Losing the Battle and not Knowing It: LDS Scholarship and Anti-Mormon Myopia

Here is a new video series I have made on LDS scholarship in which I respond to some of the inaccurate stereotypes and caricatures of LDS scholarship and scholars promoted by anti-Mormons.

Enjoy!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Joseph Smith's Original Journals a Boon to Scholarship

Joseph Smith's original journals are now available at Deseret Book!

They survived amid mobbings, beatings, burnings, a horse-drawn wagon journey across the Great Plains and even the ravages of mice roaming inside their wooden crate.

Now the contents of journals kept by LDS Church founder Joseph Smith have been made available to the public for the first time, word for word, as he wrote and dictated them to various clerks and scribes.

The inaugural volume of the long-anticipated Joseph Smith Papers series is now in LDS bookstores, offering scholars and ordinary Latter-day Saints alike a look at the "unvarnished words" of a man who said he was called of God to restore Christ's original church to the earth.

Volume 1 is available now.

"Winning" the battle and not knowing it?

In 1998, ten years ago almost to this day, Trinity Journal published an article by Carl Mosser and Paul Owen titled "Mormon scholarship, apologetics, and evangelical neglect: Losing the battle and not knowing it?" in which they warn fellow evangelicals that the anti-Mormon arguments previously published were in danger of carrying less scholarly weight than before.

Their conclusions (remember, this was almost exactly TEN years ago), might startle evangelicals who have not yet read the article. The "call to action" was this (my personal comments interspersed):

The evangelical world needs to wake up and respond to contemporary Mormon scholarship. If not, we will needlessy [sic] lose the battle without ever knowing it. Our suggestions are as follows: First, evangelicals need to overcome inaccurate presuppositions about Mormonism.

This goes without saying as it is the first rule of true scholarship.

Second, evangelical counter-cultists need to refer to qualified persons LDS scholarship that is beyond their ability to rebut.

Good luck with that. Still haven't seen it happen. Many counter-cultists are simply out to make money and the way that they do it is to sensationalize their subject so as to make it appear to be something it's not. Referring scholarship to more qualified persons on items beyond their ability to rebut would put them right out of business.

Third, evangelical academicians need to make Mormonism, or some aspects of it, an area of professional interest.

They have, but all we've seen so far is more of the same...they've just stepped up the marketing efforts and sold more books and movies.

Fourth, evangelical publishers need to cease publishing works that are uninformed, misleading, or otherwise inadequate.

Thank you. This is, in part, a duplicate of #2. We Mormons anxiously await the day when this happens.

Fifth, scholars in the evangelical community ought to collaborate in several books addressing the issues raised in this paper. Related to this, professional journals should encourage articles on these same topics. Finally, might we suggest that evangelical scholarly societies form study groups to assess the claims made by LDS scholars. Members of the Evangelical Theological Society have made a move in this direction with the recent formation of the Society for the Study of Alternative Religions (SSAR). The fact is that the growth of Mormonism is outpacing even the highest predictions of professional sociologists of religion, and is on its way, within eighty years, to becoming the first world-religion since Islam in the seventh century. With such growth, the needs expressed in this paper will become ever more pressing as the twenty-first century approaches.

I would merely add that it would be nice to see more brotherly humility and even evangelicals conceding rather than wresting the scriptures (see comment #14) in a misguided attempt to be "correct" about popular misconceptions of LDS beliefs. The LDS scholars I read are more than willing to say, "I don't know" in a number of instances because, quite simply, the evidence isn't in (yet). But that is fine. It is better to argue from what you know than from what you don't know or don't yet understand. I put more credence in a scholar who says "Let's wait and see if more evidence arises" than ones who say "Not a shred of evidence has ever been found that there were advanced civilizations of the type Joseph Smith described existed in the Americas." and then try to "prove" it by attempting to discredit nearly every archaeological find cited.

Those anti-Mormon authors who did not take the Mosser's and Owens' advice to heart need only look around to see that they were correct and that their predictions have come true. The Church continues to grow in spite of persecution by evangelical "scholars" precisely because of the ludicrousness and sensationalism of their claims against us. Mormon scholars are winning the upper-hand on evidence and arguments quite handily.

In closing, I couldn't agree more with Mosser and Owen in their conclusion:

This spiritual warfare can be considered under the aegis of a contest of the gods, a neglected biblical theme I want to retrieve.... The various religions and their gods appear to be vying for people's allegiance. Competition in religion is not only biblical, it is empirically evident. Vital religions always compete with other's claims. If you can find a religion that is not competitive, you will have found a religion on its last legs. A dynamic religion always wants to tell its story, which adherents think is the best story ever told, and the one most worthy of commitment.

In other words, if your claims can't stand up to criticism and scrutiny, what are they worth to anyone?

Why I (Rob) am a Book of Mormon Apologist

Steve posted his reasons for being a Book of Mormon apologist, and I now feel compelled to do so as well.

I had the privilege of serving an LDS mission in Guatemala. About 8 months into my mission, I purchased a children's copy of the Popol Vuh (if only to match my limited Spanish reading comprehension at the time). One of my district leaders, a fellow from Chiquimula, Guatemala, saw the book and asked me why I had purchased it instead of the full version. When I told him why, he asked me if I understood what it contained. I told him that it looked like any other Native American legend book to me and that I had read many like it in my rural Southwestern U.S. hometown.

He then proceded to school me in what the Popol Vuh means, or should mean, to Latter-day Saints who want to know more about Book of Mormon history. He said that contrary to what his Catholic and secular school teachers had taught when he read it in school, it wasn't just a book of random legends, writings, and mythologies. When read in the context of the Restoration of the Gospel, it was quite literally a fragment of the Gospel knowledge that remained of a post Nephite and declining Lamanite society. Its seemingly esoteric (rather, exoteric) ramblings actually corresponded to real and basic Gospel principles, but in a corrupted and apostate form.

With that in mind, I re-read the Popol Vuh book, with notes my district leader wrote in it to help with the translation into English and possible Gospel concepts, and was astonished at what I had missed. I have plans to make that the subject of another post (or two, or five) because it really is that interesting. But for now, let's just say that this was the catalyst that compelled me to study the Book of Mormon in more depth than ever before.

Toward the end of my mission, an Elder with whom I had come into the mission showed me a book called "The Title of the Lords of Totonicapan" that a local member had given him. I opened it, and with my considerably improved Spanish reading comprehension, was excited to find that it was another local Maya tribe's version of many of the same events and symbols found in the Popol Vuh. The "Title"'s author, during the Spanish conquest of the 1550s, made direct (but today often disputed) claims to a direct descendancy of his people from Israel.

The common linkages I began to see between these two books and Biblical and Book of Mormon concepts and doctrines began to galvanize my desire to fully study the additional physical evidences that must surely exist.

Since then, even though I make no claims to be any kind of professional or experienced anthropologist/archaeologist/ethnographist/etc., I have kept an eye out for anything and everything that might point to evidence of the Book of Mormon's claims. I marvel at the knowledge that has come to light and that experienced scholars such as Daniel Peterson and John Tvedtnes are able to build a solid foundation upon which these evidences can rest.

I want to categorically and undeniably state, at the same time, that I have a firm knowledge, completely independent and antecedent to the above experiences, that the Book of Mormon is true and exactly what it claims to be. Even if the Conquistadores had burned and destroyed every last vestige of Mesoamerican literature and monuments, the hard and simple truths of the book stand on their own, brilliantly testify of the Bible's authenticity, and teach and prophesy correctly of Christ. It is, as Joseph Smith taught, "the most correct of any book on earth". I testify that I have grown closer to God because of it.

No Evidence for the Book of Mormon?

Critics of the Book of Mormon like to make the claim that there is no evidence for the Book of Mormon's authenticity. They claim that there is not a shred of archeaological, anthropological, liguistic, cultural, textual or historical evidence for the Book of Mormon or the claims of Joseph Smith. They also like to throw a laundry list of "problems" in the Book of Mormon that they claim compromises the Book of Mormon as an ancient text.

I must confess that I have little patience for this claim or for those who advocate it. Over the years, scholars (primarily LDS but also with some non-LDS researchers as well) have written literally thousands of pages on evidence for the Book of Mormon as an ancient Near Eastern and Mesoamerican record. From the early works of B. H. Roberts, John Widstoe, Janne Sjodahl, George Reynolds and James Talmage to the pioneering and groundbreaking research of Hugh Nibley, to the recent work of scholars from the Neal A. Maxwell Institute (including Daniel C. Peterson, John Sorenson, John Welch, Brant Gardner, S. Kent Brown, Donald W. Perry, John Gee, John Tvedtnes and many more) dozens upon dozens of books, articles, essays, etc. have been written on this subject, documenting evidence for the Book of Mormon as an ancient record.

These materials, however, can sometimes get very technical and run into hundreds of pages and several volumes. The lay reader, therefore, may feel intimidated at times in trying to read through all of this material. To this end, Kerry Shirts, one of my favorite online "armchair" apologists next to Jeff Lindsay, has made a series of videos which he has posted on his youtube page in which he discusses these evidences on a level which is easily understandable and enjoyable to watch.

On an excellent blog, Lehi's Library, the author, a Latter-day Saint whose name is James, has put together a list of Kerry's videos in an easily accessable format and order. For those who are not too thrilled about reading through the thousands of pages on the subject of evidence for the Book of Mormon, or for critics who dogmatically assert that there is no evidence for the Book of Mormon, these videos are highly recommended. Take a look!

http://lehislibrary.wordpress.com/bom-evidences/

For further reading on the Book of Mormon and some of the material covering the evidence for such, I have created a list of recommended books that the reader is encouraged to look at.