Huh. "it could not have contained the records of Old Testament prophets who wrote after Lehi's party left"? Well, suffice it to say that the article did not go over well. Even the normally heavily edited comments at "Interpreter" are negative:Abstract: The Book of Mormon contains little information about what the Brass Plates contain. Nephi said it was a larger record than the Hebrew Bible brought to America by the Gentiles. But it could not have contained the records of Old Testament prophets who wrote after Lehi’s party left Jerusalem or the New Testament. We know it contained some writings from Zenos, Zenock, Neum, and Ezias, but what else could it have contained? Though the “Documentary Hypothesis” idea that the Christian Bible is the product of redactors is distasteful to many Christians, this article suggests this scholarship should not trouble Latter-day Saints, who celebrate Mormon’s scriptural abridgement of ancient American scripture.
Well, yes. It would seem that the addition of Jeff Lindsay has done little to correct the problems that ran rampant under Allen Wyatt.Frank wrote:You believe that the Documentary Hypothesis applies to the entire Old Testament? Did you bother to do any reading about the Documentary Hypothesis at all before writing this paper? Heck, even a sixth grader writing a paper would at least read the first sentence of the Wikipedia article on a topic.
Here it is, since you apparently couldn’t be bothered to look it up on your own: The documentary hypothesis (DH) is one of the models historically used by biblical scholars to explain the origins and composition of the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).
Your paper is not good, and the Interpreter needs to work on its peer review process.
Wow...this is brutal stuff! Will this article wind up gaining notoriety on the level of the Dales'? Time will tell, but in the meantime, the Mopologists find themselves having to confront someone from the Big Leagues.James Seymore wrote:There are a lot of missteps throughout the essay. The author misrepresents biblical scholarship left and right, let alone selling short most of the scholarship he claims to be responding to when he actually doesn’t. Thompson (and Reynolds and Lindsay) will have to do a little better than this if they’re going to actually convince anyone.
Enter David Bokovoy, looking simultaneously Santa Clausian and like he could pop your head as if it was a grape. Ever the polite gentleman, Bokovoy opens his posting graciously, but he quickly cuts to the chase:
Simply stated, Bokovoy's post is an epic takedown of the Mopologists--all happening on the eve of the Witnesses debut! There are great moments throughout, such as this thorough dressing down of Noel Reynolds and his third-rate "scholarship":Bokovoy wrote:In his essay, Thompson attempts to expose his readers to the basics of documentary analysis in the Pentateuch with these words:
“The [Documentary] hypothesis claims that the Old Testament was probably compiled after the Jews returned from their Babylonian captivity and that the compilation drew its text from four different Hebrew narrative traditions, each of which had its own agenda (p. 85).”
This, however, is an incorrect assertion. And unfortunately, it’s not a trivial mistake. The DH makes no such claims. The DH only pertains to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament). The Old Testament contains 24 books that were written over a thousand-year period from approximately 1200 to 200 BCE. The DH only pertains to the first five books or the Pentateuch, not the entire Hebrew Bible. Yet unfortunately, this is not simply an editorial oversight. Thompson makes this same critical error throughout the essay:
Well, if this current article by Thompson made it through "Interpreter's" peer review in this state, can we expect much more from the Reynolds article? Probably not:Bokovoy wrote:So what is this “recent scholarship” that counters the fact that the Book of Mormon’s reference to “five books of Moses” is anachronistic and could not have been made by someone like Lehi prior to the Jewish exile? Thompson cites two articles by LDS scholar Noel Reynolds, one published in Interpreter and the other a presentation given in Provo in 2020. Reynold’s work reaffirms his argument that the Brass Plates contained material related to Joseph Smith’s Book of Moses, published in the Pearl of Great Price. I’m not going to address Reynolds’ argument in detail. Interested readers should consider the Honor’s and subsequent Master’s thesis by Ph.D. student Colby Townsend which address this issue (Here).
Brutal. Nearly every marquee Mopologist gets taken to the woodshed in this post:Bokovoy wrote:Moreover, and this seems to me to be quite important, even if Reynolds’ argument was correct that a book of Moses existed that reflects Joseph Smith’s Book of Moses, this would only mean that a book of Moses existed prior to the exile. Hence, the Book of Mormon’s reference to “five books of Moses,” i.e. a Pentateuch would still be anachronistic.
Sorenson; Reynolds; Bradshaw; Lindsey; oh my! You have to admire the economy and compactness with which Bokovoy utterly destroys the whole Mopologetic edifice here. And Bokovoy's concluding remarks are epic:Bokovoy wrote:This, however, is a misrepresentation of my position. I wasn’t suggesting that references to Cain and Abel are anachronistic. What I stated was that the story derives from the J source in Genesis. This makes the proposal that the Book of Mormon authors only had access to the E document (something that LDS apologist John Sorenson once argued) impossible. One of the central features of the Elohist account is that it only focuses upon the story of Israel. E does not contain a story of creation or an account of prehistory. Instead, E features a much tighter focus on Israel as a people. From E’s perspective, if a story is not specifically an “Israelite” account (like the stories of creation, Cain, Abel, Noah, etc.) then it was simply not worth addressing. What I suggested was that since the Book of Mormon is aware of the Cain and Abel (as well as Adam and Eve) story, it is quite problematic to assert that the Book of Mormon authors only had access to E.
Following the lead of previous Interpreter contributors such as Reynolds, Bradshaw, and Lindsey, Thompson is suggesting that a hypothetical book of Moses may have predated these documents, and that it included features of each of the documentary strands that appear in Genesis. This is a strange assertion in light of the following point Thompson presents regarding criticisms of the DH raised by traditional believers:
“Skeptics of the Documentary Hypothesis observe that none of these alleged source documents exist except in the minds of their hypothesizers” (p. 86).
The fact is these source documents do exist. They appear in the first five books of the Bible. We can see them there today.
Kudos to Bokovoy for a job well done. I predict that the Mopologists will have nothing to say in response to this devastating critique.Bokovoy wrote:Yet before LDS apologists seek to counter this extensive body of research, it would be best if they first sought to understand it. I suspect simply producing apologetic essays such as this, which make fantastic claims about the implications of recent scholarship, and which misrepresent the DH will ultimately do more harm than good for those trying to maintain religious devotion to LDS scripture.
Instead, I would suggest two possible approaches: 1. Believers such as Thompson could simply ignore the implications of mainstream scholarship and just choose to believe. This would never work for me, but it does for some. 2. Believers such as Thompson could accept these historical views about the Bible and shift their belief paradigms to accommodate the implications of scholarship. It is possible to do, and many believers in a variety of faith communities are able to make that approach work.
In my view, either approach would be superior to publishing apologetic work, which shows that the authors have had very little exposure to the topics they’re addressing.