I started this project several years ago, working on it in my spare time. I had many more topics relevant to Book of Mormon historicity that I wanted to write about, but I no longer have the interest or urgency to continue for now. I recently posted what I hoped to be the final post in my general Mormon-themed blog. I thought it would be fitting to include one final concluding post on this blog as well, summarizing the points I have made so far and listing the additional areas I had hoped to cover. I am open to revisiting these topics in the future, but for now I am interested in writing about topics other than Mormonism on my blog, Stuff I Think About.
In previous posts I have examined the question of Book of Mormon historicity from the point of view of external evidence and the consistency and plausibility of the text itself. I think it is safe to say that there is absolutely no convincing external evidence that the Book of Mormon is an actual record of ancient Native Americans living from 600 BC to 420 AD as claimed by Joseph Smith and the modern Utah-based church. Furthermore, there are problematic aspects of the text itself, independent of external evidence, that make it very difficult to harmonize its contents with the claim that it is of ancient origin. The hypothesis that the Book of Mormon is a creation of the 19th century explains the problematic aspects of the text quite well. The largest splinter group, the Community of Christ, which split off from the main church after the death of Joseph Smith, no longer requires belief in Book of Mormon historicity, showing that the evidence is sufficient to convince an entire organization sharing the same foundational tradition as the mainstream church.
Apologists do not defend their belief in Book of Mormon historicity by providing evidence. None exists for them to provide. Rather they refute each of the critics' points one at a time without taking care that their explanation for one point does not contradict their explanation for another point. They attempt to demonstrate plausibility despite the evidence against a specific point, which does not address the accumulated weight of the totality of the data. Apologists also point out the most obscure parallels of the type that could be found by comparing any random text with any random ancient civilization without providing a rigorous analysis of the statistical significance of the parallelism. Of course, there is probably not any other way they could operate given that they are beginning with a non-negotiable conclusion in mind rather than open-mindedly following the evidence where it leads. Their role is to prop up the faithful, not to convince a skeptic or even a neutral observer.
External evidence I have discussed in these posts includes DNA, metallurgy, plants, and animals. All the available evidence supports the scientific consensus that Native Americas originated in Central Asia and migrated to the Americas across the Bering land bridge at the end of the last ice age between 12,000 and 15,000 years ago. External evidence fails to support the existence of a single plant or animal mentioned in the text of the Book of Mormon during the appropriate time period. It is striking that there is a 100 percent disconnect on this point. Joseph Smith did not even guess right on a single plant or animal. There is no mention of corn, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, beans, chilis, chocolate, llamas, or Muscovy ducks in the text and every single plant and animal that is mentioned in the text has not been found to exist in the Americas during the Book of Mormon time period. Neither have any metal artifacts been found that correlate with those mentioned in the text. Not a single Nephite coin has ever been found, even though millions must have existed at the height of Nephite civilization.
Internal textual evidence I have discussed includes biblical quotations that the Nephites could not have had because they had not been written by the time Lehi left Jerusalem. Statements in the Book of Mormon about the ancient Egyptian language represent 19th-century misconceptions rather than a true knowledge of Egyptian hieroglyphics. The characters in the Book of Mormon are flat caricatures who are not believable as real people. The Book of Mormon presents a mature Christology, not one that fits within the historical context of its time. Doctrinally, the Book of Mormon represents exactly where Joseph Smith was at the time of its publication and contains none of his later doctrinal innovations.
There are a number of points I wanted to explore in future posts if I had sufficient interest to continue this project. Below are a brief discussion of each of these.
Linguistics: No known Native American language bears any resemblance to Hebrew. Furthermore, they all contain common elements that reveal that they evolved from a single language that bears no relationship to any Semitic languages spoken in the Middle East.
King James Bible: It makes absolutely no sense at all for the Book of Mormon translation to contain biblical passages translated into the identical King James English of the bible. It especially makes no sense for the text of the Book of Mormon to contain the exact errors and mistranslations of the King James Bible, unless it is a 19th-century creation.
Final Battle: I had planned on writing a least 2 posts on the final battle. The story in the Book of Mormon reveals a complete misunderstanding of military tactics and logistics, and how real soldiers would behave in such a battle. Furthermore, there is absolutely no archeological evidence that such a battle took place in the Americas.
Building an Transoceanic Vessel: There is an excellent podcast episode on this subject, Mormon Expression Podcast, Episode 276. The story of Nephi building a ship that could cross the ocean given the size of Lehi's band and their isolation from civilization is totally implausible.
Early American Ideas: The Book of Mormon is full of ideas that were in the cultural milieu of early 19th-century America. Many of these ideas should have no place in a genuine ancient text.
Prophesies: The prophesies in the Book of Mormon are extremely specific when they are about events that were known to Joseph Smith. Once they go beyond his day they become vague and inaccurate.
Each of these subjects deserve to be treated in greater depth, and some have already been treated in some detail elsewhere. Perhaps I will one day revisit this blog and address some of these additional points, but for now I will let what I have already written be my final word on the subject.
It is not so much that want to criticize Mormons for believing as they do. They have a right to believe whatever they want. My biggest problem with the church is that when members, who otherwise want to participate, discover the true state of the evidence against Book of Mormon historicity they are marginalized, and even demonized, within Mormon culture. There is no option to accept the evidence at face value, interpret the Book of Mormon as an inspired allegory, and remain a Mormon in good standing. The stakes are high. Families are broken up and otherwise faithful members are forbidden from attending their own children's weddings merely because they are convinced by the overwhelming evidence that the Book of Mormon is not historical.
There has been a recent rash of excommunications such as has not been seen since the early days of the church, not for failing to live up to the church's moral code, but merely for asking questions and making reasonable conclusions based on overwhelming evidence. The crisis is past for me and I have moved on, but many are in the midst of the crisis, and many more will follow. The church is slow to learn and slow to adjust because of their aging, conservative leadership. Eventually, the church will have to adjust, just as more mature religions already have, but it will be too little and too late for many people, and perhaps even for the church itself.
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Friday, June 26, 2015
Part 19 - Joseph Smith's Doctrinal Development
The contents of this post were suggested by Mormon Stories Episode 498. This is one of a series of episodes where John Dehlin interviews Mormon scholar Brent Metcalfe. In this episode, Metcalfe discusses approaches to the critical study of the Book of Mormon. He points out that the contents of the Book of Mormon make more sense within the context of Joseph Smith's life than as an ancient document.
The Book of Mormon was published in 1830 when Joseph Smith was 24 years old. Doctrinally, it reflects where he was at that time in his life. The Book of Mormon represents a fairly mainstream Protestant world view that existed at the time and place of its publication. Nothing in the Book of Mormon is revolutionary or unique from a doctrinal point of view. The only ideas that differ somewhat from mainstream Protestantism are continuing revelation and the special role of the American continents and Native Americans in God's plan. The Book of Mormon also attempts to settle doctrinal controversies such as infant baptism and mode of baptism that were of great importance to religious people in the early 19th century. Even though these aspects differ from mainstream Protestantism, they were still very much in the cultural milieu of early 19th-century America, as was speculation about Native Americans' origin as a lost tribe of Israel.
Joseph Smith developed or accepted many new doctrines after the publication of the Book of Mormon such as the three degrees of glory, baptism for the dead, polygamy, the potential Godhood of man, and the temple endowment ceremony. The question is, why does the Book of Mormon represent Joseph Smith's precise state of mind at the time of its publication? If Mormonism is truly a restoration of an ancient religion, and according to Mormon theology the Nephites in the Book of Mormon had the purest form of this religion, where are all those doctrines that Joseph Smith developed later? It should not have mattered that he had not yet worked them out if the Book of Mormon is truly an ancient record of a people who already had a fullness of what Joseph Smith restored. The Nephites had over a thousand years to work these doctrines out. They could have included them all in the record and simply transmitted the entire religion all at once to Joseph Smith via their record.
Nothing in the Book of Mormon is surprising from the point of view of the early 19th Century, nor is it surprising within the context of Joseph Smith's personal biography. Instead of representing precisely where Joseph Smith was doctrinally at the time of its publication, the Book of Mormon should have provided surprising insights that took Joseph Smith time and effort to understand, accept, and incorporate into his world view. It should have presented him the pure, ancient religion all at once instead of merely being the starting point of a long doctrinal evolution.
The following quotes, presented in chronological order of publication, illustrate Joseph Smith's evolving concept of God.
Apologetic explanations of this phenomenon usually resort to hand-waving God magic. God unfolded his doctrine gradually to Joseph Smith, with the Book of Mormon being one of his early lessons. In other words, God manipulated everything the Nephites wrote about over a period of more than a thousand years so it precisely matched where a single man would be in his intellectual development more than 2000 years into the future. They carefully excluded anything this one particular man would not be ready for and only included that which closely matched this one man's development within his cultural environment. That is an amazing amount of micromanagement and specificity for a God who can usually manage only the vaguest generalities hidden in obscure symbolism in other cases. These types of arguments only serve to prop up the faithful who already believe. They make no sense to anyone approaching the Book of Mormon from a critical point of view. Furthermore, the hypothesis that the Book of Mormon was a product of the early 19th century is remarkably consistent no matter what approach one takes, while answering each of the critics' points one by one cannot even be consistent itself.
The Book of Mormon was published in 1830 when Joseph Smith was 24 years old. Doctrinally, it reflects where he was at that time in his life. The Book of Mormon represents a fairly mainstream Protestant world view that existed at the time and place of its publication. Nothing in the Book of Mormon is revolutionary or unique from a doctrinal point of view. The only ideas that differ somewhat from mainstream Protestantism are continuing revelation and the special role of the American continents and Native Americans in God's plan. The Book of Mormon also attempts to settle doctrinal controversies such as infant baptism and mode of baptism that were of great importance to religious people in the early 19th century. Even though these aspects differ from mainstream Protestantism, they were still very much in the cultural milieu of early 19th-century America, as was speculation about Native Americans' origin as a lost tribe of Israel.
Joseph Smith developed or accepted many new doctrines after the publication of the Book of Mormon such as the three degrees of glory, baptism for the dead, polygamy, the potential Godhood of man, and the temple endowment ceremony. The question is, why does the Book of Mormon represent Joseph Smith's precise state of mind at the time of its publication? If Mormonism is truly a restoration of an ancient religion, and according to Mormon theology the Nephites in the Book of Mormon had the purest form of this religion, where are all those doctrines that Joseph Smith developed later? It should not have mattered that he had not yet worked them out if the Book of Mormon is truly an ancient record of a people who already had a fullness of what Joseph Smith restored. The Nephites had over a thousand years to work these doctrines out. They could have included them all in the record and simply transmitted the entire religion all at once to Joseph Smith via their record.
Nothing in the Book of Mormon is surprising from the point of view of the early 19th Century, nor is it surprising within the context of Joseph Smith's personal biography. Instead of representing precisely where Joseph Smith was doctrinally at the time of its publication, the Book of Mormon should have provided surprising insights that took Joseph Smith time and effort to understand, accept, and incorporate into his world view. It should have presented him the pure, ancient religion all at once instead of merely being the starting point of a long doctrinal evolution.
The following quotes, presented in chronological order of publication, illustrate Joseph Smith's evolving concept of God.
For if there be no Christ there be no God; and if there be no God we are not, for there could have been no creation. But there is a God, and he is Christ, and he cometh in the fulness of his own time. (2 Nephi 11:7, 1830)
And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen. (2 Nephi 31:21, 1830)
While in (the) attitude of calling upon the Lord (in the 16th year of my age) a pillar of fire light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I was filled with the spirit of God and the (Lord) opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me. (First Vision account, 1832)
When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him! (JS-H 1:17, 1838)
The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us. (D&C 130:22, 1843)
The first principle of truth and of the Gospel is to know for certain the character of God, and that we may converse with him the same as one man with another, and that He once was a man like one of us and that God Himself, the Father of us all, once dwelled on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself in the flesh and like us. (King Follett Discourse, 1844)Another example of doctrinal evolution can be seen in Joseph Smith's changing conception of Heaven and Hell. The Book of Mormon presents a view fairly typical of contemporary Protestantism.
And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow. And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of the wicked, yea, who are evil—for behold, they have no part nor portion of the Spirit of the Lord; for behold, they chose evil works rather than good; therefore the spirit of the devil did enter into them, and take possession of their house—and these shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, and this because of their own iniquity, being led captive by the will of the devil. Now this is the state of the souls of the wicked, yea, in darkness, and a state of awful, fearful, looking for the fiery indignation of the wrath of God upon them; thus they remain in this state, as well as the righteous in paradise, until the time of their resurrection. (Alma 20:12-14, 1830)Joseph Smith later greatly elaborated on the afterlife, presenting a view that radically differed from mainstream Christianity.
They who dwell in his presence are the church of the Firstborn; and they see as they are seen, and know as they are known, having received of his fulness and of his grace; And he makes them equal in power, and in might, and in dominion. And the glory of the celestial is one, even as the glory of the sun is one. And the glory of the terrestrial is one, even as the glory of the moon is one. And the glory of the telestial is one, even as the glory of the stars is one; for as one star differs from another star in glory, even so differs one from another in glory in the telestial world; (D&C 76:94-98, 1832)Later, Joseph Smith further elaborated on details of the celestial glory.
In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; If he does not, he cannot obtain it. He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase. (D&C 131:1-4, 1843)Many other doctrinal developments follow a similar evolution through Joseph Smith's life. If we assume that Joseph Smith created the Book of Mormon with the knowledge and ideas that he had at that point in his life, this progression of doctrine makes perfect sense. The Book of Mormon represents his early ideas that he later elaborated and developed. However, if we accept the Book of Mormon as an actual ancient record, this continuity with Joseph Smith's thought makes no sense at all.
Apologetic explanations of this phenomenon usually resort to hand-waving God magic. God unfolded his doctrine gradually to Joseph Smith, with the Book of Mormon being one of his early lessons. In other words, God manipulated everything the Nephites wrote about over a period of more than a thousand years so it precisely matched where a single man would be in his intellectual development more than 2000 years into the future. They carefully excluded anything this one particular man would not be ready for and only included that which closely matched this one man's development within his cultural environment. That is an amazing amount of micromanagement and specificity for a God who can usually manage only the vaguest generalities hidden in obscure symbolism in other cases. These types of arguments only serve to prop up the faithful who already believe. They make no sense to anyone approaching the Book of Mormon from a critical point of view. Furthermore, the hypothesis that the Book of Mormon was a product of the early 19th century is remarkably consistent no matter what approach one takes, while answering each of the critics' points one by one cannot even be consistent itself.
Friday, November 7, 2014
Part 18 - More About Apologetics
I introduced Book of Mormon apologetics in Part 6 of this series. I want to revisit that topic here to provide some updates based on recent events and to add some of my personal experience. A few years ago I occasionally read and rarely posted on a message board called Mormon Apologetics and Discussion Board. This board has since been renamed Mormon Dialog and Discussion and moved to www.mormondialog.org. Perhaps one reason for the change was to get rid of the MAD acronym, but it also looks like the MDD board no longer has an obvious association with the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR) like it did before. FAIR has also been re-branded as Fair Mormon and now lives at fairmormon.org.
My experience on the MAD board is that it frequently lived up to its name (as in angry rather than crazy). This was one of the few boards that allowed open discussion and debate among Mormons and their critics, although the moderation seemed more heavy-handed toward the critics as might be expected on a pro-Mormon site. It was not uncommon, in my observation, for a newcomer to be attacked and ridiculed by board regulars for bringing up the "same old criticisms that have been dealt with over and over." Rather than receiving an answer, the newcomer might be referred to articles on the FAIR site. Wading through these articles was no small feat. They were long and complex, seemed to be aimed more at obfuscation than clarity, and did not provide answers that would satisfy a critic. So "dealing with" these criticisms seemed to mean that they had been discussed ad nauseum, not that the answers were satisfactory. I can understand the believers' frustration. They probably would have enjoyed providing good, convincing answers, but their defensiveness likely indicated that they had none to offer. I also used to grow weary of trying to defend Mormonism until I finally decided to follow the evidence.
Daniel C. Peterson was a frequent contributor to discussions on the MAD board and he exemplified the rude, impatient pomposity that characterized its tone. Peterson is the former chairman of BYU's Maxwell Institute, the church's only somewhat official apologetic organization. He was let go in June 2012, shortly after word came out that he planned on publishing a hit piece to discredit podcaster, John Dehlin, founder of the Mormon Stories podcast. The rumors on social media indicated that MI wanted to move away from the type of aggressive apologetics characterized by Peterson's frequent ad hominem attacks against critics, realizing that this approach was doing more harm than good.
Being released from MI has not slowed Peterson down at all. His most recent object of attack is Jeremy Runnells, author of the Letter to a CES Director that went viral sometime after April 2013 when Runnells first composed it at the request of his CES director. Peterson gave an address on August 8, 2014 at the FairMormon conference about the CES letter. Among other things, Peterson had this to say.
While the issues discussed in the CES letter and on apologetic sites are not limited to the Book of Mormon as is this series of blog posts, the tactics of Mormon apologists are relevant and some of the information is Book of Mormon specific. In a recent Mormon Stories interview, Kirk Caudle discussed the current state of Book of Mormon apologetics. Caudle is a former professor of religion at BYU-Idaho who was forced to resign for giving honest answers to student questions because some of his answers, while true, were not faith promoting. This led Caudle to also resign his membership in the Mormon church. Even though he is still a believer in early Mormonism, Caudle disagrees with the current church's suppression of information and its de-emphasis of many of Joseph Smith's teachings.
Caudle observes that it is no longer fashionable in Mormon apologetic circles to discuss the types of issues that I bring up in these posts. While this is quite obviously an admission that there are no good answers from a believing perspective, apologists such as Daniel Peterson try to spin it by implying that answers exist if only the critics would stop being so lazy and go find them. The argument seems to be that these issues have been around for a long time so critics are not pointing out anything the apologists did not already know. This completely misses the point. The facts I mention in these posts have never been effectively refuted regardless of how long they have been known. Furthermore, the average Mormon, who is not as informed as the apologists, may have never heard of these issues, so they are worth pointing out again. My blog does not have enough readers to attract the attention of any prominent apologists, but their responses to similar information elsewhere reveal how they would likely respond to my blog posts.
Recently the church itself has been releasing a series of essays dealing with problematic areas of doctrine and history. The only ones that deal with the Book of Mormon are Book of Mormon Translation and Book of Mormon & DNA Studies. MormonThink provides a detailed analysis of these two essays here and here. All of these essays, including the Book of Mormon specific ones, essentially admit that the critics have been right all along about the basic facts. The essays seem to be more aimed at answering the criticism that the church has not been transparent about these problematic areas rather than providing a refutation of the basic facts that critics have been pointing out for years. The church has purposefully made these difficult to find while navigating or searching lds.org. They want to address the issues from a faithful perspective, but they do not want someone to stumble upon the information who is currently unaware of the issues and take the chance that the information may shake their faith. That this is their deliberate strategy is attested by former church employees posting on anonymous message boards. For the most part, critics have welcomed this greater transparency, with some qualifications about the particular slant of the essays and the difficulty of finding them without a direct link.
This leads to the final topic I wanted to touch on in this post, Internet vs. Chapel Mormons. This idea was first suggested by Jason Gallentine in 2004, also known online as Dr. Shades. The essence of this analysis is that there seem to be two different sets of beliefs within Mormonism. The average Mormon who attends regularly and only reads church-approved materials may be completely unaware of the types of issues that critics and apologists argue about. Many facts acknowledged by apologists and by the church itself in the new series of essays are completely unknown to many "Chapel Mormons." While "Internet Mormons" are aware of the issues and have found ways to reconcile them with their faith, "Chapel Mormons" sometimes think that the basic facts on which the critics and apologists agree are "anit-Mormon lies." This disconnect can be a great source of frustration when a Mormon with serious doubts first tries to discuss the issues with a believing loved one. The church's strategy of making the essays hard to find acknowledges that Dr. Shades analysis still has some validity. I experienced some of the consequences of this phenomenon when my ex-wife refused to discuss any of the issues I was having, convinced that they were all lies and that I was being influenced by Satan. With the release of the essays, many fringe and former Mormons are feeling a degree of vindication, although the feeling may be shallow because of how difficult it is to get a "Chapel Mormon" interested enough to read one of these essays, even though it is published on the Church's official site.
I have acknowledged from the beginning that there is nothing original in my series of blog posts. I have been aiming more for breadth rather than depth, and providing links for further in-depth reading. My aim was to provide a readable and concise introduction into all the converging lines of evidence that examine the claim that the Book of Mormon is a genuine translation of an ancient record. In the next post I will be back to examining the book itself.
My experience on the MAD board is that it frequently lived up to its name (as in angry rather than crazy). This was one of the few boards that allowed open discussion and debate among Mormons and their critics, although the moderation seemed more heavy-handed toward the critics as might be expected on a pro-Mormon site. It was not uncommon, in my observation, for a newcomer to be attacked and ridiculed by board regulars for bringing up the "same old criticisms that have been dealt with over and over." Rather than receiving an answer, the newcomer might be referred to articles on the FAIR site. Wading through these articles was no small feat. They were long and complex, seemed to be aimed more at obfuscation than clarity, and did not provide answers that would satisfy a critic. So "dealing with" these criticisms seemed to mean that they had been discussed ad nauseum, not that the answers were satisfactory. I can understand the believers' frustration. They probably would have enjoyed providing good, convincing answers, but their defensiveness likely indicated that they had none to offer. I also used to grow weary of trying to defend Mormonism until I finally decided to follow the evidence.
Daniel C. Peterson was a frequent contributor to discussions on the MAD board and he exemplified the rude, impatient pomposity that characterized its tone. Peterson is the former chairman of BYU's Maxwell Institute, the church's only somewhat official apologetic organization. He was let go in June 2012, shortly after word came out that he planned on publishing a hit piece to discredit podcaster, John Dehlin, founder of the Mormon Stories podcast. The rumors on social media indicated that MI wanted to move away from the type of aggressive apologetics characterized by Peterson's frequent ad hominem attacks against critics, realizing that this approach was doing more harm than good.
Being released from MI has not slowed Peterson down at all. His most recent object of attack is Jeremy Runnells, author of the Letter to a CES Director that went viral sometime after April 2013 when Runnells first composed it at the request of his CES director. Peterson gave an address on August 8, 2014 at the FairMormon conference about the CES letter. Among other things, Peterson had this to say.
I’ve mentioned, I think, here before that Bill Hamblin and I have wanted to do a film that we call tentatively, “Bill and Dan’s Excellent Adventure in Anti-Mormon Zombie Hell.” The idea is that these just keep coming back. I mean, you shoot them between the eyes and they don’t stop because there’s no brain in there, right?This is similar to the frequent responses I noted on the old MAD board when pro-Mormon posters would deride someone for asking the same questions that had already been discussed over and over. In fact, so much effort was expended on complaining about the repetitious questions that it may have been easier to have just answered the questions, if there were any good answers. The entire text of Peterson's address can be found here. In several thousand words of text Peterson fails to answer a single one of Runnells' questions, but he frequently chides Runnells for not finding the answers that supposedly exist on apologetic sites and in books written by apologists. Runnells has provided a detailed response to Peterson's address on his website entitled, "A Zombie's Reflections on That Mormon Apologist's Reflections." One of Runnells' points is that he sought official answers, which is why he originally asked his CES director rather than accepting unofficial answers from apologetic sites.
While the issues discussed in the CES letter and on apologetic sites are not limited to the Book of Mormon as is this series of blog posts, the tactics of Mormon apologists are relevant and some of the information is Book of Mormon specific. In a recent Mormon Stories interview, Kirk Caudle discussed the current state of Book of Mormon apologetics. Caudle is a former professor of religion at BYU-Idaho who was forced to resign for giving honest answers to student questions because some of his answers, while true, were not faith promoting. This led Caudle to also resign his membership in the Mormon church. Even though he is still a believer in early Mormonism, Caudle disagrees with the current church's suppression of information and its de-emphasis of many of Joseph Smith's teachings.
Caudle observes that it is no longer fashionable in Mormon apologetic circles to discuss the types of issues that I bring up in these posts. While this is quite obviously an admission that there are no good answers from a believing perspective, apologists such as Daniel Peterson try to spin it by implying that answers exist if only the critics would stop being so lazy and go find them. The argument seems to be that these issues have been around for a long time so critics are not pointing out anything the apologists did not already know. This completely misses the point. The facts I mention in these posts have never been effectively refuted regardless of how long they have been known. Furthermore, the average Mormon, who is not as informed as the apologists, may have never heard of these issues, so they are worth pointing out again. My blog does not have enough readers to attract the attention of any prominent apologists, but their responses to similar information elsewhere reveal how they would likely respond to my blog posts.
Recently the church itself has been releasing a series of essays dealing with problematic areas of doctrine and history. The only ones that deal with the Book of Mormon are Book of Mormon Translation and Book of Mormon & DNA Studies. MormonThink provides a detailed analysis of these two essays here and here. All of these essays, including the Book of Mormon specific ones, essentially admit that the critics have been right all along about the basic facts. The essays seem to be more aimed at answering the criticism that the church has not been transparent about these problematic areas rather than providing a refutation of the basic facts that critics have been pointing out for years. The church has purposefully made these difficult to find while navigating or searching lds.org. They want to address the issues from a faithful perspective, but they do not want someone to stumble upon the information who is currently unaware of the issues and take the chance that the information may shake their faith. That this is their deliberate strategy is attested by former church employees posting on anonymous message boards. For the most part, critics have welcomed this greater transparency, with some qualifications about the particular slant of the essays and the difficulty of finding them without a direct link.
This leads to the final topic I wanted to touch on in this post, Internet vs. Chapel Mormons. This idea was first suggested by Jason Gallentine in 2004, also known online as Dr. Shades. The essence of this analysis is that there seem to be two different sets of beliefs within Mormonism. The average Mormon who attends regularly and only reads church-approved materials may be completely unaware of the types of issues that critics and apologists argue about. Many facts acknowledged by apologists and by the church itself in the new series of essays are completely unknown to many "Chapel Mormons." While "Internet Mormons" are aware of the issues and have found ways to reconcile them with their faith, "Chapel Mormons" sometimes think that the basic facts on which the critics and apologists agree are "anit-Mormon lies." This disconnect can be a great source of frustration when a Mormon with serious doubts first tries to discuss the issues with a believing loved one. The church's strategy of making the essays hard to find acknowledges that Dr. Shades analysis still has some validity. I experienced some of the consequences of this phenomenon when my ex-wife refused to discuss any of the issues I was having, convinced that they were all lies and that I was being influenced by Satan. With the release of the essays, many fringe and former Mormons are feeling a degree of vindication, although the feeling may be shallow because of how difficult it is to get a "Chapel Mormon" interested enough to read one of these essays, even though it is published on the Church's official site.
I have acknowledged from the beginning that there is nothing original in my series of blog posts. I have been aiming more for breadth rather than depth, and providing links for further in-depth reading. My aim was to provide a readable and concise introduction into all the converging lines of evidence that examine the claim that the Book of Mormon is a genuine translation of an ancient record. In the next post I will be back to examining the book itself.
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Part 17 - Christology
I feel a little out of my depth in writing this post, but I believe that this is an interesting and valid direction of inquiry. I consider this post to be more of a conversation starter than the final word. Ideas about Jesus in the Book of Mormon do not fit into the historical and cultural context of the time period that Lehi was supposed to have left Jerusalem, around 600 BCE. Another way of saying this is that the Book of Mormon presents a Christology that was not fully developed until as late as the fourth century CE. I will present a few specific details that show this to be the case. Most of the ideas I present about the early Christian church come from books and lectures by New Testament scholar, Bart Ehrman.
Christology is the study of ideas about the divine and human natures of Christ. The Apostle Paul is the earliest Christian writer, predating the earliest Gospels by as much as 15 years. According to Ehrman, Paul held to an incarnation Christology, meaning that Paul believed that Jesus was a preexisting divine being who became a man. In contrast, the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) present an exaltation Christology. In this view Jesus was a man who was later elevated to the status of the Son of God. Sometimes these contrasting views are called high Christology (as in from above for incarnation Christology) and low Christology (as in from below for exaltation Christology).
The synpoptics, consistent with exaltation Christology, emphasize the humanity of Jesus. The fourth Gospel, John, was written much later than the synoptics, possibly as late as 90-100 CE. John emphasizes the divinity of Jesus. Which nature, human or divine, predominated during Jesus' life was a subject of controversy within the early church. In 325 CE the First Council of Nicea attempted to reconcile these views by declaring that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine.
Jewish ideas about the Messiah bear little resemblance to the Christology of the early church. The Jewish Messiah was to be a descendant of David who would usher in a period of peace and gather the scattered Israelites back to their home land. The suffering Messiah was not a Jewish idea, but rather an early Christian idea that developed out of necessity, because Jesus' death did not fit into the Messianic expectation of the Jews. More information about the Jewish Messiah can be found in this article.
The death of Jesus created a quandary for his followers. How could Jesus die if he was the Messiah, and how could he die if he was without sin? The belief that Jesus was resurrected and that his sufferings were not for his own sins, but for the sins of others, helped to resolve these issues in the early church. These ideas did not appear all at once, but were developed over time beginning in the first century with Paul and the Gospel writers and continuing through the fourth century when the early church councils decided which first-century writings to canonize.
When trying to research the Christology of the Book of Mormon I have run into a problem. Most everything that comes up when I search for "Book of Mormon Christology" does not truly discuss Book of Mormon Christology. Most of the information I found discusses Mormon Christology as held by the current church, not the Christology of the Book of Mormon specifically. These are not the same because Mormon theology evolved throughout the life of Joseph Smith. Because I could not find any analyses that limited themselves to the Book of Mormon, I will present my own by analyzing two key passages from the early part of the Book of Mormon that were supposed to have been written between 600 and 592 BCE. The first one is from 1 Nephi 11:16-18.
The usual apologetic response to this and other anachronisms is that Book of Mormon authors received these ideas through direct revelation. However, there are no precedents for such elaborate ideas suddenly springing into existence completely out of cultural context. Records from the old world clearly show the historical development of Christological ideas beginning in the first century, and these ideas make no sense in the context of ancient Jewish culture rather than first century Christian culture. The apologetic argument strikes me as too convenient to be plausible. Of course, the Christology of the Book of Mormon makes perfect sense within the context of the 19th century, which adds yet another strand to the many lines of evidence supporting the hypothesis that the Book of Mormon originated in the 19th century rather than anciently as the Mormon Church claims.
Christology is the study of ideas about the divine and human natures of Christ. The Apostle Paul is the earliest Christian writer, predating the earliest Gospels by as much as 15 years. According to Ehrman, Paul held to an incarnation Christology, meaning that Paul believed that Jesus was a preexisting divine being who became a man. In contrast, the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) present an exaltation Christology. In this view Jesus was a man who was later elevated to the status of the Son of God. Sometimes these contrasting views are called high Christology (as in from above for incarnation Christology) and low Christology (as in from below for exaltation Christology).
The synpoptics, consistent with exaltation Christology, emphasize the humanity of Jesus. The fourth Gospel, John, was written much later than the synoptics, possibly as late as 90-100 CE. John emphasizes the divinity of Jesus. Which nature, human or divine, predominated during Jesus' life was a subject of controversy within the early church. In 325 CE the First Council of Nicea attempted to reconcile these views by declaring that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine.
Jewish ideas about the Messiah bear little resemblance to the Christology of the early church. The Jewish Messiah was to be a descendant of David who would usher in a period of peace and gather the scattered Israelites back to their home land. The suffering Messiah was not a Jewish idea, but rather an early Christian idea that developed out of necessity, because Jesus' death did not fit into the Messianic expectation of the Jews. More information about the Jewish Messiah can be found in this article.
The death of Jesus created a quandary for his followers. How could Jesus die if he was the Messiah, and how could he die if he was without sin? The belief that Jesus was resurrected and that his sufferings were not for his own sins, but for the sins of others, helped to resolve these issues in the early church. These ideas did not appear all at once, but were developed over time beginning in the first century with Paul and the Gospel writers and continuing through the fourth century when the early church councils decided which first-century writings to canonize.
When trying to research the Christology of the Book of Mormon I have run into a problem. Most everything that comes up when I search for "Book of Mormon Christology" does not truly discuss Book of Mormon Christology. Most of the information I found discusses Mormon Christology as held by the current church, not the Christology of the Book of Mormon specifically. These are not the same because Mormon theology evolved throughout the life of Joseph Smith. Because I could not find any analyses that limited themselves to the Book of Mormon, I will present my own by analyzing two key passages from the early part of the Book of Mormon that were supposed to have been written between 600 and 592 BCE. The first one is from 1 Nephi 11:16-18.
And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things. And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.The above quote is from the modern Book of Mormon. The first edition of the Book of Mormon contained the phrase "mother of God" rather than "mother of the Son of God." The term "condescension of God" seems to imply an incarnation Christology as first developed by Paul and elaborated by John in the first century. The phrase "mother of God" from the first edition also implies incarnation Christology. The second passage is from 1 Nephi 11:32-33.
And it came to pass that the angel spake unto me again, saying: Look! And I looked and beheld the Lamb of God, that he was taken by the people; yea, the Son of the everlasting God was judged of the world; and I saw and bear record. And I, Nephi, saw that he was lifted up upon the cross and slain for the sins of the world.Once again there is difference between the modern edition and the first edition. The first edition contained "everlasting God" rather than "Son of the everlasting God." This passage emphasizes both the divine nature and human nature of Jesus by calling him the everlasting God and showing that he had the capacity to die. Ideas that reconcile these two natures did not appear until 325 CE as discussed earlier. Furthermore, the idea that Jesus died for the sins of others was not developed until the writings of Paul. It was not a concept held by the Jews at all prior to the beginning of Christianity. The expounding of these ideas in the Book of Mormon by a supposed Jewish author of 600 BCE is anachronistic.
The usual apologetic response to this and other anachronisms is that Book of Mormon authors received these ideas through direct revelation. However, there are no precedents for such elaborate ideas suddenly springing into existence completely out of cultural context. Records from the old world clearly show the historical development of Christological ideas beginning in the first century, and these ideas make no sense in the context of ancient Jewish culture rather than first century Christian culture. The apologetic argument strikes me as too convenient to be plausible. Of course, the Christology of the Book of Mormon makes perfect sense within the context of the 19th century, which adds yet another strand to the many lines of evidence supporting the hypothesis that the Book of Mormon originated in the 19th century rather than anciently as the Mormon Church claims.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Part 16 - Occam's Razor
Rather than presenting additional arguments about the historicity of the Book of Mormon, in this post I want to summarize the arguments made so far (as well as arguments I intend to develop in future posts) and explain more about how their accumulated weight makes the case against the Book of Mormon very solid. I have hinted at and skirted around this issue at the end of some previous posts, but in this post I want to make this point much more explicit.
This is closely related to Occam's Razor, a philosophical position which prefers simple models with few assumptions over complex models with many assumptions given equal explanatory power of the two models in question. Complex models are not necessarily untrue, but adding complexity without increasing explanatory power makes a model much less useful and less likely to be an accurate representation of reality.
We can look at two competing hypotheses and examine them in terms of the simplicity and probability of the model. Hypothesis one is that the Book of Mormon is a 19th-century creation written by Joseph Smith rather than a record of actual ancient Americans. Hypothesis two is that Book of Mormon is a genuine record written by ancient Americans and translated by Joseph Smith prior to its publication in 1830.
All the evidence I have presented so far in these posts supports hypothesis one. This does not absolutely prove hypothesis one, but the preponderance of the evidence definitely seems to favor it. To support hypothesis two, believers typically appeal to faith and claim that the evidence is not important. Apologist also claim that the evidence is not important or not convincing, but they do it with arguments rather than statements of faith.
In order to show that the Book of Mormon is an actual historical record of ancient America, apologists need to answer the following questions relative to the Book of Mormon time period.
One of the arguments believers put forward is that God purposefully withholds or hides evidence in order to test our faith. This is really no argument at all but an excuse to explain the lack of evidence. My former bishop said something like "Why would God make it that easy? That would make faith unnecessary." My bishop's appeal to the necessity of faith was an unquestioned assumption that was conditioned into him through his religious upbringing. When viewed from a skeptical vantage point outside the religion it makes no sense at all except as a control mechanism to keep members compliant through ignorance. The idea that faith is more important than evidence amounts to a tacit admission that the evidence does not fall in your favor.
Believers in Book of Mormon historicity also appeal to the idea that "you can't prove a negative" and "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." While these ideas are technically correct, they can be taken to absurd extremes. Bertrand Russell used an analogy of a teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars to explain this point. You cannot prove that this teapot does not exist. Space is too vast to look in every possible location. However, most reasonable people would agree that there is no good reason to believe in this teapot and that the burden of proof would be on those who claim its existence. Such is the case with the Book of Mormon. Book of Mormon historicity is an extraordinary claim and and the burden of proof should be on the one making this extraordinary claim. It would never be accepted by a skeptic without ample evidence to back up the claim. There is ample evidence, but it decidedly falls against Book of Mormon historicity.
The term "proof" can be somewhat misleading in this context. Very little outside of mathematics can be definitely proven. In mathematics a valid proof can demonstrate with certainty that a conclusion is true given that the premises are true. However, even mathematics has to start with unproven assumptions. In the much more complex world of historical analysis it is a matter of probabilities rather than definite proof. Believers may take comfort in the small degree of uncertainty in the skeptic's position, but this still leaves them with an extraordinary claim and virtually no evidence to support it.
In these posts so far, I have shown that multiple converging lines of evidence refute the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that there are 20 different pieces of independent evidence, any one of which, if true, is sufficient to disprove the Book of Mormon. To be generous, we will grant each apologetic refutation a 50/50 chance of being valid. The overall probability can be determined by multiplying each individual probability. With 20 different pieces of evidence we multiply 0.5 with itself 20 times, or raise it to the 20th power. This comes out to approximately 0.000001 or 1 chance in a million that the Book of Mormon is historical. Of course this depends on the specific independent evidence, but it illustrates the dramatic effect of multiple lines of corroborating evidence. In actual practice I would not give each apologetic explanation a 50/50 chance so I believe the actual probability of Book of Mormon historicity is even lower.
The problem with the theory of the trickster God that my former bishop espouses is that it leaves you completely in the dark. How do we decide what to exercise faith in? Without any evidence to support specific claims, why would we particularly choose Mormonism rather than one of the many other belief systems competing for our faith? Science, logic, reason, and evidence may be imperfect, but they are all we really have. Anything else is a random throw of the dice.
This is closely related to Occam's Razor, a philosophical position which prefers simple models with few assumptions over complex models with many assumptions given equal explanatory power of the two models in question. Complex models are not necessarily untrue, but adding complexity without increasing explanatory power makes a model much less useful and less likely to be an accurate representation of reality.
We can look at two competing hypotheses and examine them in terms of the simplicity and probability of the model. Hypothesis one is that the Book of Mormon is a 19th-century creation written by Joseph Smith rather than a record of actual ancient Americans. Hypothesis two is that Book of Mormon is a genuine record written by ancient Americans and translated by Joseph Smith prior to its publication in 1830.
All the evidence I have presented so far in these posts supports hypothesis one. This does not absolutely prove hypothesis one, but the preponderance of the evidence definitely seems to favor it. To support hypothesis two, believers typically appeal to faith and claim that the evidence is not important. Apologist also claim that the evidence is not important or not convincing, but they do it with arguments rather than statements of faith.
In order to show that the Book of Mormon is an actual historical record of ancient America, apologists need to answer the following questions relative to the Book of Mormon time period.
- Why have no horse fossils been found?
- Why have no metal artifacts matching Book of Mormon descriptions been found?
- Why have no Egyptian-like inscriptions been found?
- Why is there no overlap between plants and animals mentioned in the Book of Mormon and those known to exist in ancient America?
- Why have no Semitic markers been found in Native American DNA?
- Why have no Nephite coins been found?
- Why does the Book of Mormon contain quotes from the King James version of the bible?
- Why does the Book of Mormon contain a mature Christology that was not fully developed until the fourth century?
- Why are there no linguistic markers in Native American languages that show a relationship to Hebrew?
- Why does the Book of Mormon contain so many early American ideas such as democracy and freedom of religion?
- Why is the Book of Mormon so wordy when space on the plates was scarce?
- Why are the characters in the Book of Mormon so poorly developed and unbelievable as real people?
- Why were the natives not decimated with disease when the Nephites arrived?
- Why did Nephite technology not spread to other parts of the Americas?
- Why is there no evidence for the huge final battle in which at least 230,000 Nephites were killed?
One of the arguments believers put forward is that God purposefully withholds or hides evidence in order to test our faith. This is really no argument at all but an excuse to explain the lack of evidence. My former bishop said something like "Why would God make it that easy? That would make faith unnecessary." My bishop's appeal to the necessity of faith was an unquestioned assumption that was conditioned into him through his religious upbringing. When viewed from a skeptical vantage point outside the religion it makes no sense at all except as a control mechanism to keep members compliant through ignorance. The idea that faith is more important than evidence amounts to a tacit admission that the evidence does not fall in your favor.
Believers in Book of Mormon historicity also appeal to the idea that "you can't prove a negative" and "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." While these ideas are technically correct, they can be taken to absurd extremes. Bertrand Russell used an analogy of a teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars to explain this point. You cannot prove that this teapot does not exist. Space is too vast to look in every possible location. However, most reasonable people would agree that there is no good reason to believe in this teapot and that the burden of proof would be on those who claim its existence. Such is the case with the Book of Mormon. Book of Mormon historicity is an extraordinary claim and and the burden of proof should be on the one making this extraordinary claim. It would never be accepted by a skeptic without ample evidence to back up the claim. There is ample evidence, but it decidedly falls against Book of Mormon historicity.
The term "proof" can be somewhat misleading in this context. Very little outside of mathematics can be definitely proven. In mathematics a valid proof can demonstrate with certainty that a conclusion is true given that the premises are true. However, even mathematics has to start with unproven assumptions. In the much more complex world of historical analysis it is a matter of probabilities rather than definite proof. Believers may take comfort in the small degree of uncertainty in the skeptic's position, but this still leaves them with an extraordinary claim and virtually no evidence to support it.
In these posts so far, I have shown that multiple converging lines of evidence refute the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that there are 20 different pieces of independent evidence, any one of which, if true, is sufficient to disprove the Book of Mormon. To be generous, we will grant each apologetic refutation a 50/50 chance of being valid. The overall probability can be determined by multiplying each individual probability. With 20 different pieces of evidence we multiply 0.5 with itself 20 times, or raise it to the 20th power. This comes out to approximately 0.000001 or 1 chance in a million that the Book of Mormon is historical. Of course this depends on the specific independent evidence, but it illustrates the dramatic effect of multiple lines of corroborating evidence. In actual practice I would not give each apologetic explanation a 50/50 chance so I believe the actual probability of Book of Mormon historicity is even lower.
The problem with the theory of the trickster God that my former bishop espouses is that it leaves you completely in the dark. How do we decide what to exercise faith in? Without any evidence to support specific claims, why would we particularly choose Mormonism rather than one of the many other belief systems competing for our faith? Science, logic, reason, and evidence may be imperfect, but they are all we really have. Anything else is a random throw of the dice.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Part 15 - Deutero Isaiah
Biblical scholars agree that the Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament was written by at least 2 and possibly 3 different authors. According to Wikipedia, chapters 1-39 where written by the original historical Isaiah, sometimes called Proto-Isaiah. Chapters 40-55 were written by an anonymous author during the Jewish exile to Babylon sometime between 597 and 538 BCE, who scholars call Deutero-Isaiah. Chapters 56-66 were written even later by a post-exile author sometimes referred to as Trito-Isaiah.
Evidence for multiple authorship includes the absence of the name "Isaiah" from the text after chapter 39 and references to historical events in the past tense that are known to take place during and after the Babylonian exile. There is broad scholarly consensus on this multiple authorship theory. More details can be found here.
The relevance of this is that the Book of Mormon quotes extensively from the Book of Isaiah. Material quoted from Proto-Isaiah includes the entire chapters 2-14 and 29. Material from Deutero-Isaiah includes the entire chapters 48-54. The Book of Mormon contains many other shorter passages and paraphrases from the Book of Isaiah. A more comprehensive listing can be found in this article posted on BYU's website.
According to the Book of Mormon narrative, these extensive quotations were possible because Lehi's band carried with them brass plates that were engraved with many writings that would be included in the Hebrew Bible including the Book of Isaiah. The problem is that not all of the writings from the Book of Isaiah could have been written by the time Lehi left Jerusalem in 600 BCE. This is one of many anachronisms found in the Book of Mormon.
The Deutero-Isaiah problem in the Book of Mormon is dealt with extensively by Marc Schindler in this article on the fairmormon.org website. Schindler does an excellent job of presenting the problem. However, as a believer, he argues that it is not really a problem. His main argument is that that the chapters in question were written as prophecies in which the style is often to speak of future events as if they have already happened. Schindler provides a number of other arguments for the unity of Isaiah that seem to have been cherry-picked from fringe scholarship.
My main objection to Schindler is that he is assuming the conclusion because of his heavy investment in maintaining belief in the Book of Mormon. The scholarly consensus was arrived at without regard to how it affected the case for or against the Book of Mormon. Most biblical scholars are probably not even aware of the contents of the Book of Mormon. Consequently, I trust the objectivity of their conclusions much more than Schindler's.
I find it interesting that Schindler never suggests that Nephi may have received the Deutero-Isaiah passages through direct, independent revelation. This suggests that he believes that the unity of Isaiah is much more plausible. In my last post I discussed the inclusion of the writings of Paul in the Book of Mormon. For that case, the anachronism is so extreme that direct, independent revelation must be employed as a hypothesis to explain it. If it could happen with Paul, why not with Isaiah? This seems to amount to a tacit admission that the direct, independent revelation hypothesis is a very weak argument to be avoided if at all possible.
Apologists do not present a single, coherent theory of Book of Mormon historicity, but their point-by-point refutations of the critics' various arguments are not self consistent. On the other hand the picture of ancient America presented by archeological, linguistic, cultural, and DNA evidence is extremely consistent. Nevertheless, many believers can be satisfied with apologetics because they generally only have one question at a time, do not see the big picture, and are highly motivated to maintain belief at all costs.
Evidence for multiple authorship includes the absence of the name "Isaiah" from the text after chapter 39 and references to historical events in the past tense that are known to take place during and after the Babylonian exile. There is broad scholarly consensus on this multiple authorship theory. More details can be found here.
The relevance of this is that the Book of Mormon quotes extensively from the Book of Isaiah. Material quoted from Proto-Isaiah includes the entire chapters 2-14 and 29. Material from Deutero-Isaiah includes the entire chapters 48-54. The Book of Mormon contains many other shorter passages and paraphrases from the Book of Isaiah. A more comprehensive listing can be found in this article posted on BYU's website.
According to the Book of Mormon narrative, these extensive quotations were possible because Lehi's band carried with them brass plates that were engraved with many writings that would be included in the Hebrew Bible including the Book of Isaiah. The problem is that not all of the writings from the Book of Isaiah could have been written by the time Lehi left Jerusalem in 600 BCE. This is one of many anachronisms found in the Book of Mormon.
The Deutero-Isaiah problem in the Book of Mormon is dealt with extensively by Marc Schindler in this article on the fairmormon.org website. Schindler does an excellent job of presenting the problem. However, as a believer, he argues that it is not really a problem. His main argument is that that the chapters in question were written as prophecies in which the style is often to speak of future events as if they have already happened. Schindler provides a number of other arguments for the unity of Isaiah that seem to have been cherry-picked from fringe scholarship.
My main objection to Schindler is that he is assuming the conclusion because of his heavy investment in maintaining belief in the Book of Mormon. The scholarly consensus was arrived at without regard to how it affected the case for or against the Book of Mormon. Most biblical scholars are probably not even aware of the contents of the Book of Mormon. Consequently, I trust the objectivity of their conclusions much more than Schindler's.
I find it interesting that Schindler never suggests that Nephi may have received the Deutero-Isaiah passages through direct, independent revelation. This suggests that he believes that the unity of Isaiah is much more plausible. In my last post I discussed the inclusion of the writings of Paul in the Book of Mormon. For that case, the anachronism is so extreme that direct, independent revelation must be employed as a hypothesis to explain it. If it could happen with Paul, why not with Isaiah? This seems to amount to a tacit admission that the direct, independent revelation hypothesis is a very weak argument to be avoided if at all possible.
Apologists do not present a single, coherent theory of Book of Mormon historicity, but their point-by-point refutations of the critics' various arguments are not self consistent. On the other hand the picture of ancient America presented by archeological, linguistic, cultural, and DNA evidence is extremely consistent. Nevertheless, many believers can be satisfied with apologetics because they generally only have one question at a time, do not see the big picture, and are highly motivated to maintain belief at all costs.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Part 14 - Moroni and Paul
Some of my previous posts have focused on the lack of any corroborating external evidence that supports the Book of Mormon as a genuine ancient historical document. This post focuses more on the text itself. Recall from a previous post introducing apologetics that evidence for or against the Book of Mormon can be divided into external and internal with internal further subdivided into textual and ethnographic (cultural).
A curious aspect of the Book of Mormon that has bedeviled apologists is its use of King James English, and its frequent direct and indirect quotations and paraphrases of the King James version of the Bible. The following two passages illustrate this connection. The first passage is from Moroni 7:45-47.
Apologetic responses present two possible explanations for Moroni quoting Paul when he could not have possibly had the words of Paul. One is that Moroni received the same words as Paul through revelation. The problem with this explanation is that Paul wrote in Greek and Moroni wrote in reformed Egyptian (whatever that is) and spoke some variant of Hebrew. How did these ideas originally written in such different languages come to be translated into almost identical King James English? That leads to the second explanation. Joseph Smith saw ideas expressed that were similar to Paul's and chose the wording to be like the words of Paul in King James English, with which he was intimately familiar. These explanations are not mutually exclusive. Moroni may have received the same ideas as Paul through revelation while Joseph Smith chose the wording to nearly match the King James version of the Bible.
I have issues with both of these apologetic explanations. First, we have no other examples where two authors separated by time and space with no knowledge of each other independently wrote something so closely related. If revelation worked this way we should see other examples. Secondly, the idea that Joseph Smith translated ideas very loosely by choosing wording familiar to him from other sources contradicts other apologetic explanations requiring a tighter, or more word for word translation. Apologists use these loose vs. tight translation models at their convenience when they should stick with one or the other. I will explore this idea further in future posts.
There is a far more plausible explanation for why Moroni quotes Paul than anything the apologists have come up with: the Book of Mormon is a 19th-Century creation. Whether it was written by Joseph Smith, someone else, or multiple authors, the features of the Book of Mormon that match the King James version of the Bible are easily explained by admitting that it is a 19th-Century creation rather than a translation of an ancient record. If we employ Occam's Razor, this is the explanation we will choose because it is by far the simplest since we do not have to assume unprecedented, almost magical abilities on the part of the ancient authors involved.
A curious aspect of the Book of Mormon that has bedeviled apologists is its use of King James English, and its frequent direct and indirect quotations and paraphrases of the King James version of the Bible. The following two passages illustrate this connection. The first passage is from Moroni 7:45-47.
45 And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.The above passage strongly resembles the following passage from 1 Corinthians 15:4-8. Some of the phrases are identical, while there are some slight differences.
46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.
So what is the problem with these passages? The first passage was supposed to have been written by Moroni, the last surviving Nephite prophet. The Nephites left Jerusalem around 600 BC and had no contact with the old world once they arrived in America. According to the Book of Mormon, Moroni wrote his version around 420 AD. According to biblical scholars, Paul wrote First Corinthians about 55 AD. Moroni could not have had access to the words of Paul. How did he then quote Paul?
Apologetic responses present two possible explanations for Moroni quoting Paul when he could not have possibly had the words of Paul. One is that Moroni received the same words as Paul through revelation. The problem with this explanation is that Paul wrote in Greek and Moroni wrote in reformed Egyptian (whatever that is) and spoke some variant of Hebrew. How did these ideas originally written in such different languages come to be translated into almost identical King James English? That leads to the second explanation. Joseph Smith saw ideas expressed that were similar to Paul's and chose the wording to be like the words of Paul in King James English, with which he was intimately familiar. These explanations are not mutually exclusive. Moroni may have received the same ideas as Paul through revelation while Joseph Smith chose the wording to nearly match the King James version of the Bible.
I have issues with both of these apologetic explanations. First, we have no other examples where two authors separated by time and space with no knowledge of each other independently wrote something so closely related. If revelation worked this way we should see other examples. Secondly, the idea that Joseph Smith translated ideas very loosely by choosing wording familiar to him from other sources contradicts other apologetic explanations requiring a tighter, or more word for word translation. Apologists use these loose vs. tight translation models at their convenience when they should stick with one or the other. I will explore this idea further in future posts.
There is a far more plausible explanation for why Moroni quotes Paul than anything the apologists have come up with: the Book of Mormon is a 19th-Century creation. Whether it was written by Joseph Smith, someone else, or multiple authors, the features of the Book of Mormon that match the King James version of the Bible are easily explained by admitting that it is a 19th-Century creation rather than a translation of an ancient record. If we employ Occam's Razor, this is the explanation we will choose because it is by far the simplest since we do not have to assume unprecedented, almost magical abilities on the part of the ancient authors involved.
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