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Rethinking Revelation and the Human Element in Scripture

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Available in the FAIR Bookstore

by Michael R. Ash

Those who have read any of my writings in the past several decades will know that I’ve been a volunteer for FAIR for more than twenty years. I’m an active Latter-day Saint who accepts prophets as the divinely called and authorized agents of Christ’s church on earth. And, like many other believing members, scholars, and LDS-scientists, I also try to think rationally and logically, and I embrace the general conclusions of secular science and “objective” history.

Faith-Crisis

In the more than forty years that I’ve been reading and writing about LDS scholarly issues (including the twenty years I’ve been volunteering for FAIR), I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing the intellectual reasons people leave the faith. Obviously, there are many reasons that people leave the Church, but I’ve always been interested in the historical and scientific issues that unseat some LDS testimonies. [Read more…] about Rethinking Revelation and the Human Element in Scripture

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 36

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Part 36: CES Letter Kinderhook Plates/Translation Claims Questions

by Sarah Allen

 

The Kinderhook Plates and Joseph’s attempt at translating them is something that the critics love to bring up, but when they do, they’re banking on you not knowing what really happened. Once you do understand the actual circumstances, you’re more likely to shrug and move on than you are to lose your testimony. Not only was this event inconsequential to the history of the Church, but it doesn’t even crack the top ten of supposedly controversial things Joseph said or did.

Right off the bat, Jeremy frames this dishonestly, and he either hasn’t read yet another of his own sources or he’s deliberately hiding what it says. He might link to his sources, but I’m pretty sure he’s hoping you’ll be too lazy to read them for yourselves. I’m going to go through the quotes he uses to open this section, and then I’ll talk about what really happened with the Kinderhook Plates.

He begins this section with this quote:

“I insert fac-similes of the six brass plates found near Kinderhook … I have translated a portion of them, and find they contain the history of the person with whom they were found. He was a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, and that he received his Kingdom from the Ruler of heaven and earth.” — JOSEPH SMITH, JR., HISTORY OF THE CHURCH, VOL. 5, CHAPTER 19, P.372

The History of the Church was originally compiled by Joseph’s scribes, secretaries, and friends as The History of Joseph Smith after his death, and then later edited and expanded by B.H. Roberts into a 7-volume series. This quote is taken from volume 5 of Roberts’s series, as Jeremy mentions.

However, what Jeremy gets wrong is that this quote was not given by Joseph Smith. Back in the 19th Century when these were compiled, it was relatively common while writing biographies for things originally in the third person to be changed to the first person as if the subject actually said them when they did not. This quote was originally written by William Clayton, one of Joseph’s scribes, and was taken from his personal journal entry for May 1, 1843. Where it says, “I have translated a portion of them,” the actual quote was, “Prest J. has translated a portion.”

[Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 36

FAIR Conference Podcast #71 – Rebekah Clark, “The Gospel of Equal Rights”: Latter-day Saint Suffragists, 1870-1920

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Podcast: Download (11.7MB)

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This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Rebekah Clark, “The Gospel of Equal Rights”: Latter-day Saint Suffragists, 1870-1920

Rebekah Clark is co-author of the book Thinking Women: A Timeline of Suffrage in Utah and works as a historian for Better Days, a nonprofit public history organization dedicated to expanding education about Utah women’s history. She holds a law degree from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, studied as a visiting student at Harvard Law School, and practiced law in Boston for four years. She graduated with a degree in American History and Literature from Harvard University, where her honors thesis focused on Utah women’s activism in the national suffrage movement. She has worked at the LDS Church History Department and taught as an online adjunct faculty member at BYU-Idaho. Her work has appeared in journals such as the Utah State Historical Quarterly, the Journal of Mormon History, BYU Studies, Pioneer Magazine, and BYU Law Review and in podcasts by the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Church News, What’s Her Name, Zion Art Society, and the Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. In addition to her work with Better Days, she currently serves on the board of the Mormon Women’s History Initiative Team. Rebekah lives in Highland with her husband Andrew and their five children.

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 35

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Part 35: CES Letter Prophet Questions [Section I]

by Sarah Allen

 

Jeremy’s sneering contempt for the idea of ongoing revelation and modern-day prophets is, I believe, quite telling. Later in the CES Letter, he uses the same method to cast doubt on the idea of personal revelation as well. It speaks to his mindset the same way his sarcastic rebuttals do to anyone who attempts to respond to his concerns. If he was truly seeking answers to questions that were disturbing him to such a great degree, as he consistently claims, you’d think he’d welcome a response rather than lash out with childish insults and playground taunts. And yet, responses containing answers only seem to enrage him.

If we’re speaking about someone’s “modus operandi,” to use one of his favorite terms, Jeremy’s is to treat the things of God and those who try to uphold them with open disdain. There are no genuine questions here. He’s shown clearly that he is not sincerely seeking answers, but rather, actively seeking to destroy the faith of others. He’s like Amalikiah, poisoning people with his venom by degrees until their testimonies wither and die. It’s tragic, and I can only pray that someday, he has his “Alma the Younger moment” and realizes what he’s done before it’s too late. [Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 35

Come, Follow Me Week 51 – The Family: A Proclamation to the World

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The Proclamation Is a Light Against Sophistry

by Cassandra Hedelius

In September 1995, President Hinckley used a big word. “With so much of sophistry that is passed off as truth, with so much of deception concerning standards and values, with so much of allurement and enticement to take on the slow stain of the world, we have felt to warn and forewarn.” He then presented the new Proclamation to the World. [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 51 – The Family: A Proclamation to the World

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 34

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Part 34: CES Letter Prophet Questions [Section H]

by Sarah Allen

 

I am what some people on the internet commonly refer to as a “basic white girl.” Most of my preferences are mainstream and wholly unoriginal. I like Converse and Vans, the color pink, s’mores, steel water bottles, canvas messenger bags, Friends, unicorns, Harry Potter, murder mysteries, Funko Pops, Apple products, baking shows, fun nail art, and playing with makeup. I like wearing leggings and yoga pants, because at a certain point you stop caring so much about looking cute and just want to be comfortable. Even though I normally prefer listening to various subgenres of rock music, I still love boybands and other cheesy pop music. I like Fall, Halloween, pumpkin spice flavoring, and wearing sweaters and flannel shirts. And, most importantly for this week’s post, I love true crime.

I’ve loved it since well before it was popular, back when reading about serial killers and kidnapped kids as a hobby was considered strange for some reason. I said a few weeks ago how much I like stories, and that’s why I like history so much, because it’s just a giant collection of stories woven together. That’s the same reason I like true crime: because of the stories. As a storyteller myself, I’ve always found what human beings are capable of doing to one another far scarier and more interesting than any supernatural danger could ever be. True crime focuses heavily on those different stories and the real people involved in them, and to me, it’s fascinating and heartbreaking in equal measure. [Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 34

FAIR Conference Podcast #70 – Stephen Smoot, “Abraham and the Stranger at Sodom and Gomorrah: Reading the Bible and Navigating LGBT Identity”

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Podcast: Download (10.6MB)

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This podcast series features past FAIR Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2021 conference held in August. If you would like to watch all the presentations from the conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Stephen Smoot, Abraham and the Stranger at Sodom and Gomorrah: Reading the Bible and Navigating LGBT Identity

Stephen O. Smoot is a doctoral student in the department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literature at the Catholic University of America. He previously earned a master’s degree from the University of Toronto in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, with a concentration in Egyptology, and Bachelor’s degrees from Brigham Young University in Ancient Near Eastern Studies, with a concentration in Hebrew Bible, and German Studies. His areas of academic study and research include the Hebrew Bible, ancient Egypt, and Latter-day Saint scripture and history. From 2015 to 2020 Stephen was a research associate with Book of Mormon Central and is currently a research associate with the B. H. Roberts Foundation. Stephen served as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in northern New England (the New Hampshire Manchester Mission), which included six months at the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial in Sharon, Vermont.

Book Review: “In the Hands of the Lord: The Life of Dallin H. Oaks”

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Available from the FAIR Bookstore

This biography of Dallin H. Oaks was written by Richard E. Turley, Jr., who has been associated with Oaks throughout most of his (Turley’s) professional life. Turley has served as the Director of the Church History Department (originally selected to work for the department by Oaks), Assistant Church Historian, and Director of Public Affairs. He has previously written or co-written several other books, including Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hoffman Case and Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy.

Dallin Harris Oaks was born August 12, 1932 in Provo, Utah. He got his middle name from his mom’s side of the family, who was descended from a brother of Martin Harris. He grew up in Provo; Twin Falls, Idaho; Payson (where he stayed with his grandparents at times due to the death of his father when he was 7); and Vernal. He came close to dying several times in his childhood, beginning with his birth, with miraculous preservation of his life occurring each time. [Read more…] about Book Review: “In the Hands of the Lord: The Life of Dallin H. Oaks”

Inspiration, Intellect, and Rethinking Revelation

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by Michael R. Ash

for FAIR Newsletter 2021 1211

Inspiration and Intellect are two sides of the same coin in how Latter-day Saints believe that God communicates with His children. We know that the Spirit testifies to eternal truths, but we often forget (or neglect) the role that intellect plays in uncovering truth. The late Apostle Hugh B. Brown said, “revelation does not come only through the prophet of God nor only directly from heaven in visions or dreams. Revelation may come in the laboratory, out of the test tube, out of the thinking mind and the inquiring soul, out of search and research and prayer and inspiration.”[i] Likewise, the Lord instructed the Saints to “seek learning… by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118). This counsel was repeated several more times in modern revelations (see D&C 11:22, 90:15, 93:53; and 109: 7, 14), and the admonition led Joseph to establish the “School of the Prophets” (D&C 88:127).

The dual-nature or dual-sources for discovering truth presents some challenges, however. The first challenge is that neither source—neither inspiration nor intellect—can provide infallible and inerrant data.

The Challenge of Inspiration [Read more…] about Inspiration, Intellect, and Rethinking Revelation

The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 33

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Part 33: CES Letter Prophet Questions [Section G]

by Sarah Allen

 

We’re finally approaching the end of the Prophet Questions and Concerns section of the CES Letter. Next week, we’ll discuss the Mark Hofmann forgeries, at which point we’ll have finally hit the halfway point of the Letter as far as page count goes. As far as actual content goes, I think we’re already there. Hopefully, the week after Hofmann, we’ll dive into the Kinderhook plates and the upcoming revisit of the Book of Abraham.

Last week, we finished with the revelation in the temple giving the Priesthood to all worthy men, regardless of race or lineage. The things those men in that room experienced were incredible. Some of them described it as being like the day of Pentacost, with the rushing wind and cloven tongues of fire surrounding them. Interestingly, President Hinckley said there was no rushing wind or cloven tongues of fire, directly contradicting the exact words of Elder Perry and Elder McConkie, so it seems that their experiences were different but equally powerful. Elder McConkie seemingly confirmed that some of them saw divine figures there with them, though he refused to share any of the details. It was such a sacred event that some of the men there that day refused to discuss it at all, other than to say that it’d been the most spiritual experience of their lives. [Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 33