Horses and Chariots -

[Dale]

The basic idea of a beast of burdon might be comprehensible, but the animal might be a little strange. The early portion of the Old Testament mentions the *** a few times. I am not sure they were so dumb they couldn't understand their own scriptures. A partially confusing figure of speech is not necessarily unintelligible.

[beastie]

The basic idea of a beast of burdon might be comprehensible, but the animal might be a little strange. The early portion of the Old Testament mentions the *** a few times. I am not sure they were so dumb they couldn't understand their own scriptures. A partially confusing figure of speech is not necessarily unintelligible.

They had no beast of burden in Mesoamerica during the BoM time period. So the only metaphor that Mesoamericans would have had the background to understand was, as Brant mentioned earlier, a human being as the "beast" of burden. Certainly this was not an incomprehensible concept to JS, so why was it necessary for for him to use an alternative metaphor?

[Dan Vogel]

Jan,

Huh? You may not have brought up a discussion of your methodology but others have certainly asked you for it. And, isn't critiquing Brant's discussing methodology opening the door of doing the same with yours? This really appears like a disingenuous response from you. Why haven't you wanted to lay out and discuss your methodology?

Jan - more coming (nothing earth-shattering, just more of the same) but I've got to go pick up my kid from baseball practice.

Because that would help Brant distract the discussion from an analysis of his methodology. He was the one who made the assertion to following scholarly standards, not me. There has been and will be plenty of opportunity to explore and challenge my assertions, but what if I didn

[Dan Vogel]

Juliann,

Please define and describe "standard methodology" for us so that we are all on the same page before deciding who is applying "it".

You obviously haven

[Brant Gardner]

Dan Vogel:

it took some prying to get out of him that it

[Brant Gardner]

beastie:

So the only metaphor that Mesoamericans would have had the background to understand was, as Brant mentioned earlier, a human being as the "beast" of burden. Certainly this was not an incomprehensible concept to JS, so why was it necessary for for him to use an alternative metaphor?

Have you translated idioms before? (Idiom is a better decription that metaphor - my error) How would you translate "lock, stock and barrell" into Spanish? Do you translate the meaning of the idiom or attempt to retain the semantic sphere of any of the words in it? How about "happy as a clam"? I'm not sure why that one even works in English.

The problem with the very question you ask is that it presumes something about the translation process without any evidence that the presumption has any validity at all. You are back to the problem I have stated multiple times. You cannot use the translation to prove or disprove the translation because no matter which way you go you are only supporting the original assumption that is the very question to be resolved.

In this case, what do we have? Is the presence of "***" in these phrases as damaging as Addictio claimed? Not even close. The presence of "horse" has better attestation. At least we know that is actually an animal.

[T-Bone]

All of the work of McCue's essay stands on one point, which has as much stability as an ice cube. He acts as if everything there is to know about relevant areas, cultures, etc. is known to archeologists, anthropologists, etc. That ice cube is melting. More and more information is coming to light and applying heat. When the ice cube finally melts to a puddle his little pyramid of logic will fall.

C'mon Charity. You're smarter than that.

How about an answer other than ice cubes and puddles?

More and more information coming to light? That's empty.

T-Bone

[beastie]

Have you translated idioms before? (Idiom is a better decription that metaphor - my error) How would you translate "lock, stock and barrell" into Spanish? Do you translate the meaning of the idiom or attempt to retain the semantic sphere of any of the words in it? How about "happy as a clam"? I'm not sure why that one even works in English.

The problem with the very question you ask is that it presumes something about the translation process without any evidence that the presumption has any validity at all. You are back to the problem I have stated multiple times. You cannot use the translation to prove or disprove the translation because no matter which way you go you are only supporting the original assumption that is the very question to be resolved.

In this case, what do we have? Is the presence of "***" in these phrases as damaging as Addictio claimed? Not even close. The presence of "horse" has better attestation. At least we know that is actually an animal.

Ok, I'll accept that. Apparently you do perceive the translation process to be something that was connected to the text's "structure" by meaning the actual placement of words - IOW, it's still a type of word-by-word process. (I thought by structure you meant more of the flow of the story, because you seem to reject chiasmus because it entails a word-by-word process you had rejected.) Of course, the idiom isn't translated word-by-word, but it is read word-by-word, otherwise the idiom challenge wouldn't exist, correct? So the process of translation, from JS, did actually entail looking (well, spiritually looking, since sometimes the plates weren't present or being looked at) at individual words. Is that correct? So you aren't really that far from the "Joseph as reader" idea? But instead of JS actually having the word presented to him, that wouldn't go away if he got it wrong, what do you think happened?

BTW, do you admit that you do regularly engage in speculation regarding what these things COULD mean, and, in fact, it is necessary to do so to evaluate the potential historicity of a text?

[Marvelous]

beastie:

So the only metaphor that Mesoamericans would have had the background to understand was, as Brant mentioned earlier, a human being as the "beast" of burden. Certainly this was not an incomprehensible concept to JS, so why was it necessary for for him to use an alternative metaphor?

Have you translated idioms before? (Idiom is a better decription that metaphor - my error) How would you translate "lock, stock and barrell" into Spanish? Do you translate the meaning of the idiom or attempt to retain the semantic sphere of any of the words in it? How about "happy as a clam"? I'm not sure why that one even works in English.

The problem with the very question you ask is that it presumes something about the translation process without any evidence that the presumption has any validity at all. You are back to the problem I have stated multiple times. You cannot use the translation to prove or disprove the translation because no matter which way you go you are only supporting the original assumption that is the very question to be resolved.

In this case, what do we have? Is the presence of "***" in these phrases as damaging as Addictio claimed? Not even close. The presence of "horse" has better attestation. At least we know that is actually an animal.

Presumably these issues could be resolved if we had the plates. That Moroni must have been a practical joker.

[Brant Gardner]

beastie:

So you aren't really that far from the "Joseph as reader" idea?

A very far distant from "Joseph as reader." I don't think anything close to that happened - it required a completely different process.

what do you think happened?

As I mentioned somewhere else on this board recently, the last time I tried to answer that question it was a 90 page paper. My experience with boards tells me that this simply isn't the place to attempt the argument.

BTW, do you admit that you do regularly engage in speculation regarding what these things COULD mean, and, in fact, it is necessary to do so to evaluate the potential historicity of a text?

Again, learning from what goes on within a board, I prefer to leave my speculations in the proper context rather than place them here where they can be stripped of the context I try so hard to place them in.

The place of speculation about what the English text could represent is possible only after a lot of work has been done on the foundation that suggests that there is even a reason to look for an explanation of the English text. Since the discussants at this board don't agree on the more important issues, proposing those that are interesting only after the important issues are resolved diffusses the proper focus.

[beastie]

A very far distant from "Joseph as reader." I don't think anything close to that happened - it required a completely different process.

The main difference is, I think, that under your understanding JS processes the text in some way to develop a translation. I don't understand how that happens, and I suspect you don't really, either. There are only a certain number of ways that information is received by human beings - specific words, which you reject, a complete thought that suddenly develops, a visual picture - is there something else?

So the conundrum that your process presents, in my view, is that the fact that JS has processed the text in order to develop the translation means that JS's understanding of the text is the origin of the translation. Why is that a conundrum? Because that same understanding is what formed JS' later understandings of the text, as well.

It's one thing to say that someone who just read words off a stone didn't really understand how the text worked, for example, didn't understand that the entire text took place in a very small area - but it's quite another thing to state that someone who had to process and understand the text enough to translate the MEANING of an idiom didn't understand that same text.

As I mentioned somewhere else on this board recently, the last time I tried to answer that question it was a 90 page paper. My experience with boards tells me that this simply isn't the place to attempt the argument.

I agree that boards present a difficulty when a lot of information is required to understand an argument. Do you have a link to a place where you have done this speculation regarding horse/chariot? I ask because whenever I read my books about ancient mesoamerica, in the back of my mind I am watching for certain things that answer certain questions regarding the BoM, and this is one of them. I can't find a thing to help resolve this question. So can I ask a couple of questions that will help me?

1) do you agree that chariot had something to do with transportation?

2) do you think, like Ben, that "horse" was NOT a domesticated animal in the BoM?

The place of speculation about what the English text could represent is possible only after a lot of work has been done on the foundation that suggests that there is even a reason to look for an explanation of the English text. Since the discussants at this board don't agree on the more important issues, proposing those that are interesting only after the important issues are resolved diffusses the proper focus.

I disagree with that premise. I have always been more than willing to try to approach the text within your offered paradigm, which is why I ask questions about your understanding of the translation process and JS' involvement, rather than spending pages and pages debating the fact that your paradigm contradicts the testimony of the contemporary statements of those close to JS. And I don't spend pages and pages debating the ambigious nature of relevation, and how unlikely I think it is that the same process that resulted in prophets teaching members incorrect information across the pulpit could result in an accurate translation of an entire text. I suspend these problems and approach it under YOUR paradigm - that's why I'm even willing to ask what you think a "horse and chariot" was, if you've rejected your previous battle litter and way idea.

These discussions are all based on our respective willingness to step outside our own beliefs and discuss the beliefs of another, so I really don't think it's fair to say that certain discussions can only take place after other issues have been resolved. These other issues are never going to be resolved - not between believer and nonbeliever, and likely not between the various camps within believers - I don't think you and Ben, for example, will ever agree on the translation process, but you can still discuss these issues. It's part of the process of weighing and evaluating different theories, being willing to say, "ok, if X is true, then will Y be likely?" - even if you don't believe X has been proven, and, in fact, is one way of determining if X can be proven.

[Brant Gardner]

beastie:

I don't understand how that happens, and I suspect you don't really, either.

I agree that I don't know how it was done, but I completely understand a process that explains all data of which I am aware. Usually, that becomes a reasonable theory.

I have a theory that works to describe the translation, and it doesn't even come close to suggesting that Joseph was a reader.

There are only a certain number of ways that information is received by human beings - specific words, which you reject, a complete thought that suddenly develops, a visual picture - is there something else?

Excellent questions. If you pursue them you might come to the same conclusion I did.

It's one thing to say that someone who just read words off a stone didn't really understand how the text worked, for example, didn't understand that the entire text took place in a very small area - but it's quite another thing to state that someone who had to process and understand the text enough to translate the MEANING of an idiom didn't understand that same text.

Somehow you have misunderstood what I said about the idiomatic expression. The vocabulary of an idiomatic expression usually does not translate, but the meaning does. Often, idioms in one language are translated with a parallel idiom in the target language - this preserves the idea that an idiomatic expression was used and translates the meaning. It does not (intentionally does not) translate the specific words of the source idiom.

1) do you agree that chariot had something to do with transportation?

The text tells me that it moves. I can make some inferences from that. A good assumption would be that it transported something, since that would give us the conceptual link that produced the English word "chariot."

2) do you think, like Ben, that "horse" was NOT a domesticated animal in the BoM?

Yes, I agree with Ben. Whatever the "horse" was, it was a kept animal, not a domesticated one. Mesoamericans kept deer, but they were not domesticated. Turkeys were kept, but not domesticated.

I have always been more than willing to try to approach the text within your offered paradigm, which is why I ask questions about your understanding of the translation process and JS' involvement, rather than spending pages and pages debating the fact that your paradigm contradicts the testimony of the contemporary statements of those close to JS.

I agree that you try much harder than most, and I truly appreciate that. I would rather discuss this stuff with you that the larger number of people who can't even be bothered to look up anything. I thought it quite appropriate that you looked up Blass when Dan obviously never did. Congrats on that.

However, I still have fundamental differences with the way you handle some of the data. You tend to bulldog certain ideas even when you should look at a different perspective (on the other hand, that is a good trait on other topics).

The issue of the "horse" is one of them. Since it is something that I think is very peripheral to understanding the text, I don't see any reason to feed this particular frenzy. If I argue a point on purely Mesoamerican terms, no one seems to think that it fits the Book of Mormon because it doesn't fit the preconception of "horse" or "chariot." It seems wiser deal with the more important issue of what those particular terms mean for analyzing the Book of Mormon. What they mean in a Mesoamerican context is just way too far away from the fundamental issue - people get confused or jump to interesting conclusions.

And I don't spend pages and pages debating the ambigious nature of relevation, and how unlikely I think it is that the same process that resulted in prophets teaching members incorrect information across the pulpit could result in an accurate translation of an entire text.

Good thing. Different processes, both understandable and natural. This becomes an issue only when unexamined assumptions are applied to the process.

I don't think you and Ben, for example, will ever agree on the translation process, but you can still discuss these issues.

Entirely possible. Ben and I have some very different ideas. However, I absolutely enjoy talking with him about them. I don't have to agree with someone to enjoy conversing with them. Heck, I like conversing with you, and we have seldom agreed.

I respect Ben's education. I respect you willingness to become educated on a topic you didn't know much about before. I think that is fantastic and I think it is worth nurturing. I think you have your version of the same problem a lot of LDS have when they approach a topic related to either the Bible or the Book of Mormon - we tend to see everythings in terms of the religious issue. Secular scholars rightfully have little patience for that. In my experience, it takes a long time working in the purely secular before you can rationally engage the secular/religious interface.

[Dan Vogel]

Brant,

Actually, I have been giving evidence of that for a long time. I finally said it in a way that you understood it. I am surprised that you assume "ad hoc" since the combination of methods appropriate to a case is standard practice.

See H.B. Nicholson's Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl where he adapts the methods of examining historical texts to the versions of the Quetzalcoatl cycle. That "ad hoc" reapplication of a method was sufficient that it has become a standard in the field and was acknowledged as the model for Robert Carmack's Quichean Civilization that had to further adapt the basic techniques to a different type of data.

See Enrique Florescano's The Myth of Quetzalcoatl which pulls together multiple techniques from folklore, epigraphy, and iconography to make his analysis.

Let me know when your methodology becomes the standard.

I am beginning to think that your use of "ad hoc" is an unusual way of defining the normal academic process.

The term has more than one use. Note that I didn

[Dan Vogel]

Brant,

I agree that you try much harder than most, and I truly appreciate that. I would rather discuss this stuff with you that the larger number of people who can't even be bothered to look up anything. I thought it quite appropriate that you looked up Blass when Dan obviously never did. Congrats on that.

What are you talking about? I went and read Nibley

[Brant Gardner]

Dan:

Just to let you known I have read your responses. I am electing not to reply.

[Benjamin McGuire]

I think that my interest in this thread revolves around Bob's theory #2. In responding, of course, I presume that my comments will be declared suitably "foggy" so as to have a kind of Derridean feel to them, and thus to be an apologetic, and dismissable on those grounds.

Theory #2

Lehi & Co. had the wheel, arrived in the America, found a bunch of tapirs or possibly llamas, domesticated them and trained them to pull chariots.

This case would look at lot like theory #1. But, there is almost no evidence of llamas in Central America. There is no evidence that tapirs can be domesticated. And one of the apologist claims in favor of Book of Mormon authenticity is linguistic richness, and in particular the number of new words the book uses for names, places, coinage, animals etc. In particular, the book names various animals that have not been identified. So why would the observationally acute, linguistically gifted author call a tapir or llama a

[Dan Vogel]

Brant,

Just to let you known I have read your responses. I am electing not to reply.

Thanks for letting me know. I guess I can go to bed early tonight.

[Greg Smith]

Not that I expect Bob to respond or even read to his leavings here, but:

There is no evidence that tapirs can be domesticated.

There is, however, abundant evidence that tapirs can be kept as animals which are used by humans, despite not being "domesticated." (ie altered in some way to suit their use by man).

Thus, this statement is true, but irrelevent (and an attempt at rhetorical distraction, if not based on sheer ignorance.)

tapir has so little to do with horses in terms of form, function and domesticity that the probability of anyone referring consistently to tapirs and real horses (which the book also clearly describes in its Isaiah passages) using the same word (horse) and without mentioning the difference is laughably remote.

And yet, despite Bob's laughter, two groups of people who DID know about both tapirs and horses--both similarities and differences--did exactly what he thinks is so "remote."

"The lowland Maya at first named all the big animals of the Spaniards

[Marvelous]

Does it not seem strange that the Lord didn't help Joseph clarify these issues? This was an inspired work, after all. Surely the Omnipotent would have anticipated our confusion and consternation.

Is it possible that Joseph (or Mormon) inserted the word "horse" for "tapir", and the like? Yes! Is that the best explanation for all the information we have? I don't think so. When you combine the apparent anachronisms with curiously large population figures, New England religious issues of Joseph's time, the paucity of supportive archaeological evidence, the dearth of Hebrew DNA, and Joseph's own statements concerning the historicity of his work, I think it is most likely the product of his 19th century American mind.

However, there is enough room for doubt in this likely explanation for the believer to continue to believe, the skeptic to continue to be perplexed by that belief, and the dispassionate observer to marvel at the fuss over "chloroform in print".

[Hacedor Costoso]

This thread is shocking....shocking I tell you...

I simply can't believe that the apologists and pseudo/wannabe apologists are all defending Gardner, while the "countermos" as Juliann calls them are siding with McCue and Vogel.

Will wonders never cease?

Staying completely clear of this one I am,

Hacedor

[Greg Smith]

Does it not seem strange that the Lord didn't help Joseph clarify these issues? This was an inspired work, after all. Surely the Omnipotent would have anticipated our confusion and consternation.

Not everyone is gripped by either confusion or consternation.

One's reaction to such things as this may well say something about us, what we value. That is the point, after all.

Is it possible that Joseph (or Mormon) inserted the word "horse" for "tapir", and the like? Yes! Is that the best explanation for all the information we have? I don't think so. When you combine the apparent anachronisms with curiously large population figures, New England religious issues of Joseph's time, the paucity of supportive archaeological evidence, the dearth of Hebrew DNA, and Joseph's own statements concerning the historicity of his work, I think it is most likely the product of his 19th century American mind.

And yet, many others don't agree with you. I think it laughable, frankly, to think that Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon on his own steam. For starters, he often does not seem to have even READ his own book.

And hence, since they don't agree with your analysis, they are potential believers.

(It is not that I believe a priori, and so reject all these supposed 'problems' as worries. I reject them as plausible problems or relevent, (and I find other 'positive' evidences far more convincing) and so am able to be a believer.)

However, there is enough room for doubt in this likely explanation

Leaving aside the rather question-begging assertion that this is the "likely" explanation....

There is enough room for belief or doubt on either side. Which, the believer would insist, is exactly how God intended it.

for the believer to continue to believe, the skeptic to continue to be perplexed by that belief, and the dispassionate observer to marvel at the fuss over "chloroform in print".

The believer and the skeptic I would buy.

But, what's this about the "dispassionate observer"? It would be a strange person, I would think, who is 'dispassionate' about what the Book of Mormon claims if they understand it adequately to have an opinion. If the Book of Mormon is true then God exists, prophets live, Jesus is the Christ, and judgment is coming.

And, even if such dispassionate people exist, I hope no one is claiming that anyone on these message boards _is_ dispassionate about it?

Anyone here is equally an apologist for their own world-view that denies God, Christ, and/or modern prophets. Indeed, disbelievers can have as great (or greater) reasons to "disprove" the radical claims which the Book of Mormon's historicity requires. So, any claim to some kind of scientific 'detachment' and 'objectivity' is dubious.

And, since no one who bothers to post here can be fairly be said to be "dispassionate" about the issues, anyone's claim about 'chloroform in print' may say more about their biases and worldview than it does about the Book of Mormon.

Kind regards,

Greg

[Marvelous]

I think the vast majority of those outside Mormon (and Ex-Mo) circles are dispassionate. How much outside interest is there? Practically none. Are archaeologists interested in the BOM? Are anthropologists? Are geneticists? Are historians of pre-Columbian America?

Why is there no interest? Because there is insufficient evidence to interest them. There is only sufficient evidence to sustain the belief of those already inclined to believe. It doesn't take much.

[Greg Smith]

Why is there no interest? Because there is insufficient evidence to interest them. There is only sufficient evidence to sustain the belief of those already inclined to believe. It doesn't take much.

I have yet to see anything that would persuade me that the majority of people in any field (or none) have considered much at all of the Book of Mormon, its contents, or its message.

Most people who dismiss such things do so on a priori grounds--"everyone knows" God doesn't speak to farmboys, and angels don't bring gold plates.

In fact, I'm constantly amazed by how little most ex-Mormons seem to know about the Book of Mormon. And, their inability to even fairly articulate most LDS doctrinal positions is almost universal. (A little time on RfM, or reading just about any anti-LDS literature would disabuse anyone who thinks otherwise.) It's as if these people never read the Book of Mormon beyond a CTR-level. But, that probably isn't surprising, since it is the keystone.

Please, point me to the literature in which the "secularists" have confronted the Book of Mormon. I must have missed it. Really, what do you think the best "non-partisan" treatment of the Book of Mormon is? Where do we see the pro and con evidence weighed fairly in the balance, with scientific detachment and objectivity?

I think it's largely ignored because

(1) they aren't interested in the subject, and so pay it no mind (most subjects fall in this category for me--I don't know a darn thing about NASCAR because I don't care);

(2) they don't know about it;

(3) they have a prior biases against the supernatural backdrop of the Book's production (or religious biases against 'new' scripture); or

(4) they have accepted shoddy and second-rate accounts of the pro/con arguments, and failed to investigate it further. (Southerton and Murphy's eggregiously bad DNA stuff, for example, springs to mind as something that my science training wouldn't compel me to accept...)

Of course, there are those who DO find it intersting, do check it out, and do find it persuasive and compelling. But, they tend to become Mormons, and so are then gripped by "cognitive dissonance" or "wishful thinking," or whatever handwaving dismissal du jour someone wants to come up with.

Frankly, I think the data can really be read in more than one way with complete honesty and all the objectivity one can muster--pro OR con. I don't assume the cons are dishonest or deluded. Yet, as a "pro," it's an article of faith that I am.

Curious--but, perhaps not so much, when I think about it.

==

It seems to me that if a large number of people accept something as true, even if I don't, that there might well be something quite compelling about it. I'm not Catholic, and there's stuff that strikes me as kinda funny, strange there.

But, a lot of very intelligent ancient and modern people have been Catholics. So, I suspect there's things I don't "get" about Catholicism. That doesn't mean it's "true." But, it does mean that Catholicism is likely not patently absurd, or self-evidently false, or requiring laughable amounts of self-delusion to entertain.

Kind regards,

Greg

[Benjamin McGuire]

Marvelous writes:

Does it not seem strange that the Lord didn't help Joseph clarify these issues? This was an inspired work, after all. Surely the Omnipotent would have anticipated our confusion and consternation.

It doesn't really seem strange at all. After all, surely the Omnipotent would have anticipated our confusion over the number of sects in existence, or the confusion over the text of the Bible - or any number of other related confusions - and yet .... nothing. What makes us think that the Book of Mormon should be any different?

Ben

[rockyterrain]

I think the vast majority of those outside Mormon (and Ex-Mo) circles are dispassionate. How much outside interest is there? Practically none. Are archaeologists interested in the BOM? Are anthropologists? Are geneticists? Are historians of pre-Columbian America?

Why is there no interest? Because there is insufficient evidence to interest them. There is only sufficient evidence to sustain the belief of those already inclined to believe. It doesn't take much.

Exactly.

And who cares what they think anyway? I am sure I don't. The whole idea that we can apologize for the Book of Mormon is beyond me. Who needs that when you can just READ the book, then pray to know, and get your answer from God? Who needs an apologist? Why are apologists doing it as these intellectual levels, which doesn't convert or convince anybody?