Daniel Peterson's Article on Book of Mormon in Deseret News

[_Simon Belmont]

I haven't read the exchange so I can't comment, it's on a topic that doesn't interest me personally.

However, I can tell you that the opinions of any particular faculty member at Cassius University do not necessarily reflect the opinions of myself, other faculty, or the University. Just like it is at FARMS. Do you have a problem with the FARMS Review, Simon? If you are willing to say that contra FARMS administration that that any given article in the Review or any particular reviewer is representative of FARMS, then I will acknowledge that your criticism of Cassius is at least consistent, whether or not I agree with it.

My point was the quality of professors at Cassius, not that you personally agreed with everything they say or do. As a professor at Cassius, CamNC4Me in some ways is representative of said University --for one, he represents at least one professor there, and perhaps that is a commentary on the general hiring and retention guidelines which Cassius abides by. Nevertheless, I remember a young, bright professor getting the boot for much more mild (yet also unorthodox by Cassius standards) behavior. Has there been an accreditation committee review, or is Cassius intending to go the way of profit schools like Strayer and DeVry?

[_keithb]

There's an idiot savant somewhere that can memorize the name of every single person in a large studio audience, having heard the names just once. What does that prove?

Mozart was writing his first music at a younger age than most of us go to kindergarten. What does that prove?

I have no problem conceding that Joseph Smith was an extraordinary individual. Arguments like "he did something you and I couldn't imagine being able to do in such a short time!" mean nothing. All sorts of people alive today can do things I couldn't possibly imagine being able to do, at all, ever, regardless of the time given me. Are these people prophets too?

Besides, if Joseph Smith had help in writing the Book of Mormon, or the story was essentially finished before the mummer's farce with the face pressed down into the hat to see the translation revealed in his magic rock, then that would answer the whole "too short a time" argument, wouldn't it?

Joseph couldn't have done it? What's more likely, that a human being, inspired by current themes and prior works of fiction (View of the Hebrews?), wrote a book in a short amount of time? Or that that same human being pressed his face into a hat, and in a magic rock viewed the translation of ancient Hebrew, written in Egyptian characters on plates of gold by ancient American Christians, which plates were located in another room altogether from the one this person was in?

+1

[_sock puppet]

I haven't read the exchange so I can't comment, it's on a topic that doesn't interest me personally.

However, I can tell you that the opinions of any particular faculty member at Cassius University do not necessarily reflect the opinions of myself, other faculty, or the University. Just like it is at FARMS. Do you have a problem with the FARMS Review, Simon? If you are willing to say that contra FARMS administration that that any given article in the Review or any particular reviewer is representative of FARMS, then I will acknowledge that your criticism of Cassius is at least consistent, whether or not I agree with it.

My point was the quality of professors at Cassius, not that you personally agreed with everything they say or do. As a professor at Cassius, CamNC4Me in some ways is representative of said University --for one, he represents at least one professor there, and perhaps that is a commentary on the general hiring and retention guidelines which Cassius abides by. Nevertheless, I remember a young, bright professor getting the boot for much more mild (yet also unorthodox by Cassius standards) behavior. Has there been an accreditation committee review, or is Cassius intending to go the way of profit schools like Strayer and DeVry?

Simon, do you think it needs to be repeatedly brought up that Paul 'The Prevaricator' Dunn was a GA?

[_Simon Belmont]

Simon, do you think it needs to be repeatedly brought up that Paul 'The Prevaricator' Dunn was a GA?

Paul Dunn is no longer a GA.

CamNC4Me remains a professor in good standing at Cassius University. A professor of ethics, no less.

[_Morley]

Simon, do you think it needs to be repeatedly brought up that Paul 'The Prevaricator' Dunn was a GA?

Paul Dunn is no longer a GA.

CamNC4Me remains a professor in good standing at Cassius University. A professor of ethics, no less.

You are comparing the fake swearing activities of an online poster who is on the pretend faculty of a make-believe university to one of God's chosen apostles who was canned for delivering false sermons at General Conferences of your own real 'one true' church? What does this say about Mormonism?

[_hugh jass]

Why does he have to be presented as some stupid farm boy?

Because in many ways he was a stupid farm boy. When the book was first published the people in Palmyra had a difficult time believing that Joseph Smith could write such a book. And this is why some sought to find other sources for the book, eventually latching on to sidney rigdon.

Remember when you talked about ATM? A** to mouth?

I just witnessed it.

You talking out of your ass.

[_hugh jass]

Peterson is lying again.

Joseph Smith, by contrast, a Yankee farm boy with only a few weeks of formal education, dictated the Book of Mormon in slightly more than two months, and published it without significant revision.

CFR Dano!

[_brade]

With regard to DCP's article, one need only select the best among the following two hypotheses:

H1: The archeology, history, language, culture, genetics, and technology of Mesoamerica from approximately 2500 BCE to approximately 600 ACE is best described by the qualified historians, archeologists, linguists, geneticists, ethnologists, geologists and other professionals who have spend hundreds of thousands of hours working onsite in Mesoamerica and who have published their findings in hundreds of peer reviewed scientific papers published over the last century.

H2: The archeology, history, language, culture, genetics, and technology of Mesoamerica from approximately 2500 BCE to approximately 600 ACE is best described by writings of an uneducated glass looker and treasure hunter who lived in New England in the early 19th century, never set foot in Mesoamerica, claimed that he magically received golden plates that contained this history and published this history (which showed remarkable similarity to popular fiction of time) in the Book of Mormon, said history of the Mesoamerican inhabitants having been first ascribed to native North American peoples by his followers until it became abundantly clear that no evidence for the North American version of the story could be found.

According to the article, DCP would select the second hypothesis (H2), and would encourage others to select this as the best hypothesis as well.

DrW, what's your take on the following argument?

P1: If the Book of Mormon appears to be too complex to have been written by Joseph or any of his contemporaries in the early nineteenth century under any conceivable set of circumstances than the one Joseph describes, then the Book of Mormon is probably an authentic ancient document translated into English by miraculous means.

P2: The Book of Mormon appears to be too complex to have been written by Joseph or any of his contemporaries in the early nineteenth century under any conceivable set of circumstances than the one Joseph describes.

C: Therefore, the Book of Mormon is probably an authentic ancient document translated into English by miraculous means.

Dr. Peterson would, I think, support P2 with the following evidence:

1. It's doctrinally rich

2. Its vitally important as a second witness for the Savior Jesus Christ

3. It features hundreds of individual characters, many of them bearing quite uncommon names,
who belong to a multitude of groups, subgroups and small factions.

4. It describes three migrations from the Eastern Hemisphere to the Western Hemisphere.

5. It employs at least three distinct dating systems.

6. It was dictated within a remarkably short time, at high speed (roughly nine to 11 pages of
the English printed edition per day)

7. It's internally consistent.

8. It doesn't contradict itself.

9. It both presupposes and reflects a complicated geographical backdrop to its stories, involving scores of place names and topographical indicators.

10. Places maintain their proper relationships to each other even when they're mentioned only a few times over hundreds of pages.

11. Many important sections of the book are prefaced by statements that give readers a forecast of what's coming — and are then followed by summaries of what has just been read.

12. There are extended chiasms throughout the book.

13. The purported ancient authors sometimes quote from each other (e.g. in 1 Nephi 1:8 and Alma 36:22, passages dictated orally many days apart).

14. It was published without significant revision.

15. The person who published the book was a semiliterate young farmer with only a few weeks of formal education.

Do you believe all those things taken together don't suggest sufficient complexity?

[_Themis]

Peterson is lying again.

Joseph Smith, by contrast, a Yankee farm boy with only a few weeks of formal education, dictated the Book of Mormon in slightly more than two months, and published it without significant revision.

CFR Dano!

I would agree that Dan is probably lying if this is what he said, but I do wonder if it might be a typo since I believe Joseph had 3 years of formal education, although apologists seem to conveniently forget that at least one of his parents were a teacher, so he certainly would have had more education available to him.

[_Themis]

Do you believe all those things taken together don't suggest sufficient complexity?

Not even close.

1. It's doctrinally rich

It's not doctrinally rich, and borrows from it's 19 century environment. In another thread they are taking about the lack of Joseph preaching from the Book of Mormon. All the doctrines that make Mormonism as a whole unique are not found in the Book of Mormon.

2. Its vitally important as a second witness for the Savior Jesus Christ

This is not evidence or relevant for what they claim about the Book of Mormon.

3. It features hundreds of individual characters, many of them bearing quite uncommon names,
who belong to a multitude of groups, subgroups and small factions.

I can make up a bunch of new names. They present this as some kind of feat and then create a false example of Shakespeare never came up with that many. Here's a news flash. Shakespeare was never trying to, and used mostly names he already knew. As to multiple groups, I am not seeing to many.

4. It describes three migrations from the Eastern Hemisphere to the Western Hemisphere.

Missing how this is evidence for, but I can see how it is good evidence against the Book of Mormon claims.

5. It employs at least three distinct dating systems.

Are they saying no one could think of something like this. Interesting.

6. It was dictated within a remarkably short time, at high speed (roughly nine to 11 pages of
the English printed edition per day)

How is dictating 9-11 pages a day some amazing feat. We don't even know all that was going on or if an already prepared text was used. Here is a good post about this http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20902

7. It's internally consistent.

8. It doesn't contradict itself.

These two are essentially the same, but I fail to see how they are all that consistent beyond human ability. Is Nephi never calling the Savior, Jesus Christ, before it was revealed to him part of that consistency. :)

9. It both presupposes and reflects a complicated geographical backdrop to its stories, involving scores of place names and topographical indicators.

10. Places maintain their proper relationships to each other even when they're mentioned only a few times over hundreds of pages.

These two are also essentially the same. Why is it that they argue how complicated the geography is till they actually can't find any areas that would fit that geography, and then argue it is to vague in it's descriptions. Which is it. LOL

12. There are extended chiasms throughout the book.

This one has been dealt with multiple times. Most chiatic structures are simple, and the one big one they claims is actually fairly poor although I remember reading it at some apologetic sites and seeing just how good it was until I opened up the Book of Mormon to check. This should be expected naturally since it is common to many languages including English. We find it in other writings of Joseph, and the Bible is a Hebrew document Joseph was very fa,ilar with. It's also interesting to note that at least one prominent apologist argues that chiasms are not evidence for the Book of Mormon, and that any would not survive the translation process.

13. The purported ancient authors sometimes quote from each other (e.g. in 1 Nephi 1:8 and Alma 36:22, passages dictated orally many days apart).

Doesn't seem like an impossible feat, and if they were using an already created story, no problem at all.

14. It was published without significant revision.

LOL do I really need to comment on this.

15. The person who published the book was a semiliterate young farmer with only a few weeks of formal education.

Although Joseph was more literate then they want to give him credit here, it was paid for by Martin Harris, and others were part of helping it get published and Oliver played an important role in both scribe(maybe pretend scribe) and revising mistakes afterwards. Some of which were whoppers.