Critics remain unconvinced

I’ve been following Kyle Beshears’ Substack where he is posting chapters of an academic book he is working on about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for a mainstream Christian audience. For some reason I find this kind of thing fascinating, like a chimpanzee might feel about reading Jane Goodall’s notes. As I’ve written before, Kyle Beshears has a deep understanding of his subject and reports it straight, to his great credit.

In this post I will comment on his recent chapter, “Where did the Book of Mormon come from?” As with precious chapters, it is very respectful and gets the facts straight. I just want to briefly quibble with his summation of the state of the evidence for the Book of Mormon. 

Today, the LDS Church maintains that the Book of Mormon represents ancient history, not merely theology. For this reason, corroborating evidence for or against its historicity has been the focus of many LDS apologists and skeptics seeking to verify or disapprove its authenticity. … growing interest in its theological message from both LDS and non-LDS audiences has yielded an enormous amount of works ranging anywhere from laity devotionals to scholarly commentaries. Still, effort exists to discover both external and internal evidence of its historical nature. To date, despite tremendous effort, the LDS archeological community has failed to produce any archeological evidence sufficient to persuade non-LDS archeologists of their position. 

I won’t deny that this statement is true on its face, that non-LDS archaeologists have not come out on record as having been convinced of the truth of the Book of Mormon because of the archaeological evidence. There have been isolated examples of non-LDS scholars commenting favorably on evidence for the Book of Mormon (see, for example, this FAQ at my father’s website), but this selection doesn’t include any archaeologists. 

But my question is whether the “critics remain unconvinced” standard is a reasonable one. As with any highly polarized or ideological or politicized issue, no one with interest in the topic is actually a neutral observer, and everyone is examining the issue with strong bias in one direction or other. Upbringing and life experience will place one either into the camp of believers or in the camp of critics. Those who are truly neutral on the issue, if that is possible, are unlikely to be interested in studying it.

“Critics remain unconvinced” could be said of both of the following propositions:

• Archaeological evidence supports the historicity of the Book of Mormon.
• Archeological evidence supports the implausibility of the Book of Mormon.

In the second phrasing, members of The Church of Jesus Christ (like me) are the critics that remain unconvinced. Taken together, we see that there is a debate, and that the state of the evidence isn’t so incredibly overwhelming in either direction as to overcome all existing bias. This by itself is meaningful information, but says little about the state of the debate and nothing about the evidence itself. 

Consider the following propositions from an unending possible list:

• Climate change will lead to more hurricanes and tornadoes per year in the US by 2100.
• Mask mandates saved tens of thousands of lives in the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Increasing the minimum wage hurts low-skilled workers.
• Late-term abortion kills unborn humans with beating hearts.
• America would be safer with stricter gun control laws.

Regardless of your position or my position on these issues, “Critics remain unconvinced” is accurate for each. However, that statement alone would seem laughably insufficient as a description of the state of the debate or the evidence involved. And it would be odd to look only at whether the critics have become believers as the only measure of the strength of the evidence for or against these propositions.

According to the Bayesian updating model of rational learning, we all begin with a base set of beliefs, our priors. If we are being rational, we then go about adjusting our priors based on new information. For a rational individual who starts out with reason to believe, the evidentiary threshold for belief is low. A rational individual who starts out with reason not to believe, on the other hand, will require much more evidence before the physical evidence alone will convince him or her to believe in the Book of Mormon. 

Let’s suppose there is an academic report of evidence in support of the Book of Mormon (e.g. Nahom, plausible path for Lehi’s journey through the Arabian Peninsula, Sorenson’s geography, etc.) Members of the Church will tend to evaluate the report to determine whether they can believe it without seeming crazy, and may risk believing too much. On the other hand, skeptics will seek to determine whether they have to believe the report - whether the claims are so well supported that it would seem crazy not to take it seriously. In the skeptic’s case the risk is higher that they might reject a claim that is actually true. 

For example, let’s examine the discovery that the place Nahom (Hebrew NHM) is in the Arabian Peninsula right at the location and time as given by the Book of Mormon - something that was very unlikely for Joseph Smith to have known. LDS apologists present this as evidence supporting the plausibility of a historical Book of Mormon. Critics reply saying that the evidence fails to prove the historicity of the Book of the Mormon, citing plausible explanations for how this discovery might not actually be what is claimed - maybe it was just a coincidence, or maybe Joseph Smith had a rare map with this place name on it. Apologists reply about how both of those scenarios are very unlikely, but the critics remain unconvinced and then point to apparent anachronisms like horses. Apologists give explanations for how it seems unlikely, but it might be plausible for there to have been horses or something like horses in Book of Mormon lands, but critics remain unconvinced. Apologists and critics, even when arguing sincerely and in good faith, are just forever dancing around the wide chasm between the “can” and the “have to”. 

This would be a good time to point to the need for a spiritual confirmation. The evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon will never meet the “have to” standard, just as evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ will never meet this standard, but Christians around the world believe from a spiritual confirmation. That’s why we invite our friends to study and pray about the Book of Mormon and The Church, rather than sending them internet links to debates about the physical evidence. Nonetheless, the physical evidence is of interest and may be used to support belief.

In sum, Kyle Beshears is telling us about the state of the evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon only that, on the physical evidence alone, we can believe but we don’t have to believe. If anything, it is amazing that after almost 200 years the physical evidence reaches the “can” threshold, and is arguably becoming more favorable (though still far from the much higher “have to” threshold). That seems unlikely if it were just made up purely out of Joseph Smith’s imagination. 

I will keep reading with interest, and I hope that Beshears will give a more meaningful assessment of the evidence for and against the historicity of the Book of Mormon, whether in a revision to this chapter or in a future chapter.