FIVE KINDS OF MORMONS - Sunstone Magazine – … MINDS FIVE KINDS OF MORMONS B.y Robert Kirby Directly in the middle are Genuine Mormons. The study was able to identify only fourteen

LIGHTER MINDS

FIVE KINDS OF MORMONS

B.y Robert Kirby

Directly in the middle are Genuine Mormons.

The study was able to identify only fourteen Genuine Mormons

in the entire world, although all Mormons think

this is the kind of Mormon they are.

AFTER MORE THAN thirty-eightyears, five countnes, a dozen states, and ap-proxtmately fifty wards, my study identifiedfive different types of Mormons: Liberal Mor-mons, Genmne Mormons, ConservanveMormons, Orthodox Mormons, and NamMormons.

ROBERT KIRBY is associate editor of the UtahCounty Journal. Between 1973-75, he servedsix kinds of missions in Uruguay An earlierversion of this essay appeared in the UtahCounty Journal

LIBERAL MORMONS

LIBERAL Mormons compnse thebroadest category of Mormons.

Regardless of temporal pohncs, L.M.s areconsidered liberal by v~rtue of thmr "odd" ornon-conformist notions about Mormomsm.Unofficial Church pohcy and general mem-bership consensus ~s that they are all going tohell

Traditionally, L.M.s vote anywhere to theleft of the Republican Party. On the averagethey have 4.9 children--a token effort in theChurch’s unspoken pohcy of Mormomzingthe world through reproducuon. L.M.s,

when they pay ~t, pay tithing haphazardlywith hterally no ~dea of whether it’s 10 per-cent or not.

hberal Mormons are also comprised ofanyone who doesn’t go to church regularly oreven at all and still beheves the gospel to beessennally true. L M.s who don’t go tochurch resent being called "less-acnve" s~ncethe reason they don’t go to church in the firstplace ~s because other Mormons there tend tobe less-acnve themselves; although by L~b-eral Mormon definition this is more of acerebral thing than an attendance th~ng.L M.s do not beheve that every word that fallsfrom the hps of a general authority representsthe actual, personal oDmon of Jesus Christ.

A trmt singular to L~beral Mormons ~sthmr love of bmnng normally complacentMormons w~th such st~mulanng statementsas "We used to hve polygamy because Jo-seph Smith was a Capricorn."

Female L.M.s also think ~t’s h~ghly astuteof them to repeatedly point out the anatom>cal differences ~n the sexes as a smde ~n&ca-tor of true priesthood ehglbflW. HopelessL~beral Mormons like to think they couldread the mind of God ff they could only geta doctorate in something obscure and uselesslike Mesozoic Menstrual Studms

Faith and obedmnce are onerous th~ngs tomost L~beral Mormons, who demand humanexplanauons for wrtually everythxng w~thwhich they don’t agree. If pressed hardenough, most Liberal Mormons would ex-plmn the veil placed over our eyes at birth tobe the real product of sexism, crony~sm, con-servansm, or.just plain old BYU-lsm. It neveroccurs to L M s that their ~ntellectual con-tranness may be the cross they are reqmredto bear ~n hfe instead of a Word of Wisdomor a nth~ng problem. L.M.s would argue gos-pel doctnne with an angel, the burning bush,or even another flood.

L.M s tend to worship most diligently atthe altar of thmr own op~mon.

GENUINE MORMONS

DIRECTLY ~n the m~ddle of the Mor-mon population are Genuine Mormons. Lit-tle ~s known of G.M.s because they are sorare. The study was able to xdentify onlyfourteen Genutne Mormons in the entireworld inclu&ng Provo. Four hve ~n theUmted States w~th two hv~ng ~n Utah. Threehve ~n South America and one each hves inSpmn, France, Samoa, and China. There wasa G.M living in England last year, but shedmd. No Genuine Mormons live ~n eitherIdaho or Cahforma. The remaining G.M.s arethe Three Nephites and John the Beloved, all

PAGE 50 DECEMBER 1991

of whom were unavailable for purposes ofthis study.

Genuine Mormons are practically invisi-ble because of their low-key approach to thegospel. That and because they are rarelyfound at home, almost always being off help-ing others through some trial or other.

Not only have G.M.s received a spiritualconfirmation of the truthfulness of the gos-pel, they have developed It into a personallyapplicable plan totally unlike the banzai salestactics taught at the MTC: G.M.s operate outof love instead of guilt. They rarely make afuss about anything and when they do, Godis usually on their side to the point wherecities full of other Mormon types get coveredby mountains or swallowed by seas.

Genuine Mormons have 2.4 children; therelatively low number results from the factthat eight of the fourteen have no children orhave never married. Among those who didmarry, the average number of children rose to5.5.

G.M.s pay tithing and then some. Andthen some more. Some of It, 10 percent atleast, goes to the Church.

Despite the low number of certifiableG.M.s, nearly all Mormons think this ~s thekind of Mormon they are.

CONSERVATIVE MORMONS

IN reality, most Mormons fall ~nto theConservanve Mormon group. These are theplump, short-haired Republican types withflowered dresses, suits, and bad breath thatfill chapels each Sunday. They comprise 71.6percent of the total Church membership, ofwhich 99.1 percent were born into theChurch, most within pot-lucking distance ofBYU.

C.M.s can generally be swayed by a logi-cal argument. Sometimes they rely on theSpirit to sort out gospel mysteries and multi-level marketing plans. They seem prone,however, to learning the gospel throughgrinding repetition, which may explain howthey can sit through yet another lesson on thespiritual joys of home teaching read tone-lessly from the manual.

C.M.s have an average of 5.7 childrenwith at least 2.5 of those children activelysaving for a m~ssion in a bank account raidedonce a year by their parents for tithing settle-ment.

Church attendance is mandatory forC.M.s. They may, however, sleep throughgeneral conference. And they will periodi-cally bless and pass the sacrament beforebreaking camp to hunt deer.

C.M.s believe that gum and Certs, if taken

surreptitiously enough, do not count againstone’s fast.

ORTHODOX MORMONS

ORTHODOX Mormons have polishedMormonism to a high, seemingly functionalgloss. Many O.M.s embrace multi-level mar-keting plans ~n the covert belief that the threedegrees of glory provide a factual basis forsuch programs. Lifelong O.M.s are hazy onthe differences between Church-mandatedmissionary discussions and heartfelt testimo-nies on the significance of soap.

O.M.s will sometimes make tons ofmoney off the gullibility of other Mormonswho believe a lifetime of honest tithe payinghas blessed them with a keen eye for suchsafe multi-level marketing plans as "How tobe a Melchlzedek Priesthood Robber Baron"or "Loot Thy Neighbor." Despite strong pop-ular belief to the contrary, this category ofMormon contains the highest number ofconvicted felons.

O.M.s are big on gospel trappings: templetie-tacks, m~ssionary name tags, and vinyl,Amencan Tourister-size scripture covers.They adorn their homes with portraits ofobscure general authorities and tole-paintedcrafts made in Relief Society. Slithered withprimary drawings and meeung schedules,the refrigerators in the homes of O.M.s looklike religious kiosks.

Name dropping IS a trait quite common toO.M.s who believe the veracity of any storyor rumor, no matter how outlandish, can besealed up to truth by the inclusion of a gen-eral authority’s name, as in, "Yup, I heard tellPresident Thomas S. Monson shoots a .300Savage. Good enough for me then, I guess."

Left to their own devices, O.M.s wouldmake a gospel ordinance out of bringing drycereal to church in Tupperware bowls inmuch the same way they’ve made the righthand more sacred than the left for purposesof taking the sacrament.

O.M.s believe that 100 percent churchattendance is mandatory for a celestial glory.They would not m~ss the practice hymn forthe death of a relative. They would not lick apostage stamp on Fast Sunday.

NAZI MORMONS

NAZI Mormons comprise roughly 8

percent of the Church’s population. Theyseem more prolific and tend to congregate inparticular wards, although this may actuallybe a misperception arising from the fact thatN.M.s tend to be incredibly verbose and an-noying, thereby creating the illusion of num-

bers.Nazi Mormons believe BYU is not only

God’s university, but that He is somehow alsoan alumnus. Nazi Mormons hang flags, wearbadges, and sport license plates all adornedwith a block letter "Y"-~known in L.M. cir-cles as the "Mormon swastika."

Nazi Mormons are prone to long-windedand weepy testimony meeting claims aboutthings that cannot be proven either in theworld of science, logic, or even thescriptures. Roughly 45 percent of testimonymeetings Church-wide are taken up byN.M.s claiming they were spared a particulartrial by virtue of their garments, a rolled upcopy of the Ensign, or the influence of ajunior high school seminary teacher.

Nazi Mormons believe partaking of thesacrament with the left hand is displeasing toGod. Only vitamin-enriched white breadshould be used for the sacrament, and noN.M would ever bring anything other thanthe time-honored and traditional staple ofCheerios to church to keep small childrenquiet. Froot Loops, Doritos, and M&Ms arefor the less faithful.

Nazi Mormons believe that Diet Coke isthe same thing as heroin, but not as bad asself-mutilauon. French kissing, even withinthe bounds of marriage, ~s unwholesome andquite possibly grounds for a bishop’s court.

Nazi Mormons pay tithing based on theirgross income, including the things they re-ceive from the b~shop’s storehouse. N.M.s arealso big on blessings--not so much the ac-tual blessing itself but rather the attendantsub-ordinance of telling everyone about it.

Families are central to Nazi Mormons,who have an average of 11.9 children. Thisperhaps stems from an over-eager interpreta-tion of Church counsel that families are for-ever, coupled with a fundamental N.M.desire to stay in constant practice. Also,N.M.s believe that all birth control includingthe rhythm method is of the devil and his~nfluence, commonly referred to by the restof the world as common sense. A counterbal-ance of Nazi Mormons is that N.M.s by theirvery overbearing nature tend to raise up asurprising number of Liberal Mormon andeven non-Mormon offspnng.

Nazi Mormons not only believe every-thing a general authority utters, they willfrequently take these counsels and Improveon them. For example, if no single datinguntil the age of sixteen is good, no singledating until the draft age is even better.

Imitative to a fault, Nazi Mormons areprone to adopting what is known as "thegeneral authority lilt" when offering prayersor tesumonies. While apparently an imitative

DECEMBER 1991 PAGE 51

effort to sound spiritual, in reality it merelyserves to make them sound like FredFlintstone with his calling and election madesure.

The study showed that upper-level N.M.swould not lick their own lips on Fast Sunday.

CONCLUSION

STRONG arguments for the existence ofother types of Mormons may arise. It shouldbe noted, however, that these additionaltypes are in truth merely sub-categories ofthe five basic Mormon types. Publication ofthis study in other journals caused the tem-porary emergence of an additional sub-groupthat clamored for its own classification: Out-raged Mormons. It was determined, how-ever, that the Outraged Mormon was inreality a sub-category of either Nazi or Or-thodox Mormons, depending on the level ofoutrage.

An important thing to remember whenconsidering the five Mormon types is thatthey are not intractable. Mormons as a ho-mogenous group tend to migrate betweenthe five types, depending largely on peerpressure, financial obligations, and whetherthey are taking the proper dosages of pre-scribed medications. ~

Rarely, however, do Mormons fluctuatemore than one or two categories. FOr exam-ple, there are no indications of Nazi Mor-mons-ever becoming Liberal Mormons.Strong evidence exists, however, of the pos-sibility that Genuine Mormons may becomesomething other-worldly that the study wasnot able to identify properly and may, at alater date, explain why there are so few ofthem.

Finally, Liberal Mormons are the onlyMormon group to th~ left of traditional Mor-mon conservatism. This can be misleadingsince it implies that all Liberal Mormons arealso politically liberal. Not true. The studyonly found that Liberal Mormons are lumpedtogether in a category by the last three Mor-mon types who traditionally have been un-able to relate to anyone who does not followthe mainstream. ~

ADDITIONAL READINGS

"Three Types of LDS Hymn Singers""Four Kinds of Home Teachers""Five Kinds of Bishops""One Kind of Returned (Honorably)

Missionary"

MONOLOGUES AND DIALOGUES

ON DEATH AND DYING

By Robert A. Rees

Thinking that we will be welcomed home by being kissed andembraced by our Mother and Father not only takes the sting out

of death, but it makes death even inviting.

When the blackbird flew out of sight,It marked the edgeOf one of many circles.

--Wallace Stevens, "Thirteen Waysof Looking at a Blackbird"

It’s not that I don’t want to die; I justdon’t want to be there when it hap-pens.

mWoody Alien

DEATH IS ONE of those mysteries wenever completely comprehend, no matterhow philosophically we regard it or how

ROBERT REES is a former editor of Dialogue:A Journal of Mormon Thought and was re-cently released as the bishop of a single adultward in Los Angeles.

unctuously we talk about it. For all the assur-ances we give to those who have lost lovedones and all the words we speak so confi-dently and comfortingly at funerals, deathremains a mystery.

I vividly remember my first encounterwith death. I was seven years old and livingin Durango, Colorado. An old Indian whowas a friend of my stepfather’s had beenstabbed to death in a fight and my stepfathertook me to see the body. I had gone to see theIndian on occasion and even ran some er-rands for him. He sold medicinal herbs ~mdI remember being impressed with the strangearomas emanating from his room and the fatwad of dollar bills he unfolded when he paidme. He was a large man, and I was ratherfrightened of him. When we arrived at hishouse, we saw his body stretched out on atable. He looked somehow less intimidating

PAGE 52 DECEMBER 1991

than when he was alive, but more frighten-ing I was aware that something terrible hadhappened. Whatever it was, I realized that itwas final.

When I was seventeen I had a conversa-tion about death with my father. Like mostteenagers, I was full of truth and wisdomwhen it came to such weighty matters asdeath. Our conversation went something likethis:

Me. I don’t understand why peopleare afraid to die.

Dad: What do you mean?Me: Well, death is just a passage from

one state to another. A simplechange. What is there to be afraidof if you are living right?

Dad: (Who had been through a num-ber of battles and near brusheswith death in the South Pacificand who had had considerable ex-periences with not hying right):When it comes nght down to it,everyone is afraid to die.

Me: I’m not.Dad: You mean If you were driving

down the highway tonight andyour car went out of control andwas about to go over a cliff, youwouldn’t be afraid?

Me: Nope!Actually, even though I didn’t admit it, he

had me there. I realized I would be afraid. Ihad contemplated death as something so re-moved and distant that I didn’t really have toworry about it; I hadn’t thought of dyingthen! Once, years later, my car did go out ofcontrol on an icy Wyoming highway. As itspun round and round in the middle of theroad and came perilously close to going overthe edge, I was plenty scared of dying.

I had thought of all this when my fatherdied several years ago. He had come to livewith us when his cancer had made it difficultfor him to care for himself. Due to his Illness,he was behaving badly and when I talkedwith him about it, in a typical rage of hurtand pride, he packed up everything he had,drove straight back to his home in Portland,and refused to speak to me for severalmonths.

About six months after this my brotherBill called to tell me that Dad was in thehospital and was not expected to hve. I flewup the next day and went to the hospital tosee him. I hardly recognized him. His six-foot-three-inch, two-hundred-pound bodywas reduced to a bag of bones and his al-ways-sharp mind moved In and out of a fog.That night I wrote the following lines"

My father once was strong as an oak,

his hands hard as ironwood, hismind tough as mesquite. Nowhis arms and legs are brittle branches,his fingers twisted twigs with knotted

joints.The thin brush of his mindtumbles in the wind.

As full of anger as he sometimes was, Ialways thought that when his time came hewould "rage against the d)ang of the light,’’1but he was as peaceful that day as I thoughtI would be when I was seventeen.

The last time I saw him alive was EasterSunday morning, 1984. Driving to the hos-pital while it was still dark, I was preoccu-pied with my father’s death. But then,looking around me, I suddenly becameaware of the Resurrection. It seemed as if allnature was straining to bear witness of thepersistence of life. The night had beenwashed with rain and everything seemednew and ahve Sitting by my father’s side Iwrote these words:

Dnv-tng to the hospital this morning,I saw a world ablaze with blossom:boxwood and cherry, dogwood and

elderberry,lilac, sumac, apple and pear, black-

berryblueberry, blackcap raspberry, blackwalnut, hazelnut, pecan and peach,

andpurple-blue momlngglories climbing everywhere--all the trees and vines and bushes,expanding, exploding, hoisting

towardlight with the fullness of this new day.

Each spring Christ calls all thetrees and all the flowers, and allthe world’s wild weeds, andsome new spnng morning he will call

myfather forth, and my father will come,breaking through planks,shouldenng through earth,alive as new grass and strongas young trees rising into the sun.

It IS dark outside and spnng hascome.

I watch my father’s dying body, andwith him I await the morning

Watching my father dying that day, I hadan eerie sense that in some way I was seeingmyself there in his deathbed. Once he wasgone, I realized, there would be no genera-tlon between me and death. I would be thenext to meet Death at his appointed hour. Isaw myself some thirty or forty years Into the

future and my children surrounding the bed,waiting patiently "For that last Onset--whenthe King/Be witnessed in the Room," asEmily Dickinson says so ironically about herown death. Like her, I sometimes "feel afuneral in my brain."2

At times since my father’s death, lookinginto mirrors or passing windows, I see hisreflection looking back at me. It is his faceand mine or his in mine, I can’t really tell, butsomehow it is an image that seems to fore-shadow my own death.

Recently I figured that I have between 1and 13,000 days left to live. I hope it is closerto the big number, but however long it IS, Iknow that day will come. I think I havereconciled myself to the fact that it is coming,but, like Woody Allen, I don’t particularlywant to be there when it does.

When I think of dying, I am reminded ofthe lovely story in the Mldrash about thedeath of Moses. As the story goes, whenMoses discovered that It was his time to die,he put on sackcloth, drew a circle on theground, and said to God, "I will not stir fromthis spot until You reverse Your decree."Moses’ prayers and lamentations were sopowerful that heaven and earth trembled,but God would not change his mind. Mosescontinued to plead and to try to persuadeGod, reminding him what an Important rolehe, Moses, had played in the unfolding ofsacred history, how he had seen God in theburning bush and learned the Law directlyfrom God on Mt. Sinai and then taught it toGod’s people. He begged, "Do not now handme over to the Angel of Death." Althoughunswayed by Moses’ passionate pleading,God reassured him by promising that he,God himself, would attend to Moses’ burial.The Midrash text recounts Moses’ reaction:"Moses stood up and sanctified himself likethe angels God Himself came down from thevery heights of heaven to take away the soulof Moses. And God took away the soul of Hisservant Moses with a kiss. And God wept.’’3

I like this story not only because it showsGod as such a tender being but because itsuggests that we each might be taken backinto God’s presence in this manner. In fact, Itis not difficult to Imagine that we might haveleft the presence of our Heavenly Father andMother in a similar way: when it came timefor us to travel to "this dark world andwide,"4 they kissed us goodbye and then theyand we wept together.

This bnngs to mind the legend of "TheSong of the Salmon" told by the LummlsIndians of the American Northwest. Accord-ing to this legend, when God created theearth he wept, and his tears formed the rivers

DECEMBER 1991PAGE 53

and streams that in turn created lakes andoceans. God then placed the Fish People inthe rivers and streams and commanded themto go out to the Great Waters and preparethemselves to take care of the generationsthat were to come after them.

Each year when it comes nme for the FishPeople to return to their headwaters, themother in the sea calls them all together withher beautiful song and when they are gath-ered, she kisses each one on the mouth andby that k~ss they know exactly how to getback to the place of their beginnings 5

Somehow, thinking that we will be wel-comed home by being kissed and embracedby our Mother and Father not only takes thesting out of death, but it makes death eveninviting. When that moment comes and weare embraced by light, enfolded in the armsof pure love, we may feel as the new motherfelt when she held her first-born ~nfant ~n herarms. She stud, "I felt as ff I were embracingthe Universe.’’6 Perhaps thatg what we reallydo when we die--we embrace and are em-braced by the universe, and ~n that embracewe receive the w~tness that we will live for-ever ~"~

NOTES

1 John Milton, "On His Bhndness "2 "I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Dmd" and "I Felt a

Funeral m My Bra~n," from The Complete Poems of EmzlyD~ckmson, ed Thomas H Johnson (Boston L~ttle Brown,1960), 223-24, 128

3 Da,nd J Wolpe, The Healer of Shattered Hearts AJewish V2ew of God (New York Henry Holt, 1990), 40-41

4 John Milton, "On H~s Bhndness "5 "The Song of the Salmon," from an ~nterwew w~th

Joe Washington, a Lumm~ medicine man, conducted byCarole Nermoe for the Foundation for Cultural Arts and theMe&a in 1982 Typescript ~n my possessmn

6 Intermew w~th "Hanya," conducted by Marc Norelh~n Rome in 1980 Typescript ~n my possessmn

THE CHURCH

Every day was a nail.Not in the hands or feet.There was no cross,no symbolism. The nailspunctured the vital partswhere blood is common.And secret. As in a roomfull of Elders makingjudgement. A sort of lovewithout foreplay. A solemnclimax. I wantednone of it, only out.

~TIMOTHY LIu

GIVE & TAKE

SHARPER THAN ATWO-EDGED SWORD

By William J. Hamblin

THE MAJOR CRITIQUE of Warfare mthe Book of Mormon, (ed Stephen D Ricksand William J Hambhn, [FA R.M.S. andDeseret Book, 1990], reviewed by MarkThomas in Sur%rorqE 15"3, 63) ~s that "ITSprime goal is to affirm the historicity of theBook of Mormon by companng it to theancmnt Near East and Mesoamenca," andthat we "attempt to demonstrate that theBook of Mormon matches an ancient settingbetter than a nineteenth-century setung"Unfortunately, the reviewer seems to havem~sunderstood the purpose of the volume.Far from attempnng to "prove" that the Bookof Mormon is an ancmnt document, we ex-phcItly state that, for the sake of argument,the contributors are assuming the book isancient. "For the present research wehave taken the view, as a working hypothesis,that the Book of Mormon is what ~t claims tobegan ancmnt history.. . Furthermore, weare exam~mng the book under the assump-tion that the text is amenable to historicalanalysis" (Welch introduction, 19-20). A per-son may beheve that this enterprise is with-out merit. However, the book’s editorsshould at least be given credit for being awarethat it is a logical fallacy to claim to somehowhave proven to be true what we explicitlystated we are assuming to be true.

In my opinion, short of finding new typesof evidence (e.g., an inscnptlon explicitlymennonmg Book of Mormon citrus, or a firstdraft of the Book of Mormon in SidneyRigdon’s handwriting), it is not possible toprove or disprove that the Book of Mormon iseither an ancient or a nineteenth-centurydocument by any historical methodology. Atbest we can examine relative plausiblhty andprobabihty. If one wishes to discuss divergent

WILLIAM J. HAMBLIN is an assistant professorof history at Brigham Young University.

models for the origin of the Book of Mor-mon, the proper methodology to be followed~s1 Assume that the book ~s an authentic an-

cient record and analyze ~t from this per-spectlve (which we have done m Warfare).

2 Assume that the book ts a nineteenth-cen-tury document and analyze it from thisperspective.

3. Compare and contrast the successes, fail-ures, and relative explanatory power of theresults of these studies

4. Attempt to &scover which model IS themost plausible explanation for the originof the text

For the most part, the studies ~n Warfare arehm~ted to phase 1 of this methodology

Mark Thomas is disappointed thatWarfare ignores the nineteenth-century evi-dence concerning warfare in the Book ofMormon, while he himself ignores an ex-plicit statement on the subject in JohnWelch’s introduction to the volume. "Morecould be done in examining and comparingnineteenth-century material .... Compari-sons to warfare In Napoleon’s day or ~n theSpaulding Manuscript could be ventured byothers" (19). Thus, rather than ignoring orsuppressing nineteenth-century evidence asThomas clmms, our book invites others toexamine it.

What, then, does Warfare m the Book ofMormon "prove") The final two sentences ofthe volume read, "Hugh N~bley has called thestudy of military affairs in the Book of Mor-mon ’a rigorous test’ to the historical claimsof the book. In hght of the numerous papersin this volume, we can say that the Book ofMormon does indeed pass the test" (496). Letme clarify what was in my mind when Iwrote those sentences. A fundamental thesisquestion of our study can be expressed as:"Can the descriptions of warfare in the Bookof Mormon be understood in light of ancient

PAGE 54 DECEMBER 1991

Near Eastern and Mesoamerican militarypractices?" When I wrote that the Book ofMormon "does Indeed pass the test," I meantthat the answer to our thesis question is yes;the descnptions of warfare in the Book ofMormon do Indeed make a great deal ofsense from an ancient perspective. However,I do not believe that this somehow proves thehistoricity of the Book of Mormon. It may,however, show that the position that theBook of Mormon is an authentic ancient textis plausible and rational in this regard

Thomas makes a great deal of the fact thatthe terms "freemen" and "kingmen" wereused to descnbe oath-taking Patriots and To-ries during the Revolutionary period, andseemingly concludes that the Book of Mor-mon must derive from the nineteenth cen-tury. What this example really shows is thatJoseph translated the Book of Mormon Intonineteenth-century English. No one has everdisputed this fact. The words which Josephtranslated as "freemen" and "klngmen" couldjust have easily been translated as"democrats" and "monarchists " One mighteven venture to assert that every word in theBook of Mormon (excepting proper names)was Indeed used by English speakers of theearly nineteenth century. But does this showthat the original text of the Book of Mormonderives from the nineteenth century? ByThomas’s method we could also demonstratethat since every word in the King Jamestranslation of the Bible (KJV) can also befound in the English of the early seventeenthcentury, there is therefore no Greek or He-brew original from which that translationderives.

Thomas also misconstrues my argumentconcerning the steel bow. He claims that "thereader must . . . conclude that the Book ofMormon contains serious historical errorsand mistranslations" because he maintains Ibelieve that "Nephl’s reference to his steelbow must be a mistranslatlon " What I spe-cifically stated is that the word "steel bow" isused in the K~ngJames Version of the Bible totranslate the Hebrew phrase "bronze"(nechushah) bow, and that "Nephi’s ’steel bow’could thus be Joseph Smith’s Jacobean Eng-hsh translation for an original Hebrew’bronze bow’ " (373-74) I do not maintainthat this is somehow a mlstranslat~on. If myoriginal statement was unclear, let me elabo-rate There was an ancient Near Eastern bowwhich was reinforced with bronze, called the"bronze bow" in Hebrew. For whatever rea-sons, the KJV translators used the Englishphrase "steel bow" to describe this weapon (2Samuel 22:35; Psalm 18:34; Job 20:24).Thus, in Joseph Smith’s day, the phrase "steel

bow" was the commonly accepted Englishterm used to describe a particular ancientNear Eastern bronze reinforced compositebow, and should not be equated with lateMedieval and early Renaissance steel bowsIndeed, I doubt very much that Joseph Smitheven knew of the existence of such weapons.Even if one insists on seeing everything in theBook of Mormon as denwng solely fromJoseph’s imagination, it is almost certain thatJoseph got the term "steel bow" from the KJVBible (374 and notes)

Those who accept an ancient model forthe ongln of the text seem to ultimately have

the methodologically easier task. They canmake room for the existence of nineteenth-century words, phrases, and Ideas in thebook; Joseph Smith lived in the early nine-teenth century and translated the volume fora nineteenth-century audience. It is to beexpected that he would therefore use termsand ideas which were meaningful in thatcontext. Those accepting the nineteenth-cen-tury model, on the other hand, have a seriousproblem accounting for the numerous mi-nute parallels to ancient features of the book,which Joseph Smith would not likely haveknown.

SWORDS INTO PRUNING HOOKS

By Mark D. Thomas

THE PROCEDURES and methodologyof the various articles in Hamblin’s book arevaried I find the methodology proposed byWelch (quoted above) to be quite useful.However, Welch is interested in more thanplacing the Nephltes in an ancient historicalsetting for the sake of Interpretation: Thebook helps in "assaying the historicity of thisrecord" (17). Hamblin’s conclusion is that theBook of Mormon passes the "rigorous test" ofthe historical claims of the book (492). How-ever, the contents of the above essay Indicatethat his conclusion is dubious. If one sug-gests that the current translation of "steelbow" for a brass bow is acceptable because itis traditional, I do not know what constitutesmistranslation. He agreed that the KJV mls-translated the term for brass bow But sup-posedly Joseph Smith is justified in using it.Then, current translations of the Bible shouldalso find such a mistranslatlon acceptable.This is the absurd conclusion we are led to bythis logic. The Book of Mormon came tocorrect bibhcal errors; in Hambhn’s view, itsreal mission is to perpetuate them. Is this partof the "rigorous test"? Both the book andHamblln’s essay Indicate that the methodol-ogy does not allow for a real test. He ex-cluded, a pnorl, the potential for the Book ofMormon to fail the "test." The methodology

MARK D. THOMAS has published several SUN-SrON~ articles examining the nineteenth-centurycontext of the Book of Mormon

guarantees the outcome.What the book provides is not a test of

historicity, but a proposed historical setnngfor Interpretation. On this latter level, thebook does an admirable job. For example,Hambhn points out that wooden clubs w~thimbedded pieces of obsidian were the NewWorld equivalent of swords. I can accept thisas the referent to the term "sword" in theBook of Mormon if I believe it’s ancient. ButI do not think this provides any kind of testfor antiquity.

I am tired of such "tests." Let us read theBook of Mormon for what it is: a book witha powerful spiritual message, as Rick’s andHamblin’s book demonstrates so well. Butthat message must be grasped in a nine-teenth-century context, because the text is inthe language of Joseph Smith. Anyone whoneglects the language of Joseph Smith ininterpreting the Book of Mormon does so athis or her own Interpretive peril. The bookclaims to be an ancient text that addresses amodern audience. That audience is everpresent in its authorial mind and interpretiveasides. In conclusion, just as one must begininterpretation of the New Testament by un-derstanding thoroughly the early Greektexts, so one must begin interpreting theBook of Mormon by understanding the lan-guage and theology of its onginal latter-dayaudience. Then, if people wish to speculateabout ancient precedents, they will do sowith greater precision. ~

DECEMBER 1991PAGE 55