Where did the Book of Mormon come from?

[hope_for_things]

52 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

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.

Completely agree about the infallibility argument, he clearly wasn't infallible or even close to it.  An amazing individual, but highly flawed at the same time.  

53 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

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 . . .

When you state "it hasn't been done" this tells me that you think there is some objective measurement for assessing scholarly arguments.  This message board is an example of a multitude of beliefs on this subject and many others.  Garnder disagrees with some of Sorenson's arguments, as I've heard him point out areas of disagreement, and if you saw earlier in the thread, he also has some points of disagreement on the EmodE conclusions. 

Are you truly looking for a consensus on these issues?  You've even told me that you don't fit the mold, so are you asking that I try to fit a mold that you have in your mind? 

59 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Quote

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.

Yep, sure is, but how is that any different than what you're doing?  

[cdowis]

5 hours ago, Nevo said:

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

I suggest you read about the Kennedy / Lincoln "closely resembling each other"
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/linkin-kennedy/

Mosiah translating gold plates by means of seer stones;

I drove a  car to work.  So did Steve Jobs.
Two individuals using the same "tool" to accomplish the same task.  Astonishing, is it not?

Mormon seeing Jesus Christ as a teenager;

Huh?  A prophet having a vision.  Are you familiar with the prophet Samuel as a teenager.

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

Please give us a link to that exact phrase as a Methodist phase prior to 1830.

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

Huh?  Are you a scholar of history and can definitely assert that does not happen in authentic history --- history repeating itself, parallel characters and events?

Seriously,

Finally....

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?

1. Are you familiar with the events of the Final Battle?  It happened over the course of many years, and lead up to that final battle.  There were survivors for an extended period after the battle

Moroni 1 [2] For behold, their wars are exceedingly fierce among themselves; and because of their hatred they put to death every Nephite that will not deny the Christ
Clearly the Lamanites were still hunting down Nephites afterward.

2. "the same hill"

There was something special about that hill -- location, height, strategic and geographic features, a large source of spring water and game, for millions of people,  etc that made it uniquely suitable for such a battle. 

3. Millions of people

"A vast, interconnected network of ancient cities was home to millions more people than previously thought"
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/maya-laser-lidar-guatemala-pacunam/

Of course Joseph Smith was very familiar with such interconnected metopolitions  with over 15 million people

 

Edited March 10, 2018 by cdowis

[cdowis]

45 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Firstly this is an example of anachronisms in the book as many of those animals weren't on the continent during this time period. 

Are you familiar with the fallacy, "Not found not exist'?
You may find interesting  this recent discovery  http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-centuries-old-bones-of-horses-unearthed-in-2005jul17-story.html

Most of these "anachronisms" are animals who existed in the Americas but "went extinct" (meaning no fossils) before Lehi landed.  We know that mammoths (elephants) were as far south as Mexico.

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.  

Good grief, you can read the mind of man who died over a century ago. 
Astonishing.  Can we assume that is the source of your information?

 

[cdowis]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

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. 

What about the 116 pages?  He had to start all over on that one.  

Not challenging you --- just curious how you think he handled it in such a short time.

[cdowis]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

 

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

 

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.  

 

And you would not be able to claim there are NO BOM artifacts -- if you make that claim, the burden of proof is then on you. We are merely pointing out that the issue is not the physical artifacts, but the verifiable identification of existing artifacts.

 

Edited March 10, 2018 by cdowis

[hope_for_things]

18 minutes ago, cdowis said:

What about the 116 pages?  He had to start all over on that one.  

Not challenging you --- just curious how you think he handled it in such a short time.

I believe he was likely working on the narrative for years.  The actual dictation was relatively quick.  

[hope_for_things]

11 minutes ago, cdowis said:

And you would not be able to claim there are NO BOM artifacts -- if you make that claim, the burden of proof is then on you. We are merely pointing out that the issue is not the physical artifacts, but the verifiable identification of existing artifacts.

There aren’t any artifacts or evidences that I’m aware of that can be specifically identified as BoM, meaning they would need to have an explicit identification that correlates with something uniquely BoM.  

[Robert F. Smith]

55 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Completely agree about the infallibility argument, he clearly wasn't infallible or even close to it.  An amazing individual, but highly flawed at the same time.  

As are we all.

55 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

When you state "it hasn't been done" this tells me that you think there is some objective measurement for assessing scholarly arguments.  This message board is an example of a multitude of beliefs on this subject and many others.  Garnder disagrees with some of Sorenson's arguments, as I've heard him point out areas of disagreement, and if you saw earlier in the thread, he also has some points of disagreement on the EmodE conclusions. 

Are you truly looking for a consensus on these issues?  You've even told me that you don't fit the mold, so are you asking that I try to fit a mold that you have in your mind? 

Yes.  I have spent a lifetime among scholars with a wide diversity of views, and am very comfortable with that.  I would be very surprised if everyone agreed on all issues.  However, we should at least be respectful of sound, logical arguments, even if we take exception to them in some way.  Even among the minimalists and maximalists in biblical archeology, there is at least mutual respect and a common understanding that not every question has been settled.  Indeed, there is a willingness to debate the unsettled issues without rancor.  Rob Bowman used to openly debate the issues here, and we all learned a great deal from him.

55 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Yep, sure is, but how is that any different than what you're doing?  

Scholars actually make a sincere attempt to be objective, to subject their various arguments to broad-spectrum forensic analysis.  The community of scholars (regardless of ideological or religious background) rides herd on their own endeavor to find the truth, and no one person has a franchise on truth.  Eisegesis is not looked on with favor.

[Robert F. Smith]

6 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I believe he was likely working on the narrative for years.  The actual dictation was relatively quick.  

So, anything which shows up in the text which matches archeological reality must be a coincidence, and the EModE stuff is either a figment of scholarly imagination, or Joseph was able to rig the text with archaic grammar and vocabulary through some unexplained means (or perhaps inherited a manuscript created centuries earlier).  There are a great many scenarios we could come up with.  The question we have to ask, though, is just how far are we willing to reach to defend or attack the authenticity of the BofM?  Shouldn't we be looking for the simplest explanations?  Pro or con.  Does parsimony play a part in our efforts?

[hope_for_things]

24 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

As are we all.

To differing degrees I agree, but I don’t consider myself as dynamic or as flawed as Joseph, I’m much more conservative by nature.  

24 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yes.  I have spent a lifetime among scholars with a wide diversity of views, and am very comfortable with that.  I would be very surprised if everyone agreed on all issues.  However, we should at least be respectful of sound, logical arguments, even if we take exception to them in some way.  Even among the minimalists and maximalists in biblical archeology, there is at least mutual respect and a common understanding that not every question has been settled.  Indeed, there is a willingness to debate the unsettled issues without rancor.  Rob Bowman used to openly debate the issues here, and we all learned a great deal from him.

I don’t disagree with any of this really.  Healthy debate and discussion is so important.  

24 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Scholars actually make a sincere attempt to be objective, to subject their various arguments to broad-spectrum forensic analysis.  The community of scholars (regardless of ideological or religious background) rides herd on their own endeavor to find the truth, and no one person has a franchise on truth.  Eisegesis is not looked on with favor.

It seems to me the only difference is that I’m admitting that I’m interpreting what I believe Brigham was saying and you aren’t open to admitting that you are doing the same.  

Edited March 10, 2018 by hope_for_things

[hope_for_things]

2 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

So, anything which shows up in the text which matches archeological reality must be a coincidence, and the EModE stuff is either a figment of scholarly imagination, or Joseph was able to rig the text with archaic grammar and vocabulary through some unexplained means (or perhaps inherited a manuscript created centuries earlier).  There are a great many scenarios we could come up with.  The question we have to ask, though, is just how far are we willing to reach to defend or attack the authenticity of the BofM?  Shouldn't we be looking for the simplest explanations?  Pro or con.  Does parsimony play a part in our efforts?

I’m not aware of archeological evidence that directly connects to the BoM.  

You must have missed my EmodE comments, as I said I’m fine with EmodE being in the BoM, but I don’t support the conclusions drawn about it being unique to the BoM and impossible to have shown up there by natural influences of one kind or another.  Did you miss Brant’s points along this same line of thinking?  

Authenticity is not tied to historicity from my perspective.  

Simpliest explanation is the whole reason I started this thread.  Go back and read my OP.  Joseph is the author, it’s that simple.  

[Rajah Manchou]

3 hours ago, cdowis said:

You may find interesting  this recent discovery  http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-centuries-old-bones-of-horses-unearthed-in-2005jul17-story.html

The article you linked to says "Radiocarbon dating of 340 years, plus or minus 40 years, puts the death of the horse sometime between 1625 and 1705."

But weren't Spanish horses in New Mexico in the 1500s? 

"The modern horse spread into the Great Plains from the Spanish settlements in the southwest. While a number of horse-mounted Spanish explorers and gold-seekers had passed through New Mexico during the early 1500s, the horse was actually introduced to the area by the Spanish colonists in 1598. At this time, Juan de Oñate led a large colonizing party-129 soldiers and their families, 10 Franciscan missionaries, 83 wagons, 7,000 cattle, sheep, and goats-into New Mexico and established a colony at San Juan in the upper Rio Grande valley. The Spanish brought with them over 1,500 head of horse and mules: 1007 horses, 237 mares, 137 colts, and 91 mules." (source)

It would only take one of those horses getting traded to someone bound for Carlsbad, or maybe a few horses breaking loose and roaming around. If there were horses being ceremoniously buried in California 50 years before the Spanish arrived, then why didn't the Spanish find any horses when they arrived in California? 

"A fresh infusion of horses arrived in New Mexico in 1676 when the Franciscans sent Fray Ayala to New Spain to obtain several hundred horses. In 1680, the Pueblos revolted against the Spanish and drove them out. As a result of this revolt, the large Spanish horse herds were traded from tribe to tribe and began their diffusion into the Great Plains."

Diffusion of horses from tribe to tribe across the Great Plains falls within the dating of the horse at Carlsbad.

Another evidence that Native Americans had no horses before the Spanish is the changes made to their teepee sizes to acomodate the addition of horses to their communities. In many native languages the word for horse derives from dog, such as the word Big Dog to refer to a horse. Some native groups even came up with the terms days of the dog or dog days to mark the time before the dramatic changes that came with the arrival of horses:

"Prior to the modern horse, the Plains Indian people had only one domesticated animal: the dog. In the traditional oral histories, the period of time before the coming of the horse is referred to as the dog days. During this time period, the dog served as a beast of burden, pulling a travois made of tipi poles on which many belongings had been placed. With the adoption of the horse, the tipi became much larger. Since horses are significantly larger than dogs, they were able to pull a larger travois. Since the travois was made from tipi poles, this meant that the poles could be much longer. Prior to the horse, a typical tipi would be 10-12 feet in diameter and would stand about eight feet high at the center. With the acquisition of the horse, the tipi grew to be 20 or more feet in diameter and as tall as 30 feet at the top of its lodge poles."

Most likely that was a Spanish horse.

Edited March 10, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[Rajah Manchou]

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Simpliest explanation is the whole reason I started this thread.  Go back and read my OP.  Joseph is the author, it’s that simple.  

OP you said we should all be able to agree that:

• Joseph Smith dictated the content of the BoM to some scribes
• The BoM came from Joseph Smith

I think most are able to agree to that. But when you say "Joseph is the author", its not so clear. There are too many elements that suggest he may have been working from a preexisting text. I think if you divided all those who have ever read the Book of Mormon into two buckets, the "Preexisting Text Bucket" would hold more than the "Joseph Wrote It Bucket". So it is not that simple.

One thing I was considering is the account in D&C of Joseph allowing Oliver to take over the translation "even so I would that ye should continue until you have finished this record". If Joseph was intended to be the sole author, why would Oliver have been given a shot at "translating"?

In all the examples you have provided of texts of similar origins, did any of those authors stop halfway through to pass the writing of their masterpiece off to someone else to finish? Seems either there was a preexisting text, or Joseph considered the process to be a team effort.

Edited March 10, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I’m not aware of archeological evidence that directly connects to the BoM.

Depends on what sort of evidence you consider archeological, and which connects directly with the BofM.  If you exclude the normal, ordinary sort of archeological evidence which gets dug up, dated, and typed -- and then correlated with other materials and sites -- in favor of only written inscriptions which name "Zarahemla," you are demanding the very extraordinary sort of thing which archeologists rarely see.  The same applies to detective stories in which there is a demand for exact identification of the murderer via DNA, fingerprints, and the like.  The CSI TV-version of all that is a lie.  It is much less certain, and the solution dependent on long, drawn out efforts, which only provide plausible indications, not proof.  If you are uninterested in John Sorenson's archeological correlations, then perhaps they are not direct enough for you -- not that they don't exist.

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

You must have missed my EmodE comments, as I said I’m fine with EmodE being in the BoM, but I don’t support the conclusions drawn about it being unique to the BoM and impossible to have shown up there by natural influences of one kind or another.  Did you miss Brant’s points along this same line of thinking?  

I originally came from an independent position very similar to Brant's, but had to abandon that approach.  Perhaps Brant will eventually be proven right, at which time I will have to revisit that notion.  However, that looks well nigh impossible to me currently.

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Authenticity is not tied to historicity from my perspective.

So "authenticity" could be a characteristic of well-written fiction?  In the sense of carrying verisimilitude?  That could also be a feature of an "authentic" parable of Jesus, no?  We often hear that a well told tale can carry more truth than a work of non-fiction.

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Simpliest explanation is the whole reason I started this thread.  Go back and read my OP.  Joseph is the author, it’s that simple.  

I didn't mean to imply that something should be claimed as simple, while at the same time being absurd.  Einstein's equation, e=mcsquared, is true, simple, and elegant, and not at all absurd.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the facile statement that "Joseph is the author."  Too much evidence militates against it.  It doesn't follow the law of parsimony at all.  For the specific reasons stated in my "Preposterous" paper, that is simply not possible.

If instead you had said that "OJ did it," I would have to agree that the evidence was overwhelming.

[Rajah Manchou]

11 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. 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?

• 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
• Then there are the constant repetitions, the parallel characters and stories—even parallel civilizations

But we see similar references in the History of the Rechabites, a 5th century AD text that was unavailable to Joseph Smith.

• pointed references to a group of Israelites that escape the destruction of Jerusalem in the 6th century BC and are carried to an island in the sea
• references to tablets or plates which are inscribed with the history of these people and intended to be a testimony of Christ for others
• Lehi's (and Joseph Smith Sr's) dream closely resembling Zosimus' journey wandering through a wilderness and passing through a dark cloud or great mist nearby a deep river to arrive at a fair and beautiful tree(s) laden with fragrant fruits
• Zosimus being visited by an angel in clothing as lightning thought to be the Son of God
• Unique and distinctive phrases like "the most high, the God of all" appearing in similar narrative contexts
• Rechabites isolated from others but still receiving revelations concerning the people of Jerusalem
• The name Aminadab associated with both the Rechabites who were rescued by an angel from prison and the Nephite dissenter who witnesses the angels who protect Lehi and Nephi in prison.
• Then there are many more parallel characters and stories—even parallel civilizations between the Rechabites and the Nephites.

Seriously, what are the odds of two different migrations in 600 BC of tent-dwelling Israelites on the fringes of Jerusalem to a land set aside by God to preserve the remnant of a righteous covenant people who had received the promise that they would stand before God forever? 

We see parallels where we want to see them, and coincidence where we don't.

Edited March 10, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[Nevo]

5 hours ago, cdowis said:

Please give us a link to that exact phrase as a Methodist phase prior to 1830.

I should add a correction here. It wasn't just a Methodist phrase. It was used by Baptists and Presbyterians as well. But there was a Methodist hymn that went "O glory! Sing the song of redeeming love, / O glory! sing the song of redeeming love. Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone, / Sing the song of redeeming love. He whom I fix my hopes upon, / Sing the song of redeeming love." Anyway, here's an example of the phrase used in the context of conversion from Joshua Bradley, Accounts of Religious Revivals in Many Parts of the United States from 1815 to 1818 (Albany, NY: 1819): https://archive.org/stream/accountsreligio00bradgoog#page/n153/mode/2up

5 hours ago, cdowis said:

Huh?  Are you a scholar of history and can definitely assert that does not happen in authentic history --- history repeating itself, parallel characters and events?

I'm not a scholar but the sorts of repetitions and parallels that are found throughout the Book of Mormon do not strike me as being typical of authentic history. Consider, for example, the parallels between the Jaredite and Nephite migration narratives. Grant Hardy lists eighteen "parallel narrative elements and distinctive phrasal borrowings" that demonstrate "a close, unique literary connection between the first chapters of Ether and First Nephi" (see Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon, 231–233). That seems more than coincidental. In fact, the whole Jaredite story reads like just a more compressed, exaggerated version of the Nephite story. Both civilizations begin basically the same way and both end up destroyed by secret combinations.

Do you find the stories of Sherem, Nehor, and Korihor realistic? I don't really. As B. H. Roberts asked, "Is not the vindication of God and his truth by a vindictive miracle on the person of the ranting blasphemer rather the dream of a pious boy . . . than a matter of actual experience?" (Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, 271).

Or take the twin narratives of the people of Limhi and the people of Alma in bondage. What are the odds that both groups would escape at night while their guards were unconscious? Does that seem historically likely? Or that two Lamanite kings would fall into trances as though dead?

And what do we make of the quasi-biblical parallels that Fawn Brodie noted: "The daughter of Jared, like Salome, danced before a king and a decapitation followed. Aminadi, like Daniel, deciphered handwriting on a wall, and Alma was converted after the exact fashion of St. Paul. The daughters of the Lamanites were abducted like the dancing daughters of Shiloh; and Ammon, the American counterpart of David, for want of a Goliath slew six sheep-rustlers with his sling" (Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 62–63)?

Then there is the whole atmosphere of miracle in the book, which isn't what "authentic history" typically looks like in my experience.

[Meerkat]

16 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

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.  

 

16 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

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.

 

16 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

That's not reality, that's just a "my God can beat up your God" argument from the playground.  

Interesting perspective.  

Edited March 10, 2018 by Meerkat

[JarMan]

On 3/9/2018 at 4:49 PM, hope_for_things said:

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? 

You implied that the examples you provided gave plausibility to the idea that Joseph made it all up. I disagree. 

On 3/9/2018 at 4:49 PM, hope_for_things said:

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.

Joseph was a poor frontier lad who had to do all kinds of odd jobs and manual labor to survive. It's not like he was in a monastery somewhere surrounded by books and preparing his magnum opus. And even if he was, I still maintain it would have been impossible for him to deliver it in the manner that he did.

On 3/9/2018 at 4:49 PM, hope_for_things said:

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.  

I’m not sure how you can construe anything I've said as a "my God can beat up your God" argument. I believe Joseph read the text of the Book of Mormon from a pre-produced source. If anything, it's your God that can beat up mine since your explanation requires a bigger miracle.

Edited March 11, 2018 by JarMan

[Brant Gardner]

8 hours ago, champatsch said:

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.
 

Widtsoe offered an opinion. Was he correct? On what basis do we believe that Joseph was incapable of the language we find in the Book of Mormon? Are the revelations deficient in vocabulary? How do we demonstrate that he was lacking? We have Joseph's sermons, and they certainly aren't lacking in vocabulary or imagination. That Joseph had problems writing is attested, but no one has suggested that he was ill spoken. In fact, he was apparently pretty adept in a local debating society. He did not write the Book of Mormon. He spoke.

As for the presence of a Bible, I'm not sure how you got the impression that I think one was present. I have not seen any evidence that one was. Since I haven't made that assertion, I needn't abandon a position I haven't taken. 

Quote

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. 

As you know, vocabulary and grammar are often dictated by circumstances. Teenagers are adept at switching forms of language between very informal among friends to much more formal with adults. They can easily switch the way they speak to fit the occasion. We have the same situation in letters versus either the Book of Mormon or the revelations. In those, there was a conscious attempt to change the language style. It is expected to be different, and the fact that they are different is not a priori proof that they came from a different person. 

Edited March 10, 2018 by Brant Gardner

[Todd Giberson]

The Early Modern English could not have been coincidences that occured while Joseph was formulating his own text.

Also, neither he nor anyone else for a score of decades knew that the supposed "bad grammar" was linked to earlier English.  If Joseph Smith (or anyone else in the 1820-1830 time frame) had carefully constructed the text to include grammar and phraseology dating back to the 1500s, the text would have been defended and explained as such rather than just being updated/rewritten a few years later.

Even when B. H. Roberts comes along no one can account for the grammar in the original text -- he, along with many others, attributed it to the unlearned farm boy Joseph piecing together his own wording.  But that is not Joseph's wording; he did not speak that way, nor was he witnessed to be making wording and sentence structure decisions during the transmission process, while dictating in such a short overall time frame.

And whether the wording is from the 1500s or the 1800s is significant if it shows that the text was NOT the product of any writer from the 1800s.

[cdowis]

1 hour ago, Rajah Manchou said:

The article you linked to says "Radiocarbon dating of 340 years, plus or minus 40 years, puts the death of the horse sometime between 1625 and 1705."
etc

Even the authors of the article indicated alternative explanations.

But here is something that many have not noticed.  The BOM makes no mention of horses after 50AD so it does not claim any horses after that time.

[cdowis]

8 hours ago, Nevo said:

I should add a correction here. It wasn't just a Methodist phrase. It was used by Baptists and Presbyterians as well. But there was a Methodist hymn that went "O glory! Sing the song of redeeming love, / O glory! sing the song of redeeming love. Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone, / Sing the song of redeeming love. He whom I fix my hopes upon, / Sing the song of redeeming love." Anyway, here's an example of the phrase used in the context of conversion from Joshua Bradley, Accounts of Religious Revivals in Many Parts of the United States from 1815 to 1818 (Albany, NY: 1819): https://archive.org/stream/accountsreligio00bradgoog#page/n153/mode/2up

I cannot find that phrase in the link you provided.

I'm not a scholar but the sorts of repetitions and parallels that are found throughout the Book of Mormon do not strike me as being typical of authentic history.

May I suggest that you go thru the series of lectures by Hugh NIbley who is a recognized scholar in ancient history.  He obviously disagrees with you.

 

You read Palmer, now read or listen to NIbley.  Does Palmer have the credentials in ancient/ classical history?

 

Edited March 10, 2018 by cdowis

[Brant Gardner]

16 hours ago, Nevo said:

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.

History isn't that far from literature in the way it is transformed into something that will be read. In some cases, it is more obvious, but all historians craft their tale. Modern historians have dramatically different reasons for what they write, and at least an attempt to accurately describe events is one of them (but still subject to selection and presentation).

In the Bible, we have a culture that had very different purposes, and was more flexible in the way history was presented. Incidents that might be parallel were drawn to be obviously parallel. In the New World, there was a literary tradition that accepted that history did repeat in cycles, and therefore could be used as prediction. Personally, I think that is where the idea that a seer was greater than a prophet came from. The seer, by looking at the past, could see the future.

I just looked through Thomas' Digging into Cumorah again. He has a very modern reading of secret combinations that really misses a lot of the complexity. The idea is developed first in Mormon's writings, and is specifically Gadianton. It is later used for the Jaredites (though I suspect he interpreted their writings that way--but it was Moroni who edited the text) and because it was obviously pre-Gadianton, we get secret combinations (which language, I think, influenced the way that Joseph used the term in Nephi). The Gadianton narrative is much more detailed and complex. Thomas misses the places where Mormon intentionally crafts his narrative to point to a specific place (and eventually his own time period) to identify the Gadiantons for his readers. 

I've been looking at the seams where Mormon narrates, quotes, and then inserts himself in the text.  The insertions are interesting because the follow an ancient pattern rather than a modern one. In one case, the careful examination of hints about sources, who is writing, and the use of the techniques of insertion explain the otherwise anomalous lack of the introduction of the writer before the quoted "O that I were an angel" soliloquy. The text is packed with places where careful examination of patterns demonstrate that there were patterns, but ones of which Joseph appears to have been unaware.  

[Rajah Manchou]

10 hours ago, Nevo said:

I should add a correction here. It wasn't just a Methodist phrase. It was used by Baptists and Presbyterians as well. But there was a Methodist hymn that went "O glory! Sing the song of redeeming love, / O glory! sing the song of redeeming love. Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone, / Sing the song of redeeming love. He whom I fix my hopes upon, / Sing the song of redeeming love." Anyway, here's an example of the phrase used in the context of conversion from Joshua Bradley, Accounts of Religious Revivals in Many Parts of the United States from 1815 to 1818 (Albany, NY: 1819): https://archive.org/stream/accountsreligio00bradgoog#page/n153/mode/2up

Did a search in the book and couldn't find it either. But there are several occurrences in other books . Earliest I could find was 1699. 

God the Author of Reconciliation
Stephen Charnock
T. Ward & Company, 1699 - Salvation - 109 pages

Late 17th century, so it predates the Baptists and Methodists and looks like its more of a Presbyterian/Puritan thing. But couldn't it also be explained by coincidence?

On 2/25/2018 at 4:07 AM, Nevo said:

I'm a great believer in coincidences.

Edited March 10, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[champatsch]

9 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

As for the presence of a Bible, I'm not sure how you got the impression that I think one was present. I have not seen any evidence that one was. Since I haven't made that assertion, I needn't abandon a position I haven't taken.

Very good.  I am happy to hear that.  That is the more likely position, based on the original MS (1 Nephi 20, 21), the dictation witnesses, and the number of changes to lengthy King James passages (800+).  (We would expect far fewer changes from mere copying, and we would not expect quite a few of the textual changes, based on Joseph's 1829 probable knowledge base, both implicit and explicit.)
 

But I would like you to elaborate on your position—found toward the end of your 2011 book—that Joseph Smith being saturated in biblical language goes a long way toward explaining the language of the Book of Mormon.  Here I am of course assuming your position of loose control—that is, that the dictation emanated from ideas revealed to Joseph.

To be clear, by language I mean those things that are more difficult for authors to control or manipulate, the syntax and the grammar (the morphosyntax).  As you know, native speakers produce (morpho)syntax according to implicit knowledge, so that it is produced subconsciously to a high degree.  (I am just bringing this universally conceded principle to the fore, which is crucial to this discussion, and must not be overlooked.)

As you (should) know by now, but probably didn't have a good grasp of in 2011, in terms of its (morpho)syntax, the Book of Mormon departs from biblical ways of expressions in dozens of ways systematically and non-systematically (in cases where there isn't enough data to make systematic conclusions).  (Please note that I myself knew very little of these things in 2011, not having begun to study the Book of Mormon seriously until late 2013.)

Furthermore, Book of Mormon archaism exceeds pseudo-biblical archaism in many ways, both systematically and non-systematically.  I have mentioned some examples above.

I'm interested to know how you currently explain these descriptive linguistic observations on the basis of biblical saturation and revealed/transmitted ideas (loose control).
 

One very important question for you (and for others to consider) is the following:

How did Joseph, who had been saturated in biblical language, and whose language demonstrably lacked key archaic features found in the Book of Mormon, produce such a large amount of non-biblical, genuinely archaic (morpho)syntax, if he dictated from revealed ideas?

Edited March 10, 2018 by champatsch