Institute for Religious Research Study Guide Challenge

[Rob Bowman]

Wade,

You wrote:

May I just say again:...

Depending upon who is doing the interpreting, the same, and more (binitarianism, henotheism, strict monotheism, etc.) can be said of the Bible. It can also be said of the early church fathers. I happen to interpret a lot of what Rob says as modalistics.

"Modalistics" isn't a word.

What matters is not who is doing the interpreting but the reasoning offered in support of the interpretation. Sure, anyone can interpret any text in any way one chooses, but some interpretations are better than others. I would be extremely happy if we could just eliminate the ad hominem fallacies from these discussions to make room for discussion of the real issues!

[mfbukowski]

Just a nitpik to add some clarity: I am a theist, not an agnostic. I firmly believe in God.

I also attend LDS Church services regularly and hold church callings from time to time.

As to the LDS Church's truth claims? On those I am very much agnostic.

So how does that differ, pragmatically, from those of us who accept those alleged "truth claims", whatever that means, "on faith"?

Welcome to the mainstream dude!

[wenglund]

Wade,

You wrote:

"Modalistics" isn't a word.

It is an unconventional word, but a word nevertheless. I would be extremely happy if we could just eliminate the lexical nitpicking from these discussions to make room for discussion of the real issues.

What matters is not who is doing the interpreting but the reasoning offered in support of the interpretation. Sure, anyone can interpret any text in any way one chooses, but some interpretations are better than others.

"Better" is in the eye of the beholder. The person doing the interpreting tends to believe his or her interpretation is the best. Take, for instance, your modalistic interpretation of certain Book of Mormon passages. I trust you consider your interpretation to be the best, whereas I view it as just the opposite (I find your interpretation to be overly simplistic and nuance-challenged). To each their own.

I would be extremely happy if we could just eliminate the ad hominem fallacies from these discussions to make room for discussion of the real issues!

Since this can't in any reasonable way apply to my comments, I would be pleased if you would stop cluttering your responses to me with whiny irrelevancies and stick to discussing the real issues.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited February 3, 2012 by wenglund

[mfbukowski]

That's a convenient way of getting out of responding to Post 31.

Deja vu all over again.

[mfbukowski]

Vance,

The discrepancy you perceive is resolved once one takes into account the Book of Mormon's assertions that Christ is the Father and the Son and that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God.

You really do not understand divine investiture at all, do you?

[Rob Bowman]

Wade,

Regarding your word modalistics, you wrote:

It is an unconventional word, but a word nevertheless. I would be extremely happy if we could just eliminate the lexical nitpicking from these discussions to make room for discussion of the real issues.

Using Google, I found just three other instances of the use of this non-word. It is hardly lexical nitpicking to point out in passing that there is no such word. Now if I had made a big deal out of it, you could complain about nitpicking. I did not.

Try to imagine the field day Mormon apologists would have here if I had used a word like Mormonists (there are actually far more instances of people using this "word") or Nephists (I found one occurrence of this "word" for the Nephites).

You wrote:

"Better" is in the eye of the beholder. The person doing the interpreting tends to believe his or her interpretation is the best. Take, for instance, your modalistic interpretation of certain Book of Mormon passages. I trust you consider your interpretation to be the best, whereas I view it as just the opposite (I find your interpretation to be overly simplistic and nuance-challenged). To each their own.

Okay, another subjectivist for whom evidence and reason do not matter. Noted.

You wrote:

Since this can't in any reasonable way apply to my comments, I would be pleased if you would stop cluttering your responses to me with whiny irrelevancies and stick to discussing the real issues.

Using your own hermeneutical method, it would appear that what you mean is that to your subjective taste my observation about ad hominem fallacies felt whiny and irrelevant to you. It's hard, though, to know what to make of your appeal to reason after you have just thrown it under the subjectivist bus. As to the point I made, when you dismiss an interpretation because of who presents it (in this case, moi), you are committing the ad hominem fallacy.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Rob Bowman

[Rob Bowman]

Mr. Bukowski,

Pahoran, on 02 February 2012 - 09:41 PM, said:

That's a convenient way of getting out of responding to Post 31.

Deja vu all over again.

Oops, you missed these:

[CV75]

So, do you have an opinion you wish to share regarding the challenge question that is the focus of this thread?

None at all. The first time I looked at this thread was to see the post you wrote, which I replied to.

[Calm]

Is it so difficult to admit that an outsider might be sincerely trying to be accurate in what he says about your doctrines and texts?

I have had experiences with many outsiders who appear to be sincerely trying to be accurate in what they say about LDS doctrine and texts.

Comparing what they have come up with to what you have come up with is one reason I doubt that your sincerity to be accurate is the primary motivator of your interpretations.

[Rob Bowman]

CV75,

Okay.

None at all. The first time I looked at this thread was to see the post you wrote, which I replied to.

[Rob Bowman]

I have had experiences with many outsiders who appear to be sincerely trying to be accurate in what they say about LDS doctrine and texts.

Comparing what they have come up with to what you have come up with is one reason I doubt that your sincerity to be accurate is the primary motivator of your interpretations.

It's difficult to take your criticism seriously since (1) you give no specific examples of egregiously inaccurate statements from my writings and (2) you have already indicated in effect that you would prefer that Mormons refuse to help me to be accurate in what I say. That suggests that I am not the one here who is concerned about scoring polemical points rather than in spreading truth.

[JDave]

....

Rob, I don't know if you noticed my reply among the other comments.

[Mark Beesley]

Is it so difficult to admit that an outsider might be sincerely trying to be accurate in what he says about your doctrines and texts?

Not at all. I assume your Study Guide is going to be undergoing some major revamping.

[Calm]

It's difficult to take your criticism seriously since (1) you give no specific examples of egregiously inaccurate statements from my writings and (2) you have already indicated in effect that you would prefer that Mormons refuse to help me to be accurate in what I say. That suggests that I am not the one here who is concerned about scoring polemical points rather than in spreading truth.

If you were actually presenting accurate information after LDS interacted with your interpretations I would feel completely different about it as I do with those investigators and critics who modify their accounts according to what LDS say are wrong when told they are inaccurate by LDS. I am perfectly happy to help critics who present information correctly in their challenges. I have done it in the past even to the point that one prominent critic asked me to help him edit a popular critical book for its second edition....but when I found out he was less than committed to actual accuracy, I turned down the offer.

As to supplying examples, I don't think I need to present any more examples of refusal to fully interact with LDS to yield accuracy rather than a preferred error or an overly biased and inaccurate interpretation than what is going on in this thread with your multiple responses to correction of your "Great Spirit" interpretation. If someone is curious about more such discussions, I think pretty much any extended discussions demonstrate the same.

Edited February 3, 2012 by calmoriah

[Rob Bowman]

Dave,

It's been a busy day.

It is if the book makes special note, pausing the narration, to tell readers that "Great Spirit" is a Lamanite tradition. The author is trying to distance themselves from that term for deity. If it was a perfectly legitimate term for God, then why the distancing?

The "distancing" is satisfactorily explained on the view that it was not a Nephite term and reflected a generic awareness of a deity rather than the specific knowledge of God that came through divine revelation. Nothing in the text suggests that the title expressed a falsehood about God.

That is true. There is no explicit renunciation of this belief.

Which means that it is legitimate to cite this textual evidence as one small part of a larger cumulative argument for the conclusion that prior to 1842/1843 Joseph Smith thought of God (prior to the coming of Jesus as a mortal) as a spirit.

It is highlighted as a Lamanite tradition, as opposed to a Nephite teaching. It is never actually taught by a Nephite prophet. And the term is unique to this exchange in Alma 18-22.

Which is why I would not use this textual evidence in a stand-alone argument as sufficient proof in and of itself, but instead use it as one small part of a larger cumulative argument.

Why should the authors of the Book of Mormon specifically dispute this belief already highlighted as something other than Nephite teachings?

It doesn't do that. Nothing in the Book of Mormon highlights the Lamanite belief in a Great Spirit as wrong or incompatible with Nephite teachings. All it does is indicate that this is not how Nephites spoke of God.

Consider a separate example in the Book of Mormon that shows apostate beliefs. In Alma 31 we are given the prayer of the apostate Zoramites. The prayer contains false teachings, but those teachings are not specifically rebutted. It is taken for granted that nothing in the Zoramite prayer should necessarily be construed as true doctrine. The Zoramites state that God will always be Spirit. This is not disputed by the book author. Yet could you really claim that the Book of Mormon teaches us that God will always be Spirit?

No, of course not, since the Book of Mormon explicitly says otherwise!

I had listed for you three doctrinal beliefs that Lamoni affirmed, two of which you admit are true and the other of which you admit is never contradicted in the Book of Mormon. In contrast, the Zoramites' prayer is framed in a way to make it clear that the prayer expressed terrible falsehoods (from the standpoint of the author). We are told throughout the chapter that the Zoramites perverted the ways of the Lord, worshiped idols, refused to keep the law of Moses, did not do the required daily prayers; that in their house of worship had an elevated podium; that they spoke about God only during the weekly service (Sunday Christians!), had their hearts set on material prosperity, and were very proud. The prayer affirms doctrines clearly rejected elsewhere in the Book of Mormon, such as double predestination and a denial of Christ and his coming in the flesh.

By the way, the passage, including the prayer, is a transparent caricature ridiculing Calvinists (Presbyterians): the Zoramites claim to be the elect for salvation and that God had elected everyone else to be damned forever (double predestination). They emphasize the holiness and unchangeableness of God (as do Calvinists, though not in the caricatured way represented in the passage). They are portrayed as denying Christ, which of course cannot be said of the Calvinists -- but the point seems to be something like that if Calvinists had been around at the time they would have been among those who denied Christ.

In any case, the comparison with the story about Ammon and Lamoni doesn't undermine my analysis of the latter at all. The Book of Mormon overtly rejects the Zoramite theology; it does not overtly reject the belief that God was a spirit, and in fact elsewhere supports that idea by saying that he was going to come in the future into a body of flesh.

Silence does not indicate approval, nor does the silence provide any evidence for your claim.

My argument is an argument from what the Book of Mormon does say, not from what it doesn't say. Pointing out that there is no contrary evidence negating the positive evidence I presented is not an argument from silence!

What is there to engage? The term Great Spirit is not adopted as a method to teach true doctrine, but it is temporarily borrowed as a segue to then move on to true doctrine. Christ may or may not have been in Ammon's mind as the creator God, but either way it is more than straining to claim that "Great Spirit" is used as a teaching point for correct doctrine. The usage of "Great Spirit" as anything other than a generic, apostate, title for deity is simply not found in the text.

I have already explained the point of my citing this evidence. Your objection assumes that I am treating this one expression as a stand-alone proof. I'm not. If, as you seem to be on the verge of conceding, the "God" of this passage is the pre-mortal Christ, then the debate should be over, because that God was by your own theology non-physical.

Regarding my reference to Joseph Smith's teaching about God in the 1830s, you wrote:

This is not exegesis.

I didn't say it was. Remember the context. I cited Alma 18 as part of a cumulative-case argument for the conclusion that the doctrine of the Father as an exalted being of flesh and bones was a late innovation in Joseph Smith's theology.

You wrote:

It is possible. I have no way of judging whether you have made a good-faith effort.

Sure you do. Try reading the whole Gospel Principles Scripture Study Guide, instead of fixating on this one disputed citation, and you should have no trouble judging whether overall I made a good-faith effort to understand Mormon doctrine fairly and accurately. So far, no one has even tried this (and then said anything). Instead they have cherry-picked an isolated statement or citation and tried to turn it into an indictment of my sincerity.

Using other sources to paint an interpretation rather than doing an exegesis makes me wonder. Not wonder about your sincerity, but how much your pre-conceived notions affect your analysis.

Answered above.

The arguments in your above two posts to me boil down to "There is no denial that God is a Spirit, and I have other sources that lead me to believe that lack of denial is tantamount to teaching that God the Father is a Spirit."

Hopefully you can now see that this is not an adequate understanding of my argument.

[JDave]

Rob, I will address a few of your points here but will be following up with a subsequent post.

The "distancing" is satisfactorily explained on the view that it was not a Nephite term and reflected a generic awareness of a deity rather than the specific knowledge of God that came through divine revelation. Nothing in the text suggests that the title expressed a falsehood about God.

"satisfactorily explained"??? The distancing is evidence against your claim that you are reasonably and satisfactorily explaining away. Rather than stacking up evidence from either side of the argument you are explaining away things that disagree with your conclusion.

Which means that it is legitimate to cite this textual evidence

If you think the lack of denying a Lamanite tradition is textual evidence for a Nephite belief, then we are not going to come to any agreement.

In contrast, the Zoramites' prayer is framed in a way to make it clear that the prayer expressed terrible falsehoods (from the standpoint of the author). ... The Book of Mormon overtly rejects the Zoramite theology

And one of those terrible falsehoods is they say of God that "thou wast a spirit, and that thou art a spirit, and that thou wilt be a spirit forever" (Alma 31:15, emphasis added) It is interesting that the one other spot that states God is a spirit is in the middle of this prayer full of terrible falsehoods that the Nephites reject from these Zoramites that perverted the ways of the Lord.

My argument is an argument from what the Book of Mormon does say, not from what it doesn't say. Pointing out that there is no contrary evidence negating the positive evidence I presented is not an argument from silence!

What The Book of Mormon does say is quite scant and I will cover it in my subsequent post.

If, as you seem to be on the verge of conceding, the "God" of this passage is the pre-mortal Christ, then the debate should be over, because that God was by your own theology non-physical.

This appeal to Christ as being the "Great Spirit" perplexes me. I have no interest in stating whether that is Ammon's intent or not. The argument itself is so weak that stating "the debate should be over" is silly. It requires a number of assumptions from a number of places.

1. Assume that Ammon is adopting "Great Spirit" as a legitimate title/description for God.
   
2. Assume that the title "Great Spirit" is used to teach that God is a Spirit. at least this one would follow easily from #1...
   
3. Assume that Ammon was referring to Christ as the creator God
   
4. Assume that Christ is God the Father (which requires several assumptions in itself, and flies against so many scriptures in The Book of Mormon)
   
5. Assume that although teachings about God the Father and teachings about Christ are distinguished as different throughout The Book of Mormon, in this case a teaching about Christ is actually about God the Father.
   

[JDave]

Rob, I doubt you're being purposefully obtuse here but there is a lot of evidence against your case and not much for it.

EVIDENCE that The Book of Mormon teaches that God the Father is a Spirit:

Alma 18:26-28 -- After asking if Lamoni believes in a Great Spirit, Ammon says "This is God"

Alma 22:8-10 -- After Lamoni's father asks Aaron if God is "that Great Spirit that brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem", Aaron answers "Yea, he is that Great Spirit".

Everything else is an attempt to read something into the text. Even your complaint that the term "Great Spirit" is never repudiated is not really primary evidence. It is a traditional title used by the apostate Lamanites for a deity. It is never used in a context that even slightly looks like an assertion to the Spirit-only nature of God, especially by any Book of Mormon authors.

COUNTER-EVIDENCE:

Alma 18:4-5 -- Pausing the narration to point out that "a Great Spirit" was a Lamanite tradition as opposed to a Nephite teaching. Use of the indefinite article provides further distancing from this term as a legitimate title for God.

Alma 18:18,24 -- Although Lamoni already introduced the term "Great Spirit" into the conversation, Ammon does not adopt the term and instead asks if Lamoni believes there is a God.

Alma 18:26-28 -- Ammon establishes that the Lamanite tradition of a Great Spirit deity is better understood as God. This is an immediate attempt to help Lamoni distance himself from the term Great Spirit (which worked as seen below!)

Alma 18:34 -- Ammon distinguishes between God and "his Holy Spirit".

Alma 18:41 -- Lamoni says his first prayer and he addresses it to the "Lord". Lamoni never again uses the term Great Spirit.

Alma 22:7 -- Aaron asks if the king believes there is a God. The king admits he has heard of such a thing but states it is something distinct from his beliefs in a Great Spirit.

Alma 22:18 -- The king says his first prayer and addresses it to "God". He never again uses the term Great Spirit.

Your assertion was that The Book of Mormon teaches that God the Father is a Spirit. Weighing the evidence it seems quite reasonable to say that your assertion is not well supported. It seems much more reasonable to say that the Nephite authors and missionaries tried to distance themselves from the term "Great Spirit" as quickly as they could. The only other reference to God as a Spirit is in the prayer of the apostate Zoramites, which is full of other falsehoods and portrayed in a negative light by the author.

Edited February 4, 2012 by JDave

[Rob Bowman]

Dave,

It would be possible to argue the issue of the significance of the term "Great Spirit" for weeks on end, but I see diminishing returns in going any further. The bottom line on this particular point is that I sincerely think my use of the passage is warranted, but I'm not dogmatic about it and acknowledge that Mormons committed to defending the Book of Mormon as consistent with later LDS theology will argue tooth and nail against my interpretation. Fine. However, take this one very minor point out of my article and the conclusion still stands: the doctrine that Joseph Smith taught in the 1830s was that God the Father is a spirit, not a person of flesh and bones. The larger point is that Joseph's theology underwent a very definite development from monotheism to polytheism. No one has even tried to address the cumulative weight of evidence for that larger point. Instead the discussion has fixated on a very minor interpretive question on one of the many texts I cited in the course of my argument.

The challenge I had issued, to which this thread was supposedly a response, was to read my Gospel Principles Scripture Study Guide in its entirety and make a fair-minded assessment of whether the work represents at least a good-faith effort overall to understand Mormon doctrine fairly and accurately. One would think from the actual posts from Mormons up to this point that the issue was whether the GPSSG was inerrant! It seems that I am being held to a higher standard than Mormons are willing to hold even the Book of Mormon, supposedly the most correct book on earth.

I am done debating the Great Spirit passage. Feel free to have the last word. Others may choose to declare victory. If anyone actually takes the challenge seriously, I will be most pleasantly surprised.

[Anakin7]

Great Spirit = Pre Mortal Christ Jesus = Yahweh/Jehovah

In His Debt/Grace

Anakin7

LDS JEDI KNIGHT

[Rob Bowman]

Mark,

You wrote:

Not at all. I assume your Study Guide is going to be undergoing some major revamping.

At this time, all I expect to do is some minor tweaking here or there. But I remain open to more substantive critiques than what I have seen to this point.

[JDave]

Dave,

It would be possible to argue the issue of the significance of the term "Great Spirit" for weeks on end, but I see diminishing returns in going any further. The bottom line on this particular point is that I sincerely think my use of the passage is warranted, but I'm not dogmatic about it and acknowledge that Mormons committed to defending the Book of Mormon as consistent with later LDS theology will argue tooth and nail against my interpretation. Fine.

...

I am done debating the Great Spirit passage. Feel free to have the last word. Others may choose to declare victory. If anyone actually takes the challenge seriously, I will be most pleasantly surprised.

It is just pitiful to note how similar this post of yours is to these other ones of yours after I produced a preponderance of evidence against an argument of yours.

Seriously, Rob, why would anyone want to read through your whole guide if this is the type of response you give to the first item brought up?

Edited February 4, 2012 by JDave

[Rob Bowman]

Dave,

You wrote:

It is just pitiful to note how similar this post of yours is to these other ones of yours after I produced a preponderance of evidence against an argument of yours.

Seriously, Rob, why would anyone want to read through your whole guide if this is the type of response you give to the first item brought up?

The more pertinent question is why anyone would want to get into a discussion with you knowing that after numerous posts back and forth and after making every effort to address your arguments, you will not even acknowledge that a reasonable effort was made. Since this has now happened to me at least twice with you, I will certainly have to keep that in mind in the future.

[JDave]

The more pertinent question is why anyone would want to get into a discussion with you knowing that after numerous posts back and forth and after making every effort to address your arguments, you will not even acknowledge that a reasonable effort was made. Since this has now happened to me at least twice with you, I will certainly have to keep that in mind in the future.

Rob,

I want to give you a benefit of a doubt here, and it is possible that we are simply talking past each other because what you consider reasonable is different than what I consider reasonable. It is suspect, however, that when I lay out the evidence weighing things from both sides, rather than just arguing certain points, that is the time when you want to stop (both times). For me, the analysis of something is best done by taking everything pertinent and looking at the whole to see what the conclusion should be. When it was apparent that you were not even acknowledging that there were two sides of the evidence, and that you were explaining how verses could be interpreted to meet your conclusion, I saw it was time to put all the textual evidence on the table.

My quite obvious frustration in my previous post stems from your "every effort to address" my arguments simply being every effort to justify your position rather than discuss what the text actually says. Here we are trying to discuss what the Book of Mormon teaches, and much of your argument was based on other sources. The more I wanted to discuss the actual text, the less you wanted to talk. If your preferred method of analysis really does so wildly vary from mine, then I agree that we will have to "keep that in mind in the future".

[Rob Bowman]

Dave,

Let's run through your supposed even-handed review of all of the evidence.

EVIDENCE that The Book of Mormon teaches that God the Father is a Spirit:

Alma 18:26-28 -- After asking if Lamoni believes in a Great Spirit, Ammon says "This is God"

Alma 22:8-10 -- After Lamoni's father asks Aaron if God is "that Great Spirit that brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem", Aaron answers "Yea, he is that Great Spirit".

Everything else is an attempt to read something into the text. Even your complaint that the term "Great Spirit" is never repudiated is not really primary evidence. It is a traditional title used by the apostate Lamanites for a deity. It is never used in a context that even slightly looks like an assertion to the Spirit-only nature of God, especially by any Book of Mormon authors.

You have ignored quite a bit of additional contrary evidence that I presented:

(1) the identification of this "God" whom Ammon equated with the Great Spirit as the creator of all things in heaven and earth, elsewhere identified as Christ

(2) the Book of Mormon statements asserting that Christ is both the Father and the Son

(3) the Book of Mormon statements asserting that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God

(4) the Book of Mormon statements asserting that Christ was going in the future to take on a body of flesh, presupposing that at the time he did not yet have such a body

(5) the overall theistic understanding of the divine being presented throughout the Book of Mormon, especially that he is God from eternity past to eternity future, the sole creator of everything in heaven and on earth, a view of God normally and logically understood to entail that God is spirit, not flesh

(6) the fact that Joseph Smith, the supposed inspired translator of the Book of Mormon, for more than a dozen years after translating it continued to teach that God the Father was a being of spirit, not of flesh

The first four lines of evidence are exegetical; the fifth is exegetical and theological; the sixth is not exegetical, but it is pertinent because Joseph Smith is the modern source of the Book of Mormon and supposedly an inspired prophet who knew the God of the Book of Mormon better than anyone else in the world.

So you see, Dave, I didn't feel it worth responding because you were the one who was continuing to ignore the evidence I presented. I tried to be charitable and end the discussion without rubbing your nose in it, but you wouldn't hear of it. So rub it in, I will.

Moving on to your alleged counterevidence:

COUNTER-EVIDENCE:

Alma 18:4-5 -- Pausing the narration to point out that "a Great Spirit" was a Lamanite tradition as opposed to a Nephite teaching. Use of the indefinite article provides further distancing from this term as a legitimate title for God.

Already answered.

Alma 18:18,24 -- Although Lamoni already introduced the term "Great Spirit" into the conversation, Ammon does not adopt the term and instead asks if Lamoni believes there is a God.

Basically the same point; already answered.

Alma 18:26-28 -- Ammon establishes that the Lamanite tradition of a Great Spirit deity is better understood as God. This is an immediate attempt to help Lamoni distance himself from the term Great Spirit (which worked as seen below!)

Again, basically the same point; already answered.

Alma 18:34 -- Ammon distinguishes between God and "his Holy Spirit".

This is a new argument from you, so that is why I had not answered it before. How this distinction is counterevidence to the conclusion that God himself was a person of spirit, you have not explained.

Alma 18:41 -- Lamoni says his first prayer and he addresses it to the "Lord". Lamoni never again uses the term Great Spirit.

Already answered.

Alma 22:7 -- Aaron asks if the king believes there is a God. The king admits he has heard of such a thing but states it is something distinct from his beliefs in a Great Spirit.

This is another new argument from you. I don't see what you claim to see in verse 7 or in anything else in the passage. Verse 7 does not mention the Great Spirit. In verse 9, the king asks Aaron if God is the Great Spirit, and in verse 10 Aaron says yes.

Alma 22:18 -- The king says his first prayer and addresses it to "God". He never again uses the term Great Spirit.

Already answered with regard to Lamoni in Alma 18.

As indicated above, all of your counterevidence that you had previously presented I had already answered. Your two new alleged pieces of counterevidence don't seem to work as such; at least, I don't see the reasoning that would find in them counterevidence to my interpretation.

And now, your conclusion:

Your assertion was that The Book of Mormon teaches that God the Father is a Spirit. Weighing the evidence it seems quite reasonable to say that your assertion is not well supported. It seems much more reasonable to say that the Nephite authors and missionaries tried to distance themselves from the term "Great Spirit" as quickly as they could. The only other reference to God as a Spirit is in the prayer of the apostate Zoramites, which is full of other falsehoods and portrayed in a negative light by the author.

As I have shown in this post, you did not weigh the evidence; you stacked it. That is, you ignored almost all of the evidence I presented and treated each textual citation supporting the same alleged counterevidence as separate evidence. What counterevidence you claim to have marshaled I have answered. By any fair assessment, I have addressed your arguments.

Now I respectfully request that we move on to other things. I know that you will not accept my arguments because you feel you have a religious obligation to see the Book of Mormon theology as coherent with your present LDS theology. I, on the other hand, have no religious obligation to view them as incoherent: in places they agree, in other places they appear not to agree. I have no vested interest in finding such disagreements; it would be just fine with me if the Book of Mormon agreed with current LDS doctrine. In my considered judgment, it does on some matters and not on others. You will vehemently disagree. Fine. But please stop trying to prolong this exchange to no fruitful purpose. If you have something new to present that would significantly address the cumulative case I have presented, fire away. But if you're going to continue stacking the evidence and complaining that I haven't answered your arguments to your satisfaction, you will get nowhere with me.

[KevinG]

Remember Rob gets to define what is substantive and what counts as evidence. It will help your communications with him to make this a part of your expectations.