Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_Gadianton]

In both cases, in the space of a few verses, the commonalities are (1) a host of bad guys comes to war against the (2) good guys in a fort. The good guys are (3) prepared, the good guys (4) slaughter the bad guys, whose bodies (5) fill up the ditch around the fort, and the surviving bad guys (6) flee into the forest/wilderness.

Tim, I also noted your impressive work. As you see, I'm deeply disturbed by the book of Alma. In fact, Nightlion just made a stunning observation, that all the dates recorded are pretty much in Alma. His observation blew me away, because I was contemplating how all the kingmen-freemen material is basically in Alma, as well as every instance of the word "freedom". While one might expect that hey, if the Kingmen stuff was limited to Alma, then maybe that just goes hand in hand with "freedom". But that the explication of dates is almost entirely an Alma phenomena as well, which has nothing to do with "freedom" and both matters having everything to do with Late War, and "freedom" never appearing in the Bible, it's quite shocking. And now you are also seeing the very close stories and themes from Alma in Late War.

If you have the time, go back to the Bible and make sure that this isn't a story that appears there too, as many of the battles in the Book of Mormon are lifted from the Bible, and Late War is also lifting from the Bible.

As an example, the "stripling issue", well, David in the KJV is referred to as a "stripling". That's obviously the common source for the Book of Mormon young warriors and the Bible talk of Late War. Add in the reference to 2000 and it gets more interesting; but must keep the KJV as a control. Even if it is in the Bible it's interesting, but the points that are very interesting are what go above and beyond.

[_DarkHelmet]

Weren’t evil spirits aware of the gold plates’ content prior to Joseph Smith’s translation? And if so, couldn’t they “inspire” men to write books before the Book of Mormon was published, so that they could be used in the future in their attempts to discredit the word of God.

I kid you not.

Pretty sure that somebody, somewhere, in this epic thread foresaw and even prophesied this exact apologetic. How could they possibly have known?

Is that a real defender of the faith, or a parody of a defender of the faith. They are sometimes difficult to tell apart.

[_DrW]

They use many examples of events that can be expected to be random such as birthdays, deaths, historical events etc.

Thank you for pointing out what I already pointed out they did right (they compared deaths with deaths for example).

They then proceed to analyze the Book of Mormon with the same expectation of randomness. This is a reasonable and rational expectation.

And this is where I note they go wrong and change their criteria from comparing similar events as they did in their examples. Instead of taking similar events (let's say a death) from all over the Book of Mormon and comparing those, they instead select very different events from a very narrow portion of the Book of Mormon. So, I want you to try to explain to me why this selection bias isn't a BIG problem here and why it should merit your praise as being either reasonable or rational choices?

cognitiveharmony,

In case you didn't know, Tobin is the unofficial troll / time waster on this board. He does not care what you say or how well you state your position. He will simply oppose you, or failing that, go for a derail.

I have no issues with writing this because Tobin won't see it. He has me (and a significant number of others on this board) on permanent ignore. So I never have to worry about engaging him directly.

I hate to see him waste the time of other valuable posters. My suggestion to you, as a newcomer, would be to strictly limit your responses to Tobin to no more than three on any given thread - max. Two would be even better. Nobody will blame you if you prefer to ignore him altogether.

Again, welcome to the board.

[_DrW]

Pretty sure that somebody, somewhere, in this epic thread foresaw and even prophesied this exact apologetic. How could they possibly have known?

Is that a real defender of the faith, or a parody of a defender of the faith. They are sometimes difficult to tell apart.

It is on the LDSFF board. I doubt if it was intended as parody.

[_Gadianton]

What I think this book can show us is the KJV-influenced vernacular that had currency during Smith's day. A lot of the terminology shared by both books can be found in other publications from the same time period,

This point is being made a lot, but it's not really true. As others have mentioned there is the close thematic content as well, but concerning the "vernacular", pay close attention to the chart that the striplings from Canada provided; and their control set is huge. The point is, the "vernacular" resemblance is anything but common, or rather, the word clusters containing the vernacular if we want to put it that way instead. Remember, it's not just "curious workmanship" but "of-curious-workmanship-and" and also the context.

[_DrW]

Here is another comment to AussieOi from Sixth Seal over on the LDSFF Board.

(For all to read, this was the entirety of a PM Sixth Seal sent me last week:)

Hello Aussie! It is me :ymdevil: I am extremely pleased that you have let me into your life to such a degree. I have truly penetrated your soul! You are under my power now! Continue to do my bidding! I love it when I can get a Latter-day Saint to apostatize. I take a minor issue like, say, building a mall and whisper into your ear that it is not the Lord's will. You then fester upon it until it eats you up. This leads to more meaningless issues that are quite irrelevant in the whole scheme of things. Then before you know it, the Church leaders are "uninspired". They don't "hold the keys". In fact, "this isn't the Lord's true church" any longer. What a shame, Aussie. You had so much potential. Now your soul is burnt out and you are nothing more than my useful idiot. Keep up the good work. I'll see you soon!

Beelzebub.

Some may have taken this as a joke. AussieOi certainly did not. Another amazing defense of the one true Church.

[_Ceeboo]

Hello W!

Comment on the AussOi thread on LDSFF:

Weren’t evil spirits aware of the gold plates’ content prior to Joseph Smith’s translation? And if so, couldn’t they “inspire” men to write books before the Book of Mormon was published, so that they could be used in the future in their attempts to discredit the word of God.

I have no clue who AussOi is (Or what LDSFF is for that matter) but this can't be a serious post.

Could it?

No way!

Peace,
Ceeboo

[_DrW]

Hello W!

I have no clue who AussOi is (Or what LDSFF for that matter) but this can't be a serious post.

Could it?

No way!

Peace,
Ceeboo

Hey Ceeboo,

Come on now, would I mess with you?

LDSFF is the LDS Freedom Forum board. Sound Right? Well it is.

Check it out for yourself:

http://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewtopi%20...%2014&t=30777

It is on the first page of comments.

Read the other comments, look at the pictures and avatars, and then see if you think this is serious or not.

You have to realize, my Christian Friend, that the Mormonisciousness of most folks you encounter on this board is nothing compared to that of the hard core of this religion.

[_Ceeboo]

Hey Ceeboo,

Come on now, would I mess with you?

I don't think so.

LDSFF is the LDS Freedom Forum board. Sound Right? Well it is.

Check it out for yourself:

http://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewtopi%20...%2014&t=30777

It is on the first page of comments.

Read the other comments, look at the pictures and avatars, and then see if you think this is serious or not.

Huh!

It looks to be as serious as serious gets.

You have to realize, my Christian Friend, that the Mormonisciousness of most folks you encounter on this board is nothing compared to that of the hard core of this religion.

Perhaps?

Thanks for the link/reply my atheist friend!

by the way, how many boards/forums do you Mormons and ex-Mormons have?

Peace,
Ceeboo

[Guest]

Natalya wrote:
Weren’t evil spirits aware of the gold plates’ content prior to Joseph Smith’s translation? And if so, couldn’t they “inspire” men to write books before the Book of Mormon was published, so that they could be used in the future in their attempts to discredit the word of God.

I have no clue who AussOi is (Or what LDSFF is for that matter) but this can't be a serious post.

Could it?

No way!

Peace,
Ceeboo

As crazy as it sounds, this is a fairly standard type of comment you can expect to hear in Gospel Doctrine/Relief Society/Priesthood classes every sunday in LDS chapels around the world.