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The Jaredites are beginning to look as if they could be as damaging to Smith's credibility as the Book of Abraham. Thus:

1. It has long been obvious that the story of the barges is so nonsensically impractical that you have to believe God preserved the voyagers by means that were almost wholly miraculous. Of course that is fine if you believe in miracles, but ...

2. In the Wentworth letter Smith makes it clear he thinks the Jaredites (around 2,250 BC) were the first inhabitants of (at least North) America: see the other thread on this. He was just flat wrong, despite the fact that he claimed to have had his information on early New world demographics from an angel, as well as from the golden plates that the angel (Moroni) revealed to him.

BUT ALSO:

The whole story of the Jaredites depends on the literal truth of the story of the Tower of Babel, and the Confusion of Tongues. See Ether 1:

33 Which Jared came forth with his brother and their families, with some others and their families, from the great tower, at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people, and swore in his wrath that they should be scattered upon all the cface of the earth; and according to the word of the Lord the people were scattered.
34 And the brother of Jared being a large and mighty man, and a man highly favored of the Lord, Jared, his brother, said unto him: Cry unto the Lord, that he will not confound us that we may not understand our words.
35 And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did cry unto the Lord, and the Lord had compassion upon Jared; therefore he did not confound the language of Jared; and Jared and his brother were not confounded.
36 Then Jared said unto his brother: Cry again unto the Lord, and it may be that he will turn away his anger from them who are our friends, that he confound not their language.
37 And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did cry unto the Lord, and the Lord had compassion upon their friends and their families also, that they were not confounded.

Now according to Ussher's chronology, which was certainly the one known to Smith (it's the one that places the Creation in 4004 BC):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology

the tower of Babel episode took place around 2250 BC. So we have to believe that up to that time, as Genesis 11:1 tells us

1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech

This is however utterly contradicted by the evidence of early writing in at least two languages, Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, both of which were already in use to write two quite unrelated languages a thousand years before the supposed date of the Tower of Babel. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_in_ancient_Egypt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer#Language_and_writing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_language

(I use these sources purely for the reader's convenience)


And leaving languages aside, there is no archeological sign whatsoever of humanity not having already been dispersed over the whole earth from long before this date - although the scattering of humanity is just as essential a part of the Babel narrative as the Confusion of Tongues.

An essential part of the story of the Jaredites is thus flat contrary to known history and archeology. The problem is actually far worse than the case of the later Book of Mormon peoples, for whom the "they just haven't found the evidence yet" defence retains some remote plausibility. You can't have the Jaredite story without the Tower of Babel, and you can't have the Tower of Babel without junking the whole of early Middle/Near Eastern archeology, and ignoring the first thousand years of writing in cuneiform and hieroglyphics.

Isn't that just too high a price for any reasonable person to pay?

I've read things in the last couple of years about how symbols were found in some, I guess we could call them cave drawings, in China, that are directly related to the modern versions of some pictogram in the Chinese alphabet today, and that they dated from thousands of years before the cuneiform and the heiroglyphics.

You make a bunch of great points. Of course, it's pretty clear that the Jaredites are fictional characters who were invented by the 19th century author or authors of the Book of Mormon.

Oh yeah, add to this list the steel weapons that are mentioned as having been forged by the Jaredites. There was a hole argument about that on MAD several months ago that I was involved in. I don't think the believers made a very convincing case, but then I would say that, wouldn't I?

I agree the Jaradites create a huge problem for the Book of Mormon historicity.

My observation is that many mainstream Christians understand the obviously make-believe story of the Tower of Babel as mythology. I don't think too many knowledgeable believers today believe it has even a spark of reality.

OTOH, LDS are in a dilemma; they can't really acknowledge the ToB story as myth without declaring the Book of Mormon untrue at worst, "inspired fiction" at best.

I'm interested in the apologetic/believer response on this; how do y'all reconcile it?

Also, for those mainstream Christians on the board, where do you stand with the ToB story?

:-)

~dancer~

Sethbag wrote:I've read things in the last couple of years about how symbols were found in some, I guess we could call them cave drawings, in China, that are directly related to the modern versions of some pictogram in the Chinese alphabet today, and that they dated from thousands of years before the cuneiform and the heiroglyphics.

You make a bunch of great points. Of course, it's pretty clear that the Jaredites are fictional characters who were invented by the 19th century author or authors of the Book of Mormon.

Oh yeah, add to this list the steel weapons that are mentioned as having been forged by the Jaredites. There was a hole argument about that on MAD several months ago that I was involved in. I don't think the believers made a very convincing case, but then I would say that, wouldn't I?

Maybe you are thinking of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Written_Chinese

In 2003, tentative evidence was found at 賈湖/贾湖 Jiǎhú, an archaeological site in the 河南 Hénán province of China, for a still earlier form of Chinese writing. Some symbols were found that bear striking resemblance to certain modern characters, such as 目 mù "eye". Since the Jiǎhú site dates from about 7000 to 5800 BCE, it predates the earliest confirmed Chinese writing by well over 3,000 years. The nature of this finding—whether it represents true writing (that is, a general mechanism for expression) or simply proto-writing (which comprises a limited set of symbols)—is still disputed. Critics contend that if the Jiǎhú finding really represented a direct ancestor of modern Chinese writing, it would indicate that Chinese writing remained relatively static for three millennia, at a time when China was sparsely populated.[36]

Chinese writing in fully developed form involving texts of at least sentence length is not however (so far) evidenced archeologically until after about 1500 BC. So (leaving the Jiahu find aside) this is not a hit against the Tower of Babel 'Confusion of Tongues c. 2250 BC' story in the same way as the much older Sumerian and Egyptian evidence.

However China was clearly and continuously inhabited by human beings from well before Ussher's dates for the Tower of Babel, the Flood, and indeed the Creation itself. No sign of 'scattering of the nations c. 2250 BC' here.

I agree with you of course that the stories of steel swords are very unfavorable to the truth of the Jaredite narrative. But they can get away with that (in their own eyes) by saying 'steel' really meant 'obsidian'. Or something.

By the way, has anyone ever commented on Smith's bizarre usage of 'molten' here:

Ether 7:

8 And it came to pass that Shule was angry with his brother; and Shule waxed strong, and became mighty as to the strength of a man; and he was also mighty in judgment.
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.

Clearly here 'molten' is used by Smith as a verb, meaning 'to produce metal by smelting'

But I have just checked the full Oxford English Dictionary, which gives examples of usage of words back through the centuries until their earliest known appearance. 'Molten' is simply an old past participle of the verb 'to melt', meaning 'having been melted'. Thus one might say:

'Molten metal flowed out of the furnace'.

It cannot be used as an active verb part like 'melt' itself: you cannot say *'he molten the metal'.

Webster's dictionary, which sometimes captures an American usage differing from the British usage favored by the OED, agrees.

This looks very much as if Smith wanted to say 'he smelted' or 'he melted' , but (as usual) tried for an archaic diction: and not content with 'he did melt' or 'he did smelt', which would have been real English, he produced *'he did molten', which is not English at all.

Chap wrote:This looks very much as if Smith wanted to say 'he smelted' or 'he melted' , but (as usual) tried for an archaic diction: and not content with 'he did melt' or 'he did smelt', which would have been real English, he produced *'he did molten', which is not English at all.

Not surprising, since he wasn't working with Egyptian at all either.

harmony wrote:

Chap wrote:This looks very much as if Smith wanted to say 'he smelted' or 'he melted' , but (as usual) tried for an archaic diction: and not content with 'he did melt' or 'he did smelt', which would have been real English, he produced *'he did molten', which is not English at all.

Not surprising, since he wasn't working with Egyptian at all either.

Aaaaargh! I forgot the Egyptian angle ... soon someone will come online to inform me that Smith's non-standard use of the form 'molten' reflects a genuine and typically Egyptian grammatical peculiarity, and thus (like chiasmus) is another proof of the historicity of the Book of Mormon.

Why didn't I think of that before I posted?

Chap wrote:It has long been obvious that the story of the barges is so nonsensically impractical that you have to believe God preserved the voyagers by means that were almost wholly miraculous.

Tight like unto a dish!!

silentkid wrote:Tight like unto a dish!!

ahhh...seeing that never gets old. rofl.

Chap wrote:The Jaredites are beginning to look as if they could be as damaging to Smith's credibility as the Book of Abraham.

I doubt it. But then, as a Book-of-Abraham-ophile I'm probably biased.

In the Wentworth letter Smith makes it clear he thinks the Jaredites (around 2,250 BC) were the first inhabitants of (at least North) America: see the other thread on this. He was just flat wrong, despite the fact that he claimed to have had his information on early New world demographics from an angel, as well as from the golden plates that the angel (Moroni) revealed to him.

You have a hypothesis, but nothing conclusive as noted in the other thread.

The whole story of the Jaredites depends on the literal truth of the story of the Tower of Babel, and the Confusion of Tongues.

A historical event yes, just as the flood. However, not necessarily how it's portrayed in English considering the possible Hebrew usages.....

This is however utterly contradicted by the evidence of early writing in at least two languages, Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, both of which were already in use to write two quite unrelated languages a thousand years before the supposed date of the Tower of Babel.

I addressed this in the other thread. It seems to have gone unanswered so I'll post it again here....

This actually might be some good evidence for a local flood. If Genesis 10:5 takes place before the tower of Babel, then the language confounded at the tower was the local language which makes more sense in the case of a local flood.

In that case, then we see other possible Hebrews usages for "all the earth" and "whole earth" ('erets ) comming into play. These could just as easily be the "whole district" or the "whole nation" etc.