full discussion here: http://www.fairblog.org/2011/08/17/fair-issues-21-book-of-mormon-in-ancient-setting-not-19th-century-work/
Here's a portion of what I wrote:
Jacob Says:
October 8th, 2011 at 1:49 am
Steve,
This is a matter of eternal life. How can you not have time to go
over this with me? Is not every soul precious in the sight of God? What
about mine? If you are right, then you are condemning me to damnation by
not helping me see.
Thanks for regurgitating the caricature that the only people that are
willing to accept the idea of Deutero-Isaiah are people who obviously
don’t believe in revelation, because of Isaiah’s naming of Cyrus in
Isaiah 44:28. Actually, my conclusions derive from looking at the
context and theme of Isaiah and asking what he’s writing about and why.
I accept the possibility of revelation about future things. But the
data really has to show it. We can’t claim something and then refuse to
examine our premise, or see how well our claim fits the known details.
You say you posted the links to demonstrate that there are responses
people have made to certain issues. Yay. Every religious group posts
responses to criticism about itself. But are the responses really
sufficient?
Do you not really care that Nephi says, “for the day soon cometh that
all the proud and they which do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the
day cometh that they must be burned.” (1 Ne 22:15, 1830 ed.), and “it is
they which must be consumed as stubble; and this is according to the
words of the prophet. And the time cometh speedily that the righteous
must be led up as calves of the stall” (1 Ne 22:23-24, 1830 ed.), and
“Wherefore all they that are proud, and that do wickedly, the day that
cometh shall burn them up saith the Lord of Hosts, for they shall be as
stubble” (2 Ne 26:4, 1830 ed.), and “the day cometh that shall consume
them, saith the Lord of Hosts.” (2 Ne 26:6), and “But the Son of
righteousness shall appear unto them; and he shall heal them” (2 Ne
26:9). And that Malachi said, “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall
burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall
be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord
of hosts…But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness
arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as
calves of the stall.” (Mal 4:1-2)
What “prophet” is Nephi quoting? What other prophet than Malachi used
this kind of sun imagery when dealing with God and the destruction of
the wicked (see also Mal 3:1-6)? If Malachi was quoting someone else in
4:1-2 (which he would have had to, if he and Nephi managed the same
themes in the same order, and Nephi claimed to be quoting a prophet),
then he’s also borrowing in 3:1-6, in which case, we need to extend how
much he’s quoting to complete units of thought: 2:17-3:6, 3:16-4:1, and
4:2-3. 2:17 uses Malachi’s unique question-answer format, so if he’s
quoting there, then perhaps the entire book is just quotes. But the
theme of the book has to do with the Levirate priesthood in the second
temple period, and so why would any earlier prophets have spoken these
themes? Especially given the negativity about sun worship demonstrably
present in earlier times: Ezekiel 8:16-18; Deut. 4:19, 17:2-5; 2 Kings
21:5, 23:11-12; Jer. 19:13; Zeph. 1:5
I too accepted for a long time the possibility that perhaps the Book
of Mormon prophets just received the same things as later prophets by
revelation. It is a necessary premise for believing in the Book of
Mormon, with its 19th century Christianity 600 years before Christ. Read
Alma 7, for instance, and you have to make that concession about
revelation. But when a prophet is explicitly being quoted, who seems
quite clearly the originator of the way he said something? Nephi was
ahead of his time, for sure.
What about when the prophet’s words don’t have to do with revelation
at all? For instance, 2 Peter 2:22 says, “But it is happened unto them
according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again;
and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” You should
notice that he is paraphrasing Proverbs 26:11, “As a dog returneth to
his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.” Only, in the Proverb a pig
is not mentioned, since Jews had nothing to do with pigs, being unclean
animals. This is a clear infusion of Greek culture into the proverb.
But wait! 3 Nephi 7:8 says, “And thus six years had not passed away
since the more part of the people had turned from their righteousness,
like the dog to his vomit, or like the sow to her wallowing in the
mire.” Why the heck would a prophet in the Book of Mormon use the new
testament version of the proverb, with its clear Greek influence?
Certainly, you don’t mean to ascertain that pigs were kept by the
Nephites?
I guess you could call that another example of Joseph “choosing” to
render a passage with its intent, using King James language. So did
Mormon actually use the Old Testament version, and we’re getting a
corrupted text here? How come almost every legitimate test I subject the
Book of Mormon to, which would have made great examples of its being an
authentic translation, utterly fails? What are you putting your faith
in? (Speaking of Greek… why are the Greek version of the word Jonah and
the Greek name Timothy at the top of the 12 disciple list in 3 Ne. 19:4?
And speaking of the disciples, why was Nephi called to be a disciple,
and one of the 12 that was promised that he’d live to be 72 and then
brought “speedily” into Christ’s kingdom in 3 Ne 28:3, and in 4 Ne. 1:14
it claims to have happened… EXCEPT in 1:19 Nephi the disciple finally
dies, 110 AD, at least 80 years old… food for thought.)
You notice that the more scrutiny the Book of Mormon comes under, the
more its proponents have to draw back and make absurd assertions to
keep the faith. Same with the Book of Abraham, for that matter. What
data, then, does your testimony support? That the content of the Book of
Mormon cannot be separated from 19th century language, culture and
theology, and that our actual deeper Mormon doctrines have to be found
in the Doctrine and Covenants? That a type of Monism in the Book of
Mormon was suppressed by the Prophet himself when he made changes to 1
Nephi 11 in the 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon, though it was left
in in Mosiah 15, Alma 11, Ether 4, for instance? That the 1830 Book of
Commandments reads very differently from the later Doctrine and
Covenants, that details about the Priesthood were amended like
afterthoughts, and details about early magical practices like Joseph’s
stone-in-hat translation method and Oliver Cowdery’s water-witching in
D&C 8 were suppressed? What ever role does the Prophet’s Jupiter
Talisman, found on his body after the martyrdom, play in your theology, I
wonder?
Does it matter to you that Hugh Nibley was so reluctant to translate
the text on Facsimile 2 that it wasn’t published in its entirety (Dr.
Nibley’s translation, that is) in his collected works until the last
volume, One Eternal Round? That text is very damaging, despite what
people like Michael Rhodes try to say about it. Or that Hugh Nibley
refused to ever translate the text in Facsimile 3? I’ve read all
his works — he simply refuses. Makes sense, since the Prophet in figure 2
says “King Pharaoh, whose name is given in the characters above his
head”, whilst the characters above his head say, “The great Isis, mother
of the god [Horus]“. Oops.
I do not wish to go in depth into any of that here; there are sources
enough you can find on most of it, if you really care about basing your
faith in what is true, and not simply what you wish is true.
Thanks for the note about wordprints. The comment here
by Kevin Barney, a latter-day saint, seems to sum up pretty well how
impressive-looking yet shoddy they can be. Is it any wonder that
“wordprint” in Google gives you results that make it pretty clear that
it’s Mormons toting this thing around as if it’s legitimate. “wordprint
-mormon” returns nothing about wordprints. Interesting, no? This
is a fairly decent response to early wordprint analysis. How far have
we come since then? The “experimental design” section is particularly
important. I have the feeling that if we left out the “and it came to
pass” portion, and stopped overfitting the data, we’d have greater
alignment of the texts. From what I have found, and borrowing clues from
Royal Skousen, there is a slight shift in language beginning in the
Book of Ether and ending in Words of Mormon (imagine the Book of Mormon
wrapping around… you are aware that the “small plates” were translated
last, right?). The words of Jacob in 2 Ne. 9 and Jacob 2-5 might come
out as being unique…but maybe not. I’ve read the Book of Mormon a couple
dozen times and seems pretty consistent throughout… lengths of
sentences, manner of speaking and correcting oneself, redundancies and
flow of thought, etc.
Another question for you, Steve, or anyone else who cares to respond:
you said you’re okay with “language from the KJV that was not true to
the verbatim language used by the original authors”. Firstly, doesn’t
that destroy the validity of any wordprint studies anyway? Shouldn’t
they rather indicate the same author throughout, in that case? I have a
feeling that this exact interpretation is what’s going to happen when
say a PhD study comes out verifying the unity of the text. People have a
way of saying, “either way, it supports my faith”. Isn’t faith amazing,
that way? Secondly, why in the world would the original authors even
have an intent that would lead to, say, most of 1 Corinthians
13:2-8,13 being repeated in Moroni 7:44-46, or especially Mormon
9:22-24, Ether 4:18, D&C 24:13-14, quoting Mark 16:15-18, where
those concepts, and thus intent, were not originally part of the
scriptures, and so Christ never had said nor should have repeated or
sanctioned them. Does that make sense? Do you see why I can’t sanction
explaining that some text’s intent matched a false scripture, and therefore it was okay to use that scripture?
By the way, it is almost universally acknowledged that Luke and
Matthew were copying Mark and some other source. Matthew can be shown to
have been the most liberal in rearranging texts to suit his needs. So
again, why is Jesus quoting Matthew, when a more accurate sermon on the
mount would have come from Luke 6? Follow your idea, that some people
are working from sources. Use your Gospel Harmony in the Bible
Dictionary and trace Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John out yourself. I have
my scriptures fully concorded that way, so I know where a passage in one
author can be found in the others. It will work wonders in your
comprehension of the New Testament.
And if you really read that New Testament, and then look at the Book
of Mormon again, how can you avoid seeing the major source for the Book
of Mormon? How does the evidence really stack up? Can you keep
justifying to yourself that somehow it works out? Can you really ask
other people to have that kind of “faith”? I mean, that kind of faith
would justify my acceptance of pretty much any religion.
But I want the truth. And I find the truth to be so compelling, so worth finding, that I do
have time to debate and learn and question and really seek for answers.
This is an eternal issue, and a matter of the soul. How can you not
have time? Please examine your premises, and your data. Don’t be afraid
to find more data. Believe it or not, there is only one set of truths,
and one of us has to have more of it (in this field) than the other. If
you really want truth, you have to be willing to throw out the opinions,
the beliefs and the “responses” as you have eloquently called them, and
just look at the data.
You don’t know how badly I have wished and in the past how strongly I
believed the church was true. But I am an honest person, and I cannot
justify lying or obscuring truth. I really did give our religion a
thorough look, examined all the data apologists have to offer, the
evidence from my faith, my life, the faith and lives of those around me.
I drunk deeply of all the words of the prophets, both in general
conference, sunday school and priesthood readings, and pretty much every
book on our faith the BYU library and bookstore and Deseret book had to
offer. I did so not because my faith was wavering, but because my faith
was strong and I thoroughly believed, as you do now, that the evidence
was strongly in favor of Mormonism. I wanted to learn it all, so I could
defend our faith like it says in 1 Peter 3:15, “But sanctify the Lord
God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man
that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and
fear:”. It was through church materials that I lost my faith.
Once I had seen most of the evidence, and gone through it all myself, I
could no longer honestly say I believed these things. I came to terms
with my faith and was compelled to leave it. I am well acquainted with
apologist rhetoric. Unfortunately, it has such scant evidence behind it
that I can’t justify standing behind it. The more I continue to learn
(and continue to read all the LDS Standard Works!), the more satisfied I
am with my decision. Yet, if I am wrong someone had better walk through
the evidence with me and let me know what I’ve missed. For instance, I
will keep in mind the wordprint studies and hopefully get my hands on
the full datasets so I can go through them carefully. I consider my own
detailed look at the Book of Mormon more convincing, however. I can
almost count on my hands the evidences in behalf of the Book of Mormon,
but I couldn’t count on 100 hands the evidence I have against it.
So please, don’t end the discussion. And please learn the field of
textual criticism while you’re at it. You don’t expect to convert me to
the gospel through a discussion of textual criticism. If you take an
honest look at textual criticism, I expect I could convert you away from
the gospel through it. There is enough data available to raise
important questions and discover important results, as much as we’d like
to claim that there isn’t enough evidence to decide either way.
October 8th, 2011 at 1:49 am Steve,
This is a matter of eternal life. How can you not have time to go over this with me? Is not every soul precious in the sight of God? What about mine? If you are right, then you are condemning me to damnation by not helping me see.
Thanks for regurgitating the caricature that the only people that are willing to accept the idea of Deutero-Isaiah are people who obviously don’t believe in revelation, because of Isaiah’s naming of Cyrus in Isaiah 44:28. Actually, my conclusions derive from looking at the context and theme of Isaiah and asking what he’s writing about and why.
I accept the possibility of revelation about future things. But the data really has to show it. We can’t claim something and then refuse to examine our premise, or see how well our claim fits the known details.
You say you posted the links to demonstrate that there are responses people have made to certain issues. Yay. Every religious group posts responses to criticism about itself. But are the responses really sufficient?
Do you not really care that Nephi says, “for the day soon cometh that all the proud and they which do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned.” (1 Ne 22:15, 1830 ed.), and “it is they which must be consumed as stubble; and this is according to the words of the prophet. And the time cometh speedily that the righteous must be led up as calves of the stall” (1 Ne 22:23-24, 1830 ed.), and “Wherefore all they that are proud, and that do wickedly, the day that cometh shall burn them up saith the Lord of Hosts, for they shall be as stubble” (2 Ne 26:4, 1830 ed.), and “the day cometh that shall consume them, saith the Lord of Hosts.” (2 Ne 26:6), and “But the Son of righteousness shall appear unto them; and he shall heal them” (2 Ne 26:9). And that Malachi said, “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts…But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.” (Mal 4:1-2)
What “prophet” is Nephi quoting? What other prophet than Malachi used this kind of sun imagery when dealing with God and the destruction of the wicked (see also Mal 3:1-6)? If Malachi was quoting someone else in 4:1-2 (which he would have had to, if he and Nephi managed the same themes in the same order, and Nephi claimed to be quoting a prophet), then he’s also borrowing in 3:1-6, in which case, we need to extend how much he’s quoting to complete units of thought: 2:17-3:6, 3:16-4:1, and 4:2-3. 2:17 uses Malachi’s unique question-answer format, so if he’s quoting there, then perhaps the entire book is just quotes. But the theme of the book has to do with the Levirate priesthood in the second temple period, and so why would any earlier prophets have spoken these themes? Especially given the negativity about sun worship demonstrably present in earlier times: Ezekiel 8:16-18; Deut. 4:19, 17:2-5; 2 Kings 21:5, 23:11-12; Jer. 19:13; Zeph. 1:5
I too accepted for a long time the possibility that perhaps the Book of Mormon prophets just received the same things as later prophets by revelation. It is a necessary premise for believing in the Book of Mormon, with its 19th century Christianity 600 years before Christ. Read Alma 7, for instance, and you have to make that concession about revelation. But when a prophet is explicitly being quoted, who seems quite clearly the originator of the way he said something? Nephi was ahead of his time, for sure.
What about when the prophet’s words don’t have to do with revelation at all? For instance, 2 Peter 2:22 says, “But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” You should notice that he is paraphrasing Proverbs 26:11, “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.” Only, in the Proverb a pig is not mentioned, since Jews had nothing to do with pigs, being unclean animals. This is a clear infusion of Greek culture into the proverb. But wait! 3 Nephi 7:8 says, “And thus six years had not passed away since the more part of the people had turned from their righteousness, like the dog to his vomit, or like the sow to her wallowing in the mire.” Why the heck would a prophet in the Book of Mormon use the new testament version of the proverb, with its clear Greek influence? Certainly, you don’t mean to ascertain that pigs were kept by the Nephites?
I guess you could call that another example of Joseph “choosing” to render a passage with its intent, using King James language. So did Mormon actually use the Old Testament version, and we’re getting a corrupted text here? How come almost every legitimate test I subject the Book of Mormon to, which would have made great examples of its being an authentic translation, utterly fails? What are you putting your faith in? (Speaking of Greek… why are the Greek version of the word Jonah and the Greek name Timothy at the top of the 12 disciple list in 3 Ne. 19:4? And speaking of the disciples, why was Nephi called to be a disciple, and one of the 12 that was promised that he’d live to be 72 and then brought “speedily” into Christ’s kingdom in 3 Ne 28:3, and in 4 Ne. 1:14 it claims to have happened… EXCEPT in 1:19 Nephi the disciple finally dies, 110 AD, at least 80 years old… food for thought.)
You notice that the more scrutiny the Book of Mormon comes under, the more its proponents have to draw back and make absurd assertions to keep the faith. Same with the Book of Abraham, for that matter. What data, then, does your testimony support? That the content of the Book of Mormon cannot be separated from 19th century language, culture and theology, and that our actual deeper Mormon doctrines have to be found in the Doctrine and Covenants? That a type of Monism in the Book of Mormon was suppressed by the Prophet himself when he made changes to 1 Nephi 11 in the 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon, though it was left in in Mosiah 15, Alma 11, Ether 4, for instance? That the 1830 Book of Commandments reads very differently from the later Doctrine and Covenants, that details about the Priesthood were amended like afterthoughts, and details about early magical practices like Joseph’s stone-in-hat translation method and Oliver Cowdery’s water-witching in D&C 8 were suppressed? What ever role does the Prophet’s Jupiter Talisman, found on his body after the martyrdom, play in your theology, I wonder?
Does it matter to you that Hugh Nibley was so reluctant to translate the text on Facsimile 2 that it wasn’t published in its entirety (Dr. Nibley’s translation, that is) in his collected works until the last volume, One Eternal Round? That text is very damaging, despite what people like Michael Rhodes try to say about it. Or that Hugh Nibley refused to ever translate the text in Facsimile 3? I’ve read all his works — he simply refuses. Makes sense, since the Prophet in figure 2 says “King Pharaoh, whose name is given in the characters above his head”, whilst the characters above his head say, “The great Isis, mother of the god [Horus]“. Oops.
I do not wish to go in depth into any of that here; there are sources enough you can find on most of it, if you really care about basing your faith in what is true, and not simply what you wish is true.
Thanks for the note about wordprints. The comment here by Kevin Barney, a latter-day saint, seems to sum up pretty well how impressive-looking yet shoddy they can be. Is it any wonder that “wordprint” in Google gives you results that make it pretty clear that it’s Mormons toting this thing around as if it’s legitimate. “wordprint -mormon” returns nothing about wordprints. Interesting, no?
This is a fairly decent response to early wordprint analysis. How far have we come since then? The “experimental design” section is particularly important. I have the feeling that if we left out the “and it came to pass” portion, and stopped overfitting the data, we’d have greater alignment of the texts. From what I have found, and borrowing clues from Royal Skousen, there is a slight shift in language beginning in the Book of Ether and ending in Words of Mormon (imagine the Book of Mormon wrapping around… you are aware that the “small plates” were translated last, right?). The words of Jacob in 2 Ne. 9 and Jacob 2-5 might come out as being unique…but maybe not. I’ve read the Book of Mormon a couple dozen times and seems pretty consistent throughout… lengths of sentences, manner of speaking and correcting oneself, redundancies and flow of thought, etc.
Another question for you, Steve, or anyone else who cares to respond: you said you’re okay with “language from the KJV that was not true to the verbatim language used by the original authors”. Firstly, doesn’t that destroy the validity of any wordprint studies anyway? Shouldn’t they rather indicate the same author throughout, in that case? I have a feeling that this exact interpretation is what’s going to happen when say a PhD study comes out verifying the unity of the text. People have a way of saying, “either way, it supports my faith”. Isn’t faith amazing, that way? Secondly, why in the world would the original authors even have an intent that would lead to, say, most of 1 Corinthians 13:2-8,13 being repeated in Moroni 7:44-46, or especially Mormon 9:22-24, Ether 4:18, D&C 24:13-14, quoting Mark 16:15-18, where those concepts, and thus intent, were not originally part of the scriptures, and so Christ never had said nor should have repeated or sanctioned them. Does that make sense? Do you see why I can’t sanction explaining that some text’s intent matched a false scripture, and therefore it was okay to use that scripture?
By the way, it is almost universally acknowledged that Luke and Matthew were copying Mark and some other source. Matthew can be shown to have been the most liberal in rearranging texts to suit his needs. So again, why is Jesus quoting Matthew, when a more accurate sermon on the mount would have come from Luke 6? Follow your idea, that some people are working from sources. Use your Gospel Harmony in the Bible Dictionary and trace Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John out yourself. I have my scriptures fully concorded that way, so I know where a passage in one author can be found in the others. It will work wonders in your comprehension of the New Testament.
And if you really read that New Testament, and then look at the Book of Mormon again, how can you avoid seeing the major source for the Book of Mormon? How does the evidence really stack up? Can you keep justifying to yourself that somehow it works out? Can you really ask other people to have that kind of “faith”? I mean, that kind of faith would justify my acceptance of pretty much any religion.
But I want the truth. And I find the truth to be so compelling, so worth finding, that I do have time to debate and learn and question and really seek for answers. This is an eternal issue, and a matter of the soul. How can you not have time? Please examine your premises, and your data. Don’t be afraid to find more data. Believe it or not, there is only one set of truths, and one of us has to have more of it (in this field) than the other. If you really want truth, you have to be willing to throw out the opinions, the beliefs and the “responses” as you have eloquently called them, and just look at the data.
You don’t know how badly I have wished and in the past how strongly I believed the church was true. But I am an honest person, and I cannot justify lying or obscuring truth. I really did give our religion a thorough look, examined all the data apologists have to offer, the evidence from my faith, my life, the faith and lives of those around me. I drunk deeply of all the words of the prophets, both in general conference, sunday school and priesthood readings, and pretty much every book on our faith the BYU library and bookstore and Deseret book had to offer. I did so not because my faith was wavering, but because my faith was strong and I thoroughly believed, as you do now, that the evidence was strongly in favor of Mormonism. I wanted to learn it all, so I could defend our faith like it says in 1 Peter 3:15, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:”. It was through church materials that I lost my faith. Once I had seen most of the evidence, and gone through it all myself, I could no longer honestly say I believed these things. I came to terms with my faith and was compelled to leave it. I am well acquainted with apologist rhetoric. Unfortunately, it has such scant evidence behind it that I can’t justify standing behind it. The more I continue to learn (and continue to read all the LDS Standard Works!), the more satisfied I am with my decision. Yet, if I am wrong someone had better walk through the evidence with me and let me know what I’ve missed. For instance, I will keep in mind the wordprint studies and hopefully get my hands on the full datasets so I can go through them carefully. I consider my own detailed look at the Book of Mormon more convincing, however. I can almost count on my hands the evidences in behalf of the Book of Mormon, but I couldn’t count on 100 hands the evidence I have against it.
So please, don’t end the discussion. And please learn the field of textual criticism while you’re at it. You don’t expect to convert me to the gospel through a discussion of textual criticism. If you take an honest look at textual criticism, I expect I could convert you away from the gospel through it. There is enough data available to raise important questions and discover important results, as much as we’d like to claim that there isn’t enough evidence to decide either way.