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You said the Church has spent a lot of money on the idea that the Nephites were the Mayans. FAIR/FARMS and individual members aren’t “the Church”. I am not aware of money spent by the Church making that claim. There might be, but I am not aware of any. I would need to see a link. People who assert that Joseph Smith could have brought forth the Book of Mormon from his own imagination seriously underestimate the complexity of the book. When the book of Lehi was stolen, Joseph continued on with the book of Mosiah through to Moroni, and only then dictated the books of Nephi and Jacob. Yet there are several places where later prophets quote earlier prophets word for word. I guess you could say that he had a photographic memory, and could write a book in his mind without ever putting it to paper, and then memorized his own imagined book word for word, but is there any record of anyone ever accomplishing such a feat? To say the odds are 1 in a million is to seriously underestimate the odds. Then there is the chiastic verse; the Book of Mormon contains some of the finest examples of a long forgotten type of Hebrew prose. It is so obscure that no one noticed it in the Book of Mormon for over a hundred years. Some of these are quite lengthy, and hard to compose even with a computer. Where did Joseph Smith learn to write Hebrew prose? According to his mother, Joseph was an active boy and didn’t like to read.
According to authorship testing, the Book of Mormon was written by twenty men – none of which were Joseph Smith. If someone knew about the test then they might be able to figure out some way to fool it, but if Jospeh Smith knew about the test, then the titles of prophet and seer would certainly apply to him.
Then there is the geography. Hundreds of statements regarding geography are all in perfect harmony.
If that weren’t enough, the Book of Mormon is predominantly Israelite in composition. It isn’t Jewish at all. Israelite themes are talked about again and again, but the Jewish specific themes are noticeably absent. I suppose some scholar who has done research into Documentary Hypothesis could fake such a book today, but this discipline didn’t exist in 1830.
Then there is the real world knowledge of war. Joseph Smith may have paraded around Nauvoo on his horse, wearing the uniform of a general, but he had no real training in war. Mormon – on the other hand – was a real general and fought in numerous battles, and seems to talk about little else. It has been suggested, and rightly so, that the Book of Mormon is a manual on guerrilla warfare.
Then there is the real question about how much Joseph Smith knew of Jerusalem, Arabia, or ancient America. The coincidences just keep adding up. Why are there plausible candidates for the river of Laman, bountiful, and Nahom? How did Joseph Smith describe in great detail Mayan armor and weapons? How would he know that the plates of Laban would have been kept in a treasury and not a library? How would he know that before money was invented, that weights of grain were used as currency? Or that cement houses were being built in 100 AD? He couldn’t build a cement house on a dare. And yet, surprise surprise, archeologists have found houses made out of cement.
None of this speaks to the other problems, because they really don’t involve the Book of Mormon per se; How did he heal the men who were dying of Cholera? How did he heal the withered arm of a women he had just met? How did he cause so many people to see shared visions? Even after excommunication, the three witnesses were still loyal to what they had actually seen with their own eyes and heard with their own ears, what could only be described as a visionary experience in broad daylight.
I’d like to suggest, that if you can write a lie, and feel the spirit, then perhaps you are feeling the wrong spirit. When the spirit has born witness to me of future events, I have watched those events transpire. I have come to trust the spirit.
As I said in my previous comment, there are a lot of elements that intrigue me and make it impossible for me to dismiss the BofM as simply a work of standard fiction. I hope we can all help each other in some way. Old Timer wrote:
As I said in my previous comment, there are a lot of elements that intrigue me and make it impossible for me to dismiss the BofM as simply a work of standard fiction. I hope we can all help each other in some way.
By no yardstick is the BoM “standard fiction”. Nor is the Bible “a fairytale” as the modern cliché goes. Whoever says that clearly doesn’t know their literary genres. Even if Smith made up all or most of it, then it’s something a bit different – there are elements of a chronicle about it, theological discussion and the structure of it is unlike most novels of the 19th century. Moby Dick comes close in some regards, with its chapters on whale biology etc but even that is more like a novel.
rrosskopf, thank you for providing important information to balance out the discussion. As I too wrote in the other thread, there is evidence on both sides – for and against. The LDS church position (as I understand it) is that a scientific approach will not be enough to convince an individual of the historicity of the BoM. It requires a spiritual witness and is a matter of faith. Roy wrote:
The LDS church position (as I understand it) is that a scientific approach will not be enough to convince an individual of the historicity of the BoM. It requires a spiritual witness and is a matter of faith.
I am merely preparing the soil so that faith may grow.
The trouble is, there is no possibility of evidence that could “disprove” the Book of Mormon, in the minds of those who ardently believe it. If the prophet came out and said it was all a lie, there would still be believers. If the characters of one of the translated pages were examined and translated by multiple professionals, and outright proved Joseph Smith’s translation to be false, there would still be believers. If most of the historical claims of the Book of Mormon were found to be inexplicibly missing, there would still be believers. There are many things that would prove the Book of Mormon, were they found to be true. For example, if Joseph Smith had translated some ancient writing, and we still have original document translated from, and that translation were proven to be correct. Or if there were etchings taken from the plates, and professionally examined from multiple sources, and found to correctly be some form of “reformed Egyptian”. If there were other historical records found, corroborating the events in the Book of Mormon, that would be another sure sign. If there was any sort of “reformed Egyptian” or Hebrew-related language found in ancient America, that would be good evidence.
But there are too many evidences against the Book of Mormon, for it to be considered “the Most Correct Book of any book on Earth”, or even accurate for that matter. Too many “coincidences”, and overtly complex explainations for things which don’t add up.
dande48 wrote:
The trouble is, there is no possibility of evidence that could “disprove” the Book of Mormon, in the minds of those who ardently believe it.
Is that really a problem? Are there too many ardent supporters of the law of gravity? The spherical shape of the earth? Mortality? I think the real problem is that some have experienced a type of knowledge that scares the others.Yes, I’ll admit to rooting for sanity. Because if the Book of Mormon isn’t true to the extent that I believe, then it is likely that I am insane. I can honestly say that I don’t feel insane. I can’t really imagine how insanity would answer all the questions either. People who are insane have huge gaps in their memories where things don’t add up, where reality and fantasy meet. I’m not experiencing that. If it is a cosmic joke, it’s a pretty good one. I am not alone in my wonder, my open jawed awe, at what shouldn’t be possible. If accidental ape men is really the best explanation of human history, then where does LDS history fit in? What explains an aberation like Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon?
The biggest problem that skeptics face, in my opinion, is that they take pot shots, expecting to disprove Mormonism with a single shot. Some even take a scatter gun approach, shooting blindly in a hundred different directions. They weave a tapestry that has almost nothing in common with reported reality. Their explanations don’t explain anything.
The common explanation is that Joseph Smith was a convicted con artist. Not only does that not fit the facts, it isn’t even accurate. The only conviction I can find is for improper banking procedures, for which Joseph had to pay a fine. Hardly the stuff of blatent flim flam. And of course it doesn’t explain how so many people saw visions, even in broad daylight, even seeing the same visions together, or in one case miles apart. And no amount of visionary explanation can suggest how Joseph Smith ended up with such a complex and credible history as the Book of Mormon, except perhaps the one offered by Joseph Smith. If someone were to magically meet both of those hurdles, then there is the obvious problem that Joseph Smith gives no indication that he doesn’t believe what he teaches. Here is a man which, never having healed a single person, commands that a women’s withered and useless arm be healed, in the company of an atheist and a minister. Talk about chutspa. And of course, it is immediately healed, on the spot, at that very moment. Where does that kind of certainty come from? It is like law of gravity certainty, or the certainty that we are all going to die. It isn’t a matter of probability. There isn’t a long line of failed attempts. Whatever it is, I want to bottle it.
So we have abundant credible eye witness testimony that forms the backbone of LDS history, and skeptics taking pot shots at what they can’t believe.
EXACTLY, Sam. Anthon Script has been studied by both LDS and non-LDS scholarsrosett, and determined to be gibberish. So the new explanation comes “that is not the original Anthon Script!” Well, luckily we have the Egyptian papyra JS used to translate the Book of Abraham! But it turns out those characters don’t match Joseph Smith’s translation. “So those characters are unrelated to the facsimile, and the real translation came from other parts of the papyra we now don’t have.” Or “The papyra was just a tool used to facilitate translation.” What if someone hid the Book of Mormon manuscripts from Joseph Smith, forced him to re-translate, and compared the transcripts to see if the matched? Turns out that was just a long elaborate plan from God to “teach Joseph a lesson”, and those who stole the papers had a conspiracy from Satan to undermine the Church, and those who knew JS was a prophet changed the characters to falsely accuse Joseph Smith of lying, and undermine the Restoration… instead of, you know, Joseph Smith couldn’t re-translate, knew he couldn’t re-translate, came up with an elaborate conspiratorial explanation why he couldn’t re-translate, and a convenient way to get around re-translating. Instead of, when comparisons were made, saying “that’s a forgery, those characters were changed”. Or even better, God telling Joseph where the transcript ended up, and exposing the conspiracy!
Well, what are some parts of the Book of Mormon we can “check the translation of”? Looks like it copies directly and explicitly from the JKV! So in translation, if there were any “mis-translations” in the JKV, God would’ve surely had those corrected. I mean, isn’t that the grand significance of the Book of Mormon, to restore the truths lost by the bible? Except we now have earlier biblical transcripts which contract the JKV… not to mention the JST contradicts the JKV bible passages found in the Book of Mormon.
rrosskopf wrote:
Is that really a problem? Are there too many ardent supporters of the law of gravity? The spherical shape of the earth? Mortality?
The thing is, the spherical shape of the earth can be, were the right evidence to exist, disproven. It’s not that difficult. And everyone who once believed in a spherical earth would believe in a flat earth. Scientists would rejoice, if the spherical shape of the earth, if gravity, or if mortality (which the LDS has claimed is overcome), were disproven. However, no one who believes in a flat earth can be convinced of a spherical earth, no matter what hard evidence is presented to them. It’s always another conspiracy, another long-stretch explanation, etc. Flat earther’s commitment to their faith is just as unshakable as your belief in the Book of Mormon. As flat earther’s have said,
Quote:“Some have experienced a type of knowledge that scares the others.”
Admin Note: I simply feel the need to stress our mission here, which is support of each other in our individual journeys as we strive to stay LDS to whatever degree possible. Nobody here has special knowledge that scares people who disagree with them. We are not here to argue that traditional views are the one true views, nor are we here to argue that non-traditional views are the one true views. Due to the nature of our mission, most people here do not have traditional views about many things, but our mission is to support each other, not argue with each other.
That can be hard for many new participants to understand, and it can be easy for established participants to forget. Please keep that in mind, both older and newer participants, as new people get used to our mission and the environment here.
Quote:Joseph Smith Could Not Have Written the Book of Mormon
I think it all comes down to:
Yeah-huh.
Nu-uh.
For whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
:angel: Exhibit A of why I love nibbler. 
nibbler wrote:
Quote:Joseph Smith Could Not Have Written the Book of Mormon
I think it all comes down to:
Yeah-huh.
Nu-uh.
For whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
:angel:
😆 :thumbup: nibbler wrote:
Quote:Joseph Smith Could Not Have Written the Book of Mormon
I think it all comes down to:
Yeah-huh.
Nu-uh.
For whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
:angel:
This is perfection! Love it.
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