Jeffrey R. Holland's Talk

[mfbukowski]

Newbie, without form, and void? LOL!!!!!

Yeah,

I want to go on record as officially hating those things. I guess after 18 million posts you get your own planet. Or maybe just your own forum. But that is why I hate them- it plays right into the critics hands that all we do all day is sit around and think about how it will be when we get our "own planet", and all the wives we will have. I don't for the life of me know why an LDS forum would blatantly perpetuate that stereotype.

There is a way to change them, but I haven't spent enough time trying to figure it out yet. By the way, Welcome!

[Bic Pentameter]

I couldn't speak for several minutes after watching Elder Holland's talk. I was shaking with excitement and wanted to shout for joy! What a landmark talk! I've felt this way about the Book of Mormon for so long and he articulated those feelings so well.

Elder Holland's argument was similar and very true. If you knew the BOM was a fraud, would you read it for solace? Not me!

I have never seen that argument presented before-- has anyone?

Nibley's "The Book of Mormon. True or False?" uses similar approaches. Demonstrating how Joseph never once follows known patterns of forgery or elicits behaviors of a fraud as would be expected were The Book of Mormon not what it claims to be.

Granted that any explanation is preferable to Joseph Smith's, where is any explanation? The chances against such a book ever coming into existence are astronomical: Who would write it? Why? Trouble, danger, and unpopularity are promised its defenders in the book itself. Did someone else write it so that Joseph Smith could take all the credit? Did Smith, knowing it was somebody else's fraud, claim authorship so that he could take all the blame?

The work involved in producing the thing was staggering, the danger terrifying; long before publication time the newspapers and clergy were howling for blood. Who would want to go on with such a suicidal project? All that trouble and danger just to fool people? But the author of this book is not trying to fool anybody: he claims no religious immunity, makes no effort to mystify, employs no rhetorical or allegorical license.

There are other things to consider too, such as the youth and inexperience of Smith when (regardless of who the author might be) he took sole responsibility for the Book of Mormon. Faced with a point-blank challenge by the learned world, any impostor would have collapsed in an instant, but Joseph Smith never weakened though the opposition quickly mounted to a roar of national indignation. Then there were the witnesses, real men who, though leaving the Church for various real or imagined offenses, never altered or retracted their testimonies of what they had seen and heard.

The fact that only one version of the Book of Mormon was ever published and that Joseph Smith's attitude toward it never changed is also significant. After copyrighting it in the spring of 1829, he had a year to think it over before publication and yield sensibly to social pressure; after that he had the rest of his life to correct his youthful indiscretion; years later, an important public figure and a skillful writer, knowing that his book was a fraud, knowing the horrible risk he ran on every page of it, and knowing how hopelessly naive he had been when he wrote it, he should at least have soft-pedaled the Book of Mormon theme. Instead he insisted to the end of his life that it was the truest book on earth, and that a man could get nearer to God by observing its precepts than in any other way.

I am Bic Pentameter.

[mfbukowski]

I love this secular parsing of Elder Holland's talk, and whether or not Joseph Smith was actually feeling "consoled" in his last minutes before he was murdered. Suppose Elder Holland has received special revelation from the Lord, leaving him absolutely no doubt about the veracity of what he said in his talk?

What? Discuss the spirit??? Around here?

You must be LDS or something! We call those kind of folks "chapel Mormons" around here. Welcome- I am one too!

[Wiki Wonka]

There's a lot of misdirection in the FAIRwiki on this subject. For example, the quote in reference 1 applies only to his preliminary study, which he presented to the church leadership and not to his later studies, which were far more exhaustive and damaging and which he kept to himself for completely understandable reasons.

Have you actually read Roberts' essays or just what FAIR says about them?

Please, by all means, address the misdirections you assert in there. I'd like to hear what your argument is on the subject.

So would I. I am always highly interested in "misdirections" in the FAIR Wiki. Expose them here for all to see, please.

WW

[mfbukowski]

I couldn't speak for several minutes after watching Elder Holland's talk. I was shaking with excitement and wanted to shout for joy! What a landmark talk! I've felt this way about the Book of Mormon for so long and he articulated those feelings so well.

Nibley's "The Book of Mormon. True or False?" uses similar approaches. Demonstrating how Joseph never once follows known patterns of forgery or elicits behaviors of a fraud as would be expected were The Book of Mormon not what it claims to be.

I am Bic Pentameter.

And if you expand the view that Elder H takes a bit, it even makes the argument stronger, imo. A man 38 years old who is a fraud does not return to Carthage the way Joseph did. He knew perfectly well what was coming- there was no escape. And the fact that he was so young is in his favor-- he could have disappeared out west somewhere and never be seen again. He could have started over with another scam somewhere else. THAT is what a fraudster would have done.

You certainly do not go back to face the music and then turn to your own fake scripture for solace.

You hide out, you surrender, you confess, you disappear. "Taken to heaven by a firey chariot" your cronies say, with an agreement to split the spoils one way or another. Just one more fake testimony with a few "witnesses" would have solved the whole problem and you could continue collecting tithing for years to come from your stupid sheep, with a few midnight meetings miles away in the wilderness to split the goods.

I think another evidence along these same lines is the Book of Abraham itself.

Remember the Anthon affair? If he was a fraud, he was almost found out once already by letting the "fake" manuscript out of his hands. Why would he leave the papyrus to be studied after he had nearly lost it all in the Anthon mishap? Any good fraudster would never make the same huge mistake twice.

He did not act in any way whatsoever as a fraudster would.

Clearly, he believed that what he said was true, and sealed the testimony with his life. Even if I did NOT have a spiritual testimony, (which I do) that might be enough for me to believe at least that HE thought it was true, right there.

Nope, he was not a fraud.

[LifeOnaPlate]

I watched this talk while I was helping my daughter make bread in the kitchen. Elder Holland's talk made me want to believe more than I have in a very long time. I wouldn't say I've crawled over the Book of Mormon, as it was years before I left the church that I'd made my peace with its not being an actual historical record, but then that's beside the point. I really did ache for that faith I once had, and I felt keenly the loss of it.

I think crawling might describe it well, it wasn't fast, right? Anyway, thanks for sharing, John, that sounds like a powerful moment for you.

[Nomad]

Granted that any explanation is preferable to Joseph Smith's, where is any explanation? The chances against such a book ever coming into existence are astronomical: Who would write it? Why? Trouble, danger, and unpopularity are promised its defenders in the book itself. Did someone else write it so that Joseph Smith could take all the credit? Did Smith, knowing it was somebody else's fraud, claim authorship so that he could take all the blame?

The work involved in producing the thing was staggering, the danger terrifying; long before publication time the newspapers and clergy were howling for blood. Who would want to go on with such a suicidal project? All that trouble and danger just to fool people? But the author of this book is not trying to fool anybody: he claims no religious immunity, makes no effort to mystify, employs no rhetorical or allegorical license.

There are other things to consider too, such as the youth and inexperience of Smith when (regardless of who the author might be) he took sole responsibility for the Book of Mormon. Faced with a point-blank challenge by the learned world, any impostor would have collapsed in an instant, but Joseph Smith never weakened though the opposition quickly mounted to a roar of national indignation. Then there were the witnesses, real men who, though leaving the Church for various real or imagined offenses, never altered or retracted their testimonies of what they had seen and heard.

The fact that only one version of the Book of Mormon was ever published and that Joseph Smith's attitude toward it never changed is also significant. After copyrighting it in the spring of 1829, he had a year to think it over before publication and yield sensibly to social pressure; after that he had the rest of his life to correct his youthful indiscretion; years later, an important public figure and a skillful writer, knowing that his book was a fraud, knowing the horrible risk he ran on every page of it, and knowing how hopelessly naive he had been when he wrote it, he should at least have soft-pedaled the Book of Mormon theme. Instead he insisted to the end of his life that it was the truest book on earth, and that a man could get nearer to God by observing its precepts than in any other way.

Thus Hugh Winder Nibley. Ridiculed by his enemies, too often ignored by his friends, but never yet equaled, let alone bested, in his areas of expertise--LDS apologetics being his forte.

[wenglund]

Quit preaching, that's not what this forum is for.

...as he ironically commands in his own little sermonette.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Scott Lloyd]

I watched this talk while I was helping my daughter make bread in the kitchen. Elder Holland's talk made me want to believe more than I have in a very long time.

But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise even a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.

-- Alma 32:27, bold emphasis added.

[Luigi]

And if you expand the view that Elder H takes a bit, it even makes the argument stronger, imo. A man 38 years old who is a fraud does not return to Carthage the way Joseph did. He knew perfectly well what was coming- there was no escape. And the fact that he was so young is in his favor-- he could have disappeared out west somewhere and never be seen again. He could have started over with another scam somewhere else. THAT is what a fraudster would have done.

I think the situation was more complex than that. First of all the search for Joseph was bringing persecution to Nauvoo and just because he was a fraud didn't mean he was indifferent to the problems of his family and friends. There may have also been pride as a factor since, even according to Emma Joseph stated, "I will die before I will be called a coward." And last, though it was clear Joseph doubted the governor's ability to protect him he certainly had slipped out of difficult circumstances before and could have eventually begun to believe that the governor was sincere and able to protect him.

You certainly do not go back to face the music and then turn to your own fake scripture for solace.

As I recall Hyrum read to them. Hyrum may have believed in the BoM and sought solace in it-the fact that Joseph listened does not, to me, infer he was seeking solace in it as well. That Joseph testified to the guards of the BoM is not really significant in demonstrating a testimony of the BoM IMO. Why would Joseph have wanted to suggest he was insincere or a fraud to these men? Do you think they would have suddenly accepted and saved him if he suddenly revealed he had made the whole thing up? Certainly he would have then lost any potential support from his companion believers at that point.

You hide out, you surrender, you confess, you disappear. "Taken to heaven by a firey chariot" your cronies say, with an agreement to split the spoils one way or another. Just one more fake testimony with a few "witnesses" would have solved the whole problem and you could continue collecting tithing for years to come from your stupid sheep, with a few midnight meetings miles away in the wilderness to split the goods.

Again, the persecution experienced by Nauvoo would have prevented him from taking such a course if he cared for his family and friends. Just because someone is a fraud doesn't mean they're heartless.

I think another evidence along these same lines is the Book of Abraham itself.

Remember the Anthon affair? If he was a fraud, he was almost found out once already by letting the "fake" manuscript out of his hands. Why would he leave the papyrus to be studied after he had nearly lost it all in the Anthon mishap? Any good fraudster would never make the same huge mistake twice.

I don't think the Anthon transcript ever caused him much trouble. Seeing as how it didn't why would he have had any 'lessons' from the experience?

[Calm]

Yeah,

I want to go on record as officially hating those things. I guess after 18 million posts you get your own planet. Or maybe just your own forum. But that is why I hate them- it plays right into the critics hands that all we do all day is sit around and think about how it will be when we get our "own planet", and all the wives we will have. I don't for the life of me know why an LDS forum would blatantly perpetuate that stereotype.

There is a way to change them, but I haven't spent enough time trying to figure it out yet. By the way, Welcome!

Never occurred to me to think of them that way. I think of it as the six periods of creation leading up to the final creation of man....

[Calm]

That Joseph testified to the guards of the BoM is not really significant in demonstrating a testimony of the BoM IMO. Why would Joseph have wanted to suggest he was insincere or a fraud to these men? Do you think they would have suddenly accepted and saved him if he suddenly revealed he had made the whole thing up? Certainly he would have then lost any potential support from his companion believers at that point.

They would have wanted him alive so his confession of fraud could be made public and not just claimed by his supporter as a creation/trick of his jailers.

[Luigi]

They would have wanted him alive so his confession of fraud could be made public and not just claimed by his supporter as a creation/trick of his jailers.

Still I don't think that proclaiming himself a fraud was going to save his life at that point. If anything it may have assured his death. The people he knew were on his side would have surely not supported him if he suddenly denounced everything and his then enemies may have only been convinced they were right in killing him if he admitted he was a fraud.

[Nomad]

Still I don't think that proclaiming himself a fraud was going to save his life at that point. If anything it may have assured his death. The people he knew were on his side would have surely not supported him if he suddenly denounced everything and his then enemies may have only been convinced they were right in killing him if he admitted he was a fraud.

Had Joseph Smith only had in mind the pursuit of his own self-interest, he would have adapted his religious teachings to conform to the expectations of the other Christians in Illinois and in the United States. Had he done so in 1844, he not only would have saved his own life, but he probably would have become the next governor of the state, and very possibly president of the United States. He had already amassed so much power and influence that he was a king-maker in Illinois politics, and his charisma was such that the sky was the limit had he only abandoned his pretensions to prophetic powers and authority.

Elder Holland, although he didn't go into the detail necessary to fully articulate the argument, is essentially correct in his contention that Joseph Smith held his own life in his hands. I don't think there is any question that he could have saved himself had he chosen to effectively renounce his "prophetic mantle" and simply advertised himself as a religious leader like many others in his day.

But he didn't.

[wenglund]

I think the situation was more complex than that. First of all the search for Joseph was bringing persecution to Nauvoo and just because he was a fraud didn't mean he was indifferent to the problems of his family and friends.

I agree that he wasn't indifferent to the problems of his family and friends. However, I believe his love and concern for his family and friends further underscores Elder Holland's point. One does not put one's family and friends in such jeopardy for a fraud (pious or otherwise). That Joseph endured his own suffering, is a testament to his conviction regarding the verity of what he helped bring forth. That he also endured the suffering of family and friends, puts the matter for me beyond question.

But, others are free to view it in their own inverted way.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Alf O'Mega]

I have a deep and longstanding affection for Elder Holland, going back to some casual encounters with him while he was president of BYU. (It was impossible to greet him first when passing on campus; he always beat me to the punch, even without knowing me.)

I usually don't listen to all of conference anymore (although I did attend the Priesthood session this time), so my wife will often ask me to listen to Elder Holland's talk with her afterward. This time, we started with "O Divine Redeemer," a number I once accompanied before a Marriott Center congregation of at least 20,000 of my closest friends.

So I have to say that I found Elder Holland's talk customarily well done. It is quite an experience to listen to such an articulate speaker with whom you have so many fundamental disagreements. (I have a similar, albeit paler, experience with some of Obama's speeches.) I found myself wondering which preposition applied to my path: over, under, or around?

Here's an irony, though: his mention of the names of Solomon Spalding and Ethan Smith led, quite without any steering on my part, to a discussion with some of my family about my views on the origins of the Book of Mormon. The topic was unusually ripe, in a way that I never could have prepared it myself. I doubt that any minds are going to be changed because of the conversation, but I doubt very much that this was the effect Elder Holland intended.

[consiglieri]

Here's an irony, though: his mention of the names of Solomon Spalding and Ethan Smith led, quite without any steering on my part, to a discussion with some of my family about my views on the origins of the Book of Mormon. The topic was unusually ripe, in a way that I never could have prepared it myself. I doubt that any minds are going to be changed because of the conversation, but I doubt very much that this was the effect Elder Holland intended.

I was surprised to hear Elder Holland mention the names of Solomon and Ethan, too.

In giving a political speech, it is a basic rule of thumb that you NEVER mention the name of the other candidate.

I think the Correlation Committee fell down on this one.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[Scott Lloyd]

I was surprised to hear Elder Holland mention the names of Solomon and Ethan, too.

In giving a political speech, it is a basic rule of thumb that you NEVER mention the name of the other candidate.

Which, perhaps, goes to show that the term "political speech" is unworthy of this sermon by Elder Holland.

I think the Correlation Committee fell down on this one.

Since the Correlation Committee comprises the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve -- of which Elder Holland is a member -- I should think that highly unlikely.

[Luigi]

Had Joseph Smith only had in mind the pursuit of his own self-interest, he would have adapted his religious teachings to conform to the expectations of the other Christians in Illinois and in the United States. Had he done so in 1844, he not only would have saved his own life, but he probably would have become the next governor of the state, and very possibly president of the United States. He had already amassed so much power and influence that he was a king-maker in Illinois politics, and his charisma was such that the sky was the limit had he only abandoned his pretensions to prophetic powers and authority.

While one could argue that his prophetic claims and teachings in Nauvoo jeopardized any advancement in his fame and power I think it would be rather naive to assume those claims didn't acquire him certain other benefits that may have been worth the risk in his mind.

[Luigi]

I agree that he wasn't indifferent to the problems of his family and friends. However, I believe his love and concern for his family and friend further underscores Elder Holland's point. One does not put one's family and friends in such jeopardy for a fraud (pious or otherwise). That Joseph endured his own suffering, is a testament to his conviction regarding the verity of what he helped bring forth. That he also endured the suffering of family and friends, puts the matter for me beyond question.

But, others are free to view it in their own inverted way.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Those in a fraud often go through a difficult balancing act of weighing the potential benefits and downsides of a fraud both to themselves and to their family and friends. While Joseph had much more to gain from the fraud his family and friends also had eventual considerable gain from it all as well.

[ttribe]

Those in a fraud often go through a difficult balancing act of weighing the potential benefits and downsides of a fraud both to themselves and to their family and friends.

How do you know this?

While Joseph had much more to gain from the fraud his family and friends also had eventual considerable gain from it all as well.

Such as?

[wenglund]

Those in a fraud often go through a difficult balancing act of weighing the potential benefits and downsides of a fraud both to themselves and to their family and friends. While Joseph had much more to gain from the fraud his family and friends also had eventual considerable gain from it all as well.

Were it a "fraud", I can't see any way that the supposed benefits could reasonably be viewed as anything close to measuring up to the "downsides". It just doesn't make sense. That's the point, and I appreciate your help in making it.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Luigi]

Joseph risked death for many years before he was finally murdered by anti-Mormons. If it was a scam, the cost/benefit ratio doesn't seem very attractive.

I think people weigh the cost/benefits of Joseph very poorly. To be considered a prophet, the mouthpiece of God, for a group of people-even if that group is small-is an incredible benefit. Certainly, one has to use such power with some restraint as to not undermine the ability to maintain or grow one's power but it is something well worth maintaining for selfish purposes even at great risk and at great cost.

[Luigi]

Were it a "fraud", I can't see any way that the supposed benefits could reasonably be viewed as anything close to measuring up to the "downsides". It just doesn't make sense. That's the point, and I appreciate your help in making it.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Really? You apparently don't understand all the benefits. From an evolutionary perspective the benefits to Joseph, his family and close friends are incredible. First of all Joseph had many wives-one of the greatest evolutionary advantages a man can have. Furthermore he provided his offspring,relatives and friends with notoriety, fame, and leadership within a social group, with that leadership providing them resources to improve their survival but also many wives for some of them and/or the pick of the best partners within the social group.

[wenglund]

For those of you who now consider the restored gospel to be a "fraud", how many of you would willingly go to your death proclaiming it to be true?

How many of you would willingly let your family and friends suffer grave external injustices and hardships while you continued to proclaim it as true?

It would be unthinkable, right?

And, I would agree. There is a limit to what extent any sane person would be willing to go in pursuit of a "fraud", and that limit is well below what Joseph and his family and friends were caused to suffer--which logically suggests that he and they ardently believed it to be true, and which in turn logically suggests that he did not write nor plagerize the Book of Mormon, but truely believed things happened as he said.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-