About three weeks ago, David Bokovoy wrote an interesting blog post on historicity in the scripture in which he argued that questions of historicity are unhelpful anachronisms that tend to miss the point of scripture: It’s important for modern readers of the Bible to recognize that biblical historians were not motivated to write their accounts out of antiquarian interest. The past was far too important a tool for these authors to simply recount what really happened. Instead, biblical authors used history as a tool to convey themes concerning the God of Israel and his relationship to his chosen people. Bokovoy’s primary target in the article was an essay written by Paul Hoskisson. The main point of Hoskisson’s article was that Mormons are correct to “intuit the strong bond that exists between our faith and historical events,” and that “everything depends upon the historicity of what Elder Bruce R. McConkie called the three pillars of eternity—the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement.” I agree strongly with Hoskisson’s general conclusion (that historicity does matter), and I find his critical analysis of those who believe historicity does not matter to be quite compelling. But when it came time to argue in favor of historicity his arguments seemed slightly circular. As an example, one of them presumed a particular view of what ordinances are and how they work. Since this is largely information that comes from scripture, the logic seemed to reduce to: we…
