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So I went back last night and read the history of JS and he repeatedly said ” I saw an actual light”. It doesn’t sound like he is saying in a dream or with spiritual eyes. Again for me it says what it says and I don’t want to try to bend his words to make it fit what the church teaches or might teach will teach in the future. In JS history he talks how man has taken out the plain and and simple truths. It seems that when we deal with JS nothing is plain or simple. Maybe I just tired lately. Roy wrote:“The geologic unlikelihood of a cave existing within the hill such as the one described suggests that the experience related by the various witnesses was most likely a vision, or a divine transportation to another locale (as with Nephi’s experience in 1 Nephi 11:1).” (FAIR Wiki)
As a bit of a post script – 1 Nephi 11:1 and every scripture that is footnoted in that verse refer to vivid, mystical and visionary experiences (They say that Nephi, Moses, and others where caught up in the spirit to exceedingly high mountains before being shown visions). There is not a single definitive instance of divine transportation/teleportation in the entire bunch. Although I’m sure God and His angels can do whatever they want, this doesn’t seem to be their MO.
While not crucial, the historicity of the Book of Mormon is important to me and I believe it matters to a lot of people. It has been taught as a historical account from the beginning and it would be quite disappointing if I were somehow convinced it isn’t. The book of Deuteronomy is quite different from the Book of Mormon in many ways and I don’t see a good reason to believe they were produced in similar ways. I also don’t see good evidence against the Book of Mormon being historical. Many anachronisms have proven to not be so, and any of them could be proven to not be so in the future. I simply don’t believe the DNA data is conclusive. At any time, different evidence could be discovered or it could be found that something was overlooked or misanalyzed.
I think the plates are real and are what Joseph purported. Inventing the account of the plates would have added a very complicated aspect to the bringing forth of the book. Even though Joseph had dug for buried treasure before, there was no compelling reason or need to have metal plates in order to publish a book if he were doing it on his own. The plates were trouble from the start. I believe they are part of the story because they are real.
I am impressed with Emma Smith’s account:
Quote:Question. What of the truth of Mormonism?
Answer. I know Mormonism to be the truth; and believe the Church to have been established by divine direction. I have complete faith in it. In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.
Question. Had he not a book or manuscript from which he read, or dictated to you?
Answer. He had neither manuscript nor book to read from.
Question. Could he not have had, and you not know it?
Answer. If he had had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me.
Question. Are you sure that he had the plates at the time you were writing for him?
Answer. The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen tablecloth, which I had given him to fold them in. I once felt of the plates, as they thus lay on the table, tracing their outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book.
Question. Where did father and Oliver Cowdery write?
Answer. Oliver Cowdery and your father wrote in the room where I was at work.
Question. Could not father have dictated the Book of Mormon to you, Oliver Cowdery and the others who wrote for him, after having first written it, or having first read it out of some book?
Answer. Joseph Smith could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter, let alone dictate a book like the Book of Mormon. And, though I was an active participant in the scenes that transpired, and was present during the translation of the plates, and had cognizance of things as they transpired, it is marvelous to me, “a marvel and a wonder,” as much so as to anyone else.
-Emma Smith – Last Testimony of Emma Smith 1879 Q&A between Emma and Joseph Smith III, The Saints’ Herald 26 (Oct 1879)
I have struggles with the Book of Mormon. The race issues bother me. Despite that, it’s easy for me for see it as a historical book and it’s okay for us to maintain that view.church0333, just to illustrate what I mean when I talk about vision vs. visitation: Joseph Smith History v.16: “I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head.” (Every instance of light being mentioned in the following verses simply uses the word “light” – except one, which I will mention next.)
v.25: “I had actually seen a light.” (This is an important difference from how you phrased it (“I saw an actual light.”), since there was no difference in the religious world view of that time between actually seeing a literal, physical light and actually being enlightened by a “heavenly light” – and that phrase is used in the description.) There isn’t once in the JSH where it is written, “I saw an actual light.”
v.30: “While I was thus in the act of calling upon God, I discovered a light appearing in my room.”
As I said, when we look at the descriptions in light of how people back then talked about such experiences, and especially when Paul’s vision was used explicitly as an example (when no serious scholars of whom I know view that as a visitation), it is easy to read the accounts as visionary in nature rather than physical visitations. Honestly, I think that more true to the actual wording than a physical visitation.
Shawn wrote:I am impressed with Emma Smith’s account:
Yes, Shawn. Emma’s account is problematic for a purely spiritual manifestation of golden plates. Thank you for reminding me that my perspective is still very tenative.
:thumbup: church0333 wrote:So I went back last night and read the history of JS and he repeatedly said ” I saw an actual light”. It doesn’t sound like he is saying in a dream or with spiritual eyes. Again for me it says what it says and I don’t want to try to bend his words to make it fit what the church teaches or might teach will teach in the future. In JS history he talks how man has taken out the plain and and simple truths. It seems that when we deal with JS nothing is plain or simple. Maybe I just tired lately.
In theory, in the church, one does not talk about spiritual experiences. but it is not unusual to have a spiritual experience, in the mind, take on the manifestation of dazzling light. Certain meditative techniques use a concept of “third eye”, which in some techniques is perceived as light.Bill Wilson, founder of AA, had a light-based spiritual experience.
when i had my deepest spiritual experience, the room was filled with light, so much so that my eyes were fogging over, but i knew afterwards that it was all within my mind. to the worldview of joseph smith, for whom spiritual manifestations were thought to be real, then if he would have experienced what i had, he woukd have been justified in saying, “i had actually seen a light.”
Let’s examine, carefully, the language in the 1838 version of the experience:
Joseph Smith wrote:15 After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when i
mmediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.16 But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction — not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being —
just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. …
20
When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven.
note the sequence:1. upon praying, he has a feeling of darkness, where he feels he cannot speak. without going into speculating what kind of mental state this is, it is clear that he is entering into a state other than normal consciousness. the key is the paralysis: equivalent to the near dream state of sleep paralysis, but in this case invoked from a waking state.
2. in this state of altered consciousness, he sees a pillar of light, and has some kind of experience, the details of which he could not keep straight from one retelling to another. Frankly, i am surprised he remembered anything from the event after 15-18 years. much of what i have experienced of any spiritual experience is well beyond words,
3. At the end of the experience, he says, “When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back…”. this clearly indicates he was in some other state than “himself” / his conscious self. if he saw this as the conscious Joseph Smith, then why would he have to come to himself again?
the point is the first vision account provides no basis whatsoever for claiming this to be a physical event. he clearly went int an altered state, and returned from it at the end. having gone through this in my own mind and heart, i cannot deny the reality of the event for me. it was absolutely real to me, and i feel the power of my own spiritual experience each time i think about it. but having a different worldview than Joseph, i know that it is all in my head.
and why should it not be all within our head? doctrinally, we understand that no mortal can see god without transfiguration of some sort. is not transfiguration an altered state of consciousness? if i believe, as joseph did, that spiritual things have a material objective reality, then a spiritual experience, the perception if things in the altered, in a “spiritual” state of mind is absolutely a materal objective reality to me.
going a step further, if i feel that i have the companionship of the holy ghost, that the holy ghost is god — the very mind of god as stated in the articles on faith, then if i have a nonconscious bleedover event, such as an altered consciousness or lucid dream, then is that not a vision from god?
wayfarer wrote:
there are really two decisions here, and while they are related, decoupling them serves a purpose:1. Did Joseph Smith reveal the material in the book of mormon by the gift and power of god?
This is subjective. we have the book. it evidences teachings many consider to be inspired and fully consistent with the gospel. this comes down to testimony and faith, as with all subjective assertions of religious things.
2. What about the plates?
first, there is the highly likely probability that we will never know for sure…which makes this objective claim a historical unknowable, and thus any assertion about it speculation.
you correctly identified potential position cases about the plates. except for case 1, some degree of fraud is involved. to those who believe that the delivery of divine things cannot involve fraud, then if one is subjectively convinced that the book is divine, then case 1 is the only possible position.
but for 2500 years, people have been claiming that deuteronomy is the writing of moses, and even jesus christ — god by the christian definition — quoted the Shema as scripture. this disproves the notion that divine things must also have perfectly divine provenance. the fact of the matter is that even a defective being can bring forth a divine work…and if so, then we, too, as defective beings, can bring forth divine works.
my opinion is this: as mature saints, we need to stop mythologizing our founders and leaders. we need to stop avoiding the evidence that the book of mormon is nonhistorical, and embrace the stunningly unintuitive conclusion that a completely weak and defective being, one who had a penchant for storytelling and treasure-seeking cons, broought forth a singularly divine work and a wonder.
and while the book of mormon may be divine, and in my faith it is, the more uniquely divine products of the restoration are:
1. the open canon — the book of mormon was the necessary icebreaker. we believe that god reveals constantly to all of us.
2. a recognition that revelation works (and has always worked) within the mind and emotions of the prophet.
3. god works through natural laws
4. humanity is divine — there is a deep reality around the plan of salvation. the symbols and terms we use to describe it do not do it justice, and fall far short of the mark.
5. universalism: all god’s children are somehow redeemed, and all humans deserve the deep reverence as children of god.
6. existentialism: “there is no such thing as immaterial matter”.
7. the gospel is merely “all truth” — regardless of source, and we should openly seek all truth without the confirmation bias of creedal dogma.
these, to me, are “pure mormonism”.
when we face, full-on, the idea that a fraudulent act brought forth a divine work, then we must abandon the platonic ideal as our definition of god — the single most pernicious part of the judeo-christian concept of god, and we immediately have to come to a new paradigm, one embodied by the seven principles above. christianity and correlated mormonism have the wrong paradigm, based upon an impossible, platonic and creedal definition of god and reality:
1. Canon is closed, except for a major event where the church is threatened if it doesn’t change doctrine, nothing changes. the church has painted itself into a dogmatic corner by canonizing a nineteenth-century worldview as being accurate, infallible, and inerrant truth. Absent any leader with Joseph Smith’s audacity to credentialize his ideas as being “direct revelation from god”, canon cannot change.
2. Revelation is supernatural dictation, perfectly reflecting the word of god, and is infallible. (this explains why the humans who run the church don’t declare any teaching as revelation for certain, because the are at least self aware enough to know tat they aren’t absolutely certain — they are victims of the mythologizing of direct revelation)
3. god is supernatural: all powerful, all knowing, all good – he is the ideal, unchanging from everlasting to everlasting. therefore whatever he proclaims must be perfect.
4. the natural man is an enemy of god, totally depraved, and the world is going to hell, and there is no way fallible humans can be gods in this life (even if the psalmist and jesus said otherwise).
5. only those who believe a specific set of claims will be saved, despite compelling evidence to the contrary. the lost are the empty chairs.
6. all things were created spiritually before they were created physically, thus our physical existence is necessarily something less than ideal, and falls short of the “plan”.
7. truth is defined as what the church teaches. if anything is in conflict with what the church teaches, it cannot be true, despite compelling evidence to the contrary.
as long as we hold onto any of the above seven concepts, the pious fraud of joseph smith is too cognitively dissonant to accept and have faith survive. therefore, apologists defend book of mormon historicity at all costs, and for most who don’t buy the apologetics and realize the fraud, faith becomes untenable.
thus, to me, the answer to the false dichotomy of “its either true or fraud” is…it’s both, in the grand tradition of all scripture. and in facing this paradox, one is enlightened by setting aside paradigms that no longer work.
1. Is the Book of Mormon a divine work, something inspired, guided by a third party deity?
Yes, I believe it is. I don’t believe this was a work from Joseph’s genius/imagination. If we call it a work from the ‘god within’ that only works for me if it is God speaking through Joseph. Not Joseph’s internal voice (something we might sometimes call the light of Christ) that crafted words of his own making. Even if it was a divinely given talent/imagination.
When I give a blessing to someone I know that the spoken words are expressed in the limits of my ability to communicate and sometimes the words are imperfect, I can tell because they don’t entirely match the impressions in my mind. But… I don’t believe them to be impressions FROM my mind. I still believe they are sent from the heavens at the time of asking (not some divine concepts received at birth).
I’ve leg go of the need for the BoM to be historical. I can still believe it if it’s not. But I consider the original source to be God, via man, imperfectly.
If God is the source then the plates (just like the Deuteronomy scroll) might have been a fabrication to facilitate acceptance. If God could “of these stones raise up children unto Abraham” he could also inspire the fabrication of a material item. I’m comfortable with a God who could do that. Just as I’m comfortable with a God who says “eternal damnation” but admits that he didn’t mean “for ever,” just that it’s more effective to say the first (technically inaccurate) version (D&C 19:6).
But saying all that. In accepting the BoM might not be historical, and in letting go of the need for it to be in order to believe it, I still choose to believe the original answer. That it is historical. That there were plates and that Joseph didn’t make them.
There isn’t conclusive evidence that Joseph wrote the words of the Book of Mormon. There is circumstantial evidence that he could have.
But most of those evidences (quoting New Testament, Indian stories, gold digging, Oliver knowing Ethan Smith, Harris meeting Mitchill, the magical/visionary world view in 1800s) can either be used to say the BoM is exclusively a product of the 19thC (inspired or not), or can also be the circumstances and environment divinely created to “slingshot” the Book of Mormon into prominence.
If he’d chosen a group with no interest in the origins of the Indians, no belief in the possibility of buried (mystical) treasures, the visitations of angels, individual revelations from God, no belief in progressive/universalistic Christian beliefs of the day (etc, etc) the book would have probably not been published and even if it had, would have sat collecting dust in a back room like most self-publications.
If God needed a “springboard” or “slingshot” to make the BoM go viral, he had the perfect setting to do so. Perhaps by chance, but possibly by design.
It goes further, the 1000s of European Mormons who arrived to build Mormonism beyond a fringe sect did not do so solely because they had discovered an amazing new gospel, but because Europe was a dirty, oppressive mess and a miserable place to live. The chance to go to the promised land to join a welcoming community was jumped at.
Again, some would say this is evidence that the church only happened due to 19thC circumstance. Or it’s a ideal springboard to jump from. The fact that Joseph sent missionaries to UK at all was either a stroke of genius or inspired.
This is also fully independent of the question of ‘only true and living’ – the work can be divinely originated and not the only vehicle to travel the way.
wayfarer wrote:church0333 wrote:So I went back last night and read the history of JS and he repeatedly said ” I saw an actual light”. It doesn’t sound like he is saying in a dream or with spiritual eyes. Again for me it says what it says and I don’t want to try to bend his words to make it fit what the church teaches or might teach will teach in the future. In JS history he talks how man has taken out the plain and and simple truths. It seems that when we deal with JS nothing is plain or simple. Maybe I just tired lately.
In theory, in the church, one does not talk about spiritual experiences. but it is not unusual to have a spiritual experience, in the mind, take on the manifestation of dazzling light. Certain meditative techniques use a concept of “third eye”, which in some techniques is perceived as light.Bill Wilson, founder of AA, had a light-based spiritual experience.
when i had my deepest spiritual experience, the room was filled with light, so much so that my eyes were fogging over, but i knew afterwards that it was all within my mind. to the worldview of joseph smith, for whom spiritual manifestations were thought to be real, then if he would have experienced what i had, he woukd have been justified in saying, “i had actually seen a light.”
Let’s examine, carefully, the language in the 1838 version of the experience:
Joseph Smith wrote:15 After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when i
mmediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.16 But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction — not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being —
just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. …
20
When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven.
note the sequence:1. upon praying, he has a feeling of darkness, where he feels he cannot speak. without going into speculating what kind of mental state this is, it is clear that he is entering into a state other than normal consciousness. the key is the paralysis: equivalent to the near dream state of sleep paralysis, but in this case invoked from a waking state.
2. in this state of altered consciousness, he sees a pillar of light, and has some kind of experience, the details of which he could not keep straight from one retelling to another. Frankly, i am surprised he remembered anything from the event after 15-18 years. much of what i have experienced of any spiritual experience is well beyond words,
3. At the end of the experience, he says, “When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back…”. this clearly indicates he was in some other state than “himself” / his conscious self. if he saw this as the conscious Joseph Smith, then why would he have to come to himself again?
the point is the first vision account provides no basis whatsoever for claiming this to be a physical event. he clearly went int an altered state, and returned from it at the end. having gone through this in my own mind and heart, i cannot deny the reality of the event for me. it was absolutely real to me, and i feel the power of my own spiritual experience each time i think about it. but having a different worldview than Joseph, i know that it is all in my head.
and why should it not be all within our head? doctrinally, we understand that no mortal can see god without transfiguration of some sort. is not transfiguration an altered state of consciousness? if i believe, as joseph did, that spiritual things have a material objective reality, then a spiritual experience, the perception if things in the altered, in a “spiritual” state of mind is absolutely a materal objective reality to me.
going a step further, if i feel that i have the companionship of the holy ghost, that the holy ghost is god — the very mind of god as stated in the articles on faith, then if i have a nonconscious bleedover event, such as an altered consciousness or lucid dream, then is that not a vision from god?
For me it matter little whether Joseph’s vision was in his mind only or whether God physically appeared in the woods (such that, had I been there, I would have seen it too).
What matters is the original source. You said “when i had my deepest spiritual experience, the room was filled with light, so much so that my eyes were fogging over, but i knew afterwards that it was all within my mind.”
There’s a difference that’s important to me:
– we know people have at least some revelations in their mind and not as physical visits/voices. The scriptures talk about ‘know in your mind/heart’ and also some people describe a dream (Lehi’s for examle, Peter’s animals in a sheet also sounds a lot like one… There was not an actual piece of cotton with live animals floating around in them). In that sense some happen ‘in your mind.’ If some do, then it makes no difference if all do.
– but… The phrase “it’s all in your mind” can be used disparagingly. You imagined it, you invented it. The chemicals and biology in your brain reacted in such a way as to create an experience that was simple biology. Not of divine origin. That’s different to the ‘God sent a message to me by using the mechanics of my imperfect body.’
What was the source of Joseph’s vision? An invented dream or a divine bestowal?
The mechanics are fairly immaterial to me.
Thanks guys for all you ideas. I get what Wayfarer is saying. I can appreciate all that and even accept that but that is not what the church wants us to believe. Most of us have seen the videos or the movies at temple square. It shows JS with a physical dealings with God and Jesus and light. There is no disclaimer saying the following is not how it really happened but a depiction of what JS saw with his spiritual eyes or in a dream or in a state of meditation. Even if the church would come out and say that we don’t know exactly how it happened and that it was probably not a face to face meeting, but no, we teach it to be literal. That is how I taught it as a missionary. That how they teach it at GC. Maybe I should just get over this and let it go. I just want the church to come clean but I don’t think that will happen for now. Maybe my faith was too simple. Old-Timer wrote:Quote:It is my understanding that Jesus used parables to with-hold truths from those that were not spiritually ready.
Fwiw, I don’t buy that, no matter who has said it or where it is said. Parables generally aren’t meant to withhold; they are meant to teach in an open-ended way that allows for multiple conclusions and understandings. I much prefer that view, and the two views are diametrically opposed. One is meant to hide; the other is meant to enlighten.
The source on this is Jesus himself: “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” It is to enlighten those who are humble seekers, but his messages went past those people who weren’t receptive. Didn’t want to let this go without clarifying. Carry on.
mackay11 wrote:I’ve let go of the need for the BoM to be historical. I can still believe it if it’s not. But I consider the original source to be God, via man, imperfectly.
Of this we are in complete agreement.mackay11 wrote:[For me it matter little whether Joseph’s vision was in his mind only or whether God physically appeared in the woods (such that, had I been there, I would have seen it too).
What matters is the original source. You said “when i had my deepest spiritual experience, the room was filled with light, so much so that my eyes were fogging over, but i knew afterwards that it was all within my mind.”
…
What was the source of Joseph’s vision? An invented dream or a divine bestowal?
The mechanics are fairly immaterial to me.
If we, in faith, accept that it is a divine work, then the source is the divine, regardless of how it was transmitted.Going back to the seven paradigms I proposed:
wayfarer wrote:2. Revelation is not dictation from god, but rather, revelation works (and has always worked) within the mind and emotions of the prophet
3. god works through natural laws rather than through supernatural acts
4. humanity is divine and not totally depraved
If we adopt a paradigm that revelation is dictation, god is the supernatural other, and man is totally depraved, then we must demand a supernatural explanation for the divine transmission of the book of mormon. All sorts of problematic things become necessary when we adopt the wrong paradigms: The book of mormon must be a literal history because god is not a god of confusion and cannot lie, and since revelatory dictation is literally the word of god, it must be so. God would not deceive, hence the plates must be real and authentic. Joseph could not have done this because depraved mortal men are incapable of creating divine word. Since god is ‘the other’ and not ‘within’, then supernatural processes must be involved, etc.We must eventually abandon the false god of the creeds and embrace that god
however we understand himworks through the natural man, via natural processes, subject to human limitations of that transmission. Then, and only then, can we reconcile that a deeply flawed human being, clearly drawing from the mindset of the 19th century, with a story arc coming from extant sources — was and is a divine revelation. But I go a step further.
I think it’s extremely important to understand that “the God Within” is not me. It is not my consciousness, my thoughts, or my will. When Moses had his personal, revelatory experience — the one ‘translated’ by Joseph Smith as he contemplated the creation account in the bible in his ‘inspired version’ — the one which he said in D&C 8 as being in the mind and heart of moses, the following happened:
Joseph Smith, in Moses 1 wrote:1 The words of God, which he spake unto Moses at a time when Moses was caught up into an exceedingly high mountain, 2 And
he saw God face to face, and he talked with him, and the glory of God was upon Moses; therefore Moses could endure his presence. …
9 And the presence of God withdrew from Moses, that his glory was not upon Moses; and
Moses was left unto himself. And as he was left unto himself, he fell unto the earth.10 And it came to pass that it was for the space of many hours before Moses did again receive his natural strength like unto man; and he said unto himself: Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed. 11 But now mine own eyes have beheld God; but not my natural, but my spiritual eyes, for my natural eyes could not have beheld; for I should have withered and died in his presence; but his glory was upon me; and I beheld his face, for I was transfigured before him.
Note the sequence similarity to the First Vision. Remember that Joseph Smith wrote this, as in inpired interpretation of the bible, and in so doing, Joseph was relating Moses’ revelatory experiences to his own. This is extraordinarly strong witness of the method of relelation.There are two important doctrinal things we learn from this scripture.
1. When Moses (Joseph Smith) received revelation, even seeing God or Jesus Christ, he was in a ‘transfigured’ state of existence. He saw with ‘spiritual eyes’, not natural eyes. Such ‘revelation’ — even a vision where Joseph sees with his own eyes — remains in his mind and in his heart. If we were standing next to Joseph or Moses when these events occurred, we would see nothing, but perhaps an unconscious or semi-conscious Moses or Joseph Smith.
2. The vision and power in that state of consciousness is NOT the person, ego, or consciousness of Joseph Smith or Moses. Moses (Joseph Smith’s) conclusion is very, very remarkable: “
Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.” The conscious ego is NOT the source of the revelation — it comes from someone else — a ‘third party’ as you say, and whether this ‘third party’ resides within the mind and heart of Joseph Smith, as would be the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, or from an external source, the fact of the matter is that the last six inches of the communication are within the mind and heart of the prophet. The fact of the matter is that a natural process is involved (Paradigm 3): the revelation occurs only within the altered state of mind of Joseph Smith (or Moses) — the state of being ‘transfigured’, where the conscious ego is only an observer of the event, but the event itself is controlled and revealed by the God Within. Another witness that the Book of Mormon was revealed in an altered state of mind is the fact that Joseph Smith almost never preached or quoted from the Book of Mormon. It’s as if his understanding of the Book of Mormon is significantly less than modern LDS, who read the book every year and use the examples in their daily discourse about spiritual things — not so with Joseph Smith.
You noted this as well:
Mackay11 wrote:When I give a blessing to someone I know that the spoken words are expressed in the limits of my ability to communicate and sometimes the words are imperfect, I can tell because they don’t entirely match the impressions in my mind. But… I don’t believe them to be impressions FROM my mind. I still believe they are sent from the heavens at the time of asking (not some divine concepts received at birth).
When you receive and speak thoughts and words that aren’t yours, they’re coming from another source, whether within you or from “the heavens”, it doesn’t matter. I would venture to say that such words, if not intended for you, are often not retained in your conscious memory as well as things that match your own perceptions. There are significant cognitive reasons for this: your cognitive associations (all memory is associative), have significant connections to your conscious memory. When insight is coming through you and you are the voice for it, your processing memory is flushed with the next phrases, and you seldom have the time to associate it with your cognitive memories. It’s as if you were reading something aloud — you can read the words, but unless you think about them, ponder them, they won’t implant into your long term memory.What little we know of the ‘translation’ of the book of mormon is that Joseph recited words that ‘appeared’ to him through the interpreter(s)/seer stone. I suspect, strongly, that this ‘appearance’ was again his ‘second sight’ — ‘spiritual eyes’, coming from an altered state of consciousness. He ‘saw’, he recited, the words were copied down, and once down, new words appeared. If we accept the story on face value, and cross-reference it to the method of translation described in D&C 8 with the description of the revelatory experience of Moses described in Moses 1 — a clear understanding of HOW the book of mormon was transmitted emerges.
Sure, as Joseph ‘translated’ the book, some of his own experiences, fanciful stories, even works he read, including the KJV with all of its errors, could have rolled through his altered state of mind. Our non-conscious minds — our God Within — have full access to our memories and history — and everything we’ve read and learned… So it is not surprising that the raw material for the narrative were things familiar to Joseph Smith, But, importantly, the assembly of the narrative was done NOT by Joseph Smith, but rather, a separate entity within Joseph Smith’s mind and heart is clear from the description of the process and from the evidence that Joseph didn’t use the same narrative to teach the Gospel in his ministry.
So where does that leave us? I hold to what I said:
wayfarer wrote:as mature saints, we need to stop mythologizing our founders and leaders. we need to stop avoiding the evidence that the book of mormon is nonhistorical, and embrace the stunningly unintuitive conclusion that a completely weak and defective being, one who had a penchant for storytelling and treasure-seeking cons, brought forth a singularly divine work and a wonder.
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thus, to me, the answer to the false dichotomy of “its either true or fraud” is…it’s both, in the grand tradition of all scripture. and in facing this paradox, one is enlightened by setting aside paradigms that no longer work.
But being enlightened isn’t a state that we all enjoy — perhaps none of us are there. Thus we need our stories and metaphors, we need the symbols of a God Without in order to connect to the God Within. We need a literal story of the Book of Mormon, to credentialize it away from the speculative framework of second guessing what parts are divine and what parts are from Joseph Smith. We need words and symbols that work for everybody — the lesser portion of his Word.I can work with that.
Wayfarer, it is insulting when you tell us we must “abandon the false god of the creeds.” I don’t see how you think Joseph Smith supports your view of god, no matter how long and complex your explanations are. You say the truth needs no defense, so why you do you continually preach your views in the spirit of winning converts? Shawn, careful. There is no attempt at conversion in wayfarer’s approach here. He is sharing his honest perspective, just like you do. We all walk the line that separates passionate belief and preaching – all of us. We have to respect each others’ passions without dismissing the expression of them as attempts to gain converts. Also, fwiw, Joseph’s primary complaint about the Protestantism of his time was their adherence to unalterable creeds – their lack of willingness to accept continuing revelation. That is what wayfarer emphasizes – that we can’t return to the creedalism Joseph condemned – that we have to be open to revelation that changes what we believe / believed.
Moderators, is it really okay to tell others here that they are adopting “wrong paradigms” or believe in the “false god of the creeds?” I can’t abandon the “false god of the creeds” unless I am currently with the “false god of the creeds.” Ray, it went beyond sharing perspective because he gives a call to action – “We must eventually abandon the false god of the creeds.” He also clearly said I have adopted “wrong paradigms.”
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