Mormon Threads

[FightingFat]

BDawg:

Like I said, part of the controversy is over whether the papyri found were specifically the ones that JS claimed contained the Book of Abraham. The eyewitness accounts militate against this conclusion, and if so, don’t you think the translation of the fragments that were found is beside the point?

No, it seems clearly evasive to be honest. My reading (and I assert I have tried to be as objective as possible) leads me to four obvious conclusions

(1) the papyri which came to public attention in 1967 (color photographs of which are reproduced in the book) are indisputably those which Joseph had in his possession when he produced the Book of Abraham,

(2) Joseph Smith did purport that the Book of Abraham was a translation from one of these papyrus scrolls,

(3) the scrolls are now known to date from around the time of Christ, some 2,000 years after the time of Abraham, and

(4) the scrolls have been identified by Egyptologists — including LDS scholars — as common, pagan Egyptian burial documents, that do not mention Abraham and have no connection to the contents of the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price.

You could hypothesise this or that about it, but if you apply Occams razor, it seems impossible that the Book of Abraham was translated from these scrolls.

I think the argument you remember was presented as one possible solution–not the only one, or even the best. In any case, there is quite a bit of evidence that the Book of Abraham is based on authentic ancient traditions about the life of Abraham that are not included in the Bible.

Can you point me to some?

Also, it turns out that all three vignettes included with the Book of Abraham have ancient connections with Abraham traditions.

Does it? I was not aware of this, can you explain in a little more detail?

So, while there are tough problems for LDS to deal with, there is something really odd going on here that is difficult to explain away. There is enough there that I feel very comfortable putting the question on the shelf and seeing how the research goes.

BDawg

Which is the case with so many Mormon ideas and teachings. This is true of issues like the fact that there is no credible evidence that a small band of migrating Israelites populated the Americas with millions of people, generated an iron-age culture, built many buildings, and fought massive wars with thousands of casualties. To the contrary, for nearly 100 years archaeologists, biologists and linguists have presented evidence that: “physical similarities, cultural and linguistic ties and archeological and molecular data all indicate a Siberian/Asiatic origin for Native Americans, not a Hebrew one.”
In addition, DNA studies used to trace the ancestry of Native American peoples support the conclusions of scientists in other fields and together the evidence raises serious questions about the veracity of the Book of Mormon and the historical and theological authenticity of the Mormon faith in general.

If one studies the Bible, one finds consistant historical evidence for it’s contents as well as real prophecy and fullfillment. I am unable to draw a parallel with the Book of Mormon. There are ‘get out’ clauses used by Mormon appologists, which usually amount to a ‘wait and see’ and ‘we don’t have all the answers’ type of philosophy, but there are so many huge gaps…Does it not seem more likely that it did not happen and JS plagarised an earlier work of fiction as has been documented?

One more issue. If God sent his beloved son to suffer and die for all mankind, and the result of that chain of events was the foundation of the Church on earth, why would he desert that Church, contradicting what he had said about it, why would he found it, knowing it would fail, and desert it’s billion followers, and shift the whole shebang to the USA? Why not reveal his divine will to a Pope, and bring his Church back into line? Would he not see the present dicotomy? Does he feel that it is beneficial to have different people clinging to different understandings of his word?

 

[BDawg]

Hi FF,

I hope this discussion doesn’t split off into a million directions, especially when this very thread started on the subject of how Mormon-related threads have been shut down because they wander off topic. Nevertheless, I’ll try to give you a few quickie answers.

First, you are wrong that they have found “the scrolls that Joseph Smith had.” Rather, they found several scraps (not scrolls) representing a small fraction of the papyri Joseph Smith had. Eyewitnesses testimonies establish that JS claimed that a long roll with black and red writing contained the Book of Abraham. However, none of the papyri found fit that description, although some of them may have originally been part of the same roll, but fell off. It was common Egyptian practice to have more than one text on the same roll, as I understand it.

Is “the book” you are talking about the one by Charles Larson? If so, it is horribly one-sided. It presents only the evidence in favor of the conclusion that the papyri found are the same ones JS said were the Book of Abraham, and ignores all contrary evidence.

Regarding the evidence for the authenticity of the Book of Abraham that I discussed, you can find a lot of it on Jeff Lindsay’s site. He has updated it quite a bit since you read it several years ago.

Re: your litany of charges against the Book of Mormon–All of these claims have received very strong challenges from LDS scholars, who cite the work of many non-LDS scholars. Again, Jeff Lindsay has some good summary material on these issues. Check out his LDS FAQ where he has pages on evidences for the Book of Mormon, alleged problems with the Book of Mormon, and so on. On the “problems” page, there is a link to a summary article on the DNA issue. Here’s the link:

jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/

Re: your next paragraph–First, the plagiarism charge has not been documented. It has simply been alleged with very weak evidence. The first major plagiarism charge had to do with Solomon Spaulding’s “Manuscript Story,” but then in the late 19th century someone actually found a copy of it, and the charge is patently absurd. The second major charge of plagiarism is with regard to Ethan Smith’s “View of the Hebrews.” There are, in fact, some common themes, but when you get down to specifics (like which Old Testament verses are used to back up said common themes), they look very different. In addition, there are a number of significant “unparallels.” In fact, the BYU Religious Studies Center reprinted Ethan Smith’s book several years ago. What would their motivation be for doing this if it was such damning evidence against the Book of Mormon?

Second, I think you have probably been focusing solely on “problems” with the Book of Mormon, and have not given equal time to alleged evidence for it. I have read quite a bit of material that attacks the Bible, Mormonism, Catholicism, Christianity, etc., and when I look at responses to these “problems,” I come off thinking that 1) some of the charges are absolute bunk, 2) some could go either way–there just isn’t enough information, and 3) some look kind of bad, but there is always some way to wiggle out of them. For example, I have actually read a fair amount of anti-Catholic material written by fundamentalists. Most of it is ****, some of it is inconclusive, and some of it looks kind of bad, but Catholic apologists find some way of wriggling out of it. E.g., I find problematic 1) the Pope Honorius business, 2) the rampant simony and debauchery even in the medieval papacy (the appeal to their humanity seems a bit weak, given the enormity of the crimes), 3) explanations (after the fact) for how large measures of “doctrinal development” could occur in the absence of new public revelation, and 4) the explicit stamp of approval for the use of torture to gain confessions from suspected heretics (I think that was the Fourth Lateran Council). I could go on.

BDawg

 

[BDawg]

Hi again, FF:

Here is an exercise that might give you some perspective. Go to Jeff Lindsay’s site, look over all the alleged problems, and categorize them into the three bins I described above. I’m sure you will find some responses that just don’t do it for you, but others that you can pass over as wins for the Mormons or inconclusive. Then go to his Book of Mormon evidences page, and start trying to explain them away. Keep track of how many "He just got lucky"s and "he got the idea from obscure source X"s you have to use. In the first case, there is only so much luck you can reasonably expect one person to have, and in the second case, a barely literate farmboy can only be expected to do so much library research in the University that was several leagues away (Dartmouth), or even in the nearby frontier community library (Manchester). And before you get too extravagant in these kinds of claims, remember that we have the library catalogs from both.

I have to warn you, though. Some of the evidence is pretty striking to me. I think that an honest person, such as you seem to be, would at least come out of the exercise thinking that critics of the Book of Mormon have still got some ‘splainin’ to do, and that Mormons aren’t quite as stupid as you thought. I would hope that you would also come out of it thinking that maybe praying to God about the truth of the Book of Mormon is not such a dumb idea as they make it out in some of the Catholic Answers tracts.

The fact is that humans don’t have anywhere near the information needed to make perfect judgments on these issues. Often we make choices of which theory to believe based on which one conforms most closely to our expectations. However, sometimes our expectations are based on a pretty thin foundation. (E.g., I expect that a Pope ought not get his chair by having the previous Pope whacked, and if he does, he is not a legitimate Pope, and should be removed. And yet, the fact that certain Popes did this and were not removed, and indeed, are still listed in the catalogue of “legitimate” Popes, is something that Catholic apologists must explain away, and I suspect they are not that comfortable about this duty. However, they would undoubtedly argue that my expectations about how God would deal with His Church are skewed in some way.)

Re: your reasoning about what God would do about the survival of the earthly Church–God doesn’t desert the Church. The Church can desert God, however. In fact, this was prophesied to happen in the New Testament. And even many Catholic scholars will admit that Matt. 16:18-20 does not refer to the survival of the earthly Church. E.g., Michael M. Winter, former lecturer in Fundamental Theology at St. John’s Seminary (Roman Catholic), in his excellent defense of the papacy, admits that “although some writers have applied the idea of immortality to the survival of the church, it seems preferable to see it as a promise of triumph over evil.” [Winter, M. M. Saint Peter and the Popes, (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1960,) p. 17.]

In LDS thought, you have to realize that God holds people responsible for the amount of truth they have. Therefore, if people rebel against God, He lets them throw out some of the truth they don’t like, and removes His authorized servants until they are ready to move forward again. The “reforms” have to happen by direct revelation, though.

In case the above answer doesn’t do it for you, reflect on this. Why would God let certain cultures (e.g., Australian aborigines) go for centuries without hearing a word of the Gospel? Why wouldn’t God establish a worldwide Church, right from the beginning, and never let it fail? I suspect that your answer to this question might be fairly similar to mine–different only in scale.

One last thing. Earlier you tried to pass off my comments about arriving at spiritual truth via the witness of the Holy Spirit as a commonplace. Well, there are always counterfeits for any truth. However, what you didn’t address was the fact that the New Testament clearly says that this is how one is supposed to arrive at spiritual truth, rather than by the wisdom/arguments of men. Whether or not there are counterfeits out there, if your spirituality does not include a definite witness to the truth of Catholicism by the Holy Spirit, and instead only includes intellectual arguments and the general feeling that it “makes sense,” then there is something missing in your personal religion. The Christian religion is supposed to bring you TO God, not just tell you ABOUT God.

From now on, can we just pick one topic to discuss at a time, though? I don’t have time for the “What about all these alleged problems with Mormonism” approach. For one thing, it takes too stinking long to write a post.

BDawg

 

[ese]

BDawg:

Hi everyone,

I am a Mormon, and I certainly don’t think my faith is “blind” or based solely on “feelings.” However, the fact is that one is supposed to obtain spiritual knowledge by the Holy Spirit, rather than by argument, scholarly or otherwise.

“And my speech and my preaching [was] not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” (1 Cor. 2:4-5)

“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:14)

And, like it or not, the presence of the Holy Spirit is often accompanied by intense “feelings.”

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

So if I prayed about whether my religious beliefs were true, and I had an experience where I felt pure spiritual knowledge flowing into me accompanied by intense feelings of joy and peace, what should I do? Should I chuck it out the window? Or should I keep it in my stock of bona fide religious experiences that I draw from when I am deciding what to believe?

On the other hand, if you were to tell me that these kinds of experiences could be self-induced, so I shouldn’t put all my eggs in that basket, I would wholeheartedly agree. Joseph Smith said the following about how one grows into the principle of revelation:

“A person may prifit by noticing the first intimation of the spirit of revelation; for instance, when you feel pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas, so that by noticing it, you may find it fulfilled the same day or soon; (i.e.) those things that were presented unto your minds by the Sprit of God, will come to pass; and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, you may grow into the principle of revelation, until you become perfect in Christ Jesus.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 151)

I have had lots of little experiences like this that convince me that God really does speak to me, sometimes. Again, should I throw all this out? Or are these experiences something I have to honestly deal with when making my choice of religion?

Some of you might also be surprised to find out that I can point to quite a number of external things that I believe provide evidence for my faith. These include facts about early Christian history, recent biblical scholarship, archaeological finds, and so forth.

I do not consider any of this to be conclusive proof that everyone must accept, but when I add it all up in my head, it seems quite convincing to me.

BDawg

BD

I’ve had many a conversation with mormon missionaries, they also talk about their feeling that they feel, especially about their testamonies about the Book of Mormon.

Feelings and expirences and be good, and some can be bad, and if you have good feeling about your choice of religions, that’s great, But if you use your feeling as to whether something is true or not, now that can get you in trouble.

How can feelings account for missing history? Mormons claim that lots of plain and precious truths were removed from the bible, yet no bible with these plain and prescious truths has ever been found

Take the history in the book of mormon too, Not a single city has been found that is mentioned, and it mentions huge citys with thousands of people, surely something was left behind that wasn’t destroyed, take all the battles that occured, why did all the chariots, spears, swords, elefants and horses disappear, why did whoever destroyed everything not destroy the citys of the incas or the astecs, or even in north america why destroy all the nephites and laminites and leave ony the traces of the american indians.

Feelings about the book of mormon will not explain away all the mistakes that have been corrected, and if we are to believe that JS didn’t write the book of mormon but that God revealed it to him for him to copy, if all he had to do was copy them and the letters would remain visable to him until the copy was correct,then a new sentence would appear, that would make god illiterate, and not familiar with the english language.

 

[tkdnick]

Nice to see this thread was on topic for all of 2 posts…

 

[wademann]

The Spirit moved it in another direction. Killer stuff!!! I learned alot.