Skousen & Carmack Lecture Take Aways

[Glenn101]

4 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

No idea who wrote the Book of Mormon, but John Smith was a close relative of Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack. He was born in 1750s. He spoke Latin, Hebrew and Chaldee. He was an Arminian preacher well versed in the Old Testament. He taught Solomon Spaulding and Ethan Smith. He lived 10 miles from Joseph Smith Jr.

Which is the most probable explanation for the Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon: (1) Egyptian-Hebrew prophets in America, (2) a Dutch lawyer, (3) a Smith who spoke Hebrew and Chaldee. If we are looking for the source of EmodE and Hebraisms/Egyptianisms in the Book of Mormon, we can't easily ignore the Dartmouth library and its librarian, John Smith.

Didn't John Smith die in 1809?

Even without that, there are many elements of the Book of Mormon that John Smith would not have been familiar with. Egyptian names is just one area. Also, has there been any search of John Smith's writings for the presence of Early Modern English? It is doubtful that he would have spoken or written in that style owing to his level of education.

I think that particular John Smith can be easily dismissed as having had anything to do with the Book of Mormon.

Glenn

[JarMan]

10 hours ago, champatsch said:

I think you've added a layer to the physical reality. Whatever state the changing Nephite language was in at any particular time, and whatever linguistic elements might have been used to modify it with for purposes of record-keeping, Reformed Egyptian did not clearly mean language, in our sense of the term; it was most likely a term used to indicate a form of (compact) writing. Ancients often did not clearly differentiate between the representation of language and the language itself, the writing and the sounds. Even early modern writers were not very clear about this distinction. It's helpful to bear this in mind.

By writing in a compact form you have a relationship that goes from many to few. And then in the translation to English the relationship is few to many. This bottleneck will cause a loss of information, won’t it? We can be certain we end up with less information (or at least less accurate information) than if there had been a direct Hebrew to English translation. 

Edited November 29, 2018 by JarMan

[JarMan]

4 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

No idea who wrote the Book of Mormon, but John Smith was a close relative of Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack. He was born in 1750s. He spoke Latin, Hebrew and Chaldee. He was an Arminian preacher well versed in the Old Testament. He taught Solomon Spaulding and Ethan Smith. He lived 10 miles from Joseph Smith Jr.

Which is the most probable explanation for the Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon: (1) Egyptian-Hebrew prophets in America, (2) a Dutch lawyer, (3) a Smith who spoke Hebrew and Chaldee. If we are looking for the source of EmodE and Hebraisms/Egyptianisms in the Book of Mormon, we can't easily ignore the Dartmouth library and its librarian, John Smith.

What’s the most impressive Hebraism in the Book of Mormon that you know of?

[Rajah Manchou]

4 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

Didn't John Smith die in 1809?

John Smith: Died in 1809, Joseph Smith lived 10-20 miles away.
Grotius: Died in 1645, 160 years before Joseph Smith was born 3700 miles away.
Moroni: Last seen around 421 AD in Mexico, 1384 years before Joseph Smith was born 2200 miles away.

John Smith would have been fully capable of writing the Book of Mormon. Two of his students at Dartmouth wrote texts that resemble the Book of Mormon in many ways. 

4 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

there are many elements of the Book of Mormon that John Smith would not have been familiar with. Egyptian names is just one area.

What Egyptian names in the Book of Mormon would not have been known to John Smith, or one of his students, at Dartmouth? I know of Nephi, which was a name that John Smith would have learned about in readings of Kircher, who wrote of an Egyptian Jew named Nephi. He also would have learned about Kircher's theory that Egyptian/Hebrew priests sailed east with altered Egyptian hieroglyphs in 600 BC. These were fairly common ideas among Orientalists like John Smith in the 17th and 18th centuries. 

4 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

has there been any search of John Smith's writings for the presence of Early Modern English?

Not that I know. From the OP: "the usage of vocabulary and phrases in the BOM fits the 1530s-1730s" and "every word in the BOM original text had entered the English language by 1730". If there are phrases in the Book of Mormon dating to 1730 at the latest, then we can't expect the author/translator to have lived before that. John Smith was born in 1752.

4 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

It is doubtful that he would have spoken or written in that style owing to his level of education.

Unless he was trying to imitate Early Modern English.

Edited November 29, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[Glenn101]

3 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

8 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

 

What Egyptian names in the Book of Mormon would not have been known to John Smith, or one of his students, at Dartmouth? I know of Nephi, which was a name that John Smith would have learned about in readings of Kircher, who wrote of an Egyptian Jew named Nephi. He also would have learned about Kircher's theory that Egyptian/Hebrew priests sailed east with altered Egyptian hieroglyphs in 600 BC. These were fairly common ideas among Orientalists like John Smith in the 17th and 18th centuries. 

Nephi is also found in the apocrypha, but that is not one of the names of which I was speaking. Paanchi and Pahoran come first to my mind because they have been acknowledged as Egyptian by at least one non-LDS scholar. As has been pointed out before, deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphic system was in its infancy in 1829 when the Book of Mormon was produced. John Smith may have been familiar with Coptic, but it is doubtful that those names would be found in any known Coptic texts. Coptic had began to be used and spoken sometime around the 2nd century A.D. or C.E. whichever you prefer (according to the Encyclopedia Britannica) and most of the texts that we have written in that language are religious in nature. The Egyptian names in the Book of Mormon are much older than the Coptic language and would most likely be found in historical documents.

4 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

9 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

 

It is doubtful that he would have spoken or written in that style owing to his level of education.

Unless he was trying to imitate Early Modern English.

Why would he do that? Efforts by other educated men who tried to emulate Biblical language in their books followed the KJV style. The Early Modern English in the Book of Mormon was disdained as bad grammar by the learned men of the time in which it was published.

4 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

John Smith would have been fully capable of writing the Book of Mormon. Two of his students at Dartmouth wrote texts that resemble the Book of Mormon in many ways. 

I have yet to see the evidence to support that statement. Please enlighten me on the texts by students of John Smith that resemble the Book of Mormon in many ways.

Glenn

 

[JarMan]

4 hours ago, champatsch said:

On "murmur with", the meaning of these three examples is different from the Book of Mormon's. It looks to be 'was angry with' versus 'complained to'. How do you see the meaning, JarMan?

I haven't had time to really research this, but based on a cursory review of other bible translations you appear to be right that the Coverdale examples mean "was angry with". It occurs to me, though, that this meaning also works just fine in Mosiah 21:6. The Nephites were angry with the king because of the afflictions of the Lamanites who they were supposedly at peace with. In the previous chapter the people captured the Lamanite king and brought him to Limhi and proposed executing him. Realizing the Lamanites had some justification for the war Limhi decided to spare the Lamanite king and return him to his people with a promise of renewed peace. When the peace began to fail perhaps the people blamed Limhi for being too soft on the Lamanites and their king. Maybe if Limhi had shown more toughness the Lamanites wouldn't be so bold as to afflict them as they were. Maybe they should have pursued a decisive victory while they had the upper hand.

[champatsch]

On "murmur with", the meaning of these three examples is different from the Book of Mormon's. It looks to be 'was angry with' versus 'complained to'. How do you see the meaning, JarMan?

[Rajah Manchou]

On 11/29/2018 at 8:58 PM, Glenn101 said:

Nephi is also found in the apocrypha, but that is not one of the names of which I was speaking. Paanchi and Pahoran come first to my mind because they have been acknowledged as Egyptian by at least one non-LDS scholar. As has been pointed out before, deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphic system was in its infancy in 1829 when the Book of Mormon was produced. John Smith may have been familiar with Coptic, but it is doubtful that those names would be found in any known Coptic texts.

Homonyms are common. I've presented a few here before (eg. Moroni, Cumorah, Comron, Judea, Mulek, Deseret, Ramah, even Panchi) from pre-19th century texts that match up with a specific limited geography that matches the Book of Mormon internal geography. The response to these matches has been that it is simply a coincidence. Regardless, for every Egyptianism in the Book of Mormon, I can find an equal Egyptianism in texts that would have been known to an 18th century orientalist like John Smith.

On 11/29/2018 at 8:58 PM, Glenn101 said:

Why would he do that? 

Why would Solomon Spaulding write Manuscript Found? Why would Ethan Smith write View of the Hebrews?

On 11/29/2018 at 8:58 PM, Glenn101 said:

I have yet to see the evidence to support that statement. Please enlighten me on the texts by students of John Smith that resemble the Book of Mormon in many ways.

According to Ethan Smith's grandson, a Rev. Dr. Smith at Dartmouth did write a text:

"Solomon Spaulding was a warm admirer of Dr. Smith and when a young man studied under his tuition. He became interested in his theories regarding the settlement of America, and in return Dr. Smith took the young student into his confidence and granted him a perusal of his unpublished book. Spaulding was deeply impressed with the truth of this theory and pursued his investigations even farther than Dr. Smith had ventured. Taking the latter's views as expressed in his book Spaulding some years later wrote his famous "Manuscript Found," which afterward fell into the hands of Joe Smith and was reconstructed into the Book of Mormon. Indeed, it is not at all unlikely that Dr. Smith's original manuscript, which it is said Spaulding had in his possession, suffered a similar fate. At any rate it has never been seen since."

So at least one other person has identified the role a Dr. Smith at Dartmouth played in the authoring of Manuscript Found and the Book of Mormon. It's always been assumed that Ethan S. Smith was speaking of Ethan Smith, the author of View of the Hebrews. This is unlikely as Solomon Spaulding was older than Ethan Smith and never studied under Ethan Smith. Solomon Spaulding was an admirer of Dr. John Smith, the cousin of Joseph Smith Sr's father and the author of the Dartmouth curriculum as known to Ethan Smith, Solomon Spaulding, Hyrum Smith and three of Solomon Spaulding's nephews. Dr. John Smith also wrote a series of theological lectures and Hebrew and Chaldee grammar books. I propose he also wrote the Book of Lehi which was given to Solomon Spaulding and ended up with one of Spaulding's nephews at Dartmouth while Hyrum Smith was in attendance. 

Edited December 2, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[cdowis]

On 11/29/2018 at 12:05 AM, JarMan said:

By writing in a compact form you have a relationship that goes from many to few. And then in the translation to English the relationship is few to many. This bottleneck will cause a loss of information, won’t it? We can be certain we end up with less information (or at least less accurate information) than if there had been a direct Hebrew to English translation. 

Shorthand does not affect the transmission of information  --------->>>>>>>>

/C  ==   because

no change in information

Edited December 2, 2018 by cdowis

[Glenn101]

13 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Regardless, for every Egyptianism in the Book of Mormon, I can find an equal Egyptianism in texts that would have been known to an 18th century orientalist like John Smith.

Is this something that you have actually done. i.e. listed all of the Egyptianisms in the Book of Mormon and shown where they were in texts that John Smith at least had access to? Also have you shown or can you show that John Smith could reasonably have had access to "Description of Cities, Indian and Persian" from which one would find "Panchi?" 

13 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

On 11/29/2018 at 8:58 AM, Glenn101 said:

Why would he do that" (write a book heavy in Early Modern English)

Why would Solomon Spaulding write Manuscript Found? Why would Ethan Smith write View of the Hebrews?

You answer in not responsive to my question? Why would a man learned in Hebrew write a book using heavy doses of Early Modern English which was mostly obsolete and considered bad grammar by the learned men of the time when the Book of Mormon was published?

13 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

According to Ethan Smith's grandson, a Rev. Dr. Smith at Dartmouth did write a text:

"Solomon Spaulding was a warm admirer of Dr. Smith and when a young man studied under his tuition. He became interested in his theories regarding the settlement of America, and in return Dr. Smith took the young student into his confidence and granted him a perusal of his unpublished book. Spaulding was deeply impressed with the truth of this theory and pursued his investigations even farther than Dr. Smith had ventured. Taking the latter's views as expressed in his book Spaulding some years later wrote his famous "Manuscript Found," which afterward fell into the hands of Joe Smith and was reconstructed into the Book of Mormon. Indeed, it is not at all unlikely that Dr. Smith's original manuscript, which it is said Spaulding had in his possession, suffered a similar fate. At any rate it has never been seen since."

So at least one other person has identified the role a Dr. Smith at Dartmouth played in the authoring of Manuscript Found and the Book of Mormon. It's always been assumed that Ethan S. Smith was speaking of Ethan Smith, the author of View of the Hebrews. This is unlikely as Solomon Spaulding was older than Ethan Smith and never studied under Ethan Smith. Solomon Spaulding was an admirer of Dr. John Smith, the cousin of Joseph Smith Sr's father and the author of the Dartmouth curriculum as known to Ethan Smith, Solomon Spaulding, Hyrum Smith and three of Solomon Spaulding's nephews. Dr. John Smith also wrote a series of theological lectures and Hebrew and Chaldee grammar books. I propose he also wrote the Book of Lehi which was given to Solomon Spaulding and ended up with one of Spaulding's nephews at Dartmouth while Hyrum Smith was in attendance. 

And now we are back to basing a theory on completely unverified documents "remembered" years afterward. Not very persuasive.

Glenn

[Rajah Manchou]

7 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

Is this something that you have actually done. i.e. listed all of the Egyptianisms in the Book of Mormon and shown where they were in texts that John Smith at least had access to? Also have you shown or can you show that John Smith could reasonably have had access to "Description of Cities, Indian and Persian" from which one would find "Panchi?" 

A good starting point for this material is Joseph Deguignes' five volume work called the General History of the Huns, Turks, Mongols and Other Tartars (1754). Deguignes maintained that the civilizations of Asia (the Huns were also known as Nephtalites) were Egyptian colonies and that Asian scripts were a sort of reformed Egyptian. Variations of this theory go back to to the 1600s and is found in the writings of Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit scholar who would have been known to an orientalist like John Smith. Both Deguignes and Kircher held that the civilizations of the Americas, including Mesoamerica, also had Egyptian ties. John Smith would have had access to their writings as he was the Dartmouth librarian and also ran his own bookshop in Hanover.

Also important is Nibley's The World of the Jaredites, in particular the chapters "Jared on the Steppes" and "Early Asiatic and Jaredite Civilizations". Nibley places the Jaredites in the camp of Central Asian nomads. 

7 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

You answer in not responsive to my question? Why would a man learned in Hebrew write a book using heavy doses of Early Modern English which was mostly obsolete and considered bad grammar by the learned men of the time when the Book of Mormon was published?

What year/decade would you say Early modern English would have become obsolete? The usage of vocabulary and phrases in the BOM fits the 1530s-1730s. John Smith was born in 1752. He was a Biblical scholar and theologian and would have had access to several EmodE texts. 

7 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

And now we are back to basing a theory on completely unverified documents "remembered" years afterward. Not very persuasive.

That's certainly true. The Book of Mormon is indeed a fascinating text, and a real mystery. I wish we had more material to work with.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[JarMan]

15 hours ago, cdowis said:

Shorthand does not affect the transmission of information  --------->>>>>>>>

/C  ==   because

no change in information

I think it depends on what kind of “shorthand” reformed Egyptian is. From what I can gather some shorthand systems were phonetic while others were symbolic with several that were a combination of the two. They were designed in order to record speech in real-time. It sounds to me like reformed Egyptian was designed for a different purpose, which was to save space in writing. This suggests to me it was symbolic in nature. I am surmising that you’re not likely to get a one-to-one correspondence between the original and a symbolic shorthand since the number of symbols would be necessarily limited (wouldn’t they?). I would also think that certain elements of the original language would be lost or obscured in going to symbols. This is outside my experience but I have to think there are real-world examples, particularly with eastern languages, that could inform us on the matter. 

[Glenn101]

4 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

A good starting point for this material is Joseph Deguignes' five volume work called the General History of the Huns, Turks, Mongols and Other Tartars (1754). Deguignes maintained that the civilizations of Asia (the Huns were also known as Nephtalites) were Egyptian colonies and that Asian scripts were a sort of reformed Egyptian. Variations of this theory go back to to the 1600s and is found in the writings of Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit scholar who would have been known to an orientalist like John Smith. Both Deguignes and Kircher held that the civilizations of the Americas, including Mesoamerica, also had Egyptian ties. John Smith would have had access to their writings as he was the Dartmouth librarian and also ran his own bookshop in Hanover.

I would agree that John Smith possibly would have have known about their writings. Have you been able to ascertain if those writings were in fact in the Dartmouth Library?

I do not see how those writings could be tied to a Book of Mormon type story either. 

4 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

10 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

 

What year/decade would you say Early modern English would have become obsolete? The usage of vocabulary and phrases in the BOM fits the 1530s-1730s. John Smith was born in 1752. He was a Biblical scholar and theologian and would have had access to several EmodE texts. 

You are aware that is just what Stanford has been talking about? The Early Modern English had become so obsolete that it was considered bad grammar when it the Book of Mormon was produced. Maybe you could peruse some of John Smith's books or other authored texts to see if he wrote in a predominantly Early Modern English style. I recall Stanford noting in another thread on the subject some time ago that it would have to be second nature to a person to employ such heavy Early Modern English is such a text as the Book of Mormon.

Glenn

[Rajah Manchou]

5 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

I would agree that John Smith possibly would have have known about their writings. Have you been able to ascertain if those writings were in fact in the Dartmouth Library?

Haven't had much time lately, but working on it. Dale Broadhurst points out that Solomon Spaulding's Lobaska character hints at familiarity with accounts of the Nephtalites or White Huns, and that this character originates in a region identified on 18th century maps as Fousang. Deguignes identifies Fousang as an Egyptian/Chinese colony in America. Since Spaulding seems to be familiar with these accounts, it is probable that these texts were available, or were a topic of discussion. Its important to consider that several witnesses to Spaulding's manuscript stated that the first part of his manuscript placed the Nephites and Lamanites in Asia, and after many wars they then sailed across the Bering Strait to America. If you've read my comments in other threads I believe Asia is also the original setting for the Book of Lehi and it was later redacted to be an account of the former inhabitants of the Americas and the source from whence they sprang. 

5 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

I do not see how those writings could be tied to a Book of Mormon type story either.

There clearly was some catalyst for Book of Mormon type stories at Dartmouth in the late 18th century. View of the Hebrews and Manuscript Found have both been compared to the Book of Mormon and have been proposed as influences on the author/translator. What has been overlooked is that both the authors were students of John Smith at Dartmouth and it is more likely that he was the influence on both these books. If John Smith did influence Ethan Smith and Solomon Spaulding to write their Book of Mormon type stories about Hebrew and Roman migrations to the Americas, then it is evident that Dartmouth in the late 18th century was the ideal environment for the translation of the Book of Mormon. 

5 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

You are aware that is just what Stanford has been talking about? The Early Modern English had become so obsolete that it was considered bad grammar when it the Book of Mormon was produced. Maybe you could peruse some of John Smith's books or other authored texts to see if he wrote in a predominantly Early Modern English style. I recall Stanford noting in another thread on the subject some time ago that it would have to be second nature to a person to employ such heavy Early Modern English is such a text as the Book of Mormon.

It certainly would be interesting to look at John Smith's writings to see if there are EmodE elements, but such a study is beyond me. His lectures are available, and have been examined by at least one Mormon studies scholar who did find parallels with Mormon doctrine. 

Dartmouth Arminianism And Its Impact on Hyrum Smith And the Smith Family

Edited December 3, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[Glenn101]

5 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

It certainly would be interesting to look at John Smith's writings to see if there are EmodE elements, but such a study is beyond me. His lectures are available, and have been examined by at least one Mormon studies scholar who did find parallels with Mormon doctrine.

Actually such a study should be fairly easy using the EmodE elements Stanford has identified in the Book of Mormon. As for parallels to Mormon doctrine, one can find them in may other places also. JarMan has a Grotius theory that he is proposing for the Book of Mormon. Connections between John Smith and the Book of Mormon are more than tenuous as they are also to Hugo Grotius or any other person. There is no one secular theory that explains everything about the Book of Mormon.

Who do you propose actually produced the complete text of the Book of Mormon?

 

Glenn