The Place Which Was Called Nahom

[cksalmon]

On the old FAIRboards, there was a time when the use of someone's screen name in the service of mockery was disallowed. I know this personally because the mods stopped an LDS poster from employing the phrase "pullling a Salmon," or some such. I greatly appreciated their intervention.

Best.

CKS

[The Dude]

On the old FAIRboards, there was a time when the use of someone's screen name in the service of mockery was disallowed. I know this personally because the mods stopped an LDS poster from employing the phrase "pullling a Salmon," or some such. I greatly appreciated their intervention.

Best.

CKS

Yes, but "jaybear'd" has the big cheese's stamp of approval. As such, it probably would have stood even on the old FAIRboards.

[The Dude]

I ask that you demonstrate your assertion.

I have not seen Latter-day Saints suggesting that NHM is a "slam-dunk" that "proves" the Book of Mormon "to be true." That you subjectively feel that some comments "come across that way" is not persuasive to me.

Another case of someone who claims NHM is a "slam-dunk" was Bill Hamblin's opening post in the "Probability and NHM" thread from December 2005 (pointed out by Alph O'Mega). Dr. Hamblin began by calculating the chance of JS getting it right, by chance, as 10.5 trillion to one.

[Daniel Peterson]

Is the methodolgy behind the NHM argument better than the tomb of jesus methodology?

Yes. They're not even really comparable.

Can you say that NHM is a "slam dunk"

I don't say that it's a "slam dunk." But it's really quite good. And it's part of a manifold cumulative case (that critics, of course, need not be familiar with prior to their dismissal of it).

and that the tomb of jesus is not?

Yes, I can say that the "tomb of Jesus" is not.

The NHM site is probably the best circumstantial evidence for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.

I myself think that the Witnesses are the best. And yes, I do think that their testimony is, in a very real sense, "compelling." But not coercive, logically speaking. There's a difference.

On the old FAIRboards, there was a time when the use of someone's screen name in the service of mockery was disallowed. I know this personally because the mods stopped an LDS poster from employing the phrase "pullling a Salmon," or some such. I greatly appreciated their intervention.

Salmon, I'm guessing, is your real name. (At least, it's also the one you use in The Evangel and when you're lecturing at anti-Mormon seminars.) I suspect, though, that Jaybear isn't Jaybear's real name. That makes a difference (to me, at least).

Anyway, the Shades board is obviously a much more respectful and civil place. Allow for local culture in your message boards.

Yes, but "jaybear'd" has the big cheese's stamp of approval. As such, it probably would have stood even on the old FAIRboards.

It's an article of faith in certain circles (and certainly is so on the Shades board) that, since I'm such a timid and insecure soul, this message board is micromanaged almost entirely for my comfort and protection. Please permit me to confirm that: It is true. Gloriously, wonderfully true. Not an electron moves on this board without my approval, and all of my thousands of daily demands are immediately granted. Hallelujah!

[The Dude]

I myself think that the Witnesses are the best. And yes, I do think that their testimony is, in a very real sense, "compelling." But not coercive, logically speaking. There's a difference.

Yes that is far better. However, I would call the Witnesses direct evidence, not circumstantial. They claim to have actually seen the golden plates, angels, etc.

It's an article of faith in certain circles (and certainly is so on the Shades board) that, since I'm such a timid and insecure soul, this message board is micromanaged almost entirely for my comfort and protection. Please permit me to confirm that: It is true. Gloriously, wonderfully true. Not an electronic moves on this board without my approval, and all of my thousands of daily demands are immediately granted. Hallelujah!

I have learned from experience that it is best to duck my head rather than engage you, since the last time I asked if you had read a certain book, I was given a 1-week suspension for goading you. Your hyperbole aside, there is some truth to what you said. Maybe we both wish it weren't so?

[Luigi]

-C-

Though NHM was obscure, it was not known until 1996 that it was a burial site. The extensive stone cutting done at Nahom led many to believe it was exclusively for building monuments, but in 1996, mummified remains began to be uncovered. Even had Smith had access to a map, and even had he known NHM existed in 600 B.C., he could not have reasonably known it was a burial site. Thus another piece of the bulls eye.

No one thinks critics are all bullheaded, but on this one issue they really should give the devil his due. In fact, there are a number of areas they need to come clean on.

Weighing all the evidence I think is necessary to understand the 'debunking' of Nahom. I don't think the evidence of Nahom is uninteresting or uncompelling, I think that one can make a case for it being quite impressive, but to me the grandeur of such evidence falls once one evaluates the BoM on the whole. The explanations offered for the 'problems' or anachronisms of the BoM have never satisfied me or most of it's critics. I also have never been impressed with the apologist explanations of the critic's evidence of modern authorship from the word for word use of the KJV (including New Testament scriptures) to being in line with theories popular at the time concerning Native American origins which has since been completely abandoned by scientists to even minor evidences such as Vern Holley's map showing matching geographic name-places to BoM lands and Joseph Smith's New England. All these and many other factors lead me to conclude on modern BoM authorship.

So I look at Nahom I weigh it against the other things in the BoM which I feel indicate modern authorship and decide that most likely there is a logical explanation for Nahom other than divine translation that may or may not be found in the future; perhaps it is luck, perhaps it is a book, map or other modern accounts given to Joseph Smith but I come to that conclusion not because I have any evidence for the one particular event of Joseph Smith learning about Nahom or just being lucky but because the rest of the BoM text, from my viewpoint, is clearly not historically accurate. If Nahom was followed by numerous other consistencies that were generally accepted in science(say for the example the discovery of Hebrew and Egyptian texts, horses, cows, evidence of more of the metals mentioned in the BoM, etc in the New World pre-dating Columbus) then I would certainly re-examine my position.

[Daniel Peterson]

From my perspective, by contrast, NHM is merely one of an entire rather extensive web of evidences supporting the Book of Mormon. And, moreover, I've never seen a plausible comprehensive counterexplanation for all the data relating to the book. So, for me, belief in the book's claims is easier to maintain than an intellectually honest disbelief would be to achieve.

[Daniel Peterson]

I have learned from experience that it is best to duck my head rather than engage you

That's probably wise on your part, because, as I understand it, I'm not only the pampered and craven Kim Jong Il of this board but, according to careful students of my life and works, an entirely unscrupulous gossipmonger and smearmeister. Beware! You might never know what hit you.

[The Dude]

Dr. Peterson:

no comment....

[Daniel Peterson]

no comment....

Again, you've chosen well. (Personal condemnations of me are eagerly welcomed over on the Shades board, anyway. There's no point in putting yourself at risk here.)

Incidentally, I noticed this afternoon that some of my fans over on that board have discovered yet another example of my viciousness and lack of principle (in the old thread here entitled "New World Research?").

It might interest them to know -- but will certainly not mitigate their just and righteous wrath -- that I myself decided, on reflection, entirely independent of their sorrowful reflections about my lack of character, that I had, carelessly, potentially revealed too much about the identity of the woman I mentioned. And so, within an hour or two, I altered my post there in order to eliminate even the slight possibility that anybody here might be able to figure out who she is.

(I went back just now to check and, inveterate editor that I am -- I can't read without a pencil or a red pen in hand -- altered some phrasing yet again. So, of course, it may be that I'm lying when I say that I edited it early yesterday afternoon, because [i think] only one edit will be recorded. I expect that that charge will be made. I could deny it, but those who prefer to think me a liar would regard my denial as simply yet another lie, so there seems little point in wasting the energy on a useless denial.)

As for the Michael Quinn smear campaign that my stalker over there likes to recall, I simply, flatly, deny the charge. It isn't true. It didn't happen. There was no such campaign. Not involving me. Not, so far as I know, involving anybody. Period.

(Most of you reading this are, I would guess, largely lost. No matter. It's not that important. Except to me. It concerns my moral reputation.)

[Sethbag]

This thread was about Nahom. You guys keep wanting to pull in this idea that there's all sorts of other things out there that, in conjunction with Nahom, make it tantamount to intellectual dishonesty not to believe in the Book of Mormon, if I'm read Dr. Peterson's latest posts right.

I think the grand tapestry of the mormon foundation is one that shows clearly and plainly that Joseph Smith was not a prophet of anything like the God that the LDS teaches. Why mince words? Here's why I think the Book of Mormon is wrong.

I don't buy Richard Lyman Bushman's idea that God, assuming God exists, would use treasure-seeking and peepstone looking for hire to train up a man to be his sole authorized representative to the world, and prophet, seer, and revelator.

I don't believe that God, assuming God exists, would command a man to take additional wives behind his own wife's back, nor to take the wives of other men still living, nor to promise a woman exaltation for her and her family if she would go along with him in this, nor to tell a young woman that an angel would kill him if he didn't take her as his wife, and all the rest of it.

I don't believe that God, assuming God exists, would have his sole authorized representative and mouthpiece, and prophet on earth, lie to the world to cover up this practice (the secretly-practiced polygamy) and print declarations to the world which contained untruths designed to mask or hide this practice, nor to stand idly by as others printed or proclaimed such things in his name.

I don't believe that the Book of Abraham is an inspired document. I believe that Joseph Smith's followers presented him with the papyri and expected something of him that he could not honestly deliver, so he made something up and gave them what they wanted, and he used it to develop his (or others' in his inner circle) doctrines for the church he'd founded. I do believe that Joseph told people he could translate the egyptian from the papyrus, and that he clearly could not, and that the whole book is a complete and utter fraud.

I believe that the apologetics delivered by various people in the Church attempting to salvage some kind of cover from the whole Book of Abraham debacle that Joseph Smith left to them as part of his legacy, is some of the worst crap I've ever had occasion to lay eyes on. It is pathetic, desparate, intellectually dishonest, and utterly without merit. Sure, you guys can play the Six Degrees of Hugh Nibley and its sister game, Parallelomania, till the cows come home, but Joseph Smith still could never translate Egyptian, and the Book of Abraham still stands as a testament to his fraud, utterly unworthy of the effort you people put into defending it.

I believe that Joseph Smith was not an honest man, he was not a moral man, he was not a Godly man, he was not authorized by any God who may exist to be his sole mouthpiece and representative on earth. And this is the same Joseph Smith who first produced, either alone or with others, the Book of Mormon. To believe the Book of Mormon to be true would require that Joseph Smith have been, in fact, a true prophet. That is impossible for me to believe, and hence the conclusion is inescapable - the Book of Mormon is likewise a fraud. This isn't my own logic, so don't even go there. This is Gordon B. Hinckley's logic. In this I do agree with Pres. Hinckley.

I believe that the church has revealed its lack of inspiration from the beginning. It cannot, or should not, be disputed that the church's leaders from the beginning taught something like what we now call the Hemispheric model. Joseph Smith, I believe, clearly believed that the Hill Cumorah, in New York state, was in fact the site of the final battle. Joseph Smith clearly believed, as evidenced by his remarks concerning Zelph, that the events that transpired between the Lamanites and Nephites occurred in North America, and in particular, at least in the northeastern part. Else why was Zelph found at the site of his death in battle between the Nephites and Lamanites in Illinois? And why was this Zelph known from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. Now it's all LGT, Mesoamerica, etc. At the very least this shows the lack of inspiration on the part of not just the early prophets, seers, and revelators, but in fact pretty much them all down to the modern time.

Speaking of lack of inspiration, these are the same prophets, seers, and revelators who have never discovered from God the fact that the arm of flesh has revealed, that there was no global flood of Noah as described in Genesis. Our vaunted prophets, seers, and revelators of God, who receive (as it is supposed) their marching orders directly from the great Jehovah who stands at the helm of the LDS church, still suppose and teach to this very day that nothing died on Earth until Adam fell a few thousand years ago. They still teach that the global flood of Noah was a baptism of the earth by immersion, just as they teach we must be baptised. This flood didn't happen, however, and their God, whom they represent on Earth as (as they claim) his sole authorized representatives and mouthpieces on earth, his prophets, seers, and revelators, have never so much as been given a heads up by their God that they're spouting for doctrines the mythologies of their forefathers, mingled with scriptures.

Yes, you go on and celebrate your triumph with Nahom. You've found remarkable parallels, and this gladdens your hearts, while the fraudulent explanations of Joseph Smith to the characters written by the figures he improperly identified testify directly to the contradiction of his God-given power of translation.

Horses, chariots, metallurgy, King James anachronisms and errors, LGT, two Cumorahs, etc. are all just tiny puzzle pieces in the giant tapestry that depicts the LDS church as man-made and man-lead, just like, ultimately, all the other churches out there. But don't worry, if you hold "Nahom" up between your fingertips and put it right in front of your eye, it will block out this tapestry so you won't have to see it or think about it anymore.

Sethbag, please keep this on topic. The topic is Nahom. The topic is not "Name All the Reasons You Think the Church is a Fraud". There are other boards where you can go to rant. = mods

[helix]

This thread was about Nahom. You guys keep wanting to pull in this idea that there's all sorts of other things out there that, in conjunction with Nahom, make it tantamount to intellectual dishonesty not to believe in the Book of Mormon, if I'm read Dr. Peterson's latest posts right

...

Yes, you go on and celebrate your triumph with Nahom. You've found remarkable parallels, and this gladdens your hearts, while the fraudulent explanations of Joseph Smith to the characters written by the figures he improperly identified testify directly to the contradiction of his God-given power of translation.

Horses, chariots, metallurgy, King James anachronisms and errors, LGT, two Cumorahs, etc. are all just tiny puzzle pieces in the giant tapestry that depicts the LDS church as man-made and man-lead, just like, ultimately, all the other churches out there. But don't worry, if you hold "Nahom" up between your fingertips and put it right in front of your eye, it will block out this tapestry so you won't have to see it or think about it anymore.

Wow, this is one of the most deeply bitter posts I've ever seen here.

[Fly Fisherman]

This thread was about Nahom. You guys keep wanting to pull in this idea that there's all sorts of other things out there that, in conjunction with Nahom, make it tantamount to intellectual dishonesty not to believe in the Book of Mormon, if I'm read Dr. Peterson's latest posts right.

I think the grand tapestry of the mormon foundation is one that shows clearly and plainly that Joseph Smith was not a prophet of anything like the God that the LDS teaches. Why mince words? Here's why I think the Book of Mormon is wrong.

I don't buy Richard Lyman Bushman's idea that God, assuming God exists, would use treasure-seeking and peepstone looking for hire to train up a man to be his sole authorized representative to the world, and prophet, seer, and revelator.

I don't believe that God, assuming God exists, would command a man to take additional wives behind his own wife's back, nor to take the wives of other men still living, nor to promise a woman exaltation for her and her family if she would go along with him in this, nor to tell a young woman that an angel would kill him if he didn't take her as his wife, and all the rest of it.

I don't believe that God, assuming God exists, would have his sole authorized representative and mouthpiece, and prophet on earth, lie to the world to cover up this practice (the secretly-practiced polygamy) and print declarations to the world which contained untruths designed to mask or hide this practice, nor to stand idly by as others printed or proclaimed such things in his name.

I don't believe that the Book of Abraham is an inspired document. I believe that Joseph Smith's followers presented him with the papyri and expected something of him that he could not honestly deliver, so he made something up and gave them what they wanted, and he used it to develop his (or others' in his inner circle) doctrines for the church he'd founded. I do believe that Joseph told people he could translate the egyptian from the papyrus, and that he clearly could not, and that the whole book is a complete and utter fraud.

I believe that the apologetics delivered by various people in the Church attempting to salvage some kind of cover from the whole Book of Abraham debacle that Joseph Smith left to them as part of his legacy, is some of the worst crap I've ever had occasion to lay eyes on. It is pathetic, desparate, intellectually dishonest, and utterly without merit. Sure, you guys can play the Six Degrees of Hugh Nibley and its sister game, Parallelomania, till the cows come home, but Joseph Smith still could never translate Egyptian, and the Book of Abraham still stands as a testament to his fraud, utterly unworthy of the effort you people put into defending it.

I believe that Joseph Smith was not an honest man, he was not a moral man, he was not a Godly man, he was not authorized by any God who may exist to be his sole mouthpiece and representative on earth. And this is the same Joseph Smith who first produced, either alone or with others, the Book of Mormon. To believe the Book of Mormon to be true would require that Joseph Smith have been, in fact, a true prophet. That is impossible for me to believe, and hence the conclusion is inescapable - the Book of Mormon is likewise a fraud. This isn't my own logic, so don't even go there. This is Gordon B. Hinckley's logic. In this I do agree with Pres. Hinckley.

I believe that the church has revealed its lack of inspiration from the beginning. It cannot, or should not, be disputed that the church's leaders from the beginning taught something like what we now call the Hemispheric model. Joseph Smith, I believe, clearly believed that the Hill Cumorah, in New York state, was in fact the site of the final battle. Joseph Smith clearly believed, as evidenced by his remarks concerning Zelph, that the events that transpired between the Lamanites and Nephites occurred in North America, and in particular, at least in the northeastern part. Else why was Zelph found at the site of his death in battle between the Nephites and Lamanites in Illinois? And why was this Zelph known from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. Now it's all LGT, Mesoamerica, etc. At the very least this shows the lack of inspiration on the part of not just the early prophets, seers, and revelators, but in fact pretty much them all down to the modern time.

Speaking of lack of inspiration, these are the same prophets, seers, and revelators who have never discovered from God the fact that the arm of flesh has revealed, that there was no global flood of Noah as described in Genesis. Our vaunted prophets, seers, and revelators of God, who receive (as it is supposed) their marching orders directly from the great Jehovah who stands at the helm of the LDS church, still suppose and teach to this very day that nothing died on Earth until Adam fell a few thousand years ago. They still teach that the global flood of Noah was a baptism of the earth by immersion, just as they teach we must be baptised. This flood didn't happen, however, and their God, whom they represent on Earth as (as they claim) his sole authorized representatives and mouthpieces on earth, his prophets, seers, and revelators, have never so much as been given a heads up by their God that they're spouting for doctrines the mythologies of their forefathers, mingled with scriptures.

Yes, you go on and celebrate your triumph with Nahom. You've found remarkable parallels, and this gladdens your hearts, while the fraudulent explanations of Joseph Smith to the characters written by the figures he improperly identified testify directly to the contradiction of his God-given power of translation.

Horses, chariots, metallurgy, King James anachronisms and errors, LGT, two Cumorahs, etc. are all just tiny puzzle pieces in the giant tapestry that depicts the LDS church as man-made and man-lead, just like, ultimately, all the other churches out there. But don't worry, if you hold "Nahom" up between your fingertips and put it right in front of your eye, it will block out this tapestry so you won't have to see it or think about it anymore.

Don't you know that when you bear your testimony you are supposed to say, I know....

[Daniel Peterson]

You guys keep wanting to pull in this idea that there's all sorts of other things out there that, in conjunction with Nahom, make it tantamount to intellectual dishonesty not to believe in the Book of Mormon, if I'm read Dr. Peterson's latest posts right.

You're not.

I believe that the apologetics delivered by various people in the Church attempting to salvage some kind of cover from the whole Book of Abraham debacle that Joseph Smith left to them as part of his legacy, is some of the worst crap I've ever had occasion to lay eyes on. It is pathetic, desparate, intellectually dishonest, and utterly without merit.

Well, I suppose that settles it.

Sure, you guys can play the Six Degrees of Hugh Nibley and its sister game, Parallelomania, till the cows come home, but Joseph Smith still could never translate Egyptian, and the Book of Abraham still stands as a testament to his fraud, utterly unworthy of the effort you people put into defending it.

Having a bad day?

Joseph Smith, I believe, clearly believed that the Hill Cumorah, in New York state, was in fact the site of the final battle. Joseph Smith clearly believed, as evidenced by his remarks concerning Zelph, that the events that transpired between the Lamanites and Nephites occurred in North America, and in particular, at least in the northeastern part.

So you believe that Joseph Smith actually believed the Book of Mormon to be true. That's interesting.

Yes, you go on and celebrate your triumph with Nahom. You've found remarkable parallels, and this gladdens your hearts, while the fraudulent explanations of Joseph Smith to the characters written by the figures he improperly identified testify directly to the contradiction of his God-given power of translation.

Wow. It must have been a no-good, horrible, rotten, very bad day.

Enjoy the weekend, Sethbag!

[Sargon]

This thread was about Nahom. You guys keep wanting to pull in this idea that there's all sorts of other things out there that, in conjunction with Nahom, make it tantamount to intellectual dishonesty not to believe in the Book of Mormon, if I'm read Dr. Peterson's latest posts right.

I think the grand tapestry of the mormon foundation is one that shows clearly and plainly that Joseph Smith was not a prophet of anything like the God that the LDS teaches. Why mince words? Here's why I think the Book of Mormon is wrong.

I don't buy Richard Lyman Bushman's idea that God, assuming God exists, would use treasure-seeking and peepstone looking for hire to train up a man to be his sole authorized representative to the world, and prophet, seer, and revelator.

I don't believe that God, assuming God exists, would command a man to take additional wives behind his own wife's back, nor to take the wives of other men still living, nor to promise a woman exaltation for her and her family if she would go along with him in this, nor to tell a young woman that an angel would kill him if he didn't take her as his wife, and all the rest of it.

I don't believe that God, assuming God exists, would have his sole authorized representative and mouthpiece, and prophet on earth, lie to the world to cover up this practice (the secretly-practiced polygamy) and print declarations to the world which contained untruths designed to mask or hide this practice, nor to stand idly by as others printed or proclaimed such things in his name.

I don't believe that the Book of Abraham is an inspired document. I believe that Joseph Smith's followers presented him with the papyri and expected something of him that he could not honestly deliver, so he made something up and gave them what they wanted, and he used it to develop his (or others' in his inner circle) doctrines for the church he'd founded. I do believe that Joseph told people he could translate the egyptian from the papyrus, and that he clearly could not, and that the whole book is a complete and utter fraud.

I believe that the apologetics delivered by various people in the Church attempting to salvage some kind of cover from the whole Book of Abraham debacle that Joseph Smith left to them as part of his legacy, is some of the worst crap I've ever had occasion to lay eyes on. It is pathetic, desparate, intellectually dishonest, and utterly without merit. Sure, you guys can play the Six Degrees of Hugh Nibley and its sister game, Parallelomania, till the cows come home, but Joseph Smith still could never translate Egyptian, and the Book of Abraham still stands as a testament to his fraud, utterly unworthy of the effort you people put into defending it.

I believe that Joseph Smith was not an honest man, he was not a moral man, he was not a Godly man, he was not authorized by any God who may exist to be his sole mouthpiece and representative on earth. And this is the same Joseph Smith who first produced, either alone or with others, the Book of Mormon. To believe the Book of Mormon to be true would require that Joseph Smith have been, in fact, a true prophet. That is impossible for me to believe, and hence the conclusion is inescapable - the Book of Mormon is likewise a fraud. This isn't my own logic, so don't even go there. This is Gordon B. Hinckley's logic. In this I do agree with Pres. Hinckley.

I believe that the church has revealed its lack of inspiration from the beginning. It cannot, or should not, be disputed that the church's leaders from the beginning taught something like what we now call the Hemispheric model. Joseph Smith, I believe, clearly believed that the Hill Cumorah, in New York state, was in fact the site of the final battle. Joseph Smith clearly believed, as evidenced by his remarks concerning Zelph, that the events that transpired between the Lamanites and Nephites occurred in North America, and in particular, at least in the northeastern part. Else why was Zelph found at the site of his death in battle between the Nephites and Lamanites in Illinois? And why was this Zelph known from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. Now it's all LGT, Mesoamerica, etc. At the very least this shows the lack of inspiration on the part of not just the early prophets, seers, and revelators, but in fact pretty much them all down to the modern time.

Speaking of lack of inspiration, these are the same prophets, seers, and revelators who have never discovered from God the fact that the arm of flesh has revealed, that there was no global flood of Noah as described in Genesis. Our vaunted prophets, seers, and revelators of God, who receive (as it is supposed) their marching orders directly from the great Jehovah who stands at the helm of the LDS church, still suppose and teach to this very day that nothing died on Earth until Adam fell a few thousand years ago. They still teach that the global flood of Noah was a baptism of the earth by immersion, just as they teach we must be baptised. This flood didn't happen, however, and their God, whom they represent on Earth as (as they claim) his sole authorized representatives and mouthpieces on earth, his prophets, seers, and revelators, have never so much as been given a heads up by their God that they're spouting for doctrines the mythologies of their forefathers, mingled with scriptures.

Yes, you go on and celebrate your triumph with Nahom. You've found remarkable parallels, and this gladdens your hearts, while the fraudulent explanations of Joseph Smith to the characters written by the figures he improperly identified testify directly to the contradiction of his God-given power of translation.

Horses, chariots, metallurgy, King James anachronisms and errors, LGT, two Cumorahs, etc. are all just tiny puzzle pieces in the giant tapestry that depicts the LDS church as man-made and man-lead, just like, ultimately, all the other churches out there. But don't worry, if you hold "Nahom" up between your fingertips and put it right in front of your eye, it will block out this tapestry so you won't have to see it or think about it anymore.

I have also had the opportunity to consider each of these challenges in my search for faith. I do not consider myself the smartest guy ever, but I think I am capable of rational thinking, as I believe you are. But somehow I, and many many others, have reached very different conclusions than you have, and while analyzing all the same data.

Sargon

[Daniel Peterson]

Post suppressed at the demand of Jaybear.

[Jaybear]

QED.

Please don't alter my quotes, its dishonest.

If you can't make your point without changing what I said, you don't have a point.

[Daniel Peterson]

Please don't alter my quotes, its dishonest.

If you can't make your point without changing what I said, you don't have a point.

Please don't miss the brackets, which are the standard way of indicating that insertions/clarifications come not from the original author but the editor or quoter, and the generally recognized method of distinguishing them from the author's words. Although I've helpfully clarified your situation for those who might unknowingly assume that you've actually read anything serious on the topic, what you said plainly hasn't been changed. Not a word of it has been omitted, either, nor even a period or a comma. My point stands.

Have a great weekend!

[Jaybear]

Please don't miss the brackets, which are the standard way of indicating that insertions/clarifications come not from the original author but the editor or quoter, and the generally recognized method of distinguishing them from the author's words. Although I've helpfully clarified your situation for those who might unknowingly assume that you've actually read anything serious on the topic, what you said plainly hasn't been changed. Not a word of it has been omitted, either, nor even a period or a comma. My point stands.

Have a great weekend!

Ah the magic brackets, which allow you to infuse personal commentary into the statement of others, and attributing those comments to the source.

You have either jumped the shark, or opened up a brand new avenue of apologetics.

Please remove your post. Its dishonest, and offense.

[juliann]

Anyway, the Shades board is obviously a much more respectful and civil place. Allow for local culture in your message boards.

That ought to be added to the board rules so people would stop thinking they can drop by and make a few modifications here and there just...because.

It's an article of faith in certain circles (and certainly is so on the Shades board) that, since I'm such a timid and insecure soul, this message board is micromanaged almost entirely for my comfort and protection. Please permit me to confirm that: It is true. Gloriously, wonderfully true. Not an electron moves on this board without my approval, and all of my thousands of daily demands are immediately granted.

Perhaps the FAIR Obsession Board (FOB) should do the same since their continual prophecies of doom for this board have failed to come to pass. (Do we have a new projected date for our demise yet?) Although it is certainly unscientific....I have noticed that there has been 60+ posters online for extended periods. Maybe it is spring break time and the kids are out or something....but that is a higher count than I usually see. So I hope we can assume that you are comfortable and protected!

Ah the magic brackets, which allow you to infuse personal commentary into the statement of others, and attributing those comments to the source.

You have either jumped the shark, or opened up a brand new avenue of apologetics.

Magic brackets? Funny. Unfortunately, if we were to do what you ask we would have to include those magic ellipses and that would put the antiMormons out of business.

[SolarPowered]

Sethbag,

What my gut has picked up from what you posted, and I may be completely wrong about this, is that you are a very intelligent man who would dearly love to believe, but your intellect has seen major problems that for you preclude that belief. I have at times found myself in a similar place, and have done a great deal of study to bring my intellect to a consistent place on the subjects of God, the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and the Church. In this journey, I have traveled some, but not all, of the same territory that you have. Here are some of my thoughts on these subjects.

This thread was about Nahom. You guys keep wanting to pull in this idea that there's all sorts of other things out there that, in conjunction with Nahom, make it tantamount to intellectual dishonesty not to believe in the Book of Mormon, if I'm read Dr. Peterson's latest posts right.

I think the grand tapestry of the mormon foundation is one that shows clearly and plainly that Joseph Smith was not a prophet of anything like the God that the LDS teaches. Why mince words? Here's why I think the Book of Mormon is wrong.

I don't buy Richard Lyman Bushman's idea that God, assuming God exists, would use treasure-seeking and peepstone looking for hire to train up a man to be his sole authorized representative to the world, and prophet, seer, and revelator.

Here we’ve gone down different paths, as I haven’t read RSR. In general, I think there is a great deal of hearsay and after-the-fact libel in the sort of information that we have about “treasure-seeking” with a peepstone and the like. On the other hand, I would expect that Bushman has filtered that. But, since I haven’t read Bushman, I can’t address this, and it has never been on my radar as an issue.

I don't believe that God, assuming God exists, would command a man to take additional wives behind his own wife's back, nor to take the wives of other men still living, nor to promise a woman exaltation for her and her family if she would go along with him in this, nor to tell a young woman that an angel would kill him if he didn't take her as his wife, and all the rest of it.

I don't believe that God, assuming God exists, would have his sole authorized representative and mouthpiece, and prophet on earth, lie to the world to cover up this practice (the secretly-practiced polygamy) and print declarations to the world which contained untruths designed to mask or hide this practice, nor to stand idly by as others printed or proclaimed such things in his name.

I know that one of the ultimate effects of polygamy was to produce large families of very faithful people who formed the core of the Church for several generations. Since the purpose stated in the BoM for polygamy is to raise a posterity unto the Lord, it appears to me that the reason the Lord had for instituting polygamy was exactly as was stated there. It seems to me that it is very possible that the Church would not have survived out of the 1800’s had it not been for the large numbers of faithful progeny that resulted from polygamy.

Here again, this hasn’t been a sticking point for me, so I haven’t researched it much.

I don't believe that the Book of Abraham is an inspired document. I believe that Joseph Smith's followers presented him with the papyri and expected something of him that he could not honestly deliver, so he made something up and gave them what they wanted, and he used it to develop his (or others' in his inner circle) doctrines for the church he'd founded. I do believe that Joseph told people he could translate the egyptian from the papyrus, and that he clearly could not, and that the whole book is a complete and utter fraud.

I believe that the apologetics delivered by various people in the Church attempting to salvage some kind of cover from the whole Book of Abraham debacle that Joseph Smith left to them as part of his legacy, is some of the worst crap I've ever had occasion to lay eyes on. It is pathetic, desparate, intellectually dishonest, and utterly without merit. Sure, you guys can play the Six Degrees of Hugh Nibley and its sister game, Parallelomania, till the cows come home, but Joseph Smith still could never translate Egyptian, and the Book of Abraham still stands as a testament to his fraud, utterly unworthy of the effort you people put into defending it.

I at one point found the BoA troubling. The recent project at FARMS that resulted in the book Traditions About the Early Life of Abraham was quite remarkable, however, in that it took me from scratching my head about the BoA to seeing it as a very remarkable text. In case you’re not familiar with that research, they identified around 100+ themes that appear in the BoA that do not appear in the bible. Then, they went looking for other Abrahamic texts to compare these to. To their apparent surprise, they found, IIRC, over a hundred different Abrahamic texts, many of them untranslated, in various parts of the world.

They found that every single one of the themes that they had identified in the BoA were present in these other texts, most of them many, many times.

In my mind, it is now 99.9% certain that the BoA is derived from an existing text from the genre of Abraham lore. And that is exactly what Joseph claimed it is.

I believe that Joseph Smith was not an honest man, he was not a moral man, he was not a Godly man, he was not authorized by any God who may exist to be his sole mouthpiece and representative on earth. And this is the same Joseph Smith who first produced, either alone or with others, the Book of Mormon. To believe the Book of Mormon to be true would require that Joseph Smith have been, in fact, a true prophet. That is impossible for me to believe, and hence the conclusion is inescapable - the Book of Mormon is likewise a fraud. This isn't my own logic, so don't even go there. This is Gordon B. Hinckley's logic. In this I do agree with Pres. Hinckley.

In today’s political world, without naming people or subjects and descending into politics, I have see how the enemies of a person or position can produce so much falsehood, slander, and libel that some of it begins to stick, even when you know it’s not the case when you think objectively about it. (Goebbels made great use of the idea of repeating a lie until people came to believe that it to be true.)

I think the same is the case here, that there is an incredible amount of slander, libel, and invention on the part of Joseph’s enemies, both from the present and from his own time, so much so that one can easily arrive at a negative opinion that’s not actually true. We do know for a fact that Joseph and the Church had and have many enemies. That they have generated libels about him is a certainty.

For me, to address the question of Joseph’s character I start by looking at the Book of Mormon. From my studies, I have a very high degree of confidence that the BoM is what it purports to be. From that, I infer that Joseph must have been a man with a character appropriate for such a prophet. Further, he founded a church headed by people that in my experience are of, in nearly all cases, impeccable character; it is not reasonable to me that the sort of scoundrel that some paint Joseph to have been could have produced a church of this nature.

I believe that the church has revealed its lack of inspiration from the beginning. It cannot, or should not, be disputed that the church's leaders from the beginning taught something like what we now call the Hemispheric model. Joseph Smith, I believe, clearly believed that the Hill Cumorah, in New York state, was in fact the site of the final battle. Joseph Smith clearly believed, as evidenced by his remarks concerning Zelph, that the events that transpired between the Lamanites and Nephites occurred in North America, and in particular, at least in the northeastern part. Else why was Zelph found at the site of his death in battle between the Nephites and Lamanites in Illinois? And why was this Zelph known from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. Now it's all LGT, Mesoamerica, etc. At the very least this shows the lack of inspiration on the part of not just the early prophets, seers, and revelators, but in fact pretty much them all down to the modern time.

Ah, Zelph! There is a paper on the FARMS site (if I have time, I’ll find it and come back and edit in a link) that addresses this “prophecy” in detail. The bottom line here is that the apparently verbatim quote in the History of the Church is a synthesized quote manufactured by the editor from some journal entries and liberal interpolation by the editor. Before he was killed, Joseph edited the manuscript of the History of the Church and heavily redacted this section, but his changes didn’t make it into the printed version. From what the actual journal entries record (some of them written well after the fact), it is not at all clear that Joseph said anything that contradicts the current LGT thoughts.

(More on the subject of inspiration of our leaders after the next point.)

Speaking of lack of inspiration, these are the same prophets, seers, and revelators who have never discovered from God the fact that the arm of flesh has revealed, that there was no global flood of Noah as described in Genesis. Our vaunted prophets, seers, and revelators of God, who receive (as it is supposed) their marching orders directly from the great Jehovah who stands at the helm of the LDS church, still suppose and teach to this very day that nothing died on Earth until Adam fell a few thousand years ago. They still teach that the global flood of Noah was a baptism of the earth by immersion, just as they teach we must be baptised. This flood didn't happen, however, and their God, whom they represent on Earth as (as they claim) his sole authorized representatives and mouthpieces on earth, his prophets, seers, and revelators, have never so much as been given a heads up by their God that they're spouting for doctrines the mythologies of their forefathers, mingled with scriptures.

I’d like to give my general thoughts on revelation that is given to church leaders. It appears to me that the Lord has, for at least the time being, said all that he’s going to say on matters relating to the creation and history of the world, and is content to let science take its course in “evolving” to a full understanding of reality.

As I understand the order of the Priesthood, if the Lord were to reveal more on this subject, it would come through the president of the Church. So, I absolutely would not expect anyone who is not the president of the Church to have any revelation granted to them on these subjects. And as far as the President is concerned, he will receive revelation on this only in the Lord’s due time. Otherwise, everyone is and has been relying on their intellect.

On the other hand, I see that the Lord liberally gives revelation to the leaders of the church in the areas relating to their callings, and especially in areas relating to the well-being of the members. For example, during one of my darkest financial hours, I had a stake president call me up early in the morning, telling me that the Lord had woken him up at 5:00 AM with a message for me. I acted on that message (which had to do with getting right with the Lord in a particular area in order to “prosper in the land”), and two days later received a completely unsolicited job offer for three times what I was then making. I am unable to chalk all that up to “coincidence.” And I have had a number of other things happen in my life that testify to me that the Lord is there, and directly involved in our lives and the operation of the Church.

Now, all that said, I have to agree with you 100% that everything I know says that the Flood never happened, at least not one that covered all the earth in a “baptism.” You can’t have tens of thousands of years accumulation of snow on Kilimanjaro if it was completely submerged 5,000 years ago. There are populations of plant, animal, and human life that existed right through that time, without being killed off by a flood. I understand that Egyptian and Chinese written history is continuous through that time, with no mention of all of them being killed.

I could list off things like this for many pages. The Flood simply didn’t happen as we have been given to believe.

I too am of the opinion that the “baptism of the earth” is a “creation of man”. I think somebody put “two and two” together and got “five”, spoke of it in a sermon, and the idea stuck and grew.

The Flood is a subject about which I’ve had to tell myself, “I don’t understand what actually happened here. It clearly is extremely unlikely that The Flood happened as we understand it. It is also clear that I can’t just write it off as a nice story that happened to get included in the Bible; it is far too central to the whole biblical story to be able to throw it out and have anything much left. I must conclude that there are things there that I simply don’t understand, and will hopefully come to understand at some time in the future.”

I have precedent for that hope both in the creation, and in BoM geography. Prior to joining the Church, I had written off the Genesis account of the creation as a complete myth, that was hopelessly incompatible with science. After joining the church I learned much to my chagrin that not only did the prophets clearly hold this account to be true, but further that we had not just the Genesis account, but also similar accounts in Moses, Abraham, and the temple endowment.

After a good deal of study and pondering, I have come to understand that there is a lot more harmony between these creation accounts and science than I had believed. The details of this would take far more than I have time to write about here, so I’ll leave it at that for now.

Regarding BoM geography, the work of Sorensen and others like him have brought a great deal of light to this subject that didn’t exist when I first looked at it.

I have confidence that someday, perhaps after this life, I will understand about the Flood.

Yes, you go on and celebrate your triumph with Nahom. You've found remarkable parallels, and this gladdens your hearts, while the fraudulent explanations of Joseph Smith to the characters written by the figures he improperly identified testify directly to the contradiction of his God-given power of translation.

Horses, chariots, metallurgy, King James anachronisms and errors, LGT, two Cumorahs, etc. are all just tiny puzzle pieces in the giant tapestry that depicts the LDS church as man-made and man-lead, just like, ultimately, all the other churches out there. But don't worry, if you hold "Nahom" up between your fingertips and put it right in front of your eye, it will block out this tapestry so you won't have to see it or think about it anymore.

I find the conjunction of “horse and chariots” in the narrative to be puzzling, but figure that between the vagaries of translation and our lack of knowledge of that world, we simply are missing pieces of a puzzle that would fully make sense if we had the rest of the pieces. Such is the nature of translated ancient texts. There are similar things in the King James text that don’t make sense, either. (Dragons, Nephilim, and lions in Jerusalem, anyone?)

Metallurgy: They certainly had appropriate metallurgy. Artifacts have been found, an ironworks has been found, hardened copper has been found. There is no problem here.

King James anachronisms and errors: This isn’t sufficiently specific to comment on.

Two Cumorahs: No problem here. Early members of the church read Mormon 6:6 too fast, and didn’t notice that Mormon hid up all the plates except the BoM in the hill Cumorah. They started calling the hill from which Joseph had received the plates “Cumorah”, and the name stuck. No contortions are needed to explain this apparent “problem.”

Ultimately, my testimony rests on three things:

First, a testimony of Christ that was given to me by the Spirit when I was reading the New Testament, before I came into contact with the Church. I know to the depth of my soul that the man described in the record is as he was described, the words recorded are the words that he spoke and are true, and that the miracles recorded happened as they are described.

Secondly, much of my testimony of the Church rests on the Book of Mormon. It speaks as one voice with the Bible. There is far too much there, that is true, that Joseph could not have known. There is doctrine there, that in the Bible is deeply hidden and only now being dug out of the Bible by people such as Margaret Barker. There are many, many, many little details that speak to its authenticity. (One example I recently noticed: The term “not even an hundredth part” appears several times in the book. In all cases, it is spoken by Mormon; no one else uses the expression. In all cases, he is referring to how little of the records that he has available to him he is able to include in the Book of Mormon. However, all of the references are to different sets of records. It is unlikely that he included ~1/100 part of each and every one of these records. Rather, it appears that “not even an hundredth part” is simply a turn of phrase used by Mormon to mean “a tiny proportion”, without necessarily being a measured amount. But, it is a phrase unique to Mormon, and not used by any of the other voices in the book. Is that proof of anything? No. But it’s one of many, many things that you’re not going to consistently see in a forgery.)

Another big piece of my intellectual testimony of the book is the wisdom contained therein. It simply wasn’t written by a 23-year-old fraud. Nor was written by a 23-year-old fraud and a couple older frauds. It was written by a substantial collection of people with great experience with life and human nature, particularly as it relates to trying to live pure, righteous lives, lives full of charity and the Love of Christ. These things are Truth that simply could not have been written by those of evil intent.

Thirdly, I have seen the interactions of the Lord in my own life. I related one incident above, and don’t feel that it is appropriate for me to discuss other such things at this time.

In summary, my testimony of the Book of Mormon is of a sufficient depth that I can look at things like The Flood, and questions about polygamy and about Joseph Smith, and realize that I there are things that I don’t know, that may at this point in time be unknowable, that will explain those things. However, the Book of Mormon is true, it is of God, and I therefore am able to put these questions in abeyance and move forward.

My best to you,

Steve

[Daniel Peterson]

Ah the magic brackets, which allow you to infuse personal commentary into the statement of others, and attributing those comments to the source.

The brackets make it quite clear that my comments were inserted into your text and that I am not attributing them to you. Moreover, your comment is available above for comparison. And if my "magic brackets" (a familiar editorial device that I did not invent and that originated well outside of Provo/Orem) and your easily accessible original text are not enough to make the situation entirely clear, my explicit statement, above, that I inserted bracketed words of my own into your text, which are not to be attributed to you, ought to help. Moreover, I hereby state, again, for those who may not be following, that I inserted bracketed words of my own into your text, which are not to be attributed to you.

You have either jumped the shark, or opened up a brand new avenue of apologetics.

Identifying flagrant jaybearing is, when relevant (as in your case on this thread), a minor but important tool in any kind of discussion. When one party to the discussion is making confident statements that far exceed his or her knowledge of the topic, it's common for the other party to point this out. The technique is documented as early as the dialogues of Plato.

Please remove your post. Its dishonest, and offense.

Although my post is certainly not dishonest, it's clear that you've chosen to claim that it offends you. And perhaps (who knows?) it really does. Because I'm a congenial fellow, I've therefore chosen to remove it, and to place it here:

The evidence presented on NHM [which I know only from message board posts rather than from reading the various books and scholarly articles published on the subject] does not require that I rethink my disregard for superatural explantions of events. . . . My point is that NHM not persuasive or compelling because it does not cause anyone to change or even RETHINK their preexisting opinion [and doesn't even make me want to read about the topic before judging it].

QED.

The bracketed words in the quotation above are mine, not Jaybear's, and, although they accurately represent his situation with regard to the topic of NHM, are not actually to be attributed to him. They represent my commentary, somewhat tongue-in-cheek but entirely serious.

[Sethbag]

Sethbag, please keep this on topic. The topic is Nahom. The topic is not "Name All the Reasons You Think the Church is a Fraud". There are other boards where you can go to rant. = mods

This was a direct reply to the allusions of Dr. Peterson to there being a whole ton of things going along with Nahom which make it nigh unto intellectual dishonesty not to believe the Book of Mormon. This "rant", as you call it, was in fact just a partial explanation of the whole context in which I see the Book of Mormon, which make it nigh unto intellectual dishonesty, in my view, to believe in it. I do not and cannot ever look at each little piece in the puzzle and consider it truly alone and separate from all context. In my view, whether Joseph Smith had access to a copy of the Pinkerton map to have known about Nehem or whatever is interesting, but cannot be seen truly isolated and apart from, amongst a zillion other things, the fact that Joseph said that the figures, and Egyptian characters, shown in facsimile #3 meant particular things, and they simply don't. I already said in a previous post in this thread that I agreed that Nahom stood as evidence in favor of the Book of Mormon, but that I didn't find it convincing as proof, especially when viewed in the larger context of the whole founding of the church and Joseph's activitities and actions. And yet after posting that, I was "called out" by Smac, who responded to my saying that Nahom was positive evidence for the BoM by essentially demanding that I go in and treat it intensively, in detail, and I think he wanted me to admit from it that the BoM was true or something. And then Dr. Peterson responded to the thread with the allusion to intellectual dishonesty on the part of folks who could see the whole sheaf of evidence for the BoM and yet not believe it.

I agree, there is a lot more evidence, in the context of which the Nahom and other evidences should be viewed. However, unlike Dr. Peterson, I believe the intellectual dishonesty is to be found on the other side of the opinion spectrum on this context, from my own.

[Sethbag]

Don't you know that when you bear your testimony you are supposed to say, I know....

Yeah, well, I've given up on the whole "I know" aspect of testimony bearing. I seem to "know" a lot less than I used to, and that's fine with me, because I now "believe" that I never really "knew" all that stuff anyway. Part of the whole deal with me and my beliefs is that I want to know what I believe, know why I believe it, and be comfortable, in my own mind and heart of hearts, that what I believe really is true, or that my reasons for believing really are good and justifiable.

[Daniel Peterson]

This was a direct reply to the allusions of Dr. Peterson to there being a whole ton of things going along with Nahom which make it nigh unto intellectual dishonesty not to believe the Book of Mormon.

I made no such assertion. I hold no such view.

Dr. Peterson responded to the thread with the allusion to intellectual dishonesty on the part of folks who could see the whole sheaf of evidence for the BoM and yet not believe it.

I offered no such response and no such allusion.

I agree, there is a lot more evidence, in the context of which the Nahom and other evidences should be viewed. However, unlike Dr. Peterson, I believe the intellectual dishonesty is to be found on the other side of the opinion spectrum on this context, from my own.

A salient difference between us is that I've accused nobody of intellectual dishonesty, while you have.