Is the Book of Mormon Divinely Inspired?

[MG 2.0]

Chap, earlier I mentioned at least a couple of times that for me personally I don’t have a great deal of interest in discussing the merits of disbelief in God. I’ve been there, done that on my end over the years. Not so much anymore. I’ve chosen God.

So here’s the thing. For disbelievers to essentially tell believers that their views are not as welcome as others is one point of view. I just don’t happen to agree with it.

You may not come right out and say it…but, well, it’s not too hard to figure out.

But like I said, this forum is for all. And I have just as valid views and opinions…and yes, information…to share as you or anyone else.

And I’m more than willing to take a balanced/civil track to honoring other points of view even if I often disagree with the initial presupposition that many here seemingly take that God doesn’t exist.

I have no problem with that. And I hope you and others have no problem with the fact that I do believe.

By the way, where have all the theists gone? Did they get pushed away?

I was interested in having a theist comment on the debate between a Mormon and a Catholic linked to in the first post of this thread.

Oh well.

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

Related to the idea of making up a voyage is the making up of the translation.

Ah, you see 'translate' as applied to a text can mean other things than simply producing a text in language X as close as possible in meaning and content to those of a text in language Y. Some apologists have kindly explained (as I recall) that it can mean doing none of those things, but somehow using a text in language Y as a kind of launch pad or provocation for the construction of an text in language X whose meaning and content have no connection with those of the language Y text, but are somehow hugely important. That's what Joseph Smith was doing when he produced the Book of Abraham from the Book of Breathings papyrus fragments. But unbelievers, poor naïve souls, continue to think that 'translate' can only be understood in the rather dull and plodding way set out above. Sad.

Or did I get that wrong?

I think you've got it right. When I was younger, it was taught, quite explicitly and clearly, that Smith "translated" (using the dull and plodding definition) from a language called Reformed Egyptian. It's fascinating that this change in the definition of translation occurred only after it came to light that such a translation was not possible.

[drumdude]

Ah, you see 'translate' as applied to a text can mean other things than simply producing a text in language X as close as possible in meaning and content to those of a text in language Y. Some apologists have kindly explained (as I recall) that it can mean doing none of those things, but somehow using a text in language Y as a kind of launch pad or provocation for the construction of an text in language X whose meaning and content have no connection with those of the language Y text, but are somehow hugely important. That's what Joseph Smith was doing when he produced the Book of Abraham from the Book of Breathings papyrus fragments. But unbelievers, poor naïve souls, continue to think that 'translate' can only be understood in the rather dull and plodding way set out above. Sad.

Or did I get that wrong?

I think you've got it right. When I was younger, it was taught, quite explicitly and clearly, that Smith "translated" (using the dull and plodding definition) from a language called Reformed Egyptian. It's fascinating that this change in the definition of translation occurred only after it came to light that such a translation was not possible.

They’ll gaslight you and say they never hid the rock in a hat story. That it was your fault you didn’t go looking for the real history in the BYU archives.

[Marcus]

I think you've got it right. When I was younger, it was taught, quite explicitly and clearly, that Smith "translated" (using the dull and plodding definition) from a language called Reformed Egyptian. It's fascinating that this change in the definition of translation occurred only after it came to light that such a translation was not possible.

They’ll gaslight you and say they never hid the rock in a hat story. That it was your fault you didn’t go looking for the real history in the BYU archives.

Ikr? It astonishes me that this is the story now.

[Morley]

I used the word “essentially”. Yes, a few people made short little soundbitey comments that honestly didn’t really go anywhere besides surface level. And as I’ve said, I don’t find that interesting.

In a few of my recent posts I’ve dug a little deeper than surface level and tried to show that there might be more places to go than simply responding with simple one or two sentence superficially focused responses.

In other words, something among a number of things that were said in this debate that were possible triggers for deeper thought and more research.

I didn’t see any of that. Thus my comment in being disinterested in conversations that mostly focus on personalities than content.

I suppose you idea of “addressed” doesn’t correlate with mine.

Even this post responding to yours really doesn’t take us anywhere. But here we are.

As I’ve also already said, this is why I get tired of much of the back and forth. I like to see if there is something new under the sun. My recent comments in regards to what Joseph could have known vs. not known I think fit that bill. At least for those that might not be aware of the two examples I outlined. There was no response to my posts. That’s OK. But it did demonstrate, at least to me (wang’s post being an example) that all too often folks aren’t really interested in going broader and deeper. Rather, it’s easier to go shallow, not do a bit of extra research and simply come back with a drive by criticism or short little not much of anything response.

I do come back now and then, however, when I think I have something worth sharing. My hope, as I’ve said, I’d that there are lurkers that are doing their own research and are are their own journey of faith seeking understanding from a believing or hopeful point of view in a creator God.

As it is, I realize that most of the respondents to my posts are either non believers in God or are on the fence. My guess is that it’s the straight up non believers who respond most of the time…although it’s hard to tell because, as I’ve said before, so few people around here are vulnerable enough to express their own beliefs and hopes.

If any.

We are veering off topic. My recent posts before this were on topic. Can we keep it there?

By the way, yes, huckleberry had some comments that came as close as anyone to having some good content. Thanks for that, huck.

Regards,
MG

This is pretty interesting, I'd say.

You posted a link and assigned everyone to come up with something interesting, challenging, deep, or new that Jacob Hansen had to present. Many of us tried. We returned and reported. You decided that we must not have delved deep enough, since all we found were the same, old, boring, chunks of merde things that apologists have all come to rely on, these days. Frustrated with what you saw as our failure, you decided to have a look for yourself. However, from what you posted, it's obvious that you couldn't find anything that was interesting, either.

Maybe the problem isn't that folks here weren't trying hard enough. Maybe the problem isn't that you, yourself, weren't trying hard enough. Maybe the problem is that Jacob Hansen is using the same, old, tired, boring apologetic that the Church has come to cherish. Maybe the problem is that the Book of Mormon is really pretty hard to defend in any kind of intellectually and morally honest way.

Anyway, thank you again for posting this. I sometimes forget how shallow the defenses for The Book of Mormon are until I see someone like you or Mr Hansen scrambling to create some kind of coherent argument for it.

I'm being honest when I say that I do enjoy reading the latest apologetic. New arguments or old, please keep posting these.

[MG 2.0]

I used the word “essentially”. Yes, a few people made short little soundbitey comments that honestly didn’t really go anywhere besides surface level. And as I’ve said, I don’t find that interesting.

In a few of my recent posts I’ve dug a little deeper than surface level and tried to show that there might be more places to go than simply responding with simple one or two sentence superficially focused responses.

In other words, something among a number of things that were said in this debate that were possible triggers for deeper thought and more research.

I didn’t see any of that. Thus my comment in being disinterested in conversations that mostly focus on personalities than content.

I suppose you idea of “addressed” doesn’t correlate with mine.

Even this post responding to yours really doesn’t take us anywhere. But here we are.

As I’ve also already said, this is why I get tired of much of the back and forth. I like to see if there is something new under the sun. My recent comments in regards to what Joseph could have known vs. not known I think fit that bill. At least for those that might not be aware of the two examples I outlined. There was no response to my posts. That’s OK. But it did demonstrate, at least to me (wang’s post being an example) that all too often folks aren’t really interested in going broader and deeper. Rather, it’s easier to go shallow, not do a bit of extra research and simply come back with a drive by criticism or short little not much of anything response.

I do come back now and then, however, when I think I have something worth sharing. My hope, as I’ve said, I’d that there are lurkers that are doing their own research and are are their own journey of faith seeking understanding from a believing or hopeful point of view in a creator God.

As it is, I realize that most of the respondents to my posts are either non believers in God or are on the fence. My guess is that it’s the straight up non believers who respond most of the time…although it’s hard to tell because, as I’ve said before, so few people around here are vulnerable enough to express their own beliefs and hopes.

If any.

We are veering off topic. My recent posts before this were on topic. Can we keep it there?

By the way, yes, huckleberry had some comments that came as close as anyone to having some good content. Thanks for that, huck.

Regards,
MG

This is pretty interesting, I'd say.

You posted a link and assigned everyone to come up with something interesting, challenging, deep, or new that Jacob Hansen had to present. Many of us tried. We returned and reported. You decided that we must not have delved deep enough, since all we found were the same, old, boring, chunks of merde things that apologists have all come to rely on, these days. Frustrated with what you saw as our failure, you decided to have a look for yourself. However, from what you posted, it's obvious that you couldn't find anything that was interesting, either.

Maybe the problem isn't that folks here weren't trying hard enough. Maybe the problem isn't that you, yourself, weren't trying hard enough. Maybe the problem is that Jacob Hansen is using the same, old, tired, boring apologetic that the Church has come to cherish. Maybe the problem is that the Book of Mormon is really pretty hard to defend in any kind of intellectually and morally honest way.

It was good of you to use ‘maybe’. Four times. That does leave it open to you being wrong. Four times.

It’s not my fault that you and others were not willing or able to dig deep enough and have a ‘trigger’ that brought about further investigation.

Your decisions/conclusions were premeditated and confirmed before I even posted the link.

In my estimation anyway.

I think, by the way, what I had to offer was VERY interesting. But I am under no illusion that your mileage may vary.

Take care.

Regards,
MG

[Morley]

This is pretty interesting, I'd say.

You posted a link and assigned everyone to come up with something interesting, challenging, deep, or new that Jacob Hansen had to present. Many of us tried. We returned and reported. You decided that we must not have delved deep enough, since all we found were the same, old, boring, chunks of merde things that apologists have all come to rely on, these days. Frustrated with what you saw as our failure, you decided to have a look for yourself. However, from what you posted, it's obvious that you couldn't find anything that was interesting, either.

Maybe the problem isn't that folks here weren't trying hard enough. Maybe the problem isn't that you, yourself, weren't trying hard enough. Maybe the problem is that Jacob Hansen is using the same, old, tired, boring apologetic that the Church has come to cherish. Maybe the problem is that the Book of Mormon is really pretty hard to defend in any kind of intellectually and morally honest way.

It was good of you to use ‘maybe’. Four times. That does leave it open to you being wrong. Four times.

It’s not my fault that you and others were not willing or able to dig deep enough and have a ‘trigger’ that brought about further investigation.

Your decisions/conclusions were premeditated and confirmed before I even posted the link.

In my estimation anyway.

I think, by the way, what I had to offer was VERY interesting. But I am under no illusion that your mileage may vary.

Take care.

Regards,
MG

I'm always open to being wrong.

Impugning the motives of others is rarely considered to be good form.

It's good that you find yourself to be "VERY interesting."

[Gadianton]

Because MG finally made good and watched some of his video and posted his thoughts, I watched the first 10 minutes.

Out of the gate Jacob comes swinging with "NHM", which was also Hamblin's go-to discovery. The Bible has a book called Nahum and given the sheer number of Bible names and Bible-riffed names in the Book of Mormon, its pretty obvious it is Bible fan fic. And Jacob massively oversells it, as if anyone but Mormon apologists have agreed that NHM would have or has ever meant Nahom. More on Jacob's hilarious overselling at the end of this post.

Phillip Jenkins has an epic takedown of NHM here:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbe ... m-follies/

While I certainly can't compete with Jenkins, I apparently did my own study of Nahom back when I was thinking about Book of Mormon names.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=151744

Hamblin was right about one thing. He knew that he had to account for the chance appearance of the three letters appearing together, and so he did a bogus calculation showing it to be some ridiculous number and ceded the point later (another apologist corrected him). But he was right to take that into account. My interest in how names appear is similar to Hamblin's thoughts about what kind of names we'd expect to find. (not detailed odds)

Now back to Jacob's overselling. Jenkins hits it out of the park here:

To give the authors credit, they honestly cite the inscription word as Nihmite, without pretending it was “really” Nahom. Yet despite this precise quotation, the story morphs and expands in popular retelling, until it becomes something like “The Book of Mormon describes a place in Arabia called Nahom. And now scientists have discovered inscriptions using the same name at that very place! Whoa!”

That quotation is about verbatim Jacob's sales pitch to his Catholic friends! LOL!

[Marcus]

It was good of you to use ‘maybe’. Four times. That does leave it open to you being wrong. Four times.

It’s not my fault that you and others were not willing or able to dig deep enough and have a ‘trigger’ that brought about further investigation.

Your decisions/conclusions were premeditated and confirmed before I even posted the link.

In my estimation anyway.

I think, by the way, what I had to offer was VERY interesting. But I am under no illusion that your mileage may vary.

Take care.

Regards,
MG

I'm always open to being wrong.

Impugning the motives of others is rarely considered to be good form.

It's good that you find yourself to be "VERY interesting."

You are very kind, Morley. Very, very kind.

[huckelberry]

But like I said, this forum is for all. And I have just as valid views and opinions…and yes, information…to share as you or anyone else.

And I’m more than willing to take a balanced/civil track to honoring other points of view even if I often disagree with the initial presupposition that many here seemingly take that God doesn’t exist.

I have no problem with that. And I hope you and others have no problem with the fact that I do believe.

By the way, where have all the theists gone? Did they get pushed away?

I was interested in having a theist comment on the debate between a Mormon and a Catholic linked to in the first post of this thread.

Oh well.

Regards,
MG

Mg I am a theist and I have posted . I can continue a bit. I think it is worth recognizing that the Book of Mormon has inspired people and in some ways been an influence for good. I do not think it makes much sense to think of it as inspired by dark forces. I think the inspiration is the hope and goals expressed in the Bible and carried forward in the Christian tradition which is the primary source bed of the book. I can see second hand divine inspiration.(inspired by ideas that are related to divine inspiration)There are other books like that. I like George McDonald or perhaps Dickens Christmas Carol.

I think it is fair to recognize earnestness in the composition of the Book of Mormon. It is not a joke, trick or some thing that could be done as a demonstration. It took years of preparation, investment of imagination as well as some real attachment to what is being communicated in the book.

Can such a think be fiction? I think it is very possible. Human imagination has a momentum. We enjoy stories. We like stories to fit our hopes and fears. People can put a lot of effort into that. Much more effort than is put into an assignement(could you or I go home and create a book like the Book of Mormon? No we could not.)