I was David's and Ed Firmage's home teacher back in the mid-80's while at UC Berkeley. They were both the gospel doctrine teachers at the Berkeley Ward at the time, and taught some very "liberal" lessons together. I was TBM at the time, and as their HTer, it was challenging to hear their beliefs on things. They were both struggling to piece together their beliefs with their scholarship. David obviously was able to for a while, since he took a position at the Y. But like most of us, I think he "wanted" the church to have a degree of "truth" to it...and transitioned out (probably pushed a bit by his 'court of love...) after leaving the Y.
Like many hard-core scholars I've met, he is a brilliant man, but looks at much about life quite differently than us normals do. I wouldn't be surprised if he saw the definition of scripture quite differently than we do.
Just a guess.
David Wright on Historical Criticism.
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_Addictio
- _Emeritus
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Wright's version of the events leading up to his ex-ing and copies of letters he sent to his bishop and Stake Pres during that process are or were available on the net.
As I read them, he always stuck by his critical assessment and conclusions re the Book of Mormon being a modern composition rather than a translation of an ancient text. But at that time -- don't know what he thinks at present -- he saw Joseph Smith as a prophet and as inspired in the same way he thought the Old Testament prophets were. That wasn't good enough for the orthodoxy-evaluators. I expect none of them realized how uncontoversial and accepted Wright's vocabulary and way of understanding the Hebrew Bible actually is among scholars. Many such folks are also believing Christians and Jews. (M. Brettler's introductory book explaining the hist-critical method and appying it to the Heb Bible is a good example. At the end he has a personal essay about being a Jew in a committed, existential way despite -- he'd also say because of -- his use of critical methods to understand the central texts of Judaism. As he puts it, he uses those methods to understand what the Heb Bible meant to its ancient audiences and to those who composed and compiled it. He also decides what it means to him in the present. He's clear that his conclusions about the former inform but don't determine his conclusions about the latter.)
It's obvious to me, by the way, that if you apply the same hist-critical methods to the Book of Mormon that most scholars do to the Bible, it falls into the category of a belated, pseudepigraphic text. (If you want to read a truly stupid attempt to deny -- or at least obfuscate--that point, read Bill Hamblin's Dialogue article "responding" to Robert Price's American Apocrypha piece.) But then so does much of the Bible. The problem for the Book of Mormon, as it was for Wright's status as on-the-books LDS, is that placing the Book of Mormon in that category is judged to be fundamentally and fatally inconsistent with the canonized production story Joseph Smith gave for the Book of Mormon. It's kinda comical that the entire Penteteuch is also a belated, retrojective text. To the extent the Christian and Jewish traditions assert/assume that Moses authored it, the Pent also becomes a pseudepigraphic text.
In any event, I guess eventually someone would have to test whether a church member could not just believe something privately, but actually publish an assessment of the Book of Mormon using accepted scholarly methods for interpreting texts. Wright did so and explained his reasons, and himself, with grace and eloquence, seems to me. Once the leadership realized they (or perhaps "it") loved him so much a court needed to be convened.
As I read them, he always stuck by his critical assessment and conclusions re the Book of Mormon being a modern composition rather than a translation of an ancient text. But at that time -- don't know what he thinks at present -- he saw Joseph Smith as a prophet and as inspired in the same way he thought the Old Testament prophets were. That wasn't good enough for the orthodoxy-evaluators. I expect none of them realized how uncontoversial and accepted Wright's vocabulary and way of understanding the Hebrew Bible actually is among scholars. Many such folks are also believing Christians and Jews. (M. Brettler's introductory book explaining the hist-critical method and appying it to the Heb Bible is a good example. At the end he has a personal essay about being a Jew in a committed, existential way despite -- he'd also say because of -- his use of critical methods to understand the central texts of Judaism. As he puts it, he uses those methods to understand what the Heb Bible meant to its ancient audiences and to those who composed and compiled it. He also decides what it means to him in the present. He's clear that his conclusions about the former inform but don't determine his conclusions about the latter.)
It's obvious to me, by the way, that if you apply the same hist-critical methods to the Book of Mormon that most scholars do to the Bible, it falls into the category of a belated, pseudepigraphic text. (If you want to read a truly stupid attempt to deny -- or at least obfuscate--that point, read Bill Hamblin's Dialogue article "responding" to Robert Price's American Apocrypha piece.) But then so does much of the Bible. The problem for the Book of Mormon, as it was for Wright's status as on-the-books LDS, is that placing the Book of Mormon in that category is judged to be fundamentally and fatally inconsistent with the canonized production story Joseph Smith gave for the Book of Mormon. It's kinda comical that the entire Penteteuch is also a belated, retrojective text. To the extent the Christian and Jewish traditions assert/assume that Moses authored it, the Pent also becomes a pseudepigraphic text.
In any event, I guess eventually someone would have to test whether a church member could not just believe something privately, but actually publish an assessment of the Book of Mormon using accepted scholarly methods for interpreting texts. Wright did so and explained his reasons, and himself, with grace and eloquence, seems to me. Once the leadership realized they (or perhaps "it") loved him so much a court needed to be convened.
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_Ray A
Addictio wrote:Wright's version of the events leading up to his ex-ing and copies of letters he sent to his bishop and Stake Pres during that process are or were available on the net.
http://www.lds-mormon.com/dpw.shtml
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_Abinadi's Fire
- _Emeritus
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Addictio wrote:It's obvious to me, by the way, that if you apply the same hist-critical methods to the Book of Mormon that most scholars do to the Bible, it falls into the category of a belated, pseudepigraphic text. (If you want to read a truly stupid attempt to deny -- or at least obfuscate--that point, read Bill Hamblin's Dialogue article "responding" to Robert Price's American Apocrypha piece.) But then so does much of the Bible. The problem for the Book of Mormon, as it was for Wright's status as on-the-books LDS, is that placing the Book of Mormon in that category is judged to be fundamentally and fatally inconsistent with the canonized production story Joseph Smith gave for the Book of Mormon. It's kinda comical that the entire Penteteuch is also a belated, retrojective text. To the extent the Christian and Jewish traditions assert/assume that Moses authored it, the Pent also becomes a pseudepigraphic text.
This is much the way I look at things, Addictio - how does a fellow go about getting ahold of Bill Hamblin's respondent article to American Apocrypha?
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_Ray A
Abinadi's Fire wrote:- how does a fellow go about getting ahold of Bill Hamblin's respondent article to American Apocrypha?
I think this may be the article you're looking for: http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/display ... iew&id=524
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_CaliforniaKid
- _Emeritus
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Addictio wrote:read Bill Hamblin's Dialogue article "responding" to Robert Price's American Apocrypha piece.)
This one?
"There Really is a God, and He Dwells in the Temporal Parietal Lobe of Joseph Smith's Brain"
Dialogue - A Journal of Mormon Thought
Issue: Volume 36, Number 4 / Winter 2003
Pages: 79 - 87
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_Ray A
CaliforniaKid wrote:"There Really is a God, and He Dwells in the Temporal Parietal Lobe of Joseph Smith's Brain"
Dialogue - A Journal of Mormon Thought
Issue: Volume 36, Number 4 / Winter 2003
Pages: 79 - 87
Same article, but I linked the republished version at the Maxwell Institute: http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/display ... iew&id=524
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_Abinadi's Fire
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The link posted leads to:
William J. Hamblin
Review of Robert M. Price. "Prophecy and Palimpsest." Dialogue 35/3 (2002): 67–82.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... phecy.html
Excerpt from Price's article:
Following this concept leads to Hamblin's comment:
But it appears that Price would instead say Joseph Smith wrote his new revelations not under established biblical pseudonyms such as Enoch, Moses, or Daniel, but under "new world" pseudonyms such as Mormon and Alma.
Interestingly, there is evidence of the use of pseudonyms by Joseph Smith Jr (Gazelem), Martin Harris (Mahemson), Oliver Cowdery (Olihah) and other early Mormon figures in RLDS Doctrine and Covenants section 101 (LDS D&C 104), in support of Price's theory.
William J. Hamblin
Review of Robert M. Price. "Prophecy and Palimpsest." Dialogue 35/3 (2002): 67–82.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... phecy.html
Excerpt from Price's article:
If the Book of Mormon is the literary creation of Joseph Smith, who wrote new biblical-sounding stories by combining familiar biblical vocabulary and motifs, then we may do exactly the same sort of comparative redactional analysis on the Book of Mormon that scholars have been doing on the Bible.
Following this concept leads to Hamblin's comment:
First, according to Price, new "inspired" pseudepigraphic authors wrote their new "revelations" under biblical pseudonyms such as Enoch, Moses, or Daniel
But it appears that Price would instead say Joseph Smith wrote his new revelations not under established biblical pseudonyms such as Enoch, Moses, or Daniel, but under "new world" pseudonyms such as Mormon and Alma.
Interestingly, there is evidence of the use of pseudonyms by Joseph Smith Jr (Gazelem), Martin Harris (Mahemson), Oliver Cowdery (Olihah) and other early Mormon figures in RLDS Doctrine and Covenants section 101 (LDS D&C 104), in support of Price's theory.
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_Ray A
Here is some background to Price:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... e-bio.html
http://www.atheistalliance.org/secular/index.php
http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/theolist.htm
He was is also a member of The Jesus Seminar: http://www.westarinstitute.org/Fellows/fellows.html (Spong and Karen Armstrong are also fellows.)
Described as a "religious skeptic": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Price
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... e-bio.html
http://www.atheistalliance.org/secular/index.php
http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/theolist.htm
He was is also a member of The Jesus Seminar: http://www.westarinstitute.org/Fellows/fellows.html (Spong and Karen Armstrong are also fellows.)
Described as a "religious skeptic": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Price
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_Ray A
Abinadi's Fire wrote:Review of Robert M. Price. "Prophecy and Palimpsest." Dialogue 35/3 (2002): 67–82.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... phecy.html
Interesting remark from Price in the last paragraph:
All of which allows us to propose a way in which mainstream biblical scholars and students of the Book of Mormon may come closer together. Biblical scholars ought to realize (as many no doubt do) that the Book of Mormon is much the same sort of thing as the Bible they so love and ought to be accorded the same sort of respect. It is no more a hoax than Deuteronomy. Mormons ought to be more open to the possibility of the Book of Mormon having originated as a modern pseudepigraph, the work of Joseph Smith himself. As we have seen, this would only serve to enhance his prophetic dignity, not to debunk it as literal-minded critics of Mormonism have always jeered. The most important boon thus gained would be the quantum leap in interpretative possibilities. With the aid of tools like redaction and literary criticism, we may disclose theological riches in the text that, on the presupposition of literalism, have remained as buried in the text as the Golden Plates themselves were in the earth until Joseph Smith disclosed them according to the foundation myth of Mormonism.