Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_Themis]

I agree that Joseph Smith's claims should be approached with skepticism, but I don't see the story of the book's provenance as clear evidence of imposture. On the contrary, the book's provenance is something I can't easily account for.

Every example I have seen has failed. Do you know of any that hasn't?

Although the Book of Mormon contains elements consistent with an 1820s New York origin, I have great difficulty picturing Joseph Smith as the author. I find it even less conceivable that Solomon Spalding or Sidney Rigdon or Oliver Cowdery or a cabal of Dartmouth graduates wrote it. It is so unlike everything around it (yes, even The Late War) that I find its very existence mystifying.

The late war destroys a number of apologetics, but do you have an example of what in the Book of Mormon is so unlike everything around it?

Even the historian Walter McDougall has noted that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery's production of "a manuscript of 275,000 words in just seventy-five days . . . does not seem humanly possible, especially considering that Smith was barely literate and no expert in ancient Hebraic culture." He adds in a footnote: "Yes, the Book of Mormon is repetitive, but deserving of attention from scoffers, seekers, and the merely curious. That Smith had a poetic (i.e., Romantic) soul cannot be doubted. If the book did emerge unaided from the head of this young, untutored man, he must have soaked up influences both ancient and modern like a sponge" (Walter A. McDougall, Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era, 1829–1877 [New York: HarperCollins, 2008], 181, 644n15).

Apparently he doesn't know enough about it to realize that if it is made up, they had years instead of 75 days in which to create it. Joseph was also more literate then some seem to think. Do you have any examples of these Hebraisms he speaks of, that haven't been destroyed by things like the late war or other influences in Joseph's world?

[_CameronMO]

Maybe I'm just getting older, but I just don't see the point anymore. It's sort of like a soap opera: I could walk away for 3 years, 5 years, maybe, and the same people would be talking about the same things. I don't want to go to my grave and say that I spent years of my life discussing trivialities about an obscure nineteenth-century hoax.

Great point. Do you mind if I copy this and post it in the "2014 Goals" thread?

[_Kishkumen]

Nevo, I don't contest the sense that the book is remarkable, miraculous in a way, and worthy of serious study. I am saying that one cannot build a solid case for the antiquity of the events described therein starting with a story about missing plates that were taken by an angel.

[_EAllusion]

I'd be a bit softer here than EA. While I don't think it's necessary for people to reject a wide range of religious and pseudoscientific ideas after intense research, if nothing else, out of consideration for a finite number of hours in the day, I do believe that if one takes up the cause to rebut such ideas, then one should become as familiar as possible with them, failure to do so, gives the apologist ammunition. Now, EA himself has never given much ammo to anyone, in practice. I think we have to admit though that if PZ Meyers got sloppy, he'd do a great disservice to the cause, even if he's technically justified by "Courtier's reply" to not take ID seriously.

I'm not sure we are disagreeing as much as you think. I also believe that people who take up the cause to rebut fringe movements should be intimately familiar with the arguments found in those movements. I think there is some leeway in how we define "take up the cause." A message board debate between laymen shouldn't have to involve the level of preparation that a scholar with public reach should take on. Few things annoy me more than a person who is sloppy in their understanding of fringe/pseudoscientific movements they are attempting to refute. It makes a person look lazy and it makes the object of their criticism look better than they rightly should. Misinformed criticisms make people sympathetic to those movements think that the criticisms of what they think are bad.

Heck, I've been off-put more times than I can count seeing people critical of Mormonism while making basic errors in their understanding of Mormonism. It frustrates the heck out of me to see someone like Daniel Dennett lazily debate an Alvin Plantinga by getting him to admit to views that his fans already know are ridiculous rather than actually explain what is wrong with them. There's a time and a place for just making fun of Plantinga for being a fan of intelligent design, and a public scholarly debate over his ideas is not it. That's when you are supposed to actually explain what is wrong with it.

When it comes to dismissing fringe movements without knowing every jot and tittle of argumentation found in them, I think people can be and usually are justified. My basis for thinking so is not entirely different than why I think I am justified in trusting the great bulk of what is found in introductory chemistry textbooks even if I have not performed the experiments myself nor achieved a Ph.D. level understanding of the subject. In short, there are an extensive web of heuristics that inform me about what is credible and not. They range from looking at what relevant academics view as legitimate (and to what extent), to grasping the quality of argumentative styles, to comparing against my current framework of knowledge. (In order for palmistry to be true, I know an awful lot about what I know about the world has to be wrong.)

I don't think it is a secret that my intellectual habits cause me to read extensively on different fringe scholarly movements. Some people play basketball at the gym. This is what I do. In the list I offered Nevo, there are some examples of things I've read a lot about, such as anti-vaccinationism, and some I've read very little about, such as Atlantean archaeology. I feel quite confident in concluding both are without merit, but it's only the former that I'd "take on" to rebut. I'd like to think I've very good at having my ducks in a row before commenting on fringe topics. In both cases I think you and I have to have good reason to reject the movement - which I think we do - but I think you really need to understand they are arguing before you venture out and spend your time arguing against it. You might find me somewhere writing about the vaccines-causes-autism crowd. You won't find me talking about Atlantean archaeology.

[_Gadianton]

Nevo, I don't contest the sense that the book is remarkable, miraculous in a way, and worthy of serious study. I am saying that one cannot build a solid case for the antiquity of the events described therein starting with a story about missing plates that were taken by an angel.

A sober point Reverend. And as the discussion boards have shown, the apologists, and I venture even the better-considered Nevo, will never take the accounts of the alleged "Sealed Portion" histories seriously. Several years ago, we witnessed from time to time, sealed portion advocates politely introducing their histories absent original documents, obtained by miraculous means, and they were either ignored or laughed at by all of the apologists.

[_Kishkumen]

A sober point Reverend. And as the discussion boards have shown, the apologists, and I venture even the better-considered Nevo, will never take the accounts of the alleged "Sealed Portion" histories seriously. Several years ago, we witnessed from time to time, sealed portion advocates politely introducing their histories absent original documents, obtained by miraculous means, and they were either ignored or laughed at by all of the apologists.

Ah, but those guys are charlatans!

[_Equality]

Although the Book of Mormon contains elements consistent with an 1820s New York origin, I have great difficulty picturing Joseph Smith as the author. I find it even less conceivable that Solomon Spalding or Sidney Rigdon or Oliver Cowdery or a cabal of Dartmouth graduates wrote it. It is so unlike everything around it (yes, even The Late War) that I find its very existence mystifying.

. . .

Whether Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon himself or translated an actual ancient text, its coming forth seems to me charged with the miraculous and numinous.

The same can be said of other remarkable works, such as those of William Shakespeare, like this:

Although Hamlet contains elements consistent with a 1600 London origin, I have great difficulty picturing William Shakespeare as the author. I find it even less conceivable that Francis Bacon or the Earl of Salisbury or William Herbert or a cabal of British playtwrights wrote it. It is so unlike everything around it (yes, even The Life of Amleth) that I find its very existence mystifying.

. . .

Whether Shakespeare produced Hamlet himself, its coming forth seems to me charged with the miraculous and numinous.

[_Nevo]

The same can be said of other remarkable works, such as those of William Shakespeare. . .

Yes it can. My failure of imagination also extends to Shakespeare :)

Remarkable, extraordinary, improbable works of genius exist. They are not impossible. They do not belong only to the realm of the gods. But normally we would not expect "obvious impostures" and "clumsy frauds" to rise to that level—though I suppose it's possible that some do.

[_Runtu]

Yes it can. My failure of imagination also extends to Shakespeare :)

Remarkable, extraordinary, improbable works of genius exist. They are not impossible. They do not belong only to the realm of the gods. But normally we would not expect "obvious impostures" and "clumsy frauds" to rise to that level—though I suppose it's possible that some do.

I think that's important: On rare occasions, a clumsy fraud is also extraordinary.

[_EAllusion]

Is everyone here familiar with the Cottingley Fairies photos? It was a series of 5 photos taken in 1917 in England.

This is the most famous one:



It has influenced depictions of fairies even to this day.

Quaint as it might seem now, there was a great deal of controversy over them with many people, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, taking them as evidence of spiritual beings. There were experts in photography who declared them as legitimate.

Interestingly, I once saw a show on the Cottingley Fairies filmed in the 1970's that covered this as a controversy over the existence of spirit beings. Skeptics were brought on to offer a variety of theories for how the photographs were produced. All of them involved some relatively sophisticated photographic techniques for girls in 1917 to be using or remarkable coincidences. The show, being fundamentally interested in portraying this as a supernatural controversy, rightly cast doubt on accepting any of those theories as correct. No one explanation seemed in particular likely.

Then something marvelous happened. In the 1980's, the girls who produced the photos admitted it was a hoax. They also described how they did it. It turns out they cut out pictures of fairies from a book, stuck them to hatpins, and took pictures of them. That's it. That's what they did. So much for acid etched engravings and complicated exposures.

This story has long stuck with me for two reasons. First, whenever I see complicated and remote explanations for unusual phenomena and potential hoaxes, I'm always reminded that the reality can be devastatingly more simple. Second, while everyone was right to reject those complicated theories for how the photographs were produced, it's always fascinated me that people lost sight of the fact that even though those theories were unlikely, the explanation that entailed the photos were of actual fairies was vastly, vastly more unlikely than that. You can't prove extraordinary supernatural claims simply by attacking somewhat unlikely natural explanations.

This story does inform what I see in Book of Mormon debates. I personally am skeptical of theories of authorship that do not involve Smith. Elaborate plagiarism hypotheses have always struck me as strained. And while I find myself on the same side as believers when seeing this, I also see them as having a huge blind-spot for not appreciating just how much more implausible the supernatural tall-tale version of events is than the authorship theories they are finding without sufficient basis.