"Mature Historical Thinking." Who was Rappleye's audience?

[_Lemmie]

From the FairMormon 8.2017 conference, this following transcript is now available:

Neal Rappleye, “Put Away Childish Things”: Learning to Read the Book of Mormon Using Mature Historical Thought

https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/a ... ranscripts

I was curious how Rappleye would approach this idea of "mature thinking," so when the transcript came out on FairMormon I took a look.

Writing in the late 1990s, Wineburg felt, “The odds of achieving mature historical understanding are stacked against us in a world in which Disney and MTV call the shots.”5 Today, the world of Disney and MTV has given way to the world of Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, and Reddit—platforms which foster shallow thinking and make mature historical thought that much more of an uphill battle.

This seemed incongruous. Aren't we talking about historians and research? What researcher relies on Snapchat? Who is Rappleye talking about? I looked up Rappleye's Wineburg source, and found this review:

Sam Wineburg. Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001. Miriam E. Wells

Sam Wineburg’s Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts is unusual reading for those immersed in a rather specific type of academic writing within the discipline of history. However, Wineburg’s points are of use not only to secondary educators and psychologists, but also to professional academic historians, who are in fact also educators.

http://people.umass.edu/mewells/Wineburg.pdf

That's making more sense. Wineburg is talking about students, not historians. From the same link:

...case studies that are intended to illuminate why a professional historian can read and interpret unfamiliar historical data better than an average student. To explore this, he delves into two areas: the disconnect between secondary educational methods and university‐level historical education; and the set of preconceptions among children and young adults that make a certain kind of collective historical knowledge very difficult to dislodge.

More specifically, Rappleye's source is talking about the difference between how children and high-school students view evidence, versus those with a "university-level" education.

So, where exactly are these children that Rappleye thinks are not properly considering his Book of Mormon "evidence"?

[Guest]

Rappeleye:

From this example, it is clear that genuine historical documents are not always supported by the archaeological record. This exposes the weakness of arguments predicated on the idea that if there is no archaeological evidence for something mentioned in the Book of Mormon, then the book must be false. Such arguments rest on what I would consider a misunderstanding of both archaeology and written history, and how the two relate to each other. Such misunderstandings come naturally, based on intuitive assumptions, but can be overcome by developing what historian and psychologist Sam Wineburg calls mature historical understanding.

His target audience is any member that is having doubts about the historicity of the Book of Mormon.

But he's being weasly.
"...that if there is no archaeological evidence for something mentioned in the Book of Mormon, then the book must be false." is, ironically, a very childish and deliberately narrow way to frame the issue the Book of Mormon faces with regards to archeology, biology, anthropology, anachronisms, DNA etc etc etc.

[_Kishkumen]

My mature historical thinking cap has long told me that historical accuracy has not traditionally been the measure of a sacred text's value.

[_Lemmie]

My mature historical thinking cap has long told me that historical accuracy has not traditionally been the measure of a sacred text's value.

That's the direction I initially thought his "mature thinking" concept would be going, something like finding value without requiring historic proof, but this direction of assuming people don't understand and believe because they literally think like children really seems to underestimate his audience's background.

[_Gadianton]

That is incredibly strange. I think Rappleye should at once go out and find a serious non-lds historian who fits Wineburg's description of a professional, and ask if the lack of archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon counts against it as genuine history.

I predict zero no's, a handful of yes's, and a majority who think it's not the fad to tread of faith and evade the question but are secretly thinking "yes".

You know, it's funny to think about how many famous intellectuals would be shocked to learn they are unwitting supporters of Mopologetics.

[_Dr Exiled]

I find it to be another ad hominem. Only the sophisticated can see how true Mormonism is with its i-rock revelations and denial of financial disclosure, etc., etc. All others are obviously idiots.

[_grindael]

Nice analysis Lemmie.

[_Lemmie]

Nice analysis Lemmie.

Thank you, grindael!

[_deacon blues]

Wish I could have been there. I'd like to ask Rappleye how he views the differences in the Jerusalem of 2nd Kings 24 and the Jerusalem of 1st Nephi 1.

[_DoubtingThomas]

So, where exactly are these children that Rappleye thinks are not properly considering his Book of Mormon "evidence"?

FairMormon expert Dr. Jeff Meldrum says the same thing about Bigfoot "evidence"