Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_Kishkumen]

It’s probably a mnemonic device.

[_Dr Moore]

Was this discovery a trigger in early development of the Joseph Smith savant theory?

I confess this theory has a certain appeal to me, having more than a few times found myself hours into voyeuristically studying the lives and feats of modern day savants — favorites including Kim Peek, Magnus Carlsen and Daniel Tammet. People too often associate savants with Rain Man, which unfortunately presents the gift as a consolation prize for other, equally severe mental disabilities.

It is generally true, but not a rule, that such uniquely tuned minds attach some severity of “normalcy” trade offs. Kim Peek at one end of the spectrum, and someone like Daniel Tammet at the other. If I am not mistaken, it was speculated years ago that Tammet would become a kind of rosetta stone, able to articulate step by step how his mind accomplished the miraculous things it does. In that vein, I highly recommend his book Thinking in Numbers.

It makes me wonder how thoroughly the Joseph Smith savant theory has been explored by academics — including collaboration between historians and psychologists with expertise in savant syndrome. What evidence is there from Joseph’s young life of giftedness? What evidence of functional, social or interpersonal trade offs, if any, show up consistently through his life? What are the evidences of focal savantism — for instance, Carlsen could do many things with his high sigma IQ, but gravitated to chess, and myriad other case studies of savants emphasizing a particular activity through which to express and enjoy their gifts.

[_mentalgymnast]

Hi honor,

Are there examples of complex chiasms in TLW? Were they pointed out by the Johnsons and would you be willing to paste a few of those here?

Regards,
MG

Yes. Just click on “Chiasmus” located under the Table of Contents:

http://wordtree.org/thelatewar/

Since no one has linked to this yet, I will.

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Book ... e_Late_War

16th bullet point in the list of links. Apparently that link is dead though. Click on the seventeenth link and then scroll back one topic.

Regards,
MG

[_honorentheos]

Was the Book of Mormon influenced by the language and themes of "The Late War" by Gilbert Hunt?
Irrelevant. The existance of such strong similarities between the two with one definitely originating in the 19th century US is the primary point of evidence in answering the question if the Book of Mormon is more likely to be of ancient origin or from the period when Smith published it.

Did Joseph Smith plagiarize passages from Gilbert Hunt's book The Late War, between the United States and Great Britain, from June, 1812, to February, 1815?
Irrelevant. See above.

Question: Does the Book of Mormon phrase "curious workmanship" originate from Gilbert Hunt's The Late War?
The answer claims this phrase is found in the Bible. So two books written in the 19th century attempting to mimic the KJV use the phrase? Sounds right. Again, the question focuses on if Smith plagiarized from or used TLW directly. That's not the main issue here. When understood in the context of how it undermines the claim the Book of Mormon is not a product of the 19th century, this answer is supportive of the claim against the Book of Mormon as ancient.

Question: Does Gilbert Hunt's The Late War talk of 2000 "striplings" who go to war?
The answer notes that the word was defined in the 1828 Webster's Dictionary as a youth in the state of adolescence. Sounds like a point for 19th century authorship.

Question: Is Gilbert Hunt's phrase "the fourth day of this seventh month" in The Late War a source for the Book of Mormon phrase "the fourth day of this seventh month" in Alma 10:6?
Another typical biblical phrase? Imagine that.

Question: Was the Book of Mormon description of a cataclysm at the time of Christ's death derived from a similar description in Gilbert Hunt's The Late War?
I agree, this critical argument is bad. It also highlights the problem with trying to use TLW to show Smith was borrowing from it directly. It's not necessary to show direct copying to show TLW combines well with the presence of beliefs and knowledge from the period to place the Book of Mormon having been authored squarely in the timeframe Smith had it published.

Skipping over a few questions that are similar to the ones above, either due to being answered with quotes from the Bible or based on the argument being Smith was using TLW to produce the Book of Mormon, this one is more meaningful. I'll quote the entire question and response:

Could Joseph Smith have learned about Hebraisms from Gilbert Hunt's "The Late War"?

There are several things wrong with assuming that he could.

Other than the fact that the Late War left a n-gram footprint of 0.16 % in the Book of Mormon[18], we can examine a few other important details to strengthen the argument that Joseph could not have learned how to create hebraisms before translation by using the Late War.

We don’t know a lot about Gilbert J. Hunt. We know he was around 45 years old when we wrote the book, that he was educated, but we don’t know in what. He tells us that the Late War was written “in the ancient style”.[19] This may suggest that he had some knowledge of how to write with this style.

There is no evidence that Joseph knew about this work or that it was used in a school near him. Joseph did not have any formal schooling except for (we assume) maybe “one winter” with the Stowell children when he was 17 years old. He also may have received some frontier education from his father or brother and a nearby minister. As he says, he was merely instructed in the basic grammer and the ground rules of arithmetic. There is also no evidence that the Smith family knew of this work. Even if we assume that they did, why did none of his family never call him out on his fraud?

Even if we do assume that it was used in a school near him, we need to assume that a teacher would stop to teach the class about these ancient literary styles. Remember, this was a children’s textbook. Is there any reason to assume that a teacher would stop and teach children about these styles of Semitic writing? Is there any way to explain hebraisms in a simple way so that children can understand? Is there any need to?

We must also assume in a strange way that Joseph Smith would study these complex hebraistic structures and employ them in his “creation” of the Book of Mormon and then, 6 years after the Book of Mormon, do it again by taking Hebrew under Joshua Seixas.

As it stands, not every Hebraism employed in the Late War is employed in the Book of Mormon. Of those that Chris and Duane Johnson cite there are: chiasmus, cognate accusatives, negative questions, construct state, compound prepositions, and adverbials. Even these do not account for all hebraisms in the Book of Mormon. See the FairMormon evidence page on the Book of Mormon for more information on Hebraisms .

So no, the Late War does not, as one critic put it, “completely obliterate[] the Hebraism argument.” In fact, with the lack of evidence to support this assumption, it strengthens it.

The response relies on the assumption the appearance of so-called Hebraisms in TLW were intentional on the part of Hunt. It ignores the possibility, or given their appearance in the Book of Mormon the probability, that such structures appear to arise organically when attempting to replicate the language of the KJV. Given similar structures appear in the D&C, another book authored by Smith where he attempted to sound biblical, the FairMormon response falls short. The response acknowledges we have no evidence Hunt would have known about said Hebraisms in a formal sense, and correctly appears to recognize that just attempting to write in an ancient style (i.e. - like the KJV) would result in at least some of these structures showing up without actual knowledge of their form.

[_Philo Sofee]

Excellent analysis and keeping our eyes on the relevant issues with the Late War and the Book of Mormon Honorentheos! Very much appreciated.

[_mentalgymnast]

Yes. Just click on “Chiasmus” located under the Table of Contents:

http://wordtree.org/thelatewar/

Since no one has linked to this yet, I will.

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Book ... e_Late_War

16th bullet point in the list of links. Apparently that link is dead though. Click on the seventeenth link and then scroll back one topic.

Regards,
MG

I think we can agree that John Welch's work in regards to chiasmus in the Book of Mormon is superior to the stuff the Johnsons came up with in regards to purported chiasmus in TLW.

https://bookofmormoncentral.org/content ... -of-mormon

Regards,
MG

[_Water Dog]

It is true that the Johnsons brought attention to this possibility, but the fixation on problems or merits of their methodology is a red herring. The similarity between the two texts is sufficient to establish a relationship between them that is worthy of closer study. In other words, “Thanks, Johnsons; now we will move forward on our own.” To call this the skeptics’ NHM is misleading.

To clarify, I don't mean that to suggest arguments pertaining to TLW are similarly weak as with NHM, only that they have played out in ways that are somewhat parallel even if inversely so. The same people who promote NHM as being some kind of statistical bulls-eye deride TLW as being, at most, meaningless coincidence.

For example. Two papers by Benjamin McGuire. And in both papers Bruce Schaalje, a BYU stats prof, was also involved. Schaalje was most likely one of the peer reviewers involved in the recent debacle with the Dales's paper as well.

Here he takes the Johnson's to task.

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.o ... of-mormon/

It isn’t a particularly difficult feat to reconstruct the Book of Mormon using phrases found from many different sources. ... given a large enough body of literature, you can ... find these phrases caused by coincidence. In the long run we note that there are some real similarities that can be found in the texts of these two books. But, most of these similarities are not discovered by creating a list of these four-word phrases – because these phrases are not themselves meaningful.

And then, responding to an author who said almost the exact same thing, but against NHM, he responds in the opposite way.

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.o ... -part-one/

In one instance Grunder does bring up the issue of potential coincidence. It comes in his discussion of Carsten Niebuhr’s Travels Through Arabia. He notes that:

[Page 50]some Book of Mormon Defenders place heavy emphasis upon a very old tribal area near Sana (in Yemen, in the southwestern portion of the Arabian peninsula), identified with the consonants, “NHM,” thus called “Nehhm,” “Nehem,” “Nihm,” “Nahm,” or similar variants. Those scholars propose that location for a site which is mentioned in the Book of Mormon portion which occurs in Arabia: “And it came to pass that Ishmael died, and was buried in the place which was called Nahom” (1 Nephi 16:34).

Ultimately, Grunder’s explanation for this parallel is that it represents random chance:

Certainly, we will not turn away from the obvious Book of Mormon defense point that the word “Nahom” is not merely compatible with known ancient sounds: it also corresponds geographically to a likely ancient counterpart in the Book of Mormon story. But how many hundred other locations existed along any proposed Lehi route through Arabia, for which Joseph Smith might have happened to come up with the same three consonants in order, instead of this particular example? And in the entire Book of Mormon saga of a thousand years and more—through two hemispheres—is it not fair that Joseph Smith should get one place name right—at least its consonants? (2008, pp. 1052–54).

Apparently, coincidence is a useful notion only when it is applied to the parallels presented by the defenders of Moromonism, and even then, Grunder downplays the full strength of the apologetic argument. ((While Grunder concedes that the name is similar, and that the location is appropriate, he ignores the further linguistic and rhetorical linkages that can be found in the textual narrative. The Nahom similarity is perhaps one of the most frequently discussed parallels in Mormon studies, and has been identified as one of the better arguments raised for the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Rather than deal with the range of issues that have been raised, Grunder instead reduces them to these two points—and in doing so he conceals the issues that Mormon defenders have identified.

[_honorentheos]

I think we can agree that John Welch's work in regards to chiasmus in the Book of Mormon is superior to the stuff the Johnsons came up with in regards to purported chiasmus in TLW.

https://bookofmormoncentral.org/content ... -of-mormon

Regards,
MG

I suppose what you meant was the chiasmus in the Book of Mormon as proposed by Welch is superior to the examples discovered in TLW by the Johnsons. Could be. Still irrelevant to the broader point that the Book of Mormon is clearly a product of the 19th century. That this is evidenced by the beliefs about history, Christianity, the origins of the peoples of the Americas, the theology it contains in addition to having a parallel example of what happens when someone in the time of Joseph Smith tries to write a book that sounds like the KJV. Not only is it a product of the 19th century, it's basically a snapshot of the beliefs taught by Smith around a very short period of the LDS faith and failed to contain the later evolved theology that arose after the Book of Mormon was published. It had to be revised in 1837 to update the descriptions of the godhead to that time, but without a later edit does not contain the Nauvoo-era beliefs about God and the nature of humankind. Modern Mormonism isn't found in the Book of Mormon. The Late War is just one bit of a compelling body of evidence showing the Book of Mormon had nothing to do with a proto-Christian Hebrew diaspora to the New World around 600 BCE. It has everything to do with things that Smith believed around 1829.

[_mentalgymnast]

I think we can agree that John Welch's work in regards to chiasmus in the Book of Mormon is superior to the stuff the Johnsons came up with in regards to purported chiasmus in TLW.

https://bookofmormoncentral.org/content ... -of-mormon

Regards,
MG

I suppose what you meant was the chiasmus in the Book of Mormon as proposed by Welch is superior to the examples discovered in TLW by the Johnsons. Could be. Still irrelevant to the broader point that the Book of Mormon is clearly a product of the 19th century. That this is evidenced by the beliefs about history, Christianity, the origins of the peoples of the Americas, the theology it contains in addition to having a parallel example of what happens when someone in the time of Joseph Smith tries to write a book that sounds like the KJV. Not only is it a product of the 19th century, it's basically a snapshot of the beliefs taught by Smith around a very short period of the LDS faith and failed to contain the later evolved theology that arose after the Book of Mormon was published. It had to be revised in 1837 to update the descriptions of the godhead to that time, but without a later edit does not contain the Nauvoo-era beliefs about God and the nature of humankind. Modern Mormonism isn't found in the Book of Mormon. The Late War is just one bit of a compelling body of evidence showing the Book of Mormon had nothing to do with a proto-Christian Hebrew diaspora to the New World around 600 BCE. It has everything to do with things that Smith believed around 1829.

Over on another thread I posted a list which Charles Harrell put together delineating the possible choices one makes as they observe and come across changes/adjustments in LDS doctrine over time, juxtaposed against earlier Biblical writings, earlier pronouncements of leaders, and conflicting scriptural references. Let me repost that list here as I think it has some relevancy to what your 'beef' is.

1) Refuse to believe that God would
leave us in the dark, and therefore attribute any apparent shifts in doctrine to
one’s misunderstanding of scripture.

2) Conclude that God wants us to have
the true doctrine, but in our finite state he is unable to fully communicate it
to us and therefore humans must fill in the holes.

3) View God as actually the source of
doctrinal idiosyncrasies, which is the result of his (mysterious) preference to
accommodate[s] prevailing cultural paradigms of the time.

4) Conclude that God allows us to
stumble and guess at doctrine because he doesn’t care all that much about what
we believe…at least about most things.

5) Reject all belief in God (or at least
the Mormon God) and chalk up all doctrine as simply the product of human
contrivance.

Regards,
MG

[_Kishkumen]

To clarify, I don't mean that to suggest arguments pertaining to TLW are similarly weak as with NHM, only that they have played out in ways that are somewhat parallel even if inversely so. The same people who promote NHM as being some kind of statistical bulls-eye deride TLW as being, at most, meaningless coincidence.

Ah, OK. Yes, that appears to be the case. I apologize for misunderstanding your point and I thank you for providing the illustrative examples.