Wayment on "borrowing" in the JST

[Guest]

In view of the upcoming Wayment article, which the church already acknowledges and tacitly embraces by virtue of linking to its abstract here, I am curious about how the church will treat the first part of the 8th article of faith.

“We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly...”

Surely Smith meant to incorporate his Bible translation in this statement.

Remember, this AoF is canonical scripture. Every child in church learns it. Is it not fair to suggest a rewrite AoF8 as “we believe Adam Clarke’s interpretation of the Bible to be the word of God”?

It sure opens up a lot of possibilities, including a speculative notion that some parts of the PoGP should be decanonized.

[_Dr Moore]

How might the church react to calls for “decanonization of plagiarization”?

[_Kishkumen]

Scholars long dismissed Cicero’s philosophy because it was derivative of Greek thought. In more recent times, other scholars have become bored with the obsession with absolute originality, especially after it was found that philosophers such as even the great Plato were borrowing liberally from others. Mormonism is a system that, Givens has noted, is a bricolage.

Now, we can dismiss a bricolage as something that is just cobbled together from other sources and later passed off as original or tarted up in snooty academicese, but it is a case, I would submit, of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. That greater whole is the genius of the one who makes the bricolage, i.e., the bricoleur, or, the believer might call it divine revelation.

Plagiarism is what a person with no ideas does. Art is skillful theft sanctified by genius. Individual parts of Joseph Smith’s career may look like plagiarism, but step back and examine the whole, and the art becomes visible.

Art, of course, is a matter of taste. Andy Warhol appropriated Campbell’s soup cans and filmed the Empire State Building for hours. Unimaginative? Genius? Art? Trash? I say art, but many disagree.

[_Dr Moore]

You have a marvelous way with words, as always, reverend. Respectfully, Warhol and Plato are not canonized as having delivered the word of God.

By my limited reading, canonization was decided by ecclesiastical leaders and a church vote. Scholars had no say in the matter, correct?

[_Gadianton]

It sure opens up a lot of possibilities, including a speculative notion that some parts of the PoGP should be decanonized.

Care to elaborate on that one?

[_Fence Sitter]

There are hundreds of "revelations" Smith received that are not canonized, neither is the JST. I do not see how the impact of Wayment's future article will spill over into a re-evaluation of the the AoF#8.

That said, the entire book which contains Wayment's article promises to have break new ground on how Joseph Smith produced scripture. I think the chapters on the Book of Abraham may be even more controversial for believers than those on the JST. Here is a list of the chapters in the forthcoming Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith's Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity
I do have the say the price on this book is ridiculous. $70.00 for a hardcover?

Mormon Canon of Scripture Short Citations to the Joseph Smith Papers Contributors

1. Introduction Michael Hubbard MacKay, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Brian M. Hauglid.

PART I: CONTEXT AND COMMENCEMENT

2.“By the Gift and Power of God”:Translation among the Gifts of the Spirit Christopher James Blythe
3.“Bringing Forth” the Book of Mormon:Translation as the Reconfiguration of Bodies in Space-Time Jared Hickman
4. Performing the Translation: Character Transcripts and Joseph Smith’s
Earliest Translating Practices Michael Hubbard MacKay
5. Reconfiguring the Archive: Women and the Social Production of the Book of Mormon Amy Easton-Flake and Rachel Cope

PART II: TRANSLATING THE Book of Mormon

6. Seeing the Voice of God: The Book of Mormon on Its Own Translation Samuel Morris Brown
7. Joseph Smith, Helen Schucman, and the Experience of Producing a Spiritual Text: Comparing the Translating of the Book of Mormon and the Scribing of A Course in Miracles Ann Taves
8. Nephi’s Project:The Gold Plates as Book History Richard Lyman Bushman
9. Ancient Plates and Modern Commandments: The Book of Mormon in
Comparison with Joseph Smith’s Other Revelations Grant Hardy

PART III: TRANSLATING THE KING JAMES Bible

10. The Tarrying of the Beloved Disciple: The Textual Formation of the Account of John David W. Grua and William V. Smith
11. A Recovered Resource:The Use of Adam Clarke’s Bible Commentary in Joseph Smith’s Bible Translation Thomas A. Wayment and Haley Wilson-Lemmon
12. Lost Scripture and “the Interpolations of Men”:Joseph Smith’s
Revelation on the Apocrypha Gerrit Dirkmaat
13. Translation, Revelation, and the Hermeneutics of Theological Innovation: Joseph Smith and the Record of John Nicholas J. Frederick

PART IV: PURE LANGUAGE, THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM, AND THE KINDERHOOK PLATES.

14.“Eternal Wisdom Engraven upon the Heavens”: Joseph Smith’s Pure Language Project David Golding
15. “Translating an Alphabet to the Book of Abraham”: Joseph Smith’s Study of the Egyptian Language and His Translation of the Book of Abraham Brian M. Hauglid
16. Approaching Egyptian Papyri through Biblical Language:Joseph Smith’s Use of Hebrew in His Translation of the Book of Abraham Matthew J. Grey
17. “President Joseph has Translated a Portion”:Joseph Smith and the Mistranslation of the Kinderhook Plates Don Bradley and Mark Ashurst-McGee

[_Kishkumen]

You have a marvelous way with words, as always, reverend. Respectfully, Warhol and Plato are not canonized as having delivered the word of God.

By my limited reading, canonization was decided by ecclesiastical leaders and a church vote. Scholars had no say in the matter, correct?

Point taken, but the art of religion depends in the first instance on whether the product is sufficiently compelling to gain adherents, not on a formal process of canonization. There was no Mormon canon when missionaries sold Books of Mormon on the American frontier. The book was, instead, enough of a hit with a sufficient number of people to build a core following.

I don’t see that as being all too different from other forms of art. Plato is not the foundation of Western philosophy just because he had great ideas. He also had wicked literary skills that heroized Socrates.

You are correct, of course, in saying that the LDS Church has the power to add or remove texts from the canon. Personally, I would hope that they not go this route, as it seems to me that rejecting the borrowing ideas from other sources would leave us with very little of worth in any canon to hold onto (including the Bible).

[_Dr Moore]

Point taken, but the art of religion depends in the first instance on whether the product is sufficiently compelling to gain adherents, not on a formal process of canonization. There was no Mormon canon when missionaries sold Books of Mormon on the American frontier. The book was, instead, enough of a hit with a sufficient number of people to build a core following. ... Personally, I would hope that they not go this route, as it seems to me that rejecting the borrowing ideas from other sources would leave us with very little of worth in any canon to hold onto (including the Bible).

Good reminder. While I appreciate the scrappy beginnings may appear in hindsight more artful than hardened religious doctrine, those missionaries believed -- with all of their heart, family, time, resources and money -- that they carried the word of God, restored and translated by a prophet.

I wonder how many of those missionaries would have left their families for years at a time had they been given a choice to assess Smith's revelations in context as prayerfully considered bricolage, not revealing or restoring, as he claimed and as they believed, the hitherto hidden mind of God?

And furthermore, how many of the Saints would have voted to ratify, eg, JST Matthew or AofF#8 into the canon of scripture, after being shown the plagiarized sections from other sources and given a choice to judge whether Joseph was what he claimed: a restorer, or something different: an inspired bricoleur?

Missionaries and saints may have been blessed for their faith in action, but the same can be said of ANY high-demand, fundamentalist system in which people dedicate their hearts and minds to a cause.

It isn't my fault I was born into Mormonism. It's just a fact.

It isn't my fault that Mormon leaders lied about its origins and sources. It's just a fact.

I don't want my community to die, or even to leave it. I just want the lying to stop.

[_Kishkumen]

Good reminder. While I appreciate the scrappy beginnings may appear in hindsight more artful than hardened religious doctrine, those missionaries believed -- with all of their heart, family, time, resources and money -- that they carried the word of God, restored and translated by a prophet.

I wonder how many of those missionaries would have left their families for years at a time had they been given a choice to assess Smith's revelations in context as prayerfully considered bricolage, not revealing or restoring, as he claimed and as they believed, the hitherto hidden mind of God?

And furthermore, how many of the Saints would have voted to ratify, eg, JST Matthew or AofF#8 into the canon of scripture, after being shown the plagiarized sections from other sources and given a choice to judge whether Joseph was what he claimed: a restorer, or something different: an inspired bricoleur?

Missionaries and saints may have been blessed for their faith in action, but the same can be said of ANY high-demand, fundamentalist system in which people dedicate their hearts and minds to a cause.

It isn't my fault I was born into Mormonism. It's just a fact.

It isn't my fault that Mormon leaders lied about its origins and sources. It's just a fact.

I don't want my community to die, or even to leave it. I just want the lying to stop.

I understand the anger because I have spent a great deal of time there. So, I am not trying to make downplay the importance of your feelings about all of this. It is a huge shock to find out that all is not as one thought. It is a huge letdown to realize that there were people who knew and actively tried to hide the problems. The anger is justified and the process is worth it, although it is not always pleasant.

That said, I am not exactly there anymore. Where I am is no place superior to where you are. Perhaps it is just tired and jaded. Some time ago I consciously decided to put things in a different perspective, and it works for me in the place I am at. What is that perspective?

For one thing, I do not see a stark difference between a restorer and a bricoleur. More importantly, over time I have quit demanding so much from Joseph Smith. Here I might be somewhat idiosyncratic in my approach. Mormonism is a system in my view, and it could have come about many different ways. Joseph Smith was kind of a megalomaniac and narcissist, so his way of putting things together was to make himself the hero of the story.

It worked pretty well, and to this day lots of people put a lot of stock in Joseph Smith the person. Brigham Young, who knew him fairly well, seems to have had a somewhat more realistic perspective. He liked the system and made it work for himself.

To be continued....

[_Kishkumen]

Brigham also didn’t trust Joseph in every respect. I think he knew Joe was a rogue. Brigham Young was too, in his own way.

I don’t connect emotionally with the leaders so much, the early ones or the current LDS leaders. I connect with my own experience, my family, and my friends. I don’t feel like the good things we have done and experienced were a fraud, even if Joseph Smith was a fraud of some kind. We may not be heading to godhood, but we did good here and there.

I am happy that the facts are coming out, and, as for me and my family, we will ever pay tithing again. But I am Mormon. I am coming to terms being who I am, holding on to the good of my LDS experience, and just dropping the LDS Church. At this point, I see it as almost a caricature of itself—and that is really saying something.

To me there is a point where it is all too much. I have a hard time doing it in good conscience, let alone encouraging others to do it. I still love my friends and family who do, and I am far from hating Mormonism or Mormons, but there is too much about the LDS Church that I personally find ludicrous or offensive to maintain any commitment to it. The November Policy was the final straw, and I should be ashamed, perhaps, that I did not wake up enough to stop before that.

Since I decided I was totally done, the trickle of gaffes and boners, as Scratch likes to call the, has been steady, confirming to me, as I gasp or guffaw over the latest thing, that I really did do the right thing for me. In other ways it’s a real shame, but damn they make it easy for me to stay out.