The State of Mormon Apologetics

[mfbukowski]

53 minutes ago, Exiled said:

But don't you think that then Mr. Carmack should answer our questions as he is the expert on his theory? He may get something from the intellectual exercise of explaining his theories to students and skeptics alike. At least I think that is the theory of having professors actually teach students.

This is an empirical observation.

The data is what the data is.

What the explanation of the data is will evolve over time.  It's like the discovery that bread mold kills bacteria. The biological explanation came later as in all discoveries followed by a paradigm to explain them.

[Glenn101]

40 minutes ago, Exiled said:

Well I don't expect you to believe mormonism unveiled. That would be sacrelidge of course. The group frowns on it so it must be suspect by definition.

it is not suspect by definition. It is suspect by intention. I hope that you have acquainted yourself with the full history of that tome. On second thought, I hope that you have not acquainted yourself with the full history of that book and will do so forthwith.

Glenn

[Exiled]

1 hour ago, Glenn101 said:

it is not suspect by definition. It is suspect by intention. I hope that you have acquainted yourself with the full history of that tome. On second thought, I hope that you have not acquainted yourself with the full history of that book and will do so forthwith.

Glenn

I am aware of its history and have read it. The affidavits are uncontroverted for the most part. Whether prejudice consumed their perception can always be argued as it can with anyone, you and me included. We always have to be careful to see if we are being influenced by this group or that and if we are giving the history presented an honest review.

[Glenn101]

48 minutes ago, Exiled said:

I am aware of its history and have read it. The affidavits are uncontroverted for the most part. Whether prejudice consumed their perception can always be argued as it can with anyone, you and me included. We always have to be careful to see if we are being influenced by this group or that and if we are giving the history presented an honest review.

I am sorry to hear that you know its history, have read it, and evidently feel that it is trustworthy. It is a dishonest book designed to be anti-Mormon from the outset. The affidavits are suspect in and of themselves because of the stated purpose of their collector, Doctor Philastus Hurlbut to "completely divest Joseph Smith of all claims to the character of an honest man," who was also the author of the book but whose character had been so completely destroyed by a trial at Chardon, Ohio in 1834 that he had Eber D. Howe publish the affidavits in the book under his (Howe's) own name. The affidavits were a concerted attempt at character assassination by a vindictive man. Although not controverted individually, many of the affidavits were controverted collectively by information from some Joseph's neighbors. There is an analysis of the Levi Lewis affidavit here. 

I hesitate to ask this, but do you believe in the Spaulding theory also, as it is a tenet of Mormonism Unvailed?

Glenn

[why me]

On 8/12/2018 at 1:26 AM, Exiled said:

Perhaps the delay in actually getting Christ's words and deeds in written form is telling?  Maybe the early christian fathers loved magic, as well, and inserted a little into the narrative?  Jesus, the failed revolutionary, needed a narrative to rebuild his failure and so was "resurrected" and made to have "died for our sins" because supposedly God was powerless to forgive without a blood sacrifice.  The Jews already had a practice of killing animals so why not a human sacrifice as the last great sacrifice?  Paul, a non-witness, claimed a revelation and formed the sacrifice for sins narrative as he was creating his brand of christianity.  As far as the denials by the 11, sometimes one doesn't want to admit that one was tricked and sometimes will retrench as a reaction thereto, believing the unbelievable, going on the offensive and preaching the fraud, in order to justify their mistake.  Some still believe in the magician and continue to push their beliefs.

However, to attest to what happened on one's death bed is a quite a strong statement that what happened happened, espeically when it is too family or friends. And this is what happened with some of the witnesses to the book of mormon. I do believe that Paul met Peter and I am sure that the topic of jesus came up but it isn't recorded in the bible. The 12 apostles went about preaching the words of Jesus regardless of threats to their lives. What made them do it if not the visit of jesus to them after his death?

Martin came back to the fold, Oliver came back to the fold, David had his testimony put on his tombstone etc. Something happened that was so powerful that these men could not deny it. Or they were all psychos, including emma who allowed the saints to go out west and die along the way. She would have known that her hubby was a fraud, if he were a fraud. She disliked Brigham and that would have been the time to expose the religion.

Of course, after the jewish faith and the christian faith came islam with its claim that its leader would be the last prophet. And yet, we have joseph smith.

Edited August 13, 2018 by why me

[Kenngo1969]

14 hours ago, Exiled said:

Well I don't expect you to believe mormonism unveiled [sic]. That would be sacrelidge [sic] of course. The group frowns on it so it must be suspect by definition.

Right.  "Sheeple" that we are (C'mon, now!  Everybody in unison!  "Baaaaaaaa!") the only reason we have any serious issues with Mormonism Unvailed simply is because "the group" frowns on it.  Considering sources and agendas and other motivations (and thereby forming judgments of its suspect nature independent of "the group") is something only more sophisticated people are able or allowed to do.  It's not the province of us simple-minded, religiously-devout rubes!  Thanks for giving us our required daily dose of your condescension, Exiled!    

P.S.: If, in your brilliance, you're going to deign to tell us Simple-Minded, Religiously-Devout Rubes what we should consider to be sacrilege, you might at least want to bother enough to look the word up in the dictionary so as to be able to spell it correctly!  (Then again, I'm just a Simple-Minded Religiously-Devout Rube!  Who am I to question your obvious brilliance?  )

Edited August 12, 2018 by Kenngo1969
Clarity

[Michael Sudworth]

16 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

This is an empirical observation.

The data is what the data is.

I don't understand what point you are trying to make.  What is an empirical observation?  Carmack's data?  Or Exiled's comment on it?

You say the data is what the data is.  As if data just naturally appears.  Nope.  Data is collected by human beings with biases and agendas.  In order to assess both the quality of data and the conclusions drawn from that data, we must first understand if the data was collected such that we can feel confident in our interpretations of that data.  As they say, garbage in, garbage out.

It is perfectly reasonable to expect Carmack to clarify and justify his thesis.

16 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

What the explanation of the data is will evolve over time.  It's like the discovery that bread mold kills bacteria. The biological explanation came later as in all discoveries followed by a paradigm to explain them.

Why are you showing a bias for conclusions drawn in the future?  Does the passage of time ensure that later explanations and interpretations are superior?  

We can, and should, learn from the data now.  If our understanding is refined in the future, fantastic.

[Exiled]

7 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Right.  "Sheeple" that we are (C'mon, now!  Everybody in unison!  "Baaaaaaaa!") the only reason we have any serious issues with Mormonism Unvailed simply is because "the group" frowns on it.  Considering sources and agendas and other motivations (and thereby forming judgments of its suspect nature independent of "the group") is something only more sophisticated people are able or allowed to do.  It's not the province of us simple-minded, religiously-devout rubes!  Thanks for giving us our required daily dose of your condescension, Exiled!    

P.S.: If, in your brilliance, you're going to deign to tell us Simple-Minded, Religiously-Devout Rubes what we should consider to be sacrilege, you might at least want to bother enough to look the word up in the dictionary so as to be able to spell it correctly!  (Then again, I'm just a Simple-Minded Religiously-Devout Rube!  Who am I to question your obvious brilliance?  )

I will spell-check from now on. Thanks. 👍

[mfbukowski]

9 hours ago, Michael Sudworth said:

I don't understand what point you are trying to make. 

That's not unusual.

Quote

 What is an empirical observation?  Carmack's data?  Or Exiled's comment on it?

Of course not Exiled's comment.

Quote

You say the data is what the data is. 

Did you expect it to be something else?  That is a tautology- it's a little hard to argue with.  It is a rhetorical device.  It is his observation obviously.

Quote

As if data just naturally appears. 

Hmmm- I missed where I said that.

Quote

Nope.  Data is collected by human beings with biases and agendas. 

Of course.  Did I say otherwise?

Quote

 

In order to assess both the quality of data and the conclusions drawn from that data, we must first understand if the data was collected such that we can feel confident in our interpretations of that data.  As they say, garbage in, garbage out.

 

"Nope.  Data is collected by human beings with biases and agendas". 

Sound familiar?

Those who might think they are "assessing" data are not immune to human biases and agendas.

And what is the impartial standard for "interpretation" of data?  Where does one get "data" free of biases and agendas?  And if one alleges that one has done that- against what standard could that be shown?  It's all "garbage" if you want to call all  biased interpretations "garbage"- you are contradicting yourself!

Quote

It is perfectly reasonable to expect Carmack to clarify and justify his thesis.

By who's standard of "reasonable"?  If he wants to make an interesting observation and throw it out there and it becomes a bit of a mystery- I find that sufficient.   It is like finding that a certain marble "falls" upward to the ceiling and saying "Hey- look at this !  I have observed a marble that falls UPWARD!"

Is he then obliged to explain how it happens that the marble  he has observed falls upward?  Of course not!  Science IS about unexplained documented phenomena.  The purpose of science is to make further observations and "solve the problem" or invent a new paradigm etc.

He made an observation.  He is a qualified guy to be taken seriously.  He might be as astounded as anyone.

Correct me if I am wrong- I am new to this observation and perhaps do not yet understand the previous literature.  If so I would appreciate correction.

Quote

Why are you showing a bias for conclusions drawn in the future?  Does the passage of time ensure that later explanations and interpretations are superior?  

Yes of course.  If you took your laptop back to 1650 the explanation would be "witchcraft" with words and pictures and answers to questions coming out of the air.  Explanations EVOLVE over time and by utilitarian standards, later explanations often work better than earlier ones.  The theories of Ether and Phrenology don't seem to work well after much testing.  That pretty well describes evolution itself.  Ideas that work, survive, ideas that don't work die.

Quote

We can, and should, learn from the data now.  If our understanding is refined in the future, fantastic.

Yet again I don't recall advocating a return to third century medicine, yet I suppose it was somewhat better than nothing.

Edited August 13, 2018 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

On 8/11/2018 at 7:04 PM, Exiled said:

I am aware of its history and have read it. The affidavits are uncontroverted for the most part. Whether prejudice consumed their perception can always be argued as it can with anyone, you and me included. We always have to be careful to see if we are being influenced by this group or that and if we are giving the history presented an honest review.

That is the problem

Nobody CAN be "objective".   Face it and get over it.  There is no such thing as totally "objective" assessments of things like history.

Boiling point of water? Of course!

THE "cause" of the Civil War?  No such "objective" interpretation is possible - and one reason is that the major "cause" if the Civil War was itself based on prejudices and opinions and biases.  All human activity is.

Even seeing something AS "prejudiced" is itself "prejudiced " because it sets one standard above another and is based for a preference in favor of one criteria and against another.  You can't get around it.

Edited August 13, 2018 by mfbukowski

[Guest]

On August 8, 2018 at 4:36 PM, jkwilliams said:

The good ones have all apostatized.

Hey, I am a good one. Oh wait, no I am not...never mind. 

[champatsch]

On 8/10/2018 at 12:47 PM, jkwilliams said:

You have a text that looks pretty much like a 19th-century production in its content and style, so the default position is that it's probably a 19th-century production.

First on 19c style.  Consider the modal auxiliary shall and how it is used in the Book of Mormon. (This is when shall is used as a future subjunctive marker or a subjunctive marker.) It is characteristic of 16c style. The usage diminished after that time. The Book of Mormon goes beyond the King James Bible in the use of modal shall in a number of contexts, such as after the verbs cause, command, and suffer, or after the conjunction save, or after the conjunction lest. Pseudo-biblical texts show that all this was highly unlikely for Joseph Smith to produce.

Consider the personal relative pronoun which, usage that peaked in English in the late 1500s (personal that was dominant until the end of the early modern period). Only in the earliest text or in the 1830 first edition of the Book of Mormon are we going to see the extent of personal which usage of the dictation. Joseph's natural language was dominant in who(m), followed by that (which is the dominant biblical usage). His which usage would have been rare and isn't seen in the 1832 History or personal letters. This is another element of 16c style that runs throughout the text.

Of course, non-emphatic periphrastic did is characteristic of 16c style, since the peak period in English was brief, going from the 1530s to the 1570s. The Book of Mormon has many individual periphrastic did features that match attested early modern language, strongly suggesting a 16c view of this language is appropriate. This is supported by modal shall, personal which, non–3sg {-th} inflection, obsolete vocabulary, etc.

The non–3sg {-th} inflection in the Book of Mormon (about 180 of these) has so many matching features with early modern usage, and the usage was most prevalent in the 16c, that it is another aspect of the Book of Mormon's 16c style.

Etc.

Next on 19c content.  First, content is weaker evidence than style (whose building blocks are (morpho)syntax) in relation to the authorship question. The probative value of content is dwarfed by the probative value of grammar and syntax, since the latter is mostly produced subconsciously and therefore resists manipulation to a much greater degree.  So whatever the grammar and syntax indicate about authorship, which is that Joseph Smith didn't have the implicit knowledge to produce much of it, that is what is dispositive.  The content is really of negligible probative value.

Second, arguments that can be made for 19c content can be matched by arguments for 16c content or ancient content.  I've pointed out before that it can be reasonably argued that the themes of the Book of Mormon – religious, social, and political – do not derive from Joseph Smith’s time, but instead are the prominent issues of the Protestant Reformation, that they date from the 1500s and 1600s rather than the 1800s – examples like burning people at the stake for heresy, standing before the bar of justice, secret combinations to overthrow the government, the rejection of child baptism, the sacrament as symbolic memorial and spiritual renewal, public rather than private confession, no required works of penance, and piety in living and worship.

Ultimately, then, 19c content arguments for 19c authorship are trivial and uninteresting.

 

Finally, a challenge to those who have asserted that they understand Book of Mormon grammatical and syntactic issues.  I would be interested to find out what you know about verb complementation patterns after verbs like cause, command, suffer, and make.  What is verb complementation like in the Book of Mormon and in the King James Bible and in pseudo-biblical texts, and how does it compare to early modern and modern patterns?  What are the implications for 19c authorship of the Book of Mormon?

[churchistrue]

Stanford, thanks for engaging here. I have a question about your theory. 

Second, arguments that can be made for 19c content can be matched by arguments for 16c content or ancient content.  I've pointed out before that it can be reasonably argued that the themes of the Book of Mormon – religious, social, and political – do not derive from Joseph Smith’s time, but instead are the prominent issues of the Protestant Reformation, that they date from the 1500s and 1600s rather than the 1800s – examples like burning people at the stake for heresy, standing before the bar of justice, secret combinations to overthrow the government, the rejection of child baptism, the sacrament as symbolic memorial and spiritual renewal, public rather than private confession, no required works of penance, and piety in living and worship.

I first heard Dr. Skousen talk this way about this theory a few years ago at a conference at BYU, but I've never quite understood the position.

If these elements reflect a 16c environment, do you view the BOM as historical? Do you view it as inspired midrash from 16c? Or do you view it as an Expansion Model kind of way, ie some sort of actual history that is expanded greatly through the translation process? How do you see the 16c environmental elements of secret combinations, burning at stake, doctrinal stuff, etc getting into the Book of Mormon?

 

[Exiled]

13 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

That is the problem

Nobody CAN be "objective".   Face it and get over it.  There is no such thing as totally "objective" assessments of things like history.

Boiling point of water? Of course!

THE "cause" of the Civil War?  No such "objective" interpretation is possible - and one reason is that the major "cause" if the Civil War was itself based on prejudices and opinions and biases.  All human activity is.

Even seeing something AS "prejudiced" is itself "prejudiced " because it sets one standard above another and is based for a preference in favor of one criteria and against another.  You can't get around it.

I think if a cup is on a table, I can't now claim it isn't, that I don't see it, no matter how inconvenient the cup being there is to my worldview. Sometimes a certain historical view is orders of magnitude better than another view.  Sometimes a narrative is so obviously suspect that one has to put it in the category of being false. People commit fraud all the time and are convicted and sent to jail. Even in a world where we are all biased and prejudiced to a certain extent, we can still see through what is fraud and what isn't.  Madoff was an obvious fraud and those weapons of mass destruction were not there prior to the 2003 Iraq war.

[Ryan Dahle]

3 hours ago, champatsch said:

Second, arguments that can be made for 19c content can be matched by arguments for 16c content or ancient content.  I've pointed out before that it can be reasonably argued that the themes of the Book of Mormon – religious, social, and political – do not derive from Joseph Smith’s time, but instead are the prominent issues of the Protestant Reformation, that they date from the 1500s and 1600s rather than the 1800s – examples like burning people at the stake for heresy, standing before the bar of justice, secret combinations to overthrow the government, the rejection of child baptism, the sacrament as symbolic memorial and spiritual renewal, public rather than private confession, no required works of penance, and piety in living and worship.

Ultimately, then, 19c content arguments for 19c authorship are trivial and uninteresting.

The following isn't in any way a disagreement with your views. Just some additional thoughts.

One possibility, which I expressed on another thread, is that the divinely inspired text-selection process used by Nephi, Mormon, Moroni, etc. during the compiling, editing, and abridging of the BofM was intended to evoke themes that were relevant and which would resonate with Modern and Early Modern English-speaking audiences. We don't know how the Book of Mormon is being used on the other side of the veil, so assuming its audience is, or should have been, confined to post-1830 American English speakers, as many have done, is not necessarily a good assumption to begin with. It's then possible that whoever or whatever was responsible for the English translation expressed this divinely tailored thematic content in ways that would resonate with a fairly wide spectrum of English speaking audiences. This type of hypothesis can simultaneously account for the ancient form (Hebrew and Egyptian grammar, literary devices, parallelisms, etc.) and content (weights and measures, coronation ceremonies, legal conventions, etc.), as well as the Early Modern and Modern religious, political, and social themes, and the expressive language typically used to discuss these themes, as well as the systematic Early Modern syntax and morpho-syntax, and the array of EModE lexical and grammatical items which provide additional support to the syntactic evidence.

Under this type of working hypothesis, 19th century parallels--like those that have frequently been touted by groups who can't ideologically accommodate the prolific and varied evidences for the text's ancient form and content--are essentially meaningless, at least as far as dating the production and translation of the text goes. Besides, in several cases, what seemed to have been an exclusively 19th century concept, such as the text's apparent interaction with themes related to the American Revolution, have turned out to be more fundamentally ancient than modern. 

See Richard Bushman, "The Book of Mormon and the American Revolution."

In other cases, what seems to have been unique or esoteric phrasing which was supposedly derived from a specific context in Joseph Smith's environment, has turned out to be rather generic and unremarkable. 

See Book of Mormon Central, "Why Does the Book of Mormon Use the Phrase 'Secret Combinations?'"

My response is not intended to represent the view of champatsch, but it was partly in response to this question by churchistrue:

 

Quote

 

I first heard Dr. Skousen talk this way about this theory a few years ago at a conference at BYU, but I've never quite understood the position.

If these elements reflect a 16c environment, do you view the BOM as historical? Do you view it as inspired midrash from 16c? Or do you view it as an Expansion Model kind of way, ie some sort of actual history that is expanded greatly through the translation process? How do you see the 16c environmental elements of secret combinations, burning at stake, doctrinal stuff, etc getting into the Book of Mormon?

 

 

Edited August 13, 2018 by Ryan Dahle

[jkwilliams]

27 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

 

In other cases, what seems to have been unique or esoteric phrasing which was supposedly derived from a specific context in Joseph Smith's environment, has turned out to be rather generic and unremarkable. 

See Book of Mormon Central, "Why Does the Book of Mormon Use the Phrase 'Secret Combinations?'"

Hmmmm. There's a pretty decent correlation between the rise of the use of "secret combination" and political and religious conspiracy fears beginning around the mid-18th century. That it's not necessarily tied to the Freemasons doesn't mean you can "fully dismiss" it as a conceptual anachronism. I suppose that's my problem with a lot of what I read on Book of Mormon Central: it vastly overstates the case of whatever it is talking about. I suppose that's a good rhetorical device for reassuring those who are struggling, but it seems a little caution would be preferable. 

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=secret+combination&year_start=1500&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Csecret combination%3B%2Cc0

[Ryan Dahle]

 

51 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Hmmmm. There's a pretty decent correlation between the rise of the use of "secret combination" and political and religious conspiracy fears beginning around the mid-18th century. That it's not necessarily tied to the Freemasons doesn't mean you can "fully dismiss" it as a conceptual anachronism. I suppose that's my problem with a lot of what I read on Book of Mormon Central: it vastly overstates the case of whatever it is talking about. I suppose that's a good rhetorical device for reassuring those who are struggling, but it seems a little caution would be preferable. 

I'm sorry, but as you would probably phrase it, I'm just not that impressed by such correlations. My translation theory can perfectly accommodate it. And, when push comes to shove, there are way better parallels with the ancient world. I can "fully dismiss" it as a faith-deterring piece of evidence while still acknowledging the possibility that it may provide some amount of support for a competing theory. So, not a problem.

 

Edited August 13, 2018 by Ryan Dahle

[jkwilliams]

19 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I'm sorry, but as you would probably phrase it, I'm just not that impressed by such correlations. My translation theory can perfectly accommodate it. And, when push comes to shove, there are way better parallels with the ancient world. I can "fully dismiss" it as a faith-deterring piece of evidence while still acknowledging the possibility that it may provide some amount of support for a competing theory. So, not a problem.

I don't expect you to be impressed. I just don't find the BMC habit of stating absolutes as particularly helpful. And why on earth would "secret combinations" be a faith-deterring piece of evidence? This is what I mean about overstating things. 

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, Exiled said:

I think if a cup is on a table, I can't now claim it isn't, that I don't see it, no matter how inconvenient the cup being there is to my worldview. Sometimes a certain historical view is orders of magnitude better than another view.  Sometimes a narrative is so obviously suspect that one has to put it in the category of being false. People commit fraud all the time and are convicted and sent to jail. Even in a world where we are all biased and prejudiced to a certain extent, we can still see through what is fraud and what isn't.  Madoff was an obvious fraud and those weapons of mass destruction were not there prior to the 2003 Iraq war.

*facepalm*

Deciding whether or not one should be a Republican or a Democrat is a little different than deciding that a cup is on a table, and requires a different way of determining which is right.

No matter how hard I try you just can't see it.

Prescription:

Please Google "Positivism is dead", read two articles and call me in the morning.

 Better yet explain why the "placebo effect" actually works to cure people.

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, champatsch said:

First on 19c style.  Consider the modal auxiliary shall and how it is used in the Book of Mormon. (This is when shall is used as a future subjunctive marker or a subjunctive marker.) It is characteristic of 16c style. The usage diminished after that time. The Book of Mormon goes beyond the King James Bible in the use of modal shall in a number of contexts, such as after the verbs cause, command, and suffer, or after the conjunction save, or after the conjunction lest. Pseudo-biblical texts show that all this was highly unlikely for Joseph Smith to produce.

Consider the personal relative pronoun which, usage that peaked in English in the late 1500s (personal that was dominant until the end of the early modern period). Only in the earliest text or in the 1830 first edition of the Book of Mormon are we going to see the extent of personal which usage of the dictation. Joseph's natural language was dominant in who(m), followed by that (which is the dominant biblical usage). His which usage would have been rare and isn't seen in the 1832 History or personal letters. This is another element of 16c style that runs throughout the text.

Of course, non-emphatic periphrastic did is characteristic of 16c style, since the peak period in English was brief, going from the 1530s to the 1570s. The Book of Mormon has many individual periphrastic did features that match attested early modern language, strongly suggesting a 16c view of this language is appropriate. This is supported by modal shall, personal which, non–3sg {-th} inflection, obsolete vocabulary, etc.

The non–3sg {-th} inflection in the Book of Mormon (about 180 of these) has so many matching features with early modern usage, and the usage was most prevalent in the 16c, that it is another aspect of the Book of Mormon's 16c style.

Etc.

Next on 19c content.  First, content is weaker evidence than style (whose building blocks are (morpho)syntax) in relation to the authorship question. The probative value of content is dwarfed by the probative value of grammar and syntax, since the latter is mostly produced subconsciously and therefore resists manipulation to a much greater degree.  So whatever the grammar and syntax indicate about authorship, which is that Joseph Smith didn't have the implicit knowledge to produce much of it, that is what is dispositive.  The content is really of negligible probative value.

Second, arguments that can be made for 19c content can be matched by arguments for 16c content or ancient content.  I've pointed out before that it can be reasonably argued that the themes of the Book of Mormon – religious, social, and political – do not derive from Joseph Smith’s time, but instead are the prominent issues of the Protestant Reformation, that they date from the 1500s and 1600s rather than the 1800s – examples like burning people at the stake for heresy, standing before the bar of justice, secret combinations to overthrow the government, the rejection of child baptism, the sacrament as symbolic memorial and spiritual renewal, public rather than private confession, no required works of penance, and piety in living and worship.

Ultimately, then, 19c content arguments for 19c authorship are trivial and uninteresting.

 

Finally, a challenge to those who have asserted that they understand Book of Mormon grammatical and syntactic issues.  I would be interested to find out what you know about verb complementation patterns after verbs like cause, command, suffer, and make.  What is verb complementation like in the Book of Mormon and in the King James Bible and in pseudo-biblical texts, and how does it compare to early modern and modern patterns?  What are the implications for 19c authorship of the Book of Mormon?

Agree.

Even for a dummy like me the content issue has been bothering me for a long time. The text has always seemed to be arguing from a much older position than a 19th century one in my opinion. I could never figure that out.

Edited August 13, 2018 by mfbukowski

[Ryan Dahle]

4 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I don't expect you to be impressed. I just don't find the BMC habit of stating absolutes as particularly helpful.

As I explained, it is only an overstatement if you misunderstand the meaning of the statement. The statement isn't claiming there is no possible way that someone could interpret "secret combinations" as evidence in support of the BofM being a 19th century work of fiction. It's just saying that there is nothing at all compelling about this piece of evidence. It can be "fully dismissed" as a stumbling block to one's faith.

8 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

And why on earth would "secret combinations" be a faith-deterring piece of evidence?

Apparently you are unfamiliar with the fact that the phrase "secret combinations" and its association with 19th century Masonry has been seen as a supposedly noteworthy piece of evidence in favor of the BofM being 19th century fiction. I'm not sure how you would miss that, though, considering it was the premise of the KnoWhy I referenced. Maybe you have something else in mind, here.

 

[mfbukowski]

12 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

As I explained, it is only an overstatement if you misunderstand the meaning of the statement. The statement isn't claiming there is no possible way that someone could interpret "secret combinations" as evidence in support of the BofM being a 19th century work of fiction. It's just saying that there is nothing at all compelling about this piece of evidence. It can be "fully dismissed" as a stumbling block to one's faith.

Apparently you are unfamiliar with the fact that the phrase "secret combinations" and its association with 19th century Masonry has been seen as a supposedly noteworthy piece of evidence in favor of the BofM being 19th century fiction. I'm not sure how you would miss that, though, considering it was the premise of the KnoWhy I referenced. Maybe you have something else in mind, here.

 

Absolutely, most notably the death of William Morgan, just a few miles from Palmyra

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Morgan_(anti-Mason)

[champatsch]

Google's Ngram Viewer is unreliable for anything before 1750, and it doesn't offer a way to find what percentage of the documents use the phrase.

The following is a much more accurate graph to consider for "secret combination(s)":

When we combine this with EEBO data, here is what we get:

The phrase began to be used quite a bit because of the Gunpowder Plot, then during the English Civil War and beyond. Usage rates in the 1700s were lower than in the 1600s, on average.

[hope_for_things]

32 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Agree.

Even for a dummy like me the content issue has been bothering me for a long time. The text has always seemed to be arguing from a much older position than a 19th century one in my opinion. I could never figure that out.

Its not surprising to find 16th century content in a 19th century book, that is to be expected, since everything builds on itself.  What would be surprising and I would argue impossible, would be to find 19th century material in a text of 16th origins.  These kinds of anachronisms are what the proponents of the EmodE theory have failed to give a sufficient answer for.  Unless you allow for a very loose control translation, which they don't, so I'm not sure how you can have both. 

Either you have tight control which leads to specific linguistic evidences like Hebrewisms and other elements of an ancient origin, or you have a loose control which allows for Joseph to add 19th century content and linguistics to an ancient text.  The EmodE theory makes more sense if you subscribe to a loose control model in my opinion.  

[Ryan Dahle]

22 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Its not surprising to find 16th century content in a 19th century book, that is to be expected, since everything builds on itself.  What would be surprising and I would argue impossible, would be to find 19th century material in a text of 16th origins.  These kinds of anachronisms are what the proponents of the EmodE theory have failed to give a sufficient answer for.  Unless you allow for a very loose control translation, which they don't, so I'm not sure how you can have both. 

Either you have tight control which leads to specific linguistic evidences like Hebrewisms and other elements of an ancient origin, or you have a loose control which allows for Joseph to add 19th century content and linguistics to an ancient text.  The EmodE theory makes more sense if you subscribe to a loose control model in my opinion.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of tight vs. loose control. The degree of "control" has to do with how much God was involved in mitigating errors. I believe Carmack has expressed his opinion that the translation itself could be rather dynamic or complex, meaning that even though the translation was divinely revealed, it could very well have shift between literal and functional. He can speak for himself, but I'm pretty sure that is how he sees it. Or at least he is open to that being the case. In any case, that is how I see the text.

So I think you have a false dilemma on your hands. There is no reason a divinely revealed translation couldn't have high degrees of both functionality and literalness.   

Edited August 13, 2018 by Ryan Dahle