{"id":16972,"date":"2011-09-08T14:15:05","date_gmt":"2011-09-08T19:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=16972"},"modified":"2011-09-10T23:46:28","modified_gmt":"2011-09-11T04:46:28","slug":"12-questions-with-grant-hardy-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2011\/09\/12-questions-with-grant-hardy-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"12 Questions with Grant Hardy – part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GrantHere is the conclusion of Times & Seasons look at Grant Hardy’s new book\u00a0Understanding the Book of Mormon<\/em>, and the second half of our 12 Questions interview:<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0 Do you worry that some of the \u201cunsettling\u201d aspects of the book (e.g., your frankness concerning the anachronistic Isaiah passages or New Testament linguistic influences or stylistic similarities between all three books of restoration scripture) will have a negative impact on the faith of some of your Mormon readers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, I don\u2019t. The Book of Mormon is what it is; I don\u2019t feel like I need to apologize for it or try to hide its more troubling features. That would seem like a failure of nerve or a lack of faith, and it seems to me that there are enough wonderful things about the text to balance out the things that seem strange or unsettling. As believers, we should read it as carefully as possible, and we should bring to our study the best biblical and historical scholarship available, but there is enough theological flexibility to accommodate whatever we might find. For people who accept the book as scripture, it is almost as if it comes with something like the standard addendum to political ads: \u201cI am Jesus Christ and I approve of this message, in these words.\u201d I don\u2019t always understand why the Book of Mormon takes the form it does, but who am I to say, for instance, that \u201cGod would never use poor grammar in a revelation\u201d or \u201cGod would never allow historical anachronisms into his perfect word,\u201d Similarly, I was a bit disappointed to hear that Christian Vuissa\u2019s new film Joseph Smith – Volume 1: Plates of Gold<\/em> didn\u2019t at least briefly and tactfully portray Joseph using a seer stone in a hat (especially since Vuissa has handled difficult issues quite nicely in some of his previous films). It is time for us as Latter-day Saints to get over our embarrassment and embrace that well-documented and widely-reported aspect of our heritage. It may seem odd by today\u2019s standards, but if that is how the Lord chose to communicate with his prophet, why should we try to conceal or ignore the facts? And who knows, sometimes weaknesses turn into strengths.<\/p>\n

With regard to some of the specific issues mentioned in the question, the presence of Second Isaiah in the Book of Mormon is one of the strongest arguments against its historicity, but Latter-day Saints should recognize that ideas about Second Isaiah are among the most widely accepted \u00a0in all of biblical scholarship; to dismiss the scrupulous work of generations of fine, often devout scholars with a simple \u201cWell, they just don\u2019t believe in prophecy\u201d is both arrogant and foolish. It is very much like rejecting evolution because it doesn\u2019t fit your particular interpretation of Genesis. You can either show some respect for evidence, argumentation, and scholarship, or you can withdraw into fundamentalism. I\u2019m not exactly sure how Adam and Eve fit into the scientific story of human origins, just as I\u2019m not quite sure how to explain Nephi\u2019s quoting of Isaiah 48-49, but I trust that there is some reasonable explanation (though it may require the sort of divine intervention that only believers would accept). By the way, even if scholars were to discover evidence that led them to revise their opinions and date Isaiah 40-55 as pre-exilic, the Book of Mormon is still in trouble, because careful analysis suggests that even chapters 1-39 (quoted at length by Nephi in something quite close to their current KJV form) underwent considerable revision and augmentation after 600 BCE.\u00a0 Similar things could be said about New Testament phrasing. Why try to deny or downplay what is so obviously there for all to see? Let\u2019s evaluate the evidence as fairly and open-mindedly as possible, and then we can figure out later what it might mean or how believers might account for it. (See again the last paragraph in question #6 above.)<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0 Similarly, the Book of Mormon editors and prophets as you disclose them are quite human \u2013 perhaps uncomfortably human. What, in your opinion, does this say about prophets generally, and specifically our prophets today?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Peggy Fletcher Stack wrote an article in the Salt Lake Tribune<\/em> in which she stated that \u201cMormons don\u2019t use the term \u2018infallibility\u2019 to refer to their leaders and readily acknowledge that they are imperfect men. In practice, though, LDS belief comes awfully close to that standard.\u201d I\u2019m not sure that this is healthy. A close reading of the Book of Mormon (or the Old Testament) will show that regarding prophets as infallible goes directly against the whole force of the narrative. I believe with Joseph Smith that \u201ca prophet is a prophet only when he is acting as such.\u201d At the same time, the Book of Mormon also stresses the need for generosity and humility toward divinely-appointed leaders who are doing the best they can to lead with inspiration in sometimes trying times. Perhaps reading the scriptures more attentively can help us better balance our reactions to those who have been called of God in our own day.<\/p>\n

9. \u00a0Despite these and other aspects that might be unsettling to the faithful, there seems to be a general consensus that this book is much more palatable for Mormons than non-Mormons. Consequently, how well do you think you succeeded in your attempt to give your two audiences a \u201cneutral ground\u201d on which to discuss the Book of Mormon? Given the difficulty of both the task and the current climate, can faithful Mormons really reach out to non-Mormons on the subject of our scripture without alienating or turning them off, especially if we stop anywhere short of simply granting their claims concerning the absurdity of belief in the Book of Mormon?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It seems like I have been answering this question all along, but I\u2019ll add a bit more here. Perhaps in order to facilitate discussions between Mormon and non-Mormons, it will be necessary for outsiders to acknowledge that the Book of Mormon can be seen as a rich, complex, coherent work of religious literature (that\u2019s the point I\u2019m pushing in my book; I\u2019m happy for non-believers to remain non-believers, I just think that the Book of Mormon deserves a little more respect). On the other hand, Latter-day Saints who wish to participate in academic conversations will probably need to recognize that belief in the Book of Mormon as revelation or as ancient history does seem absurd to reasonable, even sympathetic outsiders. I personally believe that the Book of Mormon had its origins in the ancient world based on my interpretation of the evidence, but also because of my religious background and spiritual experiences that are outside the realm of academic discourse. I don\u2019t expect that people with different backgrounds and experiences will interpret the literary or historical evidence in the same way. But I am still interested in what they have to say (for instance, Krister Stendahl\u2019s essay on the Third Nephi is one of my favorite articles on the Book of Mormon ever).<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really know if this sort of flexibility on both sides will eventually lead to better conversations. Nevertheless, it\u2019s clearly up to Latter-day Saints to make the first move, that is, to make a case that the Book of Mormon is an interesting text that will repay close attention, that it is worth reading even if you\u2019re not looking for conversion. We can\u2019t expect outsiders to read our scripture more closely than we ourselves have done (and if you want to see what close reading looks like, you can start with the mainstream biblical scholarship that Mormons have avoided for so long).<\/p>\n

10.\u00a0 As Sam notes, when most of us read the Book of Mormon, we can\u2019t help but read 180 years of tradition into the text. One of the most enjoyable aspects of your book is the new and often refreshing ways that you read \u201cagainst the grain.\u201d What has been the single most helpful tool for you in overcoming the cultural constraints under which we so often approach the text?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are a several tools that have helped me to see new things in the Book of Mormon. (1) I try to read widely in history, literature, philosophy, biblical scholarship, and religious studies, and I\u2019m always on the lookout for ideas that might be applicable to Mormon scripture. For instance, outsiders often regard the Book of Mormon as a forgery of sorts, but forgeries can be interesting, and I have recently discovered that even imaginary forgeries can be compelling\u2014read Arthur Phillips delightful new novel The Tragedy of Arthur<\/em> with the Book of Mormon in mind. \u00a0If study time is limited in your life\u2014as it is for most people\u2014you might start with the New Oxford Annotated Bible<\/em>; the introductions and general essays offer a crash course in biblical scholarship, and after you\u2019ve read through the Bible in the New Revised Standard Version, aided by the focus provided by brief annotations, not only will you know the Bible better than most other Latter-day Saints, you will also have all kinds of ideas about how to approach the Book of Mormon. (2) I use an old Infobases program from 1992 (\u201cLDS Scriptures Infobase\u201d) that allows me to track specific words and phrases in the standard works quickly and precisely. I\u2019m interested in identifying connections and allusions, as well analyzing patterns of usage. For example, the phrase \u201cson of man\u201d occurs 196 times in the Bible, but only once in the Book of Mormon (and that is in a direct quotation of Isaiah 51:12). I\u2019m not sure what that means, but it is potentially interesting. (3) My most important tool though, as I noted above, is the Reader\u2019s Edition<\/em>, which offers a fresh perspective as I encounter familiar words and phrases in a new format that emphasizes narrative continuity and context. That version does the initial work that readers must otherwise do for themselves (rather laboriously) of figuring out which sentences go together in paragraphs, who is saying what to whom, identifying where there are changes in topic or transitions from narrative to commentary to inserted documents to sermons, etc. When all of that is readily apparent, readers can then focus more easily on finding connections or narrative gaps, or looking for subtle shifts of tone.\u00a0 If you read through the Reader\u2019s Edition<\/em>, from beginning to end, I guarantee that you too will see things that you have never noticed before.<\/p>\n

11.\u00a0 Dave wrote: \u201cwhile his criticisms are definitively held to be insightful and productive, his prescription for how to go beyond the limitations of historical criticism and properly elicit meaning and interpretation from history-like or realistic narrative is rather unclear, at least in\u00a0Eclipse<\/em>. So when Hardy states that Frei \u2018argued that narratives can be understood by their own logic and on their own terms rather than by constant reference to external standards of truth\u2019 (p. 153), that should be the opening statement to a longer discussion of what Hardy understands as Frei\u2019s method for establishing such an understanding or meaning, or for Hardy to set forth his own method for establishing such an understanding or meaning.\u201d Would you take the time now to briefly set forth your methodology on this point, or otherwise respond to the invitation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative<\/em> is an important, provocative, and sometimes rather dense work. I had not intended to offer a detailed response to it in Understanding<\/em>, which would have taken my book far off course, but rather I pulled out one significant idea\u2014that post-Enlightenment attempts to understand scripture by reference to external referents (as in the historical-critical method or as embodiments of general moral principles) can distort or obscure the meaning that comes from the stories themselves. Frei is a careful scholar\u2014for instance, his term \u201chistory-like narratives\u201d intentionally blurs the line between history and fiction\u2014and while he acknowledges the power of historical criticism, which makes it impossible for thoughtful readers to return to pre-critical approaches, he at the same time realizes that something is lost when we can no longer read the Bible on its own terms. Frei\u2019s work is historical and descriptive rather than prescriptive, so as Dave notes, he does not offer a clear path forward, though others have taken up the challenge. The emergence of the fields of biblical narrative criticism and narrative theology in the last few decades is in many ways a response to Frei\u2019s documentation of a major shift in Western thought in the 18th and 19th centuries.<\/p>\n

For my purposes, the important thing is that Frei resisted any general hermeneutical theories. He cogently identified problems in contemporary biblical interpretation, but then intentionally left open the question of how to reconnect to the indispensable narrative character of scripture (though he does a little more with this in his later books\u2014his image of an eclipse suggests that we might someday come out of the shadow). Frei recognized that the Bible is a strange book, which\u00a0 makes unusual demands on its readers, and this is also true of the Book of Mormon. In Understanding<\/em>, I tried to implement Frei\u2019s notion that the meaning of a narrative is the narrative itself (or that the meaning emerges cumulatively from the text), by giving close attention to what the Book of Mormon actually says and how it says it. At this point I think it would be a mistake to try to develop a general theory of interpretation based on philosophical, historiographical, or literary considerations. It seems to me that what we need right now is not abstract theorizing but better and more accurate descriptions of how the text works, how it is organized, how it makes its points, and how it employs language. (Not surprisingly, I\u2019m a huge fan of Royal Skousen\u2019s painstakingly detailed textual and linguistic analyses.)<\/p>\n

We can certainly learn from scholars of the Bible such as Frei, Alter, and Sternberg, but the Book of Mormon is in many ways a very different book, which makes its own way through a whole series of religious issues. It seemed to reaffirm traditional modes of biblical interpretation (literalism, typology, prophecy, salvation history, and canonical authority) at the very time that the Christian consensus about how to read the Bible was collapsing. The Nephite scripture\u2014with its near absence of standard archaeological-historical evidence\u2014ends up promoting pre-critical approaches (but not exactly), while its multivocal, deconstructable narratives sound almost postmodern (but not quite). Richard Bushman once suggested that \u201cread in the twenty-first century, the book seems almost postmodern in its self-conscious attention to the production of the text\u201d (Rough Stone Rolling<\/em>, p. 87), but this doesn\u2019t exactly capture it. Despite the Book of Mormon\u2019s perspectivism (and self-awareness of such), it is all about meta-narratives and un-ironic truth. What an odd, engaging text!<\/p>\n

12.\u00a0 Everyone is of course curious about what you might be working on now \u2013 particularly anything Book of Mormon related. Any hints for us?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I took some time off from Mormon Studies to co-edit the first volume of the Oxford History of Historical Writing<\/em> and to create a thirty-six lecture CD\/DVD course for the Teaching Company entitled Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition<\/em> (both of which were released earlier this year), but now I\u2019m anxious to start working on the Book of Mormon again. I was hoping in Understanding<\/em> to identify some common ground between believers and outsiders as they analyze the way the book is structured and how it presents its message. The more important question, however, is what exactly that message might be. (My concern here is academic rather than religious; I\u2019m not so much interested in persuading outsiders of the book\u2019s ultimate meaning or truth as in analyzing what the book claims for itself.) It seems to me that one of the main purposes of the Book of Mormon is to clarify and resolve ambiguities in the Bible. In other words, it is, among other things, a fairly serious work of theology. I\u2019ve sketched out an outline for a volume with chapters on the closed canon, Deuteronomistic history, rational religion (including the challenge of Deism), the delayed Parousia, salvation history, soteriology, ecclesiology, the destiny of the house of Israel, and so on. Many of these were important issues in the nineteenth century, while others go back to debates found in the New Testament itself, and still others come to prominence in the twentieth century.<\/p>\n

Once again, perhaps naively, I\u2019m hoping to find some common ground.\u00a0 The characters in the Book of Mormon obviously respond to the Bible, which was part of Joseph Smith\u2019s culture but which also has a presence within the narrative framework\u2014in the Brass Plates, in Nephi\u2019s vision, and in Jesus\u2019 sermons to the Nephites. And while there is no question that the Book of Mormon addresses nineteenth-century concerns (otherwise, it would never have gained a following), I will try to leave open the question of whether it does so as a result of Joseph Smith\u2019s own thinking, his inspiration, God\u2019s direct revelation, or the visions and foreknowledge of ancient prophets. Regardless of ideas of origins, it seems to me that careful readers should be able to agree on the main points of Book of Mormon theology, and I\u2019m optimistic that I might be able to persuade outsiders that Joseph Smith was an observant student of the Bible and an innovative, perhaps even prescient, theological thinker. (It shouldn\u2019t be a stretch for Latter-day Saints to accept that the Book of Mormon adds something significant to the biblical witness, but what, exactly?) Still, don\u2019t expect anything from me in the near future. I work at a university with a heavy teaching load, I have the privilege of serving in a rather demanding church calling, and this project will require a lot of reading in biblical scholarship, theology, and religious history. In addition, I\u2019m sure I will end up rewriting the manuscript many times before I\u2019m ready to publish. But to me this sounds like a great way to spend the next several years. The Book of Mormon continues to be a vital, fascinating text in both my life and my scholarship\u2014a statement that can serve as a concluding testimony of sorts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is the conclusion of Times & Seasons look at Grant Hardy’s new book\u00a0Understanding the Book of Mormon, and the second half of our 12 Questions interview:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":16973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,28,52,1,58,53,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-12-questions","category-book-of-mormon","category-book-reviews","category-corn","category-features","category-latter-day-saint-thought","category-mormon-studies"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Understanding-BofM-ii.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16972"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17019,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16972\/revisions\/17019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}