Is Historicity Important To The Book of Mormon?

[Ray Agostini]

I do not think individuals have to approach either Mormonism or the Book of Mormon as an all-or-nothing issue relative to historicity. Individuals can start with a portion of the word, a particle of belief, and enough desire to work from there. The point of my Meridian essay on "A Model of Mormon Spiritual Experience" was to demonstrate that Mormons can and do experience all of the kinds of spiritual experience than any people anywhere report. That means what have is far from "nothing" regardless of historicity. We have something real. I have consistently argued that the all-or-nothing approach inherently means that an individual who does not nurture the seed in the best soil, with the best care and protection from predation, is vulnerable to premature judgments about historicity that may lead them to decide that we have nothing.

It still seems to me like a faith issue. To the contrary, could "nurturing the seed" (living worthily, I presume) also blind one to evidences against historicity? This is a sort of chicken and egg argument. I assume you accept that there have been many temple-worthy Mormons who were "nurturing the seed" yet nevertheless concluded that the BoM is not historical? If the evidences were so obvious wouldn't many more non-Mormons, especially non-Mormon scholars accept the BoM as historical? James H. Charlesworth, for example, who clearly recognises it as being in the genre of pseudepigrapha, yet also recognises it as being worthy of modern scripture. So it's not all that clear, and some have suggested that "God designed it that way". (See also Ether 4)

I have also argued repeatedly in essays in Sunstone, Dialogue, the FARMS Review, the Meridian, the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, and online, that historicity is what defines and binds our community. I have observed what has happened to the community formerly known as RLDS when their leadership decided to redefine their relationship to the Book of Mormon. I have also observed that the kinds of arguments they offered in justification, however persuasive and compelling they may have seemed in the 60s-80s, they have dated badly. I'll have an essay in FR 21:2 demonstrating that Professor Russell's arguments from 1982, for instance, have all turned out to be dead wrong. And that he ignored everything positive that was available to him. The soil in which he put the seed was as hospitable as a rock, and the nurture amounted to burning the seed with a highly focused magnifying glass. He selected from the light available for destructive purposes only. Of course the seed failed to grow for him.

Okay, I accept the importance of historicity to the Mormon community. I agree that were the Church to "downgrade" the BoM as RLDS have done, it would have a significant negative impact on membership numbers. John Dehlin also spoke about this in his podcast with John Larsen.

Brent Metcalfe's approach clearly does not generate faith. Logical positivism is not designed for that purpose. We're near the same age, and have been involved in amateur LDS scholarship for the same length of time. Yet somehow in his efforts he overlooked the things that I have discovered. For instance, he could have just as easily been the one to show how Margaret Barker's research has profound relevance to the question of Book of Mormon historicity, particularly the ongoing charge that the text is too Christian before Christ. She puts the roots of Christianity in the First Temple, Jerusalem 600 BCE. But he did not put the seed in that bit of soil, let alone nurture it there. His explorations in New Approaches involved counting the distribution of wherefore and therefore in the text. Along the way, he claims that a four step pattern revival is sufficient to account for Benjamin's discourse as a nineteenth century composition. He footnotes Tvedtnes and Welch and Nibley, but does not account for their observations. Nor did he anticipate Mark Wright's recent observations of the relevance of the San Bartelo murals for contexualizing Benjamin's discourse, which just happen to be contemporary with the Book of Mormon time-frame and near the geographic context. At a Sunstone panel in 1999, I heard him predict that the DNA studies would soon settle the question of the Book of Mormon historicity, dooming our faith. Well, he was wrong about that too. We're still here, especially the top LDS DNA experts. Paradigm choice, as Kuhn explains, always involves deciding which problems are more significant to have solved. Should it be his "wherefore" and "therefore"? Or the implications of the First Temple?

What is Barker's opinion of your observations? I assume you can ask her this. You are talking about the "roots" of Christianity being there in 600BC, but what about the Jaredites? What about the Garden of Eden? What about the clear but slow evolution of Judaism over thousands of years. Have you examined that? My determinations about historicity have been made by observing things like this.

I see a huge amount of evidence for the Book of Mormon, but I understand very well how and why someone like John Charles Duffy can dismiss it all, as he admitted, "as a matter of course." It's there for those who look for it. It is not there to compel faith. Anyone can just shrug and say, "So what?" There are open questions against which anyone can choose to demonstrate their faith, or upon which anyone can choose to discard it. But to this day, I have never seen any argument against that Book of Mormon, or explanation of it, that dares to fully define the problem it represents against the context that it claims for itself.

I think many, many others have gone into this far more than Duffy, yet concluded against historicity.

If any individual wants to find spiritual value in the Book of Mormon, without regard to historicity, I welcome it. Our community has room for such. However, historicity defines and binds our community. If we ever collectively dropped a belief in the Book of Mormon, it would be appropriate for us to change our name, just as the RLDS did, because that would amount to giving ourselves a new identity, and a new definition.

I frankly think that this is already what most members of the Church do, find in it "spiritual value". I didn't become a Mormon because I thought the BoM was historical (that would come later). I read it, in about two weeks, applied Moroni 10:4-5, and paradoxically - "the rest is history". It would be many years, 19 to be exact, before I first began to take a serious look at alternatives, including reading New Approaches and comparing it in detail with the FRB Volume 6.

[Ray Agostini]

Further to your comments about Barker, Kevin, I offer another view from David Waltz:

Articuli Fidei. (Two parts)

I would be interested in your comments on this.

[mfbukowski]

I think what is crucial to this discussion is what "historicity" means, and I would suggest that the common sense definition of "what really happened" is epistemologically unsustainable.

In a world as complex as this one when we are discussing abstract concepts like the proposition "Jesus is the Christ" we are really pushing the limits of what can be "known" at all in a historic context. Even in present day discourse about complex questions like "who's fault" a failed marriage was it boils down to "his-story" vs "her-story" instead of "history". What really happened at the Kennedy assassination? Did John Wilkes Booth act alone?

I am not a logical positiviist, but I suppose an American pragmatist in the tradition of Peirce, James and Dewey, and I would throw in later Wittgenstein, or as I prefer to call it "latter-day Wittgenstein"

All we can know really is human experience, and I would admit spiritual experience as being as valid as any proposition we can know from a "first person" linguistic standpoint. Logical positivism in my view restricts propositions "truth" to those which are "third person statements", or in other words, those verifiable by science.

I think that in this perspective, logical positivism is totally inadequate to examine the truth of anything which is truly important about the way we live our lives, and therefore a philosophical position which has limited utility in real life.

I agree that the concept of historicity is important to LDS people in general, but it would be great if we could upgrade their understanding of what that really means so that they could not be swayed by every new critic who comes around with DNA evidence or this evidence or that supposed "evidence" which is actually irrelevant to the question at hand.

I don't doubt for a minute that the BOM is "historical", and I think there is more and more evidence daily that it is a book with an ancient Hebraic lineage, but I don't find that that is crucial to my testimony.

As a convert to Mormonism, I had adopted my philosophical position before I had ever heard of the BOM, and I accepted the BOM based totally on my philosophical position and the spiritual witness I had, and I think it would be well for others to understand the question of "historicity" in a more sophisticated light.

The historic evidence is a nice treat at the end of a spiritual meal, but should not be the main course!

[LeSellers]

With all due respect, did the Holy Ghost tell you specifically that the BoM is historical?

Explicitly, not as I recall. But its truth is at least partly its historicity.

But my question is really related to this dilemma: If it is NOT historical, does it still contain truth? ... But my point is, does any truth that the BoM contains become null and void because it's "not historical"?

Truth is always true. This is a tautology, and applies to any truth any where, as long as it is acting in its correct "sphere". So, even were the Book of Mormon to be false as to its claims of what it is an where it came from, the truth it preaches are eternal and would remain true. Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings contain truths that stand apart from the stories. The value and power of the Book of Mormon are beyond those of love and sacrifice, even of its pronouncements that Jesus is the promised Christ. Its power is its historicity because, as other have already told you, it came by way of angelic ministration, and it was the tool by which God initiated the Restoration of His Priesthood and His Gospel to the Earth.

Only if the Book of Mormon is true â?? is a historical fact â?? is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the only Church upon the earth with which God is well-pleased. Only because it is true do we have the power of God to act in His name among us.

I would consider that a rather partisan view. For example, does the phrase "wickedness never was happiness", depend on the Book being historical?

No, but to be happy requires a knowledge of what wickedness is, or, better, what righteousness is so we may avoid wickedness. The Book of Mormon and the rest of scripture and the words of living prophets give us that needed guidance.

Lehi

[lukas_s]

I think there is plenty of room in the Church for those who don't believe the Book of Mormon to be a historical document, and I think many Saints do a great disservice to the power of the restoration scriptures by making the BoM a black or white issue: either it is historical, which would make Joseph a prophet and the Church true, or it is not historical, which would make Joseph a liar and the Church false. I don't think it needs to be that black or white. I don't believe the BoM is a historical document one bit, but I still revere it as Holy Scripture, and Joseph as a prophet of God. Do I believe in the literalness of golden plates written on by Native American prophets on this continent? No. Am I open to such a belief? Yes. I don't think this makes me any less a Latter-day Saint than the person who believes the book is 100% historical.

So no, I would not say historicity is important to the BoM. What is important, though, is what it teaches about Christ and how we should conduct our lives. That is the ONLY thing that is important about it.

[William James]

Kevin Christensen:

(Emphasis added)

Paradigms Crossed.

Also:

(Emphasis added)

If I understand Kevin correctly, historicity is less important than whether or not the Book of Mormon gives us " better access to the divine". I could have directly communicated with Kevin about this, and my post is in no way intended to "intimidate" Kevin into "providing answers", which I think he does in his essay anyway, from his perspective.

The reviewed book can be found online: New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology

Note to Kevin: I welcome any clarifications or further thoughts you have to offer by way of explanation, lest I misunderstand your points or take anything out of context. Are you suggesting, for example, that it's very possible that the Book of Mormon may in fact not be historical, but still important to gaining "better access to the divine"? Perhaps you'll agree that historicity is still an open question? But it's just that you feel the way Metcalfe, et.al, have approached it does not "generate faith"? Which seems paradoxical and raises the question: Is historicity necessary to faith? Or just "faith in the Church"?

Historicity of the BoM is essential only to those who hang their testimony on the false dogma of church/prophetic infallibility or quasi-infallibility. Most members, even conservative ones, would concede that church leaders are fallible, but those member often do not go far enough to admit that the infallibility extends to official doctrinal pronouncements, even those spoken "by the prophet when he is acting as such." I call this approach "quasi-infallibility" because there is a recognition of general infallibility but a simultaneous insistence on some level of infallibility. From what I can tell, Joseph Smith held and taught, in his official capacity, that the BoM is a historically authentic document (and thus accurately translated, even if its purported authors (i.e., Nephi, Alma, Moroni, etc) erred in their accounts of their civilizations). In my opinion, if the BoM is not fully a historically authentic document, one need not conclude that the entire LDS faith is in error. One need only conclude that doctrine is not guaranteed error free merely because it is cloaked in the mantle of official prophetic utterance.

[Ray Agostini]

I think what is crucial to this discussion is what "historicity" means, and I would suggest that the common sense definition of "what really happened" is epistemologically unsustainable.

I think you offer some substantial thoughts. I am certainly not one who thinks the Church should toss out the BoM even if it were conclusively shown not to be historical. I don't speak for David Bokovoy, but I've just been reading his thoughts on the Book of Abraham debate.

A Statement Regarding My Views Concerning the Book of Abraham.

I'm okay with also defining the BoM (and BoA) as scripture, however also including the idea of "progressive revelation". No scripture is perfect nor final, a view that would be rejected by EVs. I think, as David points out, there are some unmistakable signs of "ancient connections". That, to my mind, still does not establish historicity, but reducing the BoM to either/or, IMO does a disservice.

[mfbukowski]

From what I can tell, Joseph Smith held and taught, in his official capacity, that the BoM is a historically authentic document (and thus accurately translated, even if its purported authors (i.e., Nephi, Alma, Moroni, etc) erred in their accounts of their civilizations)

It kind of amazes me that we as a people are much more prone to give the Book of Abraham significantly more leeway as being "historical" when to me the issues are identical with the BOM. The only differences are some artifacts which may or may not be the "source" of the BOA, but to me the issues are identical. Yet we see volumes on this forum about the BOA and very little about the BOM.

To me, it is a mass of confusion, to coin a phrase.

[Anijen]

I believe it is first a religious book, its purpose to bring people to Christ. I believe it has some historicity but we make a mistake saying it is a history book of the Lamanites and Nephites.

[mfbukowski]

I don't speak for David Bokovoy, but I've just been reading his thoughts on the Book of Abraham debate.

A Statement Regarding My Views Concerning the Book of Abraham.

I pretty much agree with Bokovoy and would apply the same approach to the BOM

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

But just think about this for a minute.

Right now, you have pretty much only Joseph's word for any of these points, and the confirmation of the spirit. Chances are, that is all you will ever have.

And yet (I am presuming) you find your life enriched by this "reality" to which you subscribe

You will never know if it IS "historical" either way, so it really makes no difference in your life today if it IS or IS NOT "historical" (whatever that means, which is a whole other issue)

So how relevant is its historicity really?

And how can you really know anything about history which was that long ago and so remote in context? What year was Alma the Younger born? How does that matter? And who's version of history do you believe?

None of us were there!

I would like to add that we know the BoM is true not becuase of archaeological evidence. I agree with your first and this post though. Finding out if it is histroically true really does have not much bearing on what it does to our srpitirual journey, as the question (is the BoM historically accurate) is not a spirtual question.

Now with this some might think that we think the BoM is not historically accurate. Did Nephi really ever live?? I don't know, in terms of archaeoligical evidence. But from the witness of the Spirit that teh BoM is true I don't really worry about the first question.

Is that turning a blind eye? Well no, since it has not been proven that the BoM is false there is no eye to turn.

I hope I communicated my thoughts accuratley.

[cinepro]

I disagree. JS was either a prophet, a liar, or a nut job.

Since we believe in fallible prophets, those three aren't mutually exclusive.

[mfbukowski]

Now with this some might think that we think the BoM is not historically accurate. Did Nephi really ever live?? I don't know, in terms of archaeoligical evidence. But from the witness of the Spirit that teh BoM is true I don't really worry about the first question.

Is that turning a blind eye? Well no, since it has not been proven that the BoM is false there is no eye to turn.

But what "evidence" would it take to "prove" the Book of Mormon false?

We already have plenty of evidence for the non-existence of Nephi as a historical person, so what could prove him MORE non-existent?

I submit there isn't anything that would do that. History is just too vague to ever prove anything historically true or false in an absolute sense.

I have a client who is an engineer who talks about "machining butter". Butter is just not a substance which will hold an edge!

So to me, trying to prove or disprove a book of scripture with historic evidence is like "machining butter"! It's nice if you come up with tidbits like chiasmus or whatever, but ultimately we are barking up the wrong tree when we look to history to prove or disprove anything, but especially anything spiritual in nature.

[Anticas]

Since we believe in fallible prophets, those three aren't mutually exclusive.

We don't believe in prophets THAT fallible. Speaking of his testimony of the BOM you can only pick one of those three options. There is absolutely no possibility to a mixture of them. The BOM is either a record of an ancient people or not, there is no middle ground.

And to respond to one of the statements above in the thread the Book of Mormon cannot be both a reliable spiritual guide that brings people to Christ and yet not everything else it claims to be. That is totally impossible. The Lord does not use a partial truth mixed with made up stories to bring the gospel to man. He may use parables to help people understand a particular principle, but he does not have someone write something and claim it came from plates he recieved by and angel just to get peoples attention.

Historicity = It actually happenned or not (if I am wrong I'd sure like to be corrected, but that is how it has been presented in every artical and thread I have read to the best of my understanding)

The BOM's historicity is valid or it is not useable as scripture, period. One cannot be false and the other true.

If someone wants to argue that the BOM might be a good "self help" book even if it were not anciend scripture I guess they can babble about it all day. But the fact is the entire veracity of the LDS church stands or falls with the truthefulness AND the historicity (they are basically the same thing, certainly interconnected) of the BOM.

[Anticas]

{{We already have plenty of evidence for the non-existence of Nephi as a historical person, so what could prove him MORE non-existent?}}

Neither Archeology nor any other science has presented any conclusive evidence that any single part of the BOM is incorrect. Nor has it presented conclusive evidence to prove that it is. You can not say that Nephi existed or that he didn't based on what we currently have in scientific study and have even a shred of credibility.

[mfbukowski]

{{We already have plenty of evidence for the non-existence of Nephi as a historical person, so what could prove him MORE non-existent?}}

Neither Archeology nor any other science has presented any conclusive evidence that any single part of the BOM is incorrect. Nor has it presented conclusive evidence to prove that it is. You can not say that Nephi existed or that he didn't based on what we currently have in scientific study and have even a shred of credibility.

Yes, I agree.

[LifeOnaPlate]

Historicity of the BoM is essential only to those who hang their testimony on the false dogma of church/prophetic infallibility or quasi-infallibility.

I wouldn't go near that far. We believe in things like resurrection and so forth. If these are just cunningly devised fables then we are wasting some time. I'm not a scripture infallibilist, either, quite the contrary.

[handys003]

I would suggest anyone who questions the historacity of the BoM watch George Potter's "Discovering Lehi's Trail". Also "Peru; The Land of the Book of Mormon" as both these DVD's provide great insights to the arceaological discoveries backed by BoM scriptures.

[cinepro]

We don't believe in prophets THAT fallible.

I didn't know we had defined the limits of their fallibility with such precision.

Having fallible prophets doesn't mean they are only wrong about the things you want them to be wrong about. Sometimes they're wrong about the things you really think they're right about too.

And just for reference, there has been at least one LDS prophet who suffered from verified mental illness during his tenure.

[mfbukowski]

I wouldn't go near that far. We believe in things like resurrection and so forth. If these are just cunningly devised fables then we are wasting some time. I'm not a scripture infallibilist, either, quite the contrary.

Not sure what you mean here exactly about resurrection, and I know it was not addressed to me, but I just want to go on record insofar as anyone cares that I totally believe in a literal resurrection, not that it is in any way a fable. In fact all of my positions are very TBM, it is just that they are based on a post-modernist epistemology that says we can know nothing but experience and that spiritual experience in its way is as "valid" as science, it is just subjective whereas science is objective. Only we ourselves can know that spiritual experiences are "true" whereas science is a "shared" truth based on our agreed upon observations, but I can know that I love my wife for example, or have had a revelation from God, with as much certainty as I know anything "objective" about which you and I might agree based on our co-observation of something.

I am also aware if all the evidence as has been cited that the BOM is indeed historical; it is just my position that its historicity is unknowable and irrelevant to its spiritual value.

I just wanted to give a "plug" for what I think is the truth! I am on a campaign of seed planting!

[Anticas]

I didn't know we had defined the limits of their fallibility with such precision.

Having fallible prophets doesn't mean they are only wrong about the things you want them to be wrong about. Sometimes they're wrong about the things you really think they're right about too.

And just for reference, there has been at least one LDS prophet who suffered from verified mental illness during his tenure.

They simply cannot be "wrong" about an angel handing them gold looking plates and telling them how to translate. I am not talking about obscure doctrine here friend, I am talking about the cornerstone of our religion. The BOM cannot be scripture and yet not be an actual translation of an ancient document. It is impossible. And were our prophets that fallabe this whole church would be a sham. But they aren't and its not. Fallible yes. Cabable of teaching incorrect oppinions in even a religios setting perhaps. But fallible enough to make up a book and say it was given them by an angel and still be a true prophet? No way.

[CV75]

historicity is less important than whether or not the Book of Mormon gives us " better access to the divine".

The Book of Mormon provides the standards, and how to use them, in assessing what is important to it:

1. Its spiritual aspect: Moroni 10:3-5.

2. Its other aspects (art, science, literature, history, geography, etc.): 1 Nephi 19: 6; 2 Nephi 33: 1; but most especially Ether 12: 23-28.

The spiritual aspect of the book reflects Godâ??s purposes and methods (prayer, revelation). The other aspects of the book, including its historicity, reflect readers' purposes and methods (the arts and sciences of record-keeping). To some extent, though they intended to write for God, the writers in their weakness also must have allowed some of their own record-keeping ideas to slip in there.

God has a perfect standard by which to measure the effectiveness of His methods (the witness of the Holy Ghost), and us mere mortals have fairly imperfect standards to measure the effectiveness of our methods (intellectual assessments according to criteria that are constantly â??improvingâ?).

[Ray Agostini]

I would suggest anyone who questions the historacity of the BoM watch George Potter's "Discovering Lehi's Trail". Also "Peru; The Land of the Book of Mormon" as both these DVD's provide great insights to the arceaological discoveries backed by BoM scriptures.

That's pretty much in the same genre as Warren Aston's In the Footsteps of Lehi: New Evidence for Lehi's Journey Across Arabia to Bountiful.

A skeptic would wonder why Old World evidence is easier to find than New World evidence. Even if you look real carefully at a summary of the Old World evidence: In Search of Lehi's Trail—30 Years Later, there's still a lot of speculation.

Look at two comments:

The discovery was almost too good to be true. Running between walls of granite rock that rise 2,000 feet above the wadi floor was a gentle stream that, upon inspection, was found to flow aboveground for most of the 3.75 miles of the canyon's length. At different times of year, Potter has returned to this impressive canyon, named Wadi Tayyib al-Ism ("the valley of the good name"), and has learned that the stream runs continuously throughout the year—even though its flow has been diminished in recent years by modern pumping—and comes within a few yards of reaching the Red Sea. The stream thus meets the chief criterion for Lehi's River of Laman—"continually running" (see 1 Nephi 2:8—9). Potter has also examined the neighboring valleys that open onto the Red Sea and has found no other "continually running" stream like this one.5 These observations allow us to be confident that we now know the general locale of the party's first camp—it lay in this wadi, the only place within "three days" of walking6 from the northeast tip of the Red Sea where a person can find a "continually running" stream—one that, as a confirming bonus, flows to the edge of the sea (see 1 Nephi 2:6).

So a continually running stream proves that the BoM hit the bullseye? In the mind of someone wanting to believe it probably is a "hit", and maybe this is partly what Kevin is talking about - where "lots of evidences" show up, but might be viewed much more skeptically by an outsider.

A second locale, now firmly established, is that of Nahom, where "Ishmael died, and was buried" (1 Nephi 16:34). The antiquity of this name is secure because of the archaeological recovery of three votive altars that bear the tribal name NHM in the ancient South Arabian language. These altars all date to the seventh—sixth centuries BC when Lehi and Sariah were on their trek, and they were all donated by a man named "Biʿathar, son of Sawād, son of Nawʿān," to the Bar<ān temple near Marib, Yemen.7 Called "the first actual archaeological evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon,"8 these altars prove the existence of this name as a territorial and tribal area in southwestern Arabia in the first millennium BC. In this connection, the late Professor Ross T. Christensen published a short notice in 1978 in the Ensign magazine about the appearance of the tribal name "Nehhm" on a map drawn by a German explorer to Arabia in the 18th century.9 This notice prompted Warren Aston to further investigation, the results of which showed that the name NHM or Nihm was known to the Muslim historians al-Kalbi and al-Hamdāni as early as the 9th and 10th centuries AD, clearly indicating that the name long predated these authors.10 It was the publication of this name on the first of the three altars that demonstrated conclusively that NHM or Nihm was contemporary with Lehi and Sariah. The second and third altars have cinched the conclusion.

(Emphasis added)

I looked at this closely when Warren was sending me his preliminary manuscripts for his book, co-authored with his wife. I think it probably is the closest one will get to evidence, but it's still a shot in the dark to some degree. There are lots of other possibilities. Let's turn the tables. Does anyone wonder why the names Nephi and Laban are in the Apocrypha? Here is FAIR's reply to accusations of plagiarism: Book of Mormon/Plagiarism accusations/Apocrypha.

Any reasonable person could draw the conclusion of plagiarism, because some of the verses are quite similar. But should we? It that a "bulls eye" for plagiarism? Not necessarily. So you'll see a distinct pattern here. When something favours the BoM, apologists will jump on to it. When something challenges the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, critics will jump on to it.

IMO, there are other ways to determine whether the BoM is history, or not.

[cinepro]

They simply cannot be "wrong" about an angel handing them gold looking plates and telling them how to translate. I am not talking about obscure doctrine here friend, I am talking about the cornerstone of our religion.

I'm sure you mean the keystone, right?

The BOM cannot be scripture and yet not be an actual translation of an ancient document. It is impossible. And were our prophets that fallabe this whole church would be a sham. But they aren't and its not. Fallible yes. Cabable of teaching incorrect oppinions in even a religios setting perhaps. But fallible enough to make up a book and say it was given them by an angel and still be a true prophet? No way.

You may feel that way now, but it's amazing the way people can adapt when needed. There are many different scenarios where individual members (or the Church in general) could move away from a literal/historical view on the Book of Mormon yet still honor Joseph Smith as a "Prophet". Once you start the shift from "literal scriptures" -> "metaphorical scriptures", it's just a matter of degree from there.

[Anticas]

I'm sure you mean the keystone, right?

You may feel that way now, but it's amazing the way people can adapt when needed. There are many different scenarios where the Church could move away from a literal/historical view on the Book of Mormon yet still honor Joseph Smith as a "Prophet". Once you start the shift from "literal scriptures" -> "metaphorical scriptures", it's just a matter of degree from there.

Whoops. Keystone is right.

I agree people who wish to believe something strongly do adapt when needed in order to hold on to those beliefs. Luckily for LDS such a senario will never occur in the church. Especially regarding the BOM. There is no room for the BOM to be "metaphorical scripture" and the LDS church still be the only true and living church on the face of the earth.