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Revelations and Translations I

January 10, 2010 by FAIR Staff

Review
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Title: The Joseph Smith Papers: Revelations and Translations: Manuscript
Revelation Books
Editors: Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Woodford, Steven C. Harper
Publisher: The Church Historian’s Press
Genre: Nonfiction
Year Published: 2009
Number of Pages: 752
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 1570088500
ISBN-13: 978-1570088506
Price: $99.95

Reviewed by Trevor Holyoak

This is the second book to be released in the Joseph Smith Papers
project, and the first volume of the Revelations and Translations
series. It is a “facsimile edition” of Revelation Book 1 (also known as
“Book of Commandments and Revelations”) and Revelation Book 2 (“Book of
Revelation” or “Kirtland Revelation Book”). It is quite large, measuring
approximately 9.25 by 12.25 inches and weighing nearly 8 pounds. This
means it won’t quite match the previously released Journals volume on
your shelf (which it effectively dwarfs), but apparently there will be a
few other volumes of the same size to go along with it, so the finished
set of 30+ volumes should end up looking quite nice together, in spite
of the two sizes. And there is a very good reason for the larger size –
the body of the book consists of photographs of each page of the two
books, with the photos on the left side, and a transcription running
parallel on the right. [Read more…] about Revelations and Translations I

Parallelomania

January 8, 2010 by Keller

Parallelomania was a term perhaps coined in 1830, coincidently (or is it?) the same year the Book of Mormon was published.
I put some notes together a few months ago on evaluating parallels. I would like to hear some of your methods for discerning the significance of a proposed parallel and some examples as well. [Read more…] about Parallelomania

Brigham Young on Interracial Marriage

December 14, 2009 by Keller

Recently I have been gathering notes to do some rewrites on the FAIR wiki regarding Brigham Young’s views on race mixing. Then I ran across Connell O’Donovan’s 2009 Sunstone West article [1]. O’Donovan has uncovered many Mormon specific sources on attitudes and reactions to interracial unions. When I read his earlier article on Walker Lewis, I wished for more of an attempt to contextualize Brigham Young’s thoughts with those of his contemporaries. In the Sunstone article, O’Donovan delivers. He gives an overview of anti-miscegenation laws and attempts to repeal them over a long stretch of times. He also places Brigham’s views that “mulattos are like mules” and hence could not (or should not [2]) reproduce very well was within the norm of the scientific thought of his day. Needless to say, none of these attitudes belong in today’s more enlightened society or the LDS Church. [Read more…] about Brigham Young on Interracial Marriage

D’Sousa and wish fulfillment

December 11, 2009 by Steven Danderson

Conservative author Dinesh D’Sousa has written a new book to follow up on his best-seller, What’s so great about Christianity?–called, Life After Death: The Evidence [http://townhall.com/columnists/DrPaulKengor/2009/12/09/qa_dinesh_dsouza_on_life_after_death?page=1]. I have a copy of the former, as well as others of D’Sousa’s books, including The End of Racism. For those who don’t know about him, D’Sousa immigrated from India as a teen during the 1970’s, and became a senior domestic policy analyst for the Reagan Administration. His analysis is typical of people who immigrated from Asia and attended American schools; the quality is better than anything about 90% of native-born Americans can produce.

There is, however, one issue in his last two books, where D’Sousa’s analysis fails–utterly. One claim made by atheists like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Hatrris, etc., is that Heaven is a wish fulfillment concept, and thus, so is religion. That is, earth life is so bad, we dream up a place that is wonderful beyond imagination to console us.

D’Sousa’s answer is that he can certainly understand why somebody whose life isn’t that nice might imagine a place waiting for us that is. He has problems, however, understanding hell as a wish-fulfillment. Hell, of course is WORSE than any place that exists temporally, and worse than what humans can imagine–even a Nazi concentration camp is paradise compared to hell.

While hell-as-wish-fulfillment is certainly incongruous with those for whom hell’s existence serves as incentive toward holiness, like, say, Mother Teresa, for most of us, hell’s existence serves as a wish fulfillment as a tool of cosmic justice, which doesn’t exist here on earth. That is, in our worst moments, we might wish hell upon our enemies–those we don’t like. Thus, liberal Democrats wish hell upon former President Bush–and his supporters, “birthers” wish hell upon that “African Muslim Socialist,” President Obama (He isn’t–at least the former two; I’ll explain in a later post.)–and his supporters, and anti-Mormons like Bill Keller (http://www.votingforsatan.com/) wish it for the Latter-day Saints–and those like the late Governor Lilburn Boggs [D-MO] actually attempt to send us there.

Thus, for most of us, hell is indeed a wish-fulfillment concept, and for the rest of us, it is evidence that we are nuts.

Personally, I think a better response–though less dramatic than D’Sousa’s–is Daniel Peterson’s rule of comparative religions: If a person who is undoubtedly sane and intelligent in other subjects adheres to a religion that an observer thinks crazy or stupid, the problem is more likely with the observer’s view than with the religionist’s beliefs [http://www.meridianmagazine.com/ideas/040315respecting.html].

What do you all think?

Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament

November 16, 2009 by FAIR Staff

Lightning Strikes Twice: Review of Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament[1] by TB Spackman

In 2006, Deseret Book published Jesus Christ and the World of the New Testament to widespread approval.[2] Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament (or WOT), a sequel of sorts, has appeared recently, a few fortuitous months before the Gospel Doctrine calendar changes over to the Old Testament as the course of study. WOT is clearly meant to parallel World of the New Testament, from the title to the layout and organization. However, the Old Testament is not the New, and the three authors of WOT faced a much tougher assignment. [Read more…] about Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament

19th century nuptiality and anti-Mormon propaganda

November 5, 2009 by Keller

At the annual John Whitmer Historical Association meeting in September, Craig Foster announced that he and Newell Bringhurst will be editing an anthology on polygamy. Two of the 15 or so essays will take opposing views on whether teen marriage was normal in the 19th century. Squaring off will be an extended version of Todd Compton’s Sunstone West presentation and a paper co-authored by Craig Foster, Greg Smith, and myself. My role is to be the stat man, while Greg is an expert on Nauvoo plural marriage, and Craig is a accomplished historian and has mastered the literature on marriage trends. Craig and Greg are more prolific authors than myself and I summarized some of their work at the height of the Romney campaign here on the FAIR blog. I think this gave an early picture of what might happen if the three of us combined skills.
[Read more…] about 19th century nuptiality and anti-Mormon propaganda

Review: BYU Studies 48:3 (2009)

November 2, 2009 by bhodges

The latest BYU Studies is a phenomenal a “special feature” issue with a series of articles discussing the latest Joseph Smith Papers volume. In September, the first volume of the “Revelations and Translations” series of the Joseph Smith Papers was published. This landmark volume contains the Book of Commandments and Revelations (BCR) which includes the earliest surviving manuscript versions of many of Joseph Smith’s revelations and the only prepublication manuscript copies of some of them. Seven of these revelations were never canonized.

John W. Welch, the issue’s editor, can hardly contain his enthusiasm:

Imagine!…having the BCR is something akin to uncovering a discarded draft of the Declaration of Independence or some of the missing records used by Luke in preparing his gospel (p. 5).

This issue of BYU Studies includes four enjoyable papers on BCR that were presented in a plenary session of the 2009 Mormon History Association meeting in May 2009. These articles, written by members of the Joseph Smith Papers editorial team, provide details not included in the Revelations and Translations volume itself.

Robert J. Woodford, “Introducing A Book of Commandments and Revelations, A Major New Documentary ‘Discovery,'” (pp. 7-17).

Woodford gives a brief overview BCR and its provenance, and identifies those (including himself) who worked on its publication preparation. He describes how researchers identified the way BCR was referenced for publishing the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. He concludes with some suggestions for future research based on BCR. For example, analyzing alterations in the revelations raises historical and theological implications. The so-called Book of Mormon copyright revelation and a piece on the “pure language” are of interest. The dates revelations were received and the historical setting can be reevaluated. “Each researcher will find his own area of particular interest” now that the BCR has been published and made available (p. 16).

Robin Scott Jensen, “From Manuscript to Printed Page: An Analysis of the History of the Book of Commandments and Revelations,” (pp. 19-52).

In this highly technical article Jensen more fully traces the provenance, context, and content of the BCR. He meticulously describes the physical makeup of the book as well as its significance to scholars. “When scholars approach newly discovered documents, several important questions arise. When and why was it created? Who created it? What was it used for?” (p. 21). For Jensen, reading the words on the page alone only yields half an answer to these questions. Only by studying the internal and external evidence, the manuscript words as well as the history of Mormonism and the nature of archival record keeping, can we fully appreciate the document in question. Jensen explains how “forensic paleography” helps researchers find out when a document was created, how it was used, and what it might have meant to the people involved in its creation. In other words, Jensen is asking questions about what the BCR can teach us about the very process of revelation itself.

Steven C. Harper, “Historical Headnotes and the Index of Contents in the Book of Commandments and Revelations,” (pp. 53- 66).

John Whitmer, the principle scribe for the BCR, included interesting date and header information for many of the revelations, allowing researchers to reassess the date and context of many early revelations. Clues will help reassess timing of aspects of the Book of Mormon translation, the location of the organization of the Church, the date when section 20 was revealed (calling into question speculation about Christ’s birthday being the 6th of April), the timing of the “parchment of John” revelation, the identity of James Covill, the circumstances surrounding a meeting where men were asked to testify to the truthfulness of Joseph Smith’s revelations, and how early members understood the imperfect revelations from a 24-year-old ploughboy prophet. Harper notes his essay does not finish much historical reassessment, but is meant to encourage it by describing how the BCR’s index of contents and historical headnotes can be examined by scholars.

Grant Underwood, “Revelation, Text, and Revision: Insight From the Book of Commandments and Revelations,” (pp. 67-84).

Underwood explores how textual revisions shed “important light on the process by which Joseph Smith received, recorded, and published his revelations” (p. 67). What is revelation? A direct word-for-word message from God, or the human articulation of the message? Something in between? Tracking some changes between the BCR and later published versions of the revelations allows us to see how Joseph Smith and his contemporaries understood the process. For the most part Underwood says pre-July 1833 revisions were mostly grammatical and stylistic, or clarified meaning. After that point in preparation for publishing the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants changes were made to update, amplify, and incorporate newly revealed polity or doctrine (p. 68). He tracks who made most of the corrections, surprisingly few in the hand of Joseph Smith himself, who was the one called to make such changes. Underwood explains a “latitudinarian” view of the revelations, where Joseph trusted associates to make changes so long as the general sense was not adjusted. Thus, divine communication has a human component which needs to be taken into account, or as Jeffrey R. Holland stated: “The scriptures are not the ultimate source of knowledge for Latter-day Saints. They are manifestations of the ultimate source. The ultimate source of knowledge and authority for a Latter-day Saint is the living God” (p. 81). Underwood deftly utilizes scholarship on revelation from several different faith traditions and non-LDS scholars to help readers better understand revelation and the written word.

Ronald E. Romig provides a brief response to these papers and a short historical overview from the perspective of the Community of Christ (pp. 85-91). In the Book Review section Thomas Coens, an associate editor of the Papers of Andrew Jackson series gives a non-Mormon scholar’s perspective on the landmark inaugural installment of the Joseph Smith Papers. He tips his cap to the rigorous scholarship involved in the Journals volume and provides a few personal thoughts on the volume. James B. Allen also reviews the Journals volume.

In addition to these special articles, the issue includes a piece on Eliza R. Snow’s poetry, LDS athletic tournaments from 1950-1971, and book reviews of the Twighlight series, Bushman’s Very Short Introduction to Mormonism and a few other selections. A paperback copy of this issue is available for $9.95, or a digital copy can be downloaded for $7.00. See byustudies.byu.edu for more. This is a highly recommended issue.

Courtesy disguised as hate

October 25, 2009 by Steven Danderson

Remember Bill Keller, who told his parishoners that “a vote for Romney is a vote for Satan“? While I’m not sure he REALLY thinks that Governor Mitt Romney is Satan, he is quite clear that he thinks we are hellish creatures who, along with those who refuse to join his jihad, should be straightway sent to hell, where we belong. And, if his web site is any indication, given even the flimsiest of chances, he would personally dispatch us there.

While Keller is obviously malicious, like other venomous anti-Mormons, I find the candor and consistency in his hatred to be most refreshing. Too often, after hearing a laundry list of untrue evils that we Latter-day Saints are supposedly guilty, I hear the accuser complain with words to the effect of, “But I’m NOT an anti-Mormon! I LOVE Mormons!”

Sorry, Ace, but spreading untruths about people is NOT a sign of love toward them!

Keller, on the other hand eschews that ingenuousness. He is adamant that we Latter-day Saints are demons from hell, and non-anti-Mormons are Judases–neither of which merit any love or consideration whatsoever. I don’t like his malevolent stance, but at least he does us the courtesy of leaving no doubt at all where we stand. I really do respect that.

Moreover, Keller’s attitude is in refreshing contrast to anti-Mormons who call us demons, but do not advocate the only just punishment for such threats. CS Lewis (2002) leaves no doubt that those in league with the devil are threats to be exterminated:

If … we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather, surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did. [Mere Christianity. Scanned from 1952 edition. Retrieved 26 October 2009 from http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF%20Books/Mere%20Christianity%20-%20Lewis.pdf, 16]

It irritates me whenever somebody accuses others of serious offences, but advocate unserious remedies. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for example, accuses doubters of global warming of treason, but doesn’t advocate the death penalty. Either Kennedy is unaware of the gravity of treason, or he misuses the word.

Bill Keller has no such problem. Neither does Ed Decker, from whom Keller apparently gets his information. Dr. Dean Helland (1990) (PhD, Oral Roberts University) tells of his break with Ed Decker after anti-Mormon violence incited by Decker spilled over to members of Helland’s denomination [Meeting the Book of Mormon Challenge in Chile. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International. 116-130, 198-214]

Disrespecting Holocaust Victims?

October 24, 2009 by Steven Danderson

Jewish groups are upset at the thought of the Church baptising Holocaust victims. It seems that they are being egged on by one Helen Radkey. The Church had agreed that members are to do the work only for those in their line–or with the permission of their next-of-kin. Despite assertions that the Church has reneged on that agreement, the Church’s NewFamilySearch web site has software that would make such breaches extremely difficult. To add to this woe, the Vatican has expressed concern about the practise of baptism for the dead, and has issued instructions to end LDS access to their records.

Leaving the present difficulty for members of the Church to violate this agreement aside, I would like to comment on both the reasons for Jewish objections and what is actually being done by baptisms for the dead, and to perhaps reassure them of both our intent and the absence of negative effects of those baptisms.

TWA Project: The Curtain Accounts

October 24, 2009 by Keller

The following is my first contribution to FAIR’s Translation Witness Accounts (TWA) Project spearheaded by Blair Hodges. Blair has the initial installment at his blog by listing all known firsthand accounts from Joseph Smith. Here I compiled as many accounts as I could find, but I seem to recall running across another one I can’t currently locate in my notes. Readers are welcome to point out other accounts that explicitly affirm or deny the use of curtain separating Joseph Smith from his scribes. I also want to hear about you make of these accounts.

My excerpts are mostly from Opening the Heavens which contains a compilation of 203 translation accounts done by Jack Welch. My footnotes are keyed to the number that Welch assigned. I have supplemented Welch’s accounts with several found in the 4th volume of Dan Vogel’s Early Mormon Documents series, in which case I use the page number the excerpt is found on.