Jump to content
Seriously No Politics ×

DonBradley

Contributor
  • Posts

    1,005
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by DonBradley

  1. 19 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

    Even though Martin Harris' travels to the east were previous to the translation of the Book of Lehi, I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts on his encounters with Bradish, Mitchill, Anthon and whoever else he might have shown the transcript. 

    There seems to be agreement between those that saw the earliest transcript that the characters resembled Arabic. I assume the Ottoman pass that Bradish compared to the transcript was at least partly in Arabic?

    Hey Rajah,

    That's in the book! Chapter 2!

    I didn't dwell too much on the Arabic connection, but it's there. I thought about calling it out a little more. But there is plenty of discussion of the sealed book and the Anthon incident.

    Don

  2. 4 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

    I am convinced that your methodologies are great tools for scriptural research, and have great potential for merging at last, aspects of Mormon studies with what has derisively known as "apologetics", and healing that great divide.  This is the kind of methodology that Wittgenstein used in his "ordinary language philosophy", and I have been convinced that this kind of contextual approach is the key to pushing LDS "theology", insofar as such a thing is possible, forward.  The key is inventing tools for hermeneutics which have not been developed well in our culture, and your approach could become a good step forward. 

    Thanks, Mark!

    I agree very much on the need for and value of new tools for hermeneutics!

    Don

  3. Friends,

    Hey! I'm excited to see the discussion on this here!

    I've been able to read the thread only very lightly to this point. And for a few reasons, I should try to keep my engagement here minimal. But I would like to say some general things in dialogue with what's come up so far.

    1. It's important to note that my thesis is not my book on the lost 116 pages! Rather, my thesis and the book overlap, with the thesis providing a fraction of what will be in the book on the subject of what was in the lost pages. As such, my discussion in the thesis about the lost pages' contents is not meant to be very complete. The book manuscript should be complete by the end of this year, and, hopefully, in print September 2019.

    2. Clark - great stuff on Masonry! I haven't been able to digest what you've posted in detail yet, but am saving it for that purpose. I think we are going similar directions, since I see Mormonism as in many ways very "Masonic" from the start.

    3. I perceive ancient patterns in the Book of Mormon text, most clearly and powerfully in the narratives of Lehi, Nephi, and Mosiah I, and I see the Book of Mormon as, therefore, a vehicle for the restoration of elements of ancient Israelite faith that had since been lost.

    4. A caveat: I'm an historian of 19th century American religion and necessarily approach early Mormon texts to a great extent from the vantage point of that specialization. And this necessarily shapes my work. In trying to piece together the context and content of the lost manuscript, I'm analyzing a variety of 19th century sources and weaving them together. I think this angle of approach has considerable strengths. But it also has its limitations. Someone with a specialization in ancient history, and with a broad scope of history across the past few thousand years, would doubtless be able to bring much greater clarity to many aspects of the Book of Mormon than I can. There are things in the Book of Mormon, including specifically in the knowable narrative of the Book of Lehi, that seem for all the world to me to come out of the world of ancient Israel. But, lacking the relevant specializations, I admit that I am not well positioned to make such scholarly judgments strongly, and I leave it to others to analyze the text in detail within an ancient context. I accept these limitations with humility, but also with alacrity. While I do not, and really cannot, have a perspective that brings out every aspect of the Book of Mormon text, I have a pretty powerful microscope for bringing out some things. And I love putting that microscope to use to see what pictures will emerge. One of the things I'm able to do pretty well--I think!--is line up the 19th century sources and see what they tell us about what was in the Book of Lehi manuscript. Hopefully others will then look at the Book of Lehi's narratives through the lens of the ancient world, and see what light that perspective brings to them. I welcome that. I'm not trying to say the last word on what was in the lost 116 pages, more like a first word--an invitation to greater scholarly discussion from various angles.

    5. In my thesis, and in my book, I am trying to address multiple audiences--believer and nonbeliever alike. The more important of these audiences to me is believers, my fellow Latter-day Saints. In my book, I use our shared language of faith: e.g., that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. But in trying to address all my audiences, I overwhelmingly confine my presentation of evidence about what was in the lost pages to evidence that can be agreed upon by believer and nonbeliever alike. I think there's only place in the body of my book manuscript where I make an explicit assumption of historicity. In all other cases, I place any evidence that assumes historicity in the footnotes, so that the arguments in the body of the text will be equally accessible to all readers.

    6. The perspective I offer in the conclusion to my thesis, that Joseph Smith may have seen the hand of Providence in how the events of his life lined up with the events of the narratives he revealed, is not just a theoretical possibility for me; it is a personal belief. 

    When I began my research into the lost pages, about 14 years ago, I saw how some elements of the Book of Mormon's narrative (including the Book of Lehi narrative) connected with things going on in Joseph Smith's life as he was translating. After puzzling over these connections for a while, I soon began interpreting them under a model that saw Joseph constructing a narrative to fit his context. With time, and considerably more analysis, I have arrived at a radically different perspective than I then held. While I then saw Joseph acting as a "fraud," the data of my last several years of research has convinced me, even quite apart from my spiritual convictions, that Joseph was perfectly sincere. I have no doubt, on historical grounds alone, that Joseph Smith sincerely acted as a prophet and translator to give the world an ancient work of scripture.

    How, then, would Joseph have seen the connections between what was going on in the narratives he translated and what was going on in his own life at the time he translated them? My working conclusion is that he saw divine Providence lining these up, and possibly even as providing events in his life as grist for his translation mill as he "studied out in his mind" the words of translation. And this is a perspective that I not only think he held; it is one that I hold: I think God shaped Joseph Smith's life to lead him in the right direction.

    I don't ultimately know to what extent God was involved in tailoring these events, and I don't know what admixture of ancient and modern influences he used to shape the Book of Mormon's content as we've received it. I'm open to a range of understandings on this. But as curious as I am about it--and it is a big question, I leave it, at least for the time being, to God. I'm content to let God be God and do things His way, without me to tell Him how He should have done it.

    I don't feel a need to claim certainty about the details of how God brought all this together. If still quite curious, I am nonetheless content to know that God did bring it all together--that He brought forth the Book of Mormon as an instrument of restoration, and as a book that brings me closer to Him. That it has done just that, I am a witness.

    Don

     

  4. On 6/23/2018 at 4:55 PM, USU78 said:

    Woohoo!!! 🍀🍀

    Hey, wait a minute: get it in a day earlier and hit the Moroni visit anniversary, and all that equinox good karma.

     

    😃

    The 22nd is the anniversary, and that date is intentional. 

    The angel came through the night of the 21st and 22nd, and Joseph visited the hill and encountered the plates on the 22nd.

    Don

  5. On 11/5/2017 at 10:16 PM, Scott Lloyd said:

    Saw this post on Dan Peterson’s blog, Sic et Non, and was so impressed by it I had an impulse to share it here. 

    In its own way, it contradicts endeavors to vilify and assassinate the character of the prophet of the Restoration. I fear that some, even among our own people, are so eager to assert his fallibility that they unjustly marginalize his greatness. 

    Link:

    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2017/11/eyewitness-account-joseph-smith-nauvoo.html#disqus_thread

    Stories of Joseph Smith's generosity and kindness are myriad. I had to recognize that and try to take into account even when I was a complete non-believer.

  6. On 10/22/2017 at 2:29 PM, Benjamin Seeker said:

    In a past thread on the roots of Multiple Mortal Probations, I shared George Laub's interpretation of the King Follett Sermon, which said that Heavenly Father had gone and redeemed a world in the flesh. I also shared Brigham and Heber's ordinances a year or less from JS' death where they ordained each other to be Christ's of other worlds. Another piece of evidence along these lines has come to light dating back to 1841! This is from Wilford Woodruff's notes of a December 1841 meeting: 

    "Joseph the Seer taught the following principl that the God & father of our Lord Jesus Christ was once the same as the Son or Holy Ghost but having redeemed a world he had a son Jesus Christ who redeemed this earth the same as his father had a world which made them equal & the HHoly Ghost would to the same when in his turn & so would all the Saints who inherited a Celestial glory so their would be Gods many & Lords many their were many mansions even 12 from the abode of Devils to the Celestial glory."

    I saw this quoted here, but you can peruse the journal for yourself:

     https://dcms.lds.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE11092999

    This quote confirms how I've always read the other JS statements that Clark cites, and the KFD where it says that the Father had power in himself to lay down his life and take it up again. We don't have that power. We don't resurrect ourselves by the power within us but, rather, are resurrected by Christ's power. The implication, made explicit in the December 1841 quote, is that the Father "had redeemed a world"--i.e., had been a Savior.

    Combining these various statements, Joseph seems to have understood that the third member of the Godhead later becomes the second, in a later Godhead, and ultimately the first. This view would also account for Joseph saying in the KFD that the Christ had seen the Father lay down his life and take it up again--Christ was then a "Holy Ghost" while the Father was a Savior.

    Where it gets a little trickier to understand Joseph's views is how all this relates to us. If Joseph believed that gods move up through these positions in successive Godheads, then he must have believed one of the following:

    1) That we become "Holy Ghosts," then saviors, then Fathers;

    or,

    2) That "Godhead gods," as we might call them, are of a different order than us--and that we, thus, never become "Holy Ghosts," saviors, or Fathers.

    The December 1841 WW Journal quote seems to say the first "& the HHoly Ghost would to the same when in his turn & so would all the Saints who inherited a Celestial glory." But I have trouble believing that WW is reporting the detail here closely enough to make that step. Joseph preaches elsewhere about how our bodies will rise from our graves here on this earth. If we are not resurrected until after a stint as a "Holy Ghost," this wouldn't happen on this earth, and not with these bodies.

    Viewing Joseph as holding proposition #1 above would require seeing him as not really believing the doctrine of resurrection that he preached much more often than he seemingly preached this other idea. So it seems more likely that Joseph held "Godhead gods" to be a separate order from us, with the implications that 1) contrary to the evangelical critique of King Follett doctrine, God the Father never sinned, and 2) we will never be worshipped, since we will never be Godhead gods.

    It's interesting to note that in the KFD Joseph appears not to have said that God the Father once dwelt on an earth the same as we do, but that He once dwelt on an earth the same as Christ did.

    I'm not sure how I personally feel about all this. I certainly believe that we can be deified in a very robust sense. But I have trouble thinking we are of the same order as God the Father and Christ or desiring to be worshipped.

    Also, while I don't claim to know anything here, I'm fond of Blake's idea that God the Father is the ultimate Source  or font of all divinity. I certainly worship Him as such.

    In any case, Joseph's various teachings on the subject may suggest some new wrinkles or lines of interpretation for the LDS doctrine of deification.

    Don

  7. On 10/22/2017 at 2:35 PM, Button Gwinnett said:

    No Don, that was not at all what I was suggesting. I have no sympathy for NNN.  But does the need to protect the church justify any means to achieve it?  I believe we lose moral authority when we sink to the same level as those who wish to destroy the church.  Do you disagree?

    I don't see the actions described as morally equivalent.

  8. 3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

    I was there too and that was my first time hearing Jared Hickman in person.  I had a hard time following everything he said, but it was pretty cool what I could follow.  Thanks for sharing! 

    Dang, Blueglass and Hope For Things, I would have loved to have met you there. Or did I? I guess I wouldn't have known if I did!

    Yeah, it was a really great presentation. He was going fast trying to fit everything in. 

    Don

×
×
  • Create New...