The "Joseph Smith" Challenge

[cinepro]

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...

As noted by Mighty Curelom, it would be great for critics if believers in the Book of Mormon could make up their minds on something as basic as whether or not it was a "loose" or "tight" translation.

On the one hand, the theory of "loose" translation is necessary to explain 19th century cultural influences or instances where there is a limitation based on Joseph's understanding.

But then, we must have theory of "tight" translation if there is going to be a reliance on Hebraisms and other evidences closely related to specific word patterns.

The idea that both were used at different times is a little odd as well. How would this even work? Sometimes, the exact wording appears for a tight translation, but other times Joseph gets to improvise? Why would some portions of the Book of Mormon warrant a tight translation, while others only merit general direction? And let's not forget the third method of translation: the "Copy from the KJ Bible" method, which seemed to become extremely popular towards the end of the process.

Truly, God works in mysterious ways. Unfortunately, crackpots, frauds, and misguided gurus often work in mysterious ways as well, so "mysterious ways" are hardly a convincing argument for divine origin. It simply becomes a faith promoting cliche for "we have no idea how he did it, and we'd like you to believe it was God".

--------------------------------------------------------------------

As for the nature of the challenge itself, I think Don Bradley had a lucid perspective on just what it means:

Suppose I believe Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto 2 was inspired by God. (And if anything is, this is. ;-)) I could pose the challenge to everyone who disagrees, "Oh yeah, then create something like it." If none of them did, I could then claim this as evidence for my belief.

Of course, Rachmaninoff was trained in music, whereas Joseph Smith was not trained in scripture-writing. But it would not be difficult to come up with similar tests using untrained minds - e.g., if you don't believe Joseph Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ was inspired of God, try learning a new language at the age of 26 while working as a sailor and then writing one of the greatest works of literature ever penned in that language. Or, if you don't believe the Qur'an was revealed by God, try dictating poetry (without knowing how to read or write) that will come to be known as some of the greatest ever produced in your language.

No informed nonbeliever I am aware of denies that the production of the Book of Mormon was a major achievement. They deny only that it is an achievement that was beyond the abilities of the particular individual they believe created it. How apologists know that this individual was not unusually gifted, even if relatively uneducated, is entirely beyond me. While I have heard many apologists claim that Joseph Smith could not have produced a complex book, I have never heard an apologist offer criteria by which we could judge what was and wasn't within his abilities.

Perhaps you could enlighten us with evidence for what the extent and limit of Joseph's ability was by providing evidence that he lacked the memory ability to keep a narrative largely self-consistent, evidence that he lacked the creative ability to produce a good story, evidence that education is essential to producing a good story, etc. I doubt you can adduce such evidence. I can, however, adduce evidence that he had a remarkable memory and other skills essential to the production of such a book. Just "challenge" me and I'll tell you more.

As for Nibley's challenge, he did not make it in good faith. He knows that no one is likely to even _try_ to write a _fake_ 500-600 book of scripture just to show that it can be done. He also knows that if someone did succeed in producing a comparable work, he (Nibley) would deny that it was the same. He would claim that the author had more education than Joseph, had more resources than Joseph, had the Book of Mormon to use as a model, etc.

Nibley also knows that he has handpicked the real and alleged features of the book that the imitator must duplicate. He doesn't challenge the potential imitator to produce the hideous grammar and bad usage of the original Book of Mormon, to write a supposedly "ancient" book that addresses all of today's major doctrinal issues, to borrow liberally from the King James Version, including its non-ancient errors of translation and transmission, to write a book that no archaeologist who doesn't already have faith will accept on the basis of the available evidence, to include some obvious gaffes and internal inconsistencies, such as having King Benjamin still on the throne years after his demise, etc., etc.

Nibley not only chooses to ignore these features of the Book of Mormon, he implies they don't exist - e.g., "Above all, do not ever contradict yourself!" And he exaggerates the significance of the parallels he and others have uncovered between the Book of Mormon and the ancient Near East.

If someone were to take Nibley's challenge, and then have many thousands of highly motivated researchers put a total of millions of hours and millions of dollars into discovering parallels between their imitation and its putative culture of origin, there can be no realistic doubt that many such parallels would be found, especially if the author had texts from that culture to use as models (e.g., the books of the Bible).

The question to be asked is not "How many parallels can we find between this book and its putative culture of origin?" but "How many parallels can we find between this book and its putative culture of origin _relative to the number we would expect to find if the book were not from that culture_?" Roger (Analytics) has done an excellent job making a similar point in his "pseudo-scholarship" thread. (Check it out.)

If we do not compare the Book of Mormon to any "control group" cultures that no one believes it is related to (e.g., the Chinese and the Norse) as intensively as we compare it to the cultures of the ancient Near East, then we have no way of knowing how many parallels we _should_ expect between the Book of Mormon and the ancient Near East just by chance, and therefore have no way of assessing whether the parallels rise to an "above chance" level. No one can reasonably claim something occurs at an "above chance" level without having _some_ empirically based idea of just where "chance level" is.

Of course, we can compare the Book of Mormon to both the 19th Century and the ancient Near East and see which one it parallels _most_. But we must do this in some systematic way.

There are many systematic comparisons we could carry out. We could, for instance, identify the major themes of ancient Hebraic religion and of 19th Century American Christianity, and identify the major themes of the Book of Mormon and and then compare.

A full-scale analysis of this sort would be more than anyone could on the spot, of course. But, as a suggestive test case, I would propose that a major theme - if not _the_ major theme - of the Hebrew prophets was that idolatry was evil and that Israel should worship only Jehovah. This was not, however, a major theme of 19th Century Christian preachers and writers, since, the worship of idols had rather fallen out of popularity by their day. Where does the Book of Mormon fall with respect to these two poles?

Other than in its quotes from the Hebrew prophets of the Bible, the Book of Mormon says virtually nothing about idolatry. Idolatry gets only a few mentions in the entire text. 3 Nephi throws idolatry into a laundry list of sins to avoid. And one Book of Mormon prophet tells people that money can become an idol - but this is idolatry in the symbolic sense in which it would have been prevalent in the 19th Century, not the literal idol worship that obsessed the Hebrew prophets and the God for whom they spoke.

So, apparently the Book of Mormon peoples never had much trouble with idol worship! They adhered quite strictly to the worship of the one true God. Yet, in the very locations FARMS apologists tell us the Book of Mormon must have occurred, and in the very time it was supposed to have occurred, we find evidences of idol worship _everywhere_. Meso-America is littered with carvings, figures, and temples depicting an assortment of "false gods".

Yet in the Book of Mormon, no Nephite, Lamanite, or Mulekite, or Jaredite prophet is ever portrayed as castigating his people for worshipping such gods, making images of such gods, building temples to such gods, sacrificing to such gods, relying on idols for protection, or the like. Nor do Nephi, Lehi, for all their prophetic acumen, predict that their seed will fall prey to such temptations. Indeed, their main concern, one never voiced by the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, is unbelief in the Messiah.

Surely the Book of Mormon violates the expectations we would have of Hebraic scripture written in ancient Meso-America. Idol-worship, ubiquitous in the jeremiads of the Hebrew prophets and their God, and ubiquitous in ancient Meso-America, is notably absent from this text that claims to have been written by Hebrew prophets in Meso-America.

And yet the Book of Mormon explicitly addresses disbelief in the divinity of Jesus (unitarianism), the claim that the scriptural term "restoration" implies universal salvation (restorationist universalism), the idea that miracles will cease after Jesus, the doctrine of infant baptism, and many other things that were big issues in the culture of the Second Great Awakening but not in the culture of ancient Judaism, nor, so far as any extant paleographic or archaeological evidence shows, in the culture of ancient Meso-America.

This glance at the themes of the Book of Mormon is, of course, just one test case among many that could be examined. The book needs to be compared systematically to its possible cultures of origin.

Nibley's "challenge," however, doesn't invite the reader to perform any such useful test, nor does it present _any_ challenge in good faith. It is merely a skillful, but empty, application of something Nibley has often criticized the empty use of by others: rhetoric.

Don Bradley

10/7/03

http://pub26.ezboard.com/fpacumenispagesfr...=21&stop=31

[why me]

As noted by Mighty Curelom, it would be great for critics if believers in the Book of Mormon could make up their minds on something as basic as whether or not it was a "loose" or "tight" translation.

Why_me wrote:

However, the book exists. How it came to be is a matter of great confusion by the critics who just cannot seem to agree on how it came about. For the lds, the book is what is claims to be. Nothing more. But for the critics, I hear of sidney, oliver, Joseph, Walter the magician, the golden teapot, spaulding, ethan smith, and the great pumpkin. Plus, I am sure that there are other theories out there. Sorry, it is all just a lot of mixed confusion with no critic actually scoring a touchdown.

As for myself, I am torn between the JS actual story of gold plates and the Great Pumpkin appearing in the pumpkin patch when Joseph was farming in the fields. I am not sure which way to go yet.

[maklelan]

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?

It doesn't say anything about transcription errors or recording errors on the part of the original scribes. I don't think any errors occured in God's transmission of the information to Joseph Smith.

[cinepro]

Sorry, it is all just a lot of mixed confusion with no critic actually scoring a touchdown.

With the tight/loose theories, and the different suggested geographies, and especially taking into account the different theories held by various believing Church members in general, you can understand why some find the water just as murky on your side of the pond.

It doesn't say anything about transcription errors or recording errors on the part of the original scribes. I don't think any errors occured in God's transmission of the information to Joseph Smith.

If there were errors in God's transmission to Joseph Smith, how would we know?

[why me]

With the tight/loose theories, and the different suggested geographies, and especially taking into account the different theories held by various believing Church members in general, you can understand why some find the water just as murky on your side of the pond.

Yes, my dear friend, but the book still stands and you are still on the outside looking in. And it is here that all critics have a problem with the book that still stands for what it claims to be and says it loudly for all to hear. <<it's the word of god, it's the word of god...

[PacMan]

Mighty Curelom,

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.

On what account? Yours? Your assertion is not only poorly reasoned, but laughable. There is no reason that they could have independently or co-jointly used. Your summaries are completely without warrant, in that they frame a ridiculous straw man by the strings of some ridiculous false dilemma.

Cinepro:

As noted by Mighty Curelom, it would be great for critics if believers in the Book of Mormon could make up their minds on something as basic as whether or not it was a "loose" or "tight" translation.

Our opinions on the subject are frankly, irrelevant. The only thing such a comment does is magnify your own terrible subjectivity. Such illustrates no search for truth, but simply a desire to dispose of TBM belief. If critics want to prove anything wrong, they best prove it all.

Good luck.

Personally, I think he saw words on the stone. Some of which were in full sentences, others not. I would not doubt that he learned something of the language and was able to translate parts himself. But we know that Joseph had moments of â??spiritual blindnessâ? where the translation process became difficult. Perhaps at times he relied on himself too much? Who knowsâ?¦but itâ??s not terribly important. The Book of Mormon teaches correct principles, and semantic issues (and Iâ??m not suggesting they arenâ??t explainable) are not relevant to its mission.

The other thing you need to realize is that the first edition publication differed from the manuscript. First, Oliver was told to make a copy of the manuscript to submit to the publisher. After the 116 pages, Joseph was paranoid of losing the translation. Even that copy didnâ??t have punctuation, and so both Oliver and Joseph set the type for printing. Iâ??m under the impression that the publisher did much of it without their supervision. As such, certain the â??looseâ? translations could have come post-translation.

PacMan

[maklelan]

No informed nonbeliever I am aware of denies that the production of the Book of Mormon was a major achievement. They deny only that it is an achievement that was beyond the abilities of the particular individual they believe created it.

And they do this in the face of every eyewitness to the proccess. They thought of Joseph Smith as a man who could barely write a letter, and now the theory is that he was a literary genius of unmatched calibre. This theory is ridiculous, but, of course, the other theory is impossible because they reject supernatural events up front; the conclusion is obvious: he must have been utterly brilliant, despite the fact that every eyewitness account on the planet makes it abundantly clear that nothing could be further from the truth. We must then conclude that they are either 1) lying, or 2) deceived. Those who demand academic honesty and integrity now feel free to tap dance over the boundaries of those sacred limitations to conjecture (in the face of the evidence) that he was feeling and thinking this, that and the other thing. Joseph Smith's deception must have been so complete that he eventually fooled himself, despite allowing him to betray his untrained pen in every composition not claiming revelatory origins. All of this utter nonsense is the inescapable conclusion drawn from the research done under the protection of only one piece of criteria: nothing supernatural is allowed. This assumption is based only on personal experience and interpretation of the nature of the world. If others claim that they have had a spiritual experience that is foreign to you they must be delusional. The rules of qualia are thrown out the window as my perception of the universe (and the perception of everyone else who agrees with me) trumps yours because you're not allowed to have knowledge that I am not privy to. Ha.

Perhaps you could enlighten us with evidence for what the extent and limit of Joseph's ability was by providing evidence that he lacked the memory ability to keep a narrative largely self-consistent, evidence that he lacked the creative ability to produce a good story, evidence that education is essential to producing a good story, etc. I doubt you can adduce such evidence. I can, however, adduce evidence that he had a remarkable memory and other skills essential to the production of such a book. Just "challenge" me and I'll tell you more.

By all means.

As for Nibley's challenge, he did not make it in good faith. He knows that no one is likely to even _try_ to write a _fake_ 500-600 book of scripture just to show that it can be done. He also knows that if someone did succeed in producing a comparable work, he (Nibley) would deny that it was the same. He would claim that the author had more education than Joseph, had more resources than Joseph, had the Book of Mormon to use as a model, etc.

Is this man reading Hugh Nibley's mind, or just making assumptions based on what he would do? I find it hilarious that thousands and thousands of polemic publications have been undertaken and produced between that challenge and now, but no one has ever produced 600 pages to show that it could be done. That would do a much better job of shutting us up and you know it. You love to decide that you have us on the run, so seeing Hugh Nibley backed into his own corner would tickle you to no end. The problem is, the proving is on your own terms, not ours. I guess that is in keeping with the habit of defining "Chirstian" by your own carefully crafted criteria that takes special care to exlude Mormons, and then telling us we had better respect your conclusion. I guess if we write a book beginning with the statement that we will assume every reference to supernatural activity is a lie or a delusion we can't help but reach the conclusion that the Church is built upon either a lie or a delusion. When will the silly Mormons see that my criteria is superior to their own. We are offered challenges all the time and we meet them on the terms presented, but whenever we make a similar invitation the only response that is ever forthcoming is a treatise on how the premise if fallacious. Ha.

Nibley also knows that he has handpicked the real and alleged features of the book that the imitator must duplicate. He doesn't challenge the potential imitator to produce the hideous grammar and bad usage of the original Book of Mormon, to write a supposedly "ancient" book that addresses all of today's major doctrinal issues, to borrow liberally from the King James Version, including its non-ancient errors of translation and transmission, to write a book that no archaeologist who doesn't already have faith will accept on the basis of the available evidence, to include some obvious gaffes and internal inconsistencies, such as having King Benjamin still on the throne years after his demise, etc., etc.

I'm amazed at how well this author can read Hugh Nibley's mind. Perhaps the reason those issues aren't introduced is because they are not issues in his mind. Indeed, he had addressed those issues many times before, and they are nothing new. Do you expect a Mormon to cower in fear and shock when you point out that there is King James English in the Book of Mormon. That hasn't been an issue since 19th century, but it is reintroduced here as if it were revelatory. Ha.

And he exaggerates the significance of the parallels he and others have uncovered between the Book of Mormon and the ancient Near East.

I will grant that Dr. Nibley let his diffusionist tendencies get the better of him on occasion, but not a one of you has addressed in any capacity the legions of recently discovered similarities in everything from prose to law to theurgy. None of you are even aware of all of them. I'll give you an example: Seidel's law. Without looking it up on Google, can any of you tell me how it pertains to both ancient Near Eastern literature and the Book of Mormon?

If someone were to take Nibley's challenge, and then have many thousands of highly motivated researchers put a total of millions of hours and millions of dollars into discovering parallels between their imitation and its putative culture of origin, there can be no realistic doubt that many such parallels would be found, especially if the author had texts from that culture to use as models (e.g., the books of the Bible).

And yet nothing like it has ever been done before. I doubt it. You can conjecture all day long about it, but proving it is what we're asking y'all to do, and your response is: we don't want to.

[

"How many parallels can we find between this book and its putative culture of origin _relative to the number we would expect to find if the book were not from that culture_?"

So answer that question.

So, apparently the Book of Mormon peoples never had much trouble with idol worship! They adhered quite strictly to the worship of the one true God. Yet, in the very locations FARMS apologists tell us the Book of Mormon must have occurred, and in the very time it was supposed to have occurred, we find evidences of idol worship _everywhere_. Meso-America is littered with carvings, figures, and temples depicting an assortment of "false gods".

And this has been adequately addressed. What is the expressed purpose of the Book of Mormon? You are aware that it was abridged and redacted by two men (one, mainly), correct? Given his expressed purpose, what do you think he should have put in there that he didn't?

Surely the Book of Mormon violates the expectations we would have of Hebraic scripture written in ancient Meso-America. Idol-worship, ubiquitous in the jeremiads of the Hebrew prophets and their God, and ubiquitous in ancient Meso-America, is notably absent from this text that claims to have been written by Hebrew prophets in Meso-America.

So you expect which people from the initial party of faithful (or sometimes faithful) Israelites are the ones who introduce complex Israelite idol worshipping systems into the subsequent culture? Could it be that you are drawing an assumption that the only people who were not faithful (Laman, Lemuel and some unnamed daughters) to the Lord were idol worshippers prior to their little Exodus, and they just fell back on old habits? Perhaps they weren't idol worshippers, but they regressed to idol worship because that is a universally consistent retrograde from faithful Jehovah worship? Perhaps you are just not that well aware of what the Book of Mormon does and does not say. The Book of Mormon never claims to be a perfectly comprehensive representation of their culture, but you are judging it based on the criteria that it does.

And yet the Book of Mormon explicitly addresses disbelief in the divinity of Jesus (unitarianism), the claim that the scriptural term "restoration" implies universal salvation (restorationist universalism), the idea that miracles will cease after Jesus, the doctrine of infant baptism, and many other things that were big issues in the culture of the Second Great Awakening but not in the culture of ancient Judaism, nor, so far as any extant paleographic or archaeological evidence shows, in the culture of ancient Meso-America.

The book was abridged by a man who was far separated from the cultural concerns of ancient Judaism. Remember, the two families that left were not carrying with them all the different cultural perspectives. They were carrying the language, law and customs, however. If we took two conservative Mormon families from Utah and placed them on an island for five hundred years should we expect to find liberal Democrats among the subsequent generations? You're oversimplifying the book and refusing to recognize several important factors. The book was compiled, by the way, by a man who tells us it is designed specifically for our generation, and that he was shown our generation. What concerns is it supposed to address?

This glance at the themes of the Book of Mormon is, of course, just one test case among many that could be examined. The book needs to be compared systematically to its possible cultures of origin.

When can I expect to see this publication?

[PacMan]

A couple of issues I have with Don Bradleyâ??s quote:

No informed nonbeliever I am aware of denies that the production of the Book of Mormon was a major achievementâ?¦..

The BoM is one of a number of remarkable claims. In association with the 3 and 8 witnesses, the experiences of Joseph needs be treated collectively, not nit-picked individually. Joseph was not the sole participator, and even his other experiences of his earlier youth with Moroni (collaborated by his Father) are remarkable in their consistencies. What is claimed isnâ??t that a 21 (Iâ??m pretty sure he was 21) year old made up a book of antiquity, but that he began designing elaborate schemes years and years earlier as a young teenager. Possible? Frankly, I find it more unfathomable than that God appeared to him!

Perhaps you could enlighten us with evidence for what the extent and limit of Joseph's ability was by providing evidence that he lacked the memory ability to keep a narrative largely self-consistent, evidence that he lacked the creative ability to produce a good story, evidence that education is essential to producing a good story, etc. I doubt you can adduce such evidenceâ?¦

Every available account that exists does so! From Bushman, pg. 35:

Lucy had no premonitions of such a future for her son. She remembered him as a â??remarkably quiet, well disposed childâ?¦â? â??The villagers had no idea that the nondescript farm boyâ?¦had any ambition or religious character. He seemed slow and â??destitute of geniusâ? or lazy and superstitiousâ?¦. Nothing the townspeople knew about Joseph or the Smiths prepared them for his claims to revelation.

Another interesting note by Don, is the dearth of reference to idle worshipping being an evidence of sorts for a lack of parallelism and relation to the Jews, from which Lehi came. How ridiculous!! They were an offshoot of a civilization, and being such the Lehites did not necessarily perpetuate those issues of their contemporaries in Jerusalem! If Lehi taught his children about idols, whoâ??s to say they didnâ??t learn the lesson and perpetuate that same teaching? Thereâ??s no reason to believe that Laman and Lamuel didnâ??t believe in Godâ??just that they were lazy and rebellious. And with regards to doctrine, he takes 400AD issues (brought forward by one man) and tries to create a parallelism to ancient Judaismâ??1,000 years removed! Moroni specifically says that he had seen our day, and so within the context of his own testimony, he is addressing those issues!

The only issue I have with Nibley's challenge is that it is excused for what is isnâ??t, rather than for what it is. The BoM is so complex, with so many facets to the narrative that it is impossible for me to believe that a single, uneducated 21 year old could have made it up while duping everyone around him! As such, let us be sure that Nibley's challenge is not nearly so much a challenge as an illustration that is disregarded. Void his challenge as you will, but what critics allege Joseph Smith did is one of the most prodigious events in the history of the world: a young, uneducated teenage boy scheming up a plan that would take years to realize, undertaking heartache and suffering for his make-believe story while duping those closest to him, and persuading others so convincingly (who would later turn on him) to stand by their witness that they did indeed see heavenly messengersâ??all to perpetuate a lie. Ockham says Joseph was telling the truth, and I tend to agree.

PacMan

[Luigi]

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? see.

Sorry to derail but assuming this is a reference to the valley of Lemuel it seems there would be some problems if what you wrote is correct. First of all if this valley is 3 days from Jerusalem then it would not be close enough to the Red Sea to be a good candidate, since the closest point to the Red Sea is 250 miles from Jerusalem. (I'm aware of the reference in 1 Nephi to 3 days but I think that the reference could just as easily be interpreted as traveling 3 days once they reached the Red Sea. ) The valley of Lemuel would have to be next to the Red Sea since he traveled near the Red Sea and when Lehi gives his lecture on the valley of Lemuel and river Laban it says he 'saw' that the river emptied into the Red Sea. So it seems that the valley of Lemuel would have to be next to the Red Sea and anything reasonably traveled by a caravan of people in three days wouldn't be. But I don't know a lot about this so I'd be happy to have you explain where I'm wrong.

[maklelan]

With the tight/loose theories, and the different suggested geographies, and especially taking into account the different theories held by various believing Church members in general, you can understand why some find the water just as murky on your side of the pond.

If there were errors in God's transmission to Joseph Smith, how would we know?

Your ilk seems to be able to read people's minds 150 years after the fact, decide when someone is lying without any evidence at all, and tell us what Hugh Nibley would do in the event that someone actually met his challenge. Maybe you can figure this one out.

[Dan Vogel]

Pac Man,

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??â??t CNN to relay every belch of steam coming from every mountain.

I think you mean argument from silence. I haven't given an interpretation, creative or otherwise. But you have. Mesoamericans knew what a volcano was, but the BOM doesn't mention them. The destruction in the BOM doesn't have to be volcanic. It just has to be divine. You might think it fits with volcanic eruption. Fine. But that's not proof that JS could not have written it.

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??â??m just curious)

When Whitmer and others said he didn't have any manuscript to read from, they were debunking the Spaulding theory. If JS had instructed Cowdery to copy certain chapters from the Bible or read them from the Bible, that would not necessarily have been mentioned.

[Dan Vogel]

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.

That was Cowdery's method with his rod, which answered yes and no questions.

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

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.

I'm not saying JS didn't do anything but sit and think about his book. I'm just saying, he wasn't working as hard as his neighbors. Besides, he could think about what he was going to dictate while walking to Colesville and doing other things.

????Why does one go to secure financial aid if they donâ??t need money? Thatâ??s a baffling statement. Moreover, I made no statement that they were trying to move away from this â??edge of poverty.â? 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.

I was just saying that it is difficult to argue that he was working hard when there is nothing to show for it.

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 Whitmerâ??s, and others to be sure. But the bulk of the translation wasnâ??t done with the Whimers during this â??rent freeâ?? episode (which means nothing anyway). Furthermore, while they were undergoing the translation in Fayette, I donâ??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 Iâ??d require substantiation, due to it being contrary to the evidence available.

Samuel was doing the work that JS would normally be doing by himself, but evidently that wasn't quite enough.

Iâ??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, â??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.â? 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.

I donâ??t know what â??evidenceâ? youâ??re talking about! The evidence suggests that he looked for work! Without it, please reason how they were able to provide for themselves sufficientlyâ??including Oliver. Moreover, the only thing that doesnâ??t jell with the evidence is your assertion that the KJV was strictly â??copied.â?? 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 â??fantasizeâ?? his creative story.

As I mentioned in another response, I think you are reading Whitmer too literally when he says JS didn't have any MS to read from; he was referring to the Spaulding MS. If JS was translating the Isaiah chapters, why are they nearly identical to the KJV including mistakes? I think it is quite evident that at some point he took his head out of his hat and either dictated from the KJV or had OC copy from it.

Again, I don't mean to imply that JS was sitting on the grass daydreaming. I'm only saying that he could start and stop whenever he wanted to think about what to translate. The 8 pages is an average (Welch and Rathbone I think came up with the same figure). There could be day full of dictation, or days with none, or days with an hour hear and there, or a few hours in the morning followed by work and return to dictating after supper. Who knows? All you have to do is divide the number of pages from the number of days to get the 8-page figure.

[freakin a man]

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

This is false. Joseph Smith read every book written in his day and had internet access. I am trying to dig up a photograph that I saw of Joseph "translating" the BOM but if you look in the background, there is a computer with the "Google" homepage right on the screen. Joseph also had a photographic memory. He could repeat word for word entire chapters of the KJV with little effort. When you come to accept these truths, then you will know that Joseph made up the Book of Mormon.

[russianwolfe]

Has the Book of Mormon been found to be a history of ancient inhabitants of America by anyone outside of the faith? If not, it is akin to writing a book of fiction, with oodles of borrowed biblical scriptures that turns out to be a slow read for many. It becomes a challenge if the book were historical. Otherwise, head to the local library and you will find shelves and shelves of fictional books of every imagination that meet or exceed the challenge.

Name one non-member scholar who would even find the BoM interesting enough to look into. I always laugh at this kind of suggestion. What scholar in his right mind would even attempt such a thing? Name them!

A better question is, which book (other than the Bible) of a religious nature has been 'found to be a history of ancient inhabitants' as described in the book? Anyone care to answer?

Marvin

I have a challenge for Elder Brown. Since the church receives revelation from God, lets see it produce more scripture to be added to its canon. This would impress me.

So now we have the 'God is a puppet and will dance to my tune' argument.

Before you ask any question, why don't you see if it makes sense if you ask Peter or Moses? Would you ask this same question of them? If not, then it might not be a good idea to ask Elder Brown either.

Marvin

[freakin a man]

Name one non-member scholar who would even find the BoM interesting enough to look into. I always laugh at this kind of suggestion. What scholar in his right mind would even attempt such a thing? Name them!

A better question is, which book (other than the Bible) of a religious nature has been 'found to be a history of ancient inhabitants' as described in the book? Anyone care to answer?

Marvin

So now we have the 'God is a puppet and will dance to my tune' argument.

Before you ask any question, why don't you see if it makes sense if you ask Peter or Moses? Would you ask this same question of them? If not, then it might not be a good idea to ask Elder Brown either.

Marvin

There are not a lot of people who don't believe in the Bible who at the same time consider it valid history.

[russianwolfe]

A couple of observations about this challenge:

1) Why would anybody even be motiviated to do so? Joseph had motivations to write this book (not to debate those at the moment) that were vastly different from those of anybody who would be taking up this challenge. Writing a book structured along the same thematic lines as the Book of Mormon is, if nothing else, a lot of work. Once it was written, what would be accomplished? Would you, Cold Steel, then leave Mormonism? I'm guessing the answer is no. Would the Book ever be even so much as an obscure footnote anywhere? Most likely not. So the biggest reason that nobody has taken up this challenge, IMO, is that the amount of work it would require would is so inordinately out of proportion with anything that could be accomplished by doing so that nobody would want to do this. Most creative individuals create a new and unique work rather than trying to replicate what they may consider to be a mediocre book in any case.

And what do you think were Joseph's motivations? And don't go the money route. If he was interested in money, then he would have gone on the lecture circuit and made more money than John C. Bennett who did go on the lecture circuit.

2) In issuing this challenge, you and Hugh Brown are of course making numerous favorable assumptions to make the claim look more impressive, i.e.,

-Joseph Smith's sole authorship

-The unassailability of the text (both internally and against external sources)

-The belief that it was written without source material

The historical records says that he wrote it without source material. What evidence do yo have that he didn't?

Without delving into these issues individually, I think that most would agree that there is at least controversy about each of the above assumptions. In making his grand-sounding challenge, however, Hugh Brown is treating these issues as closed cases.

Does this mean that you are avoiding the issues you have raised?

3) Something not entirely dissimilar has been done to this: the Quaran, written by an uneducated Bedouin.

Does the Quaran cover a period of 1,000 years of history of an unknown civilization? And for Muhammed the procedure was completely different. He read the book, Joseph translated it. Mohammed wrote about what he knew, Joseph wrote about something that no one knew. Apples and oranges if you ask me.

4) People have written books that have, IMO, displayed much greater creativity and a much more remarkable internal consistency than the Book of Mormon. The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, for instance, comes to mind. I know that, in a certain sense, this is an apples-to-oranges comparison. I bring it up only to show that the supposedly amazing level of internal consistency that believers often attribute to the Book of Mormon exists in many works of much greater length, complexity and imagination than the Book of Mormon.

Except that LotR was written over 18 years, the BoM in about 65 days while still under the necessity of providing a living or living off the generousity of friends. And it was based on legends and fantasies of many different cultures. It was not an original work except in JRR way of tying it all together. There has even been talk of the symbolism being tied to Catholicism.

5) If you want to spin this challenge differently, it would be easy to do so. For instance, suppose that after the publishing of the Book of Mormon, numerous books of a similar nature had been produced. Could that fact not also be presented as a proof of the Book of Mormon's truth? I can imagine believers talking about how imitation is the sincerest form of flattery or how the copycats still can't measure up to the original. The fact that nobody else has attempted to produce a copy of a work like the book of Mormon can be re-interpreted as a negative imputation on the book just as easily as it can be said to be a positive one.

6) I'm very long winded today. (just checking to see if anybody is still reading )

7) The historical conditions make it much less likely that anybody would attempt to write a book making claims like the Book of Mormon does today. We know much more about the world than was known in Joseph Smith's time. Therefore, a skeptic would say Joseph Smith was speculating about lost cultures. Today, a person would be trying to overturn universally accepted history if they wrote a book making historical claims akin to those made by Smith. Smith was nothing if not bold, but to make historical claims against widely accepted history today would require an even more remarkable level of audacity.

Now, if anybody survived to the end of this post, you deserve some sort of reward for endurance. My point in this long-winded exercise is merely that I don't think that the fact that nobody has undertaken to write a book on lines nearly identical to those of the Book of Mormon can really be used as any special sort of evidence that the Book of Mormon must be true. The challenge is specious.

[maklelan]

Certainly responses to my posts are forthcoming. I will be patient.

[why me]

The book of mormon is certainly an interesting book. Not only is its text interesting to evaluate but the way that the book came into being can be debated and debated. And I suppose this is what makes the book a book of genuius no matter how it came about.

The critics at this time cannot prove it untrue. Nor do they want to place themselves in that time period and witness the main characters daily going about their lives. To do so, would be an eye opener for anyone with the imagination to do so. What often needs to be remembered is the daily existence of JS, OC, SR, the Whitmers, and all others that had something to do with JS at that time. Once one has the main characters, then attempt to visualize their lives surrounding the book of mormon. Look into motivations, daily rituals of living, their jobs, their marriages, buying food, going to the toilet, living and breathing in their communities.

And then try to imagine objectively, what is to be gained by inventing such a story? And what was gained? Then, attempt to visualize the converts to the church and why they converted. Most converted without ever seeing or hearing JS in person before their conversion. What was in the new church that made it so compelling? And then think of the flak that the JS, OC, SR, the whitmers, Martin Harris etc took because of this book throughout their lives. Not to mention Emma. And yet, no one that I know of wrote a testimony in their own hands denying the book of mormon. We have heresay by tainted characters, but where is the handwritten confession? And yet, they lived their lives daily eating, talking, reliving the experience (Fraud or no Fraud) of those events. Not to mention doing their jobs and communicating with people that they may have come across throughout their lives. Just as we do now.

Truly remarkable. And yes, the book still stands...one aspect of it possible truthfulness is that we are still debating it and its contents. God would have it no other way since faith is the key to the book's understanding.

[maklelan]

I was so looking forward to having a little back and forth with Dan Vogel. They sell his Joseph Smith bio in the BYU bookstore (and American Apocrypha). Well, they don't actually sell any of them, but they have them on the shelves, and I imagine that's where they'll stay.

Are my arguments too base and immature? Do I need to display credentials before I get a response? Do I need to have been published?

[Addictio]

above, maklelan posed these questions:

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?

As I noted earlier on the thread, "The whole point of the Challenge is to discredit the modern authorship (JS-as-author) hypothesis. It tries to discredit that hypothesis by attributing to JS a "compositional feat," an accomplishment that (per the Challenge) ... it is extremely unlikely that anyone else could duplicate or 'match.'" There are two ways of formulating this "Joseph Smith Challenge" and in the bolded text, makelan is referring to some version of the second one. (See my post above for the first one: "JS dictated a set of highly complex, inter-related narratives under conditions that no one could posssibly.... etc." I think Clark rightly dismisses it and for the reasons russianwolfe, Dan V. and others have expressed, I don't think it makes much sense as the basis for a hypothetical writing competition.)

As I suggested above, a second way of formulating the JS "compositional feat" that no one else could possibly duplicate is along these lines:

JS dictated a set of narratives that "correspond," in numerous ways that JS could not possibly have known about or guessed, with what has since been discovered by archaeologists and historians about actual physical and cultural conditions in ancient Mesoamerica.

The most fundamental difficulty (Problem One, below) with this challenge, seems to me, is that to make any sense it first has to assume that JS functioned solely as the author (rather than as divinely-aided translator) of the BoM. But under that assumption (i.e., under the Modern-Authorship hypothesis) JS was composing a completely fictional work and attributing it to imaginary ancient authors. So the best he could do as a text-composer, and all that he could do, was attempt to depict and portray imagined events, not report or describe real, historical ones.

So one response to maklelan's bolded question is that it's actually confused, perhaps nonsensical, to talk about comparing (or ranking) fictional narrative works based on how "accurately" they report or describe sets of events, since none of the events actually happened. Anyway, in addition to Problem One, the Challenge also fails because of the Problem Two issues.

Problem One. Under the Modern-Authorship hypothesis, the BoM narratives are fictional accounts attributed by JS to imaginary ancient authors. So the narratives do not and cannot in principle report or describe the occurrence of any historical (empirically real) events. The narratives accordingly can't report or describe any ancient past events either accurately or inaccurately, correctly or incorrectly. (Similarly, they contain no experiential statements that are either true or false.) Therefore, there is no amazing or extraordinary compositional feat of JS for anyone to match or duplicate, because there is no basis for judging whether (or the extent to which) he performed one.

Problem Two. Under the MA hypothesis, JS was attempting to depict (not report) a set of past events in which the uninhabited Americas were originally colonized by three seafaring immigrant groups from the mid-East. The BoM narratives are therefore "set" and unfold somewhere in an imaginary ancient hemisphere, in a promised land that is inhabited exclusively by the three founding immigrant groups and their biological descendants. For first-generation LDS readers, the narratives exhibited considerable "verisimilitude" and were also judged to be a plausible account of the common origin and ancestry of modern-era Amerindians. But for current LDS readers who accept the limited Mesoamerican geography and population assumptions of the Sorenson model ("Limited Tehuantepec Colonization Model," or "LTC"), the setting, events and colonization scenario JS was attempting to depict are plainly counterfactual, and implausible.

Therefore, for such readers there can be no JS compositional feat for anyone to match or duplicate, because in addition to not being accurate or correct, at least the New World fictional narratives he composed lack even verisimilitude and plausibility.

But what about all those amazing "correspondences" between ancient Mesoamerica and the BoM narratives identified by Clark (as well as Sorenson, Gardner and others)? Per Problem One, considered under the MA hypothesis, those "correspondences" between the BoM narratives and the empirical world of ancient Mesoamerica are at best only instances of versimilitude, not evidence supporting historicity. Again, the narratives do not (and couldn't) report or describe any empirically real past events. They can only depict or portray imaginary events successfully enough to achieve versimilitude, or fail to do so. Given the Problem Two issues, moreover, for Clark and others who accept the LTC model, under the MA hypothesis the narratives JS composed were counterfactual and cannot even function as plausible depictions of the Mesoamerican past.

Let me try to clarify a bit further. I think it's perfectly legitimate for Clark and other LTC-model advocates to argue that the BoM contains "amazing correspondences" with the physical and cultural world of ancient Mesoamerica. But that is a historicity argument that has to be made and supported under the Ancient Authorship hypothesis. The problem arises because Clark (and many others who invoke this formulation of the "JS Challenge") is not content to just make his case for historicity under the Ancient Authorship hypothesis. Instead, he rhetorically invokes the idea of JS as author ("How could JS possibly have guessed that ....") without recognizing what the assumption that JS authored the text actually entails.

With the benefit of hindsight, for example, we know that if JS authored the text he composed the New World narratives in accordance with what was known or knowable at the time regarding the settlement ("colonization") of the ancient Americas, the mysterious origin of the Native Americans, and the physical remains of America's ancient inhabitants. So if JS composed the BoM narratives, he would have done so using the assumptions of what DNA commentators refer to as the "Hemispheric (or Global) Colonization Model." Under the HC model, the Jaredites and Lehites-Mulekites were the original, founding ancestors of all the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the hemisphere. (As noted above, the set of beliefs and assumptions that comprise the HC-model have now been rejected by most all LDS folks who have thought about it.) So the HC-model narratives JS would have authored are fundamentally inconsistent with the narratives as they are now construed by LTC-model advocates. For instance, in the HC-model narratives there can be no indigenous "others" to meet and greet the Lehites and the Jaredites. Yet for LTC-model folks those indigenous inhabitants actually comprise a large fraction of the Nephite and Lehite groups from the very beginning. Indeed, in his 1992 JBMS "Others" article, Sorenson argues that their existence is required in order for the New World narratives to make sense. Hence my remarks above about the JS-authored narratives being "counterfactual," according to the LTC model.

OK, that's way more than needs to be said -- and maybe anyone wanted to read -- about this version of the hypothetical "JS Challenge." But I wanted to explain and illustrate how the underlying (defective) argument is also used to try to support numerous contemporary historicity arguments like those advanced by Clark, and by many others.

[cksalmon]

OK, that's way more than needs to be said -- and maybe anyone wanted to read -- about this version of the hypothetical "JS Challenge." But I wanted to explain and illustrate how the underlying (defective) argument is also used in support of numerous contemporary historicity arguments like those advanced by Clark, and by many others.

But how it is possible, under your interpretation, that JS actually guessed correctly on anything at all?

Kidding, of course.

I'm in full agreement with you here. It seems that—depending upon one's formulation of the challenge—when the propositional content of a prospective argument to ancient authorship misses breaking down into one of a variety of logical fallacies, the challenge still exhibits significant category mistakes. I believe that's what you, and The Dude on other threads, have attempted to make clear. I think you're both spot on.

Best.

CKS

[Dan Vogel]

maklelan

Sorry, my time is short as well.

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

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

That anachronisms occur in the BOM is indisputable. Take the mention of steel or horse or quoting a NT passage in the OT portion of the BOM. These are anachronism. Apologists handle these in various ways. Horse was Nephi's word for a tapir. The BOM and NT perhaps both rely on a missing text. Steel may yet be discovered in Mesoamerica. All these responses can be used for any forged document.

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.

No, I'm saying no Israelites have been discovered. No Israelite culture, no Hebrew writing, no nothing to demonstrate BOM peoples were there. I wasn't thinking of DNA. But in that regard, I'm only interested in what the genetic evidence does show. I'm not interested in what the evidence doesn't rule out. I doesn't rule out a lot of things. Even Southerton admits the evidences doesn't rule out the Nephites, that is, if you grant a limited geography and local colonization. But still, the burden of proof that the Nephites were there is on believers.

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.

All we have is NHM is the general area and time period one would expect from reading the BOM. However, by my reading I would be looking along the coast, which is what apologists first did. Personally, I would have been more impressed if NaHoM were found. As it is, the locals could have pronounced it completely different. As interesting as this apparent correlation is, we have little more information to test it with. Nephi didn't mention any inhabitants or customs or anything that would give it some semblance of substance. It's interesting, but hardly conclusive.

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.

That would be a matter of faith. Even if the BOM were true history, it doesn't mean you evidence is good. Perhaps Lehi's company did bury Ishmael at a place near the west coast called (by them or others but now lost to us) Nahom, then headed nearly eastward and waved at the NiHMites as they passed.

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.

Yes, it's discussed in my bio of JS. It's from Jedediah Morse's geography.

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.

I'm well aware of the apologetic responses. It's possible with a little imagination to get out of any problem. But why? There is a point at which excuses become tiresome. Nevertheless, the claim in this thread was that JS could not dictated such a perfect book. Things like this make such a simplistic claim wrong.

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.

At this point, it becomes a matter of faith. Any evidence I bring forth to show that JS could dictate similar texts is bound to be countered with: he was inspired then too. So, the problem is knowing when he was inspired and when he was dictating on his own. It can't be done. So, I see his letter from Liberty Jail as an example of JS talent for dictating beautiful text, whereas the believer will say he was inspired then too. And so it goes. So, while I might reject the BOM as history, I can't say that it's not "inspired".

[cksalmon]

Which conclusion do the rules of logic support? He was inspired of God, or he happens to be an utterly unequaled literary genius?

This would be the fallacy of the false dilemma. (No offense .)

Either P or Q

~Q (read: "not Q")

Therefore P

Of course, it is entirely possible, and, I'd argue, plausible, that neither P nor Q is true. If one rejects that JS was divinely inspired, one is not thereby bound to accept that he was an utterly unequaled literary genius.

A multitude of alternative explanations, fitting the facts, is available.

Best.

CKS

[Neighbor]

PacMan: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??

Neighbor: I can't spell very well, but I can spot a liar a mile away. You are the one personally ignorant. Stay that way. Perish for lack of knowledge if you want to. Last time I heard there wasn't anyone at the Smithsonian taking you up on the challange

I'll be spending my time at the feet of Jesus, you go stick your head in a hat with a stone and your Jupiter Talisan if you want to....

[charity]

If I might add a comment. I was a professional transcriber, twice. Once at BYU working for Extension Publications, and once again as a research assistant on a project for a professor at Portland State University. Those pf you who have not taken oral dictation really do not understand how time consuming the process is. I used a typewriter at BYU and a word processor at PSU. And I type fast. You simply cannot keep up with a speaker on any QWERTY keyboard. We used tape recorded materials and could stop the player when we needed to catch up. Which is often.

If you want a challenge, try keep up with a person reading a passage from the Book of Mormon as you sit at your computer.

Also, a person who is speaking, unless they are reading from a script, does not speak "cleanly." They um, they back up and repeat, they misspeak and go back and correct themselves. The description of the process is very clearly not a person making up something as they go along. Even memorized passages do not come out perfect when a person is speaking.

Critics laugh about the account of dictating from the seer stones in the hat. If, as they insist, Joseph was dictating in such a circumstance, he could not have been producing the dictation in any known human fashion.