Item Detail
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30187
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2
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9
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English
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"A Very Fine Azteck Manuscript" : Latter-day Saint Readings of Codex Boturini
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Journal of Book of Mormon Studies
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January 1, 2017
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26
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Provo, UT
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Neil A. Maxwell Institute of Religion: Brigham Young University Press
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185-217
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This article documents different interpretations posited for Codex Boturini. In most cases, these interpretations are similar insomuch that they identify migration scenes with the Book of Mormon, positing which chapter and verse was illustrated by which image. Yet, each version differed in detail—sometimes drastically so. These divergent interpretations reveal the extent of nineteenth-century Mormonism’s passion for finding the sacred narrative of the Book of Mormon in American antiquity. Joseph Smith had already pointed to Native American remains and Egyptian papyri as evidences of a holy past, but he was not alone. The number of Mormons who independently discovered Codex Boturini and recorded their “reading” of the manuscript suggests that identifying artifacts and ancient hieroglyphic texts with the Book of Mormon was a collective project (fig. I). In fact, Mormons on the geographic periphery of the faith, with less access to the church’s leadership, seem to have made the most significant contributions.
[from the author] -
"A Picturesque and Dramatic History" : George Reynolds's Story of the Book of Mormon
Approaching Antiquity : Joseph Smith and the Ancient World
By the Hand of Mormon : The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion
John Bernhisel's Gift to a Prophet : Incidents of Travel in Central America and the Book of Mormon
Joseph Smith and Egyptian Artifacts : A Model for Evaluating the Prophetic Nature of the Prophet's Ideas about the Ancient World
Joseph Smith, Central American Ruins, and the Book of Mormon
Joseph (Smith) in Egypt : Babel, Hieroglyphs, and the Pure Language of Eden
The Book of Mormon : A Biography
The City of the Mormons : Or, Three Days at Nauvoo