Be sure to watch another podcast on Mormonism with the Murph. He does a great job as a host. He even asked questions Brant Gardner asked him to ask me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLw__tdiWmo
BOOK OF MORMON SETTING. Many Latter-day Saints still believe what the prophets have taught about the New York Cumorah. President Nelson: "Good inspiration is based upon good information." Here, we share good information from original sources that corroborates the prophets. We support Church policy of neutrality. That policy promotes unity by recognizing multiple working hypotheses. We encourage all interested parties to do the same.
Be sure to watch another podcast on Mormonism with the Murph. He does a great job as a host. He even asked questions Brant Gardner asked him to ask me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLw__tdiWmo
The reaction to my post yesterday about the Church History Museum suggests that I should explain my position clearly. By now readers here know that I value clarity, charity, and understanding because those principles lead to no more contention (Mosiah 1:1).
First, I'm fine with people believing whatever they want. I'm fine with multiple working hypotheses. I assume everyone involved is acting in good faith (charity). If the Church History Department wants to present the SITH narrative, that's fine with me. But they cannot do so without violating the basic standards of professional conduct of the American Historical Association unless they also explain the historical documents and evidence in favor of the Urim and Thummim narrative.
Second, I'm not fine with obfuscation, censorship, and misdirection, or anything else that contradicts clarity. Without clarity as a beginning point, and an agreement on the facts by everyone involved, there is no basis for legitimate analysis. I realize many people, perhaps most, resist clarity. Clarity challenges biases, narratives, and even beliefs. But without clarity, people are engaging in bias confirmation, not rational analysis.
Third, I seek and encourage understanding instead of conformity, convincing, coercing, or any other effort to compel, or even to seek to compel, compliance with one particular interpretation.
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For these reasons, I object when the Church History Department, through publications, visitors centers, museums, etc., refuses to present authentic Church historical documents to the public and to Latter-day Saints on the basis that those documents contradict the narratives favored by certain historians and scholars. In particular, I refer to SITH and M2C.
The documents I specifically refer to are the published teachings of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery on these topics.
Regarding SITH, it is appalling that the Church History Museum depicts the claims of David Whitmer and Emma Smith while omitting the claims of Joseph and Oliver.
Look at this again. How is this exhibit remotely legitimate from a purely historical perspective?
SITH in the Church History Museum SITH=stone-in-the-hat (click to enlarge) |
We all know this painting repudiates the published accounts by Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, as well as various unpublished accounts, journal accounts, etc., all from the 1830s and 1840s.
And we all know this painting reflects the dubious accounts from Emma Bidamon and David Whitmer from the 1870s and 1880s, as well as other early anti-Mormon critics such as Jonathan Hadley and Mormonism Unvailed.
We also know that the modern iteration of SITH was promoted not by any new discoveries in Church history--after all, the SITH accounts were all published in the 19th century and were well known to the contemporaries of Joseph and Oliver--but by a shift in deference to, and confidence in, what Joseph and Oliver taught.
In other words, critics long taught SITH, while Joseph, Oliver and their faithful followers and successors taught U&T.
Joseph, Oliver, faithful followers and successors gave more weight to U&T |
Anti-Mormon critics always gave more weight to SITH |
The "New Mormon History" reweighed the evidence in favor of the critics. Soon, a few, and then many, LDS historians adopted the narrative of the critics, and now it's on display in the Church History Museum.
Church History Department joins anti-Mormon critics to give more weight to SITH |
To repeat: If the Church History Department wants to give a voice to the SITH narrative, fine. But they cannot do so without violating the standards of professional conduct of the American Historical Association unless they also explain the historical documents and evidence in favor of the Urim and Thummim narrative.
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As a reminder, here are some excerpts from the Standards of Professional Conduct from the American Historical Association:
A great many dilemmas associated with the professional practice of history can be resolved by returning to the core values that the preceding paragraphs have sought to sketch. Historians should practice their craft with integrity. They should honor the historical record. They should document their sources. They should acknowledge their debts to the work of other scholars. They should respect and welcome divergent points of view even as they argue and subject those views to critical scrutiny. They should remember that our collective enterprise depends on mutual trust. And they should never betray that trust.
...
Professional integrity in the practice of history requires awareness of one’s own biases and a readiness to follow sound method and analysis wherever they may lead. Historians should document their findings and be prepared to make available their sources, evidence, and data, including any documentation they develop through interviews. Historians should not misrepresent their sources. They should report their findings as accurately as possible and not omit evidence that runs counter to their own interpretation. They should not commit plagiarism. They should oppose false or erroneous use of evidence, along with any efforts to ignore or conceal such false or erroneous use.
Historians should acknowledge the receipt of any financial support, sponsorship, or unique privileges (including special access to research material) related to their research, especially when such privileges could bias their research findings.
https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/p/aha-historians-standards-of.html
I've always enjoyed museums. I've visited hundreds of art, history, and science museums all around the world. They range from small local museum with irregular hours, staffed by volunteers, to professionally designed, elaborate, even overwhelming museums, such as the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Caen Memorial – Battle of Normandy in France, and the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders in Nanjing, China.
Some museums we've visited are fairly objective and informative, while others include subtle or overt propaganda. The museum in the "Hanoi Hilton" in Vietnam comes to mind.
Hoa Lo Prison (Hanoi Hilton) Museum (click to enlarge) |
The Hoa Lo Prison museum depicted how the Vietnamese government viewed America during the Vietnam War. I had learned a different perspective. I lived in the Philippines as a kid during the Vietnam war. We used to watch the B-52s take off for bombing missions. My step-father flew fighter planes in Vietnam. My father served as a military advisor in Saigon. We were indoctrinated to believe narrative of the domino effect of communism and the war to preserve democracy and freedom, just as the Vietnamese kids were indoctrinated to believe narrative of the oppressive American foreign invaders who wanted to kill them all.
It's always interesting to see different perspectives and how a museum can promote an agenda by curating exhibits and using artwork.
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The Church has numerous museums and visitors centers around the world. We've visited many of them, such as the Pacific Church History Museum in Hamilton, New Zealand, the Hyde Park Chapel in London, and the Hill Cumorah visitors center in Palmyra.
They are all professionally presented with important, useful information and artifacts. They are highlights of our trips.
Then there are the museums and visitors centers in Salt Lake City. Also professionally presented with important, useful information and artifacts.
But also some inexplicable omissions.
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Before it was torn down, the Visitors Center on Temple Square had a delightfully absurd display of M2C (the Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory) that directly contradicted the Church's policy of neutrality on Book of Mormon geography.
2 Cumorahs on Temple Square (click to enlarge) |
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Another new exhibit in the Museum discusses the translation of the Book of Mormon.
The exhibit includes the enigmatic "Caractors" document that so many people have "translated" with wildly divergent results. That's cool to see.
Ordinarily, if we were viewing a display about the translation of the Book of Mormon, we would expect the Church History Museum to at least include the explicit, published testimonies of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.
But based on what we see in the KSL report, it doesn't look like the museum presents any of that actual history. Instead, it is presenting a narrative.
The SITH narrative.
With a painting that directly contradicts what Joseph and Oliver always said.
Our historians in the Church History Department have gone full SITH (stone-in-the-hat).
Presenting the SITH narrative |
I haven't visited these exhibits yet, but based on the past work of our Church historians, I'm confident visitors will not see what Joseph and Oliver said about the translation.
For example, we should expect to see an original Times and Seasons containing the Wentworth letter, or the original copy of the Elders Journal, or Reuben Miller's journal quoting what Oliver Cowdery said, or even the Messenger and Advocate containing Oliver's letter I (now a note in JS-H).
E.g.: https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/elders-journal-july-1838/11
[BTW, If anyone reading this blog visits the museum and finds a display of what Joseph and Oliver taught, please take a photo and email it to me at lostzarahemla@gmail.com and I'll update this blog post.]
Let's be clear about this.
Instead of presenting visitors with the official, published, unambiguous statements from Joseph and Oliver, our historians are presenting visitors with an artist's depiction of the SITH narrative promoted by
- the first anti-Mormon book titled Mormonism Unvailed.
- David Whitmer in his pamphlet To All Believers in Christ, in which he denounced Joseph Smith as a fallen prophet.
and
- Emma Smith in her "Last Testimony," recorded shortly before her death, published months after she died, and which had so little credibility that her own son, Joseph Smith III who recorded her testimony, didn't even refer to it years later when he wrote an article concluding that David Whitmer's SITH statements were wrong and that his father actually used the Urim and Thummim to translate the plates.
_____Our Church historians are awesome.
Yesterday two new podcasts were released on similar, but different, topics. Both interviews were in the pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding.
As usual, critics completely miss the point because they see everything through their bias confirmation filters. They resist clarity most of all.
Anyone who watches the podcasts can see that I'm not saying anything that's not obvious to anyone who reads the Gospel Topics Essay or the Liahona.
I'm completely fine with different interpretations of historical documents and events. Everyone should be happy to understand multiple working hypotheses. What I object to is the censorship omission of what Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery explicitly taught and published about the translation.
Ward Radio released my interview about the Gospel Topics Essay on Translation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biY43GSbSUk&t=52s
_____
The Last Dispensation released a second interview about the March Liahona article by Gerrit Dirkmaat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9VPo3VIDy0&t=39s
We discussed the in-depth problem with the article on this blog last week. I'll post more on that article later this week.
Stay tuned.
Adapted from a 2019 post:
Conversations about the setting of the Book of Mormon revolve around a very simple concept.
Because of the large response to my discussions about the article in the March Liahona by Gerrit Dirkmaat about the translation of the Book of Mormon, and because of all the questions people are asking, I'm going to post a more detailed analysis of the article soon.
Read the original review here:
https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/2024/02/march-2024-liahona-articles-on.html
See the first interview here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5hnwF2qTgQ&t=5s
_____
When I originally read the article in the Liahona, I noticed the errors and omissions, but now that I've looked at it in more detail, the situation is even worse than I thought.
This is another example of why so many Latter-day Saints have come to mistrust the scholars and historians who are writing about Church history.
For example, in the first paragraph, Professor Dirkmaat quoted and cited from Wilford Woodruff's journal. He gave a citation but not a link, which is inexcusable for an online article that is purportedly intended to inform readers.
The Woodruff journal is not an easy reference to locate, even for English speakers, if you're not familiar with the Church History Catalog. By not providing a link, readers are left to conclude that the author (i) accurately presented the reference and (ii) didn't really want people to see the original material.
Below I'll give you the link and you will see that the original material includes items that our M2C and SITH scholars don't want people to know about, let alone consider.
[M2C=Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory, SITH=stone-in-the-hat theory]
https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/fc933be4-8671-4ca8-a4ed-69b74c820b46/0/158
While Professor Dirkmaat is one of the, if not the principal, promoters of SITH, he may or may not have a position on the setting of the Book of Mormon. Most LDS historians profess agnosticism on that topic. And because the topic of the article was translation, not setting, there would be no reason for Professor Dirkmaat to quote Woodruff's comments about the setting. But omitting the citation leaves readers unaware of what Woodruff wrote on that subject.
Of more concern is Professor Dirkmaat's omission of what Woodruff wrote about the translation.
_____
1. On the same page of Woodruff's journal that Professor Dirkmaat quoted from, Woodruff wrote this:
"it teaches the honest + humble mind of the great things of God that were performed in the land of promise now called America in Ancient days..."
Our M2C scholars will insist that Woodruff was referring to the "American continent" or "the Americas" when he wrote this. See my recent discussion of Kirk Magleby's parsing of terms here:
https://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2024/03/kirk-magleby-and-i-discuss-continent.html
2. However, Woodruff was more explicit when he continued writing about the Book of Mormon on the next page.
"Also this precious treasure sets clearly before the honest reader the fate + destiny of the American nation and all the gentile Nations of the Earth unless they speedily repent of thare [sic] sins..."
I suppose the M2C scholars will find some way to rationalize that when Woodruff wrote "the American nation" he actually intended "the American hemisphere" or "the American continent" or something else to confirm their M2C worldview. They're excellent mind-readers, after all.
But most of us can read Woodruff's plain language in context and see exactly what he was talking about.
It gets worse.
3. Next, Woodruff reviews the history of the Book of Mormon.
"The Plates containing the Book of Mormon was revealed to Joseph Smith + delivered unto him by an angel of God in the month of September 1827 + translated through the urim + Thummim into the English language by Joseph Smith the Prophet seer + revelator…"
Obviously, this contradicts Professor Dirkmaat's theory that Joseph didn't really use the Urim and Thummim, and didn't really translate the engravings on the plates into the English language, but instead read words off a stone he put into a hat.
But if he's going to quote Woodruff's journal in an article about the translation of the Book of Mormon, professional ethics requires him to include Woodruff's specific explanation, in his same journal entry, about the translation.
Naturally, Professor Dirkmaat is entitled to share his opinion that Woodruff was actually referring to SITH when he made his journal entry. But because Woodruff's journal entry uses the same terminology as Joseph and Oliver always did, readers can make up their own minds whether Woodruff's statement corroborates what Joseph and Oliver said, or whether it repudiates what Joseph and Oliver said, as Brother Dirkmaat tries to persuade people.
To repeat: this is another example of why so many Latter-day Saints have come to mistrust the scholars and historians who are writing about Church history.
_____
Here's the first installment of my detailed review of Professor Dirkmaat's article, looking at only the first paragraph.
Liahona March 2024
The
Miraculous Translation of the Book of Mormon
By Gerrit
Dirkmaat, PhD
Associate
Professor of Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University
Edited by Jonathan Neville
Original in blue, my comments in red,
original quotations from other sources in purple.
In November 1845, Elder
Wilford Woodruff (1807–98) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles reflected in
his journal on his love for the Book of Mormon. Thinking about how much he had
read the book since he joined the Church in 1833, he wrote: “My soul delighteth
much in its words, teaching, and prophesyings. And in its plainness. I rejoice
in the goodness and mercy of the God of Israel in preserving the precious Book
of Mormon and bringing it to light in our day and generation.”1
1.
Wilford Woodruff journal, Nov. 2, 1845,
Church History Library, Salt Lake City, [159], spelling and punctuation
standardized.
Inexplicably,
the article doesn’t provide a link, making this reference difficult to find, even for English readers. so here it is:
https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/fc933be4-8671-4ca8-a4ed-69b74c820b46/0/158
The quotation in the article cuts off Woodruff’s sentence, which continues, “it teaches the honest + humble mind of the great things of God that were performed in the land of promise now called America in Ancient days and also the great things of God that are nigh even at the doors concerning the restoration of the Lamanites to the knowledge of their linage [sic] + forefathers when they will throw of [sic] the veil of ignorance darkness and superstition…
Also this precious treasure sets clearly before the honest reader the fate + destiny of the American nation and all the gentile Nations of the Earth unless they speedily repent of thare [sic] sins….
The Plates containing the Book of Mormon was
revealed to Joseph Smith + delivered unto him by an angel of God in the month
of September 1828 + translated through the urim + Thummim into the English
language by Joseph Smith the Prophet seer + revelator…
Readers naturally wonder why an article about the translation that cites Wilford Woodruff's journal would omit what Woodruff wrote about the translation in the very same journal entry.
Let's discuss why.
The end of the excerpt.
Images of the pages in Woodruff's journal (click to enlarge).
This is a legacy post that I never published, but it seems relevant now. I write this in the pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding. Clarity is first because without clarity, understanding is impossible. And we emphasize charity in the sense of giving everyone the benefit of the doubt and assuming people act in good faith, as they define it. But sometimes people evade clarity for what they think are good reasons.
_____
I've done several podcast interviews recently on a variety of topics. Many people have commented that they never heard this information or these interpretations before and they wonder why.
The basic answer is that the dominant LDS academic and media organizations have created a thick bubble of intellectual groupthink that is impervious to alternative faithful interpretations, to the point where they don't even want Latter-day Saints outside the bubble to know the relevant facts and interpretations.
M2C bubble |
Fortunately, the Internet makes it impossible for academics to control information the way they once did. This is why Latter-day Saints around the world are learning about aspects of Church history and extrinsic evidence that corroborates what the prophets have said about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.
We would think that academics would encourage open inquiry and truth seeking that would encourage and foster examination of alternatives, but that's not the case among certain LDS academics who, thanks to their positions of trust and influence at BYU and the Church History Department, have the resources to promote their own theories of M2C and SITH.
[M2C=Mesoamerican/two-Cumorahs theory; SITH=stone-in-the-hat theory.]
_____
Today let's discuss Scripture Central for a moment.
Scripture Central, including Book of Mormon Central, publishes lots of great stuff. They spend millions of dollars producing content intended to build faith and knowledge among Latter-day Saints and other interested people.
However, their editorial policy of promoting M2C and SITH exclusively leads them to contradict basic principle of truth-seeking.
Scripture Central has no room for thousands of faithful Latter-day Saints around the world who disagree with the editorial board's views on the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon. Those of us who still believe what Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery said about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon are excluded from the conversations at Scripture Central. Our views are censored and mischaracterized.
Years ago, the co-founder of Scripture Central, John W. (Jack) Welch, wrote an outstanding article on the role of evidence in religious discussion.
Unfortunately, Scripture Central does not live up to the aspirations he outlined here. We remain ever hopeful that someday, Scripture Central will take these aspirations to heart for the benefit of everyone involved.
Original in blue, my comments in red.
https://rsc.byu.edu/no-weapon-shall-prosper/role-evidence-religious-discussion
While many interesting things continue to surface, all the evidence still is not in yet. Good science takes time. Much careful work remains to be done. In the mean time, we may need to wait for conclusive answers that now evade us. Indeed, in all matters of faith, important evidence will always be lacking. The result will always be a hung jury, as arguments can be made on both sides.
Both sides have faithful interpretations, but Scripture Central does not accommodate any arguments--even faithful arguments--on any side other than M2C and SITH.
These are surely debatable subjects.
Except not at Scripture Central.
One should not expect these examinations to be any more conclusive than the inconclusively arrayed approaches in biblical and Christian studies generally. Full agreement on religious issues will probably always remain elusive, but that does not excuse fair-minded people from striving to state the evidence clearly and to seek to achieve agreements where possible.
With regard to the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon, Scripture Central refuses to either (i) state the evidence clearly or (ii) seek to achieve agreements where possible.
When agreements are not possible, the appropriate solution is to present all the facts along with alternative interpretations and enable people to make informed decisions.
Yet Scripture Central refuses to do this.
In the mean time, the choice remains in the hands, minds, and hearts of all those who care and who seek to increase their knowledge and faith.
People cannot make informed choices when they don't know all the evidence and are unaware of alternative interpretations.
“Of all our needs,” President Hinckley has said, “the greatest is an increase in faith.” [80] Anything that truly helps in that process, even a little bit, should be useful to us.
For thousands of Latter-day Saints around the world, it helps to increase faith when they see ways to corroborate what Joseph and Oliver said about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon. They find it troubling to faith when they see LDS scholars teaching that Joseph and Oliver were wrong about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon.
As a young man and still today, I have always felt very satisfied in my testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ as taught and revealed in the Bible and LDS scripture. At first, I believed that there was little or no evidence of any kind at all. Never expecting to find great proofs or evidence for the gospel, I have been astonished and richly satisfied with what the Lord has done.
It seems clear enough that the Lord does not intend for the Book of Mormon, the Bible, or any other sacred matters to be open-and-shut cases intellectually, either pro or con. If God had intended this, he could have left more concrete evidences one way or the other.
Scripture Central treats M2C and SITH as open-and-shut cases that cannot be questioned, challenged, or even compared with alternatives.
Instead, it seems that the Lord has maintained a careful balance between requiring people to exercise faith and allowing them to find reasons that affirm the stated origins of his revealed word. Instead, the choice is, then, entirely ours. Ultimately, evidences may not be that important; but then again, it is always easy to say that a parachute is irrelevant after you are safely on the ground.
Latter-day Saints who still believe what Joseph and Oliver taught about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon have to look outside of Scripture Central to find reasons that affirm their faith.
It's a completely avoidable tragedy that Scripture Central continues to contradict the worthy and commendable aspirations set out in this article.
_____
Note: Scripture Central generally keeps its "hands clean" by burying the criticism in the database and leaving it up on affiliate sites, such as BMAF.org. But their employees, volunteers, and contributors use social media, podcasts, and newspaper interviews to criticize us as zealots, anti-science, anti-academia, and even apostates, etc. Then Scripture Central excuses this activity by saying they have no control over what their people do.