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Book of Mormon "Horses"


smac97

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I'm interested in your thoughts as to which of these is the most plausible explanation for horses among the Nephites and Lamanites.

I'm interested in your thoughts as to which theory of alien abduction you think is most plausible...

Whether there are alien abductions is, according to Willy Wonka, head of the Phonix chapter of the Star Trek society, is still an open-ended issue (see, e.g., http://www.abduct.com/)

One explanation for the occurence of horses in the BOM that you fail to even entertain (suprise suprise) is the most obvious - The only horses that existed as described in the BOM came from the mind of JS.

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And the only one the AM entertains (surprise, surprise) is that Joseph Smith made it up. That's truth seeking for you.

NOT even entertaining the most obvious conclusion, and instead puzzling among the (almost comical in some cases) alternatives that are faith promoting to one's central, pre-formed thesis - That's truth seeking for you.

If I had to pick, I'd say that Peterson's contention that there may have been pre-columbian horses (don't forget the domestic sheep and goats too) is the best bet for the faithful. Othewise we're getting into the twilight zone -Yes, the same one where metal swords that rust are passed of as manchu(whatever they are) made of wood, and situations where the cardinal directions are changed etc. etc.

So I can easily pick the one that I like the most, as Smac requested, but I thought the question I raised much more pertinent, obviously.

See how easy it is to hold that mirror up and just reflect it right back at you?

This kind of thing just goes on forever, with nary a dent - so why do we bother? The question's rhetorical of course - why do grown men dress really funny and pay big money to whack a small white ball around large areas of prime real estate reserved for this task, using the most impossible of instruments, one barely suited to the task?

Why indeed.

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Alvin,

> I'm interested in your thoughts as to which theory of alien abduction you think is most plausible...

==I've no particular opinion on the matter. And as it's beyond the scope of this thread, I'd rather you take this topic elsewhere.

> One explanation for the occurence of horses in the BOM that you fail to even entertain (suprise suprise) is the most obvious - The only horses that existed as described in the BOM came from the mind of JS.

==Which, if true, requires little discussion. The matter is, at that point, settled. That's why I left it out.

==Also, I thought it went without saying but here goes: I'm operating under an assumption that the Book of Mormon is, in fact, a historical record. If you disagree with that assumption, fine. Just don't contribute to this thread.

> NOT even entertaining the most obvious conclusion, and instead puzzling among the (almost comical in some cases) alternatives that are faith promoting to one's central, pre-formed thesis - That's truth seeking for you.

==Of course I've entertained the possibility that the Book of Mormon is fiction. But this thread isn't about that. Rather, it's based on the assumption that the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be.

==Many types of discussions can take place about the Book of Mormon. They need not all argue the Ultimate Point about whether the Book of Mormon is true or not. There is nothing wrong with having a conversation predicated on a "pre-formed thesis," as long as that thesis is readily apparent. If you want to have a chat predicated on a "pre-formed thesis" that the Book of Mormon is a fraud, have at it. Start a thread about horses in the Book of Mormon that is predicated on a naturalistic assumption (that is, that the Book of Mormon is fiction), and provide several theories as to why the 19-century author(s) of the Book of Mormon included references to horses. I won't complain. There's nothing wrong about setting parameters and taking certain assumptions as given. If we don't, we endlessly litigate the Ultimate Point and never get around to some of the interesting minutiae.

> If I had to pick, I'd say that Peterson's contention that there may have been pre-columbian horses (don't forget the domestic sheep and goats too) is the best bet for the faithful. Othewise we're getting into the twilight zone -Yes, the same one where metal swords that rust are passed of as manchu(whatever they are) made of wood, and situations where the cardinal directions are changed etc. etc.

==Cynicism in lieu of substance. Boring.

> So I can easily pick the one that I like the most, as Smac requested, but I thought the question I raised much more pertinent, obviously.

==Your question is not pertinent to this thread. The validity of the Book of Mormon, for the purposes of this thread, is a given. Feel free to start your own thread where the falsity of the Book of Mormon is a given.

> This kind of thing just goes on forever, with nary a dent - so why do we bother?

==Because I like learning. Because I like to scrutinize my beliefs. Because I like to listen to what other people - including people who disagree with me - have to say.

> The question's rhetorical of course - why do grown men dress really funny and pay big money to whack a small white ball around large areas of prime real estate reserved for this task, using the most impossible of instruments, one barely suited to the task?

==Because people enjoy playing it. Because people enjoy watching it. Because there's a lot of money to be made from it. These reasons differ markedly from the reasons I like to discuss various aspects of the Book of Mormon.

-Smac

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I am open to all the possibilities. Of course if the Book of Mormon is 19th century the text refers to horses which doesn't harmonize with the other animals. But if one is open to the book being a translation of a true history as I am the other possibilities may be considered.

Sincerely,

Dale

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Joseph Smith called the beast a horse because it was a horse and not a deer or some other strange animal. A horse is a horse, of course.

No one is going to convince me that a horse is a deer. I've been to the temple too many times and I know that a horse is a horse, of course.

God help us all!

Paul O

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I recall reading somewhere, but do not remember the source, that it wasn't until about 1988 that any evidence was discovered that lions had lived in Israel. That's a long time to wait, but I always believed the Bible. We've only had the Book of Mormon for 175 years so I figure we still have, oh, about 2700 more years to find horse remains in America before anybody can use that argument against us.

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Joseph can only mean "horse" when he says "horse" in the BofM, and here's why.

Joseph knew what a deer was. If he came across the RE (Reformed Egyptian) word that corresponds to deer, he would have translated it as deer.

Joseph didn't know what a tapir was. He still wouldn't have translated the RE word as "horse," though, because in other instances where he came across unfamiliar animals he used the RE word--cumoms and cureloms, for instance.

It seems to me that the most plausible apologetic stance here is to claim that archeologists and paleontologists are so inept and science so poor that nobody has come across a precolumbian horse fossil--or sheep, goats, swords, metallurgical processes (which leave huge amounts of evidence), and so forth.

But the absence of European animals, plants, and technologies is only half of the story. The other half is the absence in the BoM text of common animals that DID exist when the BoM events supposedly took place. No mention of tomatoes, llamas, cougars, corn, or other common mesoamerican plants and animals.

In memory of the late Johnny Cochran--if the book don't fit, you must quit.

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Obviously friends you are all confused, they were rare breed of giant kangaroo like rabbits upon which a man could ride in a standing position with his hands free for fighting. This is why skeletons of humans discovered in Central and South America have oversized femur and leg bones. These bones developed in an exceptional way due to this bizarre mode of South American transportation. Joseph Smiths reference to these as horses can be likened to Isaiah reference to steam trains "as flint and the roaring of lions". It was simply an expression of something he could not understand using common terms and names.

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...But the absence of European animals, plants, and technologies is only half of the story.
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Hi,

Mighty makes a very good point, and it's not about tomatoes, thats a cop out to ignor his point. BOM defenders will go to any length to produce a evidence that just isn't there, while they ignore that vast amount of eviences that do exist. There is so much evidence of who these people were, and who they worshipped, and what the ate, drank, and how they functioned as a society, this is ignored by necessity to keep the "faith alive". This fact alone may not mean allot, but when put together with every other problem in the JS story it becoem a major link in the story.

Mark

John 1:12

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MC - you make me laugh, out loud. The very fact that tomatoes are not mentioned in the Book of Mormon is proof that it is true; why on earth would the kings or prophets care about tomatoes. TOMATOES! Think about it.

No wonder you still believe, you haven't stopped to think about it.

This person made excellent remarks worthy of contemplation. It's a sorry exit to speak only on his mention of tomatoes.

ps~ repitition? There were no horses here until the bedeviled Spaniards came. you know how scared the Incas and Atahuallpa were when they saw these monstrous looking things trotting their way? The only chance for the 'wild' horses (mustangs) of today were the escapees of the Spaniards'.

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MC writes:

Joseph can only mean "horse" when he says "horse" in the BofM, and here's why.
The problem with this statement, MC, is that it makes so many assumptions about the nature of any alleged translation as to be useless.

I am reminded of some comments written by Marco Polo when he traveled to Java. Since the context is appropriate, I want to quote an essay by Umberto Eco relative to Polo's comments -

Often, when faced with an unknown phenomenon, we react by approximation: we seek that scrap of content, already present in our encyclopedia, which for better or worse seems to account for the new fact. A classic example of this process is to be found in Marco Polo, who saw what we now realize were rhinoceroses on Java. Although he had never seen such animals before, by analogy with other known animals he was able to distinguish the body, the four feet, and the horn. Since his culture provided him with the notion of a unicorn - a quadruped with a horn on its forehead, to be precise - he designated these animals as unicorns. Then, as he was an honest and meticulous chronicler, he hastened to tell us that these unicorns were rather strange - not very good examples of the species, we might say - given that they were not white and slender but had "the hair of the buffalo" and feet "like the feet of an elephant." He went on to give even more detail:
It has one horn in the middle of the forehead very thick and large and black. And I tell you that it does no harm to men and beasts with its horn, but only with the tongue and knee, for on its tongue i has very long spines and sharp ...

It has the top of the head made like a wild boar ... It is a very ugly beast to see and unclean. And they are not so as we here say and describe, who say that it lets itself be caught in the lap by a virgin girl: but I tell you that it is quite the contrary of that which we believe that it was. (Polo, The Description of the World, ed. and trans. A. Moule and P. Pelliot, London: Routledge, 1938)

("Kant, Pierce, and the Platypus", in Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition, translated by Alistair McEwan, 1999, pp. 57ff.)

A little later, Eco notes:

While it can be maintained that semiosic processes are involved in the recognition of the known, because it is precisely a matter of relating sense data to a (conceptual and semnatic) model, the problem, which has been debated for a long time now, is to what extent semiosic process plays a part in the understanding of an unknown phenomenon.
To bring this back to the discussion, we then have an issue. Joseph can only mean horse, because that is what the text says. And the text certainly means "horse" as we traditionally understand the term in at least one instance (when Isaiah is quoted).

But, if we presume, for a moment, the historicity of the text, then we are left with a different problem. If there was no horse, then we are left with the realization that, much like Marco Polo, Nephi was describing an unknown using a conceptual and semantic model which he had. Which means, that the "horse" which he experienced in the New World did not even have to so much resemble the horse of the Old World, as it had to resemble at least in part the conceptual and sematic model of the horse in the Old World. Nephi then, intends to use the word "horse" to describe the unknown - rather than to introduce a new name for a creature in his text. And this brings us back to translation. Nephi would understand that while he calls this unknown a horse, it is certainly not a horse in the traditional sense. (And while, I suppose, it could be argued that Marco Polo had never experienced a unicorn, that certainly did not stop him from apparently really believing that they existed, and in having a specific conceptual and semantic model by which to classify them). Yet, Nephi knowing that this isn't a horse in the same way that he perhaps knew horses in the land of Jerusalem, that doesn't stop him from using the term. So, we then ask - how do we translate this?

Do we translate it literally (as a horse) even if we know (along with Nephi) that this "horse" conceptually and sematically follows only the model of the traditional horse? Do we expect to find literal translation replaced by an actual translation for Joseph Smith representing to him the creature that Nephi was viewing (which may in itself be problematic if Joseph does not have a conceptual and semantic model of that creature in his repretoire). And what of later writers. Certainly, Nephi had a conceptual and semantic model of an old world horse. But, does Jacob (who could have been at most 8 years old when he leaves the Old World)? Do any of Nephi's children (or Laman's, or Lemuel's, or Sam's, etc.)? And when the use the word horse, following Nephi's redefining of the word "horse" (at least a redefinition for Nephi), and applying that notion backwards on the references to "horses" in the Brass Plates, for example (and they are almost certainly referred to in places with reference to Deuteronomy 17), those persons have no conceptual or semantic model of anything different from the new model created by Nephi. So when MC writes:

Joseph knew what a deer was. If he came across the RE (Reformed Egyptian) word that corresponds to deer, he would have translated it as deer.
The point of course, is that Nephi may well have used the word "horse".
Joseph didn't know what a tapir was. He still wouldn't have translated the RE word as "horse," though, because in other instances where he came across unfamiliar animals he used the RE word--cumoms and cureloms, for instance.
But the difference would be that the much later writer - who was taking these terms apparently from another text, (and who may not have been aware of what they were either - at least not having a personal conceptual and semantic model) - exists in an entirely different situation. We might just as well ask why Marco Polo did not create a new name for his creature which (although it certainly meets some of the criteria of a unicorn, was dramatically different from a unicorn).
It seems to me that the most plausible apologetic stance here is to claim that archeologists and paleontologists are so inept and science so poor that nobody has come across a precolumbian horse fossil--or sheep, goats, swords, metallurgical processes (which leave huge amounts of evidence), and so forth.
I tend to approach it from the viewpoint of the problems of language, of semiotics, and of the nature of revelation.

One thing is certain. The Book of Mormon has a tiny vocabulary. It has, (not counting the one exception which is taken verbatim from the KJV in the Isaiah passages) only a single word for running water - river. The D&C on the other hand, has many - stream, river, rill, brook, etc. It may well be that part of the issue is that the "reformed Egyptian" was effectively a dead language (certainly not a spoken language) and thus was very limiting in its ability to provide adequate semantic models of the things which it describes.

Of course, I recognize that you are likely to call this simple apologetic posturing. But, on the other hand, finding real world corrolaries makes it more interesting.

As a side note, to the naysayers later in this thread, part of the possible issue with horses in terms of not being found, was the dependance of the culture on corn related agriculture. Corn provides a much greater return (per acre, and per quantity of seed) than does wheat. There was an article a couple years back in Ancient Mesoamerica (which seems to be something of a challenge to some of Jared Diamond's assertions) which dealt with this topic. Horses would not have been a very useful part of the agricultural system. They are never referred to as taking part of that system in the Book of Mormon, and so on. Should we ask why the typical roles of horses within the early 19th century american conceptual and semantic model which Joseph Smith was raised with don't seem to be particularly prevalent in the Book of Mormon?

Ben

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If JS needs to refer to some animal that is not a horse, why use the word horse? You see, he has already shown that he his willing to use unknown (or made up) words like curelom. So I guess since he didn't follow that route in this case and yet he did in the case of whatever animal the curelom was, we can conclude that "horse" means horse.

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Tarski writes:

If JS needs to refer to some animal that is not a horse, why use the word horse? You see, he has already shown that he his willing to use unknown (or made up) words like curelom. So I guess since he didn't follow that route in this case and yet he did in the case of whatever animal the curelom was, we can conclude that "horse" means horse.
For all intents and purposes, lets just assume that Joseph read the words from a stone in a hat. Joseph Smith doesn't "need" to refer to anything. He isn't trying to refer to anything. He is merely reading words which he sees in a hat.

The difference between the two is that the text may have transliterated "curelom". But Nephi is the one who redefines "horse" to refer to a larger conceptual and semantic model than it did originally.

Ben

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If JS needs to refer to some animal that is not a horse, why use the word horse? You see, he has already shown that he his willing to use unknown (or made up) words like curelom. So I guess since he didn't follow that route in this case and yet he did in the case of whatever animal the curelom was, we can conclude that "horse" means horse.

I for one felt that Ben brought up a valid point in suggesting that Nephi may have used the word horse to describe an animal for which Nephi (not Joseph) had no other name. As demonstrated, this process is not unusual.

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