Book of Mormon "Horses"

[Zeitgeist]

I can't believe this is even an argument. A horse would be the most obvious answer. I understand the workings of translation, but this was claimed as no ordinary translation. It was suppossed to be through the power of God and a rock! If someone other than Joseph translated the book would it have turned out differentlly as well as our understanding of it? If so, isn't that a reflection of the errors of men creeping in and their own wisdom being placed over God's perfect wisdom. Boy, now that is an argument I have heard Mormons make against the bible. Maybe the article of faith should read 'we believe in the Book of Mormon as far as it is translated correctly'. The Book of Mormon may be wildly incorrect. Maybe Christ didn't actually go to the Americas, because Mormon wasn't there. Maybe it was an incorrect tradition of his father's.

Moreover, why would the spirit and God for that matter be confused about what word to provide to Joseph. Doesn't God want us to understand what he is saying? Does he want to decieve us? Does he want us to have faith that there were horses here after all? Why translate this particular animal into a word we know, which could have been something else, but not another animal like curelom. I know I have heard it before, because it was a Jaredite word! Gosh I should have known. Again the same questions apply.

Frankly, your rationalizations lead to more confusion and more questions that all lead to doubt anyhow. Maybe you should all keep it up.

Zeitgeist

[Benjamin McGuire]

Zeitgeist writes:

I can't believe this is even an argument. A horse would be the most obvious answer. I understand the workings of translation, but this was claimed as no ordinary translation. It was suppossed to be through the power of God and a rock! If someone other than Joseph translated the book would it have turned out differentlly as well as our understanding of it? If so, isn't that a reflection of the errors of men creeping in and their own wisdom being placed over God's perfect wisdom. Boy, now that is an argument I have heard Mormons make against the bible. Maybe the article of faith should read 'we believe in the Book of Mormon as far as it is translated correctly'. The Book of Mormon may be wildly incorrect.

Well, clearly, you have some very bad misconceptions on the nature of language and the nature of translation. But tell me - is God a word-for-word literal kind of translator or an idea-for-idea kind of translator? Who was God's intended audience? Was it Joseph Smith? Was it someone else? Obviously, the language into which it was translated was ambiguous (unless we want to credit God with the creation of the English language and then criticize him for its containing ambiguity) - so how do we deal with the natural ambiguity in the text? What does God do when he comes across a reference or an allusion to a Nephite writing which Joseph Smith doesn't have access to? Is he supposed to fill in the blanks?

And then, we get to the issue of errors. What about errors in the text. Is God supposed to correct errors when they occur? Even when the errors were intentional? Doesn't this become something far different from a translation at that point? Why even need the plates or the rock (or whatever)?

Obviously (forgive the sarcasm), you make a whole slew of assumptions about language and translation which I find untenable.

Ben

[Tarski]

For all intents and purposes, lets just assume that Joseph read the words from a stone in a hat. Joseph Smith doesn't "need" to refer to anything. He isn't trying to refer to anything. He is merely reading words which he sees in a hat.

The difference between the two is that the text may have transliterated "curelom". But Nephi is the one who redefines "horse" to refer to a larger conceptual and semantic model than it did originally.

OK, so why would Nephi do such a thing? What were those "horses" then?

You aren't going with deer or tapir are you?

[Tarski]

Well, clearly, you have some very bad misconceptions on the nature of language and the nature of translation. But tell me - is God a word-for-word literal kind of translator or an idea-for-idea kind of translator? Who was God's intended audience? ...

....Obviously (forgive the sarcasm), you make a whole slew of assumptions about language and translation which I find untenable.

Ben

The audience was clearly us. We know was horse means and so why would God confuse the issue. He knew this would all come up didn't he?

All of this is explained by the simple down to earth idea that JS did not translate an ancient record. If we consider the method to be more like the production of James J. Strang's "Book of the Law of the Lord" then we have no mysteries.

[Zeitgeist]

LOL Ben,

You make a lot of assumptions about the text that seem untenable, in light of the claim of what the text is, where it came from, who was guiding it's creation, protected the text, and had a hand in its translation. Maybe your God isn't so powerful afterall. Your position undermines the Book of Mormon. I do not know which is worse for you.

Well God is a horrible communicator, that I have experience with, so I couldn't tell you if he was a literal line for line or idea for idea. If you think he is a good translator he would probably be both. One thing for sure is that he isn't consistent in his use of words nor is he helping answer the riddle. The audience is us, but more confusing is that he uses the word horse but means something else. Why lead us to believe it was a horse?

What does God do when he comes across a reference or an allusion to a Nephite writing which Joseph Smith doesn't have access to? Is he supposed to fill in the blanks? I would think he would fill in the blanks or have Joseph refer to a dictionary. Maybe even tell Joseph what it was in reality, if not a horse. The irony is there is no known animal that would fit the use described but a horse, (especially in Mesoamerica) that Joseph could not find information about. Of course could just give it a name like curelom and let us all speculate aout what it is. I thought God was consistent, you say he isn't.

Zeitgeist

[Benjamin McGuire]

Tarski writes:

OK, so why would Nephi do such a thing? What were those "horses" then?

You aren't going with deer or tapir are you?

It doesn't really matter to me what they actually are. The text discusses the various roles which they play. I am more than willing to let others speculate. Nor am I dead set against it referring to a real horse. I am simply pointing out that it is not implausible (assuming the historicity of the text) for the term to refer to somethign other than what corresponds with our conceptual and semantic model of a horse.

The more interesting question is why would Nephi do this - and the answer to that was provided in my earlier comments. Obviously (for any of a number of reasons), he was more willing to expand the concept of a "horse" than he was to create a new name in his Reformed Egyptian for this new creature. The fact that he writes this some time (perhaps decades) after landing in the New World may impact his reasons - as well as the fact that his audience (his descendants) had no real conceptual or sematic model of an old world horse anyways. It might be, for example, that on reading the Brass Plates (and the descendants of the original travellers did read them apparently) in asking what a horse was, were shown this new creature as a conceptual and semantic model for something which was outside the scope of their experience. This is a "horse".

Ben

[Dan Vogel]

I believe the word horse is in the BofM for the same reason Solomon Spaulding put it in his romance. They didn

[Benjamin McGuire]

Tarski writes:

The audience was clearly us. We know was horse means and so why would God confuse the issue. He knew this would all come up didn't he?

All of this is explained by the simple down to earth idea that JS did not translate an ancient record. If we consider the method to be more like the production of James J. Strang's "Book of the Law of the Lord" then we have no mysteries.

Define "us" please.

Also, please explain why, if Nephi used the word "horse", God wouldn't translate it as "horse" - even if God knows (like Nephi knows) that "horse" as Nephi uses it is a modification of the model which we traditionally understand horses to mean.

Does this mean, than an accurate translator of Marco Polo should, instead of translating the word as "unicorn" which Marco Polo uses, translate it as Rhinoceros instead? Knowing, that in so doing, they are misrepresenting what Marco Polo (or Nephi) wrote in favor of replacing it with what they would have written had they been aware of all the facts?

As I keep pointing out, your notion of what you seem to think the translation should have been is completely inconsistent with what I think the translation should be like. So perhaps we need to go back to that point and discuss what you think the translation should be like. Is God a word-for-word kind of guy, or an idea-for-idea kind of guy?

Ben

[enummaelish]

The audience was clearly us. We know was horse means and so why would God confuse the issue. He knew this would all come up didn't he?

You

[Tarski]

The more interesting question is why would Nephi do this - and the answer to that was provided in my earlier comments. Obviously (for any of a number of reasons), he was more willing to expand the concept of a "horse" than he was to create a new name in his Reformed Egyptian for this new creature.

I can't for the life of me make sense of this. Where did Nephi even get the concept of a horse? There weren't any. What did he write in the plates when he came to that point (over and over)? Surely not the english word "horse". Then what?What ever it was, it didn't get matched to the english word "horse" until JS. That is, unless they really were horses.

How can you expand the semantic sense of a concept you don't have? That would be like me the sense of the word "dog" to that of an animal that I have never seen and don't have a word for. How could I do such a thing?

[Tarski]

after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding (D&C 1:24) (emphasis added)."

Well I cannot fit both the word "curelom" and the word "horse" for something that isn't a horse with that description:

"manner of their language, that they might come to understanding"

You can't have it both ways.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Zeitgeist writes:

You make a lot of assumptions about the text that seem untenable, in light of the claim of what the text is, where it came from, who was guiding it's creation, protected the text, and had a hand in its translation. Maybe your God isn't so powerful afterall. Your position undermines the Book of Mormon. I do not know which is worse for you.

But I make no pretenses about the assumptions which I am making in the discussion. I list them explicitly.

The problem here is this. God may be all powerful. But, humans aren't. God may be able to communicate perfectly. But humans can't. And, in fact, human language is anything but perfect. While there is perhaps the occaisional utterance which is not ambiguous, in a written text, this is by far the minority (if it occurs at all). So, the weakness isn't God's weakness.

We suspect, for example, that God, being what God is, is capable of knowing perfectly the intentions of an author. But, we create a conundrum. Would God correct a text to reflect intent rather than what was actually written in translating it? What if, on the other hand, the reader of a text was incapable of understanding the translation? Would God re-render it so that the reader would understand it?

If we take the English language as a basis, it seems quite possible, for example, for God to create a text that could perfectly convey the meaning which God intended for it to convey. But, it would be to a specific audience. More than that, it would be to an audience of one (and even that, it would be to an audience of one at a particular time and place). No one else would be capable of achieving the same meaning from that text. Is this a weakness on the part of God? No. It is a weakness on the part of our ability to communicate. So who was the intended audience? Let's say that it was Joseph Smith. Our ability then, to understand the perfection of the text which God intended, would largely be determined by how closely we resemble Joseph Smith in 1828 - how closely our language resembles his, how closely our culture environment resembles his, how similar our intertextual exposure resembles his. And of course, let's forget about a non-English translation of the text (which presumably doens't involve God at all). Yet, all of these issues, when I raise them, you call my referring to God as not being as powerful as I claimed Him to be (whatever that is).

Well God is a horrible communicator, that I have experience with, so I couldn't tell you if he was a literal line for line or idea for idea. If you think he is a good translator he would probably be both. One thing for sure is that he isn't consistent in his use of words nor is he helping answer the riddle. The audience is us, but more confusing is that he uses the word horse but means something else. Why lead us to believe it was a horse?

And the answer is the question - why wouldn't he? Does it matter to us one way or the other?

Much like our reading Marco Polo with "unicorn" replaced by "rhinoceros" would create some problematic readings and nonsensical text, the challenge with modifying horses is that the notion of the horse in the Book of Mormon (even if it didn't refer to a horse) was closely tied to kingship and, on occiasion, is used in allusion to the Deuteronomic Kingship laws of Dt. 17 which discuss horses. Changing the word also changes our ability to understand the model which the Nephites were using. It might make some parts of the text more accurate, while at the same time, making other parts of the text less accessible. Unless of course, you think that maybe God should have offered a running commentary throughout.

What does God do when he comes across a reference or an allusion to a Nephite writing which Joseph Smith doesn't have access to? Is he supposed to fill in the blanks? I would think he would fill in the blanks or have Joseph refer to a dictionary. Maybe even tell Joseph what it was in reality, if not a horse. The irony is there is no known animal that would fit the use described but a horse, (especially in Mesoamerica) that Joseph could not find information about. Of course could just give it a name like curelom and let us all speculate aout what it is. I thought God was consistent, you say he isn't.

And here you have things all messed up. Suppose, for example, I offer you this poem and ask you to translate it:

Dantes, no. The mountain is sad. The treasure

Stolen. When all is said and done there will be no

Gold coin missing. No, Dantes, no.

I do not know what your opinion is. If you ask

For my opinion, you will hear my heart saying

What is it saying. If you listen carefully

You will hear it singing, "No. Dantes.

No, Dantes. No."

The time passed. The waves did not break the fortress.

No passage is possible. The fish let one die but not

Live. Like animals. I know that but

I also know what a brother said to a brother

In the forgotten night. And this is what he said: "No.

No, Dantes, no."

You found the key in the cell. If you have not been asked,

You will not be asked. It is always possible to fake a corpse.

The matter does not lie here. The deceit is not here. You

Yourself have outworn your body. You feel like

Someone who gave up a fortune. No matter. The thought

That it has passed, not happy but not consoled either,

At least not that. Not total darkness, but certainly not light.

Too much of a jail here. Too much of a dungeon. But to remember

That it exists, that it is more than the reality of man:

It can be touched, it would be possible to reach its heart

Warm. No. No, Dantes, no.

(The poem was written in 1966 by the Israeli poet Natan Zach). Would you feel obligated, as a part of that translation to explain the metonymical allusion to Le Comte de Monte Christo? Would you feel the need (as part of the translation) to show that the elements in the poem come from another source - the mountain, the stolen treasure, the water surrounding the fortress, the false corpse, the prison cell, etc. Perhaps you might include in your "translation" the notion that the fuller text of the story even provides a suitable environment in which the poem might have been uttered. On the verge of wreaking his revenge (justified maybe), Monte-Cristo regains his humanity and realizes that man cannot play God. After all, the meaning which Zach intended cannot really begin to be comprehended without making the reader competent first.

And when you (or God) finishes such a translation, can it even be called a translation? After all, the purpose of an allusion is that it is allusive - it isn't always recognizable - except by those who are competent. And yet, you have now forced competency on the reader, who cannot now discover the allusion for themselves on their own as the author intended. The challenge that I have with your comments is that you seem to misunderstand some fundamental issues about language and communication. You make this process so simple as to be a meaningless description, and then use that meaningless description as a blunt instrument to attack.

The way I view it, God is consistent. He doesn't add to the text. He lets the errors come through. He isn't concerned with perfection in communication, simply because God knows that the only way He can communicate perfection to us is on a one-by-one basis. And even then, just as with Lehi and Nephi's visions of the Tree of Life, we will all have individual experiences of that perfection which will not be the same. This is not a flaw of God's. It is caused by mortality.

So tell us, how are "horses" used in the Book of Mormon?

Ben

[enummaelish]

Well I cannot fit both the word "curelom" and the word "horse" for something that isn't a horse with that description:

Unless the plates actually contained the Hebrew word sus or

[Zeitgeist]

enummaelish,

quote: "You

[Benjamin McGuire]

Dan writes:

I believe the word horse is in the BofM for the same reason Solomon Spaulding put it in his romance. They didn

[Benjamin McGuire]

Tarski writes:

I can't for the life of me make sense of this. Where did Nephi even get the concept of a horse? There weren't any. What did he write in the plates when he came to that point (over and over)? Surely not the english word "horse". Then what?What ever it was, it didn't get matched to the english word "horse" until JS. That is, unless they really were horses.

How can you expand the semantic sense of a concept you don't have? That would be like me the sense of the word "dog" to that of an animal that I have never seen and don't have a word for. How could I do such a thing?

Nephi grew up in Jerusalem. There are Hebrew words referring to "horses". These words are translated into Egyptian in his Brass Plates (which he read and quoted - including at least one reference to a horse). This is the basis for the conceptual and semantic model which Nephi perhaps enlarges.

Again, the text which marco Polo wrote, and the translation which I provided, illustrate this principle.

Ben

[Benjamin McGuire]

Tarski writes:

Well I cannot fit both the word "curelom" and the word "horse" for something that isn't a horse with that description:

"manner of their language, that they might come to understanding"

You can't have it both ways.

I can have it both ways. For starters, these come from two different writers. The second may not have had as much apprehension about expanding the language. At the same time, it may well be that Mormon or Moroni had no clue what a "curelom" was themselves, (never having seen one, and thus not have a conceptual or semantic model in which to place it) and so rather than attempting to name it (as the certainly did the other animals from the Jaredite texts - and whose to say those were actually what they were named), they simply perhaps transliterated the name. In any case, there is much more information in the text about the role of the horse than about the curelom.

Ben

[Zeitgeist]

Ben,

Horses are said to be found in wilderness among other animals like oxen, ***, and the cow(anachronistic). 1 Ne. 18:25.

2 Ne. 12:7 a reading of Isaish demonstrates that horse is known to atleast Nephi. You might imagine they would try to pass on the information of what this animal was, especially so they do not lose the valuable Isaiah. Jesus is said that they already neglected Isaiah. Jesus seems to suggest that he and Isaiah know what a horse is and wants them to know Isaiah, so why not call a horse a horse?

Enos 1:21 Nephites are agriculturalists tilling the land (which by the way is ussually done with large powerful animals in any significant manner) but raise cattle of every kind (suggesting varieties) goats, and "many horses." Function is not implicite here, but it would be safe to assume that they were used for something if they were raising them. Transportation of some kind is the most probable. But the whell is never used, nor are carts, nor do we find them in tilling the ground. In fact we do not find them. You can suspect that they would use them as their fathers would have known how to use them from Jerusalem.

Alma 18:9-12: Ammon prepares's Lamonhi's horses and chariots to conduct him forth. So there as transportation. Along with chariots! Seems like they must have kept something from the old days in Jerusalem after all. Or maybe Joseph is just thinking the obvious.

3 Ne. 3:22: The Nephites gather their horses and chariots and possessions in one place. Why woudl they do that in this time of crisis? Must have been important. They must have used them for travel. Which is pretty hard to do in many areas of Mesoamerica, but hey not impossible entirely. Except would be cumbersome, slow, and almost futile. Why take them to a battle ground? Maybe for war?

3 Ne. 21:14: Why mention the horse again in a propehcy to people who do not know what a horse and chariot is?

Ether 9:19: Jaredites have horses, asses, elephants and cueloms and cummons, all especially useful to man, and more especially the elephants, cureloms and cumoms.

So it appears that horses were used for transportation. Possibly in war and agriculture, though not implict in the text. We know they were abundant when Nephi arrives, rasied in Enos's day, treasured in 3rd Nephi, useful and there in Ether's time, and a few hundred years later written about by Mormon and Moroni. There you have it.

It seems like elephant, curelom, cumoms, asses, oxen, cattle, as well as certain metals and items also need explaining as to why they were translated they way they were.

Zeitgeist

P.S. Let's see Brant Gardnerand other LGT'ists try to explain the horse and chariot in the Mayan culture as well as all the things we do not find in Mesoamerica that the text is identifying pretty directly.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Zeigeist writes:

It was mystical, unless you think translating with a rock and the power of God is normal. What understanding is added to us by calling an unknown animal (Dr. Peterson suggested a Tapir), a horse when it isn't.

But you see, this isn't as black and white as you suggest. Whatever it was (it may have been a horse), it filled the role of the horse within their society and within their religious laws (which is why I keep mentioning Deuteronomy 17). So, it was, in many ways, a horse. Just because we would not call it a horse, doesn't mean that for all intents and purposes, to the later Nephites, it was. Just like for Marco Polo, the rhinocerous, with its feet like elephants, and it hair like a buffalo, was a unicorn.

Especially in light of who it is calimed is aiding in the translation.

You still need to explain how your model of translation can really be called "translation" or even how it worked. You seem to think that you can simply call it a black box. Something goes in, something comes out, and because what comes out doesn't look like what you expect (even though you haven't bothered to talk about what happens in the box) you think you can be critical of it?

Ridiculous! And they call me the apostate. It shouldn't reflect Joseph's words or ideas. It wasn't Joseph doing the choice of words according to all descriptions of the translation. According to the claims made by the prophet concerning the book. Moreover, how does Widstoe know this. He carries no authority. Sounds like he is admitting that Joseph had more of a hand in the creation of the Book of Moromon than what Joseph claimed.

It isn't rediculuous. Anyone who has ever taken some time to consider the nature of language and why and how we express ourselves, will tell you that there are real problems with your conception of communication. It has to reflect Joseph's ideas and language. At the very least, Joseph Smith determined the language into which it would be translated. Why didn't God translate it into Spanish, knowing that there would be many Spanish speaking members of the church eventually? Why not translate it into 25th century English, (assuming of course that the second coming hasn't happened yet)? How can you say that Joseph Smith had nothing to do with the vernacular of the text?

The only solution is that God is an idea for idea kind of guy, but doesn't know the difference between a horse and the possible animals in the Mesoamerican region.

And since obviously, the Book of Mormon is not an idea for idea text (it makes no attempt to fill in the holes as you suggest God should have done), you make an inconsistent argument (but since you aren't claiming the book has historicity, you are simply constructing an artificial interpretation so that you can declare that it is inconsistent .... right?)

[Dan Vogel]

Enu,

You

[Benjamin McGuire]

Zeitgeist writes:

Horses are said to be found in wilderness among other animals like oxen, ***, and the cow(anachronistic). 1 Ne. 18:25.

Which means what? Were Tapir's found in the wilderness?

Of course, this is the only time the ox, the ***, and the cow are mentioned in a non-old world context. This of course is unlike the horse, so, I simply assume that it was a phrase used to convey the notion of useful animals.

2 Ne. 12:7 a reading of Isaish demonstrates that horse is known to atleast Nephi. You might imagine they would try to pass on the information of what this animal was, especially so they do not lose the valuable Isaiah. Jesus is said that they already neglected Isaiah. Jesus seems to suggest that he and Isaiah know what a horse is and wants them to know Isaiah, so why not call a horse a horse?

I don't make the assumptions you make here. You are suggesting that a conceptual and semantic model will be maintained for hundreds of years without something visual to refer to? I doubt it. But this isn't even a real issue. I demonstrated a known source which does this same thing elsewhere in a verifiable historical context. So, we could say that it has been done. Why not here?

Enos 1:21 Nephites are agriculturalists tilling the land (which by the way is ussually done with large powerful animals in any significant manner) but raise cattle of every kind (suggesting varieties) goats, and "many horses." Function is not implicite here, but it would be safe to assume that they were used for something if they were raising them. Transportation of some kind is the most probable. But the whell is never used, nor are carts, nor do we find them in tilling the ground. In fact we do not find them. You can suspect that they would use them as their fathers would have known how to use them from Jerusalem.

When you say "usually done with large powerful animals in any significant manner", can you provide any data that shows that the very productive maize agriculture in Mesoamerica ever used "large powerful animals in any significant manner"?

3 Ne. 21:14: Why mention the horse again in a propehcy to people who do not know what a horse and chariot is?

You are forgetting that conceptually, as part of their religious culture, they do know what they are. They just associate them with with a difference conceptual and semantic model than you do.

Ben

[Benjamin McGuire]

Dan writes:

I

[Mighty Curelom]

I must not be as smart as I think I am, because I can't for the life of me follow Ben's convoluted explanation. So much for the law of parsimony....

Anywho

Here's how I view the situation. Since the only type of translation anyone on earth is familiar with is the traditional, non-God inspired kind, it becomes difficult to say what to expect from a God-inspired/aided translation. According to a traditional translation, there are different methods of translating, so-called "loose" and "tight" methods. Apologists keep wanting to pull the ol' switcheroo whenever one method seems to benefit their argument. Adieu? Loose translation. Curelom? Tight translation. Three thousands grammatical errors? Loose translation. Description of translation process by every contemporary account? Tight translation.

This ad hoc flip-flopping toward whichever translation paradigm best suits the apologist's purpose is what is so frustrating to critics. The 3000 grammatical errors clearly demonstrate that JS was using his own language and his own manner of speaking to translate the record (of course, assuming he didn't just make it up.) Yet transliterated words like deseret, cumom, and curelom violate a conceptual method of translation.

Until apologists come out from behind the shield of unfalsification, they'll just keep playing this game.

[Dan Vogel]

Ben,

Here is the problem Dan. Would you read the 18th century poet who used the phrase "plastic arm" as a reference to the modern polymer?

No. What does that have to do with this. Is the 18th century poet confused and searching for a word that doesn

[Dan Vogel]

Ben,

do you disagree with the notion Dan (assuming the book has historicity and is a real translation), that the language of the translation was determined by Joseph Smith?

Would you also agree that the specific vernacular was determined by Joseph Smith? (Not necessarily that Joseph determined it, but had Joseph Smith been from Madrid, Spain, or that had Spanish been the predominant language in upstate New York in 1828, that the Book of Mormon would have been dramatically different?)

JS claimed the translation was by the power of God. He simply read the translation from the miraculous stones. Of course, the translation was given by God in English. The notion that JS was somehow involved is latter-day apologetics.