In 2018, the Sunday School instructor of my Mormon congregation was assigned to teach the stories about Lot found in Genesis 19. The teacher confessed that he was very uncomfortable discussing these narratives. Instead, he chose to review several recent General Conference addresses. Not long after, another teacher was leading a discussion on the book of Numbers. One attendee noted that the passages portrayed a morally suspect deity,1 inconsistent with the God of Mormon teaching.Discomfort with conflicts between Old Testament teachings and contemporary beliefs has plagued Christians, including Mormons, from their respective beginnings.2 Whether and how to approach such problems while best promoting faith has occasioned considerable debate. Some LDS Church leaders have favored attempts to resolve inconsistencies while others have advocated shielding their adherents from controversies. The choice of the latter in recent decades has resulted in a generation of Mormons protected from difficult issues in biblical interpretation. Conversely, during the early twentieth century, Church leaders encouraged the production of educational materials that addressed scriptural problems. These were initially written by faithful scholars who had been formally educated in non-biblical fields. This effort was significantly advanced during the 1930s and 1940s when professionally trained biblical scholars became available.3 The two most prominent scholars to come out of this period were Sidney Sperry (1895–1977) and Heber Snell (1899–1974).Sperry and Snell were the first active Mormon scholars to obtain PhDs in biblical studies, both from the University of Chicago in 1931 and 1940, respectively.4 Both were highly respected college instructors in the Church Educational System throughout most of their careers. Church leaders requested both to author an Old Testament textbook for use in the Church's institutes of higher education, works intended to exemplify the best scholarship adapted to a Mormon context.5 Yet, Sperry and Snell disagreed over how such a project would be best accomplished. Their disputes exposed many important questions and methodological issues that needed addressing for such a task to succeed. In this study, we will examine some of the disputes that Sperry and Snell chose to address, their suggested approaches, and how these fared. I argue that, although presenting significant challenges, the work of Sperry and Snell show us that the integration of critical biblical scholarship and Mormon tradition is possible and helpful, at least for some disputes, and that their pioneering efforts are worth continuing.In the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, traditional Christian biblical interpretations were increasingly being challenged by liberal biblical scholars employing the modernist techniques of “higher criticism.” As Harvard historian William R. Hutchison has noted, these ideas had infiltrated virtually all American denominations and “had attained a voice equal to those of the older and newer conservatisms that opposed it.”6 The liberal biblical literary critics were principally concerned with (1) authorship, date, and place of composition, (2) literary form, and (3) historical value.7 As such, a primary aim was to discover the original meaning of the text, or, in other words, the literal meaning in historical context. As one scholar from the early twentieth century explained, such studies required the use of “scientific methods . . . without regard to authority of any kind.”8Disputes between conservative and liberal biblical scholars were often bitter and included personal attacks. Regarding the latter, New York liberal preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick pointed out in a famous 1922 sermon that liberal and conservative theologians tend to view each other in unflattering stereotyped ways. Conservatives accuse liberal thinkers of being “reckless radicals gifted with intellectual ingenuity but lacking spiritual depth” whereas liberals characterize conservatives as “illiberal and intolerant.”9 As we will see, some liberal and conservative Mormon scholars were also not above leveling such assaults on the character of their opponents.At first, Mormon leaders found themselves challenged by the liberal biblical innovations.10 Early in the twentieth century, there were high-profile sanctions and defections, most visibly three professors who were dismissed from Brigham Young Academy in 1911.11 On one hand, this Mormon “modernism controversy” resulted in significant student support for the dismissed professors,12 making it more difficult for Church leaders to completely reject the new biblical scholarship. On the other hand, Church leaders retained serious concern that this kind of scholarship eroded the faith of the young. As apostle James E. Talmage observed in 1914: “higher critics of the scriptures . . . [who] profess doubt as to the truth and plain meaning of the Holy Scriptures” were having “pernicious” effects on young Mormons, who “are impressed by those who instruct them.”13 For Church leaders like Talmage, it was evident that a clearer definition of boundaries for the Church's religion instructors was needed.In response to the 1911 controversy at Brigham Young Academy, Church president Joseph F. Smith emphasized that the professors were dismissed not because they taught the new ideas but because they gave them inappropriate priority.14 He attempted to create a middle position, acknowledging that “the higher criticism” might reveal “many truths.”15 In so doing, Smith laid the groundwork for a moderate approach that allowed toleration of the findings of critical biblical scholars as long as they did not challenge core Mormon doctrines. Smith's policy of moderation was soon reflected in official Church teaching manuals.16 But none of the Mormon scholars of this era had the mastery afforded by formal training in biblical scholarship.The reasons for the subsequent integration of formally trained biblical scholars into the Church Educational System are complex and multifactorial. Historian Leonard Arrington observed that during the 1920s, “Scientists were taking over the study and interpretation of the Bible by means of the ‘Higher Criticism.’”17 This and other issues were challenging the traditional faith of the increasing number of young Mormons undergoing higher education. To address the problem, some Church leaders concluded that they needed more sophisticated college-level religious instruction in conjunction with the college curriculum. They organized the first Institute of Religion at the University of Idaho in 1926. Its first director, J. Wyley Sessions, wanted to include courses on “religious philosophy and Bible history” for college credit and successfully negotiated this with the university administration on the conditions that (1) the instructors had at least a master's degree and qualified for faculty appointments and (2) no course content could be “sectarian in religion or partisan in politics.”18 College credit was continuing at some institute programs twenty-five years later,19 suggesting the ongoing significance of having trained teachers of institute classes while Sperry and Snell were doing their work.Historian Casey Paul Griffiths has suggested other possible reasons underlying the impulse to upgrade the scholarly credentials of Church educators. One was the desire of Church leaders to pattern the new Mormon secondary school seminaries after the University of Idaho model. Another may have arisen from Church educators themselves, as evidenced by their enthusiastic responses following exposure to critical biblical scholarship. In the mid-1920s, Sperry and Snell sought outside formal education in biblical studies at the University of Chicago and the Pacific School of Religion, respectively. Both conveyed their new knowledge to their peers in the Church Educational System, receiving rave reviews. These were reinforced after University of Chicago New Testament scholar Edgar J. Goodspeed visited the educators’ annual Aspen Grove summer school in 1930.20 Additionally, Church leaders noted that Sperry did not seem to suffer any negative consequences following his exposure to liberal ideas.21 Thus resulted what Griffiths has dubbed “the Chicago experiment,” in which, beginning in 1930, several Church religious educators were encouraged to seek formal education at the University of Chicago Divinity School. These students returned to the Church Educational System and introduced innovations that were then disseminated in Church-sponsored manuals,22 in educational sessions for other Church instructors, and in the classroom. Yet Church leaders at the highest level remained split throughout this decade on some of the key issues in modernism. In 1934, Church president Heber J. Grant chose Joshua Reuben Clark Jr. as first counselor and David O. McKay as second in the First Presidency. McKay favored a moderate approach, while Clark opposed liberal biblical scholarship.23In 1938, Clark instructed Church educators that “You are not to teach the philosophes of the world. . . . Your sole field is the gospel.”24 Ecclesiastical leaders who supported Clark's positions became known as “Clark men,” most prominently senior apostle Joseph Fielding Smith Jr. Those favoring McKay's stance were “McKay men.”25 In 1940, Grant suffered a dominant hemisphere stroke, leaving him progressively disabled until his death in 1945. During this time, four new apostles were chosen, all Clark men, presumably due to Clark's influence. They would go on to figure prominently in the shift of Mormonism in a fundamentalist direction in the latter twentieth century, but that is another story.26As illustrated by these examples, there was a spectrum of opinions among Church leadership regarding biblical criticism during the 1920s and 1930s and afterward. Mormon philosopher Sterling McMurrin identified three categories: “unbelievers” who prioritize biblical criticism, “believers . . . who attempt a reconciliation,” and “believers . . . who reject knowledge and science and affirm faith and the revelation only.”27 McMurrin typified the first group, while Clark and Joseph Fielding Smith characterized the last. However, the ground between these two extremes was quite large. I suggest that Sperry and Snell represented the conservative- and liberal-leaning spectrums, respectively, of the middle group. By the 1960s, McMurrin noted: “For many years, Professors Snell and Sperry have been the undisputed leaders of the main wings of Bible scholarship in the LDS Church.”28 Not surprisingly, Sperry had the more amicable relationship with Smith and Snell with McMurrin.29By whatever combination of nature and nurture, Sperry came to his higher education with an inclination toward religious conservatism. In 1926, he received a master's degree in Old Testament from the University of Chicago Divinity School with the thesis “The Text of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon.” But Sperry was not entirely comfortable with the liberal emphasis of the Divinity School instructors.30 In 1931 he received a PhD from the Department of Oriental Languages and Literature. Sperry then participated in the American Schools of Oriental Research Jerusalem School in 1931 and 1932, gaining expertise in Palestinian archeology.Sperry quickly became the Church's most respected formally educated Old Testament scholar, and his lectures on the Old Testament were enthusiastically received by his Church Educational System peers.31 Franklin L. West, the Commissioner of Church Education (1936–1953), requested that Sperry write a text for the study of the Old Testament.32 His finished work, The Spirit of the Old Testament, was published by the Church in 1940. The book reflected both a sympathy for Mormon tradition, including quotations from Mormon scripture, and a high level of scholarship. Sperry described his methodology: “Where questions of Biblical criticism have been dealt with, conservative views have generally been adopted.”33 Sperry's book was used by instructors in the Church Educational System for many years, including by Snell.34 In 1970, at the urging of “friends and colleagues,” Sperry published a second, expanded edition of his book.35 Sperry's expertise in the Old Testament was also utilized in the composition of Church manuals for Sunday worship.36 Sperry taught at Brigham Young University until his mid-seventies, retiring in 1971.Snell came to his higher education comfortable within a liberal environment. He had been a student of William Chamberlin, one of the professors who came under criticism in the 1911 controversy at Brigham Young Academy. James M. McLachlan has termed Chamberlin “Mormonism's first professionally trained philosopher and theologian.”37 Snell adopted Chamberlin's linear progressive development view of Old Testament theological beliefs, which beliefs, Chamberlin felt, gradually matured under intermittent divine interventions.38 Snell received his PhD in New Testament studies in 1941 under the supervision of University of Chicago historian and liberal New Testament scholar Shirley Jackson Case. Under Case's sociohistorical method, a linear progressive view of Christian history was postulated in which early Christians progressed in their knowledge and understanding in stages.39 Snell likely had some sympathies for this view, although he probably would have amended Case's model with a greater degree of divine guidance.While Snell was writing a manual for Church instruction in the New Testament and early Christian history, Franklin West requested that he produce a text for Old Testament study.40 This may seem surprising since Snell was a New Testament scholar, and Sperry had already published a textbook. Several factors may have contributed to the request for another manual. First, as noted above, a few non-Church colleges were still granting college credit for some institute courses. College certification would require the use of a textbook that reflected adequate scholarship and, unlike Sperry's, that lacked denominational dogma.41 Second, West was impressed with Snell's approaches to the Old Testament problems, which Snell had enumerated in enthusiastically received presentations to Mormon educators.42 Snell had also delivered a popular series of lectures on the Bible, which West felt were “very fine.” West expressed admiration for Snell's scholarship.43 In addition, West was intrigued by Snell's emphasis on Old Testament history and his progressive idealistic approach.44 Referring to one purpose for his book, Snell noted that “It is worth everything to our youth, in these days of confusion, to accept the view that God was, and is, vitally at work in history.”45 Thus, Snell's task was more difficult than Sperry's; Snell was to write a text that would be compatible with Mormon teaching, help Mormon college-age young adults resolve intellectual and theological problems, and be acceptable to secular college administrators. Conflicts among these goals would prove problematic.Despite his support of Snell's work, West ultimately declined to publish the book with the Church because, as Richard Sherlock has pointed out, “he knew that some of his superiors would not approve” of Snell's scholarship.46 West's primary concern was Joseph Fielding Smith. Smith, a formidable conservative adversary, chaired the executive committee of the Church Board of Education and, more importantly, the Church Publications Committee, which approved “all literature of a religious nature to be used in texts for our schools, seminaries, and auxiliaries.47 A key to the success of any work intended for Church education was avoiding the opposition of Smith.48 We will encounter some examples of Smith's considerable influence below.Snell privately published the resulting book, Ancient Israel: Its Story and Meaning, in 1948. West purchased 121 copies for the institute and seminary libraries as a reference work, where many copies remained several years later.49 The book received positive reviews in non-Mormon venues and was used by Snell and a few other Mormon and non-Mormon instructors in institute and college courses, demonstrating its intended versatility.50West was right not to try to get the book past Joseph Fielding Smith. After the book was published, Smith objected to Snell's acceptance of biblical historical criticism, the lack of references to Mormon biblical proof texts, and Snell's progressive view of history. Some other Church leaders disagreed. Levi Edgar Young characterized the book as “a fine piece of work” and John Widtsoe as doing “very well in retaining the Latter-day Saint interpretation of the Old Testament.”51 Former Commissioner of Church Education and apostle Joseph F. Merrill characterized the work as “scholarly” and “conservative,” aptly suited for institute “credit courses.”52 Yet, Smith's influence proved decisive. Smith ultimately banned Snell's book for use in Mormon institute courses and crystalized his anti-liberal views, specifically unfavorably quoting Snell's book, in his Man, His Origin and Destiny (1954).53 Snell appealed to Church presidents George Albert Smith and David O. McKay to reverse Smith's ban on his book with no resolution.54 Despite continued vigor and desire to remain in his teaching position,55 Snell's contract was not renewed in 1950,56 and he retired at the age of sixty-seven. Snell's book was published in a revised second edition in 1957 and reprinted by the University of Utah Press in 1963.Although Snell's text was officially rejected, some of his approaches lived on through West, who himself published a textbook for Old Testament study in Mormon secondary school seminaries in 1950.57 Apparently designed for a high school accredited seminary course, West's text was also devoid of Mormon teachings, presented in a historical format, and even contained a final chapter entitled “God in History.”A major challenge facing Sperry and Snell in writing their textbooks on the Old Testament was devising effective ways to handle the conflicts between liberal biblical scholarship and traditional Mormon teaching. The effort to reconcile these two perspectives entails a high level of intellectual command of both sides, the ability to compromise, a sincere belief in Mormonism, and considerable ingenuity. As apostle and scientist John A. Widtsoe, who had made his own attempts to address the conflicts between science and Mormonism,58 cautioned Snell: “It is very difficult . . . to write a book on any subject that accepts the scholarship of the world and the revelations of these latter days.”59 In addressing individual conflicts, Sperry and Snell could choose among three approaches: 1.Defend the liberal or the traditional viewpoint. In this strategy, one side attempts to persuade the other that the former's methodology, evidence, and conclusions are decisive and should be accepted. We will call this a direct persuasion argument.2.Propose a novel theory of accommodation. A theory of accommodation may take several forms. The following will be important in the analysis that follows. Morally or theologically objectionable material found in the scriptures themselves may be blamed on human author failings (an author bias theory) or universal human limitations (a fallible human theory). In a theory of expansion, seemingly anachronistic scriptural inclusions are explained as incorporation of later material. We will use a theory of synthesis as a more generalized description of an accommodation in which selected elements of both scholarly positions are combined into a new schema. A theorist may mount a counterargument, moving into the opponent's areas of presuppositions, methodology, and/or conclusions and showing that the theorist's positions are also the more reasonable on the opponent's turf. In formulating their accommodation theories, Sperry and Snell also needed to be careful to avoid logical fallacies and to be mindful of the theoretical virtues. Logical fallacies include arguments from ignorance (a proposition is true because it has not been proved false), appeals to inappropriate authority, non sequitur arguments (the conclusions do not follow from the premises), and ad hominem arguments (attacking the opponent rather than the proposition).60 It is also important to avoid offering pseudo-counterarguments, which appeals to selected, sympathetic, often outdated, and inappropriately praised “experts.” The most important theoretical virtues for this study are empirical accuracy (Does the theory adequately explain the issue under consideration?) and external consistency (Is the theory consistent with accepted Mormon core doctrines?).613.Avoid addressing the issue. This may be done in several ways: a.Avoid bringing the issue up at all, a strategy of neglect.b.Adopt a strategy of non-commitment, in which both sides of the dispute are presented leaving the final adjudication to the reader.c.Present an argument for irrelevance, concluding that the issue is not of adequate importance for analysis.In what follows, we will examine five key issues, contrasting the approaches of Sperry and Snell, and explore how the ideas of each fared. The first three issues are derived from an address Snell gave to a convention of Church educators in 1937, issues that Snell felt were particularly important to his Old Testament institute students.62 The last two are additional issues that Sperry and Snell, respectively, were particularly concerned with. I will refer to the scholarly biblical critical sources that Sperry and Snell themselves utilized.63Did Noah take seven pairs or one pair of clean beasts into the ark (Genesis 7:2, 9)? In order to account for duplications/contradictions and other problems in the Pentateuch, biblical critics had posited that three independent sources had been combined using a cut-and-paste technique to form the books Genesis through Numbers, to which Deuteronomy had been appended.64 The sources were all dated well after Moses.65 The theory is known as the Documentary Hypothesis and it conflicted with the traditional view of Mosaic authorship, which seemed to be supported, at least for the first chapters of Genesis, by Mormon scripture (Moses 2:1).66Snell contended for the Documentary Hypothesis using a direct persuasion approach. He argued that only this solution satisfied the theoretical virtue of empirical adequacy. For Snell, the theory of Mosaic authorship failed to explain the duplications/contradictions. “How can such problems be best met?” he wrote. “By utilizing, I think, a theory which shows that the several conflicting reports come from different sources. Such a theory actually does resolve these problems and I know of no other explanation which does. Another helpful rule of interpretation in this connection is that we ought to be governed in our judgments by internal evidence of the books themselves, and by such external evidence as may exist, rather than by mere tradition.”67Conversely, Sperry, recognizing both the validity of the critical arguments and the entrenched position of Mosaic authorship in Mormon tradition, resorted to a strategy of non-commitment: “If it be admitted that the Pentateuch (first five books of the Old Testament) was composed in the days of Moses—a fact denied by many—we could say that the Old Testament represents the writings of men over a period of about one thousand years.” Sperry referred to the composer(s)/editor(s) of Genesis variously as the “writer,” “author,” “narrator,” or “compiler,” always in the singular, leaving room for the reader to decide on the author's identity and the sources.68 That Sperry's stance of noncommitment is intentional here is shown by his identification of Moses as the author and compiler of Genesis in a prior Church publication.69Snell's proposal failed to make much headway, primarily because of futile attempts to convince Joseph Fielding Smith. Smith insisted that Snell's defense of liberal scholarship failed on the basis of both faulty scholarship, evidenced by a pseudo-counterargument from Smith, and insufficient external consistency. Echoing Fosdick's description of conservatives’ stereotype of liberals, Smith attacked Snell for lacking “knowledge” and “understanding” since “the things of God are not understood by the spirit of man.”70Sperry's work did not receive the same level of criticism from Smith and was adopted by some of his successors in their own Church publications. For example, ignoring the arguments for later dating, Sperry student Ellis T. Rasmussen posited: “Could other materials have been made available to Moses, from which he could ‘compose Genesis’?”71Are God's interventions in human affairs governed by jealousy and anger, as a number of Old Testament passages suggest? Given that we tend to associate these negative emotions with irrational and non-benevolent behavior, doesn't this undermine our confidence in deity? Do these apparently false characterizations of deity cast doubt on the integrity of the Old Testament and its authors?Snell favored an author bias theory superimposed on his view of progressive history. He proposed that inaccurate descriptions of God are due to unavoidable intrusions into scripture of the personal and ancient cultural prejudices of the human authors. “The stories which make parts of the Old Testament unreadable (for some people) appear in a different light if they are considered as representing relatively low stages of culture out of which, largely by the preaching of the prophets, the Hebrews moved,” he wrote. “But some bright student might ask, ‘Is not God the same in all ages?’ And we must agree at once that according to authentic Bible teaching He is. But this answer by no means carries with it the admission that man's ideas of God are the same in all ages. These have undergone change, even within the Old Testament period.”72Sperry, who was clearly interested in preserving scriptural and prophetic integrity, proposed a fallible human theory, postulating that because of their inherent conceptual limitations, humans are not able to comprehend an omni-being. For this reason, prophets were forced to portray God's attributes by employing understandable anthropomorphic features, which Sperry ingeniously recast in a favorable light. As he noted: Another [prophetic] function was to reveal God to man. Jehovah is so portrayed as to make him more comprehensible to the finite minds of His people. The Lord is represented as possessing attributes much in common with man, therefore. He spoke to the people according to their understanding and weaknesses. He was described as being jealous of the reverence paid to truth and righteousness and to Him who exemplified all good. As a result of sin and rebellion against Jehovah, He was angry with men since that which they rejected was designed for their welfare. . . . Jehovah was above all a God of love.73Sperry's theory is based on Doctrine and Covenants 1:24, where God declares that “these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding,” demonstrating its external consistency.Although Snell could potentially claim external consistency for his theory by citing the confessions of prophets such as Mormon, who admitted the possibility of error in his own writing (Mormon 8:17), his theory of progressive theology and his impugning of scriptural inspiration and integrity were resisted by conservative Mormons like Smith. Perhaps in response to Snell, Smith insisted that “The [correct] knowledge of God was known among the first inhabitants of this earth” and “Members of the Church . . . are under obligation to accept the Bible as the word of God as far as it is translated correctly.”74Conversely, Sperry's accommodation was reproduced in his 1966 Gospel Doctrine manual,75 indicating official sanction by the Church. It also appeared unchanged in the second edition of his book, which was published and republished by the Church's Deseret Book Company.76Was Jonah really swallowed by a big fish, living in the fish's stomach for three days?Conservative biblical scholars defended the historicity of the book of Jonah.77 Conversely, liberal biblical critics concluded that the story cannot be reasonably defended as factual, and thus the book of Jonah is, as scholars from the time had claimed, “no narrative of historical facts but a prose poem with a purpose. . . . All must learn that Yahweh is not the God of the Jews only but the God of all men.”78Snell proposed the synthesis theory that the book of Jonah, although not completely historical, may contain historical elements (not specified). Nevertheless, the author/narrator clearly has in mind to convey a moral message: “The solution I shall use is the theory that the book of Jonah is not simon-pure history (I do not deny possible historical elements) but a story with a teaching aim.”79Sperry agreed with Snell that it is better to focus on the moral implications of the Jonah story but also recognized the problems inherent in accepting some aspects as fictional. Sperry felt that strategies of dismissal and non-commitment were best: “We are more concerned with the teachings of the Book of Jonah than with mere technicalities or problems of criticism.” For those “who [still] wish to interpret it more technically,” Sperry summarized the evidence supporting the “historical” view and the “allegorical” view. He then advised: “Before coming to definite conclusions respecting the interpretation of the Book of Jonah the careful student will, of course, give due weight to all of the considerations pointed out above.” Sperry suggested several allegorical interpretations: “God's divine grace is universal”, the importance of “obedience” to divine commands, the fulfillment of “prophecy is conditional” upon repenta