Mike Thomas recently wrote the following on the topic of the chapter headings in the LDS Scriptures:
I have argued elsewhere that Mike Thomas lacks intellectual integrity; it appears I was mistaken--he lacks intellectual capacity.
Here is what Bruce McConkie himself wrote on the nature of the chapter headings to the LDS Scriptures:
Yet another example deception by Mike Thomas.
Furthermore, the article fails miserably in honestly dealing with the scholarly evidence in favour of the Book of Mormon. I would recommend one pursue volumes such as Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon and Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited (as well as the other books the Maxwell Institute have now made available online), as well as pursue the Mormon Interpreter journal. The most scholarly volume in support of Book of Mormon historicity would be Traditions of the Fathers: The Book of Mormon as History (Greg Kofford, 2015) by LDS Mesoamericanist Brant Gardner.
Additionally, Jeff Lindsay has a good page summarising some of the evidence for the antiquity and authenticity of the Book of Mormon instead of the hatchet job Thomas provides.
Oh, the argument goes, but the chapter headings are not part of the original Book of Mormon. Like the introduction, they were added latterly by Bruce R McConkie. Of course, anyone who knows Mormonism will know that McConkie is the favourite whipping boy when it comes to Mormon doctrinal controversies.'Oh, brother McConkie wrote it. weeaall...' And so he is dismissed. (source)
I have argued elsewhere that Mike Thomas lacks intellectual integrity; it appears I was mistaken--he lacks intellectual capacity.
Here is what Bruce McConkie himself wrote on the nature of the chapter headings to the LDS Scriptures:
[As for the] Joseph Smith Translation items, the chapter headings, Topical Guide, Bible Dictionary, footnotes, the Gazeteer, and the maps. None of these are perfect; they do not of themselves determine doctrine; there have been and undoubtedly now are mistakes in them. Cross-references, for instance, do not establish and never were intended to prove that parallel passages so much as pertain to the same subject. They are aids and helps only. (Mark McConkie, ed. Doctrines of the Restoration: Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1989], 289-90 emphasis added)
What is
rather interesting is that McConkie’s own son, Joseph Fielding McConkie, who
himself was rather conservative, did not view the footnotes and chapter
headings as infallible. In a commentary he co-authored with Robert Millet, he
wrote the following about Alma 11:4-19 and the Nephite monetary system, the
chapter heading of the time errantly read Nephite
Coinage:
These verses seem to describe not a group of
Nephite coins but rather a system of weights and measures by which to establish
various degrees of monetary worth. (Joseph Fielding McConkie and Robert L.
Millet, Doctrinal Commentary on the Book
of Mormon, volume 3: Alma Through Helaman [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book,
2007], 73)
Furthermore, the article fails miserably in honestly dealing with the scholarly evidence in favour of the Book of Mormon. I would recommend one pursue volumes such as Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon and Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited (as well as the other books the Maxwell Institute have now made available online), as well as pursue the Mormon Interpreter journal. The most scholarly volume in support of Book of Mormon historicity would be Traditions of the Fathers: The Book of Mormon as History (Greg Kofford, 2015) by LDS Mesoamericanist Brant Gardner.
Additionally, Jeff Lindsay has a good page summarising some of the evidence for the antiquity and authenticity of the Book of Mormon instead of the hatchet job Thomas provides.
