Bows in the Book of Mormon

[Rajah Manchou]

6 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Theoretical linguistic drift is not actual drift.  Positing theoretical drift misses the point that actual, written (ethnographic) sources have the equivalent terms.  That is a matter of translation of languages, not linguistic drift.

Didn't the Maya themselves record the arrival of the bow + arrow as being introduced much later from the Aztecs? I'm looking for a source for this, but haven't had any luck yet.

[clarkgoble]

29 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

You can usually get around the upload limits by pasting the image URL (if you have it) directly into the post, and then you can adjust the size by double-clicking the image preview, which pulls up a modal box with some options. 

Thanks for going straight to the sources, and sharing them.

Yeah, these were all from me doing screenshots using Skitch so as to capture the Google Books, Amazon and JStor data. That's why in some cases the search terms appear since often there's very limited ways to display the page. Only a few of these were publicly available. But I'll do that in the future by first uploading to my blog and then linking to the images there.

PS - sorry for misspelling atlatl as atlal far too many times to count.

Edited June 21, 2017 by clarkgoble

[hagoth7]

On 6/19/2017 at 2:37 PM, clarkgoble said:

....it does seem a topic that perhaps needs a followup by someone trained in the actual archaeology of the region.

...What do you think?

I think that's putting the chariot before the horse.

Edited June 21, 2017 by hagoth7

[Rajah Manchou]

1 hour ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Didn't the Maya themselves record the arrival of the bow + arrow as being introduced much later from the Aztecs? I'm looking for a source for this, but haven't had any luck yet.

I can't find the primary source, but it looks like it comes from a Mayan history? Here are some secondary sources:

Postclassic Maya Settlement on the Rural Urban Fringe of Mayapán, Yucatán, Mexico (2008) By Bradley W. Russell

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Didn't the Maya themselves record the arrival of the bow + arrow as being introduced much later from the Aztecs? I'm looking for a source for this, but haven't had any luck yet.

That would be interesting indeed.  Since the Nephite-Mulekite peoples brought that technology with them ca. 586 BC, and since they were primarily to be found in highland Guatemala and then in the Grijalva River Valley (non-Maya Mixe-Zoque region) that might mean that there was a temporary technology loss and later reintroduction of the bow & arrow.

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

You can usually get around the upload limits by pasting the image URL (if you have it) directly into the post, and then you can adjust the size by double-clicking the image preview, which pulls up a modal box with some options. 

Thanks for going straight to the sources, and sharing them.

You are a true master of the media, Rajah.

[Robert F. Smith]

9 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

It shows a pattern. After all the Conquistadores weren't Nephites and so the word choice of spanish words tells us nothing about the Book of Mormon beyond the principle that words are applied to new referents when there's not an existing word to use. Again this is the point that both Sorenson and Gardner make. Particularly the latter since his argument is part of a wider argument for a loose translation largely adopting KJV language even when it is misleading. Given that there is no KJV term for an atlal I think you dismiss drift far too readily.

I don't dismiss drift at all, when and where it is applicable.  The anti-Mormons frequently claim that the Mormons invented theoretical equivalents in tapir/horse and macquihuitl/sword, which is completely false.  They are actual equivalents made by real peoples in historical context.  Such instances must be carefully separated from the imaginative reconstructions which people often make, as though they were plainly reasonable, when they are so often not at all.  All that aside from the fact that KJV terms are often not faithful to the Hebrew.

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To my mind the apologetic issues are the main ones. That is when a critic (and they do) point to the problem of bows as an anachronism in the Book of Mormon pointing to a 50 year old article that apparently convinced few in the field is not a good response. It just isn't. Further to display pictures from a millennia later as representative of the main Book of Mormon narrative from Mosiah through Helaman seems misleading at best.

Those pictures were not meant to convey anything except examples of the sort of weapons being discussed, just as was true of me suggesting that looking at a late postclassic dramatization of use of the three weapons in question by the Maya was not meant as evidence of its existence in Nephite-Lamanite times.  Fault-finding at that level is just wrong.  We at least need to see examples of those sorts of weapons, and even to use them if possible (Dr Mark Alan Wright let me practice with his atatl, and I had a friend allow me to practice with his Roman spear, thus helping me to directly understand how those weapons function).

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Now if we ignore the apologetic issues and question the factual ones we're left with the abundance of evidence being against bows and arrows but very good reasons to think other items work as well.

So for you, absence of evidence is powerful evidence of absence.  Is that completely fair in context?  And does that make any sort of imaginative reconstruction reasonable?  I think that we are better off considering the whole context.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Robert F. Smith

[clarkgoble]

10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I don't dismiss drift at all, when and where it is applicable.  The anti-Mormons frequently claim that the Mormons invented theoretical equivalents in tapir/horse and macquihuitl/sword, which is completely false.  They are actual equivalents made by real peoples in historical context.  Such instances must be carefully separated from the imaginative reconstructions which people often make, as though they were plainly reasonable, when they are so often not at all.  All that aside from the fact that KJV terms are often not faithful to the Hebrew.

It seems to me though that while that strengthens the argument for a particular drift, the principle of drift is still in play. The idea that people with no word for atlatl, which we know was in the region in question, and that doesn't appear in the Book of Mormon, would use a term the Book of Mormon does use seems quite reasonable. The counter-thesis is that dart or javelin are the atlatl but then you're still doing exactly the same thing - using a different word. So I confess I don't see what you're gaining here. Likewise apologists already use other KJV words as having different referents due to linguistic drift. Examples of apologetic use along these lines are deer for the Book of Mormon goat (Enos 1:21) and peccary for swine (Ether 9:18). While I don't have my old Sorenson (Ancient American Setting) to check, I don't think he gives examples of actual drift for those particular creatures.

So I'm not sure I buy the principle you're applying here. I think merely having plenty of examples of linguistic drift along with new creatures and no relevant words entails using old words for new creatures or adopting transliterations of some sort. The latter might be hard with the plates depending upon the particular semiotics of the plates. Although of course there are odd terms in the translation that might be tied to mangled transliteration. (Cureloms, cummoms, and possibly senum although that may also oddly be latin)

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Those pictures were not meant to convey anything except examples of the sort of weapons being discussed, just as was true of me suggesting that looking at a late postclassic dramatization of use of the three weapons in question by the Maya was not meant as evidence of its existence in Nephite-Lamanite times.  Fault-finding at that level is just wrong.

I just disagree here. I think we have a major art problem in the church in which people tend to interpret illustrations rather than limiting them to just illustrating one narrow part of the text. I'll not get into that here although I discussed it extensively a couple of weeks ago at T&S. While it's possible the authors didn't intend them to illustrate the period in question, I think it's undeniable that most casual readers would take them as having such a function. Now you can limit that by carefully and explicitly qualifying the art but in this case that didn't happen. In particular the header art, labeled "Alma's Captains," most explicitly is representing Nephites using bows and arrows in the period in question.

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So for you, absence of evidence is powerful evidence of absence.  Is that completely fair in context?  And does that make any sort of imaginative reconstruction reasonable?  I think that we are better off considering the whole context.

No. I don't quite follow your reasoning here.

There's not merely absences of evidence but rather strong evidence of absence due to the diffusion model and the history of how bows were adopted. That is there's some mild evidence for limited bow use in the eastern United States area around 3000 - 6000 BC when populations were low that didn't diffuse. But all use during more recent times when populations were denser diffused. The diffusion movement can be traced. The Book of Mormon describes large numbers and extensive use of weapons in war where the benefit of bows become clear. Therefore we should expect the same phenomena to occur that happened with war in the rest of the continent including the same purported region where the text takes place. That it doesn't and that there is an absence of unambiguous bows in the period in question is strong if not conclusive evidence against the bow in the main Book of Mormon period. (Excluding the Nephi era)

Again I don't think this a problem for the text due to atlatls being able to function pretty equivalently in the text. I'm of course open to being wrong. New evidence might overthrow what appears to be the consensus against bows in mesoamerica prior to 0 AD. I've just not seen that evidence.

[Bob Crockett]

On 6/19/2017 at 5:51 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

I think that you answered your own question in the footnote you quoted from the very article you unjustly criticize herewith.  Moreover, trained anthropologists such as John Sorenson (Mormon's Codex, 413,415) and Brant Gardner have already cited non-Mormon experts who put the bow & arrow as present in Mexico already by the time of Christ.  Since the hard evidence is that early, it makes little sense to ignore the fact that the bow & arrow was already a major feature of Lehi's world -- a technology explicitly brought from ancient Israel.  In such a case, as every archeologist knows, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  Why?  Because excavations are so rare and limited that we do not have a random scientific sample of the cultures.  What we have instead is an account of a small group which arrives with that technology in about 586 B.C., so that the actual evidence will be quite sparse and finds dependent on sheer luck in a very limited area.

Indeed, based on information in note 12, which you didn't quote, it is also possible that arrows were being used as early as Olmec times.  It is only that finding evidence of wooden arrow shafts or bows in that area would be virtually impossible -- given the wet, semi-tropical nature of the environment.

Regarding "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence:"   As Carl Sagan noted, this quote is an appeal to ignorance.  [Sagan, Carl (1997). The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1st ed.). New York: Ballantine. p. 213. ISBN 0-345-40946-9. OCLC 32855551.]

Years ago, I ran down this tautology to the defense of God in early 20th Century or late 19th Century Christian apologia.  

I can't speak for the scientific method, but I can say that as a matter of law the tautology is false.   The law often requires the proof of a negative, such as "the suspect was not present at the scene of the crime on August 1, 2016."   The negative can be proven with affirmative evidence, of course, such as an alibi.  But, it can also be proven (in a sense) by a complete failure to show any evidence that the witness was ever there.  In other words, there are ten people at a party on August 1, 2016.  All ten swear they did not see the suspect at the party.  What does this mean?  It is evidence that he was not there.  Is it absolute proof he was not there?  No, but there really isn't such a thing as absolute proof and the law does not require such.  Can their testimony that he wasn't there be used to argue that he really was there?  No; that much is certain.  But, he might have been there nonetheless:  in disguise; all the witnesses were on acid; he was there when all 10 witnesses were in the bathroom, etc. and etc.  

The false tautology is often used to prove the existence of God or in Dr. Sorenson's case, the MesoAmerican LGT for the Book of Mormon.  In other words, whereas the tautology is rather neutral -- there is no proof one way or the others -- you and other Sorenson acolytes turn the tautology on its head to use the absence of evidence to suggest that there is indeed evidence.  In fact, that is how you use the tautology above, to imply that there is evidence.

I of course counter by saying that since Dr. Sorenson did not use the scientific method or scientific postulates to make his case, his findings are quite unreliable as to the location for the Book of Mormon events.  He postulates that MesoAmerica is the most plausible location for the BoM, but that is not a scientific postulate.  I read a funny book about Templars and the llluminati and can say it was more plausible than others I've read, but it is still frivolous and unsupported.  As Sagan said, the false tautology cannot be used to argue for the existence of aliens in UFOs.

To rely upon Dr. Sorenson's work to buttress one's belief in the Book of Mormon is a very risky proposition; the same could be said about the FIRM Foundation's work.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Bob Crockett

[clarkgoble]

Bob, I think Sagan overstates this. He wasn't trained in philosophy so he tends to make a lot of mistakes when he delves into these things unfortunately. Of course in terms of induction he's right although that's because of the statistical nature of sampling. The more representative samples you have the more absence is evidence. However often especially with archaeology there are reasons to not expect evidence and the sample size is frequently small. (No pun intended) Inductively in those cases absence doesn't tell us much. You get a similar situation with a lot of claims about fossils which are often rare and thus don't fully represent the expected history. 

The way I'd put it is that the significance of absence depends upon the theories one is comparing and contrasting as how they fit into a set of reasonable expectations that are themselves tied to further argument and evidence.

Relative to Book of Mormon geography I'd also note that we have to be careful about people are claiming it does. At best it provides reasons for why the Book of Mormon isn't implausible. That is it provides reasons for why one isn't being irrational in ones belief in historical Nephites. It can't (and most apologists are quite upfront about this) provide reasons why it is most rational to believe in the Book of Mormon. Relative to my worries, I think that we have to put the strongest case forward in terms of explaining the mainstream archaeological record. (Again I'm far from an archaeologist but most of this is pretty basic philosophy of science and the mathematics of statistics)

Edited June 21, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Robert F. Smith]

59 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

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Robert F. Smith said:

. . . as every archeologist knows, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  Why?  Because excavations are so rare and limited that we do not have a random scientific sample of the cultures.  What we have instead is an account of a small group which arrives with that technology in about 586 B.C., so that the actual evidence will be quite sparse and finds dependent on sheer luck in a very limited area.

Regarding "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence:"   As Carl Sagan noted, this quote is an appeal to ignorance.  [Sagan, Carl (1997). The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1st ed.). New York: Ballantine. p. 213. ISBN 0-345-40946-9. OCLC 32855551.]

Years ago, I ran down this tautology to the defense of God in early 20th Century or late 19th Century Christian apologia.  

I can't speak for the scientific method, but I can say that as a matter of law the tautology is false.   The law often requires the proof of a negative, such as "the suspect was not present at the scene of the crime on August 1, 2016."   The negative can be proven with affirmative evidence, of course, such as an alibi.  But, it can also be proven (in a sense) by a complete failure to show any evidence that the witness was ever there.  In other words, there are ten people at a party on August 1, 2016.  All ten swear they did not see the suspect at the party.  What does this mean?  It is evidence that he was not there.  Is it absolute proof he was not there?  No, but there really isn't such a thing as absolute proof and the law does not require such.  Can their testimony that he wasn't there be used to argue that he really was there?  No; that much is certain.  But, he might have been there nonetheless:  in disguise; all the witnesses were on acid; he was there when all 10 witnesses were in the bathroom, etc. and etc.  

You missed the point entirely, Bob, and you falsified what I did not say -- thus creating a convenient strawman.  Modern crime scene investigation and an archeological excavation have a lot in common (method of recovery and recording of evidence), and serve very similar purposes.  But they have the crucial difference which I describe above, and which you carefully ignore:  An archeological excavation is ordinarily done in the absence of the primary witnesses and culprits (they are long gone and cannot be interviewed), only a small proportion of a single location can be studied at a time, and even in aggregate only a small proportion of a given culture can be interpreted and brought to light.  Even at that, it is many decades before any sort of meaningful overall picture of that culture can be produced -- through many separate excavations of different locations.

Thus, when an regional archeological project takes a look at one thin slice of culture (usually quite late in sequence), it is not telling us what could have been found in situ on the ancient day(s) when it was fully alive, but only what random leavings show us -- and that requires a great deal of sheer luck and imaginative interpretation.  The more scientific the better.

Not finding particular pieces of evidence of this or that possible item does not mean that it was not there anciently -- only that it may have been quite rare at that time, and it may not have been likely to have survived the environment (dependent on materials and climate).  In such an instance, I think it correct of the non-Mormon archeologists looking at the arrow question to concern themselves with the types of projectile points likely to have been mounted on an actual arrow.  That means that the absence of a  wooden arrow shaft is not evidence that it did not exist, but rather that we have to use other methods of inquiry.  In any case, wood was not likely to survive, given the circumstances described.

59 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

The false tautology is often used to prove the existence of God or in Dr. Sorenson's case, the MesoAmerican LGT for the Book of Mormon.  In other words, whereas the tautology is rather neutral -- there is no proof one way or the others -- you and other Sorenson acolytes turn the tautology on its head to use the absence of evidence to suggest that there is indeed evidence.  In fact, that is how you use the tautology above, to imply that there is evidence.

I am no one's acolyte, as you disparagingly put it, and I think that we need to ignore personal attacks and focus on the science and logic.  Your effort to deflect this discussion into geography of the BofM is another example of a strawman.  We need to focus on the issue under discussion -- see the OP.

59 minutes ago, Bob Crockett said:

.......................................... I read a funny book about Templars and the llluminati and can say it was more plausible than others I've read, but it is still frivolous and unsupported.  As Sagan said, the false tautology cannot be used to argue for the existence of aliens in UFOs.............................................

Illuminati, aliens, and UFOs.  Really?!  Is that the only level of meaningful discussion you are able to muster in a thread about bows & arrows?  That is your version of science?

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

It seems to me though that while that strengthens the argument for a particular drift, the principle of drift is still in play. The idea that people with no word for atlatl, which we know was in the region in question, and that doesn't appear in the Book of Mormon, would use a term the Book of Mormon does use seems quite reasonable. The counter-thesis is that dart or javelin are the atlatl but then you're still doing exactly the same thing - using a different word. So I confess I don't see what you're gaining here. Likewise apologists already use other KJV words as having different referents due to linguistic drift. Examples of apologetic use along these lines are deer for the Book of Mormon goat (Enos 1:21) and peccary for swine (Ether 9:18). While I don't have my old Sorenson (Ancient American Setting) to check, I don't think he gives examples of actual drift for those particular creatures.

So I'm not sure I buy the principle you're applying here. I think merely having plenty of examples of linguistic drift along with new creatures and no relevant words entails using old words for new creatures or adopting transliterations of some sort. The latter might be hard with the plates depending upon the particular semiotics of the plates. Although of course there are odd terms in the translation that might be tied to mangled transliteration. (Cureloms, cummoms, and possibly senum although that may also oddly be latin)

This misunderstanding which you have here is pointed up by your suggestion that BofM senum means "of old men'" (the genitive masculine plural of Latin senex "old man."  Such out of context and wild suggestions make my point.  A scholar would prefer to look at the word in context (Alma 11), and to examine more likely options, as I did in my “The Preposterous Book of Mormon: A Singular Advantage,” lecture, August 8, 2014, at the annual FAIRMORMON Conference, Provo, Utah, online at ttp://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PREPOSTEROUS-BOOK-OF-MORMON.pdf .

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I just disagree here. I think we have a major art problem in the church in which people tend to interpret illustrations rather than limiting them to just illustrating one narrow part of the text. I'll not get into that here although I discussed it extensively a couple of weeks ago at T&S. While it's possible the authors didn't intend them to illustrate the period in question, I think it's undeniable that most casual readers would take them as having such a function. Now you can limit that by carefully and explicitly qualifying the art but in this case that didn't happen. In particular the header art, labeled "Alma's Captains," most explicitly is representing Nephites using bows and arrows in the period in question.

Yes, it is true that some well-intentioned people have done what you find objectionable, and we could sit around and grouse about all the old Renaissance masters who drew absurd and inaccurate versions of biblical events and people, but would that really get us to where we want to go?  Of course, you are assuming and virtually guaranteeing that there were no bows & arrows in Alma's time, not simply finding fault with using much later Mesoamerican art to represent those types of weapons.  A very different matter.  You are wrong to find fault on that, just as you would be to find fault with my suggestion that "Apocalypto" demonstrates the use of all three types of weapons under discussion -- for those who might be interested in that -- as their archeologist advisor demonstrated for them during the making of the film.

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

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

There's not merely absences of evidence but rather strong evidence of absence due to the diffusion model and the history of how bows were adopted. That is there's some mild evidence for limited bow use in the eastern United States area around 3000 - 6000 BC when populations were low that didn't diffuse. But all use during more recent times when populations were denser diffused. The diffusion movement can be traced. The Book of Mormon describes large numbers and extensive use of weapons in war where the benefit of bows become clear. Therefore we should expect the same phenomena to occur that happened with war in the rest of the continent including the same purported region where the text takes place. That it doesn't and that there is an absence of unambiguous bows in the period in question is strong if not conclusive evidence against the bow in the main Book of Mormon period. (Excluding the Nephi era)

Again I don't think this a problem for the text due to atlatls being able to function pretty equivalently in the text. I'm of course open to being wrong. New evidence might overthrow what appears to be the consensus against bows in mesoamerica prior to 0 AD. I've just not seen that evidence.

Here we get the actual basis of your blanket claim -- the diffusion model which entirely dominates your conception of the issue.  Your model says it, therefore it just has to be true.  And the atlatl is "able to function pretty equivalently in the text."  No need to subject that claim to logic in context (Jarom 8).  Yet, that's just not how the real world functions.

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

This misunderstanding which you have here is pointed up by your suggestion that BofM senum means "of old men'" (the genitive masculine plural of Latin senex "old man."  Such out of context and wild suggestions make my point.  A scholar would prefer to look at the word in context (Alma 11), and to examine more likely options...

I think you're taking a throwaway line a tad too seriously there. It was meant as a bit of a joke. Although as they say if you're explaining it's not a joke anymore.

The point I raised was about transliteration and how they might get mangled. I'm not seriously suggesting that it's latin with the same meaning since I clearly knew its latin meaning if I brought up the latin.  I also knew the functional meaning via it's use in Alma 11 with weights and measures as well as etymology arguments such as found at the Book of Mormon Onomasticon project which gives a few other possibilities than you listed. I'd not seen your paper though so thanks for posting it. But it actually points to my point and not yours since there's clearly a difference between sniw and both senine and senum. So it strikes me as odd to criticize linguistic drift without having actual proof of an example with the word when you just wrote a whole paper doing just that. You're saying the terms are related due to similar function and similar terms. Which is all I'm doing.

 

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Yes, it is true that some well-intentioned people have done what you find objectionable, and we could sit around and grouse about all the old Renaissance masters who drew absurd and inaccurate versions of biblical events and people, but would that really get us to where we want to go?

Well the goal is to get people to be more careful with illustrations. So, yes, I do think that will help get us to where we want to go. Saying nothing pretty well ensures the status quo.

 

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Of course, you are assuming and virtually guaranteeing that there were no bows & arrows in Alma's time, not simply finding fault with using much later Mesoamerican art to represent those types of weapons.

Umm. No. In fact I explicitly said the opposite. "Therefore we should expect the same phenomena to occur that happened with war in the rest of the continent including the same purported region where the text takes place. That it doesn't and that there is an absence of unambiguous bows in the period in question is strong if not conclusive evidence against the bow in the main Book of Mormon period."

To say "strong if not conclusive evidence" is quite far from "guaranteeing." But I am concerned that apologetics as apologetics ought first be clear what the evidence is and then explain the Book of Mormon as best as one is able in terms of that evidence. The BMC article in question just doesn't do that. Indeed I'd say a casual reader would come away very misinformed about what the evidence for preclassical bows is. Apologetics shouldn't misinform. There's a strong practical reason why it shouldn't: because the people will most likely encounter the real evidence from critics. If they see apologists as engaged in sophistry they'll cease to trust apologetics. Further the effect when they encounter the real evidence will mean that the argument didn't really work anyways since it argued beside the point.

Now if one is merely making an argument for a particular position that's a different matter. But in this case the article was pure apologetics. As such I just don't think it's what we should be doing as we do our apologetics.

 

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You are wrong to find fault on that, just as you would be to find fault with my suggestion that "Apocalypto" demonstrates the use of all three types of weapons under discussion -- for those who might be interested in that -- as their archeologist advisor demonstrated for them during the making of the film.

I would agree that I'd say Apocalypto should not be used to portray preclassical culture or items. At best one might use a few elements to explain something if one carefully qualified how one was using it and explained the preclassical culture vs. 17th century culture. 

 

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Here we get the actual basis of your blanket claim -- the diffusion model which entirely dominates your conception of the issue.  Your model says it, therefore it just has to be true.

Again that's misrepresenting what I'm arguing. I'm saying that in terms of the preponderance of the evidence it is that there were no bows in the time period of Enos - Helaman. Thus if a member or investigators is having questions about that due to critics, one should engage with the evidence yet with respect to bows (and a few other topics) we've not done this.

Likewise if we're trying to teach what Nephites were we should again deal with the evidence and explain the range of possibilities. The article in question doesn't do that either.

 

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And the atlatl is "able to function pretty equivalently in the text."  No need to subject that claim to logic in context (Jarom 8).

I'm completely open to that argument. As I said a few times in this thread there are some oddities to Jarom 1:8 but also there's the question of reading that verse in connection with other verses. In particular Jarob 1:8 is odd in that bow isn't mentioned but quiver is. The only other use of quiver in the text is in a quote of Isaiah 49. 

More to the question at hand, you've avoided the issue of how atlatls were a primary weapon of war. If atlatls weren't bows but were javelins why the limited use? For instance in passages like Mosiah 10 the Lamanites have bows, arrows, swords, cimeters, stones and slings. But not javelins. Zeniff's people have the same weapons in Mosiah 9:16 only with the addition of clubs. This is repeated in most of the discussions of weapons in Alma (2:12; 3:5; 17:7; 43:20; 44:8). Javelin is only mentioned a few times. Two are Teancum's weapon of assassination while the third is the afore mentioned Jarom 1:8 that doesn't mention bows. So whatever a javelin is, it's unusual. 

It seems to me the only real strong argument for bows in this era is Mosiah 28:12 where the urim and thummim are described as "two stones fastened into the two rims of a bow." Interestingly you've not made that argument so I'm bringing it up for you.

Edited June 21, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Bob Crockett]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

 you falsified what I did not say . . . .

Curiously, here I am told I am falsifying things you did not say.  I'm not sure what that means.  What is it that you haven't said which I have falsified?   Is it different than, "you're putting words in my mouth?"  

I once mentioned to a friend that my girlfriend Sally told me on February 30 that she thought I was the most amazing person on the planet Zenoth.  I didn't have a girlfriend Sally.  And nobody ever told me that.  And there is no planet Zenoth.  There is no February 30.  Plus, I never told that to any such friend, and indeed, I had no friends.  Plus the statement is obvious hyperbole, or is it? Now, there are multiple levels of falsehood here I suppose.  Which is the one you attribute to me?

All non-kidding aside, it just cannot be inferred that there is evidence for something when there isn't.  That is an appeal to ignorance.  I'm not saying you're ignorant.  I'm just citing from Sagan's view that we should not argue that we should hope for UFOs with aliens, and that such hope can be based upon an absence of UFOs with aliens.   Really now, your post was an appeal to ignorance.  

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 But they have the crucial difference which I describe above, and which you carefully ignore:  An archeological excavation is ordinarily done in the absence of the primary witnesses and culprits (they are long gone and cannot be interviewed), only a small proportion of a single location can be studied at a time, and even in aggregate only a small proportion of a given culture can be interpreted and brought to light.  Even at that, it is many decades before any sort of meaningful overall picture of that culture can be produced -- through many separate excavations of different locations.

True.  But then you claim that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  Absence of evidence is, indeed, evidence of absence.  I'm sure that is true in the scientific field.  It is not absolute proof of course, which does not really exist except in a mathematical proof.  Latter-day Saints should not go around believing that science will prove their pet theories out precisely because there is no proof today.  That's absurd on many levels.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Bob Crockett

[strappinglad]

As an anecdote , I recall a time in my early 20s when there was a story about a young high school girl who did a chemical experiment that had the scientific world buzzing . A particular element was known to be inert and had been stated as such in all texts. This young woman did an experiment which showed that the element was able to combine with another under certain circumstances. In other words, for many decades there was no evidence that the element was anything but inert. The best minds in chemistry had all concluded/assumed inertness. Along came a young woman who didn't have either the knowledge or the assumptions of the others and blindly went ahead with her experiment. Egg was on quite a few faces. Apparently, the ' impossible' sometimes just takes a little longer.

[Calm]

There are good reasons for assuming something is "inert" due to chemical structure.  Do you remember any details so one can check to see if her results were duplicated and explained?

Edited June 22, 2017 by Calm

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

Curiously, here I am told I am falsifying things you did not say.  I'm not sure what that means.  What is it that you haven't said which I have falsified?   Is it different than, "you're putting words in my mouth?"  

I once mentioned to a friend that my girlfriend Sally told me on February 30 that she thought I was the most amazing person on the planet Zenoth.  I didn't have a girlfriend Sally.  And nobody ever told me that.  And there is no planet Zenoth.  There is no February 30.  Plus, I never told that to any such friend, and indeed, I had no friends.  Plus the statement is obvious hyperbole, or is it? Now, there are multiple levels of falsehood here I suppose.  Which is the one you attribute to me?

All non-kidding aside, it just cannot be inferred that there is evidence for something when there isn't.  That is an appeal to ignorance.  I'm not saying you're ignorant.  I'm just citing from Sagan's view that we should not argue that we should hope for UFOs with aliens, and that such hope can be based upon an absence of UFOs with aliens.   Really now, your post was an appeal to ignorance.  

True.  But then you claim that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  Absence of evidence is, indeed, evidence of absence.  I'm sure that is true in the scientific field.  It is not absolute proof of course, which does not really exist except in a mathematical proof.  Latter-day Saints should not go around believing that science will prove their pet theories out precisely because there is no proof today.  That's absurd on many levels.

You have once again refuted what I did not say -- commonly called a strawman.  It may seem useful to deflect from my actual arguments in order to make irrelevant points, and it may seem to you that such flim-flam carries the day -- as it undoubtedly does with those who don't see beyond your caprice -- but I should have thought that a fair-minded person would not take that approach.

For you, does it really make sense to declare that absence of artifact A in square 3 of excavation W means that no artifact A exists in the entire mound?  Certainly not.  Why?  Because only a small part of the mound has been examined.  Of course, if we were speaking of detectives at the scene of a murder in Los Angeles, it would naturally be a different story: crime scene technicians would photograph, measure, and gather all evidence at the scene; the pathologist would do an autopsy; uniformed officers would canvas the neighborhood for witnesses and other evidence; detectives would try to bring the results of the investigation into one coherent whole.  Then, indeed, one could reasonably maintain that absence of item D at or near the scene of that murder is evidence of absence of item D from the scene -- the sort of tautology you like.  However, the perp may have taken item D with him from the scene and transferred it to another location.  Indeed, we may never find item D, and the prosecution may have to go forward without it.  That does not mean that item D did not exist.  That you don't understand the difference of this scenario from an archeological excavation speaks volumes, despite your claims in the past to understand that discipline.

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

There are good reasons for assuming something is "inert" due to chemical structure.  Do you remember any details so one can check to see if her results were duplicated and explained?

I'd imagine from the description it'd have to be one of the noble gases. The bonds are very weak which is why they're called inert although some of the heavier ones like xenon can bind. I did some research but Pauling and Kossel were predicting atoms like fluorine might combine with xenon long ago. This was finally done in 1961 by Neil Barlett at UBC. 

Given those dates I suspect something's a bit off in the story. I did a bunch of searches to try and find something but couldn't.

[Calm]

Generally speaking though, iirc, when the 'inert' chemicals react, they do so with highly reactive and therefore dangerous materials...it seems unlikely if this is what is being suggested, that it took place in a high school chemistry lab...but maybe it was just her age and not location referred to by "high school".

[clarkgoble]

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

Generally speaking though, iirc, when the 'inert' chemicals react, they do so with highly reactive and therefore dangerous materials...it seems unlikely if this is what is being suggested, that it took place in a high school chemistry lab...but maybe it was just her age and not location referred to by "high school".

I was more thinking about an element that was considered inert. Pretty well pretty early even inert elements were thought to be only relatively inert. Once Xenon was bound then people wouldn't have treated it as set in stone. So I'm not saying a high school student didn't do an experiment binding a noble gas. I'm just saying that if they did it wasn't quite the breakthrough as portrayed in the story. I did try to find such an experiment by a high school student but was unable to. As you said, it'd be a dangerous experiment but that doesn't mean a student didn't do it. As I remember from my own youth, it was much easier to get ahold of dangerous chemicals prior to the 911 days. In hindsight some of the stuff I did when young I shake my head about now. Although not the liquid nitrogen ice cream. That was always great. The nitrogen triiodide perhaps not so much.

Edited June 22, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

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

The point I raised was about transliteration and how they might get mangled. I'm not seriously suggesting that it's latin with the same meaning since I clearly knew its latin meaning if I brought up the latin.  I also knew the functional meaning via it's use in Alma 11 with weights and measures as well as etymology arguments such as found at the Book of Mormon Onomasticon project which gives a few other possibilities than you listed. I'd not seen your paper though so thanks for posting it. But it actually points to my point and not yours since there's clearly a difference between sniw and both senine and senum.

From a linguistic point of view, the difference is not substantive.  In fact we have a number of foreign words in the BofM (some actually defined in the text) which have sound etymologies, even if it seems to those not familiar with linguistics that there must be an exact transliteration in each case.  That is absurd, and would in itself call into question the entire enterprise.  We should expect reasonable differences between the source word and its appearance in the BofM.  How do we know this?  By examining real world transliterations form one language to another -- in the ancient world itself.  The ancient Egyptian word sniw is a good example:  It shows up in Egyptian in various forms, which I provide (and you do not), and it is merely part of the much larger context of such words which can be provided good etymologies.  Does this prove the case?  Of course not.  But it does speak to your own preference for the preponderance of evidence (which you say in this post).  Science, not apologetics should be our objective here.

Linguistics is naturally going to be interested in the claim that the Nephites were in the Americas for a  thousand years, during which some significant linguistic changes in their language must have taken place.  We must allow for that, if we are at all reasonable.  Indeed, the changes should be systematic (patterned) and pervasive.

8 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

So it strikes me as odd to criticize linguistic drift without having actual proof of an example with the word when you just wrote a whole paper doing just that. You're saying the terms are related due to similar function and similar terms. Which is all I'm doing.

 

Quote

Robert F. Smith Quote

Yes, it is true that some well-intentioned people have done what you find objectionable, and we could sit around and grouse about all the old Renaissance masters who drew absurd and inaccurate versions of biblical events and people, but would that really get us to where we want to go?

Well the goal is to get people to be more careful with illustrations. So, yes, I do think that will help get us to where we want to go. Saying nothing pretty well ensures the status quo.

You again miss the point, which is that you make easy objections to the sort of stupidity which is to be expected in each generation's conception of the ancient world, and you end up making your own set of false assumptions by using the KJV as a reliable indicator.

8 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Umm. No. In fact I explicitly said the opposite. "Therefore we should expect the same phenomena to occur that happened with war in the rest of the continent including the same purported region where the text takes place. That it doesn't and that there is an absence of unambiguous bows in the period in question is strong if not conclusive evidence against the bow in the main Book of Mormon period."

To say "strong if not conclusive evidence" is quite far from "guaranteeing."

You make a good argument here, even though it is not true that "strong if not conclusive evidence" is quite far from "guaranteeing."   Doesn't sound far to me at all.  In any case, you have made ignorance the measure of what we can know.  It is sophisticated ignorance, I'll grant you, but ignorance just the same.

8 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

But I am concerned that apologetics as apologetics ought first be clear what the evidence is and then explain the Book of Mormon as best as one is able in terms of that evidence. The BMC article in question just doesn't do that. Indeed I'd say a casual reader would come away very misinformed about what the evidence for preclassical bows is. Apologetics shouldn't misinform. There's a strong practical reason why it shouldn't: because the people will most likely encounter the real evidence from critics. If they see apologists as engaged in sophistry they'll cease to trust apologetics. Further the effect when they encounter the real evidence will mean that the argument didn't really work anyways since it argued beside the point.

Now if one is merely making an argument for a particular position that's a different matter. But in this case the article was pure apologetics. As such I just don't think it's what we should be doing as we do our apologetics.

The article was not pure apologetics, and it is a shame that you are so obsessed by the subject.  We should reflect the science and let the chips fall where they may.  Apologietics is defense for defense's sake.  Seems hardly a worthy objective.

8 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I would agree that I'd say Apocalypto should not be used to portray preclassical culture or items. At best one might use a few elements to explain something if one carefully qualified how one was using it and explained the preclassical culture vs. 17th century culture. 

You are bordering on PC (political correctness) here.  Being hypersensitive about such examples is just silly.  People who know nothing about how such weapons were in fact used will inevitably get confused about them.  Best to at least acquaint people with such weapons.

8 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Again that's misrepresenting what I'm arguing. I'm saying that in terms of the preponderance of the evidence it is that there were no bows in the time period of Enos - Helaman. Thus if a member or investigators is having questions about that due to critics, one should engage with the evidence yet with respect to bows (and a few other topics) we've not done this.

The evidence does not tell us this.  As I have already pointed out.  Neither of us has the evidence to say something dispositive on this claim.  Certainly not with the context we are given, which you ignore.

8 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Likewise if we're trying to teach what Nephites were we should again deal with the evidence and explain the range of possibilities. The article in question doesn't do that either.

You are requiring things of that article which are unnecessary and largely irrelevant.  Articles of that sort could not be succinct if they ahd to provide silly PC warnings every other sentence.

8 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I'm completely open to that argument. As I said a few times in this thread there are some oddities to Jarom 1:8 but also there's the question of reading that verse in connection with other verses. In particular Jarob 1:8 is odd in that bow isn't mentioned but quiver is. The only other use of quiver in the text is in a quote of Isaiah 49. 

More to the question at hand, you've avoided the issue of how atlatls were a primary weapon of war. If atlatls weren't bows but were javelins why the limited use? For instance in passages like Mosiah 10 the Lamanites have bows, arrows, swords, cimeters, stones and slings. But not javelins. Zeniff's people have the same weapons in Mosiah 9:16 only with the addition of clubs. This is repeated in most of the discussions of weapons in Alma (2:12; 3:5; 17:7; 43:20; 44:8). Javelin is only mentioned a few times. Two are Teancum's weapon of assassination while the third is the afore mentioned Jarom 1:8 that doesn't mention bows. So whatever a javelin is, it's unusual. 

If one were really interested in how such terms might be defined, he might first want to find out how Joseph likely understood such terms, then how the Hebrew text reads, and then placing the full array of weaponry in a coherent context.  What you are doing here is wild and ungoverned.

8 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

It seems to me the only real strong argument for bows in this era is Mosiah 28:12 where the urim and thummim are described as "two stones fastened into the two rims of a bow." Interestingly you've not made that argument so I'm bringing it up for you.

There is no Urim & Thummim in the BofM, not among the Nephites, Lamanites, Mulekites, or Jaredites, and Joseph Smith had no such item in his possession. However, Joseph may have had a bow tie, and maybe even some buttons and bows in his possession.  However, I can't cite the preponderance of evidence on that.  

[strappinglad]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

There are good reasons for assuming something is "inert" due to chemical structure.  Do you remember any details so one can check to see if her results were duplicated and explained?

The trouble with anecdotes is they are often similar to parables. I would CFR myself, but my memory is fleeting nowadays.

[clarkgoble]

13 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

From a linguistic point of view, the difference is not substantive.  In fact we have a number of foreign words in the BofM (some actually defined in the text) which have sound etymologies, even if it seems to those not familiar with linguistics that there must be an exact transliteration in each case.  That is absurd, and would in itself call into question the entire enterprise.  We should expect reasonable differences between the source word and its appearance in the BofM.  How do we know this?  By examining real world transliterations form one language to another -- in the ancient world itself.  The ancient Egyptian word sniw is a good example:  It shows up in Egyptian in various forms, which I provide (and you do not), and it is merely part of the much larger context of such words which can be provided good etymologies.  Does this prove the case?  Of course not.  But it does speak to your own preference for the preponderance of evidence (which you say in this post).  Science, not apologetics should be our objective here.

Right, but again that doesn't appear to be that different from the logic of what I was doing, which was my only point.

Quote

Linguistics is naturally going to be interested in the claim that the Nephites were in the Americas for a  thousand years, during which some significant linguistic changes in their language must have taken place.  We must allow for that, if we are at all reasonable.  Indeed, the changes should be systematic (patterned) and pervasive.

I certainly agree. I just think the same reasoning applies to items they don't have words for.

Quote

You again miss the point, which is that you make easy objections to the sort of stupidity which is to be expected in each generation's conception of the ancient world, and you end up making your own set of false assumptions by using the KJV as a reliable indicator.

I've honestly read this paragraph a few times trying to understand what you're saying but I can't seem to get it. Any chance you could rephrase that?

Quote

You make a good argument here, even though it is not true that "strong if not conclusive evidence" is quite far from "guaranteeing."   Doesn't sound far to me at all.  In any case, you have made ignorance the measure of what we can know.  It is sophisticated ignorance, I'll grant you, but ignorance just the same.

Strong evidence rarely guarantees anything. I suppose we could try and quantify that difference using bayesian methods but I'm pretty skeptical of such things. I confess I don't understand how you say this is an appeal to ignorance though. It's an appeal to inductive reasoning. To draw an analogy if you have a bag of beans and are trying to discern the colors of the beans, at what point of sampling and finding no reds are you justified saying there are no reds?

Quote

The article was not pure apologetics, and it is a shame that you are so obsessed by the subject.  We should reflect the science and let the chips fall where they may.  Apologietics is defense for defense's sake.  Seems hardly a worthy objective.

I think apologetics is extremely important. The article simply isn't merely an overview of the science. Or, if it is, it is a very poorly done one. I'll be charitable and assume that wasn't it's aim. I'm surprised you'd disparage apologetics like that though.

Quote

You are bordering on PC (political correctness) here.  Being hypersensitive about such examples is just silly.  People who know nothing about how such weapons were in fact used will inevitably get confused about them.  Best to at least acquaint people with such weapons.

Again I'm not following your reasoning here. My point is that if we're doing apologetics we can't mislead. I'm not saying we should put qualifications every sentence. Rather we should write so that we communicate well. Often that entails putting qualifications in our text so people don't misinterpret it. Now if you think papers should assume a certain level of knowledge I'd be fine with that if one is writing to people fairly well versed in the topic. But my point of critique here was an apparently largely apologetic text written to a casual audience. Therefore there's a basic responsibility in good writing to not miscommunicate which is determined by reasonable expectations of how ones readers will take the article.

Now it appears you don't particularly care about apologetics, which is of course fine. But then I'm not sure what the point is since I'm addressing the apologetic nature of the texts for a mainstream audience.

Quote

The evidence does not tell us this.  As I have already pointed out.  Neither of us has the evidence to say something dispositive on this claim.  Certainly not with the context we are given, which you ignore.

I just think you are incorrect here. Certainly you don't have much by way of evidence for preclassical bows being likely in the region.

Edited June 22, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Bob Crockett]

14 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

For you, does it really make sense to declare that absence of artifact A in square 3 of excavation W means that no artifact A exists in the entire mound?  Certainly not.  Why?  Because only a small part of the mound has been examined.

. . . 

That you don't understand the difference of this scenario from an archeological excavation speaks volumes, despite your claims in the past to understand that discipline.

I'm not making a straw man argument.  I'm just quoting your use of an absurdly bad and false tautology and appeal to ignorance.  Further, you imply that it is appropriate to think that perhaps your artifact is really there.  The purpose of asserting your false tautology is to give hope for something that isn't there.  That is why people go around spouting that.

The absence of evidence is, indeed, evidence of absence.  The absence of evidence, of course, does not foreclose further search for evidence.  Wiki seems to think that the origin of criticism of this fallacy is with John Locke, who said that an appeal to ignorance exists when one asserts that until a more plausible explanation is provided, one's assertion must be the truth.  Indeed, much of Mormon apologia which focuses on archaeology as a proof, including your post, rests upon this premise.  

Having said that, I've certainly benefited from the old-style FARMS approach -- as I was John Welch's first research assistant at BYU (on the law side, not FARMS side).  And John's adoption of the Sorenson view is in keeping with the old-style FARMS approach.  Of which you are an adherent, if not acolyte.  (I'm not trying to offend with that term; just simply, you are a true believer where doubt should abound about Dr. Sorenson.) There is certainly merit to apologetic argument which attempts to focus upon secular proof methods.  But we should not argue that because there is no evidence there might be evidence, which is the implied extended recitation of your false tautology.

I've not claimed ever to be an archaeological expert.  I only hire them. I don't have to play professional baseball to have decent opinions about Clayton Kershaw.  But this discussion is not about me or my qualifications.  I am wholly unqualified; I don't have a doctorate although some think a juris doctor holds a doctorate.

Edited June 22, 2017 by Bob Crockett

[Robert F. Smith]

12 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

I'm not making a straw man argument.  I'm just quoting your use of an absurdly bad and false tautology and appeal to ignorance.  Further, you imply that it is appropriate to think that perhaps your artifact is really there.  The purpose of asserting your false tautology is to give hope for something that isn't there.  That is why people go around spouting that.

The absence of evidence is, indeed, evidence of absence.  The absence of evidence, of course, does not foreclose further search for evidence.  Wiki seems to think that the origin of criticism of this fallacy is with John Locke, who said that an appeal to ignorance exists when one asserts that until a more plausible explanation is provided, one's assertion must be the truth.  Indeed, much of Mormon apologia which focuses on archaeology as a proof, including your post, rests upon this premise.  

You again attribute to me positions which I do not take, again finding it convenient to defeat the strawman which you have constructed.  A good propaganda technique, but certainly a completely fake forensic debate strategy.

In a good crime scene investigation, we know the artifact is not there.  In a single archeological foray, we must exercise patience and suspend judgment.  We do not know whether unknown artifacts are there, and it is irresponsible to draw premature conclusions.  Only years of excavation at many sites will give us any inkling of the nature of local, ancient lifeways.  All we can really say at the outset is that we have found such and such, and we draw tentative conclusions therefrom.  Plenty of Mormon and anti-Mormon yokels have insisted on drawing premature conclusions in all sorts of areas as part of their apriori propaganda programs.

12 hours ago, Bob Crockett said:

Having said that, I've certainly benefited from the old-style FARMS approach -- as I was John Welch's first research assistant at BYU (on the law side, not FARMS side).  And John's adoption of the Sorenson view is in keeping with the old-style FARMS approach.  Of which you are an adherent, if not acolyte.  (I'm not trying to offend with that term; just simply, you are a true believer where doubt should abound about Dr. Sorenson.) There is certainly merit to apologetic argument which attempts to focus upon secular proof methods.  But we should not argue that because there is no evidence there might be evidence, which is the implied extended recitation of your false tautology.

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

Perhaps this is just an exercise by you, testing your forensic debate skills, which entail arguing on behalf of any point of view, regardless of its validity.  A necessary skill, certainly, in a court of law, but one which only sows he seeds of confusion among those who do not understand the scientific method.

So, from your POV, I must be a "true believer" in some failed ideology or POV.  No matter what evidence supports whichever claim is made.  Inter alia, I have yet to see you accept a valid argument from Mormon or non-Mormon professionals which calls into question your apriori views.  I have cited many of them over the years, and you have rejected them all.  It would be nice to see you in full dialogue with such POVs.  Then we all might learn something -- including me.