Do you have to believe in magic to accept Joseph Smith?

[tannerbarker]

http://diligenceovertime.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-sorcerer-stone.html

[snowflake]

Quote

I believed in Joseph for years........before learning about this kind of stuff. Then I was told they were made up lies as "anti-Mormon".  Turns out there was a lot of truth there.

 

[Robert F. Smith]

Do you have to believe in magic to accept Joseph Smith?

Depends on what you take to be "magic."  Scholars do not differentiate magic from religion.

However, the typical, average Mormon knows nothing of magic (now or in the past), and thus is not confronted by the scholarly issue at all.

Your cynical diatribe, Tanner, is a bit over the top, and seems to miss the point that Jan Shipps and Margaret Barker are both Methodists (not Mormons), and are scholars with doctorates, not engaged in Mormon apologetics.

I have no problem with someone rejecting the magical actions in the Bible, Book of Mormon, or in vernacular history.  But we should at least be consistent in such appraisals of magical vernacular culture, and the reasons why we take such positions.  You might want to  take into account the following non-Mormon scholarship:

Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 2nd ed. (1993), 212, “The boundaries between religion and magic are not sharply marked in the ancient world.  Magic was part of religion, . . .”  Cf. Wendy Cotter, Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook for the Study of New Testament Miracle Stories (Routledge, 1999); Murray & Rosalie Wax, "The Notion of Magic," Current Anthropology, 4 (1963): 495-518 (with replies and rejoinder); Massimo Introvigne, “Arcana Arcanorum: Cagliostro’s Legacy in Contemporary Magical Movements,” Syzygy, 1 (Spring/Summer 1992):117-135; Alan F. Segal, "Hellenistic Magic: Some Questions of Definition," in R. Van den Broek & M. J. Vermauren, eds., Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions (1981), 349-375; see especially Jon Butler, “Magic, Astrology, and the Early American Religious Heritage, 1600-1760,” American Historical Review, 84/2 (Apr 1979):319-320, and nn. 3-6 -- esp. 318, re “the survival of European occult or magical practices in the American colonies,” and 319, “magic and Christianity in colonial America were not generically different entities but were subsets of the same phenomenon – religion.”

Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." (Arthur C. Clarke)

[tannerbarker]

37 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Do you have to believe in magic to accept Joseph Smith?

Depends on what you take to be "magic."  Scholars do not differentiate magic from religion.

However, the typical, average Mormon knows nothing of magic (now or in the past), and thus is not confronted by the scholarly issue at all.

Your cynical diatribe, Tanner, is a bit over the top, and seems to miss the point that Jan Shipps and Margaret Barker are both Methodists (not Mormons), and are scholars with doctorates, not engaged in Mormon apologetics.

I have no problem with someone rejecting the magical actions in the Bible, Book of Mormon, or in vernacular history.  But we should at least be consistent in such appraisals of magical vernacular culture, and the reasons why we take such positions.  You might want to  take into account the following non-Mormon scholarship:

Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 2nd ed. (1993), 212, “The boundaries between religion and magic are not sharply marked in the ancient world.  Magic was part of religion, . . .”  Cf. Wendy Cotter, Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook for the Study of New Testament Miracle Stories (Routledge, 1999); Murray & Rosalie Wax, "The Notion of Magic," Current Anthropology, 4 (1963): 495-518 (with replies and rejoinder); Massimo Introvigne, “Arcana Arcanorum: Cagliostro’s Legacy in Contemporary Magical Movements,” Syzygy, 1 (Spring/Summer 1992):117-135; Alan F. Segal, "Hellenistic Magic: Some Questions of Definition," in R. Van den Broek & M. J. Vermauren, eds., Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions (1981), 349-375; see especially Jon Butler, “Magic, Astrology, and the Early American Religious Heritage, 1600-1760,” American Historical Review, 84/2 (Apr 1979):319-320, and nn. 3-6 -- esp. 318, re “the survival of European occult or magical practices in the American colonies,” and 319, “magic and Christianity in colonial America were not generically different entities but were subsets of the same phenomenon – religion.”

Clarke's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." (Arthur C. Clarke)

Oh I agree that my diatribe is not scholarship, it's a diatribe. I am aware that Shipps and Barker are Methodists, but both have definitely participated in apologetics, reinterpreting hard facts to make Mormonism remain palatable. Check their contributions to the symposium at the Library of Congress as examples. 

As for religion being indistinguishable from magic, I quite agree where they are used as explanations of natural phenomena. How can God be the logical terminus to an infinite regress Mr. Aquinas? Magic.

Clarke's Third Law has the purpose of exploding magic as a valid explanation. You are quite right that we need to be consistent in our appraisals of magic, Clarke's Third Law is the reason that we should posit a natural explanation in all cases where a magical one seems warranted.

_-_Joseph_Smith_and_the_Making_of_a_Global_Religion.mp3

_-_Joseph_Smith_and_the_Recovery_of_Past_Worlds.mp3

_-_Joseph_Smith_Challenges_the_Theological_World.mp3

_-_Joseph_Smith_in_a_Personal_World.mp3

_-_Joseph_Smith_in_His_Own_Time.mp3

[The Nehor]

Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

Also, can you post more then just a link when starting a thread? That is just lazy.

[Robert F. Smith]

9 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

Also, can you post more then just a link when starting a thread? That is just lazy.

It is his first post.  What can you expect?

[tannerbarker]

Criticism accepted, content plus links will be posted in future. See above for some thoughts on Mr. Clarker. To it I would add Shermer's Law: Any sufficiently advanced being is indistinguishable from god.

[The Nehor]

3 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

It is his first post.  What can you expect?

Echoes of Wordsworth at the very least. Or maybe just a hi and an explanation for the link.

[tannerbarker]

1 minute ago, The Nehor said:

Echoes of Wordsworth at the very least. Or maybe just a hi and an explanation for the link.

Yeah, trying to get my legs here. It only let me post on the social board, but hey there The Nehor!

[Hestia]

This is not an appropriate thread for the Social Hall.  Once you have 25 posts you can create threads in the Dialogue forum.