A Tale of Two Seventies: The Historicity of the Book of Mormon

 

Elder Kim B. Clark, an emeritus General Authority Seventy, spoke at the 2020 FairMormon (now just FAIR) Conference. His remarks were powerful, and he was more than happy to join Scott Gordon for a question-and-answer session following his remarks.

One of the viewers of this conference had sent the question “How important is a literal belief in the historicity of the Book of Mormon, as opposed to reverencing it as an allegorical text?” which Elder Clark answered powerfully: 

So, my feeling is that the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His restored Gospel means that we believe exactly what Joseph said it was. If you believe in it as a sacred text, but don’t believe in its historicity, you essentially deny its origin as Joseph said. And so I think it is absolutely essential to the kind of robust faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His restored Gospel.

This view is contrasted quite dramatically with John C. Hamer’s view that it is “academically impossible to justify arguing that the Book of Mormon is an ancient text.” Hamer, a Seventy in the Community of Christ (though not, from what I could tell, the equivalent of a General Authority Seventy that members of the Church would be familiar with), follows some of the theological thinking that has taken place in the past few decades among some of the members of the Community of Christ (and regrettably, some members of the Church have taken this position as well) that attempts to distance themselves from the Book of Mormon. For Hamer specifically, this is because believing in the historicity of the Book of Mormon is an “ongoing continuation” of various “injustice[s]” performed against the Native Americans by white European settlers (a wild and absurd claim that Stephen Smoot has responded to here, who quotes and cites Hamer in full).

I wholeheartedly agree with Elder Clark on this matter. A belief in a historical Book of Mormon is – in my mind, at least – critical for our faith in the Restored Gospel. After all, if Joseph had plates he translated but they simply contained an allegory, who put the plates there, and who deceived Joseph into believing they were an actual history, or did Joseph deceive others into that belief? Or, if Joseph said he had plates that he translated when in reality no such plates existed, what will that say about Joseph Smith’s character as a prophet?

The matter of fact is, Joseph did have the gold plates compiled by Mormon and Moroni in his possession during the translation of the Book of Mormon, and he translated them by the gift and power of God.

While Hamer may view the authenticity impossible to justify of such a worldview, multiple evidences do exist for the Book of Mormon – as graciously gathered by Book of Mormon Central and their child website Evidence Central. These evidences cannot ever prove the Book of Mormon to be true, only the Spirit of the Lord can do that, but they can help add witnesses to your faith. Witnesses come “after the trial of your faith,” after all (Ether 12:6), so any approach to studying the Book of Mormon expecting to only believe only after a sign sufficient to your expectations is delivered is detrimental to faith, preventing your progression much like Korihor and Sherem in the Book of Mormon history (see Alma 30 and Jacob 7, respectively).

Fortunately, not all members of the Community of Christ follow that model regarding the Book of Mormon, nor do many other members of other faiths tracing their origin to Joseph Smith and the restoration of the Gospel that he commenced. I have spoken to members of at least three of these faiths, the Community of Christ included, regarding our favorite stories in the Book of Mormon and what lessons we individually have learned from the examples of faith and devotion that those ancient prophets exhibited.

I am likewise grateful that I work for Book of Mormon Central and can spend time with my coworkers and fellow Latter-day Saints discussing the historical evidence and reality of the Book of Mormon and helping flood the earth with the Book of Mormon. For what I believe to be the vast majority of members of the Church (and even those outside the Church who believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God), the historical reality of the Book of Mormon is not in question, and their faith is strengthened because of it.

For believers in the Book of Mormon, an allegorical reading just simply cannot provide the robust faith in the Gospel we should seek to have.