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

[Buzzard]

Whatever it was the witnesses saw, held, and felt, it wasn't compelling enough evidence to keep them in the church later.

And what Judas saw and felt wasn't enough to keep him from betraying the Lord. As a post a few pages back said, the testimony of an apostate is the most valuable testimony of all. Several of the witnesses left the church pretty ticked off with JS. If there had been any fraud, they would not have hesitated to expose it. Some stayed, some left and came back, some left and never returned. Not one ever said it was all a farce.

[Jaybear]

And what Judas saw and felt wasn't enough to keep him from betraying the Lord. As a post a few pages back said, the testimony of an apostate is the most valuable testimony of all. Several of the witnesses left the church pretty ticked off with JS. If there had been any fraud, they would not have hesitated to expose it. Some stayed, some left and came back, some left and never returned. Not one ever said it was all a farce.

Its cute, how you say that as if it were statement of fact.

Can you give me an historical example where someone admitted to having participated in a fraud, merely out of spite towards a former co-conspirator.

My experience has been that one does not admit to wrongdoing, unless they have been caught. You seem pretty confident. You must have some examples in mind.

[Nevo]

What I want critics of the church to tell me is how Joseph Smith knew of NHM in northern Yemen and knew that 1 degree due East of NHM was an oasis, named Khor Karfat with water, timber, iron ore that could be accessed from the desert and that is uninhabited to this day. I also want the odds on incredibly lucky guesses made by Smith.

Well, according to at least one Book of Mormon defender on another thread, parallels don't really matter—they do not decisively prove or disprove anything.

But if you're wondering how critics answer the "NHM" proof, I would refer you to David P. Wright's musings on the subject, which I note here. The upshot of Wright's argument is that, given the prevalence of -om suffixes in Book of Mormon names, the root of the Book of Mormon place name "Nahom" would logically be "Nah" (or "NH"), not "NHM." Besides, it is far from certain that there was ever a place called "NHM" in sixth-century BCE Arabia in any case. In other words, there is plenty of room for reasonable doubt regarding the proposed Nahom-NHM connection.

How did Joseph Smith know that there was an oasis at Khor Kharfot due east of the Nihm tribal area that featured fresh water, timber, and iron ore? Well, I'm sure he didn't. But do we even know this? I think Terry Ball's letter to editor in JBMRS 18:1 casts serious doubt on the theory that Khor Kharfot had timber suitable for shipbuiding ca. 600 BCE.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Nevo

[Buzzard]

Its cute, how you say that as if it were statement of fact.

Can you give me an historical example where someone admitted to having participated in a fraud, merely out of spite towards a former co-conspirator.

My experience has been that one does not admit to wrongdoing, unless they have been caught. You seem pretty confident. You must have some examples in mind.

It's been quite a while since anyone besides my wife called me cute...Several of the witnesses, perhaps most notable Oliver Cowdery, called Joseph a fallen prophet, etc...After he left the church, he was demoted at a job for being a mormon, and narrowly lost a local election when his opponent pointed out his connection to the church. But try as they may, every time that anti- scholars have dug for a repudiation, while they have found statements that reflected his continued bitterness witht the church, he never did anything but affirm his experience being shown the plates by an angel. And as I am sure you well know, eventually traveled to where the saints were preparing for the trip west and requested baptism. Renouncing the gospel and the gold plates would have furthered his professional and political life, yet he did not. No one knows another mans mind, but for us, the fact that he did not renounce and in fact reaffirmed his testimony during the period of his estrangement says something fairly significant. You are free to disagree, but that says a little something about your biases as much as my embrace of his testimony says about mine.

[Jaybear]

It's been quite a while since anyone besides my wife called me cute...Several of the witnesses, perhaps most notable Oliver Cowdery, called Joseph a fallen prophet, etc...After he left the church, he was demoted at a job for being a mormon, and narrowly lost a local election when his opponent pointed out his connection to the church. But try as they may, every time that anti- scholars have dug for a repudiation, while they have found statements that reflected his continued bitterness witht the church, he never did anything but affirm his experience being shown the plates by an angel. And as I am sure you well know, eventually traveled to where the saints were preparing for the trip west and requested baptism. Renouncing the gospel and the gold plates would have furthered his professional and political life, yet he did not. No one knows another mans mind, but for us, the fact that he did not renounce and in fact reaffirmed his testimony during the period of his estrangement says something fairly significant.

I disagree with your assumption.

Openly acknowledging that he conspired with Smith to lie and defraud others would likely have led to his disbarment for moral turpitude. It absolutely would not have helped his political career.

Characterizing Smith as a fallen prophet was a much better way for him to discredit Smith, while seeking to preserve his own reputation.

However, I am open minded. If you have an example of a politician or a lawyer, openly confessing to having committed a crime or a lie, without having first been caught committing said crime, then do share.

You are free to disagree, but that says a little something about your biases as much as my embrace of his testimony says about mine.

I would suggest that your bias is fueling your criticism of my analysis, and your suggestion that my bias has clouded my reasoning. Unless you can provide some concrete example to support your supposition, I am quite confident that my reasoning is clear.

[Rob Bowman]

Bob,

Regarding Paul's quotation "The laborer deserves his wages" (1 Tim. 5:18), you commented:

An OT concept. Lev. 19:13, or so says the NIV study guide (also citing to Luke).

The issue is not whether the concept is found in the OT, but whether the quotation is found there. It isn't. It is found in Luke 10:7. If you didn't have some polemical purpose for disputing this conclusion, would you be? I doubt it.

You wrote:

The Expositors' NIV guide says that there is substantial debate as to whether the second phrase should be attributed to Jesus.

I don't have the commentary in front of me that you are citing here, but from your description I'm guessing it is referring to the debate between those who accept Luke 10:7 as the words of Jesus and those who don't, which is a different issue. If it is referring to a debate regarding whether 1 Timothy 5:18 is quoting Luke 10:7, the question remains why anyone would argue that it isn't. What reason is there for disputing this conclusion? What reason does any commentator or scholar give for denying that 1 Timothy 5:18 quotes Luke 10:7? I'm not interested in playing the game of counting scholarly noses, nor am I going to give up a position because some scholars somewhere debate it -- since that would mean retreating into skepticism about almost everything.

You wrote:

This is the most slender of reeds to contend that Paul knew anything about Jesus's life and teachings.

I've addressed this criticism.

A cynic, and they abound, would say that Paul invented Christianity, and that the Gospels followed, not preceded, Paul. In any event, there's a lot of doubt as to the provenance of the documents which attest to Christ's ministry.

This has nothing to do with the issue at hand. There are skeptics who don't believe in Christ. That's not news. It has nothing to do with my view of the Book of Mormon.

You wrote:

You're just parroting standard Christian apologia.

Really? And you're not just parroting Mormon apologia? There's no serious reason for making such a comment.

You wrote:

You're also defining away the meaning of an "autograph," but demonstrating an autograph of somebody 2000 years ago is an almost impossible task.

I have no idea what you mean by this criticism. It doesn't seem to engage what I said in the slightest.

You wrote:

Of course, that is an accurate statement. Proof that Joseph Smith had the gold plates and used means to translate them is not the same as saying that the plates recount ancient American civilization. Of course, you are probably aware that there is a large body of Mormons who believe the Book of Mormon could just as easily be God-breathed Midrash or parabolic statements, wherein there is no need to prove ancient authenticity. Whereas I don't stand in that camp as to the Book of Mormon (principally because I know there is a being known as "Moroni"), I believe for example that Job and Jonah are purely parabolic statements.

Yes, I am aware of this "midrash" theory of the Book of Mormon. It has its own problems.

You wrote:

But it remains rather remarkable and fairly unassailable, at least from the number of eyewitness accounts which have never been recanted, that the gold plates existed and were indeed the source of the Book of Mormon. To me, that fact alone makes the book so significant that its historicity, which I believe, is not a test upon which to denounce its source.

No eyewitness accounts attested, nor could they attest, to the claim that the gold plates were the source of the Book of Mormon. The eyewitnesses could not read the gold plates! Therefore, their eyewitness testimony to the existence of the plates, even taking it at face value, is not eyewitness testimony that the Book of Mormon derived from the gold plates.

The fact is that given what we are told about Joseph Smith's translation methodology, the plates were superfluous. He never looked at them while "translating" them (countless LDS artistic misrepresentations notwithstanding). He could have done what he did without ever having the plates. They were materially irrelevant to the production of the Book of Mormon.

[Bill Hamblin]

No eyewitness accounts attested, nor could they attest, to the claim that the gold plates were the source of the Book of Mormon. The eyewitnesses could not read the gold plates! Therefore, their eyewitness testimony to the existence of the plates, even taking it at face value, is not eyewitness testimony that the Book of Mormon derived from the gold plates.

This is, of course, nonsense. Three of the witnesses testified they saw an angel and heard the voice of the Lord that the Book of Mormon was true. It is exactly the opposite of what you claim!

[Bill Hamblin]

Bob,

Regarding Paul's quotation "The laborer deserves his wages" (1 Tim. 5:18), you commented:

The issue is not whether the concept is found in the OT, but whether the quotation is found there. It isn't. It is found in Luke 10:7. If you didn't have some polemical purpose for disputing this conclusion, would you be? I doubt it.

You wrote:

I don't have the commentary in front of me that you are citing here, but from your description I'm guessing it is referring to the debate between those who accept Luke 10:7 as the words of Jesus and those who don't, which is a different issue. If it is referring to a debate regarding whether 1 Timothy 5:18 is quoting Luke 10:7, the question remains why anyone would argue that it isn't. What reason is there for disputing this conclusion? What reason does any commentator or scholar give for denying that 1 Timothy 5:18 quotes Luke 10:7? I'm not interested in playing the game of counting scholarly noses, nor am I going to give up a position because some scholars somewhere debate it -- since that would mean retreating into skepticism about almost everything.

There are at least three problems with the claim that Paul quotes Luke.

First, the quotation is a generic proverb; it is not a distinctive teaching of Jesus.

Second, do you really want us to believe that Paul had the entire Gospel of Luke, and decided only to quote this one phrase. Nothing else? Really? In all his teaching about Christ, the resurrection, etc. he never quotes anything else form Luke? You've got to be kidding.

Third, the book of Acts was written at the earliest around the early sixties, after Paul arrived at Rome, but before his execution. The Gospel of Luke was written before Acts, but it is unlikely that it was written a decade before Acts in the early 50s so it would be available for Paul to read.

There are, of course, many other problems with this theory.

[altersteve]

I agree with what Bill said above. Their complete testimony of the golden plates affirms that the plates were the source of the Book of Mormon.

[Rob Bowman]

Bill,

You wrote:

This is, of course, nonsense. Three of the witnesses testified they saw an angel and heard the voice of the Lord that the Book of Mormon was true. It is exactly the opposite of what you claim!

I'm sorry; I can see your point, but perhaps I was not clear enough about mine. I was referring to the fact that the witnesses could not attest to having seen Joseph Smith derive the Book of Mormon from the gold plates. You are correct that three of the witnesses claimed that God told them that Joseph correctly translated the plates. That isn't eyewitness testimony, though. You are also correct that the three claimed that an angel showed them the plates. That is a claim of eyewitness testimony, but only to the angel and the plates, not to the Book of Mormon deriving from the gold plates. This may seem like hair-splitting but it is an important point. Looking at the subject from my point of view, I'm open to the possibility that Joseph had some metallic plates, and I could accept that as fact while still disputing the claim that they contained the Book of Mormon. It is not necessary for me to accept the claims about the angel and the voice of God to accept the existence of some metallic plates in Joseph's possession. Of course, there are all sorts of other issues regarding the three witnesses we haven't even touched here.

What do you have to say about my point that the plates were materially irrelevant to the production of the (English) Book of Mormon?

[Rob Bowman]

Bill,

You wrote:

There are at least three problems with the claim that Paul quotes Luke.

First, the quotation is a generic proverb; it is not a distinctive teaching of Jesus.

The term "generic proverb" is a slippery one, but in any case avoids the issue. Paul says he was quoting Scripture. We have a book of Scripture in which Paul's quoted statement appears exactly as he quoted it, word for word the same in Greek, axios ho ergates tou misthou autou. The claim is not that Jesus introduced a "distinctive teaching" never before heard; the claim is that 1 Timothy 5:18 states that it is quoting Scripture, and we have a book of Scripture at hand, written by an associate of Paul, that uses the exact words that Paul says he is quoting from Scripture.

You wrote:

Second, do you really want us to believe that Paul had the entire Gospel of Luke, and decided only to quote this one phrase. Nothing else? Really? In all his teaching about Christ, the resurrection, etc. he never quotes anything else form Luke? You've got to be kidding.

I've already addressed this objection. Most of Paul's epistles were written before Luke's Gospel.

You wrote:

Third, the book of Acts was written at the earliest around the early sixties, after Paul arrived at Rome, but before his execution. The Gospel of Luke was written before Acts, but it is unlikely that it was written a decade before Acts in the early 50s so it would be available for Paul to read.

This is high-handed "nonsense" (as you called something I said on another issue in this thread). There is no reason why the Gospel of Luke would need to be written a decade before Acts so it would be available for Paul to read and quote. Again, my position is that Luke wrote the Gospel in about AD 60 or 61, Acts in 61 or 62, and that Paul wrote 1 Timothy in about 64 or 65. This gives Paul three to five years to read Luke's Gospel and quote it. That should not have posed much of a problem, because Luke was a close associate of Paul!

You wrote:

There are, of course, many other problems with this theory.

Of course. And they are probably all as flawed as the objections you have raised so far.

[zerinus]

I'm sorry; I can see your point, but perhaps I was not clear enough about mine. I was referring to the fact that the witnesses could not attest to having seen Joseph Smith derive the Book of Mormon from the gold plates. You are correct that three of the witnesses claimed that God told them that Joseph correctly translated the plates. That isn't eyewitness testimony, though. You are also correct that the three claimed that an angel showed them the plates. That is a claim of eyewitness testimony, but only to the angel and the plates, not to the Book of Mormon deriving from the gold plates. This may seem like hair-splitting but it is an important point. Looking at the subject from my point of view, I'm open to the possibility that Joseph had some metallic plates, and I could accept that as fact while still disputing the claim that they contained the Book of Mormon. It is not necessary for me to accept the claims about the angel and the voice of God to accept the existence of some metallic plates in Joseph's possession. Of course, there are all sorts of other issues regarding the three witnesses we haven't even touched here.

What do you have to say about my point that the plates were materially irrelevant to the production of the (English) Book of Mormon?

Not true. Thy were important if the witnesses thought that they were important. The witnesses were in a position to decide. It is the testimony of the witnesses that matters above all else; and we must leave it up to them to decide what kinds evidences they needed to satisfy them of the truth of Joseph's claims.

Edited February 24, 2012 by zerinus

[Rob Bowman]

Buckeye,

Thanks for your gracious comments.

You wrote:

As you point out, these issues are much too extensive to adequately address in an online forum. But I do want to go on record as saying that at least one active church member (me) believes the BOM first came into existence in the english language during either the 17th or 18th century. Of course, I have no way of knowing the exact date, but I believe the evidence strongly points to an english translation existing sometime prior to Joseph's dictation. Joseph's work was dictation, not translation. The translation was done by other men of God sometime before Joseph's work.

Fascinating. I confess that I have never run across this view before.

You wrote:

As you point out, the english translation borrowed extensively from the KJV. It may also reflect cultural biases from the time. That doesn't bother me too much, as I have a pretty high tolerance for error when any men get involved in God's work (which is almost always). The whole purpose of the BOM is to teach 19th century (and later) peoples about Christ, not to provide a history lesson.

The difficulty with this take is that it contradicts Joseph Smith's own claims about the nature of the Book of Mormon. He was rather insistent in claiming that it was a translation of an ancient text.

You wrote:

While we may draw different conclusions from the evidence, I do appreciate your dedication and attention to these issues. I mean that honestly. It takes opposition to flesh out the truth.

Thanks again very much for your kind words.

[zerinus]

Fascinating. I confess that I have never run across this view before.

Fascinating???? Hmmm, not eve amusing.

Thanks again very much for your kind words.

Birds of a feather, flock together!

Edited February 24, 2012 by zerinus

[Rob Bowman]

Buzzard,

You wrote:

"Off the top of his head". For one as well read as you, that is a manifestly ignorant statement. Whatever the BOM is or is not, it is not an extemporaneous work created on the fly.

Sorry, I think you're right. My expression "off the top of his head" was not suitable because it does connote a complete lack of planning or forethought. In my own defense, I drew that expression off the top of my head.

You wrote:

Internally consistient, switching back and forth from a historical narrative to deep religous doctrine, Hebraisms integrated seamlessly into the text, I could go on, but you should get the point.

The appeal to Hebraisms is inconsistent with what a lot of other Mormons are asserting here. If the Book of Mormon was written in Joseph Smith's contemporary English idiom and style, then it does not have Hebraisms integrated into the text, seamlessly or otherwise.

[Rob Bowman]

Buckeye,

You wrote:

The devils is always in the details. In the case of the BOM, the details make it virtually impossible that Joseph simply dictated the entire text from his own mind. The story is way too complex and internally consistent. Joseph had far too little education or literary ability to attempt such a feat, especially considering that the BOM was his first publication and that he would never again attempt something so monumental.

The evidence suggests that Joseph had been at least thinking about the Book of Mormon storyline for six years before he dictated it. In addition, the Book of Lehi turned out to function as something of a dry run. These are just a couple of observations relevant to your argument. To sort this all out we would need to discuss just how complex the work is, whether it is really as consistent as you claim, to what extent it represents literary ability, and so forth.

You wrote:

The very evidence Rob and others trumpet undermines Rob's claim that Joseph dictated the text from memory. The BOM contains extensive copying from the KJV. These passages have some theologically significant alterations from the KJV, but the vast bulk of the passages are word for word copies. While Joseph had read the KJV Bible, he had not memorized it, and there is no historical evidence to suggest he had an abnorminally astute memory, much less a photgraphic memory. So how could he have spit out the Isaiah passages found in the BOM? He couldn't. Either the scribes were in on the gig, or God was. There's no middle ground.

I have written an article entitled "Did the Young Joseph Smith Study the Bible?" that addresses this argument with regard to Joseph's knowledge of the Bible. In brief, it was surprisingly common in Joseph's time for young men to have memorized whole books of the Bible, and formal education was not necessary to such an accomplishment.

You wrote:

All of this begs the question "why doesn't someone just repeat Joseph's fraud?" If a 23-year old kid with a sixth grade education could make this stuff up out of whole cloth, all the while tending to a new wife and farm labors, why couldn't the fraud be easily duplicated by one of the great writers of our day? It should be so easy to disprove. And yet ....... (crickets).

Various writers in the past two centuries have produced fraudulent scriptures that sizable numbers of people regard as superior to the Bible. Their educational backgrounds varied considerably. Muslims constantly use a very similar argument with regard to the Qur'an; they claim that Muhammad was too uneducated to have produced what they tell us is the most beautiful Arabic poetry ever produced. A little comparative religious studies goes a long way to put such arguments in perspective.

You wrote:

PS - please remember that Joseph's work was not simply dictation, it was a single line of dictation going on for hundreds of pages without going back to fix inconsistencies.

Actually, Joseph did go back and fix inconsistencies in the 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon, and I'm not talking about grammar or spelling.

[inquiringmind]

To Rob Bowmen,

What about metal plates?

We now know that ancient peoples did sometimes write on metal plates (not just on Papyrus, Vellum, and clay tablets). is there any evidence that Joseph Smith could have known this in 1820?

[Bill Hamblin]

Bill,

You wrote:

The term "generic proverb" is a slippery one, but in any case avoids the issue. Paul says he was quoting Scripture. We have a book of Scripture in which Paul's quoted statement appears exactly as he quoted it, word for word the same in Greek, axios ho ergates tou misthou autou. The claim is not that Jesus introduced a "distinctive teaching" never before heard; the claim is that 1 Timothy 5:18 states that it is quoting Scripture, and we have a book of Scripture at hand, written by an associate of Paul, that uses the exact words that Paul says he is quoting from Scripture.

1- The passage is not quoted exactly.

1 Tim 5:18 reads: aksios o ergatēs.

Luke 10:7 reads: aksios gar o ergatēs

Luke has the gar which is not quoted in Timothy.

2- In fact the passage has two statements. The first is clearly from scripture. The second phrase could be, but does not have to be from scripture for Paul's statement that he is quoting scripture to be accurate.

3- I still find it astonishing that, assuming all your dating claims are accurate, Paul would only quote this innocuous passage from the Gospel of Luke which he supposedly had read. Wouldn't he find something more significant and important in Luke to quote?

Edited February 24, 2012 by Bill Hamblin

[Bill Hamblin]

Bill,

You wrote:

I'm sorry; I can see your point, but perhaps I was not clear enough about mine. I was referring to the fact that the witnesses could not attest to having seen Joseph Smith derive the Book of Mormon from the gold plates. You are correct that three of the witnesses claimed that God told them that Joseph correctly translated the plates. That isn't eyewitness testimony, though. You are also correct that the three claimed that an angel showed them the plates. That is a claim of eyewitness testimony, but only to the angel and the plates, not to the Book of Mormon deriving from the gold plates. This may seem like hair-splitting but it is an important point. Looking at the subject from my point of view, I'm open to the possibility that Joseph had some metallic plates, and I could accept that as fact while still disputing the claim that they contained the Book of Mormon. It is not necessary for me to accept the claims about the angel and the voice of God to accept the existence of some metallic plates in Joseph's possession. Of course, there are all sorts of other issues regarding the three witnesses we haven't even touched here.

You can, of course, reject the testimony of the witnesses. People reject biblical claims of angels and divine revelation all the time. But you cannot distort what the witnesses claim. The three claim the voice of the Lord told them the BOM was a translation of the golden plates.

The idea that Joseph Smith made fake plates is astonishingly bogus. The most clear reason is that if JS had gone through the effort and expense to make fake plates, why didn't he show them to lots and lots of people instead of just a few?

Edited February 24, 2012 by Bill Hamblin

[Bill Hamblin]

What do you have to say about my point that the plates were materially irrelevant to the production of the (English) Book of Mormon?

It's silly.

Suppose that I have a Qur'an in Arabic. You call me on the phone and ask me to translate the Fatiha (the first sura). I translate it over the phone, and you write down the translation. How could you possibly say that the original Qur'an in Arabic--which you do not read or even see as you copy down my dictated translation--is "materially irrelevant" to the production of the translation?

[Jeff K.]

Whatever it was the witnesses saw, held, and felt, it wasn't compelling enough evidence to keep them in the church later.

And yet they could not deny it. Of course Judas didn't stay in the church either. Do we take that as a sign that there was no divinity in Christ?

[zerinus]

The appeal to Hebraisms is inconsistent with what a lot of other Mormons are asserting here. If the Book of Mormon was written in Joseph Smith's contemporary English idiom and style, then it does not have Hebraisms integrated into the text, seamlessly or otherwise.

But unfortunately for you (and them), it does!

Edited February 24, 2012 by zerinus

[Rob Bowman]

Bill,

Time for Greek exegesis class.

You wrote:

1- The passage is not quoted exactly.

1 Tim 5:18 reads: aksios o ergatēs.

Luke 10:7 reads: aksios gar o ergatēs

Luke has the gar which is not quoted in Timothy.

I was wondering if you'd try this. Odd, that you didn't even say anything about the meaning or grammatical function of the word. The word gar ("for") is simply a particle joining the clause to the clause that precedes it. In Greek (I assume you already know this, but likely most here do not) gar is "postpositive," meaning that it appears after the first word of the clause (whereas, of course, the conjunction "for" precedes the first word of the clause in English). As a conjunction, it is not part of the statement expressed by the clause but functions to connect that clause to the preceding one. 1 Timothy 5:18 does not have the word gar because it is not functionally part of the clause that Paul is quoting. In fact, it would have been somewhat confusing or awkward, if not ungrammatical, had Paul used gar in the quotation, as the resulting statement would then say, "For the scripture says you shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing and for the laborer deserves his wages."

You wrote:

2- In fact the passage has two statements.

I pointed this out some time ago. You continued:

The first is clearly from scripture. The second phrase could be, but does not have to be from scripture for Paul's statement that he is quoting scripture to be accurate.

Here's the statement again: "For the Scripture says, 'you shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing' and 'the laborer deserves his wages.'" Grammatically, the word "and" (Greek, kai) connects the two clauses "you shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing" and "the laborer deserves his wages" coordinately, so that grammatically both function as the object of the verb "says" (Greek, legei). To simplify, the sentence structure is as follows: For the Scripture says, X and Y. It is implausible in the extreme to suggest that in this sentence X is something that Scripture says but Y is not.

Grammatically, 1 Timothy 5:18 is like the following verse: "For it is written in the Book of Psalms, 'May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it'; and 'Let another take his office'" (Acts 1:20). Here Acts 1:20 quotes two separate verses, Psalm 69:25 and Psalm 109:8. Notice the similar semantic-grammatical structure: For it is written in the Book of Psalms, X and Y. Just as there is no reason to dispute that X and Y in Acts 1:20 are both quotations from the Book of Psalms, so there is no reason to dispute that X and Y in 1 Timothy 5:18 are both quotations from Scripture. That is what the verses say!

You wrote:

3- I still find it astonishing that, assuming all your dating claims are accurate, Paul would only quote this innocuous passage from the Gospel of Luke which he supposedly had read. Wouldn't he find something more significant and important in Luke to quote?

You know, Bill, this is nothing more than an argument from silence--in fact, it's less than an argument from silence, because it's an argument that Paul should have quoted Luke more than he did, or quoted Luke elsewhere than he did, if he had read it. This argument from silence is a very poor substitute for exegeting the verse in question.

On the dating of the Pauline epistles that I accept (rather standard dates for conservative scholars), Paul probably wrote only the three Pastoral Epistles after the Gospel of Luke was completed. They are all rather short compared to Romans and the Corinthian epistles. They deal with specific issues regarding the administration of church congregations, such as qualifications for elders and deacons, caring for destitute widows, ensuring that the gospel doctrine was passed on to men qualified to teach others, various matters pertaining to young and old men and women, false and ignorant teachers and divisive or factious individuals in the congregations, and the like. It was not Paul's purpose in those epistles to tell stories about Jesus' miracles or other activities. You are assuming that if Paul had read the Gospel of Luke, he would feel compelled to "find" something "significant and important" from the Gospel to quote in his epistle. There is no compelling argument for the claim that had Paul read the Gospel of Luke he would surely have quoted it more often or quoted something you consider "important" enough in 1 Timothy or Titus or 2 Timothy. Certainly no such argument is sufficient to overturn the plain evidence of what the text does say in 1 Timothy 5:18.

[Bob Crockett]

Rob:

As I see it, you can’t see any relationship between the way the Bible was put together and the way the Book of Mormon came to be. True, they are two different works from two different epochs. But they have some important similarities and differences.

They both purport to attest to some pretty remarkable things. Angels, God speaking to man, resurrected beings and the like. The sort of things most of the world would laugh at for believing, I suppose.

But, the attestation for and the provenance of the Book of Mormon is far superior to the Bible, and Mormons believe God intended that to be so, making the Book of Mormon the most perfect book in the world. As far as the Bible goes, there is absolutely no contemporaneous evidence of Christ’s ministry except for the Gospels themselves. There is nothing in written Roman history, which is pretty remarkable when you know that the Romans were a highly literate society. There is no evidence that the Gospels are what they purport to be, eyewitnesses of Jesus. There is no evidence that the Gospels were an oral tradition of the truth. There are no original autographs, nor do the earliest surviving manuscripts claim to be copies of the original autographs.

Christian apologists argue that the Gospels are, at a minimum, a recitation of an oral tradition. Yet, we find no evidence of a circulating oral tradition in Paul’s writings. When Paul writes of Jesus, it is limited to his sacrifice; Paul does not quote one word of his sayings except for Acts 20:35, which contains a saying nowhere in the Gospels. Your singular cite to Timothy and the use of the word “Scriptures” for one rather ordinary saying is not very convincing, as elsewhere when the New Testament refers to the “Scriptures” it is referring to the Hebrew Bible. (Luke 24:27.) I have cited my authorities to you where NT scholars doubt whether Paul was intending to quote Jesus in Timothy.

Thus, the Christian is forced to treat the Bible as self-attesting. The Bible itself is its own witness. That type of witness wouldn’t satisfy Jewish legal procedure, as there is no evidence that the accumulated books are not a fraud. It isn’t enough to say that there are lots of manuscripts circulating which establish the Bible’s existence; none of them even come close to being contemporaneous. None of them claim to be copies from the original autographs.

By contrast, the Book of Mormon is supported by eyewitnesses on a number of fronts. The Gold Plates, the angel, and the like. There are recanting and apostate witnesses who can’t quote recant that they really saw and handled the plates. Is there proof that the Book of Mormon is an ancient history of the Americas? No, no more than the Bible is proof that Moses ever lived. But there is real, hard evidence of the way the Book of Mormon came forward. Multiple witnesses who have never been impeached. And, certainly, it isn’t for want of trying. Reporters tried for decades to impeach David Whitmer and never laid a glove on him.

And, of course, the text of the Book of Mormon is what is truly remarkable. It takes a two-by-four to the evangelical doctrine of grace, paints it for what it is, and shows that free will and obedience are paramount to meriting God’s grace. Somehow I just don’t see an ignorant farm boy grasping the significance of the debate between Pelagius and St. Augustine, the latter who won only because he was better connected politically. The rest is history. A false system of doctrines leading to indulgences and the teaching that authority in the Church was unnecessary as long as you had your Bible.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Bob Crockett

[why me]

Whatever it was the witnesses saw, held, and felt, it wasn't compelling enough evidence to keep them in the church later.

And yet, most of them dabbled in some form of mormonism. Their experience was so compelling that on their deathbeds they had to repeat their testimony to family and friends. My take on this is: they wanted to make sure to make right before god because they could not know that their decision to leave was the correct one. And they knew that what they experienced was beyond human, something extremely spiritual.