Don Bradley on the Lost 116-pages

[_Kishkumen]

Finally, I think as a general observation, it might just be best to let the 116 pages be forgotten. From a believers perspective, God didn't think them all that important, after all He was willing to chuck them in favor of the current Book of Mormon. From a critics perspective, Joseph Smith seemed really nervous about trying to reproduce them, probably for a good reason.

Now you're just being catty.

[_Kishkumen]

There are several source critical problems with using the story of David and Goliath as a comparison. If you read Samuel 16-17 carefully you will notice that David gets TWO introductions to Saul. One is as a musician, the other is the David and Goliath story. Since you can only get introduced once to someone, you have a problem. Plus, at the end of 2 Samuel, Elhanan, not David, is listed as the slayer of Goliath of Gath. While the comparison from a literary standpoint might work, you risk comparing Nephi's actions to non-existent actions of David. Since the existence of Nephi and Laban is already dubious from a critical perspective, the comparison might not be felicitous.

Hello! That is all it has to be for it to work: an allusion. The rest of this paragraph has no bearing on the issue at all.

[_Aristotle Smith]

There are several source critical problems with using the story of David and Goliath as a comparison. If you read Samuel 16-17 carefully you will notice that David gets TWO introductions to Saul. One is as a musician, the other is the David and Goliath story. Since you can only get introduced once to someone, you have a problem. Plus, at the end of 2 Samuel, Elhanan, not David, is listed as the slayer of Goliath of Gath. While the comparison from a literary standpoint might work, you risk comparing Nephi's actions to non-existent actions of David. Since the existence of Nephi and Laban is already dubious from a critical perspective, the comparison might not be felicitous.

Hello! That is all it has to be for it to work: an allusion. The rest of this paragraph has no bearing on the issue at all.

I am well aware of this is an allusion, hence the original phrase I inserted which you have so helpfully underlined.

In any case, my main point is that Don seems to want to interact with the Old Testament to either 1) Fill in the blanks in 116 page temple worship and/or 2) compare Nephite temple practices to First Temple Israelite temple practices. I think this is highly dangerous for a non-specialist to do. Unless Don has the requisite training to do this, it's best to stick to 19th century sources. Which is why in my post I also said:

Having said that, I'm actually a little shocked at the approach Don took here. Specifically, Don is wading into some really deep waters concerning the nature of First Temple worship and First Temple priesthood. He also appears to be doing this without a knowledge of the issues involved or the dangers he is stepping into. My general recommendation would be to simply avoid any and all references to First Temple Israelite religion. This is a subject for specialists and unless I am mistaken, Don is not a specialist in this area. The only reasonable course of action is to restrict any and all research and conclusions to 19th century sources, anything else is dangerous at best, wildly wrong at worst.

Look, I'm not the audience for Don's work, I know that. In all honesty, trying to recover the lost and never published portions of a book from second hand rememberances is quixotic at best. But, have at it, there may be some historical validity to the approach. My advice is to restrict it to that, don't try and tie it into ancient Israel. Even for a specialist, delving into that area is about was safe as juggling lit dynamite while walking into a hornet's nest. Had he restricted his observations to 19th century sources, I wouldn't have said anything.

[_CaliforniaKid]

My advice is to restrict it to that, don't try and tie it into ancient Israel. Even for a specialist, delving into that area is about was safe as juggling lit dynamite while walking into a hornet's nest. Had he restricted his observations to 19th century sources, I wouldn't have said anything.

The Bible is a 19th century source.

[Guest]

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[_CaliforniaKid]

Maybe Don is meaning that many of the ideas were in place, but the details weren't worked out, if that is what he was saying then I agree with him.

That's exactly what he's saying.

I don't however think that Joseph Smith was showing any knowledge of near eastern culture whether through perceptive reading of the Bible, other sources or revelation.

Joseph Smith was an extremely close, careful, and perceptive reader of the Bible. This is actually fairly uncontroversial. Take a look at the work by Phil Barlow, Heikki Raisannen, David Wright, Wesley Walters, Anthony Hutchinson, and many others. These scholars have shown that Joseph Smith's work was absolutely laced with biblical quotations, allusions, innovative interpretations, and careful revisions. I've done a lot of my own work on the subject, and I am completely convinced that Joseph not only was deeply steeped in the Bible, but also saw things in it by age 19 that some people work and train their whole lives to be able to see.

[Guest]

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[_Kishkumen]

In any case, my main point is that Don seems to want to interact with the Old Testament to either 1) Fill in the blanks in 116 page temple worship and/or 2) compare Nephite temple practices to First Temple Israelite temple practices. I think this is highly dangerous for a non-specialist to do. Unless Don has the requisite training to do this, it's best to stick to 19th century sources. Which is why in my post I also said:

I think you fundamentally misunderstand what Don is doing.

Look, I'm not the audience for Don's work, I know that. In all honesty, trying to recover the lost and never published portions of a book from second hand rememberances is quixotic at best. But, have at it, there may be some historical validity to the approach. My advice is to restrict it to that, don't try and tie it into ancient Israel. Even for a specialist, delving into that area is about was safe as juggling lit dynamite while walking into a hornet's nest. Had he restricted his observations to 19th century sources, I wouldn't have said anything.

Well, it is not my understanding that Don is doing anything other than speaking within an LDS context and according to LDS understanding, but using sound historical and textual scholarship to illuminate Joseph Smith. If he were trying to make scholarly arguments about First Temple Israelite religion or anything of the sort, I could follow your objections. He is not. He is beginning with the LDS understanding of these things, and he is seeing how Joseph Smith's early narratives illuminate an LDS view of them. You don't have to buy the LDS perspective on Old Testament Judaism to see how that is valuable in coming to terms with the development of Smith's theology. From one perspective, you might say that it is an investigation that operates entirely within LDS discourse, but in a way that makes valid and even revolutionary observations about the history of Mormonism.

[_Kishkumen]

That he had an actual knowledge of near eastern culture? I disagree although he may have known a lot from studying the Bible or from Freemasonry or from sources in his time period I don't think he had any actual knowledge of near eastern culture. Could some of his interpretations match some of near eastern culture? No doubt they could, but that isn't because he had knowledge of the culture itself.

Are you arguing with Don Bradley or Hugh Nibley?

I am not kidding.

[Guest]

What I am skeptical about is Joseph having all the details worked out from the beginning or in other words that "Nauvoo Mormonism ... is original and literal Mormonism". Maybe Don is meaning that many of the ideas were in place, but the details weren't worked out, if that is what he was saying then I agree with him. I don't agree that it was identical and all worked out from that early stage which is what I took from that quote. So we seem to have understood what he wrote differently, but agree in essence.

I think what you are objecting to is likely Don pushing things rhetorically in ways that I think harm his case in the eyes of the unsympathetic. What I think he would say in different circumstances is that the former, neat division between the Protestant Mormonism, Kirtland Mormormonism, and Nauvoo Mormonism in LDS historiography is obviously incorrect. I doubt he literally believes that the Nauvoo endowment was entirely scripted in 1827, just waiting for there for the right time to roll out.

Instead, in the 1820s there was already a notion of a ritualized encounter with Deity that matches fairly well what one sees in the later endowment, and that such an encounter was always conceived of as occurring in a temple context. There is no doubt in my mind that Joseph Smith planned on building temples from the beginning, so I think it is reasonable to speculate that he was considering a ritual for that temple that approximated in some way these prototypical prophetic encounters with God. Why else would he bother to write them? They are, after all, clearly foundation myths.

From reading Lapham's whole account I don't think it does point to the centrality of the temple before the Church was founded....

You lost me right there. If the real standout story in Lapham's mind involved the encounter of a prophet/king with God in the Nephite tabernacle, in which the two were conversing about the seer's divinatory instruments, I have no idea how you could possible dismiss this as strong evidence that the temple held a central place in Joseph Smith's theology before the founding of the church.

What do the Nephites build when they first arrive in the New World?

One could go on and on pointing to the various evidences in different sources that point to the prominence of the temple in Joseph's thinking before the foundation of the church. Heck, he talked about the temple of Nephi enough that his uncle ridiculed him over it.

I actually think the Book of Mormon is full of enactments by the various characters of the experiences of those around Joseph Smith as well as his own. It seems to through multiple stories of conversions and then the invitation to have your own at the end seem to be an attempt to get others to experience his religious experiences. So it wouldn't surprise me if he included his experiences in his rituals too.

Exactly.

Don't get me wrong from a scholarly perspective I can understand why it can be interesting to look at something like the Book of Mormon and compare it to other cultures, ancient and modern spiritual experiences etc I think it's an interesting and worthwhile exercise. However I think you could do the same with almost any work of literature and produce results that would match depending on the genre. I think there is also a tendency to read into the text things that aren't really there. The common motifs and experiences that people have and share are real and are shared across the world so I wouldn't deny that those engaged in writing the Old Testament when constructing it, may have had similar experiences to a writer hundreds of years later who was engaged in writing also. I don't however think that Joseph Smith was showing any knowledge of near eastern culture whether through perceptive reading of the Bible, other sources or revelation.

Your objections could be applied to almost any scholarly interpretation of literature. Go read Stanley Fish. What I don't get is how and why this is a problem for you. It seems to me that the hang up is on the question of whether Don is actually Hugh Nibley or not, not whether his presentation was interesting and enlightening in any way. Personally, I don't see what "actual knowledge of the ancient near east" has to do with anything. Maybe the FAIR people are concerned about that, but I don't know why. Was Joseph Smith living in ancient Mesopotamia or Israel? Why should I care whether he evinced insider knowledge of antiquity? The guy was living in the 19th century. I don't give a crap.

Maybe I have gone crazy, but I am confused as to why the issue of "actually seeing the ancient world" is such a big deal to people. In my view, it is a confusion of literary conventions and reality. Prophetic truth is often clothed in a spurious antiquity. It was in the Bible. It is in Smith. If the ignorant find that hill worth dying on, that's their tragedy. It is not my problem.

I don't think that Joseph Smith had a complex knowledge of the holy of holies Solomon's Temple and I don't think that the Ark of the covenant is mentioned or alluded to in the Book of Mormon or in the story about discovering the book...

What makes you say that he did not? And I am astounded that you don't see the parallels between the ark and the Nephite box. They are so obvious.

That the interpreters were the same as the Urim and Thummim? More problematic because they are never referred to as such in the Book of Mormon and weren't within early Mormonism until 1833 at the suggestion of Phelps. I think that the Liahona could be viewed as way that they gained food in a similar fashion to the israelites receiving manna so I can kind of see this one, but feel it is stretching it and but I think including the rod of Aaron within that is too much of a stretch. A rod of Aaron was prominent in early LDS thought with Oliver Cowdery, but it wasn't part of the Nephite artifacts.

What I think you are missing here is the intersection between the divining lore of these Christian seers and their interpretation of antiquity. What is important, in my view, is the placement of divinatory instruments in the Nephite ark, not the use of the term Urim and Thummim to refer to the Nephite interpreters. It may be that Don is not exactly right in the degree of precision and correspondence he sees in his parallels, but I would imagine that the brotherhood of Palmyra seers would most definitely place divination instruments in the Nephite ark in any case.