DKL thinks Fawn Brodie should be known as “St. Fawn, the first.”

I actually agree about the slapdash part. I read it and thought, “what is all the fuss about?”

Dan, perhaps you could have caught their eye and said, “he’s my great grandfather, what a guy!”

Is Richard Bushman a good speaker?

Honestly, I find it more disheartening when members of the Church respond unfavorably to the book than when the academy does. I’m irritated when scholars outside the Church refuse to see the merits of Bushman’s approach, but I think I take it more personally when members of the Church dismiss the book as “unfaithful,” or what have you.
I’m glad to know that Bushman has packed so many stake centers; I know when we started teaching from the JS manual, several members of my Elders’ Quorum noted they had read the book.

First of all, Brodie invented the Joseph Smith biography. Before her book, everything was either Sunday School garbage or hatchet jobs. To the extant that Mormons cared about Joseph Smith biography, they dogmatically asserted the Sunday School version, while non-Mormons and the academy dismissively assumed the truth of the hatchet jobs, viewing Joseph the plagiarizer of the Solomon Spaulding manuscript and the charismatic but ignorant front-man for Sidney Rigdon.

Dan Vogel (who’s own recent biography on Joseph Smith has real merit) in Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon stated that Fawn Brodie “delivered the fatal blow to the Spaulding theory….” Jan Schipps wrote in her 1974 essay “The Prophet Puzzle” that, “In 1945 Fawn Brodie completely demolished the Spaulding manuscript myth.” Lester Bush in “The Spalding Theory Then and Now” (Dialogue #10, p57) wrote:

In 1945, Fawn Brodie’s No Man Knows My History was published, a book viewed by most Mormon scholars as transitional between the old “anti-Mormon” school of Mormon History and the New Mormon History.…

Since 1945 serious students of Mormonism have treated the Spaulding theory as little more than a historical curiosity.

Bushman called Bush’s essay “the most definitive discussion” of the Spaulding theory.

When Brodie wrote her book, Hugh Nibley and other apologists attacked it as a hatchet-job that was fundamentally inaccurate. Over the 25 years that followed Brodie’s biography (and largely because of it), the Smith family became among the most thoroughly researched 19th century American families. By the time Donna Hill (wife sister of BYU professor Marvin Hill) wrote her excellent biography of Joseph Smith, she comfortably sided with Brodie against Nibley on every major point of contention between them. The accusation that it’s fundamentally inaccurate doesn’t even pass the laugh test any more. The only remaining room for disagreement is some scattered details and Brodie’s own editorializing.

Nowadays, after 50 years and mountains of additional Joseph Smith research, it’s easy to nitpick Brodie’s work using Hill’s or Bushman’s more detailed and more accurate biographies. Mormons who apologize for BH Roberts’ slapdash history bend over backwards to castigate Brodie for failing to anticipate details uncovered in the decades following her landmark biography. This double standard illustrates one of the worst habits of Mormons; viz., a cult-like aversion to anything that reflects any view — no matter how reasonable — that portrays their church in some way outside of their comfort zone (cf., Mormon reaction to Whitney’s spectacular PBS documentary on Mormonism).

The bottom line: Her work, though dated, has unquestionably stood the test of time. Mormons owe Fawn Brodie a debt of gratitude. She put Joseph Smith on the map by making him come alive to non-Mormons as an energetic and adventuresome man of considerable genius. Were it not for Fawn Brodie and the positive image of Joseph Smith that she pioneered, Harold Bloom may never have had a serious thought about Joseph. Those who say that Bushman’s bio competes in the same league with Brodie’s give him very high praise indeed.

Remini’s biography is good, but it’s categorically different. Remini wrote his bio as survey-type history that avoids the serious arguments surrounding Joseph’s thought.

Annegb:

Bushman is a dry and somewhat deadpan speaker, but not at all stiff, and I didn’t find him boring at all. He’s down to earth, attentive and respectful to questions, and clearly fascinated and enthusiastic about the subject matter. His faith comes out more in his fireside than in the book. (One of the more candid and fascinating admissions I found in Bushman’s memoir On The Road With Joseph Smith was his lamenting that Terryl Givens gets more credibility with scholars than he does because Givens is better at hiding his faith.)

I haven’t heard this argument that the “burned over district” was a figment of Joseph’s imagination or whipped up by the Church post hoc. I have heard some dispute the veracity of the First Vision because the religious enthusiasms happened a year or two later than when Joseph Smith was 15. Bushman covers a lot of this with his prior book Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism. If RSR is a rejoinder to Brodie, Bushman’s Beginnings can be viewed (at least partially) as a rejoinder to Quinn’s Early Mormonism and the Magical World View

Ellsworth:

I teach Elder’s Quorum in my ward, and one the Elders brings his copy of Rough Stone Rolling to Church every day along with his Priesthood manual.

It was just my personal opinion. I’ve never heard anyone else have it.

From the reviews and commentary I’ve seen on Brodie’s book, it seems to be no more than a hatchet job, only relevant and noteworthy for Freudians and disillusioned members. Often these are those who put their “faith” in the known rather than the unknown. That is from a member of a generation completely unfamiliar with Brodie except anecdotally.

Personally, I have found RSR to be hardly apologetic and more often than not, curious. I have found myself drawing conclusions and asking questions as well as finding that Bushman himself displays great integrity in wisely leaving questions unanswered.

For telling the story of Joseph Smith from a pessimistic and hostile point of view, Brodie might be someone’s cup of tea. However, the story of someone’s life and especially their psyche must be told in terms of their values, something Bushman is far more qualified to do.

RSR has been thoroughly educational for me.

nasamomdele, I was never excited about Joseph Smith until I read Fawn Brodie. In many ways, Brodie’s portrayal of Joseph is more flattering to Joseph than Bushman’s portrayal. From reading both bios, one might justifiably conclude that Brodie actually likes Joseph more than Bushman does. She just doesn’t believe in his prophetic mission, that’s all. It’s not really that big of a deal. Most people don’t believe in Joseph’s prophetic mission. But Mormonism has never quite seen fit to forgive her (the niece of prophet David McKay) for writing Joseph’s history as a non-Mormon. That insider-outsider dynamic is a mean one.

At the time it was written, so much of Brodie’s biography of Joseph was controversial to Mormons, and that’s the source of the popular misconception that she’s negative. Decades later, those controversies have been resolved. And they’ve been resolved in her (and in Joseph’s) favor. Thanks to her, we know Joseph so much better than we otherwise could have. It’s not so much a case of history written by the winners, but a case of an historian winning.

Dan Ellsworth: I don’t see how someone could take a serious look at his life and conclude.. about him [that he was a fraud].

There are those who would say, “I don’t see how someone could take a serious look at Joseph’s life and conclude about him that he was not a fraud.” There’s the kinderhook plates. There are the bogus claims about the Chandler papyri. There are the unfulfilled prophecies about Independence, Missouri. There’s the bizarre and paranoid behavior toward Rigdon that characterized the final year of his life. There’s Zelph. I could go on and on. I’m fully aware of the apologetic treatment of such difficulties, but claiming that there’s a preponderance of evidence that Joseph was a prophet is like claiming that the Bible is self-evidently true.

And there were many Mormons who became altogether disaffected from Joseph Smith in spite of their personal acquaintance with him (without googling, Ezra Booth comes to mind). They don’t get as much historical coverage, because they drop totally out of the picture.

As far as Nibley goes, if you want serious scriptural scholarship, read Catholic or Jewish scholars.

I think it’s perfectly plausible to claim that Joseph Smith was a fraud. I think it’s implausible to claim he was an amiable, likable, and conscious fraud with mesmerizing powers over others. Particularly as regards the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, you have to either (a) disregard the most intimate witnesses of the translation process or (b) impute to him supernatural hypnotic powers of persuasion. I don’t say this as an apology for the Book of Mormon or some attempt to “prove” its divine provenance; merely as a problem of how you treat the sources. Better, as Bushman does, to bracket the truth claims and look at how the people at the time took it. Brodie, and Vogel, and many others, can’t do that. They just can’t believe it, and I think it does violence to their methods as historians. They cannot ever be content with merely explaining Joseph, they have to explain him away.

It is possible to not believe Joseph Smith is a prophet and still get a lot of insight into Joseph Smith by reading RSR. If you believe Joseph Smith is a prophet, as I do, you get very little insight into him by reading Brodie. I agree with DKL that Brodie, and others, developed a great deal of affection for their subjects. I hardly see how that is relevant to the craft of history or whether this “benefits” the Church and its depictions in the outside world. I echo Ellsworth’s point that very few of those who knew Joseph well thought he was a fraud; they thought he had lost what he once had. That’s very different.

Here we confront the tension that will always be between believing Mormons and the rest of the world. It’s why, to my larger point, the Mormon quest for respectability is doomed to fail. We want to have our cake and eat it too. We want our founding prophet to be interesting but interesting as a prophet, not as an amiable fraud. We want people to take his thinking seriously without disparaging our truth claims. I don’t think we need the world to convert; but we sure seem to be hungry for their admiration. We want the world to be excited about Joseph Smith; we want him to get his due, as Josiah Quincy said, as the most important American of the 19th century, even more than Lincoln. But if he gets that due as trickster charlatan, we won’t be happy. No matter how affectionate or attention-getting it is, the Brodie school of scholarship will always grate.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on the value of Nibley’s scholarship, but to characterize his output as idiocy is fighting words to me. I’ve read everything by him in print, and attended some of his classes and watched others on videotape, including the wonderful “Faith of an Observer”. We’ll table that for later, if I can even engage the question without popping a blood vessel.

I wasn’t aware that Bushman’s book came out a year before Quinn’s. I read them in reverse order, and it to me was a remarkable refutation. That may reflect my biases more than either author’s actual books, but I’ll now have to consider Bushman’s book as a prolepsis.

So far as the First Vision goes, I refer you to Welch’s Opening the Heavens. Brodie claims that it “apparently did not fix itself in the minds of members of his own family” and that “it was some half-remembered dream” or maybe even “sheer invention, when the need arose for a magnificent tradition” (p.25) We have here classic projection; it is Brodie’s, and not Joseph’s, imagination that “was as untrammeled as the whole West.”

The First Vision did not play a role in the early Church; the Book of Mormon did that. Nothing further or more miraculous was needed. Visions were commonplace, as even Brodie mentions. Books translated by seerstones were not (Brodie claims they were, but never backs this assertion up by any evidence, unless think count Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Aztecs, and hermetic Europeans as part of his New England milieu). It wasn’t talked about because it wasn’t crucial to the truth claims of the new religion. It probably has too much emphasis today, in my opinion. Nevertheless, the accounts of the First Vision collected by Welch show the First Vision to be very well attested.

Jeff Bennion: Brodie’s main thesis is that Joseph was an amiable and charismatic, fraud who mesmerized his followers into believing nonsense.

This is way off, Jeff. Her main thesis is that Joseph was an energetic, adventuresome, ingenious man who succeeded where thousands of others failed. This is obvious from the first chapter to the last. Her view that Joseph was a fraud was a byproduct, something that she never argues and simply assumes.

This has got to be one of the best threads I have ever read on the ‘naccle. And I am absolutely serious.

DKL, I think I love you.

I have this conversation all the time, and it always goes the same way:

Me: Fawn Brodie put Joseph on the map, transforming him from a plagiarizing nitwit to a full-fledged religious genius who can plausibly be credited with creating one of the worlds greatest religious traditions.

Someone else: But she thinks that Joseph is a fraud!

You get the idea.

It’s strange, really. I’ve argued with otherwise intelligent people like Nate Oman or Jed Woodworth, who seek to diminish everything she did — even arguing against the rather obvious fact that she torpedoed the Solomon Spaulding theory of Book of Mormon authorship. This is what I mean when I refer to the cult-like aversion to anything that reflects any view — no matter how reasonable — that portrays their church in some way outside of their comfort zone.

If any of us had a conversation with a non-Mormon friend who had an opinion about Joseph half as positive as Brodie’s, we’d be flattered by what they had to say. But for some reason, when it’s put in a book that convinces non-Mormons to have a high opinion of Joseph, too many people weaselly focus on the fact that she doesn’t believe in Joseph’s prophetic mission. Strange indeed.

tiredmormon, thanks for the kind words.

Bushman wanted a book to replace Brodie’s, which he feels is a poor book, not to mention dated. Actually in John Dehlin’s interview, Bushman says that he things that her treatment of Joseph is “sympathetic,” if I remember correctly.

DKL, surely you can understand why many Mormons take umbrage to writings that promote Joseph as fraud. Surely Joseph as delusional is more acceptable for a Mormon to accept from a non-Mormon than the fraud theory.

Your point that non-LDS have little by way of alternative is well made. But I think it is the level of deceit imputed to Joseph Smith that quite understandably raises the hackles of many Mormons.

As for Nibley it is interesting since he was assigned the job of attacking the book. There was that infamous interview the Student Review did back around ’91 that had Nibley purportedly saying, “well I had to write something.” For all its flaws as an actual engagement with Brodie it is pretty interesting as a modern version of classic Roman satire. But I think everyone can agree that the books and essays collected in Tinkling Cymbals are Nibley’s worst stuff.

Actually, Clark, I don’t understand why it bugs Mormons so much. I have a problem with your phrase “promote Joseph as a fraud,” specifically with the verb “promote.” Brodie doesn’t promote the idea that he’s a fraud. She simply assumes it. Most people assume it. By imputing to Brodie this notion that she is somehow “promoting” Joseph as a fraud, you display the exact same hang-ups that I try to illustrate in my summarized conversation from comment 23.

And I emphatically disagree that delusional is preferable to fraudulent. In fact, it seems to me that the claim that delusional is preferable to fraudulent is just one more maneuver to find something (anything!) to diminish the impact of Joseph’s work. If we disagree about whether Joseph was sane, we’re basically saying that his achievements were more or less accidents or freak historical occurrences. If we disagree about whether he was genuine, we can still agree on the significance of his achievements. Joseph the lunatic gets little credit. Joseph the charlatan is much more likely to be seen as a major actor on the historical landscape.

Again, this is a strange conversation no matter how you cut it.

You miss the point, Jeff. You’re accept-us-as-legit-or-nothing attitude is silly. Academics and pundits are going to view all devoutly religious people as dupes. The question is whether we’re any more stupid than the average lot of religionists. Mormons are fond of quoting Harold Bloom’s depiction of Joseph, and his words to the effect that the miracles in Mormonism are no more strange than those of Christianity as a whole. This view was impossible to hold up before Brodie’s book appeared. And it’s difficult to hold up even nowadays without it.

I appreciate your attempt to answer my praise of Brodie on some other grounds than her opinion that he was a fraud. Even so, you’re wrong: To the extant that non-Mormons had an opinion of Joseph Smith at all before Brodie came along, they viewed him a plagiarizing nitwit. He was a subject of interest only to Mormons, and he was not even a serious subject of interest among them. All the real Mormon history up until that time (and even into the 1970s) was western history; e.g., The Great Basin Kingdom. Most non-Mormon scholars at the time viewed the Utah church as Brigham’s church based on the kinds of scholarly studies that Mormons themselves were doing; and to the extant that there was a pre-Brigham church the credit went to Sydney Rigdon.

Arrington et. al. were doing history primarily about the post-Nauvoo Mormon church; e.g., Arrington’s biography of Brigham Young spends about 70 pages covering Brigham’s life through the Nauvoo period, and it only really digs in once the saints head west. Non-scholarly Mormons approached Joseph as an icon rather than an object of historical study. If Joseph was already so fascinating, then why weren’t there any real biographies written on Joseph before Brodie? Where’s the pre-Brodie mass of published historical research that pre-dates her landmark biography? If Joseph was such a subject of legitimate historical interest, then where are the pre-Brody historical studies of him? Why was every biography before Brodie’s lacking in seriousness and real history for either being dismissive or exalting? Can you name more than a handful of people besides Joseph Smith about whom there are biographies dating back 5 decades that are still considered definitive? Can you name even one? You can’t rewrite history to make it sound as if Joseph was accepted as a legitimate historical figure before Brodie. Yours is a losing argument, Jeff.

As far as Nibley is concerned, he built his reputation treating obscure topics resistant to critical treatment by a larger audience. In “No Ma’am, That’s Not History,” Nibley confronted something that has become a well-known body of historical data. In retrospect, he is easily shown to be bamboozling his readers. This is not the exception with Nibley. It is the rule.

Jeff Bennion: No, DKL. You miss my point. I’m not demanding non-Mormon scholars accept my prophet on my own terms. I’m refusing to accept him on theirs.

Then you’re point is altogether irrelevant. If you can’t recognize the value of scholarship that doesn’t suit your prejudices, then that’s a maturity issue.

Jeff Bennion: My search of BYU’s library collections shows a total of 2184 books with the subject of Joseph Smith… Your argument that Smith was ignored before her is patently wrong.

Excuse me, but you’re burning a straw man. I never argued that Joseph Smith was ignored. I argued that neither academics nor Mormons engaged him as figure of legitimate historical inquiry. It might be interesting to know how many books answer to the subject of Scooby Doo, but that doesn’t tell us whether he’s being accorded the scholarly treatment he deserves. And trust me, I know the pre-Brodie literature a good deal better than you do.

Regarding the quality of the Mormon literature, after L.L. Rice discovered in 1884 that the actual Spaulding Manuscript was among the papers he bought from E.D. howe in 1839, James Fairchild published an analysis concluding, “the Spaulding theory will have to be relinquished” (“Solomon Spaulding and the Book of Mormon,” Bibliotheca Sacra 60:173-174). Of the dozen or so biographies published by non-Mormons between the publication of Fairchild’s analysis and Brodie’s bio, only three bios gave Fairchild’s analysis any real consideration: those by Woodbridge Riley, Eduard Myer, and Walter F. Prince. Each of these is dismissive of Joseph Smith, treating him as either a nutcase or a lightweight (typically both), but in any case a mere historical curiosity related to a bizarre religion.

Given Fairchild’s analysis, no work following it that credits the Spaulding theory can be considered well-researched. Notable works that stuck to the Spaulding theory before Brodie torpedoed it include Gregg’s The Prophet of Palmyra (1890), William Linn’s The Story of the Mormons, Schroeder’s The Origin of the Book of Mormon tract (1906) (upon which the modern Spaulding theory is based), Charles Shook’s The True Origin of the Book of Mormon, Martins’ The Mystery of Mormonism (1920), Harry Beardsley’s Joseph Smith and his Mormon Empire (1931), Arbaugh’s Revelation in Mormonism: It’s Changing Form (1932), and Tyler’s Freedom’s Ferment (1944). And these biographies that I’ve mentioned are the cream of the crop as far as non-Mormon studies of Joseph.

The question isn’t whether Joseph Smith’s name sold books — it did. The question is whether these are anything more than pot-boilers and hatchet jobs — they’re not.

Jeff Bennion: Brodie was riding a wave of popularizing postwar modern historians (Tuchman, Durant). I guess I favor a “naturalistic” and “environmentalist” explanation for the Brodie phenomenon. She was a product of the times.

Saying that someone is a product of their times is like saying they breath. There is no environment-less behavior, and Fawn Brodie is as much a product of her times as Joseph Smith. Fawn Brodie remains one of the pre-eminant historical biographers of the 20th century. You can’t dismiss the naturalistic approach simply because it was in vogue at some times more than others. It is now what it was then: a valid approach to history, even if there are more alternatives today.

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar relates supernatural portents that surrounded Caesar’s death. He didn’t make these up. They appear in contemporary accounts. Historians nowadays tend to explain them away or ignore them. Do you wish to attack those historians, too? Should we take seriously every account of the supernatural? Are we to credit all the accounts of virgin births and not just Jesus’? You can’t just pretending that naturalism is an unfortunate phase in historical scholarship.

Jeff Bennion: Nibleys argument about Brodie’s uncritical reception by its reviewers in his “No Ma’am” pamphlet is spot on and has been richly vindicated….

The problem with that quote is that the sources have been checked, and they bear themselves out. That’s why, when it comes to every major point of contention offered by Nibley, Hill and Bushman side with Brodie. Even Nibley’s account of how biographies must not be psychologically oriented is off. Bushman psychologizes like crazy.

“There is no environment-less behavior”

-That’s bad psychology, at least to 50% of psychologists.

Having not read Brodie, I can’t say much about the merits of her biography, but I have to say that a psychoanalysis approach to a biography scares me. I wholeheartedly respect your admiration of Brodie’s work, DKL, even if I hold my doubts about the validity of her approach and methods of putting it forth. There is no reason why her biography could not “questionably” the premier work on Joseph Smith. I would question that, mostly because I had never heard of it until yesterday. As well, in my academic experience, I have found many a reason to doubt what people call “scholarly” and “academic”.

That being said, you have no reason to take shots at Nibley, except that he once bashed Brodie and wrote another thing you don’t like. I love Nibley’s work, especially his writings about the temple and consecration. Not that he spoke revelation to any extent, but he definitely did some teaching. His contributions to the historicity of the Scriptures are especially laudable in my mind. If his works are to be considered idiocy, I would be first to hide under a rock for fear that I have not found in my brain one original thought that would come close to some of his.

As far as I can tell, the prominence or validity of authors and their works is unarguable, at best. As the Russians say, you can’t argue preference.

On a side note, this discussion led to a conversation with my wife last night. I tried to think of a time when I got excited about Joseph Smith and why. I came to the conclusion that it was in the MTC, when I had to memorize the first vision. I could tell, every time that I read the text, that it was a powerful bit of narrative that 1)I needed to nail every word every time and 2)that I needed to know more about. I memorized it well and read JSH and of course read:

“25 So it was with me. I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two Personages, and they did in reality speak to me; and though I was hated and persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true; and while they were persecuting me, reviling me, and speaking all manner of evil against me falsely for so saying, I was led to say in my heart: Why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually seen a vision; and who am I that I can withstand God, or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it; at least I knew that by so doing I would offend God, and come under condemnation.”

And I think this was the time when I really got excited about Joseph Smith. Reading RSR has been educational and enlightening, but has done little to add to that except fill in some almost insignificant gaps. I reject the idea that Joseph Smith must be flattered, in writing or in (groan) art. Speaking experientially, what is central for me is not necessarily who Joseph was in personality or psyche, but what God did through him. The relationship between God and Joseph is my interest. My faith and testimony demand that perspective. I believe that approaching the prophet any other way would be light reading, at best. I think Bushman provides this to the Mormon audience from page one. That is definitely an inherent bias, but purely out of necessity.

If I were a secularist, I would probably see the merits of Brodie’s biography more. I’m afraid that my personal religious biases leave me simply not interested, perhaps only because of subject matter.

I think Nasamomdele leads us out of our doom-to-disappoinment in our search for academic, artistic, or theatrical respectability. It probably won’t get better than Brodie or Kushner’s “Angels in America,” both of which in their own flawed ways to manage to offer a cracked sort of reverence to their subjects.

DKL #35. We’re still talking past each other. Perhaps I misunderstood you, but you have been arguing that since Brodie thinks Joseph Smith was smart enough to invent a religion, that this is preferable to the biographies that came before hers because (1) she got other scholars to pay attention to the subject and (2) at least they don’t treat him as a demon or a Saint or a “plagiarizing nitwit”. I think I agree with you that Brodie’s biography was the best non-Mormon biography to date. But as you say, that’s faint praise anyway. It was a low bar to hurdle. So even acknowledging that, taking it beyond history, I’m not simply petulantly refusing to recognize her scholarly contribution. My petulance is located in my refusal to concede as a believer that scholarly condescension is preferable to religious intolerance. I won’t concede that Brodie pays any more respect to my faith by depicting Joseph as a charming (“sympathetic”) fraud than the former ones who denounced Joseph Smith as a tool of Satan. Both of them pay him quite a bit respect, whether those prodigious talents are located in charisma or demonic power is the only difference. I also think you wrongly attribute the scholarly attention that has come to Smith as being Brodie’s doing. Smith was already an irresistible figure; that’s why I cite the number of books written about him. It wasn’t a comment on quality, it was a comment on the level of interest. Whether for good or ill, we can say that Moroni’s prophecy has been fulfilled about Joseph.

I wonder if some of our disagreement about whether Brodie’s book doesn’t have any problems comes from the fact that we’re referring to different books. When I say that her sources don’t check out and her logic is flawed, I am referring mostly to the 1945 edition. Perhaps you are referring to the 1971 edition when you say it does. Starting with the very second printing, Brodie slipped in, without acknowledgment until 1971, hundreds of revisions. (If I were as ungenerous with her as you are with Nibley, I would accuse her of “bamboozle-ing” us) By the time we get to the second edition, its most egregious flaws have all been thrown down the memory hole.

Some of these errors were elementary and shocking but unimportant to the larger thesis in her book. Like mistakenly identifying Nephi, rather than Lehi, as the leader of the expedition to the new world. Or getting the date of their departure to the promised land wrong by 1200 years. A few months after the first edition, she wrote Dale Morgan that

There’s really no excuse for . . . the error that the Nephites came to America in 600 A.D. instead of B.C. Golly, I know that date as well as my own birthday, and how I could have blundered so I can’t imagine. Incidentally the latter error was pointed out to me by no less a person than the Catholic Bishop of Salt Lake City–Hunt.

But as I say, these errors do not harm her overall argument. But people did call her out due to her overly flip dismissals, like her claim that all of the ideas Joseph put in the Book of Mormon can be uncovered by painstaking research.
Herbert Brayer, a non-Mormon historian–and not one of those “gentlemanly” literary reviewers Nibley derided–admonished her that she “falls into serious error” in making this claim, and if in fact it were true, she “would indeed owe her readers another volume in proof.” Overall, I hasten to add, Brayer quite liked the book, though he criticized her for attempting “to dress up already excellent work by coloring episodes in such a manner as to leave her open to criticism by objective readers… it will be the cause of considerable adverse comment” and he disagreed with those who described it as a “definitive biography”. Clearly Brayer, for all his affection for the book, was waiting for another book to be the definitive biography.

You say that Hill checked out all her sources and found them sound. Again, Brodie made hundreds of corrections over time, but Hill is much more ambivalent about her book than you characterize. Maybe this is where you think her demolishing the Spaulding theory is so salutary? But as Hill pointed out, she merely replaced that theory with the Ethan Smith theory, that has him borrowing the Book of Mormon materials from Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews. Among her many silent revisions is her backing away from this argument, so it barely appears in a more slapdash, noncommital way, in the 1971 edition. Hill sums up the problem of a historian evaluating Joseph’s truth claims this way:

The historian has no sources written with the finger of God to prove that Joseph Smith was called to his divine mission, nor does he have any human sources to prove conclusively that he was not. One’s answers to this cosmic question depend entirely upon the assumptions he brings to it–assumptions about the nature of the world and man’s place in it; these rest in the last analysis upon personal predilection, not historical evidence.

Hill says that Brodie “mistakenly tries to answer” this question, to which there can never be a satisfactory one in history.

Brodie herself confided to Dale Morgan that “the historical magazines have not been too kind to me,” referring to Brayer’s review among others. This erodes Hill’s contention in 1971 (repeated in 1974) that her book was almost unanimously well-received by historical professionals. That contention he himself did not support with any citations that I could see.

To advance our understanding of this a little further, let’s examine the question of the First Vision in detail. As we do so, we will examine Brodie’s approach to this and then Nibley’s response to it. In doing so, I think we will discover their respective flaws and virtues. In doing so, we don’t want to overvalue Nibley. Milton Hunter, John A. Widstoe, and Albert E. Bowen also wrote Latter-day Saint reviews of her work within the same time. These may be superior to Nibley’s, but I am not familiar with them.

But that discussion will have to wait for tomorrow, if I get time. For now, it’s bed.

“This last foray attempts to characterize my argument as:

1. she got other scholars to pay attention to the subject
2. at least they don’t treat him as a demon or a Saint or a “plagiarizing nitwit”

Though I nowhere say either of these.”

Actually DKL, you did. More than once.

(By the way, I’m happy to continue our fun and lively discussion about Fawn Brodie, and I’m fine with continuing that on our comment thread here. I have lots more to say about Brodie if we want to go there. If everyone else is sick of it, we can move on.)

Our readers (if there are any left) will have to judge who is serially changing his arguments and who is “daft”. What I am trying to do is advance and flesh out my points with more details, in the hopes that others will find them interesting. To me, that’s more interesting than a deteriorating shouting match. So in each of my comments I try to flesh out the subject with further observations and details.

As I promised, I’ll talk a little bit more about the First Vision. We now know a lot about the production of the book thanks to her papers, that are up at the University of Utah. We learn how much of a gray eminence Dale Morgan was for her. There was also a fawning (pardon the bad pun) biography written of her by Newell Bringhurst in 1999, which is also very illuminating.

We learn from her correspondence with Morgan that it was his idea originally that there never was a First Vision. Morgan thought it was remarkable that there were no comtemporary newspaper accounts of the First Vision, given how Smith claims in the canonized version of his history that it excited a great deal of comment and persecution of him. So Brodie claimed (in 1945) that the First Vision never happened, and that no one in the Church knew about this until Smith started dictating his history in 1838.

But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And as we develop her shifting approaches to the topic, thereby providing an example of what I mean by Brodie’s slapdash approach that only holds water if you don’t think about it too hard. Brodie said there was a need, after 1840, for a consolidating founding vision. Why after 1840? Why not 1830, or sometime in the 30s? What was special about that time? If Brodie has any idea, she doesn’t tell her readers. There is no argument made why something like the First Vision would be necessary then. What needed to be consolidated, and how did inventing the First Vision accomplish this? It’s funny, because when it suits her, she’s never shy about telling us what Joseph is thinking and why. But she doesn’t tell us why Joseph Smith needed to invent it then. She subtly backs off of this in the 1971 edition, in her “Supplement”. (And DKL, she did not acknowledge changes in her biography UNTIL the 1971 edition. The changes prior to that didn’t change the pagination, if you want to be uncharitable, so that it wouldn’t tip people off, or to be charitable, because it would have cost a lot more to have the book’s type entirely re-cast. As it was, out of the $1100 she made through the first printing of the book, they docked her $350 from all the changes she made to the final galleys.)

Brodie’s claim that the First Vision didn’t happen isn’t an argument, really. It’s intellectual duck hunting. You shoot a bunch of scattershot up there and pray to Clio that at least some of that buckshot will hit the duck. But the Muse of History wasn’t kind to Brodie, as much earlier accounts of the First Vision eventually surfaced.

Hugh Nibley, meanwhile, makes a variety of excellent points about the illogic of the claim, but then he digs up an earlier reference to “the Vision” and basically says to Brodie, “Gotcha!,” lording his skills over her and taking a potshot about how come she couldn’t locate this obvious and easy source. This is typical Nibley style, and is part of what makes him so fun to read, his obvious relish and panache in defending the Church. But occasionally, as here, it misfires, badly and embarrassingly. As he should have known, “the Vision” referred to in source he dug out was the vision of the Celestial Kingdom in section 76. Oops!

Meanwhile, as more sources come to light (Dean Jesse has collected over 15 accounts, some as early as 1833) Brodie has to back off from her claim that the First Vision was invented in 1838. In her Supplement in 1971, she just throws up more scattershot, now instead of giving any specific dates, saying it was invented and embellished with details modified to suit Joseph and the particular circumstances required. This isn’t an argument either. It’s trying to continue to cast doubt on the validity of something, but not in the service of any larger narrative or argument. I’m glad you raised the point of her Jefferson Biography, DKL, because one of the reviewers of her Jefferson book complained about her “hint and run” methods, where she asks “a rhetorical question, and then [she proceeds] on the assumption that it has been settled in her favor, making the first surmise a basis for second and third ones, in a towering rickety structure of unsupported conjecture.” Other reviewers of her Jefferson biography complained about her “shifting sands of speculation” (which is a perfect description of what she does with the First Vision, or her accounting of how the Book of Mormon came about) or her tendency to apply “intuition to scholarship” and criticized her numerous “historical slips”.

Of course, these historians were angry about her charges that Jefferson had an affair with Sally Hemings. DNA research, as DKL points out, now suggests that Jefferson (or perhaps another close family member of his) did father a child with her.

But to make a claim is not to prove it. Brodie’s book did not itself provide anything in the way of new evidence or argument. The charge of Jefferson consorting with his slave, of course, was an old one and hardly original to Brodie.

If we are to give Brodie credit for having a hunch which–no thanks to her book, but to DNA research–later proves correct, then by that same standard we must say that Nibley was right when he said it was preposterous that the First Vision was invented in the 1840s. The evidence he used to back up that claim was terribly flawed, as was Brodie’s evidence for Jefferson’s affair. You can give points to both if you want, but I’m going to be Simon Cowell here and not give them to either.

You are welcome to your opinion that she was one of the finest biographers of the 20th century, but the kindest thing to be said about that is this is not a widely shared belief.

Not quite psychoanalysis, Jeff, but good.

Things have progressed since I last posted. Allow me to return to DKL’s rejoinder to me in #31. The reason I think “delusion” is more acceptable than “fraud” is because at least delusion allows that Joseph was acting on religious experience. It just denies the reality signified by those experiences. How can a Mormon get upset at that?

It’s akin to someone telling me, “I recognize you’ve had experiences. I just don’t believe that they meant what you think they meant.” I get people telling me this all the time. It doesn’t bother me in the least.

Now if someone instead tells me, “you’re lying about those experiences. Your whole reason for being Mormon is nothing but self-deception.” Then I tend to get upset.

I’m really surprised you see this as problematic whereas it seems the more natural approach there is.

Like Jeff I also am frankly bemused that you appear to think Mormons shouldn’t take umbridge to being cast into a naturalistic setting that denies anything religious. Of course we will and we will criticize it. I don’t mind Dan Vogel, for instance, interpreting Mormon history in light of a thoroughgoing naturalism that only accepts as real what has already been scientifically established as real. I don’t think that entails that I must accept it or refrain from criticizing it.

DKL,

You guys are really scraping the bottom of the Mormon intellectual barrel. This is like arguing with creationists — it’s that bad.

That’s called flailing.
We all have pet issues, and the issue that seems to raise your ire more than any other is how we as members of the Church treat dissenters whose “offenses” are of the intellectual variety. I think it’s important for people to know that about you so they don’t take your insults personally.

DKL,

Yes, ALL psychological theories recognize an assumption of environment. Without such there is no interaction. It comes down to which ones subscribe and depend on environment as the stock to their flows. One can speak of environment without speaking of determinism. Maslow and later humanists threw environment as determinant out, especially in light of psychobiographies of the “self-actualized” such as Gandhi. Their theories had to throw out the environmental determinism you’ve suggested quite bluntly.
To be clear, on the other side of the theoretical spectrum from environment lies organism- the focus of influence. Opposite determinism lies freedom. Opposite the entrenchment/unchangeability of skepticism lies optimism- changeability.
From these paradigms, psychoanalysis- the tool of Brodie- is 100% skeptical, environmental-organism 50/50, and 100% deterministic. I don’t believe humans fall into any of these.
And so, even if we were to subscribe to Brodie and therefore Freud, it would fly in the face of your statement that the relationship between Joseph Smith and God is irrelevant. According to Freud, Joseph Smith’s psyche would have been shaped in a dramatic way by that relationship, “perceived, faked, or otherwise.” Relationships of authority are lynchpins to Freud, especially in the time period of Joseph’s life when the first Vision took place.
I hope Brodie got that part right. But then, I have this conversation all the time.

DKL I admit I’m pretty confused. If by naturalism we mean the idea that we can only discuss what has already been scientifically been established then exactly how can you accept naturalism? (Of course the broader naturalism in which everything is scientifically knowable I have no trouble with)

The idea that I only take umbrage when it gores my pig is silly. I think such a view of naturalism is just plain wrong in every context.

My question to you is how on earth your reconcile your religious views with this positivistic conception of naturalism. You can’t, that I can see. It demands that you keep quiet about religion until science can say something.

So either you’re holding to a double standard or else you have some odd beliefs here.

As for hating Brodie, where on earth did you get that? As I said I don’t mind Vogel or Brodie adopting as a premise naturalism. But neither will I accept it. Let’s not conflate anger or emotional distress with intellectual disagreement. Intellectually I don’t see how you can take this stance.

In any case comparing this with Creationism is silly. The problem with Creationism is that it promotes ideas that contradict science. By and large I suspect most here have a trouble saying nothing is true that science is silent on. A big difference.

I think I have to go back to the beginning here.

“Saying that someone is a product of their times is like saying they breathe. There is no environment-less behavior, and Fawn Brodie is as much a product of her times as Joseph Smith.”

“nasamomdele, I don’t understand what makes, “There is no environment-less behavior” bad psychology. It’s actually a truism. Can you name one behavior that occurs outside of an environment?”

“Far from suggesting environmental determinism “quite bluntly,” I don’t even so much as imply it…How does environmental determinism follow from that?”

Sorry, I (not you) implied determinism from the original statement you made about “products of their environment.” To me, that equals “determined”. Bad psychology because only 50% of psychology subscribes to the environmental determinism I implied from your original comment.

“And regarding Freud: You said that you were interested in Joseph’s relationship with the figure that you worship as God. I didn’t take you to mean by this that you were interested in the Freudian interpretation of his perception of his relationship with God.”

You’ve implied something here that simply boggles my mind.

And I really don’t think anyone hates Fawn Brodie here, we are simply not convinced that either her approach or her product are valid or reliable in representing Joseph Smith. It’s simply a critical approach.

Now wait a sec Clark. No trying to be reasonable here.

We all know you “hate” Fawn Brodie and think DKL is going to hell. So there.

Clark, it’s fine to have issues with naturalism, and not everyone has to be a naturalist. The question isn’t whether you prefer naturalism. The questions is whether naturalism is a prevalent, accepted, and legitimate approach to history.

I think you’re trying to turn it into this issue but I don’t think anyone else is.

I certainly consider naturalism a legitimate approach to history. It doesn’t mean I can’t attack it or assumptions within it.

I’m intrigued to hear about other peoples’ experiences with “Rough Stone Rolling”. I am one who really appreciates what Richard Bushman has done. I got a chance to meet him this past summer while we were still living in Utah, because he has a summer home in Provo. I drove by and saw him outside with his family on a Sunday afternoon. I felt like I should stop and just say thank you for writing the book. I think I was about half-way into it then, but I’d also read ahead in some parts. After getting my courage up with the support of my wife (and also after driving by three times) I did stop and walked up and knocked on his door. He answered and he’s really a nice guy. I thanked him and shared some of my experience reading it. He was genuinely thankful that I would stop by (who does that?) and he was even interested in me and made the connection that we both grew up in Oregon (although years apart). I’m glad I did that. I finished RSR after moving to Texas and decided to blog about my experience reading the book. If you don’t mind, I’ll re-post it here. Maybe it will add another perspective.

My Paradigm Shift: Joseph Smith & “Rough Stone Rolling”:
One thing that I’ve been doing recently is trying to see Latter-day Saints from the perspective of others. This has been an eye-opening experience. I’ve become a lot more sympathetic to those not of our faith, or at least more aware of how we may be portraying ourselves for better or for worse. The days are over that we can simply dismiss our quirkiness as being because we are a “peculiar people”. We can do better than that to articulate our beliefs and to build bridges to others willing to venture into conversation about religion.

Here’s a quote that’s especially applicable now that it’s somehow become a national pastime to disparage and/or criticize Mormons simply because one of them is running for President and it puts the Church in the spotlight:

“We may never become accustomed to untrue and unjust criticism of us but we ought not to be immobilized by it.”
-Elder Neal A. Maxwell

Something that has actually helped to “mobilize” me recently is to face some of those criticisms head on. I figure we ought to know more about our history (and doctrine for that matter) than our critics. Looking back on it now, reading Joseph Smith-Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman was a perfect platform on which to do this. For those who haven’t read it yet, let me fill you in by quoting from a Times and Seasons blog that reviewed the book and then interviewed the author (who I happened to meet on his doorstep, but that’s another story):

“Rough Stone Rolling is the definitive biography of Joseph Smith for this generation. Bushman does an able, if not artful, job of telling the prophet’s story. His reading of Joseph’s use of seer stones, of his troubled relationship with his financially unsuccessful father, of the Book of Mormon’s countercultural take on Native Americans, and of the changing place of women and blacks in unfolding LDS theology are gems. But Joseph Smith, in this book, is not a majestic, triumphant, haloed, barely-mortal dispensation head. He is, by Bushman’s portrait, a flawed man—one making many mistakes and subject to many weaknesses. His straightforward style might be a little jarring to those used to sanitized Church history, but this book is and will be the benchmark biography of the founding prophet for a long time.” (http://www.timesandseasons.org/?p=2759)

I happen to agree with this review, except for the word “troubled” to describe Joseph’s relationship with his father. However, I could certainly use the word “troubled” to describe Joseph and Emma’s relationship as a result of the murky plural marriage picture. That could very well be added into the review. I don’t say this to dwell on controversial topics (although I’m certainly not afraid of them.) On the contrary, I invite questioning because out of questioning come answers, growth, and revelation. It can also prompt valuable discussion. And this book does just that. So I thought I’d share some thoughts I have about my experience with Joseph Smith-Rough Stone Rolling, and how it has shifted my paradigm of Joseph Smith.

First off, here’s where I now stand with my paradigm: Joseph was a man who did incredible things in his life. Some of the things he did bug me. Most of the things he did amaze me. This I know: Through it all, he was a prophet called to restore the gospel of Jesus Christ and build the foundation for God’s kingdom in the last dispensation of the world. Perfection was never required to be a prophet. So while my testimony has never been stronger of the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith, I’m no longer under any false impression about Joseph Smith the man being nearly without fault, which is the impression that sometimes has been given in Sunday School or on those BYU-TV commercials trying to sell you something about “the Life and Times of the Prophet Joseph Smith.” Nor does this take away from my testimony of the greatness of the restored gospel. In fact, I think it actually adds to it.

My testimony has never been linked to whether Joseph was impeccable or not. It’s also certainly not linked to whether the Church is perfect, for it certainly isn’t. My testimony is linked to the power of the Book of Mormon to bring me to Christ. Because the Book of Mormon is true and it does bring me closer to my Lord, Savior, and Redeemer-Jesus Christ-it also consequentially is proof that Joseph was called of God; imperfect man he was notwithstanding. He himself admitted that he had many rough edges. Such as loosing his temper or getting angry. I can relate to that. I like the image of a forceful prophet. I can see some of that in myself. So knowing the truth not only makes you free, but it gives you hope because you realize that the Lord still can make something great out of your life even if you’re not presently the most “Christ-like” person.

I loved my experience reading this book because it is enlightening and it was right up my ally with a mixture of historical, biographical, and religious reading that still is causing me to ponder. I recommend it as excellent reading, at the least to join in the conversation. However, this isn’t a book for those members of the Church that rely solely on a sanitized version of Church history. Nor is it for those who teach that Joseph and Emma had a model relationship, or for those who cling to the belief that Joseph Smith was almost “barely-mortal”. His human mistakes and frailties come out. But I like that, because it helps me relate better to all people in history who also faced struggles and problems–just like us. We can learn from both the good and the bad, the majestic and the not so majestic.

Just because there are some uncomfortable aspects in our Latter-day Saint history (and there are) doesn’t mean we shouldn’t face up to them or pretend they’re not there. Our critics certainly won’t ignore them, and they won’t allow you to plead ignorance either.

So even for that reason alone, I am grateful that I read Joseph Smith-Rough Stone Rolling. It was a great, unique, one-of-a-kind experience. I certainly now have more knowledge. And knowledge truly is empowering. I also have a deeper appreciation. But I didn’t feel a sense of conclusion immediately after finishing the book. I felt like I needed to ask the author something. I wanted to know essentially: Where do I go from here? What do I make of some of the disturbing facts that I hadn’t previously fit into my neat little paradigm? What should my new paradigm be now? Part of my answer came by the Spirit through teaching the Elders Quorum lesson one Sunday on The Prophet Joseph Smith out of the Spencer W. Kimball manual. That was a sacred experience that hit me at exactly the right time. The other part of my answer came when I stumbled upon the following question and answer that I’m now sharing with you because it’s the very question I would have wanted to ask the author after I finished reading the book:

Question: “By way of prefacing the book you write: ‘For a character as controversial as Smith, pure objectivity is impossible. What I can do is to look frankly at all sides of Joseph Smith, facing up to his mistakes and flaws. Covering up errors makes no sense in any case.’ This is, obviously, not the approach of official, correlated Church history. What are the benefits and drawbacks of your approach—and what would you say to a Church member whose faith has been jarred by the disconnect between what s/he learned about Joseph Smith in Sunday School and what s/he learned from reading your book?

Answer: “I believe the disconnect can damage young Latter-day Saints who learn later in life they have not been given the whole story on Church history. They are tempted to doubt the credibility of their former teachers; what else are they hiding, the shocked young people want to know? On the other hand, are we obligated to talk about Joseph’s character defects in Sunday School class, or his thirty wives? That may defeat the purpose of Sunday School or Institute. I am hoping that a book like mine will help to introduce all aspects of Joseph’s life into common lore about the Prophet the way most people know he had a seerstone. These now disturbing facts will become one more thing you accept along with visitation of angels and gold plates. People will wonder, question, and eventually assimilate.”

Actually, it does if you’re willing to avoid equivocation.

Others have tried to argue that her naturalistic assumptions undermine the legitimacy of her book as an historical work. But the fact that someone adopts a legitimate approach (taken alone) can never undermine the legitimacy of someone’s work.

You keep talking about Mormons getting rankled as if it means that they say something like, “Brodie’s approach may not lead to conclusions that I like, but it’s a valid approach and a good book anyway.” This is actually my point of view, and it’s the point of view that sparked this argument.

Brodie’s approach may not lead to conclusions that I like, but it’s a valid approach for mostly non-LDS, as it answers and emphatic “no” to one of the fundamental questions of the LDS faith, namely is Joseph Smith a prophet of God?

Where do I prioritize?
A valid literary approach in my reading, albeit one I may find a very large fundamental disconnect with?
Or connect with the literature on more than just a historical plane- valid approach and all?

To me, it is a shame that Brodie couldn’t produce a Joseph who DID in fact see and converse with God. Of course, that is not the only way to look at Joseph, but it is one of the ways one MUST look at Joseph in order to try and understand him, for it is plausible that he tells the truth.

By not providing that view, it is like trying to tell Hindus Bulls are not sacred, they’re lunch. Non-Hindus nod a resounding “of course” to that argument over 99 cent double cheeseburgers. If we can’t hear the Hindus over our own chewing, we don’t know any different.

One question arises from the statement:

“one of the worst habits of Mormons; viz., a cult-like aversion to anything that reflects any view — no matter how reasonable — that portrays their church in some way outside of their comfort zone (cf., Mormon reaction to Whitney’s spectacular PBS documentary on Mormonism).”

Often true, but what about the cult-like aversion to anything outside the comfort zone of scholarly academia? Why did Fawn Brodie not portray Joseph Smith as a Prophet?

And:

“Mormons owe Fawn Brodie a debt of gratitude.”

This only works for someone willing to accept Joseph Smith as something other than a Prophet. For Mormons, a flattering portrayal of the “fraud” founder of their church and Oracle of God (who facilitated a restoration of priesthood, brought forth new scripture, and built temples) is a hard pill to swallow. You won’t get much gratitude and shouldn’t expect it, regardless of what praise such a story brings from scholarly circles.

So, from a scholarly point of view, based on operation of a naturalistic assumption, Brodie’s work could be praiseworthy. As long as the scholar is not Mormon (see above). Even then it is possible, although it would take a certain amount of reconciliation, or perhaps it would be praise of her literary style. But I doubt that Mormons are the audience.

Sigh….same topic, big words…

I completely agree with DKL’s last statement. I’ve thought that fairly frequently since the book came out. Bushman got away with it because he’s so totally orthodox and faithful and educated.

There are others in his class, but not too many.

I think there’s a lot of truth to Bushman getting away with stuff because he is faithful and one of us. That is important psychologically.

I disagree with DKL on the naturalism issue but we’re just going around in circles so I’ll drop it. I think people in general get upset when their experiences are discounted out of hand as illegitimate. So of course there will be issues there. To me DKL is providing a false dichotomy of the “seminary version” and then the naturalistic writings (that discount out of hand as illegitimate the very idea of religion).

Brodie’s not #1 in my heart because I don’t agree with her, she’s not #1 in my heart because that place belongs to CS Lewis and Robert Millett.

Can I just ask, “WHAT the HECK is a metacomment?”

David Clark, your question is a good one and gets right at the heart of Clark’s equivocation. Clark is something of a master of the near miss, writing things that tend to be almost logical, or almost relevant, or almost cogent, such that explaining the problem is laborious. Then, when you dig and take the time to explain where he’s off base, he’s quick to dismiss it going round in circles. But your question nails it.

You’ve had some insightful, if succinct, comments here that have largely gotten lost among many of the larger ones.

nasamomdelle [The notion that Mormons owe Fawn Brodie a debt of gratitude] only works for someone willing to accept Joseph Smith as something other than a Prophet

That’s just hogwash that’s indicative of your all-or-nothing approach. The idea that Joseph was a prophet does not exaust the positive things that can be said about him. Indeed, there are a many, many more positive things to say about Joseph than simply those that are premised on the legitimacy of Mormonism. Fawn Brodie said these things, and (for the first time) scholars and other non-Mormon readers listened. When B.H. Roberts and others wrote in defense of Joseph, no scholars or non-Mormon readers listened. Quite simply: there was no way to advance a positive image of Joseph to non-Mormons outside of the type of context that Brodie provided. Your “I want Joseph as a prophet or nothing” attitude cuts off your nose to spite your face.

On the flip-side, Mormons were a key audience of Brodie. When Brodie wrote, the state of Mormon scholarship and the attitude of the church toward scholarship was such that, made it impossible to write a history of Joseph that was both faithful and real (including (for example) his conviction for treasure digging, his polygamous activities, the detailed accounting of research books in Palmyra-area libraries that establishes the prevalence of Israel-based origin stories for the Indians). Once consequence of Brodie’s excommunication is that it institutionally delegitimize her, and anyone who wrote what she wrote would have suffered the same fate. Because Brodie was accepted and praised by scholars, she was able to appeal to many Mormons who respected historians enough to look past the church’s condemnation. Thus, were it not for Brodie’s context, Mormons would have had to wait much longer to find a biography of Joseph’s both credible and real.

The bottom line: If you want to get a feel for who Joseph was, Brodie’s your ticket. You can read her and nobody else, and you’ll still get a better picture of him than if you read everyone but her. On the other hand, if you can’t stomach reading someone who disagrees with your religion, then you’ll never get a good feel for who Joseph is.

DKL,

Come on man. “Too intellectually immature to appreciate the value of scholarship that disagrees with their religiousity”? Who are you? On what planet am I compelled to appreciate the value of scholarship that I disagree with? You tongue-lash Nibley from your high horse and come with this?

“Nobody here is willing to say, “I object to Brodie because it disagrees with the Mormon dogma that I’m devoted to.””

See comment 67 for one. But when I confess that very thing- my preference for the life of the founder of Mormon Dogma being told in terms of that very Mormon Dogma- you call me intellectually immature.

I now see what Annegb meant in comment #1. There is no other way of seeing things here, but your way. Brodie’s naturalist approach is not only the best approach, but she executes it perfectly, no mistakes, no subjective references. Not giving thanks and praise for her mastery of the life of Joseph Smith is the worst offense. Shame on me for not seeing that and shame on me for preferring something else.

I would prefer that the Mormon quest for respectability didn’t come at the expense of our beliefs, taking the naturalism of Brodie over the Divinity of the Prophetic calling. If this is Mormon extremism, you are on the opposite extreme, my friend.

Clark: That’s what you’re trying to have everyone argue except for the problem no one is arguing it.

I’m sure that you’ll appreciate the fact that I find this to be idiotic, since it puts you in the same company as people like Nibley. But Jeff Bennion has explicitly argued as follows:

1. That Brodie did not substantially improve the status of Joseph Smith, because he was already fascinating to people and to academics as an historical figure.
2. That Brodie’s view of how the first vision was invented is problematic due to the emergence of alternative accounts.
3. Jeff Bennion: “[T]he Hurlburt affidavits… are obviously calumny yet Brodie gives them way too much credit”
4. Jeff Bennion again: “In the details, as well as in the overarching themes, [Brodie] gets it wrong.”
5. Jeff Bennion yet again: “I think it’s perfectly plausible to claim that Joseph Smith was a fraud. I think it’s implausible to claim he was an amiable, likable, and conscious fraud with mesmerizing powers over others.” (emphasis original)
6. And all sorts of statements to the effect that Bushman shows Brodie to be wrong about all kinds of things.
7. That Brodie’s development of a credible basis for the Hemmings/Jefferson hypothesis can be dismissed as part of Brodie’s taste for the sensational, so that she was right for the wrong reasons; plus, she didn’t invent the idea.

Nasamomdele’s admirably candid admission of intellectual immaturity notwithstanding, each of Jeff Bennion’s claims tries to find its basis in an objective — even dispassionate — approach to Brodie; Jeff Bennion even goes so far as to say, “At the time I read Brodie’s biography, I was predisposed to like it much more than I would now.” He’s trying to sell this stuff as carefully considered opinion, not as emotional reactions based on attachment to church dogma. Once again, neither your argument nor your opinion have a basis in the actual text of this thread. I understand your desire to manipulate this into an argument about what the argument is about — that’s a standard tool in the apologetic shed. Even so, the text of this thread speaks for itself, and that makes this is a losing argument for you.

You can’t maneuver this into a conversation about whether Mormons dogma is at odds with naturalistic approaches to Joseph Smith and pretend that you’re contributing to the conversation.

Clark: I thought I was pretty clear that the big problem Mormons have is that (a) she presents Joseph as engaging in a conscious fraud and (b) she starts from a premise of naturalism.

I thought it was pretty clear that this was the case, too, hence my comment #60. To which you responded that naturalism isn’t that big of a deal. So I repeat David Clark’s question in his comment #74: Which is it?

nasamomdele: What is my religion, DKL?

You are a Jesusite.

Only paying attention to views we agree with has led to vitrolic blogs and talk radio.

Republicans should be forced to listen to NPR for a solid year, and Democrats should be forced to listen to Glenn Beck.

And every Mormon should attend midnight mass once in their life (maybe we should encourage missionaries to attend a service at another church before they leave on their mission).

Q, #87

Paying Attention is not the question. Granting one’s blessing of validity is.

I listen to NPR, and appreciate how they go about gathering information, but I that doesn’t mean I think that is the only method, or the right method. And it certainly doesn’t compel me to agree with their assertions.

Clark: I thought I was pretty clear that the big problem Mormons have is that (a) she presents Joseph as engaging in a conscious fraud and (b) she starts from a premise of naturalism.

I thought it was pretty clear that this was the case, too, hence my comment #60. To which you responded that naturalism isn’t that big of a deal. So I repeat David Clark’s question in his comment #74: Which is it?

It’s not that big a deal to many people. It is a big deal for some. Unless you were intending your comments to be taken universally?

As to David Clark’s comment. I think the issue of naturalism is key to the frustration since it entails we can’t even argue. There’s nothing we can say. No matter what we’ll be considered either liars, frauds or delusional. Surely it’s understandable why people get upset when the whole conversation is stacked against them from the front with no way out? Even if you don’t agree, surely you can understand why it is frustrating to people?

What I perceived DKL to be saying is that anyone who can’t accept naturalistic critics is immature. And by accept mean ultimately agree with in a serious way. One shouldn’t be upset. I just don’t agree with that. I think it fair to attack naturalistic attacks either on scholarly grounds (these are unfair premises) or from a more emotional ground.

Now as I said, to me it’s not that big a deal. As I’ve said repeatedly I don’t mind reading Vogel and so forth. I think them wrong but so what? They say some interesting things along the way. Which in its heart is what DKL was saying, as I understand him. Where I think he goes wrong is in calling immature anyone who doesn’t feel that way.

I understand your desire to manipulate this into an argument about what the argument is about — that’s a standard tool in the apologetic shed.

To the degree I misread or misunderstand why not leave that to my human failings? Why accuse it of being apologetics? Ad homen is what you accuse apologists of doing, is it? Let’s leave the mind reading to Brodie. (grin)

He’s trying to sell this stuff as carefully considered opinion, not as emotional reactions based on attachment to church dogma. Once again, neither your argument nor your opinion have a basis in the actual text of this thread.

Well, I think the claim that reason is always dispassionate as rather ridiculous. Our passions almost always affect our reasoning. Especially when our reasoning is inductive leaps rather than deductive. (Which is, perhaps why there is a difference of opinion here?) To the degree Jeff Benion is right in his accusations I’ll leave alone. That’s not a debate I’m too interested in but surely it can be resolved without the kind of accusations and leaps to judgment you are making. Which frankly seem as emotional as the picture you are portraying of folks upset at Brodie.

Since I’m posting when I said I wouldn’t I might as well go back to an earlier point that I nearly addressed last night and then changed my mind.

Clark: DKL is providing a false dichotomy of the “seminary version” and then the naturalistic writings…

Another misreading. The fact that Mormons have, in the past, expected seminary-film versions of history (hence the prevalent distrust of Dialogue, Sunstone, and sometimes BYU Studies — I’ve sometimes even heard FARMS derided as intellectual hogwash) has nothing to do with the available alternatives or a gradual progression away from that. It’s just another near-miss on your part (someone brings up an extreme, and a lightbulb goes off: “a dichotomy!”)

Perhaps this is a misreading on my part. To me it seemed to be that you were portraying a distinction between what was scholarly acceptable (naturalism) and then “seminary versions”. The problem is that when discussing extremes if you don’t portray the middle ground as well it is quite easy to interpret it as only allowing the extremes.

If the point you are making that any presentation ought be looked at for what is valuable independent of ones views of the premises of the argument with no emotion that’s probably not bad as a certain kind of ideal of academic writing. It’s not an ideal I think is ever met. (Well, perhaps in mathematics) My whole point is that texts have values and one can’t simply discard the value as inappropriate to focus in on.

Now I’d be the first to admit that such things can be discussed well or discussed poorly. But I’m not sure it is immaturity to focus in on them.

I need to take a look at Mrs. Brooks’ Mountain Meadows Book, for sure.