There is no case to be made for a historical Book of Mormon

[_Craig Paxton]

The Book of Mormon is clearly not what it claims to be. That my friends is really all we need to know about that subject.

[_Shulem]

Shulem finds the word adieu important, it hardly registers to me. I might as well let Shulem weigh that for himself.

Joseph Smith was being a smart ass by using the French A total smart ass. Why stop there? How about throw in some Japanese and Swahili but God forbid there be any Greek?

Stupid damned Mormons.

[_Shulem]

The Book of Mormon is clearly not what it claims to be. That my friends is really all we need to know about that subject.

Don't be a sour puss. When is the last time you signed your name and testimony in a copy and gave it away? Paste a picture of your family and write about how happy Nephi's book has made you.

[_Maksutov]

You blind anti-mormons do not understand how revelation works.

Wash out your mouth. You can't say "Mormon" or you're of Satan, per The President of the Corporation. And since you've declared yourself of Satan, that's where *your* revelations come from.

Isn't theology fun?

[_Manetho]

Biblical criticism seems to me a much weaker argument against the Book of Mormon than the absence of archaeological evidence. Biblical criticism is partly based on the archaeological evidence from the biblical world and partly on very fine parsing of the biblical text. The archaeological evidence from the biblical world undermines the Bible at important points, but it's vastly more compatible with the Bible than the evidence from the Americas is with the Book of Mormon. And text-parsing is a complex, finicky process. It's not as easy to follow as the idea that if the Book of Mormon is true, some giant cities should be here, but they're not here. Anyone can grasp that idea and viscerally react to it, even if for true believers that reaction is to go hunting for Israelite-ish cities in Mesoamerica.

[_Meadowchik]

"Adieu" has a deeper meaning than the normal English "goodbye," and it was a word English borrowed in Joseph's time to provide what it lacked as a language. I don't see it as linguistically anachronistic.

[_Physics Guy]

It's still a weird choice for a translation. Adieu may have been in current use in English around Smith but I don't think it had been completely anglicized. Its spelling doesn't look English; I reckon people knew it was French. So whatever its literal meaning may have been for people around Smith, I think it must have carried a certain highfalutin connotation—perhaps even a certain cachet. It would be odd for a translator to use an exotic word to express any word that was not so exotic in the original language of the translated document.

If I'm translating a German story into English and one of the characters in the original German actually says, "See ya later!" in English, then I might conceivably render this in English as, "Hasta la vista!". If the German character simply says, "Auf Wiedersehen," though, I'm not going to use the Spanish phrase even though it is sometimes used in colloquial English and renders the literal meaning of German a bit more closely than "goodbye" or "farewell".

So maybe Jacob said goodbye to his brethren in Hebrew with a loan word from Egyptian or Mayan or something, and the divine translation nailed that exoticism with an English "adieu". Short of that, the "adieu" would be weird.

[_Kishkumen]

Biblical criticism seems to me a much weaker argument against the Book of Mormon than the absence of archaeological evidence. Biblical criticism is partly based on the archaeological evidence from the biblical world and partly on very fine parsing of the biblical text. The archaeological evidence from the biblical world undermines the Bible at important points, but it's vastly more compatible with the Bible than the evidence from the Americas is with the Book of Mormon. And text-parsing is a complex, finicky process. It's not as easy to follow as the idea that if the Book of Mormon is true, some giant cities should be here, but they're not here. Anyone can grasp that idea and viscerally react to it, even if for true believers that reaction is to go hunting for Israelite-ish cities in Mesoamerica.

No matter what kind of argument against the Book of Mormon is made, believers will find a way to argue against it. Archaeology can only tell us so much without texts and vice versa. Apologists will argue that an argument from silence is weak, or that anachronisms could have been introduced by Smith in the translation process. The point is to keep the Book of Mormon viable by making it a moving target. A critic can never disprove the Book of Mormon, in believers’ eyes at least.

But the truth of the matter is that there was never a good argument for the Book of Mormon as an ancient text in the first place. Those who believe always believed on spiritual grounds or by mere assertion. There was never a sound case for an ancient Book of Mormon, and therefore there is no reason to think anyone is obliged to disprove what was never established in the first place.

[_Shulem]

The case for the historical Book of Mormon starts with the golden plates. Where are the plates today? Oh, they're in heaven. Right. How convenient to simply say the angel took them back to heaven. Therefore, the claim to gold plates can only be conceived as fantasy in the minds of those who choose and want to believe in Smith's lies.

I can assure you, there never were any gold plates. They never existed. it's a miracle that Smith made up in order decorate his story and make it look miraculous. Smith had a habit of falsely decorating everything he touched. Take the Book of Abraham for example. He decorated the Facsimiles and sprinkled them with all kinds of ridiculous Explanations which are no more real than the gold plates. It was all in the mind of Joseph Smith. It was his imagination at work.

There are no gold plates anymore than there is a king's name in the writing of Facsimile No. 3 as claimed by Smith who pretended to translate.

[_Kishkumen]

No plates, no evidence.