How my blog posts (or lack thereof) are like Joseph Smith’s journal entries

Sorry I’ve been away. I was excited to blog about Joseph Smith’s first vision throughout the bicentennial celebration in 2020. I wrote several posts about it. Then I quit. When he began keeping a journal in 1832, Joseph wrote brief but faithful entries for about 10 days. Then he quit for 10 months.

For me it’s not just that COVID came. I confess that after the terrific General Conference in April, writing more first vision posts seemed anti-climactic. I wondered if anything that exciting would ever happen again. Sure I could look forward to celebrating two hundred years since Moroni’s visits in 2023, but it’s tough to compete with the first vision.

Joseph’s April 3, 1836 journal entry

After Joseph’s journal entry describing the Savior’s visit to him and Oliver Cowdery in the House of the Lord at Kirtland, followed by Moses, Elias, and Elijah, the rest of Joseph’s journal is blank. What else is worth writing about

after that? He didn’t start again for well over a year.

Then I remembered 2021 would be a Doctrine and Covenants year. The Come, Follow Me curriculum will focus on Joseph’s revelations. That’s exciting. So I’m back. I expect to keep up with the curriculum and make a short post about every section in the Doctrine and Covenants this year. I’ll post on Section 1 before Sunday and post again on Joseph Smith-History 1:1-26 to supplement the upcoming lessons.

Do you think I can stick to it all year? Maybe I can. Some of the most

exciting revelations are at the end of the book.

Author: Steven Harper

I’m an introvert with an advocate personality. So I was pretty reserved in grad school seminars until a fellow student went off about how people shouldn’t have kids, and I launched into a lecture about how I’m the seventh of ten children of really great parents. My parents made sure the scriptures were read early and often in their home, but it was up to me to decide whether I would love the scriptures. I learned that the Book of Mormon is true shortly before I served in the Canada Winnipeg Mission. But It took me awhile to learn to love the scriptures. Not until I was teaching Dora, a Lutheran woman in her sixties, did I really want to know what they said and meant. That desire didn’t leave when I returned to BYU, so I changed my major from engineering to ancient near eastern studies and started a series of courses in Biblical Hebrew. I learned that the Bible was way more complicated than I had thought, and I doubted I could master the complexity. When I took a course on early Church history I decided I had to master that, so I switched my major and set my sights on a PhD in early American history. Along the way I wrote an MA thesis about who joined the Church in the 1830s and why. I wrote my dissertation on a little-known 1737 fraud by which the sons of William Penn evicted the Lenape Indians from their homeland. I started teaching in the history and religion departments at BYU-Hawaii, then in 2002 got the chance to join the Religious Education faculty at BYU in Provo and become an editor of The Joseph Smith Papers. That combo was enticement enough to leave Hawaii, where I thought I would miss the land but ended up missing the people. A decade later I taught the Bible (go figure) to great students at the BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies. Before that I had been serving on committees tasked by the Church Historian and Recorder with planning a new history of the Church. When I got home from Jerusalem I was invited to join the Church History Department in Salt Lake City to be the managing historian of that project. For the next six years it was my humbling privilege to work with devoted and talented people to produce Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days. More than one million people are reading it online and more than 400,000 print copies have been sold. In 2018 I got my other dream job back: professor of Church history and doctrine at BYU. I was also named the editor of BYU Studies, where I had formative experience as a student intern a long time ago. The best thing about me is my wife and children, but they forbade me to say much about them here. Hannah Salvesen is my daughter, and I’ll share lots of links to the great stuff she produces. Thanks to Hannah and Scott Salvesen for building this site and advising me patiently about all things related to the world wide web.

16 thoughts on “How my blog posts (or lack thereof) are like Joseph Smith’s journal entries”

  1. I am subscribed to your blog and can’t wait to read your insight for D&C this upcoming year! I will look forward each time I get an email! – One of your Jeru students 🙂

  2. I’m glad to see you back at it. I’m an old student of yours and was recently called to teach Gospel doctrine. I can use all the insights I can get. I look forward to reading your posts this year.

  3. I just read your info with a smile in my face because i too will write in a journal for about ten days then quit for ten months. What is interesting about my day to day life? Not much….BUT…. my son, Mitchell Schaefer had the privilege of working with you on some of your church history projects and you have forever blessed his life and mine! Thank you Steven!

  4. Your Harper name has interested me me for quite some time. My Great Great Grandfather, Charles Alfred Harper, was with Brigham Young and the 1847 vanguard company. Do you tie into that ancestry?

  6. Brother Harper,
    I am thrilled you will be posting about each section in the Doctrine and Covenants! We so look forward to it. Dale gave me your book – Joseph Smith’s First Vision – A Guide to the Historical Accounts – for Christmas. Yay! Thanks for the heads up on your upcoming posts.
    Elaine Kemp

  7. So glad you’re back! I really enjoyed your earlier posts and look forward to more. Thank you!!

  8. I’m excited for your posts! And I am loving your book, “Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants.” Best assistance for preparing gospel doctrine lessons. Thank you!

  12. je suis français, baptisé depuis le 11 février 1978. Je vous remercie de tout ce que vous partagez sur votre blog. J’ ai hâte de 2021 car j’ai toujours eu plus de difficultés à lire D&C que le Livre de Mormon.

    1. J’ai récemment visité votre beau pays avec ma belle femme. J’espère que mes messages vous aideront à étudier les révélations du Sauveur. Dieu te bénisse.

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