Episode 4: Interpretering Book of Mormon Genetics

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Philo Sofee
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Re: Episode 4: Interpretering Book of Mormon Genetics

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Moksha wrote:
Sat Jul 31, 2021 7:43 pm
Just for fun, running a concurrent Bayesian Analysis on Aesop's Fables might return some interesting proofs of Book of Mormon validity.
I'm on it!
dastardly stem
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Re: Episode 4: Interpretering Book of Mormon Genetics

Post by dastardly stem »

Billy Shears wrote:
Fri Jul 30, 2021 11:19 pm
The Central Issue: ”Others”
On this episode, I couldn’t get past Kyler’s gaslighting about what the Book of Mormon actually says and how it has historically been interpreted. He claims “the Book of Mormon doesn’t actually say that [Lehi and his posterity were the principal ancestors of the American Indians],” and that “this thought isn’t one that would’ve entered the mind of anyone in the nineteenth century.” Rather, this was just impulsively put into the 1981 introduction of the Book of Mormon by somebody who hadn’t read it very carefully.

Kyler’s defense of this gaslighting is a link to the paper, “When Lehi’s Party Arrived in the Land, Did They Find Others There?” by John L. Sorenson. The paper is available on Book of Mormon central here:

https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org ... hers-there

Sorenson’s argument is based on the premise that the Book of Mormon is historical, full stop. Given that premise, it looks at inconsistency after inconsistency in the Book of Mormon and argues that the best way to reconcile the inconsistency is to posit “others.” This is an interesting approach, because the inconsistencies Sorenson points out all have a much more obvious explanation: his assumption that the Book of Mormon is historical is false.

For example, the Book of Mormon says that after about 40 years of being in the promised land, the Nephites had “multiplied in the land” (2 Nephi 5:13), had already had wars and contentions with the Lamanites (2 Nephi 5:34), and were already desiring many wives and concubines (Jacob 1:15). However, given the size of the original Lehite party and the realities of population growth, none of this could have happened. Therefore, Sorenson concludes, when Nephi said his people “multiplied in the land of promise,” what he really meant is that they quickly integrated themselves into a huge population of gentiles.

As another example that proves the Nephites integrated with “others,” Sorenson points out that the Nephites grew corn. Corn is a domesticated crop that the Nephites didn’t have time to domesticate and couldn’t have brought from the old world. Therefore the natives must have taught the Nephites how to grow corn.

As yet another example, Sorenson points out the story of the Mulekites and Lamanites immigrating from the old world at the same time. It says that after a few generations when they met they could not communicate with each other because “their language had become corrupted” (Omni 1:17). According to Sorenson, this isn’t plausible. In Sorenson’s own words,
John Sorenson wrote:“Basic vocabulary” changes at a more or less constant rate among all groups. In the course of the three or four centuries since the ancestors of Zarahemla and of Mosiahish are the same Hebrew tongue in Jerusalem, how different could the two dialects have become, based on what linguists know? They should have been about ninety percent similar, so their separate versions of Hebrew would have remained intelligible to each other.
Sorenson reconciles this by claiming that their languages really weren’t corrupted through the natural evolution of language as the Book of Mormon says, but rather the tiny groups of actual Nephites and Mulekites both immediately integrated with two preexisting nations of “others” and adopted the languages of those nations.
All very good points. I got a kick out of Dr Rasmussen on this, and since I agree with your comments I wanted to specifically call out what he did here.

In Dr. Rasmussen's episode 4:
But the Book of Mormon doesn’t actually say that. It, in fact, implies that there were other people already there when they arrived and that those people continued to interact and interfere with Nephite society.
The "implies" is a link and points the reader to Sherem from Jacob 7:
And now it came to pass after some years had passed away, there came a man among the people of Nephi, whose name was Sherem.
Of course, many have seen the apologetic on this and that means, no doubt, most of his readers are aware of it. So apparently no explanation is needed? But of course, we know this is sketchy. It very well could be that Sherem was a 8 year old when Nephi died and after some years passed he became a man, and went about preaching something. But to call it an implication suggests Jacob intended to suggest there were others. It's really an inference. Readers have concluded since Sherem came among the people, and since he acts as if he never knew Jacob, when they met, then we can infer Sherem was not originally from the group..or some such thing.

Somehow one sketchy inference leaves them with the conclusion that the book leaves open the possibility that the Nephites and Lamanites "have been quickly absorbed into the local populations they encountered".

As you point out, they did this analysis backwards. They learned that there were likely millions of people living on the continents before Lehi arrived, and then they learned the DNA shows the people were not of middle east descent, and then decided to look for clues that may suggest there might have been others whom they quickly encountered and were absorbed. With that all suggested a decades back, in some cases, Dr Rasmussen and others use it to conclude their possibly maybe is really most likely. In one word, fail.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
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Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Episode 4: Interpretering Book of Mormon Genetics

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

The problem these guys don’t want to admit is that all of this, whether it’s Bayesian analysis or apologetics, shouldn’t be necessary. It feels desperate. They can winnow away their concerns by straining at the leg hairs on a gnat, but their process isn’t good for most people. Most people can see it for the convoluted mess that Mormonism is, and even if Dr. Rasmussen can make the math work somehow - he can’t - the Mormon church’s inevitable transition to a full on real estate development company, an agro business, and private capital management firm is inevitable.

- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
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