Hugh Nibley was a fool, come watch

[_Chap]

Coggins:

All the video demonstrates is that PP does not have the intellectual discipline or desire to understand and seriously engage what Nibley is saying.

Aha! You have had a look then? You seem to be the only pro-mo with the courage to admit to having actually viewed it, and to make some kind of direct comment. Congratulations!

Do you think that Nibley's presentation showed 'intellectual discipline'? As someone who does that kind of thing for a living, the most charitable interpretation I can give of his strange performance is that what we saw was a verbally fluent person faced with a problem he couldn't really handle, even though he admitted it was important. He therefore yielded to the understandable temptation to talk round and round and round the issue without ever coming to grips with it. The uncharitable interpretation is that he was deliberately obfuscating. The effect on the audience would probably the same either way: I think the technical LDS term is 'stupor of thought'.

What I know of Nibley doesn't make me admire him very much, but I was still sorry to see someone labelled as a scholar pull that kind of trick in public. But you thought it was a great lecture, evidently?

[_beastie]

See my comments about this in the Book of Mormon, above.

How in the world do you think this helps the Book of Mormon? There were no chariots. There were no horses. There was no large land domesticated land mammal in ancient Mesoamerica.

Coggins, I'll take a look at your link this afternoon, but normally what people claim are elephants in pictures are either tapirs or parrots.

[_DonBradley]

Beastie,

Have you considered that Nephite chariots might have carried horse meat for feasts and been pulled by flocks of parrots? Also, how do we know that what they meant by "chariot" is what we would mean? They're chariots needn't have had wheels. They might have been sleds, inner tubes, snow boards, or even parasails, with the latter being particularly resonant with the parrot-drawn chariot theory. It's remarkable how well these things fit together if you really take a moment to think about them.

Don

[_Ray A]

Beastie,

Have you considered that Nephite chariots might have carried horse meat for feasts and been pulled by flocks of parrots? Also, how do we know that what they meant by "chariot" is what we would mean? They're chariots needn't have had wheels. They might have been sleds, inner tubes, snow boards, or even parasails, with the latter being particularly resonant with the parrot-drawn chariot theory. It's remarkable how well these things fit together if you really take a moment to think about them.

Don

Parrot. Or, possibly, a hunchback parrot with hair instead of feathers. Your theory is remarkably cogent, Don.

[_Ray A]

How in the world do you think this helps the Book of Mormon? There were no chariots. There were no horses. There was no large land domesticated land mammal in ancient Mesoamerica.

Like the coelacanth, which was "extinct" for 200 million years, but found merrily swimming around in waters off South Africa by a fisherman? It only took one find to have this idea demolished. It may not "help" the Book of Mormon, but I think we should fully understand what the Book of Mormon says first. The comparison to Cortez's horses, or the modern horse, may be a total misconception.

This may sound flippant, but do you realise that masses of people die from hospital infections, wrong diagnoses, and incompetent medicine? Perhaps, beastie, you place too much trust in "the authorities"? Just something to think about. I am really skeptical, and that skepticism equally extends to "infallible prophets".

[_beastie]

Ray,

Ancient mesoamericans had wheeled toys (or perhaps they had religious associations). They did not have wheeled vehicles of transport.

beastie wrote:


How in the world do you think this helps the Book of Mormon? There were no chariots. There were no horses. There was no large land domesticated land mammal in ancient Mesoamerica.



Like the coelacanth, which was "extinct" for 200 million years, but found merrily swimming around in waters off South Africa by a fisherman? It only took one find to have this idea demolished. It may not "help" the Book of Mormon, but I think we should fully understand what the Book of Mormon says first. The comparison to Cortez's horses, or the modern horse, may be a total misconception.

This may sound flippant, but do you realise that masses of people die from hospital infections, wrong diagnoses, and incompetent medicine? Perhaps, beastie, you place too much trust in "the authorities"? Just something to think about. I am really skeptical, and that skepticism equally extends to "infallible prophets".

I already said that it's not necessary to immediately discount a claim contrary to the mainstream viewpoint. I said it is necessary to exercise some skepticism in the face of such claims, and make an effort to falsify or validate the contrary claim. I thought I was pretty clear about that in my earlier response.

Apologists have already been down this road, by the way. Brant once speculated that the Book of Mormon horse was some miniature version of a horse that actually was carried on some royal transport. And, of course, apologists largely insist today that the horse was food, not transport at all.

None of this really gets you anywhere. You still are left without any evidence of a horse, small or not, or left with trying to figure out what animal would have fit within the context of the "horse" in the Book of Mormon. I went into this in great detail in my essay.

Now, if you simply want to revert to "discoveries are still being made and one day we will discover evidence of the horse", then you will have lots of company among believers. Of course, you're still left with the lack of contextual evidence for the horse, either, which supposedly one day we'll still find.

[Tator]

Here's an example of a carving that many Book of Mormon believers would be happy to call an "elephant". It's actually a macaw head.

http://www.mesoweb.com/features/jpl/26.html

[_beastie]

Here's another one:

Expert drawing of Stela M, "smoke shell"

http://www.sarweb.org/members/images/Lectures/lectures01-02/Fash/stela.jpg

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/maya/travel_01.html


drawing by someone who hopes to see an elephant:

http://www.the-book-of-mormon.com/elephant2.jpg

real statue:



http://www.traveladventures.org/continents/southamerica/copan10.shtml[/url]

[_Coggins7]

No, no Mormon would make that claim. Nice try at a red herring and insulting our intelligence at the same time. Are you really going to force me to post the photos of pottery fragments, art, and carved toys clearly depicting Elephants or very Elephant-like creatures from ancient Mesoamerica?. They're fairly well known Beastie.

Poor showing Beastie, poor showing.

In any event, the idea that the Nephites remanded local creatures after animals with which they were familiar is more than plausible, and has numerous known historical examples (including place names) as evidence supporting it. The Elephant motif, even if no actual Elephants, was very clearly present in ancient Central America.

We in the church enjoy the degree to which people like you just don't get the degree to which we're laughing behind the backs of folks who engage in this kind of concerted straw grasping.

[_beastie]

http://www.the-book-of-mormon.com/elephant2.jpg

Look again at the url, Coggins. This drawing of the "Elephant" headdress is from a Book of Mormon evidence page.

And the first one I offered that I just pulled off the web for a macaw, knowing macaws are often called elephants by the wishful, is certainly just as "elephanty" as others I've seen.

Why don't you just go ahead and post the pix yourself?

(edit on)

Poor showing Beastie, poor showing.

In any event, the idea that the Nephites remanded local creatures after animals with which they were familiar is more than plausible, and has numerous known historical examples (including place names) as evidence supporting it. The Elephant motif, even if no actual Elephants, was very clearly present in ancient Central America.

We in the church enjoy the degree to which people like you just don't get the degree to which we're laughing behind the backs of folks who engage in this kind of concerted straw grasping.

Now you're changing arguments to the mistranslation.

Do the pix you claim are so well known show elephants or not?

"laughing behind the backs" Yes, Coggins. So far you claimed my links would NEVER be used by LDS, despite the fact that one was taken right from a Book of Mormon page, and then you switch to mistranslation instead of real elephants, being ignored by mainstream scholars. I guess you're too busy laughing to get your arguments straight.

If you want to see some real laughing, I'd suggest trying to get one of the Book of Mormon evidences articles publishing in a respected archaeological magazine.