American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormons (Essays on Mormonism Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1560851511 ISBN 13: 9781560851516

Verlag: Signature Books, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

A fine line divides scripture from non-scripture, writes Robert M. Price in American Apocrypha. There are books that are not in the Bible that are as powerful and authoritative as anything in the canon. At the same time, much of the Bible was written centures after the events it narrates by scribes using fictitious names. Clearly, the hallmark of scripture is not historical accuracy but rather its spiritual impact on individuals; exclusion from the canon is not reason to dismiss a book as heretical.

Consider the Book of Mormon, first published in 1830. The nature of this volume—in particular its claim to antiquity—is the theme of nine ground-breaking essays in American Apocrypha. Thomas W. Murphy discusses the Book of Mormon’s view that American Indians are descendants of ancient Hebrews. In recent DNA tests, Native Americans have proven to be of Siberian ancestry and not of ancient Jewish or Middle Eastern descent. Nor is the Book of Mormon a traditional translation from an ancient document, writes David P. Wright, as indicated by the underlying Hebrew in the book’s Isaiah passages. Other contributors to American Apocrypha explore the evolution of ideas in the Book of Mormon during the course of its dictation.

Editors Dan Vogel and Brent Metcalfe have chosen essays by authors who represent a wide range of disciplines and perspectives: Robert Price edits the Journal of Higher Criticism; Thomas Murphy chairs the anthropology department at Edmonds Community College; David Wright teaches Hebrew Bible at Brandeis University. They are joined by Scott C. Dunn; Edwin Firmage, Jr.; George D. Smith; and Susan Staker—all of whom explore what can be reasonably asserted about the Book of Mormon as scripture.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dan Vogel is the editor of Early Mormon Documents, a five-volume series that won Best Documentary awards from both the Mormon History Association and the John Whitmer Historical Association. He is the editor of The Word of God: Essays on Mormon Scripture; author of Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon; Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet and Religious Seekers and the Advent of Mormonism; and co-editor of American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon. He is also a contributor to The Prophet Puzzle: Interpretive Essays on Joseph Smith and Differing Visions: Dissenters in Mormon History, among others. He has presented research papers at the annual Mormon History Association meetings, Sunstone Theological Symposium, and similar conferences. He is currently preparing a definitive edition of Joseph Smith’s multi-volume History of the Church. He and his wife live in Westerville, Ohio.

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 EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION

In 1833 Joseph Smith wrote to Rochester, New York, newspaper editor N. C. Saxton that “[t]he Book of Mormon is a record of the forefathers of our western Tribes of Indians … By it we learn that our western tribes of Indians are descendants from that Joseph that was sold into Egypt, and that the land of America is a promised land unto them, and unto it all the tribes of Israel will come.” When Saxton failed to print the letter in its entirety. Smith wrote to him again: “I was somewhat disappointed on receiving my paper with only a part of my letter inserted in it. The letter which I wrote you for publication I wrote by the command-ment of God, and I am quite anxious to have it all laid before the public for it is of importance to them.”1

Two years later, in conversation with an itinerant minister. Smith reconfirmed that the angel who revealed the gold plates to him “said the Indians were the literal descendants of Abraham.”2 Published revelations also repeatedly affirmed that Native Americans are Lamanites– Israelite descendants of Book of Mormon peoples.3

Had the Book of Mormon been what Joseph Smith said–not an allegory with spiritual import but a literal history of Hebrew immigrants to America–this should have been verified by now. Instead, the varied inhabitants and exotic locales in the Book of Mormon remain elusive; what some would term “Book of Mormon archaeology” is nonexistent. The more we learn, the more inconceivable the Book of Mormon version of ancient America becomes. For instance, the deciphering of Mayan hieroglyphs has not produced the name of a Nephite or a Book of Mormon worldview. In the absence of confirming evidence, one should probably not be surprised to see that in recent years, apologists have redoubled their efforts to defend the book’s historicity.

Once largely unorganized, defenders of Book of Mormon historicity rallied around the 1979 organization of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), now affiliated with Brigham Young University and sponsored by the LDS church. Despite FARMS’s official status, an examination of its voluminous literary output discloses a clear willingness to utilize unorthodox approaches to defend orthodoxy. Their sometimes less-than-civil manner of responding to naysayers also suggests an undercurrent of insecurity, if not desperation.

In defending the Book of Mormon’s antiquity, these neo-traditionalists found it necessary to revise the view that the book’s Jaredite, Nephite, and Lamanite lands encompassed the entire western hemisphere and that all Native Americans descend from these peoples. When problems involving Book of Mormon dis-tances and population growth were pointed out,4 defenders of the book’s antiquity hesitated to abandon long-standing assumptions about its geography— especially since they were supported by a straightforward reading of the text and by Joseph Smith’s revelations— but eventually advanced a new, more localized geography. Instead of identifying the “small” or “narrow neck of land” with the Isthmus of Panama, the “land northward” with North America, and the “land southward” with South America as the traditional geography held, they began to assert that the book’s events took place in the limited region of Mesoamerica (i.e., the area immediately surrounding the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico) and that most indigenous peoples do not descend from the Lamanites.5

Although unable himself to make the transition, Elder B. H. Roberts of the First Council of Seventy recognized the apologetic value of a limited geography. On 22 January 1921, at a meeting of a specially appointed “Book of Mormon Committee,” he said that if it were possible to set aside one of Joseph Smith’s uncanonized revelations designating the coast of Chile in South America as the place of Lehi’s landing, “it would be easier to reply to adverse critics of the Book of Mormon.” Otherwise, “[t]he enormous dis-tances to travel present a serious difficulty.”6

In reality, the Limited Tehuantepec Theory and those who champion it represent a last gasp of Book of Mormon apologetics. The theory is supported by pseudoscientific studies and specialized interpretations that cannot bear rigorous scrutiny. Still, the new apologists embrace their theory like an article of faith despite the violence it does to the Book of Mormon text, early Mormon history, Joseph Smith’s divine edicts, and Mesoamerican archaeology.7 Regardless, the Tehuantepec theory should be seen for what it is: an apologetic device. Specifically, it is an ad hoc hypothesis designed to shield a central hypothesis from adverse evidence— in this case, the Book of Mormon’s historicity.8 Rather than accept negative evidence, apologists often invent ad hochypotheses to protect and maintain a crumbling central hypothesis. This tactic violates what is called the principle of parsimony, or Occam’s Razor, which posits that the best hypothesis is the simplest or the one that makes the fewest assumptions. Needless to say, the Book of Mormon’s revisionist geographers ask that we make numerous unsupported assumptions. Because their theory does not fit comfortably with the many geographic and directional cues in the Book of Mormon, it requires elaborate explanations and additional ad hoc hypothesizing.

To highlight some of the problems of such an approach, let us consider some of the intricacies of the new theory. In what follows, we will illustrate the difficulty in matching the Book of Mormon to any specific time and place. This is not to address the book’s interesting and impressive literary, theological, psychological, and spiritual qualities that have had such a profound impact on people. Is the Book of Mormon pseudonymous? We think so. Apocryphal? Yes. Is it therefore less able to touch people’s hearts? No. Our position is that the scriptural tradition includes fiction— parables, poetry, hyperbole, psalms, historical verisimilitude, and other genres— and that such writing can be as powerful in providing people with spiritual guidance as non-fiction. To acknowledge the obvious fictional quality of the Book of Mormon is not to detract from the beauty and brilliance of the sermons, visions, and other imagery.

To weigh the new geography, one should look at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and ask whether it could reasonably be called a “narrow” or “small neck of land,” which the Book of Mormon describes as being “only the distance of a day and a half’s journey for a Nephite” (Alma 22:32). BYU archaeologist Ross T. Christensen suggested that the isthmus must have grown wider since Nephite times, arguing that “the Coatzacoalcos and other rivers of this Isthmus must have unloaded enormous deposits of silt over the past 1,500 years.”9 Because there is no scientific support for this speculation, most new Book of Mormon geographers have since rejected it. Accepting Tehuantepec’s present dimensions, BYU anthropologist John L. Sorenson proposed that its 120 miles of difficult terrain could be crossed in a day and a half by a good runner.10 Yet, despite its identification as an isthmus, Tehuantepec as a cartographic feature is not even recognizable from the ground. It provides nothing of the bottleneck between the southern and northern lands that the Book of Mormon describes.

This has led to highly specialized and convoluted interpretations of several Book of Mormon passages. For instance, entrance into the “land...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Signature Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2002
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1560851511
• ISBN 13: 9781560851516
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 368
• Herausgeber: Vogel Dan, Metcalfe Brent Lee
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar