The separation between
existential and spiritual judgments and the change in presuppositions about the
nature of scripture have been exemplified in the work and lives of modern
Jewish and Christian students of the Bible. Many of these scholars have come to
conclusions about the biblical text very similar in tenor to those offered in
this paper about the Book of Mormon. (David P. Wright, “’In Plain Terms that We
May Understand’: Joseph Smith’s Transformation of Hebrews in Alma 12-13,” in New
Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology, ed.
Brent Lee Metcalfe [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993], 212)
This, by the way, shows that the
conclusions made here about the Book of Mormon cannot be used to funnel Mormons
into fundamentalist Christianity. It is the height of methodological
inconsistency to think that critical method of study can be applied to the Book
of Mormon and that its results can be accepted while leaving the Bible exempted
from critical study. (Ibid., 212 n. 105)
The call to return to mainstream
Christianity by conservative Christians is unrealistic since the same sorts of
critical observations made about the BoM are applicable to the Old and New
Testaments. (David P. Wright, “Isaiah in the Book of Mormon: Or Joseph Smith in
Isaiah,” in American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon, ed. Dan
Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002], 234 n.
169)
