In a recent article, one author [Joseph Spencer]
chides ... those who "have almost universally assumed the ancient historicity of the Book of Mormon and so have staged their arguments ... by drawing on its ancient bearings," since he claims that those particular features of the text, like its genre, "would be all the more apparent to those uninterested in the Book of Mormon’s claim[s] to an ancient origin." Now I'm going to quibble a little bit here. I'm not sure that--I grant that those who aren't interested in the Book of Mormon's claims to ancient origins may see things differently. I'm not sure that this is necessarily an advantage. In the particular case of genre where this person is invoking, the first person to notice the genre in question was an ardent defender of the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon and no one else in the previous 120 years noticed this particular genre, especially those who weren't interested in the Book of Mormon as an ancient book. But, while I think the argument is flawed, the important thing is that he's arguing that the Book of Mormon is--that believing that the Book of Mormon is ancient is a handicap to understanding the text. Those who don't care about whether it's ancient have an advantage in understanding.
Now, moving on to a different case,
one reviewer praises another author for disposing of "the old bugbear of historicity in studies of LDS scripture by casting Joseph Smith as heir to a long tradition of anachronistic revision by allusion that includes the authors of Second Isaiah and Deuteronomy."
Another reviewer took a different view of the exact same author of the exact same book: "It is over this point that some of the writer's audience--assuming an audience composed at least partially of believing Latter-day Saints--may balk because they may feel that his thesis hews too closely to the claims of anti-LDS writings, which for years have claimed that Joseph Smith, rather than ancient prophets, is the actual author of the Book of Mormon."
A non-Mormon individual doing Mormon studies [John Turner]
notes the perpetual issue of the Book of Mormon's authenticity: "When it comes to the New Testament, one might debate whether the Gospel of John dates to the late first century or to the early second century, but no one questions that it is indeed an ancient text. With the Book of Mormon (and the books of Moses and Abraham), one debates millennia, not decades." He notes that "the fact that the vast majority of my students do not accept the Book of Mormon as an ancient text makes many reluctant to" even "discuss the use of the Book of Mormon by both nineteenth-century and contemporary Latter-day Saints."
This is only to show that the issue of historical authenticity has not gone away, even if some wish it would. The subject has a long history in the church. It was addressed in general conference back in 1874 by Orson Pratt. And it still continues with us today. Now, to be sure, some of these writers were children back when the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon was a hot-button issue, but some of them have also bragged about how they have not bothered to read the previous scholarly work on the Book of Mormon. I'm not sure that's something to brag about.
A generation ago, an apostle [Dallin Oaks] actually weighed in on the issue. At that time he
noted that "[s]ome who term themselves believing Latter-day Saints are advocating that Latter-day Saints should 'abandon claims that [the Book of Mormon] is a historical record of the ancient peoples of the Americas.' They are promoting the feasibility of reading and using the Book of Mormon as nothing more than a pious fiction with some valuable contents."
One difference now is that instead of openly advocating abandoning the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon, some Latter-day Saints are merely advocating that the issue is unimportant and can, or should, be set aside. Others [Rosalynde Welch]
praise "attempts [by Joseph Spencer in
An Other Testament] to disarm the contentious question of the book’s historicity ... through more audacious attempt to deconstruct the very premise of the question."
Now, the apostle who weighed in on the issue back in 1993, Dallin H. Oaks, now a member of the First Presidency,
termed "[t]he historicity—historical authenticity—of the Book of Mormon" to be a fundamental issue related to "faith in the Lord Jesus Christ."
The term
fundamental refers to the foundation of an intellectual position and thus something that is important and cannot be set aside. Whether it is wise to deconstruct a fundamental issue is an intriguing question. Elder Oaks went on to
say that "the issue of the historicity of the Book of Mormon is basically a difference between those who rely exclusively on scholarship and those who rely on a combination of scholarship, faith, and revelation. Those who rely exclusively on scholarship reject revelation and fulfill Nephi’s prophecy that in the last days men 'shall teach with their learning, and deny the Holy Ghost, which giveth utterance.'"
Since the issue is fundamental, I think it may be worth exploring.
