Can we EVER know the truth about history?

To the title question, we can be really certain about some things – especially when there is agreement in accounts written by people with different motives and perspectives, and even more so when contemporaries agree even though they are on opposite sides of the issue. Historical occurences are MUCH easier to analyze objectively (as difficult as even that is in some cases), but, as I know you understand, motivations and reasons for those actions and occurences are MUCH harder to pin down with certainty in many cases. Thus, the difficulty in writing an objective, totally accurate biography.

That’s true even with first-hand explanations, since people aren’t honest in some cases and, even when they are honest, they aren’t always accurate. That last point is easy to forget: Honest people can be wrong, especially if they write about something long after the fact – like much of our ancient scriptural records, for example (including the Book of Mormon, if we take it as authentic).

And do you think Bushman’s account of JS’s life is any better than anyone else’s?

Absolutely. There are multiple reasons, but the top three for me are:

1) He admits his bias upfront and openly.

2) He doesn’t shy away from the difficult issues, even if he doesn’t “answer” all of them. I actually think that’s a plus, since he understands he doesn’t have objective answers for much of it.

3) While writing my college thesis (dealing with the religious foundations of Manifest Destiny), I read lots of things about Mormonism written in the 1800’s – and quite a bit after that. I’ve read some REALLY, REALLY, REALLY bad accounts – on both sides of the scale. The worst are on the anti-Mormon side (and, seriously, it isn’t all that close in many cases), but there are some really bad ones on the supportive, believing side, as well. Bushman’s is exceptional, compared to most I’ve read.

I’m with you, Doug…it is probabilities and we become confident enough with some things that it is close enough to the truth to go with it and let it benefit our present perceptions of reality.

There are also some things about history that don’t matter, they are in the past.

My husband has mentioned many times the difficulties of history and not to make life decisions on them. Yet we study history to learn from it and to not make the same mistakes. When I finished writing my book, “Prayers for Johnathan,” I had my son, the young man I wrote my book with, and my husband read it first. They all agreed it was accurate and agreed to allow the publishing. So, that helps.

I was on the verge of buying Rough Stone Rolling today, and then caught myself. Honestly, how can we be reasonably certain about what actually happened in history in general? In court cases, we can’t even tell what really happened, and the history is relatively fresh. People lie all the time — and it can be very difficult to tell the truth. What principles do historians use in order to establish the most likely version of the events that people reported?..so, is it really worth turning to historical accounts and interpretations on matters where there is no objective evidence?

No, you can’t ever know for sure what really happened, much less what people were thinking even for many recent events. However, I don’t know if that’s really a good reason to just ignore the historical sources we have available especially when the Church expects us to have so much confidence in Joseph Smith and his work. That’s why I’m glad I read Rough Stone Rolling because Richard Bushman has tracked down and filtered out some of the documented background information we do have about Joseph Smith and the environment he lived in. Personally, I would rather make my best guess and go ahead and try to interpret some of the evidence we do have rather than just say there’s no way to know what it really means so there’s no point in even trying to understand it. If some stories don’t sound very credible or plausible due to obvious problems or contradictions maybe it doesn’t prove anything but in that case I still think it would be fairly safe to assume they probably didn’t happen that way.

It was soooo much easier when I was younger and the stories were simple and I just believed them all. Those were the good ol’ days.

Now we put away childish things, and totally make it all confusing thinking like adults, don’t we? :problem:

Yep. As one of my friends in our quorum said the other day, he thinks I’m constantly thinking about whether angels have belly buttons — implying many of the questions I’m considering have no eternal significance. Of course, I disagree, violently, but quietly, so as not to cause a ruckus.

Most people find stability in having all the answers.

A few special people find adventure in asking all the questions.

As a professional historian I definitely have a view on this matter. There is no such thing as objective history. Historians tried for years to find such a thing but anyone who does history (or even just reads it) should know that “truth” in history is fleeting. Like some others have said here we can know facts but facts themselves even can be interpreted in different ways. But certainly we can get closer to the truth by analyzing differing accounts and comparing and contrasting them. Some things we can write away as myth when we do this. What is troubling, in the case of the church (imo), is that it tends to hold to a “truth-based” history of a certain genre. So, as an example, The Ensign portrayals of JS dictating the BofM to OC, with JS on one side of the “veil” and OC on the other. This has been disputed sufficiently at this point to declare that a myth, although the church still promotes it. We know that JS dictated some of the book by putting his head in a hat and using a peep stone, upon which the words of the translation supposedly appeared. There are simply too many testimonies to this reality to ignore them. Yet, the church still pushes that version for its own purposes. (To be fair, in this particular instance, the head-in-the-hat version only dealt with the 116 lost pages but it isn’t clear that JS even needed the gold plates in his presence to complete the translation.)

The problem for me is that the evidence such as it exists “proves” so much falsity with the official version of the church’s history that it becomes problematic to believe anything it says. There are certainly people who can accept this and still believe, others that simply refuse to accept the conflicting evidence, and those of us who feel sort of betrayed when we realize the story has so many holes.

But the larger point here is that it all comes down to faith. History will not prove or disprove anything, save certain kinds of basic facts, i.e., yes the United States exists, etc. etc. As a historian I do put a lot of faith in history, by which I mean, I won’t accept things without some basis in the sources. What historians are required to do, if they are worth their salt, is make logical, plausible arguments based on their reading of the sources. Then the rest of us just have to decide what we believe.

In the case of JS he certainly chose to write a history that painted a certain picture, a picture that has been called into question by other sources that have come to light. Did he have that First Vision? Who knows. It’s foundational to Mormon faith at this point but it can certainly be called into question. But what of it? If you believe he did, then act accordingly. If not, then act accordingly.

I do wish it was easier to figure out.