Sherem Is Not A Very Strong Candidate For Interaction With "others"

[stemelbow]

I decided to have a quick look for the phrase "came among" in the Book of Mormon.

It happens one other time. Alma, talking to his son Helaman, talks about the Jaredites and how the prophets "came among them." There's no suggestion that the prophets are ethnically different... just that they are taking a distinct action (preaching) that is described with this particular phrase:

So an ethnically different person coming to preach to a foreign group? hmmm...not all that convincing but it seems like there is possibly something there.

[Brant Gardner]

If there were an unassailable proof of "others" in the Book of Mormon, we wouldn't still be arguing about it. The issue of Sherem is one indication that there were others around, but not the only one. The question when narrowed down to Sherem is specifically how good that particular indication might be.

 

Note that in order for canard78 to suggest that Sherem wasn't a good indicator of others he has to go through some interesting methods of increasing the population of the city of Nephi dramatically. He goes up to 10,000 people. Perhaps, just perhaps, in a city of 10,000 one who is well-versed in scripture wouldn't know one of the priests, but that is an assumption upon which the entire argument is made. There is nothing behind the assumption except the assertion. Oddly enough, the assertion of the larger population also suggests others as normal population dynamics won't reach those numbers that quickly (based on typical development of infrastructure to allow for growth, let alone fertility questions).

 

The problem from an anthropological standpoint is much easier. Without trying to find how large a community must be until the community members don't know who their leaders are or where they live is, the probability is that Jacob must have been relatively well known. He was assigned as a priest and a teacher, so he was visible in the community. We have Jacob preaching sermons to large congregations. He was known.

 

Sherem then becomes interesting. He is literate. That sets him apart from the large majority of the population and decreases the likelihood that if he lived in the same city as Jacob that they wouldn't have known each other. Literacy was unusual in the Old World, and probably even more so in the New. Next, Sherem is acquainted with brass plate scriptures. While we can't assume that copies were not made and teachings were not otherwise available (Laman and Lemuel would certainly have had some religious training, though we never get to see them in that context) if Sherem were an avid student of scriptures in the city of Nephi, it is nearly inconceivable that he and Jacob would not have known each other.

 

None of that makes it conclusive that Sherem was an outsider, but the indication that he had to seek out Jacob and that there is nothing indicating what would have been a previous relationship (possibly even student/teacher in Nephi where Jacob was a designated teacher) at least make the suggestion that he was an outsider slightly stronger than the assertion that he wasn't because the case in favor isn't stronger.

 

What makes the stronger case for "others"? Other evidence of course. The argument doesn't rest on Sherem, but Sherem is one of the clues to reading the subtle and unstated information. The building projects in Nephi are too large too fast for the people mentioned to have gone with Nephi to have undertaken so early. Nephi is made a king too early in the establishment of the city of Nephi to support a small population. Only a larger population allows the divisions of labor implicit in naming a king.

 

As king, Nephi instructs Jacob to teach a particular passage from Isaiah that has gentiles saving the children of Israel. The logical immediate value of the lesson is the integration of others, there isn't much other reason to use an Old World prediction of something that was far in the future even in the Old World.

 

So, Sherem isn't a nail in the coffin type of evidence. However, it also is just as strongly suggestive as the other data, and explanations for what else it could mean are often less convincing than having him as an external influence.

[Kevin Christensen]

Whether or not you see Sherem as an indication of others, the conflict between Sherem and Jacob does demonstrate technical aspects of Jewish Law, as John Welch has shown, and in light of Barker's work, also demonstrate issues rooted in the conflicts of Jerusalem 600 BCE between the Wisdom Tradition (Jacob, a consecrated Temple Priest) and the Reformers (Sherem).

 

FWIW

 

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburgh, PA

[Freedom]

So in short, Sherem as descendant of Lehi represents the following challenges to the 'no others' camp

1) He requires a population growth that is simply not possible

2) He would be a close relative of Jacob

3) He was literate and therefore of an elite group in the society of perhaps 200 people at the most and not in the thousands. 

4) Despite the need for the population to be very small and he being of an elite group he still did not know Jacob

5) The passage makes a point of noting that he knows their language well

[churchistrue]

If there were an unassailable proof of "others" in the Book of Mormon, we wouldn't still be arguing about it. The issue of Sherem is one indication that there were others around, but not the only one. The question when narrowed down to Sherem is specifically how good that particular indication might be.

 

Note that in order for canard78 to suggest that Sherem wasn't a good indicator of others he has to go through some interesting methods of increasing the population of the city of Nephi dramatically. He goes up to 10,000 people. Perhaps, just perhaps, in a city of 10,000 one who is well-versed in scripture wouldn't know one of the priests, but that is an assumption upon which the entire argument is made. There is nothing behind the assumption except the assertion. Oddly enough, the assertion of the larger population also suggests others as normal population dynamics won't reach those numbers that quickly (based on typical development of infrastructure to allow for growth, let alone fertility questions).

 

The problem from an anthropological standpoint is much easier. Without trying to find how large a community must be until the community members don't know who their leaders are or where they live is, the probability is that Jacob must have been relatively well known. He was assigned as a priest and a teacher, so he was visible in the community. We have Jacob preaching sermons to large congregations. He was known.

 

Sherem then becomes interesting. He is literate. That sets him apart from the large majority of the population and decreases the likelihood that if he lived in the same city as Jacob that they wouldn't have known each other. Literacy was unusual in the Old World, and probably even more so in the New. Next, Sherem is acquainted with brass plate scriptures. While we can't assume that copies were not made and teachings were not otherwise available (Laman and Lemuel would certainly have had some religious training, though we never get to see them in that context) if Sherem were an avid student of scriptures in the city of Nephi, it is nearly inconceivable that he and Jacob would not have known each other.

 

None of that makes it conclusive that Sherem was an outsider, but the indication that he had to seek out Jacob and that there is nothing indicating what would have been a previous relationship (possibly even student/teacher in Nephi where Jacob was a designated teacher) at least make the suggestion that he was an outsider slightly stronger than the assertion that he wasn't because the case in favor isn't stronger.

 

What makes the stronger case for "others"? Other evidence of course. The argument doesn't rest on Sherem, but Sherem is one of the clues to reading the subtle and unstated information. The building projects in Nephi are too large too fast for the people mentioned to have gone with Nephi to have undertaken so early. Nephi is made a king too early in the establishment of the city of Nephi to support a small population. Only a larger population allows the divisions of labor implicit in naming a king.

 

As king, Nephi instructs Jacob to teach a particular passage from Isaiah that has gentiles saving the children of Israel. The logical immediate value of the lesson is the integration of others, there isn't much other reason to use an Old World prediction of something that was far in the future even in the Old World.

 

So, Sherem isn't a nail in the coffin type of evidence. However, it also is just as strongly suggestive as the other data, and explanations for what else it could mean are often less convincing than having him as an external influence.

You're making an assumption that Sherem and Jacob didn't know each other.  This is an unnecessary assumption.   

 

But even if they didn't know each other, the assumption that the population wouldn't support this plausibility is also unnecessary.  Enos-Jacob is the first prophet succession we have in the New World, and the book reports that Enos died 180 years after his father was born.  This implies there's something off that we probably don't understand, right?    

[Nevo]

The building projects in Nephi are too large too fast for the people mentioned to have gone with Nephi to have undertaken so early. Nephi is made a king too early in the establishment of the city of Nephi to support a small population. Only a larger population allows the divisions of labor implicit in naming a king.

 

As king, Nephi instructs Jacob to teach a particular passage from Isaiah that has gentiles saving the children of Israel. The logical immediate value of the lesson is the integration of others, there isn't much other reason to use an Old World prediction of something that was far in the future even in the Old World.

 

Sure, we can posit the existence of others to explain these discrepancies, but, as I'm sure you recognize, someone could look at this same data and see it as evidence of modern authorship. Nephi and Jacob's seemingly anachronistic use of Deutero-Isaiah makes sense in a nineteenth-century context. It's much harder to fit into a sixth-century BC context.

Edited June 2, 2015 by Nevo

[Kevin Christensen]

Sure, we can posit the existence of others to explain these discrepancies, but, as I'm sure you recognize, someone could look at this same data and see it as evidence of modern authorship. Nephi and Jacob's seemingly anachronistic use of Deutero-Isaiah makes sense in a nineteenth-century context. It's much harder to fit into a sixth-century BC context.

 

All we need to do is keep the door open enough for us to walk through.  We don't have to make everyone walk through it.  Since the archeology puts others around, I think that reading the Book of Mormon as though they were around makes sense.  Roper's essay is the best one on that to date.  And Brant has shown how much sense it makes to read the Book of Mormon that way.  The FAIR presentation on Gadiantons, and the Social History of the Early Nephites, for instance.  And Mark Wright has talked about other Mesoamerican accounts that fail to mention neighbors that archeology puts near by.

 

Regarding Deutero-Isaiah, there is this

:

http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=2694&index=7

 

To which I would have included this, had I read it at the time:

 

http://www.margaretbarker.com/Papers/FourthServantSong.pdf

 

FWIW

 

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburgh, PA

[cinepro]

So, Sherem isn't a nail in the coffin type of evidence. However, it also is just as strongly suggestive as the other data, and explanations for what else it could mean are often less convincing than having him as an external influence.

 

Obviously, any rational person believes there were non-Book of Mormon peoples living in the New World in 600 BC. 

 

Believing the Jaredites found an uninhabited land, and then the Lehites found a similarly uninhabited land (except for Mulekites and the last Jaredite) is tantamount to believing Noah's flood covered the whole planet. 

 

The problem is the degree of creative thinking and inference required to believe that the Book of Mormon itself is acknowledging these other people.  Because as I said earlier, once you theorize a larger group of natives living here when the Lehites arrive, the entire narrative becomes almost comical in the convolutions necessary to have it make sense.\

 

For example, let's talk about Jacob 7 (which has the story of Sherem).  This is supposed to be about 50 years after the Lehites arrive.  Back in 2 Nephi 5, Nephi takes his family and followers and separates from the Lamanites.  How many people followed Nephi?

 

First, we're saying that the Lehites landed and found some other people here.  How many?  Then, they learned their language, and within a few years the people's previous culture (and society) had been subsumed by the inter-familial squabbles of this new family that just showed up.  And not long after that, the natives care enough about this that some number of them are now willing to leave their previous life and follow Nephi to a new location.

 

 6 Wherefore, it came to pass that I, Nephi, did take my family, and also Zoram and his family, and Sam, mine elder brother and his family, and Jacob and Joseph, my younger brethren, and also my sisters, and all those who would go with me. And all those who would go with me were those who believed in the warnings and the revelations of God; wherefore, they did hearken unto my words.

 7 And we did take our tents and whatsoever things were possible for us, and did journey in the wilderness for the space of many days. And after we had journeyed for the space of many days we did pitch our tents.

 

Now, when they get to this location, is there anyone there?  Did they find another village or city?  He just says they journeyed "in the wilderness" and pitched their tents.  They start to build a city (including a Temple), and the people keep the Law of Moses and want Nephi to be their "king".  So did they take over an existing city and convert all the people (without mentioning it)?  Or is this a new city?

 

Slight digression: Then we get to the curse on the Lamanites, where the Lord causes a "skin of blackness" to come on them so the Nephites won't marry them.

 

wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.

 

If both the Nephites and Lamanites are intermarrying with the local natives, why would the Lamanites end up looking any different through natural genetic causes?

 

Back to the main questions:

 

So the Nephites are a civilization with a Nephite king and a predominantly pre-Christian Judaistic religion.  In what way are there "others" here?  Are the Nephites and their religion supposed to be a subset of a larger "other" pagan culture?  Because either way, Sherem presents a problem.  As Brant has pointed out, in the world of the Book of Mormon being a scriptorian and speaking the language of the King and Prophets would be pretty unusual.  So how did Sherem get that much education without knowing Jacob would be very odd (he isn't an "other" that is schooled in the ways of the pagan others, but instead he knows the Nephite scriptures).  Even in a Book of Mormon that has "others", the idea that Sherem knows what he knows without knowing who he should know is very odd.

 

Ultimately, I'm growing to believe the only way the story of the Lehites makes sense in a world of "others" is what I call the "Clearwater Theory of Others", named after the city of Clearwater in Florida.  In the early 1970s, L. Ron Hubbard (the founder of Scientology) was looking for a beachhead city they could move to and in which they could become politically influential.  Over the years, more and more Scientologists have moved there, and they have built massive buildings in which to teach other Scientologists.

 

Scientology is also run by an egomaniac named David Miscavige, who among other things claims Scientology has over 10 million members (outside estimates place it closer to  30,000).  And the core belief in Scientology is that they are, in fact, destined to "save planet Earth" and that L. Ron Hubbard will be returning.  But in reality they are just a tiny fringe of believers, many of whom live in isolated compounds or on a yacht with little interaction with the outside world. 

 

This is the picture painted by the theory of "others" in the Book of Mormon.  The Nephites become a small group of delusional pre-Christians with Nephi as their "king", when in fact he was probably more like the President of the local Rotary club.  The "wars" fought between the people were probably more like gang fights in the inner city, or cult-standoffs which felt like the coming apacolypse and end of entire civilizations to those who were in them, but were viewed from the outside as a bunch of odd zealots.

 

And in the end, the last few "Lamanites" and "Nephites" fought it out in an epic battle that could have looked like the last battle from Lord of the Rings, but probably looked more like this:

 

[stemelbow]

Obviously, any rational person believes there were non-Book of Mormon peoples living in the New World in 600 BC. 

 

Believing the Jaredites found an uninhabited land, and then the Lehites found a similarly uninhabited land (except for Mulekites and the last Jaredite) is tantamount to believing Noah's flood covered the whole planet. 

 

The problem is the degree of creative thinking and inference required to believe that the Book of Mormon itself is acknowledging these other people.  Because as I said earlier, once you theorize a larger group of natives living here when the Lehites arrive, the entire narrative becomes almost comical in the convolutions necessary to have it make sense.\

 

For example, let's talk about Jacob 7 (which has the story of Sherem).  This is supposed to be about 50 years after the Lehites arrive.  Back in 2 Nephi 5, Nephi takes his family and followers and separates from the Lamanites.  How many people followed Nephi?

 

First, we're saying that the Lehites landed and found some other people here.  How many?  Then, they learned their language, and within a few years the people's previous culture (and society) had been subsumed by the inter-familial squabbles of this new family that just showed up.  And not long after that, the natives care enough about this that some number of them are now willing to leave their previous life and follow Nephi to a new location.

 

 

 

Now, when they get to this location, is there anyone there?  Did they find another village or city?  He just says they journeyed "in the wilderness" and pitched their tents.  They start to build a city (including a Temple), and the people keep the Law of Moses and want Nephi to be their "king".  So did they take over an existing city and convert all the people (without mentioning it)?  Or is this a new city?

 

Slight digression: Then we get to the curse on the Lamanites, where the Lord causes a "skin of blackness" to come on them so the Nephites won't marry them.

 

 

 

 

If both the Nephites and Lamanites are intermarrying with the local natives, why would the Lamanites end up looking any different through natural genetic causes?

 

Back to the main questions:

 

So the Nephites are a civilization with a Nephite king and a predominantly pre-Christian Judaistic religion.  In what way are there "others" here?  Are the Nephites and their religion supposed to be a subset of a larger "other" pagan culture?  Because either way, Sherem presents a problem.  As Brant has pointed out, in the world of the Book of Mormon being a scriptorian and speaking the language of the King and Prophets would be pretty unusual.  So how did Sherem get that much education without knowing Jacob would be very odd (he isn't an "other" that is schooled in the ways of the pagan others, but instead he knows the Nephite scriptures).  Even in a Book of Mormon that has "others", the idea that Sherem knows what he knows without knowing who he should know is very odd.

 

Ultimately, I'm growing to believe the only way the story of the Lehites makes sense in a world of "others" is what I call the "Clearwater Theory of Others", named after the city of Clearwater in Florida.  In the early 1970s, L. Ron Hubbard (the founder of Scientology) was looking for a beachhead city they could move to and in which they could become politically influential.  Over the years, more and more Scientologists have moved there, and they have built massive buildings in which to teach other Scientologists.

 

Scientology is also run by an egomaniac named David Miscavige, who among other things claims Scientology has over 10 million members (outside estimates place it closer to  30,000).  And the core belief in Scientology is that they are, in fact, destined to "save planet Earth" and that L. Ron Hubbard will be returning.  But in reality they are just a tiny fringe of believers, many of whom live in isolated compounds or on a yacht with little interaction with the outside world. 

 

This is the picture painted by the theory of "others" in the Book of Mormon.  The Nephites become a small group of delusional pre-Christians with Nephi as their "king", when in fact he was probably more like the President of the local Rotary club.  The "wars" fought between the people were probably more like gang fights in the inner city, or cult-standoffs which felt like the coming apacolypse and end of entire civilizations to those who were in them, but were viewed from the outside as a bunch of odd zealots.

 

And in the end, the last few "Lamanites" and "Nephites" fought it out in an epic battle that could have looked like the last battle from Lord of the Rings, but probably looked more like this:

 

Maybe we not only should read 1 Nephi as propaganda, but also 2 Nephi and Jacob. That might help explain some of this, won't mention or include others in the text.

[Rivers]

Maybe the lost 116 pages has explicit references to the others.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

Maybe the lost 116 pages has explicit references to the others.

This seems unlikely given that Joseph was aware of the content of the 116 pages, but seems to be unaware there were other people in America.

[Brant Gardner]

Obviously, any rational person believes there were non-Book of Mormon peoples living in the New World in 600 BC. 

Of course, there's that.

 

 

Believing the Jaredites found an uninhabited land, and then the Lehites found a similarly uninhabited land (except for Mulekites and the last Jaredite) is tantamount to believing Noah's flood covered the whole planet. 

The Jaredites in the uninhabited land has fascinated me for a long time. It tells us how poorly we read the Book of Mormon, since that phrase occurs before they leave the Old World for the New.

 

 

The problem is the degree of creative thinking and inference required to believe that the Book of Mormon itself is acknowledging these other people.  Because as I said earlier, once you theorize a larger group of natives living here when the Lehites arrive, the entire narrative becomes almost comical in the convolutions necessary to have it make sense.

Certainly we disagree on this point, but I think that part of the disagreement lies in expectations. We expect certain references and when se don't get them we assume something different from what the text is telling us. For example, we have the historical training of the Old World to expect nations and to refer to nations. In the New World we really don't have anything directly comparable. There is certainly reference to cities, and people from one city or another--or beholding to a city or another. The Tenochca and the Tlaxcalans were pretty powerful, but referenced by their cities. When we move into the realms of textless history, we know a lot about Teotihucan--but not what they called themselves or what kind of government they had. They were often referenced (in texts that we do have) as people from a direction. 

 

So not finding a nation of X tells us more about our expectations. When the Book of Mormon sees the world from its own perspective it does nothing surprising. We don't get much different from the Popol Vuh, which deals with its own lineages and other cities.

 

 

 

First, we're saying that the Lehites landed and found some other people here.  How many?  Then, they learned their language, and within a few years the people's previous culture (and society) had been subsumed by the inter-familial squabbles of this new family that just showed up.  And not long after that, the natives care enough about this that some number of them are now willing to leave their previous life and follow Nephi to a new location.

 

Now, when they get to this location, is there anyone there?  Did they find another village or city?  He just says they journeyed "in the wilderness" and pitched their tents.  They start to build a city (including a Temple), and the people keep the Law of Moses and want Nephi to be their "king".  So did they take over an existing city and convert all the people (without mentioning it)?  Or is this a new city?

Precisely. We have a text that doesn't work well at all internally if there are no other people in the New World. One solution is to call it modern and chalk these things us to authorial ignorance. That is a possibility that has be countered with some kind of evidence.

 

The alternative to the obvious lack of mention is that such other peoples really are throughout the text, but appear only obliquely. That tells us why Joseph didn't know about them and couldn't "set us straight" about the matter. Of course, then we are left with the problem of why they aren't mentioned. There are explanations that fit an ancient culture and the nature of the text even though they counter our assumption of what the text should have said. 

 

The presence of others is a side issue in the question of historicity. If a case for historicity can be made, then the cultural/historical explanations for them not being mentioned are strengthened. If there is no good defense of historicity, then authorial ignorance becomes a stronger case. However, the resolution of the question of others can't help make the case for or against historicity.

 

 

 

So the Nephites are a civilization with a Nephite king and a predominantly pre-Christian Judaistic religion.  In what way are there "others" here?  Are the Nephites and their religion supposed to be a subset of a larger "other" pagan culture?  Because either way, Sherem presents a problem.  As Brant has pointed out, in the world of the Book of Mormon being a scriptorian and speaking the language of the King and Prophets would be pretty unusual.  So how did Sherem get that much education without knowing Jacob would be very odd (he isn't an "other" that is schooled in the ways of the pagan others, but instead he knows the Nephite scriptures).  Even in a Book of Mormon that has "others", the idea that Sherem knows what he knows without knowing who he should know is very odd. 

Agreed. Assuming that the Book of Mormon tells us all of the history of what was going on leaves us with no answer to Sherem. Speculation is fun and can provide some interesting options, but one person's speculation is often no stronger than another's. 

 

As for the relationship of Nephite religion to religion in the rest of their world, it is reasonable to see it as dominant in their own city, but that doesn't suggest dominance in a neighboring city. From what we know of later Maya political/military struggles, two important enemies lived within three days walk of each other--or a day and a half walk to the presumed border. That is pretty close for mortal enemies. 

 

The next important question is what Nephite Christianity would look like in physical remains. The answer is that we have no idea based on the text alone. That makes it hard to use archaeology to resolve the question of what religion belonged in any given city--particularly when repurposing iconography has such a long history in the Judeo-Christian world.

 

I agree that there are no simple answers. However, the fact that there are questions doesn't preclude the possibility of reasonable answers.

[Brant Gardner]

Slight digression: Then we get to the curse on the Lamanites, where the Lord causes a "skin of blackness" to come on them so the Nephites won't marry them.

 

If both the Nephites and Lamanites are intermarrying with the local natives, why would the Lamanites end up looking any different through natural genetic causes?

 

This gives me an excuse to repeat that I don't see "skin of blackness" as a physical description. I don't think that there was any pigmentation change, and that any genetic differences occurred through normal processes of passing along genetic material.

[cinepro]

Precisely. We have a text that doesn't work well at all internally if there are no other people in the New World. One solution is to call it modern and chalk these things us to authorial ignorance. That is a possibility that has be countered with some kind of evidence.

 

The alternative to the obvious lack of mention is that such other peoples really are throughout the text, but appear only obliquely. That tells us why Joseph didn't know about them and couldn't "set us straight" about the matter. Of course, then we are left with the problem of why they aren't mentioned. There are explanations that fit an ancient culture and the nature of the text even though they counter our assumption of what the text should have said. 

 

The presence of others is a side issue in the question of historicity. If a case for historicity can be made, then the cultural/historical explanations for them not being mentioned are strengthened. If there is no good defense of historicity, then authorial ignorance becomes a stronger case. However, the resolution of the question of others can't help make the case for or against historicity.

 

So we have the Book of Mormon being dictated by someone who didn't know there were others, into a 19th century culture that also didn't know there were others.

 

I wonder how the Book of Mormon would be different if it were brought forth in a time when we know there were people all over the continent in 590 BC?  If they knew then what we know now, I wonder if anyone would have even cared.

[cinepro]

This gives me an excuse to repeat that I don't see "skin of blackness" as a physical description. I don't think that there was any pigmentation change, and that any genetic differences occurred through normal processes of passing along genetic material.

 

 I agree that there probably wasn't any God-induced pigmentation change brought to specific new world tribes around 570 BC based on their lack of belief in Jesus Christ. 

 

I disagree that this isn't what is being described in The Book of Mormon .

[Brant Gardner]

So we have the Book of Mormon being dictated by someone who didn't know there were others, into a 19th century culture that also didn't know there were others.

 

I wonder how the Book of Mormon would be different if it were brought forth in a time when we know there were people all over the continent in 590 BC?  If they knew then what we know now, I wonder if anyone would have even cared.

Both correct if the text has no legitimate historicity. With the view that it does, both questions are irrelevant.

[cinepro]

Both correct if the text has no legitimate historicity. With the view that it does, both questions are irrelevant.

 

As long as you can convince people that the issue is irrelevant when it comes to Book of Mormon historicity (and instead not a falsifiable claim that can be tested), you should be fine.

[canard78]

- SNIP -

 

Note that in order for canard78 to suggest that Sherem wasn't a good indicator of others he has to go through some interesting methods of increasing the population of the city of Nephi dramatically. He goes up to 10,000 people. Perhaps, just perhaps, in a city of 10,000 one who is well-versed in scripture wouldn't know one of the priests, but that is an assumption upon which the entire argument is made. There is nothing behind the assumption except the assertion. Oddly enough, the assertion of the larger population also suggests others as normal population dynamics won't reach those numbers that quickly (based on typical development of infrastructure to allow for growth, let alone fertility questions).

 

The problem from an anthropological standpoint is much easier. Without trying to find how large a community must be until the community members don't know who their leaders are or where they live is, the probability is that Jacob must have been relatively well known. He was assigned as a priest and a teacher, so he was visible in the community. We have Jacob preaching sermons to large congregations. He was known.

 

Sherem then becomes interesting. He is literate. That sets him apart from the large majority of the population and decreases the likelihood that if he lived in the same city as Jacob that they wouldn't have known each other. Literacy was unusual in the Old World, and probably even more so in the New. Next, Sherem is acquainted with brass plate scriptures. While we can't assume that copies were not made and teachings were not otherwise available (Laman and Lemuel would certainly have had some religious training, though we never get to see them in that context) if Sherem were an avid student of scriptures in the city of Nephi, it is nearly inconceivable that he and Jacob would not have known each other.

 

None of that makes it conclusive that Sherem was an outsider, but the indication that he had to seek out Jacob and that there is nothing indicating what would have been a previous relationship (possibly even student/teacher in Nephi where Jacob was a designated teacher) at least make the suggestion that he was an outsider slightly stronger than the assertion that he wasn't because the case in favor isn't stronger.

 

- SNIP -

 

 

So in short, Sherem as descendant of Lehi represents the following challenges to the 'no others' camp

1) He requires a population growth that is simply not possible

2) He would be a close relative of Jacob

3) He was literate and therefore of an elite group in the society of perhaps 200 people at the most and not in the thousands. 

4) Despite the need for the population to be very small and he being of an elite group he still did not know Jacob

5) The passage makes a point of noting that he knows their language well

 

You're both misrepresenting my OP. I didn't say that a population of 10,000 is required. I simply made the point that Freedom's suggestion that at the time of Sherem's arrival there were only 200 people in that society. While 10,000 is a stretch, it's easily more than 200 people if we're looking at a fourth generation.

 

But that's all entirely besides the point! I've already said that I'm willing to base the rest of the argument on Freedom's assertion that there were only a few hundred people there. Does the text still require him to be "other." Sherem doesn't have to be an unknown. Look at the text:

 

7:1 ...there came a man among the people of Nephi...

 

I've already shown that this phrase does not mean he arrived or appeared for the first time among the people of Nephi. Instead it's a phrase which is almost always used in the Book of Mormon (either came among or come among) when talking about someone preaching. More examples here, here, here, here, 

 

So is there evidence that he did not know Jacob?

 

7:3...and he knowing that I, Jacob, had faith in Christ who should come, he sought much opportunity that he might come unto me... he came unto me, and on this wise did he speak unto me, saying: Brother Jacob, I have sought much opportunity that I might speak unto you; for I have heard and also know that thou goest about much, preaching that which ye call the gospel, or the doctrine of Christ.

 

(Emphasis added)

 

Sherem already knows or knows of Jacob. He is familiar with Jacob's teachings and beliefs. He seeks to speak with Jacob, not to meet him for the first time. There's nothing in the text that suggests that this is their first ever meeting. Only that Sherem "came among" the people (a phrase which, in the Book of Mormon, seems to be used several times to indicate the beginning of preaching/teaching/influencing by someone... not that they are an outsider) and then sought to meet Jacob to teach his message.

 

As for the "perfect knowledge of the language"... I've already addressed that as possibly being in the context of the language of flattery and not that he was a Mesoamerican who spoke fluent Hebrew.

[Kevin Christensen]

As long as you can convince people that the issue is irrelevant when it comes to Book of Mormon historicity (and instead not a falsifiable claim that can be tested), you should be fine.

As long as you can convince people that the issue is irrelevant when it comes to Book of Mormon historicity (and instead not a falsifiable claim that can be tested), you should be fine.

Ahem. Ian Barbour in Myths, Models, and Paradigms, 99.

Cannot theories at least be falsified, then? Even if many instances of agreement with experiment do not prove that a theory is true, it would seem that even a single counterinstance of data which disagrees with theory should conclusively prove it false. Karl Popper, acknowledging that scientific theories are never verifiable, contended that they must be in principle falsifiable. Science advances by bold conjectures and stern attempts to refute them. Popper dwelt on the importance of “crucial experiments” through which an hypothesis is definitively eliminated. Intellectual honesty, he said, requires the scientist to specify in advance experiments whose results could disprove his theory. Statements which are in principle unfalsifiable have no place in science.

But Popper’s view has in turn received considerable criticism. Discordant data do not always falsify a theory. One can never test an individual hypothesis conclusively in a “crucial experiment”; for if a deduction is not confirmed experimentally, one cannot be sure which one, from among the many assumptions on which the deduction was based, was in error. A network of theories and observations is always tested together. Any particular hypothesis can be maintained by rejecting or adjusting other auxiliary hypotheses.

We ought not approach the Book of Mormon as though it were a soap bubble that distintegrates it you poke it anywhere.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

[mapman]

The Book of Mormon was written by a historian-prophet in the 4th century CE, so he wasn't going to be writing according to modern historical standards. One of the aspects of many ancient histories was the mixing of mythology and history. For example, Genesis is usually understood to be comprised of two parts, the primeval history (chapters 1-11) and the patriarchal stories (chapters 12-50). The first part explains the origin of the world, how different nations are related to each other and to the Hebrews. The second part is a history of the Hebrew people which is written in a different style than the first.

 

Genesis 10 describes how all the known peoples of the world are related to each other and descended from the sons of Noah. As awareness of other nations arose, people had to stretch things to try to get it to fit with this chapter. This led to strange theories like that Scythians (which are mentioned in the chapter) were the ancestors of the Scandinavians (which aren't mentioned) and things like that.

 

Surely the same thing happened with Lehi's family when they landed in the Promised Land. After the Nephi went off into the wilderness to separate himself from his brothers we know that they were aware of the following groups: A people that they called Lamanites that at least some of them seem to have direct connections to his brothers Laman and Lemuel, a people known in the record as the people of Zarahemla in the Nephite record (more on them later), various groups that they called "Gadianton Robbers," and a destroyed group of people they called the Jaredites that they were aware of from their remains. The Book of Mormon ascribes origin stories for each of these groups, whether it be the Tower of Babel, Cain, King Zedekiah, or Lehi. So did all these people really come from the Middle East like the Nephites thought?

 

The example of the people of Zarahemla I think is a good example. The account we have of them meeting the Nephites in Omni I think is very instructive. The story says that they couldn't understand each other. They spoke different languages and the people of Zarahemla didn't use writing. Then the record says that "Behold, it came to pass that Mosiah discovered that the people of Zarahemla came out from Jerusalem at the time that Zedekiah, king of Judah, was carried away captive into Babylon. And they journeyed in the wilderness, and were brought by the hand of the Lord across the great waters, into the land where Mosiah discovered them; and they had dwelt there from that time forth." (verses 15-16) Mosiah apparently "discovered" their origin from Zarahemla's genealogy (verse 18). There is no evidence that Mosiah recieved revelation about the origins of this people, but it seems that it was assumed from what seems to be sketchy historical reasoning (by today's standards). I think that the more likely scenario is that the people of Zarahemla were actually indiginous Americans who talked a different language (languages don't change fast enough for them to not be able to understand each other if they really were both descended from the Israelites) and didn't have the technology of writing. The Nephites, due to the limitations of their worldview, grafted their origin story into the Biblical narrative.

[Robert F. Smith]

.......................................................................................

..............................................did all these people really come from the Middle East like the Nephites thought?

 

The example of the people of Zarahemla I think is a good example. The account we have of them meeting the Nephites in Omni I think is very instructive. The story says that they couldn't understand each other. They spoke different languages and the people of Zarahemla didn't use writing. Then the record says that "Behold, it came to pass that Mosiah discovered that the people of Zarahemla came out from Jerusalem at the time that Zedekiah, king of Judah, was carried away captive into Babylon. And they journeyed in the wilderness, and were brought by the hand of the Lord across the great waters, into the land where Mosiah discovered them; and they had dwelt there from that time forth." (verses 15-16) Mosiah apparently "discovered" their origin from Zarahemla's genealogy (verse 18). There is no evidence that Mosiah recieved revelation about the origins of this people, but it seems that it was assumed from what seems to be sketchy historical reasoning (by today's standards). I think that the more likely scenario is that the people of Zarahemla were actually indiginous Americans who talked a different language (languages don't change fast enough for them to not be able to understand each other if they really were both descended from the Israelites) and didn't have the technology of writing. The Nephites, due to the limitations of their worldview, grafted their origin story into the Biblical narrative.

Interesting hypothesis, mapman.  Now, can you support it with a variety of circumstantial evidence?  For example, what do you do with the numerous instances in which Jaredite names have Sumero-Akkadian etymologies?  How would the Nephites have come up with that?

[canard78]

The Book of Mormon was written by a historian-prophet in the 4th century CE, so he wasn't going to be writing according to modern historical standards. One of the aspects of many ancient histories was the mixing of mythology and history. For example, Genesis is usually understood to be comprised of two parts, the primeval history (chapters 1-11) and the patriarchal stories (chapters 12-50). The first part explains the origin of the world, how different nations are related to each other and to the Hebrews. The second part is a history of the Hebrew people which is written in a different style than the first.

Genesis 10 describes how all the known peoples of the world are related to each other and descended from the sons of Noah. As awareness of other nations arose, people had to stretch things to try to get it to fit with this chapter. This led to strange theories like that Scythians (which are mentioned in the chapter) were the ancestors of the Scandinavians (which aren't mentioned) and things like that.

Surely the same thing happened with Lehi's family when they landed in the Promised Land. After the Nephi went off into the wilderness to separate himself from his brothers we know that they were aware of the following groups: A people that they called Lamanites that at least some of them seem to have direct connections to his brothers Laman and Lemuel, a people known in the record as the people of Zarahemla in the Nephite record (more on them later), various groups that they called "Gadianton Robbers," and a destroyed group of people they called the Jaredites that they were aware of from their remains. The Book of Mormon ascribes origin stories for each of these groups, whether it be the Tower of Babel, Cain, King Zedekiah, or Lehi. So did all these people really come from the Middle East like the Nephites thought?

The example of the people of Zarahemla I think is a good example. The account we have of them meeting the Nephites in Omni I think is very instructive. The story says that they couldn't understand each other. They spoke different languages and the people of Zarahemla didn't use writing. Then the record says that "Behold, it came to pass that Mosiah discovered that the people of Zarahemla came out from Jerusalem at the time that Zedekiah, king of Judah, was carried away captive into Babylon. And they journeyed in the wilderness, and were brought by the hand of the Lord across the great waters, into the land where Mosiah discovered them; and they had dwelt there from that time forth." (verses 15-16) Mosiah apparently "discovered" their origin from Zarahemla's genealogy (verse 18). There is no evidence that Mosiah recieved revelation about the origins of this people, but it seems that it was assumed from what seems to be sketchy historical reasoning (by today's standards). I think that the more likely scenario is that the people of Zarahemla were actually indiginous Americans who talked a different language (languages don't change fast enough for them to not be able to understand each other if they really were both descended from the Israelites) and didn't have the technology of writing. The Nephites, due to the limitations of their worldview, grafted their origin story into the Biblical narrative.

How do you account for Helaman 6:10

Now the land south was called Lehi, and the land north was called Mulek, which was after the son of Zedekiah; for the Lord did bring Mulek into the land north, and Lehi into the land south.

[Sevenbak]

On the other thread, the question of Sherem being a non-Lehite or indigenous has come up. I wanted to start a new thread as it was a substantial tangent to the topic but still of interest to discuss. Here's the post I wanted to respond to:

Freedom makes several statements not supported by the text.

It doesn't specify when in Jacob's life this event happens. The fact that chapter seven is added after the conclusion and farewell in chapter six would suggest seven is a later addition.

Enos, Jacob's son, lives until around 420BC, 180 years after Lehi left Jerusalem. It doesn't say when Jacob, his dad, died, but if we split the difference it would mean they both lived into the 90s at the very least. Enos needed to be old enough to hear and remember the lessons of his father before he died, so they might have even both lived until they were 100+.

If Jacob lived until 95 and was still having children until at least 80 (to have had Enos) then, if the Sherem event was later in Jacobs life, there could have been far more than 200 people. Where does it say he came among them when there had only been one new generation? It doesn't. If it was when Jacob was 70 or 80 there could have been a third or fourth generation born during Jacob's lifetime. If Zoram, Nephi and Sam had kids soon after marrying (before even reaching the Americas) the group could even have had a fifth generation born during Jacob's lifetime.

Four or possibly five generations means there could have been anything from 2,000 to 10,000 people at the time Sherem appears on the scene. Remember that at Sherem's death a "multitude" gathers, not "the family."

Let's put that to one side for a moment though and accept Freedom's premise that it was earlier. Nephi and presumably Zoram are dead when Jacob takes leadership. "Some" years have passed away since the conclusion at the end of chapter six. So we're probably still looking at Jacob being in his 40s or 50s. Sherem could have been a grandchild of Nephi or even Zoram (born around the time Jacob's eldest kids were born).

If Sherem was Zoram's grandson then he's Jacob's great nephew (by marriage) or possibly a second cousin once removed (by marriage) if Jacob married a grand-daughter, not daughter, of Ishmael. Either way, Sherem could be a distant relative (and not a blood relative) even after two or three generations.

Besides all of which, there's nothing in Jacob 7 that even says Sherem was unknown to Jacob nor that they had never met. Sherem could have been Jacob's nephew and the story still works. It just says that Sherem sought to meet Jacob for a very specific reason:

This is where the idea of Sherem being one of the Mayans (or other indigenous tribes) gets a little stretched. If Sherem was Mayan or "other," why would he make the following complaint about them straying from the Law of Moses? Seems an odd critique from a non-Hebrew.

The only thing left is the reference to him having a knowledge of the language of the people. If you look at it in context this could refer to his ability to use language of flattery and power of speech.

Bear in mind that if you insist on him being "other" and appears early (Freedom suggested one generation) he has to have been an indigenous outsider who learns to speak and read Hebrew and possibly read reformed Egyptian and also to have studied and understood the nuances of the Law of Moses within it. All to a level where he can entice away crowds of people and be given an audience with the king to debate doctrine.

I know Sherem is a popular candidate for "other" (he was the first I remember being proposed back in the 1990s) but there are plenty of reasons why he could have not been "other."

Well said.  I'll add a couple more.  He calls Jacob "brother Jacob", and accuses him of perverting the Law of Moses.    Sorry, 'others' proponents, still no sale.