The "amusing recitals" anecdote would lead one to expect a lot more dazzling detail of culture and color in the Book of Mormon than there actually is. Above and beyond the question as Hales posed it, there are at least two other layers of complexity that an author would have to meet: 1. The framing of all the story as narration by the characters, with their different language styles, including quirks and moods (like Mormon's tendency to get ahead of himself and to editorialize... Mormon tried to lay down heads but was a bit clumsy at it. And the last time I read through I thought I could see him trying to hone his chiasm composition skills by copying Alma) 2. To convey it in Early Modern English filtered through 1820s vocabulary (implied in the clause about vocabulary and reading levels, but I think this deserves more explicit attention). To imagine that any author could cope with that kind of cognitive load to produce a work like the Book of Mormon in a single draft is audacious enough. To imagine that an author like Joseph Smith, with limitations of age, time, and available attention, could handle all of that is no less than an act of faith: a fanatical dedication to believe anything but the simple claims of Joseph and the Book of Mormon themselves. I have a bit more patience with theories trying to explain the Book of Mormon as a product of automatic writing, since that at least shows an open mind to uncanny psychic phenomena that are difficult to explain. Thinking in something like a Jungian framework, you could hold a politely curious agnostic regard of the Book of Mormon as a product of archetypes or the Collective Unconscious. If you were honest, you would have to follow up with a few questions: Has any automatic/channeled text shown the same complexity, not of storyline or "content," but of conceptual framing? So far, my reading of channeled texts has found that they just speak with a kind of omniscent narrator voice. One of the crucial details in reading the Book of Mormon is to remember that none of its narrators are omniscient. Does any other automatic/channeled text consistently hold a tone congruent with a dialect or stage of the medium's native language which is otherwise unknown to the medium, and in opposition to the medium's preferred usage? And finally: Why would the Collective Unconscious and/or a bunch of psychic phenomena team together to produce a text of this complexity that has its overriding purpose to point us all to Christ, to seek a remission of our sins, to cultivate an inner Tree of Life, and to look for a restoration of God's authority to gather and protect His covenant people? At this point, if you're deep in the automatic writing theory, it would be dishonest to suddenly pull out and revert to the charge that Joseph Smith did all this to serve his selfish aim of becoming a cult leader.
It always puzzles me how people who have 1) Never read the Book of Mormon 2) Never written a book themselves tell you just how easy and natural it would have been for Joseph to have composed all of the words of the Book of Mormon in three months.
All right! I've been waiting for this.
The "amusing recitals" anecdote would lead one to expect a lot more dazzling detail of culture and color in the Book of Mormon than there actually is.
Above and beyond the question as Hales posed it, there are at least two other layers of complexity that an author would have to meet:
1. The framing of all the story as narration by the characters, with their different language styles, including quirks and moods (like Mormon's tendency to get ahead of himself and to editorialize... Mormon tried to lay down heads but was a bit clumsy at it. And the last time I read through I thought I could see him trying to hone his chiasm composition skills by copying Alma)
2. To convey it in Early Modern English filtered through 1820s vocabulary (implied in the clause about vocabulary and reading levels, but I think this deserves more explicit attention).
To imagine that any author could cope with that kind of cognitive load to produce a work like the Book of Mormon in a single draft is audacious enough. To imagine that an author like Joseph Smith, with limitations of age, time, and available attention, could handle all of that is no less than an act of faith: a fanatical dedication to believe anything but the simple claims of Joseph and the Book of Mormon themselves.
I have a bit more patience with theories trying to explain the Book of Mormon as a product of automatic writing, since that at least shows an open mind to uncanny psychic phenomena that are difficult to explain. Thinking in something like a Jungian framework, you could hold a politely curious agnostic regard of the Book of Mormon as a product of archetypes or the Collective Unconscious. If you were honest, you would have to follow up with a few questions:
Has any automatic/channeled text shown the same complexity, not of storyline or "content," but of conceptual framing? So far, my reading of channeled texts has found that they just speak with a kind of omniscent narrator voice. One of the crucial details in reading the Book of Mormon is to remember that none of its narrators are omniscient.
Does any other automatic/channeled text consistently hold a tone congruent with a dialect or stage of the medium's native language which is otherwise unknown to the medium, and in opposition to the medium's preferred usage?
And finally: Why would the Collective Unconscious and/or a bunch of psychic phenomena team together to produce a text of this complexity that has its overriding purpose to point us all to Christ, to seek a remission of our sins, to cultivate an inner Tree of Life, and to look for a restoration of God's authority to gather and protect His covenant people?
At this point, if you're deep in the automatic writing theory, it would be dishonest to suddenly pull out and revert to the charge that Joseph Smith did all this to serve his selfish aim of becoming a cult leader.
Great presentation. I always feel I can discuss issues like these with others with confidence after watching presentations like this.
If Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon he is the greatest author in history.
It always puzzles me how people who have
1) Never read the Book of Mormon
2) Never written a book themselves
tell you just how easy and natural it would have been for Joseph to have composed all of the words of the Book of Mormon in three months.