If prophets aren’t reliable…

Here’s a question I’ve been grappling with lately.
Sometimes, LDS leaders say…uncomfortable things.
Like Brigham Young’s declarations that God the Father had sexual intercourse with Mary to conceive Christ.
Or how about the Overcoming Masturbation talk by Mark E. Peterson?*
What about Joseph Fielding Smith’s Curse of Cain remarks? Spencer W. Kimball forbidding oral sex in marriage? Joseph Smith performing secret polyandrous marriages? Rumors of Quakers living on the moon? Translations of Egyptian papyri that turn out to be not s’much?
When you become aware of seemingly problematic statements and actions by prophets, seers, and revelators, the only way I have found to retain faith as an active Latter-day Saint is by adopting this view:
Prophets, seers, and revelators can screw up just as bad as the rest of us.
Which is precisely why I adopted it…for several years. It’s just the way things work, I reasoned. People are people; who can expect them to get everything right?
And it satisfied me for a while.
But lately it’s been bugging me.
Because when you take this approach, what you’re really saying is that God’s mouthpieces aren’t always reliable. That even if they get it right 95% of the time, there’s always the possibility that at any given moment, they aren’t speaking God’s Truth.
As a result, you find yourself questioning everything they say.
Then you begin to apply this rationale to ancient scripture as well as modern revelation. Maybe Nephi was full of it. Perhaps Paul was mistaken on a point or two. Who says Moses had everything figured out?
And you know? I might be okay with that. The idea that God is too vast, too complex for any mere mortal to understand, and so what we end up with are precious slivers of real truth mixed in with faulty reason, limited language, cultural prejudice, and misinformation. That, in the end, it’s up to each of us sort out “what is real” within ourselves and with God.
For the past 3 years, I’ve been a heartbeat away from accepting this as The Way Things Are and putting these questions to rest once and for all.
Then I realized:
In order to fully embrace this view, I have to be willing to believe in a God who isn’t powerful enough to reveal Himself reliably.
I’m not sure I’m willing to do that.
You see, if Mormonism is true, then prophets aren’t always reliable. And if prophets aren’t reliable, then scripture isn’t always reliable. And if scripture isn’t always reliable, then there is no completely reliable information about God to be found.
Does God really work that way? REALLY?

Comments

If prophets aren’t reliable… — 236 Comments

  1. Seth, the old apologetic for the Kinderhook plates was, in a word, ridiculous. William Clayton wrote that JS translated a portion of the plates and they contained a record of a descendant of Ham from Egypt or some such nonsense.
    The apologetic response was to note how much confusion there was about the details surrounding the discovery of the plates and conclude that there was just too much uncertainty about the entire affair including Clayton’s statement in the History of the Church.
    There was obviously confusion about the discovery of the plates – they were a hoax! The perpetrators probably couldn’t keep their stories straight about where and how they found them, which explains why so many different wild and fanatastic details were reported.
    However, there is nothing to call into question William Clayton’s account that Joseph Smith translated a portion of the plates to determine where they came from. Clayton was a reliable record keeper and there are no other stories that contradict Clayton’s account.
    Don’s paper will probably spawn a newer apologetic positing that JS simply tried to conduct a flawed conventional translation of the Kinderhook plates. It’s definitely a step up from the current apologetic response, but that’s not saying much.
  2. The typical explanation for the Kinderhook Plates is that Joseph initially talked about trying to translate them, but never did actually make the attempt.
    The problem with this is that it isn’t an explanation, because it explains none of the evidence to the contrary. Instead, it is a bald assertion designed to detract attention away from the evidence.
    The best argument for the apologists rests in the fact that we don’t have the original translation manuscripts for the plates. But this really isn’t a strong argument, unless they want to go ahead and argue that Joseph Smith didn’t really translate the second half of the Book of Abraham, since we don’t have the original translation manuscripts for that either.
    In any event, Joseph Smith’s private secretary and trusted friend, William Clayton, explained in his journal that a translation did in fact take place:
    “Prest J. [President Joseph] has translated a portion and says they contain the history of the person with whom they were found and he was a descendant of Ham through the loins of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth” [W. Clayton, journal, 1 May 1843,]
    So when apologists come up with this baseless back-handed dismissal, asserting that Joseph Smith never really tried to translate them, but only talked about it (therefore he cannot be held accountble for not knowing they were a hoax), they have to at least “explain” how Joseph Smith’s most trusted confidant claimed that he did.
    Of course he did.
    Joseph Smith never passed up an opportunity to exercise his imagination by claiming to translate documents. When he was first shown the Egyptian papyri, for example, he instantly began pointing out to his immediate audience how the papyri were written by Abraham. As you could imagine, this got everyone in the church excited, because they knew they were in for some new scriptures, and Joseph Smith welcomed the opportunity to use ancient documents as a catalyst for establishing his newer doctrinal ideas (i.e preexistence, plurality of gods, etc). But now we know from both instances that Joseph Smth could not translate ancient documents. So the product, however imaginative and entertaining they might be, are essentially bogus. Not grounded in reality.They are no more “from God” than Lord of the Rings.
    Whoever created the Kinderhook plates duped Joseph Smith into thinking they were real. Joseph Smith then in turn, began to dupe his friends into thinking he could translate them. It amazes me how a true prophet of God could be duped like that. Where is the power of discernment? What happened to it when Mark Hoffman duped the first presidency with forged documents?
    The logical conclusion is that they never had it. If God exists, he wouldn’t let his people be led astray like that by opportunistic men pretending to be his spokespersons.
  3. You know, I’ve read too much history to really make any decisions about a matter one way or the other on a single historical source.
    I just got done reading “A Bridge Too Far” by Cornelius Ryan. Great World War II history book about a failed Allied military operation.
    After reading it through, I took a look at the footnotes and was quite overwhelmed. The amount of research Ryan spent in the military archives, the multiple eyewitness accounts, the records he dug up from all the militaries involved, the news stories…
    It was an incredible piece of work. Ryan had to sift through often conflicting accounts to piece together an overview of what happened. Ryan often went to dozens of sources for an account of the exact same even or engagement.
    And yet, he admits repeatedly throughout the footnotes that he still cannot say for sure what really happened. General’s memoirs say one thing. Their secretaries’ notes say another. Other colleagues say another thing. The facts on the ground point in a completely different direction. Eyewitness accounts contradict. Recollections fail. No one remembers what really was said with accuracy – even mere days after the event in question.
    And this was just 1944, and in the midst of a monumental pile of record-keeping.
    This is just the reality of historical inquiry. The moment the past occurs, it fades in clarity and we can no longer be sure we really understand it. I don’t even remember clearly what the judge at my court hearing this morning said. Even with my notes, it’s already fading. A week from now, I may remember very little. I might even mentally invent stuff he said to fill in the gaps and not even know it.
    Historical inquiry is always seeing things through a glass darkly.
    It is no place for fools who think they’ve discovered any basis for “certainty.”
    This is a problem with both defenders and critics of Mormonism alike – they both feel they have this (utterly imaginary) certainty and cling to it fiercely.
    But the truth is that both are talking out of their rear ends. Neither really knows what went down in the mid-1800s. But both like to talk like they do.
    But it’s all blind faith.
    You too Kevin. The only difference between you and some starry-eyed “TBM” is that you’ve replaced a naive belief in a religious narrative for a naive belief in the human discipline of history itself.
    But I’m sorry, “History” isn’t going to live up to your expectations any better than your God did. It’s certainly no more reliable.
  4. Another weak attempt to make everything about Mormon claims unfalsifiable, because as you would have it, nothing that happened before today can be known with certainty.
    To think otherwise makes you a “fool.”
    So why in the bejeezus did you even bother sharing the “typical apologetic explanation” for the Kinderhook fiasco, if you really think it was developed by a bunch of apologetic “fools”?
    Oooops! That wasn’t your intention was it? You should really get into the habit of thinking before speaking.
    If you don’t want to take sides and make an argument, then fine. But do us all a favor and stop pretending to be involved in the issues on any intellectual level. What you think passes as insightful contribution, strikes me as borderline idiotic (i.e. we can never know if Joseph Smith was a false prophet because any evidence would be historical, and we can’t know anything for certain from history!).
    You’re here to launch water balloons as a diversion, and that’s it. You don’t want to take an apologetic positon, nor defend one, because you don’t want to do the required reading to inform yourself on the matter.
    No, it isn’t enough for you to tell us about a long book with many footnotes and garbled accounts. That isn’t enough to dismiss the fact that Joseph Smith’s most trusted confidant, and personal secretary, wrote in his own journl that Joseph Smith not only translated the forged Kinderhook plates, but also gave us a translation from them. There is simply no fathomable reason in the world why he would just make that up. People make things up all the time, but not so they can put them in their private journal. In short, your argument is bogus. You provide no reasonable basis to dismiss Clayton.
    Of course most of the arguments from historical accounts rely on inductive reasoning; reasoning based on probability. There is nothing foolish about that unless you’re going against all historical accounts and inventing a scenario out of necessity. This is precisely what the apologists have done. For them, it is certain Joseph Smith didn’t translate them because if he had, their universe implodes. The Church can’t be true.
    You’re desperately trying to dismiss the idiocy of the apologetic position by illicitly equating it with the argument from historical data.
    I guess you’re going to tell us that we can’t know for certain that we landed on the moon, that Thomas Jefferson was in any way involved with the Declaration of Independence, that Joseph Smith ever existed, or that any Mormon scripture was ever translated to begin with. It is all lost in that “dark glass of history”, right? Only “fools” would claim to know for certain that any of it is true, right? What matters, in reality according to Seth, is that we feel inspired by something when it is written. Even fiction.
  7. “scholarship is a dynamic field, and changing views are what you’d expect.”
    Spoken like a true apologist!
    Well, sure, except for the plain fact that if scholarship were *not* a “dynamic field”, there would be no point in further scholarship, by definition.
    I don’t know why you’d expect scholarship to be this pristine thing. It’s made up of people, not platonic gods.
  9. Rob, I think you missed the point. My point wasn’t that scholarship isn’t or shouldn’t be dynamic. My point is that their ever changing apologetic has nothing to do with a supposed relation to scholarship. They are apologists first and foremost.
    Their inability to create an argument and stick to it, says everything about the weakness of their position. They’re trying to say it is because they are acting like real scholars. What unbridled nonsense. If this were simply a matter of scholarship, then the Church would allow non-LDS scholars to examine the documents in question. Instead, they keep them more secure than the original Book of Mormon.
    Why,if they are so sure they represent nothing of consequence? Why not hire disinterested non-LDS forensic document experts to have a go?
  10. Shortly after his FAIR presentation, Brian Hauglid began misrepresenting the critical position on the MADB discussion board. Referring to critics, he argued:
    They do not want us to discuss and/or won’t accept that it is an idiotic and illogical assumption that JS actually believed he was translating entire paragraphs from a single character.
    There is ample reason to believe this is precisely how Joseph Smith understood Egyptian. 17th century Jesuit scholar, Athanasius Kircher, was a leading authority on the subject of the Egyptian language, and his understanding prevailed up until the mid 19th century, before Champollion’s work on the Rosetta Stone became widely known.
    Kircher called hieroglyphics “this language hitherto unknown in Europe, in which there are as many pictures as letters, as many riddles as sounds, in short as many mazes to be escaped from as mountains to be climbed.” By way of example, the simple hieroglyphic texts now known to mean “Osiris says” were translated by Kircher as follows: “The treachery of Typhon ends at the throne of Isis; the moisture of nature is guarded by the vigilance of Anubis.”
    To make matters worse for Hauglid, we have the 1881 interview with David Whitmer who spoke on the translation of the Book of Mormon. According to Whitmer, “Frequently one character would make two lines of manuscript, while others made but a word or two words” (Chicago Times, 17 Oct. 1881; EMD 5:86).
    But hey, it is all “idiotic and illogical” because Hauglid says so, and he has a PhD…. Right?
  11. Andrew, my experience is that when a religious fundamentalist has his bubble burst, he usually transfers all of his same magical thinking to new deities like “Science” or “History.”
    What these people don’t get is that these new gods are no more capable of measuring up to their own messed-up thinking than the old ones. But the problem was never the gods.
  12. re 211:
    Seth, I am concerned that your argument is simply a nihilistic “slash-and-burn,” but the problem is that it recoils against your position too. What I find sad is that I get this impression that your argument here is a throwing up of your hands…a vote of no confidence all around…because that’s all you can do to Kevin in light of what he has presented (regardless of if what you say is true or not.) And for whatever value that kind of argument has, it just seems to me like accepting a loss. It’s anticlimactic.
    I don’t really know how to put it into words. This comment is inadequate. Still, I lament.
  13. Andrew, it’s only nihilistic if you think that the things I mentioned above are all there is.
    If you think that, then yes. My statement does annihilate all basis for truth.
    But my statement is not a call to mistrust everything and believe in nothing.
    It is a call for humility. It is a call for transcending yourself. Only when you get beyond yourself and your own insecurities, and the needs those insecurities breed, can you really find God.
    And he is there.
  14. Except your statement doesn’t provide a defense for that at all. It provides for destruction, but never creation. It provides for decay, but never synthesis.
    So, you want to synthesize God, but all you have “justified” is ruination. Because your problem is that you cannot justify God.
    I mean, maybe you just don’t see how it looks, but your statement comes off as a call to mistrust everything, and therefore believe in God. It does not follow. it just makes everything topsy turvy and indefensible (even your conclusion)
  15. How do I put this? My last comment (and this one too, probably) was inadequate and incomprehensible.
    You say you’re calling people to transcend themselves. But you’ve annihilated everything outside of the self. You’ve annihilated the objective (the hope for fundamentalist religion was annihilated, whether in the secular sense [history, etc.,] or the religious sense.) In the end, all that is left is YOU. You are left with YOUR belief in God and YOUR motivations and YOUR biases, but this EXACTLY boils down to your insecurities! And it cannot be justified outside of YOURself.
    God isn’t found there. Only you are.
    To begin to claim otherwise, you would have to appeal to the outside authorities that you have denounced, slashed and burned.
  18. Kevin, I’m aware that LDS apologist operate from a certain set of premises, and that they use a distinct epistemology.
    And, I’m aware that most scholars choose different premises and reject the LDS epistemology.
    None of that troubles me. What I’m seeing here, with you perhaps as an example of what many, many scholars do, is a mainstream rejection of the use of those knowledge tools as valid bases for scholarship.
    My definition of “scholarship” is wider than that of the apparent “secular scholarship” popular to teach at universities these days. Otherwise, St. Thomas Aquinas and Jack herself were and are both not scholars, which is, to me, a laughable position to take.
  20. None of that troubles me. What I’m seeing here, with you perhaps as an example of what many, many scholars do, is a mainstream rejection of the use of those knowledge tools as valid bases for scholarship.
    Rob, I provided an example of what I am referring to. I am backing up my claim that the “scholar” leading the charge in BoA apologetics, is in no way relying on any scholarship or a scholarly method. The guy is an expert in Arabic and Islamic studies of all things.
    What we need is forensic document experts to determine whether or not the KEP were in fact dictated translation maunscripts (as they claim to be).
    Now Brian Hauglid, called it “idiotic and illogical” to assume Joseph Smith believed he could produce several lines of translated text from a simple character. This, coming from a BYU professor with all the fancy degrees. What I showed is that he is arguing from ignorance. He wasn’t even familiar with the eye-witness testimony about his translation process, nor was he familiar with Egyptological understanding in the early 19th century. He is a prized scholar with University resources at his disposal, and I’m a know-nothing blowhard who only knows how to use Google. Who would have imagined he’d lose on any points, let alone a whammer like this one.
    In another example, we were told by Juliann Reynolds, co-founder of FAIR and owner of the MADB message board, that we have to rely on true scholarship by true scholars. She was happy to pont out that the leading critic, Brent Metcalf, was not a scholar in any particular field of study. She reminded us that even though Brent had color photos of the pertinent documents, that only John Gee was a real scholar and he had the expertise to analyze them to determine their significance. Of course, Gee’s expertise in Egyptology was questioned by his professor who refused to grant him a doctorate, but this is really beside the point that Egyptology has nothing to do with properly analyzing the Kirtland Egyptian Papers.
    Anyway, many years ago I purchased a copy of John Gee’s recently published “A Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri.” As an apologist, I considered it a treasure to have since it included full blown up photos of teh papyri. However the real apologetic value would have to be found on the section addressing the Kirtland Egyptian Papers.
    The KEP provide us with translation manuscripts of the Book of Abraham in teh handwriting of Joseph Smith’s scribes, including all the cross outs and corrections that one would expect from an original draft. The natural conclusion here is that these were the original translation manuscripts. An even bigger problem for the apologists is that these manuscripts contained Egyptian characters lined up on the left margins – characters which are identical and in sequence, to those found on the Sensen text.
    So what does Gee do here? After trying to figure out a way to explain how these characters could be on these manuscripts, yet have nothing to do with the actual translated text to the right, he thinks that maybe if he can show that these characters were added AFTER the text had been written, then maybe he could support the crazy Nibley scenario that some mysterious twit came along and added them to the texts, erroneously thinking they actually had something to do with the BoA translation. He also argued that the ink used to write the characters was different from the ink used to write the translated text.
    So enter the John Gee argument. I scanned the page from his book and it can be found here:
    http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm165/dartagnanx/gee0002.jpg
    When I first read this I couldn’t help but notice there was something strange about the coloring. Each photo seems to have been changed with a different hue. I then thought that maybe this is actually what the manuscripts looked like. The problem was that Gee’s argument about different inks was based on evidence provided in these photos. From these photos it DOES seem like the characters to the left were in a much darker ink, perhaps a different color.
    More crucial to Gee’s argument, however, was his assertion that it the Egyptian characters sometimes “run over… the English text.” If this were true, then it would given support to the idea that the characters were added to the margin AFTER the translated text was penned. He is literally beginning with a conclusion and then trying to do mental cosmetic surgery to the problem so that it appears his conclusion was a natural deduction of the facts.
    Enter Brent Metcalfe, deceitful apostate, friend to Mark Hoffman, former security guard at the LDS archives (working undercover for the Tanners, as rumor had it), a man who was out to destroy the Church at all costs, and a man who couldn’t tell the truth if his wife’s life depended on it. At least that was the impression most LDS apologists liked to spread.
    Brent kindly pointed out that Gee’s apologetic on this point was entirely without merit. How would Metcalfe know? Well, Metcalfe had previously obtained color photos of the KEP from Steve Christensen, who was commissioned by the Church to photograph them before he was killed by Mark Hoffman. To support his counter-argument, Brent kindly shared some of the photos. I’ll present one just to prove the point:
    Notice that a full blown color image of the same section provided by Gee, reveals that the ink used for the Egyptian characters is the SAME exact ink used in the English text to the right. The reason some points are darker than others has everything to do with the double stroke using the quill. Notice the lower portion of the “s” shows that it is just as dark as the Egyptian to the left. So Gee’s argument relies heavily on the ignorance of his audience. He wasn’t counting on anyone out there actually having the means to disprove his presentation. Ultimately, the apologists want to blame Metcalfe and derail by accusing him of obtaining the photos illegally or whatever, but the fact is these photos prove Gee was being dishonest. He was manipulating the evidence to try saving the Book of Abraham. And the “run over” the English text argument is equally bankrupt. The characters do not “sometimes” run over the text. Gee was called to the carpet and decided to respond while hiding behind Dan Peterson. This was so embarrassing: http://www.lds-mormon.com/gee_abraham.shtml
    Now all I have seen since this time are attempt to explain how Gee could have made an honest mistake.
    I don’t think so.
    Remember, we were told he should be trusted because he had first hand access to the materials. I don’t see how anyone could look at these manuscripts and come away with the idea that these were two different inks, unless one had to design such an argument for apologetic purposes. It is also interesting that FARMS reviews have been pointing out errors by critics for years; errors that are not even close to being as egregious as the errors committed by John Gee. If anti-Mormon critics should be rejected because of errors far minor than these, then how much more so should we reject John Gee?
    Bottom line: We are dealing with scholars who are relying on apologetic methods, not apologists relying on scholarly methods. For them, the end justifies the means.
  22. Yeah, count me as lamenting that the rest of this discussion will take place via email! If it’s because you’re worried about “threadjack,” don’t be (and I can say that ‘cuz it’s totally my thread)!
    If it’s because there are personal details involved that shouldn’t be broadcast on the internet, I completely understand. :)
  23. Sorry guys, but I’m just not interested in trying to explore-out what I think about faith and belief (it’s still a work in progress) in front of Kevin.
    I trust Andrew to give an honest critique of my thoughts in a helpful manner. I also trust several other people here. But the present company simply isn’t conducive to trying to hash out what I really think about this. I don’t need the distraction.
    Sorry.
  24. Rob ~ My mental definition of scholar has always been “an expert in a particular field.” It generally takes more than a BA to be considered an expert in something. There are exceptions of course, but I feel like I’m not there yet on any one subject.
    I remember my friend Kevin Winters used to sign every post he made with the epithet “Budding scholar, Kevin Winters.” When I first saw it I think I took it as a cocky statement; “Oh my gosh this guy thinks he’s already a scholar!” Now I think he simply meant it as a hopeful statement of what he desired to be.
    So maybe that’s what I am. A budding scholar… who swears not infrequently.
    Seth ~ Totally understood, and no worries.
  27. My mental definition of scholar has always been “an expert in a particular field.”
    I am an expert saleswriter. Does this make me a scholar of selling crappy products to unsuspecting dupes? ;P
  28. Selling crap to unsuspecting dupes?
    Well, I guess that means you could be a Mormon scholar. ;)
  29. Katie, it makes you a scholar of sales techniques, if you wrote a paper for a business academic journal. (But if it’s melaleuca or that Nu Skin stuff, I don’t want any!)
    My definition of a scholar includes students, mostly because I find the attitudes of many tenured and employed scholars simply execrable.
    It boils down to “work at a university” more or less. You’re in a grad program; that’s scholarship. An upperclassman undergrad who publishes or submits projects for symposia, absolutely, also yes. I had undergrad roommates at BYU who were at that level, working mostly through the Honors program under an invention grant.
  30. NO, Rob, no MLM for this woman. MLM I s’pose is a fine distribution model…I just don’t have much patience for it personally.
    Clients hire me to write websites, sales letters, brochures, flyers, newspaper ads, etc. Mostly websites and sales letters though.
  32. #220 Kevin ~ Sorry, had to rescue that comment from my “Pending” queue.
    Enter Brent Metcalfe, deceitful apostate, friend to Mark Hoffman, former security guard at the LDS archives (working undercover for the Tanners, as rumor had it), a man who was out to destroy the Church at all costs, and a man who couldn’t tell the truth if his wife’s life depended on it. At least that was the impression most LDS apologists liked to spread.
    I can’t believe you left out the most important information about Brent: he has biceps as big as my head. I mean, they’re massive. I’m not exaggerating or making that up.
    (I’m sure that, wherever Brent is, he’s sick of me pointing that out…)
    Brent was definitely one of the more interesting folks I ever got to meet from the Internet. I hope I run into him again in the future.
  33. I expect scholars to be in error most of the time, Kevin. I neither accept nor reject John Gee, who, at least from the latest Sunstone Symposium transcript, plays down all this previous apologetic work, including the work which has got you bothered.
    Gossipy stuff about scholars’ differences just doesn’t animate me that much.
    The Church appears to be in the process of carefully photographing and publishing all things touched by Joseph Smith; perhaps this wider access will settle some scholarly questions, I dunno.
  34. I expect scholars to be in error most of the time, Kevin.
    I don’t expect them to be error free either, but I also don’t expect them to lie to me. John Gee lied, flat out. There is simply no way around this. He is not very scholarly, and I don’t know what symposium you’re referring to.
  36. That, and his claim that the Egyptian characters overran the translation text. He provided photos to support both claims but he was very selective in his examples, and knew he couldn’t sell the argument without tinkering with the hue of the photos.
    He’s also made some pretty outrageous claims with no evidence. For example, he declares with certitude that the entire BoA was translated in the summer of 1835. Evidence? None. He doesn’t even pretend to have any. But this belief is appealing to apologists because it would diffuse about four dozen obstacles the KEP present. So he throws it out there and we’re just supposed to believe it.
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