Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

[_Uncle Dale]

...
whoever wrote Alma 34 must have found it expedient to use the word on that day!
...

Maybe so. The writer of the 1835 LDSM&A article attacking the Spalding authorship
claims made in the Illinois Pioneer found it useful to use "expedient" in countering
that newspaper's anti-Mormonism. I presume the writer was Cowdery.

Then again ---

"Br. Joseph Smith jr. said that it was not intended to tell the world all the particulars
of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, & also said that it was not expedient
for him to relate these things &c." --- Orange, Ohio, Oct. 25, 1831

and ---

The definition of “expediency” is: 1. fit or suitable for the purpose; proper under
the circumstances. or 2. conducive to advantage or interest. Expediency is a big
J[oseph]S[mith] word. It appears 52 times in the Book of Mormon and 27 times in the D&C. It
only appears 7 times in other scripture: John uses it 3 times and Paul uses it 4 times.

http://mormonmatters.org/2009/04/14/scr ... expedient/

UD

[_MCB]

Dale, Swedenborg's writings are so voluminous, I am wondering which one to attack first for parallels with Mormonism? I know that he taught something analogous to celestial marriage.

[_Uncle Dale]

Dale, Swedenborg's writings are so voluminous, I am wondering which one to attack first for parallels with Mormonism? I know that he taught something analogous to celestial marriage.

Maybe start here:



http://sidneyrigdon.com/vern/1999Swdn.htm
http://sidneyrigdon.com/vern/1999Swdn.htm#appendix1
http://sidneyrigdon.com/vern/1999Swdn.htm#appendix2
http://sidneyrigdon.com/vern/1999Swdn.htm#appendix3

UD

[_MCB]

ROFL and blushing!!! TY

[Bedlamite]

ROFL and blushing!!! TY

I found this part interesting:

Swedenborg's... Divine Providence, page 36: "Christendom knows that God is infinite and eternal. The doctrine of the Trinity which is named for Athanasius says that God the Father is infinite, eternal.... and that nevertheless there are not three who are infinite, eternal... but One. As God is infinite and eternal, only what is infinite and eternal can be predicted of Him. What infinite and eternal are, finite man cannot comprehend...."

Book of Mormon, Alma 34:10, 14: "For it is expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice; but it must be an infinite and eternal sacrifice ... and that great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God, yea, infinite and eternal."

The term "infinite and eternal" is not found in the Holy Scriptures.

Compare Book of Commandments XXIV (June, 1830) based upon a draft composed
by Oliver Cowdery -- "The Articles and Covenants of the church of Christ."

In other words, the "infinite and eternal" nature of God Almighty was unknown to
the biblical writers of antiquity -- save for Prophet Amulek -- and not re-discovered
until the days of Athanasius. However, in June of 1830 * God informed Oliver Cowdery
of this principle, so that it could be articulated in the book of God's commandments.

If Cowdery penned the only occurrence in the Book of Commandments -- and Jockers
says Cowdery penned its only occurrence in the Book of Mormon, then why should
Dale Broadhurst be criticized for investigating a possible Cowdery authorship of
Alma 34?

UD

-------
* more properly, "Written in the year of our Lord & Saviour 1829" ...
"A commandment from God unto Oliver how he should build up his Church"
However, the 1829 Cowdery text's relationship to the June 1830 text is
uncertain. "Infinite and eternal" first appears in a copy of the revelation,
preserved in an early Mormon's diary.

[_Benjamin McGuire]

MCB writes:

There is method to my madness. I present parallels, and let the reader make their own conclusions. As an educational psychologist, my aim is to encourage people to think, not to tell them how to think.

And this practice has been labeled as deceptive, misleading, and problematic for a century now. There is method to your madness - but you won't be presenting reality.

Ben McGuire

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Dale writes:

Actually, I'm very open to reading scholarly reports that come to the conclusion that Nephite authorship is the most viable, reasonable explanation for the sort of English phraseology we see used in the Book of Mormon.

This is such a fun thing - to see you invoking the angel Dale. This doesn't really have anything to do with the issue at hand. It is a problem - when I talk to you, when I talk to Roger, when I talk to Marge, and others. There is this idea that the only thing you have to compare your theory to is the angel. It is why you have such a hard time dealing with Chris Smith, or Dan Vogel. Actually, the most reasonable explanation for the sort of English phraseology we see used in the Book of Mormon is that it is well represented in the environment of Joseph Smith. Not just in Spalding, or in Rigdon, or Cowdery - but all over in his environment. And this is only what we assume we would find. Nothing about this language - this English phraseology remotely suggests that we should only look at Spalding, or Rigdon, or Cowdery. The relationship between the texts that you bring forward is the kind of relationship we fully expect to see using the assumption that Spalding, Rigdon, and Cowdery were simply not involved in the authorship of the Book of Mormon. You want to avoid this glaring reality by suggesting that you want proof of the angel. But I don't need proof of the angel to suggest to you that your theory of authorship attribution does not work well at all, and that your evidence is neither startling or even statistically unusual if we start from the premise that these three men had nothing to do with the text of the Book of Mormon.

I spent a great deal of my life in an environment in which this
presumed Nephite authorship was accepted, without question.
Many of those years were happy, Spirit-filled experiences.

So what, Dale? It doesn't matter. Whether spirit-filled or not is largely irrelevant to the question here. You are sidetracking this discussion with an appeal to your personal experience. And it doesn't mean anything - whether you believed it or not has zero impact on the question of whether or not your argument about Spalding, and Rigdon has any merit whatsoever.

If your word-mapping of the Book of Mormon can restore that
old testimony, you'll have the satisfaction of returning me to
the innocent comfort of my earlier, joyous years.

Why should this matter Dale? I think that on some fundamental level you are simply refusing to acknowledge that your years and years spent on your word maps haven't actually produced the results that you thought they had. And why didn't they? Because you never bothered to produce some kind of baseline for comparison. It's true that computers have changes this entirely - but - you ought to consider that your opinions of your data have been badly affected by this.

So -- if the best explanation for the many interesting examples
of English language use to be found in the book is that those
words were originally inscribed upon plates of gold in Guatemala,
feel free to re-educate me. --- I can still learn.

And again, they aren't that "interesting" - what makes them interesting is that you assume that they must be more significant than they really are. And this happens because you have never produced a baseline. You have never taken two other texts and compared them. This has absolutely nothing to do with the gold plates or Guatemala. This has to do with literary theory that encompasses any text. The Book of Mormon is still a text like any other text.

In the meanwhile, what do you make of the fact that "expedient" is not to be found in the Book of Ether, the Book of Moses, nor in any of the alterations Smith and Rigdon made to their KJV version?

Dale, I can produce a list of thousands of words that are not found in the Book of Ether, the Book of Moses, nor in any of the alterations Smith and Rigdon made to their KJV. What is it that makes this argument significant? Does your generalization hold true when looking at other texts?

Ben McGuire

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Dale writes:

In other words, the "infinite and eternal" nature of God Almighty was unknown to the biblical writers of antiquity -- save for Prophet Amulek -- and not re-discovered until the days of Athanasius. However, in June of 1830 God informed Oliver Cowdery of this principle, so that it could be articulated in the book of God's commandments.

This is meaningless Dale. Amulek did not write in English (even if we assume that there was an Amulek who wrote). So to say this is really gibberish. Athanasius did not use the words "infinite and eternal". No ancient prophet used the words "infinite and eternal". On the other hand, "infinite and eternal" is a common phrase used in the 18th and 19th centuries, in English, thousands and thousands of times by thousands of authors. Often to discuss biblical issues and the nature of God. Adam Clarke used it in his Bible Commentary. So did Matthew Henry. There is a long list. But that's just dealing with the language. The notion of an "eternal God" is quite common in the Old Testament (some translations have it a bit more common than others). One of the problems that you deal with here, though, is the issue of language itself. The 1828 Webster's dictionary had this definition of "infinite":

1. Without limits; unbounded; boundless; not circumscribed; applied to time, space and qualities. God is infinite in duration, having neither beginning nor end of existence. He is also infinite in presence, or omnipresent, and his perfections are infinite. We also speak of infinite space.

2. That will have no end. Thus angels and men, though they have had a beginning, will exist in infinite duration.

Now, perhaps, since you suggest that this concept was foreign to the ancient prophets, you might suggest to us what the ancient prophets believed that contradicted this. In what way didn't the ancient prophets teach that God was infinite and eternal?

If Cowdery penned the only occurrence in the Book of Commandments -- and Jockers says Cowdery penned its only occurrence in the Book of Mormon, then why should Dale Broadhurst be criticized for investigating a possible Cowdery authorship of Alma 34?

Obviously you are welcome to investigate it - but, what you are doing is simply making up an ad hoc argument. Use some legitimate scholarship. Until you do, it isn't a viable argument that make. The problem of course is that Cowdery wasn't the only one to pen an occurrence of that phrase. It was a very common phrase. It has no value for authorship attribution. And, of course, the Jockers study never used the words 'infinite' or 'eternal'.

As long as you are simply going to respond by saying that its an issue of belief versus non-belief, this discussion won't go anywhere. This is not about the angel.

Ben McGuire

[_Uncle Dale]

...
Does your generalization hold true when looking at other texts?
...

I don't know.

This is the general purpose of having discussions -- to share and compare ideas.

You appear open to the probability that the early 19th century American English
vernacular heard by Joseph Smith, Jr. somehow influenced the phraseology of
the Book of Mormon -- but not its instruction, precepts, practices, etc.

In other words -- if I understand you -- the godly Nephite communications were
not changed -- their godly instruction was in no way altered or compromised --
but the original Nephite wording was translated into phrases and word-strings
found in the King James Bible, New England preachers' sermons, etc.

So, let's test that notion.

Frequently we hear the Nephite prophets voicing "it is expedient" or
"it is not expedient." They were Israelites, speaking Hebrew. They
would have written (after the time of Mosiah 1st) in Hebrew, if it
did not take up so much space on their pages.

So -- when the Mormons translated "it is expedient" back into Hebrew,
for the volumes they distribute in Israel and elsewhere, what idiom
was used for "it is expedient?" If a Hebrew educated rabbi were to
pick up that LDS Book of Mormon in Israel today, how would he
convey its terminology back into English you and I can understand?

The term "it is expedient" --- was that Israelite language from the
days of Lehi and Nephi? If so, where in the Hebrew Bible is it found?

You are providing me with nothing to demonstrate Nephite authorship
of the phraseology found in the Book of Mormon.

If anything, it looks very much like the phraseology found in the 1833
Book of Commandments and in John Whitmer's history.

If THAT English was drawn from a certain version of British/American
vernacular, then upon what basis can you claim that the MESSAGE it
conveys was not also drawn from modern British and American voices?

UD

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Dale writes:

You appear open to the probability that the early 19th century American English vernacular heard by Joseph Smith, Jr. somehow influenced the phraseology of the Book of Mormon -- but not its instruction, precepts, practices, etc.

I am even open to that Dale. But again, its kind of irrelevant to the issue at hand. You want to keep bringing up this point about believers and non-believers. Personally, I think that you are trying to suggest by it that my fundamental perspective is demanded by my belief. And I keep responding that this is merely a way of avoiding head on the problems with your approach and your data. Those issues exist whether or not I am a believer. Even if I am not open to influence on all sorts of levels, it wouldn't change the fact that your approach is flawed and problematic. You need to stop bringing up issues of faith because those appeals cannot save your conclusions.

In other words -- if I understand you -- the godly Nephite communications were not changed -- their godly instruction was in no way altered or compromised -- but the original Nephite wording was translated into phrases and word-strings found in the King James Bible, New England preachers' sermons, etc.

I really don't care about this Dale. Lets assume, for talking purposes, that the Book of Mormon is entirely a 19th century production and that there were no Gold Plates. Coming from that position, your evidence of authorship attribution to Rigdon and Spalding is still completely untenable. It doesn't work.

This isn't an argument about whether your position is better than the angel. This is an argument about whether your position is remotely plausible. Every time from you Spalding theorists, its exactly the same argument. You absolutely refuse to support your own arguments. You believe that the best way to promote your argument is to erect a straw man of the positions of others and beat it down, and declare victory in absentia.

Ben McGuire