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Creative fiction theories of Book of Mormon authorship
Creative fiction theories of Book of Mormon authorship
Question: Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon through a process known as "automatic writing?"
Without a logical explanation of its source, some critics have turned to supernatural explanations that do not involve the divine as Joseph testified
At least one critic of the Book of Mormon attempts to explain the complexity of the book by suggesting that Joseph Smith wrote it using a process called "automatic writing" or "spirit writing."[1] The critic, Scott C. Dunn, gives us the following definition of automatic writing:
“The ability to dictate or write material in a relatively rapid, seemingly effortless and fluent manner. Moreover, the practitioner of automatic writing does not consciously compose the material. Indeed, except for sometimes knowing a word or two moments in advance of writing or speaking, the individual is typically unaware of what the content of the writing will be.”
Dunn gives multiple examples of documented automatic writing experiences and correlates them with various facts surrounding the origins of the Book of Mormon. Some people write with just a pencil while others use objects such as stones or crystals to receive the text that is to be written. This information could lead one to draw the conclusion that the Book of Mormon’s origins are something other than divine.
Much research has been done to complicate Dunn's thesis. Papers can be found in the citation found to the right of this sentence.[2] Rather than reproduce these scholars' points, we invite readers to review this scholarship for themselves and come to their own conclusions.
Critics have come up empty handed after many attempts to refute the divinity of the Book of Mormon. The historical documentation and modern-day evaluations disprove the possibility that Joseph Smith wrote the book himself. Mr. Dunn explains this in his own paper: “Virtually all available historical evidence militates against the possibility of calculated fraud.” Without a logical explanation of its source, some critics have turned to supernatural explanations that do not involve the divine as Joseph testified. As people have tried to attribute the writing/translation of the Book of Mormon to something other than divine the accusations have been proven incorrect. This has lead to an increase in the complexity of the claims. Similarly, more complex research has been conducted to thwart the negative claims. Such can be found, for instance, in recent scholarship conducted on automatic writing that complicate this thesis. The only claims left are those of supernatural origin, either the book is of God or the devil.
If one believes that Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon by way of divinely inspired automatic writing, Dunn gives us the following explanation:
“It may be, for example, that automatic writing is God's true means of giving revelations and translations (in the case of Joseph Smith) which has been counterfeited by Satan (in the cases of Jane Roberts, Pearl Curran, and others).”
One may ask why these other cases exist. In general, there are many examples of the adversary mimicking the ways of the Lord to deceive mankind. He knew that the Book of Mormon would be a great work in the hands of the Lord to bring about the salvation of many souls and to be the foundation for His restored church. It is not hard to believe that Satan would try to create similar stories to that of Joseph’s in an effort to discredit the work of the Lord.
Two Reasons Why the 'Automatic Writing' Explanation is Not More Widely Adopted
The two biggest reasons that automatic writing is not more popular as an explanation for the Book of Mormon are these:
- Hypnosis does not transform a person into someone with greater creativity, memory, or cognitive function. In fact, it can do the opposite. Psychologist John F. Kihlstrom wrote, “Hypnosis appears to be incapable of enhancing memory [but] hypnotic procedures can impair memory.” John A. Bargh and Ezequiel Morsella of Yale said, “Although concept activation and primitive associative learning could occur unconsciously, anything complex requiring flexible responding, integration of stimuli, or higher mental processes could not.”
- As Brian Hales has said, "explaining an alleged supernatural activity with another alleged supernatural activity does not result in a naturalistic explanation. And we see critics will sometimes refer to The Sorry Tale and Pearl Curran and say, see, I’ve explained how Joseph did it. Well, not really. What they need is a naturalistic explanation for one of the processes and then maybe they could apply it to both."[3]
You can get a full transcript including slides from Brian Hales' presentation on this subject here or watch the video of that presentation below.
Question: Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon under the influence of an "epileptic fit?"
The Book of Mormon was not started and completed in a single sitting
Some critics of the Book of Mormon have claimed that Joseph Smith wrote the book while under the influence of an "epileptic fit," thus perpetuating a fraud without knowing it. However, such a story is baseless and incongruent with any document of his life.
The Book of Mormon was not started and completed in a single sitting. Rather, the book was translated in many small segments over an extended period of time. These segments were started at will and with various people as the prophet's scribes. Not one of these scribes ever noted any seizure symptoms during any part of the translation process. There are no accounts by anybody concerning symptoms of epilepsy during the prophet's life.
To think that Joseph had multiple seizures, only when translating, at will for the various starting points of each new section, without any of the multiple scribes noticing or at any non-translating time in his life is preposterous. Even the author himself admits on page 437 of his own book that there is no direct evidence of epilepsy from the prophet's life.
Question: Did Joseph Smith produce the Book of Mormon by using the Methodist preaching device known as “laying down heads”?
Introduction to Criticism
Author William L. Davis (PhD. UCLA, Theater and Performance Studies) in his book Visions in a Seer Stone (2020) alleges that Joseph Smith may have been able to produce the text of the Book of Mormon by using, among other similar methods, a Methodist homiletic composition technique known as “laying down heads.”
The process involves coming up with a basic list of points (perhaps on a paper or in his/her memory) that a person would like to address within a given sermon. Then, throughout the course of his/her sermon, the preacher extemporaneously connects those heads into the most coherent and powerful homily possible.
Davis alleges that Joseph Smith came up with such "heads" prior to the dictation of the Book of Mormon and then, at the time of alleged creation of the book during translation, interlaced them with his own extemporaneous creation of text that we today have as the Book of Mormon. As he writes in the introduction:
The focus of this study is the oral performance techniques that Smith used to dictate the Book of Mormon, with specific attention to the methods of preaching in Smith’s contemporary sermon culture. Thus, the central issues revolve around the methods of oral composition, rather than narrative content. As such, this study will only address matters of content—the stories, the messages, and the theology of the Book of Mormon—when they illuminate techniques of oral production. Abundant evidence throughout the work indicates that Smith made use of several techniques that facilitated the process of oral composition, including such methods as the semi-extemporaneous amplification of skeletal narrative outlines, the use of formulaic language in biblical and pseudobiblical registers, rhetorical devices common in oral traditions, and various forms of repetition (e.g., recycled narrative patterns), among other traditional compositional strategies. Viewing the Book of Mormon within the context of nineteenth-century oratorical training and techniques therefore offers a performance-based approach to understanding the text.A comprehensive study addressing all of these areas of influence lies well beyond the scope of a single monograph. Many of the oral techniques mentioned, for example, were integral components of introductory writing instruction in common schools, with lessons involving the composition of “themes,” various imitation exercises, and a variety of short and expanded essays. As such, a thorough discussion on the topic of oral performance in early nineteenth-century education would, by itself, require a separate study. Even so, I have addressed some of these issues in greater detail in two preliminary works: “Performing Revelation: Joseph Smith and the Creation of the Book of Mormon” (2016), and “Reassessing Joseph Smith Jr.’s Formal Education” (2016). This present study contains material drawn from these two sources, which I have often silently revised and included in this work. Nevertheless, because Smith’s own sermonizing and compositional styles follow common practices found among contemporary evangelical preachers, this study will focus on the relationship between Smith’s works and contemporary sermon culture as the central topic of exploration.
In the early nineteenth century children and young adults encountered many of these techniques, either by conscious study or direct exposure, through a variety of social venues: domestic worship and daily family Bible reading, domestic education, Sunday schools, church attendance, revivals, introductory composition lessons in common schools, and a variety of voluntary societies for self-improvement, such as juvenile literary and debate societies. Such skills were further reinforced within a culture that relied heavily on various forms of oral performance in social interactions, including household fireside storytelling practices, public orations at civic events, classroom recitation exercises, school exhibitions, exhortations and sermons in churches, and camp meeting revivals. Within this kaleidoscope of oral performances, Smith’s exposure to the sermon cultures within his contemporary evangelical churches offers particularly important and relevant insights. Smith actively participated as a lay exhorter among the Methodists near his home in the Palmyra/Manchester region of Western New York, and he frequently attended the church services and revival meetings of several denominations in his surrounding area, including Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians. For young adults like Smith, who aspired to exhort and preach, exposure to the informal training among such evangelical groups involved the instruction in and regular practice of a robust set of oral performance techniques that figured prominently in the ambitious development of semi-extemporaneous oratorical skills.
Davis is very sympathetic to Latter-day Saints and welcomes ways in which the faithful might make sense of the data that he provides in his book. As he writes in the preface:
Regardless of what one believes about the origin of the work, the Book of Mormon contains an enormous amount of nineteenth-century material that permeates both the content and structure of the work. These contemporary influences, however, do not (or should not) pose a problem for believers. Within the community of faith, several theories regarding Smith’s translation process help to explain the presence of such modern elements. Some Mormon scholars, for example, propose that Smith did not actually translate the Book of Mormon but rather transcribed the text by peering into a “seer stone”—a stone used in crystal-gazing and folk magic—which provided a ready-made, preexisting English translation, either by projecting glowing letters on the surface of the stone or else catalyzing a vision of a written text (a theory referred to as “tight control”). In this view, according to Grant Hardy’s formulation, “Joseph would have been using the seer stone to gain access to a previously existing translation, perhaps one done by God himself or by appointed angels.” For those who believe that the translation appeared on the surface of the seer stone or in a vision of the text, without Smith’s input, the nineteenth-century anachronisms in the Book of Mormon can then be framed as God’s alterations to the ancient record, which He transmitted to Smith via the seer stone or as a seer-stone-inspired vision in order to make the final text more accessible to Smith’s nineteenth-century audience.
Alternatively, some believing scholars argue that Smith did, in fact, actually translate a text. In other words, through some process of visionary imagery, mental impressions, and divine inspiration, Smith produced the Book of Mormon by making use of his own vocabulary, frames of reference, training, and life experiences to articulate the work. Thus, for those who believe that Smith actively participated in a literal translation, the nineteenth-century elements can be understood as Smith’s personal contributions to the translation project (a theory often described as “loose control”). How much or how little Smith contributed to the construction of the Book of Mormon is therefore left to the reader’s personal determinations. Without commenting on the merits or failings of these competing theories, I invite those who believe in the historicity of the text to consider the ways in which their own religious and perceptual frameworks already provide a means to incorporate academic studies such as this one into their faith-based and faith-seeking paradigms.
Moreover, I would also encourage believing scholars and readers to recognize that this study addresses a readership that extends beyond the religious boundaries of the various denominations within the Latter Day Saint movement to include those who do not embrace the Book of Mormon as an inspired or authentic ancient text. This study represents an academic project, governed by evidence-based explorations of the connections between the Book of Mormon and the nineteenth-century environment in which it emerged. As such, I will be speaking about some of those specific nineteenth-century elements in the work as the product of Smith’s compositional skill and creative imagination. Likewise, in order to avoid bogging down the work with constant clarifications of the differences between nineteenth-century textual elements attributable to Smith and elements that believing scholars attribute to ancient Book of Mormon authors, I will often streamline the discussion by referring to the work as the result of Smith’s individual creative efforts.
Three thorough, informed, and charitable responses have appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship from Latter-day Saint scholars Brant A. Gardner, Brian C. Hales, and Stephen O. Smoot. These will be summarized as this FAIR page is edited later on. For now readers can be informed by and enjoy the reviews themselves from Interpreter.
Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, "Oral Creation and the Dictation of the Book of Mormon"
Brant A. Gardner, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, (September 4, 2020)Visions in a Seer Stone: Joseph Smith and the Making of the Book of Mormon introduces a new perspective in the examination of the construction of the Book of Mormon. With an important introduction to the elements of early American extemporaneous speaking, Davis applies some of those concepts to the Book of Mormon and suggests that there are elements of the organizational principles of extemporaneous preaching that can be seen in the Book of Mormon. This, therefore, suggests that the Book of Mormon was the result of extensive background work that was presented to the scribe as an extended oral performance.
Click here to view the complete article
Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, "Theories and Assumptions: A Review of William L. Davis’s Visions in a Seer Stone"
Brian C. Hales, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, (September 4, 2020)Within the genre of Book of Mormon studies, William L. Davis’s Visions in a Seer Stone presents readers with an innovative message that reports how Joseph Smith was able to produce the words of the Book of Mormon without supernatural assistance. Using oral performance skills that Smith ostensibly gained prior to 1829, his three-month “prodigious flow of verbal art and narrative creation” (7) became the Book of Mormon. Davis’s theory describes a two-part literary pattern in the Book of Mormon where summary outlines (called “heads) in the text are consistently expanded in subsequent sections of the narrative. Termed “laying down heads,” Davis insists that such literary devices are anachronistic to Book of Mormon era and constitute strong evidence that Joseph Smith contributed heavily, if not solely, to the publication. The primary weaknesses of the theory involve the type and quantity of assumptions routinely accepted throughout the book. The assumptions include beliefs that the historical record does not support or even contradicts (e.g. Smith’s 1829 superior intelligence, advanced composition abilities, and exceptional memorization proficiency) and those that describe Smith using oral performance skills beyond those previously demonstrated as humanly possible (e.g. the ability to dictate thousands of first-draft phrases that are also refined final-draft sentences). Visions in a Seer Stone will be most useful to individuals who, like the author, are willing to accept these assumptions. To more skeptical readers, the theory presented regarding the origin of the Book of Mormon will be classified as incomplete or inadequate.
Click here to view the complete article
Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, "Notes on Book of Mormon Heads"
Stephen O. Smoot, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, (October 30, 2020)This paper looks at the two types of heads used in the Book of Mormon. It argues against a recent theory that these heads served as mnemonic cues that enabled Joseph Smith to extemporaneously compose and dictate the text. Instead, it argues that the function and form of heads in the Book of Mormon finds ancient precedent in Egyptian literary culture and scribal practice. A brief addendum on the ancient precedent for the chapter breaks in the original text of the Book of Mormon is also provided.
Click here to view the complete article
BYU Studies, "Naturalistic Explanations of the Origin of the Book of Mormon: A Longitudinal Study"
Brian C. Hales, BYU Studies 58/3 (2019)Joseph Smith and his followers declared the Book of Mormon’s supernatural origin—that it was a divinely inspired translation of an ancient-American record, acquired by Joseph through visions and the help of an angel. This explanation, however, was widely rejected by outsiders from the outset. Within weeks after the Book of Mormon’s first pages came off the press, critics promoted “naturalistic explanations”—so called because they are based on scientific observation or natural phenomena—that rejected the possibility of a divine, supernatural origin of the Book of Mormon. To varying degrees, these naturalistic theories continue to be perpetuated today. This article examines the most popular naturalistic explanations for the Book of Mormon longitudinally, which will enable readers to better understand them and why they have waxed and waned in popularity over time.
Click here to view the complete article
Robert A. Rees, "The Book of Mormon and Automatic Writing"
Robert A. Rees, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, (2006)Having exhausted the more bizarre and byzantine explanations of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon (written by Joseph Smith, plagiarized from Solomon Spaulding or Ethan Smith, written by Oliver Cowdery or Sidney Rigdon, dictated under the spell of epileptic seizures, etc.), some naturalist critics have postulated what appears to be a more rational explanation2—it was the product of "automatic writing." That is, by some mysterious process, "psychic forces," "angelic voices," "discarnate personalities," "goddesses of wisdom," or other sources dictate a rapid and voluminous flow of words that somehow turns out to be coherent, inspiring, and often amazing in its brilliance and inclusion of esoteric facts, some of which may be beyond the author's knowledge. In this paper I examine the proposition that the Book of Mormon can be explained as a product of automatic writing.
Click here to view the complete article
BYU Studies, "Naturalistic Explanations of the Origin of the Book of Mormon: A Longitudinal Study"
Brian C. Hales, BYU Studies 58/3 (2019)Joseph Smith and his followers declared the Book of Mormon’s supernatural origin—that it was a divinely inspired translation of an ancient-American record, acquired by Joseph through visions and the help of an angel. This explanation, however, was widely rejected by outsiders from the outset. Within weeks after the Book of Mormon’s first pages came off the press, critics promoted “naturalistic explanations”—so called because they are based on scientific observation or natural phenomena—that rejected the possibility of a divine, supernatural origin of the Book of Mormon. To varying degrees, these naturalistic theories continue to be perpetuated today. This article examines the most popular naturalistic explanations for the Book of Mormon longitudinally, which will enable readers to better understand them and why they have waxed and waned in popularity over time.
Click here to view the complete article
Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, "Curiously Unique: Joseph Smith as Author of the Book of Mormon"
Brian C. Hales, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, (February 15, 2019)The advent of the computer and the internet allows Joseph Smith as the “author” of the Book of Mormon to be compared to other authors and their books in ways essentially impossible even a couple of decades ago. Six criteria can demonstrate the presence of similarity or distinctiveness among writers and their literary creations: author education and experience, the book’s size and complexity, and the composition process and timeline. By comparing these characteristics, this essay investigates potentially unique characteristics of Joseph Smith and the creation of the Book of Mormon.
Click here to view the complete article
Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, "Playing to an Audience: A Review of Revelatory Events"
Kevin Christensen, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, (February 2, 2018)The advent of the computer and the internet allows Joseph Smith as the “author” of the Book of Mormon to be compared to other authors and their books in ways essentially impossible even a couple of decades ago. Six criteria can demonstrate the presence of similarity or distinctiveness among writers and their literary creations: author education and experience, the book’s size and complexity, and the composition process and timeline. By comparing these characteristics, this essay investigates potentially unique characteristics of Joseph Smith and the creation of the Book of Mormon.
Click here to view the complete article
See also: Brian C. Hales, "Automatic Writing and the Book of Mormon: An Update" Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought Vol 52, No. 2 (Summer 2019)
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Notes
- ↑ Scott C. Dunn, "Automaticity and the Dictation of the Book of Mormon," American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 17-46.
- ↑ Kevin Christensen, "Playing to an Audience: A Review of Revelatory Events," Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 28 (2018): 65-114; Brian C. Hales, "Automatic Writing and the Book of Mormon: An Update," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 52/2 (Summer 2019); "Curiously Unique: Joseph Smith as Author of the Book of Mormon," Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 31 (2019): 151-190; "Naturalistic Explanations of the Origin of the Book of Mormon: A Longitudinal Study," BYU Studies Quarterly 58/3 (2019); Robert A. Rees, "The Book of Mormon and Automatic Writing," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 15, no. 1 (2006): 4–17, 68–70.
- ↑ Brian C. Hales, "Supernatural or Supernormal: Scrutinizing Secular Sources for the Book of Mormon," (presentation, FAIR Conference, Provo, UT, 2019).