tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post3106637167986125733..comments2023-11-02T07:25:45.884-05:00Comments on Mormanity - a blog for those interested in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: More Folly Around Nahom: This Time It's My BlunderJeff Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08776493593387402607noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-29333509591352018172015-12-05T09:10:57.092-06:002015-12-05T09:10:57.092-06:00I agree that they aren't genetically principal...<i>I agree that they aren't genetically principal ancestors. So does the church now.</i><br />So does the church? What is the "church?" If you mean the abstract organization, it can't agree with anything because it doesn't have a mind. If you mean the members of the church, some of them think one thing, and some think another. I've met many church members who, to this day, think that not only are the Lamanites the principal ancestors of the native Americans, they are the only ancestors. So it really doesn't make sense to say that the "church" believes this or that or agrees with anything. This attempt to define what "the church" teaches or thinks is nothing other than an apologetic rhetorical tactic to limit apologetic liability. (That means decreasing the amount of stuff they have to defend). It has no real world practical value. Jeromenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-70183041997257703242015-12-04T17:42:54.030-06:002015-12-04T17:42:54.030-06:00Well, I can think of at least one other way to loo...Well, I can think of at least one other way to look at it that would not be "really odd." It's a very straightforward way of reconciling hemispheric geography and limited geography. Maybe the idea (in 1830) was that the BoM events took place in a limited area on an otherwise uninhabited Western Hemisphere, but then, in the 1,000+ years between 421 AD and the arrival of Columbus, the Lamanites spread across both continents. To Joseph Smith's readers, this would account for both the limited BoM distances and the fact that pyramids, burial mounds, and contemporary native peoples were observed throughout the hemisphere. This would explain why early Church leaders could believe in the BoM's limited geography but still see the Lamanites as the "principal ancestors" of all the Indians on both continents.<br /><br />Nowadays, of course, we know this doesn't make sense. We now know that both hemispheres have been widely populated for many thousands of years. But in Joseph's day this was not known. He might have thought he was writing a story about a limited group that only became a hemispheric group after the end of his story. That would not be particularly "odd" at all.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04668073406352787818noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-19804450823409034332015-12-04T17:13:20.834-06:002015-12-04T17:13:20.834-06:00I am sorry you found it condescending. I just rea... I am sorry you found it condescending. I just read it again and I see what you mean. That tone wasn't intentional. I agree that they aren't genetically principal ancestors. So does the church now. As you read the Book of Mormon you will notice that the promises made to Lehi and his posterity weren't restricted only to those with a specific percentage of his genetic code but were given simply as promises to his descendants. If he was a real man, those specific promises are for the native Americans, and probably most of the rest of us non natives by now too. <br /><br />It sounds like you take the "Lord Will Never Permit the Living Prophet to Lead the Church Astray" quote to an extreme level. Fair enough, the church really has done a horrible job defining that phrase in a coherent way and they never have really backed it up with scripture that I am aware of. D&C 1:25-27 might provide a helpful lens to understand it through. <br />The part of it that intrigues me, is that if Joseph Smith did make up the Book of Mormon, it is really odd that he would have consistently written a story with text confirming that it took place in a small area while thinking in his head while he wrote it that that he was telling a story that covered north and south america. I don't know how that would be possible considering that distances and places are interwoven into the story everywhere and remain consistent. Maybe there is another way to look at it that I am not seeing though. mkprrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13409950642803422998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-29817308372914515332015-12-04T16:22:10.052-06:002015-12-04T16:22:10.052-06:00typo correction, to reach 8 billion ancestors you ...typo correction, to reach 8 billion ancestors you have to back 33 generations not 22. mkprrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13409950642803422998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-40352610950491885162015-12-04T13:28:01.583-06:002015-12-04T13:28:01.583-06:00Um, no. It is YOU who misunderstand, mkprr.
In yo...Um, no. It is YOU who misunderstand, mkprr.<br /><br />In your irrelevant and condescending little lecture, you ignore the key difference between being an <i>ancestor</i> and being <i>the <b>principal</b> ancestor</i>.<br /><br />For more than a century, the Church told Native Americans and Pacific Islanders that the Lamanites were their PRINCIPAL ancestors. And that claim is false. It is disproved by the DNA evidence.<br /><br />Like the rest of your comment, this statement is completely beside the point:<br /><br /><i>You will only show genetic markers from groups that are dominant in your family tree, but your family tree will actually include bits of every nationality that isn't completely isolated from where you live.</i><br /><br />Yes, duh, of course, "your family tree will actually include bits of every nationality that isn't completely isolated from where you live." But not every one of those nationalities will be among your PRINCIPAL ancestors, will it?<br /><br />See what I mean?<br /><br />For generation after generation, the Church was not telling Native Americans and Pacific Islanders that they had many, many ancestors, and among them was a smidgeon of Lamanites. The Church was telling them that the Lamanites were their PRINCIPAL ancestors.<br /><br />And that was wrong.<br /><br />This is not hard to understand. The Church itself seems to have quietly acknowledged as much when it changed the relevant wording of the Book of Mormon's introduction.<br /><br />It would be nice to see the Church openly acknowledge this profound error, but I suppose that kind of forthright repentance is too much to ask, even of professed Christians.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04668073406352787818noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-13298084213807038032015-12-04T12:23:24.909-06:002015-12-04T12:23:24.909-06:00You misunderstand the difference between being a d...You misunderstand the difference between being a descendant of an ancestor, and sharing genetic markers with an ancestor. If Lehi was in fact a real person, he came to the americas around 600 bc. That is more than 65 generations ago. Unless his line became a dead end, the only way a native american couldn't have been an ancestor of him would be if they came from an extremely isolated tribe regardless of how limited the BOM geography is. <br /><br /><br />if Lehi is real, the General authorities owe no apology for assuming natives to be decedents of Lehi. They absolutely would be unless they came from a tribe that remained absolutely isolated for thousands of years. The question of native americans being ancestors of Lehi has nothing to do with how limited the BoM geography is. Let me explain briefly for you how ancestry works but here is an article the explains it in much more detail. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19331938<br /><br />In short, You have 2 parents. They each have 2 parents. Their parents each have two parents. Every generation you go back, your family tree will double in size. If you go back just 22 generations, your family tree is over 8 billion people wide (this is more than the current world population so it of course has lots of duplicates) You will only show genetic markers from groups the are dominant in your family tree, but your family tree will actually include bits of every nationality that isn't completely isolated from where you live. <br /><br />Anyway, people confuse ancestry with genetics all the time. Sometimes this misunderstanding leads them to mistakenly doubt the claims of the Book of Mormon which is unfortunate. <br /><br /><br /><br /> mkprrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13409950642803422998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-13184792059112797162015-12-03T17:52:31.389-06:002015-12-03T17:52:31.389-06:00mkprr (and many other otherwise smart people here)...mkprr (and many other otherwise smart people here) completely misunderstand -- or refuse to acknowledge -- the natural ease with which people acquire and use language, whether at the level of basic grammar and vocabulary or the level of complex rhetorical forms and strategies.<br /><br />For those of us who argue that Joseph Smith wrote the BoM, there's absolutely no need to show that he was "clever and diligent enough to study up on little understood ancient forms of poetry" like chiasmus. He would naturally have produced chiasmus simply by imitating the KJV. There's no more need for him to have studied up on chiasmus than for him to have studied up on the use of nouns and verbs and prepositional phrases.<br /><br />Does anyone out there seriously think that JS would have had to formally study ancient rhetoric in order to use the device known as anaphora in order to repeat the phrase <i>And it came to pass</i>? Did my father have to study formal rhetoric in order to look out the window at a downpour and, using the rhetorical technique known as litotes, announce that <i>It's a bit damp outside</i>? Isn't it more likely that he just heard someone else use that technique and then unconsciously started using it himself?<br /><br />The entire chiasmus argument is laughable. It's stunningly ignorant. It makes those who expound it look like utter fools. Seriously. Run the basic argument past any non-LDS linguist and see for yourself. This kind of apologetics makes otherwise very intelligent people look very foolish.<br /><br />And FWIW, I find this statement to be very misleading: <i>Likewise the general assumption by <b>JS and his contemporaries</b> that the Book of Mormon people covered the entire hemisphere when in fact the text itself consistently and very strictly supports a limited geography supports the hypothesis that <b>Joseph Smith and his contemporaries</b> really didn't know enough about the Book of Mormon to have authored it.</i><br /><br />What's misleading here is the implication that belief in a hemispheric geography was somehow limited to "Joseph Smith and his contemporaries." In fact it was assumed by the Church leadership right up to the end of the 20th century and into the 21st, when the phrase "...<b>the</b> ancestors of the Native Americans" was (quite sensibly) revised to "<b>...among</b> the ancestors of the Native Americans." What we really have here is the inability of the leaders, in spite of their supposed prophetic status, to read their very own scriptures correctly -- at least until DNA studies revealed to these prophets a basic genetic truth that God, apparently, could not.<br /><br />This is not a minor point. Think of how many tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of Native Americans and Pacific Islanders were assured, over the course of nearly two centuries, with complete prophetic authority, that they were literally descendants of the Jews. Oops! Pretty big mistake! Tell me, are there are any plans to discuss this mistake with all of those thousands of recently de-Judaized believers? Any plans to, you know, <i>apologize</i> for the mistake? Does the Church feel <i>no compunction at all</i> for convincing thousands of people of such fundamental falsehoods about their collective history and racial identity?<br /><br />It seems more than a little disingenuous to dismiss all this as a matter of a mistaken assumption on the part only of "JS and his contemporaries." But I suppose if I'd made such a boneheaded mistake I too would want to downplay it.<br /><br />Anyway, to those of us outside, it's all just incredibly ludicrous. Whether it's the abandonment of polygamy, the demise of the black priesthood exclusion, or the repudiation of the hemispheric geography, we outsiders find it sadly funny to see a purported "prophet, seer, and revelator," whom we are told cannot "lead the people astray," again and again do just that: leading the people astray, at least until the prophets are corrected by the secular world.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04668073406352787818noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-90790379386696127042015-11-26T14:34:52.861-06:002015-11-26T14:34:52.861-06:00Apparently there's some disagreement about whe...Apparently there's some disagreement about whether and how much chiasmus occurs deliberately in the Old Testament. I can't say who's right or wrong about that, but the existence of the controversy suggests that it isn't glaringly obvious. In contrast, the presence of chiasmus in the New Testament is better established. If so, I have to wonder again how much more likely it would be for Nephites to include chiasmus, given that their only access to it in tradition would be the Old Testament, than it would be for Joseph Smith to use it, given his access to the New Testament. <br /><br />My point here is that apologists focus on the improbability of Joseph Smith using chiasmus without really considering the improbability of the alternative explanations. They just assume that Nephites would be likely to use it, but that shouldn't be taken for granted. However unlikely it may be that JS would use chiasmus, it doesn't seem all that less probable than the alternatives. Besides, there's chiasmus in the Doctrine and Covenants. Jeromenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-21348607815983258422015-11-26T05:42:37.954-06:002015-11-26T05:42:37.954-06:00Jerome said "Or did the writers study earlier...Jerome said "Or did the writers study earlier scripture and imitate its style? I submit that the latter is more likely, and if they could do it, so could Joseph Smith."<br /><br />I think that's a valid point. Joseph Smith could have studied forms of poetry in the Bible and attempted to duplicate them if he was thoughtful and intentional enough about it. What I think is significant however, is that these forms of poetry in the BoM, along with other hints to its authenticity, like Nahom, or old world Bountiful, weren't pointed out by Joseph Smith or leaked by his contemporaries. They weren't noticed by anyone until long afterwards. <br /><br />If Joseph Smith is a fraud, and he was clever and diligent enough to study up on little understood ancient forms of poetry, and to find obscure place names and descriptions of geographic anomalies to add into his book, it would have benefited him to point this stuff out or to have others point it out for him. The fact that he didn't when he would have greatly benefited from it strongly supports a hypothesis that he didn't know it was there. <br /><br />I don't know what the odds are of these things being random accidents in a fraudulent text, but it doesn't seem like the odds would be very high. <br /><br />Likewise the general assumption by JS and his contemporaries that the Book of Mormon people covered the entire hemisphere when in fact the text itself consistently and very strictly supports a limited geography supports the hypothesis that Joseph Smith and his contemporaries really didn't know enough about the Book of Mormon to have authored it.mkprrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13409950642803422998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-65832913427562763852015-11-22T22:04:06.604-06:002015-11-22T22:04:06.604-06:00flying fig, mkprr said "pure doctrine", ...flying fig, mkprr said "pure doctrine", not "all doctrine".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-45530290309352925012015-11-11T13:59:13.162-06:002015-11-11T13:59:13.162-06:00Just to piggyback onto Orbiting Kolob's points...Just to piggyback onto Orbiting Kolob's points above, how do apologists think that chiasmus got into the Bible in the first place? Was there some sort of systematic training program for aspiring Bible writers that told them what chiasmus is and that they need to use it? Or did the writers study earlier scripture and imitate its style? I submit that the latter is more likely, and if they could do it, so could Joseph Smith. <br /><br />Regarding the Reynolds paper in the <i>Scottish Journal of Theology</i>, the unity and consistency of Christian theology as presented in the Book of Mormon is actually a strike against historical authenticity. Contrast it with the Bible, which presents occasional doctrinal inconsistencies reflecting different views of different authors. And lest someone claim that the consistency is due to redaction by Mormon, let me point out that the Bible has also been redacted, but it's impossible to remove all the inconsistencies.Jeromenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-57495351859542358982015-11-11T09:31:07.411-06:002015-11-11T09:31:07.411-06:00"it teaches the pure doctrine of Jesus Christ... "it teaches the pure doctrine of Jesus Christ...practical knowledge needed to be a true disciple of Christ"<br /><br />How can the BoM contain pure doctrine when it teaches unchangeable doctrine, one eternal God, no degrees of glory, no temple marriages, no temple ceremonies, no baptism for the dead, no pre-existence of man, no eternal progression or polygamy the way D&C does?<br /><br />I may be wrong but it seems to me the BoM teaches very little to none of the saving ordinances of the LDS church. flying fignoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-71324244159099064532015-11-11T06:47:35.613-06:002015-11-11T06:47:35.613-06:00I love the book of mormon but not for its literary...I love the book of mormon but not for its literary beauty. It has its moments for sure but it wasn't written by poets or great story tellers. It was written largely by military leaders and refugee colonizers. Why would we expect their style to compare to Shakespeare or Isaiah etc. If a theological history was compiled and edited by your local wards mustachioed Vietnam vet Boy Scout leader what would it look like? Mormon was an awesome guy with incredible faith and Christ-like love despite the things he went through but why should we expect him to be a literary genius or to be able to capture extreme depth in the characters he writes about?<br /><br />The Book of Mormon is awesome because it contains first hand eye witness accounts of the ministry of Christ, it shows us how to draw near to God, it teaches the pure doctrine of Jesus Christ and it documents the struggles of a people to follow God despite their pride, arrogance and unbelief. It is full of the practical knowledge needed to be a true disciple of Christ, that is why it matters. I understand that some people really like complex poetry and that's cool if that is your thing. It isn't a requirement of discipleship though.mkprrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13409950642803422998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-86068933935359285102015-11-10T11:50:46.458-06:002015-11-10T11:50:46.458-06:00There ARE things that IMHO opinion really can take...There ARE things that IMHO opinion really <i>can</i> take away people's agency, such as:<br /><br />-- Brain injuries and disabilities that take away the cognitive substrate of free and independent choices. Simple example: Tourette's syndrome.<br /><br />-- Advertising that undermines our conscious, free-willed decision-making. To the extent that such advertising leads us to make "choices" by getting our basest instincts to kick in, then it's taking away our agency.<br /><br />But can <i>additional information</i> take away our agency? Can additional truthful information ever transform what was a free choice into an unfree choice? It's really hard for me to see how.<br /><br />It might make sense that, when it comes to belief in the BoM, God wants the choice to be <i>difficult</i>. But that really has nothing to do with the question of agency.<br /><br />This might seem a subtle distinction --and not worth going into at such length -- were it not for the supreme importance of agency in Mormon thought.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04668073406352787818noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-59451547514134146832015-11-10T11:48:54.234-06:002015-11-10T11:48:54.234-06:00Jeff, this might seem pretty tangential, but I'...Jeff, this might seem pretty tangential, but I'd like to respond to your statement that God <i>could prove [the authenticity of the Book of Mormon] beyond any room for doubt first thing tomorrow morning. But taking away our free agency is not on His agenda.</i><br /><br />To me, your use of <i>agency</i> here doesn't make sense. It will take awhile for me to explain -- as always, please bear with me.<br /><br />To me it makes the most sense to think of agency as the capacity to make genuinely independent, self-willed choices, particularly in the moral arena. Thus defined, agency is one of the two key factors (along with language) distinguishing humans from all other animals, whose choices are instinctual (except maybe some borderline apes).<br /><br />Defined in this way, agency is pretty much species-innate. It's something we have because of our intelligence, our ability to conceive the long-term consequences of our actions, the weakening of our instinctual drives, and many other things -- including, if you wish, the legacy left us by Adam and Eve.<br /><br />Thus defined, agency is not something that can be "taken away" as easily as most Mormons think it can. Questions of agency, free will, and the like come up frequently in my classes, so I've discussed this with a lot of Mormons over the years, and they typically think of agency as something like <i>freedom</i>, as when someone says "Communism was bad because by denying freedom it took away people's agency."<br /><br />But people in the Soviet Union people absolutely did have agency, properly understood, just as much as Americans. They still possessed the basic human ability to make independent, self-willed choices. Their lack of political freedom certainly changed the <i>consequences</i> of certain choices, but the choices were still theirs to make, and they were still morally accountable for them. They were free to choose to oppose the Soviet regime, in the sense of "free" that matters here, and we know this by the simple fact that many dissenters <i>did</i> freely choose to oppose the regime.<br /><br />The point is that while political freedom is a good thing, it's not the same thing as agency. Taking away political freedom is not the same as taking away agency.<br /><br />What does this have to do with your comment I quoted above? <br /><br />Your comment suggests another way that our agency can (supposedly) be taken away: not by jailing us for making a choice, but by providing us <i>too much information</i> about a choice. You're suggesting that if God makes the evidence for the BoM too obvious, so that the choice to believe in it becomes too easy, that amounts to "taking away our free agency."<br /><br />That makes no sense to me. Just because we learn stuff that makes our choices easier doesn't mean we're no longer freely and independently choosing.<br /><br />Suppose that on the eve of a presidential election, we become aware of incontrovertible evidence that one of the major candidates has been spying for ISIS. That evidence would make it a lot easier to choose how we vote, but it would not mean that our choices were no longer choices. Such a situation would not "take away my free agency," it would just make it a lot easier in this particular instance to exercise that agency rightly.<br /><br />To be continued.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04668073406352787818noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-74168481985552598522015-11-10T07:52:31.575-06:002015-11-10T07:52:31.575-06:00Just to clarify: the accusation of 'sharpshoot...Just to clarify: the accusation of 'sharpshooter fallacy' can be a tough rap to beat, but it isn't just a hopelessly stacked deck. One just has to show that the way one is interpreting the text, in order to provide such good fit with whatever facts are involved, is not an arbitrary reading with a lot of ambiguous wiggle room, but is really the most natural reading of the text. For example, one should be able to argue that one would naturally read the text the same way, and draw from it the same conclusions, even if the confirmatory evidence were not there or were not known. This is how you establish that the target really was already there, right where it now stands, before the shot was fired.<br /><br />Arguments for the naturalness of an interpretation are notoriously subjective, and so it may still be hard to get a determined critic to stop calling you a Texas sharpshooter. But some people are prepared to be convinced — not necessarily that you're right, but at least that you aren't guilty of this particular fallacy. And even just recognizing the issue and making a decent stab at dealing with it will get you a lot of credit with open-minded listeners. James Anglinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18266855639647700167noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-3268447514120519102015-11-10T01:22:10.434-06:002015-11-10T01:22:10.434-06:00@anonymous 7:50 Nov 6:
The question was, How plau...@anonymous 7:50 Nov 6:<br /><br />The question was, How plausible is it really, for Joseph Smith to have amassed all the expertise needed to fake the Book of Mormon?<br /><br />I admit I can't really answer. It's a big question, not because the Book of Mormon is so extraordinary, but just because it is a fairly lengthy book. The case for the Book of Mormon is just as much a 'long list' as the attacks of the critics. <br /><br />The fraud hypothesis imagines that Smith may have had some help from collaborators, and that years of preparation may have gone into the effort, even though part of the trick was to make it seem as though it was all done in a few months of full-time dictation. The preparation wasn't necessarily all deliberate; this was not <i>Ocean's Eleven</i>. But stuff that Smith and perhaps some friends had collected or thought about for years ended up getting used in the Book of Mormon. And then, if someone much later tries to reconstruct these sources, they are at a basic disadvantage: Smith and friends had no obligation to be systematic. They could pick and choose ideas at random, from anywhere they had ever found them. So there isn't necessarily any trail for a critic to follow. The long list of Book of Mormon evidences may all be individual needles in the haystack of history.<br /><br />Beyond just offering that blanket excuse, I can offer one systematic criticism. A lot of the Book of Mormon evidences seem to me to be so-called 'Texas sharpshooter fallacies'. (The name is from the story of a Texan whose barn was all painted with targets, each with a bullet hole in the very center. Dang fine shootin' — except that in fact he had simply shot up his barn at random, and then painted bullseyes around every hole.) In this case what I mean is that the actual evidence isn't nearly as compelling as apologists make it out to be. The impressive fits are mostly constructed in hindsight — and this is much easier to do than one might think. A text like the Book of Mormon has a lot of ambiguity. Knowing in hindsight — about Arabian geography, or ancient Middle-Eastern olive-growing, or whatever — one can select particular interpretations of the ambiguous text so as to make the text seem to fit reality very well. And the proof that this set of interpretations is correct is that it makes the text fit the reality! But this is circular. The interpretation is the bullseye painted after the shot.James Anglinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18266855639647700167noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-83698116508699280422015-11-10T00:50:19.225-06:002015-11-10T00:50:19.225-06:00I suppose I also believe we need faith; but I'...I suppose I also believe we need faith; but I've never liked thinking of it as something God just demands, on a whim. I don't really think that God could replace faith with proof, even if God wanted. <br /><br />People sometimes say that we human beings are to God as the characters in a novel are to the author. In a way that's no doubt true, but in another way it's inadequate; because in fact we are not even really to God as a semicolon on page 3 is to the author of the book. We are to God, as a semicolon is to God. We are just patterns God has made. We are rather more complicated as patterns than a semicolon, but we are in the same category — we are the same kind of thing.<br /><br />Suppose a bearded Jewish guy did appear today, calling himself Jesus and performing great wonders. The wonders might prove that he was superhuman, but they could not prove him divine. The Star Trek being 'Q', for example, was a hypothetical entity who could perform any wonder that humans could experience; and yet compared to the God of the Abrahamic religions, the author and editor of reality itself, Q would be just another created thing — a fancier semicolon. Q would not deserve worship.<br /><br />Based on those reflections, I figure that it is literally impossible for God to prove to us that God — as opposed to a merely Q-like entity — exists. And so faith really is necessary. God could maybe prove more to us than God does prove; but why? The essential things would always remain unproven. God would have to stop proving things at some point. Who's to say that God, in making things as they are, failed to choose the right point?James Anglinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18266855639647700167noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-87797709387263966522015-11-10T00:10:37.214-06:002015-11-10T00:10:37.214-06:00James said, "I'm not sure what you mean, ...James said, "I'm not sure what you mean, Jeff, by "the evidence should never be strong enough to compel belief". Do you mean that God deliberately keeps evidence below threshold, in order to test people's faith?"<br /><br />Yes, that's roughly what I mean. God wants us to exercise faith, and only then will faith be confirmed and become more like knowledge. Evidences for the Gospel--the reality of Jesus Christ, etc.--are there and do help, but I suspect that they are insufficient on their own by design. Partly, at least, because God wants us to grow through placing trust in Him, not just accepting the obvious and irrefutable.<br /><br />He could have Christ return and do massive miracles on prime time TV with global peer review to overwhelm the most committed skeptic and leave them no choice but to believe. Ditto for the evidence for the Book of Mormon and the Restoration. He could prove it all beyond any room for doubt first thing tomorrow morning. But taking away our free agency is not on His agenda. Jeff Lindsayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08776493593387402607noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-59436707476172044462015-11-09T17:32:54.197-06:002015-11-09T17:32:54.197-06:00As a matter of fact, Jeff, I have taught college-l...As a matter of fact, Jeff, I have taught college-level creative writing, and I can tell you that the most difficult thing for students to learn is how to create characters that readers care about and plots that draw the reader into the story. I've read many a story and poem packed with literary techniques and boring as can be.<br /><br />The various techniques I've been discussing can be quite powerful when they work in concert with all the other elements that make for great literature. But by themselves they are never enough. There are innumerable poems written in, for example, perfect iambic pentameter -- the same meter used so much by Shakespeare -- but they're not worth reading at all.<br /><br />I should add that none of this is to say that students don't learn a lot from applying themselves to creative writing. Among other things, it can deepen their understanding and appreciation of the really great stuff. They might never become great writers themselves, but they'll have a far better understanding of what "great writing" means in the first place.<br /><br />Anyway, the conflict you're conjuring up here -- between (a) Joseph's absorption and creative remixing of literary techniques from the Bible, and (b) his failure to write compelling characters and plots -- is not a conflict at all, but an extremely common feature of amateurish writing.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04668073406352787818noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-59372918163738314022015-11-09T15:39:03.244-06:002015-11-09T15:39:03.244-06:00You have spent hours on this blog telling us what ...You have spent hours on this blog telling us what a pathetic writer Joseph Smith was. In spite of all the great literature he had been exposed to in the Bible and in other works of his day, you tell us that he completely failed to pick up the basics of writing a plot, of developing a character, of having lots of stories about women, of having the complexity, tension, and exploration of the human condition that is all over the Bible and other good literature that he was just too dull to pick up. He shows an almost absurd lack of skill in your incessantly shared viewpoint. <br /><br />Yet, when we report that a relatively recently discovered and important but easy to miss Hebraic poetical structure is found extensively in the Book of Mormon showing craftsmanship and sophistication on par with its use in the Bible, you roll your eyes and say of course, this would be the easiest thing in the world for someone to naturally, subconsciously absorb from the Bible. <br /><br />Detailed poetical chiasmus in the KJV Bible is hard to notice even AFTER students read about it and know what to look for. It is obscured by translation and formatting. So how does that get absorbed? It boggles the mind that Alma 36 or Helaman 6 would just be spewed during random dictation without deliberate craftsmanship when the critical themes of Alma 36 are so powerfully presented and amplified using chiasmus as a tool, or when Helaman 6's 10-step tight, concise chiasmus requires a knowledge of Hebrew at the key pivot point. I suppose young Joseph absorbed that as well?<br /><br />Have you taught writing to young people? Do your students naturally craft sonnets without knowing anything about rhyme schemes after having heard a few poems read to them? Or if you reformat a sonnet so it looks like prose and bury it among other prose, will they pick up on the scheme of sonnets on their own, without even knowing that it is poetry, and then unconsciously write detailed, complete sonnets when asked to write something literary? Of course?<br /><br />I don't think this line of reasoning will withstand peer review.<br />Jeff Lindsayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08776493593387402607noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-15245898966471093992015-11-09T15:30:11.621-06:002015-11-09T15:30:11.621-06:00Because the use of inclusio as a literary tool is ...Because the use of inclusio as a literary tool is interesting and adds to the literary sophistication of the Book of Mormon. It's a valuable contribution. <br />Jeff Lindsayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08776493593387402607noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-52820971452932531472015-11-09T15:27:47.732-06:002015-11-09T15:27:47.732-06:00If chiasmus really is a subtle and hard-to-see thi...If chiasmus really is a subtle and hard-to-see thing in Biblical Hebrew, unsuspected through the ages until recent times, then I might grant some weight to the argument from chiasmus in the Book of Mormon. <br /><br />But is all that about chiasmus really true? Or is the recency of chiasmus as a recognized concept really only a matter of it being a recent argument in Mormon apologetics? I'm afraid I'm too cynical and jaded to accept that chiasmus is all that, just because someone says so. As the Good Book says, "Citation needed."<br /><br />I'm particularly suspicious of the claim that Book of Mormon chiasmus had to be miraculous, because my own rather weakly supported impression is that the early 19th century was a great time of rhetoric and oratory. People listened to hour-long sermons. For fun. And, especially when you've got an experienced and discerning audience, there's a lot of art to preaching.<br /><br />If people are going to listen to you for an hour, your message has got to be pretty heavily structured, or people will just lose the thread. "Tell them what you're going to say, tell it to them, then tell them what you told them." Apprentice preachers learn that formula even today, in the age of twenty-minute sermons. So I've never sat through any hour-long 19th century sermons, but just as a hunch, I'm pretty sure they must have had a lot of repetition in them. Simply repeating and repeating would have gotten monotonous; preachers who wanted to pack the pews would likely have upped their game beyond that. So I'd be surprised if chiasmus wasn't a fairly common rhetorical device in Joseph Smith's own experience. <br /><br />He might never have heard of the term by name. But then again, he even might have. Rhetorical devices have been studied, under their formal Greek names, for millennia. I myself remember learning about synechdoche, anaphora, onomatoppoeia, and probably a few others that have slipped from my brain cells now, no doubt for want of structured repetition.<br /><br />So, I'm prepared to learn that chiasmus really is this long-buried secret, uncovered in these latter days to confound the unbelievers. But I'm not prepared to accept that just on a say-so. James Anglinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18266855639647700167noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-82635062470659477892015-11-09T10:28:31.629-06:002015-11-09T10:28:31.629-06:00Also, I read the Scottish Journal of Theology arti...Also, I read the <i>Scottish Journal of Theology</i> article, and once again I find myself scratching my head and saying, "So what?"<br /><br />For those who can't access the article (or don't want to waste their time), here's the thesis (the bolding is mine): <br /><br /><i>It may seem strange that even though The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is now widely recognized for its membership growth and its increasing social significance, the canonical LDS scriptures receive little scholarly attention outside of Mormondom. <b>While a continually growing literature tries to find new and convincing explanations for the content and production of the Book of Mormon, only a few studies focus on the doctrinal messages of the book itself—on what it teaches.</b> Over 150 million copies of the Book of Mormon have now been published in 82 languages by the Utah-based church, and the book itself is now published by an increasing number of secular presses.<br /><br /><b>The following article finds that there is a consistent "doctrine of Christ" or "gospel of Jesus Christ" taught throughout the text that displays both similarities to and differences from the way to salvation laid out in the Bible.</b> Three definitional passages are identified and analyzed. The full content of this gospel formula can be established through a cumulative analysis of the partial statements included in each of these three passages. It is further claimed that the results of this analysis open the way to a much richer and more systematic interpretation of the numerous sermons and prophecies reported throughout the Book of Mormon. In this way, <b>the text is found to reward readers who are willing to assume that it may be a redacted whole</b> in the same sense that Robert Alter has explained his interpretive approach to Genesis and other materials.</i><br /><br />So, what is it that Reynolds has managed to get published in a peer-review journal?<br /><br />Has he gotten his academic peers to acknowledge the cogency of an argment that there are elements of the BoM that defy naturalistic explanation?<br /><br />If so, that would be big news, and it would justify Jeff's reference to this article in his apologetics. But of course Reynolds has done nothing of the kind. What Reynolds has gotten published in a peer-reviewed academic journal is an argument that the BoM teaches a distinctive theology; that this theology is expressed using certain literary modes and devices, such as <i>inclusio</i> (which is present in the KJV); that the theology is richer than previously thought; and that the BoM rewards those readers <i>willing to assume</i> the book is ancient.<br /><br />The article does not argue that this assumption of ancientness is <i>justified</i>. The article is not apologetic. In fact, the article's opening paragraph sets it apart from such apologetics. It specifically distinguishes itself from the many (non-peer-reviewed) efforts to "to find new and convincing explanations for the content and production of the Book of Mormon." So why would Jeff even cite this article?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04668073406352787818noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7139169.post-88112535052640693882015-11-09T10:09:15.184-06:002015-11-09T10:09:15.184-06:00Jeff, it really seems we're talking past each ...Jeff, it really seems we're talking past each other quite a lot here. When I read your responses, I increasingly find myself saying, "Okay, but so what?" Here's an example of a statement of yours that strikes me as one of these irrelevancies:<br /><br /><i>This is craftsmanship, not an accident based on subliminal recognition of parallelism in nice couplets from, say, Proverbs.</i><br /><br />This statement is irrelevant, and worse it betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of how people acquire and use their languge abilities.<br /><br />I mean, <i>accident? ACCIDENT?</i> <br /><br />First, if a writer is unconsciously using and remixing literary forms they've encountered elsewhere, that use is not "accidental." None of what I've been saying has anything whatsoever to do with accident. It has to do with the most utterly commonplace human use of language. When a child is acquiring language, and she switches from saying "Me want a cookie" to "I want a cookie," she does so because she has heard others use the standard structure, and she does so unconsciously -- and it is not an accident. No one would use the term "accident to decribe this scenario. Your use of the word "accident" in this context is not merely wrong, it's bizarre.<br /><br />Second, people's ordinary, commonplace language abilities are not just imitative but <i>creative</i>. When the child hears "I want a cookie," the child is able to imitate not merely the words themselves, but the underlying <i>structure</i>. By imitating both words and grammatical structures, the child is able is able to produce entirely new and original statements -- not just <i>I want a cookie</i> but <i>They want a car</i> and <i>We need some water</i>, even if the child has never heard these last two utterances before. The appearance of completely new and original utterances is perfectly natural and ordinary.<br /><br />Once the child has heard <i>He and I are hungry</i>, and <i>She is in the house</i>, the child understands (unconsciously, of course, but that doesn't matter a whit) that subjects can be compounded and that prepositional phrases can be used like nouns as the object of a noun, and now the child can -- and will! -- mix and match and say <i> You and I are at the mall</i>, and so on, <i>even if she has never encountered that specific sentence before</i>. What matters is that she has encountered the individual word and the relevant grammatical rules.<br /><br />In the same way, once Joseph has encountered certain Hebraisms in the KJV, even if he is not consciously aware of his knowledge of them, it would be the most natural thing in the world for him to start imitating them and remixing them creatively to create entirely new sentences and even structures of his own. Having encountered sentences that are ordinary but long, and sentences that are chiasmatic but short, it's not a bigcsurprise that he would create a sentence that is chiasmatic and long. Alma 36, even if it <i>is</i> a 39-part chiasmus, might be impressive, but it's not evidence of ancient origins. It's easy to see it as the result of ordinary human linguistic creative ability.<br /><br />I go on at such length about this stuff because you seem to think that the authenticity of the BoM is demonstrated by the appearance within it of any structure lacking an obvious counterpart in the KJV or 19th-century English. You seem to think that a writer's use of a certain structure depends on their conscious awareness of that structure as a discrete, named, academically studied object. But if you keep in mind the natural linguistic creativity of the human mind, you see how crazy these assumption are.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04668073406352787818noreply@blogger.com