Anachronisms in the BOM

[cdowis]

In another thread, Analytics made a cheap shot regarding anachronisms in the BOM.

Go for it!

[Nevo]

Here are a few that immediately come to mind:

• Christianity
  
• infant baptism
  
• doctrine of the Fall
  
• penal substitution theory of atonement
  
• anti-Universalism
  
• republicanism
  
• synagogues
  
• "priestcraft"
  

[aletheia]

Here are a few that immediately come to mind:

• Christianity
  
• infant baptism
  
• doctrine of the Fall
  
• penal substitution theory of atonement
  
• anti-Universalism
  
• republicanism
  
• synagogues
  
• "priestcraft"
  

The word synagogue is often used in the Book of Mormon to denote a house of worship. Many scholars feel that the synagogue was not developed until after the Babylonian captivity thus, the detractors claim the Book of Mormon fails again. However, many scholars disagree with this concept. Peloubetâ??s Bible Dictionary reads as follows: â??â?¦but there are some reasons to think that they were in existence (synagogues) centuries earlier (than the Babylonian captivity)â? The Bible confirms this concept as Psalm 74:8, written by Asaph in pre-Babylonian captivity days, refers to synagogues.

The Book of Mormon has also been criticized for calling the believers Christians before the advent of Christ. In the New Testament this name was first applied to the believers in A.D. 43 at Antioch (Acts 11:26). It may have been first used as an insult towards the Saints or at least an epithet of irreverent distinction. Although the word â??Christianâ? in the Bible and the word â??Christianâ? in the Book of Mormon are linguistically identical, they have different subtle meanings. In the Bible â??Christianâ? denotes someone who believes that the Christ has come to the world. In Joseph Smithâ??s translation of the Book of Mormon the word denotes someone who believes that a Christ will come into the world. What other word could Joseph Smith have used to express this concept?

[cdowis]

Here are a few that immediately come to mind:

• Christianity
  
• infant baptism
  
• doctrine of the Fall
  
• penal substitution theory of atonement
  
• anti-Universalism
  
• republicanism
  
• synagogues
  
• "priestcraft"
  

Anachronisms include the ability to prove that it is anachronistic.

Please supply specific references for one or more items on your list. To help you, please feel free to use any codex, any written records from the BOM time period to document your case. Each of these items are ****ideas**** and, short of actually producing individuals who lived in that time period (which requires a time machine), we require extensive written records.

Finding "negative evidence" requires a wide range of documents, in this case on religion. How many religions existed at this time, what were their doctrines, their practices for each of those cults.

Now, please tell us how many written records are extant from the preclassic, the BOM, time period. 1000.....100.......10.....5.....1..... less than one?

Patiently awaiting your response.

I think you are full of hot air, but let's see what you got.

[Cold Steel]

Here's one that almost made it into the original Book of Mormon:

"And it came to pass that I, being eleven years old, was carried by my father into the land southward, even by railroad, to the land of Zarahemla." (Mormon 1:6)

Also, this one:

"And it came to pass that he departed into the wilderness. And he left his house, and the land of his inheritance, and his gold watch, and his silver-etched musket, and his precious things, and took nothing with him, save it were his family, and provisions, and tents, and departed into the wilderness." (1 Nephi 2:4)

Fortunately, these were caught before the book went to press.

[Nevo]

Anachronisms include the ability to prove that it is anachronistic.

Please supply specific references for one or more items on your list. To help you, please feel free to use any codex, any written records from the BOM time period to document your case. Each of these items are ****ideas**** and, short of actually producing individuals who lived in that time period (which requires a time machine), we require extensive written records.

Finding "negative evidence" requires a wide range of documents, in this case on religion. How many religions existed at this time, what were their doctrines, their practices for each of those cults.

Now, please tell us how many written records are extant from the preclassic, the BOM, time period. 1000.....100.......10.....5.....1..... less than one?

Patiently awaiting your response.

I think you are full of hot air, but let's see what you got.

I'm busy cooking a turkey for the ward Christmas party tonight, but if I can find a spare moment I will be sure to provide a comprehensive catalog of all known ancient religions, along with a careful exposition of all of their beliefs and practices.

(To which you will reply that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.")

[cdowis]

I'm busy cooking a turkey for the ward Christmas party tonight, but if I can find a spare moment I will be sure to provide a comprehensive catalog of all known ancient religions, along with a careful exposition of all of their beliefs and practices.

(To which you will reply that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.")

Ahem, I am not interested in world religions.

We are looking for detailed references to =mesoamerican religions= during the BOM time period, as found in the original written records from that time period.

You made the claim, so let's see you back it up with documentation.

PS, just because you say something, that don't make it true. That is the bottom line of "lack of evidence".

[Analytics]

Just to keep this in perspective, here is how we got here.

Thesometimesaint said that the most rational reading of the Book of Mormon is to read it as a very limited scope of the Nephite/Lamanite lands.

My opinion is that the most rational reading is that it is 19th Century American fiction. Most of that thread was arguing over that point.

Brant Gardner said something to the effect that when experts in Mesoamerican anthropology study the Book of Mormon using only the tools of secular anthropology, they conclude that the secular evidence is so strong in favor of the Book of Mormonâ??s antiquity that you ought to accept it.

My response was that if this is the case, why canâ??t these scholars (who all happen to have religious loyalties to the Book of Mormon potentially compromising the impartiality of their analysis) convince their peers that the Book of Mormon is an accurate translation of an authentic ancient manuscript.

Gardner then said at great length something to the effecty that mainstream archeologists only care about the big and important cultures of Mesoamerica which precludes the ancient Lehites, and that because of the angel they are reluctant to take it seriously. Further, the scholars who do believe that the evidence proves the Book of Mormon is authentic arenâ??t allowed to publish their findings because of unwritten rules.

While he was explaining why the highly respected scholars canâ??t convince their peers to take their unpublished opinions on this matter seriously, he said, â??Cursory study hangs up on presumed anachronisms which reinforce the original reluctance.â?

So what is an example of anachronisms?

How about ancient Mesoamericans making detailed histories in bound volumes of metal plates. In the Book of Mormon, this technology existed with the Jaradites and even the ancient people of Zarahemla found 24 metal plates with Jaradite writings. Nephi says that he had the early books of the old testament bound in a set of metal plates, and that this technology for making records on plates lasted for another 1,000 years, until Mormon compiled the entire Book of Mormon into such a volume.

It is my understanding that professional archeologists find this highly anachronisticâ??there is zero evidence that the ancient Mesoamericansâ??be they from the Jaradite time frame or the Lehite timeframeâ??compiled records in big volumes of metal plates.

Here is a link about Book of Mormon anachronisms, and you may disect this as you will.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon_anachronisms

Be all that as it may, Iâ??m not going to get into arguments about whether or not the secular evidence indicates that the Book of Mormon really is historical. To me it is painfully obvious that it isnâ??t, but as Gardner has correctly pointed out, Iâ??m not a qualified professional and my opinion doesnâ??t count for much. Go ahead and convince the mainstream scholastic community, and Iâ??ll happily admit that I was wrong.

[cdowis]

Just to keep this in perspective, here is how we got here.

Thesometimesaint said that the most rational reading of the Book of Mormon is to read it as a very limited scope of the Nephite/Lamanite lands.

My opinion is that the most rational reading is that it is 19th Century American fiction. Most of that thread was arguing over that point.

And I asked him to give us the 19th century origin of sheum, Paanchi, and Pahoran. But we did not "get here" in this thread, so I will snip the rest of your post as irrevelant summary of another thread and you can post this over there.

snip

So what is an example of anachronisms?

An anachronism, according my previous post is something that we can document as not belonging in the context of a supposed historical document.

It is fairly simply to document technology which does not belong, such as an automobile or rocket in the Bronze Age. But ideas, concepts, etc are not so easily dismissed.

You can try to document a idea or concept is out of place but that requires a very heavy burden of proof. Ideas can only be documented in written records, not vry well with physical artifacts.

For example, we know that the fish is an icon of early Christians, but we only know that because of written records. If we see a fish, or a crucifix, we know what that means.

But if we see a feathered serpent, what does that really mean? Thus, we reuire a broad spectrum of those historical and religious records to search for the possibility of the existence of those ideas.

How about ancient Mesoamericans making detailed histories in bound volumes of metal plates.

They certainly used the codex, and virtually all of them were destroyed by our Catholic friends. Do you think gold or other precious metals would have survived? Cortez, et al, was not particularly sympathetic for the historical value of anything that was made of gold.

And that is a documented fact.

In the Book of Mormon, this technology existed with the Jaradites and even the ancient people of Zarahemla found 24 metal plates with Jaradite writings. Nephi says that he had the early books of the old testament bound in a set of metal plates, and that this technology for making records on plates lasted for another 1,000 years, until Mormon compiled the entire Book of Mormon into such a volume.

And we learn from church history that Mormon and Moroni preserved those records, and they are hidden away even today.

It is my understanding that professional archeologists find this highly anachronisticâ??there is zero evidence that the ancient Mesoamericansâ??be they from the Jaradite time frame or the Lehite timeframeâ??compiled records in big volumes of metal plates.

They are either hidden away, or were melted down.

Here is a link about Book of Mormon anachronisms, and you may disect this as you will.

I do not respond to web pages and cut and paste stuff. You do the work, since you are the one making the assertion.

If you are willing to defend some specific points, bring it to our attention and we can discuss it.

Be all that as it may, Iâ??m not going to get into arguments about whether or not the secular evidence indicates that the Book of Mormon really is historical. To me it is painfully obvious that it isnâ??t, but as Gardner has correctly pointed out, Iâ??m not a qualified professional and my opinion doesnâ??t count for much. Go ahead and convince the mainstream scholastic community, and Iâ??ll happily admit that I was wrong.

And I will not argue with you on that point. The "chalk full" of anachronisms have now disappeared.

Lesson learned == if you make a cheap shot in this forum, be prepared to defend it.

[Brant Gardner]

Here are a few that immediately come to mind:

• Christianity: This is a fascinating assumption based on two things. First, the extensive use of the word "Christ" in the pre-advent sections of the Book of Mormon and secondly, the assumption that these attitudes were unrepresentative of pre-Exilic Israelite religion. When "Christ" is used, the text certainly sounds Christian (and even more so because we attach all of our understanding of Christianity when we see the word). If you "retranslate" to the more time-appropriate Messiah (which is the same meaning), then the Book of Mormon is a strongly Messianic text, not "Christian." The next question is whether it fits into pre-Exilic Israel. That was where I found Margaret Barker's research most helpful. She provides just such a context. More than that, she indicates that conflicts over the nature of the Messianic religion were part of the Josiahn reforms. That particular conflict that she sees being played out in the OT provides rich context to explain precisely the nature of the religion issues in 1 Nephi.
  
• infant baptism: If we read the Book of Mormon against Mesoamerica, it is highly plausible that this is a reaction to a common rite of the time. It survived in both the Maya and Aztecs until the time of the conquest, when the Spanish fathers saw it, called it "baptism" and used it as an indication that the natives must have known Christianity.
  
• doctrine of the Fall: For this and the next two, it is very difficult to deal with these as anachronisms because the idea that they are anachronistic absolutely depends upon the assumption that they are unique to a time and place and that no one ever had or could have had a similar idea (even based upon a similar theological base). That assumption is highly questionable.
  
• penal substitution theory of atonement
  
• anti-Universalism
  
• republicanism: This one simply doesn't exist. Bushman was the first to point this out. He went looking for it because he knew that it was there (as many suppose), and wanted to use it as part of some patriotic essay. He couldn't find it. If you read the text carefully, it really isn't there. The closest government I have found to what is described in the Book of Mormon is the council of elders among the Maya (the "Popol Nah").
  
• synagogues: It is tricky to suggest that an anachronism exists based upon the word used in a translation. Past that, however, since the meaning of the word is a gathering location and the genesis of these specific locations has some roots that can be traced to this early, it isn't much of an anachronism.
  
• "priestcraft": This is another that is only based on vocabulary. If you look at what defines "priestcraft" in the Book of Mormon, it is a particular set of cultural traits that are more at home in Mesoamerican cultural development than in the 1800's.
  

[Brant Gardner]

Here is a link about Book of Mormon anachronisms, and you may disect this as you will.

I assume you went to the link because this isn't one of your arguments. The list is pretty standard and you can find responses to them in the FAIR wiki as well as pretty much any modern discussion of the Book of Mormon.

I am particularly fond of "anachronisms" such as using Christ instead of Messiah. That would be a really effective issue, if the Book of Mormon were originally written anciently in English. However, as it claims to be a translation, this cannot possibly be an anachronism unless it could be demonstrated that this were the distinction that existed on the plates. Since the very nature of the "anachronism" exists only because English received its vocabulary from two different ancient languages (only one of which could have influenced the original plate language), the "anachronism" tells us much more about the ones looking for the problems in the Book of Mormon than it does about the Book of Mormon.

Go ahead and convince the mainstream scholastic community, and Iâ??ll happily admit that I was wrong.

But we have to make sure that those who are convinced don't join the church, right? You do realize that you have set a standard that you know won't be met, because when some if it is, and the evidence actually convinces someone, and they join the church, you automatically discount them as "not mainstream" and ignore them?

If you were to try to turn your statement into any kind of semi-scientific "test," it would be rejected at the outset because the format of the test is biased to return only the answer that is assumed before the test.

[urroner]

But we have to make sure that those who are convinced don't join the church, right? You do realize that you have set a standard that you know won't be met, because when some if it is, and the evidence actually convinces someone, and they join the church, you automatically discount them as "not mainstream" and ignore them?

Ahh, shades of Jordan Vajda.

As a side note, Brant, wasn't there a leading archaeologist from Central America who joined the Church? I believe the archaeologist was a woman if that helps.

Edited:

I think I have found what I was looking for:

Alejandro Sarabia Gonzalez is the director of the museum at Teotihuacan. He is a leading Mexican archeologist. He is married to Kim Goldsmith who is also an archeologist.

The Sarabias joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in about 2002. Although their being experts in Mesoamerican archeology is looked on as a plus for the reality of the Book of Mormon, they are quick to point out their conversion was based on faith and not archeological fact.

[Sargon]

Ahh, shades of Jordan Vajda.

As a side note, Brant, wasn't there a leading archaeologist from Central America who joined the Church? I believe the archaeologist was a woman if that helps.

Edited:

I think I have found what I was looking for:

Mark Wright wrote the following:

I can name two: Alejandro Sarabia, the current site director of Teotihuacan (the largest archaeological zone in all of Mesoamerica) and his wife, Dr. Kim Goldsmith (PhD, UC Riverside Dept of Anthropology, dissertation on ceramics of Teotihuacan). They both joined the church several years ago after meeting some missionaries proselyting outside the gates of the Teo. Kim and Alejandro just got sealed last March. Both of them joined the church many, many years after earning their degrees in archaeology and both have decades of research under their belts at Teotihuacan (a site which was flourishing in Book of Mormon times, incidentally). I will serve as a primary source on this information, since I know Kim and her husband, and had lunch with them down in Teo just a few weeks ago.

He had some other thoughts on the general subject of Mormon archaeologists:

As for the opinion of most Mesoamerican scholars, the vast majority of them have no clue what the Book of Mormon says and most will never take the time to read it. Most of what they think they know about it comes from psuedoscholars who publish their misinformed junk science that fills the shelves of Deseret Book. As a Mesoamericanist, the only books I can really recommend on the subject that contain current scholarship are Brant's new volumes, but I don't know any scholars would take the time to read a six-volume set. Most won't take the time to respond to an email (I'm not kidding).

As for how archaeologists who happen to be Mormon are concerned, they are well respected in the field. I'm at the Maya Meetings at Texas right now (they end tomorrow). Allen Christensen from BYU spoke to a packed house last night - everybody here absolutely adores him. He was even asked to cover MCing duty today since David Stuart's voice was going out (David Stuart is the world's leading Maya epigrapher). John Clark is also highly respected in the field, as is Richard Hansen (though he got in some hot water for consulting on Apocalypto). I know of a couple of others who are LDS (who don't make it public out of fear of being labeled crack-pots, which prejudice is based on the aforementioned junk science). My committee members all know I'm LDS, and they show me just as much respect as any other doctoral candidate.

[Nevo]

Christianity: This is a fascinating assumption based on two things. First, the extensive use of the word "Christ" in the pre-advent sections of the Book of Mormon and secondly, the assumption that these attitudes were unrepresentative of pre-Exilic Israelite religion. When "Christ" is used, the text certainly sounds Christian (and even more so because we attach all of our understanding of Christianity when we see the word). If you "retranslate" to the more time-appropriate Messiah (which is the same meaning), then the Book of Mormon is a strongly Messianic text, not "Christian." The next question is whether it fits into pre-Exilic Israel. That was where I found Margaret Barker's research most helpful. She provides just such a context. More than that, she indicates that conflicts over the nature of the Messianic religion were part of the Josiahn reforms. That particular conflict that she sees being played out in the OT provides rich context to explain precisely the nature of the religion issues in 1 Nephi.

Even if you replace the references to Christ with Messiah, the text is still explicitly Christian--not simply "Messianic". I just opened the Book of Mormon at random and found this:

"Yea, even six hundred years from the time that my father left Jerusalem, a prophet would the Lord God raise up among the Jewsâ??even a Messiah, or, in other words, a Savior of the world. And he also spake concerning the prophets, how great a number had testified of these things, concerning this Messiah, of whom he had spoken, or this Redeemer of the world. Wherefore, all mankind were in a lost and in a fallen state, and ever would be save they should rely on this Redeemer." (1 Nephi 10:4-6)

I am not aware of any non-Christian text that equates a messiah with "a Savior of the world" who redeems all mankind from the effects of the Fall--an idea conspicuously absent from the Hebrew Bible. As the Dutch scholar Marinus de Jonge points out, "in the Old Testament the term â??anointedâ? is never used of a future savior/redeemer" (ABD 4:777)--much less a future savior of all mankind from sin and death.

And there can be no question as to which "anointed one" the Book of Mormon refers. Unlike the Bible, there is only one messiah in the Book of Mormon and that is Jesus. So it seems absurd to claim that the Book of Mormon is somehow not a Christian text.

[Nevo]

infant baptism: If we read the Book of Mormon against Mesoamerica, it is highly plausible that this is a reaction to a common rite of the time. It survived in both the Maya and Aztecs until the time of the conquest, when the Spanish fathers saw it, called it "baptism" and used it as an indication that the natives must have known Christianity.

This is interesting, to be sure. But infant baptism in the Book of Mormon is presented as a deviant Christian practice. As Edwin Firmage observes, Mormon's opposition to the practice draws on "a pastiche of New Testament sentiments taken out of context":

His quotation of Jesus to the effect that 'the law of circumcision is done away in me' is the most peculiar. This Pauline sentiment makes sense in its original social setting: the struggle to establish the independence of the gentile church from Jewish ritual. But what relevance does it have to Moroni's practical difficulty? In fact, the problem faced by Paul could scarcely have arisen among Nephite leaders who all along had championed the rejection of Jewish "Law" in terms that could be called anti-Jewish.

Thus, Firmage goes on to write:

The problem of infant baptism cannot realistically be located in the sort of world which the Book of Mormon itself would lead us to expect. But in Joseph Smith's world, the issue was very much alive. Presbyterians, the most popular group around Palmyra, held with Calvinism that baptism as a sign of conversion was not necessary as a means of salvation. It was not administered to infants. Methodists, the next largest group in the area, required infant baptism. Baptists, also well represented, . . . excluded children from the rite. Universalists allowed baptism in any number of forms but held that it was not mandatory. The Friends did away with sacraments altogether. One could therefore find among major religious movements in the area just about every possible attitude toward baptism. The key to understanding Moroni 8 . . . is the reference to Ancient American "disputations" (vv. 4-5), which these revelations are meant to quell. This is, in fact, the only hint of such disputations in the Book of Mormon. Reference to theological conflict makes great sense in the context of New York revivalism.

-- Edwin Firmage, Jr., "Historical Criticism and the Book of Mormon," in

American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon

, ed. Dan Vogel and Brent Lee Metcalfe (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 12-13.

[Nevo]

• doctrine of the Fall: For this and the next two, it is very difficult to deal with these as anachronisms because the idea that they are anachronistic absolutely depends upon the assumption that they are unique to a time and place and that no one ever had or could have had a similar idea (even based upon a similar theological base). That assumption is highly questionable.
  
• penal substitution theory of atonement
  
• anti-Universalism
  

I agree with you here. If one posits a parallel development of Christianity in the Americas, then these doctrines are at least plausible. But I don't think there is any getting around the fact that the Book of Mormon, in many places, echoes nineteenth-century pulpit rhetoric. For example, BYU professor Grant Underwood notes that Almaâ??s admonition to Corianton not to "suppose, because it has been spoken concerning restoration, that ye shall be restored from sin to happiness" would have struck nineteenth-century readers as a "particularly pointed" reference to Universalism "in light of the Universalist slogan about the restoration of all to 'holiness' and 'happiness'" (Grant Underwood, "The Earliest Reference Guides to the Book of Mormon: Windows into the Past," Journal of Mormon History 12 [1985]: 78). Even if it is embedded in a chiasm

[Nevo]

republicanism: This one simply doesn't exist. Bushman was the first to point this out. He went looking for it because he knew that it was there (as many suppose), and wanted to use it as part of some patriotic essay. He couldn't find it. If you read the text carefully, it really isn't there. The closest government I have found to what is described in the Book of Mormon is the council of elders among the Maya (the "Popol Nah").

Here I am not simply referring to republican government per se (which Bushman effectively refutes) but to what historians of American history refer to as "republicanism" or "republican ideology" (see, e.g., Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969], 46-123).

The best treatment of republicanism in the Book of Mormon is Kenneth Winn's Exiles in a Land of Liberty: Mormons in America, 1830-1846. Here are a few excerpts.

Republican ideology, it will be recalled, characterized the ideal society as one composed of independent, industrious, self-reliant citizens. These citizens exemplified simplicity, frugality, and civic virtue and shunned luxury and dependence which demoralized society and led to threats of tyranny and anarchy. Having inherited similar biases toward wealth and labor from Puritan thought, Americans appropriated the Puritan jeremiad to voice their fears that society would collapse if they abandoned republican virtue. Thus the Book of Mormon with its cycle of virtue, decline, and reawakening displays a striking similarity to the canons of republican literature.

The positive ideals of republicanism shine forth most clearly in the moral character Smith attributes to the Nephites. At their godly best, they exhibit the personal qualities of industriousness, self-restraint, and humble fidelity to the other divine precepts that most Americans deemed necessary both for individual success and for the maintenance of the republic. The prophet Nephi, for instance, recorded that shortly after his followers separated from the wicked Lamanites, "I did cause my people that they should be industrious, and that they should labor with their hands": a practice they continued as long as they remained worthy of God's favor. Similarly, the Jaredites . . . "were exceeding industrious," so much so that there "never could be a people more blessed than they, and more prospered by the Lord." Even groups of Lamanites, who on occasion converted to the Nephite religion, marked their change of heart by quickly abandoning their indolent ways and beginning to "labor exceedingly."

Not only did Smith cast his exemplars of godly virtue as industrious and diligent workers, but also, like a good republican, commended certain occupations as productive and denounced others as parasitical. Lawyers and merchants, for example, he condemned as economic oppressors. He sometimes praised craftsmen adept at metal work, carpentry, or weaving, but he reserved his strongest approbation for farmers. Americans generally extolled the yeoman farmer as the epitome of industriousness, independence, and civic virtue, and so it is in the Book of Mormon. . . .

Terms such as "liberty," "freedom," and "rights" are pervasive in the Book of Mormon and employed in a manner that would have puzzled a premodern people. [see, for example, Captain Moroni's declaration: "I seek not for power, but to pull it down. I seek not for honor of the world, but for the glory of my God, and the freedom and welfare of my country."]

-- Kenneth H. Winn,

Exiles in a Land of Liberty: Mormons in America, 1830-1846

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989) 20-21, 242n34.

[kawikadave]

penal substitution theory of atonement

Was interested in this one, because I wasn't that familiar with it. Looked around and it seems like this is a reasonable definition:

Although God was angry at us for our sins, Jesus drew that anger upon himself and satisfied it when he died. We are saved from punishment because Jesus has experienced the punishment we had earned. We call this idea the "penal substitution" theory of atonement. God had good reasons for feeling angry with us, and that anger had to go somewhere—so Jesus took it into himself.

Hmmm... not sure how this is an anachronism...

First - the concept of punishing a third party can be found throughout the Old Testament - scape goat anyone?

Second - is this concept really taught in the Book of Mormon regarding the Atonement?

It would be great if Nevo could clarify his thoughts here, or if he posted it from some other source, if he could post the thoughts of those who originally created this list of supposed anachronisms.

[Nevo]

synagogues: It is tricky to suggest that an anachronism exists based upon the word used in a translation. Past that, however, since the meaning of the word is a gathering location and the genesis of these specific locations has some roots that can be traced to this early, it isn't much of an anachronism.

If it were true that the synagogue as building could be traced to pre-exilic times, then perhaps it wouldn't be much of an anachronism. But as far as I know this is not the case. According to Eric Myers, who has some expertise in this area, the synagogue as building (as opposed to the synagogue as social and religious institution) didn't emerge until after the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 CE ("Synagogue," ABD 6:255). Most of the Book of Mormon references to synagogues seem to indicate buildings constructed for the purpose of communal prayer and worship--as opposed to simply "a gathering location" at a city gate or some such.

Moreover, as I have noted elsewhere, Book of Mormon synagogues function narratively much as they do in the New Testament--in particular as sites of missionary preaching and persecution and religious hypocrisy.

[Nevo]

Was interested in this one, because I wasn't that familiar with it. Looked around and it seems like this is a reasonable definition:

Hmmm... not sure how this is an anachronism...

First - the concept of punishing a third party can be found throughout the Old Testament - scape goat anyone?

Second - is this concept really taught in the Book of Mormon regarding the Atonement?

It would be great if Nevo could clarify his thoughts here, or if he posted it from some other source, if he could post the thoughts of those who originally created this list of supposed anachronisms.

I'm not much of a student of classical Christian theology so I may have the terminology wrong. I was relying on the venerable Wikipedia's definition of penal substitution as "a theory of the atonement within Christian theology, especially associated with the Reformed tradition. It argues that Christ, by his own sacrificial choice, was punished (penalised) in the place of sinners (substitution), thus satisfying the demands of justice so God can justly forgive the sins. It is thus a specific understanding of substitutionary atonement, where the substitutionary nature of Jesus' death is understood in the sense of a substitutionary punishment."

If "penal substitution" conveys the idea of appeasing God's wrath, as your quote suggests, then "satisfaction theory" may be the better term. In any case, I am referring to Anselm's conception of Christ's atonement as satisfying the demands of God's justice, which is clearly laid out in Alma 42.

[kawikadave]

I'm not much of a student of classical Christian theology so I may have the terminology wrong. I was relying on the venerable Wikipedia's definition of penal substitution as "a theory of the atonement within Christian theology, especially associated with the Reformed tradition. It argues that Christ, by his own sacrificial choice, was punished (penalised) in the place of sinners (substitution), thus satisfying the demands of justice so God can justly forgive the sins. It is thus a specific understanding of substitutionary atonement, where the substitutionary nature of Jesus' death is understood in the sense of a substitutionary punishment."

If "penal substitution" conveys the idea of appeasing God's wrath, as your quote suggests, then "satisfaction theory" may be the better term. In any case, I am referring to Anselm's conception of Christ's atonement as satisfying the demands of God's justice, which is clearly laid out in Alma 42.

Thank you for the clarification. I'm still not sure that it's very convincing as an anachronism since a "substitutionary atonement" is symbolized throughout the Old Testament. Here is a quote from the Christian site I pulled the explanation of "penal substitution theory":

http://www.jeffwofford.com/2007/07/jesus-saves-but-how.html

The penal substitution theory has its upsides and downsides. On the upside, the Bible says that something like this took place. Jesus is described as a sacrificial lamb that takes away the sin of the world, and if we look at the idea of sacrificial lambs in the Old Testament, we see that they were thought of us substitutes right back to Abraham and the Passover—dying in place of human beings to take away their sins. Paul says, in a profound and beautiful statement, "God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:21, NET)

[Rommelator]

Here is a useful article on the presence, function and background of Synagogues in the Book of Mormon.

http://farms.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vo...um=1&id=207

A relevant passge from the article:

One aspect of our understanding of biblical synagogues that has been reevaluated in the light of new research is the view that synagogues did not exist until after the Babylonian captivity. Lee I. Levine, a leading scholar on the history of the synagogue, has suggested that synagogues did exist before the Babylonian captivity in the form of chambers in the city gates. Such gates have been excavated by archaeologists at such important Old Testament sites as Beersheba, Gezer, Lachish, and Megiddo. Each of these has

1. at least one chamber (which is nearly square) lined with stone benches around the interior walls (the benched chamber at Lachish has two tiers of benches),

2. a single doorway, and

3. where there is enough of the original wall left to determine it, a niche. I suggest that these niches were used for storing special ritual items, perhaps even sacred scrolls.

Levine concludes that since later synagogues closely mirror the architecture of the gate chambers, these chambers may well have been the original synagogues. This conclusion is supported by a number of biblical passages that indicate that the city gate and its vicinity were the hub of a community's life. The gate area served as

the market place (see 2 Kings 7:1),

the general court (see Genesis 23:10, 18; Deuteronomy 17:5, 21:19 and 22:24; Ruth 4:1â?? 12; Jeremiah 38:7; Daniel 2:48â?? 49; and Esther 5:9, 13; 6:10),

the royal court (see 2 Samuel 18:4 and 19:8; and 1 Kings 22:10, which equals 2 Chronicles 18:9), and

a place of worship (see 2 Kings 23:8 and Nehemiah 8:1).7

Support for Levine's conclusion is also found in the Old Testament terminology for worship service. Several Old Testament writers (see Hosea 2:11; Jeremiah in Lamentations 2:6; Ezekiel 44:24) link Sabbath worship with the Hebrew word moâ??ed which means "assembly, meeting."

If Levine is correct, then, before the captivity, a town's or city's social activities centered around the city gate, and it seems reasonable that these social activities included Sabbath worship in a chamber of the gate that resembled later synagogues and functioned similarly.

The following design is proffered in the article:

From this evidence, it seems that there is no difficulty in the Book of Mormon usage of synagogues. While most of the passages in the Book of Mormon tend to use the word Synagogue as a place of gather or assembly in the broader sense, those passages that do talk about the construction of synagogues (as per Alma 21:4, Alma 31:12) could be explained by this evidence.

As for Universalism, Martin Tanner has responded to the claims that the Book of Mormon represents warmed over 19th century anti-Universalism.

http://farms.byu.edu/publications/review/?...um=1&id=145

I find Firmage's comments on Infant baptism in the Book of Mormon unconvincing. As Brant explained earlier, the practice of "infant baptism" in ancient Mesoamerica is attested by both archaeology and by Spanish eyewitnesses. As Michael Coe explains:

"Immediately after birth, Yucatecan mothers washed their infants and fastened them to a cradle. . . . As soon as possible, the anxious parents were to consult with a priest so as to learn the destiny of their offspring, and the name which he or she was to bear until baptism.

The Spanish Fathers were quite astounded that the Maya had a baptismal rite, which took place at an auspicious time when there were a number of boys and girls between the ages of three and twelve in the settlement."

In The Maya 4th edition, London: Thames and Hudson, 1987, p. 158

Therefore, for me it becomes a non-issue. To look for 19th century parallels is unnecessary because of ancient ones that support the Book of Mormon.

[Rommelator]

More on baptism in the Book of Mormon from Jeff Lindsay:

http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_Baptism.shtml#native

[Mudcat]

editted for clarity.

The BoM references in 1 Nephi 10:8 the term "shoe's latchet".

Have there been any Mesoamerican shoe lathchets found that could be considered of a BoM time frame?

[cdowis]

I am not aware of any non-Christian text that equates a messiah with "a Savior of the world" who redeems all mankind from the effects of the Fall--an idea conspicuously absent from the Hebrew Bible. As the Dutch scholar Marinus de Jonge points out, "in the Old Testament the term â??anointedâ? is never used of a future savior/redeemer" (ABD 4:777)--much less a future savior of all mankind from sin and death.

And there can be no question as to which "anointed one" the Book of Mormon refers. Unlike the Bible, there is only one messiah in the Book of Mormon and that is Jesus. So it seems absurd to claim that the Book of Mormon is somehow not a Christian text.

The BOM contains both Christian ideas, as well as Hebrew, such as the Mosiac law. But this thread is on anachronisms, which I fail to see that you have demonstrated. We do find hints of the atonement in the blood sacrifices of the Mosaic law. The writers of the NT point out many of the prophecies of the coming of Christ as foretold in the Hebrew scriptures.

Again, we are not talking about technological achievements, we are not talking about cars, tanks, and machine guns in mesoamerica. We are talking about ideas, doctrines and revelations to prophets.

The whole basis of your argument is that Christianity is based on the evolution of theology, not revelation from God to a prophet, but the gradual development of a religious philosophy over the course of millenia. We reject that model of religion.

We are asking for proof an an anachronism, and you have failed to demonstrate it beyond the "evolution of religious thought" inherent in your argument.