49 replies to this topic

[Bill Hamblin]

I’ve started reading Brant’s book The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon, which is very good.  However, I do have a problem with his conceptualization of the idea of magic.  Brant describes magic and religion as insider and outsider terms--religion is what we do, magic is what the other guy does (18, 22, 29, 31-43).  Although as a social and historical matter this is often the case, from a historical perspective, I believe it is insufficient.  

Look at the New Testament, for example.  The Greek word magos, from which our magic and magician derive, originally referred to the clan of Zoroastrian priests--the Zoroastrian Levites.  In the New Testament, it used to describe three individuals: Elymas, a Jew (Acts 13:4-12), Simon, a Samaritan (Acts 8:4-25), and the Wise men from the East who follow the star to Jesus (Mt. 2:1-16).  The KJV uses the terms sorcerer and sorcery to translate magos in the cases of Elymas and Simon, while it uses “wise men” to translate magos in the nativity story.  In Greek it is precisely the same term in all three cases.  Likewise, the Latin Vulgate transliterates (rather than translating) the term in all three cases as magus.  The KJV translators made the distinction between Wise Men and magicians because of the issues surrounding magic in their own day, not in the Greek text.

Furthermore, none of these people are actually condemned for being a magos.  Elymas is a negative figure because he opposes Paul, not because he practices magic. Simon is a neutral figure, who converts to Christianity.  He is condemned for trying to buy the priesthood, but not for being a magician.  Finally, the Wise Men are obviously positive figures, who learn of the birth of the Messiah through astrology, and come to worship him.  The tern magos in the New Testament is not an insider-outsider term.  A magos can be either good or bad.  (The other major term for KJV sorcerer in Greek is pharmakos, meaning literally “poisoner,” is consistently negative.)

In many, if not most cultures, begin a magician was not a negative category.  There can be good magic or bad magic, depending on who does it, what is done, and why they do it.  For example, in Egypt, the term heqa/heka (ḥq3) is a natural force that can be manipulated by humans.  Egyptian priestly rituals are heqa.  Words and writing have/are/envoke heqa.  Likewise Renaissance Magi saw themselves as magicians.  There were many types of magic: good and bad; natural and spiritual.  Magic was bad when it was used for harmful purposes.  But magic was not something the other people did.  It was a self-categorization by the Renaissance magi.  (Another example would be the 19th century mage Eliphas Levi, who saw himself as a magician, and conceptualized magic in very positive terms.)

Take, for example, the case of Jesus.  When he exorcises the demons from the man in the country of the Gadarenes, he commands the demons to go into the swine (Mt. 8:23-34; Mk. 5:1-20).  The people of the area then ask Jesus to leave.  Why?  Because he can control demons; he can cast a demon out of someone, but also put a demon into someone.  To the Gadarenes, Jesus’ magic could be used for good (cast a demon out) or evil (put a demon in).  It wasn’t conceptualized as the Jews being magicians when they exorcise demons, but the Greeks aren’t magicians.  The Jewish elites likewise didn’t reject the reality of Jesus’ miracles, they simply said that he did his miracles by demonic power (Mt. 12:24-28; Mk. 3:22; Jn. 7:22).  Jesus responded, “if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out?” (Mt. 12:27).  It wasn’t a question of magic vs. miracle.  Both Jews and Jesus did exorcisms.  The question was about the source of the magical power--God or Satan.

My position is that the insider-outsider model is useful for understanding how Joseph’s neighbor and anti-Mormons may have conceptualized what he was doing.  However, it is not useful in understanding how Joseph and the Mormons conceptualized what they were doing.  Despite what the outsiders said, Joseph and the LDS never conceptualize their activities in any magic-related categories.

More generally, what needs to be done is a careful analysis of the terminology and concepts in each different culture and period.  It is impossible to establish a universal category of “magic” (or, likewise, “mysticism”) that accurately describes all cultures and periods.  Each definition of magic must be carefully contextualized in a specific time, place, culture, and often even an individual.  

[Brant Gardner]

I don't think we are as far apart as seem to suggest. One of the critical issues is one you raise early, which is that our word "magic" has a very specific etymology. Unfortunately, however, the developed meaning has moved away from the original semantic realm and now encompasses much more. What that should tell us immediately is that anything we term magic is going to impose both a terminology and probably a semantic context that is foreign to the culture to which we apply the term. In other words, I agree with you that one really has to understand historical cases in the appropriate time period and cultural context.

I would also agree that for the Jews the source of power was an important question. They assumed that there was such power to be tapped, and that different people could tap into it - through Yahweh or some other power. In the Old Testament it would have been a different god, in the New Testament Jewish tradition was much more the kind of monotheism we understand, and therefore the duality was with Satan rather than a different god.

My intent in discussing magic wasn't really to define it, but to point out the sloppiness of the definitions--and particular the problematic association of the term with a pejorative context. As you note, depending on the definition used (and often the person employing it) "magic" was considered beneficial and acceptable.

Agreeing with you, magic is typically an inappropriate label because it confuses times and customs.

[Bill Hamblin]

I agree.  My issue is basically that looking at outsider definitions of magical activity to categorize JS as doing magic blurs the fundamental issue, which is: why should we call scrying or water-dousing "magic" at all?  Why not just call them scrying and water-dousing?  Why apply a very ambiguous category--magic, with all the baggage moderns attach to it--to a set of acts which the actors may or may not have understood as "magic"?  

This is, of course, Quinn's fundamental flaw: because someone somewhere conceptualized scrying as magic (John Dee, for example, who viewed his magic as angelic, by the way), therefore, all other things which someone at sometime might have conceptualized as magic, are related to scrying in Joseph's mind.

Edited by Bill Hamblin, 24 September 2011 - 02:29 PM.

[Nathair]

Deleted: off topic and offensive.

Edited by Nathair, 24 September 2011 - 10:35 PM.

[William Schryver]

My iPhone display/touchpad is a manufactured-by-man assembly of elements of truly "curious workmanship." I have a fairly informed understanding of how it works, and yet it is still, in my eyes, a "marvelous work and a wonder."

I have often contemplated the possibility that God can dynamically effect an assembly of molecules in something as seemingly ordinary and inherently impotent as a stone, in order to render it more or less equivalent to an iPhone.

But, be that as it may, I have a specific question for Brant: Do you believe words actually appeared on the Liahona "from time to time," as it is written?

Edited by William Schryver, 24 September 2011 - 04:57 PM.

[Brant Gardner]

William Schryver, on 24 September 2011 - 04:55 PM, said:

But, be that as it may, I have a specific question for Brant: Do you believe words actually appeared on the Liahona "from time to time," as it is written?

Plausibly in the same way that they "actually appeared" on/in the seer stone.

[Brant Gardner]

Bill Hamblin, on 24 September 2011 - 02:28 PM, said:

My issue is basically that looking at outsider definitions of magical activity to categorize JS as doing magic blurs the fundamental issue, which is: why should we call scrying or water-dousing "magic" at all?  Why not just call them scrying and water-dousing?  Why apply a very ambiguous category--magic, with all the baggage moderns attach to it--to a set of acts which the actors may or may not have understood as "magic"?  

Hence the reason that I spent time trying to show that definitions of magic matter because of the connotations they carry and not because of the events/processes/miracles the word is used to describe. As I recall the story, Abraham Lincoln asked some listeners how many legs a lamb would have if you called its tail a leg. His answer to his own question was "four - calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one." That is the problem with the word magic. It is poorly conceived and imprecisely applied. I suppose I am not as worried about what labels are used because I think it is much more important to understand than to label.

[Bill Hamblin]

True enough.

[William Schryver]

Brant Gardner, on 24 September 2011 - 06:33 PM, said:

Plausibly in the same way that they "actually appeared" on/in the seer stone.

Well, as I understand your opinion on the question of whether or not they "actually appeared" on/in the seer stone, then I must conclude that you don't believe words "actually appeared" on/in the Liahona--in more or less the same way words "actually appear" on the display of my iPhone.  

Don't get me wrong, I honestly don't view this question as being some sort of "test of faith" or "measure of orthodoxy," or anything of the sort.  I fully believe that one can have your perspective on Joseph Smith's seer stone and the Liahona, and yet be a fully believing Latter-day Saint in every sense of the term.

That said, I do find it very interesting how perspectives on these types of questions have evolved in the 180+ years since the publication of the Book of Mormon--especially in the past 50 years or so.  Even faced with the seeming "miracle" of an iPhone, it seems to me to have become almost anathema for a modern Mormon scholar and/or intellectual to aver his or her belief in the notion that Joseph Smith really saw things in his seer stone--in more or less the same fashion we really see things in our smart phones.  

From my perspective, there is no substantial difference between a seer stone or the Liahona and my iPhone, except that I understand, more or less, how my iPhone does what it does.

[Brant Gardner]

William Schryver, on 24 September 2011 - 07:00 PM, said:

Well, as I understand your opinion on the question of whether or not they "actually appeared" on/in the seer stone, then I must conclude that you don't believe words "actually appeared" on/in the Liahona--in more or less the same way words "actually appear" on the display of my iPhone.  

You didn't ask if I believe the appeared as they do on your iPhone. That is much simpler. No, I don't. However, I do believe that Joseph read English words to his scribe(s). I just don't think that his vision occurred in a stone, but rather in his brain, where vision normally occurs.

[David T]

William Schryver, on 24 September 2011 - 07:00 PM, said:

Well, as I understand your opinion on the question of whether or not they "actually appeared" on/in the seer stone, then I must conclude that you don't believe words "actually appeared" on/in the Liahona--in more or less the same way words "actually appear" on the display of my iPhone.  

Don't get me wrong, I honestly don't view this question as being some sort of "test of faith" or "measure of orthodoxy," or anything of the sort.  I fully believe that one can have your perspective on Joseph Smith's seer stone and the Liahona, and yet be a fully believing Latter-day Saint in every sense of the term.

That said, I do find it very interesting how perspectives on these types of questions have evolved in the 180+ years since the publication of the Book of Mormon--especially in the past 50 years or so.  Even faced with the seeming "miracle" of an iPhone, it seems to me to have become almost anathema for a modern Mormon scholar and/or intellectual to aver his or her belief in the notion that Joseph Smith really saw things in his seer stone--in more or less the same fashion we really see things in our smart phones.  

From my perspective, there is no substantial difference between a seer stone or the Liahona and my iPhone, except that I understand, more or less, how my iPhone does what it does.

Knowing that God works with what we have/know, I find it far more likely that the Seer Stone/Liahona was not an advanced technological device as much as it was a contemporary item, or 'blank template'  on which the Lord would overlay through revelatory means (to the designated messenger) that which he desired for his servants to 'see', and that the 'seeing' was understood and explained by the seer in the context of contemporary culture and explanations of such things.

Edited by nackhadlow, 24 September 2011 - 07:09 PM.

[William Schryver]

Brant Gardner, on 24 September 2011 - 07:04 PM, said:

You didn't ask if I believe the appeared as they do on your iPhone.

I think the implication was rather clear.

Quote

That is much simpler. No, I don't.

Of course, I suspected that.

Quote

However, I do believe that Joseph read English words to his scribe(s). I just don't think that his vision occurred in a stone, but rather in his brain, where vision normally occurs.

Why do you suppose, then, that when Martin Harris switched stones on him, Joseph was unable to receive "vision" in the same fashion he had with the other stone?

[Zeta-Flux]

And what is the difference between God placing revelations in someone's head vs. placing photons for the person to see as words?

[Brant Gardner]

William Schryver, on 24 September 2011 - 07:38 PM, said:

Why do you suppose, then, that when Martin Harris switched stones on him, Joseph was unable to receive "vision" in the same fashion he had with the other stone?

I don't think he actually saw anything with either stone. However, Martin needed assurance and the Lord knew that. When Martin changed the stones, he was testing Joseph, but also the Lord's inspiration to Joseph (though he didn't understand that). I believe that the Lord simply didn't supply the vision to Joseph after the stone was switched. That made it so Joseph couldn't "see" and convinced Martin that Joseph was effective.

I both cases, the content was supplied to Joseph by the Lord. For details, see the book.

[Brant Gardner]

Zeta-Flux, on 24 September 2011 - 07:41 PM, said:

And what is the difference between God placing revelations in someone's head vs. placing photons for the person to see as words?

I suppose that by definition God can do as he wills. However, the mechanisms for placing the information in the brain is already in place and requires less alteration of the temporal reality God has already defined.

[David T]

Posted in the other thread, but perhaps even more relevant to this one:

Scientists Reconstruct Brains' visions into digital video in historic experiment

Edited by nackhadlow, 24 September 2011 - 08:08 PM.

[William Schryver]

Zeta-Flux, on 24 September 2011 - 07:41 PM, said:

And what is the difference between God placing revelations in someone's head vs. placing photons for the person to see as words?

I don't believe there is any effective difference between the two things.

But, of course, the cumulative contemporary evidence seems to suggest that Joseph Smith experienced the latter rather than the former.  My essential question is why many people seem to find it much more plausible and apparently easier to believe that God placed "revelations in someone's head," rather than placed "photons for the person to see as words."  I think the question is especially pertinent given the cumulative contemporary evidence of the actual mechanics of the revelatory process involved not only in the translation of the Book of Mormon, but also in the majority of Joseph Smith's other revelations.

By the way, I'm still waiting for someone to weigh in on the question of whether or not the brother of Jared actually moved a mountain (or that he spoke and God caused a mountain to be moved--the two things are equivalent in my estimation).

[William Schryver]

Brant Gardner, on 24 September 2011 - 08:02 PM, said:

I suppose that by definition God can do as he wills. However, the mechanisms for placing the information in the brain is already in place and requires less alteration of the temporal reality God has already defined.

I'm sorry Brant, but I do not consent to your suggestion that "the mechanisms for placing the information in the brain [are] already in place and require less alteration of the temporal reality God has already defined."  How is it somehow more plausible, or easier to believe, that an intelligent communication to the human brain--one originating externally to the brain, and consisting of complex language and "visions"--is more easily accomplished than simply causing photons in the form of words to appear on the surface of a stone (or a ball of "curious workmanship")?  How does the former require less "alteration of the temporal reality God has already defined" than does the latter?  (For that matter, how exactly would you define "temporal reality" within the context of your reply?)

Edited by William Schryver, 24 September 2011 - 08:38 PM.

[William Schryver]

My wife just made this comment as we discussed this issue: "Actually seeing words appear on a stone would constitute a certain evidence to Joseph Smith that what he was receiving was from God, rather than a product of his own creation or imagination."

Regardless of what the mechanics of revelation really were, I think she makes an excellent point.

[Bill Hamblin]

This discussion is getting off topic.  Let's try to stick to conceptualizations of magic and their significance for historical interpretation.  Speculations on the mechanisms of revelation of the text of the BOM can be taken to another thread.

Edited by Bill Hamblin, 24 September 2011 - 09:47 PM.