Gaz, the document in question is not just something somebody "found"
on a piece of paper on his desk or somethign after he died, and all the antis have a field day with it like it means he had no testimony or something. Its ridiculous.
Many Mormons in good standing have read and accepted it as evidence that Roberts had some serious questions and doubts. Nobody questions the sincerety of his "testimony," but they are aware that he had doubts and questions. Faithful Mormons discussed this first and brought it to public attention. It is far from "ridiculous."
Juantia Brooks made use of Roberts's text in an essay she wrote in 1957 in partial fulfillment of a graduate course in research methods she was taking at the University of Utah from Professor Henry Webb (who I also, as it happens, studied with many years later).
Here is what Levi Peterson (another faithful Mormon) has to say about her use of the Robert's document in his biography of Brooks,
Juanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian:
page 253-254:
"On April 12, Juanita traveled to Provo and addressed an assembly of English faculty and students at BYU. At home, she enlarged her speech into a documented paper, which she mailed to Webb, hoping that it would satisfy a requirement in his course. If it would not, she wrote: "it is not too important, because I wanted to do it anyway." Webb accepted the paper, an advanced if not entirely polished draft called "A Tentative Examination of Some Basic Mormon Concepts." In it Juanita discussed some disparities between historical fact and present belief among the Mormons. Temperance societies had propounded the dicta of the Word of Wisdom regarding abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea long before Joseph Smith had emitted that revelation, and a myriad of cooperative communities in Europe and America had preceeded the United Order of the Mormons. There were disturbing similarities between the Book of Mormon and a contemporary nineteenth-century American book,
A View of the Hebrews, as Mormon historian and general authority B.H. Roberts had demonstrated in his surreptitious manuscript "Parallel" (a copy of which Juanita had come by twenty years earlier from Newel K. Young, the polygamous principal of the Richfield seminary).
It was lamentable, Juantia argued, that the Church sought to excise its past, conveniently practicing, "denial by omission." What ever the borrowings of the early Mormons from their neighboring societies, whatever their failings and excesses, the "magnitude of their accomplishment justifies them. Whatever its surroundings, our early church was a great dynamo, generating such energy, such unshakable conviction and strong emotion that after many years and thousands of miles it could establish itself in this forbidding land." Moreover, as God's people, the Latter-day Saints had a calling to liberality. "We should be the most progressive and open-minded of all men, as wel as the most tolerant and kindly. We should really incorporate into our lives the 13th article of faith and keep it as a lamp to our feet.""
I quoted this at length for two reasons:
1) the accepted use of ellipses (...) is often miscontrued by readers unfamiliar with, I was going to say scholary work, but now that I think about it its really reading in general, as somekind of tricky tool of manipulation. At least that charge abounds from the TMB camp whenever asked to read exceprts cited by nonmormon writers. So, no ellipses, even though it would have made the citation a great deal sharper.
2) this passage, and the sentences written by Brooks embedded in it, to my mind stand in stark contrast to the apologetic essay you gave a link to---
both in form and content! Not only do Brooks and Peterson assume that human beings can have many contradictory feelings and beliefs, they also are fine with issues of doubt and questioning. Moreover, they can discuss these things without stooping to the level of sneer and condescension:
"James R. Spencer’s small brochure has been circulating since the early 1990s. In and of itself, the pamphlet is of little importance. The points it raises are not original; others have argued the same case for well over a decade. And, indeed, Mr. Spencer’s arguments have long since been answered (although his brochure betrays no awareness of that fact).
Replying to such anti-Mormon materials as “The Disappointment of B. H. Roberts” is somewhat frustrating. First, it obliges an advocate of the restored gospel to take time off from the pleasant duty of affirmatively teaching the truth. One is tempted to respond much the way Nehemiah did, when Sanballat and Geshem the Arabian tried to distract him from his rebuilding of the temple: “I am doing a great work,” Nehemiah replied, “so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?” (Nehemiah 6:3). Answering such attacks as this requires, rather, that the discussion take place on ground chosen, often rather arbitrarily, by the critic. It distracts from the impressive quantity and quality of evidence now available in support of the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon.2 Second, and perhaps even more frustrating, it involves responding, yet once more, to objections that were successfully answered years ago and that, therefore, do not really merit renewed discussion—objections, moreover, that will almost certainly continue to be raised no matter how often and how convincingly they are settled."
Oh dear, the great man must deign to "come down" to this abject level and address something that is "not important," "not original" and "long since answered." I swear the faux world-weariness of this sounds like dialog spoken by George Saunders.
Well, if all this this true, than why put oneself through such a dreary and boring excercise?
Also note that the paper Brooks wrote was a reworked version of a talk she had just given at BYU. Apparently, that audience didn't find the topic "ridiculous."
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."
