The Book of Mormon and the Supernatural: Context Matters

[This post is part of a series: (Super) Naturalism, ID, and the Book of Mormon.]

Suppose that the Book of Mormon came to light as a single copy discovered in a stack of old books. The book states that it was published in 1830 (assume that you know this to be correct), but there is no information as to who published it--it is an orphaned book. Nevertheless, it attracts the attention of a group of sincere Christians who wonder if it is actually a divine and historical (i.e. miraculous) text. What kind of evidence might they point to?

I don't think there is any. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any semi-scientific/scholarly argument for the historicity of the Book of Mormon that is not fundamentally rooted in the history of Joseph Smith--his claims about the book, what he knew, who his associates were, his timeline, etc [1]. (I would be happy to consider counter-examples if anyone thinks of one.) Remove all knowledge about him, and the miraculous origin and historicity of the Book of Mormon become less plausible by orders of magnitude.

This is implied in the argument by Terryl Givens (among others) that the circumstances surrounding the production of the Book of Mormon eliminate any middle ground regarding its historicity and value as scripture. It is made more explicit in a passage in By the Hand of Mormon (pg. 87).

What distinguishes the Book of Mormon as a religious document...has little to do with its internal claims. In this regard, the Book of Mormon well exemplifies the principle laid down by Wilfred Cantwell Smith and William A. Graham, and endorsed by Shlomo Biderman: 'the element of content is not the major factor in establishing scripture.... Because of the enormous diversity of what is said in scripture, it cannot be defined or characterized by its content.'

Philosopher David Hume wrote that "no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish." Hugh Nibley sought to meet such a challenge, and his argument is captured in his parable of the diamond (and it is not hard to find General Authorities that echo it):

A young man once long ago claimed he had found a large diamond in his field as he was ploughing. He put the stone on display to the public free of charge, and everyone took sides. A psychologist showed, by citing some famous case studies, that the young man was suffering from a well-known form of delusion. An historian showed that other men have also claimed to have found diamonds in fields and been deceived. A geologist proved that there were no diamonds in the area but only quartz: the young man had been fooled by a quartz. When asked to inspect the stone itself, the geologist declined with a weary, tolerant smile and a kindly shake of the head. An English professor showed that the young man in describing his stone used the very same language that others had used in describing uncut diamonds: he was, therefore, simply speaking the common language of his time. A sociologist showed that only three out of 177 florists' assistants in four major cities believed the stone was genuine. A clergyman wrote a book to show that it was not the young man but someone else who had found the stone.

Finally an indigent jeweler named Snite pointed out that since the stone was still available for examination the answer to the question of whether it was a diamond or not had absolutely nothing to do with who found it, or whether the finder was honest or sane, or who believed him, or whether he would know a diamond from a brick, or whether diamonds had ever been found in fields, or whether people had even been fooled by quartz or glass, but was to be answered simply and solely by putting the stone to certain well-known tests for diamonds. Experts on diamonds were called in. Some of them declared it genuine. The others made nervous jokes about it and declared that they could not very well jeopardize their dignity and reputations by appearing to take the thing too seriously. To hide the bad impression thus made, someone came out with the theory that the stone was really a synthetic diamond, very skilfully made, but a fake just the same. The objection to this is that the production of a good synthetic diamond 120 years ago would have been an even more remarkable feat than the finding of a real one.

The judgment of whether the making of a synthetic diamond is a remarkable feat depends on knowledge of the context (technology available, etc). Despite Nibley's call for "well-known tests for diamonds," I am not aware of any for the Book of Mormon that can be employed without reference to Joseph and his circumstances.

Notes:
1. Of course, multiple specific references to people and places yet undiscovered at the time of publication would count, although judgment would revolve around how specific, and therefore unlikely, the references were. In the case of the Book of Mormon--taken on its own--Nahom and Alma are suggestive, but not overwhelmingly convincing, in my opinion.

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