Most compelling evidence for/against the Book of Mormon?

[champatsch]

It's shilum, not shiblum. See ATV 1810-11.

The most compelling evidence for the Book of Mormon is the earliest text, specifically the manuscript evidence, the archaic vocabulary, and the archaic syntax.

[Robert F. Smith]

16 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

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

On to gold. In Alma 11, starting in verse 14, we get this:

14 Now this is the value of the lesser numbers of their reckoning—

 15 A shiblon is half of a senum; therefore, a shiblon for half a measure of barley.

 16 And a shiblum is a half of a shiblon.

 17 And a leah is the half of a shiblum.

No mention of smaller denominations of gold, just silver.

So what?

Well, back to the idea that the Nephite system is base-8. In the gold system, it begins with the senine, to the seon, then the shum, culminating with the limnah.

 5 Now the reckoning is thus—a senine of gold, a seon of gold, a shum of gold, and a limnah of gold.

In other words, the gold system has a 1, 2, 4, and 7 where the limnah is worth seven senine.

It really should go without saying, but clearly Robert F. Smith ................ proof positive you can't assume that, but the gold system isn't even close enough to a base-8 notation system to be able to set up the problem well. Why? Because the simplicity of it being a binary system with an odd culminating unit lacks complexity to even demand a notation system.

I know you'll be back without comment on how to repair your apologetic, Robert................................ But it just gets worse and worse for your pet apologetic.

And, again just in case anyone is feeling like this is an attack on the BoM itself, the entire apologetic is contradicted by the Book of Mormon. 

Aside from your continual use of non sequiturs and straw men here, you fail to engage the actual arguments made in my FairMormon lecture transcript.  The consequence is that you likewise disestablish Bill Dever's reconstruction of the Israelite-Egyptian system of weights.  That is dishonest at best, but fully to be expected of you, Honorentheos, because you are at least consistently opaque and distracting.  Go ahead and take the easy way out by calling the "7" anomalous, and at the same time ignoring the "1.5" measure, instead of making a direct comparison with the Israelite-Egyptian system.  Pretending that they don't exist is indeed one way to defeat an opponent in debate, but some of us only see that as a defeat for the innocent observer -- who is thereby hoodwinked, since your only purpose is chicanery.

What is even more clear is your deep fear of engaging any of my substantive arguments, including your adherence to infallible and inerrant interpretation of Alma 11:4, demonstrating that you haven't the foggiest idea about how to intelligently read a given text -- except for purposes of eisegesis.

Edited September 8, 2016 by Robert F. Smith