This post contains links to a few books that have helped me understand the context and content of the scriptures. As an Amazon Affiliate, I do earn a small commission from qualifying purchases (at no extra cost to you). Click here to see all of my favorite books on Amazon.
To see Reid Bankhead’s quote about the meaning of the word Anti-Christ, go here.
An overview of Alma versus Korihor in Alma 30 is available here along with Austin Farrar’s quote.
Martin Rees’ book Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe is available here.
In this post about the Anthropic Principle you can read about rational faith in God and Martin Rees’ book Just Six Numbers.
Go here for for about Evidentiary Equilibrium.
For Joseph Fielding’s quote on the importance of the impressions of the Holy Ghost, go here.
Jerry Fisher, Centrrville, UT.
Hi, Mike and Brice. Since you get into my kind of weeds, I’m finally inspired to pose a question on the possible precociousness of Korihor’s philosophy in Alma 30. Can you help me trace the origin of the philosophical ideas Korihor is arguing here? Is it primarily a variation of Nehorism? Could it go back to the Jaredites or even be part of Satan’s premortal overreach?
I find it fascinating that Marx and Charles Darwin’s best known works both were presented in 1859, well after 1830. Marx may have wanted to dedicate his book to Darwin. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 may have been a catalyst for totalitarian governments, especially Nazism, in the 20th Century.
Today, Marxism is taught in public schools.
Was Korihor’s thesis ahead of its time in 1830?
Jerry this is an excellent research question. From my reading of the religious views of the ancients, it seems to me that everyone spoke of the gods as part of their worldview, meaning that they existed and took an active part in the created order. This debate on whether or not they were real (I believe) really started up back during the time of the Pre-Socratic philosophers of the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. These dudes began to explore natural explanations for phenomena that were traditionally attributed to the divine, marking the beginning of a more critical approach to religious beliefs. For example, Xenophanes (570-478 BCE) is one of the earliest known critics of traditional Greek religion. He challenged the anthropomorphic depictions of the gods, arguing that if animals could depict gods, they would resemble animals. He proposed a more abstract concept of a singular, supreme deity. He is known for having famously said, “If horses or oxen or lions had hands and could draw and create works of art as men do, horses would draw their gods in the form of horses, and oxen in the form of oxen, and lions in the form of lions.”
Perhaps these types of ideas spread throughout other areas. I have so many questions. One of them is, “were there any Greeks that perhaps made it to the Americas by the time period of 3rd Nephi?” The reason I ask this, is because we have a man named Timothy (a Greek name!) in 3rd Nephi (3 Nephi 19.4). Stephen Ricks tackles this issue here. To me, this demonstrates that ideas questioning the gods could have spread throughout the world by the time period of Korihor. It is possible. But since I wasn’t there, I can only guess. We don’t know what we don’t know. I watch the news today and to me it seems that even modern people do not really know “the real” even though we live here and now. There are so many ways to see events in real time as they happen. But if I had to speculate, I would say that ideas like Xenophon’s and Anaxagoras (a great Greek thinker who was one of the first to propose a rational explanation for celestial phenomena) spread throughout the ancient world. Through the dissemination of these ideas, some began to doubt the stories of the gods that were told, but I would argue that their position would have been the minority. But once again, I do not know.
As to the thinking in 1830, there were people like Marx who did not believe in God. Many during the Enlightenment began to question the teachings of the Church. There were several deists during the Enlightenment, some of whom turned to atheism. Some names that come to mind are Voltaire, David Hume, Paul-Henri Thiry (Baron) d’Holbach, Denis Diderot, among others. So Korihor’s ideas certainly existed in the days of Joseph Smith. I am not certain how exposed Joseph was to these ideas in 1829 when the Book of Mormon was translated. I would assume Joseph had heard of these ideas, but how much he knew is something I am curious about!