Old Testament and Documentary Hypothesis

[churchistrue]

What is the current consensus among mainstream LDS Apologist types. I know that's not a monolithic group, but I'm trying to understand the best consensus of say, the main faithful voices from this board, FairMormon, and BOM Central. What's the take on the OT Documentary Hypothesis?

I'm not asking for the sake of the Deutero Isaiah or Daniel issues in BOM. I think I understand that position. But what about general issues like:

--the different sources seem to represent different theology and understanding of God

--the prehistory Gen 1-11 not appearing to have much grounding in historical reality

--evidence against the Exodus, the wandering in wilderness, and conquest of Canaan, at least in terms of scope defined in Bible

--the general pattern not seeming to fit the LDS traditional understanding of clearly revealed doctrine, priesthood authority, combined with apostasy/restoration and better fitting a pattern of a gradual evolution of doctrines and practices that only really seem to crystallize very late in the process, ie not much before King David era

[hope_for_things]

I don’t see any consensus.  I think you have a biblical scholar like David Bokovoy who knows the strength of the scholarship and creatively looks a ways to reconcile that knowledge with Mormon theology.  Next down the scale maybe a Thomas Wayment who is also very good but perhaps a little more traditional.  On the other side of the spectrum I can’t think of any names at the moment, but there are much more traditionally conservative types who still read the Bible quite literally.   

[Brant Gardner]

1 hour ago, churchistrue said:

 What's the take on the OT Documentary Hypothesis?

I am confused. You asked about the documentary hypothesis, but none of your specifics as anything to do with that hypothesis. There is a difference between the documentary hypothesis and specific questions of history/historicity. The fact that you ask a question about Gen. 1-11 suggests that you are conflating things, as the documentary hypothesis wouldn't see that as a unified section, but the result of different traditions later combined into our current text. The documentary hypothesis deals with the history of the text, not the text's historicity.

[churchistrue]

 

1 hour ago, Brant Gardner said:

I am confused. You asked about the documentary hypothesis, but none of your specifics as anything to do with that hypothesis. There is a difference between the documentary hypothesis and specific questions of history/historicity. The fact that you ask a question about Gen. 1-11 suggests that you are conflating things, as the documentary hypothesis wouldn't see that as a unified section, but the result of different traditions later combined into our current text. The documentary hypothesis deals with the history of the text, not the text's historicity.

If you ever wonder why FairMormon types get a reputation for obfuscating, this would be an example. I don't think what I ask is confusing. I think with even the slightest amount of attempt at mutual understanding and cooperation, you would understand that the views scholars have of Documentary Hypothesis greatly affect things like historicity and other things that interest LDS, which I attempted to summarize in the bullet points. That's what I'm trying to understand. If Moses received revelation and wrote Genesis exactly how we have it, it would mean something totally different, in terms of historicity and these other questions, than if the Bible was written centuries later from different sources that don't appear very cohesive without a clear claim to revelation.

 

[CA Steve]

I have never known Brant to  obfuscate, intentionally or otherwise. Maybe part of the problem here is inherent in the question, in that most of us are uninformed as to the distinctions between the many Biblical criticism fields. I understand what Churchistrue  is trying to ask though. It seems like he is asking if it is possible to reconcile OT Biblical criticism with Mormon theology.

[Brant Gardner]

17 minutes ago, churchistrue said:

I don't think what I ask is confusing. I think with even the slightest amount of attempt at mutual understanding and cooperation, you would understand that the views scholars have of Documentary Hypothesis greatly affect things like historicity and other things that interest LDS.

 

I'm sure you didn't think it was confusing, else you wouldn't have asked it that way. Please excuse my efforts at greater precision. For me, there are simply too many variables in your question to know how to answer. For example, I don't know of too many things upon which all who are labeled LDS Apologists agree. That means that even the concept of consensus would be questionable.

On the documentary hypothesis, I know that there is similarly a range, though those with more training in academic religion are more favorable to it than those who are not. I suspect that the biggest issue apologetically is 2 Isaiah rather than J, E, D, P.

On historicity, I suspect that LDS Apologists tend toward caution on a literal reading of the Bible. It is sometimes hard to tell, because sometimes it is easiest to discuss concepts by accepting the language of the Bible rather than always qualifying it. For example, discussing Agency and the Fall, it is very common to speak of Adam and Eve as having done and said exactly what the text (or the Temple ceremony) says that they said. That could give the impression of literalism that might not be correct in a different type of discussion.

I think that, in general, we as a church are still very conservative and teach as we have been taught (almost always by peers). When there is a chance for members to learn more, I don't see many problems (but there are certainly some who are adamant literalists).

[churchistrue]

1 hour ago, CA Steve said:

I have never known Brant to  obfuscate, intentionally or otherwise. Maybe part of the problem here is inherent in the question, in that most of us are uninformed as to the distinctions between the many Biblical criticism fields. I understand what Churchistrue  is trying to ask though. It seems like he is asking if it is possible to reconcile OT Biblical criticism with Mormon theology.

You're right. And thanks for the reply, Brant.

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, churchistrue said:

If you ever wonder why FairMormon types get a reputation for obfuscating, this would be an example. I don't think what I ask is confusing. I think with even the slightest amount of attempt at mutual understanding and cooperation, you would understand that the views scholars have of Documentary Hypothesis greatly affect things like historicity and other things that interest LDS, which I attempted to summarize in the bullet points. That's what I'm trying to understand. If Moses received revelation and wrote Genesis exactly how we have it, it would mean something totally different, in terms of historicity and these other questions, than if the Bible was written centuries later from different sources that don't appear very cohesive without a clear claim to revelation.

Brant gave it to you straight.  You'd know that if you had read Bokovoy's book on the OT, volume 1.  Moreover, the Book of Mormon likewise is a combination of sources abridged and edited into one whole by Mormon -- a full-blown product of the documentary hypothesis.  For you, telling the truth is "obfuscating."

[USU78]

8 hours ago, churchistrue said:

 

If you ever wonder why FairMormon {snip}

Never mind. Others said it sooner and better.

Edited March 31, 2019 by USU78

[Robert F. Smith]

On 3/30/2019 at 8:30 AM, churchistrue said:

What is the current consensus among mainstream LDS Apologist types. I know that's not a monolithic group, but I'm trying to understand the best consensus of say, the main faithful voices from this board, FairMormon, and BOM Central. What's the take on the OT Documentary Hypothesis?

So-called "apologists" don't deal with the doc hypothesis, and they don't understand it.  Same for polemicists.  The scholars who study the doc hypothesis (like David Bokovoy) normally have something substantive to say about it.

Quote

I'm not asking for the sake of the Deutero Isaiah or Daniel issues in BOM. I think I understand that position. But what about general issues like:

--the different sources seem to represent different theology and understanding of God

Bible scholars understand that the Bible contains a variety of different theological views, and it doesn't hide them from us.  The combined sources show that: For example, the book of Psalms has groups of Psalms which are Elohist (prefer the divine name El), and another group which is Yahwist (prefers the divine name Yah or YHWH).  These were groups favored in the Northern Kingdom (E) and in the Southern Kingdom of Judah (J), respectively.

The Book of Mormon is an Elohistic document demonstrating influence from the North (Lehi is Manassite) -- John Sorenson, "The Brass Plates and Biblical Scholarship," Dialogue, 10/4 (Autumn 1977):31-39, reprinted in J. L. Sorenson, Nephite Culture and Society: Collected Papers, ed. M. R. Sorenson (SLC: New Sage Books, 1997), 25-39.

I cover BofM theologies in my “Book of Mormon Theologies: A Thumbnail Sketch,” lecture delivered at the September 2012 annual meeting of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology (SMPT), at Utah State University, Logan, Utah, online at https://www.scribd.com/doc/251781864/BOOK-OF-MORMON-THEOLOGIES-A-THUMBNAIL-SKETCH .

Quote

--the prehistory Gen 1-11 not appearing to have much grounding in historical reality

You are referring to the Primeval History, which is already archaic when copied down in the 1st millennium B.C.  Parts of it are liturgical and poetic, and the whole is a product of the combining of variant epic traditions.  It is not a historical narrative and was not meant to be.  Such a category of thought was not even known when such documents were created.

Quote

--evidence against the Exodus, the wandering in wilderness, and conquest of Canaan, at least in terms of scope defined in Bible

See my “Moses Our Teacher (Moshe Rabbenu),” 2010, version 3, online at https://www.scribd.com/doc/51104640/Moses-Our-Teacher-Moshe-Rabbenu .

Quote

--the general pattern not seeming to fit the LDS traditional understanding of clearly revealed doctrine, priesthood authority, combined with apostasy/restoration and better fitting a pattern of a gradual evolution of doctrines and practices that only really seem to crystallize very late in the process, ie not much before King David era

As I point out in my piece on BofM theologies, above, the primary doctrines are already there at the outset, or shortly thereafter.  The Bible is quite late on the scene, being preceded by many Mesopotamian and Canaanite docs of similar character.  It only looks new to those not familiar with the earlier literature.  It is already old when David comes on the scene.

Edited April 1, 2019 by Robert F. Smith

[nealr]

On 3/30/2019 at 11:27 AM, churchistrue said:

 

If you ever wonder why FairMormon types get a reputation for obfuscating, this would be an example. I don't think what I ask is confusing. I think with even the slightest amount of attempt at mutual understanding and cooperation, you would understand that the views scholars have of Documentary Hypothesis greatly affect things like historicity and other things that interest LDS, which I attempted to summarize in the bullet points. That's what I'm trying to understand. If Moses received revelation and wrote Genesis exactly how we have it, it would mean something totally different, in terms of historicity and these other questions, than if the Bible was written centuries later from different sources that don't appear very cohesive without a clear claim to revelation.

 

I am genuinely curious about how much scholarship on the DH you have personally read? I don't profess to be an expert myself, but I've read a couple of different books, from different schools of thought on the DH. I have a few more that I've at least skimmed, and I've tried to survey the field a bit. Brant's insistence on separating out questions about historicity  vs. documentary hypothesis are actually quite in-line with the latest thinking on the subject, at least in North American academic circles. The main thesis of Joel Baden's The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis (Yale, 2012) is that scholars were over-claiming what the hypothesis could prove, and insisting that it really is only a literary solution to a literary problem and that claims about dating, authorship, and historicity must be considered as separate issues altogether. And Baden is no outlier. His book is the single best overview for where things stand among scholars who still hold to the 4-source (J, E, D, P) theory.  

[RevTestament]

On 3/30/2019 at 7:30 AM, churchistrue said:

What is the current consensus among mainstream LDS Apologist types. I know that's not a monolithic group, but I'm trying to understand the best consensus of say, the main faithful voices from this board, FairMormon, and BOM Central. What's the take on the OT Documentary Hypothesis?

I agree with the suggestion of a few others that there is no consensus on these issues. Rather than debate the intricacies of the Documentary Hypothesis, which I do not follow, I will simply address some of your questions in an attempt to contribute to the discussion.

Quote

I'm not asking for the sake of the Deutero Isaiah or Daniel issues in BOM. I think I understand that position. But what about general issues like:

--the different sources seem to represent different theology and understanding of God

If you are talking about YHWH vs Elohim, that is overblown.  

Quote

--the prehistory Gen 1-11 not appearing to have much grounding in historical reality

Sure it does. Cain went off to Nod and found a wife to marry. Surprise? No. I'm sure there were lots of wives in the land of Nod. If people stop trying to force the text to say Adam and Eve were the first Homo Sapiens, there is not much issue. Nor does the text necessarily say the flood is world wide. It just says the flood covered the whole earth - including these little mountains of 40 feet high. While that is a big flood, that is simple hyperbole found elsewhere in the Bible, and the whole world is not necessarily meant. It is simply the whole surrounding earth.  Why an ark? Why did God command the people to build a temple? It's a haven from the sea of the world. A means by which to save life.

Quote

--evidence against the Exodus, the wandering in wilderness, and conquest of Canaan, at least in terms of scope defined in Bible

I bring this up to welcome comments. For literalists I would refer them to the nice round numbers of the population given in Exodus for example. Did each tribe really have exact numbers of people rounded to the hundreds? To me the numbers seem about 10 times too high. I don't think there would be millions of gallons of water in the desert wells for the people to drink - even in the spring. I suppose they could get some milk from their animals, but the numbers given strain credulity - especially when one notices the numbers given for the population at the time of David... the number of people didn't grow at all after living in freedom in their promised land for 400 years? What happened? Maybe the Davidic scribes just didn't know how to accurately read numbers recorded by Moses in some Egyptian script....

Quote

--the general pattern not seeming to fit the LDS traditional understanding of clearly revealed doctrine, priesthood authority, combined with apostasy/restoration and better fitting a pattern of a gradual evolution of doctrines and practices that only really seem to crystallize very late in the process, ie not much before King David era

Maybe you could be more precise about what you mean here. 

On 3/30/2019 at 10:27 AM, churchistrue said:

If Moses received revelation and wrote Genesis exactly how we have it, it would mean something totally different, in terms of historicity and these other questions, than if the Bible was written centuries later from different sources that don't appear very cohesive without a clear claim to revelation.

Do you really believe Moses wrote about himself disappearing up into the mountains to die, and Joshua taking over for him? He then sent his untranslated, dead self to deliver his writings to the people after they passed into the promised land? It is pretty obvious the story is an oral narrative written down sometime later in the third person - I vote by David fulfilling the commandment of Deuteronomy for the king to write the commandments.... using the surviving oral tradition and whatever writings survived with the tabernacle. I feel that is most consistent with the text, and the so-called anachronisms such as the people building the city of Raameses. 

[clarkgoble]

On 3/30/2019 at 9:19 AM, hope_for_things said:

I don’t see any consensus.  I think you have a biblical scholar like David Bokovoy who knows the strength of the scholarship and creatively looks a ways to reconcile that knowledge with Mormon theology.  Next down the scale maybe a Thomas Wayment who is also very good but perhaps a little more traditional.  On the other side of the spectrum I can’t think of any names at the moment, but there are much more traditionally conservative types who still read the Bible quite literally.   

John Gee is the common one people refer to who reject the DH.  I'd imagine if you went to the religion department at BYU there'd be some too. From everything I hear though that department has changed dramatically from when I attended BYU. Far more people with actual academic background in relevant history.

There's clearly some apologists who argue for historicity and accept major elements of the DH. The appeal to the Enochian tradition as characterized by figures like Kevin Barney or Kevin Christiansen ends up requiring something very much like the DH, only with a lot more variety than the JEPD categories. I think that appeal to figures like Margaret Barker really made the basic idea of the DH pretty mainstream in apologetic circles. There's still debates about how to take the D tradition. Within the last five years or so you've had Bill Hamblin criticizing some of the views of this apologetic vein for instance. However ultimately what's in question is how to break things down. And that's a point of conflict in the Mormon apologetic tradition - although arguably it is in the broader history tradition. There's not a lot of agreement among scholars on the details of the documentary hypothesis after all.

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, RevTestament said:

.................................... the so-called anachronisms such as the people building the city of Raameses. 

The Pharaonic residence Pi-Rameses was located in the northeast Egyptian Delta at Khatana Qantir, to which West Asiatic ʿApiru (Hebrews) actually hauled huge stones for the main temple  (Papyrus Leiden 348, 6:6),* and Egyptian texts from that same Ramesside period speak both of the lack of straw essential to brick-making, as well as brick-making quotas which sometimes could not be met, both of which are directly reminiscent of biblical texts in Exodus.** 

*  A. Malamat in Frerichs & Lesko, eds., Exodus: The Egyptian Evidence (Eisenbrauns, 1997), 18; J. Hoffmeier, “Out of Egypt: The Archaeological Context of the Exodus,” Biblical Archaeology Review, 33/1 (Jan-Feb 2007), 35, citing his Israel in Egypt, 114, and adding that ʿApiru also appear in the 19th Dynasty Tomb of Intef; see the examples and discussion by James E. Hoch, Semitic Words in the Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period (Princeton Univ. Press, 1994), 60-63.

**  Hoffmeier, “Out of Egypt,” BAR, 33/1 (Jan-Feb 2007), 34-35 and nn. 12-15, citing especially R. A. Caminos, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies (Oxford Univ. Press, 1954), 106,188; and K. Kitchen, “From the Brickfields of Egypt,” Tyndale Bulletin, 27 (1976), 141-144.

[Robert F. Smith]

24 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

John Gee is the common one people refer to who reject the DH.  I'd imagine if you went to the religion department at BYU there'd be some too. From everything I hear though that department has changed dramatically from when I attended BYU. Far more people with actual academic background in relevant history.

There's clearly some apologists who argue for historicity and accept major elements of the DH. The appeal to the Enochian tradition as characterized by figures like Kevin Barney or Kevin Christiansen ends up requiring something very much like the DH, only with a lot more variety than the JEPD categories. I think that appeal to figures like Margaret Barker really made the basic idea of the DH pretty mainstream in apologetic circles. There's still debates about how to take the D tradition. Within the last five years or so you've had Bill Hamblin criticizing some of the views of this apologetic vein for instance. However ultimately what's in question is how to break things down. And that's a point of conflict in the Mormon apologetic tradition - although arguably it is in the broader history tradition. There's not a lot of agreement among scholars on the details of the documentary hypothesis after all.

John L. Sorenson (like me) has explicitly accepted the DH -- “The ‘Brass Plates’ and Biblical Scholarship,” Dialogue, 10/4 (Aut 1977), 31-39, online at  http://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V10N04_33.pdf .

Kevin Barney said:

Quote

"These misgivings and cautions notwithstanding, I do accept the Documentary Hypothesis. In my view, the evidence favoring the hypothesis is stronger than most people realize. It is not just a question of different sections using different names for God, which seems to be the popular conception. Rather, there are numerous doublets and triplets in the text. Extensive lists of terminology, contradictions, and other textual characteristics fit consistently into one or another of the matching stories of the doublets. There are also other indications of redaction, which have been assembled by scholars over a very long period of time. If one does not insist on a fundamentalist or inerrantist approach to the scriptures, the Documentary Hypothesis actually provides some fascinating insights into Mormon scripture as I have attempted to illustrate by a number of examples. So where do we go from here with respect to the issue of Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch? The present article notwithstanding, I believe that for the foreseeable future the great majority of the membership of the church will continue to fall under category 5 and make traditional assumptions about the composition of the Pentateuch. The founding of an array of LDS publications with a scholarly orientation over the past quarter century has greatly benefitted the liberal and centrist positions; I expect those positions to continue to see modest growth over time. Conversely, the authority of category 6 largely derives from the ecclesiastical prestige of its adherents. Now that church leaders no longer rail against the Documentary Hypothesis over the pulpit, I anticipate that category 6 may see a modest decrease in influence over time. Whatever the future may hold for continuing LDS interaction with the Documentary Hypothesis, I do believe that we need have no fear of the hypothesis. In my view, the correctness of that theory in its general outlines would by no means entail the incorrectness of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ."  https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V33N01_79.pdf .

Bill Hamblin has said right here on MDDB:

Quote

"It is interesting to note that the self-description of the editorializers of the BOM reflect precisely the type of editing that is often posited to have occurred in the Bible.  That ancient scripture went through a complex editorial process as found in the BOM is consistent with modern theory, but radically inconsistent with biblical theory of the early 19th century."  Hamblin, post #148, on Mormon Dialogue and Discussion Board, online at  http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/58179-why-byu-and-the-maxwell-institute-are-in-serious-serious-trouble/page__st__140 .

 

Edited April 1, 2019 by Robert F. Smith

[hope_for_things]

21 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

John Gee is the common one people refer to who reject the DH.  I'd imagine if you went to the religion department at BYU there'd be some too. From everything I hear though that department has changed dramatically from when I attended BYU. Far more people with actual academic background in relevant history.

There's clearly some apologists who argue for historicity and accept major elements of the DH. The appeal to the Enochian tradition as characterized by figures like Kevin Barney or Kevin Christiansen ends up requiring something very much like the DH, only with a lot more variety than the JEPD categories. I think that appeal to figures like Margaret Barker really made the basic idea of the DH pretty mainstream in apologetic circles. There's still debates about how to take the D tradition. Within the last five years or so you've had Bill Hamblin criticizing some of the views of this apologetic vein for instance. However ultimately what's in question is how to break things down. And that's a point of conflict in the Mormon apologetic tradition - although arguably it is in the broader history tradition. There's not a lot of agreement among scholars on the details of the documentary hypothesis after all.

I didn't know Gee rejected the DH, thats not entirely surprising, but its unfortunate.  

Have you read these recent essays for the Journal of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology?  Taylor Petrey's essay, which I think was excellent and it closely aligns with my perspective.  Faulconer's response I couldn't follow very well and I think he represents a more traditional approach.   I liked some of the points Rosalynde Welch made, she is extremely sharp and I like her thinking outside the box.  I can't always follow Adam Miller, he gets a little to philosophical and I haven't read the Joe Spenser part yet.  To me, this collection of essays represent an important dialogue in Mormonism and I was pretty happy to come across this.  

http://www.academia.edu/38468351/Theorizing_Critical_Mormon_Biblical_Studies_Romans_1_18-32_and_responses_

[clarkgoble]

37 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Bill Hamblin has said right here on MDDB:

Just to be clear, my use of Hamblin was concerning how one can accept the DH yet disagree over the details. (In that case how to view the Enochian and more particularly Deuteronomist traditions in Jeremiah and 1 Nephi)

37 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I didn't know Gee rejected the DH, thats not entirely surprising, but its unfortunate. 

He's taken that view from way back when I lived with him for a short time. (I've not talked with him in ages I should note. I don't know if he even remembers me.) Back then in the 90's he had a good argument. The problem with higher criticism of the Bible is the paucity of texts to work with - most of them coming long after the Bible had mostly congealed. Contrast this with Egyptology where there's so many texts across so many time periods that such arguments aren't even necessary. While I accept the DH, I think this is an important thing to note. We have a very elaborate theory with often detailed claims of what verse is from what tradition. Yet we have almost no texts to test the hypotheses. So we should be somewhat careful - particular when getting into claims about particular verses and their origins.

These days he sometimes comes off as adopting a Giliade or Hazony position of the unity of the text. I've no idea if that is what he actually believes though. I've not read anything where he clarifies his position. (Which isn't to say he hasn't somewhere and I've just not read it.)

43 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Have you read these recent essays for the Journal of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology?  

Thanks for the link. I'd not seen that before. Although most of the figures had all discussed these issues back on LDS-Herm when it was still a thing. (Petrey wasn't on the list, although we'd debated some of his other papers back about 6 years ago)  Many tend to dismiss these sorts of questions since what matters is the text as given. Roughly Hazony's position. I confess I go the other way. I think we should read the text with a bit of a hermeneutics of suspicion. There's a large degree of uncertainty in that, but I think it opens up fairly fruitful avenues of interpretation in the text. There's lots of ways to do it. Reading it questioning the 19th century elements for instance and how they relate to the original experiences. Questioning say Nephi's perspectives and how he may interpret and distort the original events. 

It's definitely true that some people don't like that sort of analysis.

If you want to start up a discussion of that issue of Element I'd love to do so. The line in Petrey I see as deeply problematic is this one:

• As I hope to show, Mormon foundationalist biblical interpretation serves more to redeem the past and justify the present than to adequately deal with the hermeneutical task of developing the kingdom of God. In particular, I am critical of the hermeneutical stance of the foundationalist approaches as being primarily interested in maintaining the authority and normativity of the scriptures to neutralize hermeneutics of suspicion and ideological critique.

There's a lot of question begging there (IMO).

I'll try and read the rest of the papers.

[CA Steve]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

 I'd imagine if you went to the religion department at BYU there'd be some too. From everything I hear though that department has changed dramatically from when I attended BYU. Far more people with actual academic background in relevant history.

Makes me wonder then, why Dr. Bokovoy was not hired at BYU?

[clarkgoble]

17 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

Makes me wonder then, why Dr. Bokovoy was not hired at BYU?

I think Bokovoy's issues went a bit further than the DH even before recent events. That is I think he tended to take a very skeptical to the point of dismissive perspective on many texts. I think what you find in say the use of the DH by other figures is a recognition of the complexity of the text and an idea that we can't know what happened by appeal to the text except by revelation or new discoveries.

There may have been other issues too. I wouldn't want to speculate. I think a worry by some is that some recent hires at BYU are too dismissive of too much. 

Edited April 1, 2019 by clarkgoble

[nealr]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

John Gee is the common one people refer to who reject the DH.  I'd imagine if you went to the religion department at BYU there'd be some too. From everything I hear though that department has changed dramatically from when I attended BYU. Far more people with actual academic background in relevant history.

I've actually spoken with Gee about source criticism recently (August 2018), and I think he tends to be badly misunderstood on this issue. Part of that may just be that he is not communicating clearly in his published works, but in conversation with him it seemed quite clear that he accepts that there are multiple sources that stand behind the Pentateuch, but he thinks the methods of source criticism are flawed, and quite circular really, and rarely give you much external evidence that you can examine and reason with to determine the accuracy of an argument. But in our conversation, he specifically talked about some evidence he had noticed that suggested to him Leviticus was an Exilic or post-exilic composition, and said he was currently searching to see if anybody else had ever pointed that evidence out before. So not only did Gee come across as open and accepting of multiple sources, but he even seemed pretty open to parts being rather late--which surprised me--but he's cautious, and generally skeptical of source critics claims.

Now I don't mean to speak for Gee, so take the above for what it is worth. But based on the conversation I had with him August, his thinking didn't seem terribly out of step with some currents in Pentateuchal scholarship right now. A major critic from some corners of academia has been that the DH does not compare well with what we know about how documents were edited, changed, and expanded over time in the ancient Near East, and that we should be looking to those precedents more in our efforts to understand the development of the Torah--rather than relying on modern literary sensibilities. A recent example of this, which from what I've seen has gotten pretty positive reviews, is Joshua Berman's Inconsistencies in the Torah (Oxford, 2018).

[churchistrue]

Thanks for the info. And sorry for the quick trigger finger in my unfair response to Brant. Blame it on flashbacks from bad interactions with the faithful on this board and other forums from my critical phase 10 years ago.

I know the questions in the OP were very broad. I'm down to one question I'm trying to understand better.

Book of Mormon prophets before the time of Christ understood the gospel of Christ (fall, atonement, baptism, Jesus Christ to be born as Son of God, etc) due to visions and angelic visits where they were taught the plan of salvation. According to the BOM and the JST (and to some degree other conservative Protestant churches), prophets in the old world knew the same doctrines, presumably by the same method. Adam, Moses, Enoch, Zenos and Zenock of the BOM, Isaiah, etc, even though we don’t see this in the OT text. The traditional LDS view is that this is due to “plain and precious” parts removed from the OT, but modern scholarship seems to suggest that’s implausible. What's the "informed and faithful" view on this issue?

 

 

 

 

[RevTestament]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The Pharaonic residence Pi-Rameses was located in the northeast Egyptian Delta at Khatana Qantir, to which West Asiatic ʿApiru (Hebrews) actually hauled huge stones for the main temple  (Papyrus Leiden 348, 6:6),* and Egyptian texts from that same Ramesside period speak both of the lack of straw essential to brick-making, as well as brick-making quotas which sometimes could not be met, both of which are directly reminiscent of biblical texts in Exodus.** 

*  A. Malamat in Frerichs & Lesko, eds., Exodus: The Egyptian Evidence (Eisenbrauns, 1997), 18; J. Hoffmeier, “Out of Egypt: The Archaeological Context of the Exodus,” Biblical Archaeology Review, 33/1 (Jan-Feb 2007), 35, citing his Israel in Egypt, 114, and adding that ʿApiru also appear in the 19th Dynasty Tomb of Intef; see the examples and discussion by James E. Hoch, Semitic Words in the Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period (Princeton Univ. Press, 1994), 60-63.

**  Hoffmeier, “Out of Egypt,” BAR, 33/1 (Jan-Feb 2007), 34-35 and nn. 12-15, citing especially R. A. Caminos, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies (Oxford Univ. Press, 1954), 106,188; and K. Kitchen, “From the Brickfields of Egypt,” Tyndale Bulletin, 27 (1976), 141-144.

Thanks for that scholarship. I agree with it that Apiru is the Egyptian equivalent of  Hebrew, but if Abraham was a Hebrew, then it seems Esau probably was too. Archaeological evidence shows an Egyptian presence in Edom around 1400 BC - and they probably used Edomites as slaves to mine and process copper. 

I personally now strongly discount the Ramesside period as being the correct period of the exodus. Certainly by the period of Merneptah the Israelites had established themselves as an independent people in the promised land as the Merneptah stele shows. I believe the exodus was much earlier, and that Ramses simply added onto Avaris - renaming it Pi-Ramses. Therefore, at the time the text was written (by David's scribes) the city they built was known as Pi-Ramses, and so was recorded as such by the scribes. If you do accept the Apiru as the Hebrew Israelites, you then have the issue of what Apiru were attacking the Caananite subject cities in the Amarna letters 200 years before Ramses II. 

[clarkgoble]

50 minutes ago, nealr said:

I've actually spoken with Gee about source criticism recently (August 2018), and I think he tends to be badly misunderstood on this issue.

What you outline is pretty. much my own view. Thanks for posting that. I tend to think a great deal of confidence is placed upon arguments that aren't that strong.

16 minutes ago, churchistrue said:

Book of Mormon prophets before the time of Christ understood the gospel of Christ (fall, atonement, baptism, Jesus Christ to be born as Son of God, etc) due to visions and angelic visits where they were taught the plan of salvation. According to the BOM and the JST (and to some degree other conservative Protestant churches), prophets in the old world knew the same doctrines, presumably by the same method. Adam, Moses, Enoch, Zenos and Zenock of the BOM, Isaiah, etc, even though we don’t see this in the OT text. The traditional LDS view is that this is due to “plain and precious” parts removed from the OT, but modern scholarship seems to suggest that’s implausible. What's the "informed and faithful" view on this issue?

I think part of the problem is first asking what is the plan of salvation versus Christology. It's not at all clear the Book of Mormon comprehended the plan of salvation and arguably elements of it (degrees of judgment, pre-mortal spirit existence) seem to be missing. We frequently think of Christology in terms of the plan of salvation but that doesn't appear to be an element in the Book of Mormon. Or at least not a major one. There is a sense of a focus on Christ as worried about our salvation at a time when many think gods weren't focused on humans. That is the major change happens first in Egypt with the move from the Pyramid texts (focused on kings as gods and gods) to the Coffin texts tied to the democratization of salvation movement. Yet this also happens right around the time of Nephi and we know from the text that Nephi's type of Judaism is very much influenced by Egypt.

So we have the question of what is the more important context: 6th century Egypt or 19th century Protestantism. How one reads Christology really depends a lot upon that. There's then the question of the influence of the Enochian tradition and the debate about how early that tradition was -- was it pre-exilic or a late Ptolemaic tradition. There's also the issue of the angel of the presence and how it relates to all that. In some obviously ways that's tied to J/E and the early pre-exilic tradition going back to at least the 9th century. 

This gets us into the question of what the "plain and precious" things. Those focusing in on a 19th century will tend to focus on elements of Arminianism particularly those influential in Methodism. But are those missing if they were already perfusing early 19th century religion? I tend to think the way this gets discussed both by critics and defenders is problematic. (i.e. I find this Ensign discussion deeply problematic for a slew of reasons) The assumption that "missing" is just elements that were debatable in 19th century disputes between more Arminian and Calvinist traditions or with Unitarians is in my mind pretty debatable. 

Edited April 1, 2019 by clarkgoble

[RevTestament]

31 minutes ago, churchistrue said:

Thanks for the info. And sorry for the quick trigger finger in my unfair response to Brant. Blame it on flashbacks from bad interactions with the faithful on this board and other forums from my critical phase 10 years ago.

I know the questions in the OP were very broad. I'm down to one question I'm trying to understand better.

Book of Mormon prophets before the time of Christ understood the gospel of Christ (fall, atonement, baptism, Jesus Christ to be born as Son of God, etc) due to visions and angelic visits where they were taught the plan of salvation. According to the BOM and the JST (and to some degree other conservative Protestant churches), prophets in the old world knew the same doctrines, presumably by the same method. Adam, Moses, Enoch, Zenos and Zenock of the BOM, Isaiah, etc, even though we don’t see this in the OT text. The traditional LDS view is that this is due to “plain and precious” parts removed from the OT, but modern scholarship seems to suggest that’s implausible. What's the "informed and faithful" view on this issue?

It is plain to me that Yeshua's peers in the promised land did not understand His mission. It is also clear that Yeshua did not teach it to them fully until after His resurrection. This means it was not really public knowledge which means that it was not plainly discernible in the scriptures they had. This means in turn that it was not removed by the great and abominable church of the gentiles unless it changed both the Old and New Testaments after the fact.There is simply no evidence for that - at all. It is also apparent to me that if the people had understood those things, they would not have crucified Him. Plainly the prophets of Judah did not understand - maybe other prophets did - you do have Moses showing back up on the mount of Transfiguration. Presumably at some point he understood.

[Steve Thompson]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

What you outline is pretty. much my own view. Thanks for posting that. I tend to think a great deal of confidence is placed upon arguments that aren't that strong.

I think part of the problem is first asking what is the plan of salvation versus Christology. It's not at all clear the Book of Mormon comprehended the plan of salvation and arguably elements of it (degrees of judgment, pre-mortal spirit existence) seem to be missing. We frequently think of Christology in terms of the plan of salvation but that doesn't appear to be an element in the Book of Mormon. Or at least not a major one. There is a sense of a focus on Christ as worried about our salvation at a time when many think gods weren't focused on humans. That is the major change happens first in Egypt with the move from the Pyramid texts (focused on kings as gods and gods) to the Coffin texts tied to the democratization of salvation movement. Yet this also happens right around the time of Nephi and we know from the text that Nephi's type of Judaism is very much influenced by Egypt.

So we have the question of what is the more important context: 6th century Egypt or 19th century Protestantism. How one reads Christology really depends a lot upon that. There's then the question of the influence of the Enochian tradition and the debate about how early that tradition was -- was it pre-exilic or a late Ptolemaic tradition. There's also the issue of the angel of the presence and how it relates to all that. In some obviously ways that's tied to J/E and the early pre-exilic tradition going back to at least the 9th century. 

This gets us into the question of what the "plain and precious" things. Those focusing in on a 19th century will tend to focus on elements of Arminianism particularly those influential in Methodism. But are those missing if they were already perfusing early 19th century religion? I tend to think the way this gets discussed both by critics and defenders is problematic. (i.e. I find this Ensign discussion deeply problematic for a slew of reasons) The assumption that "missing" is just elements that were debatable in 19th century disputes between more Arminian and Calvinist traditions or with Unitarians is in my mind pretty debatable. 

It may be neither here nor there in terms of this discussion, but the idea of the democratization of the afterlife in ancient Egypt has fallen on hard times of late:

https://uee.cdh.ucla.edu/articles/democratization_of_the_afterlife