Horses and Chariots -

[charity]

If you look for Book of Mormon parallels with Revolutionary era America, don't you have to look for the obvious important features of the Book of Mormon which are not only not common, but absolutely foreign to that American era?

[beastie]

I haven't minimized anything. I have suggested that there is a process that one must go through. One of the requirements, prior to resolving what the logical referent of "horse" or "chariot" might have been is to determine if the text is actually representing history.

Once that is established, speculation about the plausible referent can be made. However, since I don't see you accepting the historical part, I see no reason to speculate on what the "horse" or "chariot" might have been, since you are obviously inclined to see that issue very differently from the way I do.

I can tell you that I have changed my mind over the last number of years. Nevertheless, I'll keep my counsel and prefer to speak on things that have a better substantive basis. If we are really examining historicity, endulging in speculation doesn't seem appropriate.

Speculation on points such as this seems necessary - otherwise, how else can we evaluate if the "context" actually IS consistent with Mesoamerica? If no reasonable possiblity can be speculated, then it seems significant.

[beastie]

Gardner

[cjcampbell]

It seems there are a lot of people who are in serious denial about the very real evidence of precolumbian horses in America, including 40 Inca drawings of horses, the fact that Appaloosas are not Spanish in origin, at least one precolumbian skull, etc. And, please understand, these points were all brought up by people who study horses for a living, not 'Mormons' or their sympathizers.

Please provide references and citations for these claims.

I already mentioned the book '1421' and asked for critical comment on it. So far everyone has declined to do so.

I am beginning to lose patience with being ignored on these issues. The critics right now have absolutely no credibility with me either as scholars or scientists. Their faulty arguments and refusal to discuss issues reveals that they are neither objective nor truthful.

Wait a minute, aren't you the same guy who made THIS statement on another thread?

Now, Joseph Smith knew very well that there were no elephants in America. He was uneducated, but he knew where elephants come from. If he was forging the Book of Mormon, why would anybody with an IQ above 50 include them? Joseph Smith was not a stupid man. He had no reason to include something in the Book of Mormon that would appear ridiculous on the face of it.

http://www.fairboards.org/index.php?showtopic=14159&st=165

That statement could only be made by someone who hasn't made the slightest attempt to verify his information, so I'm not particularly impressed by your ability to judge anyone's arguments.

I absolutely am the same guy who made that statement. So explain to me why Joseph Smith included elephants in the Book of Mormon when he knew that there were no elephants in America. Ad hominem attacks are not an answer. If that is the best you can do, guess what I think of your arguments.

[beastie]

I absolutely am the same guy who made that statement. So explain to me why Joseph Smith included elephants in the Book of Mormon when he knew that there were no elephants in America. Ad hominem attacks are not an answer. If that is the best you can do, guess what I think of your arguments.

Go back and read the linked thread. JS, like others of his time period, most certainly did not "know" there were no elephants in America, and that was well demonstrated in the thread. Didn't you bother to finish reading it?

I already mentioned the book '1421' and asked for critical comment on it. So far everyone has declined to do so.

I haven't read the book, although I do know the diffusionist theory is highly speculative.

However, one well-qualified reviewer was less than impressed by the book.

http://www.maphist.nl/discpapers.html

Michael King is one of New Zealand's foremost historians and he has just had a review of 1421 published in a local weekly magazine (the New Zealand Listener) He discusses those bits of the book that deal with New Zealand.

In 1969, determined to subject earlier claims to some kind of test, I sent a

piece of the Ruapuke wreck recovered by a local farming family to the Forest

Research Institute in Rotorua. The fragment was two ancient pieces of wood,

which I was assured was teak, held together by two brass nails. The verdict

was disappointingly sober. The wood was totara, and the institute

established that, as an artifact, the fragment was little more than 100

years old. The Ruapuke wreck, in other words, was the remains of a vessel

built in New Zealand in the nineteenth century. So much for the theories of

ancient voyagers reaching New Zealand before Tasman and Cook; so much for

Gavin Menzies

[Brant Gardner]

Dan Vogel:

You keep claiming academic support for your methodology, but have yet to cite any scholar who handles a disputed text the way you do.

May I assume that the reason that you decline to provide any kind of support for your methodology is that no one supports it at all? (this actually appears to be correct based on your statement at the end of the post.)

I find it absolutely amazing that you have the chutzpah to ask me to define - again, a methodology when you completely refuse to do the same.

Nevertheless, let's see what we can do.

1) I agree that there aren't many texts that are exactly the same as the Book of Mormon - therefore there isn't a precise correlation of methodology.

2) I don't agree that the Book of Mormon is so unique that scholarly methods are inapplicable.

3) We have gone over Blass. For some reason, you continue to assume that he doesn't count, even though you clearly have no idea what he said, and simply assume that there is something wrong with him because Nibley cited him. I cited him as support for the idea that one must begin with the assumption that the text in question is historical and test that. Oddly enough, you have (at times) agreed with that proposition while still attempting to vaguely disagree with Blass.

4) In ethnohistory, one of the common requirements of an analysis is to support that analysis by demonstrating the similarities in other peoples and times. (so common that I wouldn't think you would need a practitioner - but H.B. Nicholson will do). This is done in archaeology as well. (Dever specifically mentions this method) It is a portable technique and suggests that when we examine the Book of Mormon we should assume that it behaves in ways that other texts do - to the same extent and for the same reason that ethnogrpahic analogies are used.

5) Scholars have to deal with texts in translation without an original all of the time. I am unable to explain why you are not able to see the relevance of the Histoire du Mechique as a text that had to be tested to see if it really was a translation or was a more modern forgery. The issue is the same, and the process was to examine the text against its putative context as well as to examine the internals. In the case of the Histoire, verifying its contents is important because it records an element of the Quetzalcoatl cycle only hinted at in other sources. Therefore, the comparative data was important to substantiate the historicity of the text and the usefulness of the variant form.

6) I provided the parallel issue of the Coxoh language, which is a questionable lexeme in the wrong language that does not appear to match with history. The discovery of what it meant is a process that is very parallel to the methods I am using in dealing with questionable lexemes. The process has been accepted by a very respected linguist working on the project.

7) In the case of linguistics, I am following pretty well know linguistic principles based on my graduate studies in linguistics and conversations with a handful of prominent Mesoamerican linguists.

There isn't any single step by step methodology that anyone would use. There are, however, accepted techniques for particular aspects of a text and those are applied as applicable.

Now, having presented the places where the techniques I am using are directly parallel to accepted techniques, please do the same.

I am interested in your justification for the following assumptions that you continue to make.

1) You begin with the assumption of forgery (though you have admitted that you aren't adamant on this one).

2) Your insistence that while an anachronisms in translation can occur without impugning the original, it doesn't in this case. I would like to know why and on what principles used in other documents this is the case. This is another case where you have admitted that your method was wrong, but quickly returned to ressert that same method.

3) Your insistence that the English semantic field of a word necessarily informs the semantic field of a word that it translates from a different language. Any linguistic data would be helpful. Any example would be good. Your assumption does not match any known linguistic principle.

4) Your continued insistence that we cannot treat the Book of Mormon like any other text. Please provide any support for that statement. I would also like to know why accepted scholarly techniques that are applicable to every other text every written necessarily fail on the Book of Mormon.

5) Anything else you can think of that provides the kind of support for your position that you are asking of mine.

The last time I asked you this question, you were evasive.

The last time I asked you this question, you ignored it.

And the time before that.

And the time before that.

And the time before that.

And the time before that.

And the time before that.

I respectfully submit that my inability to answer a question to your liking might fit your definition of evasive, but it is qualitatively different from avoiding the issue altogether.

This answer tells us nothing about other scholars using your methodology, which is: assume historicity to see if there are anachronisms and other problems, then continued to assume historicity to explain them in a way that preserves historicity.

Of course it doesn't. That is because this isn't my process at all.

You are correct that scholars begin with the assumption of authenticity. Without that assumption, you cannot falsify the hypothesis because you have already falsified it before you begin. Assuming something to be a forgery too quickly led to the problems with the Grolier Codex. (This was the point that I cited from Blass - and to which you are actually agreed - before returning to your earlier position. You don't seem solid on this one).

Of course, there are always texts where the data can continue to be argued, such as the Secret Gospel of Mark. Nevertheless, the arguments do not hinge on the initial assumption but rather than on the data.

As for your caricaturization that I explain away anachronisms in order to preserve historicity, that is not indicative of the method I have explained more than once. To my knowledge, you have not actually engaged my explanations, prefering to continue to assert that I am doing something that I categorically reject.

If you are looking for me to supply scholarly support for a method that I do not believe is valid and do not use, no wonder you find my answers evasive.

As far as I can tell, Blass only talks about the first part.

Then we agree on the first part, at least? Of course he says more, but I'll take this as an admission - again. However, I would appreciate it is this time you remember that you have agreed and don't fall back on your assumptions again.

As I said, I never claimed to have a method that was the standard scholarly procedure; you did. All I did was to critique your methodology.

Wonderful. Now we are down to it. You never respond to my request for a method because you don't have a defensible method. That explains everything. You attack my methodology because you can't counter with anything better. I must say, however, that once you admit that you do not follow any known academic methodology I find even less reason to believe assertions that are supported only by your opinion.

I find it absolutely amazing that when we finally get to the bottom of approaches, I continue to propose that we follow academic standards (yet am a believer in religion) and you are more than willing to propose that we take your opinions on faith (while ostensibly being a natural realist).

[beastie]

Columbus shows up with a few horses and suddenly every plains and Northwest tribe in America has horses, but not the Caribs or other tribes first contacted by the Spanish. How did that happen? Why did the Indians ride piebald or pinto horses when the Spanish rode Arabians? How did horsemanship spread so quickly? Why do the Northwest Indian tribes all have traditions indicating horse ownership that predate the Spanish by several centuries? How did the Indians get a purebred horse, the Appaloosa, that was unknown to the Spanish? Why is it that most of the tribes that the Spanish contacted directly did not adopt the horse immediately, but the earliest of plains Indians by European explorers all mention horses? If the Indians were copying the Spaniards, why didn't they also adopt saddles and stirrups? Saddles and stirrups are not exactly advanced technology and well within the capability of any of the native American tribes to manufacture. Why did the plains Indians have a horse culture more akin to the Mongols than to the Spanish? Does it not make more sense to say that the horses were already in America when the Spanish got here?

What attempts have you made to answer these questions yourself? I have a book dedicated solely to the history of the horse, as well as several interesting websites that discuss the history of the horse in the americas, but before I go to any effort to share that kind of information, I want to know what you have done yourself to answer these questions.

[Brant Gardner]

beastie:

Speculation on points such as this seems necessary - otherwise, how else can we evaluate if the "context" actually IS consistent with Mesoamerica?

You deal with things that are farther from the realm of pure speculation. I would never attempt to build a case for historicity on my speculation about what something might have been. Similarly, I wouldn't want anyone to assume that they could evaluate a case for historicity on elements of largely conjectural reconstruction.

If you are really interested in historicity, then you argue on the basis of data that can be handled, not on the basis of whether you agree with someone's imagination.

You wrote to Bob:

I think this is an error critics like you and me make, at times. We're assuming that Brant is writing for people like US, who debate the historicity of the BoM. Brant can certainly speak for himself, but over the years I think I've figured out that he is really speaking to people who already accept the historicity of the BoM.

I certainly have more interest in those who are believers. However, I speak to both the same way and insist on the same quality of responses from both. I would be just as adamant that a poor apologetic argument should not be presented as I would a poor argument from the other side.

It does seem to me that if you know a text is absolutely dated to a certain time period, but contains apparent anachronisms and contradictions, then you do work within that assumption to figure out what is going on with the text within the paradigm of already proven date.

You have made the same mistake that Dan and Bob have. You have assumed that the anachronisms are necessarily real and therefore have to be explained away. That is a fundamental misrepresentation of what I am suggesting.

I am suggesting that since an anachronism can occur in a translation that isn't in the original, that we cannot use them the way we would if they were in a putative original. In the case of a translation, we have to first determine the likelihood that they were in the original and that can only be done by context.

Without corroborative context, we can't say anything about the anachronisms until the issue of historicity has already been decided. Speculating prior to that time is simply useless in historical analysis.

The textual analysis tells us that not all of the putative anachronisms carry the same weight. The "horse" and "chariot" are indeterminative because the text does not present them in a context that clearly defines their function. Metal, on the other hand, is textually defined and therefore qualitatively different. Nevertheless, and argument from silence is inherently weak. William G. Dever commented on a different type of argument based on the absence of evidence:

Some of these later seals do have trees, so Keel and Uehlinger think that by now (7th century B.C) Asherah has

[juliann]

I have a book dedicated solely to the history of the horse, as well as several interesting websites that discuss the history of the horse in the americas, but before I go to any effort to share that kind of information, I want to know what you have done yourself to answer these questions.

You really just don't get it. You have a book? A book?

That is supposed to make the following irrelevant??

Wonderful. Now we are down to it. You never respond to my request for a method because you don't have a defensible method. That explains everything. You attack my methodology because you can't counter with anything better. I must say, however, that once you admit that you do not follow any known academic methodology I find even less reason to believe assertions that are supported only by your opinion.

I find it absolutely amazing that when we finally get to the bottom of approaches, I continue to propose that we follow academic standards (yet am a believer in religion) and you are more than willing to propose that we take your opinions on faith (while ostensibly being a natural realist).

It always comes down to this and I don't know what the solution is when people who have never had even one course in methodology think they can read a book and instruct trained scholars.

[cjcampbell]

Columbus shows up with a few horses and suddenly every plains and Northwest tribe in America has horses, but not the Caribs or other tribes first contacted by the Spanish. How did that happen? Why did the Indians ride piebald or pinto horses when the Spanish rode Arabians? How did horsemanship spread so quickly? Why do the Northwest Indian tribes all have traditions indicating horse ownership that predate the Spanish by several centuries? How did the Indians get a purebred horse, the Appaloosa, that was unknown to the Spanish? Why is it that most of the tribes that the Spanish contacted directly did not adopt the horse immediately, but the earliest of plains Indians by European explorers all mention horses? If the Indians were copying the Spaniards, why didn't they also adopt saddles and stirrups? Saddles and stirrups are not exactly advanced technology and well within the capability of any of the native American tribes to manufacture. Why did the plains Indians have a horse culture more akin to the Mongols than to the Spanish? Does it not make more sense to say that the horses were already in America when the Spanish got here?

What attempts have you made to answer these questions yourself? I have a book dedicated solely to the history of the horse, as well as several interesting websites that discuss the history of the horse in the americas, but before I go to any effort to share that kind of information, I want to know what you have done yourself to answer these questions.

Well, one attempt was to ask you, I guess. I read web sites and books, too, by the way.

[cjcampbell]

I absolutely am the same guy who made that statement. So explain to me why Joseph Smith included elephants in the Book of Mormon when he knew that there were no elephants in America. Ad hominem attacks are not an answer. If that is the best you can do, guess what I think of your arguments.

Go back and read the linked thread. JS, like others of his time period, most certainly did not "know" there were no elephants in America, and that was well demonstrated in the thread. Didn't you bother to finish reading it?

And tell me, what were my arguments against it? None? I found the explanation given me there to be satisfactory to the extent that it does explain how Joseph Smith could have erroneously believed that there were elephants in America, even if the chain of information offered is far from complete.

So, tell me. What did that have to do with my original argument? Why are you skating around the questions I asked by drawing attention to an argument that I had not repeated?

Are you asserting now that monkeys are mentioned in the Bible? Or elephants? Or are you now claiming that the fact that monkeys are not mentioned in the Book of Mormon is not so important after all?

Or are you just going to continue to ignore the issue?

Thank you, by the way, for the link to the review on '1421.' The Inca drawings are mentioned in there, unfortunately. It would be interesting to find out the source of the drawings and if they are real, but I do not have access to that book and am much less likely to buy it now.

[Dan Vogel]

Brant,

Thanks for responding.

You keep claiming academic support for your methodology, but have yet to cite any scholar who handles a disputed text the way you do.

May I assume that the reason that you decline to provide any kind of support for your methodology is that no one supports it at all? (this actually appears to be correct based on your statement at the end of the post.)

You keep asking me for my methodology, when I have not discussed methodology. I have merely critiqued yours.

I find it absolutely amazing that you have the chutzpah to ask me to define - again, a methodology when you completely refuse to do the same.

I have asked you if you were interested in using the methods of higher critics to date documents? You never responded.

Nevertheless, let's see what we can do.

1) I agree that there aren't many texts that are exactly the same as the Book of Mormon - therefore there isn't a precise correlation of methodology.

Well, this is a welcomed equivocation that contrasts with your blanket statement that you are following standard practice.

2) I don't agree that the Book of Mormon is so unique that scholarly methods are inapplicable.

So you do disagree with Nibley then. Not a huge problem, but one to keep in mind.

3) We have gone over Blass. For some reason, you continue to assume that he doesn't count, even though you clearly have no idea what he said, and simply assume that there is something wrong with him because Nibley cited him. I cited him as support for the idea that one must begin with the assumption that the text in question is historical and test that. Oddly enough, you have (at times) agreed with that proposition while still attempting to vaguely disagree with Blass.

I wouldn

[juliann]

So, now, here we have it. No text

[Jan]

Dan V,

I am not a scholar. I have no academic training other than a BS in science.

BUT . . .

even I can understand what Brant has said in response to you and how it's being either misunderstood or twisted by you (or at least, appears to be so based on how you articulated your responses).

I'll edit this post to go back and get examples. Of course, Brant is the expert on what Brant said (and you for yours) but I will post my understanding of your responses - as a person with no dog in this fight.

Dan:

[beastie]

cj,

Are you asserting now that monkeys are mentioned in the Bible? Or elephants? Or are you now claiming that the fact that monkeys are not mentioned in the Book of Mormon is not so important after all?

I guess all critics look alike to you. I never made the argument you are attributing to me about monkeys, so I certainly don't feel the need to retract it.

Do I think that the lack of mention of one particular, or a couple of particular, animals, plants, or social features is problematic for the BoM? No. Do I think the lack of mention of any animal, plant, or social feature particular to Mesoamerica is problematic? Yes.

In regards to why I mentioned elephants:

As I stated, I was pointing out your problematic history with researching your own assertions, so my opinion is that you aren't well qualified to judge the arguments of others. This is the second time, since I've been back here, that I've seen you making highly problematic assertions without apparently having taken the time to do some background checking yourself.

When I first brought up the elephant problem, you certainly seemed to adhere to your original position, with this:

I absolutely am the same guy who made that statement. So explain to me why Joseph Smith included elephants in the Book of Mormon when he knew that there were no elephants in America. Ad hominem attacks are not an answer. If that is the best you can do, guess what I think of your arguments.

Somehow my reply to you became an "ad hom" attack. If that is so, you have been engaging in ad hom attacks yourself. BTW, I don't agree with your seeming interpretation of an "ad hom" attack.

Note that in this reply you repeat your previous assertion that JS knew that there were no elephants in America. I asked if you had bothered to read the thread wherein you made that assertion. You could have cleared up that erroneous idea quite easily yourself, with a google search, btw. But even so, Dan Vogel and I both provided information that debunked your notion a week ago.

When I directed you back to the thread, you replied:

And tell me, what were my arguments against it? None? I found the explanation given me there to be satisfactory to the extent that it does explain how Joseph Smith could have erroneously believed that there were elephants in America, even if the chain of information offered is far from complete.

Do you see your inconsistencies here? Just a few posts prior to this one, you restate your erroneous conclusion as if challenging someone to prove you wrong. You had been proven wrong a week ago. Now, suddenly, the fact that you did not further post to the thread in question becomes evidence you "found" the evidence satisfactory? Then why did you repeat the assertion on this thread?

How about just admitting that you never bothered to read the follow up replies to your elephant assertion?

Yet, on this thread you stated:

I am beginning to lose patience with being ignored on these issues. The critics right now have absolutely no credibility with me either as scholars or scientists. Their faulty arguments and refusal to discuss issues reveals that they are neither objective nor truthful.

Let me get this straight. Someone who can't be bothered to do even a modicum of background research before making assertions that are easily proven false, who doesn't bother to read replies made specific to those assertions, is now "losing patience" and feels qualified to state that critics have "no credibility"???

Your questions about horses are very basic, and despite the notions of some on this thread, certainly don't require a course in methodology to clarify.

At any rate, here is one quote to help with one of your very basic questions. How in the world did horses multiply so rapidly? And how did the Indians attain such rapid expertise with them?

Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico

By Frederick Webb Hodge

P569

The first horses seen by the mainland Indians were those of the Spanish invaders of Mexico.  A few years later DeSoto brought the horse into Florida and westward to the Mississippi, while Coronado, on his march to Quivira in 1541, introduced it to the Indians of the great plains.  When the Aztec saw the mounted men of Cortes they supposed horse and man to be one and were greatly alarmed at the strange animal.  The classical Centaur owed its origin to a like misconception.  A tradition existed among the Pawnee that their ancestors mistook a mule ridden by a man for a single animal and shot at it from concealment, capturing the mule when the man fell.

The horse was a marvel to the Indians and came to be regarded as sacred.  For a long time it was worshiped by the Aztec, and by most of the tribes was considered to have a mysterious or sacred character.  Its origin was explained by a number of myths representing  horses to have come out of the earth through lakes and springs or from the sun.  When Antonio de Espejo visited the Hopi of Arizona in 1583, the Indians spread cotton scarfs or kilts on the ground for the horses to walk on, believing the latter to be sacred. This sacred character is sometimes shown in the names given to the horse, as the Dakota sunka wakan,

[beastie]

CJ also asked:

How did the Indians get a purebred horse, the Appaloosa, that was unknown to the Spanish?

Yet another example of a question that could easily be answered with a five minute google search.

The Spanish Conquistadors took spotted horses when they blazed a trail through Mexico and South America. Quickly the spotted horse spread northward until most of the Indian populations were using horses by around 1700.

Once they were introduced to America the Appaloosa horse began what was arguably their most famous period, as horses prized by the Nez Perce Indians.

http://www.appaloosa.org.au/History.asp

It appears to me that you have obtained your information from one highly problematic source, the book 1412. There is nothing wrong with reading books on the "fringe" of academic mainstream, sometimes the fringe is proven right. However, when you DO choose to utilize information offered by those fringe books, you really should take the time to verify them against mainstream, accepted science. I've seen the same thing done on this board with Barry Fell's book, who is notoriously unreliable.

I'm not going to take the time to address any of your other questions that originated with 1412. You really need to do some research on these claims yourself, before challenging people to refute you, and then huffing and puffing when you're ignored. There may be a reason you're being ignored, even by believers who would be ecstatically happy if these claims you're making were proven correct.

[katherine the great]

At the same time, I think there are serious flaws to the theory that there were no precolumbian horses. Even assuming that the Book of Mormon is wrong and that all the native Americans are really Asians that crossed the land bridge to Alaska, it is odd that anyone asserts that the Asians would not have brought horses with them. I will say it: it is flat-out ridiculous to aver that Mongols would not bring horses when migrating to America.

I've mostly just skimmed through this thread, but this comment caught my eye. The early "Mongolian" settlers of the Americas crossed the landbridge at least seven thousand years before the horse was domesticated in the Old World. That is why they didn't bring it with them. Horses were a food source at that time in human history.

[beastie]

Here are the points from Blass that Nibley found significant in ascertaining a forgery:

1. Keep out of the range of unsympathetic critics. There is, Blass insists, no such thing as a clever forgery. No forger can escape detection if somebody really wants to expose him; all the great forgeries discovered to date have been crudely executed (for example, the Piltdown skull), depending for their success on the enthusiastic support of the public or the experts. The Book of Mormon has enjoyed no such support. From the day it appeared, important persons at the urgent demand of an impatient public did everything they could to show it a forgery. And Joseph Smith, far from keeping it out of the hands of unsympathetic critics, did everything he could to put it into those hands. Surely this is not the way of a deceiver.

2. Keep your document as short as possible. The longer a forgery is the more easily it may be exposed, the danger increasing geometrically with the length of the writing. By the time he had gone ten pages, the author of the Book of Mormon knew only too well what a dangerous game he was playing if it was a hoax; yet he carries on undismayed for six hundred pages.

3. Above all, don't write a historical document! They are by far the easiest of all to expose, being full of

[beastie]

I can tell you that I have changed my mind over the last number of years. Nevertheless, I'll keep my counsel and prefer to speak on things that have a better substantive basis. If we are really examining historicity, endulging in speculation doesn't seem appropriate.

Brant, you speculate all the time. Why not this time?

Moreover, it seems to me that, when weighing whether or not the context of an anachronism is consistent with an actual time period and area, it is necessary to offer possible explanations for the context of that anachronism.

No, you have missed the way this works. I posit Joseph as a translator who uses his own words and understanding as part of the translation - nevertheless retaining structures and meanings from the original text. In that scenario, Joseph's world influences his vocabulary. The underlying text influences structure, content and meaning. Joseph's expectation that certainly everyone would have had a horse could easily influence his translation of the lexeme - but it would not influence the way that animal acted in the text

There are a certain number of ways that information can be conveyed to a human mind. There are words, pictures, impressions... I'm probably missing something obvious but that is what occurs to me at the moment. So which of these was happening to JS that enabled him to use anachronisms throughout the text, yet remain faithful to the "structure" of the text? Or by structure do you mean simply the flow of the story, and not the structure of the language?

[beastie]

BTW, cj, you might find this site useful.

http://www.ramtops.co.uk/

[beastie]

I provided the parallel issue of the Coxoh language, which is a questionable lexeme in the wrong language that does not appear to match with history. The discovery of what it meant is a process that is very parallel to the methods I am using in dealing with questionable lexemes. The process has been accepted by a very respected linguist working on the project.

Addictio once went into an analysis of Brant's use of his Coxoh theory for his approach to the BoM. ZLMB has a dismal search engine. Anyone remember it?

Oh, and speaking of addictio, he brought up an excellent point that needs addressing, that I am slapping myself for forgetting - the *** verses, which are a special challenge.

Mosiah 12:5

Yea, and I will cause that they shall have burdens lashed upon their backs; and they shall be driven before like a dumb ***.

Mosiah 21:3

Now they durst not slay them, because of the oath which their king had made unto Limhi; but they would smite them on their cheeks, and exercise authority over them; and began to put heavy burdens upon their backs, and drive them as they would a dumb ***

[Dale]

Mosiah 12:5 is the Lord speaking. As long as he understands what an *** is his readers don't have to.

Mosiah 31:3 it's always possible to show an *** to them in vision, or simply explain it's a beast of burdon. This verse picks up the Lords saying as being fulfilled in Mosiah 12:5.

So I am not sure it settles the matter of their regular animals as this was a saying of the Lord they picked up in another verse.

[beastie]

Mosiah 12:5 is the Lord speaking. As long as he understands what an *** is his readers don't have to.

Mosiah 31:3 it's always possible to show an *** to them in vision, or simply explain it's a beast of burdon. This verse picks up the Lords saying as being fulfilled in Mosiah 12:5.

The Lord doesn't bother to speak to human beings in a comprehensible manner? Is he just talking to himself?

[Brant Gardner]

beastie:

I assumed that at least you would understand the difference between a real animal and a figure of speech (obviously Addictio missed it). The two verses are not referencing an animal, but a metaphor. Of course that puts us right back into issues of translation, which seem to frustrate those who prefer to read very literally.

[beastie]

I assumed that at least you would understand the difference between a real animal and a figure of speech (obviously Addictio missed it). The two verses are not referencing an animal, but a metaphor. Of course that puts us right back into issues of translation, which seem to frustrate those who prefer to read very literally.

What is the Mesoamerican metaphor that could mean the same thing?