New Docuseries from Book of Mormon Central: "A Marvelous Work"

[smac97]

Just saw this:

From the description:

Quote

Scripture Central is excited to announce a brand new docuseries with host Scott Christopher, about evidence for the Book of Mormon.

Premiering on January 18th, 2024 this series will follow Scott as he travels the globe talking to scientists, researchers, and people of faith and uncovers the evidence for the Book of Mormon's authenticity and divinity.

Make sure to subscribe to be notified of new episodes!

Very cool!  I think the folks at BOMC can be counted on to strike a proper balance between preserving the need to pursue spiritual confirmation of the truth claims of the Restored Gospel, while at the same time pointing to evidences that tend to substantiate the provenance of the Book of Mormon as an ancient record.

I hope this series sparks some curiosity and discussion.

Thanks,

-Smac

[CV75]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Just saw this:

From the description:

Very cool!  I think the folks at BOMC can be counted on to strike a proper balance between preserving the need to pursue spiritual confirmation of the truth claims of the Restored Gospel, while at the same time pointing to evidences that tend to substantiate the provenance of the Book of Mormon as an ancient record.

I hope this series sparks some curiosity and discussion.

Thanks,

-Smac

I'm curious as to how long this guy has been waiting for the bus! !!!

[sunstoned]

The trailer is made well and looks professional.

[Teancum]

On 1/12/2024 at 2:22 PM, smac97 said:

Just saw this:

From the description:

Very cool!  I think the folks at BOMC can be counted on to strike a proper balance between preserving the need to pursue spiritual confirmation of the truth claims of the Restored Gospel, while at the same time pointing to evidences that tend to substantiate the provenance of the Book of Mormon as an ancient record.

I hope this series sparks some curiosity and discussion.

Thanks,

-Smac

Who/What is Book of Mormon Central?  Who runs it and supports it?  

Edited January 15, 2024 by Teancum

[smac97]

16 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Who/What is Book of Mormon Central?  Who runs it and supports it?  

https://bookofmormoncentral.org/directory

Our @Ryan Dahle is part of the "Research and Writing Team."

Thanks,

-Smac

[Ryan Dahle]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

https://bookofmormoncentral.org/directory

Our @Ryan Dahle is part of the "Research and Writing Team."

Thanks,

-Smac

That is a pretty outdated description of the team (in the link). John Thompson, Matt Roper, and others are now on board. These new Marvelous Work videos are primarily developed by the video team, with researchers playing sort of a consulting and reviewing role, and sometimes we will participate in interviews etc. Other than watching the trailer, I don't personally know much more than anyone else about exactly what all will be in the first episodes and what is planned for future ones. I hope they are awesome. 

[Teancum]

17 hours ago, smac97 said:

https://bookofmormoncentral.org/directory

Our @Ryan Dahle is part of the "Research and Writing Team."

Thanks,

-Smac

So an independent group of apologists?  No connection with the Church officially?  Can we tell if the Church funds them per chance? 

[smac97]

9 minutes ago, Teancum said:

So an independent group of apologists? 

Apparently so:

Quote

Vision Statement

Book of Mormon Central is a non-profit, public charity that helps people everywhere build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making the Book of Mormon accessible, comprehensible, and defensible.

We are supported by people like you and appreciate all donations, large or small. If you love the Book of Mormon, consider donating to Book of Mormon Central and becoming part of this exciting movement.
...

Co-Founder Lynne Wilson shares the Book of Mormon Central story

Lynne Wilson explains how tough questions from her institute students inspired her to develop a resource to centralize answers to Book of Mormon questions.

...
Book of Mormon Central operates with very low overhead. All officers and directors are volunteers. Thank you.

From the above video:

Quote

I want{ed} to start a website with all of the accurate scholarship on the Book of Mormon, so that people could know this is a trusted source.  And it's not sponsored by the Church, it's sponsored by scholars.

It looks like BOMC was organized in August 2016 as a domestic non-profit.  It formerly operated under the name of "BOOK OF MORMON ARCHAEOLOGICAL FORUM, INC.," and currently has several DBAs:

• DOCTRINE AND COVENANTS CENTRAL
• SAINTS AND SCHOLARS UNITED
• NEW TESTAMENT CENTRAL
• MORMON VOICES
• SCRIPTURE CENTRAL
• BOOK OF MORMON ARCHAEOLOGICAL FORUM

Looks like a "grass-roots" sort of thing.

9 minutes ago, Teancum said:

No connection with the Church officially? 

Not that I can see.

9 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Can we tell if the Church funds them per chance? 

It looks like they operate off donations, have very low overhead, and "all officers and directors are volunteers."

Thanks,

-Smac

[awyatt]

4 hours ago, Teancum said:

So an independent group of apologists?  No connection with the Church officially?  Can we tell if the Church funds them per chance? 

The Church does not fund them. Book of Mormon Central (now a part of Scripture Central) is independent and raises funds from donations, like so many others (including The Interpreter Foundation and FAIR).

I should also mention that Book of Mormon Central (again, now part of Scripture Central) was founded by Jack Welch.

Edited January 16, 2024 by awyatt
Additional info

[smac97]

Here's the first video:

 

[Analytics]

 

On 1/16/2024 at 11:14 AM, smac97 said:

Looks like a "grass-roots" sort of thing.

I'm not sure that’s 100% true. In the following narrative, everything in quotation marks and italics is from https://bookofmormoncentral.org/content/donor-frequently-asked-questions

According to the official narrative, "An instructor at the Stanford Latter-day Saint Institute of Religion, Lynne H. Wilson, noticed a disturbing trend. Some of the best and brightest Latter-day Saint youth were entering Stanford as believing freshmen and then leaving the Church without ever seriously engaging the Book of Mormon. Part of the problem was they did not know where to go for reliable Book of Mormon material. Another part of the problem was they expected information to be presented in a modern social media-savvy way."

I would presume that at this point, Lynn went to the Church itself to ask them to develop better resources. After all, historically the Church has encouraged its teachers to rely on official resources, don’t they? If the Church can publish an institute manual on the Book of Mormon, why couldn’t it also present “reliable Book of Mormon material” ‘presented in a modern social media-savvy way?" I would think somebody in her position would want better official resources. If volunteer grass-roots resources is what she had in mind, I would have expected her to turn to FAIR--after all, the whole story that there wasn’t any volunteer organization to turn for “reliable Book of Mormon material" seems to be a slap in the face to FAIR, doesn’t it?

But why wouldn’t the Church itself offer the better resources that Lynne wanted? Because, "Research is inherently exploratory and uncertain. Being completely independent empowers BMC to take calculated risks which the official Church would not be comfortable undertaking.” How would BMC know that the Church would not be comfortable undertaking these risks if she hadn’t talked to them about it? Because of that, my suspicion is that it was somebody at the Church who encouraged Lynne and Welch to establish BMC.

To understand why, we need to put this into historical perspective. "The decades of the ‘80’s and ‘90’s saw a fluorescence of quality Book of Mormon scholarship that began tapering off when FARMS merged into BYU in 2002. FARMS was formally dissolved in 2006 after it became part of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship (MI).” Putting these two quotes together, the Church finds it too “risky” to engage in the motivated reasoning that is the essence of apologetics. Apologetics on BYU’s campus was embarrassing--that’s why the Neal A. Maxwell Institute pulled out of it. So, it seems that the Church itself pulled some strings to get Book of Mormon Central moving.

Furthermore, the Church has done the following:

•  It has categorized BMC as “a trusted independent organization."
• It has sent “members of the Twelve and the Seventy have keynoted BMC events” (including having Elder Rashband be a keynote speaker in a $250 a plate fundraising dinner)
• It has "Church leaders and employees work with us both as private individuals and occasionally in official capacities"

On "December 31, 2015,  the Deseret News published an article describing Book of Mormon Central’s launch the following day.” And then in the first few months of its existence, it did the following things to further promote BMC:

• BMC received the first license from the Church to re-publish the LDS scriptures.
• The Book of Mormon Central KnoWhy App debuted to a large crowd at BYU Education Week.
• ChurchofJesusChrist.org published a link to bookofmormoncentral.org, directing web traffic to our independent external site. ChurchofJesusChrist.org also posted a video of Chad Webb, Administrator of Seminaries and Institutes, recommending that Seminary and Institute teachers use Book of Mormon Central materials.
• Elder Jeffrey R. Holland praised Book of Mormon Central in his keynote speech at the Chiasmus Jubilee celebration in the Joseph Smith Building on BYU campus.
• The LDS New Era magazine advised young people with questions about the Book of Mormon to consult Book of Mormon Central.
• Elder Kevin W. Pearson, General Authority Seventy, speaking at the FAIRMormon 2018 Conference, singled out Book of Mormon Central as one of the most important independent organizations helping the Church accomplish its mission and asked members to support it.

In fact, in the first 24 months of its existence, the official Church did dozens of things to promote and assist BMC. Clearly, it isn’t a mere “grass roots sort of thing.” It is a resource that the Church itself has promoted, literally from day 1.

BMC has received way more love, from the Church than, say, FAIR ever got, isn’t it? And the major love and support literally started on day 1.

On 1/16/2024 at 2:59 PM, awyatt said:

The Church does not fund them.

That's not entirely true. "BMC receives no funds directly from the Church, only via the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Foundation.” Getting funds indirectly from the Church is getting funds from the Church. It also gets funds from the More Good Foundation, which gets funds from the Church.

It seems to me that the reason BMC exists is because the Church wants a better-funded, more Church endorsable version of FAIR that it indirectly controls through financial support, non-financial support, and endorsements. It wants to do this indirectly because BMC can "take calculated risks which the official Church would not be comfortable undertaking."

[Calm]

39 minutes ago, Analytics said:

If volunteer grass-roots resources is what she had in mind, I would have expected her to turn to FAIR--after all, the whole story that there wasn’t any volunteer organization to turn for “reliable Book of Mormon material" seems to be a slap in the face to FAIR, doesn’t it?

FAIR is more about collecting research materials, creating a reliable database, making known information accessible to the public.  We do not generally support original research or books (a few exceptions have been published by FAIR members), wish we could afford to do so.  Our funding is not sufficient to do what Book of Mormon Central has done, as much as we would have loved to have the opportunity to try, lol.

We also cover pretty much everything related to the Church that people ask us about or at least try to directly and indirectly (a lot of new stuff is repetitive, so we don’t do responses to it, but direct people to specific claims someone makes) and my impression is they were looking for a much more focused endeavour.  We just don’t have the manpower to create that large of an effort.

Sometimes it is easier to independently start from scratch than try and create what you want under the auspices of another established organization with a particular style.  Also FAIR already had its own reputation as more defending and my impression with Book of Mormon Central is they wanted to be seen as primarily educational rather than apologetic, so even if FAIR did a spinoff, the website could have struggled to establish itself as something different…which it is.

A number of our people did end up working for BoM Central.

I know little of the behind the scenes story of BOMC, but my impression is Welch and Wilson wanted a particular approach (social media) that they had control over (understandable) rather than trying to mesh with others.  FAIR did not have the tech expertise at the time nor as a mostly volunteer organization were we likely to get it.  FAIR would have had to substantially change to do it the way BoMC did it from the beginning.  

Edited January 21, 2024 by Calm