Julius Caesar in the Book of Mormon

[JarMan]

40 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

No. You are missing the point. The order of the words is meaningless because it is independent of the content - it is a language issue, not a content issue. Word order is a language issue. This isn't to say that you can't use language to demonstrate textual relationships or plagiarism - but when you do, you need to generally show exact language overlaps and not similar language.

The reason why it isn't content is that you aren't actually focusing on meaning. You are simply saying here are words - see how they are parallels? Part of the reason for this is that the language is describing relatively common things. It would seem rather silly to say that there is some important meaning behind a military commander ordering his troops to do something (its what military leaders do after all). Just as importantly, as I pointed out, you have to pick and choose which instance of the word rampart to use, and which instance of the word timber to use. The more frequently these words appear in the text, the less useful they become for something like this. The order of your parallels becomes contrived.

You are essentially saying nothing to see here folks purely on the grounds that the obvious similarities don't conform to the opinion you already have. 

45 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Except that you don't have to search far and wide. And that is the problem. It is certainly a sufficient rebuttal in terms of the general rules for using parallels that I am aware of.

This is some real special pleading here. Your parallels are somehow good enough, while mine aren't. Yours are spread far and wide (you haven't yet shown them in a single fort or forts built by a single commander) and they aren't very good matches (unless you think the Nephites were building stone towers and that modern armies were adding protection from arrows and stones). Mine are compact (they are all in Caesar's and Moroni's forts and most of them within a single paragraph or similar-sized block of text) and they are real matches. And the phraseology also suggest direct literary dependence. You can wave your hands all you want about this, but you haven't addressed it.

57 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Well then, you and I are simply too far apart on basic readings of the text to get anywhere.

Yeah ... have you actually read it? I have a copy. Want to know what it says about Grotius? It mentions him exactly once, on page 26:

That's everything.

Except that, as far as we can tell, he never actually did. He certainly didn't publish anything on it. So ... and Scalinger published a relatively small fragment in Greek. Certainly not the whole Book of Enoch.

It is mentioned a lot - because Jude quotes from it. But, most of what we get by the early Church fathers are small bits and pieces. And it really doesn't work because we have to wonder what Grotius thought was taken away in the Book of Enoch - and how this was going to pervert the right way of the Lord:

You see, when we are looking at the content, it has to make some sort of coherent sense. It is awfully hard to think that Grotius was considering these statements in 1 Nephi to be about the Book of Enoch when Grotius doesn't tell us anything about it or why it was so central to proper Christian belief.

I never claimed Scalinger published the whole work. The point is that Grotius knew about it. And he did publish commentary on the fragments published by Scalinger. But it doesn't matter if the Book of Mormon is talking about the Book of Enoch or other lost works. You brought up what you thought was a contradiction. But there's only a contradiction if we just decide to change the meaning of words. For all your talk of methodology, I would think not changing the clear meaning of words to fit your priors would be part of any acceptable methodology.

[JarMan]

19 minutes ago, webbles said:

Calvin got scared of Michael to the point that he was going to let him free and then his fellows pointed out that Michael had reviled him?

Move the goalpost much?

[let’s roll]

Having scanned this thread I feel like I opened the wrong door and stumbled upon a History Department faculty meeting.  Excuse my intrusion as I close the door quietly (and quickly) and move on.  Carry on.

Edited January 21, 2025 by let’s roll

[webbles]

1 hour ago, JarMan said:

Move the goalpost much?

You seem to be saying that Abinadi is a retelling of the martydom of Michael Servetus.  You pick out a few things from the story to make the connection and ignore all the differences.  There are more differences then similarities.  Including the reason for killing.  For Abinadi to go free, he just had to "recall all the words which thou hast spoken evil concerning me and my people."  They don't want him to recant his preaching.  Instead of recanting, he threatens Noah and that almost causes him to go free.  But then the priests have to remind Noah of all the reviling.  So Abinadi's death had very little to do with his preaching.

You also mentioned that Abinadi was killed for the same heresy that Servetus was killed.  I'd like to see that.  I just read the parts about the trial in Hunted Heretic and John Calvin: His Life, Letters, and Work.  I don't see anything in there that he was accused of "For thou hast said that God himself should come down among the children of men".  Servetus did have a nontrinary view, but I don't see how that statement fits what Servetus taught.

[Calm]

5 hours ago, JarMan said:

Your parallels are somehow good enough, while mine aren't.

He uses consistent, agreed upon by others rules and you do not. It is not that difficult to recognize there is a difference in approach.

[Calm]

15 hours ago, JarMan said:

would think not changing the clear meaning of words to fit your priors

Like insisting words mean a stake has to be present in the story even though no stake is mentioned?

Edited January 20, 2025 by Calm

[Benjamin McGuire]

13 hours ago, JarMan said:

You guys are both missing the point here.

No, we aren't missing the point.

13 hours ago, JarMan said:

But the pretext for killing him was heresy.

No, this wasn't the pretext. I quoted the pretext. You seem to be missing the whole rest of that verse in your rush to judgement:

Quote

for this cause thou shalt be put to death unless thou wilt recall all the words which thou hast spoken evil concerning me and my people

He isn't being asked to recant the notion of God coming down - he is being asked to recant what he said about Noah and his priests.

[Benjamin McGuire]

12 hours ago, JarMan said:

You are essentially saying nothing to see here folks purely on the grounds that the obvious similarities don't conform to the opinion you already have. 

I'm not doing this. I am saying that there is nothing to see here on the basis of the formal methodology that I have introduced and defended. It is the points that I raise in that methodology that explain why these parallels don't hold any evidentiary value. Please, please, please - address the methodology instead of just repeating that you know it must be true because you know it when you see it.

12 hours ago, JarMan said:

This is some real special pleading here. Your parallels are somehow good enough, while mine aren't.

It's not special pleading. It is precisely because I can find parallels that makes yours less valuable. Mine aren't valuable at all - and that is the whole point. I am not suggesting that the Book of Mormon is using any of these military accounts as a basis for its text. I am suggesting that because we can find the same sort of parallels in different places that the parallels stop being useful for authorship attribution. What I am doing with the parallels is very different from what you are doing.

13 hours ago, JarMan said:

I never claimed Scalinger published the whole work. The point is that Grotius knew about it. And he did publish commentary on the fragments published by Scalinger. But it doesn't matter if the Book of Mormon is talking about the Book of Enoch or other lost works. You brought up what you thought was a contradiction. But there's only a contradiction if we just decide to change the meaning of words. For all your talk of methodology, I would think not changing the clear meaning of words to fit your priors would be part of any acceptable methodology.

CFR - where did Grotius publish commentary on the fragments published by Scalinger. I ask this because I have been looking for such a thing - and I haven't found it.

And the contradiction remains. The Book of Mormon is pretty clear:

Quote

And the angel of the Lord said unto me: Thou hast beheld that the book proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew; and when it proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew it contained the fulness of the gospel of the Lord, of whom the twelve apostles bear record; and they bear record according to the truth which is in the Lamb of God.

1: The record contained the gospel of the Lord of whom the twelve apostles bear record. The Lord in this context, would be Jesus Christ, don't you think?

2: The record when it was written contained a fullness of the gospel.

Quote

And after they go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, from the Jews unto the Gentiles, thou seest the formation of that great and abominable church, which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.

3: The great and abominable church forms after this fullness of the gospel goes to the gentiles.

4: The great and abominable church removes plain and precious parts from that gospel, along with many covenants of the Lord.

Quote

And all this have they done that they might pervert the right ways of the Lord, that they might blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men.

5: This removal was a deliberate effort to "pervert the right ways of the Lord" - that is, to corrupt the gospel of the Lord.

And this corruption is precisely what Grotius says that God would never allow to happen.

It seems pretty straight forward to me here.

[Zosimus]

dupe

Edited January 27, 2025 by Zosimus

[Zosimus]

On 1/21/2025 at 1:56 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

where did Grotius publish commentary on the fragments published by Scalinger. I ask this because I have been looking for such a thing - and I haven't found it.

Maybe Jarman is referring to Adamus Exul? There was a lot of speculation that Milton had plagiarized the Enoch-like material in Paradise Lost from Adamus Exul by Grotius. This continued into the 1830s. For example: The Adamus Exul of Grotius; Or the Prototype of Paradise Lost, Translated by F. Barnham

I don't think there's much to support the claims of Milton borrowing from Grotius, but it was a topic of discussion in New York in the late 18th century, as we can see from a letter Samuel Mitchill wrote to John Adams in 1791.

IMO It's more likely that Grotius and Milton were independently influenced by Scaliger's translation of the Syncellus fragments:

• The Book of Enoch and Paradise Lost
• Milton and the Book of Enoch: An Alternative Hypothesis

Coincidentally, Scaliger mentored Grotius and Grotius was one of his favorite students. (source) Surely Grotius would know of Scaliger's Enoch fragments.

[Benjamin McGuire]

3 hours ago, Zosimus said:

Maybe Jarman is referring to Adamus Exul? There was a lot of speculation that Milton had plagiarized the Enoch-like material in Paradise Lost from Adamus Exul by Grotius. This continued into the 1830s. For example: The Adamus Exul of Grotius; Or the Prototype of Paradise Lost, Translated by F. Barnham

Perhaps Jarman is referring to this - but it cannot be the source.

The obvious thing is that Adamus Exul simpy doesn't contain anything from Enoch. The reason for this (at least in part) is that Adamus Exul was written in 1601. Scalinger first published some fragments of Enoch in 1606 in his Thesaurus temporum. The chronology doesn't align.

Ultimately though, it's not whether or not Grotius was aware of the fragments. The problem is that Grotius's view of Enoch doesn't support that idea that 1 Nephi 13 refers to Enoch as containing the pure gospel - and that its deliberate removal for the purpose of corrupting the gospel is what is being referred to by Nephi. Enoch was a subject of interest but not a particularly valuable source of theology. This is particularly true if Grotius adopted the view that Scalinger had of fragments of the text of Enoch. When Scalinger published the fragments he also wrote this:

Quote

So much for the forged first book of Enoch. I cannot decide whether it took the Jews more spare time to write all of this, or me more patience to copy it out. It contains so many loathsome and shameful things that I would not think it worth reading if I did not know that Jews make a habit of lying, and that even now they cannot stop producing such rubbish. But because it is translated from the Hebrew ... and the book is very old, and Tertullian cites from it ... I preferred to swallow the tedium of copying it out rather than bear the blame for continuing to deprive my kind readers of it. (translation by Nicholas Keene)

Now, Grotius may have formed his own opinions of it, but, we don't really know because nothing of Grotius survives (as far as I can tell) on the subject of Enoch.

[Zosimus]

11 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Scalinger first published some fragments of Enoch in 1606 in his Thesaurus temporum. The chronology doesn't align.

Not arguing Grotius was familiar with Enoch before Thesaurus temporum, but Enoch was known in Europe before Scaliger.

If I were an advocate of the EmodE in the BOM hypothesis, I'd propose Guilluame Postel as the influence. Postel studied 1 Enoch directly with an Ethiopian priest in Rome. His encounter with Enoch was passed along to Dee, a personal acquaintance. Although Postel's published comments on Enoch (listed below) did not share the content of 1 Enoch, they were discussed and influenced Dee, Jane Lead and Sir Walter Raleigh and a number of Jesuits including Kircher. Postel was also connected with the influential Platonic Academy of Florence.

• Of the Etruscan Region
• Concerning the Origins or concerning the language of Hebrew
• Concerning Origins about a varied history largely unknown to the Latin world until this day
   

11 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

The problem is that Grotius's view of Enoch doesn't support that idea that 1 Nephi 13 refers to Enoch as containing the pure gospel - and that its deliberate removal for the purpose of corrupting the gospel is what is being referred to by Nephi.

Postel considered himself a sort of prophet of a 16th century Christian restoration. (source) He considered the loss of apocryphal texts like Enoch and the Gospel of James (which he was the first to publish) as essential to that restoration. afaict Postel believed the recovery of such texts was part of his prophetic role.

Although I'm intrigued by Jarman's arguments for Grotius, I think there's too much in Grotius that clashes. I've mentioned before how Grotius wrote against the idea of Israelites in the Americas so I don't imagine him influencing in secret a book about Israelites in the Americas. You'd have to look at an Old World setting of the Book of Mormon to make it fit for Grotius. Meanwhile, Postel who wrote before Grotius did believe that Israelites peopled the Americas. Postel personally knew Scaliger (source) and also believed that he was on Calvin's hitlist for his writings condemning Calvin for killing Servetus (source). Perhaps Postel feared being burned in a fire for reviling the king, like Abinadi. If we're looking for sources of EmodE, there are early modern writers that align better with the Book of Mormon in my opinion.

Edited January 27, 2025 by Zosimus

[Benjamin McGuire]

53 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

Not arguing Grotius was familiar with Enoch before Thesaurus temporum, but Enoch was known in Europe before Scaliger.

Yeah, but Grotius was only 18 when he wrote Adamus Exul. He was already a student of Scaliger. Perhaps he got his notion of Enoch elsewhere, but, I think that if he developed any opinion of Enoch at all, it would have been through Scaliger. The evidence that Grotius knew of Enoch isn't found in any of his books, but in some personal correspondence. That was linked earlier -

On 1/19/2025 at 8:19 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

Quote

Holstenius informed Peiresc that he once heard the renowned Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) say that he had done some work on the Greek version of the Book of Enoch. Peiresc told Saumaise he was willing to pay handsomely for a transcript of the Greek text and on 7/17 April he wrote to Grotius, at that time the resident Swedish ambassador in Paris, imploring him to share his research. Peiresc, however, first received a response to an earlier communication concerning his untranslated Ethiopic volume: Grotius referred him to Scaliger’s Thesaurus temporum. On 10/20 April Peiresc wrote to Grotius again, asking for his opinion on Syncellus’s excerpts from the Book of Enoch and information as to the whereabouts of the manuscript used by Scaliger.

Hessayon, Scripture and Scholarship in Early Modern England. Hessayon cites personal correspondence in the footnotes.

This is, I think, all that we have from Grotius on the Book of Enoch. It is not much. Did Grotius research the fragments that Scaliger

But this is all an abstraction - because what we don't have from Grotius is any quoting of Enoch at all - and we don't have anywhere this view that matches what 1 Nephi 13 says about the deliberate corruption of scripture. What we have instead is a very clear statement from Grotius that God would prevent significant corruption of the text, and that he believed that the necessary gospel texts were substantially intact - only displaying problems in the occasional verse or two, and of those problematic texts he believed that there were, scattered through the manuscript histories, originals to be found. This ultimately is the problem. We are only dealing with Enoch because Jarman is arguing that 1 Nephi 13 should be read as being about entire books removed from the canon - like the Book of Enoch. I don't find this view in Grotius at all - and he doesn't trust the non-canonical texts as being particularly trustworthy (let alone as having the core of the gospel in them that was removed as per 1 Nephi 13). This is a much bigger barrier.

Then there is the problem of Scalinger's opinion of the text (his published opinion). If Grotius shared the belief about Enoch with his teacher Scaliger, we also wouldn't have any expectation to see it used in the creation of the Book of Mormon. Scaliger believed that it was a forgery (anything but the gospel truth). So all of this complicates the assertion that Enoch is what Nephi in 1 Nephi 13 is talking about - and not in simple or easy to dismiss ways.

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

Postel considered himself a sort of prophet of a 16th century Christian restoration. (source) He considered the loss of apocryphal texts like Enoch and the Gospel of James (which he was the first to publish) as essential to that restoration. afaict Postel believed the recovery of such texts was part of his prophetic role

Let's be realistic. The argument isn't that Postel wrote the Book of Mormon but that Grotius did. So unless you can show that Postel's views were more influential on Grotius than his teacher Scaliger, this doesn't get you anywhere in this discussion.

Then there is the content. The book that you link says this about Postel's views:

Quote

Postel uses references from the books of Enoch , especially those parts dealing with the Merkaba.

and

Quote

Postel's interest in the books of the Kabbalah, which began during his first trip to the Orient in 1536, was surely quickened by his friendship with Widmanstadt. He began studying the Kabbalah in earnest in Rome , and he synthesized Kabbalistic ideas with his own unique version of universal concord which he called the "eternal gospel".

While Postel certainly viewed Enoch as authentic, the value he saw in it is not the sort of thing that relates either to the Book of Mormon more broadly or to 1 Nephi 13 specifically. We might ask what the "universal concord" is - and this is one of the earlier approaches to try and discover the universal language (before the Tower of Babel). Postel's linguistic methods are ... creative. And while that is an interesting topic in its own right, the kinds of loss that Postel discusses are not the sorts of things being discussed here. If I were to look for parallels between the Book of Mormon and Postel, I would start in the Jaredite narrative. But, the challenge in all of this again is that we don't see this perspective at all in Grotius. And so it's not particularly relevant or germane to this discussion.

[Zosimus]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

But, the challenge in all of this again is that we don't see this perspective at all in Grotius. And so it's not particularly relevant or germane to this discussion.

My point in bringing up Postel is to demonstrate that if we're looking for the influence of these romanisms in the Book of Mormon eg. Servetus/Abinadi being burned for heresy, there are better options than Grotius. As I mentioned above, Postel had to flee Geneva because he had written a treatise condemning Calvin for murdering Servetus, and Postel believed he was next on Calvin's hitlist.

If events like Servetus being burned at the stake for reviling Calvin really do make an early modern appearance in the Book of Mormon, why should we identify Grotius as the source instead of someone like Postel who not only knew Scaliger personally (unlike Grotius), studied the Book of Enoch (unlike Grotius) and other Jewish and Christian apocryphal texts and declared himself a restorationist prophet (unlike Grotius), and believed America was peopled with Israelites (unlike Grotius) and also publicly reviled Calvin enough to fear being burned at the stake himself (unlike Grotius).

So why Grotius as the source of romanisms and EmodE instead of someone else eg. Postel?

Edited January 28, 2025 by Zosimus

[Benjamin McGuire]

13 hours ago, Zosimus said:

My point in bringing up Postel is to demonstrate that if we're looking for the influence of these romanisms in the Book of Mormon eg. Servetus/Abinadi being burned for heresy, there are better options than Grotius.

I would certainly agree with this. As far as Grotius goes, that's a question for Jarman, not for me.

[JarMan]

On 1/20/2025 at 11:05 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

No, we aren't missing the point.

No, this wasn't the pretext. I quoted the pretext. You seem to be missing the whole rest of that verse in your rush to judgement:

He isn't being asked to recant the notion of God coming down - he is being asked to recant what he said about Noah and his priests.

On 1/20/2025 at 11:56 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

I'm not doing this. I am saying that there is nothing to see here on the basis of the formal methodology that I have introduced and defended. It is the points that I raise in that methodology that explain why these parallels don't hold any evidentiary value. Please, please, please - address the methodology instead of just repeating that you know it must be true because you know it when you see it.

It's not special pleading. It is precisely because I can find parallels that makes yours less valuable. Mine aren't valuable at all - and that is the whole point. I am not suggesting that the Book of Mormon is using any of these military accounts as a basis for its text. I am suggesting that because we can find the same sort of parallels in different places that the parallels stop being useful for authorship attribution. What I am doing with the parallels is very different from what you are doing.

CFR - where did Grotius publish commentary on the fragments published by Scalinger. I ask this because I have been looking for such a thing - and I haven't found it.

And the contradiction remains. The Book of Mormon is pretty clear:

1: The record contained the gospel of the Lord of whom the twelve apostles bear record. The Lord in this context, would be Jesus Christ, don't you think?

2: The record when it was written contained a fullness of the gospel.

3: The great and abominable church forms after this fullness of the gospel goes to the gentiles.

4: The great and abominable church removes plain and precious parts from that gospel, along with many covenants of the Lord.

5: This removal was a deliberate effort to "pervert the right ways of the Lord" - that is, to corrupt the gospel of the Lord.

And this corruption is precisely what Grotius says that God would never allow to happen.

It seems pretty straight forward to me here.

Look, you're convoluting the plain meaning of the Book of Mormon to fit your own narrative. But here's what I propose to address this sort of thing, and it comes down to methodology. One aspect of my methodology I try to incorporate is to look at what others have said about the texts I'm comparing. I may feel like I have the "correct" reading of a text, but if there is no control in place I could be tempted to read whatever I want into the text and insist it's in there simply because I say it's in there. A good example is Pompey's letter. If I was the only one reading it as saying Pompey was planning to march on Rome while historians and scholars all claimed he was simply disbanding the army, that would be a direct contradiction that would weaken my case. By showing that my reading is consistent with how others have read it I strengthen my case.

I started out this thread to talk about a very narrow subject, but the subject matter has expanded greatly. I'm as much to blame for this as anybody else. But 95% of what has been brought up I've addressed on this forum over the last 7 years or so and its exhausting to address so many issues at once, particularly on ground I've already covered (and particularly with the regular demands of life). You proposed some time back to focus on one work of Grotius and see how consistent it is with the Book of Mormon. I'd like to do that as long as we can keep the discussion focused. I'd also like to agree on some methodology beforehand. You keep saying you have a methodology, but you haven't articulated what it is, and what I consistently see is you telling me the meaning of something in the BofM is X when the clear meaning of the text is something else. Or you find some snippet from Grotius to explain his theology without consulting what historians who've studied it in detail have to say. Grotius wrote lots and lots of things in his lifetime. We have literally thousands of his letters in addition to dozens of books and poems. Historians who've looked at the body of his work realize that sometimes he said different things in public and private. This was not uncommon in that era since you could be excommunicated, imprisoned, or killed for your public remarks. In addition, he matured or changed his mind on things over the years on some things as we all have. And still, there are thousands of pages of his texts that don't have English translations. This is another reason it's critical to consult what others with more knowledge have said. There's a whole periodical devoted to him called Grotiana that's been published annually since 1980. As for the Book of Mormon, we both know the sources that have commentary supporting certain readings of the text. This body of scholarship needs to be consulted for both works if we are to do a comparison.

I propose we start a new thread to have a focused discussion on de jure belli a pacis (as you originally suggested). As for this thread, if people want to discuss the OP I'm happy to continue to engage on that subject, but simply don't have the capacity to address everything else, particularly when the bar is so low to spin up an objection.

As for your CFR, the information to address this is in the very book you said that you had. In fact, you may have already quoted the relevant text in this thread already. I'm too tired to go look, but it's there, as well as in several other secondary sources.

 

[Benjamin McGuire]

6 hours ago, JarMan said:

As for your CFR, the information to address this is in the very book you said that you had. In fact, you may have already quoted the relevant text in this thread already. I'm too tired to go look, but it's there, as well as in several other secondary sources.

It's not actually in the book. This is the problem. I have the book. I have searched through the book. There is a suggestion, but there is nothing to back it up. Now, it may well be that there is something, someplace, that I don't have the knowledge to access where it exists. And I am certainly open to finding it or having it show to me.

6 hours ago, JarMan said:

I propose we start a new thread to have a focused discussion on de jure belli a pacis (as you originally suggested). As for this thread, if people want to discuss the OP I'm happy to continue to engage on that subject, but simply don't have the capacity to address everything else, particularly when the bar is so low to spin up an objection.

Let's do this. I'll start the thread.

[JarMan]

11 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

It's not actually in the book. This is the problem. I have the book. I have searched through the book. There is a suggestion, but there is nothing to back it up. Now, it may well be that there is something, someplace, that I don't have the knowledge to access where it exists. And I am certainly open to finding it or having it show to me.

"It is in this context, in fact, that Fabricius reprints Snycellus' excerpts from the Book of the Watchers, in parallel Greek with Latin translations, followed by commentary from scholars like Scaliger, John Ernest Grabe, and Hugo Grotius." (Link:https://www.google.com/books/edition/Rediscovering_Enoch_The_Antediluvian_Pas/2VCuEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1)

I don't think I have seen Grotius' commentary, I just know that it exists. I will try to track it down, though.

 

[Zosimus]

48 minutes ago, JarMan said:

I don't think I have seen Grotius' commentary, I just know that it exists. I will try to track it down, though.

“In the 18th century, the interest of scholars remained focused on the Enoch fragments of Syncellus, which provided the only textual evidence for 1 Enoch. They were published posthumously in the works of Scipione Sgambati (Archivorum veteris testamenti, 1703), and Johann Albert Fabricius (Codes pseudepigraphus Veteris Testamenti, 1713-23). Fabricius provided the first narrative of the history of research on the book of Enoch, recording in details all its citations in the Letter of Jude, in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and in the early Church Fathers, prior to its loss and (partial) recovery thanks to Scaliger and the works of 17th-century scholarship (Grotius, Pfeiffer, Grabe, and others). In addition, Fabricius offered a survey of Jewish Cabalistic texts (Zohar and Menahem Recanati), as well as Islamic and Hermetic sources, and discussed the status quaestionis about the possible existence of the book of Enoch in Ethiopia.” (source)

The Fabricius text that supposedly reprints Grotius comments on Enoch should be this one: Codex pseudepigraphus Veteris Testament. I see Grotius in there but haven’t done the GPT translations yet

Edited January 30, 2025 by Zosimus

[Benjamin McGuire]

1 hour ago, JarMan said:

"It is in this context, in fact, that Fabricius reprints Snycellus' excerpts from the Book of the Watchers, in parallel Greek with Latin translations, followed by commentary from scholars like Scaliger, John Ernest Grabe, and Hugo Grotius." (Link:https://www.google.com/books/edition/Rediscovering_Enoch_The_Antediluvian_Pas/2VCuEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1)

I don't think I have seen Grotius' commentary, I just know that it exists. I will try to track it down, though.

I have seen that statement. However, when we get to Fabricius, there doesn't seem to be commentary from Grotius on Enoch. It's not for a lack of trying to find it. Further, there isn't anything in any known writing by Grotius that is a commentary on Enoch that I have found. As I said, I may easily have missed something - but, so far I have turned up nothing. You can find a copy of Fabricius here. And what I found, after reading through the entire section on Enoch is that we do have three brief references to Grotius.

The first is on page 173. But it isn't a commentary on the Book of Enoch per se - it is a comment on the text of Jude 1:14-15. Here is the text:

Quote

Grotius ad Epist. Jude, librum quo usus suit Celsus, putat dillum suise Αποκάλυψιν Ενώχ, quia Ethiopes jactant librum hoc titulo, de quo infra.

This points back to Grotius's commentary on the Epistle of Jude - and is actually very unflattering towards the book of Enoch - "the Ethiopians boast of a book with this title" doesn't seem like much of a statement towards viewing the text as an authentic record.

There is a second reference to Grotius on page 191 (note P):

Quote

P) Scaliger, Grotius, Lud, Cappellus, Dan, Heinfius, Grabius biusque putant hunclocum in animo habuisse Judam Apostolum cum scriberet v. 6.  αγγέλες απολιπόντας τὸ ἴδιον οικητήριον εἰς κρίσιν μεγάλης ἡμέρας δεσ μοῖς αἰδίοις ὑπὸ ζόφον τετήρηκεν. Similiter ante Judam, Grabio judice, S. Petrus in posteriore Epist. cap. 2, vers 4. cujus, inquit, obscura quodammodo serba ex bis Enochi bene explicantur. Diserte vero haec citavit Tertullianus in locis quae attuli supra p. 169.

The rough translation is:

P) Scaliger, Grotius, Lud, Cappellus, Dan.Heinsius, Grabius [p. 192] twice they think that Jude the Apostle had this place in mind when he wrote v. 6. αγγέλες απολιπόντας τὸ ἴδιον οικητήριον εἰς κρίσιν μέληση ἡμέρας δεσ μοῖς αἰδίοις ὑπὸ ζόφον τετήρηκεν. Similarly, before Jude, Grabius judges, St. Peter in the later Epistle. chap. 2, verse 4, of which, he says, the obscurity in a certain way is well explained by the two Enochs. Tertullian, however, eloquently quoted these things in the passages which I have quoted above p. 169.

So, there isn't much here about the Enoch text - Grotius seems to be referenced again with regard to his comments on the Epistle of Jude and not on any translation or commentary of Enoch.

Finally we have a third reference to Grotius on page 209. That is the longest note about Grotius, and it reads (as best as I can make out):

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Hugo Grotius Epistola 737. ad Peirescium: Ethiopica ex Enochi Apocalypsi side an eadem sint quæ in Eusebianis posuit Scaliger, pagina notarum 244. unde desumtus est ille an Epistola Jude locus & alia nonnulla quibus usuntur Chriestiani scriptores seteres.

Or, roughly translated: Hugo Grotius Epistle 737 to Peiresc: Ethiopica, from the Apocalypse of Enoch, whether they are the same as what Scaliger put in the Eusebians, page 244 of the notes and from which was taken that passage of the Epistle to Jude and some other passages which are used by Christian writers.

This is the correspondence from Grotius to Peiresc that I mentioned earlier. It doesn't contain any translations or commentary and simply refers Peiresc to Scaliger's translation.

It is the absence of any actual commentary or translation - or even any copying of the text of the Ethipoc Enoch fragments that Scaliger produced in anything by Grotius that leads me to believe that in fact he didn't actually produce anything. And I think that the comment about Grotius that you reproduce from Rediscovering Enoch appears to promise more than it can produce in terms of your argument.

So please, if you think that there is more than this, please track it down - but, having read through Fabricius now, I am confident that Fabricius doesn't have a commentary on Enoch by Grotius.

Edited January 30, 2025 by Benjamin McGuire

[webbles]

46 minutes ago, Zosimus said:

The Fabricius text that supposedly reprints Grotius comments on Enoch should be this one: Codex pseudepigraphus Veteris Testament. I see Grotius in there but haven’t done the GPT translations yet

Looks like the commentary from Grotius is around 200.  It is in the section LXIII which is right after Fabricius finished printing out the Book of the Watchers in both Greek and Latin (you can see the side-by-side ended around page 199).  The commentary from Grotius has the heading "Hugo Grotius ad Epistolam Fude v, 14," which looks like that translates to "Hugo Grotius on the Epistle of Jude" (per Google translate).  The header for section LXIII says "Recentium virorum doétorum quaedam de libro Henochi & testimonio S Jude Apostoli judicia" which translates to "Some judgments of recent men of learning concerning the book of Enoch and the testimony of St. Jude the Apostle".

A really rough transcription of what is under the heading for Grotius is:

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Solebant Rabbini & Angelis & viris magnis tribuere ae dicta quae dixiffe poteerant.  Ea vero verba quae hic citantur ut Carpocratianis bene convenientia repeeriebantur in libro qui dicebatur ......, quo ufus eft
celfus, & particulam ex eo eo produxit quam habes apud Origenem centra Celfum libro V. inde etiam fumfit Iranaeus IV. 30 Tertullianus inde haufit --- Clemens Alex. in excerptis indidem citat --- Judaei ei libro f
idem tribuebant, nam citatur in Zohar.  Habuit Georgius Syncellus librum Graecum eo nomine, unde nobis partem fatis magnam dedit Josephus Scaliger in doctisfimis ad Eufebium notis, in qua & illa funt de artibus,
quas homines Angelorum minifterio acceeperint.  Credo initio librum fuiffe exiguum, fed cum tempore quemque ea qua voluit ei addeidiffe, ut in libris illis abftrufioribus factum eft faepe

And using Google translate, I get:

Quote

Rabbis were accustomed to attribute to angels and great men the sayings which they could have said. But the words which are here cited as being well suited to the Carpocratians were found in a book which was called ......, which is used by Celsus, and he produced a part from it which you have in Origen in the center of Celsus book V. from which also came Iranian IV. 30 Tertullian does not do so --- Clemens Alex. in excerpts from it cites --- the Jews attributed the same to that book, for it is cited in the Zohar. George Syncellus had a Greek book of that name, from which Josephus Scaliger gave us a great part of fates in his learned notes to Euphebius, in which and those are about the arts which men have received from the ministry of the Angels. I believe that at the beginning the book was small, but with time each one added to it what he wanted, as was often done in those more extensive books.

I'm not sure if I transcribed it correctly but the last sentence in Latin and the last sentence in English look to be fairly correct.  So it seems like Grotius thinks it was added to over the years.

[Zosimus]

1 hour ago, webbles said:

I'm not sure if I transcribed it correctly but the last sentence in Latin and the last sentence in English look to be fairly correct.  So it seems like Grotius thinks it was added to over the years.

If the section under the title Hugo Grotius ad Epiffolam Jude v. 14 is a reprint of Grotius and my machine translation is correct enough, then it does seem that Grotius accepts that the Jews considered Enoch authentic:

"The Jews attributed credibility to this book, as it is cited in the Zohar...I believe that initially the book was brief, but over time additions were made to it, as often happens with books of this nature."

Edited January 30, 2025 by Zosimus

[webbles]

1 hour ago, Zosimus said:

If the section under the title Hugo Grotius ad Epiffolam Jude v. 14 is a reprint of Grotius and my machine translation is correct enough, then it does seem that Grotius accepts that the Jews considered Enoch authentic:

"The Jews attributed credibility to this book, as it is cited in the Zohar...I believe that initially the book was brief, but over time additions were made to it, as often happens with books of this nature."

I tracked down the original location where this text is.  It is in Grotius' Annotationes in Novum Testamentum, Volume 8.  I found it at https://archive.org/details/hugonisgrotiian06grotgoog/page/n231/mode/2up.  Page 227 of that book, where he is talking about verse 14 (that's what the "v. 14" means) of the Epistle of Jude.  There is more there than what Fabricius wrote but it has some Greek in it so I'm not sure how to transcribe it or translate it.

[Zosimus]

26 minutes ago, webbles said:

I tracked down the original location where this text is.  It is in Grotius' Annotationes in Novum Testamentum, Volume 8.  I found it at https://archive.org/details/hugonisgrotiian06grotgoog/page/n231/mode/2up.  Page 227 of that book, where he is talking about verse 14 (that's what the "v. 14" means) of the Epistle of Jude.  There is more there than what Fabricius wrote but it has some Greek in it so I'm not sure how to transcribe it or translate it.

ChatGPT has this:

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14. "But the seventh from Adam, Enoch, prophesied about these things." It was customary for the Rabbis, Angels, and influential men to ascribe great importance to the sayings that he [Enoch] was thought to have uttered. Indeed, the words cited here, as they were well-suited to the Carpocratians, were found in the book called the 'Apocalypse of Enoch' [Revelation of Enoch], which Celsus used and from which he produced a part. You can find this in Origen's work Against Celsus, Book V. Irenaeus also took from this in what he states in IV.30. Tertullian likewise drew from this and translated it into his book on Idolatry: 'Enoch, forefather, predicted all the elements, the entire structure of the world, what is contained in heaven, in the sea, and on the earth, [all] turning toward idolatry.'"

Demons and the spirits of deserting angels, so that they might be consecrated in place of God, against the Lord. And concerning the worship of women, Book I says that Enoch commanded his son Methuselah to hand on to his descendants the knowledge of those things which he himself had heard through inherited tradition. Clement of Alexandria, in his Excerpts from that same source, cites: ‘Καὶ εἶδον τὰς ὕλας πάσας’ [I saw all matter]. In the same place, shortly thereafter, it is said that Enoch transmitted that the angels were deserters, who had been teachers to humans of astronomy, divination, and other arts. The Jews attributed credibility to that book, for it is cited in the Zohar. George Syncellus possessed a Greek book with this name, from which Joseph Scaliger provided us with a fairly large portion in his very learned notes on Eusebius; in which are those things about the arts that humans received through the ministry of angels.

I believe that initially the book was small, but over time, anyone who wished added to it, so that it has often become something made up of additions in those obscure books. It often happened that it was made more obscure by additions. However, he says 'he prophesied concerning them,' because he predicted what would happen to them. This is the same construction as in Jeremiah 27:15 and elsewhere. Furthermore, Enoch is said to be the seventh from Adam, that is, the seventh among humans if Adam is counted as the first.

So it seems Grotius accepted Enoch as authoritative and credible, but believed it was added to and became confused and obscure. Only slightly different from scripture being lost or having things taken away

[JarMan]

On 1/20/2025 at 11:56 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

It's not special pleading. It is precisely because I can find parallels that makes yours less valuable. Mine aren't valuable at all - and that is the whole point. I am not suggesting that the Book of Mormon is using any of these military accounts as a basis for its text. I am suggesting that because we can find the same sort of parallels in different places that the parallels stop being useful for authorship attribution. What I am doing with the parallels is very different from what you are doing.

This is germane to the OP so I'll respond. Let's pretend this was happening in reverse--that somebody was claiming the Nephite fortifications pointed toward authorship from Joseph Smith's milieu because of the similarities. I come along and show the Julius Caesar fortifications, which are clearly a closer match. This would undermine the original claim. I could argue that any similarities are purely coincidental since I can demonstrate another place where the parallels are much better. But this doesn't work in reverse. You can't show worse parallels and claim that undermines the original claim. I play a yellow 11 and then you play a yellow 6 and want to take the trick.