The Book of Mormon Wars: A Non-Mormon Perspective

Title

The Book of Mormon Wars: A Non-Mormon Perspective

Publication Type

Journal Article

Year of Publication

1996

Authors

Journal

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

Pagination

1-25

Volume

5

Issue

2

Terms of use

Items in the BMC Archive are made publicly available for non-commercial, private use. Inclusion within the BMC Archive does not imply endorsement. Items do not represent the official views of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or of Book of Mormon Central.

Bibliographic Citation

Abstract

The Protestant Bible wars were fought between fundamentalists, who initially claimed for the Bible the same “truth” that Enlightenment claimed for science, and liberals, who denied that historical “truth” could be achieved at all. In the present Book of Mormon wars the opposite seems to be true: the liberal camp appears deeply rooted in the Enlightenment paradigm, while the orthodox (but not fundamentalist) position often uses postmodernist arguments, claiming that absolute objectivity is a “noble dream” never achieved nor obtainable in historical studies. The article reviews the present Mormon controversies by comparing them to the discussions on biblical interpretation in the Roman Catholic Church, as summarized in the semiofficial 1993 document “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church” by the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

Historicity
Truth
Postmodernism
Fundamentalism

© 2024 Scripture Central: A Non-Profit Organization. All rights reserved. Registered 501(c)(3). EIN: 20-5294264