Comments on: Book Review: Shall Millions Now Know Brother Joseph Again? (Part 4-FIN)

By: John Hamer

John Hamer — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:59:57 +0000

Thanks for producing this review, Jared. It’s never easy to find yourself forced to write a harsh review.

What a strange exercise the author engaged in! Let’s take 9 images, assume they are all real, until we can eliminate 8 and end up with the real real one. Wow.

Framing this exercise as a way to justify using the Scannel daguerreotype to produce a more perfect painting of Joseph is doubly bizarre. I was surprised when I saw the cover of this book was a painting of the daguerreotype, rather than a reproduction of the daguerreotype itself. Anyone can be inspired to paint the most inspired painting of Joseph tomorrow; the cool thing about the daguerreotype — if were Joseph — is that it would be the only known photomechanical image of the prophet dating from his lifetime.

Was there no discussion in this book of the daguerreotype’s unfortunately flimsy provenance? The provenance is the key here. Without a reason to connect the image to Joseph, we might as well use color-dot-software to analyze every image of everyone to find the real real photo of the prophet. Maybe it really is the bearded photo. That one seemed to be dismissed too hastily.

By: Times & Seasons » That Daguerreotype Again (2 of 2)

Times & Seasons » That Daguerreotype Again (2 of 2) — Mon, 05 May 2008 01:20:47 +0000

[...] Smith, including the Scannel daguerreotype. I have carefully avoided reading Jared T’s review, Part 4, dealing with these chapters, wanting to be fair to author S. Michael Tracy by offering an [...]

By: Joe

Joe — Sun, 04 May 2008 23:54:00 +0000

I commented back in the other blog posting. Thank you for responding so thoroughly Jared.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:16:24 +0000

Jared,
I appreciate your pointing out to me that I have four fingers pointing back at me. Please forgive my brash way of critiquing your review, especially the “emotionally unstable” part.
I should have looked at my own life and perhaps realized that there is a “beam in my own eye”.
I will not try and reword my thoughts of your review at this point, but will just offer my sincere apologies!!
Patrick

By: Jared T

Jared T — Sat, 03 May 2008 16:58:35 +0000

Joe, I have posted my response as a new post. I hope that answers your questions.

By: Times & Seasons » That Daguerreotype Again (part 1 of 2)

Times & Seasons » That Daguerreotype Again (part 1 of 2) — Sat, 03 May 2008 04:21:27 +0000

[...] The Joseph Smith Photograph (Salt Lake City: Eborn Pub., 2008), Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 What follows here is not a formal review, but simply a personal reaction to the whole book here, [...]

By: Joel

Joel — Sat, 03 May 2008 04:13:43 +0000

Wow, Jared this was a momentous review. I thoroughly appreciate your work and thoughts. What a devastating critique–I should have you read some of my stuff, I can always use the help. It sounds like Tracy has problems critically proving what he claims the text will do–always a valid criticism in my view. I also feel vindicated that my discussion of methodology did at least some good. I am glad that you think Tracy might at least start a conversation about the validity of forensic evidence in the study of history

By: Joe

Joe — Sat, 03 May 2008 03:10:52 +0000

Very honest review.

Jared T-
It sounds to me like you disagree with Tracy’s methods but not his outcomes? Or in other words do you feel that his evidence is relevant but just a poor organization of the material?

The reason I ask, it seems to me that with such obvious flaws in writing and editing the reader should be able to distance themselves from those negatives and see the real point of what the author was trying to say, albeit very scattered? I could be wrong, but I was curious about your opinion on that point after reading your review.

Also, when you talked to Tracy at the open house, did you find him as scattered in person, or was this just an example of not being able to convey his information in mwriting?

Because I met him as well and I got the impression that he was very thorough with the research. However, after reading your review it seems that the book was not able to capture that same impression.

Any comment for further clarification? Thanks.

By: Kevin Barney

Kevin Barney — Sat, 03 May 2008 02:22:46 +0000

Thanks for the review.

I hope someday someone will approach this subject more credibly. It’s an interesting subject, but I can’t keep track of all the nonsense that circulates. Was that one dauuereotype an original from which a painting was made, or vice verse, for instance? I know there are different views, but I can’t keep straight in my mind the arguments and who takes what position and so forth. There just seems to be a bunch of crap all over the place on Joseph Smith images. We need some solid, disinterested scholarship on this subject, even if the conclusion ends up being totally agnostic on the subject.

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 03 May 2008 00:21:50 +0000

I finally got to finish reading all of the reviews; very well done, Jared. I think I add my sighs about this book with the rest of the commenters. The sad thing is I fear that a lot of people are just going to take the statements of the book at face-value.

One thing that I was hoping to hear more about was the provenance of the scannel image. Most of the blog comments (here and at T&S) focused around trying to figure out what the connection would be, and I remember *someone* even promising that convincing evidence would be given in the book. Did Tracy give a convincing provenance to the photo?