Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[Guest]

And yet, Rick Grunder called it on every Hebraism type discussed in this thread, and the implications for apologetics, some 5 years ago.

I guess I didn't get the memo!

Where did the apologists rebut Grunder's work?

I would like to read what they said.

I can't pull up "Grunder" or his bibliography on either Mormonthink or Fair (or Amazon for that matter). Even if the apologists were aware of it (Nevo seems to be feigning casual familiarity with the work), they would not draw attention to it if it has escaped the attention of Mormonthink.

It has taken Johnson's convergent work to draw attention to it, and the parallels (I think it pays to note that Johnson was not looking at Hebraic parallels).


ETA: Maybe Bushman will pull out a rebuttal from his bottom drawer, that he has been sitting on just in case the critics notice Grunder's work.

[Guest]

But that's just it Kish,

No apologist is ever going to take any contra-faithful evidence seriously until the critics force them to deal with it.

Of course it was "woefully inadequate".

Book of Mormon scholarship wouldn't exist at all if it weren't for critics.

(thinking about Hugh Ws voice ringing, "this book had to be written all because of a huge fuss made over a scrap of papyri..."

[Guest]

I can't pull up "Grunder" or his bibliography on either Mormonthink or Fair (or Amazon for that matter). Even if the apologists were aware of it (Nevo seems to be feigning casual familiarity with the work), they would not draw attention to it if it has escaped the attention of Mormonthink.

It has taken Johnson's convergent work to draw attention to it, and the parallels (I think it pays to note that Johnson was not looking at Hebraic parallels).


ETA: Maybe Bushman will pull out a rebuttal from his bottom drawer, that he has been sitting on just in case the critics notice Grunder's work.

It is, I think, very interesting that Grunder and Johnson each independently found Hunt by their own methods. In my view that strengthens the case.

[_Kishkumen]

But that's just it Kish,

No apologist is ever going to take any contra-faithful evidence seriously until the critics force them to deal with it.

Of course it was "woefully inadequate".

Book of Mormon scholarship wouldn't exist at all if it weren't for critics.

(thinking about Hugh Ws voice ringing, "this book had to be written all because of a huge fuss made over a scrap of papyri..."

Well, this is exactly the reason why Don Bradley's stint as an atheist was such an incredible boon for LDS scholarship. People on the inside are inhibited by way the community shapes their questions. There are certain things a believer simply wouldn't entertain seriously, since it would contradict the foundation of their beliefs. Then, even if they get a hint of the possibility, they retreat to a position of safety. Of course, there are notable exceptions, but not too many of them.

As more than one theorist has noted, we know what our culture allows us to know.

Bradley was an outsider, and now he can go back into the fortress armed with forbidden knowledge, but deployed strategically in a way that actually advances the cause of the faith.

[_DarkHelmet]

If anyone is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages—especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that witness has had on what is now tens of millions of readers—if that is the case, then such a person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived; and if he or she leaves this Church, it must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make that exit.

Ooooohh I would so love to see what Jeffrey says now.

He just needs to change "teeming with literary and Semitic complexity" to "teeming with early nineteenth century pseudo-Biblical phrases" when he rehashes this talk in a couple years.

[Guest]

I can understand why the ex-Mormon crowd is salivating over this, particularly those whose knowledge of Joseph Smith's cultural context is next to nil, but I'll be very surprised if this "find" (Rick Grunder should be suing!) gets any traction among serious students of the period [...]

wait a minute, so this guy Grunder noticed and wrote about the parallels with Late War back in 2008, and then just this year some guys do an automated algorithmic search of god knows how many volumes from archive.org and it just happens to spit out the very same book as the top match? wow.

by the way, Nevo, when did you become aware of Grunder's work?
(for myself, i first heard of it 5 posts prior to yours that i'm now responding to)

[_Darth J]

From the Facebook discussion Rev. Kishkumen referenced, we get this from Blair Hodges:

The amazing nature of these parallels is largely the product of 21st century unfamiliarity with 19th c. books other than the Book of Mormon, it seems to me. Someone was impressed by "curious workmanship" being in there. They didn't know it was in a bunch of other 19th c. books, too, and would never have struck a 19th century reader as anachronistic any more than a tonload of other phrases therein. If it's a translation it's going to, by nature, reflect the translation culture and period.

No, Brother Hodges, you have this backwards. It is 20th-21st century unfamiliarity with 19th c. books other than the Book of Mormon that makes the Book of Mormon seem so impressive, so scriptural, and so impossible for Joseph Smith to have written.

He's also confusing an academic translation with a miraculous translation. It's unfortunate that Elohim is so incompetent that when setting the Book of Mormon up as the keystone of the religion he was restoring for his children in the last dispensation of time, he couldn't make it look like something other than entirely a product of Joseph Smith's time and place. Again, the issue is not that there is a lot in the Book of Mormon that can be accounted for by 19th-century literature. It's that there is no need to refer to anything other than 19th-century literature to account for the Book of Mormon.

But what's really sad is that people are trying to leverage this into an argument against historical authenticity rather than allowing the work to better inform our understanding of the Book of Mormon's initial reception climate. Lame.

Unfortunately, these are exactly the same things that not only Mopologists, but actual LDS leaders (Ezra Taft Benson, Neal A. Maxwell, Jeffrey R. Holland, etc.) have touted as evidence of the Book of Mormon's historicity.

If you can't "leverage" these types of literary parallels into an argument against the Book of Mormon's historical authenticity, for the same reason you can't use it in favor of that alleged historical authenticity. So goodbye, the text itself being evidence. And in the last 183 years, there is a grand total of zero Nephite or Jaredite artifacts or identified place names. And the "NHM" altars are in fact merely another example of the parallelomania Hodges is decrying.

It's too bad that Hodges is unwittingly acknowledging that the only remaining source of claimed evidence for the Book of Mormon---its supposed literary complexity and Hebraisms---are actually not probative of anything other than a 19th-century origin.

[_Kishkumen]

Someone on the same thread posted this about "curious workmanship":

"However, it may nevertheless be worth noting that contrary to the prevalent usage you refer to, the Late War and the Book of Mormon use "curious workmanship" to refer to all the same kinds of things: weapons, boats, and ball-like entities."

I actually looked this up earlier today, this was common usage.

So, the author of this comment ran a Google search. I have too. What you get are numerous references to architectural elements and artisan items, including weapons, "of curious workmanship." I found one interesting reference in a book written in the 1840s to a "ball of curious workship." I have seen the words boat or ship pop up somewhere in the vicinity of the phrase "of curious workmanship."

What I do not see is any other text that refers to all three kinds of items as being curious of curious workmanship or connected to items of curious workmanship.

That is a crucial difference. That is the difference between a "meh" and something that merits serious attention. Yet this fellow who did the Google search evidently did not go much further than noting that weapons, balls, and ships show up connected to, or somewhere close to the phrase "curious workmanship."

Here's the thing: so do other items.

Neither Hunt nor the Book of Mormon refer to architecture being of curious workmanship.

Why not?

Why is it especially in the context of all three kinds of items and not others that these two books, and evidently no others, refer to "curious workmanship."

That is striking. It demands explanation. Coupled with the rest of the things noted on this thread it sure as hell demands very serious attention indeed.

What do we get from apologists? Ho hum. I did a Google search. Yawn.

[_Nevo]

Well, Nevo, I have to say that your ability to address what has been posted thus far is unimpressive. You act as though "curious workmanship" was pointed out in isolation of any other similarities, when I showed quite clearly that the interrelationship is much more complex than that. Your failure to address those posts is noted, and your specific reference to "curious workmanship" strikes me as disingenuous because you have failed to respond to those posts. Very disappointing.

Please forgive my dilatory response. I'll try to do better in the future.

First point: One of the definitions of "curious" in Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary is "wrought with care and art; elegant; neat; finished; as a curious girdle; curious work Exodus 28 and 30." The Oxford English Dictionary lists the following definition: "Made with care or art; skilfully, elaborately or beautifully wrought." A famous example of this usage is the line from Psalm 139:15: "My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth."

An object of "curious workmanship", then, is simply an object that is artfully or skillfully wrought.

Did other writers besides Hunt and Joseph Smith ever refer to weapons being artfully or skillfully wrought? Why yes, they did.

E.g.,

• [Lady Morgan], The Wild Irish Girl (1808), p. 129: "'But here,' said I, 'is a sword of curious workmanship, the hilt of which seems of gold.'"
  
• John Langhorne, trans., Plutarch's Lives (1808), p. 124: "...the very same sword with which Dion had been assassinated; for it was known by the size (being short, like Spartan swords) and by the curious workmanship."
  
• Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle, vol. 16 (1746), p. 324: "His serene highness the prince of Hesse...waited on the king at Kensington; when his majesty was pleased to make him a present of a sword of curious workmanship, set with diamonds of a very great value."
  
• Various sources, 1809-1811: " ...some Indian armour of curious workmanship."
  
• A Companion to All the Principal Places of Curiousity... (1801), p. 90: "Among the miscellaneous articles, you will behold a variety of weapons of war of different nations, many of which are of a curious workmanship. Also the warlike weapons of the several savage nations of the America. The clubs of many of them curiously carved..."

Ah, but did other writers besides Hunt and Joseph Smith ever refer to ships being artfully or skillfully wrought? Actually, yes.

In fact, the OED itself offers one such an example: Antonio de Ulloa, A voyage to South America..., trans. John Adams, 3rd ed. (1772), 1:182: "[Boats]... of a more curious and elegant construction." Here's another: John Wilkes, Encyclopaedia Londinensis (1812), p. 744: "Two canoes were brought off to the ship, of curious workmanship."

Anyway, you get the picture.

[Guest]

Anyway, you get the picture.

Evidently, you still don't "get the picture."

I found all of those references, Nevo.

I am talking about another source that uses the phrase "curious workmanship" in connection with all three kinds of items (weapons, ships, balls), and not others.

All you have done is to show that these kinds of items have been described as being of "curious workmanship." From very early on in the thread, the bar has been set higher than that.

When you meet that bar, please return and report.

Even if you manage to find such a book, I highly doubt that this book will also bear all of the other resemblances that Hunt has to the Book of Mormon, including such closeness in time and place.