Joseph Smith and the Knowledge of the Early Christian Fathers

In 1964, D. P. Walker declared that scholars have neglected ?the revival of interest in the early, pre-Nicene Fathers of the Church,? Origen in particular.[1]  In his book, The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal Torment, Walker details the centrality of Origen to the rise of Universalism in the late seventeenth century.

In that same year, Francis Yates published her much more influential Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition.  Yates?s work overshadowed Walker?s, not only his brilliant Decline of Hell, but his equally competent Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella (1958) and The Ancient Theology: Studies in Christian Platonism from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (1972).  Whereas Walker emphasized the importance of Plato, Christian Platonism, and the Fathers, Yates overshadowed all this with her hermetic thesis that treated Western esotericism as something other to Christianity and focused on the Corpus Hermeticum, a text of limited importance to that tradition.

Continue Reading

Elder Bednar Has It Right: Joseph Smith’s August 13, 1843 Speech

There were no sealing rituals between parents and children in Joseph Smith’s life time. [1] In his August 13, 1843 speech the prophet explained why such sealings were unnecessary:  “A measure of this sealing is to confirm upon their head in common with Elijah the doctrine of election or the covenant with Abraham?which which when a Father & mother of a family have entered into their children who have not transgressed are secured by the seal wherewith the Parents have been sealed.” [2]  Parents who were sealed to each other would have the opportunity of having their children sealed to them also so long as their children did not “transgress.” [3] Therefore, no additional ordinance was necessary.  Howard and Martha Coray’s much notes make it clear that William Clayton’s much briefer notes (just a few sentences) were problematic.  “When a seal is put upon the father and mother it secures their posterity so that they cannot be lost but will be saved by virtue of the covenant of their father.” [4] Again, Clayton’s notes were extremely truncated; researchers need to look to more thorough notes to get a better sense of Joseph Smith meaning (like Elder Bednar did).

Joseph Smith did teach antinomianism but like all other antinomians (from the heresy of the free spirit to John Dee to John Humphrey Noyes) perfection and thus being above the law was something that one achieved.  One progressed to that stage.

Continue Reading

An Alien Testifies of the Apostasy: Benjamin Winchester’s Creative Apologetics

The announcement that the church is planning to build a complex in downtown Philadelphia next to the temple puts me in mind of the church’s history in Philadelphia.  This history revolved around Benjamin Winchester who began preaching in Philadelphia in 1840.  Winchester was immediately successful but his success was soon tainted by the fact that most of his converts quickly grew to seriously dislike him.  Apparently Winchester was rather dictatorial, excommunicating all who disagreed with him.  The problems Winchester created (the Philadelphia branch split in two between the pro- and anti-Winchester factions) continued until Winchester left the church shortly after Joseph Smith’s assassination.[1]  Thus Winchester left this unfortunate legacy, made even more unfortunate considering Winchester’s intellectual legacy.  Winchester wrote the Mormons’ first Bible concordance, the first refutation the Spaulding theory, and the Mormons’ first historical theology, which gave a history of the apostasy that made statements that Joseph Smith endorsed in his very last speech.[2]

Winchester set up his own periodical in Philadelphia (The Gospel Reflector) where he asserted Mormon doctrine.

Continue Reading

An Unsigned Letter to Edward Hunter: Any Guesses Who and When?

Edward Hunter was perhaps the wealthiest convert to early Mormonism.[1] His coming to Nauvoo was a major boon to Joseph Smith as he set up a factory and brought a lot of store goods.[2]  ?My wife and myself had made up our minds to let Joseph have all of our means,” Hunter wrote in his autobiography, “until Joseph came to me and said, ?Keep it.??[3]  The following unsigned and undated letter seems to confirm that narrative.  It seems to have been written by a dissenter who was irritated by Hunter’s consecration.

Continue Reading

Mission

The only time my wife and I went out to the movies in our 4 and a half years in Santa Barbara was to see Waiting for Superman.  My wife, Lee, had seen it the weekend before but wanted me to go with her because she wanted to be able to talk about it with me.  Lee works for the New Tech Network, a non-profit organization that is involved in school reform, and was therefore very interested in a movie that addressed those issues.

Seeing this movie about the plight of education in the US in general and urban schools in particular was a rather jarring experience for me because a number of years earlier I had taught high school in a poor neighborhood in Los Angeles.  So I had an up-close view of what those schools were like (they struggle) and what kind of education the kids got there.  This was a rather painful memory since, because I walked into the classroom with no training (and very little aptitude, I soon discovered), I struggled mightily and delivered a very poor product to my students.  Thus I knew first hand of the educational struggles of urban children that the movie was documenting.  Again, this was a rather painful memory that also felt like a personal failure and I wondered what could possibly be done to address this problem.

Continue Reading

Hermetism and Christian Platonism: A Little More Clarification

Lately I’ve had a number of people ask me to clarify what the “hermetic tradition” was and I realized that although I’ve written some blog posts dealing with the topic, I ought to make a few more clarifications.  The notion of a Hermetic tradition is the work of Francis Yates and her very influential book Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition.  It was this book that John Brooke used to frame Mormonism in his Refiner’s Fire.  Yates’s work did much to shed light on early-modern modes of thought that had previously been under-explored but like most works, they get a little dated over time, and I will list a few of the critiques here.

One of the biggest problems was that Yates called a number of ideas “Hermetic” that were not in the Corpus Hermeticum [1]: like astrology, alchemy, and kabbalah.  Such modes of thought, Yates argued, shared a common essence with Hermetism.  Though Yates always used the term “Hermetism” (the preferred term of those who study antiquity) later scholars began using the term “Hermeticism” as a broader umbrella for the practices not in the Corpus Hermeticum, but similar in essence [2]. Thus “Hermetism” meant the ideas in the Corpus, “Hermeticism” meant the broader term.  This move unfortunately created a bigger mess because the term “Hermeticism” became too vague.  What was deemed Hermetic was now an intuitive judgment call, rather than a process of tying ideas back to particular sources.

Continue Reading

Jane Lead and the Restoration; Or, In Praise Our Heavenly Mother

In 1670, two months after her husband died, Jane Lead had her first of many remarkable visions. Lead said she was out for a walk and thinking about Wisdom [1] in the Bible, when

there came upon me an overshadowing bright Cloud, and in the midst of it the Figure of a Woman, most richly adorned with transparent Gold, her hair hanging down and her Face as the terrible Crystal for brightness, but her Countenance was sweet and mild. At which sight I was somewhat amazed, but immediately this Voice came, saying, Behold, I am God?s Eternal Virgin-Wisdom, whom thou hast been enquiring after; I am to unseal the Treasures of God?s deep Wisdom unto thee, and will be as Rebecca was unto Jacob, a true Natural Mother; for out of my Womb thou shalt be brought forth after the manner of a Spirit, Conceived and Born again. [2]

Continue Reading

Scholarship and Blogging

I think it was in 2005 when I came across Times and Seasons and I was rather enchanted by it. “These people are talking about interesting things.” “I want to be part of this conversation.” “I have important things to say.” “I’m working on important things right now that would inform these conversations.” “I would like it if these people knew who I was and thought what I had to say was important.”

Yet I quickly saw that all these feelings suggested that the blogs could be a dangerously seductive place to the aspiring scholar. I’m probably not just speaking for myself when I say that aspiring scholars badly want to be recognized. To be recognized we need to publish and that can be a long and difficult process. The time and effort between “brilliant idea” and “brilliant idea in print” is often significant. What if I could just skip all that and just throw my ideas up on a blog? Very tempting.

Continue Reading

Multiple Universes and the Existence of God

In the thirteen century, Aristotle became all the rage among European intellectuals.  Aristotle had a systematic way of viewing universe as well as a compelling system of logic.  But God played a very minor role in Aristotle’s system: Aristotle said there was an unmoved mover, the first cause (which medieval theologians took to be God) that had set the universe in motion. But God played no role in Aristotle beyond that. Aristotle argued that the rules that governed the universe [1] were there by necessity and he also argued that there was only one universe/world [2]. This bothered medieval thinkers of the time because it seem to suggest that even if God wanted to create multiple universes/worlds, He could not. This all came to a head in 1277, when a massive condemnation of Aristotle was issued [3]: article 34 stated that it was heresy to believe “that the first cause [i.e God] could not make several worlds.” [4] Thus the possibility of God creating multiple worlds/universes was needed to preserve God’s omnipotence, even though most thinkers assumed that God, in actuality, had probably only created one world/universe.

Continue Reading

Final Dissertation Outline

So my adviser, Ann Taves, has approved my final “throughline” for me to send out to the rest of my committee. Let me clarify.  The way Ann likes to do it, is for her students to write the initial prospectus, then do all the research and then write a second prospectus.  She calls the second prospectus a “throughline” or a chapter by chapter detail of your arguments.  

Continue Reading