Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ws8qp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T12:05:54.364Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Reflections on the Mormon “Canon”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

W. D. Davies
Affiliation:
Texas Christian University

Extract

This essay might seem inappropriate for this volume, but it is not. Krister Stendahl is particularly distinguished by a catholicity of mind and spirit which enables him to look with understanding, sympathy, and empathy on all sorts and conditions in what he once unpejoratively called “God's menagerie of religions.” That Mormons do not belong to the main bodies of Christians does not exclude them from his purview. But apart from this, the Mormons are in fact highly germane to the theme of this volume. Uniqueness is always hard to substantiate: Christians, Jews, and Gentiles have been related in many varied and complex ways. But there seems to be no parallel to the way in which Mormons—while claiming to be Christians—assert as well that they are genealogically connected with Jews and that they are therefore physically a rediscovered, restored, and reinterpreted “Israel.” As far as I am aware they constitute a very special, if not unique, case of Christians among Jews and Gentiles since by implication they have redefined all three of these terms. This is the justification for the inclusion of this essay in this volume. We here reflect on one aspect of Mormon life: their fixation of their own “canon.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Davies, W. D., “Israel, the Mormons and the Land,” in Reflections on Mormonism, Judaeo-Christian Parallels (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1977) 7997.Google Scholar

2 The term canon as applied to Mormonism is not without difficulty. That is why I have placed the term canon in quotation marks in the title and introduction. Hereafter these marks are omitted, except where otherwise necessary.

3 In Times and Seasons 3 (1842) 706–19.Google Scholar

4 On the Apocrypha, see the fascinating article by Ross, J. M., “The Status of the Apocrypha,” Theology 82 (May 1979) 183–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am also indebted to the (unpublished) paper of one of my students, Father Dimitri Cozby, on “Orthodox Christian Views of the Disputed Books of the Old Testament,” in which bibliographical data are given. He confirms the view that

the dominating view among Orthodox theologians is that the disputed books rightfully belong in the OT and are in some sense divinely inspired, but that they are to be distinguished from the books of the short canon. The precise implications of this distinction are not spelled out, however, though it does not apparently preclude their reading in public worship as well as for private edification. One should also remember that this position lacks official sanction and universal acceptance and is questioned by Orthodox theologians of repute. Regarding terminology, both “deuterocanonical” and “anagignoskomena” seem to be acceptable designations, but the latter is perhaps preferable due to its Patristic origin.

Truman G. Madsen, professor at Brigham Young University, in a private note of 20 June 1985 and orally, reminds me, however that “considerable care was taken to include the Apocrypha with the biblical materials placed in the cornerstone of the Nauvoo Temple. And Joseph Smith is reported to have said of the Apocrypha that ‘it required much of the Spirit’ to discern the truths within it.” See Stevenson, Edward L., Reminiscences of Joseph the Prophet (Salt Lake City: private publication, 1893). Madsen goes on to say:Google Scholar

The declaration that “there are many things contained therein [the Apocrypha] which are true and it is mostly translated correctly” has been sometimes extended by Mormons to apply to other extra-canonical materials. With the Dead Sea Scrolls came the discovery that many biblical books have earlier Hebrew and Aramaic texts. The question has been raised again “Are they scripture or important supplements?” Typically, Mormons deny such volumes canonical status while tending to the view that in some cases they precede and in others echo authentic biblical materials. They are sympathetic to the view that many extra canonical writings may reflect inspired source materials.

5 In The History of the Church of Latter Day Saints (1902; 2d ed. with Introduction and Notes by Roberts, B. H.; Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1964) 6. 57 (henceforth HC). The HC is the history of Joseph Smith, the prophet, by himself.Google Scholar

6 The most significant changes in the Joseph Smith translation are now footnoted in the new (1979) Mormon edition of the KJV. The lengthiest additions are presented in a separate section of the Appendix. Their net effect is threefold: (1) to trace the messianic and christological understanding of various OT texts to an earlier date than most scholars allow; (2) to resolve contradictions or conflicting readings; and (3) to clarify the time-bound and obscure passages (so T. G. Madsen).

7 See Pearl of Great Price, 43–46.

8 See on this esp. the provocative article by Nibley, Hugh W., “The Forty-day Mission of Christ—The Forgotten Heritage,” VC 20 (1966) 124.Google Scholar

9 The Book of Mormon is regarded by Mormons as a divinely inspired record covering generally the period 600 BCE to 400 CE, made by the prophets of the people who inhabited the Americas centuries before Christ. In Mormon belief, this record was made known to Joseph Smith by Moroni, the last of those pre-Columbian prophets on the American continent, and was translated by Smith. In the judgment of Krister Stendahl “the laws of creative interpretation by which we analyze materials from the first and second Christian centuries operate on and are significantly elucidated by works like the Book of Mormon and by other writings of revelatory character.” He insists that “such authentic writing should not be confused with spurious gospel forgeries, many of which are discussed in Strange Tales about Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983).”Google Scholar See Stendahl, Krister, Meanings, The Bible as Document and as Guide (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 99. This judgment calls for scrutiny: we find it more provocative than convincing.Google Scholar

10 See Talmage, James E., A Study of the Articles of Faith (1890; Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1976) 255.Google Scholar

11 Moroni revealed that the plates were buried in a hill, called Cumorah or Ramah near Palmyra in western New York state, not far from Joseph Smith's home.

12 As far as I am aware, the fact that—apart from Smith himself—the witnesses numbered exactly eleven has escaped comment. Can it be that there is here a contrast and parallel intended with “the Twelve” who formed the inner circle of the disciples of Jesus in the NT? One of the Twelve did not remain steadfast so that the effective witnesses were eleven. Perhaps Smith himself was the twelfth. See 1 Cor 15:5, where the Greek text of Nestle gives “the Twelve” (τοῖς δώδεκα), but some MSS—D*, G, and the Latin and Syriac versions—read eleven (τοῖς ἔνδεκα) Did the risen Lord appear to Judas? The textual evidence favors reading “the Twelve”—as does the theology of the early church. There is no evidence to support this conjecture and it must remain only such.

The constraint of evidence has led several encyclopedias to reverse their earlier allegations that the three witnesses “later denied their testimony.” See, Anderson, R. L., Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1981) 6778.Google Scholar

13 Note esp. the full title as given in Talmage, Articles of Faith, 257f.: The Book of Mormon: An Account written by the hand of Mormon upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi.

14 Talmage, Articles of Faith, 20–21.

15 ibid., 21. Timothy L. Smith has argued that the appeal of the Book of Mormon in the first generation, to converts as to inquirers, was essentially its confirmation of the biblical witness of Christ. Its role as supplementary scripture was, he concludes, secondary. He adds that no doctrine of any prominence in the Book of Mormon is without biblical precedent. See Smith, Timothy L., “The Book of Mormon in a Biblical Culture,” Journal of Mormon History (1982) 3–21. One hesitates to confirm this view without further examination.Google Scholar

16 Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1979.

17 The Articles of Faith are in the Pearl of Great Price but according to T. G. Madsen, “neither Joseph Smith nor his successors viewed the Articles of Faith as scriptural or even as ‘creedal’ in status. For Joseph Smith, creeds were to be viewed as ‘suggestive’ not ‘as setting up stakes” and were not to rank as scripture.” One of the Articles of Faith (the eighth) says “many great and important truths are yet to be revealed.” Madsen finds here an official statement “to assure that neither the Articles of Faith nor the canon is final if that means complete.”

18 On all this, see Hunter, Milton R., The Pearl of Great Price (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1951) 240–48Google Scholar. Concerning the Prophecy of Enoch, Matthew Black, whose great work on 1 Enoch has just appeared, orally informed me that he finds no trace of its influence in the Mormon texts. But see also Charlesworth, J. H., “Messianism in the Pseudepigrapha and the Book of Mormon,” in Reflections on Mormonism (Salt Lake City: Publishers Press, 1978)Google Scholar. As a parallel in the Enochic corpus, George Nickelsburg has called my attention in correspondence to 4QEnGiants.¨¨¨ 8.3: prsgn lwh’ tny[n] (“the copy of the sec[on]d tablet”; Milik, J. T., The Books of Enoch [Oxford: Clarendon, 1976] 314–15)Google Scholar. Nickelsburg has also noted the idea in Jubilees 8 and the Nag Hammadi treatise The Three Steles of Seth.

19 Journal of Discourses (Liverpool: R. D. and S. W. Richards, 18541856) 7.2.Google Scholar

20 ibid., 9. 150.

21 For the kerygma, see D&C 20.21ff; 107.7, esp. 107.18, 64–67, 91–92 (the comparison with Moses); 115:19 (on loyalty to the President 117.13); 124.125 (but see also 124.126).

22 On which see D&C 90.1–4; 107.8, 64–67, 91–92; 124.123; HC 11.477; 6.363.

23 Preface to the Book of Mormon, Origin of the Book of Mormon, unpaginated.

24 Bushman, Richard L., in his Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984) chap. 1, shows that the first visions were part of Joseph Smith's familial and environmental setting.Google Scholar

25 See Munck, Johannes, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind (trans. Clarke, Frank; London: SCM, 1959) chap. 1.Google Scholar

26 See the Appendix at the end of this article.

27 Is it without significance that William Blake, the great visionary, died in 1827, and that the decade in which Joseph Smith saw visions saw also the appearance of some of Blake's work of vision and of the reinterpretation and correction of the Christian tradition? As far as I am aware, this question has not been posed. Did the Zeitgeist favor visions?

28 Woodruff, Wilford, Conference Report (October 1897) 22–23.Google Scholar

29 Lee, Harold B., Stand Ye in Holy Places (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1974) 34. Italics added.Google Scholar

30 Idem, “The Place of the Living Prophet, Seer, and Revelator” (Address to Seminaries and Institutes of Religion Faculty, Brigham Young University, 8 July 1964) 9.

31 T. G. Madsen explains: “Catholicism distinguishes biblical theology from sacred tradition. Since the Vatican Council, both are regarded as ‘historically conditioned.’ For the Mormons the living word of the living leadership may become sacred tradition. But it only becomes canon by the double process of prophetic presentation and common consent.”

32 In the NT women are among the witnesses to the significance of the birth of Jesus and to the empty tomb (Mark 16:1f.; Luke 23:55–24:1–11, 22; Matt 28:1–10; John 20:1–10). In John 20:11–18 a woman, Mary Magdalene, sees the risen Jesus. At first sight, such a role for women does not appear in the accounts of the revelations to Joseph Smith in the Mormon tradition, i.e., they are not presented as witnesses. But T. G. Madsen insists that Mormon women (e.g., Joseph's wife Emma) were witnesses to many of the origin-events of the Church and were immediately given voting or “sustaining” rights with the men in all matters of church leadership. A woman, Sister Mary Whitmer, was privileged to see the plates of the Book of Mormon. See LDS Biographical Encyclopedia, compiled by Jenson, Andrew (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1901) 1. 283. And women were made joint heirs with men to all the blessings of the gospel including the higher blessings of the temple.Google Scholar

33 On the fixation of a canon as a function of self-definition, see Sanders, James A., Torah and Canon (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972). Most important for the extent to which the Jewish group could go in changing the Torah is p. 90.Google Scholar

34 See Schoeps, Hans Joachim, Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1949) 148–87Google Scholar. Particularly important is now the (unassessed) approach of Wacholder, Ben Zion (The Dawn of Qumran: The Sectarian Torah and the Teacher of Righteousness [Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College Press, 1983])Google Scholar to the attitude of the sectarians to the written Torah.

35 On this see Davies, W. D., Jewish and Pauline Studies (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 14, where I cite m. Sanh. 11.3.Google Scholar

36 Rivkin, Ellis, The Hidden Revolution (Nashville: Abingdon, 1978) 223. Italics added. Davies, Jewish and Pauline Studies, 10–14.Google Scholar

37 This notion is not to be confused with that of the apostolic succession in Roman Catholicism. That doctrine is primarily concerned with the preservation of the continuity of the tradition, whereas the Presidents in Mormonism are not only agents of continuity but more perhaps of newness of revelation.

38 Talmage, Articles of Faith, 7.

39 “Bible Dictionary in The Holy Bible, authorized KJV with explanatory notes and cross references to the standard works of the Church” (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1979) 519792.Google Scholar

40 T. G. Madsen comments on this as follows: “Mormons are often characterized as Biblical literalists and even as verbal infallibilists. Both characterizations are misleading. The initial Mormon acknowledgment of translational and transmissional error has already been noted. In addition, writers within the standard works themselves, including the Book of Mormon, speak of the faults and the mistakes of men.” Stendahl observes that to say this of and in a sacred book strengthens rather than weakens respect (“The Sermon on the Mount and Third Nephi in the Book of Mormon,” Meanings, 101). Joseph Smith himself made clarifying revisions in most of the documents he himself wrote or translated.

41 Another question faces Mormonism more acutely than other Christian communions. The tradition of connecting revelation with divinely commissioned and divinely inspired and even written stones or documents has been questioned radically in recent discussion. The revelation to Moses as recorded in the OT can hardly be taken literally as an event in which the Divine handed over or dictated to Moses Ten Commandments written on stone. Aetiological and liturgical elements are now recognized to have entered into the presentation of what happened. The account of the giving of the Torah witnesses to the revelation of God on Sinai in the experience of Israel but is not to be taken literally. However, Mormonism demands that the account of the announcement and discovery of the Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith be taken factually and literally, not merely as an attempt, necessarily inadequate, to witness to a revelation. It must be asked whether in Mormonism conventional modes of describing revelation found in the OT and the Pseudepigrapha have been so literally taken over as fact as to give a facticity to what was intended as symbolic. As noted, other communions face this difficulty, but it is peculiarly contemporary and acute in Mormonism.

42 Pratt, Parley P. (fils), ed., Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1938) 62.Google Scholar

43 HC 1.173, n.

44 Note here the equation of Mormons with “Israel.”

45 In Tullidge's Histories, vol. 2: History of Northern Utah and Southern Idaho, Biographical Supplement, 271ff. HC 7.85 n.