No Man Knows My History – Fawn Brodie

[Anonymous]

I also got this book recently. I’m about 100 pages into it so far. Style-wise, I think it is well-written and readable. It doesn’t feel like as much of a textbook as Rough Stone Rolling, but don’t take that as meaning it is lighter in intellectual weight. I just think Fawn Brodie is a good writer. One thing that is VITAL when reading this book is to be conscious of where Ms. Brodie fills in the blanks of history. I’m not an expert on academic writing style, or how standards have changed over time, but she does not document factual statements as often, or make it clear when she is stating her opinion as often. She makes a LOT of statements, so far, about what JS was thinking in certain situations, or what his internal motivations were for actions, but there is no citation from a historical source (like his personal journal). So I assume Ms. Brodie is filling in the gaps with her interpretation. She has a specific view of Joseph Smith that colors her interpretations. I’m not saying she is wrong, but I find myself having to pay conscious attention to these statements, and realizing it is her personal view.

She is very knowledgable, and brings in great sources. I see why her book is considered one of THE quintessential biographies of Joseph Smith. I agree so far. I’ve also read Rough Stone Rolling, and her book is a good offset to see things from a different perspective.

My impression so far of the information:

Fawn Brodie is pretty clear from the start about her overall theory of Joseph Smith. She believes he was an intentional fraud. I almost laughed a few times though at my reaction. For all the negative information so far, I find myself again admiring and liking Joseph through her telling of his history. Nothing in the book is shocking to someone familiar with the general controveries of JS’s life.

The amusing part to me is Fawn Brodie’s theory (as I read it). Joseph Smith is apparently a religious super-genius. At first he was going to write a history book about the american indians to make money. Then he realized that he could turn it into a religion for more money. Somehow, and I agree that someone doesn’t have to be formally educated to be brilliant, he was SOOOOOOOOOOO smart that he could synthesize answers to all the vexing problems of Chrisitanity people wanted answered in his day, combined that with an elaborate story that answered questions about mysterious ancient cultures (like the Indians and Egyptians) that fascinated people. He was able to put this all together into a cohesive story book he invented. Not only was he one of the worlds greatest story-tellers, but he happened to be in the exact right place, at the right time, with the right spiritually-oriented information, AND the ability to write it all in a simple book that he called new scripture. He made up this whole thing, and had the astronomical luck of so many things working just right for him, that it turned into an enduring new religion. One that caused hundreds of thousands of people to believe so strongly that they uprooted their lives to move across the world to participate in it.

Ok…

And this is what I found so amusing to myself. Isn’t that the story of a prophet of God? It sounds just like Mohammed, Buddha, Jesus, Zoroaster, and all the others. Instead of JS being a super-genius fraud with astronomical luck, another simple answer is that is just how God runs His business There always seems to be something there that just doesn’t make it so clear cut and easy to say he was a only a fraud, even a pious fraud.

It finally hit me when Ms. Brodie mentioned that JS had an additional talent. Not only could he invent profound religious truths out of thin air, BUT he also had a mutant super-ability (like a religious X-Men). He could hypnotise people (like with magic powers) and make THEM have profound religious epiphanies just like him. She cited several cases of people that really didn’t like him, who then later had an angel appear to them or had a vision and believed. No, not right there while he was hypnotising them with a swinging stop watch, but all on their own, days or weeks later. You know, a more simple explanation, a possibility, is that he was indeed a prophet, one of many that we can see throughout human history. He filled that historical role, wether people individually believe his work or not. I am talking sociologically — it seems like he was a “prophet.”

The picture I have been forming for quite some time is one of a complex Joseph Smith. I have a feeling he was really a combination of many things. Yes, I think at times he really made bad decisions and was motivated by power or survival. Let’s not be naive. That was likely at times. I think JS was a normal, flawed human. I just can’t escape his brilliance though. He spoke powerfully, as a religious “shaman” to the world of his day. He also appears to me to have been a conduit for something divine at times. It obviously spoke to the needs of a lot of people, a LOT of people indeed.

I still have a good chunk of the book to read still. I like it so far. I find it confirming my faith more than taking away from it though. That is what I find so amusing, because this book is portrayed as so much more negative. The author is an admirer, but not a believer. It is a really good viewpoint to see more facets of the complex person of Joseph Smith.

[Anonymous]

Great review, Valoel. Those are the things that jump out at me about Brodie’s fraud charge, as well.

1) It simply has to posit creative genius. There’s no way around it. To be a fraud, Joseph must have been brilliantly creative. I think he was, no matter how someone sees his work, but it’s important as a foundation.

2) The more striking thing is the impact of his story and the book he published on others. There is no denying that others gained deep faith and had extraordinary experiences completely outside his presence. In fact, many of them had powerful spiritual experiences on their own, and those experiences allowed them to accept Joseph as a Prophet – even as they had personality clashes and extreme hardships. There was some kind of power in the message that transcended the messenger for many of them.

3) There are others who seemed to have been converted to the man – to Joseph as a prophet – without much of a “doctrinal conversion”. Interestingly, those who met first and were taught directly by Joseph seem to have been MUCH more likely to have problems down the road and end up leaving the Church. Iow, they were converted to the Restoration (or the Prophet of the Restoration) but not the Restored Gospel. These people often became the disaffected members who rejected Joseph in the end and caused so much trouble for him and the Church. When they realized he wasn’t what they imagined a Prophet to be, they were shattered – while those who had based their conversion on the Gospel he taught and their own “independent experiences” tended to remain despite him.

That’s fascinating to me – and I hear the same basic dynamic still today. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[Anonymous]

In a class, one of my professors was saying how at RSR’s publishing, people expected that it would appeal to both the lay Mormon crowd and the historians as well. Unfortunately, RSR was too academic for the lay Mormons and not academic enough for the historians. One student offered that the academic world ignores RSR because it does not adequately rebut Fawn Brodie’s No Man Knows My History.

Does anyone here know if there’s any validity to that? What are the conundrums raised in Brodie’s biography that are not treated by Bushman?

[Anonymous]

trill, I think it’s just the different mindsets, frankly.

Brodie was not a believer in Joseph being a prophet; Bushman is. Their writings reflect that difference. It’s not so much the “facts” on which they disagree; it’s the motivation and the character and the reasons and the “intangibles” on which they disagree. The non-Mormon academic would lean naturally toward Brodie; the Mormon academic naturally would tend to lean toward Bushman. The non-academic, “Joseph was infallible” Mormon world wouldn’t like either.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

One student offered that the academic world ignores RSR because it does not adequately rebut Fawn Brodie’s No Man Knows My History.

I find this interesting and I’m not sure it’s accurate. Brodie’s theories are considered passé in biography writing because she relied on psychological theories that have subsequently gone out of favor, and she also doesn’t cite all her sources. Nevertheless, she’s an easier read (she’s kind of a novelist more than a biographer) than a Richard Bushman, and she is not neutral like he is, so there’s more to dig into.

[Anonymous]

Finished this book yesterday. I really enjoyed it. I think that Fawn Brodie started off harsh with JS, and got easier on him as the book continued. Her defense of him against the Spaulding-Rigdon BofM source theory was particularly interesting. It is and addendum to the original printing. She spent a LOT of time researching this topic and documenting history surrounding the controversy.

I stick with my original impression of the author. She does not believe Joseph was really what he claimed, but she does think he was a religious genius with a lot of important things to say. He also had amazing luck (until the end of course). I got a sense of tribal defensiveness from her at the end. JS was still a part of her “tribe,” as someone who is from Mormon roots.

[Anonymous]

hawkgrrrl wrote:

she is not neutral like he is

I have to disagree here. While RSR is certainly academic with it’s exhaustive resources, I specifically recall Bushman attempting to tackle the issue of the various accounts of the First Vision by simply stating that JS withheld entire portions of the story in his initial attempts to document the revelation. I think we are owed a better explanation than that, especially given the mutinous circumstances in Nauvoo preceding the 1838 version. I also think he treads a bit too lightly around the tougher issues; there are just two sentences given to fact that the BoA papyri has been dated by scholars as a polytheistic funeral text. This is expected coming from someone who’s intent is to affirm faith, so I don’t blame him, I just wouldn’t say he’s neutral.

[Anonymous]

spacious maze wrote:

hawkgrrrl wrote:

she is not neutral like he is

I have to disagree here. While RSR is certainly academic with it’s exhaustive resources, I specifically recall Bushman attempting to tackle the issue of the various accounts of the First Vision by simply stating that JS withheld entire portions of the story in his initial attempts to document the revelation. I think we are owed a better explanation than that, especially given the mutinous circumstances in Nauvoo preceding the 1838 version. I also think he treads a bit too lightly around the tougher issues; there are just two sentences given to fact that the BoA papyri has been dated by scholars as a polytheistic funeral text. This is expected coming from someone who’s intent is to affirm faith, so I don’t blame him, I just wouldn’t say he’s neutral.

I’m with you, Spacious Maze. Bushman is a very intelligent academic, and there were areas of RSR that left me wanting–not because Bushman didn’t have better academic answers, but because he didn’t want to be too negative about Joseph. I agree Valoel that Brodie makes unprovable leaps, but RSR has its own flaws. While focusing less on Joseph, and more on the early Church, I think Quinn’s Mormon Origins books is the most sound, thorough, academically accepted book that deals with Joseph and the controversies in his life.

[Anonymous]

spacious maze wrote:

hawkgrrrl wrote:

she is not neutral like he is

I have to disagree here. While RSR is certainly academic with it’s exhaustive resources, I specifically recall Bushman attempting to tackle the issue of the various accounts of the First Vision by simply stating that JS withheld entire portions of the story in his initial attempts to document the revelation. I think we are owed a better explanation than that, especially given the mutinous circumstances in Nauvoo preceding the 1838 version. I also think he treads a bit too lightly around the tougher issues; there are just two sentences given to fact that the BoA papyri has been dated by scholars as a polytheistic funeral text. This is expected coming from someone who’s intent is to affirm faith, so I don’t blame him, I just wouldn’t say he’s neutral.

I too feel that Bushman is a bit light on analysis. In all fairness, it may be because he is just speculating at that point. Maybe that’s all the history reliably tells us. However, having said that, I have heard from others that Bushman is a bit light on some of the issues. I was also disappointed in the coverage of the First Vision. But alas, I haven’t read Brodie yet.

[Anonymous]

Fawn brodie wrote as she beleived, she had no testimony so her insights reflect that fact. I made a choice over two decades ago to give very little time to non-beleivers who have negitive things to say about the church I know to be true. I paid my dues as a younger man reading and learning things that, looking back on, I am thankful I still beleive in the restoration. I have watched friends educate themselves away from a testimony, and met many former missionaries who had served missions for the church who later became fundamentalists . If this life really determines our eternal outcome, and I think it does, I will fill good just keeping a testimony to the end and adding some personal progress along the way. Regardless of what Fawn Brodie and her kind say, Joseph Smith did for religion what Einstein did for science. And there has been plenty of changes and schools of thought that has grown out of both.

Reading these posts for a few days has helped me realize it’s going to be a real challenge hanging onto our testimony in the last days. Which by the way I’m wondering if it’s (the last days) already showed up.

[Anonymous]

jeriboy wrote:

educate themselves away from a testimony

That’s a peculiar statement

[Anonymous]

Just finished reading this today.

I agree with others that Brodie admires JS, but does not believe in him. That’s actually why I read this book. I’ve read many other books on church history that have been positive to neutral on JS from a testimony perspective (such as RSR). I wanted to read what a non-believer would write and how they view all the facts. While Brodie is sometimes vague and does not incorporate ALL of the facts (such as the Magic World View), I think this is largely due to the book being written so long ago, before many of these facts were fully researched. However, the majority of her facts correspond with the other history books I’ve read. Her synthesis of the facts seems largely plausible to me.

I really enjoyed the style of the book with its smooth narrative flow. It is a masterfully done biography.

[Anonymous]

I am curious if anyone has read Hugh Nibley’s rebuttal to Brodie, No Ma’am, That’s Not History?

[Author]

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