Mormon Infobia...

[_Drifting]

Q. Do all of the main Church teaching programmes (where the method is taught) exclusively teach using the Urim & Thummim (spectacles & breastplate)?
Yes/No

My Answer: Yes

I don't agree with you on this point.

You may not agree with me but you cannot show me anything from the materials used in...
Primary teaching
Seminary teaching
Institute teaching
Sunday School teaching
Investigator teaching
...that mentions anything other than the mechanism of using the spactacles and breastplate known as the Urim & Thummim as the method of translating the Book of Mormon.

[Guest]

To be frank, I think this is a smokescreen. I think that this example is useful to people like yourself - because it has (even with the concerns) a relatively uncontested historical reality. But, in fact, it is the much murkier issues that people have real concerns over. This one gets used for a sound bite, I believe, because you have an easier argument to make. What makes this situation useful to me is that it allows us to try and hash out the issues of what the church ought to be trying to do and what should be reasonably expected of it - and these are issues that you seem to be trying to avoid.

So, on the subject of how the Book of Mormon was translated what do you think the Church ought to do?

Bearing in mind that Elder Jensen believes something needs to be done and, arguably, if the Church did a better job of presenting an honest account of its history and doctrine then boards like this probably wouldn't be so popular.

[_Drifting]

What you want to see isn't what they wanted to put there - and you ought to consider for a moment that the bit you think is of such great import has really no significant value relatively speaking.

What is the significant value of articulating the lesser used method of using the Urim & Thummim as opposed to the more prevalent rock in a hat process?

[_Drifting]

I do have one more comment to make Drifting.

You talk about people wanting to know and looking - and yet, you yourself seem to be woefully unaware of the material that is out there. And it seems to me that perhaps whatever your sources of information were, you uncritically accepted them. That seems to me to be just as much an issue here in this discussion (at least where it has traveled). At what point should I expect that you apply the same critical eye that you do to the church to the sources you have read?

At the point those sources make the claim to be God's one true Church led and inspired by Christ himself.

[_Drifting]

Dallin Oaks admitted that one reason information is not provided to members is that there was fear that it would "creat[e] doubts that didn't exist in the first place." (See below.) Just as there was a fear of providing information and creating doubts, there was a fear of members seeking information that would create doubts. An apostle admitted it. Apologists still will not.

Helen Whitney: Just one more question on that. In every church, in every person, there’s a shallow territory usually explained away through context. Many find information through the Internet — some would rather find things out about the Church history, doctrine through teachings, rather than the Internet, or other resources.

Dallin H. Oaks: It’s an old problem, the extent to which official histories, whatever they are, or semi-official histories, get into things that are shadowy or less well-known or whatever. That’s an old problem in Mormonism — a feeling of members that they shouldn’t have been surprised by the fact that this or that happened, they should’ve been alerted to it. I have felt that throughout my life.

There are several different elements of that. One element is that we’re emerging from a period of history writing within the Church [of] adoring history that doesn’t deal with anything that’s unfavorable, and we’re coming into a period of “warts and all” kind of history. Perhaps our writing of history is lagging behind the times, but I believe that there is purpose in all these things — there may have been a time when Church members could not have been as well prepared for that kind of historical writing as they may be now.

On the other hand, there are constraints on trying to reveal everything. You don’t want to be getting into and creating doubts that didn’t exist in the first place. And what is plenty of history for one person is inadequate for another, and we have a large church, and that’s a big problem. And another problem is there are a lot of things that the Church has written about that the members haven’t read. And the Sunday School teacher that gives “Brother Jones” his understanding of Church history may be inadequately informed and may not reveal something which the Church has published. It’s in the history written for college or Institute students, sources written for quite mature students, but not every Sunday School teacher that introduces people to a history is familiar with that. And so there is no way to avoid this criticism. The best I can say is that we’re moving with the times, we’re getting more and more forthright, but we will never satisfy every complaint along that line and probably shouldn’t.

Emphasis supplied.

I'm bumping it because I think the significance of what Oaks says in relation to the OP has been missed. Can anyone give any examples of 'we’re getting more and more forthright'?

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Drifting writes:

You may not agree with me but you cannot show me anything from the materials used in...
Primary teaching
Seminary teaching
Institute teaching
Sunday School teaching
Investigator teaching
...that mentions anything other than the mechanism of using the spactacles and breastplate known as the Urim & Thummim as the method of translating the Book of Mormon.

I think we continue to talk past each other. These don't describe the mechanism. Mostly they quote the JSH. I don't think that is inappropriate. I think that what you are asking for is in fact inappropriate within the context of these lessons. We aren't going to move beyond this point.

So, on the subject of how the Book of Mormon was translated what do you think the Church ought to do?

I think the Church does a fine job. I am far less interested (and most people I know who have the remotest interest) are far less interested in this detail than they are in discussing what I might term the real method of translation - which is discussing the reliability of the translation, discussing the issue that has come to be known as loose or tight translation, to talk about idioms in the text and the reliance of the text on various potential sources. These are dealing with the method of translation. Whether Joseph sees writing in the interpreters found with the plates or in his seer stone, and whether he used a hat to block the light to make it easier to see - that is not a part of the method of translation. It is a non-issue caused by wanting to examine the Book of Mormon as an artifact as opposed to a text that provides religious and theological discourse. In the limited space in the church curriculum as a teacher, I would be opposed to having to spend time on this discussion. It is that simple. I would rather spend my time discussing the text. I can find this other information as I need to. It isn't a problem.

Bearing in mind that Elder Jensen believes something needs to be done and, arguably, if the Church did a better job of presenting an honest account of its history and doctrine then boards like this probably wouldn't be so popular.

I also agree with Elder Jensen - but I am also absolutely certain that he would agree with me (against your point of view) that the curriculum courses are not the place to put this. Particularly this insignificant issue. This isn't something that is intentionally being hid. It something that simply isn't necessary or even that significant in carrying out what the church sees as its mission.

In following through with this, I find a certain amount of absurdity in the suggestion that people will lose their testimony after finding out that Joseph Smith saw an angel, dug up the gold plates, and translated them using his seer stone as opposed to finding out that Joseph Smith saw an angel, dug up the gold plates, and translated them using a pair of magic spectacles. You even seemed to agree with me on this. So I don't think this is an issue of embarrassment. I don't think its terribly coherent to charge that the church is hiding one inconvenient truth (in you view) with another. I think in this particular example, there is simply the desire to create a distorted view to continue an assault on the church.

What is the significant value of articulating the lesser used method of using the Urim & Thummim as opposed to the more prevalent rock in a hat process?

It isn't articulated. That's part of the point. The manuals tend to stick with as authoritative sources as they can (in this case the JHS). But the manuals don't actually describe Joseph looking through the Urim and Thummim at a text. At the very best we get statements that say that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to translate (which he did). I think that you have over-read what is there, interpreted in ways that weren't intended, but which suit your argument. And in doing so, you completely miss whatever point the manual was trying to make. It might be even an intentional misreading.

At the point those sources make the claim to be God's one true Church led and inspired by Christ himself.

I am not following you here. I think this is just an attempt to cry angel - to avoid making a serious response. None of the manuals make the claim to be absolutely true. None of them claim to be written by Christ himself. And in fact, whether there was a hat or not seems to have absolutely zero bearing on the question of whether or not the Church is led by inspiration and is a "true Church" (whatever that phrase actually means). But once more, you have succeeded in shifting the dialogue away from a reasonable question about what the church should be obligated to provide in the context of carrying out what it views as its mission.

Ben M.

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Drifting writes:

I'm bumping it because I think the significance of what Oaks says in relation to the OP has been missed. Can anyone give any examples of 'we’re getting more and more forthright'?

Sure, the Joseph Smith papers is one example of this. The church is providing easy access to more and more of its archives and documentation. How do you feel about this line?

The best I can say is that we’re moving with the times, we’re getting more and more forthright, but we will never satisfy every complaint along that line and probably shouldn’t.

Is there a point at which some critics will never be satisfied, and the natural limits on resources and availability as well as challenges where the historical record isn't clear at all create some natural limits on what the church ought to try and do?

Ben M.

[_Drifting]

Okay Ben, in the interests of progressing the discussion - which I am enjoying and learning from (and I don't say that to patronise you). I accept that the Church see's the importance and value in what was produced rather than the mechansim of how it was produced.

I think you need to accept that whilst it might not be a matter of importance to you, others can and do see it differently. But lets leave that there.

You raise the question of loose or tight translations. So that I am on the same page am I right in thinking that you mean:

Loose = Joseph made the words and sentances up from impressions that were placed before him on the seer stone. So errors in grammer and words used fall to Joseph, his scribes, the printer etc.

Tight = Joseph was given the exact words and sentences to use on the seer stone and so errors fall squarely at God's doorstep.

If that is what you mean, which do you believe is the case and what causes you to think that way?

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Drifting writes:

If that is what you mean, which do you believe is the case and what causes you to think that way?

Probably we should continue this discussion (narrow or tight) in a separate thread, and feel free to start one.

I see Joseph as a reader of the text (entirely). So in those terms, I am as far to the tight side of the spectrum as anyone you will meet. However (and this is a large caveat), my views about what texts are and what it means to be an author tend to give me a different set of conclusions about what this means than others who may lean towards a tight translation model. (My views meaning that I have postmodernist and poststructuralist leanings).

[_Runtu]

Is there a point at which some critics will never be satisfied, and the natural limits on resources and availability as well as challenges where the historical record isn't clear at all create some natural limits on what the church ought to try and do?

Ben M.

For me, it's not a question of being satisfied. The church will do what it needs to do, and I suspect that it will have to provide at least some information that hasn't been presented in the past just so that members will not be shocked when they stumble across things. But that's not up to me to decide.

You said earlier that it was a mistake to view the church as a monolithic group that "knows" the real history. You are absolutely right. Most of the people I know at the church office building don't have any more information than the average church member, so there isn't a conscious effort to conceal anything.