Is It a Goose? Or a Horse?

[_Sethbag]

You guys are all up in the night. I have in fact seen a photograph of a tapir pulling a chariot.

If the following does not demonstrate to you that the Book of Mormon is true, then I don't know what will.

[_harmony]

You guys are all up in the night. I have in fact seen a photograph of a tapir pulling a chariot.

If the following does not demonstrate to you that the Book of Mormon is true, then I don't know what will.

Some things must be seen with my own physical eyes. No doubt the reason I have yet to see a tapir pulling a chariot is because I'm not spiritually in tune enough.

[_gramps]

You guys are all up in the night. I have in fact seen a photograph of a tapir pulling a chariot.

If the following does not demonstrate to you that the Book of Mormon is true, then I don't know what will.

Some things must be seen with my own physical eyes. No doubt the reason I have yet to see a tapir pulling a chariot is because I'm not spiritually in tune enough.

Harmony, you should know well by now, that is because of the tea you are drinking!

[_JoetheClerk]

What is missing here is the section that gives the answer that cannot be challenged. The missing 116 pages! They contain the words of Nephi the Tapir Whisperer with a complete account(Pre-reformed egyptian along with drawings and diagrams) of the whole process. Gentle whispering that over a few weeks gives a docile animal that can be saddled, ridden bareback, yoked to plow or wagon or hooked up to a harness for the weekly Saturday Night Chariot Races.(no parimutual betting allowed)

The reason you don't see Tapirs as what Joseph really meant in translation is because they had a special diet of wheat germ oil and figs grown near Manti, Utah.(the secret of which has been discovered by Jim Harmson which explains his great virility and ability to attract so many hot babes to his compound in the shadows of the Temple)

Have been lurking in the background and reading for some time. Finally a post. Now if the others can figure out when Josephs followers actually had knowledge of the First Vision it might get very interesting. He had time to write down all kinds of 'revelations' but not the defining personal visitation of two of the three members of the Godhead? Get real.

[_harmony]

Welcome, JoetheClerk.

[_solomarineris]

I wouldn't advise anyone to hire Smac as their lawyer. But he'd make a "great" Sunday School teacher shaping young minds before they become more critical.

There's no lengths Smac wouldn't go to defend his CULT, another feather in his cap is to demonize homosexuality and Carrol Lynn Pearson. He must be oblivious to the fact that thousands of active LDS Women & Men revere this great Lady.

[_harmony]

I wouldn't advise anyone to hire Smac as their lawyer. But he'd make a "great" Sunday School teacher shaping young minds before they become more critical.

There's no lengths Smac wouldn't go to defend his CULT, another feather in his cap is to demonize homosexuality and Carrol Lynn Pearson. He must be oblivious to the fact that thousands of active LDS Women & Men revere this great Lady.

What's his beef with Carol Lynn Pearson?

And I thought Smac was in the prosecutor's office. Do I have mixed up with someone else over there?

[_moksha]

One tapir bound to a chariot may seem rather
puny, but have a team of twenty tapirs pulling
together, you can virtually see Ben-Quatomoni
racing around the Nephite arena in a life or
death competition.

[_antishock8]

Here's a Christian Jewish Amerind riding his tapir-pighorse into battle:



Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it marvelous?

[_Ray A]

I thought The Dude made a relevant comment on Smac's Goose thread:

You are missing the point. Joseph Smith was the only person who could make informed statements that rely on the act of "translation" because he was the executor. To the rest of us, this "translation" is a mystical black box. Joseph didn't say how "horse" got into the Book of Mormon, so you guys are cherry-picking tight or loose mechanisms as you will, but only on the days when you aren't starting threads about evidence for ancient horse remains, just in case! LOL

In other words, the Tapir is a good explanation for the Book of Mormon "horse" - until we actually find a horse. A parallel:

F.A.R.M.S. UPDATE
(c) June 1985

Moses, Moroni, and the Salamander

Martin Harris' letter of 23 October 1830 to Walmart. W. Phelps (published in Church News, 28 April 1985) has dismayed some people. Harris talks of a "white salamander" which was "transfigured" into "the spirit" otherwise known to us as the Angel Moroni. We may never know whether this description was an embellishment on the part of Harris, or an allegory employed by Joseph Smith, or whether Moroni somehow chose to appear to Joseph out of, or in the form of, a salamander. But since Phelps joined the Church after reading Harris' letter, he must not have found the allusion to a salamander very disconcerting. In fact, as new research is showing, the salamander has been thought for millennia to have supernatural and extraordinary powers. Consider the following:

1. Well into the 19th century, it was commonly believed that salamanders "lived in or were able to endure, fire." Numerous references to this wide-spread belief are listed in the Oxford English Dictionary under "salamander." Long before, even Aristotle -- of all people -- reported: "The salamander shows that certain animals are naturally proof against fire, for it is said to extinguish a flame by passing through it." Historia Animalium V.19, 552b.

2. Indeed, salamanders were thought to be "generated in fire." The great Rabbi Akiba held to this view, in Hullin 127a. Other rabbis, including the noted Rashi, debated whether the fire had to be heated for seven days, seven years or seventy years to produce a salamander that would appear walking and flying in the midst of the fire. (Should we compare Dan. 3:19ff.?)

3. Accordingly, salamanders were often associated with spirits. In Germany, salamanders were thought to be "Wetter-propheten" (weather-prophets), and "Hausgeister" (house-protector spirits). German churchdoor locks and bolts, as well as ovens and fireplaces, had salamander insignia on them. Handwoerterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens (Berlin, 1934), 6:458. In the Middle Ages, the salamander denoted "a being possessing the shape of a man whose element was the fire, or who at least could live in that element." Chambers's Encycl. (1875), 8:436. Earth, air, fire and water, each had a spirit -- for fire, it was the salamander.

4. Moreover, salamanders were associated with the voice of God and with the Holy Ghost! From Midrash Ex. Rabbah XV.28 on Exodus 12, we find that the rabbis of the 9th Century A.D. and before believed that "God had to show Moses on Mt. Sinai was the salamander: "He stirred up the fire and showed him the salamander, for it [Ps. 29:7] says: The voice of the Lord heweth out flames of fire." In 1841, the baptistry of Winchester Cathedral in England bore the figure of a salamander, alluding to the words, "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire." G. A. Poole, Churches: Their Struct. Arrang. & Decor. 9,2.

5. Since the salamander was said to endure fire, it was thought to protect others against burning, including hell-fire. The rabbis remarked that hell would not harm scribes, since they were "all fire, like the Torah; and if flames cannot hurt one who is anointed with salamander blood, still less can they injure the scribes." Jewish Encycl. (1905) 10:646, citing the Talmud Hagiga 27a. A similar popular belief seems to stand behind Austrian lore relating the salamander to the atoning suffering of Christ. The Zohar (ii. 211b) mentions protective garments of salamander skin.

6. Not far removed from these ideas about salamanders are ideas depicted by the biblical phrase "fiery flying serpents" Were these "salamanders"? A brass model of this reptile symbolized Jesus himself, who commanded Moses to put it up on a pole, so the people who had been bitten could look to it and live (Num. 21:6-9; 1 Ne. 17:41; cf. Is. 14:29; 30:6; 2 Ne. 25:20). The Hebrew word here for "fiery" is saraf. This strongly suggests a further connection with the six-winged seraphim (Is. 6:2-6) and the nearly identical cherubin (Ezek. 1 & 10; Rev. 4:6-8). Cf. Egyptian srf ("griffon"). Were their six wings and abstraction from the six, red, wing-like, external gills of salamanders?

7. Eternal life and resurrection were also symbolized by the salamander. The Arabic word for both the salamander and the phoenix, which could die and rise again out of its own ashes, was samandal. Se Al-Jahiz, Kitab al-Hayawan (9th c.) 5:309-10 (Harun edition); S. Nasser, Intro. to Islamic Cosmology, 2d ed., 273 n. 29.

8. People too were sometimes called salamanders. Shakespeare calls a fiery-red face a "salamander." Henry IV, III, iii, 58. Likewise called were soldiers who courageously exposed themselves to fire in battle. Salamanders appear in medieval and renaissance coats of arms, including that of Francis I, King of France. Thomas Brooks in 1670 wrote, "God's people are true salamanders, the live best in the fire of afflictions." Works 6:441.

9. Not all salamanders were good, however. The poisonous ones are "spectacularly colored" with bright spots on a dark background. Encycl. Brit. (15th ed.), Macrop. 18:1087. They were linked with evil spirits. But the non-poisonous good ones were white or grey-brown.

Obviously, much has changed culturally since 1830. Some of us may wince at the suggestion that an angel of God should be associated with, or described as, a salamander. But to people then, no image or description would better fit the appearance of a brillant white spiritual being, once a valiant soldier, now dwelling in a blazing pillar of light, shockingly pure and glorious, speaking with the voice of God while flying though the midst of Heaven, then the salamander! Moroni should be flattered. (JS-H 1:30-32; History of the Church 4:536).

Still, it was predictable that people would not understand this. The Lord apparently knew this would happen. In 1829, God commanded Harris not to try to describe things which he had not personally witnessed: "And I the Lord command him, my servant Martin Harris, that he shall say no more unto them concerning these things, except he shall say: I have seen them, and they have been shown unto me by the power of God; and these are the words which he shall say." D&C 5:26. Harris seems to have overstepped his commission here when he wrote to Phelps in 1830.

Further research is still underway. Glenn Clark's recent "Pillars of My Faith" presentation at the Sunstone Theological Symposium (May 18, 1985) covers several of these points and will soon appear in Sunstone. In the end, this research may lead to a less "modern" view of many symbolically meaningful religious events: a burning bush; a talking ass; a flaming sword; a tempting snake; the Lord with seven horns and seven eyes; a descending dove; and a salamander angel.

LoaP should savor this.

His comment on the Goose thread:

Funny to see critics really fight this very obvious aspect of translation, though. Very faithful is that faith.