Mormon scholarship, apologetics, and evangelical neglect: Losing the battle and not knowing it?

Trinity Journal, Fall 1998 by Mosser, Carl, Owen, Paul

II. THE GOALS OF MORMON SCHOLARSHIP

Our five conclusions are controversial. However, the immense amount of scholarly literature by LDS intellectuals published in both LDS and non-LDS venues,6 a perusal of apologetic material produced by the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS);7 and a consideration of evangelical works on Mormonism, justify our conclusions. The scholarship of Mormon writers is at times rigorous; at the least their work warrants examination. What is the focus of this scholarship? We have had a number of opportunities to converse with leading LDS academicians in both scholarly venues (including three days at the FARMS/BYU sponsored 1996 International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls) and non-scholarly contexts. The following sketch of LDS academic intentions arises from these contacts.

What are the LDS scholar-apologists trying to prove? In what intellectually plausible ways are they supporting their unique scriptural canon and doctrinal system? The Mormon goals are fairly straightforward. First, they believe the Book of Mormon to be an ancient text written by people of Israelite lineage. A number of studies have been done which attempt to identify in the Book of Mormon Hebraic literary techniques, linguistic features, cultural patterns, and other markers which, it is argued, Joseph Smith would not have been capable of fabricating. Second, Latter-day Saints believe that other ancient texts have been restored through Joseph Smith (e.g., the books of Moses and Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price). As a result, Mormon scholars have taken a great deal of interest in the study of the OT pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Nag Hammadi texts. Their goal is to highlight features these ancient documents share with their own sacred literature. Third, it is a conviction of the LDS church that earliest Christianity suffered substantial apostasy beginning in the latter first century and extending through the end of the second century. This apostasy is usually equated with the process of post-apostolic Hellenization. Under this theory they maintain that the original doctrines of the ancient church were not lost all at once. Latter-day Saints have taken a keen interest in the beliefs and practices of the early post-apostolic church. Special attention has been given to the writings of the Patristic Fathers in an effort to demonstrate similarities with Mormon belief and practice. These similarities are not intended to show that the early Christians were proto-Mormons. Rather, they are intended to show that remnants of true pre-Hellenized belief remained for a time after the apostasy. In this regard Mormon academicians (along with many non-LDS scholars) have taken keen interest in the "parting of the ways" between Judaism and Christianity.

III. HUGH NIBLEY:

THE FATHER OF MORMON SCHOLARLY APOLOGETICS

Hugh Nibley is the pioneer of LDS scholarship and apologetics. Since earning his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley in 1939, Nibley has produced a seemingly endless stream of books and articles covering a vast array of subject matter. Whether writing on Patristics, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Apocrypha, the culture of the Ancient Near East, or Mormonism, he demonstrates an impressive command of the original languages, primary texts, and secondary literature. He has set a standard that younger LDS intellectuals are hard pressed to follow. There is no room here for anything approaching an exhaustive examination of Nibley's works.8 As Truman Madsen, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religion at Brigham Young University, puts it, "To those who know him best, and least, Hugh W. Nibley is a prodigy, an enigma, and a symbol."9