K-TALK
LDS Apologist Van Hale Denies
Book of Mormon Historicity
Van Hale hosts his own Salt Lake area radio program called "Mormon Miscellaneous"
On September 18th, 2005 Mr. Hale again said publicly that the Book of
Mormon is not history about real people, and that Jesus did not in fact
visit the New World.
Transcript
of Van Hale's Broadcast Exchange with Caller:
This is a transcript
of the Van Hale interview of one caller broadcast on K-TALK Radio, September
18th, 2005.
Van Hale (VH): We’re
going to go back to another caller. You’re on the air.
Caller (C): Hello?
VH: Yes. Go right ahead.
C: Hi. This is a long distance
call from South California.
VH: Southern California?
Good!
C: Yeah. So, um, I was listening
to your show and just had a comment about the Book of Mormon.
VH: OK, good.
C: So, I don’t know
this all works. Do you put me on air or...?
VH: You’re on the air
right now. Uh uh, mmm hmmm.
C: Oh, I’m on the air
right now.
VH: Mmmh hmmm. Go right ahead.
C: Well, I just had a question
about your belief in the Book of Mormon. As far as my understanding
is, you believe the Book of Mormon…
VH: Yes.
C: …was just a book
that God gave us to help teach us doctrine and principles but it wasn’t
an actual event, it didn’t actually happen. Is that correct?
VH: Well, what I would, the
way I would describe the Book of Mormon is that it’s a complex
literary device written to persuade rather than a history written to
inform, so that’s my thinking, is that the Book of Mormon, the
value of the Book of the Mormon, is that it has been written to persuade
people and it’s a book that was very effective. It dealt, it spoke
to people in the 19th Century America and it’s still speaking
to people today in a rather quite different context and around the world
so it’s a book that’s really quite remarkable in what it’s
been able to do.
C: You believe it’s
true then? And you believe it’s the word of God?
VH: I believe it’s
an inspired, authentic book of scripture that was the cooperative effort
between, of, of God and Joseph Smith.
C: OK. Well, as far as, as
far as everything that happened in the Book of Mormon actually being
a true account, like the Lamanites and Nephites and Captain Moroni and
the Savior coming to the Americas, you don’t exactly believe that
those events took place?
VH: I’m not
persuaded that the Book of Mormon is a translation of an ancient history.
C: OK. Can I ask you why
not?
VH: Uh, well, it’s,
it’s complicated. It’s the result of many years of study
and thought and reading various arguments for and against the Book of
Mormon but the thing that has impressed me – I think a real turning
point in my thinking about the Book of Mormon was a number of years
ago, a couple of decades ago, the question that I was pursuing at the
time was what supernatural events have we proven by science and history?
And as far as I am concerned, nothing that is claimed to be supernatural,
no supernatural event, the parting of the Red Sea, the miracles of Jesus,
the resurrection of Jesus, all of these things that are central in the
Judeo-Christian faith, none of these things have been proven by history
or science.
And so, my, my thinking is
I have turned that in the direction of the Book of Mormon – is
that if we could prove that the Book of Mormon is a translation of an
ancient history we would for the first time in the history of the human
race have demonstrated something, we would have demonstrated proof that
somebody who claimed to be a prophet was, in fact, a prophet, because
Joseph Smith in 1829/1830 would have, there was no, there was absolutely
no human way, no human means for anyone to write an accurate history
of the people in the Ancient Americas. If we could demonstrate that
that was an accurate history of the ancient Americas, what possible
conclusion could we come to other than this that could not have been
done by natural means would have had to have been done by supernatural
means.
And so it was back about
25 years ago or so that I kind of gave up my whole idea that there was
any merit in trying to prove the supernatural since we ca…there
are people who disagree with me, there are people who would say, well
if you go to the Book of Isaiah and you read in there that there was
going to be someone come and we find Jesus fulfilling those prophecies
in a remarkable fashion, there are people who say, well see that proves
that the author of Isaiah had knowledge beyond that of a, of a human,
but if you go back and read the prophecies and things of that nature,
it’s just not at all persuasive that you can demonstrate that
somebody knew in detail in advance something that happens hundreds of
years later. So I’m just simply saying there is not a clear-cut
example that historians and scientists in general would say, yes we
can see that there is proof that this claim to supernatural event did,
in fact, happen and here’s the proof.
So, you know, that was the
turning point for me in my thinking on the Book of Mormon. I changed
my expectation in regards to it and no longer expected that we would
ever demonstrate that it was a translation of an ancient history and
then, as I have pondered it and looked at the various arguments on the
Book of Mormon, I have become convinced that there is not persuasive,
persuasive evidence or argument that it is a translation of an ancient
history but what is, in fact, very impressive to me is the impact it
has made on me personally and the impact on millions of others who are
reading it without any real concern whether it is history or not. They
are reading it for the message and it’s speaking to them and it’s
people around the world.
C: Yeah, reading it for the
principles.
VH: Yes.
C: Yeah. Well, I just have
another question real quick.
VH: Sure.
C: So you kind of have the
same belief about the Bible then, right? As far as it’s the word
of God and it teaches principles but events that it talks about never
actually really happened. Is that right?
VH: No, I wouldn’t
go that far. It’s uh, it’s uh, a, there are a number of
things in the Bible, for example, Genesis is a good example. The account
of the creation and the account of the flood and the accounts of a number
of other things in Genesis, I do not believe are matters of history.
I think they’re part of ancient myth that was used back then to
do I think what the Book of Mormon, well, in fact, I don’t know
that I even want to draw that close of a parallel because it was a different
situation but in the ancient world they had the question, well, what
is, we look at what exists, how did it come to exist? Who’s responsible
for this? And the answer to that question was God is responsible and
they resorted to some ancient thoughts and myths that were incorporated
into the account of creation in Genesis and the account of the flood
and so forth, the uh, the account of the Tower of Babel and just a number
of things in the Book of Genesis are not what I would consider historical
fact but you have things like Jesus being born in Bethlehem and teaching
in Jerusalem. Those are actual places that did exist and I believe that
those are historical events. You have the Israelites escaping from Egypt
and I believe that’s an event that did happen. So there is a mixture
in the Bible of things that I would consider historical and things that
I would not. The Book of Jonah – I consider that to be an ancient
story to present an idea that has nothing to do with an actual person
named Jonah who was swallowed by a fish or a sea monster or something
like that.
C: Yeah. OK. Well um, do
you believe the Savior was basically crucified and resurrected?
VH: Yes, I do.
C: Over in the ancient world.
VH: Yes, I do.
C: And he resurrected three
days later and appeared to his prophets and apostles. Is that correct?
VH: Yes, I believe that.
It’s something that is beyond any way of proof but it’s
a matter of faith.
C: Yeah, exactly. Like, we
don’t have any proof of it but you believe it’s true.
VH: Yes.
C: Right?
VH: Yes, I do.
C: And as far as
the Savior appearing to the people in America, you just don’t
believe that actually happened. It was just a written story I guess.
VH: Well, it’s…
Yes. Uh, the, the situation that I see in the Book of Mormon,
if you want to talk in a broad way, yes. The Book of Mormon is a history.
There were ancient people, there were people living on the Americas.
They came from somewhere. They had religious beliefs. They had wars.
They had, they built buildings. They, some of them were quite advanced,
surprisingly advanced, as we discover from some of their architecture
and so forth and so in a broad sense you could say yes. The Book of
Mormon is a history. But when you start talking about detail, I am not
persuaded that the detail in the Book of Mormon is detail pertaining
to people that anciently lived on the Americas.
C: OK.
VH: So I’m, my position
is let’s look to the Book of Mormon for the purpose that it was
written and that purpose was not to inform people of history. It was
written to persuade people. It was written and it’s been very
persuasive for many millions.
C: Yeah. That’s important.
OK. So, when uh, when maybe you’re just talking to somebody who
isn’t familiar with the Book of Mormon you don’t really
go into the fact that it’s an actual, you know an actual book
that talks about things that actually happened. You just talk about
how you know, God’s given this book to teach us principles, not
something that actually happened?
VH: Well, well, I think,
I think that the Book of Mormon is best read as a history. That’s,
that’s the format of it. It’s the story line. It’s
the way in which the message has been clothed and we’re so accustomed
in our current society, we watch all these movies and one of the great
things that the movie industry is trying to do is they’re trying
to create a movie in such a way that it draws you in so that you’re
not sitting there thinking all the time well, this is just a movie,
it’s a story, it’s this, that or the other. You’re
drawn in and we like that, we’re interested in that, we appreciate
that, they give people Academy Awards for that. We pay millions, hundreds
of millions of dollars to go see movies where they’ve done a really
good job of creating something that pulls us in and speaks to us in
some way or another. Of course, most of the time, movies are for entertainment
rather than, but that’s not the point, it’s not the purpose
for which they’re doing it, it’s the fact that we do like
and appreciate this whole idea of doing something and forgetting how
we’re not concerned with how, in, like, the movie “Jaws”,
whether this shark is real or not. They try to make it seem very real.
(Laughs) It scared a lot of people because the, they were drawn into
it. It was done in a very effective manner and it seemed real, it felt
real, and that’s the best way to go see a movie like this is to
go in and allow yourself to be drawn into it.
I would say the same thing
is true of the Book of Mormon.
C: OK.
VH: And I would encourage
anyone who’s reading it to just read it and enjoy it for what
you’re reading and see what messages there are in there, what
stories may be powerful in some way in affecting you and speaking to
you and it’s, last year it was the subject of the Gospel Doctrine
class and I read the Book of Mormon last year in conjunction with the
Gospel Doctrine class, doing it in a different way than I have been
doing the last several decades, of analyzing and dissecting it and looking
at different things. I was just reading (cough break) but I was just
very intrigued and impressed with all of the insights that people were
contributing in the Gospel Doctrine class as they were reading the Book
of Mormon and passages were hitting them a certain way and they were
speaking to their current situation in dealing with their family or
in their business or in just hundreds of different ways and it’s
just a remarkable book that I believe has God as its ultimate origin
and while saying that, I believe that Joseph Smith had a very significant
involvement in the Book of Mormon in providing the language and I don’t
know how to sort it out. I can’t in my, over the years that I’ve
thought about it, I am at a loss as to how to sort out what I would
say came from God and what came from Joseph Smith but I do believe that
it was a project that they were both involved in.
C: Um, real quick, one more
question. How do you really explain the fact that Joseph Smith obtained
gold plates that I guess had an ancient record on them but, I mean,
was that just a record that God wrote there and then Joseph Smith just
happened to go to the same hill where the angel Moroni or the prophet
Moroni, who buried them there in the hill, Joseph Smith just happened
to go to that same hill where these plates were found that God supposedly
wrote as a story? Or could it actually just, you know, the fact remain
that it was an actual true event and this stuff actually took place
and, you know, so I don’t know, what’s your opinion on that?
VH: Well, my point of view
regarding the plates is that the plates did exist, that they were delivered
to Joseph Smith by an angel and they were shown to witnesses of the
Book of Mormon and that gave them something tangible to testify about,
that they had seen the plates and handled them but I don’t
think that Joseph Smith was, that the Book of Mormon relates to anything
that was on the plates. It was, I don’t know what word to use
to, without, without it sounding crude, but uh, the only word I can
think of is the idea of a prop. You know, it’s something,
it was something that Joseph Smith had that would be hard to explain
where he got this from and these people who were close to him and had
participated in the production of the Book of Mormon were, wanted something,
they needed something, to bolster their, their uh, testimony of the
whole thing and they were shown the golden plates. They felt them, they
handled them and they were told by an angel of God that the Book of
Mormon is, is true. And, by true, for me, that means, that does
not mean history. It means, true means something far more than
just history.
C: Oh yeah. I, it teaches
great principles and kind of explains things maybe the Bible isn’t
very clear, but I’m just, it completely makes sense that the Book
of Mormon, you know, was actually, that Joseph Smith actually translated
the Book of Mormon through golden plates and the Urim and Thummin and
the ancient artefacts that other prophets had and I don’t know,
so, I guess I’m a little confused on why you just, you don’t
believe it actually happened, even though that’s probably not
very important. That’s probably not really the purpose of the
Book of Mormon. It just makes sense that you know, the Savior actually
did come to the Americas, just like he appeared to the people over in
Israel. It makes sense that he would do the same thing over here.
VH: Well, and I have, as
I think demonstrated over the last 15 years or so that I have been talking
about this on the radio, I really don’t have any interest in trying
to persuade anyone to see things my way at all, other than the only
thing I would try and persuade people to at least consider is that the
Book of Mormon’s history is remarkable. It is, you can set aside
the whole historicity question and look at the history. The fact that
it has been distributed now to in excess of 78 million people and quite
a few million people have been positively affected. They’ve changed
their lives. They live their lives differently because of the Book of
Mormon and the church traces its origin back to the Book of Mormon and
it’s remarkable. It doesn’t, I’m not claiming that
it’s something as remarkable as proof but I’m saying that
it is something that I find myself very persuasive, that you go back
and look at the origin of the Book of Mormon, which was just very unlikely
that an uneducated person that had never written anything in his life,
that he would produce a 600 page book in a very short length of time
and this book would be published in a run of 5000 initially and that
run was gone in several years and it now more than 78 million copies
have been printed and circulated, distributed, and the church that I
belong to traces its origin back to the Book of Mormon and I think the
church is very, very impressive. People all over the world who aren’t
looking at the LDS Church with some kind of extreme anti-Mormon bias
are looking at what we’re doing and what we stand for and are
very impressed with it and I think it traces all back to the Book of
Mormon. If it hadn’t been for the Book of Mormon, what we see
today I believe would not exist.
But insofar as questioning
or doubting the historicity of the Book of Mormon, I don’t care
anything at all about that. I have five daughters and they all believe
the Book of Mormon is a translation of an ancient history. They read
it that way and I wouldn’t for one minute try to dissuade them
from thinking that way but I have my own point of view and I’ve
been bold enough to express it and answer questions that people bring
to me about it but, you know, believe, I mean, hold onto what you believe
in regards to the Book of Mormon. If I said anything that in any way
would help you believe in the Book of Mormon in a little different way
then that’s, I have no objection to that but I’m really
not trying to draw anybody off to believe anything like I believe or
even similar, so…
C: OK, well, sounds good.
I just thought I’d bother you with that question.
VH: No, I enjoyed it. I appreciate
your call and your questions. Thank you very much.
C: All right. Thank you.
View
Official Church Statements on the Historicity of the Book of Mormon
Mormon
Van Hale