Shulem challenges RFM’s magical powers

[Tator]

Yeah well, how much money do you think you could have gotten by scrapping his gold plates? I think the case is closed that you wouldn't have gotten much. The plates under the cloth were fake just like the novel he dictated was not historical by any means. It was ALL a fraud. All of it!

Don't spend any money on a degree in literary studies, Shulem, because Joseph Smith's contemporaries knew more about literary genre than you do.

The Book of Mormon is a Bible, not a novel.

They called it. That is what he made it to be. Novel just isn't the right word.

I'm good with novel. What's the right word then? Pretend Bible, made up Bible, imaginary Bible?

[Bret Ripley]

The translators of the King James Bible were careful in selecting the words in which to translate and obviously the word "START" was never ever employed.

Long before the KJV, Wycliffe used derivations of "start" in his translation and several modern translations have followed suit (e.g. RSV, NIV). It should hardly be necessary to point to the obvious implication: Wycliffe had a seat on the celebrated "ghost committee" yet doesn't consider himself too hoity-toity to lend a hand to translators who don't have access to magic rocks and hardly ever bother to bury their source material in the woods.

[Kishkumen]

I'm good with novel. What's the right word then? Pretend Bible, made up Bible, imaginary Bible?

Bible works just fine. Imaginary on what basis? Given the dubious or fictional authors of much of the original Bible, it is not clear to me what makes the Mormon Bible all that different in this regard.

[Shulem]

I'm good with novel. What's the right word then? Pretend Bible, made up Bible, imaginary Bible?

Bible works just fine. Imaginary on what basis? Given the dubious or fictional authors of much of the original Bible, it is not clear to me what makes the Mormon Bible all that different in this regard.

Many of the characters in the Bible were real people. The geography is also real. All of the characters of the Book of Mormon are fictional and the geography is make-believe. The Book of Mormon is NOT a Bible. Tator is correct.

[Kishkumen]

Many of the characters in the Bible were real people. The geography is also real. All of the characters of the Book of Mormon are fictional and the geography is make-believe. The Book of Mormon is NOT a Bible. Tator is correct.

Neither one of you are right. Many of the characters in the Bible are made up, or their lives are so heavily mythologized that it hardly matters.

[Tator]

There really is a Sea of Galilee in the Bible, where is Zarahemla?

[Kishkumen]

There really is a Sea of Galilee in the Bible, where is Zarahemla?

You guys are barking up the wrong tree. There is no simple split between Bible:factual; novel:fictional.

The Book of Mormon was obviously written to emulate the Bible, or, in other words, to be an American Bible. It fits the formal characteristics of the Bible well enough to qualify as such, in my opinion. It was Smith’s decision to take the Bible as his generic model, and he wrote his Bible accordingly. He did not call it a novel, nor did he seek to write a novel.

All you guys are doing here is picking up sad and outworn Christian anti-Mormon tropes when they are of no use to you. I doubt either of you thinks the Bible is sacrosanct, so what are you protecting it from? It makes a lot more sense to recognize as factual what is clearly the case: Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon as an American Bible.

[Tator]

Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon as an American Bible.

So is it fiction or non-fiction?

[Shulem]

Many of the characters in the Bible were real people. The geography is also real. All of the characters of the Book of Mormon are fictional and the geography is make-believe. The Book of Mormon is NOT a Bible. Tator is correct.

Neither one of you are right. Many of the characters in the Bible are made up, or their lives are so heavily mythologized that it hardly matters.

I am right when I said many of the characters in the Bible were real people. Kings of Egypt are also mentioned. The Book of Mormon characters are fiction, all fake. Bible geography is real. Book of Mormon geography is based on imagination using Delmarva.

[Shulem]

Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon as an American Bible.

So is it fiction or non-fiction?

Pure fiction. All fake. Not real. Fantasy. Lies.