Books with Questionable Historicity

[Benjamin McGuire]

The problem is more nuanced than that Jason. And David understands this. The Book of Mormon has a lot of authors. The majority of the text claims to be written by a man named Mormon. When he was writing, he uses a number of sources. But there is an assumption on your part, which won't necessarily hold true in every instance, that Mormon understands the texts he is reading, that all of his sources record factual history, and so on.

To use a different example, we have an archaeological find called the Mernepteh stele. It is a monument dedicated to the achievements of Pharaoh Mernepteh, in which we read of the total annhiliation of the Israelites. So, it is a genuine, ancient text, and it is, in a sense, also a work of fiction. The problem we have with the Book of Mormon is that there isn't any way to tell anything about the actual people that the book is about. So, most of the debates about the so-called historicity of the Book of Mormon have nothing to do with the Book of Mormon's historicty. They are about the versimilitude of the Book of Mormon. Most believers think (and rightly so) that an argument for the verisimilitude of the Book of Mormon is also an argument for its historicty. But, as David B. is pointing out, in any particular instance, this may not be so. And in fact, its unlikely to demonstrate complete historicity, because all ancient texts simply don't care about this aspect of writing as we do. So, for those who study ancient texts who also study the Book of Mormon, there is a completely different expectation than the one that you seem to have.

This thread seems to be geared at the question - How would you prove the historicity of the Book of Mormon? It is a text - just like other texts. The same rules apply.

Ben M.

[LifeOnaPlate]

Even if the Book of Mormon is a translation from an ancient source, it would, like every other ancient text, lack historicity. Biblical authors, for example, had a much more important agenda than a mere recitation of what really happened. History was too important to be left up to chance.

Exactly. What was history for the BoM writers? etc.

You second assertion, that truth is sometimes best told through lies, is not my standard of truth.

Wow, there's a fascinating interpretation.

[LifeOnaPlate]

The problem is more nuanced than that Jason. And David understands this. The Book of Mormon has a lot of authors. The majority of the text claims to be written by a man named Mormon. When he was writing, he uses a number of sources. But there is an assumption on your part, which won't necessarily hold true in every instance, that Mormon understands the texts he is reading, that all of his sources record factual history, and so on.

To use a different example, we have an archaeological find called the Mernepteh stele. It is a monument dedicated to the achievements of Pharaoh Mernepteh, in which we read of the total annhiliation of the Israelites. So, it is a genuine, ancient text, and it is, in a sense, also a work of fiction. The problem we have with the Book of Mormon is that there isn't any way to tell anything about the actual people that the book is about. So, most of the debates about the so-called historicity of the Book of Mormon have nothing to do with the Book of Mormon's historicty. They are about the versimilitude of the Book of Mormon. Most believers think (and rightly so) that an argument for the verisimilitude of the Book of Mormon is also an argument for its historicty. But, as David B. is pointing out, in any particular instance, this may not be so. And in fact, its unlikely to demonstrate complete historicity, because all ancient texts simply don't care about this aspect of writing as we do. So, for those who study ancient texts who also study the Book of Mormon, there is a completely different expectation than the one that you seem to have.

This thread seems to be geared at the question - How would you prove the historicity of the Book of Mormon? It is a text - just like other texts. The same rules apply.

Ben M.

Well put. And a little more nuanced than "either complete historical fact, or total lie."

[Benjamin McGuire]

"either complete historical fact, or total lie."

The word "lie" is also problematic. Lying is about intent, not about factual accuracy. That we usually believe things that are true and disbelieve things that are false accounts for the way in which we sometimes interchange these notions. But, in any given instance, it is merely accidental that this is so. If Mormon gives us something which is not historically accurate, but believes that he is giving us something true, then he cannot be lying to us (even if it isn't historically accurate).

Ben M.

[LifeOnaPlate]

Exactly. John Larsen is the introducer of the "lying" comment here, and I hope he responds to your point, Ben.

[Jason]

The problem is more nuanced than that Jason.

Actually I would say you're attempting to add too much nuance to the issue. It doesn't matter how Mormon understands the texts he is reading - if the events he describes didn't ever occur then the account is fictional. Wether the author intended to present fictional material as fact or vice versa is immaterial.

To use a different example, we have an archaeological find called the Mernepteh stele. It is a monument dedicated to the achievements of Pharaoh Mernepteh, in which we read of the total annhiliation of the Israelites. So, it is a genuine, ancient text, and it is, in a sense, also a work of fiction.

It is, in fact, a work of fiction rather than a historic text, despite its age.

You are quite right that what readers think they see in the text is what they generally attack, and that what they see is not neccessarily what is there, but that again has little bearing on whether some version of the events described actually occurred.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Jason writes:

Actually I would say you're attempting to add too much nuance to the issue. It doesn't matter how Mormon understands the texts he is reading - if the events he describes didn't ever occur then the account is fictional. Wether the author intended to present fictional material as fact or vice versa is immaterial.

Then I think we can assume that at some level of detail, there is no text that isn't fictional. I am not sure how you differentiate this with your comment on "some version" - because if it isn't the real version, then it must be fictional, right?

The real challenge, with a text like the Book of Mormon, is of course the impossibility of really being able to verify the historicty (or to contest it), so, as I noted, the debate is never really over historicity, but over verisimilitude, and its implications for historicity.

Ben M.

[consiglieri]

Actually I would say you're attempting to add too much nuance to the issue. It doesn't matter how Mormon understands the texts he is reading - if the events he describes didn't ever occur then the account is fictional. Wether the author intended to present fictional material as fact or vice versa is immaterial.

We could take the example of whether Mulek (Muloch) in the Book of Mormon was actually the son of Zedekiah.

He is stated as having been such, but is it the truth?

Is it possible that this was merely a story created at some point in Mulekite history in order to give legitimacy to their line of kings?

By the time the Nephites met up with the Mulekites, it would have been impossible for the Nephites to determine whether this story was historically accurate, but they could know that the Mulekites, or at least some of them, represented it to them as being true.

This account was then incorporated into the Nephite history and made its way through abridgement into the Book of Mormon as we have it today.

If it should turn out that this was merely a tradition among the Mulekites, would it make the Book of Mormon fictional?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[Jason]

Jason writes:Then I think we can assume that at some level of detail, there is no text that isn't fictional.

At some level of detail, yes. But then at some level of detail you're not the person I addressed my first post to either.

I am not sure how you differentiate this with your comment on "some version" - because if it isn't the real version, then it must be fictional, right?

Some version as in within a reasonable amount of detail, as refrenced by the first part of your post.

If it should turn out that this was merely a tradition among the Mulekites, would it make the Book of Mormon fictional?

Only the bit about the Mulekite ancestry.And the Nephites may well have known whether Zedekiah really had a son named Mulek when they first encountered the Mulekites.

[Benjamin McGuire]

And so we can accept the Merneptah stele as being historical because, at least as some people understood it, it may well have been accurate right?

Ben M.

[John Larsen]

The word "lie" is also problematic. Lying is about intent, not about factual accuracy. That we usually believe things that are true and disbelieve things that are false accounts for the way in which we sometimes interchange these notions. But, in any given instance, it is merely accidental that this is so. If Mormon gives us something which is not historically accurate, but believes that he is giving us something true, then he cannot be lying to us (even if it isn't historically accurate).

Ben M.

It is true that my comment would only apply if people were knowingly representing falsehood as truth. But the scenario you describe is also very intriguing.

Let us Suppose that the Nephite Prophets, who carefully preserved the records and handed them down, taking care to keep alive an ancient and forgotten language in the midst of a foreign cultur,e had the tendency to exaggerate and stretch the truth a little. Mormon, unknowingly, copied these falsehoods down and maybe did a little embellishment or filling in the gaps himself. God, causes these records to be buried in a hill (we don't know which hill because of said problem) only to be retrieved 1500 years later by a guy who "translates" the plates also filling in gaps into the story with anachronisms that don't belong. Joseph, like Mormon, is unaware of the shaky provenance of the book and unwittingly assumes many errors and glitches to be truth, which they both affirm as true and accurate. Then, of course Joseph Smith further complicates the picture since he would have no idea what he was talking about when he pronounced the book the "most correct".

This, then, is the foundation for the entire restoration movement, since all other religions are false and lead men astray. Each of the prophets, chose to lead God's Church in the last times bases their testimony on the literalness of the Book of Mormon, which is untrue. Thus the lynch pin of the entire correctness of God's word to mankind and the last hope before the end times is based on a book that unwittingly propagated exaggeration and half truths by the unknowing redactor and translator, who were simply victims of circumstance. And God, who had such nuanced foresight that he caused ancient authors to hedge against the eventual lose of the 116 pages, was unable to cause a little fact checking on what would be the greatest book of scripture of all time. And God furthermore, allowed the production of a book that could be the salvation of all mankind to be rejected based on scientific contradiction that can be learned in high school science classes.

Got it, that is much better than lies.

[Jason]

And so we can accept the Merneptah stele as being historical because, at least as some people understood it, it may well have been accurate right?

Nope.

Again - the intent of the author and the undertanding of the reader are irrelevent as to whether an account is fictional.

[Benjamin McGuire]

John writes:

Let us Suppose that the Nephite Prophets, who carefully preserved the records and handed them down, taking care to keep alive an ancient and forgotten language in the midst of a foreign cultur,e had the tendency to exaggerate and stretch the truth a little. Mormon, unknowingly, copied these falsehoods down and maybe did a little embellishment or filling in the gaps himself.

The problem with this, of course, is that it doesn't actually describe much of what the Book of Mormon describes in its own description of events. Mormon doesn't rely exclusively on some set of carefully preserved records written by prophets, and carefully maintained and preserved. Nor are they interested in writing history of the sort that we look for and want (and this is part of what David B. was talking about).

And of course, we run into the old argument about the "most correct book", which obviously should apply just as you think it ought to. Personally, I find this perspective of yours to be completely foreign to what the Book of Mormon describes - particularly in its own treatment of texts, and of its author's attitudes towards texts and their own errancy in writing.

Have you considered the fact that your own expectations of the text are completely different from what its authors had in mind?

Ben M.

[Jason]

Jason writes:

I didn't write that.

But this stands in direct conflict with your other comment - Ben M.

Perhaps you should look more closely at who wrote what here before claiming inconsistancy.

[David Bokovoy]

Only the bit about the Mulekite ancestry.And the Nephites may well have known whether Zedekiah really had a son named Mulek when they first encountered the Mulekites.

And so, assuming that the description of the Mulekite ancestry was fiction then the book would lack historicity, but this lack of historicity would not in turn indicate that the Book of Mormon was not a translation from an ancient source, nor would the lack of historicity say anything about the book's verisimilitude or its truthfulness as a religious guide.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Jason writes:

I didn't write that

My apologies. That was John. Too many J's. My bad. I have edited the earlier post. Had I realized that at the time, I would probably not have responded to it. Although the part about the inconsistency still holds. You write:

Again - the intent of the author and the undertanding of the reader are irrelevent as to whether an account is fictional.

and

... but that again has little bearing on whether some version of the events described actually occurred.

Ben M.

[David Bokovoy]

Jason writes:My apologies. That was John. Too many J's. My bad. I have edited the earlier post. Had I realized that at the time, I would probably not have responded to it.

Well, there goes my belief in the infallibility of Benjamin McGuire.

[John Larsen]

Have you considered the fact that your own expectations of the text are completely different from what its authors had in mind?

I believe that my expectation that the book should be taken at face value is shared by 99% of the membership, and they would find your nuanced view to be very foreign.

[LifeOnaPlate]

Have you considered the fact that your own expectations of the text are completely different from what its authors had in mind?

Ben M.

You said it so well. Brant Gardner talked about this in a blog post a while back.

http://www.lifeongoldplates.com/2008/09/ga...s-number-4.html

[JLFuller]

There are very smart people who believe the Book of Mormon was written anciently, and very smart people who believe it was written in the 19th century. I'm wondering whether there are any other such books in existence, where its historicity is debated by people who study it.

And I don't mean who the author was (i.e. was Shakespeare really a pen name for the Earl of Oxford) , or whether a particular text is a forgery of an ancient document, but whether the book itself was written during a particular time frame.

I've wondered this on occasion lately, and would appreciate any responses people have.

There really was a 17th Earl and there really was a William Shakespeare.

[e=mc2]

Jason:

if the events he describes didn't ever occur then the account is fictional.

But the parables of Jesus can be said to be fictional, but that doesn't make them false. They are *historical* in that he delivered them, not that they actually had to happen as he taught them. It is irrelevant whether we know the name ofthe good Smaritan, and equally irrelevant whether he ever lived in actual history or a geographical place. The TRUTH has still been taught.

[e=mc2]

There really was a 17th Earl and there really was a William Shakespeare.

Yet his Timon of Athens may not have really existed, but the *truth* taught there IS history. Shakespeare wrote it, and it is true. History is not the only verity of truth.

[Kevin Christensen]

I like Richard L. Anderson's essay here, comparing the Book of Mormon to other purported "modern gospels."

http://www.farms.byu.edu/publications/transcripts/?id=15:

He's very good on highlighting the uniqueness of the Book of Mormon relative to several texts that make some comparable claims.

Though I believein the historicity of the Book of Mormon, I also like William Blake on the Bible here, blogging in the margins of a a book called An Apology for the Bible addressed to Thomas Paine (1797)

I cannot concieve the Divinity of the books of the Bible to consist either in who they were written by, or at what time, or in the historical evidence, which may be all false in the eyes of one man & true in the eyes of another, but in the Sentiments and Examples given to us of the perverseness of some & and its consequent evil & and the honesty of others & its consequent good. This sense of the Bible is equally true to all & equally plain to all. None can doubt the impress which he recieves from a book of Examples. If he is good he will abhor wickedness in David or Abraham; if he is wicked he will make their wickedness an excuse for his & and so he would do by any other book.

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

[Bill Hamblin]

Of course, John, I assumed that by placing the word "true" in italics that you hoped to apply the standard LDS connotation used in relationship to the Book of Mormon which means that the work contains the word of God.

Even if the Book of Mormon is a translation from an ancient source, it would, like every other ancient text, lack historicity. Biblical authors, for example, had a much more important agenda than a mere recitation of what really happened. History was too important to be left up to chance.

These types of questions are often framed incorrectly. The issue is not if a fictional narrative can be revealed or "true." It can. The question is not if there are historical errors and distortions in the BOM, the Bible, or any other historical book. There are.

The question of historicity resolves around two issues.

First, if there were no Nephites, there were no golden plates, and there was no angel Moroni. Therefore, JS was either delusional or a liar (or a delusional liar) about foundational events in the Restoration. Whereas prophets can be mistaken or even lie about various issues on occasion, for a prophet to lie about the fundamental claim that he is receiving revelation makes him, necessarily, a non-prophet.

Second, if there were no Nephites, then Jesus did not appear to them. This means the BOM is no more a testimony of Christ than is Ben Hur.

I have never heard anyone advocating the "insprired fiction" theory engage these two issues. Never. The BOM as inspired fiction theory inevitably implodes under critical scrutiny.

[John Larsen]

These types of questions are often framed incorrectly. The issue is not if a fictional narrative can be revealed or "true." It can. The question is not if there are historical errors and distortions in the BOM, the Bible, or any other historical book. There are.

The question of historicity resolves around two issues.

First, if there were no Nephites, there were no golden plates, and there was no angel Moroni. Therefore, JS was either delusional or a liar (or a delusional liar) about foundational events in the Restoration. Whereas prophets can be mistaken or even lie about various issues on occasion, for a prophet to lie about the fundamental claim that he is receiving revelation makes him, necessarily, a non-prophet.

Second, if there were no Nephites, then Jesus did not appear to them. This means the BOM is no more a testimony of Christ than is Ben Hur.

I have never heard anyone advocating the "insprired fiction" theory engage these two issues. Never. The BOM as inspired fiction theory inevitably implodes under critical scrutiny.

I agree.