The Book of Mormon

[DeepShadow]

Okay, but why couldn't the BoM version have similar insert words, only not in italics?

 

[mormonman]

Read in context.

If you don`t know what my one single assertion is in this entire thread so far then I cannot help you.

It is spelled out through the entire thread.

Can you please answer my questions. It's kind of obvious that you don't believe in the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith.

 

[mormonman]

This article is awsome. It explains a lot of things mentioned in this thread. I know it's a little long, but make sure you read all of it. So here's the link: http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=transcripts&id=2

 

[Ulver]

This sort of off subject but not really. Today I was on the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies website and I read something pretty interesting:
"Evidence and scholarly analysis strongly suggests that the entire book of 1 Nephi was dictated within the space of a mere week. This implies that 1 Nephi 1-7 was produced in little more than two days. It is highly unlikely that so rich a text, so full of authentically ancient Near Eastern detail - and we've only scratched the surface here - could have been written in so short a time by a semi-literate New York farm boy. Joseph Smith's own explanation of the origins of the Book of Mormon rings far truer. On any account, the Book of Mormon is a miracle."
This means that Joseph Smith had to "make up" the Book of Nephi in 1 week. I don't think so. I don't think anyone could work on this all of their life, and write a book like the Book of Mormon. :clap

Muslims claim that Muhammad recieved the word of God from the Angel Gabriel and Muhammad was supposedly an illiterate man. Also, The Qur'an (Islamic word of God) is in verse form. It's a complicated poem. Not something easy to just make up (at least entirely).

 

[Fade]

"Evidence and scholarly analysis strongly suggests that the entire book of 1 Nephi was dictated within the space of a mere week. This implies that 1 Nephi 1-7 was produced in little more than two days. It is highly unlikely that so rich a text, so full of authentically ancient Near Eastern detail - and we've only scratched the surface here - could have been written in so short a time by a semi-literate New York farm boy. Joseph Smith's own explanation of the origins of the Book of Mormon rings far truer. On any account, the Book of Mormon is a miracle."
This means that Joseph Smith had to "make up" the Book of Nephi in 1 week. I don't think so. I don't think anyone could work on this all of their life, and write a book like the Book of Mormon. :clap

Or he just copied it from a number of sources and made up the rest. That hardly speaks to its authenticity.

 

[mormonman]

Or he just copied it from a number of sources and made up the rest. That hardly speaks to its authenticity.

What sources? Oh...I know one!!! Some golden plates.

 

[Fade]

What sources? Oh...I know one!!! Some golden plates.

LOL I have some golden plates that an angel gave me that says that the golden plates Smith used were written by the devil. Unfortunately for you he said I can't show them to anyone.

 

[Apex]

LOL I have some golden plates that an angel gave me that says that the golden plates Smith used were written by the devil. Unfortunately for you he said I can't show them to anyone.

DANG! I was hopping to see them.

 

[Fade]

DANG! I was hopping to see them.

It's okay, once I finish translating it with my friend who is good with MSWord I'll post it here for you to read.

 

[DeepShadow]

Or he just copied it from a number of sources and made up the rest. That hardly speaks to its authenticity.

What other sources could have told him the exact oath a Bedoin would use to pacify a fearful stranger? The proper way for a desert-dweller to assert authority, avoid bandits, plead for his life, and so on? What sources could he have drawn on to know that archaeologists would, someday, discover metal plates in stone boxes? What about cement roads, cities surrounded by wooden pickets, and other facets of mesoamerican archaeology that would only be discovered after he translated the plates? Where did he get all the Egyptian proper names, most of which have only been discovered in Amarna and Elephantine, long after the Book of Mormon was published?

I'm reviewing anthropological and other scientific data on the "Faking History" thread, if you'd like to join.

 

[SoyLeche]

Okay, but why couldn't the BoM version have similar insert words, only not in italics?

Especially since the purpose of the italicized words is to make the text readable in English. Try reading it without those words sometime, and then you may understand why the Book of Mormon uses them.

 

[DeepShadow]

DS, you`re pointing at the forest in order to draw attention from the individual trees.

I'm supplying data. The only conclusion I drew from that data is that it's safe to say he didn't copy the Isaiah chapters word for word. This alone does not refute the possibility that he changed them around while copying.

The wording, style, language, context, nor verse construction can be written as it is in the BoM without some of the verse being taken one from the other.

Okay...but if using the same words is evidence for forgery, this then begs the question: what would an appropriate translation (without KJV) influences look like? Some were found at Qumran, I believe; anyone ever made a comparison to those?

I have a hard time believing that a translation that appeared totally different could be taken as evidence against a forgery. I doubt that's what you're saying, Linwood, so could you please give us an example of what the translation ought to look like, for Jospeh to not be a fraud?

 

[Fade]

What other sources could have told him the exact oath a Bedoin would use to pacify a fearful stranger? The proper way for a desert-dweller to assert authority, avoid bandits, plead for his life, and so on? What sources could he have drawn on to know that archaeologists would, someday, discover metal plates in stone boxes? What about cement roads, cities surrounded by wooden pickets, and other facets of mesoamerican archaeology that would only be discovered after he translated the plates? Where did he get all the Egyptian proper names, most of which have only been discovered in Amarna and Elephantine, long after the Book of Mormon was published?

If you would like a small refresher course on the sheer quantity of plagerism in the BOM please spend some time perusing the following site

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/BOM/plag.html

As far as I'm concerned this is more than enough evidence to make the assumption that the rest is plagerised a valid one.

 

[DeepShadow]

Amazing fraud, to plaigerize names from Amarna and Elephantine before they were discovered! How do you think he pulled it off? Seriously?

 

[Fade]

Amazing fraud, to plaigerize names from Amarna and Elephantine before they were discovered! How do you think he pulled it off? Seriously?

When were they discovered?

 

[mormonman]

If you would like a small refresher course on the sheer quantity of plagerism in the BOM please spend some time perusing the following site

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/BOM/plag.html

As far as I'm concerned this is more than enough evidence to make the assumption that the rest is plagerised a valid one.

So you would be more saticfied if the Book of Mormon used no Biblical quotes at all? You know, your plagerism website, to me, is just reenforcing my belief in the divinity of the BoM. Why would the prophets of God, in the BoM, use language contrary to the language used in the Bible? That wouldn't make sense. I'm sure that if the BoM used no Biblical references at all you guys would have a fit about that too. God's message is the same to all people, why would He have to word it differently to please you guys. The subtitle of the BoM is Another Testament of Jesus Christ. That means it's a complement to the Bible, and it testifies of the validity and divinity of the Bible and Jesus Chirst. In the Bible God always says that He'll establish his word by two or three witnesses. Why would it be different w/ the Bible. The Bible is one witness, and the Book of Mormon is a second witness. To me people should be overjoyed that God has given us a chance to learn more about Him, because I know I am. :jiggy:

 

[mormonman]

well???

 

[jonny]

When were they discovered?

I don't know what this has to do with anything, but Wikipedia says Amarna was discovered in 1887.

 

[jonny]

Or he just copied it from a number of sources and made up the rest. That hardly speaks to its authenticity.

This article that Katzpur posted a while back is pretty funny:
http://www.jefflindsay.com/oneday.shtml

 

[DeepShadow]

From Nibley's Lehi in the Desert, found online at http://www.boap.org/MISC.html:

In an article in The Improvement Era for April 1948, the author drew attention to the peculiar tendency of Book of Mormon names to concentrate in Upper Egypt, in and south of Thebes. At the time he was at a loss to explain such a strange phenomenon, but the answer is now clear. (Alan H. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar (London: Oxford University Press, 1950), 437.) When Jerusalem fell, most of Lehi's contemporaries who escaped went to Egypt, where their principal settlement seems to have been at Elephantine or Yeb, south of Thebes. It would seem, in fact, that the main colonization of Elephantine was at that time, and from Jerusalem. (William F. Albright, "A Brief History of Judah from the Days of Josiah to Alexander the Great,'' BA 9 (February 1946): 4-5.) What then could be more natural than that the refugees who fled to Egypt from Lehi's Jerusalem should have Book of Mormon names, since Lehi's people took their names from the same source?

In the interests of full disclosure, Hugh Nibley was a faithful LDS scholar, but he cites his sources, all of which are non-LDS, and so far as I've been able to check up on them, they are all authoritative scholars and/or peer-reviewed journals. Further:

It happens that for some reason or other the Jews at the beginning of the sixth century B.C. would have nothing to do with Baal names. An examination of Elephantine name lists shows that "the change of Baal names, by substitution, is in agreement with Hosea's foretelling that they should be no more used by the Israelites, and consequently it is most interesting to find how the latest archaeological discoveries confirm the Prophet, for out of some four hundred personal names among the Elephantine papyri not one is compounded of Baal." (Joseph Offord, "Further Illustrations of the Elephantine Aramaic Jewish Papyri,'' PEFQ (1917), 127.)

Since Elephantine was settled largely by Israelites who fled from Jerusalem after its destruction, their personal names should show the same tendencies as those in the Book of Mormon. Though the translator of that book might by the exercise of superhuman cunning have been warned by Hosea 2:17 to eschew Baal names, yet the meaning of that passage is so far from obvious that Albright as late as 1942 finds it "very significant that seals and inscriptions from Judah, which...are very numerous in the seventh and early sixth [centuries], seem never to contain any Baal names." (William F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1942), 160) It is very significant indeed, but hardly more so than the uncanny acumen which the Book of Mormon displays on this point.

So this then begs the question, when were these names discovered, and when did they come to the Americas for Joseph to use them in his complex forgery? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephantine_papyri doesn't give a date. Can anyone else find it?