Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_Darth J]

How do you know you had the proper intent? (See James 4:3) How do you know you didn't get a witness? This is where things turn into a testimony meeting. You cannot offer this as proof of anything. You cannot prove proper intent or spiritual sensitivity any more than someone of faith can prove to you the authenticity of their experience.

Well of course only true Scotsmen are going to get an answer to Moroni's promise.

I have received a witness, many. And it certainly wasn't an easy process. Would you care to take a crack at tearing it (or them) apart and proving to me how it wasn't a witness? I suspect your response would be to simply accuse me of lying or suggest I might be crazy. Many do have spiritual experiences which can easily be perceived as emotional to outsiders, and admittedly the two are often conflated, especially among those who tend to be more emotionally sensitive, but that's not to say they are emotional as we didn't experience what they did. However a rational analysis can reasonably leads to such a conclusion, but not always.

And so we must ask the doubters this: if I claim to have an unverifiable, nebulous subjective experience, and I interpret it the way the LDS Church has indoctrinated me to interpret it---based entirely on ipse dixit from said church---and you don't find this to be compelling evidence that a vast, advanced civilization of Hebrews existed for a thousand continuous years in pre-Columbian America, then what on Earth possibly would be compelling evidence?

As much as I often wish I could rationalize away my experiences, and believe me I have tried hard to do so numerous times, I fail.

Right, right. Here you have a hillbilly con man who defrauded people on magic treasure hunts, purported to use the exact same magic rock that he employed in his magic treasure hunts to translate the record of an ancient American Hebrew civilization for which not a single piece of empirical evidence exists, then he went on to habitually lie for years to his own wife, almost all of his followers, and the general public to cover up his serial adultery, and who kept changing his origin story for the religion he promulgated, and then an overly assertive cult leader convinced hundreds of people to risk their lives and abandon their property by leaving the continuous United States so he could continue to have his harm and enrich himself at the followers' expense, and now today an organization that by its own admission has alleged prophets who can't tell the difference between the will of their deity and the random thoughts in their own heads, and this organization tells you to interpret your subjective experiences in a way that is self-serving to that organization, and there is no way to verify that the way the organization tells you to interpret your unverifiable subjective experiences is accurate.

And the exact same methodology at arriving at this witness tells some people Thomas S. Monson is a prophet, and other people that Warren Jeffs is a prophet.

I agree, Water Dog, that the critics have their work cut out for them coming up with an explanation that is more plausible than your own.

I do believe your treatment of Sorenson is a bit disingenuous though. As previously stated his purpose is not to prove the Book of Mormon true, approaching the subject from this context is fallacious. While arguably not "evidence" AT ALL,

Fixed it for you.

interestingly he draws a substantial, even overwhelming, number of parallels which the critics cannot explain.

Funny you should mention that, because I also have come up with a number of parallels between the Book of Mormon and ancient peoples.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13858

How could Joseph Smith have known?!?

Incidentally, Water Dog, have you noticed that Sorenson finds that none of these compelling parallels are related to the Mayans, whereas Gardner does find parallels between the Nephites and the Mayans?

http://joelsmonastery.blogspot.com/2012 ... -obey.html

As Lamanites, they were divided and continually seeking to to get gain and power over one another. Of the incident of Ammon and Lamoni, Brant Gardner explained that it fit nicely in with Mayan culture.

http://www.fairlds.org/authors/sorenson ... ichael-coe

Nephite culture was not closely congruent with Maya culture.

I mean, when two different earnest apologists for the Book of Mormon cannot even agree on which Mesoamerican parallels are relevant to the Book of Mormon.....I don't see how the critics cannot be other than stunned into silence right there.

There's that burden of proof again. From the context of proving the Book of Mormon an ancient work, yes, you're right. But from the context of faith, the whole stated point of the Plan of Salvation, agency, growth, the veil, etc., this is an embarrassingly shallow argument. If the Book of Mormon were true and authentic, leaving the plates behind would frustrate the whole thing.

I hear you, Water Dog. The utter lack of any verifiable evidence whatsoever is exactly what we would expect to find if the Book of Mormon were true. Which of course leads to the corollary that were we to find any verifiable evidence that the Nephites ever existed, it would destroy the Book of Mormon's truth claims.

[_Gadianton]

Many people, and I believe I am one, are quite the opposite of emotional. I tend to be very critical of people in the church in this regard. Fast and Testimony meeting is a truly painful experience to me, grating on a chalk board. I despise it and find most people's experiences to be sappy, whiny, emotional drivel. It is quite something when someone who is very analytic and unfeeling by their nature has a spiritual experience, as it is very different from what they are used to, and such is the case for me. As much as I often wish I could rationalize away my experiences, and believe me I have tried hard to do so numerous times, I fail.

That's it Water Dog, embrace your inner thirteen-year-old.

[_Kishkumen]

Tacit arguments bring nothing to the discussion, and that's why it's shallow.

My argument isn't tacit. It is very clear. In terms of secular scholarship, there is too little evidence of the antiquity of the Book of Mormon, and there are too many indications of its 19th century origins, for a non-LDS historian to take the claim of its antiquity seriously.

Archaeologists, anthropologists and the like are engaged in very narrowly focused research which doesn't attempt to see the bigger picture.

Yes, non-LDS scholars are generally not interested in the picture of faith. I am not sure whether it is a bigger picture, but it is a different picture.

[_Themis]

In 1830 the evidence of mound builder culture and reports of findings in central America were popularly understood as archeological evidence regarding the previous inhabitants of the Americas that was assumed to be supportive of the underlying myth story that serves as the background for the theology of the Book of Mormon. A person not only didn't have to be a believer in Mormonism to accept this, it seems more likely the Book of Mormon was written specifically with these 19th century beliefs sewn into the story to make it more believable to those who shared these mistaken beliefs.

Nevo has said the Book of Mormon is so unlike the world around Joseph Smith. I asked what this was, but have not gotten any response. I used to think this as well with before learning some of the things you bring up. It was very damaging to the idea that the Book of Mormon was historically true given that it was very like the world around Joesph, particularly the very incorrect ideas of his time.

[_DarkHelmet]

Waterdog, what was your spiritual witness, or witnesses? If you posted it already, let me know, and I can go back and look. I just don't want to wade through 75 pages of posts if it's not there.

[_Gadianton]

We already had this discussion in previous pages on this thread. Mound Builder mythology doesn't parallel with the Book of Mormon. It's the same issue with the Late War, you can draw a few specious connections but what about all the things which clearly don't match? We can find a few specious parallels between 21st century American culture and ancient America if we really look hard enough and narrow our focus.

Hypothetically speaking, if the Late War had a chapter in it that matched word-for-word with a chapter from the Book of Mormon, but no other material lined up at all, would you say that the overwhelming majority of material not in common proved that the Late War did not influence the Book of Mormon?

[_Themis]

We already had this discussion in previous pages on this thread. Mound Builder mythology doesn't parallel with the Book of Mormon. It's the same issue with the Late War, you can draw a few specious connections but what about all the things which clearly don't match? We can find a few specious parallels between 21st century American culture and ancient America if we really look hard enough and narrow our focus.

Just because you made the assertions does not mean you are right. The core of the Book of Mormon story was already in existence before 1829. Now how about those elephants in the room you are ignoring on the other thread. I suspect your absence was to hopefully have those problems be forgotten. The late war has many connections in use of language we don't see in other texts of the time. It is more then enough to make it interesting and worthy of further study.

[_Themis]

We are in disagreement. Where is the core of the story that I may read it?

Runtu already provided some of the beliefs about the mound builders. You can also read View of the Hebrew. They are others as well, but this will prove that some of the key elements in the Book of Mormon already existed before 1829.

And I have no idea what this other thread you're referring to is.

I guess you didn't get the elephants in the room reference. I can understand why after Brad put that one to bed.

[_honorentheos]

The 15 July 1842 issue of the Times and Seasons includes an article, like many others in the T&S, that can serve as an example of the speculation regarding the origins of the visible "indian" artifacts as well as how the the Book of Mormon supposedly resolved the questions around their origin.

It can be retrieved here - The Times and Seasons, Vol. 3

The specific article is titled "American Antiquities" and starts -

Some have supposed that all the great works of the west, of which we have been treating, belong to our present race of Indians but from continued wars with each other, have driven themselves from agricultural pursuits and thinned away their numbers to that degree, that the wild animals and fishes of the rivers and the wild fruit of the forest was found sufficient support; so which account, they were reduced to savagism.

But this is answered by he Antiquities Society as follows: "Have our present race of Indians ever buried their dead in mounds by the thousands? Were they acquainted with the uses of silver or copper? These metals curiously wrought have been found. Did the ancients of our Indians burn the bodies of distinguished chiefs on funeral pyres, and then raise a lofty tumulus over the urn containing their ashes? Did the Indians erect anything like the "walled towns" on Paint Creek? Did they ever dig such wells as are found at Marietta, Porismouth, and above all such as those in Paint Creek? Did they manufacture calcareous breccia, equal to any now made in Italy?

"To this we respond, they never have: no, not even their traditions afford a glimpse of the existence of such things as forts, tumuli, roads, wells, mounds, walls enclosing between one and two hundred and even five hundred acres of land; some of them of stone and others of eath, twenty feet in thickness, and exceeding high, are works requiring too much labor for Indians ever to have performed..."

(The letter from the Antiquities Society continues in this vein on a number of topics. I'll include the last paragraph from the article as it seems to drive home the point made previously. That being, the existing pedestrian archeological speculation of the frontier aligns well with the descriptions of the Nephite and Lamanite civilizations if taken at face value. It is only with subsequent advances in both the understanding of the archeological record as well as the wider dissemination of the scientific view that the Mormon believer is forced to find "advances" in archeology that allow for some revised Book of Mormon background narrative.)

If men, in their researches into the history of this country, in noticing the mounds, fortifications, statues, architecture, implements of war, of husbandry, and ornaments of silver, brass, & c. - - were to examine the Book of Mormon, their conjectures would be removed, and their opinions altered; uncertainty and doubt would be changed into certainty and facts; and they would find that those things that they are anxiously prying into were matters of history, unfolded in that book. They would find their conjectures were more than realized -- that a great and a mighty people had inhabited this continent -- that the alta sciences and religion had prevailed to a very great extent, and that there were as great and mighty cities on this continent as on the continent of Asia. Babylon, Nineveh, nor any of the ruins of the Levant could boast of more perfect sculpture, better architectural designs, and more imperishable ruins, than what are found on this continent. Stephens and Catherwood's researches in Central America abundantly testify of this thing. The stupendous ruins, the elegant sculpture, and the magnificence of the ruins of Guatemala, and other cities, corroborate this statement, and show that a great and mighty people -- men of great minds, clear intellect, bright genius, and comprehensive designs inhabited this continent. Their ruins speak of their greatness; the Book of Mormon unfolds their history. - Ed.

Setting aside the astounding level of racism both the AS and the T&S based their beliefs on (that being, "Indians couldn't have done any of this that we can see, so there had to be a different culture that built it...") the Book of Mormon contains nothing that isn't best understood as fictionalized imaginings for origins of the artifacts readily known by the Smiths in upstate New York and the vicinity. Where Water Dog and I agree is in acknowledging what we now know of the mound builders doesn't correspond with the Book of Mormon backstory. Where we apparently disagree is over whether a person need look further than Joseph Smith to explain the Book of Mormon backstory and, once any potential 19th century speculation has been removed, if any attempt to place the Book of Mormon in modern archeological history is advancing the cause of Mormonism rather than retreating from the evidence.

[_honorentheos]

And, if there is any doubt, we can always point to the story of Zelph where we see in action Joseph expanding on the narrative of a mound discovered and excavated during Zion's March.

We know Joseph was taking artifacts and associating them with the Book of Mormon peoples. He went so far as to describe to Emma walking among the skeletal remains of the Nephites the day after the Zelph discovery.