If plates then God

[Gadianton]

My point was that through the processes of epistemological inquiry God cannot be discovered only through the intellect or rational thought. As I said:

No it wasn't, you keep changing your god-damned point to the next iteration of what maybe you should have said the last time, based on how you just got your ass kicked this time.

This sentence does show, however, that your main interest is epistemology. I wouldn't have said what I did about epistemology though, honestly, if I knew that you didn't know what the word meant. Because now I've taken a situation that's already bad with you floundering and evading responsibility for your own hopeless ignorance, to the next level of arthritic six-shooter mishandling.

If you want to prayerfully approach the subject of epistemology as you would ontology, psychology, biology, or hematology, knock yourself out. You are still doing epistemology. However you attempt to answer the question, "what is knowledge?" whether the answer includes the word "God" or anything else, is to do epistemology. Hopefully you understand this, although I'm not hopeful.

So now, to your stupid and ignorant question that I rightfully skipped over for the good of the rest of our community:

I think there are ways of knowing…or at least coming closer to whatever truth there might be. Does epistemology allow for that?

Because you've probably forgotten already, I will remind you. To answer the question, "what is knowledge?" is to do epistemology. It doesn't matter how you answer it. If your answer is, "We can only know something when the devil and his angels push a tractor into a ditch and then go bowling" then you are doing epistemology. Epistemology allows this. If the answer is, "100 divided by 20 is five"; epistemology does NOT allow for this, because it is not an answer to the question, "What is knowledge?"

[Nevo]

I could be wrong, but I believe they’re all Grant Hardy.

That's true, except for the last two, which come from historians Gordon Wood and Daniel Walker Howe.

(I'll be happy to provide full references and page numbers if anyone is actually going to bother to look them up.)

[Chap]

MG2.0

Supposedly, a few extended families of bilingual Jews migrated to the Americas in 600 BCE, where they prospered and grew and created an empire that was as successful and sophisticated as any on earth. It would have rivaled contemporary empires in China, India, Persia, and Rome. They built roads and temples, smelted iron and worked steel, they grew vast cities and developed a complicated society. They fought wars that involved millions of people on each side. Even though they were here for 1000 years, they disappeared without a trace. They left no literature, pottery, place names, horse bones, mythology, chariot wheels, rusted swords, theology, or DNA. There is no archeological, scientific, social, literary, artistic, or historical evidence of their existence.

Another group, a few hundred years later, sailed to North America from Norway. They settled on the tip of Newfoundland in a place now known as L'Anse aux Meadows. The settlement there only lasted for a few years. In spite of this, archeologists have found jewelry, needles, lamps, evidence of smelting, textiles, and buildings--all consistent with the Viking culture of the time.

On one hand, we have a vast and wealthy empire, a major civilization that supposedly dominated an entire hemisphere for a thousand years--which leaves no discernible trace. On the other, we have a ragged group of Norsemen who put up a few shacks and occupy a remote outpost for a few years in an inhospitable spot in Newfoundland--and there are artifacts all over the place.

Were you not a Mormon, MG, what conclusions would you draw, my firend?

I hope that I would want to learn more rather than jumping to a conclusion that could impact my life in such a powerful way. If I was serious about God and learning whether or not He speaks to prophets and if Jesus is the Christ, I would read the Book of Mormon, study it, and ask God if it was true. I might find myself asking some of the questions that have been raised in this very thread having to do with Book of Mormon provenance.

Could Joseph have written this book or is it the work of God?

Of course if I wasn’t serious about gaining further knowledge and/or understanding of God and His ways I might find myself jumping to a more secular/humanistic conclusion.

...

MG

The thing is, MG, you were asked to put yourself in the shoes of a random ordinary person who is not a Mormon, and give your reaction on being told that:

(a) A quite small group of people arrived in America, and spent a few years there living relatively simple lives, then left. We have archaeological remains from their settlement that tells us quite a lot about their lives. We can be sure they were there, and what kind of people they were.

(d) Some people say that in America there was once an empire that was as successful and sophisticated as any on earth. It rivaled contemporary empires in China, India, Persia, and Rome. They built roads and temples, smelted iron and worked steel, they grew vast cities and developed a complicated society. They fought wars that involved millions of people on each side. But there are no archaeological remains to prove that such an empire ever existed.

Don't you agree that the average Joe would say that in the light of (a), (b) seems pretty implausible?

Instead, you gave the answer that an eager young missionary might hope to get from a golden prospect, even thought the concepts 'God' and 'prophets' played no part in the situation as described. And that's what you think non-Mormons are like?

OK.

[Kishkumen]

There were 270,000 words, with about 40,000 of them coming from the King James Bible--so, about 230,000 words. About 6,000 of those 230,000 were some variation of the phrase, "And it came to pass," so if we subtract those, we're left with 224,000. Joseph had 65 days, but as Kish notes, he'd already rehearsed the script for years with his family and had composed a beginning draft and outline with the lost 116 pages that he'd composed with Martin Harris. He also had the collaboration, during those 65 days, of a relatively educated Oliver Cowdery. Working together, he and Oliver had to churn out about 3500 words a day--which would be a challenge, but by no means impossible.

What do you think, Nevo? Which is more likely, that Smith and Cowdery wrote the book together, or that God made the words appear, one at a time, on a stone in the bottom of a hat?

We know what Joseph and his comrades wanted us to know about the process. And the story they tell is an internally contradictory hash. I can give Joseph Smith the benefit of many reasonable doubts, and that still does not land me at “ancient and large Christian Hebrew civilization produced this text in antiquity.” There are too many strikes against that claim, and not nearly enough evidences supporting it.

[Marcus]

I could be wrong, but I believe they’re all Grant Hardy.

That's true, except for the last two, which come from historians Gordon Wood and Daniel Walker Howe.

(I'll be happy to provide full references and page numbers if anyone is actually going to bother to look them up.)

I can only speak for myself, but I'm not going to bother to take any part of your gish gallop
seriously unless you actually attach the sources for each part you quoted.

[MG 2.0]

My point was that through the processes of epistemological inquiry God cannot be discovered only through the intellect or rational thought. As I said:

No it wasn't, you keep changing your god-damned point to the next iteration of what maybe you should have said the last time, based on how you just got your ass kicked this time.

This sentence does show, however, that your main interest is epistemology.

Only in the sense of being interested in ways that one can come to knowledge. Obviously I’m not in the same class as you when discussing epistemology or philosophy. But I don’t need to be. Without using highfalutin processes, step by step by step, I can…using good old reason and common sense…find ‘treasures of knowledge’. Those forms of knowledge and may I dare say, truth, are accessible by the common ordinary man and woman.

I can read, I can discern, I can see that which has no real value…to me and those that I love. It is those things that I seek after. To you, that may sound like the ramblings of a yokel. So be it.

One thing that became rather obvious rather quickly as I took some time to read about epistemology was that, as I said, essentially it’s a dead end street. The scriptures are crystal clear that reason and logic play a part in the path to God but not the end all way of getting on and staying on that path.

I’ve found that there are times when I have to trust God that He has knowledge and truth that He will impart in His own way and in his own time. Those times have occurred over the span of my life thus far when I’ve stayed on the covenant path.

To you, that may sound strange at this point in your life having exited that path and made the choice to use your own knowledge, tools, and intellectual pursuits to create your own life of purpose and reason at the expense of having opportunities to have the Spirit teach you in your mind AND your heart.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

I hope that I would want to learn more rather than jumping to a conclusion that could impact my life in such a powerful way. If I was serious about God and learning whether or not He speaks to prophets and if Jesus is the Christ, I would read the Book of Mormon, study it, and ask God if it was true. I might find myself asking some of the questions that have been raised in this very thread having to do with Book of Mormon provenance.

Could Joseph have written this book or is it the work of God?

Of course if I wasn’t serious about gaining further knowledge and/or understanding of God and His ways I might find myself jumping to a more secular/humanistic conclusion.

...

MG

The thing is, MG, you were asked to put yourself in the shoes of a random ordinary person who is not a Mormon, and give your reaction on being told that:

(a) A quite small group of people arrived in America, and spent a few years there living relatively simple lives, then left. We have archaeological remains from their settlement that tells us quite a lot about their lives. We can be sure they were there, and what kind of people they were.

(d) Some people say that in America there was once an empire that was as successful and sophisticated as any on earth. It rivaled contemporary empires in China, India, Persia, and Rome. They built roads and temples, smelted iron and worked steel, they grew vast cities and developed a complicated society. They fought wars that involved millions of people on each side. But there are no archaeological remains to prove that such an empire ever existed.

Don't you agree that the average Joe would say that in the light of (a), (b) seems pretty implausible?

Sure. What thinking person wouldn’t? As I’ve said and talked about a whole bunch of times now on this thread and elsewhere I see certain issues as being peripheral to others.

The primary questions for me are:

1. Is there a God?
2. If so, does God have a plan/purpose for humanity?
3. Is He able to reveal that plan/purpose?
4. Is that plan (or parts of that plan) readily accessible and if so should I not find myself in congruency with that plan?

All else is secondary and/or peripheral. But once I’ve determined that these ‘primaries’ seem solid then I can move on to secondary/peripheral issues/questions. I also accept the fact that I live in a world of ambiguity and that I see through a glass darkly.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

"among the great achievements of American literature"

Or “chloroform in print”, depending on your affinity for “it came to pass.”

“And it came to pass” may not be as surprising to find in the text as you might think:

https://lehislibrary.wordpress.com/2009 ... e-to-pass/

Regards,
MG

[Nevo]

There were 270,000 words, with about 40,000 of them coming from the King James Bible--so, about 230,000 words. About 6,000 of those 230,000 were some variation of the phrase, "And it came to pass," so if we subtract those, we're left with 224,000.

Okay, but I don't think that diminishes the achievement. As Philip Barlow recognized over 30 years ago, while "biblical phrases constitute the vocabulary building blocks of much of the Book of Mormon narrative . . . that narrative maintains an independent coherence" (Mormons and the Bible, 27-28).

Hardy writes: "While many of the biblical phrases in the Book of Mormon seem somewhat random, like a friendly nod from one book to another, others exhibit a surprising degree of cleverness or sophistication when they interlock in complicated patterns, or assume a knowledge of the original context, or creatively adapt the wording of the King James Bible. . . . For example, the book of Jacob begins and ends with allusions to Psalm 95, but to different verses. In 3 Nephi 19, when Jesus adapts wording from his intercessory prayer at John 17, the narrator immediately follows up with an allusion to the priestly blessing of Numbers 6. An allusion to the Third Commandment inserted into 3 Nephi 27 suggests that being baptized in Jesus' name and then not enduring to the end is one way to take the Lord's name in vain" (The Annotated Book of Mormon, 764).

In a recent study of Mosiah 16:6-11, Nicholas Frederick noted:

Abinadi's speech represents a sophisticated weaving of language from the New Testament with Abinadi's own, careful to maintain the important terms and structure while also altering the order of words and phrases and even introducing words and phrases of his own. One of the most astonishing aspects of the Book of Mormon is the attention given to the weaving of text. To interact with the Bible to the extent that the Book of Mormon does risks producing a "textual Frankenstein," a book where the parts have been so clumsily constructed that the seams linking the Book of Mormon to the Bible are not only visible but obtrusive. That the Book of Mormon (largely) avoids this speaks to its complexity.

Yet the relationship between Abinadi, Paul, and John does not end with the subtle weaving together of text. The Book of Mormon pushes this textual interaction further by recontextualizing Paul and John in a way that fits well within the larger argument Abinadi makes. . . . [Abinadi's] speech rearranges the language of Paul and John and even adds words and phrases to the extent that Mosiah 16:10-11 are no longer Paul and John's words, but Abinadi's.

— Nicholas J. Frederick, "'If Christ Had Not Come into the World," in Abinadi: He Came Among Them in Disguise, ed. Shon D. Hopkin (Provo, UT: BYU/RSC; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2018), 131-132.

Even allowing for the biblical quotations and allusions, the length of the Book of Mormon isn't trivial. And it's content isn't insubstantial.

Joseph had 65 days, but as Kish notes, he'd already rehearsed the script for years with his family and had composed a beginning draft and outline with the lost 116 pages that he'd composed with Martin Harris. He also had the collaboration, during those 65 days, of a relatively educated Oliver Cowdery. Working together, he and Oliver had to churn out about 3500 words a day--which would be a challenge, but by no means impossible.

What do you think, Nevo? Which is more likely, that Smith and Cowdery wrote the book together, or that God made the words appear, one at a time, on a stone in the bottom of a hat?

When it comes to the Book of Mormon, I think we're dealing with unlikelihoods all around. The supernatural explanation of the stone in the hat is unlikely, but no more unlikely than a crucified man being raised from dead.

An indigent day laborer was unlikely to have composed it, but so was a village schoolteacher, in my opinion. Given Joseph's subsequent career and revelations, I'm inclined to think he was the author. But if so, it was an astounding feat. Certainly more difficult than a decent day's labor.

[MG 2.0]

Could Joseph have written this book or is it the work of God?

No. And no. Both obviously so.

Would you care to lay out your detailed reasonings as to how Joseph wrote the Book of Mormon? Taking into account the things that have been discussed in this thread.

Regards,
MG