Review: Mark Ashurst-McGee, Robin Jensen, and Sharalyn D. Howcroft, eds. Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Authors

Michael Hubbard MacKay

Keywords

Joseph Smith Papers, foundational texts, lived religion, Robert Orsi, early Mormonism

Abstract

In 2005, Robert Orsi argued, “The world of the text is really not the world.”1 In remarkably clear prose Orsi promotes a kind of praxis-oriented methodology that has similarly begun to emerge from within the Joseph Smith Papers Project and subsequent volumes produced by its editors. As Orsi explained, he is interested in “what people do with religious practice, what they make with it of themselves and their worlds.”2 This short review essay will briefly examine Mark Ashurst-McGee, Robin Scott Jensen, and Sharalyn D. Howcroft’s edited volume Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources. As a by-product of the Joseph Smith Papers Project, this volume offers introductory case studies of the most important sources in early Mormonism for students and researchers. As an entry point, its methodology opens readers to a world of lived religion in early Mormonism reminiscent of Orsi, but captured in the production of religious texts. As such, this review will offer a short introduction to T he Joseph Smith Papers and its influences, then examine how Foundational Texts of Mormonism has reconstructed the religious world of Joseph Smith.

BYU ScholarsArchive Citation

MacKay, Michael Hubbard (2019) "Review: Mark Ashurst-McGee, Robin Jensen, and Sharalyn D. Howcroft, eds. Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.," Mormon Studies Review: Vol. 6: No. 1, Article 29.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr2/vol6/iss1/29