After Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt was the most influential figure in early Mormon history and culture. Missionary, pamphleteer, theologian, historian, and martyr, Pratt was perennially stalked by controversy--regarded, he said, "almost as an Angel by thousands and counted an Imposter by tens of thousands."

Tracing the life of this colorful figure from his hardscrabble origins in upstate New York to his murder in 1857, Terryl Givens and Matthew Grow explore the crucial role Pratt played in the formation and expansion of early Mormonism. One of countless ministers...

In this first volume of his magisterial study of the foundations of Mormon thought and practice, Terryl L. Givens offers a sweeping account of Mormon belief from its founding to the present day. Situating the relatively new movement in the context of the Christian tradition, he reveals that Mormonism continues to change and grow.

Givens shows that despite Mormonism's origins in a biblical culture strongly influenced by nineteenth-century Restorationist thought, which advocated a return to the Christianity of the early Church, the new movement diverges radically from the Christianity of...

Winner of the Best Anthology Book Award from the John Whitmer Historical Association
Winner of the Special Award for Scholarly Publishing from the Association for Mormon Letters

Scholarly interest in Mormon theology, history, texts, and practices--what makes up the field now known as Mormon studies--has reached unprecedented levels, making it one of the fastest-growing subfields in religious studies. In this volume, Terryl Givens and Philip Barlow, two leading scholars of Mormonism, have brought together 45 of the top experts in the field to construct a collection of...