This is a continuation of a prior post where I shared quotes from Terryl Givens very interesting presentation at Benchmark Books. Indented quotes will be from Brother Givens unless otherwise stated.
I’m not the first to say this, but all religion begins as mystical experience and it all begins in proximity to the volcano, right? It’s the image that is used, I think is a magnificent image. And as the lava flows down the slopes, it cools and we lose the heat and the fire. So that’s how I envision, sadly, the cultural tragedy of the place of the Book of Abraham. Instead of saying “there’s a volcano at work here, something is happening! Joseph is producing and speculating and working and stuff is coming out and there are these ideas and he gets temple texts and ideas and the whole plan of salvation comes to its completion!” as he’s working through these texts that he thinks are temple related. But no, we want it to be this orderly kind of thing. He sits down and he understands the Egyptian and we look at the Egyptologists and they say, well that’s not an accurate translation and we throw it all out. We want to turn the volcano into a nightlight.
And in all honesty, I should address this because it’s a problem and that is that Joseph clearly believed he was working with papyri that were authored by Abraham, that he was recasting into English. So even if you grant more expansive definition of translation as I want to, you still have to deal with that problem…Paul said whether in the body or out of the body, I couldn’t tell. Paul couldn’t tell what was happening to him in a revelatory experience. So the notion that Joseph was kind of fully self-aware and cognizant and rational about it, exactly? I don’t know. You’re overcome by the spirit and who knows what’s happening from that point on. So I think very plainly, Joseph was mistaken.
Brigham Young famously said, if the Book of Mormon were translated today, it would read entirely differently than it did when it came through the mind of Joseph Smith.
I don’t believe the Book of Mormon is historical. I don’t believe the LDS church is exclusively God’s one, true church. But I do believe the Church is good and beautiful and true in the ways that I need it to be true. I’m asked frequently what I think about Joseph, given that he didn’t portray his revelations and the restoration in the way that I interpret it. I think there are four categories of ways to explain this disconnect.
- Joseph was fraudulent. A cynical view would be that he was fraudulent with selfish or sinister motivations: ie power, money, etc. I reject those theories. I do believe he was likely fraudulent in some ways at some times, ie pious fraud. I describe it as he had marvelous, powerful revelations and knew it was his responsibility to share this and because of his weakness and inadequacies, he might have made mistakes exaggerating claims at times in how he portrayed these revelations.
- Joseph was delusional. Again a very cynical view might portray him as being wildly, incompetently delusional. I reject that. But I could easily go along with Brother Givens’ theory here, where spiritual experience came so powerful that it was hard to determine the boundary of physical and spiritual at times. Or like in the case of translating ancient text like the Book of Abraham, he simply was wrong about the source of the text.
- Misremembering and/or memory filling in gaps or adding details to his visions that either weren’t there originally or weren’t interpreted or understood that way earlier. Much of Joseph’s history is written after the fact, recalling events many years prior.
- Others adding details to Joseph’s revelations or stating them with harder lines when Joseph meant to state them softer. I get the feeling that Givens would think Joseph would be surprised today with how forcefully and absolutely we take things that he said that he might have meant more experimentally.
Terryl shared an interesting anecdote where someone went to President Wilford Woodruff to ask if he could be sealed to his father. He said the president laughed at him and said, “your father’s not a prophet, of course you can’t be sealed to him”. Woodruff later said that he felt wrong about that and revealed that all worthy members could be sealed to parents. What Brother Givens thinks was the most interesting part of this story is that in his research as a historian, he found no reactions “how could the Church get that wrong for 50 years??” He only found reactions like “yeah I always thought that was wrong and we assumed it would change eventually.”
Now what that tells me is they’re operating with a very different definition of prophet, a very different definition of restoration and of revelation. And I’ve tracked a whole series of responses by general authorities in the aftermath of that talk. And they’re all on the same theme. Yeah, we get some things right, we get some things wrong, but the trajectory is all in the right direction and eventually it all be right. But we’re fallible instruments and you see what I mean? Canon may be one of those words too. Would we canonize things today and make allowances for weirdness in terms of origin and transmission? I don’t. I think not. We’re not liberal and expansive enough in our understandings as a people.
Asked about whether it’s appropriate to consider works that came to us with uncertain provenance, like Book of Abraham and possibly Book of Mormon, as scripture, Terryl’s response:
I think that problem is omnipresent. Who wrote the Book of Hebrews? We don’t know. Who wrote most of the epistles of Paul? Not Paul. And yet they are still scripture. See what I mean? It’s like nobody has stopped to think, well, wait a minute, we no longer believe those origin stories of those scriptures or those authorship stores, but they’re still canon. It’s because what is canon? A canon does not mean a body of doctrine considered to be infallible. A canon means a common corpus that gives identity to a body of believers. And so if that’s the definition, then we don’t have to be quite so anxious about who’s speaking, how accurate is their fallibility here, right? I mean Joseph Smith said there are many, he didn’t say some. He said there are many things in the holy scriptures that do not accord with the revelations of the Holy Spirit to me, but we still go to Sunday school class and read the same texts. I think we need to do it all with a more, I don’t want to say skeptical, but with a more critical, evaluative, considered approach.
Another great quote on the use of other sources.
I think it’s almost comical the silliness of those people who say, Oh, I found another plagiarism of Joseph Smith. Look at this. He got this from Charles Buck, or he got this from Adam Clark. No. Joseph published in the church newspaper most of the sources when he found a good source for an idea that he reaffirmed. Whether that’s baptism for the dead or progression through the kingdoms or Thomas Dick, he was excited to find another gem that he could incorporate into the restoration. We have to shift our model of understanding Joseph’s conceiving of himself, he was an inspired syncretist.
Another good quote on infallibility.
It’s always hard to know when you’re quoting Joseph Smith, you know, how much authority to invest in his different expressions. Because the thing I love about Joseph Smith is, I think it was in response to the failed Canadian copyright revelation, he goes, “well, some revelations are of God, some are of man, and some are of the devil. Don’t you love a man who can say that and still expect you to take him seriously the next day? His words aren’t all canonical. A lot of them should be, but not all.
Wheat & Tares 
Good stuff, I always love your posts. I like what Givens has to say. I view Joseph Smith as a visionary who had a mystical experience, tasted the divine and wanted to recreate that experience for others. However, I also believe he was very charismatic and had a big ego and that he let the desire for power and the thrill of control get out of hand in Nauvoo. I also believe he was trained as a magician and would have used slight of hand and showmanship to create buzz, legitimacy and interest to get people to have legitimate spiritual experiences. This is what Dan Vogel calls a pious fraud, he would “prime the pump” so that people could have their own spiritual experiences and believe. For me, he did this with the golden plates, manufactured the plates, used slight of hand and something tangible to generate interest in the Book of Mormon, which was inspired scripture. I see the Book of Abraham as the same thing, but less successful than the BOM.
I hope that the Church can embrace what Givens is putting forward and would be healthier for it. However, you run into a huge brick wall that I have encountered personally after my own faith crisis. After learning of prophetic fallibility (JS and modern), lockstep obedience becomes more difficult. If I believe the Church is true and the prophet communes with God, it’s a lot easier to wear garments 24/7, abstain from tea and coffee, do my ministering, go to the temple, etc., etc. A more nuanced view makes it harder to do those things, because it becomes apparent they are man made rules, not divine commandments and it becomes natural to pick and choose. I think if the Church moves this direction, we will be shortstaffed at the temple, have less tithing revenue, fewer people wearing garments, more casual WOW observance and will not get as many people to clean the chapel on Saturday morning. I think right now the Church is trying to have it both ways, using channels like Conference and manuals to beat the drum and keep the true blue members plugging away and putting people like Givens out there to speak to the nuanced members and keep them in the fold, even if more loosely. I don’t think this is a bad thing, I see it as the path forward. I think the Church needs all kinds of members.
I love Terryl. His brutal honesty is beautiful. I’m not a kid, you don’t have to talk to me like a kid. I know reality is difficult and people can be ugly. The best people sometimes have their own problems.
Give me what you find. Feel free afterwards to tell me why you discount it or doing see it as an issue but at least let me know.
Joseph Smith was an interesting person and more we can learn about him, the better to understand what on earth he was doing.
Givens is a faithful member and his intention is to reaffirm the reader’s faith. But I find his more recent works (including the Pearl of Greatest Price) to have the opposite effect. His writings make me more feel more nuanced, not less. That’s a good thing if being a nuanced member is “acceptable”.
Josh, interesting comment. I’d like to hear more what you mean on that.
I enjoyed the post by churchistrue, and the comments thus far. Two observations about the comments:
1. I agree with felixfabulous that the Church is trying to appeal to both “TBM” s, and more nuanced members. I think it needs to, because in this Information Age, the Church has lost the ability to fully control its narrative. It is trying to find ways to keep members in the fold who have encountered upsetting information.
2. As to Josh H ‘s “if being a nuanced member is acceptable.” It is, and leaders like DFU and Jeffrey Holland had said in GC that the Church welcomes members at the various different stages of the
belief/doubt spectrum. Some local leaders haven’t gotten there yet, but the situation is vastly better than when I joined the Church in 1974, and had to fight off attempts by bishops and SPs to peddle their JBS views. Current situation not good enough for many, but we are getting there. I have read that Christ is often pleased with what we do, but is never satisfied, because He wants us to do better. Same for His Church.
3. I am going to be a Church member on my own terms, nuance and all. I view the Gospel, the Church, and its membership as a set of three overlapping circles — a Venn Diagram. The part in the middle where all three circles overlap is where we can follow the Gospel, accept the Church, and live with our own sense of right and wrong.
I am an optimist, and I see the three circles gradually moving closer together toward more overlap.
People like Terryl Givens help this process immensely, IMO. I no longer look to the BRM types to bolster my testimony. People like Givens help tremendously, although my testimony exists independently.
One last thought: the Church would be a very dull place if we all thought alike. Two anecdotes, here.
A good book on ETB’s politics (“Thunder from the Right”) quotes J. Reuben Clark writing a member and telling her she does NOT have to agree with ETB’s views to be a good member of the Church, because even the Q12 can’t agree on what is doctrine.
Second anecdote, this one 2nd hand from a friend who attended a missionary conference presided over by Russell Ballard in 2006. Ballard then candidly noted that it was very difficult to get the Q12 to agree on any matter if importance.
Josh H, welcome to the messy world of Mormonism. I love it. Despite all the craziness and things that upset me. Hope you can too. This is why I like W&T; it reflects that messiness.
Here is the difference between the Book of Hebrews and the Book of Abraham. We do not and cannot know who wrote the Book of Hebrews, but we can be confident that the author was a part of the early Christian community. The philosophy of the Book of Hebrews was shaped in an ancient middle eastern milieu. It is highly likely that Joseph Smith came up with the Book of Abraham himself and highly unlikely that the author existed hundreds of years ago.
On the silliness if finding clearly plagiarized material in what Joseph Smith was claiming to be revelation, that undercuts the significance of Joseph Smith’s words doesn’t it? The myriad lifted passages from the KJV NT in the Book of Mormon undercut the idea that its provenance is ancient American, doesn’t it? How would ancient Americans know what was in the Pauline epistles?
“The myriad lifted passages from the KJV NT in the Book of Mormon” Great question, here’s my two cents:
This assumes a 1 to 1 translation of the BOM where Joseph is translating exactly what’s in the text as opposed to reformulating the idea into terms that match the KJV wording. Doing the latter allows the BOM to be intertexual with the Bible. Our New Testament and Old have an issue with this because our OT is based on Masoretic Text and the NT is quoting from the Septuagint. It causes problems because the verses that Paul’s reading from don’t match or can appear to have different meanings.
“How would ancient Americans know what was in the Pauline epistles?” Another great question and shouldn’t be downplayed.
Possible answers: “All Scripture is God-breathed” so what Paul was inspired to say could have been also inspired by Mormon but Moroni 7 feels like he’s reading/quoting from a known text at the time.
Christ could have provided the teachings at his coming.
Or the teachings were important and whomever truly wrote the book wanted it in his book.
Andy, yes, of course, Joseph Smith is trying to make the BOM intertextual with the Bible. He taught that the Bible was corrupted and incomplete and that the Book of Mormon was the fullness of the gospel (and even said that Jesus said this to him in a revelation) because it complimented it and filled in the lost parts. But at the same time, Joseph Smith said that the Book of Mormon authors were ancient Americans who, unlike the authors of the NT who were well acquainted with the OT, couldn’t have possibly known about the Pauline epistles.
“Christ could have provided the teachings at his coming.”
The pre-Christ-apparition books of Alma and Nephi feature regular verbatim passages from the NT. The books of Nephi are supposed to have been written on separate plates and not redacted and edited by Mormon.
The myriad NT passages in the Book of Mormon simply decrease the likelihood that ancient Americans actually constructed the ideas and words in the book and that it was just Joseph Smith all along. My point is that clear examples of plagiarism do not help Joseph Smith’s cause. It hurts him in the same way that plagiarism hurts the credibility and originality of anyone else who engages in it. Evidence of plagiarism in the temple endowment text and the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible show that this was a pattern for Joseph Smith. He had some original ideas, no doubt. But there is no denying that much of ideas were plagiarized.
@churchIsTrue: I find it ironic that Givens is considered to be a “faithful” member when you consider that much of what he (and Bushman, and many other “faithful” members) says today would have been considered heresy not that long ago. I give the Church credit for opening up on that – although maybe they really have no choice. But reading Givens today is a little like reading the Gospel Topic Essays. You’re takeaway can go down one of two roads. Either this material makes you feel better about things because you now have a reasonable explanation presented to you, or you find the apologetic explanation very difficult to accept. For me it has been the latter. The essays, Givens, Bushman, FAIRMORMON, etc. all make strong points but the cumulative effect for me is that if this is all they have, they fall short.
I’ve compared what the critics say to what the Church and the apologetics say and if I’m being totally honest, the former makes more sense. I watch both CNN and Fox News. That’s my approach.
You gotta love Givens. Like Bushman, he is trying to push the tight circle of Mormon orthodoxy out in several directions. If the leadership signed onto this program, the Church would become a lot more welcoming to Middle Pathites. But let’s be honest: that’s not going to happen.
And the Givens paradigm articulated above in his comments isn’t really a satisfying and coherent framework. The Book of Mormon doesn’t present itself as poetry, neither does the Book of Abraham. It’s not held out as someone’s mystical or personal take on God and the Universe, to be used and interpreted and digested according the wisdom or insight of each individual reader. These books hold themselves out and are staunchly defended by current LDS leadership as translated historical narratives. They stand or fall as such. I don’t think anyone (neither critics nor apologists nor believers nor leadership) is going to broadly embrace a move redefining these books as inspired non-historical narratives.
Andy, it appears as though you are multiplying entities without necessity. Is all that “God-breathed” scripture likely? Or is it more likely that Joseph Smith just wrote the book, cribbing from what was around him as he went along?
Dave B., how is it that Bushman and Givens and others get to publish these alternative narratives with the blessing of Salt Lake when the middle way will probably never be embraced by leadership? Is this just what the Q12 and First Presidency have permitted because, hey, anything to keep butts in the pews?