Wayment on "borrowing" in the JST

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_Philo Sofee
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Re: Wayment, the JST and AOF8

Post by _Philo Sofee »

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


When I was reading heavily in the Early Christian Church Fathers and Apologists, I discovered it was exactly backwards from what you are saying. The church and priesthood had nothing to do with the canon, it was all the scholars and politicians. There was not a single revelation to guide them in how to do it. It was all guess work and bias about what one already believed as to determine what one let into the canon.

Granted, I am way back in the early Christian era, but the Bible canon did start there, and I have no reason to accept their selection. It hasn't been solved to this very day/ Some outstanding texts on this are:

1. Dennis R. MacDonald, "Two Shipwrecked Gospels, The Logoi of Jesus and Papias's Exposition of Logia About the Lord,"
2. Peter W. Flint, "The Bible at Qumran, Text, Shape, and Interpretation."
3. James E. Brenneman, "Canons in Conflict, Negotiating Texts in True and False Prophecy."
4. Lee Martin McDonald, James A. Sanders, "The Canon Debate."
5. Bart D. Ehrman, "Lost Scriptures, Books That Did Not Make it into the New Testament."
6. Jason D. BeDuhn, "The First New Testament, Marcion's Scriptural Canon."
7. Thomas L. Brodie, "The Birthing of the New Testament."
8. John Barton, "Holy Writings, Sacred Text, The Canon in Early Christianity."
9. Willis Barnstone, "The Other Bible."
10. Willis Barnstone, "The Gnostic Bible."
Dr CamNC4Me
"Dr. Peterson and his Callithumpian cabal of BYU idiots have been marginalized by their own inevitable irrelevancy defending a fraud."
_Dr Moore
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Re: Wayment, the JST and AOF8

Post by _Dr Moore »

All true Philo, and excellent research as always by the way. And yet... I believe we are describing two sides of the same coin.

The LDS narrative revolves around an idea that it was the conspiring scholars who removed those plain and precious truths from the Bible. Only a true prophet can restore them. Only the words from a true prophet are worthy of canonization, which is why we must caveat belief in the Bible with a proviso: “as far as it is translated correctly.”

So back to the dilemma. LDS canonical authority, and indeed priesthood authority itself, relies on Joseph being a restorationist prophet in the purest sense. But...but... Scholars who study the details find that simplicity impossible to uphold. Some of them, like Givens, are bold enough to call Joseph’s prophetic revelations what they are: bricolage, or for those of us in less literarily advanced departments, for whom a cruder description feels more at home, artful plagiarization.
_2bizE
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Re: Wayment, the JST and AOF8

Post by _2bizE »

Actually, I believe the plan is to update article faith 7 instead.
It will read, “We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, plagiarism, &c and so forth.
~ 2BizE
_Philo Sofee
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Re: Wayment, the JST and AOF8

Post by _Philo Sofee »

Dr Moorse
The LDS narrative revolves around an idea that it was the conspiring scholars who removed those plain and precious truths from the Bible.


I have no reason to accept that hypothesis of the church. :biggrin: But I see where they take it. They imagine it helps them out, but as you are pointing out, if they don't get eaten by lions, they get drowned, twisted, slashed, and consumed by the crocodiles.
Dr CamNC4Me
"Dr. Peterson and his Callithumpian cabal of BYU idiots have been marginalized by their own inevitable irrelevancy defending a fraud."
_Kishkumen
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Re: Wayment, the JST and AOF8

Post by _Kishkumen »

So back to the dilemma. LDS canonical authority, and indeed priesthood authority itself, relies on Joseph being a restorationist prophet in the purest sense. But...but... Scholars who study the details find that simplicity impossible to uphold. Some of them, like Givens, are bold enough to call Joseph’s prophetic revelations what they are: bricolage, or for those of us in less literarily advanced departments, for whom a cruder description feels more at home, artful plagiarization.


You are correct, Dr. Moore. It is quite a pickle. Traditional understandings of who Smith was and what he was doing do not hold up. Once that credibility is so severely challenged or altogether destroyed, what happens then? Well, we see that most people who encounter and understand the full import of this information leave the LDS Church or at the very least go inactive and stop giving the Church their money. Those with believing spouses may be stuck attending and paying tithing.

That is the short term prognosis. The future looks potentially bleak. The Church will continue to draw in people who don’t know the facts that put the lie to the myth the missionaries sell. Anyone who looks on the internet for information on Mormonism is unlikely to join once they find the fuller story. Enthusiasm among members will decrease over time and the LDS Church will decline in numbers and influence. How it will then use its monetary resources will be interesting to see.

Will the LDS Church become more like the CoC? Will the scriptural forgeries become deutero-canonical, lacking the status of the Bible?

Although, let’s be honest, the Bible is essentially footnotes to Near Eastern myth with characters (in its early books especially) who have about as much factual meat as Odysseus. And let’s not start on Jesus, whoever he may have been, and his fanboy Paul, who never even met Elvis before he left the building but saw him in vision only.

The saving graces of the Bible are its antiquity and unfamiliarity. Paul may be lying, but who can test him on that? That letter may be a forgery (or half of them or more may be), but there will always be millions of people who will take them at face value. Too bad (or thank goodness) Mormonism was founded in an age of print and higher literacy. Smith could only get away with his whoppers for so long. Now that this time has ended, revision is a necessity. Revision will be painful.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Dr Exiled
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Re: Wayment, the JST and AOF8

Post by _Dr Exiled »

This has been a great thread so far for me as Dr. Moore's complaints hit home and the Reverend's responses have been enlightening. Divorce from the church has been difficult for me just as realizing a lying spouse is toxic and leaving is the only alternative. There is perspective once one is away from the continual lying spouse. The lies are seen for what they are. One begins to realize that the lies aren't tied any more to individual worth and that one can live a good life without the constant control and manipulation the lying spouse uses.

So, I think it's wonderful Joseph Smith's lies are being exposed to a wider audience. The truth needs to come out and we all need to go through what our Reverend Kishkumen so eloquently described above. Life is better without having my identity so tied to unsupported "truth" claims.
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen 
_Kishkumen
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Re: Wayment, the JST and AOF8

Post by _Kishkumen »

Philo Sofee wrote:When I was reading heavily in the Early Christian Church Fathers and Apologists, I discovered it was exactly backwards from what you are saying. The church and priesthood had nothing to do with the canon, it was all the scholars and politicians. There was not a single revelation to guide them in how to do it. It was all guess work and bias about what one already believed as to determine what one let into the canon.

Granted, I am way back in the early Christian era, but the Bible canon did start there, and I have no reason to accept their selection. It hasn't been solved to this very day/ Some outstanding texts on this are:

1. Dennis R. MacDonald, "Two Shipwrecked Gospels, The Logoi of Jesus and Papias's Exposition of Logia About the Lord,"
2. Peter W. Flint, "The Bible at Qumran, Text, Shape, and Interpretation."
3. James E. Brenneman, "Canons in Conflict, Negotiating Texts in True and False Prophecy."
4. Lee Martin McDonald, James A. Sanders, "The Canon Debate."
5. Bart D. Ehrman, "Lost Scriptures, Books That Did Not Make it into the New Testament."
6. Jason D. BeDuhn, "The First New Testament, Marcion's Scriptural Canon."
7. Thomas L. Brodie, "The Birthing of the New Testament."
8. John Barton, "Holy Writings, Sacred Text, The Canon in Early Christianity."
9. Willis Barnstone, "The Other Bible."
10. Willis Barnstone, "The Gnostic Bible."


Textual analysis had a lot to do with the decision regarding what to put in the canon. Good old philology. It later kept Hermes Trismegistus out of the canonized company of saints. The Book of Mormon would have never been entertained as a remote possibility. None of Joseph Smith’s scriptures would have been. Of course, there are always those willing to entertain things they like for whatever reason.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_kairos
_Emeritus
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Re: Wayment, the JST and AOF8

Post by _kairos »

Checking out the Wayment essay with the table of
contents in the upcoming book leads me to
believe that the average chapel Mormon,e.g. the Parowan widow will
never be exposed to the Wayment article simply becaude
it would be "hidden" amongst 450 pages of "intellectual/scholarly" BS.
Why Wayment decided not to write his own book I can only imagine- even a lengthy stand alone essay in DIALOGUE would have been sufficient to garner a significant audience and scare the garments off the bruuutheeerrn! Remember the Lester Bush article on blacks and the
Priesthood in Dislogue? Still a very readable and the premier piece on the subject.
And can/ will chapel Mormons including the famous Parowan widow will
fork over $75 for the upcoming book?
Something tells me Wayment was pressured to put his work in the upcoming book- perhaps his job would be in jeopardy
if he went on his own.

Just postulatin'
k
_Kishkumen
_Emeritus
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Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:00 pm

Re: Wayment, the JST and AOF8

Post by _Kishkumen »

I don’t doubt that the information is being parceled out in opaque dollops to minimize the damage. There is no question that is true.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Fence Sitter
_Emeritus
Posts: 8862
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Re: Wayment, the JST and AOF8

Post by _Fence Sitter »

kairos wrote:Checking out the Wayment essay with the table of
contents in the upcoming book leads me to
believe that the average chapel Mormon,e.g. the Parowan widow will
never be exposed to the Wayment article simply becaude
it would be "hidden" amongst 450 pages of "intellectual/scholarly" BS.
Why Wayment decided not to write his own book I can only imagine- even a lengthy stand alone essay in DIALOGUE would have been sufficient to garner a significant audience and scare the garments off the bruuutheeerrn! Remember the Lester Bush article on blacks and the
Priesthood in Dislogue? Still a very readable and the premier piece on the subject.
And can/ will chapel Mormons including the famous Parowan widow will
fork over $75 for the upcoming book?
Something tells me Wayment was pressured to put his work in the upcoming book- perhaps his job would be in jeopardy
if he went on his own.

Just postulatin'
k


Actually it is possible that the average member could encounter at least the idea that Joseph Smith was using commentaries to facilitate his JST. In the link Dr Moore gave above to the Chruch essay on the JST we find this passage at the end of the first paragraph in the essay.

As he worked on these changes, he appears in many instances to have consulted respected commentaries by biblical scholars, studying them out in his mind as a part of the revelatory process.3


If the member were motivated enough to click on the footnote at the end of the paragraph it takes them to a BYU link which contains a lengthy abstract of Wayment's upcoming chapter which states

Our research has revealed that the number of direct parallels between Smith’s translation and Adam Clarke’s biblical commentary are simply too numerous and explicit to posit happenstance or coincidental overlap.2 The parallels between the two texts number into the hundreds, a number that is well beyond the limits of this paper to discuss. A few of them, however, demonstrate Smith’s open reliance upon Clarke and establish that he was inclined to lean on Clarke’s commentary for matters of history, textual questions, clarification of wording, and theological nuance.3 In presenting the evidence, we have attempted to both establish that Smith drew upon Clarke, likely at the urging of Rigdon, and we present here a broad categorization of the types of changes that Smith made when he used Clarke as a source.


Now i realize that most members don't bother to read the church essays and even fewer will follow the links, but they do not have to layout $45 for a PB or $70 for a Hunter Biden (by the way that price is probably that high because it is being printed at a University press) to find out Joseph Smith was using Clarke to revise the Bible. This new information may take a while to seep in but eventually we will be hearing from members trying to gaslight us who will say the church has always known that Joseph Smith took from sources around him, so what's the big deal?

And Wayment's chapter isn't the only one in that book that is and will cause waves within the faithful scholastic community. There are several other chapters offering naturalistic explanations for texts produced by Joseph Smith, explanations that are not going over too well with some.

The days where members can take comfort in thinking Joseph Smith was an ordinary man who solely through divine assistance produced scripture, are numbered.
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
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