Skousen's Introduction to Book of Mormon

[Guest]

MG: Skousen's ATV, though worth reading, is in part a reference work. You can get a dozen of his articles online that distill his findings through the decades. Also, you'll want to look at Gardner's Gift and Power book (2011), where he talks more about xlation. [ETA: Don't buy it though, it's not worth it.] In general, Skousen is clear and straightforward, Gardner, not as much.

[_Themis]

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.

I tend to be more forgiving of people like MG. Bias plays a huge role in how people see things. MG's bias is quite large, but maybe not unexpected for a believing member. Desire for the church to be true tends to be much higher then the desire to know what is true. Until I got to the point of wanting to know what is true being higher then wanting the church to be true I would ignore evidence while looking for anything I think supports the church or in this thread the Book of Mormon being historical. This is why he is focusing on apologetic material and dismissing everyone else for not reading some particular text as though it means we haven't look at the pertinent evidence.

I would add that I bet MG has not really looked at the biggest by far piece of evidence against Book of Mormon historicity which is DNA. I suspect he has only read a few apologetic articles instead of reading good material critical of it and most importantly learning more about how DNA works to know who is adhering to the science.

[_canpakes]

MG: Skousen's ATV, though worth reading, is in part a reference work. You can get a dozen of his articles online that distill his findings through the decades. Also, you'll want to look at Gardner's Gift and Power book (2011), where he talks more about xlation. [ETA: Don't buy it though, it's not worth it.] In general, Skousen is clear and straightforward, Gardner, not as much.

tkv -

Do you have a favored reference/link to a synopsis of Skousen's theory regarding Tyndale's involvement with Book transliteration?

Thank you,

-cp-

[_SteelHead]

When you are including the interaction of spirit world entities into the pre translation of a document that is later revealed via a magic rock in a hat, have you "jumped the shark" or is the bs threshold higher?

[_consiglieri]

Well, mg, since you are wedded to the idea that the composition of the Book of Mormon is miraculous, I doubt anyone will be able to convince you otherwise. But there is nothing inherently miraculous about it. It may be remarkable, or extraordinary, but miraculous? Divine? Your judgment on that is bound to be subjective. The problem is that there are many other remarkable books, some of which remain entirely unexplained and completely opaque. You don't spend your time explaining those, and you may not even be aware of many of them. I doubt you are at all concerned about the question of their origins. Your investment in the Book of Mormon is entirely partisan and it is conducted safely within the boundaries of acceptable LDS discourse. If anyone tries to break you out of that comfortable territory, you retreat to these subjective statements about how miraculous and inscrutable the book's origins are. You believe that any unexplained aspect of the book's composition is proof against a reasonable hypothesis and definitely in favor of a miraculous origin. I doubt very many people who are not of a Restoration background would consider its origins beyond mundane. It would be one thing if the book were good, and were not obviously cribbed from sources like the Bible, but it was. So, where's the miracle? What is there that warrants this programmed aporia you adopt whenever the virus of sensible thought gets anywhere near your cherished testimony?

I agree the Book of Mormon is a remarkable text, but I also have to confess I have in the past fallen into the trap of arguing from that basis that it must be inspired of God.

Over the years, I have come to see this argument is not well-founded, and falls into the same general category of Erich von Daniken arguing that because ancient civilizations did remarkable things, they must have had help from aliens.

[_tkv]

canpakes: Around 2005 Skousen published the following in part 2 of his ATV (page 1052):

And the actual translator of the Book of Mormon—the Lord himself or his translation committee—seems to have been familiar with the term!

This comes from his defense of the controversial pleasing/pleading bar conjecture. I went to two public lectures of his in March 2015 and in April 2016 at BYU, and I believe that I heard him say at those that he regretted that sentence, that it had simply led people to speculate that he had said Tyndale was a translator. His position was that there's no way of knowing, that there is language found in the writings of many authors of the past -- famous and obscure. In fact, he's mentioned some questionable Book of Mormon language that is found in the writings of More, who despised Tyndale, and who was partly responsible for Tyndale's 1536 execution. So a month ago Skousen simply said, If I recall correctly, that the Lord did the translation or had it done (and I imagine he's inclined to the latter, given the above ATV statement). And I seem to recall him showing some thematic or phrasal matching with writings of a lesser-known Quaker, making two points: that pinpointing who might have translated is problematic, and that most phrases that have been thought to be 19c are found earlier as well. That's all for now. Going on holiday to LA till Monday. Cheers!

[_I have a question]

It's interesting that, in order to bolster belief in the Book of Mormon, people like Skousen have to invent things about it that are different to what the book claims about itself (translated title page) and what the Church says about it (see Introduction page).

I've yet to see something from the Church explaining why a record translated from plates scribed before 1,000 AD contain whole chapters copied from the KJV Bible.

Skousen has to invent some ghostly Tyndale committee who did all the actual translating to get the language of the Book of Mormon (because it's a word for word dictation now) past his linguistic BS meter. Skousen is doing mental gymnastics from whole cloth to avoid facing the blatant reality of the evidence. Which is that the Book of Mormon, no matter what it actually is, isn't is what the Church claims it is. And really, that's all you need to know.

[_SteelHead]

It's interesting that, in order to bolster belief in the Book of Mormon, people like Skousen have to invent things about it that are different to what the book claims about itself (translated title page) and what the Church says about it (see Introduction page).

I've yet to see something from the Church explaining why a record translated from plates scribed before 1,000 AD contain whole chapters copied from the KJV Bible.

Skousen has to invent some ghostly Tyndale committee who did all the actual translating to get the language of the Book of Mormon (because it's a word for word dictation now) past his linguistic BS meter. Skousen is doing mental gymnastics from whole cloth to avoid facing the blatant reality of the evidence. Which is that the Book of Mormon, no matter what it actually is, isn't is what the Church claims it is. And really, that's all you need to know.

Hence the question about sharks and water skis.

[_honorentheos]

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".

Hi tkv.

In the heirarchy of evidence both for and against an ancient authorship of the Book of Mormon, the witness statements as to how it was translated/composed are pretty far down. It really just doesn't overcome the very substantial problems the ancient authorship theory has to overcome in terms of archeological, DNA, linguistics, theological, and anthropological evidence that points to no such narrative reflecting anything in the ancient Americas while including incredible evidence for 19th century worldviews permeating it's themes, positions, and beliefs about the pre-Columbian Americas. It really isn't saying much to say there is no one who made a statement about Smith using secondary materials.

I also think when it comes to everything Skousen postulates, one has to overcome the much more parsimonious explanation of a 19th century author attempting to mimic a biblical voice. His claims are incredible, practically outrageous, and given evidence such as was demonstrated a few years back with the Great War comparision, hardly necessisary if one isn't trying to defend the ancient authorship theory. The 19th century authorship theory is just so...factual. Ancient authorship...fanciful. I don't see it.

[_honorentheos]

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.

I wonder how you feel about beastie's enormous effort in engaging these arguments? Can a person be said to have an educated opinion on the matter without having read her website?

I'd also speculate that were a person to claim they had read the Book of Mormon, received a spiritual witness it was of God, and that's sufficient for them to have an opinion on it's value it would satisfy you that they have done enough. Maybe not. But I think you know many more people who share your views on the Book of Mormon who hold that position.

Anyway. Enjoy your reading. We'll see how you feel after you've came back and also read up on beastie's take down of the entire multi-volume endeavor.