Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_renewed]

I sent the Johnsons a PM link to Grunder. Great work on his part. The Johnsons had no idea the Late War book existed and their software picked the book out of thousands. Apparently, Grunder was on to something.

[_Kishkumen]

Hunt, Ch. 46.3

For the Prince Regent had commanded his servants to go forth into the heart of the land of Columbia, and separate the states of the east from the rest of the country.

Alma 47:27

27 And it came to pass that Amalickiah commanded that his armies should march forth and see what had happened to the king; and when they had come to the spot, and found the king lying in his gore, Amalickiah pretended to be wroth, and said: Whosoever loved the king, let him go forth and pursue his servants that they may be slain.

1 Nephi 4:20

20 And after I had done this, I went forth unto the treasury of Laban. And as I went forth towards the treasury of Laban, behold, I saw the servant of Laban who had the keys of the treasury. And I commanded him in the voice of Laban, that he should go with me into the treasury.

This cluster of words does not appear in the Bible.

[_Kishkumen]

Hunt, Ch. 46.6

And they began to prepare their battering rams, their bombs and their rockets, and all kinds of instruments of destruction; and they entrenched themselves round about.

Alma 2:12

12 Therefore the people of the Nephites were aware of the intent of the Amlicites, and therefore they did prepare to meet them; yea, they did arm themselves with swords, and with cimeters, and with bows, and with arrows, and with stones, and with slings, and with all manner of weapons of war, of every kind.

[_Kishkumen]

The linguistic and thematic similarities I have seen pointed out so far do not rise to the level of establishing literary influence, much less dependence. Most strike me as superficial (e.g., "curious workmanship").

Well, Nevo, I have to say that your ability to address what has been posted thus far is unimpressive. You act as though "curious workmanship" was pointed out in isolation of any other similarities, when I showed quite clearly that the interrelationship is much more complex than that. Your failure to address those posts is noted, and your specific reference to "curious workmanship" strikes me as disingenuous because you have failed to respond to those posts.

Very disappointing.

I am not frothing at the mouth here. I am having fun. Do I think this explains away the Book of Mormon in one fell stroke? Of course not.

But it is a find. And no LDS scholar has dealt with it as of yet. The one place you showed it being discussed was inadequate at best and perhaps misleading. I don't see how anyone could read this book and not be struck by the similarities, which, by the way, obviously go much further than surface resemblance in a couple of phrases.

If this is your idea of making a solid showing, you are deluded. In fact, you are misrepresenting and underestimating what has written on this thread. Sure, it ain't scholarship. It's folks having a good time. At the same time, there is clearly more going on in the relationship between this text and the Book of Mormon than you grant, and anyone who reads this thread will see that.

Bad form.

[Guest]

I am very excited to read this Kish. A great find.

One of the great experiences of my life has to become friends with people who are much better read and much more thoughtful than myself. I think of you Kish as one of those folks. One other person who fits in this category is Rick Grunder. he has helped me through many of these kind of works that could have played a part in Smith's environment. His Mormon Parallels http://www.rickgrunder.com/parallels.htm is unmatched in its breadth and depth.

Luckily, Rick has put his entry from Mormon Parallels about Gilbert Hunt's book in pdf form on his website. It can be found here:

http://www.rickgrunder.com/parallels/mp193.pdf

I will be curious what you, Kish, and others think of Rick's entry?

Good grief, why have I not heard of Rick Grunder's work before?

That Chris unearthed Last War without having it mind when he started is very interesting. He has done a textual analysis looking for matching 4-word phrases. His work was not the thematic parallels and apologetics busting that people have leapt into in this thread - following Grunder.

So Rick and Chris have converged on each other, by the looks of it, without prior knowledge of each other.

Talk about a slam dunk!


ETA: that is "prior knowledge" of the other method. Chris wasn't aware of Rick's parallels, while Rick would not have been able to do the massive number crunching required for the comparison of 4-word strings.

Further ETA: Grunder's book is available, as far as I can tell, in digital copy only, in a limited edition of 300 CDs for $200 each. Luckily his work on Late War is one of his free extracts - but I think I see why his work slipped under the radar.

[Guest]

This is different in that the phrasing and content, in context, is so similar to Book of Mormon at points that it is a good potential candidate to establish direct narrative influence. I don't think we've realistically seen that before. It plainly is something deserving further study. To hand-wave it as nothing new, especially with some very weak references, seems desperate and beneath the usual quality of Nevo's comments.

Sorry to be a disappointment, EAllusion. I thought some of the references I gave were pretty strong. I think Eran Shalev's new book should be the starting point for any serious discussion of similarities and differences between the Book of Mormon and other pseudo-biblical writing in the post-Revolutionary period.

Huh. One would think that since the OP is so simplistic and obvious, it would be no trouble at all for you to refute all these similarities in language and themes everyone keeps finding in this thread with little trouble. Why don't we have that serious discussion right now, since you're here?

I can understand why the ex-Mormon crowd is salivating over this, particularly those whose knowledge of Joseph Smith's cultural context is next to nil, but I'll be very surprised if this "find" (Rick Grunder should be suing!) gets any traction among serious students of the period (I'm thinking here of folks like Jared Hickman).

You know what's wonderful about the restored gospel? The LDS Church sends tens of thousands of untrained teenagers out to tell people to believe in the Book of Mormon on the basis of nothing but a subjective emotional experience, combined with the LDS Church's ipse dixit about the meaning of any such nice feelings a person might have. And it takes no particular education or informed perspective to spend one's life as a believing Mormon, telling anyone within the sound of your voice that you "know" the Book of Mormon is what it purports to be. And yet one needs all kinds of specialized training in any number of esoteric fields before being qualified to offer any criticism of the Book of Mormon's truth claims, and even then you just have an agenda and are closed-minded. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it marvelous?

Nevo, how many PhD.'s does the average person need before he or she can reasonably suspect that the Book of Mormon might be fictitious? Six? Would six PhD.'s be enough? As opposed to being competent at around second grade (age 8) to "know" that it is true?

So far I haven't seen anything to persuade me that Hunt's book is the source, or even a source, for the Book of Mormon. The linguistic and thematic similarities I have seen pointed out so far do not rise to the level of establishing literary influence, much less dependence. Most strike me as superficial (e.g., "curious workmanship"). Perhaps a cumulative case can be made. Time will tell. But I'm not holding my breath.

Yes, it's not like this is a multi-page thread that has pointed out a great many exact similarities in language and literary themes. How does the saying go? Avoidance: it's not just a river in Egypt? Something like that.

Is there nineteenth-century influence in the Book of Mormon? I think there plainly is. Blake Ostler, Richard Bushman, Terryl Givens, Philip Barlow, Mark Thomas, Dan Vogel, and numerous other scholars have pointed this out. I myself have pointed out such things (see, for example, here and here). Is this a problem for believers? Not really. If God wanted to tailor the Book of Mormon to a nineteenth-century readership (cf. 1 Nephi 19:24; Mormon 8:35), why should it be otherwise? As Terryl Givens has written, "nineteenth-century parallels . . . are part and parcel of the self-proclaimed prophetic texture of the work."

See, the thing is that nobody on Earth (except Chapel Mormons, whose knowledge of Joseph Smith's cultural context is next to nil) disputes a 19th-century influence on the Book of Mormon. It's that there is nothing other than a 19th-century influence in the Book of Mormon. The issue you are stridently avoiding is that this find adds to the already overwhelming evidence why there is no reason to believe the Book of Mormon is the product of anything outside of Joseph Smith's time and place.

Or do you still want to talk about all these impressive Hebraisms that nobody in New York in the early 1800's could possibly have come up with?

[_Kishkumen]

Sorry to be a disappointment, EAllusion. I thought some of the references I gave were pretty strong. I think Eran Shalev's new book should be the starting point for any serious discussion of similarities and differences between the Book of Mormon and other pseudo-biblical writing in the post-Revolutionary period.

Is there nineteenth-century influence in the Book of Mormon? I think there plainly is. Blake Ostler, Richard Bushman, Terryl Givens, Philip Barlow, Mark Thomas, Dan Vogel, and numerous other scholars have pointed this out. I myself have pointed out such things (see, for example, here and here). Is this a problem for believers? Not really. If God wanted to tailor the Book of Mormon to a nineteenth-century readership (cf. 1 Nephi 19:24; Mormon 8:35), why should it be otherwise? As Terryl Givens has written, "nineteenth-century parallels . . . are part and parcel of the self-proclaimed prophetic texture of the work."

Here we see two of the stock devices of the Mopologist.

1. Huffing about the serious work that is not being done on this thread, while referring to some scholarly work that, while valuable, does not cover precisely what is being discussed on this thread.

2. Referring to all of the Mormon scholars who would yawn about this, while neglecting to acknowledge that not a single one of them have ever written anything substantial on this topic.

So, you see folks, you are all silly for thinking this is interesting. You only think it is interesting because you have not read Shalev and do not know all of the things that these Mormon scholars know that makes them uninterested enough in this topic to give it any attention.

We are to believe that this tiny little entry in BYU Studies, which showed only a single parallel with the Book of Mormon, was all the scholarly attention this topic merited.

Oh, but, time will tell whether anything comes of this. As any grouchy old apologist would tell you, this wasn't worth noticing until critics mistakenly thought it was, and now the slumbering apologists raise an eyebrow and grumble about having to address the issue.

Funny stuff.

[Guest]

-

[_Darth J]

If God wanted to tailor the Book of Mormon to a nineteenth-century readership (cf. 1 Nephi 19:24; Mormon 8:35), why should it be otherwise?

And since most modern people's knowledge of a nineteenth-century readership's cultural context is next to nil, most modern people don't really understand the Book of Mormon, so it's not fair for God to use a book that is outside of almost everyone's cultural context as the keystone of the religion he wants them all to join.

Mormonism is a lot easier to understand when we realize that when it looks like Joseph Smith screwed up, it's really just another instance of God's incompetence.

[_Kishkumen]

Or do you still want to talk about all these impressive Hebraisms that nobody in New York in the early 1800's could possibly have come up with?

In my view this is one of the most valuable insights on this thread. Language long touted by academically trained LDS apologists as Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon unsurprisingly turns out to be something a nineteenth-century New Yorker who was aping the Bible (and yet was not Joseph Smith) could have written.

But Nevo already knew this. And all Mormon scholars knew this. And it was so boring that they didn't have to admit the truth about it to anyone.

Instead they just kept repeating the claim as though there were no extant evidence to the contrary.

They knew about the evidence. They just thought it was too boring to be honest about it.

So which is it?

Did they know about it?

Or did they lie about it?

I think it's a fair question, albeit blunt. And it seems especially timely now that Nevo has identified us as a bunch of rubes who have yet to read Shalev's non-existent detailed comparison of Hunt and the Book of Mormon.

Which LDS scholar was it who had already written that comparison?