Must The Book Of Mormon Be A Historical Text?

[mfbukowski]

That is a modern term in a modern introduction.  People refer to him with that title because that pretty much was what he did.  He was both a prophet and a kind of historian.  But that by no means was what he was called in ancient times or even by anyone in the Book of Mormon.  He stated he was abridging records into his own record.

 

There was no such thing as a trained historian in ancient times.  But, ancient writers did keep histories.  They just did not call them that until Herodotus of Helicarnassus.  He was not well received when he wrote, however.  His own people made him an outcast and called him a liar for writing a history.  But even then he did not hold to the same standards as historians in our own day are trained to follow.

Yep, agree.  And that was said before as well.

 

This of course has nothing to do with the OP, which was asking if the BOM had to be historical document to be spirituallly true.  As I said before, no it does not.  It does not purport to be "historical" in today's sense, yet of course I believe it to be in fact historical.

 

I guess he is not understanding the distinction, yet he seems to understand it in the case of the bible where he speaks of taking it on "faith".   Oh well.  You can't please all the people all the time.

[bcuzbcuz]

That is a modern term in a modern introduction.  People refer to him with that title because that pretty much was what he did.  He was both a prophet and a kind of historian.  But that by no means was what he was called in ancient times or even by anyone in the Book of Mormon.  He stated he was abridging records into his own record.

 

There was no such thing as a trained historian in ancient times.  But, ancient writers did keep histories.  They just did not call them that until Herodotus of Helicarnassus.  He was not well received when he wrote, however.  His own people made him an outcast and called him a liar for writing a history.  But even then he did not hold to the same standards as historians in our own day are trained to follow.

Herodotus is a good example. People didn't believe his stories because the common man did not travel to foreign countries to see for himself. But Herodotus was not without his flecks. He didn't check his sources very well sometimes and he took what people told him at face value, things that we know today were  incorrect. Herodotus' report about the source of the Nile in his "An Account of Egypt", is an example. He reported 3 differing source stories, none of which he accepted, and he laughed at the third example, although it was most correct. He himself believed the Nile originated in Libya. Herodotus was a good story teller, however, and his works are enjoyable to read even when we now know that some of the facts were misplaced.

 

Mormon was not a historian, not by any stretch of the imagination. Writing stories does not make one a historian, even if those stories talk about events that happened. Since no evidence exists that link Book of Mormon stories to actual historic events, the case for calling Mormon a historian is even further from the truth.

[Gervin]

It does not purport to be "historical" in today's sense, yet of course I believe it to be in fact historical.

Do you believe it to be historical in today's sense or in some other time's sense?

 

I guess he is not understanding the distinction,

 

 

If the distinction was made on this thread, could you kindly provide the post#?  thank you.

 

yet he seems to understand it in the case of the bible where he speaks of taking it on "faith". 

 

In my short time on this thread I think I've stated 2 or 3 times that I am not considering faith (or, "faith") in discussing literal history.  I'm not sure why that is ignored or not understood.  

[Gervin]

 Since no evidence exists that link Book of Mormon stories to actual historic events, the case for calling Mormon a historian is even further from the truth.

i agree.

[mfbukowski]

Do you believe it to be historical in today's sense or in some other time's sense

I believe on faith that "it happened"

 

If the distinction was made on this thread, could you kindly provide the post#?  thank you.

 

Posts 168 169 172 177 180 196 198 200 202

 

In my short time on this thread I think I've stated 2 or 3 times that I am not considering faith (or, "faith") in discussing literal history.  I'm not sure why that is ignored or not understood.

What is being understood is that you are requiring the BOM to be "historical" and ignoring that the Bible is not historical.

 

That is called a "contradiction"

[mfbukowski]

Or have you forgotten this already?

The Bible doesn't make a claim to be a historical text, yet there are events, cultures, places and locations that have been proven to be literal history.

The Book of Mormon makes claims of being, in part, a history yet nothing in it has yet been proven to be literal history.

The entire point is that neither can be proven "historical" and both must be accepted on faith.

 

I'm about done with this point- it is a pure waste of time.

Edited September 17, 2013 by mfbukowski

[MormonMason]

Herodotus is a good example. People didn't believe his stories because the common man did not travel to foreign countries to see for himself. But Herodotus was not without his flecks. He didn't check his sources very well sometimes and he took what people told him at face value, things that we know today were  incorrect. Herodotus' report about the source of the Nile in his "An Account of Egypt", is an example. He reported 3 differing source stories, none of which he accepted, and he laughed at the third example, although it was most correct. He himself believed the Nile originated in Libya. Herodotus was a good story teller, however, and his works are enjoyable to read even when we now know that some of the facts were misplaced.

 

Mormon was not a historian, not by any stretch of the imagination. Writing stories does not make one a historian, even if those stories talk about events that happened. Since no evidence exists that link Book of Mormon stories to actual historic events, the case for calling Mormon a historian is even further from the truth.

He does not just tell a story but quoted from other records and applied dates to the events.  That is a history.  It was an ancient history but it still was a history.  In other ancient histories, writers often attached the happenings to the time of a specific person, or the specific year of an empire, as well as stating the numbered day of a numbered month.  That same sort of thing can be found all over the Book of Mormon.  So, yes, in that sense Mormon certainly was an historian of the ancient variety.

 

As to whether something can be connected with specific locations in time and space as being the requirement of an ancient historian, we would have had to throw out the whole of the Bible centuries ago if we held to such a ridiculous standard.  The so-called Old Testament had been around for thousands of years before archaeologists began to be able to connect portions of the narrative to artifacts in the ground and more or less concrete external chronologies.  The Book of Mormon has only been around and available to the public for less than 200 years.

 

And, there are connecting points with the Book of Mormon in at least the Old World.  There are places on the Arabian peninsula that match what the Book of Mormon says about those places in greater or lesser degree (there is a river in Arabia that flows continually, there is a place called nahom/nehm and it is a region where people buried their dead, and there is a region on the eastern shore of the Arabian Peninsula that has places that match the description of Bountiful in greater or lesser degree, which are lush and green, and could sustain a small population for a long period of time, as well as having the required presence of iron ore and flint), and it is not information that was readily available to Joseph Smith.

 

There also are many internal evidences supported by external linguistic evidences, including genuine, Egyptian-derived names, a document that shows that the name Alma really was a Hebrew male name, a couple documents that show that the Book of Mormon uses correctly the idea underlying the phrase "land of Jerusalem" as containing the birthplace of Jesus, and some rather interesting Egyptian elements in the Book of Mormon that nobody noticed until very recently.

 

Heck, there is even newer information that may well answer to the Book of Mormon Irreantum, which has long been considered by critics a nonsense word.  If the evidence and new data holds, it may well turn out to be an Egyptian compound phrase name, written Ir r ntw m in Gardiner's Egyptian transliteration scheme, which appears to mean "more than all bodies of water," and answers to Nephi's interpretation "many waters."  I also have confirmed that Nephi, spelled Nefi if taken from a variant of Egyptian transliteration, is genuinely Egyptian.  The name appears as part of a compound name in a book of discussing Egyptian genealogies of royal families I read a couple years ago.

 

That is a start (and I have by no means mentioned all the collective internal evidences that are becoming available).  The rest will not follow unless someone finds it by accident or we reach consensus on where to dig.

Edited September 17, 2013 by MormonMason

[Robert F. Smith]

You make it sound like that is a good thing.

 

And it may be true, that the LDS church has no position (absolute or otherwise) on the geography of the BofM, nowadays, in the internet age. But it certainly wasn't true when I was raised in the church, during the 50's and 60's, or when I went on my mission in the 60's and faithfully attended temple sessions during the 70's. 

 

Each new discovery in Central America that could be, in any way, linked to the Book of Mormon, whether it be location, place name, glyph or archaeological find, was heralded as proof of the literal history of the book. Tour guides happily alluded to references or sites that Mormons found of interest. I spent many an hour of enthralled attention, listening to fireside chats and presentations and slide shows, of returned visitors and researchers from Chichen Itza, Yucutan and other sites. I bet there are still tours there that highlight a "Mormon" twist to site exploration.

 

But with the availability to research information and reviews within the click of a mouse, suddenly the assured nature of Book of Mormon historicity and accuracy no longer plays so loudly. Now, even church leaders take a step back into the shadowy corridors of not being too sure.

 

A shame really. Life was simpler before the internet.

Just bcuz some tour guide gets excited about the latest discovery does not constitute any sort of official Church position.  I get excited too, but never get confused about what sort of personal concept that represents, and I have been around a little longer than you have.

 

I think that you have it backwards.  The real world of archeological research (rather than the pretend world of folklore) has advanced to such a powerful degree that we can be far more strongly reassured (if we need that) now than in yesteryear that the Book of Mormon does fit much more snugly into the Americas than formerly believed.

 

If some of the Brethren are more reticent about making bold statements, it might be bcuz they have found their past comments on this or that geographical correlation or fact about ancient America were merely off-the-wall (possibly embarrassing) opinions in an area which might better be left to the professionals -- such as John L. Sorenson.

 

The kinds of discoveries made within the last century alone have shown how even the very well-intentioned studies by B. H. Roberts were simply too early to be based on any real data.

[Robert F. Smith]

Herodotus is a good example. People didn't believe his stories because the common man did not travel to foreign countries to see for himself. But Herodotus was not without his flecks. He didn't check his sources very well sometimes and he took what people told him at face value, things that we know today were  incorrect. Herodotus' report about the source of the Nile in his "An Account of Egypt", is an example. He reported 3 differing source stories, none of which he accepted, and he laughed at the third example, although it was most correct. He himself believed the Nile originated in Libya. Herodotus was a good story teller, however, and his works are enjoyable to read even when we now know that some of the facts were misplaced.

 

Mormon was not a historian, not by any stretch of the imagination. Writing stories does not make one a historian, even if those stories talk about events that happened. Since no evidence exists that link Book of Mormon stories to actual historic events, the case for calling Mormon a historian is even further from the truth.

 Since no evidence exists that link Book of Mormon stories to actual historic events, the case for calling Mormon a historian is even further from the truth

 

.

 

Gervin said:  I agree

 

Yet, even in the case of the great epic poet, Homer, we know now that he mixed historical fact with myth.  Something many vehemently denied until shown.

For example, Homer described an Heroic age in which the archaic Greeks were literate.  Everyone knew that was false, since no inscriptions were known from that period.  Everyone also knew that Ilium (Troy) was fictional.  Post-Schliemann, we not only know that there was a place called Ilium, but we also know via Linear A and B, that those Greeks were literate.  Excavations at Knossos on Crete, at Mycenae in Greece, and on the island of Thera have shown that a very powerful civilization existed during that Heroic Age.  We just didn't know, and we made our ignorance the measure of reality.

 

Your reasons (or evidence) for making such absurd claims:  Just bcuz.

Edited September 17, 2013 by Robert F. Smith

[bcuzbcuz]

Just bcuz some tour guide gets excited about the latest discovery does not constitute any sort of official Church position.  I get excited too, but never get confused about what sort of personal concept that represents, and I have been around a little longer than you have.

 

I think that you have it backwards.  The real world of archeological research (rather than the pretend world of folklore) has advanced to such a powerful degree that we can be far more strongly reassured (if we need that) now than in yesteryear that the Book of Mormon does fit much more snugly into the Americas than formerly believed.

 

If some of the Brethren are more reticent about making bold statements, it might be bcuz they have found their past comments on this or that geographical correlation or fact about ancient America were merely off-the-wall (possibly embarrassing) opinions in an area which might better be left to the professionals -- such as John L. Sorenson.

 

The kinds of discoveries made within the last century alone have shown how even the very well-intentioned studies by B. H. Roberts were simply too early to be based on any real data.

 

I agree, that church positions regarding Book of Mormon historical accuracy is not based on tour guides voluminous malarkey. And well that is, since their spiels change with every rising sun. But I was reflecting on how the basic premise of the possibility of finding historic sites was not something pushed out of sight or hidden behind curtains when I was growing up. It was a common assumption that any day soon, some tidbit of evidence would come forth that would provide a solid ground for Book of Mormon history. That point has definitely shifted in the last couple or three decades. 

 

I'll give an example. When I was growing up, comments were made that the Smithsonian used the Book of Mormon as a guide to finding sites. I can remember sitting in a Sunday fireside with a member of the twelve in attendance when that Smithsonian comment was made and all I saw were nodding heads and smiles in recognition from all. Nobody jumped up and corrected the statement, I didn't even hear anyone clearing their throat.

 

The Smithsonian made no effort to deny such claims. It simply didn't matter that much. But as more and more people repeated the claim, and it became repeated on the internet, the Smithsonian had to make an outright statement that such a claim was baseless.

 

I'm sure you've heard the Smithsonian claim as well. Do you remember when it was accepted as truth?

[MormonMason]

...

 

The kinds of discoveries made within the last century alone have shown how even the very well-intentioned studies by B. H. Roberts were simply too early to be based on any real data.

Those who knew Elder Roberts also knew that he often played the devil's advocate to spur people on to further study.  He was known to have made more than one set of missionaries weep.  When he wrote his studies, as you probably already know, he himself stated that the words of the study were "not any conclusions of [his], for they are undrawn."  The problem is that people often fail to read that letter before they read his studies on the Book of Mormon, so they think he lost faith in the Book of Mormon and that the studies prove it.

 

And, yet, they are led into such a false belief regarding Robert because they almost never seem to read the original letter that was attached to the front of the studies so that they can realize that the position taken in the studies were a devil's advocate approach like other times he would accost an unwary missionary as though he (Roberts) were a non-member, and at other times when people would know who he was but had the dubious honor of being taken to the woodshed to help spur them into a real testimony of the Book of Mormon.

 

I remember the first time I read Roberts' Studies.  I did not read the letter in the introduction and skipped right into the meat of the text.  I had to do a double-take because I wanted to be sure it was not an anti-Mormon book written by someone of similar name.  Later on I actually purchased the book and read the original letter that accompanied the Studies manuscript, and quickly realized that this was classic B.H. Roberts in his devil's advocate approaches to many things.

Edited September 18, 2013 by MormonMason

[Gervin]

  Everyone knew that was false*, since no inscriptions were known from that period*.  Everyone also knew that Ilium (Troy) was fictional*. 

 

*CFR, please.

[Robert F. Smith]

I agree, that church positions regarding Book of Mormon historical accuracy is not based on tour guides voluminous malarkey. And well that is, since their spiels change with every rising sun. But I was reflecting on how the basic premise of the possibility of finding historic sites was not something pushed out of sight or hidden behind curtains when I was growing up. It was a common assumption that any day soon, some tidbit of evidence would come forth that would provide a solid ground for Book of Mormon history. That point has definitely shifted in the last couple or three decades. 

 

I'll give an example. When I was growing up, comments were made that the Smithsonian used the Book of Mormon as a guide to finding sites. I can remember sitting in a Sunday fireside with a member of the twelve in attendance when that Smithsonian comment was made and all I saw were nodding heads and smiles in recognition from all. Nobody jumped up and corrected the statement, I didn't even hear anyone clearing their throat.

 

The Smithsonian made no effort to deny such claims. It simply didn't matter that much. But as more and more people repeated the claim, and it became repeated on the internet, the Smithsonian had to make an outright statement that such a claim was baseless.

 

I'm sure you've heard the Smithsonian claim as well. Do you remember when it was accepted as truth?

I didn't hear that particular silly claim about the Smithsonian until it had been well refuted by Sorenson and others, even though I did hear other ridiculous claims on various subjects.  No church or synagogue is ever free from such absurd, off-the-wall claims.  Nibley dealt with them via documentation and publication on a superhuman scale.  I deal with them via publication of factual information, and here on this board by commenting and citing reliable sources.

See http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/transcripts/?id=40 .

[Robert F. Smith]

*CFR, please.

On Sept 17, 2013, in reply to you and bcuzbcuz, I said:

 

 

Yet, even in the case of the great epic poet, Homer, we know now that he mixed historical fact with myth.  Something many vehemently denied until shown.

For example, Homer described an Heroic age in which the archaic Greeks were literate.  Everyone knew that was false, since no inscriptions were known from that period.  Everyone also knew that Ilium (Troy) was fictional.  Post-Schliemann, we not only know that there was a place called Ilium, but we also know via Linear A and B, that those Greeks were literate.  Excavations at Knossos on Crete, at Mycenae in Greece, and on the island of Thera have shown that a very powerful civilization existed during that Heroic Age.  We just didn't know, and we made our ignorance the measure of reality.

Your reasons (or evidence) for making such absurd claims:  Just bcuz.

 

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer ,

 

 

The excavations of Heinrich Schliemann at Hisarlik in the late 19th century provided initial evidence to scholars that there was an historical basis for the Trojan War. Research into oral epics in Serbo-Croatian and Turkic languages, pioneered by the aforementioned Parry and Lord, began convincing scholars that long poems could be preserved with consistency by oral cultures until they are written down. The decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris (and others) convinced many of a linguistic continuity between 13th century BC Mycenaean writings and the poems attributed to Homer.

It is probable, therefore, that the story of the Trojan War as reflected in the Homeric poems derives from a tradition of epic poetry founded on a war which actually took place. It is crucial, however, not to underestimate the creative and transforming power of subsequent tradition: for instance, Achilles, the most important character of the Iliad, is strongly associated with southern Thessaly, but his legendary figure is interwoven into a tale of war whose kings were from the Peloponnese. Tribal wanderings were frequent, and far-flung, ranging over much of Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean. The epic weaves brilliantly the disiecta membra (scattered remains) of these distinct tribal narratives, exchanged among clan bards, into a monumental tale in which Greeks join collectively to do battle on the distant plains of Troy.

 

 

J.V. Luce, Homer and the Homeric Age (Harper & Row, 1975), 15, addresses the question of the historicity or reliability of the Homeric tradition.

See also the Jan 2007 review by Victor Davis Hanson of Barry Strauss, The Trojan War: A New History (Simon & Schuster, 2007), online at http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Homer---history-2572 , where he covers the doubts and more recent acceptance of the factual basis.

Edited September 18, 2013 by Robert F. Smith

[Billy the Law]

It is a history...of early nineteenth-century America. 

[Glenn101]

It is a history...of early nineteenth-century America. 

 

 

 

CFR?

 

Glenn

[Questing Beast]

It is a history...of early nineteenth-century America. 

Don't be ridiculous. Nineteenth century elements, yes that can be shown easily enough. But there is no history from JS's time in the BoM....

[Billy the Law]

Don't be ridiculous. Nineteenth century elements, yes that can be shown easily enough. But there is no history from JS's time in the BoM....

I reserve the right to be ridiculous (I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not). Assuming you aren't, I was calling it a history of the nineteenth century because it is a nineteenth century commentary on nineteenth century ideas written by a nineteenth century man/men living in nineteenth century America. 

[Questing Beast]

Yes, that's content, not context. The BoM context is asserted to be ancient, therefore not "American" history from the 19th century. Ideas, concepts world view, religious understanding, "mysteries of the ancients" as perceived in JS's time, etc., all are content seen in the BoM. E.g. Benjamin's tower and the surrounding booths/tents are replicated from camp meeting environment, but not an actual depiction of a 19th century camp meeting....

[Billy the Law]

Yes, that's content, not context. The BoM context is asserted to be ancient, therefore not "American" history from the 19th century. Ideas, concepts world view, religious understanding, "mysteries of the ancients" as perceived in JS's time, etc., all are content seen in the BoM. E.g. Benjamin's tower and the surrounding booths/tents are replicated from camp meeting environment, but not an actual depiction of a 19th century camp meeting....

[Freedom]

I reserve the right to be ridiculous (I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not). Assuming you aren't, I was calling it a history of the nineteenth century because it is a nineteenth century commentary on nineteenth century ideas written by a nineteenth century man/men living in nineteenth century America. 

You would have to prove that all the issues addressed in the Book of Mormon are only unique to 19th century America. For example, you would have to demonstrate that olive culture and the respect for kings were part of the cultural milieu of the North Eastern United States. I think you will find this rather difficult to prove.

[Billy the Law]

I guess you have a different framework for determining what constitutes history. I could very well be wrong, but I consider a work to be historical in nature if it sheds light on events and elements of a given period, regardless of what the work asserts itself to be. I can write a book that asserts that the Lord of the Rings is european history by writing it in an ancient european context, but that wouldn't make it a historical work.

[Robert F. Smith]

I reserve the right to be ridiculous (I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not). Assuming you aren't, I was calling it a history of the nineteenth century because it is a nineteenth century commentary on nineteenth century ideas written by a nineteenth century man/men living in nineteenth century America. 

The Questing Beast said:

Yes, that's content, not context. The BoM context is asserted to be ancient, therefore not "American" history from the 19th century. Ideas, concepts world view, religious understanding, "mysteries of the ancients" as perceived in JS's time, etc., all are content seen in the BoM. E.g. Benjamin's tower and the surrounding booths/tents are replicated from camp meeting environment, but not an actual depiction of a 19th century camp meeting....

 

Everyone is entitled to his own interpretation, even if tendentious.

[Billy the Law]

@Freedom, or I could show that olive culture and respect for kings as illustrated in the bom is consistent with what certain nineteenth communities believed ancient american culture to be like. Also, the burden of proof does not rest solely on my shoulders my friend.

[Robert F. Smith]

@Freedom, or I could show that olive culture and respect for kings as illustrated in the bom is consistent with what certain nineteenth communities believed ancient american culture to be like. Also, the burden of proof does not rest solely on my shoulders my friend.

I accept that shared burden, good buddy.