It’s true that while there are lots of articles on the variants in the Book of Mormon, especially since Skousen’s work starting in the late 80’s, but far fewer on variations in the JST or related texts. Although there are a few, such as this article on Moses.

Variants in the D&C got a lot more attention given the pretty big changes from the Book of Commandments. Still, I think when lessons are taught the variant readings don’t get discussed much nor theological significance. You can of course find lots of books that discuss such things but it’s rarely mentioned in the lesson manuals. That’s significant both due to I think telling us a lot about the nature of the changes in the JST but also to undermine the common view it was restoring an ur-text. A great example of that is how Joseph forgot he’d already translated Matthew 26 and redid it, often with pretty substantial differences. Yet in the footnotes to our Bible that isn’t mentioned nor are the variant readings.

Regarding the development of the OT canon I agree completely. I don’t think it makes much sense why so many Mormons are uncomfortable with the documentary hypothesis given how much our own texts push that view of the Old Testament.

To your larger points, I truly wish the Church would come out with a new edition of the scriptures that mention variant readings more. Actually entirely redone footnotes really are needed. The current footnotes are embarrassingly bad. Rather than just give what an obscure or archaic KJV means I wish they’d do a rewrite of full verses in the footnotes. Also have all the JST variants plus some of the commentary from Joseph’s later revisions. Say the colorful exegesis to Genesis 1:1 from the KFD. I’d love all the first vision variants added to the PoGP too.

I’d also love a bit more engagement with the documentary hypothesis too, although that might be hoping for too much. Still a lot of apologists embrace the DH since questions about the priestly and deuteronomist traditions are pretty relevant for the Book of Mormon. Kevin Barney has done a lot there.

Scholars of various disciplines need to spend more time investigating the manuscript traditions of the sources they cite, or at least begin talking to those of us who have already done much of the legwork.

I would say some of this is more deterministic than we might think. You see, we have forgotten how the oral world worked, and there are determined cognitive consequences to oral society. Two of the consequences of orality (here defined as a culture where the vast majority of the population does not read or write and therefore utilizes oral noetic strategies within their culture) are polytheism and theocratic rule.

In order to pass down complex information associated with all the concerns of the society (agriculture, technology, medicine, biology, social norms, calendars, festival cycles, etc.) an oral person must encode memories upon objects easily seen that display, in some analogical sense, a similarity to the thing that must be remembered. Oral cultures are dualistic, and all the functions of nature and culture are divided into male and female rationales. By the consequences of this oral memory theater, these functions are placed within a pantheon of deities, male and female, that are assigned to these functions and turn out often to be the symbolic key to keep the memories organized. This happens organically as a natural consequence of the oral psyche.

Further, in oral cultures, as far as I am aware, there is never a word in their vocabulary that correlates with our modern word “religion.” Oral societies do not divide the “secular” from the “religious” from the “political” from the “economic.” These are literate categories and more modern divisions. Rather, oral societies seek to replicate cosmic functions in their religious/political order, but the object of the order is not to create a religion or political system. This happens organically, as a natural consequence of the people who are seeking to live within a sort of “cosmic harmony” with nature.

The consequence of this feature of orality is the leaders of the tribes and civilizations tend to be both priests and kings, and the clan is both political and religious simultaneously. We call this theocracy, but really it is a culture that doesn’t see an ontological difference between religious and political ideas. Strange for us, because our literacy shapes the way we think, and out literacy divides these functions into more abstract concepts and categories.

The invention of writing and the slow increase of literate thinking starts changing culture and civilization. And of course I am not saying everyone’s ideas of God(s) and how they choose to believe is totally predetermined. Of course not. But I am saying that if you, I, or Bruce R. McConkie were born as oral thinkers in an oral society, we would be polytheists and would have a political-religious ideology that would include the gods ruling over our economic and territorial concerns and control. By default we will have a god of war to help us out when we war. The leader of the pantheon tends to congregate the features of the rest of the pantheon, and over time henotheistic pressures make the chief god the war god. For the Israelites, Yahweh was both a god of compassion and a god of destruction as a result.

Christianity is perhaps the first world religion to be managed by texts. This has enormous consequences as to how Christ becomes shaped and defined from its origins.

Clark, I totally agree that the church and its members have gained positive things from the surrounding culture as well. I think God was working in the world to set up the conditions for the church to be reestablished, and continues to work in various ways beyond the direct actions of the church. Christ’s message from his personal ministry continues to have a major influence in Western culture, playing out in new ways, even as more people move away from religion as such. Some of these ways have good and bad sides, as people run with this or that piece of the message in their own direction. I tend to see Hellenism as more of a new kind of idolatry for the Jews than displacing idolatry as a whole, though, so I’m not sure about your reading of the captivity and return. We’re working from pretty scanty evidence, though, so I’m certainly open to there having been upsides to it. It does seem to have strengthened the Jewish commitment to their identity as a people, as have their other travails over the centuries since Moses. Interestingly their slavery in Egypt doesn’t seem to have had the same effect, maybe because they didn’t have as developed a scriptural tradition and such to rally around at the time.

You’re right that Mormons are less racist now than we were in the 19th century; you could say that about just about everyone, though, so I’m not sure that came predominantly from outside influences. We were much less racist than the surrounding culture in the early years of the church, and much more egalitarian with regard to women, so there too I’m not sure how to draw the trajectory. The sexual revolution really has not been very kind to women on the whole, no matter how much people may have used egalitarian language. Some really interesting articles just the past few days show how mixed a bag it is, and how we are slowly recognizing the depth of the problems, and even starting to question the basic strategies we have employed in the West to work for equality. Consider this article on rediscovering the benefits of gender segregation, this one on sexual harassment in entrepreneurial circles, and this one on objectification on campus (from a while back, which you pointed me to).

Is the same thing happening today? Probably. Culturally I think in many ways even as the west has learned to be more ethical it’s affected the church. We’re far less racist than we were in the 19th century for instance. I suspect our family units in terms of day to day respect and charity are far better than the 19th century due to an appreciation of women as full equal actors. Those and numerous similar things we’ve learned as our culture has learned are positive for the church.

Yet at the same time I do worry we are losing things as well. Even things that are still within the church seem to be recognized by fewer and fewer. It’s hard to say how we are being transformed and how much we jettison along the way we may one day wish we hadn’t.

Brent, I hope to see a revision of the scriptures that pay much more attention to the final edits of the JST. There’s lots of passages that end up changed. Given how the Church has embraced the Joseph Smith Papers project I’d hope that it becomes a reality sooner rather than later.

John, that’s amazingly insightful and something I’d never considered. The more I think about it the more I think you’re right.

OT2 (Moses 7:28–29), original transcription

“And it came to pass, that the God of Heaven looked upon the residue of the people & wept. And Enoch bore record of it saying how is it the heavens weep & shed forth her tears as the rain upon the Mountains And Enoch said unto the heavens how is it that thou canst weep seeing Thou art holy & from all eternity to all eternity,”

JS then dictated several revisions to his scribe:

OT2 (Moses 7:28–29), emended transcription

“And it came to pass, that Enock looked upon the residue of the people & wept. And he beheld and lo! the heavens wept also & shed forth their tears as the rain upon the Mountains And Enoch said unto the heavens how is it that thou canst weep seeing Thou art holy & from all eternity to all eternity,”

(The terminal “k” in “Enock” is either a malformed miniscule *k* or a malformed miniscule *h*.)

Whenever politics gets involved with religion God turns wrathful. This is human nature, as human political will is projected with whatever authority works for the culture. A religious culture will use God as justification for all sorts of political and violent aims. In a secular culture science is also used in the same sort of way (I was just reading an article a few months back of climate apologists demanding that people who do not agree with their models should be fined and/or arrested; whether you agree with the models or not, here is an example of “secular science” turning into the “wrathful god.”)

New Testament writers are divorced from political power and the God of the New Testament is divorced from political concerns; “deliver unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.” New Testament theology is rooted in individual concerns first and foremost; individual theology prioritizes individual faith and grace, and this is reflected in the ideas of deity.

So I think there are some straight forward explanations for differences between the Testaments.

As for the comparison with the Book of Mormon, I think you will discover some of the same tensions afoot. Early on we get individualized theology because Nephi and Lehi are fleeing the political order and do not consider themselves political agents. How this works out with the state, culture, and religion that develops from their community is not fully understood because after the writings of Jacob and Enos we get almost no reliable commentary. It all picks back up after the major political reforms of King Benjamin and Mosiah, who appear to have their own form of the separation of Church and State with elected and appointed judges that appear to be separated from the administering priests. The cross-over is ever present, however, as the Chief-Judge is also the High Priest, but even here there are complications. Alma the Elder reforms the Church, and the book of Alma is the only book that mentions priesthood. In Alma the priesthood is developed as the order of the Church and not of the State. Again, the details are iffy.

One must also consider that much of the early Old Testament is rooted in oral culture. Oral culture is communal and oral religion is political. Communal and political religion will have a god that marches ahead of the communal and political army. Whereas the Book of Mormon BEGINS in full literacy already steeped in the reflection of individualized theological concerns. Oral religion is communal. Literate religion is individual. Communal religion is political. Individual religion is personal. As a result, Oral gods are communal (polytheistic), political (they are wed to every social aspect of the tribe or civilizations), and often tribal (they will fight for the clan, and this is where they seem to be so militaristic). Literate gods tend to be monotheistic, personal, introspective, and relational, because literacy develops this dynamic in the literate psyche.

I am sure there were plenty of oral peoples amongst the Nephites and Lamanites, it is just interesting however that unlike the Bible, the Book of Mormon begins within a literate tradition and with literate prejudices. And it shows.