Hyde touches on his own life and perspective for the first time.
Author: Jonathan Green
Jonathan Green has been described as a scholar of German, master of trivia, and academic vagabond. He is an instructor of German in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at the University of North Dakota. His books include Printing and Prophecy: Prognostication and Media Change, 1450– 1550 (2011), and The Strange and Terrible Visions of Wilhelm Friess: Paths of Prophecy in Reformation Europe (2014).
Home MTC is good
At some point in the near future, the Missionary Training Center will likely reopen fully, and in some ways that’s unfortunate, because home MTC is good.
Ruf aus der Wüste 4.15-16: Hyde on washing of feet
I think this is more about foot washing than I’ve ever read anywhere before.
Translating the faith healer
Was I comfortable with the topic? the prospective client on the other end of the video call wanted to know.
Ruf aus der Wüste 4.13-14: Hyde on the Sabbath
Article 13 On prayer and on the manner of worship. Prayer is one of the primary obligations of the Christian, and he is reliant on it for any consideration that might stir his ambition or instill it in him, for it is just as necessary for his growth and thriving as rain is for the fields.
Ruf aus der Wüste 4.12: Baptism for the dead
Orson Hyde blazes the trail for every Temple and Family History consultant ever since.
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.11: Orson Hyde on lay clergy
If I were writing about the benefits of lay clergy in a missionary tract, I would probably spend less time on dusting one’s feet.
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.10: Orson Hyde on continuing revelation
The teachings are familiar, but the images are surprising.
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.9: Orson Hyde on blessing and baptizing children
This short sections feels quite familiar.
Point: It’s just art
Hezekiah didn’t consult with artists or historians before destroying the bronze snake Moses had made. He didn’t even try to preserve it somewhere else for its cultural value.
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.8: Orson Hyde on confession and disfellowship
On the confession of sin and the treatment of members acting contrary to law
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.7: Orson Hyde on the sacrament
For Hyde, the sacrament seems to be not quite as strictly symbolical as it is for us, and more directly tied to guilt and confession. Also, will Sunday always be the Sabbath?
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.6: Orson Hyde on confirmation
What is a priesthood ordinance’s method of action? What Hyde describes in this short article seems to be both less direct, and to emphasize the mediation of the priesthood and the priest conducting an ordinance, more than we typically would today. The gift of the Holy Ghost also seems conspicuously absent.
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.5: Hyde on baptism
Also, Native Americans make an appearance.
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.4: Orson Hyde on repentance
Most of this article is not actually about repentance.
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.3: Orson Hyde on faith
Orson Hyde’s lecture on faith seems a lot like the Lectures on Faith.
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.2: Orson Hyde on new scripture
Everything makes sense until the last sentence.
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 4.1: Orson Hyde on the Godhead
Orson Hyde’s explication of doctrine, like the Articles of Faith, begins with the nature of God, although Hyde’s treatment is about 30 times as long.
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste 3: Orson Hyde on priesthood
The subject of the priesthood office has by itself already caused more contention, bitterness and jealousy between the Catholic and the Protestant church than all remaining matters of dispute combined.
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste: translating the name of the church in 1842
The translator thought about it and…just gave up.
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste: Foreword
The fierce desire harbored by the author of this booklet to fulfill an obligation that, he feels, a more than human power has imposed on him, as well as the heartfelt diligence with which he hopes to gladden his fellow men through the proclamation of those truths that fill his own heart with inexpressible joy – these things have impelled him to commend the following little volume to the German people so that it might be received with an interest appropriate to the importance of the subject being treated. When in the course of human events it is made incumbent on us through the injunction of Divine Providence to record those unusual events that are suitable to comprise a new era and lay the foundation for renewal of a spiritual world and the destruction of tyranny and oppression to help promote the glorious kingdom of the Prince of Peace – then minds are filled with wonder and astonishment. The millennial church of Christ has been founded in the United States of America through the direct action of Divine Providence by His sending of His holy angel to show the nations the true fundamental teachings of his church, which was to be restored in the last times to prepare for the second coming of Christ to this world. The author of this little work is an American by birth and has been a priest of this church for eleven years, almost…
Ein Ruf aus der Wüste: title page
The first non-English Latter-day Saint work, Orson Hyde’s Ein Ruf aus der Wüste, was published in 1842 in Frankfurt. The section recounting the life of Joseph Smith and the translation of the Book of Mormon has been translated multiple times and is available at the Joseph Smith Papers Project, in Dean Jessee’s 1989 The Papers of Joseph Smith: Autobiographical and Historical Writings vol. 1, and in Dan Vogel’s Early Mormon Documents vol. 1. That leaves around 100 of the 115 total pages still untranslated. As a first step toward making this source more widely available, a translation of the title page and a few notes follow. To accompany this year’s “Come Follow Me” focus on the Doctrine and Covenants and church history, I’m planning to post additional sections in English translation as a way to look at how an early church member understood the restored gospel and presented it to others. * * * A Cry in the Wilderness, a Voice from the Bowels of the Earth. A short overview of the origin and doctrine of the church of “Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” in America, known to many by the designation: “The Mormons.” By Orson Hyde, a priest of this church. Read, reflect, pray and act! Frankfurt, 1842. Self published by the author. * * * One thing that immediately sticks out is that Ein Ruf aus der Wüste provides an early example of using the First Vision…
A Christmas wish
If your parents or grandparents die of Covid-19, please make sure the disease appears as the cause of death in their obituaries.
Radical Orthodoxy
I swore off writing manifestos 20 years ago as bad business with no profit in it. Why would I sign this one?
Use of the gold plates in Book of Mormon translation accounts
It’s become something of a communis opinio doctorum that Joseph Smith didn’t make use of the gold plates while translating the Book of Mormon.
Concealment and divine prohibition in Book of Mormon translation accounts
A common motif in accounts of the translation of the Book of Mormon is how others beside Joseph Smith were forbidden, prevented, or to the contrary permitted to view the gold plates, the interpreters or the translation process.
How the Book of Mormon was translated: a proposal
I propose that there is a continuity of method connecting Joseph Smith’s translations of ancient texts, from the Book of Mormon to his encounter with the Kinderhook plates, and that this method was both expansive and linguistic.
Learning from Kinderhook
Don Bradley and Mark Ashurst-McGee have published the definitive account of Joseph Smith’s 1843 encounter with the Kinderhook plates.
Machine Translation
Two attitudes about translation are on my mind. One is about Joseph Smith: “Seeing words appear in a seer stone is magic, not translation. Translation is when you have the equivalent text in a foreign language, like Google Translate.” The other attitude is not uncommon among translators and translation clients: “Google Translate isn’t translation. It’s just inputting one text and getting the mechanical equivalent in another language.”
Interpreters, visions and seer stones
The Interpreter has recently published two reviews of William L. Davis’ Visions in a Seer Stone. The two reviews, by Brant Gardner and Brian Hales, exemplify what I think are positive trends in Latter-day Saint contributions to Mormon Studies.