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I definitely need to do a detailed review of Meldrum’s work. While I think it is interesting, I think Meldrum cherry pick’s Joseph’s quotes that support his theory, and completely ignores Joseph’s quotes that disagree with him. Also, Meldrum seems to ignore the fact that the Mound Builder culture were pretty much stone age technologically speaking. Nephi talks of chariots, temples, metallurgy, yet these people are much too primitive to be a very good match. The Aztecs and Olmecs are a better match than the Mound Builders, yet even Aztecs don’t seem to have the technology that matches Nephi either. I attended one of Bruce Porter’s presentations and felt it was “archaeology mingled with scripture.” Frankly, the archaeology was lacking considerably. Meldrum’s take on DNA evidence seems to be based on old DNA tests, and he hasn’t updated his methods. See this comment from Simon Southerton at my blog. http://www.mormonheretic.org/2008/05/16/significance-of-cohen-haplotype/comment-page-1/#comment-513 I’m interested in any linguistic work. I always feel that anything in the Book of Mormon has to be taken as being at least three removesaway from the alleged writers’ language – but how often do we hear that? Here’s my take on it. I have been re-examining the BoM recently and have been trying to work out how things are. Sometimes critics of the work – and even believers – fail to take various things into account, or take stuff at face value.
Firstly, it was transcribed into English, which seems to have been influenced heavily by the King James version. One word in one language can be two or more in another, and vice versa. This accounts for many of the supposed anachronisms, such as “adieu” – which may well be a French word, but wouldn’t have appeared in the original text. Ditto “cimitars”, “steel” etc
Secondly, we’re told that it’s written in something called “Reformed Egyptian”, which seems to have been some kind of shorthand. I’ve heard that it may have been deficient in some regards – for example, it doesn’t differentiate between different types of bird for example. It appears to be a script, not the native language of any of the writers, according to the book’s own testimony.
Thirdly, presumably the stuff being rendered into Reformed Egyptian is based on some form of Hebrew/Hebraic tongue. This would end up being distorted through the two layers above. There’s also another problem. A generation or two after the departure from “the land of Jerusalem”, the tongue would have diverged, as it evolved and had words for new places and creatures etc. All this presuming that the tongue of these people wasn’t affected by others that they came into contact with.
So we have non-native speakers of Hebrew rendering stuff into a form of Egyptian, then getting turned into a form of English which was not exactly how Smith and Cowdery would have spoken amongst themselves.
Even today Jews often have secular names, and Hebrew names – a Lionel might be Levi for the purposes of religion, but in the case of the Book of Mormon, we may find that names are supposed to have been Hebraicised, put into Egyptian, and then rendered into old fashioned English.
Sam, fwiw, the word “adieu” fits perfectly into the context of how it’s used the one time it’s used in the BofM – frankly, like no English word would. Honestly, that “translation” is a tiny part of why I still continue to believe it is an inspired translation/transmission. It simply fits too well in the only place where it is used. I will excerpt and copy something I wrote about that in a separate post, in order to keep this one focused on the issue of geography.
SamBee, I just did a new post on the Baja theory (see
http://www.mormonheretic.org/2010/04/18/book-of-mormon-on-the-baja/ As for Reformed Egyptian, I did a post on Terryl Givens book “
By the Hand of Mormon“. Givens discusses a few different kinds of Egyptian script. Quote:Though the expression “reformed Egyptian” garnered no small amount of ridicule at the time and since (“deformed English” rather than “reformed Egyptian,” sniffed Charles Shook in 1910, after looking at the Anthon transcript57), scholars now generally recognize that “Demotic Egyptian, of origin not long before Lehi’s Exodus, is certainly a ‘reformed Egyptian’ as are other well-known and less-known variations.”58 Nibley points out that Meroitic, “a baffling and still largely undeciphered Egyptian script which developed out of Demotic under circumstances remarkably paralleling the purported development of the Nephite writing, has the most striking affinities to the characters on the so-called Anthon Transcript.”59
See
http://www.mormonheretic.org/2010/02/22/are-mormon-academics-winning-the-debate-with-evangelicals/ I did have a look at Givens’ book recent (but didn’t read it all) Very interesting. If there are linguistic connections, I would suggest that the language of Nephite/Lamanite would NOT be Semitic in origin, but would have certain Hebrew and Egyptian (Semitic) loanwords in it, for certain terminology especially religion. This would put it in line with the vernaculars of Jewish or Jewish derived ethnic groups throughout the world who have spoken Yiddish (Teutonic – Indo-European), Ladino (Romance – Indo-European) and so on, which are not Semitic, but have Semitic words for Jewish practices and dietary stuff.
mormonheretic wrote:The Exodus has many similar problems as the Book of Mormon. For example, we don’t even really know where Mount Sinai is, and there are some scholars who believe the Exodus story is a complete myth. Of course, there are others who believe the Exodus story and try to explain it. It’s a really long post, but if you’re interested, go to
http://www.mormonheretic.org/2010/04/11/questions-about-the-exodus/
I love Rabbi Wolpe’s comments, thanks MH.It is good to have a perspective that this is not purely a Book of Mormon issue. It really is around scriptures and their historicity in general.
Quite a few documents of classical times. I know people have questioned the validity of some of Tacitus’ work. And he was a secular Roman historian. mormonheretic wrote:And lest you think the Bible is on solid ground archaeologically, I recently did a post on the Exodus. You might enjoy this quote:
Quote:During Passover celebrations in 2001, Rabbi David Wolpe created international headlines in Israel by proclaiming to his Jewish congregation in Los Angeles, “the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all.”
The Exodus has many similar problems as the Book of Mormon. For example, we don’t even really know where Mount Sinai is, and there are some scholars who believe the Exodus story is a complete myth. Of course, there are others who believe the Exodus story and try to explain it. It’s a really long post, but if you’re interested, go to
http://www.mormonheretic.org/2010/04/11/questions-about-the-exodus/ That was a great read. Fascinating. I’ve read a few of those snippets from those sources before, but I liked how you color coded the different sources together to make it more comprehensive — compare and contrast. Thanks.
Has any one considered the area of Southern Kentucky and Northern Tennessee as the narrow strip of land surrounded by water now called ‘The Land Between The Lakes’ National Recreation Area? I’m thinking there was more water at the time of the
Book of Mormon than there is now.
I am not sure Plato would have mentioned Atlantis if it had been located in the South China Sea. The theory I have liked best is the idea presented by a Sacramentan that the Book of Mormon lands were in and around the eastern Great Lakes. I need to reread his book. It is out of print.
Well, have a good evening.
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