Fascinating discussion. I need to do a better job chronicling my personal experiences – both real and fictitious.

What stories would you like to see made into film? Send me the links. I’d like to read them!

-Seth

“I address only your pretense that Phelps’ account need be no more historically accurate than a painting of Adam and Eve on the back of a dinosaur — both are Art, both are equally empowered to Inspire.”

I didn’t say or mean that at all! Like you, I have tried to be careful with my comments but obviously I didn’t do a very good job of explaining myself. Let me try to clarify.

I don’t disagree with this:

“What I have said is that something that claims to be historically true should be subjected to normal historical tests. If it is not true — if it is only half true — if it can’t be verified at all as to its truthfulness (i.e., its historicity) — then it ought not to be presented as something it is not. Present it as art, not as history.”

My point was that I think Seth has taken a step back from “presenting it as history.” I think he has done what he could short of retracting the whole thing (which would be impossible since it’s already out there). He made edits to help people realize that it may not be historical, and to give them (your) tools for analyzing it. He reframed the story as having meaning for him whether or not it is historical, and I think that is legitimate, because that is what it meant *to him*.

I get that you don’t feel he is correct in saying it doesn’t matter for anyone else whether it is historical. And I can see why you say that. I was taking a different approach, though, and just trying to look at it from his personal point of view, and it seems like in this case, it doesn’t matter *to him.*

And maybe now I’m putting words in his mouth, but that was where I was coming from in my comment.

Art is art. Art can inspire. Poetry and music and literature and painting and sculpture and dance and other forms of art can inspire, even when they are entirely created, entirely as artificial, as much an artifice as art implies.

But an art object that is either wholly artificial, or that has been changed or embellished so as to scarcely resemble the original, is dishonest if it pretends to be the original. An artwork that claims to be history, but which is not history, is dishonest.

And don’t mistake this comment as implying that Seth’s video is either so wholly creative or so wholly distorted as to be dishonest. I have not and do not and will not say that. Nor have or do or will I say that about William W. Phelps’ writing.

What I have said is that something that claims to be historically true should be subjected to normal historical tests. If it is not true — if it is only half true — if it can’t be verified at all as to its truthfulness (i.e., its historicity) — then it ought not to be presented as something it is not. Present it as art, not as history.

(And yes, this doesn’t address the fact that history can be presented artistically, or that the practice of history is in large measure an art, or any of the other possible permutations. I address only your pretense that Phelps’ account need be no more historically accurate than a painting of Adam and Eve on the back of a dinosaur — both are Art, both are equally empowered to Inspire. That is absurd.

Please don’t put words in my mouth ever again. I’ll probably bite while your hand is putting them there.

What I do know is that very, very often, Latter-day Saints with the best of intentions make up stories or distort what may have begun as an honest event, and circulate them as faith promoting stories. Reference almost any mass-forward email in your box for examples (I’ve just deleted a long list from this comment). These things are often neither true nor True — they are fabrications and embellishments by people for whom the real story (or as close as it can be known) is not good enough. There is a vast market among Latter-day Saints who have itching ears for the latest glurge.

It’s that stuff that I protest. I have identified spiritual glurge a number of times at Keepa and gone through the steps of showing people how it can be recognized and avoided (if they don’t mind their testimonies being built on the fried froth of spiritual glurge, they can avoid Keepa). I’ve also tried to show people how they can evaluate family legends to separate fact from fiction — the truth about my ancestry is always better than the embroidered legend; your mileage may vary. I’ve illustrated how readers can solve their own historical puzzles by following clues and making logical deductions about where to search next.

All of those types of posts fit in with this one about “Joseph Smith’s Last Dream.” I thought it was important enough to look at with the skills I have, and I did so. I am not able to enter into a philosophical debate that goes beyond those limits.