Book Of Mormon Evidence

[Hammer]

You haven't been listening much, have you? Several of us have said that the NHM is potentially significant and deserves to be looked at. I'd write more, but it's hard to type when your very foundations are shaking.

Okay, I'm sorry.

[Not quite me]

Then you must have been so surprised when I said:

"NHM is the one that always comes up, and I agree that it is significant and worth discussing"

...so surprised that you were rendered speechless and couldn't think of any way to respond to that. And so you didn't.

Ha! Beat you to it, Dude.

[cksalmon]

Mormon critics CAN'T allow anything to validate the church or anything about the church, it shakes the foundation of their stance. Embarrassing.

Validate?

Val-i-date

tr.v. val

[Not quite me]

Validate?

Val-i-date

tr.v. val

[Hammer]

Validate?

Val-i-date

tr.v. val

[Not quite me]

You try to sound so educated but when it comes to spiritual things you are not even born yet. That should embarrass someone who is on a religious board.

That was totally uncalled for.

It was and he was warned to stop with the personal insults. In this thread or anywhere else. ~mod

[The Dude]

That was totally uncalled for.

And totally embarrassing to watch.

[Hammer]

That was totally uncalled for.

Okay, maybe I should have cut and pasted a dictionary to say it for me.

[Not quite me]

Okay, maybe I should have cut and pasted a dictionary to say it for me.

Or you shouldn't have said it in the first place.

[Hammer]

Or you shouldn't have said it in the first place.

Okay, if you say so.

The mods say so to. Knock off the personal insults. It's wrong to do and also really, really detracts and disrails the threads (so, let's everyone stop talking about it). ~mod

[The Dude]

It's not just Hammer who is overstating things by suggesting some piece of evidence validates the BoM. It has happened numerous times on this thread. It has happened countless times on this board.

I've seen new critics do the same thing but they are instantly called on it, and rather quickly learn that on this board you can't sustain an argument with inflated evidence against the Church or the Book of Mormon. I think the TBMs are in a less challenged position because this is their own board. It seems they are slow to learn how to properly state the strength of their evidence for LDS truth claims. (Not all, but many believers and would-be apologists.)

I think some of their "top thinkers" are setting a bad example. Witness how John Clark's parallels and overstated rhetoric has been nullified by the mound builder parallels in NotQuiteMe's opening post. Furthermore, there's John Clark's reply to beastie (see the link in post #9).

Let me start with the last point first, my lack of qualifying

statements. This was simply not the kind of talk where I could qualify

anything, so the statements are clearer and stronger than scientists are

comfortable with. Minimal qualifications for what I said would take

several days of talking. I think I could do it for each point, so I

stand by my list of assertions.

Ooh my heck!

What good are the assertions without the proper qualifications? (What good is a car with a gas and no breaks?) It gives many people the wrong idea so they enter message board discussions talking about "evidence" and "validation" instead of carefully qualified "interesting parallels."

[Not quite me]

It's not just Hammer who is overstating things by suggesting some piece of evidence validates the BoM. It has happened numerous times on this thread. It has happened countless times on this board.

I've seen new critics do the same thing but they are instantly called on it, and rather quickly learn that on this board you can't sustain an argument with inflated evidence against the Church or the Book of Mormon. I think the TBMs are in a less challenged position because this is their own board. It seems they are slow to learn how to properly state the strength of their evidence for LDS truth claims. (Not all, but many believers and would-be apologists.)

I think some of their "top thinkers" are setting a bad example. Witness how John Clark's parallels and overstated rhetoric has been nullified by the mound builder parallels in NotQuiteMe's opening post. Furthermore, there's John Clark's reply to beastie (see the link in post #9).

Ooh my heck!

What good are the assertions without the proper qualifications? (What good is a car with a gas and no breaks?) It gives many people the wrong idea so they enter message board discussions talking about "evidence" and "validation" instead of carefully qualified "interesting parallels."

My point exactly. Clark's case rested on the idea that there was no way Joseph could have known any of these amazing details. All I showed was that Clark drastically understated the likelihood Joseph could have "known" any of the details, thus making his conclusions suspect.

[cdowis]

You try to sound so educated but when it comes to spiritual things you are not even born yet. That should embarrass someone who is on a religious board.

This discussion has nothing to do with one's "spirituality" or moral status. It has very much to do with one's ability to express oneself with intelligence and logic. May I suggest that if you are going to insult someone, you focus on the latter rather than the former.

[charity]

It's not just Hammer who is overstating things by suggesting some piece of evidence validates the BoM. It has happened numerous times on this thread. It has happened countless times on this board.

I've seen new critics do the same thing but they are instantly called on it, and rather quickly learn that on this board you can't sustain an argument with inflated evidence against the Church or the Book of Mormon. I think the TBMs are in a less challenged position because this is their own board. It seems they are slow to learn how to properly state the strength of their evidence for LDS truth claims. (Not all, but many believers and would-be apologists.)

I think some of their "top thinkers" are setting a bad example. Witness how John Clark's parallels and overstated rhetoric has been nullified by the mound builder parallels in NotQuiteMe's opening post. Furthermore, there's John Clark's reply to beastie (see the link in post #9).

Ooh my heck!

What good are the assertions without the proper qualifications? (What good is a car with a gas and no breaks?) It gives many people the wrong idea so they enter message board discussions talking about "evidence" and "validation" instead of carefully qualified "interesting parallels."

Ooh, my heck! I have been in the same boat as Dr. Clark with this one, and find the argument lacking in logic. I had a student in one of my classes once object that in my lecture that day, I had not cited every source. For instance I made "bald statements" about rat behavior, but I had not given the information in class that the study by Garcia and Koelling could be found in the Journal of Behavioral Sciences, a specific volume and page number. He wanted me to cite the source of every statement I made. At that rate I could have covered the whole term's worth of work in maybe three years, but not in 13 weeks. Talks are not written articles. You have to hit the high points. The serious student will go to the printed work for all the details. Others will glean what they can at the level they want to learn.

[Chaos]

Charity, since you have been on the board for a while and have over 9,000 posts, could you clarify something for me?

In the Board Guidelines it says, in part:

Is the Guideline for non believers only and Mormons are held to a lower standard?

Thanks

No, it applies to all. Of course, it is impossible to always impartially apply it perfectly and objectively. But we do the best we can. Why doesn't everyone involved in the personal mud slinging just knock it off and no more comments about it so we can keep this very interesting thread on-topic.

~ mod

[The Dude]

I have been in the same boat as Dr. Clark with this one, and find the argument lacking in logic.... Talks are not written articles. You have to hit the high points. The serious student will go to the printed work for all the details. Others will glean what they can at the level they want to learn.

I agree that a speaker can't give all the qualifications throughout the talk, but I think when the speaker wraps things up with a conclusion, qualifications must be carefully stated. Otherwise, the listener will take home an inaccurate message.

Go back and look at NotQuiteMe's post #7, where he quotes from Clark's conclusion. That's what I had in mind when I explaimed Ooh my heck!

[Cold Steel]

Then you must have been so surprised when I said: "NHM is the one that always comes up, and I agree that it is significant and worth discussing" ...so surprised that you were rendered speechless and couldn't think of any way to respond to that. And so you didn't.

So tell me what you think is so "significant and worth discussing" that you would simply dismiss it without discussion except to call it "circumstantial" evidence? Kent Brown and others can write papers on it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you say that you were a bit irritated by Mormons who ask, "How could Joseph Smith have known?" It's certainly a question that hasn't gotten a lot of ink. So far, replies have included "lucky guess" or "he could have found it in a book" or even "it's only three letters." (And those are only from critics who have bothered to respond.)

Speculative as it is, we likely haven't heard the last of it. So far, however, it is weighing in the Book of Mormon's favor, which is quite an accomplishment for something many people feel is a 19th Century work of fiction. As I indicated earlier, had none of the places been where we expected to find them, it would have been a major disappointment. The lack of an oasis, a canyon, a river of water, or even burials at NHM would have been difficult to deal with.

[freakin a man]

New article I just found at Yahoo that is somewhat interesting http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070125/ap_on_...xico_olmec_city

[cdowis]

New article I just found at Yahoo that is somewhat interesting http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070125/ap_on_...xico_olmec_city

"Some had speculated that the signs of Olmec influence found at Zazacatla and other areas far from the Gulf coast might suggest Olmec settlements, conquests or missionary sites.

"But Canto said the Olmecs' most famous ceremonial center, about 250 miles east, was too far for direct contact, though trade links may have existed."

This is consistent with the "others theory", the idea that there were Jaredite survivors in colonies far from the main body of Jaredites who survived the great destruction.

[beastie]

Sorry to be so long in getting back to this. Iâ??ve been procrastinating.

Brant said:

In the ancient world there was seldom the possibility of separating religion from any other part of life. While that would have continued to be true in most areas, after Mosiah it was possible to have two different religions in the same city. Because religion supports social constructions, differing religious views of the world (not to be confused with modern church differences) pulled at Zarahemla proper. There was no governmental mechanism to create uniformity inside Zarahemla itself. Ammonihah was totally changed in its religious-cultural constructions. Alma went there precisely because it was separating from Zarahemla and he couldn't do anything about it - except hope to convert people and return them to the former religious-cultural structure. Ergo, no political control.

This conflicts with the claims made in the BoM in regards to their political/religious separation, which you point to on your website as well. You seem to be contradicting your own website assertions. You say there that the separation of church and state was complete, and here you say that there could be no separation of church and state, so when they lost religious control, they lost political control.

I also asked:

Brant,

I don't care what label you attach to the type of polity described. Let's just see if we can agree on the description.

Do you agree or disagree that at least three levels of hierarchy are involved in the major Nephite cities? They are: chief judge, other judges with the power to get rid of the chief judge, lawyers, and apparently some sort of executive branch that could alter laws.

Agree or disagree?

Brantâ??s reply:

Of course disagree - we couldn't start that easy could we? <grin>

After the move to the reign of the judges there is a poltical structure that depends upon judges. There are several of them. There is a single chief judge. The descriptions of how these judges function is that they are separately endowed with decision making power, but have some relationship (never actually demonstrated in the text) to the sitting chief judge.

One of the purposes of the judge system was to avoid having to shed blood in order to change leadership. (Mosiah 29:21) This could be obtained by having a hierarchy of judges who had power over one another. A form of democracy was included in the system (which is not seen in Mesoamerica at this time period).

Mosiah 29

28 And now if ye have judges, and they do not judge you according to the law which has been given, ye can cause that they may be judged of a higher judge.

29 If your higher judges do not judge righteous judgments, ye shall cause that a small number of your lower judges should be gathered together, and they shall judge your higher judges, according to the voice of the people.

Itâ??s a system of checks and balances. This clearly presents a hierarchy of judges â?? the chief judge, and other judges, some higher and some lower. They have power to unseat unrighteous judges.

There are lawyers, but their function is unclear. We get them described in Ammonihah and probably because of their presence there, Mormon seems antipathetic to them. They appear to work in conjunction with the judges, but when we see them arguing, it isn't points of law but rather religion. It is probable that the use of "lawyer" is similar to the label applied in the NT and referring more to scribes, or those who are literate and able to refer to written tradition.

The system set up in Mosiah was based on the laws already extant, but clearly recognized that the laws could change. Hence, there was some mechanism to change the laws. Again from Mosiah 29:

25 Therefore, choose you by the voice of this people, judges, that ye may be judged according to the laws which have been given you by our fathers, which are correct, and which were given them by the hand of the Lord.

26 Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your lawâ??to do your business by the voice of the people.

27 And if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land.

So we see a form of democracy is involved in creating laws. The existence of â??lawyersâ? must be connected to the law making system. Whether or not the people justified their laws through religious beliefs is another matter.

Mosiah(2) is described as a lawmaker, but appears to be codifying laws that were already in place. This set of laws is established by fiat and there is no clear disagreement about the continuing nature of these social laws in any of the descriptions of Nephite society.

The laws existing at that time were already in place, but as I showed above, the ability to change laws is obviously built within the system. Once again, note that it is by the voice of the people that iniquitous laws could possibly be chosen in the future, which would result in Godâ??s wrath.

All of that, based on ethnographic analogy, sounds like the later Mesoamerican governmental style that empowered localized clans with some connection to both a central seat and to codified tradition. Most decisions are made at the local level. Local judges would be representatives of the ruling clan. Connection to and respect for the chief judge would happen on tolerance and local convenience. Decision making would be by council of elders, headed by the one appointed as the judge. Inside the political structure would continue to be the clan struggles to achieve a dominant position.

What is important in your comment here is the term LATER Mesoamerican governmental style. In the time period of the BoM, there was no primitive democracy.

From Michael Coeâ??s The Maya, page 196:

â??The ancient Maya realm was no theocracy or primitive democracy, but a class society with strong political power in the hands of an hereditary elite.â?

There was a transition in ancient Mesoamerica from the Holy Lord to more of council of elites form of government, but this occurred long past the end of the Book of Mormon time period. From Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World, page 73:

â??The Late Postclassic Period is believed by many Mayanists to represent a shift toward a more inclusive form of government, called multepal (Yucatec Mayan for â??joint ruleâ?) that permitted various nonroyal but elite members to take a more active and recognized role in government.

The political landscape of this final phase of Maya civilization was marked by decentralization and warfare among many competing petty states. Defensive features characterize Postclassic cities. Mayapan and Tulum were surrounded by ramparts, and Utatlan and other cities in the Guatemalan highlands were defensively located on hilltops. On the Pacific coast as well, villages on the open plain were abandoned for settlements on defensible hilltops, where they remain to this day.

The period is also notable for the relative absence of the immense cities that had previously defined Maya urban civilization, and it represents a further reorganization of state resources away from the glorification of the ruler.â?

In ancient Mesoamerica, during the specified Book of Mormon time frame, there was no governing by representative â??judgesâ?, even in the form of the later multepal council.

Brant realized this problem when he stated:

For the use of ethnographic analogy to work backwards to earlier times, see Rice, Maya Political Science.

Iâ??m very familiar with the book. The problem is that you are working backwards to an earlier time with a simpler level of social development. This is an erroneous application of an otherwise reasonable approach.

[Brant Gardner]

So we see a form of democracy is involved in creating laws.

beastie, this probably encapsulates the reason that we aren't going to get very far. There is nothing like a democracy in the Book of Mormon. The "voice of the people" is often misinterpreted as a democracy, but that is because modern readers tend to read ourselves back into the text. The actual functioning of that mechanism bears no resemblance to what we understand as democracy.

When we are so fundamentally apart on the way we read the Book of Mormon and then combine that with the obvious differences in the way we read the Mesoamerican literature, there isn't any real hope of communicating effectively.

[The Dude]

There is nothing like a democracy in the Book of Mormon.

I think there is.

The "voice of the people" is often misinterpreted as a democracy, but that is because modern readers tend to read ourselves back into the text. The actual functioning of that mechanism bears no resemblance to what we understand as democracy.

Or could it be that Joseph Smith, using a very loose translation method, read his understanding of government into the text? I'm still thinking about your approach to the mound builder parallels....

[Brant Gardner]

I think there is.

Or could it be that Joseph Smith, using a very loose translation method, read his understanding of government into the text? I'm still thinking about your approach to the mound builder parallels....

In this case, no. I do see times when at least vocabulary was read into the text, but interpreting "voice of the people" as democracy is an error we bring to the text, not one that it makes. If you examine how it works, you find that positions continue to be hereditary under the judges and that the "voice of the people" was operative even under the monarchy. It works quite differently, with the closest modern equivalent being a vote of confidence (at least in one case where it is operative).

If you just use that phrase, "voice of the people," it does sound democratic. However, when you examine the operation of the principle in the text, it is very foreign to anything that Western society has known as democracy.

[Not quite me]

In this case, no. I do see times when at least vocabulary was read into the text, but interpreting "voice of the people" as democracy is an error we bring to the text, not one that it makes. If you examine how it works, you find that positions continue to be hereditary under the judges and that the "voice of the people" was operative even under the monarchy. It works quite differently, with the closest modern equivalent being a vote of confidence (at least in one case where it is operative).

If you just use that phrase, "voice of the people," it does sound democratic. However, when you examine the operation of the principle in the text, it is very foreign to anything that Western society has known as democracy.

The idea of a "vote of confidence" for appointed or hereditary posts seems analogous to the way the "sustaining vote" works in modern Mormonism.

[beastie]

Mosiah 29:

37 And now it came to pass, after king Mosiah had sent these things forth among the people they were convinced of the truth of his words.

38 Therefore they relinquished their desires for a king, and became exceedingly anxious that every man should have an equal chance throughout all the land; yea, and every man expressed a willingness to answer for his own sins.

39 Therefore, it came to pass that they assembled themselves together in bodies throughout the land, to cast in their voices concerning who should be their judges, to judge them according to the law which had been given them; and they were exceedingly rejoiced because of the liberty which had been granted unto them.

We can agree to disagree on whether or not this could be called a democracy, but even you try to link it to the later multepal form of government. I'm ok with you using that term, instead. The problem remains, however, in that when you attempt to justify assuming a multepal form of government during the BoM time period, you ignore the fact that this form of government constituted a shift away from the former form of gov't, which seems to have generally failed during the collapse. Your approach, to my view, would the the same as asserting that one can take the form of US gov't in the nineteenth century and place it backwards in time to the 1600's, while ignoring the revolution that took place in the interim, and resulted in an altered form of gov't.

But my real interest in pursuing this wasn't to discuss the anachronism of democracy or the voice of the people, whatever that may have been, but to demonstrate the layers of hierarchy described in the BoM. Once you get to this many levels of hierarchy, it begins to look like a state. This is why I say that only the most powerful, evolved polities in Mesoamerica could hope to qualify as a major BoM city, and that is problematic because it is those same cities that had such a major impact on the cultural and political evolution of the entire region.