The “salamander letter” was said to have been written by Martin Harris in 1830. It gave a radically different description of Joseph’s Smith’s retrieval of the golden plates. Rather than the Angel Moroni, an “old spirit” directed Joseph to the “treasure” and “transfigured himself from a white salamander.”1 24 years ago yesterday two bombs rocked Salt Lake City, killing two Mormons and injuring a third—historical document dealer Mark Hofmann. Ripples of fear moved through the Mormon history community as investigators soon uncovered a twisted scheme of lies, forgery, and murder plotted by Hofmann himself.2
Mourning for the loss of bomb victims Kathy Sheets and Steve Christensen (along with the aforementioned reverberations of fear) weren’t the only aftershocks from Hofmann’s strange attempt to make a fortune by casting doubt on the religion he no longer believed in. I was only three years old when the forgeries were exposed and Hofmann’s efforts went up in smoke. Once in a while I catch a slight whiff of burning amphibian while reading or researching Mormon history. Hearing about the experience of those who dealt with the letter in real time has helped me better understand how the letter still reverberates today.
First, the Salamander letter was another catalyst for Mormon historians to better evaluate the environment and culture of early Mormonism and the restoration of the gospel. Richard Bushman, Ronald Walker, Dean C. Jessee and other historians began plumbing the environmental influences with research questions that have spurred even richer historical treatments with more to come.3 Other researchers began (or continued) fashioning more naturalistic explanations for Joseph Smith’s claims. Marvin Hill, John Brooke, D. Michael Quinn and others have produced scholarship that carries hints of the salamander (and in some ways, the salamander originally carried a hint of what was already being discussed by certain scholars).4
Second, the Salamander letter is a reminder that prophets and leaders of the Church are not infallible and all-knowing. President Hinckley’s public statements when the letter was made known to the public make it clear he was not entirely convinced of the document’s authenticity, but for the time being accepted the judgment of certain document and history experts. Joseph Smith received a revelation reminding him that a prophet is not granted to know all the designs of people who seek to destroy the Church:
But as you cannot always judge the righteous, or as you cannot always tell the wicked from the righteous, therefore I say unto you, hold your peace until I shall see fit to make all things known unto the world concerning the matter (D&C 10:37).5
Third, the Salamander letter reminds current historians to take care in the use of historical sources. In some instances, this is more hindrance than help. Researcher Ardis Parshall noted that she has to be wary of using any document that passed through Hofmann’s hands. For instance, while researching information on the Utah War she located the diary of one observer containing many interesting details that will have to be substantiated elsewhere because Hofmann possessed it at one point. She notes that the Church archive catalog is very good about noting the Hofmann connection on every record involved.6
Finally, the Salamander letter provides examples of how faithful members of the Church confronted difficult information. Consider Kevin Barney’s reaction:
The salamander letter is the only thing I ever recall encountering that gave my testimony a pretty good shake. Lots of people today say they thought it was a forgery even then, but at the time mainstream historians pretty much all thought it was authentic. I thought it was authentic.
But here’s a good lesson in what to do when you get rattled by something. Instead of rolling over and playing dead and giving up, I rolled up my sleeves and went to the library. I studied non-LDS historical articles on folk magic, having nothing to do with Mormonism. These articles were focused on an earlier period–17th century, as I recall–but there was a clear continuity with what was going on in backwoods upstate New York in the early 19th century. Once I had an historical context in which to understand these events, my concerns quickly melted away. I would have been fine even if the letter proved to be genuine. I haven’t been bothered by folk magic stuff since. So for me this exposure was actually a good thing in the long run.
I was Gospel Doctrine teacher in my Ward at the time and I devoted an entire lesson to the letter. It was an awesome lesson, and that experience is a large part of the reason I’m an advocate of inoculation. Because I knew how dangerous that material was, since it had even rattled me, yet at the end of that lesson I also knew that no one who sat in that room was going to lose faith over it. That realization made a powerful impression on me.7
FAIR volunteer Suzie McKay explained how Kevin’s experience reminder her of her “fly ball” analogy:
When I was young, I had a problem mis-judging fly balls. I would instinctively run in on them, and when they were over my head, I would have to back-pedal or run back on them. It is much harder to catch a fly ball running back on it than running in on it. I learned to have my first step be *back*, even when it looked like it would be short. You can always run in on it if you misjudged it, but if you run in on it and have to go back on it, it’s a much more difficult catch.
With difficulties that throw us for a loop, we need to “step back” and study the issue in a way similar to what Kevin described. As Davis Bitton said in his “I don’t have a testimony of the history of the Church” talk, when one assesses in advance what the “worst case scenario” and “best case scenario” would be, the “worst case” is never remotely approached, and usually the “truth” is found to be somewhere between the two extremes. Managing expectations and “best & worst case” findings works wonders towards preventing shipwreck.8
These are just a few ripples in the water extending from the original explosion of document and gunpowder. In the face of future explosions it is wise to remember the patience exhibited by researchers whose efforts were borne out when the forgeries were exposed. Instead of rolling over and playing dead and giving up, we can roll up our sleeves and go to the library.
_____________________________________________________
FOOTNOTES
[1] For a full transcript and images of the letter, see BHodges, “Mark Hofmann and the Salamander Letter,” LifeOnGoldPlates.com, 15 October 2009.
[2] See the FAIR wiki article “Mark Hofmann/Church reaction to forgeries.” Steve Mayfield and George Throckmorton, key players in Hofmann’s prosecution, discussed the Hoffman case at the 2006 FAIR Conference. Videos of their presentation are available on YouTube. The two best full works on the case are Richard E. Turley, Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hofmann Case, University of Illinois Press (1992) and Linda Sillitoe and Allen Roberts, Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders, Signature Books (1990).
[3] BYU Studies Volume 24:4 (Fall 1984) contains interesting contemporaneous responses to the Salamander letter. See especially Ronald W. Walker, “Joseph Smith The Palmyra Seer.” Small elements of influence can be seen from Mark Ashurst-McGee’s work on seer stones and treasure guardians to Richard Bushman’s Smith biography Rough Stone Rolling and many works in-between.
[4] Perhaps two of the more obvious examples of works with “salamander-shaped holes” (to borrow a phrase from Stephen E. Robinson) are D. Michael Quinn’s Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (revised and enlarged edition, Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), and Grant Palmer’s Insider’s View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002) .
[5] See the FAIRwiki article, “Mark Hofmann/Church reaction to forgeries.”
[6] Ardis Parshall (of the “Keep-a-Pitchin’-In” blog), personal e-mail, 16 October 2009. First edition copies of Dean C. Jessee’s Personal Writings of Joseph Smith (Shadow Mountain, 1984) included several not-then-debunked Hofmann forgeries. The second edition (2002) omits them, and notes the omission. D. Michael Quinn’s first edition of The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power (Signature Books, 1994) erroneously references a Hofmann forgery though they had been debunked for several years. The mistake was corrected for the 1997 printed edition. See the FAIRwiki article “Nauvoo Legion to rescue Joseph.”
[7] Barney, personal e-mail, 16 October 2009.
[8] McKay V. Jones, personal e-mail, 16 October 2009. See Davis Bitton, “I Don’t Have a Testimony of the History of the Church,” 2004 FAIR Conference presentation.
bhodges,
I agree with all four points you mention.
Just before the Salamander Letter hit the news, a friend of mine, a former Latter-day Saint turned professional anti-Mormon, called to tell me about it. In breathless tones, he assured me that it invalidated everything we were taught about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. It would, he said, “blow the Church out of the water.”
After that buildup, the letter itself was anticlimactic. I was expecting it to say that Joseph had made up the whole story—there were no plates, no angels, nothing supernatural at all. (At the time, I was somewhat disaffected with the Church, and rather skeptical about Mormonism.)
But the Salamander Letter states that Martin Harris saw the plates, a point that struck me as highly significant. It also reports on Joseph’s gift of seeing with a seer stone. And it confirms the Anthon incident.
True, the part about Alvin seemed rather grotesque. And the reference to the salamander seemed odd. I realized, however, that those could have been misunderstandings on Martin’s part.
Later, I even changed my mind about the salamander. Having no personal experience with such matters, I had no reason to reject the idea that an angel or spirit could appear as a salamander, or a dove, or a burning bush.
So the Salamander Letter did not answer for me the question of whether Mormonism is true or false. When the letter was revealed as a forgery, I was neither relieved nor disappointed.
Since then, I have come to realize that the methods of history, science, and scholarship simply cannot provide the answers I was looking for.
Hofmann was clever by making a document mixing truth with falsehoods. The result was people like seminary teachers rationalizing what this meant. What about the gift of discernment to know if something is false or not? If you believe Joseph’s account through the Holy Ghost, why would you believe this? My parents didn’t believe it and were upset that it was being taught as doctrine in the church. But if you came out and said, “This isn’t true!” you were considered not faithful.
Thanks for your thoughts, P.K.
Onika, I imagine different people handled it in different ways, including seminary teachers. This post is meant to discuss some thing we might learn from the Hofmann experience. One of those things is that we are expected to do a little leg work ourselves. 🙂
My wife and I were on a Church History tour of Nauvoo that October in ’85 when we heard the news of the last bomb exploding in SLC. Also I had known Steve Christensen, we had served together in the same mission; this made the bombings real and personal.
Mark Hoffmann will forever be known as a murderer and forger but I believe his real legacy will be his exposure of a church hierarchy that was guilty of a long held practice of white washing and sanitizing church history.
Hoffmann’s forgeries were believable, credible and worthy of purchase by the church because they were based on elements of truth, sprinkled with fiction. As it turned out, Joseph Smith WAS involved in folk magic. He DID believe in magic rocks and parchments. He did keep an occult Jupiter talisman with him…even through to the day he died.
It wasn’t a coincidence that so many important Mormon foundational events took place on the fall equinox, September 21st…a date that is important to both Mormons and the occult.
Prior to Hoffman, these and so many other early church occult connections were unknown to the average member of the church. Hoffman’s forgeries…changed the trajectory of Mormon history forever.
Craig, it sounds like you have been reading too much D. Michael Quinn. A severely flawed book.
Unfortunately, some (former?) members of the Church have taken some of his extremely tenuous conclusions and ran with them. They begin talking about “magic rocks” and the infamous “talisman,” the one that didn’t show up on the coroner’s list of Smith’s personal effects but that was later sold decades later by Emma’s 2nd husband for some extra cash. For a person claiming to be concerned with “truth” in history, you show an interesting lack of awareness of what the historical evidence actually depicts.
http://en.fairlatterdaysaints.org/Joseph_Smith/Occultism_and_magic/Jupiter_talisman
So to conclude, Hofmann’s real legacy will be his forgery and murders. Interesting to see him lionized by “ex-Mormons.” Funny sort of hero that is.
BHodges, Are you suggesting that Joseph Smith and his family had absolutely nothing to do with folk magic or the occult?
Are you asserting that Joseph never dug up a rock at the bottom of Willard Chase’s well he claimed had super magical powers?
Are you saying that Joseph didn’t use his magic rock to search for treasure?
Are you claiming that he and his family didn’t keep magic parchments?
Are you suggesting that it was mere coincidence important Mormon foundational dates repeatedly fell on the occult fall equinox?
Are you professing his walking cane was not carved in shape of a snake with occult symbols?
Are you saying that Joseph did not believe in the magical powers of diving rods?
Hmmm… If true…then I own you my apologies… of course you would be right…an occult Jupiter Talisman…would never have been found with a man who had never participated in any of this occultism…it would be completely uncharacteristic.
Craig: what I am saying is that your over-simplistic characterizations have no room in a squabble over who is or is not being accurate about history. See the FAIR wiki for the answers to your above assortment.
And for the record….I never lionized Hoffmann nor should anyone ever make a hero of him. He committed abominable acts. He should have paid a much heavier price.
As I stated, he is a murderer and forger…but a legacy is the lasting effects these terrible actions will have on the Mormon Church…that legacy, as stated earlier, is his public exposure of Mormonism’s unwillingness to be more open and honest with its own membership.
The reality remains that Hoffmann exposed the Mormon hierarchy’s long held practice of white washing and sanitizing church history. That all started to change with Hoffmann.
Craig, Hofmann was derivative of movements that began before him and continued after him. I noted what I thought about his “contribution” in my first point above.
Best,
BHodges
In my opinion the Folk Magic theory has non-sense.
If the ex-mormon comunity associates Joseph Smith with magic then they should also associate all Christianity with paganism. As is common knowledge, christians use to decorate pine trees in the Christimas season (which has a pagan origin) and have many pictures and Chocolates with eggs and rabbits in the Easter season (which are related to very ancient pagan fertility rituals)
Hoffman biggest legacy was that he also exposed many anti-mormons. For example Palmer, when he still was working to the church, wrote the “New York Mormonism” with the name Paul Pry and tryed to find similarities between the salamander letter and the “Golden Pot” fairy tale.
http://mi.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=15&num=2&id=514
The most interesting is that he never said he was wrong after Hoffman’s forgeries were uncovered.
I think Hoffman taught us that anti-mormonism isn’t interested to expose the truth. SO Hoffman should be really honored by the anti-mormons because he somehow did what many today antis would like to do but don’t have courage enough to do it.
Note: Sorry for mistakes. English isn’t my native language.
Thanks, Cesar.
BHodges and anyone else who might know:
This is slightly off the subject, but would it be correct to say that an original ancient document would have fewer details than a newer copy of that document because the scribe may add to it for various reasons?
Question to BHodges:
If none of my assertions are based in reality, if it is so CLEAR that Joseph was not involved in folk magic, as you are trying to suggest by dismissing my “over-simplistic characterizations”… then WHY in the world would the Mormon Church have bought Hoffmann’s forgeries in the first place IF they were SO CLEARLY a fraud and then hide them away in the First Presidency’s private vault?
I mean come on…IF, as you are suggesting, the forgeries described a activities that were so far outside the bounds of Joseph’s character, the Hoffmann forgeries would have been dismissed and exposed immediately as the outright fraud and forgeries they eventually turned out to be.
BUT, IF on the other hand, Hoffmann‘s forgeries were based on truth…if the bizarre claims did fall within the bounds of Joseph’s character, as a dabbler in folk magic…then it makes complete sense that the church would want to buy and hide this disturbing information from its membership…because this information would have been so outside the image of Joseph that the church had tried so hard to create.
Help me understand why the Mormon Church would buy such an obvious forgery and hide it from public inspection if it exposed such an outlandish unbelievable foreign characterization of Joseph Smith?
I suggest that the churches actions speak for themself.
Craig,
I’m fine with letting actions speak for themselves, it only seems that the actions say different things to you than they do to me. To be honest it feels as though you are looking for an argument. I prefer to let what I have already written stand as-is in response to your questions. See my first point in the blog post proper and its footnote.
Best,
BHodges
Onika, it depends entirely on the document, I suppose.
It’s your sand box and I really try to play nice whenever I post here. And no, I am not seeking an argument…just a F.A.I.R. exchange of ideas. I believe this blog has always been more than fair and patient with me and my viewpoint.
I read your link regarding the Jupiter Talisman…I can see why you have issues with its provenance … and believe it should be completely dismissed as an argument to tarnish Joseph’s Smith reputation if it is out of character with that reputation…but for whatever reason you choose not to answer my question.
Did Joseph Smith dabble in folk magic or not? Would a Jupiter Talisman have been out character for him or not? If not…what would cause Hoffmann to put such an obviously dismissible red herring, as his folk magic references, in his forgeries? Wouldn’t those misplaces references have been an obvious clue that his forgeries were in fact forgeries to LDS Leadership?
Am I missing something here? I really want to know…did Joseph Smith dabble in folk Magic or not?
Everything I can see points to the fact that YES he did…but I’d be glad to be shown otherwise…
Hofmann discussed why he put folk magic references in the letter. His explanation can be found in Turley’s “Victims: The LDS Church and the Mark Hofmann Case,” University of Illinois Press (1992). Hofmann was far from the first person to draw upon information about folk magic. His work was derivative.
Joseph Smith used seer stones to receive revelation and translate the Book of Mormon. People today call phenomena like this “folk magic.” Certainly Joseph Smith was involved early on with what we today would call “folk magic.” A recent FAIR conference address by Brant Gardner is recommended in this regard:
http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2009_Joseph_the_Seer.html
Best,
BHodges
BHodges:
“Onika, it depends entirely on the document, I suppose.”
How about books like the Book of Enoch. It has details that aren’t in the Bible.
Cr@ig P@xton wrote:
“WHY in the world would the Mormon Church have bought Hoffmann’s forgeries in the first place IF they were SO CLEARLY a fraud and then hide them away in the First Presidency’s private vault?”
I get so *sick* of hearing this charge. The Church did *not* “hide them away”; they *published* them–in the Church News!
Try to get your facts straight before engaging your keyboard.
EditorJack, quit confusing us with the facts. 😉
You Are So Wrong EditorJack and I demand an apology:
Let’s review the actual timeline…
The church took ownership of the Salamander Letter during the first week of April 1985. Steven F. Christiansen purchased the Salamander Letter from Hofmann, and donated it to the Church. President Hinckley himself accepted the donation. So did he immediately hold a press conference and confess church ownership of the salamander letter to the world?
NO he did not! He hid it away in the First Presidency’s Private Vault.
There the letter sat…sequestered and hidden from the world and public view…tightly sealed with the full force of Church Security protecting it for total of…
Drum Roll Please…
21 full days…thats over 500 hours…
It wasn’t until the 28th of April 1985 that the church finally caved in to the immence public pressure clamering for full disclosure…Ah…Ummm…ok they didn’t cave… they actually voluntarily published the full text of the Salamander Letter in The Church News. But that didn’t come out until the Saturday’s Desert News edition…and gee…Not everyone subscribes to that…
So “man up” EditorJack…show some humility, admit your error and apologize to me.
21 days is a remarkable turn-around time for a document like the Salamander letter purported to be. No need for apologies, you actually helped prove Jack’s point. And how!
Oh come on Bhodges….cut me some slack…I was being totally funny, tongue in check and self deprecating.
dude you need to get out more…
The ability to bounce back from hard times or to deal with problems when they come is a big part of good mental health. ,
Well, Cr@ig, now you could ask why the Church would publish something they thought was not in Joseph’s character. They must have thought it was (the folk magic part).
Yeah I’m a real stick in the mud.
You know what, I get it. I understand that I am entering a pro Mormon apologetic forum whose stated purpose is to defend Mormonism and thereby strengthen and buttress the underpinnings of the LDS Church.
I also understand that as such the authorized F.A.I.R. posters must, out of necessity, be dogmatic and unyielding in that defense. For to even concede a single point would only serve to undermine the very purpose of this blog and the church you seek to defend.
It also goes without saying that those of my ilk, who hold a contrasting worldview must enter knowing that we will be immediately cast as church hating stereotypical anti-mormon apostates, out to destroy Mormonism using lies, half truth, distortions or whatever means needed to achieve the goal of our master, Satan.
Speaking for myself. I try my best to be open minded and pragmatic and certainly willing to accept and change a viewpoint where I believe I am wrong. But getting one of the authorized posters to do such is an excruciatingly painful process.
Case in point, I tried in almost every manner I could to get bhodges to admit that YES in fact Joseph Smith was involved in folk magic….and finally…to his credit he did admit it…but to get to that point was so very painful. I’m sure some of that difficulty can be caulked up to the communication process we are using rather than speaking face to face. In the same light, I also understand that it is difficult to pick up the subtleties of my over the top, tongue in cheek confession through this medium. I was trying to be funny and admit that yes my perception of the church withholding the Salamander Letter from the public had been in error.
So here’s what we know:
01. Joseph Smith was a dabbler in folk magic.
02.Mark Hoffmann used this reality to exploit the church.
03. Prior to the Hoffmann forgeries the majority of active believing church members were unaware of Joseph’s folk magic past. Hoffman used this widespread ignorance to damage the church and expose this element of Joseph’s life to mainstream church members.
04. Because most active church members rely on approved church material to get their education of church foundational stories and had been discouraged from reading unauthorized material that might have exposed them to Joseph’s folk magic, Hoffmann’s exposure left many church members at first disturbed and then relieved but wondering why they hadn’t ever heard these facts once the fraud was exposed.
05. Once the dust of Hoffmann’s forgery had settled a whole new gritty unsanitized version of church history was introduced to the mainstream church through a variety of sources…both pro and con.
I maintain that Hoffmann’s legacy was his exposure of a church hierarchy that had taken an active role in providing and promoting a white washed, sanitized, faith promoting version of church history that in truth turned out to be something , somewhat less black and white or faith promoting. But hey that’s just my perspective and experience.
PS: I have WAY too much time on my hands…
“I also understand that as such the authorized F.A.I.R. posters must, out of necessity, be dogmatic and unyielding in that defense. For to even concede a single point would only serve to undermine the very purpose of this blog and the church you seek to defend.”
I try my best to call it like it is, Craig. But imagine if I said something like:
“I understand that because Craig is an active and proselyting ex-Mormon he must, out of necessity, be dogmatic and unyielding in his offense. For to even concede a single point would only serve to undermine the very purpose of his participation on this blog and the church he seeks to decry.”
It also goes without saying that those of my ilk, who hold a contrasting worldview must enter knowing that we will be immediately cast as church hating stereotypical anti-mormon apostates, out to destroy Mormonism using lies, half truth, distortions or whatever means needed to achieve the goal of our master, Satan.
I wouldn’t put it in these terms. I don’t personally know you.
You probably don’t feel like this reasonably represents your position. Well, this gives you an idea of how I feel about your comment. 🙂
I tried in almost every manner I could to get bhodges to admit that YES in fact Joseph Smith was involved in folk magic….and finally…to his credit he did admit it…but to get to that point was so very painful.
My acceptance of that is implicit in the post itself when I directly cited references to that affect. You seem to have overlooked the actual blog post, and instead wished to get down in the mud and argue. I was hoping to get you to read the post and recognize what you had already overlooked but it looks like I failed and so had to me more specific. I’ll try to remember for next time that I shouldn’t count on you getting the points from the main blog post.
Aside from several other problems in your analysis, this one is especially misleading:
05. Once the dust of Hoffmann’s forgery had settled a whole new gritty unsanitized version of church history was introduced to the mainstream church through a variety of sources…both pro and con.
I don’t know how many times I have to make this point: Hofmann’s (one “f”) work was derivative. He was not introducing new elements into the fray, he was attempting to exploit lines of thought that preceded him by decades. Hofmann’s contribution was one of many catalysts (the Bainbridge court record, the Hurlbut affidavits, Fawn Brodie’s work, etc.) to better academic history of Mormonism. In my view your analysis is faulty because it is oversimplified. The Church does not spend significant time and resources discussing folk magic and so forth. However, there are church-produced resources that have been made available since the beginning discussing such issues. Members not interested in the nitty gritty of history are less likely to be aware of this material but it is available.
http://en.fairlatterdaysaints.org/Censorship_and_revision_of_LDS_history/Hiding_the_facts
Authorized pre ’85? Oh Well…I’ve been resolutely put in my place by a master…thanks for the discussion.
Score another win for F.A.I.R., You guys Rock!
Oh and…
Go Utes!
Just thought I’d throw that in cuz it’s oversimplified.
Yeah, “authorized” pre ’85. 🙂
And yes, go Utes.
Holy Cow…how did I miss this very important point bhodges made in his Hofmann (one “f”) forgery reflection?
Bhodges declared …”I was only three years old when the forgeries were exposed and Hofmann’s efforts went up in smoke”.
Here I was under the impression that I was having a discussion with someone who was actually old enough to understand the times and conditions that were present in the church in October 1985.
No wonder I kept thinking we were talking on different levels of understanding, because in fact we were. Bhodges, with all due respect…you have no idea what the church was like in 1985. You are only assuming to know….but you’ve grew up in a post-Hofmann (one “f”) church and have no personal knowledge of the LDS church of the 60’s, 70’s or 80’s. Your experience comes entirely from the Post Hofmann forgery church…and with all due respect it is a completely different organization in terms of how it operates, teaches and projects itself…in other words…it has evolved into a completely different organization since October ’85 with completely different understand of its foundational stories.
You see I grew up in a church that taught that all Native Americans were descendants of Lehi while you’ve grown up in a church where Lehi’s was one “among” millions of possible forefather possibilities.
I grew up in a church that taught that there was a universal flood that flooded and baptized the entire earth…killing every man woman and child, save eight…while you grew up in a church that allows members to view the flood as a metaphor and teaches the probability of a limited regional flood…that killed a few but left the earth virtually untouched.
I grew up in a pre-Hofmann church where Joseph’s Abraham papyri translation was still an actual translation of Abraham’s actual writings found on Egyptian papyri. While you grew up in a church where the papyri where merely tools of inspiration, mere muses for his revelation.
I grew up in a church where we were instructed as missionaries to expose as evil anti Mormon lies anyone who dared to say that Joseph Smith dabbled in folk magic/ treasure digging etc…while you’ve been raised in a church were you can comfortably accept and admit to Joseph’s magic activity…as discreasions of his youth.
I grew up in a church where Joseph actually sat down in front of actual “gold” plates and translated them with the aid of the Urium and Thumium…while you’ve grown up in a church where Joseph had some gold colored plates but not necessarily real gold but were not necessaryly in his presence during the actual translation process…and translated by placing a rock he found while digging a well for his neighbor Willard Chase in the bottom of his hat.
I grew up in a church where Joseph Smith was almost worshiped as a Man-God…while you’ve grown up in a church where Joseph’s human weaknesses have been exposed and celebrated.
I grew up in a church that taught that dinosaurs were not native to our earth but by-products of another of God’s many earth creations and merely used as matter material in the creation of this earth. (crazy huh).
Yes Bhodges, as someone who lived it, I was raised in a different church, the Pre-Hofmann LDS Church…but everything changed with Mark Hofmann’s revelations. He’s forgeries forever changed the trajectory of the LDS church…by exposing his truth based ideas through forgeries to the mainstream church member. Ideas that previously had been discounted as anti-Mormon lies now became points of open questions. Hoffman certainly affected the church and the idea’s that you were raised in. But not knowing what the church was like pre-Hofmann…I wouldn’t expect you to have an understanding of what that was like.
Ah to be young and idealistic…
I’ve spoken with many people who lived in the “pre-Hofmann” church, some of whom were directly involved with the Hofmann episode, and many of them had different experiences than you, Craig. I’ve read many “pre-Hofmann” publications and publications since that time. I’ve done my best to imagine the circumstances and to see them through the eyes of those who were involved. You’re quite right that I don’t know your experience in the Church, but it seems to me you were something of a “swallow-whole Mormon,” and when certain things turned out different than you expected you left the Church.
“Oh, you just don’t agree with me because you are too young” is not a strong argument.
Maybe it was Craig’s fundamentalist assumptions that were overturned, rather than the entire Church’s modus operendi. I was 13 in 1985. I remember Hofmann and the fall-out well (fallout was in the Ensign, fer crying’ out loud, and I used to read Sunstone in the University of Lethbridge library when there waiting for my piano lessons to start.)
1) I already believed that Lehi was one among millions (Sorenson wrote in 1984 in the Ensign, if nothing else.)
2) I never believed the stuff about dinosaurs (though I had a fundamentalist teacher who tried to foist it upon me one day–but at the time I regarded this as an aberration, since I had never been taught it before). I also never believed the flood was global, and didn’t have anyone (save the same fundamentalist) try to convince me otherwise. My parents taught me that there were at least two schools of thought on the matter (hence my astonishment at hearing this in class one day)–and, were interestingly quite reticent in telling me what they thought. I’ve only known in the last couple of years what my father’s opinion is/was. So, I came to that on my own.
3) I knew about tumbaga as a gold plates substrate, since Sorenson also mentions that in his 1985 Ancient American Setting, which I read as soon as it came out. I don’t think this had a thing to do with Hofmann.
4) I don’t remember specifically whether I knew about seer stones and stuff at 13, but I think I did. It was in the Children’s Friend of 1974, and the Ensign of 1977 after all:
“There he gave his most detailed view of ‘the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated’: “Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light.”
—Richard Lloyd Anderson, “‘By the Gift and Power of God’,” Ensign (Sep 1977): 79, emphasis added.
“…the Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone.”
—Richard Lloyd Anderson, “‘By the Gift and Power of God’,” Ensign (Sep 1977): 79
To help him with the translation, Joseph found with the gold plates “a curious instrument which the ancients called Urim and Thummim, which consisted of two transparent stones set in a rim of a bow fastened to a breastplate.” Joseph also used an egg-shaped, brown rock for translating called a seer stone.”
—“A Peaceful Heart,” Friend, Sep 1974, 7
5) I had read Nibley’s 1968 work on the JSP (in its republished form), and so didn’t believe that the papyri we had were the source of Joseph’s translation (he argued they were the Book of Breathings). I did not–and still do not–hold the “inspiration” theory.
6) As for treasure digging, that’s in the History of the Church, so I can’t remember a time I didn’t see it as at least a “youthful indiscretion.” (Though I think learning more has changed how I look at it, for the better.)
7) I never regarded Joseph as a “man-god,” and always considered him fallible. I well remember a family home evening lesson in my early teens in which Joseph’s foibles in the D&C were pointed out, and discussed how a faker would be less likely to do this sort of thing.
Yet, I think I was pretty “mainstream.” I wasn’t in Utah, just a small town in southern Alberta, Canada. At the time, my dad was my bishop. I was aware there were different views on some of these things, but I didn’t get the impression they were somehow foundational.
But, I’m probably not old enough to count, right? I find it strange that I had tumbled to all this supposedly radical stuff by my early teens which you see as an utter revolution….it can’t have been hidden all that well if I found it all by myself, far from Utah.
Ironically, the church and its members are “damned if they do and damned if they don’t.” If they don’t change, improve, and evolve in how they teach and understand things, then they’re hide-bound, reactionary, or denying the truth.
But, if there is a maturation or change in how people look at things due to new and better information (see Article of Faith #10), then this is suddenly seen as a massive re-orientation, and complete revolution in everything the church teaches, does, and conducts itself.
We’re certainly better at history now than we were then–all around. The archives are more professional, and better studied. This is a good thing.
I also find it funny that you think the 21 day delay is a smoking gun. Weren’t the potentially explosive contents of the “Salamander Letter” already known and circulating in the “Mormon Underground” of informal document photocopy trading? See Cheryll L. May in Dialogue 19/4 (Winter 1986):
“The salamander letter references to what had long been considered to be pagan superstitions were circulated with great glee by a number of militant anti-Mormons for more than a year before the Church’s official announcement of the letter.”
More than a year.
There’s simply no way that the Church could have believed they could keep it under wraps if they had wanted to.
If we’re gonna make them evil geniuses out to deceive, let’s not simultaneously require them to act like utter idiots.
Heck, Church archives and Pres. Hinckley were repeatedly offered the chance to buy the Salamander letter, and they declined–strange indeed if they’re trying to keep it hidden or out of other hands.
And, if you want contemporaneous documentation, see here:
Note that this is a month before the Church even owned the letter. Christiansen indicated in his press release that he did not want it made public until it had been authenticated.
Further cites and timeline here:
http://en.fairlatterdaysaints.org/Mark_Hofmann/Church_reaction_to_forgeries
I guess sometimes fundamentalist mindsets never die.
Craig Paxton says “Ah to be young and idealistic…”
I say, Ah but to be old and realisic….
Too many people were around in the “pre-Hofmann church” to be able to get away with such a facile dismissal. Changes that bent the inflexible thinkers began in the sixties with feminism. One of my institute classes at the U of Utah in that period was scandals of the church. The teacher explained and discussed a new “scandal” each week. Let’s also be honest about disclosing this was an era in which women went to college to be nurses, teachers or business underlings. So enough of the diversionary tactics.
Cr@ig wrote,
Apparently you were raised in a different church. The church you described doesn’t much resemble the LDS Church I grew up in.
(Where did you get the bit about dinosaurs, anyway? No doubt some people believed that, just as some people believe that the earth is hollow and inhabited by the Lost Ten Tribes. But I have never heard such doctrines taught from the pulpit.)
You contend that everything changed after Hofmann’s forgeries. That strikes me as a bit hyperbolic. I would hope that we as an institution learned some things from the Hofmann affair (I did). But I simply do not see the sweeping changes you describe.
Bhodges, I’m trying to figure out where all of this went wrong. And I’m frustrated on so many levels. For whatever reasons, I feel as if I’m beating my head against a brick wall. I understand that each of us brings our own experiences and bias’ to this discussion.
But so far, I have been accused of:
01. Lionizing Hofmann…I did not, in fact I said “Mark Hoffmann will forever be known as a murderer and forger”
02. Claiming that Hofmann’s real legacy will be his forgery and murders….I never said this…I did say … “I believe[d]” his real legacy will be his exposure of a church hierarchy that was guilty of a long held practice of white washing and sanitizing church history. Well you do expect me to use hyperbole right?
03. [using] over-simplistic characterizations by this I’m guessing that you feel Joseph’s folk magic use requires a more complicated explanation?
04. Being a “swallow-whole Mormon” if that means I believed what I was taught from General Authorities on down the command chain? Guilty as charged….
05. Being a fundamentalist No I was just your average run of the mill go to church on Sunday, no smoking, drinking, swearing or fooling around, believing and scripture reading, mission serving, temple attending, tithing paying, calling holding kind of Mormon. So was I a fundie? Well if Joseph Fielding Smith, Bruce R. McConkie, Spencer W. Kimble where fundamentalist…then maybe I was a fundamentalist.
You know, all I wanted to contribute to this thread was my belief that Mark Hofmann’s forgeries changed the trajectory of the church. But from the responses I’ve received here, I’m going to guess that I was alone in that perception.
Little did I know that I was the only one in the church whose trajectory was changed by Hofmann. I freely admit that prior to Hofmann, I was pretty ignorant of Smith’s folk magic history…having been taught that it was an anti-Mormon lie… as a result, I never gave it any credence. Hofmann’s forgery put meat back on those bones.
When I post here, I fully expect to have my positions attacked and dismissed. You are here to defend Mormonism…and Mormonism is true irrespective of …well anything, right? There is nothing that anyone could ever offer that could make Mormonism…Ummm … un-true. So why do I even bother? Because I love crashing my head into brick walls I guess.
There’s a part of me that envies what I perceive as your abilities to bend your brains into pretzels and do the mental gymnastics necessary to make Mormonism work and believable. I wish I had that much faith. But my paradigm changed with Hofmann; Oh I was able to fake it for nearly 2 more decades…but the wheels of believability eventually fell off…when I finally got the courage to accept what I perceived as (I’m trying to be kind) Reality.
You know, all I wanted to contribute to this thread was my belief that Mark Hofmann’s forgeries changed the trajectory of the church. But from the responses I’ve received here, I’m going to guess that I was alone in that perception.
Again, I refer you to my original comments in the post to which you responded. Specifically these:
First, the Salamander letter was another catalyst for Mormon historians to better evaluate the environment and culture of early Mormonism and the restoration of the gospel. Richard Bushman, Ronald Walker, Dean C. Jessee and other historians began plumbing the environmental influences with research questions that have spurred even richer historical treatments with more to come.3 Other researchers began (or continued) fashioning more naturalistic explanations for Joseph Smith’s claims. Marvin Hill, John Brooke, D. Michael Quinn and others have produced scholarship that carries hints of the salamander (and in some ways, the salamander originally carried a hint of what was already being discussed by certain scholars).
You say the SL changed the trajectory of the Church and so forth. My argument is it was a tragic part of on-going scholarship. In this way, Hofmann’s work was derivative of previous work being done in Mormon history and helped encourage further investigations and closer looks. I don’t see this as mental gymnastics or anything of the sort.
Best,
BHodges
Bhodges: I don’t see this as mental gymnastics or anything of the sort.
Cr@ig: Of course you wouldn’t…since you were innoculated to these things…while I never received the innoculation…the church I was raised to believe in no longer exists and the one that immerged out of that “derivative” time frame…is no longer believable (speaking only for myself of course)
Thanks for the exchange.
I was taught the same things that Cr@ig P@xton was, so don’t act like it’s so strange that he hadn’t heard of these of these other “accepted” view points before. I don’t think I’d get a very good reception in Sunday School if I told everyone, “Did you know the earth really wasn’t completely covered in the flood?” The Church teaches it was a baptism of the earth, so it is doctrine that it was completely covered. I’ve heard talks from general authorities explaining why there are such old dinosaur bones and stalagtites and stalagmites. The earth is made of pieces of older earths. Cr@ig’s former viewpoint is not so strange.
Well when I was a teenager I also heard many members of the Church talking about some of the Craig’s fantastic theories. Some theories I believed and others I didn’t.
I don’t see this as a very strong reason to leave the Church. (Anyway in my fundamentalistic way of thinking there’s no valid reason to leave the Church LOL)
For me this a proof that members use to exchange ideias and discuss their point of view about some doctrines. Some of them are correct others they don’t. And what’s the problem?
Craig,
You are not alone in your perceptions and history.
The remorse for what we taught and attempted to support with filmstrips, brochures and discussions while I was a missionary (75-77)…
Thanks for the courage, brother.
Thanks Scott and Cesar…one of the key elements of “doublethink” is its manipulation of historical reality for its own needs. Those of us that actually lived during this time period are well aware of “That” other church that used to exist.
I prefer the quadthink approach.
“Quad”-think? LOL, You made me smile bhodges 🙂
PS: I’m glad I grew up in the pre-quad days too…
Craig wrote,
Well, I lived though that period. I was not always happy with the Church during that time. Nevertheless, I do not agree with your version of “historical reality.”
Tell me, do you believe it possible for someone to disagree with your view of history and not be guilty of “doublethink”?
P. K. Andersen Says:
Tell me, do you believe it possible for someone to disagree with your view of history and not be guilty of “doublethink”?
P@xton Says:
Yes, just as different witnesses to an automobile crash see and remember different aspecs of the accident. All I can share are my memories and perceptions. To me they are real…but I respect that your formative Mormon experience may have been quite different. I’m sure in some ward some where there had to have been a progressive liberal Sunday school teacher who taught the Bible as metaphor and taught that Lehi came to an occupied America…but that wasn’t my experience…nor was it what I heard at General Conference
For me it came down to something very simple… I didn’t have a testimony of the history of the church, rather I had a testimony that was centered on the restoration of Christ’s church and that “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.”
As your original post stated, “The Salamander letter is a reminder that prophets and leaders of the Church are not infallible and all-knowing.” Still breaks my heart to see the Desert News photo of Kimball with a magnifying glass…
Since the end of the ’70s with the refutation of Mormon Doctrine and the curse of Cain and especially after 1985 the Church has moved away from “When the Prophet speaks, the debat is over” to “I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it.” and we find our guidance within the ranks of the apologist. Well meaning, intelligent and faithful individuals filling the voids…
With this in mind, does the Church have authority, lead by a Prophet of GOD or by committee?
Scott: you have expressed well your retrospective and reconstructed past, but the historical record simply doesn’t bear it out.
Scott,
Prophets are thrust into Church leadership without formal training in anything related to scholarship usually. The Church goes where the Lord takes it in general. You should worry less about where the leadership is going or whether they are just a committee, and get revelation on it yourself about what they are doing. The burden is on you to do that yourself. These men do their best with what they know and where they feel the Spirit is taking them. That doesn’t mean that they will always get it right in every instance or that they are infallible gods. The definition of prophet is not to get it right in an infallible way. And yes, sometimes apologists may have to pick up the pieces or fill in the voids. But that is because God has placed us where we need to be, just has he has placed the prophets where they need to be. They have great weight placed on their shoulders, but you don’t seem to sympathize with that weighty calling and are looking for perfection.
Ed, thank you for you remarks.
Why do the video’s of joseph smith life the restoration of the church leave out his polictical ambition, his militay position, his trouble with depth, these video’s don’t tell the whole story by a long way are we being treated as i’ll informed.
Ed,
I appreciate your perspective, have heard it often, and accept that prophets aren’t provided formal training prior to being “thrust” into their leadership positions. Has this not routinely been His way? I especially agree with your comments when viewed in context of lay ministry – bishops, stake presidents who might and have lead followers to invest in non-sustainable business models.
But nowhere are we to sustain a special witness of Christ, “Prophet – Seer – Revelator”… as such. The very title denies your position.
What was to separate the restored and ‘great and abominable’ churches was inspiration and authority – guidance from God, not the learning of men. They do indeed have a great weight placed on their shoulders, and I do ‘seem’ to sympathize with that weighty calling. The ‘perfection’ you say I am seeking is the very promise of the restoration.
The prophets of the Bible and Book of Mormon had conversations with God and Jehovah and were directed what they were to do. No where do I recall reading chapters or books later where one prophet would say, ‘I know you heard /read the brother of Jared say this but he was speaking as a man and was wrong.’ That is a very recent development – one that began during the life of the first prophet of the restoration.
The restored church wasn’t to be lead nor influenced by men of the Sanhedrin – the Sadducees and Pharisees who attempted to explain and frame God’s word for others to understand. Nor was it to be lead by well intending men as the other Christian churches. It was to be directed by inspiration direct from God, not your common day ‘this feels right’ or ‘this direction is consistent’ inspiration.
I don’t know you, nor of your experience in dealing with people like me. I can’t speak to your perspective and motivations as easily as you can mine. As Pace taught me in college, I have developed my own personal relationships – regardless what McConkie dictated. I have sought and studied these things to my own satisfaction.
Unfortunately, BHodges hit it directly and stated it better than I have ever attempted – the historical record simply doesn’t bear it out that the church today is any different from all the others Joseph was told not to join.
Scott, if you can’t refrain from putting false words in my mouth you will be asked to exit the conversation.
I was a student of Mormon history before the Hoffman scandal. I read the “New Mormon History” and saw LDS historians adopt secular standards. I remember well the consequent discomfort of a few LDS leaders who saw no place in the church for history that was not primarily faith promoting. It was clear to me back then as it is now that Hoffman was more a product of the increasing openness, professionalism, and naturalism in LDS history than he was the cause. Hoffman had friends and clients on both sides of the apologetic divide. He also was well aware of the increasing objectivity of secular LDS history. Hoffman’s genius was not merely in creating believable forgeries, but in recognizing the vulnerability of Mormon historians, and how he could turn weakness into profit.
Cr@ig P@xton is clearly wrong in his opinion that “[Hoffman’s] real legacy will be his exposure of a church hierarchy that was guilty of a long held practice of white washing and sanitizing church history.”
The church’s approach to history was well known, and well exposed long before Hoffman. The prophetic view of history has never been “objective.” It was recognized for decades before P@xton and I came around that a prophet always employs a religious paradigm to interpret events differently than other writers. You may call this “white washing” if you don’t share the prophetic paradigm, but if you do see things like the prophets you consider faith promoting history to be simply a matter of selecting relevant events, not a sneaky censoring of the truth.
Most historians today insist objective history is not possible – history is inevitably a censoring of one story in order to tell another. It seems to me that P@xton’s imputation of guilt is merely his insistance that any story that builds LDS faith is dishonest. Because of his anti-Mormon paradigm, the only history he can accept is that which has been “black-washed.”
I knew and respected Steve Christensen and have a hard time thinking of any net benefit resulting from his murder. But I always hope that some good can result from tragedy. And in this case I think perhaps Hoffmans greatest positive contribution was to make us all more aware of how our bias made us vulnerable to fraud. Anti-mormon glee was very embarrassing. LDS scholars also were embarrassed by their gymnastic accomodations to the new evidence. Nor am I convinced that the secular historian came out smelling much better. I hope that we all can learn to be more cautious and respectful of both documents and nefarious agendas.
JohnC, I very much appreciate your contribution to the discussion, thank you.
I’ll make a reply only because “John C” (your last name couldn’t possibly be Bennett could it) made me the central target of his response.
JohnC Says: I was a student of Mormon history before the Hoffman scandal. I read the “New Mormon History” and saw LDS historians adopt secular standards. I remember well the consequent discomfort of a few LDS leaders who saw no place in the church for history that was not primarily faith promoting.
Cr@ig P@xton: So you do remember and acknowledge the discomfort among LDS Leadership for a history that was not, as you say, faith promoting, I say white washed or sanitized in order to make it faith promoting. (How do you make something faith promoting? You leave out all of the “history-details” that do not promote faith and belief. Why on earth would these LDS leaders have felt uncomfortable with the history that they authorized to be taught if it was an honest portrayal of reality? Otherwise, Hoffman’s revelations…would have merely fallen on informed ears and yawn’s had they not been so earth shattering or as you say…”discomfort[ing]”
JohnC Says: Hoffman’s genius was not merely in creating believable forgeries, but in recognizing the vulnerability of Mormon historians, and how he could turn weakness into profit.
Cr@ig P@xton: Vulnerability??? Weakness??? How could an honest portrayal of history create vulnerability or weakness…unless it was something other than an honest portrayal of reality. Truth is not vulnerable or weak. The opposite of Truth however is very vulnerable and weak.
JohnC Says: Cr@ig P@xton is clearly wrong in his opinion that “[Hoffman’s] real legacy will be his exposure of a church hierarchy that was guilty of a long held practice of white washing and sanitizing church history.”
Cr@ig P@xton: I think JohnC’s own words have betrayed his own argument. JohnC admitted that he ‘remember[‘s] well the consequent discomfort of a few LDS leaders who saw no place in the church for history that was not primarily faith promoting. If they hid nothing, whitewashed nothing, sanitized nothing…and Hoffman exposed nothing…why all their angst?
JohnC Says: (Or should I say admits that) The prophetic view of history has never been “objective.”
Cr@ig P@xton: In other words, the prophetic view is biased, distorted, partial, prejudiced toward a particular viewpoint or conclusion and subjective.
JohnC Says: prophet[s] always employ a religious paradigm to interpret events differently than other writers. You may call this “white washing” if you don’t share the prophetic paradigm, but if you do see things like the prophets you consider faith promoting history to be simply a matter of selecting relevant events, not a sneaky censoring of the truth.
Cr@ig P@xton: Yeah you got me there…I do call selecting relevant events at the exclusion of other relevant events whitewashing and sanitizing. But really, you call this faith promoting when relevant events are withheld…in order to manipulate a faithful conclusion??? That says more about you then it does about me JohnC… In a court of law this would be called witness or evidence tamporing. But in Mormonism, withholding the truth is called “Faith Promoting”.
JohnC Says: Most historians today insist objective history is not possible?
Cr@ig P@xton: Really? Could you name one among the “most” that make this claim?
JohnC Says: It seems to me that P@xton’s imputation of guilt is merely his insistence that any story that builds LDS faith is dishonest.
Cr@ig P@xton: Guilt? Only if it requires doctoring a story to make it more faith promoting than it otherwise would have been by telling the truth…otherwise allow the story to stand on its own merits. Truth does not require a support system of lies to hold it up…it can stand on its own merits without the assistance of withholding pertinent information….if it is in fact, TRUE.
JohnC Says: I knew and respected Steve Christensen
Cr@ig P@xton: As did I.
JohnC Says: LDS scholars also were embarrassed by their gymnastic accommodations to the new evidence.
Cr@ig P@xton: Gymnastic accommodations? New evidence??? But why would LDS scholars be embarrassed if they weren’t blindsided by their own failure to provide a truthful, honest LDS history prior to Hoffman’s forgeries? But they were blindsided by Hoffman ONLY because they ahd bought into the faithful history promoted by the LDS leadership.
JohnC, I thought you said I was wrong…ah…no actually you said that I was “clearly wrong” …in[my] opinion that “[Hoffman’s] real legacy will be his exposure of a church hierarchy that was guilty of a long held practice of white washing and sanitizing church history. Instead…you helped me make my case…and for this I thank you.
And with that, I rest my case your honor.
I wonder if DHodges will express appreciation for my contribution to the discussion? Ummm…probably not.
Now back to swatting flies…its much harder…
I’m BHodges, Craig, come on! 😉
You asked: “Really? Could you name one among the “most” that make this claim?”
Sure, how about Peter Novick? John H. Arnold? David Hackett Fischer? James West Davidson? Mark Hamilton Lytle? etc.
Oh…do you know DHodges by any chance :-)? BTW, I know that history can be vulnerable to subjective men with agendas but an honest historian will always lay out the available facts and allow his audience to make an informed decision based on all of the available information.
Bushman does a pretty good job in this department, despite his agenda, but to really get to the meat you still have to read his footnotes and then do some real research.
So BHodges, can you even acknowledge that teaching a well meaning, sanitized version of history designed to promote faith may very well promote faith…but do so at the cost of honesty and integrity?
If history only taught the story of Napoleon from his coup d’état in 1799 through his seemingly never ending string of army victories right up to 1811…one could correctly conclude that Napoleon was one of the greatest generals to ever lead an army. But once we add the consequences of 1812 and the withdrawal of the Grand Army from Russia where 80% (that’s 4 in 5) of Napoleon’s army died needlessly from exposure due to his failure to properly plan for the possibility of an early Russian winter…we get quite a different picture of Napoleon and see the hubris flaw in his personality.
To teach the Joseph Smith story in its pure whitewashed form without disclosing the use of folk magic in his family background, teaching the Book of Mormon translation story without revealing the prominent use of a rock dig from the bottom of Willard Chase’s well or the incorporation of Joseph Smith Sr’s dreams into Book of Mormon text (to name only a view of the many withheld historical facts)…may promote faith…but it also fails to fully disclose important details an honest investigator may need to determine the reality of Mormonism’s claims. And yet surprise surprise…Mormonism’s story seems not to be able to fully disclose these important details and still thrive…why else would these pertinent details be withheld from EVERY person who investigates the Mormon Church? Can the church NOT teach the truth and still find believers? Is the truth just NOT believable or faith promoting enough?
Hoffman took advantage of Mormonism’s “faith promoting history”…it was a train wreck of the churches own making…had they taught an honest history…Hoffman would have had no foundation from which to perpetrate his murders and fraud.
PS: BHodges…Let’s do lunch sometime…my treat 🙂
D is, coincidentally, my middle initial, so maybe you were channeling that! 😉
You said: “I know that history can be vulnerable to subjective men with agendas but an honest historian will always lay out the available facts and allow his audience to make an informed decision based on all of the available information.”
All history is from a certain perspective (or to be even more confusing, from a whole bunch of perspectives. That of the historian, the sources individually, the reader, etc.) When I am dealing with historical sources on my blog, for example, (an amateur historian only) I try to be mindful of the responsibility and nature of the process of selection. Historians James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle described an everyday view of history and pointed out a problem with it. People seem to assume that “History is what happened in the past.”
The authors explain:
“[This view] supposes that historians must return to the past through the surviving records and bring it back to the present to display as ‘what really happened.’ The everyday view recognized that this task is often difficult. But historians are said to succeed if they bring back the facts without distorting them or forcing a new perspective on them. In effect, historians are seen as couriers between the past and the present. Like all good couriers, they are expected simply to deliver messages without adding to them. This everyday view of history is profoundly misleading…
History is not ‘what happened in the past;’ rather, it is the act of selecting, analyzing, and writing about the past. It is something that is done, that is constructed, rather than an inert body of data that lies scattered throughout the archives” (Davidson, Lytle, After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection, 3rd ed. McGraw-Hill, (1992) xvii, xxi).
I largely subscribe to their views on that subject; I believe that the “noble dream” of objectivity is practically impossible. As Davidson and Lytle explain, “historians generally deal with probabilities, not certainties,” and like them, I “leave you to draw your own conclusions” after I have related my own to the best of my ability. I also cater my approach and comments to the audience at hand and the purpose of a given instance of communication. Davidson and Lytle conclude:
“For better or for worse, historians inescapably leave an imprint as they go about their business: asking interesting questions about apparently dull facts, seeing connections between subjects that had not seemed related before, shifting and rearranging evidence until it assumes a coherent pattern. The past is not history; only the raw material of it.”
Craig, you also asked: “So BHodges, can you even acknowledge that teaching a well meaning, sanitized version of history designed to promote faith may very well promote faith…but do so at the cost of honesty and integrity?”
Absolutely. I’ve written about this on my blog at LifeOnGoldPlates.com. However, not all “sanitized” versions of history result in the loss of honesty or integrity. Further, the examples you bring up about Joseph Smith, the translation of the BoM, etc. are not only interesting, but they are also debatable. It simply isn’t true that “the Church” in general has never discussed these issues. See this wiki entry for more information:
http://en.fairlatterdaysaints.org/Church_history/Censorship_and_revision/Hiding_the_facts
General homiletic history as related in church meetings is usually intended to inspire good behavior, etc., not to dig up all of the complexities and problems. Digging up complexities and problems can be an honest and good pursuit. You seem to think the church couldn’t “thrive” if whatever particular issue were made known more widely. I see certain issues as less relevant to the subject at hand.
You might be interested in this excerpt from the PBS interview with Dallin H. Oaks:
“It’s an old problem, the extent to which official histories, whatever they are, or semi-official histories, get into things that are shadowy or less well-known or whatever. That’s an old problem in Mormonism — a feeling of members that they shouldn’t have been surprised by the fact that this or that happened, they should’ve been alerted to it. I have felt that throughout my life.
There are several different elements of that. One element is that we’re emerging from a period of history writing within the Church [of] adoring history that doesn’t deal with anything that’s unfavorable, and we’re coming into a period of “warts and all” kind of history. Perhaps our writing of history is lagging behind the times, but I believe that there is purpose in all these things — there may have been a time when Church members could not have been as well prepared for that kind of historical writing as they may be now.
On the other hand, there are constraints on trying to reveal everything. You don’t want to be getting into and creating doubts that didn’t exist in the first place. And what is plenty of history for one person is inadequate for another, and we have a large church, and that’s a big problem. And another problem is there are a lot of things that the Church has written about that the members haven’t read. And the Sunday School teacher that gives “Brother Jones” his understanding of Church history may be inadequately informed and may not reveal something which the Church has published. It’s in the history written for college or Institute students, sources written for quite mature students, but not every Sunday School teacher that introduces people to a history is familiar with that. And so there is no way to avoid this criticism. The best I can say is that we’re moving with the times, we’re getting more and more forthright, but we will never satisfy every complaint along that line and probably shouldn’t.”
Finally, Hofmann took advantage of real people, and he killed them. Some people had been rattled by his forgeries, others weren’t. Thus, the faith promoting history problem you raise does not all apply all around the board at all.
Thanks for the Oaks quote…I rather enjoyed it.
So…I’m guessing that we have pretty much kicked this horse to death…and have all found our happy place?
Thanks for allowing me to post my thoughts on this subject…I don’t know if we’ve come to a better understanding of each other or not(kinda think we have)…but I will say that you have been very hospitable and F.A.I.R.
Thanks, Craig. One reason I am glad to talk about it with you is because your views are representative of your lived experience and perspective, which can give me a better understanding of how other folks have reacted to or understand these general issues. As for lunch I appreciate the offer. I work 7:30am to 4:30, M-F though, so it would depend on the schedule. My email address is BlairDHodges at Gmail.com