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

[mystic man]

news to me, what errors were you referring to?

Absurdity in the Book of Mormon <--- those

 

[Sententia]

Suffice to say no one has any proof that Joseph Smith found these plates nor that he translated anything but rather just made it up. The material of his book is no less contridicting then the bible. Yet he still has a large powerful organization following his teachings to this day most of which accept without evidence his story and do not question it.

While I have no problem with Mormons or what a person believes in I think its dishonest for them to come knocking my door and claiming they have found the truth when they have no evidence whatsoever.

Mormons believe that I have had a pre-life and have already met God and soon, if I am faithful and true, will return to him.

Finding the notion of pre-life, pre-existance of whatever you wish to call it quite absurd and having no basis in scientific fact I can immediately discount it. I will of course remain open that they will someday produce the "Lost plates of Nephi" and that they will then be validated and translated and thus confirm atleast the truth of Joseph's story just as I am open to the fact that someday we might discover this pre-existance with god and be able to openly prove it.

But I would not choose to live my life and raise my kids with such notions. Just as when I ask my child to do something and they ask why I would never respond with, "Because I said so".

 

[DeepShadow]

Absurdity in the Book of Mormon <--- those

Confirmation bias. You are only looking at the evidence that points in your favor, and ignoring the evidence against.

Feel free to join my discussion with Halcyon about the actual data.

 

[DeepShadow]

Go ahead, although I have to say I doubt this one is going to impress me all that much, it seems too insignificant a piece of evidence, for me anyway. It seems reasonable to put it down to coincidence, or seeing what you'd like to see. Much like the chiasmas you find in the BoM, if you look hard enough you can find it in the telephone book or a Stephen King novel. Now show me a ruined Temple of Solomon replica, or a battlefield of 2 million corpses and you'll really have peaked my interest.

I'll gather that, but as I do, here's a little ice-breaker to get things started: there are six points of a proper quellenlieder. Why don't you try to compose one without knowing anything about them, and let's see how many of the points you meet purely by chance. I'll get you started: it's a couplet composed when Bedoins see rushing water. There, do you think that's enough info to help you meet all six points?

This is open to anyone on this thread: try to compose a couplet--a pair of poetic lines--in praise of rushing water. Go ahead, and let's see who can meet all six criteria. As soon as I gather all the information I need, we'll compare and see.

Well, I think you've shown that I obviously don't know enough about the process, if you could please link to the results of the non-mormon group who studied the BoM we could probably have a better discussion about it.

The most famous of the wordprint (stylometry) analyses of the Book of Mormon was performed by the (non-Mormon) Berkeley Group.

Stylometry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia would be a good place to brush up on the basics of sylometry.

Book of Mormon wordprint studies - FAIRMormon has the details of the Berkeley Group study. Note that this page cites, "The Berkeley Group's methods have since passed peer review, and were used to identify previously unknown writings written by Thomas Hobbes.[5]" (emphasis mine)

In other words, this method has passed a level of criticism that isn't shared by almost any of the Book of Mormon's critics. And let me repeat (mostly for the sake of listeners other than Halcyon) that Hugh Nibley, for all his "parallelomania," also cites peer-reviewed sources almost exclusively. I've yet to see the Tanners or any of critics come close to this level of exaction.

However saying that, since this is a religious tome that does offer an alternative to the scientifically established history of the Americas, I would say the default position should always be a skeptical one until significant evidence turns up that suggests otherwise.

Of course, but the problem is that skepticism shouldn't necessitate fraud as the default setting for belief. "Fraud" is a positive statement, and hence bears a burden of proof. Conversely, "genuine" is also a positive statement, and bears an equal burden of proof. Until either burden of proof is met, the default setting for belief, scientifically speaking, is "unknown." This is not the same as "fraud."

Yeah, I just wanted to make my position clear in case, I'm not here to Mormon-bash, just interested in the subject.

There's a reason I'm carrying on this debate with you, rather than either of the charming newcomers who share your general position. Since I'm now committed to this topic, I would hope you remain my debating partner as long as we can both manage it on this thread.

But I'm not so sure about the next bit, I don't go looking for evidence to conform to my belief, I look at all the evidence and so far haven't been impressed by that offered by the alternatives enough to alter my opinion, while the speculative evidence that supports it does seem reasonable.

Of course, but would it be fair that your belief system raises the bar, as it were, with regards to the other options?

To answer your question at the end, to make me consider "a" you'd need to give me more than textual analysis and parallels, you'd need to find the buildings and battles described in the BoM, or some other examples of tablets/inscriptions in reformed egyption - after all, the gold plates couldn't possibly be the only things the Nephites ever wrote down.

Try Sorensen's An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon. It has a lot of the battles and cities laid out. For a non-Mormon source, check out City of the Sacred Well, the account of the dredging of Chichen Itza by a renowned archaeologist. It contains whole chapters on things that most other modern archaeologists have not made heads or tails of, and have thusfar been thrown aside. I'll try to get more of this lined up for you, so we can keep our debate going longer.

As for "b" and "c", only direct experience of Satan or automatic writing would compel me to consider their validity.

Nothing to say about this, exept stay away from Satan. You can do without direct evidence of him. :yes:

Not impossible, unlikely. Like most of the things I believe or disbelieve it's based on relative likelihood, I try not to rule out anything as impossible.

Very scientific of you. Kudos.

Show me the evidence and I will review it, but like I've said, all that I've encountered in favour of the BoM being genuine so far as not impressed me to the extent that I'd regard the concept as more likely because of it.

I will begin gathering evidence. Let's start with stylometry, from the link above. Now this (non-Mormon, peer-reviewed) analysis says that

Thus the chance of Nephi and Alma being the same author is found by:
chance of 7 rejections x 8 rejections x 9 rejections x 10 rejections = 0.005 x 0.001 x 0.0001 x 0.00003 = 0.000000000000015 =1.5 x 10-14

What do you think of this data?

 

[Halcyon]

Seriously, Paul, 2 million corpses would peak your interest in the Book of Mormon? I thought you were a little more sophisticated in your analysis than that.

Well, it was meant to be tongue in cheek, but I can see how it might not come across that way reading it back.
I don't know why it would be less sophisticated though? I recognise that textual analysis has it's uses, but I also see it as limited in its scope and only a small part of what should be wider research. One piece of physical evidence is worth 10 pieces of textual analysis, that's just the nature of the game, and since the BoM gives us so many different possible archaeological remains to discover, I'd find just one coin to be more impressive than all the chiasmus you can muster.

You really do seem surprisingly unimpressed by the chiasms in the Book of Mormon and that baffles me. If they are a dime a dozen as you have implied, why do you suppose that it took Bible scholars eighteen centuries to discover their presence in the Bible?

I imagine, like you say, they weren't looking for it. It's pretty obscure after all.

If Joseph had included the highly complex chiasms that we find in the Book of Mormon in order to help him pass off his fraudulent book as a legitimately ancient text, why didn't he bother to even mention their existence during his lifetime?

We find chiasmus in the Bible quite frequently, I would imagine (emphasis on imagine) that the authors just wrote in the style they were familiar with.

Meanwhile, I'll let you know if a couple of million corpses show up in Mesoamerica and you can get all excited.

Lol, cheers.

Since you figure that by looking hard enough you can find examples of them in pretty much any book you look for them in, I challenge you to do just that. I'm not talking about simple six-line chiasms. I'm talking about examples that are even a fraction as complex as those found in the Book of Mormon.

Well, I'm no literary analyst, but I can sure take a stab at it since it is a reasonable challenge. Just try not to laugh too hard.
I decided to try and find one in the book I've just finished reading, it's the novel Dreamcatcher by Stephen King.

Note to other readers, if you haven't read Dreamcatcher and don't want the plot spoiled please don't read below this warning!

I didn't think I had much hope of finding anything, but after thinking about it all day, I think i've actually come up with something, much to my own surprise.
It's a chiasm that runs the whole course of the book. I'll try to set it out as I've seen on Book of Alma analysis pages.

a) The "calm before the storm" phase where King introduces his main characters.
b) The story moves into a series of perilous events, eventually culminating in devastation for the main characters including some of their deaths.
c) Flashback to the main characters' childhood where they put themselves in danger to help another boy out.
d) Still in flashback, they make a new friend, that person being the boy they saved. I'll call him D.
e) Back to the present and we have a battle between an insane man and a heroic man, the insane man takes the advantage.
e) After an event the roles are reversed, the heroic man takes the advantage in the battle of wits.
d) What is left of the main characters make a new friend.
c) D. returns as an adult, this time he puts himself in danger to save his childhood friends.
b) The story involves a perilous chase eventually culminating in salvation for many people, but includes some deaths for the main characters.
a) The "calm after the storm" where King ties up his characters lives.

 

[DeepShadow]

Thank you. I'll continue until I've run out of answers, which might not be too long.

Please hold out as long as you can. Anything that delays me dealing with the newcomers in this thread is a good thing.

 

[DeepShadow]

a) The "calm before the storm" phase where King introduces his main characters.
b) The story moves into a series of perilous events, eventually culminating in devastation for the main characters including some of their deaths.
c) Flashback to the main characters' childhood where they put themselves in danger to help another boy out.
d) Still in flashback, they make a new friend, that person being the boy they saved. I'll call him D.
e) Back to the present and we have a battle between an insane man and a heroic man, the insane man takes the advantage.
e) After an event the roles are reversed, the heroic man takes the advantage in the battle of wits.
d) What is left of the main characters make a new friend.
c) D. returns as an adult, this time he puts himself in danger to save his childhood friends.
b) The story involves a perilous chase eventually culminating in salvation for many people, but includes some deaths for the main characters.
a) The "calm after the storm" where King ties up his characters lives.

Great! Now here are the things that paleolinguists do to verify if a chiasmus was deliberate on the part of the author, or assumed by the audience:

--Is the chiasmus supported by parallel phrases used by the author?
--Does the author rearrange the story in order to keep the flow of the chiasmus?
--Does the author lend special emphasis to the "bookends" (first and last) and middle points, giving them extra-long parallel phrases and special roles in the general thesis?

For example, Nephi states his thesis, "I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded..." four times in his first book, with only tiny variations in word choice. This is evidence of point #1.

For example, Nephi stops his narrative, talks about something unrelated for several paragraphs, and then resumes the narrative. Turns out this was necessary so that another part of the chiasmus could have a parallel point. This is an example of point 2.

Likewise, Nephi tells the story of crossing the sea twice in succession, emphasizing his bondage by his brothers the first time, and his parents' grievous illness the second time. Taken as a single story, this parallels the single earlier story of Ishmael and his family, which had episodes of Nephi in bondage to his brothers and Ishmael's death by illness. Another example of point #2.

Finally, Nephi uses the four repetitions of his main thesis (see above) as the four cornerstone verses of his megachiasmus. Each key verse is thus one bookend of a smaller chiasmus, AND a shifting point for the overall pattern. This is evidence of #3.

Does King do this? Can you cite over one hundred parallel phrases with exactly the same words, to prove this was deliberate?

Pointing to forced accidental chiasmus in phone books and whatnot is an insult to the rigorous scholarship that goes into this study among NON-MORMON SCHOLARS. When I found evidence of chiasmus and parallelism in Homer's Odyssey, I had to go through these points to prove the author's actual intent. Critics of the Book of Mormon are tearing down a legitimate scientific theory by ignoring the reams of PEER-REVIEWED material on how to prove a chiasmus.

EDIT: AN APOLOGY TO HALCYON

Your rainbow-highlighting was so eye-catching that I failed to realize that you were doing this at Katzpur's request. Please ignore any vitreol in the previous paragraph; I thought you were trying a stunt like the shmucks on exmo. I will leave my previous paragraph intact so that you can be free with your response, and because I believe there are some netizens out there who need to hear it.

 

[Halcyon]

I'll gather that, but as I do, here's a little ice-breaker to get things started: there are six points of a proper quellenlieder. Why don't you try to compose one without knowing anything about them, and let's see how many of the points you meet purely by chance. I'll get you started: it's a couplet composed when Bedoins see rushing water. There, do you think that's enough info to help you meet all six points?

This is open to anyone on this thread: try to compose a couplet--a pair of poetic lines--in praise of rushing water. Go ahead, and let's see who can meet all six criteria. As soon as I gather all the information I need, we'll compare and see.

Lol, I'm not even going to attempt it, I'll just look silly . Quick questions though, why would Hebrews include an arabic poem in their records, and do you know from what era these poems date?

The most famous of the wordprint (stylometry) analyses of the Book of Mormon was performed by the (non-Mormon) Berkeley Group.

Stylometry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia would be a good place to brush up on the basics of sylometry.

Book of Mormon wordprint studies - FAIRMormon has the details of the Berkeley Group study. Note that this page cites, "The Berkeley Group's methods have since passed peer review, and were used to identify previously unknown writings written by Thomas Hobbes.[5]" (emphasis mine)

In other words, this method has passed a level of criticism that isn't shared by almost any of the Book of Mormon's critics. And let me repeat (mostly for the sake of listeners other than Halcyon) that Hugh Nibley, for all his "parallelomania," also cites peer-reviewed sources almost exclusively. I've yet to see the Tanners or any of critics come close to this level of exaction.

All interesting stuff, I think I'd need to review the process itself before I could pass judgement though. Not knowing what constitutes a "rejection" makes me uneasy. Are you able to link to that sort of info at all?

Of course, but the problem is that skepticism shouldn't necessitate fraud as the default setting for belief. "Fraud" is a positive statement, and hence bears a burden of proof. Conversely, "genuine" is also a positive statement, and bears an equal burden of proof. Until either burden of proof is met, the default setting for belief, scientifically speaking, is "unknown." This is not the same as "fraud."

I don't like the word fraud, for what its worth even though I believe the BoM was written by men, I still suspect that Joseph Smith and any others involved believed they were doing the work of God - as contradictory as that may sound.

Of course, but would it be fair that your belief system raises the bar, as it were, with regards to the other options?

If I'm honest, I would say that in cases of mundane vs supernatural explanations the bar should be raised for the supernatural ones. Simply because if an event occurred supernaturally there should be supernatural evidence in to support it. Allowing both the mundane and supernatural to offer only mundane evidence in support doesn't seem fair to me.

Try Sorensen's An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon. It has a lot of the battles and cities laid out. For a non-Mormon source, check out City of the Sacred Well, the account of the dredging of Chichen Itza by a renowned archaeologist. It contains whole chapters on things that most other modern archaeologists have not made heads or tails of, and have thusfar been thrown aside. I'll try to get more of this lined up for you, so we can keep our debate going longer.

I don't suppose you have any online sources I could read on this do you? It's an interesting debate, but I'd prefer not to shell out money on it, and I doubt my local library would stock these books.

Nothing to say about this, exept stay away from Satan. You can do without direct evidence of him. :yes:

Lol, I'll take it under advisement.

 

[Katzpur]

Suggestion: One-on-one debate on this topic between Halcyon and DeepShadow. Halcyon and I briefly tried this a couple of years back but I just didn't have the energy to put into it. I'm sure this would be fascinating. What's more, it would be something more than a mud-slinging fest. Imagine that. Two intelligent adults engaging in an actual debate where both parties actually tried to present evidence to support opposing positions and actually listened to one another in the process. How many times have I seen that happen in the three years I've been here on RF. I don't know, but I bet I could count them on one hand.

 

[Halcyon]

Suggestion: One-on-one debate on this topic between Halcyon and DeepShadow. Halcyon and I briefly tried this a couple of years back but I just didn't have the energy to put into it. I'm sure this would be fascinating. What's more, it would be something more than a mud-slinging fest. Imagine that. Two intelligent adults engaging in an actual debate where both parties actually tried to present evidence to support opposing positions and actually listened to one another in the process. How many times have I seen that happen in the three years I've been here on RF. I don't know, but I bet I could count them on one hand.

I wouldn't mind that, although I'm rapidly wading out into deeper water, I'll be out of my depth soon enough.
Still, if a mod wouldn't mind extracting DeepShadow's and my posts from this thread and creating a new one in the one-on-one section? Save us starting from scratch.

 

[DeepShadow]

I'm game if you are!

 

[DeepShadow]

I wouldn't mind that, although I'm rapidly wading out into deeper water, I'll be out of my depth soon enough.
Still, if a mod wouldn't mind extracting DeepShadow's and my posts from this thread and creating a new one in the one-on-one section? Save us starting from scratch.

Can that actually be done?

Has it been done?

Once before I offered a debate, and by the time I found the thread had been formed, my opponent had declared victory by default. If such a thread forms, can someone please send me a link?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Can that actually be done?

Yes, it can.

Has it been done?

Not yet, but I've got Katzpur's PM and seen your and Halcyon's okay here, so I'll copy the relevant posts out shortly.

Once before I offered a debate, and by the time I found the thread had been formed, my opponent had declared victory by default. If such a thread forms, can someone please send me a link?

Will do!

Edit: done and done. If I've missed any posts, or if anything was copied over by mistake, please let me know.

The new one-on-one thread is here: http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/one-one-debates/65932-halcyon-deepshadow-how-could-joseph-smith.html

Everyone here, carry on!

 

[Muffled]

Here are the facts:

He had the equivalent of approximately a 4th grade education.
His family was very poor and lived in a small, rural community in the early 1800's, lacking many resources and exposure to the world.
He was age 22-23 when he translated the BoM. Age 24 when it was published.
He and his family had to work hard to exist. They were farmers. His time to write was very limited.
There are eyewitesses to the translation. His wife said that he only worked on it for a few months, approx. 3 months.
There are eyewitnesses (11) who testified of seeing the gold plates. Some later left the Church but never refuted what they saw.
There are eyewitnesses who worked as scribes while he translated, describing the process.

This is not a thread for listing "errors" in the book. That's not the point. Please explain to me how it is possible, in light of the facts, that he could make up such a book and pass it off as scripture, fooling millions, including scholars, for nearly 180 years?

A Mormon evangelist who I entertained asked me to ask God how the book of Mormon came into being. I did and God told me that it was written by a contemporary person.
For that reason I do not believe that J. Smith wrote the book of Mormon.

It would appear to me that he could not have written much of anything that used more than four letter words unless he did some study on his own. That brings into question whether or not he could translate a foreign language (One unknown? in an unknown script?).

What did the eyewitnesses say was done? I heard from a former Mormon that J Smith scryed the translation (In which case it may or may not have been a translation) which means that his information was coming from a spirit. A nother Mormon missionary asked me to pray for ananswer as to who Moroni was. The answer I received from God was that he was a demon spirit. If J. Smith was scrying by Moroni that puts the work in question as to whether it comes from God.

This seems highly unlikely if J. Smith was scrying since spiritual manifestations are not neccessarily regular. It would make a lot of sense if he were transcribing from an existing text and it would also allow for a scribe to assist.

And yet a later reference is made to the "Biblicalness" of the book as an authenticating fact. I would agree that it is unlikely that J. Smith would have scryed the text and have it come out as close to the Bible as it did and especially if a demon was on the other end of the scrying. However if a person who knew the Bible well was writing a fictional story that mirrored the Bible, the text supports that view.

 

[Katzpur]

A Mormon evangelist who I entertained asked me to ask God how the book of Mormon came into being. I did and God told me that it was written by a contemporary person.

This was after you read the book, right? I'm curious... Did God also tell you what in the book was false?

You're a nice person, Muffled, but a lot of what you just wrote shows nothing more than a very superficial understanding of the creation of the Book of Mormon. For instance, word-print analyses done by non-LDS scholars have proven that the Book of Mormon was not written by one or even several nineteenth-century authors. I really don't want to get into an argument with you over this, but you need to do a lot more research before you say a whole lot more.

 

[Sententia]

This was after you read the book, right? I'm curious... Did God also tell you what in the book was false?

You're a nice person, Muffled, but a lot of what you just wrote shows nothing more than a very superficial understanding of the creation of the Book of Mormon. For instance, word-print analyses done by non-LDS scholars have proven that the Book of Mormon was not written by one or even several nineteenth-century authors. I really don't want to get into an argument with you over this, but you need to do a lot more research before you say a whole lot more.

To be clear. You are arguing Joe Smith dug in the ground and found some gold plates that were not authored by humans and that only he could read and understand them and dictated them so that we could read another testement of jesus christ.

Concluding this translation, the gold plates which had been so greatly protected over the years were then lost to us.

You are then quoting word print analyses done by some scholars not of LDS origin while ignoring or discounting any scholar who argues against. The question of whether the Book of Mormon is an actual historical work or a work of fiction has long been a source of contention between members of the Latter Day Saint movement and non-LDS scholars. For many Mormons, Book of Mormon historicity is a matter of faith. For scholars, on the other hand, its historicity has been questioned from a number of different perspectives. (Historicity of the Book of Mormon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

While you are entitled to your opinion there is no evidence for such claims. It seems obvious to many to be a hoax but those people are not LDS and therefore are not to be trusted UNLESS they argue for your cause. Give me $10,000 and I'll start a post arguing for it as well based on my thourough and complete investigation.

 

[Katzpur]

To be clear. You are arguing Joe Smith dug in the ground and found some gold plates that were not authored by humans and that only he could read and understand them and dictated them so that we could read another testement of jesus christ.

How on earth did you arrive at the conclusion that the writings on the plates were not authored by humans?

You are then quoting word print analyses done by some scholars not of LDS origin while ignoring or discounting any scholar who argues against.

I haven't ignored scholars whose wordprint analyses concluded the opposite. I'm actually not aware of any. Perhaps you could provide me with some.

While you are entitled to your opinion there is no evidence for such claims.

Actually, there is. I'm just not inclined to argue the point with people who aren't willing to examine the evidence with an open mind.

It seems obvious to many to be a hoax but those people are not LDS and therefore are not to be trusted UNLESS they argue for your cause.

It may seem like a hoax to a lot of people. Unfortunately, none of them has ever been able to prove that it is.

Give me $10,000 and I'll start a post arguing for it as well based on my thourough and complete investigation.

Forget it. Why would I want to pay you to do something so many other people are willing to do free of charg?.

I'll tell you what I will do, though. I'll give you $1,000 to write a history about an ancient civilization. Your narrative must exceed 500 pages in length with roughly 150 words per page. The deadline for completion of this assignment will be ninety days from when you begin. You must use a vocabulary of not more than 3500 words and yet must introduce into the English language 180 new proper nouns. The chronological time frame for this history must be from about 2150 B.C. to 400 A.D. (with most of it covering the period from 600 B.C. on). The portion of the narrative covering the last 1000 years may not contain any large, unaccounted for gaps of time. A number of interrelated local histories must be going on at once. You will not be able to travel to the place where this history is to have taken place or even have access to research material of any kind. Integrated into the history of two separate and distinct great nations must be accurate accounts their warfare, their religious beliefs, and their economic, social and political cultures and institutions. Cultural and technical details must be lavish and extensive. You must bring into the account a discussion of Gospel of Jesus Christ and the pattern of Christian living. Your statements must not contradict the Bible but must instead strengthen accepted scripture. Your statements and claims regarding cities, culture, architecture, building materials, tools, weapons, etc. must be verified when these things are unearthed by archeologists of the future. You must zero in on things you could not possibly know anything about or have ever experienced in his lifetime &#8211; such things as ancient Semitic literary forms, a discussion of the Middle-Eastern olive culture, and an unbelievably accurate description of volcanic activity. Let me know when you're ready to get started.

 

[Sententia]

How on earth did you arrive at the conclusion that the writings on the plates were not authored by humans?

I haven't ignored scholars whose wordprint analyses concluded the opposite. I'm actually not aware of any. Perhaps you could provide me with some.

Actually, there is. I'm just not inclined to argue the point with people who aren't willing to examine the evidence with an open mind.

It may seem like a hoax to a lot of people. Unfortunately, none of them has ever been able to prove that it is.

Forget it. Why would I want to pay you to do something so many other people are willing to do free of charg?.

I'll tell you what I will do, though. I'll give you $1,000 to write a history about an ancient civilization. Your narrative must exceed 500 pages in length with roughly 150 words per page. The deadline for completion of this assignment will be ninety days from when you begin. You must use a vocabulary of not more than 3500 words and yet must introduce into the English language 180 new proper nouns. The chronological time frame for this history must be from about 2150 B.C. to 400 A.D. (with most of it covering the period from 600 B.C. on). The portion of the narrative covering the last 1000 years may not contain any large, unaccounted for gaps of time. A number of interrelated local histories must be going on at once. You will not be able to travel to the place where this history is to have taken place or even have access to research material of any kind. Integrated into the history of two separate and distinct great nations must be accurate accounts their warfare, their religious beliefs, and their economic, social and political cultures and institutions. Cultural and technical details must be lavish and extensive. You must bring into the account a discussion of Gospel of Jesus Christ and the pattern of Christian living. Your statements must not contradict the Bible but must instead strengthen accepted scripture. Your statements and claims regarding cities, culture, architecture, building materials, tools, weapons, etc. must be verified when these things are unearthed by archeologists of the future. You must zero in on things you could not possibly know anything about or have ever experienced in his lifetime – such things as ancient Semitic literary forms, a discussion of the Middle-Eastern olive culture, and an unbelievably accurate description of volcanic activity. Let me know when you're ready to get started.

I believe that you believe. To me personally it seems like I could read the bible every night and forumulate my own similar story and throw in a few fictional or surprising references to non existant things. Really, its like a Dungeouns and Dragon adventure based on the bible. A forgotten realms of sorts.

Linguists, archeologists and historians all pretty much say the same thing. The book of mormon is a product of Joey's active imagination. The link I sent you too is full of references and holes in the book of mormon. Historicity of the Book of Mormon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You KNOW this has been debated for years. You know MANY scholars consider it false. Do you honestly believe your going to convince anyone of anything with just your words? Do you have ANY references what so ever to back up anything you believe?

Seriously all your evidence is the book or mormon. Thats it. A book that was a tranlation of gold plates long since removed from history. You get lots of support for this belief from friends and family who are all pretty much convinced of the same thing.

I don't really care that you believe it. It might even be a good thing for you. However I regard it as a work of fiction, a plagerism of the bible and a tale of civilizations and battles in america that never occured. There is no evidence to convince me otherwise and I am one of the biggest skeptics I know.

 

[Katzpur]

Linguists, archeologists and historians all pretty much say the same thing. The book of mormon is a product of Joey's active imagination.

Actually, most legitimate scholars give Joseph Smith more credit than you are aware they do. Three years ago, a conference marking the 200th anniversary of Joseph Smith's birthday, was presented by the Library of Congress. LDS and non-LDS scholars from around the world met to discuss Joseph Smith's contributions to Christian theology. This was one of many scholarly conferences and exhibits on various religious traditions that the Library of Congress has held over the years. I can assure you that the Library of Congress would not have wasted the time of so many noted scholars had been of the opinion that the Book of Mormon was "a product of Joey's active imagination." Noted non-LDS universities are starting to offer graduate degrees in "Mormon Studies." They recognize that Joseph Smith's religious genius and acknowledge -- as it would be almost impossible not to do -- that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is rapidly becoming a world religion and that, consequently, there must be something about its teachings that appear to a wide range of people, people with varying educational, cultural and economic backgrounds. They may not accept Mormonism as Mormons do, but they do not reject it out of hand either.

You KNOW this has been debated for years. You know MANY scholars consider it false. Do you honestly believe your going to convince anyone of anything with just your words?

Nope, and that's why I'm not going to bother to try. You're a newbie here. You've jumped into a discussion on a topic you know very little about and haven't exactly been the model of a great debater so far. You don't want to hear anything I could possibly have to say. Other people on this forum do, believe it or not. Since my time is limited, I will spend it talking to people who have not already decided that I'm full of crap.

Seriously all your evidence is the book or mormon. Thats it. A book that was a tranlation of gold plates long since removed from history. You get lots of support for this belief from friends and family who are all pretty much convinced of the same thing.

I also get a lot of static over my beliefs from people who don't know jack about them, but who post links to Wiki as their best shot at legitimate scholarship.

I don't really care that you believe it. It might even be a good thing for you. However I regard it as a work of fiction, a plagerism of the bible and a tale of civilizations and battles in america that never occured. There is no evidence to convince me otherwise and I am one of the biggest skeptics I know.

Fine. Let's just agree to disagree then. Just know that they offer I made still stands. I'm a woman of my word and you have plenty of witnesses. I have absolutely no interest in trying to convince you of anything. I was merely responding to your suggestion that I pay you $10,000 to trash my faith.

 

[Sententia]

Actually, most legitimate scholars give Joseph Smith more credit than you are aware they do.

Most scholars give Jospeh Smith more credit aye? What constitutes most? Is it the typical more the 50%? If so show some basis for this statement.

Three years ago, a conference marking the 200th anniversary of Joseph Smith's birthday, was presented by the Library of Congress. LDS and non-LDS scholars from around the world met to discuss Joseph Smith's contributions to Christian theology. This was one of many scholarly conferences and exhibits on various religious traditions that the Library of Congress has held over the years. I can assure you that the Library of Congress would not have wasted the time of so many noted scholars had been of the opinion that the Book of Mormon was "a product of Joey's active imagination." Noted non-LDS universities are starting to offer graduate degrees in "Mormon Studies." They recognize that Joseph Smith's religious genius and acknowledge -- as it would be almost impossible not to do -- that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is rapidly becoming a world religion and that, consequently, there must be something about its teachings that appear to a wide range of people, people with varying educational, cultural and economic backgrounds. They may not accept Mormonism as Mormons do, but they do not reject it out of hand either.

I can tell you really believe this stuff... Almost impossible not to do... Smith as genius... In any event is this your proof of mormonism?

Have you read the edits to the book of mormons over the years? Prior to 1981 if an indian converted to mormonism his skin would turn white. Is MJ a mormon?

On a more serious note: What is Mormonism? | Book of Mormon Origin | Theology
http://file.sunshinepress.org:54445/mormon-handbook-of-instructions-1999.pdf
http://www.whatismormonism.com/SPALDING_ENIGMA_ROPER_REBUTTAL.pdf

Nope, and that's why I'm not going to bother to try. You're a newbie here. You've jumped into a discussion on a topic you know very little about and haven't exactly been the model of a great debater so far. You don't want to hear anything I could possibly have to say. Other people on this forum do, believe it or not. Since my time is limited, I will spend it talking to people who have not already decided that I'm full of crap.

I'm a noob. I'm horrible at debate. Im close minded. I dont want to listen to anything you have to say. etc etc... These are all attacks on me and have nothing to do with you proving Joseph talked to an angel, dug a hole, found gold plates that noone else could see or read. That he then translated these plates and presented us with the book of mormons. No evidence. 0.