Where did the Book of Mormon come from?

[Brant Gardner]

2 hours ago, stemelbow said:

So, my question is, did the translation and dictation happen simultaneously on this view?  It's as if Joseph in mind/spirit was taken elsewhere almost like when he was visited by Moroni in the bedroom with his siblings.  He was a bit elsewhere but his words were heard by the scribe still, because he was still there.  If so, that'd be really difficult to understand unless you saw it, I guess.  

hmmm...I'm having a hard time seeing the connection here.  If Joseph was translating something, in his mind's eye, how can we know that that something was even on the plates at all?  You seem pretty confident that it was, but I can't see a reason to think that.  It could just as well be he was translating words someone else was speaking to him and then dictating those.  The plates didn't seem to factor into the translation according to witnesses.

We get so many different ideas all mixed up in these discussions that it is difficult to pull the threads apart. I can only explain the way I see things, and I'll see if I can make my ideas clear. When we read something in our native language, we understand it. If we have to repeat it later, we might be able to remember all of the exact words, but probably not. Nevertheless, we can communicate what we heard. We don't call that translation because the language hasn't changed. However, from the standpoint of how language is generated, there isn't much difference. What we understand is moved through our language processing and results in words.

In the case of moving to a different language, we again understand, and then use the vocabulary and grammar of the second language to produce the words. We aren't doing anything spiritual or anything miraculous. We are simply producing language based on meaning and a language we handle. In the case of Joseph, he didn't have the plate language competence to read and get the meaning. That required God to provide it. The mechanism was likely not unlike revelation (and indeed, when Joseph received revelations for the D&C they were described in very similar terms to the dictation of the Book of Mormon). Thus the first step was taken by the Divine, and the step of creating language from meaning was Joseph. Joseph's competence in providing the translation was based on his own limitations of understanding and vocabulary--as well as his understanding and memory of KJV verses.

Quote

Also, I hate to reask, but I'm really curious, how does the presence of EModE elements fit into your theory?  

I see Joseph's dialect as one that preserved a lot of the archaic elements, particularly when there was a conscious attempt to imitate them, at least as it was assumed that they would replicate the flavor of the KJV. The evidence for Early Modern English is very well done, and I have no problem with the linguistic analysis. It is very good. I simply question the conclusion of the impossibility of those elements being present in Joseph's dialect. The evidence that they were not is obviously based on an absence, and most of the evidence for absence comes from written works where the language changes had taken place earlier. Some of these anachronistic elements are present in Joseph's language. Some of the vocabulary that is claimed to have disappeared is present within 30 to 50 years of Joseph's time. That is certainly an absence, but one that is so close in time that it is equally likely to be a sampling/sourcing error as real.

In short, the elements are clearly there. The question is what they mean.

[Nevo]

12 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Skousen's careful study of the MSS evidence now for over 30 years indicates without question that Joseph had been dictating an already extant text to his scribes.

The thread has moved on, but I just want to note that Skousen has not demonstrated "without question" that Joseph Smith was dictating "an already extant text." See, e.g., Samuel M. Brown's presentation here:

 

[Brant Gardner]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

As for the evidence that could match up what might have been on plates with the text we have, can you give any references to where you've discussed that, and the assumptions that you'd make to try and construct a model for evaluation.  If this is a work in process still, maybe an essay or presentation where you've talked about some of the ideas.  Thanks

There are two types of evidence for the preservation of something that was on the plates in the translation. One is in the nature of the translation and the other is in the subject matter/history described on the plates. In Gift and Power I look at the structures on the plates and not that they represent a replication of plate text. I am currently working on an analysis of Mormon as a writer/editor. There is much more information about how he constructed texts, and particularly the principles used to conclude chapters that point to a non-Western, non-modern understanding of what constituted a chapter. I see those as evidence of the plate text. I don't know when this information will be published. I'm working on getting it in shape for publication. Within a year, I hope.

As for the events, that was the reason I wrote Traditions of the Fathers. In my mind, they are two volumes of a single work. The Book of Mormon can't be historical unless we understand it as a translation--but it cannot be a translation unless it fits into history. Those two topics are intertwined, but time required that they be separate books.

[SamuelTheLamanite]

15 minutes ago, Brant Gardner said:

As for the events, that was the reason I wrote Traditions of the Fathers. In my mind, they are two volumes of a single work. The Book of Mormon can't be historical unless we understand it as a translation--but it cannot be a translation unless it fits into history. Those two topics are intertwined, but time required that they be separate books.

Sorry for interrupting the conversation Brant. I invite you to our discussion here http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/70277-unprecedented-native-american-burial-site-discovered/?page=3

I am very interested in knowing your opinion about the great flood in Genesis. When did the Flood in Genesis happen?

 

Edited March 9, 2018 by SamuelTheLamanite

[hope_for_things]

50 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I wonder if you have unrealistic expectations about the preservation of "direct and explicit evidence" when dealing with a civilization which has been extinct for many, many centuries.  Really unrealistic expectations.

I don't think my expectations are unrealistic.  If they are unrealistic, I think the majority of Mormons from the beginning of the church up until the late 20th century had the same expectations that evidence would be found and was inevitable.  The reasons that expectations have changed by apologists is that it became apparent that it wasn't going to be discovered. 

It was a major goal post shift for practical purposes.  My problem is the goal posts should have shifted further, completely away from the historicity claims all together.  This shift is still happening for some, but the old guard has dug in their heals.  (I'm not expecting the average member to make this shift at first, I do expect the majority of the informed and educated to make the shift first.)  Look at the community of Christ and how they wrestled with the BoM historicity issue as an example of how it can be done. 

I don't find the argument that we shouldn't expect to find any evidence because of how complex and difficult it is to find evidence a convincing argument.  We're finding plenty of evidence about the Mayans and Aztecs and all the cultures that did actually exist during the BoM time period.  

[hope_for_things]

41 minutes ago, Brant Gardner said:

I see Joseph's dialect as one that preserved a lot of the archaic elements, particularly when there was a conscious attempt to imitate them, at least as it was assumed that they would replicate the flavor of the KJV. The evidence for Early Modern English is very well done, and I have no problem with the linguistic analysis. It is very good. I simply question the conclusion of the impossibility of those elements being present in Joseph's dialect. The evidence that they were not is obviously based on an absence, and most of the evidence for absence comes from written works where the language changes had taken place earlier. Some of these anachronistic elements are present in Joseph's language. Some of the vocabulary that is claimed to have disappeared is present within 30 to 50 years of Joseph's time. That is certainly an absence, but one that is so close in time that it is equally likely to be a sampling/sourcing error as real.

In short, the elements are clearly there. The question is what they mean.

Yes, thank you for saying this!  This is essentially the same critique I'm giving on the EmodE work, yet you are much more eloquent than I in how you explain it.   I have no problem with EmodE showing up in Joseph's dictation.  I do have a problem with saying that it was impossible for Joseph to be the source of that EmodE syntax & grammar, and that researchers have ruled out all natural influences that could have contributed to Joseph's use of EmodE. 

Brant, this is another example of why I respect you so much, I might not agree with all your perspectives, but you'll come to Sunstone or other scary events that only heretics like myself would attend.  You'll engage with many different people along the Mormon spectrum, and at times you'll express an opinion that is at odds with other apologists too, but do so in a respectful way.  Big time kudos to you!  

[hope_for_things]

46 minutes ago, Nevo said:

The thread has moved on, but I just want to note that Skousen has not demonstrated "without question" that Joseph Smith was dictating "an already extant text." See, e.g., Samuel M. Brown's presentation here:

Yes, I agree, and I don't understand how they can tell the difference between creative imagination of a narrative that might be entirely in Joseph's mind and not written down and transmission of an already extant text.  Thanks for posting this.  

[hope_for_things]

46 minutes ago, Brant Gardner said:

There are two types of evidence for the preservation of something that was on the plates in the translation. One is in the nature of the translation and the other is in the subject matter/history described on the plates. In Gift and Power I look at the structures on the plates and not that they represent a replication of plate text. I am currently working on an analysis of Mormon as a writer/editor. There is much more information about how he constructed texts, and particularly the principles used to conclude chapters that point to a non-Western, non-modern understanding of what constituted a chapter. I see those as evidence of the plate text. I don't know when this information will be published. I'm working on getting it in shape for publication. Within a year, I hope.

As for the events, that was the reason I wrote Traditions of the Fathers. In my mind, they are two volumes of a single work. The Book of Mormon can't be historical unless we understand it as a translation--but it cannot be a translation unless it fits into history. Those two topics are intertwined, but time required that they be separate books.

Great, thanks.  I haven't read Traditions of the Fathers yet, but I know I need too, just a lot of books on my too read list lately, and it keeps getting longer.  Really appreciate it.  

[Nevo]

1 hour ago, Brant Gardner said:

Joseph's competence in providing the translation was based on his own limitations of understanding and vocabulary--as well as his understanding and memory of KJV verses.

I guess that would explain David Holmes's finding that the Book of Mormon, D&C, and Book of Abraham all exhibit similar levels of vocabulary richness (D. I. Holmes, "A Stylometric Analysis of Mormon Scripture and Related Texts," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A (Statistics in Society) 155, no. 1 [1992]: 91–120).

There is so much of Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon that I find it hard not to see him as the author. E.g., the pointed references to Joseph Jr., Joseph Sr., and Oliver Cowdery in 2 Nephi 3; references to the loss of the 116 pages; Lehi's dream closely resembling one of Joseph Sr.'s dreams; Mosiah translating gold plates by means of seer stones; Mormon seeing Jesus Christ as a teenager; Methodist phrases like "sing the song of redeeming love" showing up in Nephite preaching, etc. Then there are the constant repetitions, the parallel characters and stories—even parallel civilizations—that suggest that we are not dealing with actual history. Seriously, what are the odds that two different migrations to the promised land would produce societies of millions of people that are so wicked, so infested with "secret combinations," that they are both destroyed down to the last man on the very same hill?

Edited March 9, 2018 by Nevo

[JarMan]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I think you just misunderstand what I'm saying.  I understand that Joseph could have memorized or practiced the story out ahead of time.  I also understand that he could have been very good at free-styling, and personally that is what I think he was.  Some people believe it was a form of automatic writing, or something similar.  I don't have a problem believing that, there are some witness statements from other revelations that he may have gone into a meditative state of some kind.  I have cited other works in recent threads of people who were able to produce highly complex and internally consistent narratives similar in complexity to the BoM.  If you're interested, see Richard Van Wagoner's book, Natural Born Seer, as he has a few very interesting examples.  

The key thing I think you missed in that post you quoted is that those promoting the EmodE theory have a huge burden to prove what they are suggesting.  They are suggesting that Joseph couldn't possibly have been the source of the EmodE content.  If their thesis stopped at just presenting evidence that EmodE is present in the text, then I wouldn't have much of a problem.  But instead, they're trying to prove that Joseph couldn't have been the source of that EmodE content by trying to eliminate all other potential sources that could have influenced Joseph's grammar and syntax to create EmodE content.  I don't think this task is even possible to accomplish, its essentially trying to prove a negative and the evidence to support it needs to be overwhelming.  

 

Thanks, this helps me understand your position a little better. But there are some significant challenges to the idea that Joseph freestyled it. The first, which has been mentioned several times, is that most people agree that Joseph was reading something. In my view there's no way to both freestyle it and read it (although Brant's idea seems to be a mixture of freestyling, translating, and reading). So you've got that evidence to overcome. To the idea that there are works of similar complexity as the Book of Mormon and produced just as rapidly, this is highly unlikely in my view. Actually, I think it's impossible. It's taken me many years to realize just how complex the Book of Mormon is and, then, only after reading commentaries on it by really smart people like Brant Gardner and Grant Hardy among many others. The work that I like to compare to the Book of Mormon is The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's of similar length and complexity as the Book of Mormon. But it was produced over a period of about a dozen years by a middle-aged scholar, literary master and philologist. The Book of Mormon couldn't have been made up on the fly by a semi-educated 23 year old any more than the Lord of the Rings could have been. As for the argument about whether Joseph could have produced the EModE or not, I hardly think you have a place in this debate until you do the requisite research to develop an informed opinion.

[hope_for_things]

1 minute ago, JarMan said:

The first, which has been mentioned several times, is that most people agree that Joseph was reading something. In my view there's no way to both freestyle it and read it (although Brant's idea seems to be a mixture of freestyling, translating, and reading). So you've got that evidence to overcome.

I just don't find the arguments some have made that he was reading a text to be compelling.  It's not really evidence that I have to overcome, its interpretation of scant evidence.  I'm not aware of any witnesses who claimed to have seen a text whether written on paper or on the seer stone.  Brant seems to think that what Joseph saw may have just been something projected from Joseph's mind (he posted about this in the thread earlier.)

4 minutes ago, JarMan said:

To the idea that there are works of similar complexity as the Book of Mormon and produced just as rapidly, this is highly unlikely in my view. Actually, I think it's impossible.

Here are some of the other examples that Van Wagoner gives in his book that might be similar to the BoM as far as complexity, and uniqueness and may have offer some other similarities.  

• Mohammed’s Quran 
• Jakob Lorber - from 1840 - Van Wagoner writes “Early one morning, he heard a voice coming from the region of his heart calling him to be “God’s Scribe.”  The voice, later identified as Jesus Christ, told him “Take up your pen and write!” According to Lorber’s biographer, “When he had written down all he had heard with his Inner Ear in the course of that day, it had become clear to hi that he had been given a most extraordinary mission from the world beyond.”   He wrote many works, but his magus opus was “The Great Gospel of John” consisting of eleven volumes, 10,000 hand-written pages, a day by day account of the final three years of Christ’s life on earth.  
• Pearl Curran/Patience Worth - Van Wagoner writes “From 1913 until Curran’s death in 1938, Patience Worth transmitted an incredible amount of material through Curran.  Some of the material was in her quaint seventeenth-century dialect, and some in more modern English.  One night, Worth dictated twenty-two poems.  In one five-year stretch, she wrote 1.6 million words, more than six times the length of the Book of Mormon.”  He also writes, “Curran’s knowledge of Bible lands was limited to what she had learned in Sunday School.  She quit school at age fifteen, was not an avid reader, rarely traveled, and like Joseph Smith, possessed no books in her home that could ah be been used as reference materials. “. 
• He also lists Schuman’s A Course in Miracles.  

I talked about this all earlier in the thread, and I would refer you to the book for more detail.  The idea that Joseph's creation of the BoM was so amazing and unique is a myth that Mormon's like to hold, but there are other examples out there.  

[smac97]

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Quote

I wonder if you have unrealistic expectations about the preservation of "direct and explicit evidence" when dealing with a civilization which has been extinct for many, many centuries.  Really unrealistic expectations.

I don't think my expectations are unrealistic. 

You are scoffing at the notion that "direct and explicit evidence" of a civilization that died out 1,600 years ago might not be immediately apparent and forthcoming.  

The point has been made, in various ways, that we don't know what "Nephite" iconography and such would look like.  We may well have "Nephite" artifacts in hand, only we do not know them as such.  Or such artifacts may not have yet have been discovered.  Or some combination of these two.

Quote

If they are unrealistic, I think the majority of Mormons from the beginning of the church up until the late 20th century had the same expectations that evidence would be found and was inevitable. 

I agree that some Mormons have harbored unrealistic expectations about empirical archaelogical "evidence" of the Book of Mormon.  Yes, I agree with you there.

Quote

The reasons that expectations have changed by apologists is that it became apparent that it wasn't going to be discovered. 

Yes.  But why such evidence is not yet available is the question, right?  Your position seems to be that "direct and explicit {archaeological} evidence" of the Book of Mormon should be abundant, presently in hand, and manifestly associated with the peoples and events described in the text.  Those expectations are, I think, quite unreasonable.

Quote

It was a major goal post shift for practical purposes. 

Yes, but not the one you are inferring (intellectual dishonesty).

The early Saints knew very little about Mesoamerica.  We know a lot more now.  We know enough to recognize that there is much we do not know.

Some of the early Saints also harbored some unlearned and unrealistic expectations about empirical "evidence" about the Book of Mormon.  That has changed quite a bit over the past several decades. 

In other words, we are operating with more information, not less.

You are, of course, at liberty to tacitly accuse the Mormons of comprehensive dishonesty.  But I think the more realistic and reasonable assessment is that we are doing better than we were before.  I am glad of that.

Quote

My problem is the goal posts should have shifted further, completely away from the historicity claims all together. 

Why is that?  The arguments for historicity are, in my view, getting better and better.

Quote

This shift is still happening for some, but the old guard has dug in their heals. 

You speak as if the issue of historicity is a settled one.  It is not.  And it's not because "the old guard" is stubborn, but because the evidence is being weighed and evaluated in ever-improving ways.

Quote

(I'm not expecting the average member to make this shift at first, I do expect the majority of the informed and educated to make the shift first.) 

Strange, that.  There are many, many "informed and educated" folks who are arriving at conclusions that support historicity.

Quote

I don't find the argument that we shouldn't expect to find any evidence because of how complex and difficult it is to find evidence a convincing argument. 

I see that.  With respect, I find your position to be unreasonable and facile.  You are not engaging the substance of what is being said, and instead summarily dismissing it.  Waving such things off without explanation, without engaging the points being made, is itself not "a convincing argument."

Quote

We're finding plenty of evidence about the Mayans and Aztecs and all the cultures that did actually exist during the BoM time period.  

How do you know none of these evidences are Nephite?

Thanks,

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited March 9, 2018 by smac97

[JarMan]

51 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Jakob Lorber - from 1840 - Van Wagoner writes “Early one morning, he heard a voice coming from the region of his heart calling him to be “God’s Scribe.”  The voice, later identified as Jesus Christ, told him “Take up your pen and write!” According to Lorber’s biographer, “When he had written down all he had heard with his Inner Ear in the course of that day, it had become clear to hi that he had been given a most extraordinary mission from the world beyond.”   He wrote many works, but his magus opus was “The Great Gospel of John” consisting of eleven volumes, 10,000 hand-written pages, a day by day account of the final three years of Christ’s life on earth.  

So a guy spends 24 years writing 10,000 pages of text. That's just over 1 page a day. There are people on this forum who post much more prodigiously than that. This tells us nothing. Especially since we don't know the quality of what he produced. I'm certainly not going to read it all and make a judgment on its complexity or consistency or value, nor do I think anybody but maybe a few specialized scholars would even attempt the task.

57 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

• Pearl Curran/Patience Worth - Van Wagoner writes “From 1913 until Curran’s death in 1938, Patience Worth transmitted an incredible amount of material through Curran.  Some of the material was in her quaint seventeenth-century dialect, and some in more modern English.  One night, Worth dictated twenty-two poems.  In one five-year stretch, she wrote 1.6 million words, more than six times the length of the Book of Mormon.”  He also writes, “Curran’s knowledge of Bible lands was limited to what she had learned in Sunday School.  She quit school at age fifteen, was not an avid reader, rarely traveled, and like Joseph Smith, possessed no books in her home that could ah be been used as reference materials. “. 

This is just not very remarkable nor in any way comparable to the production of the Book of Mormon. At her most productive she produced six times the length of the Book of Mormon in about 30 times the time. This means that Joseph was working at five times the pace. And what is the quality of her writing? I am quite confident, without ever having read any of what she wrote, that we will not see the complexity and consistency in her writing that we see in the Book of Mormon. But nobody has made that claim anyway.

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

He also lists Schuman’s A Course in Miracles.

A Course in Miracles was produced over seven years. How does this even compare to the Book of Mormon production? And again, we know nothing of its quality or complexity. We know that millions of people look at it as being deeply spiritual and life-changing. But that is the only aspect of the Book of Mormon that make it comparable. So this is another no-match for me.

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

• Mohammed’s Quran 

The Quran was revealed over a period of 23 years. Yes, it is revered scripture by millions. No, it was not produced in a matter of months by a semi-educated farm hand.

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

I talked about this all earlier in the thread, and I would refer you to the book for more detail.  The idea that Joseph's creation of the BoM was so amazing and unique is a myth that Mormon's like to hold, but there are other examples out there.  

The Book of Mormon production was amazing and unique. You have not presented any examples that are even close to it. You've shown that there are other books out there that are spiritually revered by millions. There are a handful of these works throughout the history of the world but none was produced with even close the efficiency of the Book of Mormon, as far as I know. Joseph's later scriptures don't even come close. You've also shown that some people can produce a large amount of text over their lifetime. But this is nothing new and is not even what is remarkable about the Book of Mormon in the first place. It doesn't represent a lifetime of work. It represents a couple of months of work.

The irony of the freestlying-Joseph version of the Book of Mormon production versus the angel-and-seer-stone version is that the free-styling Joseph version is just as dependent on divine intervention as the official version. If you want a truly naturalistic version you have to find a source capable of doing it. So far nobody has been able to do this (at least not a 19th Century source).

[Brant Gardner]

2 hours ago, Nevo said:

There is so much of Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon that I find it hard not to see him as the author. E.g., the pointed references to Joseph Jr., Joseph Sr., and Oliver Cowdery in 2 Nephi 3; references to the loss of the 116 pages;

Interesting that you would select the two places where I think Joseph "translated" beyond the text. In the first, I think we have a prophets understanding of a fulfilled prophecy, where what was written down was what he thought that the prophecy pointed to and the way it was fulfilled rather than a simple copy of what was on the plates. I think I can demonstrate that Mormon did not write Words of Mormon 1:12-18. I see those as, again, a prophet's bridge for missing material. The original had that information on the plates, but the way we have it was not. In my opinion, of course.

Quote

Lehi's dream closely resembling one of Joseph Sr.'s dreams;

This one is a little difficult to assess from a historical standpoint. The original dream came before the Book of Mormon, but the written version came long after. We have a chicken and egg issue. There certainly must have been some similarities to be able to make the connection, but I suspect that much of the clear connection came after-the-fact. We know from modern studies that memory can be affected, and changed, by later events.

Quote

Mosiah translating gold plates by means of seer stones; Mormon seeing Jesus Christ as a teenager;

I don't see any issue with these. Other prophets said that they saw Jesus or Yahweh. It is a bit of a mild recurring theme in the text--and not foreign to the Old Testament, either. As for translating plates, that is certainly interesting, but not outside of the cultural content from a Mesoamerican setting, where adepts can use stones/artifacts to see visions. They call them sastun/zaztun (you'll see both spellings, same pronunciation). The meaning is light stones (as I recall).

Quote

Methodist phrases like "sing the song of redeeming love" showing up in Nephite preaching, etc.

Which I see as an artifact of translation, no different that familiar KJV phrases. 

Quote

Then there are the constant repetitions, the parallel characters and stories—even parallel civilizations—that suggest that we are not dealing with actual history.

A lot of this is the result of the original editing. There is a strong theme about the connection between Gadianton Robbers and the destruction of society. It can be traced though the text and shows the hand of a literary creation. It occurs in Mormon, and Moroni picks it up in his translation of Ether. Repeated scenes are in the Bible, of course, so as a literary technique, it doesn't point to who the author was. The subtil nature of the Gadianton theme and its complexities doesn't fit with anything I can connect to Joseph.

Quote

Seriously, what are the odds that two different migrations to the promised land would produce societies of millions of people that are so wicked, so infested with "secret combinations," that they are both destroyed down to the last man on the very same hill?

I think you are correct that this is a literary creation. In particular, I think the hill is a symbolic location, not a physical one. The only place we are told that Raman and Cumorah are the same is in Moroni, but how could he have known that? We see some complex interplay between names and events, and I think this is another case where history was at the service of the overarching theme. Again, the way it is couched points to antiquity for me, not Joseph.

[stemelbow]

3 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

We get so many different ideas all mixed up in these discussions that it is difficult to pull the threads apart. I can only explain the way I see things, and I'll see if I can make my ideas clear. When we read something in our native language, we understand it. If we have to repeat it later, we might be able to remember all of the exact words, but probably not. Nevertheless, we can communicate what we heard. We don't call that translation because the language hasn't changed. However, from the standpoint of how language is generated, there isn't much difference. What we understand is moved through our language processing and results in words.

In the case of moving to a different language, we again understand, and then use the vocabulary and grammar of the second language to produce the words. We aren't doing anything spiritual or anything miraculous. We are simply producing language based on meaning and a language we handle. In the case of Joseph, he didn't have the plate language competence to read and get the meaning. That required God to provide it. The mechanism was likely not unlike revelation (and indeed, when Joseph received revelations for the D&C they were described in very similar terms to the dictation of the Book of Mormon). Thus the first step was taken by the Divine, and the step of creating language from meaning was Joseph. Joseph's competence in providing the translation was based on his own limitations of understanding and vocabulary--as well as his understanding and memory of KJV verses.

I don't see that there's a whole lot of getting different ideas mixed up, so much.  I think I'm hearing you.  In response to Nevo as he identified a couple of questionable places in the BoM you said:

Quote

Interesting that you would select the two places where I think Joseph "translated" beyond the text. In the first, I think we have a prophets understanding of a fulfilled prophecy, where what was written down was what he thought that the prophecy pointed to and the way it was fulfilled rather than a simple copy of what was on the plates. I think I can demonstrate that Mormon did not write Words of Mormon 1:12-18. I see those as, again, a prophet's bridge for missing material. The original had that information on the plates, but the way we have it was not. In my opinion, of course.

But, in light of what I asked before, where would this stop?  I'm still a bit stuck on whether anything on the plates could possibly be known to have been found in the English text.  It appears to me you saying "Joseph must have taken some liberties to make the prophecies more specific--fit neat and nice" or something.  Well if he took such liberties at one point what stops him from taken liberties at other times?  Why not the whole of the work?  

 

3 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

I see Joseph's dialect as one that preserved a lot of the archaic elements, particularly when there was a conscious attempt to imitate them, at least as it was assumed that they would replicate the flavor of the KJV. The evidence for Early Modern English is very well done, and I have no problem with the linguistic analysis. It is very good. I simply question the conclusion of the impossibility of those elements being present in Joseph's dialect. The evidence that they were not is obviously based on an absence, and most of the evidence for absence comes from written works where the language changes had taken place earlier. Some of these anachronistic elements are present in Joseph's language. Some of the vocabulary that is claimed to have disappeared is present within 30 to 50 years of Joseph's time. That is certainly an absence, but one that is so close in time that it is equally likely to be a sampling/sourcing error as real.

In short, the elements are clearly there. The question is what they mean.

Fair enough.  I can't say I see it any differently.  

[champatsch]

4 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

Joseph's competence in providing the translation was based on his own limitations of understanding and vocabulary--as well as his understanding and memory of KJV verses.

The vocabulary of the Book of Mormon, as Widtsoe observed in the 1950s, was beyond Joseph, even excluding the obsolete usage. When that is included, then we must rule out Joseph as the translator, in the default sense.   No—sorry—it is unlikely that a King James Bible was used in the dictation.  I would abandon this assertion.  It doesn't look good.
 

4 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

I see Joseph's dialect as one that preserved a lot of the archaic elements, particularly when there was a conscious attempt to imitate them, at least as it was assumed that they would replicate the flavor of the KJV. The evidence for Early Modern English is very well done, and I have no problem with the linguistic analysis. It is very good. I simply question the conclusion of the impossibility of those elements being present in Joseph's dialect. The evidence that they were not is obviously based on an absence, and most of the evidence for absence comes from written works where the language changes had taken place earlier. Some of these anachronistic elements are present in Joseph's language. Some of the vocabulary that is claimed to have disappeared is present within 30 to 50 years of Joseph's time. That is certainly an absence, but one that is so close in time that it is equally likely to be a sampling/sourcing error as real.

This simply does not work.  The textual record is quite clear about certain aspects of English usage, and Joseph's 1832 History and his personal letters support that important portions of Book of Mormon archaism were not persistent for Joseph.  As one example, the personal relative pronoun system of the Book of Mormon strongly argues against your view.  One of the differences between the early modern and later modern periods is that who became the dominant relative pronoun over that, and which fell off to very low levels of use.  His letters and history show this as well.  I'm sorry that you appear to be dug in to your position, in the face of a huge amount of concrete linguistic evidence.
 

2 hours ago, Nevo said:

There is so much of Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon that I find it hard not to see him as the author. E.g., the pointed references to Joseph Jr., Joseph Sr., and Oliver Cowdery in 2 Nephi 3; references to the loss of the 116 pages; Lehi's dream closely resembling one of Joseph Sr.'s dreams; Mosiah translating gold plates by means of seer stones; Mormon seeing Jesus Christ as a teenager; Methodist phrases like "sing the song of redeeming love" showing up in Nephite preaching, etc.

Phrases such as these are secondary linguistic evidence, which simply cannot overturn the primary evidence.  In any event, this notion is found in Isaiah and Revelation, and precursors of the phraseology appear in the 17c, and the phrase itself first appears in the early 18c.  But again, syntax and grammar—which are contextual to a small degree—are primary evidence, and they beat this content-rich, highly contextual phraseology.

 

Perhaps others may benefit from these realities and an awareness of this crucial, substantive evidence.

Edited March 9, 2018 by champatsch

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Nevo said:

The thread has moved on, but I just want to note that Skousen has not demonstrated "without question" that Joseph Smith was dictating "an already extant text." See, e.g., Samuel M. Brown's presentation here:..............................

Thank you for calling that presentation to my attention.  Was not aware of it.

Brown does recognize that there is another interpretation of the "or, rather" phenomenon in places like 1 Nephi 19:7, Mosiah 7:8, Alma 2:34, 30:9, though he and Rosalynde Welch accept it as an example of orality.  However, other scholars have been commenting on that phenomenon since 1981 as an example of the inability to erase mistakes while engraving on metal.  In the case of Alma 24:19, for example, John Gee has noted that as an instance of haplography in the Book of Mormon attributable specifically to use of the Egyptian preposition n "of, for."  

Quote

 

they buried their weapons of peace,

or they buried the weapons of war, for peace.

 

As Gee points out, the Book of Mormon scribe apparently looked away from the master text for a moment while engraving, then returned and continued copying at the second n, then noted his mistake and immediately corrected it by adding "or they buried the weapons of war for peace."  Gee adds that this would only work in Egyptian where the preposition n can be used as an indirect genitive, and then also meaning "for."  This could not happen in Hebrew.

There are other scribal errors of the sort which could only be made in writing, Joseph innocently reading them mistake and all.

[cdowis]

7 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

 There aren't any unknown people that just appear out of nowhere that text doesn't go to lengths to explain where they come from. 

You are mistaken.

1 Nephi 18 [25] And it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the a-s-s and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men.

Please give us the details on the unknown people who kept [domesticated]  goats, donkeys and oxen when the Nephites arrived in the New World.  Not speculation, but what the text tells us.

Edited March 9, 2018 by cdowis

[cdowis]

7 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I don't remember you directing a request like this at me before, but your request probably has come up with silence because its a poorly constructed request.  First, I'm not well read enough on Mormon studies to construct a list of all the relevant scholarship on this subject.  Second, what kind of scientific evaluation do you think is relevant here, there are many different disciplines that may or may not apply. 

My post was not directed at you unless you post under several names.

Edited March 9, 2018 by cdowis

[Nevo]

1 hour ago, Brant Gardner said:

A lot of this is the result of the original editing. There is a strong theme about the connection between Gadianton Robbers and the destruction of society. It can be traced though the text and shows the hand of a literary creation. It occurs in Mormon, and Moroni picks it up in his translation of Ether. Repeated scenes are in the Bible, of course, so as a literary technique, it doesn't point to who the author was. The subtil nature of the Gadianton theme and its complexities doesn't fit with anything I can connect to Joseph.

Thanks for your comments, Brant. It's always good to hear your take on things. Personally, I think the Gadianton theme does point to Joseph (see Mark Thomas's discussion at the end of Digging in Cumorah) but I agree that it's complex. And you're right, of course, that the Bible also contains type scenes/parallel narratives. But the Book of Mormon takes this to extremes. Grant Hardy quotes Richard Rust's observation that "it seems that every important action, event, or character type is repeated." Hardy goes on to say that "similarities in the Book of Mormon often look like historical coincidences rather than cultural conventions or archetypes. . . . the significance lies in the literal repetition of actual events rather than in the ways they are recounted, even if Mormon's editing sometimes is intended to draw our attention to earlier precedents or later reenactments. In Mormon's world . . . historical repetition is evidence of God's engagement with humankind" (Understanding the Book of Mormon, 155).

While such repetitions may be plausible in Mormon's world, I find them hard to credit. Same goes for the Bible. The wife-sister stories in Genesis 12, 20, and 26 look to me more like a literary motif than a description of real historical events.

Edited March 9, 2018 by Nevo

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

This one always boggles my mind when I hear it.  Joseph is the prophet, the author of the BoM, the revelation machine that believers privilege above all others.  He's larger than life, and yet when something he says doesn't fit the most recent apologetic arguments, they dismiss the incompatible statements and call him ignorant. 

If you're willing to call Joseph's paradigm about the BoM peoples ignorant and not matching reality, why not take that one step further and just conclude that the BoM isn't historical.  Seems obvious to me.  

It always amazes me that the anti-Mormons insist that Joseph Smith has to be infallible -- the straw man they create so that they can knock him down.  Joseph Smith himself insisted that he was not infallible.  He was an ordinary man just like the rest of us.  The Gospel is treasure carried in earthen vessels (clay pots).  To suggest otherewise is blasphemy.

6 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I agree, it seems like if there was any DNA evidence to support middle eastern ancestry for Native American's that we should see some evidence of this in the DNA record. 

Good.  Let's see how long that commitment lasts.

6 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Yes, they were wrong, because there isn't any historical antecedent for the BoM narrative.  Its not that they were looking in the wrong place, its that no place exists. 

Perhaps you could show how the substantive work of John Sorenson and Brant Gardner has been refuted.  Uhuh.  It hasn't been done.  Why are you afraid to deal with that problem?  Should be so easy to refute . . .

6 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Brigham uses the words "very different" and "differ materially", I think he goes further than your interpretation of his meaning.  I think he's acknowledging that the BoM narrative was a creative imagination by Joseph at some level.  I think he probably believed the book was based on some historical facts, but that much of the content came from an inspired creative process that Joseph engaged in.  That's my interpretation.  

Sounds like eisegesis to me.

[hope_for_things]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Yes.  But why such evidence is not yet available is the question, right?  Your position seems to be that "direct and explicit {archaeological} evidence" of the Book of Mormon should be abundant, presently in hand, and manifestly associated with the peoples and events described in the text.  Those expectations are, I think, quite unreasonable.

This is a straw-man, I never said or implied abundant evidence.  I expect some evidence, similar to biblical evidence that has been found for the similar time period in history.  What you think is unreasonable seems to be that we would find any evidence at all.  I don't see that as unreasonable.  

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Yes, but not the one you are inferring (intellectual dishonesty).

The early Saints knew very little about Mesoamerica.  We know a lot more now.  We know enough to recognize that there is much we do not know.

Some of the early Saints also harbored some unlearned and unrealistic expectations about empirical "evidence" about the Book of Mormon.  That has changed quite a bit over the past several decades. 

In other words, we are operating with more information, not less.

You are, of course, at liberty to tacitly accuse the Mormons of comprehensive dishonesty.  But I think the more realistic and reasonable assessment is that we are doing better than we were before.  I am glad of that.

I think its a mixture of all of the above.  There has been some intellectual dishonesty.  There has also been naivety by all sides, and I think unrealistic expectations as you mentioned earlier, but I'm thinking of both sides for that unrealistic expectations.  I agree that we have more information than ever before, and more reason to be skeptical of poorly constructed apologetics that attempt to hold onto a paradigm that isn't supported by evidence.  

I haven't accused anyone of comprehensive dishonesty, you seem to want to paint my position in a stark terms, but if you closely read my posts, I'm not a fire brand and I'm seeking intelligent conversation, and I'm not interested in the I'm right and your wrong battles that happen so often in the bloggernacle.  I'm also a Mormon still, (hate to keep pointing this out, but as often as the boundary maintainers try to paint me as outside the group, I think it needs to be mentioned again.)

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Quote

My problem is the goal posts should have shifted further, completely away from the historicity claims all together. 

Why is that?  The arguments for historicity are, in my view, getting better and better.

My view is essentially opposite, the arguments are getting worse and more and more strained.  

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Quote

This shift is still happening for some, but the old guard has dug in their heals. 

You speak as if the issue of historicity is a settled one.  It is not.  And it's not because "the old guard" is stubborn, but because the evidence is being weighed and evaluated in ever-improving ways.

What would it take for something to be "settled" in a world where some people believe in a flat earth?  I think its safe to say that 100% agreement on any subject will likely never happen.  I think the evidence is clearly against historicity.  

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Quote

(I'm not expecting the average member to make this shift at first, I do expect the majority of the informed and educated to make the shift first.) 

Strange, that.  There are many, many "informed and educated" folks who are arriving at conclusions that support historicity.

Yes, mostly old guard, and those who are employed and can't come out of the closet for various reasons.  Change moves slowly in the church, but it is moving.  

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Quote

I don't find the argument that we shouldn't expect to find any evidence because of how complex and difficult it is to find evidence a convincing argument. 

I see that.  With respect, I find your position to be unreasonable and facile.  You are not engaging the substance of what is being said, and instead summarily dismissing it.  Waving such things off without explanation, without engaging the points being made, is itself not "a convincing argument."

I've done a lot of studying over the past few years and feel fairly confident in my current position.  Not confident that I fully understand everything, quite the contrary, I know that these issues are highly complex and I'm comfortable with the complexity and the likelihood that my position will evolve over time as I continue to learn. 

You might think this is a summary dismissal because I haven't gone to great lengths to explain all the various reasons that I have come to this position.  Like Brant Gardner mentioned earlier, its hard to discuss such complex issues on a message board and do the argument justice.  I find it strange that some people use this accusation with an assumption that someone hasn't done their due diligence in research and study.  

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Quote

We're finding plenty of evidence about the Mayans and Aztecs and all the cultures that did actually exist during the BoM time period.  

How do you know none of these evidences are Nephite?

How do you know that any of them are Nephite?  The burden of proof is on those who claim that they are because of the lack of evidence to support anything distinctly BoM up to this point.  

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, JarMan said:

So a guy spends 24 years writing 10,000 pages of text. That's just over 1 page a day. There are people on this forum who post much more prodigiously than that. This tells us nothing. Especially since we don't know the quality of what he produced. I'm certainly not going to read it all and make a judgment on its complexity or consistency or value, nor do I think anybody but maybe a few specialized scholars would even attempt the task.

This is just not very remarkable nor in any way comparable to the production of the Book of Mormon. At her most productive she produced six times the length of the Book of Mormon in about 30 times the time. This means that Joseph was working at five times the pace. And what is the quality of her writing? I am quite confident, without ever having read any of what she wrote, that we will not see the complexity and consistency in her writing that we see in the Book of Mormon. But nobody has made that claim anyway.

A Course in Miracles was produced over seven years. How does this even compare to the Book of Mormon production? And again, we know nothing of its quality or complexity. We know that millions of people look at it as being deeply spiritual and life-changing. But that is the only aspect of the Book of Mormon that make it comparable. So this is another no-match for me.

The Quran was revealed over a period of 23 years. Yes, it is revered scripture by millions. No, it was not produced in a matter of months by a semi-educated farm hand.

The Book of Mormon production was amazing and unique. You have not presented any examples that are even close to it. You've shown that there are other books out there that are spiritually revered by millions. There are a handful of these works throughout the history of the world but none was produced with even close the efficiency of the Book of Mormon, as far as I know. Joseph's later scriptures don't even come close. You've also shown that some people can produce a large amount of text over their lifetime. But this is nothing new and is not even what is remarkable about the Book of Mormon in the first place. It doesn't represent a lifetime of work. It represents a couple of months of work.

The irony of the freestlying-Joseph version of the Book of Mormon production versus the angel-and-seer-stone version is that the free-styling Joseph version is just as dependent on divine intervention as the official version. If you want a truly naturalistic version you have to find a source capable of doing it. So far nobody has been able to do this (at least not a 19th Century source).

Its clear from your response that you aren't seriously about considering these examples.  If you want to at some point actually consider whether other people have produced works of similar complexity to the BoM, the you'll need to put aside your current bias and seek to think objectively.  Its easy to pick out differences, I didn't say any of the above works were exactly the same as the BoM production, why should anyone expect them to be the same? 

The claim that it was done over a couple months is deceiving, Joseph was working on the narrative for at least a 1+ years and possibly longer as we have Lucy Mack's recollection that he was telling stories about BoM people's well before he started the translation efforts with Martin Harris in 1828. 

That the examples I shared are similar (there are more in Van Wagoner's book) and that they have their own elements of miraculous seeming production is what is interesting and it refutes that old argument that what Joseph did was so amazing that nobody in the history of the world could have ever done anything like it. That's not reality, that's just a "my God can beat up your God" argument from the playground.  

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, cdowis said:

You are mistaken.

1 Nephi 18 [25] And it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the a-s-s and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men.

Please give us the details on the unknown people who kept [domesticated]  goats, donkeys and oxen when the Nephites arrived in the New World.  Not speculation, but what the text tells us.

Firstly this is an example of anachronisms in the book as many of those animals weren't on the continent during this time period.  Secondly, perhaps because of the order that the BoM was dictated since he just had finished the Book of Ether prior to starting on 1 Nephi, Joseph was thinking about the animals that the Jaredites had and what was left over after they killed each other off.  

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, cdowis said:

My post was not directed at you unless you post under several names.

Just one name for me, thank you very much.