Interesting Find For Theories Of Indian Origins And Preadamites

[cdowis]

Scholars like Israel Finkelstein have demolished the work of "Biblical" scholars like  Albright. See The Bible Unearthed and David and Solomon.

 

Okdokey, and how does this relate to our discussion of Paanchi and Pahoran?  Please give us specifics on what he has to say about those names, or are you just blowing hot air.

Edited May 21, 2014 by cdowis

[Helen47]

Interesting word like "Mormon" which means "frightening" in greek based on "mormo" hideos face, mask" The puffin birds that inhabited the eastern seaboard of the united states were call mormon articus and mormon glacious. They had black patches around their eyes, hence looked frightening.Perhaps you go with the "more good" interpretation?

[Helen47]

 

 

RT    to  Bob Smith • 9 days ago  on Patheos

"Laman is possibly a metonymous name (rather than the given name) derived from the Arabic PN Lâmân “Scoundrel,” or possibly a Nubian name – cf. Pharaoh Yenalaman/Anlaman, ruler of the pre-Meroitic Napata Kingdom, 623-593 B.C. (Pyramid Nuri IV), who was a successor of the same kingdom formerly ruled by King Paankhi, ca. 753-713 B.C."

That you would go so far afield to explain this name raises questions in my mind about your method.

"Recall that William F. Albright twice declared in signed statements that Book of Mormon Paanchi and Pahoron were good Egyptian names."

That doesn't mean he was right. Albright was wrong about all sorts of things, even though he was a brilliant scholar. Paanchi is the most similar to Egyptian, but it is not an exact match and other problems with it have been described by Edward Ashment. It is not clear to me that we can exclude the possibility that a match like this arose from an attempt to create ancient sounding names.

 

Ashment

 

The original manuscript of the Book of Mormon indicates that the name Nibley identifies as Egyptianesque, Pahoran, Paanchi’s father, is incorrect. It should have been Parhoron (Skousen 1992, 20). In any event Nibley’s parallel for Pahoran with ancient Egyptian is tenuous. He asserts that “Pahoran reflects the Pales[tinian] Pahura, (for Eg[yptian] Pa-her-an, cf. Pa-her-y, ‘the Syrian’) which is ‘reformed’ Egyptian, i.e., a true Egyptian title, but altered in such a way as to adapt it to the Canaanite speech” (1952, 24).http://signaturebookslibrary.org/?p=10284

 

"Nephi is another Egyptian proper name, Nfy “captain, chief, skipper; wind,”which actually appears in Egyptian documents – as pointed out by Nibley already in 1950. Cf. the name of the 7th century B.C. nomarch of Athribis, Bзk-n-nfy."

Very unconvincing, because of its non-Hebraic origin and because it was not the type of predicative element that was conventionally used in Hebrew names. You really should read through Rainer Albertz's recent treatment of Israelite names."

Edited May 22, 2014 by Helen47

[thesometimesaint]

Interesting word like "Mormon" which means "frightening" in greek based on "mormo" hideos face, mask" The puffin birds that inhabited the eastern seaboard of the united states were call mormon articus and mormon glacious. They had black patches around their eyes, hence looked frightening.Perhaps you go with the "more good" interpretation?

 

And Mormon Tea is a not a member of the Sinensis family. Helen is a name of ancient Greek woman of incredible beauty. If you count the numbers on one hand and add 42 to it, it is the answer to life, the universe and everything. Raccoons wear patches around their eyes. So they must be Pirates on the Caribbean main. In Brazil making the sign for OK is a curse word.

 

You're stretching reason beyond its breaking point. .

[bcuzbcuz]

And Mormon Tea is a not a member of the Sinensis family. Helen is a name of ancient Greek woman of incredible beauty. If you count the numbers on one hand and add 42 to it, it is the answer to life, the universe and everything. Raccoons wear patches around their eyes. So they must be Pirates on the Caribbean main. In Brazil making the sign for OK is a curse word.

 

You're stretching reason beyond its breaking point. .

I usually enjoy reading your posts because they most often contain words of wisdom or insights that shed light on the topic at hand. In this case, however, I think you miss the mark.

The reasonable for the question of the BofM is not the similarity to Egyptian names, which is tenuous at best, but whether or not any of the names mentioned in the book have actuallly been found in some place in South, Central or North America with an origin from the appropriate cultures.

Any Egyptian scholar, worth his salt, can tell you that the pronunciations of Egyptian words or names is an unknown. We can link and make possible connections between the spellings of ancient Egyptian names by the conversion to Greek letters used in the Coptic community,, but the Coptic language still had an additional 6 letter sounds that have no connection to Greek letter sounds.

[Helen47]

the information for Smith to compile the BOM was available to him.Smith would visit a relative on his on the coast. I am sure he read maps (Comoros, Moroni). see Huggin's paper in Dialogue

[cdowis]

the information for Smith to compile the BOM was available to him.Smith would visit a relative on his on the coast.

 

Please give us his source for Paanchi, Pahoran, sheum.  And explain to me what possible reason he would have to research  authentic Epyptian names in the BOM.  Who was the audience?  NY farmers.  So whom was he trying to impress?

 

I am sure he read maps (Comoros, Moroni). see Huggin's paper in Dialogue

 

And see my posts in mormondialogue.org.

 

Does he mention that Madagascar was inhabited by Arabs, who traveled from the island of Comoros (an arabic name).  Now why is arabic significant, linking theBOM with Madagascar?  Well, you need to have read the BOM to see where they traveled several years on the Saudi Arabian peninsula.  During those years they would likely mingle with the locals ARABS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comoros

 

Also Moroni is arabic    http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/392714/Moroni

 

Here is another theory  https://www.nephiproject.com/Moroni's%20Harbor.htm

 

.

Edited May 23, 2014 by cdowis

[thesometimesaint]

I usually enjoy reading your posts because they most often contain words of wisdom or insights that shed light on the topic at hand. In this case, however, I think you miss the mark.

The reasonable for the question of the BofM is not the similarity to Egyptian names, which is tenuous at best, but whether or not any of the names mentioned in the book have actuallly been found in some place in South, Central or North America with an origin from the appropriate cultures.

Any Egyptian scholar, worth his salt, can tell you that the pronunciations of Egyptian words or names is an unknown. We can link and make possible connections between the spellings of ancient Egyptian names by the conversion to Greek letters used in the Coptic community,, but the Coptic language still had an additional 6 letter sounds that have no connection to Greek letter sounds.

 

Personally I believe that if there are any correlations it would have to be in Mesoamerica. But there we have a problem, there is a discontinuity of about a thousand years from the last of the Nephites to the Spanish invasion. A lot can change in that time to any language if there is no one to write it. Add in that for next 500+ years the Spanish were ruthless in destroying all they could of the cultures they did come in contact with.

 

The Book of Mormon claims that they used a form of reformed Egyptian, and that no one else understood their language. Which was laughable from JS time to relatively recently. Now we know about the Demotic form of reformed Egyptian used by the Jews as early as the 7th Century BCE. So it remains in the realm of possible that the Book of Mormon is an an authentic ancient document.

Edited May 23, 2014 by thesometimesaint

[bcuzbcuz]

Personally I believe that if there are any correlations it would have to be in Mesoamerica. But there we have a problem, there is a discontinuity of about a thousand years from the last of the Nephites to the Spanish invasion. A lot can change in that time to any language if there is no one to write it. Add in that for next 500+ years the Spanish were ruthless in destroying all they could of the cultures they did come in contact with.

But doesn't this presuppose that the Nephite population was either miniscule, leaving no traces, or without any written form of communication except for the recored left in the BofM?

 

The Book of Mormon claims that they used a form of reformed Egyptian, and that no one else understood their language. Which was laughable from JS time to relatively recently. Now we know about the Demotic form of reformed Egyptian used by the Jews as early as the 7th Century BCE. So it remains in the realm of possible that the Book of Mormon is an an authentic ancient document.

The Egyptian language went through a number of changes in its written form. How it was used as a spoken language is unknown. The original hieroglyphic form of written Egyptian had, by the time of the Middle Kingdom, over 700 symbols to represent the spoken word. (Later, during the Late Kingdom, the written form for Egyptian had several thousand symbols) The only way to evaluate the texts seen by Joseph Smith, as to whether they represent "reformed Egyptian", would be to have them examined by language experts. Until that happens, any effort on our part to match up what was written on the plates, to any known language, is only conjecture

[Rob Osborn]

I personally believe the Mayan language is Jaredite and that the correlation date we have assigned to them is wrong.

[thesometimesaint]

But doesn't this presuppose that the Nephite population was either miniscule, leaving no traces, or without any written form of communication except for the recored left in the BofM?

The Egyptian language went through a number of changes in its written form. How it was used as a spoken language is unknown. The original hieroglyphic form of written Egyptian had, by the time of the Middle Kingdom, over 700 symbols to represent the spoken word. (Later, during the Late Kingdom, the written form for Egyptian had several thousand symbols) The only way to evaluate the texts seen by Joseph Smith, as to whether they represent "reformed Egyptian", would be to have them examined by language experts. Until that happens, any effort on our part to match up what was written on the plates, to any known language, is only conjecture

 

I don't believe the Nephite population was ever anything more than a small subset of a subset of the religious leaders. From first contact to it was no more than a few generations to when they were indistinguishable from their neighbors. 

 

I think we can safely assume that it was the religious leaders whom were the most educated, and that the script they used wasn't commonly available. With the Nephites there is the problem of their changing their language to meet their needs. Add in the discontinuity for about a thousand years. I'm not convinced that even if we had the plates we would be able to accurate reinterpret(decode) them in the way that JS did. Of course finding more records they wrote could change things considerably.

Edited May 24, 2014 by thesometimesaint

[Helen47]

If the Tower of Babel was a myth then there were no Jaradites.

[katherine the great]

I personally believe the Mayan language is Jaredite and that the correlation date we have assigned to them is wrong.

Which Mayan language?  That is kind of like saying that the European language is Viking.

[Rob Osborn]

Which Mayan language?  That is kind of like saying that the European language is Viking.

The language we see inscribed everywhere on the rocks in their ruins is Jaredite in my opinion. It is quite sketchy on the details of what the sounds they made were actually like. The explorers that came over found some groups who supposedly were still carrying on the tradition of the language but the details are so sketchy. Languages over time can change, be lost, etc. it happens very quickly. Some languages can even use other languages and symbols and incorporate them into their own and really confuse things.

[thesometimesaint]

If the Tower of Babel was a myth then there were no Jaradites.

 

Ziggurats are pretty common in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau.

[bcuzbcuz]

The language we see inscribed everywhere on the rocks in their ruins is Jaredite in my opinion. It is quite sketchy on the details of what the sounds they made were actually like. The explorers that came over found some groups who supposedly were still carrying on the tradition of the language but the details are so sketchy. Languages over time can change, be lost, etc. it happens very quickly. Some languages can even use other languages and symbols and incorporate them into their own and really confuse things.

Can you speak any of the Mayan languages? Are you able to read any glyphs from the various language groups? Me neither.

But the Wikepedia response to "Mayan Languages" is one of the best pages I've seen. Mayan languages are currently spoken by at least 6 million indigenous people in Guatemala and Mexico. Guatemala recognizes 21 Mayan languages, while Mexico recognizes an additional 6.

In language studies Mayan has no links to any other languages, although several words in English have Mayan origins; cigar and from that, cigarette, comes from Mayan.

I suggest you put your ideas about the Myan languages origins (Babel tower) on the Wikipedia page and see what kind of response you get.

[bcuzbcuz]

Ziggurats are pretty common in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau.

Ziggurats are also pretty common here in Sweden. My uncle, for health reasons, has cut back to ten ziggurats a day. LoL

[thesometimesaint]

Ziggurats are also pretty common here in Sweden. My uncle, for health reasons, has cut back to ten ziggurats a day. LoL

 

Sorry I don't know what a Ziggurat is in Sweden. What is it?

[bcuzbcuz]

Sorry I don't know what a Ziggurat is in Sweden. What is it?

It was my failed attempt at being humourous. Don't people smoke ziggurats in the US?

[thesometimesaint]

It was my failed attempt at being humourous. Don't people smoke ziggurats in the US?

 

That's BAAADDD.

[Shawn_L]

Hi all.

I'm a genuinely curious non-Mormon. I just joined the site. And this is my first post. I thought I'd post here because of the discussion about the meaning of this girl's death and what it should count as evidence of.

I met with some of your missionaries a few years ago, was given the Book of Mormon, read the passages they recommended, and prayed the prayer for wisdom and revelation pretty fervently for about three days. After that I...not quite heard...but had the powerful "thought"—the kind of thought that really stood out as not being my own, if you know what I mean— and the thought was: "If this is a book of history, where is the evidence?"

So I looked for evidence. But I didn't look as hard as I should have. And I mostly read non-flattering sources about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and I was satisfied that it was all a fiction.

But now I'd like to revisit the issue and do justice to it. I've been reading some writings on Mormon theology by Blake Ostler, B. H. Roberts, and Eugene England, and some of it I find quite compelling. So I'd like to read the very best case for the Books of Mormon and Abraham being history. I know that proof is impossible, but evidence for their historicity should be possible. Can you fellows recommend 5 books or articles that helped confirm your belief in the BofM? Books that go over the kind of minutia discussed in this thread a and several others?

I have John L. Sorenson's "Mormon's Codex" in my shopping cart, as well as "Abraham in Egypt" by High Nibley, and "Exploring the Book of Mormon in America's Heartland" by Meldrum.

 

I'm looking for the kind of details talked about in this post. The evidence might only be circumstantial, but I'd like to at least know what it is.

I appreciate the help!

[USU78]

If the book's claims for its origins are correct, no amount of so-called evidence would be sufficient to place its origins in doubt.

 

If G-d personally visited Joseph Smith Jr in New York in ca 1820; and

If the Master personally visited Joseph Smith Jr in New York in ca 1820; and

If the Adversary personally attacked Joseph Smith Jr in New York in ca 1820; and

If numerous angelic beings personally visited Joseph Smith Jr during his later lifetime; and

If one of these angelic beings presented Joseph Smith Jr metal plates with writing on them, claiming they represented the history of a now-vanished Israelite splinter group in the Americas; and

If Joseph Smith Jr translated the record into English; and

If at least 11 or 12 other persons besides Joseph Smith Jr saw and handled the same plates; then

 

How much does it really matter whether or not we can find fossil evidence for gomphotheres in Mesoamerica in historical times?  Would the presence or absence of gomphotheres make G-d's appearance to Joseph Smith Jr any more or less likely?

Edited May 27, 2014 by USU78

[Tacenda]

USU78, that seemed to be a non answer for a newby non member. But if that's the best you've got...

Edited May 27, 2014 by Tacenda

[thesometimesaint]

If the book's claims for its origins are correct, no amount of so-called evidence would be sufficient to place its origins in doubt.

 

If G-d personally visited Joseph Smith Jr in New York in ca 1820; and

If the Master personally visited Joseph Smith Jr in New York in ca 1820; and

If the Adversary personally attacked Joseph Smith Jr in New York in ca 1820; and

If numerous angelic beings personally visited Joseph Smith Jr during his later lifetime; and

If one of these angelic beings presented Joseph Smith Jr metal plates with writing on them, claiming they represented the history of a now-vanished Israelite splinter group in the Americas; and

If Joseph Smith Jr translated the record into English; and

If at least 11 or 12 other persons besides Joseph Smith Jr saw and handled the same plates; then

 

How much does it really matter whether or not we can find fossil evidence for gomphotheres in Mesoamerica in historical times?  Would the presence or absence of gomphotheres make G-d's appearance to Joseph Smith Jr any more or less likely?

 

For believer and non-believer alike no amount of evidence is sufficient.

[Calm]

"Exploring the Book of Mormon in America's Heartland" by Meldrum.

 

I'm looking for the kind of details talked about in this post. The evidence might only be circumstantial, but I'd like to at least know what it is.

I appreciate the help!

I would skip Meldrum. He is a young earth creationist and ignores the time constraints placed on the data if he doesn't like it. Plus he is less than open about some of the "relics" he refers to as evidence being determined to be fakes. He is not professionally trained and is not very good at critiquing his own work.