I had an experience on my mission of feeling like one of our biblical proof texts got called into question, praying about it, and then feeling like I came to a larger understanding of that particular concept. I can’t remember the exact details, but I did find my take away orienting. What was wrong, I felt, was my more limited understanding of a certain point. The concept still worked with a greater more complex understanding, and I needed to be open to that larger view.

I tried to apply that procedure in my decades of historical study: be open to what the data suggests and then make adjustments to my believing framework based on what I’d learned. I tried to avoid holding doggedly to preconceived notions and insist the data fit those.

Over time, made quite a few adjustments to my beliefs, and though some confusion at times, always felt like I would come around to the believer’s position.

One of my central pursuits has been exploring similarities to Mormon ideas in the history of Christianity and also Joseph Smith’s environment. I described this process in my “Mormon Scholars Testify” statement I wrote a number of years back of finding “this curiosity to be a challenge when I found ideas that I thought to be distinctly Mormon close enough to Joseph Smith’s environment to have influenced him,” and worrying about the implications. And then going through a process of getting comfortable with such parallels to where I believed, “Whatever means God used to facilitate the Restoration was fine.”

That’s still how I feel, but I’ve now gotten to the point that I believe I’ve tracked down all of the distinctive Mormon ideas to books Smith could have (and I think, did) encounter. The revelation told Cowdery to “study it our” to translate, and another for the saints to “seek out of the best books … by study and by faith,” and I argue that Smith himself did that.

Such is a big claim requiring lots of information that I’ll make no attempt put in this post (the book is kind of long). Instead, my point here is my own personal journey to making these kinds of adjustments along the way.