Attempting to Map the BOM

[nealr]

On 12/10/2016 at 0:29 PM, Oliver_Cowdery said:

Nice find.

 

Now we have to consider the instances where Joseph says "this country" instead of "this continent".

I realize I am pretty late to the party on this, but for what it may be worth, Matt Roper already did all the leg work on this. He has illustrated that early Mormons used "this continent", "this country", and "this land" all to refer to the entire Western Hemisphere, specifically when talking about the Book of Mormon. 

http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1467&index=3

(Scroll down to the section titled, "Land, Continent, Country, Context"; p. 32 in the PDF)

I personally see no compelling reason to assume that Joseph Smith meant anything different than his contemporaries who knew him well with phrases like "this continent" and "this country."

[Rajah Manchou]

@Oliver_Cowdery I wanted to give your comments a good think before responding, but then I've been a little too slow returning. Hope you don't mind pulling this thread back up.

On 12/20/2016 at 10:43 PM, Oliver_Cowdery said:

If Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon then his intended location doesn't matter very much because that would mean the BoM did not happen anywhere.  If ancient American light-skinned Jews wrote the record in an unknown modified version of Egyptian on gold plates then they obviously did have a location on their mind when they were writing their own account with their own hands with their feet standing on a piece of ground somewhere which they vaguely describe the features of in the text.

Are these the only two options we're allowed, either (A) Joseph, or (B) Jews? I find problems with both. If Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon intending to dupe people into believing it was an account of Israelites in America than why does the internal map look so unfamiliar? It would have been much easier for Joseph to write the account from his immediate and familiar surroundings rather than creating an elaborate mythical world that doesn't seem to match any known geography. If ancient Americans wrote the book, the same would be true, and the internal map would resemble somewhere in America. Without a matching real world geography in the Americas, the only conclusion I find is that the author(s) did not intend for it to be an account of a location in the Americas. If they did, then they must have been exceedingly lost.

But there could be another option. Dr. Paul Owen suggested a few years back that the Book of Mormon was an authentic apocryphal text from the Old World that somehow Joseph Smith gained access to. It's an interesting hypothesis that hasn't been given much attention.

On 12/20/2016 at 10:43 PM, Oliver_Cowdery said:

However, if one takes into consideration the "prophecies" about Columbus, the American Revolutionary War, and the "prophecies" of Joseph Smith himself found in the BoM, then it would appear that the Book was claiming to be set somewhere that includes the United States.  But of course, text can always be reinterpret.  So yeah, the text itself could be bent into a number of different theories.  However, the text of the BoM didn't come out of vacuum.  I would argue that Joseph's claims about the text are just as relevant as the text itself.  (And I do kind of make that argument on page 3 of this thread.)  

In America, we did grow up with those familiar interpretations. But for every item that seems to be unquestionably American, we look past many others that aren't. Elephants and silk and peninsular islands certainly come to mind. Columbus feels like he'd be the most likely candidate for the gentile who crossed the great waters, but there are countless others throughout history who could qualify. Gentiles with holy books. Scatterings of tribes. Promised lands. Wars between gentile nations and the inhabitants of the isles of the sea. These were all common themes many centuries before America was discovered. 

On 12/20/2016 at 10:43 PM, Oliver_Cowdery said:

However, the text of the BoM didn't come out of vacuum.  I would argue that Joseph's claims about the text are just as relevant as the text itself.  (And I do kind of make that argument on page 3 of this thread.)  

Joseph didn't seem to make many claims about the text. I've tried to find moments when he discusses the characters and events from the Book of Mormon in public, and they are few and far between. When he does, he seems to bend the accounts into something unfamiliar. You mentioned Zelph earlier. Its an interesting story because it demonstrates how nonessential the BoM characters and geography were in early Mormonism. White Lamanites fighting with the prophet Onandagus for freedom? Where did that come from? Was that before or after the closure of the Book of Mormon? Sometimes it seems as if the BoM did come out of a vacuum.

On 12/20/2016 at 10:43 PM, Oliver_Cowdery said:

Phrasing a null hypothesis in terms of what unknown assumed authors believed in their heads is a problematic starting point. A null hypothesis phrased like that may not really be a falsifiable hypothesis. A null hypothesis should be falsifiable. In a expirmental setting, one typically phrases the null hypothesis as something they suspect the evidance can show to be false. A null hypothesis typically proposes a general or default position, such as that there is no relationship between two quantities.  A better null hypothesis on this issue is that the events described in the Book of Mormon didn't happen anywhere.

If the null hypothesis was that the events described in the Book of Mormon didn't happen anywhere, how would that be falsified? How do you test the claim that an event did not happen somewhere 2500+ years ago? Would a more testable null hypothesis be that the geography in the Book of Mormon does not resemble a real world geography?

Edited December 28, 2016 by Rajah Manchou

[smac97]

On 12/10/2016 at 8:39 AM, Rajah Manchou said:

Quote

The Church endorses nowhere, except somewhere in the America's. 

The Church endorses nowhere, period.

Not quite:

Quote

Since the publication of the Book of Mormon in 1830, members and leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have expressed numerous opinions about the specific locations of the events discussed in the book. Some believe that the history depicted in the Book of Mormon —with the exception of the events in the Near East —occurred in North America, while others believe that it occurred in Central America or South America. Although Church members continue to discuss such theories today, the Church’s only position is that the events the Book of Mormon describes took place in the ancient Americas.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Rajah Manchou]

19 minutes ago, smac97 said:

the Church’s only position is that the events the Book of Mormon describes took place in the ancient Americas.

My earlier comment was true in December 2016 since the Church put out that statement on January 2019. 

[smac97]

44 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

My earlier comment was true in December 2016 since the Church put out that statement on January 2019. 

JS-H 1:34 was published well before December 2016.

See also here:

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The Book of Mormon is another witness of Jesus Christ and confirms the truths found in the Holy Bible. While the Bible details events in the Eastern Hemisphere, the Book of Mormon documents the lives of some of the inhabitants of the ancient Americas. 

And here:

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The Book of Mormon came forth in this dispensation by the will of the Lord. It is a record of God’s dealings with the people who lived in the ancient Americas. 

And here:

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Jesus Visited the Americas

Illustrations by Apryl Stott

And here:

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After His Resurrection, the Savior came to the Americas and taught the Nephites the same ordinance (see 3 Nephi 18:1–11; 20:1–9).

And here:

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As part of the Restoration of the gospel, God brought forth the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. By the power of God, Joseph Smith translated this book from an ancient record written on gold plates. The Book of Mormon is “a record of God’s dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas and contains the fulness of the everlasting gospel” (introduction to the Book of Mormon).

And here:

Quote

The Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon is a sacred record of some of the people who lived on the American continents between about 2000 B.C. and A.D. 400. It contains the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ (see D&C 20:9; 42:12; 135:3). The Book of Mormon tells of the visit Jesus Christ made to the people in the Americas soon after His Resurrection.

And here:

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The Book of Mormon … testifies of Him who was born in Bethlehem of Judea and who died on the hill of Calvary. To a world wavering in its faith, the Book of Mormon is another and powerful witness of the divinity of the Lord. Its very preface, written by a prophet who walked the Americas a millennium and a half ago...

And here:

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The Book of Mormon is a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible. It contains a record of God’s dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas. It is another testament of Jesus Christ.

And here:

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The Book of Mormon tells of the resurrected Lord visiting some of the people of the Americas.

And here:

Quote

Truly the people of Mexico and other Latin American countries are among the descendants of prophets. The Book of Mormon is their inheritance. Jesus Christ did minister unto their fathers.

After His Resurrection, Jesus Christ descended out of heaven, clothed in a white robe, and stood in the midst of their ancestors here in the Americas. He stretched forth His hand and said: “Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world.

“… I am the light and the life of the world.”

And here:

Quote

The Book of Mormon will encourage only righteousness. Why, then, has hostility been engendered against the book? In part, no doubt, it may have come because the origin of the book was from golden plates delivered to Joseph Smith by an angel. These were seen and handled by selected witnesses, but not put on public display. Perhaps it is also because it is claimed primarily to be the work of ancient prophets here on the American continent.

And many, many more.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Rajah Manchou]

35 minutes ago, smac97 said:

JS-H 1:34 was published well before December 2016.

See also here:

And here:

And here:

And here:

And here:

And here:

And here:

And here:

And here:

And here:

And here:

And many, many more.

Not a single one of these is related to the Book of Mormon text.

Can you find anything that was actually etched into the Golden Plates?

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Not a single one of these is related to the Book of Mormon text.

All of them are.  Every single one.  

And all are related to JS-H 1:34.  I don't think the Church's long-held position (which is what we are talking about, after all) is based on an assumption.

1 hour ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Can you find anything that was actually etched into the Golden Plates?

I can find JS-H 1:34, which is a quotation of Moroni to Joseph Smith while he was living in New York State, and which refers to the Plates as "giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang."

Thanks,

-Smac

[Rajah Manchou]

13 minutes ago, smac97 said:

All of them are.  Every single one.  

And all are related to JS-H 1:34.  I don't think the Church's long-held position (which is what we are talking about, after all) is based on an assumption.

I can find JS-H 1:34, which is a quotation of Moroni to Joseph Smith while he was living in New York State, and which refers to the Plates as "giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang."

Thanks,

-Smac

We're having the same conversation in two different threads. I responded there