How an Ahistorical Book of Mormon Can Still Be Scripture

[Benjamin Seeker]

14 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...

Johnnie Cake, I've deliteralizes my beliefs in many areas (not just BOM Historicity). However, my faith, though much less tied to specific claims, is still an important part of my person, and I find deep value in the Mormon world-view.

[smac97]

10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

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.

I agree with Robert here.  Let me provide some context for my position.

As an attorney, I have lost count of the number of times I, working in real estate litigation matters, have encountered a homeowner or tenant or some such who has read a bit of information online and thinks this will enable him to put my client (typically the bank) over the barrel.  The issues at play are often both simple (basic principles of contract law, for example) and complex (there are many different facets of those basic principles in play, all of which have to be understood and property interpreted and harmonized, a process which even very experienced attorneys end up disagreeing on). Time and again I meet folks who have a strong whiff of misplaced confidence in their legal/factual arguments.  And time and again I file a "Motion to Dismiss" (meaning that there is no set of actual or even theoretical facts which exist which would allow the litigant to win his case).  And then comes the day of reckoning, when their legal claims/defenses are dismissed by the court, almost always at the very outset of the litigation (no discovery phase, no trial), as being substantively insufficient or defective.

What follows is often . . . not pleasant.  The litigant experiences some shock.  There is surprise, even amazement, that his his limited, unschooled, I-read-it-on-the-internet-so-it-must-be-true, understanding of "the facts" and/or "the law" was substantially misguided, or else failed to take into one or more pivotal issues.  Then comes the anger.  At the judge.  At the bank.  At me.  Then come the recriminations about how "the courts are rigged" against John Q. Public in favor of The Man (whoever that is).  And then after the anger, well, that varies.  Sometimes the anger is maintained and amplified.  Sometimes it leads to great distress and sadness.  Sometimes it causes bitterness and cynicism.  Sometimes there are combinations of these things.

In other words, the "non-scholar" in the above scenario ends up much the worse for wear because he had "no sense of perspective."  He doesn't know enough about the law to formulate a reasonably accurate assessment of how it works when applied to his case.  He read a few websites, or talked to a few people about how to "fight the banks" and so on.  But in truth he had "no true conception of the full range" of how the law works in terms of consumer finance litigation.  And he has now expended considerable time and mental and emotional energy in pursuing a legal claim he was simply not equipped to handle on his own.  And now he is angry at "the judicial system" because it hasn't yielded the result his superficial familiarity with "the law" led him to expect.  (I should note, for the record, that despite 3 years of law school and 13 years of nonstop litigation practice, I still learn all sorts of new and important law-related things pretty much every day.  So my critique of pro se litigants (people who represent themselves rather than hire an attorney) is not borne of arrogance, just experience.)

I have seen this phenomenon play out many, many times over.  It is often hard to watch, as most of these people are plainly good and decent, and many of them even have understandable - and even legitimate to some degree - grievances against "the bank."  But the adage "A little learning is a dangerous thing" is manifestly apropos.  Put another way: "A small amount of knowledge can mislead people into thinking that they are more expert than they really are."  This happens in the law.  And in science.  And in religion.

So yes, there is "danger" when a non-scholar develops a false sense of confidence/security by relying on "scholarship" (or, more accurately, relying far too much on his limited and naive perception of some few facets of "scholarship," - in other words, "a little learning").  He thinks he has all the facts.  He thinks he knows more than the other guy who has arrived at a different conclusion.  He may even look down on the other guy as appearing stupid or deluded or ignorant.

When the topic at hand is the LDS Church and its teachings, and when scholarship about that topic comes up, I think we have to keep it in its proper sphere.  Religious truth claims, once broadcast to the world, must be understood as being in an adversarial construct.  Some people will accept those truth claims, and some will not.  There will be differences of opinion about many things, including important things.  Reasonable minds will (should) be able to disagree about these things.  Scholarship will certainly play a role in this whole affair, but not a central one.  At least not for me.  My belief in Jesus Christ is based on the scriptures and on the Spirit.  Scholarship, secular research and historical methodology, is, at best, a supplemental and ancillary resource.  Consider these comments by Daniel Peterson:

Quote

Of course, scholarship does not replace spiritual witness as a source of testimony. As Elder B. H. Roberts (1857–1933) of the Seventy said: “The power of the Holy Ghost … must ever be the chief source of evidence for the Book of Mormon. All other evidence is secondary. … No arrangement of evidence, however skillfully ordered; no argument, however adroitly made, can ever take its place.”

Yet scholarship has a definite place even in spiritual matters. The Lord said in an 1829 revelation through the Prophet Joseph Smith to Oliver Cowdery, “Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost” (D&C 8:2; emphasis added). In 1832 the Lord said to the Prophet Joseph Smith, “Seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118). As one writer observed: “What no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.” 

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited August 9, 2017 by smac97

[Benjamin Seeker]

As for Moroni (and other visitors) and the plates...

Let's do the plates first. That seems the easiest. I'll just say that I like Ann Taves' approach. I believe that JS was likely involved in the creation of what he believed was an object imbued with power by the divine, meaning JS created the plates, the breast plate, and Urim and Thummim at God's command and with God's involvement similar to how the Brother of Jared created glowing rocks for the barges with his efforts combined with the Lord's power. It's very speculative, but certainly not outside of the realm of possibility.

As far as Moroni goes, that's more complicated. I'll start out by saying that visions, even shared ones appear to be subjective and often symbolic experiences. I have come to this conclusion through weighing conflicting visionary experiences from multiple religious tradition or even conflicting revelatory experiences within our own tradition, through studying near death experiences, and through my own personal experience with revelation. Secondly, they appear to incorporate elements from the experiencer's current belief system as well as elements that appear to be otherworldly. For example NDEs often vary by religious tradition, incorporating the experiencer's favored diety at least at first, but on the other hand they also consistently communicate, eventually, that no single religious tradition is the one winner and that the point of mortal experience is to learn to love others. So it's no surprise that JS's revelations focus on revealing ancient truth, a cultural trend in his time, nor is it surprising that theu incorporated a Hebrew lineage for native Americans, another cultural element from JS' time period.

Another element to consider in regards to Moroni, is that it appears that JS' understanding of his experiences with the divine evolved throughout his life, and it appears he backdated his understanding by updating revelations and texts as he felt necessary. This means that he consistently identifies the visitor on September 22nd as an angel for the first set of years that he described or mentioned the experience, at least in published examples, but then at a certain point he begins referring to the angel as Moroni. So, this complicates things because we also have an evolving textual record that may or may not accurately reflect the initial experiences. Like I said, it's complicated. 

Edited August 9, 2017 by Benjamin Seeker

[Robert F. Smith]

52 minutes ago, Benjamin Seeker said:

As for Moroni (and other visitors) and the plates...

Let's do the plates first. That seems the easiest. I'll just say that I like Ann Taves' approach. I believe that JS was likely involved in the creation of what he believed was an object imbued with power by the divine, meaning JS created the plates, the breast plate, and Urim and Thummim at God's command and with God's involvement similar to how the Brother of Jared created glowing rocks for the barges with his efforts combined with the Lord's power. It's very speculative, but certainly not outside of the realm of possibility.

Part of the problem with such assumptions is that they overlook the deep tradition of just such glowing stones in manifold Jewish sources, as disclosed in a remarkable doctoral study by a rabbi:  Nissim Wernick, “A Critical Analysis of the Book of Abraham in Light of Extra-Canonical Jewish Writings,” doctoral dissertation (Provo: BYU, Aug 1968), online at http://web.archive.org/web/20090829234905/http://geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/2671/WERNICK.html .   To have Joseph actually create physical plates, breastplate, and interpreters (there were no Urim & Thummim) is beyond the range of possibility for a man in those times.

52 minutes ago, Benjamin Seeker said:

As far as Moroni goes, that's more complicated. I'll start out by saying that visions, even shared ones appear to be subjective and often symbolic experiences. I have come to this conclusion through weighing conflicting visionary experiences from multiple religious tradition or even conflicting revelatory experiences within our own tradition, through studying near death experiences, and through my own personal experience with revelation. Secondly, they appear to incorporate elements from the experiencer's current belief system as well as elements that appear to be otherworldly. For example NDEs often vary by religious tradition, incorporating the experiencer's favored diety at least at first, but on the other hand they also consistently communicate, eventually, that no single religious tradition is the one winner and that the point of mortal experience is to learn to love others. So it's no surprise that JS's revelations focus on revealing ancient truth, a cultural trend in his time, nor is it surprising that theu incorporated a Hebrew lineage for native Americans, another cultural element from JS' time period.

Another element to consider in regards to Moroni, is that it appears that JS' understanding of his experiences with the divine evolved throughout his life, and it appears he backdated his understanding by updating revelations and texts as he felt necessary. This means that he consistently identifies the visitor on September 22nd as an angel for the first set of years that he described or mentioned the experience, at least in published examples, but then at a certain point he begins referring to the angel as Moroni. So, this complicates things because we also have an evolving textual record that may or may not accurately reflect the initial experiences. Like I said, it's complicated. 

Combining all manner of individual and mass hallucinations with NDEs and other mystical phenomena seems all well and good, and it is not necessary to prove imaginary events.  They are by definition not actual events.

Your problem here is that Joseph did not create the Book of Mormon because he could not have done so.  It had to have been created a couple centuries before his time, say around 1540, in Early Modern English.  Knowledge of American Indians was markedly different in that early time from anything thought in Joseph's time. His cultural environment was utterly different, and is certainly not anything like the content of the Book of Mormon.

Moreover, the dates when key events took place in Joseph's time are very suspicious, as noted recently by Book of Mormon Central, “Why Did Moroni Deliver the Plates on September 22? (Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith, front of 2013 edition of the Book of Mormon; cf. Joseph Smith—History 1:59),” KnoWhy #193, Sept 22, 2016, https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/why-did-moroni-deliver-the-plates-on-september-22 .   Why is Joseph doing things according to the Jewish calendar?  Why does he receive the plates at the Jewish New Year?  Why did he recover them from the hollow log ten days later on the Jewish Day of Atonement?  And that is not even the half of it.  The Book of Mormon itself contains key Jewish dates, which establish the birth and death dates of Jesus, along with the date when Lehi left Jerusalem.  How is that possible through hallucinatory imaginings?

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Is it really, honestly, truly, more likely that the revelation of the Book Of Mormon was specially timed by Angels to coincide with Rosh Hashanah, than that Joseph Smith lived in a farming culture that was steeped in zodiacal lore and attached special significance to the Autumnal Equinox? 

That last link includes the passage: "No bolder statement could be made about God’s involvement in history than that of an angel delivering a historical record full of interactions with God." 

Personally, I think God could prove Himself to be a lot bolder if He physically showed up in the White House tomorrow and treated Trump with the same level of civility He showed to, say, Onan. Or is Trump provoking North Korea into a frickin' nuclear war less sinful than not being totally into impregnating your dead brother's wife after a forced marriage? Meanwhile, Cain gets God's sevenfold protection after murdering his own brother, and Elijah gets charioted away to Heaven after hacking 555 guys to death ...  

(At the very least, wouldn't Moroni have mentioned something to all those Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews in New York during Joseph Smith's time?)  

The Book Of Mormon does not contain a moral message. The "deeper truths", the "spiritual truths I find communicated clearly" in the Book Of Mormon, along with the rest of the scriptures, are completely monstrous. Think of the story in Alma 14, when innocent women and children are being burned alive while people with the power to save them stand by and do nothing. In the very next chapter, those same powerful people, men of God, go to the land of Sidon and heal Zeezrom's FEVER.

The author of the Book Of Mormon, who was clearly Joseph Smith (some critics try way too hard to detect elaborately silly conspiracy theories), was perfectly fine with God being willing to let people be burned alive, and beheaded like Laban, and zapped by self-righteous prigs like Nephi, and smitten like Sherem, and slain like the Amlicites, and crushed to death like Korihor, and burned and drowned and buried alive in Zarahemla. 

And of course there's that beautiful passage in 2 Nephi 6: "I will feed them that oppress thee, with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood as with sweet wine; and all flesh shall know that I the Lord am thy Savior and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob." 

Of course, in other scriptures, God says He could change us all from mortality to immortality in the twinkling of an eye. 

Then again, maybe He'll get off on a technicality, since He also promises to punish sinners in such a way that they are left with no eyes to twinkle with. I really love that uplifting, inspirational, spiritually fulfilling Section 29 of the D&C: 

"I the Lord God will send forth flies upon the face of the earth, which shall take hold of the inhabitants thereof, and shall eat their flesh, and shall cause maggots to come in upon them; and their tongues shall be stayed that they shall not utter against me; and their flesh shall fall from off their bones, and their eyes from their sockets."

I suppose it's better than all the cannibalism God commands in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 and Isaiah 49 and Jeremiah 19 and Ezekiel 5 ... 

Edited August 9, 2017 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[Bobbieaware]

1 hour ago, JeremyOrbe-Smith said:

Is it really, honestly, truly, more likely that the revelation of the Book Of Mormon was specially timed by Angels to coincide with Rosh Hashanah, than that Joseph Smith lived in a farming culture that was steeped in zodiacal lore and attached special significance to the Autumnal Equinox? 

That last link includes the passage: "No bolder statement could be made about God’s involvement in history than that of an angel delivering a historical record full of interactions with God." 

Personally, I think God could prove Himself to be a lot bolder if He physically showed up in the White House tomorrow and treated Trump with the same level of civility He showed to, say, Onan. Or is Trump provoking North Korea into a frickin' nuclear war less sinful than not being totally into impregnating your dead brother's wife after a forced marriage? Meanwhile, Cain gets God's sevenfold protection after murdering his own brother, and Elijah gets charioted away to Heaven after hacking 555 guys to death ...  

(At the very least, wouldn't Moroni have mentioned something to all those Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews in New York during Joseph Smith's time?)  

The Book Of Mormon does not contain a moral message. The "deeper truths", the "spiritual truths I find communicated clearly" in the Book Of Mormon, along with the rest of the scriptures, are completely monstrous. Think of the story in Alma 14, when innocent women and children are being burned alive while people with the power to save them stand by and do nothing. In the very next chapter, those same powerful people, men of God, go to the land of Sidon and heal Zeezrom's FEVER.

The author of the Book Of Mormon, who was clearly Joseph Smith (some critics try way too hard to detect elaborately silly conspiracy theories), was perfectly fine with God being willing to let people be burned alive, and beheaded like Laban, and zapped by self-righteous prigs like Nephi, and smitten like Sherem, and slain like the Amlicites, and crushed to death like Korihor, and burned and drowned and buried alive in Zarahemla. 

And of course there's that beautiful passage in 2 Nephi 6: "I will feed them that oppress thee, with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood as with sweet wine; and all flesh shall know that I the Lord am thy Savior and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob." 

Of course, in other scriptures, God says He could change us all from mortality to immortality in the twinkling of an eye. 

Then again, maybe He'll get off on a technicality, since He also promises to punish sinners in such a way that they are left with no eyes to twinkle with. I really love that uplifting, inspirational, spiritually fulfilling Section 29 of the D&C: 

"I the Lord God will send forth flies upon the face of the earth, which shall take hold of the inhabitants thereof, and shall eat their flesh, and shall cause maggots to come in upon them; and their tongues shall be stayed that they shall not utter against me; and their flesh shall fall from off their bones, and their eyes from their sockets."

I suppose it's better than all the cannibalism God commands in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 and Isaiah 49 and Jeremiah 19 and Ezekiel 5 ... 

So It appears you now believe evil, injustice, alienation and hate win out in the end. 

[Rajah Manchou]

4 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

It had to have been created a couple centuries before his time, say around 1540, in Early Modern English.  Knowledge of American Indians was markedly different in that early time from anything thought in Joseph's time. His cultural environment was utterly different, and is certainly not anything like the content of the Book of Mormon.

Correct. There is nothing ahistorical about the Book of Mormon. An early 16th century translator of a 5th century AD Judeo-Christian text like the Book of Mormon would have no trouble recognizing the account as a nearly perfect match of what was known in that era about the inhabitants of the isles of the sea. These were Biblical groups that were led to the unidentified island of Qamara somewhere in the vicinity of what was known as AMERICA NOVITER REPERTA, or America Newly Discovered. It was inhabited by the Qumr (Cumr) people who migrated there in boats around the time of the tower. It was also inhabited by the Rechabites (Kenites) who were carried there by God in the 6th century BC.

When placed in this context, what exactly in the Book of Mormon is ahistorical or anachronistic? Why must we treat it as a work of fiction when it so perfectly matches what was known about the New World in the 16th century when it was translated?

Edited August 9, 2017 by Rajah Manchou

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

"So It appears you now believe evil, injustice, alienation and hate win out in the end."

If the scriptures are accurate representations of God's character, then God is evil, unjust, and hateful when He promises to force people to eat their own sons and daughters or melt their eyeballs out of their skulls or behead people or hurl javelins through lovers or command the Chosen People to commit genocide and utterly destroy even innocent children, yes.   

[Bobbieaware]

6 minutes ago, JeremyOrbe-Smith said:

"So It appears you now believe evil, injustice, alienation and hate win out in the end."

If the scriptures are accurate representations of God's character, then God is evil, unjust, and hateful when He promises to force people to eat their own sons and daughters or melt their eyeballs out of their skulls or behead people or hurl javelins through lovers or command the Chosen People to commit genocide and utterly destroy even innocent children, yes.   

So you believe that an evil organized crime boss, like the murderous Laban, should go unpunished? 

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

I believe he should be put in jail, not beheaded by a kid listening to the voices in his head telling him to murder the guy in cold blood while he's lying drunk and unconscious in the street. Jesus. 

Look, here's what gets me about threads like this one. If we're going to go the metaphorical, ahistorical, 'spiritual lessons', demythologizing route, then let's at least take the books seriously enough to actually read what is written in them. 

What great moral insight do we learn when Jezebel is thrown out the window so that dogs can eat her flesh and her carcass can be as dung upon the face of the field? What deep Spiritual Truth do we get from the Levite cutting up the concubine into 12 pieces? What profound lesson do we learn by considering Lot being roofied and raped by his own daughters, or all the Witches murdered throughout the centuries because God Said So? 

If these scriptures are merely the best guesses of some ancient tribes, and not Prophetic declarations from people who claim to speak with the Creator of the world, then what is the point of carrying them around as if they contain some great secret? Okay, so they teach us to commune with God. Why would we want to commune with a being that does all the things the scriptures say God does, atrocities that would put Dahmer and Hitler to shame? 

Psalm 110:
Thou art a Priest forever, 
after the Order of Melchizedek. 
The Lord at thy right hand 
shall strike through Kings 
in the day of His wrath. 
He shall Judge among the Heathen, 
He shall fill the places with the dead bodies.

God makes it quite clear that He causes all these horrors on purpose, as part of a greater plan. The scriptures are not just descriptive, as if the text is merely recording these horrific events in history without endorsing them, it is explicitly prescriptive; God is not merely warning us about negative consequences which might flow naturally from our own bad behavior, He is not just teaching us the natural blessings that come from obedience to His principles and describing the violence as a natural consequence of our human choices when we disobey. No, He is explicitly taking credit Himself as having done this all deliberately.

Bottom line: if there really is some hyper-advanced intelligence which has been watching over us for millennia and murders us from the sky whenever it feels like it, then the Forteans and William Bramley are right, and all of humanity should be banding together to fight this creepy extraterrestrial(s), rather than slaughtering ourselves over the pathetically inconsequential sectarian differences that have provoked so much bloodshed over the centuries.  

Edited August 9, 2017 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[Gray]

7 hours ago, Darren10 said:

Was then Moroni a historical figure or just claimed to be one to joseph Smith in order to write the Book of Mormon narrative? 

I don't think Moroni was a historical figure. But visions of a messenger from God don't have to have an analog to a physical/historical being.

[hope_for_things]

15 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The typical paleolithic hunter-gatherer is expert in his environment, just as the neolithic farmer is in his.  Scholarship is completely absent from their world, the world of first naivete.  Even the tribal shaman is only expert on traditional medicines and is a purveyor of mythical explanations.  They are bereft of science, but manage to survive anyhow.  However  that does not imply only "instinct and intuition," as you wrongly suggest.  Even modern Mormon leaders are only expert in limited areas, such as law (Oaks), cardiology (Dr. Nelson), etc.  They are not trained linguists, archeologists, historians, or theologians., nor do they pretend to such knowledge or expertise.  They depend upon traditional religious understanding and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  They do not pretend to be scientists.

The danger for the Sorcerer's Apprentice is that he takes a small amount of knowledge and imagines that he is now able to reliably act upon it.  False.  Hybris is your nemesis.

Relying on traditional religious understanding can be just as dangerous as the Sorcerer's Apprentice who is attempting to master something that they have little to no personal experience with.  One of the problems with traditional religious understanding is that it contains the assumptions of past cultures and times, and if new understanding and light and knowledge is coming into the world, to hold to the past tradition in the light of new understanding, can be damning, harmful, and evil.  I think we see this frequently from conservative institutions like religions.  

I'm less afraid of exploration and research and learning, than I am of possibly making a mistake because of my small amount of knowledge.  I would much rather try and fail than make little to no attempt to understand or learn something new.  

15 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Unlike a scholar, you don't read carefully.  What I wrote actually asserts that the guidance of the Holy Spirit is subjective, not objective.  You weren't even aware that we agree on that, and thus you are completely confused about what we are discussing.  None of us has access to objective reality, which (as I said) takes advantage of the understanding of David Hume -- we are prisoners of our senses.  A good college course on critical thinking often proves helpful.

Sorry that I misunderstood you, and thanks for clarifying.  I'm a big proponent of critical thinking skills, I wouldn't say I've mastered them by any means though.  

[Bobbieaware]

39 minutes ago, Gray said:

I don't think Moroni was a historical figure. But visions of a messenger from God don't have to have an analog to a physical/historical being.

It will be a delight for me to see the expression on your face when the following comes to pass...

34 And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, TO MEET YOU before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead. Amen. (Moroni 10).

But the only problem is that you seem to be so entrenched in your "mystify everything away" kind of thinking that you would probably deny the resurrected Moroni was actually standing right there before you, even if he slapped you on the back. Heck, based on what I've seen from your contributions on this board, I doubt you believe that even you are real. Am I right? Do you believe what most of us call existence is nothing more than 'pure thought' and everything we observe is nothing more than a kind dream or an illusion? 

[Benjamin Seeker]

8 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Part of the problem with such assumptions is that they overlook the deep tradition of just such glowing stones in manifold Jewish sources, as disclosed in a remarkable doctoral study by a rabbi:  Nissim Wernick, “A Critical Analysis of the Book of Abraham in Light of Extra-Canonical Jewish Writings,” doctoral dissertation (Provo: BYU, Aug 1968), online at http://web.archive.org/web/20090829234905/http://geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/2671/WERNICK.html .   To have Joseph actually create physical plates, breastplate, and interpreters (there were no Urim & Thummim) is beyond the range of possibility for a man in those times.

Combining all manner of individual and mass hallucinations with NDEs and other mystical phenomena seems all well and good, and it is not necessary to prove imaginary events.  They are by definition not actual events.

Your problem here is that Joseph did not create the Book of Mormon because he could not have done so.  It had to have been created a couple centuries before his time, say around 1540, in Early Modern English.  Knowledge of American Indians was markedly different in that early time from anything thought in Joseph's time. His cultural environment was utterly different, and is certainly not anything like the content of the Book of Mormon.

Moreover, the dates when key events took place in Joseph's time are very suspicious, as noted recently by Book of Mormon Central, “Why Did Moroni Deliver the Plates on September 22? (Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith, front of 2013 edition of the Book of Mormon; cf. Joseph Smith—History 1:59),” KnoWhy #193, Sept 22, 2016, https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/why-did-moroni-deliver-the-plates-on-september-22 .   Why is Joseph doing things according to the Jewish calendar?  Why does he receive the plates at the Jewish New Year?  Why did he recover them from the hollow log ten days later on the Jewish Day of Atonement?  And that is not even the half of it.  The Book of Mormon itself contains key Jewish dates, which establish the birth and death dates of Jesus, along with the date when Lehi left Jerusalem.  How is that possible through hallucinatory imaginings?

Robert, I respect your careful approach to BOM Historicity. I've considered each of your rebuttals, and I respectfully disagree. I'd rather not start a long debate over them as generally they take up a lot of time, won't change either of our opinions, and won't do much in terms of bettering our lives.

I do want to point out your mischaracterization of my approach to the visions of Joseph Smith. You flattened my position to "imaginary events," but I clearly left room in my position for more than just imaginary events. In fact, I would be very reticent to invoke the word imaginary at all.

Edited August 9, 2017 by Benjamin Seeker

[hope_for_things]

12 hours ago, churchistrue said:

I think people use Harry Potter and such to intentionally make the inspired fiction theory seem ridiculous. Why not compare it to Job or the allegory of Zenos or the parable of the Good Samaritan. All those are scripture and considered very powerful stories despite not being historical.

Check this out, there is more to the Harry Potter analogy and its not to just to be ridiculous.  

http://www.harrypottersacredtext.com/

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/17/us/more-students-secular-but-feeling-a-call-turn-to-divinity-schools.html

 

[Atheist Mormon]

Quote

How an Ahistorical Book of Mormon Can Still Be Scripture

Nothing personal but I haven't read a more of an absurd thread topic like this lately; Where's ever discussed that BoM was not a scripture?

[hope_for_things]

8 hours ago, smac97 said:

I have seen this phenomenon play out many, many times over.  It is often hard to watch, as most of these people are plainly good and decent, and many of them even have understandable - and even legitimate to some degree - grievances against "the bank."  But the adage "A little learning is a dangerous thing" is manifestly apropos.  Put another way: "A small amount of knowledge can mislead people into thinking that they are more expert than they really are."  This happens in the law.  And in science.  And in religion.

So yes, there is "danger" when a non-scholar develops a false sense of confidence/security by relying on "scholarship" (or, more accurately, relying far too much on his limited and naive perception of some few facets of "scholarship," - in other words, "a little learning").  He thinks he has all the facts.  He thinks he knows more than the other guy who has arrived at a different conclusion.  He may even look down on the other guy as appearing stupid or deluded or ignorant.

When the topic at hand is the LDS Church and its teachings, and when scholarship about that topic comes up, I think we have to keep it in its proper sphere.  Religious truth claims, once broadcast to the world, must be understood as being in an adversarial construct.  Some people will accept those truth claims, and some will not.  There will be differences of opinion about many things, including important things.  Reasonable minds will (should) be able to disagree about these things.  Scholarship will certainly play a role in this whole affair, but not a central one.  At least not for me.  My belief in Jesus Christ is based on the scriptures and on the Spirit.

First, let me agree with part of what you and Robert are saying.  This is something that I see play out in religious and political discussions quite often, and I agree that it is a problem in our society that we should be aware of.  Its a thinking fallacy known as the "illusion of explanatory depth".  Here's an interesting article written about it in political context, but it applies to our religious discussions as well.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/opinion/sunday/why-partisans-cant-explain-their-views.html?_r=0

Essentially what researches studied was the way people debate hot button issues and they found that people have this illusion that they understand an issue deeply, but when asked to explain that issue in detailed real world terms that individuals would moderate their approach to that subject as they realized through the attempt to explain the process that they really didn't understand it all that well in the first place.  

The problem we have with discussions on religious topics with respect to not having enough knowledge, is we have access to a lot of borrowed knowledge from others.  So we can mentally copy/paste that those arguments into a message board, and we may not have that deep of an understanding of these topics, yet we suffer from this illusion that we do.  This keeps people entrenched in their current positions and immovable.  

In Mormonism this is the default position for many discussions.  We have a conviction about a particular issue, and instead of learning new things and exploring the issue to greater depths, people are more interested in protecting their current position.  The default excuse when someone is presented with new information becomes a fall back position to spiritual witness, which essentially means, ignore the evidence, dismiss it out of hand, don't engage with it intellectually at all.  This is what I see as truly the more dangerous position to take.  I would much rather be trying to learn something, trying to research and gain knowledge and fail than just dismissing things out of hand without giving them any chance in the first place.  Its a fight or flight evolutionary response to challenging information. 

So which truly is more dangerous, attempting to understand something complex with little expertise, or blind obedience and faith in something you know very little about, and with no real attempt to engage in critical thought about the issue.  

[hope_for_things]

8 hours ago, Benjamin Seeker said:

As for Moroni (and other visitors) and the plates...

Let's do the plates first. That seems the easiest. I'll just say that I like Ann Taves' approach. I believe that JS was likely involved in the creation of what he believed was an object imbued with power by the divine, meaning JS created the plates, the breast plate, and Urim and Thummim at God's command and with God's involvement similar to how the Brother of Jared created glowing rocks for the barges with his efforts combined with the Lord's power. It's very speculative, but certainly not outside of the realm of possibility.

As far as Moroni goes, that's more complicated. I'll start out by saying that visions, even shared ones appear to be subjective and often symbolic experiences. I have come to this conclusion through weighing conflicting visionary experiences from multiple religious tradition or even conflicting revelatory experiences within our own tradition, through studying near death experiences, and through my own personal experience with revelation. Secondly, they appear to incorporate elements from the experiencer's current belief system as well as elements that appear to be otherworldly. For example NDEs often vary by religious tradition, incorporating the experiencer's favored diety at least at first, but on the other hand they also consistently communicate, eventually, that no single religious tradition is the one winner and that the point of mortal experience is to learn to love others. So it's no surprise that JS's revelations focus on revealing ancient truth, a cultural trend in his time, nor is it surprising that theu incorporated a Hebrew lineage for native Americans, another cultural element from JS' time period.

Another element to consider in regards to Moroni, is that it appears that JS' understanding of his experiences with the divine evolved throughout his life, and it appears he backdated his understanding by updating revelations and texts as he felt necessary. This means that he consistently identifies the visitor on September 22nd as an angel for the first set of years that he described or mentioned the experience, at least in published examples, but then at a certain point he begins referring to the angel as Moroni. So, this complicates things because we also have an evolving textual record that may or may not accurately reflect the initial experiences. Like I said, it's complicated. 

Love this, this is very similar to how I view things, thanks again for sharing.  

[Darren10]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

I don't think Moroni was a historical figure. But visions of a messenger from God don't have to have an analog to a physical/historical being.

Well, Morroni believed in a lot of the historicity of the Book of Mormon:

Quote

34 He said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants;

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/js-h/1?lang=eng

[Darren10]

2 hours ago, Bobbieaware said:

So It appears you now believe evil, injustice, alienation and hate win out in the end. 

 I liked Jeremy a lot but I have seen a lot of skepticism and confusion in him. How I think he believes he is morally superior to the scriptures. 

[hope_for_things]

6 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Part of the problem with such assumptions is that they overlook the deep tradition of just such glowing stones in manifold Jewish sources, as disclosed in a remarkable doctoral study by a rabbi:  Nissim Wernick, “A Critical Analysis of the Book of Abraham in Light of Extra-Canonical Jewish Writings,” doctoral dissertation (Provo: BYU, Aug 1968), online at http://web.archive.org/web/20090829234905/http://geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/2671/WERNICK.html .   To have Joseph actually create physical plates, breastplate, and interpreters (there were no Urim & Thummim) is beyond the range of possibility for a man in those times.

The evidence for the breastplate or the interpreters (two stones in a bow) are very scant.  Physical plates are all Joseph would have had to manufacture really and the evidence that nobody saw that artifact uncovered, but just felt it or lifted it is interesting.  The evidence around the eight witnesses experience leaves enough ambiguity about whether or not their experience was a visionary one.  

6 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Your problem here is that Joseph did not create the Book of Mormon because he could not have done so.  It had to have been created a couple centuries before his time, say around 1540, in Early Modern English.  Knowledge of American Indians was markedly different in that early time from anything thought in Joseph's time. His cultural environment was utterly different, and is certainly not anything like the content of the Book of Mormon.

EmodE research is too new for me to critique, but honestly it makes no sense to me and I'm not convinced it is paradigm altering as you're implying.  

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Moreover, the dates when key events took place in Joseph's time are very suspicious, as noted recently by Book of Mormon Central, “Why Did Moroni Deliver the Plates on September 22? (Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith, front of 2013 edition of the Book of Mormon; cf. Joseph Smith—History 1:59),” KnoWhy #193, Sept 22, 2016, https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/why-did-moroni-deliver-the-plates-on-september-22 .   Why is Joseph doing things according to the Jewish calendar?  Why does he receive the plates at the Jewish New Year?  Why did he recover them from the hollow log ten days later on the Jewish Day of Atonement?  And that is not even the half of it.  The Book of Mormon itself contains key Jewish dates, which establish the birth and death dates of Jesus, along with the date when Lehi left Jerusalem.  How is that possible through hallucinatory imaginings?

Michael Quinn came up with the simpler explanation, the autumnal equinox and folk magic which coincides with his treasure digging activities at the time.  As for other dates you can find a lot of parallels in anything if you look hard enough, humans are amazing at pattern recognition and creatively identifying things that didn't exists in the first place. 

[champatsch]

To adherents of an ahistorical view of the Book of Mormon:

Does anyone believe that the Lord revealed an ahistorical account to Joseph, not clarifying that it wasn't historical?

[Bobbieaware]

2 hours ago, JeremyOrbe-Smith said:

I believe he should be put in jail, not beheaded by a kid listening to the voices in his head telling him to murder the guy in cold blood while he's lying drunk and unconscious in the street. Jesus. 

Look, here's what gets me about threads like this one. If we're going to go the metaphorical, ahistorical, 'spiritual lessons', demythologizing route, then let's at least take the books seriously enough to actually read what is written in them. 

What great moral insight do we learn when Jezebel is thrown out the window so that dogs can eat her flesh and her carcass can be as dung upon the face of the field? What deep Spiritual Truth do we get from the Levite cutting up the concubine into 12 pieces? What profound lesson do we learn by considering Lot being roofied and raped by his own daughters, or all the Witches murdered throughout the centuries because God Said So? 

If these scriptures are merely the best guesses of some ancient tribes, and not Prophetic declarations from people who claim to speak with the Creator of the world, then what is the point of carrying them around as if they contain some great secret? Okay, so they teach us to commune with God. Why would we want to commune with a being that does all the things the scriptures say God does, atrocities that would put Dahmer and Hitler to shame? 

Psalm 110:
Thou art a Priest forever, 
after the Order of Melchizedek. 
The Lord at thy right hand 
shall strike through Kings 
in the day of His wrath. 
He shall Judge among the Heathen, 
He shall fill the places with the dead bodies.

God makes it quite clear that He causes all these horrors on purpose, as part of a greater plan. The scriptures are not just descriptive, as if the text is merely recording these horrific events in history without endorsing them, it is explicitly prescriptive; God is not merely warning us about negative consequences which might flow naturally from our own bad behavior, He is not just teaching us the natural blessings that come from obedience to His principles and describing the violence as a natural consequence of our human choices when we disobey. No, He is explicitly taking credit Himself as having done this all deliberately.

Bottom line: if there really is some hyper-advanced intelligence which has been watching over us for millennia and murders us from the sky whenever it feels like it, then the Forteans and William Bramley are right, and all of humanity should be banding together to fight this creepy extraterrestrial(s), rather than slaughtering ourselves over the pathetically inconsequential sectarian differences that have provoked so much bloodshed over the centuries.  

The source of your problem is a misperception. You seem to believe physical suffering and death constitute the worst case scenario. They are not. Spiritual death and its attendant exquisite suffering constitute the worst case scenario. The physical bodies of all, even the most wicked, will eventually be raised from death and healed of all scarring and disease. Spiritual death and suffering, on the other hand, are of endless duration unless one draws upon the power of atonement of Christ to find everlasting SPIRITUAL healing.

In all of this, God proved he not only knows how to talk the talk but knows full-well how to walk the walk when he, in the person of the great Jehovah, suffered the very worst of all martyr's deaths; and this that a far greater good than mere physical wholeness and ease might be made available to all. The scriptures testify that evil is very real and cannot be stamped out without upsetting the delicate balance that allows all things to exist. The scriptures also abundantly testify that the only way to find eternal happiness and security is to confront evil head-on and successfully pass through the refiner's fire. Evil cannot be wished away; it can only be overcome one soul at a time.

But it appears you have jgiven up on participating in the eternal struggle between good and evil because you understandably find it all too painful and unsettling to contemplate. You are in good company. Even Christ himself began to shrink from the struggle against evil when he plead with the Father no less than three times to not have to engage in the fateful combat we all know as the atoning sacrifice. Like you, the Savior was hoping there was some other way to deal with the dark side of life -- but there isn't any other way. Evil can be effectively dealt with only by being confronted and overcome by faith in heroic struggle. It cannot wished away.

The Father saw that his Only Begotten Son was feeling weak and feared to do battle with the forces of darkness. So in response to this crisis the Father sent a mighty angel from heaven to bless and strengthen his Son. After being spiritually strengthened by the angel, Christ realized there was no other way to thwart evil than to jump headlong into hell and destroy the works of the devil on his own turf by the greatest of all acts of heroism and sacrificial love -- the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Much like the Son of God himself, an acute awareness of just how twisted and depraved evil can be has, quite understandably, placed you on the battlefield of good and evil in a Gethsemanic struggle of your own. You can choose to turn around and begin the fight anew or you turn away and give up hope because reality seems too ugly to accept. Either way, God will still love you.

Edited August 9, 2017 by Bobbieaware

[Gray]

1 hour ago, Bobbieaware said:

It will be a delight for me to see the expression on your face when the following comes to pass...

34 And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, TO MEET YOU before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead. Amen. (Moroni 10).

 

 

I've encountered this many times - a deep sense of religious schadenfreude based on the assumption that someone who believes different from you will get theirs when you're finally proved right at the end of days.

 

1 hour ago, Bobbieaware said:

 

But the only problem is that you seem to be so entrenched in your "mystify everything away" kind of thinking that you would probably deny the resurrected Moroni was actually standing right there before you, even if he slapped you on the back. Heck, based on what I've seen from your contributions on this board, I doubt you believe that even you are real. Am I right? Do you believe what most of us call existence is nothing more than 'pure thought' and everything we observe is nothing more than a kind dream or an illusion? 

On the contrary, I think I'm a realist.

[Guest]

18 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Thanks Papa, I think I've traveled way to far outside the basic religious paradigm to find these words compelling.  I question the existence of God and why any entity would want us to have faith in that entity in the first place.  I tend to think that God is an experience our brains have evolved to have, and I'm trying to re-approach God from that basic paradigm, but do so in a way that feels like it contains integrity.  I'm still searching, still don't see the point in having faith in a doctrine or faith in a being.  I can see having faith in goodness and ethical principles.  Maybe thats my starting block.  

I just hear a lot of religious people claiming that faith is whenever you don't understand why God commanded something, you just need to ignore your doubts about it and push forward anyway, and that doesn't seem compatible with my current paradigm.  

Forgive me, I just assumed that you were really wanting an answer, I did not realize you would reject the every answer, I or others might give. You don't have to have faith in scripture or God, you are free to chose to have faith, just as you are free to reject any explanation or answer. Forgive me for butting in on the thread and your beliefs. Sometimes I foolishly think I can add to or answer certain questions or concerns.