Our Dr. Daniel Peterson On Mormon Stories

[Curtis Weber]

The interview has now been posted: http://mormonstories.org/?p=1904

Enjoying listening to part 1 as I type. Thanks, Dan, Dan and John!

[Daniel Peterson]

I'm reliably informed that Peterson is very arrogant in the podcast.

Big surprise.

Can't stand the man, myself.

[why me]

I'm reliably informed that Peterson is very arrogant in the podcast.

Big surprise.

Can't stand the man, myself.

I heard this many times about him. He does seem arrogant. I have also heard that he is a liar and a swine. But I am sure in person he is a great guy. I hope that you can meet him someday and let us know how he is from personal experience.

[kolipoki09]

I'm reliably informed that Peterson is very arrogant in the podcast.

Big surprise.

Can't stand the man, myself.

To your reliable informant's credit, I believe you mentioned somewhere in the podcast that you were in the past (whether it was 1965 or two weeks ago is up for speculation) an "arrogant twerp."

[Daniel Peterson]

I suspect that virtually all adolescent males are, in some respect or another, arrogant twerps.

After all, the world revolves around teenagers. Why shouldn't they be arrogant?

[Ares]

Oh boy! do I have to remind Dr. Peterson not to insult Dr. Peterson?

This moderation gig is getting weird.

[Vance]

I'm reliably informed that Peterson is very arrogant in the podcast.

Big surprise.

Can't stand the man, myself.

I am "reliably" informed that Peterson is either ignorant, lazy or a liar.

[Daniel Peterson]

Cut him no slack. He doesn't deserve it:

He's a lazy, ignorant liar. And extremely proud of it.

That is it!!!! You are hereby cursed with cognitive dissonance and recurring heartburn! The moderators have spoken!!!

[Vance]

Cut him no slack. He doesn't deserve it:

He's a lazy, ignorant liar. And extremely proud of it.

That is it!!!! You are hereby cursed with cognitive dissonance and recurring heartburn! The moderators have spoken!!!

Ah, so the "either ignorant, lazy or a liar" was a "false choice" fallacy.

Very interesting.

[Olavarria]

ahhh yeeeea

[cinepro]

Last year I attended a very interesting fireside where Bishop/Dr Peterson spoke about Islam. While this podcast from the Church is much shorter than the fireside was (and doesn't have all of the interesting stories), it's very good on the subject and worth checking out:

Insights Episode 1 - Understanding Islam, Daniel Peterson

Edited August 20, 2011 by cinepro

[Eldwynn]

I yawned

[Daniel Peterson]

I'm afraid that the post just above may be intended somewhat seriously.

Oh dear.

[Nenahnezad]

LOL.

Yes, anything in ancient text around 600 B.C. that resembles a tree, Nephi must have known about and it helped him to recognize the meaning of the vision of the Tree of Life.

This is because Nephi never saw a mother and child before he fled Jerusalem. But Nephi knew all about Asherah.

I would hate to think what Dr. Peterson believes how Lehi recognized the Tree of Life from the same vision.

Something, obviously, the Prophet Joseph would never have known about. Ha!

Edited August 20, 2011 by Nenahnezad

[Daniel Peterson]

As I said, Oh dear.

Reduced to a simple-minded caricature, the argument of my "Nephi and His Asherah" certainly looks simple-minded!

There's nothing left for you to do but to declare victory.

[Libs]

This was a seriously good interview. Very interesting.

I thought you discussed the same-sex attraction issue with a lot of compassion, even though your beliefs about it are different from my own. I appreciated the way you handled it.

You were very candid, Dr. Peterson, and I learned quite a few things about you that I didn't know. That was a "marathon" interview, though! Did you do that all in one sitting?

Edit: I watched all but the last video. Will view that tomorrow.

Edited August 20, 2011 by Libs

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Finally finished. Fabulous interview. The entire thing was great, but the final segment in particular really touched on why I too love Mormonism, the reason I joined the church. Our theology gives us an enormous canvas to paint on. It is the highest form of humanism, giving infinite worth to every individual.

"In the very beginning the Bible shows there is a plurality of Gods beyond the power of refutation. It is a great subject I am dwelling on ... when you take that view of the subject, it sets one free to see all the beauty, holiness and perfections of the Gods."

"Ye are Gods," Christ said, if we choose to be - and He was talking to us, every one of us - male and female, bond and free, young and old. We have this potential inside us, this divine beauty, if we want to see it!

Truth is reason; truth eternal. This is good doctrine - it tastes good! I can taste the principles of eternal life, and so can you. You say honey is sweet, and so do I.

Edited August 20, 2011 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[Deborah]

I yawned

I have a friend who on FB attended one of Dan's lectures at Education Week. She was very excited and enjoyed it immensely. I guess it's all where your mind is whether you choose to listen or turn off anything that contradicts your paradigm.

[Daniel Peterson]

This was a seriously good interview. Very interesting.

I thought you discussed the same-sex attraction issue with a lot of compassion, even though your beliefs about it are different from my own. I appreciated the way you handled it.

You were very candid, Dr. Peterson, and I learned quite a few things about you that I didn't know. That was a "marathon" interview, though! Did you do that all in one sitting?

Edit: I watched all but the last video. Will view that tomorrow.

Thanks. Yes, it was all in one sitting.

Finally finished. Fabulous interview. The entire thing was great, but the final segment in particular really touched on why I too love Mormonism, the reason I joined the church. Our theology gives us an enormous canvas to paint on. It is the highest form of humanism, giving infinite worth to every individual.

"In the very beginning the Bible shows there is a plurality of Gods beyond the power of refutation. It is a great subject I am dwelling on ... when you take that view of the subject, it sets one free to see all the beauty, holiness and perfections of the Gods."

"Ye are Gods," Christ said, if we choose to be - and He was talking to us, every one of us - male and female, bond and free, young and old. We have this potential inside us, this divine beauty, if we want to see it!

Truth is reason; truth eternal. This is good doctrine - it tastes good! I can taste the principles of eternal life, and so can you. You say honey is sweet, and so do I.

Again, thanks for the kind words.

I hope I actually described Mormonism in the interview as a form of theistic humanism. I often do, and I feel very strongly on that point.

I have a friend who on FB attended one of Dan's lectures at Education Week. She was very excited and enjoyed it immensely. I guess it's all where your mind is whether you choose to listen or turn off anything that contradicts your paradigm.

Thank you. I'm glad she liked it. A very different subject, of course -- I basically did the history of the Arabs and Islam from Ishmael to the present over the first three nights (probably over-ambitious, that) and then offered up some notes on Mormonism, the Arabs, and Islam during the final lecture last night.

[Libs]

Your comments on the Temple rituals (as being ancient) were very interesting and some of your comparisons, like Catholics using Holy Water to anoint themselves, and the ancient hospitality rituals, baptism for the dead, etc, made me think about how the Reformation, over time, has destroyed so many of those rituals that were a part of the ancient Church, and now some people deny that they ever even existed (or are simply unaware that they did). But, ancient Christianity was full of ritual, and the Catholic/Orthodox Churches are still full of ritual, whereas, the more fundamentalist Protestant sects (LDS's biggest critics) have erased most ritual from their practice and church memory, and deny that they were ever a part of "real" Christianity. All just so interesting and coming together in a way I hadn't, previously, thought about it.

[Gohan]

Just finished listening to them, great stuff. Open and good discussion on a lot of topics. And the length definitely gave time for a nice number of them.

[Mortal Man]

Nice interview Dan; I think it will help improve your image.

1. You proclaim the lack of children from Joseph's polygamous wives, yet Brian Hales declares, on your very own website, that JS had two or three children from these marriages.

2. In # 274 around 15:15, you argue that the geocentric astronomy in the BoA doesn't come out of Joseph Smith's environment. And yet it does.

3. The crocodile in Facsimile 1 is not Sobek, it's Horus in the form of a crocodile. It has nothing to do with Pharaoh in this context.

4. I believe the image I posted here of Sobek and Amenhotep III (not IV) is the picture you had to bribe the guard to take. The fact that Pharaoh Amenhotep worshiped Sobek was readily obtainable knowledge in Joseph Smith's time; e.g., William Whiston, ed. and trans., The Works of Flavius Josephus (Baltimore: Armstrong and Plaskitt, 1830), 591.

5. Your waffling back and forth about JS getting the BoA by revelation and not knowing what was on the scrolls (you say "gibberish on a papyrus to him") but that he thinks he's getting it from the papyrus but he's actually just being inspired and getting it by revelation but it was still on the papyrus but not on the papyrus we have etc., doesn't really inspire confidence in your audience. It would be better to just pick one position rather than jump back and forth between two untenable positions.

6. Around 18:50 you say you're "convinced that we don't have most of the papyrus." On what do you base this belief? Hugh Nibley's recollection of a recollection of Preston Nibley of a recollection of Joseph F. Smith who, as a boy of five years or less, once observed that one of the papyrus scrolls "when unrolled on the floor extended through two rooms of the Mansion House."? (He alternately gave the location as the Nauvoo House -- Improvement Era 71:3 vs. Dialogue 3:2) The fact is that we have most of the papyrus that Joseph had. Chris Smith has written an excellent paper on this topic. Before you dismiss it, be aware that Brian Hauglid described it as "a cogent, dispassionate treatment of the issues surrounding the papyri."

7. You say you'll be publishing something in the near future where you "argue for the original length of the papyrus scrolls." When, where and by whom will this/these article(s) be published?

Edited August 22, 2011 by Mortal Man

[Daniel Peterson]

Nice interview Dan; I think it will help improve your image.

My image in certain circles is probably beyond help.

1. You proclaim the lack of children from Joseph's polygamous wives, yet Brian Hales declares, on your very own website, that JS had two or three children from these marriages.

As I understand him, Ugo Perego has, thus far, found no genetic evidence for children through any woman other than Joseph.

I don't require lockstep unanimity in the Mormon Studies Review, let alone on Mormon Scholars Testify.

Now, mind you, I won't be upset in the slightest if some such children are found. There is good reason to believe that certain of Joseph's plural marriages, though by no means all, were consummated. But the relative and/or absolute lack of demonstrable offspring from plural wives, to this point, does seem to suggest that Joseph's life was not the non-stop orgiastic debauch of many anti-Mormon fantasies.

2. In # 274 around 15:15, you argue that the geocentric astronomy in the BoA doesn't come out of Joseph Smith's environment. And yet it does.

Well, maybe, sort of. I worked to some extent with Proclus's so-called Theology of Plato for my doctoral dissertation (though not in the translation you cite). It's not exactly a bestseller today, and it seems to me unlikely, speaking realistically or practically, to have been part of Joseph Smith's information environment.

Anyway, you're taking what I said in a bit too rigorist a fashion. I simply meant to say that geocentric astronomy was not the astronomy of Joseph's time or place. That there were sources available in the northern hemisphere outlining geocentric cosmologies is surely rather obvious.

3. The crocodile in Facsimile 1 is not Sobek, it's Horus in the form of a crocodile. It has nothing to do with Pharaoh in this context.

I don't think this is an either/or.

4. I believe the image I posted here of Sobek and Amenhotep III (not IV) is the picture you had to bribe the guard to take.

Yes, it is. That was, of course, before the days of the Internet.

The fact that Pharaoh Amenhotep worshiped Sobek was readily obtainable knowledge in Joseph Smith's time; e.g., William Whiston, ed. and trans., The Works of Flavius Josephus (Baltimore: Armstrong and Plaskitt, 1830), 591.

That's fine with me.

5. Your waffling back and forth about JS getting the BoA by revelation and not knowing what was on the scrolls (you say "gibberish on a papyrus to him") but that he thinks he's getting it from the papyrus but he's actually just being inspired and getting it by revelation but it was still on the papyrus but not on the papyrus we have etc., doesn't really inspire confidence in your audience.

Have you polled them? May I see your data?

Anyway, you've caricatured my position, and conflated two options.

It would be better to just pick one position rather than jump back and forth between two untenable positions.

So you want me to choose one "untenable position" and stick with it?

Why is it that I can't take that advice as sincerely well-intended?

6. Around 18:50 you say you're "convinced that we don't have most of the papyrus." On what do you base this belief? Nibley's recollection of a recollection of Preston Nibley of a recollection of Joseph F. Smith who, as a boy of five years or less, once observed that one of the papyrus scrolls "when unrolled on the floor extended through two rooms of the Mansion House."? (He alternately gave the location as the Nauvoo House -- Improvement Era 71:3 vs. Dialogue 3:2) The fact is that we have most of the papyrus that Joseph had. Chris Smith has written an excellent paper on this topic. Before you dismiss it as anti-Mormon drivel, be aware that your colleague Brian Hauglid described Chris' paper as "a cogent, dispassionate treatment of the issues surrounding the papyri."

7. You say you'll be publishing something in the near future where you "argue for the original length of the papyrus scrolls." When, where and by whom will this/these articles be published?

I really enjoyed that nice touch about my reflexive labeling of things I disagree with as "anti-Mormon drivel." Very charming.

Details have not yet been settled regarding the matter of the papyrus-length publication. Patience!

[Mortal Man]

So you want me to choose one "untenable position" and stick with it?

I'd be gratified to see you take a tenable position, but if you're determined to hold onto untenable theories, then yes, one untenable position is better than two.

Why is it that I can't take that advice as sincerely well-intended?

My advice is always sincerely well-intended. Like I said, I'm on your side.

I really enjoyed that nice touch about my reflexive labeling of things I disagree with as "anti-Mormon drivel." Very charming.

I had already edited that out before I read your response.

Details have not yet been settled regarding the matter of the papyrus-length publication.

You mean the details of the research or the details of the publication arrangements?

Patience!

I've been patiently waiting for over a year.

I don't want to discourage any of your publication plans, but are you aware that the length issue is a solved problem?

[Brade]

I'm enjoying the podcast Dr. Peterson. I'm glad you did it.