Cinepro Schools MAD on the "Horse-Tapir" Issue

[_Chap]

I can't say my spiritual foundation can't be changed, but I do honestly believe the core claims of the church, such as the fact that the Book of Mormon is really the product of an ancient civilization that left its records on gold plates that were delivered by an angel to Joseph Smith.

May I ask whether you were brought up, more or less, in the CoJCoLDS?

If so, I do wonder whether you think a reasonable and critical person such as you appear to be would be likely to find those core claims plausible if such claims were presented to them, starting from scratch, and with all the critical information available nowadays, and they had NOT been brought up in the CoJCoLDS.

The Jesuits are popularly believed to have said "give me a child until he is seven, and he is mine for life". Of course people do leave the religion of their upbringing, and sometimes they join a religion as an adult. But in most cases where I find an intelligent and educated person defending features of a religion that seem bizarre to outsiders, it appears to be because they were born into it, and just do not perceive things as implausible that seem obviously so to outsiders.

[_J Green]

6 Now when Lamoni had heard this he caused that his servants should make ready his horses and his chariots.

And we're all aware that Ash believes that this means that they were preparing the horses to be eaten, the supposed foodstuffs to be transported by means of the sledges, er, chariots.

I think I agree with honorenthetheos here. My reading of the text in these instances is that the horses are meant to "hasten the journey" so to speak. Although if we really are talking dragging some kind of sled behind a tapir in mesoamerica, walking may just be faster, right?

[_J Green]

Hi, Chap.

May I ask whether you were brought up, more or less, in the CoJCoLDS?

I was.

If so, I do wonder whether you think a reasonable and critical person such as you appear to be would be likely to find those core claims plausible if such claims were presented to them, starting from scratch, and with all the critical information available nowadays, and they had NOT been brought up in the CoJCoLDS.

I like to think that I would still accept the claims, but I obviously can't know that. But I believe I can understand how my faith looks to those who weren't raised in it. Some of my best friends growing up overseas were active in other faiths, including Islam, Greek Orthodoxy, the Armenian strain of Christianity, Roman Catholicism, etc. They saw how our faith worked and I got all the silly questions. I asked some silly questions about their beliefs as well.

The Jesuits are popularly believed to have said "give me a child until he is seven, and he is mine for life". Of course people do leave the religion of their upbringing, and sometimes they join a religion as an adult. But in most cases where I find an intelligent and educated person defending features of a religion that seem bizarre to outsiders, it appears to be because they were born into it, and just do not perceive things as implausible that seem obviously so to outsiders.

I think there is some obvious truth there. All I can say is that my parents were very faithful but not overbearing or dogmatic about it by any means. I have two siblings who have left the church, and long ago I felt open to the possibility that it wasn't true myself. I like to think I would have acted on it if I had believed that it wasn't. But who really knows? Perhaps the early training stuck in one child and not in another? I find it hard to always understand the workings of my own heart let alone others'.

Cheers

[_Chap]

Many thanks for your reasonable and frank reply J Green - that is about the answer I was expecting you to give, and I do not intend that as a criticism.

[_curious]

Sorry to resurrect a thread that is a few days old, but I'm wondering: Are the 'elephants' perhaps the key to this issue? The verse in Ether talks about horses and asses, elephants, and cureloms and cumoms, so three creatures that we know, and two that we don't.

So elephants: Okay, I understand the apologetic answer that there were possibly mastodons or whatever around, but I'm talking about the word 'elephant' itself. Seems like I recall the creature we all know to be an elephant didn't appear in Palestine until something like the first or second century BC, yet the word appears in Ether - 2500ish BC. Even assuming that the Jaredites - if they were real - arrived in the new world and saw huge beasts with long trunks, tusks, and floppy ears, how would they have known to call it by a name that would be rendered through two divine translation processes as 'elephant'?, a word that refers to an animal we all know and love, but that THEY had no concept of whatsoever? They wouldn't have, of course. They didn't have an elephant-like creature in their body of knowledge to compare it to, like they supposedly did with horses/tapirs and asses/llamas. So they would have called it something else - a word that would have been unrecognizable to the 19th century translator, so he would have rendered it phonetically as best as he could - like he did with 'curelom' and 'cumom'.

I didn't explain that very well - I'm kind of confused by it myself, if I'm honest - but it seems like the presence of the word 'elephants' is kind of a dead giveaway, more so than the alleged presence of the creatures themselves.

[_Darth J]

Sorry to resurrect a thread that is a few days old, but I'm wondering: Are the 'elephants' perhaps the key to this issue? The verse in Ether talks about horses and asses, elephants, and cureloms and cumoms, so three creatures that we know, and two that we don't.

So elephants: Okay, I understand the apologetic answer that there were possibly mastodons or whatever around, but I'm talking about the word 'elephant' itself. Seems like I recall the creature we all know to be an elephant didn't appear in Palestine until something like the first or second century BC, yet the word appears in Ether - 2500ish BC. Even assuming that the Jaredites - if they were real - arrived in the new world and saw huge beasts with long trunks, tusks, and floppy ears, how would they have known to call it by a name that would be rendered through two divine translation processes as 'elephant'?, a word that refers to an animal we all know and love, but that THEY had no concept of whatsoever? They wouldn't have, of course. They didn't have an elephant-like creature in their body of knowledge to compare it to, like they supposedly did with horses/tapirs and asses/llamas. So they would have called it something else - a word that would have been unrecognizable to the 19th century translator, so he would have rendered it phonetically as best as he could - like he did with 'curelom' and 'cumom'.

I didn't explain that very well - I'm kind of confused by it myself, if I'm honest - but it seems like the presence of the word 'elephants' is kind of a dead giveaway, more so than the alleged presence of the creatures themselves.

You have to remember that the Book of Ether as we have in it the Book of Mormon is a translation of a translation. That is, the ancient Nephites found the Jaredite records, and ancient Nephite prophets translated the Jaredite record. Moroni then incorporated the Book of Ether in the golden plates that Joseph Smith later translated as the Book of Mormon.

While the Jaredites would not have known what an elephant was, Moroni clearly would have. As an inhabitant of the ancient Italian peninsula, Moroni doubtless would have been familiar with Hannibal using elephants during the Punic Wars, as well as other instances of elephants being present in the classical world during the time period of the Book of Mormon. http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/LX/WarElephant.html

Joseph Smith could not possibly have been familiar with the rich history of elephants being used in warfare in ancient Greece and Rome. Nor could he have guessed that the ancient Italian Nephite, Moroni, would have been knowledgeable about this (remember that Moroni was a military leader). Thus, we see yet another example of signs of an ancient Italian origin of the Book of Mormon appearing right where we would expect them to be.

For more:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13858&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

[_Quasimodo]

Sorry to resurrect a thread that is a few days old, but I'm wondering: Are the 'elephants' perhaps the key to this issue? The verse in Ether talks about horses and asses, elephants, and cureloms and cumoms, so three creatures that we know, and two that we don't.

So elephants: Okay, I understand the apologetic answer that there were possibly mastodons or whatever around, but I'm talking about the word 'elephant' itself. Seems like I recall the creature we all know to be an elephant didn't appear in Palestine until something like the first or second century BC, yet the word appears in Ether - 2500ish BC. Even assuming that the Jaredites - if they were real - arrived in the new world and saw huge beasts with long trunks, tusks, and floppy ears, how would they have known to call it by a name that would be rendered through two divine translation processes as 'elephant'?, a word that refers to an animal we all know and love, but that THEY had no concept of whatsoever? They wouldn't have, of course. They didn't have an elephant-like creature in their body of knowledge to compare it to, like they supposedly did with horses/tapirs and asses/llamas. So they would have called it something else - a word that would have been unrecognizable to the 19th century translator, so he would have rendered it phonetically as best as he could - like he did with 'curelom' and 'cumom'.

I didn't explain that very well - I'm kind of confused by it myself, if I'm honest - but it seems like the presence of the word 'elephants' is kind of a dead giveaway, more so than the alleged presence of the creatures themselves.

Great point!

It seems that the first definable mammoth fossils were discovered in the Americas in 1806 by William Clark (of Lewis and Clark fame).

One can imagine that this would make an impression on Joseph Smith and would show up in his "History of the Americas" (the Book of Mormon).

Mammoths and mastodons became extinct on this continent at the end of the last ice age (10,000 bc?). Way before the creation of the world according to Mormon belief.

I really don't know if early Judeans had any knowledge of elephants (most likely not, given their location), but they certainly didn't find any in the Western hemisphere if they ever actually made the trip.

[_Quasimodo]

You have to remember that the Book of Ether as we have in it the Book of Mormon is a translation of a translation. That is, the ancient Nephites found the Jaredite records, and ancient Nephite prophets translated the Jaredite record. Moroni then incorporated the Book of Ether in the golden plates that Joseph Smith later translated as the Book of Mormon.

While the Jaredites would not have known what an elephant was, Moroni clearly would have. As an inhabitant of the ancient Italian peninsula, Moroni doubtless would have been familiar with Hannibal using elephants during the Punic Wars, as well as other instances of elephants being present in the classical world during the time period of the Book of Mormon. http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/LX/WarElephant.html

Joseph Smith could not possibly have been familiar with the rich history of elephants being used in warfare in ancient Greece and Rome. Nor could he have guessed that the ancient Italian Nephite, Moroni, would have been knowledgeable about this (remember that Moroni was a military leader). Thus, we see yet another example of signs of an ancient Italian origin of the Book of Mormon appearing right where we would expect them to be.

For more:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=13858&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Sorry, Darth. I forgot about the very impressive theory of an Italian location for the Book of Mormon. Although, I'm wondering why SLC doesn't have better Italian restaurants. Seems like it would be a "natural".

[_J Green]

Curious,

A few thoughts from a believer's perspective. I think you've asked a great question, no matter how you think you articulated it. My understanding is that the elephant was known to the ancient Hebrews through other cultures. Elephants were hunted in Nubia (Sudan), with the ivory transported usually through Syria into Palestine, where the product was coveted. Archaeology has uncovered ivory-covered products in Palestine, and there are references to costly ivory-plated objects in the Hebrew Bible. (Although there are likely no elephants mentioned there, with the possible exception of a few debated terms.) Hebrew and Egyptian both had words for the Elephant, so the language on the plates referred to as "reformed Egyptian" likely had the word in its vocabulary.

As Darth J points out, the reference to elephants comes from a Nephite translation of a Jaredite text. This means that the lack of equivalency for the terms "curelom" and "cumom" probably occurs from the transfer between whatever language the Jaredites spoke and whatever language the Nephites spoke, not between "reformed Egyptian" and English. Why this is important to me is that it's possibly one more indicator that whatever process Joseph used to translate the Book of Mormon, it was likely restricted to knowing simply what was on the plates without extensive additional divine commentary on flora, fauna, or cultural aspects. Apparently Moroni was in the same boat because it looks like he simply transliterated these terms from the plates of Ether, not having an equivalency in the Nephite language and not getting any divine help in knowing an equivalency, if there was one. I think that this distinction is important when we then approach the issue of whether or not God should have told Joseph Smith that "horse" meant "tapir." (If that is even what happened; I'm not sure I buy it.)

I know, hypotheticals within hypotheticals. Not very firm ground on which to stand, right? But fun to discuss on the internet.

Regards

[_jon]

Given that God gave Joseph Smith the words to use directly into the stone in his hat, isn't the right question to ask "why did God not use the word Tapir, but instead used the totally misleading word Horse?".