Why Not Engage the Evidence for Historicity?

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I am a big fan of David Paulsen's research. I think Alma 32 and Moroni 10 are brilliant discourses with deep epistemic implications about why we should ultimately come to place our confidence in spiritually revealed truths. I agree with the idea that the most valuable evidences for LDS religious truth claims have to do with  developing a meaningful (i.e. pragmatic) relationship with God, which is facilitated by the Power of the Holy Ghost. And I completely agree that the most powerful evidences for the Restoration can't be obtained by studying history, or science, or archaeology, etc. 

So then why insist on it?

It cannot be a conclusive evidence for joining the church. 

No one ever became a Christian because of archaeology, why would a Mormon?

That is PRECISELY the reason not to engage the "evidence", if it not the ultimate evidence anyway, for those not so inclined, and the central question of the thread.

If it is not the ultimate evidence why engage it at all?

Can it prove that Christ forgives MY sins??

I honestly have never gotten its relevance. 

Edited June 26, 2018 by mfbukowski

[smac97]

5 minutes ago, ALarson said:

Forgiving does not mean restored belief though. 

It's a part of the process, though.  If the problem is that Mormons have put prophets on too high a pedestal, then forgiving them their faults is part of the process of humanizing them (the prophets), of acknowledging their role as prophets, of valuing their service to God while still being aware of their faults and errors.

So forgiving others, particularly leaders of the Church and other members, will often be a necessary ingredient in restoring one's faith.  And to be honest, I think we need to improve on that point.  We seem far too eager to condemn and pass judgment on the imperfections of past members of the Church, instead of following the counsel in Mormon 9:31 to learn from those imperfections.

5 minutes ago, ALarson said:

From what I've seen, many who leave do not have hatred or hard feelings towards the church or the members.  They just no longer believe....that's gone for them.

Indeed.  Faith takes a rather consistent effort.  Hence the counsel in Alma 32:27:

Quote

But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.

Sometimes even there merest "desire to believe" can be eradicated.  And that is a sad thing.  But it can be restored.  And from that "desire to believe" comes a "particle of faith," and the particle becomes a "seed," and the seed . . . well, see verse 28:

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Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.

In contrast, we are also counseled about what we do if we cease to nurture the "seed":

Quote

37 And behold, as the tree beginneth to grow, ye will say: Let us nourish it with great care, that it may get root, that it may grow up, and bring forth fruit unto us. And now behold, if ye nourish it with much care it will get root, and grow up, and bring forth fruit.

38 But if ye neglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root; and when the heat of the sun cometh and scorcheth it, because it hath no root it withers away, and ye pluck it up and cast it out.

39 Now, this is not because the seed was not good, neither is it because the fruit thereof would not be desirable; but it is because your ground is barren, and ye will not nourish the tree, therefore ye cannot have the fruit thereof.

40 And thus, if ye will not nourish the word, looking forward with an eye of faith to the fruit thereof, ye can never pluck of the fruit of the tree of life.

41 But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life.

In the end, all we can do is invite and exhort.  The "seed" and the Spirit do the rest.

And if this experiment fails, then we ought to retain whatever friendships and good feelings as can be salvaged.

Thanks,

-Smac

[jkwilliams]

13 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Right, but you'll notice I am not a seasoned member of this forum. I wasn't sure what would crop up. And I've found the varied responses valuable anyway, even if they weren't exactly what I was looking for. 

I’m glad. I sometimes come across more strongly than I mean, and I hope I haven’t offended you. 

[smac97]

12 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

So then why insist on it?

It cannot be a conclusive evidence for joining the church. 

Nope.  But it can be the means of strengthening one's testimony.  The foundation needs to be the Spirit.  But we can - and ought - to build on it.

12 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

No one ever became a Christian because of archaeology, why would a Mormon?

That is PRECISELY the reason not to engage the "evidence", if it not the ultimate evidence anyway, for those not so inclined, and the central question of the thread.

If it is not the ultimate evidence why engage it at all?

Can it prove that Christ forgives MY sins??

I honestly have never gotten its relevance. 

I would be curious as to your thoughts about these remarks by Elder Holland (emphases added):

Quote

Faith and testimony, gospel devotion and Church loyalty, conviction so strong it leads to covenants and consecration are ultimately matters of the Spirit. They come as a gift from God, delivered and confirmed to our soul by the Holy Ghost in His divine role as revelator, witness, teacher of truth. But it should be noted that truly rock-ribbed faith and uncompromised conviction comes with its most complete power when it engages our head as well as our heart.

“Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind,”[1] Jehovah declared to the early Saints, and to Oliver Cowdery specifically He said, “I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost. . . . Behold, this is the spirit of revelation.”[2]

I have always loved that definition of revelation. For one thing, it makes clear that all revelation that can be called revelation comes through the influence of the Holy Ghost—that is to say that the receipt of any truth is ultimately a spiritual experience, an enlightenment facilitated and confirmed by the Holy Ghost. Secondly, that definition makes it clear that truth borne by the Holy Spirit comes with, in effect, two manifestations, two witnesses if you will—the force of fact as well as the force of feeling.

Peter assumed that two-fold aspect of our conviction when he said, “Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you.”[3]

Reasons for the hope that is in us. Reasons for our belief. I am not a lawyer as virtually all the Welch family men are, but I don’t have to be one to understand in a court of law the power and primacy of evidence. In making our case for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, I believe God intends us to find and use the evidence He has given—reasons, if you will—which affirm the truthfulness of His work.

One of the seldom-told but truly striking stories of conversion in all of scripture is the success the later Nephi and Lehi had on their mission to the Lamanites outlined in the book of Helaman. After a dramatic sequence of earthquakes and voices from heaven, of angels appearing and prison walls crumbling, Mormon records that the people “were bidden to go forth and marvel not, neither should they doubt. And . . . they did go forth . . . declaring throughout . . . the [region] . . . all the things which they had heard and seen, inasmuch that the more part of the Lamanites were convinced of them, because of the greatness of the evidences which they had received.”[4]

In his classic definition of faith the Apostle Paul suggests, with one of those paradoxes that so frequently crop up in the gospel, that evidence is still evidence even if it is not immediately observable. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,”[5] he wrote. For me a classic example of substance I hope for and evidence of things I have not seen is the 531 pages of the Book of Mormon that come from a sheaf of gold plates some people saw and handled and hefted but I haven’t seen or handled or hefted, and neither have you. Nevertheless, the reality of those plates, the substance of them if you will, and the evidence that comes to us from them in the form of the Book of Mormon is at the heart, at the very center, of the hope and testimony and conviction of this work that is unshakably within me forever.

It is with reference to evidence and in this case literal, corporeal substance that Luke introduces the book of Acts:

“The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,

“Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen:

“To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.”[6]

In one of the earliest such manifestations after His Resurrection, Jesus came to the eleven, inviting them to touch His hands and feet as He sat to eat meat and honeycomb.[7] To those who doubted, Mark says He “upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart.”[8]The message is that if members of the Godhead go to the trouble of providing “many infallible proofs”[9] of truth, then surely we are honor bound to affirm and declare that truth and may be upbraided if we do not. My testimony to you tonight is that the gospel is infallibly true and that a variety of infallible proofs supporting that assertion will continue to come until Jesus descends as the ultimate infallible truth of all. Our testimonies aren’t dependent on evidence—we still need that spiritual confirmation in the heart of which we have spoken—but not to seek for and not to acknowledge intellectual, documentable support for our belief when it is available is to needlessly limit an otherwise incomparably strong theological position and deny us a unique, persuasive vocabulary in the latter-day arena of religious investigation and sectarian debate. Thus armed with so much evidence of the kind we have celebrated here tonight, we ought to be more assertive than we sometimes are in defending our testimony of truth.

To that point I mention that while we were living and serving in England, I became fond of the writing of the English cleric Austin Farrer. Speaking of the contribution made by C. S. Lewis specifically and of Christian apologists generally, Farrer said: “Though argument does not create conviction, lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but 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.”[10]

Thanks,

-Smac

[JulieM]

6 minutes ago, smac97 said:

It's a part of the process, though. 

Sometimes that’s true.  But when someone has lied to you or wronged you or hurt you, you can forgive them, but you don’t trust or believe in them again possibly.  I think that’s where a lot of members are with their feelings about the church when they leave.  Forgive? Yes.  Trust or Believe again? No.  That’s not part of their process to forgive. 

Edited June 26, 2018 by JulieM

[Calm]

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

I don't know anyone who has gone through a faith crisis who has spent more time investigating one side over the other. It's fairly obvious you haven't been through such a crisis, as you would not have said that if you had. I'm sure you asked your initial question in good faith, but I think the premise is wrong from the start. 

I know several people who have, if their self reporting is accurate, spent much time studying the critic side but pretty much nil the advocate side because they believed they knew that enough already to be able to judge, though they were pretty uninformed about scholarship. 

[Ryan Dahle]

6 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

So then why insist on it?

It cannot be a conclusive evidence for joining the church. 

No one ever became a Christian because of archaeology, why would a Mormon?

That is PRECISELY the reason not to engage the "evidence", if it not the ultimate evidence anyway, for those not so inclined, and the central question of the thread.

If it is not the ultimate evidence why engage it at all?

Can it prove that Christ forgives MY sins??

I'm not sure what you are referring to when you state "why insist on it"?

I'm not insisting that anyone do anything. I'm wondering what the rationale is for those in a faith crisis who often struggle in part because of historicity issues and yet who decline to seriously investigate evidences related to historicity. Many people in a faith crisis say they are praying and searching for answers and doing all that they can to obtain the spiritual answers that they seek. For whatever reasons, they struggle to receive divine confirmations or meaningful spiritual experiences. Hence "And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom, seek learning even by study and also by faith" (D&C 88:118).

It seems an awfully lot to me like the Lord is inviting those who struggle with faith to broaden their pursuit of truth by also seeking wisdom and learning from the "best books." What are these best books? Well certainly the scriptures. But it seems to be broader that that, including the best learning that secular studies have to offer. For instance, 

78 Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand;

79 Of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms

In other words, I'm wondering why some individuals decline this invitation from the Lord to seek learning as a supplement to faith, especially when their faith is being threatened by critical arguments against it.  

 

[smac97]

1 minute ago, JulieM said:

Sometimes that’s true.  But when someone has lied to you or wronged you or hurt you, you can forgive them, but you don’t trust or believe in them again possibly.  

Trust must be earned, I suppose.  But if the person is dead...

1 minute ago, JulieM said:

I think that’s where a lot of members are with their feelings about the church when they leave.  Forgive? Yes.  Trust or Believe again? No.  That’s not part of their process to forgive. 

I can understand that sentiment.

Thanks,

-Smac

[jkwilliams]

4 minutes ago, Calm said:

I know several people who have, if their self reporting is accurate, spent much time studying the critic side but pretty much nil the advocate side because they believed they knew that enough already to be able to judge, though they were pretty uninformed about scholarship. 

That's interesting. Maybe it's a holdover from the common teaching (at least it was common for me) that we should trust church sources only. Perhaps they believed that they already had the church's side of it. I don't know. Admittedly, pretty much all my apostate friends are like me in that they desperately looked to apologetic arguments to counter what they had found. More often than not, the apologetic arguments simply confirmed what they had learned and the rationalizations were wanting. 

About 5 years ago, our stake president invited those who were questioning to come in and talk to him about these issues, as he felt he had good answers. I decided to take him up on it, as I've always said that I'd rather be in the church than not, all things being equal. But he didn't give any explanations. He just confirmed the problems I already knew about. He said that if he hadn't received a testimony, he would think it was an obvious fraud. It didn't help me at all. 

[smac97]

30 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

That's interesting. Maybe it's a holdover from the common teaching (at least it was common for me) that we should trust church sources only. Perhaps they believed that they already had the church's side of it. I don't know. Admittedly, pretty much all my apostate friends are like me in that they desperately looked to apologetic arguments to counter what they had found. More often than not, the apologetic arguments simply confirmed what they had learned and the rationalizations were wanting. 

About 5 years ago, our stake president invited those who were questioning to come in and talk to him about these issues, as he felt he had good answers. I decided to take him up on it, as I've always said that I'd rather be in the church than not, all things being equal. But he didn't give any explanations. He just confirmed the problems I already knew about. He said that if he hadn't received a testimony, he would think it was an obvious fraud. It didn't help me at all. 

We had an interesting experience in our ward.  A person went to our bishop with questions and concerns, which the bishop said he would address in a subsequent meeting in two weeks.  Meanwhile, he invited the person to read the Book of Mormon every day for those two weeks, to give it some real thought and pondering, and to pray each night and ask Heavenly Father if it is true.  She agreed.

The two weeks went by, and the person went back to the bishop and told him not to worry about her list of questions, as she had felt the Spirit as she had read the Book of Mormon, and that her questions were no longer as important to her.  The bishop encouraged her to keep studying and praying, and to address concerns as they come up.

It was a singular experience for both of them.

Thanks,

-Smac

[ALarson]

6 minutes ago, smac97 said:

We had an interesting experience in our ward.  A person went to our bishop with questions and concerns, which the bishop said he would address in a subsequent meeting in two weeks.  Meanwhile, he invited the person to read the Book of Mormon every day for those two weeks, to give it some real thought and pondering, and to pray each night and ask Heavenly Father if it is true.  She agreed.

The two weeks went by, and the person went back to the bishop and told him not to worry about her list of questions, as she had felt the Spirit as she had read the Book of Mormon, and that her questions were no longer as important to her.  The bishop encouraged her to keep studying and praying, and to address concerns as they come up.

It was a singular experience for both of them.

That's nice to hear.  But, he should have still addressed her questions as they most likely will resurface.  I'd love to hear his answers too!!  

[smac97]

Just now, ALarson said:

That's nice to hear.  But, he should have still addressed her questions as they most likely will resurface.  I'd love to hear his answers too!!  

He wanted to.  She declined.

Our bishop has also hosted several firesides for the youth.  During the weeks prior he invited the youth of the ward to think about any questions or concerns they had about any topic (except sex, which he felt was not an appropriate topic for a fireside with both young men and young women present), and to submit them anynmously in a shoebox he provided (he wanted the questions to be anonymous because he wanted the youth to feel free to ask anything).  He then spent substantial time preparing responses to the questions, including preparing a handout.  Then he had a fireside at his home that was attended by the youth and their leaders, during which he stood next to the fireplace (thus making it our ward's first literal "fireside") and went through the questions.

Some of the questions were about dating and social issues.  Some about missionary work.  Some about things encountered in the scriptures.  Some about same-sex marriage and having opinions outside the "norm."

Overall the fireside went very well.

Thanks,

-Smac

[blueglass]

We have had the brown genesis seer stone Joseph saw in his mind by borrowing a green glass from the neighbor Sally Chase a local seer in 1819.  It's in the first presidency vault.  We can heft it and see it and test.  We could gather 3 or 8 people together and they can draft an affidavit today that they have seen the seer stone and describe the lines on it and the weight and dimensions.  What if we had a tumbaga bundle of plates artifact in the vault, like we do the joseph smith papryi would anyone care to translate them?  No prophet has touched the rolls of joseph smith papyri and deciphered them after the rediscovery in 1967.  They were sent to egyptologists to study not patriarchs or seers.  The anthon transcript copied from the plates has been studied and there's no information transmitted.  They're occult runes not meroitic or demotic encrypted ideas.   Here's a good quote by Carl Sagan, "What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."  What we have with the book of mormon is Joseph reading a heavenly book like Lehi in 1Nephi1:11.  It's a soft channeling of automatic writing with a remix of a lot of modern stuff as Blake Ostler has written.  God could have preserved the artifact, just like we have the Ketef Hinnom silver scroll.  If God had preserved the artifact then people would inspect it, crack the ideas, actually translate it and then we could all benefit.  More people would join the church, but many would not.  Just as many accepted Jesus and many did not.  Wouldn't it be great to have 250M members (3% of earth's population) rather than only .2%?  God could win this game and many more would benefit.  With the new testament we also don't have the holographs.  We have copies of copies, but we do have more to go with like writings from pagans, romans, and jews that confirm the existence of James the Lord's brother and the crucifixion of this malefactor Christ.  However, we're pretty sure that Luke and Mark were not eyewitnesses to the sayings or ministry of Christ.  They were companions or friends of eyewitnesses.  So God has gone wireless and transmits truth to our hearts.  It's just not enough - people want to see more of the hand of God in the artifacts, which is why people today worship the work of their own hands Isaiah 2:8.  Our technology is our god today.  

Edited June 26, 2018 by blueglass

[Brant Gardner]

19 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

Yes, and they also argue that the Nephites quickly assimilated and became dominant. I just watched a video last night wherein that was argued. And it was people like John Sorensen, Brant Gardner, and Daniel Peterson making that argument. 

Sorenson probably. Me, definitely not.

[Gray]

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I'm not sure what you are referring to when you state "why insist on it"?

I'm not insisting that anyone do anything. I'm wondering what the rationale is for those in a faith crisis who often struggle in part because of historicity issues and yet who decline to seriously investigate evidences related to historicity. Many people in a faith crisis say they are praying and searching for answers and doing all that they can to obtain the spiritual answers that they seek. For whatever reasons, they struggle to receive divine confirmations or meaningful spiritual experiences. Hence "And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom, seek learning even by study and also by faith" (D&C 88:118).

 

 

 

Not everyone agrees that an apologetic approach to existing evidence is the best way to settle the issue of historicity. Most people rarely rely on that approach when it comes to most other historical question. From that perspective, if one engages the evidence for historicity outside of the sphere of apologetics, there is no case whatsoever for the historicity of the Book of Mormon. There is nothing for the critical-minded person to evaluate, because all the arguments for historicity are being made outside the mainstream, critical areas of study. (Granted that perspective might not occur to most life-long Mormons who are just experiencing their first faith crisis.)

On the other hand, one can evaluate arguments for and against the Q source, for example, without even touching apologetic arguments.

That's even assuming that historicity is important - it wouldn't establish the book's status as a spiritual text one way or the other. Again, that distinction may not occur to a life-long Mormon just experiencing their first faith crisis. Normative Mormonism tends to conflate the book's historical status with its spiritual status.

Edited June 26, 2018 by Gray

[smac97]

On 6/26/2018 at 1:35 PM, Gray said:

Not everyone agrees that an apologetic approach to existing evidence is the best way to settle the issue of historicity.

That's an interesting statement.

Quote

Most people rarely rely on that approach when it comes to most other historical question.

Questions about "historicity" appear to be quite rare.  How often do people examine a document or an event, the historicity of which is disputed?  Not often, I think.

Quote

From that perspective, if one engages the evidence for historicity outside of the sphere of apologetics, there is no case whatsoever for the historicity of the Book of Mormon.

Well, yes.  If there is a dispute between Team X and Team Y about Topic Z, and if Team Y is silenced or ignored ("if one engages the evidence for historicity outside the sphere of apologetics"), then that leaves . . . Team X to say what it likes about Topic Z.

How is silencing or ignoring a viewpoint on a disputed issue, particularly when that viewpoint is informed by scholarship from well-informed and well-trained experts on the subject matter in dispute, a good thing?

Quote

There is nothing for the critical-minded person to evaluate, because all the arguments for historicity are being made outside the mainstream, critical areas of study. (Granted that perspective might not occur to most life-long Mormons who are just experiencing their first faith crisis.)

Hamblin addressed this in his debate with Jenkins.  There simply isn't much in the way of "mainstream, critical areas of study" as pertaining to the Book of Mormon.  It gets ignored by pretty much everyone in the relevant fields.  See here (quoting Hamblin) (emphasis added):

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The real problem with the rejection of the historicity of the Book of Mormon is not that the Book of Mormon professes Precolumbian transoceanic contact with the New World.  Sixty or seventy years ago that possibility was almost universally rejected by scholars of Precolumbian America.  (The Viking site at L’Anse aux Meadows was discovered only in 1968.)  Now the possibility is widely accepted, at least in principle.  The problem with the Book of Mormon is not the claim that a small colony of Israelites from the Middle East might have come to the New World and thrived for a few centuries before beings subsumed in the broader Mesoamerican culture.  The problem is that the Book of Mormon professes to have been delivered by an angel, and translated by the power of God.  The problem with the Book of Mormon is that it claims Jesus visited the new world.  These claims—rather than its claims about Precolumbian American archaeology—are the fundamental reason it receives almost no serious attention by Precolumbian scholars.  To accept the Book of Mormon as history requires accepting Joseph Smith as a prophet and Jesus as the Christ.  In the modern secular academy, it is the religious claims of the book, rather than its archaeological claims, which dooms it to being rejected without even being read. 

So you are proposing that we A) ignore "Team Y" (LDS scholars who are both professionally trained in fields relevant to the Book of Mormon), and B) go with "nothing for the critical-minded person to evaluate" (because, as Hamblin notes, the Book of Mormon "receives almost no serious attention by Precolumbian scholars").  So that leaves us with . . . what?

Quote

On the other hand, one can evaluate arguments for and against the Q source, for example, without even touching apologetic arguments.

That's an odd suggestion.  Argument" for "Q Source" scholarship is necessarily "apologetic" (with the theory the thing being the thing defended).

Quote

That's even assuming that historicity is important - it wouldn't establish the book's status as a spiritual text one way or the other. Again, that distinction may not occur to a life-long Mormon just experiencing their first faith crisis. Normative Mormonism tends to conflate the book's historical status with its spiritual status.

Yep.  The two seem to be heavily intertwined.  That's one of the points we've addressed in this thread (see, e.g., here).

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited August 10, 2020 by smac97

[Scott Lloyd]

3 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

OK, influx is too much, but there's no attempt to cast doubt. You are correct that the video takes pains to say the influence would go the other way, but then a perfectly assimilated group offers no evidence, so we really can't say the video is presenting evidence. Just speculation.

 

Agreed. But at least it leaves the question open. Which, from what I've observed, is the goal of most apologists in the Mormon faith. They want to keep the question open so that people may feel free to go to God in prayer and exercise their faith that He will reveal the truth to them by the power of the Holy Ghost.
 

Quote

 

Again, I could not care less if someone believes or doubts. I just find it weird that people are saying on the one hand there's all this evidence, and on the other, we shouldn't expect to find evidence.

 

There is evidence, though maybe not the particular kind of evidence that critics and antagonists insist should be present.

What evidence there is hopefully is persuasive enough to keep the question open (see above).

[clarkgoble]

5 hours ago, Analytics said:

Just for the record, in March 1832 Joseph Smith asked God about the book of Revelations, and God told him that the seven seals represent the seven thousand years of the earth's temporal existence (see D&C 77:6). So clearly Joseph wasn't inspired to correct the Genesis dates, because he was inspired to validate them.

Just to note the exegetical questions but the seven seals as temporal periods doesn't necessarily line up with Genesis' history. Likewise what is meant by temporal existence isn't at all clear for obvious reasons. That's what I was alluding to earlier. I recognize that the no death before the fall folks (with several prominent past GAs obviously in their camp) think D&C 77 establishes their version of young earth creationism. I'm far from convinced it does. Likewise I'm not sure Joseph interpreted it that way either given his apparent comment during the Abraham translation about life going on for something like 2.55 billion years. (No death before the fall proponents like McConkie try to explain that away in various ways - usually by saying system isn't earth)

5 hours ago, Analytics said:

So how does Adam fit into this? Y-chromosome Adam would have been an African from something like 300,000 years ago. But the priesthood Adam was from Missouri some time after that. So what's going on? Did God place his literal son Adam in the Garden of Eden in a world where there had already been human beings for hundreds of thousands of years? If he was literally a child of God with in an immortal body, why would it be the least bit genetically similar to the animals who had evolved independently on earth? Or maybe Adam was simply a descendent of normal human beings who was never the immortal son of an immortal Kolobian in the first place? When educated Mormons embraced evolution, they dropped the traditional doctrine of the Fall where nothing died before Adam fell. So if they can drop the idea of the Fall, why not drop the concept that Adam was ever immortal to begin with?

There's no single theory and without revelation on the subject we can't know. The typical approach pre-adamite supporters make is that Adam is their patriarchal head and thus their father by adoption. That saves a non-figurative interpretation of the wrap up at Adam-ondi-Ahman and the accounting of family ties and priesthood. The usual approach to the biological questions you raise is that either when they partook of the fruit or when they were cast out of the terrestrial world to this telestial one that Adam took on the nature of fall people. 

Differing body types for telestial, terrestrial and celestial is pretty common theology even if the grounds for it aren't super-strong. (Largely Paul's statement analogizing different bodies of glory - although there's other reasons) Whatever happened to Adam and Eve clearly there were big physical changes if one takes their life in Eden as somewhat accurate as told. At minimum cells clearly functioned differently which suggests big DNA differences. (Assuming terrestiral bodies even have DNA)

So no matter what, if one requires a historic Adam and Eve and an historic fall (and I think there are good theological reasons to presume that) then you end up with big changes while maintaining some semblance of appearance along with something like memories and consciousness. At that stage saying Adam took the form of other telestial beings really isn't that big a deal, is it?

The usual objection is the issue of spirits of pre-Adamites but it's not at all clear to me why that is necessary. What's nice about this theory too is that it maintains the idea (especially from the Temple) that the fall ultimately is a fall each of us individually took as well. i.e. Adam and Eve are simultaneously types for our history as well as being historical figures.

5 hours ago, Analytics said:

So, maybe Adam was a descendent of the people who had relatively recently settled in America after crossing the Bearing Straight? Then he could have had a descendent that lived in North Carolina. But if God would have told Noah there was going to be a big local flood, why not just hike up to dry ground in the Smokey Mountains? Why build an arc? If we assume that he did build an arc, why bother with two animals of every kind? If we assume he did that anyway, how come none of the animals indigenous to North America traveled with him back to the old world? And when he arrived there, why didn't he notice that advanced civilizations were already there?

Again speaking only for myself, I think if we take seriously the idea of a local flood then Noah's journey is much more like Lehi's. So objections like you raise don't end up being much different from, "why didn't Lehi just flee to Egypt or Saudi Arabia?" The Gilgamesh flood account also has the two of every kind of animals and dates to before 2000 BC. So we take seriously the idea that the Noah account in Genesis is made up of multiple accounts. (At minimum P & E explaining the differing numbers of animals) The now lost original pre-exilic and possibly well before Lehi account may just have been Noah being warned by God to flee because of destruction (the hurricane) and God using that to send Noah to the ANE. As for what he noticed when he arrived, we have a few sentences and much of that is post-exilic composition. So it's an argument from silence. For all we know the account that E original had did mention such things and it was removed during the exile due to the influence of the Gilgamesh account.

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Brant Gardner said:

Sorenson probably. Me, definitely not.

As I said, I only watched the first 23 minutes of it. But I din't see that Sorenson or anybody else was contending that the Nephites "became dominant."

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

That's even assuming that historicity is important - it wouldn't establish the book's status as a spiritual text one way or the other. Again, that distinction may not occur to a life-long Mormon just experiencing their first faith crisis. Normative Mormonism tends to conflate the book's historical status with its spiritual status.

That depends of course upon what is meant by spiritual. My sense in these discussions is that there's a lot of equivocating going on with terms. 

This comes out more clearly with the question of the historic Jesus. There's no real way to evaluate the historic son of God question. (Even if there is weak indirect evidence for a person of Jesus, there's no evidence that he was like the NT claims) So does that mean a fictional Jesus is spiritual in the same way a historic son of God is spiritual?

2 hours ago, Calm said:

I know several people who have, if their self reporting is accurate, spent much time studying the critic side but pretty much nil the advocate side because they believed they knew that enough already to be able to judge, though they were pretty uninformed about scholarship. 

This is common. Or worse they only look at the worst examples of apologetics rather than the best. I've met lots of people like that who then dismiss all apologetics because of a few papers which weren't as civil as they could have been or had arguments the person didn't find appealing. Yet we know that among apologists there are often big disagreements. For instance Brant, who's participating in this thread, clearly has differences with some of Sorenson's arguments and positions. People sometimes see apologetics as something akin to quasi-authorized dogma rather than individuals trying to work things out as best they can. They are apt to give great leeway for disagreements among critics or an ability to refine arguments without conceding the same respect to apologists.

Edited June 26, 2018 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

4 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I think apologetic arguments actually accelerate their fractured trust because of the way these arguments are constructed.  They contrast so strongly with the very binary correlated narratives, that people who've been taught to look at religion as black and white, don't have the patience to try and learn a whole different way of orienting towards the world.  This very binary paradigm that is effectively perpetuated by correlated Mormonism, becomes a barrier for people going through this stage of fractured trust.  

I tend to agree although I'd note that so-called "correlated Mormonism" is attempting to change on these points. The mindset of the 60's through 90's is (thankfully) being jettisoned. Whether this actually makes a change in terms of faith crises remains to be seen. My personal guess is that it'll shake up people caught up in that more binary often quasi-fundamentalist mindset but may be more helpful later on. However there are other issues that make things more complex such as more general disengagement by the young along with a very different conception of politics. We're also at the beginning of a rather big social and political shift in the west that we've not seen since the 60's - early 70's. How that shapes up remains to be seen.

3 hours ago, ALarson said:

Forgiving does not mean restored belief though.  From what I've seen, many who leave do not have hatred or hard feelings towards the church or the members.  They just no longer believe....that's gone for them.

I suspect this is the majority. However those who can't let go and hold on to levels of resentment tend to be the ones that people notice. (Which of course biases the perception of ex-Mormons in general)

 

[SteveO]

35 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Likewise I'm not sure Joseph interpreted it that way either given his apparent comment during the Abraham translation about life going on for something like 2.55 billion years. 

Do you have a source for this?

[hope_for_things]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

I know several people who have, if their self reporting is accurate, spent much time studying the critic side but pretty much nil the advocate side because they believed they knew that enough already to be able to judge, though they were pretty uninformed about scholarship. 

Personally, I've tried to find scholars who aren't overly antagonistic towards the church, but who also don't sugar coat things and who are trying to give a more balanced picture and not trying to interpret the data in an overly positive or overly negative direction.  

But this requires reading a lot of different authors and considering the different perspectives to avoid getting stuck in any particular vein of thought.  Also, I've found certain outlets to be too apologetic for my tastes, Interpreter, FAIR.  Or too antagonistic, ExMormon Reddit,  Utah Lighthouse Ministries, etc.  Although I do look at some of their stuff, I'm not a regular consumer.  

 

[hope_for_things]

23 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I tend to agree although I'd note that so-called "correlated Mormonism" is attempting to change on these points. The mindset of the 60's through 90's is (thankfully) being jettisoned. Whether this actually makes a change in terms of faith crises remains to be seen. My personal guess is that it'll shake up people caught up in that more binary often quasi-fundamentalist mindset but may be more helpful later on. However there are other issues that make things more complex such as more general disengagement by the young along with a very different conception of politics. We're also at the beginning of a rather big social and political shift in the west that we've not seen since the 60's - early 70's. How that shapes up remains to be seen.

I suspect this is the majority. However those who can't let go and hold on to levels of resentment tend to be the ones that people notice. (Which of course biases the perception of ex-Mormons in general)

 

I question the resolve of the church to actually change the correlated narrative.  Its happening so slowly, it seems like they want to keep the binary thinking in place for those that find comfort in it, and have this alternative interpretation for others who are questioning the old narrative.  But I do agree that there is something changing, its just been very gradual.

I think that societal changes will end up being much more impactful on Mormonism than the specific historical narrative / faith crisis issues. The orientation of the younger generation, a general mistrust of institutional authority, yet still having a yearning for a spiritual component in their life.  It will be interesting to see how this will all play out.  There is some reason for concern as there are a growing number of pseudo-scientific alternative medicines and supernatural thinking that are gaining in popularity for younger generations, when I would think these things wouldn't appeal to a less religious and more secular mindset, yet we're seeing some trends springs up.  

[blueglass]

Here's an example of surface level, cheap, skim-style research many will do after a quick read through the CES letter.  A 5 sec search and you can find a wikipedia article on Mesoamerican domesticated plants and it does not find many hits in the book of mormon.  Millions of copies of Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel have sold and I had alarm bells sound many times listening to the audiobook from a mormon perspective.  We really have to consider more seriously Jared Hickman's proposal that the book of mormon is purposefully ahistorical.    https://mormonstudies.cgu.edu/jared-hickman-book-of-mormon-in-a-history-of-post-secular-reading/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_plants_of_Mesoamerica

1    Maize
2    Capsicum
3    Squash
4    Pinto bean
5    Tomato
6    Potato
7    Avocado
8    Chicle
9    Chocolate
10    Vanilla
11    Black raspberry
12    Pineapple
13    Nopales
14    Tunas
15    Jicama
16    Papaya
17    Guayaba
18    Huautli
19    Cherimoya
20    Mamey
21    Sunflower seeds
22    Cassava
23    Chaya
24    Tepary bean
25    Tobacco

Edited June 27, 2018 by blueglass