Textual Criticism - The Bible and the Book of Mormon

[_Gunnar]

It may have something to do with the fact that the supernatural claims of the production of the Book of Mormon are much more recent. With regard to the supernatural claims of the Bible, the one that matters more than any other is the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. I question why would the apostles willingly face death, or at least suffering, for what they knew was a lie? Do you think at least they were convinced Jesus rose from the dead.

The potentially true resurrection of Christ makes me hold out.

Actually, Roger, the story of Christ's resurrection and the claimed eyewitness confirmations of it do not add as much credibility to the Christian narrative as you might think or wish. In fact, when one considers the now known realities of biology and physiology, the story of the resurrection as told in the Gospels arguably only cast further doubt on the credibility of the Christian narrative, as I once explained in this thread: http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30331&hilit=empty+tomb

From my OP in that thread:

At this point, some might be wondering, "what does the foregoing discussion have to do with the "Empty Tomb" part of my subject line? Just this: The (it should be now obvious) fact that resurrected bodies need not be (and indeed usually cannot be) composed of the very same particles of matter that composed them at the time of death raises serious doubts about the credibility of the biblical stories of the opening of Jesus' tomb. If Jesus' resurrected body was indeed the very same body he had when he died, this would undoubtedly be the only case in human history when that could have occurred! In the light of all the above, the fact that the body of Christ was missing when Jesus' disciples entered the tomb actually detracts from rather than lends to the credibility of the story of his resurrection, as the non-disappearance of his original body from the tomb would have no impact whatsoever on whether he could have been or was miraculously resurrected with an immortal body. Why, then, was it necessary for God to open the tomb in the first place?

Here then, as I see it, are the possibilities in the order of least likely to most likely.

1. One (and only one) of the mutually contradictory versions of Christ's resurrection and the empty tomb is actually literally true and accurate.

2. Christ actually did not die on the cross but went into a (perhaps drug induced) coma, very hard to distinguish from actual death, and was revived by disciples or co-conspirators who managed to break into the tomb for that purpose so he could claim to have been resurrected. The fact that he still had the wounds received while on the cross makes this scenario seem slightly more likely to me than scenario 1 because there is really no compelling reason why Christ's resurrected body should be any less perfectly restored than any one else's resurrected body. The retention of the wounds makes his resurrection seem at least a little less miraculous, and raises legitimate doubts about its reality.

3. Christ actually did die while on the cross, and his disciples broke into the tomb to steal and hide the body, so they could later claim he was resurrected, and continue the ministry he started.

4. The story of the empty tomb and Christ's subsequent appearances to various disciples is entirely fictional, and long after his death, to take advantage of gullible and eager believers

As a matter of fact, in the light of what we now know about biology, physiology and metabolism, if Christ's disciples had found his original remains still lying in the tomb when they entered it, that would actually have added to rather than detracted from the credence of the resurrection narrative--at least from a modern, scientifically informed perspective--especially if the subsequent appearances of the living, corporeal Christ were still true.

[_Roger]

Hi Gunnar:

Thanks for your post. I'm not an expert by any means, but I'll take a stab at some of the comments you made.

If Jesus' resurrected body was indeed the very same body he had when he died, this would undoubtedly be the only case in human history when that could have occurred!

Which is exactly what the gospels are claiming. As I said earlier, it's certainly an incredible claim, but that's the claim they make nonetheless. Consider the Shroud of Turin. What I find fascinating is that experts are baffled by it and several have stated there is nothing like it in the world. Interesting choice of words in light of your comment above.

Although several years ago the shroud was claimed to have been a hoax because the date allegedly couldn't have been from the time of Christ, that theory has been discredited and new dating suggests it is indeed from the correct time frame.

Here are some other interesting observations about the shroud:

· First photographed in 1898 by Secundo Pia, who also discovered the image is a negative.
· The human image on the shroud rests on the outer fibers of the linen weave, in a layer 100 times thinner than a human hair.
· Uniformly dark pixels make the image similar to a random halftone, with more pixels per area in darker portions.
· The sharply bounded pixels that make up the body image cannot be duplicated by any known process today.
· In 1976, a VP-8 Image Analyzer confirmed that the image, unlike any regular photograph, drawing or painting, is dimensionally encoded, able to yield spatial information about the head and body that lay beneath.
· Darkness on the cloth is inversely proportionate to the body surface’s distance from the cloth — up to a limit of 3.5 cm. This results in the 3-D nature of the image.
· The image on the shroud presents an X-ray-like picture of the skeletal system, particularly displaying the bones of both hands, the left wrist, the skull and front teeth and some of the vertebrae.
· Blood stains are exactly correct as modern medicine would expect to see from a crucified victim.
· The nail holes are placed not in the palms, but in the wrists, a position necessary to support the full body weight of a crucified man, but a bit of information unknown to medieval artists.
· Scourge marks (approximately 120) have UV response around them, consistent with the presence of blood serum.
· Travertine aragonite dust, as found almost exclusively in the vicinity of Jerusalem, is found on the feet, knees and nose.
· In 2002, Dr. Mechthild Flury-Lemburg, former curator of the Abegg Foundation textile museum in Berne, Switzerland, and a world authority on ancient textiles, announced that the weave and style of the materials were from the Dead Sea area and could only have been woven in the period from 40 years before the birth of Christ up to 70 years afterward.
· In 2005, chemist Raymond Rogers, a fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and an original member of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP), publishes peer-reviewed research in the journal Thermochimica Acta, showing the carbon-14 testing from 1988 was, in fact, not done on the original burial cloth, but, rather, on a patch that in the Middle Ages had been cleverly re-woven into the border area, thus creating an erroneous date for the actual shroud.

Here is where the above information comes from:

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/sc ... urins-age/

As mak notes, evidence supporting a supernatural claim is naturally going to be controversial, but I for one find the above facts about the shroud to be quite interesting.

In the light of all the above, the fact that the body of Christ was missing when Jesus' disciples entered the tomb actually detracts from rather than lends to the credibility of the story of his resurrection, as the non-disappearance of his original body from the tomb would have no impact whatsoever on whether he could have been or was miraculously resurrected with an immortal body. Why, then, was it necessary for God to open the tomb in the first place?

Seems a reasonable answer to that one would be so people could enter and see an empty tomb.

Here then, as I see it, are the possibilities in the order of least likely to most likely.

1. One (and only one) of the mutually contradictory versions of Christ's resurrection and the empty tomb is actually literally true and accurate.

Not really. Ask four witnesses to an accident what happened and you'll get different accounts of the same actual event, with sometimes wildly differing elements. It doesn't mean the event never occurred, rather, it means humans don't have perfect recall, especially surrounding unexpected, dramatic or traumatic events. So it may actually be that none of the accounts we have in the gospels is perfectly accurate, but we still have a decent picture of what actually happened within the elements that do agree.

2. Christ actually did not die on the cross but went into a (perhaps drug induced) coma, very hard to distinguish from actual death, and was revived by disciples or co-conspirators who managed to break into the tomb for that purpose so he could claim to have been resurrected. The fact that he still had the wounds received while on the cross makes this scenario seem slightly more likely to me than scenario 1 because there is really no compelling reason why Christ's resurrected body should be any less perfectly restored than any one else's resurrected body. The retention of the wounds makes his resurrection seem at least a little less miraculous, and raises legitimate doubts about its reality.

While this is a possibility I think it's a very unlikely one. First, the Romans were experts at killing people and making sure they were dead. Second, if you understand what a Roman scourging was all about, you realize it's amazing Jesus was still alive at all by the time he got to the cross. Third, the gospels describe water mixed with blood coming out the hole poked in his side. My understanding is that that is a sign of death.

3. Christ actually did die while on the cross, and his disciples broke into the tomb to steal and hide the body, so they could later claim he was resurrected, and continue the ministry he started.

I find this unlikely as well. Sure, I could see them wanting to carry on what Jesus started, but if they knew the whole thing about his resurrection was a lie, why would they be willing to die for a lie? Peter, for example, was willing to be crucified upside down... for something he knew was a lie? Doesn't seem likely to me.

4. The story of the empty tomb and Christ's subsequent appearances to various disciples is entirely fictional, and long after his death, to take advantage of gullible and eager believers

Again, the very real persecution and martyrdom of Christians at that time seems to make this an unlikely scenario.

As a matter of fact, in the light of what we now know about biology, physiology and metabolism, if Christ's disciples had found his original remains still lying in the tomb when they entered it, that would actually have added to rather than detracted from the credence of the resurrection narrative--at least from a modern, scientifically informed perspective--especially if the subsequent appearances of the living, corporeal Christ were still true.

I'm not sure why you come to this conclusion. The Bible is actually purporting a miracle here. It is indeed telling an unparalleled story. The very definition of God is a being who is capable of performing miraculous acts. I don't think it's a very good criticism to say God is forbidden to do something he's capable of doing because biologists can't figure out how he did it. So far, scientists can't figure out how to duplicate the image on the Shroud of Turin, much less try to figure out how some first century hoaxter managed to pull it off.

All the best.

[_Roger]

I am a second of Roger --- without language help.

You do very well, ludwigm. English is a difficult language.

[_Spanner]

I have enjoyed this thread. Now putting Mak up there with my other favorite apologist David Bokovoy. Had either of you been around when I was an 18 year-old questioning the dodgy bronze-age myths in the Book of Mormon and PoGP, I may have stuck around long enough to get caught in the tar trap.

I do keep expecting Servant to materialise, swinging a sabre and uttering "You killed my Father. Prepare to die".

[_Roger]

Hi mak:

I'm sure they were convinced Jesus rose from the dead, but I don't think that's really evidence of anything.

In light of what followed, I do. If they were convinced Jesus rose from the dead then are the accounts of Jesus conversing with them after his death true? If so, then that would certainly explain why they were willing to go to their deaths proclaiming the resurrection of Christ. But it doesn't seem very likely the other way around. In other words, if they themselves stole the body (which itself is not very likely considering the Roman guard) then they would have known the stories about the resurrection were lies. Why would they be willing to go to jail, suffer and die for a lie? Maybe you'd have one or two really devoted to the cause to the point of death, but all of them?

Joseph Smith was convinced he talked with God and Jesus, and he knew it could cost him his life.

I don't think so in either case. I'm not convinced he believed he talked with God. He may have convinced himself of that later in life, but I doubt he believed his own press early on. I think he knew he was conning people when he "found" their lost treasures or saw the text of a book in his seer stone.

Also, in the early years I don't think Smith was terribly worried about being killed (any more so than any controversial figure might have been worried in the early 19th century). Fear for his life and those of his followers certainly increased in the later Kirtland months and then in Missouri and was likely the reason for the creation of the Nauvoo Legion, but by then he knew he had invested himself so deeply in the role of "prophet", he had no alternative but to play it out whether or not his life was on the line. Also, he obviously did not behave like a lamb led to slaughter. He did not willingly accept martyrdom.

I respect C. S. Lewis an awful lot, but I have to admit I am not a fan of the other two.

Yes. It's hard to compete with Lewis.

No, that's one fourth-hand statement putatively made by only one of the witnesses who also later flatly denied making it. Also, I don't think there are really many contradictory statements floating around from the witnesses. I'm well aware of the controversy with the witnesses, but let's represent them accurately.

It's been a while since I've looked at the actual witness statements and I don't think much would be accomplished by going back down that road. It's pretty well expected that a Latter-day Saint would see the witnesses as credible and a skeptic would not. What is undeniable is that they all signed a statement that was prepared for them rather than simply giving their own accounts. It's also undeniable that showing the plates to Joseph's own devoted followers is useless to anyone outside the faith. It's like asking for a reliable account of Warren Jeff's activities from his most devoted followers. If the plates were real and God wanted the world to know it, then letting skeptics examine them would have accomplished the goal. That didn't happen. So we're left with the word of Joseph's most devoted followers.

Then we should not be surprised that the apostles were so eager to believe that Christ rose from the dead, should we?

Surprising or not, that's not the way the story reads. So if somebody other than the disciples stole the body, they might be "eager" to believe, but the Biblical accounts describe a group of men who were hiding and cowering and only convinced by Jesus actually appearing to them. Now maybe that feature was made up by the gospel writers, but, again, it really seems unlikely they'd face death without being sure they were preaching the truth. Also, it seems unlikely that anyone other than the disciples would steal the body. What motivation would there be to, again, risk death (considering the armed guards) unless the body-stealer was a sold-out follower of Christ?

Pottery is just one facet of the material culture, and it does not expose much at all about culture unless we have a context into which we can plug it. Its primary function in most archaeological analysis is chronological dating. Also, the Book of Mormon does not suggest (in my opinion) that these civilizations were spread across every region of the Americas.

Which is part of the problem. Where did all these stories take place? Land Northward? Land Southward? Narrow neck of land? Sounds like the author is being intentionally vague. We find place names in the Bible that correlate to reality. Not so with the Book of Mormon. That seems odd.

There are lots of historical problems and mysteries that defy logic. I will reiterate that I'm not saying there's evidence for the Book of Mormon. I'm just providing an honest answer to a question.

Fair enough. But the fact remains that there simply is no credible tangible evidence for the Book of Mormon; either in the form of ancient artifacts or in the form of Joseph's translation abilities. God himself is alleged to have removed what otherwise would have been the best evidence. Looking at it from a critical point of view, what we see is what we'd expect if Joseph Smith was making the whole thing up. And if he was telling the truth then what we see is inconsistent with the way in which the other testament of Jesus Christ came to be.

All the best.

[_maklelan]

Hi mak:

In light of what followed, I do. If they were convinced Jesus rose from the dead then are the accounts of Jesus conversing with them after his death true?

Which accounts? The one where he materialized inside a locked room, or the ones at the tomb that conflict with each other? None of the accounts gives any reason for the reader to think it wasn't written well after the fact by someone who wasn't there.

If so, then that would certainly explain why they were willing to go to their deaths proclaiming the resurrection of Christ.

Lots of things could explain that. Joseph Smith went to his death proclaiming his version of the gospel.

But it doesn't seem very likely the other way around. In other words, if they themselves stole the body

I don't think it's necessary to suppose they stole the body.

(which itself is not very likely considering the Roman guard) then they would have known the stories about the resurrection were lies. Why would they be willing to go to jail, suffer and die for a lie? Maybe you'd have one or two really devoted to the cause to the point of death, but all of them?

The body is not the issue. That there was an empty tomb is just as much a debatable part of the tradition as anything else.

I don't think so in either case. I'm not convinced he believed he talked with God. He may have convinced himself of that later in life, but I doubt he believed his own press early on. I think he knew he was conning people when he "found" their lost treasures or saw the text of a book in his seer stone.

But the traditions regarding the apostles also date to decades after the events they purport to reflect. Can't the same be said about them? Bart Ehrman's got an interesting section in his book How Jesus Became God on mass hallucinations and resurrected loved ones.

Also, in the early years I don't think Smith was terribly worried about being killed (any more so than any controversial figure might have been worried in the early 19th century). Fear for his life and those of his followers certainly increased in the later Kirtland months and then in Missouri and was likely the reason for the creation of the Nauvoo Legion, but by then he knew he had invested himself so deeply in the role of "prophet", he had no alternative but to play it out whether or not his life was on the line. Also, he obviously did not behave like a lamb led to slaughter. He did not willingly accept martyrdom.

Yes. It's hard to compete with Lewis.

It's been a while since I've looked at the actual witness statements and I don't think much would be accomplished by going back down that road. It's pretty well expected that a Latter-day Saint would see the witnesses as credible and a skeptic would not. What is undeniable is that they all signed a statement that was prepared for them rather than simply giving their own accounts. It's also undeniable that showing the plates to Joseph's own devoted followers is useless to anyone outside the faith. It's like asking for a reliable account of Warren Jeff's activities from his most devoted followers. If the plates were real and God wanted the world to know it, then letting skeptics examine them would have accomplished the goal. That didn't happen. So we're left with the word of Joseph's most devoted followers.

Similarly, we're left with third- and fourth-hand accounts of Jesus' doings and his resurrection from devoted followers of the Christian tradition.

Surprising or not, that's not the way the story reads. So if somebody other than the disciples stole the body, they might be "eager" to believe, but the Biblical accounts describe a group of men who were hiding and cowering and only convinced by Jesus actually appearing to them.

And those accounts were written by later adherents to the tradition who were told stories about those disciples. When you're trying to argue for the accuracy of the tradition, you can't first presuppose the tradition is accurate. Why should we accept a missing body and the cowering apostles? The stories weren't written down until decades later by other people. In the case of John, it was explicitly a group of people.

Now maybe that feature was made up by the gospel writers, but, again, it really seems unlikely they'd face death without being sure they were preaching the truth.

And yet people die without being sure they were dying for the truth all the time.

Also, it seems unlikely that anyone other than the disciples would steal the body. What motivation would there be to, again, risk death (considering the armed guards) unless the body-stealer was a sold-out follower of Christ?

Again, why is a missing body being presupposed?

Which is part of the problem. Where did all these stories take place? Land Northward? Land Southward? Narrow neck of land? Sounds like the author is being intentionally vague. We find place names in the Bible that correlate to reality. Not so with the Book of Mormon. That seems odd.

Again, place names tend to stick around when they remain continuously inhabited, and not so often when they do not. How many place names from the Bible do you think we have because we actually found the name of the place among the material remains, rather than because we have traingulated the name from other known toponyms or because it remained continuously inhabited?

Fair enough. But the fact remains that there simply is no credible tangible evidence for the Book of Mormon; either in the form of ancient artifacts or in the form of Joseph's translation abilities. God himself is alleged to have removed what otherwise would have been the best evidence. Looking at it from a critical point of view, what we see is what we'd expect if Joseph Smith was making the whole thing up. And if he was telling the truth then what we see is inconsistent with the way in which the other testament of Jesus Christ came to be.

But that testament is also exactly what we'd expect to see if the disciples were making it up. If Joseph Smith's first vision occurred two thousand years ago, there would be no way to distinguish it from the accounts of Jesus' disciples. They would be qualitatively identical.

[_maklelan]

I have enjoyed this thread. Now putting Mak up there with my other favorite apologist David Bokovoy. Had either of you been around when I was an 18 year-old questioning the dodgy bronze-age myths in the Book of Mormon and PoGP, I may have stuck around long enough to get caught in the tar trap.

I do keep expecting Servant to materialise, swinging a sabre and uttering "You killed my Father. Prepare to die".

[_Gunnar]

I am a second of Roger --- without language help.

You do very well, ludwigm. English is a difficult language.

While few people familiar with all of his posts would mistake ludwigm for a native English speaker, I agree that he does quite well. On occasion he has managed to school some of us (including me) on the subtleties and etymology of our own language!

[_Roger]

And yet people die without being sure they were dying for the truth all the time.

*snip*

Again, why is a missing body being presupposed?

In the case of Jesus' disciples, so far as I am aware all of them except for John were killed because of their stance on the resurrection. Peter is the classic example. If they did not steal the body and if no one else stole the body, then virtually anyone could have visited the tomb and said, look, you idiots, there's the sealed tomb with the body presumably just where we left it. I don't see how the rumors of resurrection even get off the ground without an empty tomb.

Again, place names tend to stick around when they remain continuously inhabited, and not so often when they do not. How many place names from the Bible do you think we have because we actually found the name of the place among the material remains, rather than because we have traingulated the name from other known toponyms or because it remained continuously inhabited?

How many (new world) Book of Mormon locations have been triangulated?

But that testament is also exactly what we'd expect to see if the disciples were making it up. If Joseph Smith's first vision occurred two thousand years ago, there would be no way to distinguish it from the accounts of Jesus' disciples. They would be qualitatively identical.

That's an interesting assertion. It makes me stop and think. But I don't think it's quite accurate. The nature of Joseph Smith's alleged revelations is such that we have to take Joseph's word on the matter, exclusively. There was at least one "revelation" in which Joseph and Sidney Rigdon gave mutual descriptions of what they were corporately seeing, but I trust Rigdon even less than I trust Smith. With the resurrection, you have multiple independent accounts and then later, another major supporting account from a guy who started out as a complete skeptic.

What's your opinion of the Shroud of Turin?

[Guest]

In the case of Jesus' disciples, so far as I am aware all of them except for John were killed because of their stance on the resurrection. Peter is the classic example. If they did not steal the body and if no one else stole the body, then virtually anyone could have visited the tomb and said, look, you idiots, there's the sealed tomb with the body presumably just where we left it. I don't see how the rumors of resurrection even get off the ground without an empty tomb.

Anyone could have said there was an empty tomb. All that would be required would be no direct knowledge of where exactly the tomb was. Or, as Ehrman also argues in his more recent book, there could have been no tomb. The practice back then was to leave the corpse on the cross to be eaten by animals. There's no direct evidence that he was in fact buried. A few years or a decade or two after his death, you could probably get away with saying most anything. The earliest possible texts we can identify still date to around 20-25 years after his death at the earliest.

How many (new world) Book of Mormon locations have been triangulated?

We don't have the known toponyms to do the triangulating.

That's an interesting assertion. It makes me stop and think. But I don't think it's quite accurate. The nature of Joseph Smith's alleged revelations is such that we have to take Joseph's word on the matter, exclusively.

Not really. The revelations alone don't really constitute the entirety of the tradition, but we have the testimony of the eleven that saw the plates and/or the angel Moroni. Their credibility wouldn't be an issue if this happened two thousand years ago. The Jesus tradition is not much better off, though. If the Q theory is correct, then it all comes down to one single text. Everyone else is just building off that text and other later oral traditions that could have developed in any number of different ways.

There was at least one "revelation" in which Joseph and Sidney Rigdon gave mutual descriptions of what they were corporately seeing, but I trust Rigdon even less than I trust Smith. With the resurrection, you have multiple independent accounts and then later, another major supporting account from a guy who started out as a complete skeptic.

No, with the resurrection you have three related accounts that differ in a lot of ways, then a much later contingent account, and then one separate account that makes independent claims. We don't know the source of these different accounts, just like we wouldn't know the different people responsible for the different traditions surrounding the founding of the LDS Church if it happened 2,000 years ago.

What's your opinion of the Shroud of Turin?

I think the preponderance of evidence leaves no doubt that it was produced around the fourteenth century.