I want to apologize for the negative, critical review I wrote about Grant Palmer’s book, An Insiders View of the Mormon Origins. While I don’t share the authors beliefs on several topics, I believe I was ungenerous in my examination and treatment of his writing, and I would like to apologize to Mr. Palmer and to the publisher. I’m sorry this realization took me so long to come to.
Since after these years I don’t have the knowledge to make detailed changes, I no longer own the book, and I’m no longer actively involved with RationalFaiths, I have asked that this apology be placed on the web page in place of my former review. I hope my review has not caused undue harm.
Jonathan Cannon
Jonathan Cannon
Jonathan lives in rural Georgia with his wife and three boys, teaching Chemistry and enjoying the good people of his community. He studied Molecular Biology at Brigham Young University, and Biophysics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Jonathan is passionate about fatherhood, teaching and learning, Mormonism, and dance (he's much better at the first three), and dabbles in home repairs, various crafts, poetry, music, gardening, and Transhumanism. He has enjoyed many years working in Primary, with Young Adults and Ward Missions in various capacities. He currently enjoys serving in his ward and community however he is able. He posts on whatever interests him at the moment at http://jonathan.metacannon.net/
All posts by Jonathan Cannon
I appreciate your evenhandedness, but I think you were way too soft on Palmer. His book is simply atrocious, as not one, not two, not three, but four different highly competent Mormon historians demonstrated in their critiques.
http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/15/2/S00014-5176b173070af14Harper.pdf
http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/16/1/S00013-5176af581969813Allen.pdf
http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/15/2/S00013-5176b1690940913Bitton.pdf
http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/15/2/S00015-5176b17f81a5f15McGee.pdf
Notice I intentionally left out Midgley’s review, since this is the one Palmer’s admirers keep complaining was ad hominem, mean, nasty, etc. Even without Midgley’s review (which I would actually dispute was an ad hominem attack), Palmer and those who like his book need to account for the negative assessments of these other reviews.
Pretty easy to account for the negativity of those reviews, I can see the reason in the URL: They’re from the Maxwell Institute. ‘Nuff said.
So, let me see if I understand this correctly.
Four professional historians, all PhDs, all having devoted careers to studying early Mormon history, two of which were some of the original founders of the Mormon History Association, and the other two of which are currently editors at the Joseph Smith Papers, can be summarily dismissed with a “‘Nuff said” because . . . they published their critiques with the Maxwell Institute?
Maybe the reason their reviews were so negative was because, you know, as professionals with expertise in early Mormon history they could easily recognize that Palmer’s stuff is mostly rubbish? Just sayin’ . . .
This is not a war of credentials. You’ve listed the reviews. People can read and evaluate them on their merits, or not. Please pay attention to the tone I set in my review, and leave the discussion if you can’t contribute in the same tone.
I think what Cannon has acheived that the academics have not, is that his review is accesable. About a year ago I went through all the reviews you listed Stephen and it took a long time to get to the meat of their critiques and they were too long. One gets the sense that the academics are only speaking to the academics.
Cannon’s review is for the common man.
The reviews by the FARMS folks have all been refuted some time ago. They were so silly that nobody takes these review of Palmer’s fine work seriously anymore. Happy to hash threw them one-more-time if needed. Here is our official response to the reviews.
http://signaturebooks.com/2010/06/a-reply-to-farms-and-the-joseph-fielding-smith-institute/
–Tom Kimball, publicist for Insider’s View of Early Mormonism.
In a sense, these reviews all missed the point of many readers’ dismay upon learning the things presented in Palmer’s book. Many people have spent entire lifetimes (from 10 to 40 years of teenage to adult life) faithfully and intently studying correlated history. A single, unambiguous story is presented as THE TRUTH. Whether Palmer’s story is right, or not, learning more about our history than the correlated snippets is unsettling when your whole life you have been taught that it is a question of THE TRUTH vs. ERROR.
Also, what are the alternative narratives to those presented by Palmer? I looked for an easy list of resources on the same topics. It doesn’t exist. The alternatives are long books, scholarly articles that don’t always address the exact points of interest, and often highlight ambiguities. I appreciate this and have enjoyed reading a number of these things. But it is no longer THE TRUTH. Add to this various personal reasons people gain through lived experience for doubting that God called various leaders (and don’t tell me people don’t come by these feelings honestly–leaders have made more than minor mistakes at times all the way to the top, however understandably), and then maybe you can see why these reviews have not been of help to a number of people. Palmer’s sources are real, whatever the quality of his conclusions. Further, whatever these reviews accomplish, it is only to lessen the probability of Palmer’s conclusions, not refute them. Given strong enough priors (I’m learning about Bayesian statistics), the likelihood Palmer is correct can still be very great.
Thanks Jonathan, great point in that you strike at the heart of the issue here.
One can argue Palmer’s against Palmer’s conclusions but no one is disputing the sources, and that’s where the real issues for Mormonism are found.
We can all draw our own conclusions, but we have to acknowledge that early Mormon history is problematic, there’s just no getting around it.
Fantastic review. It seemed very objective to me. The fact that you’re getting equal criticism for being too apologetic and too antagonistic is an additional testament to the great balance you’ve struck.
Jonathan,
I am glad to see a thorough and even-handed review of Palmer here. This book is not to be taken lightly, as most of his historical accounts are authentic. From where I sit, Palmer’s book has been the cause of more feelings of betrayal, loss of testimony, and membership resignation than any other single book I know of. My own family has wrestled mightily with some of the conclusions he draws. With that, I think your best point is to agree on the history-much of it- but to examine what alternative conclusions (from Palmer’s) can be made. Thank you again for a serious-minded review.
I enjoyed reading this review. The tone and balance are excellent.
I think you do in fact get what is at the heart of the book and I find this review to be generally a positive compared to the nonsense we have seen over the years. Interestingly, many of the things you DO critique are often the books strengths so I’m not really put-out by them. More on this later…
Some things for your consideration, You provide examples of some of your critiques about Palmer’s book, but not always. I think the reader would have benefited these. For example
You wrote, “… And then he presented conclusions with great confidence,”
Yet I did not find that you provided any. Some of his conclusions are so shared among scholars of those early years, why shouldn’t he come to a conclusion with confidence?
You write, “I also think that to arrive at his conclusions he has read into the historical data a kind of ‘psychological’ history that is often not warranted, and is to my mind contradicted, at times, by other data available to us.”
I would have been interested in an example of this as well.
You write “I’m not convinced he has identified the meaning and intent behind various historical facts any better than some more literal LDS narratives.”
Was he supposed to present “better” or just present the dilemma the historic record provides for the reader? Neither your argument, nor the importance of your point are very compelling to this reader.
You ask “How many people would actually ever see the original documents to compare handwriting?”
I stole the following discussion from the BYU website:
“The original manuscript was not consulted for the editing of the 1837 edition. However, in producing the 1840 edition, Joseph Smith used O to restore some of its original readings. In October 1841, Joseph Smith placed O in the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House. Over forty years later, Lewis Bidamon, Emma Smith’s second husband, opened the cornerstone and found that water seepage had destroyed most of O. The surviving pages were handed out to various individuals during the 1880s.”
“Today approximately 25 percent of the text of O survives: 1 Nephi 2 through 2 Nephi 1,with gaps; Alma 22 through Helaman 3,with gaps; and a few other fragments. All but one of the authentic pages and fragments of O are housed in the archives of the LDS Historical Department; one-half of a sheet (from 1 Nephi 14) is owned by the University of Utah.”
The remaining portions of the original manuscript seems to have been left for everyone to one-day see once the cornerstone was to be opened. I would guess that since he didn’t destroy it, this would imply that it was intended to be used and seen. Palmer’s argument of it being problematic remains valid.
You then say: “Palmer is imposing assumptions on the situation that may or may not be true.”
It continues to me that that Palmer is presenting a reasoned thesis. This is what trained historians do. Present a thesis and argue it in hope that someone down the road will defeat it or continue to prove it. Not really caring what the end result is. What you critique isn’t really a valid point. These aren’t assumptions, they are arguments based on data.
You say: [Palmer} “Relies heavily on second hand reports from individuals and sources known to be antagonistic to Joseph Smith.”
I get the point you are trying to make, but you should know that these accounts are not secondary but considered by historians to be primary sources. Joseph Smith’s neighbors giving fist hand accounts, regardless of bias, are considered primary sources. These accounts are most often the earliest accounts thus making them superior sources than the much later favorable accounts such as Lucy Mack’s memoire. As a former TBM, I get the hesitancy to accept these critical and likely bias accounts as worth quoting. Yet they often provide more information due to their proximity to the event which overcomes the problematic issue of bias.
These are hard issues and I think is it cool that you are wrestling with them. Have you considered that your critique suffers from much of what you accuse Palmer of doing?
You say that Palmer gives a very tenuous historical connection to the Golden Pot.
As a trained historian, again, he gives a thesis and argues it. It is a pretty good thesis that you completely missed. In fact, it is a very good thesis so I don’t understand your flippant swat at it.
Any chance you just lifted this assertion from the FARMS reviews or did you actually see something that I, Grant, or Ron Walker who introduced it to Grant didn’t? Interestingly, about a decade ago, I sat with Hugh Nibley’s son-in-law and biographer, Boyd Peterson, and Grant over dinner and all Boyd could come up with about the Golden Pot is that “coincidences happen.” I felt that Boyd was more attempting to discount the body of FARMS tenuous Book of Mormon parallels in a way. I think Boyd was attempting to make some sort of odd bargain, Grant gives up the Golden Pot and he gives up the vast body of FARMS research on Book of Mormon parallels. ?? Personally, I thought it would be a fair trade.
You say that “The Golden Pot” are cheaply available for anyone who desires a more profound personal exploration.”
This is a very unfortunate argument you gave and gives me the impression that you didn’t read the chapter and offered harsh judgment without actually giving the chapter a chance.The edition of the Golden Pot in question is a reasonably rare book now. Scarce anyway.
The 1827 edition of Thomas Carlyle’s translation of “The Golden Pot” is the one Grant discusses and later translations have a different literary style and thus don’t have the same parallels. This is sort of an important point you missed as you flippantly tossed away Grant’s thesis.
About half of the folks I talk to, and I talk to hundreds of folks about Grant’s book, say that The Golden Pot was the most important essay for them. I think it may be worth a second look!
As I mentioned in our correspondence before sending you the book for your review, Grant nor I are terribly worried about a solid scholarly review. If a reviewer were to find an error or evidence that contradicts some aspect of what his thesis presents, terrific! We are all fans of Mormon history and we ultimately don’t care what happened back then, rather we just want to know what happened.
90% of the early reviews by FARMS and others of Insider’s View were merely personal attacks on Grant or only about The Golden Pot chapter of his book, The Golden Pot. As I mentioned earlier, Grant got most of the materials for that chapter from celebrated Mormon historian Ron Walker. So these attacks continue to be humorous.
I didn’t see that you actually corrected anything in Palmer’s book rather you just passed judgment of what you thought was important or not important. We however have found minor errors over the years and have enjoyed the enlightenment of doing so.
Oh, one last thing, we too love our copies of “The Heavens are Open.” Everyone should have a copy. To save you some time, ignore the analysis, its crap. The documents however are fantastic! Notice that in the Angel section that the word Moroni in connection to the Angel who shows Joseph the plates the is never mentioned by name in these documents until the twentieth century. There is a lot left to discover in the study of the origins of Mormonism.
Good luck on your path. It seems to be a good one.
Tom Kimball
publicist
Signature Books.
Tom, you are right that I treated the Golden Pot chapter lightly. I found a cheap translation available online, but clearly it wasn’t the same version. I apologize for my tone on that chapter.
As to giving more examples, the review is already approaching 5000 words, and I was giving as much a personal way of approaching these topics as I was a review of Palmer’s book.
I appreciate your comment on “The Heavens are Open.” I don’t have easy access to all of these books, so only knew what was in it from reviews. I hoped it would be valuable for the documents. I assumed the analysis would be controversial.