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From Time magazine. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/martin-luthers-95-theses-are-500-years-old-heres-why-theyre-still-causing-controversy/ar-AAugQfx?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=iehp
Quote:
“The drama of Luther walking through Wittenberg with his hammer and his nails is very, very unlikely to have happened,” says Professor Andrew Pettegree, an expert on the Reformation from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. “The castle church door was the normal noticeboard of the university. This was not an act of defiance on Luther’s part, it was simply what you did to make a formal publication. It would probably have been pasted to the door rather than nailed up.”Peter Marshall would go even further. A historian of the Reformation at Warwick University, England, he believes there’s a strong case to be made that the Theses were never posted at all, and that the story was invented to suit the political needs of people who came later.
“The incident was first recorded nearly 30 years after,” he says. “Luther himself never mentioned it. There was very little discussion of the nailing of the Theses before the first Reformation anniversary of 1617.” In 1617, with the Thirty Years’ War on the horizon, a local ruler in the Rhineland area had the idea of organizing a centenary celebration to drum up Protestant solidarity, to increase his chances in the forthcoming fight with the Catholic Habsburgs.
“It’s a very good example of history being made because of a current need to create a historical event,”says Pettegree, with an air of admiration. I find this helpful because it is a reminder that there are issues that were common to religions (and even to broader humanity) before Mormonism ever arrived on the scene.
Wait – So Joseph Smith wasn’t the first? Dang. Seriously this is a great point. Especially for us as we are transitioning.
Love it! People are people are people. Doesn’t matter what time we live in. Gives more strength to the edict to “overcome the natural man”, as this provides ample evidence that, by and large, humans are naturally self-serving and create various stories to achieve the natural drive to be sociable. Speaking of the 95 theses, I thought this post was interesting. Many great ideas even if you don’t agree with all. What would you add? What would you take away? http://www.the-exponent.com/my-ninety-five-theses-for-todays-mormon-church/ I love all of those theses. But I don’t think #62 (open sealings) would ever fly. To add:
Have missionaries do useful service like build schools and work at homeless shelters *instead of* proselyting. I’ve read that the SDAs do this and that it’s very good at bringing in converts.
Cease the hysterical call to build testimonies. 100% certainty is a form of pride, and people who have it tend to hurt those on the margins. Emphasize faith and hope instead.
Make room for members who believe non-literally.
Recognise the validity of every kind of faith journey.
Excellent point and excellent articles. But for some reason, it feels like the historical discrepancies of Martin Luther are… less dangerous than the historical discrepanices of the LDS Church. Martin Luther’s seem pretty harmless, though that’s just me looking at it from a non-1600s-Catholic perspective. It’d be like finding out Joseph Smith never told the story of the first vision to a Methodist preacher a few days after it happened, and that the preacher didn’t tell him “it was all of the devil”. As far as details go, that is the least of what concerns me. With Martin Luther, I couldn’t care less if there was a literal nailing of his thesis onto the Church door. Or if he invented Christmas Trees. What matters is that he was a priest who realized how corrupt the Church had become, for a wide variety of reasons, and put his whole life on the line to bring them to what he felt was the truth of Christ. While it seems he was an absolute monster to the Jews (though probably exaggerated by the Nazis), he seems a man of outstanding character for his day. Not much in his history is kept secret.
Joseph Smith on the other hand… “No man knows my history” sums it up nicely. What little I know, I can’t make heads or tails of. But something smells… off. Like the adjustment of facts for “the greater good” happens more often than is actually good; it makes me suspicious. People only hide what they don’t want to be found.
DoubtingTom wrote:
Speaking of the 95 theses, I thought this post was interesting. Many great ideas even if you don’t agree with all. What would you add? What would you take away?http://www.the-exponent.com/my-ninety-five-theses-for-todays-mormon-church/
I really enjoyed these.
I would add “If a stake is holding a Priesthood Leadership and a Relief Society Women’s meeting at the same time on the same day, the stake leaders should look at the families being impacted by both parents with children being involved in the meetings and either a) acknowledge the hardship this puts on the families with children, and/or b) work with the stake leadership to plan for childcare arrangements.”
I like what Napoleon said — “History is a pack of lies, agreed upon”. And in religion there is a tendency to amplify the coincidental to the miraculous and the fortuitious to benevolence. All to be taken with a grain of salt.
When I watched a documentary on Martin Luther, what struck me was how disillusioned he became when he went to Rome and found it dominated by what the documentary called “business types”. At one point, Luther, a younger, inexperienced clergyman, was at a meeting and it was his turn to speak. He was slow on the uptake and one of the leaders on the stand chastised him sort of rough language to get up to the podium.
This really threw Luther was portrayed part of his disillusionment — his trip to the Mecca of Catholisism was an eye opener and a big disappointment.
That part of the documentary really struck me because I had the same experience with “business types” running our church. With similar disillusionment that contributed to my place here on StayLDS and my current relationship with the church.
dande48 wrote:
Excellent point and excellent articles. But for some reason, it feels like the historical discrepancies of Martin Luther are… less dangerous than the historical discrepanices of the LDS Church. Martin Luther’s seem pretty harmless, though that’s just me looking at it from a non-1600s-Catholic perspective. It’d be like finding out Joseph Smith never told the story of the first vision to a Methodist preacher a few days after it happened, and that the preacher didn’t tell him “it was all of the devil”. As far as details go, that is the least of what concerns me.
I agree. It seems to me that the story of nailing the document to the door could have been invented/exaggerated 30 years later to make for a more dramatic stand … a real “standard of liberty” moment or rallying cry.
In the LDS church we see this happening over and over again. Sometimes it is just grassroots folklore from well meaning individuals who are accentuating the miraculous and finding it later (after many tellings and retellings) takes on the form of the legendary. Sometimes it is church leaders that feel that a manifestation of divine approval is needed to support a church action. (I feel that the church following the 12 during the succession crisis is one such example. The miracle that supposedly occurred when BY decided to reconstitute the first presidency is another.)
dande48, I think my Catholic friends might view the two people slightly differently than you (and many of us) do. DIstance tends to make judgments kinder and more charitable. I would say that “orthodox believers” who understand the fuller history would describe Joseph Smith very much like you described Martin Luther.
And Abner Doubleday never invented baseball and William Webb Ellis never invented rugby. SamBee wrote:
And Abner Doubleday never invented baseball and William Webb Ellis never invented rugby.
Pfft. Revisionist history! Next you’ll tell me that Sir Isaac Newton never invented gravity.
Reuben wrote:
Pfft. Revisionist history! Next you’ll tell me that Sir Isaac Newton never invented gravity.
Well technically he didn’t.
Gravity was already in play as a force in the world. Newton is credited with helping humanity observe and predict in a measurable manner how Gravity interacts with the world. And technically, an earlier scientist to observe and test gravity was Galileo
:crazy: Reuben wrote:
SamBee wrote:
And Abner Doubleday never invented baseball and William Webb Ellis never invented rugby.
Pfft. Revisionist history! Next you’ll tell me that Sir Isaac Newton never invented gravity.
Well, there’s little evidence of the apple story.
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