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Of course #4

I am looking forward to seeing where they take this. Given how they have approached global education with Pathways and other programs, I am very excited as that approaches a great need in an effective, far reaching way as far as I can tell (I don’t have personal experience with it nor talked in detail with someone who has).

Perhaps you have a point. I will think on it. Same here. My participation on this board has greatly strengthened my faith through this very process. I don't know. Did your parents call that result a "sweet spot?" That the family member's abandonment of his faith was evidence that they were "doing something right?" Did they go on an anti-Mormon podcast and accept accolades from opponents of the Church ("On behalf of so so many of my listeners and friends, we're all just loving what you do, in awe of it, and cheering you on" / "Well, thank you so much")? You might be right. My personal interactions with Dan were really quite unpleasant and offputting, so perhaps personality conflicts have unduly affected my assessment of him. Baseless and inflammatory accusations from online strangers from the likes of anonymous posters like some on this board are standard fare for online discussions, but I guess I expect more from a scholar of Dan's stature. I also find fair portions of his social media content to be grating insofar as he mixes personal invective and dunking and ridicule into his commentary on biblical scholarship. Nevertheless, you've made some solid points. Thank you for your input. Thanks, -Smac

Okay. Not sure how ends up being a "sweet spot," as an indicator that he is "doing something right." As bishop years ago, I attended a training session with Elder Bednar, who said that the role of bishops is not to tell people what to do in their lives, but rather to encourage them to discern what the Lord wants them to do, and then encourage them to do that. I'd like to think that all Latter-day Saints would have this posture. Perhaps Dan does. If they try hard enough, yes. If I said something that ended up persuading a fellow Latter-day Saint to abandon their faith, I would hope that it was an error on my part, whether intentional or otherwise. Either way, I would not rejoice in it. If intentional, I would hopefully repent. If inadvertent, I would regret the outcome. I would not call it a "sweet spot" or evidence that I am "doing something right." Thanks, -Smac

I honestly don't know if this would have any relevance to the discussion or not, but I just happened across it in my cybertravels. https://jewishworldreview.com/1026/unndetected_pain.php For what it's worth. (Did I violate your copyright, @Kevin Christensen? Heh-heh!)

Dan: "And if we don't let it operate on its own terms, we're not really giving priority to the Bible as an authority." Also Dan: “The Bible has absolutely no authority. … the only authority the Bible can ever possibly have is whatever authority groups of people agree to assign to it and then to honor, and then they will usually impose the threat of certain consequences should members of the in-group fail to honor that authority. But the Bible has no authority." There is, I think, some tension in Dan's rhetoric, but not a strict logical contradiction once his framework is clear. His core claim is consistent across the videos you referenced and many others: the Bible as a text has no inherent or metaphysical authority. Any authority it has is assigned by communities of people according to their needs, traditions, and identity politics. Meaning and authority are negotiated; they are not properties that inhabit the syllables or pages themselves. He has also said he loves the Bible, that it contains both wonderful and deeply problematic material, and that if one actually wants to prioritize the text (rather than prioritize what the text does for one’s community or identity), one should let it “operate on its own terms” or “function on its own terms.” In context, “its own terms” means a historical-critical reading that tries to recover what the texts were doing in their original settings, without later dogmatic filters that force contradictory passages into harmony or suppress material that conflicts with modern ethical commitments. How he holds both together: Denying inherent authority does not, for him, prohibit a community or an individual from assigning the Bible a form of authority and then trying to honor that assignment more faithfully. When he says people are not “giving priority to the Bible as an authority,” he is usually criticizing those who claim biblical authority while, in practice, subordinating the texts to their received tradition. In his view, they are not actually letting the Bible operate as an authority; they are using selected parts of it as a proof text for conclusions already reached by other means. “Taking it on its own terms” is his preferred way of assigning and exercising whatever authority one chooses to grant the collection. It is still a human decision about how to treat the texts, not a discovery of metaphysical authority already present in them. So the two statements operate at different levels. One is a meta-claim about the absence of inherent authority. The other is a normative claim about how, if one decides to prioritize the Bible, one should go about it. The tension is mainly rhetorical: he frequently speaks as though certain readings fail to treat the Bible as authoritative, while maintaining that the Bible never possessed that authority in the first place. Whether that tension amounts to an inconsistency depends on how strictly one reads the language of “priority” and “authority” in each context. Seems like Dan could do a better job at explaining stuff like this, particularly for people not trained in biblical scholarship. I love that he teaches the Bible this way because he wants to respect its authority. I think he is spot on there. And his comments about his experience in the Church is what I would expect. Dan's language here is difficult to square cleanly with the stronger formulations of his “no inherent meaning / negotiated meaning” position stated frequently elsewhere. When he says he has “always just approached it as I’m going to let it operate on its own terms, even if I don’t agree with it,” and that graduate training constantly reaffirmed that stance, he is describing a methodological preference for historical-critical reading. In practice, I think this means: Trying to recover what a text was doing in its original literary, historical, and cultural setting. Resisting later dogmatic filters that force contradictory passages into harmony or suppress material that conflicts with modern ethical or identity commitments. Allowing the text’s own tensions, emphases, and silences to stand even when they are inconvenient. That is a coherent scholarly posture. The friction appears when that posture is placed next to his repeated claims that the biblical text has no inherent meaning, that meaning is only generated in the encounter between text and reader, and that all interpretation is a negotiation shaped by social, historical, and rhetorical circumstances plus received tradition. Under a strict reading of the “negotiated meaning” thesis, “letting the text operate on its own terms” is itself a negotiation, or sure walks and talks like one. It is a decision to prioritize certain constraints (original languages, ancient contexts, literary form, comparative data) over other possible constraints (doctrinal coherence, ethical utility, identity-political salience). Those constraints are real and can be more or less tightly controlled by the available evidence, but they do not escape the broader claim that meaning is produced by the interpreter rather than discovered as a property already residing in the text. The phrase “on its own terms” still implies a distinction between the text’s terms and the interpreter’s, which is precisely what the stronger anti-realist formulations of his position tend to collapse. He appears to hold both ideas by treating “data over dogma” as a regulative ideal rather than a fully consistent theory of meaning. In the ideal, the scholar tries to minimize the influence of identity politics and received tradition so that the historical and literary data can exert more pressure on the interpretation. In the theory, even that minimization is a form of negotiation, and the resulting interpretation remains one among many possible socially situated readings. The practical advice (“let it operate on its own terms”) is useful for criticizing selective or anachronistic uses of the Bible. The theoretical claim (“meaning is only ever negotiated”) undercuts the suggestion that there is a stable set of “own terms” waiting to be allowed to operate independently of the reader. The tension is therefore real in the rhetoric, even if it can be softened by distinguishing a descriptive claim about how meaning works from a normative preference for certain interpretive constraints. The two sets of statements pull in different directions about whether the text possesses any priority that is not ultimately granted by the interpreter. Thanks, -Smac

From knowing his posting style, I suspect he is using “offering reasons” in the sense that people can find reasons by themselves to stay or leave. Perhaps one of his explanations leads them to see the Church claims as unsupported or another finds his approach as informing their faith, giving them more reasons to study scripture and seek God (my own reaction). Anyone can do the same (find their own reasons) to yours and my own and anything FAIR, the Church itself, or anyone else puts out. All it really indicates when both those who stay and those who leave tell him they can find reasons in his comments is that he is likely not exclusively promoting one view. My husband taught how to start a business, entrepreneurship to university students (also high school and community). Actually he teaches as he is currently the start a business specialist at the local employment service the Church runs; it’s his service mission, just started a few weeks ago. He has had students come up and tell him he’s taught them they don’t want to be entrepreneurs after all. He has done this not by promoting the evils of having your own business, but by sharing the facts and letting them decide if that’s something that resonates with them or not. One has to work, imo, to interpret Dan’s efforts as intentionally telling people to leave their faith. Examining their premises and correct their own misinterpretations does not inherently lead to loss of faith. If it did, you never would have seen me here. Would have been looonnnng gone from the Church. Instead it has led in my case and in the case most of my family to be stronger in our commitment to our faith. Except for one member who heard and saw the same things from our parents and yet decided to leave and points to family as one of the drivers of I understand them correctly. Does this mean my parents sought to undermine our faith? Yeah, only to someone who wants to see it that way.

Smac, do you believe Dan is lying here when he states he has no intent, no “goal” to try and destroy anyone’s faith? Dan: "{A}t no point have I ever had the goal to try to destroy anybody's faith, to try to hurt anybody's feelings, to try to do anything like that." Also Dan: "As long as I have supporters and detractors across the entire spectrum, I'm probably sitting in a sweet spot. I'm probably doing something right if I'm offering reasons for people to remain faithful and reasons for people to feel justified in not remaining faithful" (emphasis added). Not sure how to reconcile these. Is he just accidentally offering reasons for his fellow Latter-day Saints "to feel justified in not remaining faithful?" He doesn't have "the goal" of doing so, but he ends up in that "sweet spot" through inadvertence? As for his not having the goal of "try{ing} to hurt anybody's feelings," a big part of his social media content is tied up in dunking on amateurs. He can't just disagree with them, he puts them down with denigrating editorializing. This is one of the key flaws that have lessened my assessment of him as a scholar. Same goes for his politicized stuff. He imputes all sorts of horrible things and blanket condemnations onto people who disagree with him on controversial sociopolitical issues, with no real attempt to demonstrate the accuracy of his characterizations and imputed sentiments/motivations. I'm an attorney, so I am acclimated to seeing unsubstantiated and conclusory allegations in the preliminary stages of a lawsuit. As the lawsuit proceeds, the claimant is obligated to provide evidence to substantiate their position. Dan does this very well in terms of presenting straightforward biblical scholarship. Outside and beyond that, however, he runs into serious problems IMO. He mixes in his personal opinions and presuppositions and ideological commitments with "the data." He seems to want to leverage his expertise in biblical scholarship to bolster and add credibility to his opinions about sociopolitical matters substantially unrelated to biblical scholarship. And he seems to be, by his own admission, both subverting the Church's efforts and pleased about it. From a previous post: And: According to Dan, by his "offering reasons" for his fellow Latter-day Saints "to feel justified in not remaining faithful," he is "doing something right." That seems . . . subversive (that is, "tending or intending to subvert, overthrow, destroy, or undermine an established system, government, authority, institution, or set of beliefs"). He is free to do this, of course. I just find it problematic. This has been my assessment, and having watched a fair amount of his content during this time, my assessment has not changed much for the last few years. Thanks, -Smac

With today's news that the BYU School of Medicine has received preliminary accreditation to recruit its first class, it's a major milestone. Beyond opening its doors, the school's mission emphasizes global impact—addressing international health needs, supporting worldwide humanitarian efforts, and eventually bringing in international students. Apparently, International medical students are a rarity in U.S. (typically making up under 1% to 2% of total students), I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on a few questions: The Student Body: How will the cohort shape up? Does an "international focus" mean mostly training domestic students for global service, or actively bringing in students from abroad who can return home to practice? Focus Areas: What unique public health or clinical challenges (e.g., maternal/child health, infectious diseases, local health systems) do you think a Church-affiliated medical school will tackle? A Pathway Connection? Looking further down the road, could we see educational bridges tied into programs like BYU-Pathway to help prepare or support international medical candidates? Curious to hear how others picture this unique program taking shape.

I don't. I've been coming here for 20+ years in large part to listen and talk to people who do not share, or are even critical and/or hostile to, my faith. It would be nice if you stuck to telling me what your thoughts are, rather than mischaracterizing mine. I have no real qualms with Dan's social media contact on biblical scholarship as such, or with his refusal to share his personal beliefs. Rather, I have qualms with what I see to be subversive efforts against the Church. Not really. Conclusory pronouncements about "the data" and the Book of Mormon are not "scholarly" in any real sense. It would be nice if you stuck to telling me what your thoughts are, rather than mischaracterizing mine. I would prefer that he not subvert the efforts of the Church. I'll own that. At least not while he is a Latter-day Saint. He certainly has the right to do that, though. Actually, it's mostly the stuff outside the parameters of Dan's "job" that I find problematic. I mostly value his comments on biblical scholarship. Thanks, -Smac

These would be issues with literary grammar and perhaps a lack LDS creation theology. The council and "gods" are in Abraham 3. To claim there is no "council" in Abraham 3 ignores what the chapter actually depicts. Abraham 3:22–23 is a gathered assembly of premortal spirits under God, by definition, is a council in Heaven. The "we" of chapter 3 are the "Gods" of chapter 4. Abraham 3:24, is the decree and Abraham 4:1 records the execution of this decree. Grammatically, "they" who went down in Abraham 4:1 is directly referring back to the "we" who agreed to go down in Abraham 3:24. The text explicitly defines the antecedent. When Abraham 4:26–27 describes the formation of Adam, "And the Gods took counsel among themselves and said: Let us go down and form man in our image, after our likeness... So the Gods went down to organize man in their own image..." In Latter-day Saint scripture, doctrine, and temple theology, who specifically makes up "the Gods" in this creation council includes God the Father as the Head of the Council, standing in their midst, who directs the plan, Jesus Christ as the Creator and "One like unto God" who leads the execution of the creation, and noble spirits under Jesus' direction, which would include folk such as Michael and Gabriel and others who'd be born eventually as important prophets and kings. How and what they did I'm not sure, but it's a foreign Greek concept that spirits can't interact with matter, but the Bible says a spirit can interact with matter, they spirited people away to mountain tops. Did they help craft the clay golem of Adam or did they spiritually guide the pre-Adamites to birth an Adam naturally, I'm not so certain.

Sign me up for this church v15044gf0000db5pn07og65rkgo8tchg.mp4 v15044gf0000db5pn07og65rkgo8tchg.mp4

I don’t see “gods” in Abraham 3 but I see “Gods” in chapter 4. There is no "council" mentioned in chapter 3. Which Gods go down to form Adam?

Thanks Calm. As I’ve come to expect from you, your comments were thoughtful and thought provoking and I thank you for that. I have a special reverence for our premortal life. That reverence was born during the many hours I spent searching for insight about my son. The return on that investment of time and tears did not come quickly, but it came, not all at once but over years. As it did, it was much more comprehensive than insight into my son and his premortal choices, but mine as well. It’s sacred to me. Some observations: *Insistence blocks revelation. I spent much of my early quest wandering in the fog of my insistence, unable to hear His whispers because I was metaphorically yelling at Him, telling Him what He needed to tell me and why. *The first ray of light was the totally unexpected idea that I should ask my nonverbal son for answers to my questions. That changed the way I approach the many hours I spend with my son. I began to perceive and understand what he was telling me without him having to speak. Those insights were, and continue to be, breathtaking. Many are personal to him. Others come as a result of Deity’s expanding and linking those insights as I pondered them. *The puzzle of mortality is often frustrating because some of the pieces were given to us in our premortal life. We need to part the veil to recall those pieces. As we do, the puzzle becomes clearer but because other pieces may not be given to us until we leave mortality, faith remains until we have all the pieces. *Whether our mortal sojourn lasts a day or a hundred years, it is but a brief moment. Our spiritual IQ will expand exponentially as we pass through the veil and the knowledge of our premortal experiences are joined with our mortal ones. As was the case when we stood on the doorstep of mortality, our choice about our next step will be honored as we stand on the doorstep of eternity.

It makes even more sense why he avoids sharing his personal experiences or placing himself as someone who can show how to maintain faith while studying the Bible critically (in an academic sense). His was an atypical exposure coming to the Church already set in a critical methodology and never was pressured by the Church in his view to change his approach. It seems he doesn’t see his experiences as relating much to most of those who have issues with doubt. And I am guessing he doesn’t want to wing it, he seems too careful in finding evidence/data for his public behaviour. He hasn’t had training as a counselor in faith or anything else, so he refuses to take on that role even when others want him to do that. To me that is respectful. He doesn’t appoint himself an authority even when others are urging him to do so. Very much not subversive or manipulative in my view. And I am glad to see his employers and church leaders understand his choice of boundaries and accept them as a valid position for a faithful member (since he was employed by them) ” I was able to say, "Hey, here are the boundaries of what I'm doing on social media." And this is part of my professional training. This is part of, even to some degree, what I did for the church: critically examine the linguistics and all of this and try to guide translators in interpreting and then translating not just the Book of Mormon, but also the Bible. And so, yes, when people would call in and complain about me and I had to go talk with folks, it was always, "Here are the boundaries." And they said, "Look, as long as you stay within those boundaries, we're good." And because those were the boundaries that I established initially on my own for my channel, I didn't really have any trouble with that. And so, no, I've not faced any kind of ecclesiastical discipline or anything like that. And then also, while I was an employee of the church, I also ran for the state legislature twice as a Democrat, which meant there's an additional dimension in which I'm operating in a kind of parachurch capacity. I'm doing things that normally members of the church are probably not totally comfortable doing. But, you know, if you're running for office, it wouldn't really be above board for a church to be like, "How dare you defend the legality of abortion and things like that?" And so as a biblical scholar, I think I was doing the same. Look, this is my job. BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. DAN MCCLELLAN: This is my side hustle, let's put it that way. But I'm a professional. I need to be able to act as a professional in doing that job. And everybody was okay with that.”

Dan came to the Church as an adult, at the age of 20, then went on a mission. I can see how that could very much influence his approach to his personal faith. https://www.relationscapes.org/p/mcclellan-transcript/ I love that he teaches the Bible this way because he wants to respect its authority. I think he is spot on there. And his comments about his experience in the Church is what I would expect.

From a Mormonstories interview of Dan’s: Smac, do you believe Dan is lying here when he states he has no intent, no “goal” to try and destroy anyone’s faith?

The Bradish, Mitchill and Anthon visits tell us a lot. I believe Anthon was at first either 1. fully convinced that the characters were authentic and Smith had successfully (as he words it in his account) "deciphered" some of them without divine assistance, or 2. saw an opportunity to confirm his hypotheses that American Indians were actually Egyptians who migrated across the Pacific ocean, bringing with them the ancient theology of Mercury (Hermes/Enoch). Either way, I think before Anthon became suspicious upon hearing Harris describe the visit of the angel, he had fully shared his erudition, and perhaps details from a textbook on this very topic he was working on at exactly that moment, with Harris about the origins of civilization and religion in the Americas. IMO a watered-down version of Anthon's hypothesis on the origins of theology and civilization in the Americas based on "the profound investigations of [Carl] Ritter" became the foundation of the narrative of the Book of Mormon.

My guess is most LDS interested in scholarship but who find the faith promoting stuff as important or even more important for some, don’t want only the faith promoting stuff. It’s too easy to ignore scholarship if that is all they want, imo. Why should they bother with it. They want to hear the scholarship along with a heartfelt acceptance of belief in the faith. My husband is one of those. He loves to hear me relate what I have learned about history. I don’t need to tell the faith promoting stuff because he knows I have a solid belief and he knows I often explore possibilities based on faith even when I talk about the warts. However, he didn’t like Rough Stone Rolling. He judged Bushman in this text as trying to be all things to all people, people pleaser in essence. He preferred his earlier book, JS and beginnings of Mormonism and was expecting more of that. Btw, it was his rather conservative father who gave out RSR to all his children (8 of them). I was impressed as previous years it was a Gerald Lund book. However, my husband has never judged even those more critical as “subversive” when they have stated they are members who care about the community. FAIR has gotten trashed a lot for not being faithful enough, for catering to the intellectual crowd, for contributing to people’s loss of belief. I feel bad they can’t see the possibility of being more open about the negatives in history and evidence doesn’t have to be faith demoting and very grateful this doesn’t stop FAIR from putting stuff up, even with warts, to defend the Church. And defending the Church need not include pretending it’s all butterflies and unicorns. Or altering science to fit our preconceptions. One can be a faithful Saint and believe in evolution!!! We are not apostates or sheep in wolves clothing even if there are Saints, probably good, devout Saints (with a rather skewed view of reality in my view 😛 ) proclaiming so. Many others (better informed and reasonable ) have expressed gratitude that we have helped them come to a greater faith, stayed strong in faith even when dear family members have tried to persuade them to doubt. Sounds like the sweet spot to me. I don’t compare Dan’s work to FAIR’s own since our mission is to defend the Church and his is to present the academic scholarship and demonstrate what scripture does and does not say in the context of the the early faith communities. We can take his and other scholars’ work and use it where appropriate to help our own mission (Ben Spackman is a great example of this, imo), but that doesn’t mean he needs to tailor it to our mission or the Church’s any more than a guy who sells cars need to. Keeping to a standard of honesty and a desire to find and teach truth and understanding seems quite sufficient to me. I think he is reaching a much greater audience than FAIR ever will and that is good because he is sharing good information about scripture, helping many desire to study them more deeply. Dan Peterson has said stuff that in my view is along the same lines as DanMcClellan, only it’s God hitting the sweet spot in the evidence he allows for our faith. If it’s okay for God, not sure why it should be an issue for Dan M. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/evidence-and-proof.html

If you only want to hear stories based on faith, then listen to General Conference, They will tell you if you just pay your tithing, then even though you couldn't afford new shoes when you didn't pay your tithing, you now will be able to because of your faith. But the data doesn't support that. If you want to hear about 3 Nephites that have been alive since the days of Christ, then got to sunday school. But the data doesn't support that possibility. If you want to hear about how the Book of Mormon was an ancient record revealed by magic stones in a hat, then look to the Church. But the data doesn't support that. In essence you seem to be upset because Dan is not giving a sunday school lesson or a conference talk or a faith promoting story about the Book of Mormon. He is giving you a scholarly evaluation of those things. You want him to no longer be a Biblical scholar and only want him to sit in the back of the chapel listening to faith promoting stories. They are two entirely different objectives. Scholars are not in the business of only telling faith promoting stories. They are interested in context and digging into who said what when and why. If you want to just read the scriptures and ask the General Authorities what they mean, listen to conference. If you want to know the context, what the language meant at the time, how that cross references with known historical data of the time, etc, then listen to Dan. Your choice. But don't make Dan out to be a villain for just doing his job.

So you can read paper in the bottom of your hat just fine. Its just uncomfortable and difficult to do for long stretches. But I'm wondering, would it even be necessary for him to do over long stretches? I'm reminded of the phenomenon of "fasting girls" and this movie about a girl who claimed to live off spiritual manna, when really she would just pretend not to eat food when people were around, and then her mother would sneak food to her through a goodnight kiss. To determine whether it was a miracle of a trick, the local vicar hired witnesses to observe the girl 24 hours a day. As soon as the witnesses came on the scene full time, the girl (spoiler alert) slowly starved to death because her mom couldn't sneak food to her. Tricks are easy to pull off when noone is looking. And we don't have anything close to a controlled 24/7 translation process. Instead we have a few accounts of people who would look in on occasion, make observations for a brief period and then go back to their homes or carry on with their farm work and lives. We have very little idea what happened when it was just Joseph and Oliver in the room as we don't really have any accounts of what happened from Joseph or Oliver themselves. if there were times when a curtain or blanket was used, or times when Joseph told Oliver not to look or he'd be punished by God. Which does fit with one account given by Josiah Jones from October 1830 (published 1841): "I then asked him if he had ever looked through the stones to see what he could see in them; his reply was that he was not permitted to look into them. I asked him who debarred him from looking into them; he remained sometime in silence; then said that he had so much confidence in his friend Smith, who told him that he must not look into them, that he did not presume to do so lest he should tempt God and be struck dead." It matches what Harris said about the earlier translation of 116. Harris “never dared to look into them by placing them in the hat”, because “we had a command to let no man look into them, except by the command of God, lest he should ‘look aught and perish.’” So the two main scribes both report a death-penalty ban on observing too closely. I dunno, it's suspicious to me that there were even blankets and death penalties at all, ever, in the process. 1. I don't believe God would ever strike anyone dead for being observant about such an important thing, 2. Makes me think the same tactics could have been used at convneient times, and not used at convenient times. So it does appear to me like Smith was telling both his main scribes Harris and Cowdery and perhaps controlling any other observations by telling others not to look too closely at the instruments, or they would be struck dead. By my estimate Mosiah to Moroni, about 75% of the text, was dictated with just Joseph and Oliver and Emma in the house. Emma confirms she was busy with her work during the process. And there were at least two hostile accounts of blankets being hung in the house, one account saying the nails used to hang them remained for years after: “The translating and writing were done in the little low chamber of Joe Smith’s house. The Prophet and his precious trust were screened even from the sight of his clerks by blankets nailed to the walls. The nails remained for many years just as they were driven by the Prophet, and it was not until some repairing was done a short time ago that they were drawn out.” - Sally McKune, a Harmony neighbour 1 Nephi to Words of Mormon, about 25%, was dictated in the crowded house in Fayette, but the work was done upstairs in a bedroom. David and Elizabeth Ann Whitmer say they watched for hours, but it would not have been continuously. And when they did observe for hours it could have been times Joseph allowed them into the room to observe the dictation of memorized sections like Isaiah. Again, you'd only need to memorize enough to convince the people who watch for a few hours at a time. And access to observation could have been controlled by Joseph to sync with the times he'd be dictating memorized material. Entering the room at any other time to observe, could be dangerous to the observer, divine punishments and all. Where did Joseph say the stone was easier than the curtain? afaict he says nothing about the blanket/curtain anywhere. And we cannot know that he didn't use a blanket or curtain in Harmony. Two hostile accounts saying there were blankets between Smith and Cowdery in Harmony. We just don't know what the process was during the bulk of the translation.

"Most" likely? You've mapped out a very neat taxonomy, but a faithful Latter-day Saint doesn't need to pick one model. The Church merely affirms that we have a Heavenly Mother. Modern Latter-day Saint thought is entirely comfortable leaving the exact cosmic origin of the Heavenly Mother as an unrevealed mystery, meaning all four of your models can remain fascinating theological theories without any single one being forced as the answer. However, if you want me be a good sport and play the game, I will argue for the simplest model. Model #4, the Co-Eternal Heavenly Mother, as LDS theology has the internal, scriptural space to accommodate a self-existent, fully divine Mother without getting dragged into either infinite regression nor creationism. D&C 93:29 states, "Intelligence... was not created or made, neither indeed can be." So, it's certainly possible for a core divine identity to be self-existent. If God the Father's core essence/intelligence is uncreated and co-eternal with the universe itself, the same principle would apply to the Heavenly Mother. In this model, she did not "become" a God. God is an uncreated Divine Binary, a fundamental cosmic pairing who together embody the full stature of God. And I do favor Ancient Near Eastern literature, in which the origin stories for gods weren't written to satisfy neither modern philosophical demands nor LDS thoughts like "infinite regression". When you look at Ancient Near Eastern mythology and Israelite religion through modern scholarship (like Margaret Barker, Mark S. Smith, Frank Moore Cross), the concept of a co-eternal divine pair has incredible historical resonance. El and Lady Wisdom (Hokhmah) is portrayed as a primordial pair. So, arguing from silence, and ignoring tradition, #4 is "most" likely.

I had long ago realized the issue with reading modern day family relationships into ancient scriptures and not just because they were willing to have laws stoning their children for disrespecting even if they didn’t use them much or at all. Also community needs and endurance over the individual needs. But the client-patron relationship I hadn’t factored in and certainly don’t have the background or depth needed to do that decently. Had quite a few aha moments over what was being said about God with that.

No, the low light isn't the biggest problem. It is the amount of text possible to be read easily without needing to be switched. That to me is the biggest problem. He can't just put a normal size piece of paper in there. He would have had to written out on smaller paper sizes and then he would have to switch the paper in the hat every 10-20 minutes. He has to do that for hours each day for months on end. That increase the number of times that the paper could be seen at the bottom of the hat and just makes this scenario very unlikely. I could read in low light (dark walled room, no artificial light, no direct sunlight, 2 windows, and cloud cover) but it was painful to me and those I had test. Reading like that for longer than an hour would have been very unpleasant and I have a hard time imagining someone doing that every day for months. And it makes me wonder why Joseph would say that the stone in the hat method was easier compared to reading behind a curtain. If I was doing this magic trick, I would keep the curtain the entire time. The hat I have is a white wool felt tophat. I'm not sure age would have much impact. Here's a picture of an actual ~1830 hat - https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/112652. That actually has more fur covering than the one I have. I would consider that an old hat because of how ratty it looks. But I would also expect that to let in roughly the same amount of light because it is the stiff, structural part of the hat that is the densest part. And if his hat is completely floppy, I would expect that would be worse for reading as it no longer would have a flat bottom. Even in the best lighting (full sun), if there was a crease in the paper, it made it harder to read. I tried with candles. It is evening here so I can't really compare it to natural light, so I first tried with a pitch black room to see how helpful a candle would be (I'll test tomorrow to see how much a candle helps with natural daylight). In my test, the candle really didn't help all that much. Having the hat directly above the candle required me to get really close to the candle to the point I worried I would start a fire. If I put the candle to the side of the hat, I could read but only on that one side (and my hand would get uncomfortably hot). I would have needed at least 2 and probably 3-4 candles to read. I suspect that when I test it tomorrow, I'll find the natural light to be brighter than the candle and not help all that much. Also, when I say low light, I mean just natural light with cloud covering in a room that has dark walls and windows that don't face the sun directly. In that light, I can easily read a book, write stuff, do everything I would normally do. I don't need artificial lighting turned on. I would expect this is the normal amount of light that Joseph would work under. It isn't night time or twilight. I wouldn't expect the scribes to have a candle.