The Book Of Mormon On Trial

[Stroopwafel]

Although it may be in line with the other topic going around discussing the historicity of the BofM, I wanted to ask in a separate thread if anyone here would be familiar with the book called The Book of Mormon on Trial which really is a comic book of The Trial of the Stick of Joseph. (I guess if I'm asking about the first, I'm also asking about the other...) From what I gather, this apologetic book seemed to have been well received when it was first published, but I was wondering if it would still be considered relevant today, i.e., how well do the 'evidences' presented in there have sustained the test of time? People that have read it, what did you think of it? Any (constructive) criticisms? Anything it missed?

 

For the discussion, see this link: http://bookofmormontrial.com/index.html

 

Also, the "Jack West's true story" has intrigued me. In short, this guy relates how when he was a law student at Stanford University, his professor's examination test "was for [each student] to select a subject and either defend or prosecute it in opposition to the rest of the students." As the story goes, he defended the Book of Mormon, and was very successful at refuting all the prosecutor's "attacks", so much so that his professor in the end said to them "You have not even established a toehold, much less a foothold in breaking down the marvelous evidence for the authenticity of the ‘Stick of Joseph‘ (or the Book of Mormon), much less given any evidence that would show it to be a fraudulent work!" And toping it all, he met Jack personally and said to him: "I want to tell you something. In all my years in law, I don't think I have ever heard a case more nearly perfect than this one. When you started out, I wouldn't have given you a plugged nickel for your chances of proving that book to be true through the absolute legal process in a court of law."

 

So what do you think of this? Anybody could "confirm" the story?

 

I don't know if this particular work and story have been discussed previously here (from my quick search, it seems they were not), but let they now be.

[Glenn101]

The Book was (Book of Mormon on Trial) and Trial of the Stick of Joseph were pretty well received in the day by lay people in the church. This was in the early sixties or late fifties if I recall. I read both of them but did not have the resources then to do a lot of fact checking. Jack West seeming was accepting a hemispheric model for his theories that included both North and South America.

 

West strung together a lot of interesting facts for his narrative, and his law school account was told for the truth. But he was presenting a case "prosecuted" by other aspiring law students who were hardly experts in Central and South American archeology and were unprepared to refute his theories. In light of subesquent work that has been done in Central and South America, his theories do not seem tenable today. There are still some facts that I wou;d like to be able to check out, such as some large stone wheels being found near a lake in Mexico that dated to Book of Mormon times, etc. but I have been unable to find anything current. West did not document his work very well, especially in the comic book version.

They are not very good apologetic material and I would never use them as reference material.

 

Just my two cent's worth.

 

Glenn

[Questing Beast]

I read the comic book version on my mission back in the early 70s, and I was mildly impressed at the time. I've not seen it since. Some of the point in there were dated even then, I recall, but cannot dredge up any specifics. My over all impression, as I think back on it, is that subsequent research and dissemination of debated points has gone quite beyond what was used to "prosecute" the BoM back then.

[Stroopwafel]

Thanks for the responses so far.

[Rivers]

My parents have that book. The prosecutors in the book don't bring up any of the real problems with the Book of Mormon.

[strappinglad]

I have had that book. I once contacted the author to see where the sources were for some of the claims. Not forthcoming. Very poor if not nonexistent documentation. Was not meant to be a scholarly book but still...

It did, however, lead me to Nibley's works and all that that entails .

Edited August 24, 2013 by strappinglad