A Hebraism In The Book Of Mormon

[Rob Bowman]

Wade,

You wrote:

Wasn't the earliest extant manuscript for Zohar written in Spanish?

I'm not an expert on this subject, but I believe the earliest manuscripts are in Aramaic.

Do we have "original-language" manuscripts for the first five books of the Old Testament? In other words, since you believe Moses wrote the first five book, do we have extant manuscripts in the same language spoken and written by Moses?

Yes, they were originally written in Hebrew, and Moses, being a Hebrew, would have written in Hebrew. But careful about making assumptions about what other people believe; I don't take the position that the Pentateuch passed through the millennium after Moses with no editing.

Prior to 1947, weren't the earliest extant manuscripts for the Old Testament written in Greek (i.e. not the original language in which the Old Testament was written)?

Yes. However, for various reasons it was always known that the OT was originally written in Hebrew (with portions in Aramaic). Recent discoveries and studies have led OT scholars to the view that in some places the Greek versions may contain readings that reflect an older textual tradition than the MT (Masoretic Text), but in general the MT has held up extremely well.

[volgadon]

I'm not an expert on this subject, but I believe the earliest manuscripts are in Aramaic.

Correct. There are very few portions in Hebrew, or which were originally in Hebrew. None of it was in Spanish, though, as Duba D'Nura remarked, some of the syntax is Spanish.

Edited March 2, 2012 by volgadon

[wenglund]

Yes, they were originally written in Hebrew, and Moses, being a Hebrew, would have written in Hebrew.

CFR that Moses spoke and wrote in Hebrew--this should prove interest since the earliest extant Hebrew manuscript dates to about 1000 BCE, which is some 400 years after the death of Moses. Also, since Moses was raised from an infant to an adult in the house of Pharaoh, are you sure he didn't write and speak in Egyptian? And, in the course of your research, could you also determine if Moses spoke and wrote in the same kind of Hebrew as found on the Dead Sea Scrolls?

I asked you the question: "Prior to 1947, weren't the earliest extant manuscripts for the Old Testament written in Greek (i.e. not the original language in which the Old Testament was written)?" To which you responded:

Yes....

This mean that prior to 1947, your Step Two could not have been performed on the Old Testament, and so according to your reasoning, "Thus the working assumption of scholarly historians will be that [the books of the Old Testament]...are modern in origin."

Nice work!

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Rob Bowman]

Wade,

You wrote:

CFR that Moses spoke and wrote in Hebrew--this should prove interest since the earliest extant Hebrew manuscript dates to about 1000 BCE, which is some 400 years after the death of Moses. Also, since Moses was raised from an infant to an adult in the house of Pharaoh, are you sure he didn't write and speak in Egyptian? And, in the course of your research, could you also determine if Moses spoke and wrote in the same kind of Hebrew as found on the Dead Sea Scrolls?

After refusing to answer my CFR, you sure were quick to manufacture an excuse to issue a CFR to me. This is a frivolous one because you already asked me for my opinion and I gave it. I would expect that Moses was bilingual; most people seem to have been bilingual in history, and Moses certainly would have had the opportunity. But no, I cannot prove that Moses spoke or wrote in Hebrew. I understand the Pentateuch to originate largely from Moses, and it was originally written in Hebrew. So there's your reference.

The next one's fun. You wrote:

I asked you the question: "Prior to 1947, weren't the earliest extant manuscripts for the Old Testament written in Greek (i.e. not the original language in which the Old Testament was written)?" To which you responded:

Yes....

This mean that prior to 1947, your Step Two could not have been performed on the Old Testament, and so according to your reasoning, "Thus the working assumption of scholarly historians will be that [the books of the Old Testament]...are modern in origin."

Nope. False. Wrong. Error. Missed. Strike.

Step two has to do with examining the linguistic features of a text to determine as best one can the approximate period or era in which it was written. To do this, you need the text in the language that has those linguistic features. It is not necessary that the earliest copy of that language version be earlier than the extant copies in all other languages. You just need the text in the language in question.

[DubaDNura]

Ok, as promised, some sources on my earlier statement that singing (as in "and they did sing") is connected with Keter/Desire which is the highest emanation of G-d. Also as promised, I've based it on a teaching from Rebbe Nachman of Breslav:

I am not a follower of the Breslav Chassidic school (if it can be called a school – since there are so many adherents to it that cannot seem to agree on what it means). But Rebbe Nachman’s approach is nonetheless a very fascinating one, if you’re creative enough to be able to make heads or tails out of his writings. (My brains I can’t speak for, but I think I proved my creativity when I offered a Kabbalistic interpretation of a verse from the Book of Mormon).

Here’s a little background into Rebbe Nachman of Breslav before I quote him on the subject of music. Feel free to skip this paragraph. Rebbe Nachman was born in Mezhbuzh, a town in Ukraine. He was a great grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Chassidic movement. By the time he was 13 years old, he was married, and was teaching people that were older than him. In 1802, when he was 30 years old, he moved to the town of Breslav, also in Unkraine, where he met Rabbi Nathan Sternhartz (known in the Breslav community simply as “Reb Nosson”). Reb Nosson eventually transcribed many of Rebbe Nachman’s teachings into a book, that he called Likutei Mohara’’n, which simply means “Collections from the Master, Rebbe Nachman” (Mohara’’n is an acronym). Rebbe Nachman’s approach was considered controversial in his day; and to this day, there are those who learn his approach, and those who quite pointedly do not. But for a couple of accidents, I would likely be in the latter camp. Many of the Chassidic giants of his day saw his nuanced approach – which emphasized, and sought to explain, Kabbalah, and particularly the Tikunei Zohar – as a departure from the Baal Shem Tov’s approach (despite the fact that the Baal Shem Tov himself taught Kabbalah very openly). Not all Chassidic masters were against him, however. Among his supporters was Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev, whose grand-daughter married the grandson of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Rebbe of the Chabad school. His teachings (called “Torahs,” by Breslav Chassidim) are largely based on, and explanations of, the Tikunei Zohar – an addendum to the Zohar that offers 70 explanations of the verse “In the Beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth.” (You’ve probably heard that verse quoted elsewhere). Enough name dropping, lets talk turkey.

The concept of song is described in a number of places in Kabbalistic sources. In the Lurianic Kabbalah, as condified in the book Eitz Chaim, there is an entire chapter called “Shaar Tant’a”, Shaar means gate (but in Eitz Chaim, the word gate just means chapter). Tant’a is an acronym for Taamim, Nekudos, Tagim, Otiot, or musical notes (literally, “taste” or “reason,” which correspond to Keter and Chochma, Crown/Desire and Wisdom, respectively), vowel marks (literally, dots), crowns (to understand this one, you need to see Hebrew written in a Torah. Some of the letters have crowns), and letters.

These 4 things all have to do with reading the Torah. If you look into a proper Torah scroll (see below), you will see that the letters do not have any punctuation. I’ve been impressed with the level of discourse on this forum, so I gather that many of you know that vowelization in Hebrew is through dots and marks that appear above, below, and to an extent between, the letters. If you look in the Torah, you will find no such dots. The reader therefore must go by memory or by context clues. Finally, the proper reading of the Torah, as part of the synagogue service, requires the reader to use a “trop,” or musical notes that add emphasis to the words, and function as commas and periods. Once again, those notes do not appear in the actual Torah text.

The full Shaar in Eitz Chaim is too complicated to get into here, but it identifies Taamim, the musical notes, with Keter and with Chochma. Keter is the highest sefirah. It means “crown” literally, but denotes Desire and Pleasure. What drives a person to have an intellect and emotions to do something is the initial desire to do it, and the pleasure that results from its having been done. This is true with G-dly endeavors, as it is true with simple things like eating a hotdog. 1. The person has a desire that needs to be met (Taamim). 2. The desire manifests in his mind as a subtle nagging that creates an image of the desire’s fulfillment (Nekudos – related to the eyes, which see images). 3. The person determines logically how to meet the desire head-on (Tagim). 4. The logical conclusion arrived at previously is stated in a single statement of intention: “I will go buy a hotdog, and then consume it with mustard, but no ketchup,” (Otiot).

This makes sense logically (how do we talk “logically” about something that, by its definition, is above logic. This is the magic of Kabbalah). A song expresses messages that are much deeper than the simple words to the song.

The trick in Kabbalah is to remember that all of Kabbalah is a metaphor. Torah itself is called the primary metaphor. In other words, it expresses something inexpressible. The experience of following Torah’s precepts teaches a person about G-d. However, the experiences of keeping Torah have to be understood properly for them to be as meaningful as possible. Otherwise, keeping seemingly dogmatic commandments can seem by-rote and bereft of meaning. Kabbalah, for that reason, uses metaphors that appeal universally to human experience, or directly to Torah law. Romance and eroticism, for example, become primary metaphors, because they involve strong feelings that are nearly universal. I have tried to stay away from using those metaphors here, for all of the obvious reasons. But a rather innocent metaphor brought in the writings of Rabbi Dov Ber Schneuri is the metaphor of the husband and the wife telling each other how much they love one another. Fairly soon, this sappy scene cannot be contained in words anymore. Kissing is therefore “higher” than words, because a kiss sends a message of love and trust that words cannot. A husband therefore might buy flowers for his wife, not just because women like flowers (by the way, women tend to like flowers… I don’t know what the rules of the Singles Ward are, but this is something men should be told), but also because the flowers symbolize something much bigger than the $35.00 you just put out for roses and baby’s breath. Even the words “I love you” are powerless to evoke the kind of emotions that a dozen roses can sometimes produce.

Rebbe Nachman’s power is that he is able to produce vivid metaphors. His weakness is that he does not explain the metaphors, but rather relies upon his students’ creativity to put the pieces together. This is not my approach, so I will offer some explanations. But I will try to keep them to a minimum in order to preserve the original quality of Likutei Mohara’’n. For those who are interested, the Torah I’m going to be paraphrasing is Torah 64. I'm leaving a good deal out. And don't tell me I didn't warn you... its cryptic. (My explanations are in parenthesis).

G-d' date=' due to his mercy, created the world, because he wanted to reveal his mercy. If he had not created the world, he would not have been able to reveal his mercy – for to whom would he reveal it? So he created the world(s) from the very first issuance down to the central point of the physical world, in order to reveal his mercy. But when G-d wanted to create the world, there was no room to do so, because G-d was infinite [and took up all of the space']. Therefore, he contracted His light to the sides, and through this contraction created an empty space. Within that space, he created days and attributes, that constituted the creation of the world, as it is written in the beginning of Eitz Chaim. This contraction, however, is totally impossible to understand, until the future (ie, the coming of the Messiah), because it is a composite of two opposite things: Existence, and Nonexistence (lit. Yesh and Ayin, Something and Nothing). That is, the empty space, being a product of the contraction, in which G-d contracted himself from there, is seemingly a place devoid of G-d. But, in truth, even though that is the case, it is also true that G-d is present there, because truly there is no place devoid of Him, and He is everything. This will not be understood until the future.

(Ok, much could be said about the contraction. Its written about extensively. I’m not going to explain it now, however, because Rebbe Nachman’s taking care of it. If you’ve followed this far, please just continue following.)

Now there are two different kinds of heretics (apikorsim). The first kind is a heretic due to external influences (lit. external wisdoms) – and it is important to know what to respond to them, like it says in Pirkei Avot. These heretics’ concerns can be answered. They are only heretics due to their external influences, which come from excesses due to the shattering of the vessels. (Ok, time out. Shattering of the vessels refers to a stage in the creation of the world that is, so to speak, well after the “contraction.” The simple – and therefore inadequate – explanation is that G-d began creation by pouring an awesome effluence of light into vessels that were too weak to contain the light, causing them to shatter. The broken pieces fell into the world, and became the world’s excesses – that is, aspects of the world that seem particularly meaningless or even evil due to the greatness of G-d’s concealment. Once these broken vessels are repaired (“Tikkun”), the world will be whole. The deeper explanation reveals that the “shattering” really refers to the lack of perception and insight on our part. If we can repair our own shattered perception (the vessels through which we perceive the light of G-d in the world), we will see how the world already is whole, and how it always was whole. This is probably the pithiest explanation of the shattering of the vessels you’ll ever see. The point Rebbe Nachman is bringing out is that since the “shattering” was caused by a lack of perception, all that is required in order to harmonize the chaos is to add in information and wisdom or insight. Therefore, it is possible to answer these “heretics’” concerns.)

However, there is another type of heretic – one whose wisdom is not wisdom at all (that is, not even “external wisdom”). However, since their “wisdoms” seem sophisticated, they are viewed incorrectly as being wise. This is like one who concocts a whole convoluted understanding in a Torah subject, and due to his sophistication he is able to pull the wool over the eyes of those who do not know better. There are countless questions that philosopher consider that truly are not wise questions at all. In truth, they are corrupt from their core – human wisdom, however, has no answer to their questions – so they seem wise. This is because their questions come from the empty space. Just like it is impossible to find G-d, so to speak, in the empty space, so too it is impossible to answer these heretics’ questions – otherwise, the empty space would not be empty. (Confused yet? The idea here is that since certain questions are really outside of the realm of logic – essential questions of faith, for example – it makes no sense to apply human wisdom to them. These questions touch upon the heart of the disconnect between this world of lies, and the truth of G-d.) About these heretics, it is said “none who go to her return.” Proverbs, 2:19. Return can also mean “answer.” In other words, there is no answer to their strange questions.

It comes out that the empty space surrounds the world (which was created, so to speak, within it); and G-d transcends the empty space. Therefore, we say that while he fills creation – which occurs inside the empty space – he transcends the empty space. Therefore, all that is necessary is to have faith that since G-d Himself created the empty space, that it is totally filled with his transcendent essence – just that we don’t understand Him, and His works. (This part is supposed to be confusing – he is, admittedly, discussing something that he keeps on reminding us cannot be directly discussed).

However, if there is a great and righteous person, like Moses, he will be able to see inside the latter heresy. Even though their questions cannot be answered, as such, the righteous person through his delving into these matters can nonetheless save countless souls who have been trapped inside these heresies’ grasps. The answers to their questions are silence, for there are no answers – there are no words that can answer them. And the world was created through G-d’s words, His speech. In speech, there is wisdom; and through G-d’s speech, the whole world, and all of its details, were created – like it says “Everything was made with wisdom.” Psalms 104. And “With the words of G-d’s lips, the heavens were created.” Psalms 33. But words are limited, since they exist within the world. The empty space is outside of the world. It is empty of everything (seemingly). It has beyond speech – even intellect that is higher than speech; and so, the confusion that emanates from there is silence.

Thus it states in the Talmud, tractate Menachot: “G-d showed Moses the death of Rabbi Akiva (who was tortured to death by the Romans). Moses asked ‘this is your Torah? This is your reward?’ G-d answered, ‘Silence! So it arose in my thought.’”

In other words, for such questions and confusions, you must simply be quiet. Do not ask, and to not answer. This simply “arose in G-d’s thought,” thought being higher than speech. (And here, speech means logic. Logic can be expressed verbally, thought that cannot be expressed verbally is higher than logic.)

(I’m going to skip a whole section (section 4) and move to section 5.)

Now understand, that through the righteous one’s (ie, Moses’s) song, the souls of these heretics can be raised even from the empty space. Every wisdom and idea in this world has its song, and the wisdom comes from the song. Like it says in the Talmud tractate Chagigah: “Acher (that is, Elisha ben Avuya, a heretic), what was in him? (ie, what was wrong with him? Why did he become a heretic?) Greek songs never left his lips. When he stood up to leave the house of learning, heretical books fell out of his clothing.” The one flows from the other: Since Greek songs never left his mouth, heretical books fell from him.

This notion, that each idea has its song, holds true into the highest heights, into the creation itself, and beyond the creation, into the transcendent light that surrounds and transcends the empty space. For while even there, there is wisdom, it is not a wisdom that we can ever understand. Rather, we can only have faith in it – that the Infinite One transcends the worlds, and surrounds them. Faith, too, has a song; and since the wisdom that it expresses is higher than other wisdoms, the song is therefore higher than other songs; and all songs, in essence, stem from this song of faith. In the future, in the times of the Messiah, the nations will be turned towards a clear language, to call out together in the name of G-d (Zaphaniah Chapter 3), all will believe in G-d, and the verse will come true: Come, you will look from the peak of Amanah (Amanah is almost the same word as Emunah, which means faith), that is, from the highest of all faith. (The word here rendered “you shall look” also looks similar to the word “you shall sing,”) And “you shall look/sing” is precisely that: the song of faith, that comes from the righteous one who lifts others through silence.

--

Edited March 2, 2012 by DubaDNura

[Robert F. Smith]

Just an excerpt, Rob, if you don't mind:

Trying to place the burden of proof entirely on me isn't right; it isn't reasonable.

O.K., but, if so, why do you make the opposite claim at paragraph end herein that “The burden of proof is on you”? At first I thought that you wanted to share the burden according to the claims made by whatever party, but it seems apparent from your later remarks that this was a pipe dream.

The Book of Mormon appears in historical circumstances we can identify for the first time in the late 1820s.

False.

Richard Bushman took a hard look at this typical, oft-repeated claim and found it wanting – see his Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (Knopf, 2005), 87-105. Bushman terms it “almost postmodern in its self-conscious attention to the production of the text” (87), thus, by implication, lending itself well to analysis via the Documentary Hypothesis. Instead of the vast numbers of parallels claimed by anti-Mormons, Bushman shows how out-of-synch the BofM is with then contemporary thought: “the American story does not control the narrative” (101); the BofM “does not plant seeds of democracy in the primeval history of the nation” (102), etc.

There is no text. There is no attestation of its existence before the 1820s. The "translator" did not even use, refer to, or look at the metal plates on which the Book of Mormon was supposedly engraved when he was producing his "translation."

False.

Joseph copied off some of the characters directly from the plates, and sent Martin Harris east to see several scholars about it. Some people maintain that at least one such document is the so-called “Anthon Transcript,” in possession of the Community of Christ (RLDS) in Independence, Missouri, which was already published in 1844. Copies of that horizontal set of “Caractors” (the word itself in Joseph’s handwriting) have been made available to a couple of non-Mormon Egyptologists, and their comments were quite encouraging (Richard Bushman himself presenting a copy to the late Richard A. Parker, who replied that it appeared to be an Egyptian text, but in an unknown language such as Meroitic; another copy was presented by Stanley Kimball to the late W. C. Hayes, who actually transcribed the initial characters into hieroglyphic Egyptian and then translated them as the date of the text). There is plenty of testimony as to the physical nature of the plates by those who hefted and moved them about – both as official witnesses, as well as in mundane contexts when Emma moved them about in a cheesecloth while housekeeping.

His first 116 pages of translation were lost, after which he announced that the plates by divine arrangement included an alternate, better version of the narrative he had lost that differed enough to circumvent worries that the replacement translation would contradict the lost pages if they surfaced (whew!). The supposed translation of a work finished in the fifth century we have is laced with quotations from and allusions to a seventeenth-century translation of the Bible. Those quotations and allusions include materials from the New Testament, which the authors of the Book of Mormon would never have seen. It addresses religious, theological, and cultural concerns of intense interest in the first half of the nineteenth century but not the concerns of intense interest arising after that period (evolution, Communism, abortion, homosexuality, genetic engineering, nuclear weapons, etc.).

I know nothing of a “better version” in the small plates, but “an alternate,” yes. Lucy Harris apparently destroyed her purloined papers (book of Lehi), but it would be very interesting for all of us to obtain them at this late date and compare them with I & II Nephi.

In my post #166, I showed how one can easily incorporate modern idiom into ancient contexts, and do so with rich complexity during translation, but you did not deign to reply. The other problem which you do not deal with effectively is the extent and meaning of the “quotations and allusions” employed by Jesus, and remembered by the Apostles, and other NT writers and early Church Fathers. Are they the authentic words spoken by Jesus, or has the later Sitz im Leben der Kirche put words in his mouth in the same way that you claim Joseph puts later words in the mouths of BofM prophets? If not, and if they are all the authentic words of Jesus, did Jesus misquote any of the prophets or attribute a prophecy to the wrong character? How rigidly or narrowly can one interpret such issues and still claim to follow reliable canons of historiography? Throughout this thread, you have been slow to address this central question.

As to the “religious, theological, and cultural concerns of intense interest,” etc., in Joseph’s day, see my comments above.

In this way it dates its origins, in the estimation of all non-Mormon scholars, quite precisely and definitely to the first half of the nineteenth century. These considerations make a nineteenth-century origin for the Book of Mormon the default starting point or working hypothesis for any academically serious historical approach to the Book of Mormon (please note all of the qualifiers). The burden of proof is on you (conservative Mormons) to show that it originated earlier, not on me (and all other non-Mormon scholars) to show that it did not.

False.

There are in fact non-Mormon scholars who have bothered to read the BofM with an eagle-eye who have drawn a quite different conclusion, one of them currently in print, and another in a forthcoming book.

Dr. Margaret Barker, for example (a Methodist scholar in Sheffield, England, and former president of the Society for Old Testament Study, who is very sensitive to Deuteronomistic revisionism), has evaluated the BofM for its Wisdom content in I Nephi 11 and concluded that “This revelation is the ancient wisdom symbolism, intact, and almost certainly as it was known in 600 BCE” – Barker, “Joseph Smith and Preexilic Israelite Religion,” May 2005 paper delivered at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, available in J. W. Welch, ed., The Worlds of Joseph Smith: A Bicentennial Conference at the Library of Congress (2006), 69-82 = BYU Studies 44/4.

[Rob Bowman]

Robert,

You wrote:

O.K., but, if so, why do you make the opposite claim at paragraph end herein that “The burden of proof is on you”? At first I thought that you wanted to share the burden according to the claims made by whatever party, but it seems apparent from your later remarks that this was a pipe dream.

I clearly explained why the burden of proof is on those who claim the Book of Mormon is authentic. In the absence of an ancient copy or of any copy in the original language, given the circumstances in which the book first appeared, and in view of the obvious fact that the book contains reams of material copied from the KJV Bible, the burden of proof is on those who claim the book is really a translation of an ancient text.

I had written:

"The Book of Mormon appears in historical circumstances we can identify for the first time in the late 1820s."

You replied:

False. Richard Bushman took a hard look at this typical, oft-repeated claim and found it wanting – see his Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (Knopf, 2005), 87-105. Bushman terms it “almost postmodern in its self-conscious attention to the production of the text” (87), thus, by implication, lending itself well to analysis via the Documentary Hypothesis. Instead of the vast numbers of parallels claimed by anti-Mormons, Bushman shows how out-of-synch the BofM is with then contemporary thought: “the American story does not control the narrative” (101); the BofM “does not plant seeds of democracy in the primeval history of the nation” (102), etc.

You seem to have missed completely what I was saying. The Book of Mormon first comes to light in the late 1820s. There is no attestation to its existence in any known source prior to the 1820s. This is simple fact, Robert, not even up for debate.

I had written:

"There is no text. There is no attestation of its existence before the 1820s. The 'translator' did not even use, refer to, or look at the metal plates on which the Book of Mormon was supposedly engraved when he was producing his 'translation.'"

You replied:

False. Joseph copied off some of the characters directly from the plates, and sent Martin Harris east to see several scholars about it. Some people maintain that at least one such document is the so-called “Anthon Transcript,” in possession of the Community of Christ (RLDS) in Independence, Missouri, which was already published in 1844.

The characters of the Anthon Transcript, assuming we simply take Joseph's story at face value, did not come from the Book of Mormon, but from what became known as the Book of Lehi, the material Joseph claimed to translate in 1828 and for which the translation became the notorious lost 116 pages.

Yes or No: Did Joseph produce a written translation of the characters on the Anthon Transcript?

You wrote:

Copies of that horizontal set of “Caractors” (the word itself in Joseph’s handwriting) have been made available to a couple of non-Mormon Egyptologists, and their comments were quite encouraging (Richard Bushman himself presenting a copy to the late Richard A. Parker, who replied that it appeared to be an Egyptian text, but in an unknown language such as Meroitic; another copy was presented by Stanley Kimball to the late W. C. Hayes, who actually transcribed the initial characters into hieroglyphic Egyptian and then translated them as the date of the text).

You state these things as if they were facts. I have read hundreds of pages from Mormon scholars and apologists about the Anthon Transcript and never heard any of this. My online search results suggests that you are the main person promoting these claims (and doing so on this forum). Hayes evidently claimed that his translation was based on a "spiritual experience." Richard Bushman discusses the Anthon Transcript in his book Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, 64-65, 577, but as best I could see he says nothing about Parker (nor does he appear to mention him in Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism).

You wrote:

There is plenty of testimony as to the physical nature of the plates by those who hefted and moved them about – both as official witnesses, as well as in mundane contexts when Emma moved them about in a cheesecloth while housekeeping.

There are also people who claimed to have seen the Tibetan scroll containing The Life of Saint Issa. Too bad it isn't available for inspection.

You wrote:

I know nothing of a “better version” in the small plates, but “an alternate,” yes. Lucy Harris apparently destroyed her purloined papers (book of Lehi), but it would be very interesting for all of us to obtain them at this late date and compare them with I & II Nephi.

If Lucy did destroy the pages, then Joseph was wrong in D&C 10 about what happened to them.

You wrote:

In my post #166, I showed how one can easily incorporate modern idiom into ancient contexts, and do so with rich complexity during translation, but you did not deign to reply.

Since I never said one could not use modern idiom in a translation of an ancient text, your argument is irrelevant to my position. There are other problems with your argument in that post, but there's only so much time for pounding away at irrelevancies. Besides, the point to which you were supposedly replying was my point that the Book of Mormon quotes extensively from the New Testament. "Modern idioms" doesn't cover that phenomenon.

You wrote:

The other problem which you do not deal with effectively is the extent and meaning of the “quotations and allusions” employed by Jesus, and remembered by the Apostles, and other NT writers and early Church Fathers. Are they the authentic words spoken by Jesus, or has the later Sitz im Leben der Kirche put words in his mouth in the same way that you claim Joseph puts later words in the mouths of BofM prophets? If not, and if they are all the authentic words of Jesus, did Jesus misquote any of the prophets or attribute a prophecy to the wrong character? How rigidly or narrowly can one interpret such issues and still claim to follow reliable canons of historiography? Throughout this thread, you have been slow to address this central question.

This is sheer obfuscation. Even a skeptic who regarded the Gospel sayings of Jesus with suspicion would not draw an equivalency between Matthew putting words in Jesus' mouth and Joseph Smith inventing speeches in which Book of Mormon characters use lines cribbed from the writings of Paul and John!

I had written:

"In this way it dates its origins, in the estimation of all non-Mormon scholars, quite precisely and definitely to the first half of the nineteenth century."

You replied:

False. There are in fact non-Mormon scholars who have bothered to read the BofM with an eagle-eye who have drawn a quite different conclusion, one of them currently in print, and another in a forthcoming book.

Dr. Margaret Barker, for example (a Methodist scholar in Sheffield, England, and former president of the Society for Old Testament Study, who is very sensitive to Deuteronomistic revisionism), has evaluated the BofM for its Wisdom content in I Nephi 11 and concluded that “This revelation is the ancient wisdom symbolism, intact, and almost certainly as it was known in 600 BCE” – Barker, “Joseph Smith and Preexilic Israelite Religion,” May 2005 paper delivered at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, available in J. W. Welch, ed., The Worlds of Joseph Smith: A Bicentennial Conference at the Library of Congress (2006), 69-82 = BYU Studies 44/4.

First of all, you don't even quote Margaret Barker accurately. Here is what she said: “This revelation to Joseph Smith was the ancient Wisdom symbolism, intact, and almost certainly as it was known in 600 BCE” (76).

Second, to the best of my knowledge Barker has not ventured an opinion as to whether the Book of Mormon is actually a translation of an ancient text. The statement you quoted does not express an opinion on this question. The article as a whole argues that the Book of Mormon is theologically consistent with Barker's reconstruction of preexilic Israelite religion, but she does not draw the conclusion you do. Now, perhaps she does think the Book of Mormon is a modern translation of an ancient scripture. If she does, I don't know why she doesn't convert to the LDS Church, but at any rate she does not seem to have taken a position on this question. If she does, I'll give you that one maverick.

With regard to the second, unnamed non-Mormon scholar you claim is coming out with a book on the topic: CFR.

[Kevin Christensen]

How to go about reading Alma 5 in context? I see lots of possibilities. Look at verse 3.

I, Alma, having been consecrated by my father, Alma, to be a high priest over the church of God, he having power and authority from God to do these things, behold, I say unto you that he began to establish a church in the land which was in the borders of Nephi; yea, the land which was called the land of Mormon; yea, and he did baptize his brethren in the waters of Mormon.

I'm provided with some specific hints as to a physical setting, specifically the Waters of Mormon, which come here as just a piece of a complex jigsaw puzzle in which, as Sorenson notes, all the pieces must interlock. The waters of Mormon mentioned in this verse are linked to the important story of Limhi's explorers. And the details of that story, according Larry Poulson's recent FAIR presentation, fit very nicely with a single Mesoamerican setting and some specific archeological locations and times. And Larry didn't mention the interesting tidbit that 3 Nephi account indicates that not only must the waters of Mormon be in the right location relative to many details, but it should include evidence that a city once located on its shores had been inundated.

And of course, it says that Alma was a High Priest. The most notable thing about the High Priest is that he was the one who entered the Holy of Holies once a year on the Day of Atonement. So when I read Alma 5, I expect I should find imagery related to the Day of Atonement. And based on Margaret Barker's recent researches on First Temple Judaism, using material unavailable to Joseph Smith or to any of the Revival Preachers Joseph Smith might have heard. First Temple Judiasm was much concerned with the "birth" of the High Priest in the Holy of Holies. So her recent talk in Yonkers might be a good resource.

http://www.margaretbarker.com/Papers/OurGreatHighPriest.pdf

From her work it appears that I should be reading about Melchizedek priesthood as well, if Alma was a High Priest in the First Temple tradition. She offers sbservations like this:

The Enochic tradition has, however, a distinctive attitude to fertility which could throw light on the situation in the time of the monarchy. Fertility followed the destruction of the evil angels, and the establishment of the rule of the great Holy One. Perverted knowledge was removed from the earth. The pattern was judgement, true knowledge and then fertility (1 Enoch 10; 80.2—. It derived, I believe, from the sequence of the autumn festival, where the renewal of fertility was bound up with the renewal of kingship after the enactment of the great judgement which gave rise to the biblical imagery of judgement as harvest.³⁴ . . . In every case where Isaiah mentions fertility, it is in such a context of judgement. (Barker, The Older Testament, 132—33.)

Do I find anything in Alma 5 that resonates?

Since Alma's conversion reported earlier and later in the Narrative, occurred when he was "nigh unto death", I might also want to compare with the rebirth imagery that occurs in many such accounts.

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=2&num=1&id=16

Since Alma had access to the Brass Plates, and texts by Lehi and Nephi who were contemporaries of Jeremiah, and who had access to some of his prophecies, I might also want to look for passages that show his characteristic themes and concerns. Such things as Jeremiah's famous concern for having a changed heart, or imagery of God as shepherd, or the tree of life.

And what divine titles are in use?

Barker notes that the title "Holy One" is

hardly used outside of Isaiah, and may, therefore have had a special significance in his theology. If I am to establish links between Isaiah and

1 Enoch,

this cannot be done simply by comparing the two works. I shall therefore establish a possible set of associations for the title Holy One, using material from other sources to provide a control and prevent circular argument. If any picture emerges from texts associated with the title Holy One, these should provide the context of Isaiah's and

1 Enoch's

usage

if the occurrence of the title is significant.

2

She surveys passages in Habakkuk, Jeremiah, and the Psalms, and concludes that

there is a pattern clearly associated with the title

Holy One.

Many of its elements are of the later apocalypses, such as visions, heavenly tablets, theophany, and angelic judgement, but the royal figure is also prominent, dependent for his power upon the might of the Holy One. The royal figure faces threats and enemies, but, we assume, overcomes them. Judgement upon foreign nations is also part of the pattern, and there are associations with the Temple.

3

We have seen much of the pattern associated with the Holy One already in her picture of the first temple themes in the Enoch literature. She emphasizes this pattern because Isaiah is the best source of information on the first temple period. The connection between the Enoch literature and Isaiah shows again that the first temple ideas continued to the time of the first Christians.

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/papers/?paperID=6&chapterID=52

And I should also consider the overall effect of Alma 5, rather than just treating it like a random assembly from scattered building blocks, as though, for instance, someone would glance at the score of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, and dismiss it as just a reuse of common chords and notes that other composers had in common currency.

Having gotten this far without reference to Thomas Kuhn, I submit to the inevitable, and point out that that Kuhn says that in paradigm debate, the choice always involves deciding "which paradigm is better?" and "which problems are more significant to have solved?" It's not about finding paradigm that solves all the problems or discarding one that hasn't solved all the problems it faces, but deciding which one is most promising for use in dealing with problems that remain.

Paradigms are defined by means of standard examples, which embody a set of assumptions, methods, and problem fields. I've noticed that the most interesting things I see in Alma 5 would never show up in an approach based on Rob's methods. Plus, one of his most conspicuous assumptions is that the notion of translator anachronisms don't exist in any testable fashion. Appearance and first impressions are decisive. Nibley's citation of Blass on the topic seems a far better paradigm, at least to me. Better predictions, more comprehensive and coherent, unexpectedly fruitful, simple and beautiful, and full of future promise.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[wenglund]

After refusing to But no, I cannot prove that Moses spoke or wrote in Hebrew.

In other words, you have no evidence that he did speak or write in Hebrew.

As such, there is no basis for applying Step Two of your secular methodology to the writings of Moses. So, as you said, "where the second step cannot be performed," then according to your reasoning, "the working assumption of scholarly historians will be that the [writings of Moses]... are modern in origin."

Again, nice work!

The next one's fun. You wrote: Nope. False. Wrong. Error. Missed. Strike.

Step two has to do with examining the linguistic features of a text to determine as best one can the approximate period or era in which it was written. To do this, you need the text in the language that has those linguistic features. It is not necessary that the earliest copy of that language version be earlier than the extant copies in all other languages. You just need the text in the language in question.

So, were an expert to translate the English version of the Book of Mormon into Egyptian, like with the late Hebrew manuscripts of the OT that may have been translated from the Greek, this Egyptian manuscript of the Book of Mormon could be applied to your secular step two?

Yes, this is fun.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Rob Bowman]

Wade,

I've tried to reason with you about these matters, but I don't see any point in continuing further. Can't say I didn't try.

[Rob Bowman]

Kevin,

I really want to engage what you said, but I'm having difficulty latching onto anything specific. You raise "lots of possibilities" but don't connect any dots between the matters you raise and the specifics of the passage in Alma 5. You say:

I've noticed that the most interesting things I see in Alma 5 would never show up in an approach based on Rob's methods.

Again, you didn't specify any of these "interesting things" that you say you see in Alma 5. Care to share?

You wrote about me:

Plus, one of his most conspicuous assumptions is that the notion of translator anachronisms don't exist in any testable fashion.

I may be tired (in fact, I am), but I don't understand what you're trying to say here. Maybe you could spell it out.

[wenglund]

Ok, as promised, some sources on my earlier statement that singing (as in "and they did sing") is connected with Keter/Desire which is the highest emanation of G-d. Also as promised...

Since there is so much in your post that is of interest, though which may take us in a variety of tangents to this thread, I hope you don't mind but I opened a new thread, and reposted your message there. The thread is titled: Kabbalah and Mormonism. I look forward to hearing from you there when you get a chance.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Robert F. Smith]

I clearly explained why the burden of proof is on those who claim the Book of Mormon is authentic. In the absence of an ancient copy or of any copy in the original language, given the circumstances in which the book first appeared, and in view of the obvious fact that the book contains reams of material copied from the KJV Bible, the burden of proof is on those who claim the book is really a translation of an ancient text.

In other words, you set the rules and determine what seems reasonable and we must live with that Procrustean Bed. Might it not be helpful and accommodating to see whether another approach might not be productive, say living within the strictures which a particular set of circumstances gives us and using whatever reasonable techniques are available to verify the various propositions in question? I had at first thought that you wanted to take a more fair-minded approach rather than deciding the issue before the fact.

"The Book of Mormon appears in historical circumstances we can identify for the first time in the late 1820s."

You seem to have missed completely what I was saying. The Book of Mormon first comes to light in the late 1820s. There is no attestation to its existence in any known source prior to the 1820s. This is simple fact, Robert, not even up for debate.

Thanks for setting me straight on this. I had thought you were saying something broader and in line with your claims elsewhere about the early 19th century culture, and its affect on Joseph's use of language and ideas from that time.

"There is no text. There is no attestation of its existence before the 1820s. The 'translator' did not even use, refer to, or look at the metal plates on which the Book of Mormon was supposedly engraved when he was producing his 'translation.'"

The characters of the Anthon Transcript, assuming we simply take Joseph's story at face value, did not come from the Book of Mormon, but from what became known as the Book of Lehi, the material Joseph claimed to translate in 1828 and for which the translation became the notorious lost 116 pages.

Yes or No: Did Joseph produce a written translation of the characters on the Anthon Transcript?

I don't know whether Joseph produced a written translation of the "Caractors," and the record is not clear on that. However, we do not have such a translation of an "Anthon Transcript" today. Nor do we know from what part of the Book of Mormon the "Caractors" were copied off. I suppose your guess is as good as any other. Sure would be nice to have a kind of "Rosetta Stone."

You state these things as if they were facts. I have read hundreds of pages from Mormon scholars and apologists about the Anthon Transcript and never heard any of this. My online search results suggests that you are the main person promoting these claims (and doing so on this forum). Hayes evidently claimed that his translation was based on a "spiritual experience." Richard Bushman discusses the Anthon Transcript in his book Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, 64-65, 577, but as best I could see he says nothing about Parker (nor does he appear to mention him in Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism).

I have never heard any claim that Hayes had a spiritual experience. Instead, grad student Stanley Kimball presented the AT and Hayes worked on it right in front of him and gave the notes to Kimball. Long before his death, Kimball made available a copy of his journal entry for that day in 1956 along with a copy of the Hayes notes. I have a copy of those notes and the journal entry. Bushman has told a number of people about his experience with Parker, and I have a copy of a letter he wrote about it. Bushman is very open about such matters and you could certainly approach him for verification, if you wish.

There are also people who claimed to have seen the Tibetan scroll containing The Life of Saint Issa. Too bad it isn't available for inspection.

Yes, and there are plenty of forgeries and fakes out there (the Gospel of Barnabas, and Secret Gospel of Mark), just as there are authentic items which were once believed to be late fakes (the Blau Monuments, and the Grolier Codex). What one must do is approach them with care with a view to an unprejudiced analysis.

If Lucy did destroy the pages, then Joseph was wrong in D&C 10 about what happened to them.

I don't know whether or when they may have been destroyed. Just speculating.

Since I never said one could not use modern idiom in a translation of an ancient text, your argument is irrelevant to my position. There are other problems with your argument in that post, but there's only so much time for pounding away at irrelevancies. Besides, the point to which you were supposedly replying was my point that the Book of Mormon quotes extensively from the New Testament. "Modern idioms" doesn't cover that phenomenon.

This is sheer obfuscation. Even a skeptic who regarded the Gospel sayings of Jesus with suspicion would not draw an equivalency between Matthew putting words in Jesus' mouth and Joseph Smith inventing speeches in which Book of Mormon characters use lines cribbed from the writings of Paul and John!

The idiom was clearly "modern" to those using it way back when -- in the first century AD -- when some claim that phrases and perhaps entire pericopes were being put into the mouth of Jesus (to judge by the method and conclusions of the Jesus Seminar). Such issues regularly arise when considering the date of origin of biblical documents.

"In this way it dates its origins, in the estimation of all non-Mormon scholars, quite precisely and definitely to the first half of the nineteenth century."

First of all, you don't even quote Margaret Barker accurately. Here is what she said: “This revelation to Joseph Smith was the ancient Wisdom symbolism, intact, and almost certainly as it was known in 600 BCE” (76).

Second, to the best of my knowledge Barker has not ventured an opinion as to whether the Book of Mormon is actually a translation of an ancient text. The statement you quoted does not express an opinion on this question. The article as a whole argues that the Book of Mormon is theologically consistent with Barker's reconstruction of preexilic Israelite religion, but she does not draw the conclusion you do. Now, perhaps she does think the Book of Mormon is a modern translation of an ancient scripture. If she does, I don't know why she doesn't convert to the LDS Church, but at any rate she does not seem to have taken a position on this question. If she does, I'll give you that one maverick.

With regard to the second, unnamed non-Mormon scholar you claim is coming out with a book on the topic: CFR.

Thanks for catching that. I'm glad you clarified her position. Among real scholars, conversion from one religion to another is seldom at issue, and polemics & apologetics are considered declasse. Don't ask me why . . .

As for the forthcoming book, I am not at liberty to discuss it at this time.

Edited March 2, 2012 by Robert F. Smith

[wenglund]

Wade,

I've tried to reason with you about these matters, but I don't see any point in continuing further. Can't say I didn't try.

You did the best you could given your relatively impregnable cognitive wall. I appreciate at least the pretense of your trying.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Robert F. Smith]

Yes, they were originally written in Hebrew, and Moses, being a Hebrew, would have written in Hebrew. But careful about making assumptions about what other people believe; I don't take the position that the Pentateuch passed through the millennium after Moses with no editing.

Yes. However, for various reasons it was always known that the OT was originally written in Hebrew (with portions in Aramaic). Recent discoveries and studies have led OT scholars to the view that in some places the Greek versions may contain readings that reflect an older textual tradition than the MT (Masoretic Text), but in general the MT has held up extremely well.

We speak today of "Hebrew" and "Edomite" and "Moabite" and "Sidonian" and the like being spoken during the Classical Israelite period. Yet, in fact, these were merely dialects of Canaanite. Indeed, the Israelites never term their own language "Hebrew" in the Bible, Instead they refer to their language as the "language of Canaan" (Isa 19:18). As used biblically, the term "Hebrew" is an ethnicon of some sort (controversial) applied long before anything like a "Hebrew" language or dialect came into use during the Classical biblical period (biblical Hebrew).

So, Moses did not speak Hebrew, but perhaps some form of proto-Hebrew in line with Late Bronze Age Canaanite, perhaps on par with Ugaritic, which may or may not have been close to the dialect used by the Midianites among whom Moses came to live.

Thus, except for some very archaic poetry, the Pentateuch is written in a language which has been modernized from that which Moses would have been familiar. The transmission, updating, and redaction of the primeval history and Mosaic Law therefore comes to fit very well the sort of description given in general by the Documentary Hypothesis -- just as it does for the Book of Mormon. Using "modern" idiom in that sense does not challenge the authenticity of the text, but it does complicate matters.

[Rob Bowman]

Robert,

Your comments about Hebrew aren't so much incorrect as they are misleading. It's like saying that Beowulf wasn't written in English because the people in England at the time were really Germanic peoples and "Old English" was really a West Germanic language. If I understand you correctly, you were comparing the difference between the English Book of Mormon and the supposed language of the gold plates (whatever that might have been) to the updating of the Pentateuch's language. However, this is not an apt comparison. The updating of the Pentateuch's language to classical Hebrew is more like producing a modern English version of Beowulf, not like translating Reformed Egyptian (or whatever it was) into modern English.

We speak today of "Hebrew" and "Edomite" and "Moabite" and "Sidonian" and the like being spoken during the Classical Israelite period. Yet, in fact, these were merely dialects of Canaanite. Indeed, the Israelites never term their own language "Hebrew" in the Bible, Instead they refer to their language as the "language of Canaan" (Isa 19:18). As used biblically, the term "Hebrew" is an ethnicon of some sort (controversial) applied long before anything like a "Hebrew" language or dialect came into use during the Classical biblical period (biblical Hebrew).

So, Moses did not speak Hebrew, but perhaps some form of proto-Hebrew in line with Late Bronze Age Canaanite, perhaps on par with Ugaritic, which may or may not have been close to the dialect used by the Midianites among whom Moses came to live.

Thus, except for some very archaic poetry, the Pentateuch is written in a language which has been modernized from that which Moses would have been familiar. The transmission, updating, and redaction of the primeval history and Mosaic Law therefore comes to fit very well the sort of description given in general by the Documentary Hypothesis -- just as it does for the Book of Mormon. Using "modern" idiom in that sense does not challenge the authenticity of the text, but it does complicate matters.

[wenglund]

Robert,

Your comments about Hebrew aren't so much incorrect as they are misleading. It's like saying that Beowulf wasn't written in English because the people in England at the time were really Germanic peoples and "Old English" was really a West Germanic language. If I understand you correctly, you were comparing the difference between the English Book of Mormon and the supposed language of the gold plates (whatever that might have been) to the updating of the Pentateuch's language. However, this is not an apt comparison. The updating of the Pentateuch's language to classical Hebrew is more like producing a modern English version of Beowulf, not like translating Reformed Egyptian (or whatever it was) into modern English.

That is one way to miss the point.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Bill Hamblin]

I clearly explained why the burden of proof is on those who claim the Book of Mormon is authentic. In the absence of an ancient copy or of any copy in the original language, given the circumstances in which the book first appeared, and in view of the obvious fact that the book contains reams of material copied from the KJV Bible, the burden of proof is on those who claim the book is really a translation of an ancient text.

It is not clear why Rob is so exercised about the fact that the BOM first appeared centuries after it was purportedly written, and we lack a manuscript tradition for the text.

The Bible has books which are precisely the same. Deuteronomy, which purports to record the revelations Moses received on Sinai, first appears in the late seventh century BC, some 600 years after Moses. At that time, the people were shocked at its contents (2 Kgs. 22:11-13), and had never heard of some of the things found in it (2 Chr. 35:18). Furthermore, we have no manuscript evidence for Deuteronomy until the second century BC, at least a thousand years after Deuteronomy purports to have been written? Why is this type of thing a problem for the Book of Mormon, but not for Deuteronomy?

Daniel is similar; it claims to have been written in the late sixth century BC, and to have been hidden for centuries--"shut up and sealed until the end of time" (Dan. 12:9). The first evidence we have of Daniel is in the second century BC, four centuries after it purports to have been written. Why is this type of thing a problem for the Book of Mormon, but not for Daniel?

There are also numerous texts for which the originals are lost, and which survive only in translations centuries after the originals were written. Many of the texts of the Nag Hammadi corpus fit this description. Yet scholars almost universally believe that most of the texts in the Nag Hammadi corpus were written not in Coptic, but in Greek, about two centuries before the date of the surviving manuscripts. Why is this type of thing a problem for the Book of Mormon, but not for the Nag Hammadi texts? (Many additional examples could be given.)

Classic Rob double standard.

[Rob Bowman]

Bill,

In case you missed it or forgot, I'm still waiting for an example or two of fourth-level type studies of the Book of Mormon.

You wrote:

It is not clear why Rob is so exercised about the fact that the BOM first appeared centuries after it was purportedly written, and we lack a manuscript tradition for the text.

Boy, it would be nice if someone understood the cumulative nature of the argument. Of everyone who has participated in these discussions with me, Bill, I would most expect you to get it (not that you would agree with it), since you seem most aware of the need for a methodology that is not based on single-bullet arguments.

You wrote:

The Bible has books which are precisely the same. Deuteronomy, which purports to record the revelations Moses received on Sinai, first appears in the late seventh century BC, some 600 years after Moses. At that time, the people were shocked at its contents (2 Kgs. 22:11-13), and had never heard of some of the things found in it (2 Chr. 35:18). Furthermore, we have no manuscript evidence for Deuteronomy until the second century BC, at least a thousand years after Deuteronomy purports to have been written? Why is this type of thing a problem for the Book of Mormon, but not for Deuteronomy?

Daniel is similar; it claims to have been written in the late sixth century BC, and to have been hidden for centuries--"shut up and sealed until the end of time" (Dan. 12:9). The first evidence we have of Daniel is in the second century BC, four centuries after it purports to have been written. Why is this type of thing a problem for the Book of Mormon, but not for Daniel?

There are also numerous texts for which the originals are lost, and which survive only in translations centuries after the originals were written. Many of the texts of the Nag Hammadi corpus fit this description. Yet scholars almost universally believe that most of the texts in the Nag Hammadi corpus were written not in Coptic, but in Greek, about two centuries before the date of the surviving manuscripts. Why is this type of thing a problem for the Book of Mormon, but not for the Nag Hammadi texts? (Many additional examples could be given.)

Classic Rob double standard.

With regard to the Old Testament books that you mentioned, we do have an ancient text, even if our earliest extant copies date from centuries after they were written. If you will go back and read my posts in this thread (and perhaps the other one on evidence for the 19th-century origin of the Book of Mormon), you'll see that I have already addressed some of the kinds of objections you are raising here.

Once you get back to around 2000 years ago the number of whole copies of any ancient work drop down to next to nothing. We are extremely fortunate or blessed to have whole copies and large portions of most of the Old Testament books dating just over 2000 years ago. It really doesn't matter how far back the work originated, the oldest manuscripts are just not likely to be much older than 2000 years; and for most works written before the time of Christ our earliest whole or near-whole copies date from around AD 900 or later. So a gap of centuries between the time of writing and the earliest extant manuscript is not in and of itself decisive. That is a point that must be taken in context. A gap of 1400 years between composition and oldest extant copy is much more troubling for a book supposedly written in AD 400 than for one supposedly written in 1400 BC. And of course the issue is moot if we don't have an extant copy at all, as is the case for the Book of Mormon as well as the Life of Saint Issa, the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, and other modern books purporting to be modern translations of long-lost ancient scriptures.

Your comparisons of Deuteronomy and Daniel to the Book of Mormon as long-lost scriptures are rather superficial. Again, the big pictures need to be compared. Hilkiah did not claim to have found the book of the law but then refused to show it except to men from among his family and close friends. Deuteronomy did not tell the Jews about an entire culture and history unknown to them. You claim that "the people were shocked at its contents (2 Kgs. 22:11-13), and had never heard of some of the things found in it (2 Chr. 35:18)," but this is not what these passages say or imply. Neither does the Book of Daniel do such things. Again, the time gap between original composition and first external attestation is only one part of a whole picture.

With regard to the Nag Hammadi texts, nothing about their discovery or translation creates suspicion about their actual origins. In several instances there are actually Greek manuscripts or fragments of manuscripts extant that predate the Coptic translations. The Coptic texts in several instances have been dated to the third century, making them a century or less later than the Greek originals -- about as small a gap as one could reasonably expect or desire for multiple versions of the same ancient work. I could go on. The comparison if anything actually works to the disadvantage of the Book of Mormon.

[Cobalt-70]

The Bible has books which are precisely the same. Deuteronomy, which purports to record the revelations Moses received on Sinai, first appears in the late seventh century BC, some 600 years after Moses. At that time, the people were shocked at its contents (2 Kgs. 22:11-13), and had never heard of some of the things found in it (2 Chr. 35:18). Furthermore, we have no manuscript evidence for Deuteronomy until the second century BC, at least a thousand years after Deuteronomy purports to have been written? Why is this type of thing a problem for the Book of Mormon, but not for Deuteronomy?

Actually, I think Deuteronomy is a good parallel. Like the Book of Mormon (from the Mormon perspective), it is scripture, but it is also a pseudoepigraphical work. In fact, the core of Deuteronomy, the book of the law, was conveniently "found" by priests during the reign of Josiah, when those priests wanted to conduct a series of Hebrew reforms that just happened to be supported by the "found" book. If Deuteronomy can be the word of God while being a complete fabrication, then certainly the Book of Mormon can be the word of God even if it turns out it wasn't actually written by a lost ancient tribe of white Christians.

[zerinus]

Bill,

In case you missed it or forgot, I'm still waiting for an example or two of fourth-level type studies of the Book of Mormon.

You wrote:

Boy, it would be nice if someone understood the cumulative nature of the argument. Of everyone who has participated in these discussions with me, Bill, I would most expect you to get it (not that you would agree with it), since you seem most aware of the need for a methodology that is not based on single-bullet arguments.

You wrote:

With regard to the Old Testament books that you mentioned, we do have an ancient text, even if our earliest extant copies date from centuries after they were written. If you will go back and read my posts in this thread (and perhaps the other one on evidence for the 19th-century origin of the Book of Mormon), you'll see that I have already addressed some of the kinds of objections you are raising here.

Once you get back to around 2000 years ago the number of whole copies of any ancient work drop down to next to nothing. We are extremely fortunate or blessed to have whole copies and large portions of most of the Old Testament books dating just over 2000 years ago. It really doesn't matter how far back the work originated, the oldest manuscripts are just not likely to be much older than 2000 years; and for most works written before the time of Christ our earliest whole or near-whole copies date from around AD 900 or later. So a gap of centuries between the time of writing and the earliest extant manuscript is not in and of itself decisive. That is a point that must be taken in context. A gap of 1400 years between composition and oldest extant copy is much more troubling for a book supposedly written in AD 400 than for one supposedly written in 1400 BC. And of course the issue is moot if we don't have an extant copy at all, as is the case for the Book of Mormon as well as the Life of Saint Issa, the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, and other modern books purporting to be modern translations of long-lost ancient scriptures.

Your comparisons of Deuteronomy and Daniel to the Book of Mormon as long-lost scriptures are rather superficial. Again, the big pictures need to be compared. Hilkiah did not claim to have found the book of the law but then refused to show it except to men from among his family and close friends. Deuteronomy did not tell the Jews about an entire culture and history unknown to them. You claim that "the people were shocked at its contents (2 Kgs. 22:11-13), and had never heard of some of the things found in it (2 Chr. 35:18)," but this is not what these passages say or imply. Neither does the Book of Daniel do such things. Again, the time gap between original composition and first external attestation is only one part of a whole picture.

With regard to the Nag Hammadi texts, nothing about their discovery or translation creates suspicion about their actual origins. In several instances there are actually Greek manuscripts or fragments of manuscripts extant that predate the Coptic translations. The Coptic texts in several instances have been dated to the third century, making them a century or less later than the Greek originals -- about as small a gap as one could reasonably expect or desire for multiple versions of the same ancient work. I could go on. The comparison if anything actually works to the disadvantage of the Book of Mormon.

I have lost track of your arguments to be honest, and I haven't read through all of the exchanges. But if your argument is (as it appears to be) that the Bible has more credibility as an ancient text than the Book of Mormon as far as historical continuity and manuscript availability is concerned, that is true. There is no contest. The "proof" of the Book of Mormon is to be looked for elsewhere (by design)--not in historical continuity or manuscript availability.

Edited March 3, 2012 by zerinus

[Rob Bowman]

Cobalt,

You wrote:

Actually, I think Deuteronomy is a good parallel. Like the Book of Mormon (from the Mormon perspective), it is scripture, but it is also a pseudoepigraphical work. In fact, the core of Deuteronomy, the book of the law, was conveniently "found" by priests during the reign of Josiah, when those priests wanted to conduct a series of Hebrew reforms that just happened to be supported by the "found" book. If Deuteronomy can be the word of God while being a complete fabrication, then certainly the Book of Mormon can be the word of God even if it turns out it wasn't actually written by a lost ancient tribe of white Christians.

If Deuteronomy is a pseudepigraphal work it is an odd one. The narrative elements of the book all refer to Moses in the third person, which is a strange way to claim Moses as the book's author. The book ends with a brief narration of Moses' death, which smartalecks constantly point out is difficult to square with his being the author. Duh. What pseudepigraphist ends his book with the supposed author narrating his own death? A straightforward reading of the book makes it clear that Moses is not the author of the book. The book consists largely of speeches that the book attributes to Moses, the bulk of which set forth laws or statutes for Israel. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any examples of law books falsely attributed to past religious figures. I have no trouble accepting the speeches as preserving accurately the teachings, instructions, laws, and warnings of the historical Moses without assuming that the speeches give us the ipsissima verbi of Moses. In any case, the claim that the book is pseudepigraphal just doesn't make sense.

The argument for viewing Deuteronomy as a seventh-century creation depends on a selective reading of the accounts of the discovery of "the book of the law" in Kings and Chronicles. These are our only sources for the discovery of the book during the reign of Josiah. If the accounts are to be taken seriously in a consistent fashion, I see no reason to accept their report of the Josianic reforms while rejecting their report of how those reforms came about.

[Bill Hamblin]

Let's just stick with Deuteronomy to simplify things. I maintain that Rob's rejection of the BOM because it is a translation that seems to appear out of no where, with no surviving original document, precisely parallels Deuteronomy.

1- Being an inerrantist, I assume Rob accepts a 15th century BC date for Moses (1 Kgs. 6:1). Is that correct? (Personally, I think it was the thirteenth century, but this changes the issue only in degree.)

2- I assume Rob believes that Deuteronomy contains authentic revelation of the Torah at Sinai, whether the book was written by Moses or not. Is that correct?

When these questions are answered, we can move on.

[wenglund]

Boy, it would be nice if someone understood the cumulative nature of the argument. Of everyone who has participated in these discussions with me,

I wish you would understand that, by your own words, your "working assumption" is tied specifically to the inapplicability of your step two, and thus for those texts where your step two doesn't apply, yours is not a cumulative approach. That, in part, is the flaw in your approach. I really wish you could understand this.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Rob Bowman]

Bill,

You wrote:

Let's just stick with Deuteronomy to simplify things. I maintain that Rob's rejection of the BOM because it is a translation that seems to appear out of no where, with no surviving original document, precisely parallels Deuteronomy.

And yet, that isn't my argument against the BOM. (1) The translation does not seem to appear out of nowhere. To the contrary, it most definitely appears to come from an English-speaking Protestant in the 1820s. (2) I do not consider it a problem for the Book of Mormon that there is "no surviving original document." It is a problem that there is no extant copy of an ancient-language text for the book at all.

You wrote:

1- Being an inerrantist, I assume Rob accepts a 15th century BC date for Moses (1 Kgs. 6:1). Is that correct? (Personally, I think it was the thirteenth century, but this changes the issue only in degree.)

I won't allow you to drag me into a discussion where you change the subject to biblical inerrancy. That isn't relevant to the argument here, which has to do only with the authenticity of the scriptural writings in question.

At the present time, I am inclined to accept a 15th-century BC date for Moses, but as you say a 13th-century date would not make much difference.

You wrote:

2- I assume Rob believes that Deuteronomy contains authentic revelation of the Torah at Sinai, whether the book was written by Moses or not. Is that correct?

Yes, I believe God spoke to Moses at Sinai and gave the Torah to Israel through Moses in the Sinai desert. And yes, I believe that Deuteronomy faithfully represents Moses' instructions, statutes, and warnings to Israel prior to their entrance into the Promised Land.