{"id":92250,"date":"2021-08-13T18:24:47","date_gmt":"2021-08-14T00:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=92250"},"modified":"2021-08-17T17:26:35","modified_gmt":"2021-08-17T23:26:35","slug":"joseph-smith-as-a-book-of-mormon-storyteller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2021\/08\/joseph-smith-as-a-book-of-mormon-storyteller.html","title":{"rendered":"“Joseph Smith as a Book of Mormon Storyteller”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
President Russell M. Nelson and his counselors in the First Presidency, President Dallin H. Oaks and President Henry B. Eyring. Members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are President M. Russell Ballard, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Elder David A. Bednar, Elder Quentin L. Cook, Elder D. Todd Christofferson, Elder Neil L. Andersen, Elder Ronald A. Rasband, Elder Gary E. Stevenson, Elder Dale G. Renlund, Elder Gerrit W. Gong and Elder Ulisses Soares. This iconic photograph was taken in the Visitor Center on the grounds of the Rome Italy Temple.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A new article \u2014 this one by Brian C. Hales \u2014 has appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJoseph Smith as a Book of Mormon Storyteller\u201d<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>For nearly 200 years, skeptics have promoted different naturalistic explanations to describe how Joseph\u00a0Smith generated all the words of the Book\u00a0of\u00a0Mormon. The more popular theories include plagiarism (e.g. of the Solomon Spaulding manuscript), collaboration (with Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, etc.), mental illness (bipolar, dissociative, or narcissistic personality disorders) and automatic writing, also called \u201cspirit writing, \u201ctrance writing,\u201d or \u201cchanneling.\u201d A\u00a0fifth and currently the most popular theory posits that Joseph\u00a0Smith possessed all the intellectual abilities needed to complete the task. A\u00a0variation on this last explanation proposes that he used the methods of professional storytellers. For millennia, bards and minstrels have entertained their audiences with tales that extended over many hours and over several days. This article explores their techniques to assess whether Joseph\u00a0Smith might have adopted such methodologies during the three-month dictation of the Book\u00a0of\u00a0Mormon. Through extensive fieldwork and research, the secrets of the Serbo-Croatian storytellers\u2019 abilities to dictate polished stories in real time have been identified. Their technique, also found with modification among bards throughout the world, involves the memorization of formulaic language organized into formula systems in order to minimize the number of mental choices the tale-teller must make while wordsmithing each phrase. These formulas are evident in the meter, syntax, or lexical combinations employed in the storyteller\u2019s sentences. Professional bards train for many years to learn the patterns and commit them to memory. When compared to Joseph\u00a0Smith and the Book\u00a0of\u00a0Mormon, the historical record fails to support that he had trained in the use of formula systems prior to 1829 or that his dictation employed a\u00a0rhythmic delivery of the phrases. Neither are formula patterns detected in the printed 1830 Book\u00a0of\u00a0Mormon. Apparently, Smith did not adopt this traditional storyteller\u2019s methodology to dictate the Book\u00a0of\u00a0Mormon.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been somewhat discouraged lately as I\u2019ve seen religiously conservative Latter-day Saints \u2014 people who often deride politically liberal Latter-day Saints as unfaithful, even apostate \u2014 who have been openly critical of the men they\u2019ve sustained as apostles and prophets because those Church leaders have gone against, or seem<\/em> to have gone against, the political ideology favored by these members.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reminded of a very hardcore Latter-day Saint \u2014 a young-earth creationist and scriptural literalist who considered hot chocolate a violation of the Word of Wisdom \u2014 who was my senior home teaching companion for a time when I was a very young holder of the Aaronic Priesthood in southern California. \u00a0One night, following a visit to a \u00a0semi-active family, he confided to me that President Hugh B. Brown, who was at the time serving as first counselor to President David O. McKay, was a Communist agent determined to destroy the Church. \u00a0I can still remember where I was standing when he told me this. \u00a0I was shocked. \u00a0Stunned. \u00a0Not at what I had learned about President Brown, but at what I had just discovered about my home teaching companion.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

For a period of about a year or so, I occasionally\u00a0received phone calls from an elderly self-identified high priest in the Church who would rail against me in the strongest terms for my sympathetic attitude toward Muhammad and Islam. \u00a0He told me that, in contrast to my support for \u201cthat mass-murdering pedophile and false prophet,\u201d he stood with the apostles and prophets of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>. \u00a0One evening, I called his attention to the First Presidency\u2019s 1978 statement on, among others, Muhammad<\/a>. \u00a0He listened as I summarized what they had said, and then informed me that President Spencer W. Kimball and his counselors had been deceived by Satan. \u00a0I found that a rather odd way of standing with the apostles and prophets of the Church. \u00a0I, whom he had branded as favoring Muhammad over the leaders of the Restored Church, would never<\/em> have said such a thing about them. \u00a0Ever<\/em>. \u00a0Worlds without end. \u00a0Never.\u00a0 <\/em>More recently, a few wrote similar things to me about President Russell M. Nelson when my article on \u201cUnderstanding Islam\u201d<\/a> was published in the April 2018 issue of the Ensign<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m seeing similar responses \u2014 only, if anything, more vehement and more widespread \u2014 to yesterday\u2019s official First Presidency statement regarding anti-COVID vaccinations:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWear masks and get the vaccine, say top LDS leaders, even as more wards return to face coverings: \u201cWe can win this war,\u201d says First Presidency, \u201cif everyone will follow the wise and thoughtful recommendations of medical experts and government leaders.\u201d\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some are declaring this the last straw.\u00a0 They\u2019re leaving the Church.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help thinking, in that light, of a passage in President Ezra Taft Benson\u2019s famous 1981 speech \u201cFourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seventh:\u00a0The prophet tells us what we need to know, not always what we want to know.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThou hast declared unto us hard things, more than we are able to bear,\u201d complained Nephi\u2019s brethren. But Nephi answered by saying, \u201cThe guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center\u201d (1\u00a0Nephi 16:1,\u00a03<\/a>). Or, to put it in another prophet\u2019s words, \u201cHit pigeons flutter.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Said President Harold\u00a0B. Lee:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou may not like what comes from the authority of the Church. It may contradict your political views. It may contradict your social views. It may interfere with some of your social life. \u2026 Your safety and ours depends upon whether or not we follow. \u2026 Let\u2019s keep our eye on the President of the Church.\u201d [In Conference Report, October 1970, p. 152\u2013153]<\/span><\/p>\n

But it is the living prophet who really upsets the world. \u201cEven in the Church,\u201d said President Kimball, \u201cmany are prone to garnish the sepulchres of yesterday\u2019s prophets and mentally stone the living ones\u201d (Instructor,<\/span>\u00a095:257).<\/span><\/p>\n

Why? Because the living prophet gets at what we need to know now, and the world prefers that prophets either be dead or mind their own business. Some so-called experts of political science want the prophet to keep still on politics. Some would-be authorities on evolution want the prophet to keep still on evolution. And so the list goes on and on.<\/span><\/p>\n

How we respond to the words of a living prophet when he tells us what we need to know, but would rather not hear, is a test of our faithfulness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Said President Marion\u00a0G. Romney, \u201cIt is an easy thing to believe in the dead prophets.\u201d And then he gives this illustration:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne day when President Grant was living, I sat in my office across the street following a general conference. A man came over to see me, an elderly man. He was very upset about what had been said in this conference by some of the Brethren, including myself. I could tell from his speech that he came from a foreign land. After I had quieted him enough so he would listen, I said, \u2018Why did you come to America?\u2019 \u2018I am here because a prophet of God told me to come.\u2019 \u2018Who was the prophet,\u2019 I continued. \u2018Wilford Woodruff.\u2019 \u2018Do you believe Wilford Woodruff was a prophet of God?\u2019 \u2018Yes, I do.\u2019 \u2018Do you believe that President Joseph\u00a0F. Smith was a prophet of God?\u2019 \u2018Yes, sir.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThen came the sixty-four dollar question. \u2018Do you believe that Heber\u00a0J. Grant is a prophet of God?\u2019 His answer, \u2018I think he ought to keep his mouth shut about old age assistance.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNow I tell you that a man in his position is on the way to apostasy. He is forfeiting his chances for eternal life. So is everyone who cannot follow the living Prophet of God.\u201d [In Conference Report, April 1953, p.\u00a0125]<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Are we free to disagree with Church leaders? \u00a0Yes. \u00a0Of course. \u00a0I have my own opinions, myself. \u00a0But there\u2019s abundant scriptural precedent for dissenting from the Lord\u2019s prophets. \u00a0The Book of Mormon, for example, is chock full of examples of such rejection. \u00a0Scripturally, though, it doesn\u2019t often end well.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

President Benson\u2019s warning is worth keeping very much in mind. \u00a0I\u2019m convinced that we all \u2014 myself included \u2014 need to reflect continually on where we stand with respect to those whom we claim to revere as prophets and apostles.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Cedar City, Utah<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 *** \u00a0 A new article \u2014 this one by Brian C. 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