Loan shifting the anachronisms away

[Physics Guy]

If I read a limerick as though it were an epic, or vice versa, I'm going to have a bad time. So I agree that in general one will get more out of a text by reading it in the frame that gets most of out it. With Scripture in particular, though, I think that there can be more at stake than just getting the most interesting possible set of ideas out of the text.

I don't think the kinds of special issues that Scripture has are entirely unique to Scripture. I see some overlap with a text like the Gettysburg Address. I think it's important that the Gettysburg address was really composed by the President who led the Union that fought at Gettysburg, and delivered by him on the battlefield, in a contemporary public dedication of a cemetery. It's also important that that President was the same Abraham Lincoln who did and said and suffered all the other things that he did. It may not affect what the text means in itself, but it affects what the text means to people, that it was what Lincoln said.

I see some overlap with a physics textbook. Understanding what the text says is one thing. Reading it correctly will yield more coherent ideas. Whether what it says is true about the real world is more important, however, than how interesting or coherent it may be.

When people of a traditional faith believe that the stories in their Scripture really happened as described, they are not simply choosing to read their texts as epics rather than limericks. They are doing something like believing that the Gettysburg Address was really spoken by Abraham Lincoln, and is not instead something made up by a screenwriter in 1956. They may be doing something like believing that F = ma is not just a neat mathematical game but a real law of nature.

Perhaps really having been spoken by Abraham Lincoln—or Jesus of Nazareth—is not the only way for a text to gain this kind of additional meaning beyond the ideas it conveys in itself. Perhaps being observable in controlled experiments is not the only way for an idea in a text to be fact about the real world. It seems to me, though, that if we are discussing Scripture, then we should really be talking about something comparable to those kinds of meaning that are not just internal to a text but involve how the text relates to the real world. Discussing Scripture as literature is like playing poker for matchsticks.

After all, not too much of any Scripture is really worthwhile just as literature. Dedicated scholars can pore over anything; it's hard for any dead writer to have been so dull that no-one will ever write a dissertation on them. If the general public simply wants a bunch of cool ideas, however, they'll read the Lord of the Rings, not Deuteronomy—and skip the boring parts, too. And I think the general public has a point.

If an unhistorical Scripture nevertheless has some significance of that extra kind, something that is at least a contender in the ring with physics and Gettysburg, then does this non-historical but Scriptural significance have anything to do with the features that traditional believers consider historical? To a traditional believer, for instance, the Sermon on the Mount having really been spoken by Jesus is much like the Gettysburg address having really been spoken by Lincoln. Perhaps another kind of believer might doubt that Jesus spoke those words, but still read the Sermon on the Mount as more than just a discourse that looks interesting when framed as a new messiah's manifesto. Would it be important to such a believer that the Sermon was presented as delivered by Jesus in particular, or would any messiah figure do just as well? Is the preaching messiah important at all, or would a version of the Sermon on the Mount recast as an essay be just as good?

I'm open to any kind of explanation of how a Scripture might get to be more than just a bunch of ideas, but I'm suspicious of attempts to get something for nothing. Beliefs in Scriptural historicity are at least somewhat falsifiable. If the Book of Mormon is more than just a story to me because it's the actual record of historical Nephites, damn it, then it's a problem for me when we don't find any of the millions of old Nephite swords in Cumorah. I can imagine that the Book of Mormon could be more than just a story for some other reason than that, but I don't see how I could be getting much more than a story without having—well—something—whatever it is—that is more than a story.

[huckelberry]

https://imagejournal.org/article/conver ... ueggemann/

Benjamin made mention of Walter Brueggemann in connection with a way to interpret Jacob in the Book of Mormon. I would be surprised if the Old Testament scholar was speaking of the Book of Mormon. His principals or ideas about interpretation could. The above link is general conversation about interpretation and its role. It is a role I wish was more broadly seen and understood in society. He is clear but his words do not have the easy catch on quality that the phrase "inerrant scripture" has. Inerrant is distorting and blinkering and easily accepted. It has a feeling of solid knowing as it creates ignorance.

[MG 2.0]

Something to keep in mind. Ben McGuire is a recent entry into this forum. He hasn't been here long enough in order to be considered to be 'the enemy'. In fact, much of what he has said here essentially makes him a 'friend of the court', so to speak. He's innocuous.

No, I am just an infrequent visitor. I originally joined (the forum tells me) on January 15, 2007. By early February of 2008, I had only accumulated 35 posts. The beginnings of my on-line forum participation really goes back to the mid- to late-80s, when I was a regular visitor to the Mormonism forum on AOL. I spent a lot of years participating at ZLMB before this forum started - and I generally spent more time on the FAIR boards (now Mormon Dialogue). So, I don't think that everyone would think me to be that innocuous. I have a long history with some of these posters. Paul (Shulem) and I have argued for a long time - even when he was defending Mormonism. It would take quite a bit, I think, for him to get under my skin anymore. Kerry (Philo Sofee) and I go back even further. There was a time when we spoke regularly (if infrequently) on the phone. I still have some of our correspondence someplace.

On the other hand, I've been in and out of this board for years. I've built a reputation of not being one that will lay down and accept the status quo or accept the prevailing narrative. Ben beats around the bush. At the end of the day it is very difficult to pin the label of either believer OR disbeliever on him. He is more or less lukewarm in proclaiming any sort of faith/belief/testimony in the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the truth claims of the LDS Church.

This occurs for a couple of reasons. First, I am not a participant in these forums to proselyte. Second, I believe that there should be a rational argument for the Gospel. I don't mean, when I say this, that simple belief isn't (or can't) be rational - but rather, that if I have to rely on simple belief - if my only justification is a spiritual witness, then I think that there is a problem. At the same time, I also recognize that because much of what we are (and what we think) is so tightly connected to what we experience, it isn't something that is particularly useful to share. It's what makes an LDS Testimony meeting so fascinating to me. You want to talk about truth claims, and yet the statement "I know the Church is true" is a hollow statement, stripped of content. What people mean when they say "I know the Church is true" (at least what they mean if they have a real belief) is that there are propositions that hold about the LDS Church that are true. Church's can't be true (except perhaps in an existential way). And when I sit in the pews, and I say Amen, I am confirming that I know the LDS Church is true - and by that I mean that I also hold a set of propositions about the Church that I believe are true - and the two sets of propositions (yours and mine) don't really have to be that closely related to one another. It is a beautiful thing.

When I participate in these forums, I do not want my belief or faith to be the subject of discussion. It is really that simple. Others are much better at putting their belief out than I am. More power to them. What keeps my attention isn't that discussion. I am interested in the academic discussion - and sometimes I participate just for the privilege of being able to articulate (and then re-articulate) what I am thinking in a context where it will be overly scrutinized, until I feel that I have finally gotten to where I am explaining what I am thinking. And in the process, I get to expose my thoughts to a high level of skepticism. For me, it's kind of a win-win - and historically, when things get too far off track, I simply step away.

I may very well be misappropriating/misinterpreting what he is actually saying. Maybe is saying...directly...that there were gold plates, that there was an actual angel Moroni, that there were Lehites that left Jerusalem and came to the New World. But I'm not seeing it or hearing it.

Part of the challenge is that we have a text. We don't have the Angel Moroni. We can't ask him questions. So, there isn't anything to look at from this perspective. It doesn't help me understand the questions about the translation of the text or the implications this would have for reading it. So why do I need to engage that question in a discussion like this? Only because people want to make what they view as orthodox belief a part of the discussion - it becomes a distraction that takes us away from the questions we are dealing with. The insistence on historicity is (as I have been suggesting here) a problematic assertion - as much as insisting that we should read the Garden of Eden narrative as if it was also historicity (or for active LDS, that we should view the endowment play as historicity). So I avoid those issues because I have no interest in that discussion - and since I am able to control what I discuss, I don't engage it.

There is an interesting way, I think, to discuss this issue - and that is through a note I received from Kristine Haglund back in 2013. I had submitted what was to become my Postmodernist Reading essay to Dialogue, and she was the editor at the time. I had submitted it there because at the time, the ongoing changes at the MI were causing issues - and at the time of submission, Interpreter wasn't a thing yet). This is what she wrote:

Ben, your paper may now be the most-read submission in Dialogue history. I keep sending it to people to try to get an idea of what direction to go, and every reader wants significant changes in different directions. I think that must mean it's just an awkward fit for Dialogue--it's a little shorter than most articles, and a little more devotional (though I don't think overly so) and a little less reliant on secondary literature... And I find myself not really wanting to chop off its legs to fit in any of the suggested beds.

One of the people I asked to read it also is working on the soon-to-be-resurrected Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, and he seemed enthusiastic about it in more or less its current form. I would suggest submitting it to them. But if it doesn't find a home there, I think I'd be willing to override all my readers because I'd like to see it published, so let me know what happens.

By the time I got this, I had already been invited to participate on the editorial board of Interpreter. I updated it, and published it there. I could have waited, I think, for BYU, but its reception there was uncertain, and I was ready to move on to something else. But you can see how this reflects that sometimes difficult to navigate place between faith and academic writing.

My religious life is complicated. One of my children is a trans-man. Because of the policies of the Church today, my wife refuses to have anything to do with the Church (she still maintains a few friendships, and a mail correspondence with her ministering Relief Society Sister). My children (for the most part) are antagonistic towards the Church. Under those sorts of circumstances, perhaps my reluctance to have those discussions is understandable.

At any rate, I am not under any sort of illusion that my views are typical of LDS Church members. I know very few other LDS members who share my interests. One of the things that I received the most criticism (historically) in this forum was for my postmodernist leanings, and the way that I view my faith and religion through that lens. That search and discovery has been one of the more rewarding aspects of my thinking about the Gospel. My first really public foray into that arena was as a guest blogger on Patheos nearly 15 years ago. It's been a contested journey ever since. But I feel that I have come to a place where I am able to articulate what I believe, and why I believe it.

And there you have it. I think that if I upset certain groups of critics and believers, I am probably staying true to my beliefs.

Thank you for opening up and sharing. I appreciate that. ZLMB was a long way back. How far we have come since then as a church and as a people. Some things have changed dramatically and others have morphed into something at least a bit less rigid. I'm happy for the evolution we've seen and the fact that, within reason, there are more members of the church that feel a bit more comfortable sharing their views knowing that they can still show up at church on Sunday and mingle with the Saints.

I don't know if you remember, but before there was ZLMB there was Mormon-l which I believe started out of BYU and then morphed into a somewhat open and liberal board with some interesting discussions. Mel Tungate was one of those I remember having some rather unconventional views.

I've always been interested in how wide the tent can be for those that have varying views without feeling the need to outwardly/overtly criticize the leaders or attack basic doctrines in a way that can be detrimental to those that have a 'simple faith'.

As it is, at the end of the day it is that faith of a child that will qualify us for eternal glory in the Celestial Kingdom. But that faith can have its manifestations in different and unique ways varying from one person to the next and 'who they are'.

Again, thanks for sharing. Folks like Adam Miller James Faulkener, Sterling McMurrin (back in the day) yourself, Terryl Givens and others, present ideas that are worth adding to the mix of Mormon thought.

Regards,
MG

[Dr. Shades]

Hey Benjamin,

Please give me a TL;DR. So, is your point that using the concept of "loan shifting" [as a way to nullify mentions of animals in the Book of Mormon that didn't actually exist in the Americas] is an illegitimate apologetic?

[I Have Questions]

My religious life is complicated. One of my children is a trans-man. Because of the policies of the Church today, my wife refuses to have anything to do with the Church (she still maintains a few friendships, and a mail correspondence with her ministering Relief Society Sister). My children (for the most part) are antagonistic towards the Church. Under those sorts of circumstances, perhaps my reluctance to have those discussions is understandable.

Your wife is to be commended for putting her child first, ahead of a religious institution that would be harmful for her son to be a part of. If more parents had that strength of character the Church would change its policies far quicker. I say this not to start a discussion, I just wanted to make note of your wife’s parental strength. Family first, always.

[Moksha]

So, is your point that using the concept of "loan shifting" [as a way to nullify mentions of animals in the Book of Mormon that didn't actually exist in the Americas] is an illegitimate apologetic?

Those apologists are better off claiming that all Book of Mormon events occurred on Earth 2. The tapirs on Earth 2 are naturals when it comes to steel chariot pulling.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Hey Benjamin,

Please give me a TL;DR. So, is your point that using the concept of "loan shifting" [as a way to nullify mentions of animals in the Book of Mormon that didn't actually exist in the Americas] is an illegitimate apologetic?

Not illegitimate - just wrong.

Definitions -

Loan word: A loan word is a word that is borrowed from another language.

Lexical Expansion: Adding a new word to a language or expanding the meaning of an existing word to include new meanings.

Loan Shift: A type of lexical expansion that occurs when a loan-word causes lexical expansion in other existing (not borrowed) words in a language.

I'll work backwards and explain why this creates a problem. So to use the idea of a loan-shift as an explanation for an alleged anachronism in the Book of Mormon, the idea would have to be that the Nephites borrowed words from another language, which then caused a shift in additional native words (Nephite words). And this is where the whole idea falls apart. We can't relate this process back to the modern translation.

I'll provide an example from the link in the OP:

(Confirmed as a loan shift). Early critics claimed that cows were not present before Columbus, let alone in Book of Mormon times, but early European settlers sometimes referred to the bison as “cow”, and it remains the proper term for female bison, suggesting that the term may have been applied as a loan shift to the bison present in various areas of North America (despite questions about the extent of their range).

First, in this example, there is no loan. When the "European settlers sometimes referred to the bison as 'cow'" we have an example of Lexical expansion (on the part of the Europeans). There isn't even conceptual space here for a loan shift. For there to be a meaningful loan shift, there has to be borrowing of a foreign word - so if the Native Americans adopted the European words for bison (either cow or buffalo), and this caused a lexical expansion (shift) in other Native American words, that would be a loan shift. If the Europeans adopted a Native American word for bison into English, and this caused a lexical expansion of another word, we could find a loan shift. What the OP refers to as a loan shift can, as far as I can tell, only refer to a lexical expansion.

In this sense, the article is simply wrong about what is happening - the argument that there is loan shifting going on makes no sense to me.

Mormonism as a whole engages a lot of different ideas about the translation of the Book of Mormon and what that translation means for the text and its meaning. Some of these ideas about the Book of Mormon and its translation are better able to explain alleged anachronisms as language issues than others. Loan shifting in any of these contexts has no power to explain what is going on.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Benjamin,

I appreciate you coming here and being willing to engage in discussion with us.

I wanted to find out if you've heard the following song about loan shifting in the Book of Mormon. If not, I will send you a $25 Olive Garden gift card if you can listen to the song and not smile or laugh. I trust that you will be on the honor system. It's one of the best rock songs about loan shifting you'll ever hear:

https://soundcloud.com/user-728018689/s ... alma-songs

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Loan-shifting has occurred throughout history. For example, when scientists first encountered an enormously fat and scary animal now known as the walrus, they named it Odobenus Rosmarus, which in latin means "tooth-walking sea-horse". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walrus

If we find such loan-shifting when scientists encounter new animals, why do some critics like Moksha think it's impossible that the Nephites could have called the walrus a horse?

The Nephites could have cruised up and down the coast riding walruses. It's completely plausible and most who mock it show little sign that they have understood the argument, or can represent it fairly. They resort, instead, to the logical fallacy of appeal to ridicule.

Checkmate, Moksha.

North Korean dictator pictured here riding his favorite steed:


Famous Scottish freedom fighter William Walrus:

[Moksha]

If we find such loan-shifting when scientists encounter new animals, why do some critics like Moksha think it's impossible that the Nephites could have called the walrus a horse?

Mormon sailing along the Yucatan coast and finally to the Hudson River, on toward the Erie Canal and bound toward the Hill Cumorah, all on the back of a trusty Walrus Horse!

I would love to see illustrations of this in both the Ensign and the Interpreter.