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(Drafting a paragraph for the Book of Mormon page)

Historical Authenticity

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Main article: Historicity of the Book of Mormon
See also: Criticism of the Book of Mormon, Archaeology and the Book of Mormon, Genetics and the Book of Mormon, Linguistics and the Book of Mormon, Origin of the Book of Mormon, and Book of Mormon anachronisms

Mainstream archaeological, historical and scientific communities do not consider the Book of Mormon an ancient record of actual historical events.[1][2][3][4][5] Their skepticism tends to focus on four main areas:

Though there is a "lack of specific response to"[16] elements of the Book of Mormon that some Latter Day Saints identify as evidence of ancient origins, when mainstream scholars do examine such alleged parallels they typically deem them "mere chance based upon only superficial similarities".[17] One critic has dubbed such apologetic scholarship an example of parallelomania.[18][19]

Despite this, most adherents of the Latter Day Saint movement consider the Book of Mormon to generally be historically authentic.[20][21][3][22] Within the Latter Day Saint movement there are several apologetic groups and scholars that seek to answer challenges to Book of Mormon historicity in various ways.[23][24] Most Book of Mormon apologetics is done by Latter-day Saints,[25] and the most active and well-known apologetic groups have been the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS; now defunct) and FAIR (Faithful Answers, Informed Response; formerly FairMormon), both comprised of lay Latter-day Saints.[26][27] Some apologetics aim to reconcile, refute, or dismiss criticisms of Book of Mormon historicity.[28] For example, in response to linguistics and genetics rendering long-popular hemispheric models of Book of Mormon geography impossible, many apologists posit Book of Mormon peoples could have dwelled in a limited geographical region while indigenous peoples of other descents occupied the rest of the Americas.[29][30] To account for anachronisms, apologists often suggest Smith's translation assigned familiar terms to unfamiliar ideas.[31] Other apologetics strive to "affirmatively advocat[e]" historicity[32] by identifying parallels between the Book of Mormon and antiquity, such as the presence of several complex chiasmi,[33][34] a literary form used in ancient Hebrew poetry and in the Old Testament.[35][36]

In an article for the Ensign, the LDS Church's official magazine, apologist Daniel C. Peterson contended "much modern evidence supports" the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon,[37] and literature promoting Book of Mormon historicity has influenced some Latter-day Saint views.[38] Nevertheless, Mormons who affirm Book of Mormon historicity are not universally persuaded by apologetic work,[39] and some claim historicity more modestly, such as Richard Bushman's statement that "I read the Book of Mormon as informed Christians read the Bible. As I read, I know the arguments against the book’s historicity, but I can’t help feeling that the words are true and the events happened. I believe it in the face of many questions."[40]

In response to challenges to the Book of Mormon's historicity,[41] some denominations and adherents of the Latter Day Saint movement consider the Book of Mormon a work of inspired fiction akin to pseudepigrapha that constitutes scripture by revealing true doctrine about God, similar to a common interpretation of the biblical Book of Job.[20][42][43][44] Many in Community of Christ hold this view,[25] and "Opinions about the Book of Mormon range from both ends of the spectrum" among members while the leadership takes no official position on Book of Mormon historicity.[45][46] Some Latter-day Saints consider the Book of Mormon fictional, though this view is marginal in the community at large.[47] Church leaders and apologists frequently contend "what is most fundamentally at stake in historicity is not the book’s status as scripture but Joseph Smith’s claims to prophetic authority."[48]

A few scholars propose considering the Book of Mormon an ancient and translated source text appended with modern pseudepigraphic expansions from Smith.[49][50][51][52] Proponents hold that this model can simultaneously account for ancient literary artifacts and nineteenth-century influence in the Book of Mormon. However, the interpretation faces criticism "on multiple fronts" for either conceding too much to skepticism or for being more convoluted than straightforward historicism or unhistoricism.[49]

Influenced by continental philosophy, a handful of academics argue for "rethink[ing] the terms of the historicity debates" by understanding the Book of Mormon not as historical or unhistorical (either factual or fictional) but as nonhistorical (existing outside history).[53][54][55][56][57] Most prominently, James E. Faulconer contends that both skeptical and affirmative approaches to Book of Mormon historicity make the same Enlightenment-derived assumptions about scripture as representative of external reality, and he argues a more appropriate approach might adopt a premodern understanding of scripture as capable of divinely ordering, rather than simply depicting, reality.[58][59][60]

References

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  1. ^ Southerton 2004, p. xv. "Anthropologists and archaeologists, including some Mormons and former Mormons, have discovered little to support the existence of [Book of Mormon] civilizations. Over a period of 150 years, as scholars have seriously studied Native American cultures and prehistory, evidence of a Christian civilization in the Americas has eluded the specialists... These [Mesoamerican] cultures lack any trace of Hebrew or Egyptian writing, metallurgy, or the Old World domesticated animals and plants described in the Book of Mormon."
  2. ^ Custer, Jay F. (1993). "Reviewed work: Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory, Stephen Williams". American Antiquity. 58 (2): 372–373 – via CambridgeCore.
  3. ^ a b Duffy, John-Charles (October 2008). "Mapping Book of Mormon Historicity Debates Part I: A Guide for the Overwhelmed" (PDF). Sunstone: 36–62.
  4. ^ Coe, Michael D. (Summer 1973). "Mormons and Archaeology: An Outside View". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 8 (2): 41–48.
  5. ^ The exceptions are several Latter-day Saint organizations that sponsor historical and archeological research, such as FAIR (Faithful Answers, Informed Response), the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (now defunct), Brigham Young University, and the Interpreter Foundation; and some journals operated by Latter-day Saints, such as the FARMS Review (prior to being renamed the Mormon Studies Review and pivoting away from apologetics) and Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. Cyrus H. Gordon may also be of interest as a non-Mormon biblical archaeologist who argued for pre-Columbian Semitic contact with the Americas, though his claims were never to the extent of the Book of Mormon's and remained marginal in his field.
  6. ^ Citing the lack of specific New World geographic locations to search, Michael D. Coe, a prominent Mesoamerican archaeologist and Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Yale University, wrote, "As far as I know there is not one professionally trained archaeologist, who is not a Mormon, who sees any scientific justification for believing [the historicity of The Book of Mormon], and I would like to state that there are quite a few Mormon archaeologists who join this group." See Coe (1973, pp. 42).
  7. ^ Duffy 2008, p. 45–46. "By the turn of the twentieth century, with anthropology and archaeology more firmly established as disciplines, it became apparent that evidence was lacking for the presence in ancient America of some technologies, crops, and animals named in the Book of Mormon."
  8. ^ 1 Nephi 18:25
  9. ^ a b c 1 Nephi 18:25
  10. ^ 1 Nephi 18:25 Smithsonian Institution statement on the Book of Mormon paragraph 4 Archived May 20, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ Ether 9:19
  12. ^ 1 Nephi 4:9
  13. ^ Alma 18:9
  14. ^ Duffy 2008, p. 46. "As early as the 1920s, skeptics pointed out that the diversity of Native American languages could not have developed from a single origin in the time frame the Book of Mormon requires."
  15. ^ Southerton 2004, p. 191. One popular traditional view of the Book of Mormon suggested that Native Americans were principally the descendants of an Israelite migration around 600 BC. However, DNA evidence shows no Near Eastern component in the Native American genetic make-up. " ...[T]he DNA lineages of Central America resemble those of other Native American tribes throughout the two continents. Over 99 percent of the lineages found among native groups from this region are clearly of Asian descent. Modern and ancient DNA samples tested from among the Maya generally fall into the major founding lineage classes... The Mayan Empire has been regarded by Mormons to be the closest to the people of the Book of Mormon because its people were literate and culturally sophisticated. However, leading New World anthropologists, including those specializing in the region, have found the Maya to be similarly related to Asians." Defenders of the book's historical authenticity suggest that the Book of Mormon does not disallow for other groups of people to have contributed to the genetic make-up of Native Americans (Duffy, 2008, 41, 48), and in 2006, the church changed its introduction to the official LDS edition of the Book of Mormon to allow for a greater diversity of ancestry of Native Americans ("Book of Mormon and DNA Evidence").
  16. ^ "That allegation may help explain the lack of specific response to orthodox scholars' work: if one believes the work is fatally flawed methodologically, no further rebuttal seems to be needed." Duffy (2008, p. 52).
  17. ^ Coe 1973, p. 44. For example, referring to M. Wells Jakeman's analysis of Stela 5 at Izapa, "[n]on-Mormon archaeologists are more likely to view Jakeman's twenty so-called 'correspondences in main features' and eighty-two 'detailed agreements or similarities' as a matter of mere chance based upon only superficial similarities.
  18. ^ Salmon, Douglas F. (Summer 2000). "Parallelomania and the Study of Latter-day Scripture: Confirmation, Coincidence, or the Collective Unconscious?". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 33 (2): 129–155.
  19. ^ Duffy 2008, p. 52. "Douglas Salmon has charged [Hugh] Nibley with 'parallelomania': selecting parallels that serve his argument and ignoring those that don’t, overlooking alternative explanations for parallels, even misrepresenting sources. Less sweeping in their criticism than Salmon, orthodox scholars Kent Jackson and William Hamblin nevertheless voice similar reservations about Nibley’s work . . . Salmon implies that his criticism of Nibley is applicable to the many others who draw 'endless parallels' between the ancient Near East and the Book of Mormon . . . Skeptics such as Edward Ashment and Brent Metcalfe accuse apologists of hunting up evidence to support predetermined conclusions. That allegation may help explain the lack of specific response to orthodox scholars' work: if one believes the work is fatally flawed methodologically, no further rebuttal seems to be needed."
  20. ^ a b Southerton 2004, p. 201. "Some of the [Community of Christ]'s senior leadership consider the Book of Mormon to be inspired historical fiction. For leaders of the Utah church [LDS], this is still out of the question. [The leadership], and most Mormons, believe that the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon is what shores up Joseph Smith's prophetic calling and the divine authenticity of the Utah church."
  21. ^ Welch, Rosalynde; Park, Benjamin E. (December 15, 2014). "From Benjamin Park: A Statement Regarding a Recent Review Essay". Times & Seasons. Retrieved April 12, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  22. ^ Hardy, Grant (2009). Skousen, Royal (ed.). The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. x. ISBN 9780300142181. "Latter-day Saints believe their scripture to be history, written by ancient prophets"{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  23. ^ Duffy 2008, p. 48. "Orthodox scholars routinely acknowledge that faith in the authenticity of the Book of Mormon must ultimately rest on personal testimony. But apologists also insist on the value of marshalling evidence to demonstrate the rationality of belief in historicity."
  24. ^ Bushman 2005, p. 93. ". . . they accumulate evidence, but admit belief in the Book of Mormon requires faith."
  25. ^ a b Duffy 2008, p. 41. "...during the 1960s, intellectuals in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints... began to question Book of Mormon historicity as a result of absorbing historical-critical biblical scholarship and liberal Protestant theology... today’s Community of Christ has retreated farther from historicity than has the LDS Church."
  26. ^ Duffy 2008, pp. 41–42.
  27. ^ Peterson, Daniel C. (2010). "An Unapologetic Apology for Apologetics". The FARMS Review. 22 (2): ix–xlix – via BYU ScholarsArchive.
  28. ^ Peterson 2010, p. xxxiv. "I like to call the corresponding form of apologetics 'negative apologetics,' meaning . . . its task is the negatively defined one of rebuttal and defense."
  29. ^ Duffy 2008, pp. 41, 48. "Apologists reply that these arguments do not invalidate Book of Mormon historicity, only a hemispheric scenario for Book of Mormon history."
  30. ^ "Book of Mormon and DNA Studies". Gospel Topics Essays. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. January 2014. Archived from the original on March 31, 2021. Retrieved May 21, 2021.
  31. ^ Duffy 2008, p. 45. "Apologists' . . . response to anachronisms is to argue that Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon may apply familiar words to unfamiliar but comparable items. 'Cimeter' may refer to some other, loosely similar weapon; 'flocks' may refer to turkeys or dogs; 'horses' may refer to deer. Apologists note that reapplying familiar names has historical precedent: it was done by the Spanish conquistadors as well as by the King James translators, who anachronistically used the word 'steel' to refer to other kinds of metal."
  32. ^ Peterson 2010, pp. xxxiv–xxxv. "I contrast [negative apologetics] with what I term 'positive apologetics,' the constructive effort of affirmatively advocating the claims of the Restoration," i.e. the religious claims of the LDS Church, of which Peterson is a member.
  33. ^ Duffy 2008, p. 51. "One of the most popular has been chiasmus, a stylistic feature of the Hebrew Bible which John Welch first identified in the Book of Mormon while a missionary in the 1960s. Welch was particularly impressed to find that the entire chapter of Alma 36 is a complex, extended chiasm".
  34. ^ Welch, John W. (1982). "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon". Book of Mormon Authorship: New Light on Ancient Origins. Provo: Religious Studies Center. pp. 33–52. ISBN 0-8849-4469-7. Archived from the original on May 18, 2021.
  35. ^ Lissner, Patricia Ann (January 15, 2008). Chi-Thinking: Chiasmus and Cognition (PDF) (PhD). University of Maryland. "Chiastic formulations, many in expanded, elaborate series, pervade the Old and New Testaments".
  36. ^ Breck, John (1994). The Shape of Biblical Language: Chiasmus in the Scriptures and Beyond. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press. ISBN 9780881411393.
  37. ^ Peterson, Daniel C. (January 2000), "Mounting Evidence for the Book of Mormon", Ensign
  38. ^ Duffy 2008, p. 42. "Thanks to the Internet, the number of Saints engaged in written apologetics, and the size of their audience, has grown. Thus the DNA controversy has done much to privilege a limited Book of Mormon geography within the Church, over the more fundamentalistic understandings of earlier authorities such as Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie."
  39. ^ Duffy 2008, p. 57. "However, this historical development should not entirely eclipse the fact that LDS thinking about Book of Mormon historicity has been, and continues to be, diverse. Granted that revisionists constitute a stigmatized and evidently very small minority, who differ among themselves in their understanding of the book’s status as scripture. But even Latter-day Saints who accept historicity hold differing views regarding how accurately or transparently the Book of Mormon reports the ancient past or to what extent the translation process may have allowed Joseph Smith’s nineteenth-century ideas to be incorporated into the text."
  40. ^ Bushman, Richard Lyman (2018). "Finding the Right Words: Speaking Faith in Secular Times". Annual Report 2016–2017 (PDF). Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. pp. 10–14.
  41. ^ McMurray, W. Grant, "They 'Shall Blossom as the Rose': Native Americans and the Dream of Zion," an address delivered February 17, 2001, cofchrist.org.
  42. ^ Duffy 2008, pp. 54–55. See the graphic on page 55 for the direct comparison to the Book of Job.
  43. ^ Moore, Richard G. (Spring 2014). "LDS Misconceptions About the Community of Christ" (PDF). Mormon Historical Studies. 15 (1): 1–23.
  44. ^ Launius, Roger D. (Winter 2006b). "Is Joseph Smith Relevant to the Community of Christ?". Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 39 (4): 58–67.
  45. ^ Moore 2014, p. 14. "Opinions about the Book of Mormon range from both ends of the spectrum within Community of Christ membership, each church member being welcome to have his or her own beliefs. Community of Christ leadership takes no official position on the historicity of the Book of Mormon."
  46. ^ Though Roger D. Launius, a historian and member of Community of Christ, contended in 2006, "I know of no one in the leadership of the Community of Christ who accepts the Book of Mormon as a work of history, even if they view it as scripture. Of course, some rank and file members still accept it as such." See Launius (2006b, pp. 61).
  47. ^ Duffy 2008, pp. 54–57. "However, this historical development should not entirely eclipse the fact that LDS thinking about Book of Mormon historicity has been, and continues to be, diverse. Granted that revisionists constitute a stigmatized and evidently very small minority, who differ among themselves in their understanding of the book’s status as scripture."
  48. ^ Duffy 2008, pp. 42, 54. "Meanwhile, Church leaders have solidified their commitment to Book of Mormon historicity by reviving official discourse about the Book of Mormon as evidence of the Restoration, which had declined during the 1980s and 1990s" and "William Hamblin contends that revisionists who insist that the Book of Mormon doesn’t have to be ancient to be the word of God are missing the point, since what is most fundamentally at stake in historicity is not the book’s status as scripture but Joseph Smith’s claims to prophetic authority."
  49. ^ a b Duffy 2008, p. 53. "The most discussed version of 'Yes and no' is Blake Ostler’s modern expansion theory (but see [Robert A.] Rees 2002 for another version of this position). Cite error: The named reference "FOOTNOTEDuffy200853" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  50. ^ Douglas, Alex (2014). "David E. Bokovoy. Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis–Deuteronomy. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2014". Studies in the Bible and Antiquity. 8: 229–238. "The same could be said of Bokovoy’s treatment of the Book of Mormon as a modern expansion of an ancient source." (237){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  51. ^ Ostler, Blake T. (Spring 1987). "The Book of Mormon as a Modern Expansion of an Ancient Source" (PDF). Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. 20 (1): 66–123.
  52. ^ Bokovoy, David E. (2014). Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis-Deuteronomy. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books. ISBN 9781589585881.
  53. ^ Duffy (2008, p. 53). "To complicate matters further, a handful of authors have recently used postmodern theories to entirely rethink the terms of the historicity debates."
  54. ^ Welch, Rosalynde Frandsen (2014). "Joseph M. Spencer. An Other Testament: On Typology. Salem, OR: Salt Press, 2012". Journal of Book of Mormon Studies. 24: 206–216 – via BYU ScholarsArchive. "[Joseph M. Spencer] brings a new set of critical ideas to bear on the text, ideas adopted from the contemporary Continental philosophy in which he is trained."{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  55. ^ Faulconer, James E. (2001). "Scripture as Incarnation". In Hoskisson, Paul Y. (ed.). Historicity and the Latter-day Saint Scriptures. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center. pp. 17–62. ISBN 1-5773-4928-8.
  56. ^ Spencer, Joseph M. (2016). An Other Testament: On Typology (2 ed.). Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. ISBN 978-0-8425-2869-6 – via BYU ScholarsArchive. First edition was published in 2012 by the now-defunct Salt Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  57. ^ Jones, Kile A. (July–August 2009). "Analytic versus Continental Philosophy". Philosophy Now. 74. In recent times postmodernism has emerged as a dominant strand of continental philosophy.
  58. ^ Duffy (2008, p. 57). "[James] Faulconer maintains that modern readers, whether apologists or skeptics, assume that the scriptures are historical, or literally true, if they refer to objectively real events, the truth of which can be assessed by evidence outside the scriptures themselves . . . However, premodern (pre-Renaissance) readers did not make this separation between historical events and the scriptural account of those events. From a premodern point of view, Faulconer argues, the only access to literal, historical truth was the scriptures themselves because they reveal the truth of events as God understands them."
  59. ^ Though Faulconer does still believe scriptures, including the Book of Mormon, "tell about events that actually happened. They are about real people and real events" and that to understand scriptures otherwise would "reduce the premodern understanding of history to a modern view, to one that denies the historicity of scripture by taking scripture to refer to a transcendent, nonhistorical reality by means of only seemingly historical stories." Emphasis in original, see Faulconer (2001).
  60. ^ Joseph M. Spencer likewise argues the Book of Mormon "must be subtracted from the dichotomy of the historical/unhistorical because the faithful reader testifies that the events—rather than the history—recorded in the book not only took place, but are of infinite, typological importance. . . . as Alma makes clear, it is the Book of Mormon that calls the historicity of the individual into question." Emphasis in original, see Spencer (2016, p. 28).
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