David Golding

Historian of missionary encounters, Christianity, and Mormonism // Matrix: @davidgolding:

[David Golding @DrDavidGolding]

Our forthcoming book, Missionary Interests, is now under contract with @CornellPress. It boasts a phenomenal group of contributors who offer novel ideas about Protestant and Mormon missionary encounters. I can't wait for you all to see it:

[David Golding @DrDavidGolding]

@Keepapitchinin Quick perusal in First Presidency calls and recommendations collection (CR 1 168) in 1870s and 1880s, I'm noticing more candidates delaying their mission for lack of funds, references to instructions in the call letter about funding their missions.

[David Golding @DrDavidGolding]

@Keepapitchinin I haven't seen scholarship that has pinpointed or really explored in depth the purse/scrip dynamic. You're on to something, for sure.

[David Golding @DrDavidGolding]

(Source: W. W. Curry, "As a Preacher," Reminiscence, 1914, William Wallace Curry Papers, Harvard Divinity School Library.)

[David Golding @DrDavidGolding]

Early Latter-day Saint patriarchal blessings sometimes promised the recipient living through the Second Coming without tasting death. This idea was not entirely unique in the early 1800s. A Baptist preacher nicknamed "Live Forever James" made a career of preaching immortality: /1

[David Golding @DrDavidGolding]

According to Curry, "Live Forever James contended that true believers would never die, and this was his constant theme wherever he could get any one to listen to him. Of course he refuted his doctrine by himself going the way of all the earth." /end

[David Golding @DrDavidGolding]

New Mozart! https://t.co/Pht2RFebbs

[David Golding @DrDavidGolding]

@juliebr83 Historians I've read have argued that the Civil War was the critical interruptor of dueling culture, the macro-duel that amplified squabbles into battlefield and line infantry rituals of war. And boy did the honor culture in Lost Cause traditions persist after the war...

[David Golding @DrDavidGolding]

Parley Pratt's famous story of Joseph Smith rebuking jail guards—"Silence ye fiends of the infernal pit!"—has a context that goes missing in the usual retelling: Smith was challenging the guards to a duel. A thread: /1

[David Golding @DrDavidGolding]

@juliebr83 Attempts at anti-duel legislation mounted for decades while men still challenged and sometimes followed through with duels. As prosecution increased, ritualized duels decreased, but not in a tight correlation pattern. Depends on region and variations in gentility codes.

[David Golding @DrDavidGolding]

@juliebr83 Dueling lasted in the American South into the Civil War period, and the honor culture surrounding the duel challenge is evident well across JS's life and among his associates. (e.g., Kenneth Greenberg in American Historical Review, 1990; Barbara Holland, Gentlemen's Blood)

[David Golding @DrDavidGolding]

@Spencimus @lime_crush @sltrib The provenance claims make a mixup more likely than a direct Joseph to Emma to JS III to Emma Josephus (or) Frederick to Lois (or someone else to Lois) to Dan Larsen chain of custody. (Here's more detail about the provenance problems, if you like)

https://t.co/NtROd8h9Qy

[David Golding @DrDavidGolding]

Some initial thoughts on the purported Joseph Smith daguerrotype:

The main artifact preserving JS's likeness is the death mask taken after JS was killed and before he was buried. Without direct-line, firsthand provenance attesting the daguerrotype, we'll have to compare. /1

[David Golding @DrDavidGolding]

(Some sources :)

https://t.co/FKDhFq5dYU

https://t.co/HsG9an28Ko

Timothy B. Jay, _We Did What?!_ (Greenwood, 2017)

Melissa Mohr, _Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing (Oxford, 2013)

[David Golding @DrDavidGolding]

Those vulgarities ran together. When Joseph Smith stood to rebuke the guards, saying "I will not live another minute and hear such language, cease such talk, or you or I die this minute," he was replying to vain oaths with an allusion to dueling. /end