Mountain Meadows Massacre Discussion
Posted on September 23rd, 2006 by Keller
David Keller kindly agreed to allow us to share his writeup of last night’s discussion of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The lecture was by Thomas Alexander as this year’s Leonard Arrington Lecture. Any typos are my own and we certainly thank David for allowing others to hear about this. Anyone is is fortunate enough to attend a notable lecture that they think the rest of us would be interested in please feel open to sending it to us.
Last night I attended a meeting in the historic Logan tabernacle, the venue for many stake conferences in the area. While frank and somber discussion of the aftermath of Mountain Meadows Massacre might seem out of place in such a devotional setting, I think Brigham Young himself would have approved of the proceedings as he was largely vindicated of accusations he obstructed justice after the massacre. A very confident and capable historian, Thomas Alexander, was presenting this year’s Leonard Arrington lecture entitled “Brigham Young, the Council of the Twelve, and the Latter-day Saint Investigation of the Mountain
Meadows Massacre.â€
Introducing Dr. Alexander was Richard Bushman, I wish I would have brought my copy of Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling for him to sign. He credited Alexander with being the top Utah historian. The running joke through the night was that last year Susan Barringer Gordon talked about sex (polygamy) and this year Dr. Alexander talked about violence.
By unfolding the events of the massacre in the sequence that church and governmental investigators and prosecutors found out about them, Dr. Alexander’s presentation had all the suspense of a modern crime scene drama. Brigham Young’s actions are easier to understand when we consider what information and misinformation he was operating under.
Alexander started his discussion by contextualizing the events through Brigham Young’s eyes leading up to the massacre. Young planned an elaborate defense strategy against Buchanan’s invading Army, a small part of which included encouraging the Native Americans to rob wagon trains that were passing through, but most of the tribes declined, not wanting to get in trouble with the army. This was new to me because I thought that Brigham was just trying to get them to target army supply trains.
Dr. Alexander sees as significant the Brigham’s letter carried by express rider James Haslam and agrees with most responsible Mormon historians that Young did not know about the massacre before hand. Conventional wisdom is currently being re-evaluated about how much Brigham Young learned after the massacre. I first learned this was being challenged when I read Robert Crockett’s FARMS Review of Will Bagley’s book.
Dr. Alexander discussed five investigations that Brigham Young and the Twelve conducted. He presents them as receiving mixed information about the massacre especially as to whether it was done just by Indians or to what extent Mormons were involved. He compares versions of John D. Lee’s initial report given through his attorney named W.W. Bishop to that of Wilford Woodruff’s contemporary diary. After careful source weighing he came out on the side of Woodruff, showing that Lee downplayed and lied about the Mormon role in the massacre instead of being forthcoming like he later claimed. Dr. Alexander also produced part of Lee’s diary on his slides. During a later period of investigation conducted by some members of the Twelve, it looks like Lee tampered with his diary, recording a meeting on the wrong day and writing in a smaller print to cram the text in available space.
Soon after the massacre Brigham realizes that justice needed to sought after in court. However, Alexander discussed the problems the Mormons had with the “ultras” or the radical anti-mormon element that included Judge Cradlebaugh, who was abusive in holding court in Provo. A more moderate wing included Gov. Cummings who would often counter reports to the government that the Mormons were out of control. However the ultra-wing refused to hire a Mormon marshall and complained about not having sufficient funds despite a sizeable amount ($1500 — which Dr. Alexander explained was equivalent to the governor’s yearly salary back then) being offered as a donation. They wanted to go after Brigham Young and George A. Smith. Dr. Alexander observed that many Mormons were indignant about the crime and wanted to see justice done. Brigham Young offered to go to southern Utah and help prosecute the perpetrators three times, but no one took him up on it.
Dr. Alexander compared how the Twelve’s investigations came to nearly the same conclusion as Forney’s, a moderate governmental investigator. However he questioned whether it influenced Brigham Young, who seems to have independently realized the facts gradually over time and through his five investigations. Like later prosecutors he was willing to forgive the rank and file (while going after the leaders) members of the Iron County militia because they were acting under duress both from military superiors and church superiors. Most of these men were tricked to go to the scene of the massacre under the guise they were going to bury the dead left from an already concluded Indian massacre or some such pretense.
He detailed how the Church engaged in some disciplinary counsels, reformed the local leadership with non-participants, and how ticked off Brigham was at John D. Lee. He read some correspondence where Brigham told Lee, in effect, to do all the good he could, but he would never dwell where God and his Son do. Haight’s supporters misled Brigham towards thinking Haight was less responsible. Haight would have been prosecuted but he was not caught, which Dr. Alexander attributes to the vastness of the open range of southern Utah and further south.
The Q&A was entertaining and Dr. Alexander didn’t flinch at any tough questions. One person asked about whether the temple ceremony wording at the time required the vengeance of Joseph Smith’s death. Alexander responded that it was his understanding that the Saints merely asked God to carry out such vengeance. Some one fished for a compliment for Juanita Brooks, in which Alexander gave due credit, but suggested that if Brooks hadn’t have covered the massacre somebody else would have. He complimented Brooks for doing well with the limited information she had, but now much more is available.
Someone asked what the wagon train did to deserve being massacred. At this Alexander speculated that any well poisoning would have arisen from a wagon train that came after the Fancher train. In the lecture, he charitably allowed that Brigham Young was acting under possible misinformation about the party’s misbehavior when he suggested alternative wording for an erected memorial “Vengeance is mine [and I have taken a little].†Dr. Alexander considers Isaac Haight the most responsible, quipping that Machiavelli looked tame compared to Haight. He attributed to massacre in part to Haight getting upset with some rowdy members of the train who caused trouble. Adding fuel to the fire, their arrest was circumvented because they were shielded by the rest of the wagon train. Some one asked if George A. Smith’s sermons incited the massacre. Alexander didn’t grant that idea much credence but said it may have contributed to the atmosphere. In all, it was a very informative presentation by a master historian.
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25 Responses to “Mountain Meadows Massacre Discussion”
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Thank you for the summary, David. I wish I could have attended.
Did Alexander discuss the forthcoming MMM book by Turley, Walker, and Leonard and provide any details on his possible involvement in the book’s production (e.g., providing research, critiquing the manuscript, etc.)?
Some one fished for a compliment for Juanita Brooks, in which Alexander gave due credit, but suggested that if Brooks hadn’t have covered the massacre somebody else would have. He complimented Brooks for doing well with the limited information she had, but now much more is available.
I’m a little puzzled by this comment. Yes, somebody else would have covered it, but who and from what perspective? We’ve seen coverage from authors such as William Wise, Sally Denton, and Will Bagley. I’m not certain that the Turley, Walker, and Leonard book would have come to fruition without the motivation provided by the appearance of books by Denton and Bagley in the last few years.
Justin,
I am glad I could summarize an event that others might find interesting.
There was no mention of collaboration with other scholars that I picked up on. Throughout his presentation, Dr. Alexander dealt mostly with primary sources and didn’t mention previous work or how his conclusions differ. So the person asking the question about Brooks probably wouldn’t be aware of the amount of progress and re-thinking that is currently in the works.
I would speculate that there has been some information shared between the Turley group and Alexander. From Kevin Barney’s reports of various historical conferences within the last year, the role of Isaac Haight as the chief perpetrator has been promoted by the Turley group as well. See #9 http://www.bycommonconsent.com/2006/05/mha-casper-day-one/
The question about Brooks that Alexander fielded was IIRC “Without Juanita Brooks would we even be having this discussion today?” So I take his response to be more along the lines that the MMM is an important enough event that it would have inevitably been covered by a responsible LDS historian. So, yes, even without Brooks, Alexander’s lecture would have been timely and appropriate. And I don’t think the majority of Alexander’s audience could be easily made to understand what primary sources are new and which of Brooks’ ideas are being challenged.
I think that Turley/Leonard/Walker book was inevitable even without Bagley and Denton. They were soliciting information before those books were published. See JMH, Fall 2002. p. 11-13. Turley’s own interest developed from his work on the 1992 Encyclopedia of Mormonism article he co-wrote with Robert Esplin. I would be willing to hear a case on why you think their project is reactionary, however. I get the impression Mormon historians like to tackle problems head on (for example Dr. Bushman has made many comments to this effect) rather than wait for critics to be the bearers of bad news.
I think at least part of it was reactionary based on what Turley said in May at MHA. From my summary of his paper:
I think some Mormon historians like to tackle problems head on while others prefer to let things be. And Mormon historians haven’t been chomping at the bit to write books on the massacre.
Sunday 10/8 at 8:00am (CST), the Biography Channel is doing an hour long documentary on the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Don’t really have any other info.
Justin,
Thanks for your update from Turley. Now there is an event I wish I would have gone to. I can see where having adverse treatments would drive up the priority level for a project on the back burner. Back in 2002, I can see where they were publically overly optimistic that the Bagley and Denton books would be objective and bring to light new information. So yes, reactionary describes part of the motivation, but not all.
Thumbing through the Utah Historical Quarterly from before Brooks I can see there was considerable interest in the MMM. Then Brooks came on the scene and dominated the discussion for 30 plus years. However Alexander has been publishing on the subject for awhile and in 2000 Davis Bitton has an article (”I’d Rather Have Some Roasting Ears”: The Peregrinations of George Armstrong Hicks UHQ 68:3) that makes Brigham Young look good in being non-approving of the massacre after the fact.
So I know I am shifting the subject from books to professional journals (perhaps creating a non sequitar in the process), but I see enough interest in the journals that Dr. Alexander is likely right that the MMM would have been treated by a respected LDS scholar eventually without Brooks and that the new information that is currently surfacing on the MMM that challenges some of Brooks’ assessments would eventually get published without pressure from critical and pop/media treatments. No doubt Brooks deserves credit for being more passionate about the subject in the 50’s than her peers and deserves a lot of credit for tackling the problem head on. Before her, B.H. Roberts also deserves some credit, even though he wasn’t a professionally trained historian.
Everybody who disagrees with Mr. Bagley is either “clueless” or a liar or some combination of the two.
It never seems to change.
Mr. Bagely[sic?],
Thanks for your concern about my eternal well being. I will try to be less clueless when I cite noted Mormon historians to demonstrate that they have not been overly avoiding publishing on the MMM and have been willing to challenge some of Brooks conclusions as new information surfaces. I am not sure I can do much about being perceived as a hack.
I thank you kindly for putting the Hicks/Young correspondence to M* in full. After reading them, The Blood of the Prophets p. 258-261, and re-reading Bitton’s article on Hicks, it occurs to me that this exchange can be read two different ways.
If I understand your position, what is most telling is Brigham’s lack of directness on whether John D. Lee should be excomunicated (which he was eventually 1 year or so later in 1870 see Brodie TMMM p. 184) and Brigham didn’t directly at that time reaffirm the public stance from an Dec. 1866 sermon (I will quote for our readers below). John D. Lee was insinuating that BY’s privately condoned the massacre, a notion you believe to be true and Hicks came to believe as well. In this view, Young “pretended” (TBotP p. 259) the Hicks letter was about Hicks feeling guilty of being a massacre participant to evade giving a direct response to Hick’s questions. Feel free to correct or add anything about your position in regards to how the Hicks letter should be read. TBotP also gives some second hand sources (perhaps questionable?) that Isaac Haight and John D. Lee received a similar message from Brigham Young about what to do if they were feeling guilty.
However even that reading concedes that Brigham “denounce[d] the massacre” (p. 260). Switching to my reading, by implication a suspected participant is also being denounced(just not the one Hicks hoped for). Hicks has up to this point been a career murmurer, with a wishy-washy track record of complaining about leaders (see Bitton’s UHQ article). He is also a bit of a trouble maker, composing a couple of songs harboring his complaints. The last one was about the MMM and inspired by BY’s anti-MMM sermon quoted below. He obnoxiously sang it everywhere, getting under the Lee family’s skin. In Brigham’s response there is element in it reminding Hicks to mind his own business and try not to steady the ark; to let God and the courts judge and punish the guilty. To me the prima facie reading of this exchange reinforces Brigham Young’s public stance that perps be brought to justice. It collaborates the idea which presumably will be published soon that Brigham volunteered to help civil authorities investigate and prosecute, but incompetent anti-mormon governmental factions are mostly to blame for ineffective law enforcement.
As promised here are excerpts of BY’s sermon found at http://journalofdiscourses.org/Vol_11/refJDvol11-42.html
I apologize for making an error in this statement about Hicks being the originator of the second song. From Bitton’s article we read:
I also apologize for my cluelessness about inadvertently leaving out the hindsight consensus that Hicks was not a massacre participant. I speculate that this may not have been obvious to Brigham Young, with Hicks’ “the bloody scene passes before my mind day and night” type comments.
In advance let me state that I’m fairly naive on the MMM and hope to read Bagley’s book soon. However being naive let me reflect from this naive stance on Brigham’s letter and hope that someone can clarify it for me.
First off the idea that Brigham thought Hicks was a perpetrator seems odd given that he said, “. . . I was highly delighted to see it in print for I always had condemed [sic] that horable afair [sic] as being eaquiled [sic] in history only by such deeds as you compare it with: I felt in hopes that the perpitrators [sic] of that bloody deed would soon be punished for their Crimes or they were not punished, their names would be stricken from the Church books.”
While I suppose it’s possible that Brigham read Hicks as being a member of the group involved that really is an odd reading of Hicks letter.
On the other hand that paragraph of Young’s sure does sound like he’s accusing Hicks of being involved. Far from seeming to disavow matters or avoid the central issues it sounds like he’s advocating a death sentence with the preference that those involved do it themselves. While I suppose one could read this as a kind of sarcasm it doesn’t seem a terribly straightforward reading. Presumably those making this read have some additional reasons?
With Will Bagley, there is no middle ground between complete agreement with him, on the one hand, and, on the other, total war. Brigham Young is a “theocratic bully.” Joseph Smith is a “sexual predator.” David Keller’s view is “obnoxious.” Keller “ignores evidence.” Davis Bitton’s position is “despicable.” Defenders of Mormonism are “slavish.”
Rather like certain others, he starkly divides the world between “the abode of submission” and “the abode of war.”
This has been the Bagley shtick for years now. It’s not scholarship so much as jihad.
Mr. Bagley,
Thank you very kindly for pointing that out. I feel embarrassed for making that error. My reference to Lee’s excommunication shortly after Brigham’s responding letter in which he allegedly used evasive techniques to shield a known perpetrator, of course, should have been The Mountain Meadows Massacre p. 184 by Juanita Brooks.
I realize the mistakes I have had to apologize for are adding up and I plead that everyone will be patient with me as discussion of this (understandably) sharply divisive subject continues.
Thanks,
David Keller
Clark,
I appreciate you taking the time to sift through the exchange and analyze it. I agree it would be odd for Brigham to think Hicks was a perpetrator given Hicks’ insistence on punishment for such. Despite reading this passage, its implications didn’t sink in until you pointed them out.
I agree that Brigham’s advocates the death penalty even his manner of doing so was somewhat over the top. Paul H. Peterson’s dissertation has a chapter of Reformation Violence and he discusses the observation among some historians that Brigham Young’s bark was worse than his bite. (p.179 if any one is interested). I think Brigham was giving his reaction for one way (two actually) a hypothetically guilty could experience justice. The ways Brigham concentrates are self-fixes (implying a mind your own business approach.)
It is tougher to explain why Brigham personalizes his hypothetical scenario to Hicks, when Hicks is not much for abstract thinking and takes things personally. I can see why Brigham doesn’t use Lee in his illustration of the conditionally guilty person as that would only add fuel to the fire of the ongoing Lee-Hicks feud. One possible suggestion for using Hicks as the illustration is because it tweaks Hicks. In other words, part of the message Brigham was trying to send was, in essence, “You know whether or not you are guilty, but the way you are preoccupied and obsessed (as illustrated by your own words) might cause someone to suspect you were guilty.”
I think Brigham Young’s response needs to be considered in context of his earlier sermon that Hicks carried around with him. I take that fiery sermon at face value and Brigham’s new remarks as an addendum. His previous remarks suggest a recourse open to Hicks to gather evidence against Lee and take him to court, but not to insinuate guilt without evidence. Dr. Alexander did express briefly in his conclusion his disappointment that Mormons didn’t use the probate courts to prosecute the guilty.
As it is, I was excited about the Hicks exchange, in part, because it corroborated what I heard at Dr. Alexander’s lecture about Brigham offering to aid prosecution and investigation but being turned down. My enthusiasm has naturally cooled down some from critical thinking after my initial discovery. However, the big picture is that there is new, overwhelming evidence for this; I just don’t have exact texts and sources to cite yet, as I understand they have not yet been published.
Admin: Two comments by Will Bagley were deleted for violated the M* comments policy.
I dunno. I think Bagley’s posts should have been kept up for the humor value. The man has no nuance or sense of proportion.
Honestly, I really think they should be put back up. But, whatever. I wouldn’t allow any other posts along those lines from him. He clearly has a major axe to grind, and he didn’t seem to care much about what the actual truth might be. Those posts were examples of all the worst evils of fundamentalism of any stripe: A priori conclusions, a total and complete belief he has the truth and the rest of us are infidels, and an inability to engage in civil discourse over controversial issues.
Of course, we all succum to that at some point (at least I do) in blog comments, but Bagley’s comments almost made it an art form. For that, at least, I wish they were still there.
Comments are out of order again.
I’m amazed people are still responding to “Will Bagely’s” comments above. Oh wait- no longer are they above. Anyway, you’d think that if such an intelligent man were to read M* and actually post here, he might at least spell his own last name correctly.
The real Will Bagley really ticks me off. He’s constantly referred to as a ‘Mormon Historian’ as if he’s some kind of objective and neutral scholar. Even stories by KSL and the Deseret News fail to mention his arguably anti-LDS slant when referring to them. How does such a hack get such a pass from the very culture he incessantly demonizes?
I see no one is mentioning the role of the Old Testament in guiding the men to have the Indians kill the women in the party so that they themselves would not shed innocent blood. To me this point (made by Brooks) is a key to understanding the extreme fundamentalist mindset that made this group of men so dangerously capable of what they would deem Godly violence, violence that protects the faith as they understood it. Others who have taken the Old Testament so literally were also very violent (enforcing the 20-some death-penalty offenses in the Old Testament, for example, plus restoring polygamy, was done in Muenster, Germany, by the Radical Anabaptist restoration movement 300 years before Joseph Smith!). It goes to illustrate, for me, the danger in unbridled Biblical literalism. A belief in Biblical inerrancy seems to have much of this country in its grip even now. Thank God for the “inspired” constitution that protects us from this evil!
The only problem was that neither Joseph Smith nor especially Brigham Young were anything like Biblical literalists…
First - “Do you believe in the Bible?” If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do.
Second - “Wherein do you differ from other sects?” In that we believe the Bible, and all other sects profess to believe their interpretations of the Bible, and their creeds. (See Smith 1930, HC 3:28)
I think it is that total trust in the Bible that led to polygamy and the starnge doctrine of blood atonement. And it is the latter that was scaring the men who were part of the massacre into avoiding the shedding of innocent blood by using Indiands to kill the women: shedding innocent blood was not forgiven by shedding ones own blood. Anyway, it is a fascinating look at an eddy in a larger current, but the idea that a man who had committed adultery ought to ask to be killed or kill himself, shedding his own blood, was taught in So. Utah and all over during the Utah Reformation, very similar to the excesses carried to even greater excess by the Muensterite Anabaptists.
#19, I appreciate you supporting your theory that Joseph and Brigham were Bible literalists with a fine quote from the July 1838 Elder’s Journal editted by Joseph Smith in which he rather flippantly responded to a series of questions. Some times I scare myself at what I remember at the top of head, but here is a link to a transcript of the original source.
However closer analysis of your quote merely suggests that Mormons believe in the Bible more, but doesn’t address how that belief is realized in practice (i.e. what interpretive approach).
If I were to capture Joseph’s and Brigham’s scriptural approach with one proof-text, I would refer to the passage in Nephi that “likens” the scriptures to our day. And Brigham was by no means a slavish, literal follower of the ancient scriptures as he clearly stressed the primacy of a living prophet over dead ones. To get a feel for what Joseph Smith accomplished with his restoration, contrasted with a contemporary primitivist movement google Kevin Barney’s “A Tale of Two Restorations”. To learn more about Brigham Young’s take on Old Testament style retribution, I recommend Paul H. Peterson’s doctoral dissertation on the Mormon Reformation. It is true that Brigham rhetorically borrowed from the OT, but his bark was worse than his bite. The Saints did not generally put such ideas into literally into practice, although some confusion occasionally arose.
I dislike the whole idea that Bible literalists can be the only cause for massacres, in contrast to the always clear headed democratic constitutional government. For example one doesn’t have to look very far for a contemporary massacre that shares much the same story line, the Bear River Massacre. Only in that case, we see the US Army be the principle perpetrator in the northern part of Utah territory. Brigham Madsen and Harold Schindler did a good job covering it. There are a lot of eerie similarities, right down to if Brigham had been listened to, both massacres would have been prevented. The army was fired up and looking for patriotic military decorations. They were bored defending the mail routes during the Civil War with no glorious battles to fight like elsewhere.
So when the opportunity arose to arrest a few Indian trouble makers, they attacked the whole tribe. The Indians repulsed the initial attack and that made the military wanting vengeance. When the tribe ran out of bullets, the army tried to massacre every man, woman, and child and almost succeeded. No respect for the innocent even without any apparent OT influence.
[Mod Edit: fixed hyperlinks]
To note, the issue of a literalist is a particular Biblical hermeneutic. It’s not enough to note that there are similar practices in the OT that Brigham Young believed in. One must address how they read the text. The problem any claim of literalism or inerrantism faces with regards to both Joseph and Brigham was their wililngness to throw out passages as in error. Joseph actually spent quite some time receiving revelations regarding corrections and expansions of the Bible (many now included in the footnotes to the LDS KJV of the Bible or longer passages in the Pearl of Great Price as Moses and JST-Matthew). So on the face of it a claim of Biblical literalism is hard to make.
One also can’t help but note the culture of the times which had a fair distrust for Biblical accuracy. Take Orson Pratt who said at General Conference, “…who, in his right mind, could for one moment, suppose the Bible in its present form to be a perfect guide? No one can tell whether even one verse of either the Old or New Testament conveys the ideas of the original author” (Orson Pratt, JD 7:28). He also wrote in The Seer (admittedly a somewhat problematic text) “The Bible has been robbed of its plainness; many sacred books having been lost, others rejected by the Romish Church, and what few we have left, were copied and re-copied so many times, that it is admitted that almost every verse has been corrupted and mutilated to that degree that scarcely any two of them read alike.” (The Seer, 213.)
These traditions though go back to criticism in the Book of Mormon of the Biblical text. “. . .after the book hath gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church, that there are many plain and precious things taken away from the book, which is the book of the Lamb of God. And after these plain and precious things were taken away it goeth forth unto all the nations of the Gentiles.” (I Nephi 13:28)
Joseph Smith himself said, “I believe the Bible as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers. Ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors” (TPJS, 327)
Given all that it seems very hard to ascribe anything like literalism or inerrancy to the major figures of the era. (Admittedly a more literalist hermeneutic does raise up in the early 20th century - but even there one finds major caveats that distance it from traditional literalism) Their approach was far, far more pragmatic than one finds in literalism.
As for Brigham Young’s hermeneutic proper, one need only look to his rather symbolic reading of Genesis to see that it wasn’t literalist. It did have a fairly strong historicist approach. But not a literalist one. He made strong qualifications to his use of the Bible that no literalist would.
“The Bible is true. It may not all have been traslated aright and many precious things ma have been rejected in the compilation and translation of the Bible; …The revelations of the Lord to his creatures are adapted to the lowest capacity, and they bring life and salvation to those who are willing to receive them.” (JD 14:135)
He even made an outright attack on Biblical literalism.
“I have heard ministers of the Gospel declar that they believed every word in the Bible was the word of God. I have said to them, ‘you believe more than I do.’ I believe the words of God are there; I believe the words of the Devil are there; I believe that the words of men and the words of angels are there; and theat is not all, - I believe that the words of a dumb brute are there.” (JD 14:280)
It is true in one or two places he speaks of a literal plain reading. But this is much more of a pragmatic sense and not the sense of literalism one finds in literalist hermeneutic. Rather the following passage perhaps gives his hermeneutic:
“Do you read the Scriptures. . . as though you were writing them a thousand, two thousand or five thousand years ago? Do you read them as though you stood in the place of the men who wrote them? If you do not feel thus, it is your privilege to do so, that you may be as familiar with the spirit and meaning of the written word. . . ” (JD 7:333)
“The Bible is just as plain and easy of comprehension as the revelations which I have just read to you, if you understand the Spirit of God - the Spirit of Revelation, and know how the Gospel of salvation is adapted to the capacity of the weak man.” (JD 3:336)
So I’d argue that Young’s hermeneutic, far from being a literalist one, is more a historicist one more in keeping with modern views. (i.e. try and think of yourself as the author - rather than literalist approaches which tend to de-contextualize meaning) Second, recognize they are “adapted to the capacity of the weak man.” (i.e. there’s a pragmatic simplifying to scriptures so they can be understood by the typical hearer) And one needs the spirit to really interpret them. That is it isn’t purely a textual reading - so traditional literalism are out. (And one needed read many exegesis from Joseph or Brigham to see that they aren’t literalist)
Now one is correct to point that they took the scriptures seriously. That is they didn’t “de-mythologize them” ala Bultmann. Nor did they simply allegorize them. It was much more a historicist approach that recognized a lot of element of humanity in the text along with the divine and tended to put a kind of check on them via modern revelation. So the historical practices of previous generatiosn were taken seriously. But one can’t call it a literalistic hermeneutic. The reasoning was far more complex.
I think one of the reasons why some of the early Latter-day Saints thought little of many of the words in the Bible was because they didn’t know how to interpret them consistently with the revealed gospel. So many parts, notably the writings of Paul, languished in partial obscurity for many years. Joseph Smith understood the New Testament very well. But I think Brigham Young understood the revelations of Joseph Smith far better than he did the writings of the Apostle Paul. Hence his relatively low opinion of the Biblical record as he had received it, notwithstanding the great and wonderful mysteries hidden there.
We cannot do a full swap though, interpreting the writings of Paul as naively as others have. We need a full and proper reconcilation so they both make sense together.
I should note that Brigham was much more positive about the Bible than those quotes might suggest. I was just talking about the issue of literalism. Brigham actually made comments quite similar to what you said Mark.
Sorry I got this discussion started on Biblical literalism and Joseph and Brigham. Interesting, but I meant to just refer to the scriptural roots of this oddity from page 237 of John D Lee’s confessions: “The Indians were to kill the women and large children, so that it would be certain that no Mormon would be guilty of shedding innocent blood–if it should happen that there was any innocent blood in the company that were to die.” That’s an Old Testament idea, and all I meant to refer to. What the US Army did in another massacre with very different motivations is not relevant to this particular religiously motivated massacre (the confessions of Lee showed it was a local church military operation to protect the church at large from a western army being sent to supplement Johnston’s army in response to the complaints sure to reach US authorities from this party if they reached the west).
Does anyone know anthing about this MMM movie coming out called SEPTEMBER DAWN ?
http://www.septemberdawn.net