A split thread: Joseph Smith

[Sapiens]

if you look at an old dictionary, you will discover that "compass" originally signifies a range or course or measurement. The Giron Gagal was also called a "compass".
Compass - Definition of Compass by Webster's Online Dictionary

When is a compass not a compass? When the Mormon apologists get a hold of it, of course.

I'll use your definition, even if it is from 1913: "An instrument for determining directions upon the earth's surface by means of a magnetized bar or needle turning freely upon a pivot and pointing in a northerly and southerly direction."

 

[Sapiens]

That's a good point, but it requires an assumption that only glass windows could be "dashed in pieces". A window is just an opening, and doors were often made to cover them before glass came along. The weight of water is significant, and could dash a wooden door to pieces. When the Bible mentions windows, I don't think it is ever referring to a "glass" window.

A wooden closure would not be referred to as a window, except (as usual) by a Mormon apologist bending the obvious truth.

 

[Sapiens]

Bullseye! There is a strong correlation between the Egyptian word "dsrt" and the honeybee.
LDS Doctrine: Ancient Origin of the Word Deseret

The Mormon apologist story behind this one is so long and winding that I'm not going to bother beyond stating that it is entirely dependent on the reliability of the "Book of Abraham" and the existence of "Reformed Egyptian" neither of which stand up to either honesty nor modern scientific thought (outside of Mormon apologists, as usual).

 

[Sapiens]

I guess Wikipedia will "rue the day", since they say that Peccaries are "New World pigs".
Peccary - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So? It is also often noted that kangaroos are the Australian equivalent of Deer, does that make them the same? Only to a Mormon apologist.

 

[Sapiens]

The question is "What would the Nephites have called a "riding seat", carried by men? The Egyptian world for "riding seat" is "palanquin", or what we call a "chariot". The logic is sound. The surrounding evidence is very compelling. Roman chariots were ridden by soldiers, as a weapon of war. Book of Mormon chariots were ridden by kings and generals, and never used in war. Mayan kings and generals were also carried in "riding seats", as a sign of power and rank. This seems too much of a coincidence to be ignored.

There is also another problem: Does even 1 in a hundred of our teenage students know what a litter is? What is the chance that Joseph Smith would have known the word? I would guess pretty close to zero. Litters were an anachronism in his society. The closest word, that he would have known, might be chariot.

Get real. Roman chariots were used for war and for transport, and that has noting to do with the question. Does even one in a hundred of your students think that a chariot is a anything other than a two wheeled vehicle pulled by one, or more, horses? My guess is that belief is only held by Mormon apologists and the students who have been lectured by them and know no better.

The bizarre idea that Smith was referring to litters rather than chariots is featured by Michael Ash in his 2008 book, "Shaken Faith Syndrome:
Strengthening One's Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt," (Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research, p. 141, ISBN 1-893036-0a book that i s advertised for helping people like rrosskopf make their apologetic case(s) in debates exactly like this one. What Ash and rrosskopf fail to grasp, as they attempt to make their arguments on each specific issue, is the number of issues that there are and the fact that all it takes is any one of the issues to falsify their entire house of cards. Ash and rrosskopf (as I noted earlier in post 371 to which rrosskopf never responded):

Your defenses simply aren't, they are, rather, excuses. Oh, no Smith did not mean (fill in the blank: honey bee, compass, steel, elephant, pig, horse, chariot, etc.) he meant something else. Now one or two of these sorts of apologies could be overlooked, but twenty or more? That's hardly creditable. When combined with the Mormon apologist lawyer collision between possibility and probability you reduce your entire defense to little more than a laughing stock. Who cares if there was a remnant mastodon population on Wrangle Island in Alaska, the Maya did not get there to see them. Also lost is the fact only one of the anachronisms need survive to destroy the entire work, but what is the probability (not possibility) of all the excuses being true ... remember that the "sum" of probabilities are multiplicative.

Even if each of the twenty anachronisms had as much as a one-in-ten probability of being real, taken together the probability of all of them being real (remember, all I need is one) is reduced to a number so small that it is on the order of 0.00000000000000000001. That is the probability of all your possibilities (well, that's actually a lot higher than it should be, since I'm stipulating a ridiculously high probability of one-in-ten), while the probability of just one being a lie and thus falsifying the entire work approaches a value of 1.

 

[rrosskopf]

it is entirely dependent on the reliability of the "Book of Abraham" and the existence of "Reformed Egyptian" neither of which stand up to either honesty nor modern scientific thought (outside of Mormon apologists, as usual).

It doesn't have anything to do with the Book of Abraham. "Dsrt" is either an Egyptian word, or it isn't. It is an Egyptian word, and it is associated with the honey bee, just as the Book of Mormon states.

 

[rrosskopf]

A wooden closure would not be referred to as a window, except (as usual) by a Mormon apologist bending the obvious truth.

You couldn't be bothered to look up the etymology?
c.1200, literally "wind eye," from Old Norse vindauga, from vindr "wind" (see wind (n.1)) + auga "eye" (see eye (n.)). Replaced Old English eagþyrl, literally "eye-hole," and eagduru, literally "eye-door."

Truth is truth, even if given by a Mormon apologist.

 

[rrosskopf]

When is a compass not a compass? When the Mormon apologists get a hold of it, of course.

I'll use your definition, even if it is from 1913:

1913 is well after the publication of the Book of Mormon. I would have used an 1830 dictionary, if I could find one. Did you notice that your definition was number 5 on the list of definitions? Yet you would have us pretend it was the first and only. The truth is that "compass" has a wide range of meaning far beyond a simple magnetized needle. Anyway, the Book of Mormon explicitly tells us that it pointed towards food and water, not North. So let go of the bone. You can't trust everything you read from an anti-mormon website. In fact, you can't trust anything you read from an anti-Mormon website. They are notoriously unreliable.

 

[rrosskopf]

Your defenses simply aren't, they are, rather, excuses. Oh, no Smith did not mean (fill in the blank: honey bee, compass, steel, elephant, pig, horse, chariot, etc.) he meant something else. Now one or two of these sorts of apologies could be overlooked, but twenty or more? That's hardly creditable.

The anachronisms are certainly a challenge to the historicity of the Book of Mormon. There use to be 60, but modern discoveries have shortened the list considerably. I believe the single greatest weakness of the Book of Mormon is not the anachronisms, but the lack of education of the translator. Imagine if the only translation of an ancient Arabic script was done by a 3rd grade student. What kind of acceptance could he expect among the scholars of the world? People have counted the number of different words used in the Book of Mormon, and the number is far smaller than one would expect to find in a modern English book; it is much more consistent with ancient Hebrew. Individual authors of the various books also seem to have different levels of writing skill, or vocabularies. The Book of Mormon will always read more like a grade school fiction than a college thesis.

That being said, scholarly study has revealed some marvelous surprises. Some of the best examples of chiasmus can be found within the pages of the Book of Mormon. Hebrew naming conventions are also evident. There are even some known Mayan words used in Lamanite place names. Cities near water end in "ha" or "hah", the Mayan word for water. Some of the stories make no sense at all, unless viewed from a Mayan worldview. The story of Ammon's mission to the Lamanites is one of these. The pact of the Anti-Nephi-Lehites is another. King Benjamin's coronation speech is very typical of coronation speeches of the era, having the proper form of a coronation speech. The parable of the Olive Grove is just a parable, but its portrayal of olive husbandry is accurate in its details. The description of the cataclism in 3rd Nephi is an accurate description of a severe volcanic eruption, one that was known to have occurred about that time in Mexico.

 

[Sapiens]

The anachronisms are certainly a challenge to the historicity of the Book of Mormon. There use to be 60, but modern discoveries have shortened the list considerably. s

Can you supply a reference for the entire list and the details of the 40, or so, items removal?

I believe the single greatest weakness of the Book of Mormon is not the anachronisms, but the lack of education of the translator.

That does present some problems. The rational answer is plagiarism, the irrational answer is a guiding hand from the supernatural. But that makes no sense in the face of the copied errors and typos carried over from the King James Bible ... so we are back to plagiarism.

Imagine if the only translation of an ancient Arabic script was done by a 3rd grade student. What kind of acceptance could he expect among the scholars of the world? People have counted the number of different words used in the Book of Mormon, and the number is far smaller than one would expect to find in a modern English book; it is much more consistent with ancient Hebrew. Individual authors of the various books also seem to have different levels of writing skill, or vocabularies.

Inspiration born of plagiarism is the rational conclusion.

The Book of Mormon will always read more like a grade school fiction than a college thesis.

No, it reads remarkably like the documents it was cribbed from.

That being said, scholarly study has revealed some marvelous surprises. Some of the best examples of chiasmus can be found within the pages of the Book of Mormon.

There is no correlation between the appearance of chiasmus and the authenticity of the Book of Mormon because, among other things, chiasmus appears in many languages including eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English literature. Quite possibly yet more evidence of plagiarism. What is proved by the presence of chiasmus in Strang's work?

 

[zomg]

Only in Mormonism does horse not mean horse, window not mean window, horse not mean horse, sword not mean sword, and translate not mean translate.

 

[bishblaize]

I've done a bit of reading about Mormonism for the first time recently (it isn't really a thing over here in the UK so it's never really crossed my radar before).

I'll give the Mormons credit where its due - I keep reading cases where Mormons undertake efforts to find archaeological/historical evidence to support the claims of an earlier civilisation, find nothing, then 'fess up, saying "yeah we didn't find anything and that's a blow to the credibility of the claim".

Some of the best arguments against the Mormon's claims seem to come from Mormons themselves. Which is creditable, in a slightly baffling kind of way.

(I don't have the various sources I read to hand but I can share over the weekend if anyone is interested. They don't seem to be rare.)

 

[rrosskopf]

Can you supply a reference for the entire list and the details of the 40, or so, items removal?

Archeologist Dr. John Clark is responsible for the initial list, and is currently attempting to complete a comprehensive list, with the aide of others. Here is a video which describes the effort:

Most of these were once considered to be ridiculous claims of the Book of Mormon, but have since been proven plausible or true.
1) City societies in America.
2) Stone boxes in America.
3) Engraving on metal plates in the Middle East
4) Literate native Americans - could read and write
5) Large scale battles and warfare
6) Moats
7) Walls
8) Palisades
9) Slings
10) Swords
11) Clubs
12) Cotton armor
13) Detached arms as a trophy of battle
14) Fleeing to towers or pyramids in a failing battle
15) Human sacrifice
16) Canabalism
17) Temples
18) Towers
19) Palaces
20) Thrones
21) Cities of cement
22) Kings and Kings over Kings
23) Stone-carved histories
24) A king who also labors with his own hands
25) Record keeping with special attention to the Baktun (400 years) and Katun (20 years)
26) A population of millions of people
27) Military Costumes
28) Highways
29) Barley based monetary system
30) Scimitars or curved weapons
31) Greek names
32) An Arabian river flowing year-round into the Red Sea.
33) Animal sacrifice three days journey from the Jerusalem Temple.
34) Matching New World geography. With hundreds of references, this isn't as easy as it might seem.
35) Hebrew words spoken in Americas

This is as complete as I can get it, for the moment. Once considered anachronisms of the Book of Mormon, many of these are now anachronisms of the 1830's; they simply didn't exist in Joseph Smith's world, as pertaining to the American Indian. Anachronisms work both ways.

 

[rrosskopf]

The rational answer is plagiarism

There is no obvious source of plagiarism. Nor was Joseph Smith ever seen with a book, other than the family Bible, and he didn't even have that while translating. According to his mother, Joseph wasn't much of a reader. The chapters of Isaiah are the best argument for plagiarism, but it stretches the imagination that Joseph Smith somehow memorized word for word, large segments of Isaiah. We know that they were dictated, because of Oliver Cowdery's bad (but consistent) spelling, and because of several words which he misheard.
There is also one verse of Isaiah which isn't found in the family bible, but is found in the Septuagint. Did Joseph speak Greek? Obviously not. Did he somehow look up the one odd verse in Isaiah while looking up Nehemm at the local college library? The thought is preposterous. Many of the anachronisms also argue against plagiarism, as they cannot be found anywhere else. The numerous geographic descriptions are unique to the Book of Mormon, as the extensive treatment of warfare.

But that makes no sense in the face of the copied errors and typos carried over from the King James Bible

The Book of Mormon was handed to the printer without punctuation. Presumably, the printer used a Bible as reference, while adding punctuation and italicizing words. It should also be noted that it is a common practice to start a translation with other previous translations. 80% of the KJV is identical to the very first published English Bible, word for word. Only about 50% of the Isaiah verses in the Book of Mormon match the KJV Isaiah word for word.

There is no correlation between the appearance of chiasmus and the authenticity of the Book of Mormon because, among other things, chiasmus appears in many languages including eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English literature. Quite possibly yet more evidence of plagiarism. What is proved by the presence of chiasmus in Strang's work?

By and large, examples of chiasmus in English literature are short couplets, and have little resemblance to the Hebrew poetic style. Chiastic prose sometimes spans entire chapters in the Book of Mormon, where they remained unseen for over a hundred years. Neither Joseph Smith, nor anyone else called attention to them or noticed them.
One of the hallmarks of Hebraic Chiasmus are Hebrew word pairs. These word pairs are found in abundance in the Book of Mormon. Here is an article which treats the subject in depth: Fullscreen | Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

 

[rrosskopf]

Only in Mormonism does horse not mean horse, window not mean window, horse not mean horse, sword not mean sword, and translate not mean translate.

That's not true at all. The Bible is also full of anachronisms, as are many ancient works. Sometimes we don't have an exact matching word, when translating from one language to another. Sometimes a translator has to choose between a literal translation, and conveying the underlying idea in a meaningful way. What would have more meaning to the average reader, "sword" or "macuahuitl"? Windows were once made out of wood; the etymology shows that. What should he have called them?
By the way, I haven't claimed that a horse is anything but a horse. The idea proposed by some that "horse" refers to a deer, doesn't explain the presence of mules.