Interpreter Takes Aim at Givens, Hardy, and Mason

[_Philo Sofee]

We ought to start an annual Trailer Park apologetics for doubt conference...

[_Philo Sofee]

Dr. Scratch said of the upcoming FAIR conference

Neal Rappleye “Put Away Childish Things”: Learning to Read the Book of Mormon Using Mature Historical Thought

Mature historical thought? Ah yes...... if you disagree with MY interpretation you are being immature and childish to imagine you are right and I am wrong. If you agree with my interpretation then you have arrived at the glorious goal of mature thinking. I mean they really cannot see this is their sales pitch?! Who other than a Mormon would ever call it mature historical thinking?

It's like the Susan Black anthology of scholars on Joseph Smith, where in the Forward she calls the best Mormon scholars "faithful scholars who do faithful scholarship." Faithful scholarship? What does that have to do with being true to the evidence? Absolutely nothing. It has everything to do with arriving at the preordained conclusion of what the brethren want their own scholars to end up to, and therefore, in order to do faithful scholarship, one simply picks and chooses what one wants to analyze imagining and pretending that YEP! Evidence is in. It points to Joseph Smith being a true prophet and we are his successors and true church, just like we suspected.

[_Kishkumen]

Dr. Scratch said of the upcoming FAIR conference

Neal Rappleye “Put Away Childish Things”: Learning to Read the Book of Mormon Using Mature Historical Thought

Mature historical thought? Ah yes...... if you disagree with MY interpretation you are being immature and childish to imagine you are right and I am wrong. If you agree with my interpretation then you have arrived at the glorious goal of mature thinking.

Mature thinking=respectable looking and non-threatening

[_I have a question]

Sneak preview of Rappeleyes presentation...

http://www.studioetquoquefide.com/2016/ ... ldish.html

My reason for using this passage was because in my experience, many who experience a faith crisis over archaeology and the Book of Mormon never developed mature ways of reading the text. While they don’t do this consciously, they tend to read the book like a fairytale or fantasy novel. Now there is nothing wrong with fairytales and fantasy novels, except when they shape your perceptions of history and expectations of archaeology. When you believe the Book of Mormon is history but read it like fantasy, you set yourself up for a faith crisis.

<stuff>

I closed the presentation with prophetic statements about flooding the earth with the Book of Mormon and using the social media to do so. My purpose in doing so, of course, is because it is simply not enough to a few Saints to change the way they think about the Book of Mormon. To transition from fairytale to history in their reading and interpretation of the text. The Book of Mormon has the power to change the world, if we can get the world to change the dismissive assumptions it has been making about the book. The world needs to take this book seriously. But that can only happen if we as Latter-day Saints start taking it seriously. Before we change the world, we must change ourselves.

In summary, stop reading the Book of Mormon like a fantasy novel, read it like a history book.

[_Kishkumen]

Except that the Book of Mormon is not a conventional history book at all. The book itself explains that it is not. Sure, inasmuch as it seeks to imitate narrative history in the Bible it reads something like a history, but I don't think that reading it as history is going to rescue testimonies. In fact, once people dig in and see the historical problems of the Book of Mormon, they are more likely to abandon it as historically untenable.

[_Tom]

I think that Dr. Robbers was right to link to that review of Boyce's book on warfare vs. pacifism. It may be that this is a case where the Mopologetic lust for attacking, smearing, and rhetorical warfare is bubbling to the surface: they got bored with attacking the young "Mormon Studies" new guard, and so now they are going to go after Givens, Hardy, etc. Maybe they see these older, more established LDS academics as "enabling" the Mormon Studies trends that they find threatening.

After reviewing my Boyce file, I would note several additional relevant pieces in addition to his warfare work:

Reclaiming Jacob (review of Adam Miller book)
Sustaining the Brethren
A Betrayal of Trust (review of D. Michael Quinn book)

The Editor in Chief of Mormon Interpreter had this to say about the article:

We hope that you’ll enjoy it and that you’ll find it stimulating.

So... Is that an endorsement? Does Dr. Peterson agree with Boyce's views? It's worth taking note of the fact that he doesn't really comment on the article at all. My prediction is that, if pressed on the matter, DCP would just reiterate what he said: that he doesn't have an opinion, or doesn't want to share it publicly, or something along those lines: he just published this because MI likes to publish provocative essays with different points of view. I mean, of course that is what he would say: can you imagine him openly attacking someone like Givens? Even when Hamblin and Gee were viciously going after Bokovoy and others, he tended to lay low. And, of course, beyond expressing "disappointment," he said nothing over the course of the Jenkins Incident. In fact, I would go so far as to say that, since he's taken up hard-core blogging (I think I saw the astonishing figure that he posts over a thousand blog entries per year???), his publicly expressed views are wishy-washy. It's is if he doesn't believe in much of anything at all.

A few comments from Dr. Peterson on his Facebook page regarding this article:

It's all part of academic give and take. Disagreements happen. They shouldn't be personalized. And, by the way, not every article in Interpreter necessarily represents, nor is intended to represent, every nuance of my own personal views.

I thought that Brother Boyce made some important points.

I wouldn't have permitted the publication of the article if I felt that it called the religious commitment of Brothers Hardy, Givens, and Mason into question. I have no reason to doubt their commitment to the Gospel. Of course, I also wouldn't call them "unethical." I see nothing "bullying" in the article, nor do I regard it as an attempt somehow to "take control of a religious community's thoughts."

[_Fence Sitter]

Meanwhile another 100,000 young Mormons have walked away from a religion that is governed by a fossilized leadership unable to communicate with the current generation of Mormon youth.

[_Kishkumen]

Thanks, Tom. I saw this Facebook material, too. It is the usual deflection of responsibility for publishing crap.

[_Maksutov]

[_Kishkumen]

Yup. That sums it up.