Mormons, Scripture, and the Ancient World: Studies in Honor of John L. Sorenson [Hardcover]

John L. Sorenson (Editor), Davis Bitton (Editor)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 519 pages
• Publisher: Foundation for Ancient Research & (June 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0934893314
• ISBN-13: 978-0934893312
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,577,407 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars LDS apologetics, culture, and history, March 19, 2000

By 

Jeffrey D Lindsay (Appleton, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mormons, Scripture, and the Ancient World: Studies in Honor of John L. Sorenson (Hardcover)

The thirteen chapters in this book of over 500 pages are dedicated to John Sorensen, one of the foremost LDS scholars dealing with the ancient world. The book comprises three sections: Mormon History and Culture; Elucidating the Book of Mormon, and the Ancient World. My favorite section is the latter, which contains chapters dealing with evidences of transoceanic contact with the Americas or other evidences for authenticity of the Book of Mormon. "Pre-Columbian American Sunflower and Maize Images in Indian Temples: Evidence of Contact between Civilizations in India and America" by Carl L. Johannessen is especially interesting and well documented.

The section on history and culture contains essays on Mormon covenants and religious identity, Mormon funeral sermons in the 19th century, the LDS Indian placement program, and a fascinating account of Tonga's response to "Mormon intruders" earlier in this century.

The book contains a rather unusual mix of articles without a clear focus, other than touching areas of interest to John Sorensen. But there's something for any serious student of Latter-day Saint culture, history, or scriptures. I recommend it as a useful addition to one's personal library of LDS topics.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Many interesting essays, November 28, 2006

By 

Bobby Boylan - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Mormons, Scripture, and the Ancient World: Studies in Honor of John L. Sorenson (Hardcover)

This 1998 anthology is a collections of essays in honour of John L. Sorenson, author of such excellent texts as "An ancient American setting for the Book of Mormon" and co-editor, alongside Melvin J. Thorne, of "Rediscovering the Book of Mormon: insights you may have missed before."

Without doubt, the best essay in this collection is that of Daniel C. Peterson's discussion of Asherah in the Book of Mormon, showing that the Book of Mormon contains a genuine pre-exilic religious motif that could not have been known in the 19th century, and could not have been fabricated by Joseph Smith nor anyone else in upper New York state in the 1800s.

Other essays deal with topics such as 19th century Mormon funeral discourses, the Maori actualisation of the Book of Mormon, and evidence for trans-oceanic contact between the Old and New World.

5.0 out of 5 stars A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS ON THE BOOK OF MORMON, MORMON HISTORY, ETC., October 12, 2011

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mormons, Scripture, and the Ancient World: Studies in Honor of John L. Sorenson (Hardcover)

John L. Sorenson (born 1924) is an emeritus professor of anthropology at BYU (where he established the anthropology department) who obtained his Ph.D. in anthropology from UCLA. He is a former editor of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, and the author of books such as An ancient American setting for the Book of Mormon, Mormon's Map, The Geography of Book of Mormon Events: A Source Book, and Images of Ancient America: Visualizing Book of Mormon Life, and co-editor of Rediscovering the Book of Mormon.

This 1998 tribute to Sorenson is heartfelt; unfortunately, the essays included contain rather little about the geographical/anthropological issues that Sorenson is most famous for elucidating. It does include a wonderful Introduction by Davis Bitton that very helpfully summarizes Sorenson's life and career.

Here are some quotations from the book:

"It was clear to (Sorenson) that, as (M. Wells) Jakeman and others had insisted for years, the (BOM) text itself demands that its setting be restricted to a relatively small territory that does not include the Hill Cumorah in New York. Rather, the picture of geography and culture in the Nephite account fits at point after point into the setting of ancient Mesoamerican civilization." (Pg. xxxiv)
"Finally, circumstances combined to make church authorities realize that the status quo about Book of Mormon geography was actually harmful. For Latter-day Saints to accept ill-informed traditions allowed critics of the Book of Mormon to have a field day. John was asked to produce two articles conveying the gist of his interpretation, and their appearance in the 'Ensign' in September and October 1984 constituted a fundamental breakthrough in LDS Church publishing on the Book of Mormon." (Pg. xxxvi)
"While there are enormous differences in the experiences of Moses and Nephi, the mature Nephi chose to tell his story in such a way that more than twenty explicit and implicit points of comparison stand out." (Pg. 172)
"Indeed, as ancient Christianity developed, the image of Mary seems to have assimilated goddesses from beyond the Hebraic tradition, as well." (Pg. 208)
"One could argue that because eighteen of these twenty-one chapters (quoting Isaiah) were on the small plates of Nephi, which Mormon seems to have found among the Nephite records AFTER he had completed his abridgment... this duplication was an oversight on the part of Mormon. But to those who believe in the divine stewardship of the production, transmission, and translation of the Nephite records, the inclusion of this large body of information from the prophet Isaiah must surely be attributed to more than human oversight." (Pg. 278)