A Fictional Book Of Mormon?

[Tacenda]

Yes, but is what he saying true or not? That's the question you should concern yourself with primarily, I think.

Well I haven't done thorough studying on the subject of Mesoamerica being BOM lands and I'm trying to keep an open mind. And when something is easy to read and not over my head (like this article) I'm all over it.

And there is something to be said for someone like cursor's father, John Sorensen to have spent most of his life studying and figuring out a place for the BOM, especially when so much points to it not happening in NY.

If it had, wouldn't they have excavated? Where is the evidence if it had? But like Bart, and I may be presuming his thoughts here, the teachings of several of the early church leaders have expressed it to be in NY or if it doesn't look that way they say one shouldn't go looking for other places. But I think most people like evidence to base things on, therefore all the research thus far that's been produced by FARMS and FAIR, etc.

Edited August 17, 2012 by Tacenda

[Pahoran]

In his blog entry, Hamblin exhibits black-and-white thinking. Joseph Smith was either a true prophet, a liar, or a lunatic. What is interesting is that the Book of Mormon itself also expresses black and white thinking.

The Book of Mormon says,

While Hamblin’s black-and-white thinking is used to map a gray Book of Mormon into the liar/lunatic camp, the Book of Mormon’s black-and-white thinking is used to map itself into the godly camp; if one concludes that the Book of Mormon isn’t an accurate translation of an authentic ancient manuscript that is okay—the book invites and entices goodness, therefore it must be from God.

Umm, problems with your interpretation:

1. Mormon's sermon recorded by Moroni isn't talking about the Book of Mormon. It was teaching Mormon's contemporaries to be thoughtful and discerning when listening to the many competing voices around them.
   
2. Mormon doesn't say anything equivalent to your "exegesis." His argument is not that it's okay to ignore questions about authenticity of a purported revelation, but rather, that godly influence is evidence of divine origin, and hence authenticity. You have got it exactly backwards.
   

Regards,

Pahoran

[Monster]

The Book of Mormon narrative, its geography, its 19th century plots, it's anachronisms, all are much better explained as fiction. Trying to pin it down as an actual event seems an exercise in futility. Whats so wrong with saying it was inspired fiction or just fiction. That is no less believable than angels and gold plates. Plus it answers all the inconsistencies that arise.

Edited August 17, 2012 by Monster

[ERayR]

The Book of Mormon narrative, its geography, its 19th century plots, it's anachronisms, all are much better explained as fiction. Trying to pin it down as an actual event seems an exercise in futility. Whats so wrong with saying it was inspired fiction or just fiction. That is no less believable than angels and gold plates. Plus it answers all the inconsistencies that arise.

Because it isn't fiction and from your post I would say that any knowledge you may have on the subject is very superficial.

[Grebdo]

"The only remaining choices are liar or lunatic. I simply can’t understand people who say none of this matters."

Well, the Brethren seem to take the position that it doesn't really matter. As long as you don't commit a grievous sin or actively speak out against the church you can pretty much believe what you want and still be welcomed with open arms. I personally think this is the correct position for the church.

Why people who don't fully believe want to remain is another matter but I'm sure there are as many reasons as there are non-believers. Logical people need good reasons to believe in gold plates, angels that speak to people in modern times and a papyrus that says something different than what is claimed. The apologetics explanations I have read for these things often don't add up and the Brethren rarely speak out on such controversial topics. One is left to rely on faith and some have more of that than others.

[DonBradley]

My view substantially accords with Ben McGuire's.

I laid out some of my views on the Book of Mormon's historicity as a "wedge" issue several years ago on a short-lived personal Mormon history blog." I was then a nonbeliever and defined myself on the blog as a "secular Mormon"--someone who, while rejecting Mormonism's foundational truth claims, had been substantially shaped by Mormon culture. (In fact, Bill, I'd be interested in hearing your reaction to that former self-definition: "I am a secular Mormon. I’m a former believer whose life and identity have been significantly shaped by Mormonism, and who continues to have a passionate engagement with it as a historian.")

The second, and last, entry was titled "'Either on the One Hand or on the Other': Why the Book of Mormon is Either True or Fraudulent." It doesn't completely represent my views now--particularly since I expressed my nonbelief in it at the time, but I think I was substantially right that taking the Book of Mormon as inspired fiction would be an unstable view, raise logical, psychological, and proselytizing problems, and probably change the character of the faith, leading to a deemphasis also on the literal nature of priesthood authority and other central elements of the Restoration.

Below, I'll post lengthy excerpts from this still lengthier piece.

Don

Edited August 17, 2012 by DonBradley

[why me]

I mostly agree with Hamblin's points on the blog.

The best scenario I can come up with that makes the case for BOM as inspired fiction is something like this:

• There were no gold plates, no angels, no visions.
  
• Joseph Smith decided to create the BOM (with or without co-conspirators) and a new religion to go along with it
  
• God is the type of God who doesn't intervene that closely in human affairs and mostly lets us do our thing
  
• God foresaw Joseph Smith successfully creating a world religion and decided to nudge him along in a good direction, subtly inspiring some or all of the doctrines and contents of the BOM and the new religion he was creating.
  

I actually think I believe this to some degree.

It would be difficult to claim that the book of mormon is inspired fiction. One reason for this is the foundational story of the book of mormon complete with supernatural visitations. If JS wrote this book and made up these visitations and experiences he was not engaged in inspired fiction. But in a fraud.

What would be considered inspired? For example, the movie "The Way" staring Martin Sheen. This movie has inspired people to change their lives. But it has never been claimed to be a true story. It was written by his son, Emilio.

Edited August 17, 2012 by why me

[why me]

Below, I'll post lengthy excerpts from this still lengthier piece.

Don

If joseph would have written this book as fiction, claimed it as fiction and stated he wrote it to inspire people, it would be inspired fiction if it inspired people to change their lives or become more faithful.

[DonBradley]

The following is from my old blog, five and a half years ago. I apologize in advance for my reference, from my vantage point of the time, to "professional apologists." And I would question some of my conclusions, like this: that the abandonment of Book of Mormon historicity would lead to the great expansion of the Church's humanitarian programs---??

"'Either on the One Hand or On the Other': Why the Book of Mormon is Either True or Fraudulent"

February 13, 2007

“The Book of Mormon claims to be a divinely inspired record, written by a succession of prophets who inhabited ancient America.… This book must be either true or false. If true, it is one of the most important messages ever sent from God to man… If false, it is one of the most cunning, wicked, bold, deep-laid impositions ever palmed upon the world…. The nature of the message in the Book of Mormon is such, that if true, no one can possibly be saved and reject it; if false, no one can possibly be saved and receive it. Therefore, every soul in all the world is equally interested in ascertaining its truth or falsity.”

—Orson Pratt

From the early days of Mormondom, Latter-day Saint authors have presented their audience with a stark dichotomy: the Book of Mormon is either exactly what it purports to be—an ancient record translated by divine power, or it is a deliberate fraud.

While I think there is more room for complexity and scholarly dialogue across faith boundaries than do many of these authors, I have come to embrace, at least in part, the dichotomy they present as one inherent in the claims of the book and its professed translator.

The Book of Mormon is a wedge, separating those who have faith in its own explanation for its existence from those who explain it as a product of either pious or self-serving fraud. Indeed, the book characterizes itself as a divider:

“…I will work a great and a marvelous work among the children of men; a work which shall be everlasting, either on the one hand or on the other; either to the convincing of them unto peace and life eternal, or unto the deliverance of them to the hardness of their hearts and the blindness of their minds, unto their being brought down into captivity, and also unto destruction, both temporally and spiritually, according to the captivity of the Devil…”

This message of the Book of Mormon, and of the LDS authors alluded to, is theological—that faith in the book is a matter of salvation and that the book must be either divine or diabolical. My point, however, is not theological. I’m not going to argue that if false, the Book of Mormon is “a wicked imposition.” Nor will I argue that the use of deception in the creation of the book would preempt the value of its message or the possibility that God (assuming he exists) could use it to bring about his purposes. Although I do see difficulties in maintaining religious faith in a work so produced, it seems to me that persons who profess to see the hand of God in earthquakes, fires, tempests, the sinking of cities, and other such catastrophic “acts of God” should perhaps not be too quick to dismiss the possible presence of that hand in more mundane, and perhaps benign, human acts of deception. But ultimately, questions of the validity of religion that has used fraud belong in the domain of theology, while the questions that engage me are historical: How was the Book of Mormon created? What were the purposes and motives behind its creation? If Joseph Smith is taken as its author, should he be seen as utterly sincere, or measurably deceptive?

Some (such as the historian Robert Remini) prefer to avoid the issue of truth versus fraud, while others seek a middle ground. Scott Dunn, for instance, has advanced the position that Joseph Smith was a sincerely mistaken “automatic writer.” Some have suggested that Joseph merely thought he obtained plates and received the divine translation thereof. And others seem to take the position that Joseph Smith was sincere because God instructed him to make the claims he did and author the Book of Mormon. While middle-ground positions like these are possible, in my view they are inherently unstable and difficult to maintain—logically, psychologically, and institutionally.

The logical difficulty of the Book of Mormon middle ground arises from Joseph Smith’s use of tangible evidence for his claims. He provided for others to heft a cloth-wrapped object he claimed was the set of ancient plates from which he translated the Book of Mormon. If the object was such a set of ancient plates, then his claims to supernatural guidance seem very strong indeed. The finding of such an object in the New World, and particularly in North America, and on a hill otherwise bereft of archaeological materials, is unprecedented. And the fact that his claim to divine guidance to the object long precedes his claim to have obtained it preempts the explanation that he fortuitously found a valuable artifact and only later theologized its discovery.

If, on the other hand, the object Joseph Smith wrapped in a cloth and represented as the golden plates he’d found was not what he claimed, then he used this object to deceive those he allowed to heft it and was thus—to that extent—guilty of fraud.

His claim is thus either true or fraudulent. He almost certainly could not have been mistaken in making it. Only a truly delusional subject could mistake a stone, old book, or stack of boards for a set of ancient gold plates he’d unearthed, and innocently pass off the former as the latter over a period of nearly two years. But Joseph Smith’s efficient functioning in everyday life demonstrates that he was almost certainly not a victim of psychotic delusion.

Furthermore, to have acquired an object that so readily could be passed off as the plates, Joseph would have had to carefully search for or construct such an object according to precise specifications of size, shape, weight, texture, and structure. Such a deception could not have been carried out unwittingly. It could only have been deliberate.

It is therefore logically difficult to maintain that Joseph Smith was wrong yet entirely honest.

The dubious logical coherence of the middle ground between revealed history and deliberate fraud engenders the psychological difficulty of standing that middle ground. Because the ahistoricity of the Book of Mormon and the honesty of Joseph Smith are logically dissonant, their simultaneous presence in the same mind tends to be psychologically dissonant as well. And this dissonance state is difficult to maintain. It pushes one to reject one claim or the other. This I know from personal experience, having tried to maintain, in succession, a few different middle-ground positions on the book.

This and other psychological difficulties of braving the middle ground contribute significantly to the institutional problems of such a position. Adopting a middle-ground position on the Book of Mormon is potentially very disruptive and threatening to those communities or institutions built upon it.

On the one hand, the rumors of the LDS church’s apocalyptic demise should it adopt such a position are probably exaggerated. Rabbinic Judaism survived the Reform, which jettisoned the literal truth of the Hebrew Bible. Adventism survived “the Great Disappointment” of Christ’s non-appearance in 1844. And the Jehovah’s Witnesses have survived numerous failures of fundamental prophecy. Similarly, Mormonism would almost certainly survive the shift to an ahistorical Book of Mormon. But it would not likely survive undiminished.

While religions do survive dramatic shifts of fundamental belief, it is probably crucial to the thriving of the LDS church, including its high rates of growth and attendance, that the church continue to maintain the historicity of the Book of Mormon. A complex rationale for how the Book of Mormon is scriptural, although fictional and “translated” from gold plates that are likely fictional as well would be difficult to sell.

The experience of the church formerly known as Reorganized illustrates this. The Community of Christ, which has given up promoting a historical Book of Mormon, is foundering, uncertain of its direction, and losing members to breakaway congregations that still maintain traditional beliefs. Admittedly, this cannot all be attributed to a shift of perspective on the Book of Mormon. The RLDS church was never as strong as the LDS and has recently been led by Protestant-trained leadership, a leadership that tried to Protestantize and liberalize the church rapidly and without having the general membership “on board” for this transformation.

Still, the LDS church is likely to undergo significant stress and unwanted change if it adopts belief in an ahistorical Book of Mormon.

Retooling the missionary program for such a Book of Mormon would make it awkward. The book would be presented as fictional, or equivocally—as possibly historical, possibly fictional, but the investigator would soon discover that the book presents its narrative as literal truth and its narrators as very real persons, whom they will meet at the judgment bar. The investigator would also discover that its putative translator, Joseph Smith, claimed to have obtained the book in the most tangible of forms, metallic plates—from one of the book’s own character-narrators! Explaining this to everyone’s satisfaction would be a good trick. Many investigators would be confused, and a number of new converts would no doubt come in as “fundamentalists,” affirming the historicity that their new church rejects.

Latter-day Saints would also confront the logical and psychological dissonance described above. Questions of why to believe in the first place would likely loom large: “Why trust a fictional book or a prophet who used fraud?” “If Joseph Smith used fraud in this instance, where else might he have used it?”

The nature of LDS belief would be challenged, and perhaps dramatically changed. “If the Book of Mormon isn’t literal,” some might ask, “what else isn’t literal either?” Biblical prophecy? The Second Coming? The resurrection? The restoration of the priesthood? The power of the priesthood? The requirement for everyone to receive the ordinances? And if these were doubted, commitment to missionary work and temple work would flag.

It is not without reason that many LDS leaders and apologists fear that adoption of an ahistorical Book of Mormon lies at the top of a very slippery slope.

That said, the results would probably not be uniformly negative. Adopting an ahistorical view of the Book of Mormon would, for instance, almost certainly result in a greater ecumenism and an expansion of existing humanitarian programs[??]. But it would open a floodgate when the results of doing so are not entirely predictable and could threaten articles of faith almost no present-day Latter-day Saint would want to see discarded.

I think the leaders and professional apologists[??] of the church see these things, and see clearly. For this reason, those who promote the Book of Mormon as 19th-century scripture are likely to continue to meet strong resistance.

To shift from the institutional to the personal, my own experience bears out, at least for me, the difficulty and awkwardness of making one’s stand on the middle ground. My own gradual accommodation of the evidence for 19th-century elements in the Book of Mormon was never meant to be unfaithful: it was meant to be apologetic. I saw myself as reformulating my beliefs in such a way as to both adapt to the new evidence and maintain my faith. But in the process, the content of my faith changed—and shrank. And it was not till near the end of this erosion of my belief that I saw it as an erosion of belief.

At the end of the process, I was somewhere I could never have anticipated at the start. The foundation had been pulled out from under my spiritual world—a loss I still struggle to replace.

Even now, as a nonbeliever in the historicity of the Book of Mormon, I want to find inspiration in it and the rest of Mormonism. And I would prefer to see Joseph Smith as fully honest and sincere. Lacking that, I would at least like to see him as motivated for the welfare of others—a pious fraud. But a wish is not a fact—I should view Joseph Smith in one of these ways not merely if I want to, but only if I perceive the evidence as supporting that view. Sadly, I do not. <Expressions of nonbelief snipped>

A question that has nagged at me in my research into the origins of the Book of Mormon, and nags the more insistently on the view that Joseph Smith was a self-interested fraud, is, “Whence the spiritual power of the Book of Mormon?” There is no question that it possesses this power, and has deeply impacted, and even transformed, myriad lives.

Whence the spiritual power of the Book of Mormon?

The believer has a ready answer for this. For the secular scholar, it is a puzzle sufficiently difficult that none appear to have addressed it.

Copyright: Don Bradley–February 12, 2007, 7:22 PM

All this said, I agree with Ben that Latter-day Saints should accept those who adopt a middle-ground position as a way of preserving their faith. And I wouldn't want to overly dichotomize or lay out an argument to persuade someone who doubts the Book of Mormon's historicity that they should therefore reject the book, and the Restoration, altogether. (What good would that do?) It is, in my view, almost always distinctly unwise to lay out a dichotomy whose likely result will be to push an uncertain hearer further from the truth.

One "middle ground" position is currently being pursued by the prominent scholar of American religious experience Ann Taves, who is developing an explanation for how, as she sees it, the plates could have been unreal yet Joseph Smith have been sincere. Her theory (which I heard secondhand but in confidence and therefore shouldn't share), so far as it has been explained to me, is interesting and innovative.

But, honestly, I'd have a hard time seeing how her theory could work.

And it still seems to me now, as it did five years ago, that it would be difficult to recast the Book of Mormon narratives as fictional, with their peoples and events having no real world correlates, without at the same time undermining the claims that the Restoration literally restores lost elements of God's ancient faith and that this is the uniquely true church on the earth.

So, while I don't want to press the dichotomy too far, I can't help seeing the Book of Mormon's reality as a matter of great, and potentially grave, consequence. It, like the Restoration's unique divine authority and distinctive revealed doctrine, is something on which we cannot retreat but must advance.

Don

[mfbukowski]

It would be difficult to claim that the book of mormon is inspired fiction. One reason for this is the foundational story of the book of mormon complete with supernatural visitations. If JS wrote this book and made up these visitations and experiences he was not engaged in inspired fiction. But in a fraud.

Not necessarily. A "fraud" in a legal sense would mean that Joseph was intentionally deceiving people. One might take the position that the visions were "made up" or a delusion, but that Joseph believed them to have actually happened, and thus it would not be a fraud.

Of course as I see it, it is impossible to tell if Joseph actually had those experiences or made them up. In fact since one cannot ever know what is really going on with someone else's subjective experiences- I cannot know what you are thinking- the difference between them really happening and Joseph thinking they really happened becomes irrelevant.

But on the other hand, that would still not make the BOM "fiction" since fiction is story which the author knows is a made-up story

We ultimately have to take it all on faith and testimony anyway.

[Libs]

Whence the spiritual power of the Book of Mormon?

Seems that many disaffected Mormons ask that question, because many still have feelings for the book. The Book of Mormon has always had a pull on me, from the very first day I started reading it. Even after I considered myself a "non-believer" in the church...and to this very day, I believe the book is inspired. I have also believed it might be inspired fiction, but my beliefs about that have never been in stone. I've been trying to wrap my brain around why, the Book of Mormon being fiction, would be a problem. I guess, the biggest problem, I see, is that it could not stand as "another testimony of Christ", if it were simply fiction.

[why me]

Seems that many disaffected Mormons ask that question, because many still have feelings for the book. The Book of Mormon has always had a pull on me, from the very first day I started reading it. Even after I considered myself a "non-believer" in the church...and to this very day, I believe the book is inspired. I have also believed it might be inspired fiction, but my beliefs about that have never been in stone. I've been trying to wrap my brain around why, the Book of Mormon being fiction, would be a problem. I guess, the biggest problem, I see, is that it could not stand as "another testimony of Christ", if it were simply fiction.

it has more to do with Joseph Smith claiming it to be true, written on plates complete with a visitation from heavenly personages. Nothing fiction about it. Now if he wrote it and claimed that it was inspirational fiction...well...then it can be claimed to be inspired only if people feel inspiration from it.

[why me]

Not necessarily. A "fraud" in a legal sense would mean that Joseph was intentionally deceiving people. One might take the position that the visions were "made up" or a delusion, but that Joseph believed them to have actually happened, and thus it would not be a fraud.

This would be very difficult since we have 11 witnesses claiming something happened with the plates. Joseph would have known that he needed something more to cement his fraud and enlisted plates and props. A good sign for a knowing fraud.

[Libs]

it has more to do with Joseph Smith claiming it to be true, written on plates complete with a visitation from heavenly personages. Nothing fiction about it. Now if he wrote it and claimed that it was inspirational fiction...well...then it can be claimed to be inspired only if people feel inspiration from it.

Yes, I understand what you're saying. I don't think anything Joseph said, would really have to change. The visions, finding the plates, the translation process, etc, could all still be true, and the book, inspired fiction. It wouldn't even have to be original to Joseph. It could have been inspired and written by Moroni or someone else.

[Storm Rider]

Seems that many disaffected Mormons ask that question, because many still have feelings for the book. The Book of Mormon has always had a pull on me, from the very first day I started reading it. Even after I considered myself a "non-believer" in the church...and to this very day, I believe the book is inspired. I have also believed it might be inspired fiction, but my beliefs about that have never been in stone. I've been trying to wrap my brain around why, the Book of Mormon being fiction, would be a problem. I guess, the biggest problem, I see, is that it could not stand as "another testimony of Christ", if it were simply fiction.

This is the single point that I think almost every critic that attacks the LDS Church and/or the Book of Mormon gets it wrong. They fail to understand that the purpose of the Book of Mormon is twofold:

1. Which is to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever—
   
2. And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations
   

They seek to destroy the credibility of Joseph Smith and his followers. They seek to denigrate the Holy Spirit and how God interacts with the heart of man. They do everything and yet can do nothing against the simple objective of proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ. Why does the Book of Mormon have such a pull on people who read it with sincerity? It begins and ends with Jesus Christ.

We have our trials and our fits of faith and yet that still, small voice remains to declare to our souls that our God is there, that he remembers each of us, and loves us. The Church's mortal ministry may be lead by men, with their own weaknesses, but Jesus Christ is still the head of his Church and it is to him that our hearts and faith are and should be linked.

[Cobalt-70]

The second, and last, entry was titled "'Either on the One Hand or on the Other': Why the Book of Mormon is Either True or Fraudulent." It doesn't completely represent my views now--particularly since I expressed my nonbelief in it at the time, but I think I was substantially right that taking the Book of Mormon as inspired fiction would be an unstable view, raise logical, psychological, and proselytizing problems, and probably change the character of the faith, leading to a deemphasis also on the literal nature of priesthood authority and other central elements of the Restoration.

Openness to the book's fictional nature doesn't need to change the character of the religion. Like Jesus' parables, the Book of Mormon can be understood on many levels. To the literal-minded, the golden plates were a real golden book that Joseph Smith dug out of a mountain and translated its genuine ancient text word-for-word by the power of magic stones. For some Mormons, that's how they have to understand it. Any other way would destroy their faith, and for those people it's probably best that nobody tries to burst their bubble. It's not necessarily unhealthy to engage in Mormonism on that level. There are fundamentalists in every faith.

But the fundamentalist view is not for everyone. The fundamentalist view is compatible with mainstream archaeology and genetics only in the sense that Noah's flood, the flat earth, and young-earth creation are so compatible. The nature of science is such that there is always room to question and doubt, and the Book of Mormon fundamentalists build their towers of certainty within those gaps. But if a Mormon only reaches that level, where the Book of Mormon is useless to them unless it is a literal history of ancient American Jews, then they have failed to truly internalize the Book of Mormon, and understand it on the level of being a profound work of inspired 19th century American myth. Anyone who thinks more of Mesoamerica than of 19th century New England while reading the Book of Mormon is missing out on at least half of what God has to say through this book.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether there was some deception by Smith in producing the Book of Mormon, or whether he really believed in the magic of his seer stones. To be a believing Mormon, you probably have to at least credit Smith with having some real connection to the divine spirit. But ultimately, the book has value as scripture independent of how it was packaged and delivered. The book is what it is. I happen to think that Smith really did believe his own magic, and that he thought he had a set of golden plates. These were magic plates. They could disappear from one place and reappear in a different location. They could shock you with a powerful magical force. Only the purified could actually see them; otherwise, they were invisible. There's nothing strange about all of that in the context of Smith's era. The plates were as "real" as anything else in Joseph Smith's life.

But no, the story that Smith produced from his magic stones is not a real history of the Indians, like he thought it was. And thank God! A real history of the Native Americans would have been very boring, would have had nothing to do with Jesus Christ, and would answer absolutely none of the pressing religious questions of Smith's day. The Book of Mormon could not have been scripture had it been an authentic history.

[Analytics]

Umm, problems with your interpretation:

1. Mormon's sermon recorded by Moroni isn't talking about the Book of Mormon. It was teaching Mormon's contemporaries to be thoughtful and discerning when listening to the many competing voices around them.
   
2. Mormon doesn't say anything equivalent to your "exegesis." His argument is not that it's okay to ignore questions about authenticity of a purported revelation, but rather, that godly influence is evidence of divine origin, and hence authenticity. You have got it exactly backwards.
   

Regards,

Pahoran

Mormon quite plainly said, “it is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to judge is plain, that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night.”

While you claim Mormon wasn’t talking about the Book of Mormon, you seem to agree with me that he was speaking about broad principles that are applicable to the Book of Mormon. Do you think it is a coincidence that the author of the Book of Mormon decided to include this just a few pages before laying out his famous epistemological approach in Moroni 10? I don’t. Clearly, how people should evaluate whether or not the Book of Mormon was from God was on his mind.

What it actually says is that you can plainly know with certitude that things which are positive are from God. It insists that the world is black-and-white, and that if something has some white in it, it must be all white. My actual point is simply that—it has black-and-white thinking that is similar to Hamblin’s.

You said, “Mormon’s argument is… that godly influence is evidence of divine origin, and hence authenticity.” Mormon didn’t say or imply anything in Moroni 7 that divine origin implies authenticity; you got that piece from Moroni 10. It looks like you really do think Mormon was talking about the Book of Mormon.

[Tacenda]

Openness to the book's fictional nature doesn't need to change the character of the religion. Like Jesus' parables, the Book of Mormon can be understood on many levels. To the literal-minded, the golden plates were a real golden book that Joseph Smith dug out of a mountain and translated its genuine ancient text word-for-word by the power of magic stones. For some Mormons, that's how they have to understand it. Any other way would destroy their faith, and for those people it's probably best that nobody tries to burst their bubble. It's not necessarily unhealthy to engage in Mormonism on that level. There are fundamentalists in every faith.

But the fundamentalist view is not for everyone. The fundamentalist view is compatible with mainstream archaeology and genetics only in the sense that Noah's flood, the flat earth, and young-earth creation are so compatible. The nature of science is such that there is always room to question and doubt, and the Book of Mormon fundamentalists build their towers of certainty within those gaps. But if a Mormon only reaches that level, where the Book of Mormon is useless to them unless it is a literal history of ancient American Jews, then they have failed to truly internalize the Book of Mormon, and understand it on the level of being a profound work of inspired 19th century American myth. Anyone who thinks more of Mesoamerica than of 19th century New England while reading the Book of Mormon is missing out on at least half of what God has to say through this book.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether there was some deception by Smith in producing the Book of Mormon, or whether he really believed in the magic of his seer stones. To be a believing Mormon, you probably have to at least credit Smith with having some real connection to the divine spirit. But ultimately, the book has value as scripture independent of how it was packaged and delivered. The book is what it is. I happen to think that Smith really did believe his own magic, and that he thought he had a set of golden plates. These were magic plates. They could disappear from one place and reappear in a different location. They could shock you with a powerful magical force. Only the purified could actually see them; otherwise, they were invisible. There's nothing strange about all of that in the context of Smith's era. The plates were as "real" as anything else in Joseph Smith's life.

But no, the story that Smith produced from his magic stones is not a real history of the Indians, like he thought it was. And thank God! A real history of the Native Americans would have been very boring, would have had nothing to do with Jesus Christ, and would answer absolutely none of the pressing religious questions of Smith's day. The Book of Mormon could not have been scripture had it been an authentic history.

I agree with the Native American portion. And I've never understood the "white and delightsome" concept in the BofM I believe what God created was akin to planting a garden with all the different flowers and colors, he wanted variety.

[Tacenda]

Maybe Cursor could find this out for me, if he'd even want to. Listed below are places that are mentioned in the BoM. Has Dr. Sorenson located any of them in Mesoamerica? I saw this list on someones resignation letter to the church, it was one of their reasons for leaving.

River Laman

Land Shazer

Red Sea

Bountiful

Land Jerusalem

Land Zarahemla

Land Shilom

City Nephi

Land of First Inheritance Across The Sea

Land Shemlon

Waters of Mormon (Bapt.)

Place and Forest of Mormon

Land of Amulon

Valley of Gideon

Valley of Nephites

River Sidon

Wilderness called Hermounts

Land Melek

Land Ammonihah

Land Nephihah

City of Aron

Borders of Noah

Borders of Manti

Land-Ishmael

Waters of Sebus

Land of Middoni

Land Jershon

Land of Antionum

Hill Riplah

Mount Antipas

Land of Morianton

City ofLehi

City of Omner

City of Gid

City of Cumeni

City of Antiparah

City of Zeezrom

City ofJudea

City of Gideon

.Land of Desolation

Place of Moriancumer

[Kevin Christensen]

The list mixes Old World and New World locations. For the Old World locations, see the books by the Astons (In the Footsteps of Lehi) and Potter and Wellington. If you haven't see the Journey of Faith DVD, you should. It's quite remarkable.

You might start here, for a glimpse of the state of knowledge at the moment.

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=15&num=2&id=419

For the New World side of things, I think this is a very good place to start:

http://www.fairlds.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2008-Larry-Poulsen.pdf

You should spot some of the names from the list, in the correct relative locations, and amid a complex set of interconnecting convergences of geography, culture and archeology. Brant's talk from the recent FAIR conference is also helpful.

http://www.fairlds.org/fair-conferences/2012-fair-conference/2012-from-the-east-to-the-west-the-problem-of-directions-in-the-book-of-mormon

You can then suppliment that with Sorenson's Mormon's Map, and Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, and watch for the forthcoming Mormon's Codex.

http://www.fairlds.org/fair-conferences/2012-fair-conference/2012-reading-mormons-codex

And look at things like Sorenson's Mormon's Map, and John Clark's reviews of various proposals geographic correlations in the FARMS Review.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[Bill Hamblin]

Maybe Cursor could find this out for me, if he'd even want to. Listed below are places that are mentioned in the BoM. Has Dr. Sorenson located any of them in Mesoamerica? I saw this list on someones resignation letter to the church, it was one of their reasons for leaving.

River Laman

Land Shazer

Red Sea

Bountiful

Land Jerusalem

Land Zarahemla

Land Shilom

City Nephi

Land of First Inheritance Across The Sea

Land Shemlon

Waters of Mormon (Bapt.)

Place and Forest of Mormon

Land of Amulon

Valley of Gideon

Valley of Nephites

River Sidon

Wilderness called Hermounts

Land Melek

Land Ammonihah

Land Nephihah

City of Aron

Borders of Noah

Borders of Manti

Land-Ishmael

Waters of Sebus

Land of Middoni

Land Jershon

Land of Antionum

Hill Riplah

Mount Antipas

Land of Morianton

City ofLehi

City of Omner

City of Gid

City of Cumeni

City of Antiparah

City of Zeezrom

City ofJudea

City of Gideon

.Land of Desolation

Place of Moriancumer

Please provide a list of the phonetic pronunciation of all known pre-Classic New World toponyms. Then we can talk.

[William Schryver]

Please provide a list of the phonetic pronunciation of all known pre-Classic New World toponyms. Then we can talk.

Something tells me we could be in for a long wait ...

[Tacenda]

Something tells me we could be in for a long wait ...

And you'd be so right!!

[Libs]

You mean you don't have a list of toponyms handy, Tacenda? (had to look that up!...lol)

[Bill Hamblin]

And you'd be so right!!

So, in other words, you don't really know what you're talking about, right?