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

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, churchistrue said:

I think looking at it as a non-historical foundational myth might not have power in the sense that it’s not locked into actual, historical events, and then you have problems with the gold plates and all that.  I get it.  It’s not perfect.  But this LGT-Mixing Populations theory reduces the Book of Mormon to some weak, regional, unimportant story about some people that had no impact on the world.  They’re so weak in terms of their impact, that they lived for 1,000 years yet no one can even find any proof.  All their battles?  I’m sure you have answer that reduces them down to a back yard brawl forgotten in time almost before they ended.   It’s gutless and weak.  At least the BOM as inspired allegory is big, it’s ambitious, it rivals the Old Testament. 

Thanks for your posts and for your response to Brant, its an interesting discussion and as someone who doesn't believe in the Historicity of the BoM myself, I appreciate your approach to this subject.  

The more I study the Bible, the more compelled I am that much of scripture is allegory and metaphor and that we miss the theological point of scripture when we take it literally in our western world.  So with the lack of evidence for a historical BoM, I see greater value in trying to find metaphorical truths in the pages of the BoM, than trying to completely re-orient our church culture towards a historical BoM that is based on a different set of assumptions that run contrary to the past 150 years of assumptions about the text.  

Also, I think that by trying to hold on to a limited geographical view of the BoM, that we retain some of the very negative moral dilemmas that we've created by misappropriating the heritage of native peoples in the Americas and in the Pacific region through calling them Lamanites and continuing to perpetuate this belief that God marks people through skin color changes, etc.  These are morally unacceptable remnants of our BoM heritage that we're just leaving out there for people to continue to perpetuate unless the church clearly and specifically disavows these (the essay on Black and the Priesthood does not address this issue directly).  I was raised on these ideas and they are part of the baggage of a historical BoM that I don't see people addressing directly.  And to me, it is morally imperative that we quickly and forcefully repent of and correct these myths that continue to do damage to so many people and their cultural identity.  

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, churchistrue said:

Our basic difference is that I don’t buy this LGT-Mixing Population-Vanishing culture concept.  I think it’s unreasonable, based on the text, to assume the Lehites and Mulekites abandoned their language and culture and intermarried (not just a little here and there but everyone every generation in a way that their DNA vanishes). 

The text is explicit that the Mulekites lost their traditions because they didn't have texts with them. The Lamanites disappear and become something else quite early in the text. For the rest, the missing 116 pages entails that it's an argument from silence. The small plates are primarily religious not historic and we basically have a gap of hundreds of years with no real history until the time of Benjamin. Saying the Nephites couldn't lose their language when the text is pretty silent seems questionable. Likewise we know that historically it's not at all uncommon to have a separate priestly language from the vernacular language -- Latin in Catholicism being the obvious example.

[Rajah Manchou]

5 hours ago, bcuzbcuz said:

I haven't read any texts of the Rechabites. The site you quoted did nothing to convince me that i should spend any time looking into the Rechabites. It also provided no incentive to try and match Mormon Book stories to the stories of Rechabites. Sorry, but I don`t see any common points.

Paul Owen wrote a good article touching on the similarities between the Book of Mormon and the History of the Rechabites. He's not LDS, but proposes the Book of Mormon could be taken as a "genuinely restored ancient text with a fictional narrative that originated in the Old World, an account that bore some connection to the mysterious (and probably later) History of the Rechabites."
 
http://publications.mi.byu.edu/publications/jbms/23/jbms23-owen-essay_theological-apostasy.pdf
(scroll down to around page 97 for his summation of the advantages of taking the Book of Mormon as a restoration of an ancient Christian apocryphal text)

The Lehites and the Rechabites are both Biblical groups that left Jerusalem around 600 BC and arrived on an island in the sea. You don't see any common points?

Edited March 14, 2017 by Rajah Manchou

[thesometimesaint]

6 hours ago, churchistrue said:

I'm not following you at all.  I'm saying it's just as easy to be active Latter Day Saint now with non-historical testimony of BOM as it was 15 years ago with traditional testimony.

"I have to admit it's been a hard journey in terms of faith reconstruction to get to where I am now". You said it was hard for you. I'm simply taking your word for it.

[Kevin Christensen]

5 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Thanks for your posts and for your response to Brant, its an interesting discussion and as someone who doesn't believe in the Historicity of the BoM myself, I appreciate your approach to this subject.  

The more I study the Bible, the more compelled I am that much of scripture is allegory and metaphor and that we miss the theological point of scripture when we take it literally in our western world.  So with the lack of evidence for a historical BoM, I see greater value in trying to find metaphorical truths in the pages of the BoM, than trying to completely re-orient our church culture towards a historical BoM that is based on a different set of assumptions that run contrary to the past 150 years of assumptions about the text.  

Also, I think that by trying to hold on to a limited geographical view of the BoM, that we retain some of the very negative moral dilemmas that we've created by misappropriating the heritage of native peoples in the Americas and in the Pacific region through calling them Lamanites and continuing to perpetuate this belief that God marks people through skin color changes, etc.  These are morally unacceptable remnants of our BoM heritage that we're just leaving out there for people to continue to perpetuate unless the church clearly and specifically disavows these (the essay on Black and the Priesthood does not address this issue directly).  I was raised on these ideas and they are part of the baggage of a historical BoM that I don't see people addressing directly.  And to me, it is morally imperative that we quickly and forcefully repent of and correct these myths that continue to do damage to so many people and their cultural identity.  

There was this thread recently on Skins:

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, Kevin Christensen said:

There was this thread recently on Skins:

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Thanks Kevin, looks interesting.  I appreciate creative ways of looking at scripture.  My tendency with respect to scriptural passages like this is just to simply attribute them as describing the cultural biases of the people who wrote the scripture.  

Essays like this where the author is instead trying to prove that the original language in the BoM still accurately represents the will of the divine, but that the problem is with everyone's reading of these passages including the original author and scribes, to say that they also incorrectly read the very scripture that they produced, that is where I have a hard time with a hypothesis like this, it just stretches me personally to the point of discomfort.  

I would much rather say that yes, Joseph and the BoM authors thought that God was cursing people with darkened skin, and they believed the dark skin was a negative thing.  Today we have knowledge about skin color and evolution that teaches us that skin color has nothing to do with God's pleasure or displeasure, but that evolutionary conditions have selected for different pigmentation and that skin color has nothing to do with God's approval or disapproval.  

These kinds of passages in scripture represent a world view where people attributed things they didn't understand to the will of God.  Similar to passages that attribute disease or death or the weather or changes in the stars all to the will of God, we today have natural explanations for these phenomena, and we no longer should attribute these things as supernatural or the will of the divine.  

[Brant Gardner]

13 hours ago, churchistrue said:

Our basic difference is that I don’t buy this LGT-Mixing Population-Vanishing culture concept.  I think it’s unreasonable, based on the text, to assume the Lehites and Mulekites abandoned their language and culture and intermarried (not just a little here and there but everyone every generation in a way that their DNA vanishes).  I agree with you that based on their assumption, we should not expect to find remains of their language and culture and DNA (though based on what I understand with the DNA I think it’s more appropriate to say it’s possible to not identify their DNA not that it’s unlikely to not identify their DNA).  These were the kings, the ruling class, they brought an evolved culture.  And there's no evidence they dumped any of this or intermarried in the text.

Let's start with the anthropology. If there were no religion, or religious text involved, then the scenario suggested would be the most consonant with what we know of most of human history. That means that the social science is pretty good. It isn't special pleading. The question then becomes your statement: " I think it’s unreasonable, based on the text," Of course, if the issue is personal reading, there is no way to discuss. People read texts differently and understand them differently. What I would suggest is that your declaration that it is unreasonable is based upon your way of reading the text. I read the text differently, and I see nothing in the text that tell me that such cultural merging wouldn't have taken place, and I see several places where there is evidence that it did. On what do I base that reading? I base it on the way historical texts tend to discuss history. Ancient texts don't do modern history, and don't care about the things we do. It is not unusual to have to read history between the lines in an ancient text--even when that text purports to be history. You get very different ideas of what happened at the Battle at Kadesh if you read the Egyptian or the Hittite version. Guess who comes out on top in each of those?

Now, is there textual evidence of a shift in culture from the Old World to the New? That gets interesting, because there is a difference between religious and political structures and the artifacts of life. For example, it is highly likely that clothing and pottery changed--due to differences in climate and sources, not to mention what was locally popular. Physical remains almost certainly changed--because there was no reason to keep them and many reasons to change them. We also don't get any of those things described in the text.

As for political culture, that is still difficult to see, because we have names for things that were in the Old World, but a lot is changing. Nephi attempts to not be a king, but he is made a king. We hear about the voice of the people as a decision-making mechanism--even under kings. That isn't obvious Old World. Benjamin's speech has some very interesting facets discussing the kind of king he isn't. Those features don't make a lot of sense against the Old World, because the Old World was centuries gone by then. Politically, Nephite government shows more Mesoamerican features than Old World.

Religion is clearly a difference. However, even that changes. There is a tremendous struggle to maintain the brass plates religion. Nephites do OK (though even at Jacob's time it was under stress). By the time in Zarahemla, syncretism has taken over and becomes a big threat. 

So does the text tell us that there was culture loss or does it imply cultural retention? I suspect much is dependent upon the reader and what they bring to the text. The more modern assumptions are used to fill in the gaps, the more it appears Old World and as though little changed. That isn't my assumption, and the details I see not only suggest change, but some very specific changes related to the Mesoamerican surrounding culture.

Quote

I do not agree with you that the text gives us clear indication of what the word should mean.  You make a case for horse and chariot that I find forced. 

I don't know that I have suggested that the text gives a clear indication of meaning. It should, however, give some indication of meaning. For example, there is no way to disguise or explain away metal plates. They are essential to the the text, and we have descriptions of them being made. That the translation of metal plates is correct is confirmed by surrounding text and context. Now we come to horse and chariot. If you find it forced, then we are talking about your understanding, and that is how you understand it. That doesn't mean that you are right--nor could I suggest that because I think it is different, that it must be the way I think it is different. What I say is that the analysis follows know linguistic processes for translations, and the context surrounding those words does not confirm the modern assumption of what is meant. Take "chariot" as an example. There are examples of archaeologists referring to four-wheeled, flat-bedded conveyances as "chariots." That suggests that even the word itself changes in its possible definition, and any insistence that it must refer to a two-wheeled Egyptian/Roman war chariot is a modern imposition of meaning onto even the English of the text.

The next issue is to discover whether or not the word "horse" is an accurate translation. Again, linguistic studies in cross-cultural contexts tell us that there are all kinds of ways that animals are translated that may apply a term from one language to a different animal in another. That process is well-established, and is not special pleading. The question is whether or not we can tell, from the text, if a textual "horse" is a literal horse. The textual evidence, when not in quotations from the brass plates, is that we never find the textual "horse" involved in anything that a horse usually does, save eat and move. No one rides a horse. No one saddles a horse. Horses don't plow. Horses never get hitched to a conveyance (chariot or otherwise). If you remove the word "horse" and replace it with a made up name, and then try to tell from the text to what animal that made up name referred, you won't get any closer than we do with cureloms and cummons.

I see that explanation following standard analysis for languages, translations, and texts. I don't see it as a strain. I understand that you do, but I just can't see it in any other way. Assuming anything else is itself a modern anachronistic application of modern meaning onto a text that cannot support that application of meaning.

Quote

 You also make the same case for words related to the mixing population theory: father, brother, years, language, Josephite, Zoramite. 

Actually, you cannot. Each of those words has a context that defines it in the text and limits understanding. The one that is most difficult is "years." We may assume that a year is 365 days. That actually doesn't appear to be the definition of the year in the text. Reading and analyzing the text shows it was more of a 360 day year (and you may pick a lunar or Mesoamerican model for cultural definitions of years with that number of days). Still, it is the text that gives the definition. Such things are not arbritrary.

Quote

  It’s also made for the reference to Tower of Babel

This is another case of reading more into the text than is there. Of course, it doesn't say the Tower of Babel. We read that into the text. As for whether or not it is required, I do believe that it is suggested in the text, but it is a suggestion that isn't coming from the original source, but rather a later summary of the source--summarized even later. I know of several examples of how that kind of cultural reading-in happened with the Spanish, so again, I am following know anthropological practice. What you are suggesting is that, if we read the text literally, then we can't believe the text literally. That is circular reasoning based on an assumption that there should be a literal reading--or literal translation. I am suggesting that we read the Book of Mormon as we would a non-religious ancient text that was translated into a different language, and from the viewpoint of a different culture.

Quote

 I think you and others pushing this theory are turning the text into whatever you want.

Balderdash. I have no idea what you might have read that I have written that would give you that idea. I describe the methodological underpinnings that I apply, and they come from the social sciences and are informed by ethnohistorical readings of ancient texts. If the text can't support a thesis, I certainly don't suggest it.

Quote

 Further, if I can't trust words like horse, chariot, father, brother, Josephites, how can I trust words like faith and repentance?  

Do I therefore assume that you are not familiar with ancient languages, ancient texts, and the ways in which ancient texts differ from modern readings? You have just suggested that you cannot believe in anything unless it fits your current lexicon. I find it so much more enriching to understand that faith and repentance have developed meanings in modern cultures that stem from, but also differ from the way those terms are used in the Old and New Testaments. Personally, I find I can still learn much about faith and repentance from the Old Testament, which very rarely uses a word that gets translated as faith. They certainly weren't faithless, but the connotations differ from the long tradition of Christianity built upon the Greek implications of translating that term. Further, I am not suggesting that you "can't trust" anything--but rather that we learn so much more by asking questions of our assumptions, and even in applying the text modern linguistic, historical, textual, and ethnohistorical tools to help in our understanding.

Quote

 They’re so weak in terms of their impact, that they lived for 1,000 years yet no one can even find any proof.  

Weak in impact, rather like the little kingdoms of Israel and Judea when seen in the records of the Egyptians, Hittites, or Babylonians. Yet you read the Bible and it would seem that they should have been much more important. As for finding proof, I keep seeing people present that as an argument--as though it actually had meaning. It seems that the only time anyone understand much about archaeology is from the Old World, which not only had a long-standing tradition of keeping placenames, but also had writing and texts.

The New World is very, very different. There isn't much proof of any people. For example, we have people we call Olmecs. That is a modern name that arose from a mistake. We have the Maya, but it is unlikely that any of the ancient cities we found would have described themselves as Maya. Archaeology only rarely gets to have things like proof. Usually, and most particularly in the New World, we have evidence. Evidence is built into an argument to demonstrate a picture of the past that is coherent based upon the known evidence, and using all available evidence. That construction shifts as we learn more. What I find remarkable, is that the trend of increasing understanding of the peoples in that region has coincided with a picture that makes the Book of Mormon even more compatible with that region of the world than it was when we knew so much less (and therefore could make up more things--like the famous pacifist interpretation that held sway in American interpretations for so long, and is now seen as naive).

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, Brant Gardner said:

This is another case of reading more into the text than is there. Of course, it doesn't say the Tower of Babel. We read that into the text. As for whether or not it is required, I do believe that it is suggested in the text, but it is a suggestion that isn't coming from the original source, but rather a later summary of the source--summarized even later. I know of several examples of how that kind of cultural reading-in happened with the Spanish, so again, I am following know anthropological practice. What you are suggesting is that, if we read the text literally, then we can't believe the text literally. That is circular reasoning based on an assumption that there should be a literal reading--or literal translation. I am suggesting that we read the Book of Mormon as we would a non-religious ancient text that was translated into a different language, and from the viewpoint of a different culture.

Agree with everything you said Brant. I'd just add to the Babel that when you read the passages describing the Brother of Jared and be really clear the range of meanings for the sentences how it becomes clear how much mythology from the Bible account people read into Ether that's not there. Second, we have to remember we don't have the record of the Brother of Jared. Rather we have a summary with glosses and extended asides written by Moroni who has a copy of the brass plates shaping his interpretation. That is we don't have a "god's eye view" of the history of the Jaredites but a highly ideological interpretation by someone completely separated from the culture by more than a thousand years. He has the text but he doesn't necessarily understand all the references.

I'd discussed this issue with the assumptions we bring to his barges in terms of Noah's ark. Reading close we get a much wider range of possibilities.

Relative to the Tower of Babel, as you mention that connection isn't even made by Moroni. (Whether that's because the Genesis narrative didn't have the "babel" pun in the brass plates or for some other reason isn't clear) But most importantly the confounding language in the narrative is made a tad more complex in Ether 3:22-24. It strongly suggests that the confounding of languages isn't some magic trick where suddenly you can't speak your native tongue but something to do with writing and ciphers. 1:33 starts to give the traditional story but again note 34 where the worry is "that we may not understand our words." Now if it's a magic change of language that doesn't make any sense. Rather it's a concern about understanding words that apparently were already made. I'd suggest that the confounding of the languages in 1:33-34 can't be separated from the writing in the confounded language in 3:34.

We read this just in light of the Urim and Thummim & Seer Stone of Joseph, but it strongly suggests a cipher of some sort tied to the two stones. Presumably tied to a priestly language and pre-existent writings. So the whole narrative (in this reading, which I think is pretty strongly supported) is quite different from what we have in our Bible and is about the ability to have the writings. If anything it parallels in an inverted manner what happened to the Muelikites.

[Meadowchik]

Question: how can LDS historians be assured of their own objectivity if certain scholarly conclusions could subject then to charges of apostasy and excommunication? 

 

[Calm]

What LDS historian claims to be objective?

How can nonLDS historians be assured of their own (nonexistent) objectivity if certain scholarly conculcusions could subject them academic ridicule and possible termination of employment?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/political-intelligence/201206/the-myth-objectivity

Edited March 15, 2017 by Calm

[Rajah Manchou]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I'd discussed this issue with the assumptions we bring to his barges in terms of Noah's ark. Reading close we get a much wider range of possibilities.

Before the Polynesians, the Austronesians were venturing out into the Pacific in their barges. Its not possible to know exactly what these looked like, but we have a pretty good indication from the boat homes that are still built by Austronesian groups in the islands. These match up well with the descriptions of Jaredite barges during the same time period. 

• Small and light upon the water.
• Door, when it was shut, was tight like unto a dish.
• Length was the length of a tree.
• Ends were peaked.

4,500 years ago, Austronesians entered the Pacific onboard "bizarre ships, whose memory was preserved along the time in the form of the roofs of [their] houses, with their raised line and elegant central curvature." (source)

Q: Yeah, but what do Austronesians have to do with the Book of Mormon?
A: They were the only people that were capable of reaching the both the Middle East and the New World by boat during the Book of Mormon time period. And there is substantial evidence that they did.

[Meadowchik]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

What LDS historian claims to be objective?

How can nonLDS historians be assured of their own (nonexistent) objectivity if certain scholarly conculcusions could subject them academic ridicule and possible termination of employment?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/political-intelligence/201206/the-myth-objectivity

So because we all have bias we should not consider being employed by the Church or being a member of the Church as a more important bias?

[Meadowchik]

I think it is important that LDS scholars of LDS historicity acknowledge that they likely have an arguably existential, (professional, religious, social, and frequently familial) interest in LDS-supportive conclusions, along with a deep psychological and emotional attachment to LDS claims.

Of course, ex-Mormons also may have important personal interest in undermining LDS historicity, but generally not in as many ways, and they're often--by virtue of their disagreement--knowingly undermining or have already undermined their own personal interests related to the LDS community.

Edited March 15, 2017 by Meadowchik

[Brant Gardner]

1 hour ago, Meadowchik said:

I think it is important that LDS scholars of LDS historicity acknowledge that they likely have an arguably existential, (professional, religious, social, and frequently familial) interest in LDS-supportive conclusions, along with a deep psychological and emotional attachment to LDS claims.

Of course, ex-Mormons also may have important personal interest in undermining LDS historicity, but generally not in as many ways, and they're often--by virtue of their disagreement--knowingly undermining or have already undermined their own personal interests related to the LDS community.

I doubt that any historian would claim to be bias-free. That was once a goal, and is now considered a caution. We simply have to work through our biases to be assured that the conclusions are not dictated by the biases. For example, I started with a bias for seeing Quetzalcoatl as Jesus Christ. That was what I had been taught, and there appeared to be a lot of evidence for that conclusion. I did my own research and found that what I had heard wasn't as good as I once thought. Then I did more work, and discovered that I couldn't support any connection between Quetzalcoatl and Jesus Christ prior to pretty modern times. The Spanish thought that Quetzalcoatl might have been St. Thomas, and provided evidence for that--which was transformed into evidence of Christ. Unfortunately, the Spanish evidence didn't match native belief. There is a fascinating history of the development of modern myths in this story, but nothing else.

So, while I certainly began with a bias, that bias didn't dictate the conclusions. I would love to say that the evidence did--and it clearly played a part, but it is always the personal reconstruction you see. Historians simply have to be open about where they are coming from. In the case of LDS researchers doing work on the Book of Mormon, it is imperative that we work within acceptable historical/linguistic/cultural guidelines. If our only explanation for Book of Mormon history is "then a miracle happened," then we run counter to known human history. Of course, my beliefs don't discount the possibility of miracles, but when they become the only response we no longer have a discussion of history, but one of theology (there is some good theology in the Book of Mormon as well ).

[Meadowchik]

1 hour ago, Brant Gardner said:

I doubt that any historian would claim to be bias-free. That was once a goal, and is now considered a caution. We simply have to work through our biases to be assured that the conclusions are not dictated by the biases. For example, I started with a bias for seeing Quetzalcoatl as Jesus Christ. That was what I had been taught, and there appeared to be a lot of evidence for that conclusion. I did my own research and found that what I had heard wasn't as good as I once thought. Then I did more work, and discovered that I couldn't support any connection between Quetzalcoatl and Jesus Christ prior to pretty modern times. The Spanish thought that Quetzalcoatl might have been St. Thomas, and provided evidence for that--which was transformed into evidence of Christ. Unfortunately, the Spanish evidence didn't match native belief. There is a fascinating history of the development of modern myths in this story, but nothing else.

So, while I certainly began with a bias, that bias didn't dictate the conclusions. I would love to say that the evidence did--and it clearly played a part, but it is always the personal reconstruction you see. Historians simply have to be open about where they are coming from. In the case of LDS researchers doing work on the Book of Mormon, it is imperative that we work within acceptable historical/linguistic/cultural guidelines. If our only explanation for Book of Mormon history is "then a miracle happened," then we run counter to known human history. Of course, my beliefs don't discount the possibility of miracles, but when they become the only response we no longer have a discussion of history, but one of theology (there is some good theology in the Book of Mormon as well ).

I agree that sound methodology is helpful in curbing bias.

My area of study is mathematics. Sounds pretty objective, right? Math is the purest of sciences, as free from bias as can be, but math discovery can still be subject to and affected by personal bias, to the success or failure of theory.

Thanks for your response and I wish you the best in your endeavours.

[churchistrue]

11 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

Let's start with the anthropology. If there were no religion, or religious text involved, then the scenario suggested would be the most consonant with what we know of most of human history. That means that the social science is pretty good. It isn't special pleading.

First question.  Is this true?  I'm not an expert on this.  Is there any precedent for a group of 25ish settlers traveling to a foreign land and immediately intermarrying with the natives and dropping their language and culture?  I really don't know.  I'm fine with any example, but it would be best to have an example where the settlers were coming from tradition of being highly religious and tribal, and also that they were coming from a much more advanced culture.  Is that really the most likely scenario?

[churchistrue]

12 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

The next issue is to discover whether or not the word "horse" is an accurate translation. Again, linguistic studies in cross-cultural contexts tell us that there are all kinds of ways that animals are translated that may apply a term from one language to a different animal in another. That process is well-established, and is not special pleading. The question is whether or not we can tell, from the text, if a textual "horse" is a literal horse. The textual evidence, when not in quotations from the brass plates, is that we never find the textual "horse" involved in anything that a horse usually does, save eat and move. No one rides a horse. No one saddles a horse. Horses don't plow. Horses never get hitched to a conveyance (chariot or otherwise). If you remove the word "horse" and replace it with a made up name, and then try to tell from the text to what animal that made up name referred, you won't get any closer than we do with cureloms and cummons.

 

We're going around in circles here, because I'm very familiar with your argument, and I've already stated mine.  But I think you could do this same fancy analysis with every word in the Book of Mormon.  Which leads me to say, you can make the text of the Book of Mormon mean anything you want it to.  

[clarkgoble]

6 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Before the Polynesians, the Austronesians were venturing out into the Pacific in their barges. Its not possible to know exactly what these looked like, but we have a pretty good indication from the boat homes that are still built by Austronesian groups in the islands. These match up well with the descriptions of Jaredite barges during the same time period. 

• Small and light upon the water.
• Door, when it was shut, was tight like unto a dish.
• Length was the length of a tree.
• Ends were peaked.

Just to be clear, the ultimate point of that post wasn't to say the barges had to be polynesian canoes, but to simply suggest we bring a lot to the text. That is while I raise the polynesian canoe model, especially because the Jaredites appear to use a variant of the barges they used on rivers, the bigger issue is being careful about the text.

To the austronesian ships, I think most reconstruct them to be more similar to the polynesian ships. i.e. more like the Vaka Moana. For an interesting read check out "The Dispersal of Austronesian Boat Forms in the Indian Ocean" especially the parts where they meet up with semitic sailors.

[clarkgoble]

5 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

I think it is important that LDS scholars of LDS historicity acknowledge that they likely have an arguably existential, (professional, religious, social, and frequently familial) interest in LDS-supportive conclusions, along with a deep psychological and emotional attachment to LDS claims.

Of course, ex-Mormons also may have important personal interest in undermining LDS historicity, but generally not in as many ways, and they're often--by virtue of their disagreement--knowingly undermining or have already undermined their own personal interests related to the LDS community.

I think though that among most informed Mormons who think through the issues that they're pretty open about where the evidentiary problems are. Even to the degree they claim explanations on matters like metal, horses or other such things, I think they acknowledge the problems. That's not to deny that cognitive bias isn't a problem although that's true of critics too. Often they are just as passionate and locked in as defenders are. Further you don't tend to hear the openness to places where their arguments are weak that you often hear from defenders.

So while you definitely get defenders who are perhaps a bit blind to how strong their overall arguments are, especially with the mesoAmerican setting, I think that isn't as uncommon in other areas by all sides. What I think the biggest problem is that everyone tends to think of particular arguments in terms of the whole more circumstantial argument. It's better I think to narrow ones vision a bit, if only for a time, and consider the other possibilities for ones evidence in the narrow argument. If apologists go a bit overboard in plausible parallels regarding old world or new world archaeology, critics I think go a bit overboard in plausible but unestablished parallels to ideas and texts in Joseph's environment.

Edited March 15, 2017 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

43 minutes ago, churchistrue said:

First question.  Is this true?  I'm not an expert on this.  Is there any precedent for a group of 25ish settlers traveling to a foreign land and immediately intermarrying with the natives and dropping their language and culture?  I really don't know.  I'm fine with any example, but it would be best to have an example where the settlers were coming from tradition of being highly religious and tribal, and also that they were coming from a much more advanced culture.  Is that really the most likely scenario?

Umm, most settlers in the ancient world? The rarity was not mixing in.

Edited March 15, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Rajah Manchou]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

For an interesting read check out "The Dispersal of Austronesian Boat Forms in the Indian Ocean" especially the parts where they meet up with semitic sailors.

Roger Blench is the editor, he goes into more detail on Austronesian boat forms in Ecuador in the article I linked to above. 

The Austronesians in the New World: a Chronostratigraphy
 

[Kevin Christensen]

10 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

Question: how can LDS historians be assured of their own objectivity if certain scholarly conclusions could subject then to charges of apostasy and excommunication? 

 

Happily, Peter Novick addressed this issue at Sunstone.

Quote

In 1989, Peter Novick, the author of That Noble Dream: Objectivity and the American History Profession, spoke to a Sunstone audience that included many LDS historians.⁴⁸ His comments illuminate the underlying but unexamined assumptions of Stephenson’s approach to facts.

For historians, even more than scientists, a fetishism of “the fact” is one of the hallmarks of the objectivist consciousness. While, early on, historians were confident that they could achieve historical objectivity, later, more chastened generations regarded it as perhaps unattainable but continued to hold it out as an approachable ideal. The conception remained the same: to approximate, if not reach, a neutral, undistorting mirror of the past. [This is precisely what Stephenson and Runnells claim to provide.] An objective account would at least attempt to account for all of the evidence. The goal of the objective historian, even if one could not quite achieve it, was to tell it like it was — if not without preconceptions, with as few as possible, minimizing as much as possible any ulterior didactic motives. Even if one could not completely eliminate partisanship or bias, one could try to keep what remained under as tight a control as possible. If one could not eliminate outside influences, one would struggle against them with all one’s strength. But above all — and if I repeat myself, it is because it bears repetition — the objective historian was to cleave to one goal and one goal only, mirroring to the best of her powers the past as it really was.⁴⁹

That Stephenson depicts himself as facing facts and Mormon apologists as somehow unable to honestly accomplish this essential task shows that he embodies the kind of thinking that Novick addressed. Happily, Novick points out the essential problem with such thinking:

I will only report that to an ever-increasing number of historians in recent decades it has not just seemed unapproachable, but an incoherent ideal; not impossible, in the sense of unachievable (that would not make it a less worthy goal than many other goals that we reasonably pursue), but meaningless. This is not because of human frailty on the part of the historian (that, after all, we can struggle against), not because of irresistible outside pressures (these too we can resist with some success, if not complete success). No, the principal problem is different, and it is laughably simple. It is the problem of selecting from among the zillions and zillions of bits of historical data out there the handful that we can fit in even the largest book, and the associated problem of how we arrange those bits that we choose. The criterion of selection and the way we arrange the bits we choose are not given out there in the historical record. Neutrality, value-freedom, and absence of preconceptions on the part of the historian would not result in a neutral account, it would result in no account at all, because any historian, precisely to the extent that she was neutral, without values, free of preconceptions, would be paralyzed, would not have the foggiest notion of how to go about choosing from the vast, unbelievably messy chaos of stuff out there.⁵⁰

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/image-is-everything-pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain/

Each community has a "group licensed way of seeing" and each community has its own dynamic for dealing with the tension caused by other ways of seeing.  For several decades now, LDS historians have choices about who they prefer to apply for a license for seeing. 

Richard Bushman offered his take in The Social Dimensions of Rationality in 1996:

Quote

By the standards of this rigorous scientific inquiry, Mormon scholars with their obvious personal commitments do not measure up. To practitioners of objective science, the findings of Mormon scholars are necessarily polluted by their personal interest in the outcome. Mormon scholars have a form of scholarship but deny the power thereof, and hence can be dismissed as special pleaders rather than as serious claimants to objective truth.

That is where Mormon scholarship was located, anyway, until about twenty years ago. Now, that perspective on belief is undergoing a fundamental shift, not because of changes in Mormon scholarship but because of the way modern thinkers are conceiving scholarship as a whole. We live at a moment in history when the Enlightenment dream of scientific scholarship has been eaten away by doubts about the possibility of scholarly objectivity. A host of thinkers, many of them French, have called into question the very possibility of dispassionate inquiry. They are arguing not merely that objectivity is an impossible achievement for human beings, who can never detach their minds from the rest of their being, but that the pretense of objectivity is an exercise in self-aggrandizement. Objectivity disguises a play for power by those who pretend to the authority of objective scholarship when they are every bit as self-interested in the outcome as any religious apologist. The scientific authorities of an era, according to current theory, claim to speak only for truth against error, when in actuality they stand to benefit by promoting their particular truth and vanquishing all others. No truth, not even the most rigorously scientific, is objective. All truth is colored by personal interest of some sort.

That is harsh criticism of the scientists whom we have all learned to admire, and I, for one, am loath to go all the way with postmodernist thinkers. It is very hard to relinquish faith in some measure of objective scholarship. We all can think of utterly biased and self-serving scholarship that we are sure would not hold up under scrutiny, or history writing that is filled with factual errors. We want to reserve the right to correct this corrupted work in the name of some kind of objective truth.

But if we cannot go all the way with the critics of the Enlightenment, we must at least acknowledge that no scholarship, no truth, exists in a social vacuum. Though it is rarely mentioned in the work itself, all scholarship is tied to a community of some kind and bears the marks of that community’s influence. Scholarship is the product of people who are located in institutions—universities, research institutes, or circles of like-minded thinkers. They publish their work and want to have it read by others. Their reputations, promotions, pay raises, and appointments depend on how that work is received. When they write, they use the language, the mannerisms, the forms of their scholarly community. In taking an intellectual position, they silently, but inevitably, associate themselves with people of a similar outlook. Scholars take pleasure in hearing references to their work at scholarly meetings or seeing it mentioned in publications. They can imagine being part of a distinguished community of learned people whose intelligence and character are admired. In the scholarly work itself, a conclusion is presented as the outcome of careful scrutiny of the facts and rigorous analysis; but the assumptions, the perspective of the work, the fundamental attitude come from some community, from a society with which the scholar is implicitly and probably quite hopefully associating.

Every form of scholarship is rooted in a society, an imagined community of scholars in which the teachers or writers live and move and have their being. We cannot take a position on a scholarly issue without implicitly forming or breaking a social relationship. Everything we write and say links us to other people, with all the tangled consequences for our self-esteem, our personal identities, our hopes and aspirations. There is a social and personal dimension to every form of rational discourse, which means that all beliefs, not merely religious beliefs, are both rational and irrational. We may indeed become persuaded rationally that the Book of Mormon is a nineteenth-century production. There may be hundreds of facts we can invoke to sustain this position. But in making that assertion we are forming and breaking human relationships that unavoidably influence our thinking, just as the memories of a religious upbringing (or of a transforming conversion) coil around the work of the Mormon apologists.

http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1127&index=8

The answer, I've argued for a long time, is to not try to claim immunity from criticism on grounds of being objective, but to openly acknowledge one's ideological stance so that the implications can be critically considered, and to consciously turn away from paradigm-dependent criteria, and towards paradigm-independent criteria for evaluating claims.   There is a marked difference between dismissing an argument as "Not us" (whatever group that "us" happens to be), and taking the challenge and risk of exploring and explaining notions of "Why us?" rather then them.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

[churchistrue]

5 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Umm, most settlers in the ancient world? The rarity was not mixing in.

I'm kind of dense.  Can you give examples?  

[clarkgoble]

49 minutes ago, churchistrue said:

I'm kind of dense.  Can you give examples?  

Christians and Jews in Rome and Egypt.

[churchistrue]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Christians and Jews in Rome and Egypt.

Still not following you.  A group of 25 went from where to where and immediately intermarried, dropped their language and culture and had their DNA vanish?