Joseph Dictated The Book Of Mormon On The Fly?

[YH8]

I am not sure my personal views on science is an appropriate subject for a thread nominally looking at translating the Book of Mormon.

It seems you were claiming that being a scientist helps you evaluate the Book of Mormon, and now it seems you are claiming that being a scientist has helped you evaluate the existence of God. Thus, your personal views on science are relevant.

I have no idea what the â??predicting the futureâ? comment is about.

Maybe you should memorize more of the ideals of science. Be careful not to let the realities of the human application of the scientific method interfere with your memorization, though.

Slap me if I do that.

If you do it again?

That level of scientific formality was not needed.

Ah yes . . . religion, deity, and religionists are simple, simplistic, and easily dismissed.

No need to worry about the misapplication of empiricism to the question of the existence of diety.

The question is what points attributed to the Bible can be rationally supported.

And don't forget they are irrational too!

Your objective scientist ways are very impressive, indeed.

[Daniel Peterson]

I'm sure you understand the inception, composition and dictation need not be in the same time period.

I do.

As I've noted, I've taken explicit aim at the notion that there was a nineteenth-century composition, by Joseph Smith or anybody else, prior to the dictation. I've cited evidence and formulated arguments to support my position.

[Alf O'Mega]

Which is quite interesting, given the strong insistence by the eyewitnesses that no Bible or other text was present during the dictation, and given the pretty strong circumstantial evidence that Joseph didn't in fact have a Bible during much of the translation process.

This is a form of argument from silence. There is simply no way that every moment of dictation was observed and reported in testimony that we have today. And the evidence of textual dependence on the King James Version of the Bible is ironclad. It's pretty clear that there was a Bible present for some of the production of the Book of Mormon, even though the vast majority of the text could well have been dictated by a seer peering contemplatively into a hat, particularly if he had spent several years honing the story both orally and mentally beforehand. We know from Homer and more recent oral poets that great epics can be spun extemporaneously without recourse to written manuscripts.

I hope I'll be pardoned if I consider the Book of Mormon something less of an accomplishment than the Iliad or the Odyssey.

[ThePhy]

It seems you were claiming that being a scientist helps you evaluate the Book of Mormon, and now it seems you are claiming that being a scientist has helped you evaluate the existence of God. Thus, your personal views on science are relevant.

The same could be said of every poster in this thread. Do you require of each an explanation of the philosophy they operate under? It seems the thread is doing fine discussing the ideas about how the translation was done, without getting into personal philosophies.

Maybe you should memorize more of the ideals of science. Be careful not to let the realities of the human application of the scientific method interfere with your memorization, though.

Sorry, still doesnâ??t mean anything to me.

If you do it again?

Have to do it a first time before â??againâ?.

Ah yes . . . religion, deity, and religionists are simple, simplistic, and easily dismissed.

No need to worry about the misapplication of empiricism to the question of the existence of diety.

Is there something of substance I should respond to in your portrayal of my understandings of God?

And don't forget they are irrational too!

Not what I said.

[Daniel Peterson]

This is a form of argument from silence.

I disagree.

I don't think it takes the form of the standard (fallacious) argument from silence in any significant way.

There is simply no way that every moment of dictation was observed and reported in testimony that we have today.

Essentially irrelevant.

We're also not sure that John F. Kennedy was actually killed by an assassin's bullet in Dallas, since, given the fact that he wasn't attached to EKG and other monitoring devices, we can't be certain that he hadn't already died of a stroke 0.347 second prior to the bullet's impact.

Come on.

We have the testimony of witnesses who were with him through the large majority of the dictation who not only report the presence of no manuscripts but insist that, had such a manuscript been present, they would have been aware of it.

And the evidence of textual dependence on the King James Version of the Bible is ironclad.

And yet no witness reports the presence of a Bible and there is evidence that Joseph bought a Bible, but did so too late to have been of use during the dictation.

It's pretty clear that there was a Bible present for some of the production of the Book of Mormon

The witnesses say there wasn't.

Facts. Tough things.

even though the vast majority of the text could well have been dictated by a seer peering contemplatively into a hat, particularly if he had spent several years honing the story both orally and mentally beforehand. We know from Homer and more recent oral poets that great epics can be spun extemporaneously without recourse to written manuscripts.

It seems to me an enormous stretch to suggest that the Parry-Lord hypothesis can account for the Book of Mormon. The differences between Joseph Smith, Homer, and Serbo-Croatian bards seem to me numerous and salient, and I can't think of much in the Book of Mormon that can be seriously argued to be an ornamental epithet equivalent to eos rhododaktylos, oinops pontos, podas okus axilleus, or koruthaiolos ektor.

I hope I'll be pardoned if I consider the Book of Mormon something less of an accomplishment than the Iliad or the Odyssey.

You may be pardoned. And you may be wrong.

[YH8]

Do you require of each an explanation of the philosophy they operate under?

Usually only if they use science and/or their status as a scientist as a club to beat people with.

Sorry, still doesnâ??t mean anything to me.

No need to apologize to me, really. I'm comfortable with my science-hood.

Is there something of substance I should respond to in your portrayal of my understandings of God?

Only if you recognize it and choose to, I suppose.

Not what I said.

So implying there is nothing rational in the Bible does not suggest that people that pay attention to it are not rational?

Don't tell me you are going to start claiming that you don't "say" things through implication; as if to argue that if there is not verbatim quote then it wasn't "said."

Are you The Dude?

[Jason]

Don't tell me you are going to start claiming that you don't "say" things through implication; as if to argue that if there is not verbatim quote then it wasn't "said."

Actually, claiming innocence when he has made a clear claim through implication seems to be a common tactic of ThePhy.

[Alf O'Mega]

We're also not sure that John F. Kennedy was actually killed by an assassin's bullet in Dallas, since, given the fact that he wasn't attached to EKG and other monitoring devices, we can't be certain that he hadn't already died of a stroke 0.347 second prior to the bullet's impact.

Come on.

So the possibility that the witnesses missed (or forgot or left unreported) the times when a Bible was in use is on par with the chance that JFK died in the split-second before the bullet hit?

Come on.

We have the testimony of witnesses who were with him through the large majority of the dictation who not only report the presence of no manuscripts but insist that, had such a manuscript been present, they would have been aware of it.

Their insisting it doesn't make it a "fact". People are notoriously overconfident in the accuracy of their own perceptions and recollections.

And yet no witness reports the presence of a Bible and there is evidence that Joseph bought a Bible, but did so too late to have been of use during the dictation.

Another argument from silence. Oliver and Joseph buying a Bible from E. B. Grandin in October 1829 (and the witnesses failing to report the presence of a Bible) is far from establishing that Joseph had no access to one before then.

It seems to me an enormous stretch to suggest that the Parry-Lord hypothesis can account for the Book of Mormon. The differences between Joseph Smith, Homer, and Serbo-Croatian bards seem to me numerous and salient, and I can't think of much in the Book of Mormon that can be seriously argued to be an ornamental epithet equivalent to eos rhododaktylos, oinops pontos, podas okus axilleus, or koruthaiolos ektor.

I recognize that the specific dynamics of textual production are very different for the Parry-Lord hypothesis and the Joseph-as-mainly-oral-Book-of-Mormon-author hypothesis. (For one thing, the formal constraints on the bards are much more exacting than the ersatz-Elizabethan argot Joseph chose to work in.) I cite it as a demonstrated method, well short of requiring supernatural intervention, for arriving at a complex but dictated text.

[Daniel Peterson]

If you insist on chucking the primary historical sources out the window, you're free to do anything you like with the story.

[Alf O'Mega]

If you insist on chucking the primary historical sources out the window, you're free to do anything you like with the story.

Yeah, that's what I did. By considering some witnesses fallible and weighing their testimony against the textual evidence, I am "chucking the primary historical sources out the window." Let me point out that, like Dan Vogel and other thoughtful critics, I do accept the remarkable timeline that Joseph appears to have worked within to produce the Book of Mormon. If I were just wantonly defenestrating historical sources, it would be a lot easier to start there.

[cdowis]

I hope I'll be pardoned if I consider the Book of Mormon something less of an accomplishment than the Iliad or the Odyssey.

OK, and you would then agree that, like the Iliad, it is based on actual historical events? The internal evidence shows that the BOM has a basis in history, such as those points I have repeatedly mentioned, and the critics can only respond, "just another coincidence".

[Alf O'Mega]

OK, and you would then agree that, like the Iliad, it is based on actual historical events? The internal evidence shows that the BOM has a basis in history, such as those points I have repeatedly mentioned, and the critics can only respond, "just another coincidence".

Yes, there certainly are historical events recorded in the Book of Mormon. I think it's likely, for example, that there actually was a King Zedekiah and that the city of Jerusalem was destroyed sometime after 600 B.C. I think there was also actually a seer named Joseph, whose father was also named Joseph, even though the prophecy of him was pseudepigraphical.

See how reasonable I can be?

[Daniel Peterson]

By considering some witnesses fallible

Unlike me? I consider the witnesses infallible?

Straw man.

Heck, straw nation.

and weighing their testimony against the textual evidence

Which I've done, too. With quite different results.

I am "chucking the primary historical sources out the window."

To a considerable extent, yes.

Let me point out that, like Dan Vogel and other thoughtful critics, I do accept the remarkable timeline that Joseph appears to have worked within to produce the Book of Mormon. If I were just wantonly defenestrating historical sources, it would be a lot easier to start there.

Perhaps you're not entirely beyond redemption.

[Alf O'Mega]

Perhaps you're not entirely beyond redemption.

I've often thought the same of you, you old flatterer, you.

[Sargon]

Okay John, let me put it more directly - I am speaking as an expert in fraud when I say that JS would have to take his place as the all-time leader of fraudsters for the BoM to be a hoax; everything else pales in comparison. Furthermore, there is very little evidence which suggests to me that all the other acts of his life were consistent with the kind of personality who would be capable of perpetrating that level of fraud.

It does matter John, because it is evidence which stands in stark contrast to that evidence which supports a hoax theory. That you have chosen to dismiss such evidence does not negate its importance.

ttribe,

Have you ever considered writing some sort of essay about this? I think it would be very interesting and informative for most of us who are not trained in your field. It also might have the power to sway minds.

Thanks.

Sargon

[ttribe]

ttribe,

Have you ever considered writing some sort of essay about this? I think it would be very interesting and informative for most of us who are not trained in your field. It also might have the power to sway minds.

Thanks.

Sargon

That's an interesting suggestion and, honestly, not one I had considered. There's certainly a lot of information out there on the psychology and actions of various fraudsters to draw from. It could be an interesting exercise. Unfortunately, I don't see such a work taking shape (at least from my keyboard) in the very near future...being a young professional about to make partner in my firm, I'm quite buried in practice development...not to mention trying to assist in raising my three little ones. Nevertheless, I'll mull it over.