The Bible versus the Book of Mormon

[Smith]

Maybe you can answer the question's I asked the others, the first being "If the LGT is true and these people were isolated in this small area, then how did they know there were four seas, Allen scoffed at me when I quoted the text from the BoM that says from the seas North, South, East and West, and peopel as the sands on the beach. If they were sandwiched in a small area, how did they know there were 4 seas?

Here is how...

Sea all over, North South East and West

[Markk]

Hi Brant,

Thanks for your response,

How many seas are there? There are a several answers to your question and they all depend upon understanding history, anthropology and how people write.

The most obvious answer to your question is that there were four. Our directional system has four main directions. The Mesoamerican typically had five, but the fifth was the center. Surrounding the center was a square, with the salient points at what we would call NW, NE, SW, and SE. The world was a square with four sides. Conceptually, there was an ocean on each side. The Aztec word for "world" was "surrounded by water."

The Hebrew conception of the universe had water under the land and water above the earth, held back by the firmament. The presence of conceptions about where water was in speaking of ancient conceptions of the world had much more to do with their theology than geography.

So, what does that have to do with what the BoM says? Thats all spin. We are talking about what the BoM says Brant. Are you saying that the Aztecs are the Nephites? It couldn't be Hebrew because you have already said they forgot their Hebrew roots, so we are left with "Mesoamericans".

No matter how you slice it, LDS history and teachings teach that JS translated from RE to English, and God did this for him whether it be directly or indirectly. So, translation demands taking one language and thought of another culture and translated it so it can be understood in another language and culture. So God gave JS the power , or actually did it for him, to translate RE to English, then to be a correct translation it would have to reflect our understanding of it, it was translated to our four points of understanding, your theory just does not float. Are saying that ever time a direction is mentioned in the BoM, it doesn't mean anything as a absolute, that each one could mean a different direction and JS just threw them out the best he could?

And, you don't even know who the Nephites were so how can you even say it was any different from what the BoM says?

Why do you think it was wrong? Are you suggesting that the only right way to conceive the world is the way we do it? Mesoamericans saw directions as a quarter radiating from the center. We see a straight line. Our north is a point, theirs a horizon. If I translate the Mesoamerican concept of that particular quadrant as "north," did I translate correctly or incorrectly?

Incorrectly, if it wasn't North, that would be a incorrect translation into English.

What was the "center" of the quadrant to make that assumption?

Mark

John 1;12

[Gervin]

Okay - I'll put it back on the thread where we first learned of the amazing metal disc:

What on earth is your problem, Gervin? You're struggling, rather desperately it seems to me, to find something in what I've written on this wholly innocent and uncomplicated matter to offend you, or to regard as a lie, or whatever it is that you clearly so badly want.

I just asked for some details. I didn't ask you for a story told like some bedtime tale to a 3rd grader. I was curious about the name of the site, the archaeologists involved, and when it happened. What is your frigging problem to see a request for details to be some sort of deficiency on MY part? If you came back from your trip and told a co-worker this story ...

I was at the archaeological site of Piedras Negras, deep in the jungle of the Guatemalan Pet

[Confidential Informant]

If that casts any doubt upon the veracity of your story then it may simply be a natural response to your inability to write about it at anything but the 3rd-grade level. One can infer that that's the only level in which you understood it:

One can also infer that you are a complete ***. . . and they'd be fairly justified in the conclusion.

I'm sure Dr. Peterson can give you the details, but what good will it do you? You have no background or training in archeology and thus are too ignorant to do anything with the information anyway.

I'm sure you feel that your post are eminently reasonable and powerfully persuasive, but all I've seen is you getting your head handed to you on a platter everytime you try to address substance. You don't have the slightest clue what you are talking about even a neophyte like myself can clearly see it.

Then again, the tone of your posts tells me that you won't be much longer for this board.

C.I.

[Daniel Peterson]

Okay - I'll put it back on the thread where we first learned of the amazing metal disc:

What "amazing metal disc"? I see nothing amazing about it. It was a metal disc, with writing on it.

I just asked for some details.

Ah, the injured innocent. You immediately began mocking my briefly mentioned experience, and insinuating, not very subtly, that I was making it up.

I was curious about the name of the site, the archaeologists involved, and when it happened.

Then you should have asked. Stephen Houston (Ph.D., Yale), then at BYU and now at Brown University, was the principal investigator. The LDS archaeologist involved was Don Forsythe (Ph.D., Pennsylvania), of BYU. There were some other archaeologists and professionals there, as well, along with a couple of graduate students from Yale, if I recall correctly. The site was, as I had already mentioned, Piedras Negras, in lowland Guatemala on the banks of the Usumacinta River.

What is your frigging problem to see a request for details to be some sort of deficiency on MY part?

Don't insult my intelligence with this sort of nonsense. You didn't just ask me the name of the site (which you already knew) and the names of the archaeologists.

If you came back from your trip and told a co-worker this story ...

I was at the archaeological site of Piedras Negras, deep in the jungle of the Guatemalan Pet

[Gervin]

What "amazing metal disc"? I see nothing amazing about it. It was a metal disc, with writing on it.

I guess I should have said, the first ever found of it's kind. Not that that makes it amazng.

Then you should have asked. Stephen Houston (Ph.D., Yale), then at BYU and now at Brown University, was the principal investigator. The LDS archaeologist involved was Don Forsythe (Ph.D., Pennsylvania), of BYU. There were some other archaeologists and professionals there, as well, along with a couple of graduate students from Yale, if I recall correctly. The site was, as I had already mentioned, Piedras Negras, in lowland Guatemala on the banks of the Usumacinta River.

"Who was the archeologist?" is the question that was asked, back on page 14 of this thread. You should have just told me up front. So, Don Forsythe is the LDS archeologist who showed you the object and he would be the contact for finding out more about the metal discovered at the site?

Don't insult my intelligence with this sort of nonsense. You didn't just ask me the name of the site (which you already knew) and the names of the archaeologists.

You're right. I asked when this event occured.

It says that a piece of inscribed metal has been found in a professional archaeological dig at a pre-Columbian site in Mesoamerica. That's neither "lame" nor "pathetic."

It must just be the way you tell it in such a wholly believeable manner.

Would it be better to have a formal publication in a professional field report? Certainly. And such a report may well exist. But I didn't place much weight on the story here, and this board is scarcely an archaeological journal or scholarly symposium where footnotes are required. I simply mentioned, in passing, a personal experience of mine in lowland Guatemala. You then went, rather incomprehensibly, on the attack.

Yes, I "attacked" you with questions about details.

And you cannot see, from a paragraph like that above -- the tone of which has been precisely your tone with me since our first interactions -- why I do not take you seriously as an intellectual interlocutor?

Likewise. I'm interested in facts more than fluff and concrete evidence more than conjecture. Arriving at these seems to require a certain amount of wading through horn-blowing and patronizing drivel. As I said, I had but one irritation. Thank you for making my rash almost go away (if I knew when this discovery took place I would be all better).

[Pahoran]

Okay - I'll put it back on the thread where we first learned of the amazing metal disc:

What on earth is your problem, Gervin? You're struggling, rather desperately it seems to me, to find something in what I've written on this wholly innocent and uncomplicated matter to offend you, or to regard as a lie, or whatever it is that you clearly so badly want.

I just asked for some details. I didn't ask you for a story told like some bedtime tale to a 3rd grader.

Perhaps not. But you did add gratuitous and sneering adjectives like "miraculous" and "amazing." Why?

Evidently because you wanted to create the impression--which you knew to be false--that Professor Peterson was claiming more for this find than he actually was. Please note that he has never described the find as anything more than "interesting."

The "who me" card is disingenuous and not available to you.

Your story is lame because it doesn't say anything.

What is it supposed to "say?" It says what it says. What you appear to mean is that it doesn't say anything you want to hear. So sorry, but I seem to have missed the memo; who died and made you grand inquisitor?

That makes you appear rather pathetic.

To whom?

Your "experience" doesn't irritate me, but rather your patronizing reaction to be being queried about it.

You were implying that he lied about it well before he started "patronizing" you.

If that casts any doubt upon the veracity of your story

No. It does not.

Despite your transparent (and failed) attempts to do so.

I agree that it is more than possible that either you or Dan are being less than honest. I am satisfied that it isn't Dan.

I suggest you stop cyber-heckling him. He adds a lot to this forum. You don't.

You subsequently sneered:

It must just be the way you tell it in such a wholly believeable manner.

No-one but you finds any reason to doubt Dan's report. As a matter of fact, neither do you; the only argument you've been able to offer is that he's not obsequious enough to you.

Like you're anybody.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Daniel Peterson]

Gervin:

Here is the sort of alternatingly aggressive and condescending language that you've directed my way from the get-go with regard to my very brief allusion to a simple little personal experience in Mesoamerica (which -- I'm not inclined to go back through my journals for such a one as you -- occurred sometime back around 2001 or thereabouts):

Amazing . . .  fluff . . . conjecture . . . horn-blowing and patronizing drivel . . . lame . . . pathetic . . . It must just be the way you tell it in such a wholly believeable manner. . . . your inability to write about it at anything but the 3rd-grade level. One can infer that that's the only level in which you understood it . . . irritating . . . lame . . . irritation . . . miraculous . . . it ain't worth nothing . . . How quaint . . . Yes, life is too short to be bothered with remembering the details of the unearthing of the first example of writing on metal that ever emerged from a Mesoamerican excavation. Why I bet it must rank down there at the bottom of life experiences, between cutting your toenails and taking out the garbag[e].

It is precisely the same kind of sneering language that you've directed my way in every other post and every other context. Why on earth should I regard you as intellectually serious?

I've already written to my colleague, apologizing for having given his name to someone of your sort, and advised him as to the exceedingly unpleasant kind of person who is apparently planning to accost him on this matter. He can respond to you or not, of course, as he chooses.

[Gervin]

You can waste your time writing 3rd grader tales or cutting and pasting my reaction to your self aggrandizements; all I wanted were some names and information. You were smart to alert your colleague; if I accost him with questions about details of his discovery he can fall safely back into your comforting arms and the knowledge that he was warned about the unpleasant Gervin. You're hoot, Daniel Peterson, but not as clever as you think or as humble as you wish.

[Daniel Peterson]

You can waste your time writing 3rd grader tales or cutting and pasting my reaction to your self aggrandizements; all I wanted were some names and information.

[cdowis]

>Maybe you can answer the question's I asked the others, the first being "If the LGT is true and these people were isolated in this small area, then how did they know there were four seas

Relative to the Yucatan Peninsula --

sea south, gulf of tehuantepec

sea north, gulf of Mexico

sea east, bay of honduras and the Caribbean

sea west, Pacific Ocean

Almost looks like an island, as described in the BOM.

[Markk]

Hi cdowis,

Ok,

From Larry Poulsen's site. That Brant gave me to reference

"There are 378 total directional references in the Book of

Mormon including northward, southward, eastward and

westward. "

Now go to the map below that you suggest is a Island and show me how these directional references would work with this map. And how a people who built ships and cites for hundreds of years didn't figure out it wasn't a Island.

http://www.civilization.ca/civil/maya/images/mmgeoenb.gif

Then...Go to this map and tell me how it works with this?

http://www.cometozarahemla.org/b-of-m_map.html ,

Good Luck, I couldn't figure it out

Take care

Mark

John 1:12

[Dunamis]

Your story is lame because it doesn't say anything. That makes you appear rather pathetic. Your "experience" doesn't irritate me, but rather your patronizing reaction to be being queried about it. If that casts any doubt upon the veracity of your story then it may simply be a natural response to your inability to write about it at anything but the 3rd-grade level. One can infer that that's the only level in which you understood it:

I just read my email, Gervin. You complained about being called a name by another poster. The name was not appropriate. I asked you for a link. Now I find the above. The poster who called you a name was responding to the above. You are not long for this board if you continue with this level of personal attack. You will not get another warning.

[Brant Gardner]

Mark:

I'm sorry you couldn't figure it out on the map. If you had looked at the map on Larry's site, it would have helped, since he drew it out for you. He even superimposed the information on a satellite map.

[cdowis]

1. The first map:

The east sea is east of Belize

[Markk]

Hi Brant,Cdowis

Thanks for the reply

I did look on the map, but his map was different than the one that cdowis described, and the directions were different than Sorensens map. So the logical question was how do the 378 directional points line up to the past and current maps that you guys claim to be the BoM lands and the antiquity of the peoples.

Also I never got a clear answer from you (Brant)about the exact directional method in which these directional points are contrived, the "Aztec" method you mentioned, or the "Hebrew" method, or the "mesoamerica" method. Give me what method is described in the BoM and then I can check it out objectivley through all sources.

So the reason I can't figure it out is that there are three different sources here and they are all different, then add your (Brant)directional theories into the mix.

cdowis, you didn't answer my question at all, how do those 300 some directions work in this area, like the land of desolation, where is that, or the cites described...etc

What do you think was the route that the ships used to bring cement and lumber, enough to build cities, was? They went from the South to the North, so did they go around Argentina, or over the top, or just all the way around.

These are fair questions.

Take care

Mark

John 1:12

Edit...2.

The second map: The north sea is what is marked as the

[Neighbor]

"Is it wrong to pray and ask God about the truthfulness of anything and everything if we desire or will God condemn us for asking Him questions?"

Neighbor: We could look at the lesson learned where the angel told of John the Baptist's birth and it was quesitoned. Don't you think that we are well served to simply believe what Jesus said because He proved to be the Messiah? Surely you aren't saying to question Jesus are you?

"BTW, did Christ ever tell us not to pray about the truthfulness of all things? I've read the Bible several times and have never been able to locate any scripture that indicated that he did. Maybe I'm just interpreting the Bible wrong or can't understand KJV English well enough, but if you do and know of a scripture in the Bible where Jesus told us not to pray about the truthfulness of all things, would you please point it out to me and the rest of us poor, misled, and misguided Mormons and then maybe this hoopla about praying about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon could once and for all have the final nail hammered into its coffin."

Neighbor: I'm no better a person than you. I learn all the time - those who are disciples of Jesus are being transformed into His image inwardly. It's about growth, not to put you down. I know MANY Mormons that I have a lot of respect for as believers in Jesus Christ. That there are issues is the work of the Lord to resolve. Based upon His prayer in John 17 it seems that we have to believe, do and love as He and find unity in Him - instead of trying to find those things that divide, why not find those things that unify in hearing and doing what Jesus said?

Put the BOM aside and learn from Jesus. That can never be misguided.

Jesus taught about the truth of the Scriptures, that they must not be broken and that to ignore and teach others not to keep those things would be unprofitable in the kingdom of God. Surely you can agree with that? Jesus taught the Spirit is the Spirit of truth. God cannot lie. Jesus said His words could by no means pass away as well as the fact that not one jot or tittle of the law would pass either. It is by Jesus that we have grace and truth. That is by His person and His teaching and His example.

Those things are truth, not to be prayed about to ask if they are truth. God said that those who don't believe the truth because they did no love the truth would be sent a strong delusion that they believe not the truth. You do believe every word Jesus said is truth - don' t you?

[Smith]

"Is it wrong to pray and ask God about the truthfulness of anything and everything if we desire or will God condemn us for asking Him questions?"

Neighbor: We could look at the lesson learned where the angel told of John the Baptist's birth and it was quesitoned. Don't you think that we are well served to simply believe what Jesus said because He proved to be the Messiah? Surely you aren't saying to question Jesus are you?

I cant find who you are quoting but you have me wondering here whether or not an angel or Christ appeared to him/her and conveyed some kind of message to the person that you feel they are questioning him. Now I am guessing that there was no such appearance, so why would it be wrong to ask? Especially if the Master himself says - ask and it shal be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shal be opened unto you... or if James says, if any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God...

[KevinG]

Jesus Christ is who taught me by His Holy Spirit, of the truthfullness of the restored Gospel. Implying we have to put down the Book of Mormon to know Christ, when indeed it admonishes us to come unto Christ, is like telling someone to put down the Bible to come unto Christ.

Questioning revelation (as was done with the angel who testified of John the Baptists birth) is different than asking God for knowledge of things. The former is questioning what was already revealed or being revelaed not asking of God for enlightenment.

[Brant Gardner]

Mark:

Also I never got a clear answer from you (Brant)about the exact directional method

The directions listed in the text are the English coordinates we find familiar. How those match with the geography or how they might translate culturally different original directions is a subject for analysis, not declaration. At the moment, there are a couple of ways of reading the geography of the Book of Mormon that agree on a numer of points, but differ in the use of directions. Both agree on the Grijalva river basin as the location for the majority of the action, so the rest of the issue depends upon the arguments for the geography. That they both see a very similar correlation to the specifics suggests that there isn't a major difference between the two, and certainly not one that alters the way we attempt to correlate the text to the archaeological data.

[KevinG]

An observation from a Scouter here: Could the differences in magnetic N from that time period account for some differences in what the ancients reported and what we now know of as North?

Also, perceptions often lead to mistakes in interpretation. For instance declaring that Canada is the land northward of the United States might seem a tad strange for someone who lived their entire life in Windsor, Ontario, CANADA - directly south of Detroit Michigan, USA.

[cdowis]

>Put the BOM aside and learn from Jesus. That can never be misguided.

Please read the last chapter in 2 Nephi.

[cdowis]

>cdowis, you didn't answer my question at all, how do those 300 some directions work in this area, like the land of desolation, where is that, or the cites described...etc

You might want to look at

"Exploring the lands of the Book of Mormon" Joseph Allen which has the map I mentioned and extensive discussion.

[Dale]

>Put the BOM aside and learn from Jesus. That can never be misguided.

Please read the last chapter in 2 Nephi.

The Book of Mormon is another witness of Paul's Jesus.

[Moksha]

The Book of Mormon is another witness of Paul's Jesus.

As well as Jack's, Bart's, Helen's, Greg's, Samantha's, Ed's, Heather's, etc...