Chiasmus in the BOM

[Daniel Peterson]

In the spirit of Shades:

Is Dan Vogel non-Mormon?

[wenglund]

Ad hominem fallacy and well-poisoning in 5 (or is it 6?) little words.  My compliments.

Aren't you the same one who immediately and automatically dismisses anything critical as "anti-Mormon?" Is that not ad hominem and well-poisoning?

...and now he goes on to add this fallacy of tu quoque to the mix.

Now there's talent for you. ;-)

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[PhilipTraum]

How well should we expect the chiastic structure to remain intact after the translation from Reformed Egyptian to English? How does the it compare to any other texts' "accidental chiasmus"? Just askin'...

[Mighty Curelom]

In the spirit of Shades:

Is Dan Vogel non-Mormon?

Here's where we have a problem. Mormons cite (almost exclusively) Mormon sources, including Mormon archaeologists, Mormon historians, Mormon Arabic linguistic scholars, etc. And non-Mormons often cite non-Mormon sources, which the mormons disregard as "anti-Mormon." Is there a double standard here? Is there a symetrical relationship between Mormon and non-Mormon sources? I think not.

Mormon sources are inherently unreliable because a Mormon is defending their worldview when offering an opinion relating to Mormonism. They have a vested interest in Mormonism being true. They've spent their entire lives living it, raised children in it, and have staked their eternal salvation on it. They cannot possibly be considered objective, considering their interests in Mormonism being true.

Non-Mormons, on the other hand, have nothing to gain in offering professional opinions which contradict Mormonism. Egyptologists are not defending their religion, their worldview, or their social and cultural ancestry when they declare the BoAbr to be a funerary text. Vogel has nothing to gain by pointing out problems with alleged BoM chiasms. Archaeologists don't have a nefarious agenda to suppress evidence of pre-columbian metallurgy, or horses, for that matter, and most of them don't give a darn about (or are even aware of) Mormon claims that a band of Isrealites emigrated to America. Non-Mormon sources are disinterested sources, meaning they have no stake in Mormonism, either to refute or confirm it.

This is not to say that unobjective, anti-mormon sources don't exist. Fanatical EVs like Ed Decker have just as much to gain by attacking Mormonism as Mormons do in defending it. But that's not what we're really discussing here. I don't know anyone who would quote Ed Decker in a serious discussion about Mormonism, because both sides know he's not a disinterested source.

[sr1030]

How well should we expect the chiastic structure to remain intact after the translation from Reformed Egyptian to English? How does the it compare to any other texts' "accidental chiasmus"? Just askin'...

An excellent question here. If reformed Egyptian were hieroglyphics, would they not represent entire concepts?

sr

[enummaelish]

Here's where we have a problem. Mormons cite (almost exclusively) Mormon sources, including Mormon archaeologists, Mormon historians, Mormon Arabic linguistic scholars, etc. And non-Mormons often cite non-Mormon sources, which the Mormons disregard as "anti-Mormon." Is there a double standard here? Is there a symetrical relationship between Mormon and non-Mormon sources? I think not.

This is simply not true. I am Mormon and I have posted quite frequently on this website. I invite you, if interested, to search my posts. I do not think you will find a single citation concerning any technical issue in which I cite a Mormon scholar.

In contrast, I know off the top of my head that I have provided citations from Marc Brettler, Nahum Sarna, Gordon Wenham, Michael Fishbane, Adele Berlin, Jon Levenson, James Kugel, Patrick Miller, Wilfred Watson, Jeffery Tigay, Simon Parker, W. Randall Garr, Victor Hurowitz, Martti Nissinen, and Gwendolyn Leick (whom if you will recall you took issue with).

In fact, just look at my initial post in the active thread on Deification in the Bible. While I do not quote a single Latter-day Saint scholar, though they

[enummaelish]

Just to illustrate the fallacy perpetuated in this thread that all believing Mormons think exactly alike, I would invite critics to review my initial post on this thread.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Dr. Shades writes:

How much value do the proposed chiastic structures in the Book of Mormon carry?

Well, obviously it will vary from proposal to proposal. Did you have a specific example in mind?

Which is what I believe is the case with the Book of Mormon.

And, if you recall, this is exactly what

I said that the critics argument would be. You may note that I made the following comment:

Most critics are more likely to deny the existence of intentional chiasmus within the text (claiming that the chiastic structures are accidental).

This is exactly what your position is, so it seems that I have not misrepresented your argument.

On the other hand, since Chiasmus as a rhetorical figure is the subject of a body of literature devoted to the discussion of its identification and the methodology and criteria used to support this identification (a body to which LDS on occaision contribute, but in which LDS scholars represent a tiny fraction of the research), the question has to arise, which specific examples of proposed chiasmus in the Book of Mormon have you examined using standard methodologies to come to your conclusion that they are accidental? Suppose that I select a proposed chiasmus. Would you be willing to argue against it using a recognized method and criteria?

Ben

[Benjamin McGuire]

Dan Vogel writes:

Applying the criteria of a growing number of Bible scholars to complex chiasms proposed by Welch and others at FARMS, particularly Donald Parry, one can easily see that the vast majority depart from what the chiasmists themselves call

[PhilipTraum]

How well should we expect the chiastic structure to remain intact after the translation from Reformed Egyptian to English? How does the it compare to any other texts' "accidental chiasmus"? Just askin'...

An excellent question here. If reformed Egyptian were hieroglyphics, would they not represent entire concepts?

sr

Well, these characters are clearly not hieroglyphics.

[Daniel Peterson]

Here's where we have a problem.  Mormons cite (almost exclusively) Mormon sources, including Mormon archaeologists, Mormon historians, Mormon Arabic linguistic scholars, etc.

That is simply not true. I offer, as evidence, four pieces of my own:

Offenders for a Word: How Anti-Mormons Play Word Games to Attack the Latter-day Saints. FARMS Reprint Edition. Provo: FARMS, 1998. [xiv + 255 pp.]

[cinepro]

How well should we expect the chiastic structure to remain intact after the translation from Reformed Egyptian to English?

Due to the unknown nature of reformed Egyptian, and the sufficiently mysterious process used to get from Reformed Egyptian to English, you can't "expect" anything. Once you start "expecting" something, you veer dangerously close to formulating a falsifiable hypothesis.

It's best just to accept that Reformed Egyptian can have whatever characteristics any ancient language might or might not have, including but not limited to Egyptian or Hebrew. Also, Reformed Egyptian can be as "loose" or "specific" as needed.

The translation process can be characterized to be as loose or specific as needed as well, in spite of the fact that every account of the translation process, as well as the situation with the lost 116 pages, specify or imply a tight translation.

[Guest johnny_cat]

The translation process can be characterized to be as loose or specific as needed as well, in spite of the fact that every account of the translation process, as well as the situation with the lost 116 pages, specify or imply a tight translation.

I thought that the accounts suggested a word-for-word dictation. Does that necessarily imply a tight translation from the original?

[USU78]

Ad hominem fallacy and well-poisoning in 5 (or is it 6?) little words.  My compliments.

Aren't you the same one who immediately and automatically dismisses anything critical as "anti-Mormon?" Is that not ad hominem and well-poisoning?

"immediately and automatically" infers uncritical and unthinking.

Establish I am uncritical and unthinking in my judgments of what is and what ain't antiMormon and yours truly will happily admit to it.

USU "How long will this take?" 78

[USU78]

Ad hominem fallacy and well-poisoning in 5 (or is it 6?) little words.

[sidewinder]

I have some questions for those of you who have studied chiasms extensively. I have read virtually nothing on the subject. Let me give my gut instinct, and I am open to further education from both sides.

I asked earlier if there were chiasms in the D&C. I did some web searches last night, and there appear to be books written arguing there are. Of course, my thought, is if Joseph made up both, they would each reflect his writing style. Elements in one would be found in the other. The very little I believe I read on the Mormon argument is that chiasms weren't discovered in hebrew until after Joseph, so finding them in the BOM points to a hebrew style Joseph wasn't aware of. Of course, if there are similar chiasms in the D&C, then what does that mean? It seems to mean that either God is the source of the Hebrew chiasm and the English chiasm, or that Joseph simply made them up. The next question then would be, how could he have made something up that complex unintentionally?

At this point, it seems to me that defining what is considered intentional, and unintentional is key. Does intentional mean, he would have had to have technical knowledge in order to pull it off?

As an analogy, consider a piece of music. There are plenty of phenomenal musicians out there who come up with brilliant pieces, but without a technical understanding of what they're doing. Doesn't autism and other mental illnesses give some people rather extreme artistic abilities? Those who can appreciate the brilliance of these pieces from a technical standpoint, may not have a shot in hell at concocting one themselves. In fact, even us average musicians learn more from ear than study. I'm no Mozart, but I can listen to different kinds of musical pieces, figure out what it is I like about them, and come up with something similar. My brother, who has a much greater gift than I do, and also a strong background in music theory, can tell me things about my compositions for good or bad, that I just don't follow. But if there is some kind of theme with keys and modes that runs through a particular kind of music, and I successfully recreate that in my own pieces, that surely doesn't mean that I intended to achieve precisely those theoretical concepts.

So with chiasms, first, at what level of consciousness did the Biblical authors understand chiasms themselves?

Second, if Joseph had done quite a bit of Bible reading, if he in fact was copying large portions of the Bible, and if he was a fairly gifted author, is it reasonable to believe that in seeking to mimic the style of the Bible, that he intentionally created chiasms, but on a deeper level of consciousness than when I go back and intentionally correct spelling mistakes?

[Guest joepalmeto]

Due to the unknown nature of reformed Egyptian, and the sufficiently mysterious process used to get from Reformed Egyptian to English, you can't "expect" anything. Once you start "expecting" something, you veer dangerously close to formulating a falsifiable hypothesis.

It's best just to accept that Reformed Egyptian can have whatever characteristics any ancient language might or might not have, including but not limited to Egyptian or Hebrew. Also, Reformed Egyptian can be as "loose" or "specific" as needed.

The translation process can be characterized to be as loose or specific as needed as well, in spite of the fact that every account of the translation process, as well as the situation with the lost 116 pages, specify or imply a tight translation.

Good points cinepro.

May I add one myself?

When the ancient text DOES exist(JS Papyri) and the modern translation does not match(to the BoA), then the ancient text was merely pictures which acted as a catalyst for revelation.

[Guest johnny_cat]

When the ancient text DOES exist(JS Papyri) and the modern translation does not match(to the BoA), then the ancient text was merely pictures which acted as a catalyst for revelation.

Apparently you haven't talked to Paul O.

[Deleted snarkiness. Sorry, I'm kinda tired today.]

[Ray Callis Hatton III]

sidewinder, there are many reason why Chiasmus would be found in the D&C, many of the revelations in the D&C came during a time after translating the Book of Mormon and while he was deeply studying the Bible which the D&C says a lot concerning Bible verses, as well as many times where the Lord is speaking, from which Lord uses allusions to the Bible and use Hebraisms in his dialect. However I doubt that this form is consistent through out the D&C. The Book of Mormon on the other hand sustains this form of sophisticated Hebraisms for over 500 pages.

Chiasmus and such Hebrew literary evidences in the Book of Mormon are consistent with Hebrew authorships. Just as the Bible is full of "Herbaisms," parallelisms peculiar to Hebrew poetry, or more specifically, the "chiasmus."

A

[Daniel Peterson]

I have some questions for those of you who have studied chiasms extensively.  I have read virtually nothing on the subject.  Let me give my gut instinct, and I am open to further education from both sides.

I asked earlier if there were chiasms in the D&C.  I did some web searches last night, and there appear to be books written arguing there are.  Of course, my thought, is if Joseph made up both, they would each reflect his writing style. Elements in one would be found in the other.  The very little I believe I read on the Mormon argument is that chiasms weren't discovered in hebrew until after Joseph, so finding them in the BOM points to a hebrew style Joseph wasn't aware of.  Of course, if there are similar chiasms in the D&C, then what does that mean? It seems to mean that either God is the source of the Hebrew chiasm and the English chiasm, or that Joseph simply made them up.  The next question then would be, how could he have made something up that complex unintentionally? 

At this point, it seems to me that defining what is considered intentional, and unintentional is key. 

From two pages back:

For instance, in a careful statistical study of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon, a pair of Stanford- and Caltech-trained physicists argue that the chiasm in Alma 36 is 99.98 percent certain to have been deliberately designed, concluding that it did not arise by random chance.   

See Boyd F. Edwards and W. Farrell Edwards,

[Dan Vogel]

So Dan Vogel, having rejected the faith he once professed, has entered a realm of pure objectivity, while those who continue to profess the faith he has rejected are incapable of intellectual balance simply because of that fact.

I state unequivocally that I am fairly certain that I have biases. But that is only my subjective opinion.

[Dr. Shades]

Do you think a young man with a third grade education could plagiarize the inverted parallelism or Hebrew chiasmus? And do it consistently? Sustain this form for over 500 pages?

That's just it. I highly doubt that many people are convinced Joseph did it "consistently" or "sustained [it] for over 500 pages."

You see, the human brain is wetwired to impose pattern onto chaos. Take the moon, for example: Americans look at the full moon and see a face. Japanese people look at the moon and see a rabbit making "mochi," or rice paste. Who is right? Neither, since our brains are simply imposing order onto chaos in the manner in which our respective cultures have taught us.

So it goes with proposed chiasmus: Mormons have been socialized to expect and seek out chiasms within the Book of Mormon, so voila! Instant chiasms. Yet in reality, such chiasms in all likelihood don't actually exist.

The Bible Code is another example of this phenomenon.

[Corky Wallace]

Ray Callis Hatton III said:

Do you think a 23 year-old man with a third grade education...

Whoa, whoa, whoa.... While Joseph Smith may have only gone to school through the 3rd grade, I know of nobody that maintains that he wasn't a very, very bright individual, truly gifted in a number of regards.

Methinks you inadvertently show JS great disrespect with this wording, IMHO, even though it pertains to your point.

Weren't many (if not most) of our Founding Fathers self taught?

[Mighty Curelom]

And do you really believe that any human being on the face of the planet is purely objective?

No, I do not, nor did I make any mention of "purely objective" persons. Objectivity is not binary; a person isn't either 100% objective or 100% biased. But a person can be more, or less, objective, depending on their level of vested interest in a subject.

For example: Mr. X's belief system is predicated on the premise that the earth is flat. If it turns out that the earth is actually round, his belief system would be proven false. Mr. X has dedicated his entire life to flat-earthism, raised his kids in the religion, married in a flat-earther temple, and derives his moral system (which impacts every aspect of his life) from flat-earth doctrine. Mr. X cannot view the topic of "round earthism" objectively, because he has too much to lose if he's wrong.

Mr. Y, by contrast, has a belief system which says absolutely nothing about the shape of the earth. Flat earth, round earth, triangle earth-- it doesn't matter.

Mr. Y is inherently more objective with respect to the shape of the earth than Mr. X. Mr. X will go to virtually any lengths to prove that the earth is, indeed, flat, dismissing clear evidence to the contrary. We can't really fault him for that--he's just doing what we're "programmed" to do. But while we shouldn't look down on Mr. X, we should not accept him as an objective source of information regarding the shape of the earth.

[Ray Callis Hatton III]

Ray Callis Hatton III said:

Do you think a 23 year-old man with a third grade education...

Whoa, whoa, whoa.... While Joseph Smith may have only gone to school through the 3rd grade, I know of nobody that maintains that he wasn't a very, very bright individual, truly gifted in a number of regards.

Methinks you inadvertently show JS great disrespect with this wording, IMHO, even though it pertains to your point.

Weren't many (if not most) of our Founding Fathers self taught?

Joseph wrote in 1832, "we were deprived of the bennifit of an education suffice it to say I was mearly instructid in reading writing and the ground rules of Arithmatic which constuted my whole literary acquirements" (Jessee, 1989-, 1:5).

His mother described him as "much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the rest of the children" (Smith, p. 84).

His brother later wrote that Joseph's youth, his lack of education, and his "whole character and disposition" convinced the family that he was incapable of "giving utterance to anything but the truth" (William Smith on Mormonism, Lamoni, Iowa, 1883, pp. 9-10)

I heard that Joseph could bearly write a comprehencable letter and Emma at times had to help him read big words.

And even if a library nearby had books he could of used, we know that Joseph was not a bookworm, but was a poor farmboy largely engaged in manual labor.

So, how in the world are these anti-mormons supposing that Joseph was so well versed in the books of the world and the Bible that he could plagiarize and integrate from many sources to create a fraud so clever that it can fool highly educated people to this day with such subtleties as chiasmus, correct locations for Nahom and Bountiful, and many other aspects that demand respect.

The fact is, they still have no remotely plausible explanation for how Joseph could have fabricated First Nephi.