One of the things I didn’t realize about this shameful episode is the Utah War.  It wasn’t much of a war, but it was one of the leading causes of this tragedy.  In 1857, President Buchanon sent 5000 troops to Utah to put down a supposed rebellion in Utah.  Exaggerated reports of rebellion had come to Washington, DC.  The US had just finished the Mexican-American War in 1848, and Civil War rhetoric would boil over into war just 4 years later.

There was a tremendous amount of war rhetoric leading up to this time throughout the country.  The Mormons had been driven out of Missouri and Illinois, arriving in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.  Brigham Young publicly made many belligerent statements that they would not be driven again, but privately, he had no intention of engaging a war with the US government.  He did his best to slow them down, sent Mormons to harass the US Army, but he had explicit instructions not to engage the US army.  When the army finally arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, no shots were fired, and there was uneasy peace.

Prior to the arrival of troops, the Mormons were training for war.  The militias took part on military exercises, and supplies were tightened.  They were instructed not to sell food to emigrants passing through.  The Fancher and Baker companies were passing through Utah from Arkansas to California.  Bad feelings ensued. The emigrants needed supplies, but the Mormons refused to sell to them–thinking they might need these supplies for the war effort with the US.

There were unsubstiantiated rumors that the Fancher party poisoned a well which killed Indian cattle and other rumors that the Fanchers boasted of killing Joseph and Hyrum Smith.  Obviously, this would create tensions in Southern Utah.  Apostle Parley P Pratt had been recently killed in Arkansas, and the Fanchers apparently bragged about the killing, and threatened to come back with an army from California to take care of the Mormons.  Supposedly they derisively named their oxen Brigham and Joseph.

Militias were told that they may need to defend themselves for the oncoming US army, and if the army arrived sooner than expected.  War fervor was very high.  Brigham Young issued orders to make alliances with the Indians–they were often referred to as the “battle-axe of the Lord.”

Apparently, the Fancher-Baker parties provoked enough anger among the Mormons, that it was decided to do something about them.  The Mormons first tried to have the Indians attack the emigrants, but the Fancher party repelled both attacks, killing some Indians in the process.  The Indians were furious, and said if the Mormons didn’t help them, the Indians would attack the Mormons.  Indians outnumbered Mormons 4 to 1 in the area.

John D. Lee, who was later executed for the massacre, says they knelt in prayer about what to do.  From page 81,

The discussions went on, [Lee] says, until at last the Mormons knelt in a circle amid the sage and asked God for guidance and strength to do the thing that was required, or to give them some sign that they might know what to do.

[Quoting from Lee's Confessions, page 232]  ‘After prayer, Major Higbee said, “Here are the orders and handed me a paper from Haight.  It was in substance that it was the orders of Haight to decoy the emigrants from their position, and kill them all that could talk.  The order was in writing.  Higbee handed it to me and I read it, and then dropped it to the ground, saying,

“I cannot do this.”

….The order was signed by Haight, as commander of the troops at Cedar City.

Haight told me the next day after the massacre, while on the Meadows, that he got his orders from Colonel Dame.

I then left the council, and went away to myself, and bowed myself in prayer before God, and asked Him to overrule the decision of that Council.  I shed many bitter tears, and my tortured soul was wrung nearly from my body by the great suffering.  I will here say, calling upon Heaven, angels, and the spirits of just men to witness what I say, that if I could then have had a thousand worlds to command, I would have given them freely to save that company from death.

While in bitter anguish, lamenting the sad condition of myself and others, Charles Hopkins, a man I had great confidence in, came to me from the Council, and tried to comfort me….

At the earnest solicitation of Brother Hopkins, I returned with him to the Council.  When I got back, the Council again prayed for aid.’  [Brooks stops quoting Lee here.]

Finally convinced that he was doing what had to be done, Lee accepted the decision and helped to make plans for the execution without further protest or weeping.

It boggles my mind that they actually knelt in prayer before this horrific atrocity.  Of course, religious fanaticism is common to Islam, Judiaism, Hinduism, and Christianity too, but that doesn’t make it right or justifiable.  I was a bit encouraged that some Mormons did not want to participate.  The emigrant men were marched single file with a Mormon escort.  Sick, wounded, women, and children were loaded in wagons.  Everyone knew that when “Halt” was shouted, the escorts were to shoot the men standing next to them.  Higbee explains on page 90,

Some say Clingensmith gave Order who was at head of company.  One thing is Known by all Persons out there   It was Major Lee’s Orders whoEver gave them.  That was the signal for guns to fire.  Lee said that those that are too big Cowards to help the Indians can Shoot in the air then Squat down So Indians can rush Past them and finish up their Savage work begun Many days Since.

It is said Most of the Company were nervious and afraid of Indian Treachery and Kept their guns loaded for their Own Protection    no doubt Each Individual knows more about that than any other Person Living and How they felt at that Particular Moment when Some Guns were fired and the Men Squated down and Indians Seemed to be there the Same Moment as they jumped out of the Brush, and rushed like a Howling tornado apast us.  And the Hideous Deamon like yells of the Savages as they thirsting for blood rushed Past to Slay their helpless Victims it Seemed to chill the Blood in our veins.

Brooks goes on to say,

Higbee’s account closes with a plea that the truth of this should be told, so that men who had been deceived into going to the Meadows in the first place and forced to participate in the butchery after they got there might be cleared of responsibility.  These men, he insisted, had been done a grave injustice.

That some of the Mormons in the ranks did not approve of what was done is generally admitted.  A legend is gold of young Tom Pierce, who refused to have anything to do with the affair and turned and walked away.  When his own father, who was an officer, ordered him into the ranks and he still did not return, the father shot at him.  The bullet grazed the side of Tom’s head, leaving a permanent scar just above his ear.

The Mormon teaching of unquestioning obedience to authority, added to the strict military law then in force in the territory, would, in the eyes of their neighbors, relieve the men in the ranks of responsibility.  For this reason, only a few went later into permanent hiding, and they were the men who had been in positions of command.

Brooks says there are many conflicting witness accounts.  Most witnesses tried to make themselves look good at the expense of others.  Some people have discounted all of Lee’s testimony, but Brooks doesn’t believe all of Lee’s testimony should be discounted.  She makes efforts to show how reliable it is.

I’m impressed with Tom Pierce.  I don’t know what I would have done with such a terrible choice, but I hope I would have followed his example.  What do you make of this prayer before the massacre?  Is killing in the name of God ever a good thing?  What about Joshua and Jericho, Nephi and Laban, Abraham and Isaac, Elisha and Jezebel?

www.litefeeds.com

I just found this website to view comments and apparently post, so give it a try!  Also, here’s a reminder to add a photo to your comments with a Gravatar!

Computational stylistics is based on the premise that all authors exhibit subtle, quantifiable stylistic traits that are equivalent to a literary fingerprint, or wordprint.  The method has been used to investigate other instances of disputed authorship, from Plato to Shakespeare to the Federalist papers.  Analyzing blocks of words from 24 of the Book of Mormon’s ostensible authors, along with nine nineteenth-century writers including Joseph Smith, three statisticians used three statistical techniques (multivariate analysis of variance, cluster analysis, and discriminant analysis) to establish the probability that the various parts of the Book of Mormon were composed by the range of authors suggested by the narrative itself.  They found that all of the sample word blocks exhibit their own “discernible authorship styles (wordprints),” even though these blocks are not clearly demarcated in the text, but are “shuffled and intermixed” throughout the Book of Mormon’s editorially complex narrative structure (wherein alleged authorship shifts some 2.000 times).  Emphasizing the demonstrated resistance of these methods to even deliberate stylistic imitation, they further conclude that “it does not seem possible that Joseph Smith or any other writer could have fabricated a work with 24 or more discernible authorship styles.”  The evidence, they write, is “overwhelming” that the Book of Mormon was not written by Joseph Smith or any of his contemporaries or alleged collaborators they tested for (including Sidney Rigdon and Solomon Spaulding).⁴ A subsequent, even more sophisticated analysis by a Berkeley group concluded that it is “statistically indefensible to propose Joseph Smith or Oliver Cowdery or Solomon Spaulding as the author of 30,000 words…attributed to Nephi and Alma…The Book of Mormon measures multiauthored, with authorship consistent with its own internal claims.  These results are obtained even though the writings of Nephi and Alma were ‘translated’ by Joseph Smith.”⁵

Ok, let me talk about multivariate analysis of variance, cluster analysis, and discriminant analysis.  These are very advanced graduate level statistical techniques.  Ronald Fisher is a famous English statistician (ok, only famous to statisticians) who pioneered many of these techniques.  Danish Professor Anders Hald said Fisher  “almost single-handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science.”  Fisher died in 1962.  These techniques are really new, are frankly aren’t discussed in any bachelor’s level statistics courses.

Givens book was published in 2002.  From reading this paragraph, one would think wordprint studies are solidly in favor of Mormons.  However, in Dec 2008, Oxford Journals published a new study called “Reassessing authorship of the Book of Mormon using delta and nearest shrunken centroid classification.” I have a master’s degree in statistics, and until I saw this article, I had never heard of a shrunken centroid classification.  I must say I have always been impressed with Wikipedia when it comes to math articles, but Wikipedia doesn’t even have an article on this shrunken centroid classification.  I found this Stanford University article that describes the technique.  Apparently it is used in cancer gene analysis.  The authors of this Book of Mormon authorship article are three Stanford University professors:  Matthew L. Jockers (English), Daniela M. Witten  (Statistics), Craig S. Criddle (Civil and Environmental Engineering).  They claim that “Our findings support the hypothesis that Rigdon was the main architect of the Book of Mormon and are consistent with historical evidence suggesting that he fabricated the book by adding theology to the unpublished writings of Spalding (then deceased).”

(The abstract is found here, but you have to pay $28 to actually view the article.)  FAIR has criticized the methodology of the study, because they didn’t include Joseph Smith as a possible author.  Why isn’t he as likely as Spalding to have written it?  It appears the Stanford professors decided that the true author of the Book of Mormon was one of only seven possible authors:  Oliver Cowdery, Parley P Pratt, Sidney Rigdon, Solomon Spalding, Isaiah/Malachi, Joel Barlow, and Henry Longfellow.  Barlow and Longfellow are poets thrown in as control, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that they didn’t match.  Since the Book of Mormon includes writings of Isaiah and Malachi, these portions should easily match, and the Jockers study concludes these portions match.

I guess my biggest problem with Jockers is this.  Quoting from the corrected abstract, “With the corrected data, NSC ranked Rigdon at 0.4626 and Spalding at 0.46525.”  If I am understanding this correctly, these numbers are probabilities.  So the probability that Sidney Rigdon is the real author if the Book of Mormon is less 50%–not exactly a ringing endorsement, I’d say.

Now, to be fair, I don’t have probabilities that Givens is referencing–perhaps they are suspect as well.  But I expect that Isaiah and Malachi have much higher probabilities than 0.4626 for Jockers study.  So, what do you think of wordprint studies?

No one in the history of Mormon scholarship has done more to establish rational grounds for belief in the Book of Mormon than Hugh Nibley.  Acquiring impressive scholarly credentials (summa cum laude from UCLA and a Berkeley Ph.D. dissertation written in three weeks in 1938) before heading off to war….

[page 119]  the first forty pages of the Book of Mormon engender under Nibley’s analysis a rich tapestry of linguistic, political, geographic, religious, and historical threads that are convincingly sixth century B.C. Middle Eastern.  Palestine’s cultural and economic ties to Egypt at this time are reflected in Nephi’s instruction in “the language of the Egyptians” (1 Nephi 1:2).  The “reformed Egyptian and Hebrew in a process of fusion for which a great deal of evidence now exists⁷.  Nibley compares the Book of Mormon “Hermounts” (the wild country of the borderlands) with Egyptian “Hermonthis” (a land of Month, god of wild places and things),  and points out the “bulls-eyes” of the Book of Mormon characters Paanchi, Korihor, and Pahoran.  Paankhi turns out to be an Egyptian name in the seventh century B.C., and Korihor turns up in both Egyptian and Asiastic derivatives.⁸  In this regard, it is well worth nothing that William Foxwell Albright, doyen of American ancient Near East studies, wrote to a critic seeking to debunk Smith’s writings that “when the Book of Mormon was written, Egyptian had just begun to be deciphered and it is all the more surprising that there are two Egyptian names, Paanchi[i] and Pahor[an] which appear together in the Book of Mormon in close connection with a reference to the original language being ‘Reformed Egyptian.’”⁹

Many critics of the Book of Mormon take issue with this idea of “Reformed Egyptian.”  Givens quotes Moroni on page 132,

“we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech” (Morm. 9:32)

Mormon scholars take this to suggest the possibility that the writers used modified Egyptian symbols to represent Hebrew words (“Hebrew words, idioms, and syntax written in Egyptian cursive script”⁵³), certainly a bizarre idea for a nineteenth-century audience.  Now as John Tvedtnes points out, “the use of Egyptian symbols to transliterate Hebrew words and vice versa, is known from the sixth century B.C. text discovered at Arad and Kadesh-Barnea,”⁵⁴  Papyrus Amherst 63, for example, “contains a scriptural text in Northwest Semitic tongue written in an Egyptian script.”⁵⁵

Physical evidence for the unique script is limited to the purported transcription of characters taken from the plates and shown by Martin Harris in 1828 to Professor Charles Anthon.⁵⁶  They consist of seven horizontal rows of unusual markings, that have been variously described as everything from Phoenician writing to Mayan script to occult symbols, from “a Nubian corruption of Egyptian” to secret Masonic code.

Though the expression “reformed Egyptian” garnered no small amount of ridicule at the time and since (“deformed English” rather than “reformed Egyptian,” sniffed Charles Shook in 1910, after looking at the Anthon transcript⁵⁷), scholars now generally recognize that “Demotic Egyptian, of origin not long before Lehi’s Exodus, is certainly a ‘reformed Egyptian’ as are other well-known and less-known variations.”⁵⁸  Nibley points out that Meroitic, “a baffling and still largely undeciphered Egyptian script which developed out of Demotic under circumstances remarkably paralleling the purported development of the Nephite writing, has the most striking affinities to the characters on the so-called Anthon Transcript.”⁵⁹

Givens shows other parallels in the chapter, including:

• Lehi’s travel through the desert,
• his poetic structure,
• the golden plates parallel with the Copper Scroll found with the Dead Sea Scrolls (and other writings on ancient metal plates),
• similarities between Moroni’s Title of Liberty and the Quran,
• King Benjamin’s coronation was similar to Bablyonian rituals, and
• important plates buried in stone boxes by Darius, king of Persia.

From page 124,

Nibley’s legendary erudition, fluency across a spectrum of languages, and prodigious output (appearing in a wide range of scholarly publications from the Classical Journal and Encyclopedia Judaica to Church History and Revue de Qumran) have lent his work a weight that is unprecedented in Mormon studies.

Praised by the likes of non-LDS scholars Raphael Patai, Jacob Neusner, James Charlesworth, Cyrus Gordon, Jacob Milgrom, and former Harvard Divinity School dean George McRae (“it is obscene for a man to know that much,” he grumbled, hearing him lecture), Nibley has done more than any Mormon of his era to further the intellectual credibility of the Book of Mormon.²³  Inspired by his work, a more recent generation of LDS researchers brings a range of impressive scholarly credentials to serious Book of Mormon scholarship.²⁴

Givens goes on to talk about John Welch.  As a missionary in Germany in 1967, Welch attended a lecture on chiasmus, a Hebrew literary device.  Welch soon discovered chiasmus in Mosiah 5:10-12, a form of inverted parallel poetry.  Welch went on to work with FARMS, the Foundation of Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (formed in 1979.)  The group looks at Old World parallels in the Book of Mormon.  Givens addresses John Sorenson, the most recognized archaeologist advocating a Central American setting for the Book of Mormon.  (I plan a future post exclusively to Sorenson and his theory.)

Givens says that Mormon Scholarship is causing alarm among Evangelical critics.  From page 143,

Under the burden of Mormon scholarship that is increasingly well credentialed, and in the face of Mormon growth that is alarming to evangelicals,¹¹⁰ the polemics of nineteenth-century preachers are no longer an adequate response.  Until recently, for example, criticisms of barley or pre-Columbian horses in the Book of Mormon would come from writers of anti-Mormon books–not from botanists or archaeologists.  The latter have not, for the most part, taken the Book of Mormon seriously enough as a text to analyze its historical credibility.  A recent paper by two evangelical scholars suggests that a realignment of the Book of Mormon wars may be coming.

The 1997 address of Carl Mosser and Paul Owen at a regional meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society was remarkable for a number of reasons.  First, it accorded high praise to the state of Mormon scholarship.  They summarized a number of recent publications to illustrate their assertion that “in recent years the sophistication and erudition of LDS apologetics has risen considerably…[and] is clearly seen in their approach to the Book of Mormon.”  As difficult as it may be to accept the fact, “LDS academicians are producing serious research which desperately needs to be critically examined,” they insisted.¹¹¹

In addition, Mosser and Owen are adamant that evangelical resposes to Mormon scholarship have been, almost universally, “uninformed, misleading, or otherwise inadequate….At the academic level evangelicals are losing the debate.”¹¹²  Actually, it hardly resembles a debate, because Mormon scholars, they acknowledge, “have…answered most of the usual evangelical criticisms.”  And, as of 1997, there were “no books from an evangelical perspective that responsibly interact with contemporary LDS scholarly and apologetic writings.”¹¹³

As a consequence, anti-Mormons continue to invoke long-discredited banalities, many of which actually turn to Mormon advantage upon inspection.  For example, literature found in any cult section of Christian bookstores still criticizes Alma for writing that Jesus will be “born at Jerusalem, which is the land of our forefathers” (Alma 7:10) a seeming blooper.  Actually, of course, such usage is consistent with Middle Eastern practice of naming areas for their principal cities.¹¹⁴  Or they mock Alma’s name itself, an apparent Latin feminine.  But in 1960-61, the Israeli scholar Yigael Yadin found a land deed near the western shore of the Dead Sea dating from the early second century.  One of the names on the deed was “Alma, son of Yehudah,” demonstrating Alma was to be “an authentically ancient Semitic masculine personal name.”¹¹⁵

…[page 144]  The major force in anti-Mormon polemics has long been Jerald and Sandra Tanner…It is no wonder that non-Mormon historian Lawrence Foster has faulted these critics, the most prolific of all anti-Mormon writers, for “twisting” scholarship, resorting to “debaters’ ploys,” and, in general, demonstrating “lack of balance and perspective.”¹¹⁷

So, what do you think of the state of Mormon Scholarship?

As it turned out, my kids got tired of drawing pictures, and I can’t count very well–we stopped at 24.  I realized that I was leaving out some stories.  Here’s my list.

1. Lehi Tells the People to Repent
2. Lehi Finds the Liahona
3. Lehi’s Dream of the Iron Rod and Tree of Life
4. Nephi Breaks his Bow
5. The Brass Plates
6. Nephi Builds a Ship
7. The Big Storm
8. The Promised Land
9. Jacob Teaches Everyone to Be Nice
10. King Benjamin Tells Everyone to Serve
11. Alma and the Sons of Mosiah
12. Ammon Defends the Sheep
13. King Lamoni gets Baptized
14. The People of Jershon Bury Their Swords
15. The Title of Liberty
16. Samuel the Lamanite
17. The New Star
18. The Great Destruction
19. Jesus Appears to the Nephites
20. 200 Years of Peace
21. Mormon Abridges the Plates
22. The Brother of Jared
23. The Nephites and Lamanites are Bad
24. Moroni Buries the Golden Plates

There were other stories that I missed–Enos, Abinadi, the Waters of Mormon, The Stripling Warriors, and many others. I was originally going to add the Stripling Warriors, but I wasn’t sure what to tell my kids to draw (they’re 7 and 5.)  I also didn’t really want to stress the war stories in favor of some of the other stories, in order to give a variety.  I felt there was enough war stories already.  On a side note, I had my kids watch the old 1960’s movie on Netflix:  The Incredible Mr Limpet.  They had no idea why the US was trying to blow up all the Nazi subs.  It was hard for me to put it in terms they understood.  I realized that this rated G cartoon/movie had some more difficult subjects to explain to little kids, and I didn’t want to get into the Holocaust with them.

So here is my question.  If you had to limit the list of stories to 24, what stories would you remove in order to include some of the ones I missed?

Here’s a brief background concerning the disaster.  The Fancher and Baker families were moving from Arkansas to California.  As they traveled through Utah, nearly all the men, women, and children were killed by Mormons–around 120 in all died.  Initially, the Mormons tried to blame it on the Indians, but as the evidence has come out, it appears the Mormons are primarily (some say entirely) responsible for the deaths.  It is the darkest chapter in Mormon history.  In his latest essay, Bringhurst discusses the most prominent books (both positive and negative) dealing with the Mountain Meadows Massacre:

• Mountain Meadows Massacre by Juanita Brooks,
• Blood of the Prophets by Will Bagley,
• American Massacre by Sally Denton,
• Massacre at Mountain Meadows by Ronald W. Walker,
• House of Mourning by Shannon Novak,
• Innocent Blood by David I. Bigler,
• The Jenson and Morris Collections by Richard E. Turley

The biggest questions we all have are:  (1) How could this atrocity have been performed by active church members?  (2)  What was Brigham Young’s role in the massacre and coverup?  (3)  What role did the Indians play in the massacre?  Different authors come to different conclusions, and Bringhurst summarizes them well for those of us unfamiliar with all the books.  Regarding question #1, Brooks highlights the environment that fostered this tragedy.  While none of these events excuse the barbarity, these events do shed light on events which affected the Mormon  mindset.  Quoting from Bringhurst’s essay (which can be found here), Brooks explained that the

Fancher-Baker Company had arrived at the worst possible time, in that they were just a step ahead of 1,500 troops sent by U.S. President James Buchanan to the Mormon-dominated Great Basin. Buchanan had proclaimed the territory to be “in a state of rebellion.” In September 1857, Mormons, therefore, looked suspiciously at outsiders as potential spies and collaborators. Exacerbating this situation, and in conjunction with Mormon preparations for war, local citizens stopped the sale of foodstuffs and other needed supplies to emigrants. The LDS community had also been stirred up through a series of lively sermons in the so-called “Mormon Reformation”—a wave of religious enthusiasm that promoted a sense of apocalyptic millenarianism, including the belief that the End Times were near. As for Young, himself, Brooks found no evidence that he had ordered the massacre, but she charged him with having provoked the attack through inflammatory rhetoric and with having creating suspicion by obstructing the investigation that followed.

Will Bagley believes that Brigham Young was highly involved in the massacre.  Bringhurst says that Bagley’s theory is

that Young wanted to avenge the murders of three important Mormon leaders: founder Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum Smith (d. 1844) and Apostle Parley P. Pratt (d. 1857). The murder of Pratt, as Bagley documented, occurred in Arkansas and was committed by the husband of a woman Pratt had taken as a polygamous wife.

Investigative journalist Sally Denton concurs with Bagley in laying the atrocity at the feet of Brigham Young.  She says that the Indians played no part in the attack.  Professional historians Richard Turley and Glen Leonard’s book adds additional primary sources unknown to Juanita Brooks, and seems to back Juanita Brooks version of events.  Turley/Leonard claim the Indians killed the women and children.  Anthropologist Shannon Novak supports the Indians oral tradition that the tribe played “little or no role in the killings,” including the murder of the women and children.  Bringhurst summarizes the final 2 books very briefly.

Finally, two important recently published works of historical documents provide additional perspectives on the causes and consequences of the massacre. These are the volume by David L. Bigler and Will Bagley, Innocent Blood: Essential Narratives of the Mountain Meadows Massacre (2008), and by Richard E. Turley Jr. and Ronald W. Walker, Mountain Meadows Massacre: The Andrew Jenson and David H. Morris Collection (2009).

This is a good synopsis of the books.  I recently purchased a copy of Juanita Brooks book, and plan to read it soon.  It will be interesting to look at the evidence presented to determine how culpable Brigham Young and the Indians were in this tragedy.  I do remember reading Great Basin Kingdom by Leonard Arrington.  He touches very briefly on the massacre, and states that Brigham Young wanted to run a telegraph line north and south to improve communication.  Arrington seems to think that if the line had been in place sooner, that Brigham’s message to leave the Fancher party alone would have been received in time to prevent the tragedy.

So, what are your thoughts about this dark chapter in Mormon history?  How involved was Brigham Young in this tragedy?

His second book, By the Hand of Mormon, is seen as his most important contribution to Mormon studies to date because it is the first academic survey of the significance of the Book of Mormon to believer and skeptic alike to be published by a major academic press (Oxford University Press). In it, Givens argues that the Book of Mormon has been important primarily for its existence and extra-textual historical claims rather than for its contents. Givens also makes a case for what he calls “dialogic revelation” as a novel contribution of the Book of Mormon. In current projects, he seems to be moving in the direction of broader engagement with religious themes across time and the western religious and philosophical traditions.

Critical response

General critical response to Givens work has been favorable from fellow scholars like Jan Shipps, Richard Bushman, and Harold Bloom. The New York Times referred to his work as “provocative”^[1] and Harper’s praised him for being “fair-minded and unbiased.”^[2] Some critics, however, have faulted him for what they see as an apologetic bent. Givens is a practicing Mormon who served as bishop in a local congregation for some years.

Givens seems to admit that literary evidence is a bit more compelling than archaeological evidence.  As a professor of literature and religion at the University of Richmond, he may have a bias there, but I think he is right.  I’m more interested in the archaeology, so I want to talk about that first.  (I plan a few posts on Givens.)  So, let’s talk about archaeology.  From page 112,

The New World Archaeological Foundation

New winds began to blow in 1945, when the new president of Brigham Young University created a chair of archaeology and filled the post with M. Wells Jakeman, one of the first Mormons formally trained as an archaeologist.⁸⁰  Three years later, the new Department of Archaeology sponsored its first field work in southeastern Mexico.  Then, in the 1950s, an amateur scholar named Thomas Ferguson (present on that first 1948 dig) tried to nudge the church further into a new era of engagement with Book of Mormon archaeology.  Until now, church leaders and intellectuals from Joseph Smith to B.H. Roberts had waited upon the external evidence for the Book of Mormon as it gradually materialized–or, in some cases, failed to materialize.  Ferguson advocated vigorous effforts to uncover dramatic proof he was sure could be found.

…[page 113]

Overconfident he may have been.  But Alfred V. Kidder, a leading American archaeologist and past head of archaeology work for the Carnegie Institution of Washington, reviewed the copy that Ferguson sent him and gave teh young enthusiast encouragement.  More importantly, he helped Ferguson draft a proposal in April of 1951 asking hte church to fund an ambitious project of archaeological investigations, aiming to solve “the paramount problem of origins of the great civilizations of Middle America.”⁸²  Several months later, the church denied the request for the five-year, $150,000 plan.⁸³

Undeterred, by June of 1952 Ferguson had raised private funds sufficient to organize the Middle American Archaeological Foundation–later changed to the New World Archaeological Foundation (NWAF)–and to sponsor the first year of excavations in Mexico at those sites Ferguson tentativel identified as Nephite lands.  Board members included Alfred V. Kidder, Gordon F. Ekholm (of the American Museum of Natural History), and Gordon R. Willey (of Harvard).  Esteemed biblical archaeologist W.F. Albright offered his congratulations and support, and Thor Heyerdahl wrote Ferguson that his own recent work confirmed that “there was a white people in Southern Mexico and Guatemala many centuries before Columbus.”⁸⁴

I need to take a break here.  William Albright was a big export in the 1948 discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and I believe he did quite a bit of research in the excavation of the Biblical city of Jericho.  He is a world-renown archaeologist, teaching at John Hopkins University.  Thor Hyerdahl is famous for sailing a bamboo raft he named Kon Tiki without mechanical power.  He travelled 4300 miles each way, proving travel from South America to the Polynesian islands was possible.  Obviously, this proves Lehi’s journey was possible.  So, these 2 experts, in addition to the other experts were some pretty important heavyweights in the field of archaeology.  Continuing on,

The foundation was expressly commissioned, in the words of Kidder, to test three theories about the origin of teh advanced civilizations of Mesoamerica: “(1) That they were autochthonous [indigenous, native--I had to look that up];  (2) That, as set forth in the Book of Mormon, they were derived from ancient Israel; (3) That their rise was due to stimuli from some Asiatic source.”⁸⁵  The fact that archaeologists from Harvard, Carnegie, and American Museum of Natural History were apparently willing to consider the Book of Mormon as constituting a serious theory of Mesoamerican peopleing to be tested alongside their competing theories could be interpreted by some as a dramatic coming of age for Book of Mormon studies.  An NWAF editor and emininent archaologist, J. Alden Mason, insisted that the organization was not in the business of confirming scriptural accounts of antiquity, that the purpose of teh foundation was “not to seek corroboration of the Book of Mormon account.”⁸⁶  Still, even if the approach was scientifically objective and the whole enterprise not just archaology in the service of apologetics, teh prestige of those endorsing hte project had lent powerful support to the credibility of the Book of Mormon.  The text was clearly a viable player on teh field of Mesoamerican stuides.  Non-Mormon scholars had just indicated as much, and in print.

… [ page 114]

Excavactions shed enormous light on a range of occupations that span a period both preceeding and postdating Nephite history.  They unearthed pottery, figurines, codices, tombs, and canal works–but without discovering anything as conclusive as Nephi’s tomb.  The most impressive find, in Ferguson’s opinion, was a set of tiny cylinder seals with markings apprently daing between 400 and 700 B.C.  The biblical archaeologeist W. F. Albright identified the markings on one as “degenerate cartouches of Mediterranean inspiration.”⁸⁸  In a subsequent book, Ferguson listed some 300 cultural elements that he argued parallel Middle Eastern culture.⁸⁹  His enthusiasm was such that he was soon discussing a documentary film project with Twentieth Century-Fox and a Book of Mormon museum, filled with his discoveries, with hotelier Williard Marriot.⁹⁰  Though his lasting influence upon Book of Mormon scholarship was negligible, Ferguson did much at the time to raise the visibility of Mormon research.

Givens discusses the Smithsonian Institution letter (that anti-Mormons love to quote) stating that they do not use the Book of Mormon as a guide for archaeology.  John Sorenson is now the foremost expert on Book of Mormon archaeology in Mesoamerica now.  Of course, I’ve talked previously about other theories, including South America, New York, and the Malay Theory, but Mesoamerica is by far the leading theory among Book of Mormon geography buffs.  So, what do you think of the state of New World archaeology as it relates to the Book of Mormon?

Burns tells some really interesting things about the Shakers.  They’re called Shakers, a shorter version of the name Shaking Quakers.  They have many Quaker beliefs, and the Shaking part comes into play because they do some ecstatic dancing before God.  Song and dance are a large part of worship services.  They were founded by a woman named Ann Lee in England around 1770.  Ann had a vision of Christ, though the heading in the LDS edition seems erroneous in overstating this vision.  It says, “Some of the beliefs of the Shakers were that Christ’s second coming had already occurred and he had appeared in the form of a woman, Ann Lee.“  This isn’t exactly true.  Her vision was similar in nature to Joseph’s vision of the Savior.  We wouldn’t say that Christ’s second coming already occurred in the form of Joseph Smith, right?

Ann Lee had a vision of Jesus in 1770.  She was welcomed by a small group of Quakers, but was not welcome in England, so she moved to America, settling near Albany, NY.  In 1783, she was accused of treason and witchcraft.  Her sentence caused her to be whipped.  She was attacked by a mob for “stealing” a man’s wife–the woman had converted to the Shakers (the official name is United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing.)  She was born in Manchester, England in 1736 and died in Watervliet, New York, in 1784.

Shakers believed in strict separation of the sexes, and complete celibacy.  The way membership increased was through adoption of orphans.  Burns says that in the 1960’s many states refused to allow adoptions to religious organizations, which greatly hurt membership.  In 1985 when the documentary was produced, there were just 12 Shakers left in existence.  I believe there are just 3 left now.  I loved this quote from a Shaker:  “we bless marriage, because if someone didn’t marry, we wouldn’t have any Shakers.”

Shakers invented some very useful things, most of them were labor saving items.

• Water repellent cloth
• Clothes that needed no ironing
• Clothes pins
• Circular saw (by a woman)
• They turned the round broom into a flat one

The documentary was fascinating.  Shakers were very communalistic (or we would say they believed in consecration.)  They accepted everyone, even those who they called “Winter Shakers.”  These were people that they knew only came to their community for food, and planned to leave in the spring.  Shakers felt Christ would help all people, so they helped them too.

Burns didn’t talk of the Mormons at all, but D&C 49 refers to Leman Copley, the first Shaker to Mormon convert.  A mission was organized to the Shakers.  Apparently, it didn’t go so well.  While the Shakers embraced Sidney Rigdon, apparently Parley P Pratt dusted his feet.  There is an interesting PDF article at BYU Studies.  Some brief excerpts from the Shaker Ashbel Kitchell’s Journal:

Some time in the year 1829 the new religion, (if so it may be called,) of the Mormons began to make a stir in a town not far from North Union.⁴ It created a good deal of excitement among the people. They stated they had received a New Revelation, had seen an angel, & had been instructed into many things in relation to the history of America, that was not known before.

Late in the fall a number of them came to visit the Believers. One by the name of Oliver Lowdree [Cowdery], who stated that he had been one who had been an assistant in the translation of the golden Bible, and had also seen the Angel, and had been  commissioned by him to go out & bear testimony, that God would destroy this generation.

We gave him liberty to bear his testimony in our meeting; but finding he had nothing for us, we treated them kindly, and labored to find out what manner of spirit they were of.—They appeared meek and mild; but as for light, or knowledge of the way of God, I considered them very ignorant of Christ or his work; therefore I treated them with the tenderness of children.

…

We continued on friendly terms in the way of trade and other Acts of good neighborship untill [sic] the spring of 1831 when we were visited on saturday evening by Sidney Rigdon and Leman Copley,5 the latter of whom had been among us; but not likeing [sic] the cross {celibacy} any to [sic] well, had taken up with Mormonism as the easier plan and had been appointed by them as one of the missionaries to convert us.

…

They came into meeting and sat quietly untill the meeting was through, and the people dismissed; when Sidney Rigdon arose and stated that he had a message from the Lord Jesus Christ to this people; could he have the privilege of delivering it? He was answered, he could. He then said it was in writing; could he read it? He was told he might. He then read the following Message. [The text of D & C, section 49, is here quoted with only a few minor wording changes from the way it appears in the Book of Commandments, chapter 52.]

At the close of the reading, he asked if they could be permitted to go forth in the exercise of their gift and office.—I told him that the piece he had read, bore on its face, the image of its author; that the Christ that dictated that, I was well acquainted with, and had been, from a boy; that I had been much troubled to get rid of his influence, and I wished to have nothing more to do with him; and as for any gift he had  authorized them to exercise among us, I would release them & their Christ from any further burden about us, and take all the responsibility on myself.

Sidney made answer—This you cannot do; I wish to hear the people speak. I told him if he desired it, they could speak for themselves, and steped [sic] back and told them to let the man know how they felt; which they did in something like these words; that they were fully satisfied with what they had, and wished to have nothing to do with either them or their Christ. On hearing this Rigdon professed to be satisfied,
and put his paper by; but Parley Pratt arose and commenced shakeing [sic] his coattail; he said he shook the dust from his garments as a testimony against us, that we had rejected the word of the Lord Jesus.

Before the words were out of his mouth, I was to him, and said;—You filthy Beast, dare you presume to come in here, and try to imitate a man of God by shaking your filthy tail; confess your sins and purge your soul from your lusts, and your other abominations before you ever presume to do the like again, &c. While I was ministering this reproof, he settled trembling into his seat, and covered his face; and I then turned to Leman who had been crying while the message was reading, and said to him, you
hypocrite, you knew better;—you knew where the living work of God was; but for the sake of indulgence, you could consent to deceive yourself and them, but you shell reap the fruit of your own doings, &c.—This struck him dead also, and dryed up his tears;— I then turned to the Believers and said, now we will go home and started.—Sidney had been looking on all this time without saying a word; as he had done all he did only by liberty nothing was said to him, and he looked on with a smile to see the fix the others were in, but they all followed us to the house.—Parleys horse had not been put away, as he came too late; he mounted and started for home without waiting for any one.—Sidney stayed for supper, and acknowledged that we were the purest people he had ever been acquainted with but he was not prepared to live such a life.

The journal continues, but suffice it to say, the mission didn’t produce very many converts.  There is an LDS Institute of Religion lesson on this section you may find interesting as well.

So, what do you think of the Shakers?

Jan 21 – Exploring The Connection Between Mormons and Masons
Documentary, 39 minutes

———————–

Jan 22 – Latter-day Strangers
Documentary, 16 minutes

Supersonic Saints: Thrilling Stories From LDS Pilots
Documentary, 45 minutes,

The Mormons
Documentary, 28 minutes

Janice Kapp Perry: A Life of Service and Song
Documentary, 59 minutes,

Feature Film:
Big Dreams Little Tokyo
Scera Showhouse II
Comedy, 86 minutes,

Feature Film:
Humble Pie (American Fork)
Scera Xango Grand Theatre
Comedy/Drama, 84 minutes,

Feature Film:
Fire Creek
Scera Showhouse II
Drama, 85 minutes,

————————-

Sat Jan 23

Trouble in Zion
Documentary, 61 minutes, color, 2008
Director, Producer: Kenny Ballentine
A tragic piece of American history is retold through spoken word, folk music, and the vibrant pages of a comic book in Kenny Ballentine’s Trouble in Zion. The film offers a unique look at the 1838 Mormon/Missouri War from both the Mormon and Missourian perspectives. It also features intriguing interviews with notable LDS scholars such as Richard Bushman, Alexander Baugh, and Richard Turley. Q&A with the filmmakers after the screening.

Another Testament – Reflections of Christ
Documentary, 60 minutes,

The Measure of a Man
Documentary, 54 minutes,

Mormon Messages
Drama, 45 minutes total,

Apparently, Richard Dutcher is showing God’s Army again.  That might be interesting.  I can’t see them all; I’d appreciate reviews if anyone goes to see them.  They are showing at the Scera Theater in Orem.