Talk:Samuel the Lamanite

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is part of Latter Day Saint movement WikiProject, an attempt to provide comprehensive and detailed information about the Latter Day Saint movement and Mormonism on Wikipedia. To participate in the project, edit this article, visit the List of articles about the Latter Day Saint movement, the project page, and/or join the discussion. For writing guidelines about contributing to the project, you may want to read Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Latter Day Saints) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Latter Day Saints)

???

This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

[edit] POV

I've made a bunch of small changes to this article to eliminate some very pro-Mormon POV. I think the article should be clear about whom Mormons believe Samuel the Lamanite is, however it should also mention prominently that non LDS historians dispute that lamanites ever existed. I do not intend to dwell on the dubious historicity of this story, rather I think we should be clear that we are attempting to describe a doctrine that is exclusive to the Mormon faith. --Salimfadhley (talk) 22:31, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "According to the book of Mormon"

Not so long ago, I added the text "The existence of the Lamanites is not generally accepted by non-LDS historians or archaeologists." - the rationale for this is that according to non LDS historians the most significant fact about the Lamanites is that they do not exist. I think this article gives undue weight to a minority view. All we need to do to restore NPOV is mention that this is indeed a minority view, and then we can get on with the article.

There are some characters in religious scripture who almost certainly did exist (e.g. Mohammed, L Ron Hubbard) - there are others who might have existed (Jesus, Abraham, Pontius Pilate ) and some like Samuel the Lamanite for whom no independent evidence at all exists. That is why I felt that it was important to point out that the Lamanites (of whom this Samuel belonged) are almost certainly a fictional race and therefore Samuel the Lamanite is an entirely fictional character.

To me this would be like writing a biography for "Wolverine" from the X-Men without ever mentioning that the X-men are fictional characters in a comic-book.

Unless you object, I'd like to put my change back! --Salimfadhley (talk) 12:51, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

As the one who removed your edit, I object to the inclusion of such a statement. The problem with your analogy with the X-men is that this is a matter of faith. There's a difference between no independent evidence and totally fictional. Stating that "According to the Book of Mormon.." is equivalent in my opinion to a statement that Wolverine is a character in the X-Men comic-books. This also follows the pattern of how other characters in other religious text are handled. A quick scan shows that the majority of religious characters from scientifically dubious texts (such as Enos (Bible), Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared (ancestor of Noah), Enoch (ancestor of Noah)...) shows that these exist without such statements. --FyzixFighter (talk) 21:33, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt response. My initial concern is while 'according to the book of mormon' correctly reports what the book of mormon says it fails to respond to what mainstream scholars think. The Lamanites are a particularly interesting story because they are an ethinic group described exclusivly in the book of Mormon.

Compare the lamanites to the biblical Israelites. It's almost certain that there was at one time a historical group called the Israelites however much we are inclined to believe stories about individuals of this group. Clearly the historicity of a story, even one which to some is a matter of faith is relevant to Wikipedia.

Check out the article about Pontius Pilate for an example of an article about a character from religious scripture where the bulk of the interest comes from the inquiries into Mr. Pilate's historicity. Compare this to Samuel the Lamanite who according to Mormons was a historical character. I think he deserves the same treatment! Many religious texts include a mixture of historical and a-historical elements. I think that NPOV requires that we report on which elements mainstream scholars believe are historical.

Since you objected to my proposal, I shall not make any further edits. But please, lets keep talking here. --Salimfadhley (talk) 16:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)