True Philosophical Defenses of Mormonism

[_Robert F Smith]

Sure, Themis,
I'll mention four:
In the Fall of 1969, while a student at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, I was sitting at the living room table in our LDS Branch President's home examining his wife's introduction to cuneiform Akkadian (she was taking a class at the univ., while her husband was completing his PhD there). Anyhow, while looking over the list of cuneiform signs or characters, the transliterations, and translations, I noticed one sign which was transliterated as she'um, which was translated as "grain; barley." I immediately recognized that the same word occurred in the Book of Mormon, and quickly found it at Mosiah 9:9 in a list of food plants. I surmised that the generic term was applied to a form of grain (like Amaranth) not familiar to Joseph Smith, and that it was a carryover from the Jaredite period (the -um ending was lost centuries before Lehi, who would not likely have encountered that Mesopotamian term anyhow). There are many such direct linguistic parallels which Joseph could not have known.

http://chriscarrollsmith.blogspot.ca/2008/12/sheum-in-book-of-mormon.html
http://chriscarrollsmith.blogspot.ca/2010/01/sheum-may-not-be-akkadian-after-all.html
http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4498

I agree with Chris that it is very problematic.

I have met and talked with Chris Smith, and have carried on discussions with him online. He is a gentleman and a scholar, and has an excellent sense of humor. However, on this matter he is just wrong on at least a half-dozen key issues. Even so, if this were the only legitimate linguistic parallel to bring forth, coincidence might very well be a justifiable surmise. Note my statement, above, that "there are many such direct linguistic parallels," which is statistically impossible if the Book of Mormon is pure fantasy. See some discussion of that at http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=27202.

In the case of Book of Mormon sheum, Chris depends on A. Livingstone's erroneous comments, and some assumptions about ancient Near Eastern and New World history which are just bunk. For, there is no question that Akkadian she'um is a good reading for the cuneiform Sumerogram (logogram), even in the late period, e.g., Miguel Civil (Oriental Institute, Univ. of Chicago) has no peer in reading cuneiform literature, and he reads line 36 of Seleucid Tablet VII/4 as še-um (Civil, MSL, 14:466 for Aa Tablets).[1] However, as I have stated, I see no reason for Lehi to have been familiar with cuneiform, and I attribute the presence of the word in the form of a "habitual spelling" or frozen ideogram[2] to the Jaredites, who most likely left north Mesopotamia circa 3200 B.C. The story of the "confusion of tongues" is not a late Hebrew creation (as assumed by Chris Smith), but is part of Mesopotamian legend as the Sumerian “Golden Age” passage in which “the whole universe, the people in unison, to Enlil in one tongue (eme-aš-àm) gave praise,” to be followed shortly by the struggle between Enlil and Enki, lord of Eridu, who “changed the speech in their mouths, put contention into it, into the speech of man that (until then) had been one.”[3] That Ether 1:33-37 has an early form of that legend speaks to authenticity of the Book of Mormon.

As the founders of the great Olmec civilization (the "Mother Culture" of Mesoamerica), the Jaredites did come to the cataclysmic end of their long running existence sometime after the arrival of Nephites and Mulekites. Linguistic experts have been able to establish a great deal of vocabulary and concepts which were transmitted by the Olmec to subsequent cultures of that region (Chris Smith seems not to understand how that works in real time).

Akkadian she'um is noteworthy for its broad semantic range, being applicable to "grain, cereal" in general or to more specific items: "barley; pine nut (pignolia); grain-measure,”[4]

[1] Cf. Civil in Oriens Antiquus, 21:15; Rykle Borger, Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon, AOAT 305 (Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2004), 158 #579.
[2] Z. Cochavi-Rainey, Akkadian Dialect of Egyptian Scribes, 37, 74.
[3] S. N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, rev. ed. (Harper & Row, 1961/reprint Univ. of Penn. Press, 1972), xiv,107 n. 2.
[4] René Labat, Manuel d’épigraphie akkadienne, rev. ed. (Paris: Libraire Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1976), 367; Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the Univ. of Chicago (Chicago: Oriental Institute/Glückstadt: J. J. Augustin, 1956-2010) = CAD, “Š2” 17/2:345-355.

[Guest]

However, even more interesting are phenomena which are grouped in a system:
The short description of part of the Nephite weights & measures system in Alma 11 is an excellent example. Only within the past half-century have scholars discovered that (a) Classical Israelites used Egyptian hieratic numerals on their weights, and that (b) the Israelite weights are taken from the ancient Egyptian system of weights. You can read Bill Dever's description of this, and see the hieratic numerals, in Harper's Bible Dictionary (1985), 1128-1129, and tables B & C. The late Anson Rainey concluded from this and other evidence that professional Israelite scribes knew ancient Egyptian. Beyond that, we have the even more astonishing fact that the Book of Mormon limnah (Alma 11:10) reaches the same mathematical total as the Hebrew maneh. Note the tight phonemic similarity of those two key terms.

You would need to give much more detail in order for people not to suspect parallels that are coincidental.

Since anything a Mormon might say on such matters is immediately suspect at best, I thought you might want to go look at the non-Mormon source I cited. I am well aware that the polemicists use the knee-jerk "coincidence" reaction, no matter what the value of any piece of evidence, even a complete system (as here) being automatically suspect. Still, you might want to have a look at the basic Book of Mormon system laid out by John Welch in JBMS, 8/2 (1999), 36-46 (my chart on page 46 therein), online at http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=8&num=2&id=566. You will still need to compare it to Bill Dever's comments, above.

This also goes along with the question of why the Book of Mormon (and the Plates of Brass) are written in Egyptian. The Bible certainly gives no hint of such a practice. Yet we now know that this would not have been so odd in a world in which Israelite scribes actually used ancient Egyptian. See N. Fox, In the Service of the King: Officialdom in Ancient Israel and Judah, HUC Monograph (2000), 250-268; O. Goldwasser, “An Egyptian Scribe from Lachish and the Hieratic Tradition of the Hebrew Kingdoms,” Tel Aviv, 18 (1991), 248-253; R. Kletter, Economic Keystones: The Weight System of the Kingdom of Judah (Sheffield Academic, 1998); S. Wimmer, Palaestinisches Hieratisch: Die Zahl- und Sonderzeichen in der althebraeischen Schrift (Harrassowitz, 2008).

[_Robert F Smith]

You will note that the Tower of Babel story in the Bible includes the anachronistic word "Babel," which is late (scholars see it as a glosse on the text from the Exilic or Post-Exilic period). Ether 1:33 includes the same basic story, but does not include the word "Babel" (cf. Omni 22, Helaman 6:28).

hardly at all

Interesting, but then the story doesn't give much detail. The whole story is also just so unlikely anyways to be believable.

A similar anachronism is left out of Book of Abraham 5:10-11 -- the names of the four rivers in Genesis 2:11-14, which biblical scholars see as a glosse on the text.

Again the Book of Abraham does not give much detail so not having them mentioned is not very persuasive, and lets face facts, the evidence against Joseph with the Book of Abraham really is to great. It really is the smoking gun against the church on it's own without looking at all the evidence.

In other words, if it has the anachronism, you condemn it. If it doesn't have it, you still condemn it. Does that strike you as something like "heads I win, talis you lose"? Hardly seems fair. Or do you prefer to play with a stacked deck?

Moreover, it is false to assert that "the evidence against Joseph with the Book of Abraham really is to great," and I'm not talking about your misspelling of "too." The Book of Abraham has tremendous evidence in its favor. If you don't know that, it is only because you uncritically accept false information from those who hate the LDS Church. Does that strike you as a reasonable basis on which to make a decision on scholarly questions that you are not qualified to pass judgment upon? Is that why you pass judgment "without looking at all the evidence." Does it embarrass you to actually admit to that blatantly unfair approach?

[Guest]

I have met and talked with Chris Smith, and have carried on discussions with him online. He is a gentleman and a scholar, and has an excellent sense of humor. However, on this matter he is just wrong on at least a half-dozen key issues. Even so, if this were the only legitimate linguistic parallel to bring forth, coincidence might very well be a justifiable surmise. Note my statement, above, that "there are many such direct linguistic parallels," which is statistically impossible if the Book of Mormon is pure fantasy. See some discussion of that at http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=27202.

In the case of Book of Mormon sheum, Chris depends on A. Livingstone's erroneous comments, and some assumptions about ancient Near Eastern and New World history which are just bunk. For, there is no question that Akkadian she'um is a good reading for the cuneiform Sumerogram (logogram), even in the late period, e.g., Miguel Civil (Oriental Institute, Univ. of Chicago) has no peer in reading cuneiform literature, and he reads line 36 of Seleucid Tablet VII/4 as še-um (Civil, MSL, 14:466 for Aa Tablets).[1] However, as I have stated, I see no reason for Lehi to have been familiar with cuneiform, and I attribute the presence of the word in the form of a "habitual spelling" or frozen ideogram[2] to the Jaredites, who most likely left north Mesopotamia circa 3200 B.C. The story of the "confusion of tongues" is not a late Hebrew creation (as assumed by Chris Smith), but is part of Mesopotamian legend as the Sumerian “Golden Age” passage in which “the whole universe, the people in unison, to Enlil in one tongue (eme-aš-àm) gave praise,” to be followed shortly by the struggle between Enlil and Enki, lord of Eridu, who “changed the speech in their mouths, put contention into it, into the speech of man that (until then) had been one.”[3] That Ether 1:33-37 has an early form of that legend speaks to authenticity of the Book of Mormon.

As the founders of the great Olmec civilization (the "Mother Culture" of Mesoamerica), the Jaredites did come to the cataclysmic end of their long running existence sometime after the arrival of Nephites and Mulekites. Linguistic experts have been able to establish a great deal of vocabulary and concepts which were transmitted by the Olmec to subsequent cultures of that region (Chris Smith seems not to understand how that works in real time).

Akkadian she'um is noteworthy for its broad semantic range, being applicable to "grain, cereal" in general or to more specific items: "barley; pine nut (pignolia); grain-measure,”[4]

[1] Cf. Civil in Oriens Antiquus, 21:15; Rykle Borger, Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon, AOAT 305 (Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2004), 158 #579.
[2] Z. Cochavi-Rainey, Akkadian Dialect of Egyptian Scribes, 37, 74.
[3] S. N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, rev. ed. (Harper & Row, 1961/reprint Univ. of Penn. Press, 1972), xiv,107 n. 2.
[4] René Labat, Manuel d’épigraphie akkadienne, rev. ed. (Paris: Libraire Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1976), 367; Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the Univ. of Chicago (Chicago: Oriental Institute/Glückstadt: J. J. Augustin, 1956-2010) = CAD, “Š2” 17/2:345-355.

I think it's obvious the issue is not as cut and dry as some would like it to be.

[Guest]

Since anything a Mormon might say on such matters is immediately suspect at best, I thought you might want to go look at the non-Mormon source I cited. I am well aware that the polemicists use the knee-jerk "coincidence" reaction, no matter what the value of any piece of evidence, even a complete system (as here) being automatically suspect. Still, you might want to have a look at the basic Book of Mormon system laid out by John Welch in JBMS, 8/2 (1999), 36-46 (my chart on page 46 therein), online at http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=8&num=2&id=566. You will still need to compare it to Bill Dever's comments, above.

This also goes along with the question of why the Book of Mormon (and the Plates of Brass) are written in Egyptian. The Bible certainly gives no hint of such a practice. Yet we now know that this would not have been so odd in a world in which Israelite scribes actually used ancient Egyptian. See N. Fox, In the Service of the King: Officialdom in Ancient Israel and Judah, HUC Monograph (2000), 250-268; O. Goldwasser, “An Egyptian Scribe from Lachish and the Hieratic Tradition of the Hebrew Kingdoms,” Tel Aviv, 18 (1991), 248-253; R. Kletter, Economic Keystones: The Weight System of the Kingdom of Judah (Sheffield Academic, 1998); S. Wimmer, Palaestinisches Hieratisch: Die Zahl- und Sonderzeichen in der althebraeischen Schrift (Harrassowitz, 2008).

Coincidence is certainly something we have to look at. How many parralels can we find if we look hard enough?

Edit: I noticed you mentioning the brass plates. It along with the gold plates gets ignored to much by most and how unlikely they both really are.

[Guest]

In other words, if it has the anachronism, you condemn it. If it doesn't have it, you still condemn it.

I didn't condemn it. I only said it is not good enough to be that persuasive. Anachronisms, which the Book of Mormon has in spades is far worse for it then what what it may not say, even though they are interesting.

Does that strike you as something like "heads I win, talis you lose"? Hardly seems fair. Or do you prefer to play with a stacked deck?

I think you are the one being unfair.

Moreover, it is false to assert that "the evidence against Joseph with the Book of Abraham really is to great," and I'm not talking about your misspelling of "too."

LOL Others have mentioned this, and I need to work harder in it's proper use. It's easy to be lazy in online discussions.

The Book of Abraham has tremendous evidence in its favor. If you don't know that, it is only because you uncritically accept false information from those who hate the LDS Church.

I loved the Book of Abraham as a believer, so I have more interest in it and the church being true then not true. I have yet to see what this evidence is, even though I have read many apologetic articles.

Does that strike you as a reasonable basis on which to make a decision on scholarly questions that you are not qualified to pass judgment upon?

Lets not go down the BS road of not knowing enough to see. This is a poor apologetic and the more open minded members that have some education don't buy it.

Is that why you pass judgment "without looking at all the evidence." Does it embarrass you to actually admit to that blatantly unfair approach?

Again you are the one being unfair. I am willing to look at all the evidence, and willing to change my view. Most Apologetic material does not deal with the main problems of the Book of Abraham. Things like the facsimiles which we know do not translate into what Joseph claimed.

Here is an interesting current thread on it.
http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=27404

[_SteelHead]

Am I understanding this correctly? Similarities between Ether and Sumerian mythos regarding the confounding of the tongues is evidence of the veracity of the Book of Mormon, despite anthropological, archeological, and linguistic studies that show that such an event (confounding of a globally common language) is dubious at best for the referenced time frame?

Got it.

And on that note I now know I need to focus my seach for Imladris to Wales due to the linguistic similarities of Sindarin and Cymraeg.

[_Franktalk]

If you don't know that, it is only because you uncritically accept false information from those who hate the LDS Church. Does that strike you as a reasonable basis on which to make a decision on scholarly questions that you are not qualified to pass judgment upon? Is that why you pass judgment "without looking at all the evidence." Does it embarrass you to actually admit to that blatantly unfair approach?

I find myself judging everything around me without first knowing all I can. We all come to conclusions before the facts are laid out. That is why I must keep an open mine to new things as they come into view. Whether led by the Holy Spirit or by a search of man's knowledge I struggle to keep myself open. It is a very difficult thing to do. The easy path is to settle and remain fixed.

When we make an argument in opposition to the knowledge set of the anti Mormons it normally falls on deaf ears and blind eyes. Sadly they are deaf and blind by choice. I know that I do not possess all truth that is why I keep looking for truth. Only by knowing truth can I walk in a path that is pleasing to God. Just as some settle on faith and belief as their path those same people settle on partial truth. These people are subject to the wisdom of the world.

For these comments I expect to be stoned. But I have not been stoned today and the weather is good for it.

[_lance peters]

I find myself judging everything around me without first knowing all I can. We all come to conclusions before the facts are laid out. That is why I must keep an open mine to new things as they come into view. Whether led by the Holy Spirit or by a search of man's knowledge I struggle to keep myself open. It is a very difficult thing to do. The easy path is to settle and remain fixed.

When we make an argument in opposition to the knowledge set of the anti Mormons it normally falls on deaf ears and blind eyes. Sadly they are deaf and blind by choice. I know that I do not possess all truth that is why I keep looking for truth. Only by knowing truth can I walk in a path that is pleasing to God. Just as some settle on faith and belief as their path those same people settle on partial truth. These people are subject to the wisdom of the world.

For these comments I expect to be stoned. But I have not been stoned today and the weather is good for it.

This is probably one of the most asinine comments I've ever read, especially these two little guys: (1) "Whether led by the Holy Spirit or by a search of man's knowledge I struggle to keep myself open", and (2) " Just as some settle on faith and belief as their path those same people settle on partial truth. These people are subject to the wisdom of the world."

Analysis of Quote #1: "Derren Brown: Fear and Faith Part #2; God Illusion" link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LksVbHxLRvY

Analysis of Quote #2: Let X = People A, F = Faith, B = Belief, Same People = X, PT = Partial Truth, and W = Wisdom of Word

Some X are F, B

Implied: Since those "some settle on faith ... " are referenced as "THOSE SAME people settle", then X = Same People; i.e., X = X

Some X are PT

Assumption #1: I assume that "Wisdom of the World" is Science.

Some X are W

Therefore,

It seems reasonable that Some X are W, F, B, therefore PT

Assumption #2: All truths can be found through a combination of W, F, and B

Some X are W, F, B, therefore PT; however [Assumption #2], therefore Some X are W, F, B, therefore "Full Truth"

So, tell me, how's that open mind thing working out for you? From where I'm sitting, your comment implies that the combination of W, F, and B produce partial truth, yet you claim that you keep an open mind by using W, F, and B. In fact, and even before your claims about W, F, B, and PT, you claim that you appreciate and hold to all truth, even though previous to this sentence you claimed you didn't know all truth; that is, "I know that I do not possess all truth that is why I keep looking for truth. Only by knowing truth can I walk in a path that is pleasing to God.".

From what I can gather, you claim to know all truth, but no truths, and then you claim that through W, F, and B, one can only know partial truth ... Seriously?

Furthermore, this little exercise in syllogistic logic doesn't include your claims about receiving knowledge while being "led by the Holy Spirit". If I were to add your claims about knowledge obtained through the so-called "Holy Spirit" then, beyond the huge illogical-cluster "[4 letter word starting with 'F']" that already is your comments about truth, we'd have an exponentially larger cluster "[4 letter word starting with 'F']" than the current cluster "[4 letter word starting with 'F']" I've explained above.

If this is your idea of being "open to all truths", then you have some serious work to do. I don't know what logical system you are using, or whether you are using a logical system at all, however, if I assume that you are NOT using a system of logic, I suggest you go ahead and look toward "Human Wisdom". From what I've been told, and please correct me if I'm wrong, "Human Wisdom", for example, produced calculus, calculus has changed the lives of, quite literally, BILLIONS of people, and continues to change lives; this doesn't even include the animals lives saved through complex biological population models that rely on calculus. Let's take a look at my claims:

Joseph Smith was born about 140 years after Newton discovered calculus.

Joseph Smith relied on "faith and belief" and, because of this reliance, Joseph Smith influenced millions.

Newton relied on "human wisdom" and, because of this reliance, Isaac Newton influenced billions.

Newton Billions, Joseph Smith Millions

Human Wisdom Billions, Faith and Belief Millions

8,000,000,000/20,000,000 (20 million is an EXTREMELY generous estimate) = 400 "times" or "400 X"

Human Wisdom = '400 X' more powerful than " Faith and Belief" at increasing happiness, making the world a better and safer place to live, helping the environment, increasing life span, creating new and innovative drugs that save lives, allowing the building of complex economic models, that when used, provide a framework for poor nations to "lift themselves" from poverty, increased economic and learning efficiencies, social welfare, and the list goes on and on ...

Calculus is one of the many "human wisdom" tools that has changed the world for the better. In fact, around 90% of all academic PhD disciplines rely on statistical derivations using calculus; this includes degrees in archeology, Egyptology, and quite possibly religion.

So, where does your "faith and belief" stand? Do you have solid numbers to demonstrate that religion has somehow changed trillions of lives (lol)? I'd like to see those numbers ... I'd like to see just how "faith and belief" in a God has bettered the world. Unfortunately, and by the looks of your inability to be "logical", I doubt my comment that I've written right here will make sense to you. So, never mind what I've written, please continue to use your "belief system?" because, at the end of the day, and remember: you've been "guaranteed" a spot in the "LOLcelestial Kingdom", you sure did, .. in fact, you'll be sitting right next to the spot where Newton sits. I mean because you believe in "hob-goblins and wood-sprites" then surely you deserve a place in heaven, right? I mean Newton didn't do much, he's lucky that the Mormons baptized his dead soul, because otherwise, his saving of billions of lives through his discoveries is just not enough to entitle himself to the status of "believer in hob-goblins and wood-sprites"

"Human Wisdom" > "Belief and Faith"

Sometimes I wish there was a God, not because I want there to be a heaven, but because I'd very much like to see where God would sent a man who changed the lives of billions as opposed to a man who believed in "Holy Spirits", didn't understand logic, and saved less lives than the calculus derivative of a constant ... that is "Zero". I'm just going out on a limb here, but if I were God, I'd send the wood-sprite guy to hell.

[_Franktalk]

This is probably one of the most asinine comments I've ever read, especially these two little guys: (1) "Whether led by the Holy Spirit or by a search of man's knowledge I struggle to keep myself open", and (2) " Just as some settle on faith and belief as their path those same people settle on partial truth. These people are subject to the wisdom of the world."

So let me write another statement. A statement that describes what I do not believe. Let us see if you can spot the difference.

(1) I believe that Once I latch on to some good story that I will stick with it no matter what I come across, whether it be a spiritual guide like the Holy Ghost or some new information gathered by man. (2) After reading a couple of verses in scripture I am sure I have it all. So no matter what other verses may say I will ignore them and stick to my view as the total truth. (3) (wisdom of the world) The scriptures are just a bunch of words that can mean anything. Man in his study of nature has unlocked the truth so all of the scriptures can take backseat to what man has determined to be true.

A wise man like you will probably see a difference between the three statements. And with just a little more effort you just might understand what I wrote.