Boylan’s latest podcast calculates gold plates were too heavy

[drumdude]

Scholars can’t examine the plates because there never were any plates.

Is Dan having a stroke?

[Tapir Rodeo]

Scholars can’t examine the plates because there never were any plates.

Is Dan having a stroke?

Wait, is Dan saying that scholars today can examine the plates?

[Tapir Rodeo]

Maybe the Mopologists can try running a few miles with a 60 pound weight while people attack them and see how they do lol. Here is their chance to show it can be done.

With a 40-60 lbs object in their arms? The mopologists? Those guys are wet sacks of crap, never gonna happen.

- Doc

I'll issue a formal challenge to them.

We can find a high school track (each lap is usually a quarter mile) and a 60 pound kettle bell. The Mopologists can find someone who approximates Jospeh Smith's size, athletic ability, and leg injury. The rules will be as follows.

The "Jospeh Smith" stand in must:
1) complete 12 laps (3 miles) carrying the weight under his arm wrapped in a jacket.
2) walk the first mile, at the completion of this mile he will climb over a log, be struck in the head with a blunt object, and then fight off an attacker.
3) He must run the next two miles. At two random points in the next two miles he will be attacked by groups of men trying to steal the weight.

Failure will occur if the "Jospeh Smith" stand in:
1) stops to rest.
2) can't retain control of the plates.
3) is incapacitated and can't continue.

That seems fair to me. Maybe DCP will give it a shot lol.

[Marcus]

... (I won’t bother to note, below, where supporting evidence for the discussants’ claims is absent because non-existent.It’s every single time.) Here are some of the highlights of the conversation, such as it was...

<other claims in list snipped>

...The Book of Mormon was written in imitation “Bible English.” (On that purported “Bible English,” see the work of Stan Carmack and Royal Skousen.)

What continually surprises me about such assertions is the sheer baseless confidence with which they’re laid down, not only as if there were conclusive evidence to prove them true — which, to put it mildly, there is not — but as if, and I’m again being modest here, there weren’t considerable evidence calling them into serious question.

Wow. Skousen himself withdrew about 80% of his pieces of evidence that he and carmack claimed supported the point about Skousen's Early Modern English theories, and the discussion over the insupportability of the final 20% is overwhelming.

I'd like to see Peterson engage in a Jenkins-Hamblin debate with linguists over these claims, but obviously he won't. All he does is preach to his choir, and complain no one outside his choir will engage him.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

... (I won’t bother to note, below, where supporting evidence for the discussants’ claims is absent because non-existent.It’s every single time.) Here are some of the highlights of the conversation, such as it was...

<other claims in list snipped>

...The Book of Mormon was written in imitation “Bible English.” (On that purported “Bible English,” see the work of Stan Carmack and Royal Skousen.)

What continually surprises me about such assertions is the sheer baseless confidence with which they’re laid down, not only as if there were conclusive evidence to prove them true — which, to put it mildly, there is not — but as if, and I’m again being modest here, there weren’t considerable evidence calling them into serious question.

Wow. Skousen himself withdrew about 80% of his pieces of evidence that he and carmack claimed supported the point about Skousen's Early Modern English theories, and the discussion over the insupportability of the final 20% is overwhelming.

I'd like to see Peterson engage in a Jenkins-Hamblin debate with linguists over these claims, but obviously he won't. All he does is preach to his choir, and complain no one outside his choir will engage him.

Good grief! Another example of DCP's trademark honesty that we've all come to know and love.

[Rivendale]

With a 40-60 lbs object in their arms? The mopologists? Those guys are wet sacks of crap, never gonna happen.

- Doc

I'll issue a formal challenge to them.

We can find a high school track (each lap is usually a quarter mile) and a 60 pound kettle bell. The Mopologists can find someone who approximates Jospeh Smith's size, athletic ability, and leg injury. The rules will be as follows.

The "Jospeh Smith" stand in must:
1) complete 12 laps (3 miles) carrying the weight under his arm wrapped in a jacket.
2) walk the first mile, at the completion of this mile he will climb over a log, be struck in the head with a blunt object, and then fight off an attacker.
3) He must run the next two miles. At two random points in the next two miles he will be attacked by groups of men trying to steal the weight.

Failure will occur if the "Jospeh Smith" stand in:
1) stops to rest.
2) can't retain control of the plates.
3) is incapacitated and can't continue.

That seems fair to me. Maybe DCP will give it a shot lol.

They will just inject god magic. Something similar happens when dowsers are tested. They create all kinds of excuses for their failures. Equally strange is how god magic vanishes when it is most needed. The attack on Carthage jail is a prime example. God is just like the Mormon church today. Using up members then tossing them into the garbage can so the caravan can move on.

[Physics Guy]

If the Carmack-Skousen Early Modern English thing was even a possibly tenable hypothesis, they would have published it in some kind of mainstream linguistics journal by now. Their thesis is by no means unacceptable because of any religious implications. It's simply a linguistic statement about the language of the Book Mormon, and accepting it wouldn't imply the slightest acceptance of any Mormon religious claims. People who thought that the Book of Mormon was a sheer hoax would be perfectly able to maintain that belief and just revise their guess about when the hoax was perpetrated. The suggestion that Smith might have found an older fake scripture would make for a provocative literary and historical mystery: who really wrote it, and how did a copy find its way to Joseph Smith? Even if peer reviewers found the Early Modern English hypothesis unlikely on balance, I bet that some journal or other would agree to publish the paper just to stimulate research on an intriguing long-shot question—as long as the case wasn't outright ridiculous.

It would take work for Carmack and Skousen to get a paper published that way, all right. It ought to be worth it to them, though. Confirming that it was at least possible that the Book of Mormon was something more interesting than just badly faked King James English would be a respectable rebuttal to one of the most grating critical sneers against the Book of Mormon. Anyone who wanted to uphold the authenticity of the Book of Mormon as Scripture ought to be willing to work very hard indeed for a prize like that.

The only reason why this Early Modern English Book of Mormon theory hasn't been published in any real journal is that it actually is outright ridiculous. If Carmack and Skousen haven't even tried to get it published outside Interpreter, that just means that it's outright ridiculous and, deep down, they know it, so they're settling for doing apologetics theatre, playing for applause from the choir.

[drumdude]

If the Carmack-Skousen Early Modern English thing was even a possibly tenable hypothesis, they would have published it in some kind of mainstream linguistics journal by now. Their thesis is by no means unacceptable because of any religious implications. It's simply a linguistic statement about the language of the Book Mormon, and accepting it wouldn't imply the slightest acceptance of any Mormon religious claims. People who thought that the Book of Mormon was a sheer hoax would be perfectly able to maintain that belief and just revise their guess about when the hoax was perpetrated. The suggestion that Smith might have found an older fake scripture would make for a provocative literary and historical mystery: who really wrote it, and how did a copy find its way to Joseph Smith? Even if peer reviewers found the Early Modern English hypothesis unlikely on balance, I bet that some journal or other would agree to publish the paper just to stimulate research on an intriguing long-shot question—as long as the case wasn't outright ridiculous.

It would take work for Carmack and Skousen to get a paper published that way, all right. It ought to be worth it to them, though. Confirming that it was at least possible that the Book of Mormon was something more interesting than just badly faked King James English would be a respectable rebuttal to one of the most grating critical sneers against the Book of Mormon. Anyone who wanted to uphold the authenticity of the Book of Mormon as Scripture ought to be willing to work very hard indeed for a prize like that.

The only reason why this Early Modern English Book of Mormon theory hasn't been published in any real journal is that it actually is outright ridiculous. If Carmack and Skousen haven't even tried to get it published outside Interpreter, that just means that it's outright ridiculous and, deep down, they know it, so they're settling for doing apologetics theatre, playing for applause from the choir.

Wouldn't you think this might weight heavily on scholars who spent their lives studying real academic work? They are intelligent enough to know what they're doing.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

I'll issue a formal challenge to them.

We can find a high school track (each lap is usually a quarter mile) and a 60 pound kettle bell. The Mopologists can find someone who approximates Jospeh Smith's size, athletic ability, and leg injury. The rules will be as follows.

The "Jospeh Smith" stand in must:
1) complete 12 laps (3 miles) carrying the weight under his arm wrapped in a jacket.
2) walk the first mile, at the completion of this mile he will climb over a log, be struck in the head with a blunt object, and then fight off an attacker.
3) He must run the next two miles. At two random points in the next two miles he will be attacked by groups of men trying to steal the weight.

Failure will occur if the "Jospeh Smith" stand in:
1) stops to rest.
2) can't retain control of the plates.
3) is incapacitated and can't continue.

That seems fair to me. Maybe DCP will give it a shot lol.

Tapir,

I've heard through the grapevine that one famous Mopologist has taken up your challenge. This Mopologist was seen today training on the lawn of the Interpreter Foundation, holding a 12 ounce Subway sandwich. Baby steps, baby steps.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

One of the luminaries commenting on Dorknpork’s blog suggested Joseph Smith could do this because he was a farmer, and because farmers have a strong grip it means they have ultra-strength or something.

To dumb whit:

I have shaken hands with enough people who had to milk cows regularly to know that those with an agrarian background have a degree of strength that is both impressive and long lasting, e.g., one of the brethren whose hand I shook was well into his eighties and still had an impressive shake. I have no problem believing that Joseph could have run with the plates. The idea that he couldn't have or that this is a smoking gun is simply not a serious argument. It is more of a touchstone revealing the attitude of the person sharing it.

-_-