clarkgoble Posted January 4, 2018 Posted January 4, 2018 4 hours ago, JarMan said: We don’t know what the angel told Joseph. We only know his account of the experience many years after the fact. And it’s pretty clear to me that account has quite a bit of expansion. Plus, how do you suppose it is that Joseph came to believe he had the writings of Abraham? At any rate, my theory doesn’t preclude the idea that what was on the plates was actually meaningful. But it doesn’t require it either. I tend to favor the explanation that there was something on the 1st century papyri that was a corrupted account of Abraham that Joseph then corrected the way he did the JST. However that Joseph assumed because his translation was about Abraham that the text was written by Abraham. (After all the translation seems written in first person) Your theory largely requires that the plates weren't meaningfully connected to the translation of the Book of Mormon, doesn't it?
JarMan Posted January 4, 2018 Author Posted January 4, 2018 11 minutes ago, clarkgoble said: I tend to favor the explanation that there was something on the 1st century papyri that was a corrupted account of Abraham that Joseph then corrected the way he did the JST. However that Joseph assumed because his translation was about Abraham that the text was written by Abraham. (After all the translation seems written in first person) Your theory largely requires that the plates weren't meaningfully connected to the translation of the Book of Mormon, doesn't it? No. My theory is agnostic about the both the contents of the plates and the identity of the angel. Somebody wrote something on the plates and put them in the hill. Then an angel, presumably the person who deposited the plates, showed Joseph where they were. Perhaps there was some sort of history written on them. Perhaps the plates were nothing more than a prop covered in meaningless symbols. I’m keeping my options open for now.
clarkgoble Posted January 4, 2018 Posted January 4, 2018 (edited) 13 minutes ago, JarMan said: No. My theory is agnostic about the both the contents of the plates and the identity of the angel. Somebody wrote something on the plates and put them in the hill. Then an angel, presumably the person who deposited the plates, showed Joseph where they were. Perhaps there was some sort of history written on them. Perhaps the plates were nothing more than a prop covered in meaningless symbols. I’m keeping my options open for now. Well not entirely agnostic. You don't think the plates were written by 4th century Mormon with a content roughly matching our English text. i.e you reject the typical lds view of the plates Edited January 4, 2018 by clarkgoble
JarMan Posted January 4, 2018 Author Posted January 4, 2018 (edited) 42 minutes ago, clarkgoble said: Well not entirely agnostic. You don't think the plates were written by 4th century Mormon with a content roughly matching our English text. i.e you reject the typical lds view of the plates I don’t reject that outright. I just find it highly unlikely. But I’m keeping an open mind. I suppose you could set it up this way: my 17th Century prophet learns through revelation about the existence of the “other sheep” in America. Certain details are revealed such as the existence of a buried record inscribed on gold plates that will one day be brought forth. This allows him to construct a narrative around the existence of these plates. The natural question for me would be Why do we need this 17th Century narrative? Why not just translate the real gold plates? Perhaps the answer to this is that the original record is insufficient or defective in some way. Perhaps it contains a version of Christianity that has been so polluted over time that it wouldn’t be right to bring it forth as scripture. So God turns to his 17th Century prophet to produce a version with a pure doctrine of Christ. This gets us closer to the traditional version and it doesn’t contradict my theory in any way. Edited January 4, 2018 by JarMan 1
Rajah Manchou Posted January 4, 2018 Posted January 4, 2018 (edited) 2 hours ago, JarMan said: I suppose you could set it up this way: my 17th Century prophet learns through revelation about the existence of the “other sheep” in America. Certain details are revealed such as the existence of a buried record inscribed on gold plates that will one day be brought forth. This allows him to construct a narrative around the existence of these plates. The natural question for me would be Why do we need this 17th Century narrative? Why not just translate the real gold plates? Perhaps the answer to this is that the original record is insufficient or defective in some way. Perhaps it contains a version of Christianity that has been so polluted over time that it wouldn’t be right to bring it forth as scripture. So God turns to his 17th Century prophet to produce a version with a pure doctrine of Christ. This gets us closer to the traditional version and it doesn’t contradict my theory in any way. I just finished reading Gallery of Mirrors: Reflections of Swedenborgian Thought. Give it a read. Its available on Amazon Kindle for $3. I won't go over the details again here, because we've discussed elsewhere, but in short Swedenborg (a 17th/18th century prophet) claimed to have received revelations regarding the preservation of scriptures, predating the Israelitish word. The Books of Moses, Jasher and a number of other Biblical texts preserved in their pure forms in a country completely separate and isolated from Europe and the Middle East. Around the same time, Chevalier Andrew Michael Ramsay also spoke of a hidden word preserved in the same country, to come forth at a later time to reveal to us the prisca theologia. Both Swedenborg and Ramsay were large figures in freemasonry. A number of LDS scholars have already pointed out the similarities between the writings of Ramsay and Swedenborg to Mormon doctrine. It should come as no surprise that just under a century later the Book of Mormon, an ancient word containing a preserved gospel in a seperate and isolated but unidentified land, would be revealed and translated. Edited January 4, 2018 by Rajah Manchou
Exiled Posted January 4, 2018 Posted January 4, 2018 13 hours ago, JarMan said: Fair enough. I was actually making a much broader point than was probably evident by my post. Sometimes people will say things like I don’t think God cares what kind of underwear I wear or The god I believe in wouldn’t discriminate against person x. So it struck me as being a similar type of argument. Maybe that wasn’t a fair assessment on my part but that’s where I was coming from. No worries.
Exiled Posted January 4, 2018 Posted January 4, 2018 11 hours ago, JarMan said: I don’t reject that outright. I just find it highly unlikely. But I’m keeping an open mind. I suppose you could set it up this way: my 17th Century prophet learns through revelation about the existence of the “other sheep” in America. Certain details are revealed such as the existence of a buried record inscribed on gold plates that will one day be brought forth. This allows him to construct a narrative around the existence of these plates. The natural question for me would be Why do we need this 17th Century narrative? Why not just translate the real gold plates? Perhaps the answer to this is that the original record is insufficient or defective in some way. Perhaps it contains a version of Christianity that has been so polluted over time that it wouldn’t be right to bring it forth as scripture. So God turns to his 17th Century prophet to produce a version with a pure doctrine of Christ. This gets us closer to the traditional version and it doesn’t contradict my theory in any way. I think for mormonism, the plates have to mean something. The apologetic I have heard that makes sense from a believing perspective is from Quinn when he says that the plates were there to show that the record was real. This anchors the story to the tangible and answers those who think the entire thing was "spiritual" or invented. I think your theory puts the story more into the spiritual camp and would probably be at risk of being rejected due to this. In any event, I thought God was closely monitoring the production of the plates to avoid as much error as possible, given that with human agents some error will always be there. 1
JarMan Posted January 5, 2018 Author Posted January 5, 2018 11 hours ago, Exiled said: I think for mormonism, the plates have to mean something. The apologetic I have heard that makes sense from a believing perspective is from Quinn when he says that the plates were there to show that the record was real. This anchors the story to the tangible and answers those who think the entire thing was "spiritual" or invented. I think your theory puts the story more into the spiritual camp and would probably be at risk of being rejected due to this. In any event, I thought God was closely monitoring the production of the plates to avoid as much error as possible, given that with human agents some error will always be there. The plates are critical to my theory. Without actual plates and the witnesses Joseph's credibility is significantly weaker. I'm squarely in the physical camp, not the "spiritual" camp when it comes to the plates. What's not critical to my theory is what is on the plates since the Book of Mormon is a transmission from a 17th Century document. In the same way it's not critical what's on the missing papyri. I don't see any reason why God had to be closely monitoring the production of the plates. We know the Bible is missing many plain and precious things. If you go by the theory that the plates actually had a history of the people, there could be all kinds of errors, biases, exclusions, and outright falsehoods on them. This could be what leads God to choose a 17th Century prophet to write the story instead.
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