NOM

The first sentence of the penultimate paragraph in the second chapter of the new Saints book says this about Joseph's later accounts of his First Vision.

In the years that followed, he recounted the vision more publicly, drawing on scribes who could help him better express what defied all description.

https://www.lds.org/languages/eng/conte ... 2-hear-him

I didn't have time to go into this on the podcast, but it strikes me that this is an attempt to account for the differences and even contradictions in the First Vision accounts . . . all without telling the reader about the differences and contradictions.

I have never heard this idea before.

Strangely, I always thought that scribes were there to write down what Joseph Smith told them to write.

But here we have the idea that the scribes helped Joseph Smith with the language of subsequent accounts.

So if there are problems with the different accounts, I expect we are to blame the helpful scribes.

There is no footnote for this (to me) unprecedented idea.

Has anybody else ever heard of this before?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

This is also one of the apologetic arguments about the Kinderhook plates, so it's a great catch-all since they know Joseph didn't write most of his thoughts down.

And it makes sense because they'll claim that the scribes weren't writing it all down in real-time so they had to fill in some small details themselves, which is of course insane compared to how they discuss the dictation of the Book of Mormon, but it gives them the wiggle room that jumping between the tight and loose translations give.

I wish they had the honesty to put a question mark after 'the Standard of Truth' on the cover of Saints. Or at least put "Our Standard of Truth."

Scribe:
Hey maybe we could put that you saw both the Father and the Son at the same time rather than just the single angel thing...?

Joseph:
You know Clayton, that's not bad! Has a certain ring to it you know. And later we can add that they both had bodies of flesh and bone.

Scribe:
Do we want to do anything on the Holy Ghost here?

Joseph:
No, the Holy Ghost is just an influence that eminates from the Father. Remember we covered that in the Lectures on Faith.

Scribe:
But as I recall, didn't we say that the Father had a body of spirit in those lectures?

Joseph:
Don't worry Clayton. No one will notice. And if they do we'll gaslight them.

To me this sounds exactly like the "artist's interpretation" (e.g. face in hat vs. urim thummim in church approved pics); just one more scapegoat apologists and the COB can try to use to describe their uncomfortable historical discrepancies between their scrubbed correlated version and the actual facts.

RubinHighlander wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 2:36 pm To me this sounds exactly like the "artist's interpretation" (e.g. face in hat vs. urim thummim in church approved pics); just one more scapegoat apologists and the COB can try to use to describe their uncomfortable historical discrepancies between their scrubbed correlated version and the actual facts.

Came here to say this This is the same completely lame excuse as "It's the artist's fault that all of the depictions of the Book of MORmON "translation" are incorrect. Yea, even all of the depictions published on the Corporation's website, and in all of the Corporations magazines, and in all of the cute Heartsell videos created in the Corporation's motion picture studios."

The Corporation is completely incapable of correcting this wrong, and has been completely incapable for almost 200 years. Give the Corporation a break!

I would happily accept the "scribes messed it up" hypothesis, because it means that the canonized version is seriously corrupted and would have to be ripped out of the books and thrown away. This apologetic means the only trustworthy version of the FV is the 1832 account, written in Joseph's hand, and we should only believe what is stated in that one. There would have to be an admission that the official version is bunk, never to be taught to children or investigators.

On one hand it is not surprising to see this. It's your typical shifting of blame/goalposts. It must be the scribes fault, not JSJ's growing fish tale that is to blame.

On the other, if they go with this line of reasoning, anything that comes fromt he scribes is therefore suspect and unrelable, the impact is far worse that what Hagoth talked about.

If anything from a scribe is not reliable, then not does that mean that most of the D&C is not reliable and should be discounted, but the ENTIRE BOOK OF MORMON! it was all written by scribes, so by their reasoning, they are not reliably able to transcribe JSJ, every bit of the BOM must be thrown out.

The irony is that the Scribes messed it up would actually be a pretty good way to deal with the issues with the BOM. Steel, horses, cattle, coinage, they were incorrectly recorded by the scribe, and JSJ really meant... something... else... The could use that to dig out of a lot of hole they have caused. But it would also destroy the narrative of the BOM being translated by the power of god. God that allowed soo many errors from the scribes is a pretty useless god.

It's also back to the, "Joseph is a total ignoramus" scenario and he has trouble formulating words with more than one syllable.

Stamp once for "yes", stamp twice for "no".

But, speaking of visitations, he doesn't seem to have a problem expressing in writing that Sarah Whitney and Emma Smith can't visit him in the same room at the same time.

That indeed could turn into an ugly vision....

Just This Guy wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 4:02 pm If anything from a scribe is not reliable, then not does that mean that most of the D&C is not reliable and should be discounted, but the ENTIRE BOOK OF MORMON! it was all written by scribes, so by their reasoning, they are not reliably able to transcribe JSJ, every bit of the BOM must be thrown out.

Alma might have actually said that sex outside of marriage is the opposite of murder. Nephi might have opened with "I Nephi, having been born of goofy parents."

Just This Guy wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 4:02 pm On one hand it is not surprising to see this. It's your typical shifting of blame/goalposts. It must be the scribes fault, not JSJ's growing fish tale that is to blame.

On the other, if they go with this line of reasoning, anything that comes fromt he scribes is therefore suspect and unrelable, the impact is far worse that what Hagoth talked about.

If anything from a scribe is not reliable, then not does that mean that most of the D&C is not reliable and should be discounted, but the ENTIRE BOOK OF MORMON! it was all written by scribes, so by their reasoning, they are not reliably able to transcribe JSJ, every bit of the BOM must be thrown out.

At the end of the day, the church wants to have it both ways on EVERYTHING.

-Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon with both a tight and loose translation.
-The scribes both got it right when it fits history but were misunderstanding Joseph when they got it wrong.
-We're lucky to have multiple First Vision accounts for more detail, so long as it doesn't conflict with the Pearl of Great price version
-Emma Smith was Joseph's 'Beloved Emma,' except that she was kind of awful about accepting Joseph's inspired polygamy revelation
-They were speaking as imperfect men when it was something that's been disavowed, but as prophets otherwise

It's always about protecting Joseph and giving him an out even if it means that the out you give him today screws up the out you gave him yesterday.

Hagoth wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 4:24 pmNephi might have opened with "I Nephi, having been born of goofy parents."

Truth!

Bushman has stated that we don't even know who wrote the 1838 account which is one reason for his dominant narrative isn't true statement.

I suggest members trust the only version Joseph wrote in his own hand.

jfro18 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 4:28 pm It's always about protecting Joseph and giving him an out even if it means that the out you give him today screws up the out you gave him yesterday.

Every once in a while I get this itch. Allow me to scratch it.

Apologists can twist the narratives into pretzels but to what end? To smooth over flaws in Joseph Smith's character? Why? I thought we didn't worship Joseph Smith. If we don't worship Joseph Smith then why are we so preoccupied with creating a near perfect image of Joseph Smith? Does the whole church fall apart without Joseph? If it does then is it Jesus' church or Joseph's church?

Inquiring minds and all that.

Brent wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 7:03 pm I suggest members trust the only version Joseph wrote in his own hand.

This is the problem with blaming the scribes. So many of the "lessons" learned from the FV are dependent on the PofGP version which was not written by JS. The only one written by JS tells a different story.

FiveFingerMnemonic wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 6:54 pm Bushman has stated that we don't even know who wrote the 1838 account which is one reason for his dominant narrative isn't true statement.

Bushman is such an amazing LDS figure to me.

How he knows what he knows and stays in boggles my mind. I really have a hard time believing it's as simple as making $$ off writing faithful church books, but maybe that's all it is.

Either way - the First Vision accounts aren't my top smoking gun or even top 5, but the idea that was presented at the 'Face to Face' was insulting. The differences are not trivial, and trying to explain them away just blows the whole thing up.

RubinHighlander wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 2:36 pm To me this sounds exactly like the "artist's interpretation" (e.g. face in hat vs. urim thummim in church approved pics); just one more scapegoat apologists and the COB can try to use to describe their uncomfortable historical discrepancies between their scrubbed correlated version and the actual facts.

This makes me want to bang my head against a brick wall. It’s so frustrating to me the lengths they’ll go to to hide the truth.

jfro18 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 7:48 pm How he knows what he knows and stays in boggles my mind. I really have a hard time believing it's as simple as making $$ off writing faithful church books, but maybe that's all it is.

The key word here is "stays." Very different from "has a testimony of." I think most members who are aware of Bushman would be quite disappointed if they heard him bear a sincere testimony. He could bear a testimony but it would be nuanced to the ultimate degree. Thomas Stewart Ferguson remained an active member who allowed people to think he was a believer because the church lifestyle worked for him and he didn't want to rock anybody's boat.

Hagoth wrote: ↑Wed Sep 19, 2018 10:51 am The key word here is "stays." Very different from "has a testimony of." I think most members who are aware of Bushman would be quite disappointed if they heard him bear a sincere testimony. He could bear a testimony but it would be nuanced to the ultimate degree. Thomas Stewart Ferguson remained an active member who allowed people to think he was a believer because the church lifestyle worked for him and he didn't want to rock anybody's boat.

In fact: You can hear "testimonies" from both Mr. and Mrs. Bushman on Mormon Stories.

It's been a long while since I listened to those, but if my (failing) memory serves me correctly, neither of them utters the phrase "I know" at any point.