Ancient texts

[Kishkumen]

What chance do we have to find out analogous things about other ancient places and times besides the Roman Empire?

Look to Egypt or China, I would say. I am sadly uninformed in those two areas.

[Kishkumen]

This is pretty interesting, Reverend. How does real ancient book economy compare to the Book of Mormon account of itself?

Tell me where you think I'm off base here.

The author(s) of the Book of Mormon held a fundamentalist view of the Bible. Joseph Smith said the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and the Bible, as far as translated correctly. Translation errors include 'careless scribes' and minor interpolations, but if those were fixed, then from Adam and Eve, to the tower, to slaves in Egypt, everything happened in the most literal way.

The author assumed that "powerful writing" was a mark of the most Godly men. Bets are hedged by Ether lamenting the awkwardness of their hands; if it's not convincing, don't defy the lord with criticism. That other guy though, in the sealed 2/3, Mohonri, that guy could write better than anyone.

Most importantly, it's the prophets of God who write with their own hand on metal plates, so that no errors in transmission can crop up. The Book of Mormon assures us of its own provenance. Metal records handed down from prophet to prophet, no errors.

At the same time, however, the Book of Mormon boasts of having a literate society. How does that happen with metal plates? Is it like, okay, you've got the brass plates, that's the original copy, and then the slave labor produces documents on soft materials to make it more accessible? I don't think there is a reference to anything but plates though...

You have raised what I have for some months thought to be one of the most intriguing and important questions about the Book of Mormon, Dean Robbers. Writing on metal plates and stone does seem to be the pinnacle and most important aspect of Nephite/Jaredite record keeping, yes, but I would also draw your attention to the following passage:

8 And it came to pass that he began to speak to his people from the tower; and they could not all hear his words because of the greatness of the multitude; therefore he caused that the words which he spake should be written and sent forth among those that were not under the sound of his voice, that they might also receive his words.

The Book of Mormon does seem to assume a wider literacy at least among the Nephites into the late second century BC (the estimated date of King Benjamin's sermons).

But I think you are definitely onto something when you focus on the importance of prophets writing on plates with their own hands and transmitting to others with their own hands the words they have written. Joseph Smith seems to have had a fixation on that idea, imposing it as he did on Abraham as well in the narrative surrounding the Book of Abraham.

And this is kind of odd, considering his own use of scribes, but then some of it may be a psychological reaction to his own failure to keep the first manuscript of the Book of Mormon because he let it get out of his possession. He handed it over to Harris, and then it was stolen by someone else. What did he think they did with it? He suspected that they had altered the text to make him look bad. At least, that is what he claimed.

Could this Book of Mormon theme spring from the events of the lost manuscript? It is interesting to contemplate the possibility.

[kairos]

Clearly out my field of interest and knowledge but several thoughts come to mind concerning Bible texts- how many texts were produced by monks copying by hand and sometimes elaborating with art/drawings Bible stories? Would there be any one place where that number could be found? And in the Islamic world the story seems to be lots , thousands?of texts in areas such as mathematics and astronomy and in china -lots of writing going on.
Not sure this is a good example but the Isaiah scroll from the dead sea cache was dated first -second century BC and it was compared to the oldest extant at that time first century AD. Our Jewish guide in the Jerusalem museum said the comparison found very few errors and pointed out that copying the text over several hundred years provided evidence of "faithful copying" at least for the Isaiah scroll.

When I consider the Book of Mormon development, a scribe like nephi had to form raw materials into plates and rings, had to develop a writing tool (did he scratch the reformed egyptian with a pen like instrument or use a punch of some sort-God forbid he wrote/punched in a b when he needed a d so erasing would be tricky . Did he write on both sides of a plate-that could be complex! and the weight would grow and grow as leaves were added. Guess he was lucky God did not tell him to make a duplicate set in case the first was lost or stolen.


just postulatin
k

[Gadianton]

Could this Book of Mormon theme spring from the events of the lost manuscript? It is interesting to contemplate the possibility.

Yeah, you know, it's not something that I ever would have thought about. But it's one of those things once you hear it, you know it's got to be a big factor. How could he have not had that in mind when he continued? And we know he kind of came up with everything ad hoc as he went along anyway, with revelation being a function of his problem on hand at the time. I might have to read the details of both the 116 page story.

[Physics Guy]

If it's really a motif in the Mormon scriptures to assert that the text was personally handwritten by the original inspired author, then that's at least ironic. Compared to the much murkier provenance of other (purportedly) ancient texts including all the Biblical ones, this is really laying it on thick about how reliably the Mormon texts were transmitted.

It's hard not to see this as a doth-protest-too-much sensitivity, on Smith's part, to the fact that the last step of transmission of the Mormon scriptures was as far removed as possible from that kind of mundane reliability—even on the faithful Mormon account. I'm not sure any extra motivation from the 116 pages episode is even needed. An acute awareness of provenance issues would seem to be inherent in the basic situation of dictating a supposed translation from ancient plates by seeing words on a rock in a hat.

It's probably misdirection, of course, either by conscious design or just by con-artist instinct. The illusionist makes a big production of showing you how empty his sleeves and his hat are, precisely because the rabbit is in a drawer under the table. Smith makes a production of how strong all the early links in his provenance chain are, to distract from the obvious fact that his final link is completely missing.

[Gadianton]

I'm not sure any extra motivation from the 116 pages episode is even needed

I totally agree. However, although that ice cream sandwich was great on its own terms, the fact it was 116 degrees outside might also explain why I ate it.

I'm a rube when it comes to the Book of Mormon, to be honest. The Rev among other things, is friends with Don Bradly, who is the world's foremost expert on the lost 116 pages. I won't pretend to account for his reasons for making his suggestion.

If I were trying to figure out if the 116 played a role, I'd hone in on any differences in the project prior to and after the 116 pages were lost. From my primitive understanding, I do think there are a couple of clues in the Rev's favor.

The first is that I have not seen evidence that Smith distinguished between the small and large plates prior to the 116; you know, multiple sources within the gold plates, which from a DH standpoint is a pretty interesting suggestion. Imagine that the Gold Plates had two totally redundant accounts at the beginning! (and only at the beginning). Well, THAT almost sounds too good to be true until you realize it's anachronistic, and only happened because God foresaw the lost 116 episode.

So I don't think it's terribly ad hoc to suggest that Joseph Smith did not contemplate the need for redundant sets of plates until after the fact. And having those thoughts forced in his mind, and having to come up with that explanation, it's very possible he hadn't thought through at all, how various sub-records would come together to produce the Book of Mormon. After covering his tracks; now he was committed.

In browsing around, it's said that the 116 hadn't been identified by Smith as the "Book of Lehi" until much later. According to Don, the real length of the lost manuscript is over 300 pages. Alma, the longest book, is less than 200 pages (I think). So it's likely, to me, that the lost manuscript wasn't segmented by authors the way the rest of the book is.

And I found this little gem pretty much by accident, from the wiki entry on 116 pages:

Along with the Book of Lehi, Royal Skousen, editor of The Book of Mormon Critical Text Project, says that in the printer's manuscript of the Book of Mosiah, the first chapter is listed as Chapter 3. Skousen proposes that all or part of the first two chapters were lost with the 116 pages. Skousen notes that every other book in the Book of Mormon is named for its primary author; but the Book of Mosiah begins with King Benjamin and is not named for him. Also, Mosiah does not begin with an introduction of the author or an explanatory introduction as is typical with other Book of Mormon books but "begins in the middle of things." Skousen speculates that the original first chapter related Mosiah's flight from the land of Nephi to Zarahemla and that the second chapter discussed King Benjamin's early reign and wars

Since it's commonly believed that translation began with Mosiah, is it possible that Skousen is totally wrong here? Maybe he hadn't found his groove yet. He wouldn't, in fact, need to come up with the small and large plates until much later, as the Books of Nephi would nearly be last. So at some point, well into continuing on, he landed upon the personal diary theme and retroactively named the entire corpus of lost writings "the book of Lehi"

[Physics Guy]

I’m not really versed in Smith’s story. If the whole idea of two overlapping ancient sources came to him as a retcon fix after those pages were lost, is that an interesting indication that parallel sources were in people’s minds in Smith’s time and place?

I guess it should be no surprise if they were. The canonical gospels are obviously parallel, and there’s clear overlap among Kings, Chronicles, and Samuel. But was it a popular explanation of this in Smith’s time, to suggest that some ancient scriptures might be redactions or abridgements of others that were lost?

Was some kind of proto-source criticism, no doubt strictly pious, perhaps even a hot topic in Smith’s day? Are the internal references in the Book of Mormon to its own production history perhaps another anachronism, being examples of exactly how 1830s New Englanders thought Scripture should explain itself?