816: NeoApologetics Pt. 2 with Loyd Ericson & Bert Fuller Pt. 2
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 8 November 2017
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With Panelists Dan Wotherspoon, Loyd Ericson, and Bert Fuller
Transcript
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| 0:32.0 | So let me just, and this is going to, I hope it doesn't seem too tedious for Lloyd, but let me just ask you some basic sort of truth claims type stuff and, and let's just probe it a little bit. |
| 0:54.0 | So when I was reading your chapter, what came to my mind is, is the following. Let's just say that the book of Mormon just appeared and there were no, there were no claims about where it came from. |
| 1:08.0 | Joseph Smith wasn't even in the picture. It was just this text that God dropped into a field and it said, hey, this is a book by God, right? And you can either believe it or not. |
| 1:20.0 | You know, then that's, you know, that's, that's one way to start, right? Because it's just this book that, who knows where it came from, it claims to come directly from God. |
| 1:31.0 | Well, we can look at and see if it makes sense or not or if it makes us a better person or if it enlarges our soul. |
| 1:38.0 | If it, you know, better's my life, if it tastes good as you sort of say, but that's kind of not what happened what happened is there was a person who lived in the material world named Joseph Smith. |
| 1:51.0 | He made certain claims about the book like that it was received from plates by an angel that he translated it from the gift and power of God. |
| 2:02.0 | He claimed that it was a history of, you know, ancient Americans. |
| 2:08.0 | And, you know, so as soon as, as soon as the narrative that provides the structure for the, for the production of the book is laid out and it's laid out in the material world, that all the sudden, those things, those things are subject to sort of scrutiny. |
| 2:31.0 | Scrutiny from a logical and a scientific perspective. |
| 2:37.0 | And so it, and so, so an example would be, you know, obviously with the book of Mormon, because it's claiming to be a history of Native Americans. |
| 2:50.0 | That's when DNA, you know, of the Native Americans comes into play. That's when the inachronisms in the book of Mormon come into play because it's, it's whole framing about Joseph Smith's first vision and, and the narrative that he tells everyone about what God asked him to do. |
| 3:10.0 | And then what he claims the angel told him to do and then the way that he claimed to produce the book. |
| 3:16.0 | All of that is grounded in material claims. |
| 3:20.0 | And so if those claims seem plausible or reasonable, then, oh, okay, well, then they seem reasonable. But if, if they fly in the face of just basic science or basic reason, then it's fair game to ask, well, maybe it's a, maybe it's the word. |
| 3:39.0 | Maybe it's the word of God or maybe it's fiction and some dude made it up, right? |
| 3:45.0 | Yeah, so let me, let me do it take this to a more simple version. And I kind of address this in a footnote. |
| 3:53.0 | But more of history is complex. And I think one of the big promises is we have 100 and so years of the church trying to simplify it in ways that don't, I think, really touch on how complex it is. |
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