In this next post in something of a series (I’m holding off numbering these or giving them all the same title, since the concept is a bit amorphous) I wanted to lay out my approach to belief in topics that are historical.
This title is something of a play on words, as I don’t mean so much as believing a believer’s narrative about historical things pertaining to Mormonism. Instead, what I mean is that I “believe” what the historical documentation and scholarly evidence indicates. I “believe” history.
Yes, I’m well aware that there’s a lot of debate about a lot of issues, but in my personal beliefs about God and theology, I’m on board with what scholars are able to demonstrate as the historical evidence. That is, I’m good with saying what the scholarly evidence demonstrates, as opposed to holding to scriptural claims of historical events without evidence.
As I said previously, I don’t believe in a Moses exodus as the evidence demonstrates otherwise, and similarly I don’t believe the Book of Mormon is historical. As I said previously, I don’t believe that God demands that we believe historical scriptural claims that the historical evidence refutes.
That said, this isn’t an argument for atheism, but for a kind of theistic freedom of historical inquiry to follow the evidence and not be bound to needing to claim historicity for texts when the evidence indicates otherwise. I’m for trying to figure out “what actually happened” to quote Ranke, based on the historical evidence. I’ve been okay to make adjustments to my beliefs as I’ve learned new things.
Again, I’m not arguing for atheism, and like I’ve said, I don’t tie my theism to Old Testament or Book of Mormon historicity. I see a lot of theology and historical invention as human attempts to understand God, which is a good thing to try. I like the line from Plato’s Timaeus: “Now to find the maker and father of the universe is hard enough, and even if I succeeded, to declare him to everyone is impossible.” God is hard to understand and we humans propose lots of theories. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I do see many such theories as a lot of conjecture. But continuing to try to understand God is a good quest regardless.
I’m not an expert in ancient history, the Bible, classics, etc, but I am interested in those topics and have the theist belief that understanding history better does give us some insights into God.
So I want to share a few things I’ve come across in some upcoming posts and one theme will be the importance in Greek thought and JS tapping into it (among other things).
More to come.
Your Plato quote reminded me of this passage from The Age of Reason: “But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it.
It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand…”
I muse that God could save us a lot confusion if he (she/it/they?) would just be an equal opportunity revealer. Just tell everyone on earth the same thing you told that prophet dude and we could stop arguing about who is right.
Incidentally, those prophet dudes always seem to think that God wants the rest of us to give our money, sex, and power to them. So at least maybe Good is consistent in revealing that?
Evidence…
Everyone has bias. I wouldn’t put much stock in what scholars say about ancient history. It’s almost always wrong and biased. Most of history according to academia is nothing more than conjecture on their part.
I find itvinteresting that anyone would place human reasoning in front of and in the face of the written word of God. Sure, one can say they aren’t atheist, but by their fruits or beliefs it sure oaints a different picture. What is that picture look like?
I believe in God, just not his words. I believe in God, but half his prophets were made up and the other half lied and deceived us.
I believe in God but only if academia allows it…
I’m curious Stephen why you do not believe in the Book of Mormon being historical? What supposed evidence or conjecture are you leaning on?
Interesting. This line surprised me a bit: “understanding history better does give us some insights into God” (I generally agree) – so I hope you’ll say more about that at some point.
Also, it seems like you also have belief (at least a basic theism) that isn’t grounded in history, so it would be interesting to hear how you approach belief from multiple directions, if I’ve understood you correctly.
I think we’ve gone back and forth about scripture and historicity already, but I’ve also got a post coming out tomorrow (written and scheduled long before reading this) about rational belief in Book of Mormon historicity.
Kibs, that’s a pretty disrespectful take to professionals. Historians have developed methodologies to arrive at the best truth available from the data. Sure, there is some debate in how to interpret data points sometimes, but it’s irresponsible to outright dismiss data-deiven arguments as “wrong, biased, and conjecture” as you put it without supporting why you think that way.
Stephen has directly linked you to his JI post laying out his arguments for non-historical BoM in a previous comment section. You know his evidence, so why are you asking for it again here? Do you care to respond to his arguments? I’ve been following your comments on Stephen’s posts and I don’t see you introducing your own data-driven arguments. I only see you dismissing his arguments based on nothing at all. Your comments are the text equivalent of sticking fingers in your ears and shouting “lalala can’t hear you.”
No doubt mortal existence is more confusing that the model you hope for, Davek. It’s certainly leaves open room for people to criticize religious tradition like Tom Paine did.
Kibs, I do want to take this opportunity to have a little review of basic bloggernacle etiquette. I hope this doesn’t sound patronizing but you’ve been in some serious violation.
So here’s a few points to keep in mind. One of the first and foremost is to hold back on the self-righteous condemnation of other people. You do that in droves.
Another is just to repeat yourself ad nauseam. Again, that’s get pretty tiresome. For instance, I wrote 4 blog posts on my reasons for not believing the Book of Mormon is historical and linked to one here. So it’s a violation of the etiquette to suddenly ask “I’m curious Stephen why you do not believe in the Book of Mormon being historical? What supposed evidence or conjecture are you leaning on?” Again, I answered that question over and over. Again, another etiquette violation.
And finally, not sticking to the topic of the OP. We’ll all grant a little latitude with this one, but there is such a thing as pushing it way to far over and over, which you’ve done constantly.
For instance, I’m good with you pointing out that you reject all scholarship. You’ve made that very clear from the beginning. Yet since my upcoming posts will be SPECIFICALLY about things I’ve learned from scholarship, comments that simply say “I reject all scholarship!” over and over will get deleted.
They’ll get deleted because they’d be a violation of all three of these points I’ve made: self-righteous condemnation, excessive repetition, and being off topic.
So this is just to let you know how I plan to operate going forward. You’ve made your views very clear, and if you cannot follow the basic rules of bloggernacle etiquette then it will be time to move on.
I look forward to your posts, Jonathan. I guess for me, two orienting historical points would be Jesus and Joseph Smith, two people I see as really important for my own religiosity. That may sound kind of minimal (sorry!) but those are two historical figures I would point to.
That doesn’t mean I believe in the historical reality of all of JS’s claims or every theological interpretation that people claim about Jesus. But since they both taught doctrines and principles very important for my life, I see the context surrounding both of them as very important.
So I’ll point to some interesting scholarship that I see connected to them. Sorry if that’s minimal, but that’s the historical orientation I was referring to.
Stephen,
I don’t reject all scholarship, just the bad parts that don’t merit what I would call worthy of being scholarly. And sadly, in dealing with history, I don’t see very much real scholarly work. For instance, my own inquiry to Book of Mormon lands leads me finding evidences from everywhere around the Great Lakes and New York clear down to all of the ancient ruins in Peru and Bolivia. I’m not looking at some tiny miniscule area just in Meso-america mainly because the text of the Book of Mormon says otherwise.
The problem with archeology and the study of ancient history by academia is that it requires or plays with a lot of ideas (conjecture) and when enough scientists agree upon a set of beliefs it becomes their science (bias) from which nothing else is generally accepted.
This also happens in LDS circles of academia. Archeological evidence of the Book of Mormon outside Meso-america is generally discarded or looked down on by LDS scholars.
Were just bad at putting the past together academically speaking. That’s reality.
Kibs, as a professional historian, I take great offense at your rejection of the entire profession simply because it might not cohere with your perspectives or beliefs. If you would like to “see very much real scholarly work,” I can refer you to the seven books I have published, the scores of books published by my colleagues and friends, and the acres of historical work conveniently located at university libraries all across the country and the world.
I also find it highly amusing that you reject the work of those trained in historical or archeological methodology…yet you cite your “own inquiry to Book of Mormon lands.” On what is this inquiry based? How did you go about this investigation? Did you have anyone check or review your process and/or findings to ensure their accuracy or reliability…or are we supposed to accept your statements and conclusions on faith? And just what do you find “worthy of being scholarly”? This is not meant to be gatekeeping; rather, it is intended to subject your claims to the same type of scrutiny that professionals face every day.
If your entire worldview is only informed by your faith, be assured that I am not denigrating it in any way. But you simply cannot expect others to ground their understanding or belief in *your* faith instead of their own faith, knowledge, or assessment. Indeed, that is antithetical to the process laid out in LDS theology in Moroni 10 for people to come their own understanding.
And just to clarify a point for you, the “conjecture” you criticize among academics is a product of incomplete information–an unavoidable fact of life when reconstructing the past…any past. Interestingly, that is exactly what faith is–incomplete information.
You may not agree with the approach of the original post (well, *you* clearly do not), but it is certainly a topic worth exploring and discussing in a forum such as this one. Have a little grace and be willing to both expand your horizons and accept that you may not know everything (and could actually learn something if you go into it with an open mind…even if you ultimately do not change your perspective as a result). If that is too much for you to accept, then perhaps you would be less aggrieved if you limited yourself to reading apologetic blogs exclusively.
A,
Don’t take offense, the reality is that it is really hard to piece together the past. There are so many unknowns.
I look at things historically at different levels of plausability and go from there. The problem with accepted academia for the most part is the structure of their overall paradigm which dates things from unverifiable methods, bases human history on evolution, millions of years, no God or anything spiritual can be allowed, etc,
There definitely a double standard amongst Christian scholars also because a true Christian should accept the word of God as not only true for its doctrinal framework but also must or should accept the stories as historical when academia does not accept the stories from scripture as literal or historical. There is a well understood agenda amongst secularism that must not include scripture or validate God. The right knows this very well. The left, who control academia for the most part, intentionally will discount God and any narrative that would validate his holy words.
The great war between evolution and intelligent design is a perfect example of left wing education vs right wing education. That stands for almost everything also. The left doesn’t believe in historical scripture whereas the right does.
Thus, it doesn’t surprise me when academic scholars even from BYU can’t find BoM evidences because they are using the lens created by secularism. Just realize that there are a lot of us out here that are very intelligent scholars in our own right that not only believe scripture validity but have a myriad of evidences that validate our faith.
There is overwhelming archeological evidences for the plausability of the Book of Mormon and the Old Testament, it just won’t be accepted by the secular sciences who must reject God.
Indeed, you’ve made it quite clear, Kibs, that these upcoming posts won’t be for you.
Stephen,
Learn how to dialogue and have real honest conversations, even with your critics. Gain strength in understanding where folks like me are coming from so that you can see areas where you may need to improve. Let all things work for your benefit. Don’t be like the censoring left who shut down anyone who does not agree with them.
I’m very much looking to your forthcoming posts because I too want to see any holes in my own ideas and beliefs. Let us reason together and both benefit.
I’m glad you want to talk, Kibs, but like I said above, there are expectations for commenters, and you violate a whole lot of those. Thus I did want to make an effort to explain. The Bloggernacle blogs have long engaged in restricting commenters for the purpose of keeping the conversations from getting derailed. T&S is a bit more conservative for the Bloggernacle, and thus tend to restrict more from a conservative angle. That is, people getting moderated tend to be more liberal and critical of the church.
In other words, moderating someone more fundamentalist like you would be more unusual for this blog.
But even in this post, there’s been some problems. “I wouldn’t put much stock in what scholars say about ancient history. It’s almost always wrong and biased. Most of history according to academia is nothing more than conjecture on their part.” Not true, and like so many other comments you’ve made, it’s simply demonstrates your ignorance and refusal to engage what these posts will be about: historical evidence. Again, if all you want to say it “I don’t like scholarship and historical evidence!” then it’s time to move on. I agree with Davek, you do very much sound like “the text equivalent of sticking fingers in your ears and shouting ‘lalala can’t hear you.'” And that’s not a conversation, Kibs.
Your dismissal of A is along the same lines. Again, you aren’t presenting yourself as having any knowledge of the topics discussed her, only an ideology. Again, these posts will be about scholarship and historical evidence. Again, if you don’t like that topic, then it’s time to move on.
So those are the boundaries, Kibs. Commenters have expectations they need to follow also.
Stephen, I didn’t reply to A because I feared that my post would be censored. I actually wrote out a reply but deleted it because I always fear being censored.
Let me rephrase a bit. I don’t trust academia with history because I can’t trust their methods of reason. My main areas I used to research and blog about (yes, I was an original LDS blogosphere poster with my own blog)and post about was on the age of the earth, the flood, evolution, ID etc.
I spent several decades on that matter and came to realize that their methodologies, where it mattered most, were flawed at the core. These same methodologies are being used to discredit the Book of Mormon so I do take up some beef with it.
I’m very much open minded, I will never censor anyone, (I never censored anyone on my own blog years ago) I love dialogue, I just don’t like dialogue where one gets censored.
I would love to respond to A but by your narrow standards of what you want yo discuss I’m afraid I’d be shut down.
Yes, there are expectations here for commentators, and like I said, you often violate them. Now we’re getting into the repetition part, so lets not go on and on. I’ve laid out the expectation just in case you weren’t clear. Now you are.
Stephen,
If you promise not to censor me I would love to reply to A. I will respect your decision either way.
You did reply to A, Kibs, and demonstrated your continued problems. Anyone you disagrees with you is an atheist etc.
The conversation I’m having with you now is just to inform you that you’ve made your viewpoints very clear, and that in coming posts, if you just repeat over and over the same points about the wickedness of scholars, your comments will be moderated. I’d like to have other types of conversations on here. Just letting you know.
Stephen, how many times will you tell Kibs you’re going to moderate his comments before you follow through? Your posts are thoughtful and genuine, yet while I would like to continue to follow your thinking through these issues (regardless of whether I agree with anything you’re thinking) the comments inevitably turn into a dialogue between you and Kibs. By derailing each of these, Kibs is winning. Not because he offers anything insightful but because he precludes any further discussion. I’ll gladly keep reading the OP, but will have to avoid the comments for this series.
I will, Turtle. I wanted to give Kibs plenty of warning. Moderating comments is something I’ve rarely done, so I just wanted to be clear to Kibs why I will be doing it.
Stephen,
Good day to you. I hope you find joy in your journey.
You too, Kibs. Take care!