Manetho, Josephus, and the Book of Abraham

[Alphus and Omegus]

It's an oddly politicized post in this thread from Shades. Very clearly it is at least arguable to have some caution in regards to a long-dead historical religious figure about whose inner motivations we have little documentation. Having that perspective has nothing whatsoever to do with one's viewpoint of living politicians whose actions and conversations are extensively attested.

[Alphus and Omegus]

For a long time, I have thought that the Book of Mormon was more like an ancient epic than an ancient history. An epic is a kind of poetic reflection on the past that is also a fabrication. Vergil’s Aeneid is filled with various bits of “lore” about ancient Italy and it incorporates lots of founding myths, anecdotes, and stylistic conventions that are riffing on the works of Homer, and in that way it provides the Romans their own poetic founding myth. At the same time, it is incredibly artificial and disconnected from anything approaching actual history. The Book of Mormon is Vergil in the KJV style. Its worst sins in the eyes of our age is that it claims to be about the actual past and, worse yet, about a people whose origin, we feel today, he had no right to opine on.

Huh. That does ring a bell. In particular the first few books by Nephi, getting Lehi and family to America, do read more like an Odyssey or an Aeneid, with action and declamations, than like the mostly stodgier recitations of Old Testament history. The closest the Old Testament seems to come to Homeric epic, I would say, is in the exodus from Egypt and maybe in David fighting Goliath. But in both those Biblical stories there is so much emphasis on God's miraculous assistance that the human characters are more chorus than heroes. Smith seems to give more active roles to his heroes; God gives them only guidance and a magical item or two, like Greek gods discreetly supporting their protegés.

We ultimately do not know why Smith and his collaborators wrote the Book of Mormon or whether their motives changed over time. I have long been convinced that it was originally conceived of as a fan-fiction novel. I have no evidence for my view, though.

My first thought was that Smith's retro-ancient epic stands out for having first-person narration. That's not Biblical; the only first-person Old Testament work that springs to my mind is Ecclesiastes, and it's a sermon, not a story. A narrator-protagonist like Nephi doesn't sound like an ancient epic to me, either, but ancient epics were at least nominally first-person, in featuring the poet as a frame narrator who occasionally speaks in first person about the epic itself, including its inspiration by a divine muse.

How much exposure to classical literature might Smith have had? The classics were revered as an essential part of education and culture in Smith's time, but perhaps not in his place. Could he have absorbed enough of the genre of classical epic that it might really have influenced the Book of Mormon along with the King James Old Testament—and perhaps to a greater degree than Smith himself might have realised?

The Nephi section was a hastily recomposed version of the story after the Lehi version was stolen.

I think the Book of Judges shares the most literary forms in common with most of the Book of Mormon. It is third-person, often boring and filled with unnecessary details, and with lots of miraculous hero stories which sometimes serve no larger narrative purpose.

[Alphus and Omegus]

In short....Dan Vogel's pius fraud theory.

A pious fraud who got a 14 year old girl to marry him by threatening her family, along with all the other women--some already married whose husbands he dispatched to clear the way, two who were his foster children, and dozens of others--all married behind his wife's back. Fraud? Yes. Pious? Not so much.

I've never read Vogel's work so I can't speak to it, but as I understand the usage of "pious" here, it means "believing" rather than honest or righteous. No one has presented evidence that Smith disbelieved his Book of Abraham composition. But it is very clear that he lied and deliberately misled people about many things such as his finances and his treatment of women.

[MG 2.0]

We ultimately do not know why Smith and his collaborators wrote the Book of Mormon or whether their motives changed over time.

This is an interesting admission.

Regards,
MG

[Res Ipsa]

We ultimately do not know why Smith and his collaborators wrote the Book of Mormon or whether their motives changed over time.

This is an interesting admission.

Regards,
MG

Why?

[MG 2.0]

Alphus and Omegus wrote:

We ultimately do not know why Smith and his collaborators wrote the Book of Mormon or whether their motives changed over time.

MG: This is an interesting admission.

Why?

It just is. After all the years of investigation and resources expended, this is where the critics end up.

Regards,
MG

[Res Ipsa]

Alphus and Omegus wrote:

We ultimately do not know why Smith and his collaborators wrote the Book of Mormon or whether their motives changed over time.

MG: This is an interesting admission.

Why?

It just is. After all the years of investigation and resources expended, this is where the critics end up.

Regards,
MG

Ultimately, it is just as true for you as it is for any critic. Absent the ability to read minds, you ultimately don't know what Smith was thinking either.

[MG 2.0]

It just is. After all the years of investigation and resources expended, this is where the critics end up.

Regards,
MG

Ultimately, it is just as true for you as it is for any critic. Absent the ability to read minds, you ultimately don't know what Smith was thinking either.

It is a conundrum. Joseph said as much:

You don't know me; you never knew my heart. No man knows my history. I cannot tell it: I shall never undertake it. I don't blame any one for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I would not have believed it myself. I never did harm any man since I was born in the world. My voice is always for peace.”

Regards,
MG

[Res Ipsa]

Ultimately, it is just as true for you as it is for any critic. Absent the ability to read minds, you ultimately don't know what Smith was thinking either.

It is a conundrum. Joseph said as much:

You don't know me; you never knew my heart. No man knows my history. I cannot tell it: I shall never undertake it. I don't blame any one for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I would not have believed it myself. I never did harm any man since I was born in the world. My voice is always for peace.”

Regards,
MG

Not a conundrum at all. A simple factual observation. If you want to go all-out post modernist to defend your own opinion of Smith, knockk yourself out.

[MG 2.0]

It is a conundrum. Joseph said as much:



Regards,
MG

Not a conundrum at all. A simple factual observation. If you want to go all-out post modernist to defend your own opinion of Smith, knockk yourself out.

I’m also making a simple factual observation.

Regards,
MG