Kevin C's review of Taves, Revelatory Events.

[TOmNossor]

22 hours ago, Nevo said:

Yup, this is an apologetic piece posing as a book review. Kevin's not interested in engaging Taves on her own terms but rather in pointing out how his perspective—sorry, "paradigm"—is superior to hers. As usual, it all boils down to Kevin seeing farther and better because Barker, Nibley, etc. Taves, meanwhile, is blinded by her secular prejudices. Taves's treatment of the Book of Mormon is deficient because she didn't start by assuming that the Book of Mormon is exactly what it claims to be, per the rules in Friedrich Blass's 1892 work "Hermeneutik und Kritik." This oversight, in turn, has led her to neglect the classic-FARMS Book of Mormon scholarship that Kevin finds so persuasive. Anyway, the "review" should play well to Interpreter's audience.

Hello Nevo,

I thought I would ask you a question similar to the one I asked Kevin.  I do not think I am "halting between two options," but when I came to realize the church I left in my youth made truth claims seldom evident in my liberal parish; I thought it possible that I was to return to Catholicism.  I no longer consider that an option, but I try to remain open to all new information.  

I am not particularly open to the idea that God does not exist however.  I find some of the arguments that are shareable to be of some value, but mostly I think what I have experienced ("inside my mail box") leads me to leave behind a purely naturalistic world.

So, when I read things like Kevin's review of essays like Taves, I am a little less concerned with how well naturalistic views are preserved in light of the evidence Taves sites and the explanations she offers.  Instead, I can seldom get past the question of how well Taves' Catholicism (or a Catholicism that I think is worth embracing) stands up to her methods and what a believer might call her "attack." 

I understand you do not think Taves is attacking.  She is examining with a set of tools that is regularly employed in religious studies.  This is fine, but it is not the most interesting question in my mind.  I have attempted to assess the tools Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett and how that relates to what is "inside my mailbox."  I come away believing that they could be correct just like I could live in the Matrix and really be a brain in a vat.  I cannot know perfectly, but I can either believe in what I experience and how I experience it or choose to believe what I see no evidence for because it COULD be true.  I choose my experience.  This leaves me needing to choose a supernatural paradigm that aligns with the real world.  As an engineer I am huge fan of the real world, I just think there is more to it than the purely naturalistic world of Harris and Dennett.

So, I suppose this puts me solidly in Kevin's camp, I hope you can forgive me.  But I want to ask you based on your religious studies, knowledge of Mormonism, knowledge of Taves, and little or large knowledge of Catholicism...  Does Taves methodology explain Catholic experiences as possessing a "power to transform" while not necessarily containing any supernatural component JUST as she explains LDS experiences.  In my more arrogant moments (I actually once believed largely this): "I am not concerned about the power to transform, I am successful, smart, ..., I want the truth.  God is much greater than I am in ways that I cannot understand like I understand Einstein, Frank Zane, and Mother Teresa ... God's existence is humbling and perhaps I could do without it.  But God is real."     Now, I have been humbled mightily beyond this position, and I need the "power to transform" just as much as the folks who in no way resemble Einstein, Zane, and Teresa.  Still I think with truth comes the power to transform so I would like the truth too.

I hope that makes sense.  Thank you for your informed perspective here at MADB.

Charity, TOm

Edited February 6, 2018 by TOmNossor

[Nevo]

12 hours ago, TOmNossor said:

Does Taves methodology explain Catholic experiences as possessing a "power to transform" while not necessarily containing any supernatural component JUST as she explains LDS experiences.  

Hi TOm,

I'm not an expert on Taves's thought but I believe the answer to your question is "Yes." I think she applies her methodology pretty consistently across religious traditions, including her own. I have not read Revelatory Events but I have some awareness of Taves's approach from her book, Religious Experience Reconsidered.

In that work, Taves analyzes religious experiences within a naturalistic theoretical framework that she calls "a general attribution theory of religion." As distinct from a constructivist approach, which emphasizes language, tradition, and culture in constituting religious experiences (basically arguing that people have religious experiences because they are culturally primed to have them), Taves's attributional approach recognizes that people may have experiences for which they are not primed. As Taves puts it, "while an attributional approach does not need to agree that subjects actually had an immediate apprehension of the Absolute, researchers do need to provide a plausible explanation of why subjects felt as if they did. . . . [W]e need to abandon the constructivist axiom that beliefs and attitudes are always formative of, rather than consequent to, experience in any very strong sense, in favor of a model that takes "bottom-up" or unconscious processing more seriously" (Religious Experience Reconsidered, 93; emphasis in original).

Thus, Taves allows that people may have "puzzling, inexplicable experiences" that "may introduce novelty and precipitate radical changes in individual lives and belief systems" and "may also be linked to cultural creativity and innovation." She urges fellow researchers to be "more sensitive to experiences that are genuinely creative and generate new insights and, in some cases, entirely new meaning systems" (98).

Like you, I like to think that certain spiritual experiences that I have had have been actual encounters with the Divine. Taves would say that it was an interaction of ideas (thoughts), physiological symptoms (tears), and feelings (overwhelming love) taking place below the level of conscious self-awareness that I then interpreted in terms of my own cultural scripts. That may be. But even if an experience can be explained naturalistically, I don't personally rule out the possibility that God really was in it. Why wouldn't God use our brain chemistry and emotions to communicate with us? So I personally don't feel too threatened by Taves's theories.

Edited February 7, 2018 by Nevo

[clarkgoble]

On 2/2/2018 at 12:05 PM, Kevin Christensen said:

As promised a while back, my long review of Ann Taves Revelatory Events, titled, "Playing to an Audience."

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/playing-to-an-audience-a-review-of-revelatory-events/

Finally had a chance to read it. I really, really like it and agree fully. While I already expressed some discomfort with paradigm and applying Kuhn to apologetics, I'm not sure it's necessary here. That said I think the key arguments don't depend upon that at all. The key bit that really resonated with me was this one on page 71.

Quote

It is fair to ask whether and how her secular approach would serve to identify a real revelatory event within the historical records we have if she were looking at one.

[...]

For a secular audience, she does not even have to raise the question because that audience presumes from the start that the authenticity of the text is not a serious question, deserving any in-depth inquiry.

Ultimately to me the issue isn't paradigms but how on earth one can claim to have explained things naturalistically when this different can't be distinguished. It's that question of difference and how to distinguish it that ultimately undermines this line of reasoning. As an aside I've not read Taves full book - but I've read all the stuff people have excerpted here and the main quoted papers. However this criticism fits everything I have read and gets at the problem of attempts to have a middle ground. A difference that can't make a difference isn't a difference.

The biggest problem is a kind of circular logic that unfortunately isn't the good kind of a hermeneutic circle.

Edited February 7, 2018 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

On 2/6/2018 at 12:40 PM, Nevo said:

Like you, I like to think that certain spiritual experiences that I have had have been actual encounters with the Divine. Taves would say that it was an interaction of ideas (thoughts), physiological symptoms (tears), and feelings (overwhelming love) taking place below the level of conscious self-awareness that I then interpreted in terms of my own cultural scripts. That may be. But even if an experience can be explained naturalistically, I don't personally rule out the possibility that God really was in it. Why wouldn't God use our brain chemistry and emotions to communicate with us? So I personally don't feel too threatened by Taves's theories.

The basic theory seems fine. I think Kevin's point is that it's assumption that it's "all in the brain." I think this is particularly a problem with the Book of Mormon where there are tangible objects. While I've not read Taves full book, in her prior writings she suggests objects faithfully made to represent these internal states. The problem is that no one portrays it that way. So I'm not sure it really adds as much to the discussion as portrayed. Put a different way, the only real difference Taves has from say Vogel is that she would say they don't have be delusional or frauds. However her new choice isn't really a middle ground between faith and fraud. Rather it's just a third choice for false that's not delusion.

To me while it's a perfectly fine hypothesis, I just don't see her grappling with the data the way that say Vogel does. Agree or disagree with Vogel but he gets at the details of history. Kevin seems right that Tares just doesn't do that. So she's presenting a possibility without seeing how it lines up with the evidence. My guess is that she'll quickly be forgotten and most will move back to the Vogel like view.

Edited February 7, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Nevo]

30 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

To me while it's a perfectly fine hypothesis, I just don't see her grappling with the data the way that say Vogel does. Agree or disagree with Vogel but he gets at the details of history. Kevin seems right that Tares just doesn't do that. So she's presenting a possibility without seeing how it lines up with the evidence.

I haven't read Revelatory Events either, but I was under the impression that she does draw on historical evidence to support her analysis. You say she doesn't "grapple with the data" or "get at the details of history" the way Vogel does. Can you elaborate? Don't they both hypothesize that Joseph constructed physical plates and that the witness testimony resulted from visions or hallucinations? For example, Vogel writes: "Given the fact that the three witnesses saw a vision and that the experience of the eight witnesses seems to have been similarly visionary, there is no compelling evidence that Joseph Smith actually possessed anciently constructed plates. To look at the issue critically, it would have been possible for him to make plates out of tin—which would be consistent with the reported weight of between forty and sixty pounds—and to allow the chosen few to feel them through a cloth" (Dan Vogel, "The Validity of the Witnesses' Testimonies," in American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon, 108).

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, Nevo said:

I haven't read Revelatory Events either, but I was under the impression that she does draw on historical evidence to support her analysis. You say she doesn't "grapple with the data" or "get at the details of history" the way Vogel does. Can you elaborate? Don't they both hypothesize that Joseph constructed physical plates and that the witness testimony resulted from visions or hallucinations? For example, Vogel writes: "Given the fact that the three witnesses saw a vision and that the experience of the eight witnesses seems to have been similarly visionary, there is no compelling evidence that Joseph Smith actually possessed anciently constructed plates. To look at the issue critically, it would have been possible for him to make plates out of tin—which would be consistent with the reported weight of between forty and sixty pounds—and to allow the chosen few to feel them through a cloth" (Dan Vogel, "The Validity of the Witnesses' Testimonies," in American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon, 108).

She doesn't grapple with enough data nor enough of the engagement on those elements. The issue isn't whether Joseph in theory could have made the plates (although contra Vogel I think their poverty makes that far more of an issue than he does). Rather the issue is whether Joseph believes he made the plates in a faithful manner the way Taves asserts. If he happens the way Vogel hypothesizes then it just can't be the way Taves says. Put an other way, I don't think she grapples with the argument for fraud well enough. For a naturalist perspective you have three competing basis (all assuming no actual angels or Nephite plates, etc.) You have fraud, delusion, and the new on of faithful fraud where the plates are made to instantiate the spiritual object. Assuming that Taves just rejects out of hand the faithful Mormon perspective, that means what she really has to grapple with is Vogel's and company's position. Yet in all the excerpts I've read she just doesn't do that.

Primarily when she deals with sources, it appears done in a fairly superficial way and doesn't engage the competing naturalistic alternative interpretations. So to my eyes the biggest problem with her book is she lays out a hypothesis and then really doesn't do much work to argue for it being the right interpretation. It's more something you expect when forming a hypothesis rather than arguing the hypothesis is correct, if that makes sense. She really should be grappling with the alternative explanations and she just doesn't. Further as Kevin notes, she just doesn't really grapple with the Book of Mormon much at all. Including the way the very early Mormons viewed it and Joseph's understanding of it.

Now again, I've not read the full book. So maybe there's places she does this. But flipping through it the last time I accessed it, I just didn't see any of that. I'm not saying someone couldn't argue for her hypothesis mind you. Maybe a book doing just that will appear. I'm just saying this doesn't appear to be that book. Now merging her hypothesis and Vogel's is possible. There's a lot of overlap with Vogel and company filling in arguments. You could for instance take Vogel's data on early American views of Indian mounds and have it bubble up in the subconscious for instance. I'm sure that's what's she's thinking. And Vogel as I recall even leaves room for delusion or other psychological effect.  But the place where the argument breaks down isn't the relationship of environment to text but rather what evidence there is that Joseph did a faithful construction of the plates and other artifacts. i.e. much of the argument for fraud and faithful fraud will be the same but the differences are pretty key. But in other ways her thesis of the subconscious actually explains some things better than Vogel in particular places. (Such as the Witnesses)

Edited February 7, 2018 by clarkgoble

[hope_for_things]

On 2/6/2018 at 11:41 PM, clarkgoble said:

Ultimately to me the issue isn't paradigms but how on earth one can claim to have explained things naturalistically when this different can't be distinguished. It's that question of difference and how to distinguish it that ultimately undermines this line of reasoning. As an aside I've not read Taves full book - but I've read all the stuff people have excerpted here and the main quoted papers. However this criticism fits everything I have read and gets at the problem of attempts to have a middle ground. A difference that can't make a difference isn't a difference.

The biggest problem is a kind of circular logic that unfortunately isn't the good kind of a hermeneutic circle.

Clark, aren't you essentially saying that its impossible to bridge this gap between a religious world view and a naturalistic one?  Are you saying the two aren't even compatible for evaluation at any level.  I see many elements of productive evaluation happening in many scholarly disciplines that intersect with religion, biblical studies being a prominent example, but there are others in all kinds of disciplines from neuroscience, to psychology, to history.  What is it about Taves approach that you think is so different?  

[clarkgoble]

52 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Clark, aren't you essentially saying that its impossible to bridge this gap between a religious world view and a naturalistic one?  Are you saying the two aren't even compatible for evaluation at any level.  I see many elements of productive evaluation happening in many scholarly disciplines that intersect with religion, biblical studies being a prominent example, but there are others in all kinds of disciplines from neuroscience, to psychology, to history.  What is it about Taves approach that you think is so different?  

I don't think so. Although I'd first point to a certain ambiguity in the meaning of naturalistic. I'm here using it to simply mean no divine phenomena like angels giving plates, real communication from God or so forth. Ontologically of course I think Mormonism is fairly naturalistic and I think most apologists interpret such things in a naturalistic way. So in a certain sense Vogel and many Mormons are more similar than they might appear.

I raise that because if you ask about bridging a gap between a religious world view and a naturalistic one then there's a trivial answer. Angels and so forth are real world material phenomena.

Taves approach, to the degree I understand it, is more that she allows for religious experiences that are real in the sense of psychological events but doesn't allow them to have a correspondence to reality. (Before Mark chimes in here, I mean this simply in a weak sense of shared experiences as we experience with regular objects like tables or keyboards) Now I'm actually fairly sympathetic to the broad approach of Taves here. I don't think delusion and fraud are the only theoretical ways to deal with religious experience. So I interpret for instance most glossalia such as in Pentacostal meetings much as Taves likely does. However what I'm arguing is that for a more limited set of claims like the coming forth of the Book of Mormon this simply doesn't explain all the evidence.

Put an other way one can agree with Taves that the brain can produce without priming religious experiences without being due to delusions. Yet that's not the only choice - fraud is possible too. So how do you distinguish between fraud, objectless religious experience, delusion and real external religious objects? It's that question that I'm raising.

Again I really don't think this has much of anything to do with paradigm except that some people simply disallow real religious phenomena in any analysis. (But I don't think that's an issue of paradigm so much as truth claims) Ultimately all I think I'm saying is that Taves has data she has to explain that she really hasn't done well with yet. While I obviously disagree with Vogel, I think he engages with the evidence better.

Edited February 8, 2018 by clarkgoble

[hope_for_things]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Taves approach, to the degree I understand it, is more that she allows for religious experiences that are real in the sense of psychological events but doesn't allow them to have a correspondence to reality... Now I'm actually fairly sympathetic to the broad approach of Taves here. I don't think delusion and fraud are the only theoretical ways to deal with religious experience. So I interpret for instance most glossalia such as in Pentacostal meetings much as Taves likely does. However what I'm arguing is that for a more limited set of claims like the coming forth of the Book of Mormon this simply doesn't explain all the evidence.

This is the part I don't understand.  Taves is allowing for a correspondence to reality in her book, and other essays on the materialization of the plates.  She doesn't consider the plates ancient in this model, but she does allow for them to have a correspondence to reality using the analogy of the Eucharist.  I recognize the Kevin has some critique of this as not a Mormon enough construction, but I think its a close enough fit and that there may be other examples within Mormonism that might fit this analogy.  

You say it doesn't explain all the evidence.  Well, I would argue that no models that I've seen can explain all the evidence in such a complicated history, that's what makes this such a difficult task.  Apologetic arguments for the plates don't explain all the evidence to my satisfaction either, and I think often overlook the challenging lack of strong evidence for their tangible existence.  So, I don't find this argument that it doesn't explain all the evidence to be a compelling critique to dismiss Taves. 

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Put an other way one can agree with Taves that the brain can produce without priming religious experiences without being due to delusions. Yet that's not the only choice - fraud is possible too. So how do you distinguish between fraud, objectless religious experience, delusion and real external religious objects? It's that question that I'm raising.

Again I really don't think this has much of anything to do with paradigm except that some people simply disallow real religious phenomena in any analysis. (But I don't think that's an issue of paradigm so much as truth claims) Ultimately all I think I'm saying is that Taves has data she has to explain that she really hasn't done well with yet. While I obviously disagree with Vogel, I think he engages with the evidence better.

Taves explicitly is putting this question that you're asking about, fraud, to the side so that other interesting elements can be explored.  The fraud discussion often distracts because it is so charged on both sides.  This is where I admire Taves approach, and other historians on the believing side have complimented her for her efforts (Harper, Bushman, and I believe a few others as well I just can't remember which other names at the moment.)  It seems to me that you are forcing things back into the more black and white thinking realm when you dismiss the scholarship that Taves is doing, and takes us backwards towards more traditional anti vs. apologist warfare.  I just don't understand this, since it seems like you are a person that typically doesn't want to engage in those more binary arguments.  

 

[Kevin Christensen]

Taves is not anti-mormon.  She does not consider the truth claims as something to investigate or debunk, but rather as something to explain via her theory of everything, her "building block" approach to religious experience.  So my case is not that she hasn't come up with an explanation of Joseph Smith and religious experience in general, but whether she has come up with the best explanation.  And since her approach treats the Book of Mormon as defined as "Biblical sounding," "large" and "complex" and containing something called "chiasmus" (which to her is the technical equivalent to Schucman's iambic pentameter and blank verse), it seems that the abundant details that she does not bother to explore or test can tell us something about whether her explanation is really the best one circulating in the marketplace of ideas, at least, in the ideas that the secular academic market place is willing to offer without public embarrassment.  I've done a bit of comparative shopping in this respect, looking and testing where neither price, nor fashion, nor commitment costs, nor political and social advantage factor in.  It's quality I'm after.  Not a just bargain and not a trendy fashion that I can sport in High Society nor even to accomodate LDS society.  Something that lasts and actually provides good service where I need medicine that does something more substantial than to act as a placebo.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[hope_for_things]

59 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Taves is not anti-mormon.  She does not consider the truth claims as something to investigate or debunk, but rather as something to explain via her theory of everything, her "building block" approach to religious experience.  So my case is not that she hasn't come up with an explanation of Joseph Smith and religious experience in general, but whether she has come up with the best explanation.  And since her approach treats the Book of Mormon as defined as "Biblical sounding," "large" and "complex" and containing something called "chiasmus" (which to her is the technical equivalent to Schucman's iambic pentameter and blank verse), it seems that the abundant details that she does not bother to explore or test can tell us something about whether her explanation is really the best one circulating in the marketplace of ideas, at least, in the ideas that the secular academic market place is willing to offer without public embarrassment.  I've done a bit of comparative shopping in this respect, looking and testing where neither price, nor fashion, nor commitment costs, nor political and social advantage factor in.  It's quality I'm after.  Not a just bargain and not a trendy fashion that I can sport in High Society nor even to accomodate LDS society.  Something that lasts and actually provides good service where I need medicine that does something more substantial than to act as a placebo.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

I would argue that what she's offered is one of the best explanations that can be honestly evaluated by both sides (traditional believers and non-Mormons.)  One challenge that we have, and you made note of it in your review, is that it looks like Taves wasn't even aware of some of the works that you thought would be relevant to the topic.  Like the Anderson essay and others.  

I would point out that those works are often not referenced because of the audiences they are written for, and that they engage in polemics that isn't compatible to the more scholarly audience that Taves is addressing.  This is precisely why the Maxwell Institute has changed directions, which apparently is a frustration to some at the Interpreter.  I believe the authors of these essays and books already know exactly what it would take to get their Mormon studies work considered by a more broad audience.  Most are educated enough to have an idea of how to write and evaluate evidence in a way that can be digested by a broad audience.  They just choose not to conform to those standards, and then like to complain when their work isn't taken seriously by that broader audience.  

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

This is the part I don't understand.  Taves is allowing for a correspondence to reality in her book, and other essays on the materialization of the plates.

To be clear I was talking about the angel. The problem she faces is that she claims Joseph made the plates to instantiate the spiritual view. It's that where I think she engages the evidence more poorly than Vogel. She raises it as a possibility but (IMO) doesn't grapple with the evidence. I find Vogel's argument far better. Effectively the problem is that if Joseph was instantiating the vision and thinks that's fine, why doesn't he or others talk about that? If it's a fine thing to do you'd expect them to be open about it.

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

You say it doesn't explain all the evidence.  Well, I would argue that no models that I've seen can explain all the evidence in such a complicated history, that's what makes this such a difficult task. 

She doesn't really even grapple with the evidence. i.e. she doesn't even try. Again I'll give Vogel credit in that he tries to explain things as best he can given his assumptions of no angels or so forth.

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Taves explicitly is putting this question that you're asking about, fraud, to the side so that other interesting elements can be explored.  The fraud discussion often distracts because it is so charged on both sides.  This is where I admire Taves approach, and other historians on the believing side have complimented her for her efforts (Harper, Bushman, and I believe a few others as well I just can't remember which other names at the moment.) 

Which is fine when starting the subject. But she ends there. That's why I said she raises a hypothesis but doesn't really argue much for it. It's the start of a discussion. Again give Vogel credit he argues and engages weaknesses he sees in his arguments or other arguments.

So I agree she puts most questions to the side and doesn't fret about the details. But that to me is a problem. Once you have the hypothesis you have to then start investigating it. I should add that I'm equal opportunity in this - I think a big problem in apologetics are people raising possibilities, publishing a short piece at FARMS, MI or now the Interpreter and then letting it drop. Lots of people are willing to come up with the idea but not willing to do the much harder job of seeing where it doesn't work well.

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

It seems to me that you are forcing things back into the more black and white thinking realm when you dismiss the scholarship that Taves is doing, and takes us backwards towards more traditional anti vs. apologist warfare.  I just don't understand this, since it seems like you are a person that typically doesn't want to engage in those more binary arguments.  

Quite the opposite. I think many things are indeterminate. So while I can admire what Vogel does I clearly disagree with him. I'm perfectly fine acknowledging the places apologetic arguments don't work such as with metal. Indeed I bring such things up all the time. And I'm not dismissing what Taves is doing. Indeed I thought I explicitly said that her larger position methodology I'm largely in agreement with. I'm not quite sure how you are seeing this as binary. 

50 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I would argue that what she's offered is one of the best explanations that can be honestly evaluated by both sides (traditional believers and non-Mormons.) 

Can be, but hasn't been. Hopefully someone else will take up that job because Taves didn't do it. Again say what you will about the strengths and weaknesses of Vogel but he did a pretty good job trying to do it. This isn't about conclusions. This is about arguments and engaging with the evidence. Thus far some hypotheses have engaged with the evidence and other ones have not.

52 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

 One challenge that we have, and you made note of it in your review, is that it looks like Taves wasn't even aware of some of the works that you thought would be relevant to the topic.  Like the Anderson essay and others.  

I would point out that those works are often not referenced because of the audiences they are written for, and that they engage in polemics that isn't compatible to the more scholarly audience that Taves is addressing.  This is precisely why the Maxwell Institute has changed directions, which apparently is a frustration to some at the Interpreter. 

While I tend to agree with you about tone and polemics, I'd just note that Taves not even being aware of such things suggests are pretty weak grasp of the sources and arguments of the topic she's engaging with. While I certainly agree a big problem with FARMS was polemic style, I also think that happened far less than some present it. Further to say polemics aren't part of scholarship is sadly itself problematic. I could rattle on examples from my own disciplines. (That's not to justify it of course - I think a more even handed neutral style ought be the goal) To simply not engage with a source due to polemics is problematic. It happens of course. John Searle refused to deal with Jacques Derrida after Limited Inc for instance. While that's a very famous scholarly work it's also extremely polemical. (I'd even say Vogel is polemical at times yet I think his work is undeniably important in the field of Mormon Studies) 

Going down a tangent what I fear is that Maxwell Institute tries for a style that brackets truth questions in preference to a focus on meanings. That is it adopts more of a literary criticism style towards religious writing. If that were all we have I think we'd be quite poor. We need people engaging more with questions of what happened. If only The Interpreter does that with regards to issues of the Book of Mormon or related texts then I think we will be poorer. Especially since I think The Interpreter does embrace that polemical style a bit too much at times.

 

[Nevo]

On ‎2‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 12:28 PM, clarkgoble said:

To me while it's a perfectly fine hypothesis, I just don't see her grappling with the data the way that say Vogel does. Agree or disagree with Vogel but he gets at the details of history. Kevin seems right that Tares just doesn't do that. So she's presenting a possibility without seeing how it lines up with the evidence. My guess is that she'll quickly be forgotten and most will move back to the Vogel like view.

On ‎2‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 2:58 PM, clarkgoble said:

She doesn't grapple with enough data nor enough of the engagement on those elements. . . . I don't think she grapples with the argument for fraud well enough. . . . Primarily when she deals with sources, it appears done in a fairly superficial way. . . . the biggest problem with her book is she lays out a hypothesis and then really doesn't do much work to argue for it.

6 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Taves has data she has to explain that she really hasn't done well with yet. While I obviously disagree with Vogel, I think he engages with the evidence better.

9 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

She doesn't really even grapple with the evidence. i.e. she doesn't even try. . . . she raises a hypothesis but doesn't really argue much for it. . . . Taves not even being aware of such things [Richard Lloyd Anderson's 1986 article, "Imitation Gospels and Christ’s Book of Mormon Ministry"] suggests are [sic] pretty weak grasp of the sources and arguments of the topic she's engaging with. . . .

As with the Book of Mormon, it appears that Taves's book is also "not ... universally considered by its critics as one of those books that must be read in order to have an opinion of it."

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, Nevo said:

As with the Book of Mormon, it appears that Taves's book is also "not ... universally considered by its critics as one of those books that must be read in order to have an opinion of it."

I read the segments dealing with the Book of Mormon. Did I not make that clear? If I'm wrong I'm more than willing to be shown wrong. I've also read her other writings.  If I'm wrong and she does grapple, as Vogel does, with all the accounts of how Joseph viewed himself I'm more than happy to discuss it. Given that the book isn't only about Joseph it seems odd to say I'm missing something for not reading those other segments about Alcohol Anonymous and so forth.. But I'm completely open to missing something crucial in those other sections if you point me in the right direction. I actually think I was quite guarded in what I said. Further again, to be very clear, I'm actually very sympathetic to her broad position.

Edited February 9, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Nevo]

11 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I read the segments dealing with the Book of Mormon. Did I not make that clear? 

No, not really. You just said that you had read "excerpts." But if you've read all of chapters 1 and 2, 11, etc., then I confess I don't understand your criticism. Taves makes extensive use of primary sources drawn from the Joseph Smith Papers project and Dan Vogel's five volumes of early Mormon documents—I daresay to an unprecedented degree for a non-Mormon scholarly publication—yet you say that she passes over "the details of history" and doesn't really make any effort to support her theories with historical data (!)

You specifically fault her for not grappling with "the argument for fraud" well enough. She addresses the argument for fraud directly: "Historian Dan Vogel views the materiality of the plates as 'the most compelling evidence' for 'conscious misdirection' on Smith’s part (2004, xi). Speculating that Smith most likely made the plates himself out of tin, Vogel characterizes the recovery of the plates as a mix of deception and fantasy, the sort of 'pious fraud' that he associates with shamans and magicians (ibid., xi–xx, 44–45, 98–99). Although I think there is too much conflicting evidence to come to a firm conclusion about what Smith really believed about the plates, I think we can expand the range of possibilities beyond the either/or choices that scholars have typically advanced" (51). Taves then advances her materialization hypothesis. Note how Taves supports her theory with "data":

Quote

Recovery of the plates may have depended on Joseph realizing that he had to actively materialize the plates “in faith,” rather than passively waiting for them to be “given” to him ready-made, as it were. The historical evidence for this is speculative and derives primarily from Lucy Smith’s description of the way Joseph told his family that the time had come to recover the plates (EMD 1:325). Arriving home one evening shortly before his last visit to the hill, Joseph reported to his anxious parents that he had just received “the severest chastisement that [he] had ever had in his life . . . [from] the angel of the Lord.” The angel told him that he had been “negligent [and] that the time ha[d] now come when the record should be brought forth.” But, he added confidently, “Father give yourself no uneasiness as to this reprimand [for] I know what course I am to pursue an[d] all will be well.” I am hypothesizing that until this point, insofar as Smith was thinking about recovering the plates, he knew that someone else had to be involved, but still did not know how he was actually going to recover them. If, as I am assuming, he did in fact materialize the plates, the “chastisement from the angel” evidently convinced him that he needed to take a more active course.

This more active course, I am hypothesizing, involved creating what was in effect a representation of the plates, perhaps using sand and later tin or lead, as detractors claimed, in the knowledge that they would become the sacred reality the Smith family believed them to be only insofar as the angel made them so. As such his representation of the plates, placed under the cloth or in the box, can be understood as representing or even cocreating the plates along a continuum of possibilities, ranging from the way a crucifix represents the crucifixion, an Eastern Orthodox icon points to the reality it depicts, the way Eucharistic wafers are thought to be transformed into the literal body of Christ, or the way that Mary “created” Jesus in her womb. We can, in other words, situate what I am construing as Smith’s actions in creating plates in relation to this range of possibilities within the Christian tradition more broadly. I am not arguing that Smith necessarily thought about what he was doing in light of these options. The logic of the insider stories nonetheless points in the direction of a theologically informed process of co-creation, and a similar logic is evident in key chapters in the Book of Mormon, which suggests that such a process would have been in keeping with the new revelation. . . .

Jared’s brother “molten[ed]” the sixteen small, clear white stones from a rock, because the Lord had commanded him to do something (construct waterproof vessels to save his people from impending floods), but had not provided all that was needed to complete the task (a means of getting light into the sealed vessels). Smith, too, believed he had been commanded to do something (bring forth the golden plates from the hill), but after numerous attempts had been unable to complete the task. In the same way that the Book of Mormon depicts Jared’s brother’s solution to the lighting problem as a demonstration of his faith, so too Smith may have understood himself as demonstrating his faith by figuring out how to recover the ancient plates, that is, by taking home made plates to “the top of the mount” (the Hill Cumorah) and imploring the Lord to transform them into the ancient golden plates he saw in his 1823 dream-vision. Although we can only speculate on the course Smith pursued to recover the plates, there is a final parallel worth noting between Smith and the brother of Jared, this one explicit: both stories begin with severe chastisement and end in revelation. (59–62)

She then relates her hypothesis to Vogel's argument for fraud:

Quote

It is the idea of “active materialization” that gives rise to charges of fraud and deception and, if not fraud and deception, then idolatry and delusion. As already noted, Vogel considers the materiality of the plates “the most compelling evidence” that Smith consciously misdirected his followers, and compares the making of the plates with the practices of adepts who commingle trickery and sincere belief. Smith’s logic, however, may have been less like an adept deceiving his subjects and more like a Catholic priest making Christ present in the Eucharistic wafer. In the first case, the adept knowingly misleads his viewers, albeit for their own good. In the second, a priest calls upon the Holy Spirit to transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.

In comparing the gold plates and the Eucharistic wafer, I am not making an argument for the reality of ancient plates (or the real presence of Christ) but raising the possibility that when materializing the plates, Smith might have been thinking more like a good Catholic than a good Calvinist. The comparison, in other words, allows us to consider the possibility that Smith viewed something that he had made (metal plates) as a vehicle through which something sacred—the ancient golden plates—could be made (really) present. In both the Catholic and Mormon case, the sacred character is visible only to those who believe. In both, the materialization unfolds in accord with a story. In the case of the Eucharist, the story of the Last Supper; in the case of the Mormon prophet, the story of the angel and the buried plates. Moreover, in both cases, believers claim that this is not just an enactment. The priest doesn’t just pretend that the wafer is the body of Christ. Standing in for Christ, he says, referring to the wafer, “this is my body.” Nor did Smith claim that the plates were a representation of ancient gold plates; he claimed that they really were. In much the way that Jesus is said to have held up human-made bread and said to his disciples “this is my body,” Joseph Smith may have made plates, placed them in a box, and said to his family: “These are the golden plates.” (62–63)

Taves doesn't rule out the possibility of fraud. She specifically says that she finds the evidence too contradictory to reach a firm conclusion either way. But she takes Vogel’s most compelling evidence for conscious deception—the materiality of the plates—and suggests another possibility, that she supports with evidence; namely, that the plates may have been "real" to Joseph based on his "understanding of the relationship between materiality and sacrality, reflected in the Book of Mormon, that allowed him to materialize believed-in plates." She also cites "evidence in the insider accounts and the Book of Mormon to suggest a shared insider understanding of the relationship between human creativity and divine manifestation" (64). It's a bold thesis, but I think Taves makes a decent case for it.

You also allege that Taves never "grapple(s), as Vogel does, with all the accounts of how Joseph viewed himself." Again, I don't know what you're talking about. What accounts are you referring to? How does Vogel "grapple" with them?

Edited February 9, 2018 by Nevo

[Kevin Christensen]

A Parable: Tone, Truth, and Polite Society

"Fire!"

"Don't take that tone with me young man.  This is neither the time nor the place.  We are trying to make an impression!  Go to your room, and I don't want to hear another word."

[clarkgoble]

9 hours ago, Nevo said:

No, not really. You just said that you had read "excerpts." But if you've read all of chapters 1 and 2, 11, etc., then I confess I don't understand your criticism.

I confess after rereading chapters 1-3 last night I don't understand your objection. So I guess we're even. LOL. BTW - most of chapters 2 & 3 are just slight revisions to her previous published papers which I had also said I'd read. (And discussed here in the past) It's not like there's much new here.

9 hours ago, Nevo said:

You specifically fault her for not grappling with "the argument for fraud" well enough.

She explicitly assumes her conclusions, then engages with the evidence just to explain how her position is plausible. It's basically exactly what apologists do with their plausibility arguments with the initial presentation. Indeed I think I'd made exactly that analogy above and even criticized apologists for doing exactly the same thing. i.e. make a paper that presents a hypothesis but then don't really engage the hypothesis deeply with the data. That doesn't mean she isn't consulting with data. Clearly she is. But how she is doing that really doesn't engage the arguments for and against her premises. I think that's why Kevin raised the paradigm framing of her paper. These are premises she assumes from the start but rarely argues for and when she does so she does superficially. 

As I said, I deeply disagree with Vogel. And I think the psychohistory parts where he assumes the Book of Mormon is autobiographical is completely projective nonsense. But I'll give him credit. He argues carefully for his suppositions. Taves simply doesn't. (In saying this I should add it's been years since I last read Vogel - I'm largely going by memory of his biography and conversations with him)

An example: "...I think there is too much conflicting evidence to come to a firm conclusion about what Smith really believed about the plates..." (51, Kindle version) OK, where does she argue for this? Or is it just thrown out as the argument with no support?  Further it seems a rather surprising statement but she has to make it for her hypothesis to work. Again on the same page: "...I will assume for the sake of argument that there were no plates, or at least no ancient golden plates, and at the same time take seriously believers’ claim that Smith was not a fraud." She's pretty explicit what's she's doing. (Which I think deserves a lot of credit) There's quite a few passages like this.

When she deals with some other argument, she's explicit about how her unargued for premises shape the interpretation. An other example. 

"Here I want to suggest another possible reason for the delay, premised on my working assumption that there were no actual ancient golden plates. Recovery of the plates may have depended on Joseph realizing that he had to actively materialize the plates “in faith,” rather than passively waiting for them to be “given” to him ready-made, as it were." (59)

She never argues for Joseph making the plates. She assumes it from the beginning. Her argument largely is assuming things are contradictory, presenting a hypothesis, then mainly focusing on how the hypothesis lines up with her larger meta-theories.

9 hours ago, Nevo said:

You specifically fault her for not grappling with "the argument for fraud" well enough. She addresses the argument for fraud directly

That's not engaging the argument at all. How can you say that she is on those pages looking at the evidence for and against and arguing the details? Further, that's the page I quoted above. She's explicit she's not arguing about it. She's only saying something like "there's a fraud theory but here's my theory." To say that's "engaging" suggests an amazingly superficial level of engagement. Mentioning isn't engaging.

9 hours ago, Nevo said:

Taves doesn't rule out the possibility of fraud. She specifically says that she finds the evidence too contradictory to reach a firm conclusion either way. But she takes Vogel’s most compelling evidence for conscious deception—the materiality of the plates—and suggests another possibility, that she supports with evidence; namely, that the plates may have been "real" to Joseph based on his "understanding of the relationship between materiality and sacrality, reflected in the Book of Mormon, that allowed him to materialize believed-in plates." She also cites "evidence in the insider accounts and the Book of Mormon to suggest a shared insider understanding of the relationship between human creativity and divine manifestation" (64). It's a bold thesis, but I think Taves makes a decent case for it.

She finds the evidence contradictory, never engages with the contradictory evidence, and presents her thesis. That's not really much of an argument. That is at best presenting a hypothesis and why it's plausible. It's not arguing for why it's the best interpretation in the least. You even present how weak the argument is here. She takes Vogel's argument for material plates, her premise that there weren't real angels or plates, and then makes up an other alternative. But the whole "there weren't weren't real angels or plates" is the unargued for premise. All she's done is presented an other interpretation. Again, it's not like she's hiding this.

"This more active course, I am hypothesizing, involved creating what was in effect a representation of the plates, perhaps using sand and later tin or lead, as detractors claimed, in the knowledge that they would become the sacred reality the Smith family believed them to be only insofar as the angel made them so." (59, emphasis mine)

She doesn't argue that this actually happened. She at best argues it might have happened. When she presents the steps for this, she doesn't present evidence that these steps happens. She is just putting out hypothesis independent of evidence that it happened. Again she's explicit about this. She's not hiding what she is doing. She argues for possibility on the basis of Jesse Smith's letter. (Jesse wasn't even around for any of this, so he doesn't present evidence for what happened) Her argument is that Jesse's attack on Smith by way of making a false idol isn't really just an attack for unorthodoxy but is evidence for Joseph making things in a faithful way like classic idol makers do. That's mighty weak argument. But most crucially, it isn't an argument for what happened. Again look at the words she uses. She draws out of a paucity of evidence a series of maybe, might, and other such words. She's not engaging with other interpretations at all. Rather she's just saying, given these premises, here's some ways to read this interpretation. 

 

Edited February 9, 2018 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

Just to be clear, let me give a good analogy for what I take Taves to be doing: the Nahom debate. Now as I recall Nahom was first put out as a plausible hypothesis for Lehi's journey back in the 90's. It got tightened up a bit by Kent Brown in a 2003 Journal of Book of Mormon Studies article. (Someone correct me if I have the facts wrong - I just did a very brief google) Now imagine it's 2018 and there are all sorts of arguments against Nahom being anything but a coincidence. If all we had was Brown's article we could legitimately say he presented a plausible hypothesis but didn't engage with the evidence. That's exactly what I'm saying Taves is doing. It's not that what Brown did is illegitime nor were Taves initial papers. But time has moved on. For Taves to make exactly the same arguments and continue to neglect the counter arguments is just extremely weak. She's giving the initial plausibility for a hypothesis but is not taking the next step.

My argument against Taves is actually nearly identical to the argument I frequently make against apologetics. That authors don't take the next step investigating data and don't sufficiently engage the arguments of the contrasting views. So we have tons of apologetic hypotheses with no followup. People are interested in the low hanging fruit but not the hard work of the next step. (This is somewhat understandable with apologetics since so much is done by unpaid volunteers in their spare time - most people simply don't have the time or resources to do the next steps. I'm not sure that's as defensible for Taves)

Edited February 9, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Nevo]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

She explicitly assumes her conclusions, then engages with the evidence just to explain how her position is plausible. . . . An example: "...I think there is too much conflicting evidence to come to a firm conclusion about what Smith really believed about the plates..." (51, Kindle version).

So your Exhibit A that Taves "explicitly assumes her conclusions" is a statement from her saying that she has not reached a firm conclusion about what Joseph Smith really believed about the plates. Got it.

Bizarrely, you criticize Taves for starting from the position that Joseph's fraudulent intent hasn't been conclusively demonstrated: "OK, where does she argue for this? Or is it just thrown out as the argument with no support?" According to you, Taves "never engages" the case for fraud: "She's explicit she's not arguing about it. She's only saying something like 'there's a fraud theory but here's my theory.'" Actually, what she's saying is, "there's a fraud theory, but here's another possible explanation of the same data." Taves addresses Vogel's "most compelling evidence" for fraud (fabricated plates) head-on.

You further criticize Taves for adopting the working assumption that there were no ancient plates delivered by an angel. You call this an "unargued premise." Indeed, it is. But why should Taves have to argue for it in a study explicitly based on a naturalistic framework? Why should spectral evidence be taken into account at all in such a study? Are you suggesting that Taves should have listed the main arguments for a miraculous provenance for the Book of Mormon and then refuted them one by one? She wasn't setting out to write a theological tract.

Edited February 9, 2018 by Nevo

[Nevo]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

But time has moved on. For Taves to make exactly the same arguments and continue to neglect the counter arguments is just extremely weak. She's giving the initial plausibility for a hypothesis but is not taking the next step.

Where can I read the published counterarguments to Taves's materialization hypothesis that you claim she ignored?

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, Nevo said:

Where can I read the published counterarguments to Taves's materialization hypothesis that you claim she ignored?

Note that wasn't my claim. I claimed she didn't engage the evidence which is more narrow.

To my analogy so far as I know there's nothing published criticizing Nahom, just a 2011 Sunstone article that discusses it as part of an overview. There's of course been lots of discussion where criticisms have been made on blogs, emails and forums. But that's not what you're asking for. That was actually why I picked the parallel. (For the record I'm skeptical of Nahom - it seems a weakly argued for conclusion in my view. Again why I picked it for the analogy.)

 

3 hours ago, Nevo said:

So your Exhibit A that Taves "explicitly assumes her conclusions" is a statement from her saying that she has not reached a firm conclusion about what Joseph Smith really believed about the plates. Got it.

I can't tell if you're agreeing with me or not. Also the conclusions was "we don't know what Joseph believed." i.e. that's the assumption. Saying something is indeterminate is as much a conclusion as saying he thought something particular. So your rejoinder seems a bit odd.

However the key passage that has her assuming conclusions is that there were no plates.

 

3 hours ago, Nevo said:

Bizarrely, you criticize Taves for starting from the position that Joseph's fraudulent intent hasn't been conclusively demonstrated: "OK, where does she argue for this? Or is it just thrown out as the argument with no support?" According to you, Taves "never engages" the case for fraud: "She's explicit she's not arguing about it. She's only saying something like 'there's a fraud theory but here's my theory.'" Actually, what she's saying is, "there's a fraud theory, but here's another possible explanation of the same data." Taves addresses Vogel's "most compelling evidence" for fraud (fabricated plates) head-on.

Making a hypothesis and making an argument for a hypothesis aren't the same thing. That's the whole point. That you conflate them suggests you also don't see the distinction. It's trivial to make up a hypothesis for data. It's much harder to test and defend it. Everything I'm saying is that "here's an other possibility" isn't engaging the evidence.

 

3 hours ago, Nevo said:

You further criticize Taves for adopting the working assumption that there were no ancient plates delivered by an angel. You call this an "unargued premise." Indeed, it is. But why should Taves have to argue for it in a study explicitly based on a naturalistic framework? Why should spectral evidence be taken into account at all in such a study? Are you suggesting that Taves should have listed the main arguments for a miraculous provenance for the Book of Mormon and then refuted them one by one? She wasn't setting out to write a theological tract.

Her hypothesis (not argument) is that Joseph first made a sand or possibly tin plates to instantiate what his vision was in order to get the plates out since he had failed before. So where's the argument for his doing that? This isn't just about a naturalistic assumption it's about what happened. Otherwise we just have a possible interpretation. (Which you seem fine with - but then you're basically agreeing Taves is doing nothing more than what weak apologetics do merely with a different set of presuppositions)

More to the point, aren't you just basically agreeing with Kevin in his critique in terms of paradigms? (Ignoring the nuances of paradigms for the moment) The is if you don't assume naturalism you get a very different set of interpretations? For the record I'm completely fine with that as I thought I made clear. My problem with Taves isn't the naturalism but why assume Joseph made the plates. Since her thesis is different from Vogel, it seems to me she has to interpret the data differently than Vogel but never thinks through the line of Vogel's reasoning with her own hypothesis. If she's just following Vogel's argument for plates, wouldn't that lead to the fraud conclusion? We can't tell though because the details aren't engaged with. Presumably she thinks Vogel's conclusions are indeterminate for the argument Vogel makes. But why? I can't tell from the text.

From your the comment of yours I quoted at the top I assume you think she doesn't need do anything until a person from a naturalistic stance critiques her. Is that about right? If so then I just fundamentally disagree. And again I'm completely consistent on this since I attack apologetics for exactly this same reasons regardless if the theory has been attacked by critics.

Edited February 9, 2018 by clarkgoble

[hope_for_things]

44 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Her hypothesis (not argument) is that Joseph first made a sand or possibly tin plates to instantiate what his vision was in order to get the plates out since he had failed before. So where's the argument for his doing that? This isn't just about a naturalistic assumption it's about what happened. Otherwise we just have a possible interpretation. (Which you seem fine with - but then you're basically agreeing Taves is doing nothing more than what weak apologetics do merely with a different set of presuppositions)

Clark,

I'm trying to understand your criticism better and reading your comments back to Nevo.  I'm wondering if we could take a specific subject of Taves hypothesis on the plates, and see if this fits what you are saying.  You say that Taves doesn't address the evidence sufficiently.  With respect to the plates topic, what evidence is she ignoring that might invalidate her hypothesis that the plates weren't of ancient origins? 

This is a different argument than is traditionally argued by both sides as most of the apologetic and skeptic arguments seem to focus on whether or not the BoM is historical or not.  And when it comes to the plates many arguments seem more focused on whether the witnesses actually saw plates literally or saw something in vision.  But Taves argument of something literal that was manufactured in some way, allows for both a literal view of the object as well as a visionary view.  

So what evidence is there to argue that the plates were ancient that Taves didn't address? 

[clarkgoble]

59 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I'm wondering if we could take a specific subject of Taves hypothesis on the plates, and see if this fits what you are saying.  You say that Taves doesn't address the evidence sufficiently.  With respect to the plates topic, what evidence is she ignoring that might invalidate her hypothesis that the plates weren't of ancient origins? 

To be clear there are two issues. The first, from a believer's perspective, is whether the plates were real. To me though the big issue isn't that but rather how to distinguish her view of faithful construction from Vogel's view of fraudulent construction. It's the latter I am most interested in.

For the argument that Joseph didn't make the plates, the typical argument is that his family believed they were real, people saw bits of the plates (thus the reason Vogel argues for real plates), and Joseph by all accounts seems to believe they were real. Taves says that's indeterminate and we don't know what Joseph thought but that only works if you presuppose there weren't real plates. If you leave that open rather than presupposed then the logic changes.

Again, to be clear I have zero problem with Taves or Vogel simply starting with the premise there's no such thing as Nephites, real plates, seer stones, or angels and constructing theories that best account for the data given those premises. So long as we're clear that's what's going on. i.e. the arguments become irrelevant to debates with believers since they assume their conclusions. To me the issue is only how they argue for their positions in terms of the data. (As I said I have some problems with Vogel's inferring the writing process as autobiographical, but that's a somewhat different issue)

 

[Nevo]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

For the argument that Joseph didn't make the plates, the typical argument is that his family believed they were real, people saw bits of the plates (thus the reason Vogel argues for real plates), and Joseph by all accounts seems to believe they were real.

And, to be clear, Taves accounts for all of those arguments in her analysis.

People seeing bits of the plates:

Quote

In recently discovered minutes of a court case where Smith was tried for breaching the peace on 30 June 1830, Josiah Stowell said that he had seen “a corner of it [the golden bible]; it resembled a stone of a greenish caste [sic]; should judge it to have been about one foot square and six inches thick; he [Smith] would not let it be seen by any one; the Lord had commanded him not; it was unknown to Smith, that witness saw a corner of the Bible, so called by Smith; [Smith] told the witness the leaves were of gold, there were written characters on the leaves” (New England Christian Herald, 7 November 1832 [facsimile ed., Signature Books]). A greenish cast would suggest copper rather than lead or gold, and pages could be made out of copper more easily than lead. (60n3)

Joseph's family believing the plates were real:

Quote

. . . a small group who believed in the power of revelatory dream-visions, in ancient inhabitants of the Americas, and in golden records buried in a hillside came to believe that a material object covered by a cloth or hidden in a box were the ancient plates revealed to Joseph Smith by the ancient Nephite, Moroni. Highlighting the crucial role played by his family, who shared Smith’s belief in ancient Nephites, the angel Moroni, and ancient buried plates long before Smith claimed to recover them, suggests a broader view that embeds the recovery of the plates in a process of materialization that stretched (at least) from Smith’s dream-vision in 1823 to the publication of the Book of Mormon in 1830. (63)

Joseph believing the plates were real:

Quote

The response of Smith’s immediate family to his dream-vision validated God as the source of the dream-vision and the personage as real; their eager interest in accounts of Smith’s interactions with the personage affirmed his claim to have seen both the plates and the personage. Smith’s inability to recover the plates led, I hypothesized, to the “chastisement by the angel” and his realization that he could make plates holding on—in faith—to the idea that the Lord could and would transform the homemade plates into ancient plates/records. This insight allowed him to reframe the plates as an object envisioned and made real through faith. The willingness of his family members to obey the command not to look at the plates directly affirmed the reality of the ancient plates and framed the concealed object that Smith presented to them as the recovered record of ancient inhabitants of the Americas. (226)

Quote

Smith envisioned “treasure guardians” that kept him from recovering visualized treasures in his treasure-seeking days, interacted with an otherworldly personage in his dream-visions of 1823, and with angels and deities in his visionary experiences. He recounted narratives of these encounters to his family and practiced his storytelling skills on his more skeptical neighbors as well. Over time, he internalized these visualized others as he learned to recognize the Lord speaking in his mind in response to queries and the Holy Spirit putting a flow of words into his heart when he translated. He used his seer stone to make the transition from external to internalized “others,” eventually accessing revelation without the aid of an object. (264)

Quote

If we return to the trial in Lyons, New York, as discussed in chapter 1, the witnesses who testified against Smith claimed that he had disclosed to them personally that the box did not in fact contain ancient golden plates (i.e., that he was lying to them about its contents) and either told them directly or led them to believe that his aim was to deceive people in order to get their money. Martin Harris testified to his faith that there were ancient plates in the box, though he had never been allowed to see them, and that Smith was not motivated by financial gain. In chapter 2, I pointed out that there were other possibilities. It’s possible that Smith created “homemade” plates that he believed the Lord could transform into “ancient golden plates,” just as a Catholic priest initiates the Holy Spirit’s transformation of a wafer into the body of Christ or the Book of Mormon recounts that the brother of Jared prepared stones that the Lord transformed into spheres of light.

In these alternative scenarios, the transformation is premised on “exceeding faith.” If Smith created plates that looked like what he had seen in his visionary experiences (and believed, with his family’s support, to be real), placed the homemade plates in a box believing (also in faith) that the Lord could transform them into ancient golden plates, and did all this for reasons that were high-minded (e.g., bringing forth new revelation) rather than nefarious (e.g., financial gain), then are we still talking about deception? If Smith genuinely believed that he was doing what the Lord was asking him to do (as Martin Harris believed), then we cannot call him deceptive. (266–267)

 

Edited February 10, 2018 by Nevo

[hope_for_things]

On 2/9/2018 at 5:13 PM, clarkgoble said:

To be clear there are two issues. The first, from a believer's perspective, is whether the plates were real. To me though the big issue isn't that but rather how to distinguish her view of faithful construction from Vogel's view of fraudulent construction. It's the latter I am most interested in.

Taves is arguing that the plates aren't ancient, but that they are real in the sense that they are tangible, and in the sense that Joseph and his followers viewed them as real (see the quotes that Nevo posted.)

On 2/9/2018 at 5:13 PM, clarkgoble said:

For the argument that Joseph didn't make the plates, the typical argument is that his family believed they were real, people saw bits of the plates (thus the reason Vogel argues for real plates), and Joseph by all accounts seems to believe they were real. Taves says that's indeterminate and we don't know what Joseph thought but that only works if you presuppose there weren't real plates. If you leave that open rather than presupposed then the logic changes.

No, its not that we have to presuppose the plates weren't real.   I don't think Taves ever makes this claim in her book to my recollection.   She is making an argument for a possible development of early Mormonism that assumes the plates are real, but that they aren't ancient.  You shouldn't conflate these two positions of ancient and real, as Taves construction doesn't make this conflation, and there is an important distinction between the two.