Editor’s Note: The “Worlds of Joseph Smith Symposium,” at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. on May 6-7, featured scholars from many faiths and backgrounds who discussed the Mormon prophet from five perspectives or “worlds.” At each session, a scholar presented a paper to which three others responded. These articles present highlights from each session. To read the report on Session I, click here.
Session II: Joseph Smith and the Recovery of Past Worlds
Presenter: Terryl L. Givens, professor of English at the University of Richmond.
“Joseph Smith: Prophecy, Process, and Plentitude”
Givens, the author of By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (Oxford, 2002), focused on the way Joseph Smith thought and developed ideas – his process of creation. In Givens’ analysis, one of Joseph Smith’s greatest contributions was not “the correction or enunciation of particular theological principles, but the complete reconceptualization of the scope and sweep of gospel parameters themselves.” Givens’ perspective as a literary scholar helped him see in the writings of Joseph Smith “consistent themes, motifs, and patterns that emerge in a whole series of entire worlds recovered from the past.” Nevertheless, he believes that it wasn’t the content of the Book of Mormon that made Joseph Smith such a controversial figure, but its emphasis on continuing revelation.
By considering “the structure of his thinking,” Givens believes he can better understand Joseph Smith and how he was influenced by the Romanticism of his day, with its emphasis on the process of creating meaning. The effect on Joseph Smith was that he not only challenged conventional thought, he actually provoked it. In addition, Givens described Joseph Smith as one who “believed that struggle, opposition, contestation, are not just the essence of personal probation and growth, but also describe an intellectual dynamic that moves us ahead in our quest for truth.”
Presenter Terryl L. Givens listens to comments during the session.
Joseph’s quest, Givens said, took the prophet to places that no one else dared go – from a belief in an open canon through continued revelation, to the very nature of God and man, and to his “emphasis on innocence, freedom, agency, accountability, liberty” at a time when other creeds preached predestination and the depravity of man. What engendered this willingness to go the unconventional and often unorthodox route was Joseph’s determination to “embrace all, and every item of truth,” Givens said, adding that one of the most controversial of these truths was the theology that human beings can become Gods.
Of particular note, Givens said that Joseph Smith’s “integration of the divine into the historical” allowed him to see himself and his work as part of an overarching plan of God. As Joseph Smith aligned the natural more closely to the supernatural, he brought Deity and man closer together, and in the process discovered his own spiritual mission.
Givens described how Joseph thus grew into his role as a prophet and “his revelatory scope” increased.
Along this line, Givens said that the Book of Mormon “was presented to the world, in the first generation of the Church especially, as a history of the American Indian.” But it was also presented as scripture, and this was the aspect that not only assumed greatest importance, but also “challenged the supremacy, the uniqueness, and most importantly, the sufficiency of the Bible.”
Givens pointed to the concept of lost eternal principles in a Christian apostasy as a particular spiritual dimension that Joseph Smith expanded beyond the conventional wisdom of his time, even among other restorationists. The Prophet pushed convention even further by producing The Book of Moses, The Book of Abraham, translations of part of the Bible, and the writing of John without access to original manuscripts. All of this proves to Givens that Joseph Smith did not believe in the “traditional model of Biblical fullness,” but in a “gospel plenitude that transcended and preceded and subsumed any and all earthly incarnations.” These other writings, Givens recommended, need more examination as historical records.
Respondent: Margaret Barker, independent Biblical scholar from England
A biblical scholar specializing in the Old Testament, Barker said “there is no doubt that teachings from the time of the first temple have been lost – or rather – are now to be found only in texts outside the Bible.” Her premise is that Jesus’ teaching “was the restoration of the true temple and what it meant.” Consequently, her research has led her to many ancient and non-canonical texts that describe events and beliefs not found in the Bible, particularly those that discuss the temple. She said that prophetic revelation was accepted in 600BCE, and that ancient texts indicate the “past, present and future were revealed to prophetic figures.”
Biblical scholar Margaret Barker discusses her research
Barker, who is not a Mormon, knew very little about Joseph Smith until just a few years ago. Her focus for this event was whether the history of a remnant of Israel as recorded in the Book of Mormon corresponded to Jerusalem’s history in 600 BCE, and also whether there are aspects of Mormon doctrine that tie it to the theology of the past.
During the time of King Josiah and his contemporary, the prophet Jeremiah, Barker said there were many purges of reform that may have led to the “wickedness in Jerusalem mentioned in the First Book of Nephi.” The reign of King Zedekiah, which is also mentioned at the beginning of Nephi, was only one generation removed from those purges.
Barker discussed books and versions of the Old Testament and non-canonical writings that are now lost or that have only recently been rediscovered; some of these writings even talk about alterations or omissions that have already occurred in the text. In addition, she thinks that some of the ancient stories may be the merger of several stories into one. Interestingly, she said it is not even certain which version of the Old Testament was used in Jesus’ time.
Changes in sacred writings have led to confusion, according to Barker. In 1 Enoch, the writer mentions “lying words had been written, perverting the eternal covenant; sinners had altered the truth as they made copies, they had made fabrications and written books in their own name.” (1 En.98.14-99.2; 104.10-11). One example of a change, she says is that the “original temple tradition was that Yahweh, the Lord, was the Son of God Most High, and present on earth in the Messiah.” She suggested this was one example of how “plain and precious things” have been removed from the scriptures, as mentioned in 1 Nephi 13:40.
Barker also explained how the Deuteronomists of King Josiah’s time denied the idea of direct revelation from God, thus becoming “the minds that eventually led to the closed canon of Scripture and the cessation of prophecy.” During the period in which they spread their influence, however, Barker said that “the prophets did have visions of the Lord and the angels, they did speak in the name of the Lord, and their unfulfilled prophecies were carefully preserved.” Also at that time, prophets revealed not the future, but the past as well.
In her reading of the Book of Mormon, Barker saw parallels to ancient scripture, particularly relating to temples. But she reminded the panel again that many scriptural writings or documents have been removed or destroyed, and that archeology does not provide evidence for much of the historical events of the Old Testament.
Barker also addressed the issue of whether human beings can become Gods, which later Old Testament tradition considered a blasphemous quest. “How might such an invitation have been viewed in 600 BCE?” she asked. In her opinion about the Garden of Eden story, “it was the disobedience that was the problem, not the state they [Adam and Even] aspired to, and they had to be barred from eternal life because they had disobeyed.”
Especially enlightening was Barker’s discussion of various Tree of Life analogies and how they may relate to Mormon theology. She referred to Enoch, a non-canonical text, in which the writer describes the fruit on the tree of life like grapes, and to an Egyptian text that said the tree produced a fruit similar to white grapes. “Imagine my surprise,” she said, “when I read the account of Lehi’s vision of the tree whose white fruit made one happy .”
Of particular import to the LDS community, Barker is also researching what happened to the Melchizedek priesthood and how it would have been understood in 600BCE.
Respondent: John E. Clark, director of the New World Archeological Foundation at Brigham Young University.
As an archeologist who has spent almost three decades doing fieldwork in Central America, Clark easily positioned Joseph Smith in an ancient world through the Book of Mormon.
Notwithstanding the book’s divisiveness, he said that the Book of Mormon is the key to determining whether Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that continued scholarly research would verify whether it is a history or a hoax.
John E. Clark, director of the New World Archaeological Foundation
Though Givens’ credited Joseph Smith with creating an entire ancient world, Clark maintained that the Prophet actually didn’t understand the implications and significance of the Book of Mormon – “its geography, scope, or historical scale” – and “many things we now most cherish about the book were simply unknowable in 1830.” But Joseph Smith’s contemporaries likewise had to develop a deeper spiritual and factual understanding of the book. Many early Saints misunderstood major facts or made faulty assumptions about places, times, and population groups listed in the Book of Mormon.
For example, Clark said that early understandings of the Book of Mormon assumed that groups of people described in the book ranged across the Americas, but LDS scholars now believe that the story of the Nephites and Lamanites is located in a much smaller geographical context and it does not include all the people in both continents. Instead, Clark said the people of the Book of Mormon increased by mingling with other people who were already living in the Americas when they arrived, and he believes this answers E.D. Howe’s question in Mormonism Unvailed [sic] about how millions of people could have died in battles recorded in the Book of Mormon.
Critics outside of the faith, such as the Reverend M. T. Lamb in 1887, ridiculed passages in the Book of Mormon that did not square with the scientific and archeological knowledge of the time. But Clark pointed out that matches, or “the number of correspondences between its [The Book of Mormon’s] claims and past worlds,” continue to increase through modern-day scholarly research. In particular, Clark said current information about Mesoamerica has helped reveal matches in such areas as geography, recording of days, mathematics, cycles of civilization, and demographic patterns.
Joseph Smith seems to have gone “from a fool to a genius,” Clark said, as new discoveries make the claims in the Book of Mormon more plausible. Using an overhead chart, Clark itemized 60 claims about people and events in the Book of Mormon, from what metals they used and what food they ate to which animals were part of their culture. To date, 58 percent of these items have been confirmed.
Clark believes that archeological evidence for the Book of Mormon is “sound and even compelling,” and that “Joseph Smith could not, and did not author” it. He said that researchers need to “separate the texts he (Joseph Smith) wrote from those he transmitted” and that no amount of study on the Book of Mormon would reveal the character of Joseph Smith if he did not write it. “The Book of Mormon is clearly part of the story of Joseph Smith,” he said, “but it should be seen as a product of his activity as a divine instrumentality rather than the key to his mind and character.”
Respondent: John W. Welch, professor of law at Brigham Young University, founder of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (F.A.R.M.S.), and editor of BYU Studies.
From a legal perspective as well as a theological one, Welch pinpointed problems with the analysis of ancient scripture, especially as it relates to the measure of proof: What really proves anything after all? He wanted to know how scholars should decide the relevance of any piece of evidence, how they should weigh its value, and how they can ever ascertain whether they have enough evidence “to prove or disprove a proposition.”
Nevertheless, he believes that the texts that Joseph Smith translated “lend themselves to examination in many scholarly ways much better than most people realize.” He listed several discoveries, from chiasmus (a literary form found in both the Book of Mormon and the Old Testament) to pre-Columbian barley that seem to bolster the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, and he mentioned Book of Mormon names like Alma in Jewish traditions, as well as the use of metal plates for sacred writings. But he cautioned that “good science takes time,” and he redirected attention instead to the critical importance of faith and indirect evidence in religious matters. He welcomed Givens’ recommendation that LDS scriptural texts be examined more closely as historical documents, but suggested that LDS belief in their existence and correct translation “by the gift and power of God” is an example of evidence combining with faith.
Noel B. Reynolds, professor of political science at BYU and session moderator, with John W. Welch.
Welch also asked the question, “how did the recovery of the past function in Joseph’s process of continuing revelation?” He responded by listing ten aspects of the past and the process of recovering that past which were important to Joseph Smith:
- It was a way to know that what happened in the past can happen again;
- It was instructive and
- pertinent to the present because it foretold events in the present;
- It was personal because it presaged Joseph’s own mission in life;
- It was better than the present in some ways because man had once been closer to God;
- It was important because it contained knowledge and truths about the process of salvation;
- These truths could be “reaccessed through the spirit of revelation” and
- remembering these truths becomes critical, even “sacramental”;
- Recovering the past means recovering whole worlds as well as
- finding a fullness of “all true principles.”
Referring to Givens’ use of the word “plentitude” as a description of Joseph’s theological outpouring, Welch said that “Joseph Smith always preferred completeness over consistency, a distinction of profound importance in many ways.” But Welch added that it was the concept of authority that was central to all of Joseph Smith’s teachings. The Prophet’s recovery of lost worlds was more than a means to find truth: it was also a way to recover the authority to reintroduce orders that embodied truth. He said that Joseph Smith believed that authority was “rooted in actually conferred rights and powers to act and speak in the name of God.” This made ancient records so important – not just because of the religious tradition and doctrine they preserved, but also because of “the priesthood powers and procedures they warranted and directed.”
