Roman Story & Book of Mormon Similarities

[_TAK]

Lame!

[_DonBradley]

LOAP, I agree the cave was only seen in vision. But I think there's every indication it was understood to be real and inside that hill...

Don

[_William Schryver]

Joseph Smith certainly did describe a cave in the Hill Cumorah, of which we have numerous accounts, both unfriendly and friendly, and about which a piece has been published in The Journal of Book of Mormon Studies. We have no surviving firsthand statements from Joseph Smith on the matter, but we have quite enough from David Whitmer, Brigham Young (relying on Oliver Cowdery), and Smith family neighbors.

by the way, Dale, cool stuff on the tumulus.

Don

You people don't watch enough Star Trek. You see, what they did was walk to a certain "transport point" on the hill, and they were then beamed to the actual cave in Mesoamerica.

Either that, or the opening to the cave is actually always there, it's just that there is a constant holographic projection of a hillside, and so it fools people who don't know better.

Either that, or it's like the entrance to the "Pit of Despair" in The Princess Bride. You have to know the right knot to touch.

The bottom line, as far as I'm concerned, is that God has cooler technology than us, and concealing a cave full of ancient records isn't any problem for Him. He's got lots more (and better) tricks up His sleeve than that.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

LOAP, I agree the cave was only seen in vision. But I think there's every indication it was understood to be real and inside that hill...

Don

I have no problem with that, and of course, it doesn't indicate the participants were borrowing from the Roman story.

[_Roger]

You people don't watch enough Star Trek. You see, what they did was walk to a certain "transport point" on the hill, and they were then beamed to the actual cave in Mesoamerica.

Either that, or the opening to the cave is actually always there, it's just that there is a constant holographic projection of a hillside, and so it fools people who don't know better.

Either that, or it's like the entrance to the "Pit of Despair" in The Princess Bride. You have to know the right knot to touch.

Here William singlehandedly illustrates the techniques and thought processes employed by Sidney Rigdon & Co. when converting Spalding's romance into a Book for the ages.

[_DonBradley]

LOAP, I agree the cave was only seen in vision. But I think there's every indication it was understood to be real and inside that hill...

Don

I have no problem with that, and of course, it doesn't indicate the participants were borrowing from the Roman story.

I do recognize some parallels between the two accounts--in fact, I think this is one of the stronger and more interesting points of analogy put forward by Spalding advocates. But I'm with you--it is far, far, far from demonstrating dependence of one story on the other, or another by the same author.

I wonder if it wasn't just employing a known formula for describing an archaeological find...?

Don

[_Roger]

DCP wrote:

Do you really not see the potential problem of a carefully chosen matched pair of lists that could be constructed in order to make two very different texts appear almost identical?

Especially if, as with Grant Palmer's venture, the order of the lists is surreptiously altered so that they seem more similar still? Do you really think that's merely an "LDS apologist's" (possibly feigned) methodological concern?[/

Geez, yeah. If that occurred I'd see your point. So then Dale "carefully" "constructed" his list of parallels "in order to make two very different texts appear almost identical"?

I'm thinking Dale might take issue with that. Although I don't know, it takes a lot to get Dale riled.

[_William Schryver]

You people don't watch enough Star Trek. You see, what they did was walk to a certain "transport point" on the hill, and they were then beamed to the actual cave in Mesoamerica.

Either that, or the opening to the cave is actually always there, it's just that there is a constant holographic projection of a hillside, and so it fools people who don't know better.

Either that, or it's like the entrance to the "Pit of Despair" in The Princess Bride. You have to know the right knot to touch.

Here William singlehandedly illustrates the techniques and thought processes employed by Sidney Rigdon & Co. when converting Spalding's romance into a Book for the ages.

I did?

I'm afraid I don't "get" what you're trying to say.

[_Daniel Peterson]

It could be done deliberately or unconsciously.

In fact, the very act of extracting and listing purported similarities inevitably highlights them, of course, and simultaneously thrusts differences into the background. So it always distorts. The question is merely whether the distortion is lethal to the venture or not.

[_Roger]

Wil:

I did?

I'm afraid I don't "get" what you're trying to say.

Just a joke William. And it ain't all that funny when you have to explain it. Might not have been that funny anyway.

Nevertheless, you've obviously watched the Princess Bride so you can't be all bad.