New Arrington Biography Makes Shocking Admission

[Scott Lloyd]

2 hours ago, Storm Rider said:

In what capacity did they work on them?  There is a reason why rumors are such terrible things.  Were they someone that had access to the full documents and actually was the one deleting information?  Or was this someone that assisted in some other way?  You need to qualify these kinds of statements.  

Rumors like this get so garbled and out of kilter it can be hard to untangle them, but I wonder if this has something to do with the kinds of material that meet the criteria for the project.

This is a scholarly documentary editing project. To meet the criteria, the materials have to be something that Joseph Smith either wrote in his own hand or caused to be written. It is, well, a project comprising the papers of Joseph Smith. Period. Not papers belonging to someone else, but Josph. Smith's. papers. Hence, the name, Joseph Smith Papers.

Edited June 11, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

Here's a story I wrote a year ago about the Church History Department today vis á vis the department under Arrington.

It was a report of a presentation at last year's annual Mormon History Association Conference, the event that is going on right now. (Emphasis not in original. Also, in this version, the word pedaled, used erroneously, is corrected to peddled.)

Quote

PROVO – Thirty years after Mark Hofmann rocked the Mormon history world with his forgeries and subsequent murders, a current generation of historians is presenting to the outside world a more appealing view of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to a scholar J. B. Haws, who spoke Saturday at the 50th annual conference of the Mormon History Association convening at the Utah Valley Convention Center.

Predictably, the association this year is fondly remembering founder Leonard J. Arrington, whose 10-year stint (1972-82) as LDS Church historian is wistfully remembered by some as “Camelot” because they view it as a time of openness and idealism not equaled before or since in the study of Mormon history.

“However, my sense of it is that this current era — this current moment — is something rather different than that Camelot era,” said Haws, a professor of church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University. “It feels less experimental and more mainstream, even as it is as bold and daring — in terms of historical output and publishing — as anything that came out of the 1970s.”

At the tail end of the Arrington period, journalists and other outside observers had noticed a tension “between professional historians and some in the church’s hierarchy over how much humanness should come through in the biographies of prophets,” Haws explained.

“But it was an external controversy more than this internal, philosophical tension that really brought the complex interplay of faith and history in Mormonism into national consciousness,” he said.

From 1980-85, Hofmann peddled forged documents challenging the church’s traditional narrative about its origins. Ultimately, two people died in bombings perpetrated by Hofmann in a desperate attempt to keep his forgery scheme from unraveling.

“The lasting mid-1980s media impression was that the LDS Church, secretive and shadowy, guarded its archives with deadly seriousness — and because of this, Mormonism looked different in the public’s eyes,” Haws said.

This was reflected, he said, in the contrast between two polls: one in 1977 poll that found 54 percent of Americans saw Mormons favorably and one taken in 1991 that gave only a 27 percent favorable rating.

“The downturn was dramatic, the result of a difficult decade for Mormonism’s public image,” Haws said. “While the change reflected, of course, a complex combination of factors, the real catalyst seemed to be this Mormon history controversy.”

He said when Gordon B. Hinckley became church president he sent “clear signals about a new attitude of openness in the church’s hierarchy with a landmark interview with Mike Wallace on '60 Minutes' that aired in the spring of 1996. Plus, in 1997, national and international press attention zeroed in on Salt Lake City — and Mormon history — because of the sesquicentennial reenactment of the Mormons’ cross-country pioneer migration. The church opened its doors and records to scores of visiting journalists.”

About this time, Richard Bushman, professor of history at Columbia University was undertaking his landmark biography of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, “Rough Stone Rolling,” and he convened the first of what would be an annual summer seminar at BYU for graduate students. The immediate purpose was to help him mine archival material for the book. It proved less than helpful for this purpose.

“But it is a tribute to Richard Bushman’s prescience that he realized the summer seminar offered other outcomes: a network of young scholars, a chance to introduce students to leading practitioners, and perhaps most important, a venue to explore questions of faith and scholarship,” Haws said.

The seminar “has become something of a rite of passage and an academic touchstone for a rising generation of historians,” he said.

For his paper, Haws conducted oral history interviews with past participants.

He said alumni from the seminar have become many of the leading voices on Mormonism in academia. He cited as examples Kathleen Flake, newly appointed to the Mormon Studies chair at the University of Virginia; Patrick Mason, Howard W. Hunter chair of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University in California; and David Holland, now at Harvard Divinity School.

“This seminar and its participants are making a significant mark on the way Mormonism is being presented in this new century, not only because of positions in classrooms across the country, but also through their rapidly proliferating publications,” Haws said.

“And the recent presidential-campaign-sized ‘Mormon Moment’ demonstrated that already several of the alumni have become the go-to Mormon voices and experts for the nation’s journalists.” He cited Flake, Mason, Matthew Bowman and Spencer Fluhman “to name a few.

He quoted Bushman as saying their prominence as media sources has come because “they are fearless … they feel perfectly confident in speaking about Mormon topics in a scholarly venue. They know the voice; they know the kind of learning they need in order to speak authoritatively.”

Haws said historians who have studied with Bushman now help fill the church’s History Department, including recently appointed Assistant Church Historian and Recorder Reid Neilson; Matthew Grow, director of publications overseeing the monumental Joseph Smith Papers project, and staff members Mark Ashurst-McGee, Jed Woodworth and Steven Harper.

“Beginning in December 2013,” Haws pointed out, “the LDS Church History Department staff oversaw the publication of a series of essays that take on some of the contested issues in the church’s past. It is difficult to overstate the significance of these essays, published as they are with official church endorsement on its website — and will, starting this fall, become required reading for all of the church’s college-age institute students.”

Other factors that should be acknowledged in the dawning of a new age of openness in church history, Haws said, are Assistant Church Historian Richard E. Turley’s book “Victims,” that gave the church’s perspective on the Hofmann episode, the book on the Mountain Meadows Massacre that Turley co-wrote with Ron Walker and Glen Leonard, the influence of the Joseph Smith Papers project; “and, of course, the way the Internet has changed the world.”

But timing is everything, Haws noted.

“Richard Bushman and the colleagues that joined him in leading the seminars — like Claudia Bushman and Terryl Givens — shaped a generation of scholars just at the time that their church was ready for their services. And this generation of scholars, with their publications and their positions in the classrooms across the country, nudged their church community to think in new ways and provided tools for doing so.”

 

Old timers who are continually prattling about how great things were during "the Camelot era" are behind the times and likely don't have enough experience with the Church History Department as it is today to have a reliable basis for comparison.

Edited June 11, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[Danzo]

3 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I've heard that some things in the Joseph Smith's Papers got deleted, this was from someone that worked on them.  So I guess they aren't as reliable either.

 

CFR 

[Calm]

43 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

What I recall is that Arrington had taken materials that were rightly the property of the Church History Department (then the Church Historical Department) and, after his death, these were among items that were to be donated to Utah State.

I also recall that the matter was settled amicably.

 

It was not his personal papers that were at issue, but some church owned papers he hadremoved that hadn't been returned at the time of his death:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/876365/LDS-and-USU-end-tiff-over-papers.html?pg=all

"LDS Church officials presented USU with copies of agreements they said showed that Arrington "clearly agreed" to return and/or surrender certain sensitive documents that he either copied or borrowed while he was employed by the church...

At a press conference Saturday, Arrington family attorney N. George Daines said the family had requested this week that USU return certain documents that were mistakenly given to USU. The family then gave those papers back to the LDS Church.

The papers in question include "two small documents concerning matters the LDS Church considers sacred" that detail rites that occur in LDS temples, Daines said. They are part of Heber C. Kimball's dairy and a volume titled the "Book of Anointing."

The other returned documents consist of a "smattering" of minutes of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles regarding a particular topic that Arrington was commissioned to research for a private church study. Daines declined to identify the topic.

"We concluded that these documents were never part of Dr. Arrington's collection, nor did he know these were part of the collection," Daines said. He added that Arrington — whom he described as a "fervent, participating church member" — never intended to donate these particular papers.

Daines said the issue regarding the minutes was not one of content, but of ownership, and that details of how these papers ended up in Arrington's collection are unclear.

Daines said the Arrington family "regrets this error" of giving the minutes to USU but said none of the heirs knew these documents were in the collection.

USU President Kermit L. Hall said the university was concerned about maintaining its academic integrity and independence as well as preserving the integrity of its relationship with the Arrington family. He also praised LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley for his assistance. "The hand of moderation he extended was welcome indeed," Hall said."

 

[Scott Lloyd]

6 minutes ago, Calm said:

It was not his personal papers that were at issue, but some church owned papers he hadremoved that hadn't been returned at the time of his death:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/876365/LDS-and-USU-end-tiff-over-papers.html?pg=all

"LDS Church officials presented USU with copies of agreements they said showed that Arrington "clearly agreed" to return and/or surrender certain sensitive documents that he either copied or borrowed while he was employed by the church...

At a press conference Saturday, Arrington family attorney N. George Daines said the family had requested this week that USU return certain documents that were mistakenly given to USU. The family then gave those papers back to the LDS Church.

The papers in question include "two small documents concerning matters the LDS Church considers sacred" that detail rites that occur in LDS temples, Daines said. They are part of Heber C. Kimball's dairy and a volume titled the "Book of Anointing."

The other returned documents consist of a "smattering" of minutes of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles regarding a particular topic that Arrington was commissioned to research for a private church study. Daines declined to identify the topic.

"We concluded that these documents were never part of Dr. Arrington's collection, nor did he know these were part of the collection," Daines said. He added that Arrington — whom he described as a "fervent, participating church member" — never intended to donate these particular papers.

Daines said the issue regarding the minutes was not one of content, but of ownership, and that details of how these papers ended up in Arrington's collection are unclear.

Daines said the Arrington family "regrets this error" of giving the minutes to USU but said none of the heirs knew these documents were in the collection.

USU President Kermit L. Hall said the university was concerned about maintaining its academic integrity and independence as well as preserving the integrity of its relationship with the Arrington family. He also praised LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley for his assistance. "The hand of moderation he extended was welcome indeed," Hall said."

 

Yes. Thank you. This is how I recall the episode.

 

[Calm]

4 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I've heard that some things in the Joseph Smith's Papers got deleted, this was from someone that worked on them.  So I guess they aren't as reliable either.

 

Was he willing to put his name on the claim so it could be verified?  If so, what was it?  If not,why should we believe he was who he claimed to be?

[Tacenda]

8 hours ago, Calm said:

Was he willing to put his name on the claim so it could be verified?  If so, what was it?  If not,why should we believe he was who he claimed to be?

It was in a podcast, but will try to remember which one.   He just mentions working with some one that would leave stuff out.  I don't know why.  Will need to search my memory for it.  

Edited June 11, 2016 by Tacenda

[Calm]

And he didn't report it to their supervisor?  If not, he is as culpable as the person who didn't include stuff that met the standards for inclusion...if your memory is accurate.

[Tacenda]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

And he didn't report it to their supervisor?  If not, he is as culpable as the person who didn't include stuff that met the standards for inclusion...if your memory is accurate.

What if it was protocol? Maybe editing things out for readability.  I'm not sure.  Do you know anyone who worked on these papers?  Maybe they can clear it up.  But it's not the first time I've heard about leaving stuff out.  I'd love for someone that knows to put me in my place if need be, because it's bothered me ever since.

Edited June 11, 2016 by Tacenda

[Tacenda]

Scott and Calm,

This link may answer to what I heard the guy on the podcast say.

http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/articles/editorial-method

 

Edited June 11, 2016 by Tacenda

[Johnnie Cake]

9 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

What I recall is that Arrington had taken materials that were rightly the property of the Church History Department (then the Church Historical Department) and, after his death, these were among items that were to be donated to Utah State.

I also recall that the matter was settled amicably.

 

2 papers, if memory serves me correctly, out of nearly 10,000 in personal papers... and you are correct it was settled amicably

EDIT to add:  I see someone posted a DesNews article above confirming my recolection

Edited June 11, 2016 by Johnnie Cake

[HappyJackWagon]

14 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Well, then please cite for me some of those well-meaning but ignorant persons on this board who have claimed that " the LDS Church would never willfully hid information from its membership."  Of course items were hidden.  We should all know that, or maybe you are too young to recall.  I even cited the Hugh Nibley instance.  C'mon John, was Johnnie correct to claim such things were being said?  That it was not common knowledge?  And that has nothing to do with hate.  Read what I said more carefully.

It's impossible to win with some of you guys.

CFR's are called for, accusations made, names like anti are bandied about no matter what we say.

If I say something like "the church willfully hid information from its membership" there will be feigned shock and dismay. I will be labeled a critic, a dissenter, an anti-Mormon.

But simultaneously we'll get CFR's from apologists saying "of course items were hidden". CFR that anyone would ever say other wise. This stuff is absurd. Apologists continue to play both sides because otherwise they'd be required to admit they and/or the church are/were wrong.

 

Mormonism seems incapable of agreeing  on the wetness of water.

[Tacenda]

58 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

What if it was protocol? Maybe editing things out for readability.  I'm not sure.  Do you know anyone who worked on these papers?  Maybe they can clear it up.  But it's not the first time I've heard about leaving stuff out.  I'd love for someone that knows to put me in my place if need be, because it's bothered me ever since.

 

When I say leave stuff out, maybe I heard it wrong, when really what they are doing on the project is waiting to publish documents, not necessarily withholding them for good. 

Edited June 11, 2016 by Tacenda

[Johnnie Cake]

14 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The only lie of which I am aware was the false claim by anti-Mormons that somebody claimed that the LDS Church would never willfully hid information from its membership.  Only a yokel would make such a claim.  Facts are facts, which Leonard Arrington spent a lifetime providing, from long before he became LDS Church Historian.  It angers you that a good man like him did a good job.  You know only hate and vilification through your continuing invention of invidious straw men.

Robert, dear friend,  It is customary to admit you were wrong when presented with facts that confirm such.  But for such an admission and apology coming from you...I'm willing to wait a little longer...

[rodheadlee]

I've seen my name bantered about in this thread. I haven't read the whole thread because I've been real sick. I'm getting better. I want to clear up a thing or 2. Of course the Church hides things from the GP, God hides things from the GP. What I object to is the assigning of motive to dead people on speculation. That is all, Rod out.

[mapman]

3 hours ago, Tacenda said:

What if it was protocol? Maybe editing things out for readability.  I'm not sure.  Do you know anyone who worked on these papers?  Maybe they can clear it up.  But it's not the first time I've heard about leaving stuff out.  I'd love for someone that knows to put me in my place if need be, because it's bothered me ever since.

They publish images of the documents online on the website, so they couldn't be modifying what the documents say. They have decided not to publish some documents in the physical books because of the amount of routine documents like deeds, licenses, etc. Every single document will be published online with photos of the original documents however.

[Calm]

I have read a number of posts over the years where people state stuff is left out based solely on their assumptions of how the Church operates without any evidence for the project beyond their wishful thinking, so given the very specific commitment to publishing laid out by the Project, I think it is most likely that your multiple memories of citations of leaving stuff out has nothing to do with any attempt in reality to hide documents...and any one claiming they saw it being done needs to explain why they didn't do anything about it (save reporting it where it was useless) which as I said makes them responsible as well.  Rumors may have started based on misunderstanding that just because something was not in the print version does not mean it won't be published at all...and given the attention that scholars will pay to everything, anything of substance will be noticed so it would be stupid to attempt to downplay something's importance by only putting it online.

[jkwilliams]

2 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

I've seen my name bantered about in this thread. I haven't read the whole thread because I've been real sick. I'm getting better. I want to clear up a thing or 2. Of course the Church hides things from the GP, God hides things from the GP. What I object to is the assigning of motive to dead people on speculation. That is all, Rod out.

I think that's on me. I mistakenly attributed something to you. Apologies. 

[Scott Lloyd]

4 hours ago, Tacenda said:

What if it was protocol? Maybe editing things out for readability.  I'm not sure.  Do you know anyone who worked on these papers?  Maybe they can clear it up.  But it's not the first time I've heard about leaving stuff out.  I'd love for someone that knows to put me in my place if need be, because it's bothered me ever since.

They don't "edit stuff for readability." Each document is faithfully transcribed with strike-throughs, corrections, indecipherables, etc. carefully indicated. In some volumes a photo image of the document is printed on a facing page from the transcription. If it meets the criteria for inclusion, and the project team is aware of it, it's included.

 

[Scott Lloyd]

4 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Scott and Calm,

This link may answer to what I heard the guy on the podcast say.

http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/articles/editorial-method

 

This page contains as good a description as any of the project criteria and scope, editing methods, long-range plan, etc.

Thank you for the link.

[consiglieri]

3 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

I've seen my name bantered about in this thread. I haven't read the whole thread because I've been real sick. I'm getting better. I want to clear up a thing or 2. Of course the Church hides things from the GP, God hides things from the GP. What I object to is the assigning of motive to dead people on speculation. That is all, Rod out.

Actually, it was I who brought up rodheadlee.

That is because earlier this week, rodheadlee was denying that the Church ever hid things from its members.  Now he is saying of course the Church hides things from its members.

It will take a bit of documentation to demonstrate rodheadlee's duplicity on the issue, but here goes.

Let me see if I can find the quote.  It is from the Prophets and History thread and starts on page 5.

Here it is.  I began by stating:

Quote

 

Yes, the prophets did foresee members leaving the church over problems with its history.

And yes, they did take measures to prevent it.

Those measures were primarily hiding the history they thought people would leave over.

Now that the cat is out of the bag and people are finding out about the history, they are also learning that their prophets actively hid it from them.

As a result, members are largely more upset about the prophets hiding the history than they are about the history itself.

And so, the measures the prophets took to prevent people leaving the church over its history have actually caused people to leave the church over its history.

And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.

 

 

To this, rodheadlee replied:

Quote

The Accuser makes an appearance and their motivation is fame, power, money or they are just stupid? Remind me again exactly what did they hide?

To which I rejoined:

Quote

We can start with the 1832 account that Joseph Fielding Smith cut out and hid in his safe for decades and didn't put back until its existence was leaked to the Tanners.

http://www.nearingkolob.com/joseph-fielding-smith-hide-strange-first-vision-account/

To which rodheadlee responded:

Quote

You're joking, right? That webpage reads like a tabloid. Evidence strongly points to....JFS may have...

To which I rejoined:
 

Quote

 

You must have overlooked the fact the webpage was based on a 2014 Dialogue article by Stan Larson.  There is even a link provided.

I know you are afraid to find out the truth about this, but I encourage you to give it a try, just the same.

 

 

To which rodheadlee responded:

Quote

Yeah, I'm skeered. Evidence stronlgy points to panspermia and aliens may have landed on the darkside of the moon. And what does Stan Larson think of the webpage?

 

To which I answered:
 

Quote

 

It is obvious you are not interested in examining evidence that contradicts your religious views.

You could prove me wrong by actually reading Stan Larson's article in the 2014 Dialogue journal and then making some intelligent comments.

I won't hold my breath, though. 

 

To which rodheadlee answered:

Quote

I read it right up to the part that says we can speculate. I'm going to speculate that JS cut the pages out and started over becuase he didn't like the way it came out. Then someone dug them out ofr the trash and off we go. But I won't deny that the victors write the History, it's true for all civilizations and organizations. This brings us back to the Holy Ghost and needing a witness to confirm or deny the truth of the LDS Church and JS's vision. If you don't have a witness you probably shouldn't get baptized.

 

But after giving every indication that rodheadlee was defending the position that the Church never hides anything from its members, he now weighs in on this thread with:

Quote

I've seen my name bantered about in this thread. I haven't read the whole thread because I've been real sick. I'm getting better. I want to clear up a thing or 2. Of course the Church hides things from the GP, God hides things from the GP. What I object to is the assigning of motive to dead people on speculation. That is all, Rod out.

 

It appears that rodheadlee's position on this issue changes from day to day.  It may depend on which thread he is on; it may depend on whether he is "real sick."

But most likely, it depends on whether rodheadlee is faced with indisputable evidence the Church hides stuff.

If the indisputable evidence is not presented, rodheadlee denies the Church hides things from its members.

If the indisputable evidence is presented, rodheadlee says, "Of course the Church hides things" from the members.

This, in a nutshell, is the nature of Mormon apologetics.

And why it is I got out of the game a long time ago.

[Scott Lloyd]

7 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

Actually, it was I who brought up rodheadlee.

That is because earlier this week, rodheadlee was denying that the Church ever hid things from its members.  Now he is saying of course the Church hides things from its members.

It will take a bit of documentation to demonstrate rodheadlee's duplicity on the issue, but here goes.

Let me see if I can find the quote.  It is from the Prophets and History thread and starts on page 5.

Here it is.  I began by stating:

 

To this, rodheadlee replied:

To which I rejoined:

To which rodheadlee responded:

To which I rejoined:
 

 

To which rodheadlee responded:

 

To which I answered:
 

To which rodheadlee answered:

 

But after giving every indication that rodheadlee was defending the position that the Church never hides anything from its members, he now weighs in on this thread with:

 

It appears that rodheadlee's position on this issue changes from day to day.  It may depend on which thread he is on; it may depend on whether he is "real sick."

But most likely, it depends on whether rodheadlee is faced with indisputable evidence the Church hides stuff.

If the indisputable evidence is not presented, rodheadlee denies the Church hides things from its members.

If the indisputable evidence is presented, rodheadlee says, "Of course the Church hides things" from the members.

This, in a nutshell, is the nature of Mormon apologetics.

And why it is I got out of the game a long time ago.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see any inconsistency between what Rod said then and now.

[Tacenda]

http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/leonard-arrington-and-mormon-history

Just saw this, it may give a little insight.  Sorry to those that can't listen for one reason or another.

[Johnnie Cake]

I just appreciate the believers on this board who have bravely acknowledged the fact that the church has hid historical information from its membership. This is a huge welcomed admission and as someone who at times felt I had woken up in the twighlight zone when chatting with apologists who refused to make this same admission, a refreshing confirmation that I'm not crazy for having , at times, held this same view that yes, the church sequestered information hiding it from church members.   From the bottom of my heart, thank you

[Jeanne]

18 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I've heard that some things in the Joseph Smith's Papers got deleted, this was from someone that worked on them.  So I guess they aren't as reliable either.

 

Really?  I hate to hear that.  I am just replying to you and won't share that with anyone outside this board until it is confirmed.  What is sad is..if it is true, It doesn't surprise me.