James Carroll's recent posts

Recent public posts (showing 1-14 of 14).

don't worry... the next one follows the same template, and the one after that..... and ......

Well, Nibley is brilliant, but he has the problem of not writing in a way that is helpful for others. I remember once when I asked him a question, and he answered me by quoting the first page or so of Faust from memory... in German of course. When he was done I told him, "Brother Nibley, thank you, but I don't speak German..." He looked at me for a moment, and finally said "well... you should learn" turned around, and walked off... typical Nibley. I think that this book has a bit of that sort of problem.

I like some of his books more than others. For example, I LOVED, Temple and Cosmos, and Mormonism and Early Christianity, and Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri (despite that book's occasional errors). This Book is just one of my least favorites for some reason.

Interestingly enough, despite this, he had some GREAT ideas in this book, but I felt like they could have been summarized in... oh.... 20 pages or so, and that the rest was convoluted fluff. For example, I can do most of the book in a paragraph, this is the entire book in a nutshell:

"Joseph Smith restored much material about Enoch in his JST Book of Moses. There is also an Apocryphal book of Enoch out there. There is much similarity between Joseph's translation and the Apocryphal Book of Enoch. In fact, some lines from Joseph's Book of Moses are almost a direct quote from this Apocryphal book. Joseph could not have known about the Book of Enoch, so this indicates both that the Book of Enoch preserves authentic traditions and that Joseph must have been a prophet."

:D

See, now you don't need to read it.

I also had a bit of a problem with the way that he implied that the Book of Enoch was actually inspired and authentic. If he had said as I did above that it preserved SOME authentic traditions I would have been happier. He seems to imply that it all should have been in the cannon, and that it was part of the removal of the plane and precious parts to take it out. I can't accept that view, since the Apocryphal Book of Enoch has some CLEARLY false stuff in it as well, a fact that Nibley ignores.

Good review Nick.... when I read it, I thought it was a bad book all around, but didn't take nearly as many notes as you. And now I can be more specific about why... :D Although you berate him for trying to "lay this criticism to rest" unfortunately, it should be an easy thing to do, but no one has done a good job of it as far as I can tell, and unfortunately, I am not qualified .... oh well. Course, how qualified do you have to be to say, "God speaks to us according to our own language and understanding" and "symbolism is a language, like any other" there... done... *sigh*

But aren't you capable of thought? ;-D Those are the kind of books that are good. BTW, I loved GEB, and it is one of the reasons that I chose Artificial Intelligence for my phd topic.

Biographies provide information, the Spirit provides certainty. Joseph is a prophet because of (and yes, in some instances despite) some of the information. The real question is, would you rather be an informed believer, or an ignorant one. They say that ignorance is bliss I guess, but in this case, I know that Joseph is a Prophet because the Spirit said so, and I know more about what his life was like because Brother Bushman wrote such a wonderful biography.

I am sorry that you feel more "confused" because of reading it. I have found that many members of the Church feel this way when first introduced to some of our history. Some choose to keep their testimonies, and some loose them, but I believe that the difference seems to be whether they turn the the Spirit for certainty. Then they actually become more powerful members/teachers than those who's "zeal" is taught "without knowledge."

I guess I am confused by your choice of wording. Would it have been more "objective" for him to have ignored those who were critical of the Prophet and only focus on those who were favorable? perhaps it would have been more "faithful" for him to have done so, but it certainly wouldn't have been more "objective."

The "objective" historian by definition looks at both sources of information, and takes them both with a grain of salt. It seems to me that you could make a good argument for not wanting an "objective" biography, and instead wanting a "faithful" one. If you already know that the Church is true, there could be good reason to believe that one is better than the other. There would have been nothing wrong with saying that you didn't like the review because it was TOO "objective," but I am confused how you can say that you didn't like it because it wasn't objective.

is it possible that your LDS friends with "holes" in their testimony already know this "troubling" history, learned form anti-Mormon sources, and are desperately seeking someone to put them into a broader, more friendly context? Perhaps Bushman's book would help them more than you know.

I would guess that the best way to answer that is to say that I have read "most" of it. Not from cover to cover, but picking the topics I was most interested in/getting ready to teach.

I am interested in what you thought of it, it is something of a controversial book. I still remember reading it in the back of the dean of the BYU Religion department's class when he asked me what I thought about it, and I said that I hadn't read it all yet, so I couldn't say (way to deflect the trick question, go me), but that several other teacher's in his department had recommended it to me, and really liked it so that was why I was reading it. He then said, well, they didn't ask my opinion. He then launched off on a tirade about how it "destroyed" people's testimonies....etc. etc. etc.

So, just wondering what you think (no pressure....)

:-D

let me know what you think after you have finished it.

Except this book isn't scripture, and has quite a few historical inaccuracies in it. It was good for its time, but is very out of date. Unfortunately, nothing better has yet to be written by a general authority of the Church about the life of Christ, but something better is desperately needed. There are a lot of ways in which this book could be improved upon.

Of course she has answered the question in interviews... she also answered it directly in the sequel... the point is, it is unanswered IN THIS BOOK to create ambiguity which is part of the point of the story and of the nature of choice.

The one that he runs away to save at the end. They were going to kill it because it was too small and weak.

Gabe is the baby from The Giver.

The ending mirrors the ambiguity of choice. Did he die? Did he live? He was made free, and he made a choice... was it the right one? Did it lead to happiness for him? Did it lead to happiness for the community who will now have his memories? Will they destroy themselves, or will the Giver be able to help them find true purpose and happiness in life? We don't know, because that is the way of all choices, we can't always know the outcomes of our decisions, and therein lies the danger, but the risk is worth the rewards.

The sequel may answer some of these questions, but they aren't answered in this book for a reason.