**UPDATE** to Vern Holley Book of Mormon Place Names Theory

[Marcus]

That particular word is a new one for me, but the fact that an original Book of Mormon word/phrasing/usage got changed is not. For example, Skousen has made a few executive decisions about what word that the Book of Mormon should have in it (as opposed to what JOSEPH SMITH HIMSELF put in it) that just boggle the mind. Who knows how many other changes have been made. I'll take a look.

ETA: I just read your more recent posts, I see you have as much trust as I do in apologetics!!

I share the distrust, but there is a practical difficulty. Much of the detailed work has been done within a devotional mindset. I just don’t have the time or access to research all of the primary source material.

So if you want to investigate manuscript variants or printing changes or that type of thing, you have to mine the work that’s already been done but distrust or ignore completely the conclusions.

At least that’s how I view it.

Usually I just look at the Joseph Smith papers site (If I recall correctly) which has the scan of the extant original manuscript. This process is typically generated by Skousen or Carmack or someone I'm reading making a reference to differences/changes, etc. If these changes sound suspect I investigate further.

So far, this thoroughly nonscientific process has netted, more than 50% of the time in my estimation, a significant issue with apologist's assumptions.

If it's that easy and predictable to catch apologists in logically insupportable analyses, I can only imagine what a systematic review of the changes would net.

[Shulem]

So if you want to investigate manuscript variants or printing changes or that type of thing, you have to mine the work that’s already been done but distrust or ignore completely the conclusions.

Limnor,

I Shulem rarely work that way and spend little time reviewing or analyzing apologetic writings -- including Interpreter, FAIR, etc. I prefer to work from scratch and rebuild the structure myself and if need be, reinvent the wheel! It has been my experience in life that when working with molded materials that have been processed by apologetics is when I have the least amount of inspiration doing my own work. I work from scratch, ground zero, and figure it out for myself without being influenced by lying apologists who wear rose colored glasses and ignore the elephants in the room. They work from the premise that the Church is true and look at matters in ways to support that conclusion. I work from the opposite -- and in the end, I almost always have a royal flush in my hand. Mormonism is proven false at every turn and in every way. It is simply another religious lie invented to control people. Religion is always, always, about controlling others and not in a good way.

ETA: I just read your more recent posts, I see you have as much trust as I do in apologetics!!

My dear, recently I have been asking AI certain specific questions that only AI could answer so quickly and thoroughly. When AI explains an apologetic excuse, it's convoluted and makes little sense and is contradictory. AI knows the Church is false and how original Mormonism was a sham. It knows! OMFG, AI knows!

It's alive!

[Limnor]

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Skousen has identified through his research what appears to be an interesting text seam. Skousen has identified Scribe 2 of the printer’s manuscript taking over from Oliver at Mosiah 25:14, and then Oliver taking back over at Alma 13:20.

Why was Mosiah 25:14 a place for another person to take over the copying?

Mosiah 25 is the “cut and paste” seam after the Zeniff/Noah/Limhi and Alma stories. Mosiah has these separate records read to the people, and then continues with the previously established storyline.

This is why I find Skousen useful. His research identified a seam for reasons entirely independent of my hypothesis.

I can then ask why that seam exists, independent of Skousen’s explanation, and whether there is something about the source text that can explain the phenomenon.

Maybe it is nothing, but maybe it has value in explaining composition.

One explanation might be that dictation captured in the original manuscript needed to be stitched back together. At the point of Mosiah 25 Joseph had to figure out how to re-merge those original manuscripts back into one, and the printer’s manuscript scribe is the one who captured that effort.

Another point I find interesting, in light of the discussion about Angola/Angolah, is Oliver seems to have had the authority to make changes to proper names as he saw fit:

…there are a few cases where Oliver consciously decided to change the spelling of a Book of Mormon name when he copied the name from O into P. Here are two clear examples where the first occurrence of the name is extant in O, yet Oliver changed the spelling in P for some unknown reason: (1) Kishcumen (O) > Kishkumen (P) and (2) Morionton (O) > Morianton (P). For each of these names, the spelling in O is consistent yet systematically differs from the reading in P. Such examples show that Oliver felt free to make name changes whenever it seemed appropriate to him.

This could be seen as consistent with a group effort, or even reflect group conflict right up to the point of printing.

For what it’s worth, these links point to that research.

https://rsc.BYU.edu/days-never-be-forgo ... mon-scribe

https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/atv

https://scholarsarchive.BYU.edu/cgi/vie ... ntext=jbms

[Craig Paxton]

Serious question Craig, when are you going to put your research into a paper or present it at Sunstone? Your work is too good not to share!

That's very kind of you to suggest but lol...I'm not a scholar...just some random guy with too much time on my hands. No promises but I'll give it some thought. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Craig Paxton]

How did the name ANGOLA

FULL STOP!



I just learned the original 1830 version of the Book of Mormon (p 520) tenders the name as Angelah. But the printers manuscript reads: Angolah. The 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon is when the name Angola makes its first appearance.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?


What do you think of the Angola name changes in Book of Mormon? It seems suspicious to me, wouldn't you say?


Can you help us understand how Angolah became Angelah which later became Angola? (see previous post)

What is going on with that?

Wow this is interesting...Printers manuscript Angolah --->First Edition Angelah--->1837 edition Angola. I keep in mind that Smith was the editor of all editions during his lifetime. So WTF was he thinking? Knowing that Angola, the African country, was in the milieu of New York during Smith's dictation of the Book of Mormon, it's very likely that that is the source that Smith mined this word from. We will really never know. All I know for certain is that there was NEVER a Nephite village named Angola any more than King's Landing is a real village.

While my recent research into Angola is interesting, particularly Smith's recalled journey into the same region as Angola, NY, all of this can never be definitively proven. We are left to speculate.

[Shulem]

Wow this is interesting...Printers manuscript Angolah --->First Edition Angelah--->1837 edition Angola. I keep in mind that Smith was the editor of all editions during his lifetime. So WTF was he thinking? Knowing that Angola, the African country, was in the milieu of New York during Smith's dictation of the Book of Mormon, it's very likely that that is the source that Smith mined this word from. We will really never know. All I know for certain is that there was NEVER a Nephite village named Angola any more than King's Landing is a real village.

While my recent research into Angola is interesting, particularly Smith's recalled journey into the same region as Angola, NY, all of this can never be definitively proven. We are left to speculate.

Yeah, I hear you. I asked AI this question and got a pretty good answer. You are welcome to look it up yourself if you like. We are not permitted to quote AI on this message board.

How involved was Joseph Smith with the printing of the first edition of the Book of Mormon? Was he often onsite during the typesetting process and directly involved in the supervision of spelling proper names? What if there was a name on the printer's manuscript that differed with that which was put in typeset? Would that have been because of Joseph Smith's direct approval or could the printer himself have made the change based on his own intelligence?

[Craig Paxton]

How involved was Joseph Smith with the printing of the first edition of the Book of Mormon? Was he often onsite during the typesetting process and directly involved in the supervision of spelling proper names? What if there was a name on the printer's manuscript that differed with that which was put in typeset? Would that have been because of Joseph Smith's direct approval or could the printer himself have made the change based on his own intelligence?

So AI places most if not all post dictation edit responsibility on Oliver Cowdery based on records in the JSP's...interesting.

[Limnor]

So AI places most if not all post dictation edit responsibility on Oliver Cowdery based on records in the JSP's...interesting.

Interestingly, Skousen has the same conclusion. And Joseph wasn’t even in Palmyra for much of the printing. He was in Harmony.

[Limnor]

We are left to speculate.

I kind of chuckled at this, because as an explanation, albeit speculative, a guy adopting a location name from his surroundings makes more sense than a guy putting his head in a hat and revealing the name of some ancient city with no trace of evidence.