Interpreter apologists wrestle with Nephi’s transoceanic vessel

[drumdude]

I don't doubt that the Book of Mormon can be complex or interesting, actually. Even people who all agree that a work of art is in many ways bad can still find interesting aspects to it, after all, just as people who all agree that something is really great can still recognize flaws in it.

So far I'm still inclined to suppose that Joseph Smith was simply a charlatan, and that any evidence of sincerity he seemed to show was really just him getting into a role that was a great ego trip. I'm willing to allow for some reasonable doubt on that, though. I'm not going to say it's crazy to think that he had some real convictions or even inspiration.

What I don't think anyone can get around, though, is that (apart from what seem to have been quite minor revisions) the Book of Mormon was canonised in its first draft. It's 1-1/2 times as long as the New Testament, over three times as long as the Quran, and instead of being composed by multiple authors and filtered through decades or even centuries of oral transmission and copying, it was dictated by one man over the space of a few months, and then printed.

Even if you grant that Joseph Smith had some real inspiration, no one person has ever really had that much inspiration. If he did have some deep spiritual insight, maybe even from God, he padded it out massively, to compete in length with the Bible. The result is a Scripture which is just bound to have a lower ratio of profound revelation to length than other sacred texts. It's not that the Bible or the Quran or the Bhagavad Gita are all pure glorious brilliance in my view. They have their highs and lows, for sure. A one-man shop is not going to have hit even close to their average level, though.

And when I read the Book of Mormon, in the admittedly sporadic sampling I've tried, it doesn't seem to exceed that expected low ratio. I really don't think I'm just dismissing it facilely. It would be astonishing if it actually did show much better than I have found it, given how it was made.

I could believe that it has a few highlights that I just haven't found, that its very best ideas were indeed in the range of the world's great Scriptures, even if it only had a few of them. Hence my asking after highlights and champions. I'm willing to believe that the Book of Mormon has a few.

Even Jesus, however, whom Joseph Smith portrayed as a divine being, was never supposed to have contributed more than about 1-1/2 gospels worth of original material, if you take the minimal covering set of the four Christian gospels. Joseph Smith would have ranked high as a prophet indeed if he could have produced that much high-grade Scripture. Instead he tried to make a triple-Quran single-handed in a single draft, dictate and print. Even if he had an inspiration, that's hubris.

I have no problem with treating the Book of Mormon as simultaneously an impressive achievement for Joseph Smith, while also being a complete bore to read.

Seriously, try an audio book version of it when you are suffering from insomnia. The "and it came to pass" repetitions are better than Nyquil.

[Shulem]

Seriously, try an audio book version of it when you are suffering from insomnia. The "and it came to pass" repetitions are better than Nyquil.

“And it came to pass” is repeatedly or painfully repeated well over a thousand times in the Book of Mormon. Mormonism is determined to communicate a simple expression of “Then” or ‘it happened’ in long form, an unnecessary explanation that can be expressed in other ways.

Here are 1,000 of them:

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So, did you learn anything new? Let’s review:

“And”

“It”

“Came”

“To”

“Pass”

Declarations made within the Book of Mormon clearly state that the book was written and preserved for the benefit of modern man who would receive the record as a testimony in the last days. In other words, it’s written for you and me. The vast percentage of people who have read the book are alive today so clearly the book has become a modern phenomenon of scripture that claims ancient origin through its author, Joseph Smith.

“And it came to pass” is written hundreds of times in the Bible, more especially the KJV, but has been phased out and expressed differently or more effectively in modern versions. Coincidentally, the biblical sounding modern novel of Late War which is believed by many to have influenced Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon writing style also contains “and it came to pass” or “it came to pass” literally dozens of times.

The bottom line: It seems reasonable to think that God could speak to us today in a more effective manner rather than bombarding us with an ineffective phrase that can be expressed in better ways within the context that it given.

[MG 2.0]

• Nephi pops the big QUESTION!

• Where do I go to find ore to make tools?

This is an example of what I mean by saying that the Book of Mormon reads as though it is in the genre, not of myth, but of fraud—regardless of who might have composed it, and how or even why they did that.

The text itself continually goes out of its way to provide more concrete detail than would be needed just to tell its story in a Once-upon-a-time, suspended-disbelief way of storytelling. And yet the excessive detail is not actually realistic at all. It's frequently ridiculous and succeeds only in drawing attention to how implausible the story is.

The detail is not usually interesting enough in itself to count as additional story material in itself, either. It's often a clumsy and tedious interruption of the story, raising a potentially interesting question but then ducking out of it disappointingly with a miracle that happens offstage and is not described.

The only apparent purpose of the excessive but inadequate detail is to try to seem realistic, even though it doesn't succeed. The effort to seem real at the literal level is palpable. The Book itself comes across as a kid telling a wildly unbelievable story and regularly punctuating it with declarations that it all really happened, swear to God, totally not making this up, not one word, cross my heart.

That's not myth. As a literary form, that is fraud. The intent of the abstractly inferred author was intent to deceive, whoever the real author was.

I haven’t seen anyone post this yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_M_Faw_s3s

This video ought to be entered into the record/discussion. If it has, it’s been dissed to no end, I suppose.

You bring up a point that needs to be reinforced. The Book of Mormon is full of detailed description of geography/geopolitical structures attached to interwoven timelines with characters that come and go according to a very precise narrative that doesn’t seem to get tangled up within itself. Throw in the complex chiastic structures (no, not silly Dr. Suess stuff) and multiple authors and you have either someone that went to a GREAT deal of work to deceive (Joseph did not have this ability to write in this manner), or one needs to entertain the possibility of something else being a the root of Book of Mormon production.

As I’ve said before, smart folks that don’t believe in God have to come up with some pretty tall tales to explain those things for which they don’t have all the answers or are forced to ignore evidence that doesn’t support their worldview.

And yet here we are again. It goes on and on.

Just sayin’.

Regards,
MG

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

That’s all been debunked. You refuse to read and accept what you read. It is what it is. You choose to believe a lie.

Watch MD’s episode 1588 and finally accept the truth, the factual truth, about your beliefs.

https://youtu.be/7Vl4emuX388

-Doc

[Moksha]

“And”

“It”

“Came”

“To”

“Pass”

Could there have been a repetition glitch in the seer stone matrix?

[Physics Guy]

What are some specific examples of how the Book of Mormon plot is complex and interwoven in such a way that it would be hard to avoid the multiple timelines getting entangled? Where are these tricky parts?

[Shulem]

What are some specific examples of how the Book of Mormon plot is complex and interwoven in such a way that it would be hard to avoid the multiple timelines getting entangled? Where are these tricky parts?

There are some complex issues interwoven into the story in which the chronology is incredibly maintained. There is however a major error made near the beginning of the reign of the kings (reference Enos era). I highly recommend you consider my Celestial thread about the first 600 years in which I take a very critical look at what you are enquiring about. You'll find that even I am hard pressed to find fault with how the chronology is so well built into the story. Read this thread and YOU will know what you need to know, compliments of Shulem. No faith promoting BS to have to wade through. Just good and honest critical review and analysis in which I will take you on a ride. Do it! Then you won't have to listen to Kishkumen slam you. You'll be schooled and trained in these matters.

600 Years in The Book of Mormon


Let me tell you what I believe helped Joseph Smith keep his story straight. He needed a good landing in which to envision the beginning of the story in order to perfectly ground it into his mind as point A or, square one.



Then Smith needed to divide his story by separating main parties from each other. He had the oceans as references and a river to go between them.



It was critical that the narrow neck come into play because it separated everyone on the peninsula from everyone up in the northern lands which is where the Book of Mormon ends with Mormon and Moroni.






Joseph Smith built his story on a land surrounded by ocean and there were a great many cities included on that land. Having his orientation using the peninsula made it fairly easy to keep track when he added each new city to his stories. I've included these cities on the map at good proximity in which Smith was keeping track.



Writing the Book of Mormon via dictating it out of a hat was not rocket science. It was a major feat but not a miracle by any means. Smith kept track of his stories and did a great job of it. But the book has many flaws and Smith use the Bible to get him through it. Everything in the Book of Mormon that is genuine or historical is on account of the Bible and even that has problems.

[Physics Guy]

Is the tricky part in maintaining chronology supposed to be just keeping time going forward, year after year, as chapter follows chapter? I mean, okay, a little kid might easily screw that up. It really isn't rocket science, though. What's so hard about having a chronology?

[Shulem]

Is the tricky part in maintaining chronology supposed to be just keeping time going forward, year after year, as chapter follows chapter? I mean, okay, a little kid might easily screw that up. It really isn't rocket science, though. What's so hard about having a chronology?

It was simply a matter of moving the years forward and keeping track of the reign of the kings and judges. But what makes it tricky is there were different groups and stories taking place and crisscrossing within the chapters of the novel and it could have been really easy to screw up unless care was taken to keep it organized. I can't stress enough that you read the 600 year thread and you'll see exactly how everything was managed within the structure of the timeline. And you will learn some cool stuff.

[consiglieri]

I know this sounds crazy, but it’s like the apologists have recognized that the story makes no sense the way it is written and so they read back into the text the story of how it must have happened in order for it to make sense.

Sort of like reading back into the Book of Mormon the presence of other non-Lehite civilizations in the land of promise that the text assures us were not there.