The ongoing pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding continues to navigate some fascinating terrain.
A month ago I planned to review Scripture Central's video about Cumorah, which is full of misleading rhetoric and obfuscation, all in the ongoing, multimillion dollar effort by Jack Welch and his followers to impose their M2C theory upon Latter-day Saints everywhere. They're having difficulty because more and more Latter-day Saints are discovering what Joseph and Oliver taught, which was definitely not M2C, but that's a topic for another day.
Two things happened that diverted my attention to something even more important, this time regarding SITH (the stone-in-the-hat narrative).
The most prominent and influential LDS scholars today have formally proclaimed that
(i) Joseph and Oliver intentionally misled everyone about the translation, and
(ii) the Gospel Topics Essays they and their peers wrote have been quasi-canonized and therefore no further discussion of the topic is allowed.
The elevation of the scholars over the prophets is complete--at least in the minds of these scholars.
Let's look at three.
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Royal Skousen published his Part Seven, in which he set out the inevitable conclusion of SITH shared by all the SITH scholars, from Jack Welch and Dan Peterson to the "younger generation of fine scholars."
"Joseph Smith’s claim that he used the Urim and Thummim is only partially true; and Oliver Cowdery’s statements that Joseph used the original instrument while he, Oliver, was the scribe appear to be intentionally misleading."
Of course, "only partially true" is a euphemism for "false," particularly, as Skousen points out, with regard to the Book of Mormon we have today.
I discussed his work here, with more to come.
https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/2024/12/creating-narrative-with-selective.html
https://interpreterpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2024/12/review-of-royal-skousens-part-vii-first.html
- Brant Gardner and Jeff Lindsay published their respective Interpreter reviews of By Means of the Urim and Thummim: Restoring Translation to the Restoration, in which Brant announced the quasi-canonization of the Gospel Topics Essays.
The Church’s essay on the translation of the Book of Mormon is as close to canonical as the official Church gets.
I discussed their work here:
https://interpreterpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2024/12/review-of-brant-gardners-review-of-by.html
https://interpreterpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2024/12/review-of-jeff-lindsays-review-of-by.html
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| Interpreter bubble |
These events have exposed for everyone to see some of the rhetorical tactics used by LDS scholars to promote SITH. It's easy to see why the SITH scholars are so deeply convinced of their own theories. They live in a bubble because they are so impressed by one another's work.
Here we will discuss what these events tell us about the Interpreter, always keeping in mind that we charitably assume everyone acts in good faith, thinks they're doing the right thing, etc.
The Interpreter, IMO, is a sham because it's just a group of self-appointed "Interpreters" who pat themselves on the back for citing one another's papers.
This explains why they are highly defensive and emotionally attached to their theories. It's weird, really, but we can see it play out in the three publications referenced above.
This is why I used to call the Interpreter part of the "citation cartel" along with FAIRLDS and Scripture Central, but because people objected, I stopped using that term.
And yet, Jeff provided an outstanding example when he wrote:
"Here is another instance when Lucas and Neville would have done well to pay more attention to modern scholarship. In a 2016 paper at Interpreter, Stan Spencer provided detailed analysis of this commonly misinterpreted passage, yielding the following summary...
They also fail to consider the convincing arguments of other scholars. For example, one work that needs to be considered for their arguments to be taken seriously is that of Stan Spencer in his 2017 publication, “Seers and Stones: The Translation of the Book of Mormon as Divine Visions of an Old-Time Seer.”
Except Jeff forgot to tell his readers that (i) we cited that paper in our book and (ii) I did a detailed peer review of Stan's article 5 years ago:
https://interpreterpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2020/06/seers-and-stones-peer-review.html
Jeff's could have legitimately complained that we didn't agree with Stan, but instead he misinforms his readers that we ignored Stan's work. This is classic Interpreter reasoning. If you don't agree with them, they say you need to "pay more attention" to their work.
What they don't realize is that when we do pay attention to their work, we keep seeing the same rhetorical tactics over and over, all in their effort to elevate their scholarship above the plain teachings of the prophets and scriptures.
Maybe Jeff didn't know about my peer review of Stan's paper. But that just reflects his poor scholarship and lack of peer review (unless his peer reviews are just as lackadaisical and blinded by their own arrogance, which they usually are).
And to top it off, Jeff writes, "Many other errors evident in By Means of the Urim & Thummim could have been avoided with peer review."
That's what I've been saying about the Interpreter for years, but they keep publishing shoddy, poorly researched material such as Jeff's article. Naturally, I've offered to provide peer reviews for free, but they've never taken my offer because to the Interpreter, a peer review is a peer approval. That is, to be published an article must confirm the biases of the other Interpreters.
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In another example of the citation cartel at the Interpreter, Jeff also cited Spencer Kraus' review of my previous book, A Man that Can Translate. Kraus' article infamously perpetrated the "Peter Pan" fraud. And when I submitted a response for publication, the Interpreter asked for editorial changes (which I accommodated) and then withheld publication to let Kraus publish a simultaneous "rejoinder." When I submitted a response to the rejoinder, the Interpreter refused to publish it.
So naturally, Jeff quotes and cites the rejoinder as if I had no response.
But again, Jeff knows (or should know if his peer reviewers were any good), and should definitely inform his readers, that I did publish a response to the Kraus rejoinder.
https://interpreterpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2022/11/my-response-to-kraus-rejoinder.html
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The third example from Jeff's piece is his incantation of Skousen's work, which itself manipulates the historical sources to confirm Skousen's biases. I've written enough about that elsewhere, but it's fun to see Jeff complain that I didn't discuss Skousen's work in this book.
Lucas and Neville’s work claims to be comprehensive in considering original sources, but clearly is lacking. Several relevant and important sources are neglected, and skewed interpretations are given to accounts that don’t fit their narrative.
Instead of telling us what original sources we "neglected," Jeff complains that we didn't defer to Skousen.
For example, in 2021, Royal Skousen released a 91-page pre-print of a chapter of his work on witness statements about the translation of the Book of Mormon.33 I wish that chapter had been carefully considered by the authors of By Means of Urim & Thummim.
Jeff simply imagines that we didn't consider Skousen's chapter, (which in its own right is unbelievably inconsistent and outcome-driven). But Jeff forgot to inform his readers that I quoted from Skousen’s preliminary chapter in my paper about bias in the Joseph Smith Papers, here:
https://www.academia.edu/67756647/Agenda_driven_editorial_content_in_the_Joseph_Smith_Papers
At any rate, Skousen's formal publication of his chapter wasn't published until long after our book was published. Although I quoted from the preliminary version in my paper, we decided not to use that reference in our book in case Skousen made some changes in his formal publication (which he should have but didn't).
I encourage anyone who still reads the Interpreter to keep track for yourself of the number of times the authors cite one another. It's fun to see, especially when they insist this constitutes "scholarship."
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All of this is offered in the spirit of friendly collaboration, and in the pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding. I'm happy for people to believe whatever they want. Many times I've offered a cordial, friendly, open discussion about these issues, which the Interpreters have steadfastly refused to accept.
I'd love to see a mutually developed comparison of the various assumptions, inferences and theories about the translation, prefaced by full disclosure of all the facts.
But that, too, the Interpreters have refused to participate in (just as FAIRLDS and Scripture Central have refused).
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| Unity in diversity |
Clarity remains the biggest obstacle, apparently. But clarity is what Latter-day Saints and other interested people all seek.
Let's hope that this latest round of exchanges will move us all closer to the point where we can all seek unity in diversity as we pursue, together, the ideals of clarity, charity and understanding.
