Books of Mormon, Abraham, Moses as Inspired Fiction

[Symmachus]

I would add that "fiction" is a rather shaky concept as well, itself a relatively recent invention.

Indeed. Thank you, dear consul.

It's a minor point, perhaps, but it seems to me worth asking what we even mean by "fiction." The default use here seems to be "invented, made up" as a way of saying "not true." Benjamin rightly and eloquently makes the case for how something that is "invented and made up" can still have "meaning" for a reader. One can say the same thing about all kinds of "fictional" works. Speaking for myself, whatever meaning I derive from things external to my social realities (family and so on) is derived from fictions, especially poetry. I can't say I've reached the W. Jackson Knight stage of Vergil mania, but I can almost spy the path that takes one there.

Scripture in the traditional Jewish and Christian sense, though, has always worked against that. Sure, you have your allegorists like Philo and the Alexandrian theologians but these have been marginal cases. God-in-history is the whole theological point of these two religious traditions, and the category of heresy was invented as a response to approaches to text that submerge or erase or marginalizes this theological point. Symbolic readings abound, to be sure, but they are subordinated to the central idea of God-in-history, and not the other way around.

It's not just that readers chose one way or reading or another (though they did do that) but that most readers took that choice because they took the words to mean what they ordinarily mean and not what the allegorists contrived them artificially to mean. Both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament give you a god who operates in human history. I see the post-modernist approach as equally reliant on artificial contrivance (and please let me be spared the reductionist distortion that all language is artificial contrivance: anyone who wishes to rely on that by using words in such a way that they expect those words to convey meaning to me that can be understood by me in a way that they intend—such a person will refute their claim in the act of making it, so I won't bother doing it for them).

The Book of Mormon is just such a problem because of the way the text asks you to read it. One needs the artificial contrivances of postmodern rhetoric to make it work, but very few will be able to do that (cue a Gnostic approach).

I rather like Gadianton's solution, though I'm not sure of its viability. It reminds me of the Qur'ān (which is neither history nor fiction). There is a talismanic quality to the way one encounters that text. Anyone who has lived for a long time in Muslim society sees that. But the Qur'ān is not a narrative text that displays the workings of god in history. One can read it in this without with the tendentiousness of post-modern rhetoric, because the Qur'ān self-consciously directs readers to see it as an āyah: a sign that points at its own divine origin (each "verse" of a sūrah is called an āyah. Consider too the following verses, which instruct the reader to interpret the quality of the text—independent of its content—as a divine sign of its own:

Now if you doubt what we have sent down to our servant, then produce a sūrah like it and call as witnesses any but God, if there is any truth to your claim. But if you do not—and you will not—then fear the fire! For people and stones are its fuel, and it is ready for those who do not believe.

(al-Baqarah 2:23-24)

Or do they say, "this Qur'ān is fiction" (literally, "he has forged/fabricated/made this Qur'ān up": see entry under root f-r-' in Abdel Haleem and Badawi's lexicon), say, "produce ten sūras like it and call on anyone you can (for help), other than God, (to see) if what you say is true

(al-Hud 11:13)

Say, "If humankind and jinn came together intending to produce the like of this Qur'ān, they would not produce its like, even if they helped one another."

(al-Isra 17:88)

Now, of course the Book of Mormon is not that explicit, though the apologists essentially play this kind of game all the time and effectively treat the Book of Mormon as a talisman: since Joseph couldn't have known about the Sumerian word for grain, this is a proof of its divine origin (or as the Qur'ān puts it, burhān). And consider:

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things

(Moroni 10: 4-5)

What does "these things" refer to? Mormons and potential Mormons are taught that it refers to the Book of Mormon as a whole: if you feel "these things" are true, then the Book of Mormon does not lie about itself, and from that it follows that Joseph Smith was not a liar, ergo the LDS Church is the one true one. QED. I suspect, though, that Benjamin would like it to have a more restricted reference.

But in any case it functions like these verses in the Qur'ān: the text asks its readers to test it out as something that is true, to come to see that the text is a divine product. There are differences, though. The Qur'ān claims to be evidence of the divine, but the Book of Mormon tells you use the divine for evidence of the text. And then there is the problem of what these texts are. The Qur'ān is mostly homiletic, rarely narrative, and occasionally expository. The Book of Mormon is mostly narrative, occasionally homiletic, and rarely expository. It gets harder to take Moroni's promise up if you don't think there even was a person named Moroni. And here we come to the main problem. The Qur'ān, as a talismanic text, is its own āyah—it is the sign of its own divinity—but the Book of Mormon's āyah is history itself. Not only has the Book of Mormon (and Mormonism) inherited the Judeo-Christian link between the divine purpose and human history but it has fortified and particularized it: it's got prophecies about Joseph Smith and the pilgrims and the constitution and all this stuff, and it has numerous 1st person identities that are the narrative vehicles for it. I'm not saying that one can't get meaning from it; I'm emphasizing how difficult it is (and I think Benjamin sees this) neatly to separate the Book of Mormon as an artifact from the Book of Mormon as a meaningful text. It is very much like the Qur'ān in this sense. It may not be its own divine evidence like the Qur'ān claims to be, but, like the Qur'ān, it does ask readers to treat it as an artifact. It is not just the later tradition of reading it in the context of a religious movement that does this; the text is unusually focused on the materiality of these civilizations (the coinage, the anthropology, the religious life, the economic life, the agricultural realities, the natural environment, the political structures, and of course the languages and the writing) in a way that is not incidental. Reading it otherwise puts a reader in the paradoxical position of un-reading it.

So, Gad, the Doctrine and Covenants might be better candidate (like Qur'ān, God is the narrator). Perhaps Mormonism could make the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price fictional in the way that Islam takes prophetic lore and the Hebrew Bible and New Testament: useful but distorted. The Doctrine and Covenants, though, is God's revelation now. If only we could find a way to have it melodiously set to a lilting chant to be performed by expert Doctrine-and-Coventants-reciters who've had the whole thing memorized since childhood.

[Themis]

Let us suppose that, hypothetically, the church publishes a new proclamation that states the Books of Mormon, Abraham and Moses are all inspired, prophetic, and true--but they're fiction. Included in this proclamation is also a statement that the Old Testament is inspired fiction.

Does that solve all y'all's problems? See you in church on Sunday?

I haven't looked to see if anyone has brought this up, but does inspired fiction make God a liar?

[Benjamin McGuire]

So, suppose that the LDS Church were to canonize the Proclamation on the Family. This wouldn't be history. But it would become scripture. Something being scripture is as much about the way it is read (by those who accept it as scripture) as anything else. The idea that it must somehow be history is a problem that comes with doctrines of inerrancy, which is certainly not contemporary with the writing of the Bible.

Esther in the Old Testament is almost certainly a work of fiction. So Themis asks, does this make God a liar? Only, I suppose, if you believe that God is responsible not only for the text but also for the way that it should be read (whatever that is). This is a perspective that comes more from Evangelicals than anywhere else. This observation isn't really mine (at least I can't take credit for it, although I agree with it). Bart Ehrman wrote this in his book Jesus Interrupted:

there are certain views of the inspiration of Scripture, such as the one I had pounded into me as a late teenager, that do not stand up well to the facts of textual criticism. For most Christians, who don’t have a conservative evangelical view like the one I had, these textual facts can be interesting, but there is nothing in them to challenge their faith, which is built on something other than having the very words that God inspired in the Bible. . . . In any event, as I indicated, these theses themselves were almost entirely noncontroversial. Who can deny that we have thousands of manuscripts? Or hundreds of thousands of variants? Or that lots of the variants involve spelling? Or that scholars continue to debate what the original text was in lots of places? All of these statements are factually true. The one statement that has stirred up controversy is my claim that some of these variations are significant. This view has been objected to by some conservative evangelicals and no one else that I know of. That gives me pause—why is this criticism coming only from people with a particular set of theological views?

I think that if we see God as the author of scripture then we should be concerned with what God's intentions are in the texts he gives us. And these intentions may be at odds with what the texts themselves are (in literary terms I am familiar with, we might suggest that scripture can function as both a locutionary and an illocutionary act which can be very different from each other).

Mormons are, for the most part, much more closely aligned with Evangelicals over questions of textuality than most of them realize. In terms of the question of history, the Book of Mormon itself points to a way to understand that text that is completely divorced from history. I have written about this. Not only does it point to this, but it provides examples of how to read the text in this way. This is from my paper on Nephi reading:

Nephi does provide his audience with two interpretive strategies. The first is described near the beginning of the lengthy excerpts from Isaiah:

But that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah; for I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning. (1 Nephi 19:23)

If Nephi has invited his audience to read without the special knowledge needed to understand the texts as their authors intended, he does explain that they can re-contextualize them within their own communities. His second interpretive strategy appears near the end of the Isaiah excerpts:

For because the words of Isaiah are not plain unto you, nevertheless they are plain unto all those that are filled with the spirit of prophecy. (2 Nephi 25:4)

Perhaps the most interesting example of Nephi’s interpretive strategies in action occurs in 2 Nephi 26–27. There we have much of Isaiah 29 incorporated into Nephi’s text.
...
In recognizing the earlier text from Nephi being used here, our perspective shifts. We are no longer reading just a commentary on Isaiah. Rather, we are reading a commentary on Nephi’s prophecy. Instead of Nephi’s using his own language to comment on Isaiah, he uses the language of Isaiah to comment on his own earlier text. Nephi understands that his own prophecy is not about Jerusalem (as Isaiah 29 is). He even perhaps recognizes that the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy may never be verified for many of his descendants (they don’t get confirmation of the fall of Jerusalem until the Nephites discover Zarahemla and the Mulekites). In using Isaiah to interpret his own text, Nephi has given them an entirely different framework for understanding Isaiah — one based on the premise of likening the scriptures unto themselves. And this happens not in a rather simple way but in a radical repurposing of Isaiah’s text.31 What Nephi does in this narrative unit is to give us an example of reading, both by likening the scriptures unto himself and by invoking the spirit of prophecy.

Nephi is telling his audience that the best way to read scripture is this process of likening it to the reader - of recontextualizing it, of removing it from its natural historical context and providing a new interpretive framework independent of that historical context. Nephi could do this, even if it were to turn out that Isaiah was an ahistorical account (or even something we might label fiction). It's new purpose could be considered scripture.

Of course, perhaps I am doing as Symmachus predicts, right? After all, the title of that essay was: "Nephi: A Postmodernist Reading." It certainly isn't, though, a 'gnostic' approach. It is, perhaps, on the other end of the spectrum. By using this interpretive technique of likening, we move away from the notion of needing special knowledge and towards a position where everyone has sufficient experience to understand scripture. There is, though, a necessary recognition that such an approach brings a plurality of meanings. And, as I pointed out in the conclusion (emphasis added):

The reading strategies Nephi offers us are lost when we settle on a final interpretation — a basis for the meaning of the work. Nephi’s strategies intentionally leave the work open to us as readers. We can approach the text multiple times, each time coming away with a different but valid understanding. Reading in this way means that we, in a sense, lose Nephi the author, but not necessarily Nephi the narrator. That character in the text remains and teaches us. But for us to relate to Nephi as narrator, we have to join that narrative audience. We have to adopt his strategies of reading-with. We have to be open to the Spirit, and we have to liken the text to ourselves.

It is this openness of the text that also appeals to us. The text makes no special demands on us; it does not require that we possess some esoteric knowledge to uncover the “real” meaning. Just as Nephi’s vision of the Tree of Life complements his father’s vision (by adding a different experience; a different awareness of its details) so do our various readings complement each other. We want to see interpretations for every individual and every community; we want men’s readings and women’s readings; we want approaches from different ethnicities; we need interpretations from the spectrum of economic strata. All of these readings combine to complement each other. Singularly and collectively, as we read-with, we unfold the purpose of God. As we read and then re-read, we like Nephi, can deconstruct our own preconceptions of the text.

Maybe in my deconstruction, I am unreading the text. Here I have highlighted what amounts to the loss of history in the text. And at the same time, I think in the second highlight that I perhaps have anticipated Symmanchus's comments about gnosticism. So, I don't disagree with the difficulty of separating the history from the content. And at the same time, I suggest that (perhaps even paradoxically), the Book of Mormon also suggests that we do so. Because only in doing so can we make it truly relevant to our own condition. Perhaps it is the worldly details that make it easier in some ways to do so rather than the complicated text of Isaiah. Certainly, it is possible to take a postmodern approach to the Book of Mormon that doesn't erode into some sort of postmodernese jargon.

And I note that the LDS Church as a whole has been unable to read the text in this way. There is within the LDS Church a sense that there is a determinate meaning, and that we can come to a real, impersonal and communal meaning that is true. I just happen to disagree.

[Gadianton]

I'm not saying that one can't get meaning from it; I'm emphasizing how difficult it is (and I think Benjamin sees this) neatly to separate the Book of Mormon as an artifact from the Book of Mormon as a meaningful text. It is very much like the Qur'ān in this sense. It may not be its own divine evidence like the Qur'ān claims to be, but, like the Qur'ān, it does ask readers to treat it as an artifact.

So, Gad, the Doctrine and Covenants might be better candidate (like Qur'ān, God is the narrator). Perhaps Mormonism could make the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price fictional in the way that Islam takes prophetic lore and the Hebrew Bible and New Testament: useful but distorted.

I would probably have to study Islam for a year before I could have a proper conversation with you about this. To the extent I understand, I think what you're saying in theory makes sense, but I'm not sure how practical it is -- if it would be easier to do that rather than get the spirit-world composition committee to go viral. It seems to me, if Mormons were to ever adopt the Book of Mormon as scripture, to use the Reverend's word, then your vision would be achieved.

The Book of Mormon isn't meaningful to Mormons in the way you're talking about. My opinion. it's meaningful for believing Mormons in the discussion about what Mormonism is, and what it is to be Mormon, but it's not meaningful or necessary for actually being Mormon. Weirdly, the discussion about being Mormon will likely include talking about ad nauseum just how lost one would be without the Book of Mormon, even though it's not true at all. This is why DCP and Kiwi57 can toss it to the rubbish bin without a second thought if it isn't ancient. As a plot device, it's the keystone of the religion, but as a document, it is not a living text of the faith by any stretch. Your explanation of the kind of text it is and how it differs from the Koran adds to the resistance, should the Church ever try to change course somehow.

To take this from another angle: I had a mission president who was known as a great speaker and he was a career salesmen. He told us the key to giving a killer talk is to find a heart-wrenching Reader's Digest article, practice telling the story in your own words within the time allotment, and then slap two scriptures on at the end to back it up.

New MI types see the deficiency and the opportunity with a proper engagement with the Book of Mormon. And so, go out and read Of Grammatology cover to cover, and then recast the Book of Mormon as a Rube-Goldberg mental exercise. I don't buy it because, the impulse was the meta discussion. It's like, knowing you need to be in love and going out there fully intending to love somebody, rather than falling in love or being in love.

one more angle: "People of the Book". Mormonism fantasizes about being a people of a book, the Book of Mormon. The Saints are the warp and their scriptures the weft, weaving together into a brilliant tapestry. But that's Mormonism fantasizing, not Mormons. they don't fantasize, they talk and they regurgitate, but Mormonism produces glossy brochures, and those brochures are about the people who would be a people of the book, if only they would.

[Themis]

Esther in the Old Testament is almost certainly a work of fiction. So Themis asks, does this make God a liar? Only, I suppose, if you believe that God is responsible not only for the text but also for the way that it should be read (whatever that is). This is a perspective that comes more from Evangelicals than anywhere else.

I'm not sure that answers my question. Most Christians are fine with many inspired and many uninspired parts of the Bible. It's not like we have any of the original writings of those we may see as inspired of God so most are fine with errors. The Book of Mormon is different in that we have the original text as well as many other claims by the original author, that relate to the Book of Mormon, that he claims are inspired.

So if the Book of Mormon is inspired fiction, how does that work? Did God inspire Joseph to write a story God knew was historically fiction with inspired messages God wanted us to have, but Joseph was lead to believe were historical. Or did Joseph know the story was fictional, but felt he was inspired to write and pass it off as historical to get people to incorporate the important message found within? The first seems a clear indictment of God being a liar. Not someone many would feel comfortable trusting. The second would still have God involved in the lie, but willing to provide some inspiration. Still not someone many would be comfortable in trusting.

I think this is why most LDS do not seriously consider inspired fiction to be realistic and have to hope for a book that has some real history to it. If not, it is only a fictional book like others who inspire us. Not enough to maintain a religion.

[Symmachus]

It certainly isn't, though, a 'gnostic' approach. It is, perhaps, on the other end of the spectrum. By using this interpretive technique of likening, we move away from the notion of needing special knowledge and towards a position where everyone has sufficient experience to understand scripture.

The gnostic part is not that the Book of Mormon has an esoteric meaning to be uncovered only by initiates but that, in order take the textual approach you discuss (advocate?), one has to have a fairly esoteric skill-set. If one needs Derrida and Kristeva and Lacan or whatever to get over the historicity hurdle, then you are entering a very esoteric world indeed. You might as well be talking about Yaldabaoth. A phrase like "text as artifact" is already going to separate some wheat and chaff. Now, it's true that apologists of the historicist bent (those formerly of the MI) get pretty esoteric and incomprehensible, but people can understand what end they are serving, even if they don't understand their method or comprehend the particulars of it in the slightest. Suppose not every reader needs to ascend into the higher mysteries of the schizoid text and that a certain class can write the books for them after peering into the Lacanian universe with the eye of faith: well, ok, but what end is that going to serve? "My tithing dollars are paying for the Maxwell Institute people to give incomprehensible talks that don't appear relevant to my faith" vs. "something in ancient languages proves that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, just like I thought."

People can understand its historicity claims, and they can understand, even if they reject, the counter-claim that it is not historical. Much flows from each position that will have an impact on people's everyday lives, but the flow won't be in the same direction. The challenge is to make the result of the first understanding of the text flow from the second understanding.

And of course when I say "people" I don't just mean ordinary members but also people in leadership positions. Administrators are not comfortable with their being "a plurality" of anything. It seems to me that the Church (at least at the top) has a very wise position on this issue: yes, it's historical, but we don't worry too much about that because that's not the main thing. They use historicity whenever it helps the cause, or appears to help, but they keep it on a leash.

The Book of Mormon isn't meaningful to Mormons in the way you're talking about. My opinion. it's meaningful for believing Mormons in the discussion about what Mormonism is, and what it is to be Mormon, but it's not meaningful or necessary for actually being Mormon. Weirdly, the discussion about being Mormon will likely include talking about ad nauseum just how lost one would be without the Book of Mormon, even though it's not true at all. This is why DCP and Kiwi57 can toss it to the rubbish bin without a second thought if it isn't ancient. As a plot device, it's the keystone of the religion, but as a document, it is not a living text of the faith by any stretch. Your explanation of the kind of text it is and how it differs from the Koran adds to the resistance, should the Church ever try to change course somehow.

If you mean that it doesn't have an impact in the everyday, then I can't disagree. Perhaps it should (I wonder if Benjamin would agree). But as a background noise to being Mormon, its paramount. This is why even someone who doesn't read the Book of Mormon is disturbed when they discover it doesn't reflect real history. They likely never gave a damn about history (and never will), "but wait a second! I'm paying tithing and cleaning the chapel on the assumption that Moroni was a real person..."

To take this from another angle: I had a mission president who was known as a great speaker and he was a career salesmen. He told us the key to giving a killer talk is to find a heart-wrenching Reader's Digest article, practice telling the story in your own words within the time allotment, and then slap two scriptures on at the end to back it up.

"within the time allotment" Oh man, that's the Church I know and don't love.

New MI types see the deficiency and the opportunity with a proper engagement with the Book of Mormon. And so, go out and read Of Grammatology cover to cover, and then recast the Book of Mormon as a Rube-Goldberg mental exercise. I don't buy it because, the impulse was the meta discussion. It's like, knowing you need to be in love and going out there fully intending to love somebody, rather than falling in love or being in love.

A better summary does not exist.

[Benjamin McGuire]

I'm not sure that answers my question. Most Christians are fine with many inspired and many uninspired parts of the Bible. It's not like we have any of the original writings of those we may see as inspired of God so most are fine with errors. The Book of Mormon is different in that we have the original text as well as many other claims by the original author, that relate to the Book of Mormon, that he claims are inspired.

I think it does answer the question. We don't get to the point where we say that God lied without making a whole host of assumptions about the role that God plays in communication, the role that we play in the communication and intentions. There is an interesting issue that we have to address if we suggest that most believers are willing to accept that some parts of scripture are inspired and some aren't in that there is no broad consensus among them about what is inspired and what isn't.

Ben McGuire

[Benjamin McGuire]

The gnostic part is not that the Book of Mormon has an esoteric meaning to be uncovered only by initiates but that, in order take the textual approach you discuss (advocate?), one has to have a fairly esoteric skill-set. If one needs Derrida and Kristeva and Lacan or whatever to get over the historicity hurdle, then you are entering a very esoteric world indeed.

But that isn't what I am asserting at all. I am suggesting that in "likening scripture unto ourselves" we eliminate the need for any special knowledge at all - our experience is enough. That includes any postmodern knowledge whatsoever. The funny thing about this is that the Book of Mormon is published in 1830. Derrida is born in 1930. Kristeva is born in 1941. Lacan in 1901. They cannot play a role in the way that the Book of Mormon discusses its own suggestions for its interpretation. On the other side of the coin, to suggest that scripture is primarily historical means that we have created an absolute need for its readers to develop a very specialized sort of knowledge. This is especially visible with the Bible. There is an extensive body of literature trying to help us understand the biblical text in its historical context. We have the question of which is better - to read it in English translation (but then, which translation, right?) or to read it in its original Hebrew and Greek (this is, after all, why I studied Biblical Hebrew decades ago). And the commentaries that tell us how to understand the text engage their own very specialized knowledge base. This is just another face of the argument that the text has an esoteric meaning that may only be uncovered by initiates. The Book of Mormon cuts through all of this in its "likening" of scripture. It places the text into the experiential context of each reader. And so I stand by my assertion that the Book of Mormon argues completely against any sort of gnostic approach that you suggest. And I would argue that the more distant we are from the source of scripture (both in terms of time and culture), the more esoteric the knowledge that is required to understand the text as it was intended to be understood.

This isn't to say that I am not familiar with Kristeva or Derrida. I have many of their texts on my shelves. But, I am not a postmodernist (or perhaps, even a post-postmodernist - on the way to something else) as a matter of convenience either.

Ben McGuire

[dastardly stem]

So, suppose that the LDS Church were to canonize the Proclamation on the Family. This wouldn't be history. But it would become scripture. Something being scripture is as much about the way it is read (by those who accept it as scripture) as anything else. The idea that it must somehow be history is a problem that comes with doctrines of inerrancy, which is certainly not contemporary with the writing of the Bible.

But there is actual history attached to the Proclamation on the Family. It sprang into existence in order for the Church to have something official sounding on the topic of gay marriage. And for something about a world conference on the family. And I mean it sprang from the leaders of the Mormon church. That is the history of it. If we talk, again, about the sermon on the Mount, we have no such confirmed history of it's origin. We have an anonymous author putting words into Jesus' mouth as if he's responding to Mark's (although also an anonymous work) previous story about Jesus. If say, Jesus existed and he didn't speak the sermon on the Mount, then that also doesn't mean it's not scripture, because, well history has no bearing on the question of scripture. (I mean mostly because it can't. If it did, then scripture would be tattered and torn into the smallest of snippets of what we have). People read that which is claimed to be scripture and squeak meaning out of few of its passages and ignore the rest...so it's scripture.

But it brings up a number of questions (one I pressed you on earlier, I believe) if the sermon was not spoken by Jesus then shall we simply assume Jesus and God do not ignore many believers? If the sermon is wrong about something then what else is it wrong about? Extending this more widely, if the scriptures are wrong about something, what are they right about?

If say, the Proclamation on the Family is not inspired by God, then what is it? Must it be added to the canon to carry doctrinal primacy for the members? It seems most active members treat it is scripture already.

I don't see how the question of a scriptures history has anything to do with inerrancy. But I'd also wonder about the purpose of scripture if it carries no inerrancy at all--meaning no statements therein can be considered inspired by God.

Esther in the Old Testament is almost certainly a work of fiction. So Themis asks, does this make God a liar? Only, I suppose, if you believe that God is responsible not only for the text but also for the way that it should be read (whatever that is). This is a perspective that comes more from Evangelicals than anywhere else. This observation isn't really mine (at least I can't take credit for it, although I agree with it). Bart Ehrman wrote this in his book Jesus Interrupted:

there are certain views of the inspiration of Scripture, such as the one I had pounded into me as a late teenager, that do not stand up well to the facts of textual criticism. For most Christians, who don’t have a conservative evangelical view like the one I had, these textual facts can be interesting, but there is nothing in them to challenge their faith, which is built on something other than having the very words that God inspired in the Bible. . . . In any event, as I indicated, these theses themselves were almost entirely noncontroversial. Who can deny that we have thousands of manuscripts? Or hundreds of thousands of variants? Or that lots of the variants involve spelling? Or that scholars continue to debate what the original text was in lots of places? All of these statements are factually true. The one statement that has stirred up controversy is my claim that some of these variations are significant. This view has been objected to by some conservative evangelicals and no one else that I know of. That gives me pause—why is this criticism coming only from people with a particular set of theological views?

I think that if we see God as the author of scripture then we should be concerned with what God's intentions are in the texts he gives us. And these intentions may be at odds with what the texts themselves are (in literary terms I am familiar with, we might suggest that scripture can function as both a locutionary and an illocutionary act which can be very different from each other).

Mormons are, for the most part, much more closely aligned with Evangelicals over questions of textuality than most of them realize. In terms of the question of history, the Book of Mormon itself points to a way to understand that text that is completely divorced from history. I have written about this. Not only does it point to this, but it provides examples of how to read the text in this way. This is from my paper on Nephi reading:

Nephi does provide his audience with two interpretive strategies. The first is described near the beginning of the lengthy excerpts from Isaiah:

If Nephi has invited his audience to read without the special knowledge needed to understand the texts as their authors intended, he does explain that they can re-contextualize them within their own communities. His second interpretive strategy appears near the end of the Isaiah excerpts:

Perhaps the most interesting example of Nephi’s interpretive strategies in action occurs in 2 Nephi 26–27. There we have much of Isaiah 29 incorporated into Nephi’s text.
...
In recognizing the earlier text from Nephi being used here, our perspective shifts. We are no longer reading just a commentary on Isaiah. Rather, we are reading a commentary on Nephi’s prophecy. Instead of Nephi’s using his own language to comment on Isaiah, he uses the language of Isaiah to comment on his own earlier text. Nephi understands that his own prophecy is not about Jerusalem (as Isaiah 29 is). He even perhaps recognizes that the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy may never be verified for many of his descendants (they don’t get confirmation of the fall of Jerusalem until the Nephites discover Zarahemla and the Mulekites). In using Isaiah to interpret his own text, Nephi has given them an entirely different framework for understanding Isaiah — one based on the premise of likening the scriptures unto themselves. And this happens not in a rather simple way but in a radical repurposing of Isaiah’s text.31 What Nephi does in this narrative unit is to give us an example of reading, both by likening the scriptures unto himself and by invoking the spirit of prophecy.

Nephi is telling his audience that the best way to read scripture is this process of likening it to the reader - of recontextualizing it, of removing it from its natural historical context and providing a new interpretive framework independent of that historical context. Nephi could do this, even if it were to turn out that Isaiah was an ahistorical account (or even something we might label fiction). It's new purpose could be considered scripture.

Of course, perhaps I am doing as Symmachus predicts, right? After all, the title of that essay was: "Nephi: A Postmodernist Reading." It certainly isn't, though, a 'gnostic' approach. It is, perhaps, on the other end of the spectrum. By using this interpretive technique of likening, we move away from the notion of needing special knowledge and towards a position where everyone has sufficient experience to understand scripture. There is, though, a necessary recognition that such an approach brings a plurality of meanings. And, as I pointed out in the conclusion (emphasis added):

The reading strategies Nephi offers us are lost when we settle on a final interpretation — a basis for the meaning of the work. Nephi’s strategies intentionally leave the work open to us as readers. We can approach the text multiple times, each time coming away with a different but valid understanding. Reading in this way means that we, in a sense, lose Nephi the author, but not necessarily Nephi the narrator. That character in the text remains and teaches us. But for us to relate to Nephi as narrator, we have to join that narrative audience. We have to adopt his strategies of reading-with. We have to be open to the Spirit, and we have to liken the text to ourselves.

It is this openness of the text that also appeals to us. The text makes no special demands on us; it does not require that we possess some esoteric knowledge to uncover the “real” meaning. Just as Nephi’s vision of the Tree of Life complements his father’s vision (by adding a different experience; a different awareness of its details) so do our various readings complement each other. We want to see interpretations for every individual and every community; we want men’s readings and women’s readings; we want approaches from different ethnicities; we need interpretations from the spectrum of economic strata. All of these readings combine to complement each other. Singularly and collectively, as we read-with, we unfold the purpose of God. As we read and then re-read, we like Nephi, can deconstruct our own preconceptions of the text.

Maybe in my deconstruction, I am unreading the text. Here I have highlighted what amounts to the loss of history in the text. And at the same time, I think in the second highlight that I perhaps have anticipated Symmanchus's comments about gnosticism. So, I don't disagree with the difficulty of separating the history from the content. And at the same time, I suggest that (perhaps even paradoxically), the Book of Mormon also suggests that we do so. Because only in doing so can we make it truly relevant to our own condition. Perhaps it is the worldly details that make it easier in some ways to do so rather than the complicated text of Isaiah. Certainly, it is possible to take a postmodern approach to the Book of Mormon that doesn't erode into some sort of postmodernese jargon.

And I note that the LDS Church as a whole has been unable to read the text in this way. There is within the LDS Church a sense that there is a determinate meaning, and that we can come to a real, impersonal and communal meaning that is true. I just happen to disagree.

This is what, it seems, your reasoning amounts to:

Scripture is meaningful since we dig meaning out of it, in any way we can.

But is it historical?

It doesn't matter because we can find ways to get meaning out of it any way we can.

So was God involved or not?

Since we get meaning out of it any way we can, he must have been.

It sounds to me like there's little purpose or reason for scripture at all. Any one piece of it can be throw away. And it appears believers treat most of it as if it's not worth their time--as if it mostly is throw away material. Some 5% of quoted and requoted passages, taken from its context, apparently builds their religion. The rest is just nonsense. So I'd continue to wonder, what's the point of scripture?

[Benjamin McGuire]

But there is actual history attached to the Proclamation on the Family. It sprang into existence in order for the Church to have something official sounding on the topic of gay marriage. And for something about a world conference on the family. And I mean it sprang from the leaders of the Mormon church. That is the history of it.

This is only scratching the surface right? The proclamation on the family fascinates me because of its textual history (and not just its production history). There is nothing new or unique in it. For example this line: "Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose." It comes right out of a James Talmage article published in the Millennial Star dated August 24, 1922 (although he uses the word 'sex' instead of 'gender'):

We affirm as reasonable, scriptural, and true, the eternity of sex among the children of God. The distinction between male and female is no condition peculiar to the relatively brief period of mortal life. It was an essential characteristic of our pre-existent condition, even as it shall continue after death, in both disembodied and resurrected states .... [The] scriptures attest a state of existence preceding mortality, in which the spirit children of God lived, doubtless with distinguishing characteristics, including the distinction of sex, "before they were naturally upon the face of the earth."

There may be a history of it, but, it it isn't history (the difference between text and artifact in some ways). This distinction you make doesn't make much sense to me.

But it brings up a number of questions (one I pressed you on earlier, I believe) if the sermon was not spoken by Jesus then shall we simply assume Jesus and God do not ignore many believers? If the sermon is wrong about something then what else is it wrong about? Extending this more widely, if the scriptures are wrong about something, what are they right about?

Perhaps more importantly, should we even care? Is ambiguity and uncertainty so difficult to live with?

I don't see how the question of a scriptures history has anything to do with inerrancy. But I'd also wonder about the purpose of scripture if it carries no inerrancy at all--meaning no statements therein can be considered inspired by God.

The issue is in your question. Why does it have to be wrong or right? And in asking that question, don't you first have to have an interpretation of the text (a meaning) and isn't the meaning that readers attribute to the text inconsistent over time and from individual to individual? For us to answer the question about what is wrong or right about a text in any absolute sense is to first claim that the text has a meaning in an absolute sense.

I didn't pick that sentence from the Proclamation on the Family randomly. Suppose, for example, that I accept the premise of a pre-existence with gendered spirits. We know from factual evidence that a certain percentage of persons are born in a gender indeterminate state. Their gender is then assigned by physicians at birth. But this gender they are given doesn't necessarily match up with the gender of their pre-existent spirit. It seems quite reasonable to assume (from and LDS perspective) that we already have spiritually gendered women who have been ordained to the priesthood, as well as same-gendered couples who have been sealed for eternity in a temple. And we can make this interpretation without having a two thousand year gap along with questions about authenticity or authorship. This is why the issue of inerrancy remains central to this question. Does being scripture create some obligation for us to read a text in a specific way or to frame its meaning in a certain way?

This is what, it seems, your reasoning amounts to:

Scripture is meaningful since we dig meaning out of it, in any way we can.

But is it historical?

It doesn't matter because we can find ways to get meaning out of it any way we can.

So was God involved or not?

Since we get meaning out of it any way we can, he must have been.

It sounds to me like there's little purpose or reason for scripture at all. Any one piece of it can be throw away. And it appears believers treat most of it as if it's not worth their time--as if it mostly is throw away material. Some 5% of quoted and requoted passages, taken from its context, apparently builds their religion. The rest is just nonsense. So I'd continue to wonder, what's the point of scripture?

Maybe there isn't a point. People like to have authoritative sources. From my perspective, scripture is a text - just like any other text. We get meaning out of it because we have a cognitive process we call reading. There isn't any difference in reading scripture than from any other text except possibly in the ways that when we view a text as scripture, we privilege certain ways of reading over others. But those preferences (and how we respond to the category of scripture) aren't universal - they are cultural. And such a view also precludes the idea that you raise that "we dig meaning out of it, in any way we can." This isn't true. We dig meaning out of scripture usually in ways that are associated with how we view scripture. And for many, this includes a presumption that scripture is in some way inerrant (whatever that means). Or in the case of the Book of Mormon, that translation implies something very specific about the text.

I really am not sure what you intend to convey when you ask "Is it historical"? Every text is historical in this sense. They all have a space of origin in some way or another. Even spam e-mail generated by an A.I. is historical (although we may question whether it counts as a text). When I discuss a view of the text as inerrant, I also include the notions that go along with this of interpretation. That is, an inerrant text has some sort of determinate meaning. I don't believe this is the case (for a broad range of reasons that I have written about). Even in the context of a divinely inspired text I would argue that there is no determinate meaning. But some of your comments seem to come from the perspective that texts have determinate meanings. Do you think that there is only one meaning to a text? And if so, who determines that meaning?

In the long run, whether we like it or not, we read the Bible as scripture only because we accept it as scripture - not because it is historical. Others do not read it as scripture even though it is historical. The same is true of the Book of Mormon. And while the meaning we get in reading will almost certainly be different depending on whether we read the text as history or using some other guiding interpretive principle (such as 'likening' it to our experience), the decision to read it as scripture or not is largely unaffected by these different reading strategies. Is there a point to scripture? According to Nephi in the Book of Mormon the purpose served by scripture is as an inadequate substitute for personal revelation.

Your questions really have moved beyond, I think, the space we have for this discussion about scripture and/or inspired fiction. These are philosophical perspectives that don't have any kind of universal answers. Do we have any sort of moral obligation to read a text in a certain way? For that matter, do we have an obligation to be moral? If we see scripture as a moral guide, and we don't believe that morality is important, than is scripture pointless? What do you think the point of scripture is? Or is scripture simply a man-made category that allows us to give authority to some sort of moral code or expectation that we have invented?

What I can say is that the Book of Mormon offers us a reading strategy that works whether or not the Book of Mormon is an actual historic text or some sort of inspired fiction. And this means that the ability of a believer to read it as scripture doesn't have to be determined by their view of what the text is.