Foretelling in the Book of Mormon

[ZealouslyStriving]

If the Book of Mormon was merely the creation of some kind of unique genius, I would still choose it- because it is far superior to anything the other professors of religion or humanism have or are offering up.

[the narrator]

14 hours ago, webbles said:

Except for the mention from his mother and the story of Zeniff, I don't think there is any other mention of Joseph describing the people of the Book of Mormon outside of the translation/dictation period.

This assume that others ought to have been doing so, and I don't necessarily see a reason why. Tolkein's Middle Earth, Lewis's Narnia, Cameron's Pandora, and many many more creative worlds all began as childhood and teenage paracosms. Are there accounts of them discussing these as children? I don't know. I have brief memories of creating one myself, but I remember little of it. It's such a common and normal experience of children and young teens (especially boys) that Joseph doing the same would have seemed rather unremarkable and not worth remembering outside of the proud parent who finds it especially remarkable because it is coming from their child. And if the more detailed of these stories began when Joseph was 16, then they would have been closely tied to his stories of the gold plates and breastplate and such, and thus a part of that process rather than separate or preceding it.

 

14 hours ago, webbles said:

It is hard to believe that he would develop this fantastic world and not mention it to his family until he has also planned out an angelic visitation.  And then he would describe it for 4 years, write it for 1.5 years, and then barely expand on it again.  That doesn't feel like paracosm to me.

Seems rather easy for me to belief that his "discovery" of the plates and "visit" with Moroni could have acted as a catalyst for creating a narrative within that paracosm. It's also easy rather easy for me to believe that after producing the BofM his interests shifted to creating a narrative of Christian restorationism, which was then replaced with a larger project of creating a primordial and cosmic religious narrative that brought together Masonic lore and 19th century thinkers like Swedenborg. James Cameron wasn't just focused on Pandora. He was also creating stories about time-traveling robot assassins, sinking boats, and Alien$.

Seems you just need a little more faith to believe those things you find impossible.

[ZealouslyStriving]

I'm getting the impression that basically we are being asked to believe that Joseph Smith Jr. was the most scholastically connected, well-read, imaginative super-genius farm boy of the early 19th century. That is an impressive resume in and of itself.

or 

I want to know who the mysterious author was that decided to track down and hand a 20-something year New York hick a fully worked manuscript with the instructions to pretend like he received it through the ministry of angels, translated it by the power of God, and start a religion using it. What would be this mysterious author's whole point in doing that?

(Again, I just don't have the level of faith the the antiMos have.)

[Teancum]

On 6/21/2024 at 1:37 PM, Bernard Gui said:

I deliberately left out his prophecies about Columbus, et al., and only included those that were fulfilled throughout the rest of the Book of Mormon.

OK.  Leave out the "prophecy" abut the USA. Still any 19thg century author creating the BoM knows the plot, characters and so forth.  The easiest answer is someone wrote the book and made sure the prophecies lined up.

On 6/21/2024 at 1:37 PM, Bernard Gui said:

What is  your evidence that he had "the whole of the lot before [him]"?

What is you r evidence he did not have the entire narrative available?  The internal prophecies in the book are not all that astounding to make sure they were wrapped up later in the book. Again, at least to me, your argument seems to favor a 19th century production. Sort of like the erroneous read back of OT prophecies the authors of the gospels used to read Jesus into the OT. 

[Teancum]

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I think it has already been explained to you that this isn't the point of the evidence. There are a few of those prophecies, but I'm not interested in debating them, or speculating about why the prophecies stop at John the Revelator (since that really is all just speculation and doesn't really count much for evidence of anything either way).

Any time you want to try to dictate a text that you have worked out in your mind for 60+ days with no notes and no substantive revisions, I would happily be your scribe. Seriously. I think you have no idea how hard a sustained dictation of even a simple text would be under those constraints, much less a text as complex as the Book of Mormon. I doubt your reading of the text (even 15 times over the years) is going to really let you comprehend its complexity. Most members read it over and over again throughout their lives without ever noticing the thousands of consistent or complex details that are continually being uncovered by ongoing research. So it just doesn't mean very much to me when people who haven't engaged the text on that level opine about it.  

One poster had already noted that Joseph may have had an eidetic memory and could have had notes.  Who knows what was in the hat when he dictated. If I recall the hat was a white hat so he may have ad light.  Is the book complex because you and other apologists claim it is?  I said I am not an expert on complex literature but I have read books I find complex and the Book of Mormon is not one of them. But you dismiss my opinion which is fine. I have not read anything the compels me to opine differently. Is this an expertise of yours?  If yes why and what makes you qualified to conclude that the book  is complex?

[Ryan Dahle]

7 minutes ago, Teancum said:

On 6/21/2024 at 11:37 AM, Bernard Gui said:

What is  your evidence that he had "the whole of the lot before [him]"?

What is you r evidence he did not have the entire narrative available?  The internal prophecies in the book are not all that astounding to make sure they were wrapped up later in the book.

So, when I did a deep dive into the Book of Mormon's fulfilled prophecies a few years ago, I scoured the text for everything I could find (basically I re-read the entire text looking for this particular type of data). On dozens of occasions, I would find a prophecy but wasn't sure whether or not it was specifically fulfilled in the text. So I had to use search engines to find out. And so often I was impressed not just that a prophecy had indeed reportedly come to pass, but that the language and phrasing was often repackaged very similarly. When I started the project, I had no idea what I would find. It ended up being many dozens of examples.

Now, I'm not saying that no one could possibly do this. But I find it very hard to believe that Joseph Smith did this under the constraints involved in the translation. I (and probably the vast, vast majority of people) would need notes and the ability to revisit past texts in real time in order to keep track of these types of minute details. The other thing is that if I were to quiz most active, life-long members about these details, they would have no idea how intertextually complex the text is on this front. In other words, when they read the text and a prophecy is fulfilled, they don't recognize that this has happened in the vast majority of cases. I certainly never did, until I started studying it in much greater depth. 

To me, that seems like a pretty good reason to assume that this type of data is indeed significant. It certainly seemed astounding to me, when I went through textual data, prophecy by prophecy. 

[Ryan Dahle]

12 minutes ago, Teancum said:

One poster had already noted that Joseph may have had an eidetic memory and could have had notes.  Who knows what was in the hat when he dictated. If I recall the hat was a white hat so he may have ad light.  Is the book complex because you and other apologists claim it is?  I said I am not an expert on complex literature but I have read books I find complex and the Book of Mormon is not one of them. But you dismiss my opinion which is fine. I have not read anything the compels me to opine differently. Is this an expertise of yours?  If yes why and what makes you qualified to conclude that the book  is complex?

I would say that yes, this is an area in which I have unusual expertise. I have probably written more than a dozens articles on this topic and spent literally hundreds of hours of study on WordCruncher doing various types of scrupulous intertextual analysis on the Book of Mormon. The fact that I have a degree in English Education and that I am a big fan of complex epic fantasy series (and other types of fiction) certainly helps me understand what human creativity is capable of. 

[Teancum]

28 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I would say that yes, this is an area in which I have unusual expertise. I have probably written more than a dozens articles on this topic and spent literally hundreds of hours of study on WordCruncher doing various types of scrupulous intertextual analysis on the Book of Mormon. The fact that I have a degree in English Education and that I am a big fan of complex epic fantasy series (and other types of fiction) certainly helps me understand what human creativity is capable of. 

Thank you for the information.

[Teancum]

On 6/21/2024 at 3:35 PM, Bernard Gui said:

Critics usually say those kinds of things about people they dislike.

This is a non answer. There is certainly evidence that Joseph Smith has questionably behavior. Court records, etc. Others who knew him well who gave negative assessments of his character.

 

On 6/21/2024 at 3:35 PM, Bernard Gui said:

 

 

Regarding treasure seeking, that has been beaten to death. We all do foolish things, especially when we are young and desperately poor.

Well if it has been beaten to death there is a good reason. Here is someone who claimed to have special  power with a "seer stone" that he used to dupe people with.  The same stone was allegedly a significant instrument in the production of the Book of Mormon.  To be suspect of a con when someone has a track record of a con is not unreasonable.

On 6/21/2024 at 3:35 PM, Bernard Gui said:

 

I prefer to believe the men who knew him best....

As @SeekingUnderstandingnoted, there are those such as William Law that knew Joseph very well.  Many who initially followed Joseph later abandoned him.  There reasons are valid at least to examine.

[ZealouslyStriving]

13 minutes ago, Teancum said:

This is a non answer. There is certainly evidence that Joseph Smith has questionably behavior. Court records, etc. Others who knew him well who gave negative assessments of his character.

 

Well if it has been beaten to death there is a good reason. Here is someone who claimed to have special  power with a "seer stone" that he used to dupe people with.  The same stone was allegedly a significant instrument in the production of the Book of Mormon.  To be suspect of a con when someone has a track record of a con is not unreasonable.

As @SeekingUnderstandingnoted, there are those such as William Law that knew Joseph very well.  Many who initially followed Joseph later abandoned him.  There reasons are valid at least to examine.

Many who rebelled against Joseph never denied the Restoration of the Gospel or the Book of Mormon, they just had an issue with Joseph- believing he was a "fallen prophet"- not a "never prophet". In fact, an entire (very Book of Mormon believing) organization, the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) is built on that premise. So your argument has little to do with what we are discussing.

[Teancum]

On 6/21/2024 at 3:57 PM, ZealouslyStriving said:

I don't have enough faith to believe that a 23 year-old farmboy with a new wife, babies on the way, and a farmstead to tend to could've invented a book with the internal consistency and Hebrew trademarks with which it is filled.

I invite all critics to write a work of equal quality and allow their work to undergo the same withering scrutiny the Book of Mormon has gone through through the last almost 2 centuries.

Until then, I will continue to be skeptical of your skepticism.

Bully for you. There are many alternative theories to the BoM production. Someone else could have wrote the book and used Smith as a prop.  To @Bernard Guiinsistence that Joseph did this without notes or anything. We don't know that. Who knows what preparation he may have made each morning or evening before and after the dictation took place.  Do you give the same credence to Islam's claims about an uneducated goat herder and the Quran? 

[Teancum]

6 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Many who rebelled against Joseph never denied the Restoration of the Gospel or the Book of Mormon, they just had an issue with Joseph- believing he was a "fallen prophet"- not a "never prophet". In fact, an entire (very Book of Mormon believing) organization, the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) is built on that premise. So your argument has little to do with what we are discussing.

Not really. Some maintained some belief in him. Many, many did not.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

And so often I was impressed not just that a prophecy had indeed reportedly come to pass, but that the language and phrasing was often repackaged very similarly.

If it was intentional, wouldn’t it be more likely similar as less work in creating the pair?

[ZealouslyStriving]

4 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Someone else could have wrote the book and used Smith as a prop.

Again....

Who in the world would write it and then think to himself, "Self, I should find a 20 year-old hick farm boy from upstate New York, give him this here book I wrote, and tell him to start a church with it! Yeah, that sounds like a super-logical thing to do!" ??

For what purpose?

The theory makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

The other thing is that if I were to quiz most active, life-long members about these details, they would have no idea how intertextually complex the text is on this front.

This is what wakes me up.  He supposedly put all this attention into making complex connections that the vast majority of people miss.  I don’t remember stories of him pointing these things out.  Why include them if not to impress?  Or at least use them once they were there to impress?

[Teancum]

18 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

What I'm saying is that if Tolkien didn't have much of an education or any prior literary experience, and then if he had tried, at 23 years old, to dictate the Lord of the Rings to scribes, in about a three or four month period (it is about 1/3 longer than the BofM) without relying on any notes or manuscripts, and without making any substantive revisions, then I would expect the text to look far less polished and consistent than it is today. As is, the nature of the text matches its known production history and author. Not even close with the Book of Mormon. 

But you really don't know for certain that it was simply done in three or four months, that there were no notes or manuscripts nor that what he may have been using did not go through many revisions. We have no reason to outrightly accept those parameters. 

 

[Bernard Gui]

14 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Bully for you. There are many alternative theories to the BoM production. Someone else could have wrote the book and used Smith as a prop.  To @Bernard Guiinsistence that Joseph did this without notes or anything. We don't know that. Who knows what preparation he may have made each morning or evening before and after the dictation took place.  Do you give the same credence to Islam's claims about an uneducated goat herder and the Quran? 

We’re not talking about the Koran.  Who wrote the BoM and used Joseph as a prop? What evidence do you have that he used notes and prepped for each session? How many people lived in the Smith home?

[Bernard Gui]

39 minutes ago, Teancum said:

This is a non answer. There is certainly evidence that Joseph Smith has questionably behavior. Court records, etc. Others who knew him well who gave negative assessments of his character.

 

Well if it has been beaten to death there is a good reason. Here is someone who claimed to have special  power with a "seer stone" that he used to dupe people with.  The same stone was allegedly a significant instrument in the production of the Book of Mormon.  To be suspect of a con when someone has a track record of a con is not unreasonable.

As @SeekingUnderstandingnoted, there are those such as William Law that knew Joseph very well.  Many who initially followed Joseph later abandoned him.  There reasons are valid at least to examine.

William law?  Is that the same fellow who set in motion the events that led to Joseph and Hyrum’s deaths? Oh. That William Law.

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

So, when I did a deep dive into the Book of Mormon's fulfilled prophecies a few years ago, I scoured the text for everything I could find (basically I re-read the entire text looking for this particular type of data). On dozens of occasions, I would find a prophecy but wasn't sure whether or not it was specifically fulfilled in the text. So I had to use search engines to find out. And so often I was impressed not just that a prophecy had indeed reportedly come to pass, but that the language and phrasing was often repackaged very similarly. When I started the project, I had no idea what I would find. It ended up being many dozens of examples.

Now, I'm not saying that no one could possibly do this. But I find it very hard to believe that Joseph Smith did this under the constraints involved in the translation. I (and probably the vast, vast majority of people) would need notes and the ability to revisit past texts in real time in order to keep track of these types of minute details. The other thing is that if I were to quiz most active, life-long members about these details, they would have no idea how intertextually complex the text is on this front. In other words, when they read the text and a prophecy is fulfilled, they don't recognize that this has happened in the vast majority of cases. I certainly never did, until I started studying it in much greater depth. 

To me, that seems like a pretty good reason to assume that this type of data is indeed significant. It certainly seemed astounding to me, when I went through textual data, prophecy by prophecy. 

To do so with all the revelations you documented would have taken Joseph hundreds of hours of review and study after reading it only once as it was being translated and without the benefit of indices, writing notes, story and character plans. etc., not to mention chapter and verse divisions. It would be an overwhelming task.

Edited June 25, 2024 by Bernard Gui

[Teancum]

24 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Again....

Who in the world would write it and then think to himself, "Self, I should find a 20 year-old hick farm boy from upstate New York, give him this here book I wrote, and tell him to start a church with it! Yeah, that sounds like a super-logical thing to do!" ??

For what purpose?

The theory makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Sydney Rigdon is the top pick in my opinion.   

[Teancum]

17 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

We’re not talking about the Koran.  Who wrote the BoM and used Joseph as a prop? What evidence do you have that he used notes and prepped for each session? How many people lived in the Smith home?

Well along those lines let's try this.  How about where are the plates?  Produce those and we problem solved......😏

 

I brought up the Quran in response to another poster to make a point. 

[ZealouslyStriving]

9 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

To do so with all the revelations you documented would have taken hundreds of hours of review and study after reading is only once as it was being translated and without the benefit of indices, writing notes, story and character plans….not to mention page chapter and verse divisions. It would be an overwhelming task.

Apparently, Joseph was an unparalleled literary genius, who in spite of being barely able to "dictate a coherent sentence" (according to Emma) would tell Oliver for hours and hours what to write without needing Oliver to repeat back what he said to make sure they were picking up where they left off.

Someone did postulate (jokingly) that maybe he was a time traveler. Why not? It makes about as much sense as what is being proposed by those who oppose the Restored Gospel.

Edited June 25, 2024 by ZealouslyStriving

[ZealouslyStriving]

5 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Sydney Rigdon is the top pick in my opinion.   

So you want us to believe that Joseph (New York) and Sidney (Ohio) clandestinely got together years previously and hatched a plan whereby Joseph would pretend to translate something Sidney had already written, have Joseph start a church that would attract enough of a following that Joseph would be able to send missionaries west to where Sidney would be leading a church for the sole purpose of having his followers eventually convert to the new church that they secretly planned to set up?

Boy, they sure had some confidence in themselves!! The fact that it worked out exactly as they planned is a miracle in itself. Just for that I think I'll stay.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

9 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

according to Emma

Wasn’t this recollected during the same time that Emma recollected none of Joseph’s other wives? Emma doesn’t have a ton of credibility here. 

[Ryan Dahle]

14 minutes ago, Calm said:

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

And so often I was impressed not just that a prophecy had indeed reportedly come to pass, but that the language and phrasing was often repackaged very similarly.

If it was intentional, wouldn’t it be more likely similar as less work in creating the pair?

Well, sure, if someone could actually remember the specific phrasing of the earlier prophecy, it would probably be easier to repackage what was used before rather than having to come up with a different way of saying it the second time. But of the two tasks --(1) remembering the specific wording or (2) phrasing a concept in a different way--it seems like the latter would often be easier, as we do it all the time. For instance, imagine you tell a friend about a tragic incident on a certain day, and then three weeks later another friend asks you about what happened. Would it be easier to remember the precise phrasing you used in your first telling, or to just reconvey the essential concept with whatever wording comes to mind? I would assume that most people would find it easier to just convey the concept without worrying about replicating the phrasing. 

The issue with Book of Mormon prophecies is a bit different though, since even remembering the core concept is often a remarkable feat (unlike a memorable and recent tragic incident). In many cases, obscure prophecies are fulfilled (or sometimes just restated) and the phrasing isn't that similar. This is the first layer of difficulty. In other instances, however, the core concept is obviously remembered and some of the phrasing is repackaged (either verbatim or nearly verbatim). In my mind, that adds another layer of impressive consistency, showing that the author had an intimate awareness of the earlier passage. 

Here is an example of a cluster of elements that are mostly conceptual in nature. We get similar topics, but the phrasing isn't remarkably similar for most elements: 

 

And here is a cluster of elements where not just the concepts but the phrasing is often very similar: 

I think both instances of intertextuality are remarkable, but the cluster of similar phrases in the second example adds additional strength to the argument, in my opinion.