History through Seer Stones - Mormon Historical Thought

[Ulan]

As quite a few posts on this forum deal with the question of the historical reality of the figure of Jesus Christ or the stories in the gospels, I find it a good idea to look a bit sideways to how some faiths throw some light on the relationship between religion and history. In this thread, I want to show some excerpts from a Ph.D. thesis by Stuart Parker (2011) from the Department of History of the University of Toronto, titled History Through Seer Stones: Mormon Historical Thought 1890-2010. The pdf file of this thesis can be found here.

Note that this is not intended as a discussion of Mormon faith per se, and many of the points in this "historical" summary have been reinterpreted by the LDS in recent years. The author summarizes the goal of this summary as follows:

Below is one version of the history of the universe that a contemporary member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints might fashion for herself based on scripture, church-approved apologetic materials and conversations with coreligionists enshrined in Mormon practices of “temple work” and testimony described below. The story which follows is not meant to describe a definitive or comprehensive Mormon past but to rehearse the elements common to many LDS narratives of the historical past, very much living realms of Mormon historical thought.

In the following post I want to quote some parts of the prologue that documents the history that is believed to be true by many Mormon believers.

[Ulan]

About the nature of God and humans:

The events chronicled in the Old and New Testaments are true, not just metaphorically but historically so. But here are some things you may not know about the past:
God was once a human being like us. He grew up on a world much like our own. Over time, he came to understand the underlying physics of our universe and mastered them, allowing him to die and resurrect himself as a god. As a god, he established his throne near the distant star of Kolob, from which “worlds without number” radiate outwards. Aeons ago, in a place called the Spirit World, he began siring his spirit children through his wife, the Mother in Heaven. These spirit children lived in a world much like our own except that they and it were made out of a highly refined physical substance known as “spirit,” something invisible to our eyes. This world had religious observance, manufacturing, education and all the elements of a productive society, along with the physical/spiritual infrastructure needed to sustain it. Over time, through a combination of education and experience, these spirit children became increasingly distinct and individuated, developing their own personalities and inclinations.

God wanted the best for his children, to become like him and one day, become gods and so, based on the physical laws he had learned in the process of becoming a god, he developed the Plan of Salvation. In this plan, he, perhaps with some assistance, would create the planet earth where his spirit children would be born into mortal, fleshy human bodies just as his once had been, with their skills and inclinations intact from their time in the Spirit World but minus their memories. That is why we don’t remember our life there. On Earth, God’s children would learn the arts of virtuous living and priesthood power and be tested and, if they passed the test, be resurrected as gods. These arts, collectively, are what is properly meant by the term “the Gospel.” But in order for this plan to work, they would have to first become and be made of perishable flesh by way of a “fall;” they would then have to be redeemed from this fallen state by one spirit who would come to earth and be sacrificed at the “meridian of time,” near the midway point in the planned history of the world. God’s eldest son, our elder brother, Jesus, thought this was a good idea and even agreed to play the role of the sacrifice.

So, God was once a flesh & blood human who succeeded at improvement and wants us (former angels) to become gods, too. But what about more tangible history, here after the War in the Heaven:

Following the war, God and the most advanced spirits then set about planning and making the earth. Once creation was complete, Adam, formerly Michael, and his wife Eve were created near present-day Jackson Country, Missouri, on the outskirts of Kansas City. As described in the Bible, the human race experienced various growing pains but there were some notable successes about which you may not have heard. The prophet Enoch founded a city whose people were so righteous that they were all translated from the earth to another location where they will not taste of death until it is time for all human beings to be resurrected at the conclusion of the Plan of Salvation when Jesus comes to the earth for a second time.

I guess we are not in Kansas anymore. After the Deluge, everything started in Asia again. But did people get back to America? That happened after the Tower of Babel incident.

But one group of the faithful received a warning that they should escape from the region and journey a great distance to a new and special land. Led by the prophet Jared, whose brother served as the main recipient of the group’s revelations from God, this small group of refugees left Mesopotamia and journeyed some distance overland through Asia before fashioning, under divine direction, submersible barges which they used to travel to the New World. There, they established a righteous society that, sadly, declined over time, devolving into factionalism and endemic warfare due, in large measure, to the presence of destabilizing secret societies. Sometime in the seventh or sixth century BCE, society entered its terminal phase and the two major factions annihilated one another in a massive military conflagration from which only one combatant survived.

[Ulan]

So, mankind reached America via submersible barges.

Let's get to Abraham and the Seer Stones from the title:

The prophet Abraham began his career as a priest in Chaldea where he was persecuted by pagan worshippers following various false gods, including the god of the then-pharaoh of Egypt. Although much of Abraham’s career as prophet and priest is chronicled in the Bible, there are some things you may not know. For instance, Abraham, like his son, was also nearly sacrificed on an altar (in his case, it was to an Egyptian god at the pharaoh’s behest). The earliest known possessor of the Urim and Thummim, oracular seeing stones that would later become part of the Breastplate of Judgment, Abraham used the stones to obtain crucial knowledge from the Lord including humanity’s extraterrestrial origin, the contents of the Plan of Salvation, the physical nature of spirits, the involvement of multiple gods in the creation of the Earth and important informationabout astronomy including information about Kolob.

Go for the stars! The next settlement of the Americas by Israelites happens during Jeremiah's times:

The party then journeyed through the wilderness to another location on the coast where they were instructed by God in the building of vessels to take them to the “land of promise.” They were also aided by a special object provided by the Lord called the Liahona, a small compact device that gave them directions for their overland and maritime migrations. The Lehites embarked on their journey across the sea to some location in the Americas where they began to settle. During the process of settlement, Lehi died and his family split into two factions: one led by Nephi, his youngest son, the other by Laman, his eldest. The Nephites formed an urban society that hewed closely to the word of the Lord which, thanks to their access to a more complete scriptural canon and a series of visions enjoyed by Nephi and his father, included diligent sacrifice and piety in anticipation in the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, slightly less than six centuries in their future. The Lamanities on the other hand become a semisedentary people who were cursed by God.

Mormon archeologists still look for archeological remnants of the Nephites and of course also of Zarahemla:

Shortly after the Nephites departed, things worsened in Jerusalem and Mulek, a son of the Judean king Zedekiah received instructions from God to also depart the Near East and journey across the ocean to the New World or Promised Land. Once in the Americas, they constructed a large metropolis that would later come to be known as Zarahemla. Although architecturally and culturally impressive, Mulekite society degenerated due to a lack of written records and people soon lost both their literacy and correct religious and historical knowledge.

Then follows lots of boring "history". But what about Jesus?

Just prior to the birth of Christ, Nephite society took an iniquitous turn and, surprisingly, a Lamanite prophet named Samuel appeared to call the people to repentance.

Following Christ’s crucifixion, a major natural disaster took place throughout the territory occupied by the Nephites, accompanied by three days of darkness. The disaster resulted in earthquakes and the destruction of whole cities through flooding and volcanism. Following this event, the resurrected Christ arrived in the Americas and preached at the Nephite capital. Over the next few months, he established a new church in the Americas, led by twelve disciples, on three of whom he conferred immortality.29 Following Christ’s departure, all of the Lehites in the Americas were converted to the gospel in the space of two years and the Nephites and Lamanites fused into a single people. For the next two centuries, Israelite civilization in the Americas experienced a golden age of peace and prosperity.

That should leave some archeological remnants, shouldn't it? But the golden age came to an end:

The increasingly bitter warfare between the two groups reached its climax at the Battle of Cumorah, a hill where the Lamanites inflicted a catastrophic and total defeat on the Nephites whose only surviving combatant, Moroni, son of the war leader Mormon, buried his people’s records on golden plates in the hill a generation later.

And there they are, Joseph Smith's golden plates and the angel Moroni.

There's also something about Constantine and the role of the Roman Empire:

Around the same time, the true church was also dying out in Europe, Africa and Asia due to pressure, first in the form of persecution and then in the form of cooptation through a process of Church-state fusion initiated by the Roman emperor Constantine. For the first time, in both hemispheres, lines of priesthood succession and true knowledge of the Gospel were not just reduced to a remnant but totally eliminated, inaugurating a period of more than a millennium of darkness called the “Great Apostasy.

So we even have "the Romans faked it" here.

But yes, that's history. "True" history . And on this "history", one of the fastest growing Christian (?) denomination of today bases its belief.

[Ulan]

The take on the Book of Mormon as true history also leads to discussions like this:

http://mit.irr.org/scientific-search-nephite-remains

Lots of hypotheses about how to interpret scripture and make it fit archeological finds.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

So, God was once a flesh & blood human who succeeded at improvement and wants us (former angels) to become gods, too. But what about more tangible history, here after the War in the Heaven:

Following the war, God and the most advanced spirits then set about planning and making the earth. Once creation was complete, Adam, formerly Michael, and his wife Eve were created near present-day Jackson Country, Missouri, on the outskirts of Kansas City....

Great thread

[MrMacSon]

So, God was once a flesh & blood human who succeeded at improvement and wants us (former angels) to become gods, too. But what about more tangible history, here after the War in the Heaven:

Following the war, God and the most advanced spirits then set about planning and making the earth. Once creation was complete, Adam, formerly Michael, and his wife Eve were created near present-day Jackson Country, Missouri, on the outskirts of Kansas City....

Do a Yellow Brick Road, an Emerald City, Dorothy, Toto, Munchkinland, Munchkins, and Wicked Witches of the East and West feature?

[Ulan]

Great thread

Thanks.

Do a Yellow Brick Road, an Emerald City, Dorothy, Toto, Munchkinland, Munchkins, and Wicked Witches of the East and West feature?

Unfortunately not, but it makes up for this with lots of other details, like the struggles between Nephites and Lamanites, the explanation why dark skin is a sign of God's curse, the tales about the great city of Zarahemla, or the grand Battle of Cumorah.

Don't get me wrong, this thread is not about making fun of Mormons. A modern Mormon would probably also deny some of the claims in the quoted summary, as the LDS tries to adapt to modern information society. However, the thread is meant to show that even today, in societies that have easy access to lots of information, we can find whole societies that base their ideas of history on stories most of us would simply shake their head about.

We put much too much faith in the power of reason in discussions of beliefs. A strong belief can make us fit reality to our beliefs. This is not a question of intelligence, as intelligent people just find better excuses for their beliefs. What actually evoked my interest in these stories was a long-time colleague of mine who had the desk next to me. He has a Ph.D. in the STEM fields and is rather successful in his job. However, he strongly believes that all that history I outlined up there is true. He even took his obligatory missionary time in Guatemala, to be close to the ancient places of American history as it is outlined in the Book of Mormon.

All of this led me to believe that assigning probabilities according to our own idea of what is reasonable or not is a rather dangerous approach. I am aware of the fact that that is all we can do, but never underestimate the human desire to bend reality to their own beliefs.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Don't get me wrong, this thread is not about making fun of Mormons.

My second smiley were not meant in this sense. I took a little look in the Ph.D. thesis by Stuart Parker and it sounds really interesting.

But I must confess that my first smiley ...

[MrMacSon]

Don't get me wrong, this thread is not about making fun of Mormons .. the thread is meant to show that even today, in societies that have easy access to lots of information, we can find whole societies that base their ideas of history on stories most of us would simply shake their head about.

Sure. I was doing what some have proposed to have happened during and within the development of Christianity - parody. There are some good arguments that many terms like "The Poor" and "The Way" were, initially at least, parodies.

All of this led me to believe that assigning probabilities, according to our own idea of what is reasonable or not, is a rather dangerous approach.

Potentially, but we can assign probabilities is a reasonably rational manner, too.

[Ulan]

Don't get me wrong, this thread is not about making fun of Mormons.

My second smiley were not meant in this sense. I took a little look in the Ph.D. thesis by Stuart Parker and it sounds really interesting.

But I must confess that my first smiley ...

No problem. I really don't mind if you make fun of some of those Mormon beliefs. I'm sure it won't get mean.

But yes, it's an interesting work. Many people, even if they have contact with Mormons every day, don't know these things. However, as I said, the points have different weights. You can check where every statement in that summary comes from in the original text (it's all sourced), and I think that Kansas City statement is one of the less strong ones. That Mesoamerican Israelite history on the other hand is canon.