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Why Dont Christians Accept the Book of Mormon as Valid?
- Thread starter madhatter85
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DeepShadow
White Crow
The Bible's longest chiasmus is less than a page. The longest I know if in the Book of Mormon is the entire book of First Nephi--a megachiasmus. Most Biblical chiasm have been mutilated by translation. None of the original chiasm found in the Book of Mormon reflect these distortions. Biblical chiasmus are small poetic inserts, not usually instructional. Book of Mormon chiasmus are generally instructional, and contain colophons and other structures that are not present in Biblical chiasmus.
Using Biblical chiasmus as a guide to make Book of Mormon megachiasmus is much like using extrapolating a racecar working only from a matchbox version. It's got the overall structure in the most general sense, and it can even suggest the role of some of the parts that are nonfunctional in the smaller version. But you'd have to infer or extrapolate far more than 90% of the material to make it work.
Megachiasmus were unknown before Smith.
Soy already corrected you; he never said that chiasm implies divine inspiration. But great straw man fallacy.
On the contrary, the narrative flow has to be interrupted on several occasions to maintain the chiastic structure.
Inadvertantly--you mean unconsciously? You think that someone might unconsciously create megachiasmus because they were trying to imitate the Bible...which has no megachiasmus? Is that really what you are saying?
There have been cases of unconscious poetry, even unconscious chiasmus. The largest accidental poem on record (as per Boyd's Book of Odd Facts) is "and so no force, however great, can stretch a cord, however fine, into a horizontal line which shall be absolutely straight." It's a rhyming chiasmus, you might notice, and it's perfect in meter and rhyme. It's also pretty darn short, as far as poems or chiasmus go. If the Book of Mormon poetry was accidental, then somebody better call Guinness.
There is a precedent, however. A Christian writer named Og Mandino wrote a book called The Greatest Saleman in the World, wherein he styles ten chapters as "scrolls" written in Biblical times by an ancient sales expert. Those "scrolls" contain the rudiments of chiasmus...but it falls apart quite readily. Mandino lapses back and forth between chiasmus and parallelism and leaves the central points (the most important in ancient chiasmus) totally empty, instead putting in his own teachings in more modern prose.
Are you really saying that Joseph Smith cranked out multiple megachiasmus accidentally, perfect in form and structure? Wow. How do you think he know to leave chiasmus out of the Book of Ether? How do you think he kept it out of his revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants, except when he was revealing the original text of John 1? How did he restrict the most complex megachisamus to the Small Plates of Nephi, to be consistent with his story that there were fewer translators to go through there? You really think he did all of that accidentally?
And we're not just talking about chiasmus when we talk about poetry. What about Lehi's couplet in 1 Nephi 2: 9-10, which just happens to fit all six requirements for Bedoin poetry? How did Joseph Smith know about Quellenlieder poems at a time when the leading authorities on Arabic writings said they had no poems?
...I don't see your point. Please clarify.
DeepShadow
White Crow
Excellent! Then I shall book the arena.
SoyLeche
meh...
He would have to realize that since much of the "connecting" text between the large and small plates (Jarom, Omni, etc) was authored by people who didn't really care about what they were writing and wouldn't have bothered to add chisams to the text. According to what you said in your BoM quiz thread there aren't any, which makes sense.
Ol' Joe did a pretty thorough job, doncha think?
BTW, I mentioned that I have been shown a chiasm that pretty much spans the book of Mosiah, but I can't find the outline of it. I have it marked, but not very well. I'll keep trying to find the information I have on it.
SoyLeche
meh...
Well, that was quick. Jeff Lindsay mentions it: Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon
About a third of the way down the page.
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
Chiasms in the Bible appear to have been noted for the first time by three 19th century theologians: Robert Lowth, John Jebb and John Forbes. Of these three, only Jebb paid much attention to chiasms, at least initially, the other two focusing primarily on poetic imagery and direct parallelisms. In 1854, however, John Forbes completed an in-depth study of this ancient literary form, publishing his findings. From about this time forward, scholars began to be more widely aware of its presence in the Bible. A number of other researchers continued studying chiasmic forms in the years immediately following, and by about 1860, their true significance was finally recognized.
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
This promises to be superb entertainment. I wouldn't miss it for the world!
DeepShadow
White Crow
Interesting! Jeff Lindsay's site is great stuff, he even has something very relevant to this discussion:
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
I think that anybody who has been around here for very long would be absolutely nuts to attempt to debate DeepShadow on this subject. Those who are busy huffing and puffing about how they're willing to take him on are just too naive to know better. I think several of us could do a fair job of handling most of these folks, but DeepShadow makes it look so darned effortless!
Comprehend
Res Ipsa Loquitur
I wouldn't hold my breath...
DeepShadow
White Crow
The arena is booked. Please check it out and make sure everything is up to code for Melissa.
And since she's the first person in about a dozen to take me up on this, I'd be in favor of dogpiling frubals on her.
And since she's the first person in about a dozen to take me up on this, I'd be in favor of dogpiling frubals on her.
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
What? For saying she'll debate you when she finds the time?And since she's the first person in about a dozen to take me up on this, I'd be in favor of dogpiling frubals on her.
DeepShadow
White Crow
I think that anybody who has been around here for very long would be absolutely nuts to attempt to debate DeepShadow on this subject. Those who are busy huffing and puffing about how they're willing to take him on are just too naive to know better. I think several of us could do a fair job of handling most of these folks, but DeepShadow makes it look so darned effortless!
Thank you!
I hope Melissa isn't intimidated by all of this cheering for me! Melissa, seriously, I'm a nice guy. I play well with others, and I'm pretty hard to rile. I'm interested in scientific analysis enough to help you if you stumble a little, and if fallacious anti-Mormon websites get you bogged down in research, I hand help you find some decent ones.
You've accepted, which is more than can be said for any of the others I've made this offer to. That makes you a winner already in my book.:yes:
DeepShadow
White Crow
What? For saying she'll debate you when she finds the time?
Awwww...let's give her the benefit of the doubt!:slap:
Maybe I'm just giddy with the though that someone finally stepped up, but I've seen nothing so far to make me think she's going to back out.
Comprehend
Res Ipsa Loquitur
yeah, I decided to delete the post but clearly not quickly enough...
DeepShadow
White Crow
No problem, I snipped it out of my post.
I understand your feelings, guys, especially after so many people have turned me down. I was really starting to wonder if anyone on this forum would debate me.
I guess that's been answered!
DeepShadow
White Crow
What about the things that have been proven true? Like the fact that Lehi's couplet meets all six qualifications for a Bedoin Quellenlieder. Or the fact that Egyptian scribes used the phrase "and thus it is" to close their writings, and colophons to open them--just like Nephi? What about the fact that Bedoins use the phrase, "As the Lord liveth, and as I live..." to seal unbreakable oaths? Or the fact that Nephi's "I make it with my own hand" is eerily similar to the scribal "I make it with my own fingers"? What about the fact that men could not plead for their lives in Arabian culture, but that women were allowed to plead on their behalf, just as we find with Nephi (and Alma, and Amulon)?
There's your problem: the layman's knowledge of history is written in broad generalities, and all generalities are false somewhere. Moreover, most generalities are false frequently. Take, for example, the classic story of the Pilgrims who came to the New World, where the were taught the native method of planting by a friendly Indian named Squanto. How many errors did you catch in that sentence, using just a layman's knowledge of history?
Did you catch that the "friendly Indian" was not named "Squanto," but rather assumed the title (not a name) "Tisquantum" when he approached the Pilgrims?
Did you catch that planting method was not actually a native method? Tisquantum learned to use fish as fertilizer in the same place he learned English: in Europe, where he was a slave for several years.
Did you catch that Tisquantum wasn't exactly friendly? He was trying to manipulate a conflict between the colonists and local tribes in order to reestablish a new settlement on the Plymouth site...which was the exact same site of his old village, wiped out by smallpox.
All these "layman's knowledge" ideas have been put to rest by modern archaeology, and yet people still cling to them. Heck, many people still think the Plymouth Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving, when there is considerable evidence that there were Thanksgiving celebrations in Florida long before that. The debate over where Thanksgiving was first hasn't even reached the ears of most laypeople.
I know, because you have a layman's knowledge of history.
The city of Elephantine in Egypt was colonized by refugees from Jerusalem at the time of Lehi, at the beginning of the Book of Mormon. In the late 1800's, a number of documents were discovered there that are now referred to as the "Elephantine papyri." The naming conventions found on those documents are a striking match for the Book of Mormon Hebrew names. Specifically:
--There is a total lack of "Baal" names, despite the fact that they had been popular not that long before. The lack of Baal-names was once a black mark on the Book of Mormon. Now it's a point for it.
--The popularity of "-iah" names, also reflected in the Book of Mormon.
--The use of Egyptian and Arabic names for Hebrew children. Names such as Lehi, Nephi, Sam (once frequently attacked as a nickname, which Hebrews don't have) and even Gidgiddoni have found matches among the names in the Elephantine papyri.
I'll break out my books--I have a debate coming up--but off to top of my head I can recall three of the six points for a Quellenleider:
* They are in praise of water, or sometimes the wadis (valleys) that carry water.
* They exort someone to be like the natural phenomenon.
* They are uttered in pairs
Now look up 1 Nephi 2:9-10 and tell me if that's a coincidence. It meets all six points (I'll find the other three) and Quellenlieders were only discovered by Westerners in the 20th century. Where do you think any 19th century American got the idea to call a valley "firm and steadfast"? A mountain, sure, but a valley?!
I just gave you one. I'll give you another: men fainting as a sign of power. One of the most physically imposing men in the Book of Mormon is Ammon, who singlehandedly chopped the arms off a group of armed bandits when they raised their clubs to hurt him. Ammon faints on several occasions as he is overcome with the Spirit. Turns out that's perfectly acceptable for Mesoamerican men as a display of emotion, but for men of Joseph Smith's time, it was unheard of. Women, sure, but men, never.
I'll give you another: Kings with sons who were kings, getting along despite subordinate rulership. In Joseph Smith's time, any man who was a king didn't call his dad "king." Likewise, if a son called himself a king while his dad was on the throne, that was called a rebellion. Yet with the Old and Young Pretenders still pretty fresh in everyone's minds, Joseph has the audacity to tell a story of Lamoni, a king, who meets his father, who is a king over him. Joseph was familiar with the concept of "emporer," yet he insisted on calling both of these men kings. Why? Turns out that Mesoamerican rulers had small kingdoms with a complicated system of allegiences, so that it was not uncommon at all for a king to have a father who was a king, and for either of them to owe some allegience while retaining the throne.
I'll give you another: eating raw meat while traveling through the desert. Bedoins don't light fires, because it attracts bandits, and so they eat their meat raw. Likewise Lehi's family in 1 Nephi.
I'll give you another: the Liahona, often mocked for the miraculous and unspecific nature, was probably a form of marked arrow divination, very common in the desert. A metal bowl with two pointing devices inside, with writing that changed from time to time? Would you recognize that with your layman's knowedge?
I'll give you another: taking kings prisoner instead of killing them, and letting them live out their lives, have kids and grandkids in captivity. Very strange custom in the Book of Ether, turns out it's typical of Asiatic nomads...which makes the whole DSA controversy moot from the start.
I have more, or I can give you details on any of these.
Okay, so you are being fair, but getting a layman's superficial knowledge of lots of subjects is not necessarily going to help. History is complicated, and many people search the books only until they find what they want, and then stop. It's like digging up the body of the oldest dinosaur and then retiring, when you could have dug a few more feet and found the time traveller that killed the dinosaur. One is the find of the century, the other the find of all time.
SoyLeche
meh...
O....k....
I think I might understand what you are trying to say, but I am at a loss for what it has to do with this thread
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