Kevin Christensen

I've read the Dialogue essay on Historicity issues linked to the start of this discussion a few times now. I think this comment in the essay is key: That reminds me of this comment about Bacon by Karl Popper: The point is that in just the way that Bacon argues for an unquestionable Ptolemaic view, with the Sun at the center of things, on grounds of overwhelming obviousness, so it seems to him, but without addressing the problematic issue of planetary motions, the troublesome epicycles that troubled Copernicus and Kepler, and Galileo enough to rethink theory and observations, so the supposedly obvious and unquestionable "hemispheric language" ignores all of the telling textual details in the Book of Mormon that when considered, preclude such a reading. If the Land of Nephi in the South is about 21 days on foot to Zarahemla also in the South, for a mixed group of families and flocks, and Limhi's explorers must have known that when they went from their location in the Land of Nephi, looking for Zarahemla, and passed through the narrow neck into a Jaredite location and could mistake it for Zarahemla, that precludes a hemispheric geography. None those who offered a hemispheric interpretation have ever mentioned this. That is like Bacon, addressing the obvious, without accounting for the telling details of planetary motion. And If the early Saints obviously thought of the indigenous peoples of the New World as Lamanites, it does not show that they paid close attention to the fact that Jacob, a first generation writer in the Book of Mormon, in his first public discourse, for the newly relocated portion the community that followed Nephi from the Land of the First Inheritance, is on the theme of how "how “Gentiles shall be blessed and numbered among the house of Israel” (2 Nephi 10:18), and in his own book makes the point that he and the book will use "Lamanite" as a blanket term for political unfriendlies, not as a designation of lineage, nor of righteousness. It makes a great deal of sense, Kuhn says, to ask "Which paradigm is better?" where the question of "better" should be asked in terms that are not completely paradigm dependent. And because deciding which paradigm is better always involves deciding, "Which problems are more significant to have solved?" that means conclusions will differ. We are not forced to conclusions by facts, but persuaded to them in terms of what we choose to notice and to most value, based on different paradigmatic frameworks. That is exactly why Jesus says criticism should start with self-criticism, checking on the beams in one's own eye first. The beams, I think, being our preconceived ways of thinking. We cannot argue that Bacon, the father of the scientific method, was not being scientific or rational or logical, but we can clearly see that he was not self-critical of his own assumptions. The beam in his own eye obscured his vision and as a consequence, he did not see clearly. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better. (Luke 5:38–39) Williams rather neatly illustrates the point that "all data are theory laden" by offering an abstract description of of a text meant to suggest the Book of Mormon when he subsequently reveals that it is a notably dubious "The Travels of Marco Polo." In this, we should notice that paradigms are by definition, established by standard examples of scientific work. We learn to see one situation as like another. The likening both establishes the paradigm that defines a way of seeing. Williams then says this: Which problems are more significant to have solved? That question defines the change from the Old Maxwell Institute to the new on in 2016. Should we speak to the scholars (meaning, the dominant consensus at the Universities, or the Saints? They deliberately chose the universities and formalized that with the massive website overhaul in 2016. Williams moves to say this: Joseph Campbell explains in various places (such as The Power of Myth) that one of the functions of a mythology is to "sustain a particular social order." Various stories and labels applied to allow a high level dismissal of both the Book of Mormon and the best scholar's who defend it operate for exactly this purpose. A story is told about "parallelomania" or "defense attorneys who start with conclusions" rather than "investigators objectively following the facts where ever they lead." We then are to take those stories as paradigmatic, as providing a way to pre-assess and value whole bodies of work by hundreds of scholars using a range of professional specialties without need to bother with the details. Williams discusses the issue of colonialism, how the concept of Lamanite affects the self-identity of various LDS members to whom the label was been applied, and also the attitudes of various groups of LDS in their attitudes towards them. But I cannot help but notice that in all that blunt and serious consideration of various conflicted interests and attitudes, there is no discussion of the implications of Jacob's political definition as "those who seek to destroy the people of Nephi" (Jacob 1:14), his discussion of how the Gentiles "Shall bring thy sons in their arms, and they daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders" (2 Nephi 6:6) and on how “Gentiles shall be blessed and numbered among the house of Israel” (2 Nephi 10:18). So we are mixed together, and all the children of God, and are all to treat one another as such, regardless of lineage and what matters most is how we behave. And overall, I think of this: So I always find it illuminating to consider the stories and notions a person puts forward as dominant metaphors, to which we are to liken everything, and through which, various people suggest we view at least a portion of the world, for various reasons, and with different degrees of self-reflection, offer as keys to understanding. We can't escape such things. But we ought to be self-aware, as a first step. Of the beams in our eyes. "Then shall ye see clearly." FWIW, Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA

More precisely, that is Burnett's report of what Harris said. Richard L. Anderson has much to say about building a picture on first hand reports that are part of a consistent picture versus second hand, later reports that appear anomalous and inconsistent. Notice that Burnett's report of Harris's report of the 8 witnesses experience is 3rd hand hearsay. Not to be preferred to what the eight themselves reported. It says nothing about the experiences of Emma Smith and Mary Whitmer. FWIW, Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA

All good questions, Juliann, as usual. I can provide detailed references on what what the Bible describes as the 28 defining characteristics of a prophet. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/prophettestsfv5.pdf I include notice that the 70 or so arguments by Biblical peoples against true prophets always boil down to them saying "It's not what I think" and/or "It's not what I want." When Jesus says, "By their fruits shall ye know them," he compares that to distinguishing figs from thistles, or grapes from thorns, that is based on their defining characteristics rather than against one's personal, subjective taste, personal preference and desire. A perfect thorn is not a grape and therefore did not come from a grape vine. And even a bird-pecked grape or raisin, however distasteful it may appear to you, demonstrates a connection to a living grape vine. When I first assembled all of the Biblical tests, I wondered why no one had done before? Anyone could have done it, and no one had. Eventually I realized that if you measure the prophets against your own personal taste and desire, that ensures you get an answer that you want, one that won't require the sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. The process of discerning true prophets is designed to call forth that that kind of sacrifice, putting at risk what we think and what we want, and the arguments against true prophets always simultaneously define exactly where a person will not sacrifice what they think and what they want. For example, Jesus says criticism should begin by being self-critical, removing the beams from one's own eye. such as a faulty expectation of true prophets. "Then shall ye see clearly." For example, one argument that Jesus did not measure up to an observer's high ideals is "Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that this man [Lazarus] should not have died?" This is a variation on the common "bad things happening to good people demonstrates that there is no God" meme, and the usefulness of "raising the bar" higher when confronted by notable "cause to believe." And it also bears examination in light of the Hofstadter quote I frequently offer: "The important thing to remember is that proofs are demonstrations within fixed systems of propositions." and "Godel showed that provability is a weaker notion than truth, no matter what axiomatic system is involved." The arguments that rest on the proposition that "It's not how I would have things be if I were God" always rest on the demonstrably feeble proposition that if God exists, he would do it my way. That is, such thinking is a beam in one's own eye that distorts our perception of what is real. We cannot see clearly if we think that way. And Jesus is notably cautionary against "reading the words as they are written" with the Parable of the Sower, noting that the same words planted in different soil, nurtured in different ways, can produce vastly different harvests. "Know ye not this parable? How then can ye know all parables?" At the trial of Jesus, those who testified that he claimed that he would tear down the temple and raise it in three days, demonstrate exactly the reason for his cautionary language. What I think it means just, possibly, may not be what Jesus meant, or meant to do, or accomplish. Isaiah 55 eloquently explores the notion that "My word shall accomplish what I intend..." as a long term process, based on his perspective and plan, and understanding. Not ours. But we can learn to see from him, to acquire a greater understanding, at the simple cost of making the sacrifice of a broken heart, and a contrite spirit. FWIW, Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA

Richard L. Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses remains an essential classic. It includes an apt chapter on "The Case Against the Witnesses." He also produced an important chapter on "The Personal Writings of the Book of Mormon Witnesses" in Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited. https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/personal-writings-book-mormon-witnesses FAIR has this on the eight. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Statement_of_the_Eight_Witnesses and the three. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Statement_of_the_Three_Witnesses And of course, Anderson also has chapter on the informal witnesses, including Mary Whitmer and Emma Smith. FWIW, Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA

Good. And it looks like you started reading her before I did. Well done! Summer 1999, stumbling onto a copy of The Great Angel at a Dallas Half Price books.

At length and in detail, using references like those in the PowerPoint I used in the interview by Robert Boylan. The main issue is that the 2 Kings account is in the Bible, which means, "the Bible says that Josiah was the best and most perfect King since Moses." If the Bible says it in the obvious proof text, it must be so. Nothing more to think about. No other information to consider, including other parts of the Bible. I responded to Bill Hamblin's "Vindicating Josiah," who was in fact my editor for "Paradigms Regained" in an Interpreter essay in 2016. https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/prophets-and-kings-in-lehis-jerusalem-and-margaret-barkers-temple-theology/ Barker herself gave a talk at BYU on Josiah in 2003, which was published in Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem. Her key insight for me there that "Josiah's changes concerned the high priests, and were thus, changes at the very heart of the temple." It's online here. She also shows that the religion that Josiah suppresses was not Canaanite but rather the religion of Abraham and the patriarchs, and that all of the elements that Josiah suppressed reappear in Christianity. And for LDS, the fact that Josiah burned and destroyed the tree of life, and that Lehi has a vision of the tree of life should draw some consideration. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/mi/39/ I responded at length to the BYU Studies essay by Eliason/Crawford in a section of "Twenty Years after Paradigms Regained" Part 2, pages 65-68. https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/twenty-years-after-paradigms-regained-part-2-responding-to-margaret-barkers-critics-and-why-her-work-should-matter-to-latter-day-saints/ I've got more in a forthcoming essay responding to Grant Hardy's ever so brief dismissal in The Annotated Book of Mormon. My response is not ever so brief. But here is what he says, and how I start to respond. The arguments I have dealt with basically treat the question of Josiah as a bad influence as unthinkable. So there is very little engagement with Barker's case, or mine for that matter. Just a dismissal of the notion that a case to the contrary could be made by anyone. Hamblin comes closest to engagement, but even he does not engage her evidence closely. Hamblin points to Jer. 44:17-23, as criticizing the Queen of Heaven. But I see the situation as requiring a much broader take to demonstrate Jeremiah's attitude. That verse, I think, ought to be read in parallel with Jeremiah's critique of the Jerusalem temple. He was not anti-Temple, but very opposed to the notion of ritual without accompanying repentance. Incidentally, Barker's most detailed approach to Jeremiah is in the Mother of the Lord. Hardy and Elaison and Julie Smith (a very good scholar in her other work) all just dismiss the question that Josiah might have done something bad, and don't seriously wrestle with the opposition and the published arguments out there. ""By proving contrarities, truth is made manifest," said Joseph Smith. By suppressing contrarities, ideology is manifest. FWIW, Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA

When did you meet her? I managed at the BYU Seminar in 2003 in Provo, the Joseph Smith Conference in 2005, when she spoke in Yonkers, NY to the Orthodox leaders there in 2012, when she was at FAIR in Provo in 2015 (I saw her talking there with Maxine Hanks who had recently been rebaptized), and once in 2016, when my wife and I got back to Europe for the first time since our missions, we visited Hugh and Margaret at their home in Derbyshire for dinner. There are many other LDS scholars I know who have spent more time with her than I have, Jack Welch and Professor Hall, for instance. And when I spoke at the Conference on Hebrews at BYU, I met two women who had taken her summer school classes in England. They said about a third of the attendees were LDS, and that Barker likes them "Because they know what I am talking about."

Expectations are important. And with respect to expectations, "What should I expect?" turns out to be a very different question that "What do I expect?" and it's frequent companion "What do I want?" D&C 1 formally states what I should expect: That expectation is, I submit, consistent with the evidence of the Bible and all of human history. The notion that God would not permit or allow individuals or societies to do or think anything that might not full embody his will is not the lesson I get from, say, the story of Samuel and Saul and Israel's desire for a King, or of Samuel's sons, or of David, or Solomon, or the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, or the crucifixion of Jesus, or Peter's denial, or the loss of 116 pages of translation, or Mountain Meadows, or John C. Bennet, or ... anything really. M. Scott Peck famously said that "Sanity is commitment to reality at all costs." And the cost of discovering reality always turns out to be what Jesus calls the sacrifice of a broken heart, and a contrite spirit. Asking "What should I expect?" involves being self-critical, not just judgmental relative to what I think is so, and what I want to be so. Truth is knowledge of things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come. Getting that knowledge is a tall order. We see partially, and through a glass darkly. We can improve, but that requires repentance, as an ongoing eternal process. Not stasis on grounds that if we have the Truth, then nothing can or should change. Of the "only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth with which I the Lord am well pleased,"... the passage goes on to deliberately and realistically describe the Lord Membership bestows opportunity and accountability. Not exclusive virtue and perfect leaders and an ideal history free of human folly. Asking whether the LDS Church leaders have, at times demonstrated important inspiration, is a very different question than asking whether they have behaved always like God's own sock puppets, on the assumption that we are currently capable of evaluating that case in light of current personal knowledge. FWIW, Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA

I do have Temple Mysticism on my shelf. I reviewed it for Interpreter several years back. https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/book-review-temple-mysticism-an-introduction-by-margaret-barker/ My first serious exposure to mysticism came from reading a chapter in Nibley's The World and The Prophets where mysticism involved "“an intuitive and ecstatic union with the deity obtained by means of contemplation and other mental exercises.”3 He emphasizes the incommunicable nature of the experiences, the impersonal view of deity, and the need for a teacher/guide to direct the student on the path to illumination." The important thing for LDS readers is that Barker defines mysticism differently. For her, it involves "seeing the Lord." Her defining examples of temple mystics are Isaiah and John. With Isaiah, she cites the vision in Isaiah 6, in which the prophet reports, “I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne.” She then comments that “John identified the enthroned figure of Isaiah’s vision as Jesus in glory, showing that Jesus’ closest disciples understood him in the context of temple mysticism, and indeed identified him as the figure at the very centre of the mystical vision” (p. 2). Barker explains that “Jesus himself received visions in the manner of temple mystics, and that these formed the core of Revelation,” and she says that recognizing this is “important for recovering temple mysticism and for establishing its key role in early Christianity” (p. 24). As to her etymology, I'm impressed. She started teaching herself Hebrew when she was 13, and continues to be fascinated with word play, which she see as a characteristic aspect of the Wisdom style., and also variant texts, alternate readings, the effect of different contextualization and nurture, Targums and the patterns that emerge from them. You might compare the kinds of things that Matthew Bowen has been exploring in his essays and books. https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/author/matthewb/?journal Plus I think of Joseph Smith's comment in D&C 128: 18 "I might have rendered a plainer translation to this, but it is sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands. It is sufficient to know, in this case,..." I think of Jesus speaking to the Nephites at the temple in 3 Nephi 17:2-3 "I perceive that ye are weak, that ye cannot understand all my words which I am commanded of the Father to speak unto you at this time. Therefore, go ye unto your homes, and ponder upon the things which I have said, and ask of the Father, in my name, that ye may understand, and prepare your minds for the morrow, and I come unto you again." And 2 Nephi 25:5 "there is none other people that understand the things which were spoken unto the Jews like unto them, save it be that they are taught after the manner of the things of the Jews." Plus some of Joseph Smith's annotations in Fascimile 2. "If the world can find out these numbers, so let it be. Amen." and "The above translation is given as far as we have any right to give at the present time." That leaves us room for expansion, for not only finding more in the translation we have in the Book of Mormon, but drawing on further light and knowledge. And I always come away from Barker with a feeling that my mind has been expanded, my understanding enlightened. I think it can be a worthwhile project to plug her insights into our scriptures and see what comes to light. She's not a rival to the Restoration, but is I think, a part of it. Only that reasonably explains to me the depth of fit and ongoing fruitfulness her work has with the Restoration. FWIW, Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA

Well, I am an English major, and we studied Keats. Ode to a Grecian Urn. Interesting guy, some lovely work. I prefer, and am far more impressed by William Blake. who died in 1827, just too soon to have read the Book of Mormon, alas. I have long had an ambition to compare Blake and Joseph Smith at length, but time and resources and other life demands divert me. But before I settled on my English Major and finished it at San Jose State, I attended the University of Utah 18th Branch, where a recent convert explained that his path to the LDS faith went through the Romantic poets. He saw something new and impressive coming into the world through the Romantics a kind of inspiration, and breaking of mental shackles, and wanted to see what it was all pointing towards. What was all this world shaking inspiration a precursor for and what was it pointing to. So he found, and read the Book of Mormon. Ode to a Grecian Urn is a lovely poem, but I see the context of Lehi's Journey from Jerusalem in 600 BCE to Bountiful as something far more than a dying poet's creative mediation on the tension between the static chase, static life, unheard music, potential sacrifice, depicted on an urn, Keats, dying, contemplating the tension between the stasis of the art, the fleeting, dynamic life, it depicted, and his own immanent mortality. Lehi too, was a poet, as was Nephi, of a different sort, using different forms. But the same opposing tensions that mark the distance between the art of the urn and the life it points towards, also appear in Lehi's and Nephi's poetry. Opposition in all things. Creative tension that testifies and illuminates the creator. Something quite different than a longing for absolutes. FWIW, Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA

Analytics wrote: That is Joseph Smith being careful and precise about what Joseph personally saw. What that implies to you (not to me) about Martin Harris's first-hand experience (not Joseph's and not yours) is far less important to me than what Harris did and said in relation to that witness for the rest of his life. And what the witnesses collectively demonstrate. And, on top of that, my own wide ranging explorations of the Book of Mormon demonstrate in comparison to a succession of competing explanations I have tested. Regarding what is and what is not proven, I keep quoting this from Hofstadter. "The important thing to keep in mind is that proofs are demonstrations within fixed systems of propositions" and that "Godel showed that provability is a weaker notion than truth, no matter what axiomatic system is involved." (Godel, Escher and Bach, 18-19.) And this from Ian Barbour on the same situation, on the notion that some branch of science has definitively falsified my LDS faith: https://www.religion-online.org/book-chapter/chapter-6-paradigms-in-science/ From Barbour's wonderful book, Myths, Models and Paradigms: A Comparative Study of Science and Religion. One of my all time favorite books. What a person chooses to measure, and what measurements they choose to generalize and how far they apply those generalizations tends to be very telling. But such generalizations always fall short of demonstrating final omniscience. A few weeks ago, my wife ran across this exploration of Death, which begins where you think, with medical definitions. But does not end there. From Analytics: Does he now? I just peeked at what Wikipedia has to say: "Naturalism – he doesn’t favour the word atheism – defines the world entirely in terms of physical forces, fields and entities, and these forces and fields are unforgiving: they do not permit telekinesis, psychic powers, miracles, life after death or an immortal soul."[2] Robert P. Crease in his review for Nature praised The Big Picture for its ambition and directness while finding Carroll's treatment of philosophical topics unsatisfyingly shallow..." Nibley's essays on the Sophic and Mantic are relevant. As is Ian Barbour. From Analytics: It's of interest to me to have come across the ancient Jewish traditions of Messiah Ben Joseph, who would initiate the gathering of Israel to prepare for the coming of Messiah Ben Judah. John Tvedtnes was teaching in Jerusalem, thinking he'd describe the life of Joseph Smith, and then introduce the Messiah Ben Joseph Traditions. It turned out he didn't have to. The Rabbis in his class started whispering about Messiah Ben Joseph before he finished with Joseph Smith. (There is a good essay on the topic by Joseph McConkie in the Religious Studies volume on Isaiah and the Prophets., online now) But regarding the claim that the Book of Mormon lacks specificity on what happens after it was published, well D&C 3 is pretty confident on what will happen, and what has in fact happened. But as to specificity in the Book of Mormon, there is 1 Nephi 13:20-41 on the transmission of the Hebrew Bible, the loss of plain and precious things, the eventual appearance of the Book of Mormon, and then the subsequent discovery of other books via the Gentiles that will also restore the lost plain and precious things, including many "covenants of the Lord," 1 Nephi 13:26, and notice that the "Early Christians in Disarray" volume has a detailed chapter on the "Loss of Covenant in Christian History" and beyond that Robert Murray's important book The Cosmic Covenant aka the Eternal Covenant, or Covenant of Peace, or the Covenant between God and Every Living Creature, the knowledge of which has thereby been restored as a plain and precious thing,) and specifically the notion that "these last records which thou hast seen shall establish the truth of the first...and shall make known the plain and precious things which have been taken away from them; and shall make known to all kindreds, tongues and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world..." I've been making the case that Margaret Barker has drawn on recently discovered texts outside the Bible that have been discovered and published via the gentles to demonstrate knowledge of the Eternal Covenant and to argue that the Lamb of God (i.e. the Servant in Isaiah... Lamb and Servant have the same consonants in Aramaic) was Yahweh, the Son of El Elyon God Most High and is the Savior of the World. That is very specific and detailed and not something anticipated or expected outside of Nephi's prophesy. It happens that Barker's "Text and Context" essay and 1 Nephi 13 tell the same story about the loss and restoration of plain and precious things. And there are details in the Book of Mormon like this, in Alma 2, as Larry Poulson points out: He shows how the details given in the Book of Mormon match the geography to the extent that: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2008-Larry-Poulsen.pdf If that was the only correspondence, it would be pretty cool, but there is far, far more to it than that. And on the Journey from Jerusalem to Bountiful. For me to be persuaded from my faith, I would require a theory that actually predicts and accounts for these kinds of details, and much much more that I have learned in 50 years of serious study. Regarding ancient writing on metal, there are many examples relevant to the Book of Mormon. But the Brass Plates, the 24 Jaredite plates, and Nephi's small and large plates amount to one example from Jerusalem, one from the Jaredites and two related sets from the Nephite records. I would not over-generalize about what kind of evidence to expect from the ancient world based on those notable, exceptional texts. Most of the records were on perishable materials. Yet I am fascinated that the oldest surviving Biblical text dates to Jersusalem and 600 BCE and includes the priestly blessing from Numbers 6 about May the Lord's face Shine upon you, which is relevant to the opening of the Book of Mormon and the controversies of the Deuteronomists, and the plates of Laban and its Books of Moses and to the climax of the Book of Mormon where the Lord's face shines on the surviving Nephites gathered at the temple in direct fulfillment of that specific blessing, recorded on metal in Jerusalem. FWIW, Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA

There is this on what is, from Jesus, who should know, and what is not doctrine, and on the dire consequences of offering up anything more or less. Notably missing from the definition of "my doctrine" is any comprehensive list or reference to a Big Book of What to Think, or Orthodox Authority, or traditional understanding of any particular notion, let alone, anything about race whatsoever. Definitive and telling in relation to that alternate foundation candidate are ongoing Repentance (which means to turn our minds), which includes not only repentance from sin, but also from ignorance, error and misinformation as an ongoing process, and seeking Holy Ghost (that is, ongoing revelation, rather than embracing a Big Book of What to Think). Building one's foundation elsewhere is inviting catastrophic failure, which, of course, some have reason to invite. They want the rhetorical advantage that pointing to spectacular failure bestows upon those who point and mock, and nevermind the problem of lacking a foundation themselves. FWIW, Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA Canonsburg, PA

Robert Boylan had a Zoom with me on Saturday. FWIW, Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA

Back in 1998 or so, when I lived in Lawrence, KS, FARMS arranged to have a traveling Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit at the Topeka Stake House. My wife and I were ushers. For a time, I stood next to a life-sized replica of the Golden Plates. One thing that struck me powerfully on that occasion is that the replica was singularly unimpressive at a glance. The characters on the top few plates seemed all wrong, not looking like ancient engravings or gold for a moment, but rather looking like a prop, not the creation of a dedicated artisan, but of a workman. A stand in for something real that it did not bother to fully embody. Just to give the idea, to fill a space, but not to be real. The characters on the next few pages were clearly not even trying to resemble ancient writings, and most of the leaves were blank. The weight and texture of the materials was wrong, especially compared to the eye-witness descriptions from Joseph and Emma and various other witnesses. I've also read Richard L. Anderson's Investigating the Three Witnesses, and various attempts to simply brush aside the various testimonies, notably the hyper-focus on "spiritual eyes" compared to first hand responses by David Whitmer and Harris and Oliver Cowdery. And the eight, and the other informal witnesses. One very strong impression I got from reading Anderson's research is that the plates were very real to Joseph and his associates and his neighbors. Even those who never saw them knew he had something real. They searched the house to find them. Emma moving the plates around, rustling the pages with her thumb, does not fall under the knowing, cynical dismissal of the product of "spiritual eyes." Whitmer, of course, insisted that spiritual eyes was enhanced perception of something real. An angel and plates. But the eight and Emma did not describe their experience as spiritual eyes. Rather physical encounters. If Joseph Smith had the resources to produce the prop plates as mediocre as the ones I saw, I cannot imagine them having the required effects on anyone, let alone securing Harris's financial backing, or the lifelong assertions from the witnesses, even after they left the church. They were simply not good enough. The Kinderhook plates caused a bit of a stir, but nothing comparable to the Golden Plates. Who tried to buy them? Nor a potentially ruinous farm mortgage? Not even like the Nauvoo community effort to raise a few thousand, as happened with the Egyptian Papyrus? What life changing text did they induce? How about angels and witnesses? No. Just a parasitic exploitation of a circumstance much larger and much more profound than they were or could ever be. And eventually exposed as a fraud, a joke, while the Story of Joseph Smith's plates goes around the world. One thing about the plates I find very interesting is that they caused an impressive stir and produced effects, not just the witnesses, and scorn from some neighbors. But we have a large and impressive book that Joseph says he translated from the plates. Now Stirling McMurrin famously told Blake Ostler that "I learned when I was younger than I can remember that you don't get books from angels and translate them by revelation. It's just that simple." I find two things very significant in that. It wasn't McMurrin's extensive education and life experience and careful investigation that led him to that conclusion, but rather, a child's insight that he never subsequently outgrew or questioned. "Younger than I can remember." And McMurrin never bothered to read the Book of Mormon. He wrote an essay when Signature published the Roberts Study, and that was that. Deferring to Roberts as "Authority" when Roberts in 1923 did not have the resources for testing the Book in context that we have now. Would Roberts have discarded Nibley and Sorenson and Gardner and Welch and FARMS as not worth reading? I think not. Or would he have welcomed and embraced them? I think so. Joseph Smith not only produced plates that secured lifelong testimonies from the three, and the eight, and his wife, and Mary Whitmer, and a neighbor who claimed to have seen plates through a window, but a life that was extraordinary. And even more extraordinary than the story of the plates and the witnesses, their subsequent lives, and Joseph Smith's life, is the published translation, The Book of Mormon. One of the oldest revelations we have, one of the earliest writings in church history is D&C 3, from July 1828, produced after Joseph Smith had lost the 116 pages, lost the plates and the Urim and Thummim, and has at that point absolutely nothing going for him except spectacular failure, and that short revelation. "Nevertheless, my work shall go forth..." And it has gone forth through all the world. Is that an effect without a cause? If not real plates and inspiration, and angels, what caused the extraordinary outcome? And "somehow" does not measure up if we require puzzle definition and testability, accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, fruitfulness, simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise as criteria for evaluating the worth of the paradigm. Not just a book, but a book that has been scrutinized from a wide range specific questions by thousands of trained specialists drawing on resources that no one in the world had access to in Joseph Smith's day. Here is a book that describes cultures and regions and a wide range of human experience on an epic scale, ranging from Asia, and Jerusalem 600 BCE, and a detailed journey across the Arabian Desert, and to the New World. I've read a wide range of counter-explanations, but one thing they all have in common is that none of them bother to fully define the problem that the content of the Book presents. Ann Taves, for instance, reduces the problem of the Book of Mormon to its bulk and perhaps some matters of style. The witnesses? "Somehow...." An explanation that does not fully define the problem the book represents therefore does not fully explain the book. The witnesses do not prove the Book of Mormon, but they are part of the problem that the Book of Mormon defines. They contribute to what Alma describes as "cause to believe," that falls short of perfect knowledge. FWIW Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA

So far, no one has addressed the Book of Mormon text and context. We are disagreeing with a culturally conditioned reading of the Book of Mormon. Not disagreeing with the Book of Mormon. Abraham 1:2 refers to him seeking to be "a greater follower of righteousness and to possess greater knowledge..." That is depicted as a good thing, a good example. Rather than to be "a strict and unbending follower of orthodoxy and traditional opinion which is unquestionable." FWIW, Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA