Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_Philo Sofee]

Did anything of substance ever come of any of this? Or was it decided that, after all, we still don't have any modern source(s) for the Book of Mormon for sure other than Smith's imagination? Is anyone still doing an studies and comparisons and analysis?

[Guest]

Did anything of substance ever come of any of this? Or was it decided that, after all, we still don't have any modern source(s) for the Book of Mormon for sure other than Smith's imagination? Is anyone still doing an studies and comparisons and analysis?

The comparisons to The Late War and others are generally strong enough to show that Book of Mormon language and themes were very similar to those of contemporary writers. The only extraordinary thing I see about the Book of Mormon is its longevity of a following who believes it is a miraculous book. That belief in it, not the book itself, is extraordinary.

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

Great job Reverend.

Almost 300,000 views? Good Lord!

[_honorentheos]

Did anything of substance ever come of any of this? Or was it decided that, after all, we still don't have any modern source(s) for the Book of Mormon for sure other than Smith's imagination? Is anyone still doing an studies and comparisons and analysis?

It seemed to me the initial enthusiasm for it being evidence of plagiarism was blunted by time. in my opinion, that was due to the initial reaction misinterpreting what the Late War revealed about the period when the Book of Mormon was being authored in the 19th century. If one took the view that Smith had a copy of The Late War and was quoting from it or using it as a template for the narrative for the Book of Mormon since he and/or Cowdery probably read it at some point possibly as school children, the apologetic response only required showing there is sufficient diversity and divergence of narrative to satisfy a given, questioning reader this wasn't the case. And that appears to be what happened with that line of argument. Apologists made use of Bayes to attempt to settle that point such similarities were not evidence of direct copying.

OTOH, if one saw The Late War as demonstrating what a 19th century attempt at replicating the language of the King James Bible would look like, resulting in many of the grammatic structures and phrasing often claimed by apologetics for the Book of Mormon as evidence of genuine Hebrew authorship, then that was conclusively demonstrated with the initial study and to my knowledge remains unchallenged.

Despite the overreaction to what it could ultimately prove and subsequent cooling off, I believe it deserves far more mentions than it gets these 6 years on for essentially pruning away entire branches of Book of Mormon apologetics even if it didn't prove Smith was copying the Book of Mormon from a 19th century source.

[_honorentheos]

viewtopic.php?p=782265#p782265

Probably my favorite post in this thread.

[_Philo Sofee]

Thanks for the ideas... Man re-reading this thread alone is gonna take me over 20 minutes .....

[_Kishkumen]

Did anything of substance ever come of any of this? Or was it decided that, after all, we still don't have any modern source(s) for the Book of Mormon for sure other than Smith's imagination? Is anyone still doing an studies and comparisons and analysis?

Nothing that I know of yet. The best work of this kind is actually William Davis’ work on John Bunyan’s influence on the Book of Mormon. In many ways, I think his work is much more significant than the discovery of The Late War.

[_Kishkumen]

The comparisons to The Late War and others are generally strong enough to show that Book of Mormon language and themes were very similar to those of contemporary writers.

The hard lifting remains to be done, but the evidence is very clear. The Book of Mormon slots into its historical context perfectly. Nothing about the text is altogether unprecedented. It may be unique in its combination of traits, but those traits can be found in other places.

[_Kishkumen]

OTOH, if one saw The Late War as demonstrating what a 19th century attempt at replicating the language of the King James Bible would look like, resulting in many of the grammatic structures and phrasing often claimed by apologetics for the Book of Mormon as evidence of genuine Hebrew authorship, then that was conclusively demonstrated with the initial study and to my knowledge remains unchallenged.

Despite the overreaction to what it could ultimately prove and subsequent cooling off, I believe it deserves far more mentions than it gets these 6 years on for essentially pruning away entire branches of Book of Mormon apologetics even if it didn't prove Smith was copying the Book of Mormon from a 19th century source.

Although I stand by the title of the thread for its accuracy, it was nevertheless a poor choice considering the target readership. Very early on in the thread I stipulate that I am talking about generic similarities. The most obvious plagiarism in the Book of Mormon is plagiarism of the KJV. Plagiarism is the wrong concept for grappling with what the Book of Mormon is as a whole.

I agree that this does deserve more work and more mentions. It is unfortunate that the failure to take up this task has resulted in the usual apologetic obfuscations about this significant discovery. It is treated as a flop criticism, or as if it falls into the “asked and answered” file. This is yet more evidence of the epistemicide of apologetics. Often apologetics are destructive of knowledge, or at least they hamper the progress of knowledge.

But then, so too does the fixation on simple debunking.

[_Kishkumen]

Great job Reverend.

Almost 300,000 views? Good Lord!

Thank you, Everybody Wang Chung. Looks like it was worth posting.