David Bokovoy's explanation of OT

[canard78]

10 hours ago, carbon dioxide said:

My approach is simple.  Perhaps these scriptures were not in the brass plates at the time Lehi left Jerusalem but they were included in the plates later by the prophet Mormon himself.  How would Mormon know these scriptures?  I think that when Christ came to the Nephites he told them lots of stuff.  Some of that stuff would be scripture that was given to in the Old World after Lehi left.  There would be no reason for Christ to withhold this material from the Nephites.  So the Nephites wrote this stuff down and when Mormon was going through the records, he decided to include these passages with the earlier Isaiah.  Its seems like a logical spot to put them.  So if these Deutro-Isaiah passages where put in there by Mormon, they were in the plates by the time they arrived to Joseph Smith.  Can't prove this of course because we don't have all the records that Mormon had but it could be not more complicated than that.

This is one of my favourite things about participating on this board.

It's really interesting to see how quickly people are able to adjust their perspectives when new challenging issues come up. If the Book of Mormon is true, then any evidence can be repositioned to fit the narrative.

A couple of weeks ago we discussed the fact that the huge generational gaps between father and son were statistically improbable (60 years between each generation from Jacob to Mormon, versus a global average of around 30). The quick answer came back that "son" must have meant "grandson" in the majority of cases (you'd need two times more generations in the book of mormon than are identified for it to be a credible average generational gap).

Your explanation is, of course, plausible, but less likely that the original explanation. The original view was that Nephi took Isaiah with him on the Brass Plates and copied long sections of it onto the Small Plates. The new explanation you've offered is that some (or none) of Isaiah went with the Lehites on the Brass plates. Jesus then visited the Nephites 400 years later and gave them the words of Isaiah. Neither Nephi 3, nor Mormon mention this fact, but they were received nonetheless. Mormon then decided that they should be added to a book, "for our day" (even though we'd already have them) and that he'd insert them into the Small Plates, but not mention it.

Your explanation is plausible, but not very credible. What is more likely, that all of the above happened, or that Joseph dictated the words of Isaiah that he knew or had reference material for (either through inspiration or conscious decision).

I suppose it doesn't really matter that your knew explanation is barely credible for people like yourself who are already certain that the BoM is true. It only needs the slimmest plausibility and then you can ignore the issue.

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, canard78 said:

This is one of my favourite things about participating on this board.

It's really interesting to see how quickly people are able to adjust their perspectives when new challenging issues come up. If the Book of Mormon is true, then any evidence can be repositioned to fit the narrative.

A couple of weeks ago we discussed the fact that the huge generational gaps between father and son were statistically improbable (60 years between each generation from Jacob to Mormon, versus a global average of around 30). The quick answer came back that "son" must have meant "grandson" in the majority of cases (you'd need two times more generations in the book of mormon than are identified for it to be a credible average generational gap).

Your explanation is, of course, plausible, but less likely that the original explanation. The original view was that Nephi took Isaiah with him on the Brass Plates and copied long sections of it onto the Small Plates. The new explanation you've offered is that some (or none) of Isaiah went with the Lehites on the Brass plates. Jesus then visited the Nephites 400 years later and gave them the words of Isaiah. Neither Nephi 3, nor Mormon mention this fact, but they were received nonetheless. Mormon then decided that they should be added to a book, "for our day" (even though we'd already have them) and that he'd insert them into the Small Plates, but not mention it.

Your explanation is plausible, but not very credible. What is more likely, that all of the above happened, or that Joseph dictated the words of Isaiah that he knew or had reference material for (either through inspiration or conscious decision).

I suppose it doesn't really matter that your knew explanation is barely credible for people like yourself who are already certain that the BoM is true. It only needs the slimmest plausibility and then you can ignore the issue.

Reminds me of a conversation I once had with David B. about paradigm shifts, of all things. He essentially said that one can shift one's paradigm to any degree, as long as one understands the unalterable foundation that the gospel and scriptures are true. Kuhn's point with the notion of "scientific revolutions" is that clinging to an unalterable foundation is antithetical to real revolution. So, IMO, in religion, David is probably right that the Kuhnian shift is only partially applicable.

[canard78]

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

I'm at a loss as to how acknowledging the authorship of Isaiah precludes belief in prophets and revelation.

 

1 hour ago, Gray said:

Obviously if you don't take a fundamentalist view of the scriptures you've rejected the supernatural. In life everything comes down to simple dichotomies.

Except for when it absolutely doesn't. When a prophet is speaking as a man, for example, you really need to throw away all those simple dichotomies.

[Gray]

11 minutes ago, canard78 said:

This is one of my favourite things about participating on this board.

It's really interesting to see how quickly people are able to adjust their perspectives when new challenging issues come up. If the Book of Mormon is true, then any evidence can be repositioned to fit the narrative.

A couple of weeks ago we discussed the fact that the huge generational gaps between father and son were statistically improbable (60 years between each generation from Jacob to Mormon, versus a global average of around 30). The quick answer came back that "son" must have meant "grandson" in the majority of cases (you'd need two times more generations in the book of mormon than are identified for it to be a credible average generational gap).

Your explanation is, of course, plausible, but less likely that the original explanation. The original view was that Nephi took Isaiah with him on the Brass Plates and copied long sections of it onto the Small Plates. The new explanation you've offered is that some (or none) of Isaiah went with the Lehites on the Brass plates. Jesus then visited the Nephites 400 years later and gave them the words of Isaiah. Neither Nephi 3, nor Mormon mention this fact, but they were received nonetheless. Mormon then decided that they should be added to a book, "for our day" (even though we'd already have them) and that he'd insert them into the Small Plates, but not mention it.

Your explanation is plausible, but not very credible. What is more likely, that all of the above happened, or that Joseph dictated the words of Isaiah that he knew or had reference material for (either through inspiration or conscious decision).

I suppose it doesn't really matter that your knew explanation is barely credible for people like yourself who are already certain that the BoM is true. It only needs the slimmest plausibility and then you can ignore the issue.

I think a better word than plausibility is possibility. I don't think his theory is very plausible, meaning reasonable and likely to be true. But it's possible. Of course possible is a very low bar. Almost everything anyone could conceive of is possible. 

Edited May 25, 2016 by Gray

[Kevin Christensen]

5 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I'm using "fundamentalist" in its traditional sense, that the scriptures are meant to be read literally. To quote Eagleton:

It's only this literalist reading that causes Deutero-Isaiah to be problematic. Thanks for the link. I'll check it out.

The baggage of "fundamentalist" is that it presupposes not only a particularly narrow approach, which approach that historically has not been particularly invested in exploring how a supposedly obvious and straight forward "literal meaning" is inextricably entwined with modes of reading, ideological presuppositions, and resources for contextualization.

Quote

All the texts in the chosen canon would have had an original context, which presupposed a certain pattern of shared

beliefs within which the text was set. The context was as much a part of the meaning as the words themselves. Set in a new context, the same text would soon acquire a new meaning.

See http://www.margaretbarker.com/Papers/TextAndContext.pdf

We have many more options and approaches available than a binary of Fundamentalist versus 19th Century Fiction, inspired or not.

Just saying.

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Kevin Christensen said:

We have many more options and approaches available than a binary of Fundamentalist versus 19th Century Fiction, inspired or not.

Kevin, that was my point, but perhaps I wasn't clear in expressing it. Language is messy by nature, and we get into trouble when we try to pretend it isn't.

[Johnnie Cake]

29 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

What does Bokovoy say about this this approach to Isaiah 53?

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

Just wondering.

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

You'd have to ask Bokovoy

[consiglieri]

8 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

It does if you don't really believe in things like prophets and revelation.

This comment suggests you have not read the blog posts by David Bokovoy, in which he shows the issue is far from being that simple.

There is a great deal of evidence that convinces mainstream Old Testament scholars that Deutero-Isaiah was written during the Babylonian captivity.  David synopsizes that evidence in his second post, which I recommend to you.  He even specifically says that the idea that the rejecting of Deutero-Isaiah on the basis that scholars do not believe in prophets is a gross oversimplification of the issue.

Mormons typically want to reject the Deutero-Isaiah theory out of hand because it directly conflicts with their notions of the truth of the Book of Mormon.  I.e., How is Deutero-Isaiah quoted in a book whose authors had their last contact with Jerusalem before the Babylonian captivity when Deutero-Isaiah was written after the Babylonian captivity had occurred?

Kent P. Jackson has done a disservice to the issue by trying to argue the "pro-Mormon" position without taking into account the mountain of evidence against the "pro-Mormon" position.

All this amounts to is a "testimony time-bomb" being planted which is set to detonate when the faithful LDS reader finds out "the rest of the story."

David Bokovoy is right to correct Kent P. Jackson on this, and it is to his credit that he does so with brotherly kindness while still hewing to the facts.

 

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

This comment suggests you have not read the blog posts by David Bokovoy, in which he shows the issue is far from being that simple.

There is a great deal of evidence that convinces mainstream Old Testament scholars that Deutero-Isaiah was written during the Babylonian captivity.  David synopsizes that evidence in his second post, which I recommend to you.  He even specifically says that the idea that the rejecting of Deutero-Isaiah on the basis that scholars do not believe in prophets is a gross oversimplification of the issue.

Mormons typically want to reject the Deutero-Isaiah theory out of hand because it directly conflicts with their notions of the truth of the Book of Mormon.  I.e., How is Deutero-Isaiah quoted in a book whose authors had their last contact with Jerusalem before the Babylonian captivity when Deutero-Isaiah was written after the Babylonian captivity had occurred?

Kent P. Jackson has done a disservice to the issue by trying to argue the "pro-Mormon" position without taking into account the mountain of evidence against the "pro-Mormon" position.

All this amounts to is a "testimony time-bomb" being planted which is set to detonate when the faithful LDS reader finds out "the rest of the story."

David Bokovoy is right to correct Kent P. Jackson on this, and it is to his credit that he does so with brotherly kindness while still hewing to the facts.

This is one of those situations in which I think Brother Bukowski is right: religious faith is not a matter of determining that something is "objectively" or historically true or false. When we discover something that contradicts what we believe about something, it's best to re-evaluate and take a different approach instead of digging our heels in and resisting. Years ago, I remember reading something in the Book of Mormon that took a phrase from Paul and then expounded on it, and it struck me that this exposition rested on a particular English translation and interpretation. I could have decided, "Well, obviously this means the Book of Mormon isn't true," but instead I decided that I was wrong in my understanding of scripture as being the literal word of God spoken or dictated to humans and completely divorced from the context in which it was written. 

[Johnnie Cake]

22 minutes ago, canard78 said:

This is one of my favourite things about participating on this board.

It's really interesting to see how quickly people are able to adjust their perspectives when new challenging issues come up. If the Book of Mormon is true, then any evidence can be repositioned to fit the narrative.

A couple of weeks ago we discussed the fact that the huge generational gaps between father and son were statistically improbable (60 years between each generation from Jacob to Mormon, versus a global average of around 30). The quick answer came back that "son" must have meant "grandson" in the majority of cases (you'd need two times more generations in the book of mormon than are identified for it to be a credible average generational gap).

Your explanation is, of course, plausible, but less likely that the original explanation. The original view was that Nephi took Isaiah with him on the Brass Plates and copied long sections of it onto the Small Plates. The new explanation you've offered is that some (or none) of Isaiah went with the Lehites on the Brass plates. Jesus then visited the Nephites 400 years later and gave them the words of Isaiah. Neither Nephi 3, nor Mormon mention this fact, but they were received nonetheless. Mormon then decided that they should be added to a book, "for our day" (even though we'd already have them) and that he'd insert them into the Small Plates, but not mention it.

Your explanation is plausible, but not very credible. What is more likely, that all of the above happened, or that Joseph dictated the words of Isaiah that he knew or had reference material for (either through inspiration or conscious decision).

I suppose it doesn't really matter that your knew explanation is barely credible for people like yourself who are already certain that the BoM is true. It only needs the slimmest plausibility and then you can ignore the issue.

Belief is always easier when you begin with your conclusion rather than allowing the evidence to form your conclusions...

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Belief is always easier when you begin with your conclusion rather than allowing the evidence to form your conclusions...

That's what I mean when I say that in religious faith, there are certain conclusions that are inviolable, and as long as that's true, there can be no real revolution in one's paradigm.

[Johnnie Cake]

13 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

This comment suggests you have not read the blog posts by David Bokovoy, in which he shows the issue is far from being that simple.

There is a great deal of evidence that convinces mainstream Old Testament scholars that Deutero-Isaiah was written during the Babylonian captivity.  David synopsizes that evidence in his second post, which I recommend to you.  He even specifically says that the idea that the rejecting of Deutero-Isaiah on the basis that scholars do not believe in prophets is a gross oversimplification of the issue.

Mormons typically want to reject the Deutero-Isaiah theory out of hand because it directly conflicts with their notions of the truth of the Book of Mormon.  I.e., How is Deutero-Isaiah quoted in a book whose authors had their last contact with Jerusalem before the Babylonian captivity when Deutero-Isaiah was written after the Babylonian captivity had occurred?

Kent P. Jackson has done a disservice to the issue by trying to argue the "pro-Mormon" position without taking into account the mountain of evidence against the "pro-Mormon" position.

All this amounts to is a "testimony time-bomb" being planted which is set to detonate when the faithful LDS reader finds out "the rest of the story."

David Bokovoy is right to correct Kent P. Jackson on this, and it is to his credit that he does so with brotherly kindness while still hewing to the facts.

 

Amen

[Gray]

16 minutes ago, consiglieri said:

This comment suggests you have not read the blog posts by David Bokovoy, in which he shows the issue is far from being that simple.

There is a great deal of evidence that convinces mainstream Old Testament scholars that Deutero-Isaiah was written during the Babylonian captivity.  David synopsizes that evidence in his second post, which I recommend to you.  He even specifically says that the idea that the rejecting of Deutero-Isaiah on the basis that scholars do not believe in prophets is a gross oversimplification of the issue.

Mormons typically want to reject the Deutero-Isaiah theory out of hand because it directly conflicts with their notions of the truth of the Book of Mormon.  I.e., How is Deutero-Isaiah quoted in a book whose authors had their last contact with Jerusalem before the Babylonian captivity when Deutero-Isaiah was written after the Babylonian captivity had occurred?

Kent P. Jackson has done a disservice to the issue by trying to argue the "pro-Mormon" position without taking into account the mountain of evidence against the "pro-Mormon" position.

All this amounts to is a "testimony time-bomb" being planted which is set to detonate when the faithful LDS reader finds out "the rest of the story."

David Bokovoy is right to correct Kent P. Jackson on this, and it is to his credit that he does so with brotherly kindness while still hewing to the facts.

 

The Deutero Isaiah thing is a problem for the historicity of the BOM, but it has no effect on its truth. 

[Johnnie Cake]

5 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

That's what I mean when I say that in religious faith, there are certain conclusions that are inviolable, and as long as that's true, there can be no real revolution in one's paradigm.

Agreed.  But holding to those absolutes when evidence conflicts with them undermines credibility.  Example: Adam was the first man. Really?  Anyone who believes in this inviolable LDS claim is left to look like a fool.

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, Gray said:

The Deutero Isaiah thing is a problem for the historicity of the BOM, but it has no effect on its truth. 

Unless you believe that the Book of Mormon must be historically accurate or else it isn't true. I don't see any reason to believe that.

[ttribe]

15 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I refer you to the frequent entries on this board by my colleague and friend, mfbukowski.  A lot of people here consider him otherworldly as well.

Humans are subjective creatures because they are trapped within their own sensory awareness and imaginative frames of reference.  Gods may be able to see objectively; we cannot.

I'm quite aware humans are incapable of absolute objectivity.  I do not, however, think that precludes us from talking about issues of provable fact versus issues of theoretical conjecture.

14 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Logical positivism has been dead for years- I don't know if you take that view or not, though

This is essentially my view about "facts" corresponding to "reality": http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-deflationary/

I would encourage you to refute this point of view if you disagree with it.

But if you want to follow up on this, let's do it in another thread- I don't want to derail this one

I'm afraid I'll have to pass on this invitation.  Discussing philosophy really isn't my thing.  Now, if you want to talk about cars or accounting, you have my attention...

[jkwilliams]

Just now, ttribe said:

I'm quite aware humans are incapable of absolute objectivity.  I do not, however, think that precludes us from talking about issues of provable fact versus issues of theoretical conjecture.

I'm afraid I'll have to pass on this invitation.  Discussing philosophy really isn't my thing.  Now, if you want to talk about cars or accounting, you have my attention...

I shouldn't have read Mark's post. Now I'm going to be thinking about Porfirio Diaz all day. 

[stemelbow]

44 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Reminds me of a conversation I once had with David B. about paradigm shifts, of all things. He essentially said that one can shift one's paradigm to any degree, as long as one understands the unalterable foundation that the gospel and scriptures are true. Kuhn's point with the notion of "scientific revolutions" is that clinging to an unalterable foundation is antithetical to real revolution. So, IMO, in religion, David is probably right that the Kuhnian shift is only partially applicable.

That's confusing to me.  It'd make me wonder why David would suggest the gospel and scriptures being true, when it seems obvious the big and first question is what does saying the gospel is true mean, or in the same vain what does it mean to say the scriptures are true. 

[stemelbow]

31 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Belief is always easier when you begin with your conclusion rather than allowing the evidence to form your conclusions...

well duh...That's why it's God's intent to get 'em hooked young.  Doesnt' always work though, and in our day it's working less and less. 

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, stemelbow said:

Stating your conclusion as fact seems difficult to maintain. 

I have taken into careful consideration the articles and lectures by Stanford Carmack and Royal Skousen on this matter.  I believe that they have well established their position as fact.  It doesn't necessarily make sense, and I haven't heard a good explanation as to why God would do it that way.  However, we need to allow the evidence to speak for itself.

[jkwilliams]

8 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I have taken into careful consideration the articles and lectures by Stanford Carmack and Royal Skousen on this matter.  I believe that they have well established their position as fact.  It doesn't necessarily make sense, and I haven't heard a good explanation as to why God would do it that way.  However, we need to allow the evidence to speak for itself.

As I said, I don't know how I came up with completely different results using Stan's methodology. One of us is wrong, but it seems to me that when someone claims the absence of a word or phrase, the person who demonstrates its presence is on more solid ground.

[Gray]

2 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

Unless you believe that the Book of Mormon must be historically accurate or else it isn't true. I don't see any reason to believe that.

The two ideas (historical accuracy and "truth") have been quite closely connected in the internal LDS narrative about scripture for a long time (I think from the beginning, from the simplistic fundamentalism of American frontier Protestantism), but I think it's time for us to mature on this point and stop thinking that scripture is all about historical facts. It's never been about that. It's always been about sacred story. 

Edited May 25, 2016 by Gray

[Robert F. Smith]

4 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

As I said, I don't know how I came up with completely different results using Stan's methodology. One of us is wrong, but it seems to me that when someone claims the absence of a word or phrase, the person who demonstrates its presence is on more solid ground.

I agree, John, and am anxious to see what other research shows.  Carmack & Skousen have made some sweeping claims, and it couldn't hurt to check up on them.  That's what the scholarly enterprise is all about.

[Nevo]

2 hours ago, consiglieri said:

Kent P. Jackson has done a disservice to the issue by trying to argue the "pro-Mormon" position without taking into account the mountain of evidence against the "pro-Mormon" position.

All this amounts to is a "testimony time-bomb" being planted which is set to detonate when the faithful LDS reader finds out "the rest of the story."

For believers, I think Kent Jackson's approach makes sense. John Welch made a similar argument several years ago:

Quote

If the Book of Mormon is accepted on other sufficient grounds as a true historical account, then this record in turn adds new evidence concerning the perplexing issues of Isaiah's authorship that has not been available to or considered by the scholarly world. In the final analysis, in response to all the criticisms and questions concerning Isaiah authorship, most Latter-day Saints simply ascribe greater authority to the Book of Mormon than to critical biblical scholarship. Because the Book of Mormon expressly indicates that Isaiah wrote Isaiah 2–14 and 48–54, few additional questions about the authorship of those chapters need to be asked in LDS circles.

— John W. Welch, "Authorship of the Book of Isaiah in Light of the Book of Mormon," in Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, ed. Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998), 434–435; emphasis added.

If God has revealed to you that the Book of Mormon is a true and authentic "record of God's dealings with ancient inhabitants of the Americas," or if you are convinced of this on "other sufficient grounds," then the latest scholarly theories on Isaiah authorship are of little consequence.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Nevo

[Scott Lloyd]

The overwhelming scholarly and expert consensus about Mark Hofmann's "documents" was that they were authentic -- until it became clear that they were forgeries.

That event made such an impression on my mind that I am not apt ever to forget it.

Just sayin'.