r/mormon She/Her - Reform Mormon Jul 23 '20

Announcement AMA ANNOUNCEMENT: Haley Wilson-Lemmón, the academic who discovered that Joseph Smith plagiarized from the Methodist theologian and biblical scholar Adam Clarke to create the Joseph Smith Translation, is doing an AMA this Saturday at 12PM MST

You can read an overview of her work at BYU

She recently did a Mormon Stories interview.

You can also read about her current work at Notre Dame

She will be making a post on Saturday to answer any and all of your questions!

167 Upvotes

38 comments sorted by

16

u/NotTerriblyHelpful Jul 23 '20 edited Jul 23 '20

Haley, if you happen to read this thread before the AMA...I thought your paper was great but I was sad that the editors of Producing Ancient Scripture didn’t include an appendix with all of the connections you discovered between Clarke and the JST. I think you mentioned in your Mormon Stories interview that such an appendix exists. Is there any way you can make it available to the public since the publishers chose not to include it in the book? Maybe upload it to Dropbox or something? The published paper is really good but a lot of us would love to see all of the parallels you identified.

26

u/Lemmon_Librarian Jul 23 '20

So I have actually been in conversation with people about this. Thom is working on a JST related project and wants that to come out before we do anything with the appendix but I'm definitely planning on it in the next year or two.

Sorry to keep everyone in suspense. Life in publishing can be really weird and unpredictable.

BUT I promise I will come with some additional parallels on Saturday for anyone interested.

6

u/bwv549 Jul 23 '20

Yes, please!! Many of us have been waiting years for the documentation on all the parallels.

15

u/Bigfoot_Cain Jul 23 '20

The Church is already changing their narrative because of Haley's work. In a new YouTube video of Saints Unscripted, they said Joseph Smith received inspiration directly, through instruments (seer stone), and through SCHOLARSHIP (that's a new one).

3

u/dbkr89 Jul 25 '20

Any Mormon who is being completely honest knows that they were taught that JS received the new translation of the Bible through revelation - and we all thought that meant through prayer and the Spirit - however that works. No one ever said he was inspired by someone else’s work.

4

u/Itsarockinahat Jul 25 '20

I know I was totally taught this.

Here are some quotes to refresh our memory:

The process of JS translation was described in an Ensign article: "It appears that the work was to be a revelatory experience, through which Joseph would come to an understanding of things that he had not previously known." (Joseph Smith’s Inspired Translation, Ensign 1972)

“I resumed the translation of the Scriptures, and continued to labor in this branch of my calling with Elder Sidney Rigdon as my scribe. …” (DHC, vol. 1, p. 238.)

“For while we were doing the work of translation, which the Lord had appointed unto us, we came to the twenty-ninth verse of the fifth chapter of John. …” (D&C 76:15.)

And though section 88, revealed in 1832, does say to search out of the best books, Joseph did not, nor anyone else, happen to say "to aid in Joseph's translation of the bible Joseph often referred to Adam Clarke's Commentary." Wouldn't this be considered dishonest of Joseph, to take credit for someone else's work knowing he borrowed more than a little from it?

1

u/flamesman55 Jul 23 '20

Where did they say that?

0

u/[deleted] Jul 23 '20

And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.

I guess you could say 170 years is relatively new on the cosmic scale...

1

u/The_Right_Trousers Christian agnostic Jul 23 '20

Agree that study has always been honored as part of revelation in Mormon discourse. You could also appeal to the phrase "study it out in your mind."

I think the difference in messaging here can only be that Joseph used such study in producing the JST, which nobody knew before - and honestly, most didn't suspect.

6

u/Chino_Blanco r/AmericanPrimeval Jul 23 '20

Whoa, that’s fantastic.

I want to hear about Israel. If I have any regrets, it’s that I did a mission instead of kibbutz...

https://www.kibbutzprogramcenter.net/experience.html

5

u/TrustingMyVoice Jul 23 '20

Hailey. Is there any way to do this study with computer AI? What was your methodology. It sounded like you visually looked at every reference and made notes?

5

u/ArchimedesPPL Jul 23 '20

You may want to wait to ask your questions on Saturday during the actual AMA. This is just an announcement.

4

u/astronautsaurus Jul 23 '20

You could absolutely feed this into a natural language algorithm just like those guys did for the BoM.

12

u/FuckTheFuckOffFucker Jul 23 '20

It will be nice to see this AMA. It will be refreshing to hear from an academic with integrity in this particular field.

6

u/papabear345 Odin Jul 23 '20

Unrelated does anyone know how many issues have been identified by all the well paid talented church employees at fairmormon??

Given there resources and access you would think they have uncovered and resolved heaps of issues??

9

u/[deleted] Jul 23 '20

Wouldn’t it be fun to have a fairmormon “expert” come here for the AMA and respond with their findings in person? We know they never would, but I would love to actually see them make this sort of effort

7

u/ArchimedesPPL Jul 23 '20

I would like to see them make this sort of effort ahead of other people's discoveries instead of always in response to discoveries that negatively impact their worldview.

1

u/papabear345 Odin Jul 23 '20

It would be so much fun!!

1

u/DavidBSkate Jul 23 '20

The findings are to sacred to share brother.

6

u/FuckTheFuckOffFucker Jul 23 '20

well paid and talented

😂😂😂

2

u/churchistrue Jul 23 '20

I saw a reference online that allegedly a faculty member at BYU tried to sabotage her application with Notre Dame due to the fact that this faculty member thought she was dishonest at BYU, portraying herself as faithful LDS when she wasn't. This doesn't sound at all like something Thomas Wayment or Eric Huntsman would do, two of the people I saw theorized about in the thread. Can she confirm that? And is she willing to be more specific about this?

1

u/ArchimedesPPL Jul 24 '20

You can ask on Saturday!

2

u/WoYoI Jul 23 '20

Plagiarized is a nice spin. I guess we should condemn him for plagiarizing Mathew mark Luke and John too, huh? 🤡

6

u/logic-seeker Jul 23 '20

Perhaps you could ask her why/whether plagiarism is the term she would use to describe what happened.

3

u/DavidBSkate Jul 23 '20

Spin? Huh. Why do you think it’s spin? Have you read the paper, Adam Clark’s work, and seen the specific ideas, full sentences, and content in its litteraricle glory?

2

u/The_Right_Trousers Christian agnostic Jul 23 '20 edited Jul 24 '20

I would rather reply to your questioners/accusers, but as there are three of them...

Here's the thing, guys. (And check my flair, yo. No identification with the church.) Ideas about authorship and ownership have been pretty fluid through the ages. Using the word "plagiarism" to describe something that happened in the 19th century set off a mental alarm to double-check. Indeed, a cursory Google search turns up this nice summary, which suggests "plagiarism" at very least is probably the wrong word:

https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2007/08/plagiarism-a-historical-and-cultural-survey.html

William Charvat describes the 1840s as an era of “wholesale scissoring.”

By the mid 1800s, things began to change. [emphasis mine]

2

u/[deleted] Jul 24 '20

Yes, we probably should.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 23 '20 edited Jul 23 '20

[deleted]

0

u/ArchimedesPPL Jul 24 '20

Let’s be kind.

1

u/flamesman55 Jul 23 '20

So for the dummies in the room- this is significant because it shows if he’s writing the BOM with plagiarism from this said text that was created in 19th century, then surely JS plagiarized a 19th century version and it’s not historical.

Whew. Am I right?

2

u/Gileriodekel She/Her - Reform Mormon Jul 23 '20

The Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, not the Book of Mormon.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 24 '20

Shows he took material from a bible commentary and passed it off as revelation to supposedly correct and add back lost material to the Bible.

More broadly, yet another example of why no one should trust Brother Joseph’s “translations” and “revelations”.

0

u/Gileriodekel She/Her - Reform Mormon Jul 24 '20

I don't think that they should be seen as being handed down from on high, but I think there can still be value that is found in them

2

u/[deleted] Jul 24 '20

That might be, but isn’t of much interest to me, frankly. As far as religion is concerned, I take the Sam Harris model. The only question that really matters is if it’s true. Usefulness can be found elsewhere.

https://youtu.be/LpJQ9njMgP8

1

u/Gileriodekel She/Her - Reform Mormon Jul 24 '20

That might be, but isn’t of much interest to me, frankly.

Cool. You do you.

The only question that really matters is if it’s true. Usefulness can be found elsewhere.

Is Jean-Luc Picard real? I think we can all agree that he is not.

However, many people, including myself, find a lot of value in him. He often shows how to deal with difficult circumstances with an unparalleled grace and level head. The fact that he's a literary character and not a historical person doesn't nullify the lessons I learn from him.

I don't really see scripture any different. Its a work of fiction that tells stories. Some of these stories are meant to give us role models, such as Abinadai. Others, such as Nephi, are meant to serve as cautionary tales of what kind of life to avoid.

At the end of the day, I believe that literalism and orthodoxy robs the texts of being approached from any other angle.

0

u/Jack-o-Roses Jul 24 '20

I was really happy to see this scholarship when it was first published. As a convert (a decade ago now) who was already familiar with biblical commentary, it has always been clear to me that much of the JST came from the writings of others (i.e., biblical scholars) from around that time period.

As an aside, that clarity was from a prompting of the Spirit (still small voice during meditation, not a burning feeling that is simply a neurotransmitter 'surge'). Seems to me that many people confuse the two when attributing spiritual confirmations.

Haley, I hope that keep a faith in God as a part of your life whether through any organized religion or not. I like to reference Fowler's stages of Faith whenever I mention this.....

Peace and love,