Yes, orality. I tend to forget about that.

Sam:

I’m not and almost certainly never will. But I’d be interested in your notes. Maybe you could post them in some form.

If someone is working on this, I long since abandoned a project to describe Smith’s textual milieu, so I have a few research notes that I’d be happy to share.

Doctrine and Covenants 131:7-8 seems too Epicurean to have been conjured out of thin air.

Working on textual networks takes a) a lot more work than any of us is ready to admit, and b) suspension of the prisca theologia or theological synchronicity approaches that underlie most of the apologetical work on parallels.

Have to get back to work on my epidemiological studies so will have to sign off. MHA is a great venue for exploring some of these heavily internal questions so that you’ll have rock-solid footnotes for a later interpretive work.

I think sunstone hosts the MHA talks.

I seem to remember there being a website somewhere devoted to this question. Anyhow, a place to start, albeit late, is the Nauvoo Library and Literary Institute minute book, which was recently published in its entirety by Chris of JI in Mormon Historical Studies, I believe.

The challenge there is that some of the books are hard to identify (Quinn made a lot of progress in a note in Magic World View). For instance, one of the titles is listed as “Epicureo.” Is this a book on Epicurus? How great would it be if JS owned and read the arch-heretic himself?

Steve:

Thanks for the references.

Ben:

Ok. I was thinking known ownership or borrowing. But awareness is plenty to go on.

Sam:

Must I be a member to access the MHA talk? I can’t seem to find it.

I don’t begrudge you your methodological innovation. My point is that before any discussion of how a source gets used it must be shown where? Do you agree? I don’t know of anyplace in early Mormon teaching on baptism for the dead where Hone’s book gets used, with or without citation.

With Buck, you have a clear case of dependance in the editorial, despite the lack of attribution. There’s nothing like that with Hone, at least that I have found.

(On topics other than baptism for the dead, there are places where Hone’s book does get used, I think: the reference to the hiding of John the Baptist and the death of his father in “Persecution of the Prophets,” taken from Protevangelion of James; and maybe the description of Paul.)

I don’t mean my anti-NMH diatribes to be mean-spirited–just sort of agitating for newer approaches. I apologize if my calls for change appear belittling.

My scholarly interest in Mormonism drops off substantially in 1844 and disappears entirely by about 1846, so it’s a bit of a struggle for me to read stuff about the twentieth century. The dissy seemed like an evangelical walking into the mess and saying “Oh no you didun” when he sees how 20th cent Mormons are using Patristic sources. A circa 1990 Dialogue paper, if someone wanted to write it, would be walking through these “JSJ couldn’t have known so it must be true” parallels to ancient heresies and murky patristics or late 2d temple judaism sources and showing how prevalent each of those was in the milieu. My problem is that other than fighting with RelEd I don’t see what purpose that would serve unless you push to understand what it meant to be reviewing, renewing, commenting, and modifying these ideas.

As Sam and Matt pointed out in their MHA paper, JS had been using Buck frequently in both Kirtland and Nauvoo. In the Lectures on Faith, for instance, which JS endorsed even if he didn’t write, it quotes Buck extensively. The same goes for many Nauvoo editorials. For example, “Try the Spirits,” one of the most important Nauvoo writings, not only relies on Buck but even encourages readers to use Buck as well.

Even if his library holdings didn’t list it, or if he never owned his own copy, JS was very well aware of Buck.