long ago ideas

“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago." - Friedrich Nietzsche. Long ago, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery conquered false claims that the Book of Mormon was fiction or that it came through a stone in a hat. But these old claims have resurfaced in recent years. To conquer them again, we have to return to what Joseph and Oliver taught.

Monday, September 21, 2020

Book of Mormon Central finally explains that "scholarship" is merely bias confirmation

Finally, Book of Mormon Central has published an explanation of how scholarship works. We should give them credit, even if this was an unintentional admission that scholarship boils down to bias confirmation.

Here's an excerpt from a post on Book of Mormon Central regarding the Book of Abraham:

6) As a subset of this, I believe that regarding the Book of Abraham there are no unbiased researchers. Everyone starts with an initial assumption. They either believe that Joseph Smith could possibly receive divine aid to translate ancient documents or he could not. This original assumption will color how every other piece of evidence is interpreted. Responsible scholarship will recognize that there is a beginning, foundational assumption, and be transparent about it. Anyone who does not recognize their starting point is being intellectually dishonest, both with themselves and their audience. They also misunderstand scholarship. Anyone who pretends that scholarship is not affected by these kinds of views also fails to understand the scholarly process.

https://bookofmormoncentral.org/blog/resources-from-egyptologists-for-studying-the-book-of-abraham-authenticity-translation/?utm_source=MaxConnect&utm_medium=Display&utm_content=RM&utm_campaign=MaxConnect_BOAEvidence

I completely agree with that statement, as far as it goes. 

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Let's apply that statement to the question of Cumorah.

6) As a subset of this, I believe that regarding the New York Cumorah there are no unbiased researchers. Everyone starts with an initial assumption. They either believe that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery told the truth about the New York Cumorah or they did not. This original assumption will color how every other piece of evidence is interpreted. Responsible scholarship will recognize that there is a beginning, foundational assumption, and be transparent about it. Anyone who does not recognize their starting point is being intellectually dishonest, both with themselves and their audience. They also misunderstand scholarship. Anyone who pretends that scholarship is not affected by these kinds of views also fails to understand the scholarly process.

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Book of Mormon Central and the rest of the M2C citation cartel, as well as the revisionist LDS historians, have firmly and unequivocally declared that they do not believe that Joseph and Oliver told the truth about the New York Cumorah.

What do you believe?

The starting point of M2C is the conviction, shared by M2C intellectuals, that Joseph and Oliver were ignorant speculators who misled the Church about Cumorah for decades--until these intellectuals came along to rescue the Church from the errors of the prophets. Everything they've published seeks to promote that "foundational assumption." Book of Mormon Central, especially, is raising and spending millions of dollars every year to promote M2C. 

Fortunately, none of us have to believe these intellectuals. We can rely on the teachings of the scriptures and the prophets instead.

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Next, let's apply the original statement to the question of the translation of the Book of Mormon.

6) As a subset of this, I believe that regarding the translation of the Book of Mormon there are no unbiased researchersEveryone starts with an initial assumption. They either believe that Joseph Smith translated the plates with the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates, as he and Oliver Cowdery declared, or he did not. This original assumption will color how every other piece of evidence is interpreted. Responsible scholarship will recognize that there is a beginning, foundational assumption, and be transparent about it. Anyone who does not recognize their starting point is being intellectually dishonest, both with themselves and their audience. They also misunderstand scholarship. Anyone who pretends that scholarship is not affected by these kinds of views also fails to understand the scholarly process.

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Book of Mormon Central and the rest of the M2C citation cartel, as well as the revisionist LDS historians, have firmly, unequivocally declared that they do not believe that Joseph translated the plates with the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates.

What do you believe?

There are thousands of Latter-day Saints who still believe the teachings of Joseph and Oliver instead of the teachings of the intellectuals. 

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Now that Book of Mormon Central is on record, they have no legitimate excuse to continue censoring alternative faithful interpretations, especially those that corroborate and support what Joseph and Oliver taught.


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