Being a Mormon without Believing in a Historical Book of Mormon, Part 1

[rodheadlee]

On 8/1/2024 at 10:17 PM, Nevo said:

Maybe, maybe not. You're assuming that the tents were made of cloth. But S. Kent Brown thinks they were probably Bedouin-style tents, with each tent weighing several hundred pounds. Traditionally, such tents were made from goat or camel hair. Not ideal sail material for traversing over 15,000 miles of "the roughest water on earth," as Potter and Wellington describe it, for "many months, if not years."

Nephi says that the first thing the group did when they arrived in the Promised Land was "pitch our tents" (1 Ne. 18:23)—so the tents evidently weren't all used for sails. 

On the issue of rope, Potter and Wellington write: "Historically, the planks of ships built in Oman were sewn together with rope. It took the husks of 50,000 coconuts to make the 400 miles of rope [Tim] Severin needed to build his sewn ship, the Sohar. Even if Nephi used nails, rope would be required for riggings and anchor lines. Coconuts are not native to Dhofar, and so if Nephi made ropes from coconuts, they also had to be imported."

So far, then, the tally seems to be that Nephi needed imported timber, probably needed imported cloth ("for several sets of sails"), and probably needed imported rope (potentially several hundred miles worth if he wasn't making or importing nails). Given that the ship had to carry 40–70 people, Potter and Wellington estimate that it could have weighed as much as 100 tons. Therefore, it also would have needed to be built on wooden rollers above the tide line and then rolled down into the water since "launching a ship weighing as much as 100 tons (and having no means of power or control) from a shallow beach into breaking surf with strong currents is physically impossible and would only result in a shipwreck." Potter and Wellington also argue that the ship would have needed sea trials and that Nephi and crew would have needed time to learn how to sail ("Nephi could not have merely guessed how to sail the Pacific Ocean or have succeeded unless both he and his crew knew what they were doing").

Interesting stuff.

I don't know who Potter and Wellington is but the roughest water on Earth is the North Atlantic.

[Zosimus]

On 8/7/2024 at 3:22 AM, Kevin Christensen said:

That geography does not work for me much more than that of the Heartlanders. 

Its pretty much the hemispheric model that most early readers of the Book of Mormon took for granted. The starting point being Chile, the landing point Oliver - via Joseph most likely - endorsed. 

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Where, for instance, is the narrow strip of wilderness that extends from the East Sea to the West Sea  that separates the Land of Nephi from the Land of Zarahemla as a natural boundary and the source of the Sidon that flows northward past Zarahemla? And how does the story of Limhi's explorers work?  How do they manage to miss Zarahemla, pass through a land of many waters, find a ruin and the Jaredite record, and suppose they had found Zarahemla, and come back.  And how does Alma's group consisting of families and flocks get from Lake Titicaca to Bogata in 21 days, on foot? 

its lacking in so many details that its not yet possible to rank against the other models. I know Steve IRL, so I'll see if I can work on filling in some of the base requirements:
https://zosimus.notion.site/5f3067e292744ff7a936f367f22a4903?v=48d94bfdc487488fa0f723be98e1f92

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It's not a careful or thorough approach to geography, but is just based on selective and speculative parallel hunting, assuming without sufficient demonstration that if a parallel exists to Humbolt or other such figure, dependence is essentially demonstrated, and never mind the historical accounts or practical issues.  Any details in the Book of Mormon text that do not fit the hypothesis are filtered out in the glory of making a bold connection that explains Joseph Smith as operating as a researcher, rather than a revelator....But with the focus on Humbolt, and platonic thought and Lead, and parallels, and mention of Melchezidek, "Don't look there at scripture or apologists.  Look here at the bold scholarship!"

I think you're right, Fleming is more interested in identifying contemporary sources for the geographic details in the Book of Mormon. But in fairness, one of the criticisms Heartlanders have is that Mesomerican modelers prioritize scholarship over revelation 

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One thing I got from reading Sorenson's Mormon's Map is that the military movements and actions make sense in a specific real context including things like the tactical and strategic relevance of the operations bordering the East by the sea shore (Alma 51:23-28, Teacum vs Amalekiah) and those on the West Sea (Helaman vs Lamanites near Manti), something that simply makes no sense with South American geography. 

 

Um alright, the Tehuantepec model has this same issue though. Sorenson's solution has been to place the operations bordering the East by the sea shore in the Gulf of Mexico, which is north or even northwest of the proposed Zarahemla. Why couldn't a South American model make the same exception?

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Larry Poulson's work makes very good sense several stories real location. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2008-Larry-Poulsen.pdf

Poulsen's solution seems clever at first, but when you really look at it, it doesn't solve the problem.

To make it work, you have to accept that the party followed the wrong river (Usamacinta) northward. Once they hit the Gulf of Mexico without finding Zarahemla they would have known something was wrong. Paulson argues that they then went west, in search of Zarahemla which they would have known was somewhere to their south. IMO it would be very unlikely that the party would then cross over the right river (Grijalva) and wander into the Land Northward (which is actually west at this point) to arrive in what they though was Zarahemla. Had the party encountered the Grivalja emptying into the Gulf of Mexico, they would have recognized their error and ascended the correct river into the correct Land of Zarahemla. To make this work we also have to assume that the party didn't return to Nephi by the Grijalva, but instead crossed back over the correct river (Grijalva) and went back up the wrong river (Usamacinta). Paulsen's solution creates more problems than it solves. Another one being, how could there be two rivers of equal size in the Book of Mormon, but only one is ever mentioned?

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Books were expensive and the family was struggling to pay for their farm. And the majority of the Book of Mormon dictation took place in Harmony PA, which at had neither library, nor book store at the time.  The Book of Puki is a snapshot of the kind of thing Joseph's neighbor's expected from him, based on their experience with his intellectual attainments.  And it is most notable for being nothing like the Book of Mormon. We don't have reports from the neighbors saying, "That bookworm!  You could tell he was up to something, always borrowing books and never returning them."   

Palmyra resident Philetus Spear wrote that Smith “had for a library a copy of the ‘Arabian Nights,’ stories of Captain Kidd, and a few novels.” In an 1881 interview on the origins of Mormonism, Anna Ruth Eaton, another of Smith’s Palmyra neighbors, counted “the redoubtable Captain Kidd” as Smith’s “hero,” saying that he had “the autobiography of Capt. Kidd, the pirate. This latter work was eagerly and often perused.” (source)

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The family members and Emma, who were most likely and able to report on Joseph's youthful bookishness never did so.  The frustrated and jealous money diggers who ransacked and searched the property never said, "No gold plates.  Just all these books, and maps and notes from the Manchester library."   And I notice that when Joseph Smith was able to study and learn German and Hebrew, he was not at all shy about showing off what he knew and what he had read.  In Nauvoo, when he got a copy of Stephens and Catherwood's Incidents of Travels, he was quite happy to promote and recommend it.  Joseph the secret scholar just does not work for me.  

As Steve points out, we know Joseph had a copy of Mosheim in Nauvoo. Smith donated quite a lot of books to the Nauvoo Library. He wasn't out there telling everyone all the books in his book collection. His neighbors in Palmyra said he had books, Arabian Nights and William Kidd, and others, Joseph had many books and never mentioned them.

The argument that Joseph owned no books, wasn't interested in books, or had no access to books, isn't supported by the evidence.

Its also often overlooked that Luther Bradish, the son of a Palmyra family known to Martin Harris was America's leading expert on Egypt at the time the Book of Mormon was being translated. Bradish was also literary agent for two of America's leading authors, James Fennimore Cooper and Washington Irving. I don't buy this idea that Palmyra was some sort of literary vacuum and the residents had no clue what was being discussed in the books being distributed (and available for lending/borrowing) along the Erie Canal, less than 3 miles away from Joseph's doorstep. (source)

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For more on Humbolt and the Book of Mormon, see Jeff Lindsay here.https://www.jefflindsay.com/bme18.shtml

I have a read this before, and have a lot to say about it. But won't do that here since it'd derail the conversation from Dr. Fleming's presentation. But in summary, Humboldt knew both Cooper and Irving professionally and had directly collaborated with Irving on his "History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus". No doubt Luther Bradish, as Irving's and Cooper's agent, was familiar with Humboldt and his work. Harris met with Bradish and showed him the characters taken from the gold plates just before his translation work on the Book of Mormon began.

Lindsay concludes: "The hypothesis that Joseph selected Mesoamerican elements from [Humboldt] or others to assist in writing the Book of Mormon has the power to explain almost nothing about the origins of the text."

I disagree. One very clear example is Anthon himself says the transcript of characters taken from the gold plates ended with a sketch of Humboldt's Mexican zodiac, which would have come from the very book Lindsay claims explains nothing about the origins of the Book of Mormon.

Edited August 8, 2024 by Zosimus

[Tacenda]

On 8/6/2024 at 7:48 PM, rodheadlee said:

I don't know who Potter and Wellington is but the roughest water on Earth is the North Atlantic.

Good to know, how are the waters near Canada and New England. I just book a 7 day cruise for there and I'm so excited to go. 

[OGHoosier]

6 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Good to know, how are the waters near Canada and New England. I just book a 7 day cruise for there and I'm so excited to go. 

Rough, though that might just be my experience. I've been whale watching out of Boston a few times, never seen any whales but we did get tossed around a fair amount and it wasn't even cloudy. Still, maybe that's just Boston.

Edit: I suppose I have seen whales in marine amusement parks and aquariums so that wasn't entirely accurate, but I've never seen a whale in the open ocean.

Edited August 8, 2024 by OGHoosier

[Kevin Christensen]

Regarding, 

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Its pretty much the hemispheric model that most early readers of the Book of Mormon took for granted. The starting point being Chile, the landing point Oliver - via Joseph most likely - endorsed. 

Endorsed, perhaps, but the evidence suggests more based on assumption than careful study.  When I read Sorenson's The Geography of Book of Mormon Events: A Source Book, I notice that he shows me all of the relevant passages in the text, and a wide range of solutions, and, crucially, shows the work that the proponents of various geographic models did and significantly, did not do.  I have mentioned many times over the years that the oft reprinted Joseph Fielding Smith essay from the 50s, written to defend the traditional theory defends it as traditional, and makes no attempt whatsoever to address the demands of the text, or to locate definitive revelations on the topic.  He raises the issue of those who protested, "This is not what I have always thought" and were thereby shaken in their faith, but shows no concern for those who found what they had always been taught to be inadequate, and who found the new theories (in that setting the work of the Washburns), both intriguing and faith promoting.

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its lacking in so many details that its not yet possible to rank against the other models. 

Sorenson and Clark offer details of many key essentials in the Book of Mormon text to account for.  Poulson, I noticed, came at things from a different angle, noting that the narrow neck has very little description, and Sidon is mentioned 37 times, offering a much more detailed point of reference.  He entered the details into a searchable 3D map geographic of the Western Hemisphere, searching for candidate locations, and found exactly one that fit.  The Grijalva.  If you guess right, things will start to fit better and better.  If you guess wrong, things will get worse and worse.  But in either case, we are still deciding for ourselves, "Which problems are more significant to have solved?"  Then there are touch points like the "narrow strip of wilderness that extends from the East Sea to the West Sea," where Grijalva and the Usumacinta have their origins within a few miles of one another in what strikes me as the only viable candidate for a narrow strip of wilderness that extends form the East Sea to the West Sea in the Western hemisphere.  And a recent examination by a geologist provides additional support.  Grover's The Geology of the Book of Mormon.   And it is nice to have things like writing, high civilizations that, conveniently for Joseph Smith's appetite for Captain Kidd and Arabian Nights (neither one notably rich in the details I find most impressive), have been to rise and fall convenient to the timeline of the Book of Mormon.  Lucy Smith did report that in 1923, Joseph had not read the Bible through and was less inclined to the study books than the other children.   While I was a teenager, I recall reading various collections of Arabian Nights stories, and books with information about Captain Kidd and others of the Golden age of Piracy.  That sort of thing did not, I notice, lead to me producing during two months of rapid dictation by age 24, anything comparable to the Book of Mormon, even though I was notably more bookish than most of my school peers.  Indeed, I did not get serious about scholarly books till I was 21, and did not get round to publishing until I was 46 or so.

As to the issue with the campaigns along the coast,  there are a couple of things... the Mulekite encounter with Coriantumr is one strong indicator that they landed on the East (plausibly on a Phoenician boat), the Jaredite demise being not far from the East Sea.   And this passage:

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And it came to pass that when Moroni
had driven all the Lamanites out of the east
wilderness, which was north of the lands of
their own possessions, he caused that the
inhabitants who were in the land of Zarahemla
and in the land round about should go forth
into the east wilderness, even to the borders by
the seashore, and possess the land. (Alma 50:9)

So the borders by the sea shore were Northward of Moroni's Zarahemla, occupied by Nephites for strategic reasons, and makes very good sense in Sorenson's analysis of both the text and the purported context.

I suspect that there are a number of things going on with directions.  Gardner points out that the Mesoamerican concept using directions based on where the Center of a political land is, also means that when the political center shifts, say, from the Land of First Inheritance to the Land of Nephi, then to Zarahemla, then to Bountiful, some things get shifted with the travel.  Then you have Mormon whose center is Northward of Zarahemla dealing with records from various locations Southward in the histories.  And then knowing that Lehi landed after a voyage from the West, and Mulek landed after a voyage from the East, just how a person ought to refer a sea has more than one dimension and more than one context.  Frames of reference both shift and overlap.  But even so, Sorenson's model makes sense in Mesoamerica, but the South American coast line and the distances involved do not make any sense of the strategy or movements or tactics.   The distances and directions are just way off.

With reference to Poulson's model, 

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To make it work, you have to accept that the party followed the wrong river (Usumacinta) northward. Once they hit the Gulf of Mexico without finding Zarahemla they would have known something was wrong.

But why would their directions have included the phrase "keep going until you run into the sea?"   The living people from the generation that made the trip (grandpa) knew that Zarahemla was not on the sea coast, but rather, west of the Sidon.  I think they made their turn West turn in the "land of many waters" (see Poulson's map) before they got to the sea, and I think they may have asked directions from indigenous peoples who could point them to La Venta.  And there is the issue of what can happen when rivers slow down and form deltas and separate into multiple channels, and makes it a bit confusing.  People who are lost are, by definition, inherently confused.  And people who are searching and not finding have been known to grasp at straws.  And as a technical writer for 40 years, I have learned that people ask experts for directions, they don't always ask all the right questions, and experts can easily assume that they have provided all the necessary details, but in practical terms, have not.  In Poulson's model, if they had followed the correct river, they could not have missed Zarahemla, and he makes sense of how they could have followed the wrong river, given the source being just a few miles from the correct one, and what they did report.  A region of many waters, and a city they could mistake for Zarahemla.  In the South American model and Joseph Smith as bookish and imaginative and not particularly concerned with the difference between reality and imagination, the only details that matter are high level parallels of the sort that can be used, as Nibley put it, "to explain a very large whole from a very small part."

Regarding 

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One very clear example is Anthon himself says the transcript of characters taken from the gold plates ended with a sketch of Humboldt's Mexican zodiac, which would have come from the very book Lindsay claims explains nothing about the origins of the Book of Mormon.

The quote from Anthon says this:

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It consisted of all kinds of crooked characters disposed in columns, and had evidently been prepared by some person who had before him at the time a book containing various alphabets. Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes, Roman letters inverted or placed sideways, were arranged in perpendicular columns, and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a circle divided into various compartments, decked with various strange marks, and evidently copied after the Mexican Calender given by Humboldt, but copied in such a way as not to betray the source whence it was derived. 

Given that the Calender was "copied in such as way as to not betray the source when it derived" I do not see this proven to have come from "the very book", but rather was something that in some way reminded Anthon of something in that book.  A reasonable question, sure.  But not a certain "gotcha" in my view.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA 

[Calm]

2 hours ago, OGHoosier said:

Rough, though that might just be my experience. I've been whale watching out of Boston a few times, never seen any whales but we did get tossed around a fair amount and it wasn't even cloudy. Still, maybe that's just Boston.

Our neighbors went dolphin watching in Hawaii on a great day and out of the blue, the boat dropped enough they were slammed against the deck when they caught up.  She was completely knocked out; broke a leg iirc and had brain trauma bad enough she was having problems speaking and needed to be trained again, was in the hospital for months before she could come home; she is still recovering, but almost back almost two years later. He broke a rib or an arm and was bruised up pretty bad, iirc.  Even the captain was messed up as well as several other passengers.

Never knew sea life watching was a contact sport.

Edited August 8, 2024 by Calm

[Calm]

On 8/6/2024 at 7:48 PM, rodheadlee said:

I don't know who Potter and Wellington is but the roughest water on Earth is the North Atlantic.

https://latterdaysaintmag.com/author/george-potter/

Amateur adventurer/archaeologist best known for identifying a likely candidate for the Valley of Lemuel

 Richard Wellington was his partner, I don’t remember hearing about him besides those few years with Potter.  Potter has kept working/playing in the area.

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol15/iss2/5/

https://interpreterfoundation.org/author/georgep/

Edited August 8, 2024 by Calm

[OGHoosier]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Amateur adventurer/archaeologist best known for identifying a likely candidate for the Valley of Lemuel

Potter also advocated a BoM geography model in Peru which elicited minor controversy. He also co-authored a book entitled Voyages of the Book of Mormon which is to date the best technical treatment of the nautical aspects of the Book of Mormon. Potter's co-author, Frank Linehan, was a marine architect with the U.S. Navy, as expert as you can get in the physics and mechanics of shipbuilding. Voyages is, I think, Potter's best work.

Edited August 8, 2024 by OGHoosier

[Calm]

24 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

Potter also advocated a BoM geography model in Peru which elicited minor controversy.

Does he still?

I haven’t paid much attention to BoM geography lately.  Brant Gardner made the subject interesting to me and since he isn’t posting on this board much, it has somewhat from my view, so out of touch.

Edited August 8, 2024 by Calm

[rodheadlee]

7 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Good to know, how are the waters near Canada and New England. I just book a 7 day cruise for there and I'm so excited to go. 

What are your dates and itinerary? I could look it up on the pilot charts.

 

[Tacenda]

50 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

What are your dates and itinerary? I could look it up on the pilot charts.

 

Leaving New York on Sept 14th sailing to Newport on the 15th then Boston on the 16th and Bar Harbor on the 17th then Halifax on the 19th and back to New York on Sept 21. Thanks for the inside info!!

[Tacenda]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

Our neighbors went dolphin watching in Hawaii on a great day and out of the blue, the boat dropped enough they were slammed against the deck when they caught up.  She was completely knocked out; broke a leg iirc and had brain trauma bad enough she was having problems speaking and needed to be trained again, was in the hospital for months before she could come home; she is still recovering, but almost back almost two years later. He broke a rib or an arm and was bruised up pretty bad, iirc.  Even the captain was messed up as well as several other passengers.

Never knew sea life watching was a contact sport.

Oh my, do I still want to go?? Hopefully we make it to the shore okay for excursions. Never even thought of that little boat ride from the ship to the shore.

[OGHoosier]

47 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Leaving New York on Sept 14th sailing to Newport on the 15th then Boston on the 16th and Bar Harbor on the 17th then Halifax on the 19th and back to New York on Sept 21. Thanks for the inside info!!

That sounds so fun! I love Newport. The mansions are really cool and the Red Parrot serves a mean margarita pizza.

[Calm]

45 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Oh my, do I still want to go?? Hopefully we make it to the shore okay for excursions. Never even thought of that little boat ride from the ship to the shore.

I am sure it was an unusual occurrence. 

[rodheadlee]

3 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Leaving New York on Sept 14th sailing to Newport on the 15th then Boston on the 16th and Bar Harbor on the 17th then Halifax on the 19th and back to New York on Sept 21. Thanks for the inside info!!

https://msi.nga.mil/api/publications/download?key=16693989/SFH00000/106sep.pdf&type=view

 

It appears 10% or less of the combined seas are 12 feet or greater, the winds are force 4 (11-16kts, 13-18 mph) from all directions, 5% of the time there are calms. Much more info can be gleamed by serious study of the chart info. perfect sailing. A historic study of hurricane tracks would be advised, it looks like 1 to 3 gales per month.

Edited August 9, 2024 by rodheadlee

[Tacenda]

21 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

https://msi.nga.mil/api/publications/download?key=16693989/SFH00000/106sep.pdf&type=view

 

It appears 10% or less of the combined seas are 12 feet or greater, the winds are force 4 (11-16kts, 13-18 mph) from all directions, 5% of the time there are calms. Much more info can be gleamed by serious study of the chart info. perfect sailing. A historic study of hurricane tracks would be advised, it looks like 1 to 3 gales per month.

Thanks for the time you spent, much appreciated! ❤️

 

[MrShorty]

For those interested in following, part 2 published today.

https://www.timesandseasons.org/index.php/2024/08/being-a-mormon-without-believing-in-a-historical-book-of-mormon-part-2/