By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog

I’ve had these two books in the queue for a while, Butler’s book by anticipation, Harris’s book by procrastination. They deserve separate posts but I want to get them off my to-do list. Butler’s book is not specifically directed toward Latter-day Saints (she does mention Mormons on a few occasions I believe but it is just in passing) but Harris’s book, if read in tandem with it, will, I think, show that Butler’s work is quite relevant to a Latter-day Saint audience. Both are available as audio books and their format lends itself this medium if you enjoy that.

White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America

Anthea Butler (Associate Professor of Religion, University of Pennsylvania)

Copyright 2021, The University of North Carolina Press

Amazon: hardcover $21.60. Kindle: $9.00. Audible audio book $12.24.

First, Butler. This is a short book, and it serves the purpose of the author: come to grips with a very broad issue but without leaving behind the mainstream reader. Scholars can read with profit however. I did. Racism in the evangelical American world has a long history. In some ways it extends back to the Reformation. But Butler begins with the nineteenth-century and the role of religion in the question of slavery, its support of the Peculiar Institution in the South especially in the Age of Jackson and in Reconstruction. The details of that story can be found in other specialized tomes but Butler does an excellent job of showing what happened in brief and how the racism of the antebellum world found its way into the twentieth century. Mormonism partook of much of that racism and it showed in church doctrines/speech/policies about race from the beginning (Blacks as descended from Cain, curse of Canaan, etc., etc.).

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There are few things that people antagonistic to the church can pejoratively say to induce in me a harder eye roll than the church is a corporation—shortened to LDS Inc for the feckless. A little more than a decade ago it became popular in some corners to assert that there was no Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that there was merely a trademark and copyright owned by one of two corporations: The Corporation of the Presiding Bishop, and the Corporation of the President—both “corporations sole,” meaning that they are “owned” (Dun, dun, dun) by single individuals. There is no church, they say, and there hasn’t been since the early twentieth century. Of course this line of reasoning is silly.

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Whether dealing with monkeys, rats, or human beings, it is hardly controversial to state that most organisms seek information concerning what activities are rewarded, and then seek to do (or at least pretend to do) those things, often to the virtual exclusion of activities not rewarded. . . . Nevertheless, numerous examples exist of reward systems that are fouled up in that behaviors which are rewarded are those which the rewarder is trying to discourage, while the behavior he desires is not being rewarded at all. –Steven Kerr

There are not many business management articles that I would consider “classics,” and there is perhaps only one that I would be tempted to call “indispensable”: Steven Kerr’s excellent 1975 article, “On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B.” Nearly everything important about the article can be derived from the title: human institutions have a habit of rewarding one thing while expecting another. And this is dumb. Everything else is just examples.

Jenny Reeder is an historian with the Church History Department of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She has a PhD in American history from George Mason University, and is the co-editor, co-author, and contributor to several important volumes, including, The Witness of Women, At the Pulpit, The First Fifty Years, and Women and Mormonism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Deseret Book recently released her biography, First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith. She has graciously answered a few questions for us.

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“In the last days it will be that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
    and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
    and your old men shall dream dreams.” (NRSV: Acts 2:17, quoting Joel 2:28)

Visions are exciting. As a college student, my favorite aspect of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was our fulfillment of Joel’s prophesy. The heavens had opened! The Book of Mormon had been unearthed as scripture! The gospel was Restored! Prophets again walked the Earth! What a time to be alive — when Jesus Christ’s Second Coming was imminent!

I loved religious fervor. I particularly loved to read primary sources from the Second Great Awakening. To me, Joseph Smith‘s visions were part of God’s wave of religious revivals. Contemporary visionaries like Peter Cartwright and Antoinette Brown Blackwell couldn’t help but also be awash in spiritual power.

ON SECONDARY SOURCE INFLUENCE IN THE JST

Kevin Barney

    Now that I have completed my informal blog commentary on the JST of Acts through Revelation, I feel as though I need to go back and say a few words on the topic of possible secondary source influence on the JST. I dealt with that issue to some extent in my formal article on 1 Corinthians in Dialogue. There I identified what struck me as four plausible secondary sources (the Clarke Commentary, Wesley’s Explanatory Notes, and the Campbell and Coverdale translations). When I did my first blog commentary (on 2 Corinthians) I didn’t bother with the two translations, as I saw no indication in 1 Corinthians that either of those was an influence on Joseph. Rather I just checked Clarke and Wesley and didn’t see any obvious influences from those sources there. Then when I did Galatians at the last minute I think I did a quick scan of Clarke only (not Wesley) and didn’t see anything. After that I decided to just put the issue up on Camilla Kimball’s proverbial shelf for another day; secondary source influence was rather tangential to what I was doing. But now that I have finished the commentary I feel the need to revisit this topic in general terms.

A few months ago I made a decision. I will not be accepting any more church callings. I am currently Executive Secretary, and my plan was to continue until the Bishop was released, and then not accept any new callings. His five-year anniversary is coming up this fall, so I assumed it would happen then. But our stake was reorganized on Sunday, and he was called into the new stake presidency as a counselor, so that accelerated things a bit. Below is the text I sent him after the conference on Sunday:

 COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF THE PERICOPE “PETER’S CONFESSION” IN THE FOUR GOSPELS

Kevin Barney

Introduction

    Having completed my informal commentary on the JST of Acts through Revelation, I knew I wasn’t going to take on the Gospels, which would be a massive task. They are long books, and almost every verse is modified in some way, and that was just way more than I was willing to bite off and chew. But I have to admit that I was curious about what I might find there. So I decided to do just a small demonstration project; I would pick a single pericope and then compare that pericope in each of the Gospels. I chose Peter’s confession of Christ almost at random; the only non-random thing about it is I wanted one that had parallel text in all four Gospels. Immediately below I give the parallel texts of this pericope in all four Gospels followed by my commentary.

“Sincerely asking for and listening to the thoughts and concerns voiced by women is vital in life, in marriage, and in building the kingdom of God.”*

This quote was given by Elder Neil L. Andersen during the Saturday Afternoon Session**, which, ironically, had no women’s voices included. No prayers, no speakers. Nothing.

In total for the April General Conference, two women gave talks: outgoing Primary President Joy Jones and Relief Society Counselor Reyna Aburto. And one woman, Relief Society Counselor Sharon Eubank, gave the closing prayer to the final session of conference, surprising me, because I wondered if we were going back to the 1970s where women were not allowed to give prayers in mixed-sex meetings.

Recently, in connection with the controversy over the church’s decision to renovate the Manti Temple, and by so doing remove the murals by the famed artist Minerva Teichert contained therein, my old friend Jonathan Green wrote a short, smart, pithy defense of the church’s decision on the Times and Seasons blog, which I think I can mostly fairly summarize as: “you’re focusing on the wrong thing, everyone; as far as murals in a temple are concerned, It’s Just Art.” I strongly disagree with this take–but I want to be clear on why.

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A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF ROMANS 11-16

Kevin Barney

1. Romans 11:2

God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot Know ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession complaint to God against Israel saying,

    The Greek verb here is oidate “know” (perfect but with present meaning). The word “wot” means “to know” in both the first and third person present singular indicative, from the Old English verb witan. Smith was aware of this archaism and so regularly substitutes “know” for “wot.” The Greek verb rendered “make intercession” here is entugchano, which means to approach, appeal to or plead with an official or person in authority. In a divine context the word can refer to prayer to God. Interestingly for the JST revision here, the UBS Greek-English Dictionary of the New Testament cites as a possible meaning of the verb “to bring complaints,” citing Acts 25:24, since appeals by the people to leaders often naturally include complaints. The CEV, NIRV and NLT use “complained” here and GW uses “complains.”

    Paradigm Classification A-1 (English Paraphrase of KJV Text)

A COMMENTAR4Y ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF ROMANS 8-10

Kevin Barney

1. Romans 8:8

So then they that are in after the flesh cannot please God.

    The KJV here is an overliteral translation of the Greek text. Since all human beings by very definition live “in” the flesh, this verse seems to say it is impossible for any human being to please God. The JST solves this problem succinctly by assimilating “in the flesh” to “after the flesh” (kata sarka from v. 4), which indeed conveys the correct nuance. The Anchor Bible recognizes this problem and therefore similarly renders “So those who live by the flesh. . . .” Other modern translations typically have something like “in the realm of the flesh” or “in the life of the flesh.” CEB has “who are self-centered.”

    Paradigm Classification A-1 and A-4  (English Paraphrase of KJV Text and Assimilation)

A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF ROMANS 6-7

Kevin Barney

1. Romans 6:7

 For he that is dead to sin is freed from sin.

    The import of the verb here translated “freed” (dedikaiotai), often rendered “acquitted,” is uncertain. Some take it in a forensic sense under Jewish law, meaning a dead person is freed from any legal case or claim against him in life. Others take it in the more traditionally Pauline sense, “justified,” and thus acquitted of sin. Others see the death here not as physical death but as the symbolic death one experiences in baptism. The JST seems to be making the point that death in and of itself does not justify the deceased, because there is an afterlife and there will be a divine judgment with various postmortem repercussions. So the JST suggests that the true way to become freed from sin is not to die but to become “dead to sin.”

    Paradigm Classification A-1 (English Paraphrase of KJV Text)

A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF ROMANS 2-5

Kevin Barney

1. Romans 2:1

Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that thus judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.

    Judging is not necessarily a bad thing; we have judges in our legal system for a reason. The JST inserts “thus” (meaning “in such a way,” referring back to the unrighteous judgment described in the previous chapter) to make this point clear.

    Paradigm Classification A-1 (English Paraphrase of KJV Text)

A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF ROMANS 1

Kevin Barney

1. Romans 1:1

Paul, an apostle, a servant of God, called of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, and separated unto to preach the gospel of God,

    This reorganization of titles seems to have been spurred by a desire to avoid the italicized “to be” in the expression “called to be an apostle.” The words “an apostle” are moved to immediately follow the name “Paul” by assimilation to the other Pauline letters, as “Paul, an apostle” in apposition is the most common opening formula used in the Pauline corpus. “Called” is also moved forward to become “called of Jesus Christ.” The other revisions seem designed to support these changes. This salutation is lengthier and more detailed than others because Paul was introducing himself to a church he had neither evangelized nor yet visited (Rome). By announcing he was an apostle, a servant of God, called of Jesus Christ and separated to preach the gospel, Paul was articulating his bona fides to address the Roman church authoritatively. Verses 1-7 actually constitute a single, lengthy sentence in Greek, which shows the concern he had in introducing himself properly to this church community.

    Paradigm Classifications A-1, A-2 and A-4 (English Paraphrase of KJV Text, Suspicion of Italicized Text and Assimilation)

A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF ACTS 12-28

Kevin Barney

1. Acts 12:7

And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon unto him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands.

    The expression “came upon him” almost sounds like an accidental encounter; the point of “came unto him” would seem to be to make the encounter more intentional and purposeful. The verb epeste (second aorist of ephistemi) is used in an intransitive sense: “come and stand by, come up to or upon,” often suddenly or unawares. The sense is expressed well in the NET: “Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared.” The italicized “him” may have been an influence, as there is no literal pronoun in the Greek text.

    Paradigm Classifications A-1 and A-2 (English Paraphrase of KJV Text and Suspicion of Italicized Text)

A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF ACTS 1-11

Kevin Barney

1. Acts 1:3

To whom also he shewed showed himself alive after his passion sufferings by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:

    The change from “shewed” to “showed” is a modernization of the archaic spelling “shew.” The word “passion” is a translation of the aorist infinitive of the verb pascho “to suffer,” which we recognize in English from the “paschal” lamb. The word “passion” may be used as a technical term for the suffering of Jesus (from the past participle [passus] of the Latin verb patior “to suffer”), so the KJV translation is not incorrect. But over time the word “passion” in contemporary English has come to also take on meanings of strong romantic and sexual feelings. So while the KJV is not technically incorrect, the JST gives a more literal translation to avoid misunderstanding. Many modern translations also use “suffering” here.

    Paradigm Classifications A-1 and A-3 (English Paraphrase of KJV Text and Modernization)

Saturday morning I was sitting in the family room watching TV, and my wife popped her head in and asked me whether I had heard about the newly discovered Dead Sea Scrolls. (She got some kind of an alert on her phone.) I had not. After a quick google search, I had the skinny: about 80 fragments from a book of the 12 minor prophets in Greek had been discovered in a cave about 25 miles south of Jerusalem, the first new DSS manuscript material discovered in about 60 years. This is believed to be related to similar material discovered in Cave 8, commonly referred to as the “Cave of Horror,” so named for the 40 skeletons found on the site.

A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF REVELATION 13-22

Kevin Barney

1. Revelation 13:1

And I saw another sign, in the likeness of the kingdoms of the earth; a beast rise up out of the sea; and he stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

    This is a remarkable revision. Modern translations have the first part of this verse as Revelation 12:18 (the last verse of the preceding chapter) rather than the first part of 13:1. The NET for 12:18 reads “And the dragon stood [estathe, third person] on the sand of the seashore.” The Textus Receptus, followed by the KJV, combines these words into the beginning of 13:1: “And I stood [estathen, first person referring to the narrator, not the beast/dragon] upon the sand of the sea.” Remarkably (and correctly), the JST has the beast and not the narrator as the one standing on the sand of the seashore. This is widely regarded as the original reading. The NET explains: 

“tc Grk (estathe “he stood”). The reading followed by the translation is attested by the better mss [technical listing of mss omitted] while the majority of mss [technical listing omitted] have the reading estathen (“I stood”). Thus the majority of mss make the narrator, rather than the dragon of 12:17, the subject of the verb. The first person reading is most likely an assimilation to the following verb in 13:1, “I saw.” The reading “I stood” was introduced either by accident or to produce a smoother flow, giving the narrator a vantage point on the sea’s edge from which to observe the beast rising out of the sea in 13:1. But almost everywhere else in the book, the phrase kai eidon (“I saw”) marks a transition to a new vision, without reference to the narrator’s activity. On both external and internal grounds, it is best to adopt the third person reading, “he stood.”

Is it possible Smith derived this from a secondary source? Sure, but a few factors would seem to make that unlikely. First, I checked both the Adam Clarke Commentary and Wesley’s Explanatory Notes, and neither source mentions this variant, so if this change derived from a secondary source it would have been something more obscure than those two obvious possibilities. Further, to me the way Smith worded the revision would seem to argue against secondary source influence. A scholar would have revised this text precisely, as with a scalpel, simply by changing the verb from first to third person and changing the subject from the narrator to the beast/dragon. But instead of just jettisoning the first person as a scholar would do, Smith keeps it but redeploys it by attaching it to a new, general introductory statement by the narrator, after which he applies the third person verb (correctly) to the beast/dragon. So the JST still begins with KJV “And I,” but that “I” now is the subject of a different, general introductory statement. The JST then transitions to the beast, and has the beast as the one who stands on the sands of the seashore, not the narrator.

    Paradigm Classification E (Textual Restoration)

A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF REVELATION 8-12

Kevin Barney

1. Revelation 8:12

And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as that the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.

    The expression “so as the third part of them was darkened” in the KJV is what in Greek grammar is referred to as a “final clause” meant to express purpose, consisting of the conjunction hina + a verb in the subjunctive mood, which would typically be rendered “so that” as the JST correctly has it. The vast majority of modern translations use “that” here with the JST, such as the NET’s “so that a third of them were darkened.”.

    Paradigm Classification A-1 (English Paraphrase of KJV Text)

A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF REVELATION 3-7

Kevin Barney

1. Revelation 3:1

And unto the angel servant of the church in Sardis, write; These things saith he that who hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars, which are the seven servants of God; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art not dead.

    The Greek angelos, despite its common English cognate “angel,” can also mean a human messenger or one sent on some sort of a mission. The JST often takes it in this sense in Revelation with the word “servant.” Smith consistently edits references to the “seven Spirits of God” out of the text; the meaning of the allusion is unclear, but may be a reference to the seven archangels of Jewish tradition. Here Smith keeps the reference to the “seven stars,” but simply equates them with the seven servants, which Smith seems to intend to refer to the human leaders of the seven churches (to which Revelation was directed). The end of the verse should be rendered something like “I know your deeds, that you have a reputation that you are alive, but in reality you are dead.” (NET) KJV “name” is a translation of onoma, which here actually means “reputation.” The end of the KJV translation doesn’t make sense: “thou hast a name that thou livest, and are dead.” The KJV seems to be contradicting itself, which is why the JST adds a negative to the last clause, “thou art not dead.” This is a reaction to a KJV translation error. The conjunction kai most commonly means “and,” as the KJV takes it in this passage, but here kai has contrasting force and needs to be rendered “but” (as correctly rendered for instance in the NET).

    Paradigm Classification A-1 (English Paraphrase of KJV Text)

A COMMENTARY ON JOSEPH SMITH’S REVISION OF REVELATION 1-2

Kevin Barney

1. Revelation 1:1

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which John, a servant of God gave which was given unto him of Jesus Christ, to shew show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and that he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:

    The genitive in “the Revelation of Jesus Christ” is famously ambiguous. It could be an objective genitive (“the revelation about Jesus Christ”), a subjective genitive (“the revelation from Jesus Christ”), or both, sometimes called a general or plenary genitive (“the revelation from Jesus Christ about himself”). But note that these opening words seemed to have served the function of a title for the book anciently; the first Greek word of the text is Apokalupsis, whence we get English Revelation (or Apocalypse). And typically, in the expression [Title] of X, X is the (human) author of the book, which in this case would be John. Compare the Gospels, which were originally considered a single “Gospel” (according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, according to John), then a fourfold “Gospel,” until eventually each text was itself considered a “Gospel.” We refer to these books today as the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel of John (as the human authors of those works). So the JST is reflecting that same style here, making Revelation the title of the book (as indeed reflected on the KJV title page just above verse 1, “Revelation of John”) and making the following name that of the human author, John, and not the subject/object, Jesus Christ. The other changes in the verse accommodate this foundational change, such as clarifying that the revelation was given to John by Jesus Christ (thus suggesting a subjective genitive). About a half-dozen manuscripts give the opening line in a way similar to the JST with “an apocalypse of John of the divine word” (see J. Massyngberde Ford, Revelation, A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1975), 373.

    Paradigm Classification A-1 (English Paraphrase of KJV Text)

It isn’t always easy being an international member of a church in which English dominates—not only is the headquarters located in an English-speaking country and the hierarchy largely populated by native speakers of English, but the only authentic version of its founding and distinguishing scripture is English.