Utah Lighthouse Ministry shutting down

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 hour ago, Nevo said:

And I don't expect we will ever see LDS agreement that ... Jesus was originally a disciple of John the Baptist, didn't organize a church, and mistakenly expected the imminent end of the world.

For which we can be deeply grateful!

[Pyreaux]

18 hours ago, Nevo said:

As you know, critical biblical scholarship tends to undermine biblical literalism, which is baked into a lot of Latter-day Saint scripture and doctrine. So, Mormonism is obviously going to be a lot more vulnerable than most mainline Protestant denominations if we discard, say, a literal Adam and Eve, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Elijah, etc. Or a literal Tower of Babel and confusion of languages. Or the idea that ancient prophets wrote books or that a proto-Hebrew Bible existed in 600 BC.

Most Latter-day Saint scholars can't bring themselves to say that Paul didn't write Hebrews, let alone 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, or Ephesians. And I don't expect we will ever see LDS agreement that John son of Zebedee didn't author the Gospel of John. Or that Jesus didn't say the "I Am" sayings or deliver the discourses attributed to him in the Fourth Gospel. Or that the Sermon on the Mount is a Matthean composition. Or that Jesus was originally a disciple of John the Baptist, didn't organize a church, and mistakenly expected the imminent end of the world.

Nan. I can't recall exactly who right now, a few LDS scholars, and at least myself are open to Genesis prior to Abraham; Adam, Enoch, and Noah being apocalyptical, or archetypal figures, though representing real primeval ancestors, that books were orally transmitted prior 600 BC, the author of Hebrews is unknown, we'll simply say its Paul from custom. Right now, I can only recall Margaret Barker saying stuff like that right now, but she's not an LDS scholar. We are keenly aware of Bible flaws and corruption; we mention all the time. John didn't write the Comma Johanneum as proof of corruption.

We have no reason to yield to some of the conjectures counter to custom when it's subjective. Jesus ordained clergy that oversaw assemblies, AKA a church, and He correctly expected the end of age, the apostolic mission, to be imminent, AKA apostacy.

 

Edited December 5, 2022 by Pyreaux

[Nevo]

1 hour ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

For which we can be deeply grateful!

Fair enough.

But it is interesting to me that people in other Christian traditions can hold these mainstream historical views and remain committed to their faith (two notable examples are Albert Schweitzer and John P. Meier). Latter-day Saint belief, it seems, is more brittle.

 

[Pyreaux]

3 hours ago, Nevo said:

Fair enough.

But it is interesting to me that people in other Christian traditions can hold these mainstream historical views and remain committed to their faith (two notable examples are Albert Schweitzer and John P. Meier). Latter-day Saint belief, it seems, is more brittle.

 

We hang on to some tradition tightly, but we threw out many mainstream historical views for our revelations, which has modernly paid off for us, the latest scholarly work on the discoveries of the past few decades rendered a history parallel to our views. Other Christian scholarship has been completely undermined by the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Bible is not complete nor untampered with as we've been saying. We've long had the academic freedom of not having a closed canon, nor sola scriptura doctrine, for example. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

8 hours ago, Nevo said:

Latter-day Saint belief, it seems, is more brittle.

I think the word I would choose is independent. It demands to stand on its own, regardless of which way the scholarly doctrinal winds are currently blowing.

Edited December 5, 2022 by Hamba Tuhan

[Eschaton]

2 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I think the word I would choose is independent. It demands to stand on its own, regardless of which way the scholarly doctrinal winds are currently blowing.

Scholarship and doctrine are two different worlds. But I know what Nevo is saying. If you are steeped in mainstream Biblical scholarship, you'll notice anachronisms on just about every page of the Book of Mormon. Mormonism is not unique in the idea of trying to project modern Christian ideas onto ancient pre-Christian peoples (even ancient people like Paul projected his own beliefs onto the past), but because these ideas are baked into LDS scripture, the tradition is indeed more inflexible about incorporating new findings into itself, unless it is the rare occasion where those new findings are concordant with existing beliefs. 

Edit: I'd say this is why Margaret Barker is so frequently quoted by some LDS apologists, despite her being quite on the fringes of academic scholarship - she too projects Christianity onto the pre-Christian world. 

Edited December 5, 2022 by Eschaton

[Analytics]

On 12/3/2022 at 10:44 AM, juliann said:

Then why were you making an issue of my saying two scholars?

I didn't make an issue of you saying two scholars.

On 12/3/2022 at 10:44 AM, juliann said:

The Bible is probably the best defense for Mormon theology that exists.

If that's true, the best defense for Mormon theology is extraordinarily weak.

On 12/3/2022 at 10:44 AM, juliann said:

Do you think anyone on a message board is unfamiliar with critics?

At least a few folks here are unfamiliar with critics if they think the state of the debate is, "we are the scholarly now, we have the PHDs, we embrace new discoveries that neo-critics are unequipped to handle."

On 12/3/2022 at 10:44 AM, juliann said:

You tried to do this by excluding those who have studied the Bible and retained if not strengthened their testimonies by throwing up a few anecdotes and claiming victory without acknowledging the many more scholars who did just fine with it. What the heck do you think is in the Bible...or liberal schools...that defies Mormonism more than any other religion? 

It's interesting that you qualified this question with "more than any other religion." If your point is that your religion is no more falser than anybody else's, then I agree with you. But should the truthfulness of religions be graded on the curve?

Anyway, answering your question about what in the heck I think is in the Bible, I'll quote the inimitable words of Christopher Hitchens, "The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals." (Hitchens, Christopher. god Is Not Great (pp. 174-175).). 

Of course the vast majority of people who say they believe in the Bible really don't. Quoting Hitchens again: "Everywhere I speak, I find that the faithful go to church for a mixture of reasons, from social to charitable to ethnic, and take their beliefs à la carte or cafeteria-style, choosing the bits they like and discarding the rest." (Hitchens, Christopher. god Is Not Great (p. 493).)

[Analytics]

On 12/3/2022 at 12:08 PM, Kevin Christensen said:

What I noticed in reading Professor Wright's arguments is that his fixed systems of propositions were crucial to his arguments and his self-reflection on the possibility of beams in his own eyes were reminscient of those made by the philosopher of science, Bacon, in his devastating attacks on Copernicus.

Gallio and Wright both looked carefully at the evidence and followed where it led. Both changed their minds about things based upon the evidence. And both got in trouble with their churches for doing so. But Wright is the one who lacks self-reflection. Not you. Got it.

On 12/3/2022 at 12:08 PM, Kevin Christensen said:

The underlying assumption here, just as crucial to the conclusions reached here as are Bacon's assumptions in rejecting Copernicus is, "It's not the way I would have arranged things if I were God." 

One could assume that if somebody were making a new-and-improved translation of Isaiah that was based on an authentic, ancient manuscript, it would look like an accurate translation of an ancient manuscript. For example, it would fix most of the grave deficiencies we now know exist in the KJV. And it wouldn't change things that were translated fine in the KJV. If it did happen to change or add something, the new words would reflect Hebrew semantics, syntax and style. One could assume that.

Alternatively, one could assume that God wanted the Book of Mormon to look like it was written in the 19th century by somebody who didn't know how to translate ancient languages.

There are multiple paradigms that are equally consistent with the evidence. The question is which paradigm is simplest. 

Quoting Wright:

Quote

The simplest and most logical explanation is that the BM Isaiah derives directly from the KJV text with some secondary modifications and does not derive from an ancient text through translation.

The larger net of evidence supports this conclusion. Other studies have demonstrated the use of the KJV in the composition of the BM. Stan Larson has shown that the "Sermon on the Mount" materials in 3 Nephi 12:1-14:27 are a revision of the KJV Matthew 5:3-7:27.¹¹² One can add to his insights the observation that several of the variants there are connected with words italicized in the KJV.¹¹³ In another study I have shown that Smith used the New Testament epistle to the Hebrews in composing Alma 12-13.¹¹⁴ This is an anachronism in the BM text, and the language of the parallels reflects the KJV formulation.

Smith's revision of the Bible also lends credence to the conclusion here. This work was not a "translation," even though so termed by Smith, but a reworking of the KJV. Though in places it has more substantial plusses than the BM Isaiah (chapter-length sometimes), its basic character is the same as the BM Isaiah. Many variants are associated with italics, develop from English polysemy, contradict Hebrew and Greek language and style, smooth out contextual and theological difficulties, and explain unclear words and ideas. The JSR, too, has more plusses than minuses. It is also noteworthy that work on the JSR began almost immediately after work on the BM. When the BM Isaiah is seen to be a revision of the KJV, the chronological proximity of the two works makes perfect sense. One can even conclude that work on the BM Isaiah was the training ground for work on the JSR.

More broadly, the conclusion of this paper is supported by--and in turn supports--arguments that show that the whole of the BM is not an ancient work but a composition by Smith himself.¹¹⁵ The book displays many cultural, ideational, and textual anachronisms. New and Old World archaeological finds have not been satisfactorily or successfully correlated with it. And the mode of production claimed by tradition is most extraordinary--indeed fantastic--and is not verifiable scientifically.

Two anachronisms in the book relate to the issue of Isaiah. First, critical scholars with good reason have concluded that much of the biblical book, especially chapters 40-66, do not come from the eight century BCE prophet Isaiah, but from a later time.¹¹⁶ For example, the temporal perspective in chapters 40-55 (from which several of the BM Isaiah chapters come) is that of about 540 BCE. The people have recently suffered destruction at the hands of the Babylonians (in 586 BCE).¹¹⁷ The temple, Jerusalem, and other cities have been destroyed and need rebuilding^.118 Many of the people are now in Mesopotamia, in captivity; but Babylonian might is waning¹¹⁹ and release from captivity is imminent.¹²⁰ Cyrus, the Persian king, is the political leader who will effect the release (c. 538 BCE).¹²¹ It is not just the mention of specific sixth-centry BCE historical figures and events that pin these chapters to that time. Also telling is that precision in description ceases at this point in time. The era after the release is described in general terms, and this description is in error since bounteous blessing did not ensue.¹²² The lack of fulfillment gave Jewish, Christian and Mormon interpreters cause to reapply the chapters to later events. That Isaiah 40-55 were written after the middle of the sixth century BCE is also indicated by their perfect conceptual fit between other prophetic works written in the first half of the sixth century BCE (Jeremiah and Ezekiel) and those written at the end of this century (Haggai and Zechariah 1-8). This dating for this part of Isaiah means it could not have been available to Lehi's family when they, according to the story, left for the New World around 600 BCE--Nephi, Jacob, Abinadi, and Noah's false priests could not have cited from it.¹²³  

The second anachronism is the BM's interpretation of Isaiah.  This, which generally follows cited portions of Isaiah (cf. 1 Ne 22; 2 Ne 9-10, 25-33; Mos 12:25-31; 3 Ne 23:1-5) though is sometimes interspersed  within the citiation (cf. 2 Ne 6:6-18; 26:15-27:35), for the most part reinterprets the Isaiah passages to apply to the time of Joseph Smith and the course of Jewish and Christian history up to his time.  This reflects the compositional horizon of the book, just as various passages in Second Isaiah (noted above) reflect that work's compositional horizon.  Indeed, the course of history laid out in the interpretation and elsewhere in the BM is clear and defined up to the time of the appearance of the BM, but is quite unspecific about events thereafter, just as Second Isaiah is quite indefinite about events after about 540 BCE.  Furthermore, the BM shares perceptions about the meaning of Isaiah and methods of prophetic interpretation that were extant among students and readers of Isaiah in the decades just before the BM came forth.  This chronological horizon and these interpretive views are evidence that the interpretation of Isaiah in the BM is the work of Smith himself.^123a

That the BM is not an ancient work further coincides with critical study which shows that other supposedly ancient works produced by Smith, such as the revision of the Bible, the Book of Abraham, and Temple Endowment, do not come from ancient sources but grow out of nineteenth century influences and sources.¹²⁴

https://user.xmission.com/~research/central/isabm6.html#conclusions

 

[OGHoosier]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

One could assume that if somebody were making a new-and-improved translation of Isaiah that was based on an authentic, ancient manuscript, it would look like an accurate translation of an ancient manuscript. For example, it would fix most of the grave deficiencies we now know exist in the KJV. And it wouldn't change things that were translated fine in the KJV. If it did happen to change or add something, the new words would reflect Hebrew semantics, syntax and style. One could assume that.

Alternatively, one could assume that God wanted the Book of Mormon to look like it was written in the 19th century by somebody who didn't know how to translate ancient languages.

There are multiple paradigms that are equally consistent with the evidence. The question is which paradigm is simplest. 

A question. What is the difference between simple and intuitive?

Because in this case I don't see one paradigm as being simpler in terms of the original formulation of Ockham's Razor: hypotheses should not be multiplied without necessity. In my view, the Book of Mormon cannot be properly evaluated without considering the wider phenomenon of Mormonism in toto; isolating it from the rest of the phenomenon seems natural to those of a reductive bent, but such approaches do violence to the way the text functions in broader context. Both critical and faithful interpretations require so many additional hypotheses to support the general worldview that the calculus quickly becomes untenable, so dependent on background expectations that it can't really be universalized. 

It seems to me that Wright's finding against the Book of Mormon is dependent on intuitive concepts of "translation", basically the vernacular understanding of the term or the "first thing that pops into our minds." But this is where Kevin's critique hits home: this vernacular term is the "fixed system of propositions" which he calls out. What is intuitive to us = our preexisting system of propositions. All too often it seems that Ockham's Razor is invoked on behalf of what "feels simpler" - but which is in reality just intuitive. 

Let's take one example from Wright's own paper: the reference to the JST. With a magisterial sweep of the hand, Wright dismisses Smith's interpretive categories and replaces them with his own: "This work was not a 'translation,' even though so termed by Smith, but a reworking of the KJV." Wright is entitled to do so, but if I'm going to understand the Book of Mormon and the dialogue surrounding it, Joseph Smith's interpretive categories seem kinda important? If I'm going to evaluate the text as a translation, don't I need to consider what Joseph Smith meant by "translation"? The JST, which Joseph Smith insisted was a translation, offers another interpretation of "translation" which is more lateral in nature; modern terminology might call it "redaction" or "adaptation to a new audience", but Smith unambiguously includes it in the category of translation, which demotivates Wright's whole critique that the Book of Mormon is not a "translation." 

And all of this assumes that his supporting evidence is granted from the start. I don't grant him the clean divisions of Isaiah, nor do I grant his hypothesis on Hebrews/Alma12-13. Nor do I think that Joseph following KJV on the Sermon on the Temple is indicative of anything other than modern translation practice of incorporating earlier authoritative translations. 

Wright has his ideas of what a translation looks like. They're intuitive. But they are not simpler. And nobody is bound by them. 

Edited December 5, 2022 by OGHoosier

[Analytics]

13 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

A question. What is the difference between simple and intuitive?

Because in this case I don't see one paradigm as being simpler in terms of the original formulation of Ockham's Razor: hypotheses should not be multiplied without necessity. In my view, the Book of Mormon cannot be properly evaluated without considering the wider phenomenon of Mormonism in toto; isolating it from the rest of the phenomenon seems natural to those of a reductive bent, but such approaches do violence to the way the text functions in broader context. Both critical and faithful interpretations require so many additional hypotheses to support the general worldview that the calculus quickly becomes untenable, so dependent on background expectations that it can't really be universalized. 

Just to keep this in context, the reason I evoked David P. Wright and David Bokovoy was to make a couple of counter examples to the claim that "neo-critics" are "unequipped" to deal with modern apologists because your side has the PhDs and mine doesn't. 

Maybe the truth-claims of the Church are all interdependent, but the Book of Mormon can be evaluated on its own terms. 

13 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

It seems to me that Wright's finding against the Book of Mormon is dependent on intuitive concepts of "translation", basically the vernacular understanding of the term or the "first thing that pops into our minds." But this is where Kevin's critique hits home: this vernacular term is the "fixed system of propositions" which he calls out. What is intuitive to us = our preexisting system of propositions. All too often it seems that Ockham's Razor is invoked on behalf of what "feels simpler" - but which is in reality just intuitive. 

Let's remember what we are talking about. Joseph Smith claimed he had a pristine ancient manuscript in the form of golden plates with writing. He claimed the Book of Mormon is the English translation of what was written on those plates. 

Do modern apologists now concede that the Book of Mormon is not an English translation of what was written on the golden plates?

13 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

Wright has his ideas of what a translation looks like. They're intuitive. But they are not simpler. And nobody is bound by them. 

You are free to believe whatever you want. Of course. 

But observing you can rationalize your way out of Wright's ideas isn't the same thing as saying, "we are the scholarly now, we have the PHDs, we embrace new discoveries that neo-critics are unequipped to handle."

[Nevo]

1 hour ago, OGHoosier said:

I don't grant him the clean divisions of Isaiah, nor do I grant his hypothesis on Hebrews/Alma12-13.

Have you read Wright's article in New Approaches? I ask because the book is out of print and no longer available on Signature Books' website. [Edit: Never mind. I see it's on archive.org now.]

Royal Skousen and Grant Hardy found Wright's hypothesis convincing, and Hardy detailed the connection himself in Understanding the Book of Mormon (see pp. 255–258), so I'm curious to know what exactly you disagree with. 

Edited December 5, 2022 by Nevo

[OGHoosier]

16 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Maybe the truth-claims of the Church are all interdependent, but the Book of Mormon can be evaluated on its own terms. 

No, it really can't, not without analyzing its actual impact and practice. Reductionism is a bad approach to the analysis of whole systems, where a single factor's participation in the system changes how the factor itself ought to be interpreted. 

16 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Let's remember what we are talking about. Joseph Smith claimed he had a pristine ancient manuscript in the form of golden plates with writing. He claimed the Book of Mormon is the English translation of what was written on those plates. 

Do modern apologists now concede that the Book of Mormon is not an English translation of what was written on the golden plates?

This response misses the central question. Royal Skousen, for instance, believes that the English text is a "creative and cultural translation" of the plate text, not a direct rendering of the plate text. @Brant Gardner and Blake Ostler have been open (though not necessarily to the same degree) to aspects of the Book of Mormon being updated for modern audiences. Sam Brown views the translation as an example of glossalalia rather than xenoglossia. 

The question of whether or not the Book of Mormon is a translation is dependent on what counts as a "translation."

Put it another way. When I was a kid, I read abridged copies of many classic books. One of them was The Three Musketeers. In the abridged version for kids, there's no Constance Bonacieux - her character is replaced by a more generic "Mademoiselle". D'Artagnan never has an affair with her, just a chaste courtship. He ends up marrying her at the end. So, imagine my surprise when I checked out a copy of The Three Musketeers from the library later on and found that not only was there no Mademoiselle, there was a Constance Bonacieux, she's married to someone else, and she gets murdered by Milady towards the end of the book. Her death is a very important point of D'Artagnan's arc and really drives the melancholy and sense of futility which characterizes the conclusion of the story. It was deleted by the abridger, who rewrote the conclusion to better accomplish his purposes - introducing kids to great literature in a way they will appreciate.

I've been aware of that difference for a while, but I've always considered the kid's version to nevertheless be The Three Musketeers. It's the same basic story but significantly adapted to fit the audience and the message, as all acts of communication are. It has not been difficult, thus, for me to consider the Book of Mormon in a similar light. 

[Kevin Christensen]

17 hours ago, Nevo said:

Jackson didn't fault Nibley for failing to be a neutral or disinterested observer, or for failing to accurately mirror the past "as it really was." Rather, he faulted him for doing bad scholarship, for flattening and distorting and taking things out of context to suit his own purposes (which Nibley absolutely did do in Old Testament Studies and elsewhere.)

Novick never endorsed "anything goes" history. As he explained in That Noble Dream: "It certainly is true that with respect to particular issues, for example, the profitability of slavery, historians bring specialized knowledge and techniques to bear; that their conclusions are largely governed by historians' rules of evidence and inference which they have internalized, and which the historical community monitors; that whatever their backgrounds, whatever their desires, whatever they'd like to believe is true about the profitability of slavery, what they ultimately wind up concluding is powerfully constrained by all of these factors" (Novick, That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession [New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988], 10).

Novick subsequently clarified that the "the objectivity question" he raised was "in no sense a methodological question." He was emphatically not promoting a "relativist methodological approach." He went on to explain: "If two historians, one a 'nihilist' relativist and the other a dyed-in-the-wool objectivist, set out to produce a history of the Civil War, or a biography of George Washington, there is nothing about their 'relativism' or 'objectivism' per se that would lead them to do their research differently, frame their narrative or analysis differently, or, indeed, prevent their writing identical accounts" (Novick, "My Correct Views on Everything," The American Historical Review 96, no. 3 [June 1991]: 700; emphasis in original). 

Elizabeth Clark has made the same point: "The critique of objectivism . . . does not imply that historians need tolerate lazy scholarship or fudged footnotes, or that counterevidence can be conveniently overlooked" (Elizabeth A. Clark, History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004], 157). 

I think it is highly doubtful that Novick would have sided with Nibley over Jackson, particularly given Novick's unflattering comments about "the old Mormon historians" in his Sunstone talk (starting at 52:55), which applies to much of Nibley's work as well.

I didn't find Jackson's critique of Nibley's scholarship to be an outstanding example of good scholarship.  I retain a great fondness of most of the essays in Old Testament and Related Studies, especially "Before Adam" and "Patriarchy and Matriarchy", and I  and remain tremendously impressed by Nibley's work and achievements, though having no illusions about him being perfect.  I I have read two or three things by Jackson that I think are pretty good, and of the book I have of his, his 2001 The Restored Gospel and the Book of Genesis, let's just say, it's not particularly exciting.  But given that I also have Bradshaw's In God's Image and Likeness, I do have more interesting and exciting resources at hand. I have seen some critiques of specific Nibley arguments that I do find bother notable and persuasive, and in those cases, those making the case do not overgeneralize to dismiss everything.  For instance, I can cite Will Schryver's case that regarding the nature of the Egyptian papers compared to Nibley's long essay in BYU Studies, and of Tim Barker's case regarding the implications of the some characters from the Joseph Smith Papyrus being employed to fill in gaps in of Facsimile 2, which Nibley, and everyone else, for that matter, had overlooked.  In his review of The Prophetic Book of Mormon, while also giving a few specific examples of Nibley mistakes to acknowledge that he was not infallible, Daniel Peterson reports a very different experience with in checking background sources for the essay on the same "Qumran and the Companions of the Cave" article reprinted in Old Testament and Related Studies than does Jackson reports in saying "I found myself time and time again disagreeing with this books esoteric interpretations of qumran passages." (Jackson, BYU Studies review of Old Testament and Related Studies, 116).  Peterson's experience offers a notable contrast.

Quote

On an earlier occasion, while still in graduate school, I decided for a term paper to review and extend the Arabic research Nibley had done in his 1964 article, "Qumran and 'The Companions of the Cave.' "10 Arabic, I reasoned, was my specialty, not his, and so it would be comparatively easy and perhaps even useful to build on the foundation he had laid down. I soon found,
however, that it would be the undertaking of more than a mere academic quarter even to read and assimilate the Arabic sources Nibley had already used, to say nothing of finding further ones. References abounded in his article not only to his favorite Arabic writer, al-Thaclabi of Nishapiir, but also to al-Tabari, Ibo Kath1r, al-QUI1ubi, al-Qamiii, al-Bay<jawi, al-Nasafi, al-l:Iijazi,
al-Zamakhshari, al-Shirbini, and others. I was deeply impressed, and my high estimate of his work grew all the more as I saw how accurately he had interpreted his sources. 

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr/vol2/iss1/21/

Most of my published LDS essays for the past 30 years have been built on the notion that while there are no rules governing choice between paradigms, there are the constraining values of puzzle definition and testability, accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, fruitfulness, simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise.  As Kuhn says, "It makes a great deal of sense of ask, which of two competing paradigms explains the facts better."  But even that does not mean you should not seriously consider the how and why behind which facts a person selects to emphasize and to consider the conceptual and social framework behind how a person proposes to define and measure better.  I've also paid close attention to the vice of positivism, the ideology that proclaims first and formost that it has no ideology, that prejudice is something that happens to other people, especially to believers.  For a convenient discussion, see Barbour here:  

https://www.religion-online.org/book-chapter/chapter-6-paradigms-in-science/

Kuhn defended himself against charges of relativism in his second edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (especially 205-207), and Ian Barbour's Myth's Model's and Paradigms also weighs in at length and in detail. 

For the mildly curious, Novick's specific comments on the 80s situation with Old and New LDS Historians were these:

Quote

All this brings me, at last, to why, in the sense just explicated, the Old Historians are more objective than the New. The very dogmatism, and on the whole a consistent and coherent dogmatism, of the Old Historians provides at least a sketch of a paradigmatic historical discipline. They have a consensual research agenda—producing work that is faith promoting. They have a consistent metatheoretical and ontological standpoint based on neoorthodox, literal, correlated Mormon doctrine. They have relatively clear criteria for evaluating evidence, privileging accounts and sacred texts (revelations by those authorized to receive them, and testimony in the Mormon sense), disregarding, in good conscience, evidence that contradicted these, disregarding, in particular, reports from anti-Mormon sources.

    The items in their scientific vocabulary (let me again use the example of prophet and revelation) have clear and unambiguous meanings. They have the strength of will, the requisite certitude to insist that discrepant or anomalous findings that contradict the governing paradigm be swept aside. They also have the strength of will, and certainly the temperament, to insist, as a condition of entry to the legitimate community of discourse, on conformity to the dictates of the paradigm. All of these, I submit, are the preconditions for establishing a paradigmatic discipline of Mormon history capable of generating objective findings.

    The New Historians, by contrast, fare very badly in all of these crucial respects. In every one they equivocate when what is called for is certitude and clarity. On the crucial questions of the privileging of naturalistic or faithful explanation and the status of sacred texts, they are particularly wobbly. Time and again, in going though their works, I have tried to get a clear fix on where they stood on these questions and found myself lost in fog. The purpose of their scholarship, their research program, if you will, is very ambiguous.

    On the one hand, they repeatedly distance themselves from the Old Historians’ faith-promoting agenda. Yet to this outsider, it appears that this is precisely what they are producing, differing only tacitly from their elder brethren. Their emphasis is on damage control through prudent retreat from what they see as indefensible outposts, the better to defend the central stronghold. Finally, most crippling, most of them seem to endorse pluralistic and tolerant norms. Such norms are quite incompatible with the monism and rigidity of outlook that Kuhn has taught us are needed to sustain the kind of autocratic, paradigm-governed community of inquiry that alone can generate objective findings. (Peter Novick, “Why the Old Mormon Historians Are More Objective Than the New.” A talk delivered at the 1989 Sunstone Symposium held at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, pages 9-10 of typescript in my possession.)

The most notable feature of the current Church backed Histories, 33 years after Novick's talk, is the Joseph Smith Papers Project, which is making the originals of everything available to everyone.  The most dominant feature of the project is to deal with the criticism that the church has to suppress the "historical facts" to survive.   The Joseph Smith Papers, as well as the Mountain Meadows project demonstrate the same charter, the same determination to put everything available out there for anyone who truly wants to understand, something that takes more effort and patience than "seeking to make a man an offender for a word."  One of the features of the old FARMS approach and the current Interpreter appoach  is to deal directly and openly with critics and criticism, which means openly talking specifics rather than ignoring or suppressing discussion, and not, as the contrary narrative tries to claim, relying exclusively on character assassination.

The one person notable for advocating an "anything goes" approach, not to history, but to science was Paul Feyerband in Against Method, making the case "the only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes." (xxix) As an example, he closely examines Galileo's scientific and rhetorical strategies in defending Copernicus, and he observes that "the Church at the time of Galileo not only kept closer to reason as defined then and, in part, even now: it also considered the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's views..." (xxxi).

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

Edited December 5, 2022 by Kevin Christensen

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, OGHoosier said:

No, it really can't, not without analyzing its actual impact and practice. Reductionism is a bad approach to the analysis of whole systems...

I'm not talking about analyzing a whole system. I'm talking about analyzing whether or not the Book of Mormon is what Joseph Smith claimed it was.

1 hour ago, OGHoosier said:

This response misses the central question. Royal Skousen, for instance, believes that the English text is a "creative and cultural translation" of the plate text, not a direct rendering of the plate text. @Brant Gardner and Blake Ostler have been open (though not necessarily to the same degree) to aspects of the Book of Mormon being updated for modern audiences. Sam Brown views the translation as an example of glossalalia rather than xenoglossia. 

Which of these options best represents what Joseph Smith said about it?

The answer, of course, is none of them. Joseph Smith claimed the Book of Mormon is, in your words, "a direct rendering of the plate text." The reason these various scholars are proposing these various esoteric and contradictory theories of what "translates" means is because we now know that the Book of Mormon isn't what Joseph Smith claimed it was.

[Benjamin McGuire]

5 hours ago, Eschaton said:

Scholarship and doctrine are two different worlds. But I know what Nevo is saying. If you are steeped in mainstream Biblical scholarship, you'll notice anachronisms on just about every page of the Book of Mormon.

It is this sort of statement that drives me a little nuts. Why? Because we all know that the Book of Mormon was produced in 1829-1830. No one questions this. So for something to be anachronistic in the way that you suggest, it has to be something that cannot be attributed to the production of the English text of the Book of Mormon and must be attributed to the alleged ancient source text. And this creates a problem. The problem with the idea of anachronisms is always connected to context. That is, if an ancient manuscript has things which are out of place in one context - that is, an anachronism - they move on to find the context in which those things fit - and in this way, resolve the anachronism. Mormons, on the other hand, routinely conflate the modern translation with the ancient source. So do critics of the Church. Biblical scholars, would, I would hope, be able to differentiate between the two.

What would makes an anachronism in the Book of Mormon? It would be something in the text which couldn't be attributed to the idea that the text is a modern translation of an ancient work. And frankly, there is very little that has been done to tackle this issue on those terms. What you are suggesting is something akin to a biblical scholar reading the King James translation and then claiming that there are anachronisms on every page. No biblical scholar does this because they recognize that the King James is a translation of earlier sources, and the anachronisms come as part of the translation process. For the Book of Mormon, for what you are suggesting to be a relevant issue, it would be necessary to find problems that couldn't be attributed to the modern translation - and this isn't something that has had much time given to it.

[Eschaton]

31 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

It is this sort of statement that drives me a little nuts. Why? Because we all know that the Book of Mormon was produced in 1829-1830. No one questions this. So for something to be anachronistic in the way that you suggest, it has to be something that cannot be attributed to the production of the English text of the Book of Mormon and must be attributed to the alleged ancient source text. And this creates a problem. The problem with the idea of anachronisms is always connected to context. That is, if an ancient manuscript has things which are out of place in one context - that is, an anachronism - they move on to find the context in which those things fit - and in this way, resolve the anachronism. Mormons, on the other hand, routinely conflate the modern translation with the ancient source. So do critics of the Church. Biblical scholars, would, I would hope, be able to differentiate between the two.

What would makes an anachronism in the Book of Mormon? It would be something in the text which couldn't be attributed to the idea that the text is a modern translation of an ancient work. And frankly, there is very little that has been done to tackle this issue on those terms. What you are suggesting is something akin to a biblical scholar reading the King James translation and then claiming that there are anachronisms on every page. No biblical scholar does this because they recognize that the King James is a translation of earlier sources, and the anachronisms come as part of the translation process. For the Book of Mormon, for what you are suggesting to be a relevant issue, it would be necessary to find problems that couldn't be attributed to the modern translation - and this isn't something that has had much time given to it.

Well, quick examples would be the genre of apocalypse appearing in the Book of Mormon long before it developed within Judaism, or the idea of a suffering and dying, atoning messiah which isn't attested in pre-Christian sources, or the idea of Jesus having been born miraculously of a virgin (in Bethlehem), which are really inventions of the late first century. General resurrection, human souls going to prison or paradise or heaven or hell, and so forth. Are you suggesting that these ideas are artifacts of translation and would not have been present in the source text?  

Edited December 5, 2022 by Eschaton

[Benjamin McGuire]

4 hours ago, Analytics said:

Alternatively, one could assume that God wanted the Book of Mormon to look like it was written in the 19th century by somebody who didn't know how to translate ancient languages.

I created a beginning of this discussion in my FAIR presentation several years ago on translation. Your comments make sense only from a certain perception (today). Among its first readers, it sounded very much like a translation from ancient languages. All of which becomes a part of a larger discussion on the intended audience of the text, and to what extent any reader misreads the text because of their distance from that intended audience. Later you noted this:

37 minutes ago, Analytics said:

The answer, of course, is none of them. Joseph Smith claimed the Book of Mormon is, in your words, "a direct rendering of the plate text."

And what makes us think that Joseph Smith offers us a competent assessment here? This is a highly problematic issue (as I noted in that same presentation) because the different views on the role that Joseph Smith plays in the translation process aren't simply different shades of the same color - they are on completely opposite sides of the spectrum. If Joseph Smith was merely a reader of a text that was given to him, his ability to determine the relationship between that text he read and the source text on the plates is non-existent.

In my view, the Book of Mormon, assuming it is a translation, is a fairly poor translation. If it is an authentic translation, then I think that these textual features are more likely to reflect issues relevant to its intended audience rather than to some special process of the translation, or any sort of validation of the King James text, or any notion of a translation primarily in EModE, and so on. Those kinds of speculations are largely meaningless to me.

[Benjamin McGuire]

27 minutes ago, Eschaton said:

Are you suggesting that these ideas are artifacts of translation and would not have been present in the source text?  

Sure. Although, the term "artifacts" is problematic in this context as well - as if we can excavate a piece of language from a text and identify it as such. We take something out of the whole and claim that it is independent enough to be meaningful on its own, when really, the text is written for a specific audience, in a specific context, with an intended meaning.

In general usage (which isn't much), the phrase "artifact of translation" refers to the problems in language created by a literal (or dictionary) sort of translation as opposed to a more natural kind of translation. Or, in other words, something completely the opposite of the way you are trying to use it here .... it shows up in bad translations, not good ones (where the translation process is generally hidden from the reader, and the reading is natural).

[Pyreaux]

41 minutes ago, Eschaton said:

Well, quick examples would be the genre of apocalypse appearing in the Book of Mormon long before it developed within Judaism, or the idea of a suffering and dying, atoning messiah which isn't attested in pre-Christian sources, or the idea of Jesus having been born miraculously of a virgin, which are really inventions of the late first century. General resurrection, human souls going to prison or paradise or heaven or hell, and so forth. Are you suggesting that these ideas are artifacts of translation and would not have been present in the source text?  

The Book of Daniel and Enoch contain apocalyptic writing, the Fourth Suffering Servant Song in Isaiah is a suffering and atoning Messiah as revealed in the Dead Sea Scroll's Isaiah Scroll and was deleted from Bible translations by post-Christian Jews, the theme of miraculous conception to "virgins" is an ancient theme, Sarah had a Virgin birth, so says scholar Philo of Alexandria, Isaiah's Virgin prophasy also referred to his own son, and the translation disputes over what a "virgin" is began by post-Christian Jews. Sheol (Spirit World) containing Abraham's Bossom (Paradise) and Gehenna (Prison) was an established Jewish idea, in Philo and the 500 BC Book of Enoch, a pre-Christian text the Jews burned all Hebrew copies of because it proved Christianity was no innovation but a throwback to an ancient time of Elyon's Son, divine Davidic kings and Melchizedek Priests, etc.

Edited December 5, 2022 by Pyreaux

[2BizE]

“Daniel Peterson said the Tanners “pound for pound, year after year, have been the most successful opponents of the church.”.”  
They were successful opponents because they focused on the truth.  I don’t think today they would be considered anti-Mormon. They were really pro-Mormon truth. They had a talent for pointing out Mormon truths that few Mormons knew or believed.

Remember when Oaks and Hinkley thought the Hoffman papers were real….and the Tanners called the papers a fraud?  

[Calm]

42 minutes ago, 2BizE said:

They were successful opponents because they focused on the truth.  I don’t think today they would be considered anti-Mormon. They were really pro-Mormon truth.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/archive/publications/jerald-and-sandra-tanners-distorted-view-of-mormonism-a-response-to-mormonism-shadow-or-reality
 

Quote

The most important comment to be made about the approach of Jerald and Sandra Tanner to Mormonism is their selective use of evidence. The Tanners have published some very useful collections of excerpts and documents that otherwise would have to be read in the library-archives where they are located. Making documents available to the reading public and analyzing a subject through those documents are central features of the practice of history. But it is perspective–being able to see an issue in its totality and presenting its component parts in their relationships to each other and to the whole–that is the purpose and goal of writing history. A non-Mormon historian who has spent many years studying Mormonism recently commented that the Tanners choose only the most negative evidence to portray the “reality” of Mormonism and its history, while ignoring evidence or entire issues that do not support their interpretations. It is fair to say also that some Mormon defenders have also done equal disservice to the LDS Church by adopting the same method in reverse: presenting carefully chosen evidence that shows only the positive side of Mormonism, while ignoring or denying the existence of contrary evidence. If Mormon defenders have on occasion been guilty of some of the polemical techniques used by the Tanners, that still does not justify or sanctify distortion.

 

Quote

The Tanners are aware that the History of the Church was compiled from a variety of sources (many of which were only loaned to Church historians, to be returned once they had extracted pertinent information), and that the exact source for the account of Joseph Smith’s prophecy of August 6, 1842 is not clear. Olney recorded the rumors about the move west in July, and someone else recorded the prophecy in August. In another section of the Tanners’ tirade about the History of the Church, they discuss a statement in the “Manuscript History of the Church” in which Joseph Smith is reported to have stated in 1832 that Brigham Young would become president of the Church. Regarding the entry as a falsification, the Tanners state “Although the Mormon Historians added the part about Brigham Young speaking in tongues, they have never dared to add the prophecy that Brigham Young was to become leader of the Church” (p. 138). In fact, the prophecy was published by “Mormon historians” in 1858, 1863, 1876, 1886, 1893, 1901, 1936, and 1968.9

Two other examples of the Tanners’ “suppression of evidence” indicate their slanted use of sources. On page 257, the Tanners quote B.H. Roberts, who was not trained in law or legal history, to support their conclusion that the suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor by orders of Joseph Smith as mayor of Nauvoo was illegal. Seven years prior to the revised edition of Shadow-Reality, Dallin H. Oaks, at that time a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, published an article in a legal journal demonstrating that the suppression (abatement) of the Nauvoo Expositor as a “public nuisance” was within the powers granted by the state of Illinois in the Nauvoo Charter, was consistent with contemporary judicial interpretations of the First Amendment, and was supported by legal precedents in support of suppression of newspapers prior to 1844.10 I find it hard to believe that the Tanners were unaware of this article, in view of the fact that they frequently cite Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and the Oaks article was reviewed in the Summer 1966 issue of Dialogue.11

 

Quote

In 1831 a Mormon defector wrote that Joseph Smith had given a revelation concerning polygamy, and in 1861 an early Mormon wrote a letter to Brigham Young in which he gave the text of that revelation.12 The Tanners could not have been unaware of this when they published the revised Shadow-Reality in 1972, because such a revelation was referred to in the 1834 Mormonism Unveiled (which the Tanners quote from on page 58), in Helen Mar Whitney’s 1882 Plural Marriage as Taught by the Prophet Joseph, in the 1887 Historical Record (which they quote from on page 203), in the 1922 Essentials in Church History (which they quote from on page 31), in a 1970 article on the “Manifesto” (which they quote from on page 231), and in the Journal of Discourses (virtually every volume of which is quoted by the Tanners).13 As mentioned elsewhere in this letter, Lorenzo Snow and other General Authorities may make statements about LDS history that are inaccurate or misleading when viewed in isolation, but can be understood or qualified when one is aware of larger circumstances and evidences. Jerald and Sandra Tanner have read widely enough in the sources of LDS history to provide that perspective, but they do not. Although the most conscientious and honest researcher can overlook pertinent sources of information, the repeated omissions of evidence by the Tanners suggest an intentional avoidance of sources that modify or refute their caustic interpretations of Mormon history.

Quote

Although the Tanners abandon all pretense of historical perspective by the other methods I have described, they further distill their distortion through their bizarre editorial style. First is their use of ellipses ( . . .). For example (on page 95) the Tanners write that “Joseph Smith certainly had the ability to make up ‘new names’,” and then quote an account of Joseph Smith’s giving a “boy the name of Mahonri Moriancumer . . .” (that is where their quote ends). By consulting the sources the Tanners cited for this quotation, however, one learns that they purposely deleted the following sentence: “When he had finished the blessing, he laid the child on the bed, and turning to Elder Cahoon he said, the name I have given your son is the name of the Brother of Jared [in the Book of Mormon]; the Lord has just shown (or revealed) it to me.” The part left out by the Tanners would require the reader to decide whether Joseph Smith could act as a divine revelator, but because the Tanners already conclude that he was a fraud, they eliminate his explanation for the unusual name. The use of ellipses is a well established tool of scholarship, but it may also be used for purposes of distortion.

Second, is the Tanners’ use of repetition. The Tanners quote and requote, in whole or part, the same documents over and over again, sometimes within a few pages of each other. They also repeat the same concluding ideas throughout each chapter (e.g., in the chapter on the Book of Abraham, nearly every page has some statement by them that Joseph Smith did not understand the Egyptian language–pages 344-61 especially). This alternately bored me and drove me to distraction, but as a methodology such repetition has a more specific function. A certain amount of re-emphasis is necessary for all communication and teaching, but incessant repetition is not designed to persuade by logic, but instead to induce the reader or listener to suspend rational thought in favor of total acceptance. The negative consequences of such a technique are obvious.

The Tanners introduce the third editorial practice with a statement on the last page of their Preface: “Capitalization and underlining are used for emphasis throughout this book.” As is true of ellipses, the occasional use of underlining or italics for emphasis is fully acceptable and even desirable. With the exception of pages 75-79,462-73, and 500-511, however, every page of Shadow-Reality is alive with underlinings and FULL CAPITAL phrases. This extensive use of emphasis in the closely spaced text of the 587-page Shadow-Reality actually discourages reading each word or even every sentence and paragraph, but instead encourages the reader’s eye to skip from emphasized words to emphasized words that are in close proximity, and to pay little attention to the tightly spaced words in between. This editorial practice enables the Tanners to quote lengthy documents “in context,” with the assurance that the reader will assimilate only the sensationalistic headlines and emphasis. For example, on page 413 the Tanners quote a long passage from a conference talk of Joseph F. Smith in which many words and sentences are emphasized, including the phrase: “. . . Z.C.M.I. KEPT LIQUORS of various kinds for medicinal purposes.” The Tanners’ editorial practices discourage the reader from noticing the connecting words and sentences that modify or alter the sensational impression of the emphasized words.

Also:

Quote

think of Matt Roper's commenting in one of his responses to the Tanners claimed to have used computer media to identify all sorts of anachronistic borrowing from the New Testament.  Roper used the same computer media for searching the scriptures that they did, and noticed that they neglected to mention Old Testament passages that were equal to or close to much of the New Testament material.   Yet, in using that media, they could not have missed seeing it.

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/73709-gerald-and-sandra-tanner/?do=findComment&comment=1210028767

 

Edited December 5, 2022 by Calm

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

I didn't find Jackson's critique of Nibley's scholarship to be an outstanding example of good scholarship.  I retain a great fondness of most of the essays in Old Testament and Related Studies, especially "Before Adam" and "Patriarchy and Matriarchy", and I  and remain tremendously impressed by Nibley's work and achievements, though having no illusions about him being perfect.  I I have read two or three things by Jackson that I think are pretty good, and of the book I have of his, his 2001 The Restored Gospel and the Book of Genesis, let's just say, it's not particularly exciting.  But given that I also have Bradshaw's In God's Image and Likeness, I do have more interesting and exciting resources at hand. I have seen some critiques of specific Nibley arguments that I do find bother notable and persuasive, and in those cases, those making the case do not overgeneralize to dismiss everything.  For instance, I can cite Will Schryver's case that regarding the nature of the Egyptian papers compared to Nibley's long essay in BYU Studies, and of Tim Barker's case regarding the implications of the some characters from the Joseph Smith Papyrus being employed to fill in gaps in of Facsimile 2, which Nibley, and everyone else, for that matter, had overlooked.  In his review of The Prophetic Book of Mormon, while also giving a few specific examples of Nibley mistakes to acknowledge that he was not infallible, Daniel Peterson reports a very different experience with in checking background sources for the essay on the same "Qumran and the Companions of the Cave" article reprinted in Old Testament and Related Studies than does Jackson reports in saying "I found myself time and time again disagreeing with this books esoteric interpretations of qumran passages." (Jackson, BYU Studies review of Old Testament and Related Studies, 116).  Peterson's experience offers a notable contrast.

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr/vol2/iss1/21/

Most of my published LDS essays for the past 30 years have been built on the notion that while there are no rules governing choice between paradigms, there are the constraining values of puzzle definition and testability, accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, fruitfulness, simplicity and aesthetics, and future promise.  As Kuhn says, "It makes a great deal of sense of ask, which of two competing paradigms explains the facts better."  But even that does not mean you should not seriously consider the how and why behind which facts a person selects to emphasize and to consider the conceptual and social framework behind how a person proposes to define and measure better.  I've also paid close attention to the vice of positivism, the ideology that proclaims first and formost that it has no ideology, that prejudice is something that happens to other people, especially to believers.  For a convenient discussion, see Barbour here:  

https://www.religion-online.org/book-chapter/chapter-6-paradigms-in-science/

Kuhn defended himself against charges of relativism in his second edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (especially 205-207), and Ian Barbour's Myth's Model's and Paradigms also weighs in at length and in detail. 

For the mildly curious, Novick's specific comments on the 80s situation with Old and New LDS Historians were these:

The most notable feature of the current Church backed Histories, 33 years after Novick's talk, is the Joseph Smith Papers Project, which is making the originals of everything available to everyone.  The most dominant feature of the project is to deal with the criticism that the church has to suppress the "historical facts" to survive.   The Joseph Smith Papers, as well as the Mountain Meadows project demonstrate the same charter, the same determination to put everything available out there for anyone who truly wants to understand, something that takes more effort and patience than "seeking to make a man an offender for a word."  One of the features of the old FARMS approach and the current Interpreter appoach  is to deal directly and openly with critics and criticism, which means openly talking specifics rather than ignoring or suppressing discussion, and not, as the contrary narrative tries to claim, relying exclusively on character assassination.

The one person notable for advocating an "anything goes" approach, not to history, but to science was Paul Feyerband in Against Method, making the case "the only principle that does not inhibit progress is: anything goes." (xxix) As an example, he closely examines Galileo's scientific and rhetorical strategies in defending Copernicus, and he observes that "the Church at the time of Galileo not only kept closer to reason as defined then and, in part, even now: it also considered the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's views..." (xxxi).

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

The bottom line here for me is seeing paradigm acceptance as similar to religious belief.

It either works for your intended purpose or it doesn't.

There.  A tautology.

Nobody can beat those as Eternal Truths.

The pesky word is "fact".  You need a whole epistemology to define those four little squiggles on the page, but faith and morals bypass that trap.

The good guys can't lose!

So how many pages does it take to explain that?

 

... "the Church at the time of Galileo not only kept closer to reason as defined then and, in part, even now: it also considered the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's views..." (xxxi). "

That's radical empiricism in 32 words.

I love it!  

 

[Calm]

39 minutes ago, 2BizE said:

Remember when Oaks and Hinkley thought the Hoffman papers were real….and the Tanners called the papers a fraud?  

Addressed before here:

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/73709-gerald-and-sandra-tanner/?do=findComment&comment=1210028745

Quote

President Gordon B. Hinckley said:

“No one, of course, can be certain that Martin Harris wrote the document. However, at this point we accept the judgment of the examiner that there is no indication that it is a forgery. This does not preclude the possibility that it may have been forged at a time when the Church had many enemies.” (News Release, 28 Apr. 1985.)

 

[mfbukowski]

58 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

The Book of Daniel and Enoch contain apocalyptic writing, the Fourth Suffering Servant Song in Isaiah is a suffering and atoning Messiah as revealed in the Dead Sea Scroll's Isaiah Scroll and was deleted from Bible translations by post-Christian Jews, the theme of miraculous conception to "virgins" is an ancient theme, Sarah had a Virgin birth, so says scholar Philo of Alexandria, Isaiah's Virgin prophasy also referred to his own son, and the translation disputes over what a "virgin" is began by post-Christian Jews. Sheol (Spirit World) containing Abraham's Bossom (Paradise) and Gehenna (Prison) was an established Jewish idea, in Philo and the 500 BC Book of Enoch, a pre-Christian text the Jews burned all Hebrew copies of because it proved Christianity was no innovation but a throwback to an ancient time of Elyon's Son, divine Davidic kings and Melchizedek Priests, etc.

It's all VERY ancient stuff.  Mithras and before.   Mithras came from older stuff, Zoroastrianism and before 

I just let it go.  "There's someone wrong on the internet ".

Ain't the first or last time.

Edited December 5, 2022 by mfbukowski

[Kevin Christensen]

4 hours ago, Analytics said:

Gallio and Wright both looked carefully at the evidence and followed where it led. Both changed their minds about things based upon the evidence. And both got in trouble with their churches for doing so. But Wright is the one who lacks self-reflection. Not you. Got it.

One could assume that if somebody were making a new-and-improved translation of Isaiah that was based on an authentic, ancient manuscript, it would look like an accurate translation of an ancient manuscript. For example, it would fix most of the grave deficiencies we now know exist in the KJV. And it wouldn't change things that were translated fine in the KJV. If it did happen to change or add something, the new words would reflect Hebrew semantics, syntax and style. One could assume that.

Alternatively, one could assume that God wanted the Book of Mormon to look like it was written in the 19th century by somebody who didn't know how to translate ancient languages.

There are multiple paradigms that are equally consistent with the evidence. The question is which paradigm is simplest. 

Quoting Wright:

 

Do you see a problem in anthropomorphizing evidence to the point where you can follow it where it leads, as though the evidence itself knows where it is going, and why you should follow it, and that evidence has the capacity to speak for itself to the extent that no scholarly input or effort is required?  That sort of thing is why I keep quoting N. H. Hanson, to the effect that "All data are theory laden" and Kuhn that "Anomally emerges only from a background of expectation."

As to what I should expect from Joseph Smith's account of making an inspired translation of an ancient document, should I base my expectations on what happens with an academic translation, or from other accounts provide a range of actual evidence of inspired translations of say, a half dozen other books like the Book of Mormon?   In his essay, Wright specifically suggests that Joseph Smith's translation should be completely independent from the King James version, which sounds reasonable unless one of the priorities of one who organized this translation that the result should be easily recognizable.  That is a theory, but upon what actual examples of inspired translations from metal plates by semi-literate plowboys does Wright base that expectation?  It may be a reasonable surmise, but without an evidential basis, it must be admitted to be a surmise nonetheless.  And are all academic translations completely independent from previous translations?  The KJV, I notice, was heavily dependent on Tyndale's earlier translation, over 90% as I recall.  Do the authors of the New Testament make original translations from the Hebrew, or do they rely in the Septuagint because that was the translation in common use?  And if there are differences between the versions of Old Testament passages in the Masoretic text and the DDS text and the Septuagint, which version counts most?

And there is the issue of what Joseph Smith claimed.  He claimed to have a document that had a range of editors (notably Nephi, Mormon and Moroni), a range of sources (Brass plates, the provenance of which as nearly contemporary with Lehi, and dependent on whatever sources and editoral traditions go with that, Small Plates, Large plates, and a range of various records employed by different writers.  We don't necessarily have the "pristine" words of Isaiah, but rather, a source behind the quotations.  And then for the translation, we have comments that say "given unto my servants in their weakness" (and NOT transcending any human weakness), "after the manner of their language" (language being something that notably changes over time and culture), "that they might come to understanding."  Some of what we ought to understand is that despite having seen in the DeMille 10 commandments, and read the Bible accounts of the stone tables with the commands on them, even the Bible as we have it demonstrates differences in the 10 commandments between Exodus and Deuteronomy.  In all human interactions with one another and with diety, it is to be expected that "And inasmuch as they erred, it might be made known" (D&C 1:24-25).  And Joseph Smith's reports that Moroni sometimes quoted the Bible with variations, and that his own translations could be "sufficiently plain to suit my purposes as it stands" (D&C 1:128:18.)

If, as Wright claims, Joseph Smith just gives us something that bears no evidence of being an actual translation.  How are we to judge?  What should we notice, and what should we value?
 

Quote

TRANSLA'TE, verb transitive [Latin translatus, from transfero; trans, over, and fero, to bear.]

1. To bear, carry or remove from one place to another. It is applied to the removal of a bishop from one see to another.

The bishop of Rochester, when the king would have translated him to a better bishoprick, refused.

2. To remove or convey to heaven, as a human being, without death.

By faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see

death. Hebrews 11:15.

3. To transfer; to convey from one to another. 2 Samuel 3:10.

4. To cause to remove from one part of the body to another; as, to translate a disease.

5. To change.

Happy is your grace,

That can translate the stubbornness of fortune

Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

6. To interpret; to render into another language; to express the sense of one language in the words of another. The Old Testament was translated into the Greek language more than two hundred years before Christ. The Scriptures are now translated into most of the languages of Europe and Asia.

7. To explain.

What in that 1828 Webster's definition says that any translation, let alone an inspired translation, to succeed in its purpose, must and should be completely independent of any existing translations, or must be absolutely perfect in every respect (at least as far as contemporary scholarship can judge)?   Expectations differ.  Some LDS scholars (famously, but not exclusively Ostler) and other scholars (Charlesworth speaking of the Book of Mormon)  propose Midrashic commentary in places, expanding the text, whether by Mormon and Moroni or Jesus (who, we seldom consider, called for edits to the records that the Nephites showed him), and who Mormon and Moroni, in defiance of the assumptions that there could be no awareness of any New Testament language, both report personal encounters with the resurrected Jesus, who, as far as I can tell, in conversing with custodians of the sacred record about the most consequential and far reaching efforts of their lives, was NOT forbidden by academic protocols of fairness and the assumptions of blind testing to say anything beyond, "Hi."  And then we have Joseph Smith, who could have behaved just as the Aramaic translators did, in expanding at times the Aramaic to clarity meaning for the readers in ways that the existing Masoretic Hebrew does not precisely account for. 

Joseph's efforts do not match up with what Wright was trained to see.  I get that.  But I've also notice that if I base my expectations on the purely local and human 19th century event that Wright sees in the Book of Mormon, there is "far more in heaven and earth than is dreampt of in [his] philosophy."   I cannot get from his picture of Alma 13, for example, to those offered by John Tvedtnes, John W. Welch, and Margaret Barker.   Wright's picture of Joseph Smith as not a real translator does not explain anything whatsoever in Matthew Bowen's recent Name as Key-Word, for instance.  And Welch's work on The Sermon on the Mount as a Temple text, which argues that it was a composition by Jesus, fits perfectly in 3 Nephi and such.   And there are things like Gardner's Second Witness, Larry Poulson's work, the details of Lehi's Journey through Arabia, and such, as well as the unexpected and elaborate convergence of Barker's work with the Book of Mormon, including her case that Isaiah 53 was based on Hezekiah's bout with the plague and was therefore, pre-exilic and available to Abinadi, the dazzling convergence of the revolutionary LiDAR picture and the Book of Mormon and much much more by hundreds of notable scholars that Wright does not address, nor follow, nor explain, but simply ignores as irrelevant to his current conclusions.

Quote

There are multiple paradigms that are equally consistent with the evidence. The question is which paradigm is simplest.

The questions are rather, "Which paradigm is better?" and inescapably "How do we measure "better?"

Simplicity is only part of the test Kuhn describes for good paradigm decisions.  (Nowadays I always think of the Monty Python sketch in which competitors have less than a minute to explain their Kennedy Assassination theories.  The winner in the competition says, "A tiger got him."  Compared to the offerings of the other contestant depicted, that is unquestionably simpler.  But better? 

That absurdity highlights the problem that you neglect here and that Kuhn addresses in calling for criteria of Puzzle definition and testability, Accuracy of Key predictions, Comprehensiveness and Coherence, Fruitfulness (which involves what a person sees when trying on the new paradigm for size and nurturing the seed within that view, and seeing what grows that they would otherwise not even imagine), simplicity and aesthetics and future promise.  Wright's view, I notice, considerably lacks future promise.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA