Latest RFM Podcast Second Best in History?

[_consiglieri]

Honestly, RFM is my favorite podcast. I don’t know how one could rank any one episode over another. To me each episode ranks #1.

The check is in the mail!

[_sunstoned]

Wrong Roads is definitely up there in downloads.

I guess different episodes hit different people . . . differently.

Wrong Roads is good, and so is the Lies, more lies and statistics series. But my vote is the latest. Your critique of DCP's article is spot on. Has Peterson responded yet?

[_consiglieri]

Do bees buzz?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterso ... ision.html


___________________________



A bit more on the variant accounts of the First Vision


 June 10, 2018 by Dan Peterson


One of the many great treats afforded by the recent tour of Egypt that my wife and I accompanied was having Steve Smoot and Steve Densley among the group.


Some of you will be interested in an interview with Stephen Smoot by Tarik La Cour that has just appeared.


***


I published a column regarding the First Vision a couple of weeks ago:

“The supposed scandal of multiple First Vision accounts”


That column has received a remarkably harsh and angry response in certain quarters. (Plainly, I touched a nerve.) Several critics have vocally claimed not only that I was wrong, but that I was being deliberate deceitful. I am, it’s said, being justly demolished for my lies

Now, as it happens, I’m back in Virginia right now spending time with family, including my toddler granddaughter. This has entailed a number of activities, ranging from shoveling mulch through visiting a farmers market to walking baby and dogs. I haven’t been paying much attention to the responses, which apparently include at least one (and possibly two) podcasts. When and if I do pay serious attention, I’ll probably respond in some fashion or other.

In the meantime, I plead innocent to the charge of being a deliberate liar. (Why do certain types of critics immediately resort, quite commonly from the safe retreat of anonymity, to the harshest possible construal of such disagreements?) I’m pretty confident that nobody out there will actually be able to prove me a liar, since, simply, I’m not a liar and I wasn’t lying. And surely there are other options. Maybe I’m just stupid, for example, or incompetent, or ignorant, or blind.

Moreover, I point out (a) that the article in question is less than 740 words long and that (b) it was never intended as my last word on the topic nor as an exhaustive treatment of the issues that have been raised with regard to the First Vision.

In other words, I stand by it.

Is there more to be said? Yes. Of course. And, sooner or later, I’m likely to say it. There are only so many things that can be covered, though, in individual instantiations of a column that invariably runs between 736 and 739 words.

Of course, I also received some positive responses to the column. (The consensus that I’m a mendacious and toxic hack has never quite been unanimous.) One of them came via email from my longtime colleague Kent Jackson, recently retired from Brigham Young University. Here is what he wrote:

I started teaching the Pearl of Great Price in the mid-80s. By actual account, I taught 59 sections. If we estimate 40 students in each, I taught 2360 students. In every class, the students were required to read the four accounts of the First Vision, and we spent three days talking about the accounts and what we learn from them. Never once did a student raise a concern about differences, though we discussed them openly. You are right, this scandal is one of the most artificial complaints possible.

When I replied, asking whether I could quote him on my blog, Professor Jackson answered as follows:

Sure, of course!

Also, I included the four accounts in my 1996 book, From Apostasy to Restoration (Deseret Book), which has sold over 13,000 copies. If we were supposed to keep them under wraps, why didn’t anyone tell me?

By the way, even if it’s true that Joseph Fielding Smith didn’t want to make the 1832 account public, that ended in the 1960s, which was over half a century ago! That’s ancient history. Paul Cheesman (BYU religion professor) analyzed the accounts in his 1965 MA thesis at BYU, then Dean Jessee published them in 1969. Yeah, keeping it under wraps.

Posted from Richmond, Virginia

[_Stem]

I was saying this was the best Mormon-themed podcast out there when there was only about 3 episodes (the first 3 were as spot on and quality as anything I had heard). It's only gotten better. I highlighted the latest here to show my support and appreciation.

If Peterson ever gets around to directly responding to RFM's latest, he'll at least gain a little respect back from me, in that he's trying. But, that little response he offered so far is not encouraging. He ought to think about it and try harder.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I don't understand how you guys can keep reading anything Mr. Peterson posts. It's just this hodgepodge of smarmy, narcissistic, folksy, Mormon bull crap. How that fat plagiarizing slob has managed to keep a job for any length of time is one of the more astonishing miracles of Mormondom.

Your endless appetite for this masochism is odd.

- Doc

[Guest]

DCP exists as an LDS apologist for the benefit of those who are practically, and in some cases literally, asking to be deceived. Not all LDS people are in that category. The latter are the people who have no use for Mopologetics. But, DCP will always have a small fan club consisting of those who don't know better, those who don't want to know better, and those who want to make sure others do not know better. He is there to make sure that these people will not be discomfited in any way, not because he has anything of real value to offer them, but rather because he is so effectively able to make sure that they are distracted from valuable arguments.

For this reason DCP holds as much interest to me as any of the other obviously wrong kooks of the world. People get sucked into paying attention to him because he is, in many ways, unremarkable. For the most part he is an innocuous-seeming, semi-respectable mediocrity who makes people feel good about believing obviously stupid things. But the things he promotes are every bit as patently wrong as Alex Jones' conspiracy theories, and he is due just as much respect as Alex Jones is when it comes to some of the nonsense he promotes.

[_Dr Exiled]

Mr. Kent Jackson says in the DCP response above that he openly taught the multiple accounts and that no one raised concerns among his students. This is disingenuous at best. No BYU student will openly raise doubts for fear of losing their place at the school. If students doubt too much their eclesiastical endorsement will be yanked. Also, they may not get their diploma. Time and time again one hears of students at one of the BYU's breath a sigh of relief when they get their diploma as they don't believe any longer and were worried that if their unbelief were made public, they wouldn't get their diploma. I wonder how many of Mr. Jackson's students have left the church since and believe the differing accounts are part of the reason to doubt Joseph Smith?

[_Kishkumen]

Mr. Kent Jackson says in the DCP response above that he openly taught the multiple accounts and that no one raised concerns among his students.

With all due respect to Kent Jackson, his contribution to LDS education on this matter is negligible compared to the influence of Sunday School classes and missionaries across the globe. He is one man preaching to a very small and privileged subset of the larger world of Mormonism.

Furthermore, it is not just what one does in acknowledging the existence of these accounts, it is also a matter of how one teaches others to interpret them.

[_Stem]

With all due respect to Kent Jackson, his contribution to LDS education on this matter is negligible compared to the influence of Sunday School classes and missionaries across the globe. He is one man preaching to a very small and privileged subset of the larger world of Mormonism.

Furthermore, it is not just what one does in acknowledging the existence of these accounts, it is also a matter of how one teaches others to interpret them.

My guess is he told them "there are four accounts, and they work together quite nicely. There's nothing to be concerned about with them because the variations are minimal and thus, you don't need to be worried...see some guy named Paul Allen said so at one point. But, you can read them if you want. I won't stop you." If so, then he'd have no idea how his students reacted to the variations.

On the other hand if he said "there are four first/second hand accounts of the first vision. Here read them, come back and tell me all the variations and agreements you see in each and we'll discuss." Then he'd have more of a feel for how his class reacted to the variations.

[_moksha]

What's the first best podcast?

I think it may have been when that puppet dragon visited Brigham Young's outhouse. Not many such podcasts go on location. Talk about creating an authentic atmosphere for the viewers!