Joseph Smith's Book of Moses: The Other Smoking Gun

[_Daniel Peterson]

It seems that David Bokovoy's attention was drawn to this thread, and that he has posted a substantial response over on the better board.

[_Bond...James Bond]

It seems that David Bokovoy's attention was drawn to this thread, and that he has posted a substantial response over on the better board.

What's he doing posting on RfM?

:grin:

[_Daniel Peterson]

I said "the better board." Not "the bitter board."

[_harmony]

It seems that David Bokovoy's attention was drawn to this thread, and that he has posted a substantial response over on the better board.

David's tolerably familiar with the path to this board. It's too bad he isn't inclined to post his comments here, where the thread can be accessed by those he apparently is going out of his way to avoid. My first response would be: why? Is he that afraid of the rebuttal?

[_dartagnan]

I said "the better board." Not "the bitter board."

You can't seriously think nobody over at MAD is bitter. That's practically all I sense, when the usual suspects who actually run the organization, show up in discussions.

I'm curious as to your opinion on Bokovoy's latest theory and public declaration that everything that drove me to the dark side was a need for attention. Shirts explains it like this: I had my "ego bruised" by Metcalfe, so I decided to give in. If I ever gave into similar psychoanalyses about apologists, that would certainly be interpreted as "bitter," right?

And we can't forget the most bitter person the internet world has ever known: Juliann Reynolds. She is still over there telling people I have been "caught in so many lies," though she always neglects to provide any examples.

[_dartagnan]

It seems that David Bokovoy's attention was drawn to this thread, and that he has posted a substantial response over on the better board.

Don't tell me. He drew another "parallel" between the Book of Mormon and the "Ancient World."

[_dartagnan]

Nevo pretty much shut down David's diatribe with this citation:

Robert Matthews has noted that "the material that now constitutes the Book of Moses was revealed to Joseph Smith the Prophet as part of his translation of the Bible. Originally it consisted of three separate revelations. . . . The second revelation is titled: 'A Revelation given to the Elders of the Church of Christ on the first Book of Moses, Chapter First'," covering the material found in Moses 2-4 (see Robert J. Matthews, "What Is the Book of Moses?" in Studies in Scripture, Vol. 2: The Pearl of Great Price, ed. Robert L. Millet and Kent P. Jackson [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1998], 26-27).

It would be odd to refer to Genesis 1 in the title of the revelation as "the first Book of Moses, Chapter First" if Joseph Smith did not, in fact, believe that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Indeed, Moses 2:1 clearly points to Moses as the original author of the material restored by the revelation. So I don't see anything problematic with Tal's statement that the Book of Moses claims to be "an inspired restoration of a corrupted text authored by Moses."

So much for trying to distance Joseph Smith from the notion that Moses authored the text. Again, begin with an apologetic objective and then ignore all evidence that gets in the way.

David needs to stick to Hebrew, because his skills in researching history have proved ineffective and sloppy (he once tried telling me Joseph Smith didn't know the Bible well enough to get any parallels right, naturally, and he then misused a citation from his mother which she made when he was just a kid, to support his argument). This Nibleyesque approach to history needlessly discredits his already established status as an quasi-expert on the ANE.

[_dartagnan]

As former BYU history professor Richard Poll observed in 1984, "[Nibley] has been a security blanket for Latter-day Saints to whom dissonance is intolerable. . . . His contribution to dissonance management is not so much what he has written, but that he has written." Poll candidly reported, "After knowing Hugh Nibley for forty years, I am of the opinion that he has been playing games with his readers all along. . . . Relatively few Latter-day Saints read the Nibley books that they give to one another, or the copiously annotated articles that he has contributed to church publications. It is enough for most of us that they are there."

This resonates with me and many that I know, and I think most people in apologetics acknolwedge it as well. This could explain why people like Bokovoy and Schryver aren't really interested in providing stellar apologetics. They'seem more interested in pumping out long-winded diatribes. Just the fact that they're doing it must mean something about the truthfulness of the gospel, right? I mean as long as someone is disputing the criticisms - especially smart guys with Ph.Ds- that makes the LDS view "plausible," right?

[_dartagnan]

In German, the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are typically referred to as 1. Mose, 2. Mose, 3. Mose, 4. Mose, and, not surprisingly, 5. Mose -- very commonly by people who don't believe in their Mosaic authorship. It's just convention.

Well then, since the Germans made this same mistake, that certainly excuses the Prophet for making it. The Germans are also responsible for another error that is maintained even in the temple.

In any event, I don't see any necessary contradiction between believing that Moses wrote down a text and believing that that text was "lost from the Bible" even before the Bible was compiled, so that the book of Moses is not a restoration of a defective biblical text.

Whatever.

People generally understand the JST to be an attempt to restore what was lost. That is foundational to many aspects of the Gospel - restore this, restore that, etc. I don’t know anyone who understands the JST to be an attempt to import “truths” that simply should have been in the Bible. In any event, it seems Joseph Smith accepted the common and erroneous belief that Moses authored the Torah. I think that was the point, and it is well taken.

I’ll go ahead and add another.

Apologists don’t want to acknowledge minor discrepancies in their attempts to draw parallels between anything Smith said and did, and the “Ancient World.” I mean good grief, Bokovoy has managed to convince some apologists that the idea of “standing before God” is an “impressive,” even “startling” parallel with the “Ancient World,” that lends credibility and evidence to the truthfulness of the Gospel. But to acknowledge the misses, is just too much to ask I suppose.

I mean the Book of Mormon teaching about Faith, for example, is an anachronism in itself. The idea of Faith being a seed that needs nourishment seems more related to modern ways of thinking about the concept, but is supported in no "Ancient" Hebrew or first temple text. But the misses are discournted as restorations, and every single possible similarity is driven by exagerration and hyperbole to meet the apologist's standard of evidence.

Several excellent points here, David. Incidentally, a critic on another board is boasting that Nevo has pretty well shut you down. From what I can tell, Nevo posted his note at about 1:12 AM, your time. I think it shameful that you've failed to respond when it's already 2:40.

I was simply making a point – not “boasting” – that Nevo’s reference pretty much made the point. And I certainly wasn’t criticizing his failure to respond promptly. In fact, I’m glad he has spared us another 2000 worded response.

Evidence that the Book of Moses does not present a restoration of an original text is seen through Joseph Smith’s revision of Genesis 1:1-3…However, Moses 2:1-3 does not reflect how the text originally read. According to Joseph Smith, Genesis 1:1 originally read “the head one of the Gods brought forth the Gods!” Teachings, 348.

This is such backwards logic. This is like saying Joseph Smith couldn’t have possibly believed the Book of Abraham came from the Breathings text, since we know the Breathings text doesn’t translate accordingly. Little or zero room is given for the Prophet to make sincere mistakes.

In the case above, Smith’s doctrine of the plurality of gods was expressed only after he found out about it in Hebrew studies, nearly a decade after his "translation" of the Bible. The fact that he didn’t know of this while “translating” the Bible, is an inconvenience for the apologist not the critic. It doesn’t logically follow what David is saying. This isn’t evidence that Smith didn’t really believe he was correcting the Bible when he was initially translating it. We’re talking about nearly a decade between both versions, and the latter took place during the time Book of Abraham chapter four was provided – a chapter which explicitly teaches the plurality of gods.

[_Blixa]

As former BYU history professor Richard Poll observed in 1984, "[Nibley] has been a security blanket for Latter-day Saints to whom dissonance is intolerable. . . . His contribution to dissonance management is not so much what he has written, but that he has written." Poll candidly reported, "After knowing Hugh Nibley for forty years, I am of the opinion that he has been playing games with his readers all along. . . . Relatively few Latter-day Saints read the Nibley books that they give to one another, or the copiously annotated articles that he has contributed to church publications. It is enough for most of us that they are there."

Oh...gol darn it! I wish I'd remembered this when I was posting on Steuss's Nibley thread. I'd read that years ago and forgotten it. Where did you quote it from?