Is the Book of Mormon a 19th century production?

[_mentalgymnast]

From another thread which was veering off topic:

MG: How do you think the Book of Mormon came to be?

Themis:The evidence suggests an 19th century production.

The 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon is essentially what Joseph Smith dictated. Eyewitness accounts bear this out. How was this done? Remember, he had a seer stone inside of a hat for a good portion of the process. The scribes had to keep up with what they heard without paragraphing, punctuation, or knowledge of how a sentence might end. Joseph Smith dictated in blocks of twenty words or so and he himself may not have known where a complicated sentence was going. How do you explain the actual evidence/process in regards to the translation?

I'm assuming you've also read Emma's account in regards to her participation in the the translation process. She mentions that Joseph never worked from notes or script and that whenever he took a break, he would begin again exactly where he left off, without seeing the manuscript or having anyone read back to him the last few sentences he had translated.

Terryl Givens said:

The naked implausibility of gold plates, seer stones, and warrior-angels finds little by way of scientific corroboration, but attributing to a young farmboy the 90-day dictated and unrevised production of a 500-page narrative that incorporates sophisticated literary structures, remarkable Old World parallels, and some 300 references to chronology and 700 to geography with virtually perfect self-consistency is problematic as well.

I think there is more to it than brashly stating that the Book of Mormon is simply an 19th century production.

The narrative complexity in and of itself does not jive with the mode and means of translation.

Look at the book of Ether.

From Grant Hardy:

The genealogy in the first chapter provides the framework for the chronicle of Jaredite kings in the chapters 6 through 11. That is, Joseph dictated a log string of twenty-seven unusual names and then several pages later repeated the list, but this time with stories attached to each name. If he were composing as he went along, this would be quite a feat of memory, especially since the names in the narrative portion are in reverse order from the way they appear in the genealogical list.

Throwing out sound bites such as "The evidence suggests an 19th century production" doesn't do a whole lot to actually show evidence of anything except that you have an opinion.

Is there a Media Matters equivalent for Mormon critics to draw from for their programmed and politically correct (at least for this board) sound bites?

Regards,
MG

Is the evidence overwhelming for a 19th century production of the Book of Mormon?

Regards,
MG

[_CaliforniaKid]

In my opinion, the Book of Mormon's extensive anachronistic use of the Bible poses a much more concrete and difficult problem for the ancient view than the vague appeal to "narrative complexity" does for the 19th century view.

[_Chap]

I do not have a horse in the 'how exactly was the Book of Mormon written' race.

In fact I do not think it is necessary to have a view on that question in order to conclude validly that the content and circumstances of publication of the Book of Mormon give one sufficient grounds for thinking that the most economical and least ambitious explanation of the text's origin is that is an early 19th century American composition with strong biblical (that is, KJV biblical) influences. Others have perhaps argued that case better than I can, and will no doubt do so again.

I suggest therefore that in any discussion that may follow we take care to separate the questions of the context of production, which I suggest may reasonably be surmised, and the mode of production, about which we do not have to agree in order to come to a conclusion on the preceding issue.

[_malkie]

I do not have a horse in the 'how exactly was the Book of Mormon written' race.

In fact I do not think it is necessary to have a view on that question in order to conclude validly that the content and circumstances of publication of the Book of Mormon give one sufficient grounds for thinking that the most economical and least ambitious explanation of the text's origin is that is an early 19th century American composition with strong biblical (that is, KJV biblical) influences. Others have perhaps argued that case better than I can, and will no doubt do so again.

I suggest therefore that in any discussion that may follow we take care to separate the questions of the context of production, which I suggest may reasonably be surmised, and the mode of production, about which we do not have to agree in order to come to a conclusion on the preceding issue.

Are you reserving the right to enter a curelom or cumom in that race?

[_badseed]

Is the evidence overwhelming for a 19th century production of the Book of Mormon?

Overwhelming? I dunno. I do think however the evidence pointing to a 19th century origin is extremely compelling.

Grant Palmer broke down the 19th sources for the Book of Mormon in podcasts etc and came up with (If I recall correctly) 75-80% from identifiable or likely 19th century sources. (1760s KJV, evangelical protestant preaching and camp meetings, other books etc...wish I remembered more). The other 25...22..20% or so he couldn't account for.

[_Baker]

Question: Absent belief in a degree of God's intervention that is completely foreign to us today, are the contents of the Book of Mormon remotely plausible?

Some that jump out at me:

- Liahona
- God altering the taste of meat
- Jesus touching stones and making them shine
- The Jaredite sea voyage and all of its obvious complications
- Incorporation of the Tower of Babel
- The arm-chopping incident
- Duplicates of New Testament miracles
- Etc.

[_Aristotle Smith]

For me it all comes down to context. The Book of Mormon claims a specific cultural, linguistic, and historical context. The question is: Does the Book of Mormon fit in that context? I would answer that it fails it just about every possible way. Because it fails to fit into the claimed contexts, it can't be seen as originating from them.

I see this as holding for both the Old World and the New World contexts.

Now ask the question: Does the Book of Mormon fit into a 19th century context? I think the answer is, "yes."

The reason it all comes down to context for me is because of one thing, I want to understand the book I am reading. The Book of Mormon is simply a more comprehensible work when seen in a 19th century context. And I don't mean that it is the most "miracle free" explanation. I mean it makes the most sense of the words on the page, regardless of how the book originated.

I think you can see this in how FARMS and company talk about the Book of Mormon. They are overwhelmingly interested in defending the book's origin, and not all that interested in understanding the book in context (Brant Gardner being an exception). So you get lots of stories about horses being tapirs, about swords being wooden paddles, about fitting the geography into a Tehuantepec setting, etc. There is almost no discussion of what it means once it is there. And the reason for this, in my opinion, is that the context makes a hash of the meaning of the book. As an example of this, the apologists shoehorn the Book of Mormon narrative into a pre-populated meso-American context for apologetic purposes, mostly ignoring what the book has to say about the population of the land. This results in awkward and illogical readings of the text itself. They have to do this to get a "plausible" harmonization between the Book of Mormon and archaeology, but notice that being in Mesoamerica means nothing from the standpoint of understanding what the text is actually saying.

[_MCB]

It is essentially a nineteenth century work. However, the second 2/3 is extensively patterned after Maccabees, like Clavigero, Monmouth, and Sturalson. Although Maccabees is Jewish in character, the other three are definitely not, and they were all available among scholars of the time. This points to someone like Solomon Spalding.

[_Buffalo]

It is essentially a nineteenth century work. However, the second 2/3 is extensively patterned after Maccabees, like Clavigero, Monmouth, and Sturalson. Although Maccabees is Jewish in character, the other three are definitely not, and they were all available among scholars of the time. This points to someone like Solomon Spalding.

I'm not familiar with Macabees, but even reading the Wiki summary of the first book, I see similarities:

There is one complete loss of a thousand Jews (men, women and children) to Antiochus when the Jewish defenders refuse to fight on the Sabbath.

Reminds me of the people of Limhi who submitted themselves to the sword.

Simon leads the people in peace and prosperity, until he is murdered by agents of Ptolemy, son of Abubus, who had been named governor of the region by the Macedonian Greeks. He is succeeded by his son, John Hyrcanus.

This sort of thing happens all the time in Helaman/3 Nephi

[_MCB]

Yuppers. Before Martin Luther had his temper tantrum with the Bible, both Maccabees were very important. Joseph Smith did give his people grudging permission to read it. LOL