Talk:Book of Mormon/Archive 15

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Pseudohistoricity

I have no problem with anyone on this website, including the Mormons... but there is one thing I have to talk about. I recently added [[Category:Pseudohistory]] into [[Category:Book of Mormon]]; this is reasonable because:

1. Many archaeologists, both Mormon and secular, have expressed doubts on the authenticity of the story told in the Book of Mormon. After hundreds of excavations in these and those locations, they only found artifacts from ancient nations with no relation to those mentioned in the Book of Mormon. I am not saying this myself, but the first paragraph of the article's lead, which I made more concise, does, so this addition is reasonable. Did I need to quote that here? Ok: "The majority of Latter Day Saints believe the book to be a record of real-world history, and many Mormon academics and apologetic organizations strive to affirm the book as historically authentic through their scholarship and research,[7][8] but mainstream archaeological, historical and scientific communities do not consider the Book of Mormon to be a record of historical events."

2. The Book of Mormon is called "the most correct book on Earth" by Joseph Smith himself, not to mention that the grammatical structure has to be changed for thousands of times. Because Smith is not a historian, so it is logical to see why most of the things appearing in the Book of Mormon do not fit with the history.

3. Relating to the first point, there are too many obviously irreconcilable anachronisms (please see Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon for more) in the Book of Mormon. If the work is an "authentic ancient record of the Native Americans", then at least there should be some historical values in it but anything the book mentions contradicts what archaeologists and historians believe. For example, one of the most popular anachronism, the existence of elephants in the alleged time of the "prophets" of the Book of Mormon. However, the Journal of Mammalogy (which of course is not funded by the Mormon Church) told us the facts that the first elephant arrives in America on 13 April 1796. This is not the only one; please check the afore-linked article.

4. Unlike the Book of Genesis and the Book of Exodus, the Book of Mormon is a modern work. The Book of Genesis and the Book of Exodus, which are traditionally attributed to the prophet Moses, were written thousands of years ago, and they should not be considered pseudohistorical, simply because they did not claim to be one; did they?. The Adam and Eve story, which should be taken allegorically, for example; we found fossils of dinosaurs, which are dated millions of years ago, but that does not mean the Book of Genesis is incorrect—simply because there is no statement of "THIS IS UNDENIABLY CORRECT TRUTH" in the book, or by the writer. Thus, these two books, especially the Book of Genesis, can be read allegorically. An editor left this on the reversion of my edits: "'Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial' - onus is on you to build a consensus on the talk page; the Book of Genesis and the Book of Exodus aren't in this category even though they are also disputed by historians - take it to talk."

References

Please consider to re-add the category instead of blindly, blatantly removing it. Thank you. —Nicholas Michael Halim (talk) 04:11, 28 April 2022 (UTC) @FyzixFighter: —Nicholas Michael Halim (talk) 04:14, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this to the talk page. A quick search of the talk page archives shows that this categorization has been discussed previously. I would recommend you review the previous discussions. The previous consensus, paraphrased, was that whether or not one regards the BoM as pseudohistory, it is not NPOV to categorize it as such. In my opinion, it does not rise to the definition of pseudohistory, which is more than just not accepted by mainstream historians. The great flood, Noah's ark, the Exodus, Moses, Abraham, the early kings of Israel, the resurrection of Christ are all not accepted by the mainstream, but none are categorized as pseudohistory on WP. All of your arguments above rely on original synthesis. I did search for secular, reliable sources that make an explicit pseudohistory categorization for the BoM but did not find any. Given the previous consensus and the lack of new arguments I don't think it's appropriate to make this change. --FyzixFighter (talk) 14:53, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Oh my... you now compare the whole historicity of the Book of Mormon with the great flood story and, even, Jesus' resurrection. First, are you a Mormon? If not, then I am not surprised at all why you made such comparison; however, if you are, you just created the greatest joke ever! Second, as I have stated before that Smith claimed the book to be "the most correct book on Earth" while historians disagree with his words. There are no genetical proofs that the Native Americans are descended from the Israelite tribes; that's only one among other many archeological, genetical, historical, logical problems. Regarding the early kings of Israel, David, one of them, has been confirmed to be a historical figure by the Tel Dan stele finding; on Jesus' resurrection, not wanting to be like a religious bigot here but... his resurrection is recorded in the Paul the Apostle's First Epistle to the Corinthians and, along with his ascension, the Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Luke, and Acts of the Apostles. I know each books of the New Testament may have their own problems and contradictions but on the resurrection and ascension, they all agree. Ok, I won't stop there but as I have noted, Smith's claim seems to be contradictory so the addition of the "Pseudohistory" category into this article is, at least to me, reasonable. —Nicholas Michael Halim (talk) 12:45, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I, personally and honestly, really dislike to debate except for some things I find important. I will stop this discussion here. If you disagree with my edits, that's fine—at least for now. I will not object that anymore but the explanations you gave to me are unconvincing. From how you comparing the Book of Exodus, which was written in the ancient time, and also about figures that probably existed at the time of it was being written, it is obvious to me that there is nothing good in debating with you and other people like you at all. First, my English is bad and now I have to debate; I regret this decision now. The Bible did not claim to be the truest and deniable books; did it?. The Book of Mormon, in contrast, is claimed by its writer, or in Mormonism, its translator Joseph Smith to be a historical record of the Native Americans, who according to him was descended from the Israelites, while archaeology and genetics say the different. I am aware that in the link given by you here, there is someone, a Mormon, who joked about why people think the Book of Mormon is pseudohistorical while the Bible also probably contains same things. That is absurd to me; don't Mormons, if I am not wrong, believe in the authenticity of the Bible "as long as it was translated correctly"? Then why implicitly attacking the Bible? I have no idea; his or her statement is contradictory. I am sorry for not giving you more "secular, reliable sources", which you really wanted here; but wait, no secular sources agree with what the Book of Mormon said. I am surprised! Ok, never mind. I will really stop this discussion now before some offended Mormons attacking me with some warnings of violation on my talk page. Have a great day or night! —Nicholas Michael Halim (talk) 13:41, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

I recognize that the discussion has already been resolved, but I hope it is appropriate to give some input so as to bring in more voices on the matter. I am inclined to agree with FyzixFighter on this point. The Pseudohistory category on Wikipedia, from looking at the page itself, refers to instances of historical negationism which attempt to claim the legitimacy of secular, scholarly history without providing the appropriate rigor (or despite being disproved) and does not include religious texts, even those whose claims are not substantiated by secular approaches, since religious texts traditionally do not claim to function in the same arena as the secular academy. Thus, refraining from the category/term pseudohistory seems useful and appropriate for avoiding a POV tone that places expectations on the topic of this page that are not also placed on other, similar topics on other pages. P-Makoto (talk) 04:07, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Book of Mormon Fraud

Modern scientific consensus is that the Book of Mormon is a fabrication by Smith, and the biggest proof of that is the Book of Abraham. Every time any of Joseph Smith's so called "translations" come under academic scrutiny, Smith is proven to be a fraud over and over again. The Book of Abraham is one great example. DNA analysis proves American Indians were not descendants of Jews, and the Book of Mormon text claims American Indians had horses, cattle, sheep, bellows, and that they manufactured iron objects, none of which is true or ever has been true. Wikipedia is a place for academic truth and not for promoting Mormonism with "faith inspiring" only materials. Wikipedia should not be used to promote and perpetrate Joseph Smith's fraud. Please stop using Wikipedia to whitewash the ugly truth about Mormonism and Smith's phony books and fraud. The article should discuss all aspects and not be subject to continued reversion of academic content by Mormon Church members on Wikipedia who don't like the accurate analysis of academia regarding Smith's 19th century works of fiction. 24.21.161.89 (talk) 21:50, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

As per WP:BRD I will wait several days for discussion about this matter on the talk page and if no one responds I will reinstate the content. 24.21.161.89 (talk) 20:27, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

As has been previously discussed on this talk page (see the archives), the important thing to maintain in this article is a neutral point of view. There are many different people who are interested in an article such as this, and as such there are differing viewpoints as to the role that the Book of Mormon plays in history. I'm not discounting any of the concerns that you have brought up, but with such differing viewpoints the article needs to address all of the significant ones. As an example, the lead currently states that the denominations in the Latter Day Saint movement typically regard it as scripture, but at the same time mainstream academic communities do not believe it to be a record of historical events. Both viewpoints are addressed. This is why there are entire articles surrounding the historicity and archaeology of this topic.

I am not opposed to rewriting the article as necessary, but looking through some of your edits the tone could perhaps be more encyclopedic in nature. They also need to directly reflect the most reliable sources. That was probably why several of them were reverted. As @FyzixFighter suggested, a 1839 book is probably not the most up to date or reliable source to utilize.

Thank you for bringing up your concerns. Frankly the article does dive into some viewpoints more than others and as such it does need to be balanced out. Feel free to suggest any wording that you think is appropriate here, that is what the talk page is for. Rollidan (talk) 23:58, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

To pile on, a fraud implies wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain. Just because something can be proved wrong, does not mean there was wrongful or criminal deception on his part. Virtually all of the historians I have read felt that Joseph Smith himself believed in his divine calling and translation abilities. There are some historians that feel Smith could have been a pious fraud, but that is a better conversation for the Joseph Smith article, not this one. Epachamo (talk) 09:40, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

• There is currently a discussion on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding this issue that editors of this page may be interested in. Kire1975 (talk) 22:13, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

  IP blocked until Nov 2022. Doug Weller talk 13:40, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Proposing to delete the section "Literary criticism" because the section itself is thin and critical literary scholarship can be used throughout the page

The last section on the page, "Literary criticism", is only a collection of quotations and a very short reference to the existence of a book. There has been little work to build it up, and being just quotations it doesn't seem like an encyclopedic summary of the best sources. I think that it's more natural to simply use literary scholarship in building up the rest of the page (for example, citing American literature scholars in the subsection on "Apocalyptic reversal" under the "Content" section) rather than cordoning such scholarship off to one section at the end. Since deleting an entire section, even if it is a rather thin one, is a bit bold, I want to put my reasoning out here on the talk page before making the page revision. P-Makoto (talk) 16:58, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

I've gone through with the revision. P-Makoto (talk) 06:16, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

I have no concerns with the removal of the section. Such quotes or comments could easily be integrated into other parts of the article. Rollidan (talk) 06:34, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

(The) Community of Christ?

@FyzixFighter, if I may, I'm curious about this prior discussion where previous editors concluded "the Community of Christ" reads better than "Community of Christ". I looked back in the talk archives, but the only discussions from three years ago on this talk page were about Book of Mormon usage, views on historicity, and concerns about anonymous editors around a church's annual conference. There's no three-year-old discussion about "Community of Christ" or "the Community of Christ" on Community of Christ's talk page either (there is one from five years ago, but with only two editors' input it's not much of a discourse). Was this discussion on a different page?

As an aside, I admit I don't quite see what's so grammatically confusing about the phrase "Community of Christ", at least any more than, for example, "Creative Commons" or "Flatirons Commuity Church" without a preceding "the". And external (as in outside Wikipedia) usage isn't (in my limited experience) consistently applied as a standard on Wikipedia. (On top of ngram seeming like a difficult measure to apply to a denomination that is notable enough to have a scholarly literature studying it but not popular enough to inspire spates of new books on short notice.) But my aside is neither here nor there if there's a discussion I can apprise myself of first. P-Makoto (talk) 04:22, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

@P-Makoto: Sorry - I should have been more specific - the small discussion I was thinking of was at Talk:The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints/Archive 19#Removal of "the". About three years ago, Hwangfan was going through several pages, including this one, removing "the"s that preceded "Community of Christ". Multiple editors, including myself, challenged this removal arguing that it created odd grammar and that WP was not required to follow the CoC style guideline (similar to how it is not required to follow other churches' style guidelines) - eg [1], [2], [3], and [4]. Sources outside of WP, including CoC documents themselves, as you noted are inconsistent; my reference to ngrams was about my attempt to verify the claim that recent informed sources were increasingly using the style, which I was unable to substantiate via that method. --FyzixFighter (talk) 05:12, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing me to where that discussion was. I confess, I can't help but feel a little amused that one editor remarked that Wikipedia is not beholden to the "LDS world" when most Community of Christ members would tremble at conflating them with Latter-day Saints.

My bad on the claim about informed usage; I think you were right to call me on it. I did a brief search of some relevant academic journals (JWHA Journal, Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture, Dialogue, etc. I don't know if journal publications are included in Google's measure of "books") and realized that usage in the last few years was more inconsistent than I remembered, sometimes without [1] [2] and sometimes with [3] [4]. Sorry for my error, and thanks for making the catch.

For clarity's sake, when I said "isn't consistently applied", I meant that non-WP that is also non-subject doesn't seem to always dictate use on WP. e.g. For instance, while "4 Da Gang" appears in external independent sources about the song, there's nevertheless a push among some editors to render it "4 da Gang". But what happens on that page is its own matter. Here, I'll let the earlier discussion take priority since the ground hasn't changed much since. P-Makoto (talk) 05:50, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Subjectivity in "Presentation" section

I wrote this in my edit comment but for some reason it's not appearing in the edit history, so to clarify why I took those statements out: calling the book "narratively and structurally complex" and "a powerful epic written on a grand scale" are very obviously not written from a neutral POV; if quotes by more prominent authors like Mark Twain calling it "chloroform in print" aren't included, then neither should subjective statements written by a BYU professor (Terryl Givens) who are contractually obligated to paint the church in the best possible light. plethoraOfUselessInformation (talk) 22:15, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Givens isn't a BYU professor. Up until 2019, he was a professor of Literature and Religion at the University of Richmond. In 2019 he did join the Maxwell Institute as a senior fellow, but that isn't the same thing as being a BYU professor. Also, the cited material is from a 2009 source, while he was still at the University of Richmond and before joining the Maxwell Institute, so the bulk of your objection to Givens as a source is incorrect. Your edit also removed material cited to the Howe source, who you also mischaracterized in your initial edit as a Mormon apologist. --FyzixFighter (talk) 22:55, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, "senior research fellow" at BYU. And no, it's pretty obvious that he's writing from a Mormon POV. I mean, just look at his page and the books he's spent his career writing; you can nitpick about whether he could be called an "apologist" prior to joining the Maxwell Institute (although the fact that he did end up joining it kinda belies his position); but the fact remains that none of those statements are "neutral" by any stretch of the imagination. plethoraOfUselessInformation (talk) 00:29, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Mark Twain was an author of fiction, not a literary scholar published by university presses. Additionally, Mark Twain wrote his comment nearly a century ago; his comment does not represent the current state of the field of Book of Mormon studies.

The books by Terryl Givens currently cited on this page are By the Hand of Mormon and The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction. Both were published by Oxford University Press, a respected academic publisher that has no affiliation with any Mormon denomination. Academic presses review the books they publish and provide a context for understanding the book as part of a wider scholarly conversation. Additionally, the books' influence in the field furthers the conclusion that they are part of the prevailing consensus, scholarly point of view.

The Maxwell Institute also has a more academic, rigorous, and trustworthy reputation than you imply. It has some affiliation with BYU, that is true. But it is comparable to, say, Baylor University Press (affiliated with the Baptist school Baylor University) publishing books about the Bible. Both Baylor University Press and the Maxwell Institute are recognized as scholarly publishers, even with their institutional affiliations.

Wikipedia can cite American historians who write about U. S. presidents, or Protestant literary critics who write about the Bible, or Latter-day Saints who write about the Book of Mormon, and still maintain a neutral point of view. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 06:34, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

None of that disproves that statements like "narratively and structurally complex" and "a powerful epic written on a grand scale" are extremely subjective claims. Treating those claims as fact, instead of the opinions of obviously biased authors, is not "maintaining a neutral point of view". I mean, if you look at the OUP page for By the Hand of Mormon, one of the reviews they share specifically calls it "polemical".

Mark Twain's opinion is still shared by the majority of readers of the book, and it's hard to argue that the author of what is considered many to be the best contender for "Great American Novel" didn't have a sense for what constitutes good literature. Academic presses may "review the books they publish and provide a context for understanding the book" but that doesn't mean that said books (and in particular, opinion statements taken from those books) aren't biased. I actually checked it out on archive.org to flip through, and I can't find any mention of how the publishing or editing process involved the "prevailing consensus" at all.

Keep in mind that religious studies have a huge survivorship bias problem: the people who find a given book of scripture painfully boring and/or obviously fraudulent rarely (if ever) see it as a worthwhile use of their time to write their own books about it. It's a common practice in the mormon church to participate in a "book of mormon challenge" where members are encouraged to finish the book in some arbitrary timeframe, most often 3 months. That's just under 7 pages a day; even a breakneck "3 week" challenge is a bit less than 28 pages a day. That's not a "this is such an engrossing book" pace, that's an "ugh, just gotta get through a couple more chapters and then I can go to bed" pace. My point stands: if we're going to include opinion statements extolling the book's writing, we should also include ones condemning it; if the latter are seen as "too subjective", then the former should be as well. plethoraOfUselessInformation (talk) 21:38, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

"Narratively and structurally complex" is not a subjective claim. The Book of Mormon is a structurally complex book, with interlocking narratives, flashbacks, pericopes, etc.

"a powerful epic written on a grand scale" is a more subjective claim, that is true, and that is why it is placed in quotation marks and attributed to the historian who made the claim (Daniel Walker Howe), so it is not made in Wikipedia's voice. This is an appropriate way to document subjective information about a topic on Wikipedia, without having Wikipedia itself make the claim.

You identified one review that called By the Hand of Mormon "polemical". The other reviews on the page call it "outstanding", "unbiased", "vastly informative", and "exceptional".

If Mark Twain had analyzed the Book of Mormon in a scholarly venue, such as an academic book or periodical subjected to editorial and peer review, or a news periodical subjected to editorial review, and if he had written and published more recently within the context of the prevailing field of Mormon studies/religious studies/American history, his assessment of the Book of Mormon might be appropriately cited on this page. Twain did not. Twain made his comment about the Book of Mormon in passing, in a personal memoir, published 151 years ago. Twain's prominence as a novelist is not in dispute, but he was not a scholar of literature and did not publish in the current scholarship. For that matter, Twain notoriously hated and excoriated numerous books and authors whom academics today regard as classics, including James Fenimore Cooper, Henry James, and Jane Austen. Twain's own talents as an author do not make it appropriate to cite him on Wikipedia pages about Last of the Mohicans, The Portrait of a Lady, or Pride and Prejudice, as if his opinions were equivalent in authority to analytical and academic scholarship in literature and history published through academic presses.

Academic books don't generally internally describe the publishing process. There nevertheless is a publishing process. Laura Portwood Stacer's "Landing an Academic Book Congtract" describes the general process, which involves peer review, if you are curious.

The digression guessing at the hypothetical emotional state of lay Latter-day Saints who read the book seems irrelevant to concluding whether or not the cited books, published with academic presses that subject their publications to peer review by other scholars, are quality sources whose content may appropriately be cited.

The page is not exclusively positive about the Book of Mormon. The immediate preceding sentence calls it "repetitive and difficult to read". You never deleted that sentence, even though it is arguably as subjective as "Narratively and structurally complex" (if anything, it being so structurally complex is part of why it is difficult to read). Your edit would have left only a relatively negative statement about the book on the page, deleting a neutral statement about its structure and a positive statement (couched in quotation).

With all this in mind, it seems appropriate to conclude that citing By the Hand of Mormon and What Hath God Wrought on this Wikipedia page is appropriate to do. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 23:09, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS). Levivich (talk) 17:44, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

NPOV tag

I've placed an {npov} tag because this article does not clearly present the mainstream view of the Book of Mormon, beginning with what it is and who wrote it. It should say that the Book of Mormon was written by Joseph Smith in the early 19th century. Instead, that fact is quite buried, in the line In the twenty-first century, leading naturalistic interpretations of Book of Mormon origins hold that Smith authored it himself, whether consciously or subconsciously, and simultaneously sincerely believed the Book of Mormon was an authentic sacred history. Even that sentence is inappropriately qualified ... "leading naturalistic interpretations" is the mainstream view, also known as "the truth." "Joseph Smith authored the Book of Mormon" should be in the lead, and it should be the first view given in the "Origins" section. Before I go about rewriting it, does anybody disagree with this? Levivich (talk) 17:38, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

• Agreed. Switched the order of the lede's first two sentences. starship.paint (RUN) 13:16, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
• Agreed, NPOV is non-negotiable and we should not be presenting fringe views as superior to or the equal of normal ones. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:06, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  When you categorize a religious belief held by millions of people as "fringe", and your own beliefs as "normal", I would argue that you are not on NPOV ground. Any belief held by millions of people is notable enough for an encyclopedia, even if it is not factual.

  But I honestly think this article's bigger problem is that it spends far too many words on the question of historicity, especially in the introduction. Contrast, for example, the article on the Torah, another religious text that most scholars do not regard as a historically accurate document, but which many Jews and Christians regard as historical anyway. The Torah article spends virtually no time debating evidence for or against its historical correctness! Instead, its sections are primarily focused on the themes, symbolism, and religious significance of the book.

  Right now, most of the Book of Mormon article's introduction, as well as two major sections ("Origins" and "Views on Historical Authenticity") focus heavily on historicity. That seems excessive to me. I think one section and 2-3 sentences in the introduction would be sufficient. The more space we spend on the historicity issues debate, the greater the temptation for people to insert non-NPOV language.

  TLDR: Religion is not fringe, but I agree this article has problems, and I might have used a Debate or Review cleanup tag instead of NPOV. Statesman 88 (talk) 22:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Fringe doesn't mean people don't believe it, it means that qualified experts don't believe it. Something can be believed by the majority of people on the planet and still be fringe as wikipedia considers it (take for instance LGBTQ medical issues where the medical consensus is at odds with most of the world's opinions). Not everything religious is fringe, but much that is fringe is religious. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:51, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

• Yeah. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:09, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah [you're right]., Yeah [I disagree with this]., or Yeah [though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me].? Levivich (talk) 18:24, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

• Agreed on the need for NPOV tag, and on Starship.paint's sentence switch. However I'm struggling to see how "it is patently obvious..." can be considered NPOV, it's a mocking tone rather than "nonjudgmental" and "impartial". It's also inaccurate: if it was "patently obvious that Smith had authored the Book by himself" then neither the plagiarism hypotheses nor the rumours about Smith having help from a third party would ever have gained traction. Pastychomper (talk) 15:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  I agree. I just switched out "patently obvious" for "more widely accepted view", aiming for NPOV. I hope people like that language, but I'm open to continued revision. Statesman 88 (talk) 22:23, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

It looks like someone spent a lot of time scrubbing this article of anything that wasn’t LDS approved. :( 2600:1700:F90:6950:ACF9:19B6:8CC1:724B (talk) 01:35, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I'd like to move we remove this POV tag now. All the directly POV phrasing has been scrubbed that I can see. Also, I've spent some time breaking out the subsections on Historicity and hopefully making it crystal clear what the mainstream consensus is. Also by increasing its length and relative prominence, that should help with issues of imbalance. That said, since this is an article about a fundamentally religious topic, I think it's perfectly appropriate (and NPOV) for other sections to have a more religious bent, discussing religious significance, content, etc. Trevdna (talk) 21:34, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I placed the NPOV tag but have not had a chance to review the article lately, though I am aware that there's been a lot of editing to fix the NPOV concerns. So if other editors who have reviewed the article think the NPOV concerns have been taken care of and the tag is no longer necessary then there's no objection to removing it from me. If I see issues in the future I'm happy to bring them up again, in the meantime I don't want to hold anything up due to my lack of time. Levivich (talk) 22:53, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I would support removing the tag, though I grant I'm also someone who contributed to some of the recent revision (not as much as Trevdna; I just found an academic source for the sentence about there being no samples of reformed Egyptian). I think Trevdna did a good job with the views on historicity section. I remember overhauling the section a couple years ago after an editor tried to add a bunch of citations to apologetics. That entailed changing what was a bullet pointed list of anachronisms into body text paragraphs summarizing the mainstream assessment, adding the Isaiah intertext matter, etc. Trevdna meanwhile has taken the section across a finish line by taking the long paragraphs I left and organizing them into more legible subsections. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 06:34, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

I'll remove it for now, but @Levivich, if upon further review you believe your concerns have not been fully addressed, feel free to put it back and let us know why. Thanks all. Trevdna (talk) 16:30, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Nomination for worst sentence

"Meanwhile, some Americans thought antebellum disestablishment and denominational proliferation undermined religious authority through ubiquity, producing sectarian confusion that only obfuscated the path to spiritual security."

You've got to be kidding me. Anyone think this is a reasonable sentence?

jps (talk) 01:44, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

What is unreasonable about the sentence? It is meant to summarize Charles L. Cohen's description of the Antebellum religious context of Joseph Smith. From his article: states cast off their establishments (except in Puritanism's ancient bastions), revivals fired up, and preachers—whether belonging to a denomination or proclaiming their own singular gospels—proliferated. This homiletic hubbub was good news if you were Thomas Jefferson, for it evinced the flourishing of religious liberty based on the rights of individuals to worship as their conscidneces alone dictated, but bad news if you were a young man sifting the ashes of a burned-over district for the gold of absolute truth resulting in a situation that opened a spiritual abyss under someone who would take the welter of contesting doctrines as evidence not that all churches offered a version of the gospel, but that they afforded none at all. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 03:26, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

I think if a person already knows all those words, then it's sensible and accurate, but it's not fun to read. I don't think it's a great sentence for an encyclopedia that's trying to be inclusive of all readers, including ones that come to English from other languages. A more accessible sentence, something like "Meanwhile, the rapidly growing number of religious denominations and sects in the young nation seemed to offer too many religious choices, leaving some Americans with the impression that no legitimate path to salvation existed at all", might be more appropriate. Indignant Flamingo (talk) 07:11, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

@Indignant Flamingo I think that's a fine edit and would support it as a replacement. jps (talk) 15:25, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Yup. Long words bad. Short words good. AndyTheGrump (talk)

A thank you to Indignant Flamingo for this constructive, civil, and collaborative approach to improving the page. I agree that the revision simplifies and improves the language. Since multiple editors support it, I've replaced the sentence with Indignant Flamingo's revision. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 17:40, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Weird sentence removed

"The book is also a critique of Western society, condemning immorality, individualism, social inequality, ethnic injustice, nationalism, and the rejection of God, revelation, and miraculous religion."

I don't see a clear explanation that everyone agrees this claim is true. How does it critique "Western society"? How does it condemn "immorality", "social inequality", "ethnic injustice", and "nationalism" (and how does it define these)? Where is "atheism" mentioned in the Book of Mormon? In short, this sentence is just a Mormon POV. A reading of the book does not lead to these conclusions unless you're in the cult, I suspect. jps (talk) 14:45, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Strike your last sentence, which violates the BLP policy in the way it describes Nathan O. Hatch, Jonathan Sudholt, Charles L. Cohen, and Richard Bushman—the scholars whose work to which that content, summarized in the lead, is cited to in the body—and all living persons.

If you read the article, you will notice that that sentence of the lead summarizes Book_of_Mormon#Critique_of_the_United_States, cited to content published in journals (including The American Historical Review The Journal of American History), a university press book (from Yale University Press), and a book published by a respected mainstream publisher (Alfred A. Knopf). Only Bushman is a Latter-day Saint, and he's also Gouverneur Morris Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, and unless you have evidence he (along with Hatch, Sudholt, and Cohen) has hoodwinked Columbia University, Alfred A. Knopf, and The American Historical Review The Journal of American History, saying that these readings are impossible for someone who isn't a 'cultist' constitutes unsourced contentious material about living persons.

You should also revert your last edit to Book of Mormon, as you are violating WP:NPOV by substituting your personal interpretation of the topic over and against academic sources.

Finally, your edit summary—accusing me of writing an Unintelligible edit summary—is a personal attack. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 18:16, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

This is all personalizing and is very silly. Stop being silly. There is a simple point which is the Book of Mormon is not inarguably "a critique of Western society, condemning immorality, individualism, social inequality, ethnic injustice, nationalism, and the rejection of God, revelation, and miraculous religion." Some people may think that is what it is doing, but Wikipedia should not be WP:ASSERTing that is what it is doing when, in fact, it is just 19th century religious fan fiction. jps (talk) 01:39, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Stop being silly: Policy recommends telling letting another editor know how their edit made you feel, so I will let you know that your decision to diminish my concerns about policy and guideline breaches, and to accuse me of being the one personalizing things when you have called my contribution "unintelligble", makes me feel hurt and diminished. I invite you to be more civil.

I also invite you to consider that your personal interpretation of the Book of Mormon may well vary from the way religious studies scholars, historians, and other trained academics in the humanities assess it and its context. Calling the Book of Mormon fan fiction is a popular joke about it, but Wikipedia favors the WP:BESTSOURCES for topics, particularly academic sources. When historian Nathan O. Hatch, in The Democratization of American Christianity (called by Gordon S. Wood "the best book on religion in the early Republic that has ever been written"), calls the Book of Mormon "a document of profound social protest" (116) against American society, that is a much more reliable and consensus assessment than descriptions of the topic circulated in Reddit threads and social media posts. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 03:38, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

You haven't responded to the substance of my complaint still. jps (talk) 15:26, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

I have; see the paragraph starting I also invite you to consider, which addresses the substance of your complaint by pointing out that the sentence you call weird summarizes assessments from academic sources. Meanwhile, you haven't responded to my concerns about incivility and contentious content about living persons in comments you have posted other than dismissing them as silly. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 17:36, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

My complaint was not over whether the sentence "summarized assessments". Try again. jps (talk) 18:01, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

How do we get from a social protest against American society (what is apparently in the source) to a critique of Western society (what was written in the article)? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:38, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

That's helpful to point out. The expansion from American society to Western society may have been prompted by "What's New in Mormon History" (cited in Book of Mormon), an article from The Journal of American History (vol. 94, no. 2, September 2007), which states the Book of Mormon was thundering no to the state of the world in Joseph Smith's time and that it condemned social inequalities, moral abominations, rejection of revelations and miracles, disrespect for Israel (including the Jews), subjection of the Indians, and the abuse of the continent by interloping European migrants . However, while this may imply "Western society", it's probably simpler, more focused on the topic's immediate context, and more consensus (matching Nathan O. Hatch's assessment of the book as well) to summarize it as having been at the time of publication a critique of simply American society. Thanks for pointing this out, Horse Eye's Back. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 17:49, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Given the context of that particular article it should likely be attributed to Bushman, the full name is "What's New in Mormon History: A Response to Jan Shipps" and is a response to a review of his book Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling in that same journal by Shipps[5]. I don't have access to that source on this device, can you pull larger quotes for some more context? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:03, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the idea that the Book of Mormon is "critiquing" anything is all that important a point. Others don't seem too taken with such points. Why are we letting our own article become so obsessed with this kind of inside baseball minutiae? jps (talk) 18:06, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Who are these 'others'? There seem to be you and an IP (174.212.225.61). Meanwhile, User:ChristensenMJ restored the sentence, as did I. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 18:11, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm referring to sources that discuss the ontology of the Book of Mormon. Few seem to categorize it as a "critique" of anything. Most classify it either as a religious treatise or a "forgery" in a more old-fashioned sense of the term. jps (talk) 18:15, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

You seem to imply these genres are somehow mutually exclusive. A religious treatise that depicts an invented history of Indigenous America can also criticize the society in which it's published. Several academic sources call the book a critique:

• Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (Yale University Press, 1989): The Book of Mormon is a document of profound social protest, an impassioned manifesto by a hostile outsider against the smug complacency of those in power and the reality of social distinctions based on wealth, class, and education. In attempting to define his alienation from the world around him, Smith attempted resorted to a biblical frame of reference (page 116)
• Richard Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling: Joseph Smith (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005): The book sacralized the land but condemned the people. The Indians were the chosen ones, not the European interlopers. The Book of Mormon was the seminal text, not the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. The gathering of lost Israel, not the establishment of liberty, was the great work. In the Book of Mormon, the biblical overwhelms the national. Taken as a whole, the Book of Mormon can be read as a "document of profound social protest" against the dominant culture of Joseph Smith's time.
• Richard Bushman, "What's New in Mormon History? A Response to Jan Shipps", Journal of American History 94, no. 2 (September 2007): the Book of Mormon appears as a deep critique of American culture, including its religious culture (page 520)
• Elizabeth Fenton, "Open Canons: Sacred History and American History in The Book of Mormon", J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-century Americanists 1, no. 2 (Fall 2013): The Book of Mormon offers a radical revision of American history that presents both documania and the Puritan errand as dead ends. and it establishes a narrative precedent for the critique of US Protestantism that would come to form the backbone of early Mormonism (page 349)
• Jared Hickman, "The Book of Mormon as Amerindian Apocalypse", American Literature 86, no. 3 (2014): A vicious circle developed: antebellum American readers predisposed by their sociocultural location to racism were authorized under the reigning hermeneutic to read that racism into a text that had been elevated to the status of literal word of God [the Bible] , thereby making their racism appear to originate from a source not only other but higher than themselves. White domination acquired the sheen of incontestable divine decree. The Book of Mormon severs this vicious circle by simultaneously negating the authority deposited by literalist hermeneuts in "the Bible alone" and diametrically opposing another vision of racial apocalypse.
• Jonathan Sudholt, "Unreadability is the Reader’s Problem: The Book of Mormon’s Critique of the Antebellum US Public Sphere", Radical Americas 2 (2017): the text’s cultural critique, a critique that is so intense that The Book of Mormon stages the annihilation of America not once, but twice, before its fury is used up. and The Book of Mormon, published in a nation that prided itself on a guarantee of free speech that would allow dissent, presents a nation that absolutely refuses to entertain the slightest dissent. It gives the impression that what this allowance for dissent is all about is to deny people any grounds on which they might dissent, for what country could be less deserving of criticism than that in which one is allowed to point out its failures, its hypocrisies, and its contradictions? Thus, it is designed not so much to be the land of freedom and equality it says it is, as to preempt the very criticism it claims to embrace. So, at least, Smith suggests.

Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 18:56, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

You completely missed my point. None of these sources identify the genre as "critique" in the main. jps (talk) 12:34, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

To the extent you think I missed your point, you may be missing mine. The article doesn't categorize the topic's genre in, say, an infobox as 'critique'; it uses the religious text infobox. The aspects of the topic that are a critique are summarized in a subsection of the historical context section (and previously summarized fairly far down in the lead, which is meant to summarize the article), as the book's interaction with the culture around it is part of how relevant scholarship historically contextualizes the topic. My point is that the topic's main genre being a religious treatise doesn't mean it can't also be historical contextualized as expressing a critique of the society in which it's published. (For instance, as Hatch expresses, the criticism of the United States is core to the book's religious message.) Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 15:27, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Hatch does not say that criticism of the United States is core to the book's religious message. This is the problem with your approach. You are impugning importance to simple observation. The Book of Mormon is not at its core a protest. jps (talk) 15:44, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

We somehow have pretty different impressions of Hatch (1989). The monograph seems clear about how important the theme is to the topic of the Book of Mormon. In addition to the quotation cited further up in the thread:

• This "Gospel" was a radically reconstituted history of the New World, a drama indicting America's churches as lifeless shells, blind and deaf to the real meaning of their own history and to the divine intent for the latter days (115)
• The single most striking theme of the Book of Mormon is that it is the rich, the proud, and the learned who find themselves in the hands of an angry God (117)
• The interlocking themes of pride, wealth, learning, fine clothing, and oppression of the poor reappear throughout the Book of Mormon (119)
• The vision of Joseph Smith [as expressed in the Book of Mormon, as is clear in the context of this paragraph coming on the heels of four pages about the book and the rest of the page continuing in that vein] is intensely populist in its rejection of the religious conventions of his day and in its hostility to the orthodox clergy (120)

If I may suggest a possible problem with your approach: you seem to have personal conclusions about the topic and what the article should say about it (e. g. in fact, it is just 19th century religious fan fiction), rather than letting the article's content be guided by the best sources, including academic scholarship. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 20:16, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back:: Here is a longer quotation from "What's New in Mormon History":

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling was slated for publication by Alfred A. Knopf. I was much more aware of writing for a general audience, so the intramural debates between apologists and critics of Mormonism seemed less relevant. General readers, I thought, would want to get a taste of these controversies but not to become mired in them. They would be more interested, I presumed, in what the Book of Mormon meant to Joseph Smith and to his readers than in the apologists’ attempts to defend the book. My aim was to situate the book in its American environment—not to identify its sources, but to explain its interaction with American culture. In this more recent version, the Book of Mormon appears as a deep critique of American culture, including its religious culture. (520) Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 19:30, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

I do not think these instances identify the genre of the Book of Mormon as one of "critique". To be sure, I am confident that there is a reading of almost any popular text you care to name that identifies it as critiquing something or other, but our job as an encyclopedia should not be to identify every popular text as a critique which would be the logical conclusion of the practice we are talking about here. jps (talk) 19:35, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Our job as an encyclopedia is to summarize what reliable secondary sources (with WP:SCHOLARSHIP being the gold standard) say about a text. If relevant scholarship identifies a text's critical aspects as meaningful and relevant, then that's part of the findings we summarize. If relevant secondary sources don't do that, then we don't summarize it. In this case, they do. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 19:45, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

You have not demonstrated that a primary means of identifying the Book of Mormon is as a critique or in that kind of genre. Novel readings by prominent scholars can be discussed, but it should not be forced into Wikipedia's voice per WP:ASSERT. jps (talk) 15:37, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I disagree that this is merely a Novel reading; it's a reading that's been affirmed and reaffirmed by relevant scholarship for more than three decades. And I disagree that its relevance for describing the topic in its historical context hasn't been demonstrated. Multiple high-quality sources, including two monographs considered authoritative, have been cited. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 18:30, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Since there are no reviews of the literature that I have seen which deal with the question, it is a matter of original research to declare whether the view has been systematically "affirmed and reaffirmed" or not. As it is, I see almost nothing to indicate that this is a major lens by which the book is studied. It seems a view that is held by a small group. jps (talk) 19:16, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Ok so in context its more a statement about the Book of Mormon in Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling than the Book of Mormon in general. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:38, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm struggling to see that reading. "What's New" is not saying that Rough Stone Rolling is a critique of the United States, but that the Book of Mormon is. It does also address that that's the assessment of Bushman settled on when he wrote Rough Stone Rolling, but I don't think that makes it so nothing in the claim is about the Book of Mormon itself. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 19:47, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

"What's New" is saying that in Rough Stone Rolling The Book of Mormon appears as a critique of the United States. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:55, 26 June 2024 (UTC)