The Many-Transfigurations theory

[drumdude]

Philo, did you legally change your name??

Dan has no response to pointing out how ridiculously childish his apologetic arguments are. Two Hills Cumorah. Two Watson letters. Two, three, four transfigurations of Brigham Young. Whatever it takes to jam that square peg into a round hole.

The apologetic tactics seem to support this age old claim.

the Mitt Romney campaign had contacted the Maxwell Institute to complain that the extreme Mormon apologetics of Peterson were hurting the Romney presidential campaign.

No, no that can’t be true. It was a mole, a leak, an infiltrator that caused the institute to turn woke. They shoved Dan out because they wanted to turn Mormon apologetics into a progressive clown show.

[Physics Guy]

I've learned more from this thread than I had known before about how the LDS movement survived Smith's death and rallied behind Brigham Young. My guess would be that Smith never made real succession plans because he was expecting to live on for many more years as sole Prophet. He might have recognised some risk that that wouldn't happen, but he probably wasn't willing to do all the work that it would have taken to arrange for a reliable succession when it was by definition not going to benefit him since he would be dead. He probably recognised that merely making a prophetic announcement wouldn't be enough to guarantee that a strong successor would lead the church on successfully.

Others here will know better than I how reliable this account is, but it's at least a meme that Alexander the Great was asked, on his deathbed, to which of his lieutenants he would bequeath his empire. He supposedly answered, "To the strongest." And I understand that Muhammed is somewhat similarly supposed to have said to his followers nothing more specific than, "Rulers will follow me, render them your obedience." It's probably wise for successful innovators to recognise that they can't actually tell who should best inherit their mantles, if anyone can, and that leaving an open succession might actually offer the best chance that the organisation will survive and continue. It's an important if not defining feature of a robust organisation that it always has a clear leadership succession plan, but it's hard for a new organisation to reach that stage of robustness within the career of the founder, and if you're not actually there yet, then you're probably better off accepting that fact rather than pretending to have a deeper bench than you do and picking a winner too early.

It sure sounds to me as though Young did convince a lot of people, to their great relief, that a capable successor to Smith was in place and that he was the one. That's probably all the miracle that the Mormon movement needed. Emotional accounts of this acclamation of Young as Smith's successor, by people who were there, probably got garbled by hearers into claims that Young literally changed in appearance to resemble Smith. Insisting that stories like that should be taken at face value doesn't just stretch the credulity of non-Mormons. As Kishkumen says, it's not even really important. You can just say that everyone accepted Young. Why do you need anything more?

Insisting that the literal transfiguration of Young is important is dying on a hill when there was no need to die.

[Doctor Steuss]

I've learned more from this thread than I had known before about how the LDS movement survived Smith's death and rallied behind Brigham Young. My guess would be that Smith never made real succession plans because he was expecting to live on for many more years as sole Prophet. He might have recognised some risk that that wouldn't happen, but he probably wasn't willing to do all the work that it would have taken to arrange for a reliable succession when it was by definition not going to benefit him since he would be dead. He probably recognised that merely making a prophetic announcement wouldn't be enough to guarantee that a strong successor would lead the church on successfully.
[...]

In my opinion, there were hints at Joseph Smith planning on the succession being dynastic. Towards the end, he had stated that he intended to abandon being a prophet (and pass that title/roll to Hyrum, if I'm remembering correctly), and take the roll of king. His father's position as the patriarch also seemed to be a position on par with (or greater) than that of "president" of the Church.

[Morley]

And I understand that Muhammed is somewhat similarly supposed to have said to his followers nothing more specific than, "Rulers will follow me, render them your obedience."

As you pressed 'submit' to post this, 160 million Shi'ites felt an involuntary shutter.

Edit to add: I don't think even Sunnis believe this. Sounds like something from a Western source, to me.

[drumdude]

I've learned more from this thread than I had known before about how the LDS movement survived Smith's death and rallied behind Brigham Young. My guess would be that Smith never made real succession plans because he was expecting to live on for many more years as sole Prophet. He might have recognised some risk that that wouldn't happen, but he probably wasn't willing to do all the work that it would have taken to arrange for a reliable succession when it was by definition not going to benefit him since he would be dead. He probably recognised that merely making a prophetic announcement wouldn't be enough to guarantee that a strong successor would lead the church on successfully.
[...]

In my opinion, there were hints at Joseph Smith planning on the succession being dynastic. Towards the end, he had stated that he intended to abandon being a prophet (and pass that title/roll to Hyrum, if I'm remembering correctly), and take the roll of king. His father's position as the patriarch also seemed to be a position on par with (or greater) than that of "president" of the Church.

He was definitely thinking along these lines in 1841:

my servant Hyrum may take the office of priesthood and patriarch, which was appointed unto him by his father by blessing and also by right, that from henceforth he shall hold the keys of the patriarchal blessings upon the heads of all my people, that who ever he blesses shall be blessed, and who ever he curseth shall be cursed, that whatsoever he shall bind on the earth shall be bound in heaven, and, that whatsoever he shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven,and from this time forth I appoint unto him, that he may be a prophet and a seer and a revelator unto my church as well as my servant Joseph, that he may act in concert also, with my servant Joseph, and that he shall receive council counsel from my servant Joseph, who shall shew unto him the keys whereby he may ask and receive, and be crowned with the same blessings. I crown upon his head, the bishoprick and blessing and glory, and honor and priesthood and gifts of the priesthood, that once was were put upon him that was my servant Oliver Cowdery;that my servant Hyrum may bear record of the things which I shall shew unto him, that his name may be had in honorable remembrance from generation to generation for ever and ever.

[Tom]

The Proprietor writes:

The best discussion of the topic currently available is Lynne Watkins Jorgensen’s “The Mantle of the Prophet Joseph Passes to Brother Brigham: One Hundred Twenty-nine Testimonies of a Collective Spiritual Witness,” in the 2017 revised second edition of John W. Welch, ed., “Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820-1844.” It is also available as a stand-alone Kindle publication (https://www.amazon.com/Mantle-Prophet-J ... B01N3A8CVQ).

The Proprietor fails to note that that Jorgensen's expanded piece is available online for free. See "The Mantle of the Prophet Joseph Passes to Brother Brigham: One Hundred Twenty-nine Testimonies of a Collective Spiritual Witness"

Footnote 46 of Jorgensen's article states:

A few Nauvoo Saints who kept daily records, personal or official, made entries on August 8, recording the results or proceedings of the meeting without mentioning a mantle experience at that time (see document 33). Wilford Woodruff, concerned with keeping an official record, made careful notes on the comments made by the speakers during the conference but makes no mention of a specific spiritual manifestation at the meeting. See Wilford Woodruff, Wilford Woodruff ’s Journal, 1833–1898, Typescript, ed. Scott G. Kenney, 9 vols. (Midvale, Utah: Signature Books, 1983–84), 2:434–40. In their personal journals, William Clayton and Heber C. Kimball both briefly mention only the results of the vote taken at the meeting. See George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1991), 142; and Heber C. Kimball, Journal, Church History Library.

Willard Richards’s journal has a two-and-one-half page entry for August 7, a very brief entry for August 8 followed by a blank page, then another long entry for August 9. See Willard Richards, Journal (volume 10), 1844 March–August, Willard Richards Journals and Papers, 1821–54, Church History Library, https://dcms.LDS.org/delivery/DeliveryM ... d=IE581801, images 80–87. The entry marked August 8 is made up of a few short lines that simply state that Rigdon spoke in the morning and that the Twelve were voted by the Church to stand as the First Presidency. Then Richards writes, “See Times and Seasons.” The first reference to the August 8 meeting in the Times and Seasons is in the issue dated September 2, 1844 (see note 44), indicating that Richards probably made the entry after August 8. Richards, Journal, image 83.

Thomas Bullock’s personal journal has no entries for August 8, 1844. However, he did attend the meeting and kept minutes. His notes for the afternoon meeting make no mention of a mantle experience. His minutes of the morning meeting, taken in his particular shorthand, are notes taken during Sidney’s and Brigham’s speeches, with no additional comments of any kind. Thomas Bullock, Minutes, Thomas Bullock Collection, Church History Library. See the appendix to this article (pp. 505–7), Bullock’s minutes of Brigham Young’s comments in the morning meeting; and Carruth and Jensen, “Sidney Rigdon’s Plea to the Saints,” 133–39.

Jorgensen offers up a number of reasons why "none of the accounts that record the miracle [were] written on the day of the manifestation or shortly thereafter." Readers will need to decide whether any of them are convincing.

In footnote 6 of her article, Jorgensen writes:

[Leonard] Arrington acknowledged that it is possible to attribute the mantle experience to "the downcast spirits of the Saints, who had mourned Joseph’s passing for forty days; their yearning to be comforted by their lost leader; their disappointment with Rigdon, whose ambition had diluted his sincerity; their surprise at the presence of ‘Brother Brigham,’ who was thought by many to be still on his way back from Boston, and Brigham’s talent for mimicry."

The expanded collection of testimonies is available online here: "Documents of Testimonies of the Mantle Experience"

Many of the firsthand accounts in the collection linked above were written or recorded many years after 1844 (some more than 50 years later), and several of the accounts are from individuals who were young children in August 1844 and whose memories I do not trust given their age at the time. (Incidentally, I am aware of several additional testimonies that are not found in Jorgensen's collection.) It will be interesting to see whether Six Days in August will include a scene depicting a blind man jumping up during Brigham Young's speech to proclaim, "Joseph is not dead; he's speaking to us!" or the like.

Also, see "Appendix: Minutes of Brigham Young’s Remarks at the Morning Meeting, August 8, 1844" and "Sidney Rigdon's Plea to the Saints: Transcription of Thomas Bullock's Shorthand Notes from the August 8, 1844, Morning Meeting"

Finally, here are links to two critical examinations published in the 1990s:

Richard S. Van Wagoner, "The Making of a Mormon Myth: The 1844 Transfiguration of Brigham Young," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 28 (Winter 1995): 1-24.

Reid L. Harper, “The Mantle of Joseph: Creation of a Mormon Miracle,” Journal of Mormon History 22 (Fall 1996): 35–71.

[Doctor Steuss]

[...]
Jorgensen offers up a number of reasons why "none of the accounts that record the miracle [were] written on the day of the manifestation or shortly thereafter." Readers will need to decide whether any of them are convincing.
[...]

As always, Tom, you remind me why I rush to read any time I've seen your name associated with a thread.

Hopefully there aren't any readers that find the theories "airy but factually-ungrounded theoretical explanations." That would be most unfortunate.

[Physics Guy]

I understand that Muhammed is … supposed to have said to his followers nothing more specific than, "Rulers will follow me, render them your obedience."

As you pressed 'submit' to post this, 160 million Shi'ites felt an involuntary shutter.

Edit to add: I don't think even Sunnis believe this. Sounds like something from a Western source, to me.

I had only remembered that supposed quote from a short book by a Western scholar, so when you posted this I thought that you might well be right, and googled a bit. The Hadith seems, though, to be a widely accepted one that has often been cited in Muslim discussions of the caliphal succession. I’m no Islamic scholar but you can track down the quote in English articles (including one Master's thesis by a Muslim pious enough to thank God in the acknowledgements paragraph) and find it footnoted to old Hadith collections.

Presenting that short line as Muhammad’s sole word on the subject of his succession, however, does seem to be an oversimplification. Those old Hadith collections list tens of thousands of sayings, and that one is just one. The Prophet is said, by different sources, to have said different things besides that. And it’s not really even clear that the point of that one Hadith was supposed to be a refusal to specify a successor, though I think Sunni apologists have indeed tried to argue that it implies such a refusal, because the reasons that the Prophet goes on to give for obeying later rulers do not include any idea of legitimacy.

The Shia does nonetheless indeed insist that Muhammad did designate a specific successor. Sunni Islam believes instead that he left it up to the faithful to choose a new leader. I think it’s a fair conclusion that, whatever Muhammad wanted or thought that God wanted, he didn’t do what it would have taken to make the succession smooth and clear.

There do seem to be parallels with the Mormon succession situation. The Islamic analog, however, happened longer ago—and was a bigger deal for history. No stories about either Abu Bakr or Ali being transfigured to look like Muhammad have ever been part of the world's big religious succession controversy, as far as I know.

[Morley]

Oh, I know that quote is in the Hadith. It's the idea that Muhammed used those words when he was shrugging his shoulders about picking a successor that's screwy. There are a lot of theories about who Muhammed thought should succeed him, but I don't believe the majority of them (whether Twelver or Sunni) have him being indifferent to the task. And, of course, every Shia knows he handpicked Ali.

[Marcus]

[...]
Jorgensen offers up a number of reasons why "none of the accounts that record the miracle [were] written on the day of the manifestation or shortly thereafter." Readers will need to decide whether any of them are convincing.
[...]

As always, Tom, you remind me why I rush to read any time I've seen your name associated with a thread.

Hopefully there aren't any readers that find the theories "airy but factually-ungrounded theoretical explanations." That would be most unfortunate.