Does anybody else consider the Book of Mormon to be fiction?

[Calm]

IMO, there are at least seven of the "parallels" that are too common of a vision element to be significant (for example, the reference to a hill/mount is extremely common in visions).  Others are really pushing it...simply because there is a ball in completely different context (one is a compass, the other part of a decoration), a parallel is claimed...how often is a ball/sphere shape seen in anything?

[Benjamin Seeker]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

IMO, there are at least seven of the "parallels" that are too common of a vision element to be significant (for example, the reference to a hill/mount is extremely common in visions).  Others are really pushing it...simply because there is a ball in completely different context (one is a compass, the other part of a decoration), a parallel is claimed...how often is a ball/sphere shape seen in anything?

The parallels are more substantive than that. The Masonic sphere atop the pillar contains the maps of the universe and acts as an oracle. The liahona gives physical (map-like) and spiritual direction. 

Enoch or Solomon's mount is Moriah and JS' hill is called CoMORAH, so there is a strong similarity between the names. It's worth noting that Hyrum was a member of the Mt. Moriah lodge (Masonic) in palmyra contemporary with the coming forth of the BOM.  

The possible parallel in names is strengthened by the fact that other important hill names in the BOM, Ramah and Shim, are likely allusions themselves.

The hill Ramah (the Jaredite name for the the hill Cumorah, where both the Jaredite and Nephite nations ended), can be read as an allusion to the city Ramah where the Benjamites were killed and/or carried away captive at the beginning of the Babylonian exile. The pertinent Old Testament verses are Jeremiah 31:15-17:

"15 ¶Thus saith the Lord; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they werenot.  

"16 Thus saith the Lord; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.

 17 And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border."

 

Rahel weeping is a reference to Rachel, the wife of Jacob, mother of Benjamin and progenitor of the Benjamites, as it's the Benjamite's whose territory the city Ramah can be found in. So, hill Ramah + city of Ramah = places of destruction of covenant peoples with associated lamenting = apparent biblical allusion.

 

In earlier posts in this thread I've already addressed the apparent parallels between the hill Shim and Shemer (hill-associated place name),  Kings Omer and Omri, and civil wars with kingdoms divided between "half the people" and "half the kingdom" found in Ether 8-9 and 1 Kings 16.

 

 

 

Edited December 6, 2016 by Benjamin Seeker

[mfbukowski]

Religious change often happens through re-contextualization of existing elements in a new way.

One model is Jesus himself who re-contextualized Judaism into a new paradigm, in Christianity.  Islam can be seen as a re-contextualization of Judaism as well, as a re-interpretation of the Old Testament.

The Baha'i faith is a re-contextualization of Islam and Judaism and Buddhism grew out of Hinduism.  And so it goes

The fact that Joseph's revelations used elements both ancient and modern is to be expected.

The importance is the way his revelations can be seen as a restoration of the ancient along with a creation of a something entirely new and relevant to the latter days. Seeing the historical antecedents may prove interesting but is irrelevant to doctrine or the beliefs which come out of the liturgical context of the temple.  The arguments generally parallel those questioning Book of Mormon history and miss the importance of the creation an entirely new paradigm.  

Just as the location of the hill Cumorah it is irrelevant to the message of the Book of Mormon, the sources of inspiration which prompted Joseph's revelations about the temple are also irrelevant to the brilliance of those revelations

[Benjamin Seeker]

This isn't specifically directed at any particular forum member, but as the connections to the Masonic legend of Enoch were the most recent topic of conversation and as evidence of direct connection is always the best kind of evidence, here is something I found this morning. 

A letter by Oliver Cowdrey from 1835 describes what JS believed was on the newly-acquired Egyptian papyri. Oliver specifically mentioned that Enoch's pillar is depicted on the papyri. He credited Josephus with documenting the pillar and it's history. However, though Josephus does talk about a pillar with a history on it, etc., he doesn't make any connection between the pillar and  Enoch. Instead, Josephus credits Seth for the pillar. As far as I've learned, the connection between Enoch and the pillar is specific to Royal Arch Masonry.

My point, it looks like Oliver and possibly JS made specific reference to the Masonic legend of Enoch in 1835!

Here is the text of the letter: https://archive.org/stream/latterdaysaintsm01unse#page/n240/mode/1up

The text of Oliver's letter starts on p. 236 and the portion of the letter on Enoch's pillar begins midway down the left hand column.

However, there is at least one other thing we can glean from this. Oliver describes the pillars as stone and brick. Scholars have previously pointed out that in some versions of the Enoch legend one of the pillars is made of brass and has the history of the creation on it. Some have drawn a parallel between that brass pillar and the brass plates, containing the Books of Moses. It would appear that Oliver Cowdery, at least, is possibly unaware or less familiar with the brass pillar variation of the legend. I would assume that Cowdery and JS would have discussed the Masonic legend, considering their mutual esoteric interests, so the omission of a brass pillar in Oliver's letter casts doubt on the specific parallel between the brass pillar and the brass plates.

 

 

Edited December 8, 2016 by Benjamin Seeker

[Brant Gardner]

On 11/17/2016 at 8:47 AM, churchistrue said:

You can do scientific research to determine connections between Mesoamerica and the Middle East.  But only by understanding the BOM completely can you make assertions about whether any scientific evidence supports or doesn't support the BOM.  And I think the key here is not scientists who understand the BOM but scientists who understand and accept the LGT and mixing populations theories for the BOM where Middle East culture, language, and DNA quickly vanished into thin air once it arrived in America, and the text which may seem anachronistic can not be relied upon until you run it through the Brant Gardner translating machine, which generally removes any and all meaning to the text.  

I apologize for coming to this so very late, but I would like to make some clarifications. Although this statement is made pretty definitively, it gets a few things correct and a few wrong. 

First, what is correct? It is correct that we don't find evidence of Middle Eastern culture, language, or DNA in Native American populations--anywhere (for those who might have read Rod Meldrum's assertion that there is such a DNA remnant, that information is based on a very old study that has been superseded, and the hypothesis that there was Middle Eastern DNA--particularly during Book of Mormon times, is incorrect).

Second, what is wrong? Here the answer is a little more complicated, because the problems are in conclusions drawn from evidence, rather than statements themselves. That is, we need more background to understand the issue.

Let's begin with the problem of Middle Eastern culture, language, and DNA. Unstated is the assumption that there should be evidence of that. Of course that was the general assumption of Book of Mormon believers for a very, very long time. It was the result of the original assumption that the Book of Mormon explained all Native American peoples. If you accept that as the foundational assumption, then the lack of culture, language, and DNA is devastating. However, that is true only if you accept that foundation assumption. That assumption was wrong.

Does asserting that the assumption was wrong subvert the revelatory foundations of the LDS Church? Again, only if you assume that the assumption that all Native Americans descended from Book of Mormon peoples was a revealed doctrine/fact. It wasn't, and current statements from Church leaders have made that much clearer than it is if you read those older Church leaders who accepted the assumption and preached. Again, that is a question of whether everything a leader says is incontrovertible fact--and the official Church statement says that it is not necessarily so.

That leaves the next issue, which is whether or not the lack of culture, language, and DNA is an anomaly if we take the more historical approach that Book of Mormon peoples arrived in a world already teeming with people (the book 1491 is a nice, popular introduction to the size and complexity of pre-Columbian peoples--archaeology tells us that there were complex civilizations in place with any Book of Mormon people arrived). That answer is simple. There are plenty of historical examples of the loss of culture and language during the merger of two different peoples. The exceptions are notable, but they are exceptions (such as Norman rule in England).

What about DNA? Doesn't the ability to trace lineages, and find various ancient strains tell us that we should find Middle Eastern DNA? Not if you talk to scientists who understand DNA. What is the serendipity of what remained, and we have no picture of what was lost. No DNA scientist would suggest that nothing is ever lost. That was one of the problems with the media's popularization of the African "Eve." While it is true that DNA was traced that far back, the idea that there was only one woman was a misunderstanding of the data. There was only one woman whose DNA survived. So does the absence of culture, language, or DNA say anything about the Book of Mormon? Not if you accept genetics, linguistics, and culture history--and not if you believe the Church who has clarified that the Book of Mormon doesn't intend to show the origins of Native Americans (even though that was a popular idea early on--and there is interesting culture history behind that). 

Does the Book of Mormon as a record of a smaller people fit with what it says? From an ethnohistorical standpoint, not only yes, but yes--it fits better into both known literature and history.

That brings me down to the personal issue. Is is accurate to say: "until you run it through the Brant Gardner translating machine, which generally removes any and all meaning to the text." Perhaps unsurprisingly, I disagree. What I can tell is that churchistrue has skimmed through things I have written. What I can also tell, is that churchistrue should slow down and try to understand rather than assume.

Do I suggest that there are translation anachronisms? Yes. Is that a known phenomenon? Yes. Do we have examples of such things, particularly in cross-cultural exchanges? Absolutely. My training is in ethnohistory, where I examined the ways in which Spanish writers "translated" native culture. There are plenty of places where you not only see translation anachronisms, but mistranslations of concepts. So, if the Book of Mormon is translation literature, might there be translation anachronisms? Yes, at least in theory. How do we know if it is an anachronism or a translation anachronism? Examining the text. That is the reason that it is important to note that horses don't behave like horses, and have no cultural impact on the text of the Book of Mormon. That doesn't happen is the author of the text assumed an actual horse. We know how horses have affected culture--and that doesn't appear. That examination of the text shows that, in this case, we likely have a translation anachronism.

Churchistrue somehow missed my discussion of metal--which is actually anachronistic (as far as current archaeology knows). The reason we know that is from the text--and the fact that Joseph described metal plates that Nephi created. So there is no translation anachronism there. It seems that churchisture assumed something about why I emphasized translation anachronisms, and might revise his/her findings by reading to understand rather than support original assumptions.

Finally, might following my suggestion about how the text was translated "generally remove any and all meaning to the text:? That is a strange assertion, since what I have suggested is a functional translation, and there is no linguist I have read who would suggest that a functional translation removes all meaning. The reason for functional translations is to make the text more meaningful for the target audience. Perhaps churchistrue supposes that I lean to the more conceptual translation, but if so, then churchistrue missed a major point. My suggestion is that the language follows the original in intent, but that it uses modern examples and phrasing to communicate that intent. Meaning should be preserve in a way that the essential meaning is more evident to the target audience. The concept of translation I have proposed, and examples given, completely contradict the way churchistrue appears to have interpreted them. 

So, to be clear, the Book of Mormon gives a history in a format that is structurally and functionally compatible with the time and non-western nature of its stated origin. In a functional translation, the meaning, intent, and overall story of the text is preserved--but preserved in language (and examples) more appropriate to the target audience. The history that it proclaims, indicating a small population (perhaps 30 or less with Lehi) tracks correctly with known history and science for what happens in cultural mergers (and particularly when the flora and fauna as so different from immigrant origin to final location). The DNA science tells us that not finding the DNA doesn't preclude that DNA having been there. Finding it would be remarkable, but not finding it doesn't say anything about whether or not it was ever there. Language and culture are known to change in cross-cultural situations, and except in unusual circumstances, a small population merging into the large eventually assumes the language and culture of the larger population (most people are more familiar with the process of Americanization of immigrants into the US, and that process involved larger immigrant populations, some ghettoization of the immigrants--and still the eventual assimilation of later generations--a process that has taken only a couple of generations, a time period encompassed in the earliest parts of the Book of Mormon and therefore over with quite early).

[Rajah Manchou]

9 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

The DNA science tells us that not finding the DNA doesn't preclude that DNA having been there. Finding it would be remarkable, but not finding it doesn't say anything about whether or not it was ever there. 

Turns out there was a group with a different genetic history living (but not mixing) with the Maya, unknown until very recently and probably going extinct, leaving no recognizable trace of their DNA.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2122069-skulls-reveals-that-ancient-americans-didnt-mix-with-neighbours/

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Turns out there was a group with a different genetic history living (but not mixing) with the Maya, unknown until very recently and probably going extinct, leaving no recognizable trace of their DNA.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2122069-skulls-reveals-that-ancient-americans-didnt-mix-with-neighbours/

That's a very interesting story, although the article doesn't say they didn't leave any trace of their DNA. It just says that this particular component of the genes manifesting as the skull shape phenotype suggests they were kept separate. But saying the populations were largely separate is not the same as saying there was zero mixing and no genetic remnants. So far as I could tell from the article they don't have DNA from that particular group that's been tested yet. So we have to be careful not to confuse a phenotype separation in two populations with genetic influence. A few isolated individuals could mix, leaving a genetic trace but not significantly affecting this particular phenotype expression.

Still it is quite interesting that these groups didn't mix. I'm not sure it's that relevant to the Book of Mormon since to my eyes it asserts lots of mixing. It's just that the crucial record of their history from around Jacob to Mosiah is on the missing 116 pages. So we don't know when the major mixing occurred with the Nephites. But presumably with the Lamanites it happened fairly quickly.

Edited March 12, 2017 by clarkgoble

[smac97]

On 11/12/2016 at 5:14 PM, Ouagadougou said:

Hello all!

I was recently having a discussion with my sister (who is an active member of the church) and we discussed the BoM.  I let her know that I think the BoM contains some inspiring, faith-promoting verses; however, I consider it to be a fiction.  She was visibly upset and said I can't be a faithful member without accepting that it actually took place.  

I think there are members of the Church who are able to segment their perspective on the Gospel, such that they reject some portions of it - including important and vital parts like The Book of Mormon - while still retaining some measure of faith overall.

On 11/12/2016 at 5:14 PM, Ouagadougou said:

This made me think:

- Can you be an active, faithful member in the church and still believe the BoM is a fictional book?  

Mostly, yes.  I am not sure holding a temple recommend is feasible for such a person, but that would be between the person and his/her local priesthood leaders.

We've had several discussions of this issue on this board.  Here are a few:

• Dan Peterson: "Why I Can't Manage To Disbelieve"
• Claim the Book of Mormon is “inspired fiction” & still be exalted to Celestial Kingdom?
• Greg Prince and metaphorical Mormonism
• Is Belief In The Book Mormon As History Important?
• Maxwell Institute: Book Of Mormon Could Be "modern" And "fictional" (?)

On 11/12/2016 at 5:14 PM, Ouagadougou said:

- For those who consider the BoM to be fiction, how do you reconcile Moroni and other vital characters/individuals who participated in the restoration narrative? 

An excellent question.  I've asked it several times.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Rajah Manchou]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

That's a very interesting story, although the article doesn't say they didn't leave any trace of their DNA. It just says that this particular component of the genes manifesting as the skull shape phenotype suggests they were kept separate. But saying the populations were largely separate is not the same as saying there was zero mixing and no genetic remnants. So far as I could tell from the article they don't have DNA from that particular group that's been tested yet. So we have to be careful not to confuse a phenotype separation in two populations with genetic influence. A few isolated individuals could mix, leaving a genetic trace but not significantly affecting this particular phenotype expression.

Still it is quite interesting that these groups didn't mix. I'm not sure it's that relevant to the Book of Mormon since to my eyes it asserts lots of mixing. It's just that the crucial record of their history from around Jacob to Mosiah is on the missing 116 pages. So we don't know when the major mixing occurred with the Nephites. But presumably with the Lamanites it happened fairly quickly.

My, possibly incorrect, reading of the two papers is that the Michoacán craniums in Mexico more closely match the Lagoa Santa craniums in Brazil. The latter are most probably the source of the Australasian signal recently discovered in Amazonian tribes. But I don't think that link has been proven. What it looks like is that there were two distinct waves into the Americas, one that was more Australasian and one that was more East/West Eurasian. The Australasian group has not left much of a genetic signal while Eurasian markers are found throughout the Americas. But now we are finding Australasian skulls, so these must have been people that did not mix much and/or went extinct. In the context of the Brazilian craniums, the researcher said:

Quote

All living people, von Cramon-Taubadel explains, have a common ancestor, but not all fossils necessarily contribute to the ancestry of living people. Some populations of modern humans did not survive or made only a marginal contribution to living people. So fossils of these extinct humans provide few clues about the ancestry of living people. “There are other fossils, particularly in the Americas and Eurasia, where at the moment we are not 100 percent sure how they fit into the human picture,” von Cramon-Taubadel says. “We could use this method to elucidate where they sit and to what extent those populations actually play a role in the modern ancestry of people in those areas.” (source)

He's saying that because they are finding these ancient remains that don't fit, we can see that DNA is not giving us a full picture of what was happening in Paleoamerica. People lived and died there and left little to no evidence of their origins or existence. So we need to remember that DNA is not the only story.

[Meadowchik]

 

NM

Edited March 12, 2017 by Meadowchik

[Meadowchik]

On 13/11/2016 at 6:36 AM, Glenn101 said:

Being personally smart and having a remarkable memory does not come close to solving the riddle of how a person, or any person in Joseph's circle of acquaintances could have produced that book. That is reductionism to the extreme. Just dealing with the names in the Book of Mormon would have been a gargantuan task. There are over three hundred and forty proper names in the Book of Mormon. Of that number, over half are not attested to in the Bible. Some are Egyptian (at a time when no one could decipher Egyptian). Keeping track of those names as they entered and exited the narrative and then sometimes re-entered would require a lot of work, paper work. How many books do you know that involve that many proper names? Especially from that era and locale? Can you name even one???

Glenn

There's supposedly some altered Egyptian names in the Book of Mormon, but then again there's some Greek and Latin names, although Joseph Smith said there was no Greek or Latin on the plates he translated.

[Glenn101]

8 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

This sounds like a case of a recent catchword in threads on this board: presentism.

(1) There were egyptologists in the 1800s and there was plenty of curiosity in Joseph Smith's time involving Israelites, and therefore egyptology, and Native Americans. (2) People had books then, and papers, and people read, and then people shared what they read. You didn't even have to be literate to still be well-versed in writings of the day.

(3) And of course, Joseph Smith could have been more intelligent than 99 percent of people today. He could have been a genius and was known for his gift of narrative and persuasion. Then of course there was plenty of material available to him in that day which he could have drawn upon as inspiration and material to create The Book of Mormon.

Not hardly presentism, i.e. viewing the past from the cultural etc. perspective of the present. I am actually trying to look at the scene as it was in 1830. Let's start with your first assertion. Truly there were Egyptologists in the 1800's. But just when? The Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799. But I will quote from the Wikipedia article which is accurate enough for my purpose here.

"Study of the decree (from the Rosetta Stone) was already under way when the first full translation of the Greek text appeared in 1803. It was 20 years, however, before the transliteration of the Egyptian scripts was announced by Jean-François Champollion in Paris in 1822; it took longer still before scholars were able to read Ancient Egyptian inscriptions and literature confidently."

Egyptology was in its infancy in the early 1800's, to understate the issue.

Your point number two is well taken, but is not a point of dispute. 

Even if Joseph was a genius, a point that has not been established, most of the information that was available to him in his day, especially about the travels from Jerusalem to Bountiful were unknown or wrong.

It is easy to assert that Joseph could possibly have done such and such. It is another to provide some type of evidence to make a plausible case. I will go back to my first assertion, i.e. keeping track of the names in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon introduces over 340 proper names. Joseph had to manage how those names were introduced and their exits. Now, may be possible to do so with a photographic memory. There is some evidence that Joseph had a good memory, but that is one of the arguments that critics make against him with the 116 pages that were lost, i.e that he could not remember how it went, so he made up the story about the plates of Nephi and the conspirators as an excuse. Even with a photographic memory it does not appear to be probable, if an article in the Scientific American is any indication. From what I have read by authors on the subject, they keep track of their names and places using notes, etc. Some have gone to using spreadsheets to do so, but I am fairly certain that Joseph did not even a copy of Visicalc around to keep track of his characters and names and places. Barring the classic idea of an eidetic memory, Joseph would have had to made reams of notes and memorized them prior to the dictation. Has any evidence of that, of Joseph busily scribbling down notes, etc. been unearthed, even in anecdotal form, even after forty of fifty years, or ever?

 So, let's look at the genius aspect a little closer. Say we have a genius, smarter that 99% of any of his contemporaries. A genius with a roaring ego (just Google Joseph Smith and ego), more well read also than 99% of his contemporaries (have you ever thought of just how many books Joseph would have had to read according to the unapologists in order to amalgamate all of the ideas, names, places, etc, that are present in the Book of Mormon), yet so cunning as to obfuscate his literacy behind clumsy grammar and bad spelling to keep his real genius and learning carefully hidden. There are some contradictions there.

As I said before, after looking at the attempts by unapologists to explain the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, I am more than comfortable with my own belief that it was produced by the inspiration and power of God.

Glenn

[Glenn101]

1 hour ago, Meadowchik said:

There's supposedly some altered Egyptian names in the Book of Mormon, but then again there's some Greek and Latin names, although Joseph Smith said there was no Greek or Latin on the plates he translated.

I do not recall Joseph ever saying such a thing. He did not know what was on the plates, i.e what language was on the plates.

[Benjamin Seeker]

10 hours ago, smac97 said:

An excellent question.  I've asked it several times.

I've recently learned that the earliest evidence for the association of the name Moroni with the angel of the restoration comes from 1835. Anybody know what details were known about the angel prior to that? 

[Meadowchik]

1 hour ago, Glenn101 said:

Not hardly presentism, i.e. viewing the past from the cultural etc. perspective of the present. I am actually trying to look at the scene as it was in 1830. Let's start with your first assertion. Truly there were Egyptologists in the 1800's. But just when? The Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799. But I will quote from the Wikipedia article which is accurate enough for my purpose here.

"Study of the decree (from the Rosetta Stone) was already under way when the first full translation of the Greek text appeared in 1803. It was 20 years, however, before the transliteration of the Egyptian scripts was announced by Jean-François Champollion in Paris in 1822; it took longer still before scholars were able to read Ancient Egyptian inscriptions and literature confidently."

Egyptology was in its infancy in the early 1800's, to understate the issue.

Your point number two is well taken, but is not a point of dispute. 

Even if Joseph was a genius, a point that has not been established, most of the information that was available to him in his day, especially about the travels from Jerusalem to Bountiful were unknown or wrong.

It is easy to assert that Joseph could possibly have done such and such. It is another to provide some type of evidence to make a plausible case. I will go back to my first assertion, i.e. keeping track of the names in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon introduces over 340 proper names. Joseph had to manage how those names were introduced and their exits. Now, may be possible to do so with a photographic memory. There is some evidence that Joseph had a good memory, but that is one of the arguments that critics make against him with the 116 pages that were lost, i.e that he could not remember how it went, so he made up the story about the plates of Nephi and the conspirators as an excuse. Even with a photographic memory it does not appear to be probable, if an article in the Scientific American is any indication. From what I have read by authors on the subject, they keep track of their names and places using notes, etc. Some have gone to using spreadsheets to do so, but I am fairly certain that Joseph did not even a copy of Visicalc around to keep track of his characters and names and places. Barring the classic idea of an eidetic memory, Joseph would have had to made reams of notes and memorized them prior to the dictation. Has any evidence of that, of Joseph busily scribbling down notes, etc. been unearthed, even in anecdotal form, even after forty of fifty years, or ever?

 So, let's look at the genius aspect a little closer. Say we have a genius, smarter that 99% of any of his contemporaries. A genius with a roaring ego (just Google Joseph Smith and ego), more well read also than 99% of his contemporaries (have you ever thought of just how many books Joseph would have had to read according to the unapologists in order to amalgamate all of the ideas, names, places, etc, that are present in the Book of Mormon), yet so cunning as to obfuscate his literacy behind clumsy grammar and bad spelling to keep his real genius and learning carefully hidden. There are some contradictions there.

As I said before, after looking at the attempts by unapologists to explain the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, I am more than comfortable with my own belief that it was produced by the inspiration and power of God.

Glenn

I did misremember a fact about egyptology which is why I deleted that post before you responded.

However, the question about where Joseph could have found the creativity for The Book of Mormon is answered in abundance. People can be extraordinarily prolific and resourceful under certain circumstances. 

[Meadowchik]

2 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

I do not recall Joseph ever saying such a thing. He did not know what was on the plates, i.e what language was on the plates.

He said he translated from "reformed Egyptian," right?

"there was no Greek or Latin upon the plates from which I, through the grace of the Lord, translated the Book of Mormon." 

 

Times and Seasons, vol.4, no. 13 (May 15, 1843) p. 194.

Edited March 12, 2017 by Meadowchik

[Glenn101]

1 hour ago, Meadowchik said:

However, the question about where Joseph could have found the creativity for The Book of Mormon is answered in abundance. People can be extraordinarily prolific and resourceful under certain circumstances. 

Yes. Inspiration and revelation can do that... 

I note that you did not actually respond to any of my points beyond that blithe assertion. There has yet to be demonstrated any plausible secular method by which the Book of Mormon could have been produced.

1 hour ago, Meadowchik said:

He said he translated from "reformed Egyptian," right?

"there was no Greek or Latin upon the plates from which I, through the grace of the Lord, translated the Book of Mormon." 

 

Times and Seasons, vol.4, no. 13 (May 15, 1843) p. 194.

Which would be absolutely correct. Most, if not all of the words on the plates from which the Book of Mormon were Reformed Egyptian. However. from that reformed Egyptian we get Hebrew names such as Lemuel and Lehi. So, Joseph Smith would have had to be talking about Greek or Latin characters, and not Greek or Latin names, the former of which most definitely are in the Book of Mormon.

[Meadowchik]

39 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

Yes. Inspiration and revelation can do that... 

I note that you did not actually respond to any of my points beyond that blithe assertion. There has yet to be demonstrated any plausible secular method by which the Book of Mormon could have been produced.

Which would be absolutely correct. Most, if not all of the words on the plates from which the Book of Mormon were Reformed Egyptian. However. from that reformed Egyptian we get Hebrew names such as Lemuel and Lehi. So, Joseph Smith would have had to be talking about Greek or Latin characters, and not Greek or Latin names, the former of which most definitely are in the Book of Mormon.

It is no blithe assertion. There is an abundance of parallels, beyond word-for word quotes, with the Bible, then apocrypha, then plenty of other books of the day. Then there's the dream of Joseph Smith, Sr.

The spiritualism and infatuation with magic provide a psychological backdrop which contextualized such creativity, enough that, plausibly, a person could have can convinced themselves of receiving God's revelations. 

And people were gullible enoigh to encourage such fantasy: Joseph would treasure-hunt and claim the treasure would move about under the ground, for example. And people would pay him to keep looking.

As for names,  some were like Egyptian names unknown to the Bible. But to the number, again, I think you're applying modern day habits to a time of older habits. People did have to remember more, and Joseph was known to have an impressive faculty for memory. And he could have easily hid a slip of parchment in his sleeve or pocket and burnt it when finished.

Edited March 12, 2017 by Meadowchik

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

He said he translated from "reformed Egyptian," right?

"there was no Greek or Latin upon the plates from which I, through the grace of the Lord, translated the Book of Mormon." 

 

Times and Seasons, vol.4, no. 13 (May 15, 1843) p. 194.

We have Greek and Latin names all the time in English script.  There is no reason why such names couldn't have been transposed (or whatever the correct term is) to a different script than Greek or Latin back then.  The Egyptian names were likely given the same treatment, whatever that was (since we don't know for certain what "reformed Egyptian" was).

Edited March 12, 2017 by Calm

[Ouagadougou]

4 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

He said he translated from "reformed Egyptian," right?

"there was no Greek or Latin upon the plates from which I, through the grace of the Lord, translated the Book of Mormon." 

 

Times and Seasons, vol.4, no. 13 (May 15, 1843) p. 194.

Also, the church said the following:

"According to these accounts, Joseph placed either the interpreters or the seer stone in a hat, pressed his face into the hat to block out extraneous light, and read aloud the English words that appeared on the instrument.^2"

https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng&old=true

So many of the words, mistakes, and anacronisms in the BoM would have appeared on the seer stone.  

 

[Ouagadougou]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

We have Greek and Latin names all the time in English script.  There is no reason why such names couldn't have been transposed (or whatever the correct term is) to a different script than Greek or Latin back then.  The Egyptian names were likely given the same treatment, whatever that was (since we don't know for certain what "reformed Egyptian" was).

"Scholarly reference works on languages do not, however, acknowledge the existence of either a "reformed Egyptian" language or "reformed Egyptian" script as it has been described in Mormon belief. No archaeological, linguistic, or other evidence of the use of Egyptian writing in ancient America has been discovered.^[3]"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformed_Egyptian

Standard language references such as Peter T. Daniels and William Bright, eds., The World's Writing Systems (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) (990 pages); David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (Cambridge University Press, 1997); and Roger D. Woodard, ed., The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages(Cambridge University Press, 2004) (1162 pages) contain no reference to "reformed Egyptian." "Reformed Egyptian" is also ignored in Andrew Robinson, Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts(New York: McGraw Hill, 2002), although it is mentioned in Stephen Williams, Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991). On their website, Bad Archaeology, two British archaeologists, Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews and Dames Doeser, say "The only writing systems to have been recognized in the Americas are those used by the Maya and the Aztecs, neither of which resembles Egyptian hieroglyphs, although Joseph Smith produced a scrap of papyrus containing hieroglyphs he claimed to be a Reformed Egyptian text written by the Patriarch Abraham." Bad Archaeology

 

[Tacenda]

2 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

It is no blithe assertion. There is an abundance of parallels, beyond word-for word quotes, with the Bible, then apocrypha, then plenty of other books of the day. Then there's the dream of Joseph Smith, Sr.

The spiritualism and infatuation with magic provide a psychological backdrop which contextualized such creativity, enough that, plausibly, a person could have can convinced themselves of receiving God's revelations. 

And people were gullible enoigh to encourage such fantasy: Joseph would treasure-hunt and claim the treasure would move about under the ground, for example. And people would pay him to keep looking.

As for names,  some were like Egyptian names unknown to the Bible. But to the number, again, I think you're applying modern day habits to a time of older habits. People did have to remember more, and Joseph was known to have an impressive faculty for memory. And he could have easily hid a slip of parchment in his sleeve or pocket and burnt it when finished.

Maybe he could have written or used a sort of shorthand on notes in the hat, along with an incredible memory of things he'd read or learned.

[Calm]

Oua, from your link:

"Mormon scholars note that other languages evolved from Egyptian through the centuries and have hypothesized that the term "reformed Egyptian" refers to a form of Egyptian writing similar to other modified Egyptian scripts such as hieratic, a priestly shorthand for hieroglyphics thousands of years old by the first millennium B.C., or early Demotic, a derivative of hieratic, perhaps used in northern Egypt fifty years before the time that the Book of Mormon prophet-patriarch Lehi is said to have left Jerusalem for the Americas.[6]"

[Glenn101]

2 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

It is no blithe assertion. There is an abundance of parallels, beyond word-for word quotes, with the Bible, then apocrypha, then plenty of other books of the day. Then there's the dream of Joseph Smith, Sr.

The spiritualism and infatuation with magic provide a psychological backdrop which contextualized such creativity, enough that, plausibly, a person could have can convinced themselves of receiving God's revelations. 

And people were gullible enoigh to encourage such fantasy: Joseph would treasure-hunt and claim the treasure would move about under the ground, for example. And people would pay him to keep looking.

As for names,  some were like Egyptian names unknown to the Bible. But to the number, again, I think you're applying modern day habits to a time of older habits. People did have to remember more, and Joseph was known to have an impressive faculty for memory. And he could have easily hid a slip of parchment in his sleeve or pocket and burnt it when finished.

Okay, I get it. It was a conspiracy hidden so well that there is no evidence for it. No paper trail because of an incredible memory and an incredible genius that Joseph was able to disguise. The evidence for word for word quotes from the Bible are balanced by quotes from the Bible, Isaiah, which are not word for word but many of the variants find support from other sources such as the Septuagint.According to John Tvedtnes there are 478 verses quoted from Isaiah in the Book of Mormon. Of those verses, 201 are direct quotes while 207 have variations. Can't you just picture Joseph with his flashlight reading off that script in his hat? Of course you have actually done it because you say that it would have been easy. I actually tried something of the sort a while back, and I could not read anything. I had to make an imitation hat of the approximate dimensions.

Now, of course, there could have been a great conspiracy and Joseph may have had reams of prepared text that he read off to the various scribes with various witnesses friendly and not so friendly looking on at various times. Sounds logical, no?

Then there are the Egyptian names, which you mention, but do not theorize as to how Joseph could have made up about eighteen names that somehow just happened to be in a language that had not been discovered or published at the time the Book of Mormon was produced. LDS scholars are not the only ones that have noted this. I will quote from a John A. Tvedtnes article "Hebrew Names in the Book of Mormon":

Critics of the Book of Mormon have been reluctant to grant the historical complexity of Book of Mormon names, even when faced with evidence supporting their authenticity. One man, after writing a series of inflammatory letters designed to elicit negative comments about LDS scriptures from prominent Near Eastern scholars, received a response from William F. Albright of Johns Hopkins University, who expressed doubts that Joseph Smith could have learned Egyptian from any early nineteenth century sources. Explaining that he was a Protestant and hence not a believer in the Book of Mormon, he observed, “It is all the more surprising that there are two Egyptian names, Paanch and Pahor[an] which appear in the Book of Mormon in close connection with a reference to the original language being ‘Reformed Egyptian.' ”

Of course you have done this also because you seem to think it is no big deal while William Albright has questions.

I am still more comfortable with Joseph's explanation.

 

[Calm]

"Joseph Smith produced a scrap of papyrus containing hieroglyphs he claimed to be a Reformed Egyptian text written by the Patriarch Abraham"

Not ringing a bell today.  I recall possible reformed Egyptian script from BoM allegedly shown to Anthon and others (the one being passed around now as the Anthon Transcript hasn't been proved to be one and the same, has it?) and the papyri of Abraham.  Not the combination.  What are they talking about?

Edited March 13, 2017 by Calm