Joseph Smith's Schooling/Vocabulary to produce The Book of Mormon

[Frank11]

2 hours ago, ksfisher said:

How does that relate to Joseph Smith?

You have to see this from my position, which does not believe that there is anything to all the appearances of Joseph Smith such as angels (with and without drawn sword), apostles, God the Father, Son etc.. Then, of course, we would have a whole lot of cases of fraud.

You can also look at it this way:
Version A: Joseph Smith was a prophet, everything as you believe it is true. Then Joseph Smith must only have been able to read what was written on the seer stone.
Version B: It's all a hoax: Then Joseph always needed “criminal energy” in addition to will, opportunity and talent. 

[Frank11]

2 hours ago, webbles said:

I find that to be an even worse source saying Joseph was good at making up stories.

Yes, maybe you're even right when I think of the King Benjamin story or the tree of life. That doesn't seem completely made up to me.

Edited September 30, 2024 by Frank11

[Kevin Christensen]

On 9/30/2024 at 2:00 PM, Frank11 said:

1. He had the will to do it.
2. He had the opportunity to do it. 
    - Financing the Book of Mormon project by Martin Harris
    - Environment was receptive to his golden plates story
3. He had a "good" reputation as a seer in the folk magic scene.
4. He had exceptional talent as a tale-teller (see below).
5. He had sufficient criminal energy.

Mother Lucy Mack Smith said: “I presume our family presented an aspect as singular as any that ever lived upon the face of the earth–all seated in a circle, father, mother, sons and daughters, and giving the most profound attention to a boy, eighteen years of age, …During our evening conversations, JOSEPH would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ANCIENT INHABITANTS of this continent, their dress, mode of traveling, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with EASE, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life among them.” (History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, 1954 Edition, pages 82-83)

 

Regarding the oft-quoted passage from Lucy Mack Smith, I took a closer look when I reviewed Ann Taves's book.   She made a huge point about the difference between contemporary accounts and later accounts of the first vision, emphasizing that later accounts are not  "not “real time access,” not a direct “window on the moment”.  But that important criteria disappears when Taves offers the Lucy Smith quote as crucial.

Quote

There are some unexamined oddities about the Lucy Smith quote. Before I would take it as an interpretive foundation, I must consider that, even though a first-hand account, it is not an autograph account, and it is late,¹² dating to an 1844 dictation in Nauvoo to the... 24-year old Martha Jane Coray regarding events in Palmyra 1823 and then not published until 1853. That is, the quote is six years older than Joseph Smith’s official history from 1838, which Taves takes notable interest in dissecting and comparing with earlier sources. In her discussion of method and sources for Mormonism, she observes:

Apart from the 1825 agreement with Josiah Stowell and the 1826 court record, both of which are preserved in later versions, we have no real-time access to events until July 1828, when D&C 3 — the first real-time recorded revelation — opens a window in the wake of the loss of the first 116 pages of the manuscript. Chapter 1 thus opens with an in-depth analysis of D&C 3, read as a window on that moment rather than as it was interpreted and reinterpreted in later accounts. (21)

The Lucy Smith quote, aside from being a late account, rather than early and contemporary (not “real time access,” not a direct “window on the moment”), turns out to be notably odd and unique with respect to Joseph Smith, rather than well supported from a range of sources. Certainly much in Lucy’s biography is well supported, but let us recognize the anomaly here. Odd accounts do occur in history, yes, but the account raises questions that should be faced and mentioned before building one’s structure there. First of all, the Book of Mormon we have has no descriptions of people riding animals in over 500 pages that include several major migrations and 100 distinct wars. It provides no notably detailed descriptions of clothing (other than armor) and no detailed descriptions of the structure of later buildings. The most detail we get involves descriptions of fortifications with palisaded walls and ditches.

Then there is the unasked question as to why — if Joseph Smith as a youth was capable of this kind of detailed, immersive, evening-filling recital on the everyday particulars of Book of Mormon peoples and culture — do we have no further record anywhere of his performing the same service as an adult? Perhaps the closest circumstance on this topic involves the Zelph story on Zion’s Camp, but in that case the notable differences in the details recorded by the different people who reported it, even those writing close to the event, should give pause to a person trying to build an interpretive foundation on an isolated, late, anomalous account related to far longer and complex narrative than the Zelph gossip.¹³ It bears mentioning that if Joseph Smith had been telling stories about the Book of Mormon peoples, animals, clothing, and culture, such stories should have had an obvious influence on Abner Cole’s 1830 parody version, the Book of Pukei, which “tells in mocking fashion about the sorts of things that Joseph’s neighbors expected to find in the Book of Mormon.”¹⁴ Yet the most notable thing about the Book of Pukei is how utterly different it is from the actual Book of Mormon.¹⁵ The book Joseph Smith produced was emphatically not what his neighbors expected.

It is true the Book of Mormon does contain abundant details about “their religious worship” and their “modes of warfare,” but we have no other accounts of Joseph Smith’s filling anyone’s evening or afternoon with amusing or serious recitals on those topics either. Again, why not? This is not a frivolous question but one addressed to a foundation stone upon which Taves chooses to build.

And it turns out that research into the sources for Lucy Mack Smith's history, reveals this:

Quote

Lucy Mack Smith’s A History of Joseph Smith by His Mother was dictated to a Nauvoo school teacher, Martha Jane Coray in 1845. Coray and her husband compiled the notes and other sources into a manuscript that was later published in 1853. Sharalynn D. Howcroft (an editor of Oxford University Press’ forthcoming Foundational Texts of Mormonism) stated “For example, Lucy Mack Smith reportedly dictated her history to Martha Jane Coray; however, the extant manuscript doesn’t show evidence of dictation and there are other clues in the manuscript that suggest what we have is a few generations removed from a dictated text. Additionally, scholars have presumed the fair copy was a contiguous history, but physical clues indicate it was two separate copies of the history that were combined. This kind of analysis and discovery extends our understanding beyond what the content of a historical source divulges.” See https://bycommonconsent.com/2018/01/10/qa-with-foundational-texts-of-mormonism-editors/.

I also note the different way Joseph was viewed by skeptical neighbors and the family who shared his life.

Quote

Taves also avoids dealing with the contrast between the skeptical neighbors who wanted an appropriately dismissive explanation for the unwieldy book, the associated angel stories, and the growing religious community Joseph had somehow attracted and the family, who, according to William Smith’s account, viewed Joseph quite differently from the picture she paints from selected comments of neighbors (from many contradictory possibilities21) of Joseph as a storyteller. William reports that:

Knowing that he was very young, that he had not enjoyed the advantages of a common education; and knowing too, his whole character and disposition, they were convinced that he was totally incapable of arising before his aged parents, his brothers and sisters, and so solemnly giving utterance of anything but the truth.22

William also noted that after Joseph’s vision became known, “We never knew we were bad folks, until Joseph told his vision. We were considered respectable till then, but at once people began to circulate falsehoods and stories in a wonderful way.”23 Notice that the reports from neighbors that Taves selects to characterize Joseph Smith as a wildly imaginative storyteller all happen to be ideologically saturated, reflexively skeptical judgements, rather than cool, objective reporting, providing specific accounts and details of what Joseph Smith said and did on specific occasions.

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/playing-to-an-audience-a-review-of-revelatory-events/

Attempts to paint the Book of Mormon as no big deal, no great achievement for Joseph Smith, especially those that rely on the Lucy Smith quote are placing a great deal of weight on something that on close review does not support that weight.  I mentioned the satirical Book of Pukei which does indicate the kind of thing the 1830 neighbors expected from Joseph Smith.

Quote

And I looked, and behold a little old man stood before me, clad, as I supposed, in
Egyptian raiment, except his Indian blanket, and moccasins—his beard of silver white, hung far
below his knees. On his head was an old fashioned military half cocked hat, such as was worn in
the days of the patriarch Moses—his speech was sweeter than molasses, and his words were the
reformed Egyptian. <br>
5. And he again said unto me, “Joseph, thou who hast been surnamed the ignoramus,
knowest thou not, that great signs and wonders are to be done by thine hands? knowest thou not,
that I have been sent unto thee by MORMON, the great apostle to the Nephites—Mormon who
was chief among the last ten tribes of Israel? <br>
6. Knowest thou not that this same apostle to the nephites conducted that pious people,
who could not abide the wickedness of their brethren, to these happy shores in bark canoes,
where after fighting with their brethren the Lamanites, a few hundred years, became wicked
themselves, when God sent the small pox among them, which killed two thirds of them, and
turned the rest into Indians? <br>

Notice the mention of the Lost 10 Tribes, (which though a common speculation for the origins of indigenous Americans is not offered in the Book of Mormon) and the common stereotypical symbols of the tribes, blankets, moccasins, happy shores, bark canoes, and small pox, none of which appear in the Book of Mormon.  

https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/BOMP/id/237/rec/3

And it is worth considering Robert Rees's comparisons of Joseph Smith with his near contemporaries, Melville, Hawthorne, Whitman, Emerson, and Thoreau, all of whom had far more education, all of whom spent years writing "try works" beforehand to polish their themes and skills before producing the masterpieces that made their reputations.  And Richard L. Anderson's detailed comparison of the Book of Mormon compared to a range of other modern gospels.  I discuss Anderson in detail in the review of Taves.  Despite his relevance, she did not mention his work.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited October 8, 2024 by Kevin Christensen
typos

[InCognitus]

On 9/30/2024 at 12:00 PM, Frank11 said:

4. He had exceptional talent as a tale-teller (see below).
5. He had sufficient criminal energy.

Mother Lucy Mack Smith said: “I presume our family presented an aspect as singular as any that ever lived upon the face of the earth–all seated in a circle, father, mother, sons and daughters, and giving the most profound attention to a boy, eighteen years of age, …During our evening conversations, JOSEPH would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ANCIENT INHABITANTS of this continent, their dress, mode of traveling, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with EASE, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life among them.” (History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, 1954 Edition, pages 82-83)

In addition to what Kevin Christensen just posted, given the context of Lucy Mack Smith's biography of her son, this quote you provided doesn't really prove that Joseph "had exceptional talent as a tale-teller".  

The Lucy Mack Smith quote is positioned in her biography at a point in Joseph's life after he had had his first vision and after his visit from Moroni on September 21, 1823, and after his visit to the location where the plates were deposited.

And you left out a crucial piece of context that precedes what you quoted above.  In the sentence that immediately precedes what you quoted, Lucy wrote:  "From this time forth [from the time Joseph had his visit from Moroni, etc.], Joseph continued to receive instructions from the Lord, and we continued to get the children together every evening, for the purpose of listening while he gave us a relation of the same."  (Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1845, p.86)

This context is essential because of what Joseph Smith himself wrote in the Wentworth Letter about what transpired during his visitation from Moroni on September 21, 1823.  In that source he described being given a detailed description of the ancient inhabitants of this continent during Moroni's visit:

"I was also informed concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this country and shown who they were, and from whence they came; a brief sketch of their origin, progress, civilization, laws, governments, of their righteousness and iniquity, and the blessings of God being finally withdrawn from them as a people, was made known unto me; I was also told where were deposited some plates on which were engraven an abridgment of the records of the ancient Prophets that had existed on this continent."  (Wentworth Letter, “Church History,” 1 March 1842, p 707)

So it is quite clear from the historical record that Joseph Smith's so called "talent" to describe the inhabitants of this continent came because of the visions he received prior to the time of the quotation referred to in Lucy Mack Smith's biography.  If he was actually shown these things, it would not require any kind of "talent" to recount those things to others.

Edited October 2, 2024 by InCognitus

[Frank11]

21 hours ago, InCognitus said:

So it is quite clear from the historical record that Joseph Smith's so called "talent" to describe the inhabitants of this continent came because of the visions he received prior to the time of the quotation referred to in Lucy Mack Smith's biography.  If he was actually shown these things, it would not require any kind of "talent" to recount those things to others.

You're right that no great talent as a storyteller is necessary if you've already been shown the story. However, I wouldn't be so sure about the source of the story.
The important speech of King Benjamin is described in detail in the Book of Mormon. Strangely enough, one recognizes striking similarities with the Methodist Revivals known at the time. We see the tents, a tower from which the speaker preaches and people confessing Christ and falling to the ground. I don't know whether he was at one of these camps himself, was told about it or read about it. In any case, this is a much more likely source than angels, golden plates or illuminated words on a seer stone.

[InCognitus]

18 minutes ago, Frank11 said:

You're right that no great talent as a storyteller is necessary if you've already been shown the story.

Thank you.  That's all that matters.

18 minutes ago, Frank11 said:

However, I wouldn't be so sure about the source of the story.
The important speech of King Benjamin is described in detail in the Book of Mormon. Strangely enough, one recognizes striking similarities with the Methodist Revivals known at the time. We see the tents, a tower from which the speaker preaches and people confessing Christ and falling to the ground. I don't know whether he was at one of these camps himself, was told about it or read about it. In any case, this is a much more likely source than angels, golden plates or illuminated words on a seer stone.

This is what Joseph wrote:   "I was also informed concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this country and shown who they were, and from whence they came; a brief sketch of their origin, progress, civilization, laws, governments, of their righteousness and iniquity, and the blessings of God being finally withdrawn from them as a people, was made known unto me; I was also told where were deposited some plates on which were engraven an abridgment of the records of the ancient Prophets that had existed on this continent."  (Wentworth Letter, “Church History,” 1 March 1842, p 707)

This is what Lucy Mack Smith wrote:  "During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their dress, mode of travelling, and the animals upon which they rode ; their cities, their buildings, with every particular ; their mode of warfare \ and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life with them." (Biographical Sketches Of Joseph Smith The Prophet And His Progenitors For Many Generations, by Lucy Mack Smith, Liverpool, England, 1853, page 85).

Where do you find anything in the two quotes above that resemble a Methodist Revival? 

Edited October 2, 2024 by InCognitus

[Frank11]

8 minutes ago, InCognitus said:

Where do you find anything in the two quotes above that resemble a Methodist Revival? 

I am only commenting on your claim "because of the visions he received" and say, using the example of the Methodist Rivival - King Benjamin speech, that there can also be another source than necessarily a supernatural one.

[InCognitus]

31 minutes ago, Frank11 said:

I am only commenting on your claim "because of the visions he received" and say, using the example of the Methodist Rivival - King Benjamin speech, that there can also be another source than necessarily a supernatural one.

Another source that includes seeing the aboriginal inhabitants of this country and who they were, and from whence they came, their origin, progress, civilization, laws, and governments?  What would that be?

[Frank11]

45 minutes ago, InCognitus said:

Another source that includes seeing the aboriginal inhabitants of this country and who they were, and from whence they came, their origin, progress, civilization, laws, and governments?  What would that be?

But that depends on what he actually said about the aborigines inhabitans. From what Joseph Smith actually said about their origin, progress, civilization, laws and governments, one can perhaps deduce where he may have gotten this from.

[Zosimus]

6 hours ago, InCognitus said:

Another source that includes seeing the aboriginal inhabitants of this country and who they were, and from whence they came, their origin, progress, civilization, laws, and governments?  What would that be?

An important question. We don't know anything about the content of the conversations Joseph had with his family about the aboriginal inhabitants. The only other time I can think Joseph discussed native Americans was Zelph. So let's look at that.

Zelph was said to be a "a white Lamanite, a large thick set man, and a man of God". White Lamanites are not mentioned in the Book of Mormon. A man of God named Zelph is also not mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Zelph was also a "warrior and chieftain under the great prophet Onandagus/Omandagus/Onendagus, who was known from the hill Cumorah, or Eastern sea, to the Rocky Mountains." But there's no mention of a prophet named Onandagus in the Book of Mormon. There's no account explaining how Zelph had the curse lifted and became white. There's nothing in the Book of Mormon explaining why a Lamanite is fighting for a prophet who is not mentioned in the Book of Mormon who seems to share a name with a county in New York state. In Moses Martin's account Zelph was also a "mighty prophet", fighting in, according to John Taylor, the "last great struggle of the Lammanites and Nephites". Since this account is not in the Book of Mormon, we can only assume that Zelph was fighting on the Nephite side (even though he was a Lamanite). We can also only assume that the prophet Onandagus was a Nephite and somehow Zelph was also a prophet, although a Lamanite.

Where do these characters and events come from? Are these stories Moroni taught Joseph back in 1823? Or did Joseph get them from somewhere else?

Since the prophets are not mentioned in the Book of Mormon, my guess is they came from somewhere else. Maybe from Samuel Mitchill who, according to James Gordon Bennett's 1831 account, had compared the characters from the Book of Mormon with hieroglyphs and confirmed that they came from a nation in the east, now extinct. This seems to align with Mitchill's theory that a great battle of extinction was fought between clans of white and dark-skinned peoples in the county of Onanadaga.

It's worth consideration. Did the stories Joseph told his family come from an angel in 1823, or from various discussions circulating in New York about the origins of the Native Americans?

[Calm]

3 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

from various discussions circulating in New York about the origins of the Native Americans?

Is there any evidence there was such discussions going on?

[Zosimus]

5 minutes ago, Calm said:

Is there any evidence there was such discussions going on?

Quite a lot of conversations in the early 19th century. Most of the earliest texts on American history discussed the origins of the natives. Richard Bennet covers the most popular here:

“A Nation Now Extinct,” American Indian Origin Theories as of 1820: Samuel L. Mitchill, Martin Harris, and the New York Theory

Humboldt and Mitchill's ideas stand out because Anthon identified one of the elements of the zodiac/calendar included in the caractors document as being copied from Humboldt's book. Martin Harris also had a discussion about the Book of Mormon characters with Mitchill. Supposedly Mitchill told Harris the nation, now extinct, that the script came from.

To me, the stories Joseph was telling about the aboriginal inhabitants of America were only loosely related to the Book of Mormon narrative. Its more likely that the names (eg Prophet Onanadagus) of the characters in Joseph's oral accounts came from sources other than the Book of Mormon and Moroni's 1823 visit that Joseph believed to be historical.

[Kevin Christensen]

On 10/2/2024 at 3:43 PM, Frank11 said:

You're right that no great talent as a storyteller is necessary if you've already been shown the story. However, I wouldn't be so sure about the source of the story.
The important speech of King Benjamin is described in detail in the Book of Mormon. Strangely enough, one recognizes striking similarities with the Methodist Revivals known at the time. We see the tents, a tower from which the speaker preaches and people confessing Christ and falling to the ground. I don't know whether he was at one of these camps himself, was told about it or read about it. In any case, this is a much more likely source than angels, golden plates or illuminated words on a seer stone.

So the issue is, which paradigm is better?  An inspired translation of an ancient speech, or a "sponge theory" approach, where Joseph Smith draws on his background?  Better requires comparison, and the most self-evident aspect of this graphic is that it does not mention or hint at the research that demonstrates the case that Benjamin's speech includes, just for starters, a comprehensive description of an ancient coronation ceremony. In the 1957 priesthood manual by Hugh Nibley, in a chapter called "Old World Ritual in the New World set out how the required steps, in order are, as summarized by Welch:

Quote

… the proclamation, transfer of kingship, assembly around the temple, taking a census, bringing firstlings and offerings, giving thanks for deliverance, dwelling in tents around the temple, the king speaking from a tower, the call or silentium and teaching of the mysteries, hailing the king, homage by the people to the king (which Benjamin rejects), cleansing from sin, acclaiming the king, recounting the story of creation, the king’s ritual farewell and descent into the underworld (which Benjamin refers to as a literal event soon to occur), choirs, ensuring succession to the throne, promises of peace and prosperity, the preservation of records, God preserving his people, promises of never-ending happiness, divination of the future, a day of judgment, falling to the ground before the king, seeing all men as equals, the closing acclamation, making of a covenant, receipt of a new name, begetting of the human race, concern about standing in the proper place, having a seal, recording names in a register, appointing priests to remind people of their covenant, and dismissal.” 1

Notice that all those attending the ceremony are expected to both fall to the ground, and to make a covenant.  The very things that my investigator found troubling when considered in light of his personal modern experience transformed into evidence in favor of the Book of Mormon when considered in light of the ancient context. 

The standard work on the speech is the huge 1998 FARMS volume, King Benjamin's Speech: That Ye May Learn Wisdom.  It includes Tvedtnes's essay on the speech in the context of the Feast of the Tabernacles, and Welch's and Szinc's essential essay the speech in the context of Ancient Israelite Festivals, and much more more.  Before that we also had Welch on the chiastic structure and since then, we have also had  Mark Wright's observations on how the speech compares to the fairly recent discoveries at San Bartolo, which happen to depict a coronation on a tower contemporary with King Benjamin in Mesoamerica.  And then we have to consider whether the speech has anything meaningful to say.  The issues raised by King Benjamin's discourse are, at this stage of the debate, significant.   My essay below survey the kinds of things that LDS scholars have uncovered and that any viable critique ought to directly address and explain.

 https://latterdaysaintmag.com/article-1-1644/

Nibley had observed renaissance scholars, in having to deal with the huge influx of manuscripts that drove the engine of the renaissance, had to learn how to tell authentic documents from spurious ones.  

Quote

One of the best-established disciplines in the world is the critical examination of written texts to detect what in them is spurious and what is genuine. … [T]he rules given by Blass are all obvious enough on experience and reflection, but every one of them is a stumbling block to the superficial critic, and they have all been scrupulously avoided by those attacking the Book of Mormon.

To begin with, says Blass, “We have the document, and the name of its author; we must begin our examination by assuming 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?

…Thus while we can never prove absolutely that the Book is what it claims to be, we are justified at the outset in assuming that is it what it claims to be. If one assumes that it is true, its features at least become testable.

(Hugh Nibley, “New Approaches to Book of Mormon Study” in CWHN 8, The Prophetic Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Study, 1989), 55–56.)

And I have long been pointing out that the key questions for paradigm debate, according to Kuhn, are: Which paradigm is better?  Which problems are most significant to have solved?   These require not only comparison, but also recourse to criteria that are not themselves paradigm dependent.  That is, puzzle definition and testability, accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, fruitfulness, simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise.

By those standards, the 19th century approach is superficial and falls into the very trap that Blass warns us of.  And while compared to nothing, it may seem persuasive to some, compared to what LDS scholars have uncovered, is not more comprehensive and coherent, not at all fruitful, does not predict and account for the many details that emerge from the ancient text and context, and only seems simple to those who completely ignore the observations by able believing scholars, and falls far short of impressing me with a future promise comparable to what I find in my faith. 

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited October 3, 2024 by Kevin Christensen
typos

[aw.smoot]

On 9/29/2024 at 11:27 PM, Nevo said:

This has become a pet research topic of mine lately, so I would offer a couple of corrections. A number of sources state that Hyrum started attending Moor's Charity School at 11, but I think it's more likely that he started attending at age 12.

Appreciate your input on this. Thank you! Yes, the connection is complete rubbish. 

[aw.smoot]

On 9/29/2024 at 11:29 PM, Zosimus said:

I'm definitely in the Book of Mormon is an incredible work camp, but I'm not so sure about this claim. Does the Book of Mormon stand out in Palmyra as literature?

Yes, it absolutely did and still stands out to this day for its unique qualities. To highlight the very quote you included here:

On 9/29/2024 at 11:29 PM, Zosimus said:

"Local printers refused Joseph’s proposed book, and not entirely out of religious misgiving. Printing a book as large and as expensive as the Book of Mormon would demand expertise and an investment in new printing type and supplies. Joseph Smith and Martin Harris visited several printers about the project.

Even the extensiveness of the Book of Mormon was a curiosity to Joseph's immediate environment. And even more, Martin Harris' fervor in wanting to publish it -- even if that meant mortgaging his own property to do so -- stands out and odd to so many of Martin's neighbors. Martin had no reason to consider this a wise investment. He had no reason to believe he would ever recover the money he was putting up for its publication, and he had everyone around him calling attention to how strange this whole thing was. And yet Martin was resolute in having the Book printed. Not because this was a means to enrich himself, but because of the witness that he, Oliver Cowdrey, and David Whitmer had received that very summer. Which is yet another thing that makes the Book of Mormon stand out among many -- the witness statements of 11 men in support of Joseph's claims. But that's a discussion for another thread altogether.. 

Is the Book of Mormon just like any other literature in its day? To quote to Prof. Daniel Walker Howe from his Pulitzer Prize winning work on American History 1815-1848:

Quote

"True or not, the Book of Mormon is a powerful epic written on a grand scale with a host of characters, a narrative of human struggle and conflict t, of divine intervention, heroic good and atrocious evil of prophecy, morality, and law. Its narrative structure is complex ... The Book of Mormon should rank among the great achievements of American literature, but it has never been accorded the status it deserves, since Mormons deny Joseph Smith's authorship, and non-Mormons, dismissing the work as a fraud, have been more likely to ridicule than read it." What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, p. 314 (2007)

So yes, it does stand out. Not only for its curious claims, but for its complex narratology and profound theological implications. And to add to that, all the evidence confirms the claim that Joseph Smith dictated this text in a single draft without any major paragraph revisions to numerous scribes, in front of witnesses, over the course of a summer at the age of 23. On top of that, as Fawn Brodie has pointed out:
 

Quote

"Never having written a line of fiction, [Joseph] laid out for himself a task that would have given the most experience novelist pause."

This critical position of looking at all this and simply shrugging it off like "Eh. Not that tough" is just not a tenable position any longer. Of course Joseph is a product of his own environment. And even still, everyone around him (his parents, siblings, wife, his neighbors, employers) -- they were all perplexed by the events that took place in the summer of 1829. The Book of Mormon is something fundamentally different from what any of them had ever engaged with.

[aw.smoot]

On 9/30/2024 at 12:00 PM, Frank11 said:

1. He had the will to do it.
2. He had the opportunity to do it. 
    - Financing the Book of Mormon project by Martin Harris
    - Environment was receptive to his golden plates story
3. He had a "good" reputation as a seer in the folk magic scene.
4. He had exceptional talent as a tale-teller.
5. He had sufficient criminal energy.

This is stupid I almost can't even fathom that this is seen as coherently logical to anyone. When studying the complexity of the Book of Mormon's production, Fawn Brodie stated: 

On the other hand, to quote Fawn Brodie: "Never having written a line of fiction, [Joseph] laid out for himself a task that would have given the most experienced novelist pause."

Quote

"Never having written a line of fiction, [Joseph] laid out for himself a task that would have given the most experienced novelist pause."

And your answer to that is, "Well he had the will  to do it!!!" Like, he really wanted to do it! So he did it! ....right. Logic checks out 👍

He had the opportunity to do it? Because Martin Harris was willing to fund the project? Let's dig into this a little deeper, shall we? According to Martin Harris' own account, he was skeptical of Joseph. And he was very transparent about that. He interviewed every member of the Smith family prior to approaching Joseph because he doubted Joseph's story. Hell, he even told Joseph plainly:

Quote

I said, if it is the devil's works I will have nothing to do with it, but if it is the Lord's, you can have all the money necessary to bring it before the world. Joseph, you know my doctrine, that cursed is ever one  that putteth his trust in man and we know that the devil is to make great power in the latter days to deceive if possible the very elect; and I don't know that you are one of the elect. Now you must not blame me for not taking your word. If the Lord will show me that it is his work, you can have all the money you want."

The only reason that Martin went so far as to mortgage his own property was because he claimed that he, Oliver, and David received an undeniable witness of that very claim. Even decades later, as Martin is lying in wait for his own death, he stated: "The Book of Mormon is no fake. 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 from which the Book of Mormon is written. An angel appear to me and others and testified to the truthfulness of the record, and had I been willing to have perjured myself and sworn falsely to the testimony I now bear I could have been a rich man, but I could not have testified other than I have done and am now doing for these things are true."

The idea that Martin just willy-nilly handed over tens of thousands of dollars because Joseph knows how to tell a good campfire story is utterly ridiculous given the overwhelming evidence in the historical record. Martin was skeptical throughout Joseph's translation of the Book of Mormon -- and in June of 1829, all doubt fell away from those closest to Joseph.

And this idea that Joseph had a "good" reputation is incredibly ignorant. Martin knew that his association was Joseph (who was 20 years younger than him) was damaging to his reputation as a farmer and business man. Joseph was not popular in Palmyra when Martin began making efforts to print the Book of Mormon. This is an incredibly disingenuous and juvenile take on the history. But it'll help you sleep at night -- so hey, at least you've got that.

[aw.smoot]

On 10/1/2024 at 2:49 PM, Kevin Christensen said:

Attempts to paint the Book of Mormon as no big deal, no great achievement for Joseph Smith, especially those that rely on the Lucy Smith quote are placing a great deal of weight on something that on close review does not support that weight.

This is a great take. Thanks, Kevin for contributing with sound reason and historical analysis. 

[aw.smoot]

On 10/1/2024 at 3:50 PM, InCognitus said:

"I was also informed concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this country and shown who they were, and from whence they came; a brief sketch of their origin, progress, civilization, laws, governments, of their righteousness and iniquity, and the blessings of God being finally withdrawn from them as a people, was made known unto me; I was also told where were deposited some plates on which were engraven an abridgment of the records of the ancient Prophets that had existed on this continent."  (Wentworth Letter, “Church History,” 1 March 1842, p 707)

This is a phenomenal point. Thanks, InCognitus. 

[carbon dioxide]

On 9/28/2024 at 10:51 PM, Anakin7 said:

       Emma Smith from my memory stated that Joseph smith could not have written The Book of Mormon do to his not being able to write a coherent sentence yet his letters to her from him that I have read seem to be very good polished English for an occasional grammatical error in there time period. Have there been any studies on this ?. Thank you in advance for any answers or insights. thank you. 

Joseph Smith did not write the Book of Mormon.  He orally dictated it to a scribe and did so on the first draft.   For those who think that method is easy, try it.  Find a friend or family member.   Many say he did so by his place in a hat.  Ok.  Go ahead and try that.   Find a hat.  Put your face in it and compose a 4000 word short story that is coherent, internally consistent and sprinkle in a some complex hebraic structures like chiasmus and repeated alternate parallelism in the story and do it all on the first try.   Once you speak a word and the scribe that is helping you writes it down, you are locked in.  No do overs or revisions and do it on 1 day as that is about the translation rate that Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon in a day of about 4000 words.  Once you are done read it together and compare it to Book of Mormon.  I have absolute confidence you will fail on a grand scale.   Then consider that Joseph Smith did this every day for about 60 to 70 days composing a text of over 260000 words.   Sorry but impossible. That is why no Book of Mormon critic has ever attempted to duplicate what Joseph did in real life and practice.  They know they can't do it. 

Edited October 6, 2024 by carbon dioxide

[Frank11]

On 10/5/2024 at 11:08 PM, aw.smoot said:

And your answer to that is, "Well he had the will  to do it!!!" Like, he really wanted to do it! So he did it! ....right. Logic checks out 👍

A minimum of decency, even if it is difficult, demands that you then also mention the correct question to which I referred and not present it as if I had answered a completely different claim in this way. Maybe then it would sound more logical.

On Martin Harris and others: 
The problem of witness statements, especially that of Martin Harris, has already been discussed here. Everyone has to decide for themselves how real or spiritual the experiences really were.

 

[aw.smoot]

On 10/6/2024 at 7:39 PM, Frank11 said:

The problem of witness statements, especially that of Martin Harris, has already been discussed here. Everyone has to decide for themselves how real or spiritual the experiences really were.

This, again, is an attempt to avoid the actual topic at hand. The "problem" of the witness statements for the critical narrative is that there isn't a single primary source that anyone can cite that supports the claim that either any witness ever recanted their testimony (in fact the overwhelming evidence suggests that this was definitely not the case) or that all the witnesses were referring to a "minds-eye" experience. Again, the evidence overwhelmingly points toward each and every official witness as asserting it as a real-world experience. The real problem in the critical narrative here is that's it's not sufficient to merely smear Martin Harris's name in order to call into question his credibility, but that you would have to sufficiently do this with every witness. Including the handful of unofficial witnesses such as Emma, Katherine, Mary Whitmer, Josiah Stowell, etc. Every witness firmly asserted that these were real, tangible plates that they saw, felt, hefted, and examined. The smoke-and-mirrors attempt to say "Well, these 150+ contemporary statements of primary and close second-hand accounts clearly suggest one thing", but then there's these obscure handful of late second-hand accounts that if we squint and them and suspend any critical thinking, we can suggest that maybe they all meant this was a "spiritual eyes" experience.

Yet long after Joseph's murder, and decades of being out of the Church, David Whitmer freely and willingly has the following published in his hometown newspaper before his own dead:
 

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"It having been represented by one John Murphy, of Polo, Caldwell County, Mo., that I, in a conversation with him last summer, denied my testimony as one of the three witnesses to the BOOK OF MORMON. To the end, therefore, that he may understand me now, if he did not then; and that the world may know the truth, I wish now, standing as it were, in the very sunset of life, and in the fear of God, once for all to make this public statement: That I have never at any time denied that testimony or any part thereof, which has so long since been published with that Book, as one of the three witnesses. Those who know me best, well know that I have always adhered to that testimony. And that no man may be misled or doubt my present views in regard to the same, I do again affirm the truth of all of my statements, as then made and published. He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear; it was no delusion! What was written is written, and he that readeth let him understand."

DAVID WHITMER

Richmond, Mo., March 19, 1881"

 

And in direct response to these shallow attempts that you yourself cited here to smear the characters of these men, David preemtively asked for the 20+ prominent and respected individuals (that are not Mormon) to add the following addendum to his declaration.

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We, the undersigned citizens of Richmond, Ray County, Mo., where David Whitmer has resided since the year A.D. 1838, certify that we have been long and intimately been acquainted with him and know him to be a man of the highest integrity, and of undoubted truth and veracity.

Gen. Alexander W. Doniphan.
Hon. Geo. W. Dunn, Judge of the Fifth Judicial Circuit.
Thos. D. Woodson, President of Ray Co. Savings Bank.
J. T. Child, editor of Conservator.
H.C. Garner, Cashier of Ray Co. Savings Bank.
W. A. Holman, County Treasurer.
J.S. Hughes, Banker, Richmond.
James Hughes, Banker, Richmond.
D. P. Whitmer, Attorney-at-Law.
Hon. Jas. W. Black, Attorney-at-Law.
L. C. Cantwell, Postmaster, Richmond.
Geo. I. Wasson, Mayor.
Jas. A. Davis, County Collector.
C. J. Hughes, Probate Judge and Presiding Justice of Ray County Court
Geo. W. Trigg, County Clerk.
W. W. Mosby, M.D.
Thos. McGinnis, ex-Sheriff Ray County.
J. P. Quesenberry, Merchant.
W. R. Holman, Furniture Merchant.
Lewis Slaughter, Recorder of Deeds.
Geo. W. Buchanan, M. D. A.K. Reyburn."

 

Show me a single source that gets any clearer and more credible than that. David Whitmer, along with every other witness, emphatically and consistently affirmed their testimonies as it was written in the Book of Mormon. Which clear presents that along with Joseph Smith, three men witnessed an angel standing in front of them, presenting the plates before them, along with many other items. And they heard the voice of God declare that they were to bear testimony of these things. And 8 more individuals, (the majority of which bore no relation to Joseph and had known the Smiths for less than a month) likewise bore testimony of seeing, feeling, handling, hefting, and examining the real, physical, tangible plates. Anyone pretending that it's up for debate as to whether these men were also referring to a "minds-eye" experience rather than a real-world natural experience is willfully ignorant at this point.

If one is to make the claim that the ~200 statements we have from the witnesses of the Book of Mormon is merely an allusion to "spiritual eyes" or "minds-eye" and not actually real, you must also make sense of this statement made by David Whitmer's grandson in a letter to I. Woodbridge Riley after his grandfather (David Whitmer) had passed:

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I have beefed him to unfold the fraud in the case, and he had all to gain and nothing to lose, but speak the word if he thought so. But he has described the scene to me many times, of his vision about noon in an open pasture. There is only one explanation barring an actual miracle, and that is this: If that vision was not real, it was HYPNOTISM, it was real to grandfather IN FACT."

Likewise, we have numerous statements of the eight witnesses affirming to the "seen and handled" the plates. It's ridiculous that this narrative still persists. You don't have to believe in God or angels, but the historical record is clear – nearly two dozen individuals other than Joseph Smith affirmed the reality of the tangible plates. The leading view among scholars today (even among critics like Taves and Vogel), is that Joseph Smith from 1827-1829 was someone in possession of actual, tangible, metal plates there was handled by several individuals. Any other view on this basic premise is willfully ignoring the preponderance of evidence here.

But again, Frank, you're just desperately attempting to avoid having to engage with the entirety of the claims pertaining to the Book of Mormon. There's no question in Joseph Smith's involvement in the production of the Book of Mormon, or that it uses 19th century English and speaks to a 19th century audience. But by God, it is disappointing to see how shallow these apologetics for the critical narrative have become. It's just disappointing. 

 

[Frank11]

1 hour ago, aw.smoot said:

Likewise, we have numerous statements of the eight witnesses affirming to the "seen and handled" the plates.

Of course there were real plates that were wrapped in cloth for ‘good reason’😏. But what they actually looked like, what material they were made of, was only seen by the select circle from the folk magic scene, whereby the term ‘SEE’ is a question of definition.

 

[Kevin Christensen]

I have not seen the Plates.  But I have seen the effects they have had, and in my view, authentic plates and a real angel are the best explanation of what has happened then and since.  Even Joseph's money digging associates were convinced enough to ransack the house and to hire another seer to come try to find the plates.   The three and eight and additional informal witnesses were convinced not only by what they heard from Joseph, but also by what they saw and handled, and in several cases, the leaves they personally turned and the engravings they personally examined.  And the point of all of that is not to prove anything to anyone against their will, to coerce belief, but rather to invite serious inquiry into the Book of Mormon and the Restoration.  Personally, I have been making serious inquiries into the Book of Mormon for much of my adult life, and I am now seventy.  I keep getting more impressed, not only on a number of topics for which I spend years of inquiry and referenced studies and scholarship that had not been available in Joseph Smith's day, but in keeping track of scholarship by other believers, I realize that people with other kinds of hard earned expertise have uncovered aspects of the text I would never have imagined if left to myself.  And I like to keep abreast of serious critical arguments, and find that that they never bother to keep up with or seriously engage Latter-day Saint scholarship.  And far from just talking or claiming this without substance, I have published over 40 essays on the topic in a range of journals and books, including one essay from Oxford University Press.

Speaking of Joseph's alleged criminal intent, I have Sustaining the Law: Joseph Smith's Legal Encounters edited by Gordon Madsen, Jeffery N. Walker, and John W. Welch.  This is a detailed study of Joseph Smith in relation to the law made possible by the Joseph Smith papers project.  Among their notable conclusions, based on evidence, rather than winking insinuation, are that "Joseph [Smith] eventually paid his debts in full, even when they were enormous, as was the case in the collapse of the ill-starred Kirtland Safety society."  (xviii).  And "As a defendant, he was never convicted of any legal offense. Whenever he was given a fair hearing, he was found to be an upstanding an honest citizen." (xvii-xviii).  and "Though he suffered legal wrongs, he usually did not choose to take them to court. For example, he was tarred and feathered in Ohio, and subject to libel and slander in Illinois, but did not seek judicial vindication. When he sued or petitioned for redress, he typically was concerned more with justice and protection for his people, rather than himself." (xvii).   Yes that includes his trial as a glass looker.  Madsen wrote the definitive exploration of that case in the legal context of the day.  In these three areas, I notice that Joseph Smith is notably distinct in character and behavior compared one well-known orange-hued blowhard and actual convict who fancies himself as a wonderful story teller and as chosen by God.  (I cannot imagine, "Big angel, strong angel, tears in his eyes, told me 'Sir, I want you to translate this book" rather than hawking a Patriotic Bible, printed in China at $3 cost, being sold for $59).  Criminal intent, if it exists, is far easier to imply than demonstrate.  But demonstrating that is something the law courts have gotten very good at, given time and information and actual interest.  But as Iago proved with Othello and Desdemona, in the court of public and personal opinion, persuasion can work with much less than evidence and truth.

So something caused the Book of Mormon.  Was it criminal greed and story telling ability, or is it what Joseph Smith and the witnesses claimed it was?  An inspired translation of an actual ancient record?   The Book of Mormon contains a great many testable claims about the ancient world in times and places and cultures and behind the languages, that neither Joseph Smith, or any of his contemporaries could have imagined.  And we know what they imagined, because we can compare View of the Hebrews, the Spaulding MS, and The Book of Pukei with what Joseph produced.  (John Gee has a brilliant little essay called "The Wrong Kind of Book" exploring them.)  And notice, for example, the volume on King Benjamin's Speech: That Ye May Learn Wisdom" that I have mentioned, let alone the Astons on Lehi's Journey, Gardner on The Book of Mormon as History, or literally hundreds more. To make the case, one must actually engage the full range of evidence and provide comparison and arguments that demonstrate via criteria that are not completely paradigm-dependent that one has a better account for that evidence, one that is accurate, detailed, comprehensive and coherent, fruitful, simple and clear, and promising, rather than dismissing it all as not worth a careful examination because after all, "Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?"

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited October 12, 2024 by Kevin Christensen
typo, grammar

[Frank11]

On 10/11/2024 at 9:14 PM, Kevin Christensen said:

I have not seen the Plates.  But I have seen the effects they have had, and in my view, authentic plates and a real angel are the best explanation of what has happened then and since. ...

... To make the case, one must actually engage the full range of evidence and provide comparison and arguments that demonstrate via criteria that are not completely paradigm-dependent that one has a better account for that evidence, one that is accurate, detailed, comprehensive and coherent, fruitful, simple and clear, and promising, rather than dismissing it all as not worth a careful examination ...

I am aware that I am inferior to you in my specialised knowledge of church history and am therefore admittedly reluctant to enter into a discussion with you. But I can see the effort you are making to respond to my criticism and that deserves a response.

Even if I don't have comparable expertise, I'm not completely "unarmed". If we take the subject of the Book of Abraham, for example, I can listen to the translation and explanation by Robert Ritner and the evaluation by Dan Vogel and Brian Hauglid and get a good impression. In this context, the Radio Free Mormon interview with Prof. Hauglid was very enlightening in many ways. In particular, the different approaches of the scholars, especially the one you named, John Gee, casts strong doubt on Gee´s objectivity. If facts or more plausible explanations are left out and weak evidence is overrated in order to perhaps be able to say in the end, "how could Joseph have known that", then that is not trustworthy in my opinion. 

Even if I have to rely on others to evaluate the facts and explanations, as a civil servant, I can tell you that the more unusual the explanation for something, the higher the standard of proof. And one would certainly prefer any conceivable natural explanation to a supernatural one. 

But religion is not necessarily based on irrefutable evidence but on faith. And this faith depends on your own culture and experiences.

Edited October 15, 2024 by Frank11

[Kevin Christensen]

On 10/14/2024 at 4:19 PM, Frank11 said:

I am aware that I am inferior to you in my specialised knowledge of church history and am therefore admittedly reluctant to enter into a discussion with you. But I can see the effort you are making to respond to my criticism and that deserves a response.

Even if I don't have comparable expertise, I'm not completely "unarmed". If we take the subject of the Book of Abraham, for example, I can listen to the translation and explanation by Robert Ritner and the evaluation by Dan Vogel and Brian Hauglid and get a good impression. In this context, the Radio Free Mormon interview with Prof. Hauglid was very enlightening in many ways. In particular, the different approaches of the scholars, especially the one you named, John Gee, casts strong doubt on Gee´s objectivity. If facts or more plausible explanations are left out and weak evidence is overrated in order to perhaps be able to say in the end, "how could Joseph have known that", then that is not trustworthy in my opinion. 

Even if I have to rely on others to evaluate the facts and explanations, as a civil servant, I can tell you that the more unusual the explanation for something, the higher the standard of proof. And one would certainly prefer any conceivable natural explanation to a supernatural one. 

But religion is not necessarily based on irrefutable evidence but on faith. And this faith depends on your own culture and experiences.

We all have to start somewhere.   I started with questions that over many years led me to read and consider many things and many other questions I had not even thought of at the start.  That is just life. The important thing is where your journey ultimately takes you.  Over the years, I have read material by Ritner and Vogel and Hauglid, and Gee.  And many others. 

Consider first the question of objectivity.   Peter Novick, the author of an important book called That Noble Dream: Objectivity and the American History Profession, was asked to speak on the topic at a Sunstone by people who had not, apparently read his book, and were therefore, so surprised and unsettled by what he said that Sunstone never published the essay.  I have a transcript however.

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. To outrageously oversimplify, there are two principal meanings of objectivity. One, though somewhat fuzzy around the edges, is the common one, and it has to do with characteristics of a historical work’s relationship to the subject matter it treats. The master image in this conception is the mirror. This defines the ideal relationship between the historical work and that which it is representing. If it fully and accurately mirrors the historical reality with which it deals, it is objective; if it does not, it is not. At the center of the idea of historical objectivity is truth as correspondence to past reality, the image of the mirror. It presupposes a sharp separation between knower and known, between fact and value, and above all, between history and fiction. Historical facts are seen as prior to and independent of interpretation. The value of an interpretation is judged by how well it accounts for the facts, often with the additional demand that it account for all the facts or all the relevant facts. If an interpretation is contradicted by the facts, it has to be abandoned. Truth is one in this view, not perspectival. Whatever patterns exist in history are found and not made. 

    If these are the characteristics of the objective historical work, there are corresponding characteristics of the objective historian. Her role is that of a neutral or disinterested judge approaching the material without preconceptions. She must never degenerate into an advocate or, even worse, a propagandist. The historian’s conclusions are expected to display the standard judicial qualities of balance and evenhandedness. As with the judiciary, these qualities are guarded by the insulation of the historical profession from social pressure or political influence and by the individual historian avoiding partisanship or bias, not having an investment in arriving at one conclusion rather than another.
 

Such is the ideal.  However, in reality, Novick observes this:

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I will only report that to an ever-increasing number of historians in recent decades it has not just seemed unapproachable, but an incoherent ideal; not impossible, in the sense of unachievable (that would not make it a less worthy goal than many other goals that we reasonably pursue), but meaningless. This is not because of human frailty on the part of the historian (that, after all, we can struggle against), not because of irresistible outside pressures (these too we can resist with some success, if not complete success). No, the principal problem is different, and it is laughably simple. It is the problem of selecting from among the zillions and zillions of bits of historical data out there the handful that we can fit in even the largest book, and the associated problem of how we arrange those bits that we choose. The criterion of selection and the way we arrange the bits we choose are not given out there in the historical record. Neutrality, value-freedom, and absence of preconceptions on the part of the historian would not result in a neutral account, it would result in no account at all, because any historian, precisely to the extent that she was neutral, without values, free of preconceptions, would be paralyzed, would not have the foggiest notion of how to go about choosing from the vast, unbelievably messy chaos of stuff out there.

(Peter Novick, “Why the Old Mormon Historians Are More Objective Than the New.” A talk delivered at the 1989 Sunstone Symposium held at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.)

In practice, as Richard Bushman observed:

Quote

"Objectivity disguises a play for power by those who pretend to the authority of objective scholarship when they are every bit as self-interested as any religious apologist."  (see 
The Social Dimensions of Rationality" in Expressions of Faith: Testimonies by Latter-day Saint Scholars, 73.) 

For example, consider Bacon, the Father of the Scientific Method.

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Bacon, the philosopher of science, was, quite consistently, an enemy of the Copernican hypothesis. Don’t theorize, he said, but open your eyes and observe without prejudice, and you cannot doubt that the Sun moves and that the earth is at rest. (Karl R. Popper, The Myth of the Framework: In Defense of Science and Rationality (New York: Routledge, 1994), 84–85, https://books.google.com/books )

Bacon's problem is not that he isn't logical and rational and scientific.  The problem is that he is not self-critical in considering the effect that his own unconscious assumptions have on his perceptions and conceptions, that is that framework that he uses to order and interpret the evidence in front of him.  Galileo's arguments included inviting opponents of the Copernican Hypothesis to also consider what their eyes and observations would tell them if they did in fact, reside on a spinning earth that orbited a sun.  Bacon is so immersed in his assumptions that he cannot see they color how and what he sees and can imagine.  This is exactly why Jesus says that judgement must begin with being self-critical, examining the beam in our our eye first.  "Then shall ye see clearly."

So I keep citing Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, for a pattern for approaching debates in which the basic assumptions that opponents have are different, where the rules and which sets of data themselves are disputed.  The issue for me is not whether Vogel and Ritner and Hauglid are supposedly objective, just facing facts and reporting truth but whether their case is better in terms of the criteria that are not completely self-referential.  Vogel, for example, collected five volumes of Early Mormon Documents as part of his preparation for writing his biography of Joseph Smith.  When it comes time to describe what happened on the night that Joseph Smith claimed that Moroni visited the first time, Vogel, ignores the documents, and instead, reports what must have happened, in his view, given his determination not to be a narrator of the supernatural.  That is not, "Just the facts, Ma'am."

Larry Morris points this out in his review:

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 Since Vogel does not believe in the supernatural, he can only explain Joseph Smith by contradicting what Joseph himself says in the primary documents (such as his 1832 history). This results in a puzzling irony: Vogel, who took such care in researching and compiling the primary documents, has taken an adversarial position toward those same documents, where he has to discount them or ignore them in order to make his case for atheism. 

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1668&context=msr

So Vogel's account of the key events of Joseph Smith's life is not based on the most important and first hand evidence at hand (that is, the accounts of Joseph Smith, family and neighbors), but rather what Vogel's skeptical ideology assumes must have happened.   In Godel, Esher and Bach, Hoftstadter points out that "The important thing to keep in mind is that proofs are demonstrations within fixed systems of propositions." and that "Godel showed that provability is a weaker notion than truth, no matter what axiomatic system is involved."  (p 18 and 19).   And what I learn from Kuhn is a way to approach debates that are ultimately about which system of propositions is most promising to adopt, where to be meaningful the choice must be based on criteria that have some notable independence from the propositions involved.  The most important of these turn out to be puzzle definition and testability, accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence (breath and depth and how well everything inside and out fits together), fruitfulness (what you see from the inside that you'd never imagine existed from the outside), simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise.  Kuhn says the existence of these values permit us to ask "Which paradigm is better?  Which problems are most important to have solved?"  But these criteria are applied by us as values as individuals, not as common rules applied to a fixed body of evidence that forces everyone to the same conclusion.

I am very much aware of the contours of the debate about the Book of Abraham.  To me one of the most conspicuous things about it at this stage is that Ritner, Vogel, and Hauglid have not addressed the implications of Will Schryver's observations at FAIR that 

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If, as Mormon critics have argued for the past 40 years, the Alphabet and Grammar was produced before the text of the Book of Abraham was received, and was the means by which that text was subsequently “translated” from the papyri, then how likely is it that the would-be translators would include virtually nothing but unique words and phrases from an as yet unwritten book? ...

In short, there is too little of the story of the Book of Abraham in the Alphabet and Grammar for it to have been used to produce the story, yet too much of the story for it not to be dependent on the rest of the story. ...

I discovered that several of the explanations in the Alphabet and Grammar documents were dependent not on text from the Book of Abraham … 
but rather on very recognizable passages from others of Joseph Smith’s prior revelations, most prominently sections 76 and 88 of the Doctrine & Covenants.

Thus we see, in the explanations given to four successive characters from the Alphabet and Grammar, very particular references to specific passages from those two giants of Joseph Smith’s previously received revelations—sections 76 and 88.  Right in order, this so-called Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language is making reference to the Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial kingdoms, followed immediately by the kingdom which is not a kingdom of glory!

...

First of all, I came to see that my initial hypothesis could not be true.  To the extent this lexicon was built partially on texts that have no relationship to the Egyptian papyri; texts that were written not in Egyptian at all, but in English, then the Alphabet and Grammar simply could not have been intended as a tool to decipher the papyri.  Indeed, the more I considered the evidence in this new light, the more I came to believe that these men were not focused on translating the Egyptian papyri at all!

One of the keys to this conclusion was my discovery that, of the 69 characters to which explanations were assigned, most of them are not even Egyptian and do not appear on the papyri!  

And with respect to the Hor Book of Breathings from the surviving papyri that Joseph Smith supposedly somehow thought he was translating or pretended to translate from, to my knowledge Ritner Vogel, and Hauglid have not meaningfully addressed Tim Barker's important observation at a more recent FAIR Conference in preparing Facsimile 2 for publication, Joseph Smith had Ruben Hedlock fill out the incomplete portions of the hypocephalus with characters from, surprise, the Hor Book of Breathings, (something critics pointed out in 1968) but did not realize the significance of the fact that the published annotations to Facsimile 2 have always openly declared that Joseph Smith has not translated those characters.  That means, contrary to suppositions by Ritner, Vogel, and Hauglid and many others, that the source for the Book of Abraham must be something other than the Hor Book of Breathings.   And I have read Nibley's An Egyptian Endowment, so I have a reasonable idea of what that document is about. 

Gee is clear about his assumptions and does at least have a knowledge of the requisite languages and the sources and issues so that when he states an opinion, it is based on his personal inquiry, and not just on his selection of which authority to unquestioningly follow.  This would be a good place to mention the Perry Scheme for Cognitive and Ethical Growth.  Of the 9 positions through which we can all pass or remain stuck, I will offer just two:

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Position 2 – Multiplicity Prelegitimate. (Resisting snake)

Now the person moves to accept that there is diversity, but they still think there are true authorities who are right, that the others are confused by complexities or are just frauds. They think they are with the true authorities and are right while all others are wrong. They accept that their good authorities present problems so they can learn to reach right answers independently.

Quote

Position 9: Commitments in Relativism further developed:

The person now has a developed sense of irony and can more easily embrace other’s viewpoints. He can accept life as just that “life,” just the way it is! Now he holds the commitments he makes in a condition of Provisional Ultimacy, meaning that for him what he chooses to be truth IS his truth, and he acts as if it is ultimate truth, but there is still a “provision” for change. He has no illusions about having “arrived” permanently on top of some heap, he is ready and knows he will have to retrace his journey over and over, but he has hope that he will do it each time more wisely. He is aware that he is developing his Identity through Commitment. He can affirm the inseparable nature of the knower and the known—meaning he knows he as knower contributes to what he calls known. He helps weld a community by sharing realization of aloneness and gains strength and intimacy through this shared vulnerability. He has discarded obedience in favor of his own agency, and he continues to select, judge, and build.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited October 21, 2024 by Kevin Christensen
Corrected word in quote