Biography
Jordan Watkins is from Alpine, Utah. He received a PhD in American history from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He also has a BA in history from BYU and an MA in history from Claremont Graduate University. His book, Slavery and Sacred Texts: The Bible, the Constitution, and Antebellum Historical Consciousness (Cambridge University Press, 2021), examines the ways in which antebellum biblical and constitutional debates over slavery brought awareness to the historical distances separating Americans from their hallowed biblical and Revolutionary pasts. His interest in American history stems from a lifelong fascination with Latter-day Saint history. His most recent work in that field appears in the volume How and What You Worship: Christology and Praxis in the Revelations of Joseph Smith (2020), which he co-edited. Before joining the faculty in Religious Education, Jordan was a volume editor of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers. He is a co-editor on volume 10 of that series, which was published in 2020.