DCP's Joseph Smith?????s Doctrines and Early Christianity

[_CaliforniaKid]

If Raisanen is suggesting that the "seams" Joseph Smith identified were only just recently discovered by 20th century text critics, he is incorrect. Careful students of the Bible have been wrestling with these issues for centuries. Joseph Smith's harmonization of Gen 1 and 2 by making 1 a spiritual creation, for example, had been proposed by Philo two thousand years before (gotta love those Platonic forms).

[_Daniel Peterson]

Read Räisänen, if you want to know precisely what he's saying. It's an interesting article.

[_Doctor Steuss]

If Raisanen is suggesting that the "seams" Joseph Smith identified were only just recently discovered by 20th century text critics, he is incorrect. Careful students of the Bible have been wrestling with these issues for centuries. Joseph Smith's harmonization of Gen 1 and 2 by making 1 a spiritual creation, for example, had been proposed by Philo two thousand years before (gotta love those Platonic forms).

It seems that my only purpose in this thread is to ask people of references (*sigh*... I'm so useless).

Chris,
Do you happen to have a cite for the Philo dilly? I'd like to read it por favor (it sounds groovy).

Thanks,
Stu

[_dartagnan]

Professor Räisänen was impressed. You're not.

I'd be impressed with specific claims made by Joseph Smith about the "problems" with the Old Testament. It is easy to reference a German article written 23 years ago, and suggest that since the author was "impressed," then there mjst be something to it.

But so far you have only mentioned the Documentary Hypothesis. Did Joseph Smith claim anything remotely similar to the JEDP before scholars began postulating it?

It should also be noted that critical anaylsis of the Bible began earlier. In the mid 17th century Thomas Hobbes began looking at it with a critical eye, and this continued with Spinoza and others. In fact it was Eichhorn who would publish his work in 1823, arguing that Moses wrote none of the Bible.

Wellhausen simply built off the work of those before him. There is no reason to think Joseph Smith's criticisms of the Old Testament must be evidence of inspiration simply because Wellhausen's Documentary Hypothesis came long afterwards. There were plenty of critical scholarship Smith could have read up on which said precisely the things he has argued.

I don't care enough to wade into what I know would be an interminable discussion, and most likely a fruitless one.

Right. You're saving that effort for RFM, where discussion is always fruitful.

We know you don't debate anything online Dan. No need to explain yourself.

[_dartagnan]

I am headed back to the states next month. I'll try to find it at the library at Emory University.

I can get by in German, usually.

[_karl61]

If Raisanen is suggesting that the "seams" Joseph Smith identified were only just recently discovered by 20th century text critics, he is incorrect. Careful students of the Bible have been wrestling with these issues for centuries. Joseph Smith's harmonization of Gen 1 and 2 by making 1 a spiritual creation, for example, had been proposed by Philo two thousand years before (gotta love those Platonic forms).

If Raisanen is suggesting that the "seams" Joseph Smith identified were only just recently discovered by 20th century text critics, he is incorrect. Careful students of the Bible have been wrestling with these issues for centuries. Joseph Smith's harmonization of Gen 1 and 2 by making 1 a spiritual creation, for example, had been proposed by Philo two thousand years before (gotta love those Platonic forms).

I heard that Joseph Smith checked out a lot of books. CK, did he - or his friends - check out any that would include Philo's thoughts - just wondering if there is any record.

[_richardMdBorn]

"As a sidenote, DCP surprised me by commenting that modern biblical scholars are now saying that Cor 15:29 is accurately reflecting baptism for the dead)."

Dan, does this accurately portray what you said in the lecture?

[_CaliforniaKid]

Argh! I lost my post! Oh well, let's go for the abbreviated version. For Stu:

"In the first place therefore, from the model of the world, perceptible only by intellect, the Creator made an incorporeal heaven, and an invisible earth, and the form of air and of empty space: the former of which he called darkness, because the air is black by nature; and the other he called the abyss, for empty space is very deep and yawning with immense width. Then he created the incorporeal substance of water and of air, and above all he spread light, being the seventh thing made; and this again was incorporeal, and a model of the sun, perceptible only to intellect, and of all the lightgiving stars, which are destined to stand together in heaven. ...
The incorporeal world then was already completed, having its seat in the Divine Reason; and the world, perceptible by the external senses, was made on the model of it; and the first portion of it, being also the most excellent of all made by the Creator, was the heaven, which he truly called the firmament, as being corporeal; for the body is by nature firm, inasmuch as it is divisible into three parts; and what other idea of solidity and of body can there be, except that it is something which may be measured in every direction? therefore he, very naturally contrasting that which was perceptible to the external senses, and corporeal with that which was perceptible only by the intellect and incorporeal, called this the firmament."

http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text ... book1.html

If Raisanen is suggesting that the "seams" Joseph Smith identified were only just recently discovered by 20th century text critics, he is incorrect. Careful students of the Bible have been wrestling with these issues for centuries. Joseph Smith's harmonization of Gen 1 and 2 by making 1 a spiritual creation, for example, had been proposed by Philo two thousand years before (gotta love those Platonic forms).

If Raisanen is suggesting that the "seams" Joseph Smith identified were only just recently discovered by 20th century text critics, he is incorrect. Careful students of the Bible have been wrestling with these issues for centuries. Joseph Smith's harmonization of Gen 1 and 2 by making 1 a spiritual creation, for example, had been proposed by Philo two thousand years before (gotta love those Platonic forms).

I heard that Joseph Smith checked out a lot of books. CK, did he - or his friends - check out any that would include Philo's thoughts - just wondering if there is any record.

Not that I'm aware. However, the building blocks of Joseph Smith's solution (light of Christ/light of truth, a sort of semi-panentheistic incorporeal intelligence possibly borrowed from Quaker thought, and the Genesis discrepancies) are very similar to the building blocks Philo had to work with (panentheistic incorporeal God who is little more than raw reason or intellect, Platonic forms, and Genesis discrepancies). So I'm not extraordinarily surprised that they came up with basically the same solution. By the way, I highly recommend everyone read at least the first three pages of the following article:

Ostler, Blake. "The Idea of Pre-Existence in the Development of Mormon Thought." Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15, no. 1 (1982): 59-78.

Download it from

http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/browse ... =/dialogue

Joseph Smith in the Book of Abraham turns his spiritual creation period into a prepratory period. This coincides with his decided move away from the light of Christ/ideal pre-existence stuff of his earlier years.

-CK

[_Daniel Peterson]

"As a sidenote, DCP surprised me by commenting that modern biblical scholars are now saying that Cor 15:29 is accurately reflecting baptism for the dead)."

Dan, does this accurately portray what you said in the lecture?

I cited the article in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism about baptism for the dead in antiquity that was written by Krister Stendahl (the well-known New Testament scholar, former dean of Harvard Divinity School, and Lutheran bishop of Stockholm), and told something of the story behind its writing. I cited him as saying that, theological agendas aside, any normal reader would naturally read the text as referring to an ancient Christian practice (at Corinth, anyway) of vicariously baptizing the dead.

[_Mister Scratch]

Professor Räisänen was impressed. You're not.

I'd be impressed with specific claims made by Joseph Smith about the "problems" with the Old Testament. It is easy to reference a German article written 23 years ago, and suggest that since the author was "impressed," then there mjst be something to it.

Boy, *I* sure am impressed. I'm impressed with the striking similarity of DCP's citation of this old, foreign, and highly esoteric and obscure text to FARMS's use of an old, esoteric, and highly obscure study to support their claims about horses in Florida. Is there some sort of handbook given out to Mopologists, where they are advised on how to do this?