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I was reading over at MA&D and there was a post by a Mr. Kevin Christensen of Pittsburg Penn, about Book of Mormon Archaeology and he wrote:

"This is the Idiot Savant Joseph. A savant keeping the over 700 geographic references straight while dictating while fabricating, and then conviently turning idiot when asked about the text later."

what 700 geographic references? I thought that nobody has ever been able to remotely pin a place for the setting of the Book of Mormon. If you have 700 georgraphic references and you don't know where you are or what is being described then something is wrong.

here is the link; you need to use your brain to get there.

http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index. ... 455&st=100

thestyleguy wrote:"This is the Idiot Savant Joseph. A savant keeping the over 700 geographic references straight while dictating while fabricating, and then conviently turning idiot when asked about the text later."

Heh. Yeah, god and Jesus appearing to him, and an angel giving him 1,400 year old gold plates that he translates by putting a magic rock in his hat.

Much more believable right?

thestyleguy wrote:what 700 geographic references? I thought that nobody has ever been able to remotely pin a place for the setting of the Book of Mormon. If you have 700 georgraphic references and you don't know where you are or what is being described then something is wrong.

I'm still waiting for one.


Phaedrus

"This is the Idiot Savant Joseph. A savant keeping the over 700 geographic references straight while dictating while fabricating, and then conviently turning idiot when asked about the text later."

This sounds like evidence for the Rigdon/Spauling theory.

;-)

~dancer~

700 geographic references in a 500 page book? That's more than one new reference per page. It seems to me that that's a lot of geographic references.

here is something that led to this response. Maybe I'm not understanding how he is responding to this:

QUOTE
A conscious fabricator could get over ambitious and fail to keep 700 geographic references straight, as evidence by his later confusion about the geographic details. Joseph's confusion and failure is not straightforward evidence that he was a translator.

Christensen responds:

This is the Idiot Savant Joseph. A savant keeping the over 700 geographic references straight while dictating while fabricating, and then conviently turning idiot when asked about the text later.

I personally find Joseph as a translator to be more consistent with the evidence I see.

Isn't he referring to geographical details, like "there was a river running north and south". I think he's saying that there are 700 of these geographic details that Joseph Smith keeps in his head, without having them come into conflict later on. I don't know if this is true or not, maybe someone should check it out?

Is that just in the Book of Mormon?? There is no way there are 700 geographic references in there.

It occurs to me . . . wrote:Isn't he referring to geographical details, like "there was a river running north and south". I think he's saying that there are 700 of these geographic details that Joseph Smith keeps in his head, without having them come into conflict later on. I don't know if this is true or not, maybe someone should check it out?

I'm not sure that you can check it out unless you know the place that is being desribed.

Scottie wrote:Is that just in the Book of Mormon?? There is no way there are 700 geographic references in there.

During the confusing back-and-forth wars (i.e. jumping back and forth between the wars that are being fought on different fronts, without letting you know that it's switched gears), there's oodles of 'em.

I don’t think he’s necessarily using “geographic references” as a term to only denote cities, states, etc. I imagine he’s probably using it broadly to include mountains, valleys, rivers, etc.

I think Kevin was probably using a bit of hyperbole. He's a really bright guy in my opinion, and this doesn't sound like an evidence or argument that he would normally brandish.