Plates Of Brass Vs. Scrolls

[Robert F. Smith]

Questing Beast, on 04 April 2013 - 09:06 AM, said:

@Kevin Christensen: from the link: "Any geography that tries to accommodate a north and south sea, I think, is doomed to fail."

I agree.

So any theory is reduced to arguing from metaphor and plausibility only. Nothing literal can be pointed to. Because we don't know of a literal geography for the BoM we have nothing to go by except metaphor and plausibility. This was extremely frustrating for me back in the day of my BoM studies. Now it doesn't matter. But I see the arguments multiplying without getting any further.

Believe the "holy books" or don't/can't believe them, there is no right or wrong here, only an individual imperative. And what was imperative yesterday or even today might become unimportant tomorrow. The future is unwritten. But that is nothing to fear.

Arguing to convince others is really only arguing to continue conviction of belief for the self. I didn't see that, back in the day, but it's crystal clear now....

No wonder I'm half nuts since finding things in the church that didn't coincide with my belief growing up in the church, of course I was all growed up when I found disturbing truths. These three sentences above spell out my frustrations to the nth degree. Thanks QB, you've said quite alot of how I feel, yet I get the other side constantly too, to just have faith and it's true.

You need to realize, Tacenda, that the Beast is not actually serious. For him it is just a meaningless game. I demonstrated that by extensively quoting him in self-contradictory fashion. He does tell us what his real opinions are, and they amount to nihilism. He isn't really interested in evidence of any kind, only in playful sophistry. It is a waste of time to read or respond to him.

So thanks for being the equalizer for me, but I do believe the bible has truth and facts to back it up, especially with the discovery of the dead sea scrolls. I wish Moroni hadn't taken the gold plates back so that we'd have proof like the scrolls. And in the case with the papryri, if only....if only what was said on them matched to what JS said of them, how nice it would be to have that back up. There's a reason, for having the papryi come back to the church, maybe God is putting forth, that truth is sublime. And truth in religion is imperative. Why do members hem and haw or even have to lie for the Lord in our history? It shoudn't happen. Thanks be to Fair for bringing forth most of the truth, and maybe the church will do this to the nth degree someday, whether it hurts testimony or not.

I'm not sure what you imagine the Dead Sea Scrolls prove about the Bible, since they do no more than help us understand the various versions of Judaism active just before the time of Christ and they help us place biblical manuscripts in context. However, we already knew that the Hebrew Bible describes the people of Classical Israel in the time and place in which they really existed. That does not mean that we have any direct evidence for the Exodus, or for the Resurrection. We also know that Homeric Epic describes real people in their ancient context, but that does not mean that we have direct evidence that Odysseus actually existed, or that he had to confront Polyphemous or the Sirens.

We have no original manuscripts of the Bible or Book of Mormon. All we have are copies. So your notion that the DSS are "proof" of the Bible just doesn't make any sense. The category of evidence you should be concerned with, and which concerns scholars, is indirect evidence. One carefully reads the document and checks to see whether it correlates with the real world. That's how biblical archeology proceeds for example, and Book of Mormon archeology must proceed on the same basis. FAIR sums that up very well for us, although you seem confused about that. If you are accusing someone of hemming and hawing, or even of lying, please cite the source (CFR). I know of no justification for your reckless statements here.

[MormonMason]

...but I do believe the bible has truth and facts to back it up, especially with the discovery of the dead sea scrolls....

It is obvious that you do not know just what it is that the Dead Sea Scrolls confirm regarding the Bible. I can read them. They confirm that portions of the Bible have been rewritten over time. Even the Book of Deuteronomy has been rewritten in later times to make the book more monotheistic for later theological reasons and also altered for political reasons.

Current copies of Deuteronomy tend toward eliminating the gods from the text and making the mount containing Joshua's altar Ebal instead of Gerizim. These are the kinds of things that the Dead Sea Scrolls confirm about portions of the Bible. Don't believe that claptrap that Evangelicals tell you about the Dead Sea Scrolls. Most of those who make the kinds of claims that they do could not read the Scrolls even if their lives depended upon it.

[Tacenda]

It is obvious that you do not know just what it is that the Dead Sea Scrolls confirm regarding the Bible. I can read them. They confirm that portions of the Bible have been rewritten over time. Even the Book of Deuteronomy has been rewritten in later times to make the book more monotheistic for later theological reasons and also altered for political reasons.

Current copies of Deuteronomy tend toward eliminating the gods from the text and making the mount containing Joshua's altar Ebal instead of Gerizim. These are the kinds of things that the Dead Sea Scrolls confirm about portions of the Bible. Don't believe that claptrap that Evangelicals tell you about the Dead Sea Scrolls. Most of those who make the kinds of claims that they do could not read the Scrolls even if their lives depended upon it.

Questing Beast, on 04 April 2013 - 09:06 AM, said:

@Kevin Christensen: from the link: "Any geography that tries to accommodate a north and south sea, I think, is doomed to fail."

I agree.

So any theory is reduced to arguing from metaphor and plausibility only. Nothing literal can be pointed to. Because we don't know of a literal geography for the BoM we have nothing to go by except metaphor and plausibility. This was extremely frustrating for me back in the day of my BoM studies. Now it doesn't matter. But I see the arguments multiplying without getting any further.

Believe the "holy books" or don't/can't believe them, there is no right or wrong here, only an individual imperative. And what was imperative yesterday or even today might become unimportant tomorrow. The future is unwritten. But that is nothing to fear.

Arguing to convince others is really only arguing to continue conviction of belief for the self. I didn't see that, back in the day, but it's crystal clear now....

You need to realize, Tacenda, that the Beast is not actually serious. For him it is just a meaningless game. I demonstrated that by extensively quoting him in self-contradictory fashion. He does tell us what his real opinions are, and they amount to nihilism. He isn't really interested in evidence of any kind, only in playful sophistry. It is a waste of time to read or respond to him.

I'm not sure what you imagine the Dead Sea Scrolls prove about the Bible, since they do no more than help us understand the various versions of Judaism active just before the time of Christ and they help us place biblical manuscripts in context. However, we already knew that the Hebrew Bible describes the people of Classical Israel in the time and place in which they really existed. That does not mean that we have any direct evidence for the Exodus, or for the Resurrection. We also know that Homeric Epic describes real people in their ancient context, but that does not mean that we have direct evidence that Odysseus actually existed, or that he had to confront Polyphemous or the Sirens.

We have no original manuscripts of the Bible or Book of Mormon. All we have are copies. So your notion that the DSS are "proof" of the Bible just doesn't make any sense. The category of evidence you should be concerned with, and which concerns scholars, is indirect evidence. One carefully reads the document and checks to see whether it correlates with the real world. That's how biblical archeology proceeds for example, and Book of Mormon archeology must proceed on the same basis. FAIR sums that up very well for us, although you seem confused about that. If you are accusing someone of hemming and hawing, or even of lying, please cite the source (CFR). I know of no justification for your reckless statements here.

Lying for the Lord = when church spokesman or church leaders say that we don't currently practice polygamy, when we do, in the temple. Or, depicting JS translating the BoM or Gold Plates with an Urim and Thummin, when in reality he is looking at stones in a hat. LDS publications, just be truthful in illustrating the truth as has been done in statements.

Hem Haw (dumb description, sorry) = If the church has changed a heading for the BoA in stating that it came by revelatory means also, can apologists or scholars just say we aren't positive that the symbols JS uses are accurate. Or, when Pres. Packer is telling the CES teachers that truth isn't always useful to use with students.

Fair has helped me feel unlied to. Leaders don't freely speak about JS's wives like Fair does. That's what I was probably describing when it comes to them.

Dead Sea Scrolls are significant because it's the actual writings, like finding someone's diary or journal. They are concrete and therefore valuable.

[Questing Beast]

It is, indeed, if you are studying the benighted thought and psychology of yokels.

He links to this source. http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=16&num=2&id=555 Is the author also a "yokel"?...

[Questing Beast]

And you are just as confused as Alice after she went down the rabbit hole.

Good comparison! But which one is "down the rabbit hole", someone who has believed and emerged, or someone still down the rabbit hole?...

[Questing Beast]

"I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit ... The other way about lands one in confusions and impossibilities."

—J.R.R. Tolkien

And that is the trouble with the BoM, it was written first and mapped after the fact. JS could never reconcile the dichotomies of the text with the Western Hemisphere that he had had in mind as he moved peoples all over that enormous, yet facile map. D&C 128:20 clearly gives the hill its name. By then a limited geography was already being advanced. JS is asserted to have contributed to this theory in his capacity as Editor of the Times and Seasons, yet he says that Cumorah is the hill where the BoM was hidden. I know what explanation fits the facts with the least amount of cramming or twisting, which explanation suits "Occam's Razor". Unless or until I see convincing physical evidence to the contrary, I will not see the BoM as anything more than the fanciful, if also inspired, creation of a fecund religious mind.

[Kevin Christensen]

Way too much mind reading here.

D&C 128:20 does not clearly give the hill its name. It mentions glad tidings from Cumorah without providing any particular description of which hill is being referenced, or who applied the name to it and why, and it mentions Moroni. Is there any confusion about whether the Moroni referred to in the passage is the General Moroni from the account in Alma, or the one who is Mormon's son, the survivor of the final battles who as a resurrected personage guided Joseph Smith Jr. to the plates? There is no confusion about whether the section was written by Joseph Smith Senior, despite father and son having the same name. Names are not unique emanations from particular subjects, the same to all observers through all space and time, but social conventions arising from particular contexts. Those who pay attention to contexts, and who actually applied the name to a particular subject, are less likely to be confused, and more likely to see clearly.

Given that there are two Jerusalems in the Book of Mormon, two Bountifuls, several Nephis and Lehis, two Mormons, two Mormons, two Almas, two Ammons, why treat as unreasonable the notion of two Cumorahs, easily distinguished by paying close attention to the textual description in the Book compared to the physical description of the New York Hill? No one is confused by the different people named Nephi or Lehi or the different locations named Bountiful or Jerusalem in the Book of Mormon. It's all a matter of letting the meaning come from the context, rather than disregarding the context in favor of first, uncritical impressions, from which an investigator refuses to budge.

The process of "seeing" and being convinced is illuminated by the parable of the Sower in which the soil and nurture make huge differences in the harvest based on encountering the same seeds [words]. "Know ye not this parable? How then will ye know all parables?"

I've personally seen a great deal of evidence that the Book of Mormon is far more than a fanciful creation of a fecund religious mind. I've paid attention to the work of those who have most carefully nurtured the seeds in the most telling and fruitful contexts, and have seen what grows there. I've tasted the harvest (and discussed what I've seen in two dozen published essays), and I've noticed that those inclined to dismiss the existence of the harvest leave far less evidence of their own careful nurturing of the seed than I have found in support of the Book of Mormon. That is, the ones who tell me "Nothing to see here, move along" don't seem to know much, if anything, about the work I personally find more interesting and impressive. The Coe interview with Dehlin is a good example of that. Three hours without quoting a single passage from the text! Amazing. Having to look up "chiasmus" using Google. Treating the lack of evidence for objects not mentioned anywhere in the Book of Mormon as evidence against the Book of Mormon. They've got eyes, but, really, what do they see?

Sorenson's Sourcebook demonstrates that the first serious attempt to examine all of the passages in the Book of Mormon for geographic information, and then develop a corrolation based on an internal map did not appear until 1930, which means, for over 100 years after the Book of Mormon was published, not one investigator used their eyes to see what it was that they ought to be looking for.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

Edited April 7, 2013 by Kevin Christensen

[Calm]

Lying for the Lord = when church spokesman or church leaders say that we don't currently practice polygamy, when we do, in the temple. Or, depicting JS translating the BoM or Gold Plates with an Urim and Thummin, when in reality he is looking at stones in a hat. LDS publications, just be truthful in illustrating the truth as has been done in statements.

Is this an accusation you are making or one that others made that influenced you for a time?

[volgadon]

To be fair, several paintings of the Sea of Galilee used by church publications depict Bear Lake which, although roughly the same size, is far too narrow. Horrible, reprehensible instance of lying for the Lord.

[Robert F. Smith]

Lying for the Lord = when church spokesman or church leaders say that we don't currently practice polygamy, when we do, in the temple.

LDS polygyny was always a matter of a man having more than one wife in the here and now. I know no serious person in or outside the LDS Church who suggests that a widower marrying again is practicing polygyny. Get real, Tacenda!

Or, depicting JS translating the BoM or Gold Plates with an Urim and Thummin, when in reality he is looking at stones in a hat. LDS publications, just be truthful in illustrating the truth as has been done in statements.

Showing artwork in a magazine in which neither the artist nor editor are historians and have no idea that Joseph used a stone in a hat to translate is hardly suggestive of lying. This has been discussed extensively on this board, in which both correct and incorrect renditions have been given in LDS Church magazines were cited. Things have improved a great deal in recent years on this matter. You should be more charitable with people who just don't know any better.

Hem Haw (dumb description, sorry) = If the church has changed a heading for the BoA in stating that it came by revelatory means also, can apologists or scholars just say we aren't positive that the symbols JS uses are accurate. Or, when Pres. Packer is telling the CES teachers that truth isn't always useful to use with students.

Actually the heading has not been changed. What was slightly altered was an introductory note at the beginning of the Pearl of Great Price, and one must not make too much of human notes about this or that. They change from one edition to the next and indicate nothing about the canonical scriptural text.

Fair has helped me feel unlied to. Leaders don't freely speak about JS's wives like Fair does. That's what I was probably describing when it comes to them.

Understood. What you should also understand is that FAIR is not contradicting the LDS position on these matters, and mainstream LDS historians regularly cover this material as well -- indeed, FAIR regularly cites them as sources.

Dead Sea Scrolls are significant because it's the actual writings, like finding someone's diary or journal. They are concrete and therefore valuable.

They are no more concrete than the 9th century Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible which the Jews were faithfully transmitting. They are just earlier. As I said: They are only copies, not originals. The Jews have been copying such texts for thousands of years. Scholars love to find early texts for a variety of reasons, but the Dead Sea Scrolls are not more "actual" than later writings. Only in the case of the Bar Kochba letters do we have autographic originals.

In the case of the Nag Hammadi texts in Coptic, we actually have copies of lost documents. So it is always interesting to find such surprises -- just as surprising as Joseph Smith also finding a lost document. As the Book of Mormon suggests, these are documents in which long dead writers speak to us from the dust.

[volgadon]

Dead Sea Scrolls are significant because it's the actual writings, like finding someone's diary or journal. They are concrete and therefore valuable.

More like finding my paperback editions of Pepys' and Boswell's diaries.

[volgadon]

As the Book of Mormon suggests, these are documents in which long dead writers speak to us from the dust.

Saul Lieberman wrote a little book called "Shekiin," which lists Jewish sources preserved only in Christian writings.

[Robert F. Smith]

"I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit ... The other way about lands one in confusions and impossibilities."

—J.R.R. Tolkien

And that is the trouble with the BoM, it was written first and mapped after the fact. JS could never reconcile the dichotomies of the text with the Western Hemisphere that he had had in mind as he moved peoples all over that enormous, yet facile map. D&C 128:20 clearly gives the hill its name. By then a limited geography was already being advanced. JS is asserted to have contributed to this theory in his capacity as Editor of the Times and Seasons, yet he says that Cumorah is the hill where the BoM was hidden. I know what explanation fits the facts with the least amount of cramming or twisting, which explanation suits "Occam's Razor". Unless or until I see convincing physical evidence to the contrary, I will not see the BoM as anything more than the fanciful, if also inspired, creation of a fecund religious mind.

Much too facile, Beast. You started with an apriori assumption about Joseph and Book of Mormon geography and then made it all fit a theory which doesn't save the appearances (as we say in philosophy), namely, the actual text of the BofM describes short distances and a very limited region of activity for the Nephites, Lamanites, and Mulekites (and by extension the Jaredites). You yourself have even admitted to those controlling short distances, thus indicating intellectual dishonesty on your part herewith.

A scientist would never approach a questioned document in this obtuse fashion. Instead, he would ask hard questions about the actual content. Your offhand statement that you demand to "see convincing physical evidence to the contrary," is not meant to be taken seriously. Whenever such evidence has been provided, you have ignored it or waved it off with a foppish and malignant grin.

[Tacenda]

Is this an accusation you are making or one that others made that influenced you for a time?

I was answering a CFR, but now wish I'd just kept quiet.

[Mike Reed]

Metal records.... Who has read my research on this? Is anyone bothered that byu has spent many thousands, if not millions, of dollars to purchase artifacts that "prove" the bom to be authentic on false pretenses? Personally... I think it is a good investment to go outside the old school farm-boys. They have wasted soooo many donations.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Mike Reed

[Mike Reed]

Metal records.... Who has read my research on this? Is anyone bothered that byu has spent many thousands, if not millions, of dollars to purchase artifacts that "prove" the bom to be authentic on false pretenses? Personally... I think it is a good investment (far more cost effective) to go outside the old school farm-boys. They have wasted soooo many donations.

[Calm]

I was answering a CFR, but now wish I'd just kept quiet.

You need to be a bit clearer next time, maybe just quote the part calling for a CFR perhaps....

[Calm]

artifacts that "prove" the bom to be authentic on false pretenses?

Are you suggesting that anyone at FARMS made the claim that certain artifacts proved the BoM to be authentic? That anything (besides a spiritual witness) would prove the BoM authentic?

[Robert F. Smith]

Are you suggesting that anyone at FARMS made the claim that certain artifacts proved the BoM to be authentic? That anything (besides a spiritual witness) would prove the BoM authentic?

Mike wouldn't dare. He knows that FARMS never made such a fatuous claim. Nor would it be true that his research has proven the BofM false.

Scholars look for indicators and evidences of this or that. I keep hoping that Mike will make his paper on metal records available in published form with all the footnotes. Should be very useful to serious scholars.

[Questing Beast]

Way too much mind reading here.

D&C 128:20 does not clearly give the hill its name. It mentions glad tidings from Cumorah without providing any particular description of which hill is being referenced, or who applied the name to it and why, and it mentions Moroni. Is there any confusion about whether the Moroni referred to in the passage is the General Moroni from the account in Alma, or the one who is Mormon's son, the survivor of the final battles who as a resurrected personage guided Joseph Smith Jr. to the plates? There is no confusion about whether the section was written by Joseph Smith Senior, despite father and son having the same name. Names are not unique emanations from particular subjects, the same to all observers through all space and time, but social conventions arising from particular contexts. Those who pay attention to contexts, and who actually applied the name to a particular subject, are less likely to be confused, and more likely to see clearly.

Context is my doctrine. That's why I continue to assert that the "heaps of earth" relative to the wealth of rusty sword blades lying all over the "land northward" have to coincide. Therefore "heaps of earth" in Olmec Mesoamerica do not fit the context of "heaps of earth" to get ore. You do not produce iron/steel sword blades out of raw iron ore, you must subsequently smelt the iron out, leaving slag "heaps". If we have "heaps of earth", and swords in plenty, then we must also have resulting slag "heaps". There are none in Mesoamerica, anciently, that I have heard of. So the interest continues, by the lack of such, when the BoM demands them.

Likewise, the "hill Cumorah", or "Ramah". It has been asserted that the two cannot be literally the same exact spot. But the context of the BoM states it to be a fact of geographical coincidence, that the destruction of two civilizations took place there hundreds of years apart. If Cumorah is not in NY then JS et al. were mistaken because the collection of their anecdotal comments on the subject clearly point to a hemispheric model for BoM locations including especially Cumorah in NY. That's where the issue remains: JS et al. believed first and last in a NY base of Nephite destruction. Moroni had not only to keep the c. 60 lbs of plates with him for most of a quarter century before burying them, he had also to carry about the "interpreters" and the sword of Laban, and truck them c. 3K miles to bury the lot. This is not a conceivable scenario, anymore than visualizing a quarter million men, women, children and all their movables routing the same distance before turning at bay and being slaughtered.

The evidence of early Mormon history, especially the short period when the BoM was created for public consumption, points to a facile assumption that the obvious hemispheric map is the whole picture of BoM geography. Only when the textual distances are compared to the hemispheric model do we encounter trouble WITH the context. The first step toward reconciling this dissonance is to assert that ancient peoples, being more fit and tough than "moderns", were capable of moving much further distances over sustained periods of travel. I know people who believe this answers virtually all of the travel distances asserted in the text. Some extreme examples taken from known history can be cited, e.g. the "Turkish" peoples of Asia and their capacity to move in excess of a hundred miles per day on horseback without difficulty. Necessity in Nephite times could produce similar excursions. The context provides the cause of the extreme exertions by even women and children, and God's strengthening of them answers any lack thereof. The BoM is crammed with God's interventions, even more dramatic if possible than the Children of Israel under Moses and Joshua. So why is the hemispheric model so outrageous if distances traveled in context is the asserted problem? It isn't. It just is harder to wipe the smiles off the faces of critics if you insist on talking that way. That's because distances traveled, once reconciled by "miracles" and historical precedent (even if also far less likely, just not impossible, so still plausible), are not the main problem. The hemispheric model runs immediately into other, bigger problems, namely remaining evidence. There are no remains of any civilization in the Northwest until modern man placed them there. No "ghost towns" older than the Pueblo, and most only of European causation. Mormons were the first builders to inhabit "Utah territory" in the Earth's entire geologic history. So there goes the BoM's assertion that the "land northward" began to be inhabited from the east to the west sea and by buildings of "cement" because of a lack of timber. The Northwest is hardly lacking in timber. Yet JS claimed high occupation by "white Lamanites", i.e. righteous ones, from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic in late BoM times, and that the bones and mounds that Zion's Camp marched in full view of were Nephite in origin, etc. JS believed in the hemispheric model, UNTIL that treatise was published by the explorers of Central America, such that by 1842, JS's "map" which he had held in his mind as he dictated the BoM was no longer practical; and even JS began to make statements that concurred with the new "discoveries", where real "cement" buildings were being noticed by Euros in profusion for the first time (that is to say, in contemporary times, all such Spanish notice of such not being within JS's or his bucolic companions' purview at the time the BoM came out). So the "limited geography" model got its first impetus from JS agreeing that Zarahemla was just south of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. That of course made the "land northward" considerably smaller and close by. And Cumorah too far away, so Cumorah needed to be moved. And therefore the early Saints' confidence in any pronouncements/observations by JS on Bom historical subjects was reduced forever to the status of ignorance. JS is not an authority on the book that he dictated. That's because he did not appreciate the context of his details, his map was wrong, but he couldn't know that in 1829.

... It's all a matter of letting the meaning come from the context, rather than disregarding the context in favor of first, uncritical impressions, from which an investigator refuses to budge.

Believe it, I have sought the context from my first serious reading of the book, from any book that I read in fact. The BoM creates a first impression, usually a confusing one. Second impressions if you are a believer, or want to believe if it is true, are clearer and therefore require explanation. The "limited geography" is indeed the only model that can possibly be true literally. The trouble with that "fix" is that JS didn't know what he was talking about, which undermines his subsequent views, all of them. Does that matter? Not specifically about the BoM, no. But if he didn't know what he was talking about vis-a-vis BoM geography and physical evidence pertaining thereto (in other words not one piece of physical evidence was there, yet he believed that all of it, the mounds, the bones, the Indians themselves, were BoM evidence), then JS also held other ignorant views of a much more serious nature. One under attack was his (the Lord's) declaration that the people known as Indians were "Lamanites". It is in the scriptures. (D&C 3: 18,20; et al. through 57) And we know now that the "Lamanites" must be somewhere/somebody else, because north American "Indians" are Asiatics.

It is the subsequent impressions that become critical, rather than remain "uncritical". I don't know any critic of the BoM that still adheres to his/her first "uncritical" impressions, that is, anyone who has actually read the book and believed it at some point. I don't count critics who never believed it in the first place.

The process of "seeing" and being convinced is illuminated by the parable of the Sower in which the soil and nurture make huge differences in the harvest based on encountering the same seeds [words]. "Know ye not this parable? How then will ye know all parables?"

I was "planted" in good earth. The same "seeds" were my origin. You can't blame the seeds or the ground. So the fault must be my mind. It can't reconcile some things with facility, but must rather notice the difficulties. If difficulties are there to be seen I will see them sooner or later. Do they matter? They do not, as long as the dogmatic assertions remain fixed. But if other considerations other than the BoM itself are working away at my religious world view, then the BoM "problems" can only be reconciled so long as the religious world view does not shift too much. Take a different religious world view that is building alongside the BoM/"faith promoting history" one, and one will win out and the other will lose. If the problems regarding literal historicity are explained away by the other religious world view, and continue to be a problem while adhering to the context of the older/original religious world view, then that in itself is the biggest problem of all. Why continue to adhere to the old/original religious world view, if the other view answers more questions? And especially if that new religious world view opens even greater mysteries, making the old problems and questions seem trivial? You can't continue to adhere to the old, when the new is more of everything you were hoping to gain from the old, without betraying your core being.

I've personally seen a great deal of evidence that the Book of Mormon is far more than a fanciful creation of a fecund religious mind.

And I have not been convinced by any of it since relegating it to observer bias and circular logic, both tendencies of those who believe in a thing because to come to disbelief is not to be entertained.

I've paid attention to the work of those who have most carefully nurtured the seeds in the most telling and fruitful contexts, and have seen what grows there.

I for years collected the same "seeds" and "fruit". Most of it I have not forgotten, but I don't have a taste for it anymore, not by itself anyway.

I've tasted the harvest (and discussed what I've 'seen in two dozen published essays), and I've noticed that those inclined to dismiss the existence of the harvest leave far less evidence of their own careful nurturing of the seed than I have found in support of the Book of Mormon.

I know this is true. Most critics produce nothing to replace their lost faith with other than decrying their former faith, some are no better than the producers of ridicule, and most of them seem to me to be unhappy. Perhaps (but it doesn't really matter) you can detect some of the depth of the nurturing I gave to "the seed" for all of my life until fairly recently. I do feel an interest in discussing this from my perspective, but zero interest in making anyone agree with me. I want to show some of the process by which I have come to not believe in the "faith promoting" paradigm that the Church insists exclusively upon. My motivation seems to be a concern for others running amok. If someone reads and understands then perhaps they will continue to study and remain in the Church despite the alteration to their faith that will inevitably result from studying at least as much as I have. There is an infinite amount more to study and learn. We never do more than scratch the surface here. The GA's warn us to not delve into the "mysteries", or if we do, to expect to be in dangerous waters. I am not denying this. But "dangerous" needs qualifying: if it means possibly departing Mormonism for some other religious world view, then that warning is self-serving only. If lost or altered faith produces a paradigm of self indulgence, then Mormonism would not save the individual from that pursuit either, no dogma would prevent that mindset. My brother is angry that the Church "lies for the Lord" in self-imposed expediency. I am not angry, because human beings disappoint. My brother's lost religious world view has not been replaced by a quest for more mystery, as far as I can tell, he's content to focus on empirical studies and has nothing at all to do with metaphysics or religion in his private life. He attends to family interests, religious to a limited extent, and lets everyone believe what they will. I on the other hand am still much more the advocate for discourse and further consideration of possibilities, and I remain actively associated with the LDS faith: I just last Friday attended my future daughter-in-law's endowment. So there are so many different ways a "critic" can go with this.

That is, the ones who tell me "Nothing to see here, move along" don't seem to know much, if anything, about the work I personally find more interesting and impressive. The Coe interview with Dehlin is a good example of that. Three hours without quoting a single passage from the text! Amazing. Having to look up "chiasmus" using Google. Treating the lack of evidence for objects not mentioned anywhere in the Book of Mormon as evidence against the Book of Mormon. They've got eyes, but, really, what do they see?

Well, you can't accurately accuse my of discussing the BoM or any of the rest of this without quoting passages, or not knowing what "chiasmus" is, etc. I think that I really am beginning to "see", and the view is expanding far beyond any religious creations of men.

Sorenson's Sourcebook demonstrates that the first serious attempt to examine all of the passages in the Book of Mormon for geographic information, and then develop a corrolation based on an internal map did not appear until 1930, which means, for over 100 years after the Book of Mormon was published, not one investigator used their eyes to see what it was that they ought to be looking for.

That's a testimony of how ignorance can breed a limited faith. The BoM's power was in the day of ignorance. Nowadays knowledge is increasing in the earth at a phenomenal rate. My personal maxim, "I know practically nothing about almost everything" is becoming exponentially true! At least I have faith that my true knowledge base is immortal and almost entirely kept under "lock and key" away from this physical brain. If I didn't have faith in that paradigm, I'd likely just turn into a higher order of rutting mammal and call it quits on the metaphysical considerations....

...

Edited April 8, 2013 by Questing Beast

[Questing Beast]

Much too facile, Beast. You started with an apriori assumption about Joseph and Book of Mormon geography and then made it all fit a theory which doesn't save the appearances (as we say in philosophy), namely, the actual text of the BofM describes short distances and a very limited region of activity for the Nephites, Lamanites, and Mulekites (and by extension the Jaredites). You yourself have even admitted to those controlling short distances, thus indicating intellectual dishonesty on your part herewith.

A scientist would never approach a questioned document in this obtuse fashion. Instead, he would ask hard questions about the actual content. Your offhand statement that you demand to "see convincing physical evidence to the contrary," is not meant to be taken seriously. Whenever such evidence has been provided, you have ignored it or waved it off with a foppish and malignant grin.

Read my response to Kevin. I do not wave foppishly or grin malignantly....

[Calm]

Mike wouldn't dare. He knows that FARMS never made such a fatuous claim. Nor would it be true that his research has proven the BofM false.

Then who is it at BYU that he is talking about?

[Mike Reed]

Then who is it at BYU that he is talking about?

"Prove" was the wrong word. Confirm, support, validate... Edited April 9, 2013 by Mike Reed

[Robert F. Smith]

Read my response to Kevin. I do not wave foppishly or grin malignantly....

O.K., Beast. Hereby noted that you no longer wave foppishly or grin malignantly. At least until Tuesday.

[Robert F. Smith]

"Prove" was the wrong word. Confirm, support, validate...

"Edify" too, although these terms all reek of confirmation bias.