Latter Day Saints and the Tower of Babel

[_Themis]

The reason I make the distinction (which I think is quite important) is to recognize the two narratives aren't the same.

The two narratives are essentially identical.

So we can't assume the traditions of the first narrative (from the Bible with unknown origin but compiled in its current form around 200 BCE) should tell us about the second. The term "babel" being a key example.

If we found a Mayan document from 2000 years ago translated to the same tower story found in Ether, it would be huge. Scholars would be going nuts. They would have no doubt the biblical story is the same story in the Mayan document. The reason is you have elements of the story very unique added with others that are less unique. Tower stories may be found elsewhere, but add in very unique elements like God being upset over it makes it much less possible you will find another independent story like it. Then add in confounding languages, and then add in dispersing the all the people all over the earth.

Also remember that the Jaredite story only just doesn't say Babel. This does not cause any problem. You might have a little if they had said tower of Xenu, but that is also not much of a problem if they called it by their own name.

But what words? You're assuming it's regular talking. And from the text that's a perfectly reasonable reading. But it's hardly the only one. I don't think it's the correct one.

Really? LOL They only had their written langue changed. Really? My understanding is you don't believe this really happened anyways. That is the problem with the story in Ether. It's obvious this story didn't really happen, and putting it in the Book of Mormon is a big clue Joseph was making it up. That's why you want to suggest major errors on the part of characters like Moroni getting the wrong story and then altering the story in a major way to fit the biblical one.

But this gets into the whole infallibility point I brought up which some appear to think of as a strawman. Yet this is precisely the logical form it takes. Effectively it asks why we should expect the text to take the form of a regular narrative recounting by a person if that person is a prophet. To which the obvious question is why should we expect anything else? There's no evidence a prophet suddenly knows everything by being a prophet or changes texts to turn them into a collection of absolutely true propositions without error.

The story itself claims lots of divine intervention in their record keeping and abilities of prophets to translate other languages. This is not an argument for infallibility, but it is reasonable to think this process would be much better then without divine help. The real reason for your argument are not evidence based, but evidence against and a need to protect the Book of Mormon as true as in a real people from the old world and Joseph was called of God to bring it forth, even if very poorly inaccurate.

That's a perfectly fine reading. It's not a reading I think it correct but it's definitely supportable from the text. We just need to be careful not to take it as the only defensible reading from the text.

It is the only reasonable reading. There is so much evidence against the Book of Mormon and Joseph to see it any other way, unless one is very biased to believe. Then add in the Book of Abraham (the smoking gun).

[_ClarkGoble]

The reason I make the distinction (which I think is quite important) is to recognize the two narratives aren't the same.

The two narratives are essentially identical.

There are a lot of structural similarities but they're not identical if only because there's no group who is the focus in Genesis nor any group that avoids the curse. That's a pretty significant difference. [/quote]

If we found a Mayan document from 2000 years ago translated to the same tower story found in Ether, it would be huge. Scholars would be going nuts.

I'd disagree. Most mythic like stories pop up in multiple cultures. The tower of babel narrative is no exception. As we've seen with first the more freudian structuralist critiques of myth and then the post-structural emphasis on differences we'd find the same sort of analysis were new mesoAmerican texts to be found. People would simply note parallels not only to other traditions in the middle-east (which presumably are related) but also in Hindu traditions, and so forth.

by the way - you might not be aware but there already is an Aztec version of the story with a man Coxcox and a woman Xochiquetzal who survive a flood on a piece of bark. A dove gives their children the ability to speak but they each get a different language so they can't understand one an other. I don't think anyone except rather credulous types of apologists think it proves much. It also may reflect Spanish Christian contamination of the stories.

There are other north American version of the myth including an Iroquois one. Again I don't think it proves much.

Tower stories may be found elsewhere, but add in very unique elements like God being upset over it makes it much less possible you will find another independent story like it. Then add in confounding languages, and then add in dispersing the all the people all over the earth.

Again God is angry in many of the versions including some of the Aztec versions. I don't think that's enough to establish much. It's part of the polynesian version of the myth for instance.

They only had their written langue changed. Really? My understanding is you don't believe this really happened anyways.

I didn't say they only had their written language changed. Rather I compared it explicitly to the muelikites who lost their written language and thus their language changed. If you're going to do the comparative mythic criticism approach this is actually pretty common in the myths, especially several of the American forms. Again due to the influence of Spanish priests and so forth I don't think that amounts to much. But it is there.

The later mideastern traditions (I'm here assuming it was a broader myth than just the Semetic tribes) are interesting especially the Babylonian accounts that most assume inspired the Genesis account. There the tower is a temple with seven levels referring to the seven stars. Some speculate a pun between door of the gods and then the Hebrew confusion or mixing leading to the name Babel. So the lack of the name could be significant. Each version of the story emphasizes different elements including many not in Genesis (which most assume was added by the J tradition if I recall - didn't look it up)

While those emphasizing language usually emphasize the destruction as the cause there's several that tend to see the scattering as the cause of the change in language. The more interesting versions of the myth have it as an attempt to invade heaven. (This is in the Islamic version too) The Sumerian version is the inverse of the Biblical one - an attempt to unify languages. In Greek, while not having the tower part of the myth, Hermes confuses the languages. This then later in the late antiquity era leads to various parts of the hermetic tradition where Hermes is tied to writing. (This Hermes is more a syncretic version mixed with the Egyptian Thoth and then utilized by neoplatonists)

But none of this really establishes much. It's completely possible we have myths mixed with real events and semiotic drift as various traditions get combined.

That is the problem with the story in Ether. It's obvious this story didn't really happen, and putting it in the Book of Mormon is a big clue Joseph was making it up. That's why you want to suggest major errors on the part of characters like Moroni getting the wrong story and then altering the story in a major way to fit the biblical one.

Again if you're going to judge the text you have to judge it in terms of what it purports to be. I fully agree there's no public evidence to make one believe in it. So for those who only accept that public evidence the most obvious conclusion is Joseph made it all up. Yet if we judge the book on its own purported claims then that means taking it seriously as written by primitive ancient people with limited knowledge and skills. That's why I make those claims. The text demands it.

The real reason for your argument are not evidence based, but evidence against and a need to protect the Book of Mormon as true as in a real people from the old world and Joseph was called of God to bring it forth, even if very poorly inaccurate.

I try and follow the evidence as best I can but I fully admit I'm trying to deal with arguments against its plausibility. I don't think I've ever hidden that. I don't think I'm neglecting evidence in my thinking. Further I'd be the first to admit most of my theories are tentative based upon limited data.

[_Themis]

There are a lot of structural similarities but they're not identical if only because there's no group who is the focus in Genesis nor any group that avoids the curse. That's a pretty significant difference.

That's no a real difference at all. One of the points of the Jaredite story is a group that was dispersed at the tower of Babel was able to avoid losing their language. It means that while the writers, assuming for a moment this story happened, was not aware of what happened to all the people, they were incorrect. The stories are still identical.

I'd disagree. Most mythic like stories pop up in multiple cultures. The tower of babel narrative is no exception. As we've seen with first the more freudian structuralist critiques of myth and then the post-structural emphasis on differences we'd find the same sort of analysis were new mesoAmerican texts to be found. People would simply note parallels not only to other traditions in the middle-east (which presumably are related) but also in Hindu traditions, and so forth.

Sure we can find lots of parallels, but not to this level of exact similarities.

by the way - you might not be aware but there already is an Aztec version of the story with a man Coxcox and a woman Xochiquetzal who survive a flood on a piece of bark. A dove gives their children the ability to speak but they each get a different language so they can't understand one an other. I don't think anyone except rather credulous types of apologists think it proves much. It also may reflect Spanish Christian contamination of the stories.

There are other north American version of the myth including an Iroquois one. Again I don't think it proves much.

It proves my point that you cannot find other stories exactly like these two.

Again God is angry in many of the versions including some of the Aztec versions. I don't think that's enough to establish much. It's part of the polynesian version of the myth for instance.

Sorry but dividing each element is not honest. No one is claiming each element is so unique it cannot be found in other ancient stories. How they all come together is the issue.

I didn't say they only had their written language changed. Rather I compared it explicitly to the muelikites who lost their written language and thus their language changed. If you're going to do the comparative mythic criticism approach this is actually pretty common in the myths, especially several of the American forms. Again due to the influence of Spanish priests and so forth I don't think that amounts to much. But it is there.

Sorry but the story has them losing their language overnight, not over centuries in which we expect language to change. The story is about God doing the changing as punishment, and to stop them from getting to heaven.

The later mideastern traditions (I'm here assuming it was a broader myth than just the Semetic tribes) are interesting especially the Babylonian accounts that most assume inspired the Genesis account. There the tower is a temple with seven levels referring to the seven stars. Some speculate a pun between door of the gods and then the Hebrew confusion or mixing leading to the name Babel. So the lack of the name could be significant. Each version of the story emphasizes different elements including many not in Genesis (which most assume was added by the J tradition if I recall - didn't look it up)

The lack of naming the tower is just a lack of using the name. It doesn't really prove anything, and we expect stories similar to the tower of babel to exist in the other where it comes from.

Again if you're going to judge the text you have to judge it in terms of what it purports to be.

I've done that for decades.

I fully agree there's no public evidence to make one believe in it.

I would still believe if it was just a lack of evidence.

Yet if we judge the book on its own purported claims then that means taking it seriously as written by primitive ancient people with limited knowledge and skills. That's why I make those claims. The text demands it.

I'm taking the claims more seriously then you. You want to ignore those claims in order to create more error to protect a belief. This is why you continue to ignore the claimed divine element claimed throughout the story.

[_ClarkGoble]

There are a lot of structural similarities but they're not identical if only because there's no group who is the focus in Genesis nor any group that avoids the curse. That's a pretty significant difference.

That's no a real difference at all. One of the points of the Jaredite story is a group that was dispersed at the tower of Babel was able to avoid losing their language. It means that while the writers, assuming for a moment this story happened, was not aware of what happened to all the people, they were incorrect. The stories are still identical.

It means they are related not identical. There are parts that are the same but identical by definition means all the parts are the same. It's looking at the differences that are important. You may find the differences unimportant but you probably shouldn't try to deny they are there.

Sure we can find lots of parallels, but not to this level of exact similarities.

I'd suggest you read the various myths. It's funny since I am saying the parallels don't establish anything whereas you are trying to deny the parallels.

Sorry but the story has them losing their language overnight, not over centuries in which we expect language to change. The story is about God doing the changing as punishment, and to stop them from getting to heaven.

God punishing the people with languages is rather common in many of the myths.

To the other point, could you point to the verse in Genesis 11 telling the time frame? I don't see it.

The lack of naming the tower is just a lack of using the name. It doesn't really prove anything, and we expect stories similar to the tower of babel to exist in the other where it comes from.

The name is rather significant both because of the pun (it likely was a temple with the name gate or door of the gods which becomes confusion or mix in Hebrew but also because in the Genesis account, unlike the Ether account, it's given an universal thrust.

I'm taking the claims more seriously then you. You want to ignore those claims in order to create more error to protect a belief. This is why you continue to ignore the claimed divine element claimed throughout the story.

LOL. No. First off I acknowledge there are multiple readings possible of the text. I fully admit I am favoring those that acknowledge errors and especially the propogation and increase in errors as the story passes down more indirectly. I do that because that's what we see with human stories. That is I'm taking seriously they are written by humans. I don't in the least deny the divine element, I just don't think the divine element does what you seem to want to make it. But I'll not go down that tangent as I'm discussing the de facto infallibility angle elsewhere. I just don't buy the conception of God you are bringing to the exegesis.

[_Themis]

It means they are related not identical. There are parts that are the same but identical by definition means all the parts are the same. It's looking at the differences that are important. You may find the differences unimportant but you probably shouldn't try to deny they are there.

The two stories are almost identical. There are no relevant differences. The Bible uses the word babel while the other does not mention a name. Doesn't change how obvious it is these two stories are the same. Of course we expect this if Joseph is making it up.

I'd suggest you read the various myths. It's funny since I am saying the parallels don't establish anything whereas you are trying to deny the parallels.

I'm not denying that parallels can be found. What you are continuing to ignore is how each unique parallel comes together in the same ways making it very unlikely to find another story this close to the other. Sure you can find some that have one or two similarities, but each example you gave didn't come close to being like the biblical or Jaredite stories. That is the point of why finding an ancient text with the Jaredite story would be immediately seem as related to the biblical one.

God punishing the people with languages is rather common in many of the myths.

You are again guilty of taking out one element. The point is not that each element of the story cannot never be found somewhere else. It's the combination of elements found in the narrative that is important.

To the other point, could you point to the verse in Genesis 11 telling the time frame? I don't see it.

I am not referring to any dates in the Bible, but biblical scholars who have commented on timelines for claimed biblical events. This one comes after the flood just as the Jaredite one does.

The name is rather significant both because of the pun (it likely was a temple with the name gate or door of the gods which becomes confusion or mix in Hebrew but also because in the Genesis account, unlike the Ether account, it's given an universal thrust.

I don't see how not mentioning a name makes it significant here.

LOL. No. First off I acknowledge there are multiple readings possible of the text. I fully admit I am favoring those that acknowledge errors and especially the propogation and increase in errors as the story passes down more indirectly. I do that because that's what we see with human stories. That is I'm taking seriously they are written by humans. I don't in the least deny the divine element, I just don't think the divine element does what you seem to want to make it. But I'll not go down that tangent as I'm discussing the de facto infallibility angle elsewhere. I just don't buy the conception of God you are bringing to the exegesis.

I understand you have a need to do this in order to maintain a space to believe. You ignore the text and it's claims. You do take out the divine in order to bring out as much error as you can to try and get around the many false claims from the text. I accept that if God is involved he would do better then humans, and not worse. Translations by humans can be good or really bad depending on the translator and his knowledge of the languages, culture, etc. The Book of Mormon claims a lot of divine help. The Book of Mormon claims God commanding a lot of record keeping by the prophets from the start. You cannot get the Jaredite record without a divine translator, nor can we get the Book of Mormon without a divine translator. I suspect a divine translator should be able to do a better job then a non-divine translator. The Book of Mormon claims a lot of divine help, and WOW, so does Joseph smith. Too bad we have a lot of evidence to show he did a terrible job and is almost certainly a fraud. Joseph claimed to translate Egyptian and gave us many pieces of text we can check him on. How many did he get right? In fact, Joseph claimed he could translate any language and got caught doing so with a Greek document a pastor tricked him with. In the end when it comes to Joseph's claims I look at the whole, both public and private data. Private data is very unreliable for reasons I have already given to you.

[_Physics Guy]

I'm a liberal Anglican who can sometimes manage weird reconstructions of old-fashioned interpretations. So I don't believe at all that there really was a mud brick tower whose height made God anxious or that language divisions began at that spot. It's a folktale, but as a folktale, it's startling.

It says in effect that the bottleneck on human achievement is not technical feasibility but communication. And this is a text from the Bronze Age. Holy crap. That's what I mean by inspiration of Scripture.

What bugs me about Mormon Scriptures, though, is that we didn't dig these texts up in the desert, and they weren't copied through the ages by Masoretic scribes. They're supposed to have been revealed word for word by a miracle. But using a miraculous channel like that, to pass on texts full of normal human errors? That just seems very weird. It's like building a wormhole-powered ansible to transmit Scooby Doo re-runs.

I'm fine with divinely inspired texts taking the form of Bronze Age folktales. If God didn't like normal human history, God would have made something else. What I can't swallow is the mixture of naturalistic textual criticism and the angel Moroni. The world that has angels giving golden plates and taking them back, and translation of same by the gift and power of God, seems to me to be the same world in which the Tower of Babel is literal. And it's not the real world.

[_ClarkGoble]

They're supposed to have been revealed word for word by a miracle. But using a miraculous channel like that, to pass on texts full of normal human errors?

That's fundamentally the divide. I think they are what they purport to be -- largely human writings albeit inspired. Many think that if God were dictating them we should have perfect words. The problem is that the text itself doesn't claim to be that kind of dictation. Again Moroni is pretty clear about his weaknesses in Ether 12.

The critique actually goes farther. Why have ancient texts at all? Why not just dictate what God wants us to do rather than relating what a bunch of ancient primitive people did. i.e. all D&C no Book of Mormon. Again I can but note that God, from a Mormon perspective, doesn't want that. That's not apologetic but literally our theology and has been our theology for a very long time.

[_Physics Guy]

Indeed, I raised that further question myself here a while ago on some thread or other. Why dictate ancient texts, that had also been preserved but in unreadable form, when God could just as easily have dictated some new and direct error-free revelation, the way Muslims consider the Qu'ran to have been revealed to Mohammed? Why not just let Nephi's words molder unread, and tell Smith what really happened to the Nephites?

Okay, who knows why God does anything, right? But I'm afraid it's like this, for me. The genuine revelation scenario leaves me scratching my head, whereas the fraud explanation makes me say Ah-ha. I mean, if Smith had just said, "God told me this story about the ancient Americas," who would have listened? The ancient texts part makes excellent sense—as a gimmick.

Of course, if you take a 19th century view of Scripture as all being dictated directly by God anyway, then the combination of ancient and modern dictation isn't nearly so bizarre; it's just a little rich. So I find it believable as a 19th century fraud. But if you now keep the text dictated to Smith, while allowing the stories he received to be redacted folk tales ... well, it just feels like a genre confusion, you know? A dame walks into Sam Spade's office, and she's Little Red Riding Hood.

[_ClarkGoble]

Yeah the question of why translate texts rather than just inspire new texts is a good question. Now that I think of it it's not really a topic I've thought much about beyond the role of the Book of Mormon in conversion. That is the fact there were real plates people saw changes the way the book functions in a conversion process. As historians often note in the 19th century Mormons were relatively ignorant of the content of the Book of Mormon but it had a powerful place in conversion narratives.

[_Physics Guy]

The thing is that golden plates, or some comparable artifact, would be a really important element in a scam. It's the bait-and-switch gimmick.

"God told me this in a dream" is an inherently dubious statement that just doesn't impress. "I found ancient gold plates carved with records" is much more compelling, because if you could actually see and touch the plates yourself, why, they might just be real. The bait works.

The switch then goes smoothly. The plates are gone; they were kept in a box; the witness statements are iffy; the translation was read on a stone in a hat and the only grounds we have for thinking that the revelation had anything to with the plates are Smith's say-so. It takes a certain plodding patience to follow through to the realization that Smith could really just as well have heard the text in a dream, for all the evidentiary support the golden plates actually give to his text.

The Mormon story about the plates is not just dubious because of the miracles: it's weird even on its own terms. But it's not weird at all on the fraud theory. There, it makes perfect sense.