“We believe in all truth, no matter to what subject it may refer…. We are willing to receive all truth, from whatever source it may come.” Joseph F. Smith, April Conference 1909. [1]

As I see it, whatever was influencing JS was “true” if we believe Joseph Smith’s revelations were true.

I took that position in 2008 when I got accepted to a seminar with Richard Bushman. Bushman was feeling overwhelmed with members’ concerns about issues in Mormon history after publishing Rough Stone Rolling so he hoped there could be a better approach to tackling and discussing difficult issues within church education.

Bushman had a list of concerns from the wife of a stake president in Europe and we added some more. I picked the issue of similarities to Swedenborg. We presented to the group after doing some research and my presentation was simple. “So what if Joseph Smith was influenced by Swedenborg? If we believe DC 76 is true, then who cares if Swedenborg also had truth?” I said a bit more than that, but that was my main point. [2]

The guys grilled me for an hour saying it can’t be the simple with me insisting that I believed it was exactly the simple. [3]

So again, back to the question I asked Ryan: why is it okay for JS to be influenced by the Bible, but we balk at the possibility of other sources (like Swedenborg)? Put another way, why is the Bible okay, but Plato is not? Can we be “willing to receive all truth, from whatever source it may come”? Does Joseph Smith need to get every unusual Mormon idea from the Bible, even when he said the Bible was missing truth?

Indeed, the heading that JS added to DC 76 in his 1838 history which we now have in the current heading declares, “From sundry revelations which had been received, it was apparent that many important points touching the salvation of man had been taken from the Bible, or lost before it was compiled.” Not only had truth been removed from the Bible like 1 Nephi 13:26 said, but there was truth (apparently related to DC 76) that never even made it into the Bible!

But I’ve noticed such a strong tendency over the last few decades (including responses to these posts) that many members seem to believe that ideas can only be true if they are biblical. Joseph Smith rejected Protestant notions of sola scriptura, but it’s as though, living in a culture dominated by Protestant notions, we revert back to Protestant claims that JS rejected.

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[1] Joseph Smith said similar things. See the quotes I posted on the sixth comment on this previous post.

[2] I’m arguing that Plato and Lead are better fits for DC 76 than Swedenborg’s writings. JS did know of Swedenborg, but I don’t think Swedenborg was very influential. Swedenborg was likely influenced by Lead.

[3] Okay, over the passing years, I see that it’s probably not quite that simple, but I still like the approach I laid out there.