Here's something that apparently every Mormon on the internet is talking about: for the first time ever, you can see photographs of a "seer stone" used by Joseph Smith. (Surprisingly, lots of people at church today hadn't heard about it at all -- it turns out my internet bubble isn't a representative sample).
This week's news from the Joseph Smith Papers Project would be noteworthy without the pictures of the stone: in a historic collaboration between the LDS Church and the Community of Christ, one of the earliest manuscripts of the Book of Mormon is now available in print, soon to be online. However, the hundreds of pages of manuscript are (at least for now) totally overshadowed by these few photographs. It's nothing we've ever seen before. The Salt Lake Tribune has more background about the project (and the stone), and the LDS Church has a new article about the stone and its relevance to the Book of Mormon.
Reactions vary. I've heard everything from "The Church lied and hid this, and made me believe it was an anti-Mormon lie" to "I've always known about the stone, and aren't these pictures fantastic!" Joseph Smith's practice of obtaining revelation from God by looking into this stone leads Richard Bushman to compare it to an iPad; less LDS-friendly sources compare it to a Magic 8 Ball. In the same article, Bushman suggests that the stone troubles us because it "crosses a boundary ... between religion and superstition": it brings pre-Enlightenment folk magic into a religious tradition that more closely resembles post-Enlightenment Protestantism. In the end, Bushman rather likes the stone, and doesn't much care to insist that God acts in ways that are reputable by Enlightenment standards.
I share the sentiment: I love the connection to old traditions, even if we now regard them as odd, and I believe God can inspire Joseph Smith, or anyone else, in any way God pleases. However, I also think it's important to acknowledge that the stone can be troubling for a lot of other reasons, beyond mere discomfort with superstition. I'm immensely pleased that this historic and sacred artifact can be seen and better understood, but I'm also a bit uneasy about its new prominence. Here are some of the things I think we're going to have to deal with:
Vastly Different Historical Backgrounds
Put me in the "I've always known about this" camp. I mean, I wasn't born knowing it, and I grew up with the standard story Mormon kids and new converts learn. Short version: Joseph Smith saw an angel, who told him where to dig up an ancient, sacred record of an American people, engraved in an unknown language on gold plates. With the plates was the "Urim and Thummim": not the contents of Aaron the High Priest's breastplate from the Bible, but two stones, set in "silver bows," and fastened to a breastplate, prepared for the purposes of translating the record. (The less respectful term is "magic spectacles.") Joseph translated a portion of the plates by means of the Urim and Thummim (specifically, by looking in it or through it), and dictated his translation to a series of scribes (mainly Oliver Cowdery), resulting in the Book of Mormon. The plates and the interpreters were returned to the angel, and Joseph's later revelations did not require a similar physical intermediary. Honestly, it's not any weirder than a burning bush and stone tablets, when you grow up with it.
The more complicated version is that Joseph used at least one other seer stone in producing the Book of Mormon, often putting it into a hat to block off light. Joseph never said much about this other than that he translated "by the gift and power of God", but others close to him report that he saw words, characters, proper names, or whole sentences in the stone. I honestly can't remember the first time I saw this version, or in what context. I devoured a fair amount of literature about Mormonism (for and against) as a teenager, and I don't remember if I saw this in a hostile source and thought they got it wrong, or if I saw it in a church source, or what. I'm pretty sure that I had heard about it by the time I was a 19-year-old missionary myself, even if I wasn't quite sure what to think of it. Eventually I concluded it didn't matter to me much: rock spectacles, rock in a hat, whatever.
However, not everyone read the same stuff I did (especially the anti-Mormon stuff, which Mormons, in general, are actively discouraged from reading), and a lot of people feel like something was covered up. As I understand it, Joseph Fielding Smith (longtime church historian, great-nephew of Joseph, and 10th president of the LDS Church) didn't believe the rock had anything to do with the Book of Mormon, and viewed contrary accounts as attacks on faith. Apparently, we got past that, but he left a big mark on the church. Plus, the LDS Church I grew up had to deal with incredible growth, without "gathering" new converts to Utah like we used to do -- entire congregations might be led by people who were relatively new converts themselves. The focus was on "correlation": creating a uniform curriculum (translated into more and more languages), a set of programs, and a structure of oversight, to teach basic principles and ensure that new congregations wouldn't wander. By the 1970's, there were occasional articles discussing seer stones in church magazines, but if you weren't making sure you read every article, most of what you learned was from the correlated curriculum. Who has time to talk about seer stones in Sunday School, though, when you could talk about faith and repentance, instead? It's a choice I respect, even though I feel like the correlated curriculum is far too shallow in a lot of ways.
I don't think the church has covered up the stone -- not for a long time, at any rate. However, the "intro-only" approach to church history hasn't served us well, nor is it useful to pretend that, if you feel betrayed, it's your own fault for not finding out about the stone yourself. Not everyone is going to look up church history sources on their own, especially when they're kept busy with Sunday and weekday meetings, endless programs, seminary and institute, youth night, missionary work, temple worship, family history work, and more and more and more. Plus it's natural to feel betrayed if you've been in a church for several years, and you knew there was some pretty weird stuff, but now it turns out that there's some other weird stuff you never knew. We can do a lot better at getting beyond intro-level in what gets discussed on Sunday, while still keeping our meetings focused on more important principles.
Scrying
Aside from the fact that it can be surprising, it turns out that the rock in the hat is different from the rock spectacles in one important way: it had other uses. When Joseph Smith was younger, he used a seer stone -- possibly this stone -- to look for buried treasure. It's not an anti-Mormon lie (anymore); you can read about it in the LDS Church's own account. Like dowsing, it seems to have been a common enough practice, if lower class; I'd judge it to be about on par with going to a psychic today. He never had much success, but accusations that he was a con man often come back to this: he was either a fraud, taking money under false pretenses, or he did find some gold (the plates) that rightfully belonged to someone else.
I don't personally think he was a fraud; he probably honestly believed he could do it, despite all evidence to the contrary. Also, if you honestly believed God could show you things in a stone what wouldn't you try to see?! Anyone who's prayed for a way out of a financial jam, or to find a set of lost car keys, should be able to understand. However profane such an activity might be, it ought not to preclude the power of God to use a stone for sacred purposes. Still, now that the rock in the hat is front and center, the treasure hunting has to be too -- we can't just sweep it under the rug anymore.
Book of Mormon Translation Issues
Other issues that the stone makes us confront have to do with how the Book of Mormon was translated. A key teaching of the LDS Church about how to experience the Holy Ghost comes from an incident where Oliver Cowdery, Joseph's scribe, wanted to try doing some translating himself, but failed. From Joseph Smith's (sometimes pointed) revelations, we learn that God apparently would have let him translate, but Oliver is rebuked for taking no thought except to ask God, believing that God would provide a translation. What he should have done, we learn, is study it out until arriving at some conclusion, then ask if it's right: if it's right, "your bosom shall burn within you," and if it's wrong, "you shall have a stupor of thought." Anyways, that's how it would have worked for him, if it had worked, but he didn't get a second chance. Translating was Joseph's calling.
From this, I think we get the idea that Joseph largely interpreted by studying the plates, using the stone interpreters to pray for God to confirm or deny his attempts. It's also what we learn about the Holy Ghost -- look for a "burning in the bosom" or a "stupor of thought." The problem is that apparently, Joseph often translated without even looking at the plates. This makes Oliver more sympathetic; he's no dummy; he's just doing what he's seen Joseph do. But if that's the case, why did we need to have the plates at all? And what's with setting up Oliver for failure anyways? And should we really teach that about the Holy Ghost if it's not, to our knowledge, how any translation definitely happened? (I don't reject a burning or a stupor as extreme possibilities, but I prefer the advice to Oliver prior to the attempt: you experience the Holy Ghost in your mind and your heart together.)
Also, if Joseph was reading words from a stone, there are literal translation issues. The Book of Mormon quotes at length from Isaiah, Malachi, and other prophets, and when it does so, it mostly tracks the language of the King James Version of the Bible. A few words are changed here and there, but I'm told that errors in the translation of the King James Version are also perpetuated in the Book of Mormon. I prefer to deal with this (and many of Joseph Smith's later revelations) by believing that Joseph got ideas from God, but had to figure out himself how to convey those ideas in English. If it's an idea from Isaiah, well, the problem of conveying the idea in English is already solved. This approach is harder to take if Joseph is getting a word-for-word translation from a stone. (Also, in that case, God may have some grammar problems). So, I worry: now that the stone is front and center, is "Joseph got every word from God" going to be the only explanation that you can safely talk about at church?
As an Object, a Relic, or the Definition of a Seer
The existence of the stone itself, as a physical object in the church's possession is wonderful, but also a little embarrassing. There are, of course, the hints of superstition -- do we really believe folk magic is real? Also, I feel a bit as if we had announced that we had a splinter from the true cross, or the rod of Aaron. The provenance of the stone is not really in doubt, but so many such relics are impossible that I haven't really made room in my head for a true one. Plus, as a sacred relic, I worry about adoration or imitation. Of course, there are many Mormon relics: if a disadvantage of being a young church is that everyone can dig up your dirt, one advantage is that lots of your historical records and artifacts are still around -- you can go see a lock of Joseph Smith's hair, or Willard Richards' cloak, or John Taylor's watch, or a first edition of the Book of Mormon. This stone is in a league of it's own, though, if it's the instrument by which the Book of Mormon was translated. Will there be framed pictures of it in Mormon living rooms? Will Mormons start looking in stones as a legitimate mode of revelation again?
The church stepped away from that last option a long time ago. Joseph outgrew it, and Brigham Young never seemed to see it as essential to his own role as a "seer". Hiram Page claimed to be receiving revelations from a stone, but Joseph shut that down in a hurry. The key to revelation wasn't having a stone, but being the person appointed by God to do it (which Joseph was, and Hiram Page wasn't). However, the top leaders of the LDS Church are all believed to be "prophets, seers, and revelators." "Seer" may mean something different now, but a literalist approach would take the Book of Mormon at it's word: a "seer" is one who is commanded to look into the "interpreters." I've never understood that as a key part of being one of the Church's modern "seers," but I've also definitely run into people online this week talking about how they always understood that seers generally had seer stones(!). Well, now that there is a stone, and we all know about it, are fundamentalist-leaning Mormons (not the polygamists, I mean going back to fundamentals before that) going to insist that seers ought to use it, while cynics say we've lost the gift to do so?
(There's a similar divide between fundamental types who insist that of course Jesus Christ has personally appeared to all of those top leaders -- it's part of being a "special witness" -- and cynics who insist that that's what they want us to think, and we've all been duped. I'm pretty sure neither is the case. Some LDS Apostles have been pretty frank about the whole idea. Anyways, I'd hate to see the same craziness again, over seer stones.)
In the end, I feel a bit like I might feel if if there was a second coming of Paul. I mean, that would be pretty miraculous and all, but would he want to be in charge of things? I'd really like to not revive the whole "women keep silent in church and cover your heads" thing -- we're past that, I hope. Similarly, Joseph's seer stone is a fascinating part of the Mormon past that I'm glad to know more about, but I hope it doesn't become a significant part of the Mormon future.
This week's news from the Joseph Smith Papers Project would be noteworthy without the pictures of the stone: in a historic collaboration between the LDS Church and the Community of Christ, one of the earliest manuscripts of the Book of Mormon is now available in print, soon to be online. However, the hundreds of pages of manuscript are (at least for now) totally overshadowed by these few photographs. It's nothing we've ever seen before. The Salt Lake Tribune has more background about the project (and the stone), and the LDS Church has a new article about the stone and its relevance to the Book of Mormon.
Reactions vary. I've heard everything from "The Church lied and hid this, and made me believe it was an anti-Mormon lie" to "I've always known about the stone, and aren't these pictures fantastic!" Joseph Smith's practice of obtaining revelation from God by looking into this stone leads Richard Bushman to compare it to an iPad; less LDS-friendly sources compare it to a Magic 8 Ball. In the same article, Bushman suggests that the stone troubles us because it "crosses a boundary ... between religion and superstition": it brings pre-Enlightenment folk magic into a religious tradition that more closely resembles post-Enlightenment Protestantism. In the end, Bushman rather likes the stone, and doesn't much care to insist that God acts in ways that are reputable by Enlightenment standards.
I share the sentiment: I love the connection to old traditions, even if we now regard them as odd, and I believe God can inspire Joseph Smith, or anyone else, in any way God pleases. However, I also think it's important to acknowledge that the stone can be troubling for a lot of other reasons, beyond mere discomfort with superstition. I'm immensely pleased that this historic and sacred artifact can be seen and better understood, but I'm also a bit uneasy about its new prominence. Here are some of the things I think we're going to have to deal with:
Vastly Different Historical Backgrounds
Put me in the "I've always known about this" camp. I mean, I wasn't born knowing it, and I grew up with the standard story Mormon kids and new converts learn. Short version: Joseph Smith saw an angel, who told him where to dig up an ancient, sacred record of an American people, engraved in an unknown language on gold plates. With the plates was the "Urim and Thummim": not the contents of Aaron the High Priest's breastplate from the Bible, but two stones, set in "silver bows," and fastened to a breastplate, prepared for the purposes of translating the record. (The less respectful term is "magic spectacles.") Joseph translated a portion of the plates by means of the Urim and Thummim (specifically, by looking in it or through it), and dictated his translation to a series of scribes (mainly Oliver Cowdery), resulting in the Book of Mormon. The plates and the interpreters were returned to the angel, and Joseph's later revelations did not require a similar physical intermediary. Honestly, it's not any weirder than a burning bush and stone tablets, when you grow up with it.
The more complicated version is that Joseph used at least one other seer stone in producing the Book of Mormon, often putting it into a hat to block off light. Joseph never said much about this other than that he translated "by the gift and power of God", but others close to him report that he saw words, characters, proper names, or whole sentences in the stone. I honestly can't remember the first time I saw this version, or in what context. I devoured a fair amount of literature about Mormonism (for and against) as a teenager, and I don't remember if I saw this in a hostile source and thought they got it wrong, or if I saw it in a church source, or what. I'm pretty sure that I had heard about it by the time I was a 19-year-old missionary myself, even if I wasn't quite sure what to think of it. Eventually I concluded it didn't matter to me much: rock spectacles, rock in a hat, whatever.
However, not everyone read the same stuff I did (especially the anti-Mormon stuff, which Mormons, in general, are actively discouraged from reading), and a lot of people feel like something was covered up. As I understand it, Joseph Fielding Smith (longtime church historian, great-nephew of Joseph, and 10th president of the LDS Church) didn't believe the rock had anything to do with the Book of Mormon, and viewed contrary accounts as attacks on faith. Apparently, we got past that, but he left a big mark on the church. Plus, the LDS Church I grew up had to deal with incredible growth, without "gathering" new converts to Utah like we used to do -- entire congregations might be led by people who were relatively new converts themselves. The focus was on "correlation": creating a uniform curriculum (translated into more and more languages), a set of programs, and a structure of oversight, to teach basic principles and ensure that new congregations wouldn't wander. By the 1970's, there were occasional articles discussing seer stones in church magazines, but if you weren't making sure you read every article, most of what you learned was from the correlated curriculum. Who has time to talk about seer stones in Sunday School, though, when you could talk about faith and repentance, instead? It's a choice I respect, even though I feel like the correlated curriculum is far too shallow in a lot of ways.
I don't think the church has covered up the stone -- not for a long time, at any rate. However, the "intro-only" approach to church history hasn't served us well, nor is it useful to pretend that, if you feel betrayed, it's your own fault for not finding out about the stone yourself. Not everyone is going to look up church history sources on their own, especially when they're kept busy with Sunday and weekday meetings, endless programs, seminary and institute, youth night, missionary work, temple worship, family history work, and more and more and more. Plus it's natural to feel betrayed if you've been in a church for several years, and you knew there was some pretty weird stuff, but now it turns out that there's some other weird stuff you never knew. We can do a lot better at getting beyond intro-level in what gets discussed on Sunday, while still keeping our meetings focused on more important principles.
Scrying
Aside from the fact that it can be surprising, it turns out that the rock in the hat is different from the rock spectacles in one important way: it had other uses. When Joseph Smith was younger, he used a seer stone -- possibly this stone -- to look for buried treasure. It's not an anti-Mormon lie (anymore); you can read about it in the LDS Church's own account. Like dowsing, it seems to have been a common enough practice, if lower class; I'd judge it to be about on par with going to a psychic today. He never had much success, but accusations that he was a con man often come back to this: he was either a fraud, taking money under false pretenses, or he did find some gold (the plates) that rightfully belonged to someone else.
I don't personally think he was a fraud; he probably honestly believed he could do it, despite all evidence to the contrary. Also, if you honestly believed God could show you things in a stone what wouldn't you try to see?! Anyone who's prayed for a way out of a financial jam, or to find a set of lost car keys, should be able to understand. However profane such an activity might be, it ought not to preclude the power of God to use a stone for sacred purposes. Still, now that the rock in the hat is front and center, the treasure hunting has to be too -- we can't just sweep it under the rug anymore.
Book of Mormon Translation Issues
Other issues that the stone makes us confront have to do with how the Book of Mormon was translated. A key teaching of the LDS Church about how to experience the Holy Ghost comes from an incident where Oliver Cowdery, Joseph's scribe, wanted to try doing some translating himself, but failed. From Joseph Smith's (sometimes pointed) revelations, we learn that God apparently would have let him translate, but Oliver is rebuked for taking no thought except to ask God, believing that God would provide a translation. What he should have done, we learn, is study it out until arriving at some conclusion, then ask if it's right: if it's right, "your bosom shall burn within you," and if it's wrong, "you shall have a stupor of thought." Anyways, that's how it would have worked for him, if it had worked, but he didn't get a second chance. Translating was Joseph's calling.
From this, I think we get the idea that Joseph largely interpreted by studying the plates, using the stone interpreters to pray for God to confirm or deny his attempts. It's also what we learn about the Holy Ghost -- look for a "burning in the bosom" or a "stupor of thought." The problem is that apparently, Joseph often translated without even looking at the plates. This makes Oliver more sympathetic; he's no dummy; he's just doing what he's seen Joseph do. But if that's the case, why did we need to have the plates at all? And what's with setting up Oliver for failure anyways? And should we really teach that about the Holy Ghost if it's not, to our knowledge, how any translation definitely happened? (I don't reject a burning or a stupor as extreme possibilities, but I prefer the advice to Oliver prior to the attempt: you experience the Holy Ghost in your mind and your heart together.)
Also, if Joseph was reading words from a stone, there are literal translation issues. The Book of Mormon quotes at length from Isaiah, Malachi, and other prophets, and when it does so, it mostly tracks the language of the King James Version of the Bible. A few words are changed here and there, but I'm told that errors in the translation of the King James Version are also perpetuated in the Book of Mormon. I prefer to deal with this (and many of Joseph Smith's later revelations) by believing that Joseph got ideas from God, but had to figure out himself how to convey those ideas in English. If it's an idea from Isaiah, well, the problem of conveying the idea in English is already solved. This approach is harder to take if Joseph is getting a word-for-word translation from a stone. (Also, in that case, God may have some grammar problems). So, I worry: now that the stone is front and center, is "Joseph got every word from God" going to be the only explanation that you can safely talk about at church?
As an Object, a Relic, or the Definition of a Seer
The existence of the stone itself, as a physical object in the church's possession is wonderful, but also a little embarrassing. There are, of course, the hints of superstition -- do we really believe folk magic is real? Also, I feel a bit as if we had announced that we had a splinter from the true cross, or the rod of Aaron. The provenance of the stone is not really in doubt, but so many such relics are impossible that I haven't really made room in my head for a true one. Plus, as a sacred relic, I worry about adoration or imitation. Of course, there are many Mormon relics: if a disadvantage of being a young church is that everyone can dig up your dirt, one advantage is that lots of your historical records and artifacts are still around -- you can go see a lock of Joseph Smith's hair, or Willard Richards' cloak, or John Taylor's watch, or a first edition of the Book of Mormon. This stone is in a league of it's own, though, if it's the instrument by which the Book of Mormon was translated. Will there be framed pictures of it in Mormon living rooms? Will Mormons start looking in stones as a legitimate mode of revelation again?
The church stepped away from that last option a long time ago. Joseph outgrew it, and Brigham Young never seemed to see it as essential to his own role as a "seer". Hiram Page claimed to be receiving revelations from a stone, but Joseph shut that down in a hurry. The key to revelation wasn't having a stone, but being the person appointed by God to do it (which Joseph was, and Hiram Page wasn't). However, the top leaders of the LDS Church are all believed to be "prophets, seers, and revelators." "Seer" may mean something different now, but a literalist approach would take the Book of Mormon at it's word: a "seer" is one who is commanded to look into the "interpreters." I've never understood that as a key part of being one of the Church's modern "seers," but I've also definitely run into people online this week talking about how they always understood that seers generally had seer stones(!). Well, now that there is a stone, and we all know about it, are fundamentalist-leaning Mormons (not the polygamists, I mean going back to fundamentals before that) going to insist that seers ought to use it, while cynics say we've lost the gift to do so?
(There's a similar divide between fundamental types who insist that of course Jesus Christ has personally appeared to all of those top leaders -- it's part of being a "special witness" -- and cynics who insist that that's what they want us to think, and we've all been duped. I'm pretty sure neither is the case. Some LDS Apostles have been pretty frank about the whole idea. Anyways, I'd hate to see the same craziness again, over seer stones.)
In the end, I feel a bit like I might feel if if there was a second coming of Paul. I mean, that would be pretty miraculous and all, but would he want to be in charge of things? I'd really like to not revive the whole "women keep silent in church and cover your heads" thing -- we're past that, I hope. Similarly, Joseph's seer stone is a fascinating part of the Mormon past that I'm glad to know more about, but I hope it doesn't become a significant part of the Mormon future.
Did somebody say rock?! Well then, allow me to contribute my unsolicited two cents.
ReplyDeleteIt appears to be some sort of banded chert or novaculite. It could also be a piece of a banded iron formation sourced from somewhere farther west in the Great Lakes region and transported (at least in part) by glaciation. It's tough to tell what it is exactly by pictures alone. If pressed, I'd have to classify it as some species of leaverite. My kids are picking that stuff up all the time. There doesn’t appear to be anything remarkable about this particular rock; its principal constituents are common – it’s shape and size, ordinary. I don’t think that there is anything about this rock that sets it apart and qualifies it to be used as a seer stone where other rocks of various makes and models would not have performed equally. It’s stripy, it’s smooth, and it looks like it would fit nicely into the palm of the hand – attributes that might draw someone to it who already possesses an affinity for what I usually call “pretty rocks,” (not to be confused with specimens). If I came across this rock, I’d probably pick it up too. And if I were the kind of person who believed that hidden things could be divined through the use of stones, I’d probably give this one a shot. It’s a cool looking rock.
I'm glad that the church is becoming more open and transparent about things like this. I think the first thing I heard about seer stones was that someone who wasn't Joseph was receiving revelation from one in the early days of the church - and that it was a bad thing. Unfortunately, the first I heard of Joseph using a seer stone and a hat in the production of The Book of Mormon was from South Park, and I thought that Mr Stone and Mr Parker were only spreading some false, anti-Mormon propaganda they'd run into somewhere or another. I learned about screeing in the Smith family much later. Our history of not talking about this kind of thing has left the narrative in the hands of people who typically have little interest in "building the kingdom."
Whether it was deliberate deception or an unintended casualty of correlation, it seems that the obfuscation of information like this is proving to have been a mistake. It's good that the church is open about this information now, it would have been better if they had been open about it earlier, and it would have been best if they had always been open about it. And I’m not using the word “open” in the sense of, “let’s publish an obscure article about it in a church-owned magazine every few decades, or include it in an extensive volume that will probably only be studied by scholars and people with a lot of time on their hands,” I’m talking more like, “Let’s put it in the Sunday school curricula and have the missionaries teach investigators about it.” But that’s just my unsolicited two cents.
I appreciate the geological expertise -- it is a cool looking rock. I absolutely agree that it needs to be in the curriculum somewhere.
DeleteI know Joseph found it while digging a well, and I think I recall that it was at some depth, which is interesting since its shape kind of screams "was in flowing water" -- any geological commentary on that?
DeleteFrom a Never-has-been-Mormon, the questions you are raising in the third paragraph under "book of Mormon Translation Issues" are the ones that resonate. An added question on this topic: we seldon see Mormon sources looking at the Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic source documents that were the basis for the King James translation, even though they shed immense light on the meanings. I have assumed this was because direct revelation excludes that kind of translation consideration as part of understanding. But if the King James errors are perpetuated, wouldn't these source document be valuable tools to clarify meaning?
Delete"We seldom see Mormon sources looking at the Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic source documents that were the basis for the King James translation even though they shed immense light on the meanings." Early source documents, other translations, and Bible commentaries are often used, at least by Mormons of a scholarly bent (which admittedly isn't everybody). Joseph Smith himself encouraged the study of ancient languages to understand the Bible, and brought in a Hebrew teacher to instruct him and his friends. That tradition may not have survived in the shallow correlated curriculum I mentioned, but there are plenty of Mormons who are scholarly enough to have retained an interest. There is also a small industry of people trying to use Hebrew translations to demonstrate that the Book of Mormon isn't 19th Century American literature, but belongs in the Hebrew literary tradition.
Delete"I have assumed this was because direct revelation excludes that kind of translation consideration as part of understanding." Well, there can be conflicts, but there aren't that many -- there are plenty of Bible verses where a good translation can be very helpful. The worst conflicts, I think, aren't necessarily direct revelations that "correct" a Bible verse or explain what it means; those are fairly rare. A bigger problem is sermons that are preached by top Mormon leaders and become well believed, that are based on a message that you wouldn't find in the Bible with a better translation. For example, see "avoiding the appearance of evil."
I forgot to mention: you may not see sources used by Mormons as "Mormon sources" simply because there's no need to reinvent the wheel. We do use other Bible commentaries.
DeleteI may simply be ignorant of Mormon theologians who do use Greek or other original language sources. Actually, I don't think I've ever heard a Mormon author even called a "theologian." Is there such a thing?
DeleteI don't think it's common to call Mormon authors "theologians" either, even when theology is being done. It's more likely that the authors in question would just be called "scholars." The distinction is where the conflict you identified with direct revelation can be more clearly seen: you can become an authority on the Bible by studying it, but you can't assume authority, outside the recognized channels of divine revelation, to declare the nature of God. It's not a "sola scriptura" tradition (nor does scripture end at the Bible), so "this is what the Bible means" isn't the final word on "this is how God is." Thus, scholarship is valued and may be persuasive, but the big truths about God come from the top down.
DeleteSo, there are plenty of Mormons trying to explain the Bible, but there isn't really room in the tradition for an Augustine or an Aquinas. In fact, there's a general idea that setting up human reasoning as superior to divine revelation is how primitive Christianity went astray after a few centuries, resulting in the loss of divine truths and the need for a "restoration" through Joseph Smith in the first place.
Of course, there is plenty of reasoning being done, with the understanding that it might be superseded by divine revelation. There have even been some big changes in Mormon belief, over time, that have been driven by reasoning. So, I wouldn't go so far as to say there aren't any Mormons doing theology. There's suspicion of elevating the study of theology too far, though, and so the term isn't much used.
There's a strong strain of Mormon thought that goes something like this (I admit my description of it is uncharitable): "Parts of the BoM that have Biblical parallels use KJV wording heavily. Therefore the entire KJV is endorsed directly by God. More recent Bible versions included skeptics in their editorial committees, wherefore every conclusion they reached is faithless."
ReplyDeleteThis is a pity for many, many reasons. Suffice to say I don't buy into it. I did a detailed survey of J. Reuben Clark's "Why the King James Version" and found few if any of his arguments persuasive -- and I can't think of anyone likely to be more persuasive than he.
I wish we'd untwist our knickers just far enough to use a theologically conservative, KJV-tradition, poetic, but freakin' READABLE translation such as the ESV.