Posted on 09/09/2009 7:15:07 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
WASHINGTON-- When it's time to relax, some senators play golf. Others pour themselves a drink.
But Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, isn't inclined toward the greens and his faith preaches against alcohol.
Instead, he's spent time on and off for the last seven years building a defense of the Book of Mormon, one of the key tomes of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The three-term senator whose job puts him at the center of political power has now delved into a different debate: whether the book Mormons believe was revealed by an angel to their founder Joseph Smith in the 1820s is authentic.
"I live in a world where sometimes you have to respond to conflicting opinions," said Bennett in an interview. A former missionary and bishop and the grandson of a past president of the church, the senator turns 76 this month (Sept.).
Bennett says "Leap of Faith: Confronting the Origins of the Book of Mormon," was sparked by the "shallow treatment of a serious subject" by media who covered the church and its scripture around the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
Scholars outside the Mormon faith also have strong doubts about the Book of Mormon's historical accuracy because they find scant evidence of the large groups of people it says roamed the earth centuries ago.
"Thus, for anyone truly interested in the Church and its claims, a thorough examination of the Book of Mormon as a possible forgery is a requirement," Bennett wrote.
In his book, published this month (September) by the Mormon publisher Deseret Book, the senator delves into the complex stories and basic doctrines of the Book of Mormon. In a conversational tone, he recounts and analyzes its stories of the migration of the groups and the appearance of Christ before them.
Beyond his family history and personal interest in the faith, Bennett cites another reason for his ability to delve into the debate.
As an executive for two companies owned by billionaire Howard Hughes, Bennett worked to prove that an autobiography of his boss was a forgery.
"I was the one who talked to the newspapers and talked to the press and had the Life magazine reporter in my office, trying to convince him this whole autobiography was nonsense," recalled Bennett, who was the public relations director for Hughes' Summa Corporation.
Now, the senator is arguing that the Book of Mormon is not a forgery, saying its intricacy and door-stopping verbosity -- 584 pages in its original edition -- help prove it is real.
Beyond the "spiritual tug" believers feel when they read it, he said, "The greatest single evidence of the Book of Mormon is its length and its complexity."
But Bennett acknowledges the arguments of skeptics who simply can't get past the supernatural role of the angel Moroni, who Mormons believe revealed buried gold plates to Smith so he could translate the histories detailed on them.
Neither does he shy away from the argument that there is little solid evidence of the people the book describes.
"If you have a civilization that has populations in the millions, that civilization ought to leave behind an archaeological footprint that somebody could find," said Bennett.
"There are Mormon archaeologists who say we have found sites but they've been unable to convince any of their colleagues that are not of the Mormon faith."
Bennett acknowledged he had trouble finding a non-Mormon publisher to release his research. He said several were initially interested when he sought a publisher during the presidential campaign, but that interest waned when Mormon candidate Mitt Romney dropped out of the race.
"The Book of Mormon has never been examined seriously by scholars outside the faith," said Terryl Givens, a Mormon and independent scholar at the University of Richmond whose "The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction" was published in August by Oxford University Press.
"The story of its coming forth is too fantastical for non-Mormons to overcome."
Jan Shipps, a non-Mormon scholar who has studied Latter-day Saints for half a century, said she hasn't assessed the veracity of the Book of Mormon but said it certainly has its critics.
"They say it was either a copy of something or that it was a forgery of some kind, that a man without any kind of education could not have written this book," said Shipps, former professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
The senator made a point of separating his work from both church and state.
Bennett left his senatorial title off the book cover and he noted
inside: "This is entirely my own work, neither commissioned nor sanctioned by the Church."
Church spokeswoman Kim Farah said church officials don't comment on books about Latter-day Saints topics -- by Mormons or non-Mormons "except to say that such publications represent the personal opinions and expressions of the respective authors."
Bennett said some church members have expressed qualms about his work but he considers his approach to be an honest one.
"I've had some members of the church say to me, `We like the fact that you're being evenhanded here, but we're really disturbed that you're raising some problems,"' he said. "I came to realize that you need a leap of faith if you're going to believe it. You also need a leap of faith if you're going to reject it."
...."If you have a civilization that has populations in the millions, that civilization ought to leave behind an archaeological footprint that somebody could find," said Bennett.
Because of the timing of this book, it can only be an attempt to ingratiate himself with the conservative Mormon base in Utah, who are increasingly disenchanted with his RINO positions. As a faithful Mormon, myself, the cynicism of it only makes me dislike him more.
All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the “elect” have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so “slow,” so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle—keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone, in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason.
The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint, old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James’s translation of the Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel—half modern glibness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward and constrained; the former natural, but grotesque by the contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too modern—which was about every sentence or two—he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as “exceeding sore,” “and it came to pass,” etc., and made things satisfactory again. “And it came to pass” was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.
Mark Twain
I’ve read Mark Twain’s passage. In fact, I’ve read it to my Sunday School classes. They are funny. He was a humorist. I thought his comments about polygamy were especially funny. But that doesn’t mean I think he was right on substance.
And as far as the lack of archaeological data to support the Book of Mormon, we can also add the complete lack of any supporting genetic or linguistic data.
Something being long and complex is hardly a testament to its veracity; if those are the two pegs he wants to hang his hat on they are rather feeble.
It is hard to read. But then, so is the Bible.
There is a lot of archeological and other evidence for the Book of Mormon, most of it discovered in the last 30 years. Without reading Bennett’s book, I suspect he will include a lot of it. I’m confident I would be in agreement with Bennett on the substance. It’s just his cynical timing that makes me mad.
In fact, there has been so much new evidence that professional anti-Mormons are being forced to admit that Joseph Smith could not have made it up. It is too specific, and too correct, and nobody knew about it in the early 19th century. So, now the professional anti-Mormons — at least the ones who have the latest anti-Mormon seminar materials — are no longer saying that Joseph Smith made it up, they are saying he must have had the Book of Mormon dictated to him by demons. That’s right — demons.
I’ve even seen some anti-Mormons on FR saying that. They are now arguing that Joseph Smith did have supernatural experiences, but they were from the Devil.
Interestingly (probably not to you, but it is to me) one recent discovery corresponds to the frequent use of “It came to pass,” that Twain ridicules. In at least one Meso-American language, there is a symbol that corresponds to that phrase. It was used as punctuation. When the printer broke up the paragraphs in the Book of Mormon (the written manuscript from Joseph Smith didn’t have paragraphs), the phrase “It came to pass” was a natural beginning for the paragraphs. If it was, indeed, punctuation, that would explain its frequent repetition.
I would be very interested in seeing this new evidence.
But the BoM wasn't written in a Meso-American language, it was supposedly written in "reformed Egyptian".
It should be known that Mark Twain held the same contempt for all Christianity too. He didn’t just pick on the Mormons. Not defending anyone or anything, just letting people know this.
Where it is specific it is not correct. Native Americans are not a Semitic people by either DNA or linguistics. The history and civilizations that Smith writes of (or ‘translates’) are pure fantasy and have as much archaeological support as Atlantis or the Land of Oz.
Do not use potty language - or references to potty language - on the Religion Forum.
You could start with Journey of Faith by Kent Brown and Peter Johnson. If you want a lot of detail, it has been compiled in a multi-volume set by Brant Gardner. John E. Clark at BYU is working on a volume. Clark’s address at the Joseph Smith Symposium at the Library of Congress a few years ago is online.
It was later condensed. And entries were made over hundreds of years.
“Something being long and complex is hardly a testament to its veracity; if those are the two pegs he wants to hang his hat on they are rather feeble.”
Actually, if you make your living writing, as I do, it is not a feeble argument. Joseph Smith, who was in his early 20’s and had no formal education, dictated the Book of Mormon in one draft in two months.
It takes me a month to write a 50 page motion for summary judgment or an appellate brief. I only have to deal with a finite set of facts and law, and make it all hang together. I know from personal experience that it would be impossible to make up something like the Book of Mormon in two months. But then, that’s because I have some understanding of what the Book of Mormon actually contains.
There is NO truth in the Book of Mormon, a book that all LDS must believe to consider themselves Mormon.
There is simply no corroborating evidence that anything in the Book of Mormon is true. There is no “reformed Egyptian”, there are no great Pre-Columbian American civilizations, there is no evidence of the greatest battle in the history of the world taking place here, there is no evidence that any Semitic genetic cultural or linguistic influence ever made it to America in Pre-Columbian times.
Wishful thinking isn't evidence any more than finding a yellow brick in Kansas means that Frank L. Balm was on to something with his tales of the Land of Oz.
The common answer to that is that Smith purchased the book from someone. It kinda explains how the BoM and the LDS church seem to be disconnected. The LDS church has a lot of rules, traditions and esoteric practices that don’t seem to be grounded in BoM theology.
That’s one of the reasons the church split after Smith died. In the split churches, the rules were cast aside or simply never adopted. They drink, they smoke, they ignore latter day prophesy.
Your post is probably just the beginning of the lengthy cut-and-paste anti-Mormon repertoire maintained by Freepers. It is the only one I will respond to, because I have other things to do.
The DNA controversies have arisen, not because of what the Book of Mormon actually says, but because of what people assumed about it. Some of those long-held assumptions were obviously wrong. Especially the assumption that the Book of Mormon people arrived in an uninhabited continent. They didn’t. And, when you jettison that assumption, then passages within the Book of Mormon itself — passages that suggest the existence of other people besides those who were writing the record — begin to make sense.
Another assumption is that when people were called “Nephites” or “Lamanites” or other “ites,” it was always a reference to genetic lineage. It’s possible that the reference was to alliances, rather than blood.
To me, the more that is discovered, the more the people who wrote the Book of Mormon resemble the ancient Israelites. They were a relatively small community of believers who were surrounded by masses of pagans. Their political fortunes and alliances with surrounding groups ebbed and flowed.
I’m confident that many of these things will eventually be explained, as more is discovered. In the meantime, my conviction is based on my own experience over 60 years, both spiritual and real-world. The new evidence that is continually being discovered is just a nice confirmation for me.
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