Daniel O. McClellan - 03 January 2010 12:32 PM
goodgraydrab - 03 January 2010 10:35 AM
Daniel O. McClellan - 02 January 2010 04:36 AM
No, none of that’s true. First of all, his first name was Brigham, not Bringham. B. H. Roberts died as faithful as ever. Knowledge of his manuscript had been made public well before his death. What it was was a tract that would critically examine the Book of Mormon to anticipate any arguments that would come up and provide responses for them. In order to anticipate the arguments, Roberts formulated a number of criticisms of the Book of Mormon to which he then responded. He maintained all the way up to his death that none of the arguments he formulated concerned him in the least regarding his testimony. He was actually working on another book at the same time, which he considered his masterpiece. It was only published 17 years ago. See B. H. Roberts, The Truth, the Way, the Life: An Elementary Treatise on Theology (ed., John W. Welch; Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Studies, 1994). The following publications also document B. H. Robert’s faithfulness: Davis Bitton, “B. H. Roberts and Book of Mormon Scholarship,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 8/2 (1999): 60–69; Truman G. Madsen, “B. H. Roberts and the Book of Mormon,” Brigham Young University Studies 19:4 (Summer 1979): 427–445; Madsen, “B. H. Roberts after Fifty Years: Still Witnessing for the Book of Mormon,” Ensign (December 1983): 11; Daniel C. Peterson, “Yet More Abuse of B. H. Roberts (Review of The Disappointment of B. H. Roberts: Five Questions That Forced a Mormon General Authority to Abandon the Book of Mormon),” FARMS Review of Books 9/1 (1997): 69–86; John W. Welch, “B. H. Roberts: Seeker After Truth,” Ensign (March 1986): 56.
And from the information I provided, your answer is disingenuous, misleading, slanted, biased and not totally true. I noticed you didn’t respond.
What comment of mine are you trying to address? If it’s the above, I didn’t see anything from you that addressed my comments. If it’s the fact that you simply linked to a Wikipedia article indiscriminately, yes, it has been discussed. Please pay better attention.
Like I said, you’re just a bullshitter who, IMO, lacks credibility due to demonstrated bias. First, bringing up as questionable what I was addressing (ie, your above response to can zen’s/sheba’s post) is deflecting and disingenuous. My post was very clear. Second, you have the audacity to accuse others of the very things (eg, doesn’t address my comments/concerns, it has been discussed, pay better attention, etc) that you are the one guilty of practicing, somehow thinking, erroneously, that it makes some valid point for your support.
You state as fact that I “simply linked to a Wikipedia article indiscriminately”, when in fact I cited commentary from your Mormon sources. The reason I cited this article is because I don’t detect in it the bias and slanting of personal opinion that your answer to can zen/sheba reflects. It is in fact by one of the very same authors whom you list as supporting your answer, apparently which you misrepresented. I’ll let you figure out your misstatements and misrepresentations on this issue, in addition, the fact that many of the criticisms were from external sources, not just of his formulation, for which he could not defend. I addressed these issues in my previous comments and ones that are easily discernable in the section from Madsen’s article that I posted, but you choose to play ignorant.
Daniel O. McClellan - 02 January 2010 11:41 AM
Additionally, there was no statement ever made by him about losing faith in the Book of Mormon. Assertions to the contrary are pure and utter fiction.
B. H. Roberts’ Studies of the Book of Mormon
Introduction by Brigham D. Madsen
Roberts, B. H. Studies of the Book of Mormon (Madsen, Brigham D., ed.), University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1985, xxxi+375 pp.
Introduction, by Brigham D. Madsen [Brigham D. Madsen is professor emeritus of history at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. He received a B.A. degree from the University of Utah and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining the faculty of the University of Utah in 1965, he taught at Brigham Young University and Utah State University. His publications include North to Montana! (with Betty M. Madsen), The Lemhi: Sacajawea’s People, The Northern Shoshoni, The Bannock of Idaho, Corinne: The Gentile Capital of Utah, and Gold Rush Sojourners in Great Salt Lake City, 1849-50.]. Pp. 3-34.
[...]
During the last six years of his life is there any evidence that Roberts still retained his faith in the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, despite his critical examination of the origin of the book? The record is mixed.
[...]
Whether or not Roberts retained his belief in the Book of Mormon may never be determined. In his last conference address of April 1933 he referred to the Book of Mormon as “one of the most valuable books that has ever been preserved, even as holy scripture.”75 But in his “A Book of Mormon Study,” Roberts presents an intense and probing evaluation of the possibility that Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews furnished a partial framework for Joseph Smith’s written composition, that the Mormon prophet had the intellectual capacity and imagination necessary to conceive and write the Book of Mormon, and that internal contradictions and other defects added further evidence that it might not be of divine origin.
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