I mean, I admire your optimism that historical texts will somehow shake the foundations of religious institutions. However, speaking as someone who lives in Utah, among folks who base their entire belief system on the ramblings of a 19th century scam artist and, I kid you not, magic plates left by the Ancient Egyptians in Illinois.. I think evidence counter to Judeo-Christian belief systems will change precisely nothing.
On the bright side, it will be really fascinating to those of us who like history. We might learn a thing or two from these ancient texts, so there's certainly a silver lining.
Anyway, Christian followers already expect science to bring faith into question.
I'm one such follower who believes science and faith can describe the same truth, as long as the science and faith are both accurate. Both are systems of experimentation, trial and error. There is much we can learn from historical records!
Mormons believe that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon from golden plates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_plates) that he found near his home in upstate New York, which might be what OP's referring to.
I figured; it's just an important detail that "someone who lives in Utah" would know if they took the slightest bit of time getting to know or understand the religion that surrounds them. It follows that claims of "scam artist" and "magic plates" and "ancient Egyptians" may be dubious, as the person making the claim doesn't actually know the most basic story of the faith.
i.e. the plates were written in a language reformed from original Egyptian -- which makes sense, as ancient Hebrews would sometimes write in Egyptian characters when enscribing was difficult (metal plates!) because the Egyptian script was more concise. It became reformed after a thousand years on the other side of the world, far removed from original Egyptian land and culture. No Egyptians were ever involved with burying the plates. That would have been a native American, technically a Jew, whose ancestors came over from Jerusalem / ancient Israel.
I guess anyone could say anything they want about them, but those who actually saw and handled the plates never claimed they were "magic" as far as I can tell.
Then as for scam artist -- I suppose that is a matter of personal judgment, since no fair trial ever occurred or made a guilty verdict before he was murdered.
> Then as for scam artist -- I suppose that is a matter of personal judgment, since no fair trial ever occurred or made a guilty verdict before he was murdered.
It's mildly impressive that in the same sentence where you mention there was no guilty verdict "for scam artist", you say Joseph Smith was "murdered", a thing for which there was also no guilty verdict: the five men indicted for the killings were acquitted.
All while running for President of the United States, and just before being lynched by an angry mob?
And with no convictions for those accused?
Truly an overachiever.
P.S. One of the best quotes I've ever seen - Missouri Gov. Boggs had an attempted assassination, and during the trial of the most likely suspect - Smith associate Porter Rockwell - Rockwell successfully defended himself with, among other things, (per wikipedia) his reputation as a deadly gunman and his statement that he "never shot at anybody, if I shoot they get shot!... He's still alive, ain't he?".
> as ancient Hebrews would sometimes write in Egyptian characters when enscribing was difficult (metal plates!) because the Egyptian script was more concise.
That’s almost complete nonsense. You give me a chisel and I’ll carve Hebrew in Aramaic square script or paleo-Hebrew much faster than hieroglyphs. A angular hieratic might be a draw, but that’d also be needlessly complicated. The small part that’s not nonsense: some early Semitic texts are written in a simplified form of hieroglyphs that would later evolve into the alphabets we use today, including the usual scripts used to write Hebrew. But those writings weren’t any more concise by using simplified hieroglyphs verses another script.
This Mormon Sunday-school myth is born out of a misunderstanding of how Egyptian hieroglyphs work that impeded their decipherment from late antiquity until the early 1800’s. Namely, that hieroglyphs were some deep allegorical language where a single symbol could be emblematic of entire sentences or more. Joseph Smith apparently believed this, as evidenced by his attempts to translate Egyptian funerary texts as “The Book of Abraham.” We have interlinear manuscripts showing him translating entire sentences and paragraphs from single symbols.
This misunderstanding is further reflected in 1 Nephi 1:2, “I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians.” There are ways to read that line that don’t implicate the widespread misunderstanding of how hieroglyphs work, but the misunderstanding is the one that was generally held at the time the Book of Mormon was published and continuing to today.
Yes, that is where a temple was burned by arsonists and where the leader lived when he was murdered. But I don't think any church is claiming that "magic plates" where left there by Egyptians.
(I grew up near there and have visited the town many times.)
And the history of why the temple got burned was basically ‘because he was stealing all the women’. According to the angry mob that burned it. If I remember correctly.
On the bright side, it will be really fascinating to those of us who like history. We might learn a thing or two from these ancient texts, so there's certainly a silver lining.