Can we discuss D&C 8-9? Revelation?

[Anonymous]

The revelation process is pretty interesting. D&C 8 and 9 are often used to help teach us how we should actively be involved in asking and receiving revelation.

I often wonder what it would have been like to be Oliver, or Martin Harris, or Emma or others that worked with Joseph early on in the process of bringing scripture forth in this dispensation.

I’d like to discuss more what we learn from D&C 8 & 9, as well as parts of section 6.

Quote:

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

This is puzzling to me. :crazy: Can anyone help me out with some thoughts on how this story makes sense of how God works with us and how we can rely on revelation? In some cases, it looks like it only works for Joseph Smith, and really, since Joseph, no one else has really been able to do it.

I’m probably most worried about the teaching that God knows all the sins each of us will commit in the future, before we’ve committed them, but he’ll promise us a bunch of things he knows we’ll not be worthy of??? Yikes! I don’t like that teaching! What if He is not answering my prayers now because He knows what I’m about to do?? Ah! What am I about to do?? 😯

Thoughts? Insights?

It all makes sense when you just accept it was all made up on the fly.For me trying to continue to unravel scripture is an exercise in futility. Just seems to make more sense to accept it as the meandering mind of an individual.

[Anonymous]

I don’t have time right now, but I’ll try to pull out my parser’s pen and tackle this at some point in my easy life right now.

Excellent questions, btw – and I’ll only say that the “why” answers are interesting guesses / interpretations and probably nothing more. In cases like this, I like to stick to the words of the actual statements and nothing more.

[Anonymous]

Cadence wrote:

Heber13 wrote:

Thoughts? Insights?

It all makes sense when you just accept it was all made up on the fly.For me trying to continue to unravel scripture is an exercise in futility.

x2. Sometimes things don’t make sense because they just don’t make sense.

[Anonymous]

The Mormon Expression podcast D&C 8-9 For Dummies...was VERY VERY good – and fair in my opinion.

I highly recommend it.

[Anonymous]

cwald wrote:

The Mormon Expression podcast D&C 8-9 For Dummies...was VERY VERY good – and fair in my opinion.

I highly recommend it.

i dont do podcasts, so i dont know what is said.  i hope i am not repeating what was said there.

reacting to cadence and doug, maybe it’s made up, but in my opinion, these chapters  are probably the most important in understanding revelatory epistemology.  i dont believe that the subject of this revelation is “translation”, in my opinion, translation didnt happen in any real sense of the word.  nor is the idea that god might have been entrapping oliver cowdery.  no, i believe that joseph smith, a visionary who believed that he was inspired (as do i) explained how “inspiration” is in fact the process of revelation.

Joseph Smith, in D&C 8, wrote:

2 Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.

3 Now, behold, this is the spirit of revelation; behold, this is the spirit by which Moses brought the children of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground.

this is a remarkable statement, and to me, makes all scripture make sense to me.  the most direct revelation in scripture is that of moses: the torah — and later JS says that moses saw god face to face.  yet, here, JS says that there is no literal face-to-face and the torah was not “dictated”.  all the supernatural visions and direct face to face literalism become symbolic.  JS is clearly saying that revelation operates through natural processes: thinking (“mind”) and feeling (“heart”).  JS would speak later of this mind and heart as being “spiritual eyes”.

and this same idea of how revelation works is consistent with william james observations of LDS and other spiritual/ religious experience.  as modern cognitive scientists have investigated the nature of inspiration, this process of coming to know something without apparently directly learning is endemic to the nature of the human mind.  our subconscious mind is constantly solving problems for us, and at some point the idea is presented to our conscious mind without our apparent knowing how it got there– we just know.  Robert Burton says that whether that is the manifestation of a higher power or not is a question of faith–and regardless of whether or not it comes from god, the last circuit connection comes through our subconscious/conscious mind interaction.

Joseph Smith, in D&C 9, wrote:

7 Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.

8 But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.

9 But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore, you cannot write that which is sacred save it be given you from me.

i am less comfortable with whether this proposal/confirmation approach works reliably.  cognitive science would agree that studying it out in the mind is part of the process of inspiration.  where they differ is that the the purpose of study is not always to determine the solution, but rather, to feed the mind with the facts necessary to make the decision.  once fed, the conscious mind must detach from the problem — sleeping on it, and allowing the neurology of the mind working in the subconscious state to build the necessary neural connections to solve the problem.

upon then coming to a solution, our limbic mind confirms the ‘truth’ of the solution by a sense or feeling of certainty.  a feeling…for JS equated with “burning in the bosom.”  when the mind has not solved the problem, then there is a sense of cognitive dissonance…a “stupor of thought” is an accurate way of saying it.

i think sections 8 and 9 accurately but roughly describe the cognitive process of inspiration.  this, when i dont think JS read or studied James or modern cognitive science.  it says to me that he was a practitioner of this revelatory process.  

[Anonymous]

Wow. Thanks wayfarer. That’s a great response. I’ll need to reread that 2 or 3 times, and maybe sleep on it tonight to let my subconscious process it.

Basically, what I hear from that is “no man has seen God in the flesh”. Revelation is always in the mind. For example, Joseph Smith having visitations by Moroni in a small farm house while everyone else in the house is fast asleep.

The translation process using a hat to block the light in order to “see” the words that should be written down.

Perhaps it was comfortable to Joseph as a process, and wouldn’t understand why Oliver could do the same.

But Oliver couldn’t, and then the revelations through Joseph continued to promise Oliver that one day he could, which also didn’t happen. : Eventually it seems others trying to replicate the process starting having crazy ideas, and the process needed to be regulated to those holding the keys, or the prophet. But Joseph was a different kind of revelator than any other since. Poor Oliver got caught up in hopes he could do it also.

The story line is curious to me, apart from the whole understanding of how revelation might actually work.

[Anonymous]

Excellent, wayfarer. I think I’ll hold off on my own parser’s pen. It would be redundant now.

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

Perhaps it was comfortable to Joseph as a process, and wouldn’t understand why Oliver could do the same.

But Oliver couldn’t, and then the revelations through Joseph continued to promise Oliver that one day he could, which also didn’t happen. : Eventually it seems others trying to replicate the process starting having crazy ideas, and the process needed to be regulated to those holding the keys, or the prophet. But Joseph was a different kind of revelator than any other since. Poor Oliver got caught up in hopes he could do it also.

The story line is curious to me, apart from the whole understanding of how revelation might actually work.

It is my firm belief, that from prophet to child, the revelatory process is the same, only the scope of responsibility–the stewardship–varies. This is not a shared belief, from what I can tell, with many True Believing LDS, who presume that only the prophet talks directly and personally physically with god and christ, and the rest of us have to rely on something else. But here in Section 8 it most explicitly says that the revelation of Torah through translation of scripture happen in mind and heart.

and Peter and Paul would at least agree:

Peter, in 1 Peter 1:20-21, wrote:

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Paul, in 2 Timothy 3:16, wrote:

16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness

So I have to ask myself a couple of questions:

1. What is unique about the revelatory process to a prophet, seer, and revalator as being distinct from the ‘gift of the Holy Ghost’ we all can receive if we are so prompted? (My answer is “NOTHING”)

2. Have I had experiences where I feel like I have had unexpected knowledge come to my mind and heart, and then felt with a certain feeling that it was true? (Answer is unquestionably “YES”).

3. Is the process of revelation precise, meaning that it is dictated in precise, unambiguous language where each word is literally god’s word? (My answer is “IT DEPENDS, BUT DEFINITELY NOT ALWAYS”).

On the latter point, I can say with absolute clarity that i heard in my mind and heart “If you’re going to go on a mission, you’re going to need this money.” This, when I hadn’t considered going on a mission, and I was just about to buy a beautiful Martin D-35 I had picked out. Trust me, that wasn’t my own conscious thought or idea, and thus I felt ‘called’ to go on a mission. Pretty precise language there — so it’s possible that direct words come forth. Other times, the proposal method applies — the brethren ‘felt’ that ‘the time had come’ that all worthy men should have the priesthood. It was a confirmation through inspiration of a decision.

There are so many possibilities of how scripture came about. Higher criticism would show that there were lots of writers, D, J, P, R… and particularly “R”, the redactor, was this guy receiving dictation from a voice of god, or, more likely, had studied it out in his mind, and asked god if it was right, and a burning feeling came to him to incorporate this text from this version of the creation account, AND a similar text from another creation account, and try to blend them together into a cohesive narrative? Section 9 would allow that to be the case.

I know that in the middle way, many people summarily reject Joseph Smith because of what appears to be a lot of fraud, albeit, to my mind, some of it very pious. (I can’t say that about polygamy, though). I see JS in a different light, perhaps. I think this brilliant pair of sections lays out a completely different way of knowing what the prophet understands to be revelation than is typically talked about — yet this version of reality — to mind and heart, through ‘feeling of knowing’ some time after ‘studying it out in your mind’… is brilliant, clear, and completely internally consistent with other scriptures noted above that talk about the revelatory epistemology of scripture.

This is what I find unique in JS, and such uniqueness doesn’t exist much any more in the church, although i think it is there, we just don’t talk about it. Some fundamental questions I have:

1. IF god spoke through this process and when inspired men spoke as moved upon by the holy ghost, it became scripture. On what basis does christianity reject the possibility that such revelatory epistemology continues today?

2. IF the revelatory epistemology is ‘inspiration’, then how can people claim that a specific word of scripture is completely free and divorced from the human bias that exists within the prophet that revealed said word?

As to the story line of why Oliver couldn’t do it and Joseph Smith could, I think this is simple. Joseph spoke with a commanding authority that sounded like he literally talked with god face to face — he himself believed in a magical worldview, and through whatever process of how he thought he received revelation, to him it was real, tangible, and literal. He believed his own delusion. Don’t get me wrong — my ‘hearing a voice’ that I should go on a mission was a delusion — i did not ‘hear’ the voice in auditory signals, nor in senses, but rather, my subconscious mind formulated a thought, similar to the conclusion of the sensory/auditory cortex, of a statement I thought I heard. When I use the term, “heard a voice”, to me it was a real experience, but in saying it, another person could get the wrong impression. Joseph received it through his spiritual process, and from the charge in section 8, Oliver thought he could just ask, and then a literal (auditory?) voice would dictate it to him. Then in 9, he has to be corrected to say that it has to be studied out in mind, and so forth…

There are some aspects of this that break down, because it doesn’t all make sense to the story line if you believe in a god that doesn’t deceive and doesn’t do unnecessary stuff. But that is precisely the point — that worldview is wrong, in my impression. According to JS, Peter, and Paul, God reveals entirely through the subconscious/conscious interaction to bring forth inspired scripture, using the thoughts, words, and limitations of the revealer. It ain’t a precise process. It creates scripture full of individual defects when taken individually as proof texts. But when taken as a body of inspiration, individual defects cancel out (sometimes) and the spirit emerges from scripture when a person allows it to combine with one’s own spiritual revelation.

“This is the spirit of revelation; behold, this is the spirit by which Moses brought the children of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground.”

I could go on for hours on this important topic. I could cover how that proposal method may indicate that something in the proposal is true, but not the entire proposition, and as such, can be extremely unhelpful in determining truth. Knowing the mind can be deceived into thinking I know something that isn’t is dangerous… but I need to get going to other matters.

[Anonymous]

We’re all familiar with the practice in politics of taking sound bites out of context in order to make someone look bad. I think we can all agree that is disingenuous. But what you appear to be saying, wayfarer, is that the only way (okay, that’s an exaggeration) to approach Joseph Smith is by taking some of his sound bites out of context. I certainly agree that there are words in D&C 8 and 9 that, when taken by themselves, could be fertile ground for coming to a deeper understanding of revelation and our relationship with god. Maybe Joseph really did have his head full of profound spiritual insights, but didn’t feel like they would be read or appreciated fully if he didn’t build a (sometimes flimsy) story around them. I can roll with that.

And, by the way, I for one firmly believe that we are all “prophets” and that nobody has the market cornered on getting god’s attention. It cannot be otherwise, unless we were to willfully give up the right to someone else to do it for us.

[Anonymous]

doug wrote:

We’re all familiar with the practice in politics of taking sound bites out of context in order to make someone look bad. I think we can all agree that is disingenuous. But what you appear to be saying, wayfarer, is that the only way (okay, that’s an exaggeration) to approach Joseph Smith is by taking some of his sound bites out of context. I certainly agree that there are words in D&C 8 and 9 that, when taken by themselves, could be fertile ground for coming to a deeper understanding of revelation and our relationship with god. Maybe Joseph really did have his head full of profound spiritual insights, but didn’t feel like they would be read or appreciated fully if he didn’t build a (sometimes flimsy) story around them. I can roll with that.

And, by the way, I for one firmly believe that we are all “prophets” and that nobody has the market cornered on getting god’s attention. It cannot be otherwise, unless we were to willfully give up the right to someone else to do it for us.

I’m not trying to make joseph smith look bad here, but I do think these verses are quite critical to an understanding of revelatory epistemology – that is, how do we know the will of god. To say that ‘i will tell you in your mind and in your heart, and then to say that this is the spirit of revelation, the same process that moses used.’ is hardly lifting something out of context. It’s a definitive statement, and as we look at what JS did to reveal the book of mormon, JS is here saying that it isn’t translation but rather revelation. Again, nothing out of context here, and in fact more historically accurate to how the ‘translation’ approach worked.

So why did JS make a flimsy story around these…who knows — maybe he needed to legitimize or credentialize the story. Nothing new here — same thing was done in ancient scripture as well. does it matter? probably to most it does, but i cannot cognitively reconcile any supposed truthfulness in the historical claim versus the idea that it was at best inspired story-telling. So all we have left once the historical claims are debunked is this very core process of inspiration to mind and heart.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

To him that has eyes to see and ears to hear . . .

I quote that in this context to highlight what wayfarer is saying – but to add a bit of a twist.

My mother is one of the most spiritual individuals I’ve ever met. She is schizophrenic. When her meds are working, her spirituality manifests itself in the classic gifts of the spirit – and she has amazingly profound, meaningful, traditionally spiritual, insightful dreams. She has eyes to see and ears to hear. Some people will say that she is delusional in those moments – that they are the result of her schizophrenia. (which, of course, we all know, is bad – because we’ve been raised to see it that way)

Flip side: When her meds are NOT working (when her brain goes into hyper-drive and she can’t sleep), her spirituality manifests itself in the opposite end of the spirituality spectrum – and she has amazingly frightening, traditionally non-spiritual nightmares. She goes from a Jedi to a Sith – from saint to demon – from an angel of light to a messenger of darkness – from child of God to spawn of Satan. I really am not exaggerating much in saying it that way.

She has eyes to see and ears to hear, but the meds channel or funnel what she sees and hears. In one case, her “mental illness” is a great blessing; in the other case, her “mental illness” is a great curse. (I am using the quotation marks intentionally with that phrase.)

My own guess (and it really is purely speculative conjecture) is that Joseph was like a lot of (if not most or even nearly all) brilliant visionaries. I think if he lived today we probably would have some clinical diagnosis to explain away his spirituality – to make mundane and excusable and dismissible his greatness. I have no idea what it would be, and I am NOT in any way trying to make implications about what it would be – but understanding my mother as well as I do gives me a bit of extra compassion and great, deep respect for what might have been going on with him – an understanding, perhaps, of WHY God could use him the way I believe He did.

Personally, I believe Joseph wasn’t a “pious fraud”. I believe he actually believed what he said – because I believe he actually experienced what he claimed to have experienced. I just believe his own words – especially since he described them as “visions” and not “visitations” and talked about seeing things with his “spiritual eyes”. I also believe there is GREAT power in those types of visions, and I personally do not discount things just because in modern times we might chalk them up pejoratively as “just the wanderings of an ill mind”.

I think many of us are clinically crazy to some degree – and recognizing it in ourselves and actually tapping into it and all its implications, in some way, can be a bit (or very) scary – so, generally as a society, we shy away from it and let our “hearts grow cold” (and hyper-analytical, then judgmental, then dismissive). In doing that, we lose our ability to have eyes that see and ears that hear – and I think that’s a terrible loss communally.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

I think many of us are clinically crazy to some degree

honestly, I truly believe that as well…it is always just on a sliding scale, and some really do get to extremes or have the inability to balance it out on their own without some help (meds or skills through therapy). But we all have times or moments or qualities about us that are crazy to some degree.

I was in the bishopric for a while with a bishop that suffered with mental illness, and so he leaned on his counselors a lot, but I don’t think anyone in the congregation knew anything about it, he coped and dealt with it, and moved on. There are many in our midst that do this.

Interestingly, while he was on medication that balanced his brain, he said it was very very difficult for him to feel spirituality in any way. When he was NOT on medication, he had some amazing spiritual experiences, acted on those and blessed the lives of many many families. He was a true shepherd. But he struggled with how to stay “sane”, as he put it, and always felt the trade off was medication to help cope with life at the expense of spirituality, or greater highs and spiritual experiences at the expense of the greatest lows that threatened his ability to not run and hide (literally talking about leaving his wife) or hurt himself.

:problem:

I don’t like to have this thread start to take on the flavor that our religion was based on the mind of a madman. I don’t think Joseph was insane, or a liar.

I believe he believed every word of what he said, what he thought he “saw”, and what he thought he was called to do. The character built up in RSR doesn’t support the history of a madman to me.

I can accept in his mind he had “visions” and revelations and brilliant enlightenment. It makes me think that producing a literal history of the Book of Mormon was not the purpose. Indeed, the Title Page reads:

Quote:

Written by way of commandment, and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation—Written and sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed—To come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof—Sealed by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by way of the Gentile—The interpretation thereof by the gift of God.

[snip]And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment-seat of Christ.

This makes it easy for me to let go of the literal things, and I have become less interested in geography theories to prove anything, except to entertain my mind and enjoy the speculation of what might make sense.

But the revelation was to inspire people to come to God. It was not unlike Emanual Swedenborg (to use a double negative).

It is still curious to me why Oliver couldn’t do it, having seen many things with Joseph and worked with him closely. Perhaps he thought it would be more “magical”, similar to how some think that Thomas S Monson must have “magical” visitations all the time and all he has to do is talk to Jesus, get the answers to lead the church and tell everyone word for word what the Lord said. That is not a realistic view of a prophet to me.

It is still curious to me, why the Lord didn’t give Joseph Section 9 to instruct Oliver he was doing it wrong, and then allow Oliver to try again, as was promised in section 9. The fact that it was never done again by Oliver, nor by anyone else other than Joseph, logically makes me think there is something different about Joseph and what he did, than the way anyone else, including Oliver, BY, TSM and wayfarer who have also had revelation in their lives.

I like the fact it is canonized in the D&C because it seems to point to me the process of revelation, as wayfarer mentioned, and helps me accept things were not a “literal translation” that any professor could do…but it was scripture from revelation we must accept on faith to build faith in God.

I like the fact we can discuss it in this forum on how it helps us understand revelation in our lives. But I’m still confused with the story line. Wouldn’t it be much easier for Joseph to just say,

Quote:

“Oliver, you’re doing it wrong. You don’t translate the letters, it just comes to your mind and you just rif on it”.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

Wouldn’t it be much easier for Joseph to just say, (any other wording)

Perhaps it would have been easier for you or I to say it that way, but maybe that’s part of the genius of Joseph – that it didn’t come out that way, since that way wouldn’t be as inspirational and thought-provoking for Oliver and (probably much more importantly) for those who would read it later.

[Anonymous]

well said! :thumbup:

[Author]

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