David Bokovoy Issues a Devastating Critique of the Mopologists' "Scholarship"

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Gabriel
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Re: David Bokovoy Issues a Devastating Critique of the Mopologists' "Scholarship"

Post by Gabriel »

Symmachus wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 5:23 pm
Bought Yahoo wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 4:52 pm


Isn't this just a cop-out argument? Translation doesn't mean translation.
No way to know without the source text. I find a lot of sympathy with Benjamin's summary, and I think it is a fruitful place for believers to go, but it is unreasonable to think it can serve as a common ground of discussion for any but believers. There is absolutely nothing broadly meaningful (i.e. beyond the divide between the believer and the non-believer) that you can say about the nature of the translated text if you don't have the source text.

We don't even know for sure what language the Book of Mormon was supposedly translated from. The only reason anyone calls it a translation is because someone as credible as Joseph Smith said it was, but we don't have any independent means by which to verify that claim. We don't even know if it is a translation.
It would be nice if somehow this whole experiment could have been repeated ie., if Joseph somehow took it upon himself to translate another book of scripture, but this time from a known source text, one that could be examined by believer and non-believer alike. Ah, to live in a perfect world! (Sorry, I'm just musing aloud here.)
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Re: David Bokovoy Issues a Devastating Critique of the Mopologists' "Scholarship"

Post by Fence Sitter »

Gabriel wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 5:51 pm

It would be nice if somehow this whole experiment could have been repeated ie., if Joseph somehow took it upon himself to translate another book of scripture, but this time from a known source text, one that could be examined by believer and non-believer alike. Ah, to live in a perfect world! (Sorry, I'm just musing aloud here.)
He did, we have and the results are not good for believers. It's called the Book of Abraham, The Hor scroll and the KEP.
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Re: David Bokovoy Issues a Devastating Critique of the Mopologists' "Scholarship"

Post by ¥akaSteelhead »

Gabriel wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 5:51 pm


It would be nice if somehow this whole experiment could have been repeated ie., if Joseph somehow took it upon himself to translate another book of scripture, but this time from a known source text, one that could be examined by believer and non-believer alike. Ah, to live in a perfect world! (Sorry, I'm just musing aloud here.)
Joseph Smith & the Greek psalter.
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Re: David Bokovoy Issues a Devastating Critique of the Mopologists' "Scholarship"

Post by ¥akaSteelhead »

Fence Sitter wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 5:55 pm
Gabriel wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 5:51 pm

It would be nice if somehow this whole experiment could have been repeated ie., if Joseph somehow took it upon himself to translate another book of scripture, but this time from a known source text, one that could be examined by believer and non-believer alike. Ah, to live in a perfect world! (Sorry, I'm just musing aloud here.)
He did, we have and the results are not good for believers. It's called the Book of Abraham, The Hor scroll and the KEP.
There it is. FTW!

And yet, the mopologists try to handwave the whole fiasco away.
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Re: David Bokovoy Issues a Devastating Critique of the Mopologists' "Scholarship"

Post by Gadianton »

Don't be a stranger, Ben. Should you ever feel inclined to revisit, here is where I'm leaving off:
Ben wrote: Further, the idea of a 'literal translation' is something of a myth, necessitated by doctrine of an inerrant Bible.
That's one kind of inerrancy, but your version seems to me to lead to another familiar kind of inerrancy -- it's true as far as it's translated correctly. There is no possibility that the underlying thing never actually happened, only that the language encoding it could be off, here and there.

The kingship code is the example of why:
And it came to pass that Riplakish did not do that which was right in the sight of the Lord, for he did have many wives and concubines, and did lay that upon men’s shoulders which was grievous to be borne; yea, he did tax them with heavy taxes; and with the taxes he did build many spacious buildings.
If Ether put the Kingship Code long before Deuteronomy, then the Book of Mormon is radically inerrant: the entire gospel from Moses to Christ and beyond was given to Adam in Eden, so anything from scripture no matter how late may equally show up no matter how early. (as I expressed to Sym, I kind of think Nibley believed this)

Moroni discovered the plates of Ether as written by Ether's own hand. there is no line of scribal transmission where changes can build up. If the Kinship code wasn't already in the plates of Ether, then Moroni put it there whole stock. It's either a) an interpolation or b) an expansion.

Joseph discovered the plates of Moroni as written by Moroni's own hand. there is no line of scribal transmission where the changes can build up. If the Kingship code wasn't already in Moroni. then Joseph Smith either a) interpolated b) expanded

You give reasons why expansions don't work for Joseph. We assume it's not an interpolation for Joseph. That means it's either an expansion for Moroni or an interpolation for Moroni. But your explanation of why expansions don't work seems to be universal and would apply to Moroni also. Unless you only meant we assume the Book of Mormon is historical for Joseph Smith, then perhaps Moroni interpolated. But if not, then it was already there, and the only way it could be already there is in all its inerrantist glory -- the Kingship Code is timeless and either revealed directly to Ether, or passed down to Ether from Adam.
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Re: David Bokovoy Issues a Devastating Critique of the Mopologists' "Scholarship"

Post by Symmachus »

Lem wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 5:36 pm
I agree with your sympathy for Benjamin's approach, in that it seems to focus on supporting and uplifting believers, but realistically, if one is restricted to analysis that a believer would accept, that is just an apologetic effort. It may serve to start a dialogue, as Ben mentioned, but ultimately it's not an actual analysis of the text.
You are right, of course. That is why I was asking him about oral-formulaic approaches to the Book of Mormon. Aside from providing a comprehensive and, to my mind, convincing explanation for a lot of the features of the 1830 text, it is not an approach that forecloses an ancient origin of the Book of Mormon, but it also doesn't confront non-believers with the issue in the first place. It's just talking about language. Benjamin's kind of reading would flourish under a composition model like that for the Book of Mormon, but it didn't seem to pique his interest.
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Re: David Bokovoy Issues a Devastating Critique of the Mopologists' "Scholarship"

Post by Lem »

Symmachus wrote:
Thu Jun 10, 2021 4:46 pm
Lem wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 5:36 pm
I agree with your sympathy for Benjamin's approach, in that it seems to focus on supporting and uplifting believers, but realistically, if one is restricted to analysis that a believer would accept, that is just an apologetic effort. It may serve to start a dialogue, as Ben mentioned, but ultimately it's not an actual analysis of the text.
You are right, of course. That is why I was asking him about oral-formulaic approaches to the Book of Mormon. Aside from providing a comprehensive and, to my mind, convincing explanation for a lot of the features of the 1830 text, it is not an approach that forecloses an ancient origin of the Book of Mormon, but it also doesn't confront non-believers with the issue in the first place. It's just talking about language.
I've always been fascinated by your comments about this oral-formulaic approach, especially in contrast to what feels like a really labored approach by Skousen and Carmack, why that isn't more of a starter for lds writers is a puzzle to me.
Benjamin's kind of reading would flourish under a composition model like that for the Book of Mormon, but it didn't seem to pique his interest.
Yes, unfortunately. I would be very interested in reading his work, but not if catering to believers has to be his priority.

After a while, his posts started to remind me of Hamblin's insistence (quite unnecessarily) to Jenkins that the definitions and the rules had to be laid out in excruciating detail before the discussion could start, but then that part of the conversation just went on and on and on, and here as well.

(No offense, Ben, if you are reading, but it just seemed that you were insistent on explaining things that were pretty obvious. It seemed more like an apologetic delay in the end rather than an actual approach. Unless, of course, you really do feel that you need to only write for and convince believers. In my opinion, it doesn't do people any good, believers or otherwise, to cater to that, if it ends up causing the exclusion of logical but possibly offensive argument. Acknowledging beliefs is one thing, but avoiding legitimate argument in favor of feelings is meaningless to most academic readers, no matter how important those feelings may be to a person. It really takes the conversation out of the realm of concrete discussion for the rest of the world when believer's feelings are invoked, which is why I found it so puzzling when you continued to bring that issue up.)

You also mentioned addressing academic analysis and I hope you do come back and do that. Of course apologetics are a legitimate form of writing, so I hope I am not being offensive, but it is a very limited venue. I would be far more interested in your take on what would be considered academically valid in this discussion.
Last edited by Lem on Wed Jun 16, 2021 5:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: David Bokovoy Issues a Devastating Critique of the Mopologists' "Scholarship"

Post by Benjamin McGuire »

Tom wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 3:32 pm
Benjamin,

Could you describe your involvement with the Interpreter Foundation? Do you still serve as a member of the board of editors? If so, what are your responsibilities?
Right now, its minimal. I am occasionally (once or twice a year) contacted for an opinion about a submission that involves intertextuality or parallels. That's about it.
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Re: David Bokovoy Issues a Devastating Critique of the Mopologists' "Scholarship"

Post by Tom »

Benjamin McGuire wrote:
Wed Jun 16, 2021 4:46 pm
Tom wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 3:32 pm
Benjamin,

Could you describe your involvement with the Interpreter Foundation? Do you still serve as a member of the board of editors? If so, what are your responsibilities?
Right now, its minimal. I am occasionally (once or twice a year) contacted for an opinion about a submission that involves intertextuality or parallels. That's about it.
Thank you for your response.
“But if you are told by your leader to do a thing, do it. None of your business whether it is right or wrong.” Heber C. Kimball, 8 Nov. 1857
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Re: David Bokovoy Issues a Devastating Critique of the Mopologists' "Scholarship"

Post by Benjamin McGuire »

I am hanging around - my time just comes and goes.

Perhaps a couple of points of clarification. When I talk about common ground, what I mean is overlapping issues of concern. When we deal with alleged artifacts of translation (or anachronisms), there are some that everyone should consider to be the same (from a textual standpoint). These like the use of the King James language should be attributed to the modern author (whether you are a believer or not). That makes them uninteresting - they aren't useful in approaching the question of whether or not the Book of Mormon is translated from an ancient text, and (to get to the essay that this thread is about) they have no value in trying to understand a textual history (and sources) in light of, say, the Documentary Hypothesis.

On the other hand, the areas where believers and non-believers will draw very different conclusions about the material in the text, this creates the space for good discussion. There is far less assumption that is necessary in this area for non-believers. The general start position is that the text is an entirely 19th century text claiming to be a translation. The general starting point for believers is the point that has to be built on a discussion of the assumptions of what the text is, and how it should be read. And correspondingly, part of the reason why attempts to jump over this discussion and straight into textual analysis have routinely been so problematic.

In terms of an academic field, there is a very narrow field of study that is related to this question. Narrow may be the wrong word, perhaps it is a very narrow application of a marginally larger academic field. If the Book of Mormon had been written a thousand years (or more) ago, we would simply label it a pseudepigraphical work. That is a work claiming to be by someone it isn't by. And the question of whether it was fictional or not would generally take a back seat to the question of the role it played within the community, how that role changed over time, and how it was interpreted. As a modern text, and with Mormon studies still being in their infancy, and with Mormonism itself being resistant to an unfiltered examination of its narratives, this is a rather difficult perspective to take.

There is a small amount of material that exists dealing with these kinds of texts, engaging possible sources, original languages, and so on. It is much more difficult to apply this body of literature to a modern text like the Book of Mormon, although, in principle, there should be more than a little overlap. Part of this is because the forgeries we are most concerned about are translations that are pretending that they aren't. That is, gospel fragments, or inscriptions on stone and metal that are attempting to look ancient. They are less useful in this discussion (although consider the kinderhook plates or the Vorhee plates). It is the fake dead sea scrolls fragments that get all the airtime. And the distinction between an apocryphal text and a pseudepigraphical text (if such a distinction exists) is often of interest only to the extent that it helps create artificial categories (so as not to so deeply offend the faithful perhaps).

I have managed to collect a small number of texts which deal with the question of modern textual forgeries, and the application of textual tools to try and find answers to these kinds of questions. These are interesting applications to texts - and the reason why this is such a narrow field of inquiry is that there are few modern texts which may or may not be forgeries which draw a lot of interest (and very, very few of the size of the Book of Mormon or existing as a major religious text with all of the baggage that comes there). I personally think that the reason why there is this gap is that the sort of training that you deal with in ancient texts and writing isn't always useful (or doesn't always translate well) to modern texts.

One of the more interesting books that I have was published in 2018 after my presentation on the Book of Mormon translation (2016):

https://www.amazon.com/Faking-Forging-C ... 383763762X

There were two chapters in it that really had application to this question (the book covers a very broad range of related topics). For those of you who are interested, the text has been made open access here:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1wxr9t

The chapters are Chapter 10: Faked Translations (Yola Schmitz) and Chapter 9: "I have chosen to write notes on imaginary books" On the Forgery of Textual Sources (Laura Kohlrausch). Chapter 10 explores a 1760 publication title Fragments of Ancient Poetry. The chapter deals with the works of James Macpherson and the pseudo-translation (which is defined as "texts which have been presented as translations with no corresponding source texts in other languages ever having existed." Without the religious connection, this 'translation' "became the one of the most notorious faces in literature, sparking an almost unparalleled controversy about their authenticity. (p. 168)." Part of what makes this particular case interesting to me is that Macpherson deliberately uses an academic framework for his 'translation' in order to encourage a very specific response to the text - he wanted it to be read in a certain way, and so his text along with his annotations to that text create an appearance that helped further his intention. In a way, the text he produces isn't merely a pseudo-translation it is also a performance. And the paratext (Macpherson's annotations) build up an entire theory in which Macpherson, to use an example from the book (p. 172), "was then able to suggest that analogies between Ossian and Milton are based on Milton's knowledge of Ossianic poetry and not the other way around. Milton, the epic poet of the British Empire, becomes by implication the imitator of Ossian."

In a side note, this is to some extent, the same sort of suggestion we get from the Thompson article, isn't it. Here is Thompson:
The reference to “five” books of Moses in 1 Nephi 5:11 may be anachronistic and a result of a gloss or translation choice by Joseph Smith, but could also include a handful of earlier versions of documents related to the Pentateuch, possibly including a text related to the Book of Moses in our Pearl of Great Price. Based on textual analysis — akin to the literary analysis behind much of source criticism — Noel Reynolds’s view is that the Brass Plates may well have contained material related to the Book of Moses which Joseph Smith later translated and which now forms part of the Pearl of Great Price in the Latter-day Saint scriptural canon.
You can all, I am sure, see how this works. David Bokovoy hones in on this (even if he expresses it more than a little differently). This is a fascinating process for me - that is, the way that Mormonism has taken the text of the Book of Mormon and over time developed what is effectively akin to Macphereson's annotations for the text so as to rewrite literary history. Only, as Bokovoy points out:
What truly only exists in the minds of hypothesizers is a hypothetical book of Moses that predates these sources and contains features from all of them. There’s obviously nothing even close to that, which has been discovered by archeologists.
At any rate, this chapter also has a lengthy section titled: Translation Method and Translatese - an issue which I have raised in connection with the Book of Mormon's production (I pointed out that this is likely a deliberate part of the Book of Mormon's rhetorical strategy as much as this chapter argues that it is a part of Macpherson's rhetorical strategy).

I come back to the earlier chapter (9) after Chapter 10 because its application is a little less forward. In the words of its author:
Thus, after a short overview of various forms taken by feigned intertextuality in different texts, the phenomenon commonly known as pseudocitation will be redefined along the lines of current descriptions of forgery. This will allow us to focus on the authorial act of manipulating the readerʼs expectations, rather than the mere object of the forgery, and lead to some insights on the aesthetic effects of feigned intertextuality.
From here, the author gets in to the same sort of approach - that we understand certain features of a text in terms of their intention and the intended response those features will create for its readers.
According to Wolfgang Iser, every text creates expectations in the reader that will make him interpret the text in a certain way, until these expectations are interrupted, forcing the reader to reevaluate (1976). Philippe Lejeune develops a very similar idea in his work about autobiographies:
As opposed to all forms of fiction, biography and autobiography are referential texts: exactly like scientific or historical discourse, they claim to provide information about a “reality” exterior to the text […]. All referential texts thus entail what I will call a “referential pact,” implicit or explicit, in which are included a definition of the field of the real that is involved and a statement of the modes and the degree of resemblance to which the text lays claim. (1989: 22)
Whether we call it reader expectations or referential pact, both theories state that certain structures in a text make the reader perceive it under certain assumptions (in the case of biographies, the expectation that textual references to an extratextual reality are to be trusted). The respective pact ‘valid’ for a text is conveyed to the reader by a certain repertoire of signals. Feigned intertextuality makes use of this set-up by imitating the repertoire of signals of an intertextual pact to create authentication strategies that induce the reader to locate the pre-texts in extratextual reality.
I like Iser. I used him in my 2014 essay on reading Nephi. This chapter also uses Eco (another theorist I enjoy). But the take away for me isn't whether or not we discuss the Book of Mormon as either historical or fictional, it's that we need to address the text in terms of what it does and what it means. And from there we can deal with the implications this has for those questions.

Faking Literature (https://www.amazon.com/Faking-Literatur ... 0521660157) takes a somewhat different approach, but is also a really interesting place for someone to start on the issue.

At any rate, only a couple of writers have been interested in taking on the Book of Mormon in this context. The most interesting of these (to me) is this one - Translation and Cultural Change: https://www.amazon.com/Translation-Cult ... 1588116271
The first chapter deals with the Book of Mormon: "Enhancing cultural changes by means of fictitious translations" by Gideon Toury. And it provides a context to understand why it matters that the Book of Mormon is presented as a translation (and it matters whether it is a translation or not).

I think that perhaps I am a little overly obsessive with methodology. If you read my publications as I produced them, you may see them as an extended dialogue. Since my approach is quite different from most of what I experienced, my work represents a movement away from that to what I was experiencing. Part of what I want to do is to stress over and over again that the Book of Mormon should not be privileged as some sort of special text to which the normal rules of literature do not apply. And whatever our individual beliefs about the Book of Mormon are (in terms of its truth claims), I am fascinated by its narrative, by its intertextuality, and by its politics and philosophy. And I don't think that you need to have an opinion on its authenticity as a historical record to appreciate these issues. I think, in fact, that dogmatic religious belief about the text and the way that it is presented as a religious text are themselves generally barriers to reading it (just as the same sorts of issues make reading the Biblical text a challenge for those with certain kinds of belief). I also think that these kinds of discussions need to be aware of what they are trying to achieve. Earlier, Gadianton made this observation:
You give reasons why expansions don't work for Joseph. We assume it's not an interpolation for Joseph. That means it's either an expansion for Moroni or an interpolation for Moroni. But your explanation of why expansions don't work seems to be universal and would apply to Moroni also. Unless you only meant we assume the Book of Mormon is historical for Joseph Smith, then perhaps Moroni interpolated. But if not, then it was already there, and the only way it could be already there is in all its inerrantist glory -- the Kingship Code is timeless and either revealed directly to Ether, or passed down to Ether from Adam.
I don't disagree with any of this. Perhaps the reason why I brought these issues up was to illustrate the difference between the way that a believer who accepts the Documentary Hypothesis should approach the text and the way that Thompson approaches the text. If we accept the DH, then the kingship code is potentially available on the Brass Plates (as part of what is sometimes referred to as proto-Deuteronomy). But it wouldn't exist in the Jaredite record, since the Kingship Code is generally considered to be a response to the abuses of Kings David and Solomon (and their successors). In reading the text in that light, there is a need to resolve this by recognizing that Moroni is adding interpretive material or at least reinscribing it in his record. This isn't a hard stretch of interpretation in any sense. After all, we get to Ether 6:1 and read: ""And now I, Moroni, proceed to give the record of Jared and his brother." A third of the way through, and we are just now getting to the record of Jared? What has he been doing for the past five chapters? In any case, reading with assumptions takes you in different directions. Overly apologetic material employs texts to serve a different rhetorical purpose - something other than trying to understand the text. And perhaps this is just my way of saying what David Bokovoy said:
I would suggest two possible approaches: 1. Believers such as Thompson could simply ignore the implications of mainstream scholarship and just choose to believe. This would never work for me, but it does for some. 2. Believers such as Thompson could accept these historical views about the Bible and shift their belief paradigms to accommodate the implications of scholarship. It is possible to do, and many believers in a variety of faith communities are able to make that approach work.

In my view, either approach would be superior to publishing apologetic work, which shows that the authors have had very little exposure to the topics they’re addressing.
I think that many (most?) LDS members find this second option very difficult.
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