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itsclydebitches · 3 years ago

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Is the main characters being all woman make it a feminist story? Who determines that if the author has made no statement? Kill la Kills protagonist and primary cast as well as villains are women. Men are present, but not the leads really. I'd be willing to bet it wouldn't be called a feminist story though.

Answering these two asks together!

For Anon #1 — no, just including a bunch of women characters isn't enough, otherwise we wouldn't be having these conversations about RWBY. The makeup of its cast would make it a shoe-in. Nor is feminist writing something we have an agreed upon checklist for and if you hit a majority you're good to go. Feminist representation means writing women in particular ways, writing men in particular ways, acknowledging that there's not a gender binary and writing trans/non-binary/fluid/etc. characters in certain ways, taking intersectionality into account, considering when the story was written and what age/culture its target audience is... there's a lot. To use a classic example, we have the changing ways in which we view fashion trends in Star Trek. Back in the 60s, miniskirts were seen as an expression of empowerment; nowadays we tend to associate them with sexualization. Back in the 60s having one black woman on the crew was seen as a hugely progressive step; nowadays it would feel like just a token inclusion. How we read this:

is going to change not just based on time, or individual preference, but context too. It matters that this is mirror!Uhura, an antagonist rather than our hero. It matters that she's black. It matters that she's threatening Sulu, a character of Japanese heritage. It matters that she's dressed in a far more revealing manner than him. It matters that her threat is meant as a distraction — and on and on. This is why we have 20+ page articles and entire books analyzing and forming arguments for how we might read media and the varying impacts they have on their audiences. There is no single answer of, "Yes this is feminist" or "No it's not." Even the most derided and popularly criticized works like Fifty Shades of Grey have question attached like, "What does it mean that this was based off of fanfiction, a historically progressive form? That the canon inspiration was written by a Mormon woman testing aspects of her faith? That the original content is about vampires — a subject with its own rich history? That it became about BDSM — a subject tied to sexual freedom? That, however much we might laugh, a whole slew of "soccer moms" got hooked on the series and found it to be liberating in one manner or another?"

Though we often come to semi-universal agreements about which texts are more harmful than not, or which haven't aged well, that grey area always exists and I think RWBY — specifically early RWBY — had a lot going for it even as it struggled. Anon #2, I think you brought up that Blake is just another cat girl for viewers to see as hot/cute (sorry, I remember reading your other asks, but now I can't find them. Thanks, tumblr.) I'd agree with that on the surface. Yes, Blake is a literal cat girl dressed in somewhat revealing clothing, whose cat-like instincts are used as a joke despite it supposedly being a microaggression in this world, who in some respects embodies that "powerful badass hot edgy tough woman" archetype. That's all absolutely true and absolutely worth unpacking. But what's simultaneously true is that Blake isn't just that description. I often like looking back at how characters are introduced — our very first chance to see what the author wants to do with them — and putting aside the promotional trailers (which nevertheless contextually frame Blake as an activist escaping an abusive situation), she's very much not introduced as a cat girl. Blake's introduction is her marching up to Weiss and criticizing her family's labor practices. Later she's seen being the book nerd and contemplating the philosophy of souls. She goes on to become the member of the team fighting for the freedom of her people, continually calling out Weiss' racism, and using her experiences to avoid future pitfalls (such as requiring that Yang swear she didn't attack Mercury: Blake knows what it's like for someone she trusts suddenly turn violent). And now, for better or worse, Blake is at the heart of RWBY's queer rep. I think there's a very good reason why the fandom is particularly frustrated with Blake lately and that's because Blake was so much more than she is now. What's most notable about Blake's cat girl status is that it was hidden for the first two-ish volumes (regardless of how obvious that was to the viewer). And then when it was revealed, it was meant to act as a marker of her minority status, not just a generic, cute image. It can also be that — I'm not going to pretend the all guy group didn't likely enjoy the idea of having a cute girl cast. No panty-shots aside, there's a reason why we get moments like Yang fliting with Junior — but early RWBY wasn't just that kind of fanservice. The White Fang plotline. Deconstructing Jaune's archetype. Weiss' abuse. The lovely moment when Oobleck challenges the girls to think about what impact they want to have on the world... RWBY had a lot going for it, much of which we might well label as "feminist" or "girl power" writing. Was the execution done well? Not by a long shot. Do we know if this was Monty's intention? I have no idea. But then, that only matters if we're discussing authorial intent. Textually, those aspects still exist whether Monty knew what we was doing or not and RWBY's many failings don't erase the good we initially had.

Obviously I can only speak personally, but I'm really not a fan of fan-service-y writing. Meaning, a story where a bunch of girls exist solely to look hot while fighting; or a story that includes hot button topics purely for their shock value. I'm drawn to stories with weight, a message, respect towards its characters... My numerous metas criticizing RWBY prove beyond a doubt that I'm not happy with what RWBY has become, nor will I ever pretend that what we had was perfect, but there's a reason why I got hooked on it in the first place. Yes, part of that is cool action. Or cute characters. Or funny friendship interactions. But if early RWBY had been purely that surface entertainment, I don't think I would have kept up with it. I (usually) want stories with meat on their bones, tackling ideas in a way that I personally see as progressive in one manner or another. RWBY is a mess now and there were parts that were absolutely a mess then, but I nevertheless think there were other aspects — other ideas and intentions — that we can call "feminist," even if the end result might be seen as a failure. Was that specifically what Monty was after? Again, no idea, but what he intended to write and what we ended up with are not necessarily the same thing.

#rwby #mymetas

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queermediastudies · 7 years ago

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Identity Crisis: I am Michael

I am Michael attempts to tell the true story of Michael Glatze, a former LGBTQ activist and author, who denounces his homosexuality to embrace religion, announces his heterosexuality, and ultimately becomes an evangelical church pastor. While the film is ambitious in it’s attempt to tap into larger conversations about issues of queer identity and acceptance, rooted in homophobia and heteronormativity, instead of confronting these problematic areas, I am Michael arguably only poses new questions. The film simultaneously fails to provide a contextual framing or social commentary, and lacks the nuance of queer lives and experience. This film review considers some of the problematic representations in I am Michael, and argues that it’s most successful aspect of is the way in which it functions as a transmedia object, and creates new meanings as part of a larger queer history.

Identity and identity politics, and the issue of acceptance, are the key themes present in I am Michael. Andersson writes that identity is constructed through “points of identification,” and may be thought of as a “production,” rather than “‘an already accomplished fact,’” which is “‘always in process and always constituted within, not outside, representation’”(Andersson, 2002). Yet, instead identification is often constructed through “classificatory systems,” and “this classifying is done through the use of binary oppositions”(Andersson, 2002).

The representation of sexual identity as binary, that is homosexual and heterosexual, is evident in the juxtaposition presented in the opening scenes of the film. The opening scene may be describes as jarring. A clean-cut James Franco, who hardly resembles himself (as the actor) sits with a young man, probably a teenager. Michael (Franco) begins with “Hi. I’m Michael,” and explains that there is no such thing as “gay,” because it is “a false identity.” The screen abruptly fades to black, and the text “Ten Years Earlier, San Francisco,” flashes the viewer back in time. These abrupt transitions function to punctuate the film throughout, and conceptually or symbolically visualize the fragmented, compartmentalized nature of Michael’s life and identities. Establishing shots of the Castro district, bustling with life, starkly juxtapose the sterility of the opening scene. This contrast is evidenced when a bleach-blonde, long-haired Michael is seen waking up, naked, in bed with his boyfriend, Bennett. The audience is now aware that this visual image represent Michael’s gay identity. A binary of representation, that is heterosexual and homosexual, is created within the first five minutes of the film.

The film revolves around the character of Michael, and traces the majority of his relationship with Bennett (and their third live-in boyfriend, Tyler), that coincides with Michael’s spiral into mental illness and then religion, that ultimately leads to his announcement of himself as “ex-gay.” Using a mixture of voice-over narration, the action of the film centers around Michael’s journey, as first an activist and author who worked as an editor of two gay magazines, XY and YGA, then travelling across the country to interview LGBTQ youth for the documentary, Jim in Bold. It is on this journey, that Michael encounters a student on a college campus who identifies himself as gay and a christian. Here, the film changes in tone, Michael is contemplative, quiet, moody; several scenes show him looking up at the sky into the light, and trees. Michael, dealing with the grief of losing both of his parents at a young age, is obsessed with the notion of seeing his parents again in heaven, everlasting life. He begins ingesting religious material, the bible, evangelical tracts, websites, etc. When Bennett questions, even laughs at this content, Michael defends and justifies his new faith, and becomes angry. Grief coupled with mental illness is a prominent factor in this story, and the film shows Michael’s actions to be motivated because of confusion and magical thinking mixed with religious dogma/ideology his is discovering. He descends into a dark place, isolating himself, and the film appears to visually represent the untreated mental illness, along with the internalized homophobia and self-loathing, that informed Michael’s experience at this time. His condition culminates when he imagines a hypochondrial health scenario: he is convinced that he has the heart disease that killed his father. After receiving test results from a specialist that confirmed he is healthy, Michael no longer believes he is dying. He says, “Thank you God,” and believes this miraculous news to be a sign, and buys a Bible. Michael is further introduced to religion after being invited to a Latter Day Saints (LDS) church service. Then, Michael writes the infamous blog where he says, “I no longer identify as gay.” Around this time, he leaves his boyfriend(s), and becomes involved with a Buddhist community, introduced by a man named Nico, who tries to help Michael with meditation, and Buddhist principles. Nico and Michael become lovers, even as Michael is hypocritically spouting homophobic and hateful (not to mention, dishonest!) rhetoric in online forums and interviews. He is asked to leave the Buddhist community, and here Michael’s beliefs evolve to an even further extreme, as he begins to believe that in order to be with his mother and father in heaven, he therefore cannot be gay. Michael’s voice over explains that he was a “Heterosexual person with a homosexual problem.” In the last part of the film, we see Michael become even more extreme, and move to Wyoming to attend an a bible college. Visually, his character resembles the clean-cut “heterosexual” representation of Michael from the beginning of the film. Here he meets his wife, Rebecca, and together, they identify and push-back on the fear-mongering directives being taught. In the final scene, we see a church building exterior, with a sign that says “Welcome Pastor Michael Glatze.” Michael plays piano, and Rebecca (now his wife) sits beside him on the piano bench, overlooking the empty pews. Few dialogue is spoken until she tells him, “they’re coming,” and the congregation is heard entering the building. The congregation is never seen by the audience however, as the final moments of the film cut back and forth to tight shots of Michael and Rebecca's faces. The audience sees Michael, at first smiling and confident, suddenly appear deflated, depressed, ashamed, afraid; Rebecca is staring intently at him, and seems to finally realize who Michael really is, a “true” identity. Finally, Michael’s brow becomes furrowed, he is downcast, and begins breathing heavily, and clutching his heart...as he did before the “miracle” test results. The screen abruptly fades to black for the last time, and as the credits begin to roll, the audience is left wondering, how much of Michael’s journey was the result of mental illness, and not about “conversion,” religion, or sexuality and identity, at all?

Problematic Representation

While this film perpetuates a range of potentially problematic representations of queer experience, the lack of nuance is especially significant. This story is complex, and deals with huge issues of mental illness that are largely unnamed in the film. It is also arguably dangerous, as the lack of framing, social context and significance makes the film a borderline promotion of gay conversion and the ex-gay movement).

A critical portion of the plot of this film revolves around acceptance. As Michael’s character changes, it becomes clear that he not only desperately needs acceptance from his sister, Nico, and his new religion (maybe even his ex-boyfriend), but ultimately he needs acceptance from (his conception of) god. No other acceptance is good enough or will do, because Michael needs divine acceptance. Walters explores acceptance as an exclusionary trope while critically analysing the liberal concept of tolerance as a practice, and identifies acceptance as, “the handmaiden of tolerance” (Walters, 2015). Walters argues that tolerance and acceptance are “...both inadequate and even dangerous modes for accessing real social inclusion and change...the ‘accept us’ agenda shows up both in everyday forms of popular culture and in the broader national discourse on rights and belonging...accept us because we’re just like you; accept us because we’re all God’s children....accept us because then you can save us from our own self-hatred and vanquish homophobia in the process” (Walters, 2015). This obsession with acceptance, arguably an internalization of homophobia and self-loathing, manifests in a scene where Michael is seen repeatedly reciting and memorizing a passage from the Book of Mormon: “...prove what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of god.”

I am Michael also presents the protagonist's gayness as a personal problem or issue to be overcome. Dow describes the representation of such queer television and film characters who “...are never ‘incidentally’ gay; they appeared in episodes or movies in which their sexuality was ‘the problem’ to be solved” (Dow, 2001). Additionally, while the story begins with Michael represented as a political activist, the story becomes strictly personal, as the political context and consequences of his public ‘coming out’ as heterosexual, are largely omitted from the film. This is what Dow calls the “personalizing of sexuality,” wherein a “neat turning of the potentially political into the personal” (Dow, 2001).

While I am Michael avoids the stereotypical trope of sexlessness and shows representations of sexual encounters, the film may overcompensate, and create new stereotypes, as it represents gay men as polyamorous and somewhat promiscuous. Additionally, while I am Michael was not a mainstream commercial or critical success, while other films that have been called “sexless” (such as Moonlight) have received critical acclaim and Academy Awards. Lodge argues that Moonlight’s representation of “a gay romance with non on-screen sexual activity beyond an unseen handjob,” is the reason it was “rewarded with major releases and prominent publicity” (Lodge, 2017). This leads the viewer to question, does the omission of the representation of gay sexuality equal a successful mainstream queer film? Was I am Michael less commercially/critically successful because it showed sexual encounters?

Critique

Queer film study is defined as the exploration and cultural analysis of queer film in the tradition of queer theory, that “posits sexuality is a vast and complex terrain that encompasses not just personal orientation and/or behavior, but also the social, cultural, and historical factors that define and create the conditions for such orientations and behaviors. As such, queer theory rejects essentialist or biological notions of gender and sexuality, and sees them instead as fluid and socially constructed positionalities...”(Benshoff and Griffin, 2004). The representation of sexuality in I am Michael is also problematic, because it both keeps and breaks with the trajectory of Queer cinema. On one hand, the film continues with this tradition that “often questions essentialist models of sexual identity, and frequently shows how the terms ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ are inadequate when trying to define actual human experience,” by presenting a journey that could be interpreted as sexual fluidity (Benshoff and Griffin, 2004). On the other hand, this film does not “explore sexuality in relation to gender, race, class, age, etc.--in order to show how other discourses of social difference inflect our understanding of sexuality” (Benshoff and Griffin, 2004). That is, I am Michael suffers from an ideology of whiteness, and ignores matters of gender altogether. How would Michael’s journey have been different if he was not a white male? Does his agency, or ability to move between hetero and homosexual communities reveal inherent privilege? In this regard, can I am Michael even be called a queer film?

Finally, while the queer representation in this film is disappointing, I argue that I am Michael functions successfully as a transmedia object, wherein the representation of queer identities is more realistic and intersectional. Transmedia objects may be defined as themselves cultural texts, “supplemented with other media,” and “remediating and spreading consumable texts across media platforms” (Marwick et. al, 2014) This distinctive practice that “invites different opportunities for identification and communication with present and distant others,” is evidenced in the short documentary film, Michael Lost and Found, a poignant response to the feature film by the real-life characters (Marwick et. al, 2014). Additionally, the documentary represented in the film, Jim in Bold, presents a rich representation of the non-homogenous nature of the queer community, and features intersectional identities including queer women, and queer persons of color. While the story depicted in the film occurred largely without the presence of the internet, Michael’s infamous blog and online interviews, the XY Survival Guide, along with back issues of YGA and XY magazines (available for purchase on E-Bay), function across multiple platforms. The additional real-life media implied and represented in the film, and occurring before and in response to its release is also arguably more entertaining, and has significance to queer history.

As a queer scholar, feminist, and lesbian, my cynicism about the whiteness and maleness of this queer film, is obviously related to my own subject position. However, I think it is also important to understand this story in time, connected to my own subject position. Similar to Michael, myself, and friends slightly older, belong to a generation on the cusp of Generation Y and Millennials, what I will call, The Matthew Shepard Generation. This pre-millennial, or older cusp had a different experience than youth today. While we did not have to deal with the decades of oppression that preceded us, it was understood that we lived in a time and place (especially in rural small towns) wherein it was not acceptable to be openly gay. In a scene in the film, Michael is driving around the streets of his hometown of Olympia, Washington. He remarks how strange it is to be back in this place, where he “wasn’t gay,” explaining, “I couldn’t be gay here.” I definitely related to this portion of the film. As the middle sibling between the queer activism of the late 60s into the 80s and 90s, and our contemporary queer culture, this transitional time period around the turn of the century, featured in many of the biographical narratives/interviews in the documentary, Jim in Bold, are important to queer history. Through this negotiated queer reading, I am Michael has the potential to create new meaning, across multiple platforms, as a transmedia object.

***As a side note: queer appropriation has become a problematic pattern for actor, James Franco. As an undergraduate, I wrote about Franco’s personal appropriation of queer and drag culture, in an Art and Gender course. While this issue is not included in this discussion, this is an interesting topic for further consideration.

Bibliography

Andersson, Y. (2002). “Queer Media?: Or; What Has Queer Theory to do with Media Studies?” IAMCR, 1-10.

Benshoff, H. and Griffin, S. (2004). “Introduction.” Queer Cinema, The Film Reader. NY and London: Routledge.

Dow, B. (2001). Ellen, Television, and the politics of Gay and Lesbian Visibility. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 18:2, 123-140.

Lodge, G. (2016). “Does Moonlight show gay cinema has to be sexless to succeed?” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jan/05/does-moonlight-prove-that-gay-cinema-has-to-be-sexless-to-succeed.

Marwick, A., Gray, M. L. & Ananny, M. (2014). “‘Dolphins Are Just Gay Sharks’: Glee and the Queer Case of Transmedia as Text and Object.” Television & New Media 15(7), 627–647.

Walters, S. D. (2014) “Introduction: That’s so Gay! (Or is it!?)” in The Tolerance Trap: How God, Genes, and Good Intentions are Sabotaging Gay Equality. NY: NYU Press.

#queermedia #james franco #zachary quinto #queer identity #acceptance

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lincoln-cannon · 5 years ago

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After reading some of my recent posts about the New God Argument, a Transhumanist friend wrote to me with some questions about the nature of God. He was raised as a Christian. And he's been wondering how God as described in the New God Argument relates to God as described in traditional Christianity, and particularly to Jesus Christ. That's a question I receive often. So I thought it would be helpful to share some brief thoughts about that here. First, let's contextualize why this is something that my friend and other Transhumanists may be concerned about. Given some assumptions consistent with contemporary science and technological trends, the New God Argument demonstrates that trust in the superhuman potential of humanity is logically consistent only if we also trust that superhumanity probably would be more compassionate than we are now and probably created our world. Such superhumanity may qualify as God. And such trust may qualify as faith. The New God Argument is particularly poignant (and therefore controversial) for Transhumanists because most of us strongly trust in the superhuman potential of humanity. But many reject faith in God. And the New God Argument stands as a strong criticism of that position. It demonstrates that atheist Transhumanism may be logically incoherent, depending on how broadly that atheism is construed. Atheist Transhumanists may maintain logical coherence by rejecting the existence or relevance of supernatural Gods. They may also maintain logical coherence by rejecting the existence or relevance of natural Gods whose origins are alien to that of humanity. However, if they reject natural Gods with origins similar to that of humanity then, as the New God Argument demonstrates, their trust in human potential is inconsistent with their account of probable human origins. When Transhumanists start to internalize this argument, they begin to wonder, like my friend, whether and how this relates to the accounts of God from traditional religions. He asked, "Is the historical Jesus Christ from the future?" Maybe. But not necessarily. Personally, I don't think so. I revere the historical Jesus as Christ. I also think the historical Jesus came from the same place that the rest of us came from: biological parents who descended from biological parents, who evolved from prehuman ancestors (who existed to some extent as information or "spirit" before that). What about the virgin birth? As I understand the scriptures, "virgin" describes a young woman -- not someone who has never had sex. My friend continued, "Is Jesus from a future Superhumanity coming back to give us instructions & teaching in our timeline?" Again, although I don't think so, it may be that the future can affect the past either through time travel or through more subtle mechanisms. I can't disprove such possibilities. But that's not the point of the New God Argument. The New God Argument doesn't say anything about time travel or inverted causation. The New God Argument does say something about the probabilities of our origins based on our hopes for the future. It observes that if we become superhumanity and procreate worlds that emulate our evolutionary history, then we almost certainly would not be the first or only to do so. So the New God Argument is describing a procedural recursion but not necessarily a temporal recursion. It is describing a process that may happen over and over again in similar ways with some variation (a cosmic evolution with intelligence as the mechanism of inheritance). But it's not necessarily describing a time loop or any other non-linear timeline. And yet my friend wondered, "Where does Jesus fit into all this?" I revere Jesus Christ, as described in the Bible, to be the principal example of the kind of person that we should become. Christ is not Jesus' last name. It is his role. And it is a role that, again according to the Bible, he not only exemplifies but also invites us all to participate in with him. The function of that role is compassion: to console, heal, and raise each other. The function of Christ is, ultimately, to save each other from our greatest enemies: death and hell. Accordingly, Jesus invites us to raise the dead and to reconcile (become one or atone) with each other. And that function figures prominently in the New God Argument. I call it the Compassion Argument. It is basically the idea that (a) humanity is likely to continue increasing in decentralized destructive capacity, that (b) nothing short of the limits of cooperation will be sufficient for surviving the limits of such power, and (c) the limits of cooperation are indistinguishable from sublime compassion. Jesus calls us, even commands us, to do and become that which we must to survive the glory of God -- to survive the power of superintelligence. Love your neighbor as yourself. And love God, that which you and your neighbor should become, with your whole mind and strength. Jesus' command is reflected in the heart of the New God Argument. Finally, my friend commented, "I was brought up to believe that Jesus Christ is God - the Trinity. So when you say God, I think of Jesus." And he asked, "Do Mormons believe in the Trinity?" Most Mormons will tell you that we don't believe in the Trinity. That's technically accurate insofar as formal theology is concerned. But there are some ways in which Mormon theology resonates with Trinitarian thought to some extent. There are many ways to describe God in Mormonism. Although we generally offer simple explanations like "God is our Heavenly Father." It's equally true that we consider other persons, notably Heavenly Mother, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost to be God. And, although the doctrine of theosis is not unique to Mormonism, we do emphasize it. Our scriptures attribute Godhood to some prophets, such as Abraham. And they teach that, as children of God, we all have potential to become God. That sounds like polytheism. But it wouldn't be technically accurate to call us polytheists for several reasons. And these reasons begin to illustrate some resonance with Trinitarian thought. The first reason that we're not polytheists is because we insist that, although the Gods are many, they are also one. We most commonly explain their unity as one of purpose. But our scriptures also suggest other ways in which the many Gods are one God. For example, both the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants explain that the Father and the Son are One Eternal God because they are roles that one person may fill simultaneously. They use Jesus as the principal example of one person who fills both roles (with the caveat that he had to progress into filling both roles). And they teach that we, too, may eventually fill both roles. Another example is that our scriptures describe a power or influence that permeates time and space, referred to as the "light of Christ," which unites everything in God. It's a sort of panentheistic account of God (note that panentheism is not the same as pantheism, in that the former doesn't merely equate God with nature but rather esteems nature to be an expression of God). So God, in Mormon theology, is both one and many. And that may sound somewhat familiar to Trinitarians, even if there are significant differences too. In conclusion, I'll comment as I have before, that theology is not sufficiently appreciated among Transhumanists. It's really too bad. Highly intelligent humans have engaged in theology for thousands of years, doing their best to imagine and articulate the nature of what we, today, might call superintelligence. And just as alchemy and astrology contributed to the emergence of chemistry and astronomy, so theology has contributed and yet will contribute to the emergence of a science of superintelligence.

Originally published at lincoln.metacannon.net on September 29, 2019 at 11:21PM.

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examiningmormonism · 5 years ago

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Book of Mormon Origins: Explanatory Models and Temporal Production Contexts

About a year ago, I wrote a detailed critical analysis of seventeen arguments for Book of Mormon historicity made by eminent Mesoamericanist John Clark. I wrote it not only to respond to his specific arguments, but to illustrate the pitfalls into which a faithful approach to the Book of Mormon slips more generally. Recall that we ought to approach this issue by engaging in a comparative study of two production contexts: Joseph Smith's religious and folk-traditional world of upstate New York on the one hand, and Central Americans of Israelite (and/or Egyptian) cultural origin on the other. So what, precisely, constitutes an effective comparison of these two contexts?

Relative Burden of Evidence and Null Hypotheses

Probably the most helpful way to explore this is to consider a hypothetical scenario in which every feature of the Book of Mormon fits equally into the worlds (I am speaking of cultural features, not archaeology) of Joseph Smith and Central America. In this construction of reality, the text is totally snug in both worlds, with not a pebble out of place in either. I describe this in order to make our approach as clear as possible. I believe that if the text fit equally into both contexts, then the clear explanatory winner would be the 19th century. In other words, the 19th century is the null hypothesis. My justification for this is not a prejudice against God, angels, or anything which gets labeled "paranormal" and "supernatural" today. I am neither a metaphysical nor a methodological naturalist.

The justification for the preference of the 19th century as null hypothesis comes from the desire for parsimony and simplicity in giving an account of that century. Countless books are being printed at this time, and they of course reflect the culture in which they are produced. Another book reflecting these same qualities is most simply classified as a product of that same context. Suggesting that there is something which distinguishes this text from other texts in its production context requires further justification than an explanation in terms of the 19th century would.

This does not rule the Book of Mormon out of court from the outset. Unique and unusual events are acknowledged as historical all the time. But they are so acknowledged because these events are distinguished by the unique impact generated on our body of evidence- evidence which then requires their presence to construct a parsimonious model of the period as a whole.

What 19th Century Context Means for Ancient Book of Mormon Defenses

I have observed that Mormon apologists have a tendency to move the goalposts when a 19th century backdrop is shown to be perfectly plausible as a source for this or that feature of the text. The apologist will often implicitly acknowledge that this is the case but argue that it does not demonstrate a modern production context as the feature is present in other times and places, including Israelite and ancient American culture. As true as this might be, if the 19th century backdrop is acknowledged as equally plausible as an inspiration for this or that textual feature, the feature becomes totally unremarkable. A defense of the antiquity of the BoM is different from a contextual piece of commentary for believers.

Finding 19th century background does not prove a modern origin, but when the list of remarkable convergences between Mesoamerica and the Book of Mormon not available to Joseph Smith thins steadily as one learns more about Joseph's world, the text as a whole begins to appear unremarkable relative to its time of production. That is, it does not appear out of place in Joseph Smith's world. Its significance then only lies in providing context to a person already persuaded of Book of Mormon historicity on other grounds. It cannot be used as a means of persuasion.

I mention "temporal" production context because of another common confusion of issues. There are two factors about the Book of Mormon translation that are at the heart of LDS scholarly apologetics.

First, the speed of the translation. When Oliver Cowdery took over as scribe, Joseph resumed dictating the Book of Mosiah and completed the work in about seventy to eighty days. For a text of 531 pages, this is argued to be highly remarkable.

Second, Joseph Smith's relative lack of education. Smith is often described as a "yokel farmboy" who could, in Emma's words, "barely compose a coherent letter."

Before addressing these two contentions, I need to make a methodological point as clear as I possibly can. If I had the energy and financial resources, I would blast it from loudspeakers throughout Salt Lake City for 12 hours because of its importance. I hate using all caps, but because there is no option to increase font, it's my only choice:

DEMONSTRATING THAT THE BOOK OF MORMON HAS A MODERN PRODUCTION CONTEXT DOES NOT REQUIRE AN EXPLANATION OF HOW IT WAS PRODUCED.

I hope any LDS readers will not use my uncivilized use of caps lock against me. But this is perhaps the most important point I have made on this sub. Very often, critics of historicity will, after having set forth a repertoire of issues present in the Book of Mormon that nest snugly into Joseph Smith's world and very awkwardly into the Israelite and Central American worlds, be challenged to explain how Joseph produced the Book of Mormon in the time that he did. But a little reflection should show this argument to be misguided.

Imagine that we found a piece of Egyptian papyrus bearing all the marks of antiquity in the sands of the Sahara. Imagine that, in perfect Egyptian, it read "I figured out the Egyptian language! Abraham Lincoln was here!" Everything about this text is perfect. Apart from its content, it is exactly what we would expect to find if an ancient Egyptian left an authentic piece of papyrus buried in the desert. The natural question is this: is the papyrologist required to explain how the papyrus came to be what it is in order to conclude that it was produced after the presidency of Abraham Lincoln? Of course not. The historical period in which a text was composed is reconstructed through the actual features of the text itself. When I read a text published in 1830 whose characters argue about universal salvation, predestination, and infant baptism, it is overwhelmingly more parsimonious (absent very strong counter-winds, which LDS scholars have attempted to provide and which are beyond my purview of discussion here) to suppose that I am reading a text written in 1830, when each of these issues is flaring up not only in Joseph Smith's context, but in his own home and family life!

It is as if I look at the ceiling and find that Joseph Smith has made a perfect face-print thirty feet high without access to a ladder. I have no idea how he did it. But I am more than warranted in thinking that it is his face.

This is not to say that questions about the text's production have no place in argumentation about BoM historicity. But in raising such questions, the LDS scholar must be precise in delineating exactly what he means to prove by them. The Book of Mormon is a remarkable text which was produced remarkably. I see no use in denying that. But it is a remarkable text earmarked on virtually every page with the world of the 19th century. I say the Book of Mormon is remarkable because of its complexity and relative internal consistency. I say "relative" because of structural problems in making sense of Nephite chronology, as explored here. But it is relatively consistent. This consistency would be insignificant were it not for its complexity. Some people take "complexity" to refer to literary merit. This is not what I am speaking of. A judgment of literary merit is arrived at through aesthetic evaluation instead of processing raw textual data. I do not think it is entirely lacking in such aesthetic qualities, but this is beside the point.

Complexity is more readily apparent and quantifiable, because one can count the number of place and personal names. There are hundreds. One can immediately look for an internal quotation of a Nephite record to be explicitly opened and closed. The Jaredite dynasty is a classic example. Moroni lists off thirty Jaredite kings and then uses the king list as a framework for the Book of Ether, proceeding in reverse order. This is both complex and consistent. Before my LDS readers get too excited, note the paradox. Ether 8 contains a narrative which is obviously derived from the story of John the Baptist's beheading by Herod in the Synoptic Gospels. There is no way around this. By any reasonable standard of intertextuality, this is an intertext. Even worse for historicity, we are not merely talking about New Testament language, but about a unique narrative in the New Testament framing and structuring the essential substance of a narrative supposed to have occurred hundreds of years before the birth of John the Baptist or Herod, and on the other side of the world. To me, this story may be the most serious example of Book of Mormon use of the New Testament challenging defenders of historicity.

We have a text which is complex, relatively consistent, and clearly produced by a person deeply acquainted with the 1769 KJV Bible with Apocrypha.

With this established, let me return to those two key points so often made by LDS scholars.

First, the speed of translation. There is no denying that this is impressive in the sense that it is beyond the capacity and/or dedication of 99% of people. Nevertheless, I don't believe it to be nearly as impressive as Mormon apologetics has made out. Joseph is dictating around eight to ten pages per day. We know from Lucy that for years he had been the center of attention at fireside chats with the family describing Nephite history. Lucy is absolutely clear that this is not just the story of the plates. From her recounting, Joseph has a deep knowledge of Lehite history and tells the Smith family all about it for hours every night. This shows that he knows the stories and culture. The Latter-day Saint can suggest he learned it by revelation, and that is fine as far as it goes. But it completely dissolves the argument that he was receiving a text which was fundamentally unfamiliar to him, so unfamiliar that it is outside the realm of possibility for him to have produced it.

I strongly encourage interested readers to pick up a copy of Visions in a Seerstone by William Davis. Davis demonstrates techniques for oral dictation of organized information well known to preachers and speakers of Joseph Smith's world, noting that Smith was reputed to be a "quite passable exhorter" in revivals. We know that he was above average in extemporaneous dictation. Again building on the principle I stated at the outset, that Smith was gifted in extemporaneous speech does not demonstrate him to have produced the Book of Mormon in this way. What it does do is show that the apologetic argument that such a model is fanciful is false.

Second, the alleged lack of education on Smith's part. LDS scholars very often quote Emma on this point. Her anecdote about how Joseph lacked awareness of Jerusalem's walls is a mainstay of LDS argumentation. This is a very poor source to use. Emma is speaking to her son, Joseph III, decades later. Even apart from other issues, this renders her a less than ideal source. But more problematically, this is the very same interview where Emma denies that Joseph ever practiced polygamy! Because we know he did practice polygamy, and because we know that Emma knew it, this is not a reliable source of evidence. Emma's purpose in the interview is to preserve in the memory of Joseph III a certain image of his father. Providing any information which could bring the Book of Mormon translation into doubt would have been the farthest thing from her mind. I am not saying she did not believe it to have been authentic, but that she was selective at best, deceptive at worst. She believed her son's Mormonism to be true and important, but she also knew that there were some uncomfortable facts (that I suspect she suffered dissonance over- this is just speculation) which could draw her son's calling into question.

What Emma said about the Book of Mormon translation is also stated explicitly in relation to the Spalding-Rigdon theory. As Davis points out, it is inappropriate and unwarranted to draw from these comments general conclusions about the presence or absence of manuscripts during the Book of Mormon translation. Both Emma and David Whitmer, who gave similar testimony, are responding to the notion that Joseph had the Spalding manuscript in front of him.

I find the constant references to Emma's statements about her husband's lack of letter-writing capacity to be perplexing, to put it mildly. How could he be incapable of dictating coherent letters when he dictated plenty of them?! Joseph's sermons and original writing are not the products of a "yokel farmboy." They are products of a sophisticated mind. Farmboy or not, Joseph Smith was speaking in sophisticated ways from the very beginnings of Mormonism on April 6, 1830. I think there is a real disconnect in most apologists' minds between the Joseph Smith who produced the Book of Mormon (who is a first-rate dunce incapable of a coherent original sentence) and Joseph Smith the theologian and philosopher, who begins unrolling radically new ways of thinking from early in the movement's history. The former is the Joseph Smith presented in defenses of Book of Mormon historicity. The latter is the Joseph Smith whom Latter-day Saints revere.

As is common knowledge at this point, Smith knew the Bible, and I don't believe for a second that he was unaware of Jerusalem's walls. By his own telling, he was deeply involved in thinking through theological issues from a young age. The rationalist and deistic tendencies of his father's side (particularly his grandfather) combined with the attraction to Reformed orthodoxy on his mother's side provoked all sorts of profound questions- who is God? What does God want with man? Has God spoken to man? Does he continue to do so? Do we have free will? One could go on ad nauseum. Needless to say, there are plenty of ways for a person to access information written in books without picking it up and reading it, though it's likely Joseph did his fair share of that. No, information gets circulated round and round when he's engaged in arguments and discussions with people of all sorts of religious views. One person invokes the Indians as an argument against Christianity- looks like God forgot about a continent, the argument goes. Another person replies by pointing to Israelite traditions among Native Americans- looks like God has remembered, not forgotten, his people through exploration, the counterargument went.

Let's wrap up here by returning to the original methodological point. Because of the different kinds of explanations in competition, the idea that it is somehow the burden of the critic of historicity to prove that Smith read or encountered this specific book or this specific map is absurd. What is relevant is that such information is available to Smith in his context. If the Book of Mormon includes Fact X which is available in an obscure book twenty miles away from his house which there is no evidence he ever read, consider the alternatives relative to this piece of evidence alone (to illustrate my point about the different standards of epistemic justification in this context). On the one hand, this information came to be in the English Book of Mormon because an offshoot of the Israelite Tribe of Joseph left Jerusalem around the time of the exile and sailed to the Americas. They engraved volumes of records on metal plates and built a thousand year civilization. One of the last representatives of a dying subculture originating from the Near East abridged these records by engraving his history into a book of gold plates translated by a young man with a seerstone in 1829- a history which included Fact X.

Or the alternative: Joseph Smith made an unrecorded trip and encountered the book or the information in the book without leaving evidence which has survived to this day. Given that this is undoubtedly the case for most books he read during the 1820s, I hardly think this is "ad hoc" or the imposition of an undue standard. But again, I am making this point relative to this particular piece of hypothetical evidence to illustrate the absurdity of dismissing a book in the 19th century because there's "no evidence Joseph ever read it." This isn't meant to capture the totality of Book of Mormon studies, which includes arguments of higher quality than this.

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gaymarriedandmormon · 7 years ago

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I got to meet the Givens at the Northstar conference this past year, where they discussed a lot of the concepts in this book, so I kind of got a sneak peak at a the book. The Givens are master teachers of the gospel. They beautifully weave together doctrines of the Restoration together with historical context. I have read most of the other books they have published including “Feeding the Flock”, “The God Who Weeps”, “The Crucible of Doubt”, and “Wrestling with the Angel.” I didn’t know they were publishing a new book until I listened to the LDS Perspectives interview with Fiona Givens where she introduced her new book (listen to it here!).

This is most beautiful and stunning book on Jesus Christ that I have ever read. The Givens speak and teach with such clarity, resolving so many of the uncertainties and inconsistencies I have often felt in the gospel. Please, take the time to read this book.

The book starts with the premise that even we as members of the Church haven’t fully divested ourselves of the “traditions of our Fathers.” We have inherited a vocabulary of Christ, the Atonement, judgment, and salvation from Catholic and Protestant ancestors. Even with the Restoration of the gospel, some philosophies of men have still seeped through. The first half of the book is dedicated to documenting step-by-step what was lost in 2000 years of Christian history. They clarify that the Restoration was not about fixing small errors in doctrine, but restoring the cosmic context of the gospel:

The loss of the larger cosmic context was compounded by failing to see the Fall as a necessary and premeditated immersion of humankind into the crucible of experience, suffering, and schooling in the practice of love. The loss was not about baptizing at the wrong age or in the wrong medium. It was about not knowing that baptism makes us—all of us eventually—literally members of Christ’s family and co-heirs with him as planned in premortal councils. What is at stake is not simple difference in standards of sexual practice or marriage’s purpose per se. It is about failing to see the family structure as a divine mode of eternal association that is at the very heart of heaven itself. In sum, the “Restoration” is not about correcting particular doctrines or practices as much as it is about restoring their cosmic context. Consequently, Mormon emphasis on proper priestly administrators is not about authority for authority’s sake. It is about officiators who understand the contextual origins of that authority and the purposes for which priestly authority is to be used. It is about the performance of those sacred sacraments under God’s immediate direction, according to God’s original intentions and designs. In Joseph’s understanding, the tragedy that befell Christendom resulted from a critically impoverished account of the everlasting covenant, one that rendered all sacraments and ordinances ineffectual not through wickedness but through lost understanding of their scope and purpose—namely, to constitute the human family into a durable, eternal, heavenly association.

The second half of the book outlines in stunning detail what we know of Jesus Christ in light of the Restoration. This Christ is Christ, the Master Healer. We see how Christ doesn’t come to judge the world, but to save it– to heal us from our woundedness...

#tumblrstake #queerstake #mormonandgay #Christian #Latter-Day Saint #LDS #loveoneanother

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lincoln-cannon · 7 years ago

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Each spring and fall, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the largest Mormon denomination) holds a worldwide conference. For ten hours over two days, top leaders of the Church speak in-person to over 20,000 members gathered in a conference center in Salt Lake City, and via Internet and television broadcast to a much larger audience (probably in the millions) gathered in homes and church buildings around the world. The most recent conference was held yesterday and today. Below are 90 of my own thoughts as I watched the conference. As is my custom, the thoughts include observations, and range from affirmations to criticisms, and from questions to assertions. My intent is to provoke reflection, questions, and comments. I feel this is essential to meaningful engagement with the conference, which is something I value as a member of the Church.

I wonder if we've already received Thomas Monson's last general conference sermon?

Eyring looks healthy and happy. Good. For me, he represents an important influence on Mormon tradition.

Uchtdorf suggests humans feel the call of heaven like non-human animals instinctually feel their way home across great distances.

Uchtdorf finds encouragement in the weaknesses of religious leaders in our history. If they can do divine work, so can we.

Uchtdorf says God works through us if we make an effort, learning and applying. Christian discipleship must be an active faith.

Oscarson is the first woman to speak at LDS conference. Maybe she thought too few women spoke last time. ;)

Oscarson wants to have a face-to-face conversation with me rather than have me tweet about her! :)

The main limitation of tech communication compared to face-to-face is its relatively low bandwidth, for now. That will change.

Oscarson just shared a picture of her daughter-in-law and my friend, Marie-Laure Oscarson, who taught me French in the MTC.

Oaks says exaltation is more than salvation, and that exaltation is a family matter. Isn't all of humanity our family?

Oaks construes progressive marriage law as worldly, but most of the world is conservative on marriage law.

Oaks points out that the Proclamation explicitly promotes straight marriage. But it does not explicitly demote gay marriage. Why?

Dear Elder Oaks, why did God NOT inspire you and the other authors of the Proclamation to demote gay marriage explicitly?

Pingree says God uses ordinary persons to accomplish extraordinary things. How about immortality and eternal life!

We often over-emphasize criticisms of the world and under-recognize that Mormon scripture teaches that Earth will become heaven.

Christofferson says we ought to fully and completely incorporate the life and character of Christ in our being. This is theosis.

Christofferson encourages holiness, as we esteem God holy. This is the sublime esthetic, the holy esthetic, the holy spirit.

I like the French translation of "Holiness to the Lord" on LDS temples, transliterated back to English: Sanctity to the Eternal.

Christofferson points out that we're not alone in salvation. We are the Body of Christ. Salvation is not individual after all.

Holland jokes about the apparent impossible weight of Jesus' command to be perfect as God is perfect.

Holland encourages personal improvement in a way that doesn't include ulcers, anorexia, or depression.

Holland points out that we now "live in a Telestial kingdom". So let it be settled: progression between heavens must be possible.

Holland points out our only hope for perfection is as a gift of grace. Exactly. Forgive. Give grace as received. It's the only way.

Holland is perhaps the most empathetic advocate of divine grace that Mormon leadership has ever produced.

Holland discourages toxic expectations of ourselves, each other, and Church leaders. Good advice. We all need each other's grace.

Holland points out the sublime Mormon teaching that Jesus himself progressed "grace for grace" and extends it to us.

Amen, Elder Holland. Amen.

Salvation is not an individual matter. It requires grace, of God and of each other. We are saved as the Body of Christ, not alone.

I know I'm not the only Mormon who finds the Scandinavian Jesus with an Oxford accent incredibly distracting from the message.

Remember. Technology is not the enemy. Technology empowers our participation in the work and glory of God.

I look forward to the day when technology empowers the average person, if she chooses, to heal others as medical doctors do today.

Uchtdorf is letting Eyring take his turn at facing the opposition votes. :)

"I'm trying to be like Jesus." This may be the most dangerous song Mormons teach our children to sing. ;)

Stevenson compares the solar eclipse to small mundane matters that block our vision of large sublime matters. Interesting analogy.

Stevenson rightly points out that technology is not inherently good or evil. It's just power to use for good or evil.

Stevenson reminds us that the carefully crafted self-presentations on social media are always incomplete. Life is complex.

Stevenson says, "Let us use technology to help each other ... become our finest."

I'm not sure Stevenson's "gospel glasses" metaphor works as well as his "gospel eclipse" metaphor.

Owen points out that repentance should be framed as uplifting progress. It is change, taking on Christ. It is transfiguration.

Owen says the Atonement is not merely for sinners. It's for saints too. At-one-ment requires all. Reconciliation requires all.

Framing repentance in context of "atonement," as Mormons do, has interesting ramifications. Change. Be one.

Cook says our time on Earth is as fleeting as a British summer. :)

Cook contrasts the smallness of humanity with our divine potential, no matter our race or gender.

Cook says Christ-character includes humility, righteousness, and intelligence. There's both some heart and some brain there.

Cook says emphasis of authenticity sometimes leads to arrogance. He's right.

Authenticity has no inherent value. It may have contextual value. Love the superhumanity in your neighbor as in yourself.

Cook quotes, "The test of greatness is how one meets the eternal everyday." I imagine the Gods reminding themselves of that.

Rasband rejects coincidence. I wonder if God rejects coincidence. Is there a way around Heisenberg and Godel? I doubt it.

Rasband says God orchestrates. I trust that to be the case. I also consider that completely compatible with coincidence.

It seems to me that there is no need for orchestration where there is no possibility of coincidence.

Rasband says agency fits into the plan of God. I wonder if he thinks God always knows our choices in advance of us making them.

Rasband quotes the Bible, which claims that all things will work together for good. That's an idea worth trusting -- actively.

Haleck points out that Church members in developing areas contribute as illustrated by the story of the widow's mite.

Nelson, speaking now, is most likely the next president of the LDS Church -- perhaps soon because Monson's health appears poor.

Nelson emphasizes "him" and "his" describing God. I wish our leaders would talk more about Heavenly Mother.

Nelson calls attention to the idea that progress continues after this life. I love this very Mormon conception of heaven.

Nelson says death allows us to progress to the next world. I wonder if he would tell the Three Nephites that? ;)

Renlund's reasoning on the relation between priesthood and atonement doesn't make sense to me. Wish we could ask questions.

Renlund seems to be suggesting there's some kind or extent of unique access to atonement for priesthood holders. Strange.

Evans encourages questioning and shows respect for good persons that question matters related to the Church. I like that.

I'm interested in an LDS leader talk comparing and contrasting scientific knowledge with confidence in trustworthiness of religion.

Uchtdorf is emphasizing a conception of spiritual light. For some inspiration, look at "light" references in D&C.

Uchtdorf points out that Mormon scripture equivocates between "light" and "spirit" and "truth". He could add "intelligence".

Nice to hear Uchtdorf mention Christ as the "light of the world" after previous talks on negative characterizations of the world.

I want to be OF that world of which Christ is the light -- to those with ears to hear. ;)

Eyring points out that it takes great faith to sustain imperfect leaders. He's right, but he's among the easier to sustain. :)

Eyring mentions that Bishops have a hard job because ward members know their weaknesses. Indeed. What a difficult job.

Eyring's persistent willingness to vulnerability about his own shortcomings is among the reasons he's relatively easy to sustain.

Bingham says Christ can relieve disasters and commotions in the world. I'd like to hear LDS leaders say more about those problems.

Hallstrom addresses the problem of evil. Without a solution, he praises faith in the face of evil. This is unsatisfying for many.

Bednar takes up the subject of theosis, taking on the divine nature, progressing grace by grace as exemplified by Jesus.

Zwick says we should look past easy assumptions and stereotypes. Amen.

Ballard encourages remembrance of Mormon pioneers. I'm often inspired by their practical perseverance in pursuit of our vision.

Ballard raises warnings against charlatans who promote supernatural healing. Good call. Science and medicine matter.

Ballard criticizes sexism, racism, and "nationalism." I wonder what he thinks constitutes the latter.

Callister describes the complexity of the production of the Book of Mormon. Strong point. It is strange book.

Callister rightly points out that the purpose of the Book of Mormon is to advocate the Gospel of Christ, and not history.

Koch encourages saying "Amen" after talks, to signify agreement. Okay. But I don't always agree! :)

I'm concerned that some may interpret Koch's thoughts to mean they should not express disagreements constructively.

I do not feel united with persons who withhold constructive expressions of their disagreements from me.

Ellis asks if we trust imperfect persons to lead us well? Sure. But I don't trust them to lead us perfectly.

Ellis says some people create businesses from nothing. Hmm. Not even God created the world from nothing, according to Mormonism.

Parrella also takes up the theme of authoritarian obedience. Our culture excessively emphasizes this.

I think we should give more attention to persuasion and less attention to obedience. And I suspect we would like the results.

Parrella quotes the Book of Mormon declaration that death is an "awful monster." I like that passage.

Andersen shared some visuals depicting light moving across the world. Conference would probably benefit from more use of visuals.

Andersen gives insight into how LDS leaders prepare conference talks. I appreciate the humanity of it.

Andersen repeats the denunciation of "nationalism." What do LDS leaders mean by this?

Andersen shares some thoughts and words in tribute to Elder Hales, who passed away during conference.

Anderson quotes Monson in conclusion, emphasizing love. That's a good way to end.

Originally published at lincoln.metacannon.net on October 01, 2017 at 05:06PM.

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examiningmormonism · 5 years ago

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Are Book of Mormon Names Evidence for Authenticity?

One of the most common arguments for the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon is the use of nonbiblical personal and place names which have 1) sensible etymologies in Old World languages sometimes making contextual sense as wordplays and/or 2) have been verified from extrabiblical sources after Joseph Smith's day.

I find such arguments, taken as a whole, deeply unconvincing- despite a smattering of reasonably interesting cases. These cases are overwhelmingly the exception to the rule. A good model should account for the entire phenomenon of Book of Mormon names rather than picking out a few here and there and utilizing them as individual arguments isolated from the pattern of the text as a whole.

Here are seven reasons why Book of Mormon names are not a sound argument for historicity. I begin with factors which undermine arguments for historicity and move towards arguments which mitigate against historicity.

-1- A survey of the Book of Mormon Onomasticon often- even typically- provides a list of possible etymologies, each of them called "plausible." I have never seen LDS scholars or apologists note how this completely undermines the argument for "direct hits." If you have three different plausible etymologies, at least two are chance connections, as these are mutually exclusive. So by virtue of providing different options, the LDS scholar has acknowledged the possibility and frequency of chance connections with ancient languages in unique Book of Mormon names.

-2- Claimed independent verification is often indirect and far afield from the Lehite exodus. For example, the oft-cited Jewish name "Alma" is found in a text dated 132 AD- 700 years after Lehi left Jerusalem! Moreover, the name is Aramaic and appears long after Hebrew ceased to be a spoken language (it was known as a liturgical and scriptural language only) among the Jewish people. As such, whether the word was actually used as a Hebrew personal name is unknown. The "A" in the name "Alma" could represent either the Hebrew aleph or the Hebrew ayin, both of them being real Hebrew words but with very different meanings. The common claim that Alma as a male name in the Book of Mormon would have been unthinkable as an invention of Joseph Smith because of its feminine gender in Latin is silly.

This is a very common mistake made by LDS scholars. On the one hand, they insist that Joseph was an unlearned farmboy. On the other hand, they compare the Book of Mormon with what would have been expected from a deeply learned scholar of his day. Was Joseph Smith a Latinist? Did he know Latin? How familiar was he with the notion of grammatical gender, which is not generally present in the English language? There is no evidence that Smith knew Latin or was particularly familiar with grammatical gender. The idea, therefore, that no person writing a text in his day would use Alma as a male name is unfounded. It is possible that Joseph vaguely recalled hearing about "alma" in a biblical context, as the word is used in Isaiah 7:14 (associated with the virgin birth in Christianity and thus given special importance) and generally understood (though alternative translations exist, i.e. those proposed by Eugen Pentiuc) to mean "young woman." This meaning is very interesting since the first reference to Alma in the Book of Mormon calls him a "young man." Were this derived from Hebrew and transliterated into English, the word "Elem" would be a much more natural fit.

-3- Independently documented nonbiblical Book of Mormon names are often very slight alterations of biblical names. The name Sariah is found in papyri from Elephantine, Egypt. But given that we are to evaluate Book of Mormon historicity based on a comparative analysis of two production contexts, the name is essentially a wash. One already convinced of historicity can, quite reasonably, note the presence of Sariah in extrabiblical documents as historical context for its use as the name of Lehi's wife. Nevertheless, the nonbelieving model for the production of the Book of Mormon explains the data equally well.

The name "Sariah" is a slight variation of the biblical name "Sarah." There is a one letter difference. Significantly, Sarah the wife of Abraham had her name changed from Sarai. Sarai provides the "i" which differentiates Sariah from Sarah. Moreover, an echo of the name of Abraham's wife makes sense given the story Smith is dictating. Smith is providing a history of a branch of the Israelite nation beginning with the wanderings of a family patriarch called by God to leave his homeland and journey to a new land of promise. This is the story of Abraham, called by God to leave Ur so that he might become the progenitor of a great nation in a land of promise. That Smith would give Lehi's wife the name "Sariah" is easily explained by a desire or instinct to echo the well-known story of Abraham without outright copying any of the personal names. Note, I am not saying that this is an argument against historicity. Instead, I am saying that the presence of the personal name "Sariah" is equally consistent with both models and thus provides an argument for neither.

The same applies to the name "Mosiah", though this name has no documentation from the ancient world outside the Book of Mormon. It does have a good Hebrew etymology as "the Lord saves." But it is easily explained as Smith's combination of "Moses" with the "iah" ending found throughout biblical literature. There is good evidence that the character of Mosiah is modeled on Moses. Mosiah leads his people to a new land. The language of Omni in describing the Lord's leading Mosiah and his people to the land is rooted in the story of the exodus. According to Omni 1:13, the Lord "by the power of his arm" lead Mosiah and his people through the wilderness into a new land of promise in Zarahemla. "Arm" language in the Bible is rooted in the exodus story. Compare:

And it came to pass that he did according as the Lord had commanded him. And they departed out of the land into the wilderness*, as many as would hearken unto the voice of the Lord; and they were led by many preachings and prophesyings. And they were admonished continually by the word of God; and they were led by the* power of his arm*, through the wilderness, until they came down into the land which is called the land of Zarahemla. (Omni 1:13)*

lest the land from which you brought us say, "Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness." For they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.' (Deuteronomy 9:28-29)

I should emphasize that I am not saying typology is an argument against historicity- this is a fallacious argument present in both biblical and Book of Mormon studies. Instead, I am saying that the presence of the name "Mosiah" is perfectly intelligible in light of Smith's background and a 19th century production context- as a conscious drawing of themes from the Old Testament into a biblically rooted history of ancient America.

-4- The most unique Book of Mormon names have the least extrabiblical documentation and sound etymology. Consider the names Mormon and Moroni. This sound very little like common biblical names. Thus, were they documented outside the Bible in the appropriate context, their presence would be a reasonable argument for historical rootedness (relative to this particular point- their overall significance, as with all arguments, must be determined relative to the whole fabric of argument and evidence) and somewhat striking. See:

https://onoma.lib.byu.edu/index.php/MORONI

https://onoma.lib.byu.edu/index.php/MORMON

Notice the lack of attestation for these words as personal names outside the Book of Mormon as well as the variety of mutually exclusive etymologies proposed. It is exactly where the Book of Mormon is "boldest" in departing from its biblical background that its language becomes the least intelligible as an ancient document.

-5- Personal and placenames often bear superficial resemblance to biblical names but lack etymological sense when actually considered in a Hebraic context.

Consider the use of the affix "ihah" in the Book of Mormon. This is very common- Moroni becomes Moronihah. Ammon becomes "Ammonihah." Nephi becomes "Nephihah." There are also instances of the affix without having a counterpart name lacking the suffix, such as Orihah. Notice how the same linguistic pattern appears in both Jaredite and Lehite names. This makes good sense if original names are being produced artificially from the same mind. It is hard to account for if these names have genuine and independent linguistic histories. The frequency of the affix "ihah" suggests that if the Book of Mormon is historical, it must have had a clear meaning in relation to those words to which it is affixed. The most natural source would be in the element derived from YHWH, such as in the theophoric names Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micaiah, Shemaiah, and so on. However, ihah makes little to no sense as a representation of the theophoric element found in "iah." See the entry in the Book of Mormon Onomasticon here:

https://onoma.lib.byu.edu/index.php/-ihah_As_an_Affix

In this insightful article, the origin of the affix is left unexplained. The author provides a series of powerful arguments against its origin as the theophoric element from YHWH. Yet, this linguistic anomaly is a pervasive feature of Book of Mormon names. Its explanation, therefore, ought to have an outsized role in considering the relative merits of our two possible production contexts. In an ancient production context, the origin of the affix is highly anomalous by normative linguistic principles. The anomaly is made more striking based on its presence in both Jaredite and Lehite names- two people groups with languages which should not be unrelated.

(I see absolutely no basis for demythologizing the Jaredite narrative with respect to the Tower of Babel. The implication is clearly that the Adamic tongue is not Hebrew and that it was unknown to those whose languages were confounded. We should not expect Jaredite names to resemble other Book of Mormon names, nor should we expect them to be intelligible in light of ancient Near Eastern languages.)

What about a production context in the 19th century? Here, "ihah" makes perfect sense. Needing to generate a reasonable variety of names and being familiar with the KJV Bible, Smith simply affixes "ihah" to many of the names already present in the text. As someone steeped in the Bible, Smith has heard countless names which have the "iah" theophoric element. For someone unacquainted with linguistics (as LDS scholars often point out), "ihah" sounds like a perfectly reasonable biblical-type name. This is exactly what one expects from a pseudotranslation. The result is a text with pervasive superficial similarities to biblical naming patterns but which makes little linguistic sense to one who has a understanding of the real structure and logic of biblical and ancient Near Eastern names.

-6- Proposed etymologies and ancient roots of Book of Mormon names are only possible when taken from a large "grab basket" of vaguely related ancient languages. I say "vaguely related" because Book of Mormon scholars are usually quite vague when attempting to explain the actual mechanisms of cultural cross-pollination which produced the family of names present in the Book of Mormon text. The proposed ancient Book of Mormon has personal and place names of Hebrew, Egyptian, Arabic, Akkadian- and Greek- backgrounds. How did these names come into the Lehite and/or Jaredite tradition? That Lehi was a sometime trader in Arabia and Egypt is simply not a sufficient explanation for how such a long tradition of names derived from these languages came to appear. While individual names might be intelligible in light of this or that language, there is no overarching theory coherently explaining the phenomenon of Book of Mormon names in its entirety.

It is highly instructive to contrast the contemporary situation in Book of Mormon studies with the principles set forth in Hugh Nibley's first article on the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon, "The Book of Mormon as a Mirror of the East", published in 1948. In this article, Nibley seeks to explain Book of Mormon names on the basis of Egyptian language and culture as known from the Third Intermediate and Late Periods, precisely the time closest to the time of Lehi of Jerusalem. Nibley laudably seeks an overarching explanatory model for Book of Mormon names taken together. He notes the possible objections of critics of historicity- aren't some links with authentic names likely given the size of ancient languages from which the Book of Mormon scholar can choose? Nibley agrees- coincidences are likely if this is our method. But, he argues, such a grab-bag is not what we find. Instead, we find that Book of Mormon names consistently derive from Late Period Egyptian and make sense in light of the historical contexts of Late Period Egypt.

Why is this instructive? Because many or most of Nibley's etymologies have not panned out in LDS scholarship after the publication of his 1948 article. I checked a sample of names commented on by Nibley with the Book of Mormon Onomasticon. What I found was exactly the situation Nibley suggested would be likely to occur by chance. The Late Period Egyptian sources for most names has been set aside or suggested as an alternative but less likely etymology. Instead of this nonrandom distribution of linguistic connections, one finds the grab bag approach. Lehi's family is a good example. Lehi and Sariah are Hebrew (though Lehi makes no sense as a personal name), Nephi is Egyptian, Laman is Arabic. One of Nibley's key etymologies is "Ammon" as derived from Egyptian "Amun." While I agree with Nibley that "Amun" is the supreme God corresponding to the Hebrew Yahweh in their identities and relative positions, it is unlikely that a prophet of Israel versed in the Israelite tradition would, for some reason, transmit a lengthy tradition of using the Egyptian title for the high God. And indeed, "Ammon" based names are easily explained as derived from the biblical personal name "Ammon" in "Moab and Ammon." This is actually found in 2 Nephi 21- one of the Isaiah passages, where Isaiah is referring to Moab and Ammon.

-7- Finally, and most problematically- where are all the Mesoamerican names?! Very few Book of Mormon names have even a proposed explanation in terms of Mesoamerican languages. Those few proposed explanations that do exist are either based on very simple, monosyllabic names or are highly dubious. Yet, it is a cardinal doctrine of contemporary Book of Mormon scholarship that the presence of indigenous outsiders is implied throughout the text and constituted an essential part of the historical Nephite and Lamanite experience. To give an example from one of my favorite and most astute Book of Mormon scholars, Brant Gardner explains the linguistic confusion between Mosiah and Zarahemla in terms of the relative geographical distribution of different Mesoamerican languages in the time of King Mosiah. Book of Mormon scholars universally hold that the Lehites joined with much larger preexisting indigenous populations and made a minimal genetic contribution. If this is true genetically, it ought to be true linguistically as well.

If Brian Stubbs is ultimately correct about Hebrew and Egyptian in Uto-Aztecan (Stubbs is a real scholar, but many linguists have idiosyncratic theories about relationships among languages which don't pan out- the test for Stubbs' model should be its coherence with the overarching historical situation in which this linguistic influence is supposed to have taken place), then what is being proposed is that Lehite union with non-Lehite populations entailed not only the adoption of the Lehite religious tradition, but the Lehite languages- not only Hebrew but also Egyptian! Why are the Nephites and Lamanites speaking Hebrew and Egyptian to each other and requiring that new populations use these languages as well? Appeals to a belief in the sanctity of the Hebrew tongue are unsound because they are supposed to have imposed the Egyptian language as well. This is a very unlikely historical situation.

Brant Gardner's suggestion that the Nephites would have retained Hebrew and/or Egyptian as scribal languages is far more plausible. But this raises an essential question. If Mesoamerican languages are the spoken languages of Nephites and Lamanites, why are most of their names based in Hebrew, Egyptian, Arabic, or some other language from that region of the Old World? Where is the memory of these widely varied names even coming from? Lehi's family would have been familiar with a host of names in the Old World, but within a couple generations it is probable that nearly all such names except those in the founding generation would have been forgotten. The only possible source for continuing Old World names in cultures speaking Mesoamerican languages would be the brass plates. But it was not as if the brass plates were accessible to everyone. They were sacred objects housed in the Nephite temple. Even if one were to plausibly suggest that copies were made to teach the people, only an elite scribal class would be able to read these copies. One would expect Old World names to constitute a distinct minority of personal names found among 1) the elite with access to Old World texts and 2) highly religious families whose devotion to their Old World religious heritage held special significance.

Yet, it appears that these names don't fit this pattern at all. We find Old World and biblically based names among Nephite, Lamanite, and even Jaredite (notice the bizarre presence of "Aaron" and "Levi", both Hebrew names in the Jaredite lineage) peoples. During periods where Book of Mormon peoples are supposedly highly assimilated to preexisting cultures, there is no leap in Mesoamerican names. For example, the harlot Isabel, probably though not certainly of Lamanite background, has an Old World name. This is hard to explain as an historical phenomenon. It is very straightforward on a 19th century model where the author of the Book of Mormon is steeped in the KJV Bible. Isabel sounds like Jezebel, and Jezebel is the paradigmatic harlot in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament.

I think this is the most devastating factor in considering Book of Mormon names relative to the question of historicity. An historical Book of Mormon produced as a Mesoamerican codex should be filled to the brim with Mesoamerican names and names which only make sense in terms of Mesoamerican language. Yet we find almost nothing of this kind.

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Summing Up

We have seen that Book of Mormon names have the following characteristics:

-Many or most have biblical roots: Sariah, Mosiah, and Amulek are examples- from Sarah, Moses, and Amalek, respectively.

-Many are constructed from roots superficially resembling biblical names but lacking intelligibility as actual Hebraic names: Names with the "ihah" affix.

-Lehite and Jaredite names appear to share the same background and structural principles: Levi, Aaron, Gilead (as in biblical Ramoth-Gilead), Orihah. I have made an exception for biblical names found in the antediluvian period and in the Jaredite story (as in Seth and Noah) because these make sense in terms of the internal narrative of the text.

-The clearest connections are with a Hebrew background.

-Names making sense on a Mesoamerican background are absent. Arguably, there is not a single Book of Mormon name which makes more sense as a Mesoamerican name than as a biblical-type name.

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examiningmormonism · 6 years ago

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Seerstones and Sacred Metals as Literary Motifs in the Book of Mormon and their Magical Background

In working on the last article I put out on the Book of Mormon, I was struck by the ubiquity of metals throughout the Book of Mormon narrative and their literary significance. Metals and metallurgy are frequently associated with sacred objects, as is the seerstone. The Nephite temple contains the Liahona, the Brass Plates, and the Sword of Laban. The Liahona essentially serves as a metal seerstone. It directs its users in their search for food just as the seerstone served as a directional indicator for locating treasure. Likewise, the Liahona presented its user with visible writing which contained divine revelation, a function taken by the Interpreters discovered by King Mosiah (this is a narrative contained in the Lost 116 Pages, according to reports about its content.)

The Brass Plates are also sacred metal, and the Sword of Laban is made of metal. The Book of Mormon uses the phrase "curious workmanship" and "its workmanship was exceedingly fine" or some variation to describe sacred objects. The temple in 2 Nephi 5 has "workmanship which was exceedingly fine." The Sword of Laban in 1 Nephi 4 is described with the same phrase, and the ship built in 1 Nephi 18 is described with both phrases. The ship is built in terms of Moses' erection of the tabernacle- Nephi ascends a mountain and God reveals to him the pattern of a ship which is "not after the manner of men." In the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses authored by Joseph Smith, the gold plates are described as being of "curious workmanship" as well.

In "The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology 1644-1844", John Brooke contextualizes Mormon theology in terms of a hermetic and occultic tradition which conceived of secret knowledge associated with the temple transmitted through the ages in both corrupt and pure forms. The Book of Mormon repeatedly refers to "secret combinations" and "works of darkness", phrases which find an historical-contextual home in anti-Masonic polemics of Joseph Smith's day. Brooke notes, however, that certain critics of Masonry held it to have corrupted originally pure secret rituals transmitted by the prophets of God through the ages. The association of "curious workmanship" and "exceedingly fine" workmanship with sacred metals is interesting in light of the fact that the works of evil men are linked with these same characteristic phrases and associated with metals. Describing the wicked Jaredite king Riplakish (whose story is parallel in almost all its details to the story of King Solomon, whose temple was alleged to contain these secret rituals), Ether 10:7

"Wherefore he did obtain all his fine work, yea, even his fine gold he did cause to be refined in prison, and all manner of fine workmanship he did cause to be wrought in prison. And it came to pass that he did afflict the people with his whoredoms and abominations."

And Ether 10:23:

"And they did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals; and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine work."

And describing the apostasy of the Lehites after the coming of Jesus, 4 Nephi 1:46 connects the Gadianton robbers (who are the villains who bring secret combinations into the land) with the accumulation of precious metals:

"And it came to pass that the robbers of Gadianton did spread over all the face of the land; and there were none that were righteous save it were the disciples of Jesus. And gold and silver did they lay up in store in abundance, and did traffic in all manner of traffic."

Alma 37:23, cited below, refers to the seerstone as the means by which the "works of darkness" (a phrase linked with "secret combinations" in the Book of Mormon text) are exposed.

I note also the connection between sacred metals and the sacred seerstones so important to the "magical worldview" present in the earliest Mormonism. The seerstone is a stone which is said to "shine" in the darkness- in order to use the stone for divination, Joseph would block out the light (usually by placing the stone inside a hat) so as to accentuate the contrast and make the stone easier to read. Divinely consecrated stones which "shine" in the darkness are repeatedly mentioned in the Book of Mormon:

(Alma 37:23) And the Lord said: I will prepare unto my servant Gazelem, a stone, which shall shine forth in darkness unto light, that I may discover unto my people who serve me, that I may discover unto them the works of their brethren, yea, their secret works, their works of darkness, and their wickedness and abominations.

(Ether 3:4) ...touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness; and they shall shine forth unto us in the vessels which we have prepared, that we may have light while we shall cross the sea.

(Ether 6:3) And thus the Lord caused stones to shine in darkness, to give light unto men, women, and children, that they might not cross the great waters in darkness.

How does this relate to sacred metals in the Book of Mormon? Two texts connect the stones with the sacred metals:

1 Nephi 17:10 records Nephi creating fire by smiting two stones together: the fire sparked by these stones is used to refine ore into precious metals, which is followed by a description of the Lord as the "light" which "shines" in the darkness during the Nephite voyage (1 Nephi-Words of Mormon was dictated after the end of the Book of Mormon and thus reflects many details of the narrative that comes later, more than is reflected in those portions which were dictated first) in terms reminiscent of the stones shining in the Jaredite barges.

Mormon 8:14-16 refers to the translation of the gold plates in these terms:

"And I am the same who hideth up this record unto the Lord; the plates thereof are of no worth, because of the commandment of the Lord. For he truly saith that no one shall have them to get gain; but the record thereof is of great worth; and whoso shall bring it to light, him will the Lord bless. For none can have power to bring it to light save it be given him of God; for God wills that it shall be done with an eye single to his glory, or the welfare of the ancient and long dispersed covenant people of the Lord. And blessed be he that shall bring this thing to light; for it shall be brought out of darkness unto light, according to the word of God; yea, it shall be brought out of the earth, and it shall shine forth out of darkness, and come unto the knowledge of the people; and it shall be done by the power of God."

We see here the characteristic "shine out of darkness" linked to the translation of the gold plates by the means of the sacred stone.

Two additional texts apply the theme of "light" and "brightness" characteristic of the seerstone in the Book of Mormon to metals. Alma 37:5 describes the "brightness" of the gold plates upon which the history of the Nephites is engraved: "if they are kept they must retain their brightness; yea, and they will retain their brightness; yea, and also shall all the plates which do contain that which is holy writ."

Remembering the sacred status of the sword of Laban, there is a very intriguing passage in Alma 24 about the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi. Swearing to abandon their formerly violent ways, the Anti-Nephi-Lehis state that their formerly bloodstained swords have been "made bright" through the blood of Christ, linking them with the shining metals mentioned above. The Anti-Nephi-Lehis then say that "we will bury them deep in the earth, that they may be kept bright, as a testimony that we have never used them, at the last day." (Alma 24:16) This precisely parallels the description of the burying of the metal plates. The swords are "hidden away" (24:16) by being buried in the earth to come forth and testify at the last day. Mormon 8:4 states that Mormon did "hide up" the plates in the earth, and Moroni describes his intent that the plates be brought out and translated in the latter days.

Thus, sacred metals, brightness, and burial in the Earth are closely linked in the Book of Mormon. Recalling our above discussion about the production of sacred metals by the wicked who traffic in works of darkness and "secret combinations", the phrase "hide up" is used in Mormon 1:18, Helaman 12:18, and Helaman 13:18-20. In these texts, it describes the "hiding up" of precious treasures in the Earth by the wicked, explicitly connected with the Gadiantons and their secret combinations in Mormon 1:18. Here, because of the curse which falls on account of the works of darkness and secret combinations, the hidden riches (contained principally in the aforementioned sacred metals) are "slippery" and cannot be dug up by those who hid them. This is a theological explanation of the magical process wherein precious treasures buried in the Earth were thought to "slip" deeper and deeper into the ground when a person attempted to dig them up. Multiple witnesses confirm that at times, when Joseph used his seerstone to see buried treasure, when the party began digging, he saw the treasure in the stone slip deep into the Earth.

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Sacred metals and their association with sacred seerstones is a major literary motif in the Book of Mormon which is most intelligible in light of the "magical worldview" in which the Smith family was immersed. Metallurgy in particular spans the entire Book of Mormon timeline, from the beginning of the Jaredite civilization down to Moroni himself, who states his ability to refine ore into metals out of which plates can be made. My working hypothesis situates the literary prominence of Book of Mormon metallurgy in the context of the "hermetic" tradition of sacred metals and alchemical magic. For its followers, the tradition was related to the biblical narrative in terms of divine secrets given by God to the prophets and practiced at the Temple of Solomon.

The giving of these secrets is implied in Ether 3:25-27 and 3 Nephi 19:32-34, both of which describe an encounter with Christ (in Ether as the preexistent Christ with a body of spirit) where words or knowledge is given which is not allowed to be written, but is sealed away. In both contexts the temple is prominent- Ether 3 describes piercing the "veil" to access knowledge through the two interpreter-seerstones, while the narrative of Jesus in 3 Nephi occurs at the Bountiful Temple. According to Joseph Smith the majority of the Book of Mormon plates were sealed.

I'm interested to know whether there are any readers acquainted with 19th century folk magic and hermeticism who can comment on these literary motifs in that light.

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