Brent Metcalfe wrote:Hi Dan,Thanks for your amiable reply.
I also had blue eyes when I posted it. I always have blue eyes. I'm always amiable.
Brent Metcalfe wrote:Daniel Peterson wrote:One diagnostic rule of thumb would be that an official revelation could almost certainly not be directly, openly, repeatedly, and clearly contradicted in the Church magazines, in teaching at the Church's universities, in publications of the Church's universities, and so forth.
If so, then surely the traditional understanding of the New York Ramah/Cumorah as the site of the Jaredite/Nephite genocide would be judged correct. Or do you dispute that such an interpretation is not the dominant interpretation emerging from the venues that you reference.
Not at all. At least until recent years, that interpretation was virtually unanimous.
But you've missed my point. My point is that Church magazines, teachers at the Church's universities and publications from the Church's universities, would not long be permitted to directly, openly, repeatedly, and clearly contradict official, revealed Church doctrine. Yet teachers at the Church's universities and publications from the Church's universities and even, arguably, articles in the Church magazines, have directly, openly, repeatedly, and clearly contradicted the notion that the New York drumlin is that site of the final Book of Mormon battles. If someone were to openly, directly, expressly, and clearly declare the Book of Mormon a fraud, or Jesus a dead mortal with no saving power, or God a figment of the imagination, or temples unnecessary, or any number of similar things, that person would not last long at the Church's universities and would not be able to express such opinions in the Church's magazines or in publications issued by the Church's universities.
Brent Metcalfe wrote:Perhaps more importantly, since when do the "Church's universities" or "publications of the Church's universities" issue "official" Mormon teachings?
That question, of course, has nothing whatever to do with my point.
Brent Metcalfe wrote:In 1886, Heber C. Kimball offered a curious spiritual premonition:
Dec 17, 1866 ... On Saturday the 15 President Heber C Kimball while at the Endowment House Prophesied that when the final last struggle came to this Nation it would be at the Hill Cumorah whare both of the former Nations were destroyed.
First, remember that I don't believe in the infallibility of counselors in the First Presidency (nor of anybody else, including authors of second-hand summaries of what others have said) and that I don't feel myself bound particularly by obscure statements of counselors in the First Presidency at all. As you may recall, the doctrine of the Church is not set by individual counselors or individual apostles.
That said, this outlier of a statement still doesn't disturb me. Was Heber C. Kimball claiming a revelation as to the location of the final Nephite battles? It doesn't seem so. (As you point out, "Remember, Heber knew of only one Ramah/Cumorah... the Palmyra hill.") Was he claiming a revelation as to the location of a final battle of the last days? That seems to have been his focus. He was saying that this apocalyptic battle would occur at the same spot as that on which the Nephites and Jaredites met their ends, which he may well simply have assumed to have been the hill in New York. He may be precisely right, for all I know, that the apocalyptic battle will occur on the same spot, while mistakenly assuming that spot to have been in New York.
Without a chance to ask Heber C. Kimball some questions, and lacking even his own exact words, this obscure second-hand account of a statement by a former counselor in the First Presidency seems a bit of a weak reed, although I admit that it's slightly stronger than Michael Watson's letter to "Bishop Brooks."
