Evidence That Bom Was Written By Js Or Some Other 19Th C Per

[wenglund]

I just don't see why it takes faith to look at something that is claimed to be a recored literally written on metal plates.

To understand why it took faith in relation to gold plates, it helps to understand the intent and purpose of faith. Do you?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Nevo]

Dup

Edited February 22, 2012 by Nevo

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

It's not like the plates were "invisible" to people who didn't have faith. It was simply that the Lord didn't allow Joseph to show the plates to those who were unfaithful. It's the same thing as God not showing Himself to those without faith.

What he said.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Many people did notice the anachronisms and concluded that the book was a fraud—Alexander Campbell being a well-known example. Believers noticed many of the same things (Nehor was quickly recognized as a Universalist preacher, for example) but they weren't put off, presumably because they'd had a spiritual witness that the book was true and because they believed that ancient prophets truly had seen their day.

This is interesting. So, that he was a Universalist is only a new age idea, or can only be found in the new age? The book never describes him as such. IOW, it never says "And Nehor is a Universalist." I guess I just don't see this as a big deal.

And for the sake of the argument I am just going to accept everything you are saying at face value.

Edited February 22, 2012 by Mola Ram Suda Ram

[cdowis]

I just don't see why it takes faith to look at something that is claimed to be a recored literally written on metal plates.

It is clear that you do not understand faith, so let's put it into words that you can understand: The myth about faith is -- "If you cannot see it with your physical eyes, then you can only see it with faith."

Well, think of the world of quantum mechanics. Like the plates, this world exists in reality. But it takes a special understanding and special equipment to detect it. In the case of the plates, you can see them with your physical eyes, but it requires special understanding and "equipment" (faith) to see them. I realize that you do not understand what I am talking about, because you do not understand the spiritual laws, even as I do not particularly understand the laws of quantum mechanics.

Edited February 22, 2012 by cdowis

[Bob Crockett]

Don't know why this parallel occured to me, but there was a movie years ago about Ted Bundy (of all people), where his defense was that the killer of a young woman could have been anyone with brown hair and a yellow VW bug. So the prosecutor gets up and draws a line on a chalkboard, says these are all the men in Salt Lake City. Erases part of the line, says what's left are those with brown hair. These are those who own yellow VW's. Erases. These are those who happened to posess handcuffs. Erases. And so on, until there is only a tiny speck of chalk left. Submits to the jury that the only person in the Salt Lake Valley who met all those criteria was Mr. Bundy. And got his conviction.

I think the same parallel can be drawn with BOM evidences. Lehi's journey. Hebrew literary styles. Lines from the Pentauch. Egyptian names. And on, and on, and on. Each of these can be held up in isolation and explained away. But if you keep erasing the chalk line of probability, in the end, the only reasonable answer is that the BOM is of ancient Semetic origin. Exactly what Joseph purported it to be. About the only line of attack the anti's have never trotted out is the presence of a middle eastern scholar on the american frontier. Who had contact with JS. Who wanted to see a religion started, but not take the credit. See how that chalk line keeps getting erased?

Did that really happen in that case? That is wholly inappropriate evidence; case authority on point. In fact, the way you describe it (color and make of the car and more) is the very sort of fact pattern given law students around the country. It is one thing to say that the perp was seen in a yellow minibus with peace symbol decals, and another to say that the probability of seeing such is one in a million. That kind of "statistical" evidence is inadmissible.

[Buzzard]

Did that really happen in that case? That is wholly inappropriate evidence; case authority on point. In fact, the way you describe it (color and make of the car and more) is the very sort of fact pattern given law students around the country. It is one thing to say that the perp was seen in a yellow minibus with peace symbol decals, and another to say that the probability of seeing such is one in a million. That kind of "statistical" evidence is inadmissible.

It wasn't a real court scene, it was a movie.

[Bernard Gui]

Yes, in the sense that [Paul] was the primary author of the epistle. However, he had someone else do the actual writing (putting pen to paper), as he did with all of his other epistles.

There's the rub. My New Oxford Annotated Bible, p. 349, says "While most scholars today regard them [the pastoral epistles] as pseudepigraphical...there is not complete unanimity on the question." This is affirmed in Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, p.1132,

and in the Wikipedia article on 1 Timothy. Who to believe?

Probably about AD 64-65.

Others say late 1st or early 2nd century. Who to believe?

Evidently after the Gospel of Luke was written, since he quotes it.

Not if both are quoting a lost text.

Furthermore, for reasons that have nothing to do with the quotation from Luke 10:7, it is most likely that Luke was written about AD 60-61. Here's why: the Gospel of Luke was Luke's first book, and the Book of Acts was the second (see Acts 1:1). The Book of Acts ends with Paul under house arrest in Rome with his disposition in question. Paul had appealed to Caesar and was taken to Rome to have his case heard there. The book ends with Paul waiting to have his case heard. This makes it highly likely that Acts was written while Paul was still waiting, which would date Acts to about AD 61-62. Since the Gospel of Luke was written first, this means it was written about AD 60-61.

Yet not all scholars agree that Luke wrote both the gospel with his name and Acts. Anyway, both books are anonymous. The sources I have

date Luke anywhere from 60 to 85 CE.

As you can see, this fits nicely with Paul, writing in AD 64-65, quoting Luke 10:7, which had been written just a few years earlier.

I can see that, but I also see that it is not as comfy as you have portrayed it. Who to believe?

We can rule out the first suggestion because Paul says he is quoting Scripture. The second suggestion is ad hoc when we have a book of Scripture available to Paul -- written by a close associate of his! -- with a statement that exactly matches his quotation.

When was Luke proclaimed scripture? Here in 1 Timothy? By quoting a short phrase, Paul elevates Luke to the rank of scripture? This

totally depends on your house of cards.

Bernard

[Rob Bowman]

As I expected, this thread has exploded with posts in just the past six hours since I was called away to pick up my daughter from school (she's apparently okay now). It's already getting late here and it will take me some time to go through all those posts. I will try to get to as many as I can as time permits. The same applies on the other threads that are also buzzing with activity.

Thanks for understanding.

[Nevo]

This is interesting. So, that he was a Universalist is only a new age idea, or can only be found in the new age? The book never describes him as such. IOW, it never says "And Nehor is a Universalist." I guess I just don't see this as a big deal.

I'm not sure what you mean by "a new age idea." By way of background, the Universalist movement in America arose in the last decades of the eighteenth century, gained momentum and widespread attention in the first decades of the nineteenth century, and peaked around 1880. It grew rapidly in western New York after 1815, with the influx of hill-country New Englanders, and by 1830 there were more Universalists in New York than in any other state (see Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850 [ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1950], 18, and Milton V. Backman, American Religions and the Rise of Mormonism [salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1965], 218).

Universalism quickly attracted the enmity of "orthodox" revivalist preachers in the "burned-over district" since the doctrine of universal salvation undermined their efforts to bring sinners to repentance. According to the historian Lewis O. Saum, the disdain shown Universalism during the first half of the nineteenth century “excelled that shown Mormonism and rivaled that shown Catholicism” (Saum, The Popular Mood of Pre-Civil War America [Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980], 44). Whitney Cross, describing the sectarian strife that prevailed in western New York during the first half of the nineteenth century, noted that “all Protestant churches united in condemning Catholics [and] all evangelical sects united, too, against Universalists and Unitarians.” Cross went on to state that, while these hostilities were not unique to western New York, “they were unique in intensity.” With reference to the Universalism debate specifically, Cross observed that "new converts in revivals regularly found themselves advertised as former Universalists, made wicked by that evil doctrine, and now regretting their former wallowing in sin . . . Debates held between Universalist and orthodox preachers were of course boasted as orthodox triumphs. Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians alike won their spurs in the ministry by their lectures and publications to disprove this supposed libertarian heresy" (Cross, Burned-Over District, 31-32, 43-44).

It was in this atmosphere of acrimonious debate over the question of universal salvation that Joseph Smith dictated the text of the Book of Mormon. Not surprisingly perhaps, given the volume of anti-Universalist preaching that Joseph Smith was likely exposed to in the 1820s, the Book of Mormon contains a good deal of anti-Universalist rhetoric (on this, see the Vogel article I linked earlier in the thread). Some of this was even obvious to Latter-day Saints. A reference guide to the Book of Mormon published in Kirtland in 1835 lists as its first entry for the book of Alma, “Nehor the Universalian,” explicitly linking the Book of Mormon to the contemporary religious scene (see Grant Underwood, “The Earliest Reference Guides to the Book of Mormon: Windows into the Past,” Journal of Mormon History 12 [1985]: 77).

Is this a big deal? That depends on whether or not you agree with Dan Vogel that "it is doubtful that a study of ancient American cultures would produce a similar context for understanding this central theological focus of the Book of Mormon."

Edited February 23, 2012 by Nevo

[Bernard Gui]

I think he and/or his scribes probably worked directly from a KJV Bible for those chapters. However, I am convinced that the hundreds (thousands?) of shorter KJV quotations and allusions interspersed throughout the Book of Mormon did come from Joseph Smith's memory.

What evidence do you have that they used a KJV in the translation process?

Do you reject his mother's statement that he had not read the Bible completely through?

Do you believe at his age Joseph had the level of intelligence and memory it would take to weave obscure

scriptures coherently into a complex narrative?

Bernard

[Bernard Gui]

People have, in fact, dictated complicated works by "just pull[ing it] out of [their] brain day after day."

"Having gone totally blind in 1652, Milton wrote Paradise Lost entirely through dictation with the help of amanuenses and friends." (Wikipedia)

This is not an apt comparison. Milton was already an experienced and accomplished writer. He corrected his work as it was read back to him. He had planned it for many years and worked on it over a period of 7 or 8 years. It was his magnum opus produced in his later years at the height of his intellectual and creative genius. Joseph was none of this.

Bernard

Add: Milton's living conditions were comfortable

and conducive to intellectual endeavors.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Bernard Gui

[Darth_Bill]

Didn't Joseph have 4-5 years to write it (separate from the time of dictation) and I think Brant Gardner thinks that he had a photographic memory (I don't want to put words in his mouth, but that kind of memory is very possible)? I know that the BoM isn't very well written, as it even states within it's text and I am not sure how internally consistant timewise it is. I think that Alma is the only book that has separate timelines.

If it isn't inspired, there should be a naturalistic reason to replace it. I think there are more complex books of fiction than the BoM written within shorter timeframes than JS had to write/contemplate the BoM. The plates/witnesses are a bit more problematic, but all the 8 said was that he had plates. The 3 witnesses is much more of an issue...angel wise, you know. I know the first time I read it, while believing it was expired, I thought some concepts were a bit forced and didn't seem to flow considering circumstances. In other words, the Book of Moroni seems a bit too....current.

That and $1 will get you a burger at McDonalds.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Darth_Bill

[Bernard Gui]

I doubt a photographic memory would have

been useful, unless Joseph had read a

manuscript someone else had previously created.

Mozart was able to reproduce music he had heard once from memory. Maybe Joseph had

this gift?

Bernard

[Bernard Gui]

It was in this atmosphere of acrimonious debate over the question of universal salvation that Joseph Smith dictated the text of the Book of Mormon. Not surprisingly perhaps, given the volume of anti-Universalist preaching that Joseph Smith was likely exposed to in the 1820s, the Book of Mormon contains a good deal of anti-Universalist rhetoric (on this, see the Vogel article I linked earlier in the thread). Some of this was even obvious to Latter-day Saints. A reference guide to the Book of Mormon published in Kirtland in 1835 lists as its first entry for the book of Alma, “Nehor the Universalian,” explicitly linking the Book of Mormon to the contemporary religious scene (see Grant Underwood, “The Earliest Reference Guides to the Book of Mormon: Windows into the Past,” Journal of Mormon History 12 [1985]: 77).

Could you provide a couple of Universalist sermons Joseph may have heard that are similar to Alma 5 or other Book of Mormon teachings so we can compare them?

Thanks.

Bernard

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

In another thread, Rob Bowman said,

"The question that needs to be asked is not whether Joseph Smith could have written the Book of Mormon but whether the evidence shows that he, or someone close to him, did so. I'm afraid the answer to that question is Yes. And if Joseph or someone close to him (I am inclined to give Joseph the credit) wrote it, then of course he could have done so."

CFR. I'd like to see the evidence of which you speak.

That of course is silly...men write and translate according to the language of the day, or the method they are most comfortable with.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

I doubt a photographic memory would have

been useful, unless Joseph had read a

manuscript someone else had previously created.

Mozart was able to reproduce music he had heard once from memory. Maybe Joseph had

this gift?

Bernard

I just find it odd that there are so many unproven theories because of the rejection of the logical one. “God still speaks too men”, and those men write. One thread he wrote in the next, Joseph never had an original thought.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Bill “Papa” Lee

[Darth_Bill]

I just find it odd that there are so many unproven theories because of the rejection of the logical one. “God still speaks too men”, and those men write. One thread he wrote in the next, Joseph never had an original thought.

I mentioned the photographic memory because that could be a logical reason JS could dictate...because he wrote it already. He could stick his head in his hat because he could read items in his mind. That could explain why he can put in so many biblical verses in the text because he knew them. I'm not sure how rare the photographic memories really are. Which is more probable, a guy with a photographic memory or the BoM, its text and origins? The BoM tells an unbelievable story, which is why we ask for supernatural confirmation.

I posit this because if it wasn't inspired, then there should be a naturalistic source. And I don't agree that "God still speaks to men" is the logical answer. Little to do with God is logical, hence the miraculous nature of religion. It also is evident because otherwise, this board, FAIR and apologists wouldn't exist.

[Kevin Christensen]

If any one is curious, I responded to Vogel's essay on Universalism in the Book of Mormon in "Paradigms Crossed" toward in the end, in the last half a section called "Context."

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=7&num=2&id=193

And for Joseph Smith as an unlikely author, particulary compared to his contemporaries, in terms of everything that typically goes into making an author worth reading, see Robert Rees, "Joseph Smith, The Book of Mormon, and the American Renaissance.

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V35N03_91.pdf

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[randyj]

Rob,

You said..." Yes, I am familiar with the argument that the little bit of narrative there is in 1 Nephi includes travel information that matches the geography of Arabia in ways supposedly beyond Joseph Smith's natural knowledge. That's an interesting argument, but it doesn't negate the point I made."

What I find quite interesting is how you so effortlessly flew over at "flight levels" the hugely important ramifications/implications of that "little bit of narrative" found in 1 Nephi. I could just see in my minds eye your "obligatory eyeroll" and "dismissive wave of the hand".

As Spock would say...."fascinating"!

[robuchan]

I mentioned the photographic memory because that could be a logical reason JS could dictate...because he wrote it already. He could stick his head in his hat because he could read items in his mind. That could explain why he can put in so many biblical verses in the text because he knew them. I'm not sure how rare the photographic memories really are. Which is more probable, a guy with a photographic memory or the BoM, its text and origins? The BoM tells an unbelievable story, which is why we ask for supernatural confirmation.

I posit this because if it wasn't inspired, then there should be a naturalistic source. And I don't agree that "God still speaks to men" is the logical answer. Little to do with God is logical, hence the miraculous nature of religion. It also is evident because otherwise, this board, FAIR and apologists wouldn't exist.

The photographic memory angle is difficult for me to swallow. I'm more inclined to believe there was a conspiracy with Oliver, at a minimum.

But the photographic memory angle doesn't necessarily require small odds, based on number of people in the population with photographic memories. If he didn't have a photographic memory, he wouldn't attempt to dictate lengthy amounts of text. So we're not talking about the probability of one person having a photographic memory. If he didn't have a photographic memory, he maybe doesn't use that particular con method. He chooses a different one.

[thesometimesaint]

stemelbow:

Everyone expects a Milton, Tolkien, Jordon to be able to write what they did. No body seriously expects Joseph Smith to.

[thesometimesaint]

Robuchan:

http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Wordprint_studies

[robuchan]

Robuchan:

http://en.fairmormon...rdprint_studies

Hi, what's your point on this?

[Nevo]

What evidence do you have that they used a KJV in the translation process?

Just the fact that dozens of Book of Mormon chapters are verbatim or nearly verbatim replicas of chapters from the KJV Bible.

Do you reject his mother's statement that he had not read the Bible completely through?

Not necessarily. I think he picked up most of his KJV phraseology from hearing it spoken (in sermons, prayers, family scripture readings, etc.). But he had also, by his own account, been "searching the scriptures" himself since 12 years of age or so.

Do you believe at his age Joseph had the level of intelligence and memory it would take to weave obscure scriptures coherently into a complex narrative?

Well, he was able to do it at the age of 26, so why not at 23 or 24?

As Philip Barlow points out, Joseph's 1832 account of his first vision is "laced with biblical expressions, revealing how thoroughly the boy's mind was steeped in the words and rhythms of the Authorized Version."

"For instance, Joseph describes his prayer in the woods as 'my cry in the wilderness,' transposing Isaiah's words (40:3) and their messianic application by Matthew (3:3) to a radically new context. Joseph does not say the Lord 'spoke to me' but rather, he 'spake unto me.' . . . Groping for words adequate to the glory of his vision, Joseph describes the Lord as appearing in a 'pillar of fire' (Exod. 13:21) that was 'above the brightness of the Sun' (Acts 26:13). . . . Reporting the ensuing conversation, Smith quotes and paraphrases Jesus, using uncited expressions from throughout the KJV: 'none doeth good no not one' (Ps. 14:1); 'they draw near to me with their lips while their hearts are far from me' (Isa. 29:13); 'lo, I come quickly' (Rev. 3:11); and many others. . . . When Deity [came], Smith heard him speak in both biblical and Bible-like language" (Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, 14–15).

We see the same thing in the Book of Mormon. 2 Nephi 9:16, for example, is based on KJV Matthew 24:35, Revelation 22:11, Matthew 25:41, Revelation 20:10, Hebrews 12:2, Matthew 25:34; and John 15:11. And this is not an isolated example. As Barlow observes, "biblical phrases constitute the vocabulary building blocks of much of the Book of Mormon narrative" (Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, 28).