Writing about the Book of Mormon as an environmentalist

[tagriffy]

As many of you know, I am a Book of Mormon environmentalist. This is to say that I believe the evidence most supports a view that the Prophet Joseph Smith is the human author of the Book of Mormon. This can be a pretty broad term, so let's derive three broad (and simplistic) categories of environmentalists. The first is the critic. Critics engage the Book of Mormon as a 19th century fraud, using the evidence to condemn Joseph. The second is what we might call a religious or Mormon studies approach. This approach will tend to engage the Book of Mormon in terms of how it fits within the Mormon tradition; if the scholar explicitly assert's Joseph's authorship, they'll tend to bracket the issue of what it says about him. The third we might call the religious environmentalist. They might incorporate the findings of critics and religious studies scholars, but they still engage the Book of Mormon as scripture.

I belong to the third category. I came back to this forum to ask about a specific article I had come across. Meanwhile, I have been reading other articles about the Book of Mormon (different approaches). This has sparked a renewed interest in writing about the Book of Mormon as a religious environmentalist, continuing work I started with my "Environmental Theory" essay. I am starting to write a response to the article I mentioned as a kind of test case to where I can go with interpreting the Book of Mormon as 19th century scripture. Reading Don Bradley's preview excerpt of The Lost 116 Pages has sparked some ideas about how the Small Plates fit into the present Book of Mormon that I would like to explore.

One thing that weighs on me is Todd Compton's "Christian Scholarship and the Book of Mormon." It is difficult to explain the profound effect Compton's article has on me since I read it more than twenty years ago. As I stated it in "Environmental Theory":

Quote

Environmentalists have a special onus to produce what Todd Compton calls “holistically positive treatment[s] of the environmental Book of Mormon.” The environmentalist position is traditionally a position taken by anti-Mormons and used to attack Mormonism. This is why we need to show our “purpose and intent is basically positive.” Religious environmentalists need to display “their reverence and affection for the book.” All environmentalists who do not wish to be classed as anti-Mormons should “address the constructive side of their task.”

Can I show my reverence and affection for the book in my writing? I can certainly try, but whether I succeed is a subjective judgment that can only be determined by the reader. Regardless, I think there are things I can do about addressing the "destructive" side of my work. The "destructive" side refers to the fact that if I'm going to write about Joseph as the author, I have to argue the case that he is indeed the author. I don't think I have to prove it, and I'm not so arrogant as to believe I can anyway. I think I only need to establish a good enough case, a la "Environmental Theory," to get on with the work of analyzing the Book of Mormon from that perspective.

For better or worse, the "destructive" side will sometimes mean directly engaging historicist arguments. In "Environmental Theory," I took an approach meant to emphasize fairness. I asked myself what I needed to engage and what I could sidestep. I found I could sidestep a lot more (at least in the summary form of an essay) than I thought. I simply put forth a given argument and then cited opposing views without comment. Further, I made sure those citations were to the best opposing arguments I could find at the time.  Of course, where I did engage, the citations allow the reader to gauge the fairness and strength of the argument I made. This is a strategy I plan on maintaining.

What I find harder, and could use suggestions for, is the "constructive" side. I realize that no matter what I do, no matter how reverently I write, the simple fact that I would be writing from an environmentalist perspective is going to grate against the historicist approach. So for those of you who can take such work as it is (i.e., not criticize it simply because of the environmentalist perspective), what do you recommend?

[CV75]

1 hour ago, tagriffy said:

As many of you know, I am a Book of Mormon environmentalist. This is to say that I believe the evidence most supports a view that the Prophet Joseph Smith is the human author of the Book of Mormon. This can be a pretty broad term, so let's derive three broad (and simplistic) categories of environmentalists. The first is the critic. Critics engage the Book of Mormon as a 19th century fraud, using the evidence to condemn Joseph. The second is what we might call a religious or Mormon studies approach. This approach will tend to engage the Book of Mormon in terms of how it fits within the Mormon tradition; if the scholar explicitly assert's Joseph's authorship, they'll tend to bracket the issue of what it says about him. The third we might call the religious environmentalist. They might incorporate the findings of critics and religious studies scholars, but they still engage the Book of Mormon as scripture.

I belong to the third category. I came back to this forum to ask about a specific article I had come across. Meanwhile, I have been reading other articles about the Book of Mormon (different approaches). This has sparked a renewed interest in writing about the Book of Mormon as a religious environmentalist, continuing work I started with my "Environmental Theory" essay. I am starting to write a response to the article I mentioned as a kind of test case to where I can go with interpreting the Book of Mormon as 19th century scripture. Reading Don Bradley's preview excerpt of The Lost 116 Pages has sparked some ideas about how the Small Plates fit into the present Book of Mormon that I would like to explore.

One thing that weighs on me is Todd Compton's "Christian Scholarship and the Book of Mormon." It is difficult to explain the profound effect Compton's article has on me since I read it more than twenty years ago. As I stated it in "Environmental Theory":

Can I show my reverence and affection for the book in my writing? I can certainly try, but whether I succeed is a subjective judgment that can only be determined by the reader. Regardless, I think there are things I can do about addressing the "destructive" side of my work. The "destructive" side refers to the fact that if I'm going to write about Joseph as the author, I have to argue the case that he is indeed the author. I don't think I have to prove it, and I'm not so arrogant as to believe I can anyway. I think I only need to establish a good enough case, a la "Environmental Theory," to get on with the work of analyzing the Book of Mormon from that perspective.

For better or worse, the "destructive" side will sometimes mean directly engaging historicist arguments. In "Environmental Theory," I took an approach meant to emphasize fairness. I asked myself what I needed to engage and what I could sidestep. I found I could sidestep a lot more (at least in the summary form of an essay) than I thought. I simply put forth a given argument and then cited opposing views without comment. Further, I made sure those citations were to the best opposing arguments I could find at the time.  Of course, where I did engage, the citations allow the reader to gauge the fairness and strength of the argument I made. This is a strategy I plan on maintaining.

What I find harder, and could use suggestions for, is the "constructive" side. I realize that no matter what I do, no matter how reverently I write, the simple fact that I would be writing from an environmentalist perspective is going to grate against the historicist approach. So for those of you who can take such work as it is (i.e., not criticize it simply because of the environmentalist perspective), what do you recommend?

I think it would depend on the practical purpose of the environmentalist model you are trying to articulate. Is it a scientific, scholarly or philosophical method, or a means of justifying conclusions and beliefs already held?

...and not to sidetrack, but a fourth category might be approaches to use recycled paper for printing the Book of Mormon  j/k...

[CV75]

Maybe take a tack like this: "Jospeh Smith himself wrote the Book of Mormon. Here are a list of unique perspectives that appeal to secular and religious dispositions:"

Then provide a well-documented analysis similar to what Timothy Snyder did for showing how the application of certain principles advanced the human condition in his book, "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century"

[tagriffy]

12 hours ago, CV75 said:

I think it would depend on the practical purpose of the environmentalist model you are trying to articulate. Is it a scientific, scholarly or philosophical method, or a means of justifying conclusions and beliefs already held?

 

12 hours ago, CV75 said:

Maybe take a tack like this: "Jospeh Smith himself wrote the Book of Mormon. Here are a list of unique perspectives that appeal to secular and religious dispositions:"

Then provide a well-documented analysis similar to what Timothy Snyder did for showing how the application of certain principles advanced the human condition in his book, "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century"

The practical purpose is scholarly interpretation. A tack I have in mind would go something along these lines.

Joseph Smith himself wrote the Book of Mormon. As the author, he made a number of choices. He chose to use the found manuscript trope. He chose to model the Book of Mormon after the Bible, not only overall, but in certain stories contained within. He also chose to quote the Bible copiously, besides making it bristle with allusions. He chose to incorporate anti-Masonic rhetoric in it. He chose to include elements of the Mound Builder myth and the idea that Native Americans are descended from Israel. He chose to incorporate revivalist language in the book. He chose to kill off Mormon (talk about subverting expectations)! Why did he decide to do these things?

In a sense, the Book of Mormon itself answers that question. It is supposed to have a "familiar spirit" (2 Ne. 26:16). But I think we can say more than that. He chose to do this to communicate messages. That means, for example, what he did and didn't use of the Mound Builder myth is somehow important to that message. Let's see if we can discover what those messages are. We want to do this because in those messages we find Joseph Smith, the Prophet.

Edited October 25, 2022 by tagriffy
clarification

[CV75]

11 hours ago, tagriffy said:

 

The practical purpose is scholarly interpretation. A tack I have in mind would go something along these lines.

Joseph Smith himself wrote the Book of Mormon. As the author, he made a number of choices. He chose to use the found manuscript trope. He chose to model the Book of Mormon after the Bible, not only overall, but in certain stories contained within. He also chose to quote the Bible copiously, besides making it bristle with allusions. He chose to incorporate anti-Masonic rhetoric in it. He chose to elements of the Mound Builder myth and the idea that Native Americans are descended from Israel. He chose to incorporate revivalist language in the book. He chose to kill off Mormon (talk about subverting expectations)! Why did he decide to do these things?

In a sense, the Book of Mormon itself answers that question. It is supposed to have a "familiar spirit" (2 Ne. 26:16). But I think we can say more than that. He chose to do this to communicate messages. That means, for example, what he did and didn't use of the Mound Builder myth is somehow important to that message. Let's see if we can discover what those messages are. We want to do this because in those messages we find Joseph Smith, the Prophet.

I can see how this approach differs from the historicist, which derives interpretations of what is going on in the subject’s mind from source documentation. What does “Joseph Smith, the Prophet” mean in terms of scholarly interpretation? Is there a devotional aspect to your final product? Is there a place for applying the messages you refer to in the same way social and political scientists do in their writings?

[Benjamin McGuire]

Ok, I have an awful lot of comments. I am just going to touch the tip of the iceberg here. If you want to further discuss, we can probably take this to e-mail. I am not sure it would be all that interesting to many of the forum inhabitants.

The term Environmental has got to go. When I first read it, my immediate inclination was to be prepared for a study dealing with the confluence of ecocriticism and theology. This is where we usually see titles like this - and for an example, you can look at the writings of BYU Professor George Handley.

The term that you are really looking for is "History of Religions" - which I will admit, is not itself terribly descriptive. But, it is the technical term that is widely recognized. From that link:

Quote

The History of Religions area approaches religion as an exclusively human phenomenon, via the methods of the social sciences and the humanities. It is concerned to theorize at a high level of generalization, informed by broadly comparative and empirical research, and to carry out high level empirical research informed by theoretical reflection.

I wouldn't borrow Todd Compton's terminology. Your introduction says this:

Quote

Book of Mormon studies have evolved in two different directions. The historicist approach sees the work as ancient, even if addressed to a modern audience. The environmentalist approach sees the work as modern. Over the years, these distinct approaches have evolved as both sides placed the Book of Mormon in their perceived contexts. The basic approaches are irreconcilable. Occasionally, the opposing sides can learn something from the other, but their starting positions force them to look in different places for evidence. Their ideas about what constitutes evidence clash, so borrowing from each other rarely happens. Usually, both sides vigorously argue for the validity of their approach and the inferiority of the other.

One of the things that has not (at least until relatively recently) been popular within the discussion of Mormonism is the ideas brought to the discussion by the field of comparative religion (religious studies in a more academic sense). While there may be arguments that can be made for and against this approach, it does tend to provide a useful framework for discussion including a language set - and this terminology has become the standard in these discussions (and has been for quite some time now). Consider this quote I use from time-to-time from Larry Hurtado's Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity:

Quote

Before we proceed further towards analyzing Christ-devotion as a historical phenomenon, however, it may be helpful to note a relevant (and in my view misguided) assumption shared by both the pre/anticritical and the history-of-religion approaches. It is worth identifying because it continues to be influential in both popular and scholarly circles. This is the notion that the validity of a religious belief or practice is called into question if it can be shown to be a truly historical phenomenon, and the product of historical factors and forces that we can attempt to identify and analyze. … Wishing to preserve the religious and theological validity of traditional christological claims, the anticritical view attempted to deny or minimize as far as possible the historically conditioned nature of early Christ-devotion. On the other hand, the history-of-religion scholars were convinced that their demonstration of the historically conditioned nature of early Christ-devotion proved that it was no longer to be treated as theologically valid or binding for modern Christians. In both views the assumption is the same: if something can be shown to have arisen through a historical process, then it cannot be divine "revelation" or have continuing theological validity.

Hurtado describes (as you do) a dichotomy between two groups over religious origin narratives. He points to this shared assumption. I think that I first used this notion in one of my published works in 2013, in the first part of my Parallels piece. And my response to this idea is there. If I were to summarize my response it is this - whether or not the Book of Mormon is a text produced through revelation or is a text authored without divine assistance in a particular place and time, it is still something that occurs within the historical record. The historicist position isn't one of belief or disbelief, it is an attempt to understand the historical context of the production of the Book of Mormon. Much of my published body of material attempts to take this sort of historicist position (the degree to which I succeed varies, I think). In this sense, I think that in the past twenty years or so, the study of the Book of Mormon has changed a great deal from this dichotomy (with its attendant problems), to a broader range of approaches. Believers now engage a wide range of views about the text, and there is a growing space created by the distinction between the Book of Mormon as a modern text and its alleged ancient source. This shift is not without some conflict (these approaches are not always broadly accepted or adopted - I remember one comment to something that I wrote as an invited guest blogger on Patheos: Internet Mormon sneers at chapel Mormonism). And we can't forget the mess created by the shift at the Maxwell Institute (or the animus that contributed to the mess there). But in any case (and to keep this short), I think that the situation is not how you describe it - as a dichotomy any more. I think that there is a much broader recognition of data (even if interpreted differently by different groups). Finally, I think that if you want to write an essay about the historical environment and the place of the Book of Mormon in that environment, you do not want to be on one side or the other in your discussion (you can always move in a direction in your conclusions).

To this end, I would recommend a title change: A History of Religions Approach to the Interpretation of the Book of Mormon.

You may note that in my essay on Parallels, I wrote this (page 22):

Quote

A key aim of this essay is to point out (in agreement with Larry Hurtado) that this assumption is wrong. There is no question that Mormonism arises from a historical setting (one that can be studied). Its beginnings involved real people with real histories—all of whom started out as something other than a follower of the movement that would eventually be called Mormonism. But, in contrast to the idea that “most of Mormonism’s splendid elements and combinations” were there, in Joseph’s natural environment—and perhaps by extension that Mormonism’s language and thought wasn’t just produced from that environment, but that its existence was inevitable (and so it is utterly ordinary—and to some extent even irrelevant), my position mirrors that of Hurtado’s—early Mormonism was “an utterly remarkable phenomenon” at the same time that it was “also the result of a complex of historical forces and factors.” In other words, the historical phenomenon certainly cannot be seen as unique in any sense of the word, and should not be seen as unique. But, ontologically, Mormonism presents us with something that is not ordinary, and is not commonplace. Grunder, on the other hand, has opted for a “simplistic historical analyses in the interest of opposing traditional [Mormon] beliefs.”

My views continue to evolve (this was ten years ago). The study of Mormonism is quite fascinating from a history of religions perspective - and one of the reasons for this is the Book of Mormon. Why? Whether we believe that the text is a translation of an ancient text or not, it provides us with the introduction of a major work of scripture in a religious movement with enough documentation that we can study in in real-time so to speak. Much of what Hurtado deals with in Early Christianity comes from the fragmentary documentary remains of that early Christian movement (we are talking about the shift in the way that early Christians understood Jesus as Divine in the context of that early religion). By comparison, we have a wealth of data about early Mormonism - its changing understanding of itself, its shift from movement to religion, and the nearly two centuries of development since its origins. Even the way that the Book of Mormon was read and understood has undergone dramatic changes in those two centuries - and this can be documented.

To get back to your essay, I am not sure that forming a "positive" theory saves you from these problems of bad assumptions that are sometimes presented within the History of Religions approach. Whatever else you want to add to it, there are some pretty widely recognized issues that should be raised and dealt with in your essay. Aside from the Smith book (Drudgery Divine), I think that there is one more text which I have found essential in dealing with some of these issues: Comparing Religions: Possibilities and Perils? edited by Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos, Brian C. Wilson, and James Constantine Hanges (Brill, 2006).

One final thought. I have a large collection of unfinished essays (don't we all). One of them came out of some ideas that I head in reading reviews of Alex Beam's American Crucifixion. My material (which is only about 4 pages long), deals with what I labeled "The Quest for the Historical Joseph Smith". I quoted a 2005 Mark Thomas review of two biographies of Joseph Smith (Bushman's and Vogel's):

Quote

Even as I write this, however, I hold it to be a scandal of Mormon scholarship and an embarrassment for historians that these two biographies describe what appears to be the life of two entirely different people.

This was interesting to me because at the time, I was working my way through Luke Johnson's essay: "The Humanity of Jesus: What's at Stake in the Quest for the Historical Jesus" (in Johnson's book Contested Issues in Christian Origins and the New Testament [Brill, 2013]). Johson wrote this:

Quote

The historical study of Jesus began due to Enlightenment in Europe. At the time, two related convictions became popular among those considering themselves to live in an age of reason. The first was that for religion to be true it had to be reasonable; the second was that history was the most reasonable measure of truth. The claims of Christians about Jesus must therefore also meet those standards. Not surprisingly, the quest for Jesus was driven most by those deeply dissatisfied with a Chrisianity that grounded its supernaturalism and sacramentalism in the figure of Jesus, and who therefore sought in a purely rational Jesus the basis for a Christianity purged of its superstitious elements.

And a bit later, Johnson writes this:

Quote

This brings us to the question why so many scholars using the same methods on the same materials have ended with such wildly divergent portraits of Jesus. To list only a few that have emerged: Jesus as romantic visionary (Renan), as eschatological prophet (Schweitzer, Wright), as wicked priest from Qumran (Thiering), as husband of Mary Magdalen (Spong), as revolutionary zealot (S.F.G. Brandon), as agrarian reformer (Yoder), as revitalization movement founder and charismatic (Borg), as gay magician (Smith), as cynic sage (Downing), as peasant thaumaturge (Crossan), as peasant poet (Bailey), and as guru of oceanic bliss (Mitchell). The common element seems still to be the ideal self-image of the researcher. It is this tendency that led T.W. Manson to note sardonically, “By their lives of Jesus ye shall know them.”

And much later:

Quote

It is surely not entirely a coincidence that the liberally inclined academics of the late twentieth century have found a Jesus who is not embarrassingly eschatological, not especially Jewish, not offensively religious, a canny crafter of countercultural aphorisms who is multicultural, egalitarian, an advocate of open commensality, and a reformer who is against the exclusive politics of holiness and for the inclusive politics of compassion. And best of all, he is all this as a charismatic peasant whose wisdom is not spoiled by literacy. What more perfect mirror of late-twentieth-century academic social values and professional self-despising could be imaged? Nor is it surprising that at the opposite end of the cultural and religious spectrum, more evangelically oriented Christians are finding a Jesus who is precisely eschatological, devoted to purity and holiness, and a champion of the politics of restoration within Judaism. Clearly, scholars’ pre-understanding of Jesus deeply affects their way of assessing the data.

My paper is built around the various ways in which these same issues occur with Joseph Smith - despite the huge amount of data that is available for the one and not the other. One obvious conclusion is that it isn't a data driven question. And I think here there are issues that you probably want to discuss (and in way differently than your current approach takes) - what are the presuppositions you have about Joseph Smith, and how those presuppositions impact your understanding of the text. You suggest:

Quote

I emphasize this essay is about the Book of Mormon, not Joseph Smith. If Smith wrote the text, consideration of his style and intent is important to interpreting the work. Nevertheless, the text itself holds the central place in my argument. Therefore, consideration of the prophet/fraud dichotomy is beyond the scope of this essay.

While it is good that you want to avoid the obvious dichotomy, I don't think that you can avoid a discussion about an issue that already impacts the interpretation of the text. There are enough critiques of this sort of thing to find something that you can work with, I think.

At any rate, this is already too long of a response. And we are only just discussing the underpinnings of an approach.

[tagriffy]

26 minutes ago, CV75 said:

I can see how this approach differs from the historicist, which derives interpretations of what is going on in the subject’s mind from source documentation. What does “Joseph Smith, the Prophet” mean in terms of scholarly interpretation? Is there a devotional aspect to your final product? Is there a place for applying the messages you refer to in the same way social and political scientists do in their writings?

I haven't completely figured that out yet. I am certain there is a place for applying those messages. The Book of Mormon does have a strong social justice message, after all. Joseph was concerned about the United States' place in the world and its place in sacred history. He knew that democracy fundamentally changes things about a people's relationship with God. He had radical things to say about human agency and the nature of God.

Consider a statement like this: "[I]f not so, the works of justice would be destroyed, and God would cease to be God" (Alma 42:22). Do you realize just a radical a statement that is? What? God himself has rules that he must follow? I'm surprised this statement alone didn't get Joseph killed!

[CV75]

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Ok, I have an awful lot of comments. I am just going to touch the tip of the iceberg here. If you want to further discuss, we can probably take this to e-mail. I am not sure it would be all that interesting to many of the forum inhabitants.

The term Environmental has got to go. When I first read it, my immediate inclination was to be prepared for a study dealing with the confluence of ecocriticism and theology. This is where we usually see titles like this - and for an example, you can look at the writings of BYU Professor George Handley.

The term that you are really looking for is "History of Religions" - which I will admit, is not itself terribly descriptive. But, it is the technical term that is widely recognized. From that link:

I wouldn't borrow Todd Compton's terminology. Your introduction says this:

One of the things that has not (at least until relatively recently) been popular within the discussion of Mormonism is the ideas brought to the discussion by the field of comparative religion (religious studies in a more academic sense). While there may be arguments that can be made for and against this approach, it does tend to provide a useful framework for discussion including a language set - and this terminology has become the standard in these discussions (and has been for quite some time now). Consider this quote I use from time-to-time from Larry Hurtado's Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity:

Hurtado describes (as you do) a dichotomy between two groups over religious origin narratives. He points to this shared assumption. I think that I first used this notion in one of my published works in 2013, in the first part of my Parallels piece. And my response to this idea is there. If I were to summarize my response it is this - whether or not the Book of Mormon is a text produced through revelation or is a text authored without divine assistance in a particular place and time, it is still something that occurs within the historical record. The historicist position isn't one of belief or disbelief, it is an attempt to understand the historical context of the production of the Book of Mormon. Much of my published body of material attempts to take this sort of historicist position (the degree to which I succeed varies, I think). In this sense, I think that in the past twenty years or so, the study of the Book of Mormon has changed a great deal from this dichotomy (with its attendant problems), to a broader range of approaches. Believers now engage a wide range of views about the text, and there is a growing space created by the distinction between the Book of Mormon as a modern text and its alleged ancient source. This shift is not without some conflict (these approaches are not always broadly accepted or adopted - I remember one comment to something that I wrote as an invited guest blogger on Patheos: Internet Mormon sneers at chapel Mormonism). And we can't forget the mess created by the shift at the Maxwell Institute (or the animus that contributed to the mess there). But in any case (and to keep this short), I think that the situation is not how you describe it - as a dichotomy any more. I think that there is a much broader recognition of data (even if interpreted differently by different groups). Finally, I think that if you want to write an essay about the historical environment and the place of the Book of Mormon in that environment, you do not want to be on one side or the other in your discussion (you can always move in a direction in your conclusions).

To this end, I would recommend a title change: A History of Religions Approach to the Interpretation of the Book of Mormon.

You may note that in my essay on Parallels, I wrote this (page 22):

My views continue to evolve (this was ten years ago). The study of Mormonism is quite fascinating from a history of religions perspective - and one of the reasons for this is the Book of Mormon. Why? Whether we believe that the text is a translation of an ancient text or not, it provides us with the introduction of a major work of scripture in a religious movement with enough documentation that we can study in in real-time so to speak. Much of what Hurtado deals with in Early Christianity comes from the fragmentary documentary remains of that early Christian movement (we are talking about the shift in the way that early Christians understood Jesus as Divine in the context of that early religion). By comparison, we have a wealth of data about early Mormonism - its changing understanding of itself, its shift from movement to religion, and the nearly two centuries of development since its origins. Even the way that the Book of Mormon was read and understood has undergone dramatic changes in those two centuries - and this can be documented.

To get back to your essay, I am not sure that forming a "positive" theory saves you from these problems of bad assumptions that are sometimes presented within the History of Religions approach. Whatever else you want to add to it, there are some pretty widely recognized issues that should be raised and dealt with in your essay. Aside from the Smith book (Drudgery Divine), I think that there is one more text which I have found essential in dealing with some of these issues: Comparing Religions: Possibilities and Perils? edited by Thomas Athanasius Idinopulos, Brian C. Wilson, and James Constantine Hanges (Brill, 2006).

One final thought. I have a large collection of unfinished essays (don't we all). One of them came out of some ideas that I head in reading reviews of Alex Beam's American Crucifixion. My material (which is only about 4 pages long), deals with what I labeled "The Quest for the Historical Joseph Smith". I quoted a 2005 Mark Thomas review of two biographies of Joseph Smith (Bushman's and Vogel's):

This was interesting to me because at the time, I was working my way through Luke Johnson's essay: "The Humanity of Jesus: What's at Stake in the Quest for the Historical Jesus" (in Johnson's book Contested Issues in Christian Origins and the New Testament [Brill, 2013]). Johson wrote this:

And a bit later, Johnson writes this:

And much later:

My paper is built around the various ways in which these same issues occur with Joseph Smith - despite the huge amount of data that is available for the one and not the other. One obvious conclusion is that it isn't a data driven question. And I think here there are issues that you probably want to discuss (and in way differently than your current approach takes) - what are the presuppositions you have about Joseph Smith, and how those presuppositions impact your understanding of the text. You suggest:

While it is good that you want to avoid the obvious dichotomy, I don't think that you can avoid a discussion about an issue that already impacts the interpretation of the text. There are enough critiques of this sort of thing to find something that you can work with, I think.

At any rate, this is already too long of a response. And we are only just discussing the underpinnings of an approach.

Calling @mfbukowski on the idea of viewing the Restoration as having arisen through an historical, human phenomenon, which accommodates the belief that God was part of the process, rendering the product both revealed (albeit in unexpected ways) and valid (because it is “sweet” and “works”). It is also interesting to me that historians exercise bias to “create” such a variety of “worlds” concerning Jospeh Smith, the Book of Mormon, etc. even as they manage and even alter their bias to come to professional consensus vs. disciplinary embarrassment.

[smac97]

On 10/24/2022 at 8:08 PM, tagriffy said:

The practical purpose is scholarly interpretation. A tack I have in mind would go something along these lines.

Joseph Smith himself wrote the Book of Mormon. As the author, he made a number of choices. He chose to use the found manuscript trope. He chose to model the Book of Mormon after the Bible, not only overall, but in certain stories contained within. He also chose to quote the Bible copiously, besides making it bristle with allusions. He chose to incorporate anti-Masonic rhetoric in it. He chose to include elements of the Mound Builder myth and the idea that Native Americans are descended from Israel. He chose to incorporate revivalist language in the book. He chose to kill off Mormon (talk about subverting expectations)! Why did he decide to do these things?

In a sense, the Book of Mormon itself answers that question. It is supposed to have a "familiar spirit" (2 Ne. 26:16). But I think we can say more than that. He chose to do this to communicate messages. That means, for example, what he did and didn't use of the Mound Builder myth is somehow important to that message. Let's see if we can discover what those messages are. We want to do this because in those messages we find Joseph Smith, the Prophet.

A few thoughts:

1. Your essay states that "{c}learly stating our {environmentalist} position will also help guide our studies."  That being the case, it could help to to address, somewhere on the front end of things, how you reconcile your environmentalist approach with what seems to be its patent incompatibility with the narrative in JS-H and the statements of the Witnesses.  From the outside looking in, your approach seems wholly alternative and incompatible with these sources.  (Unless, of course, your intended audience is not the Latter-day Saints, in which case this point is irrelevant.)

2. Your essay further references Kevin Christensen's comments about the paradigmatic "historicist" v. "anti-Mormon environmentalist" debate.  It appears you are advocating for the latter by proposing "{s}ystematically synthesizing" the environmentalist approach by pointing to "a network of interconnected assumptions, hypotheses, and information," with "no single argument {being} essential," and also by avoiding "anti-Mormon" acrimony by eschewing "{t}it-for-tat argumentation" and "avoid{ing} debating historicist positions as much as possible."  You also propose that you advance your position by taking the environmentalist narrative as a given, leaving "fundamentals" (such as who actually wrote the text) to be debated by "apologists."  You also state that you can justifiably "ignore" opposing viewpoints/arguments if they are "irrelevant."  This framework, you suggest, would "move forward with our own agenda and engage the work in a 'warm, convincing way.'"

This seems like a protracted exercise in sidestepping.  It seems to work if your stated purpose of "systematically develop{ing} the environmentalist position" is the only objective in view.  Stating your position in a clear and concise way is great.  However, you proceed to state that "{i}f the theory is correct, environmentalists are right because they presented a better argument, not because they have refuted the opposition."  So it seems that you do want to "debate" historicists after all, but do so by largely ignoring them as "the opposition."  If that is the case, I think your effort will fail.  Claiming to present "a better argument" by ignoring opposing ones just won't work.

A few months ago I was in a hearing in state court in Utah.  One of the biggest points of contention was the meaning and proper interpretation of a state statute.  I had previously submitted briefing on this issue which raised four basic arguments in favor of my client's position (I represent the plaintiff).  The defendant filed an opposing brief which almost entirely ignored the four points I had raised, and instead presented three arguments of his own.  I filed a brief responding to those three arguments.  At the hearing, the judge asked me to respond to and clarify our position on the three points raised by the defendant, and I did.  She then asked the defendant's attorney to respond to and clarify his position on each of the four points I had raised, and he . . . sidestepped.  He declared them to be "irrelevant," then he disparaged my familiarity with the law, and he then reiterated his three arguments.  

My opponent clearly felt he had the "better argument," but "better" is a comparative.  It is difficult to demonstrate that Position X is superior to ("better" than) Position Y by sidestepping and refusing to address the latter.  (As an aside, the judge was not persuaded by my opponents conclusory pronouncements.  My client prevailed.)

3. It could also help to address the ramifications of the environmentalist approach.  A few examples:

4. You don't seem to be plowing any new ground here.  The origins/authorship of the Book of Mormon have been a topic of debate for nearly 200 years.  I recently summed things up here:

Quote

The origins of the BOM text are disputed, with varied explanations as to who authored the text.  I have previously summarized things here:

Quote

The text of The Book of Mormon exists.  The LDS Church has presented an explanation as to how that text came to exist.  Just ask any missionary. 

In contrast, critics and dissidents have presented alternative explanations as to the origins of the text.  That is certainly their prerogative.  But at that point they are the ones making a claim.  They are the ones asserting that the Church's teachings about the origins of the book are factually false.  They are the ones making assertions about naturalistic or quasi-religious-but-still-rejecting-the-Church's-position explanations for The Book of Mormon.  The "Inspired Fiction" theory is an example of such countervailing explanations for the existence and content of the text, as is the Spaulding-Rigdon Theory (and other "multiple author" theories), the "Joseph Smith as the sole author" theory, the "View of the Hebrews" theory, Grant Palmer's "The Golden Pot" theory,  "The Late War" theory, and so on.

I think the varied explanations can be reduced to three categories:

Category A: Naturalistic / Secular Explanations - This one covers most of the attempts to explain authorship.  Someone, prior to and/or during Joseph Smith's time (ca. 1827) wrote the text.  Either Joseph Smith wrote it, or he colluded with others in the writing of the text and passing it off as a divinely-inspired "translation."  The above-referenced Spalding-Rigdon, "View of the Hebrews," "Golden Pot," "Late War" and "multiple author" theories are fall into this category.  See, e.g., here:

Quote

Book of Mormon secular authorship theories usually fall into one of the following categories:

• Joseph Smith wrote the book on his own, without assistance and with full knowledge that he was writing a work of fiction. It is sometimes postulated that Joseph wrote the book by drawing upon his own life’s experiences.
• Joseph Smith wrote the book on his own by plagiarizing works that were available to him. Examples of this are the Spalding manuscript theory, the View of the Hebrews theory, and The Golden Pot theory.
• An associate of Joseph Smith (Sidney Rigdon or Oliver Cowdery) wrote the book, either alone or in a group, and then allowed Joseph to take the credit.
• Some combination of theories involving associates and plagiarism together. An example of this is the Spalding-Rigdon theory.

Category B: Naturalistic / Non-Secular / "Inspired Fiction" Explanations - This category attempts to reconcile, to some extent, Category A and Category C.  See, e.g., here:

Quote

Non-secular authorship theories (those involving some sort of “spiritual” element) usually fall into one of the following categories:

• Joseph Smith’s own story that he received the plates from an angel and translated them by “the power of God,” but that the work thus produced is simply inspirational fiction.
• Joseph Smith created the book through “non-divine” (i.e., satanic) inspiration.
• Joseph Smith wrote the book without any knowledge of what he was writing through a process called “automatic” or “spirit” writing. Closely related to this theory is that Joseph wrote the book during fits of Epilepsy.

Category C: "Divinely Inspired" - The Church's explanation for the text is summed up in the "Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith" published with the BOM.  

It could be helpful to explain how your approach/theory differs from those in "Category B" above.

5. Assuming you acknowledge your approach as falling into "Category B," I would like to understand how it is materially distinguishable from "Category A."  I'm not seeing your environmentalist approach as avoiding the paradigmatic issue Kevin discusses.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited November 1, 2022 by smac97

[tagriffy]

3 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Ok, I have an awful lot of comments. I am just going to touch the tip of the iceberg here. If you want to further discuss, we can probably take this to e-mail. I am not sure it would be all that interesting to many of the forum inhabitants.

First, thank you so very much! I find everything in your post very helpful. I want to take up a few points to help explicate the vision of my ultimate projet.

3 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

The term Environmental has got to go. When I first read it, my immediate inclination was to be prepared for a study dealing with the confluence of ecocriticism and theology. This is where we usually see titles like this - and for an example, you can look at the writings of BYU Professor George Handley.

The term that you are really looking for is "History of Religions" - which I will admit, is not itself terribly descriptive. But, it is the technical term that is widely recognized. From that link:

I originally wrote the essay in the mid-oughts, when the terms "environmentalist" and "historicist" had more cachet. At the time, I was in college majoring in religious studies. I was active on Scripture-L, where Brant Gardner was posting his Book of Mormon Interactive Commentary, which would eventually develop into his Analytical & Contextual Commentary. I really admired what he was doing (or, at least how I saw what he was doing). To this day I consider him a role model. Mark D. Thomas' Digging in Cumorah had recently come out, and again this is a work that I really admired. I knew that something like this was the right track when I read the introduction to my then wife and she said she could kiss him. Of course, there was the overarching influence of Compton's essay. Kevin Christensen's eventually provided me with a hook, as it were. That's the basic origin of the essay.

At the time, it was meant to be a prolegomena for future work, perhaps ultimately a full-blown commentary on the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, life happened. Part of the effects was that I couldn't keep a close touch with how Book of Mormon studies was developing. Presumably if that life course had not been altered, I would have already dropped the environmentalist label. I only retain it now while in search of a term that would be more fitting today.

Having said that, "History of Religions" doesn't really capture what I'm aiming for. Of course I draw on approaches I am learning about as a religious studies student, and of course I would incorporate them into my work. But I want (perhaps need would be a better word) do more than History of Religions on the Book of Mormon. I want to communicate that Joseph wasn't a prophet (in the religious studies sense); I want to communicate that Joseph is my prophet (in the religious sense).

4 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Hurtado describes (as you do) a dichotomy between two groups over religious origin narratives. He points to this shared assumption. I think that I first used this notion in one of my published works in 2013, in the first part of my Parallels piece. And my response to this idea is there. If I were to summarize my response it is this - whether or not the Book of Mormon is a text produced through revelation or is a text authored without divine assistance in a particular place and time, it is still something that occurs within the historical record. The historicist position isn't one of belief or disbelief, it is an attempt to understand the historical context of the production of the Book of Mormon. Much of my published body of material attempts to take this sort of historicist position (the degree to which I succeed varies, I think). In this sense, I think that in the past twenty years or so, the study of the Book of Mormon has changed a great deal from this dichotomy (with its attendant problems), to a broader range of approaches. Believers now engage a wide range of views about the text, and there is a growing space created by the distinction between the Book of Mormon as a modern text and its alleged ancient source. This shift is not without some conflict (these approaches are not always broadly accepted or adopted - I remember one comment to something that I wrote as an invited guest blogger on Patheos: Internet Mormon sneers at chapel Mormonism). And we can't forget the mess created by the shift at the Maxwell Institute (or the animus that contributed to the mess there). But in any case (and to keep this short), I think that the situation is not how you describe it - as a dichotomy any more. I think that there is a much broader recognition of data (even if interpreted differently by different groups). Finally, I think that if you want to write an essay about the historical environment and the place of the Book of Mormon in that environment, you do not want to be on one side or the other in your discussion (you can always move in a direction in your conclusions).

Again, I wrote the essay when the dichotomy was still very much in play; obviously a rewrite would not have so much emphasis on that dichotomy. Indeed, I found that writing the essay itself was incredibly cathartic and freeing. I found myself becoming less and less concerned with the dichotomy and all the rancor that attended it. It broke me away from the dichotomy. I established the paradigm I'm working from. I'm going to work in that paradigm. Above all, I'm moving forward. If the "apologists" (note the scare quotes) don't like it, that's not my problem. I now determine the questions that need to be answered.

5 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

While it is good that you want to avoid the obvious dichotomy, I don't think that you can avoid a discussion about an issue that already impacts the interpretation of the text. There are enough critiques of this sort of thing to find something that you can work with, I think.

I think I have discovered my approach here. You may remember in another thread I discussed Joseph as a mythmaker. In other forums I have called Joseph a mythmaker extraordinaire. This has problems of its own since most people still probably confound myth with falsity and lies. Getting past that problem, viewing Joseph as a mythmaker certainly does have an impact on interpreting the text. The Book of Mormon in this case becomes a modern myth. We're not talking about Nephites and Lamanites any more; we are talking about themes that are larger than life. My task then would be to pull out those themes, put them on display, and say, "Hey, look at this!"

 

[mfbukowski]

20 hours ago, tagriffy said:

As many of you know, I am a Book of Mormon environmentalist. This is to say that I believe the evidence most supports a view that the Prophet Joseph Smith is the human author of the Book of Mormon. This can be a pretty broad term, so let's derive three broad (and simplistic) categories of environmentalists.

Why use the term in this context?

I see nothing about environmentalism in your stuff.

Edited October 25, 2022 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

21 hours ago, tagriffy said:

As many of you know, I am a Book of Mormon environmentalist.

If there is need for an "ism", (and I am not sure of the need for one) I would use Humanism.

God is a human, we are humans. As I have said many times, if God is human, then humanism becomes theology.

Humanism seeks the perfection of humanity and so do we, and I believe worshipping and attempting to emulate the idea of a perfect human "family" is exactly where a Church based on the Human Jesus Christ meets Humanism head on.

Edited October 25, 2022 by mfbukowski

[CV75]

58 minutes ago, tagriffy said:

First, thank you so very much! I find everything in your post very helpful. I want to take up a few points to help explicate the vision of my ultimate projet.

I originally wrote the essay in the mid-oughts, when the terms "environmentalist" and "historicist" had more cachet. At the time, I was in college majoring in religious studies. I was active on Scripture-L, where Brant Gardner was posting his Book of Mormon Interactive Commentary, which would eventually develop into his Analytical & Contextual Commentary. I really admired what he was doing (or, at least how I saw what he was doing). To this day I consider him a role model. Mark D. Thomas' Digging in Cumorah had recently come out, and again this is a work that I really admired. I knew that something like this was the right track when I read the introduction to my then wife and she said she could kiss him. Of course, there was the overarching influence of Compton's essay. Kevin Christensen's eventually provided me with a hook, as it were. That's the basic origin of the essay.

At the time, it was meant to be a prolegomena for future work, perhaps ultimately a full-blown commentary on the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, life happened. Part of the effects was that I couldn't keep a close touch with how Book of Mormon studies was developing. Presumably if that life course had not been altered, I would have already dropped the environmentalist label. I only retain it now while in search of a term that would be more fitting today.

Having said that, "History of Religions" doesn't really capture what I'm aiming for. Of course I draw on approaches I am learning about as a religious studies student, and of course I would incorporate them into my work. But I want (perhaps need would be a better word) do more than History of Religions on the Book of Mormon. I want to communicate that Joseph wasn't a prophet (in the religious studies sense); I want to communicate that Joseph is my prophet (in the religious sense).

Again, I wrote the essay when the dichotomy was still very much in play; obviously a rewrite would not have so much emphasis on that dichotomy. Indeed, I found that writing the essay itself was incredibly cathartic and freeing. I found myself becoming less and less concerned with the dichotomy and all the rancor that attended it. It broke me away from the dichotomy. I established the paradigm I'm working from. I'm going to work in that paradigm. Above all, I'm moving forward. If the "apologists" (note the scare quotes) don't like it, that's not my problem. I now determine the questions that need to be answered.

I think I have discovered my approach here. You may remember in another thread I discussed Joseph as a mythmaker. In other forums I have called Joseph a mythmaker extraordinaire. This has problems of its own since most people still probably confound myth with falsity and lies. Getting past that problem, viewing Joseph as a mythmaker certainly does have an impact on interpreting the text. The Book of Mormon in this case becomes a modern myth. We're not talking about Nephites and Lamanites any more; we are talking about themes that are larger than life. My task then would be to pull out those themes, put them on display, and say, "Hey, look at this!"

 

What is the difference between Joseph, a prophet in the religious studies sense and Joseph, a prophet in the religious sense? Is it that the first recognizes his role as held by believers and the second describes his role a) in terms of what the role entails for you personally, including a devotional sense?

[pogi]

22 hours ago, tagriffy said:

As many of you know, I am a Book of Mormon environmentalist. This is to say that I believe the evidence most supports a view that the Prophet Joseph Smith is the human author of the Book of Mormon. This can be a pretty broad term, so let's derive three broad (and simplistic) categories of environmentalists. The first is the critic. Critics engage the Book of Mormon as a 19th century fraud, using the evidence to condemn Joseph. The second is what we might call a religious or Mormon studies approach. This approach will tend to engage the Book of Mormon in terms of how it fits within the Mormon tradition; if the scholar explicitly assert's Joseph's authorship, they'll tend to bracket the issue of what it says about him. The third we might call the religious environmentalist. They might incorporate the findings of critics and religious studies scholars, but they still engage the Book of Mormon as scripture.

I belong to the third category. I came back to this forum to ask about a specific article I had come across. Meanwhile, I have been reading other articles about the Book of Mormon (different approaches). This has sparked a renewed interest in writing about the Book of Mormon as a religious environmentalist, continuing work I started with my "Environmental Theory" essay. I am starting to write a response to the article I mentioned as a kind of test case to where I can go with interpreting the Book of Mormon as 19th century scripture. Reading Don Bradley's preview excerpt of The Lost 116 Pages has sparked some ideas about how the Small Plates fit into the present Book of Mormon that I would like to explore.

One thing that weighs on me is Todd Compton's "Christian Scholarship and the Book of Mormon." It is difficult to explain the profound effect Compton's article has on me since I read it more than twenty years ago. As I stated it in "Environmental Theory":

Can I show my reverence and affection for the book in my writing? I can certainly try, but whether I succeed is a subjective judgment that can only be determined by the reader. Regardless, I think there are things I can do about addressing the "destructive" side of my work. The "destructive" side refers to the fact that if I'm going to write about Joseph as the author, I have to argue the case that he is indeed the author. I don't think I have to prove it, and I'm not so arrogant as to believe I can anyway. I think I only need to establish a good enough case, a la "Environmental Theory," to get on with the work of analyzing the Book of Mormon from that perspective.

For better or worse, the "destructive" side will sometimes mean directly engaging historicist arguments. In "Environmental Theory," I took an approach meant to emphasize fairness. I asked myself what I needed to engage and what I could sidestep. I found I could sidestep a lot more (at least in the summary form of an essay) than I thought. I simply put forth a given argument and then cited opposing views without comment. Further, I made sure those citations were to the best opposing arguments I could find at the time.  Of course, where I did engage, the citations allow the reader to gauge the fairness and strength of the argument I made. This is a strategy I plan on maintaining.

What I find harder, and could use suggestions for, is the "constructive" side. I realize that no matter what I do, no matter how reverently I write, the simple fact that I would be writing from an environmentalist perspective is going to grate against the historicist approach. So for those of you who can take such work as it is (i.e., not criticize it simply because of the environmentalist perspective), what do you recommend?

Sounds interesting.

When you say that you assert Joseph Smith's authorship but still engage the Book of Mormon as scripture, can you explain that a little further?  For me to accept the book as scripture, I would have to believe that it was divinely inspired by the Lord and that Joseph merely acted as a medium for the Lord to communicate through.   But it sounds like you perhaps view his authorship in a different way in that he actually "chose" what to put in the book when you said:

Quote

Joseph Smith himself wrote the Book of Mormon. As the author, he made a number of choices. He chose to use the found manuscript trope. He chose to model the Book of Mormon after the Bible, not only overall, but in certain stories contained within. He also chose to quote the Bible copiously, besides making it bristle with allusions. He chose to incorporate anti-Masonic rhetoric in it. He chose to include elements of the Mound Builder myth and the idea that Native Americans are descended from Israel. He chose to incorporate revivalist language in the book. He chose to kill off Mormon (talk about subverting expectations)! Why did he decide to do these things?

If that is accurate, perhaps under the "environmentalist" category (if you do choose to use that term), you could include subcategories where Joseph had more control over the creative process of the stories vs Joseph being more of a passive medium and was written "by the gift and power of God", and how both products can faithfully be viewed as scripture.  The later has been explained as "spirit writing" (ala Scott C. Dunn), or "automatic writing" which utilized a bit of scrying with the seer stones in the technique.

Here is some good resources on the later theory that might be helpful resource in your writing:

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V36N04_63.pdf

https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/naturalistic-explanations-of-the-origin-of-the-book-of-mormon-a-longitudinal-study/

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V52N02_1.pdf

22 hours ago, tagriffy said:

What I find harder, and could use suggestions for, is the "constructive" side. I realize that no matter what I do, no matter how reverently I write, the simple fact that I would be writing from an environmentalist perspective is going to grate against the historicist approach. So for those of you who can take such work as it is (i.e., not criticize it simply because of the environmentalist perspective), what do you recommend?

You are right, of course, that you will get some push back from the historicist group.   To minimize the damage/contempt, I would suggest not throwing that theory under the bus by positing that your theory is the only possible right answer.  Simply offer it as another possible explanation which might offer a faithful approach and sustaining support for members who have difficulty maintaining belief in the historicity approach to the Book of Mormon, but want to maintain faith in the Book of Mormon.  In that way, both theories are working synergistically rather than competitively to support faith in the Book of Mormon.  Offer it as merely another "blind man's" perspective of the elephant (parable of the blind men and the elephant), and that contending with other blind men is counterproductive to broadening our perspective of the elephant.  Because, in the end, that is all that it is - another blind man's perspective (no offense!)

Edited October 25, 2022 by pogi

[tagriffy]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

This seems like a protracted exercise in sidestepping.  It seems to work if your stated purpose of "systematically develop{ing} the environmentalist position" is the only objective in view.  Stating your position in a clear and concise way is great.  However, you proceed to state that "{i}f the theory is correct, environmentalists are right because they presented a better argument, not because they have refuted the opposition."  So it seems that you do want to "debate" historicists after all, but do so by largely ignoring them as "the opposition."  If that is the case, I think your effort will fail.  Claim to present "a better argument" by ignoring opposing ones just won't work.

You'll have to forgive me this bit of jumping around, but answering this will lead back to your first point. I can see why you would see this an exercise in sidestepping, and to a certain extent, it is warranted. But what I have in mind is not precisely about ignoring "the opposition." Focus on what I said about what I said about the theory being correct: it is "not because they have refuted the opposition." Think about this. We could rip apart Sorenson's work and show exactly why the shoe doesn't fit. We could rip apart Welch's work and show that Joseph was quite capable of using chiastic structures. We could demonstrate that Joseph knew exactly where Nihm was. We could do all sorts of things to refute the opposition. And the opposition could turn around and do the same thing same sorts of things. And what is accomplished by doing this? Not a d--d thing!

The "debate" then consists in the theorists doing what they do: Further refining the theory, discovering new facts, asking new questions, determining how it all fits together. And it's not totally ignoring the "opposition" either. As I also said, "Our theory will guide us in assessing various critiques, concentrating our responses on those that have some validity." In this respect:

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

1. Your essay states that "{c}learly stating our {environmentalist} position will also help guide our studies."  That being the case, it could help to to address, somewhere on the front end of things, how you reconcile your environmentalist approach with what seems to be its patent incompatibility with the narrative in JS-H and the statements of the Witnesses.  From the outside looking in, your approach seems wholly alternative and incompatible with these sources.  (Unless, of course, your intended audience is not the Latter-day Saints, in which case this point is irrelevant.)

Remember, I called the essay "The Environmental Theory of Book of Mormon Interpretation." I'm not asking whether the text is compatible with the narrative in JS-H. I'm asking what does the text say, and what does it mean. The statements of the Witnesses are part of the text, so that is part of what needs to be interpreted. But even here, I'm not asking whether (or how) the statements correspond to "reality." I'm asking what does the text say, and what does it mean. In that sense, the (in)compatibility with the sources (or to get to what I think is the real crux of the matter, "reality) is irrelevant.

Having said that, I do have my thought on the matter. Whether they have any direct (or significant indirect) impact on interpreting the text is another matter. That is an issue I would have to decide before I take it up.

 

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

5. Assuming you acknowledge your approach as falling into "Category B," I would like to understand how it is materially distinguishable from "Category A."  I'm not seeing your environmentalist approach as avoiding the paradigmatic issue Kevin discusses.

I probably fit best into the bare description of Category B (an attempt to reconcile A and C). Even then, that doesn't really work. Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is the word of God. That is enough.

 

[tagriffy]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Why use the term in this context?

I see nothing about environmentalism in your stuff.

It's apparently a bit old-fashioned now. Back in the day of the Book of Mormon wars, "environmentalist" referred to those who believe the Book of Mormon is a 19th century work authored by Joseph Smith. "Historicist" referred to those who believe ancient work translated by Joseph Smith. Considering the terms that were flying around in those days, they were fairly neutral.

[tagriffy]

1 hour ago, CV75 said:

What is the difference between Joseph, a prophet in the religious studies sense and Joseph, a prophet in the religious sense? Is it that the first recognizes his role as held by believers and the second describes his role a) in terms of what the role entails for you personally, including a devotional sense?

Religious studies is an academic field that studies religion using a variety of different disciplines (sociology, psychology, history, etc.). You might be more familiar with terms like comparative religion or history of religions. A prophet in the religious studies sense is basically a scholarly construct. And yes, a prophet in the religious sense is about the role the prophet entails for a believer on the personal level.

[CV75]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

Sounds interesting.

When you say that you assert Joseph Smith's authorship but still engage the Book of Mormon as scripture, can you explain that a little further?  For me to accept the book as scripture, I would have to believe that it was divinely inspired by the Lord and that Joseph merely acted as a medium for the Lord to communicate through.   But it sounds like you perhaps view his authorship in a different way in that he actually "chose" what to put in the book when you said:

If that is accurate, perhaps under the "environmentalist" category (if you do choose to use that term), you could include subcategories where Joseph had more control over the creative process of the stories vs Joseph being more of a passive medium and was written "by the gift and power of God", and how both products can faithfully be viewed as scripture.  The later has been explained as "spirit writing" (ala Scott C. Dunn), or "automatic writing" which utilized a bit of scrying with the seer stones in the technique.

Here is some good resources on the later theory that might be helpful resource in your writing:

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V36N04_63.pdf

https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/naturalistic-explanations-of-the-origin-of-the-book-of-mormon-a-longitudinal-study/

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V52N02_1.pdf

You are right, of course, that you will get some push back from the historicist group.   To minimize the damage/contempt, I would suggest not throwing that theory under the bus by positing that your theory is the only possible right answer.  Simply offer it as another possible explanation which might offer a faithful approach and sustaining support for members who have difficulty maintaining belief in the historicity approach to the Book of Mormon, but want to maintain faith in the Book of Mormon.  In that way, both theories are working synergistically rather than competitively to support faith in the Book of Mormon.  Offer it as merely another "blind man's" perspective of the elephant (parable of the blind men and the elephant), and that contending with other blind men is counterproductive to broadening our perspective of the elephant.  Because, in the end, that is all that it is - another blind man's perspective (no offense!)

I think the idea is, whether or not Jospeh had full control over the text (and maybe with a little help his friends), the process of producing the Book of Mormon could still be one of channeling the will of the Lord, whether or not "the Lord" is taken to be the "Highest Human Ideal" in principle and not a "Person." One comparison I can think of is using evolution's intelligent design, God's will manifest through seemingly undirected, natural processes (this would take the Lord to be God the Personal Deity), or where the two source/forces (the divine and pre-divine) approach each other closer and closer according to preexisting laws. Seems like a difficult scholarly tightrope.

Edited October 25, 2022 by CV75

[smac97]

11 minutes ago, tagriffy said:

You'll have to forgive me this bit of jumping around, but answering this will lead back to your first point. I can see why you would see this an exercise in sidestepping, and to a certain extent, it is warranted. But what I have in mind is not precisely about ignoring "the opposition." Focus on what I said about what I said about the theory being correct: it is "not because they have refuted the opposition." Think about this. We could rip apart Sorenson's work and show exactly why the shoe doesn't fit. We could rip apart Welch's work and show that Joseph was quite capable of using chiastic structures. We could demonstrate that Joseph knew exactly where Nihm was. We could do all sorts of things to refute the opposition. And the opposition could turn around and do the same thing same sorts of things. And what is accomplished by doing this? Not a d--d thing!

I guess the lawyer in my compels some resistance to this.  I am not persuaded that these things "could" be done.  There are ample grounds for reasoned, principled, evidence-based disagreements about Sorenson's work, Welch's work, and so on.  In the end, though, the "judge," the arbiter/factfinder, is the individual.  Whereas secular judges have discretionary authority in many ways, in the main they are hemmed by the "the law," by the rules of procedure and evidence, and so on.  The individual, on the other hand, faces no such constraints.  There is nothing improper about insisting on a skeptical/naturalistic explanation as a starting point, but given that the topic at hand is fundamentally religious/faith-based, neither is there anything improper about adopting a "seed of faith" approach.  Either way, however, the individual will likely want to go through, not around, the evidence and analysis in order to reach a conclusion. 

I think quite a bit is, or can be, "accomplished by doing this."  As Joseph Smith aptly observed: “By proving contraries, truth is made manifest.”  Our legal system is intrinsically adversarial precisely because the objective is to reach a conclusion about a dispute for which inconsistent claims are being made.  In the end, the judge has to make "findings of fact" and reach "conclusions of law."  That process necessarily requires the weighing of evidence, and the presenting of analysis and argument.  Broadly speaking, "sidestepping" doesn't work here.

Some skeptics may be on board with this approach, as you would be essentially pushing against an open door.  They will already agree with both your naturalistic ("environmentalist") assumptions and conclusions, such that you will be mostly telling them things they have already accepted.  And sidestepping apologetic ("historicist") arguments would certainly be easier than substantively engaging them.  Alas, I think this is already the state of things in many ways.

Meanwhile, the faith-based folks will likely not give your approach the time of day.  Faithful Latter-day Saints will see it as an alternative and incompatible narrative to the one espoused by Joseph Smith, the Witnesses, etc., and they would be correct in that assessment.  People investigating the Church will likely already be of a "seed of faith" bent, and in any event would likely not even be aware of your approach.

11 minutes ago, tagriffy said:

The "debate" then consists in the theorists doing what they do: Further refining the theory, discovering new facts, asking new questions, determining how it all fits together.

That seems like the "what," not the "how" of debating.  The "how" is almost always adversarial.  We refine a theory by challenging it.  We discovery new facts and then argue as to their significance and probative value.  We ask new questions and wrangle as to the most reasonable answers.  We determine how it all fits together by, as Joseph Smith put it, "proving contraries."

FWIW, I think most of this happens after an individual's conversion, which is (or should be) principally an exercise in faith.  The individual looks at the broad strokes drawn by missionaries, primary and Sunday School and seminary/institute teachers, and then starts to fill in the blanks.  But for my testimony being rooted in spiritual/revelatory experiences with the Gospel, I don't think I would have remained a member.

11 minutes ago, tagriffy said:

And it's not totally ignoring the "opposition" either. As I also said, "Our theory will guide us in assessing various critiques, concentrating our responses on those that have some validity." In this respect:

Quote

1. Your essay states that "{c}learly stating our {environmentalist} position will also help guide our studies."  That being the case, it could help to to address, somewhere on the front end of things, how you reconcile your environmentalist approach with what seems to be its patent incompatibility with the narrative in JS-H and the statements of the Witnesses.  From the outside looking in, your approach seems wholly alternative and incompatible with these sources.  (Unless, of course, your intended audience is not the Latter-day Saints, in which case this point is irrelevant.)

Remember, I called the essay "The Environmental Theory of Book of Mormon Interpretation." I'm not asking whether the text is compatible with the narrative in JS-H.

I don't see how you can avoid "asking whether the text is compatible with the narrative in JS-H."  It's baked into every word you write in support of your approach.  A naturalistic/"environmentalist" approach, whether "secular" or "non-secular," creates inherent incompatibilities with JS-H.  It's an either/or situation.  An interested party either accepts your explanation or Joseph Smith's.  

By way of illustration, consider this story: 

Quote

Teri Horton asserts she’s not “greedy” and just wants a “fair price” for her $5 thrift shop find that some believe is an original Jackson Pollock painting.

It’s been more than 25 years since the Costa Mesa resident bought the 66-by-48-inch abstract painting that caused a stir in the art world.

Horton, who drove a big rig for 20 years, retired in 1987 after a trucking accident. She took up hunting for bargain treasures, sometimes rummaging in trash bins for objects that stores had discarded — like a genuine Ebel watch worth more than $2,000.

“I can’t stand to see stuff thrown away if people can use it,” she said.

During one of her thrift shop sprees in 1992, Horton bought the $5 painting as a gift to help cheer up a friend.

Since it wouldn’t fit through the front door of her friend’s trailer, Horton ended up trying to sell it at a yard sale. A local art teacher came by and suggested the painting could be an original by Pollock, a late American abstract expressionist known for his “drip and splash” style.

Horton, not having a clue who Pollock was, began researching. Her son helped her hire Paul Biro, a forensic art specialist from Canada. Thus began her quest to authenticate and sell the painting.

The forensic expert, using triple fingerprint recognition, analysis of paint splatters from Pollock’s studio and a side-by-side comparison to the painter’s work “No. 5, 1948,” concluded that the painting was real.

“No. 5, 1948,” by the way, sold for $140 million in 2006.

However, Biro’s scientific findings weren’t enough to convince art connoisseurs or the International Foundation for Art Research that the painting was authentic. Among the obstacles was the fact that it had been purchased at a thrift shop, was unsigned and was without a record of its history.

Since Pollock had been known to discard several of his paintings, it would have been impossible to keep track of every piece. His brother once lived in the Inland Empire. It wasn’t far-fetched, then, that the painting could have ended up in the San Bernardino thrift shop where Horton bought it.

The problem was the shop had been torn down and the proprietor was dead and there was no paper trail of ownership or a way to trace how it had gotten there.

With the lack of recognition from IFAR, Horton used a different strategy and hired art dealer and marketer Tod Volpe to sell the painting as a work that had been authenticated by science. She declined $2 million from a dealer and later $9 million from a Saudi art collector.

“I’m not sure it was on the level, since the offer was made over the telephone to Volpe,” Horton said. “I know what it’s worth and I’m not gonna sell for something less than it should go for.”

Horton’s persistence earned her celebrity status of sorts, including being the subject of a 2006 documentary titled “Who the $&% Is Jackson Pollock?” (her initial response to the art teacher in 1992).

According to director Harry Moses, the film became more about class in America than whether the painting was real. “It’s a story of the art world looking down its collective nose at this woman with an eighth-grade education,” Moses said in a New York Times interview.

“The way the so-called art experts authenticated any fine art was by visual and mystical feelings they would get that told them it was or wasn’t,” Horton said. “I was at an art showing in New York with a producer with ‘60 Minutes’ and I heard some art experts standing close by discussing the different feelings they each got.”

Horton appeared on several talk shows, including David Letterman’s, and also on “60 Minutes.” Her story was published in newspapers and magazines.

Horton’s quest for acknowledgment of the painting’s authenticity has become her life journey. Her son, Bill Page, said in the documentary: “Not too many people would have fought it like she has; you gotta give her credit. She never stopped from day one. She lives, breathes and eats the project.”

In an email this month, Horton said: “The authentication by Biro proves it is by Pollock. I have been the ‘cog in the wheel’ that has most likely prevented a sale because I dared to attempt to pierce the veil of secrecy that covers those that dictate how the ‘fine art’ market is run.”

Still, at age 85, her perceptions are shifting.

Given her current living situation, with her savings depleted and her mobile-home space rent climbing from $250 to $1,000 per month in the past 17 years, her $929 Social Security check doesn’t stretch far. Page helps with her finances, but Horton said she has found herself resorting to panhandling to make ends meet, even though her son told her to stop.

“I hate doing it, but I have to do what I gotta do,” Horton said. “It’s demeaning, but it’s better than living under a bridge.”

Page said his mom is open to a reasonable offer for the painting.

“The painting has its own notoriety with the movie that has been shown around the world,” he said.

Page pointed to two more-recent pieces of evidence supporting its authenticity.

First, the sons of late Pollock expert Nicolas Carone were quoted in a 2012 article by Fine Art Investigations that Carone felt the painting was real but was “nervous” about saying so publicly.

Second, Page said, Charles Wang, an independent researcher, determined that the painting is one of Pollock’s missing works.

Contacted on Friday, Wang said he believes Horton’s painting is actually the original version of “No. 5, 1948,” which he said was damaged and returned to Pollock to be repaired, but Pollock instead painted a new one that became the one that sold for $140 million.

“I’m not gonna stay around forever,” Horton said, “but I’d like to see the painting sold and give some of it to the people who have helped me over the years.

“I truly believe I have been influenced by Pollock … don’t give up.”

It matters whether the painting actually is a Jackson Pollock.  It also matters whether people believe it is an actual Jackson Pollock.  The difference here is stark.  If established as not a Jackson Pollock, the painting is worth little or nothing.  If an individual is willing to wager $2 million or $9 million that it might be a Jackson Pollock, then that's a very different story.  And if the painting is established as a Jackson Pollock, then the painting's value is astronomical. 

Value and authenticity are intertwined.  If someone were to come along and say "I'm not asking whether this painting is an authentic Jackson Pollock," then what's the point of examining the painting without regard to authenticity?  "For the sake of art" works, I suppose, but I think very few people would be interested in musing about this painting.  It may even have some intrinsic artistic merit (I'm not a big Pollock fan, but to each his own), but in terms of monetary value, it's nothing noteworthy or particular.

So it is, I think, with the Book of Mormon.  I previously commented on this point here:

Quote

In my younger days I was an avid reader of Greco-Roman mythology.  I found the stories fascinating, and as I grew older I came to be aware of how many of the themes and archetypes in these myths are interwoven into our social consciousness.  However, I did not look to these stories to inform my belief in God, or to govern my personal moral code, or to provide meaningfuly guidance in important life decisions (Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity and Law of Tithing, to attend church, serve a mission, temple worship, family history, marriage/children, etc.).

There are many writings in the world that contain "high-minded sentiments and beautiful turns of phrase," but nevertheless remain firmly the take-it-or-leave-it category of my mind.  I've previously commented on this here:

Quote

A popular refrain from the "Inspired Fiction" folks is that The Book of Mormon has value even if it is entirely fictional, just like the parables of Jesus need not be literally historical in order to have value.  However, I disagree with this comparison.   Parables have value irrespective of their historicity, I agree with that. However, Jesus Christ being the Son of God and Savior of the world only has value because of the historicity tied up with that declaration. Historicity matters when we consider various scriptural passages, such as this one: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Absent historicity, this passage has no salvific meaning or value. Without historicity, Jesus would be just another admirable fictional character, like Atticus Finch, or Samwise Gamgee, or Captain America. Jesus would be about as valuable to me as an imaginary life preserver would be to a drowning man.

In his article "Joseph Smith and the Historicity of the Book of Mormon" (published in the above volume), Kent P. Jackson asks, "what credibility could any of these sources have if the book is not historical?"  He goes on (emphasis added):

Quote

Can the Book of Mormon indeed be 'true,' in any sense, if it lies repeatedly, explicitly, and deliberately regarding its own historicity? Can Joseph Smith be viewed with any level of credibility if he repeatedly, explicitly, and deliberately lied concerning the historicity of the book? Can we have any degree of confidence in what are presented as the words of God in the Doctrine and Covenants if they repeatedly, explicitly, and deliberately lie by asserting the historicity of the Book of Mormon? If the Book of Mormon is not what it claims to be, what possible cause would anyone have to accept anything of the work of Joseph Smith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints given the consistent assertions that the Book of Mormon is an ancient text that describes ancient events?" (Historicity and the Latter-day Saint Scriptures, edited by Paul Y. Hoskisson, pp. 137-138.)

Can a person have faith in The Book of Mormon while simultaneously rejecting The Book of Mormon as to its historicity? I don't think so. Such a concept renders Joseph Smith a fraud and a liar, and the book itself a fraud and a lie. A fictional Book of Mormon has no real power, and renders it as nothing more than a quirky self-help book. It becomes no more relevant to the salvation of men than Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins or How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. These are useful books, to be sure. For some, they are even life changing. But The Book of Mormon declares itself to be the word of God through inspired prophets.

Can a person have faith in Christ while simultaneously rejecting Christ as an actual, historical figure? I don't think so. Rejecting the historicity of Christ renders Christ a fictional role model, like Atticus Finch or Gandalf. A fictional Christ has no power to atone, no power to forgive, no power to save.

I think the Inspired Fiction folks have not really thought through the ramifications of their proposal.   The "fake but accurate," "I can reject what The Book of Mormon claims to be and what Joseph Smith represented it to be, but still accept it as scripture" type of reasoning is a fundamentally flawed line of reasoning. Elder Oaks aptly described it as "not only reject(ing) the concepts of faith and revelation that The Book of Mormon explains and advocates, but it is also not even good scholarship." This is why I find advocacy of this approach problematic. Such advocates are steering others up a spiritual blind alley; a path, I think, which sooner or later will culminate in a crisis of faith and/or a rejection of The Book of Mormon. After all, one who rejects its historicity has already rejected a substantive, even vital, part of the book. Rejecting the rest of it would seem to be just a matter of time.  I think an affirmative denial of the book's historicity will, sooner or later, become fatal to a testimony of the book. Ambivalence about historicity is perhaps possible, but affirmative denial is, I think, not compatible with an enduring and efficacious testimony of The Book of Mormon.

I've also previously quoted Elder Oaks (same link) (emphasis added) :

Quote

"There is something strange about accepting the moral or religious content of a book while rejecting the truthfulness of its authors' declarations, predictions, and statements. This approach not only rejects the concepts of faith and revelation that the Book of Mormon explains and advocates, but it is also not even good scholarship. ... The argument that it makes no difference whether the Book of Mormon is fact or fable is surely a sibling to the argument that it makes no difference whether Jesus Christ ever lived." (Historicity and the Latter-day Saint Scriptures, edited by Paul Y. Hoskisson, p. 244.)

I don't think we (that is, members of the Church) can say, regarding Jesus Christ, that quotations of Him in the Bible merely contain "high-minded sentiments and beautiful turns of phrase," and that we can enjoy such things while also rejecting His claims to be the Son of God and the Savior of Mankind.  I have yet to see the Inspired Fiction folks (that is, those who are members of the Church) address this issue, which I believe is fatal to their proposal.  If The Book of Mormon can be rejected for what it claims to be, and instead construed as fiction, then so can Jesus' claims of being the Son of God and our Savior.

The value of the Restored Gospel, including the Book of Mormon is, for me, inextricably linked with its realness and authenticity, with what it claims to be.  

11 minutes ago, tagriffy said:

I'm asking what does the text say, and what does it mean.

Well, no.  Your essay goes much further than that.  You are expressly staking out a position as to the texts origins / provenance / authenticity:

• So, environmentalist scholars produce data they believe points to a modern origin for the Book of Mormon.
• The environmentalist position is traditionally a position taken by anti-Mormons and used to attack Mormonism.
• Environmentalists have looked at Joseph Smith’s background, examined the Book of Mormon text, looked at American archaeology, consulted biblical scholarship, surveyed DNA studies, and considered population models. All these studies purport to show a modern origin for the Book of Mormon.
• The environmentalist position derives from a network of interconnected assumptions, hypotheses, and information; no single argument is essential, and that is a point we must stress.
• Currently, environmentalist scholarship is focused on showing Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. 

If we were discussing just the text and meaning of Hamlet, but not its authorship, then that's fine.  The words have beauty and significance all their own, regardless of who actually wrote them.

But if the analysis also disputes Shakespeare's authorship (in favor of, say, Francis Bacon), then I don't think it would do for you to say "this essay is about Hamlet, not Shakespeare." 

11 minutes ago, tagriffy said:

The statements of the Witnesses are part of the text, so that is part of what needs to be interpreted.

Only if you presuppose that Joseph or a contemporary authored the text.  Otherwise, the statements of the Witnesses were added to the published translation of an ancient text, and were not "part of" it.

11 minutes ago, tagriffy said:

But even here, I'm not asking whether (or how) the statements correspond to "reality." I'm asking what does the text say, and what does it mean. In that sense, the (in)compatibility with the sources (or to get to what I think is the real crux of the matter, "reality) is irrelevant.

I don't think you can base a thesis on disputing the authenticity of the text, then turn around and say that the natural and foreseeable ramifications of that dispute are "irrelevant."  

11 minutes ago, tagriffy said:

I probably fit best into the bare description of Category B (an attempt to reconcile A and C). Even then, that doesn't really work. Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is the word of God. That is enough.

Joseph Smith never claimed that he wrote the Book of Mormon.  Joseph Smith claimed to have discovered ancient gold plates.  Eleven other men attested to seeing these plates.  Joseph Smith also claims to have been visited by Moroni and other angelic beings.  Joseph Smith spent the remainder of his life under threat due to these claims.  He wrote D&C 27, which he presents as a revelation from Jesus Christ, and in which the Lord states: "Behold, this is wisdom in me; wherefore, marvel not, for the hour cometh that I will drink of the fruit of the vine with you on the earth, and with Moroni, whom I have sent unto you to reveal the Book of Mormon, containing the fulness of my everlasting gospel, to whom I have committed the keys of the record of the stick of Ephraim."

You are setting your theory as an alternative and superior, and incompatible, explanation for the Book of Mormon.  For those who believe it is what it claims to be, sidestepping this is not enough.

Thanks,

-Smac

[tagriffy]

46 minutes ago, pogi said:

When you say that you assert Joseph Smith's authorship but still engage the Book of Mormon as scripture, can you explain that a little further?  For me to accept the book as scripture, I would have to believe that it was divinely inspired by the Lord and that Joseph merely acted as a medium for the Lord to communicate through.   But it sounds like you perhaps view his authorship in a different way in that he actually "chose" what to put in the book when you said:

That is a lot harder to answer. At the root of your question is another question? What is the nature of divine inspiration? When I was an evangelical, I took a similar view that the biblical writers were acting as a medium for the Lord. The view that was hammered into me was either that or it was nothing. But there came a point where I could no longer hold the "medium view," and that precipitated a faith crisis. I couldn't accept the "medium view" anymore, but neither could I deny that God spoke to me through the Bible. It wasn't that, but it was still something.

Raymond Brown's popular works can probably do a much job of explaining than I can. One way to think about it is to imagine that divine inspiration and scripture writing is an interactive process. God burdens the prophet with his message, and the prophet has to figure out a way to get that message across. But unlike God, who has an eagle's eye view as it were, the prophet is stuck in a specific historical-cultural situation. And of course, the only way a prophet can communicate is by using language.

1 hour ago, pogi said:

If that is accurate, perhaps under the "environmentalist" category (if you do choose to use that term), you could include subcategories where Joseph had more control over the creative process of the stories vs Joseph being more of a passive medium and was written "by the gift and power of God", and how both products can faithfully be viewed as scripture.  The later has been explained as "spirit writing" (ala Scott C. Dunn), or "automatic writing" which utilized a bit of scrying with the seer stones in the technique.

I lean most toward the intellect theory with the actual writing process being stream of consciousness. He had the ability and he had the project in his mind for years. We could add that once Joseph sat down and started applying himself, additional impressions came in and those impressions found their way into the text as we now have it.

1 hour ago, pogi said:

You are right, of course, that you will get some push back from the historicist group.   To minimize the damage/contempt, I would suggest not throwing that theory under the bus by positing that your theory is the only possible right answer.  Simply offer it as another possible explanation which might offer a faithful approach and sustaining support for members who have difficulty maintaining belief in the historicity approach to the Book of Mormon, but want to maintain faith in the Book of Mormon.  In that way, both theories are working synergistically rather than competitively to support faith in the Book of Mormon.  Offer it as merely another "blind man's" perspective of the elephant (parable of the blind men and the elephant), and that contending with other blind men is counterproductive to broadening our perspective of the elephant.  Because, in the end, that is all that it is - another blind man's perspective (no offense!)

No offense taken. Indeed, one of the reasons I took such care to point to opposing views without comment is precisely because I'm not positing my theory is the only possible right answer. And one of the audiences I have in mind are those who have difficulty with a historical Book of Mormon but want to maintain faith in it. If I can prevent or help someone through a faith crisis like I had about the Bible, my work will have proven its worth.

I do like the idea of offering it as merely another perspective. That alone would help me avoid fights that I'm not inclined to be involved with anymore.

 

[pogi]

21 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Meanwhile, the faith-based folks will likely not give your approach the time of day.  Faithful Latter-day Saints will see it as an alternative and incompatible narrative to the one espoused by Joseph Smith, the Witnesses, etc., and they would be correct in that assessment.  

I think the faithful are not as monolithic as you portray.  I don’t think tagrify is as much of an outlier as you might suspect.  I think there are many faithful who really struggle with the evidence supporting the historicity but still vie the book as inspired - myself included.  These saints would welcome support for non-traditional narratives. 

[OGHoosier]

6 minutes ago, pogi said:

I think the faithful are not as monolithic as you portray.  I don’t think tagrify is as much of an outlier as you might suspect.  I think there are many faithful who really struggle with the evidence supporting the historicity but still vie the book as inspired - myself included.  These saints would welcome support for non-traditional narratives. 

You can count me in there too kinda, but I would still state that I see the Book of Mormon as "based on a true story." Basically Ostler Expansion, plus some modifications to make it more relatable to 19th-century Protestants. A narrative crawling with jaguars and jade instead of horses and gold would win the very dubious prizes of a) verisimilitude today but b) probably not enough people would have paid attention to the Book at the beginning for it to survive as anything more than a literary curiosity. I have no problem with God impressing basic narratives into Joseph's mind but leaving the details to his subconscious creativity. It seems from the Original Manuscript that the degrees of control varied anyways with spellings and such. So I guess I'm close enough to the historicist camp to be basically part of it, albeit perhaps as a "loose historicist."

As an aside, there is one hell of an intellectual biography about Blake Ostler waiting to be written in a few decades.

[tagriffy]

40 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I guess the lawyer in my compels some resistance to this.  I am not persuaded that these things "could" be done.  There are ample grounds for reasoned, principled, evidence-based disagreements about Sorenson's work, Welch's work, and so on.  In the end, though, the "judge," the arbiter/factfinder, is the individual.  Whereas secular judges have discretionary authority in many ways, in the main they are hemmed by the "the law," by the rules of procedure and evidence, and so on.  The individual, on the other hand, faces no such constraints.  There is nothing improper about insisting on a skeptical/naturalistic explanation as a starting point, but given that the topic at hand is fundamentally religious/faith-based, neither is there anything improper about adopting a "seed of faith" approach.  Either way, however, the individual will likely want to go through, not around, the evidence and analysis in order to reach a conclusion. 

I am not a lawyer; I am a scholar. I accept that smoking guns are rare, that there are some things that we're never going to have a final answer for, that sometimes all you can do is present alternatives. What I do reject is your "seed of faith" approach with only one side. Consider I came into Mormonism as a Book of Mormon environmentalist. I had to reject the mentality you are espousing here before I could seriously consider Mormonism in the first place. The seed of faith is there in both approaches.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Can a person have faith in The Book of Mormon while simultaneously rejecting The Book of Mormon as to its historicity? I don't think so. Such a concept renders Joseph Smith a fraud and a liar, and the book itself a fraud and a lie. A fictional Book of Mormon has no real power, and renders it as nothing more than a quirky self-help book. It becomes no more relevant to the salvation of men than Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins or How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. These are useful books, to be sure. For some, they are even life changing. But The Book of Mormon declares itself to be the word of God through inspired prophets.

This is the second time you posted this and for the second I say to you, Yet here I am. Direct proof that a person can have faith in the Book of Mormon while rejecting historicity. Even worse for your pretty little theory, I double down on Joseph Smith. Is that a Book of Mormon that has no real power? I don't think so.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

2 hours ago, tagriffy said:

I'm asking what does the text say, and what does it mean.

Well, no.  Your essay goes much further than that.  You are expressly staking out a position as to the texts origins / provenance / authenticity:

• So, environmentalist scholars produce data they believe points to a modern origin for the Book of Mormon.
• The environmentalist position is traditionally a position taken by anti-Mormons and used to attack Mormonism.
• Environmentalists have looked at Joseph Smith’s background, examined the Book of Mormon text, looked at American archaeology, consulted biblical scholarship, surveyed DNA studies, and considered population models. All these studies purport to show a modern origin for the Book of Mormon.
• The environmentalist position derives from a network of interconnected assumptions, hypotheses, and information; no single argument is essential, and that is a point we must stress.
• Currently, environmentalist scholarship is focused on showing Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. 

If we were discussing just the text and meaning of Hamlet, but not its authorship, then that's fine.  The words have beauty and significance all their own, regardless of who actually wrote them.

But if the analysis also disputes Shakespeare's authorship (in favor of, say, Francis Bacon), then I don't think it would do for you to say "this essay is about Hamlet, not Shakespeare." 

I also note you missed the point where I specifically said

Quote

 The goal of Book of Mormon studies should be interpretation, and that is what I am working toward.

Or where I said

Quote

More work has been done about Joseph Smith’s role than in interpreting the text itself; the Theory suggests certain directions for Book of Mormon interpretation.

Yes, I staked out a position on the text's origins/provenance/authorship (I said NOTHING about authenticity). But that was not then end goal; it never has been. It was always a beginning point.

 

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Only if you presuppose that Joseph or a contemporary authored the text.  Otherwise, the statements of the Witnesses were added to the published translation of an ancient text, and were not "part of" it.

I hate to break this to you, but whatever is going on with the rest of the Book of Mormon, the Testimonies are part of the text now. They've been in every official edition (that I know of) since the first. Moreover, they are there deliberately because they serve a purpose for the Book of Mormon. Originally they were at the end of the Book of Mormon. Probably not so coincidentally, this is only a few pages after Moroni's promise. Later on, the Testimonies were shifted to the front, so that you are now reading the rest of the book under their influence. Either way, that significance for the work as a whole.

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

I don't think you can base a thesis on disputing the authenticity of the text, then turn around and say that the natural and foreseeable ramifications of that dispute are "irrelevant."

I'm not disputing the authenticity of the text. It's authentically the word of God. Everything else is just details.

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

Joseph Smith never claimed that he wrote the Book of Mormon.  Joseph Smith claimed to have discovered ancient gold plates.  Eleven other men attested to seeing these plates.  Joseph Smith also claims to have been visited by Moroni and other angelic beings.  Joseph Smith spent the remainder of his life under threat due to these claims.  He wrote D&C 27, which he presents as a revelation from Jesus Christ, and in which the Lord states: "Behold, this is wisdom in me; wherefore, marvel not, for the hour cometh that I will drink of the fruit of the vine with you on the earth, and with Moroni, whom I have sent unto you to reveal the Book of Mormon, containing the fulness of my everlasting gospel, to whom I have committed the keys of the record of the stick of Ephraim."

You are setting your theory as an alternative and superior, and incompatible, explanation for the Book of Mormon.  For those who believe it is what it claims to be, sidestepping this is not enough.

Most of this probably doesn't matter for interpreting the book, though. Sure, I have my thoughts on these matters and I shared some of them in another thread. To the degree that they bear on interpreting the Book of Mormon, I'll work it through. But at this point, I'm still working out what is and isn't important in that regard.

[smac97]

On 10/25/2022 at 7:47 PM, tagriffy said:

I am not a lawyer; I am a scholar.

Okay.  As it happens, though, Dallin H. Oaks and John W. Welch are both lawyers and scholars.

On 10/25/2022 at 7:47 PM, tagriffy said:

I accept that smoking guns are rare, that there are some things that we're never going to have a final answer for, that sometimes all you can do is present alternatives.

Alternatives to what?  

Is presenting alternatives an end unto itself, or is there a larger goal in view.

On 10/25/2022 at 7:47 PM, tagriffy said:

What I do reject is your "seed of faith" approach with only one side.

I can appreciate that.  I wasn't really advocating that approach as much as noting that it is, by way of necessity, the typical way people come to accept the Restored Gospel.  I think most folks lack the time, resources, etc. to keep the Book of Mormon at arm's length, examining it from each of the various perspectives in "Category A" (naturalistic-secular), "Category B" (naturalistic-non-secular) and "Category C" (historicity / JS-H).  I don't think we ought to expect missionaries to lay out these mutually exclusive approaches to investigators.  Just as you propose to stake out a position on the origins of the Book of Mormon and proceed thereon, so too ought the missionaries proceed from the Church's position on the origins.

On 10/25/2022 at 7:47 PM, tagriffy said:

Consider I came into Mormonism as a Book of Mormon environmentalist. I had to reject the mentality you are espousing here before I could seriously consider Mormonism in the first place. The seed of faith is there in both approaches.

I lack context to understand what you are saying here.

On 10/25/2022 at 7:47 PM, tagriffy said:

This is the second time you posted this and for the second I say to you, Yet here I am.

I apologize.  We've addressed this topic so many times, I lose track.

On 10/25/2022 at 7:47 PM, tagriffy said:

Direct proof that a person can have faith in the Book of Mormon while rejecting historicity.

I acknowledge that.  "The exception that proves the rule" and all that.

I have known many, many people who, having rejected historicity, jettison the book, the Church, the Restored Gospel, the whole shebang.  

I am genuinely happy that you have been able to thread the needle, but I will continue to oppose this line of reasoning, as I find it fundamentally flawed, both as a matter of reasoning/evidence and contradicting Joseph Smith, the scriptures, the Brethren, and so on.  That said, I will reiterate this point:

Quote

I think those who seek salvation, but who reject the messengers who bring it, are in serious error.  Nevertheless, as deeply flawed as their position is, I welcome such persons who buy into the "inspired fiction" meme in fellowship in the Church.  We are all of us working to improve our understanding of God and His plans for us.  It is not for me to withdraw or withhold fellowship from those who differ from me on this issue.  I also won't speculate as to their standing in the Church generally, and will instead leave such things to those who are in authority and have proper stewardship.

The "inspired fiction" approach to The Book of Mormon requires a rejection of The Book of Mormon for what it claims to be. To accept it on those grounds would be like saying "Yes, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and my Lord and Savior, even though I reject the idea that he ever actually existed." A fictional Christ does not work, and neither does a fictional Book of Mormon.

 

On 10/25/2022 at 7:47 PM, tagriffy said:

Even worse for your pretty little theory, I double down on Joseph Smith. Is that a Book of Mormon that has no real power? I don't think so.

It's not really a theory.  It's an unfortunately common reality.  I have observed it, not formulated it.

On 10/25/2022 at 7:47 PM, tagriffy said:

I also note you missed the point where I specifically said

Or where I said

Yes, I staked out a position on the text's origins/provenance/authorship (I said NOTHING about authenticity).

"Authenticity" = "the quality of being authentic."

"Authentic" = "of undisputed origin; genuine."

If I say "I am staking out a position on the origins/provenance/authorship of Hamlet as being authored by Francis Bacon, but I am saying nothing about Hamlet as an 'authentic" work of Shakespeare," that . . . doesn't track.  

Joseph Smith said X about the origins/provenance/authorship of the Book of Mormon.  You are asserting Not-X about the origins/provenance/authorship.  

On 10/25/2022 at 7:47 PM, tagriffy said:

But that was not then end goal; it never has been. It was always a beginning point.

Whether as an "end goal" or "a beginning point," you are contradicting Joseph Smith, the Witnesses, the scriptures, the Brethren, etc.

On 10/25/2022 at 7:47 PM, tagriffy said:

Quote

Quote

The statements of the Witnesses are part of the text, so that is part of what needs to be interpreted.

Only if you presuppose that Joseph or a contemporary authored the text.  Otherwise, the statements of the Witnesses were added to the published translation of an ancient text, and were not "part of" it.

I hate to break this to you, but whatever is going on with the rest of the Book of Mormon, the Testimonies are part of the text now.  They've been in every official edition (that I know of) since the first. Moreover, they are there deliberately because they serve a purpose for the Book of Mormon.

Your statement is a presupposition about the text.

If I were to pull out a copy of "The Complete Works of Jane Austen," with a forward by this or that English lit scholar, it wouldn't really work to say that this scholar's commentary about Austen's work is part of the text written by Austen.  That is factually incorrect and misleading.

Here, the statements of the Witnesses can only be characterized as "part of the text" of the Book of Mormon if the "Category A" or "Category B" is presumed.  Under "Category C," this statement would be factually incorrect and misleading.

The paradigmatic contest continues apace.

On 10/25/2022 at 7:47 PM, tagriffy said:

Originally they were at the end of the Book of Mormon. Probably not so coincidentally, this is only a few pages after Moroni's promise. Later on, the Testimonies were shifted to the front, so that you are now reading the rest of the book under their influence. Either way, that significance for the work as a whole.

I don't dispute that the Witness statements are included in the published copies of the Book of Mormon.  But declaring them to be "part of the text" presupposes a paradigm.  It's a presupposition that stacks the deck.

On 10/25/2022 at 7:47 PM, tagriffy said:

I'm not disputing the authenticity of the text.

With genuine respect, of course you are disputing the authenticity of the text.  The basic premise is nothing but a disputation.  Your "approach" is wholly separate from and incompatible with the explanation of "the authenticity of the text" as explained by Joseph Smith.  He denied authorship, your theory requires him to have been either a liar, a lunatic, or a "pious fraud."  Readers must accept his explanation, or else yours.  

On 10/25/2022 at 7:47 PM, tagriffy said:

It's authentically the word of God. Everything else is just details.

This seems like equivocation.  Joseph Smith presented the Book of Mormon as being the "translation" of an "authentic" ancient text.

On 10/25/2022 at 7:47 PM, tagriffy said:

Most of this probably doesn't matter for interpreting the book, though.

I could not disagree more.

On 10/25/2022 at 7:47 PM, tagriffy said:

Sure, I have my thoughts on these matters and I shared some of them in another thread. To the degree that they bear on interpreting the Book of Mormon, I'll work it through. But at this point, I'm still working out what is and isn't important in that regard.

Sounds good.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited October 27, 2022 by smac97

[Nevo]

I like William L. Davis's approach in his recent book, Visions in a Seer Stone: Joseph Smith and the Making of the Book of Mormon:

Quote

Whatever position the reader might take on the origins of the Book of Mormon, a careful review of historical claims favors the idea that Joseph Smith himself sincerely believed, to one degree or another, that his epic work contained an authentic historical account of ancient American civilizations. The theory proposed in this chapter therefore operates on the assumption that Smith believed that his process of constructing the text did, in fact, involve inspiration and guidance (Davis, 160).

Quote

In the end, however one chooses to understand Smith's involvement in the production of the Book of Mormon, his method of revelatory translation complicates easy characterizations of the process. Because Smith's approach involved meditating on narrative possibilities, while seeking spiritual confirmation about their truthfulness and historical authenticity, the work emerged from some form of dialectical process. . . . The question of authorship in such a divine collaboration resists any effort to draw a distinct line of separation between the specific contributions of each coauthor. . . . Smith's inconclusive and somewhat vague references to translation and authorship suggest his own indeterminacy about the exact nature and process involved in the creation of the Book of Mormon. He literally may not have known, consciously or otherwise, how much or how little his own contributions influenced the language and shape of the final text" (Davis, 191, 192). 

Davis himself may not believe that God had anything to do with production of the Book of Mormon, but he allows that Joseph Smith did. I think that is a necessary first step to avoid alienating a Latter-day Saint readership.

Jared Hickman takes this approach, too, when he says that "Smith, the most devout of all Christian treasure seekers, launched himself again and again through space and time in pursuit of the treasure that he increasingly came to understand Moroni was specifying—not the golden plates of a local hill but the lived history of ancient America that the plates represented. From the beginning, then, Smith was learning to translate himself into the ancient American world through the virtual reality technology of the seer stone and then translate that world back into his own through the virtual reality technology of oral storytelling" (Hickman, "'Bringing Forth' the Book of Mormon: Translation as the Reconfiguration of Bodies in Space-Time," in Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith's Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity, ed. Michael Hubbard MacKay, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Brian M. Hauglid [Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2020], 77).

Personally, I am more responsive to "environmentalist" accounts of Book of Mormon origins that take seriously Joseph's self-understanding as a prophet, seer, and revelator (see D&C 24:1–9). I am even open to Dan Vogel's "pious fraud" theory that Joseph Smith "believed he was called of God, yet occasionally engaged in fraudulent activities in order to preach God's word as effectively as possible" (Vogel, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet, viii). But I need the "pious" to be there. The Book of Mormon is, after all, a profoundly Christian text that earnestly invites all to "come unto Christ and be perfected in him" (which Joseph Smith followed up by organizing a church, revising the Bible, and undertaking a project to establish Zion).