Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_DrW]

DrW's interesting discussion shows what kind of results one can come up with when one expects the Book of Mormon to be a history of a very modern kind instead of an epic of an ancient kind. It is fascinating to see how different perspectives bring about such diverse interpretations. I would never expect the huge numbers in the Book of Mormon to be taken literally because I come at the text with a primarily literary perspective.

The Book of Mormon is filled with very dramatic expressions of number and size. I would contend that this is an obvious literary device, and the "two million" in Ether is yet another example of this device.

Reverend,

Interesting perspective. As an academic professional specializing in the classical Greek and Roman periods, can you come up with any examples in the classical literature, (other than in Greek or Roman mythology) or any other historical record of such far fetched descriptions of epic battles?

If not, are you saying that the Book of Mormon should, in fact, be considered from the same perspective as we view Greek and Roman mythology?

[_Kishkumen]

Interesting perspective. As an academic professional specializing in the classical Greek and Roman periods, can you come up with any examples in the classical literature, (other than in Greek or Roman mythology) or any other historical record of such far fetched descriptions of epic battles?

If not, are you saying that the Book of Mormon should, in fact, be considered from the same perspective as we view Greek and Roman mythology?

A ready example is the duration of the Trojan War. Homer says it lasted ten years, but Thucydides saw this was, in terms of the warfare of his day, impossible, and concluded that it had to be an exaggeration. So, since antiquity, the educated have been aware of this device in epic. Look at the epic literature about Charlemagne, and you see similar exaggerations about time, number, etc. Imperial panegyric in the Roman empire was also given to flattering exaggerations to make the emperor seem godlike.

[_Dantana]

About the only curious workmanship I see here is the way in which the apologists manipulate the facts.
How does one read the witness statements as anything other than ....God given, word for word....*tight* transcription?
Curious words-manship indeed!

[Guest]

If not, are you saying that the Book of Mormon should, in fact, be considered from the same perspective as we view Greek and Roman mythology?

To answer the question, I do think one can view the Book of Mormon as myth. No doubt about it. Myth is not merely a fiction; it is a collection of narratives through which a culture meditates on its values and identity. It is, in fact, very serious business. Those who believe they have no myths lack self awareness.

[_DarkHelmet]

Consider: Utah has a population of about 2.8 million (this would include fewer than two millions of mighty men). Imagine trying to take the population of Utah (farmers and hunter-gatherers included), putting them all on foot, dividing them into two groups (say Mormons and non-Mormons) and trying to get all of them into a physical proximity whereby every man woman and child, except for one one Mormon adult male and one non-Mormon adult male, could be killed personally, one-on-one, by an adult wielding a sword.

That is just for starters. Here is the main problem with the slaying of two millions of mighty men (and their wives and children, no less) in a running battle as described in Ether.

Two millions of mighty men slain by the sword would require the manufacture of at least, say, 100,000 swords or more (assuming an average mortality ratio = 20:1 per sword). The problem is that swords are made of steel, and steel had not been invented by the time the Jaredites left the Old World (no later than 2500 BC). In fact, the first known precursor to the iron age steel sword is a bronze age dagger dated to 1600 BC and found in China.

This means that the Jeredites could not have had sword making technology unless they had developed it independently, in isolation (and in parallel with the Chinese). There is, of course, no evidence for this whatsoever.

Metallurgy in the pre-Columbian New World was confined mainly to Western North America and to South and Central America and consisted mainly of working of found nuggets of gold and copper. In South America, the smelting of ores on or near the surface to obtain copper and silver was developed, as was simple alloying technology. Metals were used mainly for ornaments. There is no evidence for steel making technology anywhere in the pre-Columbian New World, and certainly not of sufficient capacity to manufacture 100,000 swords.

So, unless the word *sword* in the Book of Mormon really means club, spear, or arrow, the credentialed individual has a problem. Perhaps the individual who claimed that accounts Book of Mormon battles were credible has been privileged with special knowledge that no other credentialed individual on the planet possesses.

The battles that leave all dead in the Book of Mormon are ridiculous. Million man armies would have been logistically impossible, and even more absurd is they kill each other at a roughly 1:1 ratio until 1 man from each side is left standing, and they happen to be the main characters. It's an action movie cliché. But even in the movies not everyone is killed in battle. Filmmakers know the reality of war. Typically the battle is won when one side suffers heavier losses than the other side and the remaining soldiers see they are now heavily outnumbered and they retreat, or they are taken as prisoners of war, or executed. I can only assume as your armies get ridiculously large, the odds of a battle that kills everyone on both sides with neither side retreating is zero.

[_DarkHelmet]

I hope this isn't the so-called October Surprise. If it is it is underwhelming to say the least.

From Tom Phillips posted today:

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1058872

It is true I have been extremely busy this month on the matter some have named the 'October Surprise'. Due to this it was impossible for me to attend the Exmo Conference which I dearly wanted to attend. Not just to speak but to meet the wonderful people like yourself, whom I have met on the boards. The obstacles I am facing were quite unexpected, have taken more time and attention and delayed the outcome. Some of those obstacles are 'political' and there have been attempts by highly influential Mormons to stop me.

This is the main, though not the only reason, for me having to bail out of the Conference.

Be assured, however, that I will survive and I will take the fight to them, regardless of what they try. Truth Will Prevail.

Could it be God confounding his work?

[_Nevo]

Well put, EA. One of the greatest contradictions in the apologetic discussion of Book of Mormon origins has been this absolute demand that any person forwarding a hypothesis on the composition of the text essentially spell out in detail, supplying all pertinent evidence--firsthand accounts being a must, exactly how it was done. Naturally this has had the impact of driving people to do exactly that. But the usual way literary analysis is done does not involve proving that Edgar Allen Poe had the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning open at his elbow when he was composing The Raven. It instead involves comparing the language of Poe's famous poem with the poetry of Browning. Where there are echoes, one assumes that the influence of Browning has exerted itself in Poe's mind, whether Poe consciously summoned it or not.

Those of us who fiddle around with music composition have perhaps had the experience of jamming on some chords, stumbling onto something that is very pleasing, and then thinking, "Eureka! This is amazing!", only to realize, suddenly, that you are playing a song someone else had already written.

Is that what is going on here? I don't know. The proposed influence appears to be pervasive, but I think that those who object on the grounds that the narrative and content of the Book of Mormon are quite different from Hunt are making an obviously true observation. So, is Smith or "the author" deliberately drawing on Hunt for a purpose? Is he simply using the few resources he has to cobble together an ambitious project? Is he a musician or poet, riffing on the material he knows best, and composing a rather remarkable prose epic?

Personally, I am intrigued by the latter possibility. I view the Book of Mormon as a continuation of the epic tradition, which is, in its ancient roots, a prophetic enterprise. Epic poets and bards all drew upon the tradition of their predecessors and worked to add something of their own to the tradition. We can view the pseudo-biblical prose epics of the 18th and early 19th century as Smith's epic predecessors. For all of the obvious flaws of the product, I would argue that his work is more ingenious than these others and certainly it was more enduring.

One of the problems we face in grappling with these issues is our naïve way of chopping up the world of literature and assigning what may be rather arbitrary values to it all. But, the boundaries that are set for the purposes of community construction and maintenance have little to do with the larger history of literature. The Book of Mormon, humble as it is in many ways, belongs in the tradition of not only the Bible, but also Homer, and, more immediately, Spalding and Hunt.

I don't think this is anything to resist, make fun of, or take for granted. It is something that could be much better understood by those who choose to have any particular relationship with the text. The problem starts, in my view, when we demand that our choice be at the center of the universe, or, having rejected that choice, decide that our former choice should be stomped on and ridiculed. We see that predictable drama played out every day in conversations between LDS and ex-LDS people.

I am salivating, but maybe not for the reasons others are. As a student of ancient epic, I have long viewed the Book of Mormon through that lens. In fact, I see the Book of Mormon as being like the Christian epics of the Renaissance in many ways--think Jerusalem Liberated or the Lusiads. Unfortunately I was lacking a reasonably close epic model in Smith's environment from which some of his framework was perhaps being borrowed. I think in Hunt I have found one such work. Hunt is not the key to unraveling the mystery of the Book of Mormon.

I see it as a key to better understanding the literary tradition in which Joseph Smith was operating. It is a tradition that can be appreciated either secularly, spiritually, or both secularly and spiritually.

This is an excellent post, Kish.

[_Kishkumen]

This is an excellent post, Kish.

Thank you, Nevo.

I apologize for being abrasive in this thread.

[Guest]

If not, are you saying that the Book of Mormon should, in fact, be considered from the same perspective as we view Greek and Roman mythology?

To answer the question, I do think one can view the Book of Mormon as myth. No doubt about it. Myth is not merely a fiction; it is a collection of narratives through which a culture meditates on some of its values and identity. It is, in fact, very serious business. Those who believe they have no myths lack self awareness.

Thanks Kish.

Great response. Guess I always believed that the Trojan war did last 10 years, because that's what the history books say (at least at the level that I read about history).

And I certainly wouldn't claim that my secular beliefs and culture are not built, to some extent, on myth. The myths that underpin secular culture include that of the Noble Scientist, the American Dream, Republicans are Largely Delusional Religionists, etc.

Here is the difference between the myths in my culture and the myth of Mormonism:

The myths accepted in my culture arise from an inadequate understanding or misperception of reality. In my culture, understanding can always be improved and misperceptions, when identified, can be corrected. Unlike Mormonism and other religious myths, myths in my culture definitely do not arise from a belief in magic and do not allow for a violation of natural law.

The kinds of myths based on magic and requiring violation of natural law and violence to simple logic (i.e. religious myths), especially when strongly held and used to guide one's life, are quite different in scope and kind, and are a significant and growing problem for society.

[_The Erotic Apologist]

The battles that leave all dead in the Book of Mormon are ridiculous. Million man armies would have been logistically impossible, and even more absurd is they kill each other at a roughly 1:1 ratio until 1 man from each side is left standing, and they happen to be the main characters. It's an action movie cliché. But even in the movies not everyone is killed in battle. Filmmakers know the reality of war. Typically the battle is won when one side suffers heavier losses than the other side and the remaining soldiers see they are now heavily outnumbered and they retreat, or they are taken as prisoners of war, or executed. I can only assume as your armies get ridiculously large, the odds of a battle that kills everyone on both sides with neither side retreating is zero.

Has anybody pointed out that the Book of Mormon also ignores the problem of acute contagion during military campaigns? I think the Bible acknowledges it, obliquely, but the Book of Mormon seems to ignore it. And yet even as late as the US Civil War, armies suffered as many causalities from disease as from contact with the enemy. (For example, 25% of the garrison force that occupied New Orleans contracted venereal disease, in one form or another.)