kennewick man

[Guest The Headless Laban]

So, if the tapir theory is accepted, will we get a new book of mormon with the word horse replaced by tapir, or maybe put horse in quotes? Maybe have new Book of mormon art with tapirs instead of horses. Instead of the Freburg painting portraying Helaman leading the stripling warriors while mounted on

a mighty, white steed, Helaman will instead be on the back of a short, fat tapir. Or, since there is no mention of riding "horses" in the Book of Mormon, Helaman will ride in a chariot that is pulled by the fat, tapir. This could be a lot of fun.

Giggle, giggle.

I take it that neither ethnology nor linguistics is your strong suit?

I don't remember saying they were.

[Guest Just Curious]

I haven't claimed that there was an error in translation. I've specifically said that I don't believe there was, and see no need to assume one.

OK I am really confused now..so is a "horse" a tapir or is a "horse" a horse? Please clairfy for me because I think maybe I am misunderstanding your position

You've acted as if they didn't exist.

If you got that impression then you totally misunderstood me ...sorry

You really haven't ever gotten the argument. I haven't said that God "meant" tapir.

Ok then (type real slow so this poor old uneducated country boy can understand)..what did God mean when He put the word "horse" on the peep stone? 1) He meant horse 2) He meant tapir 3) He meant either/or 4) He meant some other animal 5) other--please explain.

Thanks Dan...just trying to understand your position because you have me confused greatly on it...

[Daniel Peterson]

(1)

A colleague of mine who knows far more than I do about Central Asia (and who was the person who first brought the problem of horse bones in Central Asia to my attention) learned about this thread and took a look. He comments that it would be more precisely accurate to say that one Hunnic archaeological culture in one particular period has produced no "usable" horse bones, largely because, he believes, they were nomadic and did not practice horse burials in kurgans -- hence, the archaeologists don't know where to look.

"At any rate," he says, "the overall point is correct -- that horse riding cultures do not necessarily produce archaeologically identifiable remains of horse bones." He suggests, too, that I ask about prairie dogs and guinea pigs, and that I inquire why anyone would equate a chihuahua with a St. Bernard. "How many ancients thought dolphins were biologically closer to humans than to fish?"

(2)

As I've noted, with Matt Roper I've recently published an article on Thomas Stuart Ferguson:

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=531

http://farms.byu.edu/pdf.php?filename=MTAx...=&type=cmV2aWV3

Matt also has something to say:

I was looking at the thread. It's not a translation issue, but a cultural one. What would Nephi have called a tapir if he saw one? The critics on the thread have not confronted that issue. My own thinking is that there was probably late survival of some horses in Pre-Columbian times until perhaps the time of Christ. If the tapir comparison is valid -- and it may or may not be -- it would, I think, more appropriately fit the category of an *** rather than a horse, since most of the zoologists we cited in the article compare Baird's tapir to a donkey. Of course the Book of Mormon never states and does not require that horses or donkeys were ridden, although they may have been used to pull something. In any case, here is a reference that some may find interesting. Speaking of the South American species of tapir, zoologists Hans Fradrich and Erich Thenius state,

"In the villages, one often finds young orphan tapirs whose mothers have been killed. They become as tame as dogs within a few days. They like to be petted and even let children ride on their backs. In spite of these characteristics, which are suitable for domestication, there have been few attempts to actually domesticate tapirs. According to several reports, only in the last century have the German-Brazilian settlers in Santa Caterina occasionally tamed tapirs. On remote farms, they have even used them to pull their plows." (Hans Fradrich and Erich Thenius, "Tapirs," in Bernhard Grzimek, Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia 13:29. Emphasis added).

[Kozaru]

A colleague of mine who knows far more than I do about Central Asia (and who was the person who first brought the problem of horse bones in Central Asia to my attention) learned about this thread and took a look.

And this individual didn't feel like contributing himself? We want the scoop straing from the tapir's mouth...

[Daniel Peterson]

And this individual didn't feel like contributing himself? 

No, he didn't. And I don't blame him. I must be insane.

[Calm]

did God mean when He put the word "horse" on the peep stone?

Your answers don't work as they neglect the input of both the authors and the receiver, Joseph Smith.

[Kozaru]

And this individual didn't feel like contributing himself?

[Dr. Shades]

Your answers don't work as they neglect the input of both the authors and the receiver, Joseph Smith.

Why would the receiver need to "input" anything if he was reading from the magic rock?

[Daniel Peterson]

OK I am really confused now..so is a "horse" a tapir or is a "horse" a horse?  Please clairfy for me because I think maybe I am misunderstanding your position

In a certain important sense, categories like species and horse and tapir and chair and blue and vulture and eagle don't exist in nature. They are mental constructs created by human minds in order to make sense of the surrounding world. (Where, exactly, do chairs become stools, and where do stools become benches? Where, precisely, does blonde hair become brown hair, and brown hair black hair?) And human minds sometimes think and classify things differently -- particularly when separated by gulfs of time and space and language.

Thus, ancient Greeks classified both vultures and eagles as aetoi, whereas we distingush between aetoi that are eagles and aetoi that are vultures. We distinguish between boats and shoes and saddles and chariots and sleds, and don't see much in common between them. Semites, however, classify them all as forms of (m)rkb. And so on and so forth. I've given several other examples of this sort of thing.

So, it is conceivable (since other, later, authors have indisputably thought of horses while looking at tapirs, and since ancient Mesoamericans, seeing horses for the first time, thought of tapirs) that ancient Nephites, whose thinking probably wasn't absolutely identical to ours since they lived in a vastly different culture, far away from us, 2600 years ago, might have looked at tapirs and thought of horses, too. In fact, they might have used the term horse to refer to those tapirs, just as Russians evidently use the Russian term equivalent to English green to refer to what we would identify as "blue," and just as ancient Greeks failed to distinguish aetoi. They might have seen the salient dividing line between "horse" and "non-horse" differently than we do, just as ancient Greeks indisputably saw the dividing line between mammalian dolphins and non-mammalian fish differently than we do.

So, to a Nephite, a tapir might have seemed more "horse-like" than it does to us, because that Nephite's definition of horse might have been somewhat broader than ours -- just the way shoes and saddles and boats can come in under the Semitic label of (m)rkb, along with chariots. Thus, a tapir might have been a "horse" to a Nephite. Not because Nephites were blind, but because Nephites categorized differently than we do. Hippopotami were "horses" to the ancient Greeks. (Hippopotamus means "river horse.")

But, of course, this is merely one possible hypothesis. The other hypothesis, to which, as I've said, I myself incline, is that Book of Mormon horses really were horses in our sense of the word.

In any event, I believe that the Nephite equivalent of the word horse is the word that occurred on the plates of the Book of Mormon.

Another and much more arbitrary classification, incidentally, is that of magic. Mr. Shades, who is deeply devoted to the polemical invention and deployment of dismissive categories suited to his rhetorical purposes, is actually deploying a very old polemical category here when he derisively refers to a "magic rock." Magic is a highly problematic category, though, as Mr. Shades well knows. He simply doesn't care. The term is frequently, if not typically, used as an instrument of lexical imperialism, and that is exactly how Mr. Shades uses it. He is in quest of unmerited victories by means of rhetoric rather than logical argument. It's his usual modus operandi.

[Guest Just Curious]

If one were to subscribe to the theory (however hard it would be) that horse may have been something else...then what would cow, ox, donkey and pig be?

[Daniel Peterson]

If one were to subscribe to the theory (however hard it would be) that horse may have been something else...then what would cow, ox, donkey and pig be?

It's difficult if not impossible to predict in advance how a linguistic culture will make its classifications. That's part of the point. There is no "right" or "natural" way of doing this. One learns how a linguistic culture has made its categories by studying them (e.g., by listening to speakers and/or carefully examining texts). You cannot simply sit down and say, "This is how Japanese should work." A dictionary writer who presumed to create a dictionary on the basis of a priori principles without considering actual usage would be quite properly deemed insane.

[Calm]

Why would the receiver need to "input" anything if he was reading from the magic rock?

If God is trying to convey meaning with the translation of the BOM for a particular purpose, then he must take into account not only the intent of the BOM authors, but the various responses of various receivers as well (and that includes more than just JS.)

[Guest Just Curious]

If God is trying to convey meaning with the translation of the BOM for a particular purpose, then he must take into account not only the intent of the BOM authors, but the various responses of various receivers as well (and that includes more than just JS.)

Here is a novel theory (and again maybe not). Just suppose God would have put the word "tapir" in the BoM...anywhere...of course Joseph not knowing what a tapir was would have also put "tapir" (like curelom and cumom). Now I suspect the vast majority of the peoples in North America at Josephs time did not know what a tapir was. Fast forward to say 1980....people now know what a tapir is, and there it is right there in the 1830 edition of the BoM....talk about rasing credibility huh....that would be something that would diminish debate instead of increasing it. Now you probably are thinking why would God put "tapir" in there just to prove it is correct? Well why did He put curelom and cumom in there? Heck if we had animals anywhere in the Americas by those names again...credibility thru the roof.

[Calm]

Are you suggesting that JS should have used an English word that hasn't been invented yet so that went it was invented everyone would go 'Wow!'?

[Drumroller]

Just suppose God would have put the word "tapir" in the BoM...anywhere...of course Joseph not knowing what a tapir was would have also put "tapir" (like curelom and cumom).

That would all depend on whether "tapir" is a modern word or not. My guess is it is modern and did not exist anciently.

It is possible that curelom and cumom are ancient terms but we have yet to discover what the modern equivelant would be.

talk about rasing credibility huh....that would be something that would diminish debate instead of increasing it.

And thus the purpose of faith is defeated.

[Guest Just Curious]

That would all depend on whether "tapir" is a modern word or not. My guess is it is modern and did not exist anciently.

To quote the ever studious Dan Peterson earlier in this thread...

When the Conquistadores first arrived in Central America, for example, the local Indian tribes even called the Spanish horses and donkeys tzimin, or "tapirs." And so on and so forth.

So thus we see the word or its root was in use prior to Joseph Smiths time.

And thus the purpose of faith is defeated.

Faith does not equal confusion.... sorry

[Daniel Peterson]

I believe, Just Curious, that it was the English word tapir that Drumroller had in mind. The Mesoamerican word tzimin is unrelated to the English word.

English tapir comes from a Tupi word -- Tupi being the lingua franca of the Amazonian Indians. The original Tupi-Guaranian word tapira, tapiira, or tapyra apparently referred -- significantly, I think -- to any large quadruped. (Another nice illustration of variation in the classification of animals in a different linguistic culture.) Intriguingly, the Tupi now call their tapir a tapyra-ete, a "true" or "real tapir," or a tapir-ussu, a "great tapir," in order to distinguish it from the European cow, which they also called a tapir when they first saw it. (Thank you, Just Curious, for directing my attention to yet another instance of variation in naming animals.)

The term tapir came into English via Spanish or Portuguese, and is first attested, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, in Thevet's New Found Worlde (1568), where "Tapihire, a beaste," is mentioned.

[miked]

i just have to say that the whole tapirs/horses thing is quite silly (if that's not evident from all of the posts). the church teaches that the book of mormon was written primarily for us, not for the people writing it (by that i mean for people alive since joseph smith translated it, and not written for the ancient nephites and lamanites). so imho it would be logical to assume that if there were horses god would tell joseph smith to say horses, and if the plates were talking about tapirs god would tell him to say tapirs. the word tapir existed by the time joseph smith translated the bom (thanks dr. peterson), and so if the plates were talking about tapirs there's no reason why joseph couldn't write tapir. and if he didn't know what it was he would have just read the letters t-a-p-i-r to his scribe.

additionally, nephi and his party saw horses and other animals when they first landed in the new world (1 nephi 18:25). they had just come from jerusalem and would know what a horse looks like, and i doubt they would have seen a tapir and confused if for a horse. since horses (and oxen and asses and elephants and goats) are mentioned in the book of mormon, and yet there is no evidence that they existed in the new world during that time frame, it does create a difficulty for those trying to prove the historicity of the book of mormon. but that does not mean that they didn't exist, just that according to the current body of evidence it appears that they didn't (interpret that as you like). but to say that anyone who knew what a horse was would confuse a tapir for a horse is imo a very large stretch of logic. these are the types of arguements that turn off a lot of people like myself from apologetics.

[Daniel Peterson]

i just have to say that the whole tapirs/horses thing is quite silly (if that's not evident from all of the posts).

Certainly it seems to sail right past several on this thread. No question about that. However, the fact that there has been no substantive criticism of the ethnographic/linguistic data to which I've alluded, and scarcely any evidence that it's even been understood, doesn't seem to me a particularly convincing refutation of the data. Ethnocentrism doesn't trump fact.

the church teaches that the book of mormon was written primarily for us, not for the people writing it

But, right there, you've alluded to those pesky people who wrote it, who, according to the book, didn't speak twenty-first century English as their native language.

the word tapir existed by the time joseph smith translated the bom (thanks dr. peterson)

But not necessarily in his vocabulary.

additionally, nephi and his party saw horses and other animals when they first landed in the new world (1 nephi 18:25).  they had just come from jerusalem and would know what a horse looks like, and i doubt they would have seen a tapir and confused if for a horse.

Sigh. Whoosh! Right over his head!

but to say that anyone who knew what a horse was would confuse a tapir for a horse is imo a very large stretch of logic.

And to say that that's what I've said is to miss the point by several dozen light years.

these are the types of arguements that turn off a lot of people like myself from apologetics.

Perhaps you would do well to stick to other topics.

[Guest Just Curious]

But not necessarily in his vocabulary.

Whose vocabulary..Joseph Smith or God? Did curelom and cumom exist as words in Josephs vocabulary prior to the BoM?

so imho it would be logical to assume that if there were horses god would tell joseph smith to say horses, and if the plates were talking about tapirs god would tell him to say tapirs. the word tapir existed by the time joseph smith translated the bom (thanks dr. peterson), and so if the plates were talking about tapirs there's no reason why joseph couldn't write tapir. and if he didn't know what it was he would have just read the letters t-a-p-i-r to his scribe.

B-I-N-G-O......Give that man a Cigar !!!!!!

[Beowulf]

I certainly know about linguistic mapping being different.

In Japanese, the non-English language that I am most familiar with, colors are shifted strangely to us Westerners.

For example, in Japan, a brown bear is called akaguma, which literally means "red bear".

And green shoots in the spring, are "blue".

The expression "white as a sheet" to refer to people turned pale with shock is also "blue".

Even traffic lights are "blue" not "green" (which always amuses me whenever I listen to Jimi Hendrix telling us in one of his masterpieces that the "traffic lights will turn blue tomorrow").

My son, who was born in Japan, and spoke only Japanese until he was eight years old (now age 19), still refers to traffic lights as "blue", in English. Is he an idiot? I don't think so. (I can proudly report that he was accepted to a couple of prominent universities in America this past year.) Just culturally attuned rather differently.

All this discourse is fodder for the argument over whether words are used stupidly in the BofM or not. Since Nephites are certainly farther from us Americans in cultural space and time than modern-day Japanese are.

Beowulf

[Guest Just Curious]

All this discourse is fodder for the argument over whether words are used stupidly in the BofM or not. Since Nephites are certainly farther from us Americans in cultural space and time than modern-day Japanese are.

The nephites wrote it but God translated it...right? (translated by the gift and power of God)

[t2t2]

God's native language is Hebrew. His English is a bit rough. Don't blame Him.

[Daniel Peterson]

B-I-N-G-O......Give that man a Cigar !!!!!!

The nephites wrote it but God translated it...right? (translated by the gift and power of God)

You presume a particular view of the translation of the Book of Mormon -- that it occurred under tight divine control, negating any real human agency on the part of either the original writers or the nineteenth-century translator -- that I don't share, and for which I see no justification.

And permit me, just for the record, to say again that the tapir-hypothesis is not my preferred solution to the Book of Mormon horse problem. But it is coherent, it is reasonable, and it has precedent in linguistics and anthropology. Most if not all of the arguments against it are, to borrow miked's phrasing, "quite silly."

[Guest Just Curious]

You presume a particular view of the translation of the Book of Mormon -- that it occurred under tight divine control, negating any real human agency on the part of either the original writers or the nineteenth-century translator -- that I don't share, and for which I see no justification.

Yes as a matter of fact I do !!! and here is why...

"I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man."---David Whitmer.

The control mechanism is underlined...feel free to let me know what I have wrong here...Thanks !