Shulem to a wider audience

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Philo Sofee
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Re: Shulem to a wider audience

Post by Philo Sofee »

Marcus wrote:
Sat Apr 02, 2022 12:43 am
Rivendale wrote:
Fri Apr 01, 2022 11:19 pm


Wait. MG 2.0 left out demons. Demons do magic all the time. Whenever the trick can't be explained it has to be demons.
Also aliens. Obvs their advanced technology would look like magic.

So, we have magicians, angels, demons, and aliens. I draw the line at Yetis though. Not enough manual dexterity to engrave metal plates.
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Re: Shulem to a wider audience

Post by High Spy »

drumdude wrote:
Thu Mar 31, 2022 6:50 pm
MG 2.0 wrote:
Thu Mar 31, 2022 6:47 pm


Guilt by association? Is that ALL you have?

Regards,
MG
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Even the Harry Potter books had a concrete location, in England. Mormons can't even figure out if the Book of Mormon happened in upstate New York or South America.

Speaking of England. :lol:

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... the Spirit also testifies to me that there is a Book of Mormon land and that land is England.


There's the tail end of an OP by a Davidic type servant. ;)
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Shulem
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Re: Snow, ice and cold

Post by Shulem »

Shulem wrote:
Wed Mar 30, 2022 4:40 pm
Shulem wrote:
Wed Mar 30, 2022 1:35 pm
The position in which the Church implies is that it never snows in Bountiful or Zarahemla, it pours, man, it pours!

Apologists quickly point out that the Book of Mormon frequently mentions heat but never mentions any winter conditions whereby snow and cold dominate the climate during that time of year. Admittedly, the Book of Mormon doesn't talk about winter. The Book of Mormon stories come alive mostly during the spring and continue through summer.

In the Celestial Forum, I discuss chronology and list all references for the months of the year. Please note that the winter months receive little representation in the stories and narrative of the Book of Mormon; of course snow isn't mentioned. The stories occurred during the warm season. Do note that in Alma 49 when the Lamanites attacked the well fortified city of Ammonihah unsuccessfully, the Lamanites at that time were wearing "garments of skins, yea, very thick garments to cover their nakedness" which not only would protect their persons but keep them warm during the month of February when it's usually quite cold. The Lamanites in these circumstances also armed themselves with shields and breastplates but it's the thick skins that tend to suggest the weather may have been cold. The author was aware it was that time of year.

Alma and Amulek were deprived of food and clothing while in prison during the 10th month (January). That made for very inhuman conditions in Smith's storytelling.

1 April
2 May
3 June
4 July
5 August
6 September
7 October
8 November
9 December
10 January
11 February
12 March

As an afterthought to an afterthought, the story in the Book of Mormon about Moroni's travels and and his wandering about eventually led him to Cumorah in New York State where he buried and deposited the plates. That in and of itself is quite a feat and an operation for a lone man on rolling hills who is being hunted by enemies of state.

Ever wonder why the Book of Mormon does not mention the snow and cold while Moroni is sojourning in the region of New England? Why doesn't Moroni ever say, "It's cold out here"?

The answer, I believe, is that Joseph Smith purposely left out the COLD elements of nature surrounding the region in which the Lamanites and Nephites lived because he didn't want to zero in on a specific geographical area in which fascinated readers would demand an archeological expedition to find Zaralemla and the ruins of Bountiful.

Joseph Smith didn't want anyone searching the peninsula of Delmarva only to find there is nothing there to prove his story. So he kept it mysterious with regard to the exact destination of Lehi's landing.

I find it somewhat disappointing that so many smart people on this board have failed to understand that Delmarva really is the place in which Smith envisioned Lehi's landing. I do hope that interested readers are keeping up with my Book of Mormon Geography thread in the Celestial forum.

I just shake my head. What the hell. You people are something else!

:lol:
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Re: Shulem to a wider audience

Post by Physics Guy »

As I understand Shulem's theory, it's not that Smith was trying to imply that his Nephites were on the Delmarva peninsula. Smith was trying to leave it vague as to where they were, so that nobody could prove his story fake. In order to help him keep his geography realistic and consistent, though, he used a real, nearby place as his own secret model.

Using a model geography like that is similar to the way an author may base a fictional character on a real acquaintance. It doesn't have to go as far as a roman à clef where the author wants everyone to recognize exactly which real person the character represents. So in a similar way, I think Shulem is saying, Smith based his Nephite geography on the Delmarva peninsula, even though he didn't mean for readers to conclude that the events really happened there.

Shulem will correct me if I've misinterpreted his Delmarva idea.
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Re: Shulem to a wider audience

Post by Shulem »

Physics Guy wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2023 4:54 pm
As I understand Shulem's theory, it's not that Smith was trying to imply that his Nephites were on the Delmarva peninsula. Smith was trying to leave it vague as to where they were, so that nobody could prove his story fake. In order to help him keep his geography realistic and consistent, though, he used a real, nearby place as his own secret model.

Using a model geography like that is similar to the way an author may base a fictional character on a real acquaintance. It doesn't have to go as far as a roman à clef where the author wants everyone to recognize exactly which real person the character represents. So in a similar way, I think Shulem is saying, Smith based his Nephite geography on the Delmarva peninsula, even though he didn't mean for readers to conclude that the events really happened there.

Shulem will correct me if I've misinterpreted his Delmarva idea.

Perfectly said. Thanks!
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Re: Shulem to a wider audience

Post by dastardly stem »

Shulem,

It sounds like you are adding to your idea about Delmarva a notion that Joseph knew the mention of winter weather would give too much of a hint for readers and he needed them to be kept ignorant of his imagined location so he left out any winter weather mentions.

Joseph sounds like the God of christianity who for many was so wise He threw in hints at evolution during his creation to keep people from believing in Him. So He can have some people to mistreat and torture.

Maybe your theory is giving Joseph too much credit?
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Re: Shulem to a wider audience

Post by Shulem »

dastardly stem wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:40 pm
Shulem,

It sounds like you are adding to your idea about Delmarva a notion that Joseph knew the mention of winter weather would give too much of a hint for readers and he needed them to be kept ignorant of his imagined location so he left out any winter weather mentions.

Sounds about right.

dastardly stem wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:40 pm
Joseph sounds like the God of christianity who for many was so wise He threw in hints at evolution during his creation to keep people from believing in Him. So He can have some people to mistreat and torture.

I don't know about that.

dastardly stem wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:40 pm
Maybe your theory is giving Joseph too much credit?

I don't know that I'd go that far but he deserves a lot of credit for keeping so many things straight in his story while dictating with his face in a hat. It takes a special kind of person to do what he did and maintain the numbers, chronology, and timeline in a manner he did. Smith was utterly brilliant!
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Re: Shulem to a wider audience

Post by Moksha »

Physics Guy wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2023 4:54 pm
So in a similar way, I think Shulem is saying, Smith, based his Nephite geography on the Delmarva peninsula, even though he didn't mean for readers to conclude that the events really happened there.
However, apologists have been known to turn in a gyre trying to find actual events (such as a volcanic eruption) that fit with this fictional story. If only the Delmarva peninsula had volcanoes.

Maps help keep the author on track. Tolkien had even doodled out a map of locations between the Shire and Mordor. We have yet to learn whether he ever placed a Palantir inside his cap.
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Re: Shulem to a wider audience

Post by Physics Guy »

Even A.A. Milne's Hundred Acre Wood has an official map. So does William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County. You might not need a map for a short story, but if you are planning to set a bunch of stories in the same fictional setting, you've got to set the setting down straight in at least a sketch, to avoid awkward gaffs like having a river run uphill or the sun rise in the west.

Easier than making up a landscape oneself is to copy one that is already made. This is a particularly good tactic if you are planning to use any unusual geographical features to give your story more interest, because you can keep them believable if you base them on real geographical features. And I don't think it's far-fetched to imagine that Joseph Smith might have thought that way. An imaginative professional writer might decide consciously to adopt a real-world model for a setting, after thinking through the advantages of the tactic, but a story-telling amateur bumpkin might also just naturally picture things happening in a nearby place, because "a story that could really have happened" will naturally mean to them "a story that could have happened here".

That's all just "could have", but the setting of the Book of Mormon has a few distinctive geographical features, and it's not clear why they are there in the story. In principle they could be there because the story really happened to real Nephites in a place that really had those particular rivers and that narrow isthmus, or because Smith just happened to dream up those features at random when he created his geography from nothing. An explanation for the unusual geographical features that doesn't rely on either authenticity or chance, however, is that Smith picked a real-world geographical model because it was a nearby coastal area, and it happens to have those unusual features.
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Re: Shulem to a wider audience

Post by Dr Exiled »

Shulem wrote:
Fri Feb 03, 2023 6:46 pm
I don't know that I'd go that far but he deserves a lot of credit for keeping so many things straight in his story while dictating with his face in a hat. It takes a special kind of person to do what he did and maintain the numbers, chronology, and timeline in a manner he did. Smith was utterly brilliant!
Also, remember Smith finished his dictation in June of 1929 and printing didn't start until September 1829. So, there was time to review and edit the book, a process Smith and Cowdery would continue to do with the 1835 version as well as with the D&C.
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