Scriptural Historicity is Sacrilege

Not into religion? You are done reading this post now, see you next time.

The purpose of scripture is to help us be better people, not to teach us history and science. According to Christianity God actually visited us in the flesh, and actually had a ministry here on Earth. During that time, in spite having access to all knowledge regarding history and science, God did not preach religion and science, but instead lectured at length on how to improve our spirituality and behavior. Certainly this is also God's purpose in scriptures from other religions.

Let us take the story of the Good Samaritan for example. It has a clear and intended meaning. The point of the story is not "Jesus is a good Samaritan, we are all wounded Jews, stand by and wait for him to help you." The point of the story is also not "did you know 1% of Samaritans were God fearing people that would even help their enemies on the road? Start looking for archaeological evidence of this near where the historical Jesus had his ministry, because he spoke of this phenomenon specifically."

No, the point of the story of the Good Samaritan has little information on it about God, and even less information in it about history and science. It has to do with how we should behave; we should help people when they need it, care for our fellow humans. God wants us to be good.

The misuse of scripture is by definition sacrilege. Off the top of your head, do you know what the implications for our ideal behavior would be from the stories of Noah's flood, or Eve's Garden? Or have we been so caught up in scripture being historical evidence that God exists, that we have for generations now completely overlooked the behavioral implications of these stories?

Adam and Eve is a story about sacrificing our own pride in order to keep important relationships together. There's probably a lot of other behavior implications in there as well. Instead of debating where the location of the Garden of Eden was, or instead of arguing over how this compares to DNA evidence, we should be contemplating the implications of this story for our own behavior.

50 years ago critics of the Book of Mormon claimed there was no physical evidence that: 1) anyone from Europe or the Middle East were ancestors of the American Indians. 2) That ancient Central American cultures were not advanced enough to have the kind of warfare described in the Book of Mormon. 3) More recently DNA evidence came out demonstrating all Native Americans had no DNA that could have possibly been from outside of East Asia.

Of course each of these things have been disproved since they came out, but critics continue to move the goal posts. For example National Geographic has since wrote that Native Americans do indeed have the kind of DNA suggested by the Book of Mormon, and that Ancient Central Americans did indeed have advanced roads and walls as described in the Book of Mormon.

But all of this evidence and arguing completely distracts from the Book of Mormon's main fundamental messages about what we should do with our spirituality and behavior. The Book of Mormon itself declares that it is to be taken spiritually, not historically. In 1st Nephi 19 v. 23-24, Nephi describes his own ministry to his people:

"I did read many things unto them which were written in the books of Moses; but that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah; for I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning... I spake unto them, saying... liken them unto yourselves, that ye may have hope as well as your brethren..."

Here Nephi rejects historicity in favor of spirituality, "liken all scriptures unto us." But the Book of Mormon text declares itself insufficient to understand history. When Nephi passes the "small plates"  (that eventually grow into what we now call The Book of Mormon) on to the next prophet, that next prophet explains (in Jacob chapter 1 v. 1-4):

"Nephi gave me, Jacob, a commandment concerning the small plates, upon which these things are engraven.. that I should write upon these plates a few of the things which I considered to be most precious; that I should not touch, save it were lightly, concerning the history of this people which are called the people of Nephi... I should preserve these plates and hand them down unto my seed, from generation to generation... if there were preaching which was sacred, or revelation which was great, or prophesying, that I should engraven the heads of them upon these plates, and touch upon them as much as it were possible..."

Centuries later the prophets in The Book of Mormon elaborate on how much it is NOT a sufficient historical commentary (Helaman Chapter 3 v. 14):

 "...a hundredth part of the proceedings of this people... their wars, and contentions, and dissensions... their shipping and their building of ships, and their building of temples, and of synagogues and their sanctuaries, and their righteousness, and their wickedness, and their murders, and their robbings, and their plundering, and all manner of abominations and whoredoms, cannot be contained in this work..."

Is the Doctrine and Covenants supposed to be a complete record of early LDS Church history? Of course not. It is meant to focus on matters of spiritual and behavioral significance, far and beyond any historic or scientific truths that may or may not be contained within.

I suspect this is true of all scripture. Most scripture in most religions have more or less the same message, which is that we are God's creation, he wants us to be happy, so therefore he wants us to be nice to each other. Then scripture examines this form many perspectives in great detail with different strategies for accomplishing that goal. Focusing on scripture as historical evidence is sacrilege, because it entirely misses the point.