Long lives of the antedeluvian patriarchs

[_ClarkGoble]

There is inspiration in the content of the text, though not necessarily in its literal meaning. The production process is natural.

But if there is inspiration in the process there must be some method to ensure those inspired aspects get into the text. The "literal" aspect is simply beside the point. To simplify you think there are propositions intentionally in the meaning of the text, that are objective in the text (meaning people with sufficient inquiry would agree upon the meaning and their presence) and that there is a method to ensure they made it into the text. The "natural" part is somewhat irrelevant since I think both of us agree upon that. The question is what ensures the set of inspired propositions don't have error.

I don't really see prophetic interpretation as either miraculous or infallible, however.Interpreting dreams is as much a natural psychological process as having dreams, and expecting shamans to interpret weird dreams is a common social convention. Sigmund Freud could interpret dreams and he was no prophet. The inspiration of the prophet-interpreter consists in the fact that his interpretive shoe seemed to fit, at least in retrospect. Interpretation is not a miraculous channel like angel-delivered gold plates.

I think this "seemed to fit" needs unpacked more. Are you saying it's inspired if the interpreter merely coincidentally came up with a reasonable sounding interpretation? I confess I'm having a hard time understanding what you mean by inspired.

The two inspirations may be similar in their fallibility, but I see a world of difference between three sets of ancient writings being collated by later redactors, and a man in the 19th century receiving solid metal plates from an angel. The end results may be similar, but the means are radically different in style.

Do you really not see this?

An other way of putting my objection is that I don't see why the style affects the content to the degree you seem to see it. I certainly don't disagree about different styles. But my concern is with content.

[_spotlight]

If one accepts fallibilism and rejects de facto inerrancy though then I don't see how falsifying a global flood could possibly falsify the church. This is the point I've been getting at from the beginning. The critiques involve highly questionable premises.

And the claims of the church do not??

Really? A restored church, Christ's church who supposedly is at the head, with prophets and apostles by whom Christ directs the church can't communicate better than humans manage to communicate? Wow, OK. Maybe the atonement is a misunderstanding as well. Maybe there is no promise of existing beyond death and the communication channels are garbeled there as well. Whatever. But go forth and waste two years of your life proclaiming that you know the church is true and waste all the rest of the hours the church demands from its members. Whatever floats your boat.

[_Physics Guy]

I guess this is one of the problems with message boards: this thread has had a lot of discussion about fallibility, but I personally am not actually concerned about fallibility per se, at all. I'm not distinguishing natural and miraculous communication channels because of their different implications for fallibility. I'm pursuing a parallel issue regarding natural and miraculous channels themselves, as representing incompatible styles on the part of God.

You argued for fallibility of Mormon scriptures by appealing to natural transmission processes, such as redactors unfamiliar with sailing omitting obviously important details from a sea voyage story. In what I intended as a side discussion, I objected that naturalistic scriptural transmission seemed incompatible with the miraculous revelation of Mormon scripture. Whether ancient editors are more or less fallible than angelic visitors is a separate issue, as far as I'm concerned.

I just don't see how you can get away with talking about ancient editors garbling the scriptures, if you still believe the scriptures were hand-delivered by an angel, because whether or not the angel was fallible, he's still an angel that delivers physical plates, and therefore yikes. It's like talking about the DNA of dragons. Worlds with dragons don't have DNA; worlds with DNA don't have dragons.

(For what it's worth for the fallibility topic, I'm inclined to feel that any angel worth his salt ought to be less fallible than an ancient guy hacking up plates, but I don't really have strong views on angelic fallibility, because I have too hard a time taking angelic visitors seriously enough to really consider this issue. If there really are angels delivering plates to people, then I'm just flummoxed, and won't venture any further guesses about angelic matters.)

[_ClarkGoble]

Really? A restored church, Christ's church who supposedly is at the head, with prophets and apostles by whom Christ directs the church can't communicate better than humans manage to communicate? Wow, OK. Maybe the atonement is a misunderstanding as well. Maybe there is no promise of existing beyond death and the communication channels are garbeled there as well. Whatever. But go forth and waste two years of your life proclaiming that you know the church is true and waste all the rest of the hours the church demands from its members. Whatever floats your boat.

See, and this is the point I keep raising with de facto inerrancy. You want the degree of accuracy in everything to be extremely high. That's just not a premise I accept. That God could do so I don't doubt. That in very narrow limited cases he will do so I also accept. That this is the general case I simply reject. And that isn't just some attempt to avoid falsification or so forth. Rather it's a rather key aspect of how I view my religion.

Those who view Mormonism through a fundamentalist lens (which surprisingly is often its critics as well) simply will always get the Church wrong in my view.

[_ClarkGoble]

I'm pursuing a parallel issue regarding natural and miraculous channels themselves, as representing incompatible styles on the part of God.

But my point is roughly just that there are many possible styles and it's not at all clear to me why you artificially limit him to just these styles that make up your critique. Is there something inherent to God preventing him from using these other styles? If so I just haven't seen it.

Nor, as I tried to show with Old Testament examples, are they really alien to that tradition, although the way you interpret those passages clearly tends to discount most of the inspiration aspect. (I'm still not quite clear what you mean by inspiration I have to confess)

[_spotlight]

See, and this is the point I keep raising with de facto inerrancy. You want the degree of accuracy in everything to be extremely high. That's just not a premise I accept. That God could do so I don't doubt. That in very narrow limited cases he will do so I also accept. That this is the general case I simply reject. And that isn't just some attempt to avoid falsification or so forth. Rather it's a rather key aspect of how I view my religion.

Those who view Mormonism through a fundamentalist lens (which surprisingly is often its critics as well) simply will always get the Church wrong in my view.

WADR Clark it stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point to contemplate how Mormonism could conceivably be "true" through any lens other than a fundamentalist lens. The priesthood is a key component of the religion upon which all ordinances depend for their validity. Adam received this priesthood and holds the keys over all dispensations per LDS doctrine. No flood of Noah, no Noachian dispensation, no city of Enoch to return to the earth when the saints of the restoration and the inhabitants of the city of Enoch fall upon each others necks etc. A religion simply can't get any more fundamentalist than the Mormon religion. But live in your own private version of the religion. That's maybe why the brethren want the members not to voice their own viewpoints. The members might discover that no two of them are on the same page.

[_Physics Guy]

I'm still not quite clear what you mean by inspiration I have to confess.

Yeah, I'm not sure I'm clear on that, either, to be honest.

I tend to regard the recorded words of Jesus as super-scripture, a higher canon within the canon, because even though they are also fallibly and humanly recorded (in translation, moreover), and may well not all be accurate, still they're the closest we've got to direct words from God. The uncertainty about which words were actually his only even bothers me up to a point, because if it comes down to it, I'd say that whoever came up with the Sermon on the Mount, that person was the real Jesus.

Other than the red letter parts, I guess I think of the rest of the Bible as a really smart but very old person. A historic genius, in fact; but really old. So you're never sure quite how to take what they say.

Are they a bit gaga? Totally out of touch with the present? Are they saying something reasonable but using weird old slang or allusions that no-one recognizes nowadays? Are they making a joke—or a koan? Are they saying something incredibly profound that you're just not smart enough to understand? Are they saying something pretty simple that you're trying way too hard to interpret?

You have to twist and turn whatever they say in a lot of different directions. The thing is, though, that they've got an amazing track record for delivering thoughts that are a lot more penetrating than you get from most people. It's worth trying to twist and turn whatever they say, to see if it delivers one of those insights.

If the Bible is that way, then I suppose that it is so because God ordained it so; but everything is the way it is because God ordained it. Other than that general Providence, I guess I don't see any special mechanism of inspiration as being responsible for the Bible's weird old genius. For me inspiration is just a label for the quality of the Bible's content, not a specific mechanism which explains why the content is how it is.

So there's my primitive theory of inspiration. Can I ask in turn:

Clark, you're a physicist by training. Was Moroni made of atoms?

If not, what was he made of? How did he carry plates of normal matter? If he was made of atoms, how did those atoms come and go? Where are they now?

I don't mean that the Standard Model has to be revealed truth. If you want angels to be made of exotic particles, that's fine. The universe seems to need some exotic particle species to make up dark matter, anyway. My question is really, How far have you thought through what it means for the Mormon story to be factual in the real world? Do you live in one world, with both angels and atoms, or in two worlds that can't meet?

[_Fence Sitter]

WADR Clark it stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point to contemplate how Mormonism could conceivably be "true" through any lens other than a fundamentalist lens. The priesthood is a key component of the religion upon which all ordinances depend for their validity. Adam received this priesthood and holds the keys over all dispensations per LDS doctrine. No flood of Noah, no Noachian dispensation, no city of Enoch to return to the earth when the saints of the restoration and the inhabitants of the city of Enoch fall upon each others necks etc. A religion simply can't get any more fundamentalist than the Mormon religion. But live in your own private version of the religion. That's maybe why the brethren want the members not to voice their own viewpoints. The members might discover that no two of them are on the same page.

It would be interesting to know how many members would continue to pay a full tithing if they all knew that most of the Biblical narrative is myth, that the patriarchs that supposedly visited Joseph Smith to restore God's priesthood were mythical, and so on. I know Clark does not like labels, but there is some serious cafeteria Mormonism going on in his views of what real Mormonism is like.

[_ClarkGoble]

It would be interesting to know how many members would continue to pay a full tithing if they all knew that most of the Biblical narrative is myth, that the patriarchs that supposedly visited Joseph Smith to restore God's priesthood were mythical, and so on. I know Clark does not like labels, but there is some serious cafeteria Mormonism going on in his views of what real Mormonism is like.

Inaccuracy in details != myth. So I'd reject your characterization.

[_ClarkGoble]

Those who view Mormonism through a fundamentalist lens (which surprisingly is often its critics as well) simply will always get the Church wrong in my view.

WADR Clark it stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point to contemplate how Mormonism could conceivably be "true" through any lens other than a fundamentalist lens.

You need to expand your imagination I think.