Joseph Smith - Prophet of God

[DeepShadow]

What is a transposed ideograph? How does it save the BoM?

Okay, let's start at the top: an ideograph is a word or character that is used to stand for a something--a name. In speech, ideographs get transposed all the time. For example, the word "corn" originally meant any kind of grain. When early American colonists found this new plant--maize--they started calling it "Indian corn," which eventually was shortened to "corn." Corn was the new name for maize, and it ceased to be a general term for grain.

Another example: We sing, "Give me a home where the buffalo roam" in a land with no buffalo, only bison. Early Americans saw an animal that resembled the Old World buffalo and called it "American Buffalo" and finally just buffalo.

As I said earlier, the whole thing can be one big transposed ideograph, whatever that may be, and the BoM may actually be the chronicle of 39 Lithuanians who washed up on the coast of Easter Island, where they played badminton against an earlier group of Croations and defeated them. After all--how would you know which ideographs he transposed, and which he didnt?

The Nephites are the ones transposing ideographs, so they would only be doing so with concepts that they were unfamiliar with. Moreover, they would tend to do this more with things that approximated otherwise empty roles from the old life. Thus, there are no horses, but the look at a llama (or whatever) and call it a "Zarahemla horse."

Many earlylanguages are extremely adaptable to ideographic exchanges like this. The old "horse" ideographic character may have been far easier for Nephites to substitute in place for another animal, especially when it's not being used for anything otherwise.

 

[DeepShadow]

Getting back to the beginning or end of the Book of Mormon and which is easier to match to Albright's four criteria, the beginning is far easier, because there is not need for ideographic changes before the leave home. On top of the greater detail afforded by an eyewitness within a small group, there are infinitely more data than the arms-length narrator at the end describing a sweeping story using an unknown number of ideographic exchanges.

 

[Melissa G]

Getting back to the beginning or end of the Book of Mormon and which is easier to match to Albright's four criteria, the beginning is far easier, because there is not need for ideographic changes before the leave home. On top of the greater detail afforded by an eyewitness within a small group, there are infinitely more data than the arms-length narrator at the end describing a sweeping story using an unknown number of ideographic exchanges.

A wonderful example creative flim-flam, care to explain your explanation. Looks like obsfucation to me...

melissa g

 

[Autodidact]

Okay, let's start at the top: an ideograph is a word or character that is used to stand for a something--a name. In speech, ideographs get transposed all the time. For example, the word "corn" originally meant any kind of grain. When early American colonists found this new plant--maize--they started calling it "Indian corn," which eventually was shortened to "corn." Corn was the new name for maize, and it ceased to be a general term for grain.

Another example: We sing, "Give me a home where the buffalo roam" in a land with no buffalo, only bison. Early Americans saw an animal that resembled the Old World buffalo and called it "American Buffalo" and finally just buffalo.



The Nephites are the ones transposing ideographs, so they would only be doing so with concepts that they were unfamiliar with. Moreover, they would tend to do this more with things that approximated otherwise empty roles from the old life. Thus, there are no horses, but the look at a llama (or whatever) and call it a "Zarahemla horse."

Many earlylanguages are extremely adaptable to ideographic exchanges like this. The old "horse" ideographic character may have been far easier for Nephites to substitute in place for another animal, especially when it's not being used for anything otherwise.

O.K., so if I understand what you're saying, these people immigrate to the Americas in 600 B.C.E. right? That is 2600 years ago. And then some more in 600 C.E. But they never figure out what the heck to call all the animals and plants here, they just use the old "Egyptian" (a non-existent form of a mythical language) words to describe them. Then when this guy "translated" some non-existent golden plates using magic, instead of using the modern English terms for what they actually were, such as llama, tapir or elk, used the translation of the old Egyptian references. What I'm saying is, if someone is reading a modern american document and translating it into Russian, and they find the word "corn," they don't translate it as wheat, they translate it with the Russian word for that stuff that grows on ears. For the word, "buffalo" they don't use the word for water buffalo, but the Russian word, if any, for bison. The word "buffalo" in American English now means those things that roam, and any competent translator would know that.

Further, what on earth did they use the word "elephant" or "horse" to refer to. The horses in the Book of Mormon pull chariots! There were no chariots, and no draft animals used to pull vehicles, anywhere in the Americas prior to European settlement. So what on earth were those Nephites looking at that reminded them so much of a horse, and that was used to pull a chariot? My favorite hypothesis is definitely the tapir. Has anyone, ever, ridden a chariot pulled by a team of tapirs? :biglaugh:Admit that's funny.

I mean, if you couldn't be bothered to ask the Mayans next door what that was, wouldn't you call it a pig, not a horse?

Anyway, what you get back to basically is not being able to rely on the document that you have, the BoM, which was written in English, for anything. Maybe they just transposed that idiom for "Jesus" when they were actually talking about Reverence Sung Yun Moon, they just didn't have a word for him, so used the word "Jesus." Either way, it results in a useless, inaccurate book. So I don't think that's a good approach to take your apologetics.

Although I admit Mormon apologetics is a tough row to hoe, so I understand why you might be desperate.

Because it's not just one word, it's every single plant and animals in the book. He manages to get none of them right. No American animals are mentioned, including even deer, even though deer are known in the old world. And lots of animals are mentioned, none of whom live here.
Same with plants. It's as if the book were written by someone who had never seen the Americas.

Because you're not talking about recent immigrants here. You're talking about people who are supposed to have lived here since Biblical times. But somehow they never noticed what was actually going on here, in terms of flora, fauna, human activity, nothing. It's almost as if it were a made-up story about a mythical country, not an actual place.

 

[Autodidact]

Getting back to the beginning or end of the Book of Mormon and which is easier to match to Albright's four criteria, the beginning is far easier, because there is not need for ideographic changes before the leave home. On top of the greater detail afforded by an eyewitness within a small group, there are infinitely more data than the arms-length narrator at the end describing a sweeping story using an unknown number of ideographic exchanges.

Sorry, this is gibberish. Are you trying to say that nothing in the BoM meets any of Albright's 4 criteria wrt the New World in any way? Because I think that's an accurate summary of the situation.

btw, why are you so enamored of this single dead archeologist? Some reason why you don't just accept the consensus of archeological knowledge on the subject? My understanding is that

there is not one professionally trained archaeologist, who is not a Mormon, who sees any scientific justification for believing the foregoing [that Hebrew immigrants build a civilization in ancient America as described in the Book of Mormon] to be true, and I would like to state that there are quite a few Mormon archaeologists who join this group.

from Michael Coe, ''Mormons and Archaeology: An Outside View,'' in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol 8, No. 2 (Summer 1973), p. 42. Do you disagree with this?

 

[SoyLeche]

Funny, did you notice how you're doing the same thing, in reverse?

Proving the negative--that there is no such language--is impossible. That's why Albright tells us that when it comes to verifying the truthfulness of a document, we must begin by assuming it is genuine. In essence, the "fraud" standpoint is the positive statement, and we're trying to fail to prove the negative in order to take the positive position. (Wm F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel)

Just for fun, I'm going to translate this into the language of statistics.

The Null Hypothesis is that it is genuine. The alternative hypothesis is that it is a fraud.

In order to perform the test you assume that the null hypothesis is true. You look at the data under this assumption and make a judgement on the probability of getting a result at least as extreme as the one you have given that the null hypothesis is true. If this probability is sufficiently small (the level is dependant on the researcher), then you are able to reject the null hypothesis in favor of the alternative.

If the probabiliyt isn't sufficiently small, you don't "accept" the null, you merely fail to reject it.

 

[Autodidact]

Yeah, my King Benjamin evidence was recent, from a non-Mormon source, but people insist on ignoring it from the start. Why is it that in any other debate, people attack the strongest point, but on this issue it's acceptable to attack a handful of weak points, ignore the strongest, and declare the issue done?

What are the chances of getting all twenty points of a proper Hebrew farewell address in the proper order? Let's crunch some numbers: if we assume that all twenty points are present in any speech (a huge assumption, but we gotta start somewhere) then the chance of getting it is one in 2.43*10^18. Adding a zero position to allow for one missing element makes it even harder to get randomly: 5.11*10^19. So how did this 19th Century Farm Boy write a speech that is more indicative of Hebrew farewells than any ancient Hebrew writer known?

I guess million-to-one chances can happen nine times out of ten, as long as there's no archeological evidence to back it up.

I'm reminded of one of the great anthropologists of the 19th century, who refused to believe the Clovis hypothesis because all they had were spearpoints, but no bones.

I can't agree that literary criticism is strong evidence. I like something a little more concrete, less subjective, you know. Anyway, do you have a shred of evidence that purports to support the BoM history of the Nephite and Lamanite etc. people in the Americas, which is basically what the whole book is about? I mean, anyone can plagiarize literature from people that really existed and we know about--it's those made up people that are your weakest argument. Got anything on them?

 

[Autodidact]

Only if you insist on saying that the chariots and horses and barley etc. were not transposed ideographs. Strangely, linguists can cite transposed ideographs for all kinds of languages--corn vs. maize, buffalo vs. bison, Indians vs. Native Americans--but people refuse to allow this for a language that was actually ideographic in nature!

Once you allow transposition of ideographs, the BoM scenarios can be found all over North and South America. The obvious errors disappear, and we find ourselves begging the original question...again.

Please let me know when I have answered your question sufficiently to take the Kurtz data seriously.

Excuse my laziness. What was that Kurtz data again?

 

[Autodidact]

Only if you insist on saying that the chariots and horses and barley etc. were not transposed ideographs. Strangely, linguists can cite transposed ideographs for all kinds of languages--corn vs. maize, buffalo vs. bison, Indians vs. Native Americans--but people refuse to allow this for a language that was actually ideographic in nature!

Once you allow transposition of ideographs, the BoM scenarios can be found all over North and South America. The obvious errors disappear, and we find ourselves begging the original question...again.

Please let me know when I have answered your question sufficiently to take the Kurtz data seriously.

Well if you have that darned many "transposed ideographs" you've got bigger problems, like a book that doesn't mean what it says, so I think you're better off assuming that it means what it says, and dealing with the resulting problems.

 

[Autodidact]

AD, I'm suprised at you. Up until now, you've been quite fair IMHO. Suddenly you start getting not only sloppy, but perhaps even disingenuous. What started out as a great general appeal to be understood suddenly becomes an umbrella for a half-dozen weak arguments that can't stand up on their own.

Well I'm not the least bit surprised that your version of being fair consists in skipping lightly over the first seven issues that I mentioned and going to the first that you thought you could say something about, however terse and unclear. Mind you, this was not after extensive research, and you've probably figured out by now how little I know about LDS, this was just off the top of my head collecting what's rattling around in my brain from background reading, and you couldn't dispute any of them? No wonder all the gentiles think your religion is...hmm, what would be a kind way to say this...creative?

Bait and switch.

Not sure what you mean by this brief response. My understanding of what happened is that Joseph Smith bought the Papyrii and some mummies, and translated them. Those translations form part of current Mormon scripture. Then a bunch of other things happened, so that they were lost, and only recovered in the late 20th century. On proper translation by Egyptologists, they were found to be common Egyptian funeral papyrii, having nothing to do with Abraham, and bearing no resemblance to the Smith translation. That is, Smith's fraud was exposed decades after it was perpetrated, and long after the church he had founded had grown to one of the largest in the world, based in part of this fraud.

This is just one tiny piece of how we know that Smith was not a divine revelator of anything: he's wrong over and over. Every time anything he said can be verified by any outside source, he's shown to be wrong. No Nephites. No Lamanites. No Hebrews in North America, likewise no elephants. And as far as his translation skills, it's obvious he doesn't have any. He didn't know Egyptian from Tibetan, as was obvious once someone who does know actual Egyptian got their hands on something he purported to "translate."

Further, this explodes any apologetics about what "Reformed Egyptian" was supposed to be, as clearly Smith thought it was actual Egyptian. But again, not knowing anything about Egyptian, and only needing to deceive a few uneducated farm people, all he had to do was produce something Egytpiany looking. On closer examination by actual scholars of actual Egyptian, it proved to be nothing but gibberish.

As I said, it's not one thing, it's the cumulative weight of everything. But with faith, anything is possible, even believing that Joseph Smith had a clue about Egyptian, the settlement of the Americas, or anything else but fooling people.

 

[Autodidact]

Only according to Kinderhook. Suddenly you're allowed to use secret witnesses, when we can't?

Again, my brief understanding of the story, aided by Google, is that some farmers thought it would be hilarious to trick the Mormons, so they made some bogus "plates" and inscribed gibberish on them. Smith at least began to (pretend to) translate them, stating that they were the story of a descendant of Ham. Recently they were exposed as being fraudulent.

I don't even know what you mean by "secret witnesses," let alone recall instituting any rule against them. Use the best evidence you have, whatever that may be. Are you trying to say that the plates are authentic? Because the LDS church acknowledges that they are a fraud. Are you trying to say that the church did not at one time believe them to be authentic, based on Smith's endorsement? Because the Church published facsimiles of them in its History of the Church, to show that ancient Americans wrote on metal plates. Which of course they never did.

Anyway, Smith's repeated attempt to bamboozle the general public was again successful during his lifetime, and was not exposed for decades afterward. Nevertheless his adherents cling to the original bogus mythology.

As I say, it's not just Kinderhook, just The Book of Abraham, etc. etc. It's the accumulated evidence of all of it that points in only one directions: Smith was either crazy, a con artist, or both.

Wouldn't it be great for you if just one thing were authenticated? If something were discovered with "Reformed Egyptian" Heiroglyphics on it? If Smith had ever translated anything correctly? If anything that he said about the New World had turned out to be correct? Just one little thing? Wouldn't that be enormously helpful to you? Can you think of a single instance of the evidence actually confirming what the BoM says about the history of the Americas? Or Smith being a successful translator? Or Reformed Egyptian actually existing? I can't, but, as I say, I'm not very knowledgeable on the subject.

 

[Melissa G]

Reformed Egyptian is a joke, it doesn't exist, never did, never could. There are no examples any where other than the fascimlie of a portion of the non-existent plates. The text is nonsense, a mixture of latin, shorthand, and creative strokes. There is no rhythm, and it appears to be what it is, a random collection, a mish mash of signs which are no way related to either of the three egyptian scripts, of which demotic, wasn't even around in 600bce.

Melissa G

 

[Autodidact]

Yes it seems like you have two choices. At best you have nothing. The plates were conveniently returned to the angel, and you have to accept Smith's testimony that he saw them and later "translated" them by putting a rock into his hat and looking into it. (?!?! Does this seem weird as heck to anyone but me???!) Or, even worse, the "Anton transcript" which modern scholars can tell is just gibberish. It does not represent any actual language from any known country, whther Near Eastern or American.

Those are your two options about reformed Egyptian, as far as I can see. So it's a language without a shred of evidence of ever having existed, other than the bizarre word of a single person without a great track record of credibility.

And yet you have people in this very thread hypothesizing about transposed idioms and paleo-linguistics of an imaginary language! I mean, I know exactly as much about Reformed Egyptian as they do, or as anyone else does, so I can make up all kind of speculation about it too. In fact, I say that the word "elephant" in reformed Egyptian actually means "surf board." Who can say me wrong?

 

[cardero]

Yes it seems like you have two choices. At best you have nothing. The plates were conveniently returned to the angel, and you have to accept Smith's testimony that he saw them and later "translated" them by putting a rock into his hat and looking into it. (?!?! Does this seem weird as heck to anyone but me???!)

Some would consider this to be unorthodox.

 

[Autodidact]

Neither Kimball nor any Apostles were involved in that transaction. Cite evidence to the contrary, please.

Well, Gordon Hinckley certainly was, as he said in a Young Adult Fireside Broadcast on June 23, 1985:
"I acquired for the Church both of these letters, the first by purchase. The second was given to the Church by its generous owner. I am, of course, familiar with both letters, having held them in my hands and having read them in their original form." (emphasis added)

 

[Bathsheba]

The plates were conveniently returned to the angel, and you have to accept Smith's testimony that he saw them and later "translated" them by putting a rock into his hat and looking into it. (?!?! Does this seem weird as heck to anyone but me???!)

Yup, it does seem weird.

Smith claims he used the Urim and Thummim (What were the Urim and Thummim?) to translate the plates. After supposedly translating 116 pages he lost them. Smith said God was upset with him for losing the 116 pages and therefore took away the Urim and Thummin and told Smith he wasn’t allowed to translate anymore. When God lifted the ban on the translation Smith resumed activities. This time he used the peepstone. Smith didn’t get the peepstone from an angel (the way he claimed to get the plates and Urim and Thummim from an angel); he found the peepstone while digging a well for Josiah Stowell. He believed the stone was special and could enable him to find buried treasure. He didn’t find any hidden treasure with the stone but his efforts to find the buried riches took him to court where he was charged with the occult practice called glass looking in 1826 (Joseph Smith and money-digging - MormonWiki.org). The peepstone that he used to try and find hidden treasure was used to ‘translate’ the plates. Joseph Smith's Translation of the Book of Mormon - Maxwell Institute Papers

These details are never explained to people investigating the church which is highly suspicious in my opinion. This stuff isn't considered 'sacred' and it isn't considered 'secret', it just isn't considered 'useful' ("Not everything that is true is useful" Packer). Boyd K. Packer, Controversial Mormon Apostle - Associated Content I wonder how many people would considered reading the bom if they heard the this non-useful truth about the origins of the bom.

 

[Melissa G]

Urim and Thurim, small objects belonging to the ephod of the high priest (Temple Of Jerusalem) which were placed next to his breastplate. They were next to his heart when he went' in before the Lord', in the inner sanctuary. It is thought that on his exit, they were probably thrown like dice, and their fall supposedly revealed the divine will for the nation.
Ex28:30, Lev 8:8, Nu 27:21, Dt 33:8, Sa26:6, Ezr 2:63, Ne 7:65.


It seems ludicrous for Smith to claim he had the assistance of the High Priests Obects for translations, but taken as a whole, it's no more ludricrous than the whole Smith Fairy Story.
Melissa G

 

[Autodidact]

Where is a descriptions of the plants and animals in the Book of Mormon? Hint: there aren't any! They are named, not described. Further evidence that they merely transposed old ideographs onto the new species.

Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, ye must watch and pray always lest ye enter into temptation; for aSatan desireth to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.

Sounds like something that's sifted--like wheat.

Ye shall know them by their afruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

Almost a verbatim quote of Mathew 7, where the passage reads:
7:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

So if I understand your argument, it's that Smith quotes a direct Bible passage, using the same words, but with an entirely different meaning? That Smith (or the Nephites or whomever) didn't mean "grapes" when they used the word "grapes" in the exact same passage as the Bible uses the word "grapes?" Same for figs? Huuuge stretch.

18:9 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.

So what were these American animals that they called horses, and that pulled chariots? Which, by, the way, were also unknown in the Americas, along with any wheeled vehicles.

Having all manner of fruit, and of grain, and of silks, and of fine linen, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious things; 18 And also all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of man.

So if I understand you correctly, what you're saying is that in this passage, silk doesn't mean silk, linen doesn't mean linen, gold doesn't mean gold, silver doesn't mean silver, cattle doesn't mean cattle, oxen doesn't mean oxen, cows doesn't mean cows, sheep doesn't mean sheep, swine doesn't mean swine and goats doesn't mean goats? Is that your position? Just trying to clarify.

 

[Autodidact]

Again, where is the metallurgy described? You seem to have a lot clearer vision of what BoM peoples were like than what the Book provides. They mention head-plates and breast-plates, but it never says they were made of metal. Nice straw man.

Moved those goalposts a bit, didn't you? Now it doesn't count unless it's described? So if the NT only refers to Jesus, and doesn't describe him, we don't figure it's talking about Jesus?

Sometimes I suspect my LDS friends of assuming a poor gentile won't brave the dreaded Book of Mormon to see what's actually in there, like this:

2Nephi 5I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance.

Pretty clearly says they worked in various metals. That's what I'd call metallurgy. Now are you trying to say they were actually woodworking, and just calling it metal-working?

And they did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals; and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore, they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine work.

Sounds pretty descriptive to me. It states that they dug the ore out of the ground and did all manner of fine work on them.

Y'know, Deep Shadow, I assume you HAVE read the Book of Mormon, unlike me, so did you not know this was in there, or are you not being quite honest with me?[/quote]

 

[Popeyesays]

The Vikings reported grapes in North America. I you might recall they named the continent Vinland.

At the same time the climate for grapes was very good in England of all places, which was renowned for the quality of its wines.

Regards,

Scott