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.

Friday, September 1, 2023

Richard Bushman and M2C, plus friendship by Joseph Smith

Today is the official publication date of Richard Bushman's awesome new book on the gold plates that we'll discuss next week. 

He did an interview with Oxford Academic that's on YouTube, here:


Below is an excerpt that illustrates why Bushman is currently the most credible LDS scholar. He considers and presents all the evidence and interpretations, unlike most other LDS scholars/historians who prefer to promote their own agendas. 


8:35 There's a lot of scholarship on where the plot of the Book of Mormon went on. Was it in North America, in upstate New York? Is that where all the events recorded there went on? 
8:44
Or was it in Central America? So there are some people who think there were two Cumorahs, one in Central America where Moroni buried the plates, another in New York. And so the speculation, you know, just goes on endlessly.

Book of Mormon Central (Scripture Central), FAIRLDS and the Interpreter could be awesome if they followed his example. Latter-day Saints want to make informed decisions. They deserve more of this type of even-handedness.

We love everyone in these organizations and respect their scholarship and objectives. We see things differently, but that's not a problem for us. We value intellectual diversity. Think how much healthier it would be for them to embrace all their fellow Latter-day Saints and acknowledge multiple faithful interpretations. 

Instead, Jack Welch, Scott Gordon and Dan Peterson, along with their employees and followers (and donors) set themselves up as the de facto "interpreters" who expect everyone else to follow their M2C/SITH agenda because of their credentials. 

Nevertheless, we continue to hope they will someday embrace the principles of no more contention and unity in diversity.

_____

In a related topic, I posted Joseph Smith's comments about Friendship here:

https://nomorecontention.blogspot.com/2023/09/friendship-by-joseph-smith-jr.html



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