It reads: “Dear Brother: We should be pleased to have you print and publish in book form the course of lectures being delivered by you before the University Sunday School on the subject, Jesus the Christ, believing that they will prove a valuable acquisition to our Church literature and that the proposed work should be placed within the reach of Church members and general readers.” Smith and his counselors in the First Presidency, President John R.

Included in the BYU exhibit is the July 18, 1905, letter to Brother Talmage from President Joseph F. The recently concluded Education Week at BYU featured a five-day series of lectures on the book given by Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, professor of Church history and doctrine, and Thomas A. The free exhibit will remain open through September. Lee Library at Brigham Young University displays documents pertaining to the writing and publication of Jesus the Christ on Sept. The publication a century ago has been and is being observed in a number of ways this year:Īt the Church History Library in Salt Lake City, a new temporary exhibit regarding Jesus the Christ is now on display, featuring pages from the original handwritten manuscript, outlines from the lectures on which the book is based, a first-edition copy of the book, a 1963 edition, and some foreign language editions.Īn exhibit this month in the Special Collections section of the Harold B.

Over the decades, it has had a place among the very few books in the “reference library” that Church missionaries are allowed and encouraged to carry with them as they are transferred from place to place within their missions. Talmage is still in wide use by Latter-day Saints and is what scholars reckon to be the best-selling doctrinal work in Church history.įrequently quoted by Church leaders, writers, speakers and teachers, it has served at least twice as an instructional manual in Church classes. Today, 100 years after its publication, Jesus the Christ by James E. It is the only book in Church literature to have been written in longhand in a temple, directly commissioned by the First Presidency.

Jesus the christ talmage study guide