Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement

Christians prior to Christ

I was editing Ammonihah and the image is captioned with

The Martyrdoms at Ammonihah (John Held Sr., 1888), depicting Alma 14:8, in which members of the city's Christian minority are "cast into the fire".

. Given that Alma is prior to 3 Nephi and Alma 14:8 doesn't contain the work Christian, suggestion for a better caption?

And they brought their wives and children together, and whosoever believed or had been taught to believe in the word of God they caused that they should be cast into the fire; and they also brought forth their records which contained the holy scriptures, and cast them into the fire also, that they might be burned and destroyed by fire

Naraht (talk) 15:05, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm by far not the expert with this, but maybe instead of Christian, use "believers of the word of god" to keep it in context to what it says. Thanks! Dmm1169 (talk) 01:18, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi; as a major contributor to the Ammonihah page, I'm happy to explain. Referring to figures in the Book of Mormon as "Christians" is following how reliable sources in religious studies interpret the story and setting of the Book of Mormon. For examples, see the following (bolding added):

• "pre-Christian Christians, who "talk of Christ, ... reojice in Christ, ... prophesy of Christ" centuries before his coming (2 Nephi 25:26).
  • Terryl Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion (Oxford University Press, 2002), 47.
  • John Turner, The Mormon Jesus: A Biography (Harvard University Press, 2016), 29 cites Givens and also describes Book of Mormon figures as "pre-Christian Christians".
• In the New World, the migrants build a temple and follow the law of Moses much like the society they left in Palestine, but their religion is explicitly Christian.
  • Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 85.
• the Book of Mormon asserts that long before the birth of Jesus there were Christians, who were taught by prophets to believe in a redeemer who would one day come into the world
  • Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader's Guide (Oxford University Press, 2010), 7.
• Within The Book of Mormon, Christianity takes root in the Americas not only before the arrival of Europeans but also, more radically, before the birth of Jesus. In moments of prolepsis similar to those appearances of Pauline language that predate Paul, the Nephites embrace the teachings of Jesus and assume the title of "Christians" in advance of the gospels. [...] in the Book of Alma, supposedly produced around 73 BCE, Moroni prays "that the cause of the Christians, and the freedom of the land might be favored" (351). This is Christianity before Christ; the prophecies of The Book of Mormon, unlike those of the Hebrew Bible, are explicit in their designations of the Messiah to come.
  • Elizabeth Fenton, "Open Canons: Sacred History and American History in The Book of Mormon", J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-century Americanists 1, no. 2 (Fall 2013) 339–361, here 354.
• Alma coming to preach his "new" belief in a Christian faith
  • Kylie Nielson Turley, "Alma's Hell: Repentance, Consequence, and the Lake of Fire and Brimstone", Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 28 (2019): 1–45, here 26.
• the chief judge of Ammonihah makes it clear that the punishment given to the Christian converts was based on Alma's and Amulek's words
  • Michael Austin, The Testimony of Two Nations: How the Book of Mormon Reads, and Rereads, the Bible (University of Illinois Press, 2024), 133.

To the extent that having a setting with a Christian religion and worshipers of Jesus before his advent is time-bending, that is, if anything, part of the Book of Mormon's structure, plot, and point. As literary critics Elizabeth Fenton and Jared Hickman summarize, the Book of Mormon narrative's temporality is never anything but extravagantly nonlinear (their introduction to Americanist Approaches to the Book of Mormon [Oxford Unviersity Press, 2019], 1–20, here 7). Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 02:01, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Not exactly. These guys believed in Jesus, but knew him as Yehowah or Yaweh. Yes, I am LDS, no, don't get into an edit war with me about this. Wikipedia has seen to much of those. 38.43.22.44 (talk) 05:47, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

In many respects, my case in point: to insist that Jesus-believing Nephites and Lamanites can't be Christians because that would be anachronistic is to advance not an academic, neutral assessment of the Book of Mormon's plot but an apologetic, historicist assessment of it. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 07:51, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I think you have it backwards, both the idea that the Nephites and Lamanites existed and that they were Christian are apologist positions. The neutral academic assessment is that the Nephites and Lamanites did not exist outside of the BoM. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:01, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Characters don't have to exist in reality for scholars to identify them as being Christian in the story. To use another example, Les Misérables's Bishop Myriel is, of course, entirely fictitious, and he is nevertheless a Christian character. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 06:18, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

The IP is treating them as historical people, if you aren't I apologize. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:30, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

ok. I understand. 38.43.22.44 (talk) 18:06, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Using the term "advent" for birth of Jesus in LDS articles

I have been going through a lot of articles related to Mormonism and I am finding a peculiar turn of phrase "advent of Jesus" showing up a lot. It's a completely intelligible phrase, of course, and famously in many Christian liturgical calendars refers to a season prior to Christmas, but in the context of certain historical claims it reads pretty unusual and I believe it may be a Mormonism that has crept in to articles mentioning such things. Is this a thing in Mormon circles? Does anyone recognize what I'm talking about?

I think we should avoid this phraseology and just refer to things like "birth of Jesus" or "life of Jesus of Nazareth" etc. as those seem to be more typical in non-Mormon literature and our own articles.

jps (talk) 11:04, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Advent is more a Christian-ism than a Mormon-ism. The LDS Church doesn't institutionally observe the Advent season (it's possible some Mormons privately do so, on their own). If you see "advent of Jesus" on a Mormon studies article, I bet I added it to de-Mormon-ize the language (a more Mormon turn of phrase would be "coming of Jesus" or "birth of Jesus") and express "a temporal setting that would have been before there was a Jesus and before there historically speaking would have been the idea of a Jesus". Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 15:39, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

"Birth of Jesus" is far preferable to "advent of Jesus". I don't think "advent" is really a thing in Mormonism, and we shouldn't be using Christian jargon like that anyway for a broad audience. ~Awilley (talk) 02:13, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

"Advent of Jesus" would be a pretty obscure usage in Christian literature as well. Maybe in liturgies, but that is certainly not a style choice we would typically adopt at Wikipedia. jps (talk) 02:50, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Book of Mormon as Literature

At Talk:Ammonihah, the main author has made an argument that topics related to the Book of Mormon are properly handled as literature since Mormon Studies seem to be moving in that direction. I'm pretty sure this is not an okay approach, but before I get into that on this page, I want to know whether this is more widespread. Do y'all think that reliable sources force primarily a "literature" treatment onto articles about the Book of Mormon? Do the social/religious/cultural/historical/etc. treatments all have to play second fiddle because Mormon Studies people haven't gotten to that approach/don't want to look into such approaches? jps (talk) 11:44, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, WP:SILENCE, I guess. Here's the thing, friends, this approach also has an obvious proselytization angle as many Mormons are so enthralled by their holy book that they think it stands as great literature along side many other great works. I guess the thought is that even unbelievers will be amazed by its literary genius? Well, we know that most non-Mormon critics have consistently panned the work as something like bad Second Great Awakening fan fiction, but no matter. The Book of Mormon is important literature. It certainly can be read through a literary criticism lens, but to treat it primarily as literature in an encyclopedia setting is a profound subversion of WP:ENC. jps (talk) 14:11, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi. You wrote "we know that most non-Mormon critics have consistently panned the work as something like bad Second Great Awakening fan fiction". I do not believe that the perceived literary quality of a work determines if it is notable or worthy of literary criticism. I think we can agree that the Book of Mormon, including its narrative, is significant to American history, and more generally to the religious history of churches in the Latter Day Saint movement. In my work as a literary scholar, I have studied works not for their aesthetic qualities, but for their importance in history. That said, I believe that the Book of Mormon is worthy of study as a literary work in its own right. I believe that even if you (meaning any reader of Wikipedia) do not believe in a supernatural origin for the Book of Mormon, that its narrative and interpretation is still important. The interpretation of the Book of Mormon by both Mormon and non-Mormon scholars is important enough to include on Wikipedia, and we can summarize reliable sources to show that. I know that my opinion is not sufficient to persuade you. We both believe that our way is consistent with Wikipedia's guidelines. What would be helpful here? I can provide multiple examples of non-Mormon scholars who use the "bracketing" approach to literary criticism of the Book of Mormon. But it feels like we cannot agree that this scholarship is legitimate. I could ask a Wikipedia acquaintance of mine (who is not LDS, has edited in book spaces, but I do not know IRL) for a third opinion. We could take Richard Bushman's work to the reliable sources noticeboard. We could ask at Wikiproject Christianity what they think we should do with BoM scholarship. We could go to the fringe theories noticeboard! I'm sure there are other options. What do you think would help us come to a consensus? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 15:22, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Studying works for the importance in history is, crucially, not the kind of literary analysis I was describing. It's a way to provide historical context, I would even call it "historical analysis". Would love more sources like that, so if that's what you would like to focus on we are actually in agreement. What I do not appreciate as a primary approach in our articles is leaning mostly on works that don't try to contextualize the story at all and instead explore it on its own terms textually. For example, sources that try to interpret the thoughts and feelings of the characters on the terms of the text or in the context of a person's connection to dogma. jps (talk) 16:10, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I am chiming in here. I think at Talk:Ammonihah there is the suggestion that something like "Book of Mormon as Literature" be created as a separate article. And it could be any title deemed appropriate. In any case, the BoM seems to have developed a track record as worthy of literary criticism, at least since 2012.

But, as .jps points out, contextualizing these BoM articles by immersing them into their relationship with 19th century culture, folk beliefs, surrounding circumstances and societal concerns matters for encyclopedic articles. I came across an article on JSTOR that discussed the oratory techniques that were widely used in the nineteenth century and maybe or probably employed by Joseph Smith. I didn't realize the value of this piece at the time. I didn't realize we Wikipediaes would be engaged in extensive discussions about the BoM and ancillary topics. I am trying to find that article again. In the meantime, here is the results of an arbitrary JSTOR search for "Historical accuracy Book of Mormon" [1]. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 18:38, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Here what might be a couple of interesting scholarly views found in that set of articles:

• Barlow, Philip L. “Joseph Smith’s Revision of the Bible: Fraudulent, Pathologic, or Prophetic?” The Harvard Theological Review, vol. 83, no. 1, 1990, pp. 45–64.
• Duffy, John-Charles. “Just How ‘Scandalous’ Is the Golden Plates Story? Academic Discourse on the Origin of the Book of Mormon.” The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, vol. 26, 2006, pp. 142–65.

Regards, ---Steve Quinn (talk) 18:57, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi. I'm the main contributor to the Ammonihah article as it currently exists. I'm a little surprised I wasn't pinged, since I was a participant in the conversation. I've disclosed a past connection to BYU as a student and student employee.

Wikipedia summarizes a consensus that appears in secondary sources. If that's mostly literary, we mostly summarize literary analysis; if that's mostly reception history, we mostly summarize reception history; if that's mostly anthropological, we mostly summarize anthropology. It isn't for us to force an interpretation or perspective into an article if scholars haven't made that interpretation about the topic. To do so would be original research.

For the convenience of others on this project talk page, I list a handful of sources from the last ten years that ground my sense that the literary approach to the Book of Mormon is a major one, listed chronologically:

• Laurie Maffly-Kipp, introduction to The Book of Mormon, Penguin Classics (Penguin, 2008)
  • Maffly-Kipp is the Washington University in St. Louis, John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics' Archer Alexander Distinguished Professor.
• Jared Hickman, "The Book of Mormon as Amerindian Apocalypse", American Literature 86, no. 3 (Duke University, 2014): 429–461.
  • Hickman is an professor of English at Johns Hopkins University.
• Laura T. Scales, "A New 'Mormon Moment'? The Book of Mormon in Literary Studies", Literature Compass 13, no. 11 (John Wiley & Sons, November 2016): 735–743
  • Scales is an professor of English at Stonehill College.
• John Christopher Thomas, A Pentecostal Reads the Book of Mormon: A Theological and Literary Introduction (CPT Press, 2016)
  • Thomas is director of the Centre for Pentecostal and Charismatic Studies at Bangor University.
• Grant Shreve, "The Book of Mormon Gets the Literary Treatment", Religion & Politics (Washington University in St. Louis's John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics, May 23, 2017).
  • Shreve received a PhD in American literature from Johns Hopkins University
• Elizabeth Fenton and Jared Hickman, eds., Americanist Approaches to the Book of Mormon (Oxford University Press, 2019).
  • Hickman is described above; Fenton is a professor of English at the University of Vermont. The book is a collection of Americanist (academic term for American literary criticism) essays.
• Peter Coviello, Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism, Class 200 (University of Chicago Press, 2019)
  • Coviello is a professor of English at the of Illinois, Chicago. Since this one isn't as apparent from the title, I'll point out that Coviello's book deploys his tools of literary criticism and includes interpretations of the Book of Mormon via such.

All this to say that dismissing out of hand literary criticism of the Book of Mormon seems short-sighted. What the right approach at a given Book of Mormon topic is a more specific question, probably better decided at each article. Different aspects of the Book of Mormon have received different kinds of treatment. There's less literary criticism of, say, Zarahemla as a setting in the Book of Mormon, and a lot more reception history about Mormons naming things after it and unsuccessfully trying to discover ruins. And there's less of that for Ammonihah, which has apparently prompted different sorts of coverage. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 19:07, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm replying to jps's comment about literary criticism on Wikipedia. I'm trying to say that historical or authorial analysis is just one way to do literary criticism. After looking at a couple of novel FAs, I see that it's common on Wikipedia to include analysis of the author's intent and personal philosophy in the analysis sections. That is more difficult to do with the Book of Mormon, because Joseph Smith doesn't present himself as the author (nor does he discuss its contents conveniently in interview form as do many contemporary authors). However, we run into a similar problem with the Qu'ran, which Muslims believe was dictated by the angel Gabriel to Muhammad. When I look at pages for Surahs (chapters in the Quran), like An-Nisa, I see lengthy summary of the verses and analysis of the text as received by believers. Are you saying that pages on chapters in the Qu'ran suffer from the same problem? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 19:20, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I think the difference with the Quran is that its genre is basically poetry which lends itself to a bit more of a relaxed time. It makes it a bit easier to separate out things like Isra' and Mi'raj and other impossible miracles to pages where the precise issues with their impossibilities can in principle if not in practice be dealt with separate from the article on the text. It's an unfortunate accident of history that the Book of Mormon is told mostly in prose so it's harder to separate the events, places, names, and ideas from the text just from a style standpoint. jps (talk) 20:07, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@Rachel Helps (BYU) I think that’s a real problem with those articles. Doug Weller talk 20:08, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

It's definitely something to tackle, though I'm not sure exactly how. Splitting of the Moon is another fun article to watch. jps (talk) 20:12, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this is at odds with what I'm saying. I think an over-emphasis on literary criticism can be a problem given that there is an obvious context of the text as a foundational religious text and that is how most people interact with it, no? Of course, we could have sections of an article or spin-offs of the article about the literary critiques/treatments, but i am seeing something more going on here: an adoption of literary criticism/treatment as the primary means to discuss the specific topic to the detriment of things like the historical import or social impact of the ideas. jps (talk) 20:02, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

In cases where I've found secondary sources from other disciplines like reception history, I've added material about that, like in the Zarahemla article (the searches for ruins) or the stripling warriors article (the popularity of stripling warrior and Helaman action figures). In cases where I've found literary criticism, I've added material about that, like in the Ammonihah article (the plot with Alma and the fire and brimstone imagery).

By way of aside, I don't consider either the Zarahemla or stripling warrior articles as they currently exist to be good examples of articles. My contributions came recently, and mostly in the reception sections; the articles were created as pretty POV scripture-sourced messes some 20 years ago, in the early 2000s way before I had anything to do with Wikipedia, and way before Rachel Helps (BYU) did either, as far as I know. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 20:34, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I want to commend you for adding secondary sources of that sort. More of that, please! jps (talk) 21:11, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

This would be more meaningful if your posts didn't leave the impression of using it as a kind of cudgel to justify excluding material from other disciplines, like literary criticism. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 21:54, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I think you haven't appreciated the fact that right now a lot of our Book of Mormon pages read as though the only discipline that exists is literary criticism. jps (talk) 22:18, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at RSN

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#WikiProject_specific_reliable_sources

I don't know what the solution is for this, but I think this is probably in violation of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Or maybe not. Anyway, there is the discussion started.

jps (talk) 23:37, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Capital punishment#Requested move 1 April 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Capital punishment#Requested move 1 April 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. RodRabelo7 (talk) 01:58, 13 April 2024 (UTC)