I think you missed my point. I was talking about the difference between apologetic purposes and academic purposes, directly in response to your comment here:Benjamin McGuire wrote: ↑Wed Jun 09, 2021 10:59 amBut PG isn't making an academic argument.Lem wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 7:05 pmNot discussing a concept such as PG's because it is in "conflict with outcomes that a believer would look for," or that it is "inconsistent with the assumptions" a believer would make is not a legitimate, academic reason. It may be valid in an apologetic sense, but again, that takes it out of the realm of academic analysis. That may certainly be an option, and if this thread is about that, then I can see the argument for a purely apologetic approach.
Concern over whether a believer would or would not be convinced by an argument has no bearing on determining the validity of that argument. If the context is convincing a believer, we are already out of the realm of academic analysis, so I suppose the point is moot.Benjamin McGuire wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 12:17 pmI suppose it all depends on what the purpose of the dialogue is. If you want to convince a believer that the anachronisms in the text challenge belief, then you have to argue from that perspective. Simply labeling the text fiction isn't going to generate meaningful dialogue. If on the other hand, you are able to make a coherent argument adopting the same assumptions, it can lead to meaningful dialogue. The reason why the suggestion that PG makes doesn't work in that context is because the outcomes he sees conflict with the outcomes that a believer would look for. A believer is not going to effectively attribute everything in the text to Joseph Smith (in a final redaction layer) because this is generally inconsistent with the assumptions that they make about the nature of the text, its purpose and its contents.
Really? Well, we are just having a discussion on a forum, so in that extremely strict sense you may be correct.(although stem I think was advocating for turning on the footnote feature, which would help!)But in any case, I haven't seen much here that would rise to the level of academic analysis.
In any case, you seem to have missed my point again. I was noting that dismissing an argument because, in your words, it would “conflict with outcomes that a believer would look for” would not constitute legitimate reasoning in an academic analysis.
By that argument, any book is read differently by every single person who reads it. So what? We still can analyze it. If you mean there is a difference in the sense that believers already have made up their minds and won’t want to read anything that disagrees with what they think they already know, again that would fall outside the realm of academic analysis.The Book of Mormon is not read in the same way by two individuals, one of whom believes it is an ancient record translated into English and the other of whom believes it is a modern fiction.