Did Mitchill, Not Anthon Inspire Martin Harris' Funding? What Implications For Authorship?

[canard78]

You are correct that this is a style. What I offer is my personal reaction, which is probably not shared by many.

I agree that this style is insufficient because it appears that the only response is some diversion from the question rather than a direct response to it. There is a style in LDS apologetics that rather immediately looks for the contradiction without understanding the nature of the argument. The reason, of course, is that all of these things get wrapped up in polemics, and everyone is talking to the larger (often only implied) argument about authenticity.

Thus a critic proposes Methodist language (because there is an implication that it shows that the text isn't divine) and the apologist responds with something that indicates that the text could be historical (and therefore still be divine).

The Methodist language is still there. That is a translation issue and the nature of the translation is still being worked out.

Mitchill's ideas are very good reasons for the way the early Saints read the Book of Mormon against history, but the mechanism required to get those ideas fully formed in the text is too thin be have be any explanation for what is in the text. There is no indication that when Martin goes to him, Martin receives a history lecture that he then repeats to Joseph. What came of the trip was some recognition of the connection between Anthon's statement and Isaiah (perhaps first recognized by Martin). Nothing else seems to have been very interesting, or even the subject of discussion.

It is a question of style. Personally, I think there is much to be gained by engaging data instead of the underlying polemic over authenticity. My personal style attempts that (though I know that there has been at least one person criticize some of my work because I favorably cite evidence from critics).

There is no way to cover all of this on a board, which is one of the reasons I wrote a book on the topic.The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon is available in hardback and electronic versions. I hesitate to offer a plug for a book, but I deal with those issues.

The quick answer is that we cannot have it both ways. We need to have an understanding of how the text was translated, and the best evidence that I have seen requires that some of the Hebraism arguments are untenable (David Bokovoy strongly disagrees with me, by the way).

Correct. However, such comparisons must explain the text better than alternatives. The problem with the attempts to find the influences that would generate the Book of Mormon is that most of them explain only a superficial and traditional reading of the text. When we read the text more carefully, there is much of the traditional reading that no longer fits.

What happens, in my opinion, is that the reading of the text was influenced by the kinds of things that people see as influences for the text. Thus, they see connections because they are seeing the result of someone else reading the text that way. It is the same process I have seen in the study of the Quetzalcoatl legends. "Everyone" knows that it means certain things, but only because they base their readings on sources that have already reinterpreted the text into a different form.

One can make that argument. Many have. The problem is that it only engages the assumptions about the text and not the text. Take the example of the assumption of republican government. It has been traditional to see the shift from kingship to the rule of the judges as a parallel to American democracy. After all, they use "the voice of the people."

The problem is that this reading only works if you assume what the text says and don't read it closely. That is the problem with finding influences. Sometimes we find only the influence that created our assumption, not the text itself.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I neither dismiss them or don't want to see them. I think they have to be engaged. Having done so, I don't see them as viable.

What I am saying is that Mitchill did have those ideas first, and that those ideas may have influenced the way people read the Book of Mormon. Because the Book of Mormon doesn't actually follow Mitchill's ideas (the parallels are conceptual and only appear strong because of tradition, which was plausibly influenced by Mitchill's ideas), their precedence doesn't say anything about the Book of Mormon (only about those who read it).

The methodology of parallels is suspect because parallels exist completely at random. Depending upon how you draw and state them, many things can be made to appear similar. One of the most important tests of the parallels is to discern whether there could be an alternate explanation.

In the case of the Book of Mormon, the historical case is much stronger. Of course, that is an assertion on my part, but it is based on the evidence I have worked through comparing the Book of Mormon text to a historical background into which the text fits with greater ease than the modern parallels of influence that are suggested.

A wholly excellent post. Thank you for your time and patience. I'll look up your book. I appreciate your candour about some of the 'issues' in apologetic approaches. I appreciate this might not manifest itself in fairmormon given the need to be as faith promoting as possible (and the different perspectives contributing to it), but knowing there are voices like yours in positions of potential influence is encouraging.