The Interpreter; Bayes Theorem; Nephites and Mayans

[_aussieguy55]

Things seem quiet over there Last comment by Billy Shears on May 24, 2019

[_Arc]

Things seem quiet over there Last comment by Billy Shears on May 24, 2019

Last posted comment by Billy Shears on May 24, 2019. As Gadianton suggested, maybe they have shut it down in the hope that it will begin the process of fading from consciousness and eventually from memory as well.

[_aussieguy55]

I am really thankful for the efforts done by folks here and over on the Interpreter. I have learnt so much.

[_honorentheos]

There's been a comment posted yesterday, it just happens to be a reply to an earlier comment. The comment count was at 230 on Friday and bumped up to 231 yesterday. It took a moment to find the new one, but it appears to be a reply from a faithful poster regarding the use of cement and how we can be sure of one thing: The Book of Mormon can't be a creation from the 19th C. I believe it was that Mark guy who keeps posting similar replies to comments that have nothing to do with the paper or any specific aspect of the discussion on it other than to say the Book of Mormon is beyond Smith's scope of possible knowledge so it has to be historic. I don't know of him outside of the comment section, and he doesn't seem to be worth much in a discussion as he does little more than find a way to repeat a version of the above.

It seems to me that Billy Shears has taken away Bruce's enthusiasm for discussing the 20-odd correspondences he wanted to go over, which is the best sign of wisdom out of him I've seen. Given Billy's managed to definitively demonstrate how each supposed strong hit offered up is better seen as a wide miss it at least shows Bruce knows the difference between giants and windmills after all.

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

I can't vouch for the mathmatics involved, but my brother-in-law (an accountant) once calculated the odds of Shiz and Coriantumr being the only two soldiers left alive on the battlefield as something like 100,000,000,000 to 1.

Of course, the Mopologists would respond that all things are possible unto God. End of discussion.

[_Bret Ripley]

... my brother-in-law (an accountant) once calculated the odds of Shiz and Coriantumr being the only two soldiers left alive on the battlefield as something like 100,000,000,000 to 1.

Sure, but he's probably a frequentist.

[_Darth J]

I finally sat back over a couple of tacos last night and began to read the actual article.

In the Book of Mormon we read:

Book of Mormon: There shall come over the whole earth an intense darkness lasting three days and three nights. Nothing can be seen, and the air will be laden with pestilence which will claim mainly, but not only, the enemies of religion. It will be impossible to use any man-made lighting during this darkness.

Mormon Interpreter: One example of Bayesian “strong” evidence is the remarkably detailed description of a volcanic eruption and associated earthquakes given in 3 Nephi 8. Mesoamerica is earthquake and volcano country, but upstate New York, where the Book of Mormon came forth, is not. If the Book of Mormon is fictional, how could the writer of the Book of Mormon correctly describe a volcanic eruption and earthquakes from the viewpoint of the person experiencing the event? We rate the evidentiary value of that correspondence as 0.02. We assume a piece of evidence is “unusual” if it gives facts that very probably were not known to the writer, someone living in upstate New York in the early 19th century, when virtually nothing of ancient Mesoamerica was known.

What can I say. How could he have known?

Indeed, how could the idea have even occurred to Joseph Smith that the Abrahamic god would cause three days of darkness upon the land?

Exodus 10

21 And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.

22 And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days:

23 They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.

What's the Bayesian probability that Joseph Smith and his contemporaries had access to the Bible?

[_Darth J]

I find it remarkable that the author of Exodus was able to correctly describe a volcanic eruption from the point of view of the person experiencing it.

So we have another piece of evidence consistent with the Egyptian captivity of the Israelites taking place in ancient Mesoamerica.

[_honorentheos]

It looks like Dr. Bruce Dale had some time to post today and added a few new comments. He didn't tee up a new correspondence for Billy Shears to send flying but he did reply to a number of prior comments.

Of those, I found this one the most odd. Keep in mind it was made in response to a poster named Richard who had suggested that were the same approach to have been used but with the Bible rather than The Maya for comparison to the Book of Mormon, and the base assumption being Smith was using the Bible as a template to describe a migrated Hebrew group it would be an even better match. The reply:

Richard,
You are welcome to do this test of the King James version of the Bible versus The Maya. I would be interested in the results.

But to make it a good comparison with our work, you would have to test claims of fact in both books. For example, the fact that both the Maya and the New Testament had a baptismal rite would count as a positive correspondence, but the fact that precious stones in the Bible are diamonds, pearls and that such precious stones are unknown in Mesoamerica (and unmentioned in The Maya) would count as a negative correspondence..
Bruce

I can't tell if he genuinely doesn't get the counter argument or is being intentionally obtuse? What does the Maya have to do with this if no one but a handful of Mormon apologists think Smith intentionally had Mayans in mind when the Book of Mormon was composed? Is it possible he has been so long with this Maya theory he's forgotten others exist and should be considered? Weird.

[_honorentheos]

Here's the original comment to which Bruce Dale is replying for context:

I think that I understand the method of Dale & Dale and think that consideration of uncertainties would make an enormous difference in the number they get and that their method ought to be tested. I’ll go through the steps of their method:

1) Select two books – Book of Mormon vs Coe (or Spaulding or Smith) (no uncertainty)

2) Select 149 elements to be compared, many already identified by Book of Mormon defenders and a few by critics. There’s a big uncertainty here. (I’m peeved that my favorite word “swords” was not selected.) The uncertainty here could be evaluated by compiling an exhaustive list but I’m skipping this. (I suppose that selecting the words “Jesus Christ” would be inappropriate.)

3) Assume that these elements come either from Joseph Smith’s imagination or from Mayan peoples living during Book of Mormon times. This rules out possibly available printed and folklore sources and the Heartland Model for the location.

4) Choose an element.

5) Describe the correspondence in words such as “detailed, specific, and unusual”. There’s a factor of opinion uncertainty here.

6) Assign a likelihood number 0.02, 0.1, 0.5, 2.0, or 50.0 according to the words. (I’m really peeved that “swords”, mentioned some 30 times in the Book of Mormon would get the same likelihood number (50.0) as “chariots” mentioned only 6 times.)

7) Repeat for all the other elements.

8) Multiply all the likelihood numbers together and interpret this number as the probability of Joseph Smith’s imagination, not Mayans, being the Book of Mormon’s source.

I’m suggesting that the uncertainty of steps 4) through 8) could be estimated by having someone else besides Dale & Dale perform them. I think I’m reasonable and not daft so I’ll choose myself.

4) I choose “Buildings of cement” (element 6.16)

5) – 7) Because Helaman says “houses of cement” and “cities, both of wood and of cement” in a land where “timber was exceedingly scarce” where as Coe describes “plaster, stucco and “concrete-like fill” in association with buildings of stones, I assign the words “negative, detailed, and specific” and a corresponding likelihood number of 50.0. Since Dale & Dale assign a likelihood number of 0.02, there’s an uncertainty factor here of 2500. (Incidentally, I remember reading in an account by explorers of the Southwest wherein dwellings and villages of the Hopi Indians were being described as houses of cement and cities of cement said by them to have been constructed by their distant ancestors and wonder if this might have been in oral or written circulation in Joseph Smith’s time. Step 3) of course would exclude consideration of this.)

8) Having read through all items, I expect that I’d give pretty much all of them significantly greater likelihood numbers and get an overall likelihood a lot greater than 2.69 x 10^–151.

As for my proposed test using the King James Bible instead of Coe, I said that I’d expect that pretty much all of the items (including horses, chariots, asses, and smelted metals) would get small numbers so I’d expect a very small overall likelihood number but misstated the conclusion. According to step 3) it should be that it is very unlikely that Joseph Smith’s imagination is the source of all the items – which answer is correct – so the method passes the test! Step 3) prohibits concluding that Joseph adapted information from the KJB to a New World setting.

RICHARD