04-28-2007, 04:10 AM | #41 | ||
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Interrupt all you like. We're involved in a complicated story here, and not everything is quite what it seems to be. —Paul Auster |
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04-28-2007, 04:18 AM | #42 |
Charon
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"... the arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice." Martin Luther King, Jr. |
04-28-2007, 12:27 PM | #43 | |
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Let me put it this way. If the BoM, especially the book of 1 Nephi, is what it says it is, it is the most innovative historical work ever written. Ever. Nephi (really, most likely Lehi if you read 1 Ne. 1.17) is the first to write personal, biographical history in the first person and is the first to separate secular and sacred history (1 Ne. 9) - by hundreds of years. Furthermore, for some unfathomable reason, Nephi writes in Egyptian, hardly a culture with a strong historiographic tradition. (The most important Egyptian historian was Manetho, who wrote in Greek, and lived 200 years after Nephi.) While there was some historical writing in the time of ancient Israel and Judah, these texts (called J and E sources for Hebrew Bible) recorded events long after they had transpired (e.g. the creation of the world). There is no evidence that these texts recorded contemporary events. Also, the idea that the Hebrew history, genealogy, and prophecies were all neatly compiled into one work made of brass plates is highly unlikely as well. The drive to compile and codify the Torah didn't occur until the Babylonian captivity. It is therefore practically impossible to assign Nephi to any sort of historiographical tradition. People don't write in vacuums - he had to have models to work from - models that can be attested other than the mysterious Brass Plates of Laban. [let alone whatever model Ether followed] Yet no plausible models for Nephi's work have ever been identified. On another note, to equate Luke with Plutarch is apples to oranges, and borders on ridiculous. Plutarch, a Greek, was a priest at Delphi, a Roman citizen, and an official in the Roman government. He had access to huge archives and libraries. To assert that he was relying upon oral tradition is insane. Plutarch often names his written sources and there are several modern investigations into his historical and biographical methods. Furthermore, Plutarch didn't write history in the modern sense. He wrote biography and various essays (collectively called his Moralia). So, to trumpet Luke as the writer of "outstanding, accurate history" and Plutarch as a chump relying on word-of-mouth is inaccurate and stupid. I have no doubt Luke was capable of writing his own travels down, but he couldn't hold Plutarch's jock in a writing contest. So, believe or disbelieve the truthfulness of the BoM. That's up to you. But don't tell me it's historical.
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I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free. - Epitaph of Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957) Last edited by Solon; 04-28-2007 at 03:39 PM. Reason: Clarify last sentence. |
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04-28-2007, 12:48 PM | #44 | |
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All of the modern names are places within 500 miles of Palmyra, New York: Modern-------Book of Mormon St. Agathe-------Ogath Alma-------Alma Angola-------Angola Boaz-------Boaz Conner-------Comner St. Ephrem-------Ephraim Jacobsburg-------Jacobugath Jordan-------Jordan Jerusalem-------Jerusalem Kish-kiminetas-------Kishkumen Lehigh-------Lehi Mantua-------Manti Monroe-------Moroni Oneida-------Onidah Omer-------Omner Rama-------Ramah Sodom-------Sidom Shiloh-------Shilom Tenecum-------Teancum I'm not trying to prove or disprove the book's truth. I think it's a bad idea to try to prove anything related to religion.
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04-28-2007, 02:23 PM | #45 | |
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In the late eighteenth century, an Arab village named Ariha, which translates to Jericho, was located at about the right spot. But it was just a small village; no evidence was around to indicate that it once was a a city with walls. Except a short distance from Ariha was a very visible mound. In 1907, two German archeaologists conducted a dig on this mound. The remains of a great wall was found -- no archeaologist could have missed it. And the Germans indicated that it dated to about 1400 BC, which dovetails nicely with the Bible. Viola! We have extra-biblical evidence of Joshua's silly story. Except the story doesn't end there. In 1926, one of those archeaologists, Watzinger by name, published a repudiation of the original conclusions regarding the age of the level of the city with the famous walls (they found three distinct levels in their excavations). He now claimed it dated to about 2200 BC, correlating with Egypt's Middle Kingdom, long before Joshua was around. This change was primarily based on the fact that they had found hundreds of scarabs from the Middle Kingdom on that level. According to Watzinger, at the time of Joshua, Jericho consisted of a few houses situated on a heap of ruins. John Garstang, using the Bible as a primary guide to his work, was the next to conduct digs at Jericho. Surprisingly enough, he found that the evidence corroborated the Bible, and the timeline shifted accordingly. But after WW II, Kathleen Kenyon took on the formidable task of clarifying Jericho's history from the beginning of the Neolithic Age. She relied neither on the Bible, nor on Garstang's work. She conducted several extensive digs, and in the end, she concluded that the walls of Jericho pre-date Joshua. At the time the Exodus and Joshua are traditionally thought to have occurred, she concluded, no trace of any wall could be found. She wrote, “It is a sad fact that of the town walls of the Late Bronze Age, within which period the attack by the Israelites must fall by any dating, not a trace remains. . . . As concerns the date of the destruction of Jericho by the Israelites, all that can be said is that the latest Bronze Age occupation should, in my view, be dated to the third quarter of the fourteenth century B.C. This is a date which suits neither the school of scholars which would date the entry of the Israelites into Palestine to c. 1400 B.C. nor the school which prefers a date of c. 1260 B.C.” This was a disappointment to Kathleen. She also wrote, “At just that stage when archaeology should have linked with the written record, archaeology fails us. This is regrettable. There is no question of the archaeology being needed to prove that the Bible is true but it is needed as a help in interpretation to those older parts of the Old Testament which from the nature of their sources . . . cannot be read as a straight-forward record.” Carbon-dating generally confirms the fall of the walls to about 1550 BC, which is pretty hard to reconcile with the Biblical timeline, if we are to assume Biblical historicity. According to Wikipedia, "The current opinion of many archaeologists is in stark contradiction to the biblical account." Of course, christians focus on the supporting evidence, and those hostile to christianity focus on the contradicitons. But even when we know the location of the place to begin digging, we have at best, only partial corroboration with Biblical historicity. Again, no. In Palestine, western civilization has had pretty much continual contact with the area, and the area has been continuously occupied, and these ties give us a pretty specific geographical framework to begin our attempts to "prove" or "disprove" specific biblical references. To the critic, the mention of Jerusalem in the Bible does virtually nothing to prove its validity. The writers of the "fairy tale", they would assert, obviously used as much factual information as was at their disposal to make it convincing. To the believer, it is all factual. So the test is to find the evidences that independently corroborate or contradict the book, based on the internal evidences and the writers ability to include already known factual information in the book. So in the case of the Book of Mormon, the critic says none of these cities have been found. The believer simply indicates you are probably looking in the wrong place. We simply don't have a proper reference point to start with. The critic says this is because the reference point doesn't exist. Perhaps, but that is a statement of belief, not of fact. The believer says it exists, it just hasn't yet been found. Again, a statement of belief, not fact. But we certainly are not in a position to conclude definitively one way or the other, based on evidence. But don't take the lack of evidence as proof of its falsity (is that a word?) My point is that that perspective would have led an individual to reject the Bible 150 years ago or so (no evidence of Hittites, no sign of Moses or the Exodus in Egyptian history, no external evidence of the kingdom of David, no walls around Ariha, etc.) when subsequent discoveries have often corroborated the Bible - although, as I point out above, some discoveries are not as friendly. The Hittites are now known to have existed; still no sign of Moses or any archeaological evidence of the camps of the Exodus; David's kingdom is still thought to be an exaggeration by some scholars, if it existed at all; and the Jericho situation is summarized above. |
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04-28-2007, 03:58 PM | #46 | |
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Interrupt all you like. We're involved in a complicated story here, and not everything is quite what it seems to be. —Paul Auster |
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04-28-2007, 05:34 PM | #47 | |||
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Nibley points out that the Bremner-Rhind papyrus scrolls contain the colophon that he claims is "highly characteristic" of Egyptian compositions: Quote:
One strike against the colophon argument is that a colophon is typically found at the end of the work. "Colophon" comes from the greek word κολοφων (meaning "summit", "top", or "finishing"). Again, I can't find any egyptian texts, so I can't say whether or not this is especially important. Regarding the historical value of Egyptian texts, here's another interesting paragraph, from the previously referenced website: Quote:
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04-28-2007, 05:39 PM | #48 |
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Here's some real basic stuff here. Note the construct of reed boats in Egypt and Lake Titicaca.
http://www.plu.edu/~ryandp/RAX.html |
04-28-2007, 08:08 PM | #49 |
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The historicity argument fails for a couple of reasons in my opinion. First, if the BoM is what it purports to be, some sort of translation, we are lacking the source material, i.e., the original document.
So unlike many works including Plutarch, Thucydides or Herodotus, we don't even have the original. In the old world, we have some of the original texts, some triangulating evidence with crossover documents, some actual archeological evidence and the existence of cities built upon cities. In the BoM, we have not one shred of evidence. We don't have the source document, we don't have the archeological evidence and we don't have cities built upon the cities of which our document speaks. For that reason, the BoM has invaluable religious instruction which if put to the test works, but its value as a historical work is not much, until and if corroborating evidence is discovered.
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04-28-2007, 08:46 PM | #50 | |
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Interrupt all you like. We're involved in a complicated story here, and not everything is quite what it seems to be. —Paul Auster |
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