Skousen's Introduction to Book of Mormon

[_honorentheos]

I suppose Skousen didn't mention an obvious alternative because Emma said specifically, shortly before her death, that her husband didn't use any book during the dictation...

Not one that Emma saw, anyway. In fact, no one was really a witness to the specifics of the translation, correct?

Smith's record of candidness with his own wife is not one of particularly high standards.

Given the testimony being cited was published after her death and contains a known lie favorable to the RLDS church (that Joseph did not practise polygamy), I'd classify it's contents as faith-promoting rumors at best.

[_Maksutov]

He channeled the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, the D & C and the Kinderhook Plates. I've yet to see a channeled text that was found to be based on anything but imagination. It's "psychic" doubletalk dressed up in religious terms.

I don't think he did. Writing a novel is arduous, tough work... Even if you're cribbing other sources. I think he collaborated with OC to make money. Basically the Book of Mormon is the equivalent of any fantasy novel ripping off Lord of the Rings (Sword of Shannara comes to mind).

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/commen ... _a_ripoff/

I think he started out with it as a novel but realized its potential as he went along. Oliver seems like a more likely collaborator than Rigdon. Oliver had the skills to help put together something like plates.

There have been several cult leaders that started out with novels and then went into religion. George Adamski and L. Ron Hubbard come to mind.

[_mentalgymnast]

MG: One thing at a time: one must first decide who to lend more credence to with regard to to xlation, Gardner or Skousen. Based on observable, objective evidence I believe that it must be the latter. First, Sk does primary research on the matter, G does secondary research. Second, Sk has a PhD in linguistics, G has an MA in anthropology. Third, Sk has been working on the text since 1988, essentially full time; G has not. Fourth, compare Sk's ATV with G's commentary: Sk's ATV is exhaustive textual comparison, internal and external; that's not what G's commentary is. Finally, Skousen just published 1,300 pages on the history of grammatical editing in the Book of Mormon. Now, tell me why you trust G's view on xlation as much as Sk's? I don't, for the above reasons.

Thanks tkv.

I'm going to take some time off from this board so that I can spend some more time reading, I mean really reading, Skousen and Gardner. I think they are the two 'go to' guys on the Book of Mormon in addition than Hardy and Givens. Even more so in some respects.

I think I'm going to start here:

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/books/ ... -nephi-10/

and here:

http://www.amazon.com/Traditions-Father ... New Testament+gardner

I think that anyone who fancies themselves as to having made an educated decision and/or opinion in regards to Book of Mormon historicity needs to read and spend time with these authors.

So here we go. Kindle, here we come.

I may return later. So long for now!

Thanks for the conversations...

Regards,
MG

[_Lemmie]

I think that anyone who fancies themselves as to having made an educated decision and/or opinion in regards to Book of Mormon historicity needs to read and spend time with these authors.

The parting silly condescension from mentalgymnast, who still hasn't learned the meaning of disingenuousness and intellectual dishonesty, and whose opinions are not allowed to venture outside the artificially fixed Mormon-dictated imaginary box. That's not 'really reading,' mental, that's barely reading.

[_Maksutov]

I think that anyone who fancies themselves as to having made an educated decision and/or opinion in regards to Book of Mormon historicity needs to read and spend time with these authors.

"Educated"...

[_grindael]

I think that anyone who fancies themselves as to having made an educated decision and/or opinion in regards to Book of Mormon historicity needs to read and spend time with these authors.

Spoken like a true Mormon Apologist.

[_Kishkumen]

I don't have a problem with people believing relatively harmless nonsense. Certainly there are more dangerous and destructive ways of spending your life than in an LDS chapel. And, there is a measure of good you will probably do there too. The thing that gets me is the historical conviction invested in absolutely risible nonsense about Hebrews in ancient America who left behind a gold Bible, which Joseph Smith received from an angel, translated, and then *poof* disappeared.

It is sad that colonial myths like this have been foisted on Native Americans with perfectly good mythological systems of their own. It is criminal that in our time such stuff continues to be tolerated (by believers) as an acceptable way of imposing on said Native Americans. It beggars belief that PhD-educated men and women would seriously ask anyone to accept as authentically ancient a 19th century scripture with huge passages that are obviously cribbed from the Bible.

Don't get me wrong. I respect the richness of the Book of Mormon. There is enough in that text to invest a lifetime of literary, religious, and historical study... of a book in its 19th-century context. The author or authors of the Book of Mormon really knew their Bible, and in ways that most of us couldn't even dream of knowing it. There's a real spark of genius in it, regardless of its rough-cut, frontier character. Is there anything worth building a faith on there? Sure; at least in part.

But that has nothing to do with it being ancient. Because it isn't ancient. And it isn't early modern. It is a 19th century text written by a 19th century author who was concerned with 19th century American questions. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. There is no reason to assume that the Bible is more scriptural or more inspired than the Book of Mormon simply because its materials go back millennia. The 19th century could produce scripture just as easily as the last two millennia BCE, and the first two centuries CE.

It's really kind of sad that good minds are wasted on the completely daft notion of the Book of Mormon's antiquity. Well, it could be worse. It may be bad, but it could definitely be worse.

[_I have a question]

I think that anyone who fancies themselves as to having made an educated decision and/or opinion in regards to Book of Mormon historicity needs to read and spend time with these authors.

I think this is an interesting statement.
That one cannot rely on the Church to provide sufficient information with which base an educated decision about the historicity of its keystone scriptural canon is quite damning. That the authors suggested have a vested interest in concluding in favour of the historicity of the Book of Mormon (see 'Festinger') is equally problematic. Is there anybody other than a Mormon who makes a case for the Book of Mormon's historicity? The Smithsonian? National Geographic? Non Mormon Archeo/Anthropologists? Anyone?

What is the most compelling thing, that the authors mentalgymnast supports his shelf with, have to contribute on the subject of historicity of the Book of Mormon? The one most compelling point that they make?

[_Kishkumen]

I suppose Skousen didn't mention an obvious alternative because Emma said specifically, shortly before her death, that her husband didn't use any book during the dictation...

Given the testimony being cited was published after her death and contains a known lie favorable to the RLDS church (that Joseph did not practise polygamy), I'd classify it's contents as faith-promoting rumors at best.

Excellent point, honor.

[_tkv]

Point taken, honor, but no eyewitnesses to the dictation externals mention books being used, so the statement is never contradicted, and Skousen found that MS evidence supported the view since "[t]he original Book of Mormon chapter divisions of the Isaiah quotations follow a larger thematic grouping, not the interruptive chapter system found in the King James Bible. . . . And in one case, the grouping does not overlap with the beginning and ending of the King James chapter".