Book of Mormon Borrowings from the New Testament

[_ludwigm]

I said Ludwigm's article was silly, and that is jumping down his throat? He has demonstrated no knowledge of the subject, but this is not his fault and others must be blamed? He made mistakes in this thread, and others must be blamed. At all costs the anti-Mormon mindset MUST be protected, and this is silly.

Ok, my article (did I write that article? - forget it) was silly.
OK, I demonstrated no knowledge.
OK, I made mistakes.
OK, I am anti-mormon (I am not, but be you right at whatever cost).

Could you get on?


Then, would you be so kind to say some words about the role and function of Lucifer and morning star
- in KJV
- in other bibles (German, Hungarian, Russian - not Albanian because I don't speak that language)
- in Book of Mormon and D&C
- in today's LDS literature

My comment above (viewtopic.php?p=681166#p681166) summarizes it.
Did you read it?

[_Res Ipsa]

I said Ludwigm's article was silly, and that is jumping down his throat? He has demonstrated no knowledge of the subject, but this is not his fault and others must be blamed? He made mistakes in this thread, and others must be blamed. At all costs the anti-Mormon mindset MUST be protected, and this is silly.

You did more than call the article silly, as Ludwig has shown.

Enough with the constant derailment -- how about we discuss the substance of the thread.

[_vessr]

I said Ludwigm's article was silly, and that is jumping down his throat? He has demonstrated no knowledge of the subject, but this is not his fault and others must be blamed? He made mistakes in this thread, and others must be blamed. At all costs the anti-Mormon mindset MUST be protected, and this is silly.

You did more than call the article silly, as Ludwig has shown.

Enough with the constant derailment -- how about we discuss the substance of the thread.

Yes, let's get back to the thread. The Old Testament reference to Lucifer and its application by Smith in the Book of Mormon is interesting and helpful; but the thread was about his borrowings from the New Testament.

Here's how the thread began:

Wikipedia defines “parallelisms” in rhetoric as “giving two or more parts of the sentences a similar form so as to give the whole a definite pattern.” I propose that the following examples are rhetorical parallelisms. Each begins with a citation from the Book of Mormon, that is followed by the Book of Mormon quote to which it applies, followed by a parallel quote in the New Testament, and followed, finally, by the citation to the New Testament quote. (The previous sentence is an example of parallelism in grammar bty.)

I ask the following questions: (1) Do these parallelisms create a pattern establishing that Joseph Smith copied New Testament words and phrases as he was translating or writing, as the case may be, the Book of Mormon?; (2) If the answer to the first question is in the affirmative, what does this tell us about how to Book of Mormon was created?; and (3) Would it be helpful if I produced hundreds of these parallelisms between Book of Mormon and New Testament phrases and sentences?

I had listed ten examples in the opening post to this thread. There are hundreds more; so no need to focus solely on one Old Testament reference, when we have hundreds we could be talking about in the New Testament.

[_Res Ipsa]

I'll out myself in the beginning as a parallel skeptic, meaning I personally place a heavy burden of proof on any argument based on parallels.

One possible conclusion could be something like this: If you had a person who was familiar with the Bible who wanted to write a book of scripture, it would seem natural to try and make the language sound like the style of the Bible (King James, in this case). Given the number of phrases in Bible and the length of the Book of Mormon, I don't think it would be surprising to find parallel phrases or even whole sentences. So, I'm not sure it would be fair to conclude that Smith simply copied from Bible into the Book of Mormon.

Another would be similar to Tobin's. God supplied Joseph with the words and sentences that went into the book. God knew the expectations for what scripture should sound like, at least to Joesph and his contemporaries, and so he used language similar to that found in the KJV. Once you posit an omnipotent and omniscient god, it's not difficult to construct possible explanations for the parallels.

All I would draw from the parallelisms is that the author of the Book of Mormon was familiar with the Bible and chose to make the Book of Mormon language sound like the KJV.

[_ludwigm]

The Old Testament reference to Lucifer and its application by Smith in the Book of Mormon is interesting and helpful; but the thread was about his borrowings from the New Testament.

...New Testament...

Sorry. I got it wrong.

[_Kittens_and_Jesus]

I'll out myself in the beginning as a parallel skeptic, meaning I personally place a heavy burden of proof on any argument based on parallels.

One possible conclusion could be something like this: If you had a person who was familiar with the Bible who wanted to write a book of scripture, it would seem natural to try and make the language sound like the style of the Bible (King James, in this case). Given the number of phrases in Bible and the length of the Book of Mormon, I don't think it would be surprising to find parallel phrases or even whole sentences. So, I'm not sure it would be fair to conclude that Smith simply copied from Bible into the Book of Mormon.

Another would be similar to Tobin's. God supplied Joseph with the words and sentences that went into the book. God knew the expectations for what scripture should sound like, at least to Joesph and his contemporaries, and so he used language similar to that found in the KJV. Once you posit an omnipotent and omniscient god, it's not difficult to construct possible explanations for the parallels.

All I would draw from the parallelisms is that the author of the Book of Mormon was familiar with the Bible and chose to make the Book of Mormon language sound like the KJV.

Your first argument makes more sense if you ask me.

If some kind of god wanted to convince people that the Book of Mormon is scripture then he wouldn't have made something that made more people skeptical than believing, and there are far more people skeptical than believing.

[_subgenius]

...(snip)...there are far more people skeptical than believing.

CFR

[_Bhodi]

You did more than call the article silly, as Ludwig has shown.

I said that Ludwigm's comment was silly, I called the article rubbish. Both are true.

You would never accept the sloppy scholarship from a Mormon apologist, but you defend it from one of your own. Why the double standard.

Enough with the constant derailment -- how about we discuss the substance of the thread.

Because the thread OP does not interest me. The hypocrisy does.

[_Res Ipsa]

I'll out myself in the beginning as a parallel skeptic, meaning I personally place a heavy burden of proof on any argument based on parallels.

One possible conclusion could be something like this: If you had a person who was familiar with the Bible who wanted to write a book of scripture, it would seem natural to try and make the language sound like the style of the Bible (King James, in this case). Given the number of phrases in Bible and the length of the Book of Mormon, I don't think it would be surprising to find parallel phrases or even whole sentences. So, I'm not sure it would be fair to conclude that Smith simply copied from Bible into the Book of Mormon.

Another would be similar to Tobin's. God supplied Joseph with the words and sentences that went into the book. God knew the expectations for what scripture should sound like, at least to Joesph and his contemporaries, and so he used language similar to that found in the KJV. Once you posit an omnipotent and omniscient god, it's not difficult to construct possible explanations for the parallels.

All I would draw from the parallelisms is that the author of the Book of Mormon was familiar with the Bible and chose to make the Book of Mormon language sound like the KJV.

Your first argument makes more sense if you ask me.

If some kind of god wanted to convince people that the Book of Mormon is scripture then he wouldn't have made something that made more people skeptical than believing, and there are far more people skeptical than believing.

I'm not sure what you mean by "there are far more people skeptical than believing." If you mean of the Book of Mormon in general, then that seems reasonable to me. But If you mean skeptical of the Book of Mormon for this specific reason, then i'd be a little skeptical. I see it raised by church critics, but beyond that, I can't recall anyone raising it as a basis for skepticism.

The problem with the second argument is that we have to put ourselves in God's shoes. We have to figure out what a reasonable God would do. And if I ask myself, "If I were God and the Book of Mormon were a real book, what words would I tell Joseph Smith to write down?" And the answer is: "heck if I know." The best I can do is to say, given the time and place, translating the Book of Mormon in the style of the KJV seems to me to be a reasonable choice.

[_Res Ipsa]

You did more than call the article silly, as Ludwig has shown.

I said that Ludwigm's comment was silly, I called the article rubbish. Both are true.

You would never accept the sloppy scholarship from a Mormon apologist, but you defend it from one of your own. Why the double standard.

Enough with the constant derailment -- how about we discuss the substance of the thread.

Because the thread OP does not interest me. The hypocrisy does.

If you want to discuss the subject of hypocrisy, I'd be happy to do so in a thread in Terrestial or Telestial where it belongs. If you change your mind and want to actually discuss the validity of Ludwig's comment, I'd be happy to do it here.