Item Detail
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25593
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0
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0
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English
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Historical Periodization in the LDS Great Apostasy Narrative
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Standing Apart :
Mormon Historical Consciousness and the Concept of Apostasy -
Oxford, New York
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Oxford University Press
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23-54
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The concept of a historical apostasy was most fully developed in the works of three influential LDS doctrinal commentators and general authorities— B. H. Roberts of the First Council of Seventy, apostle James E. Talmage, and apostle and future church president Joseph Fielding Smith— all of whom wrote around the turn of the twentieth century. For each of these scholarly leaders, the key moments of the apostasy were the first Christian centuries when innumerable “plain and precious truths” were lost, which were reinstated when the heavens opened again in 1820 in upstate New York. As they sought to explain the relationship between the apostasy and restoration, they adopted prevailing nineteenth-century historical periodization.
This essay explores the contexts and limitations of the historical periodization of these influential LDS commentators in the Great Apostasy narrative, focusing particularly on the roles of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in their broader histories. It also will examine the enduring appeal of this historical paradigm within the LDS community [From the Article].