DIALOGUE PO Box 1094 Farmington, UT 84025 Electronic Service Requested DIALOGUE DIALOGUE a Journal of Mormon Thought
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DIALOGUE PO Box 1094 Farmington, UT 84025 electronic service requested DIALOGUE DIALOGUE a journal of mormon thought 52.2 summer 2019 52.2 EDITORS DIALOGUE EDITOR Boyd Jay Petersen, Provo, UT a journal of mormon thought ASSOCIATE EDITOR David W. Scott, Lehi, UT WEB EDITOR Emily W. Jensen, Farmington, UT FICTION Jennifer Quist, Edmonton, Canada POETRY Elizabeth C. Garcia, Atlanta, GA IN THE NEXT ISSUE REVIEWS (non-fiction) John Hatch, Salt Lake City, UT REVIEWS (literature) Andrew Hall, Fukuoka, Japan Roundtable on the name of the Church with Kalani Tonga, INTERNATIONAL Gina Colvin, Christchurch, New Zealand POLITICAL Russell Arben Fox, Wichita, KS Rebbie Brassfield, Mette Harrison, Peggy Fletcher Stack, Loyd HISTORY Sheree Maxwell Bench, Pleasant Grove, UT Ericson, Ronald Wilcox, Michael Austin, and Clifton Jolley SCIENCE Steven Peck, Provo, UT FILM & THEATRE Eric Samuelson, Provo, UT PHILOSOPHY/THEOLOGY Brian Birch, Draper, UT Rebecca de Schweinitz writing on William E. Berrett ART Andi Pitcher Davis, Orem, UT Steven Peck’s “The Sacrifice” BUSINESS & PRODUCTION STAFF Join our DIALOGUE! BUSINESS MANAGER Emily W. Jensen, Farmington, UT PUBLISHER Jenny Webb, Woodinville, WA Find us on Facebook at Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought COPY EDITORS Richelle Wilson, Madison, WI Follow us on Twitter @DialogueJournal Jared Gillins, Washington DC PRINT SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS EDITORIAL BOARD ONE-TIME DONATION: 1 year (4 issues) $60 | 3 years (12 issues) $180 Lavina Fielding Anderson, Salt Lake City, UT Becky Reid Linford, Leesburg, VA Mary L. Bradford, Landsdowne, VA William Morris, Minneapolis, MN Claudia Bushman, New York, NY Michael Nielsen, Statesboro, GA RECURRING DONATION: Verlyne Christensen, Calgary, AB Nathan B. Oman, Williamsburg, VA $10/month Subscriber: Receive four print issues annually and our Daniel Dwyer, Albany, NY Taylor Petrey, Kalamazoo, MI Subscriber-only digital newsletter Ignacio M. Garcia, Provo, UT Thomas Rogers, Bountiful, UT Brian M. Hauglid, Spanish Fork, UT Mathew Schmalz, Worcester, MA $25/month Sustainer: Receive Subscriber-level benefits, as well as Gregory Jackson, Lehi, UT John Turner, Fairfax, VA an annual book selection from BCC Press G. Kevin Jones, Salt Lake City, UT Blair Van Dyke, Cedar Hills, UT $50/month Digital Pioneer: Receive Subscriber-level benefits, as well BOARD OF DIRECTORS as two annual book selections from BCC Press, plus named recog- Michael Austin, Evansville, IN—chair Christian E. Kimball, Wolf Creek Ranch, UT nition on our site and in the journal Daylin Amesimeku, Boston, MA Kyle Monson, New York, NY Molly McLellan Bennion, Seattle, WA Russell Moorehead, New York, NY $100/month Sponsor: Receive Subscriber-level benefits, plus named Matthew Bowman, Claremont, CA Benjamin E. Park, Conroe, TX recognition on our site and in the journal, four annual book selec- Stephen L. Bradford, Los Angeles, CA Brent Rushforth, Washington, DC tions from BCC Press, and invitations to two lunches per year with Joanna Brooks, San Diego, CA Rebecca de Schweinitz, Provo, UT the Foundation Board. Aaron Brown, Seattle, WA Karla Stirling, Bountiful, UT Daylin Farias, Boston, MA Travis Stratford, New York, NY William S. Hickman, Bothell, WA Morris Thurston, Villa Park, CA Linda Hoffman Kimball, Woodland, UT www.dialoguejournal.com On the cover: Royden Card, Far Past Brendel, 22’’ x 40’’ DIALOGUE a journal of mormon thought is an independent quarterly established to express Mormon culture and to examine the relevance of religion to secular life. It is edited by Latter-day Saints who wish to bring their faith into dialogue with the larger stream of world religious thought and with human experience as a whole and to foster artistic and scholarly achieve- ment based on their cultural heritage. The journal encourages a variety of view- points; although every effort is made to en- sure accurate scholarship and responsible judgment, the views expressed are those of the individual authors and are not neces- sarily those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or of the editors. ii Dialogue, Summer 2019 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought is published quarterly by the Dialogue Foundation. Dialogue has no official connection with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Contents copyrighted by the Dialogue Foundation. ISSN 0012-2157. Dialogue is available in full text in electronic form at www.dialoguejournal.com and is archived by the University of Utah Marriott Library Special Collections, available online at www.lib.utah.edu/portal/site/marriottlibrary. Dialogue is also available on microforms through University Microfilms International, www.umi.com. Dialogue welcomes articles, essays, poetry, notes, fiction, letters to the editor, and art. Submissions should follow the current Chicago Manual of Style. All submissions should be in Word and may be submitted electronically at https://dialoguejournal.com/submissions/. For submissions of visual art, please contact [email protected]. Submissions published in the journal, including letters to the editor, are covered by our publications policy, https://dialoguejournal.com/ submissions/publication-policy/, under which the author retains the copyright of the work and grants Dialogue permission to publish. See www.dialoguejournal.com. EDITORS EMERITI Eugene England and G. Wesley Johnson Robert A. Rees Mary Lythgoe Bradford Linda King Newell and L. Jackson Newell F. Ross Peterson and Mary Kay Peterson Martha Sonntag Bradley and Allen D. Roberts Neal Chandler and Rebecca Worthen Chandler Karen Marguerite Moloney Levi S. Peterson Kristine Haglund Dialogue, Spring 2019 CONTENTS iii ARTICLES AND ESSAYS Automatic Writing and the Book of Brian C. Hales 1 Mormon: An Update The Gold Plates and Ancient Ryan Thomas 37 Metal Epigraphy Empirical Witnesses of the Gold Plates Larry E. Morris 59 Plain and Precious Things Lost: The Rebecca A. Roesler 85 Small Plates of Nephi PERSONAL VOICES Timo’s Blessing Peter de Schweinitz 107 POETRY Judas Marilyn Bushman-Carlton 131 Sunday School Marilyn Bushman-Carlton 133 The Mormon Peace Gathering Dennis Clark 135 The Moldau in a Utah Living Room Simon Peter Eggertsen 137 Sweater Theric Jepson 139 New & Everlasting Theric Jepson 140 FICTION Bode and Iris Levi S. Peterson 141 REVIEWS Reasonably Good Tidings of Greater- Michael Austin 173 than-Average Joy Grant Hardy, ed. The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, Maxwell Institute Study Edition. Understudies for Angels Michael Hicks 182 Megan Sanborn Jones. Contemporary Mormon Pageantry: Seeking After the Dead. The Maidservant’s Witness Luisa Perkins 184 Mette Harrison. The Book of Abish. iv Dialogue, Summer 2019 ART NOTE On My Art Royden Card 189 FROM THE PULPIT What Shall We See? Samuel Morris Brown 191 CONTRIBUTORS 195 ARTICLES AND ESSAYS AUTOMATIC WRITING AND THE BOOK OF MORMON: AN UPDATE Brian C. Hales At a Church conference in 1831, Hyrum Smith invited his brother to explain how the Book of Mormon originated. Joseph declined, saying: “It was not intended to tell the world all the particulars of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.”1 His pat answer—which he repeated on several occasions—was simply that it came “by the gift and power of God.”2 Attributing the Book of Mormon’s origin to supernatural forces has worked well for Joseph Smith’s believers, then as well as now, but not so well for critics who seem certain natural abilities were responsible. For over 180 years, several secular theories have been advanced as explanations.3 The more popular hypotheses include plagiarism (of the Solomon Spaulding manuscript),4 collaboration (with Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, etc.),5 1. Donald Q. Cannon and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., Far West Record: Minutes of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830–1844 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1983), 23. 2. “Journal, 1835–1836,” in Journals, Volume. 1: 1832–1839, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Richard L. Jensen, vol. 1 of the Journals series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2008), 89; “History of Joseph Smith,” Times and Seasons 5, Mar. 1, 1842, 707. 3. See Brian C. Hales, “Naturalistic Explanations of the Origin of the Book of Mormon: A Longitudinal Study,” BYU Studies 58, no. 3 (Spring 2019): forthcoming. 4. See Eber D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painsville, Ohio: 1834), 290; Walter Martin, The Maze of Mormonism (Ventura, Calif.: Regal Books, 1978), 59; and Wayne L. Cowdrey, Howard A. Davis, and Arthur Vanick, “References,” Spalding Research Associates, Aug. 10, 2018, http://www.solomonspalding.info. 5. See William Owen, “Mormon Bible,” Free Enquirer [New York], Sept. 3, 1831, 364; Meredith Ray Sheets and Kendal Sheets, The Book of Mormon: Book of Lies (McLean, Va.: 1811 Press, 2012), 13–16. 1 2 Dialogue, Summer 2019 mental illness (bipolar, dissociative, or narcissistic personality disorders),6 and Joseph’s intellect (with help from the Bible, View of the Hebrews, par- allelism, or his environment).7 Even today the topic remains controversial without general consensus.8 A fifth explanation attributes the Book of Mormon text to “automatic writing,” also called “spirit writing,” “trance writing,” “channeling,” “psychog- raphy,” “abnormal writing,” “direct writing,” and “independent writing.”9 In psychological terms, automatic writing is described as “ideomotor effect,” “motor automatism,” and automaticity.10 Understanding “Automatic Writing” Psychiatrist Ian P. Stevenson, who served as the chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, explains: “The term ‘automatic writing’ is used to designate writing that is done without the writer being conscious of what he is writing. Usually the writing proceeds rapidly, sometimes far more so than the subject’s normal writing does.”11 Independent researcher Irving Litvag further writes: “One type of psychic activity, known as ‘automatic writing,’ began to attract attention through the activities of a group of mediums, mostly English, in the late nineteenth and 6. See I. Woodbridge Riley, The Founder of Mormonism: A Psychological Study of Joseph Smith, Jr.