David Bokovoy Issues a Devastating Critique of the Mopologists' "Scholarship"

[Lem]

That was very interesting to read, Ben, thank you. And thank you for the references, also, those two chapters look intriguing.

... Part of what I want to do is to stress over and over again that the Book of Mormon should not be privileged as some sort of special text to which the normal rules of literature do not apply. And whatever our individual beliefs about the Book of Mormon are (in terms of its truth claims), I am fascinated by its narrative, by its intertextuality, and by its politics and philosophy. And I don't think that you need to have an opinion on its authenticity as a historical record to appreciate these issues.

I think you’ll find many here who appreciate this approach as well.

...I would suggest two possible approaches: 1. Believers such as Thompson could simply ignore the implications of mainstream scholarship and just choose to believe. This would never work for me, but it does for some. 2. Believers such as Thompson could accept these historical views about the Bible and shift their belief paradigms to accommodate the implications of scholarship. It is possible to do, and many believers in a variety of faith communities are able to make that approach work.

In my view, either approach would be superior to publishing apologetic work, which shows that the authors have had very little exposure to the topics they’re addressing.

That sums up the value of most current Mormon apologetics pretty well.

[DeWalke]

There is more bias against "Mormonism" and Keith Thomson from David Bokovoy and his acolytes in the various comments in this thread than Stalin's ultimate reply to Trotsky. The comments are not worth the effort in responding individually because they mostly have only one agenda, to "Discuss Mormonism" with heavy blinkers on. They should all carry the verbal equivalent of an ice-pick in their rhetorical arsenal. It would be far easier to bury it in someone's head at the very beginning rather than going to the trouble of trying to justify their "intellectual" partisanship through page after page after page of trash.

[drumdude]

There is more bias against "Mormonism" and Keith Thomson from David Bokovoy and his acolytes in the various comments in this thread than Stalin's ultimate reply to Trotsky. The comments are not worth the effort in responding individually because they mostly have only one agenda, to "Discuss Mormonism" with heavy blinkers on. They should all carry the verbal equivalent of an ice-pick in their rhetorical arsenal. It would be far easier to bury it in someone's head at the very beginning rather than going to the trouble of trying to justify their "intellectual" partisanship through page after page after page of trash.

I haven’t seen a more accurate description of Interpreter. Well done.

[Alphus and Omegus]

There is more bias against "Mormonism" and Keith Thomson from David Bokovoy and his acolytes in the various comments in this thread than Stalin's ultimate reply to Trotsky. The comments are not worth the effort in responding individually because they mostly have only one agenda, to "Discuss Mormonism" with heavy blinkers on. They should all carry the verbal equivalent of an ice-pick in their rhetorical arsenal. It would be far easier to bury it in someone's head at the very beginning rather than going to the trouble of trying to justify their "intellectual" partisanship through page after page after page of trash.

This is a classic example of fundamentalist dudgeon. Well done! You cannot refute any of the arguments so you just whine and cry that others are "mean."

[yellowstone123]

That was very interesting to read, Ben, thank you. And thank you for the references, also, those two chapters look intriguing.

... Part of what I want to do is to stress over and over again that the Book of Mormon should not be privileged as some sort of special text to which the normal rules of literature do not apply. And whatever our individual beliefs about the Book of Mormon are (in terms of its truth claims), I am fascinated by its narrative, by its intertextuality, and by its politics and philosophy. And I don't think that you need to have an opinion on its authenticity as a historical record to appreciate these issues.

I think you’ll find many here who appreciate this approach as well.

...I would suggest two possible approaches: 1. Believers such as Thompson could simply ignore the implications of mainstream scholarship and just choose to believe. This would never work for me, but it does for some. 2. Believers such as Thompson could accept these historical views about the Bible and shift their belief paradigms to accommodate the implications of scholarship. It is possible to do, and many believers in a variety of faith communities are able to make that approach work.

In my view, either approach would be superior to publishing apologetic work, which shows that the authors have had very little exposure to the topics they’re addressing.

That sums up the value of most current Mormon apologetics pretty well.

I agree.

It just amazes me that there are academics and authors like Joseph Frank writing about Fyodor Dostoevsky and his life and thoughts, or James M. McGlathery writing about E.T. A. Hoffman and Mormon's will say that the same type of academic study should not be done regarding Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.

[Markk]

Roughly two weeks ago, a pair of articles appeared on the Mormon Interpreter blog. One of these, authored by the well-coifed and loud-mouthed Mopologist Blake Ostler, got the lion's share of the attention. It turns out, though, that the companion piece was every bit as deserving of critical examination. The article in question is called "The Brass Plates: Can Modern Scholarship Help Identify Their Contents?" and it was authored by an Australian attorney named A. Keith Thompson. The problems with Thompson's article are apparent (to anyone familiar with the Documentary Hypthesis) starting with the abstract:

Abstract: The Book of Mormon contains little information about what the Brass Plates contain. Nephi said it was a larger record than the Hebrew Bible brought to America by the Gentiles. But it could not have contained the records of Old Testament prophets who wrote after Lehi’s party left Jerusalem or the New Testament. We know it contained some writings from Zenos, Zenock, Neum, and Ezias, but what else could it have contained? Though the “Documentary Hypothesis” idea that the Christian Bible is the product of redactors is distasteful to many Christians, this article suggests this scholarship should not trouble Latter-day Saints, who celebrate Mormon’s scriptural abridgement of ancient American scripture.

Huh. "it could not have contained the records of Old Testament prophets who wrote after Lehi's party left"? Well, suffice it to say that the article did not go over well. Even the normally heavily edited comments at "Interpreter" are negative:

You believe that the Documentary Hypothesis applies to the entire Old Testament? Did you bother to do any reading about the Documentary Hypothesis at all before writing this paper? Heck, even a sixth grader writing a paper would at least read the first sentence of the Wikipedia article on a topic.

Here it is, since you apparently couldn’t be bothered to look it up on your own: The documentary hypothesis (DH) is one of the models historically used by biblical scholars to explain the origins and composition of the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).

Your paper is not good, and the Interpreter needs to work on its peer review process.

Well, yes. It would seem that the addition of Jeff Lindsay has done little to correct the problems that ran rampant under Allen Wyatt.

There are a lot of missteps throughout the essay. The author misrepresents biblical scholarship left and right, let alone selling short most of the scholarship he claims to be responding to when he actually doesn’t. Thompson (and Reynolds and Lindsay) will have to do a little better than this if they’re going to actually convince anyone.

Wow...this is brutal stuff! Will this article wind up gaining notoriety on the level of the Dales'? Time will tell, but in the meantime, the Mopologists find themselves having to confront someone from the Big Leagues.

Enter David Bokovoy, looking simultaneously Santa Clausian and like he could pop your head as if it was a grape. Ever the polite gentleman, Bokovoy opens his posting graciously, but he quickly cuts to the chase:

In his essay, Thompson attempts to expose his readers to the basics of documentary analysis in the Pentateuch with these words:

“The [Documentary] hypothesis claims that the Old Testament was probably compiled after the Jews returned from their Babylonian captivity and that the compilation drew its text from four different Hebrew narrative traditions, each of which had its own agenda (p. 85).”

This, however, is an incorrect assertion. And unfortunately, it’s not a trivial mistake. The DH makes no such claims. The DH only pertains to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament). The Old Testament contains 24 books that were written over a thousand-year period from approximately 1200 to 200 BCE. The DH only pertains to the first five books or the Pentateuch, not the entire Hebrew Bible. Yet unfortunately, this is not simply an editorial oversight. Thompson makes this same critical error throughout the essay:

Simply stated, Bokovoy's post is an epic takedown of the Mopologists--all happening on the eve of the Witnesses debut! There are great moments throughout, such as this thorough dressing down of Noel Reynolds and his third-rate "scholarship":

So what is this “recent scholarship” that counters the fact that the Book of Mormon’s reference to “five books of Moses” is anachronistic and could not have been made by someone like Lehi prior to the Jewish exile? Thompson cites two articles by LDS scholar Noel Reynolds, one published in Interpreter and the other a presentation given in Provo in 2020. Reynold’s work reaffirms his argument that the Brass Plates contained material related to Joseph Smith’s Book of Moses, published in the Pearl of Great Price. I’m not going to address Reynolds’ argument in detail. Interested readers should consider the Honor’s and subsequent Master’s thesis by Ph.D. student Colby Townsend which address this issue (Here).

Well, if this current article by Thompson made it through "Interpreter's" peer review in this state, can we expect much more from the Reynolds article? Probably not:

Moreover, and this seems to me to be quite important, even if Reynolds’ argument was correct that a book of Moses existed that reflects Joseph Smith’s Book of Moses, this would only mean that a book of Moses existed prior to the exile. Hence, the Book of Mormon’s reference to “five books of Moses,” i.e. a Pentateuch would still be anachronistic.

Brutal. Nearly every marquee Mopologist gets taken to the woodshed in this post:

This, however, is a misrepresentation of my position. I wasn’t suggesting that references to Cain and Abel are anachronistic. What I stated was that the story derives from the J source in Genesis. This makes the proposal that the Book of Mormon authors only had access to the E document (something that LDS apologist John Sorenson once argued) impossible. One of the central features of the Elohist account is that it only focuses upon the story of Israel. E does not contain a story of creation or an account of prehistory. Instead, E features a much tighter focus on Israel as a people. From E’s perspective, if a story is not specifically an “Israelite” account (like the stories of creation, Cain, Abel, Noah, etc.) then it was simply not worth addressing. What I suggested was that since the Book of Mormon is aware of the Cain and Abel (as well as Adam and Eve) story, it is quite problematic to assert that the Book of Mormon authors only had access to E.

Following the lead of previous Interpreter contributors such as Reynolds, Bradshaw, and Lindsey, Thompson is suggesting that a hypothetical book of Moses may have predated these documents, and that it included features of each of the documentary strands that appear in Genesis. This is a strange assertion in light of the following point Thompson presents regarding criticisms of the DH raised by traditional believers:

“Skeptics of the Documentary Hypothesis observe that none of these alleged source documents exist except in the minds of their hypothesizers” (p. 86).

The fact is these source documents do exist. They appear in the first five books of the Bible. We can see them there today.

Sorenson; Reynolds; Bradshaw; Lindsey; oh my! You have to admire the economy and compactness with which Bokovoy utterly destroys the whole Mopologetic edifice here. And Bokovoy's concluding remarks are epic:

Yet before LDS apologists seek to counter this extensive body of research, it would be best if they first sought to understand it. I suspect simply producing apologetic essays such as this, which make fantastic claims about the implications of recent scholarship, and which misrepresent the DH will ultimately do more harm than good for those trying to maintain religious devotion to LDS scripture.

Instead, I would suggest two possible approaches: 1. Believers such as Thompson could simply ignore the implications of mainstream scholarship and just choose to believe. This would never work for me, but it does for some. 2. Believers such as Thompson could accept these historical views about the Bible and shift their belief paradigms to accommodate the implications of scholarship. It is possible to do, and many believers in a variety of faith communities are able to make that approach work.

In my view, either approach would be superior to publishing apologetic work, which shows that the authors have had very little exposure to the topics they’re addressing.

Kudos to Bokovoy for a job well done. I predict that the Mopologists will have nothing to say in response to this devastating critique.

I just have to say this and let the clones pile on....


I probably agree with you 90 percent of the times on your posts, I really do, whether they be right or wrong we are mostly of the same mind set. But it is getting really old that you come here and bag on these folks as almost a fulltime hobby or as DCP implies as a sick stalker, and you do not have enough balls to identify yourself.

You are like a vulture just waiting for a slip up or opening to pounce....and then just run and hide until your next opportunity to do incognito drive by.

Grow some balls scratch....or go away.

[Jersey Girl]

I just have to say this and let the clones pile on....


I probably agree with you 90 percent of the times on your posts, I really do, whether they be right or wrong we are mostly of the same mind set. But it is getting really old that you come here and bag on these folks as almost a fulltime hobby or as DCP implies as a sick stalker, and you do not have enough balls to identify yourself.

You are like a vulture just waiting for a slip up or opening to pounce....and then just run and hide until your next opportunity to do incognito drive by.

Grow some balls scratch....or go away.

You're replying to a THREE year old post.

[Markk]

I just have to say this and let the clones pile on....


I probably agree with you 90 percent of the times on your posts, I really do, whether they be right or wrong we are mostly of the same mind set. But it is getting really old that you come here and bag on these folks as almost a fulltime hobby or as DCP implies as a sick stalker, and you do not have enough balls to identify yourself.

You are like a vulture just waiting for a slip up or opening to pounce....and then just run and hide until your next opportunity to do incognito drive by.

Grow some balls scratch....or go away.

You're replying to a THREE year old post.

Well my bad, but my point still stands. He needs to stand up and go toe to toe with him. My post is relevant to all his assertions on DCP, whether true of or not.

[Gadianton]

Well my bad, but my point still stands. He needs to stand up and go toe to toe with him. My post is relevant to all his assertions on DCP, whether true of or not.

Actually, he can do whatever he wants. Free country. For now at least.

[IWMP]

I would agree that logically the writers of the books in the Book of Mormon wouldn't have knowledge of the goings on in the places the left after going to the wilderness. But if they were speaking to God as prophets then perhaps they would have some insight?

I can't remember if they do or don't talk about what's going on elsewhere. Not really feeling like exploring that but I do wonder if the Book of Mormon was abridged by someone with greater knowledge then perhaps he may include and adjust things to make sense to the intended reader. But then again, how easy is it to change text on plates?

I always visualise the story line of the Book of Mormon to be after the old testament. I see the Bible as two different books.