Critics should be able to produce their own Book of Mormon to attack its miraculous creation

[Physics Guy]

Leaving the production time issue aside, the text of the Book of Mormon definitely does exist, so if it were somehow completely incredible as the product of a poorly educated young man, working over whatever time frame, then that might be weightier evidence that Smith did not just make up the text. It would still leave open the possibilities that he had help from contemporaries, or even that he found the text already written somewhere. But it would tend to rule out the theory that Smith himself made up the text.

This could be a very important Mormon argument—a Mormon version of the Muslim argument from the glory of the Quran. For such an important argument, though, Mormon apologists seem to have made it awfully casually.

They say that the Book of Mormon is long. This claim of length is not only obviously plausible but also concrete to the point of being quantifiable in word count. Yet even this concrete and plausible claim of length is made by the apologists too casually. They don't seem to have addressed the issue of how repetitive the Book of Mormon is, in both language and plot lines. This affects how long the Book really is, in any way that would make it remarkable.

Length alone is not actually an impressive feature in a text, anyway. Anyone can keep rambling. What other impressive features does the Book of Mormon have?

Its plot does not contradict itself—at least it can be read in such a way that it doesn't. That's not a trivial feature. Impossible things are quite easy to write. It took me weeks, once, to notice that I had written a scene in which a character jumped over a horizontal beam while holding the reins of a team of horses. English grammar does not incorporate even the laws of topology, let alone those of cause and effect. You can write ridiculous stuff and the words still stay on the page. If the Book of Mormon is free of problems like that, then it has indeed dodged a bullet.

On the other hand it was only a slow-moving bullet, because it is also not so hard to avoid contradictions. You just avoid things that tend to produce them. Don't describe anything causal in detail; don't paint yourself into corners by saying exactly how anything happens. Have an episodic plot in which nothing that happens has any long-term effects, except perhaps vague and general ones like "the people" becoming "corrupted". So do the apologists ever make their argument about the self-consistency of the Book of Mormon in enough detail to address how remarkable it actually is, given the particular plot of the Book, that it avoids contradictions?

Then there is some kind of argument about the "complexity" of the Book of Mormon. Complexity is a vague and subjective feature that doesn't really mean anything at all without a lot more explanation. A random heap of scattered playing cards is a pattern so complex that it would take many pages to describe it precisely, yet that kind of complexity can be produced just by dropping the deck on the floor. What exactly is it about the Book of Mormon that would be hard to write?

If that could be explained in convincing detail, then it would be a pretty good argument that the Book of Mormon was at least something special. Mormon apologists are supposed to be keenly interested in forming that kind of argument. So while it's easy to see why Mormon critics haven't bothered to invest time in making imitation Books of Mormon, it's surprising that apologists don't seem to have tried this themselves.

They wouldn't expect to succeed, of course—and I don't fault them for that. Given their beliefs, they could only expect to invest time and effort to produce an obviously inferior text. I also give them full credit for recognising that such a failure as they expect would be no evidence on their side: the apologists can see well enough that their opponents would simply say that they were not trying hard enough.

The apologists can only expect that if they themselves tried to produce a text comparable to the Book of Mormon, they would fail. And they cannot expect that failure itself to count for much on their side. What they should expect to learn from the failure, however, would be a more precise and concrete understanding of exactly how their own efforts fell short of the divinely inspired Book.

This understanding would allow them to produce a far more powerful argument from complexity for the Book of Mormon. They would be able to say, from experience, how hard it is to avoid plot holes, or abrupt shifts in character voice, or whatever.

It wouldn't be a slam-dunk apologetic argument. It would be opening a messy can of worms, arguing in detail with critics about whether those particular challenges in writing were really objectively hard, or whether the apologists in question were only bad writers.

But it would be a real and honest argument, based on lived experience and on the actual text. If any apologetic approach is likely to sway an honest critic, I think that this would be one such approach.

So why haven't any Mormon apologists tried hard to make their own Book of Mormon, and told us about exactly how it went wrong?

[IHAQ]

Doesn't the burden of proof lie with the apologists on this challenge? Don't they have to demonstrate, objectively, that Joseph couldn't prepare a story over the course of a few years and then dictate it to a 3rd party over the course of a few months? Have they tried? Have they satisfied themselves by attempting the challenge they think is necessary for others? Or is this just yet another attempt at deceitfully shifting the burden of proof?

I think Physics Guy has a point - that the "how" of producing the Book of Mormon is relatively moot. Even the Church has changed its position on the how - from transcribing plates, to reading words off a rock. The book exists and the contents examined against the claims made about it. So the "how" is a deliberate distraction, maybe because the apologists know the contents don't stand up to scrutiny against the claim that Joseph produced them "miraculously". The Isaiah verses are simply copied from a KJV Bible. Nothing miraculous about that part. Which in and of itself seems to refute the claims made about the Book of Mormon. Unless apologists are now going with "the Book of Mormon was partially miraculous, and partially not". Is that where we are now?

[Philo Sofee]

Well if critics should be able to produce a Book of Mormon, the current Mormon leader/prophet should be able to produce a revelation worth of a 2nd D&C canonized scripture. When we see prophets producing more canonized scripture, we will produce a Book of Mormon.

[Gabriel]

At the risk of seeming to compare apples and oranges, let’s take a look at another generally well-loved book: The Lord of the Rings, which took Tolkien over a decade to finish, and which, I think, even apologists would agree is an internally consistent story and deserving of all the praises which they heap upon the Book of Mormon. If it had taken Tolkien two decades to write, rather than one, would The Lord of the Rings still be considered a good book? What if it took 30 years to write, would the exact same text still be an enjoyable read? What if it took a half-century to write? In my opinion, the story would be just as fresh and enjoyable as if it were told by some blind Homer channeling the Holy Ghost in one sitting around the campfire -- stopping only for lunch and the occasional piss breaks.

Now, take the Book of Mormon -- I take the apologists literally when they say that the Book of Mormon is a 90-day wonder because it must be a 90-day wonder, the Book of Mormon needs to have been written in 90 days because the story itself can’t walk without crutches. Had Joseph Smith dictated the exact same text just a few lines a day over the course of 3 years, who among us today would even be talking about it? Indeed, the longer it would have taken to write the Book of Mormon the more ridiculous it would appear in our eyes because the Book of Mormon just doesn’t pass The-Lord-of-the-Rings-Test. So, in my opinion, all this talk about its miraculous origins is really just a tacit admission that the Book of Mormon as a standalone text doesn’t hold up to serious scrutiny.

[doubtingthomas]

Too many edits.

[doubtingthomas]

Hales just argued that he was college educated and left it at that. It was actually a pretty good read.

I wonder how Hales would react to this.

"This certificate is proudly presented to Master.Abisheik Emmanuel Joseph (born on 09 January 2011 at Chennai) Set a New world record by memorizing and reciting 2461 Bible verses ,from the portion of the Psalms ,chapter 1 to 150 continuously in 2 hours 16 mins 33 secs, This record is reviewed,validated and registered in the Lincoln Book of Records."
https://www.lincolnbookofrecords.com/post/view/38

[Kishkumen]

It would take the right kind of motivation to write a Book of Mormon, and the right kind of circumstances. It is silly to imagine someone artificially conjuring a replication of these things in order to write a new Book of Mormon. Why would anyone want to?

I can't write Homeric epics, and that does not mean they are divinely inspired.

[Philo Sofee]

It would take the right kind of motivation to write a Book of Mormon, and the right kind of circumstances. It is silly to imagine someone artificially conjuring a replication of these things in order to write a new Book of Mormon. Why would anyone want to?

I can't write Homeric epics, and that does not mean they are divinely inspired.

Excellent point. However, the Neoplatonists felt they were inspired....

[doubtingthomas]

If young kids can memorize and recite 2461 verses from Psalms, then it shouldn't be impossible for a 24-year-old man to dictate a book in three months.

[MG 2.0]

Now, take the Book of Mormon -- I take the apologists literally when they say that the Book of Mormon is a 90-day wonder because it must be a 90-day wonder, the Book of Mormon needs to have been written in 90 days because the story itself can’t walk without crutches.

I’ve posted this before, but I’ll do it again:

http://www.eldenwatson.net/BoMIntro.htm

Scroll to bottom. Select link.

Regards,
MG