Your post on Jer 33 was very long and, maybe it is just me, but I could not understand it. Clearly, you believe that the Jer 33 point is an important one. Perhaps you would be willing to expend even more time and effort to break it down into a series of more readily accessible points.
I am willing to do that, but it would help me if you asked some specific questions. Where did my train of thought first lose you? what conclusions do I draw that don’t seem to follow? What distinctions do I make that don’t seem clear? I will help me if you point out specific parts.
Soren, as to your OP, you say that 70 A.D. is not an exact date. I have never read Talmadge. I am just a “Gospel Principles level” Mormon. As I read page 92 of the 2009 edition, the onset of the Great Apostasy was gradual, and I suspect that you agree that my reading accurately reflects the teachings of the Church.
It was never my intention to suggest that this is a huge change in Mormon teaching, only that it gives a higher degree of specificity to what the LDS Church has been saying all along. But the specificity is important. It seems to me that the apostasy in LDS teaching is both abrupt and gradual. It is abrupt in the sense that the death or translation of the last apostle was an historical event at a specific moment in time. It was gradual because the surviving priesthood holders did not die out at once and could have gone on, with diminishing power, for a little while without the Apostles. (That seems to be implied by the quote I gave above from Elder Ballard as well as other LDS literature.) Hence “Abrupt or gradual?” is not the right question, since it is abrupt and gradual in different respects.
The 70 date is important because it shows that in the mind of the person who made that timeline, with approval by some General Authority or other, the abrupt part of the apostasy occurred at a very early time – the earliest date they could plausibly claim. Of course they don’t mean 70 as a literal date, but that does not make it insignificant. I suspect, but cannot prove, that they chose 70 because, as many Mormons argue, they think the “end of the age” in Matt 20:28 refers only to the “Apostolic age” ending with the destruction of the Temple and not the end of the world.
But there is also something else, and I will explain its relevance in a moment. A point I have often made on this forum, which I assumed most readers would be aware of, is that I am sometimes really amazed by just how much of Mormon apologetics consists in impeaching historical sources. We often hear arguments like, “Well, the seven people who recorded Joseph’s words that day left some discrepancies in their accounts, so we can’t be sure Joseph ever even said that,” or “Well, that apostle or prophet did not have a final review over the printed version of that sermon,” or, “Well, those interviews were given by witnesses years after the events took place, so we don’t know if they remembered it right.” One of the reasons that it has become second nature to me to write long posts for Mormons is that I am often forced to do so simply to document historical facts that they are denying, facts that, from a simple academic standpoint, ought not even be controversial. I was struck by this fact very dramatically just last week, when I read a recent book of LDS apologetics called
Shaken Faith Syndrome, in which Mike Ash, one of the masterminds of FAIR Apologetics, gives a survey of some of the more common evidential arguments for and against Mormonism. In reading the second half of the book I found myself often, and eventually very deeply, disturbed by just how many of his replies to objections, in rapid succession, consisted in denying the authenticity of historical witnesses. I could scarcely get past five pages without hitting a fresh example. I understand that questioning sources is part of the discipline of historiography. For instance, I can easily see why someone could doubt the accounts of Smith’s translation of the Kinderhook plates. Yet there is a point where such rational inquiry ceases to be rational and lapses into outright skepticism. Much of Mormon apologetics depends on making that lapse, and doing it early on.
One reason the early “dating” of the Great Apostasy matters is because it fits right in with the general impeachment of history that defending Mormonism requires. Last but not least among the historically skeptical arguments Mormons often make is, “Well, those first century sources that teach Catholic sacramental theology, affirm apostolic succession, interpret Christ as Word in ways that agree with later Trinitarian thought, etc. might have been written by apostates; in fact, all of them certainly were.” It may be that not all Mormons would go with a first century apostasy, but General Authorities tend in that direction historically. There was a long period early in the 20th century when it was common for LDS leaders to openly refer to the early Christian writers, as “The Apostate Fathers” in parody of the usual title "Apostolic Fathers.
I must say that I was surprised by the depth and accuracy of your knowledge of the faith of the Latter-day Saints and I wonder how you acquired it.
I learned Mormonism by marrying into a predominantly Mormon family (although my wife is Catholic). Also I am a PhD student in Catholic theology, and I have worked in learning the disciplines of fair theological discourse. Studying other religions for the sake of understanding is a basic part of my discipline, although my reasons for focusing on Mormonism in particular are entirely personal.
