Inspired Fiction - Did Joseph Smith Believe He Was Translating Real Records?

[brownbear]

Nuanced (and former) members of the church will have a wide variety of opinions about Joseph Smith and his translation projects. However, there seems to be a gap between “real translation” and “pious fraud”. This is addressing those who see the Book of Mormon as inspired scripture, but non-historical. 

The church has recognized that even though the Book of Abraham may have little to do with the papyri, Joseph Smith was able to use it as a springboard to get revelation (i.e. catalyst). It seems possible that he believed he was translating real records, even when he wasn’t. Edit: The church allows a Book of Abraham catalyst theory, but has not abandoned the missing scroll theory.

I am wondering if this same logic can be extended to the Book of Mormon. For those who see it as 19th century American scripture, do you believe Joseph Smith thought he was translating a genuine record of ancient Nephites? Obviously, this introduces the question of Moroni and the golden plates. The golden plates can take a few different approaches; a Ann Taves approach where Joseph Smith created the plates but they were “transformed” into an ancient record; a Sonia Hazard approach where he found printing plates; some other approach. 

I am curious where everyone falls? Do you believe Joseph Smith thought his translation projects were literal translations of real people?

Edited July 9 by brownbear
Fix error

[bluebell]

1 minute ago, brownbear said:

Nuanced (and former) members of the church will have a wide variety of opinions about Joseph Smith and his translation projects. However, there seems to be a gap between “real translation” and “pious fraud”. This is addressing those who see the Book of Mormon as inspired scripture, but non-historical. 

The church has recognized that even though the Book of Abraham has nothing to do with the papyri, Joseph Smith was able to use it as a springboard to get revelation (i.e. catalyst). It seems that he believed he was translating real records, even when he wasn’t. 

I am wondering if this same logic can be extended to the Book of Mormon. For those who see it as 19th century American scripture, do you believe Joseph Smith thought he was translating a genuine record of ancient Nephites? Obviously, this introduces the question of Moroni and the golden plates. The golden plates can take a few different approaches; a Ann Taves approach where Joseph Smith created the plates but they were “transformed” into an ancient record; a Sonia Hazard approach where he found printing plates; some other approach. 

I am curious where everyone falls? Do you believe Joseph Smith thought his translation projects were literal translations of real people?

I think he did believe it was a real ancient record.  Ann Taves approach seems to have him lying about them, which I don't think works with the rest of the narrative.  And I think the revelations of JS where he refers to the native americans as nephites and lamanites also cements the notion that he believed the BoM was a historical book. 

[CV75]

20 minutes ago, brownbear said:

Nuanced (and former) members of the church will have a wide variety of opinions about Joseph Smith and his translation projects. However, there seems to be a gap between “real translation” and “pious fraud”. This is addressing those who see the Book of Mormon as inspired scripture, but non-historical. 

The church has recognized that even though the Book of Abraham has nothing to do with the papyri, Joseph Smith was able to use it as a springboard to get revelation (i.e. catalyst). It seems that he believed he was translating real records, even when he wasn’t. 

I am wondering if this same logic can be extended to the Book of Mormon. For those who see it as 19th century American scripture, do you believe Joseph Smith thought he was translating a genuine record of ancient Nephites? Obviously, this introduces the question of Moroni and the golden plates. The golden plates can take a few different approaches; a Ann Taves approach where Joseph Smith created the plates but they were “transformed” into an ancient record; a Sonia Hazard approach where he found printing plates; some other approach. 

I am curious where everyone falls? Do you believe Joseph Smith thought his translation projects were literal translations of real people?

I believe he experienced "translation" differently depending on the project. It would be great to see what he said (if anything) about what translation entailed or meant for each project, from the mental state and technique angles. Are you referring to the Book of Mormon, Bible translation and Pearl of Great Price?  If there are there others, can you list them? Bottom line, I believe he thought the projects were carried out by the gift and power of God, and that the products were literal representations of God's dealings with real human beings and events.

[webbles]

40 minutes ago, brownbear said:

The church has recognized that even though the Book of Abraham has nothing to do with the papyri, Joseph Smith was able to use it as a springboard to get revelation (i.e. catalyst). It seems that he believed he was translating real records, even when he wasn’t. 

The church hasn't recognized that.  It allows for the catalyst theory but also says that the papyri could be related to the Book of Abraham.  See https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/abraham-book-of

Quote

Joseph Smith may have translated the book of Abraham from portions of the papyrus that are now missing, or his study of the papyrus may have served as a catalyst leading to a revelation about Abraham.

 

Joseph also translated a record from John the Beloved - https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/7.  There was no physical record for Joseph to translate from.  He also restored the Book of Moses (beginning of Genesis) without any physical records as well.  So, the catalyst idea fits fairly well with some of his other translations.

 

[brownbear]

20 minutes ago, webbles said:

The church hasn't recognized that.  It allows for the catalyst theory but also says that the papyri could be related to the Book of Abraham. 

Thanks for correcting me!

[Zosimus]

7 hours ago, webbles said:

There was no physical record for Joseph to translate from.  He also restored the Book of Moses (beginning of Genesis) without any physical records as well. 

David Calabro argues that the Book of Moses was an early Christian (Syriac) text: An Early Christian Context for the Book of Moses

Given the dependency the Book of Mormon seems to have on the source of the Book of Moses, it would seem likely that the book written on the plates, fictional or historical, was also an early Christian (Syriac) text

Edited July 9 by Zosimus

[Kevin Christensen]

One of the strong impressions I got from reading Richard L. Anderson's Investigating the Witnesses of the Book of Mormon is that it is very clear that Joseph and the witnesses and Emma and Mary Whitmer, and even the neighbors who ransacked his property searching for the plates.  They all knew he had something real.  Joseph Smith never treated the Book of Mormon as a parable or myth, but as a reality.

We don't have the plates to look at, but we do have a translation.  We have several competing paradigms for how to account for them.  According to Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, it makes a great deal of sense to ask "Which paradigm is better?"  And in practical terms, Kuhn reports that the most relevant questions to determine "better" involve puzzle definition testability and accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, fruitfulness (that is, assuming it is what it says it is and exploring it that way and discovering aspects that one never would have seen otherwise), simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise.   There is a difference between puzzle solving within a paradigm and paradigm testing. 

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Insofar as he is engaged in normal science, the research worker is a solver of puzzles, not a tester of paradigms. … [H]e is like the chess player who, with a problem stated and the board physically or mentally before him, tries out various alternate moves in search for a solution. These trial attempts, whether by the chess player or the scientist, are trials only of themselves, not of the rules of the game. (Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 144–45.)

Critics such as Ann Taves are engaged in puzzle solving from a secular perspective, not paradigm testing.  For Taves, the problem the Book of Mormon represents amounts to bulk, and some matters of style.   She does not engage the Book of Mormon as history, and does not engage the arguments and evidence gathered by defenders.  Back in 1953, Nibley looked at the standard work on authenticating documents, based on the experience of Renaissance scholars, and proposed using that approach on the Book of Mormon.

Quote

To begin with, says Blass, “We have the document, and the same of its author; we must begin our examination by assuming that the author indicated really wrote it” You always begin by assuming the text is genuine. What critic of the Book of Mormon has ever done that? (Nibley, The Prophetic Book of Mormon, 55.)

So the Book of Mormon describes Jerusalem 600 BCE.  According to Biblical scholar Margaret Barker. 

Quote

The exile in Babylon is a formidable barrier to anyone wanting to reconstruct the religious beliefs and practices of ancient Jerusalem. . . . Enormous developments took place in the wake of enormous destruction. (The Great Angel, 12)
 

So the Book of Mormon begins on just the other side of that barrier.  Barker herself read the Book of Mormon, and became the first non-LDS critic to actually test the Book of Mormon under the assumption that Nibley laid out.

Quote

Do the revelations to Joseph Smith fit in that context—the reign of King Zedikiah, who is mentioned at the beginning of the First Book of Nephi? (King Zedikiah was installed in Jerusalem in 597 BCE.)
I am not a scholar of Mormon texts and traditions, and I must emphasize that. I’m a biblical scholar specializing in the Old Testament. Until some Mormon scholars made contact with me a few years ago I would never have considered using Mormon texts and traditions as part of my own work.
Since that initial contact I have had many good and fruitful exchanges and have begun to look at these texts very closely. I’m still, however, very much an amateur in this area. What I offer can only be the reactions of an Old Testament scholar—“Are the revelations to Joseph Smith consistent with the situation in Jerusalem about 600 B.C.E?” (Barker, 2005)
 

The Book of Mormon describes a journey across the Arabian desert.  Are the details of that journey accurate?  Or are they obviously imagined and disconnected from reality?

See https://scripturecentral.org/archive/books/book/lehi-and-sariah-arabia-old-world-setting-book-mormon

The Book of Mormon describes the a migration to the New World.  

See Brant Gardner here:

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/conference/august-2001/a-social-history-of-the-early-nephites

And for the specific details of the Setting, Larry Poulson.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2008-Larry-Poulsen.pdf

I have much more to go through, but need to run an errand.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

[the narrator]

16 hours ago, bluebell said:

Ann Taves approach seems to have him lying about them

IIRC, Taves does not have Joseph lying. Rather, she posits that Joseph believed that the plates were real but part of the invisible world, and that he later made them tangible by creating his own set, which God then made into the real plates--similar to how the brother of Jared fashioned stones that God touched to make divine (she actually got that comparison from me).

A big frustration I have of both faithful and critical historians of early Mormonism is that that they both fail to fully grasp just how weird and different early 19th century frontier America was. The idea that there as very real but invisible world only made manifest to the "mind's eye" was very common. Joseph and his family believed the hills were filled with slippery treasures, guarded by invisible spirits, that would slip away if not approached correctly. Accounts abound of the presence of real, evil and good, spirits that could be felt but remain unseen by those whose eyes were not prepared to see. (Not too different from my parents feeling and knowing that my maternal grandparents were in the sealing room with us when I was proxy for my ojiichan and my mother for my obaachan.)  Early saints were quite literally kung fu fighting and violently killing invisible spirits and demons in their worship services. The 3 witnesses'--especially Harris's--account make far more sense as a visionary experience. It is very clear that to them something could be both very real and tangible but also invisible and unseeable to those not righteous or gifted to see.

Edited July 9 by the narrator

[smac97]

16 hours ago, brownbear said:

Nuanced (and former) members of the church will have a wide variety of opinions about Joseph Smith and his translation projects. However, there seems to be a gap between “real translation” and “pious fraud”.

Yes, and a mighty big gap it is.

16 hours ago, brownbear said:

This is addressing those who see the Book of Mormon as inspired scripture, but non-historical.

This theory is, in my view, altogether untenable.  It falsifies essentially everything Joseph Smith said and did.

16 hours ago, brownbear said:

The church has recognized that even though the Book of Abraham may have little to do with the papyri, Joseph Smith was able to use it as a springboard to get revelation (i.e. catalyst).

There is plenty of dispute about the amount of papyri that is still extant.  I think the reason we have a missing scroll theory is because eyewitness accounts describe considerably more papyri than what we have.  See, e.g., here and here:

Quote

Gee has also presented apparent eyewitness recollections about this issue:

Quote

Eyewitnesses from the Nauvoo period (1839–1844) describe “a quantity of records, written on papyrus, in Egyptian hieroglyphics,”32 including (1) some papyri “preserved under glass,”33 described as “a number of glazed slides, like picture frames, containing sheets of papyrus, with Egyptian inscriptions and hieroglyphics”;34 (2) “a long roll of manuscript”35 that contained the Book of Abraham;36 (3) “another roll”;37 (4) and “two or three other small pieces of papyrus with astronomical calculations, epitaphs, &c.”38 Only the mounted fragments ended up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and thence were given back to the Church of Jesus Christ. When eyewitnesses described the vignettes as being of the mounted fragments, they can be matched with the fragments from the Metropolitan Museum of Art; but when the vignettes described are on the rolls, the descriptions do not match any of the fragments from the Met. Gustavus Seyffarth’s 1856 catalog of the Wood Museum indicates that some of the papyri were there.  Those papyri went to Chicago and were burned in the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. Whatever we might imagine their contents to be is only conjecture. Both Mormon and non-Mormon eyewitnesses from the nineteenth century agree that it was a “roll of papyrus from which our prophet translated the Book of Abraham,”39 meaning the “long roll of manuscript” and not one of the mounted fragments that eventually ended up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.40
---
32. William S. West, A Few Interesting Facts Respecting the Rise, Progress, and Pretensions of the Mormons (Warren, OH, 1837), 5, cited in Todd, Saga of the Book of Abraham, 196–97.
33. Quincy, Figures of the Past, 386.
34. Henry Caswall, The City of the Mormons; or, Three Days at Nauvoo, in 1842 (London: Rivington, 1843), 22–23.
35. Charlotte Haven to her mother, 19 February 1843, printed in “A Girl’s Letters from Nauvoo,” Overland Monthly 16/96 (December 1890): 624, as cited in Todd, Saga of the Book of Abraham, 245.
36. Jerusha W. Blanchard, “Reminiscences of the Granddaughter of Hyrum Smith,” Relief Society Magazine 9/1 (1922): 9; and Haven to her mother, 19 February 1843.
37. Haven to her mother, 19 February 1843.
38. Oliver Cowdery to William Frye, 22 December 1835, printed in the Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 2 (December 1835): 234.
39. Blanchard, “Reminiscences,” 9; and Haven to her mother, 19 February 1843.
40. For the distribution of the manuscript fragments, see John Gee, “Eyewitness, Hearsay, and Physical Evidence of the Joseph Smith Papyri,” in The Disciple as Witness: Essays on Latter-day Saint History and Doctrine in Honor of Richard Lloyd Anderson, ed.  Stephen D. Ricks et al. (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2000), 188–91; and John Gee, A Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2000), 10–13.

...

Jeff Lindsay provides a pretty good summary of the relevant evidence re: scroll length (and number of scrolls) here.

Gee also describes the chain of custody in more detail (from pp. 5-9 of An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, see also here) (emphasis added) :

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When Joseph Smith relocated to Nauvoo, he turned over the mummies and papyri to his mother, Lucy Mack Smith, to free himself from the obligation of exhibiting the papyri and to provide his widowed mother with means to support herself. She kept the mummies and papyri for the rest of her life, showing them to interested visitors for twenty-five cents a person. On May 26, 1856, less than two weeks after Lucy Mack Smith died, Emma Smith (Joseph’s widow), her second husband (Lewis C. Bidamon), and her son Joseph Smith III sold the mummies and the papyri to a man named Abel Combs.

Abel Combs split up the papyri. Some he sold to the St. Louis Museum, including at least two of the rolls and at least two of the mummies; some of the mounted fragments he kept. The St. Louis Museum sold the rolls and mummies to Colonel Wood’s Museum in Chicago. Wood’s Museum burned down in the Chicago Fire of 1871, and presumably the papyri and mummies were destroyed with it. Wood’s Museum was afterwards rebuilt and acquired other mummies. Its Egyptian collection was later sold to the Niagara Falls Museum, and the Egyptian holdings ended up in the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University; its mummies all date to a different time period than that of the Joseph Smith Papyri.

The mounted fragments of papyrus passed from Abel Combs to the hands of Edward and Alice Heusser. In 1918 Alice Heusser offered the papyri to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. At the time, the museum was not interested. But in 1947 Ludlow Bull, the Metropolitan’s associate curator of the Department of Egyptian Art, purchased the papyri for the museum from Edward Heusser. Notice of the purchase and origin of the papyri was published in the museum’s acquisition list.

After a change in personnel in the Department of Egyptian Art, the museum decided that they did not want the papyri any longer. When Aziz S. Atiya, a Coptic scholar living in Utah, visited the museum in 1966, the curators asked him to see if The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would be interested in the papyri. On 27 November 1967, the Metropolitan Museum presented the fragments of the papyri to the Church. The Church published the papyri two months later in their official magazine, the Improvement Era; the current numbering system of the papyri derives from this publication.

To the disappointment of many, although these remaining fragments contained the illustration that served as the basis for Facsimile 1, they were not the portion of the papyri that contained the text of the Book of Abraham. In historical hindsight, however, they could not have been; the portion of papyrus identified by nineteenth-century eyewitnesses as containing the Book of Abraham seems to have gone to Wood’s Museum and was presumably burned in the Chicago Fire of 1871. There is, at present, no way of recovering it.

(Emphasis added.)

As I have previously summed up:

Quote

So Gee posits that the "chain of custody" was complicated by Abel Combs, who split up the artifacts by selling some and retaining some of the mounted fragments for himself.  The fragments he kept went to the Heussers, then to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, then to the Church.

Meanwhile, Gee posits that "at least two of the rolls," including "the portion of papyrus identified by nineteenth-century eyewitnesses as containing the Book of Abraham" went from Combs to the St. Louis, which then burned down in 1871.

Working chronologically, we seem to end up with this:

Extant Fragments: Joseph Smith (1830s/1840s) ---> Lucy Mack Smith (1840s/1850s) ---> Emma Bidamon / Lewis Bidamon / Joseph Smith III (1856) ---> Abel Combs (1856 to ???) ---> Edward and Alice Heusser (before 1918 to 1947) ---> Metropolitan Museum (1947-1967) ---> The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1967-Present).

Everything Other than the Extant Fragments, including Papyrus Scroll "identified by nineteenth-century eyewitnesses as containing the Book of Abraham": Joseph Smith (1830s/1840s) ---> Lucy Mack Smith (1840s/1850s) ---> Emma Bidamon / Lewis Bidamon / Joseph Smith III (1856) ---> Abel Combs (1856 to 18??) ---> St. Louis Museum (18??-1871) ---> Destroyed by fire.

There are all sorts of assumptions and unknowns here. 

Did the Bidamons retain any of the papyri, or did they sell absolutely everything to Abel Combs? 

Combs seemed to have possession of these materials for quite a while.  Did he keep 100% of the materials together, to be passed on to the Heussers and the St. Louis Museum ?

Was the entirety of the JSP materials divided between the Heussers and the St. Louis museum?  Or is it possible that some portions of the materials were lost, destroyed, sold to other parties, etc. while in the custody of Combs?

How can we possibly account for the materials sent to the St. Louis museum, which were lost in the fire?  As Gee notes: "Gustavus Seyffarth’s 1856 catalog of the Wood Museum indicates that some of the papyri were there."  Do you dispute this?  If so, on what factual/evidentiary basis?  

What about the Heussers?  They held the fragments from before 1918 to 1947.  Do we know with certainty that they retained 100% of the materials they received from Combs during these decades, and passed on 100% of the materials to the Metropolitan Museum?  If so, what factual/evidentiary basis do you have for such a proposition?

I am reminded here of the pithy wisdom of Donald Rumsfeld:

Quote

"There are known knowns" is a phrase from a response United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave to a question at a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) news briefing on February 12, 2002, about the lack of evidence linking the government of Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.

Rumsfeld stated:

Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.

I think we can apply some of this reasoning to the Joseph Smith Papyri.

• Known Knowns: The extant fragments of the JSP have good provenance.  They are "known knowns."  
• Known Unknowns: There are all sorts of possible "known unknowns" with the JSP.  For example, we know we don't know what was lost in the 1871 fire in Chicago.
• Unknown Knowns: This one is a bit tricky.  It has been defined as "that which we intentionally refuse to acknowledge that we know."  The Cook/Smith assessment might fall into this category, or it might not.  It is, after all, a guess, not a "known."
• Unknown Unknowns: This are all sorts of possible "unknowns unknowns" as well.  There are things we don't know about the JSP, and we are not even aware that we do not know these things.  There are also potential historical sources that are out there, but are presently undiscovered.  For example, I have recently come across a reference to a possible heretofore unknown eyewitness account about the Joseph Smith Papyri.  I'll provide further updates if anything comes up.

...

We have factual issues about the overall length and amount of papyri once owned by Joseph Smith.

We have factual issues about the chain of custody of these materials.

We have factual issues about which of these materials (if any) was the (purported) source of the text of the Book of Abraham.

We have factual issues about what happened to the portion(s) of the papyri that were the (purported) source of the text of the Book of Abraham.  Assuming all papyri ended up with Abel Combs, what did he do with them?  Were they burned up in Chicago in 1871?  Or did they somehow end up with the Heussers, and later with the Metropolitan Museum (and, if so, how did that happen)?

We have factual issues about discrepancies and ambiguities regarding the length of the scrolls.  How long was the "long roll?"  Is the Cook/Smith guesstimate definitive?  How can it possibly be so, given the chain of custody issues?

And so on.

I submit that the "missing papyrus" theory is not only not "completely debunked," it is very much alive and kicking.  I'll even go so far as to say it is most plausible interpretation of the historical record.

The Church's Gospel Topics essay, Origins of the Book of Abraham, allows for either approach:

Quote

This book of scripture was revealed to Joseph Smith beginning in 1835 at a time when he was studying some ancient Egyptian papyri the Saints had purchased. Many people saw the papyri, but no eyewitness account of the translation process exists. Only small fragments of the long papyrus scrolls once in Joseph’s possession exist today. The relationship between the Egyptian writings on those papyri and the scriptural text we have today is not known.

Joseph Smith may have translated the book of Abraham from portions of the papyrus that are now missing, or his study of the papyrus may have served as a catalyst leading to a revelation about Abraham. In either case, Joseph did not translate the book by conventional means. Speaking of the translation of the Book of Mormon, the Lord said, “You cannot write that which is sacred save it be given you from me.” The same principle applies to the book of Abraham.
...

Most of the papyri that were in Joseph’s possession are now lost, though some fragments have survived. They consist of two fragments of the Book of Breathing for Horos; four fragments and several scraps of the Book of the Dead for Semminis; and a fragment from the Book of the Dead for Nefer-ir-nebu. Both Latter-day Saint and non–Latter-day Saint Egyptologists agree that the characters on these fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham.

Some Latter-day Saints believe that the text of the book of Abraham was found on the papyri that are now missing. Others conclude that Joseph’s study of the papyri prompted a revelation about key events and teachings in the life of Abraham, much as he had earlier received a revelation about the life of Moses while studying the Bible. According to this view, the papyri acted as the catalyst for a revelation about Abraham.

The Church does not take a position on these theories. It simply affirms that the translation was accomplished by revelation. Like the Book of Mormon, the book of Abraham came forth by “the gift and power of God.”

(Emphases added.)

16 hours ago, brownbear said:

It seems possible that he believed he was translating real records, even when he wasn’t. Edit: The church allows a Book of Abraham catalyst theory, but has not abandoned the missing scroll theory.

Yep.

16 hours ago, brownbear said:

I am wondering if this same logic can be extended to the Book of Mormon.

Not really.  The Church posits that Abraham was a real person, and that the information about him as recorded in the Book of Abraham was given to Joseph Smith via revelatory means.  There is no formulation or postulation from the Church that the Book of Abraham was a work of fiction.

16 hours ago, brownbear said:

For those who see it as 19th century American scripture, do you believe Joseph Smith thought he was translating a genuine record of ancient Nephites? Obviously, this introduces the question of Moroni and the golden plates. The golden plates can take a few different approaches; a Ann Taves approach where Joseph Smith created the plates but they were “transformed” into an ancient record; a Sonia Hazard approach where he found printing plates; some other approach. 

I am curious where everyone falls? Do you believe Joseph Smith thought his translation projects were literal translations of real people?

I'm not sure there are any advocates of the "Inspired Fiction" theory on this board.  We have discussed it a lot, though.  We have also discussed Ann Taves.

The site's search function is very poor.  Google's search functionality is a bit better.  Something like this may get you to some results:

mormondialogue.org: "ann taves"

mormondialogue.org: "inspired fiction"

In my view, the Inspired Fiction theory creates far more problems than it solves.  If The Book of Mormon is fictional, then the people described in it never existed.  That being the case, there could not have been any gold plates to be viewed by the Witnesses, nor any resurrected Nephite named Moroni to facilitate Joseph's acquisition of them.

Thanks,

-Smac

[brownbear]

7 minutes ago, the narrator said:

A big frustration I have of both faithful and critical historians of early Mormonism is that that they both fail to fully grasp just how weird and different early 19th century frontier America was. The idea that there as very real but invisible world only made manifest to the "mind's eye" was very common. Joseph and his family believed the hills were filled with slippery treasures, guarded by invisible spirits, that would slip away if not approached correctly. Accounts abound of the presence of real, evil and good, spirits that could be felt but remain unseen by those whose eyes were not prepared to see.

I agree. The Smith family was steeped in magic culture. The mystical environment in which they lived allowed for things to be “real”, according to this magic worldview. This contributes to the fun, puzzle, and mystery of the Book of Mormon. 

[the narrator]

16 minutes ago, smac97 said:

If The Book of Mormon is fictional, then the people described in it never existed.

And vice versa, which is kind of a big problem for the biblical narrative and historical record, where it seems incredibly unlikely that anything from Genesis through Kings and Chronicles is more than very loosely "inspired by a true story"--where in reality there was likely never any Abraham (which should be the primary and simplest argument against a historical BofA), Moses, Exodus, Conquest, united Kingdom of Israel, etc. A jewish friend of mine recently joked that the biggest problem for BofM apologetics is that the biblical narrative it piggybacks on is harder to defend than the BofM's own narrative. That said, he, and many other Jewish (and Christian) scholars still find divine value and inspiration in the scriptures despite them not accurately or even remotely describing the historical past.

Edited July 9 by the narrator

[bluebell]

54 minutes ago, the narrator said:

IIRC, Taves does not have Joseph lying. Rather, she posits that Joseph believed that the plates were real but part of the invisible world, and that he later made them tangible by creating his own set, which God then made into the real plates--similar to how the brother of Jared fashioned stones that God touched to make divine (she actually got that comparison from me).

A big frustration I have of both faithful and critical historians of early Mormonism is that that they both fail to fully grasp just how weird and different early 19th century frontier America was. The idea that there as very real but invisible world only made manifest to the "mind's eye" was very common. Joseph and his family believed the hills were filled with slippery treasures, guarded by invisible spirits, that would slip away if not approached correctly. Accounts abound of the presence of real, evil and good, spirits that could be felt but remain unseen by those whose eyes were not prepared to see. (Not too different from my parents feeling and knowing that my maternal grandparents were in the sealing room with us when I was proxy for my ojiichan and my mother for my obaachan.)  Early saints were quite literally kung fu fighting and violently killing invisible spirits and demons in their worship services. The 3 witnesses'--especially Harris's--account make far more sense as a visionary experience. It is very clear that to them something could be both very real and tangible but also invisible and unseeable to those not righteous or gifted to see.

But JS implies many times that the plates were real in talking about them didn't he, beginning with his reaction the very first time he saw them (where he talks about how much actual-visible-real money he could get for them to help his family).  When he was finally able to take them from the Hill--the very first time he had them in his possession--he implied their tangibility by recounting that the Angel Moroni told him not to allow anyone to steal them (something that wouldn't be possible if they were invisible and intangible) and he also spoke of their weight if I'm remembering correctly.

So, if they actually weren't real (tangible) then wouldn't that mean he was lying when he said all of those things?

 

Edited July 9 by bluebell

[smac97]

43 minutes ago, the narrator said:

And vice versa, which is kind of a big problem for the biblical narrative and historical record,

The problem becomes less big if we re-visit the expectation that the "historical record" is, or should be, a comprehensive compilation of wholly reliable and empirically testable data of persons and events from thousands of years ago.  I don't think that expectation is warranted.

43 minutes ago, the narrator said:

where it seems incredibly unlikely that anything from Genesis through Kings and Chronicles is more than very loosely "inspired by a true story"--

This presupposes that the likelihood of the biblical narrative can, or should be, construed based mostly or entirely on the "historical record."  Again, I don't think that expectation is warranted.

43 minutes ago, the narrator said:

where in reality there was likely never any Abraham, Moses, Exodus, Conquest, united Kingdom of Israel, etc.

The "there's no evidence"-style approach has never worked for me.  It presupposes way too much.  And it seems built on the No True Scotsman fallacy, as I assume would be forthcoming if I were to mention the Tel Dan Stele, the Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone), the the Merneptah Stele, the Kurkh Monoliths, and so on.

As an attorney, I often find it quite difficult to compile evidence of an event that happened just a year or two ago.  The vast majority of persons (their identities, acts, etc.) and events in antiquity were never recorded in any tangible medium, and the vast majority of this tiny overall amount of tangible media from hundreds and thousands of years ago has been lost or destroyed.  

43 minutes ago, the narrator said:

A jewish friend of mine recently joked that the biggest problem for BofM apologetics is that the biblical narrative it piggybacks on is harder to defend than the BofM's own narrative.

I both agree and disagree.  I have previously laid out my reasoning on this point here:

Quote

Because the Bible’s historical transmission can be discerned and explained naturalistically (that is, without any necessary reliance on “divine” intervention in the transmission of the text), the antiquity of the Bible is not probative of its status as scripture (any more than Homer’s Illiad is probative of the Greek Pantheon).  This is why skeptics of the Bible find little or no persuasive value in archaeological artifacts presented as “evidence” for the Bible’s status as scripture and record of miraculous events.  After all, Homer’s Illiad has a historical pedigree tracing back to antiquity, as well as some archaeological verification.  This does not mean, however, that the descriptions of the supernatural in Homer's work are factual.  As one atheist fellow put it: "The only thing all those ancient bible sites prove is {that} the Bible is a really old fraud."
 
In contrast, The Book of Mormon is differently situated from the Bible.  There is a built-in gap in its historical transmission, consisting of some 1,400 years from when Moroni buried the plates to 1823, when the plates were re-discovered by Joseph Smith, Jr.  This “transmission gap” effectively precludes a naturalistic explanation of the text’s antiquity.   Consequently, if we someday discover persuasive archaeological or other evidence for the antiquity of The Book of Mormon, such evidence would have a far more persuasive impact on the veracity of the book's truth claims than would archaeological evidence for the Bible impact that book's truth claims.
 
Put another way, the antiquity and truth claims of The Book of Mormon are intertwined, such that evidence of the former may  simultaneously be evidence of the latter.

A more detailed explanation of my position is here.

See also Robert F. Smith's article here: The Preposterous Book of Mormon: A Singular Advantage

43 minutes ago, the narrator said:

That said, he, and many other Jewish (and Christian) scholars still find divine value and inspiration in the scriptures despite them not accurately or even remotely describing the historical past.

I am glad to hear that.  For myself, though, I cannot disregard the need for historicity (in a generalized sense, anyway).  On this point I have been influenced by Historicity and the Latter-day Saint Scriptures, edited by Paul H. Hoskisson, and by Stephen O. Smoot's The Imperative for a Historical Book of Mormon.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited July 9 by smac97

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

A big frustration I have of both faithful and critical historians of early Mormonism is that that they both fail to fully grasp just how weird and different early 19th century frontier America was. The idea that there as very real but invisible world only made manifest to the "mind's eye" was very common. Joseph and his family believed the hills were filled with slippery treasures, guarded by invisible spirits, that would slip away if not approached correctly. Accounts abound of the presence of real, evil and good, spirits that could be felt but remain unseen by those whose eyes were not prepared to see. (Not too different from my parents feeling and knowing that my maternal grandparents were in the sealing room with us when I was proxy for my ojiichan and my mother for my obaachan.)  Early saints were quite literally kung fu fighting and violently killing invisible spirits and demons in their worship services. The 3 witnesses'--especially Harris's--account make far more sense as a visionary experience. It is very clear that to them something could be both very real and tangible but also invisible and unseeable to those not righteous or gifted to see.

I've enjoyed the Saints volumes that the church has published, which have talked more about this aspect of life back in that culture.

[CV75]

12 minutes ago, bluebell said:

But JS implies many times that the plates were real in his history, beginning with his reaction the very first time he saw them (where he talks about how much actual-visible-real money he could get for them to help his family).  When he was finally able to take them from the Hill--the very first time he had them in his possession--he spoke of their tangibility and weight, right?

So, if they actually weren't real (tangible) then wouldn't that mean he was lying in his written history?

 

Some will insist that that which is not real to them in their minds was nonetheless very real to Joseph Smith in his, and that he operated in good faith. So, they say he was not lying, but that he held to a different paradigm and preconception about spiritual matters than they do. Both they and Joseph simply have a different sets of experiences and working models; no one is necessarily lying.

[CV75]

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

IIRC, Taves does not have Joseph lying. Rather, she posits that Joseph believed that the plates were real but part of the invisible world, and that he later made them tangible by creating his own set, which God then made into the real plates--similar to how the brother of Jared fashioned stones that God touched to make divine (she actually got that comparison from me).

A big frustration I have of both faithful and critical historians of early Mormonism is that that they both fail to fully grasp just how weird and different early 19th century frontier America was. The idea that there as very real but invisible world only made manifest to the "mind's eye" was very common. Joseph and his family believed the hills were filled with slippery treasures, guarded by invisible spirits, that would slip away if not approached correctly. Accounts abound of the presence of real, evil and good, spirits that could be felt but remain unseen by those whose eyes were not prepared to see. (Not too different from my parents feeling and knowing that my maternal grandparents were in the sealing room with us when I was proxy for my ojiichan and my mother for my obaachan.)  Early saints were quite literally kung fu fighting and violently killing invisible spirits and demons in their worship services. The 3 witnesses'--especially Harris's--account make far more sense as a visionary experience. It is very clear that to them something could be both very real and tangible but also invisible and unseeable to those not righteous or gifted to see.

This last sentence holds today among beleivers in spiritual things, the vast majority of whom are also believers in the tangible and that most often the two share the same space.

How much a person believes Joseph's personal experience with and beleifs about the gold plates and their translation entailed tangible and/or spiritual features is mostly a reflection of their own view of and approach to life, which can change in either direction. 

[Tacenda]

12 minutes ago, CV75 said:

Some will insist that that which is not real to them in their minds was nonetheless very real to Joseph Smith in his, and that he operated in good faith. So, they say he was not lying, but that he held to a different paradigm and preconception about spiritual matters than they do. Both they and Joseph simply have a different sets of experiences and working models; no one is necessarily lying.

Makes me wonder if Joseph Smith learned while attending the preaching at the camps (forgot what they called them, help!) he found he didn't agree with them on some of the teachings. In fact I believe it alarmed him so much that he decided to ask God in the grove and came out feeling like he'd received the answer that none were true. (he may have had these visions in his sleep maybe) 

I happen to have skepticism about actual physical visits by God/Jesus because of the varying accounts. But believe Joseph had the kind of upbringing that gave him choices. His background had some Universalism embedded in. And in the new nation, sort of new, it enabled choice in religion and that was how religions started, hopefully I'm right on that.

I believe whatever Joseph did, was a process and over time it evolved to be the LDS church. And for the most part it isn't too bad of a religion. Just believe men/women start churches and some are bad and some are good. 

I believe Joseph may have needed a vehicle (plates) to make it more substantial. And I'm sure he did have help from above if God agreed or put thoughts in his mind as well. 

I'm just babbling on, and I have no credentials to even speak. But it's my thoughts at the moment. I don't believe Joseph was a conman. I believe he heard things in the revivals (finally remembered) that shocked or worried him to the point he wanted to help those listening and himself to have another option. 

 

 

[smac97]

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

A big frustration I have of both faithful and critical historians of early Mormonism is that that they both fail to fully grasp just how weird and different early 19th century frontier America was. The idea that there as very real but invisible world only made manifest to the "mind's eye" was very common. Joseph and his family believed the hills were filled with slippery treasures, guarded by invisible spirits, that would slip away if not approached correctly. Accounts abound of the presence of real, evil and good, spirits that could be felt but remain unseen by those whose eyes were not prepared to see. (Not too different from my parents feeling and knowing that my maternal grandparents were in the sealing room with us when I was proxy for my ojiichan and my mother for my obaachan.)  Early saints were quite literally kung fu fighting and violently killing invisible spirits and demons in their worship services. The 3 witnesses'--especially Harris's--account make far more sense as a visionary experience. It is very clear that to them something could be both very real and tangible but also invisible and unseeable to those not righteous or gifted to see.

I agree that we ought not overlook this aspect of 19th-century life.  However, I think we may also err by indulging in the notion that our ancestors were a bunch of benighted yokels when it comes to differentiating between real and imaginary things.  Daniel C. Peterson commented on this phenomenon here (emphases added) :

Quote

Witnesses to the Book of Mormon

The author of the letter then attacks the witnesses. And one of the things that is now done, the newly fashionable way of addressing the witnesses is to say, “Well, these were primitive people, you know, of a different era. They really couldn’t distinguish reality from fantasy.” And so, there was an article that Richard Lloyd Anderson wrote for the old Journal of Book of Mormon Studies.

I confess, I was the one who provoked him into doing it. I pestered him and pestered him and pestered him for about two years, because I thought this article was necessary: “Attempts to Redefine the Experience of the Eight Witnesses.” The eight witnesses were explicit in many cases. They held the plates. They saw them. Hyrum Smith said, “With these eyes… I held them with these hands.” And then I hear people say, “Well, they never really claimed to see them with their natural eyes.” What? What more could they say? It’s like they’re directly addressing these critics today. But those sorts of statements are ignored in favor of often second- and third- and fourth-hand statements suggesting they never actually saw or touched the plates at all.

This is what he says, the author of the letter:

[Letter to a CES Director] “The mistake that is made by 21st century Mormons is that they’re seeing the Book of Mormon Witnesses as empirical, rational, nineteenth-century men instead of the nineteenth-century magical-thinking superstitious and treasure-digging men they were.”

I confess, as somebody who has spent a lot of time, much of my life, looking at people from pre-modern periods, that the sheer condescension of this, the chronological smugness and complacency of that statement irritates me, and not merely because I’m a believing Latter-day Saint. It’s rather like someone to ascribe early Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus to the supposed fact that ancient people, unlike us, hadn’t yet realized that dead people tend to stay dead, which, if it were true at all, would leave us wondering why they thought the resurrection of Jesus was such a big deal. Happens all the time, right?

But recently the preferred method of dealing with the witnesses is simply to say they are primitive and superstitious and so on. But, here’s a paragraph I wrote some years ago, a couple of paragraphs, and I’m going to read them because I’m fond of them. Some of you may have heard it before, but I think the point needs to be made:

It seems implausible to assume that the witnesses, early nineteenth-century farmers who spent their lives rising at sunrise, pulling up stumps, clearing rocks, plowing fields, sowing seeds, carefully nurturing crops, herding livestock, milking cows, digging wells, building cabins, raising barns, harvesting food, bartering, in an often cashless economy, for what they could not produce themselves, wearing clothes made from plant fibers and skins, anxiously watching the seasons, and walking or riding animals out under the weather until they retired to their beds shortly after sunset in “a world lit only by fire,” that they were estranged from everyday reality.

It’s especially unbelievable when the claim is made by people whose lives, like mine, consist to a large extent of staring at digital screens in artificially air-conditioned and artificially lit homes and offices, clothed in synthetic fibers, commuting between the two in enclosed and air-conditioned mechanical vehicles while they listen to the radio, chat on their cell phones, and fiddle with their iPods, whose inner workings are largely mysterious to them, who buy their prepackaged food (with little or no regard for the time or the season) by means of plastic cards and electronic financial transfers from artificially illuminated and air-conditioned supermarkets enmeshed in international distribution networks of which they know virtually nothing, the rhythms of whose daily lives are largely unaffected by the rising and setting of the sun. Somehow the current generation seems ill-positioned to accuse the witnesses’ generation of being out of touch with reality.⁸

And, I think of Martin Harris with the plates, at one point, before he is actually a witness, sitting on his lap in a box. He hasn’t seen them, but he can feel them. You know, rocks are heavy, but lead is heavier, right? And gold is heavy. And sometimes, the box is just too small to be full of rocks. It wouldn’t be as heavy as it was, and he said, he was sitting there thinking this is really heavy and I knew that they had to be either lead or gold, and I knew that Joseph didn’t have enough credit to get so much lead. I’ve always thought that was a funny comment. Yeah, so it’s obviously gold. Well, as a matter of fact, it was. But that scarcely seems mystical or estranged from reality to me.

And then you have the Smith women feeling the plates, hearing them rustle against one another. These are not mystical visionary experiences. This is matter-of-fact stuff. They are cleaning the house; they have to move the darn plates. They’re 60 pounds. I’m very impressed with the witnesses. They cannot be brushed aside as easily as all that.

Thanks,

-Smac

[the narrator]

48 minutes ago, bluebell said:

But JS implies many times that the plates were real in talking about them didn't he, beginning with his reaction the very first time he saw them (where he talks about how much actual-visible-real money he could get for them to help his family).  When he was finally able to take them from the Hill--the very first time he had them in his possession--he implied their tangibility by recounting that the Angel Moroni told him not to allow anyone to steal them (something that wouldn't be possible if they were invisible and intangible) and he also spoke of their weight if I'm remembering correctly.

So, if they actually weren't real (tangible) then wouldn't that mean he was lying when he said all of those things?

Early saints were literally punching and choking invisible evil spirits. My parents knew that my deceased grandparents were in the room with us when we were doing their proxy sealing. Joseph's first "vision" is framed as a visitation. Martin Harris's witness of the plates is clearly a visionary experience, where he saw with them his "mind's eye" (his words at times). Again, to understand this all properly you really have to tap into that prevalent cultural worldview where there was a very real but invisible world of things that could only be seen (and touched) by those who were gifted and blessed to do so. Joseph wasn't a "seer" because he could see the same things that everyone else could see. This also, all ties into hyperphantsia, which I have commented on several times before.

We also have the issue that visionary (and "felt") experiences tend to become more concrete and visible as people retell their experiences. Memory is a messy and unreliable thing. It doesn't exist frozen in our brains like data on a hard drive. Memory is a living and adaptive part of our consciousness that is created anew each time we recall it. I have some very deep and spiritual memories that I long believed but realized were not accurate when I reread my journal entries from the time they occurred; instead those memories changed to better conform with later identity and needs. We can see this happening with accounts of the First Vision, the BofM witnesses, the Kirtland Temple dedication, Brigham Young's supposed transfiguration into Joseph Smith, etc., where contemporary and early accounts lack the tangibility and concreteness that later accounts have. This is likely also accelerated when a community of people retell their stories. This also occurs with conversation, deconversion, and coming out narratives.  (I wish I could find his dissertation, but several years ago I listened to someone from the UofU discuss their dissertation, where he examined people's coming out narrative over the years, arguing that overtime their story gradually shifted to align with a "master narrative," and how this was similar to how religious conversion narratives also changed through retellings to align with the common narrative.)

[the narrator]

13 minutes ago, CV75 said:

How much a person believes Joseph's personal experience with and beleifs about the gold plates and their translation entailed tangible and/or spiritual features is mostly a reflection of their own view of and approach to life, which can change in either direction. 

Yes, this is true, to an extent; but as I note above, Joseph's own relationship to and memories of his experiences changed as his own worldview, identity, and needs evolved and changed.

[CV75]

3 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Makes me wonder if Joseph Smith learned while attending the preaching at the camps (forgot what they called them, help!) he found he didn't agree with them on some of the teachings. In fact I believe it alarmed him so much that he decided to ask God in the grove and came out feeling like he'd received the answer that none were true. (he may have had these visions in his sleep maybe) 

I happen to have skepticism about actual physical visits by God/Jesus because of the varying accounts. But believe Joseph had the kind of upbringing that gave him choices. His background had some Universalism embedded in. And in the new nation, sort of new, it enabled choice in religion and that was how religions started, hopefully I'm right on that.

I believe whatever Joseph did, was a process and over time it evolved to be the LDS church. And for the most part it isn't too bad of a religion. Just believe men/women start churches and some are bad and some are good. 

I believe Joseph may have needed a vehicle (plates) to make it more substantial. And I'm sure he did have help from above if God agreed or put thoughts in his mind as well. 

I'm just babbling on, and I have no credentials to even speak. But it's my thoughts at the moment. I don't believe Joseph was a conman. I believe he heard things in the revivals (finally remembered) that shocked or worried him to the point he wanted to help those listening and himself to have another option. 

 

 

Yes, All sorts of theories out there! It seems most people can accept that Joseph thought he translated from gold plates an abridgement of ancient people who beleived that God was with them, no matter how they might otherwise explain what he meant.

[the narrator]

14 minutes ago, smac97 said:

However, I think we may also err by indulging in the notion that our ancestors were a bunch of benighted yokels when it comes to differentiating between real and imaginary things.

They were also punching and choking invisible spirits in their worship service. Martin Harris's account is very clearly a visionary account. This isn't about them being "benighted yokels"; it's about them living in the early 19th century, with a very different worldview than ours. It's not just that they believed in the reality of invisible things, their accounts are full exorcisms, healings, glossolalia, astronomical/astrological divine phenomena, angels, a wandering Cain, seer stones, witching sticks, slippery treasures, angels with swords demanding polygamy, satan-controlled water, and on and on and on--things that were common and central to their religious and mundane (which were mostly inseparable) experience but have now been either entirely dropped or watered down in Mormonism today.

None of this prevents them from excelling in other aspects of life. Pointing out that they were also businessmen and farmers and such doesn't mean that they were not also invested in these parts of their worldviews. Looking at the US presidential elections today clearly demonstrates how professionals and otherwise upright men can believe things that seem delusional to the rest of us with eyes and ears at the last debate.

Edited July 9 by the narrator

[smac97]

1 minute ago, the narrator said:

Early saints were literally punching and choking invisible evil spirits.

Could you provide some references for this?

1 minute ago, the narrator said:

My parents knew that my deceased grandparents were in the room with us when we were doing their proxy sealing.

Are you suggesting they were/are delusional in believing this?

1 minute ago, the narrator said:

Joseph's first "vision" is framed as a visitation.

Yes.  An "actual" one:

Quote

24 However, it was nevertheless a fact that I had beheld a vision. I have thought since, that I felt much like Paul, when he made his defense before King Agrippa, and related the account of the vision he had when he saw a light, and heard a voice; but still there were but few who believed him; some said he was dishonest, others said he was mad; and he was ridiculed and reviled. But all this did not destroy the reality of his vision. He had seen a vision, he knew he had, and all the persecution under heaven could not make it otherwise; and though they should persecute him unto death, yet he knew, and would know to his latest breath, that he had both seen a light and heard a voice speaking unto him, and all the world could not make him think or believe otherwise.

25 So it was with me. I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two Personages, and they did in reality speak to me; and though I was hated and persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true; and while they were persecuting me, reviling me, and speaking all manner of evil against me falsely for so saying, I was led to say in my heart: Why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually seen a vision; and who am I that I can withstand God, or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it; at least I knew that by so doing I would offend God, and come under condemnation.

• "I had actually seen a light..."
• "{I}n the midst of that light I saw two Personages, and they did in reality speak to me..."
• "I have actually seen a vision..."
• "I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it..."

Joseph also specifically compared himself to Paul, and the "reality of his vision."

1 minute ago, the narrator said:

Martin Harris's witness of the plates is clearly a visionary experience, where he saw with them his "mind's eye" (his words at times).

Also "his words" at other times:

Quote

"Gentlemen, do you see that hand? Are you sure you see it? Are your eyes playing a trick or something? No. Well, as sure as you see my hand so sure did I see the angel and the plates."  —Martin Harris, quoted in "Statement of William M. Glenn to O. E. Fischbacher," May 30, 1943, Cardston, Alberta, Canada, cited in Deseret News, October 2, 1943.

"It is not a mere belief, but is a matter of knowledge. I saw the plates and the inscriptions thereon. I saw the angel, and he showed them unto me." —Martin Harris, quoted in Robert Aveson, "Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon," Deseret News, April 2, 1927.

"Well, just as plain as you see that chopping block, I saw the plates; and sooner than I would deny it I would lay my head upon that chopping block and let you chop it off."  —Martin Harris, quoted in "Statement of Comfort Elizabeth Godfrey Flinders to N. B. Lundwall," September 2, 1943, Ogden, Utah, cited in Assorted Gems of Priceless Value.

"I know what I know. I have seen what I have seen, and I have heard what I have heard. I have seen the gold plates...An angel appeared to me and others."  —Martin Harris, quoted in "Affidavit of George Godfrey, October 29, 1921, original still held by attesting notary John J. Shumway, Garland, Utah.

Thanks,

-Smac

[CV75]

5 minutes ago, the narrator said:

Yes, this is true, to an extent; but as I note above, Joseph's own relationship to and memories of his experiences changed as his own worldview, identity, and needs evolved and changed.

I don't think these changes matter much to an individual's outside evaluation of Joseph's sense of reality of these activitites at any given time. Some will say, based on their own behavior, experience or bias, that his recollection, insight and reporting of these experiences improved over time (in that he felt he was giving a clearer picture and testimony of his lived reality), while others will say they did not.

[CV75]

15 minutes ago, the narrator said:

They were also punching and choking invisible spirits in their worship service. Martin Harris's account is very clearly a visionary account. This isn't about them being "benighted yokels"; it's about them living in the early 19th century, with a very different worldview than ours. It's not just that they believed in the reality of invisible things, their accounts are full exorcisms, healings, glossolalia, astronomical/astrological divine phenomena, angels, a wandering Cain, seer stones, witching sticks, slippery treasures, angels with swords demanding polygamy, satan-controlled water, and on and on and on--things that were common and central to their religious and mundane (which were mostly inseparable) experience but have now been either entirely dropped or watered down in Mormonism today.

None of this prevents them from excelling in other aspects of life. Pointing out that they were also businessmen and farmers and such doesn't mean that they were not also invested in these parts of their worldviews. Looking at the US presidential elections today clearly demonstrates how professionals and otherwise upright men can believe things that seem delusional to the rest of us with eyes and ears at the last debate.

This is why I try to not to regard these 19th century religious practices as "weird" (for their time). And not too far into the Restoration, there were clear measures to stop some of them in the saints' worship meetings. 

Aside from the religious practices, there were also in my opinion some very chaotic and dysfunctional social dynamics going on with those involved in the Restoration. Nevertheless, the light shines in darkness! As it does today