Ancient "non-utilitarian" metal bow found in Arabian Peninsula

[Nevo]

50 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

False, Nevo.  The practice was certainly widespread, and consisted of more than just four plates.

I stand corrected: the practice was geographically widespread and texts of up to eight pages have been found. But I think you'll agree that ancient Israelite scribes did not commonly write on metal plates and that there are no extant examples of book-length texts being written on metal plates (and certainly no Bible-length texts).

Edited March 13, 2016 by Nevo

[canard78]

47 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I see that you have already forgotten TT's kind comments on my and RT's exchange, and the fact that you appreciated it.  It takes two to tango, Nevo.  An irenic exchange is based on mutual respect and attention to substance, rather than name-calling.

Your tone is frequently patronising and disrespectful. It's somewhat ironic to see you try to teach someone a lesson on name-calling. 

[Robert F. Smith]

8 minutes ago, canard78 said:

Your tone is frequently patronising and disrespectful. It's somewhat ironic to see you try to teach someone a lesson on name-calling. 

Perception is everything in our world, but it is possible to have respectful, irenic (not ironic) dialogue.   I do it all the time.  However, it does take two, canard.  It is very easy to lay instant blame and to call names.  Happens all the time on this board.  Respect cannot simply be one-sided.  The reason that RT and I had an irenic (not ironic) exchange on another board is that he and I were interested in substantive argument, not in winning.  That is my tone, and it is not well liked by those whose main objective is a zero sum game.

[Robert F. Smith]

29 minutes ago, Nevo said:

I stand corrected: the practice was geographically widespread and texts of up to eight pages have been found. But I think you'll agree that ancient Israelite scribes did not commonly write on metal plates and that there are no extant examples of book-length texts being written on metal plates (and certainly no Bible-length texts).

Yes, I agree.  That sort of thing would never be common, and we should not expect it to be.  The Plates of Brass should be a one-of-a-kind collection of biblical text, from which vellum, papyrus, and other serviceable texts could be copied or translated.  Was that sort of thing done on a small scale?  Yes, of course, and there is nothing preventing it being done on a large scale on rare occasions.

[canard78]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Perception is everything in our world, but it is possible to have respectful, irenic (not ironic) dialogue.   I do it all the time.  However, it does take two, canard.  It is very easy to lay instant blame and to call names.  Happens all the time on this board.  Respect cannot simply be one-sided.  The reason that RT and I had an irenic (not ironic) exchange on another board is that he and I were interested in substantive argument, not in winning.  That is my tone, and it is not well liked by those whose main objective is a zero sum game.

I don't know whether it's intended or just your manner of speech but if you are really interested in irenic dialogue then your tone could do with reflecting that. 

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, canard78 said:

I don't know whether it's intended or just your manner of speech but if you are really interested in irenic dialogue then your tone could do with reflecting that. 

Yeh, they harped on repentance a lot a Church today, and I think that Brant Gardner sets a good example in his tone.  But it still takes two, canard.  Even if I am as horrible as you suggest, it still takes two to tango.

[canard78]

14 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yeh, they harped on repentance a lot a Church today, and I think that Brant Gardner sets a good example in his tone.  But it still takes two, canard.  Even if I am as horrible as you suggest, it still takes two to tango.

Very true. I'll take your comments on board and try to tango "irenically" (not ironically). 

As it happens, I've been really trying hard lately to have dialogue, instead of taking pot-shots. If I'm going to stay on this board and engage in the discussions, I'd rather do so as a "non-believer" as opposed to an "anti-mormon." There are plenty who achieve that so I'm sure I can take their lead.

[canard78]

21 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

As I said at the outset above:  " Archeological evidence is always incremental.  It never stands on its own.  This discovery simply shows that the technology to make such weapons (bow, quiver, and arrows) existed in Lehi's day in South Arabia.  There was heretofore no such direct evidence, something which the naysayers always demand.  Of course, we already knew that such technology existed in Judah in Lehi's time."

Maybe I am simply too slow to get it.  Please explain to me the flaw in my statement.  Thanks..

I didn't get back to you on this comment (I was too busy grumbling about your tone).

I'm still trying to get my head around what these artifacts provide evidence for.

The discovery shows:

They were able to make bow/quiver/arrow shaped ornaments out of brass. Was that ever in question until that discovery?

It showed they knew what an actual bow, quiver and arrow looked like.

Anything else? My issue with this is that the question at hand is whether we have evidence for functioning steel (or any metal) bows in 600BC? Finding bronze, non-functional, bows that can be dated to 900-600BC doesn't provide evidence that they could also create functioning metal bows. It just shows that they could make a model of a functioning bow. Not a functioning metal bow.

[UtahTexan]

5 minutes ago, canard78 said:

Very true. I'll take your comments on board and try to tango "irenically" (not ironically). 

As it happens, I've been really trying hard lately to have dialogue, instead of taking pot-shots. If I'm going to stay on this board and engage in the discussions, I'd rather do so as a "non-believer" as opposed to an "anti-mormon." There are plenty who achieve that so I'm sure I can take their lead.

I understand that perception is everything...but it was YOUR posts I found demeaning and rude.  Hence my earlier comment to you.  Maybe it is not your intent, nor his.....but I have seen from you.  I understand that words on a screeen do not always reflect the mood and mind of the writer...still.....

[canard78]

30 minutes ago, CountryBoy said:

I understand that perception is everything...but it was YOUR posts I found demeaning and rude.  Hence my earlier comment to you.  Maybe it is not your intent, nor his.....but I have seen from you.  I understand that words on a screeen do not always reflect the mood and mind of the writer...still.....

Don't worry. I'll still be rude to you if it helps you pity me a bit more

[UtahTexan]

37 minutes ago, canard78 said:

Don't worry. I'll still be rude to you if it helps you pity me a bit more

lol...yeah...some folks like to be pitied...others deserve it...some fit into both categories.  I just find it odd when someone who is rude accuses someone else of being rude and then plays victim.  The thing is, I enjoy y'alls posts......just wish the personal stuff was left out.

[Robert F. Smith]

6. autobiographical writing, at http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/65410-learning-of-the-jews-language-of-the-egyptians/?page=2#comment-1209498925 , in which you were carrying on a lengthy discussion with Neal Rappleye:

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Nevo, May 27, 2015, replied to Neal Rappleye:

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On 5/27/2015 at 2:30 PM, nealr said:
In any case, as slim as the evidence is, it goes a lot further than the 19th century does to providing some context for 1 Nephi 1:2. The very idea of Jews writing in Egyptian 1830 was viewed as utterly absurd, to say nothing of the odd phrasing "learning of the Jews and language of the Egyptians". What could that possibly mean in a 19th century context?

I think the idea of Jews of Nephi's era composing long first-person accounts in Egyptian (or in Hebrew using Egyptian writing) is probably still seen as absurd. When Robert refers to "the widespread use of hieratic Egyptian in Israel and Judah before and during the lifetime of Lehi" let's be clear that what we're talking about here is the use of hieratic numerals and units of measurement for counting grain measures and so on. As Calabro acknowledges, there are in fact no extant examples of hieratic Egyptian being used outside of accounting contexts in late 7th-century/early 6th-century Judah. Now it may have been and we just don't know about it due to the fragmentary nature of what has survived, but I don't think we can say at this point that what Nephi is doing fits perfectly with what we know about the time and place. It may, in fact, be wholly unprecedented. Aside from the novelty of writing in Egyptian, Judahite scribes of the time didn't typically write in their own name (or on metal plates). According to Karel van der Toorn, "authors" per se didn't emerge until the Hellenistic era; before then, anonymity was customary (see Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007], 39). Indeed, as Konrad Schmid notes, "the first author of a biblical book who is known to us by name appears only around 180 B.C.E. in the person of Jesus Sirach (Sir 50:27–29)" (Schmid, The Old Testament: A Literary History, trans. Linda M. Maloney [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012], 23).

If you want me to speculate about how 1 Nephi 1:2 could possibly fit a nineteenth-century context, I think you're probably aware that "Egyptomania" was very much a part of Joseph Smith's culture in the 1820s and later. As Samuel M. Brown describes it, "antebellum America at times seemed to hum with Egyptomania. . . . For many nineteenth-century Americans, Egypt represented a crucial source of human culture and civilization, particularly though not exclusively in its intersections with ancient biblical culture. Egypt was the source of writing, the arts, astronomy, and magic. Masons and others sought wisdom from the priest-god Hermes (Thoth), while various writers saw Egypt as one important source of ancient American civilization, citing Native mummies, Mesoamerican petroglyphs, and other artifacts that seemed reminiscent of Egypt" (Brown, "Joseph (Smith) in Egypt: Babel, Hieroglyphs, and the Pure Language of Eden," Church History 78 [2009]: 42–43). Given this context, the Book of Mormon's account of descendants of Joseph of Egypt coming to America, establishing a civilization, and keeping a record in Egyptian doesn't strike me as particularly outlandish. 

RFS reply to Nevo:

Quote

David Bokovoy likewise objects that the Bible doesn’t exhibit any first-person accounts such as are found throughout the Book of Mormon.[1]  However, we are discussing a document engraved in Egyptian by trained scribes, and ancient Egyptian literature features a plethora of first-person narrative accounts, such as the Shipwrecked Sailor, Wenamon Report, Tale of Sinuhe,[2] Dispute of a Man with His Ba,[3] and many autobiographical tomb inscriptions, such as those of Weni the Elder,[4] Harkhuf,[5] Ahmose son of Ebana,[6]  and Ahmose Pen-Nekhebet,[7] aside from all the first person songs, such as the Songs of the Harpers,[8] which have their parallel in the biblical Song of Songs.

[1] Bokovoy, Authoring the Old Testament, 3 vols. (SLC: Kofford, 2013-  ), I:193-194, claiming that “we do not have any type of record from the world of the Bible comparable to the Book of Mormon in which named narrators present their true history as a type of autobiographical narrative” – citing K. van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible, 117.

[2] Context of Scripture,  3 vols. (Brill, 1997-2002), I:77-84,89-93.

[3] COS, III:321-325; cf. TPPI, 17,5; 20,4, and Urkunden VII, 2.9.

[4] Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature (UC Press, 1973). I:18ff; 6th dynasty.

[5] Lichtheim, AEL, I:23-27; 6th dynasty.

[6] Lichtheim, AEL (UC Press, 1975), II:12ff; 18th dynasty.

[7] Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, II, §§ 17ff., 40ff; 18th dynasty.

[8] COS, I:48-50, of Intef, Neferhotep, etc.

Nevo reply to me:

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Hi Robert,

I don't think most of your examples answer David's objection that "we do not have any type of record from the world of the Bible comparable to the Book of Mormon in which named narrators present their true history as a type of autobiographical narrative." The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, Wenamon Report, Tale of Sinuhe, and Dispute of a Man with His Ba are not actual autobiographical accounts. They're fictional stories. The autobiographical tomb inscriptions come closer to what Nephi is doing, but they don't seem a likely model for the Small Plates. Nephi isn't simply writing his epitaph. He's self-consciously authoring a book—part personal narrative, part exhortation—that he hopes will lead people to believe in Christ and endure to the end. I think we have to admit that this is unusual behavior for the time and place.

RFS reply to Nevo:

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Actually many scholars consider the Wenamon Report and the Tale of Sinuhe to be factual accounts.  However, the very fact that the form and genre of first person accounts is so extensive in ancient Egypt exposes the primary problem with merely looking at the Bible in order to make final judgments about the ancient world.  Another thing:  Egyptian scribal students spent a great amount of time reading and copying Egyptian literature.  So, the finding of many motifs from Egyptian stories in the Book of Mormon is no surprise -- especially those from the Tale of Sinuhe.

I recommend a look at the long comments of both Rappleye and Nevo in that thread.

Edited March 13, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

On 3/11/2016 at 9:57 AM, Nevo said:

............................................., the Brass Plates,....................................................................

5.  the Brass Plates,

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Nevo, July 18, 2015, at http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/65702-who-inscribed-the-brass-plates/#comment-1209515703  ,
I find the whole idea of there even being brass plates to be problematic. As Robert L. Millet notes in the Book of Mormon Reference Companion, "the plates of brass were like the Old Testament but more extensive (1 Ne. 13:23)" (emphasis mine).

They apparently contained:

Lehi's genealogy (1 Ne. 3:12; 5:14)
the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy (1 Ne. 5:11)
"a record of the Jews from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah" (1 Ne. 5:12)
prophetic oracles "from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah" (1 Ne. 5:13) — including those of Isaiah, Deutero-Isaiah, and Jeremiah, as well as the writings of non-biblical prophets such as Zenos, Zenoch, Neum, and Ezias
If all of this was inscribed on bronze or copper plates, I am surprised that anyone could actually lift the thing. Book-length texts were typically written on scrolls, not on metal plates and not in codex form (which is generally agreed to have been invented later). In this case, we're talking about a collection of dozens(?) of books. (By way of comparison, the Isaiah scroll found among the Dead Sea Scrolls—one book—is 11 inches high and 24 feet long.)

It's also doubtful that all of these writings were extant when Lehi left Jerusalem (e.g., Deutero- Isaiah) and that they were already being joined together as a defined set of authoritative scriptures. Furthermore, the Torah, the prophetic writings and the historical books are generally conceded to have been the product of scribes attached to the palace or temple and housed in royal and temple archives—which were closed to the public. Apart from the king, it's unlikely that any Israelite or Judean family had leave to obtain private copies of these texts.

Kevin Christensen replied July 20, 2015:

Quote

The commencement of the reign of Zedekiah corresponds to the Babylonian defeat of the Egyptians. My own theory is that the plates were done at the instigation of the Egyptians for purposes of prestige and as a rescource for training their civil servants in the ways of the people whose rule they administered. The script chosen was chosen not because it was simple, but because it was Egyptian and compact.

Remember that the Septuagint itself was commissioned by a late Egyptian ruler. Jehoiakim has been installed by the Egyptians, and deposed by the Babylonians.

With the plates having been prepared during Jehoiakim's puppet reign, that would also be a period when the Deuteronomist reformers were disrupted to a degree.

With the defeat of the Egyptians, the sponsorship and intended purpose of the plates would be disrupted. They sat in Laban's treasury. If Lehi was a metal-smith, he'd probably know about the project. Nephi shows evidence of having undergone scribal training as well, so he'd be able to use and benefit from the plates.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburgh, PA

RFS reply,

The Book of Mormon nowhere suggests that the Plates of Brass were private, familial copies of biblical texts. Just the opposite, when we consider that they were in possession of Laban (probably a Manassite or Ephraimite), a Captain of Fifty, and a member of the elite.  Whether Lehi and Nephi were descended from a clan of royal scribes once serving the Northern Kingdom, we do not know, but that would explain a lot.

Engraven in Egyptian, they were far more space-saving than any Hebrew text or version of the Scriptures, but we have no idea from the text as to how long they had been in existence.  We do know of other collections of brass plates: 1 Maccabees 8:22, 14:18,26 deltois chalkais, "So then they wrote [it] in tables of brass," 14:48, "commanded that this writing should be put in tables of brass"; 11QTemple (11QTora) 34:1 "tablets of bronze"; 3QTreasure (3Q15, the two-part copper plate rolled up like scrolls).  Cf. Habakkuk 2:19 “metal plate”; 1 Nephi 3:3,12. However, note also 2 Esdras (4 Ezra) 14:24 “box trees” (KJV marg rdg “boxe tables to write on”), “writing tablets” (NRSV) in obscure characters (14:42 NRSV).

Alan Millard interprets Hebrew gillayon gadol (Isaiah 8:1  2 Nephi 18:1; cf. Isaiah 3:23) as “large writing tablet,” saying:

Quote

 In light of the Ketef Hinnom amulets, the “large writing tablet,” gillayon gadol, may denote a sheet of metal, assuming the gilyonim of 3:23 are “mirrors,” on which letters would need to be written by incision with a graving tool (heret).[1]

Cf. Isaiah 30:8 Hebrew lûaḥ “plate, tablet” (a permanent record), as in lûaḥ (sēper);  ḥqq “engrave” = bʻr  “incise” in Habakkuk 2:2 – with a ḥereṭ “stylus.”[2]  Such a stylus or engraving tool could be metal itself, or a very hard stone such as flint or obsidian.  A gold-copper alloy such as tumbaga would have a very thin, soft surface and thick, hard interior, thus making engraving relatively easy.  In Jeremiah 17:1 an iron stylus with a diamond tip is described, even if meant metaphorically.

---

[1] Alan Millard, “`Take a large writing tablet and write on it’: Isaiah – A writing prophet?” In Katherine J. Dell, Graham Davies,  and Yee Von Koh, eds., Genesis, Isaiah and Psalms: A Festschrift to Honor Professor John Emerton for his Eightieth Birthday (Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2010), 115-116. My thanks to Matt Roper, who called this source to my attention.

[2] F. I. Andersen, Habakkuk, Anchor Bible 25 (Doubleday, 2001), 203-204.

Edited March 13, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

On 3/11/2016 at 9:57 AM, Nevo said:

......................................................, scribalization of prophecy,........................................................................

7.  the Scribalization of Prophecy

Quote

Nevo, Aug 3, 2008,
On another thread Sargon wrote: "The task of [Old Testament] scholars is to provide for us a picture of what ancient Israel was like. When they do this we quickly see that traditional understandings were wrong, and that modern ones often parallel LDS beliefs. Can the same be said of any other faith?"

Well, here is a counter-example. I am interested to find out how those here who take critical biblical scholarship seriously respond to this statement from a highly regarded OT scholar:

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The Book of Jeremiah is paradigmatic of the books that the Bible attributes to pre-exilic prophets: the prophets who gave their names to the books wrote neither those books nor the oracles they contain; the Neviim are the work of scribes. The scribes who composed the books used written records based on the recollections of partisans and supporters of the prophets; separate oracles existed in written form before the collections took shape....Working with written sources of various kinds, the composers of the prophetic books expanded the prophetic materials by a process of relecture, creative citation, and appropriation of written oracles from anonymous prophets.
By the early exilic period, written oracle collections had become an established phenomenon with the literate elite of the Jews; as a result, the authority of the prophets became a scriptural authority. This development would have several consequences, one of which was the "scribalization" of prophecy. Once prophecy had become a written genre, new prophets employed writing as the principal means of disseminating their ideas. The anonymous individual known as Deutero-Isaiah is likely to have been a prophet of the new stamp: he wrote his message, instead of preaching it in the streets. In the late Persian and the early Hellenistic periods, the posthumous transformation of prophets into writers was complete; those wishing to emulate the prophets, such as the author of the visions of Daniel (Dan 7-12), presented their work as scribal activity.

-- Karel van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 203.

In the Book of Mormon, of course, writing prophets abound. This is consistent with Joseph Smith's idea that prophets wrote "books" (Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Ether, Lehi, Nephi, Jacob, et al. all kept written records), but it doesn't seem to fit the Book of Mormon's alleged pre-exilic context. Or was Lehi a scribe? (If so, how did he become a wealthy merchant, and Nephi a metallurgist?)

As a sidenote, do we find the Book of Mormon's obsession with record-keeping, with its detailed history of transmission, in any other ancient writings?

RFS reply:
Some of what was said in #5, above, is applicable here.
However, it should also be added here that the obsessive-compulsive keeping of detailed records and sequential annals is something one particularly expects from royal scribes, once again suggesting that both Lehi & Nephi (and their successors in the New World) were descendants of a clan of royal scribes once serving the Northern Kingdom – until the destruction of Samaria by the Assyrians.  Note the very useful eponym calendars kept by the Assyrian and Babylonian royal scribes.  One assumes that this was normal at every royal court in the Near East.  The only reason for the profusion of Assyrian and Babylonian examples is because they were incised in clay tablets, which have survived the millennia.  Such annalistic records were also kept by the cultures in Mesoamerica, which is why John Sorenson sees the Book of Mormon as a Mesoamerican Codex.

The comparison with Jeremiah and his scribes Baruch and Seraiah is certainly relevant, and one might thus compare Lehi and his scribe Nephi.

Edited March 13, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[Nevo]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The Book of Mormon nowhere suggests that the Plates of Brass were private, familial copies of biblical texts. Just the opposite, when we consider that they were in possession of Laban (probably a Manassite or Ephraimite), a Captain of Fifty, and a member of the elite.  Whether Lehi and Nephi were descended from a clan of royal scribes once serving the Northern Kingdom, we do not know, but that would explain a lot.

I will say again at the outset that I don't find it at all plausible that a collection of Israelite proto-biblical texts far more extensive than our current Old Testament was engraved on metal tablets (in Egyptian!) in the pre-exilic period. There is no ANE evidence of lengthy texts ever being inscribed on metal, much less entire libraries. The examples that have been mentioned in this thread are all quite brief. One of the longest that I'm aware of, the Copper Scroll (3Q15), takes up just three typeset pages in my English edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It's hard to imagine someone in the 7th century BCE, faced with the mammoth task of copying the equivalent of a thousand-plus pages of typeset text, opting to use brass plates rather than standard parchment scrolls. And it's even harder to imagine Deutero-Isaiah being among the copied records.

Kevin C's theory at least has the benefit of explaining how the Brass Plates came to be written in Egyptian, which is otherwise difficult to account for. But I'm still not clear on how the plates ended up in Laban's house. Presumably the copying would have taken place in the Jerusalem Temple library/archives, where the originals were located. Given that the Brass Plates were one-of-a-kind and must have cost a fortune to produce, how did they come to be stored outside the temple or palace archives? And how did Lehi's genealogy end up on them?

For Nephi to have composed 1 and 2 Nephi he would pretty much have to have been a trained scribe, but how then did he become an expert metalworker? Not to mention a skilled bow hunter and excellent mimic?

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Nevo said:

I will say again at the outset that I don't find it at all plausible that a collection of Israelite proto-biblical texts far more extensive than our current Old Testament was engraved on metal tablets (in Egyptian!) in the pre-exilic period. There is no ANE evidence of lengthy texts ever being inscribed on metal, much less entire libraries. The examples that have been mentioned in this thread are all quite brief. One of the longest that I'm aware of, the Copper Scroll (3Q15), takes up just three typeset pages in my English edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It's hard to imagine someone in the 7th century BCE, faced with the mammoth task of copying the equivalent of a thousand-plus pages of typeset text, opting to use brass plates rather than standard parchment scrolls. And it's even harder to imagine Deutero-Isaiah being among the copied records.

Kevin C's theory at least has the benefit of explaining how the Brass Plates came to be written in Egyptian, which is otherwise difficult to account for. But I'm still not clear on how the plates ended up in Laban's house. Presumably the copying would have taken place in the Jerusalem Temple library/archives, where the originals were located. Given that the Brass Plates were one-of-a-kind and must have cost a fortune to produce, how did they come to be stored outside the temple or palace archives? And how did Lehi's genealogy end up on them?

I know of no one who has suggested that the Plates of Brass were begun in the 7th century BC, and I have already mentioned several times the likely connection of Manassite Lehi to the former Northern Kingdom as a likely descendant of a family of royal scribes.  No connection with Judah and it's temple and royal archives need be inferred.  Such a metal codex would have to have been continuously added to over the centuries, and would likely include earlier forms (in Egyptian) of what we know from later Massoretic Hebrew texts.  Certainly adding recent Jeremiah would not take place anywhere near a royal library or temple archive, since Jeremiah was out of favor, and the king was hostile to anything Jeremiah's scribes produced.  In fact, Lehi may have done some of that copying work himself before he was called as a prophet.  He was certainly well aware of the existence of the Plates.

The Book of Mormon itself says that other materials are perishable, and that is the rationale for the existence and maintenance of the Plates.  As to Second Isaiah, that is a theoretical construct which may have more to do with the Isaianic School than with any certain dates for its initial production.

For Nephi to have composed 1 and 2 Nephi he would pretty much have to have been a trained scribe, but how then did he become an expert metalworker? Not to mention a skilled bow hunter and excellent mimic?

In our own modern times of specialization, it is hard to remember that such multiple abilities used to be quite common on the frontier and in earlier societies.  Hugh Nibley is an excellent example of just such a polymath who possessed deep knowledge and ability acquired over time in several areas:  He was an expert outdoorsman, top man in his junior ROTC unit, expert pianist, expert poet, extraordinary linguist, scholar, professional military intelligence expert, etc.  In addition to all that, he was a husband and father to eight children -- whom he took camping.  One has to be a genius to begin with, true, but (even then) how did he manage to find the time to publish so widely and so quickly throughout a lifetime?

Of course Nephi was a trained scribe (like his father), but he was also a blacksmith and expert hunter.  Other members of the family simply did not have his abilities.  He was a gifted and obedient child.

 

[Cold Steel]

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FROM THE STORY:  The fact that they are made of metal implies that they were non-functional. Quivers of this kind have never been found in the Arabian Peninsula, and are extremely rare elsewhere. 

Dr. Nibley always believed that these so-called steel bows were a composite. And just because steel existed in those days, we shouldn't fall into the old trap of thinking about it in modern terms. Today's steel is plentiful, strong, malleable and versatile. Depending on the carbon content and the heat treat, steel can be so hard that it takes a lasting edge in knives. But if it's too hard it becomes brittle and chips and breaks. It also can be so tough you can use it as a prying tool and it will bend and not break (good qualities for a bow), but it will lose much of its strength and will bend and not snap back (lousy qualities for a bow). I suspect the bows were wood with steel inserts, or insets, that added strength to the bow. In Nephi's case, it most likely wasn't the steel inset that broke, but the wood around it. Until we actually find one, we won't know. 

As for the bronze bows, I see the same old mindset that has plagued science so long. "The fact that they are made of metal implies that they were non-functional." Given Nephi's account, that's not necessarily the case. Bronze statues may have needed props, or they may have been ceremonial (as I'm sure many rulers and military elite might not be entirely comfortable with people carrying REAL weapons and particularly projectiles. Still, it's good to consider all options. But if they were functional, I don't see why anyone would just leave them lying around. 

And six arrows per quiver? Is that why revolvers traditionally carry six rounds? Did early proponents of bow control push to outlaw any quiver capable of carrying more than ten arrows? 

 

[J Green]

On ‎3‎/‎14‎/‎2016 at 11:06 PM, Nevo said:

For Nephi to have composed 1 and 2 Nephi he would pretty much have to have been a trained scribe, but how then did he become an expert metalworker? Not to mention a skilled bow hunter and excellent mimic?

Nevo,

After training, the majority of scribes in the Ancient Near East did not actually serve as scribes. They went on to train in other fields, e.g., diplomacy and statecraft for the palace, studying medicine, promoting trade by accompanying caravans, etc. Only a minority of students actually served the temple or palace in the career field of scribe by copying texts. And many trained scribes had multiple careers in different fields. (I don't have my notes with me at work, but these are not controversial statements to make -- a quick search on the appropriate literature in Google Books should verify this.) So I don't think we should find it odd that Lehi and Nephi might be trained as scribes yet still have another skill (or multiple skills), some within a family/guild context. And that fits a larger pattern: if they had merely functioned as scribes for the temple, then they likely would have already known their genealogy, they wouldn't be reacting to some of the biblical texts they expound on as if they are encountering them for the first time, and they might not have these additional skills. I see a kind of consistency in all of these indicators.

Cheers,

Joey

[Robert F. Smith]

On 3/11/2016 at 9:57 AM, Nevo said:

I don't consider myself an "anti-Book of Mormon critic" per se, but I've addressed a number of these points, as well as several others, on this board: Nahom, Khor Kharfot, hieratic script, writing on metal plates, the Brass Plates, autobiographical writing, scribalization of prophecy, etc. RT at Faith-Promoting Rumor has compiled a massive list of arguments against the historicity of 1 Nephi (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). The cumulative case he makes is, I think, devastating. But as far as I can tell it has been greeted with silence from you and just about every other apologist. Jeff Lindsay, to his credit, attempted a response, but was way out of his depth.

As promised by me previously, I took a careful look at the seven items addressed by you above, and either referred specifically to the discussion elsewhere or dealt with them again here in this thread by the numbers.  I found that most had already been dealt with adequately, and that none posed any legitimate problem for the Book of Mormon.

As to RT's book-length discussion (I have yet to read parts 2 & 3), which was years in preparation, it cannot really be dealt with effectively in a mere blog.  Not having read Jeff Lindsay's response, I cannot say whether it is effective or not.  I will say this of part 1, aside from its breadth, I was puzzled at times that RT would dredge up earlier failed arguments and misinterpretations.  Take his assertion that the three days of travel mentioned in I Nephi 2:6 are the distance from Jerusalem to the Valley of Lemuel.  Brent Metcalfe made that erroneous assertion to me over thirty years ago in the presence of others.  I scotched that notion then by showing the actual context, and followed up with a full discussion by letter of distance terminology and usage.  I thought that I had put that puppy to bed.  Obviously not.  Old, failed arguments continue to arise from the dead like zombies which cannot be killed.

Edited March 15, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[Nevo]

6 hours ago, J Green said:

After training, the majority of scribes in the Ancient Near East did not actually serve as scribes.

Hi Joey, it's great to see you posting again. These scribal threads always seem to draw you out

I'm sure you've read more on the subject than I have, so I'll take your word for it that "the majority of scribes in the Ancient Near East did not actually serve as scribes."

I realize that our understanding of scribal education in ancient Israel is still sketchy, but I was under the impression that it was very highly specialized and that training as a professional scribe generally took several years (scribes being not only copyists, but also, often, authors and editors).

• Christopher Rollston writes, for example: "Old Hebrew scribes were meticulous about the morphology and stance of the letters they penned. . . [and] about maintaining precise conventional spatial relationships of letters. I would argue that this sort of precision must be the result of specialized curricular training in script production" ("Scribal Education in Ancient Israel: The Old Hebrew Epigraphic Evidence," BASOR 344 [2006]: 59). Rollston also observes that mastering the "complicated" Egyptian hieratic numeric system indicates that there was "formal, standardized scribal training" (66–67). He suggests that "scribal elites educated scribal elites in ancient Israel" and that the training likely took place "under the aegis of the royal administration" (68).
   
• Van der Toorn asserts that "in the First Temple period the demand for written documents was presumably too limited to allow scribes to subsist as freelance professionals. Private scribes in Mesopotamia worked for large estates and merchant houses; the scale of the economy in Palestine hardly offered such opportunities. . . . Scribes in Israel were attached to the palace or the temple" (Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture, 82). He goes on to say that "epigraphic evidence suggests that . . . the formation of scribes who were 'expert and wise' required a program of study provided only in the temple school" (97). This program of study probably consisted of two phases: "In the first phase, students acquired the basic skills of writing, composition, and eloquence. The second stage of the curriculum was devoted to the memorization and study of the classic texts of their trade and their culture. Further specialization is likely to have occurred, presumably in the form of an individual traineeship" (98).

If we imagine that Nephi learned to speak and write fluently in Egyptian—not only in contemporary demotic, but also in archaic hieratic—as well as in Hebrew (and probably Aramaic), mastering not only the Israelite but also the Egyptian scribal curriculum, then his scribal education must have been very extensive indeed. You suggest that we shouldn't "find it odd that Lehi and Nephi might be trained as scribes yet still have another skill (or multiple skills)," but that really does strike me as unusual. It seems weird to me to undergo years of highly specialized training to become part of a "scribal elite," only then to turn around and make gold bracelets for a living. (Although, having picked up the book Shop Class as Soulcraft a few years ago, I kind of get it.)

Edited March 15, 2016 by Nevo

[J Green]

Nevo,

Always great to talk to you. And thanks for the thoughtful response. Give me a few hours to get home and think through a more holistic answer. Right after Shop class.

Cheers,

Joey

[J Green]

Nevo,

I think you have a valid question on the alternate skills of Nephi, and I'll use this as a segue into my observations on the RT-Smith discussion. But first a note on the scribal profession. This kind of observation about scribes in the ANE is common:

• "Scribes could also go on to specialize in specific styles/fields and copy texts in those disciplines. After their training, most scribes went on to careers that did not involve copying of literary works, instead finding positions as administrators; a small percentage of scribes worked for private individuals or firms. Only a handful found employment as scholars, who, among other activities, copied literary texts. Scribes who worked in some connection with the palace also often copied. (Mark B. Garrison, "Antiquarianism, Copying, Collecting," In D. T. Potts (Ed.), A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012], 29.)"

See also chapter two in Phillip R. Davies, Scribes and Schools (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), who lists those with scribal training going on to fill administrative, diplomatic, civil servant, and military advisory positions. See also Donald B. Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel, in Ancient Times (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992), where he lists trained scribes as filling most of the functions in civil service and Royal government.

Your citation from Van der Toon is from Chapter 4 (part II in a series), which is not focused on scribal training and career choices after this training. What I recommend is going back to Chap 3 (Part I in the series; I won't give you page numbers because it appears your edition is different than mine). Here Van der Toon tells us that scribal training was generally given to most of the children of the social elite, many of them moving into court administrative and other careers. He even includes writings from a King talking about how he aced his scribal training (and shop class) in his youth. He ends Part I by saying that after this training, a small number of these students would go on to be copyists and scholars of the literary tradition. This small group is the focus of Chapter 4, identifying those behind copying and canonizing the Hebrew literary tradition. So you wouldn't expect to find a discussion about other careers after scribal training in this chapter. Your quotes are talking about the employment of the actual profession of scribes (those who remain scholar/copy scribes after training). The fact that there are likely few of these positions in Judea only makes my point more forcefully -- that many of those from the social elite who have been trained in this way are required to enter other careers. But even in this chapter Van der Toon notes that the word for scribe, sōpēr, has a definition that stretches beyond that of a copyist to that of its other functions in the government -- secretary, Secretary of State, royal official, etc. And the word certainly is used with those other meanings in the HB. I think it's fair to say that the majority of the literature that discusses scribal training and its role in the context of ancient government notes the transition from school to careers that are not those of strictly copyists.

You had a question about the time factor, saying that what Nephi has ahead of him comprises too much training. Van der Toon points out that the most complex training for scribes occurs in Egypt (even more so than Mesopotamia), due to extended literary traditions, multiple languages, different alphabets, and the most complex and comprehensive civil service and administrative functions to train in after scribal training. And yet even here, basic scribal training lasts approx 4-5 years, and advanced training up to 12. Most scholars who receive advanced training are done before they're 20 (see chap 3). Many scribes were taught in family scribal schools, so if we envision a teenage Nephi leaving Jerusalem, then having Lehi on hand for another eight years and for some time after they arrive in the New World, there is certainly more than enough time for him to have advanced training.

So I think where you might be off a bit is in asserting that is unusual for scribes to have other professions after their training (even advanced training). But I think you are right to question what type of profession that might be. Hence the humerous notion of Nephi making bracelets after all his student debt from Egyptian grad school. This is certainly different than what we see in the transition from scribal training to, say, diplomacy, for example. But here let me sidetrack to the RT-Smith discussion for a moment before coming back to this idea of scribes also being metalworkers.

I very much enjoyed RT's tone and command of the subject matter. As with most extended arguments, some of his issues are better articulated than others, but many times I found him unwilling to use his extensive command of the subject to consider other scenarios. One example: He critiques Nephi's failure to mention anyone else already living in the Arabian Peninsula at the time of their journey. Surely there would have been someone noticed, he asks. Well, perhaps noticed, but possibly not mentioned. Priestly scribes after the exile hardly mentioned those who had been living back home. Either they were simply ignored in the narrative or they were given vague labels such as "people of the land" that scholars still try to define adequately to this day. What does that mean? Were they foreign others or fellow countrymen with doctrinal differences? Or both? Priestly scribes at Qumran took a very similar approach in failing to document many of the people around them, often simply ignoring the Romans or those running the temple complex, sometimes using vague code words to refer to them. And there are other examples of this priestly lack of attention to others. So is it that odd to think that a priestly group of scribes leaving Jerusalem would take a similar approach when documenting their own 'isolation' ("as on an isle of the sea") while technically among others? Kent Brown notes that later Nephites talk about their ancestors' captivity (read: slavery) during these eight years (see Voices from the Dust), so possibly there are hints -- as at Qumran and in post-Exilic Jerusalem  -- that there really are others around them but that the priestly Nephites (who later see curses as a priestly dividing mechanism) are simply going to ignore them or fit them into their own code word labels ("Lamanites" etc.). My impression was that RT used his considerable knowledge to simply shut down a theory rather than to fruitfully flesh out its possibilities. Phillip Davies is famous for saying that scholarship is supposed to create problems instead of answer questions. It is supposed to be about opening up and exploring possibilities. Yet RT seemed more than happy to simply answer questions in a way that implied no other alternatives.

 But one of the major themes in this discussion is the so-called paucity of names and elements of culture with an actual Hebrew origin. RT says that the names of Lehi's children are not of Hebrew Origin. Bob counters with possibilities for these names in a Hebrew context. But what if RT is right but simply isn't lusing the right paradigm? Lehi doesn't know his own Hebrew genealogy but he is supposedly some kind of priest. That is odd. (Apparently he has at least some ties to a Hebrew tribe but doesn't have much knowledge about it.) And his kids may not have common Hebrew names, although there may be some loose connections. He also may be a metalworker, although that profession was not common among the Israelites. He also may have had scribal training.

So one solution is to look for possibilities outside of a strictly Israelite paradigm that still is similar to it. One option is a branch of the Kennites, a people who had close ties to the Israelites and even intermarried with them and were occasionally counted as part of their tribal affiliation while still remaining in separate family clans. There was a group of them living near Jerusalem at the time of Jeremiah, so there could have been other groups that lived there as well. And since Jethro they had sometimes taken positions of trust in Israelite society, acting as scribes and metal workers. And they had ties to the copper mines and metalworking areas in the Arabah, which is where Lehi and his family travel after they leave Jerusalem. There can be an answer in the consistency of something that always seems just off. Just like Nephites consistently and deliberately took no notice of their "people of the land" (but perhaps did obliquely), creating a pattern that may seem off until you look at it from a priestly perspective. In this case all the evidence seems to favor something that is half Hebrew or superficially Hebrew in some instances. But there might be a consistency in this pattern that points to other options that might be fruitful to explore. The D&C traces a priesthood lineage quite apart from Israelites through a Kennite line. So is it that far off to connect this to a Kennite priesthood line that has Kennites priestly scribes also as trained metalworkers? Those who almost fit the Israelite scribal pattern but not fully?

So to answer your original points, I think you are a bit off in the assumption that Israelite scribes or scribes generally in the ANE didn't have other training, although I think you are right to identify that in this instance, metalworking as an additional profession isn't the normal pattern for Israelite scribes. But if you take all of these observations of things that may almost fit a pattern but not quite and then line them up, perhaps we might find something that changes our assumptions and fits together rather well. I'll be the first to admit that there is not enough in the text for any definitive answers, but I would much prefer to keep exploring alternatives and following Davies' lead in creating problems instead of simply answering questions as if the reasoning is settled.

Thoughts?

Edited March 16, 2016 by J Green

[Nevo]

19 hours ago, J Green said:

Thoughts?

As always, you've given me much to think about.

First, a few comments on scribal education and careers. Both Garrison (discussing Mesopotamian practice) and Van der Toorn (discussing Mesopotamian and Egyptian practice) distinguish between basic and advanced scribal training: 

• "Once scribes had acquired basic training in sign forms, they received language training by the copying of lists. There were four types of list: sign, vocabularies, syllabaries, and grammatical. Many lists were bilingual: Sumerian and Akkadian. Advanced students, few in number and considered specialists, progressed to copying works of literature" (Garrison, 28).
   
• "Alongside scribes who had completed only the first level of the scribal education, ready to follow a career in the administration or to gain a living as private scribes, there were those who had followed advanced studies. They spent an extended period of time studying and memorizing a wide array of written lore pertinent to their area of specialization. . . . Both in Mesopotamia and Egypt, the students who had completed the second phase of the scribal curriculum were the scholars and the 'wise men' of their time" (Van der Toorn, 72).

Both writers agree that those who completed only the first stage of scribal training typically went on to careers in administrative roles. Those who completed the second stage, on the other hand, "were the scholars of 'wise men' of their time," though van der Toorn notes that "specialist studies did not automatically ensure one a position as a practitioner of that specialization." Even so, "most scholars in Babylonia and Assyria in the first millennium were indeed affiliated with temples"—as exorcists, cult singers, diviners, astrologers, medical practitioners, etc. (Van der Toorn, 59). A similar situation obtained in Israel: "Scribes in Israel were attached to the palace or the temple" (Van der Toorn, 82).

Given 1 and 2 Nephi's complex interactions with Isaiah and the Psalms (on the former see Robert Cloward, "Isaiah 29 and the Book of Mormon," and the relevant sections in Hardy; on the latter see John Hilton III, "Old Testament Psalms in the Book of Mormon"), not to mention Nephi's apparent facility with Egyptian, it seems reasonable to suppose that Nephi must have undergone advanced scribal training specializing in classic texts, and therefore wasn't simply preparing for a career in government. You suggest that Nephi could have received his advanced training from Lehi after arriving in the New World. But that would then mean that Lehi had received advanced, specialized training as a scribe but nevertheless worked as a goldsmith/merchant in the Judaean countryside. As you recognize, that career path would be unusual to say the least ("metalworking as an additional profession isn't the normal pattern for Israelite scribes").

So you propose what I'll call "the Kenite hypothesis"—oh, wait, that name's already taken? Dang it! Anyway, as you express it, I admit the theory seems compelling:

Quote

Since Jethro they had sometimes taken positions of trust in Israelite society, acting as scribes and metal workers. And they had ties to the copper mines and metalworking areas in the Arabah, which is where Lehi and his family travel after they leave Jerusalem. There can be an answer in the consistency of something that always seems just off. Just like Nephites consistently and deliberately took no notice of their "people of the land" (but perhaps did obliquely), creating a pattern that may seem off until you look at it from a priestly perspective. In this case all the evidence seems to favor something that is half Hebrew or superficially Hebrew in some instances. But there might be a consistency in this pattern that points to other options that might be fruitful to explore. The D&C traces a priesthood lineage quite apart from Israelites through a Kennite line. So is it that far off to connect this to a Kennite priesthood line that has Kennites priestly scribes also as trained metalworkers? Those who almost fit the Israelite scribal pattern but not fully?

The last time you mentioned this on the board I went and looked up everything I could find on the subject (not a whole lot as it turns out) and even created a new folder on my computer. But I have to admit that I haven't looked at the articles very closely yet. I probably should though.

Your observation about a "priestly lack of attention to others" is an interesting one. Certainly that is one of the peculiarities of the Book of Mormon narrative that many stumble over (myself included): how could the Lehites pass through populous areas in Arabia and encounter entire civilizations in the New World and never say a word about them? The whole notion of the Lehites as "a priestly group of scribes"—akin, in some ways, to the priestly groups of the Persian period and at Qumran—is something I've never considered before. I hope you will develop this more, maybe in an Interpreter article or something. Anyway, I certainly agree with and endorse your view (and Davies's) that scholarship should problematize accepted pieties and create a space to explore new possibilities. Although, in saying that, I am also reminded of Chesterton's dictum that "the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid."

 

Edited March 16, 2016 by Nevo

[J Green]

Nevo,

Appreciate the discussion. Although I think the scribal literature shows advanced scholar training in different fields focusing on the texts of those new fields (medicine, astrology, military, etc.) which also led to careers in those new fields, I won't belabor the point or multiply the citations. In the end, whatever standard or pattern of scribal schooling we did agree on, we would both likely concur that Lehi and Nephi don't match it exactly. Also, whatever those other fields were that included advanced study, they usually didn't include metallurgy. (Bringing us back to shop class.) So while I think there is enough overlap in this area to look at possibilities, I'm simply not dogmatic about the degree or extent of that overlap. In the end, there isn't enough information in the text to do anything other than raise possibilities and then discuss how all these separate possibilities might (or might not) tie together. Even if we would like to eventually close the mind on something solid.

I suppose this issue is what frustrated me the most about the RT discussion (both with him and his interlocutors). I'm not sure I articulated my criticism well enough in the other post. On many points, RT rightfully makes the observation that there just isn't enough evidence in the text to sustain certain of the apologetic arguments. But the flip side of this coin -- not enough information in the text -- is that we can't always categorically rule out certain ideas either. And yet I feel that he does do this on too little evidence. The case of reading the Sherem pericope to indicate the presence of others is a good example. I think RT simply should have pointed out that what little is there in the text could also be read from the perspective that Sherem is a Nephite. Instead, I think he overreaches in claiming a negative from the text that is simply the flip side of the argument that the text must be read the other way. I think both arguments are weakened somewhat because of this. Does that make sense?

As for the Kenite/Midianite theory, I'm not dogmatic about that either, and I'd be the first to admit that there isn't enough in the text. But I do think it raises interesting possibilities. What little we do know from the biblical text shows a people who guarded sacred trees, had a priesthood separate from that of the Israelites, had guild/clans specifically trained as scribes and metalworkers (although no text mentions both skills at the same time), and intermarried with the tribes of Israel. When Jeremiah gathers a group of them in the temple, he implies that they have some sort of priesthood, and their answers to him about obedience echo Nephi's observations about obedience in the Nephite record. And so on. But is all of this just a superficial likeness, or is there more there? Who knows?

In the 50s and 60s, a Kenite/Midianite theory gained popularity in academia trying to look at the Midianite priesthood as a possible origin for the divine name among Israel. And of this era, I'm a fan of some of H. H. Rowley's observations in From Moses To Qumran. He does a good job of fleshing out a Midianite priesthood in a way that raises possibilities in terms of looking at a Nephite priesthood/origin story. And this possibility could explain why on count after count, the Nephite record may seem to fit Israelite culture and priesthood norms and yet not quite fully in all cases. The focus on exploring a Midianite priesthood lost traction in academia as they started to question the historicity of Moses and the Exodus account. It's fruitless to trace the origins of Israelite themes to a time they intermixed with Midianites in the desert if the Israelites actually had their roots in Palestine the whole time. But even here there are other possibilities as to how the Midianite story overlaps with that of Israel. I still find some value in looking at the literature and assessing what's there. Whether that eventually results in any kind of product is probably doubtful. If you compared me to the Bennett sisters, I'd be more like Elizabeth, who plays the pianoforte a little but doesn't perform well for others, and less like Mary, who rushes to the instrument at the drop of a hat.

Cheers

[CA Steve]

Forgive me for interjecting, but this is a GREAT thread.