The burden is now upon those who deny the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon

[MG 2.0]

Thank you for your testimony, MG, but I don't think it belongs on this thread.

I wasn’t bearing my testimony. But even if I was/did, that would be my prerogative. I don’t think the rules forbid it.

Regards,
MG

[doubtingthomas]

Look at this study and compare Joseph with other authors of his day.

You are shrugging this off without investigation.

Regards,
MG

In science, good theories are heavily scrutinized and reviewed many times independently.

I'm not shrugging off anything, it could well be that there were multiple authors. I'm open to that possibility. But let me ask you again: when are the studies going to get submitted to a respected peer-reviewed Journal?

[Marcus]

Brian Hales reviewed Visions in a Seer Stone in the Interpreter. https://journal.interpreterfoundation.o ... eer-stone/

Davis responded in Facebook " Brian Hales wrote a review that is filled with serious misrepresentations of my work. He also has a review on Amazon that is also filled with false information about my book. In the few interactions I've had with him about those issues, he does not understand, nor does he seem to care, that he is spreading false information about my research. I think it's very unfortunate. Because it reflects badly on the journal that published his ideas, and it further reflects poorly on LDS scholarship in general."

wow. we might need a new thread to discuss this.

[Moksha]

Elders Coriantumr J. Lebovitz, Thadeus Gidgiddoni, and Boxcar Lachoneus all sound pretty authentic to me.

I know, right? They are probably cross-listed in both the Encyclopedia of Mormonism and the Encyclopedia Galactica on Trantor. Can't get much better confirmation than that, certainly not with the science, arts, and philosophy of humans. It seems really important to TBMs that they convince everyone of the Book of Mormon's ancient origins from the Garden of Eden in Missouri to the village of Palmyra, New York in the early 19th Century.

[toon]

Elders Coriantumr J. Lebovitz, Thadeus Gidgiddoni, and Boxcar Lachoneus all sound pretty authentic to me.

I know, right? They are probably cross-listed in both the Encyclopedia of Mormonism and the Encyclopedia Galactica on Trantor. Can't get much better confirmation than that, certainly not with the science, arts, and philosophy of humans. It seems really important to TBMs that they convince everyone of the Book of Mormon's ancient origins from the Garden of Eden in Missouri to the village of Palmyra, New York in the early 19th Century.

In my 80s (and Stranger Things) D&D days, I would mine the Book of Mormon’s list of names to come up with original, ancient sounding names for my wizards. My non-Mormon friends were impressed by my creativity.

[Physics Guy]

this book will stand on their bookshelves as a witness that names in the Book of Mormon—and, by extension, the Book itself—is ancient and, consequently, true.

Well, that’s disappointing. Evidently Ricks does indeed think he has made a case for the Book itself being ancient. I was giving his other lines a charitable, benefit-of-doubt reading, interpreting them as only making a modest claim, but they weren’t inconsistent with a grander claim, either. This last quote is unambiguous, alas.

Nobody who thinks that “by extension” is a valid argument can be much of a scholar. Two words too many, and the clock strikes thirteen.

[Marcus]

Do names in the Book of Mormon have either an ancient or ancient Near Eastern origin? Why is that important?


It is necessary that the Book of Mormon have ancient names, whether from the ancient Near East or from ancient Mesoamerica, if the claim that the book is of ancient origin is to ring true.

Our work has shown that the names and the foreign words in the Book of Mormon are ancient in origin, whether from ancient Hebrew or some other Semitic language, ancient Egyptian, ancient Mesopotamian (Akkadian or Sumerian), or ancient Greek.

I believe we have done our homework showing that the names are ancient in origin. The burden is now upon those who deny the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon to show that its names are not of ancient origin.

i am interested in the part in blue. further on in the essay:

What percentage of names in the Book of Mormon have Hebrew origins?

About 75-80% of the names and foreign words in the Book of Mormon are Hebrew in origin. This suggests the deep influence of Hebrew on naming patterns in the Book of Mormon.

this, with the blue, suggests that that the other 20-25% are ancient, and from "some other Semitic language, ancient Egyptian, ancient Mesopotamian (Akkadian or Sumerian), or ancient Greek."

is that the correct assumption, based on the writing? i wasn't sure, so i checked with the online onomastican IHAQ noted was discussed on SEN as being the same source.

from the online forward:

This Onomasticon contains this reference and other work that has been done on Book of Mormon names over the past 100 years and more, all of which supports the ancient Near Eastern origin of many Book of Mormon names and words.[4] Now, more than one hundred years after the remarks of the critic quoted above, other would-be critics who ignore the considerable body of evidence that many Book of Mormon names have deep Ancient Near Eastern roots, as evidenced in many of the entrees in the Onomasticon, do so at the peril of their own credibility.

https://onoma.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Foreword

note that this source says "many Book of Mormon names have deep Ancient Near Eastern roots," which to me is not the same as names being "ancient in origin," but maybe it's just terminology.

here is footnote 4:

It would be unrealistic to expect that a culture that survived for about 1000 years (not to speak of Jaredite culture) would not or did not change. Therefore, it cannot be expected a priori that all Book of Mormon names can be traced back to an Ancient Near East source.

it sounds like that footnote is admitting that there is a percentage of names NOT having ancient origin.

this means there are words of other origin, right? why are ancient authors of the writings on Book of Mormon plates using a percentage of names NOT of ancient origin, if the writing is of ancient origin?

[drumdude]

Maybe the argument would be that the Nephite’s culture diverged sufficiently from the Hebrew origins that new names came into use that don’t have a clear link.

But you would still expect to see some sort of progression in those names, new ones aren’t pulled out of a hat. You might also expect to see some consistent patterns in the new Nephite names. Like the no “F” names in Hebrew.

My guess is that any objectively neutral unbiased cultural anthropologist studying the Book of Mormon would find the Book of Mormon doesn’t really have anything that resembles a real culture that has a possibility of existing in the Americas 600BC - 1200AD.

[PseudoPaul]

Nephi knows about people going to heaven and hell when they die, Satan, a suffering and divine messiah, salvation by faith - all things that are anachronistic to the 6th century BCE. Case closed.

So you’re saying a prophet living in the pre Christian Era would not be plugged into knowledge of/from God?

It seems more likely that God would desire/want to give that portion of His word/truth to the extent that people are willing and able to receive it at any point in time. Pre or post Christ.

Granted, there is a LOT riding on whether or not the Book of Mormon is what it purports to be.

Case open.

Closed, however, to those who have a closed mind to the Book of Mormon as an ancient artifact speaking from the dust.

Regards,
MG

All of the pre-third century BCE Jewish prophets whose existence is certain did not believe in any of those things. That's because those ideas evolved in a certain historical context. That context was influence from Persian theology (from where we get the idea of evil cosmic beings) during the Persian period, and theodicy inspired by the Greek persecution of law-keeping Jews. The latter changed the longstanding belief that all suffering was a punishment from God for sins. The fact that the righteous were suffering en mass proved to them not only that evil must come from another source other than God, but also that for God to be just the righteous dead should get some kind of reward that is different from the reward the wicked. From there we get the idea of Resurrection from the dead, and centuries later the idea that people could actually live in the divine realm with God.

So, case closed. If you're positing some kind of miracle to explain it, you're not talking about historicity anyway. You're talking about religious faith. Faith and history are two separate disciplines.

[Kishkumen]

All of the pre-third century BCE Jewish prophets whose existence is certain did not believe in any of those things. That's because those ideas evolved in a certain historical context. That context was influence from Persian theology (from where we get the idea of evil cosmic beings) during the Persian period, and theodicy inspired by the Greek persecution of law-keeping Jews. The latter changed the longstanding belief that all suffering was a punishment from God for sins. The fact that the righteous were suffering en mass proved to them not only that evil must come from another source other than God, but also that for God to be just the righteous dead should get some kind of reward that is different from the reward the wicked. From there we get the idea of Resurrection from the dead, and centuries later the idea that people could actually live in the divine realm with God.

So, case closed.

Yep. But no matter how many times you demonstrate it, he will continue to make the same ridiculous assertions.