When Joseph Smith emerged from the grove in 1820, he had learned firsthand from Jesus Christ Himself that the Christian churches of his day were all wrong and that he was forbidden to join any of them. From that first vision onward, Joseph Smith, and the Latter-day Saints who believed his testimony, understood clearly that the “restoration of all things” was made necessary by the loss of the church established by Jesus Christ during His life upon the earth. Over the last century there has been an outpouring of newly discovered manuscripts, written during the first Christian centuries, that enables us to get a much clearer picture of what the Christian experience was like in those early times. LDS scholars today conclude increasingly that the root causes of the apostasy were the abandonment or breaking of sacred covenants by the Christians themselves.

This volume of essays reports new research by several LDS scholars in different fields, which will help Latter-day Saints understand the apostasy better. The authors identify several common myths and misconceptions that Latter-day Saints have about the apostasy and help us understand the falling away from Christ's church more accurately and completely.