The Book of Mormon: A 20th Century Text

John Nilsson — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:00:02 +0000

There are many positions on which century the Book of Mormon originated in, but most seem to fall into two general camps: the book was largely produced in the fifth century by Moroni, or in the nineteenth century by Joseph Smith.

There is a third view: the text was largely produced in the 20^th century by committees of LDS Church employees.

Let me explain: when I say production, I mean the process of presenting, formatting, editing, shaping, and summarizing which goes along with creating a readable document for mass consumption. When I first read portions of the original and printer’s manuscripts of the Book of Mormon, I was struck by how differently the text read than the smooth twentieth century edition I was raised with.

The 1981 edition of the Book of Mormon was presided over by a committee of apostles including Thomas Monson (presumably for his professional background in printing) and Bruce McConkie and Boyd Packer (presumably for their doctrinal expertise). It is believed that the chapter summaries found in this edition of the Book of Mormon were written either solely or primarily by McConkie.

The 1981 edition is also the edition which has been most read by Mormons and non-Mormons, especially since President Benson’s push to flood the earth (or at least, thrift store bookshelves) with the Book of Mormon. Not many of us have the 1920 edition at hand or earlier versions. I remember my surprise when I compared my 1981 version’s rendition of “pure and delightsome” to refer to the Lamanites in 2 Nephi to my mom’s pre-1981 version of the same verse which read “white and delightsome.” Some twenty-odd major textual changes of this type were made to the 1981 edition, apparently by preferring the original manuscript to the printer’s.

Do you think a heavily edited production of the text (edited for spelling, grammar, punctuation, chapter summaries which highlight points of doctrine important to the editors, ) enhances respect for the text, and therefore increases the believability of, claims for historicity of the events depicted in the Book of Mormon? Or does it detract from the claims of historicity by seeming too clean, too “produced”?

Liberal Mormonism I: Diagnosis

John Nilsson — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:42:42 +0000

Let me be clear about a few things. First, I have been diagnosed as a liberal Mormon. Second, liberal Mormonism has been discussed before in the Bloggernacle, with one site devoted entirely to it. Third, I’m not talking about politics. Finally, this means some Mormons have problems with me.

I am talking about liberal Mormon theology. For me, this cannot be divorced from liberal Christian theology, just as conservative Mormon theology is influenced by conservative Christian theology.

Liberal Christian theology started with Friedrich Schleiermacher, a German who attempted to reconcile Protestantism with the Enlightenment. He emphasized the importance of the subjective human response to religion, rather than the objective truth claim of religion. An example of this would be the assertion that the freedom from anxiety that awareness of Christ’s sacrifice brings us as Christians is more existentially significant than which model of the Atonement is the most accurate or whether the Atonement occurred in exactly the way the Gospels attest.

This became one current in liberal theology, while the biblical critics of the 19^th and 20^th centuries would make objective investigation of the scriptures a central concern of liberal theology by investigating the authorship of the books of the Bible and by interpreting the texts within the circumstances in which they were written. An example of this would be scholarly findings that some of the raw material of the Pentateuch (serpents as powerful malevolent beings guarding trees of wisdom, a catastrophic flood, giants, ribs taken from men to form women, etc.) was adapted from Sumerian stories known to the Israelites from their captivity in Assyria (and later Babylon).

Given the subjective and objective premises of liberal Christian theology, what are the assumptions of liberal Mormon theology? Here are some of my suggestions:

Reason and evidence must have an appropriate influence on the formation and periodic revaluation of our religious beliefs.
Therefore, the well-established findings of the natural and social sciences, historical methodology, etc., all have things to tell us about Mormonism.
Questions of historicity are thus best decided by historians, anthropology by anthropologists, biology by biologists, and so forth.
Only a few narrowly defined truth claims can be considered binding on a Mormon in good standing. All others may be individually decided, since the subjective response to religion is more important than it’s objective truth, where it is more difficult to obtain clear information. Example: I am very certain that being a Mormon makes me a better and happier person, somewhat less certain that God exists, and least certain that God has a physical body with two hands and two feet.

Given the above:

Are liberal Mormons real Mormons?

Do you know any liberal Mormons?

Are liberal Mormons those with more questions than answers?

Discuss, my friends:

Mormon Matters » historicity

The Book of Mormon: A 20th Century Text

Liberal Mormonism I: Diagnosis