The Interpreter is sticking with Tapirs. Chariots aren't chariots and more.

[Physics Guy]

Can Nephite battle rhinos turn right?

I’m asking for a friend.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Can Nephite battle rhinos turn right?

I’m asking for a friend.

They always choose the right.

- Doc

[Dr Exiled]

I wonder what Dr. Hales thinks about the possibility of having battle rhinos? I love the idea and might just return to church if battle rhinos were accepted as gospel truth.

"Yea and lo, the word came to mount the battle rhinos and sally forth against the lamanites. And the battle was sore, how sore ye know not. But the battle rhinos came forth in the strength of the Lord and tread the lamanites under foot and did not spare. And it came to pass that there was great rejoicing after the battle was won and the rhinos stood and sang praises to the most high."

Damn those so called scientists that can't find evidence for our rhinos. It's there. There is forever a chance the evidence will be found, some day. I feel it to be so. And it's so cool.

[Doctor Steuss]

I wonder what Dr. Hales thinks about the possibility of having battle rhinos? I love the idea and might just return to church if battle rhinos were accepted as gospel truth.

"Yea and lo, the word came to mount the battle rhinos and sally forth against the lamanites. And the battle was sore, how sore ye know not. But the battle rhinos came forth in the strength of the Lord and tread the lamanites under foot and did not spare. And it came to pass that there was great rejoicing after the battle was won and the rhinos stood and sang praises to the most high."

Damn those so called scientists that can't find evidence for our rhinos. It's there. There is forever a chance the evidence will be found, some day. I feel it to be so. And it's so cool.

Plurality of celestial battle rhinos is a doctrine that could potentially draw me in.

Instead of CTR rings, and little "iron rod" necklaces and keychains, full-on angelic battle rhinos. Heck yeah.

"As tapirs now are, battle rhinos once were. As battle rhinos now are, tapirs may become."

[Philo Sofee]

Author’s Note: I would like to thank Brant Gardner, Ugo Perego, Godfrey Ellis, and the anonymous reviewers for their feedback and excellent suggestions on earlier drafts of this article.]

The anonymous reviewer is probably a highly qualified and unbiased individual with no personal connection to anyone involved.

Dallin Oaks......

[Philo Sofee]

Daniel McClellan was recently on Mormonism Live. He had some compelling arguments why the only way for the Book of Mormon to be taken seriously from a religious or scholarly perspective is to view it as pseudepigrapha. I'm sure Dan is now squarely in the crosshairs of the Mopologists.

PS You simply cannot have a discussion about Tapirs without listening to Weird Alma's masterpiece, "Tapir Back Rider."

https://soundcloud.com/user-480239968/s ... alma-songs

Also, a personal favorite:

https://soundcloud.com/user-480239968/b ... alma-songs

Interesting how pseudepigrapha has become the catch phrase. What a slog it has to be for a creator to laboriously go through these types of rat mazes just to get his holy word out.

Yeah, and all it would take is him giving an actual revelation of truth to people...

[Philo Sofee]

Maybe the chariots were pulled by the goats, cattle and pigs that also obviously existed. It'd keep with the theme of using domesticated animals differently than everyone else did, as well as differently than what the text plainly suggests.

I mean, if it's good enough for Dáin Ironfoot...

Book of Mormon Hebrews were a pretty wild bunch. Eating pigs and horses, while riding about on their thoroughbred tapirs.

[Moksha]

"As tapirs now are, battle rhinos once were. As battle rhinos now are, tapirs may become."

This needs to be memorialized in a Relief Society quilt.

[Dr. Shades]

I'm new to this chat board. I have to say that accuracy doesn't seem to be prized here.

Hi Brother Hales,

Would you say accuracy here is prized more, less, or about the same as the accuracy you display in your writings on polygamy wherein you utterly ignore all the obvious conclusions in favor of pushing wildly fanciful, zero-likelihood theories in an effort to absolve Joseph Smith from wrongdoing?

[Physics Guy]

Building a house of cards requires care and precision. If a civil engineer declines to certify a house of cards for human habitation, though, she may not be failing to prize all its accuracy. Her point may just be that it's still made of cards.

The analogy may not be fitting in this case, but the principle is a real one: sometimes dismissing details really is the most important point to make. So it's not always a valid defence just to say that somebody has garbled or overlooked your details. You have to make the case that those particular details really matter, and that you're not just fussing over gnats while swallowing camels.