The following is a blog post originally posted on the churchistrue blog in 2016 following Tad Callister’s BYU devotional talk titled “The Book of Mormon man-made or God-given.” A year later in LDS General Conference, he gave this same presentation in shortened form. He published this as a book recently, and I see discussion about this quite regularly in social media lately, so it’s a good time to review this original post.
I am primarily a collator and aggregator of others who are producing original research and ideas. But this is a time I made a discovery in my own research. See the graphic above used as the featured image and the analysis of this midway through the article. I’d love to hear thoughts on this. Does this shed any light on the Book of Mormon translation process? Or could it be completely random?
I give my thoughts in this exchange in a private forum.
Another poster:
The linguistic similarities are too great to say “well Joseph was just swimming in the terminology of the day.”
Scholars would never say “the author of Matthew didn’t really have the Hebrew Scriptures open (and quoting from it) when writing his gospel. He was just using sermonic language from the synagogue.”
Linguists can be very confident in distinguishing the differences between some common cultural ideas and direct source borrowing.
Here, Alma 40 is direct source borrowing.
Why should those of us who believe keep beating around the bush? Let’s be open about what is happening in the text and then show how it still can be inspired. No reason to downplay Joseph’s use of sources.
My response:
I’m not totally sure. I’ve seen the concept of parallelomania at play so many times in these studies, that I’m skeptical of drawing too strong of a conclusion. That includes critical arguments like the Vernal Holley map or Comoros-Moroni or Late War similarities and also faithful arguments like Nahom and some of the other names in the BOM with ancient Hebrew or Egyptian ties. I’d like to hear what other faithful LDS say on this convergence. I see it more as an environmental thing. What I think is implausible is to imagine Alma’s letter to Corianton as being written before the New Testament and the subsequent centuries of debate over Christian theological concept which both Alma’s letter and the linked 1728 text are both responding to.
Tad Callister, former Seventy of the church, spoke at BYU for the devotional address this past Tuesday 11/1/2016. If you’ve read my blogs at all, you’re probably aware of two things. 1) I have a sometimes illogically fierce loyalty and devotion to the prophet, apostles and leaders of the LDS church 2) I love the Book of Mormon and testify it is the Word of God, yet I strongly come on the side of it not being an historical work. Brother Callister was released from the Quorum of the Seventy in 2014 and this talk was not given in general conference, but I still have some trepidation addressing this.
Before being called as a Seventy, Br. Callister worked as an attorney in California and published a couple popular LDS books: Infinite Atonement and The Inevitable Apostasy. I read Infinite Atonement and felt it was devotionally inspiring and did a good job theologically laying the logical framework for the LDS view of the atonement. But he doesn’t use a scholarly approach. He is using scripture interpretations and prior statements from LDS leaders. The Inevitable Apostasy, I was greatly disappointed in. In it, he built a very strong case for the traditional LDS narrative of the organization of Christ’s church and then falling away. But he did so by either failing to understand or ignoring all the modern scholarship of the New Testament and instead choosing to use the McConkie ultra-literal style of prooftexting and cherry picking of verses here and there in the New Testament to make his case. Scholarly consensus is that the apostles did not inherit a well-defined church from Jesus, but that the doctrines and organizational structure slowly evolved over time as apostles were moved by the Holy Ghost and debated back and forth over how to do it best. The early Christian Church’s doctrines and organizational structure seems to look more like Mormonism the further you go along this path not the opposite.
The title of his BYU address was “The Book of Mormon man-made or God-given.” My first question is “why not both?”
Because the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion as described by Joseph Smith, the church rises or falls on the truth of it. As a result, if the Book of Mormon can be proved to be man-made, then the church is man-made. On the other hand, if its origin is God-given then Joseph Smith was a prophet. And if he was a prophet, then the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints is true. It is that simple.
I don’t think it’s that simple. In fact, I’m not sure there are many things in this world more complex. What is man-made? What does it mean to be a prophet? What does it mean that the LDS church is true? Those are very concise, simple statements, but underneath them are a series of questions that would generate both common ground and disagreement between a wide variety of perspectives both inside and outside the LDS church.
I especially want to address this idea of man-made. One can easily prove the church is man-made. A human being filed the paperwork for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to become a legal entity in the United States. A human put the Book of Mormon to ink. A human transcribed it. A human being leads the church today. A human wrote the New Testament. A human wrote the Old Testament. Everything you know about anything in this world, religion or not, came through a human.
Blake Ostler, faithful LDS scholar and Mormon apologist, defines revelation generally and the Book of Mormon translation process specifically, as “synthesis of the creativity of man responding to divine persuasion.” I’m pretty sure Callister would agree. So the question is not whether the Book of Mormon is man-made or God-given. It’s obviously man-made. The question is whether and to what degree it was divinely persuaded. Let’s also not forget the only scriptural reference we have to the Book of Mormon translation is in D&C section 8 and 9 where Oliver was actually chastised for relying too much on God and not using his human creativity. Section 9 verse 7
7 Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.
On disproving the church by disproving the BOM:
Thus, the Book of Mormon has become the focal point of attack by many of our critics. Disprove the Book of Mormon and you disapprove the church and undermine testimonies. But this is no easy task. In fact it is impossible because the Book of Mormon is true.
In this statement, Brother Callister seems to be equating truth with historicity. But he doesn’t do it explicitly. I would be curious what he thinks of someone like me who testifies that the Book of Mormon is true, ie it is the Word of God, it has spiritual truth, it has spiritual value, etc, but that it’s likely not historical. I agree with the above statement, but I have a different idea on what it means for the Book of Mormon to be “true”.
Critics must either dismiss the book of Mormon with a sheepish shrug or produce a viable alternative to Joseph Smith’s account, namely that he translated it by the gift and power of God.
The word “translated” and how Joseph Smith used it is a very interesting subject worthy of some time understanding it. He used the term very loosely, which seems to be legitimate for his time. His definition would probably be something like “start with a text or concept and use it to expound on doctrine and truth about God.” He was consistent with this view of the word translation in his translation of the Book of Abraham, the Book of Moses, his Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible project, and the translation of the Book of Mormon.
Brother Callister spent a large portion of his talk knocking out some of the lamer arguments against BOM historicity (1-4 below) before getting to the most interesting one, #5.
- Joseph Smith, an ignorant man, wrote the Book of Mormon. (focus on Joseph being ignorant)
- Someone else wrote it: Cowdery, Rigdon.
- Plagiarized it. Spaulding, View of Hebrews.
- Joseph suffered from mental illness
- Joseph was a creative genius, who shaped by his environment, wrote the Book of Mormon.
I think there are two subsets of #5. a) He was a fraud and a false prophet and the LDS church is a false religion and b) Joseph, being called of God as a prophet, was authorized to bring forth the Book of Mormon, primarily as an act of creative genius, but also persuaded by divine influence. I think Brother Callister might view them both together as a rejection of Joseph and the Book of Mormon, but I feel 5b is a legitimate, faithful view.
One author suggested Joseph may have read or gleaned information from over 30 books in nearby libraries in order to gather necessary information about the Native Americans. The claim is then made that these books or discussion of the same in newspapers or conversations became the basis for the historical narrative.
I don’t know what he’s addressing here. I have never heard an argument before that the Book of Mormon contains accurate descriptions of Native Americans that were not commonly discussed items, ie mound builders. Let alone 30 books worth of that. But, anyway…
He then asks and answers a few questions related to this.
- Is there evidence he read this much? No.
- Any evidence he visited these libraries? No.
- Did Emma ever comment that he referred to any of these books before? No.
- Were these books present during the translation? No.
- (A rhetorical question, but possibly the most critical point of the entire talk that we will come back to.) “How many No’s does it take to expose the critics argument as pure speculation? Nothing more than a sandcastle that comes crashing down when the first wave of honest questions appear on the scene.”
Even if Joseph obtained historical facts from local libraries or community conversations for which there is no substantiating evidence, the real issue still remains. Where did he get the deep and expansive doctrine taught in the Book of Mormon? Much of which doctrine is contrary to the religious beliefs of his time.
I’m going to push back at Callister’s notion that doctrines of the BOM were new and unknown to Joseph, but I don’t want to convey the notion that this means I conclude Joseph was a false prophet or was not inspired. I believe Joseph had original ideas but also was a great collator, sifting through ideas he came across and picking the best, piecing together the doctrine of the LDS church, which I believe stands up as the best set of Christian doctrines of any sect.
For example contemporary Christianity taught that the fall was a negative not a positive step forward as taught in the book of Mormon.
The doctrine of the fortunate fall, or felix culpa, has been around for a long time, popularized first by Augustine and making its way into reformation thought, notably Milton’s Paradise Lost (which most certainly influenced Joseph Smith). See this Ensign article and this interesting podcast episode from the BYU Maxwell Institute on the subject.
Likewise, contrary to contemporary beliefs, the Book of Mormon refers to a pre-mortal existence in Alma 13.
This is reference to Alma 13:3.
3 And this is the manner after which they were ordained—being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works; in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, are called with a holy calling, yea, with that holy calling which was prepared with, and according to, a preparatory redemption for such.
This verse is likely not talking about the prexistence and likely was not interpreted that way by Joseph Smith or early saints. The language is consistent with New Testament verses discussing God’s foreknowledge as described here in a sermon from Massachusetts in 1828 by Jacob Wood quoting John Wesley. I’m not claiming Joseph was present at the sermon. But I believe this is representative of the kinds of sermons and ideas being discussed in Joseph’s time.
The celebrated John Wesley a distinguished opposer of Calvinism and advocate of Arminian principles has given us a plain statement of this subject in his Sermon on Predestination. He says The scripture tells us plainly what predestination is it is God’s fore appointing obedient believers to salvation not without but according to his fore knowledge of all their works from the foundation of the world. And so likewise he predestinates or fore appoints all disobedient unbelievers to damnation not without but according to his fore knowledge of all their works from the foundation of the world. We may consider this a little farther. God from the foundation of the world fore knew all men’s believing or not believing And according to this his fore knowledge he chose or elected all obedient believers as such to salvation and refused or reprobated all disobedient unbelievers as such to damnation. Thus the scriptures teach us to consider election and reprobation according to the fore knowledge of God from the foundation of the world
The Book of Mormon contains clarifications of many Bible questions and Christian doctrines. Some we don’t even emphasize in the church today. Like this foreknowledge question. You may be surprised to know that the BOM teaches in Moroni 8:22 (and a couple other places) that not just children but ALL who die without receiving the law will be saved. Today we recognize that just those that die before age of accountability will be saved and that others are required to accept it in the Spirit World.
More from Br. Callister.
… and to a post mortal spirit world in Alma 40. Where did Joseph Smith get these profound doctrinal truths that were in fact contrary to the prevailing doctrinal teachings of his time?
If you want to understand the Book of Mormon better, a good exercise is to go to Google Advanced Book Search and search for various phrases in books published before 1830. (aside: this was the approach Daniel McClellan took in his excellent research on the BOM verse 2 Ne 25:33 “after all we can do”) By googling the phrase “state of the soul”, this was the first link that came up.
It’s very interesting to note the common vocabulary and phrases bunched so close together. The word betwixt appears just four times in the BOM text.
Even if you could show some sort of dependency here, this is not an accusation of plagiarism. Joseph didn’t simply copy this doctrine out of an existing book. I think it’s more likely to imagine this is the environment Joseph is swimming in. He’s expounding doctrine using vocabulary and phraseology he’s heard in sermons, heard in conversations with friends, or maybe read. I believe the doctrine he produced was inspired and brilliant. But I think it’s implausible to imagine ancient people using these modern Christian doctrinal arguments.
Callister then goes on to point out the beautiful sermons on faith in Alma 32 and atonement in King Benjamin’s address, and the allegory of the olive tree with its “complexity and doctrinal richness.” Again, I agree completely. I find Alma 32 a beautiful and enlightening treatise on faith. King Benjamin’s address unsurpassed as a sermon on the Atonement of Christ, and the allegory of the olive tree a complex and rewarding passage.
He then identifies two doctrines plainly taught in the Book of Mormon in a way that clarifies the Bible and clears up error in prevailing Christian thought: baptism and the atonement. For example “2nd Nephi 2 is a mind expanding sermon on the relationship between the fall and Christ’s atonement.” Again, I agree wholeheartedly, but don’t see this that this proves anything about historicity. As I attempted to show in this post on the existence of well developed, modern Christian arguments in the Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 2 on the Fall and its companion piece 2 Nephi 9 on the atonement, both are quoting the New Testament in a way that modern Christian Theologians do to explain these complicated doctrines.
Does anyone honestly believe that Joseph Smith somehow invented these profound doctrines with their compelling powers of reason, their mind expanding insights, and language that is divinely eloquent? If these doctrines were the product of Joseph creative mind one might ask were there no other creative geniuses in the 1800 years following Christ ministry who could produce similar document doctrines?
This is why we revere Joseph as the prophet of the restoration. But none of this requires that he received the doctrines in the Book of Mormon through a God-breathed translation of an ancient record. What about the doctrines Joseph revealed after the Book of Mormon? What about the revelations produced since then and today? These are not based on ancient historical scripture, but we accept them as being valid and from God.
The argument that Joseph Smith wrote the book of Mormon is simply counter to the realities of life is one thing to have creative ideas is quite another to put them into a complex but coherent and harmonious whole inundated with majestic doctrinal truths all done in a single draft in less than 90 days.
It’s a puzzle, for sure. But I think we can allow for more views of the Book of Mormon and Joseph than a black and white dichotomy that it’s historical and God-breathed or it’s all false.
If I would’ve asked my good Christian friends how they unquestionably know the Bible is the Word of God, I do not believe they would cite archaeological discoveries or linguistic connections with ancient Hebrew or Greek as their prime evidence but rather they would make reference to the spirit. It always comes back to the spirit. The very same spirit that helps me know the Bible is true is the very same spirit that helps me know the book of Mormon is true.The spirit is the decisive determining factor not archaeology not linguistics not DNA and certainly not the theories of man. The Spirit is the only witness that is sure and certain and infallible.
Excellent. Agree completely. So let’s stop using historicity as the measuring stick of truth. The spirit is in that book. Regardless of historicity. He then ends with a touching personal anecdote of reading the Book of Mormon as a teenager.
As a boy of about 15 or 16, I was reading the story of the 2000 Sons of Helaman. I marveled at the bravery and the Lord’s protecting hand. Then a voice came to my mind, “that story is true.”
I have had similar experiences. But what does that spiritual confirmation mean? I don’t doubt that the Holy Ghost testified to a young Tad Callister that this story is true. But what was the precise truth that the Holy Ghost was testifying of?
That Joseph invented the story entirely, but the spiritual lessons in it are true. (a Greg Prince type view)
That, by the power of God, Joseph connected to an ancient text of ancient Americans and extrapolated out the details of the story mostly on his own. (a Blake Ostler type view)
That the event kind of occurred, but the details were embellished as most ancient writings are, and finally embellished one final time as Mormon was abridging the plates and including what he felt would be most spiritually impactful for a future people. (a Grant Hardy type view)
That the event occurred exactly the way it is described in the Book of Mormon (a traditional LDS view)
Unless we can go back and ask the Holy Ghost what it meant in that moment, it’s not easy to understand. The Holy Ghost leaves a lot to our interpretation.
Callister’s talk was very logically stated and ended with an emotional stirring. But I’m afraid he’s making the wrong point. I’m not totally sure, but he seemed to be making the case that historicity of BOM is required for it to be true. Further, if historicity of BOM is proven false, then even the church is not “true”. I hope he’s not doing that. I’m afraid he might have been doing what Richard Bushman said the church was guilty of doing in the past.
I think for the Church to remain strong it has to reconstruct its narrative. The dominant narrative is not true. It can’t be sustained. The Church has to absorb all this new information or it will be on very shaky grounds, and that’s what it’s trying to do. And there will be a strain for a lot of people, older people especially. But I think it has to change. Elder Packer had the sense of “protecting the little people.” He felt like the scholars were an enemy to his faith, and that (we should protect) the grandmothers living in Sanpete County. That was a very lovely pastoral image. But the price of protecting the grandmothers was the loss of the grandsons. They got a story that didn’t work. So we’ve just had to change our narrative.
I hope Callister is not going to be guilty of protecting a handful of kids in that BYU audience, preserving their testimony, while losing many others in this unnecessary quest to defend the BOM’s historicity.
I hope he was referencing the truth of the BOM in the same way I do, and accommodates a view of non-historicity. If not, I’m afraid his message is going to backfire. BOM historicity is getting more and more difficult to defend. Let’s focus on defending the BOM for what we can testify of and know of, spiritually. And stop short of drawing a line in the sand on historicity.
It’s accepted by millions as the Word of God.
It changes lives.
It has spiritual power.
Let us not, as Brother Callister suggests create a situation for our loved ones where a testimony of the gospel is “nothing more than a sandcastle that comes crashing down when the first wave of honest questions appear on the scene.” This is what critics of the church think they are doing successfully right now. The answer is not to hunker down in antiquated understandings of scripture and history and hope it withstands. Our faith is in God not in historicity.
Wheat & Tares 
“Brother Callister seems to be equating truth with historicity.”
Yeah OK. That is how the LDS church being true has always been explained by the leaders and it appears to be what most members are saying when they say the Book of Mormon is true.
Look I know you don’t believe in a historical Book of Mormon yet still claim it is true. I doubt that this idea will gain much traction among believers. Plus, a person has every reason to leave the LDS Church because they believe the BOM is not historical. It has always been presented as historical.
For me personally, the Book of Mormon needs to have some basis in reality to be taken seriously. It can’t just be a spiritual myth. One of its central claims is that a resurrected Jesus Christ appeared to people. If that didn’t happen, I have a hard time not thinking of it as a fraud. I extend that same feeling to a number of other God-human interactions in the book — if they didn’t really happen, why include them? I have no problem accepting that humans (Mormon, Joseph) adulterated the stories in their “translations”, or that Joseph saw imperfectly with respect to horses and whatnot, but if there’s not real historical basis and connection, then there really is no witness of “thing as they really are” or “really have been”. That doesn’t equate to wanting to run nonbelievers of BOM historicity out of the church, but my spirituality has to be based on something real, or it might as well be the spirituality of hallucinogenic mushrooms.
For me, it works better to see the characters and stories in the Book of Mormon as actual people and occurrences in history. I choose to believe as a matter of faith. I think it is right to teach it this way in our Sunday schools.
“I’m not totally sure, but he seemed to be making the case that historicity of BOM is required for it to be true.”
That is exactly what Callister argues in his book’s first chapter titled: “Is There Room for Middle Ground?” The short answer rhymes with “Doh!” He writes:
“If there were no golden plates or angel Moroni or Nephite civilization, then every name and place and event in the Book of Mormon is an untruth, and every written word is a deception, because it is all presented as though it were the actual history of an ancient civilization and the actual words of prophets of God. Such would be a fraud and frauds do not lend themselves to godly works.”
As an aside, he tells us how he knows the BoM is a Godly work: “If the scriptures from the Book of Mormon teach us to reject and cast out Satan and to worship, love, and serve the Savior, which they do, how then can they be from the devil?” Q.E.D. What more could you want?
Callister’s style and approach reminded me of the old polemic, “A Marvelous Work and a Wonder”, by LeGrand Richards, a past member of the Quorum of the Twelve. I was not surprised to learn Tad Callister is Richard’s grandson.
In the end Callister lets us know BoM truth claims really don’t matter anyway since “[The Book of Mormon] is not on trial, it is we who are on trial to see if we will read it with a sincere heart and real intent to discover and live its truths.” He repeatedly uses the terms “honest seeker,” “honest questions,” “honest intent,” “honest in heart,” “honest searcher” in a dishonest way to imply if you don’t receive a testimony the BoM is divine, you just haven’t been honest.
Dave, I don’t think that implies you’re dishonest if you don’t get an answer. However there’s certainly no shortage of people who are dismissive to the text without having ever even attempted to take it seriously. Really it’s just repeating the whole James 1:5-6 noting the “real intent.” Unless you truly want to know, you won’t. Doesn’t mean that everyone who tries will get an immediate answer, the way some portray Moroni 10.
Dave C. is that quote “Such would be a fraud and frauds do not lend themselves to godly works.” is that from Callister? I’ve seen that quote before can’t remember where now. I thought it was Stephen Smoot in this Imperative for Historical Book of Mormon piece. Anyway. It’s frustrating that he is so bold and assertive on that while laying out such bad logical arguments on some of his supporting reasons for making that claim, especially the one about “where could have Joseph gotten the unique doctrines of the Book of Mormon?” He gave a few examples. And each one you can google and find very quickly none of them were unique. And one of them the preexistence-foreordination thing, he completely misunderstands the BOM doctrine.
I’m not so much strongly against BOM historicity as I am strongly against bad logic, especially pushing that down to our youth. It’s fine if you want to push for BOM historicity and use solid, rational arguments. Some combination of LGT-Mixing Populations, humanistic, ancient prophets that were poor at recording actual history, and a loose and expanded translator Joseph Smith liberally inserting modern theological arguments. That’s your best bet. Go with that. Don’t overreach.
Clark: “I don’t think that implies you’re dishonest if you don’t get an answer.”
That tells us something admirable about Clark, but there are numerous others who do appear to think it implies dishonesty and some who will say so. They may have failed to note that Moroni said nothing about when. They may also seem to enjoy disparaging the character of those who don’t have the same testimony they do; it makes them and theirs seem so much more special — and honest. It would be well in my view if the “honest in heart” rhetoric were deleted. It is so often used in a way that implies judgment rather than encouragement.
He’s doubling down on a losing argument. I’m not sure what his target audience is (LDS youth? LDS membership? Doubting members?) but in the long run it doesn’t matter what your audience is if you are backing the wrong argument. As LDS apologetics goes, this is at the other end of the spectrum from the Givens and Mason approach.
I think I’m with churchistrue on this issue. “I am strongly against bad logic.” That’s about my take on this whole issue. Callister has zero credibility to me simply because he relies upon standard tropes of belief and tries to make them sound as if they are based on logic. Defending the Book of Mormon intellectually (or pretending to do so) is a futile exercise. There are so many contradictions and anachronisms and inaccurate descriptions (from a sociological perspective) of how people and groups behave that trying to defend it on intellectual grounds is a losing proposition anyway. I wish folks would just stop. Believe it’s historically true or don’t believe, I don’t care either way. But trying to defend a belief or a feeling or one’s faith from an intellectual perspective just isn’t going to cut it. One is reminded of Colbert’s term, “truthiness”. It refers to something that sort of sounds or feels true, so therefore it must be true. Of course, Colbert was pointing out just how absurd and dangerous (and logically unsupportable) such thinking is.
And for those who need the B of M to be literal, historical truth and believe that it is, I respect and understand your position. Probably because I’m an English teacher, I tend to view all mythic stories as more metaphorical than literal and I’m perfectly comfortable with that. But I certainly understand others not being comfortable with it, in part because taking the metaphorical perspective tends to blur any distinction between texts in that the metaphorical perspective isn’t concerned with whether one mythic story (say, the Aeneid) is any more or less “true” than any other story. In my case, Hamlet has taught me more useful things about human nature than the Book of Mormon has, but I recognize the potential ability of both texts to teach me useful things, maybe even “true” things even though I consider both of them to be fictional. Of course, that view de-emphasizes (some would say de-legitimizes) the “truth” of the B of M, so I understand the literalist perspective and the reasons for it even though I don’t necessarily share that view.
ChurchisTrue, the quote “Such would be a fraud and frauds do not lend themselves to godly works.” are Callister’s words.
I’m sure Callister is claiming that because the BoM is “true,” it is also an accurate record (or translation) of a real people who lived in ancient America. That’s the Church’s official position. But it is becoming increasingly problematic. I’m also relatively sure that Callister is not up to speed on Skousen’s findings in the CriticalText Project.
Personally, I find the BoM’s historicity problematic for a number of reasons—linguistic, doctrinal, literary (plot problems), and chronological (anachronisms). Here are just a couple:
1. The book contains almost none of the doctrines unique to the LDS Church. While the Protestants of Joseph’s day wouldn’t have agreed on many of the doctrinal points, they would not have found them strange. And the book also contains some doctrines that we don’t accept as true any more. For instance, regarding the fate of those who live in this world without ever hearing the gospel, the BoM is very clear in four different places (2 Ne. 9:26; Mosiah 3:11; Mosiah 15:23–24; Moro. 8:22) that these people are saved through the Atonement. This creates problems for the modern Church because it negates the value of both missionary work and temple ordinances. The BoM also specifically states (Alma 34:32–33) that this life is the time to prepare to meet God and that no work can be done after this life. We simply do not believe these doctrines.
2. Skousen and others have pointed out many things in the BoM that are simply impossible to explain if you insist that the book is merely a direct translation of an ancient document. Among them are the myriad borrowings from the King James Bible. Whoever created the English text of the BoM had a KJB handy (contemporaneous accounts indicate Joseph didn’t) and was very conversant with it (certainly better than Joseph was). There are also phrases and concepts that come directly from Protestant writings, as well as a load of difficult-to-explain Early Modern English constructions (and yet without it being an EMoE book).
3. Certain concepts that are central to the BoM account are anachronistic. The notion of “church” appearing in 600 BC is one. “Church was not even a New Testament notion, not in the sense it is used in 1 Nephi. Another is the usage of “gentile” meaning “not Jewish.”
4. Geography is another can of worms, too complicated to address here, but let’s just admit that nobody’s geographic model has yet located a place that matches the descriptions in the book, unless you perform all sorts of linguistic contortions.
I also believe the BoM did not come from Joseph Smith’s imagination. But what it is and where it came from is still an open question. The more I study it, the more questions arise. Callister’s view of the book is obviously simplistic and apologetic, and his defense is ultimately superficial and not very helpful.
Franklin, I share your view of those 1-4 bullet points. Skousen-Carmack’s work is important to understand, and it’s pushing most LDS Apologists into a loose translation, expansion model concept. I think their EModE stuff is more esoteric and hard to understand how to make it fit, but their work in showing KJV intertextuality and modern doctrinal exposition (their idea of modern is 16c) is more pressing in terms of modifying one’s theory of BOM origination.
What’s your theory if you don’t think Joseph is the author?
Ah, I remember reading this and listening to the talk when it came out. I was surprised when you didn’t call him out on this howler:
This is completely incorrect. As you have written before, the idea of an infinite atonement was already extensively discussed by Protestant theologians at the time, going back at least to 1796. There is another excellent teardown of Callister’s doctrine argument here, and I have to say, I’m somewhat flabbergasted. It seems he did absolutely no research at all before making this argument, because the claims of uniqueness of doctrine are almost absurdly false. Do you know if he still makes the same argument in his book?
I take it that the author perceives the divine in the BoM but struggles with its historicity. We know so little and pretend to know so much about history. My perception is that most scholars follow mental herds and can’t see past their beliefs – like a religion in many ways.
I accept the historicity as I similarly perceive the divine. But I could see a God, who has created innumerable worlds, cobbling together stories from several into one narrative.
But simply being creative seems like deception. Further, Joseph said he received physical plates. Were the plates only a divine ruse and the seer stone linked Joseph into a collaboration with the divine where he creatively crafted the BoM? Or were they only a divine ruse and then the seer stone dropped the cobbled together narrative into Joseph’s lap? And if Joseph never got plates then he is a liar.
It is the implausibility of the BoM that is astounding. And doing google searches for phrases to link to BoM phrases assuming Joseph picked these up from sermons? Seriously? Joseph was a farm boy. This is what adds to the implausibility of the BoM.
If you look at what historian scholars thought fifty years ago it would be dismissed as folklore. If I take Joseph’s story with skepticism shouldn’t I take historians guesses with at least the same skepticism?
Bingley, that is surprising he’d make that claim since that’s been written on a fair bit. One of the three main movements in the US that came out of Arminianism was the so-called rationalist unitarianism which formally opposed the earlier doctrine of infinite atonement. Some have argued that the Book of Mormon spends a fair bit of time refuting their views. I think such a claim often only works by simplifying what the BoM teaches, but it certainly is a long standing topic in Mormon apologetics. i.e. ” Lehi on the Great Issues: Book of Mormon Theology in Early Nineteenth-Century Perspective” in Dialog.
Franklin, I think most of those problems disappear if one isn’t too literalistic about the Book of Mormon. Heavens, by some of that standard even the KJV Bible is problematic. Church seems a perfectly fine term to describe a group that meets together. It’d fit John the baptist’s group for instance. To claim it is anachronistic requires narrowing its connotation down quite a bit which honestly seems a bit silly. Particularly if we’re dealing with a loose paraphrase translation. Ancient peoples met together long before the rise of formal churches or synagogues.
The bit about the atonement is only a problem if you adopt a certain Protestant view of salvation. Go to eastern orthodoxy or Catholicism and you get a very different view of the relationship of ordinances, grace and atonement. Further the Book of Mormon talks about ordinances being essential to taking hold of the atonement. Many would argue Alma 12-13 also tie it into ordinances that make one a priest. Theologically one would just say that the atonement is what makes the ordinances functional. The idea of making covenants through ritual is pretty clear in Alma 7 as well.
I’d add that the Book of Mormon’s use of “gentile” is more complicated than you suggest. The word “jew” is problematic since it gets applied to all of Israel rather than just Judah. The use is primarily coming out of Isaiah and Jeremiah though. At best one could complain that the meaning of the term is too affected by trito-Isaiah.
By direct translation I assume you mean a translation primarily done at the word level much like the KJV. I think it undeniable it is a loose translation. I don’t quite see the problem with that.
Franklin, echoing similar thoughts by some others, writes “the BoM is very clear in four different places (2 Ne. 9:26; Mosiah 3:11; Mosiah 15:23–24; Moro. 8:22) that these people are saved through the Atonement.”
There’s a huge difference between being “saved” and anything extra beyond that such as exaltation. This is so fundamental to Mormonism that I wonder if some Protestantism has crept in here.
“The BoM also specifically states (Alma 34:32–33) that this life is the time to prepare to meet God and that no work can be done after this life. We simply do not believe these doctrines.”
There is no “we”.
I take the words at face value, The dead person can do no work (he’s a spirit), but work can be done on his behalf by someone living.
What preparation to meet god? Faith, hope and charity; broken heart and contrite spirit. If you don’t aquire these traits or virtues in this life, how are you going to in the next? It is here in mortality that I am offered opportunity for charity.
Clark,
I concede using the term “dishonest” might be harsh in some cases, however, it’s not an uncommon reaction members use to explain why someone might not get a testimony of the BoM. Other responses include your explanation which implies someone doesn’t “truly want to know,” though, that still doesn’t seem too far from the “dishonest” claim. What usually isn’t listed as a possibility, from people who already have a testimony of the BoM, is that an answer might not ever be received or that the answer could be “No, the Book of Mormon is not true.” That’s logical, after-all how could someone else’s answer be different from what you already know to be truth? It is how I used to feel.
But then I lived with someone for 30 years who never got an answer. I used to think maybe she wasn’t sincere, she wasn’t praying right, or she was looking beyond the mark and not recognizing the answer. Eventually I concluded God knows her heart and if she wasn’t feeling a witness for the BoM, God couldn’t hold her responsible.
Later I’ve come to the conclusion the Holy Ghost is an unreliable witness. This is based on my experiences and watching others. Sometimes inspiration turns out to be wrong. Why are spiritual witnesses of the Book of Mormon not subject to the same wrong inspiration we experience and witness in other aspects of our lives and leaders of the church? There isn’t really a reason to expect such inspiration to be treated differently for the BoM since it’s the same Holy Ghost. So yes, I have felt a warm witness of the Spirit when reading the BoM. I’ve also felt the warm witness for things that turned out to be wrong. So it isn’t enough to “feel it is right” If I have other information to inform my opinion, I’m going to use it.
Interrupted by phone call so I didn’t finish my thoughts.
I keep in mind these are Alma’s words, Alma’s beliefs, as transcribed by Moroni, as transcribed by Joseph Smith. It is possible that Alma, and any other writer of the originals, was mistaken. Indeed, I expect that occasionally they are mistaken. Consequently I recommend to not “wrest scripture” and put too much emphasis on this word or that.
As to the historicity of the Book of Mormon, I accept that it is and must be historical, but I also accept that some uncertainty exists in its provenance.
Since there is no negative consequence to believing it to be historical and the word of God, and potentially big negative to throw it out, my default position is to accept it at face value. I know for sure there’s a God, I know for sure that some spirits accompany their temple ordinances. That’s not quite proof “the church is true” but it is certainly true enough for me.
I, personally, take a very literalistic view of the Book of Mormon. Its purpose is to demonstrate the power of God by setting forth the record of God’s dealings with several peoples in the New World, and the idea that it is simply a work of fiction meant to teach good values makes no sense – what sort of God would need to demonstrate his “power” by giving an account of things that he never actually did? The central point of the Book of Mormon is that Christ has revealed himself to “more nations than one,” and that only works if the record is historically accurate.
Tad Callister’s spirited defense of the Book of Mormon used to win him my admiration. Then I came across this howler:
“If [the Book’s] origin is God-given then Joseph Smith was a prophet. And if he was a prophet, then the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints is true. It is that simple.”
Nothing in there about the Succession Crisis, or any of the things that have muddied up the question of which church, if any, is the actual continuation of the one that the Prophet Joseph restored. The plain fact is that neither the Book of Mormon, nor any other scripture published in Joseph Smith’s lifetime, established the authority of Brigham Young and the Twelve to lead after the Prophet’s death.
So to assert what Callister does makes no more sense than saying that if the New Testament is God-given, then the Roman Catholic Church is the true church today.
Michael there’s an odd quasi-Lutheran like conception of grace and salvation that has crept in. I think the movement starting in the 90’s to more fully utilize the language of grace was ovderdue and a good thing. (Thinking here of books by people like Robert Millet, Stephen Robinson, or even later work by Jim Faulconer or Adam Miller) I’ve long argued that the practical conception of grace was always key to Mormonism but that we just tended to use words other that “grace” or the perhaps better translation of gift. I think the rhetoric and use of spirit in Mormon discourse ends up covering much that grace covers.
However of late people have taken this and really started injecting more Protestant ideas. I think you see this in Angela C’s post on Romans at BCC this week. Part of this is, I personally think, due to being attracted to what I consider “cheap grace” (using the theologian Bonhoeffer’s term). That is grace isn’t see as how God through Christ transfigures and changes us. Rather it’s the idea we don’t need to change at all. God will take us as we are now particularly being we feel ourselves a victim. To me that’s an unfortunate and destructive view. Although I’ll not go too far down that tangent here. (Chad Nielson at T&S had a great post last week considering grace in Mormon terms more from an eastern orthodox perspective which I think comes closer to the Mormon view than Protestantism does)
I’d also say that the Book of Mormon tends to emphasize a community salvation – particularly in the texts that come off the small plates. They tend to see salvation through the metaphor of God saving his captive people in Isaiah. You don’t there get the more individual conception of salvation that arises in Protestantism. This also gets at why Church isn’t achronistic, btw. The Greek word from the LXX translation of Old Testament is <ekklesia which is used in the New Testament and gets translated as Church in the KJV. Without going into a long tangent one of the main texts that uses it is Deuteronomy which the Book of Mormon has a complex relationship with. (Due to the Josiah reforms ongoing at the time of Lehi) The notion translated as ekklesia or Church is a covenant community.
It’s interesting looking at certain OT passages that use Church here. When Joshua assembles the people and reads the blessings, curses and commands of Moses he does it “in the hearing of all the [Church] of Israel.” (Josh 8:35) In Deuteronomy you read of strict regulation of who could enter the Church. (See Deut 23 for instance) Many of those requirements I suspect Lehi and Nephi might have rejected, I should note. It’s also interesting that ekklesia gets used in Joel in a fashion synonymous with therapeian or service. You see elements of this in Alma’s use of Church as well as his mikvah (washing or baptism) functioning in a slightly different fashion from traditional baptism. (Alma baptizes himself thus being a more traditional Jewish mikvah than NT baptism)
Once you get post-exile you still have the word used in say Ezra or Nehemiah in ways that parallel Book of Mormon usage. For instance Ezra 10:8 you have people separated from the Church of the settlement due to not assumbling when a proclamation was made. You also have it for evil too, such as Psalm 26:5’s “congregation of evil doers” could easily be translated as “Church of the evil doers.” Church of the devil might work too, although devil is actually harder to deal with in the BoM than Church. The idea though is salvation of group of covenant people.
Convert here. The historicity of the BOM, both provenance and content, was a the key issue for me when I joined the church more than 40 years ago. I wrestled with Joseph Smith’s story pretty mightily for an 18 year old and finally told the missionaries, “Let’s pick a baptismal date before I change my mind.” I was persuaded that as I lived the commandments, I would gain a testimony of them, which turned out to be the case, but this didn’t translate into a knowledge that the LDS church was ” the only true and living church upon the face of the earth which with (the Lord was) well pleased.” The nagging feeling I had about the BOM stuck with me in spite of many and honest efforts to discern the truth through study and prayer. I read and reread it faithfully. Each time it was a wrestle for reasons too numerous to mention. I finally assigned myself to the category of those who must take things on faith and trust the testimonies of others. In the spirit of faith and obedience, I followed the counsel of leaders who said that “testimony comes in the bearing of it.” I taught, testified and led in the church for many years until events in my life forced me to address what I really believed. When that time came, I had to finally admit that for me, the BOM was a work of fiction and once it was gone from my life, the “truthfulness” of the restored gospel was gone, a testimony of good works and clean living notwithstanding. To this day I can express gratitude for the good things the church brought into my life, but its culture and its “colorful” history weren’t enough to keep me engaged – in fact, I found them somewhat alienating. I left to pursue other spiritual practices and communities that encourage faith and hope over certitude about truth claims. It feels healthier for me. The historicity of the BOM was truly the keystone for me and when I admitted to myself that I had never “believed it” the entire structure of the restored gospel crumbled in my mind.
Thanks LBJ. I see the solution to your experience for the LDS Church as not to work harder to defend the truth claims, but to work harder to provide what was lacking for you in your spiritual development.
I would say that’s pretty accurate, churchistrue. I briefly considered attending LDS sacrament meetings each week with my still-active spouse, but the prospect of hearing the doctrine, reviewing the foundational stories and participating in what for me was a cultural shoe that never fit seemed overwhelming and unnecessary, especially since I had never fully believed in it. I do, however, continue to attend church functions here and there and am by no means estranged from my old “member” friends. There is a lot of emotional pain where this is coming from because it involves the violent and untimely death of our only child. Suffice it to say, that this event catalyzed a decision that had been in the making for many years, i.e. my departure from the church. I just never internalized the truth claims, doctrinal or historical. At this stage in my life, I cling to the hope that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. I hope and trust that all creation will join him someday in some giant healing session, no strings attached. My personal credo: Love your neighbor.
Churchistrue in OP: “I would be curious what he thinks of someone like me who testifies that the Book of Mormon is true, ie it is the Word of God, it has spiritual truth, it has spiritual value, etc, but that it’s likely not historical.”
I don’t know if this is the final answer to this question, but, in this recent ldsmissioncast podcast interview https://www.ldsmissioncast.com/2019/06/01/a-case-for-the-book-of-mormon-tad-callister/ (crossposted on Fairmormon’s blog as well) Callister and the podcast host specifically address the “middle ground” issue where the BoM is a “divinvely inspired fiction” (starting at about the 9:45 mark into the podcast). They seem quite convinced that anything looking like “divinely inspired fiction” is in the middle ground the Elder Callister does not believe exists for the BoM.
Because it showed up at Fairmormon, I searched some of their stuff and found this statement: “If someone comes to the conclusion that the Book of Mormon is not historical at all, is there a place for him in the Church? Probably. We cast a very broad net. That person cannot go around teaching his heterodox views on the subject, but if he is willing to keep them to himself, he can be a contributing, active member of the Church, simply bracketing the historicity issue.” (https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Book_of_Mormon/Historicity/Evidence#Question:_Do_Mormons_believe_that_the_Book_of_Mormon_describes_real_historical_events.3F ).
Not sure I agree with either opinion, but there it is.