provide those already versed in Mormonism’s theological tradition with a new and richer perspective of Mormon theology. Those unacquainted with Mormonism will gain an appreciation for how Mormon theology fits into the larger Jewish and Christian theological traditions.

For readers of the Book of Mormon, King Benjamin's speech is a treasure trove of inspiration, wisdom, eloquence, and spiritual insight. King Benjamin's Speech: "That Ye May Learn Wisdom" is the most substantial collection of studies ever to focus exclusively on this landmark address. The contributors examine this speech in the multifaceted contexts in which it was delivered: as a classic speech of a departing leader near the time of his death, as the focus of an annual festival season mandated anciently under the law of Moses, as part of a covenant renewal ceremony delivered within the sacred precinct of the Nephite temple in Zarahemla, and as preparation for the coronation of a new king. Historical and linguistic tools and information are employed in these essays to help the reader to better grasp the speech's historical setting, its doctrinal implications, its literary qualities, its influence then and now, and its overall brilliance.

Mette Harrison is one of the best-known Mormon authors currently writing about Mormonism for a national audience. Her Linda Wallheim mystery series (The Bishop's Wife, His Right Hand, For Time and All Eternities, and, one hopes, many more to come) marks the first time ever that a strong and intelligent Mormon woman (or any other kind of Mormon woman for that matter) has had a starring role in a nationally marketed mystery series. In The Book of Laman, Harrison takes a concept that others have used for a quick joke-the idea of narrating the first part of the Book of Mormon from Laman's perspective-and turns it into a serious and profoundly moving story of redemption that has the ability to make us all better readers, and, more importantly, better people. From the Forward The central conceit of The Book of Laman-telling the story of 1 Nephi from Laman's perspective-seems like a perfect device for a funny book. Indeed, Bob Lewis used it precisely this way in his satirical 1997 novel, The Lost Plates of Laman. Here we see all of the jokes implied the first time we hear that Laman is the narrating the Book of Mormon: the villain becomes the hero, and the hero becomes an insufferable know-it-all, the archaic language is peppered with anachronisms and modern values, and the devotional content of the original text is sacrificed on the twin altars of mocking Mormon weirdness and having a grand time. But Mette Harrison's Book of Laman is not funny. It does not try to be funny. It doesn't use intentional archaisms to make fun of the Book of Mormon's language; rather, it tells its story in a non-distracting modern style. The characters are not simply reversed. Nephi is sometimes an annoying brat, but he is also a real prophet who sees and speaks for the Lord. Laman is neither a comic book villain nor a long-suffering ironist. He is a flawed human being struggling to live well and usually coming up short. And in some of the book's very best scenes, he is touched unexpectedly by grace and God. Harrison's characters are the sorts of people who might actually have existed in history. She does not naturalize the miracles in the Book of Mormon-there really are angels and visions and smiting and all the rest-but she humanizes the actors. And this is important, as it corrects for a reading bias that plagues Latter-day Saints. Simply put: we want the Book of Mormon to be history, not fiction, but we expect the people in it to act like characters in a (not very good) novel and not as the kinds of people who have actually ever existed.