Historical Book of Mormon under Siege

[_Chap]

I agree except that it requires religion to be evidence based instead of faith based. Such an approach would diminish the need for religion altogether, would it not?

Why, that would be just ... awful.

But, my dear Glaucon, I seem for the moment to have forgotten why it would be so dreadful if we did not need religion. It was so hot coming here through the Agora today ... I am perhaps just a little muddle-headed as a result. Could you perhaps have the kindness to remind me?

I haven't yet finished reading the Republic so your witty comment is lost on me. But let me just comment that I was just a few meters from Athens agora and I didn't go! I ran out of time due to my obsession with the Athena cult. I spent all my hours dreaming and staring at Nike statues.

It wasn't all that witty - it is just that Glaucon, an older brother of Plato, appears in several dialogs as an interlocutor of Socrates, and at the start of the Parmenides he is said to be passing through the Agora:

We had come from our home at Clazomenae to Athens, and met Adeimantus and Glaucon in the Agora. Welcome, Cephalus, said Adeimantus, taking me by the hand; is there anything which we can do for you in Athens?

Yes; that is why I am here; I wish to ask a favour of you.
What may that be? he said.
I want you to tell me the name of your half brother, which I have forgotten; he was a mere child when I last came hither from Clazomenae, but that was a long time ago; his father's name, if I remember rightly, was Pyrilampes?

Yes, he said, and the name of our brother, Antiphon; but why do you ask?

Let me introduce some countrymen of mine, I said; they are lovers of philosophy, and have heard that Antiphon was intimate with a certain Pythodorus, a friend of Zeno, and remembers a conversation which took place between Socrates, Zeno, and Parmenides many years ago, Pythodorus having often recited it to him.

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/parmenides.html

I'm sorry you missed the Agora. One of the nice places to go and think is near a boundary stone towards the Acropolis, the place where there are the ruins of what is thought to have been a cobbler's shop (lots of hobnails found), which may have been the place where Socrates visited his friend Simon the Shoemaker - apart from the nails, there was also a cup-base with ΣΙΜΟΝΟΣ (Simon's) written on it. Simon is said to have been the first to record conversations with Socrates.

[_I have a question]

I don't think the historical Book of Mormon is under siege....I think it's dead.

[_Gray Ghost]

A definite wake up call for fundamentalists.

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

I don't think the historical Book of Mormon is under siege....I think it's dead.

I think the historical Book of Mormon is certainly showing signs of dying a long slow death. Ironically, I think the old FARMS under the "leadership" (and I use that term loosely) of Daniel C. Peterson played a large part in killing the historical Book of Mormon.

Pseudo-science, false claims peddled off as evidence and priest craft are all part of the legacy of the old FARMS. With friends like these, the historical Book of Mormon doesn't need any enemies.

[_Maksutov]

The self healing properties of organized irrationality, its potency as a social force, should not be underestimated.

Absolutely. I suspect you know this book:


Festinger, Leon; Henry W. Riecken, Stanley Schachter (1956). When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 1-59147-727-1.

Reissued 2008 by Pinter & Martin with a foreword by Elliot Aronson, ISBN 978-1-905177-19-6

Nicely summarized at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails

This group actually grew stronger and turned to active outreach when its predictions failed in a definitive and public way. Disproof actually gave committed members extra energy!

Festinger and his colleagues infiltrated Keech's group and reported the following sequence of events:

Before December 20. The group shuns publicity. Interviews are given only grudgingly. Access to Keech's house is only provided to those who can convince the group that they are true believers. The group evolves a belief system—provided by the automatic writing from the planet Clarion—to explain the details of the cataclysm, the reason for its occurrence, and the manner in which the group would be saved from the disaster.

December 20. The group expects a visitor from outer space to call upon them at midnight and to escort them to a waiting spacecraft. As instructed, the group goes to great lengths to remove all metallic items from their persons. As midnight approaches, zippers, bra straps, and other objects are discarded. The group waits.

12:05 am, December 21. No visitor. Someone in the group notices that another clock in the room shows 11:55. The group agrees that it is not yet midnight.

12:10 am. The second clock strikes midnight. Still no visitor. The group sits in stunned silence. The cataclysm itself is no more than seven hours away.

4:00 am. The group has been sitting in stunned silence. A few attempts at finding explanations have failed. Keech begins to cry.

4:45 am. Another message by automatic writing is sent to Keech. It states, in effect, that the God of Earth has decided to spare the planet from destruction. The cataclysm has been called off: "The little group, sitting all night long, had spread so much light that God had saved the world from destruction."

Afternoon, December 21. Newspapers are called; interviews are sought. In a reversal of its previous distaste for publicity, the group begins an urgent campaign to spread its message to as broad an audience as possible.

It really is fascinating, Chap. In recent years there was another sociological study of a UFO cult, in this case the Unarius Society which is headquartered in Los Angeles: http://www.amazon.com/When-Prophecy-Nev ... 0195176758

These groups are numerous throughout the USA and western Europe, with overlaps into all kinds of bizarre conspiracy theories and ever escalating hokum. David Icke anyone? They mix pseudoscience, paranoia, spiritualism, theosophy, every kind of whackiness that can be harvested from the fertile Unconscious of the Internet.

I'm struck by how much these groups appeal to people with feelings of inferiority. They upend the social order by declaring leaders and experts to be dupes, criminals or delusional, with their fancy learnin' and their perversely cosmopolitan ways.

[_mentalgymnast]

I don't think the historical Book of Mormon is under siege....I think it's dead.

Well of course you do. Surprise surprise.

Is/are the author/authors of the Book of Mormon well established? If you sat down in the same room as Royal Skousen, Brant Gardner, Terryl Givens, John Clark, Grant Hardy, and a number of others, would they be on the same page as you...and would their conclusions be just as valid as yours?

Why or why not?

All I'm saying is that just because you think the historical Book of Mormon is dead that doesn't mean that it is.

Regards,
MG

[_Kishkumen]

All I'm saying is that just because you think the historical Book of Mormon is dead that doesn't mean that it is.

I disagree with the contention that the historical Book of Mormon is dead. If Jenkins' blog posts accomplish anything, they help more people understand why the historicity of the Book of Mormon is not even a question for many people. The key point in his discussion is the same point I have made time and time again: it is up to those who believe the book is historical to make a compelling case for historicity; otherwise, there is no question for the scholarly world to consider. It certainly is not anyone's job to prove that the Book of Mormon is not ancient.

So far, believers in the antiquity of the Book of Mormon have made a very poor case. Ergo, most historians don't waste their time on the issue.

[_Maksutov]

All I'm saying is that just because you think the historical Book of Mormon is dead that doesn't mean that it is.

I disagree with the contention that the historical Book of Mormon is dead. If Jenkins' blog posts accomplish anything, they help more people understand why the historicity of the Book of Mormon is not even a question for many people. The key point in his discussion is the same point I have made time and time again: it is up to those who believe the book is historical to make a compelling case for historicity; otherwise, there is no question for the scholarly world to consider. It certainly is not anyone's job to prove that the Book of Mormon is not ancient.

So far, believers in the antiquity of the Book of Mormon have made a very poor case. Ergo, most historians don't waste their time on the issue.

Today is Bloomsday, the anniversary of the day described in James Joyce's Ulysses. Ulysses continues to be a source of inspiration, amazement, frustration, obsession and influence. It is not a history of June 16, 1904. It is the story of a small number of people and the universe between and inside them. Its richness and inventiveness and complexity is astounding. Ulysses could be seen as like unto a scripture, for English majors, at least. To use it to try and settle historical disputes would be silly.

I would encourage the Latter Day Saints to consider the creative nature of prophets and the real functions of scripture. It would mean turning from the iron rod to the liahona, though. Always a risky proposition.

[_DarkHelmet]

I don't think the historical Book of Mormon is under siege....I think it's dead.

It was never really alive to begin with. It's been a bad joke from the beginning.

[_Maksutov]

I don't think the historical Book of Mormon is under siege....I think it's dead.

It was never really alive to begin with. It's been a bad joke from the beginning.

It's another in a long line of apocrypha. There are people out there channeling or fabricating new ones right now. They'll be foisted on a future generation. Must serve some purpose. More data needed.