Volume One: a cultural history of the book of mormon: Setting, a foundation, of stones to stumble over

by Daymon M. Smith

This first volume of a cultural history of the Book of Mormon focuses on the earliest years of the text. In a new reading of Mormon history informed by the author's expertise in anthropology and text analysis, the role of Restorationists in locating the Book of Mormon inside the cultural world of the Bible comes to the forefront. The notion of "metatext" is developed in order to explain how texts about the Book of Mormon informed the earliest readings of it, rendering it "scripture" in the genre familiar to Christians, and also shaped it to fit the tradition of Restoration widespread on the American frontier. As a group of Campbellites in late 1830 saw in the book their hoped-for restoration of the power of miracles, the Book of Mormon became the engine of a the power had been restored. In this movement, Alexander Campbell's Ohio group suffered a schism, and his remaining followers called the break off sect "Mormonites" in derision. This cultural history of the Book of Mormon presents a dramatically new way to understand that text and how it has been read and misread from the 1830s onward, as Restorationists took up the text--not for what it said--as a sign of miracles being restored to the true New Testament Church. This first volume is the sort of book you'll either love or hate.

Genres: Religion, Lds

324 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 19, 2013

Reviews

[Christopher Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is anthropologist Daymon Smith's rather odd commentary on how the Book of Mormon was received by its first audience(s). Smith spends many of his 300 pages belaboring the distinction between the text itself and the "metatexts" (other ideas and traditions) that inform how we read it.

At times Smith writes like a poststructuralist, who understands that texts cannot be read without metatexts and that we have no choice but to participate in the hermeneutical spiral. This, I would argue, is the correct stance. Since metatext includes essential rules of interpretation such as grammatical conventions and the definitions of words, text without metatext is just ink on paper. The scholar should seek not to entirely separate text from metatext, but rather to employ the metatextual framework most appropriate to answering his/her scholarly questions.

At other times Smith writes like a "new critic" who posits that a text contains its own "world" which can be discussed without reference to anything outside itself. Of course, this is incorrect. A text can be said to encode an imaginary world that existed in the mind of its author or to evoke imaginary worlds in the minds of its readers, but it can't be said to contain a world in its own right. The effort to treat the Book of Mormon in isolation is further undermined by the fact that the book makes many clear references to worlds and texts outside itself.

At still other times Smith writes like a fiery objectivist prophet. Convinced that he possesses the gift of rightly dividing text from tradition, he is incredibly insulting to historians who fail to do it the way he does. (I wouldn't be so hard on him if he hadn't been so hard on others.) As an example, he repeatedly returns to the Book of Ether's statement that "Jared came forth . . . from the great tower, at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people." Many historians have summarized this passage by reference to the Tower of Babel. This offends Smith, who insists—as if it were a matter of great importance—that the Tower of Babel is never mentioned in the text. Okay, but who cares? "The great tower" refers to the Tower of Babel almost as clearly as "tower" refers to some kind of tall structure. In any reasonable interpretive scheme, this is a distinction without a difference.

Setting aside the issue of metatext, Smith also makes a number of historical and interpretive errors. For example, he badly misreads the "choice seer" prophecy of 2 Nephi 3, erroneously concluding that the text makes the seer a descendant of Lehi and apparently missing that the primary role the text assigns the spokesman is to "write." He also misunderstands the meaning of Joseph Knight's term "Restorationer," using it throughout the book to mean "one who attempts to restore the primitive Christian church" rather than one who believes all the souls in hell will ultimately be restored to heaven.

Near the middle of the book are a couple chapters on Campbellism that historians will find insightful and informative. Moments of real insight also pepper the the other chapters. But if you tackle this book, be prepared to do some sifting.

[Chad Larson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extremely important and yet difficult read. If Mormonism, the Book of Mormon and its history are important to you, this is in my opinion an extremely, perhaps even the most important thing you could ever read. It will not be easy. It will force you to rethink many of your traditions and accepted "truth", and it will force you to stretch your thinking. It will also be a difficult and frustrating read at times. If you can endure/work through the first 100 pages, you will find that it gets easier. This is not like reading an airport novel. This book is dense and although it could perhaps be written in a more straight forward, simple manner, I think the author has his reasons for making it difficult. As you work through it the difficulty associated with the author's style will ease, unfortunately the difficult questions the book raises do not ease. Pick up this book, but please don't give up on this book because it makes you uncomfortable either intellectually or emotionally.

[Jaxon Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the type of book that makes you stop, think, re-read, think more and then wonder: how have I never heard of this before?
Is it a hard read? Yes, for numerous reasons. The writing style, the material, the potential consequences of what it could mean ... hard things. However, it is a book worth reading and then reading again!

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Needed better citations, but a unique perspective on the confabulation of the Campbellites and the Fayette-in-exile Saints.

[Linkpead · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an simple read. The information was interesting, but could have been half as long. I'm told the subsequent volumes are much easier to get through.