Learning to Think Like a Historian

[Music] how can we know what actually happened in the past whose stories are true piecing together accurate history can be tricky business people in the past like people today were diverse some were honest some were not some were straight shooting truth tellers who gave honest though subjective accounts of what happened others emphasized or omitted specific details in ways that would serve their particular agenda others just lied so how should we think about and evaluate the reliability of historical claims and assertions to discern what is historically accurate from what is mistaken or misleading in today's episode of church history matters we dig into the basic toolbox that trained historians use in their efforts to be Source critical and being Source critical essentially means caring about where our information is coming coming from and being honest about what that information can and cannot tell us it means we recognize that not all historical claims are created equal and so we aim to use only the best data to inform our understanding of the past while we cannot always protect ourselves from deception developing the skill of being Source critical will greatly reduce the odds that we will be misled so in short today is our crash course in learning how to think like a trained historian I'm Scot Woodwork and my co-host is Casey griffi and today we dive into our fourth episode of this series dealing with truth seeking and good thinking now let's get into it Casey Casey Casey hey Scott how's it going good man how are you good I have been uh taking some of the things we've been talking about out for a test drive oh using some of those models that you came up with and really enjoying them so well I want to know how you're taking these out for a test drive that's exciting um what do you been doing presenting oh okay arguing with people most of the principles I knew but you have a great way of simplifying and making things a little bit more approachable I am a simple man and I as well well good what are we going to talk about today what's today's subject let's recap what we're up to this is our epistemology Series right we haven't decided exactly what to call it but it's a series about epistemology what do we know how do we know it in fact our burning question of this Series has been what are some of the mental moves that are made by intelligent critically thinking Latter-Day Saints whose faith is strengthened rather than damaged by diving deeply into our Church's history and Doctrine what Frameworks of thinking do they use When approaching scripture and history and we set up up a lot of key terms in our first episode and then in our second episode we introduced a three lens Paradigm about how to evaluate theological or doctrinal claims MH those three lenses are scripture modern prophets and the spirit our questions were is it consistently taught in scriptures that's the most important question when it comes to Doctrine is it consistently taught by modern prophets and does the spirit confirm its truthfulness and then in our third episode last time we took some time to drill on this doctrinal method by actually evaluating several specific doctrinal claims together and that was fun had a good time what what did we call it doctrinal pickle ball that's right doctrinal pickle ball and I don't know who won I think it was actually Double's tennis it was you and I playing against the world or something like that cuz we weren't in opposition that's true I remember you serving me some good serves and hitting them back and forth it was a collaborative friendly back and forth that's right yeah we're running out of metaphors to describe what we did but you get the idea yeah so that's good so that was our efforts to talk about Doctrine and how to approach scripture and how to try to come to a high level of confidence relative to doctrinal claims now today transition from Doctrine toward history right so today's question is going to be in that same vein but this time about history is how can we recognize reliable historical claims from less reliable historical claims I think we are blessed to have you you actually have a degree in history correct correct yes I like history and I learn a lot from history and as a Latter-Day Saint I feel like one of the skills you should have in your toolbox of Truth Is Knowing good history from Bad history mhm and let me just add when I say this too there is bad history that is opposed to the church that's critical of the church and there is bad history that is favorable to the church right right there's some bad history out there that's very faith-promoting but it's sort of a Sandy Foundation to build on if it's not done soundly so the most responsible historians I know if they people of Faith also are willing to call out a story that's bad history even if it is Faith promoting and we're going to try and help you figure out how to do that today excellent just a couple things about hey here's some questions historians ask when they're determining the reliability of a his IAL account let me start with a little quiz question for our listeners okay case you can't answer this all right here's the question who would be the best source for learning reliable history a your smart Uncle B prophets and apostles c a guy with a blog or D trained historians I mean I'm going to do what I think any college freshman would do in immedi imediately eliminate your smart Uncle because I have a very smart Uncle hey Uncle Kevin shout out to you but I think he's wise enough to say he's not a trained historian he's a trained chemist I go to him with my chemistry questions oh interesting I'd also eliminate a a guy with a Blog because one of the wonderful things about the internet is anybody anywhere can say anything on any subject they want to and one of the bad things about the internet is anybody anywhere can say anything about any subject they want to and it's not always great information right the internet has opened up this flood it's not always good information but it's there and so we've got to be better consumer so I'm going to eliminate those two right off the bat and and Pitch it back to you Scott because now your only options are prophets or Apostles oh or trained historians Oh shoot what do you think is the most reliable source when it comes to history well yeah this is fun I'm reminded of a statement from Elder Ballard this was actually in a devotional he gave it BYU where he let students ask him questions it was a Q&A kind of unique format with elder berer he doesn't typically do that but he was kind of setting it up and trying to manage expectations of the audience when he said I'm a general Authority but that doesn't make me an authority in general he said he said sometimes church members have unrealistic expectations of prophets and apostles expecting us to be experts in all Fields history theology science everything and then he said this let me quote him directly he said said quote if you have a question that requires an expert please take the time to find a thoughtful and qualified expert to help you there are many on this campus referring to BYU and elsewhere who have the degrees and expertise to respond and give some insight to most of these types of questions and then he says this is exactly what I do when I need an answer to my own questions that I cannot answer myself and so this was a I think a a humble and perfect move from Elder Ballard and instructive for all of us to say listen if it's a kind of a question that requires an expert let's reach out to an expert M so who would be the best source for finding reliable history with Elder Ballard's backing there that would be a trained historian correct trained historians are the best some of our prophets and apostles have been trained historians ah yes and they were awesome Wilford Woodruff excellent historian BH Roberts who is kind of the patron saint of Latter-day Saint historians and intellectuals excellent historian he was also a member of the first Council of the 70 but most of the prophets and apostles come from varying backgrounds we walk down the first presidency in the 12 you've got a heart surgeon a Utah Supreme Court Justice and a commissioner of Education that's the first presidency right there most of them would say we're not trained historians yeah and sometimes they do I have heard tell of Apostles calling BYU and saying hey I've got a historical question tell me what you think or relying on the church history Department which has a number of excellent trained historians Jed Woodworth Matt Gro Reed nilson good good solid Scholars that have done some good work in a number of different venues and aren't the kind of experts I think Elder Ballard's talking about here that you should reach out to yeah excellent and we're blessed to have with us on this show today Casey Griffith who is also a trained historian and so you're making me blush and and I'll say this Scott's pretty good also I what's your degree in instructional design and man you can't say my degree and then laugh Casey instructional psychology and Technology yes it's all about the science of learning and I think it's a broad umbrella which includes learning history but uh yeah we weren't specifically trained in my PhD on historical questions however so I try to hang out with as many reliable historians as I can and read their stuff and glean from folks like you but yeah that's not my degree actually the point is though behind Scott Woodward's name there are three little letters P HD oh my [Music] word so what we want to ask today Casey is how do trained historians think okay like not all members of the church can become trained historians but maybe you could share with us today some of the basic thought patterns or some basic historical question questions the historians asked to evaluate historical claims that maybe we could all use and even put to use like right away yeah this is kind of a do-it-yourself historical methodology right yeah at least a good place to start if like you come across something online it's making a historical claim typically about some church history issue so what's a church member to do what are some questions they can start to ask what are some mental moves they can make in order to start evaluating immediately those historical claims very good yeah and I bring up that DIY mindset because the other day my wife and I changed our garbage disposal neither one of us are plumbers but we found a good video see explaining it likewise if you're dealing with a historical question these tools are going to be really useful but if it's a really difficult historical question and I think we've tackled some of those on this program mhm consult with a trained historian go to somebody that knows the sources knows them well and knows these tools of historical methodology but this is kind of your your Survival Guide when it comes to understanding and knowing good history okay a couple questions that we would ask about a historical account number one how close is the source how close is the source so in historical methodology we would say a primary source is the best most of you are probably familiar with what this means but a primary source is someone that's there someone that participated in the event itself and saw it happen and they're the ones actually telling the story yeah they're the ones claiming the thing okay yeah they're the ones that are there July 9th 1840 Joseph Smith Rose from his sick bed and healed several dozen people on the banks of the Mississippi River Wilford Woodruff was there he saw it he wrote it down in his journal we're going to take wilford's word over somebody who heard it from somebody else because Wilford was actually there if that makes sense yeah in Carthage Jail we're going to listen to Willard Richard and John Taylor because they were there right and that doesn't mean that if it's not firsthand it's not accurate it can be it's just it tends to get less reliable the more people it has to be filtered through like that telephone game right where you whisper something into somebody's ear it goes from person to person and at the end it usually comes out kind of funny like a Benedict cumberpatch you know Cumberbatch what's his Benedict Cumberbatch yeah Sherlock Benedict Cumberbatch and then the next person here is benad dril cabbage patch you know and then it's bandicot Thunder snatch and then it's brender Derk crumble scrunch and then it finally ends up being peppermint Scooby snack or something right yeah it can go from Benedict cumber patch to peppermint Scooby Snacks real quick if we're not careful and we've got to be careful because some history that really circulates a lot goes through this whole process where it gets filtered through person after person after person and it's very JBL and sometimes doesn't come out the right way like let me cite an example yeah we always tell the story about Simon's writer who apparently left the church because his name was spelled wrong on his ordination certificate yeah now the story about Simon's Ryder leaving the church is true he did leave the church that's the fact but did he leave because his name was spelled wrong well when we go back and look at documents we find out that Simon's writer spelled his name different ways on different documents he didn't seem like he had the spelling pin down we found his head Stone his headstone if it's accurate means that his name is still spelled wrong in the Doctrine and Covenants totally and that actual Source comes from the funeral of Simon's riter that was preached by a priest that knew him it doesn't come from Simon's riter itself and the priest didn't even say oh I heard Simons tell me this once he just kind of declared the story and so how reliable is it I don't know and when we go back and look at what Simon's riter did because he's one of the people that led the mob that attacked Joseph Smith at the Johnson Farm there were other more clear more well certified motivations for why he didn't like Joseph Smith he didn't like consecration he openly says this his wife was planning on moving to Missouri to build Zion he doesn't like that it's a good story to say his name was spelled wrong and it really makes him look like a doofus uh yeah faithless doofus yeah but it might not be fair to him and it might not be accurate to us but it's a at least thirdhand story and so so we're not going to say it's not true we're just going to consider it for what it is and put it down the chain of reliability a little bit got it so first thing how close is the source okay was the person there did they see it if it's secondhand third hand so on so forth we'll start to doubt it a little bit more it just becomes less reliable but not absolutely false it's just less less and less reliable basically yeah that's question number one question number two how much time went by before they wrote it down how much time went by before they wrote it down again the gold standard here is Wilford Woodruff July 9th 1840 he wrote down that night what he saw Joseph Smith do and so this isn't a question of a person's Integrity sometimes it's about the reliability of memory yeah the greater the distance from the events that took place the more likely it is that little mistakes will creep in here or there now this isn't a slam dunk either the first account of the first Vision we noted on our podcast was written down 12 years after Joseph Smith experienced it yeah and most people honestly don't Accord their lives much significance and don't write down stuff right away when it happens but something that is closer to the time of the event is probably going to be more accurate if that makes sense based on human memory right human memory the details are going to be more crisp because of the recency okay so if we're going back to Carthage Jail Willard Richards writes down his account 2 minutes in jail within a couple weeks of of the attack on Carthage Jail so that's going to be our first it's very contemporary John Taylor later on writes an account that is very long and has incredibly long conversations between Joseph Smith and Governor Ford yeah and because that was written I believe around 1856 or so 12 years after I'm going to assume that John Taylor's filling in the gaps a little bit that he's not precisely quoting Governor Ford he's giving us the gist of the conversation some of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon recorded experiences very close to the time of the event like Oliver cowry writes a history in 1834 others are interviewed decades and decades after we're not saying they're lying or anything we're just saying you have to take into account there had been several decades that intervene between the time it helps when several decades go by and they're still saying the same thing that they said early on in 1830 right yeah like in their United witness like if it stays consistent over time then yeah boy that's something else as well isn't it yeah that's the thing is you compare different accounts and I mean the accounts don't have to exactly agree we noted that the first Vision accounts record varying details of the first Vision that doesn't invalidate the story of the first Vision right but you can see consistency over time and again ideally it's something that was written down at or near the time of the event but not everybody has the kind of historical sense that Wilford Woodruff had so if they waited a little while to write it down it's okay it's just we're going to put on our historian hat and say I'm going to be cautious with that because it was written down one of the accounts of the first Vision we shared was Charles Walker which was written down in 1893 and it wasn't even Charles Walker it was John alar Charles Walker heard John algar saying that he heard the story it's a third hand account 73 years after the first Vision so we're not going to say it's not true cuz it has some cool stuff in it but we're going to be a little bit more cautious with it we're not going to totally build our foundation on it because it's a little shaky is that one of the other questions historians ask is does it have cool stuff in it is that one of the definitely yeah historians are all about hey this is cool stuff yeah I just wanted to double check can I tell a story really fast yeah there is a story that's been told for decades and decades about Pearl Harbor and the the Hawaii temple cuz the LA temple on the North End of aahu the Japanese planes that are attacking Pearl Harbor fly over the north part of the island and attack Pearl Harbor and one of the stories that always gets told is that some Japanese plane tried to strafe the Hawaii temple Define strafe like the the way the story told is that the pilot was coming back and saw a big white building and he didn't know what it was and so he turned to like fire his machine guns at the temple and his guns jammed and he turned to drop a bomb on the temple and his bomb jammed and so he decided I'm running out of fuel I got to fly back and when he got out over Open Water he pulled the trigger on his guns and they fired and he pulled the lever on his bomb and his bomb dropped and the way the story is told is that this pilot was telling a missionary serving in Japan that story and the missionaries showed him a picture of the Hawaii temple in the course of their discussion and the guy said that's the building that I tried to strafe cool story right cool story bro awesome story but we got a couple questions we've got to ask number one it's a secondhand account it's being told by the missionary that said this guy told them the story we don't know where the guy is where he comes from Most Japanese Pilots did not survive the war M why did this Pearl Harbor pilot make it all the way through but can I throw in a little wrinkle throw it the guy who was the missionary was a guy who worked for seminaries institutes I was working on the history of seminaries institutes I went and talked to his family he just passed away and I asked them about that story and I was expecting them to say oh man that was all blown out of proportion we don't know what was going on there instead the first thing his wife said was I don't know why Satan doesn't want people to know that story and I go what oh oh and she brought out his journal and showed me in his missionary Journal where he had written down the experience the day that that guy shared it with them oh and so I mean as a historian I look at it now and go oh my what do I do with this I mean it's a secondhand account yeah and it doesn't seem to fit a lot of the established facts but hey it's there I mean I can't completely invalidate it but it's more reliable if it has cool stuff yeah that's how complicated some of these things can be this is good this is helpful [Music] okay so we have two tools now yeah so we have Source how close was it to the actual event or was that person themselves there are they hearing this second hand and then how long did it take them to write it down and so John Taylor was there at the martyrdom but he didn't write down his experience until 1856 at least that full-blown experience that you were referring to and so you need to just kind of weigh both of those factors together as you're trying to assess reliability yeah and none of this would be questioning John Taylor's Integrity or his sincerity it's just that the conversation he has that Joseph Smith has with Governor Ford as John Taylor records it is so specific very specific yeah I've got to assume that unless John Taylor has the world's most amazing memory and he never claimed to he was filling in the gaps a little and that's another thing is sometimes historians from different eras felt a little bit more free to massage a narrative to fill in the gaps and conversations as they go which might be a good lead to point three which is what is the motive of the person telling the account okay in other words why are they doing this and do they have a potential agenda or an ulterior motive behind what they're saying do they have an acts to grind that may influence what or How It Was Written who's the audience that they're writing to is their neutral or balanced or candid or open is it attacking one-sided defensive all that kind of stuff wow sometimes yeah a person has an ax to grind and we might need to take that into account or a person could be propagandizing for the church for instance just going back to Carthage Jail again there are several accounts of one of them from a former mob member who joined the church who said that after Joseph Smith was killed a member of the mob and in some versions of the story it is not just a member of the mob it's the son of Lilburn bogs the governor of Missouri Oh stepped out of the crowd with a large Bowie knife and walked up to decapitate Jose Smith the individual was struck by a ray of light and Frozen in place and the mob had to drag him away because he could not move and that is awesome right that's totally Faith promoting cool story cool story right but when BH Roberts Who's acting as church historian looks at that he says well Willard Richards who I trust said it all took place in 2 minutes and no other member of the mob tells that story and so it's a cool story but I might not trust it very much because it does seem like the person telling the story has an ulterior motive this individual had converted to the church he believes Joseph miss a profet even if it's you know a win for my team if it's not good history it's not good history so it wasn't reliable because that event would have taken longer than 2 minutes to have unfolded yeah and the motive of the person telling it was to okay first of all I have question mhm who is this guy the fact that he was in the mob does that mean he was complicit in the murder of Joseph Smith and what problems did had introduced as he tried to join the church as one who was in the mob that murdered the prophet what what do we know about this guy well he was just in the mob you know he was part of the Warsaw militia he actually testified at Joseph Miss trial um there was a murder trial yeah six people were indicted for the murder of Joseph and hon Smith and this guy was one of the Witnesses on the stand so he was willing to do this under oath but when you put it up against the established facts surrounding the murder of Joseph and ham it raises a lot of questions it raises a lot of questions especially because the mob was around 100 to 150 people and nobody else says that this happened that's question number one number two Willard Richards gives a time frame that doesn't seem like it's allowable for this to happen and so taking that together we'd have to take even a faith-promoting story like that with a grain of salt interesting on the other hand there are some people that are antagonistic towards the church and we have to look at their motives too William mclen writes a bunch of really negative stuff about Joseph Smith he's upset he's angry he's been excommunicated from the church how does that affect his motives in when when he's telling stories and when he's relating historical narrative often to smear the name of Joseph yeah or John C Bennett John C Bennett writes a history of the church later on says he was a double agent the whole time but his actions when he was in the church don't seem to indicate any kind of double agent motive John C Bennett and I'm opening up a can of worms that maybe we can't fully dump out here is accused of adultery because he seducing women under the doctrine of spiritual wery yeah he's excommunicated from the church he tries to commit suicide the members of the church nursing bag to health none of that seems to suggest that he was some kind of double agent intent on exposing the church the entire time so his motives are Highly Questionable when they're measured against his actions and against other sources that cover the same time period it seems like he instead he actually got angry because he was excommunicated and so publicly basically shamed out of navu for his flagrant adultery serial adultery we called it I think in our episode when we talked about this mhm and then he had an ax to grind he wrote a book what was his book called uh history of the Saints isn't it history of the Saints yeah where he's really just trying to smear the saints name Joseph Smith and the whole institution of Mormonism and everybody in navoo and he just makes up a bunch of junk that's like so not true I was just reading yesterday about some of the stuff he said about the Relief Society how it was divided into three different orders of ladies and how there's a secret harms and stuff like like he's just just making up junk to try to make it look as Saucy and awful as possible yeah you measure that against the rest of John C Bennett's life where he was constantly making up stories and jumping from place to place yeah it seems like he has an ulterior motive and everybody has a motive I mean if a historian tells you they're totally objective they're lying you and I have motives right we're transparent about that yes but you should take that into account when you listen to to what we have to say yeah we're trying to what's the tagline we're trying to help church history be accessible comprehensible and defensible we state it every episode that's what we're trying to do yeah so with motive how do you evaluate that so would it be I guess on a spectrum if if it's more neutral if it's more balanced if it's more candid is that more reliable than to say it's more a grindy more accusative more attacking more one-sided is that kind of what you're saying so's kind of a spectrum to kind of think about the tone there I like the word ax grindy and that is going to enter into my historical lexicon as we go but let me refer back to something we actually quoted on this podcast when we did the first Vision okay which was an English Professor named Arthur Henry King MH who converted to the church later on wrote an essay called Joseph Smith as a writer and he mentions the objectivity of the first Vision account this is what Arthur Henry King wrote he said when I was first brought to read Joseph Smith's story I was deeply impressed I wasn't inclined to be impressed as a stylis I've spent my life being disinclined to be impressed so when I read his story I thought to myself this is an extraordinary thing this is an astonishingly matter of fact and cool account this man is not trying to persuade Me of anything he doesn't feel the need to he's stating what happened to him and he's stating it not enthusiastically but in quite a matter of fact way he's not trying to make me cry or feel ecstatic that struck me and that began to build my testimony for I could see that this man was tell telling the truth so to this English writer who's a stylis he's saying the way Joseph Smith wrote this history caught my attention because he does try to take on at least a neutral tone Joseph Smith doesn't make himself sound like he's the most righteous kid in the neighborhood or the worst sinner that's out there he tries greatly to be neutral in what he's saying and that helped the guy basically trust his account you can read something when it's really polemical or when it's really extreme and sort of understand and know that the person is you know writing a screed basically so do they have an agenda behind it would be one [Music] question and that leads to maybe the next question which is how opinionated is this so how much of this is opinion and how much of it is them reporting fact M we did this already on one of our podcasts but let's walk through these again a fact is based on verifiable evidence no matter what your perspective is Right an inference is a snap conclusion and meaning we give facts based on our pre-existing assumptions so there's a difference between saying I live in Provo which is a fact and inference saying he used the word pop instead of soda so he must be from Provo or something like that based on people that you know who say soda or pop yeah yeah basically okay assumptions are beliefs we suppose to be true and that we used to interpret our world so we make assumptions about how things work we base our life around assumptions they're not always bad but sometimes we make assumptions based on bad information yeah an opinion is an inferential conclusion that goes beyond the facts of the matter so a responsible person usually says I don't know this for sure but here's my opinion here's my judgement here's my feeling on the matter and an innuendo is an indirect suggestion meant to lead one to a certain opinion about a fact so when you read a historical account it can be sometimes well I infer that this happened or let's assume this or because I saw this this was what was probably going on when we could be completely wrong yeah based on our assumptions based on our innuendos and an example we used back to the first Vision was the fact is that the first account of the first Vision that just Joseph Smith wrote was 12 years after he said it happened this is 1832 that's fact mhm inference would be okay now some people like fwn Brody and others would say the reason they're going to now bring some inference here a snap conclusion they're going to give meaning to that by saying the reason he didn't write it until 12 years later was because he had to make up something in order to bolster his prophetic Authority as it was being questioned In 1832 holy cow that's a leap right that's a leap that's not factual that's an inference based on her own assumptions one of her major assumptions was that Joseph was a fraud MH and so from that assumption that hermeneutic of Suspicion you got to infer what the fact means yeah and so she gives her opinion or makes innuendo indirectly suggesting that that should be the only conclusion that really is intelligent to make right and we through our first Vision series went into some detail about why that assumption does not hold up and what else actually helps make better sense of why he didn't write it until 1832 but that's not the purpose of this episode we're basically just saying that we do this all the time and people who look at the history of the church do this all the time and we just need to First be aware of it right let's be aware of the difference between a fact an inference an assumption an opinion and when someone's doing innuendo so that we can now think about how we might want to think about that so that we can evaluate you know how reliable is this yeah can I restate it like this tell me what you think about this so the more factual a source is the more reliable it likely is and the more inference or opinion inuendo are involved the less reliable The Source or the conclusion the source is making is that fair yeah so Fon Brody who you brought up for example has sections in her biography of Joseph Smith where she basically claims to know what he was thinking you know there's one section where she goes while Joseph was saying this he must have been thinking about how he could keep the going and that's all an assumption I mean how does she know what Joseph Smith was thinking at this particular Point that's a model of irresponsible historical scholarship a responsible historian would say here's what Joseph Smith said and here's the context in which it was said and not make inferences or assumptions based on that or if they do at least be cautious with their language and not openly claim to know what was going on inside a person's head cuz there could be all kinds of motivations or factors that we don't understand so we don't overclaim basically bad historians tend to say well because this person said this they were thinking this or they were acting for this reason MH when if we don't have the information the most responsible thing to say is we don't really know yeah so if something like that is said we can kind of catch that in our mind oh that's an opinion right that's an inferential conclusion that's going beyond the facts of the matter just being able to recognize that helps you know how to evaluate it right yeah that's that's so helpful mhm what's the difference between innuendo and spin I mean spin is propaganda right that's when we're outright just saying anything we can to try and convince people of our opinion and I mean I guess it depends on how you Define propaganda MH we used propaganda in World War II to convince Americans that they needed to go fight the Germans and the Japanese but some of that even though it was well-intentioned is dangerous too propaganda can cause us to see or dehumanize someone else it can cause us to have the wrong assumptions about things but it's primarily meant to motivate to produce an emotional response and that is how a lot of church critics go off they'll throw a bomb out there that's meant to generate a huge emotional response and get you out of this rational mode of thinking where you are kind of sitting down and evaluating the sources they'll say stuff like Joseph Smith was married to a 14-year-old and immediately you know your moral goes off and you don't take the time to investigate and say what does that actually mean yeah what are the facts behind that what are the facts of the matter yeah yeah innuendo seems to often happen with Joseph Smith's polygamy I've seen that a lot like Joseph Smith married other men's wives why would he do that wink wink nudge nudge right it's like just trying to make you feel like oh this guy is this he's this lustful like sexually motivated guy he's abusing his ecclesiastical position right like that's that's what they want you to think he married a 14-year-old girl yeah oh the innuendo there is there was something sexual going on right is that the facts of the matter do we know that well as we talked about in our episode about this that 14-year-old girl has actually written two books about this and you might want to investigate what she had to say before you come to any certain conclusion about this Cu uh it's actually wildly different than the Spin Masters or the inuendo isers would want you to think so so nothing sexual going on there at all but that's the innuendo always and forever with Joseph Smith's polygamy in those two cases especially married other men's wives and married a 14-year-old girl like the innuendo is just always laid on by the critics [Music] yeah and back to this topic of spin I want to give my favorite example of this I think I saw maybe Tony sweat shared this once and I really liked it so I Shar this with my students it's the example of a guy named RIS star Rus star there's this picture of him with a noose around his neck where he's on this scaffolding this platform he's about to be hanged and on the back of that picture it says quote Rama star- horse thief sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885 escaped 1887 robbed a Montana flyer six times caught by Pinkerton detectives convicted and hanged 1889 that's the caption on the back of the photo so this guy's a horse thief right executed 1889 MH but here's a classic example of historical spin one of his descendants wrote this about Rama star they said quote now listen to this carefully because none of what you're about to hear is inaccurate but just look at the spin of the facts okay it says this quote Ramos star was a famous cowboy in the Montana territory his business empire grew to include the acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and included intimate dealings with the Montana railroad beginning in 1885 he devoted several years of his life to service at a government facility finally taking a role in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton detective agency in 1889 Ramos passed away during an important Civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed that is some good spin that is some good spin yeah you walk away from that thinking R star is uh just an ace what a guy what a what a cool guy fine upstanding citizen right good guy upstanding man yeah poor guy he uh he died when the platform he was standing on collapsed what a tragedy I don't know if this is a phrase historians use but I call that narrative cropping selectively telling events in such a way as to achieve a certain effect with the audience right to to try to drive them toward a certain conclusion it's kind of like inuendo except it's like all spoken out loud but framed in just such a way as to try to make it sound good if you took the picture of Rama star where he's standing on the platform with the news suround his neck right before his execution you just crop it right just bring it in just crop it real tight so all you kind of see is his his face he's got this mustache he's yeah wearing a suit and you can't really tell there's a noose around his neck kind of black and white kind of fuzzy that's the story right you're kind of narrative cropping you're cropping the story in such a way as to kind of cut out all the bad parts or to make it sound better than it was or the opposite can happen too try to make something that's kind of benign sound horrible right sound just like the worst we do this on both sides don't we sometimes members of the church will want to crop out anything that kind of sounds bad and critics will try to amplify anything that is even remotely potentially problematic and make a mountain out of a molehill yeah so we both have to to watch ourselves not to play loose with the facts not to play loose with the history and not to crop yeah in such a way that it only favors our narrative I've heard people describe Joseph Smith's death in an antagonistic Source by saying Joseph Smith died in a gunfight with the authorities in Carthage Jail and I mean okay yeah I guess technically that's true the people he was shooting at weren't authorities they were a mob an assassination group group and I've also noticed that you know sometimes when people tell the story of Carthage gel they don't want to say that Joseph Smith fired back M the truth is Joseph Smith had a pistol that was smuggled into him by Cyrus Willock and Joseph Smith did fire back at the mob but if 200 people are coming to kill me and they've already killed one person cuz he fires back after hram is shot in the face and you have a gun it's reasonable to use the gun to defend yourself and so spin both directions and like you so adequately called it historical cropping can really make it dangerous the full version of the story is a mob attacked Carthage Jail Joseph Smith had a gun and he fired back that doesn't make it a gunfight with the authorities and it also isn't necessary for us to try and defend Joseph's status as a martyr by saying he didn't resist the people that were trying to kill him there were three other people in the room he was trying to defend their lives too one of them had already been killed so yeah yeah good history and bad history on both sides of the aisle here [Music] yeah last question is how does it compare with other sources so when you're talking about a historical account you usually have if it's a big deal more than one source you can compare and contrast the account with other primary and secondary sources dealing with the same event are the dates the facts and the claims consistent with other sources and what are the major similarities and differences and why do those exist so let me cite an example here it is a story commonly told in the church that when Brigham Young spoke to the crowd after Joseph Smith's death he was transfigured before the crowd 8th of August 1844 8th of August 1844 yeah Brigham Young and Sydney Rigden are both making claims to lead the church Sydney Rigden speaks than briam young speaks the story is commonly told that Brigham Young is transfigured now here's how complicated this gets most of those accounts are from around 20 years later when the rlds church was making its claim Brigham Young and the leadership of the church to asked anybody that was there to come into the historians office and tell their story and so most of the accounts not all of them there is one or two that's contemporary are from 20 years later when the church historian's office made an effort to record those accounts so as historians we look at that and say that's not very contemporary yeah but 150 people showed up 150 people all these are printed in a BYU studies article great article but they're also not totally consistent across the board George quanan thought Joseph Smith had been resurrected like he thought Joseph Smith was up on the stand other people said that they felt that the mantle of the Prophet had fallen on Brigham Young that's an established fact that when the church voted that day they chose Brigham Young as the leader of the church so you take all those together and you still have this really wonderful story but if you just tell it as briam young was transfigured and you imply that everybody saw the same thing you're robbing of of some of its complexity and some of its authenticity which actually makes it more faith strengthening than if you kind of spin it and try and uh smooth over the rough parts of the narrative yeah cuz I've read through all of those accounts and some people say that they looked up and saw Brigham but heard Joseph others say they saw Joseph in the place of Brigham some say that it looked like Joseph resurrected some say they heard Joseph's voice with even like the little whistle that he had when he would say s's because it's one of his teeth was chipped when a mob tried to force poison into his mouth and and chipped his tooth and he always had a little bit of a whistle uh when he said his s's I guess uh some people said that they even heard that others didn't see it at all uhuh some people were there and didn't see anything spectacular yeah one of the reasons why Church critics tackle that one is because Wilfred Woodruff didn't write anything down Wilford Woodruff mhm kept a pretty good journal and he was there and he didn't record anything special happening neither did briam Young briam Young's journal for the day just said I Rose and spoke my heart was moved with compassion towards the Saints and I laid before them the course and will of the Lord but 150 people that gives you higher confidence to say okay something happened it wasn't uniform something happened and they didn't write it down until later on when there was a need to record that but also the fact that they chose Brigham Young as their leader seems to suggest there were compelling reasons to do so so we take something that's absolutely amazing like that and we need to again maybe bring it down to earth a little bit and introduce complexity which is totally okay when it comes to this in fact understanding the complexity might make it a little bit more compelling and understandable so you're saying on this particular example it does seem based on the historical evidence and the overwhelming number of sources that something significant happened that day that convinced the majority of saints to follow Brigham Young and the other 12 wests like something significant occurred yeah and that's the story they told 20 years later yeah and so we should take that seriously is that what I'm hearing you say we should take that sour serious yes let's take this particular incident and run it through the five questions number one how close is the source 150 primary source participants that were there that's pretty good and claim something El so on question number one it really excels how much time passed before was recorded there's one or two contemporary accounts they're very vague most of them just say something like it was clear that the mantle of the Prophet had passed to Brigham Young most of the accounts were written down 20 years later when the rlds church was challenging so it's not a slam dunk on question too it's not a slam dunk but it's not out of the question it's still reasonable what's the motive of the person telling the account these were active church members who believe Brigham Young was a prophet that's their motive and they're pushing against the claim of the rlds church at that point Point yeah the the rlds church is claiming that Brigham Young is not the prophet that Joseph Smith son Joseph Smith third is these people have a motive for doing that and so that might temper our expectations a little bit how factual or opinionated is it we have some verified facts there was a meeting there was a sustaining vote this was an actual vote as to who should be the leader of the church that's not disputed by anybody including cdy Rigdon including people that were antagonistic towards briam younger didn't want him to be leader of the church that that meeting happened seems to be a verifiable historical fact and number five how does it compare to other accounts well when we compare the accounts we find there was a wide variety of experience from people that just had a prompting that felt spiritually that bam young was the right person to people that saw a full spiritual manifestation that thought Joseph Smith was resurrected you put all that together and you can see that this one has some really strong points it has some points where it could be stronger but enough evidence is there to say yeah something significant happened when Brigham Young got up to speak and nobody's disputing that what happened or at least the events of that day were powerful enough to convince the majority of the people there that briam young should be the leader of the church well that's good and then they show that sincerity by being willing to walk across the plains yeah their subsequent actions afterwards demonstrate they sincerely believed what they were doing and that that's a factor too right yeah sincerity [Music] yeah okay that's good so Casey those are I think five super helpful questions and I'm wondering if we could just do one example of a historical claim and we can kind of run it through all five questions at once can we do one more would that be all right let's do one more what do you want to do let's do something that kind of comes up often enough to I think be a problem is a letter that William E mclen wrote in 1872 to Joseph Smith III Joseph Smith son and mlen in that letter he recalled details of an 1847 conversation with Emma Smith that he had where Emma acknowledged to William mlen that in the spring of 1836 she quote missed Joseph and Fanny alar wasn't sure where they went and so she went to the barn and saw him and Fanny in the barn together alone and she looked through a crack I'm quoting now from the mlen letter and saw the transaction three exclamation point she told me this story too was verily true he says close quote and then by the way in another letter 3 years later he clarified that Emma said that she saw the ceiling take place that's what he meant by the transaction in the barn on the hay through the C crack in the door so we just kind of analyze this for a second so this is all about Joseph's first plural wife and this idea that maybe it was something scandalous and this William mlen letter just kind of crops up about this so it's a 1872 letter yeah recalling the details of an 1847 conversation mlen had with Emma whoa about something that she saw in 1836 and told mlen that he's now conveying to Joseph Smith III what do you make of that as a trained historian walk through what your brain does with that account I'm glad you brought this up because it gets brought up all the time and it feels like it's never quoted with accuracy first of all it's stated like it's just plain fact yeah like I had a person come up to me at a presentation and say you know my um friend left the church because Joseph Smith was seducing girls in Barns oh that's too bad and I was like okay the barn thing is something I've never heard mentioned in any account except for this one so it must come from this but let's ask the questions Scott and and you can answer him how close is this to the actual source does this come from Joseph Smith or Fanny alar no or even Emma Smith like number one it's William mclen recalling an 1846 conversation of Emma Smith talking about an 1836 incident yeah and then it's secondhand at best a secondhand account of a 25-year-old conversation about an event that happened 36 years earlier yep you just stumbled across question number two which is how much time was passed before it was recorded yeah that's a long time right yeah so what's his motive what do we know about William mlen that would help us answer the motive question William mullen's ex communicated from the church he's one of those people that doesn't just leave the church that goes full anti-mormon challenges Joseph Smith to a fight turns out to be very antagonistic towards the church tries to start his own Church fails yeah a complicated individual here so does he have a motive yeah the fact that he had to clarify later on and say that oh I believe it was a cealing ceremony the language in that letter strongly suggests that mlen is trying to imply that Emma Cott Joseph and Fanny algar you know engaging in he called it the transaction engaging in the transaction which again is language meant to infer that she's seeing them commit adultery yeah later on he's pushed about that and he says no I meant the ceiling I mean I meant that they were just getting married yeah it's like okay buddy that doesn't seem like that's what you meant when you said transaction yeah he's got a ton of motives to try and discredit Joseph Smith or make him look bad yeah how factual or opinionated is it um pretty opinionated right yeah Joseph Smith according to other sources and some of them very reliable was sealed to Fanny aler MH number five how does it compare to other accounts there are no other accounts right there there's no other accounts of this particular incident there are other sources that say Fanny algar was sealed to Joseph Smith and was his first plural wife there's several people okay yeah uh that say that most important one elizar snow when the church historian Andrew Jensen was trying to compile a list of Joseph Smith's plural wives Eliza R snow approached him and said Fanny algar was actually the the first person Eliza was also sealed to Joseph Smith as well she was one of his plural wives but she's a good source because she was living with them at the time correct yeah yeah she was Fanny's roommate basically and so she was there she was contemporary that's a pretty good source that's a good source she doesn't mention anything about this Barn incident other sources Fanny algar comes up when Oliver cryy is excommunicated when he's put on trial Joseph Smith himself testifies and says yes president cryy accused me of something he and I spoke about the business with Fanny algar and we resolved it at least verify something when with Fanny alar but again nothing about this Emma cot him doing things or anything like that so what's your trustworthiness of this Source where do you think my trustworthy ometer says that this account stinks to high heaven it doesn't pass it doesn't pass Casey yeah Oliver cowry in his excommunication trial which we've talked about one of the accusations brought against him was that he insinuated that Joseph had committed adultery with Fanny algar mhm M and as you just mentioned that was it appears resolved between the two men Oliver cowry will come back to the church and will continue to testify that Joseph was a true Prophet it doesn't seem like he comes to the same conclusion as Mullen but yeah nothing about a barn nothing about Emma discovering them is I've ever found I've tried to read a lot about this stuff but I've never found anything that would corroborate this no other sources so yeah just checking through all your questions this this account stinks yeah I think he's uh got an axxe to grind and he's trying to stir the pot and the fact that he's telling this to Joseph Smith III sounds like he's trying to shake him up a little bit on this so yeah I don't like it Casey MH and by the way another point is that he says that Emma Smith told him that right there my alarm bells are going off we know that Emma did not talk with people about Joseph's plural marriages yeah ever and she did not like William like he stole from them in 1838 like he went into their house when the saints were being driven out of Missouri and he like stole I think what did he steal bed sheets and stuff I can't remember the account exactly but to say that Emma like trusted William mlen with something that we know just like was such a difficult subject for her and when she's asked about it later on in life like she'll deny that it even happened like to think that Emma would confide in William mlen who had been antagonistic toward their family about a topic like that to me like one thing stacks on top of another thing on top of another another thing to tell me that is not trustworthy yeah that's our example so maybe in our next episode we need to do a couple examples and run through this just so you can start to get a feel cuz as you use this as time goes on it'll become more and more automatic yeah by the end of the semester I usually have students saying hey was that guy even there was he a primary source or wait when was that written down and the skills become useful and by the way these aren't just good skills for history this is good skills when you're reading the news basically to be a little bit Discerning say what are the sources where does it come from does it corroborate with other sources yeah excellent this is just good sound thinking yep well thanks Casey that was fun next time let's practice next time historical pickle ball is that what we're going to call it sounds good thank you for listening to this episode of church history matters in our next episode Casey and I put on something of an informal historical Source criticism Workshop by spending the episode evaluating the reliability of various historical statements by using the five questions we discuss today it should be a good time if you're enjoying church history matters we'd appreciate it if you could take a moment to subscribe rate review and comment on the podcast that makes us easier to find today's episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Nick GTI and Scott Woodward with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis church history matters is a podcast of scripture Central a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making latterday Saint scripture and church history accessible comprehensible and defensible to people everywhere for more resources to enhance your gospel study go to scripture central.org where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you and while we try very hard to be historically and doctrinally accurate in what we say on this podcast please remember that all views expressed in this and every episode are our views alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of scripture Central or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints thank you so much for being a part of this with us [Music]

Channel: Doctrine and Covenants Central

Views: 1,066

Keywords: Come Follow Me, Doctrine and Covenants, Church History, Joseph Smith, LDS, Mormon, Latter Day Saint, Latter Day Saints

Id: KdFQXczzCjw

Length: 57min 47sec (3467 seconds)

Published: Tue May 14 2024