The Science of Linguistics Confirms the Book of Mormon Authenticity

[ToGodorNottoGod]

I am doing this as a serious experiment, so please help me out here. I have a Mormon who is so believing he would continue in his testimony even if the Angel Moroni came to him in his own bedroom late at night and testified to him that Joseph Smith lied and the Book of Mormon is false.

He recently gave me a website proclaiming I was wrong in saying there is no evidence for the Book of Mormon. His words exactly were "evidences abound!" So I went to his link. Looked around a bit, and found what I thought would be a good candidate for an actually strong piece of evidence for the Book of Mormon. Here you are. My question is, if this doesn't convince you that there may be something to it all, why not?

Here we have as strong an established possibility of direct evidence as this website offers at least linguistically.
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It has all the ear marks of serious historical veracity and realism. It's a weird word this Sheum, not found in the Bible, but in the Book of Mormon, and now possible linguistic parallels with a Mesopotamian grain (also identified as such in the Book of Mormon).
So, seriously, why does no one find it convincing?

This Mormon says to me that there are evidences for the Book of Mormon in ridiculous abundance, they "abound" all over the place and only a closed minded individual cannot accept this evidence.
So everyone I have named here... why don't you believe this evidence works? It deals with linguistic loanshifting, plausible parallels with genuinely ancient grains from nations that perhaps had contact with the Book of Mormon group the Jaredites. Whence the skepticism? Can we justify our skepticism of this evidence based upon scholarly research and analysis?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Whence the skepticism? Can we justify our skepticism of this evidence based upon scholarly research and analysis?

The information/analysis offered is intriguing. That said, I've done little or no scholarly research on the subject and, best I can tell, neither have you. Virtually everything I've seen has come from unapologetically Mormon sources. So skepticism is entirely appropriate.

Still, it is indeed intriguing, as is the fact that counter claims seem nowhere to be found. Thanks for the mystery.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

By the way, we are told:

It should also be pointed out that the Akkadian term would certainly have been unknown to Joseph Smith in 1829, since Akkadian could not be read until decades after the Book of Mormon was published.13 Taken together, the attestation of this ancient agricultural name in the text constitutes a remarkable evidence for the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon. [ibid]​

We also learn from Wikipedia:

The Akkadian language began to be rediscovered when Carsten Niebuhr in 1767 was able to make extensive copies of cuneiform texts and published them in Denmark. The deciphering of the texts started immediately, and bilinguals, in particular Old Persian-Akkadian bilinguals, were of great help. Since the texts contained several royal names, isolated signs could be identified, and were presented in 1802 by Georg Friedrich Grotefend. By this time it was already evident that Akkadian was a Semitic language, and the final breakthrough in deciphering the language came from Edward Hincks, Henry Rawlinson and Jules Oppert in the middle of the 19th century.​

That the breakthrough came circa 1850 does not necessarily indicate that every Akkadian term was unknown prior to that time. Skepticism and caution are our friends.

 

[robocop (actually)]

I am doing this as a serious experiment, so please help me out here. I have a Mormon who is so believing he would continue in his testimony even if the Angel Moroni came to him in his own bedroom late at night and testified to him that Joseph Smith lied and the Book of Mormon is false.

He recently gave me a website proclaiming I was wrong in saying there is no evidence for the Book of Mormon. His words exactly were "evidences abound!" So I went to his link. Looked around a bit, and found what I thought would be a good candidate for an actually strong piece of evidence for the Book of Mormon. Here you are. My question is, if this doesn't convince you that there may be something to it all, why not?

Here we have as strong an established possibility of direct evidence as this website offers at least linguistically.
Loading...

It has all the ear marks of serious historical veracity and realism. It's a weird word this Sheum, not found in the Bible, but in the Book of Mormon, and now possible linguistic parallels with a Mesopotamian grain (also identified as such in the Book of Mormon).
So, seriously, why does no one find it convincing?

This Mormon says to me that there are evidences for the Book of Mormon in ridiculous abundance, they "abound" all over the place and only a closed minded individual cannot accept this evidence.
So everyone I have named here... why don't you believe this evidence works? It deals with linguistic loanshifting, plausible parallels with genuinely ancient grains from nations that perhaps had contact with the Book of Mormon group the Jaredites. Whence the skepticism? Can we justify our skepticism of this evidence based upon scholarly research and analysis?

Proving the Book of Mormon
What about proving the Book of Mormon to be true? Hugh
Nibley commented on this: “You cannot prove the genuineness of
any document to one who has decided not to accept it. The
scribes and Pharisees of old constantly asked Jesus for proof,
and when it was set before them in overwhelming abundance they
continued to disbelieve: ‘O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the
face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?’
(Matthew 16:3). When a man asks for proof we can be pretty sure
that proof is the last thing in the world he really wants. His
request is thrown out as a challenge, and the chances are that he
has no intention of being shown up. After all these years the
Bible itself is still not proven to those who do not choose to
believe it, and the eminent Harry Torczyner now declares that the
main problem of Bible study today is to determine whether or not
‘the Biblical speeches, songs and laws are forgeries.’ So the
Book of Mormon as an ‘unproven’ book finds itself in good
company.” (“Introduction to an Unknown Book,” from An Approach to
the Book of Mormon, pp. 3-15, FARMS.BYU.edu, 26 February 2008.)
Would it help to have the physical gold plates available for
all to see and inspect? “Critics of the Book of Mormon often
remark sarcastically that it is a great pity that the golden
plates have disappeared, since they would very conveniently prove
Joseph Smith's story. They would do nothing of the sort. The
presence of the plates would only prove that there were plates,
no more: it would not prove that Nephites wrote them, or that an
angel brought them, or that they had been translated by the gift
and power of God; and we can be sure that scholars would quarrel
about the writing on them for generations without coming to any
agreement, exactly as they did about the writings of Homer and
parts of the Bible. The possession of the plates would have a
very disruptive effect, and it would prove virtually nothing. On
the other hand, a far more impressive claim is put forth when the
whole work is given to the world in what is claimed to be a
divinely inspired translation—in such a text any cause or pretext
for disagreement and speculation about the text is reduced to an
absolute minimum: it is a text which all the world can read and
understand, and is a far more miraculous object than any gold
plates would be.”

 

[sun rise]

it would not prove that Nephites wrote them, or that an angel brought them

Great point. People have experiences and assign meaning to the experiences. The experience might be real but the meaning in error.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

(I fear this thread will soon derail and slither down the slimy rabbit hole.)

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

But, let me reiterate: it is intriguing and deserving of investigation.

 

[blü 2]

I am doing this as a serious experiment, so please help me out here. I have a Mormon who is so believing he would continue in his testimony even if the Angel Moroni came to him in his own bedroom late at night and testified to him that Joseph Smith lied and the Book of Mormon is false.

He recently gave me a website proclaiming I was wrong in saying there is no evidence for the Book of Mormon. His words exactly were "evidences abound!" So I went to his link. Looked around a bit, and found what I thought would be a good candidate for an actually strong piece of evidence for the Book of Mormon. Here you are. My question is, if this doesn't convince you that there may be something to it all, why not?

Here we have as strong an established possibility of direct evidence as this website offers at least linguistically.
Loading...

It has all the ear marks of serious historical veracity and realism. It's a weird word this Sheum, not found in the Bible, but in the Book of Mormon, and now possible linguistic parallels with a Mesopotamian grain (also identified as such in the Book of Mormon).
So, seriously, why does no one find it convincing?

This Mormon says to me that there are evidences for the Book of Mormon in ridiculous abundance, they "abound" all over the place and only a closed minded individual cannot accept this evidence.
So everyone I have named here... why don't you believe this evidence works? It deals with linguistic loanshifting, plausible parallels with genuinely ancient grains from nations that perhaps had contact with the Book of Mormon group the Jaredites. Whence the skepticism? Can we justify our skepticism of this evidence based upon scholarly research and analysis?

There are lots of problems with the Book of Mormon, but the most immediate and confronting is the awful prolixity of the writing style. Back in my BeliefNet days I took a sample text and showed that when rewritten with no loss of information the result was one third shorter (sic) and vastly clearer.

I'm not a fan of opacity for the sake of sounding solemn and ponderous, but whoever wrote the Book of Mormon was.

As for "sheum", I can think of various possible explanations, none of them supernatural, perhaps starting with Mr Smith's clerical friend who "helped" him with the writing.

 

[ToGodorNottoGod]

But, let me reiterate: it is intriguing and deserving of investigation.

I just found a rebuttal
http://chriscarrollsmith.blogspot.com/2008/12/sheum-in-book-of-Mormon.html
From the readers comments from the site and the article linked http://chriscarrollsmith.blogspot.com/2 ... ormon.html
refuting Sheum is a good answer to the entire issue.
Ben Clarke said...
Chris,
I realize that this is a late comment to this post. However, I thought an update might be in order.
The word 'sheum' is, in fact, not an Akkadian word. The Sumerian term was "she", but the the assumption of an Akkadian (including the Old Assyrian) lexeme 'sheum' is actually a misreading of the lexical material on the tablets. Alasdair Livingstone recently surveyed the problem, showing that 'sheum' is not actually an Akkadian word, but a mistaken reading of an orthographic convention.
For those interested, the article is Alasdair Livingstone, "The Akkadian Word for Barley: A Note from the Schoolroom." Journal of Semitic Studies 42 (1997)

 

[Watchmen]

Interesting, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I just found a rebuttal ...

And yet, in a (for me, extremely difficult) journal article from 2009 and titled The Akkadian Words for "Grain" and the God Haya, the author notes a long-standing debate about various relevant aspects of the language. So, for example, we encounter such comments as ...

• In NABU loc. cit., Streck's main objection to a word derived from the root *hyy lying behind the allegedly half-logographic writing SE-um, is that the root *hyy would not produce the half-logographic writing SE-e. All forms, according to Streck, can be explained by assuming a base-word seum.
• The question of whether SE is always a logogram does appear to be less easily dealt with in view of the foregoing discussion than one might have thought. Both words seum and e(yy)u clearly existed in Akkadian. I remain to be completely convinced by M. R Streck's argument that *hyy would not have produced construct SE-e (<*ha[y]yayt). Indeed, the Hittite evidence of SE-u-wa-an may even suggest that e(yy)u was the regular word behind SE. There is, however, much that is still extremely unclear.
  
• After this article was sent to the editors, H. Erol, of Ankara University, alerted me to the following possible evidence for a phonetic writing of seum. The Old Assyrian title GAL st-i-e is interpreted by V. Donbaz as "chief of grain" ("Some Remarkable Contracts of 1-B Period of Kiiltepe Tablets I" in K. Emre, B. Hrouda, M. J. Mellink, N. Ozguc (ed.), Anatolia and the Ancient Near East. Studies in Honor ofT. Ozgiic, Ankara 1989, p. 78). J.G. Dercksen leaves the title untranslated, "chief of the siws" ("Some Elements of Old Anatolian Society in Kanis" in Assyria and Beyond, Studies Presented to Mogens Trolle Larsen, Leiden 2004, pp. 171-172). It is indeed peculiar that HI should be used in a plene writing for lei. The alternative possible reading se-i-e introduces an unwanted glide. Also the fact that the non-logographic writing only occurs with this word, which is always written this way, should invite uncertainty.

This can all be stored under the heading: No Clue! And the overall lesson seems to be ...

never surrender skepticism to certainty.​

 

[Brickjectivity]

So, seriously, why does no one find it convincing?

Perhaps we have had too much experience with people using textual analysis to try to prove that miracles have happened, to capture our souls, to put us to work and extract our money.

 

[jonathan180iq]

If I throw enough spaghetti at the wall, I'll eventually get a really cool and recognizable design...

Attempting to hyper focus on the use and possible origin of a single word to validate a religious book or faith system seems to kind of miss the point of having a faith system, doesn't it?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

If I throw enough spaghetti at the wall, I'll eventually get a really cool and recognizable design...

Attempting to hyper focus on the use and possible origin of a single word to validate a religious book or faith system seems to kind of miss the point of having a faith system, doesn't it?

I think you've shown us a great deal about missing the point of the thread. Perfaps you should waste your hyper-focus on polluting some other conversation.

 

[Katzpur]

(I fear this thread will soon derail and slither down the slimy rabbit hole.)

I can absolutely guarantee it, which is why I will not be participating other than to say that I have always found the linguistic evidence for The Book of Mormon very intriguing. The example given by the OP is indeed interesting, but it's not the only one.

You guys all have fun. I can't wait to see how long it takes for this thread to go south. I'm sure it won't be long, and I won't be around to watch it happen.

 

[ToGodorNottoGod]

Interesting, but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Not if it's the two broken hands on it that is broken

Perhaps we have had too much experience with people using textual analysis to try to prove that miracles have happened, to capture our souls, to put us to work and extract our money.

Ha! That is a terrific response.

 

[Katzpur]

There are lots of problems with the Book of Mormon, but the most immediate and confronting is the awful prolixity of the writing style. Back in my BeliefNet days I took a sample text and showed that when rewritten with no loss of information the result was one third shorter (sic) and vastly clearer.

I'm not a fan of opacity for the sake of sounding solemn and ponderous, but whoever wrote the Book of Mormon was.

If The Book of Mormon was "translated" and not "written" by Joseph Smith (as Joseph Smith claimed was the case), you can't very well blame the writing style on him. The Book of Mormon, as a matter of fact, contains a number of authentic Semitic constructions. For example, The Book of Mormon makes frequent mention of "the plates of brass." This is consistent with the way a Hebrew speaker would have put it. Had Joseph Smith simply written, rather than translated the book, he'd have much more likely said, "the brass plates." It's a very simple thing, but it's one example among dozens. Besides, the writing style is different within the different "books" within The Book of Mormon, implying that they were initially written by different individuals.

And there I went and did what I said I wasn't going to do -- comment on this thread.

 

[blü 2]

If The Book of Mormon was "translated" and not "written" by Joseph Smith, you can't very well blame the writing style on him. The Book of Mormon, as a matter of fact, contains a number of authentic Semitic constructions. For example, The Book of Mormon makes frequent mention of "the plates of brass." This is consistent with the way a Hebrew speaker would have put it. Had Joseph Smith simply written, rather than translated the book, he'd have much more likely said, "the brass plates." It's a very simple thing, but it's one example among dozens. Besides, the writing style is different within the different "books" within The Book of Mormon, implying that they were initially written by different individuals.

And there I went and did what I said I wasn't going to do -- comment on this thread.

I'm not sure to whom Mormons attribute the actual English wording of the Book of Mormon ─ Smith, Smith's friend, Moroni? ─ but it's a pity he [?] was such a bad stylist.

 

[Katzpur]

I'm not sure to whom Mormons attribute the actual English wording of the Book of Mormon ─ Smith, Smith's friend, Moroni? ─ but it's a pity he [?] was such a bad stylist.

No comment.

 

[Watchmen]

I'm not sure to whom Mormons attribute the actual English wording of the Book of Mormon ─ Smith, Smith's friend, Moroni? ─ but it's a pity he [?] was such a bad stylist.

Interestingly, some of the English wording in the Book of Mormon is word for word identical to certain passages of the KJV of the Bible, and includes the same mistakes. So much for an inspired, God-driven “translation.”