An article by John L. Sorenson was sent to me recently
regarding the so-called “new ideas” about the Book of Mormon that have surfaced
in recent years. While I was asked an opinion, I thought it best to cover the
topics one at a time since there are numerous areas here that one might feel
are inconsistent with the scriptural record.
First of all, it should be understood that Sorenson, like so
many Mesoamericanists, continually tries to support his changing of the meaning
of the scriptural record, from the directions to distances, and do so as if
their changing the scriptural meaning is doing us a service, i.e., without
them, we could not understand the scriptural record at all. Even Hugh Nibley
took that approach many times in trying to convince members they did not
understand the true meaning of the written word.
Sorenson: “Another
important new idea about the Book of Mormon is that it is not a history in the
sense of the word often used today. Rather than being a narrative of what
happened in a particular territory, it is like the Old Testament, primarily a
family chronicle written by prophets under the Lord’s inspiration.”
Response: The Book of Mormon was never suggested to be a
history. It was a second witness of Jesus Christ, the Bible being the first.
For some reason, Sorenson and his type seem to think it was meant as a history
and we are just now finding out it is not.
Sorenson: “The Book of
Mormon is thus similar in important respects to “lineage histories.” This class
of document provides selected information about the origin of the group, why it
was chosen by deity, crucial events affecting its fate, the charter on which
its system of power was based, and its relationships with other groups.”
Response: First of all,it is not a document, or a text, and
was not written by scribes or recorders, each of these being words of
description Sorenson chooses over “scripture,” “prophet,” etc. Secondly, it is
not a “lineage history,” for we know nothing of Lehi’s lineage other than being
of the tribe of Menasseh. We know not his father or any of his predecessors,
nor do we know any of his grandchildren or descendants except on a very narrow line.
We don’t even know the names of his daughters, daughters-in-law, nor anything about his
youngest son, Joseph. The point is, this is not about Lehi and his family, but
about God’s dealings with man as he led two families out of the land of Jerusalem to a far away
Land of Promise.
Sorenson: “A lineage
typically uses this kind of historical account to define its own boundaries,
reinforce its power, stabilize its social structure, and otherwise clarify to
its own members who they are.”
Response: The Book of Ether (left) begins more as a lineage
history, giving the complete genealogy of the last prophet, Ether, back to the
first ancestor of the storyline, Jared, covering about 1500 years. All we
really know about Lehi is that he was a prophet, called like others of his time
to preach repentance to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and that he was chosen to
lead a group to a new Land of Promise, and that the Western Hemisphere, or a
certain part of it, was set aside as a land of inheritance for him and his
seed. We know nothing of his earlier years, how he gained or earned his wealth, nor where his parents came from--only that he lived all his days at Jerusalem. In a very sketchy way, we follow his descendants over a thousand year
period, with huge gaps and minimal information about the actual families
involved.
Sorenson: “Most
historical documents, written or oral, of ancient civilizations and tribes are
of this kind.”
Response: I am and always have been an avid reader. Before
the internet, I haunted libraries and have a personal library of thousands of
books and stories, yet I have never seen or heard of a book like the Book of
Mormon. In the early centuries of writing, the Greeks and Romans had such
stories, as did the Norsemen, writing of great epics, yet few, if any, really
paralleled such as the Book of Mormon.
Sorenson: “They do not
claim to tell comprehensively or systematically “what happened” throughout a territory.”
Response: Actually, most historical novels spend more time
on the “territory,” than does the Book of Mormon. This work has little concern
about territory and not much more interest in lineage other than a connection
between the writers. Its main storyline and interest is in how God deals with
man and the righteous and how we seal our own fates by the choices we make.
Sorenson: “Indeed, the
lineage may not have had exclusive control over a land (as was the case with
Abraham).”
Response: The thing Sorenson ignores or forgets is that
there were no other people in the Land of Promise. There was no contact with
other cultures and civilizations for the Jaredites or the Nephites.
Consequently, there is no way to compare territory in the Book of Mormon with
any other work like the Bible in that way. Abraham’s challenges, as those of
ancient Israel, was with other cultures and people; the Nephite challenge was
with the Lamanites. As the Lord told Nephi regarding the Lamanites: ”And the Lord God said unto me: They shall be a scourge unto thy seed, to stir
them up in remembrance of me; and inasmuch as they will not remember me, and
hearken unto my words, they shall scourge them even unto destruction” (2 Nephi
5:25).
Sorenson: “Frequently they
constituted only part of a social mosaic, side by side with similar groups,
either within or outside the formal nations which most of us consider the
proper subject of history.”
Response: Herein lies the problem with well educated people.
They think everytghing is the same. Europe had its development within the mosaic
with several groups; however, the Land of Promise did not. “After
the waters had receded from off the face of this land it became a choice land
above all other lands, a chosen land of the Lord; wherefore the Lord would have
that all men should serve him who dwell upon the face thereof” (Ether 13:2). And
as the Lord told Lehi, “It is wisdom that this land should be kept as yet from
the knowledge of other nations; for behold, many nations would overrun the
land, that there would be no place for an inheritance” (2 Nephi 1:8), and as
Lehi told his children, “if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they
shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest
them, nor to take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell
safely forever” (2 Nephi 1:9).
America was not
Europe! It was the promised land with its own development and promises!
Sorenson: “The account of the
patriarchal period in the Old Testament, for example, comes from the records of
a certain lineage and thus contains primarily its key historical happenings and
the great truths that its leaders received from God.”
Response: The Old Testament is not the Book of Mormon and
Israel in Palestine is not the same as the Nephites in the Land of Promise. The
key to the Book of Mormon is not found in the Bible, but in the promises made
to the Jaredites and Lehi, which tell a very different story.
(See the next post, “The Nature of the Record-Part II,” for more of this
Sorenson article which shows why he and other Mesoamericanists so misunderstand
the isolation of the Land of Promise and the absence of other nations and other
cultures and other peoples there)
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