- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
How do you all view the Book of Mormon? I like the Book of Mormon. It has in fact done what it was said to do — bring many to a knowledge of Christ. I find that it speaks to me on a spiritual level. I gain benefit from it, and I consider it “scripture.” To be accurate though, I think a lot of different writings are scripture. Scripture to me is something divinely inspired that expresses important messages. So I guess I can still say I have a testimony of the BoM, even though that doesn’t mean the same thing as it used to coming from me.
It seems very unlikely that Joseph Smith translated the BoM in the sense that we think of language translation. I also find it hard to fully accept that he made it all up. Yes, I know about all the possible sources available to him. It still seems fantastic and mystical in a way that he would have his head in a hat with a seer stone, receiving the words slowly while someone else wrote them down. I can sort of understand how the story of the translation morphed quickly by the early followers of Mormonism. It was not totally “kosher” for Joseph to have been involved in the folk magic activities. They were very common in his environment, but they were not always looked upon favorably. I don’t want to excuse the way it was portrayed for so long, but I do understand why the alternate stories were preferred and remembered.
Could he have been a well read, literary genius with a picture-perfect memory? Sure, I suppose so. Even if it was all fabricated, it still is a compelling story that was assembled in an amazing format. It is useful to talk of the characters in the BoM as if they were real people. I still think it’s possible that they existed somewhere. It is in the realm of the possibly, even if at times it seem unlikely. I hate to be sure of anything these days, including being sure that the BoM is
nota real historical record. I’m not going to base my practical use of the BoM on it being historical or not. I don’t do the same with the Bible. I would not do that with the Qur’an or any other holy book. I prefer to think of scripture as “useful.”
So if I were forced to pin myself down to a conclusion, I would say the Book of Mormon is revelation (divine fiction). It may be based on real people. That would be nice, but I am not going to depend on it. I’ve decided that doesn’t interfer with my use and enjoyment of the Book of Mormon. I can honestly say that I believe in the BoM and I consider it scripture. Those words just might mean different things to me now than they do to someone sitting next to me in Church on Sunday.
I view it as a revealed account of actual people – a (loose) “translation” of an actual record that might or might not have been recorded on the plates Joseph used as the catalyst for the translation. I don’t care one whit if the plates he used actually were an accurate historical record, just as I don’t care one whit if the Book of Abraham is an actual translation of the writing that inspired it. I believe he believed it (that it wasn’t a fraud), and I am convinced that it is inspired. (My mind wanders all the time when I am reading things, and some of my greatest and most inspired insights come almost as fully developed paragraphs that have little or nothing to do with the text I am reading. If that is true for me, I can understand and accept it happening in a more voluminous way for Joseph, whether or not the record he translated was on the plates that served as his prop or on other plates thousands of miles away and buried deep in the earth. I just don’t care, because I love the book itself so much.)
I also think it is and has been incredibly misunderstood. Ironically, I think one of the absolute strongest arguments for its validity is that it was so misunderstood by the early Church – and even by Joseph himself. If it had been a deliberate fraud, a typical author would have understood it better than Joseph did – wouldn’t have made cultural assumptions that simply didn’t fit the actual book. (For example, K Rowling and Stephanie Myers know exactly what they were creating and can talk in minute detail about their books. George Lucas is the same way with Star Wars.) There are lots of instances, however, where Joseph (and others of his day) made all kinds of assumptions about the record that simply aren’t justified by a careful parsing of the record itself. The book is abso-freakin-lutely complicated and intricate and astoundingly complex – and Joseph seemed to be almost oblivious to that fact. That, imo, is amazing – and a testimony that it didn’t originate from within his own mind.
I have very recently come to a nuanced conclusion that the Book of Mormon is not what it claims to be. The Book claims to be a translation from an ancient record handed down through generations and preserved to come forth in the latter-days. I tend to think along the lines of Anthony Hutchinson and others who believe the book comes from 19th century origins. Growing up in the church, one of the most common lines of defense was Joseph’s lack of formal education. This justified the believe that he could not have created the book with so little schooling. But I tend to think it shows Joseph’s genius. I believe he was able to create a very complex critic of 19th century Christianity, the bible, and American thought at the time. With that said, I don’t think the book should be discredited, because it is a book of scripture and has value for non-believers and believers alike.
The question I have though is this: If the bofm is in fact a 19th century creation, does that preclude it from being inspired by God?
cjonesy108 wrote:The question I have though is this: If the bofm is in fact a 19th century creation, does that preclude it from being inspired by God?
That’s the big point I come to exactly. I don’t know things for sure right now. I know that my experience from reading and putting ideas of the BofM into practice lead to positive results for me. It did what it said it would do. Beyond that, I don’t know. I have hopes and faith.
I think it could be a historical record. It’s possible. It just doesn’t seem to be what I was raised to think it was. It might not be the historical record of the Native American Indians.
Regardless of how or why it came into existence, my experience with it has been that it contains a divinely inspired message. I’m ok if I meet God someday, and He says “Joseph was a 19th century genius that I used to tell you this message. It worked pretty good. He did the job I needed done.”
I have no life changing experiences related to the Book of Mormon. I have read it through a few times with my husband and family. I do not have a testimony of it at all. What I do recall of the Book of Mormon are things that I do not like nor agree with. I do not like war and cutting off bodyparts. Too many questions to relate to it as THE TRUTH, right now. I am not prepared to seek confirmation once more of it’s truthfulness. I never have received confirmation and have spent years and years seeking. I have concluded that for me I will love and be loved and let the magic happen if and when it does. I know what you’re saying Monkey, there is a lot of war and killing in the Book of Mormon. It’s hard to see a valid spiritual message in a lot of that. One essay by Eugene England, “Thou Shalt Not Kill” (I don’t know the original publication but it’s in his book “Making Peace”) opened my eyes to new and wonderful lessons that are actually in the Book of Mormon. He relishes the account of the Lamanite pacifists in Alma 24 (he also mentions this account in other essays) and takes strides to demonstrate that the true lesson of the Book of Mormon – if you realize that war is unable to create lasting peace (I believe he says the BoM shows this) – is in harmony with the life of Jesus. The message of pure religion; charity, love, mercy – can be found in there, as it can be found in life when we look for it. I’m still looking, but I’m grateful when I find these messages that I feel are something solid to hold onto.
Please pardon this, but I am going to nit-pick a little bit simply to illustrate what I said earlier about the Book of Mormon being misunderstood. (it really is a bit nit-picky, but, as a dedicated parser I think it’s important, so please bear with the length.) I’m going to tackle two little statements, and I simply ask that those who wrote them understand what I am trying to say by quoting them: Quote:The Book claims to be a translation from an ancient record handed down through generations and preserved to come forth in the latter-days.
A) No, it doesn’t – at least in any way that would be accepted by linguists and historians as a translation. Joseph Smith claimed the book was a translation, but he didn’t even attempt to claim that it was a translation in the classic sense of how that word is used almost universally by others. The most striking example of this is the fact that his dictation method not long into the process wouldn’t be considered “translating” by anyone who saw it. If we really look at how it came to be, it was the result of an on-going “vision”, not a translation. Frankly, I think it only was called a translation because Joseph really believed the words he was seeing were an accurate representation of what was on the plates – and because the idea of a visionary account would have been even easier for the world to dismiss as not really an accurate historical account recorded by ancient prophets.
Some people talk of it as being “inspired fiction”, but I prefer to think of it as “inspired non-fiction”. I have never experienced that to the extent that I believe Joseph did in this instance, but I have had experiences that I would classify without hesitation as having produced inspired “non-fiction” – particularly in three instances with a Priesthood blessing that lasted MUCH longer and included way more specific detail of the past and future than I possibly could have known on my own. I literally “saw with my mind’s eye” what I should say, and, in each case, what I saw actually did happen or was confirmed to have happened. I have had a couple of similar experiences where I suddenly understood details of someone’s past that they hadn’t shared with me – and I could have written a short story about those details that would have been accurate enough to be classified as non-fiction.
So, the book itself simply claims to be a record of an ancient people. Nothing more, nothing less. The book itself makes NO claim about how it would be brought to light, other than that it would be by the power of God. (That is critically important. The book itself does not say exactly how it would be “translated”.) That leaves many, many possibilities open – including a very loose definition of translation that could include exactly what Joseph did, no matter whether or not the actual plates he used (and then didn’t use) contained the record itself.
Quote:I think it could be a historical record. It’s possible. It just doesn’t seem to be what I was raised to think it was. It might not be the historical record of the Native American Indians.
A) The book itself never makes that claim.
I personally believed something similar to the limited geography model LONG before I ever heard that phrase, and I also believe that we have absolutely no idea where it occurred in the Americas. None whatsoever. (I think the research into the Old World location is compelling, but not the New World research.) I also believed that the “principle ancestors” phrase was wrong at a very early age. ( I think the Jaredites might be the principle genealogical ancestors, and that they were Asiatic, so I believe the most recent DNA research actually comes close to validating the Book of Mormon [and I believed the Jaredite connection long before I knew of the DNA controversy] – but that is for another discussion.)
So, just because it isn’t what members assumed it was doesn’t mean it isn’t what it actually claims to be.
Honestly, I have never encountered an actual claim within the pages themselves that I believe is demonstrably false. There are numerous assumptions of people on both sides of the validity debate that I think are incorrect, lame, ludicrous and even frightening – but there’s no actual claim of the book itself that I have found to be indefensible or preposterous. Over the decades I have been reading it, otoh, there are numerous things that have snapped my head back and made me realize I had misunderstood it previously.
Old-Timer wrote:So, just because it isn’t what members assumed it was doesn’t mean it isn’t what it actually claims to be.
That’s what I meant about it not being what I thought, and this is an important point. I was raised to think of it in a certain way. I think Joseph Smith and early Church members thought that way too. They thought the Native Americans were the Lamanites. They could be wrong about that, and it doesn’t affect the purposes of the BofM.
It’s yet another example of something miraculous and mystical happening, and then people make assumptions about meaning leading off that experience that may or may not be correct. Making a wrong assumption about meaning doesn’t invalidate the mystical experience (make it not “true”). It also does not make the people liars or insincere. It just means they may have been wrong. I’m wrong all the time
We can definitely get into a lot of semantic wrangling with the Book of Mormon. I think foremost among those semantic challenges is the word translation. I think growing up we all saw the pic of Joseph with the gold plates on the table as he dictates to his scribe. I’m assuming all of us know that artistic rendition, however well intentioned, is a false depiction of reality. I think it has probably caused some detrimental effects in perpetuating those inaccuracies.
But the Book does clearly make claims of authenticity and ancient origin. Mormon’s title page states it’s “an account written by the hand of Mormon upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi.” The introduction states the book was written by many ancient prophets by the spirit of prophecy and revelation.”
While Joseph did not use the plates in a literal sense while translating, he did believe a tangible product was necessary. (whether the plates he had and often carried were authentic is perhaps another question for another time).
The tangibleness of the record has always served an important function for the church — both then and now. But if the ancient record hid up by the Lord and delivered to Joseph was never actually used, why the painstaking process and sacrifice to actually have a record? Nephi kills Laban for the plates, and for 1000 years there were strict instructions for its preservation. Enos prays for the plates to reach his ancestors. Moroni hids them up with the promise of their eventual benefit in the latter-days.
This is a topic that is very personal to me. I agree with all of the comments here, even though many are contradictory. When I was in college, I went through the BOM and wrote down all the things I didn’t believe, disliked about it, thought were just laughable, etc. I kept these in a journal. I really had no belief that it was an ancient record or that it was even very worthwhile. But when I re-read Lehi’s dream, my perspective suddenly shifted. I realized that I had had a very similar dream that I would not have recognized as a “Lehi’s dream” parallel because it was modern (for example, the great and spacious building looked like a parking garage–also, there were elements of Lehi’s dream not included in my dream and no tree of life). Then I thought, maybe I’m just not reading what’s actually on the page. Maybe what I think is laughably bad is just me remembering other people’s perspectives and not what it says. To Ray’s point, separating what others think the BOM is and what it actually is are two completely different things. I decided I was going to pray about it, like we have always been told, despite the fact that I was still convinced that it was laughable. There were so many flaws, so many things I didn’t like (many of which are listed by others above). When I prayed, I had an answer that I won’t deny. I actually got up and checked to see if the window was open or if someone had come into the apartment because I felt like rushing oxygen filled my lungs, as if I could breathe for the first time. I can question what that answer meant exactly, but I very clearly had an answer in a way that I understood it that I should not dismiss it and that it was good. That was a personal experience. I don’t necessarily think everyone has or needs that kind of answer, nor that it means that Zelph was really a Nephite
I agree with Ray that JS didn’t really seem to “get” the BOM, which argues against his own authorship. There are other elements that make it seem like a 19th c. record as well as things that don’t. The BoA as a 19th c. document can be argued pretty persuasively, too. Can a 19th c. document be inspired? Absolutely! Hopefully, so can documents written today.
The illustration of translation is misleading, especially when contrasted with D&C 9, which is much more like a “translation” that takes place entirely in the mind (maybe even including elements of wishful thinking) vs. using the plates themselves (note that it doesn’t mention any use of the physical plates–but humans are not wired to notice omissions).
cjonesy108, I should have made my own perspective clearer. I personally believe Joseph’s account – that the plates Moroni showed Joseph were the actual plates he had buried. I understand the difficulties others have with that belief, but I do believe it. All I was saying is that it doesn’t have to be that way for the Book of Mormon to be a “true” record (an accurate account of what the earlier prophets actually wrote) – and Joseph didn’t have to be “reading” the plates (or even seeing them physically) in order to “translate” them. As I said, there are all kinds of ways for it to be inspired and of God – even if I personally believe the account Joseph recorded. Fwiw, one of the reasons I have no problem accepting the plates as having been buried in New York (no matter where the people lived and even if the final battle happened as far away as the southernmost regions of South America), is that Moroni’s time line says he was alone with the plates for over 30 years. In that time, he could have circumnavigated the entire earth to get to New York. It’s just one of the small details that fits the overall picture so perfectly.
My appraoch to the BOM is that it is a 19th century production and that it is a window into the inner struggles of JS . Like most of the people here I believe it is inspired and sacred in some way , as I think anything that gives us a portal in to a human soul is . I have always found it hard to believe that it was a history of the ancient america’s even as a missionary I was a little embarrassed about teaching this point. I am still trying to figure out what camp I belong to, i’m not sure if JS believed the BOM to be ancient or if he simply saw the value in using mythology to teach gospel principals , neither would suprise me all that much . If the BOM people existed they did so only in JS’s subconscious IMO. I believe JS would tell stories of the ancient americans to his family long before the BOM , also I see stories like the tree of life being a adaptation of JS seniors dreams/visions. I see the Nephi character being a loose version of JS and the whole opening story in the BOM paralleling the life of JS to that point in his life . IN the BOM I see JS trying to work threw the great relgious concerns of his day .Further after reading View of the Hebrews and BH Roberts BOM studies I am convinced that View of the Hebrews served as source material for the BOM and that JS’s genius and creativity did the rest . I could go on but I hope that I have explained my position well enough. If I could believe the historicity if the BOM I would but I just can’t and the fact that all of the BOM defences I believed as a youth just haven’t stood up as I got older has been frustrating and heartbreaking to me. I still enjoy the BOM stories in some ways but I have to admit I have not got back to a place were the book spiritually feeds me as I would like it to . Maybe we can help eachother . Over time I have considered most of the questions around authorship, and have wondered if some of the views that Salo expresses might be the most rational. I have also entertained the question of Sidney Rigdon’s possible contribution. ( http://www.mormonstudies.com/criddle/rigdon.htm ) In some ways I agree that Joseph Smith could have never produced the entire book on his own. In other ways it’s easy to draw parallels from his life that Salo mentioned.Today I try to follow the words of Leonard Arrington “I don’t care one whit whether it’s historical or metaphorical” (he was
nottalking specifically about the BoM) “that it has relgious truth is all I care.” I try not to be attached to any conclusion around its historicity, I want to find the divine truths that exist in its pages and value it for that. Orson, your concluding paragraph is exactly my feeling. I believe what I believe (largely because it is what I want to believe), but, as I’ve said, there are all kinds of possibilities to which I am open ultimately. If one particular option helps someone else find the joy and strength and divine connection I have found in its pages, who am I to try to make them see it as I see it? I’m just not invested emotionally in being 100% “right” on the details. Orson, Where you saying you personally believe the Rigdon theory or were you just putting it out there ? What do you think are the main evidences that point towards it ? I think the Rigdon theory is a intresting one , Here’s some of my thoughts against it though , first the time lines don’t add up ( yes we can get around that one ) 2nd JS would go on to produce a whole pile of writings in his career but Rigdon did not , when I look at things like the BofA and the King Follet discourse it becomes apparent to me that JS wouldn’t have needed Rigdons help to produce the BOM. Further I figure if Rigdon did write it I think he would have claimed to have . He seems more the zealous follower of JS to me than the brains behind the scene with JS being the charismatic frontman . I think this theory is largely born out of the fact that some people don’t want anything good attributed to JS to them he can’t of been a genius even if it was a evil genius. Also the church has always said JS was to unschooled to have written the BOM alone so the Rigdon theory serves to play into that mindset. But I have already given my thoughts on that.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.