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The story of Alma and Amulek in Ammonihah is more properly told, IMO, in their articles. I'm not sure Ammonihah warrants a separate article. andersonpd 00:45, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
The result was: promoted by
Kingsif (
talk)
04:54, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
5x expanded by Hydrangeans ( talk). Self-nominated at 02:25, 20 November 2022 (UTC).
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Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems |
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QPQ: Done. |
Overall:
@
Hydrangeans: Good expansion!
Will have to AGF on the sources I can't access and approve.
Onegreatjoke (
talk)
02:50, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
@ Hydrangeans: what does WP:CLN have to do with this? The quoted bit of CLN ("The collection of articles in a sidebar template should be fairly tightly related,") appears to be talking about the articles within the navbox not the placement of the navbox on articles. Horse Eye's Back ( talk) 18:19, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
I tagged the article with a number of tags because the structure is greatly lacking here. It is not at all clear what we are supposed to be learning from this article. It's a city mentioned in the Book of Mormon. It apparently features in some Mormon art and literature. Is that important or noticed. I think a complete restructuring/reframing of this article is in order. jps ( talk) 10:53, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
what meaning do believers give to this city and how widespread is that understandingis an interesting question about reception history, a kind of media/social history, different from the very textually-focused literary approach apparently more common in the last decade of Book of Mormon studies. Since Wikipedia summarizes what's in secondary sources, if we find reception history in secondary sources, then that'd be something to summarize. If we find literary-narrative approaches instead, then I'm not so clear on why that shouldn't be something to summarize. If academics like Shreve, Elizabeth Fenton, and Seth Perry (all non-Mormons) assess the book as literature, then it seems natural for Wikipedia to summarize assessments in that vein. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 06:19, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
I did not, in other words, become a Latter-day Saint. Mine was an aesthetic experience, not a religious one;
For someone like me, whose interest in the Book of Mormon is entirely removed from any church affiliation(in I fell hard for the Book of Mormon but did not convert to the LDS Church Deseret News, May 30, 2017. Again, this is cited only to have a source written by the person self-indicating not being Mormon)
I should be clear that I am writing as a non-Mormonin his review of The Book of Mormon: Brief Theological Introductions, in the Mormon Studies Review 10 (2023): 70–74, here 71.
I was raised Catholic in an interfaith household in rural Vermont, a state with a Congregational church on every corner that doesn’t have a Baptist churchand
I wanted to enter this conversation as a scholar of early US literature and as someone who loved the book immediately upon reading it but did not believe it to be a sacred text, in her article "Understanding the Book of Mormon", Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 25 (2016): 37–51, here 38.
Along with the brass plates, the plates of Nephi consist of gathered records from many of the prophets and leaders of the Nephite people between approximately 600 BCE and the appearance of Jesus in the early first century CE.(page x). Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 06:09, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
narrating, in the main, the 1,000-year history of a group of Israelites who, in advance of the diaspora forced by the Babylonian invasion, escaped to the Americas around 600 BCE. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 18:09, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't have known the approximate time frame of unless I looked it upBut that's the beauty of Wikipedia. You can wikilink to the article and if someone wants to know more about it, they can look there. This has the added benefit of not importing the not-insignificant disputes that go on over the historicity of that Biblical account. jps ( talk) 19:17, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
why the hell did Joseph Smith bother to make up this silly story?
a careful review of historical claims favors the idea that Joseph Smith himself sincerely believed, to one degree or another, that his epic work contained an authentic historical account of ancient American civilizations. Whether the process was as conscious yet credulous as Davis argues, or as subconscious yet credulous as Ann Taves argues (in her Revelatory Events [Princeton University Press, 2017]), the "make up" description doesn't really capture the sociocultural experience under study. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 21:00, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
According to Dan Vogel (Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet pages 219-20)[etc.]
I'm also baffled by how this story says anything about theodicy.
I think the problem here is that the people you are citing actually believe the truth of this story so they struggle with theodicy because they are "rooting for the good guys". But is there any evidence whatsoever that this was the motivation of the author? Theodicy was not the concern in 1830 Americas which were still in the thrall of Calvinism and predestination (one of Weber's three forms of resolution to the trilemma) and it beggars belief to think that the fabulists of the Book of Mormon were trying to come up with a story that would push their followers into consternation as though the story is a new Job or something. I do not begrudge these threetwo-and-a-half Mormons their struggles with theodicy vis-a-vis this story, but that's surely irrelevant to our encyclopedic charge. This is all just small group sharing among obscure scholars. This isn't what the city of Ammonihah is about.
jps (
talk)
00:01, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
This isn't what the city of Ammonihah is about.(italics original to the post)
I do not begrudge these three MormonsBy way of aside, it'd been my impression that Fatimah Salleh is a Protestant minister—hence she is called the Reverend Fatimah Salleh, a title not used in Mormonism. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 06:15, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
But why are you hung up on who is or isn't Mormon?
these three Mormons, said immediately thereafter the material is
surely irrelevant to our encyclopedic charge(because, it seems, they're Mormons writing about a Mormon thing), and it was you who brought up the apparent unacceptability of this being as you describe it a Mormon discourse that
has been noticed by essentially no one[other than Mormons] (italics original to jps). If I mention that an author isn't a Latter-day Saint, it's to remind us that those statements aren't accurate. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 07:41, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
who lead an aristocratic and materialistic social order: here "social order" means something like "way of life"; if that would be clearer, rewrite it to that.
ministerial tour: One of the purposes of a lead is summarizing the body text of the article. That's summarizing the part that says Alma goes
on a preaching tour.
the Old and New Testaments: That seems contrary to the purpose of a lead which is to summarize the article—this summarizes the several biblical intertextualities. Additionally, I'm confused why you added the tag at all: it's there in the body text, it's hardly left mysterious what the more specific intertextualities are.
turning point in the Book of Mormon's use of the phrase "lake of fire and brimstone" as a metaphor for hell: Again, leads summarize the body text. It seems hardly like summarizing if this lead restates the entire observation summarized in the body text, that "lake of fire and brimstone" is a recurring metaphor for hell in the Book of Mormon before this arc and then never appears in the text again afterward.
was commissioned: My impression is by George Reynolds, author of the book, though I waffled on specifically identifying because Carmack doesn't come out and say it in so many words. Maybe it's unclear if Reynolds hired an agent to commission the artists on his behalf.
These were among the first published illustrations of Book of Mormon content.Carmack's article, "A Picturesque and Dramatic History", has been cited by publications from Princeton University Press and Palgrave Macmillan, and periodicals like American Art (published by the University of Chicago) and Conversations (published by Yale University).
the Nephites have a Christian society with prophets among them: It means that in the setting, Nephite society is Christian—they believe in Jesus as a savior figure who atones and dies for sins. The depiction of pre-Christian Christianity is a fundamental element of the plot.
the retrospective work of its principal narrator, Mormon, a Nephite who lives near the end of the chronological narrative and reflexively: The citation is there at the end of the sentence: pages 85–87 of Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005). Bushman writes,
The entire Book of Mormon is an elaborate framed tale of Mormon telling about a succession of prophets telling about their encounters with God. Read in the twenty-first century, the book seems almost postmodern in its self-conscious attention to the production of the text. The word choice is using definition 2, from Merriam-Webster:
of, relating to, characterized by, or being a relation that exists between an entity and itself.
the then-current incarnation: Not my best wording, I'll admit. As John Christopher Thomas elaborates in his book, Alma's father founds a Christian church which ends up replacing an earlier version of the Nephites' Christian church established by King Benjamin and King Mosiah in a previous arc. There are a few different versions of the Nephite Christian church that exist throughout the story.
church: Yes, "churc" is the word used; reading the Book of Mormon and Thomas's book makes that pretty apparent. Thomas writes,
Alma 1.1 – a book devoted to the son (Alma) of the deceased high priest and church founder by the same name. The word "church" is all over the Book of Alma in the Book of Mormon. As for what church means that seems rather excessive— Catholic Church doesn't define what a "church" is. If a definition is needed, it's a religious institution, in this case a Christian one.
the Nephite church's orthodoxy: That seems to be what the immediately next sentence is about: the Nephite church's orthodoxy is that humans need a redeemer to save them from sins, that's—as the background section explains—part of the plot.
need for a Redeemer: You ask for
a direct quote at any point breaks the connection to the time and place of the narration. Can you explain what you're asking for? I know what each word means but I'm not getting what you want in context. That any time the plot synopsis refers to something from earlier in the book I should explain it? Isn't that what this entire background section is for?
Alma repents and goes on to become high priest of the Nephite church: Setting aside our disagreement about books Kylie Nielson Turley's book, I can't help but think Testimony of Two Nations should be less controversial as a publication of the University of Illinois Press, a secular university press.
spends some time ruling as chief judge: The tag asks,
what is this judicial system like? Is it like the US federal court system or something?This is an unexpectedly historicist question and seems like too much detail—on an article you already say is too detailed—for Wikipedia's summarizing purposes, like asking about the rules of order in Gondor's royal court. From secondary sources I've read, no, the Book of Mormon political system isn't like the US federal court system. As memory serves, Columbia University Press' 2004 anthology of essays by Richard Bushman, Believing History: Latter-day Saint Essays, includes "The Book of Mormon and the American Revolution" which summarizes the Book of Mormon's depiction of its Nephite judgeship system as a semi-hereditary, quasi-aristocratic system where "judges" act as jurists, governors, and commanders-in-chief.
the scriptures: You ask
what scriptures, and I'm not sure how to answer. These would be Nephite scriptures. There's not some actual book with an ISBN number; they exist in the setting of the book. Apparently they teach Christianity. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 20:16, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
What is the Nephite Christian Church? How am I supposed to understand that?
does a good job providing context. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 02:34, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
you might ask for an explanation of the priest's ecclesiology, rather than recognize that this priest and his religious organization are there to facilitate a plot and aesthetic.
I think adding a section about the Nephite Christian Church is a good idea. Then we can explain what this thing is and not surprise the reader. Using Fenton might be a good starting point, "The Book of Mormon describes the existence of Christian churches in the New World described as divinely inspired and independently existing prior to and simultaneous with the establishment of Christianity." Things along those lines. I need something to hang my hat on to understand what the hell these churches and Christians are doing.
Turns out, this is one of the Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon! HOORAY! So that explains my confusion. Do we want to mention the issue with synagogues? Maybe a page on Churches and synagogues in the Book of Mormon would be good to have so idiots like me can figure out what the hell is going on! jps ( talk) 13:01, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
What is more, I don't know how to handle this "need for a Redeemer" sentence. First there is the word "need". Is that need an existential one? A material one? A suped-up desire? Or is it more practical because you go to hell without it? I need a bit more than just "Reedemer" here. Maybe that needs to be described in the Nephite Christian Church as well.
jps ( talk) 01:20, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
I don't understand the use of this word even now. Please, can we get something simpler? jps ( talk) 01:31, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
"The narrative set in Ammonihah is intertextual with the Old and New Testaments[specify]. Literary and theological scholarship treat the Ammonihah story as an exploration of suffering and a turning point in the Book of Mormon's use of the phrase "lake of fire and brimstone" as a metaphor for hell.[clarification needed]"
Can we get rid of it? It is not helpful and distracting to me.
jps ( talk) 01:32, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
I think that intertextuality is dangerous because it can get is into apologetics very easily. On the other hand, it can also give the reader a better sense for where the ideas came from since the Book of Mormon was written with knowledge of KJV and other sources (which ought to be intertextually connected as well and are not so much since Mormons are not happy that that other source material is mentioned at all -- is there anything like this in View of the Hebrews, for example?). In any case, striking a balance is most important.
I asked about the court system. It dawned on me that the easiest comparison according to what a lot of these sources are saying is the Book of Judges. Is there a source which identifies this intertextuality? The conversion story is intertextually connected to the Road to Damascus. That's cool, but it would be nice if we could be more specific. Is there a striking blind of Alma or something?
Etc.
jps ( talk) 11:27, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Psychiatrist and Mormon scholar Robert D. Anderson considers this story a violent revenge fantasy written by Joseph Smith, whom he diagnoses with both narcissistic and anti-social personality disorder. Anderson notes that the Ammonihah narrative, unlike most of the Book of Mormon, emphasizes the specific dates of its events. He notes that these events parallel an episode of Smith's life, with Alma corresponding to Smith, Amulek to Joseph Stoal, and Ammonihah to the town of South Bainbridge, where Smith was briefly imprisoned. In Anderson's reading, the violent destruction of Ammonihah is Smith's revenge for the "humiliation" of this imprisonment. [1]
Ghosts of Europa ( talk) 00:14, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
I just went through and removed all sources with 0 citations as a means to start to deal with the WP:FRINGE WP:OR walled garden in this website. It was really concerning to me how many sources were being used that had 0 citations in Google Scholar. However, there were some good sources being used that I have kept. Even if there was 1 citation, I kept the source, but I think the threshold probably ought to be at a number higher than 1 citation due to issues of citogenesis. I am very concerned that sources have been used which essentially have no citation from anyone else. This is exactly the sort of problem I'm seeing in most Book of Mormon articles.
jps ( talk) 13:42, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
Please list proposed sources for this article here. Please also include the number of citations each source has and a rough summary of what sorts of sources are citing it (if you can). Then we can discuss whether they are appropriate for use.
jps ( talk) 16:06, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
why the reader should care what Grant Hardy believes
It was not until the translation process was nearly concluded that Smith received a revelation allowing him to display the plates for select "witnesses," an event portended within the translated text[or do Maffly-Kipp and Penguin Books apparently believe the book has prophetic powers?];
After the translation process was completed, Moroni took back the plates, depriving Smith of material proof of their existence. [or do Maffly-Kipp and Penguin Books apparently believe Moroni has agentive existence?] Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 20:25, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
Would it help if I reframed the case? I said that I thought the sources was "an agenda to present a Mormon's take on the Book of Mormon". I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but I do think it needs to be attributed to the source and possibly the author and I'm not sure how authoritative that is. Is it just his personal interpretation or is he banking off of some wider cultural understanding? Unclear. But it is clear to me that what he is saying in places I can match to other Mormon sources matches those Mormon sources. So can we say, "this is what Mormons seem to believe"? Or "According to The Annonated Book of Mormon, a common Mormon interpretation is...." That, to me, would be good framing. jps ( talk) 01:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Can someone provide context for what "Christian" means in this article? It is never explained. jps ( talk) 19:45, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
Referring to figures in the Book of Mormon as "Christians" is following how reliable sources in religious studies interpret the story and setting of the Book of Mormon.
A Christian is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 20:20, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
Within The Book of Mormon, Christianity takes root in the Americas not only before the arrival of Europeans but also, more radically, before the birth of Jesus. In moments of prolepsis similar to those appearances of Pauline language that predate Paul, the Nephites embrace the teachings of Jesus and assume the title of "Christians" in advance of the gospels.(354)
If the Nephites self-identify as Christians, then we can say that. Especially if that's the actual quoted text from the Book of Mormon. Is that the word used in the Book of Alma and elsewhere? jps ( talk) 21:06, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
not only establishes a narrative precedent for the critique of US Protestantism that would come to form the backbone of early Mormonism but also importantly reframes American Christianity as a cyclical rather than linear phenomenon. Christianity is the ancient if dormant force driving American history, and just as the hemisphere’s indigenous inhabitants seem to have forgotten their Christian roots, so too might its European settlers(341) and that the Book of Mormon's allusion to New Testament content
destabilizes orthodox Christian claims about the Bible’s originality and completeness, threatening to decenter New Testament writings and replace them with itself(345).
Except Fenton is not a religious scholar
What the hell is "American Christianity"?
Combined, these movements represent over 1,000 churches, and the "ripple effect" that they are having on American Christianity is profound.
What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of "true scientific discourse". It isn't.
she's not trying to be precise. We are.
This is Wikipedia. We don't play stupid games like this.
In most cases, absolutely.—seems contrary to WP:RS, particularly WP:SCHOLARSHIP:
Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses.Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 22:01, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
talk pages aren't covered by WP:RS
Whew, that was a close one!
I've now read the relevant chapters of Alma (I have not read the entire book). I rewrote the narrative section to remove excess detail. Here's my proposed draft.
Ghosts of Europa ( talk) 05:12, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
I like this narrative section better than our own. I think it's worth emphasizing the kind of miraculous and startling (if you take the BoM on its own terms) quotations from Hebrews. A bit sloppy there, old Joey S. The "scriptures" thing is absolutely a problem. It is somewhat related to anachronism, of course. By the way, I've read some stuff about Zeezrom/Judas elsewhere, but not sure where. However, "arraigned before the bar" and references to lawyers as such is another anachronism, of course. It is, contrary to the assertions above, showing that the reference to legal structures is closer to nineteenth century America than it is to anything biblical. jps ( talk) 13:13, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
![]() | A fact from Ammonihah appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the
Did you know column on 21 December 2022 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
| ![]() |
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
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The story of Alma and Amulek in Ammonihah is more properly told, IMO, in their articles. I'm not sure Ammonihah warrants a separate article. andersonpd 00:45, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
The result was: promoted by
Kingsif (
talk)
04:54, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
5x expanded by Hydrangeans ( talk). Self-nominated at 02:25, 20 November 2022 (UTC).
General: Article is new enough and long enough |
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Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems |
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|
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation |
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|
Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px. |
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|
QPQ: Done. |
Overall:
@
Hydrangeans: Good expansion!
Will have to AGF on the sources I can't access and approve.
Onegreatjoke (
talk)
02:50, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
@ Hydrangeans: what does WP:CLN have to do with this? The quoted bit of CLN ("The collection of articles in a sidebar template should be fairly tightly related,") appears to be talking about the articles within the navbox not the placement of the navbox on articles. Horse Eye's Back ( talk) 18:19, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
I tagged the article with a number of tags because the structure is greatly lacking here. It is not at all clear what we are supposed to be learning from this article. It's a city mentioned in the Book of Mormon. It apparently features in some Mormon art and literature. Is that important or noticed. I think a complete restructuring/reframing of this article is in order. jps ( talk) 10:53, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
what meaning do believers give to this city and how widespread is that understandingis an interesting question about reception history, a kind of media/social history, different from the very textually-focused literary approach apparently more common in the last decade of Book of Mormon studies. Since Wikipedia summarizes what's in secondary sources, if we find reception history in secondary sources, then that'd be something to summarize. If we find literary-narrative approaches instead, then I'm not so clear on why that shouldn't be something to summarize. If academics like Shreve, Elizabeth Fenton, and Seth Perry (all non-Mormons) assess the book as literature, then it seems natural for Wikipedia to summarize assessments in that vein. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 06:19, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
I did not, in other words, become a Latter-day Saint. Mine was an aesthetic experience, not a religious one;
For someone like me, whose interest in the Book of Mormon is entirely removed from any church affiliation(in I fell hard for the Book of Mormon but did not convert to the LDS Church Deseret News, May 30, 2017. Again, this is cited only to have a source written by the person self-indicating not being Mormon)
I should be clear that I am writing as a non-Mormonin his review of The Book of Mormon: Brief Theological Introductions, in the Mormon Studies Review 10 (2023): 70–74, here 71.
I was raised Catholic in an interfaith household in rural Vermont, a state with a Congregational church on every corner that doesn’t have a Baptist churchand
I wanted to enter this conversation as a scholar of early US literature and as someone who loved the book immediately upon reading it but did not believe it to be a sacred text, in her article "Understanding the Book of Mormon", Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 25 (2016): 37–51, here 38.
Along with the brass plates, the plates of Nephi consist of gathered records from many of the prophets and leaders of the Nephite people between approximately 600 BCE and the appearance of Jesus in the early first century CE.(page x). Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 06:09, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
narrating, in the main, the 1,000-year history of a group of Israelites who, in advance of the diaspora forced by the Babylonian invasion, escaped to the Americas around 600 BCE. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 18:09, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't have known the approximate time frame of unless I looked it upBut that's the beauty of Wikipedia. You can wikilink to the article and if someone wants to know more about it, they can look there. This has the added benefit of not importing the not-insignificant disputes that go on over the historicity of that Biblical account. jps ( talk) 19:17, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
why the hell did Joseph Smith bother to make up this silly story?
a careful review of historical claims favors the idea that Joseph Smith himself sincerely believed, to one degree or another, that his epic work contained an authentic historical account of ancient American civilizations. Whether the process was as conscious yet credulous as Davis argues, or as subconscious yet credulous as Ann Taves argues (in her Revelatory Events [Princeton University Press, 2017]), the "make up" description doesn't really capture the sociocultural experience under study. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 21:00, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
According to Dan Vogel (Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet pages 219-20)[etc.]
I'm also baffled by how this story says anything about theodicy.
I think the problem here is that the people you are citing actually believe the truth of this story so they struggle with theodicy because they are "rooting for the good guys". But is there any evidence whatsoever that this was the motivation of the author? Theodicy was not the concern in 1830 Americas which were still in the thrall of Calvinism and predestination (one of Weber's three forms of resolution to the trilemma) and it beggars belief to think that the fabulists of the Book of Mormon were trying to come up with a story that would push their followers into consternation as though the story is a new Job or something. I do not begrudge these threetwo-and-a-half Mormons their struggles with theodicy vis-a-vis this story, but that's surely irrelevant to our encyclopedic charge. This is all just small group sharing among obscure scholars. This isn't what the city of Ammonihah is about.
jps (
talk)
00:01, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
This isn't what the city of Ammonihah is about.(italics original to the post)
I do not begrudge these three MormonsBy way of aside, it'd been my impression that Fatimah Salleh is a Protestant minister—hence she is called the Reverend Fatimah Salleh, a title not used in Mormonism. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 06:15, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
But why are you hung up on who is or isn't Mormon?
these three Mormons, said immediately thereafter the material is
surely irrelevant to our encyclopedic charge(because, it seems, they're Mormons writing about a Mormon thing), and it was you who brought up the apparent unacceptability of this being as you describe it a Mormon discourse that
has been noticed by essentially no one[other than Mormons] (italics original to jps). If I mention that an author isn't a Latter-day Saint, it's to remind us that those statements aren't accurate. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 07:41, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
who lead an aristocratic and materialistic social order: here "social order" means something like "way of life"; if that would be clearer, rewrite it to that.
ministerial tour: One of the purposes of a lead is summarizing the body text of the article. That's summarizing the part that says Alma goes
on a preaching tour.
the Old and New Testaments: That seems contrary to the purpose of a lead which is to summarize the article—this summarizes the several biblical intertextualities. Additionally, I'm confused why you added the tag at all: it's there in the body text, it's hardly left mysterious what the more specific intertextualities are.
turning point in the Book of Mormon's use of the phrase "lake of fire and brimstone" as a metaphor for hell: Again, leads summarize the body text. It seems hardly like summarizing if this lead restates the entire observation summarized in the body text, that "lake of fire and brimstone" is a recurring metaphor for hell in the Book of Mormon before this arc and then never appears in the text again afterward.
was commissioned: My impression is by George Reynolds, author of the book, though I waffled on specifically identifying because Carmack doesn't come out and say it in so many words. Maybe it's unclear if Reynolds hired an agent to commission the artists on his behalf.
These were among the first published illustrations of Book of Mormon content.Carmack's article, "A Picturesque and Dramatic History", has been cited by publications from Princeton University Press and Palgrave Macmillan, and periodicals like American Art (published by the University of Chicago) and Conversations (published by Yale University).
the Nephites have a Christian society with prophets among them: It means that in the setting, Nephite society is Christian—they believe in Jesus as a savior figure who atones and dies for sins. The depiction of pre-Christian Christianity is a fundamental element of the plot.
the retrospective work of its principal narrator, Mormon, a Nephite who lives near the end of the chronological narrative and reflexively: The citation is there at the end of the sentence: pages 85–87 of Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005). Bushman writes,
The entire Book of Mormon is an elaborate framed tale of Mormon telling about a succession of prophets telling about their encounters with God. Read in the twenty-first century, the book seems almost postmodern in its self-conscious attention to the production of the text. The word choice is using definition 2, from Merriam-Webster:
of, relating to, characterized by, or being a relation that exists between an entity and itself.
the then-current incarnation: Not my best wording, I'll admit. As John Christopher Thomas elaborates in his book, Alma's father founds a Christian church which ends up replacing an earlier version of the Nephites' Christian church established by King Benjamin and King Mosiah in a previous arc. There are a few different versions of the Nephite Christian church that exist throughout the story.
church: Yes, "churc" is the word used; reading the Book of Mormon and Thomas's book makes that pretty apparent. Thomas writes,
Alma 1.1 – a book devoted to the son (Alma) of the deceased high priest and church founder by the same name. The word "church" is all over the Book of Alma in the Book of Mormon. As for what church means that seems rather excessive— Catholic Church doesn't define what a "church" is. If a definition is needed, it's a religious institution, in this case a Christian one.
the Nephite church's orthodoxy: That seems to be what the immediately next sentence is about: the Nephite church's orthodoxy is that humans need a redeemer to save them from sins, that's—as the background section explains—part of the plot.
need for a Redeemer: You ask for
a direct quote at any point breaks the connection to the time and place of the narration. Can you explain what you're asking for? I know what each word means but I'm not getting what you want in context. That any time the plot synopsis refers to something from earlier in the book I should explain it? Isn't that what this entire background section is for?
Alma repents and goes on to become high priest of the Nephite church: Setting aside our disagreement about books Kylie Nielson Turley's book, I can't help but think Testimony of Two Nations should be less controversial as a publication of the University of Illinois Press, a secular university press.
spends some time ruling as chief judge: The tag asks,
what is this judicial system like? Is it like the US federal court system or something?This is an unexpectedly historicist question and seems like too much detail—on an article you already say is too detailed—for Wikipedia's summarizing purposes, like asking about the rules of order in Gondor's royal court. From secondary sources I've read, no, the Book of Mormon political system isn't like the US federal court system. As memory serves, Columbia University Press' 2004 anthology of essays by Richard Bushman, Believing History: Latter-day Saint Essays, includes "The Book of Mormon and the American Revolution" which summarizes the Book of Mormon's depiction of its Nephite judgeship system as a semi-hereditary, quasi-aristocratic system where "judges" act as jurists, governors, and commanders-in-chief.
the scriptures: You ask
what scriptures, and I'm not sure how to answer. These would be Nephite scriptures. There's not some actual book with an ISBN number; they exist in the setting of the book. Apparently they teach Christianity. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 20:16, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
What is the Nephite Christian Church? How am I supposed to understand that?
does a good job providing context. Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 02:34, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
you might ask for an explanation of the priest's ecclesiology, rather than recognize that this priest and his religious organization are there to facilitate a plot and aesthetic.
I think adding a section about the Nephite Christian Church is a good idea. Then we can explain what this thing is and not surprise the reader. Using Fenton might be a good starting point, "The Book of Mormon describes the existence of Christian churches in the New World described as divinely inspired and independently existing prior to and simultaneous with the establishment of Christianity." Things along those lines. I need something to hang my hat on to understand what the hell these churches and Christians are doing.
Turns out, this is one of the Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon! HOORAY! So that explains my confusion. Do we want to mention the issue with synagogues? Maybe a page on Churches and synagogues in the Book of Mormon would be good to have so idiots like me can figure out what the hell is going on! jps ( talk) 13:01, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
What is more, I don't know how to handle this "need for a Redeemer" sentence. First there is the word "need". Is that need an existential one? A material one? A suped-up desire? Or is it more practical because you go to hell without it? I need a bit more than just "Reedemer" here. Maybe that needs to be described in the Nephite Christian Church as well.
jps ( talk) 01:20, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
I don't understand the use of this word even now. Please, can we get something simpler? jps ( talk) 01:31, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
"The narrative set in Ammonihah is intertextual with the Old and New Testaments[specify]. Literary and theological scholarship treat the Ammonihah story as an exploration of suffering and a turning point in the Book of Mormon's use of the phrase "lake of fire and brimstone" as a metaphor for hell.[clarification needed]"
Can we get rid of it? It is not helpful and distracting to me.
jps ( talk) 01:32, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
I think that intertextuality is dangerous because it can get is into apologetics very easily. On the other hand, it can also give the reader a better sense for where the ideas came from since the Book of Mormon was written with knowledge of KJV and other sources (which ought to be intertextually connected as well and are not so much since Mormons are not happy that that other source material is mentioned at all -- is there anything like this in View of the Hebrews, for example?). In any case, striking a balance is most important.
I asked about the court system. It dawned on me that the easiest comparison according to what a lot of these sources are saying is the Book of Judges. Is there a source which identifies this intertextuality? The conversion story is intertextually connected to the Road to Damascus. That's cool, but it would be nice if we could be more specific. Is there a striking blind of Alma or something?
Etc.
jps ( talk) 11:27, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Psychiatrist and Mormon scholar Robert D. Anderson considers this story a violent revenge fantasy written by Joseph Smith, whom he diagnoses with both narcissistic and anti-social personality disorder. Anderson notes that the Ammonihah narrative, unlike most of the Book of Mormon, emphasizes the specific dates of its events. He notes that these events parallel an episode of Smith's life, with Alma corresponding to Smith, Amulek to Joseph Stoal, and Ammonihah to the town of South Bainbridge, where Smith was briefly imprisoned. In Anderson's reading, the violent destruction of Ammonihah is Smith's revenge for the "humiliation" of this imprisonment. [1]
Ghosts of Europa ( talk) 00:14, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
I just went through and removed all sources with 0 citations as a means to start to deal with the WP:FRINGE WP:OR walled garden in this website. It was really concerning to me how many sources were being used that had 0 citations in Google Scholar. However, there were some good sources being used that I have kept. Even if there was 1 citation, I kept the source, but I think the threshold probably ought to be at a number higher than 1 citation due to issues of citogenesis. I am very concerned that sources have been used which essentially have no citation from anyone else. This is exactly the sort of problem I'm seeing in most Book of Mormon articles.
jps ( talk) 13:42, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
Please list proposed sources for this article here. Please also include the number of citations each source has and a rough summary of what sorts of sources are citing it (if you can). Then we can discuss whether they are appropriate for use.
jps ( talk) 16:06, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
why the reader should care what Grant Hardy believes
It was not until the translation process was nearly concluded that Smith received a revelation allowing him to display the plates for select "witnesses," an event portended within the translated text[or do Maffly-Kipp and Penguin Books apparently believe the book has prophetic powers?];
After the translation process was completed, Moroni took back the plates, depriving Smith of material proof of their existence. [or do Maffly-Kipp and Penguin Books apparently believe Moroni has agentive existence?] Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 20:25, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
Would it help if I reframed the case? I said that I thought the sources was "an agenda to present a Mormon's take on the Book of Mormon". I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but I do think it needs to be attributed to the source and possibly the author and I'm not sure how authoritative that is. Is it just his personal interpretation or is he banking off of some wider cultural understanding? Unclear. But it is clear to me that what he is saying in places I can match to other Mormon sources matches those Mormon sources. So can we say, "this is what Mormons seem to believe"? Or "According to The Annonated Book of Mormon, a common Mormon interpretation is...." That, to me, would be good framing. jps ( talk) 01:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Can someone provide context for what "Christian" means in this article? It is never explained. jps ( talk) 19:45, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
Referring to figures in the Book of Mormon as "Christians" is following how reliable sources in religious studies interpret the story and setting of the Book of Mormon.
A Christian is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 20:20, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
Within The Book of Mormon, Christianity takes root in the Americas not only before the arrival of Europeans but also, more radically, before the birth of Jesus. In moments of prolepsis similar to those appearances of Pauline language that predate Paul, the Nephites embrace the teachings of Jesus and assume the title of "Christians" in advance of the gospels.(354)
If the Nephites self-identify as Christians, then we can say that. Especially if that's the actual quoted text from the Book of Mormon. Is that the word used in the Book of Alma and elsewhere? jps ( talk) 21:06, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
not only establishes a narrative precedent for the critique of US Protestantism that would come to form the backbone of early Mormonism but also importantly reframes American Christianity as a cyclical rather than linear phenomenon. Christianity is the ancient if dormant force driving American history, and just as the hemisphere’s indigenous inhabitants seem to have forgotten their Christian roots, so too might its European settlers(341) and that the Book of Mormon's allusion to New Testament content
destabilizes orthodox Christian claims about the Bible’s originality and completeness, threatening to decenter New Testament writings and replace them with itself(345).
Except Fenton is not a religious scholar
What the hell is "American Christianity"?
Combined, these movements represent over 1,000 churches, and the "ripple effect" that they are having on American Christianity is profound.
What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of "true scientific discourse". It isn't.
she's not trying to be precise. We are.
This is Wikipedia. We don't play stupid games like this.
In most cases, absolutely.—seems contrary to WP:RS, particularly WP:SCHOLARSHIP:
Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses.Hydrangeans (she/her) ( talk) 22:01, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
talk pages aren't covered by WP:RS
Whew, that was a close one!
I've now read the relevant chapters of Alma (I have not read the entire book). I rewrote the narrative section to remove excess detail. Here's my proposed draft.
Ghosts of Europa ( talk) 05:12, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
I like this narrative section better than our own. I think it's worth emphasizing the kind of miraculous and startling (if you take the BoM on its own terms) quotations from Hebrews. A bit sloppy there, old Joey S. The "scriptures" thing is absolutely a problem. It is somewhat related to anachronism, of course. By the way, I've read some stuff about Zeezrom/Judas elsewhere, but not sure where. However, "arraigned before the bar" and references to lawyers as such is another anachronism, of course. It is, contrary to the assertions above, showing that the reference to legal structures is closer to nineteenth century America than it is to anything biblical. jps ( talk) 13:13, 16 March 2024 (UTC)