Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_SteelHead]

I talk to God all the time face to face, and unlike Tobin's experience he actually answers my questions. He said Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon are all just a big joke, invented by him for entertainment value. But hey, that is how Exu rolls.

[Guest]

here's another pseudo-biblical work i came across in searching out certain phrases. it was written by Englishman John Collier, a.k.a. "Tim Bobbin". Collier presents it in the book "The miscellaneous works of Tim Bobbin", (re?)published in 1818, using the conceit of having discoverd it in an old worm-eaten folio which the owner of a pub he was visiting had gotten in an estate sale lot. the "scripture" relates the events of the 1757 food riot known as the Shudehill Fight.

Now it came to pass in the reign of George the son of George, who reigned over Britain, that there were four years of dearth in the land; and there was in that country, a city, and the inhabitants thereof were merchants, and workers of fine linen, and workers of silk and workers of wool: And there were also in that city, men, cunning to work in gold, and in silver; in brass, and in iron; in purple, and in crimson, and blue, and fine twined linen, and endued with understanding in all manner of work; and that city grew and flourished exceedingly.
2
And the inhabitants of that city waxed rich, and mighty; as the merchants of Tyre and Sidon; as the merchants, the princes of Tyre: And they builded unto themselves houses and palaces; and made for themselves great palaces to be a name unto them: And they gathered vessels of gold, and vessels of silver, and garments, and horses, and mules, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and much riches: and they waxed so vain in their prosperity that they despised the inhabitants round about, and their cities; and gloried in their own city, and called it the City of Men.
3
And in the fourth year of the dearth, when George the son of George, had ruled the land thirty and one years; when the famine was sore in the land; there arose certain men the sons of Belial; and they took counsel together, and said, There is corn in the land of Chester; go to, let us buy all the corn in the land of Chester; for it will come to pass that the Lord will continue the famine yet three years.
4
And when there is no bread in all the land, and that the people faint for lack of bread; we will sell unto the people, bread for their money at our own price: and when their money doth fail, we will sell unto them for their cattle; and we will give them bread in exchange for their horses for their flocks, and for their herds, both of great and small cattle.
5
And it shall be, when we have bought with our corn, and our bread, all their cattle, small and great, that they will sell unto us their houses, their orchards, and gardens; their corn-fields, their meadows, and pastures; their woods, yea, all their land, and themselves also; and we will buy them and their land, and they, and their seed after them, shall be servants unto us for ever.
[...]


compare the first two verses above to 1 Nephi 13:7, Alma 4:6, Exodus 28:6-15, and Revelations 18:12.

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by the way, Matthew Roper wrote of these passages (minus the one from Collier/Bobbin) in FARMS Review, Vol. 3 Issue 1:
I am convinced that John and Nephi were both drawing upon the same familiar imagery of Israel and the temple. [...] It is interesting to note that, while John uses the term "fine linen," Nephi uses the term "fine-twined linen" which is also used in Exodus in the description of the tabernacle and the garments of the High Priest. In short, there appears to be a closer relationship between 1 Nephi 13-14 and the Old Testament imagery of the temple than there is with the New Testament book of Revelation. Thus the case for plagiarism [from the New Testament] in this passage seems unwarranted.

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btw2, Collier, like Joseph Smith, was a bright kid who came from nothing:
By the time Collier reached the age of 14 his father had contracted an illness which resulted in permanent blindness and with his large family rapidly descending into abject poverty, John was forced to break off his schooling and enter full-time employment. He was initially apprenticed to a weaver who lived some twenty five miles away on the bleak Newton Moors that surround Glossop in Derbyshire but was released from his indentures after little more than a year and began to make his living as an itinerant schoolteacher.

[_renewed]

Chris Johnson and his brother Duane are the ones who did this analysis and Duane is commenting over on the reddit and mentioned this:

We analyzed several books for chiasmus using an algorithm and found, surprisingly, that there is abundant chiasmus in English. The Book of Mormon actually has a low chiasmus content score. When chris's presentation video is finished the editing process, you can see his explanation.

http://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/commen ... e_book_of/

[_SteelHead]

1 nephi 13:7 looks like it was fairly well lifted from that first verse. Is this phrase common with something in the Bible?

[_cognitiveharmony]

Wow, I sure hope your guess is wrong because we would yet again be talking about a God that I would not want to worship. Do you have any idea how ridiculous and condescending that sounds? As if he's never asked God a question? As if this hoax would be the perfect catalyst to do so...please.

Runtu can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe he's ever claimed to have seen God, let alone spoken with him face-to-face. So perhaps you are confused, but I don't believe it is ridiculous to believe in God or that we can speak with such a being. And I don't believe it is condescending in the slightest to recommend that people actually do that if they really are interested in obtaining the answers to their questions.

Wow. I'm not sure how to respond to this. Did you really not understand any part of the conversation that we had that precluded this response? Well. Shame on me, I guess I took your topic derailment bait hook, line, and sinker.

[Guest]

1 nephi 13:7 looks like it was fairly well lifted from that first verse. Is this phrase common with something in the Bible?

more likely both were lifted from Exodus 28.

i just post the Collier/Bobbin verses here as another example of faux biblical writing being published during Joseph Smith's early years.

[_Tobin]

Wow. I'm not sure how to respond to this. Did you really not understand any part of the conversation that we had that precluded this response? Well. Shame on me, I guess I took your topic derailment bait hook, line, and sinker.

I'm not interested in derailing the thread. I've simply responded to YOUR posts in this thread and that is all. If you wish to discuss this further in private, I'm perfectly happy to.

[_Kishkumen]

An MDB participant gave me permission to share the following account of Chris Johnson's presentation:

I attended his presentation (Johnson's) and it was very interesting. I feel that he had to cram a whole lot of information into a shorter amount of time than he really needed, but he did a great job.

Chris is the brother of D. William Johnson who has done the "I Am An Ex-Mormon" videos (who was also a presenter at the conference and both of these men are extremely impressive and also very humble and nice). They are also both incredibly intelligent. I know that Chris has put untold hours into his research and data collecting.

One thing I should add that you didn't mention above XXXX is that Solomon Spaulding does show as being a contributor to the Book of Mormon (along with the View of the Hebrews and the other two new books: The Late War, Between The United States and Great Britain (it states on the title page of this book "In The Scriptural Style") and it was published in 1816; and The First Book of Napoleon, published in 1809).

If I recall correctly, this is the order in which these 4 came up as showing to be contributors: the strongest one was the Late War book, then the Napoleon book, then Hebrews, then Spaulding.

We need to remember that we do not have a copy of Spaulding's book Manuscript Found (and Chris made a point to state that there are no copies of it to use). The "Found" manuscript is the one that witnesses stated was near identical to the Book of Mormon when they read it (same names, story, lots of "And it came to passes", etc.). I believe that the church may have a copy of this manuscript in their archives (possibly the last available copy was purchased by them....but there is no way to know for sure unless they admit that). So, Chris only had Spaulding's Manuscript Story (also referred to as Manuscript Lost) to use for this study and it still came up that Spaulding was a contributor.

I hope that Chris will write this up as a paper and have it submitted so it can be peer reviewed. This will force scholars (and apologists, etc.) to take it seriously and not dismiss it (as I'm sure they will attempt to do). One of the ladies I attended the conference with talked to him about doing this and I think this is in his plans. He's going to be one very busy young man (as if he hasn't already been). I was impressed!"

[_Mary]

So, how much of the language of the Book of Mormon was just common vernacular for the time Joseph was writing?

I looked for a couple of the 4 word strings in the link from the Johnson's.

With regard to 'wound their delicate minds' (from Jacob 2) - This term was used in an English travel document from the period.

'Inflict a deep wound on his delicate mind' p277 A Picturesque Promenade Round Dorking, in Surrey - John Timbs, Jan 1, 1823

At what point do the similarities in the two documents become statistically significant? How much weight should be given to thematic likenesses and how much to word and sentence analysis?

For me, the attitude and portrayal of women in the Book of Mormon have the feel of 18th and 19th century texts, in fact so much of the text screams out 18th and 19th Century from a philosophical, theological and sociological standpoint.

Yes, the Hunt book is fascinating. It was presumably read and learned in schools. (Joseph's own father was a school teacher on occasion) Joseph may have been familiar with it and others like it. But what would a smoking gun look like to someone convinced of the Book of Mormon's divine origin?

We already know Joseph didn't have the plates in front of him when he translated. We already know he had a specific King James version of the Bible in front of him and he transferred portions of it into the Book of Mormon, mistakes and all. We already know that the text is littered with anachronisms. We already know there is not one shred of archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon. If people can still believe that the Book of Mormon is a history of real people that left Jerusalem in 600BC in the face of all that then they are hardly going to be sidetracked by the Hunt book?

[_mms]

We already know Joseph didn't have the plates in front of him when he translated. We already know he had a specific King James version of the Bible in front of him and he transferred portions of it into the Book of Mormon, mistakes and all. We already know that the text is littered with anachronisms. We already know there is not one shred of archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon. If people can still believe that the Book of Mormon is a history of real people that left Jerusalem in 600BC in the face of all that then they are hardly going to be sidetracked by the Hunt book?

My only disagreement would be with how easy it is to show the comparison of Hunt's book (passages not in the Bible) to the Book of Mormon. It is much more difficult and time consuming to show the things you mentioned than to simply compare passages relating to two thousand chosen warriors, etc. It is this kind of thing that can lead to investigation of the other things you mentioned, which alone might seem too overwhelming to investigate or might be excused because of Smith's familiarity with the Bible.