Columbus and the Book of Mormon

[_Gray Ghost]

As for the Book of Mormon mention of Columbus? I fail to see how it can be mutually exclusive with the historical Columbus. Even wicked men are some times prompted by God for his purposes. That is if it even refers to Columbus specifically and not one of the other explorers mentioned in the OP. Scripture doesn't specify. We've always assumed vs 12 is Columbus and vs 13 is the pilgrims, but there are many historically that fit the bill.

Some time ago, I learned Bible scholars were able to date the authorship of the Book of Daniel with some precision due to the prophecies it contains.

The prophecies are very specific up to a certain point, but then become fuzzy and generic.

Scholars came to the conclusion that the Daniel prophecies were written at the point they go from being specific to hazy, and then were back-dated to the time of Daniel and put into his mouth.

It is a relatively easy thing to be specific about prophecies that have already happened as of the time of the actual writing, but more difficult to be specific about prophecies after that point in time.

It was with some disappointment I recognized a similar phenomenon going on with Nephi's prophecies.

Nephi's prophecies are very specific up through Columbus and even the American Revolution.

After that, they become fuzzy and generic.

Any scholar with no dog in the fight would date the authorship of the Book of Mormon to shortly after the American Revolution on this basis alone.

Have you been watching that Yale New Testament series? I just watched the lecture where they discuss Daniel. Also mentioned in another Stanford series of free New Testament lectures. :)

Yes, there is quite a lot of theological and doctrinal material present in the Book of Mormon that date it far later than the dates given in the text itself.

These include some of the following:

[*]Jesus delivers the Sermon on the Mount (or a version of it) 50 years before it was put together by Matthew. While the Sermon likely contains some authentic teachings of Jesus, it almost certainly was never delivered by Jesus in that format.

[*]It is said that Jesus will sweat great drops of blood in Mosiah 3 (~124 BCE) - an allusion to a late addition to the Luke manuscript, more than two centuries later.

[*]Atonement theology took many decades to develop in the first century of the Christian movement, and continued to develop beyond that time. But it appears more or less fully developed among the Nephites many centuries before even the birth of Jesus. Penal Substitution theory is quite late (11th century AD), modeled on feudalistic crime and punishment, but it's in the Book of Mormon

[*]The early Christian use of the term Savior and Son of God to describe Jesus is a clear rejection of Roman authority. These were the terms the Romans used to describe Caesar - the Christians deliberately used them to say, no, not Caesar, but Jesus. But somehow the Nephites use these terms centuries earlier and another continent, completely divorced from the historical context that brought them about. (This isn't about one isolated term, but all the various titles used together)

[*]Fully developed God/Satan dualism very early in on Nephite history - something that really didn't start to develop until the second century BCE in Judaism.

[*]A Christology among the Nephites that seems to be influenced by the Gospel of John - that is to say, a Jesus who was Son of God from before his birth, as opposed to a Jesus who was adopted as God's son at his birth or baptism as an adult, as is taught in the earlier gospels.

[*]Fully developed Christian resurrection theology. Resurrection in Judaism seems to begin in the 2nd Century BCE with Daniel which talks only about martyrs being vindicated by being raised from the dead. That gets expanded much later to include humanity generally.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

GG,

That was fascinating. Thanks for posting that.

- Doc

[_Gray Ghost]

GG,

That was fascinating. Thanks for posting that.

- Doc

Thanks!

The Book of Daniel is actually in many ways similar to the Book of Mormon. Rather than creating a pseudepigraphal book based on a historical prophet, the author invents a prophet and places him in the distant past. As Cinepro mentioned, this prophet is able to very accurately predict the future, because the writing comes after the events have already occurred. The accuracy stops once the predictions start to address the near future, from the point of view of the author. The intent seems to be a way of providing hope in troubled times. In both books there is even some self-aggrandizement going on on the part of the authors.

In that sense the Book of Mormon is quite in keeping with Biblical tradition.

[Guest]

It seems if Daniel and Nephi were real historical figures they would have been contemporaries. Daniel would have been carried away to Babylon while Nephi was still in Jerusalem. See 2nd Kings 24 (I think) for historical background.

The way the Book of Mormon presents 600 BC Jerusalem, it seems like it's author (19th century AD and/or 6th century BC) skipped 2nd Kings 24, and only read 2nd Kings 25.

[_Yahoo Bot]

Even then, people knew that Europeans, including Vikings and Portuguese fishing fleets, had visited or sighted North America before Columbus. And other explorers of Columbus’s era have better claims to “discovery” of the land that we now call the United States. But the politics of the Revolution disqualified the other contenders. Henry Hudson was British. Giovanni Caboto (anglicized as “John Cabot”) sailed for Britain. Juan Ponce de Leon was already in use as a hero in Spain. Giovanni da Verrazzano met an end unbefitting any proper national hero, having been eaten by Carib Indians in 1526.

Columbus had flaws as well. Until his death, he publicly insisted that he had in fact landed in East Asia as he originally intended. He was neither an especially talented mariner nor a success at founding a colony in the New World. Other than to allow him to begin bouncing around the Caribbean doing capricious and cruel things to its inhabitants, his famous voyage accomplished little

Fascinating information. Bot will need to convince DeCarlo to expand her article to include a defense of Columbus as the rightful discoverer of America.

Well, what's the quibble here? He discovered Hispanola; practically the same thing.

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

Wasn't Columbus jailed by Queen Isabella for, you know, raping and murdering 'Indians'?

- Doc

Columbus ranks right up there with the worst of humanity. Raping 9 year old children, cutting off legs of little boys and girls, dismembering and cutting out babies from their mother's womb. There is a special place in hell reserved for people like Columbus.

And the Book of Mormon teaches the Spirit of God guided and directed this monster to a land where he would unleash misery, cruelty and suffering so evil and immense that it is literally incomprehensible?

Just like Yahoo Bot, keep telling yourself over and over "presentism" and everything will be alright.

Contrary to the King and Queen’s order that he “endeavor to win over the inhabitants… and to treat… (them) very well and lovingly and abstain from doing them any injury,” It was a horror of Satanic proportions. For example, he created in 1495 the “tribute system,” which required every Taino over 14 to provide him and his appointees with a “hawk’s bell” of gold every three months. Those who complied were given a “token” to wear around their necks. Those who didn’t, as Columbus’ son Fernando reported, were “punished by having their hands cut off” and were “left to bleed to death.” About 10,000 persons in Haiti and the Dominican Republic suffered such cruelty.

And there’s more. Many of the indigenous people were — while alive — “roasted on spits (i.e., slender pointed rods)… and burn(ed)… at the stake…” and the invaders “hack(ed) the… children into pieces….” Columbus’ men also would “make bets as to who would slit a man in two or cut off his head at one blow… or they opened up his bowels. They tore the babes from their mother’s breast by their feet and dashed their heads against the rocks… They ‘splitted’ the bodies of other babes, together with their mothers… on their swords.” In one incident, a Columbus underling “drew his sword. Then the whole hundred drew theirs and began to rip open the bellies, to cut and kill a group of Taino… (including) men, women, children, and old folk….” As noted by Spanish historian and Catholic priest Bartolome de las Casas, who witnessed much of the carnage, Columbus, in order “to test the sharpness of their blades,” directed his men “to cut off the legs of children who ran from them.” When a couple of them “met two ‘Indian’ boys…, each carrying a parrot, they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys.” His crew also would “pour… people full of boiling soap.” In addition, people were “eaten (alive by)… hunting dogs… (that) were turned loose….” Many other of these red human beings were “buried alive…” And if Columbus’ crew ran out of meat for their vicious dogs, “Arawak babies were killed for dog food.”

If you thought it couldn’t get any worse, well, it could. And it did. A Columbus shipmate, Miguel Cuneo, wrote that “When our caravels… were to leave for Spain, we gathered… 1,600 male and female ‘Indians’ and these embarked (with us)… on February 17, 1495… For those who remained, we let it be known (to the Europeans who manned the island’s fort)… that anyone who wanted to take… them could do so….” Cuneo took a teenage “Caribbean girl as a gift from Columbus.” And when she “resisted…, (he) thrashed her mercilessly and raped her.”

Speaking of rape, it was pointed out by University of Vermont history professor James Loewen that “As soon as the 1493 expedition got to the Caribbean, before it even reached Haiti, Columbus was rewarding his lieutenants with native women to rape. On Haiti, sex slaves were one more prerequisite that… (they) enjoyed.” And it included adult rape and child rape. As Columbus himself wrote in 1500, “… girls… from 9-10… are… in demand.”

http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/10/1 ... ladelphia/

[Guest]

[_Kishkumen]

I can buy that Columbus was leveraged by American revolutionaries as wartime propaganda. They felt a need to establish a historical legitimacy that excluded the Brits. Makes sense. This, however, comes across like absurd histrionics. Not buying that account of things. From some simple searches the source on that material isn't credible to put it mildly. And logically it doesn't even make sense. The idea of a small group of Spaniards in the 15th century exerting that level of violent rule over an outmatched indigenous population is every bit as moronic as million man battles in the Book of Mormon. If they had behaved in such a way they would have simply disappeared never to be heard of again.

Well, those are interesting thoughts, but they seem to be even less well supported than the material you are criticizing. What sense does X make is not the stuff of robust historical argumentation. It is certainly part of the mix, but it is only a part.

[Guest]

[_Johannes]

Oddly enough, there is a small cottage industry of conservative Christian apologists who think that Daniel was written in the Exilic period.

Any fan of rotund Victorian prose and the gentle art of special pleading will enjoy Edward Pusey's Daniel the Prophet.