Mark Beesley Posted February 11, 2008 Posted February 11, 2008 Now, the words in question are deceive or deceived, entice and great and spacious building.I see great and spacious building in chapter 8 (the Tree of Life chapter), but I don't see the words deceive, deceived or entice anywhere.How can we say that we have a (and I quote Consig) "play on words" if the words don't even exist in the chapter we're discussing?You are correct that neither the word deceive nor its derivations appear in Chapter 6. What appears there is simply a description of people seeking to get into that building, in contrast to the people seeking to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life.And he also saw other multitudes feeling their way towards that great and spacious building. 1 Nephi 8:31Now, if you read the dream as a whole, obviously Nephi is describing the Tree of Life as the ideal, not entry into the great and spacious building. It is difficult to imagine that Nephi would grant that anyone in their right mind, being apprised of all the facts, would seek entry into that great and spacious building. Rather, those that seek entry into such, must of necessity, have been deceived on some level. Otherwise they would not be headed that way. Now, if you want to argue that point, there is little to be gained in going on. However, if you are willing to grant that from Nephi's perspective that only deceived people would strive to gain entry into the great and spacious building, then you are in a position to understand the point that the OP made.Zakuska and Consiglieri pointed out that in describing the building those deceived people entered into as "great and spacious," which in the Hebrew stems from the same word as deceived, Joseph Smith unwittingly described the type of people who entered therein, rather than the architecture of the building itself. The adjectives great and spacious to describe an edifice seem particularly curious for Joseph Smith who was a backwoods farmboy who supposedly plagiarized the Book of Mormon from View of the Hebrews, or History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, or Spalding's manuscripts, or History of the American Revolution, and yet this description of buildings is not found in any of these works to my knowledge.I suspect, as Consiglieri suggests, that this is another evidence, among many, that the critics need to find a different explantion for the production of the Book of Mormon. Plagiarism doesn't cut it.
consiglieri Posted February 11, 2008 Author Posted February 11, 2008 Or this from 1 Nephi 13? 26 And after they go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, from the Jews unto the Gentiles, thou seest the formation of that great and abominable church, which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away. 27 And all this have they done that they might pervert the right ways of the Lord, that they might blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men. 28 Wherefore, thou seest that after the book hath gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church, that there are many plain and precious things taken away from the book, which is the book of the Lamb of God. 29 And after these plain and precious things were taken away it goeth forth unto all the nations of the Gentiles; and after it goeth forth unto all the nations of the Gentiles, yea, even across the many waters which thou hast seen with the Gentiles which have gone forth out of captivity, thou seestâ??because of the many plain and precious things which have been taken out of the book, which were plain unto the understanding of the children of men, according to the plainness which is in the Lamb of Godâ??because of these things which are taken away out of the gospel of the Lamb, an exceedingly great many do stumble, yea, insomuch that Satan hath great power over them.
Scottie Posted February 11, 2008 Posted February 11, 2008 How about this from chapter 12 of 1 Nephi?Would "temptations" be close enough to "enticements" for you?All the Best!--ConsiglieriMaybe. However temptation in this verse isn't even talking about the great and spacious building anymore. Nephi has moved on to a new vision now and is pretty far removed from the tree of life.
Scottie Posted February 11, 2008 Posted February 11, 2008 You are correct that neither the word deceive nor its derivations appear in Chapter 6. What appears there is simply a description of people seeking to get into that building, in contrast to the people seeking to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life.Now, if you read the dream as a whole, obviously Nephi is describing the Tree of Life as the ideal, not entry into the great and spacious building. It is difficult to imagine that Nephi would grant that anyone in their right mind, being apprised of all the facts, would seek entry into that great and spacious building. Rather, those that seek entry into such, must of necessity, have been deceived on some level. Otherwise they would not be headed that way. Now, if you want to argue that point, there is little to be gained in going on. However, if you are willing to grant that from Nephi's perspective that only deceived people would strive to gain entry into the great and spacious building, then you are in a position to understand the point that the OP made.Zakuska and Consiglieri pointed out that in describing the building those deceived people entered into as "great and spacious," which in the Hebrew stems from the same word as deceived, Joseph Smith unwittingly described the type of people who entered therein, rather than the architecture of the building itself. The adjectives great and spacious to describe an edifice seem particularly curious for Joseph Smith who was a backwoods farmboy who supposedly plagiarized the Book of Mormon from View of the Hebrews, or History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, or Spalding's manuscripts, or History of the American Revolution, and yet this description of buildings is not found in any of these works to my knowledge.I suspect, as Consiglieri suggests, that this is another evidence, among many, that the critics need to find a different explantion for the production of the Book of Mormon. Plagiarism doesn't cut it.I'm sorry, but this is as big a stretch to make a hit as I've ever seen.Or this from 1 Nephi 13?I'm missing your point with this...
consiglieri Posted February 11, 2008 Author Posted February 11, 2008 Maybe. However temptation in this verse isn't even talking about the great and spacious building anymore. Nephi has moved on to a new vision now and is pretty far removed from the tree of life.Actually, my reading of the passage is that Nephi has come right back to the great and spacious building, which he describes first as vain imaginations and the pride of the world; and then in the next verse comes back to the pride of the world and the "temptations." (That's why I bolded that part.)Also, as I have argued elsewhere, Nephi does not "move on" from the Tree of Life at any point during his vision contained in 1 Nephi 11-14.All of the vision is an interpretation of the Tree of Life dream.The fact that the "great and abominable Church" is a symbolic reference to the "great and spacious building" is an obvious example of this.And the fact that it is the "great and abominable Church" that causes so many to stumble by removing plain and precious truths from the Book of the Lamb would seem to be an exhibit A of "deception."All the Best!--Consiglieri
Avatar4321 Posted February 11, 2008 Posted February 11, 2008 exactly how many "coincidences" does Joseph Smith and the Church have to get before people take us seriously?
Mighty Curelom Posted February 11, 2008 Posted February 11, 2008 I found another one!In 1 Nephi, chapter 2, Lehi builds an "altar" to give offerings to God. Then, immediately after, he expresses his hope that Laman and Lemuel would become firm and steadfast in keeping God's commandments. In other words, Lehi built and "altar" and then tried to "alter" his sons' behavior. Coincidence? I think not.
consiglieri Posted February 11, 2008 Author Posted February 11, 2008 exactly how many "coincidences" does Joseph Smith and the Church have to get before people take us seriously?x + 1I found another one!In 1 Nephi, chapter 2, Lehi builds an "altar" to give offerings to God. Then, immediately after, he expresses his hope that Laman and Lemuel would become firm and steadfast in keeping God's commandments. In other words, Lehi built and "altar" and then tried to "alter" his sons' behavior. Coincidence? I think not.They say that a sense of humor is a sign of intelligence.It seems that you must be a very intelligent person, MC! Good one!--Consiglieri
Scottie Posted February 11, 2008 Posted February 11, 2008 Actually, my reading of the passage is that Nephi has come right back to the great and spacious building, which he describes first as vain imaginations and the pride of the world; and then in the next verse comes back to the pride of the world and the "temptations." (That's why I bolded that part.)Also, as I have argued elsewhere, Nephi does not "move on" from the Tree of Life at any point during his vision contained in 1 Nephi 11-14.All of the vision is an interpretation of the Tree of Life dream.The fact that the "great and abominable Church" is a symbolic reference to the "great and spacious building" is an obvious example of this.And the fact that it is the "great and abominable Church" that causes so many to stumble by removing plain and precious truths from the Book of the Lamb would seem to be an exhibit A of "deception."All the Best!--ConsiglieriSo what I'm getting from you is that IF we can make a=b and c=d and e=f and g=h and i=j, then what an AMAZING bullseye!!! a and j are the same Hebrew word!!! There is NO WAY JS could have known that!!Again, IF RE=Hebrew and IF this section were a tight translation...
T-Shirt Posted February 11, 2008 Posted February 11, 2008 How about 1 Nephi 12:17?17 And the mists of darkness are the temptations of the devil, which blindeth the eyes, and hardeneth the hearts of the children of men, and leadeth them away into broad roads, that they perish and are lost.Sounds like deception to me.T-Shirt
Mark Beesley Posted February 11, 2008 Posted February 11, 2008 I'm sorry, but this is as big a stretch to make a hit as I've ever seen.Gee, and I didn't even have to get up off the couch to make it!!! You're just a naysayer Scottie. Too much negativity. Makes my toes hurt!
Scottie Posted February 11, 2008 Posted February 11, 2008 exactly how many "coincidences" does Joseph Smith and the Church have to get before people take us seriously?Actual coincidences, or the dozens of these types??Gee, and I didn't even have to get up off the couch to make it!!! You're just a naysayer Scottie. Too much negativity. Makes my toes hurt! I am honestly trying to make a connection here. I will admit that I am hard to convince, and this is woefully less than convincing.Maybe you should try being a little harder to convince as well...
consiglieri Posted February 11, 2008 Author Posted February 11, 2008 How about 1 Nephi 12:17?17 And the mists of darkness are the temptations of the devil, which blindeth the eyes, and hardeneth the hearts of the children of men, and leadeth them away into broad roads, that they perish and are lost.Sounds like deception to me.T-ShirtIt does to me, too, but technically that is talking about the mists of darkness rather than the great and spacious building.All the Best!--Consiglieri
consiglieri Posted February 11, 2008 Author Posted February 11, 2008 So what I'm getting from you is that IF we can make a=b and c=d and e=f and g=h and i=j, then what an AMAZING bullseye!!! a and j are the same Hebrew word!!! There is NO WAY JS could have known that!!Again, IF RE=Hebrew and IF this section were a tight translation...Really, what I am trying to say is, I think less of a stretch than you make it appear to be. I would diagram it as follows:IF we can make "great and spacious building" = "great and abominable church," then what an AMAZING bull's-eye!If we use actual terms rather than variables, it seems more impressive, I think.All the Best!--ConsiglieriMaybe you should try being a little harder to convince as well...Hey!I'm doing my best here, Scottie!--Consiglieri
Mark Beesley Posted February 11, 2008 Posted February 11, 2008 Maybe you should try being a little harder to convince as well...Nah, the Lord seems to like it when His people are not stiff-necked and stubborn. So I try to make it as easy on the Lord as possible. Don't wanna divert too much of His attention from folks who really need it.
T-Shirt Posted February 11, 2008 Posted February 11, 2008 It does to me, too, but technically that is talking about the mists of darkness rather than the great and spacious building.All the Best!--ConsiglieriThat is true, however, based on 1 Neph 8:31, it appears to me that those in the Spacious building, are those who lost their way in the mist of darkness: 31: And he also saw other multitudes feeling their way towards that great and spacious building.Why would they need to "feel their way", if they weren't in the mist of darkness. Simply put, those in the building, are those who had been blinded or deceived by the mists of darkness.Just my two cents.T-Shirt
Scottie Posted February 11, 2008 Posted February 11, 2008 Really, what I am trying to say is, I think less of a stretch than you make it appear to be. I would diagram it as follows:IF we can make "great and spacious building" = "great and abominable church," then what an AMAZING bull's-eye!If we use actual terms rather than variables, it seems more impressive, I think.All the Best!--ConsiglieriHey!I'm doing my best here, Scottie!--ConsiglieriNo, it's "great and spacious building" = "great and abominable church," AND "pride of the world" = "deception/enticement" THEN what a great bullseye.Not only that, but you have to piece all of these definitions together from different chapters that aren't even related to the ToL dream.I'm really sorry, Consig. You know I love you and your posts, and I agree with you most of the time, but I just can't see this one... If you have to go through that much work to make the "play on words" fit, I'd be willing to bet it wasn't meant as a play on words at all.
consiglieri Posted February 11, 2008 Author Posted February 11, 2008 That is true, however, based on 1 Neph 8:31, it appears to me that those in the Spacious building, are those who lost their way in the mist of darkness: 31: And he also saw other multitudes feeling their way towards that great and spacious building.Why would they need to "feel their way", if they weren't in the mist of darkness. Simply put, those in the building, are those who had been blinded or deceived by the mists of darkness.Just my two cents.T-ShirtThank you for taking the time to explain your "two cents," T-Shirt.It makes a lot more sense to me, now.But I won't be able to render a final decision until I hear the other side of the "coin" from Scottie. All the Best!--ConsiglieriI'm really sorry, Consig. You know I love you and your posts, and I agree with you most of the time, but I just can't see this one... If you have to go through that much work to make the "play on words" fit, I'd be willing to bet it wasn't meant as a play on words at all.While still thinking it an item of interest, I confess you rained on my parade at the point you actually checked the text and found no instances of "deception" or "enticement" ready to hand.Ah, well, I live to fight another day.All the Best!--Consiglieri
Scottie Posted February 12, 2008 Posted February 12, 2008 Nah, the Lord seems to like it when His people are not stiff-necked and stubborn. So I try to make it as easy on the Lord as possible. Don't wanna divert too much of His attention from folks who really need it. In that case...ever heard of Amway? Do you want to be a millionaire in just 5 years, by doing NOTHING???
consiglieri Posted February 12, 2008 Author Posted February 12, 2008 In that case...ever heard of Amway? Do you want to be a millionaire in just 5 years, by doing NOTHING??? Sounds good to me.Except the 5-year part.
Chris Smith Posted February 12, 2008 Posted February 12, 2008 In another thread, Zakuska has shown that the Hebrew word "pathah" is translated as being "spacious, open, or wide," in addition to its translation as "to entice or deceive."Is this a coincidence in the Book of Mormon that the people who are "deceived" by the mists of darkness go into a "great and spacious building," from which they seek to "deceive" and "entice" other believers away from the Tree of Life?Given the extent to which the great and spacious building has become a Mormon catchphrase, it's not surprising that this stands out to you. But is it equally significant that the field where the tree of life sits is also said to be spacious? Twice? See vv. 9,20.Two other things are worth mentioning. One is that Lucy Mack Smith's telling of her husband's dream twice uses the word spacious to describe the building. Although it's impossible to know the extent to which her husband's dream influenced the BoM rather than the other way around (since she's writing this long after the BoM was published), it at least raises some questions. The other thing to notice is that this passage fits quite well with the anticlericalism of Joseph Sr. and of 19th century grassroots American culture. The juxtaposition of a spacious church building and fine dress very nicely recalls things like Catholic cathedrals, implicitly condemned a mere five chapters later when we read about the founding of the great and abominable church by the devil. In the Nephite context a spacious place of worship seems like it would be more likely to recall the replica of Solomon's temple built by Nephi, in which they worshipped in a civilized way while the animal-skin clad Lamanites ran around in the forest gorging themselves on things like fruits and berries.Best,-Chris
hagoth7 Posted February 12, 2008 Posted February 12, 2008 If the Book of Mormon is translated from Reformed Egyptian, why does Hebrew matter? Without knowledge of Reformed Egyptian, how can you establish any connectedness between the English and Hebrew words?Well, they said the "characters" they used for their writing were reformed Egyptian. Just as the characters we use for our writing in this forum are Latin characters.Just because their characters derived from Egyptian, that doesn't exclude them using those characters to write another language, such as Hebrew.Just as we us Latin characters to write in another language, English.
Connolly Posted February 12, 2008 Posted February 12, 2008 If the Book of Mormon is translated from Reformed Egyptian, why does Hebrew matter? Without knowledge of Reformed Egyptian, how can you establish any connectedness between the English and Hebrew words? Korean can be written using Chinese characters and it would be a little more compact that using the Korean alphabet to spell ou the words. Yet a Korean read it aloud would say Korean words that sound nothing like Chinese, would be unintellibable to a Chinese person, and though the Chinese person would recognize the written characters, they wouldn't be in the right order to make sense to him.
Mudcat Posted February 12, 2008 Posted February 12, 2008 I don't see in the standard works where the word "pathah" is mentioned.If the translated works were translated from reformed Egyptian and Eqypitian....How does this fit?
russianwolfe Posted February 12, 2008 Posted February 12, 2008 Lets start over...In the OP, Consig says, Now, the words in question are deceive or deceived, entice and great and spacious building.I see great and spacious building in chapter 8 (the Tree of Life chapter), but I don't see the words deceive, deceived or entice anywhere.How can we say that we have a (and I quote Consig) "play on words" if the words don't even exist in the chapter we're discussing?------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Edited to add: I also checked Chapter 15, where Nephi interprets the dream. No mention of deceiving or enticing there either.Because we are talking about Hebrew/Egyptian words not English.When I was in college I dated a Jewish girl. One time when I was visiting, her father sat down and taught me a little Hebrew. He wrote 4 letters (I think) on a paper and then pronounced the word 3 different ways to mean teacher, student, and learn. I think this is what the OP is referring to. A Semetic play on words would be using the same consonants but with different vowels to mean something similar or maybe even the opposite.Marvin
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