Category: LDS Church History

Rough Stone Rolling

Rough Stone Rolling: Daniel 2, The Church, and Joseph Smith

November 9, 2026 / / 5 Comments

Today we focus on Daniel 2, a vision.  The story goes like this.

In King Nebuchadnezzar’s 2nd year, he has a dream. According to Daniel 1:1-2, Daniel and friends don’t get carried off until Neb’s third year, although they’re present here. Either Neb can’t remember what it was (like many of us with our dreams) or he’s being unreasonable. Either way, he demands all his wise men tell him both the dream itself, and the interpretation. When they can’t, he wants them all killed for incompetence. Daniel hears about this and offers to interpret (like Joseph in Egypt), which he does, thus saving everyone.

The content of the dream involves a statue representing various political/national entities, and a stone cut out of the mountain, which smashes them all.

Easy enough, right?
As it turns out, the books written just on Daniel 2 could fill an entire library, arguing over what exactly it’s referring to. Continue reading

Elohim, Jehovah, the Father, the Son, AND The Trinity, AND John’s Logos: Getting Some Things Clear

January 6, 2026 /

As we begin to study the Old Testament again, this time with multiple translations, we Latter-day Saints tend to ask some of the same questions over and over. “Is it the Father or the Son speaking here? How can I tell them apart? Isn’t Jehovah the premortal Jesus, and so LORD or Jehovah always means Jesus?” Yes. But also… no. And to understand both why we keep asking those question and what the answers really are, we need to start with… the Nicene Creed.

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Joseph Fielding Smith, 2 Nephi 2:22, and “Death Before the Fall” in Church History

February 4, 2024 /

Edit: This is now available in an expanded and published version in this free volume in PDF. 

As many of my readers may know, President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876-1972) considered evolution not just incorrect, but devilish; he believed scripture taught a young earth, with no death of any kind anywhere before the fall of Adam c. 4000 BC.  His key scriptural evidence was 2 Nephi 2:22-25, which he cited dozens of times in books, articles, and private letters.  I want to explore and document a few related questions here.

  1. Does Smith’s understanding of this passage represent a clear and historically consistent Church position?
  2. Does Smith, in essence, overclaim?

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President Smith in 1910

The New “Answering Gospel Questions,” Part 2: Historical Background

January 7, 2024 /

To understand why some of us see these new guidelines as so significant, we need to cover some intellectual and religious history which will allow you to “read between the lines” more. And please note, I’m under time constraints and very much in stark “historian mode” here; I have not taken the time to render this more devotional; suffice to say, one can— as I do— believe fully in biblical and LDS prophets while rejecting the fundamentalist constructs often attached to them. 

Part 1: Introduction

Almost from the beginning, Latter-day Saints have operated on two loose competing paradigms of knowledge and “the world.” (I wrote a well-received paper on this for a conference in 2017; see  here for more details, including the unrevised draft.)

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The Power of Good Historiography: Or, How Joseph Fielding Smith Unwittingly Undermined Joseph Fielding Smith

August 23, 2023 /

My research has always included archival work, interviews, and just generally pulling on every thread I can until the sweater unravels.

History is not merely what happened, but the stories we tell about what happened and how we tell them. Better understanding of the past can change our perception of the present, change our choices and understandings. Better history seems to have been a factor leading up to the 1978 revelation re: the priesthood/temple ban, for example. (See the long version of the Kimball biography.)

It’s also definitely the case with the Church and biological evolution. Joseph Fielding Smith told the story of evolution in the Church in the first half century in a particular way. And funny enough, it is Joseph Fielding Smith who ultimately undermines the very story he tells, leaving us instead a history allowing much more theological openness to evolution. Continue reading