By the way, I am back to reading the biography which prompted this thread. I am keeping firmly in mind Blain’s reminder to not look so much for truth in terms of facts, but rather to seek increased understanding “of how some folks closer to the event[s] in time and/or space understood [them] to have occurred.”

I think staying out of the area of historical accuracy in scripture is an underrated approach to them — consciously staying out of them, that is. There is a great body of traditional history about them which is interesting to learn and note, but that traditional history should not be confused with a fact-based history. How far apart they are is hard to determine, but there it is a significant thing.

Our ward includes an Indian reservation, and about half of our members of record live there. For the past 20 years, almost none have attended meetings, but the past five years or so has seen a handful of adult converts from that area who have stayed active. A while ago, someone in the ward commented about that during a testimony meeting (I was away that day), referring to these folks as Lamanite. One of the fiestier of the bunch got up and gently pointed out that, while she appreciated the sentiments this other sister had shared, she wasn’t a Lamanite. Pacific Coastal peoples can very clearly trace their ancestry, language and culture to coastal peoples of Russia, not just in the era of the Bering land bridge, but with cultural intercourse in recorded history.

But LDS traditional history has all Indian peoples being Lamanites. I remember hearing people disputing that anybody came across the Berring land bridge when I was younger. Looking at the facts of the matter, I can’t see a reason to think that all of the people already here at the time of Columbus could be traced to a handful of Lehites that arrived 2000 years earlier. In fact, the text of the Book of Mormon gives evidence that there were other peoples already here, and I don’t just mean the (100% dead) Jaredits nor the people of Zarahemla.

But that’s getting afield and I have other stuff to do. Right now, actually.

Veritas — I didn’t want to ignore your compliment. Thank you. I’m glad that you’ve enjoyed my participation. It’s good to have you in the thread.

Blain, I can see your points about the Bible. And surely your approach of “turning to the scriptures as an exercise in reaching out toward God” is valid, and hopefully you find it productive and rewarding.

Personally, I guess I am content to take a very simplistic point of view, and not worry too much about questions of historical accuracy. I just hope I can be in tune with the Spirit enough to recognize at least some of the truths in whatever part of the scriptures I am studying at the moment. Sometimes I feel that I gain a new understanding of a particular principle; sometimes I experience an overwhelming sense that God lives and loves me; sometimes I just feel a strong assurance that the Gospel is true, and that the promises of the Lord are sure, even if I don’t understand them perfectly.

A few points of clarification — I’m not a real historian. The head of the history department at the University (the only person to give me a F at college — the only person I’ve really earned an F from) could verify that. I’m a student of history and a history hobbyist, and that’s about as far as it goes.

Also, while I love X-files, I don’t have cable, and they don’t have the DVDs at my local Hollywood, and I haven’t had the money to buy them, so I haven’t watched five episodes in the past five years. Although I can quote most seasons of Buffy (and discuss them semi-intelligently), the first 1.5 seasons of Angel and anything Firefly/Serenity. I also love the Law and Order shows, not that anybody is apt to care.

That said….

I really like the way Kristi is bringing scripture into this question, because it’s a very important thing to consider. I think we tend to view The Scriptures as things that have always been around in essentially their current form, less a little “as far as it is translated correctly” here and there to give us room to disagree with anything we take a mind to. But we tend to take them at a very face value — what they say is said in such a way that we assume that there was a reporter watching the events and recording what was seen in the first place. But there wasn’t. Most of the stories in scripture spent at least a portion of time being passed around in oral tradition — written language wasn’t even developed for some of the story, let alone wide-spread literacy sufficient that written texts could have had much impact. What we call The Bible was not compiled as a unit as it went along — nobody writing any of the texts thought they were writing in The Bible.

So taking the whole text at face value is at best problematic. Thus, the question of what truth we look to scripture to provide for us, and the other question of how we are to understand that truth is very important for us to consider. For me, at this point in my life, I turn to scriptures less to find an understanding of the events described than I do simply as an exercise in reaching out toward God. I don’t begin to understand how to reconcile the history it describes with the evidence we have of ancient events. I listen to the stories (reading scripture tends to get me caught up in little intellectual spirals as questions that spawn other questions result from setting my eyes upon the page, so I listen to them on my mp3 player) and I let my mind listen in and wander and I go interesting places in that process. Sometimes I listen very closely, and, other times, I’m lost in thought.

Anyhow, I’m tired and I’ve forgotten what I wanted to say about those things.

Lawrence is interesting, in part, because what we know of him doesn’t make a lot of sense. He was brilliant in bringing the principles of guerrilla war to play against a major world power, something studied and followed by Mao, and it clearly made an impression on folks like Osama bin Laden. For all of my reading on him, I think the paper I produced mentioned him in passing in one paragraph — militarily, he was a major player in that region, but he was not diplomatically significant to the outcome of the situation. WWI did a lot more destroying than it did building, and that was at least as true in the Arab lands as it was anywhere else.

Once again, if we are looking for truth that will enrich our lives, it doesn’t really matter if all the details in the scriptures are “correct.” The Spirit can enable us to find gems of wisdom, and see how to apply what we read to our lives, even if the translation has been garbled.

It seems to me that part of the “veil” we experience during our mortal probation is that God doesn’t clarify every misunderstanding, or immediately correct every mistake made by his servants. It is intended that we learn through experience, and that means bumbling along as we “see through a glass darkly.” And along the way we hope to learn humility, forgiveness, and charity, among other things. The longer I live, the more I am coming to appreciate the brilliance and rightness of the great plan of happiness set out for us in mortality, and the joy we can experience with our brothers and sisters as we help each other make our way back home.

Well, I’m so pleased to know that my enjoyment of the Great Ones (Lewis, Tolkien, Rowing) and my guilty-pleasure Sci-Fi interests are NOT considered evidence of the decline of Western Civilization here! I wasn’t sure I would like ‘The Silmarillion” when I picked it up because it is a bunch of the background legends alluded to in “Lord of the Rings”. However, I highly recomend it, especially if you re-read the series periodically; it will really fill in the back-story. It begins with a beautiful version of the creation story for Tolkien’s world, and I like the imagery he used.

I’m so glad you are blogging, and I look forward to more of your posts!

Tracy m, we would enjoy your sharing the names of some of the books that really impressed you this way.

Quick trivia…who was the actor who played the vampire sheriff? He was an unknown then, but is hugely popular now (as happened with SOOO many actors who starred in X-files monster of the week episodes -Seth Green, Jack Black, Giovanni Ribisi….man I think Im going to have to watch all 9 seasons again…)