Historicity of the BOM
 

My question is, does it matter? What do you think?

Can it at once be an inspired document delivered by a prophet of God and NOT be an account of literal events? I know that some have come to this conclusion. Others believe that the two concept are incompatible and reject it and yet others believe that the book does describe literal events.

I guess at some point all of us who believe have to reconsile a belief in the book itself with the reality of a total absense of physical evidence of the things it decribes. I'm curious to know how some of you have done it.

I now how I have done it, but I am curious to know what others think. Discuss.

What do you mean by
 

a lack of physical evidence?

The book gives a religious synposis of certain event from their spiritual perspective. Certain minute historical facts pop up, but what facts, other than the visitation of Christ would be worth disputing?

Thor Hydahl gave evidence it was possible a Middle Eastern group could have landed.

The limited focus in a narrow area, let's say, Guatemala,

Are you saying there are no evidences of massive battles?

The Bible has some weird historicity arguments, the Book of Job, the flood of Noah, but the spiritual focus remains accurate.

Please elucidate some points to which you refer.

Some people say there is no physical evidence of the BoM, but I disagree. There are ruins from the Mayan empire and other cultures throughout the Americas that overlap with the BoM times.

Plus FARMS has done a lot of research on this subject. A couple of their publications I recommend:

http://www.byubookstore.com/ePOS/sto...tml&design=439

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/087...books&v=glance

Archaea:
 

I'm referring to the absence of the ruins of cities, the absence of the sorts of artifacts one might expect to find where millions of people were living, artifacts one would expect to find in the area of a battle where hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, places or objects that bear inscriptions of BOM names. In sum, anything at all that would cause a non-church apologist to say "hmm, maybe this BOM does have ancient origin."

The fact is that no such thing exists. If it did, every member of the church would be able to tell you about it.

Now two things:

1. I'm not saying that an absense of evidence proves that these things didn't happen. I think was clear in my post that is not what I am trying to say.

2. I would CERTAINLY agree with what I take the tone of your post to be which is, this is a record that is religious in nature and that the turth of the principles it ennuciates are easily demostrated and "proven." I would go one further and offer my opinion that matters of faith are exactly that and are never "proven" by any tangible object or any argument. If they were they would not be matters where faith is required.


I also acknowledge that FARMS and others have done work in this area and that they have others have made arguments (many fairly tortured IMO) about what is possible. What we cannot exclude, what has not been disproven. I get all of that.

Back to the original point: there is no archealogical evidence of the massive civilizations the BOM describes (though there is abundent evidence of other civilizations that would have been the contemporaries of the Nephites/Lamanites in both central and south Amenrica) in the places one would expect to find them or elsewhere.

Even if one has bought the idea that there is some evidence that points to it if you look at it in just the right light, I think that it is hard for anyone to deny that it is somewhat odd that there is not more. This being the case, I think that many come to a point where they have to reconsile this with their belief in the book itself. Or chose not to. Or chose not to be bothered by it. My question is how others have done it. Maybe I made a faulty assumption in believing that many have come to that point and had a resolution of that issue. I have a feeling though, that there are a few on here who have grappled with the issue.

....
 

call me apostate....

but i think the intro to the book of mormon is wrong.

'After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.'

one would think that a culture that very recently kept physical written record would keep other physical evidence of their existence and belief system. .

what i am saying is this, the book of mormon people were probably a very small population that inhabited a very small area, were fairly nomadic, as to not lay permanant roots leaving behind permanant record, and thus the lack of physical evidence of a nephi, and laman that spurred two contrasting civilizations.

so the apostate in me says.....the church is wrong in its presentation of the american indians and their descendents.

I've always viewed the BoM...
 

as what it claims to be: Another testament of Jesus Christ.

I've never been one to worry about whether it can be historically verified to the satisfaction of anyone that doesn't accept it as a book of scripture. For me, I believe the message it teaches and nothing else is important.

I'm with Il Padrino on this one.
 

As to whether there should be more proof of the civilizations, I wonder if the Mayans and others aren't the vestiges. Maybe their civilizations were simply subsumed within the more dominant cultures. Travel in those days was not as easy, and given the vegitation, it wouldn't have required much to be hidden for long periods.

More importantly, I doubt mllions existed in those societies. Thousands probably. Tens of thousands maybe. No idea whether it reached beyond that.

If you had a mobile society, why would we have more evidence?

I'm not certain the questions are correct, yet I haven't studied archeology in any detail at all.

Re: I've always viewed the BoM...
 

i dont understand the sentiment some people share that regardless if it took place or not i believe its an inspired book. not saying thats what you are saying, but to say the message it teaches is important and nothing else is a little weird.

it is very important to know, or feel that joseph smith translated the book or mormon. its absolutely important.

i think this is why the church doesnt really talk about the way in which joseph smith 'translated' the book of mormon. as it wasnt really a translation, as much as it was revelation. but it is important that that revelation was inspired by him being in physical possession of literal plates. if it was a contrived, inspired story, count me out.

Re: I've always viewed the BoM...
 

I agree with you that they don't go into much detail from the pulpit, but that makes a lot of sense. It's true that the process was more accurately called transcription versus translation. But, you want people to read the book and feel for themselves whether or not it is true. In this day and age, you don't want to jump straight into the seerstone in the hat story (which was Joseph's preferred method) as it may turn off readers who otherwise may have read the book. Once they have accepted the book, it's easier to handle the exact story of how it came to be.

I also agree with you that either the book is a true story or it is worthless. It would be the stretch of stretches for me to learn that Joseph basically wrote an inspirational novel. I mean how much courage am I supposed to take from men who were supposedly great examples of following Christ in a world where it was unpopular if those men never really did that? And how could we justify calling an inspirational novel "Another Testament of Jesus Christ"?

If the Book of Mormon is a creative work, and that creator was Joseph Smith, do we see evidence of that kind of mind in later writings?

Certainly some people would suggest creativity in terms of continued evolution of the gospel--conception of heaven, work for the dead, polygamy, nature of Godhead, premortal existence.......

But these did not take cogent form in a literary creative style.

I was surprised to hear that JS was not a very good public speaker, and that's partly why Sidney Rigdon had such a prominent role.

For me, I can in part solve this question in terms of my own experience. Do I believe in revelation, direct from God? Yes. From that position, it is not such a leap to believe that the same could happen to others. Like Joseph Smith (I don't mean to imply that my experiences are the same as JS's--don't worry about me being that grandiose!).