The gospel as the Mormons know it sprang full-grown from the words of Joseph Smith. It has never been worked over or touched up in any way and is free of revisions and alterations. Joseph Smith took the same elements that have proven so recalcitrant and so hopelessly conflicting in the hands of the churchmen and threw them together, with an awful lot of other stuff (to follow Brodie) into a single wildly chaotic mess. And lo and behold, everything fell into line of its own accord; all the haphazard elements in the bewildering heap fitted together perfectly to form a doctrine so commanding that not even a hint of rhetorical paradox is needed to support it, and no "Gregorian compromise" with a pleasure-loving world has been necessary to assure its vigorous growth.
The merciless logic of the Mormon doctrine made its strictly amateur missionaries from the outset the bane of the learned cloth throughout the world. What a piece of luck for Joseph! How her chuckle-headed, pipe-dreaming, glory-mongering hero ever produced a doctrine more wholly logical than anything done by a St. Thomas or a Calvin and at the same time as vivid and intimate as the faith of the Primitive Church is one of the more important issues our Sibyl has avoided. Certainly her Joseph is not up to the task, and until a more likely candidate than the Brodie mannequin turns up, we will just have to accept Joseph Smith's own story of what happened.
The gospel as the Mormons know it sprang full-grown from the words of Joseph Smith. It has never been worked over or touched up in any way and is free of revisions and alterations.
Nibley really believed that the LDS gospel at the time Nibley wrote this had not been worked over or touched up, not revised or altered?
That's a classic example of revisionist history, now isn't it?
And yet 60 years later historians both with in the Church and outside the Church still frequently reference her work regarding Joseph Smith. One only has to peruse the footnotes in RSR to see who Bushman held in higher regard when it came to the historical Joseph Smith.
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
bcspace wrote:Well no. I think I've pretty much shown that LDS doctrine, other than the new revelation in the first few years, really hasn't changed much at all.
If it's the doctrine the way you have expressed it BCSpace, I'd have to agree with you. You haven't compromised the doctrine a bit. My problem is that a lot of Mormons don't agree with you. It's disheartening.
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
And yet 60 years later historians both with in the Church and outside the Church still frequently reference her work regarding Joseph Smith. One only has to peruse the footnotes in RSR to see who Bushman held in higher regard when it came to the historical Joseph Smith.
Yet Nibley makes an excellent point about the doctrine not being worked over and I think other historians, even within the Church have missed. PLural marriage and the priesthood ban are excellent examples of how the doctrine really hasn't changed at all and any apologetics which tries to move with the flavor of the moment without making note of this is not really any kind of apologetics at all.
Those who celebrate the changes the Church has made always end up or will end up very disappointed because in reality nothing has changed but the face the Church present to the public.
Last edited by Guest on Thu Nov 10, 2011 9:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
And yet 60 years later historians both with in the Church and outside the Church still frequently reference her work regarding Joseph Smith. One only has to peruse the footnotes in RSR to see who Bushman held in higher regard when it came to the historical Joseph Smith.
Yet Nibley makes an excellent point about the doctrine not being worked over and I think other historians, even within the Church have missed. PLural marriage and the priesthood ban are excellent examples of how the doctrine really hasn't changed at all and any apologetics which tries to move with the flavor of the moment without making note of this is not really any kind of apologetics at all.
Nibley isn't a credible historian.
Parley P. Pratt wrote:We must lie to support brother Joseph, it is our duty to do so.
A statement of fact. A modern historian can't merely quote Nibley. You always have to go back and make sure he hasn't abused his sources, as he so often did.
Parley P. Pratt wrote:We must lie to support brother Joseph, it is our duty to do so.