Item Detail
-
32704
-
0
-
6
-
English
-
The Haifa, Israel, Missionary Graves and the BYU Jerusalem Center
-
Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel
-
2021
-
22
-
1
-
Provo, UT
-
BYU Religious Studies Center
-
161-167
-
"Many Latter-day Saints have heard the story that graves of Latter-day Saint missionaries who died and were buried in Haifa, Israel, made possible Brigham Young University’s Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies. The story goes like this: The graves of missionaries who died in the 1890s provided evidence of a Latter-day Saint presence in the Holy Land before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, which evidence was required for the Church to be recognized in Israel and/or for BYU to obtain approval for the construction of the Jerusalem Center.
The story is not true...
As it turned out, obtaining recognition as a church was not necessary after all. For the Latter-day Saints’ purposes, obtaining recognition as a nonprofit organization was sufficient, and that was the recognition the Church sought and obtained. For that, Church officials did not need the evidence of the graves or the early history in the Holy Land, and they did not include mention of them in the applications...
That the story is not accurate takes nothing away from the experience of the early Latter-day Saints in the Holy Land, nor from the service of the early missionaries there. Their sacrifices are an inspiration to all who visit their resting places." [Author]
-
https://rsc.byu.edu/vol-22-no-1-2021/haifa-israel-missionary-graves-byu-jerusalem-center
-
A Missionary's Story: The Letters and Journals of Adolf Haag, Mormon Missionary to Switzerland and Palestine, 1892
'And Your Name Will Be Remembered . . .' : The History of John Alexander Clark's Turkish Mission
Brigham Young University and Jerusalem before Semester Abroad, 1931-1968
Contest and Controversy in the Creation of the Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center
In the Footsteps of Orson Hyde : Subsequent Dedications of the Holy Land
The Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies : Reflections of a Modern Pioneer