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It seems like you are making Dan an offender for a word: "Resurrection is another thing that, from an academic point of view, that's a physical impossibility. And so without extraordinary evidence for that, there's no way a scholar can say 'Yes, this makes sense,' because it doesn't. It violates everything we know about the operation of the universe. So the bar for that kind of evidence is even higher, and we don't have data that come anywhere near getting us over that bar. So from a scholarly point of view, the resurrection is not something that is supported by the data." It's exactly the same claim that you are making. "Without extraordinary evidence" there is no way someone that uses the historical critical method can confirm a miracle on the order of the resurrection. He lays it out. Much pithier than you I might add.

So the reference to virgins in Doctrine and Covenants 132 is different from 1 Nephi 11:15–20, 2 Nephi 17:14, and Alma 7:10?

It's possible where some unforeseen death occurs before consumation or they choose to remain celibate.

This is an interesting suggestion. I would like to better understand it. What does "should" mean here? In a criminal case, the evidentiary bar "should" be and is, "much higher" than in a civil case because because of factors such as A) the severity of consequences (loss of liberty is possible in a criminal case, not so for a civil one), B) presumption of innocence and allocation of risk (as a starting premise), C) Due Process, D) power imbalance and E) historical experience, observation, and design. The "should" is clear and justified. But what does "should" mean in the context of accepting or rejecting, say, the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, His divine Sonship, His role as our Savior and Redeemer, and so on? "Higher" than what? What quantum of evidence is in play? Preponderance? Clear and Convincing? Beyond Reasonable Doubt? Something else? Says who? Who is it that declares that "the bar for establishing a miraculous event should be much higher," and why is that person's say-so authoritative? For what purpose? Evidence is adduced in, say, civil litigation to establish or disestablish the facts of a dispute between two sides and how the law applies to those facts. "{T}he bar for establishing a miraculous event should be much higher" in order to . . . do what? What are the rules of evidence? What does and does not count as admissible? What is the probative weight assigned? Who gets to determine all this? I am curious if you accept, as historical fact, the assassination of Caesar on the floor of the Senate. Julius Caesar was assassinated on 15 March 44 BCE (the Ides of March) during a meeting of the Senate held in the Curia of the Theatre of Pompey. A group of senators (led by Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius, with others including the Casca brothers, Tillius Cimber, and Decimus Brutus) attacked him with daggers. He was stabbed multiple times (accounts vary between 23 and 35 wounds) and died at the foot of a statue of Pompey. Main surviving sources: Nicolaus of Damascus (contemporary, writing in the late 1st century BCE for Augustus): the earliest and most detailed surviving narrative of the conspiracy and the attack itself. He was not an eyewitness but had access to contemporary information. Cicero (contemporary letters): confirms the event occurred and describes the immediate political aftermath; he was not present at the stabbing. Later historians drawing on earlier (often lost) accounts: Plutarch (Life of Caesar, Life of Brutus), Suetonius (Life of Julius Caesar), Appian (Civil Wars), and Cassius Dio. These were written 100–250 years later. There is no surviving official Senate record, forensic report, or direct eyewitness testimony from participants. Contemporary oral reports circulated quickly and fed into the written accounts. The political consequences (civil wars, the rise of the Second Triumvirate, and eventually Augustus) are extensively documented and consistent with Caesar’s sudden removal. Critique of the quality of the evidence The core fact—that Caesar was killed by a group of senators in the Senate on the Ides of March—is among the best-attested events in ancient history. Multiple independent traditions (pro- and anti-Caesar) agree on the essentials, and there is no serious ancient counter-narrative denying that the assassination occurred. The rapid political fallout is independently attested. However, the evidence has clear limitations: No direct eyewitness accounts survive. Even Nicolaus was not present; later writers are further removed and rely on intermediate sources that are lost. Provenance and chain of custody. The historical evidence purports to be written by Nicolaus, Cicero, etc., but the original documents do not appear to exist. And even if they did, there is no way to verify actual authorship. Moreover, the chain of custody for these documents has all sorts of gaps and deficiencies. Detail conflicts. Numbers of wounds, who struck the first or fatal blow, Caesar’s last words (if any), and the exact sequence differ across sources. Dramatic elements (omens, last speeches) are more literary than historical. Bias and purpose. Sources were written by authors with political agendas (e.g., Nicolaus for Augustus; later writers reflecting imperial or Republican perspectives). There was no formal public inquiry or deposition of witnesses. No physical corroboration. No weapons, body, or contemporary documentary record of the act itself survives. The location is archaeologically known, but that does not confirm the specific events. In short, the fact of the assassination is secure by the standards of ancient history; the precise blow-by-blow narrative is not. The quality is high for the central claim and moderate-to-low for the colorful details. What is the "standard" by which individuals should assess the divinity of Jesus Christ? The theophanies of Joseph Smith? The physical reality of the Gold Plates? The origins of the text of The Book of Mormon? And who establishes that standard? And why is that person's say-so definitive? What is your take as to the quality and quantum of historical evidence for the physical reality of the Gold Plates as contrasted with the historical evidence for the assassination of Caesar? No. The scientific consensus is not sacrosanct. It is not perfect and pristine and 100% correct. Our command of it is incomplete, blinkered, and tainted with biases and decidedly nonscientific influences. I appreciate what scientists have to offer and contribute to humanity, but I can't get on board with the idea that any one of them (let alone all of them together) has/have a pristine and unassailable command of everthing there is to know. The quote from Shakespeare, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" can, to me, be applied to suggest that human knowledge, logic, and science cannot explain everything that exists in the universe. Our grasp and command of "science" is, in many respects, incomplete, blinkered, and tainted with biases and decidedly nonscientific influences. I think it has a lot to do "with the actual practice of science." Science is the most reliable method we have for investigating the natural world precisely because it emphasizes empirical testing, falsification, and independent replication. Those features give it a strong track record on many questions. At the same time, the enterprise is carried out by humans operating inside institutions, so real-world constraints on how much weight we place on any particular scientific claim are warranted. That said, several well-documented problems justify that caution: Irreproducibility is widespread. Large-scale replication efforts in psychology, biomedicine, and other fields of "science" have found that a substantial fraction of published findings fail to replicate at the claimed effect sizes (or at all). This is not a minor glitch; it indicates that many results that survive peer review and reach the literature are still unreliable. Human biases and incentives shape outcomes. Researchers are subject to confirmation bias, career pressure to publish positive results, and the “file-drawer” problem (negative or null results are less likely to appear). Statistical practices such as p-hacking and selective reporting further inflate false-positive rates. These are not occasional lapses; they are systematic features of the current incentive structure. External influences are common. Funding sources—industry, government agencies, foundations—can affect which questions are asked, how studies are designed, which results are emphasized, and which are suppressed or never pursued. Regulatory capture, publication bias, and the revolving door between academia and industry are documented phenomena, not conspiracy theories. Methodological and theoretical presumptions are not neutral. Science operates under working assumptions (for example, methodological naturalism) that are useful for many purposes but are not themselves empirically proven universal truths. When those assumptions are treated as settled conclusions rather than provisional tools, claims that fall outside them can be dismissed without adequate engagement. Peer review and consensus are imperfect filters. Peer review catches some errors but routinely misses others; it is also subject to groupthink, status hierarchies, and ideological conformity on contested topics. A prevailing consensus is evidence of what most specialists currently believe, not automatic proof that the belief is correct. None of this means science should be discarded or that every claim is equally suspect. Core results in physics and chemistry that have been repeatedly tested under controlled conditions and that generate precise, successful predictions deserve high confidence. Claims that rest on weaker designs, smaller samples, heavy statistical adjustment, or strong institutional incentives deserve correspondingly less. The practical implication is straightforward: we should treat scientific findings as fallible products of a fallible process, demand transparent methods and successful independent replication where possible, and calibrate confidence to the actual quality and robustness of the evidence rather than to the authority of the label “science.” Relevance to assessing miraculous events The scientific method is optimized for generating and testing claims about regular, observable, and in-principle repeatable features of the natural world. It works by formulating falsifiable hypotheses, controlling variables, collecting empirical data, and seeking independent replication. Those conditions are rarely met by claims about the divinity of Jesus Christ or the theophanies of Joseph Smith. These claims are singular historical or personal events rather than recurring natural processes. There is no controlled experiment that can re-create the Resurrection, the First Vision, or the appearance of Moroni and then vary conditions to see whether the outcome changes. The relevant data are largely testimonial, documentary, and contextual; they can be examined with historical methods, but historical methods themselves do not operate under the same standards of controlled replication and predictive testing that define experimental science. (And Dan McClellan surely isn't speaking of "data" in anything close to the "scientific method" sense.) They also typically bracket supernatural causation (methodological naturalism), so they are not designed to confirm or disconfirm a miracle claim in the first place. In my view, an individual evaluating such claims therefore has to rely on other modes of inquiry: historical source criticism, assessment of the coherence and consequences of the reported experiences, personal or communal spiritual witness (we Latter-day Saints put a lot of "ultimate" emphasis on this), and philosophical judgments about the possibility of divine action. Those are legitimate forms of reasoning, but they are not applications of the scientific method. Science can inform background questions (textual transmission, archaeological context, psychological studies of religious experience), yet it does not possess the tools to settle the central question of whether the events were divine. Treating them as if they do simply misapplies the method. Relevance to assessing Dan McClellan's social media content In my view, the foregoing items materially diminish and undercut the force of Dan McClellan’s “data > dogma” framing when it is applied to miraculous or theophanic claims. This is the area where my critique focuses. First, even within domains where the scientific method is well-suited, published “data” are not self-interpreting or automatically reliable. Replication failures, publication bias, career and funding incentives, and unexamined theoretical assumptions regularly produce results that later fail or require substantial revision. Treating “what the data show” as to miraculous events as a transparent, dogma-free verdict therefore overstates the cleanliness of the process, both in ordinary science and in the rather weird realm of social media clickbait. Second, the scientific method has limited purchase on the specific claims about which Dan has made repeated and emphatic - but notably vague and unexplained and conclusory - declarations about what "the data" do and do not show: the divinity of Jesus or the theophanies of Joseph Smith. Those are singular historical or personal events, not repeatable natural processes open to controlled testing and independent replication. Historical inquiry can examine surrounding evidence, but it operates under different rules (and typically under methodological naturalism that brackets the supernatural). Personal or spiritual assessment falls outside the method entirely. McClellan’s frequent appeals to “the data” on such topics rarely specify which data are being counted, under which evidentiary standard, or from within which methodological paradigm the conclusion is being drawn. When the paradigm already excludes miraculous causation, the announcement that “the data do not support the miracle” is largely a restatement of the starting assumption rather than an independent empirical finding. Taken together, I think the two points highlight a recurring gap in Dan's “data > dogma” presentation: it invokes the authority of empirical method while remaining vague about what counts as relevant data, what method is actually being applied, and why that method is competent to rule on the class of claim under discussion. The result is less a neutral adjudication of evidence than a rhetorical preference for one set of constraints over another. Reproducibility is, in a sense, something that scientists use "to see the future." If a scientist tests and confirms a hypothesis using the scientific method in May 2026 in Boston, he may right a paper about it which is predicated on the idea that his findings are reproducible. He anticipates that scientists in the future will get the same results he did. I'm not gloating. I am noting the real-world limitations on what "science" can and cannot do, and also the flaws that exist within the realm of what it can do. Here are a few well-documented cases in which prevailing scientific conclusions were later shown to be wrong: Phlogiston theory (18th century): Chemists widely held that combustion released a substance called phlogiston. Lavoisier’s oxygen theory replaced it; the earlier consensus was simply incorrect. Luminiferous aether: For much of the 19th century, physicists concluded that light waves required a pervasive medium (the aether). The Michelson–Morley experiment and special relativity eliminated it. Stress and spicy food as the primary cause of peptic ulcers: Medical consensus long attributed ulcers to lifestyle factors. The work of Marshall and Warren established Helicobacter pylori as the main cause, overturning the prior view. Continental drift: Alfred Wegener’s evidence for continental movement was rejected by most geologists for decades. Plate tectonics later confirmed the core idea. Eugenics programs: Early-20th-century scientists and institutions treated selective breeding and sterilization policies as scientifically justified. The underlying claims about heredity and social outcomes were later recognized as both factually flawed and ethically catastrophic. (Boy, folks in the thrall of "scientism" sure get uncomfortable when topics like this come up.) Dietary guidance on dietary fat and cholesterol: Mid-to-late 20th-century nutritional consensus strongly linked dietary saturated fat and cholesterol to heart disease and shaped public guidelines. Subsequent evidence has substantially revised the strength and simplicity of those causal claims. These examples do not show that science is useless, but they do show that consensus conclusions are provisional, can rest on incomplete data or unexamined assumptions, and are sometimes overturned by better evidence. That is rather my point. The Scientific Method, broadly, "doesn't have a special insight into" the divinity of Jesus Christ or Joseph Smith's theophanies. Individuals must therefore look to other additional paradigms to assess these things. The validity of the application of the Scientific Method to miraculous historical events, such as the miracles of Jesus Christ and the theophanies of Joseph Smith, is the point I am attempting to make here. Okay. Dan McClellan’s “data > dogma” framing functions as a rhetorical move that imports the authority of empirical inquiry while remaining silent about the actual constraints and presuppositions in play. He constantly (literally in the beginning of virtually every video he posts) presents himself as a “scholar of the Bible and religion” and then issues broad verdicts about what “the data” do or do not support regarding events such as the resurrection or the origins of the Book of Mormon. Those verdicts are always negative. The omission is that the operative paradigm—methodological naturalism, as practiced in critical historical and biblical scholarship—excludes miraculous causation from the set of allowable explanations before the evidence is examined. Under that rule, no amount of testimony, empty-tomb tradition, or early creedal material can count as data that establish a miracle, because the method has already defined such an outcome as outside its scope. The conclusion that “the data do not support the miracle” is therefore largely a restatement of the starting assumption rather than an independent finding. This is what I see as Dan's sleight of hand: the language of “data” evokes the success and self-correcting character of science, yet the prior points about scientific practice undercut the implied reliability. Even in domains suited to the scientific method, irreproducibility, incentive structures, publication bias, and later-overturned consensus conclusions show that “what the data show” is frequently provisional and shaped by non-empirical factors. When the same language is applied to singular theophanic or miraculous claims—precisely the class of claim for which controlled testing and replication are unavailable—the gap widens. The method is not neutral with respect to the question being asked; it is structured to return a negative answer. Labeling that result “data > dogma” presents a methodological exclusion as if it were a transparent empirical verdict, while leaving the exclusion itself unstated for the audience. If Dan were like some sort of weird love child of Commander Data from Star Trek: TNG and Chief Justice John Roberts, if he were just the purveyor of "the data," if he were functioning as a sort of "umpire" who doesn't make the rules, but just applies them, then I don't think we'd be having this discussion. But Dan isn't that, or anything like it. His public pronouncements about the miraculous elements of the Restored Gospel effectively all go one way, and he does this under the unexplained and unjustified cloak of "data > dogma." And I think he uses his credentials and the penumbra of his "data > dogma" schtick to unduly bolster his personal opinions about controversial societal topics (abortion, gay marriage, etc.). And I think he uses his social media platform and influence to tear down the faith of his fellow Latter-day Saints. By his own published-to-the-world reckoning (on Dehlin and Rogan), he is "offering ... reasons for people {that is, Latter-day Saints} to feel justified in not remaining faithful," and that he has called this a "sweet spot" and indicative that he is "doing something right." Thanks, -Smac

I thought the same!

Although I am not familiar with this work. Maybe I could, potentially be one of those, who could use this material, to engage more into the subject and then gain a better, and a more informed understanding of the matter. There is always a starting point on anything.

When I first read the OP I thought the Red Man song was one of the new ones being released and about had a heart attack wondering when the church had lost their minds! That's definitely one that should stay historical and forgotten.

I was listening to the Follow Him podcast yesterday where they are discussing the book of Ezekiel. I don’t remember the scholar’s name that they had on, but he talked about this very thing. He talked about how growing up in the church, after we read a passage of scripture, the first thing that we are often taught to do is to ask how it applies to us. But he said the most important thing when studying scripture is to first ask what did the author mean and what was his intended audience supposed to learn. After we know that then it is very, very good to also learn how to apply it to ourselves, in our lives, and different present day situations. But it should not be the primary goal all the time. Context is crucial.

A world where truth is being; not having. Ha! Perhaps my shortest post ever!

Oct 29 2026 - Eight more hymns added to ‘Hymns for Home and Church,’ including Christmas songs Some forgotten hymns are here: https://mormonr.org/sv/blog/005wCG/forgotten_hymns_of_the_restoration I mention one specifically because of a previous thread. Hymn 63 - "O Stop and Tell Me, Red Man" 1 O stop and tell me, Red Man, Who are ye? why you roam? And how you get your living? Have you no God;—no home? 2 With stature straight and portly, And deck’d in native pride, With feathers, paints and broaches, He willingly replied:— 3 “I once was pleasant Ephraim, “When Jacob for me pray’d; “But oh! how blessings vanish, “When man from God has stray’d! 4 “Before your nation knew us, “Some thousand moons ago, “Our fathers fell in darkness, “And wander’d to and fro, 5 “And long they’ve liv’d by hunting, “Instead of work and arts, “And so our race has dwindled “To idle Indian hearts. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/collection-of-sacred-hymns-1835/85 The title alone makes clear why this hymn no longer appears in our hymnbook. It refers to Native Americans as “Red Man” and uses phrases like “idle Indian hearts” and “customs,” language that would be inappropriate in a modern sacrament meeting. Other sacred hymns are included in the full transcript. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/collection-of-sacred-hymns-1835/85#full-transcript

Have you practiced mindfulness? One book I read said that if you are being mindful then you won't be bored. I've wondered if that is true. I've been trying to be mindful, and the idea holds up for the short time, like I can wash dishes and not be bored for 10 min, but if I had to do it for hours I don't know how true that would be.

You don’t see the difference between the simile of telling a widow to lament “like a virgin” and saying someone is a virgin?

Special Pleading: The Novella Even if you do allow the miraculous as plausible the bar for establishing a miraculous event should be much higher and the evidence for the Resurrection doesn’t even come close to meeting a high bar. The scientific method is flawed because some of those who practice it aren’t good prophets? And one of those is just in a popular scientific journal? What do you think this proves? It has nothing to do with the actual practice of science where you establish laws and theories that are falsifiable and rigorously and ruthlessly test them. Science doesn’t include some special insight that its practitioners can or should be able to see the future. I mean, you can gloat about how some scientists made some bad predictions. They never claimed the gift of prophecy. I mean, have apostles so at least we have people who won’t make the exact same mistakes these people made. It is not the scientist’s job to predict future advances. We can leave that to the apostles. In fact let’s see what they said about the first anecdote you shared. So looks like the power of revelation doesn’t have a special insight into these things either. Maybe we should just take all such talk of what humanity will accomplish or discover with a lot of salt and maybe not pretend that the predictions of scientists are somehow tied to the validity of the scientific method. Just so you know this kind of irrelevant and spurious reasoning is probably part of why Dan doesn’t think much of you.

If you are going to use neologism it should at least make sense. Because it wouldn’t make sense in that respect. Celestial and Terrestrial are almost opposites and aren’t related to the glory of the sun or the moon or the stars so that wasn’t what Paul was talking about. Celestial means stuff in space. So the glory of the sun, the moon, and the stars are all celestial. You can pull out the idea of three degrees of glory in the resurrection that are analogous to celestial bodies from the text if you squint really hard but attributing them to be celestial and terrestrial is just misusing words. If you wanted to use Greek words to describe these glories the glory of the sun would probably be some variation of the word Helios, the moon a variation of Selene (maybe), and the stars some variation of aster iirc. Joseph Smith messed up thinking Celestial and Terrestrial referred to what they don’t and added a third word that he made up to finish it off.

It is equipped to say what happens in its realm. To me it’s saying, if the rules are the world as we know it and have defined it, the data says it’s impossible. I think strong statements like this are the necessary result of the overwrought and illogical attempts to find scientific data for creationism within scripture, treating the Bible like either a science or history book. It needs to be clear if you insist on using it that way, it is impossible to prove faith positions on miracles. If you find it, you are messing the data. It does a disservice to those trying to understand science. It does a disservice to those with faith but who are willing to learn actual science and history methods to lead them to think science and history methodologies can prove or even support faith in miracles (as in there being physical evidence), who once they find the truth, then believe they have to give up faith if they have intellectual integrity because they haven’t been taught to look at scripture as something outside of science and only tangential to history, religious texts from different times and world views. Allowing that at sometime in the future new data might appear that provides evidence for miracles says nothing about the data we have now.

I think it does the opposite. It says a miracle is outside the discipline of historical method. Ideally, yes. But then why does Dan come along and, while speaking within that naturalism paradigm, issue pronouncements about what "the data" show or do not show? How is methodological naturalism equipped to articulate what "the data" are regarding miracles, how it should be evaluated, what quantum or measure is appropriate, and so on? I just don't think methodological naturalism can work as an arbiter of "the data" regarding miracles because it a priori denies the existence of miracles. Science is a wonderful aspect of the human experience, but it is not the sole mechanism for discerning truth and reality. Moreover, the scientific consensus is not sacrosanct. It is not perfect and pristine and 100% correct. Our command of it is incomplete, blinkered, and tainted with biases and decidedly nonscientific influences. In 1957 Lee De Forest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, scoffed at the notion of space travel: "To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth—all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." In 1930 Robert Millikan, an American experimental physicist honored with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for the measurement of the elementary electric charge and for his work on the photoelectric effect, stated: "No 'scientific bad boy' ever will be able to blow up the world by releasing atomic energy." In 1912 Guglielmo Marconi, inventor and electrical engineer, known for his pioneering work on long-distance radio transmission and credited as the inventor of radio, stated: "The coming of the wireless era will make war impossible, because it will make war ridiculous." In 1909 Scientific American declared that "the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced." In 1903 Albert Abraham Michelson, an American physicist known for his work on the measurement of the speed of light who won the 1907 Nobel Prize in Physics, stated: "The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote." And so on. I appreciate what scientists have to offer and contribute to humanity, but I can't get on board with the idea that any one of them (let alone all of them together) has/have a pristine and unassailable command of everthing there is to know. The quote from Shakespeare, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" can, to me, be applied to suggest that human knowledge, logic, and science cannot explain everything that exists in the universe. Or, as King Benjamin put it, "Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend." Thanks,, -Smac

I think it does the opposite. It says a miracle is outside the discipline of historical method. It contradicts all the known laws of science, so it qualifies as an impossibility in terms of the study of science.

Okay. Only a handful of people have seen Dan's various calumnies against me and my character, and not all of them have credited Dan's calumnies, and I am unlikely to meet any of the people who do credit them, and several of those who do dislike me already. Also, I found much of Dan's calumnies to be out-of-hand stupid. So me being - what's the term? - "butthurt" is certainly up to you, but it's not really borne out by the evidence. My adverse critique of Dan has more to do with the potential and/or actual damage he is doing to the faith of other Latter-day Saints, including unsuspecting ones who may assume that Dan, being a Latter-day Saint, would be a useful resource for someone hoping to strengthen or rehabilitate their faith, and may not fully appreciate that he has now repeatedly bragged about "offering ... reasons for people {that is, Latter-day Saints} to feel justified in not remaining faithful," and that he has called this a "sweet spot" and indicative that he is "doing something right." I would hope that Dan would like to advance the work of the Church. I would also hope that he is a genuinely devout Latter-day Saint. At present I am giving him the benefit of the doubt on these points, despite what I have seen him say. For me, the fundamental reason I stay in the Church is because I believe it is what it claims to be. That it also does all sorts of wonderful things to improve society is a natural and intrinsic "by their fruits"-style outgrowth of that fundamental reason. I want to effect positive change within the Church, but in supportive and sustaining ways, and not in an adversarial or subversive or "loyal opposition" sort of way. I would hope Dan could say the same. I would much prefer to view him as a Terryl Givens or a Richard L. Bushman than a John Dehlin or a Sam Young. Thanks, -Smac

The main point of disagreement is not with the existence of a historical Jesus or with the mainstream scholarly reconstruction of him as an apocalyptic preacher who was executed under Roman authority. Those are widely accepted conclusions in critical historical work, and nothing in the quoted paragraph on that score contradicts Latter-day Saint belief. The disagreement is with the first half of the statement—the claim that, from a scholarly point of view, the resurrection is a physical impossibility that “the data” do not support and for which we lack evidence that clears an especially high bar. That framing treats a reported miracle as the kind of claim historical method is equipped to confirm or disconfirm in the same way it handles ordinary events. Historical scholarship operates under methodological naturalism: it explains the past using ordinary historical causes and evidence that can, in principle, be assessed without invoking the supernatural. Under that rule, a bodily resurrection is excluded from the set of possible explanations before the evidence is even examined. Calling the result “what the data show” or “what scholars can say” therefore reflects a prior methodological commitment more than an empirical finding about the evidence itself. How can the resurrection of Jesus Christ be empirically verified or falsified? What would count as evidence that could “get over the bar”? Eyewitness testimony, empty-tomb reports, and early creedal material are the main historical data we have; they are also the data critical scholars already use when they reconstruct the rise of belief in the resurrection. Those data are not typically treated as sufficient to establish the event under ordinary historical standards, because the standards themselves do not allow miraculous causation. Whether the proper standard should be preponderance, clear and convincing evidence, or something stronger is rarely made explicit, and it is not clear that any of those legal-style thresholds map cleanly onto a singular claim from the first century. In short, it is difficult to speak of “the data” ruling the resurrection in or out when the method in use has already decided that such an event lies outside what historical data are permitted to establish. This is a recognized feature of the discipline rather than a novel observation. Many scholars who work on the historical Jesus or the origins of Christianity explicitly distinguish between what can be said under historical method and what may be affirmed on other grounds (theological, experiential, or otherwise). The quoted statement collapses that distinction by presenting the methodological exclusion as a straightforward conclusion about the evidence. So I find it odd to see a scholar of Dan's caliber A) presuppose, and rely on a methodological naturalism paradigm that presupposes, the absence of miraculous events, and then B) characterize that paradigm as establishing authoritative parameters of "the data," and all C) while not informing his neophyte audience. There is nothing insightful or scholarly in announcing "the data do not support the miracle" when the speaker is acting within a paradigm that does not allow for the possibility that the miracle happened. Put another way, once Dan presents the interpretive method, and given that this method a priori and in advance rules out miraculous causation, announcing that "the data" - which Dan has already paradigmatically curated to exclude any consideration of miracles - do not establish the miracle is not an independent finding; it is the method restating its own starting assumption. As for the Latter-day Saint context, the Church teaches the bodily resurrection of Jesus as a foundational historical event, not merely as a later interpretive story. When someone who identifies as Latter-day Saint and presents himself as guided by “the data” publicly treats the resurrection as something the evidence does not support, that creates an obvious tension with the Church’s position. The objection is not to the study or public explanation of critical scholarship as such; it is to the implication that the resurrection fails an evidentiary test that historical method is not designed to apply in the first place. The tension is heightened precisely because Dan presents the conclusion as what "scholarship" and "the data" show rather than as what one methodological framework concludes. Thanks, -Smac

Benjamin Park puts out some interesting stuff; I'm not sure this is one of them.

I know what the focus of your posts has been. My opinion on the motive behind your posts remains unchanged.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/conference_home/2020-2024-fair-conferences/august-2023-fair-conference/knowing-brother-joseph-how-the-historical-record-demonstrates-the-prophets-religious-sincerity That topic isn’t the primary focus, so it may not be as detailed. For those who don’t want to read the whole presentation, here is the section on dating the Beamann (edited: I never spell her surname correctly) sealing:

You don't have to take my word for it. The content of my various posts in this thread is available for review. The content focuses overwhelmingly on Dan's social media stuff. Thanks, -Smac

Which part of this do you disagree with? Resurrection is another thing that, from an academic point of view, that's a physical impossibility. And so without extraordinary evidence for that, there's no way a scholar can say 'Yes, this makes sense,' because it doesn't. It violates everything we know about the operation of the universe. So the bar for that kind of evidence is even higher, and we don't have data that come anywhere near getting us over that bar. So from a scholarly point of view, the resurrection is not something that is supported by the data. Can you point me to the academic study of resurrection? The overwhelming majority of scholars agree that there was a historical Jesus of Nazareth, who was probably an apocalyptic itinerant preacher, who probably preached against the Roman Empire, and preached the coming of the Kingdom of God imminently, and was executed because of it. And then we have Jesus' followers afterwards spreading stories about him coming back to life and ministry before leaving again. Are you saying this isn't the mainstream academic view of critical biblical scholarship? Like what exactly is it about this paragraph in particular that you took the time to quote that you have an issue with. Which words go against what the church teaches? Why is it that Dan's chosen profession (making critical biblical scholarship accessible to the masses) bothers you so much?