The conensus on if the BoM is directly from God.

[notHagoth7]

34 minutes ago, bcuzbcuz said:

Well, I´d beg to differ. 

The Hebrew vowel sounds....

I wasn't speaking specifically of *Hebrew* vowel sounds. So differ all you wish.

When I was speaking of standardized spelling issues, I was focused mostly on the historical background of the name of that ?Mayan city. For example: 

• How far back does the current name actually go? (Which I partially answered in a subsequent post).
• Possible spelling/pronunciation variants for that city name over time. (For example, York [Eboracum/Eburacum/Eburaci>Eoforwic>Jorvik>York ] has been spelled / pronounced a number of different ways by different occupants of the region over the last 19 centuries). So I'm curious to know how far back the current spelling/pronunciation of Lamanai goes, and what earlier variations might be. Are you?

 

Edited October 4, 2016 by notHagoth7

[cdowis]

The site's name is pre-Columbian, recorded by early Spanish missionaries, and documented over a millennium earlier in Maya inscriptions as Lam'an'ain.

WIKI

The name means "submerged crocodile" which, IMO,refers to a hidden predator or warrior.  BOM cities were named after the founder of the city.  It is one of the very few known ancient names of cities.

Edited October 4, 2016 by cdowis

[Calm]

5 hours ago, notHagoth7 said:

1. "Lamanai" comes from the Maya term for "submerged crocodile", a nod to the toothy reptiles who live along the banks of the New River. 
2. From 1 Nephi: "And it came to pass that he called the name of the river, Laman"
3. Also, from an ancient people that I believe derived from Nephites, in their language, lama had a somewhat similar meaning.

Mayan, Old World, European - 3 languages offer a parallel meaning - the former of which some deem to have at least *some* relation to Nephite/Lamanite stomping grounds, and the latter which I have reason to believe involved Nephite descendants. 

 

Is there any indication that the River Laman had crocodiles?

[cdowis]

23 minutes ago, Calm said:

Is there any indication that the River Laman had crocodiles?

Is that river in Belize?  If you are talking about somewhere on the Arabian Peninsula, then the answer is no.

[Larry Cotrell]

How I know that the Book of Mormon is not from God

Galatians 1:6-12 (KJV)

 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The Bible is the sufficient Word of God. Anyone who tries to add to the Word of God should be accursed.

 

[James Tunney]

24 minutes ago, Larry Cotrell said:

How I know that the Book of Mormon is not from God

Galatians 1:6-12 (KJV)

 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The Bible is the sufficient Word of God. Anyone who tries to add to the Word of God should be accursed.

 

Well the bible has a lot of problems and contradictions that make it questionable as well. Do you believe the bible to be inherent? Was there a literal flood? Tower of bable? How do you explain the lack of evidence for the exodus?

[Larry Cotrell]

17 minutes ago, James Tunney said:

Do you believe the bible to be inherent?

Yes

Timothy 3:16 " All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness"

20 minutes ago, James Tunney said:

Was there a literal flood?

There are legends of floods in many cultures all over the world that point to there being an actual flood. The evidence goes on.

20 minutes ago, James Tunney said:

Tower of bable? 

The Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11 is the only credible theory for how there are around 20 language families now.

25 minutes ago, James Tunney said:

How do you explain the lack of evidence for the exodus?

There is an overwhelming amount of evidence for Exodus but people have been looking in the wrong time period. There is a great documentary about this called Patterns of Evidence: Exodus that explains some of these Exodus finds. People have been looking too late in time, so they have missed finds such as the Ipuwer papyrus (which documents the plagues on Egypt), Joseph's tomb, Avaris, and much more.

[cdowis]

1 hour ago, Larry Cotrell said:

How I know that the Book of Mormon is not from God

Galatians 1:6-12 (KJV)

 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The Bible is the sufficient Word of God. Anyone who tries to add to the Word of God should be accursed.

 

Paul tells us

Eph 4: [11] And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
[12] For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
[13] Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
[14] That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

The historic Christian church replaced the apostles and prophets with theologians and philosophers.  They disagree with one another and debate even basic salvation doctrines such as the necessity of baptism for salvation, works vs faith, free agency, etc.  The church accepted the false Nicene doctrine of the "one substance entity" which Christ Himself refuted.

Christ Himself refutes the "one substance entity" doctrine:
 --Not my will, but thine be done
--  Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father (after the resurrection)
--   The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
--   John 7 [16] Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.
[17] If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.

The Lord called a prophet in our day and restored His gospel which had been lost.  We accept ALL the word of God, including the Bible and modern revelation.

A question for you, are you going to worship the God of the Bible, or the "one substance entity" of the Nicene Creed?

Edited October 4, 2016 by cdowis

[canard78]

1 hour ago, Larry Cotrell said:

How I know that the Book of Mormon is not from God

Galatians 1:6-12 (KJV)

 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The Bible is the sufficient Word of God. Anyone who tries to add to the Word of God should be accursed.

Oh great... here's where I might end up ducking out of the conversation. When one religious person says "my conviction in the supernatural trumps your conviction in the supernatural," it all starts getting a bit silly.

So, Larry, how did Joseph do it? How many times have you read the Book of Mormon? How well do you know the arguments in favour? I appreciate the irony here, given I'm also in the camp of people saying it's a human invention. If, like me, you're going to take that position, you at least need to have a go at giving an alternative theory of how it was created.

Edited October 4, 2016 by canard78
punctuation

[canard78]

4 hours ago, cdowis said:

No Hebrew needed ======================>>>>>>>>>>>>The two names sound virtually identical in the English language.  The name could have been spelled either way in the BOM, and are equivalent.

You say tomato, I say tomatah

You are getting desperate in your denials.

Did you read my second reply to this? There are lots of places around the world called close versions of the name, like: Lamoni/Lamon/Lamani/Lamana (etc)

And surely you say tomayto and I say tomahto?

Not desperate at all. Just pointing out that your evidence isn't particularly strong.

[notHagoth7]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

Is there any indication that the River Laman had crocodiles?

None. Nor was I suggesting such.

Wadi: " Wadi (Arabic: وادي‎, translit. wādī‎, Hebrew: ואדי vādī)" is the Arabic and Hebrew term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a dry (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water only during times of heavy rain or simply an intermittent stream."

It's more the reference to water (submerged) in the root of the word (at least in the context Lehi ?temporarily attached to it) that interested me. 

That same meaning flows (pun intended) across two other supposedly unrelated regions/languages. Which is why the city's name intrigues me further. 

 

 

Edited October 4, 2016 by notHagoth7

[canard78]

4 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

Great  theorizing ideas. But that is all we have heard for lo these many years. At least the Spaulding theorists had "something. Couldn't quite connect the dots (by a long shot, although one has to give them a "A" for their efforts). They are still looking for that second, mythical manuscript. I guess that maybe those who believe that the Book of Mormon came from Joseph's mind are still hoping to find some kind of manuscript from whence all of this came, because, as of now, all that has been produced are vague ideas with no coherent articulation of how it could have been accomplished.

As you have noted, that is really all that you need to keep your unfaith. But, if you really wish to help those who do not accept your speculation, give us something concrete. After all, LDS scholars in several different disciplines have given some good reasons not to worry about critics who say "I believe that Joseph could have done it this way or that way."

Glenn

Like I've said before, I recognise that the Book of Mormon is not easily dismissed. 

I keep meaning to spend the time writing up and pulling together all of my 4 years of exploration of how the Book of Mormon was produced. If I were ever to write it up, it would include the following themes:

• KJV as the major source. I don't think we need to look much further than the Bible as the author/authors' key source. There are many occasions in the Book of Mormon where it quotes directly from the KJV and then the following verses essentially repeat the same message, but are reworkings, back and forth, over the concepts already quoted from the KJV. There's particularly a lot of that in 3 Nephi.
  • I think The Late War is an interesting example of what a 19thC attempt at American history in the Biblical style looks like. I don't know whether Joseph ever read it. I don't think it matters. Both TLW and the BoM were published at a similar time and therefore were likely both independent products of their cultural and religious circumstance. 
  • The presence of "anachronistic" KJV passages are problematic for the BoM. Not silver bullets by any means, I understand the apologetics, but still challenging. Mark 16/Mormon 9 is probably the biggest example of that. I'm yet to read a convincing explanation of what that passage is doing in the BoM, given there's very strong evidence it is a non-original passage in the Bible. Here's my thread from 4 years ago on the topic. I still find it a little poignant to read as it was at a time when I was only just starting out on the investigation process.
• 19thC Methodist (and other protestant) theology, rhetoric and poetry as as a significant influence. I spent a few weeks a year or two ago reading through the transcripts or records of "live" sermons of Methodist circuit preachers from the early 19thC. Also another few weeks reading revivalist hymns. The tone and message of them felt remarkably close to sermons in the BoM. 
• 19thC theories of the origin of the native americans. Smith, Harris and Cowdery were all exposed to these in different ways. A Nation Now Extinct is probably the best summary of the prevalent influences and theories of the day. 

I actually think those three form the vast majority of the explanation for the content of the Book of Mormon. There are likely lots of other smaller influences too, but those three form the major components.

Next, how did Joseph do it. Was it plausible? Obviously, I think so.

If you read the other early documents produced by Joseph and Oliver, I think they stand as evidence of his (or their) ability to produce scriptural prose. The first 10-15 revelations from Joseph (approximately section 2 to 15 of the D&C) are produced either before, during or soon after the translation of the final Book of Mormon. In those sections we see a very similar language and scriptural style. Some phrases are identical to phrases in the Book of Mormon. 

I can't find it (and I've looked a few times) but I remember reading a "declaration" on josephsmithpapers.org written by Oliver Cowdery. It felt like I was reading a passage from the Book of Mormon, even though none of it quoted directly from the Book of Mormon.

Now... you could argue that the D&C and other early revelations/declarations from either Joseph or Oliver are simply learnt writing styles; that Joseph and Oliver only started writing other documents in that style because they were also translating the Book of Mormon. I understand that argument. Given I don't believe the Book of Mormon to be of divine origin, I'm simply pointing out that it can also be used as evidence that Joseph and Oliver had the ability to produce other documents with a similar style and with a similar level of theological sophistication.

[Larry Cotrell]

53 minutes ago, canard78 said:

Oh great... here's where I might end up ducking out of the conversation. When one religious person says "my conviction in the supernatural trumps your conviction in the supernatural," it all starts getting a bit silly.

So, Larry, how did Joseph do it? How many times have you read the Book of Mormon? How well do you know the arguments in favour? I appreciate the irony here, given I'm also in the camp of people saying it's a human invention. If, like me, you're going to take that position, you at least need to have a go at giving an alternative theory of how it was created.

I'm reading through it right now. I'm currently working my way through Alma, which is a long book.

Two theories 

1) It was plagiarized from different sources like the King James Bible, the Apocrypha, View of the Hebrews, Manuscript Found, Wonders of Nature; the list goes on.

2) Due to Joseph Smith's involvement in the occult, it could have come from Satan. It is very likely that Joseph Smith was decieved by Satan into thinking that this was the word of God. Satan has always known that the more truth something has in it, the more believable it is. Mormonism is a prime example of this. Satan loves to distort the Word of God.

 

[Rajah Manchou]

On 10/3/2016 at 2:53 AM, rongo said:

What evidence is there of horses from the Mongols, Huns, Golden Horde, etc. (the scourge of Asia and Europe for centuries, famous for their horse warfare)? My understanding is that there is nothing in the way of horse bones, even though we know that they had them in abundance.

A lot of evidence of domesticated horses and chariots can be found across East Asia and even down into Southeast Asia. 

http://www.npm.gov.tw/exh96/chariot/index_en.html

Horse remains have also been found in abundance. Here's one example of many:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3533493/Ancient-mummy-unearthed-Mongolia-6th-century-Turkic-woman-buried-sacrficed-horse-beautifully-stitched-clothes-1-500-years-ago.html

On 10/3/2016 at 2:53 AM, rongo said:

I've also heard that horse bones are notorious for not staying as remains over long periods of time unless they fossilize. Coupled with the hot, humid atmosphere in Central America, I'm not sure that we should expect to find any horse bones.

If Native Americans were using horses, we should expect to find horse bones.

http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/2016/09/29/earliest-south-american-people-ate-horse-meat/

The problem is that they began to hunt horses to extinction 13,400 years before the Nephites arrived.

[bcuzbcuz]

11 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

You are assuming a fact not in evidence. There is no indication that Joseph saw the words without vowels. All the indications that we have is that the words were spelled out to him in English. Joseph had no Hebrew/Semitic education a the time and would have kown not what to do with LMN except to spell it LMN.

Glenn

I made no such statement about Joseph seeing things without vowels. If Joseph were actually doing translation work, then this would be a question. But all statements from Joseph and the scribes state that Joseph wasn't translating, he was reading from his hat. Joseph did not have the plates in front of him, nor would he have known what to do with them, as far as translation was concerned, as you have pointed out.

The seer stone, would however, be required to deliver the appropriate vowel sounds and to keep those vowel sounds in accordance to the American / New York english dialect that was Joseph's tongue. Otherwise the text LMN could be delivered in a great variance of sounds.

Native American names or Central American names for places or persons, names that have been converted from their source language into English or Spanish, can only be rendered as an approximation of the original sound. When those sounds are written down in English or Spanish, the missing vowels or different vowel or consonant sounds are what the original hearer "thought" he heard. Sometimes the original hearer did not listen very well and equally made no effort to hear properly what was being said. We have ample examples of that.

The country of Canada has its name from the Iroquoian, Mohawk, word "kana:ta", The Seneca called it "iennekanandaa", which seem fairly close.

Manitoba came from the Cree "manito-wapáw!. Quebec comes from the Míkmaq word "kepék".

Nanaimo, a city in BC, got its name from the Hul'q'umi'num language, "Snuneymuxw". When the native speakers say the word fast, you can hear the origin of the word Nanaimo, but the English had no idea how to spell it, so they just winged it. The same can be said for the BC town of Esquimalt. Originally it was called by the Songheesh "Ess-whoy-malth".

As I said, some places didn't even try to come close. The BC town of Fort St. James was called "Nak'azdli" by the Dakelh nation. When the French and English arrived there, they just renamed everything, mountains, lakes, settlements, the works. The first traders who arrived there asked to speak to the chief. The word and its meaning was unknown to the Dakelh because they were a matriarchal society. The French could not accept that a woman was in control and therefore picked a man to be given the title of "chief" and they then conducted business and trade with him.

Bottom line is, no matter what Joseph saw on his stone, in his hat, any words of places or people can not be verified as to actual pronunciation. I get it that you "want" the words to be similar, but that, in and of itself, is not enough.

LMN will remain a word we don't actually know how to pronounce.

 

 

[Kevin Christensen]

10 hours ago, Larry Cotrell said:

How I know that the Book of Mormon is not from God

Galatians 1:6-12 (KJV)

 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The Bible is the sufficient Word of God. Anyone who tries to add to the Word of God should be accursed.

 

I've found that the Bible is an under-used resource when it comes to evaluating the claims of Joseph Smith, not to mention, when considering the important step of checking one's own eye for beams.

http://en.fairmormon.org/Biblical_Keys_for_Discerning_True_and_False_Prophets

And of course there is the problem of the plenary approach to the Bible as "complete, inerrant, and sufficient" which is easy enough to assert, but which does not stand up to any serious examination.  Manuscripts differ, there is important evidence of missing texts in the canon, and there is the problem of how a "sufficient" text has so many conflicting interpreters, all producing vastly different harvests from the same seeds.  Of the parable of the Sower, Jesus commented  in Mark 4:13, "Know ye not this parable?  How then will ye know all parables?"

For instance, 

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

and this

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

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[Glenn101]

8 hours ago, bcuzbcuz said:

I made no such statement about Joseph seeing things without vowels. If Joseph were actually doing translation work, then this would be a question. But all statements from Joseph and the scribes state that Joseph wasn't translating, he was reading from his hat. Joseph did not have the plates in front of him, nor would he have known what to do with them, as far as translation was concerned, as you have pointed out.

 

I misunderstood your statement "Then, when Joseph Smith saw the words on his seer stone, the interpretation would be left up to him to approximate the vowel sounds he thought he was seeing. That gives an early 1800´s twist to it since we don´t know whether old English was still prevalent in rural New York. We certainly know that JS had a prevalence for thee and thou and other Biblical English expressions" that came right after you were talking about the LMN consonants and the possible vowel permutations. 

The actual way that we know to pronounce them is not really relevant. When  Jean Baptiste Bourguignon D’Anville was researching the data for his 1751 map which showed Nehem, I do not know if he was producing it from written inscriptions or writing it down as it sounded phonetically to him. Nehem, Nahom, Nahum, Nihm, all are functionally equivalent.

Glenn

[Glenn101]

16 hours ago, canard78 said:

Like I've said before, I recognise that the Book of Mormon is not easily dismissed. 

I keep meaning to spend the time writing up and pulling together all of my 4 years of exploration of how the Book of Mormon was produced. If I were ever to write it up, it would include the following themes:

• KJV as the major source. I don't think we need to look much further than the Bible as the author/authors' key source. There are many occasions in the Book of Mormon where it quotes directly from the KJV and then the following verses essentially repeat the same message, but are reworkings, back and forth, over the concepts already quoted from the KJV. There's particularly a lot of that in 3 Nephi.
  • I think The Late War is an interesting example of what a 19thC attempt at American history in the Biblical style looks like. I don't know whether Joseph ever read it. I don't think it matters. Both TLW and the BoM were published at a similar time and therefore were likely both independent products of their cultural and religious circumstance. 
  • The presence of "anachronistic" KJV passages are problematic for the BoM. Not silver bullets by any means, I understand the apologetics, but still challenging. Mark 16/Mormon 9 is probably the biggest example of that. I'm yet to read a convincing explanation of what that passage is doing in the BoM, given there's very strong evidence it is a non-original passage in the Bible. Here's my thread from 4 years ago on the topic. I still find it a little poignant to read as it was at a time when I was only just starting out on the investigation process.
• 19thC Methodist (and other protestant) theology, rhetoric and poetry as as a significant influence. I spent a few weeks a year or two ago reading through the transcripts or records of "live" sermons of Methodist circuit preachers from the early 19thC. Also another few weeks reading revivalist hymns. The tone and message of them felt remarkably close to sermons in the BoM. 
• 19thC theories of the origin of the native americans. Smith, Harris and Cowdery were all exposed to these in different ways. A Nation Now Extinct is probably the best summary of the prevalent influences and theories of the day. 

I actually think those three form the vast majority of the explanation for the content of the Book of Mormon. There are likely lots of other smaller influences too, but those three form the major components.

Next, how did Joseph do it. Was it plausible? Obviously, I think so.

If you read the other early documents produced by Joseph and Oliver, I think they stand as evidence of his (or their) ability to produce scriptural prose. The first 10-15 revelations from Joseph (approximately section 2 to 15 of the D&C) are produced either before, during or soon after the translation of the final Book of Mormon. In those sections we see a very similar language and scriptural style. Some phrases are identical to phrases in the Book of Mormon. 

I can't find it (and I've looked a few times) but I remember reading a "declaration" on josephsmithpapers.org written by Oliver Cowdery. It felt like I was reading a passage from the Book of Mormon, even though none of it quoted directly from the Book of Mormon.

Now... you could argue that the D&C and other early revelations/declarations from either Joseph or Oliver are simply learnt writing styles; that Joseph and Oliver only started writing other documents in that style because they were also translating the Book of Mormon. I understand that argument. Given I don't believe the Book of Mormon to be of divine origin, I'm simply pointing out that it can also be used as evidence that Joseph and Oliver had the ability to produce other documents with a similar style and with a similar level of theological sophistication.

If you would do that, we would have something that we research and debate. Maybe one subject at a time in order to keep it manageable. "The Late War" might be a good starting point.

It's is not the spiritual prose itself, although it is something that can be discussed, but the content of the prose that needs to be answered.

Glenn

[cdowis]

33 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

If you would do that, we would have something that we research and debate. Maybe one subject at a time in order to keep it manageable. "The Late War" might be a good starting point.

OK, it is utter and absolute nonsense.

Any researcher worth his salt knows that you must validate your research methodology, otherwise it is just noise, and the results are just phony baloney.  

In this particular case you add to your test a sample of books which were written AFTER 1830.  Then  see what kind of results you get.  For example, what results do you get with Walt Whitman's poetry?  Does your methodology show that his poems are a source for the Book of Mormon.

Get it?!

Edited October 4, 2016 by cdowis

[canard78]

34 minutes ago, cdowis said:

OK, it is utter and absolute nonsense.

Any researcher worth his salt knows that you must validate your research methodology, otherwise it is just noise, and the results are just phony baloney.  

In this particular case you add to your test a sample of books which were written AFTER 1830.  Then  see what kind of results you get.  For example, what results do you get with Walt Whitman's poetry?  Does your methodology show that his poems are a source for the Book of Mormon.

Get it?!

Huh? Why would I add post 1830s to the source material?

I'm never sure whether you actually want to debate a topic or just throw antagonism and snark around?

[canard78]

1 hour ago, Glenn101 said:

If you would do that, we would have something that we research and debate. Maybe one subject at a time in order to keep it manageable. "The Late War" might be a good starting point.

It's is not the spiritual prose itself, although it is something that can be discussed, but the content of the prose that needs to be answered.

Glenn

True. I'll see if I can go back through notes from the last few years to share something. 

As it happens, I wouldn't start with Late War. I don't think it's source material. I think it's a parallel example of what early 1800s American history looks and sounds like when written in the biblical style. TLW and BoM are products of the same culture and genre, rather than the latter being based on the former. 

[canard78]

17 hours ago, Larry Cotrell said:

I'm reading through it right now. I'm currently working my way through Alma, which is a long book.

Two theories 

1) It was plagiarized from different sources like the King James Bible, the Apocrypha, View of the Hebrews, Manuscript Found, Wonders of Nature; the list goes on.

2) Due to Joseph Smith's involvement in the occult, it could have come from Satan. It is very likely that Joseph Smith was decieved by Satan into thinking that this was the word of God. Satan has always known that the more truth something has in it, the more believable it is. Mormonism is a prime example of this. Satan loves to distort the Word of God.

 

Your option 1 needs more substance. 

I'm not your guy to debate option 2. I barely believe in a creator. I don't worry about a biblical satan who goes around inventing tangent religions to distract people from whatever schism of Christianity that you happen to believe is the right one. 

[notHagoth7]

12 minutes ago, canard78 said:

Huh? Why would I add post 1830s to the source material?

I'm never sure whether you actually want to debate a topic or just throw antagonism and snark around?

I suspect he/she sees the value of post-1830's material as a potential baseline to test the validity of whatever methodology is selected.

 

Meanwhile, I'm not one who thinks that the validity of such things can always be determined that way. 

Edited October 4, 2016 by notHagoth7

[cdowis]

3 hours ago, canard78 said:

Huh? Why would I add post 1830s to the source material?

I'm never sure whether you actually want to debate a topic or just throw antagonism and snark around?

Do you understand how to validate a research methodology?  Please tell us.

If methodology tells you that Whitman's poems (post 1830) are more highly related to the BOM text than "The Late War"', what does that that mean, what does that tell you about your methodology?  See the extensive scientific analysis that concludes that the Book of Mormon was based on "Leaves of Grass"  http://www.jefflindsay.com/bomsource.shtml

Ask someone who has experience in scientific research and statistical analysis == they will explain it to you about validation.  Don't take my word for  because Mormons are liars, right,?  We just "want to snark around and argue" like brainless morons, RIGHT?????

Anyway, no need go respond because I will no longer be able to see your posts.  Bye,  and best of luck to you.

Edited October 5, 2016 by cdowis

[Gervin]

On 10/2/2016 at 3:02 PM, cdowis said:

Let me ask for your help.

There are hundreds and thousands of artifacts.  Now please tell us how to identify whether a jade necklace was Mayan, Nephite, or some other group?  

Glad to help.  Easy.  We know much about jade in Mesoamerica.  It was mined, it was traded, it was used in religious ceremonies, it was buried with the dead, and it was fashioned into a wide-range of iconographic figures, symbols, and utilitarian objects.  In other words, it was valued and valuable.  It was part of the cultures of the region.  It played a role in the religion.  

The Book of Mormon is totally silent on jade or any inference to jade.  So, there is no reason to believe that Nephites occupied or interacted with the Mesoamerican culture.  At least based on your jade necklace example.  

Is there another artifact you'd like me to look at?