Item Detail
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12585
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0
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0
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English
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Food For Thought, Food For Action : An Historical Analysis of Latter-day Saint and Seventh-day Adventist Dietary Laws
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Logan, UT
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Utah State University
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139
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Master's Thesis
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Members of both the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and the Seventh-day Adventist Church trace their distinctive dietary practices to divine revelations received in nineteenth-century America by their respective founders. These revelations paralleled the tenets of antebellum dietary reformers. Mormons were generally unwilling to acknowledge these similarities with a surrounding hostile culture, but Adventists considered themselves as perfecting or adding to the truths the secular health reformers discovered. Mormon and Adventist food theologies also raised questions of authority, as their interpretations negotiated among sacred texts, religious principles, individual leaders, and common sense. Around the end of the nineteenth century, the interpretations of dietary laws among Mormons and Adventists narrowed; Mormons turned to a selective reading of their received text, and Adventists read their health principles into their interpretation of the Bible. Despite parallels in the development of their food theologies, both groups utilized similar forms for different purposes.