Volume 47, number 1In this issue of BYU Studies, Jeff Walker examines newfound information about the 1838 Mormon conflict in Missouri. Due to U.S. preemption rights and land surveying practices, many Mormons settled on land in northern Missouri that they did not have to pay for until the surveys were completed. After surveying was finished, these preemption rights were an impetus for Missouri land speculators to force Mormons from the state. This article offers another perspective on the Mormons’ forced expulsion. Most Latter-day Saints know about Orson Hyde’s dedication of the Holy Land in 1841. Blair G. Van Dyke and LaMar C. Berrett look at ten subsequent apostolic rededications in their article “In the Footsteps of Orson Hyde.” What kinds of hymns did the Latter-day Saints sing in the 1830s? And how did they sing them? Michael Hicks answers these questions in “What Hymns Early Mormons Sang and How They Sang Them.” A little-known document from 1842, written by the Twelve Apostles, tells the Saints in Europe how to gather their resources and emigrate. Josh Probert tells us that this epistle is significant not only for its message, but for what it says about the role of Twelve in 1842. In a review essay focusing on The God Delusion, Steven C. Walker writes of the growing number of books that look at scientific evidence as a justification for atheism, showing the fallacies inherent in trying to impose materialist and reductive paradigms into the realms of faith, imagination, and religion.Volume 47, number 2In this issue, Edward L. Kimball presents a marvelous account of the 1978 revelation granting the priesthood to worthy men of all races. Beginning with a brief history of the priesthood ban, the article then traces President Spencer W. Kimball's personal support of the Church's longtime position until, at the death of President Harold B. Lee, it suddenly became his problem. The subsequent process by which President Kimball became convinced that the time for change had come, and how he involved his counselors and the Twelve in preparing for the divine manifestation that followed, is one of the finest examples of leadership in Church history. In an essay written thirty years after the revelation on priesthood, Marcus H. Martins, the first black missionary called after the revelation, reflects on what the change in priesthood policy has meant in his own life and in the Church. Paul Lambert and Thomas Wayment examine pen and pencil markings in Joseph Smith’s New Testament translation, discuss editorial procedures he followed, and examine some clues about the preparation of the manuscripts for publication. Long before Friberg and Teichert, artists created narrative images of the Book of Mormon. Noel Carmack looks at the first published illustrations were made for The Story of the Book of Mormon (1888), a text used in Church education. Volume 47, number 3In this special issue pertaining to the Mountain Meadows massacre, guest editors Richard E. Turley Jr. and Ronald W. Walker include selections of important documents about the massacre. In 1892, historian Andrew Jenson interviewed Utahns who had information about the massacre. Several years later, David H. Morris, an attorney living in St. George, Utah, collected affidavits and statements about the massacre from long time residents as he contact with them in other dealings. The complete collections of documents appear in the book Mountain Meadows Massacre: The Andrew Jenson and David H. Morris Collections, published by BYU Studies. This issue also includes two articles about issues (problems with sources and dealing with violence) related to the massacre and reviews of two books about the massacre.Volume 47, number 4Much has been written about the assassination of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, but little attention has been paid to the crime scene in Carthage Jail. In this issue of BYU Studies, authors Joseph Lyon and David Lyon examine eyewitness accounts of the assault, the layout of the crime scene, the physical evidence left in the jail, and the types of weapons used and the wounds they inflicted on the Smith brothers, John Taylor, and Willard Richards. 
The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and the Prophet Joseph Smith both radically critiqued nineteenth-century Christian culture and called for drastic change in contemporary Christianity. David Paulsen examines the views of both men and shows them to be mutually reinforcing and illuminating. Sherry Baker explores the emerging discipline of Mormon media studies and introduces the Mormon Media History Timeline. Andrew Jenson (1850–1941), mission president and assistant LDS Church historian, kept a detailed record of his trip to Iceland in 1911 as president of the Danish-Norwegian mission. Journal entries and five photographs of that 1911 trip are presented here, introduced by Fred Woods.
 Steven Harper examines original manuscripts of Doctrine and Covenants 104 to clarify the connection between D&C 104:18 and Luke 16:23. This scriptural detail was brought to light through research associated with the publication of the Joseph Smith Papers.