Mythic Iron

[Bill Hamblin]

It depends on how you define evidence. Much of what passes for evidence in favor of the Book of Mormon is really nothing more than parallelism, and what you have here is something that parallels quite nicely with 19th-century mound builder mythology. The decision one has to make is which is more likely. Obviously we disagree in our conclusions.

I note that you now attempt to bring other assumptions and issues to obfuscate the original argument. The original question is a simple one, and you have tacitly agreed with my position by refusing to engage the actual argument.

The accounts of Jaredite Shule legendarily working metals is also consistent with an ancient BOM; that is, ancient peoples anachronistically attributed metal-working to their ancestors, as exemplified by the Bible.

I would if there were accounts that the Vikings had become politically and culturally dominant among the Inuit and that Viking technology had been taught to the Inuit and practiced by them. Seems pretty obvious to me.

That certainly happened in the Greenland Viking colonies, which lasted a couple of centuries. Yet the Inuit still did not adopt sword making metallurgy from them.

[cksalmon]

Gen 4:22 tell us that Tubal-cain, an antediluvian descendent of Cain, "worked copper and iron." According to traditional biblical chronology, he lived before the rise of archaeologically verified iron working in the ANE. So, I have two questions:

1- For inerrantists, why do archaeologically unsubstantiated claims of metal-working in the BOM prove it is false, while similar claims in the Bible do not prove it is false. For an Evangelical to reject the historicity of the BOM because of metal-working issues seems a blatant double standard if one insists, at the same time, on the historicity of the Bible, despite its unverified claims of antediluvian metal-working.

Who makes the above, underlined claim? Living Hope Ministries? CARM?

The argument would be:

(a) Metal-working claims in BoM are unsubstantiated by archaeology.

(B) Therefore, BoM is false.

That would be a silly argument to make. (B) is unentailed.

Moreover, I know of no EV conversant with Mormonism who rejects BoM based solely on the fact that (a) obtains. Do you?

CKS

[John Williams]

I note that you now attempt to bring other assumptions and issues to obfuscate the original argument. The original question is a simple one, and you have tacitly agreed with my position by refusing to engage the actual argument.

No obfuscation, just commenting on your suggestion that it's "not evidence in favor of 19th-century authorship." I happen to agree with that.

That certainly happened in the Greenland Viking colonies, which lasted a couple of centuries. Yet the Inuit still did not adopt sword making metallurgy from them.

The Greenland Vikings exerted political, cultural, and economic dominance over the Inuit and taught them metallurgy? I had no idea. Can you give me a reference? Thanks.

[John Larsen]

It is amazing how much I can learn from other people about things I know, but that I didn't know I knew.

Sargon understands the argument. You do not.

The argument is: if the fact that Israelites had beliefs about legendary antediluvian metal-working does not prove the Israelites did not exist, then BOM beliefs about legendary Jaredite metal-working should not prove that the Nephites did not exist.

The issue at hand is the validity of a particular argument of the critics. It is not whether the Nephites existed. Try to stay focused. There may have been no Nephites and this particular argument of the critics may still be invalid. It is perfectly possible to devise fallacious arguments for true conclusions.

The issue is getting things wrong points to the fact that it is probably fiction both on the part of the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

The way I understand your argument is that you are suggesting the critics make this argument:

A asserts X.

X does not exist.

There for A does not exist.

You Counter that:

B asserts Y

Y does not exist

B clearly Exists

Therefore the first argument is fallacious.

However, no one but you has ever made the straw man argument that you dismantle.

My counter remains:

A asserts X

B asserts Y

Neither X or Y exist.

Therefore both A & B are suspect testimony.

But it is worse than that. With the book of Mormon we have

C asserts A which asserts X.

Neither A or X exist.

C (Joseph Smith) is suspect.

[William the Conqueror]

To Bill Hamblin,

Check out the O O Parts Riddle. Once again the Bible's accuracy is confirmed, however the BOM's authenticity is still in grave doubt. Lol!

[William the Conqueror]

Here's the link, lest you think I am giving you a riddle to find the explanation.

http://xenohistorian.faithweb.com/genesis/gen09.html

[Sethbag]

It is my understanding that the evidence so far points to the peoples traditionally pointed to as potential Nephites bearing no trace of the existence, or exploitation of, steel production. On the contrary, the evidence shows that other materials were in use by these peoples, in applications where the use of steel or metallic iron would have been particularly useful and advantageous.

With the notion that Nephites produced steel being problematic, how much more problematic is the idea that these same Nephites should attribute such processes to their legendary heroes?

How should the Nephites have even known to have included such descriptions of processes they were themselves not apparently aware of? This is the problem, Bill. As you say, it is well-attested that Israelites knew of these processes, therefor the attribution of them to their legendary heroes, while anachronistic, would not be entirely unexpected.

But I would not expect the Nephites, without knowledge of steel production, to be able to attribute it to their legendary heroes.

I guess you would argue with the idea that the Nephites would not have had knowledge of it. You seem to believe that since Nephi would have come from the ANE, and the BoM describes Nephi as himself having produced steel, that knowledge might still have existed hundreds of years later when the Nephites were penning their Jaredite legends.

Ok, but if they did have knowledge of it, and they did have access to ores from which metallic iron might have been smelted, and from which steel might have been produced, it seems highly unlikely that they would have sat on this knowledge and not taken advantage of it. It is this kind of unlikeliness that legitimizes the criticism of Jaredite accounts of steelmaking.

[Daniel Peterson]

You are setting up a false dichotomy and you know it.

Why the suggestion that Professor Hamblin has written in bad faith?

Disagreement is one thing, but seeking to poison the well seems another thing altogether.

[cksalmon]

Why the suggestion that Professor Hamblin has written in bad faith?

Disagreement is one thing, but seeking to poison the well seems another thing altogether.

I wouldn't suggest he has written in bad faith, just that his argument (at least re: inerrantist EV's) is a strawman.

1- For inerrantists, why do archaeologically unsubstantiated claims of metal-working in the BOM prove it is false, while similar claims in the Bible do not prove it is false. For an Evangelical to reject the historicity of the BOM because of metal-working issues seems a blatant double standard if one insists, at the same time, on the historicity of the Bible, despite its unverified claims of antediluvian metal-working.

For this argument to even begin to work, the inerrantist EV would have to collapse the evidence for the truth of "the Bible" into one data set: evidence of antediluvian metalworking.

And he would have to concede that, if antediluvian metal working, as mentioned in the Bible, is unverified archaeologically, then "the Bible" has been proven false. I'm aware of no inerrantist EV who would either concede that argument nor who would argue in that way.

Moreover, the inerrantist EV would have to concede that he believes BoM to be proven false solely on the basis of the lack of archaeological evidence for BoM metal working. Who is actually making that argument?

Now, Bill could have argued that it is inconsistent to hold both:

(1) that the lack of archaeological verification of antediluvian metalworking in ANE does not constitute evidence against the Bible's claims of antediluvian metalworking (and, by extension, against the Bible)

yet, also

(2) that the lack of archaeological verification of New World metalworking in the BoM time frame does constitute evidence against the BoM's claims of metalworking (and, by extension, the BoM)

Now, that would be inconsistent.

But, Bill has implicitly framed a deductive argument--and a simplistic one at that--that no one is making, at least no one of which I'm aware. Again, perhaps CARM? I don't know.

CKS

[John Larsen]

Why the suggestion that Professor Hamblin has written in bad faith?

Disagreement is one thing, but seeking to poison the well seems another thing altogether.

I am only speaking of his action prima facie, I know nothing of his motivation.

[Daniel Peterson]

I am only speaking of his action prima facie, I know nothing of his motivation.

In that case, while it was appropriate to state your opinion that the dichotomy he set up was a false dichotomy, it was inappropriate to suggest that he was doing so in full awareness of that (alleged) fact.

[Muc'ul Ajwalil]

But the KJV Bible says "iron," not "alloy!" HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! <end sarcasm>

The main Spanish translation says 'bronce'

[Zakuska]

Hey Dr. Hamblin... what do you make of all the Columbus and other explorers records of the various Indians of the new world using, smelting and saling of bronze wood working tools such as hatchets and chisels?

http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index.php?showtopic=32891

[Sethbag]

Zak, I'm not Dr. Hamblin, but I'd just point out that bronze is not steel. Bronze is easier to make than steel, and came about earlier in the civilizations that learned how to do both. Gold, which is mentioned in some of the things you've posted or linked, was even easier still, as gold was found as metallic gold (in, say, tiny flakes and nuggets in a riverbed or some such) and simply melted, whereas tin, copper, iron, etc. all have to be smelted using a reduction reaction, in order to end up with the metal. Tin could be smelted at the lowest temperature, then copper, then iron. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin.

The bottom line is that if you provide a link claiming that a given society had things made from gold and bronze, that's all well and good, but it doesn't help demonstrate that they could do iron, and then to go from iron to steel is yet more complex.

[USU78]

Never mind. One cheap shot does not deserve another.

You mean you're not an anachronism?

Too bad.

I certainly am.

[Zakuska]

Zak, I'm not Dr. Hamblin, but I'd just point out that bronze is not steel. Bronze is easier to make than steel, and came about earlier in the civilizations that learned how to do both. Gold, which is mentioned in some of the things you've posted or linked, was even easier still, as gold was found as metallic gold (in, say, tiny flakes and nuggets in a riverbed or some such) and simply melted, whereas tin, copper, iron, etc. all have to be smelted using a reduction reaction, in order to end up with the metal. Tin could be smelted at the lowest temperature, then copper, then iron. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin.

The bottom line is that if you provide a link claiming that a given society had things made from gold and bronze, that's all well and good, but it doesn't help demonstrate that they could do iron, and then to go from iron to steel is yet more complex.

True however a 2000 year old Iron ore mine being found... what did they use all that Iron ore for?

[EVOLVING]

True however a 2000 year old Iron ore mine being found... what did they use all that Iron ore for?

did you not read the article ??? the red-oxide paint was used to color ceramics, art, and their bodies... the hematite rocks were shiny trinkets most likley used for trade or currency.

[USU78]

So . . . Iron-Age expatriates' descendents who have lost the technology because it didn't translate practically into the new milieu retain a racial memory of the technology and attribute it in their sacred writings to historical people who could not have known it based upon lack of evidence therefor.

Got it.

Where was the false dichotomy again? I must have missed it.

[juliann]

did you not read the article ??? the red-oxide paint was used to color ceramics, art, and their bodies... the hematite rocks were shiny trinkets most likley used for trade or currency.

And how were those "ceramics" made? They weren't making mudpies and drying them in the sun. I think we need to be very careful in relegating cultures to "shiny trinkets". It has that Ugly American ring to it.

[Sethbag]

True however a 2000 year old Iron ore mine being found... what did they use all that Iron ore for?

The article said what they were using it for. Red pigment.

[Bill Hamblin]

Who makes the above, underlined claim? Living Hope Ministries? CARM?

The argument would be:

(a) Metal-working claims in BoM are unsubstantiated by archaeology.

( Therefore, BoM is false.

That would be a silly argument to make. ( is unentailed.

Moreover, I know of no EV conversant with Mormonism who rejects BoM based solely on the fact that (a) obtains. Do you?

CKS

Good. Then we are agreed. It's a fallacious argument. QED.

[Bill Hamblin]

It is my understanding that the evidence so far points to the peoples traditionally pointed to as potential Nephites bearing no trace of the existence, or exploitation of, steel production. On the contrary, the evidence shows that other materials were in use by these peoples, in applications where the use of steel or metallic iron would have been particularly useful and advantageous.

With the notion that Nephites produced steel being problematic, how much more problematic is the idea that these same Nephites should attribute such processes to their legendary heroes?

How should the Nephites have even known to have included such descriptions of processes they were themselves not apparently aware of? This is the problem, Bill. As you say, it is well-attested that Israelites knew of these processes, therefor the attribution of them to their legendary heroes, while anachronistic, would not be entirely unexpected.

But I would not expect the Nephites, without knowledge of steel production, to be able to attribute it to their legendary heroes.

I guess you would argue with the idea that the Nephites would not have had knowledge of it. You seem to believe that since Nephi would have come from the ANE, and the BoM describes Nephi as himself having produced steel, that knowledge might still have existed hundreds of years later when the Nephites were penning their Jaredite legends.

Ok, but if they did have knowledge of it, and they did have access to ores from which metallic iron might have been smelted, and from which steel might have been produced, it seems highly unlikely that they would have sat on this knowledge and not taken advantage of it. It is this kind of unlikeliness that legitimizes the criticism of Jaredite accounts of steelmaking.

As I have noted elsewhere, the BOM is not talking about contemporary ideas of steel.

http://www.fairlds.org/Book_of_Mormon/Stee..._of_Mormon.html

Steel in the KJV always refers to copper-based metals/alloys.

[Zakuska]

The article said what they were using it for. Red pigment.

3700+ tons of "red" pigment? Red isnt the only color they got out of the mine.

[cksalmon]

Good. Then we are agreed. It's a fallacious argument. QED.

Well, sure, I guess. Of course it's a fallacious argument; the conclusion is not entailed in the lone preceding premise. I just didn't know that it actually needed to be demonstrated as such.

The analysis of propositions of history, as I'm sure you know, depends upon multiple arenas of inquiry and the results are best given in terms of generic plausibility/implausibility, likelihood/unlikelihood, or cautious certainty, rather than, say, in terms of mathematical probability (though such might have its place in certain cases) or, as in your example, simplistic deductive exercises.

Who wouldn't agree that the "argument" to which you've taken exception is fallacious?

CKS

[Jessicka]

It seems to me we need a consistent standard in evaluating such things, and neither the inerrantists nor the secularists are willing to apply their standards consistently.

Could you cite the inerrantists and/or the secularists who have made the argument you are attributing to them? I think everyone who has participated in this thread, Mormon and non alike, agree that the version of the argument you present is fallacious, and transparently so. I would be very interested in seeing first-hand the work of the poor saps who have proffered this argument as proving the non-existence of Nephites.

Thanks!