Item Detail
-
18780
-
4
-
0
-
English
-
Divine Revelations/Delusions Revealed : Historical Understandings of Revelation in Debates Over Mormonism
-
Claremont, CA
-
Claremont Graduate University
-
Ph.D. diss.
-
Ever since Joseph Smith claimed to have received a set of golden tablets (the Book of Mormon) from the angel Moroni in 1823, many historical figures have debated the question of whether or not Smith's claims were true. The text, the Book of Mormon, claimed to be a new revelation from God. Because of this claim, revelation has been at the center of all of the debates between the Mormon tradition and its critics. In this dissertation I have chosen to write a reception history of revelation . Whether or not Joseph Smith's claim that he spoke with God is true is not my concern. This is a reception history that places the questions of revelation in the hands of historical figures, rather than in the hands of the historian. With this methodology, I am able to examine the ways that various believers and critics have struggled with the concept of divine revelation. This dissertation analyzes the content of various church revelations, the epistemological models for discerning revelation (how one discerns true revelation from false revelation), and the structure (who can have revelation, at what time, and for whom) of revelation itself. From its founding, the church had at its core a theo-democratic structure of revelation (which simultaneously embodied hierarchical and democratic impulses). Historian Kenneth Mulliken argues that the structure of theocratic-democracy occurred as "divine authority reached downward from God through priesthood or prophetic utterance, while democratic voice reached upward from the membership in their collective approval or disapproval." In this dissertation, I argue that the relationship between the top (God) and the bottom ("the people") changed in significant ways over time. Specifically, because the democratic impulse was embedded in the church from its founding, the early church did not have a closed system of revelation--believers felt able to challenge both the recipient and the content of revelation. It was not until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that the church, under increasing assault from outside forces, closed off the system by changing what it meant by "democratic." [Author's abstract]