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Interpreter has been around almost 10 years now. A large portion of its academic output has focused on the study of the Book of Mormon in a historical context. Studying the real ancient Nephites and Lamanites through the real actual (definitely not made-up) history they left behind.

Shouldn’t there be enough meat there for BYU to offer at least one class that combines all of this valuable academic writing into a cohesive whole?

How about a department, a program, a degree in Book of Mormon anthropology? Hell the church is rich enough, they could build a Book of Mormon museum in the middle of temple square just like the evangelicals built Noah’s ark in Missouri.

But, since those things haven’t been done… is that tacit admission that there really isn’t enough meat there? Interpreter, through its billions of words in thousands of articles, hasn’t actually produced anything worth teaching?

Epistemic distance is the goto excuse. This fringe nebulous region where all doubts and contradictions are sorted in a Dewey Decimal system. Resulting in every number being evidence.

To me, if there ever had been "enough meat there for BYU to offer at least one class that combines all of this valuable academic writing into a cohesive whole", I'm fairly certain that such a class would exist already.

I don't know if something like this was in the mind of BH Roberts when he went on his New World expeditions, but I expect that it would/could have been a natural result if he had discovered enough evidence to support it.

It might even have given John Gee something coherent to answer Phillip Jenkins with eight years ago.

I recall that there was a political science class on Book of Mormon politics that one could take in the 90s at BYU. I don't think it's offered anymore though.

we used to discuss this a long time ago. Worse than evidence, there is no faithful research program whatsoever, and there never has been.

just a few random books and an Interpreter article or two.

Sorenson's work could have been the start of something, but it wasn't. His work was done in the 50s. Didn't go anywhere, so he published a book in 1985. That was over 30 years ago, and 60+ years ago. Nothing since then. It's not just that it isn't a topic the outside scholarly world has five minutes of interest for, but it's not even a real topic within the Church.

Gadianton wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 20, 2023 2:04 am

we used to discuss this a long time ago. Worse than evidence, there is no faithful research program whatsoever, and there never has been.

just a few random books and an Interpreter article or two.

Sorenson's work could have been the start of something, but it wasn't. His work was done in the 50s. Didn't go anywhere, so he published a book in 1985. That was over 30 years ago, and 60+ years ago. Nothing since then. It's not just that it isn't a topic the outside scholarly world has five minutes of interest for, but it's not even a real topic within the Church.

That’s what really blows my mind. Not even BYU can justify a course which takes these claims seriously. Intelligent design. Critical race theory. There are plenty of controversial areas of study which still have textbooks and professors teaching classes on them.

When it comes to what Interpreter deals with? Nothing. Zero. No teachers, no students, no textbooks. Not a single article there would hold up to any kind of real academic rigor. It’s all an illusion, a facade of scholarship which blows over with the slightest gust of wind.

There might be a BYU Department of Archeology, if they could only locate the single shard of Nephite pottery that was attached to the 2nd Watson letter.

Baby steps. I think BYU is heading in the right direction. Right now you can take a class on the 3 Nephites, aliens from Kolob and Cain. Here is the course description. It sounds very interesting:


Anthropology 301

Do you believe the truth is out there? Have you ever heard or seen anything strange while hiking along the Wasatch Front? Have you ever had a stranger fix your tire or help you at the grocery store? Have you ever seen a ufo or been probed by an alien? If that sounds like you, you've more than likely had a close encounter with Cain, aliens from the planet Kolob or the 3 Nephites. This three-credit class will be devoted to the study of what non-Mormons call cryptids, but we know them as Kolobians, the 3 Nephites and Cain.

Now I want to get chat gpt to write the entire course!




I’m sure in a few months you can pipe all the garbage from interpreter into it and get a really hilarious class out of it.