Is The Book Of Mormon Either True Or Not?

[Kevin Christensen]

Kevin Christensen, if the Super Bowl for a given year was the most epic game with thrilling finish and the team from Houston won, and we had a copy of front page of the Houston newspaper the next day that read "WHAT A GAME!", I'm sure you could make an argument that the game was actually referring to an impromptu volleyball game in someone's backyard.  You may have found a way for these obscure interpretations to work for you, but I don't think anyone else is convinced.  

 

A much better (and honest?) way to do is say, OK Lehi's obviously talking about European colonists.  Ether's obviously talking about Noah's flood.  This is kinda problematic.  But let's be direct and honest about it and see if we can figure out an angle that can preserve faith.

 

It just so happens that back in 1973, when I was tracting in the North of England, I began to seriously wonder, "If the truth of the gospel is so obvious to me, why can't other people see it?"  Obviousness, like seeing a rainbow or Columbus's famous trick about how to balance an egg, or the hiding place of Poe's purloined letter, turns out to be a matter of perspective. Sometimes perspective makes all the difference in understanding, as in which temple Jesus was obviously referring to.  It's not as though no one in Jerusalem had ever noticed the huge temple that dominated the city.  So trying on different perspectives, different readings of familiar texts, different contexts, and walking around in them to see what a difference it makes can often makes me far less inclined to assume as a first explanation, that other people are dishonest.

 

I have, for what it's worth, managed to get some of my perspectives published now and then.  And even quoted on occasion.

 

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburgh, PA

Edited June 10, 2015 by Kevin Christensen

[thesometimesaint]

Why would anyone think that anything could be true and false at the same time? Do you think God can lie? Because the reason the Book of Mormon was given was not so scientists or scholars or the learned could verify His words or that it could be or should be proven by undeniable facts. The reason it was given to us was so faith could increase in the earth and that men would learn how to receive revelations. If someone has this shades of gray idea of Gospel truth then you can treat the Gospel as some sort of buffet where you can accept a teaching or reject it and it really does not matter. This goes totally counter to common sense and the teachings of the scriptures. (Jacob 4:13) "...for the spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be..."

 

God doesn't lie. But men do, and they are very prone to misunderstanding what it is the God is saying.

[Kevin Christensen]

Speaking of ambiguity, the 22 days doesn't really tell us anything other thn it was that distance from somewhere in Zarahemla "the land" and its southern country. http://nephicode.blogspot.com/2011/05/do-we-know-where-land-of-promise-is_29.html

 

The 22 days from Nephi to Zarahemla is one important piece of a puzzle that has to fit together with a great many other pieces.  Putting all of the pieces together in a way that fits tells you things that leaving all of the pieces untouched and unexamined and shaken up in an unopened box can never tell you, even if the box is illustrated by Arnold Friberg.  Even especially.

 

FWIW

 

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburgh, PA

[mfbukowski]

The 22 days from Nephi to Zarahemla is one important piece of a puzzle that has to fit together with a great many other pieces.  Putting all of the pieces together in a way that fits tells you things that leaving all of the pieces untouched and unexamined and shaken up in an unopened box can never tell you, even if the box is illustrated by Arnold Friberg.  Even especially.

 

FWIW

 

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburgh, PA

LOL!!

[mfbukowski]

Why would anyone think that anything could be true and false at the same time?

Truth and falsity are properties of sentences and not the world.  When statements are highly ambiguous, they can be both true and false at the same time.

 

Consider the statement from Psalms "You are gods"

 

Taken on its own as an English statement is that true or false??  If you put that on a billboard would that be true or false?

 

After all it can only be one or the other, right?

 

There are many theories of truth which account for and allow ambiguity in the use of the word "true"

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=deflationary+theory+of+truth&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

 

According to the deflationary theory of truth, to assert that a statement is true is just to assert the statement itself. For example, to say that ‘snow is white’ is true, or that it is true that snow is white, is equivalent to saying simply that snow is white, and this, according to the deflationary theory, is all that can be said significantly about the truth of ‘snow is white’.

There are many implications of a theory of this sort for philosophical debate about the nature of truth. Philosophers often make suggestions like the following: truth consists in correspondence to the facts; truth consists in coherence with a set of beliefs or propositions; truth is the ideal outcome of rational inquiry. According to the deflationist, however, such suggestions are mistaken, and, moreover, they all share a common mistake. The common mistake is to assume that truth has a nature of the kind that philosophers might find out about and develop theories of. For the deflationist, truth has no nature beyond what is captured in ordinary claims such as that ‘snow is white’ is true just in case snow is white. Philosophers looking for the nature of truth are bound to be frustrated, the deflationist says, because they are looking for something that isn't there.

The deflationary theory has gone by many different names, including at least the following: the redundancy theory, the disappearance theory, the no-truth theory, the disquotational theory, and the minimalist theory. There is no terminological consensus about how to use these labels: sometimes they are used interchangeably; sometimes they are used to mark distinctions between different versions of the same general view. Here we will use ‘deflationism’, and ‘the deflationary theory of truth’ to denote the general view we want to discuss, and reserve other names for specific versions of that view.

 

 

Edited June 10, 2015 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

The scriptures tell us that truth is seeing "things as they are".

 

That's fine- but can we possibly see things "as they are" on this side of the veil?

 

All we have are eyes and ears and language.  But we do have the spirit.  By the spirit we can perceive things as they are.

 

The only problem is that after we have done that, we only get to use words- silly little paltry, ambiguous words- to describe what cannot be described in language.

 

That's a serious problem. 

[mfbukowski]

God doesn't lie. But men do, and they are very prone to misunderstanding what it is the God is saying.

Not only very prone- you can't describe what can't be described at all, in words. God speaks to our hearts in feelings which cannot be described.

 

Consider "describing" the color red to a blind person who has never seen color, much less red.  It cannot be done. 

[mfbukowski]

Why would anyone think that anything could be true and false at the same time? Do you think God can lie? Because the reason the Book of Mormon was given was not so scientists or scholars or the learned could verify His words or that it could be or should be proven by undeniable facts. The reason it was given to us was so faith could increase in the earth and that men would learn how to receive revelations. If someone has this shades of gray idea of Gospel truth then you can treat the Gospel as some sort of buffet where you can accept a teaching or reject it and it really does not matter. This goes totally counter to common sense and the teachings of the scriptures. (Jacob 4:13) "...for the spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be..."

One more and then bye bye

 

Notice it says ".for the SPIRIT speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be..."

 

Notice it does NOT say that "language speaketh the truth and lieth not"

 

We believe the bible to be true insofar as it is TRANSLATED correctly.   Unfortunately if you have ever translated anything you find that that is practically impossible because there is never perfect correspondence between languages.

 

So my advice is to listen to the SPIRIT which "speaketh the truth" and not to WORDS which try to get it close but never succeed.

 

Tood-a- loo compadres!

[thesometimesaint]

Not only very prone- you can't describe what can't be described at all, in words. God speaks to our hearts in feelings which cannot be described.

 

Consider "describing" the color red to a blind person who has never seen color, much less red.  It cannot be done. 

 

My experience with God is more as voice inside my head. But I get your point.

 

We can describe the color red as a certain electromagnetic emission wavelength.

 

My main point was that we often misunderstand what it is God is actually telling us. A case in point.

SEE https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-and-dna-studies

[Mormonmaniac]

The 22 days from Nephi to Zarahemla is one important piece of a puzzle that has to fit together with a great many other pieces.  Putting all of the pieces together in a way that fits tells you things that leaving all of the pieces untouched and unexamined and shaken up in an unopened box can never tell you, even if the box is illustrated by Arnold Friberg.  Even especially.

 

FWIW

 

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburgh, PA

The point is that the 22 days travel is not defining the distance between the city of Zarahemla and the city Nephi. It only defines a distance from one part of the land Zarahemla to Nephi. We still do not know the actual days travel between the two cities. Beyond those two facts, we still do not know distances from the very southern parts of Nephi to the northern parts of Bountiful so it is thus futile to attempt to nail down overall distances.

[theplains]

For those not inclined to trust their case to the objectivity of the prosecution, see, for instance, John W. Welch here:

 

http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/PreliminaryReports/Scanned%20Set%201/John%20W%20Welch,%20Finding%20Answers_An%20Unparallel,%201985.pdf

 

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

Thank you for that link.  One portion said, "It is quite apparent from the texts of the Book

of Mormon itself that the Nephites occupied a very small corner of some part of the

Western Hemishere".

 

So its possible that the Nephites only occupied a land in size and location of a country

like Honduras and nothing more?  And the land of promise is really that land?

 

Isn't it purely speculation that the Book of Mormon 'land of promise' refers to all of North/

Central/ and South America (from the North Pole to the South Pole)?

 

Thanks,

Jim

 

[nealr]

Kevin Christensen, if the Super Bowl for a given year was the most epic game with thrilling finish and the team from Houston won, and we had a copy of front page of the Houston newspaper the next day that read "WHAT A GAME!", I'm sure you could make an argument that the game was actually referring to an impromptu volleyball game in someone's backyard.  You may have found a way for these obscure interpretations to work for you, but I don't think anyone else is convinced.  

 

A much better (and honest?) way to do is say, OK Lehi's obviously talking about European colonists.  Ether's obviously talking about Noah's flood.  This is kinda problematic.  But let's be direct and honest about it and see if we can figure out an angle that can preserve faith.

 

Here is the problem: in your Super Bowl example, you have already contextualized the headline. You told us what it was about. And, of course, if that really happened, living then and there and seeing the Newspaper the next morning, it would not be hard to properly contextualize the headline at a glance. Now consider what happens if, 2000 years from that Super Bowl, after all the vast majority of our way of life has disappeared, and most records been lost or destroyed, some archaeologist recovers a fragmentary Newspaper, with just the headline "WHAT A GAME!" What are they supposed to think about it?

 

I'm sure that they will have some kind of sports or games that they naturally read into the headline, but none of that will be very helpful, now will it? And that is just the problem with the Book of Mormon. From the time we are children, we pick it up and read it knowing of course nothing about the cultures or peoples or times that produced it. The results are predictable: We contextualize it through our known world. So of course the waters are Noah's, and the "nations" that come to punish the covenant breakers are Europeans by the 1500s, 1600s, and 1700s, and no body else was here when the Jaradites, Lehites, and Mulekites all arrived. It is just so obvious, right? Yet literally whole books have been written about how this kind of contextualization process actually causes us to misread scripture (or any text from a different time and place than where we live). What Kevin is doing is not "dishonest." He is making the effort to recontextualize the passages in the Book of Mormon into the world in which he believes they actually came from. In that world, the waters of creation were a significant symbol, and it was believed that all earth had emerged from them. In fact, the flood itself was believed to be a reenactment of the creation in this very way. So whether the author meant the waters from the flood or the waters from creation is a legitimate question here.

[Kevin Christensen]

Thank you for that link.  One portion said, "It is quite apparent from the texts of the Book

of Mormon itself that the Nephites occupied a very small corner of some part of the

Western Hemishere".

 

So its possible that the Nephites only occupied a land in size and location of a country

like Honduras and nothing more?  And the land of promise is really that land?

 

Isn't it purely speculation that the Book of Mormon 'land of promise' refers to all of North/

Central/ and South America (from the North Pole to the South Pole)?

 

Thanks,

Jim

Yes. Welch was writing right around the time that Sorenson's Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon was published. So that line of thinking is conspicuous in Welch's response to the publication of the 1923 Roberts study.

Regarding promised land, besides the actual history of what happens in various places designated as lands of promise, 1 Nephi 17:38. "And he leadeth away the righteous into precious lands, and the wicked he destroyeth, and curseth the land unto them for their sakes."

So the promises upon the land are related to both the people who go there and their subsequent behavior relative to the covenant. The promises travel with the people and applies to the land where ever they happen to be.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

[tagriffy]

Yet Ether says nothing about the New World being uninhabited, let alone barren of life. Vogel sees Ether 13:2 as supporting the "notion of a universal flood" (p. 49). "After the waters had receded from off the face of this land [America], it became a choice land above all other lands" (ibid.). But are these waters from the Noah flood or from the creation? (see Genesis 1:7; Moses 2:6-10; Abraham 4:9). Ether is ambiguous.

I'm not exactly sure how much of a difference that is going to make. The land would be empty in either case. In any case, there really is no reason to believe Ether had reference to anything other than the Noachian flood. In the first place, the waters of creation are not described as a flood, but simply the state of the Earth when God began the work of creation. Second, this is not a quotation by Ether, but a summary statement by Moroni written for audience who would haved understood the reference in terms of a universal flood. Finally, the placement of the phrase itself suggests we are talking about the Noachian flood. This phrase is placed after the prefatory comment that Ether "told them of all things, from the beginning of man." Needless to say, the waters of creation were before the beginning of man.

 

 

Moses 7:52 (translated in 1830) described how Enoch received a promise "that a remnant of his seed should always be found among all nations." Noah was a descendant of Enoch. A remnant would hardly be described as "found among all nations" if the remnant comprised all nations. At the very least, the Moses text removes any requirement that the New World be unpopulated after the flood. Vogel acknowledges in a footnote that the Ether 2:5 reference to "that quarter where there never had man been" can be understood as referring to an Old World location (p. 93 n. 94). Nothing in the text rules out the presence of other inhabitants in the New World. The silence of the text regarding non-Jaredite populations must be balanced against its brevity and the possibilities suggested by Enoch's blessing and must be acknowledged as ambiguous.

 

I think there are several points in Moses 7 that underscore the universality of the the Flood, thus requiring the New World be unpopulated after the Flood. The same chapter could refer to all the people outside Zion as the "residue of the people" several times starting in verse 20 even though it is referring to the vast majority of the population, so I wouldn't put too much stock in 7:52. As long as there are human beings, Enoch's seed will be found. And again, subsequent developments, particularly the identification of Adam-ondi-Ahman in present day Missouri pretty much seals the deal. You can't have Adam in America and have Noah wind up in Asia as a result of the Flood unless the Flood covered America as well.

 

Even given the brevity of the text, the silence of the text regarding non-Jaredite populations would be astounding if these populations existed. The story of the Jaredites is one of relentless expansion.  They built cities. Though there were occasional contractions in the population, they rebounded quite easily when the war or famine or whatever was over. They could even set aside the land south of the narrow neck as wilderness preserve with so much confidence no one would settle there they apparently never discovered the Mulekites or the Lehites even though these groups had been there for at least three hundred years before the final battle. And during all this expansion they faced absolutely no opposition from the natives whatsoever? During their numerous civil wars, no other people took advantage of their weakness, even during the final war that led to the complete collapse of their civilization? That their prophets never threatened the people with conquest by these others? And once the civilization did collapse, these other people simply left the land empty and ripe for Mulekite/Nephite/Lamanite expansion? If so, this would defy pretty much everything we know about how humans and nations operate. The simplest explanation for the text's silence regarding others is that there were no others to be dealt with in the text.

 

 

The next bit argues based on an assumption that the assumption that the Biblical flood is global, something I do not accept as necessary or desirable or reasonable. And I think that putting the Garden of Eden in any specific location is rather like the comment of Black Elk, regarding his vision at the top of the highest mountain on the earth. "But anywhere is the center of the world." (See Black Elk Speaks, 36, and compare Nephi and Moses on their mountains.) Eden is symbolically a temple, and Adam symbolically a priest. If "adam" is many, what about Eden?

 

It doesn't really matter whether the Garden of Eden is any specific place. What matters for our purposes is that Adam was placed in a specifc place. And I am not assuming the Biblical flood is global. I am drawing conclusions from the texts say. And the texts depict a global flood. The authors/redactors of Genesis may well be forgiven for thinking the flood was global; their world was much smaller, after all. The modern texts could have gone another way in light of the new knowledge, but it does not. Instead, they affirm and reinforce Genesis.

 

 

Regarding my reading of Nephi's Old World vision of the New World in 1 Nephi 21:1, you have:

 

Doubtful. The angel specified to Nephi what he was looking at: "thy seed, and also the seed of they brethren."

Readings differ. Mine has the advantage of consistency with archeological evidence. Evidence in the ground ought to be a constraint on how we read the evidence of the text.

 

Even if I agreed in principle, there would still be no reason to suppose others are being referred to in this particular text. The text is quite specific and makes perfect sense without supposing it is referring to others. Consistency with archeological evidence isn't going to demand that we overcomplicate relatively straightforward texts. I could see supposing others as, say, an explanation for population problems in the Book of Mormon. For me, that would be an example of using archeological evidence to illuminate the evidence of the text, rather than a constraint. But the archeological evidence doesn't pose a particular problem for 1 Nephi 12:1. There is nothing that needs to be explained here.

 

 

It does a lot of good because it involves a recognition of what the word, and the underlying Hebrew words actually refer to in common use. And it also saves us having to explain away or totally ignore archeology. It saves us from having to accuse faithful saints who have read a bit of apostasy.

 

Having to explain away or ignore archeology is not particularly a problem with me. And given my heresies, you could just send the accusers my way and give them something to really rage about.

 

 

The text doesn't say that they didn't have seven league boots or bullet trains, but I think such things can be safely ruled out on other grounds. The way to resolve ambiguity one way or another is with realistic and reasonable constraints. How far can can a group consisting of men, women, children and flocks travel for 22 days? Have you have tried to guide children and flocks for that span? If they are traveling on foot, how much food can they carry? And if they can't carry 22 days worth of food, the travel time has to account for gathering, hunting, and food preparation. Do they sleep, or not? Sorenson's work, and Gardner's and Poulson's and Clark's and others is all about being comprehensive and careful in his reading, and about using reasonable constraints to resolve ambiguity. It's akin to Barker's notion of being able to stand where they stood in order to see what they saw.

 

Oh, I agree with trying to figure out realistic and reasonable constraints. How far can a group of men, women, children, and flocks travel for 22 days? Assuming 2 m.p.h. for 12 hours a day with no great impediments, they could travel up to 528 miles. The Mormon handcart companies traveled a distance of about 1300 miles between Iowa City and Salt Lake City. The first three companies averaged approximately 12 miles a day. Applied to our Book of Mormon group, that would net 264 miles. Both estimates assume the group isn't in any particular hurry, but in Alma's case they were being chased and had every reason to put and keep as much distance as possible between themselves and the pursuing Lamanites. So we could in theory argue that even the 528 mile figure is on the low end.

 

Speaking of Alma, I had written but deleted something about the complications of estimating the distance between Zarahemla and Nephi based on the text of Mosiah. Then I flipped back to Mosiah 7:4 and simply gave up. That forty days wandering in the wilderness without either crossing the path of Limhi's men or accidentally discovering Helam thoroughly destroyed any attempt I could make to be realistic and reasonable. BTW, it also complicates any case that could be made for others in the area between the two lands.

Edited June 11, 2015 by tagriffy

[tagriffy]

Great discussion! Scripture, by definition, is an authoritative written document that is believed to have been inspired by a higher power. It doesn't have to be infallible, inerrant, or perfect. The problem is that if I start trying to choose what parts are correct and what parts are incorrect, I become the authority. So it is no longer scripture to me. It's like the old joke about honoring nine of the ten commandments - your choice. It just doesn't work.

 

You're raising questions of your own. Correct in what sense? Correct from the standpoint of logos, or correct from the standpoint of mythos?

[tagriffy]

I'm sure that they will have some kind of sports or games that they naturally read into the headline, but none of that will be very helpful, now will it? And that is just the problem with the Book of Mormon. From the time we are children, we pick it up and read it knowing of course nothing about the cultures or peoples or times that produced it. The results are predictable: We contextualize it through our known world. So of course the waters are Noah's, and the "nations" that come to punish the covenant breakers are Europeans by the 1500s, 1600s, and 1700s, and no body else was here when the Jaradites, Lehites, and Mulekites all arrived. It is just so obvious, right? Yet literally whole books have been written about how this kind of contextualization process actually causes us to misread scripture (or any text from a different time and place than where we live).

The basic problem with this line of thinking is that it totally contradicts the Book of Mormon's own statements about its purpose, audience, and even its methodology. As I wrote in my "Environmental Theory" essay,

 

 

When we turn to the text, we find it wants us to understand it. The Book of Mormon repeatedly declares that its prophets spoke clearly. Their plainness was occasionally irritating to others (e.g., 2 Ne. 1:26; Alma 14:2). Nephi argued that God himself speaks clearly to people “according to their language, unto their understanding” (2 Ne. 31:5). The Book of Mormon came forth to restore lost parts of the gospel so the restored knowledge could settle conflicts (1 Ne. 13:34; 2 Ne. 3:12). The book was written with an eye toward easy understanding....

 

As we have noted, the plain sense of a text encompasses both the writer and the intended audience. Both must be reckoned with. Though its authorship may be in dispute, the Book of Mormon itself is fairly clear about whom its intended audience is. Though purporting to narrate ancient history, its narrators declare they are writing to an audience living when the text was published (e.g., 2 Ne. 25:8 ). The material was selected with an eye toward modern readers (e.g., 3 Ne. 23:4). Ideas and trends recorded therein would ring true to its readers (e.g., 2 Ne. 26:16). Occasionally, a narrator directly exhorts his audience, explicitly identified as those living when the work came forth (e.g., Morm. 8:34-41). We have already mentioned the text’s fondness for simple language. According to the Book of Mormon, the original text was written in an extinct tongue (Morm. 9:34), but the interpretation was dictated by God (2 Ne. 27:20), insuring the authenticity of the resulting translation (2 Ne. 3:18-21).

 

If we were talking about a ancient document that was written primary for a contemporary audience, then yes, it would be essential to know something about the peoples and cultures and times in which it was produced in order to avoid misreading the text. That is not the case with the Book of Mormon. Though there are some important caveats that have to be noted, we already have everything we need to avoid misreading it. We contextualize it through our known world, yes. That is exactly what we are supposed to do! Yes, the waters were Noah's, the nations punishing the covenant breakers are the Europeans, and there were no others in the land beside the Jaredites, Mulekites and Lehites. These are the intended readings because they are so obvious to us. This isn't to say that our readings can't be enriched by some knowledge of, say, Israelite or Mesoamerican cultures. What it does mean is that the most proper context in which to read the Book of Mormon is the American context, specifically the American culture of circa 1830. It would be a great disservice to the Book of Mormon to do otherwise.

Edited June 11, 2015 by tagriffy

[nealr]

The basic problem with this line of thinking is that it totally contradicts the Book of Mormon's own statements about its purpose, audience, and even its methodology. As I wrote in my "Environmental Theory" essay,

 

 

If we were talking about a ancient document that was written primary for a contemporary audience, then yes, it would be essential to know something about the peoples and cultures and times in which it was produced in order to avoid misreading the text. That is not the case with the Book of Mormon. Though there are some important caveats that have to be noted, we already have everything we need to avoid misreading it. We contextualize it through our known world, yes. That is exactly what we are supposed to do! Yes, the waters were Noah's, the nations punishing the covenant breakers are the Europeans, and there were no others in the land beside the Jaredites, Mulekites and Lehites. These are the intended readings because they are so obvious to us. This isn't to say that our readings can't be enriched by some knowledge of, say, Israelite or Mesoamerican cultures. What it does mean is that the most proper context in which to read the Book of Mormon is the American context, specifically the American culture of circa 1830. It would be a great disservice to the Book of Mormon to do otherwise.

 

I wrote my missionary journals with the hope of preserving my experiences so my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, etc. could someday read them. Just because I wrote for a future audience does not mean I understood the world they would be living in and know how to express my ideas in a way that would be clear, obvious, and plain in that world. I was still bound up in my own world, certainly writing as plainly and clearly as I could, but that does not mean  that my efforts are not bound up in the manner of my own language, and my own understanding. And just because I want my writing to be understood (do not all writers want this?) does not guarantee that it will be. The argument that they were writing for a future generation, therefore they understood everything about that world falls woefully flat, in my opinion.

 

Of course, you could point out they are prophets who professed to see the world in which the text would come. That is something I accept. But I understand prophets much the same way I understand historians: both are trying to understand a time and place different from their own, and both are tethered to their own world. But have to interpret their data on that different time and place, and the process of interpretation is hopelessly bound up with our own culture and worldviews. So the fact that they were prophets does not mean they were magically able to shed their own culture and understand ours (or Joseph Smith's). At least, I don't think it does, so this really does not get very far with me.

 

There is also the issue of translation. Your argument assumes that (a) the translation was wholly divine, and (b) that God only translates literally. Or, at least, your argument insists that the believer is bound to such a view. I reject both assumptions, however, though that is a can of worms I don't care to open. The simple explanation is that I see no reason to assume that the product of a translation "by the gift and power of God" should be free of all the same phenomena seen in verifiable translations of ancient documents. You yourself write, "If we accept God’s influence, divine involvement does not replace either the effort or the mistakes of human beings." With this, I can agree wholeheartedly. It also applies to the issue of seeing the future and writing for a future audience: even if we assume God is involved in revealing this audience to them, that does not replace the human effort to understand that audience, nor the mistakes that the human authors might make in such an effort to understand. 

 

The notion of a "plain sense" is quite problematic,at least in the case of the Book of Mormon. That is not to say that the average Mormon family, for example, cannot understand the basics of the Book of Mormon and its teachings by assuming the "plain sense" of the text. Everyone can certainly follow Nephi's "liken" principle. But it quickly becomes a precarious foundation for a serious historical investigation. You explain it this way:

 

The other assumption states that, everything else being equal, the safest course is to read the English text in its normal, natural sense. Some scholars may call this the plain sense or plain meaning of the text. We might also call it the literal sense. When we talk of the plain sense of the text, we do not mean taking each word so literally that no room for idiomatic or metaphorical usage is left. The normal, natural sense of a text adjusts for such usage. 

 

 

Yet the "plain sense" is not some static, stable standard. Today, the "plain sense" of several passages maybe quite different from the "plain sense" of 1830. You seem to understand this, and make an argument for tying the plain sense of the passages to immediate audience and perhaps another generation or two beyond that. You brush off the issue of authorship to focus on audience instead, but the issue is not so easily stepped around. Consider the summary you provide of Raymond Brown:

 

The normal, natural sense is that which authors intend and convey to their audience through their use of language. Brown unpacked the meaning of his definition; we can only summarize here. When authors write, they intend for their work to be understood. What they actually convey might be different, but usually intent and effect are the same. Writers intend that certain readers receive their message; these intended readers constitute the audience. Usually, both writers and audiences have a similar background. Language usage includes both the content and context, literary and cultural.

 

 

I see significant emphasis on the author's intent here, but by the end of your foray on "plain sense," no mention of authorship appears at all:

 

In practice, knowing the intended audience guides us as we interpret the Book of Mormon. We must understand that those of us living in the twenty-first century are not the primary audience intended by the text. Usually we can take the words in their ordinary sense as suggested by the cultural context and general tenor of the work. But since the book was published nearly two hundred years ago, we must be alert for shifts in usage and meaning. Knowing the historical background at the time of publication will help us understand its “familiar spirit” (2 Ne. 26:16). The central importance and plain meaning of the English text cannot be set aside if we are to understand the Book of Mormon. 

 

 

 

Only knowing the audience is important. But what about knowing the author and his intent? Author intent and effect are usually the same, but what about when they are not? Author and audience usually have similar background, but what about when they do not? What about when author and audience do not speak the same language? How might these factors affect the intent/effect relationship? 

 

These are important issues when dealing with the Book of Mormon, unless the a priori assumption is that it is not a translation of an ancient text. But if we are going to make that assumption, then there is not much sense in applying "normal tests for dating and authorship" anymore, is there? The circularity of any insistence on using the "plain sense" of the English when testing the authorship is inescapable. Who wrote the text--the author--has to be taken into consideration when trying to deal with the "plain sense" of the text. It is thus not a very useful standard for testing authorship. Those who insist on it inevitably conclude that it is a 19th century text, precisely because it is a standard that inherently favors 19th century readings of the text (well, and because they already accepted the 19th century setting to begin with, and in fact choose that standard because it naturally leads to their preferred conclusions). 

[smac97]

Over the years Church leaders have declared that either the Church is true or it is not,

I believe "true" in this context means essentially "the Church is what it claims to be." I do not think "true" means that the Church is utterly pristine and perfect in all respects.

 

or that the Book of Mormon is true or it is not.

Again, I think "true" in this context means "The Book of Mormon is what it claims to be." That is, it is a translation of ancient records by the gift and power of God. I do not "true" means that The Book of Mormon is utterly without error / fault / defect in form or interpretation.

 

There is no middle ground.

Yep. The Restored Gospel appears to have been restored under such circumstances that muddled, middle-ground, "inspired fiction"-type rationales for explaining the Gospel's origins just don't work.

 

Such a view blows my meager little mind. Where does it end when we live by such a standard?

I think this "standard" is a lot more meta than you are construing it. If I say "I love my wife and have been true to my marital vows," that does not mean that I have never ever made a single mistake in my interactions with or treatment of my wife. On that "micro" level, there are errors and mistakes which I must own. However, at the "meta" level saying I have "been true to my marital vows" would be accurate. The same "meta" definition of "true" should, I think, be used in discussions such as this.

 

Could Nephi have erred in doctrine even once?

In a "micro" way? I suppose. In a "meta" way? Probably not.

 

If you go by the "it's either true or not" line of thinking there must only be truth found in the doctrine, no? There is no middle ground. What about historicity? Well, is the book true or not? If true, then the history that is recorded must not only be considered adequate history keeping, but accurate.

"Accurate" in a meta sense, yes. "Accurate" in that it is a "history" of ancient peoples as recorded on golden plates, which plates were preserved and brought forth and translated by miraculous means, and in that the text is not a piece of 19th-century fiction being passed off as ancient.

 

I'm stumped how this works and would love to hear more thoughts. In the Title page we read, "...if there are faults they are the mistakes of men..." So there must be possibility of mistake and error. If so, then why can't we consider the Book of Mormon both true and not true?

I think "true" is a meta-level reference to its provenance and content.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited June 11, 2015 by smac97

[Kevin Christensen]

Neal is spot on. Here is a bit from Paradigms Regained:

So why do churches need specialist knowledge of Christian traditions? Her answer is that

the images and pictures in which the ideas of the Bible are expressed . . . are specific to one culture, that of Israel and Judaism, and until they are fully understood in their original setting, little of what is done with the writings and ideas that came from that particular setting can be understood. Once we lose touch with the meaning of biblical imagery, we lose any way into the real meaning of the Bible.

It is folly to approach the Bible with a twentieth-century mind, completely unaware of the codes in which it was written. Such a reading of scripture . . . does nothing to build up the faith of the churches. Rather, it leads to a trivialisation of the scriptures and then confusion.4

This statement resonates with 2 Nephi 25:5: "There is none other people that understand the things which were spoken unto the Jews like unto them, save it be that they are taught after the manner of the things of the Jews."

Nephi, though striving to speak with plainness, was not unaware of the significance of culture and the limitations of language. Indeed, Nephi's discourse on plainness in 2 Nephi 25 is also interwoven with observations on what makes someone plain to one person and opaque to another. Nephi has both the knowledge of Jersusalem culture and the spirit of prophesy.

"None other people understand the things which were spoken unto Jews like unto them save it be that they are taught after the manner of the things of the Jews."

He also says he has background and training, including knowledge "concerning the regions round about" that he has not passed along to some of his people.

A few years ago Insights had an essay on Jacob's Mark in which he refers to King James Version and 19th century meanings, settling on "target."

 

At this point, the question should be raised, why worry about what mark used to mean. "What does this have to do with my daily struggles to live the gospel?" In Jacob 4:14 Jacob said that the spiritual blindness of the Jews came by "looking beyond the mark." When it is realized that mark means target in this verse, then the blindness of the Jews is explained: The Jews were not generally blind. They were looking beyond the target and therefore were blind only with respect to the target. If you are going to hit a target, you had better look at the target, and not beyond it. And what does the target symbolize in this verse? As most of my students can say, within the context of this chapter it is clear that the target the Jews should have been focusing on was Christ. Because they were not looking at Christ, they could not see Him and were thus blind to Him. Therefore they stumbled spiritually.

http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1337&index=2

On the other hand, I used Margaret Barker and a passage in Ezekiel to make this argument:

Later, Lehi's son Jacob describes Jews at Jerusalem who "look[ed] beyond the mark," and "despised the words of plainness" (Jacob 4:14). The mark in question must be the same as that referred to by Ezekiel, another temple priest and an exact contemporary. Barker explains what Ezekiel saw in a vision of the angels of destruction summoned to the temple:

An angel was sent to mark the faithful: "Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark upon the foreheads of the men who groan and sigh over all the abominations that are committed in it" (Ezek. 9.4). The Lord then spoke to the other six angels: "pass through the city after him and smite . . . but touch no one upon whom is the mark . . ." (Ezek. 9.5-6). The mark on the forehead was protection against the wrath.

"Mark," however conceals what that mark was. The Hebrew says that the angel marked the foreheads with the letter tau, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In the ancient Hebrew script that Ezekiel would have used, this letter was a diagonal cross, and the significance of this becomes apparent from the much later tradition about the high priests. The rabbis remembered that the oil for anointing the high priest had been lost when the first temple was destroyed and that the high priests of the second temple were only "priests of many garments," a reference to the eight garments worn on the Day of Atonement. The rabbis also remember that the anointed high priests of the first temple had been anointed on the forehead with the sign of a diagonal cross. This diagonal cross was the sign of the Name on their foreheads, the mark which Ezekiel described as the letter tau.21

This must be the meaning of Jacob's mark; therefore, it quite literally meant for Book of Mormon peoples to take upon themselves the name of Christ—that is, the name of the anointed.

http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1459&index=4

The point is a 19th century contextualization and a Jerusalem 600 BCE contextualization on this point lead to very different meanings. And we can't both be right. I don't think his reading is bad, just, not nearly as rich and meaningful as the one I offered.

And that is just one simple word.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

Edited June 16, 2015 by Kevin Christensen

[tagriffy]

I wrote my missionary journals with the hope of preserving my experiences so my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, etc. could someday read them. Just because I wrote for a future audience does not mean I understood the world they would be living in and know how to express my ideas in a way that would be clear, obvious, and plain in that world. I was still bound up in my own world, certainly writing as plainly and clearly as I could, but that does not mean  that my efforts are not bound up in the manner of my own language, and my own understanding. And just because I want my writing to be understood (do not all writers want this?) does not guarantee that it will be. The argument that they were writing for a future generation, therefore they understood everything about that world falls woefully flat, in my opinion.

 

They wouldn't need to understand everything about the future generation. They would only need to understand enough about the future generation that they can write to it without the result being unintelligible mush. And as it so happens, there is common ground--the Bible. The removal of "plain and precious things" (1 Nephi 13:40) aside, the Book of Mormon and the Bible are intended to "run together" (2 Nephi 2:8f.). The Book of Mormon might correct a given misunderstand based on a straightforward reading of the Bible, such as when Helaman 12:15 corrects the Joshua story, but otherwise its own reading of the Bible is pretty straightforward. So, for example, when it comes to the Noachian flood, the Book of Mormon does nothing to correct the idea it was global and that it affected the Americas. Indeed, given what it does say, it would seem to affirm it. The best case scenario if Keven is right is that there is a note of ambiguity, but that is hardly enough to establish the case he is trying to make from it.

 

Also keep in mind that writing for a future generation is an entirely different thing than writing to a future generation. You can hope that the future generation will understand, and if they don't, there will be enough information available for them to look it up if necessary. Nevertheless, for you, it is not an imperative that they understand your journals without any particular knowledge of your time, language, and culture. The Book of Mormon doesn't have the luxury of merely hoping it will be understood. And it doesn't have the luxury of waiting until enough information about Israelite and/or Mesoamerican cultures is available to its audience in order to be sure it is properly understood. The Book of Mormon doesn't expect the world to be around long enough to wait. It needs to be understood now.

 

 

Of course, you could point out they are prophets who professed to see the world in which the text would come. That is something I accept. But I understand prophets much the same way I understand historians: both are trying to understand a time and place different from their own, and both are tethered to their own world. But have to interpret their data on that different time and place, and the process of interpretation is hopelessly bound up with our own culture and worldviews. So the fact that they were prophets does not mean they were magically able to shed their own culture and understand ours (or Joseph Smith's). At least, I don't think it does, so this really does not get very far with me.

 

By and large, I understand prophets as speaking primarily to their contemporaries. Future generations might might be on their minds, but they are not fundamentally trying to understand a time and place different from their own. Their concern is for (their own) here and now, and if future generations can take something from it, so much the better. This is not the situation depicted in the Book of Mormon, though. Mormon's task (and the task of the other narrators) is to select and shape the material they have expressly for the purpose of addressing "our" own culture and worldview. It was a task given to them by God whom they relied upon whom they relied upon to "prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them" (1 Nephi 3:6). The narrators are not unaware of the problems of speaking to a future audience even though they are inextricably bound to their own time and culture. We see this in Mormon's musing that the record would be perfect if it could have been written in Hebrew (Mormon 9:33) or Moroni's complaint that the record would be mocked because of his "weakness in writing" (Ether 12:23). They are not relying on themselves to get it right, but on God to be the guarantor their work would transcend their culture and understanding and be able to address the people they were writing to.

 

 

There is also the issue of translation. Your argument assumes that (a) the translation was wholly divine, and (b) that God only translates literally. Or, at least, your argument insists that the believer is bound to such a view. I reject both assumptions, however, though that is a can of worms I don't care to open. The simple explanation is that I see no reason to assume that the product of a translation "by the gift and power of God" should be free of all the same phenomena seen in verifiable translations of ancient documents. You yourself write, "If we accept God’s influence, divine involvement does not replace either the effort or the mistakes of human beings." With this, I can agree wholeheartedly. It also applies to the issue of seeing the future and writing for a future audience: even if we assume God is involved in revealing this audience to them, that does not replace the human effort to understand that audience, nor the mistakes that the human authors might make in such an effort to understand.

 

You're quite mistaken that my argument assumes that God only translates literally or that the believer is bound to such a view. There is nothing--I repeat, nothing--in what I wrote that insists God only translates literally. The translation could have been literal, it could have been dynamic, it could have been a paraphrase. For the purpose of Book of Mormon interpretation, what I am saying is that the ur-text is irrelevant. It is the English text that is primary.

 

Does that make the translation wholly divine? I don't know about that. That seems to me to be a theological judgment, and I am primarily concerned with interpreting the text. And here is what the Book of Mormon says about its own translation: "I will give unto him that he shall write the writing of the fruit of thy loins.... And the words which he shall write shall be the words which are expedient in my wisdom should go forth unto the fruit of thy loins.... Wherefore thou shalt read the words which I shall give unto thee" (2 Nephi 3:18, 19; 27:20). This suggests that, whatever type of translation we are dealing with, the text was dictated and the translator simply recorded what he was told. Of course, D&C 9:7f. significantly modifies this view, but the bottom line is still the same: God himself is the guarantor that the English text accurately conveys what the Nephite authors wrote.

 

While there would still be some caveats to be duly noted, this means the English text says what it means and means what it says. Other things being equal, if we read the English text in its normal, natural sense, we're going to be on the right track when it comes to interpreting it.

 

I see significant emphasis on the author's intent here, but by the end of your foray on "plain sense," no mention of authorship appears at all:

 

 

By the end of the essay, my thoughts about authorship are quite clear. I've set those conclusions aside for the sake of this discussion, but let's not pretend I said nothing at all about the subject in that essay, OK?

 

 

Author intent and effect are usually the same, but what about when they are not? Author and audience usually have similar background, but what about when they do not? What about when author and audience do not speak the same language? How might these factors affect the intent/effect relationship?

 

If the author and audience don't have a similar background, chances are the audience reading the work is not the intended audience. If they don't speak the same language, then you translate as best as you can, preferably with the author superintending the translation, if not doing it him/herself. If intent and effect are not the same, things get interesting. Usually it means the author didn't communicate clearly, and studying exactly how the disconnect happened would be an interesting study in itself. I would guess that how the relationship is affected would depend on how the disconnect happened in the first place.

[Robert F. Smith]

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

 

I think there are several points in Moses 7 that underscore the universality of the the Flood, thus requiring the New World be unpopulated after the Flood. The same chapter could refer to all the people outside Zion as the "residue of the people" several times starting in verse 20 even though it is referring to the vast majority of the population, so I wouldn't put too much stock in 7:52. As long as there are human beings, Enoch's seed will be found. And again, subsequent developments, particularly the identification of Adam-ondi-Ahman in present day Missouri pretty much seals the deal. You can't have Adam in America and have Noah wind up in Asia as a result of the Flood unless the Flood covered America as well.

There is worldwide folklore of a Great Deluge, but that doesn't require that there need have been waters that covered Everest.  That is just silly.  Many scholars (including some Mormon scholars) think that this hails from the great Pluvial rains at the end of the last Ice Age.  No reason why such legends cannot have become part of biblical literature -- along with all the rest.

 

Even given the brevity of the text, the silence of the text regarding non-Jaredite populations would be astounding if these populations existed. The story of the Jaredites is one of relentless expansion.  They built cities. Though there were occasional contractions in the population, they rebounded quite easily when the war or famine or whatever was over. They could even set aside the land south of the narrow neck as wilderness preserve with so much confidence no one would settle there they apparently never discovered the Mulekites or the Lehites even though these groups had been there for at least three hundred years before the final battle. And during all this expansion they faced absolutely no opposition from the natives whatsoever? During their numerous civil wars, no other people took advantage of their weakness, even during the final war that led to the complete collapse of their civilization? That their prophets never threatened the people with conquest by these others? And once the civilization did collapse, these other people simply left the land empty and ripe for Mulekite/Nephite/Lamanite expansion? If so, this would defy pretty much everything we know about how humans and nations operate. The simplest explanation for the text's silence regarding others is that there were no others to be dealt with in the text.

You make a number of unsupportable assumptions here (relentless expansion, inevitability of encountering each other, etc.) which do not jibe with anthropological reality:  Great as Olmec civilization was, they rose and fell in synch with the Jaredite rise and fall.  Later civilizations are ignorant of their existence, even though they were deeply influenced by their achievements (writing, astronomy, calendar, religion, etc.), not even knowing what they called themselves.  Moreover, they rose and fell in Mesoamerica.  Your "relentless expansion" is nonsense.  So too is your notion (here and below) of unimpeded travel in those times.  Rain forest (jungle) is tough, and one can easily go around in circles.  I did it as a young Marine for nearly five days in the jungle in Taiwan, accompanied by nearly 200 men.  We got lost and could not get resupplied.

 

It doesn't really matter whether the Garden of Eden is any specific place. What matters for our purposes is that Adam was placed in a specifc place. And I am not assuming the Biblical flood is global. I am drawing conclusions from the texts say. And the texts depict a global flood. The authors/redactors of Genesis may well be forgiven for thinking the flood was global; their world was much smaller, after all. The modern texts could have gone another way in light of the new knowledge, but it does not. Instead, they affirm and reinforce Genesis.

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

Part of the problem here is the common misinterpretation of the Hebrew word for "land, earth," being taken to be planetary, rather than local and regional.  The texts can be taken either way, according to one's preconceptions.

 

 

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

Oh, I agree with trying to figure out realistic and reasonable constraints. How far can a group of men, women, children, and flocks travel for 22 days? Assuming 2 m.p.h. for 12 hours a day with no great impediments, they could travel up to 528 miles. The Mormon handcart companies traveled a distance of about 1300 miles between Iowa City and Salt Lake City. The first three companies averaged approximately 12 miles a day. Applied to our Book of Mormon group, that would net 264 miles. Both estimates assume the group isn't in any particular hurry, but in Alma's case they were being chased and had every reason to put and keep as much distance as possible between themselves and the pursuing Lamanites. So we could in theory argue that even the 528 mile figure is on the low end.

 

Speaking of Alma, I had written but deleted something about the complications of estimating the distance between Zarahemla and Nephi based on the text of Mosiah. Then I flipped back to Mosiah 7:4 and simply gave up. That forty days wandering in the wilderness without either crossing the path of Limhi's men or accidentally discovering Helam thoroughly destroyed any attempt I could make to be realistic and reasonable. BTW, it also complicates any case that could be made for others in the area between the two lands.

None of this would be strange or unexpected in an unknown area of rain forest (jungle) or swamp.  A little anthropological reality is always helpful, i.e., "realistic and reasonable" according to the actual experiences of explorers, archeologists, and the Conquistadores.  This applies across the board to all manner of issues in the Book of Mormon debate.

[Brant Gardner]

Deleted, entered in error.

Edited June 14, 2015 by Brant Gardner

[tagriffy]

There is worldwide folklore of a Great Deluge, but that doesn't require that there need have been waters that covered Everest.  That is just silly.  Many scholars (including some Mormon scholars) think that this hails from the great Pluvial rains at the end of the last Ice Age.  No reason why such legends cannot have become part of biblical literature -- along with all the rest.

 

What in the world has that got to do with anything? This isn't about what events may lie behind the text. This is about what the text says.

 

 

You make a number of unsupportable assumptions here (relentless expansion, inevitability of encountering each other, etc.) which do not jibe with anthropological reality:  Great as Olmec civilization was, they rose and fell in synch with the Jaredite rise and fall.  Later civilizations are ignorant of their existence, even though they were deeply influenced by their achievements (writing, astronomy, calendar, religion, etc.), not even knowing what they called themselves.  Moreover, they rose and fell in Mesoamerica.  Your "relentless expansion" is nonsense.  So too is your notion (here and below) of unimpeded travel in those times.  Rain forest (jungle) is tough, and one can easily go around in circles.  I did it as a young Marine for nearly five days in the jungle in Taiwan, accompanied by nearly 200 men.  We got lost and could not get resupplied.

 

I'm making conclusions derived from the text and what we know of human history. Almost right from the beginning after the Jaredites landed, "they began to spread upon the face of the land, and to multiply and to till the earth; and they did wax strong in the land" (Ether 6:18). They would build "many mighty cities" (e.g., 9:23); Coriantumr could see "that there had been slain by the sword already nearly two millions of his people" (Ether 15:2), to say nothing of Shiz's dead; always fought civil wars; become rich though trade is never mentioned. Everything they did was done unimpeded and unopposed--which, if true, would probably be the only time in history that has ever happened. Later civilizations may have been ignorant of the Olmecs, but the Olmecs' contemporaries would have almost certainly known about them, and vice versa. In fact, we know they did.

 

I offered two examples of what is possible. One did assume relatively unimpeded travel though still going a relatively slow pace. According to Wikipedia, the average human walking speed is about 3.1 m.p.h.; I personally walk at about 3.75 m.p.h. The other example came from historical treks where we know what terrain the participants had to cross and something of the weather conditions as well. Notably, this kind of information is almost entirely absent from the Book of Mormon. You're assuming they are wandering through jungles; I am not. The text doesn't give any indication of what the terrain was like. They went into the "wilderness" and that is all we are told. Anything beyond that is assuming facts not in evidence.

 

 

Part of the problem here is the common misinterpretation of the Hebrew word for "land, earth," being taken to be planetary, rather than local and regional.  The texts can be taken either way, according to one's preconceptions.

 

Certainly preconceptions play a role, but it is the context in which the word is placed that will determine meaning. And at every point along the way, from the announcement of God's intention to the final denouement, the global nature of the Noachian flood is stressed--repeatedly. So much so that the authors would probably be shocked at the suggestion their portrayal of the Great Deluge was only local and regional. True, the Israelites' conception of the world was much smaller than we now know it to be, but that has nothing to do with what the text says.

 

 

None of this would be strange or unexpected in an unknown area of rain forest (jungle) or swamp.  A little anthropological reality is always helpful, i.e., "realistic and reasonable" according to the actual experiences of explorers, archeologists, and the Conquistadores.  This applies across the board to all manner of issues in the Book of Mormon debate.

 

You're right. It wouldn't be strange or unexpected in an unknown area--of any type. Mosiah 7:4 was basically the last straw in trying to work my way through the complications. First, Zeniff makes the trip down to Nephi, back up to Zarahemla, and then down again with apparent problems. Some time later, Alma's group leaves the cities and founds Helam after an eight day journey. Later on, Noah's priest founded Amulon. Limhi sends out his party, who not only manage to avoid discovering Helam and Amulon, but manage to bypass Zarahemla and wind up in territory formerly possessed by the Jaredites. They make it back "not many days before the coming of Ammon" (Mosiah 21:26), who had been wandering around for forty days, without crossing paths with Limhi's party or accidentally discovering Helam and/or Amulon. Now add in the complications that both Ammon/Lehi's group and Alma's group were being pursued by armies--and they knew it! This time Ammon didn't apparently get lost, though the Lamanite army did, discovering both Amulon and Helam by accident. What is "realistic and reasonable" enough to account for all that? A lot of it is going to depend on terrain--which is not described in the text. Assuming jungle or swampland has far less support in the text than anything I've said.

[Kevin Christensen]

Larry Poulson's approach to the story of Limhi's explorers not only accounts for how they missed Zarahemla, but also for what they described on their journey, and where they found a site that they could have mistaken for Zarahemla. Among other things.

http://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2008-Larry-Poulsen.pdf

The texts we have regarding the flood also have to fit with what we find in the geographic and biological records.

https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/issues/134.pdf

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

[Robert F. Smith]

What in the world has that got to do with anything? This isn't about what events may lie behind the text. This is about what the text says.

You are certainly entitled to read the text in whatever way you wish, preconceptions and all, but you do need to own up to that.  My recommendation is that you read the text more professionally, say in the way suggested by David Bokovoy, Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis - Deuteronomy (SLC: Kofford Books, 2014).

 

 

I'm making conclusions derived from the text and what we know of human history.

To the contrary, you are ignoring what the text actually says, and you are likewise ignoring human history.  You bring to the text a broad set of preconceptions, and they control your reading and understanding.

 

Almost right from the beginning after the Jaredites landed, "they began to spread upon the face of the land, and to multiply and to till the earth; and they did wax strong in the land" (Ether 6:18). They would build "many mighty cities" (e.g., 9:23); Coriantumr could see "that there had been slain by the sword already nearly two millions of his people" (Ether 15:2), to say nothing of Shiz's dead; always fought civil wars; become rich though trade is never mentioned. Everything they did was done unimpeded and unopposed--which, if true, would probably be the only time in history that has ever happened. Later civilizations may have been ignorant of the Olmecs, but the Olmecs' contemporaries would have almost certainly known about them, and vice versa. In fact, we know they did.

You will note that the Olmec did not spread throughout the continent, bur remained within a very small area of Mesoamerica.  Your primary mistake is to read "land, earth" to be continental here, which is a reading you impose on the text.  The only place in the Americas where such large numbers (millions) of warriors could be assembled was in Mesoamerica.  Why?  Because they, and they alone, had the population base.

 

I offered two examples of what is possible. One did assume relatively unimpeded travel though still going a relatively slow pace. According to Wikipedia, the average human walking speed is about 3.1 m.p.h.; I personally walk at about 3.75 m.p.h. The other example came from historical treks where we know what terrain the participants had to cross and something of the weather conditions as well. Notably, this kind of information is almost entirely absent from the Book of Mormon. You're assuming they are wandering through jungles; I am not. The text doesn't give any indication of what the terrain was like. They went into the "wilderness" and that is all we are told. Anything beyond that is assuming facts not in evidence.

Again, we must condition our assumptions based on anthropological reaiity.  You do not, and you do not even take notice of the fevers in Alma 15:3,5, and 46:40.  You assume your own set of facts not in evidence.

 

Certainly preconceptions play a role, but it is the context in which the word is placed that will determine meaning. And at every point along the way, from the announcement of God's intention to the final denouement, the global nature of the Noachian flood is stressed--repeatedly. So much so that the authors would probably be shocked at the suggestion their portrayal of the Great Deluge was only local and regional. True, the Israelites' conception of the world was much smaller than we now know it to be, but that has nothing to do with what the text says.

Or what you want the text to say, or what you will allow it to say.  Again, you need to read Bokovoy's study.  As Kevin points out, we need to condition our wild assumptions with some geographic and biological facts, in addition to understanding that the Hebrew word for "land, earth" does not require a planetary meaning -- such as you apparently assume.

 

You're right. It wouldn't be strange or unexpected in an unknown area--of any type. Mosiah 7:4 was basically the last straw in trying to work my way through the complications. First, Zeniff makes the trip down to Nephi, back up to Zarahemla, and then down again with apparent problems. Some time later, Alma's group leaves the cities and founds Helam after an eight day journey. Later on, Noah's priest founded Amulon. Limhi sends out his party, who not only manage to avoid discovering Helam and Amulon, but manage to bypass Zarahemla and wind up in territory formerly possessed by the Jaredites. They make it back "not many days before the coming of Ammon" (Mosiah 21:26), who had been wandering around for forty days, without crossing paths with Limhi's party or accidentally discovering Helam and/or Amulon. Now add in the complications that both Ammon/Lehi's group and Alma's group were being pursued by armies--and they knew it! This time Ammon didn't apparently get lost, though the Lamanite army did, discovering both Amulon and Helam by accident. What is "realistic and reasonable" enough to account for all that? A lot of it is going to depend on terrain--which is not described in the text. Assuming jungle or swampland has far less support in the text than anything I've said.

There is only one place in the Americas where high civilization, writing, astronomy, math, etc., were developed, and that is Mesamerica.  We know the terrain and the various cultures which existed there.  You are playing guessing games where none are necessary.