A different idea of history What I say here about the Old Testament will be brief, so brief in fact as to be a caricature. Those who are specialists in biblical studies, are likely to find this woefully inadequate. I plead mea culpa in advance. In spite of that, I think this will do as a brief introduction for lay people like myself. Latter-day Saints believe that, for the most part, the scriptures are literal histories of different groups of God’s people. The word “literal” means “by the letter.” So, when we say that the scriptures are literally true, we mean that they are true in the way described by the letters and words used to write them. In other words, a literally true text means what it says. However, the question remains what we mean by the word “true” when we say that something is literally true. Most of the time “What does ‘true’ mean?” is a question we leave for those with too much time on their hands. Even if we can’t answer the question, we know well enough what “true” means, and we can use the word without difficulty. But when we talk about history, the meaning of the word “true” becomes important. Depending on what we mean by the word, the claim that the scriptures are literally true can mean different things to different people. Since about 1500, the assumption has been that a person could…
