Bom And Ages

[volgadon]

I read that recently when investigating the Others theory claims. I thought it was from an LDS apologist. I could be wrong. Maybe what's unique is that she had 8 children reach adulthood. At any rate, her mothering pattern is an outlier of ancient times, though she's the only one described in the BOM.

It wasn't from the narrator, was it?

[volgadon]

When do the longer life spans occur?That should provide a clue into the Nephite's conceptual world.

[Freedom]

1. Everything in the BOM is literal and true, ie men regularly fathered children in their 60's, 70's, and 80's and lived past 100 (even 130), women regularly birthed 8 or more children over 25 year spans, etc. Because this is such a statistical outlier from historical evidence, we can assume there must be something special going on, some divine intervention for some reason. So we can throw out all other observations from the BOM based on scientific understandings of demographics, such as population growth. This would include attempting to use Others as a reason for strange passages in the text, such as the population size at the time of Sherem, the Lamanites outnumbering the Nephites, the Mulekites or Nephites having internal wars, etc.

Literally true according to what standard? The bible says that Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days, that Moses's live was conveniently divided into exactly 40-year periods. The sons of Heleman, are to presume, literally became the sons of Heleman? If you read more historical documents, you will find that ages and relations become rather loose.

2. The text is not reliable, or better stated we can't reliably know the text. We can't assume that when it says Ammaron lived to be 130 years old that he really lived to be 130 years old. We can't assume that when it says Enos died 180 years after his father was born, that he really died 180 years after his father was born. For whatever reason, we can't make assumptions. Maybe the words and phrases in ancient terms mean something different than in modern English. Maybe the information was recorded imprecisely or Joseph translated it imprecisely. This appears to be an explanation the apologists like, ie tapir/horse. So, if this is the case, then again, we can't attempt to use scientific understanding of population growth or demographics to explain strange passages like population at time of Sherem, Lamanites outnumbering Nephites, etc.

I don't understand why you conclude that Ammaron lived 130 years. There is no indication of his birth year from what I can see.

Men can procreate for their entire life. Children also get adopted and families amalgamated. There is not enough information in the text to know how this family relationship works. You are assuming the book if false so you are refusing to consider the difficulty in interpreting such data in an ancient document. It is not that the text is not reliabile. the problem is that we do not have enough context such as culture or comparitive documents from the same time and place to fully understand how they measured years or family relations. As I asked before (and you ignored) what is the difference between a cousin for a Californian of British descent and, a cousin for a British Columbian of Pakistani descent. If you cannot answer the question then you cannot pretend to have an argument.

3. The author of the BOM wrote a piece of fiction without thorough understanding of life expectancy, population growth patterns, and other demographic issues. So we can expect to find a lot of internal inconsistencies, ie weird stuff like Jacob not knowing Sherem or a hunger/gatherer group outnumbering a civilized/kingship group, or outlandish claims like a two million death battle.

Your simplistic rejection of the book over what you think are inconsistencies simply demonstrates your ignorance of how to read an ancient document and of how many other miraculous parallels there are to real cultures that Joseph would not have known. The same criticism can be applied to the bible but scholars who are better informed than you accept both the divinity of the text and the reality of how people live.

[Freedom]

So I take it you guys agree with my conclusion?

We can now cross off all the population/demographics based arguments for the Others theory?

No, but we confirm that you have no knowledge of how family relations are recorded other than in your own specific age and culture.

Also, it is poor scholarship to draw conclusions of an entire civilization based on 2 or 3 examples of lifespans that may or may not be accurate.

Edited July 8, 2012 by Freedom

[Freedom]

When do the longer life spans occur?That should provide a clue into the Nephite's conceptual world.

There are many examples of men having children well into their 90's. There are also examples of genealogical records being about more than genealogy which causes the dates and relations to be come distorted. We look at them as errors, but the original author did not. Different culture, different standard.

[Calm]

I read that recently when investigating the Others theory claims. I thought it was from an LDS apologist. I could be wrong. Maybe what's unique is that she had 8 children reach adulthood. At any rate, her mothering pattern is an outlier of ancient times, though she's the only one described in the BOM.

It would be 8 children reaching adulthood most probably.

Think of what a difference not having a really effective birth control method besides abstinence does for the pregnancy and birth rate and unless things have changed drastically with an average age of menopause being 51, that gives 25 years of fertility easily.

Edited July 8, 2012 by calmoriah

[cursor]

This is a very interesting discussion.

[volgadon]

There are many examples of men having children well into their 90's.

A few years ago a Bedouin in Israel took to wife a 19 year old. He was well into his 90s. Oddly enough, it seems they married for love. Well, she got pregnant, bore him a son, and his middle-aged grandchildren begged him not to have more children as they'd have to care for them.

[ANACO]

A few years ago a Bedouin in Israel took to wife a 19 year old. He was well into his 90s. Oddly enough, it seems they married for love. Well, she got pregnant, bore him a son, and his middle-aged grandchildren begged him not to have more children as they'd have to care for them.

Hope he has life insurance.

Alma 19:22: part of the account of Ammon, talks of the Lamanite brothers, both slain by Ammon (well the last by the Lord). I don't believe they were cousins - if so there might of been more Lamanite brothers/cousins angry enough to attempt to kill the helpless Ammon as he was on the floor.

Alma 20:3 - Behold, my brother and brethren are in prison at Middoni, and I go that I may deliver them...

I think too much is read into the Book of Mormon just to force it into a particular geographical setting. Anyway, just a thought.

Kind regards.

Edited July 8, 2012 by ANACO

[robuchan]

If the Book of Mormon took place in Messo America, it is incumbent upon us to consider the culture when we view the text. It is also required to consider how other ancient records present lineage. What exactly is the difference, for example, between a descendant and a 'pure' descendant? Can I be a pure descendant of my grandfather and a cousin be only a descendant? If you cannot answer this question then you must acknowledge that we do not have all the answers concerning how to read their genealogies. It is apparent that you have never read any ancient records, if you had you would not be attempting this criticism.

Here's a question for you. What did the following words mean to Mesoamericans? If you can not answer the question, then you must acknowledge that we do not have any understanding of the doctrinal concepts being taught.

baptism

atonement

Son of God

resurrection

grace

Holy Ghost

devil

prophet

revelation

repent

faith

[robuchan]

When do the longer life spans occur?That should provide a clue into the Nephite's conceptual world.

They appear to occur when not a lot of is going on in the narrative. ie the generation span correlates opposite from how many words are printed in the BOM per generation. Interesting at all?

[robuchan]

No, but we confirm that you have no knowledge of how family relations are recorded other than in your own specific age and culture.

Also, it is poor scholarship to draw conclusions of an entire civilization based on 2 or 3 examples of lifespans that may or may not be accurate.

So what does that tell you about the scholarship that draws conclusions about Others due to sketchy and possibly inaccurate information about population sizes?

[robuchan]

Literally true according to what standard? The bible says that Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days, that Moses's live was conveniently divided into exactly 40-year periods. The sons of Heleman, are to presume, literally became the sons of Heleman? If you read more historical documents, you will find that ages and relations become rather loose.

I don't understand why you conclude that Ammaron lived 130 years. There is no indication of his birth year from what I can see.

Men can procreate for their entire life. Children also get adopted and families amalgamated. There is not enough information in the text to know how this family relationship works. You are assuming the book if false so you are refusing to consider the difficulty in interpreting such data in an ancient document. It is not that the text is not reliabile. the problem is that we do not have enough context such as culture or comparitive documents from the same time and place to fully understand how they measured years or family relations. As I asked before (and you ignored) what is the difference between a cousin for a Californian of British descent and, a cousin for a British Columbian of Pakistani descent. If you cannot answer the question then you cannot pretend to have an argument.

Your simplistic rejection of the book over what you think are inconsistencies simply demonstrates your ignorance of how to read an ancient document and of how many other miraculous parallels there are to real cultures that Joseph would not have known. The same criticism can be applied to the bible but scholars who are better informed than you accept both the divinity of the text and the reality of how people live.

Please don't dodge or obfuscate. Which of the three explain the wacky demographic patterns I've shown in this thread? Or if you reject all three, please give your own theory.

1. Everything in the BOM is literal and true, ie men regularly fathered children in their 60's, 70's, and 80's and lived past 100 (even 130), women regularly birthed 8 or more children over 25 year spans, etc.

2. The text is not reliable, or better stated we can't reliably know the text.

3. The author of the BOM wrote a piece of fiction without thorough understanding of life expectancy, population growth patterns, and other demographic issues.

Edited July 8, 2012 by robuchan

[robuchan]

It wasn't from the narrator, was it?

Come again?

[volgadon]

Hope he has life insurance.

Alma 19:22: part of the account of Ammon, talks of the Lamanite brothers, both slain by Ammon (well the last by the Lord). I don't believe they were cousins - if so there might of been more Lamanite brothers/cousins angry enough to attempt to kill the helpless Ammon as he was on the floor.

I think too much is read into the Book of Mormon just to force it into a particular geographical setting. Anyway, just a thought.

Kind regards.

While I do lean towards it having been a brother rather than a cousin, there is no way of settling it from the text. Who is to say that the slain had any brothers, or that he had only one. It is just as probable that the brother was the one selected to carry out the blood vengence, or he may have had the first opportunity among his kin. When I returned from my mission, I worked in a cannery with a lot of Arabs. Several were Christians from a village near my home. One day a Druse kid from the same village got a job in the cannery too. He was very swarthy, but turned absolutely pale when he saw his coworkers. Som background is needed to understand why. Three years prior, a major feud erupted in the village, when a Druze kid falsely accused the Christians of posting pictures of Druze girls online. Enraged, the Druze youth attacked the Christians, burning homes and injuring many. I even saw smoke from a distance. That Druze kid, as it turned out, had torched the home belonging to cousins of one of the Christians, who had, as a result, sworn vengence. Now they found themselves working in the exact same department in the cannery. Both he and the Druse refered to the injured party not as cousins, but as brothers.

[volgadon]

Come again?

I was thinking of a thread started by the narrator, AKA Lloyd Erickson.

[volgadon]

They appear to occur when not a lot of is going on in the narrative. ie the generation span correlates opposite from how many words are printed in the BOM per generation. Interesting at all?

Seriously? You could look at Isaiah 65.

[Freedom]

Here's a question for you. What did the following words mean to Mesoamericans? If you can not answer the question, then you must acknowledge that we do not have any understanding of the doctrinal concepts being taught.

baptism

atonement

Son of God

resurrection

grace

Holy Ghost

devil

prophet

revelation

repent

faith

If you had read the Book of Mormon you would realize that these terms have significant context and prolonged discourses that give deep meaning to the terms which, of course, produce our unique LDS doctrines. These words prove my point in fact, so thanks for acknowledging that context is everything.

[Freedom]

So what does that tell you about the scholarship that draws conclusions about Others due to sketchy and possibly inaccurate information about population sizes?

Well, this is what some of us have been trying to explain to you but your complete unfamiliarity with history and historical documents prevents you from grasping the concept. A text is interpreted based on the culture that produces it, not based on the culture of the person who reads it. You must combine what is known of the people to understand the book. The wording in the text is consistent with other document of similar age. Your conclusions are based solely on your determination to prove the text false.

[Freedom]

Please don't dodge or obfuscate. Which of the three explain the wacky demographic patterns I've shown in this thread? Or if you reject all three, please give your own theory.

1. Everything in the BOM is literal and true, ie men regularly fathered children in their 60's, 70's, and 80's and lived past 100 (even 130), women regularly birthed 8 or more children over 25 year spans, etc.

2. The text is not reliable, or better stated we can't reliably know the text.

3. The author of the BOM wrote a piece of fiction without thorough understanding of life expectancy, population growth patterns, and other demographic issues.

None of these options are applicable because you are going for absolutes. The text is reliable, but it must be interpreted as an ancient text. You are claiming the right to interpret as if it were written in the 21st century to be intended as government survey book. No ancient text can be understood for certain unless context is provided. If all ancient cultures recorded their genealogy in the same manner this would not be an issue, but because we know that setting out the genealogy was for a specific purpose (usually to confirm the rights through lineage) we can be pretty confident that such genealogies were not a simple listing of family lines for pragmatic historical record keeping purposes.

We know know how and why genealogies were recorded so it would be wise to apply what we know to the Book of Mormon. It is just that simple.

The concepts in the Book that the prophet Mormon was preserving were the doctrines of salvation. The history and accompanying geneology provides context but the accuracy of this information was irrelevant to the gospel message.

[robuchan]

None of these options are applicable because you are going for absolutes. The text is reliable, but it must be interpreted as an ancient text. You are claiming the right to interpret as if it were written in the 21st century to be intended as government survey book. No ancient text can be understood for certain unless context is provided. If all ancient cultures recorded their genealogy in the same manner this would not be an issue, but because we know that setting out the genealogy was for a specific purpose (usually to confirm the rights through lineage) we can be pretty confident that such genealogies were not a simple listing of family lines for pragmatic historical record keeping purposes.

We know know how and why genealogies were recorded so it would be wise to apply what we know to the Book of Mormon. It is just that simple.

The concepts in the Book that the prophet Mormon was preserving were the doctrines of salvation. The history and accompanying geneology provides context but the accuracy of this information was irrelevant to the gospel message.

I hear you answering #2, but being stubborn to admit it. Is this fair?

I hear you saying with ancient texts it's difficult to take literally when they use numbers, or use words such as brother. Since the BOM focused on gospel and only provided history as it was relevant to the gospel message, we shouldn't take seriously minute details related to the history. So that sounds exactly like my #2 description. Therefore we can conclude that we can cross off the population/demographic items that argue for the Others theory (population at Sherem's time, ratio of Lamanites to Nephites, etc). Fair?

[cdowis]

Therefore we can conclude that we can cross off the population/demographic items that argue for the Others theory (population at Sherem's time, ratio of Lamanites to Nephites, etc). Fair?

You already ignore thIs evidence. You don't need our permission.

Edited July 8, 2012 by cdowis

[robuchan]

You already ignore thIs evidence. You don't need our permission.

It seems to be by responding this way that you're afraid to acknowledge the argument because you'll have to concede the point.

[cdowis]

It seems to be by responding this way that you're afraid to acknowledge the argument because you'll have to concede the point.

If you remember, I already gave up. You win.

Go to the man at the table and pick up your prize.

[Tacenda]

If you remember, I already gave up. You win.

Go to the man at the table and pick up your prize.

I probably have no business saying so but this sounds like cop out to me.