Babylonian Deportation Of Israelites And Lehi

[Lachoneus]

Pratt has serious methodological problems. He puts too much certainty in conclusions drawn from questionable and unrelated data. He's reductionist, oversimplifying to make sweeping and wacky conclusions that must be true because they Support The Gospel.

Do you have any examples, or are you just giving us your opinion again? How about using the article Kate referenced to illustrate what you mean?

[The_Monk]

Do you have any examples, or are you just giving us your opinion again? How about using the article Kate referenced to illustrate what you mean?

I provided a link to the "Uranus Testifies of Christ" article as a prime example.

Edit: I'm not interested in fighting about Pratt. You clearly like his stuff, and I read enough to decide that he was not a source worth reading. End of story.

[Uncle Dale]

...Mazel Tov...

Go ye and do likewise....

Uncle "next year in Jackson County" Dale

[Lachoneus]

I provided a link to the "Uranus Testifies of Christ" article as a prime example.

Example of what? So far you have refused to point out an example of an actual error.

Edit: I'm not interested in fighting about Pratt.

Neither am I. How about giving us some facts to support your claims?

You clearly like his stuff, and I read enough to decide that he was not a source worth reading. End of story.

I find his writings interesting, but that is all. Unfortunately, I have not read anyone who can give me the other side of the story. I was hoping you could do that for me. Until and unless you can provide examples of how the Uranus article (or some other article by Pratt) supports your claims, you have done nothing so far but express your opinion. I was really hoping to learn something here, but if all you can provide is your opinion, then I guess my hope was in vain.

[The_Monk]

Example of what? So far you have refused to point out an example of an actual error.

Neither am I. How about giving us some facts to support your claims?

I find his writings interesting, but that is all. Unfortunately, I have not read anyone who can give me the other side of the story. I was hoping you could do that for me. Until and unless you can provide examples of how the Uranus article (or some other article by Pratt) supports your claims, you have done nothing so far but express your opinion. I was really hoping to learn something here, but if all you can provide is your opinion, then I guess my hope was in vain.

My claim is that his conclusions are hogwash and his data problematic in how he strings it together:)

Is Uranus really on a twelve-year calendar? I have no idea. Is the Chinese calendar based on a similar cycle? Again, I have no idea.

Can one derive the actual date Adam started breathing from combining the two?

I don't think so. Do YOU think so? Is this such an important fact (setting aside Pratt's literalism) that God would encode it in the orbit of a planet and a foreign calendar for someone to later figure out?

Do you assume Pratt's conclusions are correct unless they're proven wrong? If so, on what basis?

His reasoning is, loosely speaking, of the following kind.

Why are fire engines red?

* Because they've got 8 wheels and 4 people on them

* 8 + 4 = 12

* There are 12 inches in a foot

* One foot is a ruler

* There was a ruler named Queen Elizabeth

* A ship named Queen Elizabeth sails the seas

* In the seas are fish

* On the fish are fins

* The Fins fought the Russians

* And Russians are red.

And that's why fire engines are red. Because they're always rushin'

Now, where are the errors in that argument? Would you hypothetically deny that there are 12 inches in a foot, or that fish live in the seas? Or would you instead say, these things have nothing to do with each other, and you're reading in significance that isn't actually there? It's his method and assumptions that dictate what he reads out of the data (in the Uranus case) and the unjustified linking of disparate data and sources.

Some BYU professors in BYU Studies criticized a work that Pratt defended (which isn't the same as his own, of course.) S. Kent Brown, C. Wilfred Griggs, and H. Kimball Hansen. I know and have great respect for the first two, while the third is unknown to me.

The criticism of the work Pratt defended applies equally to Pratt's work, and is what I've tried to get at above. Link of Pratt's defense and the brief rejoinder.

[Lachoneus]

My claim is that his conclusions are hogwash and his data problematic in how he strings it together:)

Is Uranus really on a twelve-year calendar? I have no idea. Is the Chinese calendar based on a similar cycle? Again, I have no idea.

Can one derive the actual date Adam started breathing from combining the two? I don't think so.

Interesting. You know nothing of Uranus's calendar. You know nothing of the Chinese calendar. Nevertheless, you have concluded that the claim that by "combining the two" it is possible to derive the date when Adam began to breath is "hogwash." How do you logically get from "I have no idea" to "hogwash"? That seems just a little odd to me.

In addition, please document where Pratt claims that Uranus is "on a twelve-year calendar" and that the Chinese calendar is "based on a similar cycle." Also, please show where Pratt claims that "one [can] derive the actual date Adam started breathing from combining the two." I don't think you have understood what Pratt actually says.

Now, as you may recall, the topic of this thread is actually Lehi's failure to be deported into Babylon. Do you have any comments on Pratt's article referenced by Kate? Thanks.

[The_Monk]

Interesting. You know nothing of Uranus's calendar. You know nothing of the Chinese calendar. Nevertheless, you have concluded that the claim that by "combining the two" it is possible to derive the date when Adam began to breath is "hogwash." How do you logically get from "I have no idea" to "hogwash"? That seems just a little odd to me.

In addition, please document where Pratt claims that Uranus is "on a twelve-year calendar" and that the Chinese calendar is "based on a similar cycle." Also, please show where Pratt claims that "one [can] derive the actual date Adam started breathing from combining the two." I don't think you have understood what Pratt actually says.

Now, as you may recall, the topic of this thread is actually Lehi's failure to be deported into Babylon. Do you have any comments on Pratt's article referenced by Kate? Thanks.

Yes Lachoneus, I'm an ignorant git

I SAID I didn't know anything about those topics, and I meant it. Pratt's methodological non-rigor and assumptions are enough for me to not take him seriously. (When I do look at anything of his, I skim. )

Does one need to know anything about fire engines to know that the little ditty I quoted above isn't the reason why fire engines are red? Why or why not?

My statement about the date Adam breathed on comes from Pratt's statements "In an earlier article it was pointed out that there is one day in all of history indicated for the day on which Adam first breathed the breath of life"

Pratt derives Adam's birthday from the orbit of Venus, not the Chinese calendar and Uranus. My humble mistake. (He is, unsurprisingly, also able to calculate the date of Adam's death from Venus somehow.)

As to the original question, I already gave my comments. The last word is yours, O Defender of Prattian Wackiness.

[Lachoneus]

In the article Kate referenced (see post #2 above or here) we find the following:

Nephi describes his father Lehi as a wealthy man who, in the first year of Zedekiah, heard many prophets predict that Jerusalem would be destroyed if the people did not repent (1 Nephi 1:4). Lehi prayed for his people and received his own revelation confirming that Jerusalem would be destroyed. A key point for this discussion is that he also explicitly saw in his vision that "many should be carried away captive into Babylon" (1 Nephi 1:13). That prophecy raises an important issue to resolve.

How could Lehi prophesy that "many" would be taken captive after the beginning of Zedekiah's reign, that is, after the deportation of "all Jerusalem" had already occurred? The Biblical record is clear that only a few were taken captive at the later final destruction of Jerusalem. Moreover, the details that Lehi was wealthy, having "exceeding great" property comprised of gold, silver, and precious things (1 Nephi 3:22-25), and that some of his own sons couldn't believe it possible for Jerusalem to be destroyed (1 Nephi 2:13), argue against the setting being during the reign of Zedekiah (after 597 BC) after all of the wealthy had been deported, and Jerusalem had already been partially destroyed late in 601 BC.

Does anyone have an answer? How could Lehi still be in Jerusalem with all his wealth and Lamen and Lemuel still convinced that Jerusalem could not be "destroyed" if Lehi and his family were still there in 597 B.C., long after "many" had been carried away and the city had already been "destroyed" once? Does it not appear more likely that Lehi and his family had left Jerusalem before 597 B.C.?

[The_Monk]

Chadwick's article, previously linked, argues that Lehi's "land of inheritance" and monetary wealth weren't in Jerusalem, but north. If that's the case, he may not have been recognized as worthy of being hauled off.

On the city being destroyed or not, it was a common belief that God wouldn't allow it to happen completely. See Jeremiah chapters 7 and 26, and " How Could Jerusalem, 'That Great City,' Be Destroyed?" by David R. Seely, Fred E. Woods.

[LifeOnaPlate]

Geez I thought that Uranus thing was a joke. That dude was serious?

[Lachoneus]

Chadwick's article, previously linked, argues that Lehi's "land of inheritance" and monetary wealth weren't in Jerusalem, but north. If that's the case, he may not have been recognized as worthy of being hauled off.

Nephi tells us that Jerusalem was destroyed " immediately after my father left Jerusalem" (2 Nephi 25:10). So, assuming that Lehi was ignored during the destruction of Nov-Dec 601 B.C. (2 Kings 24:1-4), this gives us two possibilities:

(1) Lehi left just before the destruction of Jerusalem in March 597 B.C. (2 Kings 24:8-16), meaning that Lehi and family left Jerusalem before Mattaniah/Zedekiah took the throne (2 Kings 24:17). But this does not seem to fit with Nephi's statement that Lehi and family were still in Jerusalem "in the commencement of the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah" (1 Nephi 1:4).

or

(2) Lehi left just before the destruction of Jerusalem in June 587 B.C (Jer 44:2). Does this late date fit in with Nephi's prophecy that the Savior "cometh, according to the words of the angel, in six hundred years from the time my father left Jerusalem" (1 Nephi 19:8 )? Do those 13 years really matter, or should we just ignore them?

[grego]

Edit: I just looked at the rtf Kate posted. I stopped reading instantly when I saw it was John Pratt. That guy, though well trained, is completely out to lunch, in my opinion.

Now that's some scholarly open-mindedness!!

So if someone asks/ defends X because Y uses hearsay, can't get a story straight when the story's right in front of him, uses fallacies to put someone down, and refuses to judge on credit where it might be due, does that make them a lover of that person and all their works?

I'm not expecting to hear Pratt in the upcoming GC. But he's written some very interesting things. Is going out on a limb bad, and caution good for scholarly things? Are you serious that this is a given, even among scholars? Or just among those "respected" ones?

-=-=-=

I should preface this by saying that Chadwick is among the few in the BYU Rel.Ed. dept. who have my academic respect...

Some BYU professors in BYU Studies criticized a work that Pratt defended (which isn't the same as his own, of course.) S. Kent Brown, C. Wilfred Griggs, and H. Kimball Hansen. I know and have great respect for the first two, while the third is unknown to me.

Three out of four, with one unkown, = "among the few"... Hmmm...

I guess according to your accounting, you likely stand there with Pratt as an "embarrassment" and "not given to critical thought".

As it had been said, it would have been nice to hear a scholarly critique...

[The_Monk]

Grego, having an opinion doesn't equate to having a closed mind. I went back and looked at several of Pratt's recent writings to see if they had changed. A closed-minded person wouldn't do that.

You also didn't fully quote me on those who have my *academic* respect in the BYU Rel. Ed. department. Many of those who have received PhD's and taught in the department have not published any serious academic work in years, nor done any serious LDS work. It's hard for me to respect that. A trained academic is supposed to produce scholarly work, and many of them aren't doing that.

My "scholarly critique" is that Pratt's conclusions are invalid because the data he bases them on are irrelevant to his topics. This is a critique of Pratt's method, which he continuously uses. The burden of proof is on him.

Furthermore, as to me being "an embarrassment" and "not given to critical thought" I'm somewhat surprised. I feel relatively secure saying you know nothing about me beyond my long track-record on this board, but that track-record apparently it doesn't matter. I doubt Pratt's method, which leads to doubt about his conclusions, and am therefore worthy of mean-spirited critique.

[Beowulf]

In case you are wondering, the main problem that I have with Pratt is his utter determination to prove that Lehi left Jerusalem exactly 600 years TO THE DAY before Christ's birth.

Since none of the facts line up, he then speculates broadly why they don't, adjusting a couple of years here, a few years there, changing names willy-nilly, etc.

When Nephi writes Zedekiah, why speculate that he must have meant someone else? Just because Zedekiah doesn't fit his theory... (sigh)

I have corresponded with John Pratt in the past. He is a pleasant person (in emails, at any rate) and willing to accept any and all criticisms and suggestions.

The problem is that there is just too many problems with his methodology to wade through...

For what its worth, I back up the Monk.

Beowulf

[Greg Smith]

Two articles which deal with Book of Mormon chronology and the Zedekiah issue are here:

1) Randall P. Spackman, "The Jewish/Nephite Lunar Calendar," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 7/1 (1998): 48–59

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=jbms&id=170

2) Randall P. Spackman, "Review of A Detailed Chronology of the Book of Mormon by Thomas A. Moore," FARMS Review of Books 10/1 (1998): 1–11

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=276

===

"Today the volume of interlocking information is so great that there cannot any longer be serious question about Zedekiah's date. The words of Nephi start with events that took place in the Jewish year overlapping our 597-596 B.C."

However, unlike Uncle Dale's conclusion that these are just stories, I think a strong case can be made for the fact that using a lunar calendar puts the dates with near exactness. It is presentism to insist upon our solar, sidereal year as the proper measure.

Clever lad, that Joseph Smith....

Greg