The burden is now upon those who deny the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon

The catch-all forum for general topics and debates. Minimal moderation. Rated PG to PG-13.
Post Reply
Marcus
God
Posts: 5037
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2021 10:44 pm

Re: The burden is now upon those who deny the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon

Post by Marcus »

MG 2.0 wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 8:48 pm

As I’ve mentioned already, it’s the preponderance of internal ‘easter eggs’ of one kind or another that lend proof/reason to conditionally accept the story of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon rather than outright reject it....
coincidence such as that under discussion doesn't lend proof or reason.
People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence. They are far too ready to dismiss it and to build arcane structures of extremely rickety substance in order to avoid it. I, on the other hand, see coincidence everywhere as an inevitable consequence of the laws of probability, according to which having no unusual coincidence is far more unusual than any coincidence could possibly be.

— Isaac Asimov
In The Planet That Wasn't (1976), 3.

https://todayinsci.com/QuotationsCatego ... ations.htm
even more aptly, however...
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/85171- ... is-this-if
hauslern
1st Counselor
Posts: 474
Joined: Tue Dec 08, 2020 2:36 am

Re: The burden is now upon those who deny the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon

Post by hauslern »

Thomas Ferguson who started the New World Archaeological Foundation lost he faith through his research on the Book of Abraham. I don't know if Royal Skousen had at that time dismissed the authenticity of the Book of Abraham.

An interesting article on Feguson's journey can be found here: https://www.science.org/content/article ... -his-faith

Stan Larsen wrote a book on Ferguson's loss. Dan Peterson wrote a review years ago. It is amazing how dated Dan's work is.

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/vie ... ontext=msr
User avatar
PseudoPaul
Star B
Posts: 111
Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2021 2:12 pm

Re: The burden is now upon those who deny the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon

Post by PseudoPaul »

Nephi knows about people going to heaven and hell when they die, Satan, a suffering and divine messiah, salvation by faith - all things that are anachronistic to the 6th century BCE. Case closed.
User avatar
Kishkumen
God
Posts: 6121
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2020 2:37 pm
Location: Cassius University

Re: The burden is now upon those who deny the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon

Post by Kishkumen »

PseudoPaul wrote:
Fri Aug 12, 2022 2:52 pm
Nephi knows about people going to heaven and hell when they die, Satan, a suffering and divine messiah, salvation by faith - all things that are anachronistic to the 6th century BCE. Case closed.
Indeed.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
User avatar
Physics Guy
God
Posts: 1557
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2020 7:40 am
Location: on the battlefield of life

Re: The burden is now upon those who deny the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon

Post by Physics Guy »

Stephen D. Ricks wrote:It is necessary that the Book of Mormon have ancient names, whether from the ancient Near East or from ancient Mesoamerica, if the claim that the book is of ancient origin is to ring true.

Our work has shown that the names and the foreign words in the Book of Mormon are ancient in origin, whether from ancient Hebrew or some other Semitic language, ancient Egyptian, ancient Mesopotamian (Akkadian or Sumerian), or ancient Greek.

I believe we have done our homework showing that the names are ancient in origin. The burden is now upon those who deny the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon to show that its names are not of ancient origin.
I haven't read this paper, and I'm afraid I don't plan to read it, but on my reading this quote probably isn't claiming to have shifted the burden of showing that the Book of Mormon is ancient. I think Ricks is really only saying that he has made a case for the ancient origin of names in the Book of Mormon, and that anyone who wants to claim that these names have no ancient origin now has to answer that case. In other words, I read his last sentence not as this:
If you can't rebut my case for ancient names, you have to accept that the Book of Mormon is ancient
but as this:
Skeptics can no longer get away with simply asserting that Book of Mormon names are not ancient: if you want to say the names are not ancient, you now have to answer my case that they are.
The claim that the names are of ancient origin is far short of the claim that the Book of Mormon is ancient. If the Book is ancient then the names must be ancient, but not the other way round: the names could be ancient and the Book could be fake. Tolkien's dwarf names are based on real Norse names.

As someone who does deny the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon, I for one have no big problem accepting that most if not all of its names are at least kind of close to some ancient names. I would be surprised if they weren't: Smith was obviously trying to make give his book an ancient look-and-feel, and making up names that sound like Old Testament names would have been a no-brainer. He wouldn't have needed any great linguistic knowledge to do so, either, because I'm pretty sure that the spacious wiggle-room of spelling and pronunciation variation across many ancient languages and cultures will let one identify some genuine ancient root for even crudely made up fake ancient names.

So an attack by skeptics on the ancient origins of Book of Mormon names would be a deadly attack on the Book of Mormon if it successfully landed, but it's an attack that isn't hard to deflect. As I read Ricks, he claims to have done that deflecting—no more. He definitely hasn't established that the Book of Mormon itself is ancient—but I don't read him as claiming he has.
I was a teenager before it was cool.
User avatar
Rick Grunder
Sunbeam
Posts: 56
Joined: Wed Oct 28, 2020 2:06 am
Location: Sacred Grove II
Contact:

Re: The burden is now upon those who deny the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon

Post by Rick Grunder »

PseudoPaul calls our attention to theological anachronism in things Nephi shouldn’t have known about in the sixth century BCE.

Continuing on to 74 BCE, I believe we find another example when the Book of Mormon coyly apes a theological term - common in Joseph Smith’s world, but not actually coined until the time of Martin Luther - Antinomian, which (at the level of Book of Mormon theological simplicity) would readily describe the elected, self-assured Zoramites who lived “in a land which they called Antionum,” Alma 31:3.
“I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.”
― Cicero, De Oratore - Book III
IHAQ
God
Posts: 1533
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:00 am

Re: The burden is now upon those who deny the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon

Post by IHAQ »

Rick Grunder wrote:
Fri Aug 12, 2022 4:32 pm
PseudoPaul calls our attention to theological anachronism in things Nephi shouldn’t have known about in the sixth century BCE.

Continuing on to 74 BCE, I believe we find another example when the Book of Mormon coyly apes a theological term - common in Joseph Smith’s world, but not actually coined until the time of Martin Luther - Antinomian, which (at the level of Book of Mormon theological simplicity) would readily describe the elected, self-assured Zoramites who lived “in a land which they called Antionum,” Alma 31:3.
Wowzer!

Have the Mopologists got a good answer for that specific anachronism?
hauslern
1st Counselor
Posts: 474
Joined: Tue Dec 08, 2020 2:36 am

Re: The burden is now upon those who deny the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon

Post by hauslern »

Brian Hales reviewed Visions in a Seer Stone in the Interpreter. https://journal.interpreterfoundation.o ... eer-stone/

Davis responded in Facebook " Brian Hales wrote a review that is filled with serious misrepresentations of my work. He also has a review on Amazon that is also filled with false information about my book. In the few interactions I've had with him about those issues, he does not understand, nor does he seem to care, that he is spreading false information about my research. I think it's very unfortunate. Because it reflects badly on the journal that published his ideas, and it further reflects poorly on LDS scholarship in general."
MG 2.0
God
Posts: 3628
Joined: Mon Aug 30, 2021 4:45 pm

Re: The burden is now upon those who deny the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon

Post by MG 2.0 »

PseudoPaul wrote:
Fri Aug 12, 2022 2:52 pm
Nephi knows about people going to heaven and hell when they die, Satan, a suffering and divine messiah, salvation by faith - all things that are anachronistic to the 6th century BCE. Case closed.
So you’re saying a prophet living in the pre Christian Era would not be plugged into knowledge of/from God?

It seems more likely that God would desire/want to give that portion of His word/truth to the extent that people are willing and able to receive it at any point in time. Pre or post Christ.

Granted, there is a LOT riding on whether or not the Book of Mormon is what it purports to be.

Case open.

Closed, however, to those who have a closed mind to the Book of Mormon as an ancient artifact speaking from the dust.

Regards,
MG
Last edited by MG 2.0 on Fri Aug 12, 2022 5:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Marcus
God
Posts: 5037
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2021 10:44 pm

Re: The burden is now upon those who deny the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon

Post by Marcus »

Physics Guy wrote:
Fri Aug 12, 2022 3:57 pm
...Ricks... claims to have done that deflecting—no more. He definitely hasn't established that the Book of Mormon itself is ancient—but I don't read him as claiming he has.
I agree with the claim of deflection, based on the quote in the OP. I also agree Ricks has no basis to go further, but unfortunately, Ricks seems to have attempted so anyway. the final 4 paragraphs of the linked blog entry contain this:
...Those who believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God will see this dictionary as a confirmation that the book is ancient and true.

This dictionary provides an environment in which belief may flourish. For those who have not previously dealt seriously with the Book of Mormon, it is an invitation to consider its claims.

To those who deny and oppose the Book of Mormon as an historically authentic ancient document, [this dictionary]* is a challenge to show that it is not ancient

—a task these deniers may find truly daunting, since many of them have little or no language experience outside of English.

On the most practical level, my Dictionary of Proper Names and Foreign Words in the Book of Mormon will be a helpful resource in providing information regarding the origin and meaning of names in the Book of Mormon for those teaching the Book of Mormon in Gospel Doctrine class in Sunday School or in some other setting.

For many, however, this book will stand on their bookshelves as a witness that names in the Book of Mormon—and, by extension, the Book itself—is ancient and, consequently, true.
[bolding added. *Also, [this dictionary] replaces the word: "it," based on immediately previous sentence. ]

I'm not reading the book either, PG, reading the blog entry was painful enough.
Post Reply