The Past as the Present
Reading my daughter’s My First Book of Mormon, my wife was struck by a strategic lack of beards. Certain heroes were conspicuously placed as beardless among their bearded counterparts. Nephi, for instance is beardless among his prothers and Alma is the only beardless one among the priests of Noah. In each case, the change seems intended to let us know who the characeter is.
I find it humorous, if a bit sad that the only way we can find to portray righteousness in through the presence or absence of a beard. On one hand, perhaps this is part of the iconography of our culture, and when creating meaning in visual art we don’t have the same tools to work with that the original writers did in scripture. Still it seems symptomatic for me of ways in which we read present standards in the church retroactively onto the past.
A more serious example, as I see it, is that of revising the life of the savior so that he never drank wine. I’ve had it suggested (more times than I can count) that it was simply grape juice. There is simply no evidence that such was the case. I’m not insinuating that he was a drunkard, but it was almost a necessity of life at the time that people drink alchohol, both for water purification and for the storage of carbohydrates it provided. To read this otherwise, I would propose indicates an uneasiness with the fact that God’s commands sometimes vary, though the principles of eternity remain the same. And yet, I think this is the reason we have modern prophets and apostles, one of the foundational beliefs on which we pride ourselves as a church.
I am interested to know what examples you have noted of church members reading present standards onto the past or being unable to interpret the scriptures or word os the prophets because they can’t think outside their own cultural framework.
Interesting ideas. This conversation could go many different ways. To your first point, I remember walking through 13th century gothic cathedrals and seeing the various adornments that had accumulated through the years. One 20′ wood carving stands out in my mind: the narrative of Jesus’ life – in Elizabethan attire. I remember specifically John the Baptist wearing tights and a tutu around his neck.
I think all cultures want to impose their era on cultural narratives. More specifically, you bring up the presentation of the “good guy”. Sadly, I often think that this leads to the “good guys” not only being clean shaven, but white. I imagine that the original twelve were not Anglo-Saxon in phynotype.
The modern tendency is to conflate the WoW with eternal law (probably because of the ramifications of temple “worthiness”). I would imagine that most of the apostles up to prohibition would not now be worthy of a recommend. I know that you did not intend to go here, so I’ll step of my soap box.
Comment by J. Stapley — 2/28/2005 @ 7:25 pm
Teachings of the Presidents of the Church–Brigham Young: Brigham Young the monogamist.
J., you have arrived at the first rule of history: historical writing is usually more reflective of the time of composition than the time it purports to describe.
Comment by Ronan — 2/28/2005 @ 8:00 pm
J,
I have no problem with your present soap-box. When you say prohibition, are you talking about the adoption of the word of wisdom as revelation or the amendment to the constitution? Or is there some cosmic connection I’m missing? Still, I think that we might be tempted to look down on some very good people if they showed up in sacrament meeting.
Ronan,
I’m not sure what the particular reference is for your first statement. Certainly the rule seems to hold in most cases, if only because what we tend to study reflects our interests even when we feel we are being most objective.
Comment by S. Hancock — 2/28/2005 @ 8:39 pm
That is prohibition as the socio-politcal movement of the 20th century.
Comment by J. Stapley — 3/1/2005 @ 1:02 am
Read BY’s bio if you still have the manual
Comment by Ronan — 3/1/2005 @ 6:31 am
I think it’s interesting that Primary children are told the story of Joseph Smith having surgury on his leg and refusing to take alcohol to deaden the pain as an example of obedience to the Word of Wisdom. For one, the Word of Wisdom had not yet been revealed. Secondly, as Susan Easton Black once noted in a class, “Joseph could drink with the best of them!”
Comment by Scott — 3/1/2005 @ 9:56 am
I disagree that there is no evidence of the wine being unfermented grape juice. I’ve seen non-mormon sources making the same argument that seminary teachers make, and here is one example:
http://www.learnthebible.org/doctrine_jesus_and_wine.htm
Comment by Karl Butcher — 3/1/2005 @ 2:32 pm
Karl, I am not a Near East scholar. But I have read different interpretations that would seem to contradict that web sight.
Being a food chemist, however, I would submit that it would be virtually impossible to not have at least some fermentation in any fruit juice (at those times). The only way you could have purely virgin juice would be to drink it the same day it was squeezed.
Comment by J. Stapley — 3/1/2005 @ 2:41 pm
I noticed the same thing while read the story of Abinadi in Book of Mormon Stories. Abinadi was beardless, but Noah was not.
Comment by Kim Siever — 3/1/2005 @ 3:49 pm
The site actually allows for minor fermentation and a small amount of alchohol in the wine, however, points out that it would take the addition of sugar and yeast to turn it into the high-alchohol content product of today’s wines.
I could come up with more sources if you wish, there seem to be multiple non-mormon groups that agree with a non-alcoholic view of wine in biblical times.
Comment by Karl Butcher — 3/1/2005 @ 7:51 pm
Karl,
I’m not suggesting in any way that drinking in the sense I’m talking about was sitting around drinking “socially” as we think of it now. In fact, I’d be more than willing to bet that the wine we’re talking about was not highly alchoholic. I wouldn’t think such a thing would be likely. Still, I think these sorts of historically specific issues are part of the question here. We see only our own cultural/historical moment and are not able to consider others.
This is not to say that our own cultural moment is irrelevant, but rather that it is very relevant. The word of wisdom, was given “In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of men in the last days.” As I understand it, this means that there are condition s in our day that make the word of wisdom especially relevant, and almost certainly that includes certain attitudes about drinking and methods of alchohol production that were not usual in prior dispensations. I’m open to other ways of interpreting this, but it’s the way I’ve always understood it.
J,
Please explain about prohibition. I am probably just very uninformed about this particular era in church history. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know when the current temple reccomend questions were instituted.
Scott,
While I do agree that his drinking could hardly be the rusult of his obedience to revelation, I’m wondering why the prophet Joseph did refuse the whiskey at that time. Could it be that such a hard drink was more universally seen as causing problems?
Comment by S. Hancock — 3/1/2005 @ 8:32 pm
Greg gave a great summation over at T&S. I know that several of the General Authorities at this time imbibed on occasion. Moreover, from personal narratives I’ve heard, the battle over coffee was fought (regionally) up until the seventies.
The no-Brandy thing is simply odd.
Comment by J. Stapley — 3/1/2005 @ 11:52 pm