Hamba Tuhan Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 (edited) So are you suggesting Nephi/Mormon actually wrote the character "horse?" Yes. People who find themselves in an unfamiliar environment but who maintain their language of origin do precisely this. They also pick up local names -- sometimes because the local flora/fauna/geology/etc. is so alien to them that they cannot find an analogue in their own language but, to be honest, sometimes just because. It's really unpredictable. But the end result is often an amalgamation of words that have undergone loan-shifting* intermixed with a few names from the local milieu -- precisely what we observe in the Book of Mormon text. *It may be helpful here to point out that in loan-shifting, words tend to acquire new signifieds whilst maintaining their relationship with the previous signifieds ... especially if the migrants bring with them and continue to refer to authoritative original-language texts. Edited January 23, 2015 by Hamba Tuhan
Robert F. Smith Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 So are you suggesting Nephi/Mormon actually wrote the character "horse?"Why not? We do not actually have a reason to believe that they did not have equine "horses."
canard78 Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 Yes.It's a theory... Not sure why Mormon, a Mesoamerican living around 400AD would have used a character for an animal he'd never seen or heard of before. Having said that perhaps it went like this:- Nephi wrote in Egytian- The Nephite people continued using Egytpian and had no Egyptian character for tapir so used the horse character for tapir but it came to mean tapir. - Even though the horse character came to mean tapir to the Mesoamerican Nephites, when Joseph came to the translation of the horse character that now meant tapir to the author he translated it as horse, even though that's not what Mormon meant and even though the word Tapir was in the Webster dictionary by 1828. Of course this might all be immaterial. Maybe there were real horses and we've just not found them yet.
Hamba Tuhan Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 (edited) - Even though the horse character came to mean tapir to the Mesoamerican Nephites, when Joseph came to the translation of the horse character that now meant tapir to the author he translated it as horse, even though that's not what Mormon meant and even though the word Tapir was in the Webster dictionary by 1828. Sorry, please see my edit above. Words that undergo loan-shifting don't come to mean exclusively the new thing. The word would have continued to refer to the Old World horse at the same time that it may have picked up a new meaning. Remember that the Book of Mormon prophets/scribes still had and referred to copies of Old World texts. Again, this is something completely familiar to me. Portuguese Jesuits in the 16th-century Pacific used the word fig to refer to bananas, but the word also continued to refer to figs as well when, for example, they read in the Bible about Adam and Eve wearing fig-leaf aprons. Edited January 23, 2015 by Hamba Tuhan
Hamba Tuhan Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 (edited) A nearer example: If an American writes about a buffalo, should we through our presumed omniscience retranslate the word in our heads to signify this: Or is it possible that the person really meant this: Or is it perhaps possible that the nature of the loan-shift means the writer doesn't fully grasp that these aren't just two variations of the exact same animal? Edited January 23, 2015 by Hamba Tuhan
Robert F. Smith Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 (edited) He didn't know what curelom and cumoms were either.Yes. These were Jaredite designations, and so one might suppose that a curelom could contain the Sumerian word KUR "dragon," and refer to iguanas, while cumom looks similar to Maya tzimin "tapir." Both animals very large and edible. Wouldn't it have been far more faith promoting for Joseph to have dictated their real name (if they really were tapirs) and then looked the word up in a dictionary?http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/search/word,Tapir.Instead we have the common flora and fauna of Central America conspicuous by their absence.No doubt. To go by the conspiratorial theory, why didn't Joseph do his careful research and describe all the odd animals he could find in contemporary dictionaries and encyclopedias? So your point is well taken. Why didn't he? Obviously he was either too stupid to realize how easy it would be to fool the hoi polloi, or he was completely sincere and translated as best he could. And instead have to apply double meaning to the anachronistic words.Well, of course, he need not have applied any double meanings or anachronisms -- usually just a lazy man's way out of dealing with real history. I read Jeff Lindsay suggesting the other day that Ammon's flocks were not sheep but actually domesticated turkeys. I'm sure his fans just gobbled that up. I call fowl. (sorry... I'll get my coat)Jeff probably noted that "sheep" are not mentioned in Alma 17. Only the word "flock," which is entirely generic. The only mention of sheep elsewhere in the Book of Mormon is proverbial and idiomatic. Thus, we don't know whether they were supposed to be flocks of geese, sheep, vicunas, alpacas, llamas, or turkeys. Or something else. The same applies to the common Hebrew word for "cattle" in the KJV, miqne. It actually means "livestock, herd, flock; possession." The Bible regularly distinguishes between large and small cattle. In America, of course, when we hear the word "cattle," we immediately think of bovine animals. It is our mistake, not the Book of Mormon. Edited January 23, 2015 by Robert F. Smith 2
Robert F. Smith Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 (edited) It's a theory... Not sure why Mormon, a Mesoamerican living around 400AD would have used a character for an animal he'd never seen or heard of before.He is merely the editor. He need not even know what a particular word means in order to pass it on in the text. So whether he had ever seen a horse is irrelevant. If, on the other hand, he had claimed to have ridden a horse named Coriantummer, we might think about this differently. .........................................- Nephi wrote in Egytian- The Nephite people continued using Egytpian and had no Egyptian character for tapir so used the horse character for tapir but it came to mean tapir.- Even though the horse character came to mean tapir to the Mesoamerican Nephites, when Joseph came to the translation of the horse character that now meant tapir to the author he translated it as horse, even though that's not what Mormon meant and even though the word Tapir was in the Webster dictionary by 1828.You have improperly assumed that "tapir" meant "horse." It is true that during the Conquista such cross-identifications occurred, but that is no reason to assume that Joseph was victimized by such missidentifications by some earlier writer or editor. Of course this might all be immaterial. Maybe there were real horses and we've just not found them yet.That assumes that they haven't been found yet. You have plenty of assumptions. Steven E. Jones, “Were There Horses in the Americas Before Columbus?” Ancient American, 16 #95 (June 2012):2-3, online at http://www.bluetoad.com/publication/index.php?i=115319&m=&l=&p=2&pre=&ver=swf ,John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon (SLC:: Deseret/Provo: FARMS, 1985),297–298. Clayton E. Ray, “Pre-Columbian Horses From Yucatan,” Journal of Mammalogy 38/2 (May 1957):278. "Current 'macrofossil' evidence places the last-known mammoths and wild horses between 13,000 and 15,000 years ago. But hard remains of animals are rarely preserved, difficult to find, and laborious to accurately date because of physical degradation." However, "after plucking ancient DNA from frozen soil in central Alaska, a team of researchers used cutting-edge techniques to uncover 'genetic fossils' of both species locked in permafrost samples dated to between 7,600 and 10,500 calendar years," i.e., "macrofossils are unlikely to include the last members of either species, which underlines the critical significance of the sedaDNA approach for detecting rare, late-surviving populations of mammoth and horse in different parts of North America." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091214151946.htm .See also James Haile, et al., “Ancient DNA reveals late survival of mammoth and horse in interior Alaska,” PNAS, Dec 17, 2009, online at http://www.pnas.org/content/106/52/22352.full , Edited January 23, 2015 by Robert F. Smith 2
Kevin Christensen Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 (edited) If you're going to go down this route there really is no anachronism that can't be explained away.But if you don't go down this road, you are ignoring the real issues involved in any translation, inspired or not. And ignoring the clear and direct statements in 2 Nephi 25:1-4 that cultural factors make a difference in what we comprehend. And ignoring the Parable of the Sower, in which Jesus insists that the way we contextualize and nurture the same words can make a huge difference in what we get from them. It means that rather than having a simple, decisive way of dealing with Joseph Smith with a minimal effort (What about horses? Checkmate, end of game. You loose, I win.), I have to take a much broader view. That is, what are the realities of translation from one culture, languages, and time, to another? How well does the Book of Mormon describe Jerusalem 600 BCE? How well does it describe the journey to Bountiful? How well does it describe the New World? Does the translation demonstrate anything that can be understood as an artifact of a translation? What happens if I read the Book of Mormon against the times andn culutres that it claims for itself? Does Alexander Campbell's early critique comprehensively explain the text? Does Margaret Barker's Temple Theology approach support Campbell's claims, or Joseph Smiths? If I think "horse" is a problem in the Book of Mormon, does it have more significance than the description of the Sidon, which is mentioned many more times than horses, and represents something that should by any reasonable standard, be much easier to locate. What about Larry Poulson's argument that the Grijalva is the only river in the Western Hemisphere that matches the Sidon, and that much else in the Book of Mormon converges with that description. How much weight then to I put on a very few mentions of horse, none of which decribe or mention, hooves, shoes, bridles, saddles, neighing, plowing, or riding. Of the 100 wars in the Book of Mormon, none describe a military use of horses. We see rather, ceremonial transport, and provisions. And how have claims of anachronism faired on other points? Campbell's biggest complaint was that the Book of Mormon was too Christian before Christ. Barker's work reverses the significance of that claim. If a second generation religious leader also involved in a restoratation effort got it so wrong, how did Joseph Smith get things so right? I'm not saying that the Book of Mormon translation is immune to the issue of anachronism. I'm just saying you have to be a bit more sophisticated in approaching them. There are complexities in both identifying a potential anachronism, and then in assigning significance in light of translation factors, and of the big picture that the state of current scholarship provides. In D&C 128, Joseph Smith comments that an admittedly imperfect translation is "sufficient for his purposes as it stands." FWIW Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA Edited January 23, 2015 by Kevin Christensen 2
omni Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 Yet, "hippo" and "horse" are both the same word in a different language -- exactly the same word. Yet one includes an animal which is never known as a "horse" in English. Moreover, the example is not used as an explanation for horses in the BoM," but only a demonstration as to how such words can get bollixed. No one is suggesting that the "hippo," "hippopotamus" appeared in ancient America. It is an excellent demonstration of how such confusion can be innocently created, and such examples can be multiplied many times. Lol, yes I realize that no one is claiming hippopotamus existed in ancient America. The reason I believe this is a poor example is that "river horse" and "horse" are two completely different names which reduces the confusion between the two. With the BoM we are expected to believe tapirs were given the permanent name of "horse" rather than a differentiating term such as "jungle horse". Anyways, this should all be a moot point. I wouldn't expect a Greek speaking missionary fresh from the MTC to translate hippopotamus as "river horse" rather than it's intended meaning, why we would expect someone using divine means (especially given the trouble anachronisms have caused) to make a similar mistake? Besides, Joseph did not know what a "tapir" was and likely had never heard or read the word. I agree with you that Joseph had likely never heard of a tapir, which is precisely why it and a number of other flora and fauna native to Central America were never mentioned in the BoM and for the same reason we read descriptions of plants and animals familiar to Joseph but which would not have been familiar to the people of Mesoamerica. In any case, Mormons are not the authors of the comparisons. It was rather the Aztecs who referred to the Spanish horses as "deer," and the Spanish who referred to tapirs as "asses." Correct me if I'm wrong, but these (and other examples) seems to be a temporary designation until a permanent name could be decided upon. In the BoM this doesn't appear to be the case. 1
omni Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 Nonsense. The clock striking in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 1, is an obvious anachronism because striking clocks did not exist in the time of Julius Caesar. Shakespeare was retrojecting his own culture on the past, and I would be too if I put the words in the mouth of Brutus: "How many apples did you eat?" Caesar: "Et tu, Brute." As described by witnesses (and which was recently confirmed in a gospel topics essay), Joseph read the translated words directly from the seer stone. Why would he be retrojecting his own culture on the past if he's simply reading the words of the seer stone? 1
Gervin Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 - Even though the horse character came to mean tapir to the Mesoamerican Nephites, when Joseph came to the translation of the horse character that now meant tapir to the author he translated it as horse, even though that's not what Mormon meant and even though the word Tapir was in the Webster dictionary by 1828. Which certainly makes this verse (and many more like it) much more believable: Alma 20:66 Now when Lamoni had heard this he caused that his servants should make ready his tapirs and his chariots. Could have been a great Friberg painting. 1
Rivers Posted January 23, 2015 Author Posted January 23, 2015 Which certainly makes this verse (and many more like it) much more believable: Alma 20:66 Now when Lamoni had heard this he caused that his servants should make ready his tapirs and his chariots.Could have been a great Friberg painting.I read somewhere that this could be referring to some kind of ceremonial use of animals rather than them being used for transport. Maybe Kevin could provide more detail.
Mars Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 He didn't know what curelom and cumoms were either.Wouldn't it have been far more faith promoting for Joseph to have dictated their real name (if they really were tapirs) and then looked the word up in a dictionary?http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/search/word,TapirInstead we have the common flora and fauna of Central America conspicuous by their absence. And instead have to apply double meaning to the anachronistic words.I read Jeff Lindsay suggesting the other day that Ammon's flocks were not sheep but actually domesticated turkeys. I'm sure his fans just gobbled that up. I call fowl. (sorry... I'll get my coat) I literally lol'd
Mars Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 (edited) Steven E. Jones, “Were There Horses in the Americas Before Columbus?” Ancient American, 16 #95 (June 2012):2-3, online at http://www.bluetoad.com/publication/index.php?i=115319&m=&l=&p=2&pre=&ver=swf , Link points to "Publication not available." Edited January 23, 2015 by Mars
canard78 Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 He is merely the editor. He need not even know what a particular word means in order to pass it on in the text. So whether he had ever seen a horse is irrelevant. If, on the other hand, he had claimed to have ridden a horse named Coriantummer, we might think about this differently.You have improperly assumed that "tapir" meant "horse." It is true that during the Conquista such cross-identifications occurred, but that is no reason to assume that Joseph was victimized by such missidentifications by some earlier writer or editor.That assumes that they haven't been found yet. You have plenty of assumptions.Steven E. Jones, “Were There Horses in the Americas Before Columbus?” Ancient American, 16 #95 (June 2012):2-3, online at http://www.bluetoad.com/publication/index.php?i=115319&m=&l=&p=2&pre=&ver=swf ,John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon (SLC:: Deseret/Provo: FARMS, 1985),297–298. Clayton E. Ray, “Pre-Columbian Horses From Yucatan,” Journal of Mammalogy 38/2 (May 1957):278."Current 'macrofossil' evidence places the last-known mammoths and wild horses between 13,000 and 15,000 years ago. But hard remains of animals are rarely preserved, difficult to find, and laborious to accurately date because of physical degradation." However, "after plucking ancient DNA from frozen soil in central Alaska, a team of researchers used cutting-edge techniques to uncover 'genetic fossils' of both species locked in permafrost samples dated to between 7,600 and 10,500 calendar years," i.e., "macrofossils are unlikely to include the last members of either species, which underlines the critical significance of the sedaDNA approach for detecting rare, late-surviving populations of mammoth and horse in different parts of North America." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091214151946.htm .See also James Haile, et al., “Ancient DNA reveals late survival of mammoth and horse in interior Alaska,” PNAS, Dec 17, 2009, online at http://www.pnas.org/content/106/52/22352.full ,I'm not assuming anything. I'm open to it either being a tapir or an actual horse.Others (including you, with your reference to tapir not being a know word to Joseph) have been arguing in favour of the possibility of the actual animal in the story being a tapir but actually translates as horse (for any number of reasons).
Mormon Puzzle Pieces Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 "With the BoM we are expected to believe tapirs were given the permanent name of "horse" rather than a differentiating term such as "jungle horse""Not at all. It is explained by Qualified Naming. http://mormonpuzzlepieces.blogspot.com/2014/03/qualified-naming.html?m=1 1
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