Book of Abraham video "challenges"

[_mms]

So check out the short Book of Abraham videos at http://www.mormonchallenges.org

[_excom]

The end of the Alone video makes an interesting conclusion. The people that were introduced to the God of Joseph "had reasons to doubt and reasons to believe, they chose to believe." This does not state the absolute fact that many of them then and now choose to doubt. This is a very interesting approach to a problem that is obviously on the radar of the believers. When ever I watch a production, I have a hard time not noticing that the actors are acting. The script, the acting, the message are all very interesting to me. Sort of an odd attempt to keep as many as they can, but knowing that there will always be "Ryans" out there.

[_robuchan]

Bringing it full circle to the Dan Peterson issue, you notice John Dehlin is the sympathetic and caring troubled Mormon voice, Mopologists are seen as part of the problem, and the day is saved by Kerry Muhlestein and Terryl Givens (quoted from a Mormon Stories podcast If I recall correctly).

[_DrW]

If this is the new direction in which Mormon apologetics is headed, it looks as if they could be on to something. Instead of writing long and boring pseudo intellectual screeds, just make a video with actors who tell a story. No real claims of factual validity for the "faithful interpretation" of things need be made.

In other words, when you don't have the facts on your side, and so must convince the members to ignore the facts, go to the Heart Sell option. After all, this is what Mormon thought leaders are good at (because it is about the only thing that works) and what the rest of the faithful members understand and relate to - until they don't.

[_Sethbag]

I smirked when the main dude tells his dad that his friends had been watching some videos that "threw him off" on the church, and the first question out of the dad's mouth was "pornography?"

[_Sethbag]

Also, the dude's wife gets all choked up and teary-eyed and asks him "you aren't having doubts about the church are you?", then gets all pissed off at him for not telling her he was looking at anti-Mormon stuff, as if by doing so he was cheating on her or something. It delegitimizes looking into Mormon truth claims from a non-faithful point of view. He's made to appear like he did something wrong.

Also, her reaction to him "keeping this from me" is precisely the kind of reaction that probably caused him not to tell her in the first place. In other words, he's just looking for some truthful answers to legitimate questions, and his wife turns it into a sort of love for her or loyalty to the church test.

[_Sethbag]

Kerry Muhlestein sets up a defense that starts out with the Gee Defense, that anyone who isn't an Egyptologist can't really understand the issues. This is just a deflection, a water-muddying defense.

He also implies some sort of alternative-to-translation translation theory, by saying that once one realizes that Joseph wasn't translating from the material included in the papyri right around one of the facsimiles (material the church now has, and which translates out to stuff not actually the Book of Abraham) all these problems vanish. And this despite internal references to that very material in the Book of Abraham.

The white-haired "scholar of the scriptures" that the main actor talks to keeps talking about how one must give up their false assumptions (in other words, disregard the facts alleged in the anti-Mormon sites) and apply a spiritual test.

[_Bazooka]

Except it's the story of Abraham "written by his own hand on the papyrus"...awkward.

[_Stormy Waters]

Kerry Muhlestein sets up a defense that starts out with the Gee Defense, that anyone who isn't an Egyptologist can't really understand the issues. This is just a deflection, a water-muddying defense.

Not just a Egyptologist you also have to be a "very good church historian" as well.

[_Sethbag]

Also he mentions finding a video from an LDS scholar who "has published a ton, including by the Oxford Press". Well, what he says must make it alright then, mustn't it?