Peer-Reviewed articles • Understanding Mormonism 53

theory to discuss the book’s cultural and theological impact.12 Grant Hardy later published Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide, in which he reviews the Book of Mormon from a literary perspective.13 Paul C. Gutjahr’s The Book of Mormon: A Biography, part of the “Lives of Great Religious Books” series, adds to the conversation some of the reception history of the book by other schismatic groups, like the Community of Christ, as well as depictions of the text and its stories in literature and film.14 Finally, The Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, now in its twenty-fifth volume, publishes peer-reviewed articles, book reviews, and interviews related to the Book of Mormon and its impact on believers. Hardy also recently published a Study Edition of the Book of Mormon highlighting parallels with other scripture and formatting the text according to genre (e.g., poetry is written in verse form).15 Unfortunately, this subfield of sacred text analysis in Mormonism is still too young to have a corresponding set of monographs directed toward the academy examining the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. While there are several books on these two texts written by reputable scholars, their target audience is invariably believing members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The one exception if Brian Hauglid’s A Textual History of the Book of Abraham, focusing on one of the books in the Pearl of Great Price.16 Hauglid’s work fits alongside Royal Skousan’s The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text in textual criticism of these sacred writings.17

Other Primary Sources

While the Church has designated the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price to be official scripture, the organization also has several extra-canonical works which help clarify doctrine and practice. Since it began in 1830, the LDS Church has held a regular “general” confer-ence—general in that all members are invited to attend but also general in the sense that it is conducted by general leaders over the entire church, as opposed to local leadership. Over the decades this has taken several different forms, but today it is an opportunity twice per year to hear from executive officers of the church who are over the global membership of more than 16,000,000 today. These leaders deliver sermons on a variety of topics related to worship and to living as a Mormon. Practicing members of the church treat these sermons close to, or at the same level as, canonized scripture. A group of Brigham Young University profes-sors maintains a website called the Corpus of General Conference Talks, which allows anyone with Internet access to search across the sermons of these meetings, dating back to 1851.18 This is a valuable resource for anyone doing research on doctrinal or practical theology as it relates to Mormons. A researcher can get a sense of how the LDS Church understood a particular doctrine, practice, or political issue at any given time since the second half of the 19 th century. The Church also publishes online a manual for local lay leadership, Handbook 2: Administering in the Church (2010).19 The Handbook has official policies on issues such as eutha-nasia, cremation, and birth control.

With regard to its earliest history, for the past two decades the Church has published the Joseph Smith Papers, an archival project in which it has tried to find and reproduce documents created by Joseph Smith or by staff

12 Terryl Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched a New World Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).

13 Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

14 Paul C. Gutjahr, The Book of Mormon: A Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books; Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer-sity Press, 2012).

15 Grant Hardy, The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, Maxwell Institute Study Edition (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute, BYU Religious Studies Center, 2018).

16 Brian M. Hauglid, A Textual History of the Book of Abraham: Manuscripts and Editions, Studies in the Book of Abraham (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2011).

17 Royal Skousen, The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

18 https://www.lds-general-conference.org/.

19 https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/language-materials/08702_eng.pdf?lang=eng.