30 Things That Support The Book of Mormon

[GentlyHewStone]

The nature of The Book of Mormon invites us to conclude that, if it actually is an ancient document, then God is real. The book's promise that God will testify to seekers of its truth is therefore reasonable to pursue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHx9cs0syyQ[/url]

[dianaiad]

[...]
Things like chiasmus,

[...]

Way too much stuff for me to sift through, so I'll look at one thing. And one thing I'd never heard of before.

According to Sandra Tanner, great-great-granddaughter of Brigham Young, the second president of the Mormon Church, who is now an exMormon and active anti-Mormon:

Some LDS writers are trying to establish the historicity of the Book of Mormon by maintaining that it contains a poetic style, sometimes used in the Bible, called chiasmus (see: [link] for a description of chiasmus.). They also point out that this style was not identified as 'chiasmus' until after the time of Joseph Smith. Thus, they reason, his use of it in the Book of Mormon demonstrates that it is a translation of an ancient text. However, a brief investigation shows just the opposite.

First, this poetic style has always been in the Bible. Whether anyone had a name for it or not is beside the point; the style was present for Joseph Smith to imitate.

Second, the Doctrine and Covenants has examples of the same pattern. Since Joseph Smith dictated the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants, and it is not claimed that they were translations of ancient writings, obviously this pattern was part of Smith's style. The Pearl of Great Price and Joseph's diary exhibit similar patterns.

A thesis at BYU by Richard C. Shipp, "Conceptual Patterns of Repetition in the Doctrine and Covenants and Their Implications" (Masters Thesis), arrives at a similar conclusion. Although Mr. Shipp was not trying to disprove chiasmus claims in the Book of Mormon, his study shows that Joseph Smith had picked up both the rhythm of chiasmus and parallelism. In his 1832 first vision account, Joseph claims that he had studied the Bible since he was twelve, so it is quite conceivable he picked up this style from his studies.

That kinda dismisses the chiasmus argument for me.

The best way, I think, to approach this bit about chiasmus is to answer this post.

Now Sandra Tanner is being an apologist for the critics when she points out that chiasmus, though not really recognized 'officially' (by name and by scholars) until later, that the form itself appeared in the bible. She's quite right. It does. It is an extremely common poetic form in Hebrew.

Here's the problem, though. "Chiasmus' in the original Hebrew, Greek and Latin texts didn't translate well, and translators of Hebrew into English didn't pay attention to the form. If chiasmus 'translated through,' it was mostly by accident, especially with the KJV.

If the BoM is
"accidentally chiastic, then, as a result of unconscious exposure to the form in the KJV (and NOBODY accuses JS of knowing, or having access to, Hebraic or Greek texts with the original chiastic forms), one would have to 'torture' them a bit to make them 'fit.'

Shoot, if one looks hard enough, one can find chiasms in anything, whether designed or not. "Old King Cole" is a chiasm, for crying out loud.

So what we are looking for, here, is the sort of intricately, deliberately designed chiasm so beloved by Hebrew writers, and which did NOT survive translation all that well.

...you know, the sort that is nested; chiastic on the phrase, sentence and passage level, and even in a larger, story and chapter level.

Alma 36 is the example most used here, and here (thanks to Jeff Lindsay) is a very basic 'chapter level' chiasm.
(a) My son, give ear to my WORDS (1)
(b) KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS of God and ye shall PROSPER IN THE LAND (2)
(c) DO AS I HAVE DONE (2)
(d) in REMEMBERING THE CAPTIVITY of our fathers (2);
(e) for they were in BONDAGE (2)
(f) he surely did DELIVER them (2)
(g) TRUST in God (3)
(h) supported in their TRIALS, and TROUBLES, and AFFLICTIONS (3)
(i) shall be lifted up at the LAST DAY (3)
(j) I KNOW this not of myself but of GOD (4)
(k) BORN OF GOD (5)
(l) I sought to destroy the church of God (6-9)
(m) MY LIMBS were paralyzed (10)
(n) Fear of being in the PRESENCE OF GOD (14-15)
(o) PAINS of a damned soul (16)
(p) HARROWED UP BY THE MEMORY OF SINS (17)
(q) I remembered JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD (17)
(q') I cried, JESUS, SON OF GOD (18)
(p') HARROWED UP BY THE MEMORY OF SINS no more (19)
(o') Joy as exceeding as was the PAIN (20)
(n') Long to be in the PRESENCE OF GOD (22)
(m') My LIMBS received their strength again (23)
(l') I labored to bring souls to repentance (24)
(k') BORN OF GOD (26)
(j') Therefore MY KNOWLEDGE IS OF GOD (26)
(h') Supported under TRIALS, TROUBLES, and AFFLICTIONS (27)
(g') TRUST in him (27)
(f') He will deliver me (27)
(i') and RAISE ME UP AT THE LAST DAY (28)
(e') As God brought our fathers out of BONDAGE and captivity (28-29)
(d') Retain in REMEMBRANCE THEIR CAPTIVITY (28-29)
(c') KNOW AS I DO KNOW (30)
(b') KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS and ye shall PROSPER IN THE LAND (30)
(a') This is according to his WORD (30).

This does not address the many internal chiasms folded into this passage.

Please note: this is a pretty obvious, involved and DESIGNED chiasmus, with obvious knowledge of the uses of the form and the idea of it.

Could JS have done it? Sure...I could, knowing what I know about literary devices and how chiasmus works. The problem is, could anybody have done it at that time without that knowledge?

Here's the thing; nobody else did. Nobody experimented with the deliberate design of chiastic forms until it was far better known, many years after the BoM was published.

Here's what we know about chiasmus...and what JS could have known: Johannes Bengal first used the word 'chiasmus" to describe this form of 'reverse parallelism" in the OT and NT in 1742, and was pretty much ignored. Another scholar, Lowthe, was not ignored, but he ignored chiasmus. He folded it into a group parallel structures, which he called "synonymous, synthetic, and antithetic." The chiastic forms were rather forced into his description of 'antithetic' forms, and if JS had followed that, Alma would have been written very differently indeed.

Because of this, Lowth, though his works are valuable in other ways, doesn't really help with any understanding of chiasmus and how it is specifically designed...and there's no evidence that JS had any of Lowth's works anyway. What MIGHT be important here is what Jebb did with Lowthe's works. He went into some interesting detail and found the chiastic forms, and his work was published before the BoM was translated. The problem was, JS didn't have access to that work until a few years AFTER the book was published.

Now I'm not going to pull the 'poor ignorant kid' routine with you here. Joseph Smith was not a genius, but he worked very hard to educate himself. He eventually did get, and read, books and articles on chiastic and other rhetorical devices used in ancient Greek and Hebrew writing. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to have him attempt these forms in the Doctrine and Covenants.

The PROBLEM here is that the examples of chiasmus in the D&C are not really very good. They certainly do not reach the level of obvious and elegant construction of Alma 36, for instance.

Here's the question: which idea requires more assumptions:

That JS found an ancient text and that it is the forms that this ancient text contained that show in the translation, OR

that a 21 year old who never wrote a book OTHER than the BoM, who wrote it (he claims) in three months (but that he could have been working on, if he wrote rather than translated it, for up to four years, from the age of 17 up) could have deliberately designed several examples of chiastic poetry that the best and most educated of scholars still hadn't deciphered the rules for completely?

It's not the simple chiasms that are the problem, you realize; it's the complicated ones; the ones that must be torn apart on a far larger level that cause the grief. Simple ones? Everybody uses those; they are clever, they serve an important purpose; they are almost instinctive to use. They are memorable, and that's rather the purpose of them.

But to write entire chapters in a chiastic form and not make a single goof...when the rules for doing so weren't quite known yet? That's problematic, at least to me.

Seems to me, actually, that the alternatives are: BoM is an ancient text, JS was a literary genius (and he most certainly was not that), or someone else wrote the book.

That last one holds the most promise...or at least, it's one that has been thrown up often, but the same problems hit one in the nose there, too. Those works on chiasm and parallelism in the scriptures weren't any more available to the other possible writers than they were to JS.

................and JS, unlike all the other possibilities, actually actively looked for such works. We know this because he was actually able to acquire at least one book on chiastic forms about five years after he published the BoM.

BTW, in case anybody is wondering, there is no chiasmus in that Spaulding manuscript. Nor is there any evidence that there would have been in the 'missing' manuscript (that everybody assumes is missing because the one we have is obviously not the source of the BoM, and therefore MUST have existed at some time because, of course, 'everybody knows' that the BoM is based upon the Spaulding manuscript.)

OK, long winded, but basically this:

The chiasmus in the BoM is too intricately designed and deliberate to be a product of accident, and a deliberately designed form that follows all the rules would be highly unlikely from any nineteenth century author...and indeed, no other nineteenth century author managed to pull it off. "Chiastic LIKE" stuff, yes. Simpler forms of it, sure. But to that extent?

Nope.

[Danmark]

...
Shoot, if one looks hard enough, one can find chiasms in anything, whether designed or not. "Old King Cole" is a chiasm, for crying out loud.

So what we are looking for, here, is the sort of intricately, deliberately designed chiasm so beloved by Hebrew writers, and which did NOT survive translation all that well.

...you know, the sort that is nested; chiastic on the phrase, sentence and passage level, and even in a larger, story and chapter level.

Alma 36 is the example most used here, and here (thanks to Jeff Lindsay) is a very basic 'chapter level' chiasm....

I appreciate that fair point [emphasis added]. One of the problems with chiastic analysis is the selectivity one uses in choosing which words or phrases focus on.

Earl M. Wunderli points this out, using Alma 36 as an example.
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... 04_105.pdf

Wunderli uses Welch's chiasm of Alma 36 when he points out Welch kept making changes in his proposed chiasm, going on to state:

There is much to challenge in this chiasm, including the unexplained asymmetry of element i\ One has only to highlight these
thirty-four elements in Alma 36 to see how much text—more than 80 percent of it—Welch has ignored in constructing his chiasm. Alma 36 is full
of repetitious language, and the language Welch selects for an element is
often only one of two or more occurrences of the same term or phrase. Selected language and ignored language often work together to create false
symmetry. Some paired elements are imbalanced in size, and some are creatively labeled to convey precision. Nearly all of the paired elements have
these or other problems; the following nine are illustrative.

Also, as you point out, there is the additional and popular issue re: who actually wrote the BoM. MormonLeaks provides interesting evidence on this issue.

I believe this theory of alternative authorship is buttressed by the point you make that in the more recently written D&C the examples of chiasmus are not done as well.

[dianaiad]

...
Shoot, if one looks hard enough, one can find chiasms in anything, whether designed or not. "Old King Cole" is a chiasm, for crying out loud.

So what we are looking for, here, is the sort of intricately, deliberately designed chiasm so beloved by Hebrew writers, and which did NOT survive translation all that well.

...you know, the sort that is nested; chiastic on the phrase, sentence and passage level, and even in a larger, story and chapter level.

Alma 36 is the example most used here, and here (thanks to Jeff Lindsay) is a very basic 'chapter level' chiasm....

I appreciate that fair point [emphasis added]. One of the problems with chiastic analysis is the selectivity one uses in choosing which words or phrases focus on.

Earl M. Wunderli points this out, using Alma 36 as an example.
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... 04_105.pdf

Wunderli uses Welch's chiasm of Alma 36 when he points out Welch kept making changes in his proposed chiasm, going on to state:

There is much to challenge in this chiasm, including the unexplained asymmetry of element i\ One has only to highlight these
thirty-four elements in Alma 36 to see how much text—more than 80 percent of it—Welch has ignored in constructing his chiasm. Alma 36 is full
of repetitious language, and the language Welch selects for an element is
often only one of two or more occurrences of the same term or phrase. Selected language and ignored language often work together to create false
symmetry. Some paired elements are imbalanced in size, and some are creatively labeled to convey precision. Nearly all of the paired elements have
these or other problems; the following nine are illustrative.

Also, as you point out, there is the additional and popular issue re: who actually wrote the BoM. MormonLeaks provides interesting evidence on this issue.

I believe this theory of alternative authorship is buttressed by the point you make that in the more recently written D&C the examples of chiasmus are not done as well.

I actually addressed this issue you raise, of the 'problem' of Welch's analysis. It turns out that it's not all that big a problem. Remember when I was talking about how intricate a chiastic construction Alma 36 is? I gave a very primitive and brief explanation, on the 'chapter' level. Wunderli criticizes a construction using an argument that actually destroyes his own point. The chiastic construction in Alma is a 'nested doll' system, in that there is chiasmus within chiasmus within chiasmus; you can't really analyze it well on the 'gross' level without getting into it on the paragraph/verse/sentence...even phrase level. I believe I talked about that a little bit, actually.

The thing that bemuses me is that, even though nobody has come across any solid, actual, linguistic or actual evidence that shows the BoM to have been written by anybody else, that theory is put forth as an assumption.

That is, since even the critics of the BoM as ancient text seem to agree that JS did NOT write it, the assumption is that the only other alternative is that someone else DID.

Even though there is no reasonable evidence, linguistic or actual, to show that anybody else did. A great deal of speculation, but no real evidence. Ironic as all get out, that, if you think about it.

The thing that really tickles me is this very strange assumption that, since it is obvious that the Spaulding manuscript we HAVE cannot be the source of the Book of Mormon, then there MUST have been another manuscript, also by Spaulding, with the same name, that nobody has ever heard of, that was the source.

Ah, well.

I can't help but wonder what really is the nuttiest assumption to make; that the BoM could really be an ancient text that JS got hold of somehow, or that there must be another Spaulding manuscript out there...and why? BECAUSE everybody 'knows' that the BoM came from the Spaulding manuscript?

Ah, well.

[99percentatheism]

The nature of The Book of Mormon invites us to conclude that, if it actually is an ancient document, then God is real. The book's promise that God will testify to seekers of its truth is therefore reasonable to pursue.

God lives on a planet near a star called Kolob?

C'mon now.

The book of Mormon as a story isn't all that offensive to the NT, but neither is Huck Finn. It's when the theology of Mormonism is exposed that one sees a reality that has nothing to do with the faith delivered only once to the saints.

[Danmark]

...
Shoot, if one looks hard enough, one can find chiasms in anything, whether designed or not. "Old King Cole" is a chiasm, for crying out loud.

So what we are looking for, here, is the sort of intricately, deliberately designed chiasm so beloved by Hebrew writers, and which did NOT survive translation all that well.

...you know, the sort that is nested; chiastic on the phrase, sentence and passage level, and even in a larger, story and chapter level.

Alma 36 is the example most used here, and here (thanks to Jeff Lindsay) is a very basic 'chapter level' chiasm....

I appreciate that fair point [emphasis added]. One of the problems with chiastic analysis is the selectivity one uses in choosing which words or phrases focus on.

Earl M. Wunderli points this out, using Alma 36 as an example.
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... 04_105.pdf

Wunderli uses Welch's chiasm of Alma 36 when he points out Welch kept making changes in his proposed chiasm, going on to state:

There is much to challenge in this chiasm, including the unexplained asymmetry of element i\ One has only to highlight these
thirty-four elements in Alma 36 to see how much text—more than 80 percent of it—Welch has ignored in constructing his chiasm. Alma 36 is full
of repetitious language, and the language Welch selects for an element is
often only one of two or more occurrences of the same term or phrase. Selected language and ignored language often work together to create false
symmetry. Some paired elements are imbalanced in size, and some are creatively labeled to convey precision. Nearly all of the paired elements have
these or other problems; the following nine are illustrative.

Also, as you point out, there is the additional and popular issue re: who actually wrote the BoM. MormonLeaks provides interesting evidence on this issue.

I believe this theory of alternative authorship is buttressed by the point you make that in the more recently written D&C the examples of chiasmus are not done as well.

I actually addressed this issue you raise, of the 'problem' of Welch's analysis. It turns out that it's not all that big a problem. Remember when I was talking about how intricate a chiastic construction Alma 36 is? I gave a very primitive and brief explanation, on the 'chapter' level. Wunderli criticizes a construction using an argument that actually destroyes his own point. The chiastic construction in Alma is a 'nested doll' system, in that there is chiasmus within chiasmus within chiasmus; you can't really analyze it well on the 'gross' level without getting into it on the paragraph/verse/sentence...even phrase level. I believe I talked about that a little bit, actually.

The thing that bemuses me is that, even though nobody has come across any solid, actual, linguistic or actual evidence that shows the BoM to have been written by anybody else, that theory is put forth as an assumption.

That is, since even the critics of the BoM as ancient text seem to agree that JS did NOT write it, the assumption is that the only other alternative is that someone else DID.

Even though there is no reasonable evidence, linguistic or actual, to show that anybody else did. A great deal of speculation, but no real evidence. Ironic as all get out, that, if you think about it.

The thing that really tickles me is this very strange assumption that, since it is obvious that the Spaulding manuscript we HAVE cannot be the source of the Book of Mormon, then there MUST have been another manuscript, also by Spaulding, with the same name, that nobody has ever heard of, that was the source.

Ah, well.

I can't help but wonder what really is the nuttiest assumption to make; that the BoM could really be an ancient text that JS got hold of somehow, or that there must be another Spaulding manuscript out there...and why? BECAUSE everybody 'knows' that the BoM came from the Spaulding manuscript?

Ah, well.

I was hoping I could get by with just quoting Wunderli because I don't want to [and probably won't] go thru the diligence of examining the chiasmus issue directly. Looks like too, too much work.

But re: linguistic analysis, the MormonLeaks site, and one of the authors in a different site [I'd have to look it up] have done some pretty extensive computer aided linguistic analysis tracing Rigdon, Spalding, Cowdery and possibly Smith strains in the BoM.

Just did a quick search and I think the paper I was looking at is:
Jockers, M. L., D. M. Witten, and C. S. Criddle, 2008. Reassessing authorship of the Book of Mormon using delta and nearest shrunken centroid classification. Literary and Linguistic Computing, to appear.
_ Wikipedia.

I think Criddle is one of those at MormonLeaks. I've had a very brief correspondence with him. I realize also that the Jockers study is disputed by LDS experts.

Anyway, that's enough 'work.' I'm going back to the TV and some mindlessness.

[dianaiad]

The nature of The Book of Mormon invites us to conclude that, if it actually is an ancient document, then God is real. The book's promise that God will testify to seekers of its truth is therefore reasonable to pursue.

God lives on a planet near a star called Kolob?

C'mon now.

Since we believe that God has a physical body, is it so unreasonable that we believe He might have a...physical place to be, from time to time? Why are you insisting that He sort of hang in the space between worlds, or float amorphously around the aether?

As in...why do you get to define God for me?

Your automatic 'no' reaction to an idea does not mean that idea doesn't have merit.

All it means is that you have been presented with an idea you aren't used to.

The book of Mormon as a story isn't all that offensive to the NT, but neither is Huck Finn. It's when the theology of Mormonism is exposed that one sees a reality that has nothing to do with the faith delivered only once to the saints.

Where does it say the faith was delivered 'only' once?

[Danmark]

Thanks for the spirited discussion so far, all! Diane is doing an excellent job of saying all the things that I would have!

So can any of you refute the actual claims and explain the evidence offered in the video? I'm not sure you watched it, or you would see the irony that your comments create in light of 17:59-18:22. But hey, if you're not open to examining and evaluating these materials, no hard feelings. Have a great day!

Have you examined the 5 episodes of mormon leaks?
http://mormonleaks.com/library/

... or defended the Book of Abraham fraud that exposes Joseph Smith as a forger?

Address these problems, the DNA and archeological evidence that refutes the BoM, then maybe someone will be willing to fuss with your efforts.

We really don't have time to bother with obvious fantasies like astrology, phrenology, numerology or the host of ridiculous religious frauds that have come and gone over the Centuries.

It's been a while, but I see NO one has addressed, or even tried to address the issues raised by the very well documented site at Mormonleaks which has now completed episode 6. This website proves the very human origin of Mormon "scripture."
http://mormonleaks.com/library/episode-06/

[JoeyKnothead]

The only thirty things I can think of that support the Book of Mormon's be thirty folks all takin' turns a-totin' 'em one about.

The lack of substation for core Mormon claims is sufficient for me to conclude ol' Joe Smith there had him one powerful winker on his hood.