How an Ahistorical Book of Mormon Can Still Be Scripture

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, Johnnie Cake said:

While I share the same conclusion regarding BoM historicity, this conclusion led me to form other conclusion as well.  But I'm wondering how exactly you can pull the historical "card" from the House and not have the entire thing come falling down?  One thing leads to another and so on until you've completely deconstructed belief in the foundational claims of the church.  If the BoM is not what it claims to be, how do we process claims of an Angle named Moroni or claims of physical articles like Laban's Sword or the Urim and Thummim ?  Are we to view them as myths as well?  How do you maintain belief in claimed D&C revelations that quote (from your view) now fictional BoM Prophets?  I fear that once you pull at the string of historicity the entire clothes starts to unravel...

It does all unravel, yes.  Its all myth and subjective beliefs.  But that doesn't mean experiencing these things personally doesn't make them powerful and life changing experiences for each individual.  If none of it is objectively factual, then what is the purpose of religion?  

Well, I would say that is the most important question that you should ask yourself.  Should I attend church?  Why?  What values can I find from this tradition today.  You are the authority, you are the captain of your destiny.  

Is there a God?

What is this God?

Would this God care about how you live your life?

Do you care about how you live your life?  

What is the point of it all? 

These are the questions that I'm exploring in my mind as I attend church and go throughout my week.  I have things that i find inspirational along the way help me to appreciate life and the world around me better.  

I'm grateful for people, they matter, and that is a core value that I find resonates with the gospel message.  What else can I find, I talked in Sunday School about the doctrine of baptism for the dead on Sunday.  I said its one of the most beautiful doctrines of Mormonism in my mind.  I believe it is a true principle (I don't see it literally necessary), but this idea that we can't be saved without our dead, and they can't be saved without us, is something that I believe in as a fundamental part of the human experience.  We need each other, we can't do this alone, we are all in this together.  These are the ways I envision the principle of that doctrine.  I'm more interested in true principles than specific applications.  Just wanted to share a few thoughts.  

[Kevin Christensen]

There is, I think, a difference between inspired fiction and reality.  But one of the things that makes a fiction seem inspired and inspiring, for example, King Lear, or Scott Card's The Bully and the Beast, or Fairy Tale: A True Story (despite the title, a fictionalized version of a true story), or the Harry Potter Books, or Terry Pratchett's books, despite his professed atheism, which he later modified), is how effectively the fictions point to something that is real.  For instance, the Dementors in the Potter books unmistakably point to the experience of severe depression, which J. K.Rowling experienced, and for which, she came up with a real defense based not on fictional magic but the power of a happy memory.  

So if a fictional book of Mormon has any power, it must be in the way that it points to something real.  And I have several times published my views (in the Review and in Sunstone for example), that if a person finds an inspiring fictional Book of Mormon part of their spiritual life, then welcome to the community.  We're open to all who are willing.  Stereotyping is not a requirement.

But I do not think that a fictional Book of Mormon has a comparable power to define and bind a covenant community as a historic Book of Mormon does.  I've read all of Pratchett's discworld books several times, but I don't go to church, or tithe, or participate in communities for his work.  As inspiring as I find many other books, what I personally find most compelling about the Book of Mormon is that is points to real people, real history, real prophets, real divinity, a real resurrected Christ, a real restoration of a real priesthood.  I have personally tested the Book of Mormon in several ways, sometimes through personal research on my questions, sometimes through reading other's research pro and con on their issues and expertise, and I have consistently found that it rewards commitment and further study. My own reading had changed radically over my life, but always in the direction of more real, more exciting, more compelling.  I've found that I learn far more about the Book of Mormon from committed believers than skeptics.  The skeptics tend to leave the garden when they think they have the final answer.  The believers stay on, and nurture and watch other gardeners, and lo, an unexpected stem, leaf, blossom, and fruit shows up.  I know that people can take the same seeds, plant them in different soil (that is different temperaments and contextualization), different nurture (time and care and appropriateness), and judge it against different values (cares of the world, for instance), and obtain radically different harvests.

My own harvest has been, to me, at least, astonishing, a source of wonder and enlightenment, rather than disillusion.  I've published dozens of essays, making original contributions on several topics (NDEs, Type scenes, First Temple theology, etc.), and read hundreds more, gaining perspectives that otherwise would never have occurred to me.  That a 24 year old kid can impress experts and evidence across such a wide swatch of human history and knowledge is itself a phenomenon that ought to be acknowledged rather than avoided.  And as Larry Porter and Brant Gardner have said, "I can't un-see the dog."  (That is a metaphor, but the metaphor points to a real experience.)  And surprisingly often, the difference in harvests has clearly been in the soil, time, and nurture, rather than the nature of the word.  That has been the lesson I get from people, like Coe, and Brodie, and the Tanners, Vogel and Metcalfe, and David Wright, Palmer and Taves.  I can understand why they get a poor harvest, but that does not account in any way for mine.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, Bill "Papa" Lee said:

History is written by those who live it. We have stories in all scripture about cities that can no longer be found. We have scripture the mentions persons no historian ever knew of, who they can never find evidence they ever lived. Even if we found every city listed in the Bible, or the Book of Mormon, it would not mean that what is reported (supernatural) really happened as the scripture reports. It is only faith that allows us to believe the information given. There simply "is" no amount to study that allows us to reject these teaching. If we woke up tomorrow and found a sign that says; This way to Zarahemla! It would not mean that all the stories of God deliverance and miracles took place there. No more than knowing where the birth of Christ happened, means that it happened the way scripture reports. Scripture is a poor substitute for real "history and geography", all of this only gives us a backdrop for the "Spiritual events", and the building of Faith. 

I agree with you that we don't have access to all the facts about the past, so its impossible to be 100% certain about stories written so long ago.  

But let me ask this question, because I hear this argument a lot, and I question it personally as I don't understand why its necessary.  You say that its important to have faith.  Two questions.  

1.  What are we to have faith in?  Is this a faith in the historicity of stories that might not be historical?  Or is it faith in something else?  

2.  Why is faith important?  I sincerely mean this.  When I think about having faith in God, this is a being that I can't prove exists, that I personally think may just be the way human minds work that have evolved over time, and an experience that people feel within their mind.  Yet I can see some value in this experience, and I want to explore that.  But if God is just an experience in my mind, what does that mean for faith.  Faith = trust, that is how I define faith, if I have trust in something I have faith in that thing that it is reliable, that I can count on it.  What does it mean to have trust in a feeling in our brain?  Should I trust my instincts, is that having faith in God in my paradigm?  But I know a lot of my instincts can be externally influenced, and I know the flaws of bias influence all my emotions and thinking, so my skeptical brain questions a lot of my instincts.  How can I have faith.  Why is faith important.  I want to know, as a person that's trying to approach religion again, but that has a very rational/skeptical mindset about it.  

[hope_for_things]

18 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

My own harvest has been, to me, at least, astonishing, a source of wonder and enlightenment, rather than disillusion.  I've published dozens of essays, making original contributions on several topics (NDEs, Type scenes, First Temple theology, etc.), and read hundreds more, gaining perspectives that otherwise would never have occurred to me.  That a 24 year old kid can impress experts and evidence across such a wide swatch of human history and knowledge is itself a phenomenon that ought to be acknowledged rather than avoided.  And as Larry Porter and Brant Gardner have said, "I can't un-see the dog."  (That is a metaphor, but the metaphor points to a real experience.)  And surprisingly often, the difference in harvests has clearly been in the soil, time, and nurture, rather than the nature of the word.  That has been the lesson I get from people, like Coe, and Brodie, and the Tanners, Vogel and Metcalfe, and David Wright, Palmer and Taves.  I can understand why they get a poor harvest, but that does not account in any way for mine.

Thanks Kevin, always respect your thoughtful approach, and I agree with much of it.  Just a question about this bottom part, I wonder if the people you list below would consider that their harvest has been poor?  I've read some works from all of them and I think they wouldn't personally identify as having poor harvests in life, they seem like happy people living good lives.  Can you clarify what you mean about this harvest comment, as I personally think they are harvesting lots of good, perhaps their fruit is corn and yours is wheat, and personally I think its nice to have multiple options to eat at dinner time.  Makes this world a much more interesting and wonderful place.  

Edited August 8, 2017 by hope_for_things

[champatsch]

Hope for things and Ben, do you see it as Gray does, that is, is your current understanding that Joseph composed the Book of Mormon and was inspired by God as he did so?

[thesometimesaint]

That is a nice house of cards you've constructed. No Lehites=no Book of Mormon. All Scripture is but a lie to impress the gullible

[JulieM]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Nope, the original name was Moroni. Someone screwed up writing an article for the Times and Seasons either Joseph or a scribe and put in Nephi. The article was copied and quoted a few times in other publications (including over in Britain). No indication in sermons or anything directly attributable to Joseph that he was flip flopping or changed the name at some point. Just a stupid mistake. 

How about the use of Angel Nephi in the histories?  And Lucy used that name in her history too (1853).  Just confusion maybe?

And I read that was the name given to the angel in first addition of the Pearl of Great price too (Nephi).

Why so many mistakes?  I just think it's odd since that is an important detail.

Edited August 8, 2017 by JulieM

[Johnnie Cake]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

I agree with you.

Okay, now I feel unclean. I need to take a shower now.

Sometimes you're just irritating...like the constant buzz of a mosquito in your ear...you'd love to smash...but don't because you know doing so will get you banned... 

[hope_for_things]

46 minutes ago, champatsch said:

Hope for things and Ben, do you see it as Gray does, that is, is your current understanding that Joseph composed the Book of Mormon and was inspired by God as he did so?

Joseph dictated the book, I am pretty convinced of that.   And I believe there is a level of inspiration in the work, absolutely.  I'm pretty liberal with my definition of inspiration, I think a lot of things we humans have accomplished have varying levels of inspiration.  

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

...............................  As I learned about things like the Documentary Hypothesis and the ways that myths are formed and how people wrote things afterwards as creation narratives, I lost my desire to see the bible as historically accurate as well, and I've been able to learn to appreciate these writings as a reflection of human authors writing things that they find meaningful about their religious convictions.  The writings we have today span across thousands of years, and we often misread the meaning of these writings, so I try to better understand the scholarship which gives me greater access to what was intended by the original authors, but at the end of the day much of the original meaning has been lost.  

So for me today, scripture is defined as a text that my faith community values as the central text that we study in order to gain value and glean meaning in our modern life.  It doesn't need to have an ancient origin or a historical foundation.  The purpose of scripture is to explore ideas and learn principles that can enrich life today.  Its not an instruction manual from God or a road map on how to live.  

......................................................................

I believe the kinds of values that we get from community scripture study could be applied to multiple different texts, .......................................

It is certainly true that many literary works contain powerful statements of spirituality or deep reflections on the human condition, and we can all profit from reading and thinking about them -- which is something we often do in school and at home.  It is also true that the Bible contains many parables, poetry, lamentations, proverbs, liturgy, and other genres presented in masterful ways -- true of all great literature.

However, determining the intent of the various editors and redactors of Holy Writ is not so easy as you seem to imagine, but you are correct to suggest that our presentist eyes miss much of the original meaning.  Moreover, the emphasis of both Bible and Book of Mormon is on the altogether alien concepts of Covenant, Promise, Atonement, Resurrection, and Eternal Salvation -- none of which can be proven to have literal, historical application to our lives.  None of that can be proven to be more than epic myth.  If the case for any of that were presented to a jury, how would they deliberate?  What sort of evidence could be presented?  In the end, it is a matter of faith and personal testimony.  Your personal feelings and opinions are as good as anyone else's.

Thus, when non-scholars seek to base their evaluations upon scholarship, they are on dangerous ground.  For the scholars themselves often disagree, not only on the facts, but on the interpretation of facts.  We are left with the existentialist dilemma of being trapped within a closed circle of reality, from which we cannot escape and which is infinitely regressive.  We do the best we can, of course, but it is silly to imagine that we have access to the really real, or to final answers about our universe.

The Holy Spirit does offer a way out of that quandary, and is a matter of non-transferrable faith.

[The Nehor]

35 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Sometimes you're just irritating...like the constant buzz of a mosquito in your ear...you'd love to smash...but don't because you know doing so will get you banned... 

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

Yes - that's what I think.

So if you think Joseph wrote it but God inspired it, do you think the lies about the plates, Moroni and so forth were inspired? (Earnest question - not trying to be trollish here)

[Kevin Christensen]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Thanks Kevin, always respect your thoughtful approach, and I agree with much of it.  Just a question about this bottom part, I wonder if the people you list below would consider that their harvest has been poor?  I've read some works from all of them and I think they wouldn't personally identify as having poor harvests in life, they seem like happy people living good lives.  Can you clarify what you mean about this harvest comment, as I personally think they are harvesting lots of good, perhaps their fruit is corn and yours is wheat, and personally I think its nice to have multiple options to eat at dinner time.  Makes this world a much more interesting and wonderful place.  

I'm specifically referring to their harvest from the Book of Mormon, not whether they consider themselves to be happy people living good lives.

Take Coe on the Book of Mormon, a first class Mesoamericanist who had actually read the Book of Mormon, and at least some of the pop culture writing by LDS amateurs from the fifties and sixties, which he found lacking.  From his Dialogue article, to his PBS interview to his interview with Dehlin, I get a picture of someone who doesn't really know the Book of Mormon and the top LDS scholarship at all.  We're supposed to assume that if there was anything to the Book of Mormon that people like Coe would validate and support it.  But the most valuable thing I get from reading Coe's encounters is that this is not a valid assumption.  For one instance among many, at one point Coe volunteers to Dehlin the insight that the Book of Mormon could not be authentic because the Mesoamericans knew all about the Great Mother and the Jews were strict monotheists, and Dehlin of course accepts this as one more hard truth for Mormon believers to swallow as a bitter but necessary remedy for ignorance.  But from my perspective, all Coe is doing is telling me that he has not read Patai's the Hebrew Goddess, Dever's Did God Have a Wife? and Barker's The Mother of God, vol. 1, let alone Daniel Peterson's Nephi and His Asherah, and Alyson Von Feldt's essay on Wisdom in the Book of Mormon. 

Brodie?  When I read her chapter offering an environmental explanation of the Book of Mormon, it struck me as one of the weakest parts of her book, particularly in that she made no attempt to deal with what Nibley and a few others had already offered at the time.

David Wright, a very bright guy, thriving at Brandeis, mentor to David Bokovoy and the author of the most formidable chapter in Metcalfe's New Approaches. 

Quote

David Wright argues that the Melchizedek material in Alma 13 is anachronistically derived from Hebrews:

Scholarship recognizes that Hebrews does not create all of its argument by itself but relies on tradition and perhaps even on some unknown written sources (in addition to the Bible) in some of the places where we have seen the epistle parallel elements in Alma 12-13. But these traditions and sources are in general relatively recent developments for the author of Hebrews, not traditions going back 700 years. Moreover, the traditions and sources found or supposed by scholars for the passages in Hebrews relevant to Alma 12-13 are diverse; . . . They are not likely to be found in one traditional source.⁵⁶

But there is this to consider, if you take the time to seek and find and consider the implications:

Quote

In looking to establish the background context for the origins of Christianity, Barker observes that, since “Psalm 110, the Melchizedek Psalm, is the most frequently used text in the New Testament, it seemed an obvious place to start.”⁵³ She also remarks that the Qumran Melchizedek text exemplifies a set of ideas regarding “a heavenly priest figure from the cult of the first temple who would bring salvation and atonement in the last days.”⁵⁴ Despite his being mentioned only briefly in the Old Testament, Barker explores the figure of Melchizedek:

"Melchizedek was central to the old royal cult. We do not know what the name means, but it is quite clear that this priesthood operated within the mythology of the sons of Elyon, and the triumph of the royal son of God in Jerusalem. We should expect later references to Melchizedek to retain some memory of the cult of Elyon. . . . The role of the ancient kings was that of the Melchizedek figure in 11QMelch. This accounts for the Melchizedek material in Hebrews, and the early Church’s association of Melchizedek and the Messiah. The arguments of Hebrews presuppose a knowledge of the angel mythology which we no longer have.^"55

...

In contrast to Wright’s conclusion, Barker’s work connects the Melchizedek traditions to the First Temple, which not only moves them back seven hundred years earlier than Hebrews but also argues for the source of unity in those traditions behind Hebrews as being those of the temple.⁵⁷

With respect to the Melchizedek passages in the Book of Mormon,⁵⁸ we should note that the Alma 13 discussion is crowded with themes that recur in Barker’s books as signs of the preexilic tradition—the Father God (Alma 13:9),⁵⁹ his Begotten Son as the atoning one (Alma 13:5),⁶⁰ the council in heaven at the foundation of the world (Alma 13:3),⁶¹ the Day of Atonement imagery of garments being “washed white through the blood of the Lamb” (Alma 13:11),⁶² angels being sent to “all nations” (Alma 13:22),⁶³ judgment (Alma 13:29-30),⁶⁴ hell, and the second death (Alma 13:29-30).⁶⁵ This puts the Melchizedek passage in the Book of Mormon in tune with the angel mythology presupposed by Hebrews. None of these themes elicited any notice in Wright’s article.

https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1459&index=4

Palmer's Insider's View of Mormon Origins? Every page annoyed me.  Frankly, I had published more at the time than he had, and I would never presume to speak as the true and authentic voice of all Mormon historians and scholars.  He also annoyed a great many of the big names in LDS history and got them to say so in public and explaining why with footnotes.

Metcalfe and Vogel?  A few years back on one of these boards, perhaps this one or ZLMB, someone asked Vogel if they were disappointed with the reception of New Approaches, which was designed to generate a new paradigm, and attract and persuade scholars to work in it.  He commented that " We had no illusions about the impact of a single book."

So I posted "The Book of Mormon was a single book."

This did not please him, so he talked about how it was not a fair comparison, given the huge missionary program and publication support and distrubution and such.  So I commented that "In 1830 that the missionary program was Samuel Smith and a knapsack, and that it was a single copy from that sack that made a huge difference."

I'm currently working on a review of Tave's book on Revelatory Events.  Her complete definition of the problem that the Book of Mormon presents is that it, like the Big Book of AA, and A Course in Miracles, is that it too is "large and complex" and has some distinctive language, "chiasmus" which is not a problem since Joseph Smith was immersed in the KJV and that Helen Schucman was a Shakespearean scholar and therefore ACM could have iambic pentameter and blank verse.   Her bibliography includes only around a dozen books that look seriously at the Book of Mormon, and most of those take a shallow, dated, secular approach.  The most important book she cites is Givens's By the Hand of Mormon, and from his survey of the grounds for Rational Faith, the only thing that she mentions is "chiasmus."

My harvest from the Book of Mormon?  It includes a collaborative essay with Margaret Barker published by Oxford University Press. "Seeing the Face of the Lord: Joseph Smith and the First Temple Tradition".  That particular harvest is not something I could have predicted when I read the Book of Mormon for the third time, just before my mission, and received a strong spiritual impression that it was true in a historical sense.  And if I had bailed early, say on being persuaded by Brodie, or the Tanners, or Metcalfe, or Wright, or Palmer, or the Roberts Study, or whatever, I would never have even known what I was missing.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited August 8, 2017 by Kevin Christensen
typo

[hope_for_things]

16 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Thus, when non-scholars seek to base their evaluations upon scholarship, they are on dangerous ground.  For the scholars themselves often disagree, not only on the facts, but on the interpretation of facts.  We are left with the existentialist dilemma of being trapped within a closed circle of reality, from which we cannot escape and which is infinitely regressive.  We do the best we can, of course, but it is silly to imagine that we have access to the really real, or to final answers about our universe.

The Holy Spirit does offer a way out of that quandary, and is a matter of non-transferrable faith.

I totally agree with most of this post, very well said.  Can you expound on what exactly is dangerous ground here and why its dangerous, as you've described my situation as non-scholar basing evaluations on scholarship.  I recognize that scholars disagree and that consensus will continue to evolve and change over time.  I'm not sure what you mean by dangerous though.  Is it dangerous to have a perspective based on incomplete or imperfect data, yes, but isn't that all we have to go in in this human condition?  Is this more or less dangerous than basing decisions on naive trust of authority figures or little to no critical analysis and study.  Which path is more dangerous and why?   

Also, I wouldn't say the Holy Spirit offers a way out of this quandary, but rather a way of coping with existentialist complexities at least enough for us to have some feeling of conviction that allows people to make decisions in life.  

[Glenn101]

2 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

While I share the same conclusion regarding BoM historicity, this conclusion led me to form other conclusion as well.  But I'm wondering how exactly you can pull the historical "card" from the House and not have the entire thing come falling down?  One thing leads to another and so on until you've completely deconstructed belief in the foundational claims of the church.  If the BoM is not what it claims to be, how do we process claims of an Angle named Moroni or claims of physical articles like Laban's Sword or the Urim and Thummim ?  Are we to view them as myths as well?  How do you maintain belief in claimed D&C revelations that quote (from your view) now fictional BoM Prophets?  I fear that once you pull at the string of historicity the entire clothes starts to unravel...

I have to agree with you on the what follows logically after one determines to their own satisfaction that the Book of Mormon is fictional. But I would urge those who still are looking for ways to believe to stick around and not close the doors to a better spiritual understanding and personal revelations on the matter(s). As Bill (Papa) Lee sort of said in another post, even finding a sign reading "Zarahemla" in some American locale would not prove any of the miraculous events recounted in the Book of Mormon actually happened. None of the archeological findings in the Old World prove that any of the miraculous events recounted in the Bible ever happened. None of them prove that God exists. That is something that must be taken on faith. In all reality, most of the discussions that arise here really boil down to that tension between what we think we know and faith in what we don't know that is actually predicted or maybe warned about in the Bible. Some give in to their intellectual doubts because they never seem to be able to obtain a spiritual witness. Others have given in to their intellectual doubts even after powerful spiritual experiences but later come to doubt those experiences and what they really were.

And then there are those that accept the spiritual experiences they have had as just as real as a conversation on MDDB and a lot more satisfying. Or maybe those who have not really had a singular type of spiritual experience that would convince them but accept the premise of a God and that things like angels, devils, miracles, etc. can logically follow and are willing to cede primacy of the spiritual over the intellectual. After all, what have we to lose by believing, by having faith?

Glenn

 

[hope_for_things]

11 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

I'm specifically referring to their harvest from the Book of Mormon, not whether they consider themselves to be happy people living good lives.

Take Coe on the Book of Mormon, a first class Mesoamericanist who had actually read the Book of Mormon, and at least some of the pop culture writing by LDS amateurs from the fifties and sixties, which found lacking.  From his Dialogue article, to his PBS interview to his interview with Dehlin, I get a picture of someone who doesn't really know the Book of Mormon and the top LDS scholarship at all.  We're supposed to assume that if there was anything to the Book of Mormon that people like Coe would validate and support it.  But the most valuable thing I get from reading Coe's encounters is that this is not a valid assumption.  For one instance among many, at one point Coe volunteers to Dehlin the insight that the Book of Mormon could not be authentic because the Mesoamericans knew all about the Great Mother and the Jews were strict monotheists, and Dehlin of course accepts this as one more hard truth for Mormon believers to swallow as a bitter bu necessary remedy for ignorance.  But from my perspective, all Coe is doing is telling me that he has not read Patai's the Hebrew Goddess, Dever's Did God Have a Wife? and Barker's The Mother of God, vol. 1, let alone Daniel Peterson's Nephi and His Asherah, and Alyson Von Feldt's essay on Wisdom in the Book of Mormon. 

Brodie?  When I read her chapter offering an environmental explanation of the Book of Mormon, it struck me as one of the weakest parts of her book, particularly in that she made no attempt to deal with what Nibley and a few others had already offered at the time.

David Wright, a very bright guy, thriving at Brandeis, mentor to David Bokovoy and the author of the most formidable chapter in Metcalfe's New Approaches. 

But there is this to consider, if you take the time to seek and find and consider the implications:

https://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1459&index=4

Palmer's Insider's View of Mormon Origins? Every page annoyed me.  Frankly, I had published more at the time than he had, and I would never presume to speak as the true and authentic voice of all Mormon historians and scholars.  He also annoyed a great many of the big names in LDS history and got them to say so in public and explaining why with footnotes.

Metcalfe and Vogel?  A few years back on one of these boards, perhaps this one or ZLMB, someone asked Vogel if they were disappointed with the reception of New Approaches, which was designed to generate a new paradigm, and attract and persuade scholars to work in it.  He commented that " We had no illusions about the impact of a single book."

So I posted "The Book of Mormon was a single book."

This did not please him, so he talked about how it was not a fair comparison, given the huge missionary program and publication support and distrubution and such.  So I commented that "In 1830 that the missionary program was Samuel Smith and a knapsack, and that it was a single copy from that sack that made a huge difference."

I'm currently working on a review of Tave's book on Revelatory Events.  Her complete definition of the problem that the Book of Mormon presents is that it, like the Big Book of AA, and A Course in Miracles, is that it too is "large and complex" and has some distinctive language, "chiasmus" which is not a problem since Joseph Smith was immersed in the KJV and that Helen Schucman was a Shakespearean scholar and therefore ACM could have iambic pentameter and blank verse.   Her bibliography includes only around a dozen books that look seriously at the Book of Mormon, and most of those take a shallow, dated, secular approach.  The most important book she cites is Givens's By the Hand of Mormon, and from his survey of the grounds for Rational Faith, the only thing that she mentions is "chiasmus."

My harvest from the Book of Mormon?  It includes a collaborative essay with Margaret Barker published by Oxford University Press. "Seeing the Face of the Lord: Joseph Smith and the First Temple Tradition".  That particular harvest is not something I could have predicted when I read the Book of Mormon for the third time, just before my mission, and received a strong spiritual impression that it was true in a historical sense.  And if I had bailed early, say on being persuaded by Brodie, or the Tanners, or Metcalfe, or Wright, or Palmer, or the Roberts Study, or whatever, I would never have even known what I was missing.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Thanks for the additional clarity, you make some good points.  Sounds like you are defining this harvest more narrowly to specific interest in BoM studies.  I think you're right that those authors don't get the harvest that you've received and the things you find inspirational and interesting in your study are largely lost on those authors.  Similarly, I think you haven't received the harvests that those authors have received through their engagements with subjects that you might find annoying or shallow or not engaging with the studies that resonate with you.  

From my perspective this is all a matter of preference and an example of how different people have areas that they find more interesting than others, and more persuasive.  This is all subjective in my opinion and I think variety is the spice of life, so I'm grateful for how all of the above authors have influenced me in different ways.  Recently, I absolutely loved Taves' book and found it fascinating and insightful, and personally the similarities for how these early religions developed, I found really helpful for me.  I'm glad she didn't get into the weeds of Mormon apologetic defenses of the BoM, I don't think that would have served her audience well including myself who doesn't find many of these defenses very compelling or interesting.  

Different strokes for different folks.  I'm glad for all the variety around Mormonism, and find that it has enriched my life.  

[champatsch]

23 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

I'm currently working on a review of Tave's book on Revelatory Events.  Her complete definition of the problem that the Book of Mormon presents is that it, like the Big Book of AA, and A Course in Miracles, is that it too is "large and complex" and has some distinctive language, "chiasmus" which is not a problem since Joseph Smith was immersed in the KJV and that Helen Schucman was a Shakespearean scholar and therefore ACM could have iambic pentameter and blank verse.

Many LDS and non-LDS scholars, like Taves, believe that because Joseph Smith’s mind was saturated with biblical language he therefore could have produced the text of the Book of Mormon from a mixture of biblical language and his own dialect (see below).  This does not hold up to scrutiny, however, because Book of Mormon language is not a mixture of modern and biblical usage. The Book of Mormon far surpasses pseudo-biblical texts such as The Late War or The American Revolution in levels of archaism in many different linguistic domains. Had Joseph produced the text from his own biblically saturated language, the form and structure of the Book of Mormon would be very different from what it actually is. For one, the entire verbal system would be markedly different. Because the text is not biblical in many structural ways, but is deeply and broadly archaic in many respects, the degree of biblical saturation Joseph might have had in 1829, for purposes of assigning/defending authorship, is irrelevant. The profile of the person needed for crafting the English language of the Book of Mormon was a first-rate philologist—someone extremely knowledgeable in the linguistics and literature of earlier English. I know of no such person who has been proposed as the author of the text.

Examples that stress Joseph's biblical saturation include: Philip L. Barlow, Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 240. This is found on page 220 of the 1991 first edition: “The Prophet’s mind was demonstrably saturated in biblical language”. Gardner (The Gift and Power, 2011:302) quotes and agrees with Anderson (2009:4): “the Smith family’s oral culture was so thoroughly imbued with biblical language . . . that its use was fluent, easy, and familiar.” Gardner writes that “King James version style appears in the Book of Mormon because he could not escape it. I doubt that it was a conscious decision to imitate that style.” See also Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 274: “While saturated with Bible language, the Book of Mormon was . . . .”

[Gray]

54 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

So if you think Joseph wrote it but God inspired it, do you think the lies about the plates, Moroni and so forth were inspired? (Earnest question - not trying to be trollish here)

I think Joseph Smith believed he had the ability to restore ancient histories of the native Americans - he seemed to have been doing that from early on in his youth. I think he could see it in his mind's eye, and for him that was God revealing real history to him. Whether or not the plates existed in a physical reality, I don't know. If they did I think they would have been some kind of prop to help bolster his credibility. I have no reason to think that Joseph didn't experience visions of Moroni.

I think Joseph Smith, like all prophets, tapped into some deeper truths that go beyond the story of Nephi and his brothers, or the story of Job and his family, or what have you. Prophets (and the rest of us) can sometimes tune into "God radio" and find inspiration. That doesn't mean God is dictating words to that person. It just means that, for a time at least, that prophet has awoken to something sacred.

[Tacenda]

10 minutes ago, Gray said:

I think Joseph Smith believed he had the ability to restore ancient histories of the native Americans - he seemed to have been doing that from early on in his youth. I think he could see it in his mind's eye, and for him that was God revealing real history to him. Whether or not the plates existed in a physical reality, I don't know. If they did I think they would have been some kind of prop to help bolster his credibility. I have no reason to think that Joseph didn't experience visions of Moroni.

I think Joseph Smith, like all prophets, tapped into some deeper truths that go beyond the story of Nephi and his brothers, or the story of Job and his family, or what have you. Prophets (and the rest of us) can sometimes tune into "God radio" and find inspiration. That doesn't mean God is dictating words to that person. It just means that, for a time at least, that prophet has awoken to something sacred.

I think he tried entheogens and that it enabled him to tap into some pretty powerful inspiration that may have even come from God. Maybe some things were put here for a reason to enable humans insight.

[Kevin Christensen]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

Thanks for the additional clarity, you make some good points.  Sounds like you are defining this harvest more narrowly to specific interest in BoM studies.  I think you're right that those authors don't get the harvest that you've received and the things you find inspirational and interesting in your study are largely lost on those authors.  Similarly, I think you haven't received the harvests that those authors have received through their engagements with subjects that you might find annoying or shallow or not engaging with the studies that resonate with you.  

From my perspective this is all a matter of preference and an example of how different people have areas that they find more interesting than others, and more persuasive.  This is all subjective in my opinion and I think variety is the spice of life, so I'm grateful for how all of the above authors have influenced me in different ways.  Recently, I absolutely loved Taves' book and found it fascinating and insightful, and personally the similarities for how these early religions developed, I found really helpful for me.  I'm glad she didn't get into the weeds of Mormon apologetic defenses of the BoM, I don't think that would have served her audience well including myself who doesn't find many of these defenses very compelling or interesting.  

Different strokes for different folks.  I'm glad for all the variety around Mormonism, and find that it has enriched my life.  

You are welcome, though it's not just interest in Book of Mormon studies, but production and insight into the text, as well as accounting for evidence.  One of the reasons that I don't find Palmer's conclusion persuasive that Joseph Smith fabricated the Priesthood restoration accounts in response to the Howe's 1834 book is that I have read the first paragraph of Joseph Smith's 1832 history, wherein he mentions priesthood restoration.  And 1830 newspaper accounts that imply it.  So it's not just subjectivity, not just all personal preference.  Accounting for the data at hand also matters. So if data and evidence, and accounting for it matters, it doesn't have to be just subjectivity.  It is true that subjectivity is inescapable, as are selectivity, temporality and the effects of contextualization.  But there are ways to assess our various positions in ways that deliberately put them at risk in terms of considerations that are not totally subjective and personal.  And that is why I frequently cite Kuhn on the criteria for paradigm choice that are not totally paradigm dependent.  And he points to puzzle definition and solution, accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, fruitfulness, simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise. 

Just how testable, how accurate, how comprehensive and coherent, how fruitful, how aesthetically elegant, and how promising is a hypothesis that it is sufficient to define the Book of Mormon as "large" and "complex"  and with some distinctive language (chiasmus) which she implies, comes from Smith's immersion in the KJV?  And highly hypnotizable individuals of course, as though participants in Vegas shows insist ever after to all and sundry that yes they really did turn into chickens on that stage.

Taves did not only avoid the "weeds of apologetic defenses" of the Book of Mormon (consider the rhetorical implications of the metaphor: such things really do matter), she avoids the weeds of the actual content.  Anyone who thinks that the book really does deal with the content has not read the book.  "Large" and "complex" with some chiasmus really is the depth of her exploration.  Does this matter?

John 10:38

But if I do [the works of my Father, works none other man did] though ye believe not me, believe the works, that ye may know and believe.

Luke 24 11

And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.

It happens that my working title for my review of Revelatory Events is "Playing to an Audience"  She says up front that she is writing for a secular audience, and I think she can safely assume that her audience won't care about her neglect of the Book of Mormon content and scholarship.  For that audience, "large and complex" will do.  For a secular audience that presumes that the Book of Mormon is nothing more than an idle tale, she does not need to bother.  But not me.  And it's not just personal preference, not just subjective preference. But puzzle definition and solution, accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, fruitfulness, simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise.   I can point to a wide array of puzzles and solutions that the Book of Mormon defines, its accuracy of key predictions, a wide range of studies and evidences that fit together, the unexpected discoveries that I and others have made that a person who does not bother to read it will never see.  And there is the difference between the promise of a secular future, and the fruit of the tree of life.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

Edited August 8, 2017 by Kevin Christensen

[Guest]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I agree with you that we don't have access to all the facts about the past, so its impossible to be 100% certain about stories written so long ago.  

But let me ask this question, because I hear this argument a lot, and I question it personally as I don't understand why its necessary.  You say that its important to have faith.  Two questions.  

1.  What are we to have faith in?  Is this a faith in the historicity of stories that might not be historical?  Or is it faith in something else?  

2.  Why is faith important?  I sincerely mean this.  When I think about having faith in God, this is a being that I can't prove exists, that I personally think may just be the way human minds work that have evolved over time, and an experience that people feel within their mind.  Yet I can see some value in this experience, and I want to explore that.  But if God is just an experience in my mind, what does that mean for faith.  Faith = trust, that is how I define faith, if I have trust in something I have faith in that thing that it is reliable, that I can count on it.  What does it mean to have trust in a feeling in our brain?  Should I trust my instincts, is that having faith in God in my paradigm?  But I know a lot of my instincts can be externally influenced, and I know the flaws of bias influence all my emotions and thinking, so my skeptical brain questions a lot of my instincts.  How can I have faith.  Why is faith important.  I want to know, as a person that's trying to approach religion again, but that has a very rational/skeptical mindset about it.  

"Faith" is what animates us, give us direction and the ability to leap beyond what "seems" logical. It is what frees us from to step into the unknown or the unseen, believing that there is solid ground beneath us. Be if in the heart, or in the mind, the results are the same, the reward is still the same. The reward is that even even as the "grain of the mustard seed" it can move Mountians, and I mean the Mountians that stand in our way, and that block us from knowing, seeing and hearing, His will, form, and the voice of God. It is the "walking around" or "climbing over" or even "moving" these Mountians where we find the "burning bush" and find the truth of God. This of course assuming that we truly want too. Many fear seeking him too much and seeking faith too much, might reveal a God who asks too much, more than we are willing too give. The fear that once we see, once we hear, once we feel, then we might be unwilling to change, thereby reaping his judgement. This is not "faith or belief 101", you have to want it bad. The simple truth is that simple faith, leads to greater faith, which leads to action (as "faith" is an action word) which leads to knowing, which leads to harsh judgement for those "who look back", no longer worthy of the "Kingdom of God". Or as the scripture puts it, is like a "dog turning to his own vomit". So seeking "faith in God", to know without doubt is not for the faint of heart. But without fail, worth every "sacrifice", or what the world sees as "sacrifice".  

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

..............................  Can you expound on what exactly is dangerous ground here and why its dangerous, as you've described my situation as non-scholar basing evaluations on scholarship.  I recognize that scholars disagree and that consensus will continue to evolve and change over time.  I'm not sure what you mean by dangerous though.  Is it dangerous to have a perspective based on incomplete or imperfect data, yes, but isn't that all we have to go in in this human condition?  Is this more or less dangerous than basing decisions on naive trust of authority figures or little to no critical analysis and study.  Which path is more dangerous and why?  

The non-scholar will likely have no idea what the consensus is or has been, thus having no sense of perspective.  He may have read one or two popular books by scholars, and maybe a few popular articles -- thus having no true conception of the full range of scholarship in any particular area, and certainly no notion of consensus, not to mention the inability to access specialized sources or original texts.  As usual, a little bit of knowledge proves dangerous, just as it does for the Sorcerer's Apprentice.  This applies as much to those who blindly follow authority figures in science as in religion.

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

Also, I wouldn't say the Holy Spirit offers a way out of this quandary, but rather a way of coping with existentialist complexities at least enough for us to have some feeling of conviction that allows people to make decisions in life.  

One may make life decisions with or without the help of the Holy Spirit.  However, one is bound to the infinite regress of secular decisions made within the prison of one's senses and logic alone (the vicious circle as seen by David Hume).  The Holy Spirit merely offers one way to escape from that vicious cycle, and which requires faith -- which implies self-delusion to many.

[Robert F. Smith]

30 minutes ago, Gray said:

I think Joseph Smith believed he had the ability to restore ancient histories of the native Americans - he seemed to have been doing that from early on in his youth. I think he could see it in his mind's eye, and for him that was God revealing real history to him. Whether or not the plates existed in a physical reality, I don't know. If they did I think they would have been some kind of prop to help bolster his credibility. I have no reason to think that Joseph didn't experience visions of Moroni.

I think Joseph Smith, like all prophets, tapped into some deeper truths that go beyond the story of Nephi and his brothers, or the story of Job and his family, or what have you. Prophets (and the rest of us) can sometimes tune into "God radio" and find inspiration. That doesn't mean God is dictating words to that person. It just means that, for a time at least, that prophet has awoken to something sacred.

The problem here is that, even in the midst of self-delusion, Joseph had no way of accessing extinct Early Modern English.  The best secular evidence is that he merely read the Early Modern English phrases presented to his eyes, and his clerks wrote them down.  Perhaps that is evidence of some sort of "God radio" or God iPhone, but it really doesn't explain how "that prophet has awoken to something sacred."

[Robert F. Smith]

28 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I think he tried entheogens and that it enabled him to tap into some pretty powerful inspiration that may have even come from God. Maybe some things were put here for a reason to enable humans insight.

Are entheogens the same as n-grams?

[Gray]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The problem here is that, even in the midst of self-delusion, Joseph had no way of accessing extinct Early Modern English.  The best secular evidence is that he merely read the Early Modern English phrases presented to his eyes, and his clerks wrote them down.  Perhaps that is evidence of some sort of "God radio" or God iPhone, but it really doesn't explain how "that prophet has awoken to something sacred."

The early modern English idea is a curiosity, but it seems pretty early to make any hard conclusions about it either way.

If Joseph was merely dictating someone else's work from centuries earlier, then of course my comments about Joseph's prophetic vision would apply to that person instead. But according to Joseph's mother, at least, he was channeling stories of the native Americans from an early age.

 

Edit: as Calm pointed out, this was before the BOM was translated, but after Joseph's visions about Moroni.

Edited August 8, 2017 by Gray