Why Not Engage the Evidence for Historicity?

[champatsch]

Joseph as author, philological achievement #5:  "for this cause that <subject> may / might <infinitive> . . ."

By Joseph's time, this was very uncommon, high-level language.  Peak popularity was in the late 1500s.  The meaning of cause in this phraseology is archaic 'purpose'.  The meaning of the phrase is 'in order that <subject> may/might ...' or less conservatively 'so that <subject> could ...'

The King James Bible uses this language discontinuously.

Joseph produced seven of these in compact form: "for this cause that".

Currently I've encountered a text in 1584 by Eusebius Pagit, translating Calvin, where he used more than 20 of these.  I haven't found a text that has as many as the Book of Mormon besides that.  If someone finds one, please let me know.

In any event, Joseph provided us with more than five of these archaic, literate bits of syntax in his 1829 dictation.

[Ryan Dahle]

5 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

I really started reading voraciously about these issues 25 years or so ago when I worked for the church and could spend my lunch hour at the historical library. As I said, people who are much smarter and better read than I am believe and don't believe. I stopped "engaging" apologetic arguments because I got to the point where it didn't make any difference. I haven't seen anything that makes me reconsider my conclusions, and clearly, nothing I say here is going to change anyone else's mind. Ryan asked why people like me don't engage the evidence, and that is why. There simply isn't much of a point.

Probably a majority of people (Mormon and non-Mormon) feel that same way.  I understand that, and it may be that Ryan is a bit naive to even ask the question.

It isn't that I didn't have theories about what the rationale was. I certainly did and do.  It's just that I wanted more data and to hear the specific reasons that people used. The demographic I'm looking for feedback from isn't the "I've been studying this stuff for decades and still don't believe" group. It's the "I didn't really care to try very hard because of X, Y Z" group. I actually think there is some diversity in the reasons and that is what I am looking for. 

 

 

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I think you are meaning Cowdery. Part of the problem is that we don't get any sense of "studying it out in your mind" from the witnesses. None of them ever talk about Joseph deliberating over the text. It all just seemed to flow out of him at a fairly smooth and rapid pace. John Welch has conducted his own translation sessions and has concluded that the translators had to be moving along at a pretty good clip to finish in the window of time that we know the translation took place.

Whoops. Yeah. Typo. That's a really good point about speed I'd not considered. That does suggest not enough time to do much. The witnesses though I'm not sure really address the issue. But the time issue is a pretty killer argument.

2 hours ago, EdGoble said:

I think that by academic, I think Don means mechanical.

By convenient apologetic, I mean that it is a convenient way around the idea that Joseph would have done this other than pure revelation.

Again I'm not sure what "pure revelation" means. When I'm giving a blessing it is sometimes a struggle to get at what the Lord wants said. Maybe revelation for prophets is completely unlike revelation for the rest of us. But I am skeptical.

More or less what I'm getting at is how involved and how much effort it takes. My guess is that really varied from text to text. The Book of Mormon seems much more passive - at least until the U&T are taken. Other revelations seem much more a mix of effort, attention, God directing, and interpretation.

2 hours ago, EdGoble said:

Actually, yes, it does follow if we grant that Joseph was using the KEP as a reliable Egyptian dictionary.  I'm not arguing that he was, because I don't believe it was a dictionary in that way, but rather a table of Egyptian puns.  I'm just saying that this is the logical implication of Don's and FAIR's usage of this apologetic, and I'm not sure that they want that implication, which is why they don't go there.  But it is nevertheless the inescapable conclusion if he is right.

I just don't quite see that I confess. If I have new data that impacts on a project I'm working on I'm apt to compare the two. Admittedly what I do isn't ancient languages, but it seems the same sorts of concerns are present. But maybe I need to reread what Don wrote. It's been quite a while since I read his presentation. The other alternative is of course Joseph thought his dictionary was reliable but it wasn't. Who knows, maybe being unable to make sense of the Kinderhook plates with it made him reconsider both the Kinderhook plates and the dictionary. We know the dictionary wasn't reliable after all.

Edited June 25, 2018 by clarkgoble

[jkwilliams]

7 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

It isn't that I didn't have theories about what the rationale was. I certainly did and do.  It's just that I wanted more data and to hear the specific reasons that people used. The demographic I'm looking for feedback from isn't the "I've been studying this stuff for decades and still don't believe" group. It's the "I didn't really care to try very hard because of X, Y Z" group. I actually think there is some diversity in the reasons and that is what I am looking for. 

Well, that’s not exactly what I said. I engage things that I find significant. I don’t engage what seems strained or insignificant. 

[smac97]

26 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Did you happen to read the debate between Philip Jenkins and Bill Hamblin from a few years ago? Great stuff.

I've read parts of it (it's a fairly long discussion).  I found this bit reflective of what we are seeing in this thread:

Quote

Prof. Jenkins steadfastly refuses to accept the existence of ABMS ["ancient Book of Mormon studies"], even for the sake of argument.  As far as I can tell, he steadfastly refuses to read articles by LDS scholars, even if they provide an answer to a question he asks.  In this he is a poster child for the modern academy.  There is no need to even read the BOM in order to proclaim with supreme confidence that it is bogus.  There is no need to read anything written by LDS scholars on the topic; since we already know the BOM is bogus, we can rest assured, with supreme confidence, that any arguments they make will be bogus.

Now in one sense, I understand his position.  He thinks the BOM is bogus nonsense and doesn’t want to waste his time on it.  I sympathize.  Life is short.  One cannot know everything about everything.  So one must pick and choose.  And that’s fine.  But if that is his choice, then he should remain silent about the question of the historicity of BOM.

Thanks,

-Smac

EDIT: This too (emphasis added):

Quote

The real problem with the rejection of the historicity of the Book of Mormon is not that the Book of Mormon professes Precolumbian transoceanic contact with the New World.  Sixty or seventy years ago that possibility was almost universally rejected by scholars of Precolumbian America.  (The Viking site at L’Anse aux Meadows was discovered only in 1968.)  Now the possibility is widely accepted, at least in principle.  The problem with the Book of Mormon is not the claim that a small colony of Israelites from the Middle East might have come to the New World and thrived for a few centuries before beings subsumed in the broader Mesoamerican culture.  The problem is that the Book of Mormon professes to have been delivered by an angel, and translated by the power of God.  The problem with the Book of Mormon is that it claims Jesus visited the new world.  These claims—rather than its claims about Precolumbian American archaeology—are the fundamental reason it receives almost no serious attention by Precolumbian scholars.  To accept the Book of Mormon as history requires accepting Joseph Smith as a prophet and Jesus as the Christ.  In the modern secular academy, it is the religious claims of the book, rather than its archaeological claims, which dooms it to being rejected without even being read. 

Historicity and status as scripture.  These two concepts are interwoven in the Book of Mormon.

Edited June 25, 2018 by smac97

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, smac97 said:

I've read parts of it (it's a fairly long discussion).  I found this bit reflective of what we are seeing in this thread:

Thanks,

-Smac

In my interactions with Professor Jenkins, I found him fair, open-minded, and kind. As I recall, Professor Jenkins issued a specific challenge about Book of Mormon evidence in the New World. Given that Professor Hamblin never offered any such evidence, it’s disingenuous to argue that Professor Jenkins refused to engage Book of Mormon scholarship. 

[champatsch]

Joseph as author, philological achievement #6 (in no particular order, and this will be the last one for today):  "Before that S".

Pseudo-biblical texts don't have "before that S" language (with archaic that), showing that this archaic time conjunction usage wasn't likely or automatic for Joseph.  Before that was less common historically speaking than after that.

All have been edited out of the Book of Mormon but one (3 Nephi 28:6).

Joseph originally produced eight of these total, and and two with the modal auxiliary shall.  Eight is a lot, if you check the contemporaneous textual record.  He far exceeded the biblical usage rate of before that S.

My favorite example is this one: "wherefore I desire to speak unto the people before that I shall die."  This just means, of course, 'before I die'.

There are five biblical examples, one with shall, which is pretty famous, so Joseph could have picked up on that one and modeled two of his examples after that one.

But he outdid pseudo-biblical authors in this case and in quite a few other cases in his ability to produce nonbiblical and biblical archaism.

[Benjamin Seeker]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

"Spreading content?"  Yes.  Definitely.

Presenting that content in such a way as to make it reasonable susceptible to substantive scrutiny?  Not as much.

I think this is why academics both make presentations orally at conferences and such, but also reduce their scholarship to writing.

Thanks,

-Smac

Agreed. I'm certainly hoping Vogel will publish his content in written form, making those references easier to get at.

[clarkgoble]

5 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

In my interactions with Professor Jenkins, I found him fair, open-minded, and kind. As I recall, Professor Jenkins issued a specific challenge about Book of Mormon evidence in the New World. Given that Professor Hamblin never offered any such evidence, it’s disingenuous to argue that Professor Jenkins refused to engage Book of Mormon scholarship. 

As I've argued I don't think there's enough evidence to do more than offer plausibility arguments for why one can rationally believe - not why it is most rational to believe. An important yet neglected distinction. While I didn't read all the Hamblin/Jenkins discussion I thought that Hamblin was off to a bad start precisely because he didn't emphasize that distinction. That said there is no doubt some elements that apologists have a very hard time explaining. To my eyes metal is the most difficult.

That said, I think Hamblin's complaint was that Jenkins would raise a charge and not even search Maxwell Institute, FAIR or The Interpreter to see if someone had a theory. Hamblin likely exaggerated how much that was the case, but I can understand the frustration. Yet at the same time I'd also concede that evidence - even if much is argument from silence - is on the side of skeptics. Without personal revelation I don't think there's a good reason to believe in Book of Mormon historicity. Again we can at best argue why it's not irrational to believe. (IMO)

 

[Okrahomer]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

You have.  I have also had ample opportunity to repent of unkind / intemperate words, to realize how far I have to go, to re-examine what I believe and why I believe it, to expand my horizons, and so on.

At some point I will probably hang up my boots.  I'm much more a consumer of apologetics than a producer.  I think there may be members of the Church out there who would do a better job of defending the Restoration than I have.

Thanks,

-Smac

I for one very much appreciate your contributions--especially with respect to your legal insights.  

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

As I've argued I don't think there's enough evidence to do more than offer plausibility arguments for why one can rationally believe - not why it is most rational to believe. An important yet neglected distinction. While I didn't read all the Hamblin/Jenkins discussion I thought that Hamblin was off to a bad start precisely because he didn't emphasize that distinction. That said there is no doubt some elements that apologists have a very hard time explaining. To my eyes metal is the most difficult.

That said, I think Hamblin's complaint was that Jenkins would raise a charge and not even search Maxwell Institute, FAIR or The Interpreter to see if someone had a theory. Hamblin likely exaggerated how much that was the case, but I can understand the frustration. Yet at the same time I'd also concede that evidence - even if much is argument from silence - is on the side of skeptics. Without personal revelation I don't think there's a good reason to believe in Book of Mormon historicity. Again we can at best argue why it's not irrational to believe. (IMO)

 

I don’t think it’s irrational to believe. I just found that the Book of Mormon makes much more sense as a 19th century production. Smarter people than I am disagree. 

ETA: I’m biased, of course, because Professor Jenkins read my book and gave it a positive review. 

Edited June 25, 2018 by jkwilliams

[cinepro]

45 minutes ago, smac97 said:

The problem with the Book of Mormon is not the claim that a small colony of Israelites from the Middle East might have come to the New World and thrived for a few centuries before beings subsumed in the broader Mesoamerican culture. 

That's not what The Book of Mormon claims.  That's what apologists claim about The Book of Mormon.

This is actually a good example of the massive problem introduced by the inability of believers to pin down the region of Book of Mormon events within 5,000 miles.  Here, Hamblin is whining about Jenkins not accepting that the Book of Mormon "claims" to take place in Mesoamerica, without acknowledging that any outsider who endeavored to study The Book of Mormon evidences would first have to determine whether the Heartlanders or Mesoamercanists were possibly correct.

This is compounded by Hamblin's accusation that their reticence to study the book is seriously hampered by their inability to take Joseph Smith seriously as a Prophet.  But if a researcher were to incorporate Joseph Smith's claims about  The Book of Mormon as being reliable, then that would lead them to the Heartlander camp, not the Mesoamerican camp. 

So it's not just a matter of taking Joseph Smith seriously, it's a matter of believing Joseph Smith is a Prophet, but knowing that if you take his statements about The Book of Mormon seriously the book probably isn't true, so you have to ignore the ones that would contradict a Mesoamerican setting.

Edited June 25, 2018 by cinepro

[smac97]

27 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

In my interactions with Professor Jenkins, I found him fair, open-minded, and kind. As I recall, Professor Jenkins issued a specific challenge about Book of Mormon evidence in the New World. Given that Professor Hamblin never offered any such evidence, it’s disingenuous to argue that Professor Jenkins refused to engage Book of Mormon scholarship. 

I think the "challenge" came loaded with all sorts of assumptions that Hamblin tried to unpack. 

Thanks,

-Smac

[jkwilliams]

9 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I think the "challenge" came loaded with all sorts of assumptions that Hamblin tried to unpack. 

Thanks,

-Smac

It was pretty simple: one piece of New World evidence supporting the Book of Mormon. That “debate” was not one of Dr. Hamblin’s finer performances, IMO. As I recall, the whole thing started because Dr. Jenkins made an offhand remark about Mormon apologetics, which drew the ire of Dr. Hamblin, among others. 

Edited June 25, 2018 by jkwilliams

[smac97]

14 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

It was pretty simple: one piece of New World evidence supporting the Book of Mormon.

I think "facile" would be better.  Hamblin asked Jenkins how he would propose to identify and differentiate a "Book of Mormon" artifact from any other.  No answer.

14 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

That “debate” was not one of Dr. Hamblin’s finer performances, IMO. As I recall, the whole thing started because Dr. Jenkins made an offhand remark about Mormon apologetics, which drew the ire of Dr. Hamblin, among others. 

Debates can get heated.  

Thanks,

-Smac

[jkwilliams]

4 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I think "facile" would be better.  Hamblin asked Jenkins how he would propose to identify and differentiate a "Book of Mormon" artifact from any other.  No answer.

Debates can get heated.  

Thanks,

-Smac

I’m not going to relitigate that debate.

[smac97]

24 minutes ago, cinepro said:

That's not what The Book of Mormon claims.  That's what apologists claim about The Book of Mormon.

It's both.

24 minutes ago, cinepro said:

This is actually a good example of the massive problem introduced by the inability of believers to pin down the region of Book of Mormon events within 5,000 miles.  Here, Hamblin is whining about Jenkins not accepting that the Book of Mormon "claims" to take place in Mesoamerica, without acknowledging that any outsider who endeavored to study The Book of Mormon evidences would first have to determine whether the Heartlanders or Mesoamercanists were possibly correct.

Not really.  Nobody is declaring definitive knowledge of the particulars of the Book of Mormon.  Some extrapolation is necessary.  Some assumptions are necessary.

So Hamblin extrapolates (that the descendants of Lehi were "subsumed in the broader Mesoamerican culture").  And he assumes (that the LGT/Mesoamerican model is correct).

24 minutes ago, cinepro said:

This is compounded by Hamblin's accusation that their reticence to study the book is seriously hampered by their inability to take Joseph Smith seriously as a Prophet. 

I don't think he's doing that.  He's not "accusing."  He's acknowledging their bias.  He is saying that secular scholars don't take the Book of Mormon seriously in an a priori kind of way, not in a we've-given-it-a-lot-of-scrutiny-and-found-it-lacking kind of way.

And I think he's right.

24 minutes ago, cinepro said:

But if a researcher were to incorporate Joseph Smith's claims about The Book of Mormon as being reliable, then that would lead them to the Heartlander camp, not the Mesoamerican camp.

Not really, but that's a discussion for another day.

24 minutes ago, cinepro said:

So it's not just a matter of taking Joseph Smith seriously, it's a matter of believing Joseph Smith is a Prophet,

Joseph Smith never made any prophetic claims about the geography of the Book of Mormon, except to say that the events took place on "this continent."

Joseph Smith, then, may well be characterized as a 19th-century bystander to the geography of the Book of Mormon.  He never disclosed revealed information about it, and anything else would have been conjecture on his part (since he lacked any training, and 19th-century knowledge of pre-Columbian Americas was pretty limited).

24 minutes ago, cinepro said:

but knowing that if you take his statements about The Book of Mormon seriously the book probably isn't true, so you have to ignore the ones that would contradict a Mesoamerican setting.

I don't think so.  Joseph Smith never made any prophetic claims about the geography of the Book of Mormon.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Benjamin Seeker]

4 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I wish Dan would just get a blog and post these things with references. Video is a horrible format for this. It makes it near impossible to reference and I just don't have time to play video as opposed to quickly skimming a text and then reading carefully where the core new things are.  Unfortunately I just don't have time to peruse dozens of videos. Not a knock on you - just a recognition of limited time where I try to fit in studying. I'd love to glance over Dan's stuff but just don't have the ability to go through videos easily.

2

I hear you! I prefer text to video or audio.

4 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Right, that's what I'm disagreeing with. Prior to starting the translation work he gets the revelation that is now Moses 1. But it wasn't associated with the main body of translation until it was compiled in the Pearl of Great Price long after Joseph's death. It was published separately and wasn't on the same book as the translation of Genesis 1 onward. As I said the final verse strongly appears to be referring to the vision not to our Geneses 1-7. It just appears connected due to the way Moses was compiled by Orson Pratt.

2

How do you see Moses 2:1 fitting in here? It reads something like, and these were the words of God unto Moses, and then launches into the creation. I think maybe you glossed over that part of my comments.

4 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

But if earth is eratz then that's problematic reading it as global. Admittedly in Moses 7 we're dealing with Joseph's expansion and not minor modifications to Genesis. So one could argue that earth would mean how Joseph would take it meaning global. However this gets into the issue of word choice in Joseph. If revelations are real and not to be interpreted purely in terms of Joseph's understanding, then I'm not sure this can be taken for granted.

Don't get me wrong I completely understand why some will take earth as global based upon Moses 7. However that makes a lot of assumptions about what earth means. Outside of that word there's nothing in the text suggesting a global flood. (Unlike say Genesis 6-7 where the covering of the mountains strongly implies it) If we read earth as land then the problems disappear. So I'm not arguing Moses 7 can't be read globally. Heaven knows historically most Mormons did read it in that way. Just that I think it's too ambiguous to be a reason to distrust Joseph since scientifically there was no global flood.

6

I agree that the meaning of earth can be debated. There are contextual clues: all the families of the earth are from Noah, the Son of man comes to redeem the earth, and at the second coming the earth groans along with the saints rising. For me, these read as JS' understanding of a global earth.

 

[cinepro]

7 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I think "facile" would be better.  Hamblin asked Jenkins how he would propose to identify and differentiate a "Book of Mormon" artifact from any other.  No answer.

Debates can get heated.  

Thanks,

-Smac

The inability to distinguish Book of Mormon artifacts from regular artifacts isn't Jenkins' problem.

If I told you that I firmly believed that several thousand years ago, a group of aliens with advanced technology landed on Earth and encountered the ancient Roman empire and lived among them for a thousand years, you would presumably ask me if there is any evidence of this happening.  If I told you that there would have been, but the aliens quickly lost their advanced technology and lived exactly as the Romans so all the alien artifacts just looked like regular Roman artifacts, you might admit that my explanation was air-tight, but that doesn't negate the fact that I still don't have any evidence.

[cinepro]

7 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I don't think so.  Joseph Smith never made any prophetic claims about the geography of the Book of Mormon.

Thanks,

-Smac

To an outsider, all of Joseph Smith's claims look equally Prophetic.  If the first thing they have to do to study The Book of Mormon is learn to figure out which of Joseph Smith's claims were "Prophetic" and which were him just making stuff up, then you may have just answered the question from the original post.

The problem is that Joseph Smith's words and the text of The Book of Mormon have to be narrowly interpreted in a specific way in order to point to Mesoamerica.  Or, they can be interpreted to point to the Heartland (and to an outside observer, I guarantee you the Heartland interpretation is the much more obvious interpretation). 

And this doesn't account for the possibility that a researcher might actually look at the Church website and the words of the men LDS look to as Prophets and Apostles to figure out what the preferred geography is.

Edited June 25, 2018 by cinepro

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, cinepro said:

The inability to distinguish Book of Mormon artifacts from regular artifacts isn't Jenkins' problem.

If I told you that I firmly believed that several thousand years ago, a group of aliens with advanced technology landed on Earth and encountered the ancient Roman empire and lived among them for a thousand years, you would presumably ask me if there is any evidence of this happening.  If I told you that there would have been, but the aliens quickly lost their advanced technology and lived exactly as the Romans so all the alien artifacts just looked like regular Roman artifacts, you might admit that my explanation was air-tight, but that doesn't negate the fact that I still don't have any evidence.

Exactly. The problem is that apologists can’t show that the material culture changed in any way that is plausibly related to an influx of Hebrews, let alone a group of Hebrews who quickly took charge of that culture.

The Mesoamericans seem to have developed their culture with or without the appearance of Nephites. 

[hope_for_things]

7 minutes ago, cinepro said:

To an outsider, all of Joseph Smith's claims look equally Prophetic.  If the first thing they have to do to study The Book of Mormon is learn to figure out which of Joseph Smith's claims were "Prophetic" and which were him just making stuff up, then you may have just answered the question from the original post.

The problem is that Joseph Smith's words and the text of The Book of Mormon have to be narrowly interpreted in a specific way in order to point to Mesoamerica.  Or, they can be interpreted to point to the Heartland (and to an outside observer, I guarantee you the Heartland interpretation is the much more obvious interpretation).

There is a very easy way to distinguish between the prophetic statements and the ones that aren’t.  All the statements that are obviously erroneous weren’t prophetic.  

[clarkgoble]

47 minutes ago, Benjamin Seeker said:

How do you see Moses 2:1 fitting in here? It reads something like, and these were the words of God unto Moses, and then launches into the creation. I think maybe you glossed over that part of my comments.

I don't think that addresses whether it is connected with Moses 1. If anything it suggests it's separate as it reintroduces a vision which wouldn't be needed if it were tied to Moses 1. To the new verse prior to the Genesis 1:1 verse it's interesting. It suggests that at least the first creation account was given to Moses (despite some reasons to think it Babylonian influenced).  The more interesting question is how these additions to the text affect Genesis 2-3. Is this God speaking to Moses or God speaking to Joseph? It's not really possible to say from the text.

47 minutes ago, Benjamin Seeker said:

I agree that the meaning of earth can be debated. There are contextual clues: all the families of the earth are from Noah, the Son of man comes to redeem the earth, and at the second coming the earth groans along with the saints rising. For me, these read as JS' understanding of a global earth.

I don't think it's quite that easy given the explicit animism. That suggests a more apocalyptic type vision ala John in Revelation. So I think one has to be careful if it is a highly symbolic and not literal "historical" viewing. Of course some have adopted a Gaia like view of the earth and take the animism literally.

Edited June 25, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Calm]

11 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Exactly. The problem is that apologists can’t show that the material culture changed in any way that is plausibly related to an influx of Hebrews, let alone a group of Hebrews who quickly took charge of that culture.

The Mesoamericans seem to have developed their culture with or without the appearance of Nephites. 

Besides metal, can you think of (not asking for research, just memory) any technology that Old World would have been obviously superior to the New World product (taking into account available raw materials)?  (Just asking in case you have explored that in the past or come across it...I can't remember anything at the moment myself...which isn't saying much.)

Question open to anyone....

Edited June 25, 2018 by Calm

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Calm said:

Besides metal, can you think of (not asking for research, just memory) any technology that Old World would have been obviously superior to the New World product (taking into account available raw materials)?  (Just asking in case you have explored that in the past or come across it...I can't remember anything at the moment myself...which isn't saying much.)

Yes, pottery would have benefited from the high-heat technology Nephi describes. We don’t see that anywhere in Mesoamerica.