The Book of Mormon: Man-Made or God-Given?

[_I have a question]

All I can say is that I know the Book of Mormon is true.

You don't know what you mean when you say that. You're just saying it. Let me demonstrate.

What, specifically, does the term "true" mean in the context of your statement?

[_zerinus]

You don't know what you mean when you say that. You're just saying it. Let me demonstrate.

What, specifically, does the term "true" mean in the context of your statement?

It means that it is doctrinally true as well as historically true. It means that it is what it claims to be: a book of sacred history, written by prophets, contains the word of God, written on gold plates, revealed by an angel, and translated into English by miraculous means, by the gift and power of God.

[_Quasimodo]

All I can say is that I know the Book of Mormon is true.

You don't know what you mean when you say that. You're just saying it. Let me demonstrate.

What, specifically, does the term "true" mean in the context of your statement?

Maybe more importantly, what does the word "know" mean.

If he were to say that he believes the Book of Mormon is true or hopes the Book of Mormon is true, I wouldn't have a problem with it. To say he knows it is true is just trying to BS us or himself. I'm guessing that he is trying very hard to push back his own, secret doubts. We see a lot of that around here.

[_schreech]

The Book of Mormon is scripture. It is the word of God. It is the sacred history of ancient civilization, abridged by Mormon, written on gold plates, and translated into English by the gift and power of God. It is true.

Hmmm...lets see, I will try to respond using the same level of effort, logic and reasoning you have laid out here to support your blind dedication to the Book of Mormon:

No its not.

[_I have a question]

You don't know what you mean when you say that. You're just saying it. Let me demonstrate.

What, specifically, does the term "true" mean in the context of your statement?

It means that it is doctrinally true as well as historically true. It means that it is what it claims to be: a book of sacred history, written by prophets, contains the word of God, written on gold plates, revealed by an angel, and translated into English by miraculous means, by the gift and power of God.

Okay, so on what basis do you get round the problem of having KJV Bible content (including 17th century translation errors) in the Book of Mormon, portrayed as having been written by Book of Mormon era Prophets?

[_Lemmie]

MG: Did Joseph use the word grafting? Does that matter when looked along side the highlighted material I posted? Why wouldn't/didn't Joseph use the language that may have been familiar to him?
honor: I seriously wonder about how you think sometimes. No offense but the statement above is not showing you are following the line of discussion well.

I'll take the hit on that one. I didn't take the time to think this through. Joseph had the Bible.

So we're left with some potential problems with Jacob 5. Maybe.

What "we" are you referring to? What potential problems are you referring to?

Here's where I stand from an apologetic point of view. Earlier in the thread I posted a link to a chart:

https://www.LDS.org/bc/content/shared/c ... vetree.pdf

...that showed a chronological overview of the earth's history and God's intervention...

If one takes Jacob 5 and the outline/chart accompanying it there seems to be a nice, tidy correlation/dovetailing going on between Biblical history and Book of Mormon prophecy/latter-day prophecy, etc.

What does your chart have to do with the discussion of Jacob 5 in this thread? All you've shown is that Joseph Smith very tidily cribbed from the Bible, therefore his plagiarism and the original "dovetail."

To better show this to be the case, this article pretty much lays it out:

https://byustudies.BYU.edu/content/expl ... olive-tree

From your link:

The Book of Mormon contains a lengthy allegory representing the house of Israel. Because the allegory of the olive tree is associated with Israel, it is reasonable to assume that its symbolic events correspond to real events in the Israelites' history.

What does that have to do with the discussion in this thread about the source of Jacob 5? It's just another article assuming Jacob 5 is true and trying to fit it into reality.

As I've mentioned at other times, I tend to look at the 'big picture' and the global breadth and depth of things when I'm looking around at various religious ideas. The Judeo-Christian narrative and Hoskisson's well done 'outline' of that narrative fits onto a 'large world' picture with God at the helm directing things as history moves along. Jacob 5 fits in nicely within this narrative. Now does that prove it's true? Of course not. But it does fit nicely within an over arching 'plan'.

Did you actually read the Hoskinsson pdf in your reference? I did, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion about the source of Jacob 5 that is going on in this thread. How does "fit[ting] nicely within" a plan you find religiously pleasing have anything to do with the discussion in this thread?

So I'll stick with Jacob 5 as being scripture in the sense that it teaches us what we need to know,

A lovely testimony and irrelevant to the discussion at hand. You also avoided being specific about wehat you called "potential problems with Jacob 5."

Could you be specific about what those potential problems are? Do these potential problems have anything to do with the ongoing discussion about Jacob 5?

For example, did you read this:

Here's where things stand, one last time.

The Book of Mormon claims to be ancient in origin. It can't be shown using external evidence that olive grafting was actually practiced in a time and place required for this to be true. There is a proliferation of sources regarding olive grafting as this spreads later from Greece and through the later Roman empire. The claim of ancient authorship is challenged rather than supported by Jacob 5.

As a critic of the Book of Mormon's origin, I assert it is a product of the 19th century. There are no problems showing that Jacob makes sense when olives are replaced with a fruit which Joseph Smith would have had experience cultivating or his family cultivated. There are portions of the descriptions in Jacob 5 that actually apply better to apples than they do to olives. The claim of 19th century authorship is supported rather than challenged by Jacob 5.

Or maybe you prefer to answer Chap's question:

So - that about wraps it up, doesn't it?

Jacob 5 is clearly not written on the basis of knowledge of the cultivation, processing and utilisation of the products of the olive tree in pre-exilic Israel (i.e. ancient Israel as it was before Lehi's party supposedly went to the Americas), or any other place or time for that matter....

Anything else we need to consider here to give fair consideration to this particular question?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Lemmie,

I do love seeing you deconstruct MG's nonsense. Just a quick question I guess. You do know MG doesn't actually read anything, right? He'll skim a bit picking up keywords or a phrase or two. But that's it. That pretty much explains why his messages tend to be all over the place, he mixes up quotes, and literally provides sources that contradict his points. The best he can offer is some superficial musings mingled with mordoctrine.

Anyway. I love how you hold him to his posts. It's awesome.

- Doc

[Guest]

Okay, so on what basis do you get round the problem of having KJV Bible content (including 17th century translation errors) in the Book of Mormon, portrayed as having been written by Book of Mormon era Prophets?

That is an issue of translation method—how the translation was made. How the translation was made does not affect the truth claims of the book. The KJV content is approximately 7% of the book. Why God decided to do 7% of it that way, compared to the 93% which wasn’t, is a non-issue.

[_Lemmie]

Lemmie,

I do love seeing you deconstruct MG's nonsense. Just a quick question I guess. You do know MG doesn't actually read anything, right? He'll skim a bit picking up keywords or a phrase or two. But that's it. That pretty much explains why his messages tend to be all over the place, he mixes up quotes, and literally provides sources that contradict his points. The best he can offer is some superficial musings mingled with mordoctrine.

Anyway. I love how you hold him to his posts. It's awesome.

- Doc

Thanks, Doc! Yea, sadly I know he skims, besides the obvious he bragged about it one time when he was trying to harass somebody. Go figure.

[_mentalgymnast]

Not to put too fine a point on it, zerinus, but to a large degree your behavior pattern closely resembles that of mentalgymnastics. You dance around until you can't dance any more and then you run.

Says the person who will find a post of mine just above the one in which she said this.

Sure. Thread interest dwindles over time. If I reach a point at which there is a lot of 'cat fighting' going on, I usually try and find a way out. I've mentioned repeatedly that I believe that kind of stuff is an absolute waste of time. The psycho-babble stuff especially. Once I can see the 'dependables' come in and start doing that stuff, I'm thinking, "OK, this isn't going anywhere at this point, it's going to get in the way of the conversation," and I start to shut things down with my participation in that thread and/or exit from board participation for a while.

This is a 'come and go' activity for me. I will not be held down to always 'having the lights on." My interest waxes and wanes.

Regards,
MG