Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_honorentheos]

Over on another thread I posted a list which Charles Harrell put together delineating the possible choices one makes as they observe and come across changes/adjustments in LDS doctrine over time, juxtaposed against earlier Biblical writings, earlier pronouncements of leaders, and conflicting scriptural references. Let me repost that list here as I think it has some relevancy to what your 'beef' is.

1) Refuse to believe that God would
leave us in the dark, and therefore attribute any apparent shifts in doctrine to
one’s misunderstanding of scripture.

2) Conclude that God wants us to have
the true doctrine, but in our finite state he is unable to fully communicate it
to us and therefore humans must fill in the holes.

3) View God as actually the source of
doctrinal idiosyncrasies, which is the result of his (mysterious) preference to
accommodate[s] prevailing cultural paradigms of the time.

4) Conclude that God allows us to
stumble and guess at doctrine because he doesn’t care all that much about what
we believe…at least about most things.

5) Reject all belief in God (or at least
the Mormon God) and chalk up all doctrine as simply the product of human
contrivance.

Regards,
MG

Is the point a how-to on discouraging thinking critically about information that contradicts an organizational narrative claiming to speak for God?

Here's a question for you: Why did God command Joseph Smith to lie to Emma about his spiritual marriages and sexual relationships with other men's wives? We don't know but need to accept that God will sometimes just leave things in the dark for us to grapple with as we can?

[_Kishkumen]

FAIR Question: Does the Book of Mormon phrase "curious workmanship" originate from Gilbert Hunt's The Late War?

honorentheos: The answer claims this phrase is found in the Bible. So two books written in the 19th century attempting to mimic the KJV use the phrase? Sounds right. Again, the question focuses on if Smith plagiarized from or used TLW directly. That's not the main issue here. When understood in the context of how it undermines the claim the Book of Mormon is not a product of the 19th century, this answer is supportive of the claim against the Book of Mormon as ancient.

What gets me about their answer is that the Book of Mormon and the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses use the exact phrase “curious workmanship” just as the LW does, while the closest the Bible gets is “curious works” (Exodus 35:32). Yet the FAIR folk would have us believe that the Book of Mormon’s source must be the Bible, not the LW! LOL!

[_Philo Sofee]

Remember Kish, we MUST keep the Book of Mormon pristinely untainted with anything of modern proclivities, but smear it all over with ancient goo in order to make sure Joseph Smith comes out smelling like a rose. Brant Gardner gave that away in his excellent discussion of the translation of the Book of Mormon a few years back.

[_Kishkumen]

Remember Kish, we MUST keep the Book of Mormon pristinely untainted with anything of modern proclivities, but smear it all over with ancient goo in order to make sure Joseph Smith comes out smelling like a rose. Brant Gardner gave that away in his excellent discussion of the translation of the Book of Mormon a few years back.

If we leave the LW out of it, the most likely English-language source for “curious workmanship” was a translation of Josephus. In fact, I would guess that both Gilbert Hunt and Joseph Smith were familiar with Josephus.

[_honorentheos]

FAIR Question: Does the Book of Mormon phrase "curious workmanship" originate from Gilbert Hunt's The Late War?

honorentheos: The answer claims this phrase is found in the Bible. So two books written in the 19th century attempting to mimic the KJV use the phrase? Sounds right. Again, the question focuses on if Smith plagiarized from or used TLW directly. That's not the main issue here. When understood in the context of how it undermines the claim the Book of Mormon is not a product of the 19th century, this answer is supportive of the claim against the Book of Mormon as ancient.

What gets me about their answer is that the Book of Mormon and the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses use the exact phrase “curious workmanship” just as the LW does, while the closest the Bible gets is “curious works” (Exodus 35:32). Yet the FAIR folk would have us believe that the Book of Mormon’s source must be the Bible, not the LW! LOL!

It's a weak response, to be sure. I don't think it necessarily means that the options on the table are Smith used the Bible or TLW to arrive at the phrase though if those are the only two options then the more exact match is more likely. Either way, a source that predates the Book of Mormon attempting to sound biblical came up with the phrase and the Book of Mormon also uses the phrase. If The Late War is the source, then Hunt came up with it while attempting to sound biblical. If not, it shows it can arise organically from attempting to sound biblical. If the question is how likely is the Book of Mormon to be a product of the 19th century, then the use of the phrase in TLW also from the 19th century is compelling evidence for similar 19th century origins for the Book of Mormon. It could be it was lifted, too. Like I said, my favorite post in this thread was by EA regarding the Cottingley Fairies. As he pointed out, whatever the alternatives are for mundane explanations for the Book of Mormon's origins that account for it's existence, one doesn't overcome unlikely natural explanations by appealing to significantly more unlikely supernatural claims. I don't feel compelled to find evidence for direct lifting out of The Late War though it's certainly welcome if found and proved. It's demonstration that Hebraisms and other structures used by apologists to attempt to establish ancient authorship can arise from a 19th century effort to sound like the KJV is simple and devastating enough.

[_Kishkumen]

It's a weak response, to be sure. I don't think it necessarily means that the options on the table are Smith used the Bible or TLW to arrive at the phrase though if those are the only two options then the more exact match is more likely. Either way, a source that predates the Book of Mormon attempting to sound biblical came up with the phrase and the Book of Mormon also uses the phrase. If The Late War is the source, then Hunt came up with it while attempting to sound biblical. If not, it shows it can arise organically from attempting to sound biblical. If the question is how likely is the Book of Mormon to be a product of the 19th century, then the use of the phrase in TLW also from the 19th century is compelling evidence for similar 19th century origins for the Book of Mormon. It could be it was lifted, too. Like I said, my favorite post in this thread was by EA regarding the Cottingley Fairies. As he pointed out, whatever the alternatives are for mundane explanations for the Book of Mormon's origins that account for it's existence, one doesn't overcome unlikely natural explanations by appealing to significantly more unlikely supernatural claims. I don't feel compelled to find evidence for direct lifting out of The Late War though it's certainly welcome if found and proved. It's demonstration that Hebraisms and other structures used by apologists to attempt to establish ancient authorship can arise from a 19th century effort to sound like the KJV is simple and devastating enough.

Well, as I said above, Josephus is a good bet for influencing both. We have discussed the influence of Josephus on Smith at some length here before. That said, the passage about the torpedoes in LW has more points of resemblance to the Book of Mormon on the Liahona than just “curious workmanship.” That makes the relationship question worth a little closer look, in my opinion.

Also, I agree with the basic point about the fairies. But, I don’t care about the question of God or not God all that much. I want to understand the Book of Mormon in its historical context.

[_honorentheos]

I'm curious if there is some aspect of scholarly historic research that applies in your approach, Reverend? Out of respect for your professional background I would not doubt I'm missing a principle of investigation that puts weight on finding a historic source over accepting both could be independent results of the attempt to sound biblical as a baseline view of the evidence. To my novice mind, pushing back to Josephus doesn't necessarily strengthen the argument but that could be entirely due to my being unfamiliar with how one ought to go about reconstructing the influences of a source over time.

[_Kishkumen]

I'm curious if there is some aspect of scholarly historic research that applies in your approach, Reverend? Out of respect for your professional background I would not doubt I'm missing a principle of investigation that puts weight on finding a historic source over accepting both could be independent results of the attempt to sound biblical as a baseline view of the evidence. To my novice mind, pushing back to Josephus doesn't necessarily strengthen the argument but that could be entirely due to my being unfamiliar with how one ought to go about reconstructing the influences of a source over time.

Josephus was one of the most popular books in America in Joseph Smith’s day, after the Bible. We know Joseph Smith read it. We find the exact phrase “curious workmanship” in Josephus but not the KJV. Now, I don’t know exactly what Joseph was thinking at the time, but the evidence looks pretty good for him getting the phrase from some source other than the Bible, such as Josephus or the LW.

Following the evidence we have and making our arguments consistent with it as much as possible are the principles.

Joseph Smith uses the phrase “curious workmanship” multiple times and also had it written into the Testimony of the Eight Witnesses. That suggests to me that there is something worth digging into here. It is much more “marked,” say, than “And it came to pass.”

[_honorentheos]

Thank you, Reverend. The issue that arises in my mind is if we feel obligated to tie the phrase to an outside source, verbatim rather than merely acknowledging that it has both a parallel in the KJV and has appeared in a source of known uncontested 19th century authorship, we're setting the hierarchy up to preference direct sources for the information in the Book of Mormon rather than simply allowing for Smith to arrive at them through whatever processes might be available. And that puts "God gave it to him" ahead of his coming to use that phrase through more organic means in attempting to sound biblical. Since we've eliminated the KJV Bible as the direct source for the phrase, are we really obligated to find another direct source? It seems that while that's an option, there's no reason to prioritize direct sources over the appearance of the phrase in TLW and the Book of Mormon being a product of their time, however that came to be. Was it both took it from Josephus? Did Hunt lift it and then Smith lifted it from Hunt? Or is the phrase, "Curious Work" one of those phrases that to a person in the 19th century it would be awkward, while noting something as having curious workmanship was not? Need it even be credited to the Bible at all? I'm not sure. I think the baseline of it appearing in TLW and the Book of Mormon is compelling enough, and perhaps opening avenues for investigation. But I don't see the argument resting on finding the source for it in either. Finding it in The Late War establishes that it would appear in a work from the 19th century attempting to replicate ancient, biblical language. That's solid. After that it seems speculative no matter what way we choose to currently take it.

[_Kishkumen]

Hey, honor:

I suppose it comes down to how much you want to invest in finding the answers to the questions of Book of Mormon origins, and it also depends on what kinds of answers you are looking for. Now, I agree with you that it is possible that Joseph just heard or read curious workmanship somewhere, thought it seemed groovy and old timey, and so he put it in the Book of Mormon. If your primary question is, “Is this a guy who is writing a pseudo-biblical text and just wants it to sound believable?,” then that may be as far as you care to go. However, there is enough odd stuff going on in the text that suggests to me the value (historical, at least) of going further than this. I guess it is a professional hazard: seeing the possibility of digging up more from the evidence. Not everyone really cares about these questions, sure. Not every question turns up the answers one expects or wants. But asking them and pursuing the answers is where the fun resides.