Some thoughts on the historicity of the BOM

[Topper]

So easy you missed it.

That article was boring as hell.

[UVACoug]

That was a long-winded argument in favor of apologetics.

In essence, it is arguing that it is okay to be not-nice in arguing as long as you are polite. And by the way, the Church has some really cool apologetics. Moreover, the orthodox intellectuals have a place in the Church, so nobody need to fear.

That was an example of arguing about points which don't matter to anybody but a small number of orthodox LDS.

That wasn't what the article was about at all. I'm guessing you (like SU) did not get past the first few pages.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

That wasn't what the article was about at all. I'm guessing you (like SU) did not get past the first few pages.

There might be the problem.

[Topper]

That wasn't what the article was about at all. I'm guessing you (like SU) did not get past the first few pages.

I am guessing you didn't read it very closely either. Please support why it needed to discuss the justification for apologetics in such a belabored fashion. The ponderous nature in which it addressed a juvenile topic turned me off. And this from a guy who likes Dialog and Sunstone, or at least some of their better articles. His final point that "anti-contention" perspective is bound up with "anti-intellectualism" shouldn't have required so many pages.

In the end, I have mixed feel-
ings about the rise of orthodox
scholarship. As someone who
does not believe in the historicity
of the Book of Mormon, I dismiss
a priori
much of the work
FARMS
scholars have done around the
book.
217
Like Joseph Fielding
McConkie and Robert Millet, I
frown on apologetics in mis-
sionary work; and I wish that the
verbally aggressive polemics of
some apologists would be
roundly denounced by their
peers. At the same time, my as-
sessment of
LDS
apologetics is
complicated by the realization
that Mormonism’s anti-con-
tention tradition (with which I
sympathize) is bound up in the
anti-intellectual tradition (which
I reject). As someone who values
the life of the mind, I look favor-
ably on orthodox intellectuals’ desire to integrate faith and in-
tellect, though I do not take their particular approach to that
problem; and I believe that orthodox scholarship has not re-
ceived due credit as an important site of intellectual activity
within Mormonism. Notwithstanding the polemic excesses,
and despite the paradoxically conservative nature of their mis-
sion to defend the kingdom, apologists exercise a progressive
influence on the way the Saints understand their faith and
their relationship to the world—and ultimately, I believe that
is for the good.