One possible way of dealing with "anachronisms", Mormon and/or Moroni just messed up.

[Joseph Antley]

Because they had the brass plates, Mormon and Moroni would have read of horses and chariots. Since they were a thousand years removed from the Old World, did they actually fully understand what they were? I doubt it. Did they realize their association with royalty? Most likely.

At first I thought this was kind of silly, but maybe Pedro is on to something.

[cinepro]

cinepro:

There are perhaps dozens+ proper nouns in the BoM. Not too sure that the presents of any of them indicates a tight translation. Maybe those two words are like "Audieu".

It just indicates that the translation process (whatever it was) somehow allowed for the dictation of words that Joseph Smith didn't know. So we can't presume that "words that Joseph Smith knew" was in any way a limiting factor.

I would even suggest that, based on what we know about the translation method, it would have been possible for Joseph to dictate the Book of Mormon into any language (not just English) if needed.

[John Larsen]

John Larsen:

While JS did know what Adieu meant in English, it is possible that he didn't know what "Curelom" meant and just put down the word as it appeared on the plates.

So Joseph Smith was reading words off of the plates? Words like "chariot", dragons", "satyrs" and "Steel"?

[Darth J]

Following up on what I said before:

If Mormon made a mistake---there were no chariots in Book of Mormon lands but he put it in there anyway---begs the question of how Mormon knew what a chariot was..........

He clearly knew what a chariot was.

Then I think the "how did they know what an elephant was?" is a similar question.

The only time elephants are mentioned is when Moroni is summarizing the Jaredite history.

I really find your sense of certainty with amusement. Please give us your source of the large plates of Nephi. You clearly have them at hand, since you can tell us what they contain.

BUT, Moroni also talks about the Jaredites having curelom and cumoms (Ether 9:19).

So here's how this appears to have gone:

Ether writes Jaredite history........or possibly one or more people write Jaredite history and Ether compiles and finishes it, like Moroni did for the Nephites.

Then Moroni is prophetically able to interpret the book of Ether and put it into The Book of Mormon.

Then Joseph Smith prophetically translates what Moroni wrote.

So Joseph Smith is translating what MORONI wrote, not what Ether wrote (I know that's stating the obvious).

And so these are the questions that we can't really answer:

That is why I am on this forum. I don't have the certainty that you seem to have, but I do have a reasonable possibility. Mormon was familiar with this animal, and the large plates may have told him about them. They are the earliest Nephite record, and it is possible that they came across this animal. Mormon had this record available to him.

snip

Cdowis:

1. Find me a place in The Book of Mormon where elephants are mentioned besides in Ether.

2. Find me some evidence that the Jaredites were in the Americas in 5800 B.C.

3. Find me some evidence that Moroni or Mormon ever saw an elephant/mammoth/mastodon.

4. Find me some evidence that Mormon or Moroni ever saw a wheeled chariot pulled by a horse or horses at any time during their lives.

The whole apologetics thing is trying to reconcile the scriptures with the physical evidence available. Were you not aware of this?

Because if we're just going to talk about "may have" and "it is possible" and "can't rule out," then let's talk about UFO abductions, leprechauns and unicorns while we're at it.

[Darth J]

About elephants in the book of Ether:

• Elephants

The only place that elephants are mentioned in the Book of Mormon is in Ether 9:19 in approximately 2500 B.C. Thus any elephants existing upon the American continents need not have survived past about 2400 B.C. The critics, however, assure that the

[volgadon]

It has been proposed, as hinted at by volga, above, that whoever wrote the story of Ammon and the chariots/horses did so in order to make a rhetorical point about Ammon's royalty: Both Joseph and Joseph's sons are reported as engaging in royal behavior that takes the form of taking care of horses and chariots. Ammon is reported as doing the same thing, acting royally while making ritual submission to somebody else.

Joseph prepares his own chariot and horses (rather than having a slave do it) in order to meet his father upon the latter's decent into Egypt after the "divining cup" incident, paralleling Jacob's own royal submissiveness to Esau all those years earlier. He then sends gifts of horses to Jacob with his sons, just as Jacob had sent gifts to Esau. In doing so, both Joseph and Jacob established a pattern of humble royals.

Ammon does the same thing: he royally humiliates himself in serving the Lamanite king by taking care of his chariot and horses . . . and by sending gifts to the same: the severed arms. Doesn't matter whether there were actual chariots and horses . . . whoever wrote the story down created an intentional parallel to both Joseph and Jacob's acts centuries earlier.

Thus either through foul-up or intentional parallel-building or both, Mormon or Alma or somebody else [court scribe?] wrote a stylized tale intended to make the rhetorical point of proper behavior by the royally submissive Ammon when dealing with the bad guy Lamanites, serving the larger purpose of teaching the lesson of how the Nephite nation might have been saved: through royal submissiveness.

Or something.

In a nutshell, that is exactly what I was hinting at. This humility of Jacob and Joseph was also linked with the famous verse of how beautiful upon the mountains, etc.

The tradition was had among the Egyptian Jews and preserved in yemen, an ancient and isolated community. Such midrashim often contain ancient material.

A kng would have his chariots harnessed by a servant. This was difficult and dirty work. That a royal would voluntarily do so themselves is striking, all the more so when done for an enemy.

[Darth J]

In a nutshell, that is exactly what I was hinting at. This humility of Jacob and Joseph was also linked with the famous verse of how beautiful upon the mountains, etc.

The tradition was had among the Egyptian Jews and preserved in yemen, an ancient and isolated community. Such midrashim often contain ancient material.

A kng would have his chariots harnessed by a servant. This was difficult and dirty work. That a royal would voluntarily do so themselves is striking, all the more so when done for an enemy.

Volgadon, there was another thread on this board a while ago about chariots and horses in The Book of Mormon, and someone said this:

It is probably worth noting that the Hebrew Merkabah (Merkavah) is used for traditional horse-drawn chariots, but also, in Ezek 1 and 10 for the flying throne of God borne by the cherubim, apparently much like a palanquin. Furthermore, it also is the Israeli term for tank.

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

So, unless one wishes to argue that the modern IDF uses horse-drawn chariots, the term Merkabah/chariot apparently has a much broader linguistic range than the critics realize.

http://www.mormonapologetics.org/topic/34595-were-bom-horses-used-for-transportation/

Is this accurate?

[Darth J]

More ideas about horses, chariots, and elephants:

[Darth J]

Wrote Mesoamerican expert Brant Gardner, who believes the Book of Mormon was situated in Mesoamerica:

Regardless of the reason for the presence of "horse" and "chariot" in the text, we must still deal with the question of what the original text might have meant the animal and conveyance that Joseph translated as "horse" and "chariot" to be. From this point on, all is speculation

[volgadon]

Volgadon, there was another thread on this board a while ago about chariots and horses in The Book of Mormon, and someone said this:

Is this accurate?

Funny you should bring that up, my dad was a tankist in the IDF. He though served before the Merkavah, in 'centurions', or 'whips' (shot).

The modern Hebrew language likes to modernise archaic words, and when looking for a name for a new piece of military equipment, like to find its equivalent in the Bible. Interestingly enough, the most common term is recheb, but merkabah seems to be an adaptation of the term for the cabin of the chariot, which could be a palanquin.

[Darth J]

Funny you should bring that up, my dad was a tankist in the IDF. He though served before the Merkavah, in 'centurions', or 'whips' (shot).

The modern Hebrew language likes to modernise archaic words, and when looking for a name for a new piece of military equipment, like to find its equivalent in the Bible. Interestingly enough, the most common term is recheb, but merkabah seems to be an adaptation of the term for the cabin of the chariot, which could be a palanquin.

In Italian, "carro armato" is how they say army tank. "Carro" is also the word for chariot ("armato" meaning armored, if you didn't infer that already). "Carro" is the word used for chariot in the Italian Book of Mormon.

[cdowis]

Cdowis:

Why don't you read my post.

1. Find me a place in The Book of Mormon where elephants are mentioned besides in Ether.

Read my post. They may have been mentioned on the large plates.

2. Find me some evidence that the Jaredites were in the Americas in 5800 B.C.

Read my post regarding the synchronization of science chronology and Bible chronology, and the "not found, not exist" logical fallacy.

3. Find me some evidence that Moroni or Mormon ever saw an elephant/mammoth/mastodon.

Read my post.

4. Find me some evidence that Mormon or Moroni ever saw a wheeled chariot pulled by a horse or horses at any time during their lives.

Give me the contrary evidence.

The whole apologetics thing is trying to reconcile the scriptures with the physical evidence available. Were you not aware of this?

Read my post on "not found, not exist"logical fallacy.

Did you read my post?

Because if we're just going to talk about "may have" and "it is possible" and "can't rule out," then let's talk about UFO abductions, leprechauns and unicorns while we're at it.

Stop wasting our time with nonsense and please stop asking me to repeat myself.

[MountainMan]

Joseph Smith also apparently didn't know what cureloms and cumoms were, either, since he had the (apparently Jaredite) words for these animals and not a substitute name (like "pig" for a peccary or "cow" for a bison, or whatever).

So, if Moroni just put the Jaredite words for animals when he didn't know what they were, but he did put in "elephant," how would Moroni have known what an elephant was if they died out hundreds of years before his lifetime?

Wow. Intelligent.

It's a good thing someone put in the interpretation for "deseret" in the Book of Ether:

Ether 2:3 And they did also carry with them deseret, which, by interpretation, is a honey bee; and thus they did carry with them swarms of bees, and all manner of that which was upon the face of the land, seeds of every kind.

Which prophet didn't know what a "deseret" was and inserted the language: "is a honey bee." Was it Moroni or Joseph Smith Jr.?

Any of you Sorenson zombies who eat from the crumbs of his table, found a pre-Columbian Honey Bee?

Or maybe Mormon, in addition to an elephant, didn't know what a deseret was.

What a stupid premise: "The Prophets didn't know what they were writing about." LOL!

And since Mormon wrote about the appearance of Jesus Christ some 400 yrs earlier, maybe Mormon didn't know what that was all about either! LOL!

[Tsuzuki]

Perhaps the gold plates were entirely the work of Moroni's 5th century imagination.

[Darth J]

Wow. Intelligent.

It's a good thing someone put in the interpretation for "deseret" in the Book of Ether:

Which prophet didn't know what a "deseret" was and inserted the language: "is a honey bee." Was it Moroni or Joseph Smith Jr.?

Any of you Sorenson zombies who eat from the crumbs of his table, found a pre-Columbian Honey Bee?

Or maybe Mormon, in addition to an elephant, didn't know what a deseret was.

What a stupid premise: "The Prophets didn't know what they were writing about." LOL!

And since Mormon wrote about the appearance of Jesus Christ some 400 yrs earlier, maybe Mormon didn't know what that was all about either! LOL!

I learned on this thread that it is a fallacy to say that just because there is no evidence for something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Thus, we can't rule out that flying saucers, dinosaurs, Xenu, lightsabers, locomotives, or werewolves existed among the peoples of The Book of Mormon.

A few minutes ago I looked around in my kitchen for a wheeled chariot from pre-Columbian times. I didn't find one, but that doesn't mean there isn't one there.

[Darth J]

Any of you Sorenson zombies who eat from the crumbs of his table, found a pre-Columbian Honey Bee?

The seagulls ate them when they were finished with the crickets.

God deliberately hides evidence and/or makes it improbable because he wants us to have faith.

[selek]

Wow. Intelligent.

It's a good thing someone put in the interpretation for "deseret" in the Book of Ether:

Which prophet didn't know what a "deseret" was and inserted the language: "is a honey bee." Was it Moroni or Joseph Smith Jr.?

Any of you Sorenson zombies who eat from the crumbs of his table, found a pre-Columbian Honey Bee?

Or maybe Mormon, in addition to an elephant, didn't know what a deseret was.

What a stupid premise: "The Prophets didn't know what they were writing about." LOL!

And since Mormon wrote about the appearance of Jesus Christ some 400 yrs earlier, maybe Mormon didn't know what that was all about either! LOL!

I learned on this thread that it is a fallacy to say that just because there is no evidence for something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Thus, we can't rule out that flying saucers, dinosaurs, Xenu, lightsabers, locomotives, or werewolves existed among the peoples of The Book of Mormon.

A few minutes ago I looked around in my kitchen for a wheeled chariot from pre-Columbian times. I didn't find one, but that doesn't mean there isn't one there.

Isn't it interesting that it's the "enlightened" who drip scorn and derision in these topics?

That it's the apostates and the self-professed "open-minded" who have trouble accepting that there might be things unknown to them and are down-right hostile to the idea that their interpretation might be biased and erroneous?

Look at our MDB sockpuppets and double-agents: unwilling to make a reasoned argument, they resort immediately to mockery and scorn.

And then damn us for being hostile and close-minded.

Irony in word and in deed.

[John Larsen]

Isn't it interesting that it's the "enlightened" who drip scorn and derision in these topics?

That it's the apostates and the self-professed "open-minded" who have trouble accepting that there might be things unknown to them and are down-right hostile to the idea that their interpretation might be biased and erroneous?

Look at our MDB sockpuppets and double-agents: unwilling to make a reasoned argument, they resort immediately to mockery and scorn.

And then damn us for being hostile and close-minded.

Irony in word and in deed.

Selek:

Damn you for being hostile and close-minded.

[selek]

Selek:

Damn you for being hostile and close-minded.

I'll add it to the list of my sins, right before "hubristic" and just behind "clannish".

With everything else, that'll take the executive summary to four-hundred and eleven pages.

[Darth J]

Isn't it interesting that it's the "enlightened" who drip scorn and derision in these topics?

That it's the apostates and the self-professed "open-minded" who have trouble accepting that there might be things unknown to them and are down-right hostile to the idea that their interpretation might be biased and erroneous?

Look at our MDB sockpuppets and double-agents: unwilling to make a reasoned argument, they resort immediately to mockery and scorn.

And then damn us for being hostile and close-minded.

Irony in word and in deed.

Selek, at what point, if ever, would you be willing to say that the following things did not exist in the Americas between 600 B.C. and 421 A.D.:

1. horses;

2. wheeled chariots;

3. steel swords patterned after the sword of Laban.

How long and in how many places are you willing to dig before you are willing to say it is not there?

Also, please give me a reasoned argument for why we cannot apply the exact same logic to the putative existence of werewolves, lightsabers, and the other things I listed.

P.S. The word you are looking for is "hypocrisy," not "irony."

[Darth J]

Look at our MDB sockpuppets and double-agents:

Am I a sockpuppet or a double-agent?

unwilling to make a reasoned argument, they resort immediately to mockery and scorn.

See also: FARMS Review of Books.

[dougtheavenger]

Mormon 8:17

17)And if there be faults they be the faults of a man. But behold, we know no fault; nevertheless God knoweth all things; therefore, he that condemneth, let him be aware lest he shall be in danger of hell fire.

Mormon 9:31,33

31)Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been.

33)And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record.

Mormon was writing long after the whole Ammon, Lamoni and the chariots thing occured. Maybe, the appreance of the chariot+horse combo was a product of Mormon's own error?

Aonther way of dealing with Book of Mormon anachronisms...

The guys who wrote the Bible messed up.

1. The date of 2200 BC for the entry of the Jaredites into America is Biblically based not BoM based.

2. According to the Bible, all humans lived in once place and spoke one language at the time the tower of Babel was being built. All humans did live in one valley and spoke one language at some time in the past, but according to scientists it was a lot longer than 4200 years ago.

3. The "great dearth" described in the Book of Ether resembles the "Younger Dryas" (~10,000 BC) which killed many of the megafauna of Nort America.

4. No mention is made of elephants after the "great dearth".

[Darth J]

Aonther way of dealing with Book of Mormon anachronisms...

The guys who wrote the Bible messed up.

1. The date of 2200 BC for the entry of the Jaredites into America is Biblically based not BoM based.

2. According to the Bible, all humans lived in once place and spoke one language at the time the tower of Babel was being built. All humans did live in one valley and spoke one language at some time in the past, but according to scientists it was a lot longer than 4200 years ago.

3. The "great dearth" described in the Book of Ether resembles the "Younger Dryas" (~10,000 BC) which killed many of the megafauna of Nort America.

4. No mention is made of elephants after the "great dearth".

This might be a meaningful argument to Evangelicals who interpret the Bible literally. However, "the Bible all messed up" is not helpful to The Book of Mormon being historical.

[dougtheavenger]

Funny you should bring that up, my dad was a tankist in the IDF. He though served before the Merkavah, in 'centurions', or 'whips' (shot).

The modern Hebrew language likes to modernise archaic words, and when looking for a name for a new piece of military equipment, like to find its equivalent in the Bible. Interestingly enough, the most common term is recheb, but merkabah seems to be an adaptation of the term for the cabin of the chariot, which could be a palanquin.

In the US Army tanks belong to the "cavalry" and soldiers in that branch wear yellow ribbons or neckarchiefs. Ever see the old John Wayne/Maurene O'Hara western entitled "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon"

[dougtheavenger]

This might be a meaningful argument to Evangelicals who interpret the Bible literally. However, "the Bible all messed up" is not helpful to The Book of Mormon being historical.

I beg to differ. It is from the Bible, not the BoM that Mormon scholars get 2200 BC as the date of Jaredite entry into America. Without the Biblical reckoning of 2200 BC for the Tower of Babel incident, the Jaredites could have entered America at 10,000 BC or 15,000 BC.