Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_Phaedrus Ut]

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.

I was just shooting from the hip with my guesstimate that the only things I've personally read closer to the Book of Mormon than Hunt's text was the Book of Abraham, the D&C, and the JST. I'm glad to see that bear out in the analysis.

I've been lamenting the lack of really good subjects to discuss around the Book of Mormon and it's historicity for a while now. I'm glad you found this. Unfortunately this means you'll be subjected to some nasty apologetics in the near future and cheap shots about your character and shoddy scholarship.

Nice work on what you've done so far. Cheers!

Phaedrus

[_Shulem]

Paul,
Did you go through this yet?
http://www.rickgrunder.com/parallels/mp193.pdf

Not yet. Looks really interesting.

I might add that I still think this new find is going to hurt the church big time. It's coming out at the right time. We are in the information age when transparency is the new buzz word and there are going to be a lot of Mormons that hear about this book. The Internet will see to that. And Mormons don't really believe the Book of Mormon like they used to. Faith in the Book of Mormon has been slipping and even President Bensen knew that.

Now, it is most unfortunate that the missing papyri was discovered in the 1960's. The church was more obscure in those days and a lot smaller. The discovery had minimum impact on the church. Had the papyri been discovered in our time, today, the Church would be assaulted from every angle and the Book of Abraham would be fodder for late night television. It's a bummer they found it then rather than now. But I hold hope that the Late War will prove much more devastating than some of you faithless apostates seem to think. You all should be ashamed of yourselves. You should be vibrating your energy heavenward with great determination that this work will help further ruin the church.

Shaking my head at you faithless apostates. You can get out of my kingdom, I want no such men in it!



Paul O

[_Bond James Bond]

You hunt deer with a twelve gauge?

LOL. I should have said duck? Goose? Help me here.

Truth is, I have never been hunting in my life.

Kinda shows, doesn't it?

The worst part is that my daughter does archery. She would have been ashamed to see such an egregious error.

The answer Kish meant was "I use a 12 gauge deer slug."

[_Fence Sitter]

Hey Fence!



Yes, I understand what you're saying (I think? Or at least the best I can understand being a never-Mo)

But, given all I have seen/read/heard in my enjoyable journey into Mormonism over the last few years, I am very confident that this (or anything else for that matter) will have zero impact on the great majority.

Although I do leave the required room to be proven wrong..... I don't think I am!

Anyway, thank for engaging!

Peace,
Ceeboo

Let me put it this way.
This has the potential to have as much impact on the majority of LDS members as did those apologetic endeavors that tried to show the Book of Mormon was a unique product that could not have been written by Joseph Smith by himself.

In other words, eventually, this might counteract those arguments. What that means in terms of true believers is impossible to say at this time. We may have to wait years, even decades to actually see any movement within the Church that responds to this, similar to how it took DNA research years to affected belief and eventually scripture itself. If you consider how DNA studies affected members to be unimportant than this will also fall into that category. As a life long member I can see a wide difference between the beliefs of 50 years ago and now that was caused by DNA evidence. 50 years ago when we saw an American Indian that was a Lamanite, now we have no clue what a Lamanite is or even if one exist. Perhaps 30 years from now, partly as a result of this, members will be free to believe in the Book of Mormon as actual history or divinely inspired fiction.

[_Cicero]

The only thing an apologist has to tell an average, believing member about this new study to get them to dismiss it is that it was presented at an exmormon conference.

[_Gadianton]

The "History of the Late War" doesn't seem to have the same story line or purpose the Book of Mormon does. That Joseph Smith would use familiar words or a familiar style of writing in his translation of the Book of Mormon doesn't invalidate his translation was of an ancient text. It just shows he uses the vernacular of the day in writing his "translation." I don't accept the Book of Mormon was a translation of an ancient text, but I'm not sure how this can be considered a "smoking gun." I would say at best it is part of the drip, drip, drip that causes one to question the Book of Mormon. If this were the only evidence against the Book of Mormon, I don't think it would add up to much.

I see this totally differently than you. The familiar word usage is striking and humorous, but it's the deeper connections that are really grabbing me. One word that "rings out" to my ear is "freedom". This word never appears in the KJV, except once and in a mundane context, and "freedom", rhetoric aside, does not motivate the actions, let alone the wars, of the rampaging Israelites. Not even the Exodus is concerned with "freedom" in the abstract way that the Book of Mormon is. Joseph Smith lifted much of the battle mechanics from the Bible, but the "story line and purpose" deviates substantially from the Bible, the Bible essentially, is lifted and recast into a story that reflects modern concerns, and in this case, Yankee-white patriotism. Archetypical figures from the Bible become the "humorless stereotypes" -- Brodie's charge -- from the Book of Mormon. And there is no better way to describe the heroes and villains of the Late War than as "humorless stereotypes" of courage, cowardice, and virtue; wreaking of propaganda. The book of Alma and the Late War are obsessed with "freedom", using not only the same wording and rhetoric, but the same plots, and they are both examples of flag-waving nationalism. There is no way to filter this out in my view, it's essential to the storylines. Unless the Mayans believed themselves to be free agents, born to live in a republic of peace; loyal only to God, then there's no way the Late War or related literature can be considered to either color or appropriately express the etchings on the plates. It's a core matter to the text, it is essential. And I doubt there's anything like this in the ancient world.

Though I haven't fully digested Kish's response to me yet...

[_Gadianton]

I don't think this parallel has been found here, but my brother, Chris, mentioned this one in his presentation:

TLWB 28:12 “they cut down the tall trees of the forest, and hewed them, and built many more strong vessels… and they put windows in them, and they pitched them within and without with pitch; after the fashion of the ark”

Ether 2:17 “And they were built... tight like unto a dish; and the length thereof was the length of a tree;”
Ether 2:23 “your vessels ... cannot have windows”
Ether 6:7 “their vessels being tight like unto a dish, and also they were tight like unto the ark of Noah”

I think it sheds interesting light on the anachronism of the Lord mentioning windows that can be dashed to pieces.

Hi there Canadaduane, welcome to the forum!

Looks like you and your bro. have made an epic contribution.

Who would have known that the Liahona was quite literally a time bomb; a ticking ticking time bomb, ready to explode!

[_DarkHelmet]

Perhaps 30 years from now, partly as a result of this, members will be free to believe in the Book of Mormon as actual history or divinely inspired fiction.

Maybe 30 years from now the future apologists will deny that the Book of Mormon was ever considered doctrine. The whole keystone of our religion thing was just opinion.

[_Tim the Enchanter]

Perhaps 30 years from now, partly as a result of this, members will be free to believe in the Book of Mormon as actual history or divinely inspired fiction.

Maybe 30 years from now the future apologists will deny that the Book of Mormon was ever considered doctrine. The whole keystone of our religion thing was just opinion.

Nothing would shock me. Brigham Young and John Taylor surely would be rolling over in their graves knowing that blacks hold the priesthood and polygamy was abandoned. And yet, here we are. If the church can throw those things under the bus, nothing is off limits. Someday, perhaps, the "keystone" quote will be silently removed from the introduction and the manuals, and in a few decades a new generation will have a whole new perspective on the Book of Mormon just like the church today has a different perspective on the New and Everlasting Covenant than the 19th century church did.

[_EAllusion]

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.

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).

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.

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."

Others have already commented on what I think your overly dismissive, and frankly out of character, attitude here. I would echo that the case for influence here is more sophisticated than similar phrases being found in both works. What you see is similar language being deployed in the same motifs in similar literary structure closely enough to suggest a good potential candidate for direct influence, which I think is unique. Reducing this in the manner you have is misleading.

Regarding 19th century influence, The Late War obviously isn't needed to point that out, and the problem is more than the Book of Mormon being written with 19th century literary style and form. The 19th century content in the Book of Mormon covers protestant theology, post-revolutionary notions of liberty and government, moundbuilder myth including (incorrect) ideas about the origin of Native Americans, etc. These all fit Smith's time and place well but are highly anachronistic to pre-Columbian mesoamerica. That's the backbone of the work. It's not something that can be layered in translation without the translation not having to have much of a relationship with the underlying text. Such a proposed source document might as well be an ancient recipe for lentil soup.

I'd also further add that your snickering and snark directed at some of the more strained Book of Mormon origins theories in this thread is unwarranted when you are willing to take serious a theory that rests, literally, on magic and folklore. If you want to do that, fine, but you can't condescend others without coming off as a hypocrite.

(Gold star for Rick Grunder here, but I, like apparently plenty of others who pays some attention to Mormon studies, lacked the casual familiarity with his work that you imply is par for the course.)