Two notes on Cleon Skousen’s Thousand Years series

Cleon Skousen, via Wikipedia

Cleon Skousen‘s opening book in his Old Testament series came off the Bookcraft press in 1953, The First 2000 Years.  Skousen had worked on the series for 15 years, to “try and bring together in one volume everything the Church has received thus far concerning the first 2000 years of human history— from Adam to Abraham.”¹Preface

Smith and Skousen

Although in many ways Skousen reflected Joseph Fielding Smith’s own assumptions and interpretations, Smith was not a fan. In numerous personal letters, he counseled people to ignore Skousen. To one, he wrote “I advise you to forget what was published in the book The First 2,000 Years.”

To another in 1956, “The book written by Brother Skousen, The First 2000 Years, contains some errors that have come back to plague us.”

Ten years later, “Dear Sister _____, Please do not pay attention to the book The First 2000 Years as a book of doctrine.”

Smith had strong feelings about Skousen’s work being flawed, and I agree… although not for the same reasons.

Skousen and Sources

Skousen read scripture much as Smith did, as a divine encyclopedia of historical, scientific, and doctrinal facts. Skousen  cites scripture in the footnotes, with very few other sources mentioned. Consequently, when he does cite something non-scriptural, it reveals what he was depending on intellectually, and that he thought the source important enough to cite and publicize.

One of those few sources is part and parcel of the same literature Smith read and circulated. When Skousen discusses the flood, he cites Alfred Rehwinkel’s 1951 The Flood: In the Light of the Bible, Geology, and Archaeology, a “passionate defense of Biblical inerrancy.”²Gordon- Velikovsky and Pseudoscience, 144.Rehwinkel, a Lutheran theologian at Concordia Theological Seminary, had received some training in geology at the University of Alberta.

Rehwinkel’s book “firmly endorse[d] strict young-earth creationism and Flood Geology.”³McIver- Creationism: Intellectual Origins, Cultural Context, and Theoretical Diversity Flood Geology? That tradition belongs to a name that should be familiar to readers at this point; and indeed, Rehwinkel’s book served as  “a popularization of George McCready Price’s catastrophism”⁴Ronald Numbers- The Creationists

Price founded modern young-earth creationism based on his Seventh-day Adventist understandings of Genesis, and he dominates the understandings of millions of Christians today, even if they don’t know his name.

For Latter-day Saint history, Joseph Fielding Smith read Price’s books as early as 1926, recommended them to other Apostles, pushed them to CES teachers, and echoed Price in Man, His Origin and Destiny. For more on Price and Smith, see an overview here, more elaboration here, some 1934 history here, some of the Adventist history here; for a short bibliography on Flood Geology, here at the bottom

And so, although Skousen may be easy to read, as a summary of the Old Testament, I think there are good reasons to avoid him. One is Joseph Fielding Smith’s doctrinal concerns about his book. The other is that his scriptural analyses reflect fundamentalist and so-called “literalist” approaches to scripture, like Rehwinkel. For what I mean by “fundamentalist” see here. For so-called “literalism”, see here and here.

What might be better for Latter-day Saints? Pick up Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament  if you can find a copy, and a good Study Bible. (What’s a study bible, you say? Here and here.)

Recommended reading (Amazon affiliate links below and above):

• Ronald Numbers, The Creationists: From Scientific Creation to Intelligent Design (Harvard Press, 2006)
• Gordin, The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
• Thomas McIver, Creationism: Intellectual Origins, Cultural Context, and Theoretical Diversity (PhD Diss, UCLA, 1989)

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