Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_robuchan]

Forgive me for my rant, but if I can't rely on my definitions for horse or steel or brother or year or dark skin, how in the hell can I rely on my definition for words like faith, baptism, prayer, atonement??

[_Runtu]

Forgive me for my rant, but if I can't rely on my definitions for horse or steel or brother or year or dark skin, how in the hell can I rely on my definition for words like faith, baptism, prayer, atonement??

Unfortunately, some apologetics seems focused on stripping the text of any discernible meaning, as if the words in the book can be shaped into whatever is needed. It's frustrating, obviously, but it demonstrates the basic weakness of the apologetic position. My favorite example of this is the argument that says, although horses and chariots are associated with travel, the text doesn't explicitly mention anyone riding horses or horses pulling chariots; therefore, we're reading something into the text that isn't there.

A more egregious example is that of explaining steel. Nephi tells us how he made steel (smelting ore--"molten" being the operative word--with high heat and bellows) and goes on to say that he taught his people to make tools and swords with that technology. Not only that, but the Book of Ether tells us that the Jaredites had the same technology:

9 Wherefore, he came to the hill Ephraim, and he did molten out of the hill, and made swords out of steel for those whom he had drawn away with him; and after he had armed them with swords he returned to the city Nehor, and gave battle unto his brother Corihor, by which means he obtained the kingdom and restored it unto his father Kib.

Nevertheless, we get this nonsense from Bill Hamblin:

Note that the term “smelt” is never used in the Book of Mormon. This, again, is a modern conflation of ancient and modern concepts and practices.

So is "molten," obviously.

I'm with you. This kind of deceptive BS is frustrating, but it's more an indication of the apologist's dishonesty. The irony of lying to defend the truth has apparently escaped the notice of the apologist.

[_sock puppet]

What is Hunt's background? Was it, at the time he wrote the Late War, as an uneducated farm boy in rural areas near Palmyra and Manchester?

If not, why would we suppose that Hunt and JSJr might just have shared similar patterns and manners of speech and thought?

[_Spanner]

I don't have time to go through all of the comments, but I just wanted to point out that a quick google books search shows that the language used in the Book of Mormon is far more common than those pushing the Late War thesis seem to realize.

For example: "curious workmanship."

"fine workmanship"

"all manner of cattle"

The same can pretty much done with every "SMOKING GUN!" phrase.

By arguing that the language used in the Book of Mormon is not special you may succeed in delinking the Great War and the Book of Mormon, but you simultaneously destroy the supposed langauge evidences. All of the alleged hebrewims and other language evidences are now dead in the water. The metholodgy is now shown to incredibly flawed and prone to false positives. Where once the arguments were made for their rarity and uniqueness of the langauge of the Book of Mormon they must now be made to show how common it was as you have done above.
You might suceed in separating the Book of Mormon from the late war, but by doing so you will demonstrate the Book of Mormon is simply a product of its time.
So good luck!

This exactly.

If the common language is due to authors writing in the "old style", and it produces all the Hebraic language patterns noted, then all the evidence trotted out by apologists to "prove" the antiquity of the Book of Mormon is nonsense.

Apologists lose the option of taking a "sophisticated" view of Book of Mormon language, and are left with a poorly written, ungrammatical, attempt to ape Jacobean English sprinkled with Appalachian English colloquial terms.

[_Equality]

Apologists lose the option of taking a "sophisticated" view of Book of Mormon language, and are left with a poorly written, ungrammatical, attempt to ape Jacobean English sprinkled with Appalachian English colloquial terms.

Brilliant. I am stealing this.

[Schreech]

Nevo Hi Mary,

You may already be aware of this, but three of your references from the Book of Mormon are quoting or paraphrasing Micah 5:8 (3 Ne. 20:16; 21:12; and Morm. 5:24) and a fourth is quoting Isaiah 5:29 (2 Ne.15:29).

That leaves two "anachronistic" references. And Runtu already anticipated the apologetic response. Brant Gardner comments as follows, regarding Mosiah 20:10: "What we probably have in this case is Joseph substituting a known animal (out of place) for an animal which was also a big cat. In other words, the underlying text would have been 'jaguar' but the translation would be 'lion.'"

The KJV translators did exactly the same sort of thing. See Isaiah 34:13, for example:

"And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls."

The NRSV provides a more accurate translation:

"Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches

Nevo, my next comment to Runtu, was going to be that Mountain Lions don't roar like African lions so some of the figurative language wouldn't make sense.

I suppose the Old Testament quotes within the Book of Mormon would make sense if there was just one single shred of evidence that the Hebrews kept their religious records on plates of metal (as they were portrayed by Joseph) so they could have been taken from Laban. So far it's (if true) historically unique.

[_Spanner]

Something more condemning than this related to dates is the old age that all the patriarchs/kings lived to in the Book of Mormon. Many instances of 80, 90,100, 120 years old. I don't think that was typical for Mesoamerica. But of course Brant Gardner says it depends on what the definition of years is. Fortunately for the Book of Mormon apologist, no word in the Book of Mormon has any meaning to it. Pretty f***ed up way for a God to reveal his most perfect set of doctrine if you ask me.

A year has to be pretty close to the modern year, if the Book of Mormon usage correlates to our usage. For example there are 600ish years between the Lehi's departure from Jerusalem just before it was sacked (as confirmed by the Mulekites) and the birth of Christ. Then 33 years to his death. etc.

Arguing that a year is something different doesn't make sense.

[Guest]

I would agree that the data set is small. However, there are still a number of questions one can ask about the characteristics of the two data sets, both individually, and as compared to one another.

The first question, one that has been asked, is whether or not the two sets have element values that are randomly distributed between 1 and 30. The answer is probably yes for the LW set, and no for the Book of Mormon set.

If you wish to claim that one of the data sets is not random or has elements that are not randomly distributed, you are essentially making the point of the argument.

If you wish to compare the two data sets for difference, without the assumption or expectation that they would be randomly distributed, they can be compared non-parametrically. Turns out that they are different by an applicable non-parametric (rank sign type) test as well.

So, one can argue as to whether or not these statistical comparisons of the data sets mean anything, given the small N, or indeed if one is even asking the right questions.

I would say that if the data sets are complete (all relevant available data for matched pair elements are considered - in this case the first 8 dates to appear in both publications), there has been no pre-selection or cherry picking, and N is sufficient to allow a test for significance (which it is), then one can consider the differences in the two data sets as not due to chance alone.

Beyond this, the meaning or significance of the tests becomes an issue of personal preference or interpretation.

You ignored my questions. At a minimum, you have to throw out the 1,1 date. And possibly three other of those dates. So you only have four dates. If so, that's not going to be statisticaly significant no matter what. Also, numbers are not random. You see more 1's than 9's in actual data like this.

You ignored my answers. Perhaps you should read them again. The data are what they are, namely; all of the dates appearing in the Book of Mormon compared to the first eight dates appearing in Last War. If one uses non-parametric tests to determine if there are differences between data sets, there is no requirement (or expectation) that the data should be randomly (or normally) distributed. And that is exactly the point. One data set is randomly distributed, and one is not. Furthermore, regardless of whether or not they are randomly distributed, they are different.

[cacheman]

Nevo, my next comment to Runtu, was going to be that Mountain Lions don't roar like African lions so some of the figurative language wouldn't make sense.

I suppose the Old Testament quotes within the Book of Mormon would make sense if there was just one single shred of evidence that the Hebrews kept their religious records on plates of metal (as they were portrayed by Joseph) so they could have been taken from Laban. So far it's (if true) historically unique.

There's the rub. Most apologetic arguments work well enough in isolation from the rest of the text and other possibilities. When you put them in the larger context, they tend to fall apart. Look again at the Hamblin piece I referenced, which is built around ignoring the production process described in the Book of Mormon. If you can get your reader to think that the process did not involve smelting ore, your argument that it was just hammered metal or something else seems sort of reasonable.

[_SteelHead]

Nevo, my next comment to Runtu, was going to be that Mountain Lions don't roar like African lions so some of the figurative language wouldn't make sense.

I suppose the Old Testament quotes within the Book of Mormon would make sense if there was just one single shred of evidence that the Hebrews kept their religious records on plates of metal (as they were portrayed by Joseph) so they could have been taken from Laban. So far it's (if true) historically unique.

It is worse than that Mary. You have to show that there was a pre-exile written set of hebrew scripture at all, on any media.