Where did the Book of Mormon come from?

[JarMan]

1 minute ago, jkwilliams said:

Not inconsistent at all with Nauvoo-era government. It’s really easy to draw parallels to just about anywhere and any time. Funny how that works. 

Nauvoo-era government was influenced by the Book of Mormon. Not the other way around. That should be obvious.

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, JarMan said:

Nauvoo-era government was influenced by the Book of Mormon. Not the other way around. That should be obvious.

Either that, or both reflected Joseph’s beliefs. 

[JarMan]

Just now, jkwilliams said:

Either that, or both reflected Joseph’s beliefs. 

Ah, but you said the Book of Mormon reflected 19th Century beliefs. Now you are engaged in special pleading and speculation.

[jkwilliams]

Just now, JarMan said:

Ah, but you said the Book of Mormon reflected 19th Century beliefs. Now you are engaged in special pleading and speculation.

I could give you loads of examples of 19th-century influences, but you mentioned government. All it takes is one 19th-century parallel to undercut your theory, and I gave you one.

I like Stan Carmack a lot (he’s a fellow Bolivia alum), but I don’t find his language theory convincing. Adding a Latin spirit translator doesn’t make things better. 

[JarMan]

4 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I could give you loads of examples of 19th-century influences, but you mentioned government.

Try giving me one 19th Century influence. Keep in mind that in order for it to undercut my idea it has to have been absent in the 17th Century.

7 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

All it takes is one 19th-century parallel to undercut your theory, and I gave you one.

Again, my theory is only undercut if the idea was absent in the 17th Century. And a Nauvoo parallel fails for obvious reasons

10 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I like Stan Carmack a lot (he’s a fellow Bolivia alum), but I don’t find his language theory convincing. Adding a Latin spirit translator doesn’t make things better. 

I don’t know what you mean by a Latin spirit translator. There was a real, historical person who wrote the text in Latin, according to the theory, since that was the lingua franca of the day. Then there were real, living humans that translated it into English. This is better than “Joseph freestyled it” theory because it allows the Book of Mormon to have been written by someone who clearly had the education, experience, knowledge and time to do it and it explains the EModE.

[jkwilliams]

11 minutes ago, JarMan said:

Try giving me one 19th Century influence. Keep in mind that in order for it to undercut my idea it has to have been absent in the 17th Century.

Again, my theory is only undercut if the idea was absent in the 17th Century. And a Nauvoo parallel fails for obvious reasons

I don’t know what you mean by a Latin spirit translator. There was a real, historical person who wrote the text in Latin, according to the theory, since that was the lingua franca of the day. Then there were real, living humans that translated it into English. This is better than “Joseph freestyled it” theory because it allows the Book of Mormon to have been written by someone who clearly had the education, experience, knowledge and time to do it and it explains the EModE.

I don’t think Joseph freestyled it. But off the top of my head, the most glaring 19th-century influence is moundbuilder mythology. 

[JarMan]

3 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I don’t think Joseph freestyled it. But off the top of my head, the most glaring 19th-century influence is moundbuilder mythology. 

Can you be more specific? What about moundbuilder mythology is present in the Book of Mormon?

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, JarMan said:

Can you be more specific? What about moundbuilder mythology is present in the Book of Mormon?

I just realized I am slipping back into old habits I would prefer to leave behind. Sorry about that. 

[Rajah Manchou]

1 hour ago, cdowis said:

Thank you for revealing the truth.  

You're welcome. You'll probably hear it from me again next time the deceptive "Palmyra Farmers Library Defense" gets used.
Which seems to be every other day or so.

[Rajah Manchou]

3 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

After all he was a full five years old when Hyrum attended the school at Dartmouth (not Dartmouth College itself).

Joseph would have been between 6-11 years old. Hyrum would have been 11-17 years old when he attended Moor's Charity School at Dartmouth.
As a comparison of what relatives in their neighborhood were capable of doing at that age, John Smith was speaking fluent Hebrew and writing Hebrew grammar books by 19. 
Details do matter.

[JarMan]

5 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

I just realized I am slipping back into old habits I would prefer to leave behind. Sorry about that. 

I’m not a mind reader and my secret decoder ring hasn’t arrived in the mail yet. Sorry about that. 

[jkwilliams]

4 hours ago, JarMan said:

I’m not a mind reader and my secret decoder ring hasn’t arrived in the mail yet. Sorry about that. 

I'm just saying I don't find it healthy to argue about this stuff anymore. Carry on.

[cdowis]

11 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Joseph would have been between 6-11 years old. Hyrum would have been 11-17 years old when he attended Moor's Charity School at Dartmouth.
As a comparison of what relatives in their neighborhood were capable of doing at that age, John Smith was speaking fluent Hebrew and writing Hebrew grammar books by 19. 
Details do matter.

You have a very dry sense of humor.  "Details do not matter" is an interesting way of avoiding my questions.

Edited March 21, 2018 by cdowis

[Rajah Manchou]

5 minutes ago, cdowis said:

You have a very dry sense of humor.  "Details do not matter" is an interesting way of avoiding my questions.

I answered each of your questions as best I could and there was not a "not" in my comment. There's obviously a misunderstanding somewhere. 

[cdowis]

3 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

I answered each of your questions as best I could and there was not a "not" in my comment. There's obviously a misunderstanding somewhere. 

You're right.  I had removed my comment.  Sorry

[Robert F. Smith]

20 hours ago, JarMan said:

Can you be more specific? What about moundbuilder mythology is present in the Book of Mormon?

He may have in mind the highly concentrated wealth of the chiefdoms in the Middle Woodland and Hopewell Culture which was at its peak when Moroni possibly traversed the area (Handbook of North American Indians, 15:49) on his way to New York from Mesoamerica.  Temple mounds were being built in that area and agriculture was being practiced on a large scale.  In contemplating the earlier Adena culture (Mound Builders of the 1st centuries B.C. & A.D.) of the Ohio Valley, Richard Forbis said that

Quote

certain generalized and particular artifact types and features speak strongly for contacts with Mesoamerica, among them being mound-building, lapidary industries, earspools, female figurines, and petal-shaped celts (ungrooved axes).  All are earlier in Mesoamerica than in Adena, and they persisted there long enough to provide a contemporaneous source of inspiration.  Appealing to independent invention to account for these traits in Adena is hardly economical.
         Contacts between the two areas were probably indirect, by sea across the Caribbean and up the rivers draining into the Gulf Coast and the Atlantic Ocean.  Early sites indicative of these contacts do indeed exist.
        *        *        *        *        *        *
         But no given artifact is demonstrably of Mesoamerican manufacture.  Nor are there any close linguistic relationships remaining to suggest that Mesoamerican hordes stormed the Southeast, either then or at any other time.  What seems more probable is that small parties of Mesoamerican wanderers or traders circulated among the basically Archaic population.  Forbis in S. Gorenstein, ed., North America, 81,83, 85 (see Map 3.2).

People in Joseph's day knew that there were mounds, although they knew nothing of the archeology behind them.  Anthropologist John A. Price (York University in Downsview, Canada) argued that Joseph Smith used local Indian lore in putting together the substratum of the Book of Mormon story, concluding that the Iroquois were the Lamanites, while the Moundbuilders (= Susquehannocks) were the Nephites whom they destroyed – at least as far as young Joseph's creative imagination was concerned.  --   Price, Indian Historian, 7/3 (Summer 1974):35-40; Ake V. Ström, "Red Indian Elements in Early Mormonism," Temenos, V (1969):120-168.

Some of the tribes practiced polygyny, e.g., the Miamis, Illinois, Abenakis, Ottawas, etc., and others practiced cannibalism, e.g., the Iroquois League before the rise of the prophets Deganawidah and Hiawatha in the 16th century  A.D.  (Hiawatha was a Mohawk Chief of the Iroquois League).

The main problem with all that is that none of those cultures were literate, did not have the massive populations depicted in the BofM, and did not use building materials described in the BofM -- items found only in Mesoamerica.

Edited March 21, 2018 by Robert F. Smith

[Glenn101]

23 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Joseph would have been between 6-11 years old. Hyrum would have been 11-17 years old when he attended Moor's Charity School at Dartmouth.
As a comparison of what relatives in their neighborhood were capable of doing at that age, John Smith was speaking fluent Hebrew and writing Hebrew grammar books by 19. 
Details do matter.

Yes. John Smith actually attended and graduated from Dartmouth College. Joseph and Hyrum Smith both may have been able to do that given a college level education. However, as you noted, Hyrum was attending Moor's Charity School, which was associated with Dartmouth College. My understanding is that Hyrum only attended for two years then dropped out to care for Joseph after the operation on his leg. Not sure what your point is. How would that have possibly have impacted Joseph and the production of the Book of Mormon?

Glenn

[Rajah Manchou]

1 hour ago, Glenn101 said:

Yes. John Smith actually attended and graduated from Dartmouth College. Joseph and Hyrum Smith both may have been able to do that given a college level education. However, as you noted, Hyrum was attending Moor's Charity School, which was associated with Dartmouth College. My understanding is that Hyrum only attended for two years then dropped out to care for Joseph after the operation on his leg. Not sure what your point is. How would that have possibly have impacted Joseph and the production of the Book of Mormon?

Glenn

You had commented that Sharon and Palmyra were not isolated areas. I agree, and wanted to add that in between their time at Sharon and Palmyra the Smiths lived for 6 years near Hanover, a diverse college town. This would have been the period of his youth that Joseph was developing much of his grammar and vocabulary. So I am skeptical that he would have picked up archaic EmodE there.

Edited March 22, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[JarMan]

4 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

He may have in mind the highly concentrated wealth of the chiefdoms in the Middle Woodland and Hopewell Culture which was at its peak when Moroni possibly traversed the area (Handbook of North American Indians, 15:49) on his way to New York from Mesoamerica.  Temple mounds were being built in that area and agriculture was being practiced on a large scale.  In contemplating the earlier Adena culture (Mound Builders of the 1st centuries B.C. & A.D.) of the Ohio Valley, Richard Forbis said that

People in Joseph's day knew that there were mounds, although they knew nothing of the archeology behind them.  Anthropologist John A. Price (York University in Downsview, Canada) argued that Joseph Smith used local Indian lore in putting together the substratum of the Book of Mormon story, concluding that the Iroquois were the Lamanites, while the Moundbuilders (= Susquehannocks) were the Nephites whom they destroyed – at least as far as young Joseph's creative imagination was concerned.  --   Price, Indian Historian, 7/3 (Summer 1974):35-40; Ake V. Ström, "Red Indian Elements in Early Mormonism," Temenos, V (1969):120-168.

Some of the tribes practiced polygyny, e.g., the Miamis, Illinois, Abenakis, Ottawas, etc., and others practiced cannibalism, e.g., the Iroquois League before the rise of the prophets Deganawidah and Hiawatha in the 16th century  A.D.  (Hiawatha was a Mohawk Chief of the Iroquois League).

The main problem with all that is that none of those cultures were literate, did not have the massive populations depicted in the BofM, and did not use building materials described in the BofM -- items found only in Mesoamerica.

The main problem with mesoamerica is that we know so little about the people who lived at the right times and in the right places. So we end up, first, making comparisons to the wrong people and, second, making comparisons with little information to begin with.

And I have never understood the argument that because mesoamerica had a written language, that makes it a better candidate. If we don’t find Hebrew or Egyptian how is it relevant that we find Mayan and other scripts?

[Robert F. Smith]

16 minutes ago, JarMan said:

The main problem with mesoamerica is that we know so little about the people who lived at the right times and in the right places. So we end up, first, making comparisons to the wrong people and, second, making comparisons with little information to begin with.

Actually we know a great deal about the cultures of Mesoamerica, beginning with the Olmec, and then the five cultures which depended so heavily on everything the Olmec achieved.  We know the dates of the archeological sequences, and they fit all too well the same sequence-dating in the BofM.  Had there been no high cultures in the New World at all, we would have no correlations.  In other words,  there would be a complete absence of evidence.

16 minutes ago, JarMan said:

And I have never understood the argument that because mesoamerica had a written language, that makes it a better candidate. If we don’t find Hebrew or Egyptian how is it relevant that we find Mayan and other scripts?

The requirement of literacy is certainly a minimal one.  One must have at least that.  However, there is a great deal else to be considered, including strong evidence developed by non-Mormon scholars that there was Hebrew & Egyptian in Middle America.  See the sources I cite in my “*Sawi-Zaa,” 2016 version 3, online at http://www.scribd.com/doc/56696298/SAWI-ZAA .

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Glenn101 said:

Yes. John Smith actually attended and graduated from Dartmouth College. Joseph and Hyrum Smith both may have been able to do that given a college level education. However, as you noted, Hyrum was attending Moor's Charity School, which was associated with Dartmouth College. My understanding is that Hyrum only attended for two years then dropped out to care for Joseph after the operation on his leg. Not sure what your point is. How would that have possibly have impacted Joseph and the production of the Book of Mormon?

Glenn

He may have had in mind the excellent library at Dartmouth College, suggesting that he and Hyrum studied there.  After his leg operation (by doctors from Dartmouth), Joseph spent the summer of 1812 with his Uncle in Salem, Mass.  So maybe he also studied at Harvard College.  That and witchcraft were essential to an up and coming young man in those days.  

[Rajah Manchou]

29 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

He may have had in mind the excellent library at Dartmouth College, suggesting that he and Hyrum studied there.  After his leg operation (by doctors from Dartmouth), Joseph spent the summer of 1812 with his Uncle in Salem, Mass.  So maybe he also studied at Harvard College.  That and witchcraft were essential to an up and coming young man in those days.  

Haha, yes I forgot about the Harvard years.

Let me clarify, I don't believe that Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon. You know my hypothesis on this, I believe the Book of Mormon is an authentic religious text based in real history set in a real world geography.

Problem is, I can't get anyone to take me seriously enough to discuss. I can make 100 comments arguing my faith in Book of Mormon historicity without engagement. Then when I make one comment about Dartmouth I'm branded a "critic" of Book of Mormon historicity using deceptive methods. 

This it truly a tough crowd here. Everything is so black and white. Either you believe the Book of Mormon is an account of the former inhabitants of Guatemala, or you are wrong.

[Rajah Manchou]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

He may have had in mind the excellent library at Dartmouth College, suggesting that he and Hyrum studied there.  

With my rant out of the way, I just want to add one more thought, that I hope you will consider in all seriousness. My interest in this topic is not only related to the Book of Mormon. A few years back I was in a village in Burma where I came across a small religious group called the Lehkai. Oddly enough, they told me of their first prophet, a man who in 1834 went up on a hill to fast and meditate. He claimed he was visited by an angel in a white robe who revealed to him glowing letters on a rock. Long story short, those letters from a rock later became the script of a golden book that was also revealed to their prophet(s) by the same angel in a white robe. This in a part of the world where such beings are known as Marong or Maroni.

That golden book has sat untranslated for over 150 years in their little Burmese church.

Call it statistically likely parallelomania if you must, but to me it seems that there is obvious convergence with Joseph's account. It would seem we have a sort of parallel to 1830s Palmyra in 1830s Moulmein. Impossible right?

No, turns out it is possible and there is a very simple explanation, and I feel Mormons should take note.

My research into the characters involved in this narrative in Moulmein, led me to American missionaries who were heavily influenced by Nathanael Emmons (Oliver Cowdery's great uncle), Armininism and 19th century accounts of Indian Jews with Brass Plates. With further research I ultimately ended up back at...yep... Dartmouth College in the 1820s. 

I realize my comments on this board over the past few years have come across as OTT and just plain ridiculous. But there is a reason why I am digging into such obscure topics. It could be that Mormons truly have a distant relative claiming to be our lost brother from the Tribe of Manasseh with a golden book that is a transmission of their original golden book that they claim was stolen by a white guy and carried off to America. 

I know, i know, it is not Guatemala. But should that matter?

Edited March 22, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[Robert F. Smith]

42 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

With my rant out of the way, I just want to add one more thought, that I hope you will consider in all seriousness. My interest in this topic is not only related to the Book of Mormon. A few years back I was in a village in Burma where I came across a small religious group called the Lehkai. Oddly enough, they told me of their first prophet, a man who in 1834 went up on a hill to fast and meditate. He claimed he was visited by an angel in a white robe who revealed to him glowing letters on a rock. Long story short, those letters from a rock later became the script of a golden book that was also revealed to their prophet(s) by the same angel in a white robe. This in a part of the world where such beings are known as Marong or Maroni.

That golden book has sat untranslated for over 150 years in their little Burmese church.

Call it statistically likely parallelomania if you must, but to me it seems that there is obvious convergence with Joseph's account. It would seem we have a sort of parallel to 1830s Palmyra in Moulmein. Of course I wanted to understand how it could be possible. My research into the characters involved in this narrative in Moulmein, led me to American missionaries who were heavily influenced by Nathanael Emmons (Oliver Cowdery's great uncle). With further research I ultimately ended up back at...yep... Dartmouth College in the 1820s. 

I realize my comments on this board over the past few years have come across as OTT and just plain ridiculous. But there is a reason why I am digging into such obscure topics. It could be that Mormons truly have a distant relative claiming to be our lost brother from the Tribe of Manasseh with a golden book that is a transmission of their original golden book that they claim was stolen by a white guy and carried off to America. 

I know, i know, it is not Guatemala. But should that matter?

I suppose that it is possible that 3 Ne 17:4, “But now I go unto the Father, and also to show myself unto the lost tribes of Israel, for they are not lost unto the Father, for he knoweth whither he hath taken them,” could also be applied to many others across the Earth.  Such claims are no more preposterous than Joseph Smith's account.

ETA:

Interview with Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Prof of Buddhism, Univ of Michigan), by Karl Pohrt, The Crazy Wisdom Community Journal, #48 (May through August 2011), online at http://crazywisdom.net/upcomin/MADfree-02/dw2008-02/journalinterviewpage.html , and republished at Widdit, March 21, 2012, online at http://donaldgvdevketala.blogspot.com/  , excerpt: 

Karl Pohrt:  You couple the story of Joseph Smith’s discovery of the sacred plates buried in upstate New York with the discovery of sacred texts supposedly hidden in Tibet by the tantric master Padmasambhava in a way that is wonderfully respectful of both religious traditions. You do this without challenging the truth claims of either the Mormons or the Tibetans.

Donald S. Lopez Jr.:  In Tibetan Buddhism there is a genre of literature called terma, which literally means  treasure. The idea is that the great tantric master Padmasambhava came to Tibet in the late 700’s and he couldn’t stay very long, and he had various things that he knew the Tibetans would need in the future. As the story goes, he dictated these scriptures in a kind of coded script and buried them all over the country—in mountains and rocks and at the bottom of lakes and inside pillars. Those texts began to be discovered some centuries later and were even discovered into the twentieth century. They have become one of the most important genres of Tibetan literature over the centuries. The Tibetan work that became The Tibetan Book of the Dead was such a text, buried in the eighth century and unearthed in the fourteenth century.

Of course, scholars have to look at these buried  treasure texts with a great deal of skepticism because they’re not written in Tibetan. They’re written in a language that only the person who discovers them can read and that person translates them into Tibetan so that others can read them.

This is a controversial point in the field of Tibetan Studies because from one perspective—to use your term—they look a lot like frauds. It looks like someone trying to gain spiritual authority for himself by saying look what I just found. Nonetheless, they have become part of the canon. We have a structurally similar case of the discovery of sacred scriptures when Joseph Smith unearths the tablets of The Book of Mormon in upstate New York.

To get back to the issue of how one can be both a critical scholar and also a religious person—I was very struck and moved by the story of Smith because everything he did occurred not on the other side of the world, but in upstate New York. This is not a place we would consider exotic. And it occurred not in the 700s, but in the early 1800s.

It happened, in other words, in the light of history. American historians and Mormon scholars know a lot about everything that Smith did. We have letters and all sorts of pamphlets and papers—all the kinds of documents that we don’t have in the case of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. That places a different onus of credibility and authority on The Book of Mormon. It has been said that Mormonism or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the most American of all religions, and one reason it is so American is because it sanctified American soil. Smith dug down into the dirt of upstate New York and he found a sacred book.

And the Tibetans did a rather similar thing. They couldn’t go to India anymore. Buddhism had essentially disappeared there. So how do you find new scriptures? You dig them up.

In 2007 I gave some lectures in Puerto Rico, where Buddhism is becoming popular. Two Nyingma Lamas had been there to give some teachings. My hosts said,  they told us that Padmasambhava came to Puerto Rico and left some texts in the mountains.

Edited March 22, 2018 by Robert F. Smith

[Rajah Manchou]

2 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I suppose that it is possible that 3 Ne 17:4, “But now I go unto the Father, and also to show myself unto the lost tribes of Israel, for they are not lost unto the Father, for he knoweth whither he hath taken them,” could also be applied to many others across the Earth.  Such claims are no more preposterous than Joseph Smith's account.

True, that's one way of looking at it. I tend to think it is more significant than that. 

But lets say this golden book is a record of a lost tribe, in exactly the same way the Book of Mormon claims to be a lost record of a lost tribe. What does that mean for us, as Mormons? Anything?