26 Comment(s)

1. CAN OSTLER SAVE BOOK OF MORMON HISTORICITY?
   by Dan Vogel

   [The following response to Blake Ostler’s second essay on the DNA/Book of Mormon issue has been posted here at the suggestion of Dan Wotherspoon. My thanks to Ron Priddis and Brent Metcalfe for their helpful comments. DV.]

   I applaud Blake Ostler’s candor in admitting that “there is no such thing as Book of Mormon archaeology unless and until we find something that can be directly linked to the text somewhere,” but he should also be willing to admit that the Book of Mormon makes no direct connection with the Old World either. As expressed in his previous essay, Ostler bases his belief in the Book of Mormon’s antiquity on parallels drawn from Hebrew culture (SUNSTONE, Dec. 2004, 71, 72 n. 6). Apparently, he is unimpressed with similar parallels that John Sorenson, Brant Gardner, John Clark, and others have made between the Book of Mormon and Mesoamerica. Why the double standard? Ostler gives no clue. Disappointingly, this kind of contradiction and incoherence appears frequently in Ostler’s presentation.
   Another major flaw that appears repeatedly is when Ostler insists (seven times, in fact) that we “assess [the Book of Mormon] based on what it says and not on what others say about it,” including Joseph Smith. But this is a distinction without a difference since no text speaks for itself. Ostler apparently holds the naive view that texts can be assessed independent of interpretation. While one might distinguish between exegetical and eisegetical readings, or internalist and externalist readings, there is no such thing as an interpretation-free reading. Ostler’s assertion, that he is not interpreting and his opponents are, is simply false. His special pleading becomes especially apparent when he can cite no explicit mention of “indigenous others” in the Book of Mormon but relies solely on implied meanings of vaguely worded passages. Ostler contradicts himself when he later argues that various passages are “best read as assuming the existence of others already in the land with whom the Nephites and Lamanites interacted, intermarried, and became assimilated.” Both apologists and critics bring assumptions to the text, but the question is which set of assumptions best fits the text and the assumed historical setting in which the book was produced?

   INDIGENOUS OTHERS

   Ostler admits that it “requires careful reading to detect” the “indigenous others” in the Book of Mormon’s text. Actually, Ostler’s interpretations do not derive from a “careful reading” but are filtered and constructed by an assumption that the Lehites/Mulekites lived in a sub-cultural setting with non-Israelites in a small region of America “about the size of Palestine.” Hence, his observations of the text are theory-laden; in other words, he begs the question because his interpretations assume what they are trying to prove. As I will show, Ostler’s assumptions not only dictate what he sees in the text, but also permit him to see what is not there.

   Skin Color Not a Result of Intermarriage

   Ostler’s argument that the change in the Lamanites’ skin color is evidence of “intermarriage with indigenous populations” contradicts what the Book of Mormon says of itself, which is a misstep he claimed he was not going to make. The text does not say the “curse” of a dark skin came upon Laman’s and Lemuel’s descendants because they had broken the covenant by “mixing seed” with non-Israelites. The reverse is the case: the curse of a dark skin comes upon those (presumably Nephites) who mix their seed with Laman’s and Lemuel’s (2 Nephi 5:23). Ostler’s observation that in the Bible “mixing seed” is an “idiom for marriage with foreigners” might be correct, but that is not how it is used in the Book of Mormon. Already one can see how Ostler is reading not only colors the text but distorts it as well.
   Ostler is at odds with the text when he says “Nephi interprets this change of skin color as a curse.” Nephi is not simply inferring from casual observation but speaks prophetically: “And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people. … And the Lord spake it, and it was done” (2 Nephi 5:22). Ironically, in an effort to defend the book’s historicity, Ostler finds it necessary to deny one of its miracles as well as the inspiration of one of its prophets by substituting a naturalistic explanation. Thus, Ostler provides us with an example of how interpretation and what the text says are inseparable, for it is not Nephi’s “interpretation” that is being discussed, but Ostler’s. His interpretation is that Nephi is describing things differently than how they really happened. Can Ostler give us a reason why we should prefer his interpretation over Nephi’s?
   Ostler’s methodology is no better when he discusses Jacob’s sermon against “concubines” and “many wives” (Jacob 2). He asks: “Where did all of these wives come from?” and then argues: “It seems to me that the text once again presupposes an influx of others from an already existing population.” However, this is not the most logical inference. If one is limited by what the text says, one might conclude, as did M. T. Lamb in 1887, that the anomaly points to the author’s historical naivete and bombastic style of writing (M. T. Lamb, The Golden Bible; or, The Book of Mormon. Is It from God? [New York: Ward & Drummond, 1887], 116-17). Even the best of writers make this kind of mistake and without clear reference to “others,” resolving the anomaly as Ostler does is an example of circular reasoning and goes beyond what the text itself says.
   It does not matter if Jacob’s use of the term “abomination” in reference to the unauthorized practice of polygamy is “consistent with the Hebrew crime of breach of covenant by intermarrying with populations outside the covenant,” as Ostler claims, because that is not how the Book of Mormon uses the term; in fact, the term appears throughout the text with a variety of meanings, but never, so far as I can determine, with the definition Ostler has given. Ostler fails to explain why these Jews, who supposedly find dark skin “loathsome,” so quickly intermarry with Amerasians. If Jacob is criticizing his brethren for marrying non-Israelites, why doesn’t he mention God’s curse of a dark skin coming upon their seed? Instead, he tells the Nephite sinners that “the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you” (Jacob 3:5; emphasis added). Ostler’s assertion that “within one or two generations, both the Lamanites and the Nephites had begun to intermarry with others from a preexisting population of ‘indigenous others’” does not come from a “careful reading” of the text as he claims, but rather from speculative inferences drawn from vague and problematic texts.
   Finally, Ostler cites Jacob’s speaking to a “quite large” assembly of his “brethren” at the temple (2 Nephi 6-10) as evidence that “the text presupposes there had been an influx of people into the Nephite population.” While the text gives no details about the size of this gathering, Jacob refers to them as the “house of Israel” (6:5). The only “Gentiles” Jacob mentions are latter-day Gentiles. This means one cannot resolve the anomaly by including indigenous others–and again, Ostler’s reasoning is circular.
   Ultimately, assuming there are unmentioned “others” will not resolve the issue; the unreality of the Book of Mormon’s populations is a persistent problem, which Ostler acknowledges with regard to military numbers. Oddly, he does not draw on indigenous others to account for the unrealistic numbers, as other apologists have, but rather argues that it is “a common practice in ancient texts to hyperbolically overstate population and areas of land seized to demonstrate the enormity of the feat accomplished.” Ancient texts might intentionally exaggerate, but is that what is going on in the Book of Mormon? It is unlikely given the unrealistic population growth right from the start, which despite Ostler’s efforts, remains anomalous.

   Reading Others into the Text

   Ostler wonders where Sherem came from if not from a nearby group of “indigenous others”? He argues that this is the case because the text says Sherem “came … among the people of Nephi” (Jacob 7:1) and Jacob doesn’t seem to know him. Again, Ostler chooses not to interpret the story as evidence that the Book of Mormon is contradictory. The phrase “came … among” is ambiguous, but the mystery is less puzzling if the Nephites have suddenly become a “multitude” (7:17). In this context, the story is not a problem. The real issue is the “multitude”–and the unrealistic numbers exhibited throughout the Book of Mormon. In his effort to construe Sherem as an “outsider,” Ostler asserts that Sherem “had learned the [Nephites’] language by study.” However, the text says that he “was learned, that he had a perfect knowledge of the language of the people; wherefore, he could use much flattery, and much power of speech” (7:4). The text is speaking to Sherem’s sophistry, not to his foreign language ability.
   Violating his own rule to discuss only what the Book of Mormon says, not what others (including himself) say about it, Ostler then submits the following argument from silence: “Certainly Sherem would have introduced himself as so-and-so’s son had he been a relation.” He misstates Brent Metcalfe’s argument that “the Book of Mormon is punctilious in noting whether a person is Nephite or Lamanite.” Nowhere does Metcalfe argue that every character in the Book of Mormon identifies himself by lineage, rather, that whenever someone is identified, they are consistently said to be either a Lehite or Mulekite; in other words, despite the many opportunities, a non-Israelite is never introduced. Nevertheless, there is nothing in the text that would demand that Sherem give his lineage only if he were a relative. Ostler cannot infer from the text’s silence that Sherem is a non-Israelite outsider.
   The way Ostler handles Helaman 5-7 is a less than “careful reading.” When both Nephite and converted Lamanite missionaries from the land southward go into the “land northward, to preach to the people” (Helaman 6:6), Ostler wonders who these people are, reasoning that they can’t be Lamanites because Helaman 5:50 says “the more part of the Lamanites were convinced of [the truth].” But the text tells us these people are Nephites who had migrated into the land northward seventeen years earlier (Helaman 3:3-14).

   Surviving Jaredites

   Citing the nearly four hundred-year overlap in Jaredite and Lehite/Mulekite occupation of the new land, Ostler argues that “there are other people [of non-Israelite descent] already in the same land (somewhere) when Lehi arrives.” This is beyond dispute. The sticking point is whether or not there were Jaredites (besides Coriantumr) who survived the mass destruction described in the book of Ether (Ether 13:20-21; Omni 1:20-22). Ostler acknowledges the Book of Mormon’s claim but questions its accuracy. “No human writer,” he argues, “could possibly know that every last one of the Jaredites was included within the population whose slaughter is recounted in the epic tale of the various Jaredite dynasties.” Here, again, we see a naturalistic explanation discounting the book’s supernatural claims, specifically Ether’s prophecy that “every soul should be destroyed save it were Coriantumr” and “he should only live to see the fulfilling of the prophecies which had been spoken concerning another people receiving the land for their inheritance” (Ether 13:21). Ostler also again violates his rule of not going outside the Book of Mormon’s text.
   In discussing possible Jaredite survivors, Ostler formulates the following convoluted and incoherent arguments:

   (1a) “The Jaredites and Mulekites both co-existed with the Nephites for more than 350 years without the Nephites knowing about them.”

   (2a) “The Mulekites in Zarahemla actually met Coriantumr — and until that time, they too did not know of the Jaredites.”

   (3a) “So it is clear that there were large populations of Jaredites and Mulekites in nearby regions contemporaneous with the Nephites, but the Nephites didn’t know anything about them for more than three hundred years.”

   Ostler can’t make this argument while at the same time arguing above (p. 63) that “indigenous others” are not mentioned because Nephi’s religious record is unconcerned about “profane history,” and below (p. 64) that the text suppresses information about “indigenous others” because it is a lineage, tribal, or dynastic history. Even if Lehite ignorance of the Jaredites and Mulekites is allowed, there is no point to this argument since Ostler already argued that Nephite and Lamanite contact with non-Israelite “others” was immediate, intimate, and extensive. Upon this fallacious argument, Ostler builds another:

   (1b) “Hence the text is quite clear that large populations of peoples can co-exist for hundreds of years with the Nephites (who keep the record), without the Nephites knowing anything about them.”

   (2b) “Just as their knowledge of the extent of the land they inhabit is limited, clearly the Nephites are not aware of ‘others’ whom the Book of Mormon states were in fact present.”

   (3b) “Thus, any citation from the Book of Mormon that is interpreted to mean that all inhabitants of the Americas (or wherever Book of Mormon events took place) must be Israelite is contrary to the text itself because, at the very least, the Jaredites are not Israelites.”

   Ostler seems to imply that if the Lehites did not know about the Jaredites, they were therefore in no position to know whether or not all the inhabitants of the Americas were Israelites. But Ostler’s also wants us to believe the Lehites were immediately in contact with indigenous people on their arrival in the New World. The passage which Ostler alludes is Lehi’s prophecy in 2 Nephi 1, which I will examine below. For now, it is important to know that it does not state that all inhabitants of the Americas must be Israelite, but that the Israelite inhabitants will “possess this land unto themselves” until the arrival of “other nations.” Obviously, the Jaredites did not threaten Israelite inheritance in the same way Ostler’s indigenous others would have. Building one fallacious argument upon another, Ostler continues:

   (1c) “As Hugh Nibley argues, … the Jaredites probably originated largely in Asia because the journey recounted in Ether appears to have traversed the steppes of Asia. Thus the Jaredites may well have been largely Asiatic.”

   (2c) “The Book of Mormon does not identify the origins of the others who ‘mixed seed’ with the Lamanites or whom the Nephites took as plural wives.”

   (3c) “We know any indigenous others had to be of largely Asiatic origins.”

   (4c) “So, based on the text of the Book of Mormon, we should expect to find Asiatic DNA in American Indians.”

   This argument comes under the fallacy of obscurum per obscurius, or attempting to explain the more certain with the less certain. Nibley’s speculation that the Jaredites picked up some Asiatic peoples along the way and brought them to America is intended to harmonize the text with what scientists know about Amerindian origins. However, migrations to the New World from Asia occurred about 15,000 years ago, well before the Jaredites. Moreover, the Book of Mormon does not support Ostler’s assertion that the Jaredites were “largely Asiatic”; rather, it suggests they were largely Middle-eastern. To suggest otherwise is wishful thinking and a violation of Ostler’s rule to exclude what other interpreters say about the Book of Mormon, which would include Nibley.
   Proposition (2c) is an attempt to set up an argument from silence as well as from ignorance. Proposition (3c) is information obtained external to the text, so the conclusion (4c) that the predominance of Asiatic DNA among Native Americas should be no surprise does not follow. (2c) seems to suggest that the “others” with whom the Nephites and Lamanites intermarried were Jaredites, which would make his speculation about Asiatic genes imperative. If one does not accept the Nibley-Ostler speculation that the Jaredites were “largely Asiatic,” then Ostler’s argument about skin color through intermarriage goes with it. Ostler follows these confused arguments with several exaggerated summary assertions:

   (1d) “Viewed as an ancient text in the genre of dynastic history, the Book of Mormon does not preclude the presence of many ‘others’ besides those in whom it is particularly interested.”

   (2d) “For these reasons and others, the DNA argument cannot disprove the possibility that the Book of Mormon is a historical document.”

   (3d) “The DNA argument is based upon overly simplistic assumptions about the text which are not consistent with what the text itself says.”

   The first of these statements (1d) makes the extraordinary assumption that Book of Mormon prophets were uninterested in the majority Asiatic population. This sets up the following circular argument:

   Why didn’t Book of Mormon prophets write about the “indigenous others”?
   Because they weren’t interested in them.
   How do you know they weren’t interested in them?
   Because they didn’t mention them.

   The next statement (2d) begs the question. DNA does not disprove Book of Mormon historicity if one thinks like Ostler that: (1) “indigenous others” are present despite the book’s silence about them; (2) the Book of Mormon describes an island setting (or a limited geography of some kind) and local colonization; (3) the text does not always mean what it says; (4) the book’s authors were not interested in Native Americans. If one does not accept this string of apologetic defenses, then DNA remains a central problem.
   As previously argued, the idea (3d) that the text speaks for itself is “overly simplistic.” Ostler is oblivious to his text-corrupting assumptions. If Ostler is right that the Book of Mormon’s author had “overly simplistic assumptions” about ancient America, that someone was likely Joseph Smith, who, along with many of his contemporaries believed all Native Americans were of Hebrew origin.

   Was Lehi Inspired?

   Ostler writes that “any citation from the Book of Mormon that is interpreted to mean that all inhabitants of the Americas … must be Israelite is contrary to the text itself because, at the very least, the Jaredites are not Israelites.” This was in response to Lehi’s prophetic utterance in 2 Nephi that, according to Brent Metcalfe, precludes indigenous others. Among other things, Lehi declares:

   “It is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance. Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a promise, that inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves” (2 Nephi 1:8; emphasis added).

   Ostler quibbles about the meaning of “this land,” insisting that it is too vague to determine what is meant. However, Nephi previously prophesied that “the Lord God will raise up a mighty nation among the Gentiles, yea, even upon the face of this land; and by them shall our seed be scattered” (1 Nephi 22:7; emphasis added), which is difficult to harmonize with Ostler’s island thesis. Speaking to the Nephites in the land southward, Jesus declares: “And behold, this people will I establish in this land, … and it shall be a New Jerusalem” (3 Ne. 20:22; emphasis added; cf. 21:21-26; Ether 13), which Joseph Smith’s early revelations located in Independence, Missouri (D&C 57:1-3; 84:1-5). Obviously, in prophetic terms, “this land” refers to the entire continent.
   Ostler argues that “this land” cannot refer to an area requiring more than several days of walking because the non-Israelite Jaredites were not far away at the time and would render the statement “false at the time it was made. … Thus it seems fairly clear to me that Lehi’s statement cannot mean what Metcalfe claims it does.” Why not? This is odd coming from someone who has argued that prophets don’t always speak prophetically and are limited by their own assumptions and cultural expectations.
   Lehi’s prophecy pertains to his descendants (as well as others “whom the Lord God shall bring out of Jerusalem”) inheriting the land “unto themselves” and preventing “other nations” from coming to “overrun the land, that there would be no place for an inheritance” (2 Nephi 1:9). Prophetically speaking, the doomed Jaredites did not threaten to “overrun the land” and therefore did not conflict with Lehi’s declaration in the way “indigenous others” would. As far as the text is concerned, there was no contact between the Lehites and Jaredites and only Coriantumr lived to “see the fulfilling of the prophecies which had been spoken concerning another people receiving the land for their inheritance” (Ether 13:21; emphasis added). So the presence of the Jaredites does not force one to interpret “this land” in a non-hemispheric way.
   Lehi’s words, according to Ostler, pertain to those who were brought “out of the land of Jerusalem” and “not to everyone already present on the face of the land.” In addition, Ostler claims, the prophetic promise was conditional and was broken within “one generation.” But Lehi is clear that his posterity will first “dwindle in unbelief,” then they will be “scattered and smitten” by the “other nations,” whom the Lord will “bring … and give unto them power … [to] take away from them the lands of their possessions” (2 Nephi 1:10). While the land is divided between the Nephites and Lamanites shortly after Lehi dies, there is no indication that either of them have lost their inheritance to “other nations.” If Lehi’s prophecy had been fulfilled, one would expect it to be noted by the prophets.
   Lehi’s prediction should be read in light of Nephi’s visions which precede it. Using similar words, Nephi predicted that the Lehites would not loose their lands until after the Lamanites destroyed the Nephites, “dwindle[d] in unbelief,” and were “scattered and smitten” by European Gentiles (1 Nephi 12:20-23; 13:10-14, 30-31, 34-35; cf. Alma 45:10, 12). As Lehi had linked “this land” with “land of promise,” Nephi had seen “a man among the Gentiles, who … went forth upon the many waters, even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land” (13:12). If this alludes to Columbus’s discovery of America, it is difficult to limit Lehi’s and Nephi’s “promised land” to an island somewhere off the west coast of the Americas or even a small section of Mesoamerica.

   LIMITED GEOGRAPHY THEORIES

   Ostler hurries over his discussion of the limited geography theory, but it’s precisely what is at issue. His criticism of Earl Wunderli’s 2002 essay in DIALOGUE, which critiqued John Sorenson’s Tehuantepec theory, is superficial and disingenuous. Ostler indulges in special pleading when he cites Brant Gardner’s response in the FARMS REVIEW as “a credible response that substantially undermines Wunderli’s arguments.” In light of his island theory, Ostler agrees with Sorenson-Gardner only on distances, but is unconvinced by their arguments for Tehuantepec, presumably for the same reasons as Wunderli.
   One cannot simply invoke distance problems as the reason for rejecting hemispheric geography. To do so is to beg the question. They must propose a geography that fits the Book of Mormon’s description of a narrow neck of land between lands northward and southward better than traditional hemispheric geography. Even Ostler recognizes that Sorenson’s theory doesn’t do that. If Panama is a better fit and hemispheric geography comes into play, then distances are problematic and can be read as evidence of Joseph Smith’s naivete. Evidently Joseph Smith and first-generation Mormons (and most present believers in the Book of Mormon as well) were oblivious to problems of distance and population growth. As far as can be determined, M. T. Lamb’s 1887 book The Golden Bible was first to question Book of Mormon historicity based on these problems.

   Ostler’s Island Theory

   Ostler’s idea about Book of Mormon events taking place “not on the mainland or continent, but upon an island” is sheer desperation and not likely to be embraced by the apologetic community. The island theory has been suggested and rejected by the apologetic community, mostly because it rests on one rather ambiguous passage, 2 Nephi 10:20: “for the Lord has made the sea our path, behold we are upon an isle of the sea.” Most interpreters have concluded that “the fact that they came there by ship led Jacob to refer to it as an isle” (James H. Fleugel in FARMS Review 3 [1991]: 99-100). Moreover, the “critical passage” in Isaiah 49:1 upon which Jacob is commenting is translated “islands” in the King James Version but, as Ostler noted, as “coastlands” in other versions. The fact that Ostler provides the underlying Hebrew words in Hebrew script is curious–as is the fact that his authority for the English comes from a German-language commentary on the Hebrew.
   In any case, Ostler maintains that ”Jacob couldn’t possibly have a complete geographic knowledge of the Americas” and therefore could not have referred to it as an “island.” Oddly, he suggests that the only way Jacob could have known he was on an island was by “circumnavigating” it. He forgets that Jacob was speaking prophetically. If Ostler seeks naturalistic explanations, perhaps he should consult Ethan Smith’s 1825 View of the Hebrews: “And the places from which they are recovered are noted; among which are ‘the isles of the sea;’ or lands away over the sea, and ‘the four corners of the earth.’ Certainly then, from America!” (Ethan Smith, View of the Hebrew; or, The Tribes of Israel in America [Poultney, Vt.: Smith and Shute, 1825], 232-33).
   A theory that is created for the sole purpose of overcoming problems in a central theory and cannot be tested is known to scientists as an ad hoc hypothesis. The more a theory relies on such devices, the less scientific it becomes and a sign that it is about to be replaced.

   Limited Geography vs. Early Church History

   Ostler acknowledges that “many Church leaders” have “taught that all Amerindians are descended solely from Israelites,” but he finds this irrelevant. He simultaneously admits that his interpretation is not what the text says, but rather what needs to be assumed to make sense of the text, especially in light of new evidence. But why should we prefer Ostler’s interpretations over those of others?
   What I have found is that the Book of Mormon once made perfect sense to those steeped in the Mound Builder Myth. This was the prevailing belief in Joseph Smith’s day that the earthen mounds and ruins of North, Central, and South America were constructed anciently by a race of white-skinned agriculturalists who were destroyed by Indians in the Great Lakes Region prior to discovery by Europeans (See Dan Vogel, Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon: Religious Solutions from Columbus to Joseph Smith [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1986]; ). Both the Book of Mormon and early readers participated in a discourse with this part of the prevailing culture, and any interpretation that does not include the dominant voice in the discussion is incomplete.
   Because the Book of Mormon specifically and repeatedly addressed its readers, describing conditions that would exist at the time the book first appeared, Ostler is wrong to de-contextualize the narrative. Paying attention to Joseph Smith and other early commentators can illuminate the text in ways otherwise unavailable to scholars and guard against the fallacy of presentism. Ostler attempts to minimize this evidence by given two competing excuses:

   (1) “If a Prophet teaches something that is false, then either that prophet is: (a) not a true prophet; or (b), not speaking prophetically.”

   Ostler chooses (b). So how does he explain Brent Metcalfe’s documentation of revelatory pronouncements on the topic?

   (2) “Even when a prophet is speaking prophetically, the revelation reflects the prophet’s assumptions, language, and cultural horizons.”

   So, according to Ostler, when a prophet is speaking prophetically, he is not necessarily speaking the precise truth. (Apparently, he is a partly true and partly false prophet.) The arbitrary application of such a definition renders “(a) not a true prophet” in Ostler’s syllogism meaningless. But really, can Joseph Smith’s revelations about building a New Jerusalem among the Lamanites be dismissed as reflections of Joseph Smith’s assumptions or “doctrinal overbeliefs” (D&C 28:8-9, 14; 30:6; 32:2; 3:18-20; 10:48; 19:27; 49:24; 54:8; 57:4; 109:65-66)?

   Zelph, The White Lamanite

   Ostler’s response to “Zelph,” the “white Lamanite,” is unsatisfactory (cf. Joseph Smith, et al., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, B. H. Roberts, ed., 7 vols. [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1932-51], 2:79). Despite his conclusion that “we just don’t know enough about this incident to claim anything reliable,” we know as much about this incident as we do about any historical event. It is certainly right to be skeptical about the “reliability” of sources and a historian’s ability to reconstruct the past, but Ostler’s skepticism is arbitrary. He states: “I believe that the reliability of these accounts and the timing of their having been set in writing are sufficiently suspect that we are best advised to be careful about their claims.” Kenneth Godfrey examined thirteen sources dealing with the Zelph story, four of which were written at or near the time of the event. Reuben McBride, for example, recorded:

   “Tuesday 3 [June 1834] visited the mounds. A skeleton was dug up, [Joseph Smith] said his name was Zelph a great warrior under the Prophet Omandagus. … he was killed in battle. Said he was a man of God and the curse was taken off or in part he was a white Lamanite” (Reuben McBride, Diary, 3 June 1834, LDS Church Archives).

   The account in Joseph Smith’s own history, which was published for the first time in the Times and Seasons on 1 January 1846, was composed from the accounts of Wilford Woodruff and Heber C. Kimball, both of whom were present when Joseph Smith made his statement. Under the heading “May 8th 1834,” Woodruff recorded:

   “Brother Joseph had a vission respecting the person he said he was a white Lamanite, the curse was taken from him or at least in part, he was killed in battle with an arrow, the arrow was found among his ribs, … his name was Zelph. … Zelph was a large thick set man and a man of God, he was a warrior under the great prophet that was known from the hill Cumorah to the Rocky mountains. The above knowledge Joseph received in a vision” (Wilford Woodruff, Diary, 8 May 1834, LDS Church Archives; Scott G. Kenney, ed., Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 9 vols. [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1983-85], 1:10; angled brackets indicate words written above the line).

   Kimball wrote:

   “It was made known to Joseph that he had been an officer who fell in battle, in the last destruction among the Lamanites, and his name was Zelph. … Brother Joseph had enquired of the Lord and it was made known in a vision” (“Extracts from H. C. Kimball’s Journal,” Times and Seasons 6 [1 February 1845]: 788).

   If Ostler is uncertain about the story of Zelph, how certain can he be about the relationship between any historical event and the source documents? For example, how would the story of the restoration of priesthood keys through Peter, James, and John, which has less and more distant documentation, fair against Ostler’s extreme caution? It is beyond dispute that Joseph Smith claimed revelation for his comments about Zelph, yet Ostler tries to obscure the evidence from “journals of other Latter-day Saints who heard Joseph establish that some present talked about a Zelph who was a white Lamanite” (emphasis added). His prejudicial handling of the sources prevents him from admitting the information came from a prophetic declaration and suggests it was just talk among those present.
   Next, Ostler argues that the most that can be established is that “at some time a person who could claim to be a Lamanite or of Lamanite descent was present in western Ohio [Illinois]. Such information is not incompatible with a limited geography because even if there was a Zelph (which remains in doubt) he could have been a descendant of Lamanites who had wandered far from where the events in the Book of Mormon occurred.” But Joseph Smith’s own letter of 3 June 1834 to Emma explained that he and his men had been

   “wandering over the plains of the Nephites, recounting occasionally the history of the Book of Mormon, roving over the mounds of that once beloved people of the Lord, picking up their skulls & and their bones, as a proof of its divine authenticity” (Joseph Smith to Emma Smith, 4 June 1834, Letterbook, 2:57-58, LDS Church Archives, in Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1984], 324).

   Rather than using Smith’s letter to contextualize and clarify what happened, Ostler uses the letter to try to establish that Smith “neither claims … revelation, nor does he make any reference to ‘Zelph.’ The [letter] establishes only what we already know, i.e., that Joseph Smith assumed at that time that all American Indians were Lamanites.” In fact, the letter resolves Ostler’s question about the relationship of Zelph to the Book of Mormon, which Ostler describes as “extremely unclear.” How likely is that Joseph Smith would describe prophets among post-Book of Mormon peoples or “a white Lamanite” after Book of Mormon times? Note also how Smith’s inspired declaration about Onandagus’s reputation spanning the North American continent creates the same kind of geographical problem that Ostler is trying to escape in the Book of Mormon.

   New Insight or an Apologetic Device?

   Ostler tells us “the limited geography model emerged before the turn of the [twentieth] century and was derived from a careful reading of the Book of Mormon text itself, not a desire to escape challenges from science or anthropology.” Citing Matthew Roper’s recent article, Ostler adds that RLDS Louis Edward Hills was “the first writer to advance a fully limited Book of Mormon geography” between 1917 and 1924 (Matthew Roper, “Limited Geography and the Book of Mormon: Historical Antecedents and Early Interpretations,” FARMS Review 16/2 [2004]: 260). As far as Utah Mormons were concerned, Roper traced “the first versions of a fully limited Book of Mormon geography” to the years “1920 to 1926” (Ibid., 261), specifically removal of some footnotes from the 1920 edition of the Book of Mormon and Janne Sjodahl’s 1927 article in the Improvement Era as starting points (Ibid., 257, 261).
   As Brent Metcalfe and I have pointed out, B. H. Roberts suggested on 22 January 1921 that if Joseph Smith’s revelations designating South America as the place of Lehi’s landing could be set aside, “it would be easier to reply to adverse critics of the Book of Mormon.” Otherwise “the enormous distances to travel present a serious difficulty” (Janne M. Sjodahl, Diary, LDS Archives, cited in Dan Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe, eds., American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002], viii). Roberts was aware of Lamb’s 1887 book and no doubt included it among those “adverse critics.” Therefore, Ostler would be more accurate if he said the limited geography model was derived from Lamb’s careful reading of the Book of Mormon text. Roberts was also aware that Native American languages demonstrated a pre-Lehite migration and a diversity that the Book of Mormon could not account for (B. H. Boberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, ed. Brigham D. Madsen [Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1985], 91-92). He posited: “other races, speaking other tongues, developing other cultures, and making, though absolutely unknown to Book of Mormon people, other histories” (Ibid., 92). The limited geography was his way to respond to critics and harmonize the Book of Mormon with new scientific discoveries.

   Did Joseph Smith Change His Views on Geography?

   Kenneth Godfrey, as Ostler notes, asserted that “the thinking of early church leaders regarding Book of Mormon geography was subject to modification, indicating that they themselves did not see the issue as settled.” To support this point, Godfrey cited two 1842 editorials from the Times and Seasons, probably written by managing editor John Taylor, which linked John L. Stephens’s discovery of Central American ruins with Book of Mormon cities (Kenneth Godfrey, “What is the Significance of Zelph?” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 8/2 [1999]: 72. Cf. Times and Seasons 3 [1 October 1842]: 927-28). Because these editorials associated Zarahemla and Nephi with the ruins of Quirigua and Palenque, some apologists cited them as evidence that Taylor (and possibly Joseph Smith) “had come up with a different model of geography” than what had been previously assumed (John L. Sorenson, An Ancient America Setting For the Book of Mormon [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, UT: FARMS, 1985], 2-6; John L. Sorenson, The Geography of Book of Mormon Events: A Source Book [Provo, UT: FARMS, 1992], 11-12). By placing two cities from the Book of Mormon’s “land southward” in Central America, was he not excluding Panama as the “neck of land” and South America as the “land southward”? The situation is complex and deserves discussion given its frequent use by apologists.
   What the apologists fail to note is that Taylor’s geographic innovations were not inspired by a “careful reading of the Book of Mormon text,” as Ostler asserts, but rather by apologetic concerns. Seven months before Taylor’s first editorial, Parley P. Pratt noted Stephens’s discoveries and linked the Central American ruins with the “many cities as existing among the Nephites on the ‘narrow neck of land’ … ‘Teancum, Boaz, Jordan, Desolation,’ &c.” (Millennial Star, March 1842, 165; emphasis added). These cities are associate with Mormon’s flight through the land northward toward Cumorah (Mormon 4-5), which is as one would expect from someone holding the view that South America was the land southward and everything above Panama was the land northward. However, Taylor wanted to make the link stronger for maximum apologetic effect. In the first article (15 September 1842), he associated the ruins at Palenque with the temple Nephi built (2 Nephi 5:16), but in his second article (1 October 1842) he enthusiastically announced that Zarahemla had probably been found. The evidence was Stephens’s description of a “large round stone, with the sides sculptured in hieroglyphics” at Quirigua, which Taylor linked to the Book of Mormon’s description of a “large stone … with engravings on it” that Coriantumr evidently left with the people of Zarahemla (Omni 1:20-22). In Taylor’s pre-archaeological mind, this was as close to proof for the Book of Mormon as one could hope for, and he wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass: “We are not agoing to declare positively that the ruins of Quirigua are those of Zarahemla, but when the land and the stones, and the books tell the story so plain …” (Times and Seasons 3 [1 October 1842]: 927).
   To locate Zarahemla in Central America, rather than South America as expected, Taylor introduced an innovative but unlikely interpretation of Alma 22:32–one that Orson Pratt and most readers of the Book of Mormon evidently found unpersuasive for obvious reasons. Taylor decided that the Nephites “lived about the narrow neck of land, which now embraces Central America, with all the cities that can be found” (Times and Seasons 3 [15 September 1842]: 915). In other words, the “neck of land” was the entire area between the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the north and Panama to the south. In the next issue, he made this even more clear.
   Did Taylor incorrectly place Zarahemla on the neck of land rather than in the land southward? That’s possible, but he may have been attempting something more subtle. By moving the “line” that divided the lands Bountiful and Desolation (mentioned in Alma 22:32) from the bottom of the neck to the top, he was able to construe, although quite awkwardly, that the neck of land was part of the land southward, rather than part of the land northward as previously and subsequently conceived. In another editorial in the 15 September 1842 issue, perhaps also written by Taylor, there are references to the Jaredites occupying North America and Lehi landing “a little south of the Isthmus of Darien [Panama]” (Times and Seasons 3 [15 September 1842]: 922). South America has not been excluded, although it has become a peripheral concern since it has become part of that undefined Lamanite territory.
   Other than in the writings of John E. Page cited by Roper (Roper, 248-50), Taylor’s geographic innovations evidently did not catch on. Factors that made the Taylor-Page models less appealing were: (1) conceiving the neck of land as part of the land southward and South America, rather than as part of the land northward and North America, was awkward; (2) the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, at about 120 miles as opposed to about 30 miles for Panama, was too wide for the boundary “line” mentioned in Alma 22:32; (3) it became necessary to account for the discovery of similar ruins in South America (e.g., the Inca in Peru; see Times and Seasons 5 [15 December 1844]: 744-48); and (4) the tradition that Lehi landed in South America, probably Chile, was too strong to set aside (first mentioned in “The Golden Bible,” Observer and Telegraph 1 [18 November 1830]: 1).
   It is important to note that resolving distance problems was not a factor in pre-1887 discussions of Book of Mormon geography. The Taylor-Page models did not resolve distance problems since both evidently located Cumorah in New York. While both Taylor and Page were trying to make the Central American ruins relevant to Book of Mormon readers, neither attempted to overturn hemispheric geography because the rationale for doing so was simply not in place. At most, Taylor and Page demonstrate a propensity to distort the text to serve apologetic needs.

   CONCLUSION

   Ostler admits there is no archaeological evidence for Book of Mormon historicity, that the geographical location is unknown, and that the people described in the book of Mormon are hopelessly lost. In support of historicity, he can only offer a few interesting parallels to Hebrew culture. None of this lives up to what the Book of Mormon once seemed to promise. Perhaps it is time for a real paradigm shift.

   Comment # 1 by Dan Vogel | Dec 28, 2005 | Reply

2. I received the following as a letter to the editor from Robert Rees in which he responds to Dan Vogel’s letter to the editor in the September 2005 Sunstone, which was a response to Rees’s letter in the May 2005 issue, which was written about Vogel’s essay in the March 2005 issue (you can find links to all of these various pieces above). Given our recent decision to move discussions of Book of Mormon historicity from the magazine to the blog, I’ve posted it here.

   Dan Wotherspoon

   ——————-

   Hope for a Continuing Dialogue

   “Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind
   & in the mind’s mirror, the world.”
   –David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

   In his recent response to my letter to the editor regarding his Sunstone article (“Same Old, Same Old,” September 2005), Dan Vogel accuses me of reiterating “the apologists’ position without responding to the main issues raised by [his] essay.” He is right that I did not directly address his argument about certain apologist scholars’ misappropriation of Kuhn’s philosophical position regarding paradigms, but that was not my purpose. Rather, the thrust of my argument was that I felt Vogel was being either naïve or disingenuous in offering a paradigmatic option (that believing Mormons should accept the Book of Mormon as non-historical but nevertheless “inspired”) that most Mormons, scholars and lay members alike, would not consider a choice at all. I accused Vogel of being disingenuous because I felt he was using “prophet” and “inspired” in ways that he knew contradicted the typical Mormon understanding of these words. For example, Vogel cites Joseph Smith’s response to the question as to whether he considered himself to be a prophet—“Yes, and every other man who has the testimony of Jesus”—to suggest that Joseph considered himself a prophet only in the loosest sense of that word. But Vogel’s own extensive research and writing on Joseph Smith shows that Joseph considered his prophetic powers and calling anything but ordinary (like “every other man”). As Richard Bushman reveals in his new biography of Joseph Smith (Joseph Smith: Rough Rolling Stone, when Joseph declared boldly in 1831, “I am Joseph the Prophet,” “it was a startling claim for an unprepossing young man of twenty-five.” Vogel’s argument that Joseph “sincerely believed himself to be an inspired prophet—but not in the way he encouraged his followers to believe,” is not supported by any evidence other than what I consider Vogel’s misappropriation of Alma 6:8.

   What Vogel seems not to understand, but which is apparent to anyone who attends a typical (and they are all typical!) Latter-day Saint sacrament meeting, is that the average Mormon is bound to his or her religious beliefs (including the First Vision and the Book of Mormon), not by logic or history but rather, to use Robert Frost’s line, “by countless silken ties of love and thought.” These ties include such things as church service, the bearing of testimonies, temple attendance, hymn singing, scripture study, and fellowship, to name only a few. For better or worse, most Mormons don’t bother themselves about such things as scholarly debates, scientific discoveries, or, perhaps most lamentably, their own history. The social-religious system of the Mormon Church is conservative, hierarchical, and somewhat insular. Thus, the paradigm that Vogel suggests, even if it were based on irrefutable science and scholarship (which it is not), would not be seriously considered by most Mormons. Therefore, if Vogel’s proposal is not disingenuous, it is certainly naïve, no matter how sincerely offered.

   Vogel accuses me of accusing him of being “narrow-minded.” I did not make such an accusation in my letter, nor would I use such a term in regard to him. I do believe from his writing and from conversations we have had that Vogel has a limited scope as to what he considers acceptable evidence. Clearly he puts more stock in certain empirical rather than non-empirical data. But it is more complicated than that. In the introduction to his biography of Joseph Smith, Vogel admits his bias toward empirical data but also reveals that he employs a more complex epistemological approach. What I consider ironic is, on the one hand, Vogel’s rejection of all supernatural evidence for the Restoration (Joseph Smith’s visions, the visions and manifestations of Joseph’s family and associates, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, etc.) and, on the other, his acceptance of what many consider wildly psychobiographical speculation. What Vogel seems not to recognize is that his seeing the Book of Mormon narrative through the prism of the Smith family dynamics is at least as subjective and speculative as the arguments he dismisses from those who see the book as being an authentic, divinely inspired, angelically delivered text. In other words, to me, seeing Smith family ghosts in the Book of Mormon narrative does not differ all that much from seeing angels in Joseph Smith’s bedroom. Neither can be empirically proven. I see Vogel’s imposing the Smith family dynamics on the Book of Mormon narrative as a procrustean bed of analysis. At the very least it is a highly imaginative reading of the text.

   Vogel calls my challenge to naturalist critics to explain how the Book of Mormon could be a product of nineteenth century culture “nothing but a red herring” that “has no probative value in determining whether or not the Book of Mormon is historical,” but I contend that it is at least as legitimate a challenge as those presented by naturalist critics. Vogel’s argument that “there is simply no direct evidence linking the book of Mormon to ancient America” and that “the apologists’ case rests on isolated parallels and wishful thinking,” does not accommodate what for many constitute serious evidence of ancient elements, elements that cannot be explained from Joseph Smith’s information or cultural environment. If these cannot be demonstrated as coming from Joseph Smith’s mind or found in nineteenth century America (as some persuasively argue), then it is legitimate to suggest they came from outside that environment—and to challenge those who are convinced that it did come from within that environment to demonstrate exactly (or even approximately) how they did so.

   Vogel is right to say that there is no such thing as a neutral position, but I was not presenting myself as neutral—only as someone who is concerned that the polar shouting I experience on both sides of the divide doesn’t seem to lead to anything constructive. I confess that I am not completely objective or dispassionate. However, trying to be as intellectually and as spiritually honest as I can, I thoughtfully consider both the legitimacy of intellectual challenges to my faith and the validity of spiritual experiences of my faith. As I have tried to make clear, I cannot seem to escape the tension between the two kinds of experiences, particularly because I see both as having strengths and weaknesses—that is, one can be as deceived by too great a reliance on reason as by too great a reliance on spiritual or spectral evidence.

   While it is true, as Vogel contends, that the term “naturalist” does not “describe all those who question Book of Mormon historicity,” it does seem an accurate appellation for Vogel himself, who seems to eschew all non-naturalistic phenomena or explanations (again except for the speculative biographical data mentioned above). He must be aware that modern neuroscience sees a much more complex view of reality. As Joseph Chilton Pearce and Michael Mendizza state, “Perception, awareness, what we call reality is an ever-changing blend of multiple data streams—external, internal, past, imagined, and intuitive—simultaneously displayed in consciousness.” Most Latter-day Saints give primacy to their felt experience with the Book of Mormon, and the breadth and depth of such experience is more persuasive to them than such things as the absence of Semitic DNA markers among Native American lineages. In other words, the spiritual logic of their encounter with the book trumps other kinds of logic. So, even if Vogel’s argument were iron-clad (which I don’t believe it is), it would make little difference to the majority of Latter-day Saints. That may be lamentable, but it is no less a reality. This is why I consider his hope for a paradigm shift unrealistic.

   Vogel tries to turn the tables on me by saying that my use of Stephen J. Gould’s idea of non-overlapping-magisteria makes his case, but he obscures Gould’s point, which is not that bad or pseudo-science has any validity but that the realms of scientific inquiry and religious experience have separate domains and that it is illegitimate to judge either by the standards of the other. Thus, believers must regard the findings of science as significant (if not always conclusive) and non-believers must respect the experience of faith (even if not persuaded by it). These are, as Gould argues, non-overlapping (i.e., entirely separate epistemological) realms. This is significant in relation to some naturalists and to some apologists who keep judging each another by the wrong criteria.

   I have tried to make my own position clear: As a scholar and a believer, I value both magesteria; in fact, I have spent my professional and personal life trying to foster respectful dialogue between the two. As a scholar I have tried to use the best critical skills of my particular profession (literary history and textual analysis) in coming to terms with the text of the Book of Mormon. In doing so, I am persuaded that it is an amazingly complex, sophisticated, and, at times, profound text. As objectively as I able to weigh the evidence, I am persuaded that it is highly unlikely a product of Joseph Smith’s or one of his contemporaries’ mind and imagination. Nevertheless, I remain open to the possibility that it might be. As I have said elsewhere, if someone were to discover a proto-manuscript of the Book of Mormon, say written in 1795, I would have to revise my thinking.

   The question I put seriously to Vogel is whether if it had been shown that there was DNA evidence of Semitic bloodlines among indigenous American populations that would have convinced him that the Book of Mormon was what it claims to be. From all he has said and written on this subject, I seriously doubt such evidence would have been persuasive to him. And yet he wants the absence of such DNA markers to overturn all other evidence that others find for concluding the text is ancient.

   Unfortunately, Vogel resorts to the very kind of rhetorical tricks of which he accuses me, tying me to “fundamentalist,” “creationists,” and other extreme, right-wing positions, which I believe he knows from our conversations and from my published work has no basis in reality. It is exactly this kind of pejorative rhetoric that I find so dispiriting. While I tried to be as dispassionate as possible in my critique of Vogel’s position, to whatever extent he feels I was unduly or unfairly critical, I sincerely apologize. I respect his right to hold and defend his views and I personally believe him to be both sincere and caring.

   Robert A. Rees
   Brookdale, California

   Comment # 2 by Dan | Jan 17, 2006 | Reply

3. Testimony-Ladenness of Observation

   In their critiques of scientific methodology, Thomas Kuhn and postmodernists like to talk about the theory-ladenness of observation, which refers to how a theory influences not only how one gathers evidence but how one perceives it as well. The term “testimony-ladennes of observation” came to mind as I read Kevin Christensen’s essay “Determining What Is ‘Real’” in the November 2005 issue. His long recounting of a chain of “meant-to-be” events is mind-boggling, but it provides an example of how testimony-ladennnes shapes Christensen’s interpretations, not only of life but of evidence as well. Obviously, one can add the rhetorical flourish “I am convinced that these [events] were meant to be” to any story without fear of being proven wrong, because it’s untestable and unfalsifiable. This is exactly what apologists want to happen with the debate over Book of Mormon historicity. By using a series of ad hoc hypotheses, they hope–as Christensen quotes Apostle Dallin Oaks–to “settle for a draw.” And that is the most that someone without compelling evidence can hope for.

   Moreover, Christensen demonstrates that he has not understood my essay “Is a ‘Paradigm Shift’ in Book of Mormon Studies Possible?” (March 2005) when he quotes Apostle Oaks’s statement that “secular evidence can neither prove nor disprove the Book of Mormon. Its authenticity depends, as it says, on a witness of the Holy Spirit.” Clearly, this statement attempts to resolve the question of historicity with testimony, while my essay argued that having a spiritual witness about the book’s “truth” does not necessarily mean that you have a testimony of its historicity. Contrary to Apostle Oaks’s assertion, the Book of Mormon’s historical claims can be tested by secular scholarship and are potentially falsifiable. For example, if one believes the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith’s early revelations identify Native Americans with Israelites, if one finds apologetic attempts to revision text and tradition unpersuasive, then evidence like DNA has falsified Book of Mormon historicity. Nevertheless, in light of this quote from Apostle Oaks, Christensen’s later denial that he is not trying to corrupt the scientific method by inserting religious values into the process seems disingenuous.

   Christensen misapplies a statement I made in my introduction to himself. My comment that some apologists draw on Kuhn’s critique of science as a “subjective enterprise” to argue that “believing that the Book of Mormon is historical is neither more nor less ‘scientific’ than not believing” (p. 69) was, in part, inspired by John-Charles Duffy’s use of Kuhn in the same issue as Christensen’s initial essay (see May 2004, p. 35). So, if Christensen finds the argument “silly,” we agree on one thing at least.

   Christensen also incorrectly personalizes my statement that “no matter how many correlations one perceives in the text [of the Book of Mormon], one negative evidence cancels them all” as “grounds for leaving the Church, dropping my belief in the historicity of the Book of Mormon, the divinity of Jesus Christ, [and] the existence of God.” While Christensen is free to make whatever personal conclusions about the implications of negative evidence, my comment was intended to be understood as an epistemological point about the nature of evidence. Assuming the negative evidence is valid, one is enough. More negative evidences might increase confidence, but it won’t make a falsified theory more false. A dead theory–like a dead person–can’t be made more dead. On the other hand, because apologists can’t make a direct connection between the Book of Mormon and ancient America, they rely on accumulation of inferences, speculations, and indirect correlations in the hope that the total weight will somehow be greater than the sum of its parts. In such a situation, I argue that negative evidence should be more decisive than perceived correlations.

   The problem, of course, lies in the disagreement over what constitutes negative evidence. This is where Christensen and other apologists want to introduce the limited geography theory, the local colonization theory, the inspired translation theory, or some other ad hoc device. And here we begin to have an answer to Christensen’s question: “Why do things that others find devastating and shattering not bother me at all?” One reason Christensen is unmoved by negative evidence, he says, is that he has seen “a seemingly powerful, decisive and final ‘negative evidence’” become “very powerful positive evidence.” Assuming this has happened in the past, it is no guarantee that it will always happen; so this is basically a statement of faith, or the fallacy of potential proof.

   Christensen gives us an example of where seemingly negative evidence became positive, for him at least. Refusing to be moved by David Wright’s 1993 discussion of the Book of Mormon’s anachronistic borrowing of material and ideas about Melchizedek from the Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament (cf. Hebrews 7 and Alma 13), Christensen waited two years and found a promising answer in the speculations of Old Testament scholar Margaret Barker, who believes the “Melchizedek material in Hebrews, and the early Church’s association of Melchizedek and the Messiah” are based on legends that go back to the First Temple (ca. 700 B.C.). If anything, this demonstrates the casualness with which Christensen sets aside negative evidence, because postulating the existence of a mythology that possibly influenced Hebrews in some unspecified way does nothing towards replacing Wright’s comprehensive analysis. Responding to Christensen’s use of Barker, David Wright communicated to me:

   [Barker’s] statement establishes nothing in regard to the content of traditions that may have been available to Hebrews or the early church. One cannot jump from a reasonable supposition that there are some (very undefined and perhaps very minimal) “Melchizedek” traditions to a notion of what the content of those traditions may have been. One cannot “subtract” the OT (i.e., Gen 14 and Ps 110) motifs from Hebrews and say that the rest of the Melchizedek material in Hebrews is old. This is especially unlikely given what we know about how early Jewish (and this includes early Christian) readers of the Bible midrashically (i.e., creatively and expansively) interpreted the bare facts available only in the biblical text. For example, that Melchizedek had no parents (according to Hebrews) is based on the lack of genealogy in Genesis 14–this is interpretive, not the retention of ancient tradition. … If one cannot talk about the content of general “traditions” available to Christianity, certainly one cannot talk about the content of specific texts.1

   Nor does Christensen’s use of Barker explain what happens in the Book of Mormon. To remove the Book of Mormon’s borrowing from Hebrews, apparent not only in Alma 12-13 but also in Ether 12, from the list of anachronisms, Mormon apologists need to postulate the existence of a “Proto-Hebrews” text at least 700 years before Hebrews was composed. As Wright explained in 1993:

   The text would have to include at least the following: (a) Hebrews 3:7-11, a version of verse 12, plus exposition of this material from Psalm 95 highlighting the matters of heart-hardening, entering into God’s rest, “Today” as the time of faithfulness, and provocation; (b) the essence of Hebrews 7:1-4 and a relatively extensive discussion of priesthood; (c) a version of Hebrews 9:27-28; (d) much of Hebrews 11; (e) scattered verses or parts thereof outside Hebrews 11 parallel to Ether 12 … (g) a messianic topological element. … Critical study of the biblical canon and the growth of biblical exegesis indicates that the type of text that Proto-Hebrews would have to be would be unlikely in the preexilic period.2

   Quoting Barker’s theory is hardly adequate reason to dismiss Wright’s specific arguments. With such grasping-for-straws methodology, it’s no mystery why Christensen remains unmoved by negative evidence. Christensen acknowledges that there is a point at which resisting negative evidence becomes unreasonable, but this acknowledgment seems meaningless in light of his method of privileging weak positive evidence over more comprehensive negative evidence, inventing incoherent ad hoc rationalizations, and believing that testimony trumps all negative evidence.

   Christensen attempts to distract the discussion from negative evidence to perceived mistakes some critics make, apparently to say that the critics can’t be trusted because they are not always right. As an example, he refers to a footnote in my essay on the Book of Mormon witnesses in American Apocrypha, which mentions an 1857 letter that, as Christensen represents, “contains a second-hand report of a rumor to the effect that Joseph Smith learned hypnotism ‘from a German peddler’” (p. 67). Christensen suggests that my valuing of this historically weak source occurred because of the “demands of his hypothesis” (p. 68). Without sounding overly defensive or implying my work is flawless, Christensen has misconstrued my reason for quoting the source. Not only did I quote the source without comment, but I quoted it in conjunction with George W. Schweich’s 1899 comment that his grandfather David Whitmer’s vision of the angel and plates was either real or hypnotism. The context of my use of these two sources clearly show that my intent was not to “support [my] hypothesis about Smith being a skilled hypnotist” (p. 68), as Christensen asserts, but rather to show that the possibility that Smith used something like hypnotism had been brought up as early as 1899 (and perhaps earlier) and that “this possibility has never been adequately explored, let alone refuted.”3 Not surprisingly, the lens through which Christensen magnifies weak evidence into strong, also allows him to exaggerate the faults he perceives in counter-apologetic writings. Regardless, dwelling on a “human mistake” in a footnote and ignoring the major evidence and arguments is a fallacy of distraction called quibbling.

   Christensen disputes my description that Kuhn believed that “the historical progress of science is best understood as punctuated by mass conversions to new understandings, sudden ‘paradigm shifts’” (p. 69). According to Christensen, “What Kuhn describes as a paradigm shift takes time and involves overcoming resistance for both individuals and paradigm communities” (p. 68). This might be true of the period leading up to paradigm shift, but not paradigm shift itself. Speaking of paradigm shift for individuals, Kuhn said: “The transition between competing paradigms cannot be made a step at a time, forced by logic and neutral experience. Like the gestalt switch, it must occur all at one (though not necessarily in an instant) or not at all.”4 Regarding the scientific community, my description of scientific revolutions as “sudden … mass conversions” is meant to be understood in the relative terms of historical time–long periods of “normal science” punctuated by relatively brief periods of revolutionary paradigm shifts, like what happened with the Copernican and Einsteinian Repositions.

   Christensen complains that I engage in “rhetorical sleight of hand” when I describe the weak and contradictory parts of Kuhn’s philosophy. Christensen says, “Only if my use corresponded to the hypothetical irresponsible Kuhn could the criticism apply” (p. 68). However, my critique of Kuhn stands alone and appears a page and a half before Christensen is even mentioned. The first part of my essay deals in general terms with Kuhn and those who misuse him to attack science as a means of supporting weak theories. The wording of his denial is an admission that his use of Kuhn is selective, and therefore it is out of context and unrepresentative of Kuhn’s complete thought. Indeed, as I argued, Kuhn himself would have objected to how his thesis is being used to support unscientific viewpoints.

   Christensen denies that he uses the three step “fallacy from Kuhn” common among some Creationists, which I did not apply specifically to him. Nevertheless, the fact remains that he and other apologists appeal to Kuhn’s critique of science as a means of weakening the significance of negative evidence by creating a different paradigm, which blends scientific and scholarly inquiry with religious values and introduces ad hoc rationalizations that make sense only to those who inhabit that paradigm. Christensen has argued, “And in Book of Mormon studies, Hugh Nibley’s efforts for the Near Eastern side and John Sorenson’s efforts for the Mesoamerican side have defined paradigms for the most significant groups of believing researchers today.”5 I have argued that the introduction of such apologetic devises are not true paradigm shifts, but rather are ad hoc hypotheses designed to protect the old paradigm (Book of Mormon historicity) from demise. Christensen’s use of Kuhn in this effort places his writings firmly in the same genre as the Creationists.

   Christensen implies that my critique of Brant Gardner’s approach misrepresents his position, but Gardner himself says that his method entails “looking for Mesoamerica in the Book of Mormon instead of the Book of Mormon in Mesoamerica.” Christensen praises Gardner’s approach because it “re-defines the problem field, method, and standard of solution” (p. 69). Indeed it does. As I argued in my essay, by using this method “historical anachronisms become invisible to researchers and falsification becomes impossible” (p. 71). In response, Christensen quotes another completely unrelated statement from Gardner where he discusses anachronisms to show that “Gardner openly notices and discusses potential ‘historical anachronisms,’ demonstrating that Vogel’s charge that such things ‘become invisible’ is false” (p. 69). But Gardner is no longer applying the approach he described in the previous statement; so, while it might be fair to say Gardner has more than one approach, the second statement is irrelevant to an assessment of the first. Using Gardner’s first methodology of looking for Mesoamerica in the Book of Mormon, one would skip over anachronisms like steel swords or horses. The only time they would come into play is when one looks for the Book of Mormon in Mesoamerica. When Gardner momentarily slips out of his new methodology and notices anachronisms, he quickly jumps back to his Mesoamerica-in-the-Book-of-Mormon approach, calls them “labeling problems” (meaning a horse is really a deer or tapir), and the anachronisms disappear. Despite Christensen’s claim, Gardner is not “putting the text at risk via his methods.” The whole reason for switching to the new method was because, as Gardner stated, there was a “huge difference” in “the quality of the correlations.” It is also much easier to manipulate the text, especially if one believes, as Christensen does, that there is an “uncertain relationship between the signs of language and the signified beyond language” (p. 66). This belief not only allows Gardner and Christensen to see Mesoamerica in the Book of Mormon, but also to rewrite the text to conform to their testimony-laden assumptions.

   Christensen describes the “impasse” between our views as a simple matter of reading the Book of Mormon with different eyes. “I read with different contexts, different perspectives–and I come to different valuations,” he argues (p. 69). These “different contexts” and “perspectives” are nothing more than apologetic ad hoc theories, and his “valuations” are determined by their effectiveness in overcoming problems. Then, back to his relativistic postmodern views, he states: “I do not say that my readings are the only ones possible, but I strive to show that they are plausible and, from my perspective, better and more promising” (p. 69). It is not a simple matter of arbitrarily choosing among several plausible readings of a text. Sometimes apologists confuse readings which make the text more historically plausible with readings that are plausible. The number of plausible readings is constrained by the text itself, and in this instance the hemispheric reading is more plausible and less textually problematic than the limited geographic theory.

   Christensen denies that he believes “Kuhn’s thesis gives Mormon scholars permission to corrupt the scientific method with religious values” and complains that I did not quote him on this charge (p. 69). However, this charge rests more on the implications of his methodology, rather than on an explicit statement. Nevertheless, in a footnote, I quoted his 1995 statement that Ian Barbour’s work “supplies the theoretical justification that I use to apply Kuhn’s model [of science] to religion” (p. 74 n. 16). In the same essay, he admitted that the apologists’ paradigm includes other “preferred, even useful and possibly true, assumptions,” and advised fellow believers, “We do not need to retreat from our preferred assumptions when doing our research, or living our lives, or in communicating with audiences that share those assumptions.”6 Christensen also describes how those extra-scientific assumptions helps to overcome counter-evidence:

   When confronted by different conclusions … the best way to get perspective is to start asking all the questions that apply to a paradigm debate. Rather than focusing on a single problem … ask, Which paradigm is better? Which problems are more significant to have solved? The Book of Mormon itself claims that the key problem to have solved is testimony.7

   Christensen gives an example of how his testimony-laden observation resolves counter-evidence. Responding to Stan Larson’s research showing Joseph Smith “copied the KJV blindly, not showing awareness of translation problems and errors in the KJV,” Christensen objects that no one knows what inspired translation entails.8 Evidently, for Christensen, being able to translate under inspiration is not only different than normal translation, but less reliable and in some undefinable way potentially able to explain away all anachronisms and KJV-dependent errors. Besides committing the fallacy of possible proof, it is a faith-based ad hoc rationalization that has no place in scholarly discourse.

   In the last section, Christensen tells us why he resists a paradigm shift to an inspired fiction model for the Book of Mormon. He fears that life would become ordinary and lose the magic and mystery to which he has become accustomed. His criticism of those who have made the shift as prideful in their ability to “face the abyss without flinching,” tells us all we need to know about what lies behind his resistence. All of which is quite ironic given his allusion to Buddhist symbolism: “To enter into the Real, we have to be willing to leave what we think and what we want, what we fear, and what we desire.”

   Dan Vogel
   Westerville, Ohio

   NOTES

   1. David Wright to Dan Vogel, 12 Jan. 2006.

   2. David Wright, “‘In Plain Terms That We May Understand’: Joseph Smith’s Transformation of Hebrews in Alma 12-13,” in Brent Lee Metcalfe, ed., New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), 204-5.

   3. Dan Vogel, “The Validity of the Witnesses’ Testimonies,” in Dan Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe, eds., American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 91, and 115 n. 60.

   4. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 150.

   5. Kevin Christensen, “Paradigms Crossed,” Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 7/2 (1995): 150.

   6. Ibid., 160.

   7. Ibid., 172.

   8. Ibid., 157-59. See Stan Larson, “The Historicity of the Matthean Sermon on the Mount in 3 Nephi,” in Brent D. Metcalfe, ed., New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), 115-63.

   Comment # 3 by Dan Vogel | Jan 20, 2006 | Reply

4. It is fascinating how different a method can look when explained by someone who is clearly unfamiliar with it. I will attempt a reply to Vogel’s representation of the way I have approached the Book of Mormon.

   What does it mean to look for Mesoamerica in the Book of Mormon? It means that any text written in a particular time ought to show evidence of the time and culture in which it was created. If the Book of Mormon were created during the years it says it was and if the Mesoamerican location were the real background, then that cultural background should leave its traces in the text and should do so in ways authentic to historical texts.

   This is, using a different comparative base, the same method Vogel suggests for his examination of the Book of Mormon. The difference is that he compares the text to New York frontier culture during Joseph’s time. It is ironic that Vogel would be so adamant that my method must be incorrect when it is so similar to his own. I suspect that he doesn’t feel that way about his work.

   The second question is the issue of anachronisms. Again, what I have said about them becomes something quite different in Vogel’s retelling. I have looked at all of them and analyzed the contexts in which they appear. Most of them are anachronous words that do not clearly have any supporting descriptive actions that allow us to be sure that the word represents what we think it does. Since the Book of Mormon claims to be a translation and since it is well known that a translation can insert anachronous words (such as “candle” in the KJV NT) then we cannot make any decisions based on those anachronisms alone. Until other data tell us how to read the text, they are simply anomalous data that must wait for resolution. That is a long way from ignoring them. It isn’t unusual for any scientific investigation to have anomalous data. At some point they must be accounted for and the strongest theory will account for the anomalies without damage to the larger data set. In the case of the labeling anachronisms, it is the larger data set that will tell us how to understand the words that appear to be anachronous.

   Concerning Vogel’s assertion that my approach doesn’t allow for falsification, I can’t imagine how that could be correct. If is text doesn’t fit a historical time and place - particularly when the target covers such a long time - one discovers issues rather quickly. This is particularly true if the underlying motivations and culture being described differ from that of the time period of discovery/translation. Apart from the possible translation anachronisms, there are ample cases where motivations, descriptions and assumptions would be anachronistic that would rapidly falsify the hypothesis. In the case of the Book of Mormon there are complex relationships between culture areas, peoples, languages and times that must all fit with know geography, topography, linguistics and time periods. There are a number of descriptions of economic and political developments that should reflect conditions at the historical time, if it is an ancient document.

   Any of those issues are much more damaging to a hypothesis of antiquity that the potential mislabeling through translation.

   Comment # 4 by Brant Gardner | Jan 29, 2006 | Reply

5. The discussion of the historicity of the Book of Mormon assumes that there can be a homgeneous account of the meaning of the term “historicity”. I assert that this cannot be the case. What is “historically true” depends on what “really” happened in the past. But the concept of reality is adjudicated differently from within the confines of different linguistic frameworks and practices. For example, mathematics adjucicates the reality of numbers differently than physics does the reality of quarks. So, prior to all of the above discussion we should have a discussion of the usage of concepts such as “reality” and “historical” from within the Mormon context. I think that you find that the average Mormon (non-apologists) do not care about DNA evidence. This entails that for them it has nothing to do with the historicity of the Book of Mormon in their linguistic framework. It follows that their claim that the book of Mormon if historical is logically very different from the anthropologists’ claim that the inhabitants of this continent are not from the middle east (for example). The apparently competing claims are not really comparable since they have different standards of evidence. This said, we must recognize an important implication: saying that the native americans are lamanites is a different kind of claim. It is a political claim. It is a claim about what their status is with respect to the gospel. With a properly political reading of the Book of Mormon we will find that this means that there is more hope for them than for us. We’re the Nephites and “we” were destroyed.

   Comment # 5 by dennis potter | Feb 12, 2006 | Reply

6. Wow! Dennis Potter has really been drinking the purple cool aid!
   Dennis, You forgot that science is still evolving, first archeology disproved the B of M, and then DNA evidence etc. etc.
   In the future science will develop new tools and insights to help people ferret out the skunk in the wood pile.
   In the end it won’t matter because many Mormons have shown that no amount of evidence will turn them away from their childhood faith. Faith based people have always disdained reason while those of us who cherish both reason ( reality based )and faith sit back in amazment as we watch the faith based folk fighting over who can drink the most purple Kool-aid.

   Gordon Hill

   Comment # 6 by Gordon Hill | Feb 17, 2006 | Reply

7. Continuing Dialogue Between Robert Rees and Dan Vogel

   RR: In his recent response to my letter to the editor regarding his Sunstone article (“Same Old, Same Old,” September 2005), Dan Vogel accuses me of reiterating “the apologists’ position without responding to the main issues raised by [his] essay.” He is right that I did not directly address his argument about certain apologist scholars’ misappropriation of Kuhn’s philosophical position regarding paradigms, but that was not my purpose.

   DV: So, if you didn’t want to contribute to the main theme of my essay, what was your purpose?

   RR: Rather, the thrust of my argument was that I felt Vogel was being either naïve or disingenuous in offering a paradigmatic option (that believing Mormons should accept the Book of Mormon as non-historical but nevertheless “inspired”) that most Mormons, scholars and lay members alike, would not consider a choice at all.

   DV: You’re probably right about most Mormons, although I find it odd that you want to speak for them. I understand that you do not consider the inspired fiction theory an option, but no one knows for sure what the average Mormon, or even a significant minority, would do once they have been informed of the issues. However, I’m less concerned about how many Mormons would accept a non-historical but inspired Book of Mormon, than that some be allowed to hold that position openly without fear of punishment or intimidation. Since testimony pertains to the truthfulness of the book, not historicity, skepticism should be permitted and not considered a heresy.

   RR: I accused Vogel of being disingenuous because I felt he was using “prophet” and “inspired” in ways that he knew contradicted the typical Mormon understanding of these words. For example, Vogel cites Joseph Smith’s response to the question as to whether he considered himself to be a prophet—“Yes, and every other man who has the testimony of Jesus”—to suggest that Joseph considered himself a prophet only in the loosest sense of that word.

   DV: True, I’m less concerned about the “typical Mormon” definitions of “prophet” and “inspiration,” than with Joseph Smith’s. Rees objects to my quoting Joseph Smith’s definition of “prophet”–that the “testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10)–“to suggest that Joseph considered himself a prophet only in the loosest sense of that word.” Whether or not it meats expectations, this was Joseph Smith’s definition, which he repeatedly gave. In January 1843, he repeated the definition and explained: “I did not profess to be a prophet any more than every man ought to who professes to be a preacher of righteousness” (DHC 5:231-32). I don’t think Joseph Smith thought his definition was “loose” since he was using it to distinguish himself from the hireling priests. It is also important to note that I did not introduce Joseph Smith’s definition of “prophet” as proof that he was only a prophet in that sense, as Rees implies; but rather to explain that despite his use of deception, he could still consider himself a prophet by his own definition.

   The same is true with regard to the Book of Mormon’s “inspired” status. If one concludes that Joseph Smith knew the Book of Mormon had not come from anciently engraved gold plates, did Joseph Smith still consider the Book of Mormon “inspired”? The Book of Mormon itself says, yes. “Wherefore every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God. … For every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ” (Moroni 7:13, 16).

   RR: But Vogel’s own extensive research and writing on Joseph Smith shows that Joseph considered his prophetic powers and calling anything but ordinary (like “every other man”). As Richard Bushman reveals in his new biography of Joseph Smith (Joseph Smith: Rough Rolling Stone, when Joseph declared boldly in 1831, “I am Joseph the Prophet,” “it was a startling claim for an unprepossing young man of twenty-five.”

   DV: To quote Joseph Smith calling himself “Joseph the Prophet” begs the question since what is meant by prophet should be understood by his own definition, not what he “led followers to believe” about angels and gold plates. Many Old Testament prophets did little more than to write inspired poems. Does a prophet have to do the things Joseph Smith claimed to be a prophet?

   RR: Vogel’s argument that Joseph “sincerely believed himself to be an inspired prophet—but not in the way he encouraged his followers to believe,” is not supported by any evidence other than what I consider Vogel’s misappropriation of Alma 6:8.

   DV: Huh? I don’t believe I made this argument. Again, this statement arises out of the Book-of-Mormon-is-not-history paradigm. If the Book of Mormon is not history and the story of the angel and the plates is fiction, then he was a prophet in a difference sense than he led his followers to believe. This is the paradigm shift that I was describing.

   RR: What Vogel seems not to understand, but which is apparent to anyone who attends a typical (and they are all typical!) Latter-day Saint sacrament meeting, is that the average Mormon is bound to his or her religious beliefs (including the First Vision and the Book of Mormon), not by logic or history but rather, to use Robert Frost’s line, “by countless silken ties of love and thought.” These ties include such things as church service, the bearing of testimonies, temple attendance, hymn singing, scripture study, and fellowship, to name only a few. For better or worse, most Mormons don’t bother themselves about such things as scholarly debates, scientific discoveries, or, perhaps most lamentably, their own history. The social-religious system of the Mormon Church is conservative, hierarchical, and somewhat insular. Thus, the paradigm that Vogel suggests, even if it were based on irrefutable science and scholarship (which it is not), would not be seriously considered by most Mormons. Therefore, if Vogel’s proposal is not disingenuous, it is certainly naïve, no matter how sincerely offered.

   DV: I certainly prefer naivete to disingenuous, but only time will tell how naive I am. Nevertheless, the merits of my argument should not rest on how many LDS embrace it.

   RR: Vogel accuses me of accusing him of being “narrow-minded.” I did not make such an accusation in my letter, nor would I use such a term in regard to him. I do believe from his writing and from conversations we have had that Vogel has a limited scope as to what he considers acceptable evidence. Clearly he puts more stock in certain empirical rather than non-empirical data.

   DV: A distinction with very little difference, but nevertheless an attempt to cloud historical issues with testimony while at the same time labeling anyone who doesn’t accept your “non-empirical evidence” (testimony) as using a “limited scope” (i.e., “narrow-minded”).

   RR: But it is more complicated than that. In the introduction to his biography of Joseph Smith, Vogel admits his bias toward empirical data but also reveals that he employs a more complex epistemological approach. What I consider ironic is, on the one hand, Vogel’s rejection of all supernatural evidence for the Restoration (Joseph Smith’s visions, the visions and manifestations of Joseph’s family and associates, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, etc.) and, on the other, his acceptance of what many consider wildly psychobiographical speculation.

   DV: This is nothing more than an ad hominem (circumstantial), or an attempt to appeal to an opponents personal circumstances as a means of coercing him/her to accept a particular proposition without defending the merits of one’s own argument.

   Nevertheless, the analogy between supernaturalism and psychology is rather weak. If the “many” Rees refers to are anything like the brothers Hedges, they assume the term “psychobiography” refers to the use of Freudian psychoanalysis, which my biography does not use (see my response at SignatureBooks.com). Instead my approach is “informed by” family systems theory, which is less concerned with psychodynamics than family dynamics. Using my reconstruction of Smith family dynamics, which is not psychoanalytic but behavior oriented, I look for possible insights in the Book of Mormon. As a literary critic, Rees should be familiar with the historical-biographical method of literary analysis, which are not offered as “proof” but as plausible meanings of texts based on certain assumptions. While this can be subjective, it in no way equates with supernaturalism. Does he know of any literary critics who use prayer, testimony, or the supernatural?

   RR: What Vogel seems not to recognize is that his seeing the Book of Mormon narrative through the prism of the Smith family dynamics is at least as subjective and speculative as the arguments he dismisses from those who see the book as being an authentic, divinely inspired, angelically delivered text. In other words, to me, seeing Smith family ghosts in the Book of Mormon narrative does not differ all that much from seeing angels in Joseph Smith’s bedroom. Neither can be empirically proven. I see Vogel’s imposing the Smith family dynamics on the Book of Mormon narrative as a procrustean bed of analysis. At the very least it is a highly imaginative reading of the text.

   DV: Absurd! There is no way that the historical-biographical method is on the same plane as claims of seeing visions of angels. Nevertheless, Rees fails to realize that I’m not offering my analysis as evidence of Joseph Smith’s authorship, whereas the apologists’ parallels are being offered as such. I have conclude the Book of Mormon is not history based on the lack of evidence and various historical anachronisms, and I have rejected Joseph Smith’s story of the angel and the plates based on the same kind of evidence. I haven’t simply dismissed Joseph Smith’s claims to visions, but I have offered reasons why his stories are not credible.

   True, interpretations of texts cannot be “empirically proven” in any case, but Book of Mormon historicity potentially can. If the Book of Mormon is proven to be historical, then Joseph Smith’s claims about angel visitations become credible. However, the intent of my essay was to encourage apologists not to brush negative evidence aside with their ad hoc devices, but to redefine “prophet” and “inspiration” based on a non-historical Book of Mormon. It was not my purpose to rehash the pro and con of Book of Mormon historicity, but Rees can’t seem to get out of that rut and, at least momentarily, consider other possibilities. Of course, there are many ways of looking at a text and every method of interpretation, every tool of scholarship, has its limitations and drawbacks, but what other choice do you have?

   RR: Vogel calls my challenge to naturalist critics to explain how the Book of Mormon could be a product of nineteenth century culture “nothing but a red herring” that “has no probative value in determining whether or not the Book of Mormon is historical,” but I contend that it is at least as legitimate a challenge as those presented by naturalist critics.

   DV: Suppose critics can’t explain exactly how Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, does it prove it is an ancient book. No. It’s an attempt to shift the burden of proof from those who assert the positive to those who are skeptical of the claim.

   RR: Vogel’s argument that “there is simply no direct evidence linking the book of Mormon to ancient America” and that “the apologists’ case rests on isolated parallels and wishful thinking,” does not accommodate what for many constitute serious evidence of ancient elements, elements that cannot be explained from Joseph Smith’s information or cultural environment. If these cannot be demonstrated as coming from Joseph Smith’s mind or found in nineteenth century America (as some persuasively argue), then it is legitimate to suggest they came from outside that environment—and to challenge those who are convinced that it did come from within that environment to demonstrate exactly (or even approximately) how they did so.

   DV: This is another argument from ignorance. All it means is you can’t find a nineteenth-century antecedent. Nothing more. It also begs the question since it requires the critic to accept the legitimacy of the apologists’ evidence for ancient origins. But here Rees has missed the purpose of the discussion between me and Christensen, which is the tendency of the apologists to use ancient parallels to discount historical and literary anachronisms and other negative evidence.

   RR: Vogel is right to say that there is no such thing as a neutral position, but I was not presenting myself as neutral—only as someone who is concerned that the polar shouting I experience on both sides of the divide doesn’t seem to lead to anything constructive.

   DV: Yet, when I try to present the Book of Mormon as non-historical in a way that preserves it as a sacred, perhaps inspired text, you call me disingenuous.

   RR: I confess that I am not completely objective or dispassionate. However, trying to be as intellectually and as spiritually honest as I can, I thoughtfully consider both the legitimacy of intellectual challenges to my faith and the validity of spiritual experiences of my faith. As I have tried to make clear, I cannot seem to escape the tension between the two kinds of experiences, particularly because I see both as having strengths and weaknesses—that is, one can be as deceived by too great a reliance on reason as by too great a reliance on spiritual or spectral evidence.

   DV: I have no problem with this statement, generally, if one acknowledges that testimony of the Book of Mormon pertains to its spiritual truth and not to its historical truth. It’s not a matter of balance, but of “magisteria” as you have noted.

   RR: While it is true, as Vogel contends, that the term “naturalist” does not “describe all those who question Book of Mormon historicity,” it does seem an accurate appellation for Vogel himself, who seems to eschew all non-naturalistic phenomena or explanations (again except for the speculative biographical data mentioned above).

   DV: My comment came in response to Rees’s ad hominem that my conclusion about the Book of Mormon’s historicity is dictated by my commitment to naturalism, which is fallacious and irrelevant. This is evident from the fact that I was basically arguing a similar position given by some believing Mormons, not to mention that multitude of supernaturalists of other faiths who also offer naturalistic explanations for the Book of Mormon. We need to stick with evidence and arguments.

   RR: He must be aware that modern neuroscience sees a much more complex view of reality. As Joseph Chilton Pearce and Michael Mendizza state, “Perception, awareness, what we call reality is an ever-changing blend of multiple data streams—external, internal, past, imagined, and intuitive—simultaneously displayed in consciousness.”

   DV: I’m not sure this information is relevant to the subject at hand, other than perhaps to muddle the reader’s brain and thought processes and circumvent the need for evidence in deciding the Book of Mormon’s historical status.

   RR: Most Latter-day Saints give primacy to their felt experience with the Book of Mormon, and the breadth and depth of such experience is more persuasive to them than such things as the absence of Semitic DNA markers among Native American lineages.

   DV: As I said, I don’t have a problem with anyone having a “felt experience” with the Book of Mormon, it’s the interpretation of that experience that I question. It’s possible to misinterpret “spiritual experiences” with cultural expectations and assumptions just as we do other “felt experiences.” It is the clouding of the issues that concerns me.

   RR: In other words, the spiritual logic of their encounter with the book trumps other kinds of logic. So, even if Vogel’s argument were iron-clad (which I don’t believe it is), it would make little difference to the majority of Latter-day Saints. That may be lamentable, but it is no less a reality. This is why I consider his hope for a paradigm shift unrealistic.

   DV: Given what Rees said above, that “reality” is “an ever-changing blend of multiple data streams—external, internal, past, imagined, and intuitive—simultaneously displayed in consciousness,” I’m not sure how much authority his description of it has. He might be right, but he might be wrong. Only time can tell. But what does that have to do with the merits of my discussion?

   RR: Vogel tries to turn the tables on me by saying that my use of Stephen J. Gould’s idea of non-overlapping-magisteria makes his case, but he obscures Gould’s point, which is not that bad or pseudo-science has any validity but that the realms of scientific inquiry and religious experience have separate domains and that it is illegitimate to judge either by the standards of the other.

   DV: Not quite. He wanted religion to stay out of science, and science to stay out of theology. He wasn’t supporting a postmodernist view of reality as you seem to imply.

   RR: Thus, believers must regard the findings of science as significant (if not always conclusive) and non-believers must respect the experience of faith (even if not persuaded by it). These are, as Gould argues, non-overlapping (i.e., entirely separate epistemological) realms. This is significant in relation to some naturalists and to some apologists who keep judging each another by the wrong criteria.

   DV: The “experience of faith” is not “epistemological.” When determining the Book of Mormon’s historical status, there should be only one set of criteria–and faith, religion, and “felt experience” have nothing to do with it. That is the point I hope you will get.

   RR: I have tried to make my own position clear: As a scholar and a believer, I value both magesteria; in fact, I have spent my professional and personal life trying to foster respectful dialogue between the two.

   DV: In determining historicity, there doesn’t need to be dialogue between the two magesteria. Should it be determined the Book of Mormon is not ancient, then faith will have to adapt just as it has in so many other situations, at least, for the most part. One can resist, as in the case with Creation science or intelligent design theory, or decide that it’s really not that threatening to faith.

   RR: As a scholar I have tried to use the best critical skills of my particular profession (literary history and textual analysis) in coming to terms with the text of the Book of Mormon. In doing so, I am persuaded that it is an amazingly complex, sophisticated, and, at times, profound text.

   DV: None of which proves it is ancient. All these elements appear in Joseph Smith’s revelations as well as in some of his sermons and letters (particularly those that are now D&C 121-23).

   RR: As objectively as I able to weigh the evidence, I am persuaded that it is highly unlikely a product of Joseph Smith’s or one of his contemporaries’ mind and imagination. Nevertheless, I remain open to the possibility that it might be.

   DV: This is a highly subjective assessment–far more than my speculations about family dynamics. You simply do not know what Joseph Smith was capable of doing. No one–not even a professor of literary history and textual analysis–can answer that question.

   RR: As I have said elsewhere, if someone were to discover a proto-manuscript of the Book of Mormon, say written in 1795, I would have to revise my thinking.

   DV: This is simply silly, especially in view of your claim that I have “a limited scope as to what he considers acceptable evidence.”

   RR: The question I put seriously to Vogel is whether if it had been shown that there was DNA evidence of Semitic bloodlines among indigenous American populations that would have convinced him that the Book of Mormon was what it claims to be. From all he has said and written on this subject, I seriously doubt such evidence would have been persuasive to him.

   DV: Of course not. Because the evidence isn’t specific to the Book of Mormon. There is such a thing as having the right answer for the wrong reason. One of the most popular theories among Joseph Smith’s contemporaries was that Native Americans originated from the lost ten tribes. But there is no evidence, genetic or otherwise, for a Hebrew presence in the Americas, although Joseph Smith’s contemporaries thought they had a lot of proof.

   RR: And yet he wants the absence of such DNA markers to overturn all other evidence that others find for concluding the text is ancient.

   DV: Disconfirming evidence has more probative value than perceived correlations, because correlation does not prove derivation. Presently, Book of Mormon historicity is precariously propped up by the limited geography, local colonization, inspired-but-faulty translation theories, which are far more speculative than my family dynamics theory. However, the case for the nineteenth-century origin of the Book of Mormon doesn’t rest on that kind of analysis, whereas Book of Mormon historicity does. Once these devices go, whatever ancient parallels the apologists thought they could see in the text can be dismissed as coincidence and apologetic ingenuity.

   RR: Unfortunately, Vogel resorts to the very kind of rhetorical tricks of which he accuses me, tying me to “fundamentalist,” “creationists,” and other extreme, right-wing positions, which I believe he knows from our conversations and from my published work has no basis in reality.

   DV: True, I repeatedly asked what difference there was between Rees’s rhetoric and that of Christian fundamentalists and Creationists who also think scientists have “a limited scope as to what [they] considers acceptable evidence.”

   RR: It is exactly this kind of pejorative rhetoric that I find so dispiriting. While I tried to be as dispassionate as possible in my critique of Vogel’s position, to whatever extent he feels I was unduly or unfairly critical, I sincerely apologize. I respect his right to hold and defend his views and I personally believe him to be both sincere and caring.

   DV: No apology is necessary. I wasn’t offended. Nor did I intend to offend, but to make what I sincerely believed to be a legitimate point.

   Comment # 7 by Dan Vogel | Feb 24, 2006 | Reply

8. A Defense of My Faith

   For more than a year, I have been reading with interest the debates carried out in Sunstone over the authorship of the Book of Mormon. The focus of these debates has been over recent DNA studies and their bearing on Book of Mormon historicity. Alongside this debate on this so-called Galileo event1 is the question posed by Dan Vogel, “Is a ‘Paradigm Shift’ in Book of Mormon Studies Possible?”2 In part, Vogel was responding to Kevin Christensen’s work applying paradigm shifts in science to the authorship debate.3 This article has generated its own share of responses.

   Initially, I read Christensen’s corpus and took my cue from him. I felt he had made some valid points,4 and wrote an essay synthesizing the environmentalist paradigm which may yet see the light of publication.5 But as the debate progressed, I became increasingly uneasy with the responses and felt an entirely different type of essay would have more value. So instead of a scholarly essay, I offer my personal reflections on this issue.

   I begin by affirming as clearly as possible my beliefs about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. The Book of Mormon is truly the word of God, and Joseph Smith was truly a prophet of God. Beyond that, nothing else matters. The issues of authorship and dating for this scripture are relevant only for interpreting the work. If an unambiguous statement from Joseph Smith stating he wrote the Book of Mormon from whole cloth were found tomorrow, it would not affect my faith. Likewise, if a proverbial “Welcome to Zarahemla” sign were found, it would not affect my faith.

   Having said that, I also affirm that Joseph Smith is the human author of the Book of Mormon, which can be dated no earlier than the mid-1820s. I make this assertion strictly from my opinion of the available evidence, made after examining the issue as carefully and prayerfully as I am able. This opinion is subject to change pending new evidence, but for now, I do not foresee this happening.

   I also firmly reject any contention that if Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, then he is a fraud. Whether Joseph was the author or the translator, the Book of Mormon remains my primary evidence that God called him to be a prophet. The amount, if any, of conscious deception in producing the work is simply irrelevant from my viewpoint as a believer. Joseph was doing God’s work, and that is all that matters to me.

   I have already outlined my spiritual journey in a letter published by Sunstone.6 My journey into Mormonism began when I was an Evangelical with decidedly anti-Mormon views. This included a belief in the plenary inspiration of the Bible, resulting in a work that was completely inerrant. My study of the Bible showed me otherwise, and that led to a crisis of faith. Told the Bible was either inerrant or worthless, I found myself torn because it was speaking to me with power although I had to conclude it was hardly inerrant. I resolved that issue, and in turn looked at Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon in a new light. A good seed, now planted in good soil, began to sprout (see Alma 32:28ff.).

   Thus, when I say that the Book of Mormon is inspired fiction, I mean inspired by God. I am hardly a disaffected Mormon. My testimony came from hard work and with no small amount of personal tribulation. Since the time Sunstone published my letter, my testimony about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon has only grown. I can say with confidence that I would be willing to match the strength of my testimony against anyone seeking to defend the historicity of the Book of Mormon.

   If I judge correctly from various historicist responses, my belief regarding Book of Mormon authorship is irreconcilable with my belief that Joseph Smith was a prophet. First, I think it well to remember many possible solutions to reconcile the problem are available. These possibilities include the following: Joseph as pious fraud,7 automatic writer,8 mystic,9 shamanic negotiator of the collective unconscious,10 and pseudipigraphic writer.11 All these ideas have merits worth considering for those having problems with a historical Book of Mormon.

   More important, I think many defenders of Book of Mormon historicity have staked their claim to this scripture’s authority on issues that can and should be separated. Thus, many historicists claim the Book of Mormon cannot be both authoritative and fictional. I see this happening whenever someone effectively hides behind their testimony, using their spiritual witness as proof of historicity.12

   While it is not my business to question anyone’s spiritual witness, I wonder if the questions asked about the Book of Mormon are really that specific. In my experience of listening to or reading about Latter-day Saints receiving a testimony, the question deals with whether the Book of Mormon is true, not whether it is historical. While I was wrapped up in the issue of whether the Book of Mormon is his