D. Michael Quinn has Passed Away

[Res Ipsa]

I’d been a forman for many years before I read anything written by Quinn. I read The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power. From that book, I learned that the orderly manner in which the church was revealed and organized was a deliberately created illusion. In reality, it was created on the fly according to whatever idea Smith stumbled upon, with the official history rewritten to turn a kludge into a systematic, orderly restoration by God.

It was pretty eye opening. I’d decided long before that the Church was a creation of man. It was fascinating to see how it was done.

Thanks Micheal. You helped lots of folks see more clearly and were treated shamefully in return.

[Philo Sofee]

Symmachus
Mormonism and the Magic Worldview, for example, is the most important book written on Mormon history after No Man Knows My History (which is still the greatest work of Mormon history), and it is that style of appearing merely to report "the facts" that builds on itself to the point where one starts to have a solid view of just what was going on in the semi-literate culture and religious life of farmers in western New York. Without that, you miss what got Mormonism going in the first place and a lot that still remains in it.

An apt description! I have also enjoyed his 2nd updated volume. I read both editions together back to back several times. I am discovering for myself another most fascinating parallel development within New Testament scholarship that has me buzzing as much as Quinn did. There is exactly the same thing occurring for the last decade concerning the New Testament Letters of Paul. Yes, yes, everyone already knows all about Paul, his letters, his missionary travels, his doctrine of saved by grace alone... and NO ONE really sees the reality right under their noses. Exactly like the Mormons with Joseph Smith until Quinn came along!

The main scholar involved in this utterly fascinating wake up call for Christianity snoozing at the helm, is J. D. G. Dunn and his entire approach called "The New Perspective on Paul." His absolutely magisterial book, "The Theology of Paul the Apostle," is a clarion call exactly as Quinn's "Early Mormonism and the World Magic View" was for Mormons. And Dunn's other gathering of dozens of articles into book form "The New Perspective on Paul," wherein he interacts with his fellows, their challenges, their disputations and in some cases their rude name calling and mean spirited hate against Dunn is perfectly parallel to Quinn and the FARMS responses to him.

It is incredibly interesting to see such an almost vital parallel in religions, a wake up calling from an outstanding scholar in each case, Quinn, and Dunn, and how others falsely accuse them of being "anti-Mormon" and "Anti-Lutheran" respectively, and how their responses both are so fantastically all-encompassing, passionate, and the best scholarship in the land. And their work and their responses to antagonists in both cases, actually did, and are making a vast difference in how religion is now being seen and understood with drastic revision to our so-called "knowledge" of both history and scripture. Mormons didn't really grasp their own history anymore than Christians do. We don't know a lot about either, and these fabulous trail blazers have helped open the gate and pave the way into greater light and knowledge for which, I for one, am eternally grateful for their stellar work.

[Rick Grunder]

Symmachus wrote:

Quinn knew how to exploit an archive in a way that younger historians can scarcely appreciate; the New MI people, particularly those who ignore Quinn as "outdated," play word games in sandboxes. Sure, they can make some pretty castles and they clearly enjoy playing with the social construction toys, but such edifices can't support much subsequent addition and enlargement; they are finally flimsy creations lumped together within a narrow, well-defined space that protects as much as it confines their creators. The sand stays in the box. They "moved beyond Quinn" (some getting positions that should have gone to him) not by superseding his work but rather by "bracketing" the controversies that his work summoned (that's how they got those jobs). Quinn's style has the feel mid-twentieth century reportage, and I think that is one reason that younger historians dismiss it as lacking in analysis: not enough anxiety about language and meaning. But on the other hand his work was not merely descriptive, like so much of Arrington's work was. Quinn was bold and original, and if he overshot the mark at times, he at least hit on some genuine insights.

Brilliantly articulated. Thank you for memorializing this frustrating situation so powerfully.

[Symmachus]

I happened to be in Salt Lake when Michael Quinn died. I asked one who is knowledgeable and is immersed in the Mormon history scene whether he knew if Quinn had been working on any knew projects. The source answered yes, Quinn was writing a two-volume work on Mormon fundamentalists. (I believe it was “fundamentalists“ and not “fundamentalism,“ although I can’t swear to it.) I was told that Quinn had completed the writing for the first volume, although it is unknown how ready it is for publication. Unfortunately, the second volume was still in his head only.

EMMWV changed everything for me. In it Quinn showed that Joseph Smith worked as a treasure-digging seer for at least six years straight, and placed him at scores of motley digging locations in New York and Pennsylvania. Quinn usually would use at least two sources to back each of his geo- temporal placement claims about Joseph Smith’s scrying. Needless to say this cluster of hard data points is incongruous with Smith’s claims not only to be a prophet, but the greatest one in history.

Thanks for sharing that. I really hope something comes out of that work. Given his work on post-manifesto polygamy and the Mormon Hierarchy books, it would really be something to see Quinn delve even more deeply into the Lorin Woolley revelation and the beginning of Mormon fundamentalism.

Symmachus
Mormonism and the Magic Worldview, for example, is the most important book written on Mormon history after No Man Knows My History (which is still the greatest work of Mormon history), and it is that style of appearing merely to report "the facts" that builds on itself to the point where one starts to have a solid view of just what was going on in the semi-literate culture and religious life of farmers in western New York. Without that, you miss what got Mormonism going in the first place and a lot that still remains in it.

An apt description! I have also enjoyed his 2nd updated volume. I read both editions together back to back several times. I am discovering for myself another most fascinating parallel development within New Testament scholarship that has me buzzing as much as Quinn did. There is exactly the same thing occurring for the last decade concerning the New Testament Letters of Paul. Yes, yes, everyone already knows all about Paul, his letters, his missionary travels, his doctrine of saved by grace alone... and NO ONE really sees the reality right under their noses. Exactly like the Mormons with Joseph Smith until Quinn came along!

The main scholar involved in this utterly fascinating wake up call for Christianity snoozing at the helm, is J. D. G. Dunn and his entire approach called "The New Perspective on Paul." His absolutely magisterial book, "The Theology of Paul the Apostle," is a clarion call exactly as Quinn's "Early Mormonism and the World Magic View" was for Mormons. And Dunn's other gathering of dozens of articles into book form "The New Perspective on Paul," wherein he interacts with his fellows, their challenges, their disputations and in some cases their rude name calling and mean spirited hate against Dunn is perfectly parallel to Quinn and the FARMS responses to him.

It is incredibly interesting to see such an almost vital parallel in religions, a wake up calling from an outstanding scholar in each case, Quinn, and Dunn, and how others falsely accuse them of being "anti-Mormon" and "Anti-Lutheran" respectively, and how their responses both are so fantastically all-encompassing, passionate, and the best scholarship in the land. And their work and their responses to antagonists in both cases, actually did, and are making a vast difference in how religion is now being seen and understood with drastic revision to our so-called "knowledge" of both history and scripture. Mormons didn't really grasp their own history anymore than Christians do. We don't know a lot about either, and these fabulous trail blazers have helped open the gate and pave the way into greater light and knowledge for which, I for one, am eternally grateful for their stellar work.

Thanks for response, Philo. I'm familiar with Dunn's earlier work, but I haven't read anything his book on Paul. The "New Perspective" turn I generally associate with the work E. P. Sanders starting in the 1970s and N. T. Wright somewhat later, as well as Dunn, but I had no idea it was earning him the kind of counter-attack that Quinn weathered. I don't much know about Dunn personally: is he a Lutheran minister? I know it has been controversial for some Lutherans and Reformists and can see why but haven't paid much attention to their polemics against it. Anyway, thanks for pointing me to the book, which looks like it is worth studying deeply.

[Philo Sofee]

Symmachus
Thanks for response, Philo. I'm familiar with Dunn's earlier work, but I haven't read anything his book on Paul. The "New Perspective" turn I generally associate with the work E. P. Sanders starting in the 1970s and N. T. Wright somewhat later, as well as Dunn, but I had no idea it was earning him the kind of counter-attack that Quinn weathered. I don't much know about Dunn personally: is he a Lutheran minister? I know it has been controversial for some Lutherans and Reformists and can see why but haven't paid much attention to their polemics against it. Anyway, thanks for pointing me to the book, which looks like it is worth studying deeply.

Yes, and Dunn acknowledges pleasantly and heartily his Godfather in these studies, E. P. Sanders, (honorable mention of Wright as well actually) who truly started it all with situating Paul in Judaism. No, Dunn is a retired professor from Durham in the UK. I am not sure he is being as largely criticized as Quinn was, but there are some quite vehement and incoherent spitting contests against his materials he discusses in his book "The New Perspective on Paul" from the German Lutherans as he notes. I haven't made my way entirely through it, but his discussion of the parallels of Paul "Works of the Law" with the Dead Sea Scrolls 4QMMT is quite interesting! His use of Galatians to anchor his argument that Paul was arguing against his own Jewish folk who had been abusing their "special privilege" as being in the Covenant and abiding in it excluding Gentiles is utterly fantastic. I just had no idea that was what Galatians truly was doing. It shows me what an abject nobody in knowledge I actually am, sigh... It seems like I have spent my entire flipping life reading everything I can and coming to a knowledge that I really do know nothing. It is so damn discouraging.

For instance, Dunn, of course, interlaces all materials throughout each of his books, rightly so, while expanding on yet more themes in each book as a specialized study, never ignoring the previous contexts in his other books, right? So, when I acquire his book "Jesus Remembered," (I just this morning read Richard Horsley's review of it "Review of Biblical Literature," 2008 from the SBL pp. 1-28 - fantastic!) and its companion volume "Beginning from Jerusalem," and the excellent interaction of various scholars with Dunn in Robert B. Stewart & Gary R. Habermas, "Memories of Jesus: A Critical Appraisal of James D. G. Dunn's 'Jesus Remembered,' BH Academic, 2010 - most excellent, and Dunn's almost singular most important contribution to the entire enterprise of Historical Jesus studies, "The Oral Gospel Tradition," (Eerdmans, 2013), I sit gawking at my almost literally 2 foot high stack of multiple thousands... literally, thousands of pages (how can just one guy write so damn much fabulous materials?!) of reading I have to do, and I just cry.

I admit it, I am a baby, a woos, a ne'er do well wannabe. I want to understand. I see the price has not been discounted, but has inflated to YEARS of study, not mere flippin nonchalantly through a few pages and imagining I have a handle on it all, and I just turned 60! Do I have the needed years left?!? Good Lord it is depressing how much I read, and how faster and faster I get behind. And on top of all this, I am attempting to sharpen up my understanding of Greek (dismal at best) and Hebrew (just as bad), so there is yet another 8-10 years just to get the tools I want to have to use in order to really sink my teeth into this stuff that is also going to take me years to get through, and by then I am dead. Just totally depressing.

But, yes, I am focusing on Dunn's Paul Perspective for the time being, and I have to tell you, it is a surprise beyond anything I could have imagined. I have never liked Paul. As a Mormon a built in bias against him is ingrained in the youth because the saved by faith alone idea, which Mormons hate, and Paul advocates, so I never ever actually liked nor read and understood anything about Paul at all. (If you want to learn about Paul, ignore anything by Mormons, they flat out SUCK on the subject, they're ignorant idiots in this field) Dunn has completely, totally, and conclusively shown me my Mormon bias has hampered me entirely. I am now jumping into Paul like nothing else, and I am stunned at just how DUMB the Mormon bias I have had giving me a chip on my shoulder against Paul has been. There is vastly more to Paul as Dunn is demonstrating on every single page of his books. I myself am thoroughly enjoying them, and I suspect, if nothing else, if the topic is of any interest, the best place to start is going to be his own interaction (though you might be missing some back context and discussions) is his book "The New Perspective on Paul." It is several of his former articles, and his review and argument against the reviews and arguments against his view which this book is about. It is stunning in many ways. It is enlightening, amusing, incredibly adroit, profoundly deep in Jewish and Christian historical analysis, wonderful in theological discussion, and simply breath taking in scriptural exegesis of who Paul was talking about, and the what of what he was arguing against, (THIS is why he is being labeled as anti-Lutheran) and an all around great read.

I have actually detoured myself from it into his book "The Theology of Paul" (the damned thing is almost as big as his book "Jesus Remembered") and I can't put it down. Good grief man I wish I had the faith of Joshua to stop the sun from going down for a few years so I could catch up...

[Physics Guy]

There’s a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it entails
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
One sure if another fails.

The idea that Paul was an anti-Judaizer, insisting that Christians are freed from Jewish ritual law, has always been a basic mainstream Christian interpretation of much of the New Testament. It’s not at all an innovation by Dunn. I find the letters attributed to Paul to be poorly written in general, to the point where it’s hard to be sure what the author was really trying to say, but that point at least has always seemed clear enough to me. I don’t see how one could read much of Paul and get any other idea.

But Mormonism is so keen on neo-Judaic ordinances and covenants. Has it always been trying to squint hard enough at Paul to explain away that obvious message? If so, you might not be so generally behind as you fear, Philo Sofee. It might be just this one particular point about Paul on which your Mormon background has steered you wrong.

[kairos]

My personal contact with MQ was happenstance at a Sunstone symposium , I think one of the few held in DC. He was sitting alone during a break waiting to be part of a response panel from a talk that was being given. I was wandering around and someone said “that’s Mike Quinn” - I new a little of his story and that he had been excommunicated and that he was living with his mother relying in a couch for a bed. Somehow I expected a firebrand sorta guy pissed off at the church for undeserved persecution and his present economic situation. I sat at the table and said I am Kairos and he said that’s a funny name (not really) and told me his name. We chatted about the symposium and I asked about what he might be working on. His mood was friendly and his speech was low key and engaging. No firebrand there!
That was my 5 minutes with a Mormon history scholar and teacher and another victim of “it’s better to kill one member unjustly than to fear losing the flock” mentality of the Packer leadership variety .
While I am here - did the truth ever come out about who in leadership was the as*ho*e responsible for Quinn’s ouster from the church?
Thence
k

[Bought Yahoo]

Dr. Quinn's books on Mormon Theology never went through a peer review process. There are two possible minor exceptions.

[Gadianton]

Dr. Quinn's books on Mormon Theology never went through a peer review process. There are two possible minor exceptions.

From what analytics explained about his last volume, it could have benefited substantially from peer review, or at least some kind of collaboration with a finance person.

[Philo Sofee]

Physics Guy
But Mormonism is so keen on neo-Judaic ordinances and covenants. Has it always been trying to squint hard enough at Paul to explain away that obvious message? If so, you might not be so generally behind as you fear, Philo Sofee. It might be just this one particular point about Paul on which your Mormon background has steered you wrong.

Yes, Mormonism has for the most part done that. We were told to respond simply to Paul's saved by grace with James and the faith is dead without works. Such simplistic views from both sides, as Dunn notes. I do hope you are correct. I am for sure in the next few years make sure I do get ahead of the curve, without question.