What's the Latest on Archaeology Evidence for BoM?

[cdowis]

Well, if you can't point to such thing in a way that I can understand it (physically) then there is no way that I could ever accept your gospel as truth.

For what its worth, when exactly was the time of Adam?

OK, let's talk about Adam. (Let's open a new thread, of course, if you are willing)

You want physical, so let's talk about the physical "Adam", the very first male. How exactly did he meet the female (the MtDNA Eve) "from whom we are all descended". Did they just happen to be in the same place and time by some remarkable coincidence.

Tell us about that *physical* first man and woman, and then I will tell you about Adam. Don't tell us your feelings, your hunches, your belief, your imagination or fantasy.

Give us the physical reality, please. The facts.

You find Mormonism wanting, so educate us on that first encounter on your terms.

[Robert F. Smith]

1. Big mammals were extinct in the Americas by 11,000 BC. The BoM mentions several of them.

2. It’s very difficult for emigrants from one part of the world to bring seeds and crops to other parts of the world. The climate is rarely suitable. If you assume the Jaredites and Lehites left from a mediterranean climate, the only areas in the world where their seeds would have flourished are South Africa, South-west Australia, California and parts of Chile.

3. Extensive indigenous food production and animal husbandry in the Americas consisted of corn, beans pumpkins and turkeys in the Andes, manioc, potatoes, llamas and guinea pigs in the Amazon and sunflowers and goosefoot in North-East America (not sure that I’m using the correct English terms here, by the way). That doesn’t resemble what (little) the BoM tells us about agriculture.

4. There were no draft animals in the Americas before Columbus.

5. There was virtually no exchange of domesticated species between the areas mentioned in point 3 for two reasons: natural barriers like dense rain forests, swamps, deserts and mountains and incompatible climates.

6. Because of point 5, there was also hardly any exchange of technology or culture. So the wheel was known in Mesoamerica but not used for transportation because there were no draft animals. Only 1,200 miles further down, however, they did have possible draft animals (llamas) but they didn’t have the wheel.

7. Writing was known only in a very limited area; it dates back to 600 BC but has absolutely no relationship with any old world language.

8. Developing metallurgy takes hundreds, if not thousands of years. When Columbus arrived, the natives had just started to make bronze – no iron, let alone steel.

9. The Polynesians, of which the church maintains that they share a heritage with BoM peoples (see e.g. Encyclopedia of Mormonism), actually originate in South East Asia.

These are just a few broad strokes – but not easily brushed aside. Together, they paint a very consistent picture that is greatly at odds with the BoM narrative. You cannot change that picture with a lucky hit here and there.

Nearly all of your statements are false:

1. Not only do scholars not agree on what caused the extinction of megafauna in the Americas, they do not know when the last of them disappeared. Small pockets of them may have existed in suitable wilderness areas for thousands of years -- into Jaredite times (Ether 9:19). Elephants are not mentioned in the Nephite record, so that they may have finally become extinct by that time. The same applies to smaller mammals, and equines may have survived into Nephite times.

2. Seeds and plants from a wide variety of places outside the Americas currently prosper all over the Americas, many of them as "invasive" species. Some have virtually taken over and cannot be eradicated. Native plants are on the decline or have been wiped out in many areas. The climate throughout the Americas varies with the elevation and with local weather: Indeed the variations are so extreme that one may find a full panoply of climate (conducive to nearly any plant) in Mesoamerica alone -- from swamp to temperate altiplano, and everything in between.

3. Corn (maize), beans, squash, etc., were grown all over the Americas -- not only in the Andes. Turkeys could be found in the forests of the Yucatan as well as in New England before the arrival of the colonists. Manioc (cassava) has been found in an early Maya context in El Salvador by Payson Sheets. Your list of flora and fauna is too short and could be greatly expanded for all parts of the Americas. The most important point, however, is that your notion that this is incompatible with Book of Mormon agriculture is not only baseless, it is a non sequitur.

4. See #1.

5. Exchange of some domesticated species took place throughout the Americas. No so-called "barriers" actually interfered with widespread trade. Indeed, there was even cultural infusion from Asia and from the Pacific Islands. How do we know this? Scholars have identified many aspects of culture introduced from those areas in pre-Columbian times, including jade ideology, the game of patolli/parchisi, calendar deities and the ideology of time, the extensive use of the sweet potato under the same name in both Polynesia and in South America (kumara), etc.

6. This included the introduction of pottery technology into coastal Chile (Valdivia) from ancient Kyushu (Jomon), Japan. Other conclusions are premature. Particularly in view of the lack of information exhibited by you on actual technology in use in Mesoamerica during the presumed Book of Mormon period (including Jaredite times).

7. Writing among the Classic Maya (and some other Mesoamerican cultures of that and later periods) is now understood, despite the destruction of thousands of Maya books by the friars and priests of the Conquest period. However, the preclassic Maya writing has yet to be deciphered, and there is no reason to categorically state that it bears no resemblance to Old World writing or language. That has yet to be shown, aside from the fact that the Maya are probably not to be identified as Nephite.

8. The word "metallurgy" does not appear in the Book of Mormon, and where it can be assumed to have applied, it entails Old World technology -- which was readily available to Lehi and Nephi (steel was being manufactured from Judah to South Arabia half a millennium before Lehi). Iron outcroppings were certainly available in the New World, in San Jose Mogote (Oaxaca), for example, and were well used by the Olmec -- tons of worked iron artifacts have been found in Olmec sites such as San Lorenzo and Tres Zapotes. However, there is only one mention of steel in the Jaredite record (Ether 7:9), and steel disappears early from the Nephite record (I Nephi 4:9, 16:18, II Nephi 5:15, and Jarom 8 ). This means that steel should be quite rare in such archeological contexts, if it is found at all. Even at that, no smelting was required in the New World -- simply use of extensive bellows to create a bloom along with carburizing via standard blacksmithing.

9. The Book of Mormon says nothing about Polynesians, even though we know that they communicated with South America (and perhaps N. America) in some fashion. See #5.

Your "broad strokes" are "easily brushed aside."

[Nathair/|\]

A couple of germane Mormon Times columns.

http://www.mormontimes.com/article/20611/Challenging-Issues--Keeping-the-Faith-The-Book-of-Mormon-and-modern-science?s_cid=queue_title&utm_source=queue_title

http://www.mormontimes.com/article/20565/The-limits-of-archaeology

[Eldwynn]

OK, let's talk about Adam. (Let's open a new thread, of course, if you are willing)

You want physical, so let's talk about the physical "Adam", the very first male. How exactly did he meet the female (the MtDNA Eve) "from whom we are all descended". Did they just happen to be in the same place and time by some remarkable coincidence.

Tell us about that *physical* first man and woman, and then I will tell you about Adam. Don't tell us your feelings, your hunches, your belief, your imagination or fantasy.

Give us the physical reality, please. The facts.

You find Mormonism wanting, so educate us on that first encounter on your terms.

For starters, "Mitochondrial eve" and "Y-chromosome Adam" are references to real people (IE the oldest individuals to pass our mitochondrial dna, through mothers, and Y-chromosomes), but they did not live anywhere close to the same time. They were never married, and there were plenty of other people between the two. Basically, Mitochondrial even refers only to an unbroken chain of WOMEN. Any women who had only sons obviously would end her line. Similarly, Y-chromosome Adam refers to an unbroken chain of males.

This explains it a little better: http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2007/07/adam_eve_and_why_they_never_go.php

The problem with your question, is that there never was a "first" person that we can look back at. You probably would like to say that god used evolution as a tool, and intelligently guided it to the first man and woman- who were Adam and Eve. The problem is, there was never a profound time when two Homo X's gave birth to a Homo Sapien (our species). It is only in hindsight that we can say that homo sapiens could not reproduce with homo erectus.

A few things I know for sure though that just don't jive with a belief in god. Homo Sapiens have been around for about 250,000 years. Migrating from Africa, living incredibly short lives, and struggling with disease famine and war. Our hunter-gatherer years weren't particularly romantic. After this 250,000 years of struggling and suffering, the creator of the Universe, 6000 years ago, decides to FINALLY intervene, and he does so in Israel? The bible doesn't jive with anthropology.

Even a metaphorical biblical interpretation (Something I don't see Mormon prophets do), basically says that we are the product of incestuous relations Adam and Eve had with their children, and if you are Mormon, that happened in Missouri? This can't be right. Science says that we all originated out of Africa, and I believe Science, not because of a personal feeling, but because an overwhelming amount of evidence points there.

Edit: I am sorry, this should have been a new thread.

[krose]

OK, let's talk about Adam. (Let's open a new thread, of course, if you are willing)

You want physical, so let's talk about the physical "Adam", the very first male. How exactly did he meet the female (the MtDNA Eve) "from whom we are all descended". Did they just happen to be in the same place and time by some remarkable coincidence.

Tell us about that *physical* first man and woman, and then I will tell you about Adam. Don't tell us your feelings, your hunches, your belief, your imagination or fantasy.

Give us the physical reality, please. The facts.

You find Mormonism wanting, so educate us on that first encounter on your terms.

You've brought this up several times before, as if it's some sort of 'gotcha.'

It appears you think there would have had to be a mutated "human" boy born out of the blue to a pair of apes, who would have had to find a female with the exact same "human" mutation with whom to mate in order to spawn the human race. It's a strange sort of straw man.

[Kevin Christensen]

SNIP

The problem with your question, is that there never was a "first" person that we can look back at. You probably would like to say that god used evolution as a tool, and intelligently guided it to the first man and woman- who were Adam and Eve. The problem is, there was never a profound time when two Homo X's gave birth to a Homo Sapien (our species). It is only in hindsight that we can say that homo sapiens could not reproduce with homo erectus.

A few things I know for sure though that just don't jive with a belief in god. Homo Sapiens have been around for about 250,000 years. Migrating from Africa, living incredibly short lives, and struggling with disease famine and war. Our hunter-gatherer years weren't particularly romantic. After this 250,000 years of struggling and suffering, the creator of the Universe, 6000 years ago, decides to FINALLY intervene, and he does so in Israel? The bible doesn't jive with anthropology.

Even a metaphorical biblical interpretation (Something I don't see Mormon prophets do), basically says that we are the product of incestuous relations Adam and Eve had with their children, and if you are Mormon, that happened in Missouri? This can't be right. Science says that we all originated out of Africa, and I believe Science, not because of a personal feeling, but because an overwhelming amount of evidence points there.

Edit: I am sorry, this should have been a new thread.

Paradigm choice is always a matter of which paradigm is better. The trick here involves nothing more than choosing weak and static interpretation of what were originally developed as ritual dramas to contrast with today's science (handy since we can't very well use the next century's science). Paradigm choice also involves deciding which problems are most significant to have solved. And we that that here as well. Other kinds of evidence, experience, and witness that humans have put forth as evidence for God go without mention here. (See Ian Barbour and Ninian Smart on that, for instance.) And what significance can what is not mentioned have when weighing the balance? It's a trick.

It happens that every geologist and anthropologist at BYU teaches evolution. In actual fact and practice, it's not all "Man, His Origin and Destiny" for LDS. Given this fact and practice, this bit of knowledge, this current science on the state of LDS thinking on the topic, the problems which here seem un-surmountable to the point of obscuring everything else that other people have found impressive and persuasive regarding the existence of God, I think we should here grant the existence of demonstrable selectivity and subjectivity.

For instance, back in 1980, I recall how much I appreciated reading Nibley's Before Adam:

Do not begrudge existence to creatures that looked like men long, long ago, nor deny them a place in God's affection or even a right to exaltation—for our scriptures allow them such. Nor am I overly concerned as to just when they might have lived, for their world is not our world. They have all gone away long before our people ever appeared. God assigned them their proper times and functions, as he has given me mine—a full-time job that admonishes me to remember his words to the overly eager Moses: "For mine own purpose have I made these things. Here is wisdom and it remaineth in me." (Moses 1:31.) It is Adam as my own parent who concerns me. When he walks onto the stage, then and only then the play begins. He opens a book and starts calling out names. They are the sons of Adam, who also qualify as sons of God, Adam himself being a son of God. This is the book of remembrance from which many have been blotted out. They have fallen away, refused to choose God as their father, and by so doing were registered in Satan's camp. "Satan shall be their father, and misery shall be their doom." (Moses 7:37.) Can we call them sons of Adam, bene-Adam, human beings proper? The representative Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans, to name only the classic civilizations of old, each fancied themselves to be beings of a higher nature, nearer to gods than others who inhabited the land with them (and before them), or who dwelt in other lands. And yet they did not deny humanity to them.

A few decades later, one of Nibley's last essays, Abraham's Temple Drama, elaborated:

Since World War II, Egyptologists have displayed a sudden and lively interest in that vast Egyptian funerary literature which the older generation of scholars despised and deplored, and they have come to the agreement that the abiding goal of the people was nothing less than resurrection and eternal life. It was that which made Egyptian civilization what it was. And in a hundred other places in the world people went through the same routine at the same time. Every year in a hundred ancient capitals the creation was dramatized with joyful celebration at the prospect of a new life; singing, dancing, feasting, and drinking were the order of the day, as the angel chorus sings at the beginning of Goethe's Faust: Everything was herrlich wie am ersten Tag, as glorious as on the day of creation.42

But does all this singing, dancing, dramatizing, and preaching really make it happen? The performance at the temple was a preparation, a training, a school, and a theater, teaching by precept and example. They knew it was not the real thing. Shakespeare apologizes repeatedly in his great superspectacular Henry V, begging the pardon of the audience, "Can this cockpit hold / The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram / Within this wooden O the very casques / That did affright the air at Agincourt? / O, pardon!"43 He excuses himself for the sheer gall of daring to stage a great battle with "four or five most vile and ragged foils / (Right ill dispos'd, in brawl ridiculous)."44 Still, he is performing a service as he concludes, "Yet sit and see, / Minding true things by what their mock'ries be."45 The whole thing is just a mockup, as a stage is, a make-believe, frankly, a mockery. But still it will give you an idea of the "true things" it is supposed to represent.

So it is with the temple.

Barker's Temple Theology shows how the Genesis story was originally drama describing how to erect a tabernacle, a portable temple, and the temple is a model of the world. From that view, the six days of creation represents a ritual. If creating a Universe from nothing in six days or six thousand years seems troubling, erecting a model of the world in six days is very plausible. From that perspective, how scientific and persuasive should it be to claim that the age of the earth, and the evidence for homo sapiens going back hundreds and thousands of years rules out altogether any possibility of the existence of God. It's not the full range of evidence that counts, but the way the paradigm choice is set up. Set up in such a way that such things as alternate readings with suggestive possibilities, numinous and mystical experience, feelings of moral obligation, key historical events, Buber's sense of "I and Thou", of life lived in the presence of God, with God speaking through events, and us answering with our actions, visions, prophesy, miraculous productions including the Book of Mormon, etc., can and do weigh in the balance for paradigm choice for those who set up the paradigm choice to include their presence and significance.

As Nibley said in Before Adam:

The creation process as described in the Pearl of Great Price is open ended and ongoing, entailing careful planning based on vast experience, long consultations, models, tests, and even trial runs for a complicated system requiring a vast scale of participation by the creatures concerned. The whole operation is dominated by the overriding principle of love. You may accept the Big Bang, with its potential for producing all that came thereafter, but by any reckoning the earth was definitely not among the instantaneous productions of the first millisecond or even of the first fifteen minutes. No matter how you figure, it came along much, much later after a great deal had happened. "Worlds without number" had already come into existence and gone their ways: "And as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words." (Moses 1:38.)

Before Adam can be simply another phase of creation, another dispensation, another set of concerns, another world as far as we are concerned.

In the Pearl of Great Price, the first man of all men is Adam, and yet Adam is "many." What does that mean? Mose saw many lands, and each land it called earth. What does that mean? At the very least, we should approach the scriptures open to a wide range of possibilities, and not see them as a soap bubble to dismiss with a careless pin prick.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[WalkerW]

Paradigm choice is always a matter of which paradigm is better. The trick here involves nothing more than choosing weak and static interpretation of what were originally developed as ritual dramas to contrast with today's science (handy since we can't very well use the next century's science). Paradigm choice also involves deciding which problems are most significant to have solved. And we that that here as well. Other kinds of evidence, experience, and witness that humans have put forth as evidence for God go without mention here. (See Ian Barbour and Ninian Smart on that, for instance.) And what significance can what is not mentioned have when weighing the balance? It's a trick.

It happens that every geologist and anthropologist at BYU teaches evolution. In actual fact and practice, it's not all "Man, His Origin and Destiny" for LDS. Given this fact and practice, this bit of knowledge, this current science on the state of LDS thinking on the topic, the problems which here seem un-surmountable to the point of obscuring everything else that other people have found impressive and persuasive regarding the existence of God, I think we should here grant the existence of demonstrable selectivity and subjectivity.

For instance, back in 1980, I recall how much I appreciated reading Nibley's Before Adam:

A few decades later, one of Nibley's last essays, Abraham's Temple Drama, elaborated:

Barker's Temple Theology shows how the Genesis story was originally drama describing how to erect a tabernacle, a portable temple, and the temple is a model of the world. From that view, the six days of creation represents a ritual. If creating a Universe from nothing in six days or six thousand years seems troubling, erecting a model of the world in six days is very plausible. From that perspective, how scientific and persuasive should it be to claim that the age of the earth, and the evidence for homo sapiens going back hundreds and thousands of years rules out altogether any possibility of the existence of God. It's not the full range of evidence that counts, but the way the paradigm choice is set up. Set up in such a way that such things as alternate readings with suggestive possibilities, numinous and mystical experience, feelings of moral obligation, key historical events, Buber's sense of "I and Thou", of life lived in the presence of God, with God speaking through events, and us answering with our actions, visions, prophesy, miraculous productions including the Book of Mormon, etc., can and do weigh in the balance for paradigm choice for those who set up the paradigm choice to include their presence and significance.

As Nibley said in Before Adam:

Before Adam can be simply another phase of creation, another dispensation, another set of concerns, another world as far as we are concerned.

In the Pearl of Great Price, the first man of all men is Adam, and yet Adam is "many." What does that mean? Mose saw many lands, and each land it called earth. What does that mean? At the very least, we should approach the scriptures open to a wide range of possibilities, and not see them as a soap bubble to dismiss with a careless pin prick.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

To accompany your excellent post:

In the ancient world, the "rest" of the gods was always in a temple; in fact, temples were built with the purpose of deity resting in them. This rest of the gods often involved their taking control of the cosmos. A god could rest because order had been achieved and everything was now ready to run smoothly. Deities ran the cosmos from their temples. When stability had been assured, the regular daily business could be carried out without interruption. Consequently, when Genesis indicates that God rested on the seventh day, it tells us that in this account of the functional origins of the cosmos, the cosmos is being portrayed as a temple...In the ancient world, the physical temples may have often required long years of construction, but even after the entire construction phase was completed, it was not yet a functioning temple. The temple was made functional in a typically seven-day dedication ceremony. In this dedication ceremony, the functions of the temple were initiated, the functionaries installed, and then, on the seventh day, the symbol that represented the deity was brought in and placed in the central room of the temple. Only then could the temple begin functioning as it was designed to do. We would conclude then that Genesis 1 is composed along the lines of a temple dedication ceremony in which over a seven-day period, the functions of the cosmic temple are initiated and the functionaries installed. The functions center on the royal and priestly roles of people, but the imagery is defined by the presence of God who has taken up his rest in the center of this cosmic temple. Through him, order is maintained, and nonfunctional disorder is held at bay—through him all things cohere. (John H. Walton, "Creation in Genesis 1:1-2:3 and the Ancient Near East: Order Out of Disorder after Chaoskampf," Calvin Theological Journal 43:1, 2008).

[WalkerW]

As I wrote elsewhere:

Emerging from the Business Building a couple of weeks ago, my attention was captured by a relatively large gathering of students.

Upon closer inspection, I came across what I would describe as a campus mini-revival (without the tent). At the center of it all was Pastor Tom Short, a traveling evangelist who spouted Bible verses and young earth creationism.

I casually observed both him and the various groups of students engaged in their separate theological discussions. Debates ranged from the messianic nature of Jesus to the validity of prayer to the age of the earth. Then, of course, the cavalry arrived, labeling Short a racist, misogynist, homophobe, etc.

All in all, the spectacle was fascinating.

The most fascinating aspect, however, was Pastor Tom himself.

He was the epitome of Christian fundamentalism: a Christianity reacting to the current secular age that has little to do with the original Jewish sect of the first century. Ironically, fundamentalist biblical interpretations (particularly of the creation stories) are heavily influenced by the secular paradigms they seem to despise.

Ignoring the allegorical interpretations of Genesis by the early Church Fathers, fundamentalists instead embrace a creationism that is spawned from movements of the early 20th century.

Presupposing the biblical literalism born out of the Protestant Reformation and the secularized nature of science, fundamentalism was the product of the panicked reactions to Darwinism, the Social Gospel and German higher biblical criticism.

Former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute Francis Collins points out that if the claims of Young Earth Creationists were actually true, “it would lead to a complete and irreversible collapse of the sciences of physics, chemistry, cosmology, geology and biology … The YEC perspective is the equivalent of insisting two plus two is not really equal to four.”

What then are we to make of the biblical creation story?

Old Testament scholar John Walton recognizes that Genesis 1, “as in the rest of the Ancient Near East, … is understood as an account of functional origins — creation as [the ancients] perceive it is not a material process.”

“Existence” was not defined in terms of material ontology, but rather in regards of function and purpose. Chaos and disorder were deemed non-existent, despite potentially being physically present. To lay modern scientific understandings on top of the ancient texts is presentism at its finest.

Speaking about biblical imagery, particularly in the creation stories, Methodist scholar Margaret Barker writes, “These [images] are specific to one culture, that of Israel and Judaism, and until they are fully understood in their original setting, little of what is done with the writings and ideas that came from that particular setting can be understood. Once we lose touch with the meaning of biblical imagery, we lose any way into the real meaning of the Bible. This has already begun to happen and a diluted ‘instant’ Christianity has been offered as junk food for the mass market. The resultant malnutrition, even in churches, is all too obvious.”

Our fundamentalist friends seem a bit malnourished.

See:

John H. Walton, “Creation in Genesis 1:1-2:3 and the Ancient Near East: Order Out of Disorder after Chaoskampf,” Calvin Theological Journal 43 (2008).

Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence For Belief (Free Press, 2006).

Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery (Princeton University Press, 2003).

Ronald L. Numbers, “The Creationists” in God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, eds. Numbers, David C. Lindberg (University of California Press, 1986).

For Barker’s work, see http://www.margaretbarker.com/.

[Eldwynn]

Oh of course. The existence of crazy other worlds makes a lot more sense that someone making it up.

I guess the only issue I have with the metaphorical sexed up interpretation of the scriptures, is how do you take anything literally in the scriptures at all? Using your own methods of interpretation, could I not just spin ANYTHING I wanted out of the scriptures? And if you respond that we should look to the prophets... well none of them have held such a metaphorical interpretation that I remember.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Oh of course. The existence of crazy other worlds makes a lot more sense that someone making it up.

Nothing like loading the die before you cast them.

[WalkerW]

I guess the only issue I have with the metaphorical sexed up interpretation of the scriptures, is how do you take anything literally in the scriptures at all? Using your own methods of interpretation, could I not just spin ANYTHING I wanted out of the scriptures?

I use scholarship mainly. Literary genres.

Surely you don't think Genesis 1-3 is the same genre as, say, the Gospel of Mark.

[Eldwynn]

Nothing like loading the die before you cast them.

You're right. But the point remains, I believe explanations with the least assumptions are more likely to be true. If you are going to make up hypothetical explanations and not bother to find evidence in the real world to support them, then why on earth believe the original claim to begin with?

Anthropology seeks to find where humans came from. They do this with a set of scientific techniques. They have determined that we originated in Africa etc. Now, if you have this belief in other worlds and mind-bending ideas about how it happened- with no evidence of your own- then what difference does it make? You aren't contributing anything to the topic.

For example, many fundamentalist creationists say that fossils were put here by Satan. I remember when I was LDS, hearing an opinion that dinosaur bones are on the earth because god used other worlds to form the planet. Well they obviously believed that with no Scientific proof- so if you value empirical evidence so little, why bother accepting as truth in the first place?

I think I know the answer, but I would hate to be putting words in peoples mouths.

[Eldwynn]

I use scholarship mainly. Literary genres.

Surely you don't think Genesis 1-3 is the same genre as, say, the Gospel of Mark.

Could I write something down that was not true? I think that is the main philosophical question you need to answer. Even with issues of translation, second hand vs first hand accounts etc. It could be the case that whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark was just LYING, so why does it matter?

Of course you could replace lying with a multitude of shades of gray. Take the virginity of Mary example. Even if you could determine that we were 99% sure that so and so did indeed WRITE that she was a virgin, and he meant virgin in the supernatural sense, we still have no clue if he were telling the truth or not.

[WalkerW]

Could I write something down that was not true?

Absolutely.

I think that is the main philosophical question you need to answer.

I did. Deep.

Even with issues of translation, second hand vs first hand accounts etc. It could be the case that whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark was just LYING

That could very well be the case. One then has to engage why Mark, Matthew, Luke, John would lie about the resurrection of Christ. And those are great questions.

so why does it matter?

Speaking of philosophical questions, this is an important one. If the resurrection of Jesus Christ was an historical event, what are the implications? That may answer, "Why does it matter?"

Of course you could replace lying with a multitude of shades of gray. Take the virginity of Mary example. Even if you could determine that we were 99% sure that so and so did indeed WRITE that she was a virgin, and he meant virgin in the supernatural sense, we still have no clue if he were telling the truth or not.

You're getting away from what you originally asked me. You asked how one goes about interpreting scripture. You seem to have the same univocal, literalist approach to scripture as many fundamentalists. Since you reject the view, you reject the scriptures as well. I don't feel obligated to take literally the mentioning of a divine garden in a ritualized temple text. I do feel obligated to take seriously the claims of ancient biographies that supposedly use eyewitness accounts, especially when those accounts have helped shape Western civilization as we know it.

[Eldwynn]

Speaking of philosophical questions, this is an important one. If the resurrection of Jesus Christ was an historical event, what are the implications? That may answer, "Why does it matter?"

You're getting away from what you originally asked me. You asked how one goes about interpreting scripture. You seem to have the same univocal, literalist approach to scripture as many fundamentalists. Since you reject the view, you reject the scriptures as well. I don't feel obligated to take literally the mentioning of a divine garden in a ritualized temple text. I do feel obligated to take seriously the claims of ancient biographies that supposedly use eyewitness accounts, especially when those accounts have helped shape Western civilization as we know it.

We seem to be asking different questions actually. I want to know whether the ressurection of Jesus actually happened. I don't care what someone wrote down- that can not be the primary evidence. Nor can my personal feelings on the subject- because what makes my personal revelation better than yours? Neither of those would settle it. I would need some sort of empirical proof.

You on the other hand, need no empirical proof (it seems). You seem to say that because the event shaped a culture, than that is all that matters. Well, I can give plenty of stories that shaped cultures. Is it because they didn't shape "western" culture that you do not care about them? Then again, I would think Roman Mythology equally shaped western culture as much as christian mythology, but that debate sounds off topic, and honestly boring to me.

I think this example summarizes the problem. I think that you think (what we do to avoid looking like we are putting words in others mouths) that because multiple people wrote that Mary was a virgin, she was indeed a virgin (not using your testimony for a second here). I know that it is impossible for a virgin to give birth, so I find it more likely that the story is just that- a story. A bit of folklore- or a mistranslation. I don't know if you would have issue with my interpretation.

However, if you didn't, and you insist that Mary never had sex based on just what the authors wrote, then why can I not hold you to such a literal view of the Old testament, or all other scriptures? Because of who wrote it down!?

On the other hand, if you DID agree with me, then can we not just do the same move for the ressurection, and everything else that I take issue with your religion? Like... everything? When do you apply the "spin" and when do you not? To me, I only see it being done when it directly contrasts with science. It looks like cowardice to me :/

[Questing Beast]

Some people seem to have forgotten the line explaining that Adam and Eve ("the man and woman") are "simply figurative". Oh, wait, that's the old version. I guess they're NOT figurative anymore. And if not figurative, then they must be assumed to be literal and historical as presented. Which presents us with the current set of problems with Genesis, the creation story, being literal history. I think we have to look a while to find any informed, thinking person, who takes the creation story as literal in its details and assertions....

[Eldwynn]

Some people seem to have forgotten the line explaining that Adam and Eve ("the man and woman") are "simply figurative". Oh, wait, that's the old version. I guess they're NOT figurative anymore. And if not figurative, then they must be assumed to be literal and historical as presented. Which presents us with the current set of problems with Genesis, the creation story, being literal history. I think we have to look a while to find any informed, thinking person, who takes the creation story as literal in its details and assertions....

Certainly we don't have to go very far back. Gordon B. Hinkley springs to mind...

If you meant present day, well these guys might be a little hurt:

http://creationmuseum.org/

[Kevin Christensen]

Oh of course. The existence of crazy other worlds makes a lot more sense that someone making it up.

I guess the only issue I have with the metaphorical sexed up interpretation of the scriptures, is how do you take anything literally in the scriptures at all? Using your own methods of interpretation, could I not just spin ANYTHING I wanted out of the scriptures? And if you respond that we should look to the prophets... well none of them have held such a metaphorical interpretation that I remember.

Restricting prophetic opinion and interpretation to what you happen to remember does not demonstrate omniscience, anymore than restricting interpretation to whatever gives you momentary rhetorical advantage. (For instance, Brigham Young famously referred to the Garden story as baby story. I'm old enough to remember when a certain LDS temple drama referred to various things as being "figurative.")

And speaking of spinning anything you want out of the scriptures, would not a practice of uncritically literalizing ancient metaphors also be a shortcut to chaos?

Best practice is proper contextualization. Including genre, as Walker observes. Bad practice is ideologically self-serving presentist readings, and cherry picking obvious targets when other, far better readings are available and in current use. On a couple of occasions, I also heard a CES teacher or class student offer what I consider rather unhelpful explanations of fossils. However, I did not choose to interpret their comments as definitive LDS thought. Not when I had so much easily available evidence to the contrary.

Joseph Fielding Smith once wrote:

Even the most devout and sincere believers in the Bible realize that it is, like most any other book, filled with metaphor, simile, allegory, and parable, which no in-telligent person could be compelled to accept in a literal sense. …

The Lord has not taken from those who believe in his word the power of reason. He expects every man who takes his “yoke” upon him to have common sense enough to accept a figure of speech in its proper setting, and to understand that the holy scriptures are replete with allegorical stories, faith-building parables, and ar-tistic speech. …

Where is there a writing intended to be taken in all its parts literally? Such a writ-ing would be insipid and hence lack natural appeal. To expect a believer in the Bible to strike an attitude of this kind and believe all that is written to be a literal rendition is a stupid thought. No person with the natural use of his faculties looks upon the Bible in such a light.49 ( Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 3 (SLC: Bookcraft, 1956): 188-190.) Cited in http://www.dhbailey.com/papers/dhb-creationism.pdf

Bailey elsewhere quotes Talmage:

The opening chapters of Genesis, and scriptures related thereto, were never intended as a textbook of geology, archaeology, earth-science or man-science. Holy Scripture will endure, while the conceptions of men change with new discoveries. We do not show reverence for the scriptures when we misapply them through faulty interpretation. [James E. Talmage, “The Earth and Man,” address delivered in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, Aug. 9, 1931, and published by the Church under direction of the First Presidency].

http://www.dhbailey.com/papers/lds-science-quotes.pdf

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

[Hamba Tuhan]

Anthropology seeks to find where humans came from. They do this with a set of scientific techniques. They have determined that we originated in Africa etc.

For what it's worth, I was a student at the University of Wisconsin when Emeritus Prof John T Robinson came out of the closet, so to speak, and said that, despite having helped craft it over the course of his career, he actually rejected the narrative of human evolution. It was a desperate attempt, he said, to form a competing myth of human origins, one which would specifically appeal to those disinclined to accept the notion of divine creation, but for which the evidence was far too sparse to reach any sure conclusions.

I don't expect this piece of information to change anyone's mind, of course. I remember walking through the anthropology building the next day and hearing small groups of academics talking about how poor Prof Robinson had lost his mind. At the same time, I'm the sort who considers it important to at least acknowledge the existence of such 'subaltern' voices.

[Eldwynn]

Restricting prophetic opinion and interpretation to what you happen to remember does not demonstrate omniscience, anymore than restricting interpretation to whatever gives you momentary rhetorical advantage. (For instance, Brigham Young famously referred to the Garden story as baby story. I'm old enough to remember when a certain LDS temple drama referred to various things as being "figurative.")

And speaking of spinning anything you want out of the scriptures, would not a practice of uncritically literalizing ancient metaphors also be a shortcut to chaos?

Best practice is proper contextualization. Including genre, as Walker observes. Bad practice is ideologically self-serving presentist readings, and cherry picking obvious targets when other, far better readings are available and in current use. On a couple of occasions, I also heard a CES teacher or class student offer what I consider rather unhelpful explanations of fossils. However, I did not choose to interpret their comments as definitive LDS thought. Not when I had so much easily available evidence to the contrary.

Joseph Fielding Smith once wrote:

Even the most devout and sincere believers in the Bible realize that it is, like most any other book, filled with metaphor, simile, allegory, and parable, which no in-telligent person could be compelled to accept in a literal sense. …

The Lord has not taken from those who believe in his word the power of reason. He expects every man who takes his “yoke” upon him to have common sense enough to accept a figure of speech in its proper setting, and to understand that the holy scriptures are replete with allegorical stories, faith-building parables, and ar-tistic speech. …

Where is there a writing intended to be taken in all its parts literally? Such a writ-ing would be insipid and hence lack natural appeal. To expect a believer in the Bible to strike an attitude of this kind and believe all that is written to be a literal rendition is a stupid thought. No person with the natural use of his faculties looks upon the Bible in such a light.49 ( Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 3 (SLC: Bookcraft, 1956): 188-190.) Cited in http://www.dhbailey.com/papers/dhb-creationism.pdf

Bailey elsewhere quotes Talmage:

The opening chapters of Genesis, and scriptures related thereto, were never intended as a textbook of geology, archaeology, earth-science or man-science. Holy Scripture will endure, while the conceptions of men change with new discoveries. We do not show reverence for the scriptures when we misapply them through faulty interpretation. [James E. Talmage, “The Earth and Man,” address delivered in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, Aug. 9, 1931, and published by the Church under direction of the First Presidency].

http://www.dhbailey.com/papers/lds-science-quotes.pdf

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

I don't think this begins to answer my objection. What you are doing, is using textual methods to determine if an event actually took place, or an opinion was held. This doesn't even begin to establish whether they actually happened fully the way they were described.

Let's start with events in scripture.

Even if we found other documents showing that Jesus indeed survived death and was resurrected, this doesn't make it anymore plausible that it actually happened. It just makes it more plausible that the two authors got it from the same source. You can hardly say that the bible offers any evidence whatsoever that Jesus was resurrected, anymore than I can say that the Iliad proves Achilles was immortal except for his heel. It doesn't settle it one way or the other.

The way apologists paint the Book of Mormon has the same problems, by the way. If you hold that Joseph Smith did not actually translate the actual plates from their language, but merely saw the ideas in his head, then there are a large number of errors he could have made(an apologist opinion I see all the time, especially when talking about the BOA). Maybe Lehi and his family fled from China- not Israel. Joseph Smith could have merely got the wording wrong. Who are you to say?

Furthermore, with opinions, it is even harder. I could link a talk about Gordon B Hinkley (and many other prophets) referencing Noah's Ark, and try to point out that there is no way that the story is factual. You would of course agree with me, and say that the prophets knew that to, and were only using it as a metaphor. It's a win-win, that only depends on one thing- our personal opinion. They certainly aren't going to come out and say one way or the other. The church treads lightly around conversations like that now days. So how can I evaluate (and others) whether or not these prophets really do speak for god, and when they are merely giving their opinion?

Modern example: Why should I listen to the first presidency on issues like gay-marriage, and assume that it is the opinion of God? After all, you claim that I could not listen to the first presidency message on evolution in 1925, because clearly it was mere opinion back then. Do the prophets speak for god or not? If they don't, then why don't more members treat them like the pope? Accepting what they want, and rejecting the rest?

Your view paints a religion that is so very different than the one I grew up in. One where we can disagree with scriptures (after all, you are just misinterpreting the law of chastity, clearly Joseph smith didn't *mean* it etc.) In fact, the religion you are painting says nothing at all to me.

[Eldwynn]

For what it's worth, I was a student at the University of Wisconsin when Emeritus Prof John T Robinson came out of the closet, so to speak, and said that, despite having helped craft it over the course of his career, he actually rejected the narrative of human evolution. It was a desperate attempt, he said, to form a competing myth of human origins, one which would specifically appeal to those disinclined to accept the notion of divine creation, but for which the evidence was far too sparse to reach any sure conclusions.

I don't expect this piece of information to change anyone's mind, of course. I remember walking through the anthropology building the next day and hearing small groups of academics talking about how poor Prof Robinson had lost his mind. At the same time, I'm the sort who considers it important to at least acknowledge the existence of such 'subaltern' voices.

Seeing this made me ponder something. What if a prophet of the church recanted shortly before his death? Would that shake the church up a bit?

It doesn't shake anthropology up at all, because we follow the evidence, not the opinions of a single man. I am inclined to think that science has a way of self-correction absent in religion. Then again, maybe scriptures are comparable? But Prophets say things to clarify scriptures all the time.

[volgadon]

It could be the case that whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark was just LYING, so why does it matter?

Even if the authors of both Mark and Genesis were lying, how does that affect their being of different genres?

[cdowis]

For starters, "Mitochondrial eve" and "Y-chromosome Adam" are references to real people (IE the oldest individuals to pass our mitochondrial dna, through mothers, and Y-chromosomes), but they did not live anywhere close to the same time.

Of course they were real.

They were never married, and there were plenty of other people between the two. Basically, Mitochondrial even refers only to an unbroken chain of WOMEN. Any women who had only sons obviously would end her line. Similarly, Y-chromosome Adam refers to an unbroken chain of males.

OK, so there there was no offspring.

This explains it a little better: http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2007/07/adam_eve_and_why_they_never_go.php

I will trust that you will explain it. Or you can have the author come here on this forum to defend himself.

The problem with your question, is that there never was a "first" person that we can look back at.

The only problem with the question is that evolution does not have a satisfactory answer.

But let's move on.

You probably would like to say that god used evolution as a tool, and intelligently guided it to the first man and woman- who were Adam and Eve. The problem is, there was never a profound time when two Homo X's gave birth to a Homo Sapien (our species). It is only in hindsight that we can say that homo sapiens could not reproduce with homo erectus.

You can never guess what I think, so don't waste our time putting words in my mouth and refuting a strawman argument.

A few things I know for sure though that just don't jive with a belief in god. Homo Sapiens have been around for about 250,000 years. Migrating from Africa, living incredibly short lives, and struggling with disease famine and war. Our hunter-gatherer years weren't particularly romantic. After this 250,000 years of struggling and suffering, the creator of the Universe, 6000 years ago, decides to FINALLY intervene, and he does so in Israel? The bible doesn't jive with anthropology.

I am still awaiting your answer.

Even a metaphorical biblical interpretation (Something I don't see Mormon prophets do), basically says that we are the product of incestuous relations Adam and Eve had with their children, and if you are Mormon, that happened in Missouri? This can't be right. Science says that we all originated out of Africa, and I believe Science, not because of a personal feeling, but because an overwhelming amount of evidence points there.

Edit: I am sorry, this should have been a new thread.

I am still waiting for your answer. If there is no first man, or woman, then we have a very serious problem that the **physical reality** is that we exist.

I understand your hopes, fantasy, beliefs, etc, but you have utterly failed to describe the physical reality. You think, believe, "know", etc but your faith is not based on that cherished principle that you advocate here on this forum. You can only tell us that we are wrong.

[cdowis]

Seeing this made me ponder something. What if a prophet of the church recanted shortly before his death? Would that shake the church up a bit?

Yawn.

What if one of our legs grew out of our head. That would shake things up as well.

It doesn't shake anthropology up at all, because we follow the evidence, not the opinions of a single man.

How very smug.

How very naive.

[Eldwynn]

I think it's best if you and I just don't talk. You are 300 years late for the evolution argument.