Other Religious Forgeries

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Dr Exiled
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Re: Other Religious Forgeries

Post by Dr Exiled »

mentalgymnast wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 5:21 pm
Kishkumen wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 4:38 pm
I think in the case of the Book of Mormon it is not an overstatement to say that, barring some unforeseen corroborating discovery, the lack of the plates leaves the question of the Book of Mormon's authenticity as an ancient text comfortably in the category of forgery.
Hi Kishkumen, would you be willing to respond to the questions I posed in my post to DrStakhanovite? Maybe he’ll respond, but I’d be interested in your thoughts.
mentalgymnast wrote:
Fri Mar 12, 2021 8:02 pm

If you, DrStakhanovite, were to take a purported scriptural record appearing in our day seriously, what would be the acceptable means by which that record would appear? And just for kicks, let’s say that the record is also from God.

DrStakhanovite wrote:
Fri Mar 12, 2021 11:05 pm
What would it take for me to believe a modern (or ancient) text was divinely inspired? I don’t know. I’m not really confident that if God existed that would be their chosen method of communication.
mentalgymnast wrote:
Fri Mar 12, 2021 8:02 pm

In order for information to be transmitted uniformly it would have to be in a permanent written form. Even if God used flash technology or some other super-dee-duper way of communicating, it would essentially have to come to us as text. What’s the alternative?

Plates actually sound like a good way to transmit information from an ancient culture to our flash technology culture. Better than paper or other media that deteriorates over time.
DrStakhanovite wrote:
Fri Mar 12, 2021 11:05 pm
I’ve yet to come across a compelling reason to believe that God would even use language as we understand it today.
mentalgymnast wrote:
Fri Mar 12, 2021 8:02 pm
Yeah, but then we wouldn’t understand it now, would we? 😉

Seems like He’d have to communicate with us in our language.
My questions are highlighted. And they are posed with the hypothetical that there were no plates, although in my post I did express my preference for plates.

Regards,
MG
I know I'm an interloper in this conversation but thought I would give my two cents anyway.

How about if God communicated just like we mere humans do? Perhaps he could speak in front of a stadium filled with thousands of people, broadcast it live, and then have the speech put into pdf form and save the live recording? I think that wouldn't leave much doubt.
Myth is misused by the powerful to subjugate the masses all too often.
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Symmachus
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Re: Other Religious Forgeries

Post by Symmachus »

I am gratified that the noble Reverend has taken the time to respond in kind to my rather off-topic impressions of the Rollston blogpost. In general, I am in agreement, but I'm approaching it as someone who is interested in these kinds of topics but who is not familiar with this particular issue. I thought Rollston was going to explain why Dershowitz is wrong, but he doesn't even tell us what Dershowitz's claim is. He catalogues the circumstantial evidence that the Shapira Straps (which I assume are small bits of text, not a long narrative) is a forgery, but all of that is immaterial from the standpoint of philology and epigraphy. The categorical denial of antiquity on the grounds the originals are gone was particularly jarring, and all that means is that you can't approach the question by empirical means, let alone settle it. The "dramatic claims require dramatic evidence" cliché is just not satisfying as a response to me. Let's just remove the "dramatic" import of the claims and focus on the evidence we do have, letting the implications unfold as they will. And while I understand Rollston only has so much time and that he must have good reasons for his view, the fact remains not only that a peer-reviewed article by a competent scholar was a published but that he chose to write this non-response. As I say, I am now curious about this and will try to read the Dershowitz article and Rollston's when it comes out. This should hinge on the philology. On the surface, this reminds me somewhat of the controversy around the Praeneste Fibula, where similar kinds of circumstantial facts about shady dealings on the antiquities market were the main evidence against its antiquity, which is absurd (who didn't have to deal with shady grave-robbers at that time?!). Of course in that case we have the object and the matter is settled as far as I know: it is ancient.
Kishkumen wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 4:38 pm
My guess is that what we are asking is this: what do we know now that we did not know then, that would lead us to overturn former conclusions that this is a forgery? Maybe you are right. Perhaps we know so much more about earlier Hebrew epigraphy that past judgments about the Shapira Strips can be overturned. I would be surprised to see an epigrapher who apparently knows his subject telling us that it simply cannot be done when it is obvious to everyone that it can.
A good question that Rollston could have answered in a short sentence or two rather than the long paragraphs building the hedge around the sacred orthodoxy that the Book of Deuteronomy was forged by someone at the court of Josiah, which is so obviously his motivation. There have been new inscriptions and texts discovered in the past century, certainly, so maybe Dershowitz adduces them in arguments—or maybe he avoids them. It is not clear from Rollston's blogpost. He does reference some other finds and the "eerie" similarities to some other forgeries, so I am genuinely curious what he sees and am sure he will explain that when he published an article. I'm just responding to what he has posted.
Yes, and there is only so much time in the day, so much time in a life, to spend watching broken clocks. My overall feeling is that if Dershowitz wants to watch broken clocks, then that is his business. At the same time, Rollston is not obliged to agree that it is a worthwhile enterprise.
True, it's just the he wrote the response to Dershowitz. If it's not worth taking seriously, I am left to wonder why he takes it so seriously for several paragraphs which have should have nothing to do with the essential question: does the philology support authenticity or not? If not, one can say so quite quickly. Indeed, I think the comment made on his blog that I referenced does it quite well: you've got post exilic morphology in the text, so it can't be pre-exilic by definition. If Dershowitz doesn't address that problem convincingly, I don't know what the point of the response should be in terms of the philology. It's not pre-exilic!

My suspicion is that this is a small volley in the culture war academics have been fighting against against those who don't know or care about the correct opinion that these straight-A students have so generously constructed for the rest of the kids in the class:
I would have liked to have integrated all of these references into this blog post, but since the New York Times article appeared today, and I wanted to get this post up rapidly, I am just including these as an addendum at the bottom of this blog post.


And that's quite an addendum to a blogpost!

although I suspect some text scholars will find Idan Dershowitz’s proposal alluring, especially since it seems to “confirm” the things some of them have believed about the textual transmission of Deuteronomy in its earliest forms.


Translation: Oh. My. God. Someone might use this to support their belief that Moses wrote the Book of Deuteronomy. We can't have that happen! I'm so glad we have the epigraphic fact-checker to put this candle out before it ignites a blaze of fundamentalism across the New York Times readership.

I think in the case of the Book of Mormon it is not an overstatement to say that, barring some unforeseen corroborating discovery, the lack of the plates leaves the question of the Book of Mormon's authenticity as an ancient text comfortably in the category of forgery.
Yes, and I think that is why Jenkins's exchange with Hamblin was so devastating: just give us one corroborating piece of material evidence and we can go from there. But they've got nothing beyond their flimsy contraption of anachronistic and contradictory parallels that are held together by their very questionable presuppositions—and even that glue lacks sufficient consistency to keep it together.

EDIT: my original suspicion is wrong. I'm not sure exactly who or what Rollston is referring to, but I don't think that the Shapira Strips could lead to a fundamentalist reading.
Last edited by Symmachus on Sun Mar 14, 2021 4:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Manetho
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Re: Other Religious Forgeries

Post by Manetho »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 5:01 pm
This, much to my shame, is the first I've heard of this man and incident. I'm sure Grindael shared the information, but I admit I didn't read all of his material mainly because I'm pretty thick and his posts were so exhaustive my wrinkle-free brain would tire easily.
They were a bit exhausting to read, weren't they? I tended to skim over them, but that bit leapt out at me.

A man named Pomeroy Tucker briefly mentioned the incident in a book called Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism in 1867. You can see it on pages 31 to 32, here: https://books.google.com/books?id=resQA ... 31&f=false
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Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Other Religious Forgeries

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Thanks. I'm in love with this bit:

"... Hussey became impetuous and ejaculated, "Egad! I'll see the critter, live or die!""

It appears from googling that a tile-brick is just a brick of some sort, by the way.

- Doc
Donald Trump doesn’t know who is third in line for the Presidency.
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Symmachus
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Re: Other Religious Forgeries

Post by Symmachus »

Dr Moore wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 5:16 pm
Welcome back, dear Symmachus!!
Thank you, Dr Moore. You are most kind.
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 7:28 pm
Thanks. I'm in love with this bit:

"... Hussey became impetuous and ejaculated, "Egad! I'll see the critter, live or die!""

It appears from googling that a tile-brick is just a brick of some sort, by the way.

- Doc
:lol: :lol:

Reminds me of the stone in Whitingham, VT, commemorating Brigham Young:

Image
Brigham Young Born on this spot 1801. A man of much courage and superb equipment.
So true.
(who/whom)

"As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them."
—B. Redd McConkie
mentalgymnast
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Re: Other Religious Forgeries

Post by mentalgymnast »

Dr Exiled wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 6:25 pm

I know I'm an interloper in this conversation but thought I would give my two cents anyway.

How about if God communicated just like we mere humans do? Perhaps he could speak in front of a stadium filled with thousands of people, broadcast it live, and then have the speech put into pdf form and save the live recording? I think that wouldn't leave much doubt.
OK. So this is Option 1. Two questions:

Question 1. How would this scenario have taken place back in Joseph Smith’s day?
Question 2. Wouldn’t the restoration have to have been delayed for close to another couple hundred years?

Other options/answers to my queries to DrStakhanovite and Kishkumen?

If not plates, then...what?

Regards,
MG
Dr Exiled
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Re: Other Religious Forgeries

Post by Dr Exiled »

mentalgymnast wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 7:56 pm
Dr Exiled wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 6:25 pm

I know I'm an interloper in this conversation but thought I would give my two cents anyway.

How about if God communicated just like we mere humans do? Perhaps he could speak in front of a stadium filled with thousands of people, broadcast it live, and then have the speech put into pdf form and save the live recording? I think that wouldn't leave much doubt.
OK. So this is Option 1. Two questions:

Question 1. How would this scenario have taken place back in Joseph Smith’s day?
Question 2. Wouldn’t the restoration have to have been delayed for close to another couple hundred years?

Other options/answers to my queries to DrStakhanovite and Kishkumen?

If not plates, then...what?

Regards,
MG
You don't think God could have gone from country to country at any time, gathering the crowds, making speeches, having the words written down? That isn't possible? It had to be plates that weren't even used to make the Bible like story about a people that left no traces of their existence? Under the Mormon view God is a horrible communicator and then to add insult to injury, he makes the people rely on a small group of old men and communicates through feelings, supposedly, feelings that could be used to convince anyone of almost anything. Surely, if the Mormon God loved his children or existed, he wouldn't leave so much up to the chance of miscommunication.
Myth is misused by the powerful to subjugate the masses all too often.
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Res Ipsa
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Re: Other Religious Forgeries

Post by Res Ipsa »

Dr Moore wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 5:16 pm
Welcome back, dear Symmachus!!
Ditto. I’ve missed you around these parts.
he/him
When a Religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its Professors are oblig’d to call for the help of the Civil Power, ’tis a Sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.

Benjamin Franklin
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Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Other Religious Forgeries

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Dr. Exiled,

Before you get sucked into yet another mg exercise in mental masturbation because eXpAnDiNg My hOriZoNs please give this Lemmie-provided thread a quick once over:

http://mormondiscussions.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=47259

- Doc
Donald Trump doesn’t know who is third in line for the Presidency.
Lem
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Re: Other Religious Forgeries

Post by Lem »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 8:53 pm
Dr Moore wrote:
Sat Mar 13, 2021 5:16 pm
Welcome back, dear Symmachus!!
Ditto. I’ve missed you around these parts.
Agreed!!!!! And your avatars of my great-aunts are always appreciated. :D
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