Horses are Tapirs

[beastie]

Ben,

I'll come back later with a more detailed response, but want to quickly comment on one item:

As a side note, also, for Beastie, this whole discussion is about "reinforcing the case for the historicity of the BoM" - which isn't my focus at all. My focus is about reading the text. The text is a literary work, and is not a history book. For me, the history issues are a secodary feature. Beastie wants to view the text as history, and make the literary concerns negligable. This creates all sorts of problems with the methodology.

Did you actually read the topic of the thread, Ben? It's called: Horses are Tapirs.

yet somehow now you deem that our topic is solely literary analysis, and my comments are inappropriate.

If the topic is "horse are tapirs", then the question of whether or not Mesoamericans actually used tapirs in the manner consistent with the BoM is entirely appropriate. You attempts to dodge it are not.

[beastie]

I am not arguing that it is not an anachronism. I am explaining why it is an anachronism.

This gets back to your intent of trying to attack the truth claims of the text, and not trying to understand the text. The whole notion which I am discussing accepts, without reservation, the idea that no horse existed in mesoamerica.

I have repeatedly explained that it

[John Hamer]

Marco Polo's description of the "unicorns":

(The people of Basman) have wild elephants and plenty of unicorns, which are scarcely smaller than elephants.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Beastie writes:

I have repeatedly explained that it

[Benjamin McGuire]

John Hamer writes:

Marco Polo clearly understood that he hadn't discovered "unicorns" in the sense of the contemporary European legends --- in fact, he said as much. Marco Polo's description of what are now known by the modern name "rhinoceros" isn't comparable to Sorenson's speculation of the Nephite use of the term "horse" because the Nephites didn't observe that "the land is rich in horses which are different from those we know in the Plates of Brass" or "different from those we left in the Land of Jersalem" or whathaveyou.

I don't think this is true John. I suggest that you take a look at Umberto Eco's book Kant and the Platypuis. Polo suggests that he did discover unicorns. Not only did he believe that he had discovered unicorns, he suggests that the unicorn he had discovered might well correct the apparent misconceptions which others had about unicorns. But, identifying the rhinoceros as a unicorn would not have prevented Polo from recognizing a white, slenderlegged quadruped much like a horse, with a horn in its forehead, laying in a field with its head in the lap of a virgin, as a unicorn also. He expanded the meaning of the word "unicorn" in his verbal repertoire.

The Book of Mormon, on the other hand, raises a bunch of issues which haven't been addressed (because of their speculative nature). Was there a limited vocabulary? (The vocabulary of the Book of Mormon is tiny - it has one word for a moving body of water - "river" - wheresas Joseph used the words "river", "stream", "rill", "brook", etc.) Does this affect how things are described?

In other words, despite the fact that Marco Polo recognizes that his new "unicorns" are not the same as the "unicorn" which he had been led to believe existed, he has no doubt that it is in fact a unicorn - although whether or not this is simply a different kind of unicorn, or the real unicorn (to which the description he had been given was inaccurate) I am not sure we can tell.

Further, Nephi doesn't observe that "the land is rich in horses" at all. He said they found horses in the forest (do wild horses typically live in forested areas?) He also said that they found goats, and wild goats, and other animals - for which we don't have enough contextual information to dreaw any kind of reasonable conclusions.

Does any believer here have the theory that a small number of horses --- perhaps only one herd --- were kept by the Nephite kings and were never allowed to be bred in large numbers (and thus they don't show up in the archaeological record)? To me it seems like that proposition would be easier to defend.

There are several who believe this. I am not opposed to this idea.

Ben

[Benjamin McGuire]

By the way Beastie -

Are you going to attempt to answer the basic questions about the kind of translation the Book of Mormon should have been (given translation by the Urim and Thummim) after making so many assertions about it?

I really would like either an attempt to answer the questions, or a statement telling me that you aren't going to.

Ben

[John Hamer]

I don't think this is true John. I suggest that you take a look at Umberto Eco's book Kant and the Platypuis. Polo suggests that he did discover unicorns. Not only did he believe that he had discovered unicorns, he suggests that the unicorn he had discovered might well correct the apparent misconceptions which others had about unicorns. But, identifying the rhinoceros as a unicorn would not have prevented Polo from recognizing a white, slenderlegged quadruped much like a horse, with a horn in its forehead, laying in a field with its head in the lap of a virgin, as a unicorn also. He expanded the meaning of the word "unicorn" in his verbal repertoire.

The Book of Mormon, on the other hand, raises a bunch of issues which haven't been addressed (because of their speculative nature). Was there a limited vocabulary? (The vocabulary of the Book of Mormon is tiny - it has one word for a moving body of water - "river" - wheresas Joseph used the words "river", "stream", "rill", "brook", etc.) Does this affect how things are described?

In other words, despite the fact that Marco Polo recognizes that his new "unicorns" are not the same as the "unicorn" which he had been led to believe existed, he has no doubt that it is in fact a unicorn - although whether or not this is simply a different kind of unicorn, or the real unicorn (to which the description he had been given was inaccurate) I am not sure we can tell.

Further, Nephi doesn't observe that "the land is rich in horses" at all. He said they found horses in the forest (do wild horses typically live in forested areas?) He also said that they found goats, and wild goats, and other animals - for which we don't have enough contextual information to dreaw any kind of reasonable conclusions.

Hi Ben ---

My point is not that Marco Polo didn't have an expansive use of the word "unicorn" --- my point is that he was aware that he was expanding its use and said as much.

Because Nephi didn't make any similar observation about differences between Promised Land horses and Land of Jerusalem horses, what Polo did is somewhat different from what you are speculating Nephi did. The difference is that Polo's expansion is explicit, while you are proposing that Nephi's expansion is implicit.

(I know Nephi didn't say those hypothetical quotes I wrote above, those were meant to be examples of what an explicit expansion of the language might have sounded like.)

That said, I don't think the theory is intrinsically implausible. I'm sure that many peoples who are faced with something new (that they don't have a word for) will adapt of an existing word that describes a similar concept. And they don't all have to explicitly state that they are doing that.

I'm sure there are a bunch of examples in history where old words get applied to new things without any explicit observation that there is a new usage involved.

Does any believer here have the theory that a small number of horses --- perhaps only one herd --- were kept by the Nephite kings and were never allowed to be bred in large numbers (and thus they don't show up in the archaeological record)? To me it seems like that proposition would be easier to defend.

There are several who believe this. I am not opposed to this idea.

Ok, cool. Just wondering if that bit of speculation had been proposed by anyone.

[beastie]

Ben, I already responded to your translation question.

It really doesn't matter, to my argument, whether you think God would have changed Nephi's word "horse" to "tapir", or whether he would have felt that authorial art had to be preserved over possible confusion that could discredit the BoM, and continued to use "horse". It doesn't matter because the context is still there. And it's the context that is an anachronism right now.

As to tapirs pulling "chariots" - whatever the chariot may be - I see that the white crow argument still sings to you like a siren. Remember how it goes? If you choose to disregard the actual use of the animal in Mesoamerica, your argument is as fallacious as my argument about the figurative Jubilee was. So the question isn't whether or not you can imagine an animal like the tapir pulling a "chariot" - but the question is "did tapirs pull (anything) in Mesoamericaa?"

As far as I know, the answer is simply no. If you know otherwise, please share it. That's the whole problem, Ben. No animal in Mesoamerica could serve as a "draft animal" in Mesoamerica. It's more than just how big or strong an animal is, but how well an animal can be trained. There is a reason that zebras, even though they look so much like horses, haven't been used to pull things through human history. It has to do with their herding tendency, and neither zebras nor tapirs are herd animals, but horses are. So horses can be trained in that the human being replaces the dominant horse in the herd. This was explained in detail in Guns, Germs, and Steel. Didn't you read that chapter?

And you scoff at the idea of the animals being herded, but you can't deny that the animals were moved with the Nephites when the Nephites were moving in a large group. What other than herding would accomplish that? When I asked you to tell me what you imagined happened in that particular setting, you refused to do so.

As to your other points, I'll have to address them later. I've run out of both patience and time at this moment and will have to refuel on both.

Does any believer here have the theory that a small number of horses --- perhaps only one herd --- were kept by the Nephite kings and were never allowed to be bred in large numbers (and thus they don't show up in the archaeological record)? To me it seems like that proposition would be easier to defend.

Brant Gardner seems to consider this at times. I agree it certainly is preferable to having defend a tapir pulling a chariot, but it is not without its own problems. To me, the biggest problem is suggesting that this type of tight control was not only maintained over a thousand years*, but then the horses died out completely without a trace with the Nephites, AND there is no physical trace of any of these horses associated with royalty for over a thousand years. Items that are rare and associated only with royalty stand a good chance of being portrayed in art as well as actually buried with the royalty in Mesoamerica. But that does not exist in Mesoamerica (despite the attempts of some believers to use ancient pictures of deity on deer as "horses" or to use highly questionable "inca stones" as proof of pictures of horses, that is just not accepted by scholars of Mesoamerica).

*The Nephites moved around a lot in Mesoamerica and came in contact with many different groups of "Lamanites". Certainly someone, either Nephites or "Lamanites" would have recognized the potential benefit of the use of the horse other than as a royal adornment, so to speak, over a thousand year period. And where did the horse come from that the Nephites adapted as a royal ornament? Was it already present in Mesoamerica? Being used by anyone? Etc. You get the idea. It has its own problems.

[John Hamer]

Brant Gardner seems to consider this at times.  I agree it certainly is preferable to having defend a tapir pulling a chariot, but it is not without its own problems.  To me, the biggest problem is suggesting that this type of tight control was not only maintained over a thousand years*, but then the horses died out completely without a trace with the Nephites, AND there is no physical trace of any of these horses associated with royalty for over a thousand years.  Items that are rare and associated only with royalty stand a good chance of being portrayed in art as well as actually buried with the royalty in Mesoamerica.  But that does not exist in Mesoamerica (despite the attempts of some believers to use ancient pictures of deity on deer as "horses" or to use highly questionable "inca stones" as proof of pictures of horses, that is just not accepted by scholars of Mesoamerica). 

*The Nephites moved around a lot in Mesoamerica and came in contact with many different groups of "Lamanites".  Certainly someone, either Nephites or "Lamanites" would have recognized the potential benefit of the use of the horse other than as a royal adornment, so to speak, over a thousand year period.  And where did the horse come from that the Nephites adapted as a royal ornament?  Was it already present in Mesoamerica?  Being used by anyone?  Etc.  You get the idea.  It has its own problems.

Well, let me follow the line of speculation to provide potentially conceivable answers to your objections.

The instances of "horses" in the Book of Mormon are rather rare. Nephi once observed that they found some "in the forests" and the Jaredites are once observed to have had them.

Most of the other instances are either associated with a king and his "chariots" (Alma 18-2) or with the movement of a people when they bring with them everything they have --- "all their substance" (3 Ne. 3: 22).

Horses aren't described doing farm work, or being ridden by messengers or missionaries or scouts. It seems like walking is the most common form of transportation. So a theory that horses were limited in number and reserved to the kings as a royal animal does not seem to be precluded by the text.

Certainly someone, either Nephites or "Lamanites" would have recognized the potential benefit of the use of the horse other than as a royal adornment, so to speak, over a thousand year period.

You'd think they might, but people don't always understand what they have. Steam engines were known to the ancient Greeks. You'd think that somebody would have realized that power could be useful. Gunpowder was used for fireworks by the Chinese. It's conceivable to be sitting on something that has vast potential that goes unexploited for even a lengthy period of time. In other words, under normal circumstances you'd assume somebody would figure out a use for the royal animal other than ornament, but that doesn't mean that it would "certainly" happen.

And where did the horse come from that the Nephites adapted as a royal ornament?  Was it already present in Mesoamerica?  Being used by anyone?

Perhaps a tiny herd had been kept by the Jaredites and God saw to it that that the herd made its way to the land of Lehi's First Inheritance, where Nephi found it in the forest. Perhaps it wasn't being used by anyone. Perhaps Nephi caught the horses and they became associated with his line of kings. Later Lamanite kings, in imitation of Nephite kings, might have stolen a breeding pair from the tiny Nephite herd and began to have their own horses and chariots which they, perhaps, also restricted to use as a royal ornament.

AND there is no physical trace of any of these horses associated with royalty for over a thousand years.  Items that are rare and associated only with royalty stand a good chance of being portrayed in art as well as actually buried with the royalty in Mesoamerica.  But that does not exist in Mesoamerica (despite the attempts of some believers to use ancient pictures of deity on deer as "horses" or to use highly questionable "inca stones" as proof of pictures of horses, that is just not accepted by scholars of Mesoamerica.

The response could be: maybe no Nephite or Lamanitized native American centers (which would not be limited to Mesoamerica) have ever been found and studied in depth. Perhaps God doesn't want them to be found because total confirmation would obviate the need for faith. Perhaps all of the existing centers were built by non-Lamantized native Americans, which is why they are devoid of Nephite inscriptions and representations of the royal animal of the Nephite Kings.

...but then the horses died out completely without a trace with the Nephites...

Over time, the Lamanite herd may have died out and the Lamanites might have come to associate the horse only with the Nephites, whom they despised, and they might have killed both together at Cumorah.

Likely? No. Potentially conceivable? ???

[SlackTime]

IF we assume the LGT theory of the BoM, as I understand it, that places the Lamanites of the time mostly in South America and the Nephites in Meso America.

Now I'm no expert, but it seems to me that light cavalry when used in warfare functions best on broad plains. The Mongols were experts. I haven't even heard that the Romans made heavy use of cavalry forces. Yet they knew of horses. Chariots yes, light scouts yes, but mounted cavalry? The Egyptions had horses and chariots at an early period, but I don't hear anything of mounted cavalry, light scouts again yes.

Would the terrain where the nephites and lamanites would have done most of their fighting (prior to the post 400CE battles) have been conducive to mounted cavalries?

Here is an entry from the free online dictionary. http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/cavalry

Light cavalry--heavy cavalryHistorically, cavalry was divided into light and heavy cavalry. The difference between them was primarily how much armor is worn by the soldiers, and thus how powerful their mounts had to be in order to sustain the burden.

Early light cavalry (like the auxiliaries of the Roman army) was typically used to scout and skirmish and to cut down retreating infantry. Heavy cavalry like the Byzantine Cataphract were used as shock troops, to charge the main body of the enemy and decide the outcome of the battle.

During the Gunpowder Age armored cavalry became obsolescent and the main difference between light and heavy cavalry was their training - either for harassment and reconnaissance or for close-order charges.

Since the development of armored warfare the distinction between 'light' and heavy' armor has persisted along broadly the same lines. Armored cars and light tanks have adopted the reconnaissance role while medium and heavy tanks are regarded as the decisive shock troops.

Origins

Before the Iron Age, the role of cavalry on the battlefield was largely performed by light chariots

The power of mobility given by mounted units was recognized early on, but was offset by the difficulty of raising large forces and by the inability of horses (then mostly small) to carry heavy armor.

The chariot was first adopted by nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples on the boundaries of civilization in conflicts with civilized peoples. The chariot was quickly adopted by settled peoples both as a military technology and an object of ceremonial status. Pharaoh rides a chariot into battle in the Egyptian New Kingdom, just as the Sun rides a chariot over the sky in Egyptian mythology.

Chariots were quickly superseded by horses when selective breeding resulted in horses able to carry the weight of a fighting man. They retained ceremonial uses, for instance carrying the victorious general in a Roman triumph

In the armies of the Greeks and Romans it played a relatively small role

[beastie]

IF we assume the LGT theory of the BoM, as I understand it, that places the Lamanites of the time mostly in South America and the Nephites in Meso America.

You have a different understanding of LGT than I do. As I understand the theory, the "Lamanites" were simply the political term Nephites used to describe, basically, anyone who wasn't a Nephite who opposed them. (or perhaps even more generically, anyone who wasn't a Nephite or an apostate Nephite) The entire scope of the BoM, including the mentioned Lamanites, occured with Mesoamerica. You also need to remember that directionality is shifted under LGT. North isn't north, south isn't south.

Now I'm no expert, but it seems to me that light cavalry when used in warfare functions best on broad plains. The Mongols were experts. I haven't even heard that the Romans made heavy use of cavalry forces. Yet they knew of horses. Chariots yes, light scouts yes, but mounted cavalry? The Egyptions had horses and chariots at an early period, but I don't hear anything of mounted cavalry, light scouts again yes.

Mesoamerica is an area of different geographic regions. Some include plains, as Sorenson himself noted in Ancient Setting. While some areas would not be conducive to using large calvary, other areas would be. It is undisputed in the field, as far as I've read, that widespread trade and contact occured within Mesoamerica from a very early period. The BoM time period would fit well into that period of trade and contact. So you can't make these generalizations about how horses would or wouldn't be used in the Mesoamerican region due to geography restraints, although apologists do it again and again.

As you note yourself in this post, horses have many varied uses, several of which have serious impact on things like warfare, in many ways that may not be as obvious as a calvary. The scouts, which you note, are crucial. A group that has horses will have an automatic advantage in terms of obtaining information in a more timely manner that will enable them to take action more quickly. This is a huge advantage in a state of war. In addition, even one scout on one horse can intercept a running messenger from the other side, which means that not only does the side with horses have a positive informational advantage, but also can enact a negative on the other side, increasing the original advantage.

Horses also make a difference in terms of food transportation, ie, how much and how long does it take to transport food - for trade, but also for traveling armies. One of the reasons that warfare took the shape it did in Mesoamerica is due to the fact that soldiers had to return to home to farm regularly, and also that there was no way to transport large amounts of food long distances efficiently. So armies can travel further, fight longer. (which is required in the BoM text but contrary to actual Mesoamerican history)

And, of course, horses make a difference in the production of food. While Ben is correct in noting that Mesoamerica was able to sustain a huge population with corn, without the benefit of draft animals, draft animals are still going to make an impact on food production - fertilizer, pulling plows. One of the most basic points that Mesoamerican historians make is that there was no draft animal in Mesoamerica.

This is one of the most common tactics in BoM apologists - to argue that horses would make negligible impact in Mesoamerica, anyway. Everytime it comes up I ask for one other example - another culture, at any time or place in the world - who had horses for well over a millenia and yet also demonstrated not just negligible, but zero, impact on the evolution of that culture. I have yet to hear even one.

Also, let me share, once again, this quote from Sorenson, in Ancient Setting p 247:

Bernal Diaz described one of the earliest Spanish battles on the mainland just a little east of here.

[beastie]

One more thought for John -

Another problem with suggesting this extremely limited use of the horse because the people just didn't realize what they had: All the original landing party, with the exception of young children, came from a culture that DID fully utilize the horse. So why would they suddenly insist in using the horse as nothing more than a royal ornament, that once in a while pulls a "chariot"? This makes no sense particularly given the constant state of friction and warfare between the two groups. Wouldn't both groups want the fullest advantage they could possess, and having seen the use of the horse in the Old World, would realize what the horse could do for them? This is the same problem I have with metallurgy. The text makes clear that Nephi knows how to smelt metal. He makes metal tools to build their ship. Why in the world wouldn't he teach his people this technology, to use it to advance his people? And why wouldn't Laman and Lemuel share this technology as well? Making the case for metallurgy seems even MORE crucial to BoM historicity than the horse example, frankly, because of the actual "gold" plates. Apologists now often say they were made of tumbanga, but that wasn't used in Mesoamerica till about 900 AD, either.

Now back to a few of Ben's points I left unadressed while I rested from out tug of war. (this is a years long tug of war, and sometimes I just need a break from it)

I'm going to devote 15 minutes to it, what I don't get to will have to wait.

Because, among other things, there appears to be a vast gulf between what you read as animal X and what I read as animal X. On the other hand, in the course of our many discussions, your primary interest is in attacking the historicity of the text. (Perhaps my use of "thruth claims" was misleading) and not in reading the text.

Yes, it was misleading, glad you cleared that up.

We may disagree on how the Nephites moved Animal X with them when they moved in a large group (I say "herding", you say... well, you're just silent on that point other than refusing to tell me what you think happened), and we definitely disagree on whether the inclusion "food source" can be justified, given the fact that this speculation is totally outside the text, but there are a few we agree on, and I would say this one is the most important right now:

It was used to pull a chariot.

So focus just on that one.

The challenge, once more, beasties is this - I don't need to identify animal X to recognize that Marco Polo was not talking about a unicorn. That is all there is to it.

Well, when you're responding on a thread with the topic of Animal X being tapirs, then if you want to support that assertion, you certainly need to make the case that tapirs, as used in Mesoamerican history, is consistent with the context of the text. Show me where tapirs pulled things in Mesoamerican history.

Sure. The same can be said about the Book of Mormon. It is possible, for example, to make some guesses based on the Biblical texts which it quotes and alludes to - particularly in Nephi.

Then why do you object when I discuss possible historicity of the text as an ancient Mesoamerican document?

What is the history of the real, live, tapir in Mesoamerica? I have texts which claim they were traded between highland and lowland groups in Mesoamerica .... what else do we know about them?

Why are you asking me to do your job? So far, I've read about 18 books on Mesoamerican history, and can't recall reading anything in particular about tapirs, other than a passing mention as a native animal. (which texts are you referring to?) When I googled tapirs, I discovered that they are not herding animals, which means that they're not going to be able to be trained to do something like pull a chariot. They were used as food. They were sometimes pets, because they could form attachments to people. But you are the one who has to make the case it could be used to pull something, not me. I can't provide a reference that says "tapirs were not used as draft animals" in the texts I've read, because I don't think, outside of mormonism, that people even wonder that. OTOH, I have provided citations that say "there were no draft animals in Mesoamerica".

The challenge, of course, is that I haven't asserted what animal X is. I am merely asserting the possible existence of an animal X which is not a "horse".

Oh, so I merely assert that the Jubilee reference could have been figurative. Proving that would be consistent with first century Judaism doesn't interest me. Someone else can do it.

IIRC, the very first post of the much longer thread started with links to people making assertions like this.

None of them addressed Mesoamerican use of the tapir during the period in question. The only one that came close to addressing the context was the reference to tapirs in Brazil pulling ploughs, and I couldn't find any support for this assertion. Can you?

So you are saying that several Tapirs (of the 6-8 foot long, 4 foot high, 800 pound variety) couldn't have pulled a chariot? Dogs couldn't pull a chariot? What are you suggesting here? And what is a chariot?

How many times can I say it, in how many ways?? Did you really read Jared Diamond's book? You keep telling me you have, and then make statements like this.

Moreover, I can point you to many, many instances in which human beings have used figurative language and analogies. Does that alone provide adequate proof for my assertion that the Jubilee reference was figurative?

Time up. I'll come back sometime later.

[Benjamin McGuire]

John writes:

My point is not that Marco Polo didn't have an expansive use of the word "unicorn" --- my point is that he was aware that he was expanding its use and said as much.

Well, I guess I can accept this characterization, although I am not certain it is accurate. The texts are also different in that one is a travelogue, and the other isn't. But, I think, the premise holds. Expansion (whether explicit or not) is not an unknown feature of texts. And this provides the basis on which any claim that the "horse" in the Book of Mormon is not a "horse" should be prefaced (IMO).

That said, I don't think the theory is intrinsically implausible. I'm sure that many peoples who are faced with something new (that they don't have a word for) will adapt of an existing word that describes a similar concept. And they don't all have to explicitly state that they are doing that.

And I think, at least as far as the tapir goes, there are some interesting similarities which can be found between the tapir and the horse, which, we might suspect (I know that there is a lot of speculation here) would be significant. One of the features of an animal that Israelite scripture looks at is the foot. Both the horse and the tapir are hoofed ungulates. And so on. So an argument can be made. Once a possible comparison is made, then the questions which beastie asks are worth examining - is there contemporary evidence for such a use of the animal in between the endpoints of an acceptable timeframe.

Ben

[Benjamin McGuire]

Beastie writes:

It really doesn't matter, to my argument, whether you think God would have changed Nephi's word "horse" to "tapir", or whether he would have felt that authorial art had to be preserved over possible confusion that could discredit the BoM, and continued to use "horse". It doesn't matter because the context is still there. And it's the context that is an anachronism right now.

Why don't you answer the simple question?

How can you assert that the translation of the text doesn't affect the meaning of the text if you cannot describe that translation process?

As to tapirs pulling "chariots" - whatever the chariot may be - I see that the white crow argument still sings to you like a siren. Remember how it goes? If you choose to disregard the actual use of the animal in Mesoamerica, your argument is as fallacious as my argument about the figurative Jubilee was. So the question isn't whether or not you can imagine an animal like the tapir pulling a "chariot" - but the question is "did tapirs pull (anything) in Mesoamericaa?"

And now we see that you never really understood the "white crow" argument.

But more than this, you keep ignoring my position. Let me clarify it for you once again.

I am not trying to prove the historicity of the text in this thread (or any other thread discussing horses). You are trying to refute what you view as apologetic arguments. Your focus is not the text itself, or the meaning of the text itself, but rather trying to discredit the claims of those who discuss the meaning of the text. But then, you go out on limb with absolutes -

There is a reason that zebras, even though they look so much like horses, haven't been used to pull things through human history.

But this can be quite easily demonstrated to be false. In fact, the several species of Zebra show different tendancies in terms of trainability. Take the Quagga - which is a subspecies of the Plains Zebra (now recently extinct - the last one died at the end of the 19th century). Part of the description of this creature in David Day's book, Vanished Species reads:

In the early days of settlement, the Boers of Cape Colony kept tame Quaggas as guards to their domestic stock at night, knowing that their

[juliann]

What bothers me about BoM apologetics is this shotgun marriage between science and religion. Apologists place themselves firmly in the realm of science, when they demand that the BoM be treated like any other potentially questionably dated text, and then construct this methodology that renders the text unfalsifiable due to the certainty of their faith.

What bothers me is your complete ignorance of what methodology demands and your continued substitution of ad hominem against "apologists" to fill the yawning gap. When are you going to start addressing the problems you create with your nonstop stereotypying and ridiculous generalizations about scholarship of religion that you have no familiarity with?

Let's start here (and repeating "I already answered it" is not a substitute for a direct response that contains information relevant to the question. )

1.  Why don't you answer the simple question?

How can you assert that the translation of the text doesn't affect the meaning of the text if you cannot describe that translation process?

2.  So perhaps Beastie would provide us with an example of how the horse impacted a culture whose agricultural staple was maize and not wheat?

[T-Shirt]

Just for kicks, I thought I would share a personal experience I had just the other day. I had a conversation with my wife about a close friend of ours who is struggling with her testimony. Among other things, this friend is having a hard time with the lack of evidence of horses. Now, my wife is a bright, faithful Latter-day Saint. She fits well into what some of our detractors call a "Chapel Mormon". She does not care in the least for apologetics, nor does she follow or read appologetic material. She would not know what FARMS or FAIR is. When I told my wife that there is little evidence that horses were present in the Americas during the time of the Book of Mormon, (which she had never heard before) she immediately responded by saying, "Well, maybe they weren't actual horses."

Just thought I would share that.

T-Shirt

[beastie]

first response, more to come later, either tonight or tomorrow

Beastie writes:

QUOTE

It really doesn't matter, to my argument, whether you think God would have changed Nephi's word "horse" to "tapir", or whether he would have felt that authorial art had to be preserved over possible confusion that could discredit the BoM, and continued to use "horse". It doesn't matter because the context is still there. And it's the context that is an anachronism right now.

Why don't you answer the simple question?

How can you assert that the translation of the text doesn't affect the meaning of the text if you cannot describe that translation process?

Are you suggesting that the translation process could not only result in mislabeling, but an inaccurate background context? If so, then the case for the unfalsifiability of your method just geometrically escalated.

This is why, when I present the case for the unfalsfiability of the BoM, I emphasize translation artifacts. You

[Calm]

No, I have not claimed horses would have the same impact everywhere. I

[juliann]

It

[juliann]

Sometimes I can

[beastie]

The white crow argument Ben and I are discussing is stating that we can never prove there was never one white crow, since all the crows are dead. It is a reference to a conversation you obviously haven't read, but don't let that stop you.

[juliann]

The white crow argument Ben and I are discussing is stating that we can never prove there was never one white crow, since all the crows are dead. It is a reference to a conversation you obviously haven't read, but don't let that stop you.

Then you must be the one redefining it. Oh, well...different species and all, right?

Let's get back to your zebra debacle. Will it do any good to ask you to respond to what you start?

[beastie]

As I stated, I don't have my Guns book with me now so cannot refer to it to see exactly what specification Diamond used in the chapter on Zebras. Ben has the book, perhaps he can look it up, or I can do so this weekend.

You sneer at the explanation that subspecies are often very different, and yet they are. A zebra is actually a member of the horse family, but we are making a distinction between them, as there are distinctions between the various subspecies of zebras.

http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/zebra

Zebras are members of the horse family native to central and southern Africa. All have vividly contrasting black and white vertical stripes (hence the zebra crossing named after it) on the forequarters, often tending towards the horizontal at the rear of the animal. Most zoologists believe the stripes act as a camouflage mechanism; although some belive it plays a role in their social interactions, acting as a means to distinguish an individual from all of the others in slight variations of the stripes.

There are three species and many subspecies. Zebra populations vary a great deal, and the relationships between and the taxonomic status of several of the subspecies are unclear.

It is possible that I mixed Diamond's comments about the zebra and the deer. I did find a site that quoted this from Diamond, which does make it appear that I mixed the two. It is the deer that cannot be herded, the zebra is difficult to domesticate due to its nervous nature. As I said, I've been limited in this portion of the conversation due to not having his book in front of me. I apologize for that.

2 Domestication of animals

According to physiologist Jared DiamondDiamond (born September 10, 1937) is an American evolutionary biologist, physiologist, and biogeographer. As of June 2004, he is professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, and was formerly professor of physiology at the UCLA Scho, animal speciesThis article discusses biological species. Also see combinatorial species for the mathematical meaning of the term. Species is also a movie by Roger Donaldson. In English "species" is both singular and plural. The word " specie" is unrelated and is used t must meet six criteria in order to be considered for domestication 1 :

Flexible dietIn nutrition, the diet is the sum of the food consumed by a body. Proper nutrition for a human requires vitamins, minerals, proteins, and fuel in the form of carbohydrates and fats. Imbalances between the consumed fuels and expended energy results in eith

[beastie]

Actually, it was Dan Peterson who redefined it in the service of BoM apologetics. I've simply been benefitting from it ever since.

And now that I found the thread, you did participate on it, so I'm not certain why you don't know what's going on. Ironically, it's the same thread you butchered the Schele quote on.

Daniel Peterson Posted: May 30 2005, 09:40 PM 

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Unless, beastie, you can demonstrate that no individual in pre-classic Mesoamerica was ever a universalist or an atheist yours is a none-too-compelling argument from silence.

As the saying has it, all that's needed to disprove the contention that all crows are black is one white crow. It is impossible to survey all of the "crows" who ever lived in pre-classic Mesoamerica. The evidence is gone, never to be recovered

http://www.fairboards.org/index.php?showto...hristians&st=15

[beastie]

Then there are your claims of the need for them in the warfare described in the Book of Mormon. Perhaps you would elucidate? Let me repeat a little of what I quoted a moment ago:

QUOTE 

So armies can travel further, fight longer. (which is required in the BoM text but contrary to actual Mesoamerican history)

Yet, starvation, for armies, is an almost pervasive threat. It is the cause of many of the wars ending. So, where does the Book of Mormon require such a thing but not actually provide it?

There are extended wars described in Helaman as well as at the end of the BoM. These are wars that lasted for years and extended across several cities. These are wars that require a standing army, that needs to be fed, and needs to have food transported quickly enough to reach them.

How did this occur in ancient Mesoamerica?

So perhaps Beastie would provide us with an example of how the horse impacted a culture whose agricultural staple was maize and not wheat?

Gee, Ben, which cultures do I have to pick from?