3 Ne. 12:22

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_ClarkGoble
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Re: 3 Ne. 12:22

Post by _ClarkGoble »

Fence Sitter wrote:I agree Clarkes can be easily inferred but evidently the same reasoning does not apply to Biblical passages we find in the Book of Mormon.


I think there's no evidence he used the Bible in the Book of Mormon. The witnesses who discuss it say he didn't have a Bible. But clearly the Book of Mormon text is dependent upon the KJV. With regards to the JST, it's explicit he was using a Bible so I'm not quite sure what your arguing. If it turned out he used a Bible in the Book of Mormon translation I wouldn't be shocked. I don't have particularly strong opinions there, although I doubt he did given all the witness accounts.
_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: 3 Ne. 12:22

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

ClarkGoble wrote:
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:Do you even understand the words that you're using any more?

No one is restoring anything. Text restoration is this:


I think you're being more than a tad pedantic here. The issue is whether the translation represents a fairly word for word translation from an original ur-text or represents something else. So when I talk about restoration of a text, it's that notion of a pure original text that is translated in a fairly tight manner relative to the original text.

This is what I'm talking about, Clark. We have source documents from the papyri. They were translated, not by Joseph Smith, but by Egyptologists. Very tightly. And yet you're proposing a document that was translated "loosely" by Joseph Smith was actually translated "tightly" because the documents held some other meaning by the scribes that he got right? Is that what you're saying? If that's the case, what in the world are you basing it on using the type of funerary papyri we have, with the characters that are on them, that mean something completely different?

But if it would help I can try and narrow the senses with translation1, translation2 and so forth the way we often do proper nouns.

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:If we're talking about the Book of Abraham we're talking about a literal translation of the papyri.

OR, to get away from that, the papyri are mnemonic devices to be a catalyst for god-given inspiration.

BECAUSE you haven't proven that anyone in the past would take Egyptian characters and use them to mean each character is really a narrative.


I don't think I've ever attempted to make the claim the papyri has the Abraham text. So perhaps you're just misreading me?

I get that picking the right words is important. However the problem with the word translate as you are using it is that it presupposes that it's the papyri being translated. It's quite possible, again using your particular semantics, to say there was a transmission of a translation for instance, in which case surely translation is a reasonable word to use. But again, I'm not even arguing for there being some ur-text for the Book of Abraham.

I get it. Missing scrolls theory. Super convenient. However, going off what we do have do we not have concrete proof that Joseph Smith got it 100% wrong?



So, am I missing something with regard to the Book of Abraham, the funerary texts, Joseph Smith's ability to translate correctly, your position on the matter, and making an assessment off the information we have on hand?

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_Lemmie
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Re: 3 Ne. 12:22

Post by _Lemmie »

CG wrote:
Lemmie wrote:I grew up in the LDS church as well, and while you could find truth in other peoples writings, no, it was never taught that that meant you could represent their work as your own.


Oh, ok I understand your position better now. Your objection isn't over the content but the identification of the catalyst for the content.

:lol: that is hands down the most b.s. excuse I have ever heard for stealing someone else's intellectual property and representing it as your own.

No, my objection isn't over 'identification of the catalyst for the content'! My objection is exactly what I said it was, Joseph Smith misrepresented someone else's work as his own. Saying God did it is no more an actual explanation than saying the dog ate my homework. And far less reasonable.
CB wrote:To that I can but say that a person who apparently didn't even have formal grade school education let alone an university education such notions almost certainly would have been alien. To him it's much more of a question of Clarke or related texts as catalysts.

You have absolutely no way of knowing that. Why would a lack of formal education imply a lack of honesty, to the extent that he would define stealing someone's words as 'catalytic' to his process?
CB wrote:That might include emendation of the text largely following Clarke but without identifying Clarke since to Joseph the main issue is the Holy Ghost confirming it. If that makes sense.
No it doesn't. It sounds like using your conclusion that God inspired Joseph Smith as your starting assumption is once again forcing you to twist circumstances into an extremely unlikely telling. It's not a logical way to evaluate a situation.
CB wrote:
Lemmie wrote:Clarke, you use the rhetorical technique above quite a bit to avoid answering a question. I specifically pointed out your errors in defining plagiarism, explained why, and asked you specifically if you were excusing using someone else's work without attribution, because it wasn't done in every instance.


I'm the no 'e' Clark. <grin> I understand what you are saying better now. Again I'd just say that just as in the ancient and medieval world that wasn't a rule people typically followed, I'm not sure applying it to the ignorant Joseph Smith is applicable. It presupposes that normative rules of academia apply here which I don't think they do. Even in the late 18th and early 19th century unattributed quotes was fairly ubiquitous. Ben Franklin is probably the best known example with his almanac. While copyright and related issues certainly were known, the idea that short phrases ought to be attributed in probably more than a little acontextual to the rural environment in question. I don't know the nuances of attribution and copyright in the 1830's, but I know it typically was far more open than today. So while "plagiarism" has an obvious rhetorical effect, I'm not sure it's terribly helpful in understanding what's going on.

Actually, I was not using plagiarism as a 'rhetorical effect,' nor was I comparing plagiarism definitions across the centuries in order to identify a generational bias. And yes, I think it IS terribly helpful to look at the available information regarding the commentaries to note that while Joseph Smith represented his work as inspired by God, it was in this case actually plagiarized from a contemporary.

Bringing in Ben Franklin is irrelevant, as the two cases bear no relationship to each other. Joseph Smith was not compiling quips and sayings, He was representing his work regarding the commentaries as coming from God, knowing full well he had actually just copied another human person's work without giving them credit. Also known as plagiarism.
_I have a question
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Re: 3 Ne. 12:22

Post by _I have a question »

ClarkGoble wrote:
Fence Sitter wrote:I agree Clarkes can be easily inferred but evidently the same reasoning does not apply to Biblical passages we find in the Book of Mormon.


I think there's no evidence he used the Bible in the Book of Mormon. The witnesses who discuss it say he didn't have a Bible. But clearly the Book of Mormon text is dependent upon the KJV. With regards to the JST, it's explicit he was using a Bible so I'm not quite sure what your arguing. If it turned out he used a Bible in the Book of Mormon translation I wouldn't be shocked. I don't have particularly strong opinions there, although I doubt he did given all the witness accounts.

http://www.mormonthink.com/book-of-morm ... .htm#Bible

Joseph demonstrably inserting the KJV Bible into a supposed translation of ancient gold plates wouldn’t be shocking to you?
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
_Fence Sitter
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Re: 3 Ne. 12:22

Post by _Fence Sitter »

ClarkGoble wrote:
Fence Sitter wrote:I agree Clarkes can be easily inferred but evidently the same reasoning does not apply to Biblical passages we find in the Book of Mormon.


I think there's no evidence he used the Bible in the Book of Mormon. The witnesses who discuss it say he didn't have a Bible. But clearly the Book of Mormon text is dependent upon the KJV. With regards to the JST, it's explicit he was using a Bible so I'm not quite sure what your arguing. If it turned out he used a Bible in the Book of Mormon translation I wouldn't be shocked. I don't have particularly strong opinions there, although I doubt he did given all the witness accounts.


I am not talking about Joseph Smith using a Bible while working on the JST. I am talking about your claim he used Clarkes while working on the JST, a claim I happen to agree with. I am pointing out we have as much evidence (maybe more) that Joseph Smith used a Bible while producing the Book of Mormon as we do of him using Clarkes when working on the JST. In neither case is there any eyewitness testimony that a Bible or Clarkes was on hand, but it is clear from the text they were used. So a lack of eyewitness testimony is not evidence it did not happen in either case.

I realize you do not have strong opinions about the use of the Bible during the Book of Mormon production but the reason this is important is for other apologetic arguments in which a very short time frame is proposed when Joseph Smith is supposed to have produced the Book of Mormon. Since we have large portions of the Bible in the Book of Mormon, those time frames look much less miraculous, even if one accepts them, if Joseph Smith is merely copying the Bible than if he is reproducing it though the much slower method of face-in-hat dictation described by witnesses.

So often Clark when I read your responses, I am not sure you are considering how they affect other claims about the Restoration. This middle ground you are trying to layout is producing a version of Mormonism totally different from what Joseph Smith and those around him thought he was doing as well as what chapel Mormons believe today. I think by the time you are done, we are looking at a version of the Church that resembles more the CoC than it does what SLC represents.

By the way, totally off the wall but here are two book recommendations I think you might enjoy.

A NAtion of Counterfeiters by Stephen Mihm A great view of how counterfeiting took place from the late 18th century right up to the establisment of our current federal currency in the early 20th century. It has a few pages on the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Bank-ing Co-op. Great overall view of the evolution of our monetary system in the 19th century.

And for a more personal view of how Mormon history evolved in the early to mid 20th century this book of correspondence by and to Dale Morgan is excellent. Lots of very interesting letters between him and Brodie.

Dale Morgan on Early Mormonism edited by John Walker
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
_grindael
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Re: 3 Ne. 12:22

Post by _grindael »

When people make up their minds to wanna stay faithful to whatever version of Joseph Smith they might invent or get from others, there is no reasoning with them. They will make up anything, make tenuous connections to anything, invent fantastical scenarios that only make sense to them, while throwing common sense out the window and claiming that their guy is just different from everyone else cause he got some kind of special mandate from his invented god.

Smith cobbled together his own pseudepigrapha with material he plagiarized from Clarke and probably others and for the Book of Mormon did the same (Clarke to a much more limited extent) but plagiarized the KJV of the Bible extensively.

Apologists have been dancing around all this for a couple of hundred years, giving silly explanations for all of it and throwing out common sense and logic for their esoteric BS, wordplay and wacky parallelomania. Brilliant men (in many ways) like Hugh Nibley have left a legacy of stupidity with this crap, and that's a damn shame.

It's never Smith & Co. that are at fault, it is always everyone else who has it wrong. What they said, is never to be taken literally, if it makes them look idiotic as it constantly does. There is always another silly excuse for their shenanigans.

Rocks in hats that magically glowing letters appear on? C'mon!
Invented, ridiculous "translations" and nonsensical languages? C'mon!
Disappearing evidence? C'mon!

Only fodder for the wanna stays. It always was and will be.
Riding on a speeding train; trapped inside a revolving door;
Lost in the riddle of a quatrain; Stuck in an elevator between floors.
One focal point in a random world can change your direction:
One step where events converge may alter your perception.
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