Zoidberg wrote:As for Nibley's challenge, I doubt that it is even successfully met by the Book of Mormon itself. I guess the Book of Zelph fails on a technicality because there are less than 500 pages.
You should read Don Bradley's Book of Mormon Challenge 2. It is heeelarious. It's over at the Salamander Society news items. You kind of have to dig for it.
Latter-day Saint scholar and icon Hugh Nibley announced today that he is issuing a revised, or "re-translated," version of his infamous "Book of Mormon Challenge." Nibley presented the first version of this challenge to his students at Brigham Young University during the 1970s to demonstrate how difficult it would have been for LDS founder Joseph Smith to produce a work like the Book of Mormon.
Nibley believes that newly discovered evidences have rendered this challenge obsolete. "The old challenge," said Nibley, "is as out-dated as the social views of my church. We have a much better picture now of just how difficult it would be to create a book like the Book of Mormon, especially for Joseph Smith."
"Joseph Smith," pointed out Nibley, "was an idiot. He believed that the sun was never created, the Ten Tribes of Israel were 'lost in space,' and the moon was inhabited by people who dressed like Quakers. Could a person like this really come up with a story about Jews using a magic compass to guide them to a land across the sea where they would be cursed to become Indians?"
Nibley's revised challenge, known as "The Book of Mormon Challenge II," is reproduced in its entirety below:
Take The Book of Mormon Challenge II
To meet this challenge, you must write a putatively ancient sacred narrative claiming that one ancient culture gave rise to a second culture with which it bears a less-than-obvious relation. Furthermore:
1) Your book must not acquire all (only most) of its names from a prominent, widely available text from the supposed parent culture.
2) Your book must be written in a style similar to that found in out-dated literal translations from its alleged original language - such as the style of the prominent, widely available text from the supposed parent culture.
3) Your book must correctly identify the animals anciently found in the place in question with a margin of error such that only animals within the same biological classes count as "hits." Thus, for example, one mammal may substitute for another mammal, but not for an amphibian.
4) Your book must present a complex geography that later highly motivated believers can match to some part of the real world without rotating the compass directions in the text by more than 90 degrees.
5) Your book must be largely self-consistent, and only rarely describe what a dead king is doing to run his kingdom effectively or have a putative author's son explain that he "began to wax old" 170 years after his father was born.
6) Your book must resemble the alleged parent culture and the alleged daughter culture sufficiently that, after 174 years and the investment of millions of dollars and man-hours by thousands of dedicated, and sometimes highly educated, apologists, a mass of intriguing parallels will accumulate that will convince most of the believers that the evidence in the book's favor is, indeed, overwhelming.
Trevor wrote:Latter-day Saint scholar and icon Hugh Nibley announced today that he is issuing a revised, or "re-translated," version of his infamous "Book of Mormon Challenge." Nibley presented the first version of this challenge to his students at Brigham Young University during the 1970s to demonstrate how difficult it would have been for LDS founder Joseph Smith to produce a work like the Book of Mormon.
Nibley believes that newly discovered evidences have rendered this challenge obsolete. "The old challenge," said Nibley, "is as out-dated as the social views of my church. We have a much better picture now of just how difficult it would be to create a book like the Book of Mormon, especially for Joseph Smith."
"Joseph Smith," pointed out Nibley, "was an idiot. He believed that the sun was never created, the Ten Tribes of Israel were 'lost in space,' and the moon was inhabited by people who dressed like Quakers. Could a person like this really come up with a story about Jews using a magic compass to guide them to a land across the sea where they would be cursed to become Indians?"
Nibley's revised challenge, known as "The Book of Mormon Challenge II," is reproduced in its entirety below:
Take The Book of Mormon Challenge II To meet this challenge, you must write a putatively ancient sacred narrative claiming that one ancient culture gave rise to a second culture with which it bears a less-than-obvious relation. Furthermore:
1) Your book must not acquire all (only most) of its names from a prominent, widely available text from the supposed parent culture.
2) Your book must be written in a style similar to that found in out-dated literal translations from its alleged original language - such as the style of the prominent, widely available text from the supposed parent culture.
3) Your book must correctly identify the animals anciently found in the place in question with a margin of error such that only animals within the same biological classes count as "hits." Thus, for example, one mammal may substitute for another mammal, but not for an amphibian.
4) Your book must present a complex geography that later highly motivated believers can match to some part of the real world without rotating the compass directions in the text by more than 90 degrees.
5) Your book must be largely self-consistent, and only rarely describe what a dead king is doing to run his kingdom effectively or have a putative author's son explain that he "began to wax old" 170 years after his father was born.
6) Your book must resemble the alleged parent culture and the alleged daughter culture sufficiently that, after 174 years and the investment of millions of dollars and man-hours by thousands of dedicated, and sometimes highly educated, apologists, a mass of intriguing parallels will accumulate that will convince most of the believers that the evidence in the book's favor is, indeed, overwhelming.
Good luck,
Hugh Nibley
ROFL. I believe this version of the challenge is worded much better.
"reason and religion are friends and allies" - Mitt Romney