Runtu wrote:I'd rather hear your opinion about what this may mean for proponents of a tight vs. loose translation and what it says about Joseph Smith's potential input to the translation. I could do without the uncharacteristic grumpiness and mocking.
I'm afraid it is not uncharacteristic of me to make light of the Spalding theory, but I was not feeling particularly grumpy when I made the comment. It was unkind, though, and I appreciate your admonition. You are a poster whose good opinion I value.
What do I think the implications of Hunt's book are for tight vs. loose translation and Joseph Smith's input? I think its existence argues against tight translation and for substantial input from Joseph Smith.
In fact, my position is pretty much the same as yours:
Is "Late War" a source for the Book of Mormon? Not necessarily. Was it an influence on the style and contents of the Book of Mormon? Possibly. Does it help provide context for the Book of Mormon? Absolutely.
Phaedrus Ut wrote:I think there are other things that resemble the language of Book of Mormon much better than Hunt's book. That would be the Book of Abraham, the D&C, and Joseph's language in the JST. So in my opinion this text is running a distant 4th place in texts with similar language to the Book of Mormon.
I think that's a fairly accurate assessment. Here is a scatter plot visualization of our results:
We have 2 "The late war" entries in there because we cleaned up some of the OCR errors in one and wanted to see how much impact these were having on matches.
Update: I just realized, we also removed the treaty at the end of the book (not just some OCR errors).
Last edited by Guest on Wed Oct 23, 2013 7:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
DrW wrote:Worse still, since they were not allowed to build fires on the barges, they would not have been able to make repairs with heated softened pitch or bitumen when the seals between the hull planks failed.
Also considering the amount of time they were adrift, it could be said they were in no sense cracking on like smoke and oakum.
Nevo wrote:I'm afraid it is not uncharacteristic of me to make light of the Spalding theory, but I was not feeling particularly grumpy when I made the comment. It was unkind, though, and I appreciate your admonition. You are a poster whose good opinion I value.
What do I think the implications of Hunt's book are for tight vs. loose translation and Joseph Smith's input? I think its existence argues against tight translation and for substantial input from Joseph Smith.
In fact, my position is pretty much the same as yours:
Is "Late War" a source for the Book of Mormon? Not necessarily. Was it an influence on the style and contents of the Book of Mormon? Possibly. Does it help provide context for the Book of Mormon? Absolutely.
I don't know if you should value my input, but I appreciate these comments. That's what I'm interested in discussing.
Phaedrus Ut wrote: In all seriousness this text will be devastating to the average person because the similarities are so obvious.
This will be devastating to the average person? Do you really think so? (To be clear, this is a serious question)
Perhaps I am wrong but I think the impact it will have will be exactly zero (or very near zero) to the great, great majority.
Not singling you out for an argument, Phaedrus, just randomly chose your post in hope of further discussion along this line.
Peace, Ceeboo
Ceeboo,
I am not sure I would use the word devastating and I'll have to actually read Hunt's book to get a better sense of its actual impact, but many Mormons I know believe very strongly that Joseph Smith could not have created the Book of Mormon on his own. Its an argument you hear frequently from the believer. If Hunt's book is even close to the endeavor of the Book of Mormon it will be an easy example to bring up as a counter to the "how could he have done it by himself" defense. That was one of the reasons I posted above the same question about Hunt's book. One would have to be a member to understand the joke. As missionaries we encouraged prospective converts to ponder the Book of Mormon and ask themselves if it were possible that a man by himself could have written this book.
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
I am not sure I would use the word devastating and I'll have to actually read Hunt's book to get a better sense of its actual impact, but many Mormons I know believe very strongly that Joseph Smith could not have created the Book of Mormon on his own. Its an argument you hear frequently from the believer. If Hunt's book is even close to the endeavor of the Book of Mormon it will be an easy example to bring up as a counter to the "how could he have done it by himself" defense. That was one of the reasons I posted above the same question about Hunt's book. One would have to be a member to understand the joke. As missionaries we encouraged prospective converts to ponder the Book of Mormon and ask themselves if it were possible that a man by himself could have written this book.
I'm confident it will probably have no impact on those who firmly believe (indeed, one poster on the other board basically declared victory in dismissing Hunt's book). And the vast majority of members of the LDS church will never hear about this, anyway. Where it may have impact is on those who are already questioning. This is so obvious it's difficult to dismiss unless you have an ideological reason to dismiss it.
Nevo wrote:Could someone please point me to the historical sources that indicate that Joseph Smith sought Samuel L. Mitchell's "endorsement" for the Book of Mormon—indeed, the "same kind of endorsement" that Hunt's book received? This is news to me.
I argued that he probably did not direct Harris to seek such an endorsement. I guess it didn't take.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
This book seems to be more important for what it does to Book-of-Mormon apologetics than any blows it strikes against the Book of Mormon. From the time the book was published (nay, actually before it was even published) people were finding parallels to it in the 19th-century American frontier milieu. The rise of Mormon apologetics can be seen as coming about at least in part as a response to arguments that the book was clearly rooted in the 19th century. The core apologetic argument was essentially this: yes, the Book of Mormon has 19th-century linguistic markers but that is to be expected because no translator generates a text completely uninfluenced by the culture in which his translation work occurs. But if the Book of Mormon contains linguistic markers common to the ancient culture in which it was supposedly generated, and these linguistic markers were unknown and unknowable to Joseph Smith (i.e., he did not know about chiasmus, the cognate accusative, and so forth, and neither did anyone else in his environs at the time), then his story about translating an ancient work by the gift and power of God gains plausibility and the argument that Joseph Smith concocted it out of his imagination (or with the help of others' imaginations) becomes less plausible.
The whole apparatus of Book-of-Mormon apologetics at least since John Welch published on chiasmus in the late 1960s has been constructed on this foundational idea: "Joseph simply could not have known that!"
This book (and I can't believe I had never heard of it before the other day, and had never heard of Rick Grunder's work on it, either--I guess I am a lazy and slothful apostate, lol) strikes at the heart and soul of Book-of-Mormon apologetics. All of those things that "Joseph simply could not have known" were, apparently, known by this Hunt feller.
I agree with those who say this will have no impact on the chapel-Mormon TBMs. But it has got to be a devastating blow to the so-called intellectual old-school FARMS types. They have got to be reeling. That, to me, is at least as interesting as what it says about Book-of-Mormon historicity.
"The Church is authoritarian, tribal, provincial, and founded on a loosely biblical racist frontier sex cult."--Juggler Vain "The LDS church is the Amway of religions. Even with all the soap they sell, they still manage to come away smelling dirty."--Some Schmo
Equality wrote:The whole apparatus of Book-of-Mormon apologetics at least since John Welch published on chiasmus in the late 1960s has been constructed on this foundational idea: "Joseph simply could not have known that!"
This book (and I can't believe I had never heard of it before the other day, and had never heard of Rick Grunder's work on it, either--I guess I am a lazy and slothful apostate, lol) strikes at the heart and soul of Book-of-Mormon apologetics. All of those things that "Joseph simply could not have known" were, apparently, known by this Hunt feller.
That is its importance to me, anyway.
I agree with those who say this will have no impact on the chapel-Mormon TBMs. But it has got to be a devastating blow to the so-called intellectual old-school FARMS types. They have got to be reeling. That, to me, is at least as interesting as what it says about Book-of-Mormon historicity.
I don't know about reeling, but in the future, every time they bring up one of these Hebraic hits, someone will bring up Hunt.
