We return to an old Keepa feature: the Questions that appeared in Church magazines from time to time, some of which hint at long-forgotten customs, and the Answers given … that may or may not be the answers we would give today. Enjoy!
Question: Who appoints the deacons or ushers at a Stake Sunday school Conference?
Answer: The most correct answer, judging from our own experience, would be, nobody, or, in other words, they are not appointed at all. This omission should be corrected, as it is very desirable that the brethren and sisters coming from the various wards of the Stake should be welcomed on their arrival at the meeting place, should be made to feel at home, and be shown to their seats. It is not probable that the local ward officers will attend to this matter without they are asked to do so, as a stake conference is not under their direction. We therefore suggest to the Stake Superintendency that they do not omit to make arrangements for this very desirable, but too oft forgotten, service.
Question: Of what nationalities were the one hundred and forty-three brethren who came to Utah in 1847, and who are known as the Pioneers?
Answer: Nine were Englishmen, five came from Canada, and one each from Germany and Denmark; the rest are understood to have all been born in the United States, though in the case of six this is not absolutely certain.
Question: What is “Higher Criticism?”
Answer: The words higher criticism are used with reference to another kind of criticism which is the latter or inferior criticism. As for example, the criticism of the use of words by Shakespeare, his illustrations, or his philosophy belongs to the lower criticism. Whether Shakespeare wrote the books attributed to him, or whether it was Bacon, would be classed as higher criticism. One has to do rather with interpretation an literary laws; the other, a higher criticism, has to do with the source or authorship.
Higher criticism used with reference to the Bible discards Moses as the author of the books attributed to him, and it denies that John wrote the “Gospel according to St. John.” Higher criticism assumes to deal with the Bible the same as with any literary production, and thus eliminate the authority in which the book has been so long held among the Christian world. Among the advocates of this new cult the book is regarded in an entirely new light. With them the old time reverence for the book is gone. In some measure the book is to be used as a code of morals, nothing more.
Question: What routes were traveled by the various colonies mentioned in the Book of Mormon, that migrated from Asia, and at what points did they land on this, the American continent?
Answer: The answer regarding Lehi’s colony is easily given, as the Lord revealed it to the Prophet Joseph Smith. He (the Prophet) says: “They traveled nearly a south, south-east direction until they came to the 19th degree of north latitude; then, nearly east to the Sea of Arabia, then sailed in a south-east direction, and landed on the continent of South America, in Chile, 30 degrees south latitude.” This would bring them not far from where the City of Valparaiso now stands.
Regarding Jared’s and Mulek’s colonies, the information is not so definite. One thing is certain, that they both landed on the northern continent, most probably in that portion known to us as Central America. It is written in the Book of Helaman 96:10) “Now the land south was called Lehi and the land north was called Mulek, which was after the sons of Zedekiah; for the Lord did bring Mulek into the land north, and Lehi into the land south.” How long the people of Mulek remained near the place of their first landing before they traveled south to the region watered by the River Sidon, where the people of Mosiah found them, is not recorded.
The Jaredites called the region where they first landed the land of Moron, this was near the country known to the Nephites as the land desolation. The latter extended south to the Isthmus of Darian. Immediately south of the Isthmus was the land Bountiful. How far the land Desolation extended north is uncertain; its northern boundary probably changed from time to time as new political divisions of the country came into existence. So with Moron in the days of the Jaredites. Both Desolation and Moron, as far as we can judge, were included in the region known to us as Central America, possibly extending as far north as Mexico.
There is nothing in the Book of Mormon to indicate which route either of these companies traveled; the general idea, however, is that the Mulekites journeyed westward, crossing the Atlantic Ocean and landing on the Eastern coast; while the Jaredites traveled north from the valley of Nimrod, possibly to the neighborhood of the Caspian sea, thence east over the vast Asian Plateau, and down some one of the great rivers that empty into the North Pacific Ocean, and then across those wide waters to the west shores of Central America.
Question: After persons pass from this stage of existence do they have a recollection of what has transpired during their mortal existence before they appear before their Maker to receive final judgment, and can they see what is going on among their relatives on his earth?
Answer: To the first portion of the above question we answer unhesitatingly, “Yes.” This doctrine is clearly set forth in the teachings of the younger Alma to his son Corianton. He states that he had inquired diligently of the Lord concerning the condition of the souls of men between death and the resurrection, and an answer to his prayers had been sent him through an angel; he writes:
[Alma 40:11-14, 21]
From the above it is evident: that the souls of all men, whether good or evil, are taken home to God immediately after death; that a partial judgment is then passed upon them – the righteous are received into a state of peace and rest, called paradise, and the wicked are consigned to a place of misery, – they are cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth; in this condition of happiness or misery they remain until they are resurrected; that this happiness or this misery is the result of the conduct of the individuals while in the flesh, and consequently they must have a remembrance of what their mortal lives were or they would not be affected as the prophet describes; in other words, the wicked, if they had no recollection of the past, would have no “awful, fearful looking for the fiery indignation of the wrath of God upon them in the future. It is the recollection of their sins that brings the torment of their fearful anticipations.
Regarding the second question, the testimony is not as conclusive. Personally we feel sure that to some of the righteous dead a knowledge of what is going on on earth is permitted. But this does not give them the sorrow that some suppose. their wider experience and broadened views cause them to look upon earthly struggles from a higher standpoint; to an extent they know the end from the beginning, and they regard the sorrows of mortals very much as we look upon the baby troubles of our very little ones. In all things they see the hand of God, in all they recognize His wisdom and mercy, and in all they see preparation and development for the future happiness and exaltation of His children, sorrowful and heart-breaking as those experiences, for the moment, ofttimes may be.
Question: When an infant is blessed, which is correct, simply to mention the Christian name or names, or include the surname?
Answer: The surname is not given to the child at all; from the moment of its birth the name of its parents belongs to it, and it would be inconsistent to undertake to give the child something which it naturally inherits. The given name only should be mentioned.
Question: Is it intended by the General Board that the Concert Recitation shall form a part of every Sunday’s exercise?
Answer: The General Board requests that a concert recitation, to always the same one, be made a part of the exercises in the Sunday School every Sunday morning.
Wow. I’ve never heard such detail in claiming the routes taken by Book of Mormon people.
One of my absolute favorite classes at BYU was “The Bible as Literature” from the English department. The class was nearly all higher criticism instead of the faith-promoting narrative of the religion department. I loved it.
Nice punt.
And wouldn’t a source be nice for the quote from Joseph Smith placing the Lehite’s landing at Valparaiso?
That bit about Lehi’s landing place appeared for years and years and years in George Reynolds’s Compendium — a book I ought to do a post about, because it was such a standard reference for so long, but it’s been forgotten and is kind of hard to come by now. Reynolds made that statement, worded as though Joseph Smith had said it, although I suspect he was quoting somebody who quoted somebody who quoted somebody as having heard Joseph Smith say it. Whatever its original source, of course, it is so far removed from being authoritative that you don’t read it in modern books … except by people who “discover” this “long forgotten” Joseph Smith statement in an old copy of an old book, and announce it as if it is “recovered” truth.
And I love the higher criticism that I’ve been getting into lately, too, HokieKate. This skewed definition and awful evaluation hurts my heart a little bit, because I suspect it is a widely held misconception among the relatively few people in our Sunday School classes who have heard anything about higher criticism. Truth, wherever it comes from, should lead to faith, and the spirit cannot testify to error — so learning supports faith, rather than destroying it, in my view.
Ardis, Any idea who may have written these answers?
Ardis (or anyone else): Was the term “Higher Criticism” a typically discussed topic in the Church in 1903 or is this just someone’s pet project to get published in the magazine?
Also, not including the surname of the child in the blessing of the infant was new to me. (unless I am mis-reading the answer to this question) I wonder if/how/when that was officially changed.
The Lehi’s Travels part came from the Frederick G. Williams papers, now at the Church Library. The Arabian portion is widely used by those who write articles on Lehi’s travels or guide Book of Mormon tours to the Arabian peninsula. Nobody really seems to know what to make of the statement about Lehi’s South American landing site. My personal opinion is Joseph Smith and others were speculating about this topic as they were looking at a globe.
https://eadview.lds.org/findingaid/MS%204583/
Section 7 of the above link is the probable source of what was quoted by Reynolds, and there’s other interesting Book of Mormon stuff in that section, which runs about 12 pages.
Gary, this particular set of Q&A was in the Juvenile Instructor, but I don’t know who on the editorial staff might have been the author.
The questions appear in two’s and three’s throughout the year, almost as filler for odd corners of the magazine. I suspect that most, if not all, were real questions received from readers. Higher criticism wasn’t being taught by the Sunday School, but I suppose that, like evolution and Egyptology and the age of the earth, it was a topic that members were aware of and reading about in other sources, and they wanted the Church’s opinion.
I’ve seen the question about naming come up at other times, but I don’t have a good sense of timing or other reasoning.
Ahh, the old suspicion of higher criticism. I remember the first time I saw the documentary hypothesis. It was in a book of creation myths from around the world, and it talked about J and P in the Genesis creation account(s). As an overly zealous teenager, it seemed like an attack on faith: this true account doesn’t belong with “myths,” and everybody knows Moses wrote Genesis, not these J and P characters! I forgot about it soon enough, but the next time I ran into the DH, in my late twenties and with the benefit of a little more perspective, it occurred to me that my faith in Christ really ought not to depend on whether Moses wrote Genesis or John wrote John.
It’s hard to decide what’s really central to your faith, though, when you feel like the whole thing is under attack. I don’t really like the word “inoculation,” as if controversial teachings were a disease, but I imagine some Sunday School class members don’t read widely enough to have spent much time with higher criticism on their own, at introspective times when they don’t need to feel attacked. I really wish they would, though…
The whole naming and blessing thing has always confused me. The only scriptural instruction is that members of the Church are to bring their children “unto the elders before the church, who are to lay their hands upon them in the name of Jesus Christ, and bless them in his name.” It says nothing about naming the child. When it was traditional to name the child at a christening, it makes sense that a church that doesn’t practice infant baptism would still bless infants in some way, and name them at the time. It’s no surprise to find that Joseph Smith did that.
Now, though, that children are given a name on a birth certificate instead of by christening, I don’t understand why we have this duplicative and non-scriptural naming ceremony. “We give this child a name …” isn’t right; the child has a name. I’ve heard it suggested that the child is given a name for church purposes (hence “by which she (or he) shall be known on the records of the Church”), but I’ve been a clerk, and I know better — the name on your church records is supposed to be the name on your birth certificate. I love the whole blessing part of the ceremony, and it might even make sense for it to be accompanied by declaring, before the church, what the child’s name already is, but I don’t understand “giving” someone a name that they already have.
Since the blessing has no salvific purpose (which means I think this 1903 question is overly pedantic), I’m okay with the cultural and traditional aspects of baby blessings regardless of whether they have legal or eternal significance. It’s a big deal to choose a name for your baby, and at least during the baby blessing in church, someone is actively *giving* that name *to* the child, which seems more significant than filling out a form at the hospital where the child may not even be in the same room. So join hands with Tevye and dance while singing “Tradition! tradition!”
Mike R.
In some countries it is a custom not to reveal the name of the baby until the blessing, and it might be that the official forms don’t require it immediately after the birth either. In that case it really is giving the name.
I wonder about the surname though. I’m pretty sure it is usually mentioned. At least I said it when I blessed my sister’s baby.
Why do we do things this way? I’ll tell you. I don’t know. But it’s a tradition….
I think I prefer the birth certificate because the mother is more visibly and actively involved in giving the name, even if the child is in another room. I don’t particularly enjoy the way our tradition erases her involvement (or the involvement of a father who isn’t an elder). Still, I do like the idea of laying on hands to give the name *to* the child, now that you put it that way.
I’m pretty sure that now and since the introduction of birth certificates (at least the numerous ones I’ve viewed in my research, and in my own family) a man is just as likely as a woman to register a child’s birth for the purposes of receiving a certificate – and it doesn’t even have to be one of the parents, either. So I’m not sure that the process confers anything other than red tape upon the informant.
Maybe the surname being stated change has to do with societal changes and children not necessarily having the same last name as their parents (through divorce, hyphenated names etc). Though,”like others have said it doesn’t really matter how it’s done since it’s just tradition and unnecessary (can you imagine if we did naming blessings for every adult convert to the church? Makes me giggle).
The higher criticism question strikes me as odd and rather silly. If we refuse to see scriptures as prices of literature we lose out on a whole host of tools to better understand them. Feels like splitting hairs.
When my wife and I were living in a Ward during the late 1970s, there was a family where the babies were only called “Baby” until the father “revealed” the name to the congregation (and his wife) during the naming and blessing at church. Not a practice that seems to have caught on, thankfully.