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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2019 conference held in August. If you would like to watch the presentations from our 2019 conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.
Ben Spackman, A Paradoxical Preservation of Faith: LDS Creation Accounts and the Composite Nature of Revelation
Transcript available here.
Ben Spackman did ten years of undergraduate (BYU) and graduate work in ancient Near Eastern studies and Semitics (University of Chicago) before moving on to general science (City College of New York). Currently a PhD student in History of Christianity at Claremont Graduate University, Ben’s focus is the intertwined histories of religion, science, and scriptural interpretation; most specifically, he studies the intellectual history of fundamentalism, creationism, and religious opposition to evolution in connection with interpretations of Genesis.
Ben taught volunteer Institute and Seminary for a dozen years in the Midwest, New York, and California, taught Biblical Hebrew, Book of Mormon, and New Testament at BYU, and TA’d a course on “God, Darwin, and Design” at Claremont. He has contributed to BYU Studies, Religious Educator, the Maxwell Institute, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, Religion&Politics, the Salt Lake Tribune, and blogs at benspackman.com (previously at Timesandseasons) where he writes extensively about Gospel Doctrine, evolution, and Genesis, among other things. He has presented lectures, firesides, and papers at various conferences, including the Joseph Smith Papers, the Mormon History Association, the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology, the Maxwell Institute Seminar on Mormon Culture, the Mormon Theology Seminar, Mormon Scholars in the Humanities, BYU’s Sperry Symposium, BYU Late Summer Honors (lecture on Genesis and evolution), and this year, Education Week (Aug 21-24), on Reading the Bible in Context. He is a contributor to BYU’s ecumenical Reconciling Evolution project.
Ben has appeared on various podcasts: LDS Perspectives (on genre in the Bible, and Genesis 1), LDS MissionCast (on missionaries, prooftexting, and the Bible), and GospelTangents (on evolution, scripture, and religious history).
He typically juggles half a dozen writing projects at once, currently including a book on Genesis 1 for an LDS audience, a dissertation on post-1970 creationism/evolution conflict in the LDS Church and its early 20th century roots, a chapter on the Cain/Abel story in Genesis, and a paper on the intellectual background of early 20th-century LDS attempts to reconcile science with scripture (fossils, dinosaurs, pre-adamites, evolution, age of the earth, etc.) He recently received a grant from the Redd Center for research on LDS understandings of dinosaurs and the establishment of BYU’s two museums.
Audio Copyright © 2019 The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, Inc. Any reproduction or transcription of this material without prior express written permission is prohibited.
I find Spackman’s arguments and reasoning fallacious. I don’t think all members of the church need to learn to interpret scripture (Genesis, etc.) like ancient Israelites did. If so, 99.9999% of the church will be damned, and Ben and 7 others who figured it out right will be saved.
I have seen deeply insightful and persuasive commentaries on the creation accounts from apostles (McConkie, Packer, Lee, Smith) that are entirely satisfying for what has so far been revealed. I also saw the quote where Spackman disagrees with Packer’s interpretation of the scripture. I find that troubling.
I think the scriptures tell us how God gives revelation: “these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding.” (D&C 1:24); “let us reason together, that ye may understand; Let us reason even as a man reasoneth one with another face to face. Now, when a man reasoneth he is understood of man, because he reasoneth as a man; even so will I, the Lord, reason with you that you may understand.” (D&C 50:10-12) etc, etc, etc.
I can find a slew of apostles who are opposed to evolutionary processes creating man, but none who believe God used evolution to do it. I can find a First Presidency statement on the creation of man that says Adam and Eve were born on earth of heavenly parents, not the product of evolution. I can find statements all over the church websites saying Adam and Eve were not mortal in the garden of Eden, and they could not have children until after they fell. All of this is approved by Church Correlation today (acting under delegated authority from the First Presidency) and is accepted by all the current FP & 12 as the settled doctrine of the Church. But I can’t find a single item promoting theistic evolution or asking us to read the scripture like ancient Israelites.
I can find a quotation from Pres. Joseph Fielding Smith saying that he as a man was fallible, but that when prophets receive revelation, that is infallible. I believe that reasoning over these musings.
But I guess maybe we all have to become ancient Israelites now to understand the Old Testament?
I guarantee you when Elder McConkie wrote his “Christ and the Creation” article at President Kimball’s request for the Ensign that he did not believe he was teaching false doctrine or misinterpreting the scriptures or that the Spirit did not approve of his words. I don’t think Elder Packer saw himself misleading the Church when he gave his Law and the Light address at BYU in 1988. I don’t think Elder Lee thought he was misleading CES men in 1954 when he taught them the creation accounts.
I do think Pres. Smith would today agree that his science in Man: His Origin and Destiny was flawed, but he still wouldn’t give an inch on his doctrine. What did the Ensign say about his gospel knowledge?
“Joseph Fielding Smith was long noted for the depth of his knowledge of the gospel and the scriptures.”
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2006/01/adams-role-in-bringing-us-mortality?lang=eng
Whiz, you don’t provide a source on your quotations, but I suspect some misunderstand or miscommunication to be involved. Pres. Smith cooperated fully with his son-in-law Elder McConkie, who would never have published Doctrines of Salvation without the full approval and involvement of his father-in-law. Joseph Fielding McConkie wrote: “His [BRMs] first venture into print was the three-volume work entitled Doctrines of Salvation, in which he edited material from letters and other writings of Joseph Fielding Smith. When correspondence did not adequately cover a particular subject, he would elicit it from President Smith, put it into writing, and have him sign it. President Smith never found it necessary to change so much as a word of what Elder McConkie had written. Gospel insights from one of the great theologians of the Church were thus preserved.”
And again:
“Between 1954 and 1956, the three-volume work entitled Doctrines of Salvation was first published. This work, which Bruce McConkie edited, consisted of doctrinal teachings of his father-in-law, Joseph Fielding Smith. Having then served for more than forty years as an apostle, President Smith had spent countless hours in front of his trusty old Underwood typewriter using the amazingly effective hunt-and-peck method to answer the endless flow of gospel questions that came to him. The mutual respect existing between him and his son-in-law gave rise to the idea that Bruce edit a three-volume work drawing on the many letters Joseph Fielding Smith had written over the years. It also created a wonderful opportunity for President Smith to mentor the young Seventy. Many interesting gospel discussions between the two men grew out of this work. In 2001, nearly fifty years after they were first published, the three volumes were combined into one and given as a Christmas gift to Church employees and CES personnel.”
The larger issue is whether Pres. Smith changed his mind on the doctrine of the origin of man, before his death. He did not. I hope none of us lives the decades of our lives without improving our gospel understanding and knowledge of the scriptures, and both Elder McConkie and Pres. Smith eventually shed incorrect notions as they gained further light and knowledge with the passage of time (I hope I do also). But both of them were always strong on the doctrine of the divine creation of man, with no evolution involved, to the end of their lives. Let us not try to use the record of an unnamed mission president to counter their lifetime of unified harmonized direct and uncompromising teachings on the origin of man, in which they were both in complete agreement with the First Presidency of 1909. The Ensign quote and article link I provided says it well.
The issue in question is whether Ben Spackman has presented viable information about how revelation works regarding the prophets and apostles doctrinal understanding and I don’t believe he has; I think he is in error. I think he is looking for loopholes to allow him to dismiss the teachings of the prophets and apostles on the subject of the creation of man. I believe all of the scriptures (the standard works) are best understood by getting “in tune” with the same Holy Spirit that influenced and inspired the original authors/translator (Joseph Smith). I have often experienced inspiration when reading the scriptures and have occasionally had their true meanings taught to me that way (I believe many others have as well; after all, we have the gift of the Holy Ghost in this church).
I don’t think I have to think like an ancient Israelite to come to understand the creation of the earth and man as far as it has been revealed in the scriptures and in the temple. I expect the full account to be revealed someday (in the Spirit World and/or the Millennium).
I trust the inspiration of the teachings of those apostles that have unfolded the doctrine in the 4 creation accounts. As I read what Elders McConkie, Smith, Lee, Packer, Romney, and others have taught, I have discerned that they taught the truth. I have recognized that they teach from the word of God with power and authority. I have felt to agree with–in fact I delight in–their views on the doctrine of the fall. I believe Eve when she said she could not have had children if she had not partaken of the forbidden fruit. I think her words are scripture/revelation. I agree with Hugh Nibley in his views on evolution.
I do not look for reasons to interpret 2 Nephi 2:20-25 or “The Origin of Man” document or other relevant scriptures as saying other than what they say. I realize some do, but I don’t. I think Sherlock and Keller’s articles and scholarship to be incomplete and shoddy.
I realize some others will disagree with what I think, but that is fine since I disagree with them. We are free to believe anything we want in this church, but teaching is another matter, where we have much less leeway. I would hope that we would all view the doctrine of the creation of Adam and Eve, the first man and first woman, the same. Someday we will, for now I guess we don’t.
Question for Ben Spackman:
If the making of scripture cannot escape the author-prophet’s significant human addition, overlay, lens, or cultural patina (or whatever other kind of nondivine bonus material), then what hope has the mere non-prophet reader of extracting the pure message of God from the adulterated mix? If the answer is discernment by the power of the Holy Ghost, then does that not impute a higher power to the non-prophet reader than to the author-prophet? If the answer is the non-prophet reader also brings his humanity to his reading, does that not compound the problem? The divine part of the oracle lurks, but the humanity of the prophet now is multiplied by the humanity of the reader.
I do not necessarily argue for a fundamentalist, inerrant style of reading scripture, or that a prophet should be or is a human fax machine (although Joseph Smith often purported to be something like that). That understanding has its pitfalls. But doesn’t your understanding also have its risks? If scripture BEGINS mingled with the philosophies of men, then don’t subsequent readers have little hope of sorting it all out?
thechair