Why Not Engage the Evidence for Historicity?

[blueglass]

On 6/25/2018 at 12:27 AM, Rajah Manchou said:

I'll add that those apocryphal texts (eg. Narrative of Zosimus and History of the Rechabites) could be dependent on historical accounts of Jews who left Jerusalem much earlier, as early as the 6th century BC, carrying their records with them. These historical records were said to be recorded on brass plates.



There is evidence for this, as well as surviving brass plates still being worshipped as power relics, but I don't want to threadjack again.

It would be a big breakthrough to discover other jewish writings 650BC or earlier in demotic.  To connect in real space/time this Laban guy or his father would go a long way.  Is there any evidence of jeremiah or his ancestors preserving their history in egyptian?  I almost feel like stealing these brass plates with writings from ( Zenos, Zenock, Neum, and Ezias) saturated with christian doctrine is what caused the jews in the time of Christ to reject him.  They would have done much better if God had not asked Lehi to steal their scriptures from the temple treasury.  Mosiah1:4 "For it were not possible that our father, Lehi, could have remembered all these things, to have taught them to his children, except it were for the help of these plates; for he having been taught in the language of the Egyptians therefore he could read these engravings, and teach them to his children, that thereby they could teach them to their children, and so fulfilling the commandments of God, even down to this present time."

Edited June 27, 2018 by blueglass

[clarkgoble]

35 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

I think that Firberg painted the scene with sheep because that is what 100% of the people who read the Book understood by the word "sheep". It wasn't until we realized that there were no sheep in America that we started to say, hey, Friberg's paintings are ridiculous.

Most of the use of sheep are ANE metaphor or allegories or quotations/paraphrases of the same. The one exception is Ether 9:18. Sheep aren't mentioned in Alma 17. The term used is flock but the type of animal oddly never is identified. 

14 minutes ago, champatsch said:

You don't mean "loose translation"; you mean "loose control", which is an extremely unlikely position.

No I mean loose translation not loose control. By loose translation I mean the idea that the translation is highly interpretive without anything akin to a word level translation - here meaning the relationship between source text and produced text. This makes sense if the characters on the plates are themselves highly compressed and potentially tied to a shorthand script. (They're obviously not hieratic Egyptian) The heavy use of KJV like quotations and paraphrases to translate something that clearly is unrelated to the original KJV text is an other sign of a loose translation. That's not to say there aren't various transliteration schemes or the like nor that how interpretive/expansive it is is consistent. It just means that it's closer to a pesher or targum than what we're apt to think about a translation. Or a very interpretive translation akin to Ezra Pounds "translations" of Chinese poems.

9 minutes ago, blueglass said:

It would be a big breakthrough to discover other jewish writings 650BC or earlier in demotic. 

Let's be honest the discovery of pre-exilic Jewish writings of any length would likely be the biggest discovery of the 21st century. We have almost nothing pre-exilic.

Edited June 27, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Robert F. Smith]

On 6/27/2018 at 8:30 AM, Analytics said:

I never said that only "ignorant and poorly informed Mormons could possibly be faithful believers" and I never said that "well-educated Mormons are the most likely to leave the faith." What I did say is that Mormon religious beliefs contradict what we know about natural history, and that the only way to be educated and hold such conflicting views is to either have faith as a religious exercise with a Pascal's Wager approach, or simply compartmentalize your beliefs, or to put them on a shelf.

I thought that we were having an intellectual discussion.  I did not say of imply that you said those things.  Instead I cited research which counters those silly notions, which lie at the base of nearly all anti-Mormon propaganda.  When we consult with normative scholarship and science, we find that it is simply not true that the Mormon belief system is contrary to historical fact, natural history, or science.  Nor is it evident that Mormons seem to be making Pascal's Wager, or that they compartmentalize or shelve beliefs which seem not to fit the natural world.  I am arguing specifically that the Mormon belief system is entirely coherent with a naturalistic world, and that this makes it unnecessary to constantly equivocate in one's understanding of reality.  Does this relieve Mormons of all need to think things through?  Of course not.  No more so than that Michio Kaku never needs to ask hard questions.

Quote

You disagree with this? By definition, somebody who is well educated understands the theory of Evolution. When well-educated Mormons go to school they don't scream that evolution is false--a mere theory of man that contradicts the revealed truth of God. Rather, they compartmentalize their thinking--in the secular world they understand that evolution robustly explains an overwhelming quantity of data and causes all of biology to hold together in an elegant way. But when they are at church, Adam is the son of God who was created into a perfect world that was without spiritual and physical death until Adam fell, but that through the atonement we can overcome physical and spiritual death.

Again you miss the point.  Virtually every biologist teaching at BYU believes in and teaches evolutionary theory.  They have a biological belief system which is concordant with scientific reality, but is likewise concordant with their entirely naturalistic Mormon belief-system.  Describing Adam in a narrow and superficial way does nothing to encourage the notion that we have come to terms with actual LDS theology, any more than baying at the moon solves any hard questions about reality.

Quote

Granted, especially limber thinkers will try to contort natural reality and Mormon doctrine so that they harmonize, as Clark Goble has demonstrated on this thread. But otherwise, they are going to compartmentalize their thinking, have faith, and put the discrepancies on a shelf. And the more educated you are, the more you have to do these things, because except in a few vague ways and isolated incidences, Mormon doctrine and natural science conflict with each other.

Using Clark Goble as your main whipping boy (instead of addressing the Mormon belief system as defined by me, Mark Bukowski, Terry Givens, et al.) does have the selective advantage of continuing to miss the point, which is that a contorted and incoherent belief system is not likely to survive well over time. It is not likely to show the necessary dynamism.  One only needs to consider the anti-Jewish propaganda in Europe before and during WW II.  It plainly asserted (in direct and graphic ways) just what we used to see in late nineteenth century America directed against the Mormons.  No one could believe that the Mormons or the Jews could actually be counted among civilized people.  Those surface impressions were wholly wrong, of course, as we can now plainly see. I think that we need to go much deeper to discover why.  Indeed, we need to ask why such ideas were not only wrong, but completely upended reality.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Robert F. Smith

[Rajah Manchou]

3 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Most of the use of sheep are ANE metaphor or allegories or quotations/paraphrases of the same. The one exception is Ether 9:18. Sheep aren't mentioned in Alma 17. The term used is flock but the type of animal oddly never is identified. 

Unless you are saying the sheep died off. These are the kind of things that shouldn't be brushed aside as exceptions:

Ether 9:18 And also all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of man.

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

It's clear you don't understand.

Hence my requests for clarification.

1 hour ago, Gray said:

Do you understand what I mean when I say theological commitments? It's not a door that swings both ways. Critical scholarship doesn't take theological commitments into account.

Atheism is a theological commitment.

A priori rejection of the truth claims of the LDS Church is a theological commitment.

That door does indeed swing both ways.  Critical scholarship shouldn't take theological commitments into account, but it often does. 

1 hour ago, Gray said:

It's a book that posits a Christianity in the Americas several hundred years before the development of Christianity. For that alone it can't be taken seriously outside of Mormon apologetic and counter-apologetic circles without some compelling physical evidence to support it.

You could say the same thing about the Old Testament, and generalized arguments from Christians the world over that it "posits a Christianity . . . several hundred years before the development of Christianity."

And yet there is ample academic scrutiny of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments.

1 hour ago, Gray said:

Again, you don't seem to understand either what apologetic or critical means.  I'm happy to discuss if you're interested. Apologists can certainly engage in critical scholarship. But when they do so they are no longer engaging in apologetics. Two very different approaches.

I understand what the terms mean (again, I question whether you do).  They are not mutually exclusive approaches.

1 hour ago, Gray said:

I'm not sure what this would have to do with anything, other than revealing that you view this as some kind of team sport apparently?

You made a vague reference to "very obvious and large" anachronisms.  You take these as a given.  As axiomatic.  As established.  My point is that many so-called anachronisms are very much open for reasoned and principled disagreement and discussion.  But now you're just using ridicule and contempt to sidestep arguments.  As you like.

1 hour ago, Gray said:

There are no good responses for the major anachronisms in the text.

I think there are.  Quite a few, actually.

1 hour ago, Gray said:

Such as, the idea that Christianity existed in the Americas several hundred years before the development of Christianity.

The same can be said of all sorts of religious claims.  The Book of Mormon posits that Lehi and his descendants learned about Jesus Christ through revelation from God.  That they learned these things before Christ was born is functionally on par with biblical claims of prophecies concerning the coming of Jesus Christ.

Consider Matthew 2:

Quote

1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judæa in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem,
2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.
3 When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.
5 And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judæa: for thus it is written by the prophet,
6 And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.

The Bible posits that "wise men from the east" saw a star in the heavens, which they took to be a sign of the coming of the "King of the Jews."

The Bible posits that Bethlehem would be the place "where Christ should be born."

These are divine claims.  Prophetic claims.  They are not susceptible to testing by scholars.  And yet scholars the world over scrutinize the New Testament, regardless of the verity of these claims.

So why can't scholars take a similar approach to the Book of Mormon?  Hamblin's answer to this question is, I think, correct.

1 hour ago, Gray said:

We already know the Iliad is an ancient book. There's an issue you skipped over.

And yet it includes the same sort of fantastical elements that, in your view, disqualify the Book of Mormon from scholarly examination.

The Iliad is used not to examine whether Zeus was a real figure, but as a resource for data points for the location of Troy.

But I get your point, and it has some relevance.  The provenance of the Book of Mormon is in dispute.  But then, so is the provenance of parts of the Bible.  But that dispute doesn't preclude scholarly examination.

1 hour ago, Gray said:

A few examples:

Christianity hundreds of years before the invention of Christianity

Christianity was not "invented."  And Christians the world over believe that their faith is also found in the Old Testament ("before the invention of Christianity").

1 hour ago, Gray said:

Atonement theology (esp Penal Substitution) many hundreds of years years before it was developed

Textual dependents on many Biblical texts that hadn't been written yet

Christ theology and terminology used out of its historical context, where it wouldn't make sense

Christology influenced by the gospel of John, but supposedly predating John

Resurrection theology outside of its time and place

Fully developed God/Satan dualism outside of its time and place

And hundreds of other smaller issues

Meh.  That's like saying American common law can't exist because common law is an English thing.  Or that Lehi couldn't have had a "compass" because such a thing was not invented until much later.

Common origins.  Prophets and revelations.  Yours is a pronouncement of what God can or cannot do, not a scholarly assessment.  You may as well scoff at the notion of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I mean, you can, but that doesn't get us very far.  We can't prove it, and you can't disprove it.  It's a question of faith that's essentially beyond the realms of empirical testability.

1 hour ago, Gray said:

Right, so no compelling or archeological evidence. We agree.

Not quite.  No evidence that can be definitively identified as Nephite.  There may very well be Nephite artifacts which have been discovered and photographed and catalogued, and perhaps even some on display in museums.  Hamblin's point is that we presently have no way of differentiating "Nephite" artifacts from any others.

So it's not a matter of there being no evidence in existence at all, but rather that there is no evidence that can be definitively attributed to the people described in the Boof of Mormon.

1 hour ago, Gray said:

That is what would be needed to overcome the types of anachronisms I listed earlier.

Maybe, maybe not.  I think Hamblin's point remains apt.

Thanks,

-Smac

[blueglass]

14 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Let's be honest the discovery of pre-exilic Jewish writings of any length would likely be the biggest discovery of the 21st century. We have almost nothing pre-exilic.

Like I posted previously, the discovery of the KH1, and KH2 Ketef Hinnom silver scrolls was a big breakthrough.  Which is why it would work to God's favor to preserve the tumbaga plates artifact.  We have the brown seer stone, and likely the white.  We don't have the plates, and even if we did I am not convinced modern prophets or seers would care much.  Scholars absolutely, but based on Joseph's performance on the KEP and facsimile translations we can't expect much correlation with the text of the book of mormon.  Just give a seer stone to a mystic in the Bronx with a 7th grade education and no foreign language experience and have her invent a story while gazing at a book in Japanese.  

[jkwilliams]

36 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Yes, but how many of those problems would be resolved if you had no idea where the setting was? If the claim was that the setting was an island in the sea somewhere in the Indian and/or Pacific Oceans. There are very few problems if we accept we don't know the setting. Even things like pre-Christian Christianity aren't a real problem as millenarianism/messianism and cleansing rites similar to baptism were quite common during the Book of Mormon time period, pre-Christ.

The problem is our speculative opinions on location. We've got 99 problems and the book ain't one. 

Not really. Yes, some of the anachronisms go away if you change the setting, but you still have a text reflecting 19th century thought that is textually and thematically dependent on the English Bible. IIRC, you favor a Malaysian setting, which I would imagine doesn't go over well here. A friend of mine once wrote out a theory of a Roman setting for the Book of Mormon. His point was that you could make the text fit pretty much anywhere in the Old World if you tried hard enough. Ironically, the place that is most difficult is an American setting.

[Robert F. Smith]

10 minutes ago, blueglass said:

............................  They would have done much better if God had not asked Lehi to steal their scriptures from the temple treasury.  ........................

There is no temple treasury involved, and we have no reason to believe that the Jews possessed such a set of metal records written in Egyptian.  There is not a hint of it in the Bible.  Just the opposite.  Jewish records were kept in papyrus and vellum.

Laban, who was not a Jew, but a descendant of Joseph (just like Lehi), was more likely the chief steward of a privately held set of bronze plates which had been brought from the Northern Kingdom of Israel a century earlier by a clan of royal scribes of the house of Manasseh -- as they escaped the destruction of the North wrought by the Assyrians.  An Egyptian record on bronze plates would have been an extraordinarily rare and expensive item unlike anything else possessed by the Israelites.  The same applies to Laban's sword, no doubt a symbol of his office.  The only other place we find an actual short-sword or dagger of that quality is in the tomb of King Tut half a millennium earlier. The hilt and sheath are made of gold, the blade of steel (meteroric iron):

 

 

[blueglass]

1 minute ago, Robert F. Smith said:

There is no temple treasury involved, and we have no reason to believe that the Jews possessed such a set of metal records written in Egyptian.  There is not a hint of it in the Bible.  Just the opposite.  Jewish records were kept in papyrus and vellum.

Laban, who was not a Jew, but a descendant of Joseph (just like Lehi), was more likely the chief steward of a privately held set of bronze plates which had been brought from the Northern Kingdom of Israel a century earlier by a clan of royal scribes of the house of Manasseh -- as they escaped the destruction of the North wrought by the Assyrians.  An Egyptian record on bronze plates would have been an extraordinarily rare and expensive item unlike anything else possessed by the Israelites.  The same applies to Laban's sword, no doubt a symbol of his office.  The only other place we find an actual short-sword or dagger of that quality is in the tomb of King Tut half a millennium earlier. The hilt and sheath are made of gold, the blade of steel (meteroric iron):

 

 

Beautiful dagger I want to buy one.  I thought Laban was hanging out partying with the "elders of the jews".  Where was this treasury located if not near the temple?  1Nephi4:20 And after I had done this, I went forth unto the treasury of Laban. And as I went forth towards the treasury of Laban, behold, I saw the servant of Laban who had the keys of the treasury. And I commanded him in the voice of Laban, that he should go with me into the treasury.

What are your thoughts on why these plates had so much christian prophecy and theology?  Anyway to connect these egyptian writings of Mosiah 1 with reality?  

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

Interesting. What kinds of behaviors and attitudes are you talking about? I don't keep up with a lot of ex-Mormon friends, but the ones I still talk to were pretty much run-of-the-mill active Mormons. My closest friend is a man about my age who grew up in the church, served a mission to Argentina, graduated from BYU, married in the temple, got a law degree, served in a bishopric and as veil coordinator in the temple, and was on the temple committee when they were constructing the Oklahoma City temple. I don't think he's ever exhibited any particularly aberrant behaviors or attitudes, although he is currently "living in sin" with the former Relief Society president of his old ward. Of course, that happened much later.

I think that the researchers are saying that this is not typical.  If it were, the LDS Church would already be in tatters.  Sociological generalizations are not based on individual instances, interesting though they may be, but on scientific sampling of broad populations.

[Rajah Manchou]

25 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

IIRC, you favor a Malaysian setting, which I would imagine doesn't go over well here. A friend of mine once wrote out a theory of a Roman setting for the Book of Mormon. His point was that you could make the text fit pretty much anywhere in the Old World if you tried hard enough. Ironically, the place that is most difficult is an American setting.

I hear it said a lot that you can make the text fit anywhere, you can't. The geographical features described in the text are numerous and precisely descriptive. It is such that if you read the text literally, you should be able to identify the location, without question, through the internal map. This works over the Malay Peninsula and nowhere else. Give it a try anywhere else, you'll see any other location (eg. ancient Rome) fails when just a couple features are considered. 

What impresses me about the Malay Peninsula, is that it has been known through antiquity as KMR and RMH. These are of course two significant toponyms in the Book of Mormon. What's more, KMR and RMH was the peninsular island medieval authors placed the Rahmans/Rechabites, an Israelite group that (according to Judeo-Christian folklore) was led by God from Jerusalem in the 6th century BC.



I don't know why apologists (who go goo goo over NHM) ignore all the convergence with the East Indies. I'm told its likely just a weird coincidence. But if that were the case, wouldn't it be easy to falsify? Nobody has managed to falsify this model using only the Book of Mormon text. The challenge is still open.

Edited June 27, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

I hear it said a lot that you can make the text fit anywhere, you can't. The geographical features described in the text are numerous and precisely descriptive. It is such that if you read the text literally, you should be able to identify the location, without question, through the internal map. This works over the Malay Peninsula and nowhere else. Give it a try anywhere else, you'll see any other location (eg. ancient Rome) fails when just a couple features are considered. 

What impresses me about the Malay Peninsula, is that it has been known through antiquity as KMR and RMH. These are of course two significant toponyms in the Book of Mormon. What's more KMR and RMH was the location medieval authors placed the Rahmans/Rechabites, an Israelite group that (according to Judeo-Christian folklore) was led by God from Jerusalem in the 6th century BC.



I don't know why apologists (who go goo goo over NHM) ignore all the convergence with the East Indies. I'm told its likely just a weird coincidence. But if that were the case, wouldn't it be easy to falsify? Nobody has managed to falsify this model using only the Book of Mormon text. The challenge is still open.

Well, as I said, even if you manage to convince someone it was a Malay setting, you still have a lot of textual issues that argue against antiquity, IMO. I think the big problem for apologists is that you have to discount what the angel said about the ancient inhabitants of America and you have to argue against the Americas being the promised land. That's a bit much for most to swallow.

[jkwilliams]

6 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I think that the researchers are saying that this is not typical.  If it were, the LDS Church would already be in tatters.  Sociological generalizations are not based on individual instances, interesting though they may be, but on scientific sampling of broad populations.

I was asking Hamba Tuhan about his sociological generalizations, which I found interesting. What he was talking about doesn't ring true to me, but I have only anecdotal data to go on. Again, from what I can see, the research you cite isn't about people who actively participate in the church well into adulthood and then leave. I think such a study would be fascinating and would probably yield different results from a study of broader abandonment of one's childhood faith.

[Rajah Manchou]

45 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Well, as I said, even if you manage to convince someone it was a Malay setting, you still have a lot of textual issues that argue against antiquity, IMO. I think the big problem for apologists is that you have to discount what the angel said about the ancient inhabitants of America and you have to argue against the Americas being the promised land. That's a bit much for most to swallow.

I'm not sure I'm willing to argue for antiquity yet. What is interesting about the Malay Model is that American missionaries from the same theological environment as Solomon Spaulding, Ethan Smith and Nathanael Emmons (Oliver Cowdery's great-Uncle) were preaching to the "latter-day Israelites", in the region identified as Rahma in the map above, two years before the Book of Mormon was published. 

A prophet among those latter-day Israelites was visited by an angel on a hill in 1836, and was given a golden book which contained a record of their people, who migrated from the Middle East. The book tells about the return of Ariya, the Son of God.

Edited June 27, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[Robert F. Smith]

9 minutes ago, blueglass said:

Beautiful dagger I want to buy one.  I thought Laban was hanging out partying with the "elders of the jews".  Where was this treasury located if not near the temple?  1Nephi4:20 And after I had done this, I went forth unto the treasury of Laban. And as I went forth towards the treasury of Laban, behold, I saw the servant of Laban who had the keys of the treasury. And I commanded him in the voice of Laban, that he should go with me into the treasury.

What are your thoughts on why these plates had so much christian prophecy and theology?  Anyway to connect these egyptian writings of Mosiah 1 with reality?  

The Israelites constantly used captains of 50s, 100s, and 1,000s as an organizing principle since the time of Moses, and Laban was likely a senior member of a Manassite clan and part of the military garrison of Jerusalem, which was a very large city.  There is no reason to find it odd in any way that he would regularly confer with the Jewish leaders of Jerusalem.  He was an Israelite, they were Israelites, and they all spoke the same language, and had the same culture.

There is no reason why Laban's treasury would be anywhere near the temple.  In fact Manassites had settled in a large northern addition to Jerusalem in the years since 725 B.C. when refugees poured in from the north.  That would be to the north of the current Damascus Gate.

So-called "Christianity" in the OT and in various pre-NT movements is masked not only by poor translations of the OT and NT, but also by failure to take seriously the studies of non-Mormon scholar Margaret Barker.  She argues that the Deuteronomisitic reforms under King Josiah extirpated much of the "Christianity' present in Jewish religion at that time, but that it continued as an undercurrent, coming forth at Qumran and in other side traditions.

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, Rajah Manchou said:

I'm not sure I'm willing to argue for antiquity yet. What is interesting about the Malay Model is that American missionaries from the same theological environment as Solomon Spaulding, Ethan Smith and Nathanael Emmons (Oliver Cowdery's Uncle) were preaching to the "latter-day Israelites" in the region identified as Komoriyya in the map above two years before the Book of Mormon was published. 

A prophet among those latter-day Israelites was visited by an angel on a hill in 1836, and was given a golden book which contained a record of their people, who migrated from the Middle East. The book tells about the return of Ariya, or Jesus Christ. 

Noone talks about this.

That is interesting, indeed. If anything, it adds a little more context to the emergence of the Book of Mormon.

[Robert F. Smith]

6 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I was asking Hamba Tuhan about his sociological generalizations, which I found interesting. What he was talking about doesn't ring true to me, but I have only anecdotal data to go on. Again, from what I can see, the research you cite isn't about people who actively participate in the church well into adulthood and then leave. I think such a study would be fascinating and would probably yield different results from a study of broader abandonment of one's childhood faith.

Indubitably.

[Rajah Manchou]

Just now, jkwilliams said:

That is interesting, indeed. If anything, it adds a little more context to the emergence of the Book of Mormon.

Watch for a post on Philip Jenkins blog, coming soon.

[cinepro]

53 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Not quite.  No evidence that can be definitively identified as Nephite.  There may very well be Nephite artifacts which have been discovered and photographed and catalogued, and perhaps even some on display in museums.  Hamblin's point is that we presently have no way of differentiating "Nephite" artifacts from any others.

So it's not a matter of there being no evidence in existence at all, but rather that there is no evidence that can be definitively attributed to the people described in the Boof of Mormon.

 

While I am not a non-Mormon scholar of ancient America, let me suggest a reason that non-Mormon scholars totally ignore the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon doesn't seem to offer any advantage to Mormon scholars.  There is no advantage to believing it from a historical perspective.  So there is no disadvantage to ignoring it.  Compare that to, say, the Dead Sea Scrolls.  If a group of Biblical scholars chose to totally ignore it because they just didn't think valuable scrolls could be found in caves by poor shepard boys, they would be at a disadvantage in the field of Biblical studies.  Their scholarship would be inferior.  But Mormon scholars have been unable to show a similar advantage even after having access to a 500+ page book about the history of ancient America, written in English and delivered by God!

Ultimately, The Book of Mormon has no explanatory power to explain otherwise unexplained evidences.   While apologetics has done a great job of pivoting the argument towards fitting The Book of Mormon to otherwise known evidences, in the process they have made it irrelevant to mainstream scholarship. 

For example, Alma 11 describes unique, named pieces of valuable metal that have uniform appearance and weight, and are used as money.  In other words, coins.  So in a normal world, you would expect Mormon scholars to be standing up in front of the regular scholars and saying "Hey!  These people used coins as money!"  Instead, they attempt to try and make the text of Alma 11 fit what scholars already think about ancient America (i.e they didn't use "coins.")  So that's extremely useful from an apologetic standpoint for helping to salvage belief in the Book, but absolutely useless from a scholarly standpoint.

If you look at the trend of Book of Mormon scholarship over the last 50 years, it is in this direction.  Again, tremendously useful for salvaging belief.  But totally useless to non-Mormon scholars.

It should also be noted what percentage of Book of Mormon scholarship and evidences focus on tying the book directly to the culture of the ancient Middle East.  As Ryan and champatsch have shown, these arguments can be fascinating for believers, but they are totally useless for scholars of ancient America.

And this is ultimately the problem of the "we can't tell if it's a Nephite artifact" theory.  For some reason, it sounds wonderful to apologists to imagine museums filled with Mesoamerican artifacts that also happen to be Nephite artifacts (i.e. imaginary evidence).  But to scholars and normal people, it is devastating to the argument for a historical Book of Mormon to say "we can't tell the difference."  It is the most direct argument for irrelevance that has been made. In the spectrum of apologetics, I'm pretty sure that's the last step before just throwing up your hands and saying "We give up.  Just have faith!"

Edited June 27, 2018 by cinepro

[jkwilliams]

4 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Watch for a post on Philip Jenkins blog, coming soon.

I really like him. One of the happy accidents of posting here was getting to know him. Keep me posted.

[blueglass]

7 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

So-called "Christianity" in the OT and in various pre-NT movements is masked not only by poor translations of the OT and NT, but also by failure to take seriously the studies of non-Mormon scholar Margaret Barker.  She argues that the Deuteronomisitic reforms under King Josiah extirpated much of the "Christianity' present in Jewish religion at that time, but that it continued as an undercurrent, coming forth at Qumran and in other side traditions.

Hel 8:19-20, "then why not the Son of God come, according to his prophecy?"  There's that interesting quote from Justin Martyr, "And again, from the sayings of the same Jeremiah these have been cut out [ by the Jews]: "The Lord God remembered his dead people of Israel who lay in the graves; and he descended to preach to them His own salvation" Dyalogue with Trypho 72.  Also see  Book of the Bee 32 "This prophet (Jeremiah) during his life said to the Egyptians, "A child shall be born - that is the Messiah of a virgin, and he shall be laid in a crib, and He will shake and cast down the idols." from the time until Christ was born, the Egyptians used to set a virgin and a baby in a crib, and to worship him, because of what Jeremiah said to them, that He should be born in a crib."

[Rajah Manchou]

1 minute ago, jkwilliams said:

I really like him. One of the happy accidents of posting here was getting to know him. Keep me posted.

Let me clarify, I believe there is an unmistakable historical quality to the Book of Mormon. Things that not only Joseph Smith could not have known, but even we today do not know without really digging into some obscure texts. I just don't think the setting of the narrative is America. Nearly everything about the text says Asia, and oddly, the part of Asia that was said to be inhabited by first temple Israelites.

I also don't see Joseph Smith as the author. If there was a 19th century author, that person was not a "Mormon".

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Rajah Manchou said:

Let me clarify, I believe there is an unmistakable historical quality to the Book of Mormon. Things that not only Joseph Smith could not have known, but even we today do not know without really digging into some obscure texts. I just don't think the setting of the narrative is America. Nearly everything about the text says Asia, and oddly, the part of Asia that was said to be inhabited by first temple Israelites.

I also don't see Joseph Smith as the author. If there was a 19th century author, that person was not a "Mormon".

I remain unconvinced that there's an unmistakable historical quality to the Book of Mormon. I know others see it, but it just doesn't work for me. I'd insert a joke about this reflecting my hard apostate heart, but that would be inappropriate.

[Rajah Manchou]

Just now, jkwilliams said:

I remain unconvinced that there's an unmistakable historical quality to the Book of Mormon. I know others see it, but it just doesn't work for me. I'd insert a joke about this reflecting my hard apostate heart, but that would be inappropriate.

If the Book of Mormon is an account of the inhabitants of the American continent, I'm also unconvinced. But if it is also an account of the source from whence they sprang, I'll leave my options open.

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Rajah Manchou said:

If the Book of Mormon is an account of the inhabitants of the American continent, I'm also unconvinced. But if it is also an account of the source from whence they sprang, I'll leave my options open.

As you should.