Bom And Ages

[Calm]

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

Have you been following the conversation?

[BookofMormonLuvr]

Women having children on average every 3 years in an agriculturally based society? Gasp! Astounding! (not really) They do about that in Africa, and the Nephites lived in much better conditions and had a better understanding of medicine.

So my response to this topic...

Yawn.

[volgadon]

Women having children on average every 3 years in an agriculturally based society? Gasp! Astounding! (not really) They do about that in Africa, and the Nephites lived in much better conditions and had a better understanding of medicine.

So my response to this topic...

Yawn.

How do we know that Nephites lived in much better conditions and had a better understanding of medicine?

[BookofMormonLuvr]

How do we know that Nephites lived in much better conditions and had a better understanding of medicine?

Conditions:

From what we know the culture in the time and area where we believe the Book of Mormon took place..

Medicine:

Alma 21:75 (RLDS) And there were some who died with fevers, which at some seasons of the year was very frequent in the land;

76 But not so much so with fevers, because of the excellent qualities of the many plants and roots which God had prepared, to remove the cause of diseases to which man was subject by the nature of the climate.

77But there were many who died with old age; and those who died in the faith of Christ, are happy in him, as we must needs suppose.

Edited July 9, 2012 by BookofMormonLuvr

[Freedom]

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?

We can can conclude that we do not know for certain what it means due to lack of context, which is the same with all ancient texts that list such data. It is not about not taking it literal, it is about not interpreting it based on a 21st American perspective. There is a huge difference between the two that you need to grasp before you ever hope to understand any ancient document. The lack of context has nothing to do with the reality that there were others present. There is no evidence of miraculous birthrates or longevity so there is no reason to draw the conclusions you require to support your argument. In fact, if we take your argument then not taking these long ages literally would strengthen the need for others.

[robuchan]

We can can conclude that we do not know for certain what it means due to lack of context, which is the same with all ancient texts that list such data. It is not about not taking it literal, it is about not interpreting it based on a 21st American perspective. There is a huge difference between the two that you need to grasp before you ever hope to understand any ancient document. The lack of context has nothing to do with the reality that there were others present. There is no evidence of miraculous birthrates or longevity so there is no reason to draw the conclusions you require to support your argument. In fact, if we take your argument then not taking these long ages literally would strengthen the need for others.

So when the BOM says someone lived to 130 years old, we can't expect that to mean he lived to be 130 years old. When Sariah has 8 children live to adulthood, we can't expect that to be typical of other women. When we have generation spans lasting 70 years long, we can't expect that to mean generation spans actually lasted 70 years. But when it mentions the Lamanite population is bigger than the Nephite population, we can trust that implicitly? And when Sherem shows up and Jacob doesn't know him, we can also trust that literally and make conclusions about the population based on it.?

I'm seeing a pattern here. When the text works against the apologists, they tell us we can't understand the text. When the text works for the apologists, they tell us we can trust the text literally. Interesting.

[robuchan]

Conditions:

From what we know the culture in the time and area where we believe the Book of Mormon took place..

Medicine:

Alma 21:75 (RLDS) And there were some who died with fevers, which at some seasons of the year was very frequent in the land;

76 But not so much so with fevers, because of the excellent qualities of the many plants and roots which God had prepared, to remove the cause of diseases to which man was subject by the nature of the climate.

77But there were many who died with old age; and those who died in the faith of Christ, are happy in him, as we must needs suppose.

Good find. This suggests an interpretation of #1 in my choices.

[Freedom]

So when the BOM says someone lived to 130 years old, we can't expect that to mean he lived to be 130 years old. When Sariah has 8 children live to adulthood, we can't expect that to be typical of other women. When we have generation spans lasting 70 years long, we can't expect that to mean generation spans actually lasted 70 years. But when it mentions the Lamanite population is bigger than the Nephite population, we can trust that implicitly? And when Sherem shows up and Jacob doesn't know him, we can also trust that literally and make conclusions about the population based on it.?

I'm seeing a pattern here. When the text works against the apologists, they tell us we can't understand the text. When the text works for the apologists, they tell us we can trust the text literally. Interesting.

What I am trying to explain to you is that you have to read it as an ancient text and read the numbers as an ancient author would write them. You want it all to fit into modern language or non of it to fit, I am trying to explain to you that ancient writers consistently played with numbers and genealogies. You have not established that anyone lived 130 years, only that one of the fathers was close to 100 when the son was born. You are having issues with babies and bathwater. If someone from Pakistan said they traveled to Disney land with four of their cousins, we do not reject the entire account because their usage of the term 'cousin' is different from the dictionary definition. You need to learn more about ancient records before you continue making ignorant and uninformed arguments. The one point that needs to be made is that family relations have special meaning so in order to maintain them, the writer had to play a little loose with lifespans.

2,000 years form now, people will read our literature and be confused by aspects that they would present differently. See 'cousins' as an example. It could be that, in the future, critics like you will reject our histories because no seemingly advanced civilization would be so irresponsible with the environment. I suspect that in the not too distant future, critics of the church will use references to the automobile by prophets as evidence that they are false because God would surely prevent his representatives from polluting his planet.

You need to get a bit of an education. You are bringing kindergarten logic to a 4th year university discussion.

[CASteinman]

The largest block of years in question occurs between Jacob and Jarom. Jarom seems to die at about 360 BC. Making about 240 years from Jacob's birth to Jarom's death.

Which would seem to be impossibly long. But we have modern analogs. Harrison Ruffin Tyler is the Grandson of President John Tyler who was born in 1790. This makes 220 years from Birth to Harrison Ruffin Tyler's current living status. As he is pretty fit and even rather young looking for his age, he may reasonably live another 10 years or more.

The remaining individuals in the genealogy would have only had to have had lives of about 70 years each to account for the remaining time.

[cdowis]

The largest block of years in question occurs between Jacob and Jarom. Jarom seems to die at about 360 BC. Making about 240 years from Jacob's birth to Jarom's death.

Perhaps Jarom was adopted when Jacob was old.

Edited July 9, 2012 by cdowis

[robuchan]

What I am trying to explain to you is that you have to read it as an ancient text and read the numbers as an ancient author would write them. You want it all to fit into modern language or non of it to fit, I am trying to explain to you that ancient writers consistently played with numbers and genealogies. You have not established that anyone lived 130 years, only that one of the fathers was close to 100 when the son was born. You are having issues with babies and bathwater. If someone from Pakistan said they traveled to Disney land with four of their cousins, we do not reject the entire account because their usage of the term 'cousin' is different from the dictionary definition. You need to learn more about ancient records before you continue making ignorant and uninformed arguments. The one point that needs to be made is that family relations have special meaning so in order to maintain them, the writer had to play a little loose with lifespans.

2,000 years form now, people will read our literature and be confused by aspects that they would present differently. See 'cousins' as an example. It could be that, in the future, critics like you will reject our histories because no seemingly advanced civilization would be so irresponsible with the environment. I suspect that in the not too distant future, critics of the church will use references to the automobile by prophets as evidence that they are false because God would surely prevent his representatives from polluting his planet.

You need to get a bit of an education. You are bringing kindergarten logic to a 4th year university discussion.

I'm getting it fine. You're the one not getting it. I will concede all the dates, times, years, words related to family and lineage, are all unreliable. However, when we do this, why do you suddenly feel like getting precise when calculating population sizes, such as the time of Sherem or comparing Nephites to Lamanites?

[robuchan]

The largest block of years in question occurs between Jacob and Jarom. Jarom seems to die at about 360 BC. Making about 240 years from Jacob's birth to Jarom's death.

Which would seem to be impossibly long. But we have modern analogs. Harrison Ruffin Tyler is the Grandson of President John Tyler who was born in 1790. This makes 220 years from Birth to Harrison Ruffin Tyler's current living status. As he is pretty fit and even rather young looking for his age, he may reasonably live another 10 years or more.

The remaining individuals in the genealogy would have only had to have had lives of about 70 years each to account for the remaining time.

You're misunderstanding the math. It's about 80 years per generation. So the grandson birth to son's birth would be about 240 years in the BOM. And it's not just one time Jacob to Enos, it's an average of 10 generations.

My understanding of Mesoamerica would be that living past 50 years old would be an outlier. Is this right, Mesoamerica experts?

[CASteinman]

You're misunderstanding the math. It's about 80 years per generation. So the grandson birth to son's birth would be about 240 years in the BOM. And it's not just one time Jacob to Enos, it's an average of 10 generations.

My understanding of Mesoamerica would be that living past 50 years old would be an outlier. Is this right, Mesoamerica experts?

No, I am not misunderstanding the math. I am reading the Book of Mormon passages that talk about the times when individuals were born or were about to die. It looks something about like this (though I cannot be exactly right because the Book of Mormon uses approximate references, and gives dates for only some of the individuals.):

Jacob 595 to 500 - 95 Years old Lehi was pretty old at Jacob's birth

Enos 545 to 440 - 95 Years old Jacob was 50 Years old at Enos' birth

Jarom 450 to 360 - 100 years old Enos was 85 Years old at Jarom's birth

Omni 380 to 318 - 62 Years old Jarom was 80 Years old at Omni's birth

Amaron 338 - 270 - 68 Years old Omni was 42 Years old at Amaron's birth

Chemish 290 - 223 - 67 Years old Amaron was 48 Years old at Chemish's birth

Abinadom 250 to 176 - 73 Years old Chemish was 40 Years old at Abinadom's birth

Amaleki 210 to 130 - 80 Years old Abinadom was 40 Years old at Ameliki's birth

This is the result of just a few moments work. I might get a bit more info if I take a couple of hours to study it out and that might refine the years a bit. It not unreasonable that Omni, Amaron and/or Chemish were born earlier and lived longer.

If people were having children into their old age, this might help increase the population a bit, but would only be practical if many of the men were dying (say in wars) while the women remained living. This would also suggest (at least Levirite) polygamy.

Edited July 9, 2012 by CASteinman

[robuchan]

No, I am not misunderstanding the math. I am reading the Book of Mormon passages that talk about the times when individuals were born or about to die. It looks something about like this (though I cannot be exactly right because the Book of Mormon uses approximate times):

Jacob 595 to 500 - 95 Years

Enos 545 to 440 - 95 Years

Jarom 450 to 360 - 100 years

Omni 380 to 318 - 62 Years

Amaron 338 - 270 - 68 Years

Chemish 290 - 223 - 67 Years

Abinadom 250 to 176 - 73 Years

Amaleki 210 to 130 - 80 Years.

This is the result of just a few moments work. I might get a bit more info if I took a couple of hours to study it and that might refine the years a bit. It not unreasonable that Omni, Amaron and/or Chemish were born earlier and lived longer.

Not just the age is significant, but also the age when the fathers fathered their heir. It's not typical of Mesoamerica. So you need to account for it some way, ie 1) true but extraordinary ie God intervened, and therefore can't extrapolate populations based on scientific understanding 2) not precise, ie we can't use it to extrapolate, and therefore can't trust other population/demographic commentary in the book based on scientific understanding and precision of language 3) it's pure fiction and nonsense.

[CASteinman]

Not just the age is significant, but also the age when the fathers fathered their heir.

I edited the list after you saw it. I include the ages that the fathers would have been. These ages are by no means impossible and not even necessarily impractical, especially if the individuals were somehow nobility or elite members of society. There is no special need to account for it. I have given examples in our own history of 3 generations doing almost the same thing As for trusting population projections, we can trust them, but only within certain confidence bands and subject to certain assumptions. It is not fiction and nonsense.

Edited July 9, 2012 by CASteinman

[robuchan]

I edited the list after you saw it. I include the ages that the fathers would have been. These ages are by no means impossible and not even necessarily impractical, especially if the individuals were somehow nobility or elite members of society. There is no special need to account for it. I have given examples in our own history of 3 generations doing almost the same thing As for trusting population projections, we can trust them, but only within certain confidence bands and subject to certain assumptions. It is not fiction and nonsense.

Can anyone back up CA here?

This makes 3 warnings today. You are not going to continue to derail threads with unresponsive driveby comments, you are out of this one.

[CASteinman]

Can anyone back up CA here?

I have already sort of backed myself up.

[robuchan]

I have already sort of backed myself up.

No, not really.

1. You picked and chose between thousands of data points to find one that would show correlation.

2. You chose modern setting, where the life expectancy is significantly different

3. You chose three generations. We have two examples from the BOM, one a six generation and one a four generation, which were remarkable. To illustrate how different this is...use this example. If an 80 year span for a generation is rare to the level of being 10% rare, your example of the grandfather to the grandson having this would be .1 * .1 = .01 or 1 in 100 rare. The BOM having a six generation span of such would be .1 * .1 * .1 * .1 * .1 = 1/100,000.

Since there are so many people on this site skilled at ancient things, it should be easy for them to dig up a record of ancient kings spanning six generations over 460 years.

Edited July 9, 2012 by robuchan

[Calm]

I'm getting it fine. You're the one not getting it. I will concede all the dates, times, years, words related to family and lineage, are all unreliable. However, when we do this, why do you suddenly feel like getting precise when calculating population sizes, such as the time of Sherem or comparing Nephites to Lamanites?

They are not unreliable if you use them within the limits meant for them by their creators.

A drug is not seen as unreliable simply because you can't pinpoint the exact time it is going to kick in, the exact level of the dose that will enter the blood stream or even the exact way it will react with each individual. It is seen as reliable if it fits within the parameters established for reliability in drugs.

Modern men have set up different parameters of reliability for numbers and terms in ancient texts. What one needs to determine is what the limits they applied while writing and then one can see if they are useful for the purpose we want to use them for.

[Calm]

It's not typical of Mesoamerica.

CFR

You need not the average life expectancy as that may factor in deaths of youth and infants as well as death in wars. If you want to know how old people were living if they managed to survive past middle age, then you need to look for life expectancy at the age of 30, 40, 50, 60. IIRC, the older one gets the longer one's life expectancy gets as well. I would assume there is a limit though.

As a side note, I came across a list of how old various groups of people were from 1000 years ago...unfortunately some of the groups didn't start keeping track till later, but it gives you an idea of the range of ages. Of course these are famous people and thus would likely have less harsh lifestyles (save when it came to fighting for leaders). But you might want to check it out just for the fun of it:

http://www.sbrowning.com/whowhatwhen/index.php

William the Conqueror Duke of Normandy ? ?, 1027 ? ?, 1087 60

Su Tung-p'o Chinese poet and painter ? ?, 1036 ? ?, 1101 65

Edited July 9, 2012 by calmoriah

[robuchan]

They are not unreliable if you use them within the limits meant for them by their creators.

A drug is not seen as unreliable simply because you can't pinpoint the exact time it is going to kick in, the exact level of the dose that will enter the blood stream or even the exact way it will react with each individual. It is seen as reliable if it fits within the parameters established for reliability in drugs.

Modern men have set up different parameters of reliability for numbers and terms in ancient texts. What one needs to determine is what the limits they applied while writing and then one can see if they are useful for the purpose we want to use them for.

Just admit the Sherem/Jacob population modeling argument is ridiculous and we can move on past this.

[robuchan]

CFR

You need not the average life expectancy as that may factor in deaths of youth and infants as well as death in wars. If you want to know how old people were living if they managed to survive past middle age, then you need to look for life expectancy at the age of 30, 40, 50, 60. IIRC, the older one gets the longer one's life expectancy gets as well. I would assume there is a limit though.

Really? You think the life expectancy of a man at age 50 in Mesoamerica is equal to what it is now in the United States?

[Calm]

Just admit the Sherem/Jacob population modeling argument is ridiculous and we can move on past this.

When my grandson insisted when he was four years old that we play checkers by his rules...which tended to change from minute to minute, I found it rather amusing. When my grandson insisted when he was five years of age that we play chess by his rules...which often changed, I found it annoying. When my grandson turned six and insisted I play backgammon by his rules, I shut the backgammon game up and said "no thanks".

[Calm]

Really? You think the life expectancy of a man at age 50 in Mesoamerica is equal to what it is now in the United States?

No, I did not say that. I have no clue how you inferred that from what I wrote.

If you haven't noticed I am asking CFR for your claim about those ages being outliers, which can be demonstrated one way by finding the life expectancy of a Mesoamerican during BoM times or as close as you can get who has hit middle age say 35-40.

[cursor]

[ you got your 1000, cal ]