Speaking of the area of apologetics that I personally know best \u2014 apologetic scholarship relating to the unique claims of the Restoration (e.g., of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham) \u2014 it doesn\u2019t seem to be true.<\/p>\n
There is, for example, nothing in acceptance of the claims of the Book of Mormon that commits a believer to the proposition that the Nephite record\u2019s River Sidon was today\u2019s Rio Grijalva rather than the roughly parallel Usumacinta. \u00a0(Those who prefer the so-called \u201cHeartland\u201d theory of Book of Mormon geography, for example, don\u2019t accept either of the two rivers.) \u00a0 Nothing requires of a believer in the Book of Mormon that she affirm Mary to be represented in the Tree of Life that appears in 1 Nephi 11. \u00a0Sheer acceptance of the Book of Mormon as an authentically ancient record doesn\u2019t entail that those who accept it expect Semitic and\/or Egyptian borrowings to appear in the vocabulary of Uto-Aztecan languages. \u00a0No believer in the Book of Mormon expected complex chiasms to appear in its text. \u00a0Nobody, including those who discovered its presence, was anticipating Early Modern English to show up in the vocabulary and the syntax of the original dictated Book of Mormon manuscript.<\/p>\n
Ironically, it sometimes seems to me, critics of Latter-day Saint apologetics start with their conclusion and then force their cherry-picked evidence to fit that conclusion, which is that\u00a0apologists and apologetics start with the conclusion in mind and then marshal cherry-picked evidence in order to reach that predetermined conclusion.<\/div>\n
\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
One could get dizzy with this sort of silliness. \u00a0How about simply examining the evidence and the logic with which it\u2019s treated, rather than attempting to pre-emptively rule out any serious consideration of it?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Posted from Orlando, Florida<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 A common accusation against apologists and apologetics is that they start with the conclusion in mind and then marshal cherry-picked evidence in order to reach that predetermined conclusion. \u00a0This, we are told, is an inversion of the \u201cscientific process\u201d \u2014 starting with the sought-for bottom line and forcing the evidence to fit it […]<\/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-79596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>