sunstoned Posted November 3, 2019 Posted November 3, 2019 13 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said: Just want to say, I miss @clarkgoble So do I.
Kevin Christensen Posted November 3, 2019 Posted November 3, 2019 On 11/2/2019 at 5:02 AM, Meadowchik said: Yes, that's the one. He refers to many issues in the beginning, it being clear that given a professional researcher's understanding of South America, the Book of Mormon representing part of its history is highly implausible: The commodities used by Book of Mormon peoples presents this implicit testable question: were there indigenous Americans of the population sizes described in the BOM with economies that regularly used wheat, barley, horses, chariots, and metallurgy? The ability of Joseph Smith to translate ancient writings and languages was also cited by Coe as a testable claim upon which the historicity of the BOM is contingent. Both of these general issues create as-yet barriers to taking the BOM seriously as a historical document. Independent of that but also damaging to its credibility as ancient are the ready explanations for its origins from within the 1800s cultural milleiu of which Joseph Smith was a part. In addition to that are the sociological conditions of the time that motivate the mythos of the Book of Mormon. So it's a book that is incongruous to indigenous history, but is congruous as a predictable contemporary product of the time that it was brought forth by Joseph Smith. In other words, it is at the level of problematic historicity claims that make it dismissible at the outset. Yet, for the record, I think Coe understood that despite such obstacles obvious to scientific scrutiny, there is still interest in searching for possible historical connections from within Mormonism. And he obviously saw inquiry itself as legitimate. Some tests are better than others. And it is difficult to test the Book of Mormon text in a meaningful when a person has not read it carefully, nor put it into the most telling context. Take the issue of whether the Book of Mormon populations regularly used horses, chariots on metallurgy. In the thousand year account in the New World setting, we have reports of 100 distinct wars. In how many of those accounts, do horses make a notable impact? In the accounts of planting and harvest, how often do horses figure? How many times are chariots actually mentioned and the book, and where and why? In how many battles are chariots used? Are their any foals, colts, mares, stallions, war horses, or farm horses? What do the chariots look like? Given that in Hebrew chariot means "riding thing" what should we be looking for? Are the accounts of metallurgy also spread equally across the entire account, or, are they localized at all? Whether the Book is incongruous to history depends both on how carefully a person reads the Book of Mormon, and exactly how and where a personal situates the Book of Mormon. I noticed that Michael Coe and John Dehlin discussed how damning the lack of any evidence for iron arrowheads and brass helmets was for the Book of Mormon, despite the rather obvious problem that the Book of Mormon does not mention either. And there is the problem of perspective. Should I start by looking for a river that matches the description of the Sidon, or should I start by looking for horse bones anywhere in heavily alkali soil? Which should be the easiest to find? Which answer would be most significant? Would the location of the river have any significant influence on where I looked for what else? Does a specific context help explain specific accounts in the Book of Mormon, as Larry Poulson argued at FAIR? Should I presume that critics such as Coe, who never so much as mention such things, are going to tell me everything worth knowing? Such as the kind of things that no one knew were there before Lidar? Should I assume that Coe's 1973 essay that mostly responded to pop culture claims in 50s and 60s texts provides everything I need to account for what is in Mormon's Codex and the recent revolutionary Lidar surveys? How about comparing the San Bartolo murals with King Benjamin's coronation, as Mark Wright as done? Should I presume that the New World portions of the Book of Mormon don't count at all in defining the problem? Should I presume that there is no meaningful difference between a Lost 10 Tribes hypothesis for New World populations, and the multiple migrations, not including the Lost 10 Tribes, plus gentiles who would be nursing fathers and mothers? FWIW Kevin Christensen Canonsburg, PA 3
Meadowchik Posted November 3, 2019 Posted November 3, 2019 26 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said: Some tests are better than others. And it is difficult to test the Book of Mormon text in a meaningful when a person has not read it carefully, nor put it into the most telling context. The context given to it by Coe was to compare it to indigenous Americans in general, this is how the Book of Mormon was presented by Joseph Smith to the world. I would argue that the reader who is reading carefully can assume that when technology and commodities are mentioned in the Book of Mormon, that they are being mentioned to establish a meaningful picture of the significant technology and commodities of the peoples being described. The Book of Mormon is presented as a journal of sorts, one that is admittedly a religious history first. And so the mentions of material matters are presumably given to update the reader--one who is reading carefully--on the temporal context of the spiritual stories. So, it is indeed fair to look for very large indigenous populations who regularly used horses, chariots, wheat, barley, and metalurgy as meaningful in their economies. There is a reason historians use commodities as a way to measure the technological advancement of societies. It is because they are meaningful to their lives and can mark fundamental shifts in their development. Once a people has something like wheat, or barley, or horses, or other modes of transport, it changes them and can lead to exponential change even. To remove those things, once they've played a significant role, will often lead to devastating consequences and those losses will inevitably be notable. I would like to emphasize again the importance of how the Book of Mormon was presented to the world by Joseph Smith. He claimed to know, through it, the most sacred and important parts of the histories of indigenous Americans! This is a most serious claim, especially when it is regarded as fact and treated as fact by those with political power and influence, and then used to guide actions in relation to indigenous Americans or others identified as being descendents of Lamanites.
Recommended Posts