Probability and NHM

[Daniel Peterson]

Strong support for a Great Lakes model of Book of Mormon geography can be found in Alma 51:33-52:1, which clearly refers to New Year's Eve and New Year's Day as they would be experienced by someone in the frigid environs of Lake Erie and of Buffalo and Rochester, New York.

[Kenngo1969]

[Mighty Curelom]

Strong support for a Great Lakes model of Book of Mormon geography can be found in Alma 51:33-52:1, which clearly refers to New Year's Eve and New Year's Day as they would be experienced by someone in the frigid environs of Lake Erie and of Buffalo and Rochester, New York.

Who says they used the same calender as us?

[Dan Vogel]

MC,

What is your opinion on the Great Lakes Region theory of BoM geography? I, like many others, was taught under the hemispheric model in Sunday School, but in my recent readings of the BoM, I have found the GLR model to be more appropriate. The BoM makes several references to a "land of many waters," and even more frequent references to a "narrow neck of land" between the two "seas." This seems to me an obvious reference to the Great Lakes region. What would the narrow neck of land be in the hemispheric model? Doesn't the BoM say something about the narrow neck of land being traveled in a day, or several days?

There's also the fact that Joseph lived in New York--near the Great Lakes--and his tendency to include his own environment in his narrative. I don't think it's coincidental that the BoM describes an environment so geographically near and familiar to Joseph.

If by the GLR theory you mean a limited northern hemisphere model, it doesn

[Mighty Curelom]

From Mosiah to Alma 22, there are no macro-geographic cues. It is possible that JS at first imagined Zarahemla and Nephi were in the GLR, and that travel between the two cities was much as he was experiencing in moving from Palmyra and Harmony. But in Alma 22 suddenly there is a description of the entire hemisphere. This is what creates the distance problems in the earlier text.

Could such discrepencies be evidence of multiple authorship? I find a marked difference in writing style between the militaristic narrative in the later chapters in Alma and the rest of the book....could it be that one author had a hemispheric model in mind while another had a limited model?

And also, what do you make of references like "from the east sea to the west sea, and from the north sea to the south sea." North sea?? This particular phrase doesn't seem to fit with any geographic model, which leads me to believe that Joseph may not have had any actual geographic area in mind, but was working from a purely fictional perspective, maybe only working in actual geographic references when it was convenient to do so.

[Daniel Peterson]

Who says they used the same calender as us?

Nobody. My suspicion is that we're talking about both a different calendar and a different region.

What the passage does show, however, quite plainly, is that a simple-minded assumption that the Book of Mormon describes an environment geographically near and familiar to Joseph in terms familiar to Joseph will not work.

[charity]

Dr. Peterson, You didn't put the smiley in the post where you said: Strong support for a Great Lakes model of Book of Mormon geography can be found in Alma 51:33-52:1, which clearly refers to New Year's Eve and New Year's Day as they would be experienced by someone in the frigid environs of Lake Erie and of Buffalo and Rochester, New York.

So I even looked up the mentioned passages:

Alma 51: 33 And it came to pass that when the night had come, Teancum and his servant stole forth and went out by night, and went into the camp of Amalickiah; and behold, sleep had overpowered them because of their much fatigue, which was caused by the labors and heat of the day.

Alma 52: 1 AND now, it came to pass in the *twenty and sixth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, behold, when the Lamanites awoke on the first morning of the first month, behold, they found Amalickiah was dead in his own tent; and they also saw that Teancum was ready to give them battle on that day.

[Daniel Peterson]

Perhaps you didn

[Mighty Curelom]

Nobody. My suspicion is that we're talking about both a different calendar and a different region.

If we're using a different calander, then what's your point? The first Nephite month could have been August.

What the passage does show, however, quite plainly, is that a simple-minded assumption that the Book of Mormon describes an environment geographically near and familiar to Joseph in terms familiar to Joseph will not work.

It only demonstrates that if you assume the Nephites used the same calander delineations as we do now. Since you've just admitted that you suspect they didn't use the same calander, the passage in question doesn't demonstrate anything.

[Brant Gardner]

Mighty Curelom:

And also, what do you make of references like "from the east sea to the west sea, and from the north sea to the south sea." North sea?? This particular phrase doesn't seem to fit with any geographic model,

Not quite true. It doesn't fit any model that places the Book of Mormon on a real map, but it does fit with conceptual models that are often used to describe one's world. The Aztecs called their world Anahuac which was conceived as a center surrounded by water. Of course this was, in the most extremely local definition, Tenochtitlan in the lake. However, it was extended to model their entire world.

The early Book of Mormon conceives of their new home as an "isle of the sea." Certainly such a conception virtually requires surrounding seas. When you combine those with the association with cardinal directions, you have a centered world inside surrounding watered space. That is quite an authentic Mesoamerican model of their world.

And yes, before you ask, they did have a realistic understanding of geography on top of the conceptual model.

[Daniel Peterson]

If we're using a different calander, then what's your point?  The first Nephite month could have been August. . . .  It only demonstrates that if you assume the Nephites used the same calander delineations as we do now.  Since you've just admitted that you suspect they didn't use the same calander, the passage in question doesn't demonstrate anything.

That's silly, MC. You have no reason to believe that the Nephites used a different calendar. You don't even believe that the Nephites existed. You want to believe that Joseph Smith (and now, it seems, perhaps some indefinite number of anonymous and invisible co-conspirators, urged on by unknown motives, somewhere, at some unspecified time or another) created the Book of Mormon on the basis of the "environment geographically near and familiar to Joseph" -- yet did so, rather inexplicably, on the basis of a calendar wholly foreign to him.

For my part, I can easily assume a different calendar because the Hebrews used a different calendar and because I believe that the Nephites had Hebrew cultural roots. And I can believe in warm Nephite winters because, for many reasons, I assume a limited Mesoamerican geographical setting for the Book of Mormon. In other words, a warm New Year's Eve flows directly from my normal, preexisting way of understanding the text.

Your assumption of a different calendar, by contrast, is transparently ad hoc. You make the assumption solely in order to preserve your hope of explaining the Book of Mormon as a fictional text fashioned on the basis of an environment geographically near and familiar to Joseph -- near Buffalo, New York -- in which, alas!, the winters are notoriously cold, snowy, and harsh. But where, incidentally, does snow ever occur in the Book of Mormon narrative?

[Benjamin McGuire]

Not having been involved for the past week and a half, I am not going to attempt to address much of the last dozen pages, but I did want to make some comments on this bit written by Dan Vogel:

I have heard this definition, but it is still a subjective one. It depends on what you think moves the hypothesis toward being

[Confidential Informant]

Just FYI, there was some fleeting mentioned made to how the law the defines evidence. I present the following:

[E]vidence is defined as that which has “any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” -- Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993).

This same decision notes that the rule should be applied liberally.

The language "any tendency" means that if this "evidence" was presented in court it would be relevant and admissible as it does indeed have the "tendency" spoken of.

All of the objections addressed so far would go the weight of the evidence.

C.I.

[Dan Vogel]

Ben,

This seems like such a specious argument. It seems to me that Dan is simply crying "angel" (albeit in a veiled fashion). After all, I think that without taking anything else into consideration, finding a Book of Mormon toponym in a place which is plausibly anticipated by the text is better (in terms of an evidentiary argument) than not finding such a toponym from the Book of Mormon.

But to Dan, this is all about relativism and subjectivity. We can't measure how likely the odds are that the Book of Mormon is simply "guessing" it accurately, so we don't need to conisder it as being significant. But this is nonsense - because we aren't talking about probabilities with respect to the correlation. We have a Book of Mormon toponym - and we have a datable inscription in which we find the same Book of Mormon toponym. But to Dan, since the angel is so improbable, the explanation that the book is a historical volume is of course so unlikely, that finding such a Book of Mormon toponym within a historical context cannot improve or help the argument for historicity. And so, since finding this toponym cannot move the argument forward, it doesn't make it more likely, and so cannot be construed as evidence. In fact, it seems doubtful that finding an inscription with the name Zarahemla (and even additional related evidence - can I use that word here?) would have much impact on the real debate, and so could not be considered evidence either.

While determining probabilites may be subjective Dan, it seems quite clear to the rest of us, that the argument for the historicity of the Book of Mormon is stronger with the identification of the Book of Mormon toponym than without it.

Does Dan view all of his "evidence" for modern authorship as also being so subjective and personally determinate?

True, I