Glass & Steel in the Book of Mormon, why a problem?

[_Runtu]

CFR Joseph Smith or the Angel Moroni referring to the hill where the Book of Mormon was buried as the hill Cumorah. The silence so far is deafening.

I've already given you two citations, which you dismissed as superstition. Lucy Smith recounts a visitation Joseph had from an angel (presumably Moroni) and quotes Joseph as follows:

It was the angel of the Lord: as I passed by the hill of Cumorah, where the plates are, the angel met me, and said that I had not been enaged enough in the work of the Lord; that the time had come for the record to be brought forth; and that I must be up and doing, and set myself about the things which God commanded me to do.(History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, p. 99)

It's fine if you don't believe Joseph's mother, but you can't say there's no evidence.

[_Equality]

CFR on Joseph Smith saying that the hill Cumorah was in Guatemala.

CFR Joseph Smith or the Angel Moroni referring to the hill where the Book of Mormon was buried as the hill Cumorah. The silence so far is deafening.

From Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph's mother, quoting Joseph Smith, Jr.:

"Stop father stop," said Joseph, "it was the angel of the Lord as I passed by the hill of Cumorah, where the plates are, the angel met me, and said that I had not been engaged enough in the work of the Lord; that the time had come for the Record to be brought forth; and that I must be up and doing, and set myself about the things which God had commanded me to do. But, father, give yourself no uneasiness concerning the reprimand which I have received, for I now know the course that I am to pursue, so all will be well."

Biographical Sketches, p. 99.
http://books.google.com/books?id=gWUoAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Edited to add: Dammit, runtu beat me to it. When can we get some apologists here who know what the hell they are talking about?

[Guest]

From Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph's mother, quoting Joseph Smith, Jr.:

"Stop father stop," said Joseph, "it was the angel of the Lord as I passed by the hill of Cumorah, where the plates are, the angel met me, and said that I had not been engaged enough in the work of the Lord; that the time had come for the Record to be brought forth; and that I must be up and doing, and set myself about the things which God had commanded me to do. But, father, give yourself no uneasiness concerning the reprimand which I have received, for I now know the course that I am to pursue, so all will be well."

As I've said, this is second-hand and there is no reason to believe it is correct. I find it VERY interesting that neither Joseph Smith or his quotations of the Angel Moroni NEVER directly say it is the hill Cumorah.

[_Runtu]

Edited to add: Dammit, runtu beat me to it. When can we get some apologists here who know what the hell they are talking about?

It just means we are on the same page. I don't claim to know everything, but given that I spent more than ten years doing Mormon apologetics, I'm quite familiar with the material. I don't have any interest in the kind of sneering Tobin seems to enjoy. But it is kind of funny to be told I don't know anything.

[_Runtu]

As I've said, this is second-hand and there is no reason to believe it is correct.

What reason is there to believe it is not correct? Did Lucy Smith just make this up? Did David Whitmer invent his discussion with Joseph about Cumorah and the plate-carrying angel?

[_Runtu]

As I've said, this is second-hand and there is no reason to believe it is correct. I find it VERY interesting that neither Joseph Smith or his quotations of the Angel Moroni NEVER directly say it is the hill Cumorah.

I suspect he thought it was a given that it was Cumorah. The Book of Mormon says Mormon buried the plates in the hill Cumorah, and Moroni doesn't say he buried them somewhere else. It's not that interesting, and certainly not interesting enough to go mental with all-caps.

[_Tobin]

[What reason is there to believe it is not correct? Did Lucy Smith just make this up? Did David Whitmer invent his discussion with Joseph about Cumorah and the plate-carrying angel?

And what reason is there to believe it is correct? There is no first-hand account to corraborate the statement. It is for all intentional purposes "Hearsay" because the person who supposedly said it or wrote did not give first-hand testimony. This is NOT legally permissible for a number of reasons and doesn't pass the laugh test.

[_Equality]

and there is no reason to believe it is correct.

Do you believe everything Lucy Mack Smith wrote about Joseph is equally suspect? Why do you doubt her testimony? Why would she make that up? Isn't almost everything we have that is attributed to Joseph Smith second hand? The Book of Mormon is second hand. So is the History of the Church (written by scribes). Are you willing to throw out all Mormon history that is "second hand"? How much would be left? Of course, runtu's right. This is a side-show, an irrelevant distraction to the original question, which was about steel and glass in the Book of Mormon and whether it's an anachronism or not.

[_Equality]

[What reason is there to believe it is not correct? Did Lucy Smith just make this up? Did David Whitmer invent his discussion with Joseph about Cumorah and the plate-carrying angel?

And what reason is there to believe it is correct? There is no first-hand account to corraborate the statement. It is for all intentional purposes "Hearsay" because the person who supposedly said it or wrote did not give first-hand testimony. This is NOT legally permissible for a number of reasons and doesn't pass the laugh test.

You realize, of course, that the entire First Vision account is hearsay, right? Do you reject the scriptures as hearsay?

[_Themis]

But, you have to be very careful about it because there is a lot of junk that has accumulated over the years and discerning truth from fiction is a careful balancing act.

This is actually one of the problems we see from you. You don't really question what you read from apologetic sources, and therefore do not know what is accurate and what is not. This has been very evident in this thread. It has nothing to do with being smart, but not taking some things as fact without at least trying first to confirm it.

And down comes Runtu's house of cards. CRASH!!! After that disaster, he follows up with an even worse assumption and exercise in selective reading - he takes one simple line "Glad tidings from Cumorah!" and makes that into meaning that the hill Cumorah must be in NY.

And yet he had already given you more then that, and you have yet to show he thought the hill was somewhere down in central America.

Themis and Runtu have been plastering this forum with posts that suggest that FARMS/FAIR claims are responsible for the Guatemala idea. Now, wait for it... wait for it... (I'm just relishing this)... Lo and Behold we have Josepth Smith stating the idea in 1842. ROFL.

I am also going to ask for a CFR. As has been said, Joseph presented a HGT, so central America wouod certainly have been part of the HGT model. The LGT model and two hill Cumora's do not come from Joseph Smith.

Joseph did not "know" exactly where the Book of Mormon took place and suggested many ideas (not just the hemispheric model only) over his lifetime. Also, he allowed many others to publish competiting theories as well without correction.

You have already been given statements that he has said about Book of Mormon lands. No where can you show him limiting it to some area down in Central America. I don't think he cared much about what others said about it, since I he knew it was fiction.

I was trying to keep my comments narrowly confined to what was stated on this forum that the idea came from FARMS/FAIRS.

Which you misread from us. The two hill theory came later, as did the LGT. The whole fair and farms things is your unwillingness to question what they say, and Runtu and others has been very kind to show you some of the things you use from them is not accurate.

The Olmec have a lot of interesting parallels to the Jaredites. For example, the civilization dates from 1500 BC or earlier. It shares many characteristic traits with West Africa, Egypt and Nubia like carving giant heads. The examples of the language that we have though extremely limited (only about 186 characters have been identified) are remarkably similar to Libyco-Berber script. Which type of writing we know was used to write languages like Sumerian, Hittite, Assyrian and Akkadian. The people up and vanished in the right time frame for unknown reasons and abandoned their cities to the jungle.

This tells me you have not done any real study on this outside of fair and farms.

CFR Joseph Smith or the Angel Moroni referring to the hill where the Book of Mormon was buried as the hill Cumorah. The silence so far is deafening.

So you can't back up your claims. He has shown some evidnece already. It may not be as much as we like, but it supports one hill in NY.