“Wither she did go” ??

[Shulem]

She's a mighty fine ship, son.



Pray that Lehi doesn't drop his brass ball.

I've seen that painting a million times and it just occurred to me that how ripped that little kid is. Why?

Because Mormons love to romanticize and exaggerate things in order to increase their faith and validate testimony. According to the story, Lehi had two sons in the wilderness (Jacob & Joseph) so the young man in the painting can't be either of them for obvious reasons, he's too old and physically developed. But curious how he manages to find his place in front of Nephi and at the side of mother Sariah. I think the artist was attempting to create an ideal image of what was considered the perfect image of a righteous young man who keeps all the commandments (thou shalt not fist pump in the wee hours of the night) and look at those muscles and ripped abs! What a grip!

[Shulem]

*puts on apologist hat*

The word for ship/boat in Hebrew is feminine.

Then there is this:

Hebrew, at its core, is a gendered language. Every word in the ancient language is categorized as zachar, male, or nekevah, female. Every noun from furniture to food is either a he or a she, and every adjective and verb has a male and female form.

This leads me to think the language itself is categorized into two groups: male & female. But it doesn't lead me to think that a word within that group means it's referred to by that particular gender when in play. In fact, it seems there is some gender confusion or that the gender of the word is not translated into real life circumstances.

Example of feminine noun:

Foreskin!




Example of masculine noun:

Womb!



Go figure. I therefore don't see how the apologists can automatically justify Book of Mormon usage of female gender to ships just because the noun is feminine in the Hebrew. If there are no classic examples of gender being applied to seafaring vessels in Jewish literature prior to 600BC then there is nothing to support Smith's Book of Mormon translation other than Late War and modern nautical expression.

[Shulem]

If there are no classic examples of gender being applied to seafaring vessels in Jewish literature prior to 600BC then there is nothing to support Smith's Book of Mormon translation other than Late War and modern nautical expression.

And, if this be the case, then I think my accusation of Smith plagiarizing feminine terms that he was familiar with into ancient Jewish custom is an all NEW anachronism that needs to be thoroughly investigated by specialists whether they are apologists or critics.

I think we (critics) can get a lot of mileage out of this.

[Bret Ripley]

Was Joseph familiar with the sea shanty, What do you do with a Drunken Sailor?

I think maybe Smith would have been more of a "Spanish Ladies" kind of guy. "Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies ..."

[malkie]

*puts on apologist hat*

The word for ship/boat in Hebrew is feminine.

Then there is this:

Hebrew, at its core, is a gendered language. Every word in the ancient language is categorized as zachar, male, or nekevah, female. Every noun from furniture to food is either a he or a she, and every adjective and verb has a male and female form.

This leads me to think the language itself is categorized into two groups: male & female. But it doesn't lead me to think that a word within that group means it's referred to by that particular gender when in play. In fact, it seems there is some gender confusion or that the gender of the word is not translated into real life circumstances.

Example of feminine noun:

Foreskin!




Example of masculine noun:

Womb!



Go figure. I therefore don't see how the apologists can automatically justify Book of Mormon usage of female gender to ships just because the noun is feminine in the Hebrew. If there are no classic examples of gender being applied to seafaring vessels in Jewish literature prior to 600BC then there is nothing to support Smith's Book of Mormon translation other than Late War and modern nautical expression.

The question for me is - when giving the translation of the original language to English (which has masculine, feminine and neuter genders), did God want the English pronoun to be feminine?

By the way, what do we know about how Reformed Egyptian handled issues of noun/pronoun gender, and the attribution of gender to inanimate objects? Does the GAEL throw any light on the subject?

[Shulem]

The question for me is - when giving the translation of the original language to English (which has masculine, feminine and neuter genders), did God want the English pronoun to be feminine?

By the way, what do we know about how Reformed Egyptian handled issues of noun/pronoun gender, and the attribution of gender to inanimate objects? Does the GAEL throw any light on the subject?

First, the English language didn't exist during Lehi's time. English has nothing to do with any of this; it's completely out of the picture and came later. All we should be concerned with is whether the Jews in 600 BC and earlier referred to ships in a feminine sense as seafarers do in modern times. God has nothing to do with any of it because people talked using their language whether they believed in God or not. So, the heck with God. Who cares what he thinks?

The Reformed Egyptian and Smith's gobbledygook in the GAEL won't throw any light on the Hebrew or help us understand how Jews talked in ancient times. The Book of Mormon claims to take the customs of the Jews and the the Hebrew language with them when they went to the New World. The claim that they wrote in so called "Reformed Egyptian" is nonsense made up by Smith just like he made up nonsensical names in Facsimile No. 3, i.e., Shulem & Olimlah. It's all BS.

But, hey, thanks for asking your questions. That's how I see it.

[malkie]

The question for me is - when giving the translation of the original language to English (which has masculine, feminine and neuter genders), did God want the English pronoun to be feminine?

By the way, what do we know about how Reformed Egyptian handled issues of noun/pronoun gender, and the attribution of gender to inanimate objects? Does the GAEL throw any light on the subject?

First, the English language didn't exist during Lehi's time. English has nothing to do with any of this; it's completely out of the picture and came later. All we should be concerned with is whether the Jews in 600 BC and earlier referred to ships in a feminine sense as seafarers do in modern times. God has nothing to do with any of it because people talked using their language whether they believed in God or not. So, the heck with God. Who cares what he thinks?

The Reformed Egyptian and Smith's gobbledygook in the GAEL won't throw any light on the Hebrew or help us understand how Jews talked in ancient times. The Book of Mormon claims to take the customs of the Jews and the the Hebrew language with them when they went to the New World. The claim that they wrote in so called "Reformed Egyptian" is nonsense made up by Smith just like he made up nonsensical names in Facsimile No. 3, i.e., Shulem & Olimlah. It's all BS.

But, hey, thanks for asking your questions. That's how I see it.

I have the utmost respect for you, Shulem, but I disagree.

How on earth (or in heaven) could English not matter when the claim was that Joseph was translating from RE to English, by the power of God.

To me, while I agree with you that it's all nonsense anyway, it matters in the same way that this entire thread matters: it's a virtual location at which the claims of the LDS church intersect with reality, and are susceptible to some kind of reality check.

[Shulem]

I have the utmost respect for you, Shulem, but I disagree.

How on earth (or in heaven) could English not matter when the claim was that Joseph was translating from RE to English, by the power of God.

To me, while I agree with you that it's all nonsense anyway, it matters in the same way that this entire thread matters: it's a virtual location at which the claims of the LDS church intersect with reality, and are susceptible to some kind of reality check.

Assume that there were real gold plates and the two references of a ship (Alma 63:8 & Mormon 5:18) were written in the feminine expression ("she" & "her") when etched into the gold leaf by their authors, it therefore makes no difference what Joseph Smith thinks or his English. It wouldn't have mattered whether Smith was ever born. Either the gold plates have the feminine connotation in those two references at the time they were penned or they do not. The whole point of this thread is to determine *IF* such a tradition of applying the feminine to ships in those times was practiced.

Alma called the ship a "she".
Mormon called the ship a "her" & "she".

It doesn't matter what Joseph Smith thought or what he translated. The point is that we have two persons in the Book of Mormon referring to ships as girls. Did the Jews actually do that?

[Shulem]

Woohoo, Houston, I have a reference!

I refer to the first century using the Apocrypha. In this case the Wisdom of Solomon. It's interesting to note that the ship does not get a specific reference to the feminine expression but the bird does. This is just one interesting example and I highlight it here for reference:

9 All those things are passed away like a shadow, and as a post that hasted by;

10 And as a ship that passeth over the waves of the water, which when it is gone by, the trace thereof cannot be found, neither the pathway of the keel in the waves;

11 Or as when a bird hath flown through the air, there is no token of her way to be found, but the light air being beaten with the stroke of her wings and parted with the violent noise and motion of them, is passed through, and therein afterwards no sign where she went is to be found;

You'd think that if ships were given express feminine definition then the verse would have read:

And as a ship that passeth over the waves of the water, which when she is gone by . . .

[malkie]

I have the utmost respect for you, Shulem, but I disagree.

How on earth (or in heaven) could English not matter when the claim was that Joseph was translating from RE to English, by the power of God.

To me, while I agree with you that it's all nonsense anyway, it matters in the same way that this entire thread matters: it's a virtual location at which the claims of the LDS church intersect with reality, and are susceptible to some kind of reality check.

Assume that there were real gold plates and the two references of a ship (Alma 63:8 & Mormon 5:18) were written in the feminine expression ("she" & "her") when etched into the gold leaf by their authors, it therefore makes no difference what Joseph Smith thinks or his English. It wouldn't have mattered whether Smith was ever born. Either the gold plates have the feminine connotation in those two references at the time they were penned or they do not. The whole point of this thread is to determine *IF* such a tradition of applying the feminine to ships in those times was practiced.

Alma called the ship a "she".
Mormon called the ship a "her" & "she".

It doesn't matter what Joseph Smith thought or what he translated. The point is that we have two persons in the Book of Mormon referring to ships as girls. Did the Jews actually do that?

But we have only the "translation" into English to go on when determining how these hypothetical people referred to anything. And we will never (hah!) have another translation from the plates. How could we ever effectively question a putative "feminine connotation" in a non-existent source language with no hope of another translation?

Where is Bouchard when you really need him?

I don't think it matters what the Jewish people did 2400 years ago, when we are told that they didn't write in their language, nor in any language known to us since then. RE, if it existed, would have imposed its own unpredictable constraints on the Nephites' modes of expression.

Probably I should make this my last comment on the subject for now, because, just like in another current thread, I'm clearly missing something, and will get no further as long as the gap exists in my mind.

But I do thank you for your patience with me, and for your valiant attempts to push some meaning into my brain.