At the 2002 Mormon History Association conference, Richard Turley, director of the Church’s Family and Church History division, stunned attendees with the announcement that he and two other Church historians were producing a volume on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Immediately, rumors circulated that the book was a response to several forthcoming publications on the massacre. Chief among these, it was speculated, is Will Bagley’s Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Mountain Meadows Massacre. This panel will discuss Bagley’s important book and its implications for the Church as it continues to struggle to reconcile issues of Church divinity in the face of obvious human frailty.

Claude Burtenshaw, Lew Wallace