Last updated on: March 9, 2018 at 1:17 pm By Ben Spackman
Ben contemplates his words at Petra.
Here is a copy of my MHA presentation text, “Early LDS Attempts to Reconcile Scripture with Science: Pre-Mormon Pre-Adamites and Intellectual (In)Dependence.” As the text read at the meeting, it lacks footnotes and citations, but here is some of the bibliography.
As always, you can help me pay my tuition here, or you can support my work through making your regular Amazon purchases through this Amazon link. You can also get updates by email whenever a post goes up (subscription box on the right). If you friend me on Facebook, please drop me a note telling me you’re a reader. I tend not to accept friend requests from people I’m not acquainted with.
Last updated on: May 8, 2017 at 5:57 pm By Ben Spackman
What do I mean by “transitional Mormonism”? (Part 1 is here if you missed it.) I take the idea from the title of Thomas Alexander’s award-winning book Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930, now in a 3rd edition. Alexander was a BYU professor, and wrote this as part of a commissioned 16-volume history of the Church that did not come to fruition. This time period was a particularly tumultuous one both for the LDS Church and America, with major intellectual, social, scientific, and technological changes. Among other things, the “modernism crisis” with Darwinism/evolution, “higher criticism,” and the rediscovery of the ancient near east led to the creation of fundamentalism (an intellectual response to the crisis) as well as Pentecostalism (a spiritual response.)
The LDS Church existed in the same environment, and many major changes to policy, doctrinal understanding, and LDS culture happened during this period Alexander chronicles. These changes discomfitted many LDS, who reacted in a variety of ways including both intellectual and actual schisms. For those not well acquainted with LDS history, I would characterize this period as the bridge between “Joseph Smith’s church” and the “modern church.”
What are these discomfitting changes? To pick a few major ones Alexander covers well and hold my interest
The ending of (mainstream) lived polygamy
The beginning of geneaological research and the associated centrality of the temple. That is, until this time, it seems the importance of learning about your ancestors and doing their temple work and sealing was not understood; consequently, most Mormons (including Apostles) were endowed, married, and then didn’t have any theological motivation to return. Once Wilford Woodruff put an end to the idea of “adoption” and emphasized geneaology, the need to attend to proxy ordinances greatly increased.
I suspect Mormonism has now entered a similar transitionary period as the one Alexander describes from 100 years ago. Certainly, Mormonism is always changing in some way or another so in a later post I’ll explain why I think we’re into another major transitionary period and why. I’ll also describe a parallel transition that I suspect is informing LDS leadership. In the meantime, check out Alexander’s book.
As always, you can help me pay my tuition here, or you can support my work through making your regular Amazon purchases through this Amazon link. You can also get updates by email whenever a post goes up (subscription box on the right). If you friend me on Facebook, please drop me a note telling me you’re a reader. I tend not to accept friend requests from people I’m not acquainted with.
Last updated on: May 8, 2017 at 5:59 pm By Ben Spackman
George Cattermole, “The Scribe.” Public domain.
I wrote the last post while traveling and have just started a new and busy semester, and so didn’t respond at all to the thirty-odd comments there. I’ll address them and some related issues, instead, in a multi-part series. I’ll get into what I mean by “transitional Mormonism” in the next post, but it’s nothing to do with “faith journeys,” “stages of faith” or anything like that.
Any discussion of the “historical Adam” cannot proceed one step forward without taking into account the story of Adam in its ancient context. I don’t mean to suggest this is easy as pie. There is a lot to work through, and room for some variation in points of view. But the conversation cannot go on as if we’ve learned nothing in the last 150 years about antiquity and the function that origins stories played in ancient societies. Placing Adam in his ancient context immediately and significantly affects how Genesis is brought into the discussion over evolution. (My italics)
I completely agree, but want to take this in a different direction. Mormons place very high authority on tradition, and rightly so given the LDS principles of priesthood authority, revelation, etc. But we are a young Church with underdeveloped mechanisms for weighing, balancing, and adjudicating statements within that tradition. While not perfectly analogous, there is no LDS equivalent of, say, the Islamic science of weighing and judging traditions about Mohammed (hadith) or the Catholic degrees of authoritative statements. Instead we play General Authority poker.
There is a common assumption that statements made by Church leaders represent both a revelatory position (vertical, with the divine) and representative position (horizontal, that all General Authorities hold the same view). At times, something calls this into question: conflict of various kinds, both perceived and real, which exists much more than most people realize. Whether conflict between contemporaneous General Authorities (like Brigham Young vs. Orson Pratt), historical (like Bruce R. McConkie vs. Brigham Young), conflict or differing views between scripture and General Authorities, or within scripture itself (see here), or conflict between (particular readings of) scripture and well-established human knowledge (e.g. Young earth creationists vs. lots of geology, biology, etc.) Such conflicts suddenly call into question common absolutist assumptions about the nature of Church leadership (eternally unified, monolithic, consistent, and purely divine, for all practical purposes) and can undermine faith, if unexpected.
There are plenty of General Authority statements indicating that these common assumptions are wrong. To take two examples, B.H. Roberts bluntly said that
Constant, never-varying inspiration is not a factor in the administration of the affairs even of the Church; not even good men, no, not though they be prophets or other high officials of the Church, are at all times and in all things inspired of God. Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1907), 1:525
That notorious liberal softy Elder Bruce R. McConkie similarly said that
With all their inspiration and greatness, prophets are yet mortal men with imperfections common to mankind in general. They have their opinions and prejudices and are left to work out their problems without inspiration in many instances. Mormon Doctrine, 547.
If, as I said above, LDS Church leaders are not merely offering human views, neither (according to McConkie, Roberts, and many others) are they somehow divinely cleaved and cleansed from their own minds, culture, knowledge, “their own opinions and prejudices” in McConkie’s terms. My suspicion is that this is not an on/off switch, not a clear “acting as prophet/not acting as prophet” binary as it is sometimes characterized, but a constant divine/human mixture that fluctuates for a variety of reasons. I believe that all revelation is inflected with humanity to some degree; it must be so, or God could not communicate with us, e.g. D&C 1:24. (But that’s another post, one I’ve probably already written.)
Here’s an example I think most will find non-threatening, regarding changes in garments in the early 1900s.
Although there was opposition to such changes among some Latter-day Saints, Elder Richards [an Apostle and Salt Lake City Temple President] had learned some months earlier that such changes were both appropriate and normal. Some older members of the Church informed him that Emma Smith and Eliza R. Snow made the original temple clothing for the Prophet Joseph Smith. The reason they used strings on the garment was simply because they were too poor to buy [page] buttons. It was not necessarily God’s will that strings be used instead of buttons. The old-style collar was included because the seamstresses did not know how to finish the top of the garment and decided to do it with a collar. Dale C. Mouritsen, A Symbol of New Directions: George Franklin Richards and the Mormon Church, 1861-1950 (BYU Dissertation, 1982), 211-212. My italics.
In other words, people assumed that the received tradition (about the temple!) was fully prophetic and divinely ordained. The reality is that this aspect of the received tradition was dictated by human choice and historical circumstances. Addressing BYU professors, Elder McConkie once said that “Certain things which are commonly said and commonly taught in the Church [that is, “tradition”] either are not true, or, are in the realm of pure speculation.” Yes, he had a particular topic in mind, but that’s irrelevant to my purposes here. Suffice to say, he recognized that Church tradition includes aspects that, while popular, do not have much real grounding.
Returning to Genesis, evolution, and Enns, “the conversation cannot go on as if we’ve learned nothing in the last 150 years.“When Mormons discuss various social, economic, religious, or scriptural issues, we tend to cite General Authority views, often from the relatively distant past. Can we legitimately cite those traditions as if they were pure expressions of divine knowledge intended for all time? (I think I’ve demonstrated above that it’s dangerous to assume that uncritically.) Or should we understand them as being influenced to some degree by the context and situations of the speaker as well as “their opinions and prejudices”?
Let me get very specific. Our knowledge of biology, biochemistry, genetics, evolution, and human origins, the topic of the book Enns is reviewing, have exploded in ways unimaginable in the early 1900s and even mid-1900s. (The timeline of this knowledge-production is quite interesting to study but secondary to my purpose here. Perhaps I’ll post a book list later.) The Church’s statement from over one hundred years ago was “that which is demonstrated, we accept with joy.” Can we simply cite these and other such statements opposed to evolution as if they were purely divine and context-free declarations, and put the issue to bed? Or rather, are we obliged both to acknowledge them and their concordant authority and wrestle with what has been demonstrated and well-established in the last decades? Has the state of “demonstration” changed in the last hundred-plus years?
As a believing and orthodox Latter-day Saint, I take seriously the injunctions to study my scriptures and the words of the prophets, both living and dead. Indeed, it is precisely because I take it seriously that I study closely our religious tradition and have become aware of (as I mention above) the variety of views and opinions, sometimes even on central doctrinal issues, within scripture and LDS history. One of my old BYU professors quipped that “when it comes to church history and doctrine, you can have it all, or you can have it consistent, but you can’t have both.”
True indeed.
As always, you can help me pay my tuition here, or you can support my work through making your regular Amazon purchases through this Amazon link. You can also get updates by email whenever a post goes up (subscription box on the right). If you friend me on Facebook, please drop me a note telling me you’re a reader. I tend not to accept friend requests from people I’m not acquainted with.
Last updated on: November 30, 2018 at 1:28 pm By Ben Spackman
My image.
Occasionally, one hears Mormons (usually laypeople) critiquing Protestants for slavish and uncritical interpretation of the Bible, for “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” kind of bibliolatry. Certainly, some Protestants merit this critique. The intellectual crisis and problems among Protestants, and their effects on American culture and politics have been written about extensively by Mark Noll (e.g. The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind), Randall Balmer, George Marsden, Grant Wacker, Kenton Sparks, and others. These scholars are themselves largely Evangelical, so it’s an internal critique.
No, my problem when this critique is made by Mormons is that oft-times Mormons are making it hypocritically. We casually write off or discard ancient aspects of the Bible that seem weird or uncomfortable, but then we approach our own uniquely Mormon scriptures just as those Protestants approach their Bibles, as if culture-free, dictated more-or-less by God, and repositories of purely divine scientific/historical knowledge.
The roots of this problem in Mormonism, I think, are twofold.
First, Mormons are not taught any kind of method for reading, interpreting, or interrogating scripture. Yes, Mormons tend to read scripture more often and know it better than others. (Barna, Pew). But knowing scriptural content is not the same as understanding it. Church materials rarely model any kind of depth when approaching scripture (though this is changing very slowly), and parents, local leaders, and teachers rarely do so (a function of innocent ignorance and following the Church model, I think). Consequently, Mormons minimize the relevance of things like context, language, authorship, and history in understanding scripture, instead substituting “face value” surface readings and personal application; heck, we sometimes jump to application before even reading the passage out loud!
Now, this is not an indictment of personal application. The transformative power of scripture is diminished when we do not apply it to ourselves in our time. This is an issue with scripture in every time.
“Part of the interpreter’s task [in early Judaism] was thus to make the past relevant to the present —to find some practical lesson in ancient history, or to reinterpret an ancient law in such a way as to have it apply to present situations”-Eerdman’s Dictionary of Early Judaism, “Biblical Interpretation.”
Rather, I am saying that gaining a better understanding of scripture’s contexts and even ancient weirdness can enhance our personal application and also clear away other problems. We just shouldn’t jump to application so fast. As Peter Enns (another Evangelical) says
I am all for applying the Bible. Don’t get me wrong. But a better understanding of the Bible will lead us in another direction. The first question we should ask about what we are reading is not “How does this apply to me?” Rather, it is “What is this passage saying in the context of the book I am reading, and how would it have been heard in the ancient world?”- Parent’s Guide to Teaching the Bible
Conservative Evangelicals produced The NIV Application Commentary series, with Application right in the title. But they don’t jump immediately to application, because that’s not the best way to do it. Each section is structured with “Original Meaning” (the ancient stuff), Bridging Contexts (making sense of ancient stuff), and Contemporary Significance (or, you know, application). I like the two Old Testament volumes I’ve used, Genesis by Walton and Exodus by Enns. I might find it too conservative at times or even often, but it’s a good model that pulls together both application and responsible interpretation.
To paraphrase Jesus, “personal application ye ought to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” We need deeper instruction and more visible models in how to read and approach scripture that go beyond “face value” readings and take scripture seriously, because currently, we don’t know how to read and that causes problems (below.)
The second reason for this problem in Mormonism is due to some unexamined assumptions about the nature of scripture. Mormonism in general, Mormons, and Mormon scholars have not actively wrestled with the nature of scripture sufficiently, which means we tend to unconsciously adopt a kind of Protestant “biblicism” with our own scriptures. Consequently, Mormon rhetoric has often drawn a too-stark dichotomy between “the theories of men” and “the word of God” (scripture), or between “the philosophies of men” and scripture.
The problem with this rhetoric is that it is quite apparent that scripture is not purely divine, but also has many human aspects and entanglements that are not incidental to it. Revelation and scripture are in human language, adapted to human capacities, and often make use of (or at least do not correct) what we would consider lesser or incorrect scientific (e.g. the cosmology of Genesis 1, see esp. my Institute reports), cultural (e.g. animal sacrifice), or moral traditions (e.g. biblical slavery, which Jesus and Paul seem just fine with). Recognizing these human aspects should not undermine the divine aspects of scripture, but certainly complicate its nature and interpretation. And we don’t like complicated, we like simple.
Let me provide a few more complex understandings and perspectives from LDS history, and three potential applications of them. These approaches complicate things in the short term, but their application avoids serious problems in the long term.
First, President J. Reuben Clark raised the issue of revelation vs. human understanding.
Now, as to what the earlier brethren have said –where they have declared themselves as speaking under inspiration and by the authority of the Lord, I bow to what they say. But where they express views based on their own understanding and interpretation, then none of us are foreclosed from exercising our own reasoning powers, inadequate though they may be; but the earlier views do not foreclose us from thinking. This is particularly true, where we come to interpreting their interpretations.” –My emphasis, source.
Second, Elder John Widtsoe raised the similar question of tradition and inspired writers (ie scriptural authors) sources of knowledge. “When inspired writers deal with historical incidents they relate that which they have seen or that which may have been told them, unless indeed the past is opened to them by revelation.” Elder John A. Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations, (1960): 127. So even scriptural authors and canonized scripture can simply be repeating tradition. Tradition is insidious.
Third, Elder Oaks once quoted a lawyer story, to make the point that we should read carefully and not overreach.
I remember the reported observation of an old lawyer. As they traveled through a pastoral setting with cows grazing on green meadows, an acquaintance said, “Look at those spotted cows.” The cautious lawyer observed carefully and conceded, “Yes, those cows are spotted, at least on this side.”
Fourth, per D&C 1:24, other LDS scripture, and a lot of strong LDS, Christian, and Jewish tradition, we have the idea that God adapts his revelation to our capacities, language, and understanding. God condescends to our level, and uses things we’re familiar with to communicate. I’ve got a chapter on this in my book, but see my presentation here for a discussion of this concept in connection with Corinthians.
In the three examples below, I try to follow Oaks’ counsel. I’m not arguing X is wrong, but that in light of the caveats and guidelines above, scripture Y doesn’t constitute sufficient support for X.
Does Alma 10:22 necessitate reading the Genesis flood as historical?
I say unto you that if it were not for the prayers of the righteous, who are now in the land, that ye would even now be visited with utter destruction; yet it would not be by flood, as were the people in the days of Noah, but it would be by famine, and by pestilence, and the sword.
Alma appears to have no more information about Genesis than we do. Arguably less, in fact; Alma has a tradition with something like our Old Testament text, from which he is geographically, chronologically, culturally, and linguistically removed. Does Alma appear to claim revelation for this statement about the flood? Or is he simply referrring to and interpreting the tradition he’s inherited? This passage may be a witness for the presence of a flood tradition in the Book of Mormon but doesn’t say anything directly about Genesis or the flood itself. I think we can feel free to accept the Book of Mormon as inspired and still read Genesis 6-9 differently.
Does Lehi necessitate a Historical Adam?
For Joseph Fielding Smith, 2 Nephi 2:22-25 was the linchpin against evolution and an old earth. He drew a very stark dichotomy about this; either you accept God’s revelation with a historical Adam and reject any kind of death before the fall, or you’re a scoffer who rejects prophets, God, and revelation and in danger of hell. My potential issue, however, is this passage seems to be exactly the kind of thing Widtsoe and Clark were talking about. Lehi is interpreting Genesis through his 6th century B.C. lens, and then we start interpreting his interpretation.
Is Lehi claiming revelation? Is Lehi “right” simply because his view is canonized? Again, Smith thought so. Speaking specifically of this passage, he wrote that “it must have been approved by the Lord or it would not be in the Book of Mormon” But is that how scripture works? Is that what scripture is? Are we ready to take all the views in all the standard works and say “God must have approved it, and it must be accurate and right, or it wouldn’t be in there.”
I disagree with that view, and so did President Clark, a bunch of other Apostles, and some recent Church magazine articles. Now, to be clear, the Church has pretty consistently taught a Historical Adam, although never really pinned down what that means or how to reconcile it with other things, e.g. Elder Holland’s 2015 talk which gets quoted in the New Era’s articles on Evolution and Dinosaurs.
Does God live near a star named Kolob?
Upfront, let’s agree the Book of Abraham is complicated. Abr. 3:3-4 apparently describes a star (not planet) named Kolob. And so Mormons have often assumed that the category of “scripture” simply equates to “fact,” ie. “this is scripture, so obviously God must really have a physical presence near a real star named Kolob.” (Some people have gone way way overboard with this.) Given the four complications above about scripture, is this justifiable? If Abraham is in some sense ancient scripture, shouldn’t we expect it to reflect ancient cosmology and cultural ideas, just like Genesis does? We are not getting divine hyperadvanced mathematics and astronomy from God today, so why should we expect that of ancient prophets? On what grounds do we reject the flat earth and solid dome of Genesis 1 (cosmology largely repeated in Moses and Abraham), but then decide the book’s statements about Kolob constitute modern factual astronomy? Why does God suddenly become an astronomical pedant? I don’t think accepting Abraham as inspired entails believing in the existence of Kolob, as much as believing in Abraham’s belief in Kolob and understanding what God was trying to teach him with it.
In other words, presence in the canon doesn’t render a statement moral, factual, or accurate, whether the Bible or uniquely LDS scripture.
What’s my takeaway here? Scripture is rich, complex, multi-vocal, and both divinely inspired and humanly human. To read it simplistically, to blindly accept whatever the canon does or appears to say, does violence to the text and offends my academic standards. Far more importantly, however, when we limit ourselves to “face value” interpretations, our personal application is not as transformative as it could be, and we create and impose problems that can undermine or even destroy faith. If you’re looking for some places to begin, I recommend this, these (particularly Welch), and this (print, online).
As always, you can help me pay my tuition here, or you can support my work through making your regular Amazon purchases through this Amazon link. You can also get updates by email whenever a post goes up (subscription box on the right). If you friend me on Facebook, please drop me a note telling me you’re a reader. I tend not to accept friend requests from people I’m not acquainted with.
Last updated on: May 8, 2017 at 6:00 pm By Ben Spackman
Update: Between now and Dec 5, get 5$ off any physical Amazon book order of 15$ or more. Details here.
One of the things I love about the massive American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature conference is the football’s field worth of booksellers with discounts, new books, preorders, and giveaways. A few recent and forthcoming popular books might be of interest to my readers. To be clear, I haven’t read any of these yet, but I hope to. (more…)
Last updated on: March 9, 2018 at 1:17 pm By Ben Spackman
Public domain, http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=8577&picture=old-books
The Improvement Era in September 1925 ran a short article in the Editor’s Table called “Teaching Bible Stories.” To set the stage a little, this was 14 years after the 1911 Crisis at BYU over evolution and how to read scripture (see here as well), and immediately after the 1925 Scopes Trial over teaching evolution. I included an excerpt and little analysis here in the larger context of Elder Stephen Richards May 1925 address to BYU. I’d like to revisit it.
Recently a number of communications have come to the Era setting forth in splendid language and in very clear thought the literary advantage of teaching Bible stories; also, that Bible stories are mainly literary tales “written for the simple Israelites to glorify God, and that they should therefore not be taken too seriously. In other words the idea is expressed that they are not historical, not actual, but that they are fiction.
In our opinion, if God is left out in teaching Bible stories, and literary excellence, rather than historical truth, made the only reason for their study in school or otherwise, we may as well study Shakespeare. We think the teaching of Bible stories in this way would be unfortunate. We dislike to call the Bible stories “tales,” which means legends or fiction, in other words. The whole trend of such teaching is to impress the reader that the stories of the Bible are literary fictions, “made up” to boost the God of Israel and the Israelitish religion— they are not real. Taught this way they become a joke, and God a myth. We mean by Bible stories such stories as the creation, the flood, the wooing of Rebecca, Joseph and his brethren, Moses, the Ten Plagues, the passage of the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments received on Mount Sinai, the golden calf, Samson, David and Goliath, Jonathan and Bathsheba, Daniel, and many others.
The Bible must be studied for more than its literature, however excellent that is. That more is the vital and essential purpose, the underlying fact of all facts — to gain a knowledge of the Fatherhood of God and a testimony of his existence, and interest in mankind as his children and offspring. This lesson must be impressed above all others, for it is the paramount truth which rises above the Bible’s wonderful poetry, its concise, direct, clear and beautiful orations, essays and songs, and reaches to the spiritual heights to which the Latter-day Saint youth and all American citizenship must rise if we shall continue a Christian
nation. — A.
What is the value of fiction? Can fiction teach truth? What truths are necessarily of a historical nature? If the Bible makes use of such a loaded category as “myth,” does that render it “a joke and God a myth”? C.S. Lewis didn’t think so. Neither do a lot of other conservative Christians.
But lets steer away from “myth” and talk about “history” with the same scarequotes. Robert Alter’s Art of Biblical Narrative, which talks about how the Hebrew Bible tells its stories, has given me the signature for my email—“history is far more intimately related to fiction than we have been accustomed to assume.”
Alter makes a distinction we should make as well, between “history” as “what actually happened in the past” and “history” as “a record or account of the past” the latter being much closer to fiction than most people realize. As Elder Homer Durham wrote in The Ensign,
The “events themselves,” which took place in the past, whether yesterday or 5,000 years ago, are beyond exact recall with our present facilities. We cannot re-experience an event. Thus, we are left with recordsof events, all of which are interpretations of events. (Even television involves a human judgment on where to point the camera.) Furthermore, despite the contributions of archaeology, linguistics, and the natural and social sciences, most history is a form of literature. Naturally, the most reliable records come from qualified participants in the events or from analysts with access to all the records, but their re-creation of the event for us will always be shaped by their own perspective. [My italics]
So Elder Durham says that written history constitutes, in essence, an interpretive form of literature. History is highly interpretive because it involves choosing a subset from among the very small number of sources that survive (whether written, archeological, or artifacts), and then telling a story from a certain perspective. “Fiction” comes from latin fictio, meaning “something made or fashioned.” In that limited sense, all history-writing is “fiction” because all history is the conscious attempt by someone to select certain points and make or fashion a story with them. A different person at a different time with a different focus or access to different data might select different points, and tell a radically different story. I know a couple who cannot tell their engagement story because they disagree so much on the details and their meaning. No one disputes that they got engaged and married. But the stories of the past they tell are different stories.
This is not to undermine “history” as a profession. Indeed not, it is professional historians who are most trustworthy to handle historical materials and narratives, because they are the ones most aware of its pitfalls and concomitantly the most careful about making sweeping authoritative historical claims.
To bring this back to the Old Testament, Samuel/Kings and Chronicles tell the same stories in very different ways, because the lens of the authors has changed. For no one in the Bible are the stories merely recounting the “facts” of the past.
All historiography [or history-writing] is a literary product, which means it is about people writing down (or transmitting orally) their version of that history. In other words, historiography is by definition an interpretive exercise. There might not be much that is interpretive about saying “David lived,” but when you give an account of David’s life—what he did, when, with whom, why, what the implications were—you are most certainly engaged in interpreting these events. How so? Anyone who communicates historical events must be very selective about what is communicated. You simply can’t say everything, nor would you want to. You say only those things that are important to the point you want to get across. Also, you will say those things in such a way that will drive your point home. In other words, this presentation, this literary product, looks the way it does because the author has a purpose in mind for why those events should be reported. The presentation is not divorced from the events, but it is a purposeful representation of those events.These three elements are always interconnected. All written accounts of history are literary products that are based on historical events that are shaped to conform to the purpose the historian wants to get across.” – I&I 61-2.
Recalling the past is actually never simply a process of remembering but of creating a narrative out of discrete, imperfect memories (our own or those of others), woven together into a narrative thread that is deeply influenced by how we see ourselves and our world here and now. All attempts to put the past into words are interpretations of the past, not “straight history.” There is no such thing. Anywhere. Including the Bible.
So we can’t just nakedly assert in any and all cases that “scripture says x, therefore x happened,” especially if we haven’t even asked if that particular part of scripture was intended as “history” in the first place. Even for those parts of scripture that are intended to be historical, the bright line between “history” and “fiction” doesn’t really exist, and has to be teased apart carefully. Alter expounds.
What the Bible offers us is an uneven continuum and a constant interweaving of factual historical detail (especially, but by no means exclusively, for the later periods) with purely legendary ‘history’; occasional enigmatic vestiges of mythological lore; etiological stories; archetypal fictions of the founding fathers of the nation; folktales of heroes and wonder-working men of God; verisimilar inventions of wholly fictional personages attached to the progress of national history; and fictionalized versions of known historical figures. All of these narratives are presented as history, that is, as things that really happened and that have some significant consequence for human or Israelite destiny. The only evident exceptions to this rule are Job, which in its very stylization seems manifestly a philosophic fable (hence the rabbinic dictum ‘There was no such creature as Job; he is a parable’) and Jonah, which, with its satiric and fantastic exaggerations, looks like a parabolic illustration of the prophetic calling and God’s universality. – Art of Biblical Narrative, 33.
Ultimately, the question we should be asking in scripture is not “why did it happen this way?” (which assumes way too much) but “whether history or not, what is the author trying to teach by telling the story this way?” That question produces much better thought questions and discipleship.
As always, you can help me pay my tuition here, or you can support my work through making your regular Amazon purchases through this Amazon link. You can also get updates by email whenever a post goes up (subscription box on the right). If you friend me on Facebook, please drop me a note telling me you’re a reader. I tend not to accept friend requests from people I’m not acquainted with.
My father… was a seasoned and wise holder of the Melchizedek Priesthood. Once he was asked by an Apostle to write a short note about the scientific evidence for the age of the earth. He wrote it carefully, knowing that some who might read it had strong feelings that the earth was much younger than the scientific evidence suggested. I still remember my father handing me what he had written and saying to me, “Hal, you have the spiritual wisdom to know if I should send this to the apostles and prophets.” I can’t remember much of what the paper said, but I will carry with me forever the gratitude I felt for a great Melchizedek Priesthood holder who saw in me spiritual wisdom that I could not see.
A few of my friends thought this put a nail in the coffin of the anti-evolutionists, but it doesn’t really. See, we need to talk about the different kinds of creationism and define some terms, before we do the backstory to Elder Eyring’s comment.
We can break up different kinds of creationism based on two factors: the age of the earth and the degree of “special creation,” which refers to the creation of a species (animals or humans) in their current form, i.e. no evolution, no changes. Some creationists hold to the evolution of animals, but a special creation of Adam and Eve. Here’s a simplified generalized taxonomy.
Natural Evolutionists say the earth is billions of years old, and humans and animals evolved.
Theistic Evolutionists say the earth is billions of years old, and humans and animals evolved as part of God’s plan, under his control or influence. This, I believe, was Henry Eyring Sr.’s position, and is the most compatible with generally-established science.
Old Earth Creationists (OEC) agree the earth is billions of years old but hold to special creation of humans (and sometimes animals) in the last few thousand years. This appears to be the unofficial position of the LDS Church and has some conflict with generally-established science. It’s the explicit position of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and Ben Carson (see my article here and follow-up here.)
Young Earth Creationists (YEC) hold to special creation of humans and animals (usually), in the last few thousand years. This was Joseph Fielding Smith’s position and has the most conflict with generally-established science. (More on this below.) It’s based on the assumption that revelation consists of scientific facts, because that is what Truth is, and God cannot lie. Prophets are mere conduits, and their humanity in no way affects or influences the divine message. We should understand scriptural and prophetic statements, whether 50, 100, or 2000 years ago, as if they were all spoken within the worldview and knowledge horizon of today. YEC views come from applying these assumptions to Genesis (with a little Paul or Nephi mixed in) and then reworking the science to fit.
I find those assumptions to be more the unconscious intellectual inheritance of the scientific revolution and Enlightenment than good scriptural theology, and largely indefensible on several grounds. I spend a good bit of time in my book talking about the nature of revelation, prophets, and scripture. Back to Elder Eyring and his father.
Henry Eyring Sr. was a brilliant chemist, teaching at his PhD alma mater Princeton from 1931-1946. To quote from Wikipedia,
Henry Eyring (February 20, 1901 – December 26, 1981) was a Mexican-born American theoretical chemist…. A prolific writer, he authored more than 600 scientific articles, ten scientific books, and a few books on the subject of science and religion. He received the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1980 and the National Medal of Science in 1966 for developing the Absolute Rate Theory or Transition state theory of chemical reactions, one of the most important developments of 20th-century chemistry. Several other chemists later received the Nobel Prize for work based on it, and his failure to receive the Nobel was a matter of surprise to many.
I’ve written about him before here. Eyring wrote Faith of a Scientist explaining some of his views, and the more recent volume Mormon Scientist: The Life and Faith of Henry Eyring is a quasi-biography that is well worth reading.The latter contains thoughts like this on the nature of science, religion, and assumptions or “postulates.”
[In both science and religion,] you set up some basic postulates from your experience or your experiments and then from that you start making deductions, but everything that matters is based upon things you accept as true. When a man says he will believe in religion if you prove it, it is like asking you to prove there are electrons. Proof depends upon your premises….Every proof in science depends on the postulates one accepts. The same is true of religion. The certitude one has about the existence of God ultimately comes from personal experience, the experience of others, or logical deductions from the postulates one accepts. People sometimes get the idea that science and religion are different, but they are not different at all. There is nothing in science that does not hinge on some primitive constructs you take for granted. What is an electron? I can tell you some things about the electron we have learned from experiment, and if you accept these things, you will be able to make predictions. But ultimately you will always get back to postulates.I am certain in my own mind of the truthfulness of the gospel, but I can only communicate that assurance to you if you accept my postulates.
Joseph Fielding Smith (1876-1972) did not attend university (his two years at the LDS College were equivalent to two years of high school), and was a Young Earth Creationist from early on in his life. His reading of scripture put him at odds with science and in serious conflict with other General Authorities like B.H. Roberts, James E. Talmage, John Widtsoe, David O. McKay, Reuben Clark, and others. He was not afraid to express his views.
I will state frankly and positively that I am opposed to the present biological theories and the doctrine that man has been on the earth for millions of years. I am opposed to the present teachings in relation to the age of the earth which declare that the earth is millions of years old. Some modern scientists even claim that it is a billion years old. Naturally, since I believe in modern revelation, I cannot accept these so-called scientific teachings, for I believe them to be in conflict with the simple and direct word of the Lord that has come to us by divine revelation.- Answers to Gospel Questions, 5:112, my italics.
At one point, he accused President Clark of “rejecting the scriptures,” because they disagreed over how to read creation. Talmage, a PhD in geology, challenged him on a geological basis. To fend off those arguments, Smith turned to self-taught Seventh-day Adventist “creation science” pioneer George McCready Price, exchanging several letters with him. In one, Smith wrote,”I am of the firm opinion, perhaps I could almost say conviction, that the dinosaurs lived here with man less than six thousand years ago.” (A recent New Era article disagrees.)
In 1954, Smith published Man, His Origin and Destiny, a broadside against evolution. Into this maelstrom came Henry Eyring, not as a General Authority, but a well-respected LDS scientist serving as Dean at the University of Utah.
A concerned David O. McKay asked Adam S. Bennion, an apostle and former superintendent of church schools, to solicit responses to Elder Smith’s book from qualified LDS scientists. Elder Bennion invited the opinions of Henry Eyring, geologist William Lee Stokes, and chemist Richard P. Smith. Eyring wrote to Bennion: “‘I can understand ‘Man—His Origin and Destiny’ as the work of a great man who is fallible. . . .It contains many serious scientific errors and much ill humor, which mar the many beautiful things in it. Since the gospel is only that which is true, this book cannot be more than the private opinion of one of our great men.‘” Then in a 1973 interview, Eyring, when asked about the age of the Earth controversy, cited his disagreement with Smith’s book, but added:
I would say that I sustained Brother Smith as my Church leader one hundred percent. I think he was a great man. He had a different background and training on this issue. Maybe he was right. I think he was right on most things and if you followed him, he would get you into the Celestial Kingdom—maybe the hard way, but he would get you there.
The Church, according to a letter from President McKay, has no position on organic evolution. Whatever the answer is to the question, the Lord has already finished that part of His work. The whole matter poses no problem to me. The Lord organized the world and I am sure He did it in the best way.
This, I believe, is the story referred to in General Conference. It was not the only time Eyring was called upon to weigh in, but this post is long enough already.
I have dozens of my own posts dealing with this topic and lots of book recommendations, so if you’re new to the site, let me know and I’ll point you to them. As for now, I’ve got Mircea Eliade to read for class.
As always, you can help me pay my tuition here, or you can support my work through making your regular Amazon purchases through this Amazon link. You can also get updates by email whenever a post goes up (subscription box on the right). If you friend me on Facebook, please drop me a note telling me you’re a reader. I tend not to accept friend requests from people I’m not acquainted with.
Benjamin the Scribe
What do I mean by “transitional Mormonism”? (
Elder Eyring told a story in 
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In