{"id":44415,"date":"2017-09-28T11:40:43","date_gmt":"2017-09-28T17:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=44415"},"modified":"2017-09-28T11:40:43","modified_gmt":"2017-09-28T17:40:43","slug":"challenge-book-mormon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2017\/09\/challenge-book-mormon.html","title":{"rendered":"The challenge of the Book of Mormon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Knaphus<\/a>
Torleif Knaphus\u2019s statue of the Angel Moroni stands atop the Hill Cumorah near Palmyra, New York.
(Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Thursday, so another of my mean-spirited, rage-fueled columns has appeared in the Deseret News<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Joseph Smith, American Prophet\u2019 shares story of Restoration, to air on PBS\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re in the area(s), you might find this of interest:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBYU Creates a Full-Sized Tabernacle of Moses You Can Tour\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s some additional\u00a0fodder for your already bulging Christopher Hitchens Memorial \u201cReligion Poisons Everything\u201d file:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLatter-day Saints Provide Famine Relief in Africa, Middle East: LDS Charities partners with global relief organizations\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMormon apostle\u2019s visit requested by Peruvian president\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMormons Around the World Country Newsroom Websites September 22, 2017\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

You can learn more about such things here: \u00a0https:\/\/www.lds.org\/topics\/humanitarian-service?lang=eng&old=true<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also here: \u00a0https:\/\/www.ldscharities.org<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you wish to join in this wickedness, I give you, once again, a link where you can contribute: \u00a0https:\/\/ldsphilanthropies.org<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Or, on a more local basis, consider this: \u00a0https:\/\/www.justserve.org<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some of you may find this article helpful:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I Heard My Deceased Daughter\u2019s Voice: The Profound Lesson She Shared\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some will get a kick out of this:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c269 Words: The Shortest Talk in the History of General Conference?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Watch the video of the talk. \u00a0It\u2019s clearly a parable, and a good one.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finally, from another of my several manuscripts-in-process:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

For years, Professor Nibley gave an assignment to students in his Book of Mormon classes which would earn them an \u201cA\u201d grade in the course. It went essentially as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n

Since Joseph Smith was younger than most of you and not nearly so experienced or well-educated as any of you at the time he copyrighted the Book of Mormon, it should not be too much to ask you to hand in by the end of the semester (which will give you more time than he had) a paper of, say, five to six hundred pages in length. Call it a sacred book if you will, and give it the form of a history. Tell of a community of wandering Jews in ancient times; have all sorts of characters in your story, and involve them in all sorts of public and private vicissitudes; give them names\u2014hundreds of them\u2014pretending that they are real Hebrew and Egyptian names of circa 600 B.C.; be lavish with cultural and technical details\u2014manners and customs, arts and industries, political and religious institutions, rites, and traditions, include long and complicated military and economic histories; have your narrative cover a thousand years without any large gaps; keep a number of interrelated local histories going at once; feel free to introduce religious controversy and philosophical discussion, but always in a plausible setting; observe the appropriate literary conventions and explain the derivation and transmission of your varied historical materials. Above all, do not ever contradict yourself! For now we come to the really hard part of this little assignment. You and I know that you are making this all up\u2014we have our little joke\u2014but just the same you are going to be required to have your paper published when you finish it, not as fiction or romance, but as a true history! After you have handed it in you may make no changes in it (in this class we always use the first edition of the Book of Mormon); what is more, you are to invite any and all scholars to read and criticize your work freely, explaining to them that it is a sacred book on a par with the Bible. If they seem over-skeptical, you might tell them that you translated the book from original records by the aid of the Urim and Thummim\u2014they will love that! Further to allay their misgivings, you might tell them that the original manuscript was on golden plates, and that you got the plates from an angel. Now go to work and good luck!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

He reports that, for some reason, no student ever took him up on that assignment.[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Hugh Nibley, \u201cThe Book of Mormon: True or False?\u201d in Hugh Nibley, The Prophetic Book of Mormon<\/em> (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1989), 221-222.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 It\u2019s Thursday, so another of my mean-spirited, rage-fueled columns has appeared in the Deseret News: \u00a0 \u201c\u2018Joseph Smith, American Prophet\u2019 shares story of Restoration, to air on PBS\u201d \u00a0 *** \u00a0 If you\u2019re in the area(s), you might find this of interest: \u00a0 \u201cBYU Creates a Full-Sized Tabernacle of Moses You Can Tour\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe challenge of the Book of Mormon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    It's Thursday, so another of my mean-spirited, rage-fueled columns has appeared in the Deseret News:   "'Joseph Smith, American\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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