Book of Mormon Historicity

[Ahab 2,531]

4 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

To my bold: You been watchin' conspiracy theories lately Willis?  I happen to have just finished watching one about Hollywood and the CIA putting out messages through them.

 

Willis, huh.  Willis Stemelbow?  I thought maybe he had a stem of an arm as an elbow.  Maybe I should start calling him Willis now.

[Brant Gardner 2,467]

1 hour ago, Robert J Anderson said:

They have to believe that DNA supposedly disappeared when there isn't any evidence that that has ever happened.  How could there be when the DNA previously disappeared.

You are incorrect. I believe the case is Iceland where there are excellent records of the earliest settlers and there are many who claim descendance from those earliest settlers. The DNA remaining is from an actually rather small number of the original settlers. The rest has been lost. This is a known process. You are misusing or misunderstanding the nature of historical DNA studies. Any scientist in the field will tell you that they study what remains, and have no way to discern what was lost. Those studies are reductive, following either the single male or female line, which necessarily involves not knowing anything about any other relative. 

Think of a reverse genealogical tree. You have 16 great-grandparents. If you trace your mother's mitochondria, you miss the information from 15 of those great-grandparents. Loss happens all of the time.

[Tacenda 3,406]

10 minutes ago, Ahab said:

Willis, huh.  Willis Stemelbow?  I thought maybe he had a stem of an arm as an elbow.  Maybe I should start calling him Willis now.

It should read, "Whatchoo talkin' about Willis.

[Ahab 2,531]

9 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

It should read, "Whatchoo talkin' about Willis.

[JamesBYoung 158]

10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

So, you don't think that the Bible and Homeric Epic are equivalent works of literature with real historical underpinnings, but with unprovable divine claims?  Don't many children of the Enlightenment assume that the Bible is heavily interlarded with fictional elements?  What are these "false equivalencies" you tout?

Yes, certainly a kind of "truth."  It is often said that fiction is more truthful than non-fiction.  Those who are particularly dense won't understand what that means.

Having said that, however, it is an issue whether a literary work is just fiction.  George R. R. Martin did heavily use the War of the Roses and the geography of the British Isles to create his complex "Game of Thrones," and very successful work of fiction (complete with fire-breathing dragons).  Thus, one has to ask the question whether the BofM is likewise merely a work of fiction freely based on a contemporary knowledge of history and geography.  Making a claim that the text of the BofM is EModE only forces us to place its origin in an earlier period of time.  That doesn't change its vaunted fictional nature.

It is not only "the dialogue between the scripture and the reader" which is at issue, and not the only important issue.

You have a nasty habit of putting false assertions into others’ words.

Stop that now.

You are not the judge for the reader, the scripture, and their dialogue.

You have your opinion, and I believe it is immaterial.

[OGHoosier 795]

40 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I think others have pointed out there was a map published with nehem on it, near Joseph.  I guess we can say many people today aren't likely to know where Timbuktu is but that hardly means someone can't consult a resource and find it's location.    

Timbuktu is famous. Nihm is minutiae. Anyways, as to your point about maps published near Joseph: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/joseph-and-the-amazing-technicolor-dream-map-part-2-of-2/. It's from 2016, so it's possible that new information has come forward of which I am not aware. If so, I'd love to hear it. The long and the short of it is: the closest map with references to Nihm/Nehhm to Joseph that we can identify with certainty was 200 miles away from Palmyra and 300 miles away from Harmony. Not exactly close. So, no map with the relevant information can be demonstrated to be in his vicinity. There's the possibility that he was exposed to a map by travelling booksellers or friends, but even then, the maps don't track well with the account of Lehi's Trail. No dependency can be established that explains 1st Nephi. 

Again, my information could be out of date.  But if it is I am not aware of it. 

46 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

The other problem is, as I understand it, the location of a tomb is not in or near nehem.  It seems to be a fabricated claim by apologists that it is.  

Did I say there was a tomb? No. I did not. There are, however, prominent burial grounds in the region from multiple eras: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/joseph-and-the-amazing-technicolor-dream-map-part-1-of-2/. Ryan Thomas, a critic of the apologetic stance on Nahom, argued that NHM was referential to stonework, not burial. Lindsay, referencing Aston, responds as follows:

Quote

One of Warren Aston’s important contributions related to Nahom, apart from identifying the NHM inscription on the second and third such altars near Marib, is found in his peer-reviewed paper on the etymology of the Nihm tribal name.90 In discussing the tribal lands, centered about 40 kilometers northeast of Sana’a, he explores possible meanings of the name and its origins.” The root NHM (with the soft H) “appears in every known occurrence of the name in epigraphic South Arabian text, whether Sabaean, Hadramitic or Minean in origin. Here, it usually refers to ‘dressed masonry’ or the ‘dressing of stone by chipping.’”91 Aston proposes that ancient stoneworkers gave the tribe its NHM name, and that their stonework and masonry skills were probably employed in creating the numerous stone burial sites in the region, including their own tribal lands but possibly also the large necropolis outside of their current lands.

 

57 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I don't know that that's true.  Do we have a source that places nehem in time where it is suggested to be?

We do. The name Nihm likely derives from the name of a tribe which inhabits the area. We have confirmed that the tribe was present in the area at the same time as Nephi and Lehi's exodus with the discovery of three altars bearing the name of  a wealthy member of the tribe in a temple in nearby Marib: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1210&context=jbms

Quote

A German archaeological team under the leadership of Burkhard Vogt has been excavating the Bara<an temple in Marib, , the ancient capital of the Sabaean kingdom that lies about 70 miles due east of modern San>a, the capital of Yemen. (It is likely that the queen of Sheba began her journey to visit King Solomon from Marib.) Among the artifacts uncovered at the temple, the excavators turned up an inscribed altar that they date to the seventh or sixth centuries B.C., generally the time of Lehi and his family. A certain “Bi>athar, son of Sawåd, son of Naw>ån, the Nihmite” donated the altar to the temple.

Thus we have established that the tribe bearing the name of Nihm/Nehhm was in the right place at the right time. 

 

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

Sure.  But people do so by violating established rules of evidence.  That is certainly a problem for history as a discipline.  Anyone can look something up and tell the story of history.  But that hardly means everyone is sticking to a historical method, or the historical evidence.  

If what you said was true, there would never be any disagreements in the academic history discipline. The opposite is true. Valid evidence can be interpreted in different ways, and some evidence will be valued more highly than others, no matter who you are. 

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

Strict determinism wins the day when it comes to reasoning and logic.  I don't care that most people disagree.  

Hey, I like this! Intellectual independence! As a rather obvious holder of a minority opinion, I respect your willingness to buck the consensus when your reasoning points you in a different way. That said, I interpret what you said as saying: My reasoning and logic has led me to believe that strict determinism wins the day. That's fine, your reasoning and logic is all you've got, but other people use reason and logic too and come to different conclusions. Reason and logic are not abstracts that lead inexorably to the same conclusion, at least not with the data in its present state on this matter. 

 

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

  Your choices only appear to be your choices.  But, you simply can't help what you decide to do.  You just do it, as a consequence of what is pre-programmed into you.  

This is not the thread to get into a debate about neuroscience. If you want to, feel free to start the a thread. I'll just say that this accounts to little more than gaslighting and, instead of explaining the observed and experienced phenomenon of choice, explains it away. 

[bluebell 28,793]

15 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

Timbuktu is famous. Nihm is minutiae. Anyways, as to your point about maps published near Joseph: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/joseph-and-the-amazing-technicolor-dream-map-part-2-of-2/. It's from 2016, so it's possible that new information has come forward of which I am not aware. If so, I'd love to hear it. The long and the short of it is: the closest map with references to Nihm/Nehhm to Joseph that we can identify with certainty was 200 miles away from Palmyra and 300 miles away from Harmony. Not exactly close. So, no map with the relevant information can be demonstrated to be in his vicinity. There's the possibility that he was exposed to a map by travelling booksellers or friends, but even then, the maps don't track well with the account of Lehi's Trail. No dependency can be established that explains 1st Nephi. 

Again, my information could be out of date.  But if it is I am not aware of it. 

Did I say there was a tomb? No. I did not. There are, however, prominent burial grounds in the region from multiple eras: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/joseph-and-the-amazing-technicolor-dream-map-part-1-of-2/. Ryan Thomas, a critic of the apologetic stance on Nahom, argued that NHM was referential to stonework, not burial. Lindsay, referencing Aston, responds as follows:

 

We do. The name Nihm likely derives from the name of a tribe which inhabits the area. We have confirmed that the tribe was present in the area at the same time as Nephi and Lehi's exodus with the discovery of three altars bearing the name of  a wealthy member of the tribe in a temple in nearby Marib: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1210&context=jbms

Thus we have established that the tribe bearing the name of Nihm/Nehhm was in the right place at the right time. 

 

If what you said was true, there would never be any disagreements in the academic history discipline. The opposite is true. Valid evidence can be interpreted in different ways, and some evidence will be valued more highly than others, no matter who you are. 

Hey, I like this! Intellectual independence! As a rather obvious holder of a minority opinion, I respect your willingness to buck the consensus when your reasoning points you in a different way. That said, I interpret what you said as saying: My reasoning and logic has led me to believe that strict determinism wins the day. That's fine, your reasoning and logic is all you've got, but other people use reason and logic too and come to different conclusions. Reason and logic are not abstracts that lead inexorably to the same conclusion, at least not with the data in its present state on this matter. 

 

This is not the thread to get into a debate about neuroscience. If you want to, feel free to start the a thread. I'll just say that this accounts to little more than gaslighting and, instead of explaining the observed and experienced phenomenon of choice, explains it away. 

When I was getting my history degree, my professors loved to talk about the fights that scholars would get into at history conferences over differing interpretations of the same data.  One professor said the best was when a disagreement on whether or not the feudal system actually existed or is a modern construct came to actual blows.

This same professor would often have us read a primary source and then assign us to argue a relevant point using the source as our evidence.  Then, after hashing it out for 15-20 minutes he would make us argue the opposite side using the exact same primary source to support our new position.

It was possible to argue both sides, using the same source, every time he made us do it.  He wanted us to realize that studying history is not a search for facts (though when that happens, awesome!) but rather learning how to interpret data (that can sometimes/often lack all context) using the available relevant evidence so that you can support your interpretation and it's reasonable.  The problem is that the evidence or data is sometimes ambiguous enough that different, even opposing, interpretations can sometimes reasonably be supported equally well. 

I didn't really understand this about the study of history until I got my degree, so I understand why most people who have never studied history don't understand it either.  We've watched too many Indiana Jones/National Treasure type movies and they've warped our expectations and understanding of how these kinds of sciences and arts work.

[OGHoosier 795]

4 minutes ago, bluebell said:

One professor said the best was when a disagreement on whether or not the feudal system actually existed or is a modern construct came to actual blows.

One might say the professors...went medieval on each other.

Edited August 12, 2020 by OGHoosier

[bluebell 28,793]

7 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

One might say the professors...went medieval on each other.

[Calm 41,710]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

One professor said the best was when a disagreement on whether or not the feudal system actually existed or is a modern construct came to actual blows.

With swords or lances, I hope. 

[Robert F. Smith 18,988]

2 hours ago, JamesBYoung said:

You have a nasty habit of putting false assertions into others’ words.

Stop that now.

You are not the judge for the reader, the scripture, and their dialogue.

You have your opinion, and I believe it is immaterial.

We all bring a POV to everything we read.  Each of us has an opinion.  There is not only one, totalist POV applicable to all literature.  We are all free to make assertions, with the understanding that not everyone (perhaps no one) will share our POV.  You believe that my opinion is immaterial.  We all have our strong beliefs, but you might want to broaden your purview just a bit, James.

[Rajah Manchou 1,496]

1 hour ago, OGHoosier said:

Timbuktu is famous. Nihm is minutiae. Anyways, as to your point about maps published near Joseph: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/joseph-and-the-amazing-technicolor-dream-map-part-2-of-2/. It's from 2016, so it's possible that new information has come forward of which I am not aware. If so, I'd love to hear it. The long and the short of it is: the closest map with references to Nihm/Nehhm to Joseph that we can identify with certainty was 200 miles away from Palmyra and 300 miles away from Harmony. Not exactly close. So, no map with the relevant information can be demonstrated to be in his vicinity. There's the possibility that he was exposed to a map by travelling booksellers or friends, but even then, the maps don't track well with the account of Lehi's Trail. No dependency can be established that explains 1st Nephi. 

Again, my information could be out of date.  But if it is I am not aware of it. 

This will always be the problem with NHM as evidence. There were maps that predated the publication of the Book of Mormon and there is a possiblity, as you say, that Smith was exposed. The likelihood of a dependency increases when we allow for inputs from Cowdery, Whitmer or any number of people that were in that circle in the 1820s.

Since the Jenkins/Hamblin debate I have been in communication with Jenkins to discuss my hypothesis that Smith and Cowdery were drawing from popular speculation about the migrations of Israelite tribes while the Smiths were living near Dartmouth. In particular, I was looking at an ancient Indian text from 1765 printed in London that I suspected Smith was drawing from. Jenkins knew of the translator of this text, a well-known British diplomat, and suggested I do more leg work. I poked around in Mormon circles for a few years and was told several times that there was no possible way that Smith had access to this text because it was 'minutiae' and too distant. Then three days ago, while looking through the books available in the Manchester Library, I found that Hannah Adams had summarized that text in her "Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations".

If Nehhm was on Neibuhr’s map dating to 1792 and Nikkum was on Morse's map listed in Manchester Library (four miles from Smith), the most likely explanation for its appearance in the Book of Mormon is that one of the participants to the translation of the Book of Mormon saw it on a map.

[OGHoosier 795]

Just now, Rajah Manchou said:

This will always be the problem with NHM as evidence. There were maps that predated the publication of the Book of Mormon and there is a possiblity, as you say, that Smith was exposed. The likelihood of a dependency increases when we allow for inputs from Cowdery, Whitmer or any number of people that were in that circle in the 1820s.

Since the Jenkins/Hamblin debate I have been in communication with Jenkins to discuss my hypothesis that Smith and Cowdery were drawing from popular speculation about the migrations of Israelite tribes while the Smiths were living near Dartmouth. In particular, I was looking at an ancient Indian text from 1765 printed in London that I suspected Smith was drawing from. Jenkins knew of the translator of this text, a well-known British diplomat, and suggested I do more leg work. I poked around in Mormon circles for a few years and was told several times that there was no possible way that Smith had access to this text because it was 'minutiae' and too distant. Then three days ago, while looking through the books available in the Manchester Library, I found that Hannah Adams had summarized that text in her "Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations".

If Nehhm was on Neibuhr’s map dating to 1792 and Nikkum was on Morse's map listed in Manchester Library (four miles from Smith), the most likely explanation for its appearance in the Book of Mormon is that one of the participants to the translation of the Book of Mormon saw it on a map.

As I'm sure you know, a summary is not the same thing as the text. Nevertheless, I don't know what text you are referring to, so there's not much more I can say. 

Since I don't believe Cowdery or Whitmer were conspirators/co-creators of the text, I find arguments that use them as sources to be unconvincing. 

The consensus surrounding Neibuhr's map is that it was too far away for Smith to reliably access; a traveling copy must be posited. Then there's the relevant time depth and the fact that the maps referenced all complicate the account of the the Jerusalem-Bountiful journey in ways that the Book of Mormon text does not reflect. I'd say the theory stretches, personally, but if it satisfies you than so be it. 

[Rajah Manchou 1,496]

14 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

As I'm sure you know, a summary is not the same thing as the text. Nevertheless, I don't know what text you are referring to, so there's not much more I can say. Since I don't believe Cowdery or Whitmer were conspirators/co-creators of the text, I find arguments that use them as sources to be unconvincing. 

The next problem is that we tend to argue that "Smith was the sole translator" in one thread and that "Smith couldn't possibly be the author" in the next. I'm reading another thread right now that says Smith couldn't have written it by himself, so it must have been this or that person from the XXth century. In this thread I feel we're again limited to Smith alone producing the text.

9 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

The consensus surrounding Neibuhr's map is that it was too far away for Smith to reliably access; a traveling copy must be posited. Then there's the relevant time depth and the fact that the maps referenced all complicate the account of the the Jerusalem-Bountiful journey in ways that the Book of Mormon text does not reflect. I'd say the theory stretches, personally, but if it satisfies you than so be it. 

My personal experience with the Hannah Adams text is that the argument that it "was too far away" for Smith to access won't hold through research and scrutiny.

What is your opinion on Nikkum, found in Morse 1828?

[InCognitus 1,440]

1 hour ago, Rajah Manchou said:

There were maps that predated the publication of the Book of Mormon and there is a possiblity, as you say, that Smith was exposed. The likelihood of a dependency increases when we allow for inputs from Cowdery, Whitmer or any number of people that were in that circle in the 1820s.

When we consider all of the references that had to have been available to Joseph Smith in the late 1820's during the time the Book of Mormon was coming together, and the note taking and cross-checking that had to have occurred to create a credible history that has stood up to scholarly scrutiny for 200 years, with a growing improvement on historical credibility as time goes on, the co-conspirator idea is the only plausible way for all that supposed research to have happened.  There's just no way that Joseph could have done that all on his own.  But I keep trying to figure out a scenario where this co-conspirator theory plays out with what transpired in the events of history, not to mention what would be their motive to do that. They give Joseph Smith all the credit (calling him the "prophet") and they take the back seat and keep it all a secret?  What's in it for them?  Is it that they don't have to be the one to die as a martyr for sticking to the story?  

The main participants during the time of the translation were among the witnesses to the gold plates and the angel of God and other visions and revelations through the years, and several of them including two key players, David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery, actually left the church (with Oliver returning later).  You would think that being disaffected with the church and its leadership as they were, that it would have been a great time for them to reveal the great secret of the origin of the Book of Mormon.  But no, nothing like that happened.  There's just no way that I can see that as being even a remotely plausible scenario.

Edited August 12, 2020 by InCognitus

[Kenngo1969 7,775]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

When I was getting my history degree, my professors loved to talk about the fights that scholars would get into at history conferences over differing interpretations of the same data.  One professor said the best was when a disagreement on whether or not the feudal system actually existed or is a modern construct came to actual blows. ...

 

2 hours ago, OGHoosier said:

One might say the professors...went medieval on each other.

 

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

 

1 hour ago, Calm said:

With swords or lances, I hope. 

If so, I hope all parties were wearing armor, too!

[Calm 41,710]

1 minute ago, Kenngo1969 said:

 

 

 

If so, I hope all parties were wearing armor, too!

Or they both move very fast.

[Kenngo1969 7,775]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

Or they both move very fast.

Yeah!  Heh!

 

Edited August 12, 2020 by Kenngo1969

[Hamba Tuhan 11,189]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

When I was getting my history degree, my professors loved to talk about the fights that scholars would get into at history conferences over differing interpretations of the same data.

When I was teaching university history in America, my first lecture to first-year students was always on this point. Data do not speak for themselves; rather, they are interpreted within frameworks of understanding, and these frameworks are not empirical by nature. A blunt example made by a professor of biological anthropology at the university where I obtained my masters degree illustrates this: This man had discovered and named a number of human ancestors in Africa, but as he pointed out, the bone fragments he had found only became human ancestors because he and others had already adopted an interpretive framework that assumed that humans had non-human ancestors. Alternatively, if one didn't make that assumption, then he had merely found remnants of some extinct primates -- which is also interesting per se but a completely different story.

And that, he said, is what he had been doing his entire academic life: telling stories based on very, very few pieces of actual evidence. (He pointed out that all the bone fragments from supposed human ancestors found anywhere in the world could easily fit in the back of his Ford pick-up.) But he had no way of knowing if his stories were true; he told them because he liked them in preference to alternative stories.

Quote

Studying history is not a search for facts (though when that happens, awesome!) but rather learning how to interpret data (that can sometimes/often lack all context) using the available relevant evidence so that you can support your interpretation and it's reasonable.  The problem is that the evidence or data is sometimes ambiguous enough that different, even opposing, interpretations can sometimes reasonably be supported equally well.

Indeed. My personal perspective on Book of Mormon 'evidences' is that many of the so-called anachronisms in the book are exactly what I would expect to find in a genuine piece of 'contact literature' -- based on having read thousands of pages of such literature as part of my PhD research. Or they could just be anachronisms that Joseph Smith introduced into a fictional text. The choice is ours to make.

But when people use data to construct a different story and then claim they've discovered the 'true history' of the Church, I shake my head at their naivety ... or sometimes LOL, depending on my mood.

[Rajah Manchou 1,496]

28 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

they've discovered the 'true history' of the Church

What then is the true history of the Church, according to the data?

[Hamba Tuhan 11,189]

11 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

What then is the true history of the Church, according to the data?

That's the whole point. The data don't tell the story; we do. 

[Rajah Manchou 1,496]

35 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

That's the whole point. The data don't tell the story; we do. 

And what data we have might tell different stories? 

Where does that leave us in answering Bluebell's question? What evidence is there that the BOM is a historical record?  Is there any evidence?

Edited August 12, 2020 by Rajah Manchou

[OGHoosier 795]

2 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

The next problem is that we tend to argue that "Smith was the sole translator" in one thread and that "Smith couldn't possibly be the author" in the next. I'm reading another thread right now that says Smith couldn't have written it by himself, so it must have been this or that person from the XXth century. In this thread I feel we're again limited to Smith alone producing the text.

I freely confess to arguing within a "Smith was the sole translator" paradigm because I find a conspiracy roping in Cowdery, the Whitmers, and the Smiths untenable. It's just too broad and trial-tested and requires too much dismissal of eyewitness testimony for me to feel comfortable accepting it. The Book of Mormon manuscript is manifestly a dictation, which makes no sense if Cowdery and Whitmer are already in on it. It's unlikely that the educated Cowdery, demonstrably prone to soaring language, would be behind a book with such grammar and relatively bland didactic tendencies as the Book of Mormon - the text has literary quality but not much by way of vivid, exultant wording. Multiple Whitmer brothers appear as scribes which means the entire family would have to be in on it, expanding the circle of conspirators further. Eyewitness testimony from the Hales' and others attests the accuracy of descriptions of the translation efforts. All of this besides the sacrifices the witnesses later went through for the book and the gain they passed up. I'm sorry, I just can't believe it. 

2 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

My personal experience with the Hannah Adams text is that the argument that it "was too far away" for Smith to access won't hold through research and scrutiny.

A reflexive dismissal of "too far away" deserves additional scrutiny, sure. But this question has been researched for decades. I think enough surveying of the material has been done to give us relative confidence. 

2 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

What is your opinion on Nikkum, found in Morse 1828?

Nikkum is not found in Morse 1828. The map from Geography Made Easy as cited by Lindsay has nothing related to Nahom or Nikkum at all. Nikkum is referred to in The American Universal Geography: Or, A View of the Present State of All the Kingdoms, States, and Colonies in the Known World, vol. 2, 6th ed., Boston: Thomas and Andrews, 1812, also written by Morse and present in the Manchester Library. It is unlikely that Joseph would have used the Manchester Library; neither he nor anyone who would later be associated with the Church ever subscribed to it, thus they would not have had access. Furthermore, Palmyra was closer than Manchester and had, from 1828, a public library, though by 1828 Joseph had moved to Harmony. There were a number of bookstores he would have been able to browse, the contents of which cannot be 100% nailed down. I'm going to be honest, I'd be interested in going through the newspapers and assembling as complete a catalog as I can, but at this very minute it's late and I am tired, so I will leave that to another time. The one published inventory that I was able to nail down didn't have anything by Morse, Neibuhr, D'Anville, or anybody else providing a detailed geography of Arabia. 

Aside from access issues, I think that Nikkum wouldn't give much information away unless Joseph knew about Hebrew hard H's and when they were applicable, and he hadn't learned Hebrew yet. Furthermore, if he had been going for a phonetic Hebrew representation in the BoM, he could have put it Nachom, which indicates that the issue wasn't on his radar. Furthermore, nothing available to anyone on earth at that point in time would have been able to tell Joseph how far back the NHM association with that land went; relevant because most of the names in those maps are from significantly later. It also wouldn't account for the prominence of burial monuments and monument work within the region, relevant because the Book of Mormon specifically highlights Ishmael's burial. Finally, these maps do not provide sufficient information for the rest of Lehi's trail, and frankly contradict or complicate it at some points, which weakens their utility as sources. 

 

 

[smac97 19,335]

4 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

This will always be the problem with NHM as evidence. There were maps that predated the publication of the Book of Mormon and there is a possiblity, as you say, that Smith was exposed.

Could you clarify how this is a "problem with NHM as evidence?"  I'm not sure I understand your point.

It seems that most discussions about "evidence for the Book of Mormon" end up being much less about "evidence," and much more about assumptions about and interpretations of "evidence."  I think this thread is demonstrating that when some critics/skeptics ask for "evidence," they actually have a very specific, narrowly-tailored category of evidence in mind.  And then when a discrete, empirically testable, unassailably-beyond-dispute example of this category - and only this category - of evidence is not forthcoming, then comes the conclusory "Yeah, I thought so.  There is no evidence for the Book of Mormon."

This seems like a naive and unreasonable position to take.  This is particularly so when the interlocutor (like Jenkins) essentially pretends to be asking for any category of "evidence," when in reality he is looking for a specific, narrowly-tailored type (an indisputably "Nephite" artifact).  This becomes an exercise in equivocation, because Jenkins going from the specific absence (of an indisputably Nephite artifact) and extrapolates to an unreasonable and inaccurate generalization (that there is no evidence for the Book of Mormon at all).  

In terms of categorizing evidence, I'm sure this varies by discipline.  For example, as an attorney I tend to deal with the following types/categories of evidence (some of which overlap with each other in some ways)

• 1. Documentary Evidence
• 2. Digital Evidence
• 3. Circumstantial Evidence
• 4. Testimonial Evidence (Expert)
• 5. Testimonial Evidence (Percipient Witness)
• 6. Hearsay Evidence
• 7. Forensic Evidence
• 8. Character Evidence
• 9. Physical Evidence

These are not perfectly suited to examining the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham.  These are, after all, predominantly topics that turn principally on personal religious belief rather than forensic / anthropological / physical evidence like "Nephite" pottery shards or the BOA papyri.  That said, these books of scripture do lend themselves to some evidentiary analysis.

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Since the Jenkins/Hamblin debate I have been in communication with Jenkins to discuss my hypothesis that Smith and Cowdery were drawing from popular speculation about the migrations of Israelite tribes while the Smiths were living near Dartmouth. In particular, I was looking at an ancient Indian text from 1765 printed in London that I suspected Smith was drawing from. Jenkins knew of the translator of this text, a well-known British diplomat, and suggested I do more leg work. I poked around in Mormon circles for a few years and was told several times that there was no possible way that Smith had access to this text because it was 'minutiae' and too distant. Then three days ago, while looking through the books available in the Manchester Library, I found that Hannah Adams had summarized that text in her "Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations".

In 1982 BYU Studies published an article by Robert Paul: "Joseph Smith and the Manchester (New York) Library."  Paul included Adams' book in the library's holdings between 1812 and 1845, and if I'm reading it right he indicates that the library acquired the book prior to 1830.  Paul states that this argument (that Joseph used materials from the Manchester Library) had "wide circulation" in the early 80s, and also that it was first explored by M. Wilford Poulson, professor of psychology at BYU, in 1929.  So we're nearly a century into examining it.  

Nevertheless, Paul did not find the hypothesis that "Joseph Smith may have derived some of his religious and theological ideas from the old Manchester Rental Library, a circulating library located within five miles of the Smith family farm" to be persuasive:

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Even though Joseph Smith and others involved in the early years of the Restoration could have had access to the Manchester Library (insofar as anyone who paid the necessary membership fees could participate fully in the activities of the library), none of the principal individuals—including Joseph—became a member nor made direct use of its resources. None of the library’s secretary books, of which there are three extant at the Ontario County Historical Society, lists any patron who affiliated himself with the new church.  Moreover, if Joseph had wished to explore the literary materials of the day, it would have been unnecessary to travel the five miles to Manchester when in Palmyra, only two miles distant, there were several book-stores and at least one library, the contents of which he would have been free to peruse.
...
Clearly Joseph Smith had access to a wide range of books in that he lived in proximity to libraries and bookstores. The larger question as to whether he actually made use of these materials, either from libraries and bookstores or from privately owned sources, remains an issue which continues to elude definitive treatment. We can be reasonably certain, however, that young Joseph did not exploit the resources of the Manchester Library. It may be that Joseph’s own educational training, both formal and informal, had not prepared him at this early age to deal with libraries and bookstores generally. It is known, for instance, that Joseph briefly attended schools in Palmyra in 1818 and that he used several elementary textbooks in arithmetic and reading. There is little direct evidence that his literary skills extended much beyond a cursory acquaintance with a few books. As Joseph’s mother, Lucy Mack Smith, wrote in her biography of the Prophet, Joseph was a “remarkably quiet, well-disposed child.” He “seemed much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the rest of the rest of our children, but far more given to meditation and deep study.”

Joseph Smith eventually did acquire a modest personal library and supported the formation of the Nauvoo Library and Literary Institute, to which he donated many of his own books in 1844. Given his unlettered background, however, it is likely that during the 1820s he simply was not a part of the literary culture, that portion of the population for which books provided a substantial part of its intellectual experiences. If Joseph in fact did not avail himself of published books at this early date, however, there still remains a wide range of literary sources to which he may have had access, such as newspapers, lectures and tracts (both religious and political), and almanacs. Such sources would certainly be more in keeping with his informal educational background, and that of his frontier neighbors. The existence of these other sources may, in fact, account more directly for Joseph’s probable noninvolvement with the Manchester Library and perhaps most other libraries and bookstores of his region. 

Paul's assessment is that there is no evidence that Joseph Smith ever visited that Manchester Library, that there is no evidence at any early members of the Church visited it, that there were a number of bookstores and at least one library closer to Joseph Smith's home as compared to the Manchester Library, and that testimonial evidence from Joseph's mother and other sources indicate that Joseph's interest in literature in the 1820s was quite limited (he "seemed much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the rest of the rest of our children...").

Your theory requires that Joseph - a pretty poor fellow in the 1820s - paid a membership fee to join the Manchester Library (despite there being no record that he did), that he visited the library, found the "Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations" by Hannah Adams, perused it to find her summary of "an ancient Indian text from 1765 printed in London," and that he then incorporated some elements of that summary into the Book of Mormon.  That seems considerably less plausible than Paul's assessment.  

Anyway, what is this "ancient Indian text," and what parts do you propose Joseph incorporated into the Book of Mormon?

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If Nehhm was on Neibuhr’s map dating to 1792

That's a pretty big "if," in terms of relevance and probative value.  Per FAIR, Niebuhr's map was at Allegheny College, some 320 miles from Joseph's residence in Harmony.  

Also, per Jeff Lindsay, "had Joseph used this map, it would have offered precious little help (e.g., no hint of the Valley of Lemuel or Bountiful on the east) and would have guided him the wrong way after Nahom. What would motivate Joseph to ignore all the “help” available on the map and select only one small spot to pluck what would prove to be a very lucky place name?"

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and Nikkum was on Morse's map listed in Manchester Library (four miles from Smith), the most likely explanation for its appearance in the Book of Mormon is that one of the participants to the translation of the Book of Mormon saw it on a map.

"The most likely explanation?"  That seems like a big stretch.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited August 12, 2020 by smac97

[smac97 19,335]

1 hour ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Where does that leave us in answering Bluebell's question? What evidence is there that the BOM is a historical record?  

Asked and answered (by me and a number of others).

1 hour ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Is there any evidence?

Certainly.  Whether the evidence is sufficiently relative, probative, and "admissible" is a fairly separate issue.  But it's rather untenable to suggest that no evidence exists at all.  I have a theory as to why critics are so adamant about this point.

About 2 years ago our own Ryan Dahle started a thread that went on for 45 pages: Why Not Engage the Evidence for Historicity?  You participated in that thread, IIRC.  I perused it a few days ago.  Funny how we end up recycling the same arguments over and over.

Thanks,

-Smac