Zub Zool oan and Abraham 1:2b?????3

[_marg]

So, I guess your theory has the virtue of coming up with some answer to the question. The downside is that you have to conjure up a number events that could have happened but may not have, and I see one of the biggest failures of it, and this is something I remarked on for Roger long ago, is its failure to account for the Masonic nature of the text. I told Roger that the Book of Mormon had a mixture of positive and negative material about Freemasons, to which he never adequately responded, since he was operating in the "anti-Masonic" model, and with the understanding, based on very tenuous evidence, that Spalding was an anti-Mason. As I told him then, that does not solve the problem.

And now along comes George, confirming all of my intuitions based on my reading of the Book of Mormon, George who has the wherewithal in Freemasonic knowledge to explain adequately exactly how Freemasonic the Book of Mormon was. And there you have it, the failure of the Spalding hypothesis. I would love to see how you guys explain your way out of George's research. An anti-Masonic Spalding does not help.

I haven't been following the board closely for some time now and haven't followed the discussion regarding "how Freemasonic the Book of Mormon" is. I suppose I could go read that thread to see if I can make sense of it. Perhaps this week sometime.

OK, marg. Again, fair enough. I deserved that little ding, I suppose. I am not very sympathetic to the S/R theory. I don't see that it has very good evidence backing it up, or that it explains the text in ways that account for what I am seeing there, and what George is unfolding. I look forward to seeing your response to his publications, because he has a historical scenario that is worked out so tightly that next to it the S/R theory pales.

Well if his theory/explanation is that good I should find it interesting.

Yes. I am not embarrassed to use the word "inspired." I don't feel it necessary to choose my words such that I wipe them clean of any religious taint. If that means that atheists like you will criticize me for not using the ideologically appropriate expression, so be it. Joseph Smith and his colleagues used that kind of terminology, and I see no reason to garble that by finding something that won't offend the secularist word police. I make no apologies for that. If you want to draw conclusions about my personal beliefs from that, and completely ignore the historical basis for the usage, then I certainly won't try to stop you.

Trevor this is not about "atheism" or I my wishing to push "atheism". Objective historical scholarship would entail you withholding implication that the divine was truly involved in your argument/reasoning. Sure Joseph Smith used that terminology and perhaps your friend Don might use it that doesn't mean you should as a historical scholar which is what you told me is how you approach theses Mormon issues. Once you start arguing by including and acknowledge the divine may have been truly involved, you are no longer approaching Mormonism from the scholarship perspective you claim you adhere to.

I don't think you are really all that interested in history, so much as (ab)using history to debunk Joseph Smith, anyway.

I have no desire or interest to abuse history. I think my interest is more because I think it's obvious Smith didn't write the Book of Mormon on his own. I'm doing my little bit and sticking up for what is right, because there has been so much pressure against the theory. If I truly thought Smith wrote it on his own that would be fine with me. Of course there is the possibility he wrote it with Cowdery and perhaps others such as Rigdon, but then one has to dismiss all the Spalding evidence which I find extremely strong and so I don't support that. But I will try to look into the masonic thread, since you say George's argument is very persuasive.

[_Kevin Graham]

[_Trevor]

Trevor this is not about "atheism" or I my wishing to push "atheism". Objective historical scholarship would entail you withholding implication that the divine was truly involved in your argument/reasoning. Sure Joseph Smith used that terminology and perhaps your friend Don might use it that doesn't mean you should as a historical scholar which is what you told me is how you approach theses Mormon issues. Once you start arguing by including and acknowledge the divine may have been truly involved, you are no longer approaching Mormonism from the scholarship perspective you claim you adhere to.

Marg, I don't think you got my point, but that is OK, because I may not have been clear. I feel comfortable using the word "inspired" because it is an accurate reflection of how those involved at the time looked at it. I don't feel really pressed to "correct" their views. In other words, as a historian, I don't look at it as my job to make sure everyone knows God was or wasn't involved. But really, marg, that you seem to think it is important that I characterize it in such a way that no one could possibly think that God was involved does look like you are grinding your atheist axe, if at one remove. Because, it is your position that the only way to be a good historian is to be a naturalist, so unless I make it clear that I am a naturalist, then in your book I must be a bad historian.

I have no desire or interest to abuse history. I think my interest is more because I think it's obvious Smith didn't write the Book of Mormon on his own. I'm doing my little bit and sticking up for what is right, because there has been so much pressure against the theory. If I truly thought Smith wrote it on his own that would be fine with me. Of course there is the possibility he wrote it with Cowdery and perhaps others such as Rigdon, but then one has to dismiss all the Spalding evidence which I find extremely strong and so I don't support that. But I will try to look into the masonic thread, since you say George's argument is very persuasive.

OK, marg. That's cool. It's not like I don't think there is any evidence in favor of Spalding. I just judge it unpersuasive on the whole. You should check out George's work. It's pretty cool, and I think he is onto some interesting things.

[_marg]

Marg, I don't think you got my point, but that is OK, because I may not have been clear. I feel comfortable using the word "inspired" because it is an accurate reflection of how those involved at the time looked at it. I don't feel really pressed to "correct" their views. In other words, as a historian, I don't look at it as my job to make sure everyone knows God was or wasn't involved. But really, marg, that you seem to think it is important that I characterize it in such a way that no one could possibly think that God was involved does look like you are grinding your atheist axe, if at one remove. Because, it is your position that the only way to be a good historian is to be a naturalist, so unless I make it clear that I am a naturalist, then in your book I must be a bad historian.

Trevor you could be a theist, but if you present as a historical scholar (which is what you told me you do on this board) then you must leave out implications for various theories that the divine could be truly involved. My questions to you was asking for clarification. Now you clarified that you used the words "inspired translation" as a reflection of J. Smith & buddies. That's what I wanted... clarification.

[_Trevor]

Trevor you could be a theist, but if you present as a historical scholar (which is what you told me you do on this board) then you must leave out implications for various theories that the divine could be truly involved. My questions to you was asking for clarification. Now you clarified that you used the words "inspired translation" as a reflection of J. Smith & buddies. That's what I wanted... clarification.

OK. Maybe I overreacted. It is my belief that the only reason it is important to whitewash the language from any taint of religiosity is that there are atheists out there who immediately roll their eyes, and I would say irrationally roll their eyes, the minute they see such verbiage. This is because they assume certain things about the author when they read such stuff. As is undoubtedly clear to you now, I am fine with acknowledging that Joseph Smith and his associated could have believed that their work was inspired by God. I do not have to believe that to acknowledge it, although one could believe it and that shouldn't necessarily be a problem either.

What I do have a problem with is bad apologetics. I think some Mormon apologists are driven by their desire to protect the faith and save souls to make methodological compromises driven by those desires. This is why I am immediately skeptical of missing manuscripts of the Book of Abraham, etc. Really, the only reason to posit the existence of this early, early manuscript of the Book of Abraham is to save Mormons from the embarrassment of the KEP. On the other hand, some critics are equally driven by their prejudices to judge Joseph Smith as a simple con artists because they do not believe. I think that agenda can equally lead to distortion.

[_marg]

OK. Maybe I overreacted. It is my belief that the only reason it is important to whitewash the language from any taint of religiosity is that there are atheists out there who immediately roll their eyes, and I would say irrationally roll their eyes, the minute they see such verbiage. This is because they assume certain things about the author when they read such stuff. As is undoubtedly clear to you now, I am fine with acknowledging that Joseph Smith and his associated could have believed that their work was inspired by God. I do not have to believe that to acknowledge it, although one could believe it and that shouldn't necessarily be a problem either.

There is a difference Trevor between discussing Mormonism in the context "as if" there is a real possibility Smith truly had connection with a God versus discussing from a perspective that Smith or anyone elsei]believed[/i] he truly had connection with a God. I don't see much point in presenting your point of view in such as way that it can be construed that you are talking as if there is a possibility a God is truly involved. We can speculate Smith truly believed he had a connection with a God, that's not very insightful though, but to seeminly imply an actual possibility of a God connection is problematic at least for me if I'm am to accept your claim that you approach and are interested in Mormonism from a historical scholarly perspective.

So if we look at your sentence "Since I have no problem with the KEP being an exercise in "inspired translation" as brought about within a group context, I am comfortable with the idea that it was a group effort." to me that can be construed that you truly believe Smith & buddies could have been guided by a God in their work with the KEP. That's how I interpreted your sentence, mistakenly or not. So I asked for clarification. Why would you have a problem if Smith & buddies believed they were inspired by a God? I don't have a problem with that or don't see much reason to argue against it. It's virtually impossible to know what they actually truly believed. What they say or wrote they believed with respect to a God and what they truly thought are not necessarily the same. So if your point was you have no problem in accepting Smith & buddies truly believed they were inspired by God in translating, that comment seems rather superfluous, doesn't add much if any insight because that's what they claimed. So I wondered why you would even use that term "inspired translation" why even say you have no problem with "inspired translation". Why are you using apologetic phrasing? Why not just say that you have no problem with the KEP being a group effort, why add "inspired translation" as a component? What makes their translation efforts "inspired" Trevor? Just because they claim that? Now if Smith had actually translated the papyri correctly perhaps then you might suggest "inspiration" involved. So I found your wording sounding more apologetic than objectively scholarly.

What I do have a problem with is bad apologetics. I think some Mormon apologists are driven by their desire to protect the faith and save souls to make methodological compromises driven by those desires. This is why I am immediately skeptical of missing manuscripts of the Book of Abraham, etc. Really, the only reason to posit the existence of this early, early manuscript of the Book of Abraham is to save Mormons from the embarrassment of the KEP.

I don't understand enough of the details with the KEP nor the manuscripts to comfortably discuss it. Off hand, pure speculation, regarding the manuscripts that Parrish & Williams were writing it would seem to me that Smith wanted 2 copies so that he didn't have a repeat of what happened when preparing the Book of Mormon of losing the one and only work in progress scribal copy. Since 2 would be needed when it came time for printing, why not prepare 2 during the work in progress stage. So I tend to agree with the apologists that the manuscripts were meant to be like xerox copies. I also think Smith had an original rough draft which could have been written by someone else besides himself and that he read it to the scribes sometimes and other times gave it to them to copy. I think he wanted it to appear to outsiders that he translated to the scribes directly from the papyri, so he didn't want that copy in his or someone else's handwriting kept. I think Smith wanted corrections to be copied because it would appear to be more authentic, as if he was translating on the go as opposed to it all worked out and corrected in advance. So far when I read the apologists I find their presentations (this includes mak) more persuasive than Kevin for example. But I appreciate full well, that I do not know the details to properly evaluate.

I don't concern myself with what the agenda is of the apologists, I only concern myself with what appears to be the best explanation of the data..but I don't have a good grasp of the data at this point.

On the other hand, some critics are equally driven by their prejudices to judge Joseph Smith as a simple con artists because they do not believe. I think that agenda can equally lead to distortion.

Trevor, I don't think Smith was a con artist because I'm an atheist and therefore want to be critical of Smith. The evidence establishes he was, even before he got involved with Mormonism. And of course I will look at evidence and reason from the perspective that the supernatural is not involved. You think I'm biased if I look at the evidence from that perspective? When you or anyone else establishes with credibility the supernatural then you can think I'm biased to reject it in evaluating evidence. by the way, I likely have a much different attitude of Smith as a con artist than a believer does. I probably need a better word to use, because I don't perceive it pejoratively. I see Smith's conning as if he was an actor or entertainer, who manipulates people but he's not necessarily intending harm. He likely appreciated if it wasn't him manipulating then someone or some other group would, so it might as well be him. It was a means to a living for himself, family and friends with some occasional perks.

[_Bazooka]

Bumping

[_maklelan]

Bumping

Yes, bumping a four-year-old thread because you're hoping someone who knows better can come around and make the case against me that you can't. Sounds like a great plan.

[_Sanctorian]

Bumping

Yes, bumping a four-year-old thread because you're hoping someone who knows better can come around and make the case against me that you can't. Sounds like a great plan.

For one that accuses us of misrepresenting you all the time, you sure like to throw mud back. How exactly do you know this was Bazooka's plan? Maybe he was bumping so it would be on the front page for him to reference tonight.

[_maklelan]

For one that accuses us of misrepresenting you all the time, you sure like to throw mud back.

I'm sorry. I won't point out the naïveté and fallacies of those relentlessly attacking my integrity.

How exactly do you know this was Bazooka's plan?

Because it's way over his head but he doesn't seem to want to just abandon this rhetorical crusade he's on.

Maybe he was bumping so it would be on the front page for him to reference tonight.

Yeah, that would save so much time over just using the link I gave him.