Joseph Smith - Prophet of God

[Autodidact]

Wow, an extremely confident and bold statement.

Care to cite any evidences contradicting our beliefs ???

There are none.

Have you read the thread? I cited quite a few.

 

[Autodidact]

Lions and tigers were reported in Moctezuma's zoo by Spanish conquistadores

Yes, but not present. They were jaguars and pumas. Unlike the imaginary Nephites, whom, had they existed, would have been here for over 1000 years, the Spaniards had no words for these creatures, so called them lions and tigers.

Columbus's letters to Spain reported wild boars in America.

I believe you're mistaken; Columbus brought pigs to America, which eventually became wild boars, or rather, their descendants did.

Remember, the pigs in BoM are domesticated, not wild.

The "boar" was probably a peccary, but we can't be sure what animals the lions or tigers were actually referring to... They may have been jaguars, but that's not my call as translator. Could I make it a footnote or something? Sure, but it's very doubtful that Joseph Smith had the names of Mesoamerican fauna in his vocabulary. He only used words that he knew, and he probably didn't know "tapir," "peccary," or even "llama" or "alpaca," seeing as those animals were nonexistent in his parts of America. His descriptions to his family strongly suggest that whatever the Lehite people might have ridden, it wasn't a horse.

Nor, apparently, did he have words for elk, deer, skunk, possum, squirrel, bear, or the other animals near his home in New York.

Are you now claiming that the mythical Nephites lived in Mesoamerica? Because if so you've got a bigger problem: a much smaller area in which absolutely no trace of them has been found. Cities, agriculture, armies, huge battles, swords, metal utensils of many different kinds, domesticated animals, all vanics without a trace.

Remember, you're trying to convince us that Smith was actually translating something, since you're also talking about a language for which there is absolutely no evidence that it ever existed. If it did, only one person on earth ever laid eyes on it, Joseph Smith. Since he was a divine prophet, and was assisted by God's magic, it's a tragedy that he and God together couldn't figure out some way for him to do so accurately. As I say, they could have been talking about Genghis Kahn, for all you know.

Did you notice how you switched from the poor Nephites without a word for tapir despite supposedly living next to them for 1000 years, to Joseph Smith whose vocabulary was so deficient that we really can't rely on a word of his purported translation.

btw, for a language, do you have any idea how old 1000 years is? Like, you would find it very difficult to understand English of 1000 years ago. In 1000 years, they couldn't invent or borrow a word for something? We've only had laptops for around 10 years and we have a word for them.

Your assumption about the horses pulling chariots is a great example of seeing what we expect to see, rather than what's there. Nowhere in the book does it say that BoM "horses" pulled BoM "chariots." They are mentioned as being part of a trip (once) but even here the relationship isn't specified. They might be pulling the chariots, or dragging them (sledges), or hauling them, or even walking beside them unattached (canoes).

Alma 18: 9
9 And they said unto him: Behold, he is feeding thy horses. Now the king had commanded his servants, previous to the time of the watering of their flocks, that they should prepare his horses and chariots, and conduct him forth to the land of Nephi; for there had been a great feast appointed at the land of Nephi, by the father of Lamoni, who was king over all the land.

Right. They prepared his horses, and then separately prepared chariots, and the horse walked next to the chariots while the tapirs pulled them??? Remember, there is no trace of any wheel or any animal used to pull a wheeled vehicle anywhere in America. By the time you get done with a passage, it's gibberish. I think anyone else would think they prepared the horses with the chariots. But yeah, one of us is seeing what we expect to see.

We don't even know that the chariots had wheels! The authors of the Book of Mormon don't see a need to describe these things, because they have no frame of reference; they assume the reader will be familiar with it. We have the same problem with many Roman, Greek and Egyptian intracultural works:

Right. They didn't need to describe them, because chariots have wheels. Just like they (aka Smith) don't need to say "strong, 4 legged animals with long tails of hair" when referring to horses, because we know what horses are. No, we don't have that problem when referring to Roman or Egyptian chariots--we know they're referring to light, wheeled vehicles, unless the translator is so incompetent that he can't be relied on.

As I've said from the beginning, the Book of Mormon is a poor reference for archeological research. But that's not the same as saying it's false.

Yes, I realize you haven't said it's false, but the evidence indicates that it is. The evidence indicates that the people referred to in that book never occupied America.
1. Had there been millions of people living in large cities, with an agricultural economy, armies, metal utensils and weapons, with domesticated animals, we would expect to find archeological evidence of the people, their architecture, animals and utensils.
2. We don't.
Therefore, they were never here.

I don't know what you intended to prove by citing the metals they worked with; we have archeological confirmation on every single one of those metals in ancient American art. Not only does that fail to meet what I asked for--a description of metallurgy--but it fails to meet the overall intention of that information: where does it say that the armor was made out of metal?

I didn't say the armor was made out of metal.
Are you now trying to say that there was metallurgy in America involving silver, gold, steel, iron, bronze, etc. in America before the Europeans got here? Because the archeologists disagree with you.

"The tools that the people [in cultures that did have metallurgical industries] used are primitive but nonetheless they are there, and they spell out a system of exploitation of those natural resources. In refining ores and then bringing these to casting and true metallurgical processes is another bit of technology that leaves a lot of evidence. You can't refine ore without leaving a bloom of some kind or…that is, impurities that blossom out and float to the top of the ore…Also blooms off into silicas and indestructible new rock forms. In other words, when you have a ferrous metallurgical industry, you have these evidences of the detritus that is left over. You also have the fuels, you have the furnaces, you have whatever technologies that were performing these tasks, they leave solid evidences. And they are indestructible things…non-ferrous metallurgical industries have similar evidences. No evidence has been found in the new world for a ferrous metallurgical industry dating to pre-Columbian times. And so this is a king-size problem, it seems to me, for so-called Book of Mormon archaeology. The evidence is absent." (Michael Coe, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol. 8, No. 2, Summer 1973, p. 23).

Metallurgy (the use of metals) did not appear in the
Americas until about the 9th century A.D. However, the
Book of Mormon describes the use of iron,1 steel,2 brass,3
copper,4 silver5 and gold6 before the birth of Christ. These
metals were said to be used for coins, weapons, and in
buildings.
See Robson Bonnichsen and D. Gentry Steele, Method and Theory for
Investigating the Peopling of the Americas (Corvallis, OR: Center for the Study of the First Americans, 1994)

 

[Autodidact]

I said, and have continued to say, that the beginning of the BoM meets all four, but the latter part is impossible to match. That's not to say it's a fraud; there are plenty of documents that would be impossible to match with their origin on earth strictly on their own merits. Try tracking the conquistadors soley on their journals.

re: North America? No, I don't remember you saying that. Is that your position? If so, you got some defendin' to do.

First, I've brought up Albright because he's a great figure in paleolinguistics, well respected by his peers. Then again, I've also brought up Victor Von Hagen, and Kutz, and Ixtlilxochitl, and you haven't said boo to any of them.

I think you're mistaken.
Paleolinguistics is a term used by some linguists for the study of the distant human past by linguistic means. For most historical linguists there is no separate field of paleolinguistics. Those who use the term are generally advocates of hypotheses not generally accepted by mainstream historical linguists, a group colloquially referred to as "long-rangers".... A good example of this sort is the Moscow school of Nostraticists, founded by Vladislav Illich-Svitych and including Aharon Dolgopolsky, Sergei Starostin, and Vitaly Shevoroshkin, who have argued for the existence of Nostratic, a language family including the Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, Altaic, Dravidian, and Kartvelian language families and sometimes other languages. They have established regular phonological correspondences, observed morphological similarities, and reconstructed a proto-language in accordance with the accepted methodology. Nostratic is not generally accepted because critics have doubts about the specifics of the correspondences and reconstruction.
Other hypotheses are controversial because the methods used to support them are considered by mainstream historical linguists to be invalid in principle. Into this category fall proposals based on mass lexical comparison,... Prominent examples are the work of Joseph Greenberg and Merritt Ruhlen.
Some others who may be considered 'paleolinguists' due to their advocacy of controversial, deep hypotheses are: Karl Bouda, Karl-Heinrich Menges, Edward Sapir, Robert Shafer, Morris Swadesh, Alfredo Trombetti, and Mario Alinei (Paleolithic Continuity Theory). wiki

That is, there is no such thing as mainstream paleolinguistics, and the deceased Mr. Albright is not among its prominent practitioners. What you are talking about is not linguistics of any kind, since there is no such language as Reformed Egyptian. What you are talking about is literary criticism, which is about the weakest kind of evidence you can cite, just above a hunch.

You call an anonymous group lumped together in a single statement in a non-peer reviewed journal "the consensus of archeological knowledge on the subject"?

Do you disagree? Are you saying that this is not the mainstream, consensus position?

I've said many times on this forum that archaeology will probably never confirm the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. What you fail to grasp is that that's not enough to call it a fraud, in the eyes of science. When you start talking about fraud, the burden of proof is on you. If I were to say that the Mona Lisa was a fraud, I couldn't just say it was and ask my detractors to prove it was genuine. "Fraud" is a definitive statement.

I don't know whether it's a fraud. It could be a hallucination, for all I know. What science can tell us is, it's false. It's not just that archeology fails to confirm it, it's that it proves it false. And if you thought it was true, your position would be that archeology would eventually confirm it.

"Not proven true" isn't the same as "proven false."

O.K. It's proven false.

If you wanted to prove the Book of Mormon was a fraud, you can't just point to the mistakes in the text. You need to show how Joseph (or any other 19th Century author) managed to get names from the Amarna letters and the Elephantine Papyri before they were excavated. How Joseph knew the only place to get bow-wood in the desert south of Jerusalem. How he knew all 20 points for a proper Hebrew farewell speech (that Kurtz data that everyone has been ignoring). ...?

Hmmm, why did he know things about a place that had BOOKS WRITTEN ABOUT IT, and nothing about a place that didn't? Names??? Please. If I make up a name right now I can probably find a correspondence in the Bible or Egypt or the ANE somewhere. You're talking about millions of possible names. Why are you so excited about Smith writing in a form that already existed, but not at all bothered about him being factually false about everything cited as fact in the book? Everything. The language. The weapons. The animals. The plants. The cities. The industry. The agriculture. Wrong, wrong. wrong.

 

[Autodidact]

But we're never going to get to something more concrete until we know what the Book of Mormon is actually talking about! Unless we are willing to apply the same standards to it that we do to all the other ancient works of literature, we aren't treating it fairly.

We have ancient works that claim to have found animals in places where we know there were no such animals. So that alone is not good enough to say it's a fraud. We need more.

Your first problem is establishing that it is an ancient work of literature. But O.K., I'll apply the same standards...done. It's not correct.

We have more. Not some animals--all the animals. Not some plants--all the plants. Buildings. Temples. Cities. If you have wheat, you have mills, threshing, ovens. If you have metal-working, you have furnaces, smelters, anvils, etc. etc.

Comparing it to say the Bible, just because I'm pretty familiar with that. The bible mentions things we know existed, animals that we find evidence for, plants that grew there, even actual cities. It doesn't mean it's all correct (archeologists mostly think it's sometimes right and sometimes wrong) but at least it happens in a real place. The place described in the BoM bears no resemblance to anywhere ever known in America.

 

[Autodidact]

For those of you who've forgotten, here's the Kurtz data again, courtesy of Jeff Lindsay:

Non-LDS scholar William S. Kurz has examined numerous ancient farewell speeches and identified 20 elements that appear commonly (no one speech has all 20)..

I'm sorry, I was unable to find the Kurz article re: Benjamin's speech. Apparently Kurz is an expert on New Testament writings? All I could find was Mormon apologists appropriating his research and then asserting that it supported their conclusion. In fact, I don't think I've ever found any researcher in any field who was not Mormon apologist who thought their research supported the BoM, have you? You know that apologetics is not research, right? It's the opposite of research.

 

[DeepShadow]

re: North America? No, I don't remember you saying that. Is that your position? If so, you got some defendin' to do.

No, regarding old world.

O.K. It's proven false.

Not until you've taken on the things he got right: names, traditions, and other linguistic data.

Hmmm, why did he know things about a place that had BOOKS WRITTEN ABOUT IT, and nothing about a place that didn't?

There you go again! THERE WERE NO BOOKS WRITTEN ABOUT THE ELEPHANTINE PAPYRI BEFORE THEY WERE EXCAVATED!

Are you telling us that, for example, Joseph gathered all the disparate texts that Kurtz assembled for his farewell speech analyses, found the twenty key elements himself, and put all of them into his master forgery a over hundred years before Kurtz did his research?!

 

[DeepShadow]

I'm sorry, I was unable to find the Kurz article re: Benjamin's speech. Apparently Kurz is an expert on New Testament writings? All I could find was Mormon apologists appropriating his research and then asserting that it supported their conclusion. In fact, I don't think I've ever found any researcher in any field who thought was not Mormon apologist who thought their research supported the BoM, have you? You know that apologetics is not research, right? It's the opposite of research.

Anyone can read Benjamin's speech and see that it contains all twenty points. Now you're the one who's getting desperate.

 

[Autodidact]

Sure seems wierd to me! I much prefer the translation process that is actually cited by people who were there...

This one?
the testimony of those who were eyewitnesses to Joseph Smith dictating the Book of Mormon. These witnesses include all three of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon (the same individuals whose testimony appears in the front of every copy of the Book of Mormon), as well as Joseph Smith’s wife, Emma Hale Smith. They tell a similar story of Joseph dropping a magical seer stone into his hat, then burying his face in the hat and proceeding to dictate the Book of Mormon. Joseph claimed to see in the darkened hat the words he dictated. Several of the witnesses comment that the gold plates were sometimes not even in sight as Joseph dictated the Book of Mormon. This evidence of the actual Book of Mormon translation method has been discussed in at least six different scholarly articles and several books by Mormon historians over the past 30 years.
2 Grant H. Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, (Signature Books, SLC, 2002, pp. 2-7,66,169). Palmer is an LDS seminary teacher and three-time director of LDS Institutes of Religion in California and Utah; D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987; revised, expanded 1998, pp. 41-ff); James E. Lancaster, "By the Gift and Power of God," Saints Herald, 109:22 (November 15, 1962) pp. 14-18, 22, 33; Edward H. Ashment, "The Book of Mormon — A Literal Translation," Sunstone, 5:2 (March-April 1980), pp. 10-14; Richard S. Van Wagoner and Steven C. Walker in "Joseph Smith: The Gift of Seeing," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 15:2 (Summer 1982), pp. 48-68; Blake T. Ostler, "The Book of Mormon as a Modern Expansion of an Ancient Source," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 20:1 (Spring 1987), pp. 66-123; Stephen D. Ricks, "The Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon," Foundation for Ancient Research & Mormon Studies, official F.A.R.M.S. transcript of video lecture, 1994, 16 pages;

You can't, which is why you should not expect us to do it. However, unless you want to start worshipping the IPU now--and btw, you're way behind in your tithing--you probably want to shift your burden of proof to the people asserting the positive. That would be you.

 

[DeepShadow]

Sure seems wierd to me! I much prefer the translation process that is actually cited by people who were there...

This one?
the testimony of those who were eyewitnesses to Joseph Smith dictating the Book of Mormon. These witnesses include all three of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon (the same individuals whose testimony appears in the front of every copy of the Book of Mormon), as well as Joseph Smith’s wife, Emma Hale Smith.

None of these people were present at the translation. There was a screen in place. Hence my point.

Edit: To be more specific, all of these people got their version of the story from Martin Harris...who was telling this story long before he was anywhere near involved. Martin was a man high on enthusiasm and low on discretion in this regard, and this is one of many stories that he probably garbled.

 

[DeepShadow]

I wonder how Joseph Smith managed to get ahold of the Works of Ixtlilxochitl, an Aztec prince who recounts the following chronology of his ancestors:

--Three groups of migrants from across the water (consistent with the Book of Mormon account of Jaredites, Nephites, and Mulekites).
--The first group were called Ancient Ones, or Giants, or First Toltecs ("giants" is consistent with Book of Mormon accounts of Jaredites being extremely large).
--The second group, called the Toltecs, split into two groups who had wars between them, with dates that correspond to the accounts in the Book of Mormon.
--The third group, called the Olmecs, slew the last survivors of the Giants, and afterwards joined with the Toltecs, who became the dominant culture. Compare with the Book of Mormon, where the third group (the Mulekites) took in the last survivor of the Jaredites (Coriantumr) who died a few months later. Later the Mulekites united with the Nephites, who became the dominant culture.
(Source: Archaeology and the Book of Mormon Vol. 1, by Milton R. Hunter, p. 43)

 

[Autodidact]

Context, please. There were several other letters brought to the church at that time. How do we know this refers to the Salamander Letter? According to the book, Salamander, no one in the Twelve or First Presidency were interested in that letter.

That's not how I remember the book, which I enjoyed greatly.

28 April 1985

The Church News published the full text of the Salamander Letter. The First Presidency included a statement, quoting President Hinckley:
No one, of course, can be certain that Martin Harris wrote the document. However, at this point we accept the judgment of the examiner that there is no indication that it is a forgery. This does not preclude the possibility that it may have been forged at a time when the Church had many enemies. It is, however, an interesting document of the times.

from FAIR

Soon after the contract was signed, G. Homer Durham, the general authority who had replaced Leonard Arrington as Church Historian, inquired about the letter. On January 9, Christensen responded, describing his purchase and plans. "I'm sure you agree that it needs some commentary," Christensen wrote wryly, adding that the letter seemed to be the only extant sample of Martin Harris's handwriting. Some day, he added, he would donate the letter to the church. He closed respectfully, "I hope this meets with your approval."
On January 13 Christensen received Durham's reply. "We appreciate you buying the letter," Durham wrote, adding that he was also pleased Christensen intended to donate the letter.


from Salamander (sorry, don't have p. #)

 

[Autodidact]

Replace "doesn't mean" with "may or may not mean" and you've got it.

So basically you have a book in which any word may or may not mean anything, so it's meaningless gibberish. Chariots earlier didn't even necessarily have wheels, they could have been hot air balloons! By the time you get to where you don't know what the words of the text mean...you don't know what the words of the text mean. At that point you have no clue what the text means, and it is of no value.

 

[DeepShadow]

So basically you have a book in which any word may or may not mean anything, so it's meaningless gibberish. Chariots earlier didn't even necessarily have wheels, they could have been hot air balloons! By the time you get to where you don't know what the words of the text mean...you don't know what the words of the text mean. At that point you have no clue what the text means, and it is of no value.

The sky is falling, the sky is falling! A dozen words which have nothing to do with doctrine may or may not mean what they say! The ENTIRE BOOK is now worthless.

THE ENTIRE BOOK?!

 

[Autodidact]

You said the BoM describes things. I said it doesn't. It says the people had "fine twined linen" but doesn't say what color, what cut, what style. Any of these things could be matched to a specific culture, but all we really know is that they had "nice clothes."

Apparently we don't even know whether they had linen. Heck possibly they had late model cars, which the BoM called "fine-twined linen." Cuz, y'know, those transposed idioms. If it was me, I'd just call them word-substitutions, but then I don't have to dress up my weak arguments in pseudo-intellectual big words to make them sound academic.

 

[Autodidact]

Ah, there's the problem: you conflate "seer-stone" with "peep-stone." Two different things. As I said, there is little evidence that Joseph used a peep-stone after the loss of the 116 pages.

I know to you, there's precious little difference, but they really are two different things.

Yeah, because when doing my French translation, I would find it odd to use a "peep-stone" but quite usual to use a "seer-stone." All the non-crazy professional translators use "seer-stones." They're very popular around the U.N.

 

[DeepShadow]

Apparently we don't even know whether they had linen. Heck possibly they had late model cars, which the BoM called "fine-twined linen." Cuz, y'know, those transposed idioms. If it was me, I'd just call them word-substitutions, but then I don't have to dress up my weak arguments in pseudo-intellectual big words to make them sound academic.

Apparently you've run out of data now, as you are just making fun of me as the messenger.

I'm sorry you are bothered by my dressy words. I'm a science teacher, I try to be specific. In actual linguistics, they are called "transposed ideographs."

 

[DeepShadow]

Soon after the contract was signed, G. Homer Durham, the general authority who had replaced Leonard Arrington as Church Historian, inquired about the letter. On January 9, Christensen responded, describing his purchase and plans. "I'm sure you agree that it needs some commentary," Christensen wrote wryly, adding that the letter seemed to be the only extant sample of Martin Harris's handwriting. Some day, he added, he would donate the letter to the church. He closed respectfully, "I hope this meets with your approval."
On January 13 Christensen received Durham's reply. "We appreciate you buying the letter," Durham wrote, adding that he was also pleased Christensen intended to donate the letter.


from Salamander (sorry, don't have p. #)

Thanks, that confirms that Gordon B. Hinckley didn't buy the Salamander letter.

 

[Autodidact]

I wonder how Joseph Smith managed to get ahold of the Works of Ixtlilxochitl, an Aztec prince who recounts the following chronology of his ancestors:

--Three groups of migrants from across the water (consistent with the Book of Mormon account of Jaredites, Nephites, and Mulekites).
--The first group were called Ancient Ones, or Giants, or First Toltecs ("giants" is consistent with Book of Mormon accounts of Jaredites being extremely large).
--The second group, called the Toltecs, split into two groups who had wars between them, with dates that correspond to the accounts in the Book of Mormon.
--The third group, called the Olmecs, slew the last survivors of the Giants, and afterwards joined with the Toltecs, who became the dominant culture. Compare with the Book of Mormon, where the third group (the Mulekites) took in the last survivor of the Jaredites (Coriantumr) who died a few months later. Later the Mulekites united with the Nephites, who became the dominant culture.
(Source: Archaeology and the Book of Mormon Vol. 1, by Milton R. Hunter, p. 43)

Are you saying that the Aztecs are the descendants of the people described in the BoM?

 

[DeepShadow]

Yes, but not present. They were jaguars and pumas. Unlike the imaginary Nephites, whom, had they existed, would have been here for over 1000 years, the Spaniards had no words for these creatures, so called them lions and tigers.

You're dodging the question: what translator would be justified in putting "jaguars" and "pumas" in for these creatures?

I believe you're mistaken; Columbus brought pigs to America, which eventually became wild boars, or rather, their descendants did.

And yet Columbus says he saw wild boars. Go figure, I guess his account is a forgery.

Remember, the pigs in BoM are domesticated, not wild.

Because if so you've got a bigger problem: a much smaller area in which absolutely no trace of them has been found.

City of the Sacred Well records all kinds of traces. It even talks about a prior culture that ruled in the area, which was divided into light and dark skinned people, and the rulers all had beards.

But there's nooooo evidence.

Since he was a divine prophet, and was assisted by God's magic, it's a tragedy that he and God together couldn't figure out some way for him to do so accurately. As I say, they could have been talking about Genghis Kahn, for all you know.

Some records don't provide good matching data for archaeologists. I used the word "intracultural" last time, what would your term be for that? I mean, if we had to use Egyptian documents to study Egypt, we'd have about a tenth of the information we have right now.

Did you notice how you switched from the poor Nephites without a word for tapir despite supposedly living next to them for 1000 years, to Joseph Smith whose vocabulary was so deficient that we really can't rely on a word of his purported translation.

Did you notice that both of these are actual phenomenon in linguistics, and you haven't refuted either one of them?

btw, for a language, do you have any idea how old 1000 years is? Like, you would find it very difficult to understand English of 1000 years ago. In 1000 years, they couldn't invent or borrow a word for something?

I think they did. Just like we borrowed a word for bison from the old world, and a word for maize from the old world. Those words are "buffalo" and "corn."

Remember, there is no trace of any wheel or any animal used to pull a wheeled vehicle anywhere in America.

Von Hagen mentions this, how with the roads having disintigrated, they could have had wheeled carts, and we'd never know it.

Right. They didn't need to describe them, because chariots have wheels. Just like they (aka Smith) don't need to say "strong, 4 legged animals with long tails of hair" when referring to horses, because we know what horses are.

Then why would he describe them as something other than horses to his family?

Are you now trying to say that there was metallurgy in America involving silver, gold, steel, iron, bronze, etc. in America before the Europeans got here? Because the archeologists disagree with you.

Actually, your own sources say that there was metallurgy before the Europeans got here...but I suppose that wasn't the question...

Pre-Columbian metallurgy has been given a boost lately by scholars who discovered it was based upon different principles than European metallurgy. Read 1491 to hear about how we now believe they had metallurgy far earlier than before. (Data to follow)

 

[DeepShadow]

Are you saying that the Aztecs are the descendants of the people described in the BoM?

Are you saying this is a coincidence?

That's a pretty huge coincidence, you know. What are the chances of pulling all of these out of thin air? Take the Kurtz data. Even assuming that all 20 exist in every farewell--which they don't, but I'm being generous--the chances of getting them in order is 20*19*18*17*16*15*14*13*12*11*10*9*8*7*6*5*4*3*2*1.

Wow, he must have had some luck.