How Can We Be Certain We Are Not as Blind Today as Previous Generations?”©

Updated, 18 January 2021

This is the third in an (unintentional) series about the tendency to view and value modern American culture and its trappings as the highpoint of civilization. The first one published in October 2018 was titled, “Valuable Things that Get Lost in Modern Philosophy and Culture.” The second, appearing here in June 2019 carried the title “Founding Principles Lost to the ‘Silent Artillery of Time.’” Those articles spoke of today’s popular attitude that current ideas, philosophies, and practices are vastly superior to those of the past, thus leading to looking down upon and even forsaking many valuable things.

Last night I read an interesting article that contributes another critique of the evolutionary notion of the development of culture and society. Daniel C. Peterson, writing in the most recent issue of the LDS academic journal Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship reminds us that all human endeavor, because it takes place in a fallen world by mankind with fallen natures is inherently flawed. An abstract of the article says “Every human enterprise ... is marred by human weakness, by our inescapable biases, incapacities, limitations, preconceptions, and sometimes, yes, sins.”(1) 

This applies to even what are considered today the highest of human enterprises–science, which presently, as Peterson says, “enjoys the greatest universal prestige of any cultural phenomenon in the modern world.”(2) To demonstrate the flaws which may be found even in science he reviews a recent article in the popular journal Scientific American. The article is titled “Reckoning with Our Mistakes: Some of the Cringiest Articles in the Magazine’s History Reveal Bigger Questions about Scientific Authority.”(3)  A mouthful of a title indeed. The authors of this piece review past issues of Scientific American to highlight some of the topics where the popular science of the day got it wrong. In some instances got it wrong for a long, long time.  

What were some of the errors modern science–at least as reflected in Scientific American is concerned?  Well, some may surprise you. Those that Peterson highlights include using science to justify slavery, male superiority, eugenics, and social Darwinism to promote and sustain racism. While Peterson speaks of this article as a “clear-eyed look at a small selection of embarrassing episodes”(4), he also makes an interesting point when he observes, “no great courage is required to admit the ‘sins’ of others, to acknowledge the missteps of predecessors.”(5) Then follows this paragraph which cuts to the heart of my present concern:

But acknowledging our own errors can be extremely difficult. Not only morally but, precisely, because we can’t always easily discern them. The authors called out in the article by Schwartz and Schlenoff were probably not evil people by the standards of their times.  They may well even have been idealists. But, as we see today, they were blind–just as blind as the countless laypeople, politicians, administrators, religionists, bureaucrats, and captains of industry who relied upon and followed the all-too-human scientific experts.  (This is a real-world example of the blind leading the blind.)”(6)

This leads Peterson to a very important question: “How can we be certain that we’re not blind today?” He concludes, “The march of science, and of historical and other forms of understanding, hasn’t stopped.  It hasn’t culminated with us.”(7) The point that many predecessors even in the highly touted field of science were blind and the march of science continues and has not culminated with us is profound. Maybe in a hundred years some of our notions may be viewed as the “blind leading the blind.” Who knows?

My point is that it is prideful folly to get cocksure about the knowledge and practices of today in comparison to those of the past, especially if it leads us to disrespect or even jettison fundamental principles and valuable traditions and practices. Peterson reminds us, “Humility is an intellectual virtue as well as a practical virtue for everyday life.”(8) I suggest these ideas apply not just to the follies of science, but also to the iconic philosophies of modern culture and of history.

Here is an example. Recently I read an interview with author Lynn Sherr. She has written a biography of Susan B. Anthony, probably the leading woman in America who led the fight for women’s rights and the right to vote. Sherr tells that as a young reporter in the late 60s and early 70s she got interested in Anthony when she covered many of the early women’s liberation movement meetings of that time.  She tells what happened:

As I got involved, both as a reporter and as a woman, I also was struck by the fact that this exciting new field of women’s rights was to me new, different, exciting. I truly believed we had invented this. I truly believed we were the first ones to think about equal pay, to think about sex discrimination. Then I started reading a few history books, because in college, in high school, in grammar school I learned almost nothing about women’s history. I suddenly discovered there were all these women that had come before, and, to my mind, the brightest star of all was Susan B. Anthony. She just got there first with everything. She said it all first. She did it at a time when it was much, much more difficult to stand up against the entrenched philosophies of society, so she became my hero ....(9)

Thus the importance of two elements of perspective. First, though he may not have intended this, Peterson’s article is a reminder of the value of possessing as much of the perspective of the past as we can get. We should be on a life-long quest to understand the history of whatever subjects, disciplines, matters, and issues that concern us. Second, we need the eternal perspective of the doctrines and practices of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. With these it is less likely that the blind will be leading the blind. With such a perspective we can accumulate as much as possible of the good from the past and add it to the benefits of the present.

Let’s think together again, soon.

Endnotes:

1.  Daniel C. Peterson, “Reckoning with the Mortally Inevitable,” Interpreter, 29 (2020): vii-xvi, see especially xiv-xv.

2. Ibid, vii.

3. See Scientific American 323, no. 3 (September 2020): 36-41.

3. Peterson, “Reckoning,” viii.

4. Ibid, xiv.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid, xv, all forms of emphasis added.

7. Ibid.

8.     Ibid.

9.  Lynn Sherr, Booknotes interview of 5 March 1995, in Brian Lamb, Booknotes: America’s Finest Authors on Reading, Writing, and the Power of Ideas, New York: Random House, 1997, 306, emphasis added.

INSURRECTION: POTENTIAL DISASTER ALMOST OVERLOOKED BY PUNDITS AND MEDIA©

INSURRECTION:  POTENTIAL DISASTER ALMOST OVERLOOKED BY PUNDITS AND MEDIA© 

This will be to the point.  One of the things that disappoints me about the coverage from all the media I have been watching from noon on Wednesday until now is that most of the commentators and pundits have missed and are not emphasizing one of the major points of the insurrection incited by Donald Trump on Wednesday. That point is that had the mob been successful in breaking into the House Chamber and the Senate before the legislators were evacuated, many members of congress and the Vice President of the United States would very likely have been KILLED.  The mob was very, very angry. Some were angry enough to take the lives of their political opponents.  Our daughter lives in Falls Church, Virginia. They know very conservative church members who went to the rally, but when it started heading for the Capitol they left because there was so much anger expressed in the crowd.

In the past three days I have heard played some of the video in which there were very violent threats against Vice President Pence, one report said some mobbers were talking about taking him out and hanging him on a tree in the Capitol grounds. I also heard vile, vulgar threats against Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House. Is there any doubt what the mobbers would have done to Chuck Schumer, Mitt Romney, and Lindsey Graham in the Senate? Undoubtedly many other Democrats and some other Republicans in both chambers would have been targets.

Many in this mob were violent and murderous.  One guy said he didn’t care about the tallying of the vote then underway, he just wanted “WAR!”

Two thoughts: First, where would this nation be right now on Saturday morning if any or all of those people would have been killed? I hang my head in shame and despair and shed tears at the thought.  Second, Donald Trump incited this mob and while they were in the capitol he was on the phone trying to reach Republicans to continue to contest the legitimacy of the electors in several states.  We know this because he accidentally got hold of Utah Senator Mike Lee looking for someone else.  This in the middle of this insurrection! Then White House sources told reporters he and Rudy were almost gleeful at what they were watching on TV. This shows how truly callous and ruthless this man is.

Think of it. The President of the United States of America inciting a riot at the U.S. Capitol, one that had a murderous element that but for some strong barriers and quick acting security could have seen many of our elected leaders dead and injured.

This danger must be highlighted and this man must be brought to account for this.

Finally, a word to some young men and perhaps young women who labored with me in the California Roseville Mission, who are staunch supporters of President Trump. I encourage you to think seriously about the disaster that was narrowly avoided which I have mentioned above. If you are secretly saying to yourselves, I wish that mob had succeeded, I wish Pence, Pelosi, Schumer, Graham, and Romney had got what they deserve, you have great cause to repent. Not for political reasons (I am a life-long Republican), but because the anger engendered in you by the actors and actions in this situation were not and are not God-inspired.  This is not God’s way.  Please listen to me, my young friends.  If you are filled with hate, anger, and resentment and in your heart sustain what transpired at the Capitol on Wednesday, you have forsaken all that you were taught as a missionary in the California Roseville Mission between 2002-2005.

Thank God, we dodged the bullet of the death and injury of our duly elected representatives.

Let’s think together again, soon.

Philosophical, Educational and Advertizing Fads©

This will be short. I’ve been thinking about philosophical, educational, and advertising fads, sometimes all mixed together. This thinking was spawned by two recent events. The first and most important was an email from my granddaughter who is a senior in high school in Virginia near Washington, D.C. She is trying mightily to get into West Point. She is a reader and I often buy her books. Today she wrote the following, please note the emphasized section:

I also finished: The Mastery of Destiny by James Allen.  He is absolutely phenomenal! I wish we would read what he writes in school, instead of social inequalities.  Allen is very inspiring and insightful!  He is my new favorite author!  So, thank you so much for introducing him to me! 

It’s sad to me that High School teachers are so indoctrinated that their job is to engineer social change that it permeates, nay saturates secondary education--indeed education at every level. My granddaughter is no dummy and it bores her. Moreover, she knows and I know, it is not education, it is indoctrination.

And have you seen the latest add by the Girl Scouts on TV? It is promoting the leadership angle for young women.  I think five or six girls have one liners. What kind of leadership are they promoting?  One wants to be a congressman ("oops-"congresswoman"), another a senator, another wonders if she needs to be a mayor before going national, and the last one sarcastically asks why there are so few women in government?  There is only one message here. The only place for women to be leaders is in government.  Nothing there about business, education, science, not to mention the home.  Why?  Well to engineer social change of course. 

Modern culture in whatever form worships at the feet of the gods of social change and diversity--the great philosophical fads of the day.

It all bores me too, Hailey!

Let’s think together again, soon.

One Man’s Very Brief Opinions about the Current Rioting ©

I am angry!  That doesn’t happen often.  Even less frequently do I express it publicly.  But I am angry, and I found something to help me express what I’m feeling.

I’m angry about the senseless rioting going on in America.  It started several days ago in 30 cities as an organized protest of the death of a black man at the hands of white police in one of America’s cities.  I’ve been through this inanity before–Watts, Rodney King, Trayvon Martin and others.  But, my anger is not about the "Black Lives Matter” movement or racism, although I deplore both it and mindless police brutality.  What gets my goat is the senseless rioting, the destruction of property, the theft of property, the injury inflicted on others–all allegedly an expression of anger of the black community and their sympathizers over this injustice.  Their anger and their frustration, I may not totally understand as a white man, but I try to understand and I try to sympathize.

What I really do not understand and TOTALLY abhor is the lawless violence they are inflicting on the entire nation, let alone individual communities that had nothing to do with the injustice they are resisting.  From my safe perch here in a secluded mountain valley, it appears to me that much of what we are witnessing is using that injustice as an excuse for hate, riot, theft, and violence.  The very lawlessness and injustice they claim to protest is met with fomented lawlessness and injustice nationwide.  It is not meeting like with like, in kind or in scale. 

If it is justified as like meeting like, the result is not the reformation of society, the elevation of society, the reclamation of society, or ennobling or bettering society in any manner.  It is, in fact,  pure descent to the lowest common denominator of barbarism.  It is declension not progress.  It brings to mind the amazing and evocative statement of Terryl Givens as he describes what he calls the “ancient mafia” of The Book of Mormon–the Gadianton Robbers.  Here is Givens:

The ancient mafia erupts on the scene ... a few decades before Christ.  The many layered story Mormon relates is striking not for its depiction of physical violence and destruction, seen so often in Book of Mormon warfare.  This is rather a portrait of the psychological dimensions of evil, and takes us from hypocrisy and self-justification through willful blindness and stupidity to what may be the most chilling stage of all-blithe indifference to ones own complicity in the moral decay of a society.(1)

I believe what we are witnessing these horrible days is an expression of the psychological dimension of evil, laced with, nay, surfeited with hypocrisy, self-justification, willful blindness, and stupidity.  Most importantly those who engage in these activities are complicit–deeply complicit and deeply indifferent–to the moral decay with which they both wittingly and unwittingly infect the society they pretend to reform.

The last time unbridled barbarism got control of things the world was temporarily paralyzed by the challenge, which eventually ended in a catastrophic global conflict. 

Let’s think together again, soon.

Notes:

1.  Terryl L. Givens, The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction, New York: Oxford University, 2009, 58, emphasis added.

The Book of Mormon Stresses an “Atoning Messiah” Rather than a “Triumphal Messiah”©

101 Reasons Why I Believe Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God

Evidence Sixty-five:

The Book of Mormon Stresses an “Atoning Messiah” 

Rather than a “Triumphal Messiah”©
Revised: 19, 21, 22 January 2020.

In my personal study for this year’s Sunday School emphasis on the Book of Mormon, I’m reading a 2015 book by Brant Gardner, Traditions of the Fathers: The Book of Mormon as History.(1) I am finding it a very thoughtful treatment and came across something this morning that was both interesting and profound.  Let me set his idea up with a little background.

In the period before Lehi left Jerusalem, two kings of Judah initiated religious reforms. The first was Hezekiah who lived about the time of Isaiah. It appears he was trying to eliminate pagan Canaanite influences on Israelite theology, worship, and society, by removing structures that were temple-like or associated with temple worship, largely among rural Israelites. There was a move toward centralization of worship at the Jerusalem temple. His reforms didn’t last long because his son Manasseh restored the old ways after his father died. The second king, Josiah, initiated similar reforms just at the time of Lehi, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and other prophets. Gardner mentions 1 Nephi 13 where there is a discussion of the history of the Bible once it came forth from among the Jews.  It says some plain and precious things were left out or taken out of the Bible.

According to Margaret Barker, British expert on the Old Testament and student of the early "Temple Theology", an important element of the early theology which was absent was the concept of the atonement.  In May 2003 she gave a forum address at BYU.  She answered the question, “What did King Josiah reform?"  She made the following remarks about the atonement:

Atonement is missing from Deuteronomy; the festival calendar in Deuteronomy 16 describes Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles–but no Day of Atonement.  The final form of the Pentateuch, compiled under the influence of Josiah’s party, denies that atonement is even possible.  After Israel had sinned and made the golden calf, Moses went back up the mountain to offer himself as an atonement for their sin.  The Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book” (Exodus 32:33).  Why had Moses thought that his self-sacrifice could have been an atonement for sin?  Presumably there had once been a time when such things were thought possible.(2)

Gardner thinks there were some in Jerusalem who were opposed to certain aspects of Josiah’s reforms which may be hinted at in 1 Nephi 13, and that Nephi stressed this important element of Israelite theology that was being de-emphasized, neglected, or rejected. Here is Gardner’s assessment:

Nephi was not concerned with textual integrity but theological integrity. [He is referring to Nephi’s discussion of what happened to the Bible as recounted in 1 Nephi 13.]

Although we have only this hint of what Nephi thought might have been removed, we do have the testimony of what he wrote. If we hypothesize that he would have wanted to restore that which was missing from the record as it proceeded from “the mouth of a Jew,” we have a clear candidate: Nephi’s very strong emphasis on the atoning mission of the Messiah. This atoning function of the Messiah differs in both time and mission from the end-time triumphal Messiah who comes as King. The atoning Messiah comes to earth in the meridian of time as a humble man who nevertheless performs the ultimate act of atonement for humankind. 

Lehi preached the mercy of God, and Nephi preaches the atoning Messiah. Both do so after a similar vision of the Savior and the twelve apostles. I argue that both Lehi and later Nephi saw the de-emphasis on the atoning mission of the Messiah as an unfortunate result of Josiah’s reforms. Lehi preached against the removal, but Nephi restored it by emphasizing it in his own version of the Tree of Life vision.(3)

I have long believed that one of the major differences between the Palestinian Jews and the Nephite Jews was their different perceptions of the Messiah. The Palestinian Jews looked “beyond the mark” to the Messiah of what Christians call the “Second Coming”–the Messiah who came as a triumphal king. The Messiah was seen as a political king that would save Israel from political enemies dominating it.

A very similar point to this was made by Joseph Spencer in a 2017 article about the historical background of 1 Nephi 1:18-20, which says that the book the angel gave to Lehi “manifest plainly of the coming of a Messiah, and also the redemption of the world.” Jewish reaction seemed strange to Spencer, because verse nineteen also says that the Jews mocked him for testifying of their wickedness, but verse twenty says when he taught them of “a Messiah” they wanted to take his life. Spencer thinks the reactions would normally be reversed, so he asks the question, “Was there anything in Jerusalem society in this period that would have led to such reactions?"

His historical review of the period focuses on king Josiah. In 2 Samuel 7, Nathan’s oracle to David promised an “everlasting dynasty” to the great king. Josiah was the latest king in that dynasty.  The Judaic kings were anointed, which meant they were a messiah. The Davidic dynasty was looked to by the people to deliver them from foreign domination. When he threw off the remnants of the Assyrian yoke in the mid-sixth century B.C. Josiah appeared to be the only one since David who could do so. However, Israel was like a nut in a nut-cracker between Babylon who filled the void of the Assyrians, and Egypt. Unfortunately Josiah was killed by the Egyptians in the battle of Meggido. Spencer hypothesizes that with Jewish hopes dashed and new Babylonian overlords in town, talk of a resurgent messiah would have been extremely dangerous therefore Lehi’s fellow Jerusalemites sought to shut him up.(4)

But the Nephite Jews understood the mortal Jesus as a spiritual Messiah. He was the Messiah during his first coming, not as a political Deliverer, but as a spiritual Deliverer. However, I had not seen clearly the difference which Gardner makes above–that is, that the mortal Messiah, was really the “atoning Messiah", in contrast to the “Triumphal Messiah” of the Second Coming.(5) Of course the Messiah’s most important spiritual duty was his atoning mission. I was 85% there, but just didn’t quite have it clear. My gratitude to Brant Gardner. What a helpful insight.

In the Book of Mormon, Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one. He is the Eternal God “manifesting himself unto all nations.” He is also preeminently an atoning Messiah. We learn more about him and the atonement in the Book of Mormon than any of the other Standard Works, including the New Testament and the book of Romans.

The vast majority of the twenty-six times the word Messiah is used in the Book of Mormon occur in First and Second Nephi.  Examples that illustrate Gardner’s idea may be found in 1 Ne. 1:19; 10:4-5, 7, 9-11, 14, 17; 12:18; 15:13 (2); 2 Ne. 2:26; 25:16, and 18(6). Here are several examples with the connection highlighted in italics:

And it came to pass that the Jews did mock him because of the things which he testified of them; for he truly testified of their wickedness and their abominations; and he testified that the things which he saw and heard, and also the things which he read in the book, manifested plainly of the coming of a Messiah, and also the redemption of the world. (1 Ne. 1:19.) 

Yea, even six hundred years from the time that my father left Jerusalem, a prophet would the Lor God raise up among the Jews--even a Messiah, or, in other words, a Savior of the world.  (1 Ne. 10:4) 

“And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given.” (2 Ne. 2:26) 

And after they have been scattered, and the Lord God hath scourged them by other nations for the space of many generations, yea, even down from generation to generation until they shall be persuaded to believe in Christ, the Son of God, and the atonement, which is infinite for all mankind—and when that day shall come that they shall believe in Christ, and worship the Father in his name, with pure hearts and clean hands, and look not forward any more for another Messiah, then, at that time, the day will come that it must needs be expedient that they should believe these things.(2 Ne. 25:16.)  

Wherefore, he shall bring forth his words unto them, which words shall judge them at the last day, for they shall be given them for the purpose of convincing them of the true Messiah, who was rejected by them; and unto the convincing of them that they need not look forward any more for a Messiah to come, for there should not any come, save it should be a false Messiah which should deceive the people; for there is save one Messiah spoken of by the prophets, and that Messiah is he who should be rejected of the Jews.(2 Ne. 25:18.) 

Note that 1 Ne. 10:4 actually defines the word Messiah as the Savior of the world! This is precisely where the emphasis should be–on the Atonement of Jesus Christ. That speaks well for both the Book of Mormon, and Joseph Smith who translated it. I purposefully chose the language, “the Atonement of Jesus Christ,” to conform to an important observation by President Russell M. Nelson:

It is doctrinally incomplete to speak of the Lord’s atoning sacrifice by shortcut phrases, such as “the Atonement” or “the enabling power of the Atonement” or “applying the Atonement” or “being strengthened by the Atonement.” These expressions present a real risk of misdirecting faith by treating the event as if it had living existence and capabilities independent of our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. 

Under the Father’s great eternal plan, it is the Savior who suffered. It is the Savior who broke the bands of death. It is the Savior who paid the price for our sins and transgressions and blots them out on condition of our repentance. It is the Savior who delivers us from physical and spiritual death. 

There is no amorphous entity called “the Atonement” upon which we may call for succor, healing, forgiveness, or power. Jesus Christ is the source. Sacred terms such as Atonement and Resurrection describe what the Savior did, according to the Father’s plan, so that we may live with hope in this life and gain eternal life in the world to come. The Savior’s atoning sacrifice—the central act of all human history—is best understood and appreciated when we expressly and clearly connect it to Him.(5)

Thus Lehi, Nephi, Moroni, and others in the Book of Mormon continually remind us where our faith should be placed–in the Holy Messiah and his attributes. Lehi testified:

Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise. (2 Ne. 2:8, emphasis added)

Nephi taught:

And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save. (2 Ne. 31:19, emphasis added.)

Moroni explained: 

And after they had been received unto baptism, and were wrought upon and cleansed by the power of the Holy Ghost, they were numbered among the people of the church of Christ; and their names were taken, that they might be remembered and nourished by the good word of God, to keep them in the right way, to keep them continually watchful unto prayer, relying alone upon the merits of Christ, who was the author and the finisher of their faith. (Moroni 6:4, emphasis added.)

Thank God for the Book of Mormon! Thank God for thoughtful students of that book! Thank God for Joseph Smith!

Let’s think together again, soon.

Notes:  

1.  Brant A. Gardner, Traditions of the Fathers: The Book of Mormon as History.  Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2015.

2.  Margaret Barker, “What Did King Josiah Reform?” in Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, edited by John W. Welch, David Rolph Seely, Jo Ann H. Seely, 533-34.  Provo, UT: FARMS, 2004.

3.  Gardner, Traditions of the Fathers, 73, emphasis added.

4.  Joseph M. Spencer, “Potent Messianism: Textual, Historical, and Theological Notes on 1 Nephi 1:18-20,” in A Dream, a Rock, and a Pillar of Fire: Reading 1 Nephi 1, edited by Adam S. Miller, 47-74.  Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University, 2017.  See especially pp. 57-67 for the ideas I have described. Spencer is a philosopher and the last third of his paper explores in arcane philosophical language and idea, what a “potent Messiah” is and does. Unfortunately, he never seems to grasp Gardner’s point about an atoning Messiah. He interprets the phrase at the end of 1 Ne. 1:19, "also the redemption of the world," as a political term and does not consider its religious connotations, which seem to me to be obvious when read in conjunction with the other statements about a Messiah found in 1 and 2 Nephi, which I have quoted above.

5.  Interestingly, in an article published in 2004, David Seely refers to “the Messiah and his atoning mission,” and earlier in the article says “Lehi and Nephi both prophesied of the coming of the Messiah. Lehi received a knowledge of ‘the coming of a Messiah, and also the redemption of the world” (1 Nephi 1:19) and prophesied “a prophet would the Lord God raise up among the Jews–even a Messiah, or, in other words, a Savior of the world” (1 Nephi 10:4),” but he does not develop these ideas further than to refer to subsequent prophets in the Book of Mormon who spoke of the atoning mission of Christ. None of this is said in reference to Josiah’s reforms. See, David Rolph Seely, “Sacred History, Covenants, and the Messiah: The Religious Background of the World of Lehi,” in Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, edited by John W. Welch, David Rolph Seely, and Jo Ann H. Seely, 381-420, especially 415 and 419.  Provo, UT: FARMS, 2004.  Further note that Margaret Barker’s BYU Forum address, “What Did King Josiah Reform?”and Kevin Christensen’s, “The Temple, the Monarchy, and Wisdom: Lehi’s World and the Scholarship of Margaret Barker,” appeared in this same volume. The latter is a lengthy article but it’s emphasis is on the temple and it does not deal with an “atoning Messiah” even in the brief discussion on “Sacrifice and Atonement,” found on pages 475-77.

6.  Russell M. Nelson, “Drawing the Power of Jesus Christ into Our Lives,” Ensign (May 2017): 40, emphasis added.

“Complexity and Accuracy in the Book of Mormon, Despite the Amazing Speed of Translation”©

101 Reasons Why I Believe Joseph Smith Was a Prophet of God:

Evidence Sixty-Four:

“Complexity and Accuracy in the Book of Mormon, Despite the Amazing Speed of Translation”© 

Today I want to acquaint you with a wonderful article that was published about a year ago regarding the time it took to translate the Book of Mormon and some of the interesting insights that knowledge brings to us. It was written by John (Jack) W. Welch. He is the Robert K. Thomas Professor of Law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU. He was editor of BYU Studies Quarterly for thirty years, discovered chiasmus in the Book of Mormon, and has been a major influence in the Church to promote ongoing Book of Mormon research and writing. His article is: John W. Welch, “Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon: ‘Days [and Hours] Never to be Forgotten,’” BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 4 (2018):11-50. 

Professor Welch has long been interested in the length of time it took Joseph and his scribes to translate the Book of Mormon. This study brings the major findings of that ongoing work together for the Church. He of course also utilizes the research and writing of a number of others in the field, particularly the three-decade-long work of Royal Skousen, who has been working on what is known as “The Critical Text Project,”–Skousen’s effort to produce an accurate and critical (meaning annotated) text of the Book of Mormon.

Professor Welch is only one of many over the years who has tried to pin down how long it took Joseph Smith to translate the book, and he briefly reviews that information at the beginning of his article. So the reader will understand, although Joseph Smith received the plates from Moroni in September 1827, the bulk of translation took place much later. That is because he originally translated 116 pages, but that manuscript was apparently stolen. So the work resumed in earnest in the months of April, May, and June of 1829. Joseph and Emma were living in Harmony, Pennsylvania at the time. Emma’s parents lived in Harmony and the couple lived with them for a time before purchasing a small home. Emma helped translate just a very few pages. But Oliver Cowdery arrived on 5 April 1829, offering to help. He and Joseph began translating on 7 April 1829, and the project was finished at the end of June that same year.This is well known information, so most researchers have begun with this base of approximately 85 days or nearly three months as the period when the book was translated. Although others have whittled the time down some, Welch has studied the period extensively. He knows the days Joseph was traveling, engaged in other business, and otherwise preoccupied. Consequently he subtracts eleven days from the total, leaving seventy-four for actual translation. However, he adds “there must have been many days during that time period that were only partially available for translation work.”(1) So, it may have been significantly shorter than seventy-four days.

The next important fact and question is, how long was the book and could Joseph have accomplished this task in that short time? The original 1830 Book of Mormon was 269,510 words long, on an estimated 608 pages of manuscript. [“Estimated,” because only 28% of the original manuscript is still in existence, the remainder was destroyed by water damage, or is unknown.] To translate those 269,510 words, averages out to about 3,743.2 words a day for 74 days. It turns out that many words occupies about eight pages of the printed book, so Joseph would have to produce eight to nine pages of manuscript each day.(2) Welch asks, is this possible?  

Here is how the process worked: Joseph would read about 20 words at a time to Oliver Cowdery, who then wrote the dictated portion. When he was finished, he read it back to Joseph. In the process corrections were made–and there were many–mostly errors related to hearing the text articulated, such as the difference between chaste and chased, or leaving off an s in a word that was supposed to be plural.(3) Grant Hardy observes:

It appears that Cowdery was listening intently to Smith’s dictation and corrections, while Smith was equally attentive to Cowdery’s reading the words back to him, enough so that both men were catching differences in plurals and verb endings. Evidence from O [original manuscript] suggests that they were expending considerable effort to get the words exactly right.(4)

With the corrections made, the process continued.

The intricacy with which Welch works out the various possibilities of translating 10, 15, or 20 words a minute, over 3 to 8 hours per day, shows the general feasibility of the task within the time period. However, when experiments were tried with adult classes, they quickly discovered the mental difficulty of close attention to listening, writing, reviewing, and correcting over long periods and came away with a greater appreciation for the diligence and stamina of the brethren even if they translated as little as three or four hours a day at a slow pace.

We are also fairly certain of the order in which the Book of Mormon was translated. The lost 116 pages were taken from Nephi’s abridgment of Lehi’s story, which was apparently part of the Large Plates of Mormon, which also included the books of Mosiah through part of Mormon. So, when Joseph and Oliver resumed translating in April 1829, they almost certainly began with Mosiah and translated the goodies on the Small Plates of Nephi during the end of the translation. Knowing the order of translation, the approximate number of days to translate, and having some idea that it required about eight pages a day, Welch can provide an educated guesstimate of what materials were translated when and provides a helpful day-by-day chart in the article. Interestingly, the content of the material being translated matches up well with several known dates where something in the Book of Mormon influenced external events such as the baptism of Joseph and Oliver, and their reception of the Priesthood. The content also matches up reasonably well with some of the phraseology and thought content of the thirteen revelations which were given to Joseph Smith during the period of the translation. That is, some things in the Book of Mormon are reflected in those revelations.(5)

Given this background I want to share, just one more of the many significant insights growing out of this important study. “Knowing how quickly it was dictated,” Welch writes, “amplifies the significance of many kinds of details, helping astute readers notice and value literary features that would otherwise go unappreciated.”(6) Here is his example:

...in Alma 36:22, Alma quotes exactly twenty-two words from Lehi as found in 1 Nephi 1:8.  Knowing that the passage in Alma was translated in Harmony [Pennsylvania] in April, perhaps about April 24, while the Lehi text was not supplied until June, perhaps about June 5 in Fayette [New York], might be relevant to how those passages and many other instances of complex intertextuality are read.(7)

I think Welch understates his case. My goodness, talk about complexity and accuracy despite the amazing speed of translation! In late April 1829, the story of Alma quoting exactly twenty-two words from Lehi is placed in the book more than a month earlier than the translated account of Nephi actually giving those words. Yet, to the reader of the Book of Mormon the 1 Nephi material appears before Alma and the sequence is chronological and feels natural. However, the translation of these two texts was exactly the reverse! Dan Peterson’s recent reaction was, “Not bad for a 'writer' who is said never to have consulted the material already produced before he commenced a new day of dictation.”(8)

But the evidence grows, because you have nearly the exact case with material in 3 Nephi 8. Here the story describes the destruction which occurred at the time of the Savior’s crucifixion. And according to the account it fulfills some prophecies of Nephi found in 1 Nephi 19. The Nephi material was recorded a month later that the 3 Nephi 8 text!  

So, either we are making a case for the phenomenal memory of Joseph Smith with two very similar examples, or we are seeing a translation in the manner in which Joseph Smith described it –“by the gift and power of God.”(9)

Here is a gem from Jack Welch summarizing the perspective this kind of information gives to the student of the Book of Mormon:

At the same time, the feat of bringing forth the Book of Mormon within its tight time frame increases appreciation for the achievement of the Prophet Joseph Smith, which can, in turn, increase awe and reverence for God and the word of God. As Elder Maxwell once observed, “One marvel is the very rapidity with which Joseph was translating.” I would add that we should note the marvel of perceiving and vocalizing the text, line after line, with no time for research, for collocating scattered scriptural phrases, for keeping track of numerous threads, for developing an array of characters and their stylistic voices, or for composing coherent accounts.”(10)

I say, Amen, and thank God for Joseph Smith.

Let’s think together again, soon.

Notes:  

1.   John W. Welch, “Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon: ‘Days [and Hours] Never to be Forgotten,’” BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 4 (2018):32.  Regarding possible translation between the loss of the 116 pages and April of 1829, Welch writes, "There is no indication from Joseph Smith that he translated anything besides the lost manuscript pages before April 7."  [Welch, 13, n. 5.]

2.  Welch, “Timing the Translation,” 22, 31, n. 51.  Dan Peterson going with a 60 day translation period, writes: “Using the figure of sixty dictation days, my calculation:  269,510 words / 60 days = approximately 4,492 words dictated per day.  Nearly nine pages in the current standard English edition of the Book of Mormon daily — 8.85, to be precise.

3.  Grant Hardy, “Textual Criticism and the Book of Mormon,” in Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources, edited by Mark Ashurst-McGee, Robin Scott Jensen, and Sharalyn D. Howcroft, 45-6, 52, 57, n. 39.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.

4.  Hardy, “Textual Criticism,” 57. Hardy points to another “interesting evidence for oral dictation” of the manuscript and brings two important things to light.  He gives one instance found in a quotation from the Biblical book of Isaiah. It occurs in P [printer’s manuscript] at 2 Nephi 23:14.  “Cowdery apparently copied P directly from O (which is no longer extant for this passage) where he had transcribed a phrase from Isaiah 13:14 as “it shall be as the chaste row.” At some later point Cowdery realized his error and after crossing out chaste, inserted chased above the line.” What is striking to me is that here in an Isaiah quotation, which anti-Mormons claim is evidence of plagiarism on the part of Joseph Smith, we find evidence the manuscript was dictated rather than copied from the Bible.  See Hardy, 57, n. 39.

5.  Welch, “Timing the Translation,” 33-37.  I shared this data with an 82-year-old friend of mine who is a pretty sharp cookie. He almost cut me off to ask, “How important is all this information relative to the life changing message and doctrine in the book?” I think he was a bit surprised to hear me say, “In that light it isn’t important."   "However," I went on, "I believe knowing these kinds of things may help us appreciate and value the book and its message even more." He understood my point and my interest.

6.  Ibid, 41.

7.  Ibid.

8.  Dan Peterson, “Notes from 'Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon' (1)" 4 January 2020, on Peterson’s website, Sic Et Non, at: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/

9.  Welch, “Timing the Translation,” 42.

10.  Ibid., 44.

“The Complexity and Consistency in the Accounts of Alma’s Conversion”©

101 Reasons Why I Believe Joseph Smith Was a Prophet of God: 

Evidence Sixty-Three:

 “The Complexity and Consistency in the Accounts of Alma’s Conversion”© 
Revised 18 January 2020

The complexity of the Book of Mormon is an idea that has grown in importance with me as I continue to study the gospel in my retirement. It is one of the evidences of the divine origin of the book and of Joseph Smith’s calling as a prophet of God. One can approach the complexity of the Book of Mormon in many different ways, and I hope to share more as we go along. Today’s column is devoted to a discussion of the three separate stories of Alma’s conversion. The Prophet Joseph is often criticized because of differences in his several accounts of the First Vision. There are three versions of Paul’s conversion in the New Testament. It is helpful to study these renditions, not only for their differences, but for the insights which may be gained as one studies and gives thoughtful analysis to them as professor Jack Welch of BYU law school does below with Alma’s thrice telling of his conversion.

Not all readers are aware that the Book of Mormon contains three accounts of the conversion of Alma the Younger.  Mosiah 27:8-37 gives a contemporary account of how Alma had agitated against the church of God and of his extraordinary conversion. In Alma 36:4-26 and 38:6-8, Alma twice recounts his conversion story as he blesses his sons Helaman and Shiblon. Interesting results come from a careful comparison of these three texts.

It is apparent that these three accounts all originated from the same man. For example, in Mosiah 27, Alma used many distinctive phrases as he described his conversion. He said, “The Lord in mercy hath seen fit to snatch me out of an everlasting burning, and I am born of God. My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous light of God. My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more” (Mosiah 27:28-29). The emphasized terms here are just a few that could be mentioned.

Years later, Alma again used these same phrases.  In Alma 36 he said, “God did rack my soul” (Alma 36:14) “with eternal torment” (Alma 36:12). “I cried ... have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness” (Alma 36:18). “I could remember my pains no more” (Alma 36:19). “What marvelous light” (Alma 36;20).  “I have been born of God” (Alma 36:23).

Likewise, Mosiah 27:11 describes the voice of the angel as “a voice of thunder, which caused the earth to shake upon which they stood,” while Alma 36:7 states: “He spake unto us, as it were the voice of thunder, and the whole earth did tremble beneath our feet.” See also Alma 38:7; compare alma 29:1: “O that I were an angel ... and [could] speak ... with a voice to shake the earth.”

There are many other such phrases that run in parallel, but not identically, through these three accounts. The repetitions show that a single person was the author of all three and suggest that Alma had told his story many times and had grown accustomed to using these characteristic words and phrases. 

Furthermore, it is impressive that the specific details in the accounts remain accurately consistent. For example, all five of those present feel to the earth before the angel, but only Alma was told to “arise” (Mosiah 27:12-13; Alma 36:7-8) and to “remember the captivity of thy fathers” (Mosiah 27:16; Alma 36:2, 28-29), precisely the same in both accounts.

...

Alma 36 and 38, however, show signs of thoughtful reflection, of years of thinking about his momentous conversion. For instance, in the later accounts Alma has placed his words into the context of his religious tradition.  Instead of thinking only about the deliverance of his father from the land of Helam (as the angel mentions in Mosiah 27:16), Alma now speaks of older parallels of the deliverance of Lehi from Jerusalem and, beyond that, of the Israelites from Egypt (see Alma 36:28-29).  And in Alma 36:22, Alma has incorporated twenty-one words that are quoted verbatim from the vision of Lehi (see 1 Nephi 1:8). He has also applied his spiritual experience to his reader’s daily religious practice, drawing lessons about trusting in the Lord throughout one’s trials, troubles, and afflictions (see Alma 36:3, 27; 38:5), and about living a moral, righteous life (see Alma 38:9-15).

To coincide with this thoughtful development, Alma’s accounts have evolved structurally as well. The abrupt antithetical parallelisms in Mosiah 27:29-30 (“I was X, but now I am Y,” repeated four times) have been rearranged into one masterfully crafted chiastic composition in Alma 36:1-30. It centers on the turning point of Alma’s life, which was when he called upon Jesus Christ for forgiveness, and groups the negative attributes from Mosiah 27:29-30 into the first half of the chiasm and their positive opposites into the second half.

...

The three accounts also consistently reflect different vantage points in Alma’s life.  In Mosiah 27, Alma is a young man, spontaneously overwhelmed by the power of the angel and terrified by the prospect of the day of judgment (see Mosiah 27:31). Later in Alma’s life, it is clear that the older man has faithfully and successfully served his Lord and his people all the rest of his days (see Alma 36:24-26) so that he now emphasizes his longing to be present with God (see Alma 36:22).

Despite the fact that Mosiah 27 is separated from the accounts in Alma 36 and 38 by the many words, events, sermons, conflicts and distractions reported in the intervening one hundred pages of printed text, these three accounts still profoundly bear the unmistakable imprints of a single distinctive person, who throughout his adult lifetime had lived with, thought about, matured through, and insightfully taught by means of his powerful and beautiful conversion story.(1)

Professor Welch’s tight analysis is surfeited with at least half a dozen major and very critical insights derived from this story, all of which point to an unusual integration of the three versions, highlighting its complexity as he does so. Welch points out the similar yet unique use of language in each reiteration by Alma, which raises interesting questions about Joseph Smith’s role in producing the Book of Mormon. Are we to believe that Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon and was skillful enough to go back to Alma’s earlier accounts to make sure he used the same phrases and concepts in subsequent reiterations of the story? As smart as I think Joseph Smith was, when I consider that the book was produced over a ninety-day period in one manuscript essentially clean of any evidence of reworking, rewriting, proof reading, or assistance from other previously written sources, then the complexity and intricacy of this one story told three times as laid before us by professor Welch, taxes my credulity about Joseph Smith’s alleged authorship. Joseph’s own explanation of translating “by the gift and power of God” is much easier for me to believe. And when this one example is added to virtually scores, hundreds, and even thousands of additional examples of the complexity and consistency of the Book of Mormon the possibility that Joseph Smith wrote it by himself in the manner just described, drops infinitesimally close to zero. 

Another critical insight for me is that the stories in Mosiah 27, Alma 36, and 39 are separated by 100 pages of text yet remain consistent while at the same time Welch shows they evolve structurally and conceptually as Alma more clearly sees the importance and meaning of his conversion over the years. Not only to himself personally, but for its lessons for his sons and the church. Wouldn’t you agree this is a pretty subtle thing for twenty-five-year-old Joseph Smith to include--one which took more than a century and a half before professor Welch brought it to our attention?

In conclusion, I should also note an interesting study by S. Kent Brown. Unlike Welch’s which analyzes the three conversions stories of Alma, Brown looks at elements of the conversion story which show up in seven of Alma’s discourses scattered throughout the book of Alma.(2)  He found that “Alma’s memory of that remarkable ordeal remained with him to the point that all his sermons are infused with allusions to it.”(3) He lists six elements of the conversion story, some of which are mentioned or alluded to in Alma’s sermons. They are: 1) “emphasis on God’s deliverance of his people”; 2 ) “emphasis on God’s deliverance of the individual soul from the bondage of sin”; 3) a “set of expressions which describe Alma’s own troubled and sinful state before he received forgiveness of sins”; 4) “indescribable joy and enlightenment at receiving forgiveness of sins through Jesus’ atonement”; 5) “persistent description of his experience as being ‘born of God,’ a phrased distinctive to Alma among Book of Mormon authors;” 6) “his actions as a preacher of salvation, which followed his extraordinary experience, bringing others to taste ‘as I have tasted’ and to see ‘eye to eye as I have seen.’”(4) Even so, according to Brown, “Perhaps the element most often alluded to is the appearance of the angel of the Lord.”(5)

Together the studies of Welch and Brown are complimentary, both highlighting the phenomenal conversion story of Alma, and at the same time adding depth and breadth to our understanding of the complexity and consistency of the Book of Mormon.

I say, thank God for Joseph Smith.

Let’s think together again soon.

Notes:  

1.  John W. Welch, Reexploring the Book of Mormon: The F.A.R.M.S. Updates.  Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992,150-153, emphasis in original.

2.  S. Kent Brown, “Alma’s Conversion: Reminiscences in His Sermons,” in From Jerusalem to Zarahemla: Literary and Historical Studies of the Book of Mormon, 113-27.  Religious Studies Center Specialized Monograph Series 13.  Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1998.

3.  Brown, “Alma’s Conversion,” 114. The only exceptions were Alma’s long prayer in Alma 31:26-35 and his final words to Helaman in Al. 45:2-14.

4.  Ibid, 114-15.

5.  Ibid, 126.