Book Review "This is My Doctrine" Part 3

[Apologeticsislying]

Book Review “This is My Doctrine” Part 3
By Kerry Shirts (The Backyard Professor)

With a generalized over all assessment of Joseph Smith’s interpretation of religion of his day, Harrell notes how he took this part of Evangelicalism, and then a part of a particular interpretation of scripture, and filled in gaps with theological ideas around him, etc. It’s more or less field work guessing and fitting as he went along experimenting about how to make it all more congruent and meaningful for people.(p. 18-19) This was yet another preacher in the 19th century who was trying to find God, and ended up with a lot of followers and people who were sacrificing right along with him in order to survive. Christ’s second coming could very well have been one of the magnets a group adheres to in order to all huddle together for safety, such as the Millerites, and the nature of quite a bit of Joseph Smith’s teachings. The Protestant flavor of a lot of the ideas in Early Mormonism is mentioned and the picture seems pretty accurate to me. It was later on when Joseph himself said he was trying harder to dig deeper and give the Saints some real meat in doctrine, as opposed to the earlier years, which were mostly spent sending missionaries to gather new converts. As the faith matured, so its doctrines became more singularly differentiated from the environment, though never completely, which would have been impossible. But Joseph Smith certainly did have an environmental base to build the foundation of the church up on, and only later with more knowledge, he was able to make his brand of religion unique.

How he and his followers made Mormonism unique was through a proof-texting of the Bible in order to give their own flavor of doctrines on all kinds of myriads of doctrinal subjects. And much of this did not match very well with the earlier Book of Mormon either. “One wonders why virtually none of the doctrines that would later distinguish Mormonism from other Christian faiths is to be found in the Book of Mormon.” (p. 21) Harrell points out Robert Price’s observation that to events earlier than Joseph Smith’s life, the Book of Mormon has good details and understanding, but to things and events after Joseph’s time, it become vague and sort of misty. That’s because it was easy for Joseph Smith to know the past, but the future, of course, is guesswork, and so the vagueness to anything past Joseph’s day when translating the Book of Mormon. The details were worked out as they gained experience through the years of keeping the church going through Kirtland, and into Nauvoo.

And it was here that Joseph Smith began revealing things that contradicted and went against what was said and written earlier. There isn’t the consistency that ought to be if God were actually revealing line upon line, which, incidentally, Harrell shows is mistranslated, and hence misunderstood by LDS authors and leaders. The idea is to show that God just gradually gives out the information. But this was not the actual meaning whatsoever in the scripture they misuse. The Hebrew actually expresses the idea, according to LDS author Kevin Barney, “baby talk (goo goo gah gah) or even a child’s spelling lesson.” This verse in Isaiah 28:10 so often used by the LDS authors to justify an evolution of Mormon theology and attempt to smooth out the contradictions, has nothing to do with that. It is “rather the foreign babble of the Assyrians who will soon invade their land.”( p. 9) Of course, Joseph Smith could not have known that, and so it is included in the Book of Mormon and has since been used as a proof-text throughout Mormon writings and lessons, and included as a revelation in the D&C! One can’t help but wonder how God himself could have missed that problem, but I digress.

Now, proof-texting in order to deliberately change the meaning of the scripture in order to justify a personal belief is condemned as wrong in both the New Testament and Book of Mormon. We are all familiar with 2 Peter 3:16, and Alma 13:20, 41:1, etc. So, this is a bad thing to do, it is a no-no. And Mormons certainly condemn and have condemned others who practice this heinous methodology. Or at least it’s assumed to be heinous when others do it.

What is a proof text? When one has an idea that is really cool or is supported by a different scripture, but then the scripture one wants to say something that supports an idea is changed, and then the justification is pointed to as See? I am right and the doctrine is true! And in quite bad case scenarios, many Mormon authors, if not directly from Joseph Smith himself, but in the spirit of his own approach to scripture, have then even said many ancient authors left out ideas, and all the authors are doing is giving the old lost ideas a voice again through modern scripture, while twisting the ancient scripture to make it appear as if it is saying something that it most certainly is not. This is called, in our parlance today “cheating.” And No one does it better than Christians and Mormons. This is most unfortunate, but quite true. But from the inside this is called giving line upon line, itself based on a mistranslation and totally different meaning, of which the vast majority of Mormon authors are complete unaware of, and hence feel divine sanction for going with it.

And then Harrell jumps right into it! One that stood out is Zechariah 13:6 the wounds in Christ’s hands and feet. This is proof texted incorrectly by Christians, and, unfortunately Bruce R. McConkie was the Apostle in charge of the chapter headings in the LDS version of the Bible and he indicates in the heading this was about Jesus also. It isn’t. It is a reading which ignores the original context. It has nothing to do with Jesus and his wounds in his hands and feet. (p. 9-10). McConkie in his zeal to make sure Jesus was known in Old Testament times simply blows it. Of course Mormons have to make sure there is something… anything about Jesus in the Old Testament times because the Book of Mormon is chuck full of Jesus from 600 B.C. on.

Harrell shows very many proof-texts from the Old Testament which at one time or another were used as prophecies of Christ, which were not, and in some cases, LDS authors have followed suit. In fact, I am not so sure that there are actually any Old Testament texts that have anything to do with Christ. Now that is eye opening. All the most popular ones that have been used are shown to be yanked out of context, and make much more sense as something to do with their immediate time and area the person talking lived, not to someone in the future names Jesus. Christian have argued over this for centuries, and some Mormon authors have jumped on the band wagon imagining there is something to do with Christ in the Old Testament, even to the point of inventing ad hoc the idea of double fulfillment. Double fulfillment is where it is agreed that yes the prophecy was fulfilled close to the time of the prophet (say Isaiah), but there is also going to be yet another time way later when it also will be fulfilled again! See? Prophecy! The idea is to simply “legitimize their own particular religious movements.” (p. 11) And Mormons are guilty of this as well.

Instead of calling it proof texting and being condemned as cheating, we have changed the wording to assuage our guilt and called it “reinterpretation and reformulation”, but it is still cheating. That is assuming we actually want to know what the Bible means itself, which, may not be all that important come to think of it. The way out of this? Just call it revelation today and update the old stuff. However, if you want to play it that way, then one cannot use the scripture to condemn any other religion with because that’s what they all do! What this does, in the long run, is simply eliminate the Bible as any kind of authoritative book to use for theology.

This method literally can make the Bible mean anything anyone wants it to mean, and it ruins its value. And there are still plenty who are entirely comfortable with that, since the label “God’s Word” still has resonance with enough people who pay out enough cash to religion, that the truth is no longer the objective. I suppose we could say it is part of the process of becoming secular, because it is precisely this methodological method that has helped the atheist movement worldwide. All they have to do now is point to any two religions and say, whatever they say about each other is true, hence neither is correct. Do that enough times, and no religion is correct, and they all cheat with the Bible. That is what it looks like, and there is quite powerful reasons for thinking that’s because that is how it is.

Amazingly Harrell confesses “There is perhaps no harm in finding shadows and types of Christ in these passages.” (p. 10). Well, only if you don’t care about what the Bible really means. It certainly does not legitimize the meaning of the ad hoc nature of interpretation when you create meaning and imagine its truth though does it? Yes a Bible verse says Assyria, but really, in order to make something like this mean Christ, lets say the passage really means Bethlehem and viola! All the sudden we have prophecies of Christ, and these can, using this method, run into the thousands of proofs that Jesus could truly have been foreshadowed as far back as Genesis 1:1! I mean where does the loose lunacy of this end? With this method I can literally find Jesus Christ in every single verse in the Bible, but so what? Would that make it so in reality? Would it make it more real if I didn’t exaggerate this with 100% of the Bible verses in the Old Testament, and calm it down to a mere 48%?! Would it if we only cheated with a mere 21%? Where do you draw the line? Does original meaning have any value whatsoever? If so, what would it be to those who play fast and loose with it in order to verify their own doctrines? If original meaning and value have no value, then do any of today’s religions in the west have any reality which is biblically based? And if original meaning has value, then what’s the point of changing it to suit your own purposes? Ah! The point is, control. You can control what others think, and hence have power over them. Power is much more important than truth in this regard.

To be continued….

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

Really enjoying this series as a way to revisit Harrell's book. Thanks for taking the time to summarize and parse out the good stuff!

[Apologeticsislying]

My good pleasure. Lots more coming down the pike...... I am grateful this is not a waste of your time. I really am trying to share important information (as I grasp it anyway, some may think some of what I think is unimportant, and that wouldn't surprise me any) from Harrell as I see it.