Book of Mormon Criticism of Calvin

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

think you’re misunderstanding what I’m saying. It was the completely apostate and corrupt Catholic Church organization that I believe is primarily being referred to as the Great and Abominable church in 1 Nephi 13

No, I am not according to the above since that is what I assumed you meant and not that every member was corrupt.  Maybe you are misunderstanding what I am saying to think it doesn’t apply.

The organization includes all of its members, which means some parts are corrupt and others are not and therefore it is wrong to label the whole organization as corrupt.

[JarMan]

16 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I wouldn't call what you are doing a scientific comparison.

Explain to us your method.

Explain to us how your theory is falsifiable.

Those are really good places to start. The scientific method is fairly straight forward. We develop a theory. We create a way to test the theory. Then we test it to see if it succeeds. The interesting thing is that it has to be in some way universal. It has to be falsifiable. We have to have prediction. Simply looking for things that support your argument and ignoring everything that doesn't isn't remotely scientific (it is the antithesis of the scientific method). This is why I keep reiterating my point that the differences really matter.

If you provide a method and the method is good, then the only thing left to ask is whether or not you appropriately apply it when you collect your data. But I am still back thinking about the validity of your method. It isn't clear at all to me that you have one, or that it is falsifiable, or how I would test it on a known circumstance to see if it is valid in a known context. And until these issues are clear, I don't think you can claim that this is in any way a scientific comparison.

I don't consider social sciences to be all that scientific, either. 😁

I'll start with how my theory is falsifiable. The best way to show this is to identify anachronisms. A good example is 2Ne3:15 "And his name shall be called after me; and it shall be after the name of his father." This is Joseph in Egypt apparently prophesying of Joseph Smith Jr and Sr. This is the one sentence in the Book of Mormon I can find that directly contradicts an early modern production. But because this is so limited--JS only had to add one sentence or maybe only part of a sentence--it can't falsify my theory on its own. But if the text was overflowing with anachronisms like this, particularly if they were things JS would have no reason to add or change, that would falsify the early modern hypothesis.

Another way would be to show there are enlightenment and post-enlightenment themes throughout the text. For instance, secular governments and the separation of government powers are enlightenment ideals as far as I can tell. Assuming I'm right about that, if the BOM clearly incorporated those ideas I think it would indicate a later production than what I am proposing.

There are other things that would look suspicious in an early modern work. Let's consider Helaman 12:15: "And thus, according to his word the earth goeth back, and it appeareth unto man that the sun standeth still; yea, and behold, this is so; for surely it is the earth that moveth and not the sun." The idea that the earth goes around the sun goes back to ancient times, of course, but in the early 1600's, Galileo was the first to prove it by observing the phases of Venus. So this verse is clearly not anachronistic to the time period I am proposing. However, if the Book of Mormon were to speak of things yet to be discovered by science by about 1640, that would push the production date forward in time to at least the point that scientific discovery was made.

We can show that the BOM was likely produced after 1492 because of 1Ne13:12. But at some point the BOM stops "predicting" the future. It's production likely occurs at about that time. Did Nephi see the revolutionary war in his vision? Or did he see the Spanish Armada and other events from that period? If he clearly saw the revolutionary war, that would indicate a modern production. This is one way we show the Book of Daniel is not a 6th Century BC work. Or that Mark 13 came after 70 AD.

These are just some ways to provide evidence against my hypothesis. I am sure there are many others. I'm asking people to challenge me on this, not because I'm so ****-sure of my results that I can't wait to prove them wrong, but because an honest inquiry requires it.

Edited January 24, 2023 by JarMan

[Grug the Neanderthal]

5 minutes ago, Calm said:

The organization includes all of its members, which means some parts are corrupt and others are not and therefore it is wrong to label the whole organization as corrupt.

I disagree. The entire church was corrupt and apostate from top to bottom. In the church we refer to this is the Great Apostasy. There weren’t any individuals who were free from corruption.

There were those who recognized the apostate condition of the church and tried to reform it or break away from it, but they remained in an apostate condition without any authority or a full knowledge of the fullness of the gospel. I believe that those who were earnestly seeking to live the undefiled pure version of the gospel of Christ, who were persecuted by the church for it, are the saints of God spoken of in the verses in 1 Nephi 13 we’ve been discussing.

[JarMan]

16 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Explain to us your method.

I don't know that I have a "method" in the way that you understand the term. I am relying on intuition and experience to compare a work of literature to a hypothesized historical/cultural/religious milieu. If there is a field of work that does something similar to what I'm trying to do, I couldn't even put a name to it. Having said that, I can still explain my approach. Or at least I can explain some of the things I am doing. I'm not gonna try to be close to exhaustive here.

My approach to the BOM is to put everything people have said about it aside. Whatever the apologists, the critics, the Sunday School teachers have said all take a back seat to the text on the page. This is easier said than done, but that's what I strive to do. Since I'm to the point that I have a pretty narrow hypothesis, I look at the text and see if it makes sense in my proposed setting. This isn't an easy thing to do because you really have to know something about that world. To understand that I've done a lot of historical research and read a lot of books and other works from that time period. I have concentrated on these primary sources of information in order to avoid the extra layer of interpretation that unavoidably comes from commentary. But the commentary from both modern and contemporary sources has been very helpful to help me understand the context of the primary works.

One technique I like to use is to identify where it appears the text "doth protest too much." This can indicate the author is responding to something, perhaps to a prevailing opinion. As an anecdotal example, my brother was running for the state legislature and wanted me to review the position statements he was going to post to his campaign website. It was all pretty well-crafted, but he slipped something in there about Mormons indeed being Christians. It was immediately clear that he was responding to some recent discussion or criticism on that topic. Anyway, I advised him to scrub it and he did.

I am reminded of this because of what I just previously posted regarding Hel12:15:  "And thus, according to his word the earth goeth back, and it appeareth unto man that the sun standeth still; yea, and behold, this is so; for surely it is the earth that moveth and not the sun." Ah, the text doth protest too much here. In what context does it make sense to say this? In 1830 this was an obvious fact. But to write this at a time when Galileo was being bullied into submission by the church makes a lot of sense. We see the text do something similar with its opposition to infant baptism. I think Moroni 8 doth protest too much. This makes sense, though, in both a 17th and 19th Century context, though. I only bring it up as another example off the top of my head.

Generally I am looking at the major themes of the Book of Mormon: government, the bible, and warfare to name a few. But what does the BOM say about government, for instance? Well, I've tried to catalog it, mostly in mental notes and as I write about it so far. But at some point I'll put together a more formal outline that describes Nephite government. We've got two primary types--kings and judges--but they're both composed of officials with certain responsibilities. They perform functions related to what we could call the three main branches of government, also functions related to the church, to warfare, to federalism (to use another anachronistic term), to social welfare. These can be compared to governments and their functions in any time period. But what's most important, in my view, is not, for instance, whether kings were more relevant in the 17th than the 19th Centuries (though that is a consideration), but what the author is specifically telling us about kingship. The Book of Mormon hits on this topic pretty heavily. Well, was this a topic in early modern Europe? Of course it was. So the next level is to look at what was being said about kingship. Machiavelli doesn't fit, obviously. But Tyndale and Erasmus and others do. I'm still studying Grotius on this issue, but he appears to be a good match so far, as well. The very idea that you would write a handbook for kings is a very old idea, but 19th Century America was worrying about a completely different set of governmental issues.

Another issue in the Book of Mormon is the proper role of religious authorities in relation to the state. This issue applies to both the 17th and 19th Centuries, but the dilemmas in the Book of Mormon match the dilemmas of early modern Europe. For instance, should the church have any authority beyond excommunication? Which has primacy in important church affairs, the state or the religious authorities? How does the Book of Mormon answer these questions and how did early modern societies answer them? Well, early modern Europe answered these question in different ways. They were being discussed precisely because there wasn't agreement. But you can look at how the various commentators dealt with them and find the ones that match the Book of Mormon. For instance, Grotius believed the church's role extended no further than excommunication. . . same as the Book of Mormon teaches. He also believed the state had primacy over religious authorities when it came to the church. It may seem surprising, but I believe the Book of Mormon indicates the same thing.

In general, my approach starts with the major themes. I look at the big issues that were important to the BOM author. But this is casting a broad net, so I have to identify more specific issues and ideas before I can hold them up for comparison. Every time I do this I exclude potential candidates for sources of influence on ideology or events in the BOM. Catholicism, you're out on this particular issue. Machiavelli, you're out on this issue. Calvin, you're out on most issues. The net gets smaller and I go through an iterative process to exclude potential sources that don't match. At some point I'm left with a set of potential influences--like a mathematical set of numbers. The set may be large or it may be fairly exclusive depending on the issue I'm examining. Once I've done this process for several different topics, I find the intersection, like with a Venn Diagram. The Venn Diagram has Grotius at its center and not much else in it. Now, I haven't done this formally, as in rigorously identifying every set based on the issue I've examined, or stating my assumptions and interpretations of the text underlying my analysis, or providing a top down analysis describing how I arrived at my set. But I might do that someday if I have time. In the meantime, I just continue to do research and put little presentations together as I find the time. And I try to get feedback from people so I can make adjustments as needed.

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

Not at all. In fact I consider some of those Catholic “heretics" who were persecuted and put to death by the Catholic Church to be the Saints of God mentioned in this same chapter.

No one, I hope in God's name,  has EVER implied that ANY Catholic from ANY time period could NOT be  "Saint" as defined by the Church of Jesus Christ. God judges individual lives and intentions and desires, not what one was taught as a baby, to judge who is and who is not a "member" of His church, in judging his children 

[Grug the Neanderthal]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

God judges individual lives and intentions and desires,

Yes, of course.

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

who is and who is not a "member" of His church,

I think you should look up what the church’s website has to say about this one. The church still teaches that Christ’s church was dead and no longer upon the earth during the Great Apostasy. There’s a reason the church performs baptisms for the dead for all individuals prior to the restoration who never had the opportunity to be baptized and become members of Lords one true and living church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Grug the Neanderthal

[Grug the Neanderthal]

15 hours ago, JarMan said:

I've addressed this already in this thread, but I'll do it again here. You are getting your information from Calvin apologists. If you want to see how Calvin's enemies portrayed him you have to dig a lot deeper. I've read half a dozen Servetus biographies and number of commentaries. There are many accounts of this episode available online going back hundreds of years. Here's a snippet from one that addresses the issue you have raised:

You might want to check out the entire book: THE RIGHT TO HERESY OR HOW JOHN CALVIN KILLED A CONSCIENCE or maybe just the chapter entitled The Murder of Servetus.

Whether Calvin was sexually immoral or not, his critics sure claimed he was. He are some quotes from a secondary source:

 

Contrary to what many have tried to claim in this thread, the two stories are very similar. But you have to see the story from a critical point of view to understand this. Unfortunately, the google algorithm overwhelmingly favors apologetic accounts.

Taking the accusations of Calvin’s bitter enemies at face value is not good research. The critics of Calvin you mentioned are highly biased and therefore unreliable. 

But let’s assume for a moment that the critics are spot on about Calvin’s sexual deviancy. What they accuse him of is very different from what King Noah was doing. Calvin isn’t being accused of having many wives and concubines and there’s no mention of King Noah committing acts of sodomy. 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Grug the Neanderthal

[Benjamin McGuire]

9 hours ago, JarMan said:

I'll start with how my theory is falsifiable. The best way to show this is to identify anachronisms. A good example is 2Ne3:15 "And his name shall be called after me; and it shall be after the name of his father." This is Joseph in Egypt apparently prophesying of Joseph Smith Jr and Sr. This is the one sentence in the Book of Mormon I can find that directly contradicts an early modern production. But because this is so limited--JS only had to add one sentence or maybe only part of a sentence--it can't falsify my theory on its own. But if the text was overflowing with anachronisms like this, particularly if they were things JS would have no reason to add or change, that would falsify the early modern hypothesis.

This is part of a larger argument right? This misses the point. I have mentioned in this thread that the Book of Mormon was produced around 1830. You are arguing here that the text reached its final form around 1830. So what you are suggesting is that one way to falsify the argument is to find an element that would be anachronistic in an Early Modern context but couldn't be attributed to the textual layer that was produced around 1830. Rather than showing me an example of something that can be explained by your 1830 layer, why don't you provide us with a hypothetical example of something that would actually falsify your argument.

I am assuming, for example, that the language in the Book of Mormon that is later that Early Modern, you would simply attribute to the 1830 textual layer - am I right?

9 hours ago, JarMan said:

Another way would be to show there are enlightenment and post-enlightenment themes throughout the text. For instance, secular governments and the separation of government powers are enlightenment ideals as far as I can tell. Assuming I'm right about that, if the BOM clearly incorporated those ideas I think it would indicate a later production than what I am proposing.

So, for example, my essay on the post-modernist view of language and authorship in the text? Would this be anachronistic - especially in an Early Modern context?

9 hours ago, JarMan said:

These are just some ways to provide evidence against my hypothesis. I am sure there are many others. I'm asking people to challenge me on this, not because I'm so ****-sure of my results that I can't wait to prove them wrong, but because an honest inquiry requires it.

I think that we have branched off here into two different discussions. You are making two different arguments: 1) the Book of Mormon is an 1830s adaption of an Early Modern text, and 2) the Book of Mormon was primarily written by a specific Early Modern author. Everything that you list here is about the first argument. And frankly, I think that you run into some real problems here. The biggest issue that you face is the subjective question of what Joseph Smith (assuming he is the person who redacted the earlier text) might or might not have had a reason to change. Mind reading, in any context, for an author (even a redactor) is generally called the intentional fallacy. And this is a problem for you (as I have noted before). The omission of italicized words in the biblical citations? Did Joseph Smith have a reason to remove them? The language that isn't Early Modern - why did Joseph change it in some places, but not others? Why does Joseph Smith update the biblical language in some references but in other places maintains consistency with the King James version? There are a lot of places where we start to ask these questions. If your response is consistently that the 19th century redactor is responsible for all of this, then the argument stops being one about the theory being falsifiable and instead simply becomes a catch all excuse for problems.

Why is this a challenge? One of the things about language is that while we can often theorize an earliest date for language elements, it is nearly impossible to project a later date. One of the things I have argued in the past is that the Book of Mormon uses archaic language as a rhetorical device to encourage it to be read as a translation (I am not the first to make this argument). It isn't a difficult stretch to recognize that the Book of Mormon is intentionally adopting older language. This means that the argument that the Book of Mormon is produced around 1830 (either as an original work or as a translation - it really doesn't matter for this point) can absorb the idea that it uses archaic earlier language without the need for significant further explanation. How could you falsify this position? Well, you could produce evidence (apart from the Book of Mormon) of a proto-text (or an urtext). We could take known writings of your alleged author and do a statistical authorship comparison between the two. Perhaps you could find language patterns which were used in the Book of Mormon which were demonstrably gone from the language by the early 1800s. This isn't all that difficult in its own way. This is one of the failings of those proponents of an EModE Book of Mormon text. Language doesn't have discrete changes - rather it gradually shifts over time. Our labels are, at least in part, simply convenient ways to refer to periods of language use. In the 1830s, there was still a lot of EModE in common use. Likewise, in the early 17th century, there is still a fair amount of Middle English in common use (especially given the popularity of some 15th century authors - Chaucer, for example - but let's also not forget the wildly popular Arthurian stories like those by Thomas Mallory). Any English writer from the early 1600s would have included examples of Middle English in their prose. It's not the EModE that would be of real interest to us in a text written in the 19th century, but examples of Late Middle English that would surprise us. Luckily for us, we have near contemporary English translations of Grotius (1654). And we can use this to compare to the English Book of Mormon. I don't know about anyone else here, but there is an extreme difference in the language. We can see that this isn't EModE folding into Modern English (like we may have in the Book of Mormon), but, solid EModE with remnants of Middle English. Where are these remnants of Middle English in the Book of Mormon? This could impact arguments about being falsifiable.

At the same time, none of this begins to touch on the subject of this thread - that an Early Modern author wrote the text, and that the figure of Abinadi is meant to represent Calvin. How do you make this argument falsifiable (even if we simply assume an Early Modern authorship). This has been the question that I have been more concerned with in this thread - because this is where the problems of parallelomania largely occur. Perhaps one of the most interesting for me is the meeting between Laban and Nephi in the Book of Mormon (that does not go so well for Laban). Grotius has some lengthy discussions about property rights and self defense and specifically, when murder is acceptable in the context of self-defense. You can read all about it in his Of the Rights of Peace and War, Book 2, Chapter 1, Section 12. Let me give you a hint - there is nothing at all about "it is better for one man to perish" and a lot to do with other issues. As interesting as it is that the Book of Mormon deals with contextual issues that Grotius discusses (day/night, weapons, threats, identification, and so on), there is no doubt that Grotius would not have justified Nephi's actions. In fact, if anything, I think that if the Book of Mormon was an early 17th century text, you would label this section of the Book of Mormon as a critique of Grotius. It is hard to reconcile the text with the view that Grotius was its author. The point of this example is simply to point out that these really are separate issues (the question of the date of authorship and the question of the identification of the author). While the date of authorship may be necessary to suppose an authorship by Grotius, it isn't evidence for such a claim. So we have to have a process for falsifying this claim that is separate from the date of authorship. One of the ways to falsify it would be to show that it was written at a later date.

What you are providing here for me isn't helping your argument any. It is not a reasonable argument to suggest that there was a unknown Grotius manuscript, that was discovered by Joseph Smith, translated into English, redacted in some places (where Joseph had an issue) and then presented to the world as the Book of Mormon. This is a fantasy.

[Benjamin McGuire]

11 hours ago, JarMan said:

I don't consider social sciences to be all that scientific, either.

I think that the quality can vary - however, one thing we can say about social sciences that can be backed up with evidence is that they are regularly able to make accurate predictions. And making accurate predictions is one of the core parts of the scientific method. Social sciences are very interested in designing experiments that can provide us with useful data. Unlike biology, however, there are often ethical considerations and difficulties with the lifespan of the primary subjects of social sciences which make this process more complicated.

8 hours ago, JarMan said:

My approach to the BOM is to put everything people have said about it aside. Whatever the apologists, the critics, the Sunday School teachers have said all take a back seat to the text on the page. This is easier said than done, but that's what I strive to do. Since I'm to the point that I have a pretty narrow hypothesis, I look at the text and see if it makes sense in my proposed setting. This isn't an easy thing to do because you really have to know something about that world. To understand that I've done a lot of historical research and read a lot of books and other works from that time period. I have concentrated on these primary sources of information in order to avoid the extra layer of interpretation that unavoidably comes from commentary. But the commentary from both modern and contemporary sources has been very helpful to help me understand the context of the primary works.

Actually, its not that hard at all. But, let me offer you another piece of advice. You can't simply throw away everything everyone has said about the Book of Mormon. If you want to do a comparison, then you also need to throw away everything everyone has said about Grotius. And stick with just the text. Part of me looks at this and sees what you apparently don't - that your process isn't unbiased. That your method is purely subjective. You pick and choose the elements that help your case. You ignore the things that don't help your case. This is not scientific research. Just as importantly, you aren't doing this work in a vacuum. There are lots of discussions about how to determine the date and authorship of unattributed texts. How many of these have you referenced? Whose method do you follow? How do you actually propose to test your theory in a situation which could yield either positive or negative results? No matter what you think you are doing, it has all the earmarks of parallelomania. And I don't say this because of your conclusions, I say it because of your process.

8 hours ago, JarMan said:

One technique I like to use is to identify where it appears the text "doth protest too much." This can indicate the author is responding to something, perhaps to a prevailing opinion. As an anecdotal example, my brother was running for the state legislature and wanted me to review the position statements he was going to post to his campaign website. It was all pretty well-crafted, but he slipped something in there about Mormons indeed being Christians. It was immediately clear that he was responding to some recent discussion or criticism on that topic. Anyway, I advised him to scrub it and he did.

I am reminded of this because of what I just previously posted regarding Hel12:15:  "And thus, according to his word the earth goeth back, and it appeareth unto man that the sun standeth still; yea, and behold, this is so; for surely it is the earth that moveth and not the sun." Ah, the text doth protest too much here. In what context does it make sense to say this? In 1830 this was an obvious fact. But to write this at a time when Galileo was being bullied into submission by the church makes a lot of sense. We see the text do something similar with its opposition to infant baptism. I think Moroni 8 doth protest too much. This makes sense, though, in both a 17th and 19th Century context, though. I only bring it up as another example off the top of my head.

Yes, dialogism and the text. The Book of Mormon has a lot of these that are embedded in the narratives too. For example, Moroni's rather abrasive letter to the Nephite leadership, right? Or how about Jacob's statement: "Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, ..." But let's also not forget the startling Moroni 8:35 - "Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not." Open ended dialogism. The other funny thing that occurs here is the inconsistency with which you approach the text (again, that issue of being falsifiable). Earlier, the reference to Joseph is evidence of late editing. Here, because you think you have a parallel, it is authentic. The difference between the two is merely your preference.

8 hours ago, JarMan said:

Generally I am looking at the major themes of the Book of Mormon: government, the bible, and warfare to name a few. But what does the BOM say about government, for instance? Well, I've tried to catalog it, mostly in mental notes and as I write about it so far. But at some point I'll put together a more formal outline that describes Nephite government. We've got two primary types--kings and judges--but they're both composed of officials with certain responsibilities. They perform functions related to what we could call the three main branches of government, also functions related to the church, to warfare, to federalism (to use another anachronistic term), to social welfare. These can be compared to governments and their functions in any time period. But what's most important, in my view, is not, for instance, whether kings were more relevant in the 17th than the 19th Centuries (though that is a consideration), but what the author is specifically telling us about kingship. The Book of Mormon hits on this topic pretty heavily. Well, was this a topic in early modern Europe? Of course it was. So the next level is to look at what was being said about kingship. Machiavelli doesn't fit, obviously. But Tyndale and Erasmus and others do. I'm still studying Grotius on this issue, but he appears to be a good match so far, as well. The very idea that you would write a handbook for kings is a very old idea, but 19th Century America was worrying about a completely different set of governmental issues.

But on warfare, where is Grotius? Is he more of a pacifist? Is he a Moroni just-war sort of guy? But then, Moroni's style of warfare is absolutely disastrous in the context of the conflict with the Gadianton robbers. What is the overarching message of the Book of Mormon on war? And if we are going to discuss a dialogic reading, have you read anything by Dean Morgan on Book of Mormon warfare? Kingship is a bigger problem. It was clearly an issue in the context of the Hebrew bible. The debates over whether to have a king or not fill Chronicles and Samuel. Then we get the split monarchy (and the struggles to claim legitimacy in the new split kingdoms). The Nephites want a king (even if they don't want one at the same time). And then there is the problem created when the Nephites run into the Mulekites - who may have a descendant of King Zedekiah. Who is the rightful king? And this creates the conflict with the kingmen. The wicked kings in the Book of Mormon (even the Jaredite ones) are criticized in terms of Mosiac law. So, which is the better context in which to understand this text? I am not sure that you are actually finding the fit you think you are. I don't know because I don't know what similarities you are using - but, I am also interested in the differences that we see in the context of those similarities. One thing is clear. Does the Book of Mormon engage the topic of natural law with regards to kings? As far as the discussion goes, it is certainly a fascinating question. Does the election of Judges really reflect the election of a temporary monarch? Does the Book of Mormon side more with Hobbes who pointed out that a Monarch who is elected without a determination of a new election on his death is simply creating a permanent monarchy? Or how do we take Grotius's insistence that a people's identity is separate from their kings (a point that is rejected over and over again - Nephites, Amlicites, Mulekites, and so on). This could be an involved discussion ...

8 hours ago, JarMan said:

Another issue in the Book of Mormon is the proper role of religious authorities in relation to the state. This issue applies to both the 17th and 19th Centuries, but the dilemmas in the Book of Mormon match the dilemmas of early modern Europe. For instance, should the church have any authority beyond excommunication? Which has primacy in important church affairs, the state or the religious authorities? How does the Book of Mormon answer these questions and how did early modern societies answer them? Well, early modern Europe answered these question in different ways. They were being discussed precisely because there wasn't agreement. But you can look at how the various commentators dealt with them and find the ones that match the Book of Mormon. For instance, Grotius believed the church's role extended no further than excommunication. . . same as the Book of Mormon teaches. He also believed the state had primacy over religious authorities when it came to the church. It may seem surprising, but I believe the Book of Mormon indicates the same thing.

Actually, this issue applies to most of known human history. What makes your time period so special? You suggest that the Book of Mormon limits the role of the clergy and yet we have periods when the religious leaders were also the political leaders. Here again, you over simplify the texts to create the parallels you want. The Book of Mormon doesn't represent monolithic teachings on these kinds of issues. And in fact, the Book of Mormon explores a range of possible outcomes - when good people are both kings and priests, when we have good kings and bad priests, when we have bad kings and good priests, and so on. Does the Book of Mormon offer a best option by example? Does this match your suggestion about Grotius's views in comparison with the Book of Mormon. I am not convinced.

I don't think that getting feedback is ever going to fix what I vew as the fatal flaws in your process. My suggestion is that you start over. You find a respected methodology put together by someone else. You use it as a framework to make your argument. You make predictions using that framework about the text - and then you comapre them.  And you pay attention to the differences (rather than simply excluding them). Perhaps you will arrive at the same place. I doubt it.

[Calm]

On 1/23/2023 at 7:30 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

I don't think that it survives in little pockets. I argue two points - one, that there is language in the Book of Mormon which post-dates EModE.  The second issue is a little more complicated. Skousen and Carmack relied on the OED to provide a list of latest usage dates for the archaic forms of EModE that they propose. The problem occurs in that anyone with a good search engine and access to large literary databases can find examples of these occurrences decades and even centuries after the OED's last entry. The OED is spectacularly poor at terminus dating for language. It is much better at earliest known usages - but this is a natural outcome of an exploding body of literature (there is a lot less surviving literature from earlier time periods).

Thank you for clarifying…I likely mixed up your stuff with something another said q unite sometime when I read your stuff on a less than good day and misunderstood because I wasn’t paying close enough attention as you are usually easy enough to understand and then just assumed I knew what you were talking about.  This makes much more sense to me.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Calm

[mfbukowski]

12 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

I think you should look up what the church’s website has to say about this one. The church still teaches that Christ’s church was dead and no longer upon the earth during the Great Apostasy. There’s a reason the church performs baptisms for the dead for all individuals prior to the restoration who never had the opportunity to be baptized and become members of Lords one true and living church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

Yes of course I am aware of the teachings of the church, but my point was different. GOD can even see who eventually WILL join the church, and we are told that "every knee shall bow and tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ ".

I think it is more complex than just baptism 

[JarMan]

16 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

This is part of a larger argument right? This misses the point. I have mentioned in this thread that the Book of Mormon was produced around 1830. You are arguing here that the text reached its final form around 1830. So what you are suggesting is that one way to falsify the argument is to find an element that would be anachronistic in an Early Modern context but couldn't be attributed to the textual layer that was produced around 1830. Rather than showing me an example of something that can be explained by your 1830 layer, why don't you provide us with a hypothetical example of something that would actually falsify your argument.

I am assuming, for example, that the language in the Book of Mormon that is later that Early Modern, you would simply attribute to the 1830 textual layer - am I right?

As you point out, there are potential layers to the production of the Book of Mormon. My theory has an original writer plus a translator plus Joseph plus his scribes, etc. There could be others. Perhaps somebody re-worked it before it came to Joseph Smith. Perhaps there were multiple original writers. I will adjust my theory on this as needed, not to salvage it, but to conform with the evidence. And the way I understand the evidence, the BOM could not solely (or even largely) be a 19th Century production. I think a very significant early modern layer is required.

16 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

So, for example, my essay on the post-modernist view of language and authorship in the text? Would this be anachronistic - especially in an Early Modern context?

I did just go and read it again. I read it when it originally came out, as well. I don't understand your question, though.

16 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I think that we have branched off here into two different discussions. You are making two different arguments: 1) the Book of Mormon is an 1830s adaption of an Early Modern text, and 2) the Book of Mormon was primarily written by a specific Early Modern author. Everything that you list here is about the first argument. And frankly, I think that you run into some real problems here. The biggest issue that you face is the subjective question of what Joseph Smith (assuming he is the person who redacted the earlier text) might or might not have had a reason to change. Mind reading, in any context, for an author (even a redactor) is generally called the intentional fallacy. And this is a problem for you (as I have noted before). The omission of italicized words in the biblical citations? Did Joseph Smith have a reason to remove them? The language that isn't Early Modern - why did Joseph change it in some places, but not others? Why does Joseph Smith update the biblical language in some references but in other places maintains consistency with the King James version? There are a lot of places where we start to ask these questions. If your response is consistently that the 19th century redactor is responsible for all of this, then the argument stops being one about the theory being falsifiable and instead simply becomes a catch all excuse for problems.

I think Joseph had very little role in redacting the text. I am talking about only one sentence. I think it's fair to suspect JS of adding his name into the story because it would be consistent with his behavior. In D&C 100 he names Sydney Rigdon as his spokesman in apparent fulfillment of the very same prophecy in 2Ne3 (see verses 17 and 18) where I suspect he added himself. If he did it for D&C 100, it's not at all fallacious to suspect he could have done something similar a few years earlier.

In addition, I don't see the intentional fallacy at play in what I am doing. First off, because most of what I'm describing as authorial intent is from the text. Secondly, I don't think it necessarily applies to the exercise I am engaged in, which is mostly historical in nature. I am not really engaged in literary criticism. I am trying to identify things the author did not create, but which derive from his milieu and leave traces in his words, which he did create. The author didn't invent the controversy about infant baptism, for example, so it is clear he is responding to his environment. It's appropriate to use that information to help narrow the possibilities.

16 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Why is this a challenge? One of the things about language is that while we can often theorize an earliest date for language elements, it is nearly impossible to project a later date. One of the things I have argued in the past is that the Book of Mormon uses archaic language as a rhetorical device to encourage it to be read as a translation (I am not the first to make this argument). It isn't a difficult stretch to recognize that the Book of Mormon is intentionally adopting older language. This means that the argument that the Book of Mormon is produced around 1830 (either as an original work or as a translation - it really doesn't matter for this point) can absorb the idea that it uses archaic earlier language without the need for significant further explanation. How could you falsify this position? Well, you could produce evidence (apart from the Book of Mormon) of a proto-text (or an urtext). We could take known writings of your alleged author and do a statistical authorship comparison between the two. Perhaps you could find language patterns which were used in the Book of Mormon which were demonstrably gone from the language by the early 1800s. This isn't all that difficult in its own way. This is one of the failings of those proponents of an EModE Book of Mormon text. Language doesn't have discrete changes - rather it gradually shifts over time. Our labels are, at least in part, simply convenient ways to refer to periods of language use. In the 1830s, there was still a lot of EModE in common use. Likewise, in the early 17th century, there is still a fair amount of Middle English in common use (especially given the popularity of some 15th century authors - Chaucer, for example - but let's also not forget the wildly popular Arthurian stories like those by Thomas Mallory). Any English writer from the early 1600s would have included examples of Middle English in their prose. It's not the EModE that would be of real interest to us in a text written in the 19th century, but examples of Late Middle English that would surprise us. Luckily for us, we have near contemporary English translations of Grotius (1654). And we can use this to compare to the English Book of Mormon. I don't know about anyone else here, but there is an extreme difference in the language. We can see that this isn't EModE folding into Modern English (like we may have in the Book of Mormon), but, solid EModE with remnants of Middle English. Where are these remnants of Middle English in the Book of Mormon? This could impact arguments about being falsifiable.

Part of the complication here is that I am claiming the text was most likely originally written in Latin. I think this makes it less likely that we would see the type of rhetorical flourishes you're talking about. The other issue, is that you may be reading from the modern BOM that has all of the changes that update the grammar. I also think the linguistic evidence does shows a large amount of language construction in the Book of Mormon that was essentially gone by the early 1800's.

16 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

At the same time, none of this begins to touch on the subject of this thread - that an Early Modern author wrote the text, and that the figure of Abinadi is meant to represent Calvin. How do you make this argument falsifiable (even if we simply assume an Early Modern authorship). This has been the question that I have been more concerned with in this thread - because this is where the problems of parallelomania largely occur. Perhaps one of the most interesting for me is the meeting between Laban and Nephi in the Book of Mormon (that does not go so well for Laban). Grotius has some lengthy discussions about property rights and self defense and specifically, when murder is acceptable in the context of self-defense. You can read all about it in his Of the Rights of Peace and War, Book 2, Chapter 1, Section 12. Let me give you a hint - there is nothing at all about "it is better for one man to perish" and a lot to do with other issues. As interesting as it is that the Book of Mormon deals with contextual issues that Grotius discusses (day/night, weapons, threats, identification, and so on), there is no doubt that Grotius would not have justified Nephi's actions. In fact, if anything, I think that if the Book of Mormon was an early 17th century text, you would label this section of the Book of Mormon as a critique of Grotius. It is hard to reconcile the text with the view that Grotius was its author. The point of this example is simply to point out that these really are separate issues (the question of the date of authorship and the question of the identification of the author). While the date of authorship may be necessary to suppose an authorship by Grotius, it isn't evidence for such a claim. So we have to have a process for falsifying this claim that is separate from the date of authorship. One of the ways to falsify it would be to show that it was written at a later date.

Look, I've been studying De iure belli ac pacis for several years now. It was the first angle that really drew me toward Grotius as a potential author. I've of course looked at the Nephi/Laban story from a Grotian perspective and I am not going to claim he gives a perfect justification for killing Laban, here. This is partly because Grotius doesn't quite address the situation Nephi finds himself in, with God commanding him to commit the act. But what he says here is pretty important for the discussion:

Quote

Wherefore, if there’s any Possibility of preserving our Goods, without running the Hazard of committing Murder, we may certainly do so; but if not, we should rather be the Losers, unless it be of such Things on which not only our own Life, but even that of our Family depends, and which, by the Methods of Justice, can never be recovered

Can this reasoning be applied to the brass plates? He's arguing we can kill someone to retrieve stolen goods, but only if our life and our family's life depends on it and only if we can never recover our property through civil justice. Are the brass plates stolen goods Nephi is entitled to recover? Do they serve as a replacement for the other property Laban did steal from them? Does preventing a nation from dwindling and perishing in unbelief rise to a level on par with defending the lives of your family? Did Nephi have any sort of civil recourse? There is a lot that we can look at. 

16 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

What you are providing here for me isn't helping your argument any. It is not a reasonable argument to suggest that there was a unknown Grotius manuscript, that was discovered by Joseph Smith, translated into English, redacted in some places (where Joseph had an issue) and then presented to the world as the Book of Mormon. This is a fantasy.

I know it seems unlikely. But so does every other explanation for the Book of Mormon. So I'm in good company here.

15 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I think that the quality can vary - however, one thing we can say about social sciences that can be backed up with evidence is that they are regularly able to make accurate predictions. And making accurate predictions is one of the core parts of the scientific method. Social sciences are very interested in designing experiments that can provide us with useful data. Unlike biology, however, there are often ethical considerations and difficulties with the lifespan of the primary subjects of social sciences which make this process more complicated.

Actually, its not that hard at all. But, let me offer you another piece of advice. You can't simply throw away everything everyone has said about the Book of Mormon. If you want to do a comparison, then you also need to throw away everything everyone has said about Grotius. And stick with just the text. Part of me looks at this and sees what you apparently don't - that your process isn't unbiased. That your method is purely subjective. You pick and choose the elements that help your case. You ignore the things that don't help your case. This is not scientific research. Just as importantly, you aren't doing this work in a vacuum. There are lots of discussions about how to determine the date and authorship of unattributed texts. How many of these have you referenced? Whose method do you follow? How do you actually propose to test your theory in a situation which could yield either positive or negative results? No matter what you think you are doing, it has all the earmarks of parallelomania. And I don't say this because of your conclusions, I say it because of your process.

As I've said, my focus has been on the text of the Book of Mormon as compared to the primary sources of my proposed author. I have briefly described two methods for dating this text that I believe others have used. One is identifying prophesies post eventum. The other is identifying contemporary events the text could be responding to. More on my method later.

15 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Yes, dialogism and the text. The Book of Mormon has a lot of these that are embedded in the narratives too. For example, Moroni's rather abrasive letter to the Nephite leadership, right? Or how about Jacob's statement: "Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, ..." But let's also not forget the startling Moroni 8:35 - "Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not." Open ended dialogism. The other funny thing that occurs here is the inconsistency with which you approach the text (again, that issue of being falsifiable). Earlier, the reference to Joseph is evidence of late editing. Here, because you think you have a parallel, it is authentic. The difference between the two is merely your preference.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you are saying here.

15 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

But on warfare, where is Grotius? Is he more of a pacifist? Is he a Moroni just-war sort of guy? But then, Moroni's style of warfare is absolutely disastrous in the context of the conflict with the Gadianton robbers. What is the overarching message of the Book of Mormon on war? And if we are going to discuss a dialogic reading, have you read anything by Dean Morgan on Book of Mormon warfare? Kingship is a bigger problem. It was clearly an issue in the context of the Hebrew bible. The debates over whether to have a king or not fill Chronicles and Samuel. Then we get the split monarchy (and the struggles to claim legitimacy in the new split kingdoms). The Nephites want a king (even if they don't want one at the same time). And then there is the problem created when the Nephites run into the Mulekites - who may have a descendant of King Zedekiah. Who is the rightful king? And this creates the conflict with the kingmen. The wicked kings in the Book of Mormon (even the Jaredite ones) are criticized in terms of Mosiac law. So, which is the better context in which to understand this text? I am not sure that you are actually finding the fit you think you are. I don't know because I don't know what similarities you are using - but, I am also interested in the differences that we see in the context of those similarities. One thing is clear. Does the Book of Mormon engage the topic of natural law with regards to kings? As far as the discussion goes, it is certainly a fascinating question. Does the election of Judges really reflect the election of a temporary monarch? Does the Book of Mormon side more with Hobbes who pointed out that a Monarch who is elected without a determination of a new election on his death is simply creating a permanent monarchy? Or how do we take Grotius's insistence that a people's identity is separate from their kings (a point that is rejected over and over again - Nephites, Amlicites, Mulekites, and so on). This could be an involved discussion ...

Where is Grotius on warfare indeed? He literally wrote the book on international law, which may not mean what some people think. In this context, international law refers to the proper way to wage "just" or "ethical" warfare. I've spent quite a bit of time looking at warfare in the Book of Mormon from a Grotian perspective and there is just way too much to try and unpack right now. And yes, I have Dean Morgan's book and I've paid particular attention to the Gadianton Robbers in my work. The other videos on my channel address them extensively.

15 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Actually, this issue applies to most of known human history. What makes your time period so special? You suggest that the Book of Mormon limits the role of the clergy and yet we have periods when the religious leaders were also the political leaders. Here again, you over simplify the texts to create the parallels you want. The Book of Mormon doesn't represent monolithic teachings on these kinds of issues. And in fact, the Book of Mormon explores a range of possible outcomes - when good people are both kings and priests, when we have good kings and bad priests, when we have bad kings and good priests, and so on. Does the Book of Mormon offer a best option by example? Does this match your suggestion about Grotius's views in comparison with the Book of Mormon. I am not convinced.

I've over-simplified on certain points, but it hasn't been to create the parallels I want. It's because I don't have time to write a dissertation about every point I make. Particularly since you keep using a shotgun approach. You keep reading my mind like some kind of clairvoyant, insisting that you know  how I've approached this effort, and then make the assumption I have merely done a shallow inquiry and then twisted the narrative to make insignificant things look significant. You did that repeatedly with the Calvin/Noah issue. Stop doing that, please! It's insulting and condescending. I'm happy to take criticisms about improving my method. I'm even happy to take criticism about my interpretation of historical events or about what I think the Book of Mormon is saying. I'm ready and willing to defend challenges (or change my mind) on those things. But its exhausting to defend against quasi-ad hominems and strawman attacks.

15 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I don't think that getting feedback is ever going to fix what I vew as the fatal flaws in your process. My suggestion is that you start over. You find a respected methodology put together by someone else. You use it as a framework to make your argument. You make predictions using that framework about the text - and then you comapre them.  And you pay attention to the differences (rather than simply excluding them). Perhaps you will arrive at the same place. I doubt it.

So, more about my method. @Calm has also asked about it, as well.

I start with one axiom, one assumption--that the Book of Mormon was produced naturalistically. There are no angels, no time-travel, no divine seer stones.

At its core, my process is an exercise in defining sets. I define the set by taking a Book of Mormon principle and identifying who/what fits inside the set defined by that principle. As an easy and very general example, I'll take the fact that the Book of Mormon is knowledgeable about Christianity. This set, therefore, contains anybody who has ever lived that has sufficient knowledge about the version(s) of Christianity found in the Book of Mormon. I can now exclude everybody who ever lived before the Christian era. I can also exclude most of the non-western world after the Christian era. My next set for the purposes of this exercise relates to how infant baptism is portrayed in the BOM. In general, those opposed to infant baptism are in the set, those in favor are out. So at this point we can exclude the vast majority of Christianity throughout history. But I still have to keep a hypothetical someone in the set who didn't oppose infant baptism, but for whatever reason, wrote in opposition to it. In other words, I am conceding that my method cannot define every, or even any, set with a bright line. And that's why we need to produce a variety of sets based on different principles. My next set for this discussion is related to Arminian soteriology. Same drill here, you're in or you're out (with the same caveat as before). At this point, the intersection of my sets still contains millions of people. But it excludes billions. What I'm doing here is the opposite of parallel-hunting, because I only gain ground when I exclude things.

As I add sets the intersection gets smaller and smaller. The other side of the coin, though, is that as I add sets they become harder to define and I become more and more likely to make a mistake. This exercise is dependent on my interpretations of both the BOM and human history, and I'm fallible on both accounts. So a valid criticism would be to show me where my interpretation of the BOM or human history is mistaken or how my set does not contain what I think it contains. This could force me to redefine one or more sets or abandon them altogether. Simply claiming that I am hunting for parallels not only mischaracterizes my approach, but it conveniently avoids the hard work of having to analyze and verify what I've said.

Having said all of that, I am interested in how others have approached similar things. I certainly don't mind adding tools to the shed, so please point me towards some resources or information. But I'm not going to abandon my current approach at this point. I don't know what fatal flaw you think you see.

Edited January 25, 2023 by JarMan

[JarMan]

13 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

Taking the accusations of Calvin’s bitter enemies at face value is not good research. The critics of Calvin you mentioned are highly biased and therefore unreliable. 

You're missing the point entirely. Of course the critics I mentioned are biased. That's why I am citing them. I am claiming the Book of Mormon text is critical of Calvin. To see who might be responsible for writing it, I need to look at what the critics say, not the apologists.

14 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

But let’s assume for a moment that the critics are spot on about Calvin’s sexual deviancy. What they accuse him of is very different from what King Noah was doing. Calvin isn’t being accused of having many wives and concubines and there’s no mention of King Noah committing acts of sodomy. 

Oh brother. I addressed this already on page 2 of this thread.

[Grug the Neanderthal]

1 hour ago, JarMan said:

You're missing the point entirely. Of course the critics I mentioned are biased. That's why I am citing them. I am claiming the Book of Mormon text is critical of Calvin. To see who might be responsible for writing it, I need to look at what the critics say, not the apologists.

Okay, gotcha. That makes sense. I was under the impression from your video and other comments that you believed that the portrayal of Calvin by his enemies to be accurate. 

1 hour ago, JarMan said:

Oh brother. I addressed this already on page 2 of this thread.

So basically you acknowledge that there is very little match between the sins of King Noah and what Calvin's enemies accused him of, but consider this enormous discrepancy in the supposed clear parallel between Calvin and King Noah to be irrelevant, because they were both “evil," even though it was in very different ways?

This doesn’t add up in my book.

If this were the only major difference between Calvin and King Noah, and the rest matched very well, that would be one thing, but this isn’t the case.

 

[Grug the Neanderthal]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

GOD can even see who eventually WILL join the church, and we are told that "every knee shall bow and tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ ".

Yes, of course. 

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I think it is more complex than just baptism 

Baptism by immersion by one holding the proper authority from God is a requirement to become a member of Christ’s church. This is clear from the scriptures and teachings of the church.

But being a member of Christ’s church in this life is not the end all be all. There are many members of the church who range from not being valiant in their testimony to being downright wicked. For these members, there baptism and membership in the church doesn’t avail them much. In fact for many, it is actually a source of increased condemnation.

And on the other hand there have been many good and righteous people throughout history who didn’t have the opportunity to be baptized by proper authority and receive the fullness of the gospel. They will receive it in the future and will be rewarded according to the desires of their hearts. And those who would have embraced the fullness of the gospel with all their hearts, had it been available to them, will be heirs of the Celestial Kingdom and be numbered among the Church of the Firstborn.

While the unfaithful and wicked members of the church will lose their reward and be very much disappointed in the next life. 

 

[JarMan]

25 minutes ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

Okay, gotcha. That makes sense. I was under the impression from your video and other comments that you believed that the portrayal of Calvin by his enemies to be accurate. 

So basically you acknowledge that there is very little match between the sins of King Noah and what Calvin's enemies accused him of, but consider this enormous discrepancy in the supposed clear parallel between Calvin and King Noah to be irrelevant, because they were both “evil," even though it was in very different ways?

This doesn’t add up in my book.

If this were the only major difference between Calvin and King Noah, and the rest matched very well, that would be one thing, but this isn’t the case.

I'm not sure you understand how an adaptation of a story is supposed to work. The point isn't to simply retell a story verbatim. That's not possible, first of all, when you start with a completely different milieu. Sometimes we see an author borrow themes from an older story to explore them in a modern setting, like in West Side Story. Sometimes ideas are borrowed that are particularly shocking, like the Game of Thrones Scene where Cersei blows up the Sept of Baelor (borrowing from the failed gunpowder plot). There are many other variations. Sometimes there are many layers of things going on in a story. A responsible critic wouldn't look at examples like the two I've given, cherry-pick a few differences, and then authoritatively claim there's no dependence or that it doesn't add up. At a minimum they would dig deeper into the themes of the stories and try to understand the similarities and differences and the contexts of the stories. I don't see you making any real effort to do that.

[Zosimus]

6 hours ago, JarMan said:

As I add sets the intersection gets smaller and smaller.

So a valid criticism would be to show me where my interpretation of the BOM or human history is mistaken. This could force me to redefine one or more sets or abandon them altogether. Simply claiming that I am hunting for parallels not only mischaracterizes my approach, but it avoids the hard work of having to analyze what I've said about the BOM or human history.

I'd be curious if Grotius had ever commented on what we now understand to be anachronisms in the text. We know that Grotius rejected the hypothesis that Jews had reached the Americas. In his debates with De Laet, Grotius makes the case for Ethiopian Christians, Australasians, and Chinese as the first to populate the Americas.

Hugo Grotius's dissertation on the origin of the American peoples and the use of comparative methods

It doesn't seem likely that the author of the Book of Mormon would have been so publicly opposed to claims that America was settled by Jews.

Wouldn't the "America was settled by Africans and Asians, not Jews" set be one that should be ejected alongside infant baptism?

[JarMan]

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

I'd be curious if Grotius had ever commented on what we now understand to be anachronisms in the text. We know that Grotius rejected the hypothesis that Jews had reached the Americas. In his debates with De Laet, Grotius makes the case for Ethiopian Christians, Australasians, and Chinese as the first to populate the Americas.

Hugo Grotius's dissertation on the origin of the American peoples and the use of comparative methods

It doesn't seem likely that the author of the Book of Mormon would have been so publicly opposed to claims that America was settled by Jews.

Wouldn't the "America was settled by Africans and Asians, not Jews" set be one that should be ejected alongside infant baptism?

There are a growing number of people who accept a Malaysian setting for the Book of Mormon. The geography seems to fit better. Things like elephants, silk, metallurgy, horses, etc fit better. And the Dutch were definitely interested in that part of the world, colonizing and trading and killing as they went. They were definitely more established there than in America in 1640. So there are some pretty good reasons to consider that the land of promise was meant to be Malaysia.

But that's not the only possibility. I think it's reasonable to presume that an author writing a work of fiction about a real place would populate the fictional place as he believed it was actually populated. But I don't think we can require that of our author. He could have reasons to write an account that was different than his understanding of actual circumstances--it's a work of fiction after all. 

It's also possible that the BOM author didn't have a specific land of promise in mind--that it was a general founding myth meant to apply to nobody or everybody.

This is one of those areas where I have to strip away what everybody says the BOM is saying and read the actual words. And I don't see anything conclusive that indicates where the events occurred.

[Grug the Neanderthal]

7 hours ago, JarMan said:

A responsible critic wouldn't look at examples like the two I've given, cherry-pick a few differences, and then authoritatively claim there's no dependence or that it doesn't add up. At a minimum they would dig deeper into the themes of the stories and try to understand the similarities and differences and the contexts of the stories. I don't see you making any real effort to do that.

I’m not cherry-picking a few differences. The examples you provided show an enormous difference between the two stories. If the story were an adaptation it would have made more sense to have King Noah's sins be whoredoms, adultery, and lascivious, not polygamy. There’s no reason to switch to polygamy due to the different setting. Nor is there any reason to make the switch to a lazy, glutinous, oppressor who overtaxed the people to build fine buildings and support himself. 

The glaring differences between what Calvin is accused of (and known to have done) and what King Noah did is just the tip of the iceberg. 

But as has been pointed out, your methodology makes falsifying your theory impossible. To you there are enough similarities between the two stories to declare a match. I could point out a hundred major differences, and it wouldn’t matter to you. 

That’s not a productive use of my time. 

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Grug the Neanderthal

[Zosimus]

17 hours ago, JarMan said:

There are a growing number of people who accept a Malaysian setting for the Book of Mormon. The geography seems to fit better. Things like elephants, silk, metallurgy, horses, etc fit better. And the Dutch were definitely interested in that part of the world, colonizing and trading and killing as they went. They were definitely more established there than in America in 1640. So there are some pretty good reasons to consider that the land of promise was meant to be Malaysia.

We've discussed the East Indies as being a better fit for 1 Nephi 13 before. I have since done more research on this 17th-century hypothesis that America was populated by Christian Ethiopians. I had posted a version of the following in that other forum (which shall remain nameless):

"We know that Luman Walters studied in Paris in the early 1800s. Like other Americans studying in Paris at that time (Jonas King for example), Walters would have become familiar with the writings of a well-known Orientalist named Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy. De Sacy was one of the first linguists to decipher some of the characters on.the Rosetta Stone. Professor de Sacy also acted as mentor for two students who went on to decipher the Rosetta Stone, Åkerblad and Champollion. Through his research into the history of Arab relations in Egypt, de Sacy encountered references in Arabic geographies to a people called the Kumr, he wrote about them in his French translation of an Arabic text published as "Relation de l'Egypte" (source).

As I've discussed in previous posts, Arab historians identified the Kumr as a Biblical clan descended from Japheth. According to 12th/13th century Arabic texts, the Kumr were the ancestors of the Polynesians and had originally built a city called Komoriyya on a large island called Komr (source). The modern nation of The Comoros took its name from this island, which sailors often confused with the Malay Peninsula, also named Kamar (source) or Komara (source). In the first centuries AD, the Kumr launched raids against Aden on the Arabian Peninsula and established settlements in Egypt and Ethiopia where they gave their name to the well-known Gibbel-al-Komr and the Gibbel-al-Kamar, or Mountains of the Moon. (source)

This is all described in Arabic geographies that would have been accessible to scholars like Grotius, and his pen pal Nicolas Fabri de Peiresc, the patron of Athanasius Kircher. Peiresc sought to learn more of Grotius' translation work on the Book of Enoch, and spoke often of an Egyptian text that had been written by an Egyptian Hebrew Rabbi Kircher identified in Arabic as: the son of Nephi. I'm not convinced that Grotius had anything to do with the production of the Book of Mormon, but certainly Grotius would have heard of Kircher's Nephite grimoire.

Anyway, these Mountains of the Moon - named after the Kumr clan - were said to be the source of the Nile River and became a sort of centerpiece for Enochian and Hermetic lore. Surprisingly, James Bruce on his search for the mystical Mountain of Komoriyya in the late 18th century, discovered not only the first, but the first three, copies of the Book of Enoch among the Christians of Ethiopia.

Its my hypothesis (Benjamin McGuire is going to have a field day with this one) that the Book of Mormon is a historical fiction describing a group of Morians - as Ethiopians were called in some Bibles - also known as the Kumr, and their adventures with a sealed book of hermetic secrets on the island of Komoriyya.

My hot take is that the toponym Moriancumr in the Book of Mormon is a portmanteau including Morian (an 18th century, possibly earlier, term for Ethiopians and/or Indians) + Kumr (a grandson of Noah who sailed with his family to a land called Komoriyya in boats modelled after Noah's ark. Ether 6:7 reminds us that the Jaredites modeled their boats after Noah's ark.

If there's interest, I can go into more detail about how the internal map of the Book of Mormon matches the geography of the ancient kingdom of Komoriyya with unmistakable precision. I could also go into more detail about how the historical founder of Komoriyya (named Maroni) ends up standing watch over a set of Golden Plates buried in a hill called Cumorah in New York."

-------

I don't know enough about Grotius to comment, but the case can definitely be made that the author of the Book of Mormon was describing historical Indian Christians in a land that was known historically as Komoriyya, that dated to the Book of Mormon time period.

On the other hand, if all the above BOM-ish toponyms and personal names are nothing but parallelomania, then I don't know what the Heartland and Mesoamerican models would be. At the very least, it calls into question the methodology used by Book of Mormon geography modelers. 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Zosimus

[The Nehor]

On 1/23/2023 at 11:32 PM, Grug the Neanderthal said:

I disagree. The entire church was corrupt and apostate from top to bottom. In the church we refer to this is the Great Apostasy. There weren’t any individuals who were free from corruption.

Whereas in the current restored church all members are completely free of corruption.

 

Edited January 26, 2023 by The Nehor

[Benjamin McGuire]

On 1/24/2023 at 8:51 PM, JarMan said:

I think a very significant early modern layer is required.

This doesn't help answer the question of how your argument can be falsified - if you can simply explain away everything that you see as anachronistic as attributed to the final redaction layer.

On 1/24/2023 at 8:51 PM, JarMan said:

I did just go and read it again. I read it when it originally came out, as well. I don't understand your question, though.

The Book of Mormon contains a great deal of discussion about language, authors, meaning, and so on. In particular, it uses the phrase of likening scriptures unto ourselves. This idea - that the meaning of a text is attached to readers as opposed to authors - at least in the developed state we see it in the Book of Mormon is in some ways, anachronistic. While there are, I think, some similarities between the Book of Mormon text and a couple of Plato's texts (in particular, Phaedrus), this sort of discussion is far more at home in comparison with more recent writers (like Derrida). But, in getting back to your theory - how do these deeply philosophical issues about texts, writing, and meaning fit with your proposed author at the beginning of the 17th century?

On 1/24/2023 at 8:51 PM, JarMan said:

I think Joseph had very little role in redacting the text. I am talking about only one sentence. I think it's fair to suspect JS of adding his name into the story because it would be consistent with his behavior. In D&C 100 he names Sydney Rigdon as his spokesman in apparent fulfillment of the very same prophecy in 2Ne3 (see verses 17 and 18) where I suspect he added himself. If he did it for D&C 100, it's not at all fallacious to suspect he could have done something similar a few years earlier.

Right - and yet, it would also take someone like Joseph Smith, right, to go through and edit out all of the italics words from the King James text that have been removed? This is clearly anachronistic (we can tell, for example, when the idea of the italics in the text began being an issue - and really, when that issue ended - linked as it was to the production of the second major English translation at the middle of the 19th century and the birth of King James onlyism).

On 1/24/2023 at 8:51 PM, JarMan said:

In addition, I don't see the intentional fallacy at play in what I am doing. First off, because most of what I'm describing as authorial intent is from the text. Secondly, I don't think it necessarily applies to the exercise I am engaged in, which is mostly historical in nature. I am not really engaged in literary criticism. I am trying to identify things the author did not create, but which derive from his milieu and leave traces in his words, which he did create. The author didn't invent the controversy about infant baptism, for example, so it is clear he is responding to his environment. It's appropriate to use that information to help narrow the possibilities.

Any time that you pull information into an interpretation that comes from outside the text, you have engaged in the intentional fallacy. The moment that you argue that there are details of the alleged author's life reflected in the text, you have engaged in the intentional fallacy. Any time you suggest anything akin to mind reading of the author, you have engaged in the intentional fallacy. Most of the stuff that you have provided in this forum has been guilty of the intentional fallacy to one degree or another. When you say "he is responding to his environment," it is the intentional fallacy.

The discussion about the intentional fallacy argues that the way that we can understand the intentions of a creator is through the success of his work. In literature, we can analyze a text, look at its rhetoric, its structure, and so on, and see what the text tells us. In my work, one of the avenues that I use is intertextuality as a way of assessing the rhetorical strength of a text and its meaning. But I have also explored a variety of other routes in looking at the rhetoric of a text. What you can't do (according to the intentional fallacy) is decide that if the text isn't clear, we can turn to the what we know about the author (his biographical details) or his environment (the historical period) as a way of creating that rhetorical meaning of a text in lieu of the text itself. The text in the Book of Mormon (in the section you are discussing) makes the case that Abinadi is a type of Moses. It does this by referring us back to the Old Testament. You want to make Abinadi into Servetus instead - but you don't do this by dealing with the rhetoric of the text itself but by making the argument that your proposed author would have wanted to have written about this stuff because of his personal experience. This is the intentional fallacy. You don't get to use this "information to help narrow the possibilities" because this is, itself, the heart of the fallacy. And it is made much, much worse in your specific case here because you are proposing that this is the author making the argument about the text also circular.

Finally, there is another issue - which is this. Part of what we call the intentional fallacy is using biographical details and external data to try and label certain aspects of a work as the most significant or as showing the purpose of a text more than another part. This is also a part of what you seem to be doing. Parallels get used as part of the process to identify connections and then the intentional fallacy kicks in when those parallels are presented as the core message of a text (to try and validate the original premise).

On 1/24/2023 at 8:51 PM, JarMan said:

I've over-simplified on certain points, but it hasn't been to create the parallels I want. It's because I don't have time to write a dissertation about every point I make. Particularly since you keep using a shotgun approach. You keep reading my mind like some kind of clairvoyant, insisting that you know  how I've approached this effort, and then make the assumption I have merely done a shallow inquiry and then twisted the narrative to make insignificant things look significant. You did that repeatedly with the Calvin/Noah issue. Stop doing that, please! It's insulting and condescending. I'm happy to take criticisms about improving my method. I'm even happy to take criticism about my interpretation of historical events or about what I think the Book of Mormon is saying. I'm ready and willing to defend challenges (or change my mind) on those things. But its exhausting to defend against quasi-ad hominems and strawman attacks.

I hope that what I have just put down will help explain what I am arguing about. I like to use specifics as examples - but they are largely there to help illustrate the bigger problems that I see with your methods. I haven't made any strawman attacks. I certainly haven't made any ad hominem attacks. I am challenging what you are doing, not who you are. The fact remains that using parallels inappropriately is something that happens a lot (it's intuitive to use parallels inappropriately just because of the way that our brains work). I am suggesting that you take a more formal approach to this using someone else's methodology because, as part of that process, it should become clearer to you that I am not just arguing from my own personal opinion space but from a larger community view.

[JarMan]

19 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

This doesn't help answer the question of how your argument can be falsified - if you can simply explain away everything that you see as anachronistic as attributed to the final redaction layer.

If I explain away enough anachronisms with a redaction layer, then it will start to look like a different time period is a better match. And isn't it possible there could be a silver bullet anachronism that simply can't be explained away? Another thing that would severely weaken my hypothesis would be showing that a different candidate fits the criteria better. I am pretty confident that JS doesn't even come close. But any person would do.

19 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

The Book of Mormon contains a great deal of discussion about language, authors, meaning, and so on. In particular, it uses the phrase of likening scriptures unto ourselves. This idea - that the meaning of a text is attached to readers as opposed to authors - at least in the developed state we see it in the Book of Mormon is in some ways, anachronistic. While there are, I think, some similarities between the Book of Mormon text and a couple of Plato's texts (in particular, Phaedrus), this sort of discussion is far more at home in comparison with more recent writers (like Derrida). But, in getting back to your theory - how do these deeply philosophical issues about texts, writing, and meaning fit with your proposed author at the beginning of the 17th century?

I don't know. I haven't been reading 17th Century texts with these ideas in mind. I'm not even sure I understand the ideas well enough to understand which ones are possibly anachronistic.

19 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Right - and yet, it would also take someone like Joseph Smith, right, to go through and edit out all of the italics words from the King James text that have been removed? This is clearly anachronistic (we can tell, for example, when the idea of the italics in the text began being an issue - and really, when that issue ended - linked as it was to the production of the second major English translation at the middle of the 19th century and the birth of King James onlyism).

I think the issues with the italics started early on because I remember it being discussed in some of the early modern stuff I've been reading. I don't have any specific sources to refer you to right now, but I will do some research.

19 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Any time that you pull information into an interpretation that comes from outside the text, you have engaged in the intentional fallacy. The moment that you argue that there are details of the alleged author's life reflected in the text, you have engaged in the intentional fallacy. Any time you suggest anything akin to mind reading of the author, you have engaged in the intentional fallacy. Most of the stuff that you have provided in this forum has been guilty of the intentional fallacy to one degree or another. When you say "he is responding to his environment," it is the intentional fallacy.

The discussion about the intentional fallacy argues that the way that we can understand the intentions of a creator is through the success of his work. In literature, we can analyze a text, look at its rhetoric, its structure, and so on, and see what the text tells us. In my work, one of the avenues that I use is intertextuality as a way of assessing the rhetorical strength of a text and its meaning. But I have also explored a variety of other routes in looking at the rhetoric of a text. What you can't do (according to the intentional fallacy) is decide that if the text isn't clear, we can turn to the what we know about the author (his biographical details) or his environment (the historical period) as a way of creating that rhetorical meaning of a text in lieu of the text itself. The text in the Book of Mormon (in the section you are discussing) makes the case that Abinadi is a type of Moses. It does this by referring us back to the Old Testament. You want to make Abinadi into Servetus instead - but you don't do this by dealing with the rhetoric of the text itself but by making the argument that your proposed author would have wanted to have written about this stuff because of his personal experience. This is the intentional fallacy. You don't get to use this "information to help narrow the possibilities" because this is, itself, the heart of the fallacy. And it is made much, much worse in your specific case here because you are proposing that this is the author making the argument about the text also circular.

Finally, there is another issue - which is this. Part of what we call the intentional fallacy is using biographical details and external data to try and label certain aspects of a work as the most significant or as showing the purpose of a text more than another part. This is also a part of what you seem to be doing. Parallels get used as part of the process to identify connections and then the intentional fallacy kicks in when those parallels are presented as the core message of a text (to try and validate the original premise).

I hope that what I have just put down will help explain what I am arguing about. I like to use specifics as examples - but they are largely there to help illustrate the bigger problems that I see with your methods. I haven't made any strawman attacks. I certainly haven't made any ad hominem attacks. I am challenging what you are doing, not who you are. The fact remains that using parallels inappropriately is something that happens a lot (it's intuitive to use parallels inappropriately just because of the way that our brains work). I am suggesting that you take a more formal approach to this using someone else's methodology because, as part of that process, it should become clearer to you that I am not just arguing from my own personal opinion space but from a larger community view.

Okay, now I think we've gotten to the bottom of what your real criticism is. I didn't understand what the intentional fallacy was supposed to mean, but I spent several hours reading about it including Wimsatt's and Beardsleys famous article. This article made some sense to me. They were focusing on poetry and how it's received by the reader. They want the poem to speak for itself--to be judged by the reader as a standalone piece of art with no authorial baggage. The author isn't ever the same person he was during the relatively short time he wrote down his poem while he was, perhaps, in an inspirational state that may be unlike his normal life. In a nutshell, this is how I understood their argument. I can't say I completely agree with their point, but I think I get it.

It probably won't come as a surprise that I don't agree with this idea at all in the context of what I am doing, which definitely is not trying to appreciate poetry. To me, it's  obvious that a writer is influenced by his environment. Isn't our whole existence essentially a series of reactions to outside stimuli? How could we possibly write something that was completely insulated from our life experiences? Without experience, what is there even to write about?

I'm not talking about trying to psycho-analyze a writer or trying to discern his innermost thoughts. But if the words on the paper say something--say, that infant baptism is an evil abomination--doesn't it make more sense to suspect the words were written by someone who's on the record as being critical of infant baptism, rather than to suspect someone who was known to defend it?

Quote

You want to make Abinadi into Servetus instead - but you don't do this by dealing with the rhetoric of the text itself but by making the argument that your proposed author would have wanted to have written about this stuff because of his personal experience. This is the intentional fallacy. You don't get to use this "information to help narrow the possibilities" because this is, itself, the heart of the fallacy. And it is made much, much worse in your specific case here because you are proposing that this is the author making the argument about the text also circular.

Wait, hold on here. I don't deal with the rhetoric of the text itself? What on earth is it you think I am doing then? Everything I've done is based on the text. For instance, to determine whether the accusations against Abinadi and Servetus were the same, I did a lot of work with the text. To understand what Abinadi was accused of, I looked at what was said at his sentencing. I picked through every word he spoke. I looked carefully at Limhi's account. This could not have been a more text-centric approach. For the counter-story, I read everything I could find that Servetus wrote, which are his two early books. I read several biographies from different centuries. I read several accounts of the trial that are based on records that were kept. This included the specific charges against him, Servetus' written responses, and a lot of back and forth between Servetus and Calvin (they exchanged several letters while Servetus was confined). I read Calvin's own account of the trial and the events leading up to it. I read a ton of commentary from biographers and historians from many different viewpoints. I read analyses of his views on the trinity and other doctrine. My conclusion: Servetus and Abinadi were charged with essentially the same heresy. I took the same amount of care for every point I brought up in my presentation. Every claim I made was vetted with the most research I could devote to it. This analysis stands completely on its own merits. It's interesting in its own right because it indicates that the person who wrote the Book of Mormon knew this story.

We know that Grotius knew the story. He disliked Calvin, calling him "the burner of Servetus" and implying he was the anti-Christ. He was likely influenced by Servetus' anti-trinitarianism (though he publicly denied it). Pointing these things out is completely reasonable.

Earlier you said this:

Quote

Your theory cannot simply say: here are the parallels. You have to have a good description of how the rhetoric is actually working - how recognizing the shift from Abinadi and Noah to Servetus and Calvin is meant to change our understanding of the text.

We're primarily supposed to see Calvin's soteriology as being incorrect. Calvin's demonization reinforces this. This fits the context of the rest of the text which goes out of its way to emphasize Arminian views that oppose Calvinism on some very specific grounds. The soteriology is evident from an analysis of the text. Should I now propose this was written by one of Calvin's disciples? Doesn't it make sense that in my search to find the author I, instead, look for someone who's on the record as opposing Calvin? This is what historical criticism does. So do authorship studies. I do not understand what you find objectionable with this approach.

Edited January 27, 2023 by JarMan

[Benjamin McGuire]

3 hours ago, JarMan said:

If I explain away enough anachronisms with a redaction layer, then it will start to look like a different time period is a better match. And isn't it possible there could be a silver bullet anachronism that simply can't be explained away? Another thing that would severely weaken my hypothesis would be showing that a different candidate fits the criteria better. I am pretty confident that JS doesn't even come close. But any person would do.

So here is the problem, as I see it. King Noah's wickedness in the text is described in terms of Deuteronomy 17. Abinadi's comparison with Moses engages Deuteronomy 18. Both of these Old Testament passages are used repeatedly in the text of the Book of Mormon. These intertexts would seem, at least on the surface, of providing a rhetorical understanding of the text that is exclusive of your hypothesis. Wouldn't this falsify your hypothesis?

The challenge with your "a different candidate [that] fits the criteria better" is that it is a circular argument of sorts. You will notice in my argument that I am completely indifferent to the question of the identification of an author (this is how I avoid dealing with the problem of the intentional fallacy completely). In other words, my interpretation of the text flows from the text and isn't dependent on a particular theory of authorship. If any of your criteria about candidates for authorship involve issues that are external to the text, you are engaging the intentional fallacy - and are defining the text through unsupportable conclusions. You want to focus on the people - when you should be focusing on the interpretation. How do you separate your interpretation of the text from any of a number of alternative interpretations?

3 hours ago, JarMan said:

I think the issues with the italics started early on because I remember it being discussed in some of the early modern stuff I've been reading. I don't have any specific sources to refer you to right now, but I will do some research.

It's not about when it starts being discussed. That is largely an irrelevancy. It gets mentioned from the very beginning. It's when the inclusion of these words becomes an issue (and when it stops being an issue - after all, we no longer make such distinctions in translation today). At what point would someone think that the King James text would be better without the italicized words - and just as importantly, when would they be willing to drop those words despite the fact that it makes reading more difficult.

3 hours ago, JarMan said:

It probably won't come as a surprise that I don't agree with this idea at all in the context of what I am doing, which definitely is not trying to appreciate poetry. To me, it's  obvious that a writer is influenced by his environment. Isn't our whole existence essentially a series of reactions to outside stimuli? How could we possibly write something that was completely insulated from our life experiences? Without experience, what is there even to write about?

I will agree with the fact that you don't think it applies - but that doesn't change the fact that it applies regardless. It isn't that we don't believe that authors have intentions. It isn't that we don't think that authors have thoughts. It's that all of this is completely inaccessible to the reader. And, as Plato suggested (in Phaedrus):

Quote

That's the strange thing about writing, which makes it truly analogous to painting. The painter's products stand before us as though they were alive: but if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence. It is the same with written words: they seem to talk to you as though, they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say, they go on telling you just the same thing for ever.

Let me try to summarize -

First, you are arguing that for us to read the text properly, we have to have this intimate knowledge of the author, their history, and once we have this, we can understand the text properly. This is pretty much exactly what Wimsatt and Beardsley were criticizing. But in this case, there is something even stranger about this position - the fact that the Book of Mormon itself argues that such knowledge should be unimportant to reading the text - that is, the text should be read in terms of our own experience and not the experience of another. I think that this is an important fact for this discussion - that you are proposing a hermeneutic that is inconsistent with the one presented by the text itself.

You might have a bit more solid ground if you weren't also discussing a purely hypothetical source text. But you don't. And so you will have to recognize the incredibly high degree of skepticism that I think is appropriate when approaching your theory.

4 hours ago, JarMan said:

I'm not talking about trying to psycho-analyze a writer or trying to discern his innermost thoughts. But if the words on the paper say something--say, that infant baptism is an evil abomination--doesn't it make more sense to suspect the words were written by someone who's on the record as being critical of infant baptism, rather than to suspect someone who was known to defend it?

This isn't the issue. It's that you have focused on a single individual. We have a lot of literature covering centuries that is highly critical of infant baptism. In the context of early America, it was a point of departure - not only from Catholicism, but from the Church of England. So we have the Baptists, as an example, and the debate over infant baptism shows up prominently in both the first and the second great awakenings. There isn't anything about the denial of infant baptism that points us specifically to Grotius.

But there is another issue - when we tackle this on your terms. Infant baptism isn't exactly a constant theme in the Book of Mormon. The section about it could be removed without significantly altering the text. The specific age of accountability isn't something that can be found in Grotius - the closest he comes is to suggest that children cannot reason enough to accept baptism until the age of at least ten. And the Book of Mormon's issues with infant baptism are actually simply a specific from a much larger discussion about accountability and agency (the Book of Mormon has a very detailed theology of both). But the Book of Mormon contains a number of major differences with Grotius on the theology of sin and agency. The Book of Mormon denies absolute agency. The Book of Mormon does not adopt original sin. And so on. So can we really call Grotius a good match on this point? By focusing on the similarity that you find, you neglect a whole host of other issues where there isn't similarity - and this calls into question your hypothesis that this was written by Grotius. How do you resolve these difference?

In stepping back a bit, do we even need to find an alternative that fits the set of doctrines exactly?

4 hours ago, JarMan said:

Wait, hold on here. I don't deal with the rhetoric of the text itself? What on earth is it you think I am doing then? Everything I've done is based on the text.

It's not. Every time you bring in an issue about a parallel or a historical point, you are no longer basing it on the text.

4 hours ago, JarMan said:

For instance, to determine whether the accusations against Abinadi and Servetus were the same, I did a lot of work with the text. To understand what Abinadi was accused of, I looked at what was said at his sentencing. I picked through every word he spoke. I looked carefully at Limhi's account. This could not have been a more text-centric approach.

I disagree with you. The moment you discuss "being burned at the stake" is the moment you have moved away from the text.

But I also think that you are misunderstanding my statement. Rhetoric isn't what the text says, it's what the text does (or what an author uses the text to do). Rhetorical devices, for example, are textual forms or constructions that are used with the purpose of convey a certain idea to the audience and making them believe something about what is being said. We can identify rhetorical devices in the text as a way of coming to an understanding of the rhetoric of the text. Your primary point is that the text is meant to say something about Calvin. But Calvin is nowhere mentioned in the text. In order to make your point, you have to take everything that the text says and then apply it to a specific historical context - and this is anything but dealing with the rhetoric of the text. I'll come back to the example I have been using. The text alludes to (paraphrases) Deuteronomy. This is telling us something about Abinadi and how we (the readers) should understand the character of Abinadi. This rhetoric is in conflict with the idea that the real rhetoric of the text (your claim) that Abinadi represents Servetus and the narrative is criticizing Calvin. When I say that you are not dealing with the rhetoric of the text, I do so because there are clear (at least to me) rhetorical elements in the text that you completely ignore.

4 hours ago, JarMan said:

This included the specific charges against him, Servetus' written responses, and a lot of back and forth between Servetus and Calvin (they exchanged several letters while Servetus was confined). I read Calvin's own account of the trial and the events leading up to it. I read a ton of commentary from biographers and historians from many different viewpoints. I read analyses of his views on the trinity and other doctrine.

None of this is the text of the Book of Mormon. All of it is external. My only conclusion is that you don't really understand my criticism or you don't really understand what you are doing as part of your process (and it doesn't matter which of these reflects the reality).

[JarMan]

11 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

So here is the problem, as I see it. King Noah's wickedness in the text is described in terms of Deuteronomy 17. Abinadi's comparison with Moses engages Deuteronomy 18. Both of these Old Testament passages are used repeatedly in the text of the Book of Mormon. These intertexts would seem, at least on the surface, of providing a rhetorical understanding of the text that is exclusive of your hypothesis. Wouldn't this falsify your hypothesis?

Perhaps you could point me to some analysis so I could become familiar with the argument. My initial response, though, is that assuming what you're desciribing is legit, it would require my author to have been able to know this information. You may know that Grotius wrote extensively on the bible and related religious subjects, so it wouldn't be surprising if he was familiar with what you are talking about.

11 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I disagree with you. The moment you discuss "being burned at the stake" is the moment you have moved away from the text.

I provided ample textual evidence to support this assertion. Nobody has tried to refute it yet. I will add one more point, though, that I forgot earlier. For us, the keywords are "burn" and "stake" for describing that particular execution method. For early moderns the keywords were "fire" (or "flame") and "faggot." I can cite dozens, if not hundreds of examples on this. Even the word scourged scorched is used in the BOM as the early moderns used it. So not only do I think the text is clearly describing being burned at the stake, I think this is also an example that clearly uses early modern langage.

11 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

This isn't the issue. It's that you have focused on a single individual. We have a lot of literature covering centuries that is highly critical of infant baptism. In the context of early America, it was a point of departure - not only from Catholicism, but from the Church of England. So we have the Baptists, as an example, and the debate over infant baptism shows up prominently in both the first and the second great awakenings. There isn't anything about the denial of infant baptism that points us specifically to Grotius.

You said you don't try to use straw men, but this is an example where you do. I haven't claimed this issue points "specifically" to Grotius. I described it as a way to define a set of people and milieus, which I also said contains millions of people. I keep referring to this example, not because it's the sum of my evidence, but because people are generally aware that this has been a minority view in Christianity. This is just one of many examples that operates to restrict the set.

11 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

None of this is the text of the Book of Mormon. All of it is external. My only conclusion is that you don't really understand my criticism or you don't really understand what you are doing as part of your process (and it doesn't matter which of these reflects the reality).

I think I understand your criticism, but I disagree with it completely. You asked me to find how other people have approached this exercise, so I've been looking. I've found that the people involved in historical criticism and the authorship question roundly reject what you are describing, as well. Here's a paper that directly addresses the issues. This is written by a fellow who has been involved in authorship studies of Shakespeare's plays. So he's even looking at the same period I am. For those who may not want to read the entire thing, which is actually quite good, I'll provide some relevant quotations.

Here he summarizes your position, which he associates with cultural studies as opposed to literary or historical studies:

Quote

To sum up, the humanistic tradition of the study of literature in place at the time Looney identified Edward de Vere as Shakespeare has been replaced by one unreceptive to the authorship question. The methodology of seeking correspondences between events and characters in literary works and events and people in the life of a purported author has little resonance in an environment in which the author is regarded as an outmoded “construct” that is bypassed in favor of cultural forces that determine the content of literary works. And, that the entire field of literary studies has been subsumed under the field of cultural studies, which is itself wracked by methodological flaws that produce works that cannot be considered serious scholarship, is not indicative of an environment in which the academic study of the authorship question can easily take place. Simply put, the authorship question is not one that most literary scholars find attractive in the current environment.

He finds much to criticize about the approach, including flawed methodology and fallacies and sums it up as follow:

Quote

In indulging in these fallacies, it almost appears as if Cultural Studies itself no longer studies the cultures of various societies or the process of cultural change, but instead hand-picks data from various societies to support theories arising from outside Cultural Studies itself—indeed, from outside academia. If so, the field no longer qualifies as an academic discipline as defined by Stanley Fish. Such a state of affairs, if this analysis is accurate, would show the full depth of the degradation into which literary studies, now a subfield within Cultural Studies, has fallen.

He continues:

Quote

Without academic standards in place to guide cultural theorists away from those fallacies and inappropriate non-academic goals, it is not surprising that they often developed, in Culler’s phrasing, “dispositions to give particular kinds of answers to the question of what a work is ultimately ‘about’: ‘the class struggle’ (Marxism), ‘Oedipal conflict’ (psychoanalysis), ‘the containment of subversive energies’ (new historicism), ‘the asymmetry of gender relations’ (feminism), ‘the selfdeconstructive nature of the text’ (deconstruction), ‘the occlusion of imperialism’ (postcolonial theory), ‘the heterosexual matrix’ (gay and lesbian studies)” (Culler 65). Flawed methodologies lead to flawed practices, as “Marxist theory sees the subject as determined by class position: it either profits from others’ labour or labours for others’ profit. Feminist theory stresses the impact of socially constructed gender roles on making the subject what he or she is. Queer theory has argued that the heterosexual subject is constructed through the repression of the possibility of homosexuality”

But he does propose what he believes to be appropriate methodologies for studying the authorship question:

Quote

First, methodologies will differ from field to field because they must be suited to the nature of the objects being examined and the explanations being sought. For historical studies, the appropriate methodology is the “adductive reasoning” explained by historian David H. Fischer that asks open-ended questions and answers them in the form of reasoned argument. For literary criticism, the appropriate methodology is one that recognizes the two distinctive features of works of literature: that they are unique and so deserve careful study in themselves as works of art, and they are produced by specific individuals for specific reasons at specific points in time, which makes awareness of the author’s intentions and the details of his life and times important for understanding them. The Shakespeare authorship question, being a study of the historical aspects of the origin of works of literature, will best be studied through a methodology blending those of history and literary criticism.

Quote

Fourth, circumstantial evidence is a legitimate form of evidence in historical investigations, just as it is in courtrooms. Correspondences between events and characters in literary works ascribed to a pen name and similar events and people in the life of a purported author are legitimate grounds for establishing authorship. What is important is the quality and quantity of the correspondences.

Here, he provides an important distinction:

Quote

If the healthy study of literature is to occur under a new methodology, it must take place outside the dominion of and domination by Cultural Studies. Cultural studies, in spite of the unacademic practices currently in place, is a legitimate field of study. It is unfortunate that literary studies became combined with it, and the health of both fields requires that they be separated. The two study different things and so require different methodologies, and thus need to be housed in different departments dedicated to maintaining high standards in their respective methodological areas.

I think we have different views on what is important in the type of analysis I'm doing. As far as I can tell, though, other people are using methods similar to mine. Here's an example from the Interpreter that was released today. I haven't read it all the way through yet, but the gyst is that we can better understand Nephi's apocalyptic vision by looking at the politics of his time.

In order to understand your position better, tell me how would you approach the authorship question. What methods are appropriate?