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Update from Kerry Muhlestein re: Raising the Abrahamic Discourse

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[This is an update to a post from August 25, Raising the Abrahamic Discourse: An Essay on the Nature of Dialogues About the Book of Abraham]

UPDATE

I believe that academic dialogue is important and can be fruitful. There are many scholars who are academically interested in the Book of Abraham, its translation, and its content. Some scholars have even made such study their life’s work. (This is not unusual in many specialized subject areas.)

Regardless of the area of study, all scholars approach any topic with their own sets of existing beliefs. It is impossible for a scholar to be a “blank slate” when it comes to any field of study. It is no surprise that my existing beliefs are consistent with what I view as the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith. It is likewise no surprise that others, including Professor Ritner, start with a set of beliefs that preclude divine involvement in the work of Joseph Smith.

With that in mind and because I am truly interested in academic dialogue about the Book of Abraham, before I posted any kind of response online, I personally contacted Professor Ritner. I suggested that we work together on creating an academic volume on the subject. I suggested possible guidelines for doing so, possible academic venues, possible editors, and even a potential table of contents. I modeled it after volumes on contested issues that have been successfully done in academia elsewhere. The goal would be to have a balanced approach observing the highest academic rigor and tone, creating a dialogue with each other rather than having parties who speak past each other. If done correctly, I believe that such an approach can lead to real progress. [Read more…] about Update from Kerry Muhlestein re: Raising the Abrahamic Discourse

Raising the Abrahamic Discourse: An Essay on the Nature of Dialogues About the Book of Abraham

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by Kerry Muhlestein

Cross-posted from The Interpreter Foundation

See also: Scholarly Support for the Book of Abraham

[Kerry Muhlestein also gave a presentation at the recent FairMormon Conference on “Egyptian Papers and the Translation of the Book of Abraham: What Careful Applications of the Evidence Can and Cannot Tell Us.” You can purchase access to watch the full conference here.]

We live in an era of online communications. If you want to reach large numbers of people in quick fashion, then online videos, blogs, memes, and podcasts have become the tool of the moment. These tools are effective at conveying information in an attractive and user-friendly format and in a way that can reach across the globe in mere minutes. Moreover, they are quite convenient for the consumer, which further helps spread the message. They certainly have their place, and do some things very well.

If these online communications have a downside, it is insuring the accuracy of the information they convey. Many are accurate, many are not, and it is difficult to tell which is which. Like news sound bites, such media often seem to lend themselves to simplistic and over-reduced explanations that frequently misrepresent complex matters. Further, somehow they often easily fall into a low level of discourse. This is not true of all them, it really depends on the hosts and forums. Yet too often this is exactly what happens. Some who engage in these electronic venues work very hard to try to provide accurate information at an honorable level of rhetoric, but the forum does not require it and thus many are extremely poor at ensuring a high academic quality of information and sometimes make little to no effort at maintaining the kind of respectful and noble level of discourse that is supposed to be the hallmark of the academic world. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in some podcasts that have recently been released in various venues about the Book of Abraham. [Read more…] about Raising the Abrahamic Discourse: An Essay on the Nature of Dialogues About the Book of Abraham

Scholarly Support for the Book of Abraham

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Cross-posted from The Interpreter Foundation

See also: Raising the Abrahamic Discourse: An Essay on the Nature of Dialogues About the Book of Abraham

[Kerry Muhlestein also gave a presentation at the recent FairMormon Conference on “Egyptian Papers and the Translation of the Book of Abraham: What Careful Applications of the Evidence Can and Cannot Tell Us.” You can purchase access to watch the full conference here.]

The Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price continues to generate considerable interest (and controversy) among readers. Ever since George Reynolds published his series “The Book of Abraham—Its Genuineness Established” in the year 1879,[1] members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have sought to both make sense of this small yet profound book of scripture and provide evidence for its authenticity and inspiration. Those skeptical of Joseph Smith’s claims to have a divine gift of translation, on the other hand, have argued for the problematic or outright fraudulent nature of the text.[2] “Needless to say,” remarks one neutral observer, “neither side has been convinced by the other, and as a result, the controversy continues.”[3]

Those who wish to hear a representative opinion on the skeptical side of the debate need simply listen to a series of recent podcasts with Dr. Robert Ritner of the University of Chicago, who has vocalized his criticisms of the Book of Abraham and his low opinion of Latter-day Saint scholarship on this text.[4] To help them easily access the Latter-day Saint side of the argument, the following resources have been collected for readers’ convenience. To help orient readers with this material, this blog post will take a few moments to frame the interlocking issues of the historicity of the Book of Abraham, the facsimiles of the Book of Abraham, and the translation of the Book of Abraham and the respective scholarship that has gone into them. [Read more…] about Scholarly Support for the Book of Abraham

FAIR Voice Podcast #8: Sunday Special on Clarke Commentary, Doctrine, and the Sacrament

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Perhaps the mostly highly anticipated article in Producing Ancient Scripture came from Wayment and Wilson-Lemmon regarding Joseph Smith’s use of the Adam Clarke commentary. Since the release of that article, many critics have used this as a way to challenge Joseph Smith’s truth claims. In this podcast, I explain how understanding intertextuality and seeing translation in a broader scope can enable us to view this an expansion of prophetic authority, to borrow an excellent phrase from Wayment. This launches into a brief discussion about what is doctrine and the sacrament. Join us for our next episode where we speak to Christopher Blythe about his latest book!

Hanna Seariac

Hanna Seariac is a MA student in Greek and Latin at Brigham Young University. She is writing a book on the history of the priesthood and another one that responds systematically to anti-LDS literature. She works as a research assistant on a biblical commentary and as a producer on a news show. She values Jesus Christ, family, friends, hiking, baking, and good ice cream.

FAIR Voice Podcast #4- Sunday Special: CES Letter, and Come Follow Me

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Please register for the FairMormon Conference that is on August 5-7. It’s a great opportunity to support FairMormon, hear from amazing speakers, and ask questions directly to speakers!

Today, Hanna covers the CES letter in the scope of broader anti-Mormonism. She begins with a brief history of anti-Mormon literature and dives into how the CES letter represents broader methodological problems of critics, who neglect basic warrants of history, religion, and analyzing truth claims. She then offers some thoughts about faith and study in assessing anti-Mormon literature before closing with a brief Come Follow Me study and testimony of Jesus Christ.

Hanna SeariacHanna Seariac is a MA student in Greek and Latin at Brigham Young University. She is writing a book on the history of the priesthood and another one that responds systematically to anti-LDS literature. She works as a research assistant on a biblical commentary and as a producer on a news show. She values Jesus Christ, family, friends, hiking, baking, and really good ice cream.

FairMormon Conference Podcast #58 – Elder Bruce C. and Sister Marie K. Hafen, “Faith is Not Blind”

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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2019 conference. If you would like to watch the presentations from our 2019 conference, you can still purchase the video streaming. (Use coupon SPRING2020 and get the entire conference for $10!) We are also now selling tickets to the 2020 (Virtual) FairMormon Conference!

Elder Bruce C. and Sister Marie K. Hafen, Faith is Not Blind

Their book by the same name is available from the FairMormon Bookstore. This presentation will also be featured in a Facebook video stream this Sunday, May 24, at noon MDT.

Bruce Hafen grew up in St. George, Utah. After serving a mission to Germany, he met Marie Kartchner from Bountiful, Utah at BYU. They were married in 1964.

Elder Hafen received a bachelor’s degree from BYU and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Utah. After practicing law in Salt Lake City, he went to BYU as a member of the original faculty of BYU’s Law School. He taught family law and constitutional law.

He served as the President of BYU-Idaho from 1978 to 1985. Then he was Dean of the BYU Law School and later served as the Provost—the second in command—at BYU. He was called as a full-time General Authority in 1996, serving in area presidencies in Australia, North America, and Europe. He also served at Church headquarters as an adviser to the Priesthood Department, the general auxiliary presidencies, Church History, and the Temple Department. He became an Emeritus General Authority in 2010 then served as president of the St. George Temple. More recently he served as Chairman of the Utah LDS Corrections Committee, overseeing the Church branches in Utah’s state prisons and county jails. He is the author of several books on gospel topics, including the biography of Elder Neal A. Maxwell, and books on marriage, the temple, and the Atonement—including The Broken Heart and Covenant Hearts.

Marie K. Hafen is a homemaker and teacher. She has a Master’s Degree in English from BYU and has taught Shakespeare, freshman writing, and Book of Mormon at BYU-Idaho, the University of Utah, and BYU. She was also on the Young Women General Board, the Board of Directors of the Deseret News, and was matron of the St. George Temple. She has edited and co-authored books with her husband, including The Contrite Spirit and, most recently, Faith Is Not Blind.

The Hafens have seven children and 46 grandchildren.

FairMormon Conference Podcast #50 – Matt Roper/Kirk Magleby, “Time Vindicates the Prophet”

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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2019 conference. If you would like to watch the presentations from our 2019 conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

Matt Roper/Kirk Magleby, Time Vindicates the Prophet

Transcript available here.

Matthew P. Roper (M.S. in Sociology, Brigham Young University) was a resident scholar and research assistant for the Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Studies at Brigham Young University. He is now a Research Associate at Book of Mormon Central.

Kirk Alder Magleby is the Executive Director of Book of Mormon Central.

Audio Copyright © 2019 The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, Inc. Any reproduction or transcription of this material without prior express written permission is prohibited.

Book Review: The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture

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Available from the FairMormon Bookstore

Most members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have probably never thought of the Pearl of Great Price as controversial. The Book of Mormon, yes—it has been under attack practically since the night Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith. Yet, Givens and Hauglid [1] use this book to argue that the Pearl of Great Price is even more so. Unfortunately, the majority of the effort goes into attempting to prove the point, and it leaves the book less than faith-promoting. It does have some bright spots, however.

The book begins with the assertion that “without the Book of Mormon, the Church of Jesus Christ would lose its principal evangelizing tool and its most conspicuous sign of Smith’s prophetic vocation but relatively little of its doctrine.… With the Doctrine and Covenants, the church would lose a good bit of its ecclesiology—organization templates and guidelines for church government and its offices—but would not suffer a devastating loss of the deeper theological underpinnings of its faith.” [2] I found these statements to be very surprising. The Book of Mormon has enough unique doctrine in it for Tad Callister to devote an entire chapter of his recent book to it, and in several places Givens admits that doctrine found in places like the Book of Moses was first taught in the Book of Mormon. In addition, the Doctrine and Covenants contains a great deal of unique doctrine, in spite of the removal of the Lectures on Faith (which the book points out is commonly thought to have been the Doctrine of the Doctrine and Covenants). A comparison of our edition with that of the Community of Christ shows some of what would be missing without it.

The book goes on to make its point: “Mormonism, in other words, is absolutely inconceivable apart from this collection of scriptural texts that provided the faith’s theological core from the beginning but only received canonical recognition in 1880. At the present moment, controversies regarding multiple accounts of Smith’s ‘First Vision,’ as well as the origins of the text of the Book of Abraham, have brought unprecedented attention to this hitherto largely neglected work. The consequence is that the Pearl of Great Price represents at one and the same time the greatest vulnerabilities and the greatest strengths of the Church of Jesus Christ.” [3] As I argue below, this is quite an overstatement. [Read more…] about Book Review: The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture

Post-Mortem Analysis on this Year’s Exposé Stunt

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Monday sometime, news reports made it clear that (at least for the opponents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Christmas had come a little early. In a post from the, um, Post, we read that, “In a declaration signed under penalty of perjury, Nielsen [a former employee and current whistleblower] urges the IRS to strip the nonprofit of its tax-exempt status and alleges that Ensign could owe billions in taxes. He is seeking a reward from the IRS, which offers whistleblowers a cut of unpaid taxes that it recovers.”

Though at first glance this might seem like a story about someone speaking truth to power, closer examination suggests it is an attempt by someone who doesn’t like the Church of Jesus Christ to tar its reputation. Accusations have been filed with the IRS, but that says nothing of the merit of those accusations. Due process is one of the wonderful ideas embodied in the American system. In news reporting, however, no such standard prevails, and there is often an advantage to be gained by making an accusation and tarring your opponent with it. A substantial first mover advantage exists when attacking an opponent through the news, because reporting accusations and scandal is much more exciting and consequently reaches a larger audience than reporting the resolution of those charges or their refutation.

So why do I think that this story reflects an attempt to attack the Church’s reputation rather than a more narrow desire to right wrongs with regard to the provisions of tax law and the Church’s compliance? One goes to the media when one wants the effect that the media will predictably produce, in this case frenzy leading to reputational damage. Now it’s plausible that the whistleblower is motivated by the prospect of money. As a whistleblower, he has essentially written himself a lottery ticket. In the (frankly improbable) event that the IRS finds that someone managing an investment erred in complying with tax regulations, he stands to receive a percentage of any taxes recovered. Nice work if you can get it. On the motivational end of things, however, there appears to be more to unpack. First of all, I don’t think this is going to pan out very well for him. I’m always open to being corrected by reality, but most of what he has actually claimed amounts to the Church operating frugally, living within their means and saving for a rainy day, consistent with their published statement. Though I can’t rule it out, I would actually be inclined to largely dismiss his financial motivation for doing this, and won’t cover it more in this post. Others have dealt with the claims about the actual financial transactions very capably, notably KSL, and made the case that this is, in essence, a nothing-burger. Beyond the improbable financial outcome, however, several aspects of what was actually published cause me to call into question whether this stunt had any real intent to do anything more than tar the Church for the duration of a news cycle. [Read more…] about Post-Mortem Analysis on this Year’s Exposé Stunt

FairMormon Conference Podcast #44 – René Krywult, “Fear Leads to the Dark Side: How to Navigate the Shallows of (Mis)Information”

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This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. This presentation is from our 2019 conference held in August. If you would like to watch the presentations from our 2019 conference, you can still purchase the video streaming.

René Krywult, Fear Leads to the Dark Side: How to Navigate the Shallows of (Mis)Information

Transcript available here.

René Alexander Krywult, a native of Vienna, Austria, Europe, has been a member of FairMormon for over eighteen years and has been instrumental in founding the German-speaking FairMormon group. He is a software developer and project manager for a European financial institution. He is married to Gabriele Krywult, and they have four children and three grandchildren. His first publication was “Mormon Deification Compared to Orthodox Christian Theosis” in the magazine Spirituality in East and West of Dialog Center International, a Protestant network of organizations engaged in researching new religious movements. More articles on the FairMormon website followed. He organized four FairMormon conferences in Germany from 2009 to 2015 and spoke at all of them.

Rene’s particular focus is on comparing the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with those of both traditional Christians and the early Christian centuries. He had his first contact with anti-Mormonism at age 14, and from that time on one of his major interests has been to understand how anti-Mormon literature works, how to discern the reliability of information provided, and how to grow in faith while studying arguments made by the opposition.

Brother Krywult served, among other callings, as ward Sunday school president, ward mission leader, elders quorum president, Seminary and Institute teacher and counsellor in a bishopric: Currently he serves as a High Councilor in the Vienna-Austria Stake. His native language is German.

Audio Copyright © 2019 The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, Inc. Any reproduction or transcription of this material without prior express written permission is prohibited.