Dan Vogel Responds to Lars Nielsen (Part 2) - Nephilim

[dan vogel]

Did the name Nephi come from Nephilim (“giants”)? Maybe.

You know, Lars, just because you talk in a slow, monotone voice doesn’t mean you are a dispassionate objective defender of your awful theory. Perhaps you might consider that your covid-lockdown project isn’t very convincing to those who have spent a lifetime working on these questions. For what it’s worth, here are a few more responses.

I don’t know why you think quoting a conversation you had with Dan McClellan, who I respect for his Bible commentary, is at all meaningful to this discussion. It seems a bit desperate on your part. He is not a specialist in Book of Mormon studies, and we have no idea what his grounds are in holding his opinion. You imply that McClellan separates the composition and dictation as separate events, an assumption that has no evidence and contradicts the eyewitness testimony. More than once, you used a graphic showing a curtain between Joseph Smith and his scribe. This graphic is unhistorical. Eyewitnesses make it clear that Joseph Smith dictated with his face in his hat and no curtain between him and his scribe. No chance to read from a manuscript.

Your “Dan spectrum” is also irrelevant and a joke. I don’t think you know Dan McClellan very well. He is consistently tough on people he critiques. He even tells them how bad they are in no uncertain terms; in my opinion, he is more direct than I was in my review of your book.

I didn’t mischaracterize your theory. It is two conspiracy theories combined. Sincere intent doesn’t make a conspiracy disappear, although you say Rigdon and Smith may have been in it for the money. Intent has nothing to do with whether or not it was a conspiracy. They conspired to make it appear Joseph Smith was the translator, according to you. The whole thing was a deception. Yet, there was no conspiracy? You might see Rigdon as sincere, but it doesn’t fit with what you have asserted about him rewriting the MS to add his theology and later producing a replacement text for the lost 116 pages.

You don’t seem to appreciate my criticism of your book’s design around the 7-part schema. It made your book unnecessarily complex. Most of the categories were fake. Your handling of the sole-author category was a straw man. Overall, it seemed manipulative. It would have been better if you simply presented your theory instead of trying to make it the default theory.

On the origin of Nephi, we can’t say where Joseph Smith got it. My point is that there are easier ways to explain the name in the Book of Mormon than accepting your elaborate, highly speculative theory involving Kircher. The pronunciation of Nephilim is not relevant. The name could have been shortened and pronounced differently, although I’m not sure how Joseph Smith and early Mormons pronounced Nephi (possibly Nefee). This was not offered as proof Joseph Smith authored the Book of Mormon, only as evidence that the name Nephi isn’t clearly a Kircherism. Neither does it prove Spalding invented it because he knew Hebrew better than Joseph Smith, as you argue, which doesn’t fit your Kircher theory. This is how polemicists argue.

It was generally believed that some of the Mound Builders were Nephilim, so it isn’t surprising that both Spalding and Joseph Smith would include mention of giants or very large people in their books.

Spalding didn’t have Fabius speculate that the ancient Americans’ writing came from Egypt or Chaldea, but that writing itself was invented by the Egyptians or Chaldeans. [by the way, Chaldea is pronounced Kaldea. I would not have said anything, but you seem preoccupied with such things.] He then suggests that written language could have been independently created in the New World as well. This doesn’t have anything to do with setting up “Reformed Egyptian” in the Book of Mormon.

You claim that “there is much more evidence that Spalding knew about the lore of the Nephilim.” This is only because you have excluded the Book of Mormon as Joseph Smith’s production. Otherwise, we would have evidence. Anything brought forward, like the size of the spectacles and breastplate, would no doubt be dismissed by you as resulting from his secret contact with Rigdon. However, Spalding didn’t invent the Nephilim. It was so widely believed at the time that it would be hard for you to argue that Joseph Smith couldn’t have known about it.

You assert that Spalding is a better fit for having composed the Book of Mormon because of his education and literary skill, although the Book of Mormon as dictated is filled with bad grammar and very poor literary quality. The Spalding witnesses remembering the name Nephi after more than fifteen years is more easily explained than trying to explain away the multiple witnesses who testified to not seeing a manuscript during Joseph Smith’s dictation.

You assert without proof that the idea that the Mound Builders were a large people was in decline by Joseph Smith’s time. Whether or not it was in decline is irrelevant. In 1833, Willard Chase reported that Samuel Lawrence told Joseph Smith about 1825 that he not only saw the plates in his seer stone but also “a large pair of specks with them.”

You mention Wheelock’s interest in the ten tribe theory as if it were rare, when we know it was a widely held belief. Spalding participated in digging in some small grave mounds and lived near an ancient fortification, but you argue that there is no evidence that Joseph Smith the money-digger even had an interest in Native American mounds. This is an argument from silence that doesn’t seem probable. In fact, Lorenzo Sunders reported that Joseph Sr. dug a cave in a hill on his family’s property looking for the golden throne of an ancient king, who had been “shut in there in the time of one of their big battles.” The cave had been dug before Lorenzo’s father died in Oct. 1825 at the direction of Joseph Jr.

When I refer to the Book of Mormon’s mention of the large breastplates of the Jaredites and that the spectacles were also large, you argue that it’s not evidence that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, which I never argued. Until you establish Joseph Smith didn’t write the Book of Mormon and that it wasn’t dictated in the manner described by the eyewitnesses, I can use it to show what Joseph Smith knew, if not what he believed. Of course, I don’t think Joseph Smith believed there were real Nephites, although he may have believed there were Nephilim in ancient America based on reports of large skeletons discovered in some mounds.

You argue, “But it is evidence that the original composer of what later became The Book of Mormon was consistent in the lore he was laying down.” Only if you beg the question by assuming Spalding was the Book of Mormon’s author. Just because Spalding wrote about Nephilim (and his second cousin did as well) doesn’t mean Joseph Smith could not have included the belief in his book as well. Both (if not all three) were writing what would sound like authentic history to their contemporaries.

This isn’t pure speculation. There are reasonable grounds for believing Joseph Smith knew about Nephilum in association with the Mound Builder Myth. Lars, nothing you have argued makes it improbable for Smith to have known about Nephilim, unless you want to become a minimalist and polemicist like some apologists. The large spectacles apparently came from Samuel Lawrence, not from Joseph Smith’s later reading of Spalding’s manuscript.

It is important to note that my discussion of the possible connection between Nephi and Nephilim was not offered as evidence that Joseph Smith was the sole author of the Book of Mormon. That would be ludicrous. It was offered simply as a way Joseph Smith could have come up with the name independent from Kircher or Spalding. So, Lars, you have mischaracterized my argument and made a straw man of it.

[Dr Exiled]

FYI, your images aren't showing up. I always use the preview function to see if the images will show.

[dan vogel]

FYI, your images aren't showing up. I always use the preview function to see if the images will show.

It won't let me download an attachment.

[Dr Exiled]

FYI, your images aren't showing up. I always use the preview function to see if the images will show.

It won't let me download an attachment.

If the image/document is from a website, then just copy and paste the web address in between the image function and it should show. However, I've found that certain images won't show on this platform regardless

[bill4long]

Did the name Nephi come from Nephilim (“giants”)? Maybe.

You know, Lars, just because you talk in a slow, monotone voice doesn’t mean you are a dispassionate objective defender of your awful theory...Kircher or Spalding. So, Lars, you have mischaracterized my argument and made a straw man of it.

Ouch!