Why hasn't church leadership corrected obvious Book of Mormon textual errors?

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

More likely that Joseph wasn't a consistent editor, which isn't surprising when faced with 270,000 words to edit and no modern tools.

Yes, he wasn't a consistent editor, but he also wasn't constistant in so many other aspects.  Consistency wasn't a strong attribute for Joseph.  

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

This is an extremely unlikely view. To entertain this view you must have an extreme view of Joseph's abilities in the realms of biblical intertextuality and English usage. The former has begun to be studied and is impressive. The latter has begun to be studied--the archaic vocabulary usage and morphosyntax--and is unexpected and remarkable. The entire verbal system of the Book of Mormon is archaic and extra-biblical and not pseudo-biblical.  The same can be said for many other low-level linguistic features, which must be taken into account and studied carefully before an informed decision on the subject can be made.

I haven't studied the Carmack work yet, but I believe you may be overstating the relevance of that analysis.   Joseph and others in his time were steeped in biblical language.  I do think his abilities were extraordinary considering his lack of formal education.  I think he had high level creativity, intuition and persuasion skills.  

However, others have produced similar texts with similarly remarkable layers of complexity and length.  While these attributes are extraordinary to some degree I don't believe they are supernatural.  

[Benjamin McGuire]

Clark -

Quote

Not quite clear what part you think is misreading. I assume you mean conflating book of Joseph/Judah with people of Joseph/Judah and having two books (Bible/Book of Mormon) with the gathering and (in some interpretations) personal redemption from the grave.

Phelps wrote:

Quote

The ancient and modern practice of reading sticks, wants but little elucidation. The common school-boy ought to know, that anciently, they wrote on parchment for common use, and rolled it round a stick; and, latterly, newspapers are put into a stick for public utility.

Phelps is drawing his parallel from Jahn's book where he read this:

Quote

Books being written upon very flexible materials, were rolled round a stick ; and, if they were very long, round two, from the two extremities. The reader unrolled the book to the place which he wanted, [greek text omitted] and rolled it up again when he had read it, [greek text], Luke 4: 17—20; whence the name [hebrew text] a volume, or thing rolled up, Ps. 40:7. Is. 34:4. Ezek. 2:9. 2 K. 19:14. Ezra 6:2. The leaves thus rolled round the stick, which has been mentioned, and bound with a string, could be easily sealed, Is. 29: 11. Dan. 12:4. Rev. 5:1. 6:7. Those books, which were inscribed on tablets of wood, lead, brass, or ivory, were connected together by rings at the back, through which a rod was passed to carry them by.

Of course, the sticks are simply sticks (and not rolls). Zechariah 11:7-14 uses the same imagery but in reverse.

Quote

I got two staffs, one of which I named Favor and the other Unity, and I proceeded to tend the sheep. ... Then I cleft in two my second staff, Unity, in order to annul the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. (vss 7, 14).

So I mean that Phelps really misunderstood what the sticks were, and conflates them with another idea that he found in his commentary, allowing him to shift the interpretation from its original context into something more relevant and contemporary to Phelps. (We also are quite confident that Phelps was using that passage from Jahn since he later quotes from it and adds to it when he discusses the dimensions and design of the gold plates).

[JarMan]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

I haven't studied the Carmack work yet, but I believe you may be overstating the relevance of that analysis.   Joseph and others in his time were steeped in biblical language.  I do think his abilities were extraordinary considering his lack of formal education.  I think he had high level creativity, intuition and persuasion skills.  

However, others have produced similar texts with similarly remarkable layers of complexity and length.  While these attributes are extraordinary to some degree I don't believe they are supernatural.  

I've been following this thread and trying to read everyone's opinions with a charitable and open mind. I appreciate that you want to find a way to believe in the Book of Mormon even though, in your mind, it is not a historical work. But you really, really need to read the work champatsch/Carmack has done before simply dismissing it. My opinion is that the work done on this subject is the nail in the coffin for the theory that the Book of Mormon came from JS's mind…that he made it up, either inspirationnally or fraudulently.

[hope_for_things]

3 minutes ago, JarMan said:

I've been following this thread and trying to read everyone's opinions with a charitable and open mind. I appreciate that you want to find a way to believe in the Book of Mormon even though, in your mind, it is not a historical work. But you really, really need to read the work champatsch/Carmack has done before simply dismissing it. My opinion is that the work done on this subject is the nail in the coffin for the theory that the Book of Mormon came from JS's mind…that he made it up, either inspirationnally or fraudulently.

Doesn't it just open a can of worms?  I don't understand how people think it doesn't just confuse the topic more as it invites many more questions than it provides answers.  

But all that said I'm waiting for more qualified and scholarly critiques to be done first, I'm not trained in linguistics or textual studies, and what little I've read of their stuff isn't easily accessible for a general audience like myself.  

Lastly, I'm mostly a naturalist these days, it's the way I see the world work and it makes sense to my empirical mind and I believe that often the simplest and most straightforward explanation should be the default position we take, and extraordinary claims that are highly complex without any rational explanation for their origins, require extremely compelling proof before we should take them seriously.  

An example, if I were to make a claim that the BoM was written by an alien race from another solar system and transmitted to Joseph using a seer stones and through a much more advanced technology than anything we can comprehend today.  The evidence for this theory would need to be extraordinarily convincing in order for me to be taken seriously at all.  This burden is of proof is on Carmack and team and unless he provides some extraordinary evidence not only of 16th century language, but evidence for how it got there, I don't think his analysis will be taken seriously.  

[JarMan]

It's all available online: http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/journal/all-papers/

You don't need to be an expert to understand he research. I'll admit that some of the technical particulars are above my layman level of understanding, but I feel like I have a decent grasp of 70% - 80% of the types of examples given. There's really not much to discuss until you read the research. 

[sunstoned]

5 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

If anything is apt to make Joseph turn in his grave, I should think that more likely would be the serious suggestion by professing members of the Church that the book Joseph brought forth and translated by the gift and power of God, the book he published to the world and gave his life defending, is not the divinely revealed ancient text that it purports to be.

 

I can appreciate your zeal, but it is a bit of an over reach to say he gave his life defending the BoM.  

[Robert F. Smith]

11 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Hemispheric origins for the BoM may have always been a "false claim" however it was also the dominant way that early church leaders and members envisioned the BoM including Joseph Smith.   I personally agree with you that the claim was false, but I also believe that any historicity claims for the BoM are false.  And the so called archaeological evidence isn't persuasive.  

Scott correctly pointed out that the position taken by Mormon scholars on  the matter preceded the insertion of that absurd phrase (which you and I agree is false), so that the removal of it was likiely a response to criticisms of an obviously false statement.  Reminds me of the dumb statement about "coins" in the heading to Alma 11.

Anyhow, the fact that many people (including me) used to think in hemispheric terms only reflects their ignorance.  I'm glad I finally came to grips with the evidence from the text itself which made the hemispheric view impossible.  In addition, most people know nothing about archeology, and so come to conclusions about it without ever understanding it.  Perhaps you are not in that category, and have a specific book or article in mind which makes the case you prefer.  If so, could you list it for us?  Thanks.

11 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

The outside pressure for the 1981 change seems obvious to me based on the timing and context of societal issues for a change to that specific passage.  The default position on all changes is that changes are made in the context of culture and current events and in response to that context.  Unless someone can show me evidence that this default position is incorrect on this specific case, then I'm sticking with it because that's how human nature works.  

So human nature always means that every change of any kind comes because of outside pressure.  Interesting theory, but is baseless.  Changes occur in many endeavors for a wide variety of reasons, and outside pressure is merely one.  Your default anti-Mormon position makes no sense, and is not based on any real evidence. Kind of like a very selective position, one adopted because it will put Mormons in a bad light.  How does that differ from an apologist claiming evidence solely because it places his pet organization in a good light?  Is that a good reason for adopting a position?

[Robert F. Smith]

17 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

I do not really see the church ever replacing the KJV as the official version with a custom version because the KJV is still probably the most dominant version in the homes of most people with whom the missionaries will come into contact in the U.S. and England. It would be great to have one as a study guide though.

Glenn

Statistics seem to support your view (http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2014/march/most-popular-and-fastest-growing-bible-translation-niv-kjv.html ), but that will not remain the case forever.

[Marginal Gains]

9 hours ago, Bill "Papa" Lee said:

First of all charges have been made to 19th century grammar, and punctuation. Also, Moroni makes clear in the title page, that errors exist, due to their weakness. But what it also makes clear, ..."do not mock the things of God". You even point out one of those changes, how many do you desire. 

I’m not clear on the point you are trying to make. Please can you explain in a bit more detail?

[Marginal Gains]

10 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

We have no opposing viewpoint because the Lamanites did not keep records on non-perishable material. That is not the fault of the Nephites. However if it had been Laman that said "I will go and do the things that the Lord hath commanded....." we would most likely be reading 1 and 2 Laman in the Book of Mormon rather than 1 and 2 Nephi. 

We have no idea why we don’t have Lamanite records, nor can we say they didn’t keep them just because we don’t have them. They could be in the sealed portion, for example, or on other plates that have thus far not been revealed. We don’t even know that it’s not the Nephites fault that we don’t have Lamanatie records, they might have purposefully destroyed them to protect their version of events. 

[Marginal Gains]

7 hours ago, JarMan said:

It's all available online: http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/journal/all-papers/

You don't need to be an expert to understand he research. I'll admit that some of the technical particulars are above my layman level of understanding, but I feel like I have a decent grasp of 70% - 80% of the types of examples given. There's really not much to discuss until you read the research. 

Joseph used different grammar when writing his History in 1832, than was used in the 1829/30 Book of Mormon.

And according to you that is the nail in the coffin for the idea that Joseph or Joseph and others were responsible for writing the Book of Mormon.

Have I got that about right?

 

Interestingly...

The editing examples Skousen briefly discussed show the unevenness of human editing; many types over the course of the different editions are not entirely edited out. For example, in the original manuscript, only nine out of ten uses of the past tense “done” were changed to “did.” A later editor made the final edit in this case, but other types are still not completely standardized in the current edition.

In conjunction with this, Skousen explained that many phrases that sound strange, even wrong to modern ears, were perfectly acceptable in earlier English. “He’s not a hick, he’s just speaking Early Modern English!” Skousen told his audience.

To prove this point, Skousen took several examples of what might seem like strange or incorrect grammar in the Book of Mormon and displayed examples of that same language in other works from earlier English. He explained that the Early Modern English period did not have set grammar rules; writers simply used the language they knew.

Carmack then presented some of his research — also included in Grammatical Variation — using the Early English Books Online database to show matching between the textual record and questionable Book of Mormon grammar. He pointed out various Early Modern English usage that can be found in both the Book of Mormon and English translations of the Bible that preceded the King James Bible. “These matches are quite powerful when we realize the language of the Book of Mormon matches other Early Modern English Bibles,” Carmack said.

https://humanities.byu.edu/bad-grammar-and-the-book-of-mormon/

Why would the Book of Mormon text (given word for word via the seer stone) powerfully match the grammar Early Modern English Bibles?

Edited September 8, 2017 by Marginal Gains

[Glenn101]

1 hour ago, Marginal Gains said:

We have no idea why we don’t have Lamanite records, nor can we say they didn’t keep them just because we don’t have them. They could be in the sealed portion, for example, or on other plates that have thus far not been revealed. We don’t even know that it’s not the Nephites fault that we don’t have Lamanatie records, they might have purposefully destroyed them to protect their version of events. 

And they also just might be as the Book of Mormon depicts them, a people that fell sway from God but also became a righteous people at one point. As the Book of Mormon is the Word of God written (mostly) by prophets, I think it can be trusted in this aspect.

[Marginal Gains]

2 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

We have no idea why we don’t have Lamanite records, nor can we say they didn’t keep them just because we don’t have them. They could be in the sealed portion, for example, or on other plates that have thus far not been revealed. We don’t even know that it’s not the Nephites fault that we don’t have Lamanatie records, they might have purposefully destroyed them to protect their version of events. 

 

19 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

And they also just might be as the Book of Mormon depicts them, a people that fell sway from God but also became a righteous people at one point. As the Book of Mormon is the Word of God written (mostly) by prophets, I think it can be trusted in this aspect.

They might, be we only have the Nephites version of events. History is normally written by the victors. Unusually the Book of Mormon is the record of the losers. So where is the written record of the victorious Lamanites and the tales of their glorious and complete victory over the Nephite armies? The absence of the winners version of events seems incongruous to me.

When you say the Book of Mormon was mostly written by Prophets - which bits do you think weren’t?

[Calm]

15 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I could level the same accusation of confirmation bias your way.  A perspective about God being a static and defined entity fits well into Calvinism and the paradigm of God being eternal, infinite and unchangeable.  In my kind of Mormonism, God is changeable, fallible (God weeps) and not strictly bound. 

Why does God weeping point you towards fallibility instead of compassion and sorrow for man's suffering?

I can think of several other phrases I would appeal to for fallibility before trying to use that one.

Edited September 8, 2017 by Calm

[Glenn101]

2 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

 

They might, be we only have the Nephites version of events. History is normally written by the victors. Unusually the Book of Mormon is the record of the losers. So where is the written record of the victorious Lamanites and the tales of their glorious and complete victory over the Nephite armies? The absence of the winners version of events seems incongruous to me.

When you say the Book of Mormon was mostly written by Prophets - which bits do you think weren’t?

Isn't it interesting that the losers actually reported such propaganda that they were losers, that they became more unrighteous than the winners?

Read the Book of Omni. There are several successive authors who make no claim to be a prophet. Omni himself says that he is a wicked man. Several of them just wrote a bit because that is what they were commanded to do by their own fathers or brothers who passed the plates to them.

Glenn

[Marginal Gains]

15 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

Isn't it interesting that the losers actually reported such propaganda that they were losers, that they became more unrighteous than the winners?

Glenn

It is interesting. Unprecedented even?

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

I’m not clear on the point you are trying to make. Please can you explain in a bit more detail?

Chages have been made, via grammar and punctuation. The title page of the Book of Mormon, makes clear their may be errors, and as it states, "condemn not the things of God". Extreme care should be taken tapering with such a document might lead to one's peril. In short, if it's not broke, don't fix it. 

[champatsch]

13 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Joseph and others in his time were steeped in biblical language.  I do think his abilities were extraordinary considering his lack of formal education.  I think he had high level creativity, intuition and persuasion skills.

Here you unwittingly actually argue against Joseph being the author, since as I indicated in a prior post (which you apparently overlooked), the core of Book of Mormon grammar is archaic and extra-biblical (beyond King James usage). Think present tense, past tense, perfect tense, future tense. The latter is the closest to biblical, although there are some differences, but the first three are clearly distinct from biblical usage in a variety of ways. The tense usage is genuinely archaic (not pseudo-archaic), and it is not pseudo-biblical (think The Late War, etc.).

Other LDS commentators have thought the same thing as you (and that may be where you get it from, since it's been published)--that Joseph being steeped in biblical language explains the facts--but they have never studied the actual usage of the earliest text or the early modern era. Now that we are able to do that, in this decade, the reality is as stated above, and it goes well beyond tense usage. It includes other domains of morphosyntax, and vocabulary usage, and some phraseology.

[Marginal Gains]

5 minutes ago, Bill "Papa" Lee said:

Chages have been made, via grammar and punctuation. The title page of the Book of Mormon, makes clear their may be errors, and as it states, "condemn not the things of God". Extreme care should be taken tapering with such a document might lead to one's peril. In short, if it's not broke, don't fix it. 

A comparison between the printers manuscript and the current content of the Book of Mormon is going to be interesting, on the basis it was translated by direct dictation a word at a time.

[ksfisher]

3 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

 

They might, be we only have the Nephites version of events. History is normally written by the victors. Unusually the Book of Mormon is the record of the losers. So where is the written record of the victorious Lamanites and the tales of their glorious and complete victory over the Nephite armies? The absence of the winners version of events seems incongruous to me.

 

Practically all written records in Mesoamerica were destroyed by the Spanish.

[Bernard Gui]

21 hours ago, ALarson said:

Also, there were other verses that spoke of  "fair and delightsome" and used the words "white" and "skin of blackness" that were not corrected or changed in the 1840 edition.  Such as in 2 Nephi 5:21:

And this in Mormon 6...

Quote

17 O ye fair ones, how could ye have departed from the ways of the Lord! O ye fair ones, how could ye have rejected that Jesus, who stood with open arms to receive you!

18 Behold, if ye had not done this, ye would not have fallen. But behold, ye are fallen, and I mourn your loss.

19 O ye fair sons and daughters, ye fathers and mothers, ye husbands and wives, ye fair ones, how is it that ye could have fallen!

20 But behold, ye are gone, and my sorrows cannot bring your return.

At this time there was no mark on the Lamanites. It had been eliminated following the resurrection of Jesus. The division after that was political, not familial or "racial." Moreover, Lamanites and Nephites were from the same family, and at times the Lamanites were more faithful to God than the Nephites. In their greatest moments of depravity Mormon still refers to the Nephites as fair, but this cannot be construed as whiteness of skin. Substituting fair with white would make this nonsensical. There is no racism in the context of the Book of Mormon. That is something we have imposed on it with modern assumptions. 

Edited September 8, 2017 by Bernard Gui

[ALarson]

22 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

And this in Mormon 6...

I stated the use of the words "white and delightsome" (together), "white" or "skin of blackness" (in the same verse), not just verses containing the single word "fair" (I'm sure there are many using just that single word).  

Here is the example I gave:

Quote

And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.

2 Nephi 5:21

Also Prophets used the phrases "white and delightsome" in a racial manner.  Here are just a couple of examples:

Quote

 

Brigham Young stated in 1859:

“You may inquire of the intelligent of the world whether they can tell why the aborigines of this country are dark, loathsome, ignorant, and sunken into the depths of degradation …When the Lord has a people, he makes covenants with them and gives unto them promises: then, if they transgress his law, change his ordinances, and break his covenants he has made with them, he will put a mark upon them, as in the case of the Lamanites and other portions of the house of Israel; but by-and-by they will become a white and delightsome people” (Journal of Discourses 7:336).

 

 

Quote

 Spencer W. Kimball stated in the October General Conference, 1960:

...the Indians “are fast becoming a white and delightsome people.” He said, “The [Indian] children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation” (Improvement Era, December 1960, pp. 922-3).

Quote

Spencer W. Kimball, General Conference Address, April 1, 1967:

“I saw a striking contrast in the progress of the Indian people today…. The day of the Lamanites is nigh. For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised. In this picture of the twenty Lamanite missionaries, fifteen of the twenty were as light as Anglos, five were darker but equally delightsome. The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation. At one meeting a father and mother and their sixteen-year-old daughter were present, the little member girl–sixteen–sitting between the dark father and mother, and it was evident she was several shades lighter than her parents–on the same reservation, in the same hogan, subject to the same sun and wind and weather….These young members of the Church are changing to whiteness and to delightsomeness.”

 

Edited September 8, 2017 by ALarson

[Bernard Gui]

Quote

a socially constructed category of identification based on physicalcharacteristics, ancestry, historical affiliation, or shared culture.

 

Unless, of course, this modern definition of race is used. This would be more in line with the Lamanite and Nephite divisions, but still, this does not reflect the 19th-century American notions of racism.

[Bernard Gui]

23 minutes ago, ALarson said:

I stated the use of the words "white and delightsome" (together), "white" or "skin of blackness" (in the same verse), not just verses containing the single word "fair" (I'm sure there are many using just that single word).  

Also Prophets used the phrases "white and delightsome" in a racial manner.  Here are just a couple of examples:

 

 

I am concerned with the context of BoM, not what Brigham Young said. Who better than Mormon knows what fair meant when describing Lehites? There are few examples of "fair" when describing people, but this one is interesting...3 Nephi 2...

Quote

15 And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites;
16 And their young men and their daughters became exceedingly fair, and they were numbered among the Nephites, and were called Nephites.

 

Edited September 8, 2017 by Bernard Gui