How long/intensely did you believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon?

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drumdude
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Re: How long/intensely did you believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon?

Post by drumdude »

“DP” wrote: Chills: "Mormons are the only group (and an extremely small group) that consider the Book of Mormon to be a complex work describing the incredible history of peoples in the Americas. "

The complexity is demonstrable. The antiquity is arguable.

Chills: "Non-Mormons see a very obvious work from 19th century America."

Very few non-LDS know enough about the Book of Mormon to have any opinion on it worth considering. The vast majority of them are actually, believe it or not, in sub-gemli territory.
Its interesting to see all the mental coping mechanisms that have to exist inside a believers mind. Like this one, where everyone who dismisses the book must be uneducated. Why else would they fail to believe the evidence?
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malkie
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Re: How long/intensely did you believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon?

Post by malkie »

drumdude wrote:
Sun Aug 14, 2022 5:52 pm
“DP” wrote: Chills: "Mormons are the only group (and an extremely small group) that consider the Book of Mormon to be a complex work describing the incredible history of peoples in the Americas. "

The complexity is demonstrable. The antiquity is arguable.

Chills: "Non-Mormons see a very obvious work from 19th century America."

Very few non-LDS know enough about the Book of Mormon to have any opinion on it worth considering. The vast majority of them are actually, believe it or not, in sub-gemli territory.
Its interesting to see all the mental coping mechanisms that have to exist inside a believers mind. Like this one, where everyone who dismisses the book must be uneducated. Why else would they fail to believe the evidence?
I wonder how many non-LDS have been introduced to the Book of Mormon by missionaries, and at what point they might be considered to "have any opinion on it worth considering". For those who engage beyond "Please go away and don't come back", whose responsibility is it to ensure that their opinion on the Book of Mormon is worth considering.

I suspect that there are also a lot of LDS who might not be considered to "have any opinion on it worth considering".

Although I didn't think about it when I was an active and believing member, I don't believe now that anyone should have considered my opinion to be worth anything, because if I thought about it at all, I simply assumed that it was what the church and the missionaries described it as. It was a mostly unexamined part of my life.
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Re: How long/intensely did you believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon?

Post by Kishkumen »

“DP” wrote: Chills: "Mormons are the only group (and an extremely small group) that consider the Book of Mormon to be a complex work describing the incredible history of peoples in the Americas. "

The complexity is demonstrable. The antiquity is arguable.

Chills: "Non-Mormons see a very obvious work from 19th century America."

Very few non-LDS know enough about the Book of Mormon to have any opinion on it worth considering. The vast majority of them are actually, believe it or not, in sub-gemli territory.
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honorentheos
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Re: How long/intensely did you believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon?

Post by honorentheos »

I am BIC, sixth+ generation Mormon. The Book of Mormon was not just historical, it was history I believed to be literally more perfect than the Bible due to it being a direct translation of the original source material. I believe this into my late 20s. I didn't really have interest in trying to reconcile what I vaguely heard about archaeology.

Doubt didn't creep in for me. I've mentioned on the old board that the trigger for me didn't start with the Church but rather the lead up to the Iraq war where it was pretty clear that the evidence was not supporting the narrative being pushed. Personal experience with that left me wondering where I was being uncritical and overly accepting. Both followed exposure in college to critical thinking techniques and it clicked for me that critical thinking was something I needed to apply to my own assumptions. Shortly thereafter I was exposed to a critical claim online about Church history (I don't recall which anymore) and realized my reaction to reject it before evaluating the evidence for bias I needed to conscientiously set aside and draw conclusions from the evidence.

So for me, questioning the historicity of the Book of Mormon came in a bundle with questioning the claims of Joseph Smith in general. It was the issues with the first vision that made it possible for me to accept that the archaeological evidence against the Book of Mormon deserved greater weight than any spiritual witness or prophetic authority.

So I guess I can't claim to have seen through it. I didn't. It was so much a part of my worldview that I could have as easily denied Asia existed (never having been there myself) as doubted the Lehi party made the journey from the middle east to the Americas and their descendants were visited by the resurrected Christ.
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Re: How long/intensely did you believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon?

Post by honorentheos »

I should add: I had experiences in life that I ascribed to direct personal revelation. The reason the first vision issues ended up creating the first real effective crack for me was it called the spiritual foundations for the restoration into questioning.
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Gadianton
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Re: How long/intensely did you believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon?

Post by Gadianton »

I think H's point about the "bundle" is critical. I can't explain my beliefs about historicity in a straightforward way. The gospel is a tapestry with a certain look and feel, a fragile production in danger of unraveling if any of the thousand loose ends are pulled at too hard. Yes, I would have always said the Book of Mormon is literal history, because that is the right position to hold, much like I would say you shouldn't smoke. This is why a person might doubt the Book of Mormon upon taking offense to something the Bishop says, or a true believer might change their beliefs about Book of Mormon historicity on the fly to better protect the overall belief.

There would have been no depth to that belief. Sure, pre-mission, I encountered Since Cumorah and I was encouraged, and I laughed at people who dismissed the Book of Mormon. On mission I ended up at a university library researching a non-Book of Mormon subject for an upcoming bash with lay ministers, I was shocked by the feel of real Bible scholarship, and realized Nibley was kind of a joke. What I was researching had nothing to do with any particular Nibley claim either, it was just the way the arguments were built and how much sense a naturalistic understanding of the Bible made. And I never read a Nibley book again. But in that long process that ended up with me going permanently inactive a few years later, I don't recall ever thinking about the historicity of the Book of Mormon directly.

As my overall approach moved from integrating the world into Mormon mythology to embracing a naturalistic worldview, particulars such as the historicity of the Book of Mormon fell into place. Funny enough, for me, Joseph Smith, Book of Abraham, Book of Mormon had nothing to do with my leaving, and I wasn't aware of the unsavory aspects of church history until years later, reading others on these forums.
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Dr Moore
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Re: How long/intensely did you believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon?

Post by Dr Moore »

The Book of Mormon is unquestionably the keystone. I believed the Book of Mormon was historical because frankly that is a CORE element to the truth claims of the church and the book’s role as keystone.

If any one of the brethren ever admits the Book of Mormon may not be an actual ancient historical record, I think on that day it will be game over for the church as pertaining to its restoration and priesthood narrative. Maybe as a reformation movement, but nothing at all like the church of Joseph or Brigham, or for that matter of Nelson, Oaks, Bednar.
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Re: How long/intensely did you believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon?

Post by msnobody »

“DP” wrote: Chills: "Mormons are the only group (and an extremely small group) that consider the Book of Mormon to be a complex work describing the incredible history of peoples in the Americas. "

The complexity is demonstrable. The antiquity is arguable.

Chills: "Non-Mormons see a very obvious work from 19th century America."

Very few non-LDS know enough about the Book of Mormon to have any opinion on it worth considering. The vast majority of them are actually, believe it or not, in sub-gemli territory.
Its interesting to see all the mental coping mechanisms that have to exist inside a believers mind. Like this one, where everyone who dismisses the book must be uneducated. Why else would they fail to believe the evidence?
[/quote]

By the time I encountered LDS missionaries and the Book of Mormon, I knew all I need is Jesus and it is through him that I have access to the Father, and blessed with every spiritual blessing. So, the Book of Mormon wasn’t anything I needed.
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Re: How long/intensely did you believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon?

Post by Morley »

I sometimes wonder at how little it took to bump me out of the church. I left before I even became aware of the thousands of issues that are so well-known today.

In my mid-twenties, I took a physical anthropology class where I read a half a page about what was then called the Diego Blood Group. I spent several long nights in the Marriott library researching it. What I found was enough can the whole idea of the Book of Mormon as history for me.
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Dr Moore
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Re: How long/intensely did you believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon?

Post by Dr Moore »

msnobody wrote:
Mon Aug 15, 2022 1:05 am
“DP” wrote: Chills: "Mormons are the only group (and an extremely small group) that consider the Book of Mormon to be a complex work describing the incredible history of peoples in the Americas. "

The complexity is demonstrable. The antiquity is arguable.

Chills: "Non-Mormons see a very obvious work from 19th century America."

Very few non-LDS know enough about the Book of Mormon to have any opinion on it worth considering. The vast majority of them are actually, believe it or not, in sub-gemli territory.
Its interesting to see all the mental coping mechanisms that have to exist inside a believers mind. Like this one, where everyone who dismisses the book must be uneducated. Why else would they fail to believe the evidence?

By the time I encountered LDS missionaries and the Book of Mormon, I knew all I need is Jesus and it is through him that I have access to the Father, and blessed with every spiritual blessing. So, the Book of Mormon wasn’t anything I needed.
A troubling blanket ad hominem defense at best. Y’er all idiots, dismissed! Meanwhile, people who DO know the Book of Mormon inside out, seminary grads and who literally spent two years doing nothing but selling and studying the book, are leaving in “droves.”
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