I have recently been researching the geography options of the book. Given I have lived in Ohio for a number of years, I had developed a partiality toward the Great Lakes geography. Recently, as I prayerfully pondered the complexities, the thought came strongly to me that these geography considerations are a distraction. What was reinforced to me was that the message in the book was the important aspect.

Since I have carried with me for a number of years a strong testimony of the inspired contents of the BoM, I had, perhaps naively, assumed that there was a clear historical component to the book. I have weakened somewhat on that.

God has used symbols in many of his messages to man. Lehi’s Dream is a good example. I would softly align that with the idea of the book as a parable. Would I be happy to see the geography clarified through further research? Yes. Would it effect my life significantly if the book were provided as a symbol of man’s ability to receive revelation? Likely not, for the message of the book is, in my mind, anchored to the simple message of “come unto Me.”

I enjoyed Bruce’s link to the Sunday School class lesson experience. I agree that there is a lot of doctrinal and spiritual food in the BoM that we sometimes discount. I am reminded of Elder’s Maxwell’s characterization of the BoM as a great mansion with many rooms. Some people, like hurried tourists, quickly scan the various compartments and hurry on their way. Others linger, slowly moving room to room, to absorb the richness of each rooms decorations. Such is my approach; I no longer act like a sightseer.

The Book of Mormon, regardless of it’s origins, remains a constant reminder that there is a higher plane to which I strive.

“Some things, I believe, are always going to be matters of faith in mortality”

No argument here…

Having said that, some things that are a matter of faith today may become knoweldge tomorrow and some things may just need to go away, period.

Just to clarify, my understanding of God was developed we’ll before that movie came out. Some of my previous posts here will bear that out. Interesting though, that an LDS writer would seem to support my view…

On the subject I was discussing with bookslinger and Ray, about scientific evidence. I found another LDS author who would seem to recognize my point about having to face up to certain truths once enough evidence is uncovered. In the June 2007 Ensign, Elder Robert Wood makes a point of stating that sometimes even “basic truths” get over come with additional scientific evidence. His point was dealing with scientific truths, but in reality the world of religion has been revising its beliefs for thousands of years to conform with new scientific evidence as well.
Last year I made a similar statement and I still believe it has merit… (see #5)

http://mormonmatters.org/2007/11/09/episode-17-book-of-mormon-introduction-lamanites-and-native-americans/#comments

Bill, good one (#78}. You did get me to crack open and read my BOM, which I confess was probably only the second time this week.

Korihor’s philosophy (which I largely share) was never given a fair hearing in the book of mormon. I guess my lesson from the book of mormon is that I must really know that there is a god, but that I’m just possessed with a lying spirit.

Thanks for your interest in my posting! I didn’t really know if anyone actually read that long thing…

To your point, this obviously goes to the core of how each of us perceives God. As a belief in God is actually a very personal thing and also a work of faith by every definition I know about, I don’t pretend to say I “know” what He would or would not do. So this is now a matter of faith and my faith perceives God as the ultimate loving force in the Universe with no hidden agendas. I guess I see Him as completely accepting of who I am without judgment. I believe those that choose to live with Him in the next life will need to be just like that themselves.

So why does God withhold information from us and the rest of mankind, as you’ve used in your examples? The answer is very simple for me, because when it’s all said and done, knowing the answers to questions of where I came from and what heaven’s going to be like are not relevant to us here in the present. I suspect they’re not even in the realm of our finite minds ability to understand. Rather than present something we can’t understand, I think he chooses to focus us more on what is actually important. (The two great commandments. Everything else is man-made by people who want to provide you all the answers, or sell you something.) He can do that by working within all of our hearts to find the good and inspire us to love one another.

In some ways, organized religion is the enemy to this plan. It attempts to set strict standards of do’s and don’ts with lots of meaningless works that don’t help anyone. It creates an atmosphere of judgmentalness for adherence to the do’s, avoiding the don’ts, and allows some to look at their neighbor and say with conviction, “because you don’t believe in _____________ (fill in the blank), you’ll never be accepted in heaven”.

Rigel, I don’t know if I actually answered your question to me or not, but thanks for letting me describe my own personal belief in God. Of course, mine is the correct one…I’m just certain of it…:)

Good scripture Bill. The verse begins by talking of testimonies and ends by saying that the earth and the planets ‘witness’ that there is a Supreme Creator.

But Alma said unto him: Thou hast had signs enough; will ye tempt your God? Will ye say, Show unto me a sign, when ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.

It doesn’t seem to be a very effective argument for an antichrist until you read on and discover that Korihor always knew there was a God. At any rate, the evidence described is still testimonial, not scientific. The scriptures laid before him were also evidence.

Yes, that’s absolutely correct, Bruce. I apologize for (unintentionally) mischaracterizing your comment.

Well, Bill, I was going to protest, but then I realized that our logic here was no weaker then yours. So then I felt like there was no need. (Especially since it wasn’t a comparison between Mormons and other Christians.)

Fair enough. And I’m glad to hear that. (And with your further clarification, I feel it’s only fair to retract my comment. )

>>> The first one, however, doesn’t read that way.

I think Bookslinger should speak for himself what he meant. It’s possible he does believe God “removes evidence” or at leasts allows evidence to be removed or not found. I believe the last: he makes sure certain evidence is not found as to spoil the plan of salvation and faith.

But I see no reason to believe he thinks God places counter evidence to try faith. I still think you don’t have a good example here as per your original comment of people finding video taped proof that Jesus didn’t perform miracles and then avoiding that evidence by claiming there was a miracle to remove it to try their faith. I don’t see those as closely related at all.

Also, you need to be fair and admit that you misrepresented me. I said nothing about no faithful LDS person saying such a thing. I even admitted some do. I said I’ve never heard of someone on the bloggernacle (which I assume to be better educated over all in general) advocating a position similar to the example you used.

That’s the beauty of this, we can ask Bookslinger to clarify his personal views and we don’t have to act like scholars trying to parse out his words and then claim (with certainty ) that we know what he meant.

So Bookslinger, enlighten us as to your meaning. This is in reference to this comment from Nick and my follow up.

This business about ‘we aren’t any worse than the rest of Christianity’ is reall weak. This card seems to be played in dealing with race relations (’we weren’t any more racist than anyone else’), general apologetics (’our arguments aren’t any more absurd than the rest of christianity’), and historical issues (’there’s little evidence to support the book of mormon, but the bible has just as many historical issues’). This isn’t some comparison between us and everyone else–lets leave them out of it.

#70–”Since the plan of salvation requires that the evidence of God, heaven, pre-mortality, and the spirit world be deliberately hidden”

I’m not so sure that this is clearly required by the plan of salvation. The book of mormon seems to teach that ‘all things denote that there is a god’. Doesn’t sound like God went around hiding evidence.

In a significantly unenlightened age, all things DID denote there was a god. Science has provided much more reasonable explanations for most of these things, so these ‘proofs’ now seem somewhat empty.

As for the “Certainty” post, I must not have communicated very clearly with you there. The post was not, by any means, directed solely at certainty among the LDS. It was intended (and I thought, written) as a generalized statement about life, not a specific statement about LDS individuals.

I wanted to ask you about one of your comments, and hope you can help me see your point of view more clearly. I’m not trying to argue a counter-position here, although that could be assumed.

“First, if the God of miracles actually did deliberately hide the evidence from me…obviously he doesn’t want me to know. I guess my actual point here is that I can’t believe in the kind of God who would engage in that type of behavior.”

Since the plan of salvation requires that the evidence of God, heaven, pre-mortality, and the spirit world be deliberately hidden, what is it about the theoretical act of “deliberately hiding evidence” in this instance that is divergent enough from the overall plan to change one’s attitude toward God?

If one is assuming the motive of God can only be deception, there are other scriptural examples where one could attribute deception to the motive of God. How can one decide whether these acts have a motive of deception or follow a plan of opposition and agency?

If evidence is in fact “hidden”, wouldn’t, in fact, the deliberate nature of the “hiding” be the same whether it occurred by a natural disaster, epidemic, famine or whether it was direct concealment?

Judging the “behavior” of God is a tricky business. There are a number of conditions where individuals come to a decision that they can’t worship a God or belong to a church because of a set of circumstances. Assumptions about the motives or qualities of God are often involved. “How can a loving God let this happen?”, etc. The pain the individuals feel is immense and I could not begin to judge the course someone has taken because I have not felt the same pain. Nevertheless, I have to internally reconcile my decision to maintain my own belief in God or my continued activity in the church with awareness of those extremely difficult circumstances. I know individuals who have remained involved in church after losing a child to cancer, but am aware that they have been forever affected in a way that their course back to a testimony has not followed the same route. They have had to let go of some assumptions they had about God and acquire a reworking of their relationship with God.

I’ll let Bookslinger speak for himself on this. I am not seeing his post suggesting God plants counter evidence though. Also, although I don’t believe God hides evidence either, that isn’t the same as planting counter evidence to try faith. One is lack of evidence and the other is evidence against. Those are distinctly different issues. I was responding specifically to your example of a video type of Jesus not walking on water or positive proof that the miracles didn’t happen. That’s evidence against, not lack of evidence.

Also, he seems to be only making a comparision to the alternative of believing God inspired a fraudulent individual. It seems to me he might have been mocking the point of view that God plants counter evidence to try people’s faith. You have no right to read in more without asking him directly to clarify his point, so you shouldn’t be acting so certain yet.

>>> Remember this…

I’ll tell you what, Nick. I’ll give you credit for 1 believing Mormon on the bloggernacle out of hundreds on this *after* you get bookslinger to admit he wasn’t just making a comparision to illustrate his point, if you give me credit for the, oh, 20 or so post-Mormons (out of 20 or so) since your Certainty: Blessing or Curse? post that have proven you should not have only scolded believing Mormons on that front. (As per my comment to your post. Not that I think there is anything wrong with your post, btw. It was excellent. It just needed to be extended a bit broader.)

and…

For God to create “fake” plates for Joseph and the witnesses, and send an angel to tell Joseph falsehoods would be harder for me to swallow than believing God hid the archaelogical evidence of the Nephites, and miraculously changed Lamanite DNA to match that of Asians.

Argh….Okay, for those of you who’ve been following my comments on a couple OTHER threads in this blog, do you see what I mean? Remember this, when you tell me “no” faithful LDS think a certain way, okay folks?

Doug,

I’m not supposed to be posting… or even reading… but couldn’t resist to say thanks.

And yes, it must go both ways.

I once asked myself what level of scientific evidence would be required to “prove” the Book of Mormon non-historical if we assume a limited geography theory and assume the translation fit a modern expanasion/midrash/loose translation theory. Based on these two assumptions, it would be tough but not necessarily impossible to conceive a scientific disproof.

For example, (to use a SF example) if science allowed us at some future date to go back in time (or view back in time) and tag every person in the Americas and verify none of them were from the Book of Mormon, I’d imagine that would do it for me and I’d drop my beliefs in the Book of Mormon. (I also imagined doing the same with Jesus. Tagging every Jesus at the right time period that started a religious movement and then recording His life. Then of course following the flow of time to figure out which Jesus is the one the Bible is written about.)

But obviously, it’s hard to imagine science like this happening in my life time, or maybe ever, which is why I feel it’s difficult to imagine it ever actually becoming a real issue for someone that is believing on faith anyhow.

Ray, your point here is well taken. There has been a huge amount of work on the cultures and civilizations that existed here in the Americas for thousands of years. As these studies have been done in large part by scholars with no bias for or against the BoM, I believe the research is valid. What I was asking for above is just one of these type peer reviewed papers that has found any evidence of Judo-Christian culture in the new world before Columbus. (To most this would be huge news especially for Christians) I fully acknowledge that you don’t know what you don’t know and therefore why I agreed that there still is not a smoking gun against the historicity of the BoM. However, to make the leap of stating that the BoM can never be proved as a 19th century creation makes you as guilty as those who are “certain” that it is. Hence my point, it still could actually be a historical record, I just thing the probability is very low.

Bruce uses this logic many times in reverse and I’m learning from him. That’s a complement to you Bruce, as I think you make an excellent point with it. I’m just saying it goes both ways…

The “archaeology can’t disprove it” argument rests on the fact that the BofM doesn’t tell us where it happened. All we have are educated guesses when dealing with this hemisphere, but we could be off by an entire continent. That’s not trivial. There have been some interesting discoveries about ancient plates, however, that point toward the possibility of what Joseph claimed to have found.

Archaeological and geographic evidence can support the descriptions in 1 Nephi, however, since we are dealing with a known and limited space there. There have been some interesting discoveries in that area - some quite astounding discoveries when you consider that many of them simply could not have been known to Joseph at the time. Also, other stories similar to the Tree of Life add to the evidence for the small plates of Nephi.

The Jaredite record is critical, imo, for a discussion of this topic - and it is literally the oddest part of the entire book in many ways. It makes very little sense at first read to find it there, but, based on most modern discoveries, it seems to have been found and translated specifically to bolster certain findings now. The Jaredites appear to have been from the Asian continent, and they appear to have been the largest and most wide-spread civilization described in the BofM. DNA findings might require a change in assumptions about the Lamanites’ progeny, but they also open up a whole new door to consider the Jaredites’ descendants. In a truly ironic way, the principal ancestors of the American Indians might just be a people described in the BofM - just not the people everyone assumed when it was published. If that people mixed in any way with even only a few Lamanites, which happens all the time in history, then the new wording could be perfectly true, as well. That’s not a stretch - not when you look only at what the book actually says in light of how things are worded in the Bible and other historical records, as well. (the use of hyperbole to make a point and universal claims appearing to apply only to limited localities)

Linguistic evidence is fascinating, and for every “this obviously was Joseph’s language” example there is a “this obviously was not Joseph’s language” example. Those examples tend to make it much harder to disprove, especially when the actual translation method is understood as not “reading” the plates. In that limited sense, inspired fiction might be appropriate - if you mean that he was translating perceived meaning sometimes using his own words but don’t mean he “made it up”.

Finally, no serious scholar outside of Mormonism/anti-Mormonism has undertaken the kind of project that Nibley and groups like FAIR/FARMS have done. Nobody outside that paradigm really has cared enough to do it. Again, the archaeological effort could be useless - lacking any real clue as to exactly where it might have occurred - so why in the world would someone not emotionally attached to Mormonism even try?

As you said, we can agree to disagree. I just think the assumptions of what the book says should be laid aside, and we first should go back and lay out better what the book actually says.

I suspect what your really saying is that for some no amount of physical evidence is going to be enough to convince some believers that the book isn’t historical. Then again, there are some people who don’t believe we landed on the moon or that the world actually is round despite the scientific evidence.

The brethren recently changed the introduction to the BoM because of scientific evidence. (I’m making a guess here, but I don’t believe it was changed due to some revelation)

Let’s take a look at what I think your saying:

1. I don’t think there is a “beyond any shadow of doubt” in archaeological science. It’s a matter of guess-work based on interpreting incomplete evidence. Those who put faith in a monolithic “science” such as you implied, usually get overturned by later “science” or newer discoveries, or re-interpretation of old evidence necessitated by new discoveries.

I couldn’t disagree with you more in this point. Certainly there are unknowns, but archaeology, anthropology and linguistics have come a very long way… Much of what we enjoy today is the result of good science. If the scientific method was actually as unreliable as your suggesting, we’d still be in the dark ages.

2. I don’t think any “science” can prove such a negative, ie, that the BoM “can’t” be true. IE, absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. But the opposite is in fact true, that hundreds of tidbits have been discovered that lend _plausibility_ to the Book of Mormon.

This is getting to be a very old argument. Interestingly enough, only LDS scientist see anything plausible about the BoM. Am I wrong on this? Please reference me to any peer reviewed study from a university (not run by the church) that has found anything that even hints at the kind of civilization the BoM teaches about existing for over a thousand years in the Americas.

3. God being a God of miracles, He could have done any number of things to hide evidence. The extensive change in land mass described in 3rd Nephi: land sinking under water, and dry land emerging from previous water covered territory, could have done much to occlude whatever evidence there was. Moreover, so little of the American continent has been dug up and archaeologically explored, there’s no way anyone can rightfully claim all possibilities have been exhausted. Perhaps no divine intervention was needed. The erosion and decomposition of 16 centuries alone could have oblitered “evidence.” Or, the archealogical evidence is there covered over by 16 centuries of growth and layers of dirt waiting to be discovered.

First, if the God of miracles actually did deliberately hide the evidence from me, then he isn’t going to have any problem with me deciding it didn’t happen because obviously he doesn’t want me to know. I guess my actual point here is that I can’t believe in the kind of God who would engage in that type of behavior. Second, in response to your 3rd Nephi reference, I guess the 400 years of BoM culture and civilization after that verse is just very well hidden as well. Goes back to my first point…

“One grand mystery that I learned about in grade school was the Mound Builders. That subject was taught in Ohio in the 60’s and 70’s. As far as I know, we still don’t know who they were. “Science” hasn’t explained them yet, either.”

You should really do a little more research on the mound builders thing. Even Mormon apologists are backing away from this subject…

4. “Historical fiction” proponents have a problem explaining the 11 (8+3) witnesses, and Joseph Smith’s claims to have received face-to-face visits from Moroni, an actual participant in the Book of Mormon. For God to create “fake” plates for Joseph and the witnesses, and send an angel to tell Joseph falsehoods would be harder for me to swallow than believing God hid the archaelogical evidence of the Nephites, and miraculously changed Lamanite DNA to match that of Asians. If one throws out the historicity of the Book of Mormon, then Joseph Smith goes as well.

I don’t think we need to rehash stuff that has already been well covered here about the 11 witnesses. The whole second sight thing and not being literal is plenty of room for other conclusions about what they may or may not have seen. Fawn Brodie and Grant Palmer have made the story of the witnesses far less creditable than we have been led to believe in Sunday school.
Please show me where I ever said God created fake plates or that I thought Joseph ever saw anything literally. I’m actually with you on this point, as the God I believe in wouldn’t do that. When I say he wrote inspired fiction, I mean he could have had inspiration from God to teach a true principle. Go back and read my Paul H. Dunn post. He managed to pull off the same thing…

5. Your definition of faith (and perhaps your concept of testimony) is different from mine. Faith is not reserved for things that “can’t” be proven, but rather faith is a belief in something that hasn’t been proven or illustrated _yet_ to that individual. Faith is something that a person has before he has a knowledge of the thing. Faith should eventually lead to testimony, ie, a knowledge.

No…I’m sorry but that is not the definition of faith as I understand it. If you have knowledge, then you don’t have faith anymore. I read that somewhere in the BoM… I think it was the brother of Jared. Lack of faith is a dangerous thing…:)

6. Perhaps I don’t have faith in the historicity of the Book of Mormon. If so, I would have lost it when I left the church in 1987. But I had, and still have, a knowledge that it is true. I couldn’t seem to “unknow” that piece of information, even when I tried to disbelieve. I couldn’t talk myself into thinking that God didn’t tell me what he told me. I received a powerful testimony that Christ did indeed visit those people. I don’t see how I should allow a “lack of physical evidence” to dissuade me from that Spirit-borne testimony.

I can respect that…As I stated in my last post, I hope for your sake that it is true. Because if it ever gets proven not true then you’re really in trouble based on what you’ve said here.

7. One of the big problems I’ve seen as I’ve delved into apologetics in the bloggernacle, is that the questions of authenticity of the Book of Mormon, in the “can’t possibly be true” versus the “yes, it could” camps, is that the nay-sayers (and to some degree the true believers) both have read into the Book of Mormon things that aren’t necessarily there. And both sides likely have missed many things that are there.

I never said it can’t be true. I think the cards are stacked against it, but science is not to the point of saying they have the smoking gun that will kill it. Of course I believe that science can eventually uncover enough evidence to show it as a 19th century work. It doesn’t need to be proven false by archaeological evidence alone. What would happen if someone found a manuscript written in Sidney Rigdon’s handwriting or another author with proof that it was completed before 1829?

8. Back in my youth when I investigated others churches (which was years before I found the LDS church) one of my discoveries was how many Protestants discount the Bible, claim the events didn’t literally happen, explain it away, water it down, claim it says things it doesn’t say, claim that what it does say actually means something else, etc. So when I learned the phrase “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof”, I immediately had a mental picture of an example. This thing about reducing the Book of Mormon to inspired fiction seems to me to fit that pattern.

Ok, if that’s how you feel about it then you shouldn’t do it. For me, it’s better to consider it inspired fiction then the alternative. Of course I believe my assessment is correct and you believe yours is. We can agree to disagree… thanks for listening

Amen, and Amen.

“when science can prove beyond any shadow of doubt that there is no-way…”

1. I don’t think there is a “beyond any shadow of doubt” in archaeological science. It’s a matter of guess-work based on interpreting incomplete evidence. Those who put faith in a monolithic “science” such as you implied, usually get overturned by later “science” or newer discoveries, or re-interpretation of old evidence necessitated by new discoveries.

2. I don’t think any “science” can prove such a negative, ie, that the BoM “can’t” be true. IE, absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. But the opposite is in fact true, that hundreds of tidbits have been discovered that lend _plausibility_ to the Book of Mormon.

3. God being a God of miracles, He could have done any number of things to hide evidence. The extensive change in land mass described in 3rd Nephi: land sinking under water, and dry land emerging from previous water covered territory, could have done much to occlude whatever evidence there was. Moreover, so little of the American continent has been dug up and archaeologically explored, there’s no way anyone can rightfully claim all possibilities have been exhausted. Perhaps no divine intervention was needed. The erosion and decomposition of 16 centuries alone could have oblitered “evidence.” Or, the archealogical evidence is there covered over by 16 centuries of growth and layers of dirt waiting to be discovered.

One grand mystery that I learned about in grade school was the Mound Builders. That subject was taught in Ohio in the 60’s and 70’s. As far as I know, we still don’t know who they were. “Science” hasn’t explained them yet, either.

4. “Historical fiction” proponents have a problem explaining the 11 (8+3) witnesses, and Joseph Smith’s claims to have received face-to-face visits from Moroni, an actual participant in the Book of Mormon. For God to create “fake” plates for Joseph and the witnesses, and send an angel to tell Joseph falsehoods would be harder for me to swallow than believing God hid the archaelogical evidence of the Nephites, and miraculously changed Lamanite DNA to match that of Asians. If one throws out the historicity of the Book of Mormon, then Joseph Smith goes as well.

5. Your definition of faith (and perhaps your concept of testimony) is different from mine. Faith is not reserved for things that “can’t” be proven, but rather faith is a belief in something that hasn’t been proven or illustrated _yet_ to that individual. Faith is something that a person has before he has a knowledge of the thing. Faith should eventually lead to testimony, ie, a knowledge.

6. Perhaps I don’t have faith in the historicity of the Book of Mormon. If so, I would have lost it when I left the church in 1987. But I had, and still have, a knowledge that it is true. I couldn’t seem to “unknow” that piece of information, even when I tried to disbelieve. I couldn’t talk myself into thinking that God didn’t tell me what he told me. I received a powerful testimony that Christ did indeed visit those people. I don’t see how I should allow a “lack of physical evidence” to dissuade me from that Spirit-borne testimony.

7. One of the big problems I’ve seen as I’ve delved into apologetics in the bloggernacle, is that the questions of authenticity of the Book of Mormon, in the “can’t possibly be true” versus the “yes, it could” camps, is that the nay-sayers (and to some degree the true believers) both have read into the Book of Mormon things that aren’t necessarily there. And both sides likely have missed many things that are there.

8. Back in my youth when I investigated others churches (which was years before I found the LDS church) one of my discoveries was how many Protestants discount the Bible, claim the events didn’t literally happen, explain it away, water it down, claim it says things it doesn’t say, claim that what it does say actually means something else, etc. So when I learned the phrase “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof”, I immediately had a mental picture of an example. This thing about reducing the Book of Mormon to inspired fiction seems to me to fit that pattern.

Doug, if the historicity is one of those things that can’t be proved, how is your position any different than Bookslinger’s - based on your construction?

I believe you to be a good candidate for the point I was making in comment #54. With all your eggs in the basket of its being “historically true” you believe you have removed yourself from the slippery slope. First, I completely disagree with your thoughts on the matter and second, if the day comes (for many that day has already arrived) when science can prove beyond any shadow of doubt that there is no-way these people ever existed even in a limited geography model, you my friend will be the one on the slippery slope and I will still be here. That’s the problem with such conviction on tangible things (historicity) instead of faith in things (God) that can’t be proved and in my humble opinion the path to the actual slippery slope…

Having said that, I certainly respect your conviction and for your sake, I truly hope you are correct.

I believe it’s a real shame that no one can find these talks delivered by Elder Dunn anymore. Covenant Recordings made a small fortune selling his talks on cassette tape. It seems nearly impossible today to find any of these despite the numbers that were sold. As a member of the Quorum of the Seventy, he delivered many talks in conference as well. These talks should be available somewhere. I’ll do some research and see if I can find a link. I think it’s fair to say that he wouldn’t have been given all that time in conference if the brethren didn’t think his messages carried the spirit…

More to come…

It’s not just of divine origin, it’s divinely miraculous in and of itself. I put my thoughts in a post that got kind of flowery, but here it is.

I believe it is that important. My conclusion of that post is: Knowing that a book, just printed words on paper, can bring revelation, miracles and power, it should be no surprise that the Savior, the source of all light and energy in our universe, has as one of his titles “the Word.”

I’m confident that millions of people around the Earth are hungry for it, and don’t know what they are hungry for, or how to feed that hunger.

Somehow the Book of Mormon has a life/spirit of its own. I’m not sure how inanimate objects, such as a physical book, have a “spirit,” but there are many meanings to the word spirit as it relates to objects, places, concepts, ideas, emotions, desires, etc.

The Book of Mormon is not just alphabetic patterns of physical ink on physical paper; it documents, communicates, represents and embodies divine concepts, ideas, emotions, desires, etc. The “spirit” of those concepts/ideas/emotions etc, somehow gets infused in, associated with, or transfered to the physical compilation (the ink and paper) of the words.

The “spirit” of the book somehow (figuratively) “seeks out” people. President Benson said “the Book of Mormon is the great finder of the golden contact.” I concur that that is true, as I have witnessed and participated in that finding.

I disagree with those who relegate the Book of Mormon to “inspired fiction.” I think such people are doing to the Book of Mormon what mainstream Christians have often done to the Bible, dismissing or explaining away the truths and power therein. I think that people who call the BoM inspired fiction come dangerously close to “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof,” and though they may not actually remove the plain and precious parts, they are re-interpreting, second-guessing, dismissing and belittling such parts.

I think that relegating the Book of Mormon to the category of inspired fiction may be a step down a slippery slope that leads to dismissing it entirely.

As a youth listening to this story and watching a video showing the place where the events occurred, it triggered sensations of excitement within me. It was not the kind of feeling that, with maturity, I identified as a personal spiritual witness. I think this kind of sensationalism is different then the stories that Paul H. Dunn gave that were inspirational to Doug. How different, though, is a question that I still have.

My mother took the time to record and transcribe these stories and self-publish them in a book. I have a copy and I treasure these stories. My partner Mike and I have traveled down to southern Illinois and visited the homes and sites and graves more than once as a kind of pilgrimage.

There is no doubt that my great grandfather seriously embellished some of his tall tales. In some cases, we can track down the (contradictory) facts from other sources. However, for me, that’s not the point. Grandpa’s stories were artful as stories, not as history.

I’m certainly interested in history — and I’m interested in producing accurate, open, and honest history. But history is not what my great grandfather was producing. And that’s just fine.

Your point in #40 is articulated better than I ever do in these posts, but the thought is the same one I was trying to make by comparing Paul H. Dunn’s “parables”. Thanks for helping!

For those that didn’t know, Paul Dunn was probably the most popular General Authority in the 70’s for the youth of the church. His fireside talks were deeply spiritual to many of us as well as his general conference addresses. He excelled at teaching principles with inspiring stories from his life. When I first heard that most of his stories were either completely made up or greatly exaggerated, I refused to believe it because I felt the same spirit from those fireside meetings as I did reading King Benjamin’s talk in Mosiah. In many ways I’m still grateful to him as he showed me that “inspired fiction” can be just that, INSPIRED fiction.

Points made by others about the problems of believing the book is either historical or fraudulent, are right on the money. Just as Paul Dunn and all of us “true believers” had to accept, from overwhelming evidence, that he deliberately defrauded us and his fiction was indeed fiction. One day many of you may have to accept that the BoM is in reality just another work of inspired fiction. For me, I’ll still be here still practicing much of the good I have taken from my membership in the church without the baggage. But many of you will have moved on, perhaps indulging in Carlos’s things of the world that are just too tempting to resist once you know the truth. A fairly offensive comment but perhaps reality for him…

I was certain of that. Dang, it was funnier back when it was all on Nick’s post.

For better or for worse, certainty is not something I have in short supply. If that’s a curse, so be it.

Although I can testify that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Book of Mormon is not a literal history, I want to point out that I am not arguing that Mormons need to immediately accept that testimony

Certainty: Blessing or Curse?

My constructive criticism is that Mormons ought to keep believing that it (probably) is a history (inasmuch as they need to or can) while simultaneously opening themselves to the possibility that it is not. By adamantly rejecting the possibility that it is inspired but not history, people (in my view) are walking themselves out onto a ledge from which there is no getting down without falling.

Being open to an egress, without necessarily embracing it, is potentially faith-saving.

I’ll answer the questions that are applicable to me:

Do you limit your study of The Book of Mormon to only finding 19th century patterns now or are you open to finding unique eternal truths there for our day?

I am not personally interested in finding 19th century patterns in the Book of Mormon. I’m not looking for them at all.

However, I am very interested in finding truths in it that are applicable to Mormons in the 21st century. One of the most critical truths the Book of Mormon showed the 19th century Saints was that that heavens were not, in fact, closed — the canon was open. That lesson had nothing to do with the book’s content, just the existence of the book itself.

Likewise today, I believe that the Book of Mormon can teach 21st-century Saints what scripture is and what scripture is not. By being scripture and by not being a literal history, the Book of Mormon frees the Saints from the rigid constraints of scriptural fundamentalism — a way of thinking that plagues both Islamic fundamentalists and Christian evangelical fundamentalists.

Do you limit your study of The Book of Mormon to only what you need to do to fulfill a calling? (Like say preparing for lessons.)

I have a very expansion definition of “calling,” but I have no formal calling in any church organization. To my way of thinking, all of the time I spend considering the Book of Mormon falls under my personal calling.

Did coming to believe realize The Book of Mormon was only inspired fiction not a literal history cause you to reduce your efforts to study it in any way?

I’ve known this since my teenage years, so a before/after comparison is impossible. All of my adult study of the Book of Mormon has been informed by my understanding that it is not a literal history.

How about this:

If The Book of Mormon once taught you a message that had enriched your life, and if you possessed a firm testimony that it was inspired of God, but later you felt you learned its narrative had solely modern origins, how has this, in real life, affected your relationship with the Book of Mormon? (i.e. change in how or how much you study it or use it) Do you still continue to seek spiritual guidance from it? Do you still do it in the same manner before you decided it was a modern work?

It’s really just the removal of the Book of Mormon from the question I objected to. I’m fine with the above wording. People should decide for themselves if they choose to view it as “inspired”, “fraudlent”, “innocent mistake”, or what have you.

Nope, not the same question, I’m afraid. This would work for the Bible, but not the Book of Mormon. I’m looking for how people deal with the specific issues with the Book of Mormon. The ones you dealt with skillfully in your later posts.

However, I’d appreciate your input. If you can rephrase my questions so that they are more neutral without causing it to be a wholy different question, by all means. It would be nice to give people more options.

Thanks, Bruce. I do believe that this is a very important question. How about this?:

If a story from the scriptures taught a message that had enriched your life, and if you possessed a firm testimony that it was inspired of God, would you lose your testimony of that scripture if you later learned that its narrative did not describe a literal history of events? Would you cease to treasure that story and its lesson if you learned that the prophet who revealed that work of scripture was teaching through an elaborate parable?