The Protestant Bible wars were fought between fundamentalists, who initially claimed for the Bible the same "truth" that Enlightenment claimed for science, and liberals, who denied that historical "truth" could be achieved at all. In the present Book of Mormon wars the opposite seems to be true: the liberal camp appears deeply rooted in the Enlightenment paradigm, while the orthodox (but not fundamentalist) position often uses postmodernist arguments, claiming that absolute objectivity is a "noble dream" never achieved nor obtainable in historical studies. The article reviews the present Mormon controversies by comparing them to the discussions on biblical interpretation in the Roman Catholic Church, as summarized in the semiofficial 1993 document "The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church" by the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

Review of Refuting the Critics: Evidences of the Book of Mormon's Authenticity (1993), by Michael T. Griffiths

The Book of Mormon chronicles the wars and other relations between the two major nations of Ancient America. This paper identifies certain principles evident in the relations between these nations and compares the principles found in the Book of Mormon with international practice of Ancient Israel in the old world. This paper is not want to be a study of the law of nations of the ancient Near East; rather, our purpose is to identify, if possible, principles of the law of nations in the Book of Mormon. Ccmparisons to the culture of the ancient Near East are not meant to function as proof (or disproof) of the old-world origin of the Book of Mormon culture. They should be taken as interesting illuminations of the principles of international relations which appear in the history of the ancient American nations.