Response To Dr. Michael Coe

[Jaybear]

My job is as a technical writer. But as a participant on this board, in this discussion, if the critics had demonstrated an understanding of the argument, including its presentation, actual claims and significance (not the exaggerated caricature), and had offered the kinds of rational justification I mention, I wouldn't have bothered to post on the topic. The argument as described by the critics may not be credible in the form in which they have presented it, but that is not the form in which I see it. And the way I see it is, by an amazing coincidence, the way I see it.

Seriously, we get it. Human translation error/cultural differences explain why the word "horse" appears repeatedly in the BOM, despite the fact that horses did not exist at the relevant time and place. Its really not that complicated.

Context matters for words. Even simple words. Always. And larger context matters for the relative significance of an argument. I personally don't see the "tapir" suggestion as necessary, primary, major, or even justifiably prominent in Book of Mormon controversies. Just as one of a number of reasonable possibilities for one small issue given the cultural context, the realities of translation, the uncertain relationship between signifiers and the signified, and the lack of clarifying descriptive information in the very limited Book of Mormon mentions of "horse."

Here is the rub, you state, as if it were an undisputed fact that tapir is not only a reasonable possibility given the "cultural context", etc., but one of many reasonable possibility.

That factual statement is not an agreed premise, but is the entire crux of the dispute. No critic is arguing that translation errors can't/don't occur.

If tapir is not a "reasonable possibility" and there are no other reasonable explanations, then then only "reasonable" conclusion one can reach is that the BOM is an 19th century work of fiction.

Rather than to tapir, I prefer to give my attention to larger issues for which more information in the text, and more comparative information outside the text, makes for a more manageable and definitive form of testing.

Test what? Your ability to spot parallels.

I understand why you wish to downplay the issue, but when dealing with the allegation that the book of mormon is a work of fiction, one single unexplained anachronism in the text has more weight than 100 remarkable parallels.

[cdowis]

Seriously, we get it. Human translation error/cultural differences explain why the word "horse" appears repeatedly in the BOM, despite the fact that horses did not exist at the relevant time and place.

You use the discarded technique "if I continually repeat an assertion, that makes it a fact." Please stop pretending that this is a fact.

snip

If tapir is not a "reasonable possibility" and there are no other reasonable explanations, then then only "reasonable" conclusion one can reach is that the BOM is an 19th century work of fiction.

Another technique, "there is only one option." The other option is that there were horses, unless you can prove otherwise.

{/quote]

[cdowis]

Seriously, we get it. Human translation error/cultural differences explain why the word "horse" appears repeatedly in the BOM, despite the fact that horses did not exist at the relevant time and place.

You use the discarded technique "if I continually repeat an assertion, that makes it a fact." Please stop pretending that this is a fact.

snip

If tapir is not a "reasonable possibility" and there are no other reasonable explanations, then then only "reasonable" conclusion one can reach is that the BOM is an 19th century work of fiction.

Another technique, "there is only one option." The other option is that there were horses, unless you can prove otherwise.

{/quote]

[Kevin Christensen]

Kevin,

Yes, and in history the fewer of these ad hoc escapes a theory has, the more preferred it is (see Wikipedia under “historical method”). Your theory has too many.

Too many from your perspective. Not mine. I'm using the Blass method, as Nibley describes it: Assume the document is authentic, and test it in context. As a consequence, I've seen a great many things that I never would have seen otherwise.

I think the workings of translation are well-known, but whether or not it applies to the BOM is what is at issue here. You haven’t established that the BOM is history let alone a translation. Hence you can’t use it as an assumption to escape anachronisms.

I just cited an example of a well known translator anachronism in the Bible. And we have catch-22 process displayed. According to you, we have to assume that the Book of Mormon is false and never ever ever do things like examine the its text against the contexts that it claims for itself. Of course, the only way to find out if the apparent anachronisms that impress you so much are actually valid is by checking the text against the context that it claims for itself. That can take time, but I find it is worth doing and rewarding. What I found in my NDE essay and my First Temple essays, for instance, is that many things that I had been told were decisive anachronisms by such objective and thorough observers as Alexander Campbell, Fawn Brodie, Melodie Charles, and Bill Russell were actually not anachronism. Their judgments as such had been misinformed and premature. If I had not done some of the readings I have done, they might still appear as valid to me. Then I'd be just as wrong as they are.

In your hands an appeal to translation is merely an apologetic devise, which does nothing to explain the text or to broaden its scope or explanatory power. If you were allowed to do this, there would be no way to test the BOM or challenge the historicity of any purported translation.

I just read Feyerband's Against Method. He says "The only principle that does not inhibit progress is, anything goes." (Feyerband, Against Method 4th ed. (New York, Verso, 2010), p 7.

No way to test?

Here is some of what I've done to explore the question of whether the Book of Mormon is a history, let alone a translation.

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/authors/?authorID=84

Here is what a few other people have done:

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/authors/#C

This is not nothing. There are a lot of things that could have gone badly against the Book of Mormon, and did not.

No one disputes translators make errors. The issue is the misapplication of a principle to escape adverse evidence, both in frequency and in the ad hoc and convenient fashion it is applied. Ad hoc doesn’t have to be an invention of a new idea or concept; it can also be an interpretation that is not supported by evidence. In other words, its sole purpose is to save a central theory from adverse evidence.

Sort of like redefining ad hoc to make it suit your argument and save your use of the term from criticism.

But we can’t overlook your apologetic motivations in doing so.

Of coure not. Nor yours for doing what you do.

You are not doing it to illuminate a passage, but to escape adverse implications the plain meaning the text has for your central theory.

This is exactly wrong. There is no such thing as the plain meaning of the text because every text has a context. Pick the wrong context, get the wrong meaning, no matter how plain it may seem in the wrong context. A word like "horse" accompanied by bridle, sadle, horseshoes, hooves, colts, foals, stallions, mare, mane, tail, whinney, neigh, trot, gallop, canter, plow, mount, dismount, cavalry charge, rub down, etc., has a lot more context than any of the half dozen brief Book of Mormon mentions provide. The ambiguity is in the text. The possibilities come from the context. Horse as our horse, is not ruled out. Just not yet proven.

In comparison, the description of the destructions in 3 Nephi provide a far more detailed context, with far less ambiguity, and a far greater expectation for discovering evidences after 2000 years. A complex event called volcano matches the complex description in the text without much ambiguity. As does evidence for such in a convergent context. South of a city that uses cement in the right time frame. In the right locatin relative to two civilizations that rise and fall at the right time. With writing. Temples. The right kinds of warefare, and the right kind of armour used in the warfare. Near the only river in the western Hemisphere that fits the detailed description of the Grijalva. And so forth. Brant calls this kind of thing "convergence."

You are being forced to introduce new meanings in a way that begs the question. I might add, in a way that only a believer can appreciate.

Not forced. The meanings are suggested by the context. One meaning is our horse.

Actually, the scholars doing the most illuminating work on the Book of Mormon are those who explore the contexts. Jerusalem 600 BCE. The Arabian desert. The candidates for Bountiful. The cultures along the way. Sorenson, Gardner, Poulson, Wirth, Clark, Christenson, Wright. If only believers appreciate this stuff, that does not invalidate it. Offhand dismissal is not evidence. Only an opinion.

No. It has more to do with this and other anachronisms of flora and fauna, metallurgy, as well as its use of KJV of the Bible. In absence of direct evidence, these anachronisms should be taken seriously as a caution against question-begging interpretations of the BOM and Mesoamerica.

Just as the findings of LDS scholars should be a caution against question begging interpretations of the Book of Mormon as a product of Joseph Smith's Brodiesque imagination.

This is nothing but the fallacy of possible proof bolstered by a rather meaningless belief that there is a trend happening in the BOM’s favor. There is also another trend. As viewed from my position, the more that has been learned about ancient America the less so-called evidences for the BOM have been brought forward by apologists. Apologists rely less today on artifacts and more on textual manipulation. In 1830, virtually every thing was an evidence for the BOM; today nothing is. I think this trend is more important.

Were they really right to decide that undated mounds, disappearing bushels of undated arrow heads, and stone altars near Adam ondi Ahman were artifactual evidence of the Book of Mormon? Personally, I see a lot of progress in the thirty-five years I have been paying serious attention. I find it all very exciting.

This has less to do with paradigms and more to do with your willingness to believe something until it’s proved false. In which case, you are trapped in a belief that can be neither proved nor disproved. You can say “So what” to adverse evidence, but it’s only on the basis of faith, not on some kind of alternate scientific paradigm.

I know what a paradigm really is. I regularly examine the ongoing parade of so called proofs that the Book of Mormon is false, and watch many of them rot and disintigrate on the shelf. And I see very few critics taking the time to closely examine and account for the good stuff. And why not? It's all a matter of perspective, as Jaybear demonstrates here:

I understand why you wish to downplay the issue, but when dealing with the allegation that the book of mormon is a work of fiction, one single unexplained anachronism in the text has more weight than 100 remarkable parallels.

I've commented on this approach before:

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=16&num=1&id=534

Vogel explains the rules as he sees them:

"Before questioning my methodology, Christensen should keep in mind that no matter how many correlations one perceives in a text, one negative evidence cancels them all. In other words, it is the apologists who are obliged to answer every negative evidence, while those who doubt only need present evidence for rejecting Book of Mormon historicity."77

As a statement of his own attitudes about the Book of Mormon, this is no doubt accurate, but as a guide to a working philosophy of science and scholarship in general, he couldn't be more wrong. Kuhn's observations include:

There are, I think, only two alternatives: either no scientific theory ever confronts a counterinstance, or all such theories confront counterinstances at all times.78

To be accepted as a paradigm, a theory must seem better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted.79

If any and every failure to fit were ground for theory rejection, all theories ought to be rejected at all times.80

Most anomalies are resolved by normal means; most proposals for new theories do prove to be wrong. If all members of a community responded to each anomaly as a source of crisis or embraced each new theory advanced by a colleague, science would cease. If, on the other hand, no one reacted to anomalies or to brand-new theories in high-risk ways, there would be few or no revolutions. In matters like these the resort to shared values rather than shared rules governing individual choice may be the community's way of distributing risk and assuring the long-term success of its enterprise.81

During periods of normal science, the object is to "solve a puzzle for whose very existence the validity of the paradigm must be assumed. Failure to achieve a solution discredits only the scientist and not the theory."82

Since the business of science is to solve puzzles that have not yet been solved and all science and scholarship confront problems that have not yet been solved, a general application of Vogel's attitude that "one negative evidence" suffices would demand the rejection of all science and scholarship.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

[Jaybear]

You use the discarded technique "if I continually repeat an assertion, that makes it a fact." Please stop pretending that this is a fact.

The technique on full display here: "Never concede the argument is weak, just claim the critic don't understand the argument."

Another technique, "there is only one option." The other option is that there were horses, unless you can prove otherwise.

You obviously missed the part of my sentence where I said: "and there are no other reasonable explanations," Based on what Coe said, that is not a reasonable explanation. If the state of the evidence changes the consensus opinion of the experts, I will gladly revisit the issue, and would be foolish not to. I don't profess to be an archeologist.

For now, the BOM's reference to horses at that time and place where they did not exist is an anachronism that can only reasonably be explained by the fact the book was a 19th century fictional account by an author(s) who did not know any better.

You are welcome to believe that because of your testimony about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, the experts must be wrong about horses, but having not testimony, or having any compelling evidence that such testimonies are reliable means of ascertaining truths, I have no reason to agree with your conclusion.

[Kevin Christensen]

Okay, so I finally found time to finish all the podcasts, and wow. I am actually stunned. The false assumptions, the blatant misreadings, the ex cathedra pronouncements, the high school obsession with social acceptance, the laughably groundless "percentages" of the likelihood of certain claims, the completely needless misinformation and speculative innuendo and groundless accusations of racism, the amateur psychologizing and undergraduate-level philosophizing, the appeal to a monolithic "scientific" or "intellectual" or worldview ...

I was aware of the LDS scholarly material on practically every one of these issues as a skeptical teenage atheist. I wasn't expecting too terribly much from Coe, but I was pretty broadsided by Dehlin's comments. I like and respect both dudes (I know Coe is certainly not an anti-Mormon, as Dehlin was worried faithful LDS would think), but their perspectives on these issues was just ... vicariously embarrassing, really.

I do hope FAIR/FARMS gets a qualified respondent quick - Coe's sheer authoritarianism (which this interview has demonstrated to be completely irrelevant in the narrow niche of Book of Mormon intersections with secular archaeology) has the potential to hurt people who are struggling with their faith, and it's entirely avoidable if we would all just do our own homework.

In fact, when you think about it, this is actually a great opportunity: if we simply respond (in list-form, basically) to every point Coe and Dehlin make, we'll essentially counter almost every false claim about Mormonism out there and have it all recorded in one nice, tidy package.

This was seriously eye-opening on the state of "educated" opinion on Mormonism. Absolutely incredible.

I've finished the first, and gotten into the second part. Jeremy, in the advanced wisdom of his youth, has nailed it. My compliments.

It's interesting to hear Coe talk about how exposure to Frazer's Golden Bough was the thing that divested him of faith. Along with his view of Aquinas's "proofs" of God. Compare that with the famous story of C. S. Lewis's famous walk with J.R.R. Tolkien, where Tolkien suggested to Lewis that perhaps Jesus was not just another of Frazer's dying and rising Gods, but the historical one to which all the others pointed. Lewis took the same information in a different way. And Nibley's discussions of patternism in Nibley on the Timely and Timeless and of Frazer in Looking Backward, all in relation to the ancient patterns all showing up in Joseph Smith's productions before the scholars assembled it. Nephi says, "all things which have been given of God.. are the typifying of Christ," and "God remembers the heathen." It's expectations that determine whether a new bit of information fits, or does not fit. What one expectation finds shattering, another may find expansive. And there is Gaster's introduction to Frazer in The New Golden Bough, explaining that all of his basic assumptions were wrong.

The questions asked in the interview thus far don't struck me as very well informed, and certainly not up to date. Dehlin asks questions in terms of "I seem to remember once hearing that..." or "when I was on my mission we showed a film strip called "Ancient America speaks... or something..." Or in a few cases, "I got this stuff from Mormonthink.com." (Not a stellar source, IMHO.) Two pals talking about how dumb, but nice, Mormons are. The tone reminds me a sketch by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. No careful definition or terms, locations, expectations. Would actual quotation from the Book of Mormon be too much? Coins? Good grief. The added and inaccurate chapter heading strikes again. And the apologists are mostly a vaguely defined "them" who create arguments that go against what early (presumably infallible) leaders taught. Brass helmets? Apologists who raise such quibbles are eccentric outsiders, not "us" in the conversation. There are open questions, sure. But how about the right questions, and credit where credit is due?

Dehlin grasps at a vague memory of Nibley saying something about survival of bones and artifacts in Mesoamerica. Why worry about a sixty-year old comment (it probably comes from the last chapter of An Approach to the Book of Mormon from 1957) when there are actual contemporary expert opinions to consider? It doesn't inform the listeners, but it does make the LDS faith look silly. Which I suppose is one way to increase mutual understanding and tolerance for the LDS community. In the words of Daffy Duck, "I like him. He's silly."

Before asking whether the Maya texts name various Book of Mormon characters, why not consider details like which texts in which time frames and locations have even a chance of doing that? Which would mean taking Book of Mormon geography and time lines seriously. Dehlin still seems hung up on authority. Only true thoughts shouldn't have to change or be re-interpreted, especially by apologists. In discussing language, no discussion so far of the famous glyph for "and it came to pass..." or Stubbs's work on Uto-Aztecan. The lists of plants or weapons sound like borrowings from Ferguson. One wonders if the Book of Mormon gets anything right or presents any problems at all?

Interesting when Coe starts talking about Sorenson as THE expert on transoceanic contact. Now if Dehlin had read Sorenson's recent essay on the topic, and had some notion of the Ancient Near Eastern evidence displayed there, that would have been something. Sorenson has talked about how Coe always dismissed the cultural parallels stuff as "coincidence" and "independent invention" as being one of the reasons he researched biological transmissions. Where Coe says that he is impressed by the evidence for transmission across the pacific, from Asia, he forgets that the Nephite and probably Jaredite trips came that way.

The race issue deserves much better. Nibley, Tvedtnes, Sorenson, and Gardner have all published helpful information on the cultural context and meaning of passages on the mark and what it does, and does not mean.

And Coe talks about how he read up a lot of things for the 1973 Dialogue article. Which I read a long long time ago, and a couple of times since. Interesting, but dated. It offered a helpful critique of older LDS apologetic, but not much on the Book of Mormon text. A lot has happened since. Brant Gardner, for instance, commenting in about 2004 that from his perspective, the information necessary to test the Book of Mormon in a New World setting has only emerged in the past 30 years.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[Dan Vogel]

Kevin,

Too many from your perspective. Not mine. I'm using the Blass method, as Nibley describes it: Assume the document is authentic, and test it in context. As a consequence, I've seen a great many things that I never would have seen otherwise.

To a believer, there can never be too many ad hoc escapes. You of course have a high tolerance for them than I.

You can’t claim to be using the Blass method to test the BOM to see if it fits the Mesoamerican context, and when things don’t fit change the rules of the game to explain them away.

I just cited an example of a well known translator anachronism in the Bible. And we have catch-22 process displayed. According to you, we have to assume that the Book of Mormon is false and never ever ever do things like examine the its text against the contexts that it claims for itself.

I didn’t say one should assume the BOM is false. I just think you should follow through on the Blass method and take those anachronisms more seriously. You seem to want to assume they are translation errors, which negates your test using the Blass method. You have essentially immunized the BOM against disconfirming evidence. Without any direct evidence connecting the BOM to Mesoamerica, contextualizing is merely question-begging—that is, seeing in the text what you put there. Anachronisms—literary and historical—need to be taken seriously.

Of course, the only way to find out if the apparent anachronisms that impress you so much are actually valid is by checking the text against the context that it claims for itself. That can take time, but I find it is worth doing and rewarding. What I found in my NDE essay and my First Temple essays, for instance, is that many things that I had been told were decisive anachronisms by such objective and thorough observers as Alexander Campbell, Fawn Brodie, Melodie Charles, and Bill Russell were actually not anachronism. Their judgments as such had been misinformed and premature. If I had not done some of the readings I have done, they might still appear as valid to me. Then I'd be just as wrong as they are.

I realize you are impressed by a marginal interpreter’s works, but for the sake of argument I’ll assume what you say is true—that some things once believe to be anachronistic have subsequently been revised. That can happen; that doesn’t mean that it will or has to happen in all cases. Unless you are really lucky or non-Mormon scholars are really stupid. However, the BOM’s anachronisms in relation to Mesoamerica are not expected to change much, even by the apologists—hence, the word substitutions and reliance on translation error arguments. The same for its anachronistic use of the Bible.

I just read Feyerband's Against Method. He says "The only principle that does not inhibit progress is, anything goes." (Feyerband, Against Method 4th ed. (New York, Verso, 2010), p 7.

It certainly looks that way from a relativistic paradigm.

No way to test?

Here is some of what I've done to explore the question of whether the Book of Mormon is a history, let alone a translation.

http://maxwellinstit...rs/?authorID=84

Here is what a few other people have done:

http://maxwellinstit....edu/authors/#C

This is not nothing. There are a lot of things that could have gone badly against the Book of Mormon, and did not.

I call this the apologetic by bibliography fallacy. It’s easier to stick with the discussion at hand.

Sort of like redefining ad hoc to make it suit your argument and save your use of the term from criticism.

It’s not my definition. The fact that you don’t know that might explain why you so easily fall into it all the while believing you have given a valid response to adverse evidence.

This is exactly wrong. There is no such thing as the plain meaning of the text because every text has a context. Pick the wrong context, get the wrong meaning, no matter how plain it may seem in the wrong context. A word like "horse" accompanied by bridle, sadle, horseshoes, hooves, colts, foals, stallions, mare, mane, tail, whinney, neigh, trot, gallop, canter, plow, mount, dismount, cavalry charge, rub down, etc., has a lot more context than any of the half dozen brief Book of Mormon mentions provide. The ambiguity is in the text. The possibilities come from the context. Horse as our horse, is not ruled out. Just not yet proven.

“Horse” is plain enough that you cling to the unlikely discovery of a “horse”. Your context argument should stand as a warning against your own endeavors to contextualize the BOM, and why you should pay more attention to those anachronisms.

In comparison, the description of the destructions in 3 Nephi provide a far more detailed context, with far less ambiguity, and a far greater expectation for discovering evidences after 2000 years. A complex event called volcano matches the complex description in the text without much ambiguity. As does evidence for such in a convergent context. South of a city that uses cement in the right time frame. In the right locatin relative to two civilizations that rise and fall at the right time. With writing. Temples. The right kinds of warefare, and the right kind of armour used in the warfare. Near the only river in the western Hemisphere that fits the detailed description of the Grijalva. And so forth. Brant calls this kind of thing "convergence."

It’s a shame with all the “convergence”, the most important part—language—doesn’t support your interpretations. For volcanoes, we have an earthquake and a supernatural darkness where people can breathe but fire can’t be lit. And this only happens once in a volcanic region. The cement city and deforestation date to Mormon’s time, not Heleman’s. Warfare without steel swords and copper breastplates. What you call “convergence” looks to me like heavy-handed manipulation of text and exploiting of ambiguity.

Not forced. The meanings are suggested by the context. One meaning is our horse.

Actually, the scholars doing the most illuminating work on the Book of Mormon are those who explore the contexts. Jerusalem 600 BCE. The Arabian desert. The candidates for Bountiful. The cultures along the way. Sorenson, Gardner, Poulson, Wirth, Clark, Christenson, Wright. If only believers appreciate this stuff, that does not invalidate it. Offhand dismissal is not evidence. Only an opinion.

It’s not a dismissal, but an observation that contextualizing can be nothing more than question-begging interpretation and when anachronistic evidence is dismissed offhandedly by imaginative ad hoc escapes, it can only be appreciated by believers.

Just as the findings of LDS scholars should be a caution against question begging interpretations of the Book of Mormon as a product of Joseph Smith's Brodiesque imagination.

That’s exactly why anachronisms are important in the absence of direct evidence. Not all parallels to the 19th century can be used as evidence against historicity. They are mostly interpretations based on the assumption that JS was author, and that assumption is supported by the lack of direct evidence in support of historicity and the presence of historical and literary anachronisms.

Were they really right to decide that undated mounds, disappearing bushels of undated arrow heads, and stone altars near Adam ondi Ahman were artifactual evidence of the Book of Mormon? Personally, I see a lot of progress in the thirty-five years I have been paying serious attention. I find it all very exciting.

I’m excited for you, because this road must be traveled to get where I’m at. It has to run its natural course and every imaginable thing must be tried, before it is abandoned … by most at least. Of course, I’m talking about the long and slow pace of scholarship, not about individuals. And I’m only talking about BOM historicity, not about the church in general. What you call “progress” is only apologetics trying to keep up with secular scholarship. I too look back with amazement about how sophisticated Mormon apologetics has become, and I have no doubt that they will continue to adapt to changing circumstances—even if that means abandoning BOM historicity.

[Dan Vogel]

Kevin,

I know what a paradigm really is. I regularly examine the ongoing parade of so called proofs that the Book of Mormon is false, and watch many of them rot and disintigrate on the shelf. And I see very few critics taking the time to closely examine and account for the good stuff. And why not? It's all a matter of perspective, as Jaybear demonstrates here: “I understand why you wish to downplay the issue, but when dealing with the allegation that the book of mormon is a work of fiction, one single unexplained anachronism in the text has more weight than 100 remarkable parallels.”

Jaybear is right, of course. The trick is to be sure about the anachronism. Coe talked about probability vs. possibility. But as long as imagination is allowed to be evidence against anachronisms escape is always possible. It’s not a matter of perspective—we all know what an anachronism is. A hundred pieces of evidence cherry-picked from imaginative contextualizing of text can’t overcome a solid anachronism. Now, if your faith is strong enough to overcome disconfirming evidence, so be it—but don’t call it a different perspective.

I've commented on this approach before:

And I’ve responded to your use of Kuhn before. It’s really no different than when Creationists and other pseudoscientific writers appeal to his book.

You quote me:

"Before questioning my methodology, Christensen should keep in mind that no matter how many correlations one perceives in a text, one negative evidence cancels them all. In other words, it is the apologists who are obliged to answer every negative evidence, while those who doubt only need present evidence for rejecting Book of Mormon historicity."77

Then you state:

As a statement of his own attitudes about the Book of Mormon, this is no doubt accurate, but as a guide to a working philosophy of science and scholarship in general, he couldn't be more wrong.

This pertains to testing a purported ancient document, not to all science. As I have been arguing (and you have said the same yourself), correlation and contextualization can be mere question-begging interpretations. An anachronism disproves the historical claims of a document. Note that I’m talking about an established anachronism, not just something that’s hasn’t been discovered yet. The horse and steel, for example, have not been found in ancient Mesoamerica, but are not expected to either. There is no need to explain the correlations in a book that failed the test—in fact, it might not be possible explain everything. Some things may be coincidence.

The part you object to is my insistence that apologists deal with all anachronisms. My statement was in response to your criticism that I didn’t deal with the apologetic materials that find correlation to the ancient world. My response was to tell you that the negative evidence is more important than correlations. I don’t expect apologists to deal with it in one day or to give up immediately. After quoting Kuhn, you state:

Since the business of science is to solve puzzles that have not yet been solved and all science and scholarship confront problems that have not yet been solved, a general application of Vogel's attitude that "one negative evidence" suffices would demand the rejection of all science and scholarship.

These anachronisms are your puzzles. One anachronism is good enough proof that a document is a forgery. That’s how it works. This has nothing to do with all science and all scholarship. In actual practice, things play out differently. Kuhn was describing the social aspects of science, not necessarily the theory of science. I also discussed this with you before, some ad hocs lead to an improvement of the theory, while others only function as escapes. The more a theory relies on them, the more unreasonable it is to continue to defend it. So there is no decisive moment when a theory is proven wrong.

[cdowis]

These anachronisms are your puzzles. One anachronism is good enough proof that a document is a forgery. That’s how it works. This has nothing to do with all science and all scholarship. In actual practice, things play out differently. Kuhn was describing the social aspects of science, not necessarily the theory of science. I also discussed this with you before, some ad hocs lead to an improvement of the theory, while others only function as escapes. The more a theory relies on them, the more unreasonable it is to continue to defend it. So there is no decisive moment when a theory is proven wrong.

Let us suppose that the BOM stated that gonorrhea was in Europe two centuries before Columbus. Would that disprove the BOM as anachronistic, since the common consent among historians that Columbus brought that disease to Europe.

Where does the burden lie when you shout "anachronism, anachronism" is made?

Let us suppose the opposite. Authentic Egyptian and ancient middle eastern names are found in this book. Let us suppose that it describes several a previously unknown geographic feature, several of them, in fact. Does the sword of anachronism cut both ways, or do you simply shout "A coincidence, just a coincidence." How many claims of coincidence are you able to make, compared to ONE claim of anachronism.

Finally, how do you confirm your claim of anachronism? Thru common consent of scientists. No allowances for future discoveries, I suppose. And you wish to close your eyes to those coincidences, and lay the burden of anachronisms on us.

But, I guess as an award winning historian, that is your priviledge.

[cdowis]

These anachronisms are your puzzles. One anachronism is good enough proof that a document is a forgery. That’s how it works. This has nothing to do with all science and all scholarship. In actual practice, things play out differently. Kuhn was describing the social aspects of science, not necessarily the theory of science. I also discussed this with you before, some ad hocs lead to an improvement of the theory, while others only function as escapes. The more a theory relies on them, the more unreasonable it is to continue to defend it. So there is no decisive moment when a theory is proven wrong.

Let us suppose that the BOM stated that syphilis was in Europe two centuries before Columbus. Would that disprove the BOM as anachronistic, since the common consent among historians that Columbus brought that disease to Europe.

Where does the burden lie when you shout "anachronism, anachronism" is made?

Let us suppose the opposite. Authentic Egyptian and ancient middle eastern names are found in this book. Let us suppose that it describes several a previously unknown geographic feature, several of them, in fact. Does the sword of anachronism cut both ways, or do you simply shout "A coincidence, just a coincidence." How many claims of coincidence are you able to make, compared to ONE claim of anachronism.

Finally, how do you confirm your claim of anachronism? Thru common consent of scientists. No allowances for future discoveries, I suppose. And you wish to close your eyes to those coincidences, and lay the burden of anachronisms on us.

Well, I would guess that our award winning historian can claim that as a personal priviledge.

Edited August 26, 2011 by cdowis

[stemelbow]

There are a couple of ways to think of anachronisms in the text. I don't think its so easy to say "a-hah, an anachronism; therefore it's false".

1. The text we have is a modern rendition of what was initially written. If an anachronism is found, it could be due to either error by the modern translator, or a weakness in the language and ideas of the era of translation.

2. When legitimate archaeological things are found to bring established ideas into question, it at times reults in the established ideas needing to be changed or revised. I believe I recall reading in Guns, Germs and Steel something about how the established notion was that the written word in mesoptamia dated to some certain time. Then they found something that pre-dated that and the established idea had to be revised. Anachronisms could prove to be smething similar, in time. If they do, then saying the anachronism proves it false is jumping the gun.

[stemelbow]

duplicate...oops.

Edited August 26, 2011 by stemelbow

[Kevin Christensen]

Dan and I disagree. Fine. We can agree on that. Readers, take your pick.

Now back to my reactions to the Interview. I finished listening to part 2, and into part 3.

Mormon Stories seems to me to be here bidding the new title of Gossip Level Support for Mormon Exit Stories. Coe is Dehlin's traffic cop, the man with the badge of authority who can say to those curious about the Book of Mormon, "Nothing to see here folks. Move along."

Without ever citing chapter or verse, and therefore, actually reading in context to both accurately describe and define specific problems, or even crediting arguments to specific apologists or books, he tosses Coe some slow balls and nods approvingly as Coe bats them out of the plausibility ball park. Coins? Nope. (Nevermind that the Book of Mormon discussion of weights and measures never mentions coins.) Wheat? Coe's description of pollen samples with pond sediments is interesting. Even so, I think scale and location should be part of the discussion, which would mean actual who, when, and where scenarios should matter. Brass helmets and steel swords and shields? There is a valid question or two buried in there amid the distortion and lack of confrontation with actual text and culture. Dehlin does attribute one argument to Nibley, on the problem of preservation of artifacts in the New world. Nibley was not an archeologist, and rarely touched on the New World settings. It would be nice if Dehlin had pointed to the last chapter of the 1957 An Approach to the Book of Mormon. That would show how carefully Dehlin prepared for the interview, to make sure he was up to date on the latest word. And it would be nice if Dehlin had read Warfare in the Book of Mormon for a more recent exploration, or even Brant's recent work. Or anything really. It's usually at the level of half-remembered gossip from decades ago.

What about chariots and wheels? A swing and a hit at a superficial gossip level mention, as usual, without chapter and verse to define the problem, and out of the park to the cheers of the interviewer. No metalurgy till later or outside the region. No stacks of plates with Mormon's name on them. I'm crushed.

How about population sizes? Well, Coe says, actually Mesoamerica supports those. And the later Aztecs did have large armies, but phew, not the Maya, so again, nothing to see here. And no iron arrow heads a battle site. Only stone. Not iron or steel. So, I suppose we can write off all the many discussions of metal arrow heads in the Book of Mormon. Does Dehlin ask Coe about the fortifications that match Book of Mormon descriptions? Nope.

What about the Smithsonian Letter? Which is, of course, a response to a folk rumor that Sorenson also has condemned. And for that matter, got the Smithsonian to change the content of their letter.

Racism? Reference of course to the Mound Builder Myth, which I think colored the way the Book of Mormon was read, but not the content. No reference to contextualizing of language used in the Book of Mormon by Hugh Nibley, Sorenson, Tvedtnes and Gardner. Lots of causal mention of the political side of the diffusionist debate. Does influence from the New World devalue the real contributions of the Native American peoples?

Coe describes believers, whether in God or Marxism or the Book of Mormon as not being scientific, because they start with a belief. Skeptics, and true scientists, of course, go boldly on to truth, without any controlling ideology whatsoever. Yep. And here is a great deal on a car that Granny drove only to vote in presidential elections. Ideology is something that happens to other people.

Dehlin gets an account of NWAF and what Coe calls excellent work. And then on to what Dehlin really wants to know. He's heard that some Book of Mormon apologist who had written a book lost faith... Oh, Ferguson. So we get that familiar story. Dehlin wants more. Who else? One more, who started as a fundamentalist (i.e., brittle expectations.) What about the others? What to they really think? Sorenson believes, and Coe respects him, but of course, says he is barking up the wrong tree. Which tree is that? Dehlin seems far more interested in getting an authority to back up his state of confident unbelief than to actually learn anything. And of course, had he been interested in knowledge rather than conclusions, his questions would have shown it.

Dehlin asks about how FARMS is viewed among real archeologists. Does anyone take them seriously for their apologetic work on the Book of Mormon. What chance is there that the Book of Mormon is true? Less that 1 percent. What a relief. Up to now, I though we had no chance, and nothing whatsoever.

He asks Coe about Chiasmus, which he claims some un-named apologists claim as "proof" of the Book of Mormon (imagine being represented in court by Chris Farley) and after refreshing Coe's memory, with the help of Google search, Coe says, "Oh yes, I know that Nibley wrote something about that." (In fact, Nibley did not write about it. John Welch is the expert of the Old World side, and Allen Christenson is an expert on the New World side.) Coe does mention Christenson's translation of the Popul Vuh, with approval.

We get a bit about Ferguson and the papyrus, and shattered faith because the papyrus is just the Book of the Dead (actually, a Book of Breathings, but what does Nibley or Gee know?).

Then on to Brodie, and Joseph Smith as a great guy, memorizer of the Old Testament, creative anomaly, and self-deluding shaman and wonderful leader who just happened to come to believe his own lies enough to get himself tarred and feathered, jailed, sued, and finally shot.

More to look forward to during my lunch time walk. A few years ago, I filled my lunch time walks with a few Mormon Stories podcasts, and out of that came my essay in FR 22/2. When I'm done I can get back to listening to Terry Pratchett, which will be a relief.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[Kevin Christensen]

And reaching the end of the podcast, we find Coe sharing his warm admiration for the LDS religion and general, and the idea that we can all be good moral people without believing in God. Nothing wrong with that. Brigham Young commented that he'd rather have good moral behavior without belief in God than the opposite. He gives us his warm regards and respect for BYU archeologists, and reports on how well they treat him, and how many friends he has, despite disagreements. We're not intolerant fanatics.

On the way this end, we have Dehlin warmly invoking Grant Palmer's book, and Loosing a Lost Tribe , and reporting that Book of Mormon scholars are viewed as "laughing stocks" (Dehlin's term, not Coe's). Imagine the uproar if Daniel Peterson used that term? The un-ending cries of ad hominem! The years it would be invoked as the paradigmatic exemplar for the entire apologetic approach.

No mention of the Great and Spacious either, with the pointing and mocking. Perhaps he didn't see a similarity in the term laughing stock, and the action of pointing and mocking.

Dehlin, not Coe, provides most of a Brodiesque picture of Joseph copying the Bible for 20% of the text (being sure to mention that "errors" so that we know that he's not some uninformed yokel, but a true insider), referring things like View of the Hebrews, Lucy Smith's report of Joseph Senior's Tree of Life dream, and some very suspiciously pointed family parallels like Joseph Jr. having a visionary father, and rival brothers. And the 19th Century sermons, of course, thanks to Palmer, not by way of the big FARMS volume on King Benjamin's Discourse, no siree bob. And if there is anything at all impressive somewhere out beyond, we can simply say that Joseph Smith was a genius (able to compose chiasms in a single bound), a genius, at least among laughing stocks.

Three hours with Coe and Dehlin and what more could anyone ask? Dehlin says that the goal of Mormon Stories is to promote mutual respect, tolerance, and understanding. I can see why Dehlin doesn't believe the Book of Mormon, and why Coe doesn't. What is missing is any sense of why anyone could believe the Book of Mormon. It doesn't talk all that long to get reasonably well informed these days. It even easier than trying to arrange an interview with a working scholar. Thanks to Amazon and the internet websites, the information can come home to you. A lot of it for free, costing only interest and time. And you can get through far more information by reading, than by listening to a podcast.

Has he read Gardner's commentary? Sorenson's recent article on diffusion in a non-LDS journal, with peer review and everything? Did he just forget to ask about fortifications, while asking about steel arrowheads (which the Book of Mormon must have mentioned somewhere, given how pointedly Coe dismissed them. Right?). Forget fortifications when the desired points can be made with Quetzalcoatl and steel.

He complains during the website discussion of the podcast that apologists are good at criticizing in broad strokes, but not at offering specifics, or in offering to appear on Mormon Stories. (I offered a while back, when he came asking here for an apologist. Nothing came of it. Later, Blair asked me for FAIR, and we did it.)

Where in three hours was a single quote from the Book of Mormon, a single passage read in context? It would have helped in dealing with such burning issues as steel or iron arrowheads and wheels and metal helmets and breast plates. Or even in defining just how disappointed we should be at not finding wheat pollen in pond silt cores. When mentioning LDS believers, such as Sorenson or Nibley, was there a single question that gave book and page and year or actual significant argument? Let alone acknowledgement of their good arguments. Coe does mention Ferguson's One Fold and One Shepherd and Jakeman's 50's reading of Izapa Stele 5. Not Clark's 1999 JBMS article giving an an assessment that Coe probably agrees with. But Palmer and Southerton, he knows about.

The news is tough for believers to take as Dehlin says near the end, while urging Coe on to Dehlin's (not Coe's) characterization of believers as laughing stocks. Dehlin was particularly keen to get accounts about disillusion among believing scholars. So Dehlin is a nice guy with LDS issues, and Coe is a nice guy with LDS friends. It's nice to have informed friends, but not everyone is well informed on everything, are they? Nice does not mean informed.

Daniel Peterson was fun to listen to. Interesting that it was Dan Wotherspoon and not Dehlin.

Oh well. On to Terry Prachett and Diskworld.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

Edited August 31, 2011 by Kevin Christensen

[Dan Vogel]

Cdowis,

Let us suppose that the BOM stated that gonorrhea was in Europe two centuries before Columbus. Would that disprove the BOM as anachronistic, since the common consent among historians that Columbus brought that disease to Europe.

Why do you need to invent an anachronism when we have real ones in the BOM already?

Where does the burden lie when you shout "anachronism, anachronism" is made?

It’s not me crying “anachronism”—we all know they are there. The question is what do we do with them?

Let us suppose the opposite. Authentic Egyptian and ancient middle eastern names are found in this book. Let us suppose that it describes several a previously unknown geographic feature, several of them, in fact. Does the sword of anachronism cut both ways, or do you simply shout "A coincidence, just a coincidence." How many claims of coincidence are you able to make, compared to ONE claim of anachronism.

The only thing that would change the situation would be to find a direct connection between the BOM and Mesoamerica. Then arguments about translation and context would carry weight.

Kevin admitted that the BOM could be contextualized to the wrong environment. It’s not always coincidence; it can be the ingenuity of the researcher. Egyptian and Middle Eastern names across thousands of years gives you a target rich environment in which to find parallels. But the calculus is simple. One anachronism is all it takes to disprove the historical claims of any document. Deciding if such a thing has occurred in a document might take time, but once it has been determined with high probability it is valid evidence against historicity. Now, I don’t expect believers in historicity to abandon their theory immediately. Predictably, they will try various ad hoc escapes from this adverse evidence until it becomes unreasonable to maintain it.

Finally, how do you confirm your claim of anachronism? Thru common consent of scientists. No allowances for future discoveries, I suppose. And you wish to close your eyes to those coincidences, and lay the burden of anachronisms on us.

You can’t confirm a negative; we are dealing with a probabilistic argument. You heard Coe discuss the probabilities of discovering a horse in pre-classic Mesoamerica and his reasoning for saying so. He cited hundreds of digs. It’s the difference between the absence of evidence (no search has been done) and evidence of absence (reasonable search has been done).

Edited August 27, 2011 by Dan Vogel

[cdowis]

Why do you need to invent an anachronism when we have real ones in the BOM already?

I revised my example to Syphilis. The point should now be obvious to an award winning historian.

Do I really need to explain it to you? Is this example really an anachronism? I hope that you have done your homework, to realize that for decades it was assumed that Columbus brought that disease to Europe, when it was probably the other way around.

What do you do with an anachronism? Again this example should answer your question -- the consensus opinion of scientists is *opinion*, not fact. Further research and discoveries can make dramatic changes in the consensus. Whether there were horses in mesoamerica in 100BCE, we know that they were in the Americas 10kya, so it is merely a matter of further research. It is certainly plausible, considering that there really were full-sized horses here.

Pretty basic stuff, you know.

Edited August 27, 2011 by cdowis

[cdowis]

dup

Edited August 27, 2011 by cdowis

[Dan Vogel]

Cdowis,

I revised my example to Syphilis. The point should now be obvious to an award winning historian.

Do I really need to explain it to you? Is this example really an anachronism? I hope that you have done your homework, to realize that for decades it was assumed that Columbus brought that disease to Europe, when it was probably the other way around.

What do you do with an anachronism? Again this example should answer your question -- the consensus opinion of scientists is *opinion*, not fact. Further research and discoveries can make dramatic changes in the consensus. Whether there were horses in mesoamerica in 100BCE, we know that they were in the Americas 10kya, so it is merely a matter of further research. It is certainly plausible, considering that there really were full-sized horses here.

Pretty basic stuff, you know.

Oh! The scientists-have-been-wrong-so-they’re always-wrong argument.

You realize this is the argument used by the defenders of all the varieties of pseudoscience. Coe admitted that there was a possibility he could be wrong, but based on the hundreds of digs he argued that it wasn’t likely. It’s not just opinion, because he has a probabilistic argument. An argument isn’t an opinion. You merely have an assertion of plausibility, which is meaningless.

[Kevin Christensen]

Dan Vogel writes:

The only thing that would change the situation would be to find a direct connection between the BOM and Mesoamerica. Then arguments about translation and context would carry weight.

There is this. Coe refered to the seal, but not to this set of observations. Much easier to dismiss Ferguson's claims of Reformed Egyptian than matching characters with the Anthon transcript.

http://www.shields-research.org/General/SEHA/SEHA_Newsletter_122-2.PDF

This wasn't Mesoamerica, but it strikes me as carrying a bit of weight.

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=12&num=2&id=324

Kevin admitted that the BOM could be contextualized to the wrong environment.

And I think that Coe's reading the race business in light of the Mound Builder myth, rather than say, Brant's discussion in Second Witness shows just what a difference the right context makes.

Dan V. again:

But the calculus is simple. One anachronism is all it takes to disprove the historical claims of any document.

Like this one.

"Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house." (Matt 5:15.

Anyone spot the anachronsims? Now be specific. Exactly which Biblical claims have just been disproven?

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA.

Edited August 28, 2011 by Kevin Christensen

[cdowis]

Cdowis,

Dan Vogel,

Oh! The scientists-have-been-wrong-so-they’re always-wrong argument.

No, this is the "I know the difference between opinion and fact" argument. Your straw-man will not serve you here.

You realize this is the argument used by the defenders of all the varieties of pseudoscience.

I realize that the "opinion == fact" has been used by the purveyors of rhetorical nonsense for centuries. Indeed, there is a logical fallacy named after it.

Coe admitted that there was a possibility he could be wrong, but based on the hundreds of digs he argued that it wasn’t likely.

I have a great deal of respect for Coe, so I will make this crystal clear:

I'm not talking to Coe. My comments to him would be very different. Dan, I am talking to you, responding to your comments and assertions. Hiding behind his skirts will give you neither respect nor cover for your comments.

It’s not just opinion, because he has a probabilistic argument. An argument isn’t an opinion. You merely have an assertion of plausibility, which is meaningless.

Sigh.... I gave you a specific example where scientific consensus was turned on its head by a recent discovery. Michael Coe gives a strongly held opinion, but admits that he could be wrong. It is an opinion.

He understand this because he has written an entire book on such an example.

With all due respect, you are no Michael Coe.

Edited August 28, 2011 by cdowis

[SeattleGrunge]

So, it looks like there has been no specific response to Dr. Coe. I think it is getting ever more needed to make one. I am not qualified to do so, and those that are I'm sure are already loaded with many things on their plates. I am thinking of going through the podcast and making a document of all the statements made for others to give quick replies to and links for further reading/documentation. I'll work on that over the next two days and post when I have it completed.

[SeattleGrunge]

Double post

Edited August 29, 2011 by SeattleGrunge

[SeattleGrunge]

I started a new thread for my response and request for help

[Dan Vogel]

Cdowis,

No, this is the "I know the difference between opinion and fact" argument. Your straw-man will not serve you here.

You really don’t know what you are talking about. Your argument was very plainly that scholars were wrong about syphilis and therefore could be wrong about the horse. Your introduction of the opinion vs. fact argument is a red herring. Scholarship deals with probabilistic arguments, not raw facts. We both know that if consensus was in your favor you would be touting it.

I realize that the "opinion == fact" has been used by the purveyors of rhetorical nonsense for centuries. Indeed, there is a logical fallacy named after it.

There are also purveyors of unreasonable doubt, who try to confuse people with irrelevant arguments.

I have a great deal of respect for Coe, so I will make this crystal clear:

I'm not talking to Coe. My comments to him would be very different. Dan, I am talking to you, responding to your comments and assertions. Hiding behind his skirts will give you neither respect nor cover for your comments.

Coe is the authority who used a probabilistic argument to support his assertion that there were no horses, etc., in Mesoamerica in BOM times. That’s what this thread is about. You might respect him, but you certainly don’t respect his argument.

Sigh.... I gave you a specific example where scientific consensus was turned on its head by a recent discovery. Michael Coe gives a strongly held opinion, but admits that he could be wrong. It is an opinion.

He understand this because he has written an entire book on such an example.

You’re really not good at this logic thing. Your syphilis analogy is not really analogous. It was an assumption and not based on a probabilistic argument from evidence of absence. I didn’t dispute it because I didn’t want to distract you from the main concepts here. In debate, there is a difference between opinion and argument. You should learn it. Labeling Coe’s argument as an opinion because it’s not 100% certain is a misuse of the English language. Meanwhile, you can hang on to the 1% possibility with all the faith you can muster.

With all due respect, you are no Michael Coe.

And you’re no Dan Peterson!

[Calm]

So, it looks like there has been no specific response to Dr. Coe. I think it is getting ever more needed to make one. I am not qualified to do so, and those that are I'm sure are already loaded with many things on their plates. I am thinking of going through the podcast and making a document of all the statements made for others to give quick replies to and links for further reading/documentation. I'll work on that over the next two days and post when I have it completed.

Give it time. A 'professional' job usually takes more effort than something slap and dash.

You could write FAIR and/or the MI and ask if they have anything in the works that you could help out with.