mapman Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 13 hours ago, James Tunney said: We don't know what's in the church history vault because it is still guarded. Even though the Joseph Smith papers project is a welcome change with respect to openness, however, what's being edited out of the various volumes, if anything? What's still being hidden from view? Anything? How would we know given the past obfuscations? The only part of the church's collections that aren't cataloged is the First Presidency Vault. I have no idea what might be in there, and I suppose it's possible that there are documents in there that the First Presidency doesn't want people to know about. But when people start accusing the Joseph Smith Papers people of hiding stuff, it sounds like some conspiracy theory crap. How exactly are they going to be "editing out" stuff from their volumes? They publish images of all the documents online. It's not physically possible to edit stuff out because people would be able to just compare the transcriptions to the images. Unless you think that they have a big photoshopping department (they don't, I've been there).
jkwilliams Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 Just now, mapman said: The only part of the church's collections that aren't cataloged is the First Presidency Vault. I have no idea what might be in there, and I suppose it's possible that there are documents in there that the First Presidency doesn't want people to know about. But when people start accusing the Joseph Smith Papers people of hiding stuff, it sounds like some conspiracy theory crap. How exactly are they going to be "editing out" stuff from their volumes? They publish images of all the documents online. It's not physically possible to edit stuff out because people would be able to just compare the transcriptions to the images. Unless you think that they have a big photoshopping department (they don't, I've been there). Count me as one who is grateful for the JSP project. I never imagined such a thing would happen in my lifetime.
James Tunney Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 2 minutes ago, mapman said: The only part of the church's collections that aren't cataloged is the First Presidency Vault. I have no idea what might be in there, and I suppose it's possible that there are documents in there that the First Presidency doesn't want people to know about. But when people start accusing the Joseph Smith Papers people of hiding stuff, it sounds like some conspiracy theory crap. How exactly are they going to be "editing out" stuff from their volumes? They publish images of all the documents online. It's not physically possible to edit stuff out because people would be able to just compare the transcriptions to the images. Unless you think that they have a big photoshopping department (they don't, I've been there). I'm simply highlighting the fact that the church is being more open with the JS papers project but is still controlling it with its editors. They obviously are not allowing someone like Dan Vogel to be part of the JS papers team and they aren't allowing anyone and everyone access to certain documents like the counsel of 50 minutes, etc. So, it's a start but I still have questions regarding the church's access policies given their past history of prohibition and attacking the messenger attitude.
JAHS Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 9 hours ago, James Tunney said: 7 minutes ago, James Tunney said: I'm simply highlighting the fact that the church is being more open with the JS papers project but is still controlling it with its editors. They obviously are not allowing someone like Dan Vogel to be part of the JS papers team and they aren't allowing anyone and everyone access to certain documents like the counsel of 50 minutes, etc. So, it's a start but I still have questions regarding the church's access policies given their past history of prohibition and attacking the messenger attitude. So how will your questions be answered to your satisfaction? If it's something that has already happened we can't make it unhappen can we?
James Tunney Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 17 minutes ago, JAHS said: So how will your questions be answered to your satisfaction? If it's something that has already happened we can't make it unhappen can we? Well, maybe the church could start by giving anyone and everyone unqualified access to all the documents in its possession regarding history. Let the independent historians have at it. Let the chips fall where they may. It's supposedly the truth right? So why not go all the way with access? 1
JAHS Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 4 minutes ago, James Tunney said: Well, maybe the church could start by giving anyone and everyone unqualified access to all the documents in its possession regarding history. Let the independent historians have at it. Let the chips fall where they may. It's supposedly the truth right? So why not go all the way with access? I don't see any reason why that won't happen in the future. There is the concern as to how some fragile old documents are handled and the damage that can be done to them upon inspection; but I think we will see more and more of them.
James Tunney Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 3 minutes ago, JAHS said: I don't see any reason why that won't happen in the future. There is the concern as to how some fragile old documents are handled and the damage that can be done to them upon inspection; but I think we will see more and more of them. How about taking pictures of the fragile documents and putting them on the internet? How long has the JS papers project been going? I don't want to pooh pooh it because the new transparency is great, but, this could have been done a long time ago if the object was to simply disclose. So, still, I view this as a step in the right direction but there still is resistance to total transparency by the very make up of the project. 1
Robert F. Smith Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 3 hours ago, HappyJackWagon said: Nice try. I know what I said, but previously you were attributing things to me that I didn't say. You asked me to be precise at precisely the moment you were making unfounded accusations. Don't worry, I didn't really expect you would apologize or answer the CFR. I presented your actual quotes, even though you are in denial about what you in fact said. what was there to "apologize" for? Assuming that we both understand what that word even means.
Calm Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 1 hour ago, James Tunney said: How about taking pictures of the fragile documents and putting them on the internet? Do you understand what the JSP is actually doing? Your first question makes me wonder.
mapman Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 (edited) The Church History Library is also continuously uploading digital copies of their collections to the library catalog website that anyone can access. I don't think they have a list of all the digital collections in one place, but they include things like the architectural plans for the Salt Lake Temple, Brigham Young's letterbooks, official histories of missions, and stuff like that. So far they have digitized several thousand items or collections including some 6000 manuscripts, and over 1000 journals. Counting the digitization efforts of FamilySearch as well (which has indexed over 1.4 billion names from digitized records), I think that the church likely has digitized and made freely available on the internet more historical records than any other organization in the world (the only other organizations that might be in the running would be the U.S. government or Google). Edited June 14, 2016 by mapman
JAHS Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 2 hours ago, James Tunney said: How about taking pictures of the fragile documents and putting them on the internet? How long has the JS papers project been going? I don't want to pooh pooh it because the new transparency is great, but, this could have been done a long time ago if the object was to simply disclose. So, still, I view this as a step in the right direction but there still is resistance to total transparency by the very make up of the project. They are already doing that with the JSP and many other documents. But how are you going to know when the church has disclosed every single document that is contained in the vaults? Will you be satisfied when they finally say "That's all folks"?
James Tunney Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 I know what they are doing. It's just taken them a lot longer to do it and we will never know if there has been full disclosure. If they wanted to merely be transparent then they could have just opened up access to all without qualification years ago without slowly putting out documents that they organize. I'm sure historians would have gladly done the organization.
smac97 Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 41 minutes ago, Nevo said: Yes, it can. The 1832 account was sequestered for decades. I thought you already knew that. It has been mentioned several times already in this thread. But you're correct that it has been available since the late 1960s. Hmm. According to FAIR, the 1832 account was first published in 1965 in Paul Cheesman's 1965 Master's Thesis, "An Analysis of the Accounts Relating Joseph Smith’s Early Vision." Further information about the publication of the 1832 account is available in this 1966 Dialogue article by James B. Allen, as follows: Quote {T}here is some interesting evidence to suggest the possibility that the story of Joseph Smith’s first vision was known, probably on a limited basis, during the formative decade of church history. One of the most significant documents of that period yet discovered was brought to light in 1965 by Paul R. Cheesman, a graduate student at Brigham Young University. This is a handwritten manuscript apparently composed about 1833 and either written or dictated by Joseph Smith. It contains an account of the early experiences of the Mormon prophet and includes the story of the first vision. While the story varies in some details from the version presently accepted, enough is there to indicate that at least as early as 1833 Joseph Smith contemplated writing and perhaps publishing it. The manuscript has apparently lain in the L.D.S. Church Historian’s office for many years, and yet few if any who saw it realized its profound historical significance. Elsewhere James Allen described the 1832 account as "heretofore unknown description of Joseph Smith's First Vision," that Cheesman's use of the 1832 account constituted a "{significant} new discovery," and that "most writers had {prior to Cheesman's thesis} supposed that the Manuscript History of Joseph Smith, formally begun in 1838, was the place where the Prophet first committed his remarkable experience to writing," See also this presentation by Steven Harper. But then there's the 2014 Dialogue article by Stan Larson, which provides an intriguing, but somewhat flawed and speculative, summary of the excision of the 1832 account. I haven't been able to examine this article and its cited references in detail, but it appears to speculate about some rather important issues, including when the excision took place, by whom, and why. I think proceeding on such a speculative framework is unwise when the objective is to make accusations against the LDS Church, since we don't really know when the excision occurred, or why. The Church functions in quorums, but I'm not sure the upper quorums of the Church were aware of, or authorized, the excision (which is one of the reasons I find Larson's speculations problematic). In any event, the sequestration of the 1832 account ended over a half century ago. So the problem does not appear to be that the 1832 account has not been available to the Saints (since it has been for 50+years). Or that it it has been kept in obscurity (it has been repeatedly referenced in the Church's magazines over the years). Or that the 1832 account is inherently problematic as to the truth claims of the LDS Church (specifically, that it does not reference the appearance of God the Father during the First Vision). Or is that a problem? The problem, then, is . . . that the sequestration took place at all. Is that it? Thanks, -Smac 2
Scott Lloyd Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 (edited) 7 hours ago, James Tunney said: How about taking pictures of the fragile documents and putting them on the internet? How long has the JS papers project been going? I don't want to pooh pooh it because the new transparency is great, but, this could have been done a long time ago if the object was to simply disclose. So, still, I view this as a step in the right direction but there still is resistance to total transparency by the very make up of the project. 7 hours ago, JAHS said: I don't see any reason why that won't happen in the future. There is the concern as to how some fragile old documents are handled and the damage that can be done to them upon inspection; but I think we will see more and more of them. The future is now. The Church History Library catalog is online. And if something can't be accessed online, odds are it can be viewed during a visit to the Church History LIbrary, where photo images of fragile or irreplaceable documents can be viewed on a computer screen. I'm getting the impression James Tunney has never accessed the Church History Department website. Edited June 14, 2016 by Scott Lloyd 2
Scott Lloyd Posted June 14, 2016 Posted June 14, 2016 (edited) 3 hours ago, James Tunney said: I know what they are doing. It's just taken them a lot longer to do it and we will never know if there has been full disclosure. If they wanted to merely be transparent then they could have just opened up access to all without qualification years ago without slowly putting out documents that they organize. I'm sure historians would have gladly done the organization. That's no way to run an archive. You have to follow professional standards of cataloging and records preservation. And if you want to avoid loss or vandalism, you can't ignore security concerns. Edited June 14, 2016 by Scott Lloyd 2
James Tunney Posted June 15, 2016 Posted June 15, 2016 1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said: The future is now. The Church History Library catalog is online. And if something can't be accessed online, odds are it can be viewed during a visit to the Church History LIbrary, where photo images of fragile or irreplaceable documents can be viewed on a computer screen. I'm getting the impression James Tunney has never accessed the Church History Department website. It's great that there is more disclosure now.
JAHS Posted June 15, 2016 Posted June 15, 2016 4 hours ago, James Tunney said: I know what they are doing. It's just taken them a lot longer to do it and we will never know if there has been full disclosure. If they wanted to merely be transparent then they could have just opened up access to all without qualification years ago without slowly putting out documents that they organize. I'm sure historians would have gladly done the organization. Perhaps you are probably already aware of this but here's a link to everything that is available at the church history library:http://churchhistorycatalog.lds.org/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=CHL_PUBLIC 2
James Tunney Posted June 15, 2016 Posted June 15, 2016 1 hour ago, JAHS said: Perhaps you are probably already aware of this but here's a link to everything that is available at the church history library:http://churchhistorycatalog.lds.org/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=CHL_PUBLIC I think it's great that there is a lot more disclosure and openness today.
Duncan Posted June 15, 2016 Posted June 15, 2016 (edited) 20 hours ago, smac97 said: Hmm. According to FAIR, the 1832 account was first published in 1965 in Paul Cheesman's 1965 Master's Thesis, "An Analysis of the Accounts Relating Joseph Smith’s Early Vision." Further information about the publication of the 1832 account is available in this 1966 Dialogue article by James B. Allen, as follows: Elsewhere James Allen described the 1832 account as "heretofore unknown description of Joseph Smith's First Vision," that Cheesman's use of the 1832 account constituted a "{significant} new discovery," and that "most writers had {prior to Cheesman's thesis} supposed that the Manuscript History of Joseph Smith, formally begun in 1838, was the place where the Prophet first committed his remarkable experience to writing," See also this presentation by Steven Harper. But then there's the 2014 Dialogue article by Stan Larson, which provides an intriguing, but somewhat flawed and speculative, summary of the excision of the 1832 account. I haven't been able to examine this article and its cited references in detail, but it appears to speculate about some rather important issues, including when the excision took place, by whom, and why. I think proceeding on such a speculative framework is unwise when the objective is to make accusations against the LDS Church, since we don't really know when the excision occurred, or why. The Church functions in quorums, but I'm not sure the upper quorums of the Church were aware of, or authorized, the excision (which is one of the reasons I find Larson's speculations problematic). In any event, the sequestration of the 1832 account ended over a half century ago. So the problem does not appear to be that the 1832 account has not been available to the Saints (since it has been for 50+years). Or that it it has been kept in obscurity (it has been repeatedly referenced in the Church's magazines over the years). Or that the 1832 account is inherently problematic as to the truth claims of the LDS Church (specifically, that it does not reference the appearance of God the Father during the First Vision). Or is that a problem? The problem, then, is . . . that the sequestration took place at all. Is that it? Thanks, -Smac Sounds legit. Something i'd be interested to know about with the 1832 version is how did Paul Cheeseman even know about it? somebody must have told him and allowed him access to it to include it in his thesis and if so then what does that say about denying access to archival stuff? Edited June 15, 2016 by Duncan
consiglieri Posted June 15, 2016 Posted June 15, 2016 2 hours ago, Duncan said: Sounds legit. Something i'd be interested to know about with the 1832 version is how did Paul Cheeseman even know about it? somebody must have told him and allowed him access to it to include it in his thesis and if so then what does that say about denying access to archival stuff? Joseph Fielding Smith used a knife to cut the 1832 version out of the Letter Book in which he found it, and locked it in his safe. This happened in the 1930's. The fact he did this was leaked to the Tanners in 1964. They made it public and wrote a letter to JFS requesting a copy of this "strange account of the First Vision." JFS did not respond to the letter, but taped the pages he had hidden in his safe for three decades back into the Letter Book. The Letter Book was then replaced (now with the first three pages put back in) into the Church Archives. That is how Cheeseman located it for use in his 1965 Master's Thesis.
juliann Posted June 15, 2016 Posted June 15, 2016 On 6/14/2016 at 8:22 AM, James Tunney said: Well, maybe the church could start by giving anyone and everyone unqualified access to all the documents in its possession regarding history. Let the independent historians have at it. Let the chips fall where they may. It's supposedly the truth right? So why not go all the way with access? Oh my gosh. Can you name one institution that lets anyone come in and maul precious documents? Go have a talk with the Huntington Library. They have a large collection of Mormon documents and limited access. 2
Scott Lloyd Posted June 15, 2016 Posted June 15, 2016 13 minutes ago, juliann said: Oh my gosh. Can you name one institution that lets anyone come in and maul precious documents? Go have a talk with the Huntington Library. They have a large collection of Mormon documents and limited access. In fact, according to this application page, you have to be a credentialed scholar with an advanced degree or a curator or librarian from a research institution to even begin to qualify for access at the Huntington. I certainly couldn't qualify; I doubt most of the people who read and post on this board could. 1
juliann Posted June 15, 2016 Posted June 15, 2016 12 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said: In fact, according to this application page, you have to be a credentialed scholar with an advanced degree or a curator or librarian from a research institution to even begin to qualify for access at the Huntington. I certainly couldn't qualify; I doubt most of the people who read and post on this board could. Unless they've changed, it's not quite that limited. When I was at CGU, I could have applied if I had an approved research project. 1
Duncan Posted June 15, 2016 Posted June 15, 2016 1 hour ago, consiglieri said: Joseph Fielding Smith used a knife to cut the 1832 version out of the Letter Book in which he found it, and locked it in his safe. This happened in the 1930's. The fact he did this was leaked to the Tanners in 1964. They made it public and wrote a letter to JFS requesting a copy of this "strange account of the First Vision." JFS did not respond to the letter, but taped the pages he had hidden in his safe for three decades back into the Letter Book. The Letter Book was then replaced (now with the first three pages put back in) into the Church Archives. That is how Cheeseman located it for use in his 1965 Master's Thesis. who leaked it to the Tanners and how did someone figure it was done in the 1930's? curiouser and curiouser!
Scott Lloyd Posted June 15, 2016 Posted June 15, 2016 23 minutes ago, juliann said: Unless they've changed, it's not quite that limited. When I was at CGU, I could have applied if I had an approved research project. I should have scrolled down and read further. But it is definitely more restrictive than allowing most any yahoo to wander in off the street and be granted access to documents. Which makes it a lot more restrictive than the LDS Church History Library.
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