Book Review: Johannes Dillinger, Magical Treasure Hunting in Europe and North America

Dillinger, Johannes.  Magical Treasure Hunting in Europe and North America: A History.  Houndsmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

There’s no need to point out that treasure digging has been a major theme in the historiography of the early life of Joseph Smith for 40 years or more.  So it was with great excitement and high hope that I read the first book-length treatment of the subject.  This book exceeded my expectations.  In fact, although it technically dedicates only 4 pages to Mormonism, I found the book to be one of the most ground-shifting books I’ve ever read on Joseph Smith.  I hope readers will excuse my enthusiasm, but the first full treatment to the topic has yielded exciting results.

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Mormonism and “Historical/Traditional” Christianity

My dissertation committee felt I sort of gave them a bait and switch at my prospectus defense.  I had spent three years telling them I wanted to compare Mormonism to medieval Christianity (which I’m still doing) but for my prospectus I was now talking about Mormonism and Neoplatonism.  They found this all rather confusing and wanted brainstorm other angles I could take.  In the midst of all this, my medieval advisor exclaimed, “I know what your thesis should be.  It should be how Christian Mormonism is.  This is all thoroughly Christian, it’s just not Protestant.”

What is Christian depends on one’s point of view.  Medieval Christianity was very different from Protestantism.  As I’ve noted around here a few times, Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580 presents a very different picture of traditional Christianity than do Protestants.

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Book Review: Allison P. Coudert, Religion, Magic, and Science in Early Modern Europe and America

Coudert, Allison P.  Religion, Magic , and Science in Early Modern Europe and America.  Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011.

This book made my head spin.  Coudert sets about attacking cherished ontologies and historiographical dogmas in ways I’m overwhelmingly in agreement with, but the book still left me dizzy.  Coudert comes out swinging and doesn’t let up.   Most brilliant is the way Coudert blends these categories with each other and the social history of the periods she covers.

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Book Review: Brant Gardner, The Gift and Power

Gardner, Brant A. The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon.  Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford, 2011.

Gardner seeks to understand the nature of Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon by a thorough examination of the text coupled with descriptions of the translation process.  Gardner compares the Book of Mormon translation to regular translations and argues for three types: literal (an exact, word-for-word translation), functional (a translation that conveys meaning instead of exact wording) and conceptual.  Gardener argues that the Book of Mormon translation fits the functionalist type: it is a translation of the concepts into the idioms of Joseph Smith’s world.  Gardner goes further, arguing that research on cognition suggests how Smith translated: revelation was given at a pre-language level and then translated into English by Smith.  Gardner argues that such is a “natural” account of the translation and that his description still posits Smith as the translator.

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Prospectus 3.3: Sources

Here I basically place the work of Quinn, Brooke, and Owens within the context of Christian Platonism that I described in my earlier posts (3.1 and 3.2).  It’s not an in-depth discussion of the sources, but more of an overview.

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Guest Post: Research Survey of Mormons (UK & Irish)

 David M. Morris received his PhD from Southampton University (supervised at Chichester) in History and Sociology of Religion.  His PhD focused on British Mormons in the 19C and the socio-demographic backgrounds of LDS in Staffordshire between 1840 and 1870.  Morris is also the General Editor of the International Journal of Mormon Studies as well as a co-founder of EMSA.  He is currently researching UK/IRISH Mormons in the modern era.

I am currently undertaking a sociological study concerning members of the BRITISH & IRISH LDS Church, OR those who were PREVIOUSLY affiliated or expatriates. The survey has 33 questions in 9 sections. Would you please mind participating. All information gathered is anonymous and can not be used to identify either an individual or an IP address. The survey is found here:

Furthermore, we are pleased to announce the publication of the fourth issue of the International Journal of Mormon Studies. This is a peer reviewed journal and indexed by EBSCO. The current issue and past issues may be found here. Note that in contrast to many academic journals, IJMS articles may be downloaded for free. We do this in order to make this work available to readers around the world.

Please consider submitting your own work for publication.

Prospectus 3.2: Reevaluating Frances Yates

Here I summarize a group of books that reevaluate the work of Frances Yates. It was Yates’ work on Renaissance Hermeticism that was the foundation for Brooke’s Refiner’s Fire. Thus the reevaluations of Yates, I argue, help us to better situate Mormonism in the history of Christianity. I had considered writing individual reviews but since they interweave it worked to analyze them together. I may do individual reviews of some of these works later.

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Dissertation Prospectus 3.1

So I’m still writing prospectuses (or is it prospecti?) My committee technically passed off my first prospectus in December but did so with reservations. I’ve been working on placating those ever since. Also, the way my adviser Ann Taves likes to do it is to write an original prospectus, then do all the research, and then write another one at that point. I certainly haven’t completed my research but I’m getting there. My point is though I’m still working at this but I don’t feel like I’m spinning my wheels.

Anyway, the latest draft weighed in at 55 pages and 230 footnotes. I’m thinking of doing three posts of some of the introductory material. Here’s number one: [note: a fair amount of this is Ann’s wording]

“The Presence of God: Early Mormonism and Neoplatonism”

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The Book of Abraham and the Ancient Wisdom

Many Christians have found Plato valuable and those who have have often promoted the idea of prisca theologia, or, the ancient wisdom. The idea was the Plato got his ideas from somewhere else, like hermetic or orphic texts, and some thinkers constructed larger narratives of where the ancient wisdom (Platonic ideas that predated Plato) came from. ?In order to preserve the uniqueness of the Judeo-Christian revelation,? argues D. P. Walker, ?it was usual to claim that pagan Ancient Theology derived from Moses; but sometimes it was supposed to go back further, to Noah and his good sons, Shem and Japeth, or to antediluvian Patriarchs, such as Enoch, or even Adam.? [1]

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The Egyptian Papyri

So I decided to read Robert Ritner’s ?The Breathing of Hor among the Joseph Smith Papyri,” [1] for reasons I’ll discuss below. Wow. Where do I begin? As I’ve mentioned several times, I’m working on late Neoplatonic influence on early Mormonism and the primary innovations that the late Neoplatonists made to Neoplatonism was theurgy. To learn theurgy, Iamblichus spent considerable time studying in Egypt; Egyptians ritual played a significant role in Imablichus’s ritual theology. In fact, Iamblichus wrote his De Mysteriis (the principal exposition on theurgy) as “Master Abamon,” an Egyptian priest.[2]

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