The "Joseph Smith" Challenge

[Chris Smith]

From FAIR site:

Another criticism is that the Book of Mormon speaks of candles, which did not exist in ancient America. The term "candle" is frequently used in the King James Bible, where the original refers to an oil lamp. Candles were not in use in the Holy Land in Bible times. Instead, they used oil lamps, which were less known in seventeenth-century England. The Book of Mormon, which Joseph Smith translated into English, was evidently deliberately made to sound like the KJV language, which people of his day associated with scriptures. Consequently, he also used the term "candle."

Were there oil lamps in ancient America?

-CK

[Neighbor]

Your elder gave an interesting challange, the Joseph Smith challange. Jesus, on the other hand, gave the challange to come to Him for life and to learn from Him. That is a much more productive challange. The Joseph Smith challange is a waste of time by comparison. Why even issue the challange????

If you think JS wrote the BOM, well, you haven't been staying current with the matters that give more evidence that he didn't write the book as is claimed.

[cinepro]

I agree that no one is likely to ever meet "The Book of Mormon Challenge".

Likewise, I don't think anyone will ever surpass these challenges as well:

- The Koran Challenge

- The Lord of the Rings Challenge

- The "New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures" Challenge

- The "Moby ****" Challenge

- The James Cameron's "Titanic" Challenge

- The Bhagavad Gita Challenge

- The "anything by Mozart" challenge

Weird how that works. I am able to admit that no one will ever be able to duplicate the situation, content, and popularity of these works, while at the same time witholding belief that their creation was supernaturally motivated further compelling me to ascribe their origin to a divine power.

Until this thread came along, I wasn't aware that believers were still waving around this silly chestnut of an "evidence". I thought it had been retired long ago.

[Thinking]

"He must write 21 chapters on the ministry of Christ, and everything the writer claims Jesus said and did and every testimony he writes in the book about him must agree absolutely with the New Testament."

Did not JS have a Bible?

"I think the reason it hasn't been tried is that it can't be done."

How many non-LDS writers know about the challenge? A writer can't answer the challenge if he doesn't know about it.

[why me]

Why Me,

We find just what I would expect. His writing is awkward, but he is powerful in speech, just as some of the BOM prophets said of themselves. How could a charismatic leader be otherwise? The only problem is determining if this gift came from God or by natural endowment. But that's not a question for scholarship but one of faith.

Actually, dan I would not call this writing by joseph powerful. In fact, reading it would give me a heacache. No paragraphing, misspelled words, unclarity in thought, not something that is now contained in the book of mormon. Even when one reads Doubleday's edition of the Book of Mormon that was published last year, I can read writing with clear thought and discipline.

It is here that you have a problem Dan and why some critics need to find a different author besides JS. The two just don't add up...JS writing the bofm and comparing that text to his lay writing as found in his letter to his wife. And we must remember, according to Mormon understanding, JS was on his way in prophethood when this letter was written to his wife, something that cannot be claimed when he was supposively writing the book of mormon. In other words, by the time he was in Liberty Jail, he was growing in intellect and understanding.In truth dan, JS would have needed a wonderful proofreader and a great editor to pull off the book of mormon text, plus many reams of rough drafts to correct mistakes. Hardly possible when one considers other aspects of the story.

http://deseretbook.com/personalwritings/50

[Magyar]

Do you even bother to read the threads in a post to which you comment? Book of Mormon to Quran is NOT applicable, for reasons quite apparent to anyone who has actually read either one.

The other challenges you suggest simply suggest that their authors were ingenius. Not that they somehow pulled out of nowhere names, words and customs from a completely different and then-unknown mileu, which would be verified decades later.

I agree that no one is likely to ever meet "The Book of Mormon Challenge".

Likewise, I don't think anyone will ever surpass these challenges as well:

- The Koran Challenge

- The Lord of the Rings Challenge

- The "New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures" Challenge

- The "Moby ****" Challenge

- The James Cameron's "Titanic" Challenge

- The Bhagavad Gita Challenge

- The "anything by Mozart" challenge

Weird how that works. I am able to admit that no one will ever be able to duplicate the situation, content, and popularity of these works, while at the same time witholding belief that their creation was supernaturally motivated further compelling me to ascribe their origin to a divine power.

Until this thread came along, I wasn't aware that believers were still waving around this silly chestnut of an "evidence". I thought it had been retired long ago.

Do you even bother to read the threads in a post to which you comment? Book of Mormon to Quran is NOT applicable, for reasons quite apparent to anyone who has actually read either one.

The other challenges you suggest simply suggest that their authors were ingenius. Not that they somehow pulled out of nowhere names, words and customs from a completely different and then-unknown mileu, which would be verified decades later.

[cksalmon]

That's remarkably insightful. However, the question is not whether or not the Book of Mormon is true. The question is if any book of fiction be produced by a barely literate farmboy in such a short period of time that has 1) numerous correlations with the Bible, 2) no inconsistencies with the Bible, 3)numerous apparent anachronisms that ultimately prove to be perfectly accurate, despite being decades ahead of the scientific research that shows this, 4) complex doctrinal expositions weaving in and out of a perfectly seamless plot of even greater intricacy that all maintain perfect harmony, 5) contain absolutely zero verifiable contradictions or historical errors, and 6) represent an impossibly accurate depiction of ancient Near Eastern culture that is only now understood. These are my own qualifications, but I feel that they are consistent and hold true in every instance. The question is if this assignment is within the capacity of any human being on this earth. I submit that it is not. If anyone feels otherwise they are invited to prove it. I think it's pretty cut and dry.

Let me add another fallacy that I see pop up from time to time when the JS challenge is discussed. (No offense meant, maklelan.)

Begging the Question (or, assuming the truth of the conclusion you hope to prove in one or more your premisesâ??either implicitly or explicitly)

E.g.,

6) represent an impossibly accurate depiction of ancient Near Eastern culture that is only now understood

maklelan has assumed the challenge is impossible for a modern human in the way he phrases this qualification of the challenge. The goal of the challenge, presumably, is to prove the impossibility of modern authorship. If one builds the impossibility of modern authorship into one's premises, one hasn't made a legitimate demonstration of one's conclusion that modern authorship is impossible.

Best.

CKS

[Dan Vogel]

Cold Steel,

I've found that most of the anachronisms can be adequately explained.

And any anachronism in a known forgery could be explained away in the same manner.

The migrations recounted in the Book of Mormon are consistent with the cultures found in Meso-America.

Oh! Have Israelites been discovered in Mesoamerica? The cultures in Mesoamerica are from Asia. The Nephites have not been discovered there.

The BoM's description of the great destructions prior to Christ's coming also are consistent with actual volcanic disasters (gas emissions, including not being able to light torches or fires, the descriptions of lightning, etc.).

All that can be said is that 3 Nephi sounds like a volcanic eruption and Mesoamerica has volcanos that erupt frequently. So, why no other accounts of destructions in the BOM? 3 Nephi makes the 34 AD destruction a singular event, when in Mesoamerica it would have hardly stood out among the many such eruptions.

Smith's being able to hit such elusive targets as describing an actual Arabian valley with a river, Nahom as a burial site, and a credible launching site all are impressive.

These are only possible correlations. We don't know that the "actual" valley has been identified. There is a place with NHM, but we don't know that it is "Nahom" and not "Nihm." From reading the BOM, I would have expected Nahom to be on the coast, not miles inland. And there is a lot of coastline to choose from. BTW, it was known in JS day that there was a fertile spot where Bountiful has been "identified".

His usages of Isaiah reflect not just a space-filling tactic, but an insightful understanding of scripture, tradition and application.

That is, if you overlook things like JS including KJV errors and incorrectly adding "out of the waters of baptism" (1 Ne. 20:1) and "Red Sea" (2 Ne. 19:1).

No novels I've read can measure up to these accomplishments. If Smith dictated such eloquent passages as are found throughout the book, it's even more incredible.

But this line of argument is beside the point. The challenge isn't to write a book of fiction which later turns out to be true history. I think we all know that that is impossible. Rahter, the challenge deals with the internal features of the book. Is dictating a book like the BOM beyond JS's talents? This question could be raised even if the book were determined not to be historical. Some Spaulding theorists argue that JS could not have done it alone. That's why I have pointed out that JS kept dictating texts every bit as eloquent and supportable by ancient parallelisms. At this point, the argument diverges between believing JS was indeed inspired or was a genius of sorts. It then becomes a matter of faith. I believe one day Mormon apologetics will come down to this.

[PacMan]

One of the problems of getting in late... But to point a couple things out:

Dan:

There are more kinds of intelligence than literature. He dictated it at the average of about 8 pages per day, which is a few hours. The rest of the day he could spend thinking about what to dictate next. He had also been thinking about it for years.

(Does this include the 116 pages?)

Let us be fair to realize that from your statement, one may grossly minimize the activities of Joseph and Oliver's typical day during these months. In speaking of a struggling farm family on the edge of poverty, let us remember that "a few hours" is frankly, a heavy investment. I don't know how much translation/transcription you have done, but it is a fairly arduous process. I want to make sure that this episode of Joseph's life is understood, and not co/overtly misrepresented.

After arriving at the Whitmer's, they began translating from morning until night. As such, there is no reason to believe that Joseph and Oliver spent the last couple hours of light translating after Joseph mulled his fantastic ideas over throughout the day. On the contrary, the process (those days that it was undergone) were likely intense and all day events, NOT conducive to breaks or stints of 'dream time.' Oliver himself noted, "Day after day, I continued, uninterrupted, to write from his mouth, as he translate with the U&T."

As to their poverty, Bushman writes:

While the translating went on, the Smiths had to keep food on the table. Looking for help, Joseph and Cowdery walked the twenty-six miles to Joseph Knight Sr.'s place in Colesville only to find him away. Back in Harmony, they searched for work, a frustrating dissipation of time when so much translation remained. One day, after looking unsuccessfully, they arrived home to find that the good-hearted Knight had brought nine or ten bushels of grain, five or six bushels of potatoes, a pound of tea, a barrel of mackerel, and, of course, lined paper.

Let us be sure that Joseph had little time to "day dream" during the process, and had it not been for Knight, Joseph (I believe) would have never spent sufficient time to finish the translation within the year. With his situation as it was, he was working or translating with very little relax time in between, and when the translation got going, it kept going throughout the day. The translation process seems to have been typically a full-day undertaking (producing significantly more than 8 pages per day), with the other days were spent in seeking work and providing for the family. Sure, it can be thought that he used those working hours to conjure images in his head, but in no way was his mind free to think, void of stress and worries.

Moreover, being an author yourself, I would believe that you have many times had a clear, coherent thought during the day on some topic of interest. Yet coming to the paper with pencil, the process seems much more difficult regardless of the fluidity of thought previously experienced. To assume that Joseph's "thinking about it" was sufficient to produce of a coherent, uninterrupted narrative as the accounts suggest, would be at best, a Herculean feat that would daunt even the most experienced of writers.

Also, Bushman relates in his biography Whitmer's account of Joseph at times being unable to translate (being "spiritually blind"), such as when he had an altercation of sorts with Emma transpired, requiring a fair amount of time to repent before the Lord and to ask forgiveness of Emma. Again, translation was not an open and close process, but one that included any number of intricacies that he would have needed to 'convincingly' counterfeit, including being open and straight before the Lord to have His gift of translation.

Cheers,

PacMan

[KevinG]

It then becomes a matter of faith. I believe one day Mormon apologetics will come down to this.

Yes he has faith that it will.

[Dan Vogel]

Why Me,

Actually, dan I would not call this writing by joseph powerful. In fact, reading it would give me a heacache. No paragraphing, misspelled words, unclarity in thought, not something that is now contained in the book of mormon.

You missed my point. Letters written in his own hand, especially those dealing with the mundane, can hardly provide comparisons to the BOM.

But his dictated letter from Liberty Jail (see Personal Writings, pp. 429-46), parts of which later became D&C 121-23. At the last Sunstone, I attended a session where two poets analyzed this letter and both deemed JS a very good poet.

Even when one reads Doubleday's edition of the Book of Mormon that was published last year, I can read writing with clear thought and discipline.

Try reading the first edition. Better, the printer's manuscript.

It is here that you have a problem Dan and why some critics need to find a different author besides JS. The two just don't add up...JS writing the bofm and comparing that text to his lay writing as found in his letter to his wife.

Why do you want to compare the BOM to a letter not written in the same genre? Do you think a poet always writes as a poet? Would you compare a poet's works to a letter to his wife and conclude he could not have written the poem's attributed to him?

And we must remember, according to Mormon understanding, JS was on his way in prophethood when this letter was written to his wife, something that cannot be claimed when he was supposively writing the book of mormon. In other words, by the time he was in Liberty Jail, he was growing in intellect and understanding.

Both letters are from the same time period. That's why I'm insisting that purpose of writing as well as oral vs writing be considered. JS was confident about his abilities to persuade in speaking situations, and was uncomfortable about writing. I would maintain that his gift of speech was present even in his money digging days. He didn't just suddenly become eloquent in 1838. He was able to convince people from the start. Charisma is tied to language ability, and one doesn't suddenly acquire charisma.

In truth dan, JS would have needed a wonderful proofreader and a great editor to pull off the book of mormon text, plus many reams of rough drafts to correct mistakes. Hardly possible when one considers other aspects of the story.

You don't know that. That's how you would write a book you imagine the BOM to be. It's not necessarily how JS did it or how the BOM actual is. This type of reasoning is what gets us into trouble.

[William James]

Nana, you are expecting a perfect translation from a device (the Urim and Thummim) that is operated predominantly by faith. Additionally, it was operated by a relatively illiterate farm boy, with the resulting translation passed on orally to a scribe, and then filtered through the printer and his assistants and published in several different editions.

It would be foolish not to expect errors to crop up. Indeed, in the preface, Joseph himself says that if there are errors, they are the errors of men.

The Book of Mormon does not claim to be, nor do conversant, faithful LDS claim it to be, inerrant. We claim it to be doctrinally correct and consistent. The doctrines and teachings of the Book of Mormon are the most correct of any book now in the hands of man. Unfortunately, "most correct" does not mean inerrant or perfect. The LDS have never pretended otherwise.

That's why we have prophets today.

Selek, I do see at least one problem with your analysis, namely the Article of Faith which says,

"We believe the Bible to be the word of God, as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God."

Doesn't this article of faith imply that LDS consider the BoM to be free of any translation errors?

[PacMan]

Dan:

All that can be said is that 3 Nephi sounds like a volcanic eruption and Mesoamerica has volcanos that erupt frequently. So, why no other accounts of destructions in the BOM? 3 Nephi makes the 34 AD destruction a singular event, when in Mesoamerica it would have hardly stood out among the many such eruptions.

Your argumentum ad ignorantium comes from your creative interpretation and reading. Whether or not other volcanic accounts were detailed or not is completely irrelevant to both the veracity of the BoM, and more importantly--its mission, which dictated how it was compiled. Moreover, let us remember that Mesoamerica is no small place, and back then there wasnâ??t CNN to relay every belch of steam coming from every mountain.

That is, if you overlook things like JS including KJV errors and incorrectly adding "out of the waters of baptism" (1 Ne. 20:1) and "Red Sea" (2 Ne. 19:1).

The interesting thing is that there is no account that Joseph had access to any other materials. On the contrary, the accounts suggest that he had nothing, with no means of hiding it. Are you suggesting that he memorized all those chapters of Isaiah? (Affirmation proves nothing here: Iâ??m just curious)

PacMan

[Dan Vogel]

Pac Man,

Does this include the 116 pages?)

No, that was a little slower.

Let us be fair to realize that from your statement, one may grossly minimize the activities of Joseph and Oliver's typical day during these months. In speaking of a struggling farm family on the edge of poverty, let us remember that "a few hours" is frankly, a heavy investment. I don't know how much translation/transcription you have done, but it is a fairly arduous process. I want to make sure that this episode of Joseph's life is understood, and not co/overtly misrepresented.

JS wasn't transcribing or translating. So, forget that line of argument.

JS and OC weren't interrupted by farm work either, as evidently Samuel Smith accompanied OC to Harmony and took over the 13 acre farm. Also, the fact that JS and OC went to Colesville for financial aid indicate that they weren't exactly doing anything to move away from the "edge of poverty." The last month of dictation, June 1829, for at least the first part of the BOM (1 Ne. to WofM), was done at the Whitmers farm in Fayette, where they had free room and board. So, JS had plenty of time to work out the dictation in his mind and then ask God if it was right.

After arriving at the Whitmer's, they began translating from morning until night. As such, there is no reason to believe that Joseph and Oliver spent the last couple hours of light translating after Joseph mulled his fantastic ideas over throughout the day. On the contrary, the process (those days that it was undergone) were likely intense and all day events, NOT conducive to breaks or stints of 'dream time.' Oliver himself noted, "Day after day, I continued, uninterrupted, to write from his mouth, as he translate with the U&T."

Whitmer said they worked long hours, but still it was about 8 pages per day. Whitmer and other witnesses describe the manner of dictation , and there were not delays to work out translations, but only delays long enough to have the scribe write down the words and repeat them. That would only occupy a few hours per day on average. When you consider the long extracts from Isaiah copied nearly complete from the KJV, then there was plenty of time to think about what to dictate. And JS could stop and start whenever he liked. I think the impression you have is not supported by the evidence.

[PacMan]

Salmon:

You brought up a point that I want to comment on, hoping to not derail the thread. You have mentioned the â??other sheepâ? as being the Gentiles. I wish you would have finished reading 3 Nephi, for there the Lord takes into consideration your rebuttal:

21 And verily I say unto you, that ye are they of whom I said: Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

22 And they understood me not, for they supposed it had been the Gentiles; for they understood not that the Gentiles should be converted through their preaching.

23 And they understood me not that I said they shall hear my voice; and they understood me not that the Gentiles should not at any time hear my voiceâ??that I should not manifest myself unto them save it were by the Holy Ghost.

24 But behold, ye have both heard my voice, and seen me; and ye are my sheep, and ye are numbered among those whom the Father hath given me. (Book of Mormon | 3 Nephi 15:21 - 24)

First of all, let us realize to whom the Lord was sent:

24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. (New Testament | Matthew 15:24)

Thus, these â??other sheepâ?? are 1) lost, and 2) of the house of Israel. Gentiles were not, nor ever considered of the house of Israel. Moreover, let us be precise and realizing that the Gentiles were NOT considered His sheep because they had truly NOT heard His voice.

26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.

27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: (New Testament|John 10:26 - 27)

The difference between believers and non-believers were described using the animals of goats and sheep. Indisputably, those referred to as â??other sheepâ? are believers, worthy of inheriting eternal life (Matthew 25:46). These â??other sheepâ? were of necessity, believers of Christ whom were of the house of Israel, but simply of another fold. Considering the missionary effort of the Apostles had yet started, it is hard to fathom any other fold distinct from Jerusalem unless, of course, the BoM is true.

Cheers,

PacMan

[maklelan]

If you think JS wrote the BOM, well, you haven't been staying current with the matters that give more evidence that he didn't write the book as is claimed.

If I had a nickel for every time we were accused of not being current I'd be a millionaire, and if I had a nickel for every time a non-Mormon pointed out an issue we are woefully unaware of despite having published numerous books on the issue I would be a billionaire. Point out an issue that you believe we have neglected and I will point out three publications from our end dealing specifically with that issue.

Let me add another fallacy that I see pop up from time to time when the JS challenge is discussed. (No offense meant, maklelan.)

None taken.

Begging the Question (or, assuming the truth of the conclusion you hope to prove in one or more your premisesâ??either implicitly or explicitly)

E.g.,

maklelan has assumed the challenge is impossible for a modern human in the way he phrases this qualification of the challenge. The goal of the challenge, presumably, is to prove the impossibility of modern authorship. If one builds the impossibility of modern authorship into one's premises, one hasn't made a legitimate demonstration of one's conclusion that modern authorship is impossible.

I apologize for using the term "impossible" in that one statement. I amend it to just say "accurate". Now everyone may proceed to reproduce the text.

Sidebar: am I wrong to feel that the fact that no one has been able to reproduce the text in the decades that this challenge has been extant is an adequate demonstration of the impossibility of the task? How many years does the challenge have to go unmet for it the impossibility of human authorship to be demonstrated? Does the fact that no other work of fiction has ever even come close to being near the accuracy represented in the Book of Mormon qualify as a demonstration?

[PacMan]

Thanks, Dan. In response:

JS wasn't transcribing or translating. So, forget that line of argument.

First, what we know of the translation process is limited: we know he used the seer stone and the U&T, and that the words appeared on the stone. But there is obviously more to the story: The Lord himself indicated the process to Oliver, that the translation be studied out before asking God if it were correct. It was an active process (which process we call translation because revelation just doesn’t quite explain it) with complexities not inherent to normal translation.

But let us not be so narrow to presume that Joseph was the only one doing anything. For his ‘simple’ dictation, a scribe was necessary for the process. The stamina of His mouth to talk is exclusive from the stamina in Oliver’s (and the other scribes’) fingers. And yes, such a process IS arduous.

JS and OC weren't interrupted by farm work either, as evidently Samuel Smith accompanied OC to Harmony and took over the 13 acre farm.

The work of a farm family is not relegated to work on the farm. Joseph and Oliver clearly looked for other work in Harmony after walking the 26 miles to Colesville and back to find Knight. Bushman relates the experience to "having to keep food on the table." I hope you caught that part of my post. Moreover, if you take such a walk into consideration, all of a sudden there's another day of translation gone due to trying to find a way to eat.

Also, the fact that JS and OC went to Colesville for financial aid indicate that they weren't exactly doing anything to move away from the "edge of poverty."

????Why does one go to secure financial aid if they don’t need money? That’s a baffling statement. Moreover, I made no statement that they were trying to move away from this “edge of poverty.” Let us be sure that I misspoke: They were IN poverty. Their interests were 1) surviving and putting food on the table, and 2) getting the BoM published. Besides, their delight was receiving bushels of food from Joseph Knight, not his wallet.

The last month of dictation, June 1829, for at least the first part of the BOM (1 Ne. to WofM), was done at the Whitmers farm in Fayette, where they had free room and board. So, JS had plenty of time to work out the dictation in his mind and then ask God if it was right.

Your insinuation that there was no need to work, and that their finances were sufficient to undergo a lengthy vacation to translate is unfounded. Circumstances did, of course, change over time, necessitating help from Knight, the Whitmer’s, and others to be sure. But the bulk of the translation wasn’t done with the Whimers during this ‘rent free’ episode (which means nothing anyway). Furthermore, while they were undergoing the translation in Fayette, I don’t see how we can assume that they 1) stopped eating, or 2) had the resources saved up. To simply suggest that they did no other work is something for which I’d require substantiation, due to it being contrary to the evidence available.

Whitmer said they worked long hours, but still it was about 8 pages per day.

I’m not arguing with your averaging, but with the assumption that it was truly 8 pages per day. For 12 hours of work, 8 pages is a bit skim. As you reiterate, “Whitmer and other witnesses describe the manner of dictation , and there were not delays to work out translations, but only delays long enough to have the scribe write down the words and repeat them. That would only occupy a few hours per day on average.” I find it erroneous to assume that 8 pages were religiously completed each day, and that they were occupied with nothing else! What about the 52 mile hike to Colesville and back to look for food? How much translation did they complete that day? I bet, not much. I am compelled to believe that the translation was much more fruitful on those days of full translation, with days of work and other business diluting the average of pages translated per day. Again, I find it improbable to believe that Joseph was either translating or sitting out on the grass dreaming up what he was going to come up with next, if only to consider the mouths he was to feed. He was working, and working on acquiring work--not just daydreaming.

When you consider the long extracts from Isaiah copied nearly complete from the KJV, then there was plenty of time to think about what to dictate. And JS could stop and start whenever he liked. I think the impression you have is not supported by the evidence.

I don’t know what “evidence” you’re talking about! The evidence suggests that he looked for work! Without it, please reason how they were able to provide for themselves sufficiently—including Oliver. Moreover, the only thing that doesn’t jell with the evidence is your assertion that the KJV was strictly ‘copied.’ There is no evidence to suggest that he was hiding any paper or bible, and on the contrary, it is shot down by the accounts that we had. As such, it would have been necessary to have strictly memorized those sections, stealing all the more precious time he needed to ‘fantasize’ his creative story.

Ciao,

PacMan

[maklelan]

I hope you don't mind that I respond to this. I am short on time and was hoping you would respond to my post, but this is helpful as well.

And any anachronism in a known forgery could be explained away in the same manner.

Care to give an example? Could you spell out exactly what all the "manners" are in which the anachronisms have been dealt.

Oh! Have Israelites been discovered in Mesoamerica? The cultures in Mesoamerica are from Asia.

Are you referring to the pathetically oversimplified and erroneous assumption that DNA proves all of Mesoamerica came from one tribe of Asians? I have several publications that show otherwise.

These are only possible correlations. We don't know that the "actual" valley has been identified.

Valid point.

There is a place with NHM, but we don't know that it is "Nahom" and not "Nihm."

Surely you are aware of the purely arbitrary nature of all of the modern vowelizations of ancient South Arabian. You're also aware that Nephi (if he existed) was transliterating a word from another language.

From reading the BOM, I would have expected Nahom to be on the coast, not miles inland. And there is a lot of coastline to choose from.

Good thing we found the right spot.

BTW, it was known in JS day that there was a fertile spot where Bountiful has been "identified".

I'm sure you have documentation of this.

That is, if you overlook things like JS including KJV errors and incorrectly adding "out of the waters of baptism" (1 Ne. 20:1) and "Red Sea" (2 Ne. 19:1).

There's plenty of stuff published on that. No one is overlooking that.

But this line of argument is beside the point. The challenge isn't to write a book of fiction which later turns out to be true history. I think we all know that that is impossible. Rahter, the challenge deals with the internal features of the book. Is dictating a book like the BOM beyond JS's talents? This question could be raised even if the book were determined not to be historical. Some Spaulding theorists argue that JS could not have done it alone. That's why I have pointed out that JS kept dictating texts every bit as eloquent and supportable by ancient parallelisms. At this point, the argument diverges between believing JS was indeed inspired or was a genius of sorts. It then becomes a matter of faith. I believe one day Mormon apologetics will come down to this.

Which conclusion do the rules of logic support? He was inspired of God, or he happens to be an utterly unequaled literary genius? You feel that logic automatically rejects the existence of anything supernatural, so you side with the default, which happens to be ridiculous. That doesn't seem to bother you. I hope you can understand that people who have had spiritual experiences (and we know how well you can read our minds and tell us exactly what we were actually going through) aren't so reticent to accept the much simpler conclusion.

[why me]

Well, I have to say that I am close to going nuts. At first I am replying to Uncle Dale and his Sidney theory and now here I am replying to Dan who has a totally different theory that completely contradicts Uncle Dale's theory. It is as if I am fighting a two front war with two sides that are directly opposed to each other and yet, both claim that the book may not be what it claims to be. And yet, here I am arguing with both of them on different threads.

I truly wish that the critics can be united so that a one front war can be fought. Both uncle dale and dan cannot be right. I know that for sure. Oh well...continue the discussion...

[PacMan]

Neighbor:

Your elder gave an interesting challange, the Joseph Smith challange. Jesus, on the other hand, gave the challange to come to Him for life and to learn from Him. That is a much more productive challange. The Joseph Smith challange is a waste of time by comparison. Why even issue the challange????

If you think JS wrote the BOM, well, you haven't been staying current with the matters that give more evidence that he didn't write the book as is claimed.

You are incoherent! Why do you persist in adding nothing to the conversation?! I donâ??t ask you to be right, just that you give some thought before hitting the submit button! Your ability to flop between themes is so bizarre; I am dumbfounded at how you can in sober conscious, promulgate such baseless rhetoric. Your fluffy and unfounded assertions of â??current mattersâ? prove only your personal ignorance, apparent in your drawing of some invisible causation between alleged â??evidencesâ? and proof that somehow prove Joseph Smith fabricated it all.

Evidence does not equate with proof, and â??challangeâ?? is spelled: â??challenge.â??

Cheers,

PacMan

[Luigi]

In Elder Hugh B. Brown's Profile of a Prophet Elder Brown said: "I ask anyone to undertake to write the story of the ancient inhabitants of America, to write as he did without any source material. He must include in the story 54 chapters dealing with wars, 21 historical chapters, 55 chapters on visions and prophecies (and remember, when the writer begins to write on visions and prophecies, he must have the record agree meticulously with the Bible). He must write 71 chapters on doctrine and exhortation, and here too, he must check every statement with the scriptures or he will be proved to be a fraud. He must write 21 chapters on the ministry of Christ, and everything the writer claims Jesus said and did and every testimony he writes in the book about him must agree absolutely with the New Testament."

It's interesting that with all the talent in the world today, with all the novel writers, doctors of ancient scripture and so forth, that someone hasn't at least tried to write a volume to show how such might be possible. It doesn't have to be about America, of course. How about some of the outer regions of Asia? If producing a Book of Mormon is not outside the realm of a sharpie with a penchant for the sensational, I'd

like to see someone take a mythical tribe of Israelites and take them somewhere.

I think the reason it hasn't been tried is that it can't be done. We have some professors of religion and ancient scripture on this board. Even though they're mostly believers, I wonder if they would know if anything like this has ever been attempted, or how they would feel about tackling the job themselves, just as an experiment.

My own prediction is that they'd fall flat on their faces, because it's the little things in the Book of Mormon, Book of Moses, Book of Abraham that plant the seeds of a testimony. It's not the vast, sweeping stories of ocean crossings, the battles and so forth; it's in the words themselves of the men who are writing.

I know it's probably a little late for me to address the OP, but I would just like to comment on it. First, for anyone to have any interest in this challenge they would have to either be Mormon or connected in Mormonism in a significant way-that already eliminates a large number of people.

But in that small category there are essentially two groups of people-believers and non-believers. Now, for a believer there would be little interest in doing it-Why? Why would he accept a challenge which 1. he believes cannot be met and 2. Would simply challenge other's faith if it could be met?

Then we of course have a nonbeliever who has interest in Mormonism. Similarly he would have little interest in such a project-why? If he accepts the challenge and is successful he knows no believer would accept it anymore than the other criticisms that have been presented(and in fact he would know that no good Mormon would even take the time to read it). The most he could hope for is that a sliver of Mormons would read the mocking of his work in a FARMS review. It is also doubtful there would be any financial profit in such a project as a commercial venture so such a project would be a waste of time and resources.

Lastly I would just say that it would be impossible for most interested in such a project to come to an acceptable way for it to be performed. Everyone would argue over what sources could be used and how the process would have to be completed. And anyone who did it would be said to be a poor comparison because he/she was to educated, or knew to much about the Book of Mormon, etc. etc. In short, no matter how the project was undertaken it would be doomed from day 1 since it would never meet some notable critics' guidelines. We can never hope to replicate Joseph Smith's situation, one because we don't know exactly what it was like and two our modern world has changed everything and everyone to much to ever hope to find a suitable candidate 'just like' Joseph Smith.

I think Elder Brown was simply trying to point out the fact that the Book of Mormon from his perspective was an amazing achievement-even miraculous(and I would add that many findings today make the BoM even more impressive). I think that many-believer or not-recognize that The Book of Mormon is unique and remarkable-but they assign different reasons for that. Ultimately acceptance of The Book of Mormon is a matter of faith and not scholastic exploration-and I don't think that anything-even the acceptance and failure or accomplishment of Elder Brown's challenge-will ever change that.

[Mighty Curelom]

First, what we know of the translation process is limited: we know he used the seer stone and the U&T, and that the words appeared on the stone. But there is obviously more to the story: The Lord himself indicated the process to Oliver, that the translation be studied out before asking God if it were correct. It was an active process (which process we call translation because revelation just doesnâ??t quite explain it) with complexities not inherent to normal translation.

Yes, there is "more to the story."

We have two mutually exclusive accounts of the "translation process." We have the mechanical, "read English words off a peep stone" method, and the "study it out in your mind and pray about it" method. These two methods cannot coexist. At least one of them is a lie.

Actually, it turns out that both of them are lies, although one of them hints at the truth. Imagine if the first account didn't exist--that is, what if there were no props. We know that the plates weren't sitting on a table with JS running his finger over line after line. The gold plates were either hidden away, buried in the woods, or locked in a trunk (well, there weren't any gold plates at all, but at least we can agree that no gold plates were physically involved in the production of the Book of Mormon). So without magic spectacles, peep stones, or gold plates, what do we have? We've got a guy dictating a story to another guy writing it down. But where's the mystery in that? What's so miraculous about that? Without the props, the production of the BoM looks too much like what it really is/was.

[why me]

Yes, there is "more to the story."

We have two mutually exclusive accounts of the "translation process." We have the mechanical, "read English words off a peep stone" method, and the "study it out in your mind and pray about it" method. These two methods cannot coexist. At least one of them is a lie.

Actually, it turns out that both of them are lies, although one of them hints at the truth. Imagine if the first account didn't exist--that is, what if there were no props. We know that the plates weren't sitting on a table with JS running his finger over line after line. The gold plates were either hidden away, buried in the woods, or locked in a trunk (well, there weren't any gold plates at all, but at least we can agree that no gold plates were physically involved in the production of the Book of Mormon). So without magic spectacles, peep stones, or gold plates, what do we have? We've got a guy dictating a story to another guy writing it down. But where's the mystery in that? What's so miraculous about that? Without the props, the production of the BoM looks too much like what it really is/was.

<<<I just love these guys.

[Cold Steel]

And any anachronism in a known forgery could be explained away in the same manner. Oh! Have Israelites been discovered in Mesoamerica? The cultures in Mesoamerica are from Asia. The Nephites have not been discovered there.

Not really. What anachronisms are there that have not been thoroughly dealt with? Or more simply, to save time, which do you consider to be the worst? The most damning anachronism? And regarding whether Nephites/Lamanites have been discovered in Mesoamerica, the verdict is far from in.

All that can be said is that 3 Nephi sounds like a volcanic eruption and Mesoamerica has volcanos that erupt frequently. So, why no other accounts of destructions in the BOM? 3 Nephi makes the 34 AD destruction a singular event, when in Mesoamerica it would have hardly stood out among the many such eruptions.

Whether eruptions take place is a matter of Providence. Whether they're recorded is a matter of writing them down and including them in the record. My point is that Joseph Smith seemed to know a great deal more than he should have about such eruptions. He didn't have access to the History Channel or Discovery. How did he know about the static discharges that result as lightning? How did he know about gas emissions that would quench fires? The prolonged groaning of the Earth long afterward?

We don't know that the "actual" valley [of Lemuel] has been identified. There is a place with NHM, but we don't know that it is "Nahom" and not "Nihm." From reading the BOM, I would have expected Nahom to be on the coast, not miles inland. And there is a lot of coastline to choose from. BTW, it was known in JS day that there was a fertile spot where Bountiful has been "identified."

There's one giant canyon with one perrenniel river of water. The bedrock in the area shows it ran much longer and deeper anciently. The valley also shows evidence of at least one ancient campsite going back to Lehi's time and there are at least two altars. It's three days distance from Jerusalem. What other valley could it be? And a place called Nahom is in exactly the place the Book of Mormon indicates it should be and, until recently, it was not known as a burial site. It was only in the last decade or so that Nahom was actually shown to be a burial site, so Joseph Smith would have been fortunate to have hit that one so squarely. And though fertile regions like Bountiful were "known in JS day," was it in the detail as described by the Book of Mormon? I'd like to see a reference on just what was known about those fertile areas. Also, not all fertile areas make good harbors. It was more than luck.

...if you overlook things like JS including KJV errors and incorrectly adding "out of the waters of baptism" (1 Ne. 20:1) and "Red Sea" (2 Ne. 19:1).

I have no problem with how these are referenced or, in fact, if they are errors. If they are, we've made no claim that the BoM has no errors. But then, they might not be errors. Either way, moot.

Is dictating a book like the BOM beyond JS's talents? This question could be raised even if the book were determined not to be historical. ... At this point, the argument diverges between believing JS was indeed inspired or was a genius of sorts. It then becomes a matter of faith. I believe one day Mormon apologetics will come down to this.

Well, you're certainly entitled to believe as you wish. I don't think even someone of Joseph Smith's talents could have hit as many marks as he did. Further research only makes things clearer, and I don't at all believe Latter-day Saints are losing the war of research. In fact, the more we know about everything, whether DNA or ancient Judaism and Egyptology, the better things look for the LDS community. But we'll see.

[Deborah]

We have two mutually exclusive accounts of the "translation process." We have the mechanical, "read English words off a peep stone" method, and the "study it out in your mind and pray about it" method. These two methods cannot coexist. At least one of them is a lie.

Actually both do apply at different times, and at times together. Joseph depended on the Urim and Thummin in the beginning, and the process was slow. He later was able to do the translation without benefit of the stones. No doubt even using the stones he had to at times ponder what the proper meaning would be in the language of the day, hence study it out and pray about it.

I have always considered the stones a teaching tool; one which trains the mind to focus and which with practice becomes unnecessary.

Your smarmy accusation of a lie is typical. In the first place YOU don't know exactly how it was done and no one does. We have bits and pieces of information, some which is second hand. Nor do you understand the workings of the spirit. The stones are one means, but certainly not the only means of receiving revelation. Even if Joseph sat and dictated without their use that does not mean he wasn't a channel for divine revelation as he reviewed the text of the plates.