From Idaho State Journal

[Guest johnny_cat]

So would you say those written words he saw on the Urim and Thummim and the seerstone were put there by God for Joseph to read?

Do we have any firsthand statements from Joseph Smith that he saw "written words"?

[Daniel Peterson]

So would you say those written words he saw on the Urim and Thummim and the seerstone were put there by God for Joseph to read?

That's the idea, yes.

[Daniel Peterson]

Do we have any firsthand statements from Joseph Smith that he saw "written words"?

Not to my knowledge, no. We're dependent upon second-hand accounts, which is at least slightly problematic.

[Guest johnny_cat]

Not to my knowledge, no. We're dependent upon second-hand accounts, which is at least slightly problematic.

Then it's doubly problematic to make any assertions about translation versus transliteration. Things would be very different if Joseph received the BofM by understanding concepts, seeing scenes and landscape, or even hearing a narrative.

[Guest Just Curious]

So would you say those written words he saw on the Urim and Thummim and the seerstone were put there by God for Joseph to read?

That's the idea, yes.

Thanks I think most of my important questions have been answered now about the process...I appreciate it

[Calm]

Since Moroni was the one who delivered the plates, taught JS very concepts about the BoM people, etc., is there anything that restricts him or perhaps Mormon or another of the Nephite recordkeepers from being the one communicating the meaning to Joseph? Did it have to come directly from God or could it have been delegated?

[Guest Just Curious]

Since Moroni was the one who delivered the plates, taught JS very concepts about the BoM people, etc., is there anything that restricts him or perhaps Mormon or another of the Nephite recordkeepers from being the one communicating the meaning to Joseph? Did it have to come directly from God or could it have been delegated? 

That is an interesting theory Cal, is there anything anyone said, like Joseph or the scribes that would lead you to believe that one of the Nephite record keepers was communicating the meanings to Joseph. I personally have not seen anything about this but if there is some evidence they did I would love to review it and see the source...thanks

[Calm]

Pure speculation. Just occurred to me one night recently. God certainly has made effective use of others, given them many chances to serve. If he uses angels/messengers to convey revelations so many other times, why not this one as well?

[Daniel Peterson]

Not to my knowledge, no. We're dependent upon second-hand accounts, which is at least slightly problematic.

Then it's doubly problematic to make any assertions about translation versus transliteration. Things would be very different if Joseph received the BofM by understanding concepts, seeing scenes and landscape, or even hearing a narrative.

I can only say that the probabilities are against that. The second-hand testimony is pretty consistent on this point, which seems to suggest that it's more or less accurate. Also, I think that Royal Skousen's argument, that the language of the Book of Mormon seems to be tightly controlled, rules out a merely visual-image or conceptual mode of translation. As does Skousen's recently announced but not yet published claim that the language of the Book of Mormon is not nineteenth-century American, and, surprisingly, not that of the King James Bible, either, but derives from one or two generations prior to the King James. (Which, incidentally, might indeed point to some intermediate source for the English translation, rather than directly to God -- though that person or persons would appear to be other than Moroni.)

[mormon fool]

As does Skousen's recently announced but not yet published claim that the language of the Book of Mormon is not nineteenth-century American, and, surprisingly, not that of the King James Bible, either, but derives from one or two generations prior to the King James. (Which, incidentally, might indeed point to some intermediate source for the English translation, rather than directly to God -- though that person or persons would appear to be other than Moroni.)

Moroni (or one of the Three Nephites) Goes to Cambridge!

[Calm]

Dan made a comment in my presence about Skousen's work a couple of weeks ago. That is probably what triggered my speculation a week or so later. Thinking about it now, it would probably make more sense for someone familiar with the English language to help with the translation. Moroni occurred to me because the plates seem to be under his guardianship, Mormon because of his work condensing the material, individual authors because it was their words after all.

Perhaps it actually includes all of them along with some English specialists. I wonder if they had arguments over "horse"?

[Calm]

Dan, another idea strikes me, will sr (he's got another thread on ZLMB right now) start looking for a Arabic specialist from preKing James days when presented with this knowledge? Perhaps JS stumbled across a old manuscript from that time buried away and that is why no one protested he had stolen work!

[Bill Hamblin]

My Dear Professor Peterson,

You appear to be arguing with Just Curious again. This may be a sign of a complete breakdown in your rational processes. As one of your few friends, I strongly urge you to immediately cease and seek counceling.

Concernedly yours,

Professor Hamblin

[Daniel Peterson]

Dan, another idea strikes me, will sr (he's got another thread on ZLMB right now) start looking for a Arabic specialist from preKing James days when presented with this knowledge?  Perhaps JS stumbled across a old manuscript from that time buried away and that is why no one protested he had stolen work!

It's true that, if Skousen's perception of the language of the Book of Mormon is correct -- and he's got some interesting linguistic evidence -- it counts against the notion of a source from the nineteenth or even the eighteenth century. And those are the centuries to which sr1030 looks -- though his conspiracy theory is notably (and, no doubt, usefully) vague about location, number of authors, identity of author(s), date, and such trivial details.

[Guest Just Curious]

You appear to be arguing with Just Curious again. This may be a sign of a complete breakdown in your rational processes. As one of your few friends, I strongly urge you to immediately cease and seek counceling.

I don't think we're arguing...but then again I don't have a piled higher and deeper either..

[Daniel Peterson]

My Dear Professor Peterson,

You appear to be arguing with Just Curious again.  This may be a sign of a complete breakdown in your rational processes.  As one of your few friends, I strongly urge you to immediately cease and seek counceling.

Concernedly yours,

Professor Hamblin

Dear Professor Hamblin:

It may well be that I'm slipping (or have slipped) into madness. My continuing activity here seems pretty persuasive evidence of that. However, if I could recognize that I was mad, that would be excellent evidence that I wasn't. And if I am, I'm not likely to recognize it. So don't bother reasoning with me. Anyway, almost nobody else here tries to reason with me, so why should you be any different?

Cordially,

Professor Peterson

[Guest Just Curious]

It may well be that I'm slipping (or have slipped) into madness. My continuing activity here seems pretty persuasive evidence of that. However, if I could recognize that I was mad, that would be excellent evidence that I wasn't. And if I am, I'm not likely to recognize it. So don't bother reasoning with me. Anyway, almost nobody else here tries to reason with me, so why should you be any different?

I would be happy to recommend a mental health professional or two if you feel you need one. In having to deal with them on behalf of other family members I have had some experience in the realm (unpleasant as it may be)....

[Matt Andrews]

(Matt Andrews @ Oct 25 2004, 06:44 PM)

Now, this is going to sound a little glib, but basically, if anything in the Book of Mormon seems to not fit with what actually happened in the Americas at the relevant time, we could explain it away with this same idea?

There is a considerable amount of background material, drawn from anthropology and comparative linguistics, relating to animal-naming conventions. We didn't just make this up. It isn't arbitrary, and it isn't merely ad hoc.

I've just been through a very long conversation on the topic with Just Curious within the past week or two, and have absolutely no desire to repeat it. You can probably find it by doing a search for the word tapir. The current issue of the FARMS Review (16/1) contains an article, written by me with Matthew Roper, that, in one portion, treats this topic with specific reference to the horse.

Thank you, I hadn't seen that thread. Do you have a link handy for the article you mentioned?

For Darth Bill:

I think I managed to explain the idea back to Daniel a page or two back, (but I'm also not 'anti'). It sounds a little strange to someone hearing it for the first time, I think. I didn't realize it had been explained so many times before, and I appreciate Dan's willingness to go over it again.

[aznative]

Having worked in a mental health facility AND now that I am working in a Prison with many people with mental disorders, I am sad to say that I see a potential disorder tht seems to be afflicting Just Curious. It seems to be a ritualistic need to torment Mormons, and Daniel Peterson in particular. I believe it would be something along the lines of religious persecution.

[Daniel Peterson]

Do you have a link handy for the article you mentioned?

The article is Daniel C. Peterson and Matthew Roper, "Ein Heldenleben? On Thomas Stuart Ferguson as an Elias for Cultural Mormons," in FARMS Review 16/1 (2004), which is the current issue. It can be accessed via the table of contents given at the link below:

http://farms.byu.edu/publications/reviewvo...ume=16&number=1

However, since it is the current issue, I'm not sure whether you'll be able to read it. We have to pay our bills (e.g., editing, printing, binding, overhead), after all, and we would like people to subscribe and to buy our publications.

[Guest Just Curious]

Having worked in a mental health facility AND now that I am working in a Prison with many people with mental disorders, I am sad to say that I see a potential disorder tht seems to be afflicting Just Curious

Pssttt...AZ--it was a JOKE!!!!! Of course it probably went right by you

[rabanes]

This is flatly untrue.

PART 1 - to Peterson/Roper

DCP: (quoting me "this LDS apologist's argument is a NEW, contemporary, modern spin necessitated by the problems raised by DNA studies, lack of archaeological evidence for the BOM, etc.") This is flatly untrue.

RA: Hi, Dan. Nice to see you bouncing around and still active on the board. But I believe that to say my comment is "flatly" untrue is a bit of an overstatement. From what I have seen and heard, admittedly as an outsider, nearly ALL Mormons I have ever spoken to, and just about every popular LDS book I have on my shelf, state that all Native Americans, as well as South Americans, and many Islanders are descended from Israelites and that these Israelites were the colonizers of the New World, and that they were the primary colonizers of the New World. I have been told numerous times by faithful LDS that the New World was originally colonized by Israelites, whose numbers reached untold millions upon millions upon millions and spread across the whole hemisphere

[rabanes]

PART 2 - to Roper/Peterson

ROPER: "Latter-day Saints have long been open to the idea that peoples not mentioned in the Book of Mormon may have migrated to the Americas either before, during, or after the events described in the Book of Mormon and that these various peoples intermingled with those of Israelite or Jaredite descent. The idea of other pre-Columbian migrations to the Americas has a long history and can be traced back to the earliest Latter-day Saints. In the 15 September 1842 issue of the Times and Seasons, the editor--Joseph Smith, according to the paper's masthead--cited favorably an account of Don Juan Torres, grandson of the last king of the Quich

[Confidential Informant]

Gee Richard. Your fingers must be tired.

I have one question for you: Why don't all the men in the world have the Y Chromosome? If Noah and his 3 sons were the only male survivors of the Flood, as the Bible, Christ and Peter all insist that they were, then you and I and Dan and Hamblin should all have the exact same Y chromosome since that gene passes only from father to son and is unaffected by the genes recevied via the female side.

So, why do you and I have different Y chromosomes?

C.I.

[Confidential Informant]

A: I wouldn't disagree. And I wouldn't disagree with Givens, either. He's right, "not one single archaeological artifact has been found that conclusively establishes a direct connection between the record [that is, the Book ofMormon] and any actual culture or civilization ofthe Western hemisphere." Sorry, Dan, I would never be able to base my eternal destiny on zero proof of my main book of scripture

Really? Where is the archeological, geological or physical evidence of the flood? What about the exodus? Let alone the Garden of Eden. Moreover, what evidence do you have for the resurrection? What archeological find establishes the actuality of the Atonement?

See Richard, all that Biblical archeology that you refer to prove one thing: The book that the myths you believe is really old. That's it. That's all it proves. Then again, I was unaware anyone had challenged the antiquity of the Bible.

C.I.