Loan shifting the anachronisms away

[Benjamin McGuire]

Are you insinuating that the Nephites may have carried their tapirs into battle? Ingenious! But why not choose the smaller capybaras, considering the weight of that steel armor and obsidian clubs?

But the Nephites never take their horses into battle. The only references that might be a reference to this are things like 3 Nephi 21:14 -

Yea, wo be unto the Gentiles except they repent; for it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Father, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots;

And the problem with a text like this is that it isn't original - the language here is taken from elsewhere:

And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots: (Micah 5:10).

So here we can clearly say that the language is contributed by the modern Book of Mormon text - and occurs in the way that it does specifically because it occurs in the KJV the way it occurs there. Which once more removes this from consideration as an anachronism (or even as a descriptor of a Nephite context).

So when you ask about Nephite's carrying tapirs into battle, you are still only trying to mock the notion - you aren't seriously addressing the text or the question of whether such a lexical expansion is either (im)possible or (un)likely. And when critics engage in this way, it simply encourages apologists to respond with a similar level of concern.

[Kishkumen]

As always, I am thankful for Benjamin's intelligent and thought-provoking contributions. Here is where I land on all of this:

Benjamin's entire discussion hinges on his staked out position of being a believing reader. This implies that anyone who disagrees with his approach must be coming from a non-believing position. A believer is, ergo, one who accepts the antiquity of the Book of Mormon. Is this truly the case? At what point did anyone in authority make belief in the antiquity of the Book of Mormon a precondition of membership in the LDS Church? Or, more to the point, has God made belief in the antiquity of the Book of Mormon a precondition of salvation and exaltation?

If not, then there is a certain kind of optional (unnecessary?) believing that is stipulated in Benjamin's "believing" interpretation. It is a belief in the antiquity of the Book of Mormon that he is talking about. This does not seem to be a requirement for belief in the Bible being the Word of God, however. The scholarly consensus on many books in the Bible is that they are essentially pseudepigraphic and set in a time before they were actually written. It is therefore unclear to me why the Book of Mormon must satisfy conditions that the Bible cannot, even though the Book of Mormon is viewed as superior to the Bible. The important point there is that the Book of Mormon is purported to be superior to the Bible in its ability to convey the principles of the Gospel, not in its historical accuracy or in its actual antiquity.

I think it is unfortunate that people have stuck to the view that scriptural texts must be read as straightforward historical accounts in some way, when the ancient authors who pioneered these kinds of works either had no intention to write a history or they had no concept of what history actually is. Since we live in a civilization heavily influenced by Classical (Greco-Roman) history and everything that sprang from that in the West, including scientific history, we come to ancient texts falsely assuming that they must be historical according to our understanding of the word history (i.e., it actually happened in the past). This has led to the many believers' insistence that we adopt self-defeating reading strategies when approaching these texts.

Benjamin is obviously brilliant, but I think he is on a quixotic crusade. No LDS person should be encouraged to adopt a compartmentalized view of history in which it is assumed that ancient Nephite civilization is on par, as realia, with the Achaemenid Empire or some such. It just isn't. Nor is history in the modern sense arrived at by assuming without sufficient evidence that the text is what it claims to be. I believe that it is not necessary to include Ancient Nephite civilization in one's view of history to believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Benjamin's strategy defines it as a necessity, since he calls it a "believer's" view of the Book of Mormon, implying that other views can't be those of "believers."

[Gadianton]

Ben,

Your example of "stick of joseph" is clear as an expansion and so is your example of plastic. I'm not seeing the same clarity in the example of the lions.
The lions metaphor, as an aside, is the best example I've seen so far of a Derridian aporia within the Book of Mormon. Writing as poison and cure, or in this case, missionaries as angels and predators.

Anyway --

Suppose the narrative went something like this, "I was peeking from my tent when I saw two pairs of shining eyes and I heard the growls. I sunk into my sleeping bag and covered my head and kept still until morning. Lions they were. Even here in this new land."

This would be a good example of an expansion if we were to learn that the author was harassed by Mexican wolves, and from then on out, the people that sprang from him called Mexican wolves lions. Or even if Mexican wolves were possibly in that territory though we have no firm evidence. But we know that lions weren't.

But in this case, the author isn't beholding Mexican wolves going on the attack in a pair, he's drawing on such a scene as a metaphor for his missionaries. So he couldn't have been coining the term on the spot. He either a) thought about the plates of brass and meant an actual lion such as they were in the days of the prophets of old. And so it doesn't refer to Mexican wolves at all. b) lion had long ago come to mean Mexican wolves but this isn't our "plastic" moment or "stick of joseph" moment where we witness anything to indicate such an expansion, even if we had the plates in front of us to confirm it says lion. it's just possible that there could have been an expansion, but with no other evidence, we'd most likely fall back to a).

I think the overriding problem is the lack of any information outside of the English text like we have for the cases of "plastic" and "stick of Joseph".

[Kishkumen]

I think the overriding problem is the lack of any information outside of the English text like we have for the cases of "plastic" and "stick of Joseph".

That is the problem in so many regards. We have no plates. We have no Reformed Egyptian. No qualified expert witnesses. Just an English text that purports to be a translation and liberally borrows from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

[I Have Questions]

I think the overriding problem is the lack of any information outside of the English text like we have for the cases of "plastic" and "stick of Joseph".

That is the problem in so many regards. We have no plates. We have no Reformed Egyptian. No qualified expert witnesses. Just an English text that purports to be a translation and liberally borrows from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

...and which has very close parallels with materials available to the 19th century "translator", such as The Pilgrim's Progress and The View Of The Hebrews etc.

[Kishkumen]

...and which has very close parallels with materials available to the 19th century "translator", such as The Pilgrim's Progress and The View Of The Hebrews etc.

Yep!

[Benjamin McGuire]

Benjamin's entire discussion hinges on his staked out position of being a believing reader. This implies that anyone who disagrees with his approach must be coming from a non-believing position. A believer is, ergo, one who accepts the antiquity of the Book of Mormon. Is this truly the case? At what point did anyone in authority make belief in the antiquity of the Book of Mormon a precondition of membership in the LDS Church? Or, more to the point, has God made belief in the antiquity of the Book of Mormon a precondition of salvation and exaltation?

I actually think that most believers don't really care about much of this stuff. When I talk about the standpoint of a believer, I am just trying to encapsulate in that the idea that the Book of Mormon is a revealed text (however you want to take that) as opposed to a modern fiction (however you want to take that). The reason why I use this dichotomy is that for one group, we only have a modern text - and any discussion of loan shifting or lexical expansion or any of that is generally going to be completely meaningless.

Mormons, on the other hand, come in several flavors on these issues (including those who really will never think about it). One group wants to be able to place the narrative into a specific place and time (to give it historicity). Other groups may be willing to see the text as an inspired fiction (similar - for the purposes of this discussion with the non-believer) - and there are a wide range of views between these two poles. I am not particularly attached to any model - since I tend to focus on a literary approach. And I recognize that the assumptions we bring to the text changes the way that we read the text.

If not, then there is a certain kind of optional (unnecessary?) believing that is stipulated in Benjamin's "believing" interpretation. It is a belief in the antiquity of the Book of Mormon that he is talking about. This does not seem to be a requirement for belief in the Bible being the Word of God, however. The scholarly consensus on many books in the Bible is that they are essentially pseudepigraphic and set in a time before they were actually written. It is therefore unclear to me why the Book of Mormon must satisfy conditions that the Bible cannot, even though the Book of Mormon is viewed as superior to the Bible. The important point there is that the Book of Mormon is purported to be superior to the Bible in its ability to convey the principles of the Gospel, not in its historical accuracy or in its actual antiquity.

I think that Mormonism as a whole experienced a watershed moment (as far as the Book of Mormon is concerned) when there was a swing towards literalism at the beginning of the 20th century that coincided with the debates over replacing the KJV with a new translation. This was made worse with the introduction of new earth creationism primarily by Joseph Fielding Smith.

I think it is unfortunate that people have stuck to the view that scriptural texts must be read as straightforward historical accounts in some way, when the ancient authors who pioneered these kinds of works either had no intention to write a history or they had no concept of what history actually is. Since we live in a civilization heavily influenced by Classical (Greco-Roman) history and everything that sprang from that in the West, including scientific history, we come to ancient texts falsely assuming that they must be historical according to our understanding of the word history (i.e., it actually happened in the past). This has led to the many believers' insistence that we adopt self-defeating reading strategies when approaching these texts.

This isn't unique to Mormonism. I think that the best description of this problem that I have ever read was written by Luke Johnson, in his book: Contested Issues in Christian Origins and the New Testament. Her writes this (p. 5-6):

The historical study of Jesus began due to Enlightenment in Europe. At the time, two related convictions became popular among those considering themselves to live in an age of reason. The first was that for religion to be true it had to be reasonable; the second was that history was the most reasonable measure of truth. The claims of Christians about Jesus must therefore also meet those standards.

I think that Mormonism as a whole is tied to this premise (as much as any other group). They want the Book of Mormon to be true and to be reasonable, and the best way to get to that conclusion is to show that it is historical. I am indifferent to that notion (generally speaking) because I am interested in a different set of questions about the text.

Benjamin is obviously brilliant, but I think he is on a quixotic crusade. No LDS person should be encouraged to adopt a compartmentalized view of history in which it is assumed that ancient Nephite civilization is on par, as realia, with the Achaemenid Empire or some such. It just isn't. Nor is history in the modern sense arrived at by assuming without sufficient evidence that the text is what it claims to be. I believe that it is not necessary to include Ancient Nephite civilization in one's view of history to believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Benjamin's strategy defines it as a necessity, since he calls it a "believer's" view of the Book of Mormon, implying that other views can't be those of "believers."

I think that anyone who has followed much of what I have written publicly over the past couple of decades will recognize that I am highly critical of attempts to identify historicity in the text - and so I think that this description isn't very accurate. I hope that my comments above on why I am using the believer's model will help you understand what I am trying to convey there - it is about the assumptions we bring to the text.

Overall, in this thread about loan shifts and anachronisms, my real position is very simple - it's not really about the examples but about the idea that we would be far better off in these discussions if we recognized that between believer and critic, there are often assumptions which, while very different, are working in the same space. Both sides see a modern text. Anything that is attributable to that modern text shouldn't be considered a significant anachronism. It doesn't matter why we think it is a part of the modern text - merely that it is. And without that distraction, we can have the more important discussions about the text that I think need to be had - even if there is very little overlap and agreement. The moment we start discussing carrying a tapir into the battlefield, that is the moment that there can be no substantive discussion.

[Benjamin McGuire]

The lions metaphor, as an aside, is the best example I've seen so far of a Derridian aporia within the Book of Mormon. Writing as poison and cure, or in this case, missionaries as angels and predators.

I won't disagree with you. This is the sort of thing where there is going to be the greatest separation between critic and apologist - and that means, I think, that this is where we could have very interesting discussions. If I was going to write a text critical of the historicity of the Book of Mormon, this sort of literary discussion would be part of that. If I were an aggressive apologist, this would be the kind of issue that I would feel needed to be discussed.

Suppose the narrative went something like this, "I was peeking from my tent when I saw two pairs of shining eyes and I heard the growls. I sunk into my sleeping bag and covered my head and kept still until morning. Lions they were. Even here in this new land."

This would be a good example of an expansion if we were to learn that the author was harassed by Mexican wolves, and from then on out, the people that sprang from him called Mexican wolves lions. Or even if Mexican wolves were possibly in that territory though we have no firm evidence. But we know that lions weren't.

And while this would be the over-the top in your face sort of thing (just like the Marco Polo example), much of the expansion that we experience isn't in your face like this. We use these over the top kinds of examples because they make the theory clear - they aren't ever going to be evidence of what has happened in this particular case. And in a way, this suits my purpose - because theory is good for helping ask questions and moving towards understanding. When we try to use it as evidence it generally becomes circular.

I think the overriding problem is the lack of any information outside of the English text like we have for the cases of "plastic" and "stick of Joseph".

I would agree with this. Especially with regards to my few points involving negative evidence - which isn't generally really evidence at all. Just remember that I am not here arguing for some unified theory of the production of the Book of Mormon - I am largely agreeing with the idea that loan-shifting doesn't make a good response to anachronisms. I am also trying to point out that the critical claims about anachronisms are in part responsible for the apologetic approach. The back and forth represented here and in the link in the OP suggest to me that the arguments (on either side) aren't really going to help anyone understand the text. Instead it is all about keeping score - as the article from the OP suggests in its introduction:

he finds that 82% of these criticized claims have since been confirmed and an additional 14% are trending toward confirmation, based either on new evidence of the presence of these animals in the Americas or through the identification of loan-shifts used by early European settlers.

It is this sort of thing that bothers me. If most of these criticisms aren't particularly meaningful in the first place, then what value comes from their being contradicted in some way. What matters for me are the real places of incongruousness - these are the places where useful discussion can occur.

[drumdude]

he finds that 82% of these criticized claims have since been confirmed and an additional 14% are trending toward confirmation, based either on new evidence of the presence of these animals in the Americas or through the identification of loan-shifts used by early European settlers.

It is this sort of thing that bothers me. If most of these criticisms aren't particularly meaningful in the first place, then what value comes from their being contradicted in some way. What matters for me are the real places of incongruousness - these are the places where useful discussion can occur.

I think this is a good point. For me, King Benjamin giving a speech in 200 BC about the problems of Protestantism in the 1800s AD is a much bigger issue. It’s narrow, specific, and as time goes on it’s increasingly irrelevant to the modern reader. It seems like less of a revelation and more of just a feature of 1800s fiction. It’s essentially just a Methodist camp meeting, which while interesting, is about as revelatory as Moby Dick’s description of New England fishing practices.

[Kishkumen]

I actually think that most believers don't really care about much of this stuff. When I talk about the standpoint of a believer, I am just trying to encapsulate in that the idea that the Book of Mormon is a revealed text (however you want to take that) as opposed to a modern fiction (however you want to take that). The reason why I use this dichotomy is that for one group, we only have a modern text - and any discussion of loan shifting or lexical expansion or any of that is generally going to be completely meaningless.

We do only have a modern text. We may be in agreement that a modern text that presents itself as scripture is not best described as a modern fiction. If the Bible is taken as the model for a genre, then the novel, being another genre, is not what a text modeled, to an appreciable extent, on the Bible is.

Mormons, on the other hand, come in several flavors on these issues (including those who really will never think about it). One group wants to be able to place the narrative into a specific place and time (to give it historicity). Other groups may be willing to see the text as an inspired fiction (similar - for the purposes of this discussion with the non-believer) - and there are a wide range of views between these two poles. I am not particularly attached to any model - since I tend to focus on a literary approach. And I recognize that the assumptions we bring to the text changes the way that we read the text.

I like that about your work, that you are focused on the literary approach. I don't think the foci on reading the Book of Mormon as either history or inspired fiction are ultimately helpful.

I think that Mormonism as a whole experienced a watershed moment (as far as the Book of Mormon is concerned) when there was a swing towards literalism at the beginning of the 20th century that coincided with the debates over replacing the KJV with a new translation. This was made worse with the introduction of new earth creationism primarily by Joseph Fielding Smith.

So, do you see any explicit pushback on that kind of reading from the leaders of the LDS Church?

This isn't unique to Mormonism. I think that the best description of this problem that I have ever read was written by Luke Johnson, in his book: Contested Issues in Christian Origins and the New Testament. Her writes this (p. 5-6):

The historical study of Jesus began due to Enlightenment in Europe. At the time, two related convictions became popular among those considering themselves to live in an age of reason. The first was that for religion to be true it had to be reasonable; the second was that history was the most reasonable measure of truth. The claims of Christians about Jesus must therefore also meet those standards.

I think that Mormonism as a whole is tied to this premise (as much as any other group). They want the Book of Mormon to be true and to be reasonable, and the best way to get to that conclusion is to show that it is historical. I am indifferent to that notion (generally speaking) because I am interested in a different set of questions about the text.

Yes, I am aware that it isn't unique to Mormonism. It is still a problem. Mormonism is tied to it just as much as any other group that is tied to it, not as much as any other group in existence. You may be interested in a different set of questions, but the thrust of your argument here seems to strive to accommodate or even assist people who invest a lot in their belief in the antiquity of the text.

I think that anyone who has followed much of what I have written publicly over the past couple of decades will recognize that I am highly critical of attempts to identify historicity in the text - and so I think that this description isn't very accurate. I hope that my comments above on why I am using the believer's model will help you understand what I am trying to convey there - it is about the assumptions we bring to the text.

Well, I am glad that you have reaffirmed your commitment to literary, not historical matters in the Book of Mormon. I hope you can see why your posture throughout this thread can be confusing to those who are trying to understand exactly where it is you are coming from. You consistently refer to Nephites as though we can all take for granted their historical existence. You also consistently refer to your take as a "believing" reading. That certainly suggests you equate the assumption that the Nephites are a historical people with a believing position.

Overall, in this thread about loan shifts and anachronisms, my real position is very simple - it's not really about the examples but about the idea that we would be far better off in these discussions if we recognized that between believer and critic, there are often assumptions which, while very different, are working in the same space. Both sides see a modern text. Anything that is attributable to that modern text shouldn't be considered a significant anachronism. It doesn't matter why we think it is a part of the modern text - merely that it is. And without that distraction, we can have the more important discussions about the text that I think need to be had - even if there is very little overlap and agreement. The moment we start discussing carrying a tapir into the battlefield, that is the moment that there can be no substantive discussion.

Anachronisms in a text that purports to be ancient are naturally taken as bearing on the question of historicity. If historicity is unimportant, then anachronisms are unimportant. I agree that they are unimportant because the text is, as you acknowledge, modern. I agree that there are many other interesting and important things for readers of the Book of Mormon to consider aside from anachronisms and historicity. In that effort, I join you. At the same time, as long as the LDS Church assumes the historicity of the text and that assumption is held my a large number of members, then doubting members will continue to experience the discovery of anachronisms as important. They don't really bear the blame for that, as it is a natural way of leaving behind the culture they were raised in.

From where I sit, we are not that far apart, but I am confused by the way you appear to enter the conversation only partly revealing where you are coming from, when it would be a lot more helpful for us to see you articulate clearly where you are and how that differs from the mainstream LDS position. Don't get me wrong: I don't blame you for not staking out this rhetorical territory, but you will continue to be asked to clarify your position when you make vague statements that seem to cut in the direction of the text being an ancient artifact, as it were.

Let me show you what I mean:

If the Book of Mormon is an authentic text, a good parallel might be with what happens in Marco Polo's Travels (an example I have used from time to time).

What on earth are you suggesting here? You tell me that you are not interested in the historicity of the Book of Mormon, but you compare the Book of Mormon as an "authentic" text with The Travels of Marco Polo. Presumably, you accept that Rustichello da Pisa, using stories he had heard from/about Marco Polo concerning his travels, wrote this work in the 13th century. Now, we can be fairly confident that there was a Marco Polo who either traveled to China or heard accounts of others who had, and that Rustichello created his narrative based in some sense on what Marco Polo claimed he experienced, albeit with some embellishment and borrowing from well known legends.

So, my immediate reaction to this, as I have not read your use of Marco Polo in the past, is to say that with The Travels of Marco Polo we have, at the very least, a text that is, however embellished, embedded in historical and cultural matrices that connect in a substantive way with the objects described. That really isn't the case with the Book of Mormon, is it? How is Joseph Smith's scriptural account of Christian Ancient America embedded in the history and culture of Ancient America in any substantive way? Did Joseph Smith travel to Ancient America or consult with people who claimed to have done so? Does what he described correspond in any reasonable way with what we know about Ancient America from other disciplines?

Of course, you have told us that the historicity does not matter. And yet, you bring up The Travels of Marco Polo as a "good parallel" to an "authentic" Book of Mormon. What do these two very different texts arising from very different circumstances have in common that makes them both "authentic"? I would be very interested to know.