I’ll comment further on the Adam/council member once I return to Atlanta and get in touch with him.
Joseph Smith was really into it. One of my favorite quotes on the matter is the Prophet’s statement,
“Attended the school and read and translated with my class as usual, and my soul delights in reading the word of the Lord in the original, and I am determined to pursue the study of languages until I shall become master of them, if I am permitted to live long enough, at any rate so long as I do live I am determined to make this my object, and with the blessing of God I shall succeed to my satisfaction,”? Joseph Smith, Personal Writings, 191.
With this quote, the Prophet reveals one of the reason he felt so strongly about studying Hebrew, namely that his soul delighted in reading the word of the Lord as written in the original language.
I suspect that one of the reasons Joseph delighted in studying the Bible in Hebrew was the fact that in so doing, the Prophet gained extraordinary doctrinal and scriptural insights from the Old Testament.
Surely you know you don’t have to convince me that Joseph Smith was a well-read Bible student, since that is precisely what I have argued for quite some time now. But the next time I come up against an apologist, who tells me Joseph Smith didn’t really know the Bible that well, or that he rarely read it, I’ll be sure to use your comments above as a rebuttal. I only wonder if that apologist will be you (grin).
By studying Hebrew as part of the revelatory process, Joseph acted in strict harmony with God’s instruction regarding the revelatory act: “But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask”? (D&C 9:8). Joseph was clearly well-versed in this process
However you choose to design your model for divine revelation, the two steps are also mutually exclusive.
Again, I’m not going to deny that Joseph learned that elohim means gods in the plural prior to teaching his views regarding the divine council of gods
Fabulous.
nor will I deny the possibility that learning that the word elohim means “gods” in the plural may have been an important step in the revelatory process.
You have to admit David, that when people think of divine revelation coming to genuine prophets, they are not thinking of common matters that can easily be learned from a book. Whether one decides to later verify these matters with God is really irrelevant to the issue of evidence for divine inspiration. After all,
anyone can do that, and it wouldn’t be evidence that he or she is a prophet. So why do the rules change for Joseph Smith? Also, you’re working off a premise of your own concept of divine revelation, and you do not clearly indicate this premise in your work. This might have something to do with perceived uncertainty with where you’re coming from.
I see no reason to assume this either.
Then why criticize my interpretation of the “others” as a misreading? Do you not have any alternative theory as to whom the “others” might refer?
Because I believe that studying, pondering, conversing with others, etc. is part of the process whereby a person “studies it out in his or her own mind” and then receives spiritual enlightenment.
So you’re saying that the step involving the
natural acquisition of knowledge, is fundamental to receiving knowledge
supernaturally? I think you’re trying to have it both ways, in which case, you can use whatever evidence to support whatever side you want. The question is whether or not Joseph Smith discovered these things
strictly because God told him. I’m certain this is what the majority (MAD included) assume you are trying to demonstrate, but now it seems you fully admit he could have easily discovered these things naturally beforehand. Do you really not understand how this weakens your position, from a persuasive point of view? I seriously believe people do not care about any “evidences” unless one can make a compelling case that there would be no other means by which Joseph Smith could have come by them, except revelation. This is the standard line in virtually all the Book of Abraham “parallels” used by apologists (i.e. “Joseph Smith didn’t read Enoch so how else could he know?”)
Because when all is said and done, Joseph’s views regarding elohim as a reference to literal deities operating in a council setting both was and is shocking to most Christians but is recognized as the foundational theological perspective permeating throughout the Bible.
I’m not sure what significance you think lies in this. If you think this somehow adds credibility to your thesis then this is fallacious reasoning. Whether Christians were or are shocked is irrelevant to the claim that Joseph Smith received divine revelation, and is only a diversion. Think of it this way. If the entire Christian world
wasn’t shocked and it had been teaching this doctrine already, according to your logic it wouldn’t matter anyway if Joseph Smith had heard about it at a Methodist service, since that would have been a “fundamental step” in the divine revelation process
anyway. Technically, virtually any knowledge gained naturally, can be used in your model as evidence for divine revelation. This is bizarre.
If Joseph Smith claims to know something, and it turns out that this is true, then this must serve as evidence that Joseph Smith was a genuine prophet of God. Clearly you agree with this premise, so I have to ask you about the flip side.
If Joseph Smith claims to know something, and it turns out that this is
false, then this must serve as evidence that Joseph Smith
wasn’t a genuine prophet of God. Can you agree with this premise? This is why the last question in my post was begging for a response. Hopefully you get around to it because I think (Rev 1:6) this serves as compelling evidence that Joseph Smith wasn’t a prophet of God.
So while one could certainly argue, as you do, that Joseph merely learned that elohim can means gods in the plural and then developed on his own a notion of a council of gods based upon his propensity to read the Bible in a non-traditional way, in the end, one is forced to acknowledge that Joseph’s non-traditional ideas concerning a literal council of literal gods are firmly rooted in the biblical tradition.
Again, my argument is relevant to the question of divine revelation, whereas your anecdote about Christian ignorance is entirely irrelevant. If Joseph Smith received revelation, then this is a truth independent of what the Christian world accepted or rejected. But it
is dependant on the prerequisite that Joseph Smith
didn’t learn about these things naturally.
For me, (and I think for most people who are looking at this from a non-testimony-based perspective) the fact that Joseph Smith learned X naturally precludes him from having subsequently learned X supernaturally.
This is like a psychic saying she determined your birth date while holding your driver’s license in her hand. Then she explains that reading your drivers license was a necessary step in determining the data
supernaturally. You appear to be arguing along similar lines.
Now I have no problems with the LDS model for receiving
confirmation of the truthfulness of any given subject. But this is a rule applied to everyone, and should not be used as evidence for prophetic calling. After all, we don’t consider it “divine revelation” when an investigator feels a spiritual confirmation that the Book of Mormon is true, do we?
Even the 1906 edition of the classic Brown, Driver, and Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon states that the term “elohim” need not refer to literal gods, but can denote “angels” or even “rulers or judges.” Because of recent archeological and textual discoveries, mainstream Biblicists reject this view.
You see, when you make statements like these it seems like you are trying to make a “How else could Joseph Smith have known if not by revelation?” argument. If not, then what exactly is your point? If so, then this is irrelevant by your own argument since, according to your paradigm, knowledge gained naturally doesn’t preclude it from being divine revelation anyway.
So while one could certainly argue that Joseph Smith’s propensity towards theological innovation, together with his studies in Hebrew are the only factors that led to his views regarding the divine council
Yes. Because this is a perfectly sound and reasonable assumption to make, there is no logical compulsion to presume divine revelation was a factor. It is strictly a faith-based choice.
the fact that today Biblicists recognize “however unwittingly” the Prophet’s views as biblically sound provides some evidence that perhaps Joseph may have been inspired.
The only way it would serve as evidence is if Joseph Smith couldn’t have learned this stuff naturally. Under this condition, divine revelation would be a reasonable alternative in explaining how he obtained this information.
But as I have illustrated,
1. The divine council jargon was well circulated in Joseph Smith’s day.
2. As early as John Calvin was see acknowledgment that Gen 1 involves a “consultation” in heaven.
3. “others” in Joseph Smith’s day had translated the text in a way corroborating Joseph Smith’s understanding.
Is that evidence strong enough to force all non-believers to accept the conclusion that Joseph Smith was a true Prophet? Of course not. It should be enough in my opinion to lead people to accept the possibility that he may have been inspired and from that point to seek spiritual confirmation of the possibility which, since we are dealing with a spiritual argument, is the only way a person can know for certain whether or not the evidence stands.
So you’re not arguing that this is evidence he was a prophet. You’re arguing that this is evidence that he received a
confirmation for what he already learned spiritually? This is something entirely different from divine revelation. Divine revelation is knowledge obtained supernaturally, like praying in a grove and receiving knowledge out of the blue. What you’re talking about here is the customary LDS practice of receiving spiritual
confirmation for any given point.
I suspect that part of the reason that you object to my work is that you assume that I am an apologist like you were an apologist, bent on proving the truthfulness of Mormonism.
No, you remind me more of Kerry Shirts or Hugh Nibley. They could draw evidences and support for the Church by looking at a head of Swiss cheese shaped like Joseph Smith’s nose. Over the course of my apologetic development, I stopped short of using this method. I fiddled with it for a short time but suddenly realized how fallacious it was. I think I grew to understand better the limits of what the evidence would really demonstrate, and I didn’t push it beyond those bounds with rhetoric. I was tempted to try forcing a point and creating the impression that scholars agreed with me via omission of contradicting evidence, but I don’t believe I ever gave in.
As I once tried to explain to you, however, in the context of a discussion on Hebraisms, I have no interest in proving the Church true and in fact feel that it can never be done (you at that time rejected my comment as sincere stating more or less “of course we’re looking for some nail in the coffin to vindicate our beliefs.” To which I simply responded, “Have fun!”
If LDS would simply hold to this and nothing else you’d probably never hear anything critical from me. I have never criticized what people hold by faith alone. It is the apologetic effort to create this impression that the evidence supports their position while the critical side is spiritually bankrupt. I have heard this nonsense a million times at FAIR/MAD, and I don’t recall you ever disagreeing with them. In fact I recall you specifically making my spiritual demise the subject of several threads.
I don’t believe that human beings can ever prove or disprove any point in an absolute sense. I can’t even prove my own existence, let alone the spiritual authenticity of Joseph Smith’s divine calling. I can establish evidence for these perspectives, namely that I really do exist and that Joseph Smith was inspired, but I can’t prove either.
But the evidence that you exist far outweighs the evidence you think you have uncovered for Joseph Smith’s abilities as a true prophet.
My work in the divine council topic is also different from the way you approached apology in the sense that I truly am interested in the ways in which the biblical views differ from my own theology.
The majority of what I see coming from you is strictly Mormon related themes. This was Hugh Nibley’s problem. He was an apologist first and foremost. He simply couldn’t set it aside. Virtually everything he wrote was related to defending the Church and drawing parallels with the Ancient World. While he gained respect in the field, it annoyed some that virtually everything he wrote had strong Mormon overtones.
If you will recall our exchange on my observations of the council prayer in Psalm 47 in April of 2006, you responded: “A council in heaven that is worshipped by humans isn't something I think we need to be pushing for.” To which I replied: “I’m really not a traditional apologist. I'm willing to push it as far as it goes. I accept what the Bible says, even when it doesn’t completely square with my own beliefs.
But this is not entirely true. Once pressed, you will accept that the Bible quite frequently describes God in incorporeal ways, yet you consistently say “the biblical view” is that he is corporeal. You often neglect what the Bible says in some parts in order to focus on the parts that support Mormon themes. In the above example it seems you were only interested in “pushing” this issue with Psalm 47 because you felt the benefits outweighed the backlash. Meaning, you felt that, in spite of an apparent conflict with LDS monolatry, you could use it to support your apologetic regarding the Divine Council and then reconcile the problems in other ways. And reconciling problems like these is usually quite easy for the Mormon apologist because of the apostasy doctrine.
For example: Asherah as the Mother in heaven. This presents numerous contradictions with LDS theology. But for the apologists, these problems are easily dismissed as 1) misunderstandings by those who had fallen away or 2) corruption in the text by those dastardly reformists. For the apologist, since the general idea is there, then this is supposed to serve as evidence that Joseph Smith was a prophet. Similarities are taken as strong evidence and the problematic portions are initially ignored until a critic brings them to their attention, and then later dismissed via using apostasy factor. Of course this is fallacious apologetic shuffling because it rests on unproved assumptions. It just begs the question.
For some reason, despite the fact that I have emphasized the point in a variety of ways, you have never accepted my position as sincere.
In all honesty David, I see your various explanations as ambiguous and even borderline contradictory.
All I can do is state emphatically that it is. I’m not the same kind of apologist that you once were, and once you recognize this fact, I suspect that your antagonism will lessen to some extent.
No, I was a different kind of apologist, but I do know how you think. As an apologist I decided to practice my critical thinking skills while looking in the mirror and that is when I realized my positions as a Mormon were no better, and even more fallacious, than those who were criticizing the Church. I think I know what you’re going to present when you come across something that appears to have subtle Mormon overtones. You snag it and then make a mountain out of a molehill with scholarly rhetoric that usually leads to a longwinded thread followed with few sycophantic responses.
But the
extent to which you have done this over the past two years has been astonishing to me. I mean really David, you’re trying to extract parallels from
anything. And a perfect example of what I am talking about is mentioned further down your post about “standing” in the council.
I’m not arguing against your view that Joseph Smith gained important insights from his Hebrew professors, I reject the implication that this fact means that Joseph was not inspired.
It does if the knowledge used to prove he was inspired was already obtained from his professors. This is the issue really. How are you trying to prove he was inspired? And how does this set him apart from any other non-Prophet who is occasionally inspired?
Of course learning the rules of Hebrew grammar can be distinguished from genuine divine revelation. I believe that learning about any topic serves as an essential step in the revelatory process.
This appears to be a principle unique to David Bokovoy. If not, then what did Joseph Smith learn about Egyptian before receiving revelation in his Book of Abraham translation? The fact is true prophets do not have to have any previous knowledge of any given topic in order for God to hit them with knowledge via divine revelation. This is not an “essential step” in the process. In your case it appears to be an acceptable step for the sake of apologetics.
In addition, let us not forget that the traditional Hebrew grammar professed up until recently allowed for elohim to mean things other than “gods.”
No, it has always meant gods, though it was applied to humans in certain contexts.
No. See my comment above.
I think it didn’t answer my question: “Is everyone receiving divine revelation when they learn the plural nature of elohim?”
I believe that it is unlikely that Joseph Smith would have come up with an idea of a council of literal gods of which human beings are inclusive members, of a council story which follows the pattern for all Near Eastern versions of the council exchange where a head god calls the gods of the council together to resolve a crisis, various proposals are considered, and a savior/messenger is commissioned and that these views today are recognized as biblical when they weren’t even a few decades ago without divine inspiration. Is it possible that he did? Well, of course, but given the nature of the evidence, I for one do not see this position as likely
Perhaps this is because you’re focusing only on vague similarities (you’re even exaggerating them in my opinion; i.e. there was no “crisis” in the biblical creation council) without dealing with the differences and the obvious biblical inferences which Joseph Smith obviously knew about. You don’t present the latter two categories in your presentations, which tells me you’re neglecting them. They weigh heavily in determining the veracity of your claim, but again, it is easier to accept your claim when these important details are ignored.
That’s true today.
It is true, period. Simon Parker’s point was that the Divine Council and its functions could easily be discerned from reading the Hebrew Bible, and this is true even without the 1928 discover at Ugarit. The reason people didn’t, was due to theological confines which did not apply to Joseph Smith. All the elements were there. The function of the divine assembly was obvious. Its location, its membership, its role and its head, were all easily discernable for anyone who wanted to take off the monotheism goggles. It didn’t take an act of divine revelation to simply connect the dots and apply appropriate terminology already in use in Joseph Smith’s day.
And that these celestial beings were literal gods. Yes, that point is obvious to Biblicists today.
Again,
elohim has always meant gods, and we know Joseph Smith understood it as such. He read the Hebrew Bible in its original language and could thus, discern a council of
elohim much easier than we give him credit for. It is irrelevant whether it was translated this way in the KJV.
You’re going down the fallacy trail again by focusing on what other people
didn’t accept in his day. This is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether divine revelation must have played a role in Joseph Smith’s understanding.
Joseph had all of the pieces of the puzzle before him and put them together in a non-traditional way that reflects what we now know to be true concerning the biblical view.
What is so non-traditional about literally translating the text? He argued for his position using Jewish authority.
The fact that this happened is evidence that he may have been inspired.
Here is where we need to employ probability logic. It is only probable if you first begin with the premise that he was a prophet (circular reasoning). Otherwise it is evidence of nothing other than the fact that he correctly translated the text and that his Hebrew Professors taught him well. Again, they were teaching him Hebrew, not theology.
I don’t believe that Joseph knew the Bible all that well when he translated the Book of Mormon. If I led you to believe that I assumed anything other than this point, then I failed to express my postion.
Alright. I do not believe your position will stand the test of scrutiny, but okay. This is really beside the point, after all. If you can agree Joseph Smith knew the Bible well in the mid-1830’s then at least we agree on this.
We have at least two sermons where the issue was addressed publicly by Joseph Smith and a variety of contemporary statements in journal entries, etc. which indicate that Joseph was preaching the theology in Nauvoo.
Yes, but none of which left an impact on LDS theology. Again, just search for “divine council” in the LDS library and see how many hits you get. I only got one.
We have references to the divine council of deities in the Doctrine and Covenants, and a depiction of the divine council in the book of Moses and Abraham that provide a perfect example of a Near Eastern council type scene, including the "standing" motif.
Yes, which is also an obvious motif in Psalm 82. No need for divine revelation here.
The purpose of my drawing attention to these facts in an apologetic context is to simply argue that there exists enough evidence for a rational being to accept the Church as possibly true to the point that he or she will pursue a revelatory experience that leads to spiritual conviction.
And my point is to highlight the fact that your work appears to be more about apologetics than scholarship. Inasmuch as I have read it on forums. I don’t want people getting confused between the two. I know how easy it is to hypnotize some people with credentials – and Dan Peterson kindly serves as your public hypnotist – but I think I’ve built up immunity to that.
I held my own as an apologist while debating Greek experts on the B-Greek e-list, and I don’t remember Dan Peterson or anyone else from FAIR criticizing me for
that.
If your work were strictly scholarly, then you would not have neglected to share the data that challenges or contradicts your positions. This is the difference I tried to talk about at MAD, with fierce resistance from the moderators of course.
You do realize of course, that works once identified as apologetics, are treated differently in scholarship because they scream partiality, and are usually taken with a grain of salt. But ignorance is a factor that is in your favor. Meaning, they won’t know your apologetic agenda. For example, once you write up your paper on Adam as divine council member (only a Mormon would do that) your scholarly audience will probably have no idea that you are doing this to add credibility to a Mormon truth claim. If they did, they might treat it differently.
Anyway, I hope all this commentary doesn’t throw off your pace and you neglect to address the Rev 1:6 problems again. Please, if you address anything, I’d like you to address this.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein