Horses are Tapirs

[juliann]

beastie,Jun 27 2005, 08:31 PM] You sneer at the explanation that subspecies are often very different, and yet they are. 

http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/zebra

No, I am holding you accountable for your assumptions and overgeneralization. You don't like that and claim it is off-topic or trivial to make you attend to the details of your unsubstantiated chatter.

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.

[juliann]

Although I haven't read enough about the quaggar to know, I suspect that the domestication success was limited, due to its nervous nature, and the times you all are referencing were unusual situations. After all, even a lion can be trained to jump through a burning hoop, but that doesn't mean the lion is a good candidate for the type of domestication that can impact a culture's evolution.

And horses impacted the BOM "culture"...how? The few mentions would not be "unusual situations" because....?

You continue to think that a wave of your hand and a little chatter takes care of any uncomfortable bit of information. It doesn't.

[beastie]

Ben often refers to the article Horse Power, Wheat, oats, maize and the supply of cities. Yet he uses the article to demonstrate something I doubt the author intended

[cdowis]

Beastie: 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"?

Cdowis: The answer is rather simple if you consider the difference in geography and climate between the Middle East and Mesoamerica. The terrain in mesoamerica does not lend itself to a draft animal transportation system, while it does lend itself quite well to river transportation.

Beastie: I have not claimed horses would have the same impact everywhere. I

[Benjamin McGuire]

Beastie writes:

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.

The translation process is an unknown. We don't know what the process is. We can speculate about it all we like. We have a text. The text is supposed to be a product of that process. I have expended a great deal of effort to discuss why the word "horse" is not necessarily an anachronism. Which is to say, it is an anachronism if we make the assumption that Nephi's meaning for the element in his verbal repertoire which is translated as "horse" in the Book of Mormon is the same as your meaning for the element in your verbal repertoire which is the "horse". We know, in at least one place, these meanings heavily overlap. But I am not so sure about the rest. This is a textual issue. I don't see anything in this context that would either make the argument unfalsifiable, or that this would be mislabeling, or an inaccurate background context.

Your only real response to this is to claim (with outrage) that God would not translate in this fashion (despite being unable to articulate exactly how God does translate - or to describe what God would do to a particular text to translate it).

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

[Benjamin McGuire]

Beastie writes:

I'm sorry, Juliann, I cannot deal with you. I answered Ben regarding the translation black box, and I'm currently waiting for him to tell me which maize dominated cultures I have to choose from.

You can choose any of them. In fact, you can even choose all of them.

Ben

[juliann]

Beastie writes:

and I'm currently waiting for him to tell me which maize dominated cultures I have to choose from.

You can choose any of them. In fact, you can even choose all of them.

Ben

Just so this does not get lost.

[juliann]

Where should to burden of proof lie when considering the "wild-eyed speculative theories" number 1 point?

The critics to prove the horse is not a tapir or the theory proponents to prove it is a tapir?

Are you acquainted with biblical scholarship? "Proof" is not required and I do not see anyone but Beastie insisting on that here. An explanation with evidence presented in the standard format is customary. Scholars have a language and you have to speak it to be understood. Evidence is presenting documentation that zebras were used to pull wagons. Responses that this just never, ever happened because of this and that which is demonstrably incorrect is "wild-eyed speculation".

Ben has presented a supportable hypothesis that a zebra can do what Beastie is claiming it cannot. What court is the ball in at this point? Beastie can continue to huff and puff that this is just plain silly, goofy, dumb or anything she wants. But that is all she is doing. Meanwhile, as in all biblical scholarship, problematic issues will continue to be probed, theories will continue to build and ideas will diverge. What we do not get in scholarship is what essentially amounts to little more than picketing and noisy protests.

Meanwhile, we wait for what is considered standard....evidence from a maize dominated culture. Beastie has never provided the pre-requisite evidence from Israelite culture asked for in her other thread. This would be the evidence to support her position. That is why it is being asked for.

[Benjamin McGuire]

One of the challenges yaanufs, is that Beastie and I are extending a debate which ecompasses years of time and more than one internet forum. Sometimes, we cut corners because we both know about a particular issue (ad nauseum) and don't want to spell it out again.

But, don't let this prevent you from asking all the questions you want to ask.

My position here in this particular discussion goes something like this -

"horses" in the Book of Mormon probably aren't "horses" (the way we understand them).

Every person individually, and the groups collectively have what is called a verbal repertoire. This is a set of all of the unique words and phrases which an individual (or group) knows and understands. Each element in that set has at least one meaning associated with it. At its most basic level, this set includes the entire vocabulary that a person knows (or that a collective group knows). This isn't to suggest that you have to be use these elements - only that you have to understand them. Some elements are larger than a single word. We have phrases which mean something differently than the equivalent string of words in a sequence, and so on. In a sense, we really cannot explicitly define a persons verbal repertoire, but conceptually it is useful. Two individuals or two groups can have common elements in their respective verbal repertoires which are given radically different meaning. This is encountered most frequently when dealing with different time periods in the same language - although it can occur when a language is shared between different cultures (English is one example) or other situations. So, the word plastic, used by a seventeenth century English poet ("his plastic arm" for example) has an entirely different meaning than it would to a modern speaker/reader. Only in becoming aware of this difference in meaning can we appraoch the text.

In the Book of Mormon, we find "horses". There are reasons why a believer in the Book of Mormon would question the appearance of "horses" in the text. The most obvious would be the inconclusive (but nearly universally held) belief that "horses" simply didn't exist in the Americas during Book of Mormon times. The other reasons are that the "horse" in the Book of Mormon doesn't really resemble what we would expect from a "horse" within the text. Whatever the reason is, this then has to be addressed.

Non-believers want to assert that the "horse" is exactly that - a "horse" and that its appearance in the Book of Mormon is an anachronism.

Some believers, particularly those who favor a "loose" translation of the Book of Mormon (that is, the translation effort is made by Joseph Smith, and it is essentially his words that are found in the Book of Mormon) may attribute this to the translation layer - and thus to Joseph Smith. It is then an anachronism within the text, and attributable to Joseph Smith.

Other believers (myself included) favor a "tight" translation. That is, Joseph's participation in the translation process is minimal (although not necessarily his influencing of the language used) and that Joseph is essentially a reader of the text. The anachronism then would be attributable to the divine translator - which Beastie points out is absurd. My approach here suggests that even within a "tight" translation model, the use of the word "horse" as a common element between two verbal repertoires can reflect a radically different meaning in the Book of Mormon from what we presume it should mean - and thus is not an anachronism.

Other believers also claim that there was a "horse" just as we understand the "horse" and that this "horse" is simply not recorded in the known history of the Americas.

My approach simply removes the claim of the anachronism and thus the necessity of explaining why God would translate as an anachronism into the Book of Mormon something which wasn't in the original text. Within the context of a similar situation (not identical) involving the writings of Marco Polo and a "unicorn"/"rhinoceros", I discuss why it would cause problems to simply translate the "horse" as "animal X" (the referrent animal that the Book of Mormon refers to as a horse). I have tried to avoid the unfalsifiable argument (in this case, a classic employment of that device would be to simply claim a species or a subspecies of an animal which no longer exists). I am not convinced as to any particular Animal X - or even that a "horse" of some kind didn't exist. But if it was a "horse", it would have to be such that the text was explainable in terms of that animal (i.e. likely it would not be sufficiently large to bear the weight of people and thus not usable for riding). I would lean towards the tapir - but this would be for a linguistic perspective. It is easier for me to see that tapir called a horse because of its relationship to the horse in ways that matter specifically to an Israelite. (Both are three toed ungulates, for example, and the kind of feet an animal had was significant to placing the animal into its proper role in the Israelite food chain). In any case, I tend to take a minimalist approach to the text in these kinds of situations. The use of the word "horse" in at least one occurence means "horse" of the kind we normally discuss - when the text quotes Isaiah. Another text of the Old Testament which refers to horses is Deuteronomy 17 - which is alluded to several times in the Old Testament. Its parallel text (Deuteronomy 18) is quoted in the Book of Mormon. In an environment without "horses", these texts would lose much of their meaning. But if the people have a different meaning associated with the same elements in the verbal repertoire, it would continue to have meaning within a new context. In any case, it becomes an interesting way of approaching the text.

Beasties claim is that for me to be able to discuss the text in this fashion, I must first demonstrate an Animal X within the right place and time which conforms to the description of the horse provided about 400 AD. I am suggesting that this isn't the case at all. That identification really doesn't matter to the question of whether or not the text reflects a "horse" as we know it.

Ben

[cdowis]

Cent: There are reasons why a believer in the Book of Mormon would question the appearance of "horses" in the text. The most obvious would be the inconclusive (but nearly universally held) belief that "horses" simply didn't exist in the Americas during Book of Mormon times.

Cdowis: Some background -- I have been in apologist discussions for over 10 years, including extensive discussions on horses.

I find no reason to accept BOM horses as.... horses. There were full sized horses in America, and they went extinct sometime before the Spaniards came to America. We all agree, noth LDS and Critic alike. The only issue is when they went extinct.

So far scientists date the extinction around 11k year ago, while the BOM makes no mention of horses after around 50AD. That leaves a difference of 9k years.

No big deal, relatively speaking.

Cent: The other reasons are that the "horse" in the Book of Mormon doesn't really resemble what we would expect from a "horse" within the text.

I don't think that is a problem, but perhaps you can enlighten me.

[Benjamin McGuire]

cdowis - why are you refering to me as Cent?

Ben

[cdowis]

Oops. I saw "centanarian", thinking that was your name.

[Benjamin McGuire]

It all depends on what you mean by mental gymnastics. My explanation is not complicated. I don't think I would characterize it as such. Certainly the person who reads Marco Polo and decides that his "unicorn" isn't a "unicorn" (at least as far as the reader understands the term) isn't going through mental gymnastics to arrive at that conclusion.

Ben

[SlackTime]

Cent: There are reasons why a believer in the Book of Mormon would question the appearance of "horses" in the text. The most obvious would be the inconclusive (but nearly universally held) belief that "horses" simply didn't exist in the Americas during Book of Mormon times.

Cdowis: Some background -- I have been in apologist discussions for over 10 years, including extensive discussions on horses.

I find no reason to accept BOM horses as.... horses. There were full sized horses in America, and they went extinct sometime before the Spaniards came to America. We all agree, noth LDS and Critic alike. The only issue is when they went extinct.

So far scientists date the extinction around 11k year ago, while the BOM makes no mention of horses after around 50AD. That leaves a difference of 9k years.

No big deal, relatively speaking.

Cent: The other reasons are that the "horse" in the Book of Mormon doesn't really resemble what we would expect from a "horse" within the text.

I don't think that is a problem, but perhaps you can enlighten me.

cdowis,

Your points make me wonder if there were environmental conditions that would allow fossil evidence for horses back 10000 years ago that were not true in more recent (say 5000) years ago.

I've heard that places with rich acheological finds are typically either dry and hot (Egypt, middle east, etc) or cold and frozen, with a few freak finds in things like heavy volcanic ash. Conditions today in parts of Mexico might fit the hot and dry concept. Any thoughts on this?

Your comment on "full-size" horses. What size horse is this? How does it compare to modern horses?

Ben,

In the Wikipedia entry on Cavalry it mentions two developments that were significant to the development of the use of the horse in war.

1. Selective Breeding (Both natural and man-managed)

2. The Stirrup

Early horses were smaller and unable to support the weight of a man for long distances. (Ponies anyone) I wonder what the horse of 2000 BC Jaradites (if they brought them) would have looked like. And if they and the Lehites didn't bring them how far back on the evolutionary chain from asian and european horses would that push them?

The earliest mounting stirrup is mentioned in China in the early AD (or CE) and the first paired stirrups in China 322 AD. Since we can't assume that the mesoamericans developed this technology independently, how can we assume they are riding their horses?

Finally, the area seems to be somewhat overgrown. What use would horses be in a Jungle setting? At least as a riding beast. Pulling is a whole different story.

So, it seems to me that there are a lot of unknowns, but there is reason to believe that the Book of Mormon describes the use of "horses" as pullers, not as a riding animal is reasonable, and that those "horses" may not be identical to what we know today as horses is also reasonable.

-Ed

[Benjamin McGuire]

yaanufs writes:

I don't think the simplicity of the explanation is a good measure of it's ability to stand up to independent scrutiny.

"it's ability to stand up to independant scrutiny" is not what I think of when I hear the term "mental gymnastics".

Ben

[Scottie]

Your points make me wonder if there were environmental conditions that would allow fossil evidence for horses back 10000 years ago that were not true in more recent (say 5000) years ago.

I've heard that places with rich acheological finds are typically either dry and hot (Egypt, middle east, etc) or cold and frozen, with a few freak finds in things like heavy volcanic ash. Conditions today in parts of Mexico might fit the hot and dry concept. Any thoughts on this?

I would ask this...

Have they found bones of OTHER animals that supposedly lived during BoM times?

Also, I would reiterate the point that bones are not the only way to determine if an animal existed.

Why are there no art, statues, etc. depicting horses of any kind in mesoamerica. We find art/statues of monkeys, big cats (panthers and leopards??) and such.

[SlackTime]

Your points make me wonder if there were environmental conditions that would allow fossil evidence for horses back 10000 years ago that were not true in more recent (say 5000) years ago.

I've heard that places with rich acheological finds are typically either dry and hot (Egypt, middle east, etc) or cold and frozen, with a few freak finds in things like heavy volcanic ash.  Conditions today in parts of Mexico might fit the hot and dry concept.  Any thoughts on this?

I would ask this...

Have they found bones of OTHER animals that supposedly lived during BoM times?

Also, I would reiterate the point that bones are not the only way to determine if an animal existed.

Why are there no art, statues, etc. depicting horses of any kind in mesoamerica. We find art/statues of monkeys, big cats (panthers and leopards??) and such.

Obviously because Tapirs are just not that interesting as art

Look at our own art involving horses. We seem to love statues with heros sitting astride a horse, the second most common I've seen is the wild theme and majesty of the running horse. What do I see in mesoamerican art speed or power of leopards or panthers, monkeys? hmmm, maybe if they had made that statue of Captain Moroni in his Chariot we would have had something! But maybe their horses were just not that heroic. Picture a Llama drawn chariot *cackle*

-Ed

[cdowis]

"size of the western horse" ==>

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/3054.shtml

"Why are there no art, statues, etc. depicting horses of any kind in mesoamerica. We find art/statues of monkeys, big cats (panthers and leopards??) and such."

Before answering your question, please give us the number of "art/statues" of various animals found in mesoamerica prior to 50AD, the last date where horses are mentioned in the BOM text. 1000 .... 100 ......10 ....... 1 ........ less than one?

"Have they found bones of OTHER animals that supposedly lived during BoM times?"

We know there werre millions of bisons in America. How many bison bones/fossels have been discovered from that time period?

[juliann]

Why are there no art, statues, etc. depicting horses of any kind in mesoamerica.  We find art/statues of monkeys, big cats (panthers and leopards??) and such.

I learned something in the Louve. Why is there a plethora of marble (or other stone) sculptures in museums and only a few bronze after bronze became the preferred and most common media? To look at our museums, you would think everyone was sculpting in stone.

[Scottie]

"size of the western horse" ==>

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/3054.shtml

I'm not sure of your point here???

"Why are there no art, statues, etc. depicting horses of any kind in mesoamerica. We find art/statues of monkeys, big cats (panthers and leopards??) and such."

Before answering your question, please give us the number of "art/statues" of various animals found in mesoamerica prior to 50AD, the last date where horses are mentioned in the BOM text.  1000 .... 100 ......10 ....... 1 ........ less than one?

I don't know the count. Does it matter? Why do I need to give this information before you will answer my question? How is it relevant?

"Have they found bones of OTHER animals that supposedly lived during BoM times?"

We know there werre millions of bisons in America.  How many bison bones/fossels have been discovered from that time period?

We aren't talking about bison in North America. The statement was that bones of horses that may have existed in mesoamerica during BoM times probably did not survive because it is not an environment suitable to preserving bones. My question (which I don't know the answer) is, "In mesoamerica, have any bones been uncovered from other animals...maybe even human bones...from the same time period (around 50AD)"? If so, wouldn't this information refute the argument?

[Scottie]

I would ask another related question...

In other cultures that have utilized the horse, are artwork/statues of horses common?

My opinion only, but it seems to me that most civilizations that have known the horse revere it. It is viewed by humans as a magnificent animal that demands respect. Therefore, horses are included in a lot of art.

[cdowis]

Regarding art objects of horses, I asked the question how many art objects have been found prior to 50 BC when the last mention was made of horses.

>I don't know the count. Does it matter? Why do I need to give this information before you will answer my question? How is it relevant?

Sigh. No insult intended, but it appears that logic is not your strong suit.

If no art objects are in existence, then that itself would explain why there are no art objects showing horses.

If there are only a few objects extant, the sample size would be too small to be meaningful.

You really ought to pause and think before hitting the send key.

[Dunamis]

Thank you all for your concern and help.

But I can assure you there is no way I'm going to plough through the posts on this thread to find that information.  The signal to noise ratio in the majority of the posts appeared to be very small so I'm not about to endure it again.

I don't mind missing the point in this instance

Y,

This thread went on for pages and pages and weeks and weeks with substantial posts. YOU are part of the noise problem.

Start contributing SUBSTANTIVE and SUBSTANTIATED posts instead of chatter or just butt out please.

[beastie]

I have had a very busy day and haven't had time to read all the new posts. So I will be back either later tonight or tomorrow to address points raised. Yes, I do have a life outside this board, and some days are more demanding than others.

[yaanufs]

This thread went on for pages and pages and weeks and weeks with substantial posts. YOU are part of the noise problem.

I agree.

I apologise.

Sorry