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dande48 wrote:

We’re going off of the word “probably” here, so I’m going to need something with > 70% certainty. You used a source from the 1940s, citing research funded by the Church for the sole purpose of “proving” what they already believe.

Well, it was another church, but point taken. And as the author pointed out, he started with the more complex symbols first. They don’t look anything like English.

I do know of some similar characters found on Mesoamerican stella. I will look into that.

I know of at least one man who has claimed to have translated the Anthon script. He believes it was taken from the Book of Ether, and it talks about giant waves and such. I don’t know enough about the subject matter to know if he is on the mark or not.

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dande48 wrote:

Anthon Script has been studied by both LDS and non-LDS scholarsrosett, and determined to be gibberish

I don’t believe this statement is entirely true, but it struck me that those experts who have reviewed the Anthon characters did so with a knowledge of their provenance. This knowledge was prejudicial to say the least. A more scientific approach would be to do a double blind study. Mix the characters with similar characters taken from Egyptian papyri and then see if anyone can tell the difference. I can’t. It also occurred to me that there is a well known Egyptian papyri that was part of the collection of the Joseph Smith papyri that no scholar has been able to translate. Would Egytologists still recognize the characters on that papryri as Demotic? Yet here we have the original, and no one doubts its authenticity.

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dande48 wrote:

rrosskopf wrote:

So if I can show that the script was probably a type of reformed Egyptian, will those who have less faith cheer or grieve?

If you could, that would be revolutionary! Even better, if you could translate it.

I believe I already did. Did you read the link? A majority of the same characters have been found on Egyptian papyri, and were believed to be Demotic. It is only finding them on Joseph Smith’s gold plates that gives everyone pause.

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nibbler wrote:

I think it all comes down to:

Yeah-huh.

Nu-uh.

There are rules to assist us in judging righteously. When it comes to history, rumors have no place. Eye witness testimony is key, and the sooner after the event the better. Expert testimony is better than nothing, but doesn’t rise to the value of an eye witness. These simple rules can help us evaluate truth.

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Old Timer wrote:

Admin Note: I simply feel the need to stress our mission here, which is support of each other in our individual journeys as we strive to stay LDS to whatever degree possible.

I jumped into several conversations where the topic clearly called for evidence and a conclusion. Was there really a man named Nephi? Is it really possible for Joseph Smith to have written the Book of Mormon? The answers I saw were almost all one-sided, and showed no real scholarship into either question. If you don’t want an answer, then don’t ask the question.

I take no issue with letting people discuss the issues that bother them. Nor do I wish to hurt anyone’s feelings. I can be insensitive at times. But if I can show that a fear is unwarranted, then isn’t that the best medicine? Fear – paranoia – is very much like a disease. It spreads by word of mouth. It can change one’s behavior and even lead to death. We live in an age where propaganda is being spread to support the agenda of wicked men. Should we not counter it? Isn’t that the best way to support each other?

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dande48 wrote:

EXACTLY, Sam. Anthon Script has been studied by both LDS and non-LDS scholarsrosett, and determined to be gibberish.

Yes, some came to that conclusion, but certainly not all. One of the three non-LDS scholars said some of the characters did look Demotic. And one researcher went so far as to show photos from the Demotic dictionary side by side with Joseph Smith’s characters. And Martin Harris did speak with one of the men who worked on the Rosetta stone, and he also believed the characters to be genuine.

I have looked at other old world scripts, and by and large they bear no resemblance to the Anthon script. Why does the Demotic?

http://www.shields-research.org/Scriptures/BoM/Anthon_Transcript-Crowley/1942_02-IE.PDF

So if I can show that the script was probably a type of reformed Egyptian, will those who have less faith cheer or grieve?

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SilentDawning wrote:

If you consider salvation life with God, then yes, the first four principles and enduring to the end would get you there….but then we have the highest level of salvation which is eternal progression. And you need to have entered into the celestial marriage covenant to achieve this.

There will be single people in the Celestial kingdom. They will have received salvation by following the principles taught in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I see no indication that the Nephites, nor the Jews, had much if any understanding of Celestial Marriage. Jesus may have taught it, but only privately to a select few. No one has ever included this doctrine as part of the “good news”, as far as I am aware. The “good news” is that we can repent and be forgiven and that we can become “saints”, sanctified by the spirit of the Holy Ghost and sealed to rise with the saints at the last day.

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dande48 wrote:

The trouble is, there is no possibility of evidence that could “disprove” the Book of Mormon, in the minds of those who ardently believe it.

Is that really a problem? Are there too many ardent supporters of the law of gravity? The spherical shape of the earth? Mortality? I think the real problem is that some have experienced a type of knowledge that scares the others.

Yes, I’ll admit to rooting for sanity. Because if the Book of Mormon isn’t true to the extent that I believe, then it is likely that I am insane. I can honestly say that I don’t feel insane. I can’t really imagine how insanity would answer all the questions either. People who are insane have huge gaps in their memories where things don’t add up, where reality and fantasy meet. I’m not experiencing that. If it is a cosmic joke, it’s a pretty good one. I am not alone in my wonder, my open jawed awe, at what shouldn’t be possible. If accidental ape men is really the best explanation of human history, then where does LDS history fit in? What explains an aberation like Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon?

The biggest problem that skeptics face, in my opinion, is that they take pot shots, expecting to disprove Mormonism with a single shot. Some even take a scatter gun approach, shooting blindly in a hundred different directions. They weave a tapestry that has almost nothing in common with reported reality. Their explanations don’t explain anything.

The common explanation is that Joseph Smith was a convicted con artist. Not only does that not fit the facts, it isn’t even accurate. The only conviction I can find is for improper banking procedures, for which Joseph had to pay a fine. Hardly the stuff of blatent flim flam. And of course it doesn’t explain how so many people saw visions, even in broad daylight, even seeing the same visions together, or in one case miles apart. And no amount of visionary explanation can suggest how Joseph Smith ended up with such a complex and credible history as the Book of Mormon, except perhaps the one offered by Joseph Smith. If someone were to magically meet both of those hurdles, then there is the obvious problem that Joseph Smith gives no indication that he doesn’t believe what he teaches. Here is a man which, never having healed a single person, commands that a women’s withered and useless arm be healed, in the company of an atheist and a minister. Talk about chutspa. And of course, it is immediately healed, on the spot, at that very moment. Where does that kind of certainty come from? It is like law of gravity certainty, or the certainty that we are all going to die. It isn’t a matter of probability. There isn’t a long line of failed attempts. Whatever it is, I want to bottle it.

So we have abundant credible eye witness testimony that forms the backbone of LDS history, and skeptics taking pot shots at what they can’t believe.

[rrosskopf]

That isn’t really the message I would like to hear either. Why doesn’t God always answer prayers immediately? I have come to a couple of conclusions, take them for what they are worth.

Sometimes people want an answer for the wrong reason. Sometimes people ask amiss. Sometimes people have hearts and minds that are far away from God. Sometimes people truly want an answer, but won’t accept the responsibility. God doesn’t bother to answer idle curiousity. Sometimes people ask questions which ultimately are unimportant, and history will play out the same whether they receive an answer or not.

Personally, I have received answers to hundreds of questions. The single most important thing, in my opinion, is to pour out your heart when you pray, and the second most important thing is to listen for an answer. Make sure that you put aside enough time. Dont expect a $50 answer from a $2 prayer. Set goals to increase both the quality and the length of prayer. The brother of Jared didn’t see the finger of the Lord because of a 3 minute prayer.

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Beachplease7 wrote:

I feel like the reversal of the policy of exclusion, has opened wounds I was healing.

Perhaps this is a little off topic, but the cross you bear reminds me of the cross another bore. I served a mission in Peru where I met a young man who had his own problem. He was faithful and wanted to marry a young lady in the temple. Unfortunately, she was of African descent. He poured his heart out in prayer asking God what he should do. I don’t know how long he knelt in prayer, but he received an answer that day. The Lord spoke to his mind, and he wrote the words down as he heard them; the priesthood would shortly be given to blacks. It was only a matter of months before the revelation on the priesthood was given to the church. He exercised faith, and his faith was rewarded.

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Roy wrote:

The LDS church position (as I understand it) is that a scientific approach will not be enough to convince an individual of the historicity of the BoM. It requires a spiritual witness and is a matter of faith.

I am merely preparing the soil so that faith may grow.

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SilentDawning wrote:

I have a really hard time believing it contains “the fulness of the gospel” because a lot of ordinances mentioned only in D&C are missing, such as temple marriage.

The fulness of the gospel, as understood by the Nephites, is contained in the Book of Mormon. “Fulness” is not to be understood as a detailed list of all doctrines and ordinances, but rather as containing the four or five major concepts; if the gospel were missing any one of these, it would not lead to salvation. The first concept is faith. God asks us to prove him, to gaze upon the brass serpent, to enter Jerusalem and confront Laban without knowing what is going to happen, to take our tents into the desert. Without faith, there is no salvation in the fullest sense. The second concept is repentance. Faith without repentance is ultimately futile. John the Baptist and the apostles of Jesus Christ taught repentance and baptism; this was their primary message. The third concept is that of making a covenant with God. We call that covenant baptism, and we renew that covenant with the sacrament of the Lord’ supper. One must make a covenant – commit – to keeping the commandments of God or repentance and faith are in vain. The forth concept is receiving the Holy Ghost. It is the Holy Ghost that sanctifies us and changes our very nature. If we harden our hearts against it, then the faith, repentance and covenants were all in vain. All four are necessary, and one might add a fifth; to persevere in all four of these concepts so long as one draws breath – to endure to the end. This is the fulness of the gospel in it’s simplicity. And yes, it is in the Book of Mormon. As simple as it sounds, one might suspect that many churches teach the same doctrines, but that is not the case. They may teach one or two, but the fulness of the gospel was lost, and strange doctrines were added in. The churches of Joseph Smith’s day shot beyond the mark.

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Let’s look at the details. Are they plausible? According to the Book of Mormon Nephi was rich, and taught in all the learning of the Jews. He could also write in Hebrew and Egyptian. He chose Egyptian, because of the difficulty of engraving. Copies of the characters look very much like the Egyptian Demotic, a reformed Hieroglyphic. Other examples of Jews using the Demotic or Hieratic have been found – dating to that era, the one time when there was open trade between the two countries. So that is plausible.

His father was named Lehi, and he lived in Jerusalem. An estate by a man named Lehi was excavated back in the sixties, (Ben Lehi) and the estate dates to the time in question. Once again, the story is plausible.

Lehi has a dream and then a vision – unusual, but not unique. He starts preaching repentance to the Jews. That too is plausible. Then he gets into trouble; even back then they had laws against speaking against the government. So Lehi leaves the city and takes his family with him.

Nephi knows metallurgy, something he probably learned from his father. Is it just a coincidence that their journey takes them south to the area where the Jews mined their ores? After three days of travel, they pitch a tent next to a stream and offer sacrifice. All of this is plausible; there is a candidate for the stream, and by law if one was 3 days from the temple, they could offer sacrifice where they were. Nephi and his brothers are sent back to get the brass plates from Laban. Did they have that kind of technology, to manufacture brass plates and inscribe them in 600 BC? Yes, they did. Several examples have come to light, all originating from the Middle East. It is completely plausible.

Nephi then does the unthinkable – he resorts to cold blooded murder to obtain the plates. This is an anachronism that is completely at odds with the sensibilities of the 1800’s, but is justifiable in 600 BC Jerusalem. Laban had tried to kill Nephi and his brothers twice already, and they were still hiding from Laban’s soldiers. That alone turns it from murder to justice. But there is more; Laban is delivered into Nephi’s hands. To the Jews that meant the approbation of God. It is completely plausible in that time and at that place.

Lehi and his family then journey through the worst parts of Arabia and learn to eat their meat raw, because fires will draw unwelcome attention. Even today there are robbers in the Arabian desert. Ismael dies, and they bury him in a place called Nahom. There is a place called Nahom and there is an ancient graveyard there, so still plausible. Then they change their heading to more of an easterly direction, and end up at the southern coast of Arabia. They name it Bountiful, because of the vegetation and fruit trees and honey bees. They mine iron ore and build a ship. Again this is all plausible. There is a deposit of iron ore, a bay that was once a shipping port, and tall trees to make ship timbers. Even the bees are still there. There was probably even a shipyard, since Arabs were one of the earliest sailors, and knew how to travel across seas.

It all appears plausible, and it shouldn’t be, if Joseph Smith made it up. Nephi was a real person. And of course, authorship testing bears that out.

[rrosskopf]

People who assert that Joseph Smith could have brought forth the Book of Mormon from his own imagination seriously underestimate the complexity of the book. When the book of Lehi was stolen, Joseph continued on with the book of Mosiah through to Moroni, and only then dictated the books of Nephi and Jacob. Yet there are several places where later prophets quote earlier prophets word for word. I guess you could say that he had a photographic memory, and could write a book in his mind without ever putting it to paper, and then memorized his own imagined book word for word, but is there any record of anyone ever accomplishing such a feat? To say the odds are 1 in a million is to seriously underestimate the odds.

Then there is the chiastic verse; the Book of Mormon contains some of the finest examples of a long forgotten type of Hebrew prose. It is so obscure that no one noticed it in the Book of Mormon for over a hundred years. Some of these are quite lengthy, and hard to compose even with a computer. Where did Joseph Smith learn to write Hebrew prose? According to his mother, Joseph was an active boy and didn’t like to read.

According to authorship testing, the Book of Mormon was written by twenty men – none of which were Joseph Smith. If someone knew about the test then they might be able to figure out some way to fool it, but if Jospeh Smith knew about the test, then the titles of prophet and seer would certainly apply to him.

Then there is the geography. Hundreds of statements regarding geography are all in perfect harmony.

If that weren’t enough, the Book of Mormon is predominantly Israelite in composition. It isn’t Jewish at all. Israelite themes are talked about again and again, but the Jewish specific themes are noticeably absent. I suppose some scholar who has done research into Documentary Hypothesis could fake such a book today, but this discipline didn’t exist in 1830.

Then there is the real world knowledge of war. Joseph Smith may have paraded around Nauvoo on his horse, wearing the uniform of a general, but he had no real training in war. Mormon – on the other hand – was a real general and fought in numerous battles, and seems to talk about little else. It has been suggested, and rightly so, that the Book of Mormon is a manual on guerrilla warfare.

Then there is the real question about how much Joseph Smith knew of Jerusalem, Arabia, or ancient America. The coincidences just keep adding up. Why are there plausible candidates for the river of Laman, bountiful, and Nahom? How did Joseph Smith describe in great detail Mayan armor and weapons? How would he know that the plates of Laban would have been kept in a treasury and not a library? How would he know that before money was invented, that weights of grain were used as currency? Or that cement houses were being built in 100 AD? He couldn’t build a cement house on a dare. And yet, surprise surprise, archeologists have found houses made out of cement.

None of this speaks to the other problems, because they really don’t involve the Book of Mormon per se; How did he heal the men who were dying of Cholera? How did he heal the withered arm of a women he had just met? How did he cause so many people to see shared visions? Even after excommunication, the three witnesses were still loyal to what they had actually seen with their own eyes and heard with their own ears, what could only be described as a visionary experience in broad daylight.

I’d like to suggest, that if you can write a lie, and feel the spirit, then perhaps you are feeling the wrong spirit. When the spirit has born witness to me of future events, I have watched those events transpire. I have come to trust the spirit.

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Above all, the Book of Mormon is a second witness to the messiah, when he would come, and the global aspect of his mission. The signs and wonders that accompanied his birth and death in the New World are also a witness to the fulfillment of messianic prophecies, as well as a witness to the validity of the historical nature of the Book of Mormon. Great lights appeared in the heavens at the birth of the savior, and stars could be seen indistinctly behind them. It sounds very much like the solar storm of 1859, something that Joseph Smith didn’t live to see. The eruption of Apoyeque in the 1st century AD was one of the largest known volcanic eruptions, and was likely responsible for lightnings, thunderings, thick darkness, sunken cities and burned cities. A large part of the area is now under water because of that eruption. The only comparable eruption in modern history is that of Krakatoa in 1883, which also caused three days of darkness in the Indian ocean.

One aspect that few people recognize, is the difference in belief between the classic Jews of Jesus’ time and the Israelites. It is the Israelite traditions that were discouraged by the Jews, the belief in a Son of God, and a consort of God, and a council of heaven, and the mysteries. As eminent historian Margaret Barker concludes, the Book of Mormon is in harmony with 1st Temple traditions. The prominent role of Joseph as a king and leader over his brethren is also an Israelite belief, in conflict with the Jewish belief that Judah should rule.

[Author]

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