Look what I just stumbled across on Youtube. The public affairs office for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has their own Youtube channel. I first noticed the title of the video and then noticed that it is from the LDS Church itself. Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints addresses the question of whether there is scientific proof of The Book of Mormon. Although this is a short two minute video, this has got to be the longest “No” answer I’ve ever heard. Watch the video first and then scroll down and read my comments following the video. They will not make sense unless you watch the video first.
Now think about this for a moment. If God wanted us to exercise that kind of faith, why on earth were the first century disciples allowed to see the dead body of Jesus get up and walk?
I feel hungry. Is that religious truth?
Keith writes:”Now think about this for a moment. If God wanted us to exercise that kind of faith [that we are are to base our faith on spiritual confirmation of a sacred event, rather than on hard forensic proof of a sacred event], why on earth were the first century disciples allowed to see the dead body of Jesus get up and walk?”Come on Keith, the pattern that Elder Ballard implies is just the one that you note, and I hope that you’re not really so close-minded as to miss his point (I really don’t think that you are; as per usually, I just don’t think you’re being fair to LDS belief, especially as it relates to biblical religion). As in the case with the modern witnesses to the Book of Mormon’s urtext, the Golden Plates–only a select few disciples were allowed to witness and interact with the resurrected Lord (though, as your statement I think innocently implies, none of these disciples to my knowledge witnessed the actual act of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead). Of course, we get rather intimate accounts of Jesus’ post-humous interactions in the Gospels, and a very scanty account from Paul of an apparently different manifestation (but not interaction) of the ressurrected Jesus to a much larger body of believers. Also, we have the Gnostic Christian claims that Jesus’ post-humous interaction with his apostles and select disciples involved an extensive course in esoteric teaching and ritual–to be passed on by them to seasoned disciples.In each case, the initial physical manifestation of Jesus became the crux of what later disciples were to have “faith” in. Do we really need to belabor the Pauline discourses on the key role of faith in Christian religion?Sincerely,Dale Caswell.