CES Letter 15 17

[TheSkepticChristian]

8 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

the words of Paul into the mouth of Mormon, t

Now that may be the only evidence of plagiarism in the entire Book of Mormon. It is not Smoking Gun against the Book of Mormon because most LDS believe that Paul and Mormon received the same message, but the critics can reasonably conclude plagiarism for that one. 

9 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

know from personal experience that God can -- and does! -- give close to the exact same words to different people. I've lived that reality'.

How convenient. FairMormon says, "Prophets are not fax machines; they do not simply "download" messages from God. Rather, God inspires prophets through a variety of means" 
http://en.fairmormon.org/Question:_How_do_Mormons_understand_prophetic_revelation%3F

Oh well, I guess we must conclude that God made an exception for some reason. 

[Avatar4321]

how do you plagiarize something you never know claimed as your own?

Why are we to presume that the Book of Mormon plagarizes a Book so unknown andup unsimiliar that no one came up with the theory for almost two hundred years? If it was well known enough for an unschooled unschooled farmboy on the new York frontier, why did no one else from the area notice it?

 

[consiglieri]

On ‎12‎/‎26‎/‎2015 at 1:47 PM, TheSkepticChristian said:

Why would someone plagiarize some words, style, and small phrases? It doesn't make sense. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMRuUynC9i4

As to the small phrases from the KJV which appear throughout the Book of Mormon text, I think it is clear that whoever produced it was amazingly well-versed in the King James Bible . . . sufficiently so to place snippets and short quotes from the same throughout the text, likely without consulting the KJV to do so.

This is, of course, almost certainly a different situation from the large segments of KJV Bible text that also appear in the Book of Mormon.

[consiglieri]

16 hours ago, Stargazer said:

But is it plagiarizing to openly quote a work?  When Nephi reproduces Isaiah, he makes clear that what he's writing is from Isaiah, and cites the source as the Brass Plates.  Now, you might think that he should have just referred to Isaiah by chapter and verse so we could look it up, but there's two problems with that approach.  First is that I don't think the Book of Isaiah was subdivided into chapters and verses at the time of Nephi.  Next is that the Book of Isaiah is not universally available -- because printing hadn't yet been invented.  They had one copy of the Brass Plates.  

The following seems a case of unattributed plagiarism in the Book of Mormon . . .

 

 

Quote

 

 Moroni 7:45 And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

 

 

 

 

Quote

 

 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

 5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

 6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

 7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

 

 

 

[consiglieri]

19 minutes ago, Avatar4321 said:

how do you plagiarize something you never know claimed as your own?

Why are we to presume that the Book of Mormon plagarizes a Book so unknown andup unsimiliar that no one came up with the theory for almost two hundred years? If it was well known enough for an unschooled unschooled farmboy on the new York frontier, why did no one else from the area notice it?

 

This is probably not the best argument against Book of Mormon dependence.

[consiglieri]

16 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Actually, Tecumseh and his brother are excellent parallels with Jared and his brother.

This statement intrigues me.

I know a lot about Jared and his brother.

Tecumseh and his brothers I am not too good on.

What parallels do you see?

[TheSkepticChristian]

1 hour ago, consiglieri said:

As to the small phrases from the KJV which appear throughout the Book of Mormon text, I think it is clear that whoever produced it was amazingly well-versed in the King James Bible . . . sufficiently so to place snippets and short quotes from the same throughout the text, likely without consulting the KJV to do so.

This is, of course, almost certainly a different situation from the large segments of KJV Bible text that also appear in the Book of Mormon.

I was talking about the Late War 

[Stargazer]

On 12/28/2015 at 8:33 AM, Rajah Manchou said:

Samuel Mitchill is not of uncertain status. He was one of the leading intellectuals in America at the time. Joseph Smith knew of him and had sent Martin Harris to meet him and show him characters supposedly copied from the plates. Mitchill met Harris and (according to Harris) claimed the Book of Mormon characters resembled those of an extinct nation, which he named. 

"He [Professor Charles Anthon] replied 'I cannot read a sealed book' I left him and went to Dr. Mitchell, who sanctioned what Professor Anthony had said respecting both the characters and the translation." [PJS 1:285-286 and HC 1:20]

Thanks for identifying him.  I said uncertain status because I had not heard of him, or the other guy that endorsed the book, and neither man was identified in the book as to any qualifications or position they might have which would give us, in these later days at least, any reason to suppose they were of any academic status.  How many Dr. Mitchells were there in New England, anyway?  I'm glad somebody can tell the Dr. Mitchells from one another.

This still does not do anything to support the idea that this book The Late War had ever been in Joseph Smith's hands.

[Stargazer]

On 12/29/2015 at 4:39 PM, consiglieri said:

The following seems a case of unattributed plagiarism in the Book of Mormon . . .

 

Dear consiglieri, it is perhaps plagiarism if the Book of Mormon is not a translation from an ancient document, but a work that came forth from Joseph Smith's fertile imagination.  If the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be, and what is claimed for it, then it is merely a case of God revealing the same eternal truths to people everywhere who are willing to receive them.  Surely God is permitted to quote Himself?  If Moroni writes down an eternal divine principle which he has received from God, how can it be plagiarism?  Just because Paul received the same thing from the same source and wrote it down as well?

[canard78]

On 12/26/2015 at 5:33 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

A number of faithful Mormon scholars concluded long ago that Joseph used a Bible when he came to lengthy quotations.  Makes good, practical sense to me, and I agree.

For example, the 1977 Ensign said:

Quote

"In fact, the language in the sections of the Book of Mormon that correspond to parts of the Bible is quite regularly selected by Joseph Smith, rather than obtained through independent translation. For instance, there are over 400 verses in which the Nephite prophets quote from Isaiah, and half of these appear precisely as the King James version renders them. Summarizing the view taken by Latter-day Saint scholars on this point, Daniel H. Ludlow emphasizes the inherent variety of independent translation and concludes: “There appears to be only one answer to explain the word-for-word similarities between the verses of Isaiah in the Bible and the same verses in the Book of Mormon.” That is simply that Joseph Smith must have opened Isaiah and tested each mentioned verse by the Spirit: “If his translation was essentially the same as that of the King James version, he apparently quoted the verse from the Bible."

 

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1977/09/by-the-gift-and-power-of-god?lang=eng

Doesn't this raise a wider question though. If the evidence leans towards Joseph Smith "opening Isaiah" to read out the King James Version verbatim, why is this never mentioned by Oliver or other witnesses of the translation process. If the only logical explanation for the lengthy verbatim passages is that Joseph is quoting directly from a book right in from of him (the bible) and yet this process was never mentioned by Oliver or any other, is it possible that Joseph could have also quoted from other sources (either to copy them of to "test" them "by the Spirit" depending on your view of how the Book of Mormon was produced? 

 

[canard78]

On 12/23/2015 at 7:07 PM, TheSkepticChristian said:

i think he did a good job. Bytheway, did the Napoleon book plagiarize the late war? 

Both apologists and critics should be careful about paralellomania. 

How could the Napoleon book plagiarise TLW when the former was published over a decade before the latter?

As for the Late War as source material, no I don't think that Joseph plagiarised it. Instead, if we want to see what a historical narrative of the Americas might sound like if written in the early 19thC, in the King James style (as the Late War claims to be) then the Late War is a very good example of that.

The fact that both the Late War and Book of Mormon sound so familiar in many places is probably not because of plagiarism but rather because that's what writing history in the Biblical style sounded like at the time, with a sprinkling of 19thC phrases thrown in. Again, you can choose to believe that was done under inspiration or not in the case of the Book of Mormon.  

[RevTestament]

On Sunday, December 27, 2015 at 7:44 PM, cinepro said:

Here's another way to look at it:

Suppose The Late War had been published in 1840 (10 years after the publication of The Book of Mormon) instead of 1816.  Now go and read the first page again:

The Late War

Could you find evidence in "The Late War" that the author had probably read "The Book of Mormon" and borrowed words, phrases and events from it?  I'll bet that would be a pretty easy argument for Book of Mormon scholars to make.  I suspect it's only because The Late War was published before The Book of Mormon that it becomes harder to see.

There are other books which use "borrowed words, phrases," etc - I view it as simply a manner of speech in the high King James prose being used from book to book. For instance many other books of the time refer to "stripling" and "narrow neck of land," etc. Books simply don't use these words anymore, but at the time it was high prose, which God could definitely choose to communicate His word to the English world at the time. Simply because the Book of Mormon uses these same phrases by no means make Joseph Smith a plagiarist. Ellen White surely plagiarized, but not Joseph Smith. Not even claims that He copied the KJV hold up to close scrutiny because there are too many differences.

[canard78]

On 1 January 2016 at 9:19 AM, Stargazer said:

Thanks for identifying him.  I said uncertain status because I had not heard of him, or the other guy that endorsed the book, and neither man was identified in the book as to any qualifications or position they might have which would give us, in these later days at least, any reason to suppose they were of any academic status.  How many Dr. Mitchells were there in New England, anyway?  I'm glad somebody can tell the Dr. Mitchells from one another.

This still does not do anything to support the idea that this book The Late War had ever been in Joseph Smith's hands.

Have a read of this BYU article to understand more about Mitchell:

 https://journals.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/JBMRS/article/viewFile/20211/18747

The conclusion suggests he was more important in giving Martin Harris the confidence to mortgage his farm than the visit with Anthon. Anthon gets more attention because of what he's supposed to have said. Mitchell on the other hand seems to have said more of significance to Harris. 

The fact that Joseph sought out Mitchell for an endorsement of his 'American history in the biblical style' (just like the Late war did) might be a complete coincidence of course.

Joseph at least follows a pattern that is similar to what others of his time did. I fully agree that there's no conclusive evidence that TLW was source material or that Joseph had ever even heard of it. 

But, if the Book of Mormon is a 19thC production then to demonstrate this one must build a pattern of behaviour from other known 19thC productions. 

Books like View of the Hebrews and The Late War don't have to be copied sources. Instead they can be just as compelling examples of what a modern (19thC) production looks like, the ideas it promoted, the language is used, the publication process it followed. It's not parallelomania to compare VotH and TLW to the BoM. Instead it's contemporary benchmarking. 

[Stargazer]

2 hours ago, canard78 said:

The fact that Joseph sought out Mitchell for an endorsement of his 'American history in the biblical style' (just like the Late war did) might be a complete coincidence of course.

Uh... what?  Joseph sought Mitchell out?  He knew of Mitchell?  Where did you get that idea?  It seems to me that Joseph wouldn't have had any notion of any Dr. Mitchell, or, for that matter, any Prof. Anthon.  He just sent Martin Harris, or, probably more likely, Martin Harris sent himself because he needed reassurance from some "authority" that he wasn't about to mortgage his farm on some fool's errand.  In fact, where would Martin Harris have gotten the idea that either Anthon or Mitchell existed?  Or did he just go to Columbia College because it was the closest school of higher education available to him?

That was an interesting article you pointed out, by the way.  Thanks for that.

[canard78]

3 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Uh... what?  Joseph sought Mitchell out?  He knew of Mitchell?  Where did you get that idea?  It seems to me that Joseph wouldn't have had any notion of any Dr. Mitchell, or, for that matter, any Prof. Anthon.  He just sent Martin Harris, or, probably more likely, Martin Harris sent himself because he needed reassurance from some "authority" that he wasn't about to mortgage his farm on some fool's errand.  In fact, where would Martin Harris have gotten the idea that either Anthon or Mitchell existed?  Or did he just go to Columbia College because it was the closest school of higher education available to him?

That was an interesting article you pointed out, by the way.  Thanks for that.

Yes, it's possible that Harris stumbled on Mitchell by accident and on his own.

According to a shorter version of the history by the same author, that focuses more on Mitchell/Harris he says:

"According to Anthon’s own accounts, Harris first visited Mitchill, who wrote him a letter referring him to Anthon..."

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/richard-e-bennett_martin-harris-and-three-wise-men/

Edited January 3, 2016 by canard78

[Calm]

On December 21, 2015 at 11:07 AM, TheSkepticChristian said:

Brian Hales just created a video about the CES Letter. He says the CES letter has a lot of parallelomania. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAr-JnmPWoM

 

 

Here is another one on the First Vision:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3BryhvG4LPwTUFF_BjF_Rw

[TheSkepticChristian]

On 1/2/2016 at 11:38 AM, canard78 said:

How could the Napoleon book plagiarise TLW when the former was published over a decade before the latter?

that is my point