Literal BoM?

I also wanted to add some comments. I had an interesting conversation with Jim Vun Cannon, counselor in First Presidency of the Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, based in Independence, Missouri. They are a breakoff of the RLDS Church. Their prophet is Fred Larson, a great grandson of Joseph Smith. They were upset when the RLDS Church gave women the priesthood in 1984, and formed their own church in 2000. It was interesting to talk to Jim and hear his testimony of the Book of Mormon.

The one thing that held me so true was the Book of Mormon. It carried the same spirit as the Bible. In fact it carried a stronger spirit I believe in many ways than the Bible. What I mean by that was that I could pick up just about any page in the Book of Mormon and read it and you just felt the spirit wash over you. I didn’t always get that out of maybe Deuteronomy or Leviticus perhaps. That’s not being fair but that’s basically it.

He also said,

We believe that it is an absolute literal history. We believe that there were Lamanites and Nephites and Jacobites and Josephites and all the different –ites that were here upon the land. Obviously there’s a good debate on where they really were exactly for North and South America and so forth, and where maybe in North America and so forth. But yes we do believe that it was a literal people that were here.

I mentioned that I thought most LDS people believe it is a literal history, but few in the Community of Christ believe it is literal. I talked with John Hamer, who will be ordained a Seventy in the CoC in October, as well as Lachlan MacKay, a CoC apostle. The both don’t believe in a literal BoM. I asked Lach how many apostles believed the BoM was non-literal, and he said he hadn’t asked, but suspected most of them believed it was non-literal. I was just curious what opinions were here. Do you find value in the BoM, literal or not?

We are an unorthodox sampling compared to most members. Most members certainly hold the book as literal and that is the church’s official stance on it. It will be interesting to see if that changes to at least officially allow for a space where it’s ok to not believe in a literal book, be open about that, and still be a member in good standing.

The more I study about the Book of Mormon, the more I see it as so thoroughly a 19th century piece of literature to be anything but that. As this happens, I am finding less personal value in the book. It’s hard for me to find as much meaning in a book that claims to be something it’s not, especially when the prophet who brought forth that book also claimed it was something it wasn’t. If it had been brought forth as non-literal scripture that would be one thing, but it was brought forth as a literal historical scripture, and I just don’t find that stance to be tenable anymore.

I know others see it differently and I respect and understand those viewpoints as well.

I answered ‘yes’, but I would say it’s a little more nuanced than that. The fact of the matter is that it doesn’t really matter what is literal, what is exaggerated, and what is purely allegorical. The geography in particular is pretty vague and inconsistent, making room for three major theories on where the Nephite civilization was, each with their own problems. It may have drifted over time as well, potentially making all three theories true in some sense. It can still be “true” without being purely literal, if only for the doctrine it teaches so plainly. I can definitely say I think it is far more literal than the Bible since it was curated with inspiration.

I don’t think the Nephites/Lamanites, Mulekites, and Jaredites were the only three groups of people who came to the Americas; they’re just the only ones we have records of. Plenty of people would have come to the Americas before and after, eventually apostatized, and fallen into decline. It’s quite likely that many of the other peoples who came to the Americas mixed with everyone else- significantly muddying the waters on genetics and anthropology- and they would tend to be lumped in with the Lamanites. BoM-esque settling in the Americas may have continued to around 1000 AD without being noticed, though I suspect it stopped around 600 AD or so, at the latest, due to how things line up with the Great Apostasy (which I suspect was a literal global apostasy).

I am not sure, since there are aspects of the book that I think are astounding in their implications and would have been hard to include intentionally. 1 Nephi and Ether, particularly, are quite amazing in multiple ways. It also is almost eerie in its applicability in some ways to the world stage right now.

I currently like the idea of the BofM as midrash. It’s kind of the best of both worlds.