“Table Rules: A Response to Americanist Approaches to the Book of Mormon”

Quite unexpectedly and entirely out of the blue — it being only the 409th consecutive Friday on which we’ve published an article — a new article has appeared today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship.  This one is by Kevin Christensen:

“Table Rules: A Response to Americanist Approaches to the Book of Mormon”

Review of Elizabeth Fenton and Jared Hickman, Americanist Approaches toThe Book of Mormon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). 456 pages. $99 (hardback), $35 (paperback).

Abstract: Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon is an ambitious collection of essays published by Oxford University Press. By “Americanist” the editors refer to their preferred mode of contextualization: to situate the Book of Mormon as a response to various currents of nineteenth- century American thought. The “table rules” in this case determine who gets invited to the table and what topics can be discussed, using what types of evidence. The approach is legitimate, and the contributors offer a range of interesting perspectives and observations. Several essays base their arguments on the notion that the Book of Mormon adapts itself to a series of racist tropes common in the nineteenth century. In 2015, Ethan Sproat wrote an important essay that undercuts the arguments of those authors, but none of them address his case or evidence. This raises the issue of the existence of other tables operating under different assumptions, confronting the same text, and reaching very different conclusions. How are we to judge which table’s rules produce the best readings?

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Also new on the website of the Interpreter Foundation, as of yesterday, is this item from Hales Swift:

“Nephite Political Philosophy in Mosiah 29”

A Video Supplement for Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 21: “They Were Steadfast and Immovable” (Mosiah 29-Alma 4)

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I reacted to this story the other day, in my blog entry entitled “BYU and the Church’s Avarice.”  I’m not surprised, though, to see that rumblings of complaint continue to emerge from at least a few perpetually irreconcilable critics of the Church (which is accused, on the basis of no evidence whatever, of having seriously considered taking the money, of having rejected it too late, and on and on and on).  Here, though, is another article on the matter:

“BYU, other Latter-day Saint colleges and universities turn down $54 million from CARES Act, start private aid for students: BYU announced it will not make a decision until July about whether students will return to the Provo campus for classes in the fall”