A quick random sample of theological anachronisms in the Book of Mormon

[_huckelberry]

I remember my youthful self, somewhere 12 to 14, puzzling about this problem. How come the people here knew more about Christ in the years before Christ than the Jews in Jerusalem? I remember deciding that the people in the Book of Mormon had received clarifying revelation. Once that seemed a perfectly good explanation.

I also remember puzzling about the lack of concern for all the Torah observance. Perhaps the same revelations modified their concern for the sacrificial system. It is perhaps a bit odd that the more recent Biblical studies brings into question ,or makes uncertain, just how much of the system written in Babylon during the captivity which we have now in the Bible would have been carried about by people leaving Jerusalem before the captivity.

[_jfro18]

I think the issue is that the general public really is very poorly informed about the state of Biblical scholarship. So unless you have a real personal interest in it, you're unlikely to know much about these issues, or you're just as likely to be diverted along the path of apologetic readings, which are not academic in nature at all.

Yeah and it's pretty obscure even in Mormonism in critical sources like CES Letter because it takes a lot to explain.

Have you ever done more writings/posts like this? Would love to read more if you've done it - ever since I listened to the David Bokovoy podcast I find it fascinating how Biblical scholarship factors in to how Joseph used the Bible in the Book of Mormon.

[_Gray Ghost]

I think the issue is that the general public really is very poorly informed about the state of Biblical scholarship. So unless you have a real personal interest in it, you're unlikely to know much about these issues, or you're just as likely to be diverted along the path of apologetic readings, which are not academic in nature at all.

Yeah and it's pretty obscure even in Mormonism in critical sources like CES Letter because it takes a lot to explain.

Have you ever done more writings/posts like this? Would love to read more if you've done it - ever since I listened to the David Bokovoy podcast I find it fascinating how Biblical scholarship factors in to how Joseph used the Bible in the Book of Mormon.

I did this a while back:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=51691&p=1182967&hilit=Pontius#p1182967

[_Arc]

Thanks for writing and posting the OP, Gray Ghost. Since I was brought up with the Book of Mormon and New Testament as primary scriptures, with the Old Testament as something that was no longer that relevant to a Christian life, I never thought much about, or even recognized, the anachronisms you point out in the Book of Mormon.

There were so many other problems with it, and with Mormonism in general, that I stopped paying any serious attention by the time I elected military service over a mission.

I find it significant now that my parents seemingly had no problem with that decision back in the day. They both eventually left the Church as well, one with extreme prejudice.

[_Fence Sitter]

Have you ever done more writings/posts like this? Would love to read more if you've done it - ever since I listened to the David Bokovoy podcast I find it fascinating how Biblical scholarship factors in to how Joseph used the Bible in the Book of Mormon.

Bokovoy's book ought to be required reading for LDS. It provides an excellent basic introduction into the documentary hypothesis from a faithful LDS point of view, though I think many faithful might find themselves questioning their basic beliefs in literal events in the Bible if they were to read it. It really is a shame he has not gone on to finish the entire series on the Old Testament.

Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis–-Deuteronomy

I especially enjoyed his chapter on the Book of Abraham in which he concludes that it is just inspired pseudepigrapha since it could not have been authored by Abraham due to its textual dependence on 8th century BC sources.

[_Fence Sitter]

I think the Sermon on the Mount version in the Book of Mormon postdates Christ by a couple of hundred years. Where is @Aristotle Smith when you need him?

[_Gray Ghost]

I think the Sermon on the Mount version in the Book of Mormon postdates Christ by a couple of hundred years. Where is @Aristotle Smith when you need him?

The sermon likely contains some authentic Jesus material, but it's a constructed sermon - Jesus wouldn't have delivered that sermon verbatim. It's just a collection of Jesus sayings that the author put into a Sermon, and set on the mount as a literary allusion to Moses. So its inclusion in 3 Nephi is problematic - it hasn't been constructed in that format by the author of Matthew yet, and not all of the material would go back to Jesus.