Please Explain how Joseph Smith could have possibly authored the Book of Mormon.

[DeepShadow]

?!?

It's in reference to the post directly above it. Someone asked what the 20 points were, and I answered.

[BalanceFx]

Originally Posted by DeepShadow

...huh? What are you saying?

Several speeches from the Book of Mormon fit this pattern, but this was the best example. Better, in fact, than all the examples provided by Kurtz himself. It may meet all twenty, when the best Kurtz could find was mid-teens.

Right... WHAT? HUH? What are you saying? You found some speech and 20 things in that speech are also in the BOM... and by things you mean concepts... ideas.... Particularlly farewell religious hebrew speeches... Huh? What are you trying to prove?

Lets take a book... any book... Enders game... now we will search and find some other text where 20 abstract ideas are also present... Huh? How could Orson have written such a text? Look 20 abstract ideas he used are also here... In this other... different... old... science fiction text.

You already said your not trying to prove the BOM as supernaturally inspired... I will ask for like the 4th or 5th time. WHAT are you trying to prove?

What do you disagree with me on?

What is the source of conflict?

[DeepShadow]

William Kurtz, a non-LDS scholar, compared dozens of Hebrew farewell speeches, and found these 20 points in common. If the speeches in the Book of Mormon fit the same pattern, this would support the idea that the Book of Mormon was written by Hebrews, and merely translated by Joseph Smith, as Joseph could have had no knowledge of a linguistic pattern that would be discovered over a century later.

Note I'm not saying anything here aobut angels. This is strictly about the content of the book, is it consistent with a work of ancient date? Does it contain details that would be known to a person of ancient Jerusalem but not an American at Joseph's time?

I'm sorry you've asked so many times, but I've explained this before, and I was promptly ignored. I'm getting tired of explaining it.

[BalanceFx]

Originally Posted by DeepShadow

William Kurtz, a non-LDS scholar, compared dozens of Hebrew farewell speeches, and found these 20 points in common. If the speeches in the Book of Mormon fit the same pattern, this would support the idea that the Book of Mormon was written by Hebrews, and merely translated by Joseph Smith, as Joseph could have had no knowledge of a linguistic pattern that would be discovered over a century later.

So you agree with Kurtz that if we take a religious book, the BOM and compare it to 100s of ancient hebrew texts and in one we find that 20 abstract ideas are shared then that proves that it could not have been anything but a translated text of the hebrews?

Originally Posted by DeepShadow

Does it contain details that would be known to a person of ancient Jerusalem but not an American at Joseph's time?

Thank you. Yes. Joe was born well after Ancient Jerusalem and it is quite possible through normal everyday means he could have known about things that happened in ancient jerusalem.

In my opinion... if something happened in say 200 BC and you were say born in 1700 AD then we really dont need anything supernatural to explain how someone born in 1700 AD would know about what happened in 200 BC. Its a generic example... But lets say we turn up proof positive later that yes, we definitely know what happened in 200 BC and isnt it amazing that now in 2008 we see that someone in 1700 AD knew what happened in 200 BC is just kinda silly.

To me.

So our conflict is you believe he could not have written it without the gold plates then... that were really ancient hebrew gold plates? And I believe that he easily could have found enough background material which when coupled with bible and his own imagination would have allowed to write the BoM?

Is that it? You dont want to argue supernatural or not... So is it just that I believe he could and you believe that he could not?

If thats the case... The stuff he wrote about happened well before he was born so its easily possible that someone knew about it and somehow joe came upon that information and wrote about it.

You claim that he could not have known about things that occured centuries before he was born... Because why?

[DeepShadow]

You are missing the point. Yes, the documents existed, but the patterns had not yet been discovered.

[BalanceFx]

Originally Posted by DeepShadow

You are missing the point. Yes, the documents existed, but the patterns had not yet been discovered.

The patterns? There were 100s of these texts... Joe knew nothing about them... he just wrote something. Then someone, compared his book to 100s of texts and found in one... 20 things.... a pattern... in one text... But wait... not just in the BOM but in the bible too... there is this pattern among religious texts.... and in one text and this book we found 20... Abstract concepts.

And I will ask again: Do you agree with Kurtz that if we take a religious book, like the BOM and compare it to 100s of ancient hebrew texts and in one we find that 20 abstract ideas are shared then that proves that it could not have been anything but a translated text of the hebrews?

[DeepShadow]

Okay, but how did he know what order to use them in? And what about the elements that weren't in any Biblical passages? Remember, the Biblical passages didn't have all 20, so how did Joseph know what the remaining ones would be? What other Hebrew texts did he have to draw from?