The Council of Fifty – Matthew J. Grow & R. Eric Smith – 3 Stars

The Council of Fifty – Matthew J. Grow & R. Eric Smith – 3 Stars

Title: The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal about Mormon History

Authors (Editors): Matthew J. Grow & R. Eric Smith

Publisher: Religious Studies Center (RSC)

Year: Hardcover 2017

Rating: 3 Stars

Price and Purchasing Options: This book is brand new to the market, and so you will not find it in second hand options –and chances are because of the content and the special interest of it, you won’t find it at a Deseret Industries or eBay for a while.  Your best bet, and totally worth the time, is just to pick it up directly at a Deseret Book store or other retail location of your choosing.  There really are not any other options, but honestly it is worth it.

Review: Don’t let the three star review fool you – this is a great book!  I loved it!  Hear me out a little bit on why it got a three star rating, and you will understand.  The fact is if you are at all interested in The Council of Fifty than this is THE BOOK for you.

Short history lesson: The Council of Fifty was an organization started by Joseph Smith immediately before his death (for just a few months).  Because the council was secretive, very little was known about the meetings, their content, and the purpose of the council.  The small notes that we had come from random journals and small references made to it.  For the most part it is not commonly known that this council even existed.  As a result the Council has had a sense of mystery surrounding it – which has led those opposed to Smith to conclude the most heinous, and those in support of Smith to disregard the council of having little to no worth (probably because of discomfort from lack of information).

A few years ago, a book was published by Signature Books as a Documentary History on the Council of Fifty – a review of that book is on this blog.  At the end of that book – with the small shreds of information they were able to collect from the journal entries they found was – nothing.  There was nothing that really gave any insight to anything – leading most to conclude that the Council was nothing of significance (me included). 

This year the Church announced the release of the actual minute notes from the Council Meetings through the Joseph Smith Papers Project!  That is where this small book comes in – and helps significantly.

Now to the book itself.

The book is published by the Religious Studies Center at BYU, and for the most part in the past it has been hit and miss in my view point (however, in the last two years they seem to finally have focus and drive in their mission and have produced some great contributions).   The book is a collection of essays about the Council of Fifty records, which is again usually hit and miss from me; and they are written by accepted historians and scholars in the church.

The reality is about half of the book has some two stars essays.  They are essays of scholars talking about how excited they are to study the records and how important they are or might be – but they don’t detail why.  These are interesting and insightful in some ways.

The other half of the book has some remarkable essays, four stars, actually detailing not just the impact of the records but the new insight they give to early Mormon thought.  It helps give context to what the Council of Fifty was supposed to do, why it was formed, and why it made total sense to do so.  More importantly it also helps us understand our (Mormons) relationship with conflict and our search of Zion; and you gain an impressive perspective of Smith in his quest to find multiple possible solutions for the conflict they found themselves in – the Council being set to ultimately evaluate how they could succeed at building “zion” and ushering in the Millennium, even if through unorthodox ways.

I loved this book.  It actually gave me a different shade of my own faith, and a slightly new perspective on the relationship between the kingdom of God, and the governments of the world.  I gave it three stars, because not all essays are created equal.

Suggestions: The fact is, if you are passively interested in the Council of Fifty read this book!  If you are extremely interested in this topic read this book – and then go and read the sources material yourself; doing so will help give you context in what you are reading.

Review #42

 Tags: 3 Stars, History, Church History, The Council of Fifty, Joseph Smith (topic), R. Eric Smith, Matthew J. Grow, LDS Book Review, Ryan Daley