David Bokovoy on Mormon Stories

[rockpond]

1 minute ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

And whitewashing one's answers in a temple recommend interview doesn't make them any more correct or true. Of course, I honestly don't expect you concede this point.

Yeah... I don't concede that people are whitewashing their answers (only that some people could feel that way about others).  And if they did whitewash their answers, in a way that was untrue, wouldn't the priesthood leader's spirit of discernment prevent a recommend from being issued?

[Analytics]

15 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

That seems a problematic definition.

It depends upon the context. As Smac alluded to, in Mormonism miracles all happen according to natural law--whether or not an event seems miraculous is a function of how ignorant the observer is--not something intrinsic to the event itself.

Trying to understand how Bokovoy thinks, he seems to use the idea of "miracles" as an out to allow people to make sense of critical scholarship in light of their spiritual convictions. Whatever it is that you need to be beyond the reach of scholarship so that you can maintain faith in a religion that inspires you to be an excellent human being, call that a miracle. Do you need angles to be beyond the purview of scholarship? Great. Scholarship can't say anything about angles.

But regardless of whether there are angels or not, scholarship does have a lot to say about whether the verses in the Book of Mormon are clearly and obviously based upon the KJV version of the Bible and are dripping in practically every verse with core doctrinal and narrative ideas that make sense in a 19th century American context but are anachronistic in any ancient setting. Starting with the idea that anybody in 600 B.C. would have a family bible of the books of the O.T. that had been written up until that point is anachronistic (much less engraved on brass plates!). The idea that they contained sections of Isaiah that hadn't been written yet is anachronistic. All of David Wright's analysis on Joseph Smith in Isaiah is anachronistic. The protestant Christianity throughout is anachronistic. And on and on and on. So even if there were the miracles of literal gold plates and angels, we still need to deal with the fact that the core message and teachings of the book is distinctly modern--not ancient.

But that doesn't mean it isn't "miraculous." If you need it to be ancient, then believe it is ancient. If you believe it was given by an angel, you can believe that too. If you believe there were Gold Plates, believe there were Gold Plates. A "miracle" is what allows it to be all of those things even if the scholarship points to obvious 19th century origins.

Edited November 28, 2018 by Analytics

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, rockpond said:

And if they did whitewash their answers, in a way that was untrue, wouldn't the priesthood leader's spirit of discernment prevent a recommend from being issued?

This sounds an awful lot like shifting the blame, to me. If I remember correctly, you don't like it when people imply that members should have known things that they didn't regarding certain narratives in the Church.

On the issue of 'discernment', what exactly do you want to happen here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you'd be up in arms if one of your non-believing friends had been denied a recommend because the bishopric member merely sensed that something was amiss. Is that not true?

On this topic, there may be some value in repeating once again an experience I had a few years ago: As a bishopric member, I called in a married couple whose recommends were close to expiring. I first interviewed the husband. All good. Then I interviewed the wife. She answered all the questions correctly, but I felt something was wrong. Consequently, I rephrased some of the questions. Same answers. I pushed a bit further and asked if there were anything she wanted or needed to discuss with me. Nope. Everything was fine, she said. So, reluctantly, I signed the recommend.

I then immediately went into the bishop's office and explained the situation to him. He said he would give a heads-up to the stake presidency so that they could conduct a very careful interview, which happened. Same outcome. She gave all the right answers. About six weeks later, she left with the boyfriend she'd been seeing for some time. What do you think we should have done differently?

 

[rockpond]

57 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

This sounds an awful lot like shifting the blame, to me. If I remember correctly, you don't like it when people imply that members should have known things that they didn't regarding certain narratives in the Church.

On the issue of 'discernment', what exactly do you want to happen here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you'd be up in arms if one of your non-believing friends had been denied a recommend because the bishopric member merely sensed that something was amiss. Is that not true?

On this topic, there may be some value in repeating once again an experience I had a few years ago: As a bishopric member, I called in a married couple whose recommends were close to expiring. I first interviewed the husband. All good. Then I interviewed the wife. She answered all the questions correctly, but I felt something was wrong. Consequently, I rephrased some of the questions. Same answers. I pushed a bit further and asked if there were anything she wanted or needed to discuss with me. Nope. Everything was fine, she said. So, reluctantly, I signed the recommend.

I then immediately went into the bishop's office and explained the situation to him. He said he would give a heads-up to the stake presidency so that they could conduct a very careful interview, which happened. Same outcome. She gave all the right answers. About six weeks later, she left with the boyfriend she'd been seeing for some time. What do you think we should have done differently?

 

It wasn’t shifting the blame as I see nothing to even assign blame to.  It is you who seems to want to claim that members aren’t being fully truthful in their interviews, not me  

If a member is not being honest in their temple recommend interview, I was under the impression that the priesthood leader would know through the spirit of discernment.

If, as in the case you cited, an impression is given and the individual still lies than it’s that individual who will have to deal with the consequences, right?

If someone I knew was denied a recommend because a bishop sensed something, I suspect that my reaction would depend on how I felt about the sincerity of that individual. 

I don’t know of anyone who has lied to get a recommend. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

4 minutes ago, rockpond said:

I don’t know of anyone who has lied to get a recommend. 

You just know people in every ward (more than we can imagine*) who have recommends but are non-believers in the Church's core doctrines and, in fact, actively hide this fact from other members (presumably including those who interview them). It's a nice little word game you've got going on there. Clearly it works for you on some level.

_____

* I'm genuinely uncertain why you want to convince the rest of us that that we're surrounded by these active non-believers with recommends who are deceiving us about their non-belief. I have a few ideas, but I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong.

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

It depends upon the context. As Smac alluded to, in Mormonism miracles all happen according to natural law--whether or not an event seems miraculous is a function of how ignorant the observer is--not something intrinsic to the event itself.

While I agree with the anti-Humean view of miracles (they're natural) I don't think I'd agree their miraculous nature is tied to ignorance. That too seems a deeply problematic definition. Rather it's miraculous because of who is intervening - God either directly or via others working on his behalf. If we say it's miraculous nature is not inherent to the belief I think we're really just saying there are no miracles.

But I do think how people *use* the term miracle shifts and varies according to the context. 

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

Trying to understand how Bokovoy thinks, he seems to use the idea of "miracles" as an out to allow people to make sense of critical scholarship in light of their spiritual convictions. Whatever it is that you need to be beyond the reach of scholarship so that you can maintain faith in a religion that inspires you to be an excellent human being, call that a miracle. Do you need angles to be beyond the purview of scholarship? Great. Scholarship can't say anything about angles.

Yes I think he's adopting something more Humean but without the rigor. But it's a kind of two magistrate type move. I don't think that works in the least though. It might be that scholarship that adopts methodological atheism can't say anything about it, but that's nothing inherent to scholarship beyond that excluding certain phenomena. So there's a certain circularity to the argument although on a practical descriptive level it's true. Although I'd note there's some variance in the some softer fields that adopt a kind of cultural relativism. But Bokovoy's field is much more positivistic as a practical matter. (I should add I don't think much of the fields that embrace cultural relativism - but as a descriptive matter that's part of the academy)

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

But regardless of whether their are angels or not, scholarship does have a lot to say about whether the verses in the Book of Mormon are clearly and obviously based upon the KJV version of the Bible and are dripping in practically every verse with core doctrinal and narrative ideas that make sense in a 19th century American context but are anachronistic in any ancient setting.

I think that goes too far obviously. But I'd certainly agree the KJV text is utilized through the translation. What's anachronistic is, as I said earlier, a bit more debatable. Again though this gets into the question of what's plausible versus "best explanation." However again since scholarship typically embraces methodological naturalism then what is even allowed as "best explanation" is biased from the beginning.

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

The idea that they contained sections of Isaiah that hadn't been written yet is anachronistic. All of David Wright's analysis on Joseph Smith in Isaiah is anachronistic.

Certain parts, like the Aramaic sections, clearly are later. However we already have a case where the KJV text is used to translate stuff that's clearly not the KJV. So if for a section that resembles a later text the KJV is quoted to make the connection. If we're dealing with proto-texts later achieving their final form in the post-exilic era there's not much problem. Of course scholarship won't accept that since it's focused on what's most probable given the public data. But it's certainly plausible and thus not inherently anachronistic beyond the obvious case that the KJV is used for the translation process.

Again all this has been debated before and I know I've made these points to you before. I'm certainly not saying these are going to be the best explanation given the limits scholarship understandably places on things. But best explanations given limited data aren't always correct and indeed frequently aren't. That doesn't mean one should believe the Book of Mormon. In that I certainly agree with Bokovoy. However I don't think it entails it's irrational to believe nor that scholarship can't be used in this more theological reading. That reading may indeed be less probable given only the public data but not necessarily improbable and certainly not irrational. It's that later move where I think Bokovoy errs, as I mentioned earlier on in this thread.

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

But that doesn't mean it isn't "miraculous." If you need it to be ancient, then believe it is ancient. If you believe it was given by an angel, you can believe that too. If you believe there were Gold Plates, believe there were Gold Plates. A "miracle" is what allows it to be all of those things even if the scholarship points to obvious 19th century origins.

I confess you seem to be using miraculous in yet an other sense that I likely disagree with as well.

[rockpond]

11 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

You just know people in every ward (more than we can imagine*) who have recommends but are non-believers in the Church's core doctrines and, in fact, actively hide this fact from other members (presumably including those who interview them). It's a nice little word game you've got going on there. Clearly it works for you on some level.

_____

* I'm genuinely uncertain why you want to convince the rest of us that that we're surrounded by these active non-believers with recommends who are deceiving us about their non-belief. I have a few ideas, but I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong.

It’s not a word game.  That’s something that you’re claiming for reasons that I don’t understand. 

And I never said that anyone was actively deceiving or hiding.  That to me is different than just not sharing things that would have negative ramifications for themselves in our current culture (as demonstrated by the responses here). 

[Hamba Tuhan]

5 minutes ago, rockpond said:

And I never said that anyone was actively deceiving or hiding.

No, you've been very careful to avoid saying such a thing despite repeatedly describing just that. You seem to be a big fan of 'nuance' in reference to the behaviour of your non-believing friends.

[rockpond]

31 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

No, you've been very careful to avoid saying such a thing despite repeatedly describing just that. You seem to be a big fan of 'nuance' in reference to the behaviour of your non-believing friends.

No.  I haven’t described anyone actively deceiving or hiding.  If you have interpreted it that way, that’s your error or bias. 

Edited November 28, 2018 by rockpond

[Gray]

31 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

No, you've been very careful to avoid saying such a thing despite repeatedly describing just that. You seem to be a big fan of 'nuance' in reference to the behaviour of your non-believing friends. 

Perhaps they're issuing "carefully worded" denials and affirmations. Is that a problem?

[smac97]

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

It depends upon the context. As Smac alluded to, in Mormonism miracles all happen according to natural law--whether or not an event seems miraculous is a function of how ignorant the observer is--not something intrinsic to the event itself.

I don't think that's entirely correct.  From the EOM article on the subject:

Quote

A miracle is a beneficial event brought about through divine power that mortals do not understand and of themselves cannot duplicate.

So a few attributes here:

• "A beneficial event" - Self-explanatory, I think;
• "Brought about through divine power" - God is the author of miracles;
• "That mortals do not understand" - We do not know the mechanics of how Lazarus was raised from the dead, or how the pillar of fire / cloud worked for the Children of Israel ... so we are "ignorant" in that sense; and
• "[Mortals] cannot [of themselved] duplicate" - We lack the power to perform miracles.

Sounds good to me.

Quote

Trying to understand how Bokovoy thinks, he seems to use the idea of "miracles" as an out to allow people to make sense of critical scholarship in light of their spiritual convictions. Whatever it is that you need to be beyond the reach of scholarship so that you can maintain faith in a religion that inspires you to be an excellent human being, call that a miracle.

I don't think the Latter-day Saint perception of miracles is so ad hoc.

Quote

Do you need angles to be beyond the purview of scholarship? Great. Scholarship can't say anything about angles.

I can!  Even though I never took geometry...😀

Quote

But regardless of whether their are angels or not, scholarship does have a lot to say about whether the verses in the Book of Mormon are clearly and obviously based upon the KJV version of the Bible and are dripping in practically every verse with core doctrinal and narrative ideas that make sense in a 19th century American context but are anachronistic in any ancient setting.

"He plagiarized the Bible" doesn't come close to accounting for the text.

And anachronisms just seem to have a way of turning out . . . strangely. 

Quote

Starting with the idea that anybody in 600 B.C. would have a family bible of the books of the O.T. that had been written up until that point is anachronistic (much less engraved on brass plates!).

"Scholarship" has such a definitive grasp on every aspect of Hebrew society 2,600 years ago?

The limitations of what the "tools of scholarship" can do just keep coming up.  

Good luck proving a negative like this.

Quote

The idea that they contained sections of Isaiah that hadn't been written yet is anachronistic.

Sidney Sperry had some interesting things to say about this.  And March Schindler.  And Brant Gardner.  (See here.)

Quote

All of David Wright's analysis on Joseph Smith in Isaiah is anachronistic. The protestant Christianity throughout is anachronistic. And on and on and on.

I've lost count of the number of such "and on and on and on" claims I have read like this.

David Wright's analysis is interesting, but not definitive (see this useful review by John Tvedtnes).  I'm not sure what you mean by "Protestant Christianity throughout."  And on and on.

Quote

So even if there were the miracles of literal gold plates and angels, we still need to deal with the fact that the core message and teachings of the book is distinctly modern--not ancient.

Actually, I think we need to establish that as a fact.  It's not established.  Far from it, actually.

Quote

But that doesn't mean it isn't "miraculous." If you need it to be ancient, then believe it is ancient.

That's not how belief works for me.  

Quote

If you believe it was given by an angel, you can believe that too.

I certainly will.  Particularly since the "tools of scholarship" cannot be used to reach definitive conclusions on such matters.  

Quote

If you believe there were Gold Plates, believe there were Gold Plates. A "miracle" is what allows it to be all of those things even if the scholarship points to obvious 19th century origins.

Ah!  I love the smell of dogmatic secular question-begging in the morning!  😀

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited November 28, 2018 by smac97

[Hamba Tuhan]

15 minutes ago, Gray said:

Perhaps they're issuing "carefully worded" denials and affirmations. Is that a problem?

A very pertinent question, I think! 

[Analytics]

12 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I confess you seem to be using miraculous in yet an other sense that I likely disagree with as well.

Probably, but then again, to me it really isn't a well-defined term to begin with.

I'm no doubt a simpleton in the philosophy department and this is going beyond what Bokovoy was saying. But to me, I don't think the term "methodological naturalism" truly captures the posture of science when it comes to the supernatural.

I would propose that in principle, everything that does in fact transpire in the natural world is within the purview of science. Science could evaluate whether or not priesthood blessings cure the sick more effectively than a placebo. They could perform a double-blind test to evaluate whether consecrating the oil makes a difference in its healing power. They could sequence the DNA of an angel.

Claims that God and miracles (however you define them) are in a magistrate beyond the reach of science isn't an artificial constraint that science puts on itself. Rather, it is a polite way of acknowledging the fact that in all cases, manifestations of God or miracles are either so subtle, remote, or subjective that they can't be conclusively distinguished from the mundane.

Yes, there is some evidence involving religion that science tends to dismiss out of hand. As an example, 11 witnesses testifying to the reality of the God Plates is generally dismissed by science. But that isn't because there is a methodological naturalism principle that says anything must be more likely than angels. Rather, it is a simple application of the concept that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But this applies equally to all extraordinary claims, not just religious/miraculous ones.

[clarkgoble]

16 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Probably, but then again, to me it really isn't a well-defined term to begin with.

No, it really isn't. I don't typically think it's helpful in most discussions.

16 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I'm no doubt a simpleton in the philosophy department and this is going beyond what Bokovoy was saying. But to me, I don't think the term "methodological naturalism" truly captures the posture of science when it comes to the supernatural.

The problem is that history isn't science. What works in physics or chemistry simply doesn't work in many other fields. Most of what gets criticized as positivism or scientism really is just applying in problematic ways the methods of physics to other fields (IMO). Take consciousness. It's something we're all intimately familiar with and when someone denies it no one buys it. Yet it's incompatible with methodological naturalism. Thus silly arguments distinguishing humans from zombies in the consciousness debate. Most physicalists and materialists assume it's natural and generated by matter in some way, but dealing with it scientifically has long been problematic. Even though it seems the hardest thing to deny.

19 minutes ago, Analytics said:

would propose that in principle, everything that does in fact transpire in the natural world is within the purview of science. Science could evaluate whether or not priesthood blessings cure the sick more effectively than a placebo. They could perform a double-blind test to evaluate whether consecrating the oil makes a difference in its healing power. They could sequence the DNA of an angel.

But then you get stuck into an unhelpful loop. You've defined science in terms of some indefinite future science which tells us nothing about what's true now and isn't yet part of science.

So all I have to say is that all the things Mormons claim as true will be established and evaluated eventually by science. We're just still in the early days of discovery. 

21 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Claims that God and miracles (however you define them) are in a magistrate beyond the reach of science isn't an artificial constraint that science puts on itself. Rather, it is a polite way of acknowledging the fact that in all cases, manifestations of God or miracles are either so subtle, remote, or subjective that they can't be conclusively distinguished from the mundane.

But again that avoids the question of what phenomena we're talking about. Brownian motion as quantum mechanics was always there before Einstein's seminal paper. People had seen it. Yet somehow no one had quantum mechanics. 

So saying these things are remote or impossible to be conclusively distinguished from mundane matters seems wrong. 

[lostindc]

On 11/16/2018 at 12:14 PM, phaedrus ut said:

David was always one of my favorite participants on these forums and he is being interviewed by John Dehiln right now. This has been one of the best Mormon Stories interviews I've watched. I highly encourage everyone to watch this episode. 

 

Phaedrus  

DB is one of the best.  I remember when David posted here and on other discussion boards and he was always super thoughtful and of course intelligent.  Crazy to think that DB is on the other side of the Mormon leaders and that he could eventually get excommunicated.  When I started parting ways with the Church, David was still on the rise within the Mormon community and I never thought he would leave.  I've watched part 1 of the interview and plan to watch the other parts.  

[champatsch]

Scholarship on Book of Mormon English is not at a standstill. Because several highly relevant databases have recently emerged (including the critical text), scholarship is advancing significantly. Hence, many earlier textual studies, even by leading scholars, will be in need of updating in order to maintain relevance. A couple of points that should be borne in mind.

No exhaustive comparison of the original dictation with biblical passages has ever been made. Preliminary work by Skousen shows italics to be only a secondary influence on departures from King James readings. The large majority of differences do not involve italics.

Lexical and syntactic studies are foundational to any view of Book of Mormon translation. They clearly indicate that the received view of Book of Mormon translation is highly unlikely. A view of word-for-word (re)transmission is extremely likely.

[Analytics]

51 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

No, it really isn't. I don't typically think it's helpful in most discussions.

The problem is that history isn't science. What works in physics or chemistry simply doesn't work in many other fields. Most of what gets criticized as positivism or scientism really is just applying in problematic ways the methods of physics to other fields (IMO). Take consciousness. It's something we're all intimately familiar with and when someone denies it no one buys it. Yet it's incompatible with methodological naturalism. Thus silly arguments distinguishing humans from zombies in the consciousness debate. Most physicalists and materialists assume it's natural and generated by matter in some way, but dealing with it scientifically has long been problematic. Even though it seems the hardest thing to deny.

Yes, consciousness is a hard problem. I don't know what that has to do with the topic, though.

 

51 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

But then you get stuck into an unhelpful loop. You've defined science in terms of some indefinite future science which tells us nothing about what's true now and isn't yet part of science.

I don't see a loop in what I'm saying. All I'm saying is that science is willing to observe everything that can be observed. If Jesus appeared to a group of hardcore atheists at MIT and invited them to feel the nail prints in his hands and thrust their hands into his side, they wouldn't say, "Sorry, we are methodological naturalists and evaluating your existence is outside of the scope of what we do." Rather, they'd say, "Great! We'll observe, describe, and record this experience with every tool we have at our disposal, and report the findings in Nature."

If Jesus were to physically manifest himself to scientists and offer the proof he allegedly offered the apostles and Nephites, scientists would be all over that. This simple mind experiment proves my point--scientists are willing to observe whatever can be observed.

Of course history is problematic because the evidence tends to be sparse. And yes, a priori scientists will put more credence on the theory that dinosaur bones are from dinosaurs which were a natural product of life on earth than on the theory that the bones were placed their by Satan to deceive us. But in principle, historians should be willing to evaluate all of the evidence that is there.

51 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

So saying these things are remote or impossible to be conclusively distinguished from mundane matters seems wrong. 

In theory religious beliefs aren't necessarily remote or impossible to be conclusively distinguished from the mundane--see the example above about Jesus manifesting himself to a group of scientists in the way he allegedly manifested himself to a group of Nephites. But as a practical matter, the more science advances, the more the evidence of the supernatural retreats.

[clarkgoble]

51 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Yes, consciousness is a hard problem. I don't know what that has to do with the topic, though.

It's just the issue of whether science can be the standard for knowledge. The problem of consciousness strongly suggests it can't.

52 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I don't see a loop in what I'm saying. All I'm saying is that science is willing to observe everything that can be observed.

But science in limited in what it can say about the observations, as consciousness demonstrates. Phenomenology isn't science. Even psychology really doesn't deal with consciousness keeping it a black box. It at best does correlations on statements with behaviorals or triggers.

52 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Of course history is problematic because the evidence tends to be sparse. And yes, a priori scientists will put more credence on the theory that dinosaur bones are from dinosaurs which were a natural product of life on earth than on the theory that the bones were placed their by Satan to deceive us. But in principle, historians should be willing to evaluate all of the evidence that is there.

Yes, but that paucity of evidence limits what historians (whether scientific ones like geologists or evolutionists or those in the humanities) can say. But my point is just that those limits mean there's a gap between what is true, what is knowable, and what can be established in a scholarly context. Really my claims are pretty modest. It's when people point to science and say that's the only knowledge that there's a problem.

56 minutes ago, Analytics said:

But as a practical matter, the more science advances, the more the evidence of the supernatural retreats.

Again it depends upon what we're counting for evidence and what we mean by supernatural.

[Analytics]

13 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

It's just the issue of whether science can be the standard for knowledge. The problem of consciousness strongly suggests it can't.

I disagree. To the extent that science can't give us a satisfactory answer to consciousness (or to anything else) there is room for any arbitrary belief to be proposed by any arbitrary method, with science being unable to refute (or corroborate) that belief. But that just means some things are beyond our ability to know--it doesn't mean that something else should be "the standard for knowledge."

13 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Yes, but that paucity of evidence limits what historians (whether scientific ones like geologists or evolutionists or those in the humanities) can say. But my point is just that those limits mean there's a gap between what is true, what is knowable, and what can be established in a scholarly context.

I agree that what is knowable is a vanishingly small subset of what is true, but I don't think there is a real difference between what is knowable and "what can be established in a scholarly context." Or are you just saying it's a different in degrees?