Transcendent Nephites

[_Gadianton]

I lean to ideas of both the Rev and Symm. I have a tough time seeing the Book of Mormon as inspired fiction from a liberal perspective, but I have my own thoughts about a "faithful" fictional Book of Mormon. I am actually unsure if we really understand the Reverends theories of fiction. The proposition has been advanced but?

Symmachus sees the history as non-negotiable for some reasons I hadn't thought of. I had previously considered the non-negotiable aspect of the Book of Mormon to be its miraculous forthcoming. "How could he have known!". If you can say "How could he have known!" about something non historical, such as Early Modern English, then history is decoupled. But then what is it about, such that the end result is still distinctly Mormon? Faithful fiction could answer that to a point, possibly, but then there might be a deeper problem I hadn't thought of -- the container problem, where certain impulses of Mormonism must be cut off. In other words, the Faithful Fiction theory might fail to be a fully Mormon account.

Well, today I will be exceptionally busy. Yes, just because those in the comments section of SeN think that only they have important things to do in life because they talk about them all the time, whereas the critics don't, that doesn't mean we don't also have important things to do. And so no, just because they believe I'm going to spend all day scouring the comments over there in order to find fault, it isn't true. And so my friends, until later.

(written prior to seeing Symm's latest post)

[_Physics Guy]

[advocate]
Calling Mormonism Yankee Voodoo wasn't meant to be a shot. I read a bit about Voodoo once. I understand it as a real religion, or at least a large expansion set to Catholicism that changes the game quite a bit. As I recall the main theoretical aspect of Voodoo is to have no theoretical aspect. It's not a religion about believing ideas. It's about getting crap done. And I'd be willing to call religions like that primitive, because I expect that primitive religions were like that, but my point here is that maybe that kind of primitive never went out of style.

It's true that a lot of theology has gotten bolted onto the Old Testament chassis. God as the necessary ground of being has been read into Exodus 3:14. But my impression of the Mormon impulse is that it yawns through that and wants to get back to the parts with the smiting. The Old Testament may not have stayed primitive but I think the original cut where Han shot first and shot fast is the one Mormonism prefers, not all that retconned CGI nonsense that takes away all the edge.

Pardon me for blaspheming Star Wars like that. I should have been blaspheming Raiders because that's what I'm talking about. The Ark of the Covenant wasn't a symbol. It wasn't a goddamn Maguffin. It was the genuine deus ex machina—boo yah!
[/advocate]

Okay, my rickety advocacy has now gone right off the rails, because what I'm arguing is that Mormonism could afford to ignore big ideas and rely on practical miracles. Aye, it could, if they worked, but they don't. The wish that they would, that the world would work as we want and bad things would not hurt us if only we thought and said and did the right things—that's a perennial wish. You can build a religion upon it. You just can't build a religion that works without believing in myths.

And I'm afraid that what I really think has just shone through my attempt to advocate: that what Mormonism has instead of transcendence is the bogus promise that you don't need to transcend because this way of bending God to our will really works. That's why there is actually no viable way to be a non-fundamentalism Mormon, because Mormonism has gone all-in on not having to do that. No matter how much you enjoyed the film, eventually you have to stumble out of the theater into the sunlight and blink, and as soon as you do, it was only a movie.

Maybe the rail on which I started, before I careened off it, could have led to some more tenable position that someone with more sympathy for Mormonism can see. Pouring the Christian new wine back into an Old Testament bottle seems like something that has always been there to attempt, and maybe the significance of Mormonism on the millennial scale is that it's the only time the attempt has been properly made. Maybe that thought can go somewhere.

[_huckelberry]

[advocate]
... It's not a religion about believing ideas. It's about getting ____ done. And I'd be willing to call religions like that primitive, because I expect that primitive religions were like that, but my point here is that maybe that kind of primitive never went out of style.

It's true that a lot of theology has gotten bolted onto the Old Testament chassis. God as the necessary ground of being has been read into Exodus 3:14. But my impression of the Mormon impulse is that it yawns through that and wants to get back to the parts with the smiting. ,,,,,,

And I'm afraid that what I really think has just shone through my attempt to advocate: that what Mormonism has instead of transcendence is the bogus promise that you don't need to transcend because this way of bending God to our will really works.......... Pouring the Christian new wine back into an Old Testament bottle seems like something that has always been there to attempt, and maybe the significance of Mormonism on the millennial scale is that it's the only time the attempt has been properly made. Maybe that thought can go somewhere.

Physics Guy, From looking at Mormon apologetics and criticism I can see how you would see the idea of smiting in the old Testament as a central Mormon aspiration. It does appear here and there but I cannot see or imagine it as a central matter. Mormons have a community which is supposed to be a critical stage in the development of the kingdom of God in eternity. There are old testament ideas which fit with that so are seen as having been revitalized in the temple but that is hardly wishing to fit back into the old testament.It is seeing the old testament as a live foundation for what is to develop from the New.

In comparison the rest of christianity seems to see the Old Testament as passe except for some rules and a few prophesies of Jesus if you squint your eyes right. It often appears that for traditional Christians the whole concept of community is transformed into God electing or accepting individuals into grace so they can go to heaven. (some of the current evangelicals seem to add name it and claim it variations on get Jesus get rich plans that fit your voodoo Christianity image)

The understanding of Mormonism I remember sees the lack of transcendence as a central strength. The structure of family and community on earth is the structure of the divine in eternity. There is seen no meaning to the kind of escaping or overcomming the physical realities of life which sometimes lurk in traditional Christianity. The very substance of what we do here is the substance of what can be meaningful in a life in eternity.

It is upon the foundation of the importance of community that Mormonism mounts a frontal attack on some problematic traditional Protestant doctrines. These targets are first that the vast mass of humanity is hell bent due to being outside of Christian belief and or Baptism.Mormons have wished to celebrate the joy of like and are suspicious of overly rigid Protestant puritanism. Church dances are important as well as enjoyable.Music and theater are part of Mormon community.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Symmachus:

I think your OP rings true on a number of levels. I think you're correct that the bulk of apologetics/Mopologetics has been given over to shoring up the historical argument, and I also think you're correct in terms of pointing out how this creates an enormous theological--or "transcendent"--problem for everyone. I think that most of the Mopologists either don't recognize this as a problem, or they don't care--somebody like Midgley certainly doesn't care. To him, mortal life is just a "probation" to suffer through. But some of the Mopologists *do* seem to recognize that this is a problem: I mean, there are clear reasons why you get attacks in "Interpreter" aimed at not just Meldrum and the Heartlanders (a competing "empirical" approach, perhaps?), but also at the Julie Rowes and Denver Snuffers. They also pose a threat, but perhaps coming from a different angle.

And so that's why I think that things like Dr. Peterson's admiration for an utter crap-fest like Added Upon are simultaneously so hilarious and so strange--and, to be honest, sort of sad. The basic argument that the Mopologists so often offer is precisely the appeal to authority that you mentioned earlier (perhaps the purest example of this is "Mormon Scholars Testify"), and after that would be their history argument. But once that falls apart, even they seem to realize that you need something in the vein of what you have been calling "transcendent."

I realized, reading your posts, that this basic dilemma is why I am so fascinated by the "Witnesses" movie project. Because here they seem to be trying to juggle all the balls at once: shoring up historical claims, offering up appeals to authorities (hence all their "talking heads" footage), and also "transcendence," except here they seem to be trying to access it primarily via the medium of cinema itself. Dean Robbers and others have joked all along that there is no way that the "Witnesses" movie will show supernatural events: there will be no deer Jesus, or floating angels, or anything of that nature, for all the reasons you outlined. They've shown us the scene of the translation, and yet (interestingly) they departed from the historical facts: the actor playing Joseph Smith doesn't not put his face into the hat--he holds it away, at arms length. (An interesting metaphor, perhaps?) Why don't the filmmakers provide us with his point of view? Why not let us see that "transcendent" moment, of letters appearing on the seer stone? The fact that they shy away from that simultaneously exposes their anxieties and reveals their priorities. You mentioned above that religious ideology affects aesthetics, and, well, QED.

[_Gadianton]

Shades's example of nailing jello to the wall is a nice way to describe Mormonism's flexibility to get out of tight situations, and to keep going. The suggestion of both Symm (and Kish?) is that it's not infinitely flexible, however, and that:

"However, one things is not just as good as another. If we look at the various ideas of what could replace historicity"

I think I get this point better now. And I agree that you can have liberal Mormons, but probably not a liberal Mormonism. But I have to wonder about the conservatives as well. Snuffer is one thing, but I brought up Julie Rowe, because do these spiritualist types really care that much about Book of Mormon history? Suppose I am right and they don't. I think what your position might be telling us is that: well then, neither do they have an ark to carry all the faithful -- even if barely -- either. That's something I have not really considered for the faithful fiction theory -- will it swallow up 94.6 % of the active membership? Will it bring 5% out of inactivity? I think it will work for the Mopologists, who may even advance something like this one day, and for a certain type of committed, conservative member. But I hadn't thought of anything beyond that.

The hypothetical, Faithful Fiction theory might be a continuation of the failure that you've observed. My belief, is that historicity doesn't matter to the apologists anymore, and you seem to be saying the same thing - maybe? My belief, is that the extreme focus on historicity, has turned historicity into nothing more than a side-show stage trick: How could Joseph have known?! The setup required to make the trick work has compromised the connection between your transcendentalism and historicity. I asked a long time ago in another venue, if the flood was local, then when "the earth shall burn as an oven" in the Last Days, will that also be local? Maybe the east side of a barn out in Nephi somewhere? It seems to me, that with every square foot the LGT reduces the land of Bountiful by, so are the dimensions of the "Eternities" likewise reduced, proportionally. Dr. Scratch notes Peterson's love for the book Added Upon. It would be tough to say that book doesn't count as a Mormon, transcendental work. But that love was noted long ago, and I've seen no defense of the book since it was unearthed by Dr. Scratch last year.

Early Modern English makes the parlor trick about something that nullifies the requirement of the book to be historical altogether. It could be a fantasy by one of the Reformers in the spirit world as much as it could be a translated record, and either way, Joseph "couldn't have known" about that style of English. Moroni could have brought a bunch of props to Joseph Smith, and told him it was ancient, because he needed to believe it -- that's what was needed for the time. But times change. The Mopologists already believe that Joseph misunderstood all kinds of things about the Book of Mormon anyway, so why not?

At the same time I read Nibley as a pre-mission teen, I was reading other church-related books as well. I became fascinated by Return from Tommorow, a volume also loved by Peterson that gets mentioned on SeN. The most powerful scene in Return from Tomorrow, was when Ritchie was taken to a huge library, and was told by the spirit-being that this library is where all the important books of the universe were collected. Parchments, clay tablets, and everything. Nibley's "crying forth from the dust" reaches into infinity. (Imagine Lou Midgley in that library, yelling at a librarian because he just found a book from another galaxy written by someone he'd researched who he believes was a closet doubter).

The Gold Plates could have been from that library, it didn't happen on earth, but it did somewhere. That kind of "shifts" the history problem. But, Shakespeare himself could have spent a thousand years in that library, and then wrote the Book of Mormon as a great epic, inspired by the best the eternities have to offer. It's not historical, but it's still miraculous.

Which would win in a battle between the least powerful historical Book of Mormon, and the most powerful fiction Book of Mormon?

if the Limited Geography Theory is true, and the numbers in the epic final battle were exaggerated, not in Palmyra, and it was between people who weren't any more the ancestors of the American Indian than Genghis Khan, then is it about something that connects with Mormon transcendence more or less then the Shakespearean Book of Mormon from the spirit world?

[_Kishkumen]

Greetings, esteemed colleagues!

I feel like I have missed out on my own conference! Here I say something in passing and it somehow inspires, no doubt partly due to its suggestiveness but inadequacy, our brilliant Symmachus to engage in a long, thought-provoking essay probing at its very foundations. I am deeply honored!

I can't say that I disagree with the substance of our dear consul's message. The question of whether there can be transcendent Nephites is an open one, in my opinion. Certainly, the grimly serious Mopologetic enterprise would seem to respond with a resounding, "NO!" I tend to think, however, that things are a little more complicated than that. Allow me to add my two cents very briefly. Doubtless what I will say will require more attention from me than I can give it at present. My kids just started school today, and I am distracted by other obligations.

I will venture to say that the popular view of the past is fairly uncomplicated. Stuff happened, and people remembered it or didn't, transmitted its memory or didn't. Sometimes people lied about what happened for their own reasons. The emergence of history as a formal discipline has challenged and continues to challenge people's understanding of what the past is and its many uses. History and archaeology have mightily clashed with identity politics: "My story of the past of my people has a special meaning to me/us, and your attempt as a historian to tell me about my people is an ethically dubious if not imperialistic enterprise." We're all still wrestling with these problems and we will be for a very long time yet.

Right now I am toying around with a couple of concepts of the past that inform my thinking in this instance: the analytical past and the performative past. These are not the only two concepts of the past. I am not creating a simple dichotomy. Rather, I am thinking about this problem in particular through these two (admittedly inchoate) concepts.

My definition of the analytical past is that vision of the past that is arrived at through the analysis of temporally prior evidence according to strict rules and methodologies to arrive at something one would rhetorically claims is, in some sense, more wie eigentlich gewesen ist. Sure, it may provide a particular view, but it is expected to accord as well as possible with our best evidence of real-world events.

My definition of the performative past is as follows: the performative past is how any group imagines and performs its identity and place in the world with reference to past time, be it mythological, legendary, or historical. A group's particular performative past will relate to history in a way that suits the needs of the group. Usually, group identity will be at least partly anchored in known historical events, but it may also be partly rooted in constructed past events unique to the group. The performative past of Mormons is partly based in the Bible and the ritual-narrative logic of Freemasonic initiations, among other things, but it is also rooted in Joseph Smith's "translations" of ancient texts, which provide their own, highly idiosyncratic readings of the Bible, Josephus, etc.

Right now apologists argue for the veracity of Mormon claims within the framework of the analytical past. They and others take the performative past of their group and treat it as though it has a place at the table of the analytical past, i.e., as though their performative past were just another methodological framework, such as Marxist, revisionist, post-modern, or whatever. Unfortunately, as our Symmachus has shown, this simply does not work. The performative past is not just another version of the analytical past. It is not just another methodology.

Let me illustrate. Whereas the analytical past relies on analytical tools and methodologies for processing existing evidence of the past (texts, artifacts, etc.), the performative past generates data that only fit within its own framework when dealing with the past time to which it refers. The objects of the performative past can, however, provide data for the analytical past in other ways. In other words, within the framework of the analytical past I cannot use the Book of Mormon as data for examining Ancient America, but I can use it as an object of analysis within the tradition to which its 19th-century composition belongs. The Book of Mormon is an artifact of the performative past, meaning that it provides the Mormon people a unique connection to the larger tradition that is shared only by others who accept the book as scripture. It is also paradigmatic of other aspects of individual and group practice and conduct for "Mormons."

Having rashly sketched out these concepts, I should also say that I do not view them as mutually exclusive categories. They are characteristics of data regarding the past that may co-exist in the same objects and texts to differing degrees. I can read Tacitus to learn about what Augustus was doing, or I can read Tacitus to figure out what it meant to be Tacitus examining what Augustus was doing. Tacitus may appear to embellish or even falsify elements of his analytical past (consciously or not) in order to perform his own Roman identity in the early second century in the era of Trajan and Hadrian. To provide another example of the performative past, Greek cities of the Roman Empire consciously composed mythological foundation stories for the purposes of obtaining privileges within the imperial system. The Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham are objects of the performative past in that they use the Bible and other texts as jumping off points for a more thorough re-imagining of the past that becomes the framework for Mormon identity in the way, I would argue, mythology does in other cultures.

Sorry to burden you all with this. I hesitated to share this, but the ideas do need some thrashing out. Perhaps you gentlemen can disabuse me of the utility of this entire line of thought by tearing it to shreds. I do get the basic point that my perspective appears to come out of a sort of liberal academic point of view that has little appeal or use to the average Mormon. And yet, knowing that Mormonism will change in one way or another in response to challenges regarding its vision of the past, it seems worthwhile to give that topic some further thought, if only for the sake of my own curiosity.

At the same time, I am not sure I am comfortable with the idea of transcendent Nephites, as though all we need to do is put Nephites on the astral plane to make everything work out. Maybe that is the answer, but I agree with Symmachus when he doubts that will pan out. I am of the opinion that the real "give" in all of this is to be found in our concepts of the past and our views of how the past can be legitimately used. If the past is just "what actually happened," in a naturalistic, secular sense, then maybe the other narratives of the past will just die or be driven increasingly underground. If we are aware that the past can be appropriated and worked with in other ways, maybe dignity can be spared for "performative pasts," or something like them, in the future.

[_Physics Guy]

To me the big difference between history as it really happened, and any other kind of history, is that what happened once could happen again, but what is only imagined to have happened may well be impossible. So one can sometimes draw useful lessons from actual history, lessons that one could not have learned otherwise, whereas the lessons implied by an imagined history are no more reliable than the imagination of its creator.

[Guest]

To me the big difference between history as it really happened, and any other kind of history, is that what happened once could happen again, but what is only imagined to have happened may well be impossible. So one can sometimes draw useful lessons from actual history, lessons that one could not have learned otherwise, whereas the lessons implied by an imagined history are no more reliable than the imagination of its creator.

So, first of all I would say that the word history itself conveys the notion of some kind of investigative or research methodology, no matter how crude. It is consciously different from inspired narratives about the past. Our dichotomy of history versus fiction is itself crude. An imagined, performative past is arguably different from any old fiction.

The Book of Mormon claims to be an inspired narrative about the past that speaks to the concerns and needs, especially moral needs, of its target readership. Its lessons are drawn from Biblical narratives about the past (which are also not history) and Joseph Smith’s contemporary environment, and as such may be said to have a comparable didactic and moral value.

History may perform other functions better, but scripture’s special status and purpose make it more appealing for some uses than history will be. Maybe not for everyone, but for quite a few people. I don’t think scripture is without value because it is not history. Scripture has its place, and history occupies another place in the larger world of stories.

[_Holy Ghost]

To me the big difference between history as it really happened, and any other kind of history, is that what happened once could happen again, but what is only imagined to have happened may well be impossible. So one can sometimes draw useful lessons from actual history, lessons that one could not have learned otherwise, whereas the lessons implied by an imagined history are no more reliable than the imagination of its creator.

Using Kishkumen's terminology as I understand it, you are saying that only analytical history could happen again and that performance history could not repeat. However, I see common threads in differing peoples' origin/foundational myths, i.e., in their differing performance pasts that they spin for themselves. Threads like we're a special, chosen people, or we've been a victimized people. Mormons espouse both; they are at once both victimized and special, chosen people--like the Jewish tradition. A people's identity is fixed to its narrative myth. From studying these performance histories, we can learn about human inclinations, particularly in group dynamics, and either learn to predict what will happen, what is about to happen with a group of people currently--and if it suits are interests, perhaps try to redirect a group from otherwise going down a 'bad' path.

[_Kishkumen]

Using Kishkumen's terminology as I understand it, you are saying that only analytical history could happen again and that performance history could not repeat. However, I see common threads in differing peoples' origin/foundational myths, i.e., in their differing performance pasts that they spin for themselves. Threads like we're a special, chosen people, or we've been a victimized people. Mormons espouse both; they are at once both victimized and special, chosen people--like the Jewish tradition. A people's identity is fixed to its narrative myth. From studying these performance histories, we can learn about human inclinations, particularly in group dynamics, and either learn to predict what will happen, what is about to happen with a group of people currently--and if it suits are interests, perhaps try to redirect a group from otherwise going down a 'bad' path.

Thank you for those thoughts, Holy Ghost. I very much appreciate you engaging with what I wrote. My little sketch was probably not what most people were expecting or wanting to read. Of course, I am a big proponent of what I have called here "the analytical past." I feel the need, however, to come up with new terms because of the way the word history is sloppily thrown around. It is difficult to have a productive conversation about "history" when people speak past each other on account of their incommensurable views regarding the past.