D&C 77 and the World's Week

The Church has released a new Doctrine and Covenants and Church History manual for seminary. The FairMormon blog has a rundown of some items of interest, mostly how the manual deals with sensitive historical topics. What caught my attention was item number seven:

Finally, in discussing section 77 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the manual straightforwardly says, “The 7,000 years [in vv. 6–7] refers to the time since the Fall of Adam and Eve. It is not referring to the actual age of the earth including the periods of creation” (p. 280).

The document that became D&C 77 was produced in March 1832 while Joseph Smith was studying the New Testament's Book of Revelation. It was added to the cannon in 1876, long after his death. The reference in the manual is to the following passage:

6 Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals?
A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence.
7 Q. What are we to understand by the seven seals with which it was sealed?
A. We are to understand that the first seal contains the things of the first thousand years, and the second also of the second thousand years, and so on until the seventh.

This is reinforced a few verses later:

12 Q. What are we to understand by the sounding of the trumpets, mentioned in the 8th chapter of Revelation?
A. We are to understand that as God made the world in six days, and on the seventh day he finished his work, and sanctified it, and also formed man out of the dust of the earth, even so, in the beginning of the seventh thousand years will the Lord God sanctify the earth, and complete the salvation of man, and judge all things, and shall redeem all things, except that which he hath not put into his power, when he shall have sealed all things, unto the end of all things; and the sounding of the trumpets of the seven angels are the preparing and finishing of his work, in the beginning of the seventh thousand years—the preparing of the way before the time of his coming.

This all reminded me of something I discovered a while ago. Commenting on these passages, President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote:

This revelation confirms the fact that the days of creation were celestial days, and this earth is passing through one week of temporal (mortal) existence, after which it will die and receive its resurrection [1]. [italics in original]

Interestingly, the manual appears to adopt President Smith's interpretation of the length of mortal existence, while rejecting his view on the days of creation. But of greater interest to me is that the belief that the earth is passing through a week of existence has a long history. You can find references to the world-week in the religious literature in Joseph's day and earlier. For example, Scottish preacher Thomas Boston (d. 1732) wrote,

Time has run from the beginning, and is running on in an uninterrupted course of addition of moments, hours, days, months, and years. About four thousand years of it passed before the birth of Christ; and now is begun the one thousand seven hundred and thirty-second year from that happy period. So there want not three hundred years now to complete the world's week of six thousand years; after which many have thought the eternal Sabbath would come.

But it turns out that we can go back much farther to the early Christian era. The Epistle of Barnabas, thought to be written by 135 A.D., contains the same interpretation.

15:3 ...And God made in six days the works of his hands, and finished them on the seventh day, and rested in it and sanctified it.

15:4 Consider, my children, what signify the words, He finished them in six days. They mean this: that in
six thousand years the Lord will make an end of all things, for a day is with him as a thousand years. And he himself beareth witness unto me, saying: Behold this day a day shall be as a thousand years. Therefore, my children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, shall all things be brought to an end.

15:5 And the words, He rested on the seventh day, signify this: After that his Son hath come, and hath caused to cease the time of the wicked one, and hath judged the ungodly, and changed the sun and the moon and the stars, then shall he rest well on the seventh day.

It is possible that in asserting that the seven seals cover the earth's temporal history, one thousand years each, Joseph was tapping into ideas current in his culture. But it's also clear that the world-week concept is ancient, and it's worth noting that the Epistle of Barnabas and the Book of Revelation are probably only separated by 50-80 years, at most. Inasmuch as D&C 77 is about the Book of Revelation, Joseph's interpretation seems on the mark, at least in that it accords with ideas about the earth's history and future that were present just after the New Testament period.

However, we're still left with an enormous conflict with science if we take this scripture to mean that mortality began 6,000 years ago. Now I am a fan of understanding scripture within its cultural context, so I have no reason to doubt that was Joseph's intent. However, there may be other options for us. Personally, I like an interpretation that was advanced by Sterling Talmage, geologist and son of Elder James E. Talmage (himself a defender of the geological record):

...D&C 77:6 very clearly means that the Book of the Seven Seals represented the totality of scripture, to be revealed in successive dispensations; that it contained the previously unknown things regarding the plan of salvation ("the hidden things of his economy"), which were to be shown during the current seven thousand years of earth time ("its continuance") with special reference to humankind in the affairs of the present life ("its temporal existence"). This passage, then, would seem to have no reference whatever to the earth as a physical entity but refer only to the hand-dealings of God with its inhabitants [2].

On this reading, a scripture in direct conflict with science essentially becomes a summary of revealed religion as we have it in our scriptures. What it means for the future remains to be seen.

Notes:
1. Joseph Fielding Smith, Man, His Origin and Destiny, p.465. See also Doctrines of Salvation vol. 1, p. 80.
2. Sterling Talmage, Can Science Be Faith-Promoting, p.176.

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The Church Teaches Evolution via the Book of Mormon

In what may be the most scientifically detailed explanation on LDS.org, the Church recently added a page that explains some of the basic principles of population genetics, and a few of the processes that result in changes in gene frequencies in a population (i.e. evolution). Book of Mormon and DNA Studies is another new addition to the Gospel Topics section that is meant to give a more detailed (and, ahem, accurate) answer on a controversial topic. (See also Race and the Priesthood, First Vision Accounts, and Book of Mormon Translation.)

Of course, the focus of this article is on the controversy over what lack of DNA support means for the Book of Mormon. Those familiar with the work of Michael Whiting and Ugo Perego (to which the LDS.org page provides links) will see their fingerprints in the new article. Personally, I'm pretty pleased with the result, especially coming from the Church website. As to the substance of the argument, I'm undecided whether the caveats in interpreting the state of the DNA evidence can really do the work required to make the Nephites/Lamanites genetically disappear. (I lean toward skepticism there unless it's paired with extensive intermixing from the beginning. But then we leave science and move into textual interpretation.) For now I think it's the only legitimate scientific way to argue for Book of Mormon historicity, or rather that historicity cannot be dis-proven.

But if we set the Book of Mormon aside for a moment, this article is essentially a primer on how evolution works: the creation of new alleles and their spread, as well as the loss of alleles from a population. Selection was left out of the discussion, (which is unfortunate because it might be relevant--a sensitive issue perhaps? [1]), but in a way it's just as well because natural selection usually gets all of the attention. Genetic drift, founder effect, etc, are random processes that can also play an important role.

So go study Book of Mormon and DNA Studies. As you begin to comprehend its message, you'll begin to understand how Neanderthal DNA is hanging around in many of us, and you'll begin to understand how two separate populations can begin to genetically diverge. And you'll be able to imagine how enough time and change can result in reproductive isolation, with gradual differences in form and behavior. You'll be on your way to understanding how evolution works. Thanks, LDS.org!

Notes:

1. Here's another subtle tip-toe: "Scientists theorize that in an era that predated Book of Mormon accounts, a relatively small group of people migrated from northeast Asia to the Americas by way of a land bridge that connected Siberia to Alaska." Yes, predating the Book of Mormon by about 10-15 thousand years. Some people might have difficulty squaring that with the Bible Chronology.

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Even as I Will

The Book of Moses comes from Joseph Smith's inspired revision of Genesis. After recounting the Creation and the fall of Adam and Eve, the story is interrupted with a statement directed at Joseph.

And these are the words which I spake unto my servant Moses, and they are true even as I will; and I have spoken them unto you. See thou show them unto no man, until I command you, except to them that believe. Amen. [Moses 4:32]

Although God told Joseph that the words are 'true', I have previously argued that the differences between the Book of Moses, the Book of Abraham, and the temple endowment suggest that no particular version of the Creation and Fall can be considered the gold standard. But what does it mean when God says, "they are true even as I will"? Is that just a rhetorical flourish, or is there additional meaning?

A couple of years ago, a commenter on one of my posts suggested that it means that the accounts are as true as God wants them to be, which is an interesting interpretation. I decided to see if the rest of the scriptures could shed light on the phrase. It turns out that, except for the verse above, the phrase 'even as I will' occurs exclusively in the Doctrine and Covenants. Below I quote all the additional verses, with the phrase highlighted.

Section 29:48

For it is given unto them even as I will, according to mine own pleasure, that great things may be required at the hand of their fathers.

Section 50:8

But the hypocrites shall be detected and shall be cut off, either in life or in death, even as I will; and wo unto them who are cut off from my church, for the same are overcome of the world.

Section 52:6

And inasmuch as they are not faithful, they shall be cut off, even as I will, as seemeth me good.

Section 55:6

And again, let my servant Joseph Coe also take his journey with them. The residue shall be made known hereafter, even as I will. Amen.

Section 71:1

BEHOLD, thus saith the Lord unto you my servants Joseph Smith, Jun., and Sidney Rigdon, that the time has verily come that it is necessary and expedient in me that you should open your mouths in proclaiming my gospel, the things of the kingdom, expounding the mysteries thereof out of the scriptures, according to that portion of Spirit and power which shall be given unto you, even as I will.

Section 104:20

Let my servant Sidney Rigdon have appointed unto him the place where he now resides, and the lot of the tannery for his stewardship, for his support while he is laboring in my vineyard, even as I will, when I shall command him.

In two instances, the phrase is accompanied by the clarification, "according to mine own pleasure" or "as seemeth me good," and the rest of the instances are in a context that seems to imply as much.

Looking back at the Book of Moses, I see two possible (though not mutually exclusive) interpretations: 1. The Book of Moses is a good enough representation of what God said to Moses. 2. What God said to Moses is a good enough representation of what really happened.

Either way it seems that my commenter was right--that the words are as true as God wants them to be.

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Videos Posted: Interpreter Conference on Science and Mormonism

Videos from the Interpreter conference, Science & Mormonism: Cosmos, Earth & Man, are now available.

I'm still working my way through them, but I want to congratulate the organizers and participants for a stimulating discussion.

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Latter-day Saints Must Do a Better Job Answering Atheism

Last February Elder Jeffery R. Holland gave a talk (recently published) at the J. Reuben Clark Law Society Conference in Washington D.C. that touched on the growing influence of the 'new atheism.' Elder Holland acknowledged the influence of men such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, and called for more effective persuasion.

In the face of such waning religiosity—or, at the very least, waning religious affiliation—Latter-day Saints and other churches must be ever more effective in making the persuasive case for why both religious belief and institutional identity are more relevant than ever and deserve continued consideration and privilege within our society.

Given the venue and purpose of his talk, I would not expect Elder Holland to take on that task in this speech. Frankly I was impressed to see him call attention to the issue and name (even quote) some of the most prominent voices of atheism. However, it isn't clear to me from this speech that Elder Holland has paid close attention to their arguments. For example, Elder Holland said that militant atheism is untenable,

simply because it would take someone with God’s omniscience and omnipresence to be sure that nowhere in the universe was there such an omniscient and omnipresent being. Catch 22. But I digress with philosophical nitpicking.

This was clearly a line designed for laughs. But Dawkins (who is often called 'militant' for his blunt style) doesn't hold that view, and I doubt his compatriots do either because it's so obviously logically flawed. Dawkins' argument in his book, The God Delusion, is one of probability based on what we know from science, reason, and history, and is directed toward conceptions of God with certain characteristics.

It may be that emotion plays a large role in many people's decision to reject theism, and it may be that defending theism will ultimately come down to "bearing down in pure testimony" (Alma 4:19). However, if we are to be more effective in making our case, I think a few considerations may be helpful.

1. Many atheists are good and thoughtful people. Rather than sneering at them, we would do better to take a view more like that expressed by President Uchtdorf about people who leave the Church.

In this Church that honors personal agency so strongly, that was restored by a young man who asked questions and sought answers, we respect those who honestly search for truth. It may break our hearts when their journey takes them away from the Church we love and the truth we have found, but we honor their right to worship Almighty God [or not, in this case] according to the dictates of their own conscience, just as we claim that privilege for ourselves.

Many atheists are truth seekers and hold their position because that's where their conscience has taken them. Indeed, it appears that many young atheists are disappointed idealists. Making caricatures of their arguments and experience is an indicator to them that our claims are empty because we cannot engage their concerns head-on.

2. While we cannot limit our religious beliefs to the discoveries of science, we must be clear that one can hold belief in God and still accept any demonstrated truth of science. We have official statements to that effect, but sometimes our rhetoric betrays us.

3. Recognize that there may be areas of common agreement, such as the material nature of the universe or the origin of God. Even at a more basic level, Mormonism rejects some of the theological baggage that offends the sensitivities of religious skeptics.

4. In his speech Elder Holland recognized two additional perceptions that turn people off from organized religion.

Inasmuch as more than two-thirds of the religiously unaffiliated nevertheless do say they believe in God, it may well be that part of the reason for this drift away from formal church affiliation has something to do with how churches are perceived. More than two-thirds of the religiously unaffiliated say “religious institutions are too concerned with money” (70 percent) and too
deeply entangled in politics (67 percent). A word to the wise for all churches.

We should recognize that the mapping of our religious values onto public policy is a tricky business. Often people of opposing political parties share many of the same values. Their disagreement is rooted in the prioritization of those values and their application to law and public policy. Church leaders decide how the institutional Church should interact with specific laws and policies. As for individual members, I think we would do well to emphasize the things we value and avoid shallow cultural warfare.

Robert Millet, former dean of Religious Education at BYU, has done a lot of outreach work with evangelical Christians in his service as Manager of Outreach and Interfaith Relations for Church Public Affairs. He has helped facilitate communication between our two communities and has helped to clarify our doctrine to ourselves and others. I think a similar project on 'new atheism' might be in order. Actually, as I was writing this I found a 2009 interview in which Brother Millet said he was undertaking such a project.

Millet: Oddly enough, I’m currently doing a good bit of reading on atheism. Not to become one, of course, but I am concerned with how our people are responding to atheism. There is currently an upsurge in interest in the new atheism, as it’s called, and they’re proselyting!

Thayne: So you’re reading Christopher Hitchens?

Millet: Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett, Harris. And I’ve read about ten or twelve responses to atheism. It’s a project I started on my own. Then, out of the blue, I discovered a group of faculty members in other colleges who were doing the same. We are planning a major conference on the subject.

I am not aware that any such conference has occurred (not that that means much), but I think it would be a great idea. Done right, it would help fulfill Elder Holland's call.

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Nature Doesn't Care About Your Morality

A few days ago Slate.com published a fun (in a bit of a perverse kind of way) article, The Most Adorable Animals Engage in the Most Reprehensible Behavior. My favorite line:

There is no animal that is made of rainbows and kisses and goodness all the way through.

This is something I think we all would freely acknowledge. Yet because we urban dwellers live a life largely removed from the wild--or even farm life--it's easy to forget that the world is not like a Primary lesson on the creation.

Further, we can talk about moral guides to human behavior, but the moment you start talking about what is "natural" or enlisting examples of animals in your exhortation, you are on thin ice indeed.

What is natural is not inherently good or evil: It simply is, and we’d be fools to take such examples as models of right or wrong. The dark side of superficially cute animals is a part of their nature that reminds us that the wild does not exist for our entertainment and whimsy. We can find beauty and poetry in nature, but we can also find terror and savagery, all essential parts of the entire picture.

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Where Do Spirits Meet Electrons?

I enjoy reading physicist Sean Carroll because he is a penetrating thinker and good communicator. A recent blog post of his hits on a theme that raises fundamental issues of concern to Mormons. First, let's set the backdrop. We're all familiar with the following statement from Joseph Smith, canonized as D&C 131:7-8:

There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.

In Church discourse the term spirit can mean several things, but let's focus on personal spirit body.

According to scripture and Church teachings our spirit exists independent of the body but is united with the body at birth and again at the resurrection. In it's independent state it has thoughts and emotions, and is in the "likeness" of the body (whatever that means). Although the notion that spirits are made of a type of matter is a distinctive LDS belief, practically our conception of the spirit is very much like that of popular culture: it looks and is shaped like the body, and is the core source of our thoughts and decisions. A few degrees into folklore is the common belief that following death our spirit will have many of the same cravings and desires that we have in life, such as addictions.

Back to Carroll, I'm actually going to quote from two different blog posts interchangeably (here and here) because they are related.

Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there’s no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter?

If you believe in an immaterial soul that interacts with our bodies, you need to believe that [the Dirac equation, which describes the behavior of electrons] is not right, even at everyday energies. There needs to be a new term (at minimum) on the right, representing how the soul interacts with electrons. (If that term doesn’t exist, electrons will just go on their way as if there weren’t any soul at all, and then what’s the point?) So any respectable scientist who took this idea seriously would be asking — what form does that interaction take? Is it local in spacetime? Does the soul respect gauge invariance and Lorentz invariance? Does the soul have a Hamiltonian? Do the interactions preserve unitarity and conservation of information?

Among advocates for life after death, nobody even tries to sit down and do the hard work of explaining how the basic physics of atoms and electrons would have to be altered in order for this to be true. If we tried, the fundamental absurdity of the task would quickly become evident.

I suppose we non-physicists can just blithely say that there is more physics out there to discover (like dark matter), and I'm sure that Carroll would be thrilled if that prospect looked like a reality. (Just today I saw an article about the doldrums particle physicists are in because the Standard Model has been validated in such detail that there seems little to get excited about on the horizon.) But even still, are the laws of physics in a rock different than in a brain? And who hasn't wondered where in the spectrum of life a spirit gets involved (proteins, viruses, bacteria, plants, worms, and so on)? It seems like the best answer these kinds of questions can garner is a shrug of the shoulders. (Maybe I need to look harder?)

None of this is truly novel; beginning in the Renaissance anatomists tried to figure out where in the brain the soul was located, eventually giving up. Carroll has just put the question in a straightforward fundamental form. Perhaps a lot of how we think about spirits is wrong--a combination of speculation and misinterpreted experience that has been propagated in our culture for ages. (Sometimes I think that we are so used to our embodied state that we seriously underestimate what "bondage", as the scriptures put it, the lack of a body is.) Be that as it may, it appears that spirits will unfortunately remain something we have no scientific right to believe in for the foreseeable future.

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Yellow Rain: The Chemical Attack that Probably Didn't Happen

Current events in Syria--the alleged use of sarin gas--have brought the opaque methods of intelligence gathering to the national attention again. This seems like as good a time as any to briefly recount the story of "yellow rain."

In 1981 the United States accused the Soviet Union of having backed the use of chemical weapons on the Hmong people, who had allied with the U.S. during the Vietnam War. Hmong refugees described aircraft spraying a yellow liquid over them, which was followed by sickness and death. Yellow spots on leaves and other materials were collected and sent to the U.S. and elsewhere for analysis, with a lab at the University of Minnesota confirming the presence of trichothecene mycotoxins, toxins produced by fungi. Combined with eyewitness testimony, including both victims and a defected Lao pilot, these results formed the foundation of the U.S. accusation. The Soviets dismissed the accusation as a lie.

Things took a strange turn as scientists, doctors, and others began investigating. The yellow spots were found to contain local pollen, other labs were unable to reproduce the initial chemical analysis, and the eyewitness testimonies turned out to be shaky. It turns out that yellow rain, as it was called, was most likely bee feces from the mass defecation of swarms of bees, but the chaos of war combined with bias and differences in language and culture turned a strange natural phenomenon into evidence of chemical warfare. The U.S. has never withdrawn the charge, and of course there are a number of documents that remain classified, including a CIA critique produced a few years ago.

I don't think anybody would put it past the Soviets to facilitate chemical warfare, but there seem to be significant problems with the evidence behind the original accusation. Although a definitive conclusion may never be forthcoming, outside of the government the sentiment is largely (but not exclusively) one of skepticism.

You can read a 2008 book chapter by one of the leading scientific skeptics here.

Radiolab did a fascinating episode on yellow rain that turned out to be somewhat controversial because the Hmong interviewees felt attacked by the journalists.

Does any of this have anything to do with the current situation? I don't know; probably not. Mostly I find it interesting on its own. But then again, it might.

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