October Ensign & Book Of Mormon Translation Illustrations

[David T]

There are 5, count them, 5 pictures of Joseph pointing to characters on the plates open on the table while he's dictating to a scribe in this issue. I think that may be a new record. One of which is a full-page inside-cover illustration called, "The Gift and Power of God", which is later repeated in a smaller form.

Can someone please commission some new artwork with an accompanying article? Please?

Can there be some sort of meeting between the Church History Department and Correlation? It's like they're in two completely different worlds.

It's like they want church members to get shocked and offended and weirded out when the stumble upon historical sources giving a very different picture.

The gap between Correlation and the Church Historical Department really needs to be closed soon. It's getting ridiculous.

Edited September 22, 2011 by nackhadlow

[Daniel2]

Funny story... I was managing an art gallery in Orem in the late 90's, and came across the only religious print (of Jesus) by the artist Simon Dewey's work (he's a Brititsh artist). I tracked him down across the ocean over a period of several months through the church office building, getting in touch with his Stake President and bishop over in England, and eventually got in touch with him. He was working as a graphic artist painting toy packing, at the time, but hoping to get a break as a fine artist. I arranged with my company to bring him over for his first art show in the US, and he was HUGE. The rest is history--now he's in every Ensign and graces the walls of many LDS homes and books. He's a very nice, humble man. Like most of LDS art, the accuracy of his artwork isn't always the goal...

Daniel2

Edited September 22, 2011 by Daniel2

[cinepro]

There are 5, count them, 5 pictures of Joseph pointing to characters on the plates open on the table while he's dictating to a scribe in this issue. I think that may be a new record. One of which is a full-page inside-cover illustration called, "The Gift and Power of God", which is later repeated in a smaller form.

Can someone please commission some new artwork with an accompanying article? Please?

Can there be some sort of meeting between the Church History Department and Correlation? It's like they're in two completely different worlds.

It's like they want church members to get shocked and offended and weirded out when the stumble upon historical sources giving a very different picture.

The gap between Correlation and the Church Historical Department really needs to be closed soon. It's getting ridiculous.

The manner in which the BoM was dictated seems to be a common stumbling block for people now that the "face in a hat" method is more widely known thanks to the internet. It's possible that the article and illustrations weren't prepared in ignorance of these facts, but instead were prepared in response to them.

I know the "face in a hat" method has been acknowledged in the Ensign three times over the last 30 years, but maybe the official line is being refined and clarified in a more conservative direction?

[LeSellers]

There are 5, count them, 5 pictures of Joseph pointing to characters on the plates open on the table while he's dictating to a scribe in this issue. I think that may be a new record.

There's only one, not five, with Joseph "dictating to a scribe".

Notice the pen/quill is in a penholder in the big one (and its duplicate). The scribe, if there actually is one outside the frame, is obviously not scribing, and Joseph is thus not "dictating". Two show nothing more than Joseph's hand or face and the plates. There is no way to determine if there's a scribe "in the picture" from either of these paintings, but the painting itself does not show Joseph "dictating to" one as you claim.

It seems to me you're looking for problems where there are none until you invent them.

Lehi

Edited September 22, 2011 by LeSellers

[Zakuska]

Funny story... I was managing an art gallery in Orem in the late 90's, and came across the only religious print (of Jesus) by the artist Simon Dewey's work (he's a Brititsh artist). I tracked him down across the ocean over a period of several months through the church office building, getting in touch with his Stake President and bishop over in England, and eventually got in touch with him. He was working as a graphic artist painting toy packing, at the time, but hoping to get a break as a fine artist. I arranged with my company to bring him over for his first art show in the US, and he was HUGE. The rest is history--now he's in every Ensign and graces the walls of many LDS homes and books. He's a very nice, humble man. Like most of LDS art, the accuracy of his artwork isn't always the goal...

Daniel2

All one need do is look at the renaissance Christian art to know that. I mean was Jesus a white Anglo Saxon or a Black man?

Probably some where in the middle.

Edited September 22, 2011 by Zakuska

[David T]

There's only one, not five, with Joseph "dictating to a scribe".

Notice the pen/quill is in a penholder in the big one (and its duplicate). The scribe, if there actually is one outside the frame, is obviously not scribing, and Joseph is thus not "dictating". Two show nothing more than Joseph's hand or face and the plates. There is no way to determine if there's a scribe "in the picture" from either of these paintings, but the painting itself does not show Joseph "dictating to" one as you claim.

It seems to me you're looking for problems where there are none until you invent them.

Lehi

You're right. They only accompany text talking about Joseph translating, and in some cases, dictating to a scribe. Surely there is no intent to make the reader think there is a relationship between what is seen with Joseph physically handling the plates, and what is being read describing the process as Joseph translating.

A reader should be chastised for coming to the conclusion that they are but comparable cropped versions of the wide image #5, showing the "Full Scene", including the scribe mentioned in the captions accompanying the other pictures.

Edited September 22, 2011 by nackhadlow

[Zakuska]

There's only one, not five, with Joseph "dictating to a scribe".

Notice the pen/quill is in a penholder in the big one (and its duplicate). The scribe, if there actually is one outside the frame, is obviously not scribing, and Joseph is thus not "dictating". Two show nothing more than Joseph's hand or face and the plates. There is no way to determine if there's a scribe "in the picture" from either of these paintings, but the painting itself does not show Joseph "dictating to" one as you claim.

It seems to me you're looking for problems where there are none until you invent them.

Lehi

With all the secrecy and others not being able to see the plates, I can imagine (as was relevant in the new Movie of Joseph Smith) as the pictures seem to illustrate as well, Joseph spending nights studying a leaf of the plates getting it translate in his head, because by this point he started recognizing the Characters and no longer needed the Urim and Thumim and then being able to dictate what it said the next day from memory. With the Plates covered the whole time. It just made the process easier.

Edited September 22, 2011 by Zakuska

[David T]

Joseph spending nights studying a leaf of the plates getting it translate in his head, because by this point he started recognizing the Characters and no longer needed the Urim and Thumim and then being able to dictate what it said the next day from memory.

Wait, your position is that Joseph recognized a 1:1 translation from U&T that allowed him to eventually drop it, and do a mainly nightly academic translation direct from the characters, which was then memorized, and just recited to the scribes later?

Edited September 22, 2011 by nackhadlow

[LeSellers]

You're right. They only accompany text talking about Joseph translating, and in some cases, dictating to a scribe. Surely there is no intent to make the reader think there is a relationship between what is seen with Joseph physically handling the plates, and what is being read describing the process as Joseph translating.

My comment was about what you said. The quoted text in my message was what you said.

Your words were that there were "5, count them, 5 pictures of Joseph pointing to characters on the plates open on the table while he's dictating to a scribe". Did I misquote you? Did you say they showed Joseph "dictating to a scribe" or did you say something else?

If there were, as you claim, five pictures of Joseph dictating to a scribe, four of them must have been pictures other than those you pasted above (or perhaps I am blind), because I do not see five, count them, five pictures of Joseph dictating to a scribe.

Again, it seems you are inventing problems, or perhaps it's just that you are not explaining yourself very well.

Lehi

Edited September 22, 2011 by LeSellers

[David T]

My comment was about what you said. The quoted text in my message was what you said.

Your words were that there were "5, count them, 5 pictures of Joseph pointing to characters on the plates open on the table while he's dictating to a scribe". Did I misquote you? Did you say they showed Joseph "dictating to a scribe" or did you say something else?

If there were, as you claim, five pictures of Joseph dictating to a scribe, four of them must have been pictures other than those you pasted above (or perhaps I am blind), because I do not see five, count them, five pictures of Joseph dictating to a scribe.

Again, it seems you are inventing problems, or perhaps it's just that you are not explaining yourself very well.

Lehi

Okay. you're correct. Perhaps I did not "explain [myself] very well." I'll rephrase:

"5, count them, 5 pictures of Joseph pointing to characters on the plates open on the table illustrating captions explaining the translation and/or dictation process, with one of the pictures explicitly showing Joseph a) working out the individual characters b), having the plates uncovered on the table, c) while a scribe dictates, directly contrary to all historic witnesess, and 0, count them, 0 pictures illustrating the plates being hidden from view, or Joseph using a hat or seer stone as the means of translation according to the historically recognized majority witness descriptions."

Lehi, do you feel the illustrations accurately present what historically was known to be going on in the translation/dictation experiences that are being described in the captions?

Edited September 22, 2011 by nackhadlow

[David T]

DUPE

Edited September 22, 2011 by nackhadlow

[LeSellers]

do you feel the illustrations accurately present what historically was known to be going on in the translation/dictation experiences that are being described in the captions?

The truth is, I don't care.

Lehi

[David T]

The truth is, I don't care.

Lehi

Frankly, I think if the rising generation was taught from their youth the way we historically know it to have happened, there would be a lot of defanging of the arguments from opponents that the Church tries to white-wash or hide elements of its past in its correlated material.

I think the Church History Department is doing a fantastic job in its work, and the raw material it's making available, both for free, and in beautifully bound hardcover editions. This is amazing. The problem is, there's a gap going on between HISTORY and MYTH PERPETUATION, without individuals knowing the difference between the two. A lot of MYTHMAKING is taken as history, and thus any historical reports to the contrary are viewed as being antagonistic to the TRUTH.

I care, because there's a stumbling block for many that doesn't have to be there, that the Church itself has created and is perpetuating, instead of removing.

With the Church making this available for the scholastically minded, they are creating a dichotomy between Scholastic revelation (Historic Documents) vs Pulpit revelation (Correlated Manuals) that does not need to be there. And it is their problem, because they are making both available!

The Church may very well say they are not anti-history or anti-science - but the Magazine and Manual Writing committees don't seem to have gotten the memo.

Edited September 22, 2011 by nackhadlow

[Rivers]

I don't think pictures with Joseph Smith sticking his face in his hat would be very faith-promoting.

[David T]

I don't think pictures with Joseph Smith sticking his face in his hat would be very faith-promoting.

Faith in a religious context is founded on things which are "true". So testimonies built on that which is false is, by Book of Mormon definition, not faith promoting.

If the standard teaching was that Joseph did what he actually did, it would be no different in the minds of members than the other "unbelievable" things we believe and find illustrated!

Edited September 22, 2011 by nackhadlow

[David T]

Frankly, more and more members are seeing a disconnect between the Church's scholastic publications, and the story being presented in correlated material.

I don't think many of the employees putting these material together know what they're doing, having as their source only previously correlated material. It's done out of ignorance. That's all they dive into day after day.

However, those who finally approve the material probably do know, and for whatever reason, choose not to do anything to fix the increasingly growing gulf.

As it stands, correlated manuals are highly antagonistic and contradictory to known history, scholarship, and science. Unless an adjustment is made, this gulf will get larger and larger. There is no reason whatsoever for this to happen with our rich history and doctrine.

Edited September 22, 2011 by nackhadlow

[Calm]

Can someone please commission some new artwork with an accompanying article? Please?

Can there be some sort of meeting between the Church History Department and Correlation? It's like they're in two completely different worlds.

It's like they want church members to get shocked and offended and weirded out when the stumble upon historical sources giving a very different picture.

The gap between Correlation and the Church Historical Department really needs to be closed soon.

]

So have you written the curriculum dept about it yet? They ask for feedback on how they can improve things.

[David T]

So have you written the curriculum dept about it yet? They ask for feedback on how they can improve things.

I actually do plan it. It wouldn't be the first time I've responded to their request for constructive feedback

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Amen, nackhadlow. Inoculation FTW.

Also, as a convert, I find statements like

"The truth is, I don't care."

to be vastly more destructive of faith than seeing accurate illustrations of the miracle Joseph Smith took part in.

All of church history is faith promoting, if we want it to be. The problem is when we listen to the world and think there is something embarrassing about Joseph sticking his head in a hat! That mistrust of our own history is what is destructive to faith! We're already seen as weird for believing in gold plates and whatnot, so we're hardly gaining anything by pretending to be more compatible with Protestants who look down their noses at early American folk-magic as blasphemous.

Additionally, as a sometime professional painter, I can think of many ways in which we can get the same dramatically visual faith-promoting effect (moody lighting, etc) along with an accurate representation of history. We just have to want it. We're supposed to be standing for a truth worth believing in; if our own manuals and magazines are misrepresenting our history, then that in itself is where the danger lies for faith.

In other words: rather than watered-down history, let's get everyone to study Rough Stone Rolling. Let's have accurate art. Let's do all we can to tell the story of the Restoration - in all its complicated thematic glory - in dramatic, visual form as it happened.

Edit: hey, lookit that, I was typing while the last five or six comments were made and so I didn't see 'em, but they make a rather nice convergence.

Edited September 22, 2011 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Y'know, I'm going to emphasize this:

"The truth is, I don't care."

You don't care. You don't care that we're promoting inaccurate views of the Restoration in our own materials, thereby making it easier for those working against us to come up with reasons to dismiss us. You don't care that when I walk into a typical chapel, I'm surrounded by ludicrous Arnold Frieberg nonsense which has nothing to do with how my own mesoamerican ancestors lived. You don't care that if I were to give my family, who I have caused significant pain by my conversion, an issue of the Ensign, I'd have to append it with a long context-setting note explaining how it didn't really happen as the illustrations depict, and we only keep them around to placate the members of the Church who are too damn lazy to do any actual research into the religion they claim to be faithful members of.

And you think this is somehow faith promoting?

Edited September 22, 2011 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[mapman]

I noticed this as well as I was looking through the Ensign (by the way, I really like the cover for this month). I have three thoughts about this: First, I don't think that anyone is actively trying to hide our history. I think that most people who work for the magazines don't have any knowledge about the historical accounts of the translation and probably don't care (which is sad in my opinion, but I know there are a lot of people who just don't think that history matters). If anyone who produced the Ensign did know about how the translation actually happened they probably didn't think it was important of an issue to try to change. Second, a lot of art was never intended to be historically accurate and I think it may be too much to expect that every artist should be 100% historically accurate with their artwork. Third, before we start complaining about these pictures we should realize that there really isn't any accurate artwork out there to even use as far as I'm aware. So what we really need is to get a prominent Mormon artist to paint Joseph Smith translating with a seer stone in a faith-promoting way (which could easily be done in my opinion). I'd totally love a Walter Rane painting of the translation.

[Zakuska]

Wait, your position is that Joseph recognized a 1:1 translation from U&T that allowed him to eventually drop it, and do a mainly nightly academic translation direct from the characters, which was then memorized, and just recited to the scribes later?

I see it as a possiblity. Have you saw the New JS movie yet. It seems to show the same thing. He's using the Urim and Thumim and breast plate in the beginning and struggling at that, then he goes to the table with the screen between him and Martin Harris, he looking at the plates and dictating. And then when it gets to Oliver Cowdry the plates remain in the cloth all together and he doesn't even look at them at all and dictates. It would be more secure and He wouldn't have people asking to see them so often.

Edited September 22, 2011 by Zakuska

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Which is a perfect illustration (pun intended) of why trusting in inaccurate art causes a disconnect with historical sources.

[Calm]

I don't think pictures with Joseph Smith sticking his face in his hat would be very faith-promoting.

I find the story rather inspiring myself in the sense it is such a practical, down to earth action, totally not one of someone who is looking to incite wonder and awe in his followers. The contrast between the divine aspect of translating by the power of God with Joseph just grabbing an old hat as the perfect pragmatic and so mundane solution to keep light out makes for a very esthetically pleasing picture for me.

It would be hard for the picture to stand on its own, one needs the background story to understand what is going on, something that is not a problem for the more common portrayals.

Edited September 22, 2011 by calmoriah

[LeSellers]

do you feel the illustrations accurately present what historically was known to be going on in the translation/dictation experiences that are being described in the captions?

The truth is, I don't care.

You don't care. You don't care that we're promoting inaccurate views of the Restoration in our own materials, thereby making it easier for those working against us to come up with reasons to dismiss us.

My answer was to a specific question about those particular paintings.

The artists are free (as they should be) to depict their own views of what is important to them.

I assume they all thought the fact of the Book of Mormon’s being translated (whatever and however that means) was more important than any specific (and recall there were several methods employed over those three months) mechanical detail.

nackhadlow did not ask about whether I thought it was faith-promoting or correct for these specific paintings to be published in the Ensign of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, nor even if the captions and accompanying text was appropriate or useful.

Joseph Smith once said something like, whenever I want to understand a saying … I look at the question that was asked and prompted the response. Did you look at the question, or did you jump to a conclusion?

You don't care that when I walk into a typical chapel, I'm surrounded by ludicrous Arnold Frieberg nonsense which has nothing to do with how my own mesoamerican ancestors lived. You don't care that if I were to give my family, who I have caused significant pain by my conversion, an issue of the Ensign, I'd have to append it with a long context-setting note explaining how it didn't really happen as the illustrations depict, and we only keep them around to placate the members of the Church who are too damn lazy to do any actual research into the religion they claim to be faithful members of.

There is no need to profane. I understand polite English much better than vulgarity.

“Placate”? From your words, it seems that yours is an attitude that we might do better to suppress.

Perhaps they are lazy, but perhaps we would do well to recall that not everyone has had six decades in the Church, and that not everyone entering a chapel is as knowledgeable as you are. Perhaps the spirit of the Friberg paintings is more important than the details. For instance, the wall from which Samuel calls the wicked Nephites to repentance is absurd. Not even Jerusalem had one that high. But I can’t imagine that Brother Friberg was concerned in the least about the engineering of the wall, but more with the impact of the tiny Samuel facing the murderous citizens with their arrows and stones. He was not depicting the righteous Samuel, he was showing the wicked people, their faces contorted with anger, their souls lost in hatred and sin.

And you think this is somehow faith promoting?

My lack of concern has nothing to do with others’ faith. It has a great deal to do with artistic license.

Lehi