I argue that a key indicator that JS was not simply seeking to restore biblical practice, but sought instead to restore doctrines and practices that he believed were MISSING from the Bible is the endowment. It’s clearly not in the Bible, though I argue Smith’s sources convinced him that Christians had an initiation rite that other evil early Christians had suppressed.
I note in chapter seven of my dissertation that the structure of the endowment is like the structure of the Eleusinian mysteries described under the entry on “mysteries” in the 1792 Encyclopedia Britannica (volume 12:577-97). Michael Quinn made this point in his Magic World View that I fleshed out in my dissertation (Quinn, first ed., 184-90).
Here I quote a few paragraphs from my dissertation (36-38) in which I look at a couple of Stephen Webb’s books. Webb, though Catholic, borrowed from Mormon thinkers on asserting the claim of Platonic corruption of Christianity related to materiality and God’s body. I note that Webb, like Roberts, presented some contradictory claims.
I want to finish my train of thought that Mormons claiming Greek philosophy was central to the apostasy is problematic. Again, this was a common Protestant claim, and I argue that Joseph Smith knew of the claim and rejected it, seeking to embrace the “ancient theology” instead.
I once saw a video of Mormon thinkers attributing the embraced of the Platonic-corruption idea to B H. Roberts’s Outlines of Ecclesiastical History (1893), so this post takes a look at what Roberts said on the topic. I argue that Robert’s statements inadvertently highlight the problems with the claim of linking Greek philosophy to the corruption of Christianity.
So as part of this larger series (1, 2, 3, 4) I started a while back on this blog about what I see as scholarly principles, I was thinking of eventually getting to the question of the Book of Mormon’s historicity.
Often when dealing with religious history, there is a (debated) school of thought that scholars should bracket out supernatural truth claims. But as often noted, the Book of Mormon isn’t wholly transcendent: Smith claimed it came from a a physical object that a handful of people claimed to have seen and touched, and Smith said it was the source of a translation claiming to be about ancient history in the Americas.
Both such claims (plates and historical record) are intrusions from the purely transcendent in the physical world, and both of these intrusions do allow for historical examination.
I had an experience on my mission of feeling like one of our biblical proof texts got called into question, praying about it, and then feeling like I came to a larger understanding of that particular concept. I can’t remember the exact details, but I did find my take away orienting. What was wrong, I felt, was my more limited understanding of a certain point. The concept still worked with a greater more complex understanding, and I needed to be open to that larger view.
I tried to apply that procedure in my decades of historical study: be open to what the data suggests and then make adjustments to my believing framework based on what I’d learned. I tried to avoid holding doggedly to preconceived notions and insist the data fit those.
Over time, made quite a few adjustments to my beliefs, and though some confusion at times, always felt like I would come around to the believer’s position.
History grad students learn about Leopold von Ranke, the 19th century German considered the father of the modern discipline of history, famous for stating the objective of discovering “what actually happened.” History grad students will learn that statement is much criticized, as grad students also learn the incompleteness, problems with records, and problem of the humans making the judgements.
But others note that despite all those limitations, historians really do want to try to understand the past like Ranke said, and that good methodology helps historians make the best historical judgments. Mark Ashurst McGee’s “Moroni: Angel or Treasure Guardian?” gives a nice overview: earlier and closest the subject is best. But based on that criteria, the 1832 First Vision account would be given primacy over the 1838 account for being earlier.
Differences in First Visions accounts long noted and debated, but in the differences between those accounts, church members tend to pick the later 1838 over the 1832 account. 1832 famously mentions “the Lord” not “two personages” one of which is the other’s “beloved son,” but there are other differences as well. My adviser liked to point out that in the 1832 accounts JS come to the conclusion that “mankind had apostatized” on his own, but in the 1838 account God tells JS that. Again “earliest is best” would give primacy to the 1832 account in such conflict between sources.
As I mentioned over at Times and Season, I put together what we call our “safe-space group” to discuss all kinds of topics, and not surprisingly history stuff was one of the genre of topics the group wanted to go over.
As all of my fellow JI bloggers know, that can be a bit of a difficult topic to try to do a crash course in because though our concepts of what happened in the past are very important to the larger culture and our church, we all know the study of history can be a tricky thing that often isn’t understood very well. And if such a discussion can get tricky in our larger societies’ culture war, it is even more so in debates within Mormonism when we often feel that larger religious truths are on the line.
So I thought a lot about best approaches when I was brainstorming how to introduce the topic and all the points that trained historians often want to convey. Things like “the past is a foreign country,” we have to rely on historical documents and good-faith interpretations vary, but that doesn’t mean we just make up whatever narrative we want, good historical interpretations will be supported by historical evidence (etc etc).
Since the historical topics we were going to cover were in the context of our religious beliefs, I thought I would be useful to start with the concept of the Greek ways of knowing: mythos and logos (And yes I’m using the division for my own purposes, feel free to correct!) Mythos is the accepted cultural truth about the Gods (common in all pre-modern societies) while Logos is truth that comes truth discussion (Logos=word), debates, logic, and inquiry; what the philosophers were trying to get at.
Such ways of knowing often clash: the example of Socrates being executed for challenging the contemporary religious system is a good example. Even more so would be the containing angst biblical scholarship can cause. Yet, the example of many such scholars maintaining a religious faith after making adjustments is also an example of something of a reconciliation between mythos and logos. (I know this is an extremely complicated topic with a very long history, just trying to offer some summaries).
I’ve been working my “intellectual biography of Joseph Smith” for a long time now (hope to finish before too long), or an attempt to traced where Smith got his ideas. By “intellectual biography” I mean the focus on his ideas. Framing the project in this way is Inherently controversial from within the faith as his revelatory claims believed by followers are that the ideas came from God or from lost scriptures also with God as the ultimate source.
I’ve been at this a while, but one part of my claim is that JS, it looks to me, would have had access to all the ideas he taught, to Mormonism, including the Book of Mormon, from particular sources. Yes, Mormonism was/is quite different than the prevailing Protestantism, so he wasn’t drawing on orthodox Protestantism for the distinctly Mormon stuff, but those idea were still out there.
No doubt such claims can prompt a lot of debate and can be taken as an attack on the faith. I’ve been at this a while, am still a practicing Mormon, and I recently finished serving as bishop of my ward having been released this last May.
My thanks to series editors J Stuart and Cristina for their edits and comments on this post.
I haven’t read Under the Banner of Heaven; this post is about responses to the book that I have heard. After reading the book, my sister shared with the family her take on the book’s claim of the dangers of believing in personal revelation (Jana Riess makes the same observation about Krakauer’s claim in her review), and it was at that point that I began formulating what I’d observed from studying the history of Christianity: there’s been a long history of people being very worried about other people claiming revelations. No doubt such claims got Jesus in trouble as they did Socrates. After studying this topic in considerable depth, I’d say the worry of the potential threat of visionaries vastly outstrips the actual damage of such people, and thus it looks to me like Under the Banner of Heaven is a popular manifestation of an ancient claim.
Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “Interesting, Jack. But just to reiterate, I think JS saw the SUPPRESSION of Platonic ideas as creating the loss of truth and not the addition.…”
Jack on BH Roberts on Plato: “Thanks for your insights--you've really got me thinking.
I can't get away from the notion that the formation of the Great and Abominable church was an…”
Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “In the intro to DC 76 in JS's 1838 history, JS said, "From sundry revelations which had been received, it was apparent that many important…”
Jack on BH Roberts on Plato: “"I’ve argued that God’s corporality isn’t that clear in the NT, so it seems to me that asserting that claims of God’s immateriality happened AFTER…”
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “The burden of proof is on the claim of there BEING Nephites. From a scholarly point of view, the burden of proof is on the…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “But that's not what I was saying about the nature of evidence of an unknown civilization. I am talking about linguistics, not ruins. …”
Recent Comments
Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “Interesting, Jack. But just to reiterate, I think JS saw the SUPPRESSION of Platonic ideas as creating the loss of truth and not the addition.…”
Jack on BH Roberts on Plato: “Thanks for your insights--you've really got me thinking. I can't get away from the notion that the formation of the Great and Abominable church was an…”
Steve Fleming on BH Roberts on Plato: “In the intro to DC 76 in JS's 1838 history, JS said, "From sundry revelations which had been received, it was apparent that many important…”
Jack on BH Roberts on Plato: “"I’ve argued that God’s corporality isn’t that clear in the NT, so it seems to me that asserting that claims of God’s immateriality happened AFTER…”
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “The burden of proof is on the claim of there BEING Nephites. From a scholarly point of view, the burden of proof is on the…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “But that's not what I was saying about the nature of evidence of an unknown civilization. I am talking about linguistics, not ruins. …”