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This article is not presented neutrally - it does not include all points of view. In several instances it has original research with quotes to original sources and interpretations of the meaning rather than a summary of scholars words.
The latest changes have made the POV issues worse. -- Trödel 14:01, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Ok, done as I said above - I've taken my concerns to Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard. Please note: I'm not saying that Mormonism is a fringe theory - it's a religion - nor that the Book of Mormon is a fringe theory - it's a religious text - but that it's fringe when religious apologists bring uninformed, non-expert arguments to bear on subjects in which they have no standing, such as whether American Indian languages are descended from Egyptian. Anyway, please go to that page and add anything you think is useful. PiCo ( talk) 07:13, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
In this case, your so called "fringe theories" are relevant, since the LDS is a fringe religion and the BoM a fringe text! If you don't provide answers from both sides, you seriously run the risk of having a biased POV.-- MacRùsgail ( talk) 14:49, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
The reference to figs as being an anachronism seems to be a stretch, for the following reasons:
Although the mention of bees in the Book of Mormon is still occasionally presented as an anachronism, I think that this section should be removed. The honey bee is only mentioned in Ether, which takes place in the Old World, where bees are known to have existed long before the Book of Mormon. It really isn't an anachronism at all. Gypsy Danger Dynamite ( talk) 06:22, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
See WP:RSN#Jeff Lindsay (engineer) jefflindsay.com. Dougweller ( talk) 17:54, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
If you're going to get your tighty whities in a knot about old citation tags, then you need to be consistent and not just cut text that disagrees with your POV. -- Taivo ( talk) 17:36, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
The section "Cattle and cows" states "However, no species of bison is known to have been domesticated." There is a Harvard citation of "Diamond 1999" with some page numbers, but I can't find the corresponding full citation. Can anyone find the book and provide title, publisher, and/or ISBN? Thanks. Pastychomper ( talk) 08:58, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
I've added some more details of American wild silks, which to my mind are clearly relevant given what is said about Sorenson's ideas. I've put them as a separate paragraph as they are not directly referenced by the Sorenson article and I don't want to stray into OR territory. I've also tried to clean up the section but there's more to be done. Given how strongly some people seem to feel about this article, I'd welcome others' (considered :) ) opinions on the relevance of what I've added. Thanks. Pastychomper ( talk) 12:25, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Doug Weller, you indicated a revert in the swords section as "original research." Which portions of the post is considered original research, pretty much all of it is just straight from the Book of Mormon text? I will gladly remove portions that are original research Geneva11 ( talk) 22:46, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
References
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cite web}}
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(
help)
I'm not sure that 100 BCE date is solid. I see this Mormon source [1] says "near to" although of course it isn't an RS. I can't take a proper look at this for 2 days, but there's [2] which is an unsearchable pdf that I'll be able to convert to Word. Also a search [3] Doug Weller talk 18:18, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
Rather than doing pros/cons of each "anachronism", this topic should be summarized with top-levels pros/cons.
The explanation of adieu is a basic rebuttal to many of the words.
Daniel H. Ludlow contends that it may have been the result of Joseph Smith choosing the best word available to convey the meaning of the original text. The word is found in the 1828 Webster's Dictionary so was considered an English word at the time of the Book of Mormon translation.
This argument posits that the Joseph Smith was limited by the language of his day. 600 BC the Bronze Age II was underway, and Nephi had a bow of steel. Laban had a sword of steel. We can't say "steel" means the Bessemer steel process. It does not, since that wasn't invented until the 1850s. What did "steel mean in 1828"? https://1828.mshaffer.com/d/word/steel
Similarly, if a Nephi descendant translated a record of Ether and it says steel, does that mean the original record said steel? This logic obviously falls under the "apologists" side. If Joseph/scribe recognizes an Isaiah verse, would he not open his KJV and just write it down?
Another important logical flaw in this page is the "black swan" problem. Scientific falsification (popperism) is not being applied to this page.
/info/en/?search=Falsifiability
The predation of mega-fauna theory is referenced in the topic, which has been widely challenged in archaelogical research. Man may have been in America for 200,000 or more years.
/info/en/?search=Quaternary_extinction_event#Arguments_against_the_second-order_predation_hypothesis
Finally, the amount of the earth that has been thoroughly reviewed archaelogically is miniscule. How many dig sites are there in the Sahara Desert? America? The book American Holocaust suggested that 30 million people were wiped out by the Columbus discovery and what followed (next 50 years). Other evidence, such as Before America suggests the number may be 100 million. The cities are lost and undiscovered in the rainforests of Brasil.
In summary, the logical arguments on this page are very flawed. I could easily see this page be reduced in size significantly. The "nature of the translation" and the "black swan" are generic rebuttals to the different anachronisms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.177.241.209 ( talk) 06:39, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure what anachronism is suggested here. As the source given demonstrates, adieu was an english word (or at least a widely recognized loan word) at the time of translation. Whether the book was divinely inspired or Joseph Smith's original creation, it seems reasonable for him to translate (or write) a word common in his time and language. The only way I could see this being an anachronism is if the claim is made the original (untranslated) text contained the French term; I'm not aware of any significant group making this claim, and certainly not Smith himself. As such, I think this section doesn't contribute to the article and could be removed. Does anyone know a reason it should stay, or a way it contributes positively to the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elliptical Reasoning ( talk • contribs) 15:19, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
Form the article, "No reformed Egyptian manuscripts or plates have ever been excavated by archaeologists." That's very likely to be true, but the only way to be sure would be to compare every excavated text with a known example of reformed Egyptian, and there is an obvious problem there. Further down, the article discusses the lack of texts that resemble Egyptian or Hebrew, so I've changed that part of the Background section to match. 62.6.59.86 ( talk) 14:20, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
Every point raised by this article has a weak response from an apologist editor. Many of these are absolute nonsense, like dating Leviticus to 1445BC or imagining that the word "horse" refers to deer.
I suggest we move the apologism to a dedicated section (rather than interleaving it throughout), and remove the obviously stupid bits. 86.18.4.28 ( talk) 17:27, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
I've just created a lot of subsections on the "apologist perspective." In so doing, I've realized this article may suffer from issues with false balance between the mainstream and the apologist perspectives. From WP:FALSEBALANCE:
That said: would it be appropriate to remove some or all of the apologetic responses throughout this article? It seems as though they are given equal - or in some cases, substantially more - weight than the mainstream, generally-accepted views of third-party scientists, archeologists, etc. etc. Trevdna ( talk) 23:22, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
Fair point.
Also feel free to edit the baptism thing if you disagree with how I did it. If it’s a good faith edit that makes the article better, I don’t get offended, promise ;) Trevdna ( talk) 17:08, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
Horses were present in pre-Columbian times. The horses section should be modified or deleted. See this BBC article. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230126-the-return-of-the-spirit-horse-to-canada Sakalava47 ( talk) 19:41, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
Doug, the article you cite doesn't address the BBC's main point and isn't as authoritative as the BBC. Sakalava47 ( talk) 23:11, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
On the other hand, when I checked up on the claim of DNA testing, I didn't find a good source. That's an issue I will try to track down. Sakalava47 ( talk) 23:22, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
There is a whole article about it here at Horses in the United States with lots of good references. Epachamo ( talk) 09:45, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
These anachronisms are pretty straightforwardly attested to as anachronisms. We don't write point-counterpoint articles on Wikipedia. I will be going through this article and removing "apologetics say" as WP:FRINGE WP:POVPUSH. You can keep apologetics in if anyone without an agenda to prove the veracity of the Book of Mormon has noticed. Otherwise, sorry, gang, Pseudoscience/pseudoscholarship OUT! jps ( talk) 11:58, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
This article should not be a debate, however, if there is a notable apologetic back and forth that is discussed in reliable independent sources, then it should be discussed here. An example is the Scopes trial. The entire scopes trial was a notable back and forth and literal debate. That said, much of what is in the apologist perspective is not located in independent, reliable sources and should be removed. Epachamo ( talk) 16:35, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
"The Book of Mormon mentions such and such.{citation to Book of Mormon} Scholars agree that such and such didn't exist in pre-Columbian America.{citation to source that doesn't mention the Book of Mormon}
There is nothing neutral here. It is an attack piece on faith, and it seems like it was recently made worse.
We simply don't know if ancient Americans had chariots, etc. Wood decays, and there are experts on both sides saying that the book of Mormom is reliable, and others who use semantic arguments to say it isn't. But this isn't settled science.
Brigham Young Was Right (
talk) 17:29, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your contributions, but I would respectfully ask you to slow down just a bit and gain consensus on the talk page before making such major edits. Cheers. Dumuzid ( talk) 23:33, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
![]() | This article was nominated for deletion on 4 September 2019. The result of the discussion was keep. |
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article is not presented neutrally - it does not include all points of view. In several instances it has original research with quotes to original sources and interpretations of the meaning rather than a summary of scholars words.
The latest changes have made the POV issues worse. -- Trödel 14:01, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Ok, done as I said above - I've taken my concerns to Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard. Please note: I'm not saying that Mormonism is a fringe theory - it's a religion - nor that the Book of Mormon is a fringe theory - it's a religious text - but that it's fringe when religious apologists bring uninformed, non-expert arguments to bear on subjects in which they have no standing, such as whether American Indian languages are descended from Egyptian. Anyway, please go to that page and add anything you think is useful. PiCo ( talk) 07:13, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
In this case, your so called "fringe theories" are relevant, since the LDS is a fringe religion and the BoM a fringe text! If you don't provide answers from both sides, you seriously run the risk of having a biased POV.-- MacRùsgail ( talk) 14:49, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
The reference to figs as being an anachronism seems to be a stretch, for the following reasons:
Although the mention of bees in the Book of Mormon is still occasionally presented as an anachronism, I think that this section should be removed. The honey bee is only mentioned in Ether, which takes place in the Old World, where bees are known to have existed long before the Book of Mormon. It really isn't an anachronism at all. Gypsy Danger Dynamite ( talk) 06:22, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
See WP:RSN#Jeff Lindsay (engineer) jefflindsay.com. Dougweller ( talk) 17:54, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
If you're going to get your tighty whities in a knot about old citation tags, then you need to be consistent and not just cut text that disagrees with your POV. -- Taivo ( talk) 17:36, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
The section "Cattle and cows" states "However, no species of bison is known to have been domesticated." There is a Harvard citation of "Diamond 1999" with some page numbers, but I can't find the corresponding full citation. Can anyone find the book and provide title, publisher, and/or ISBN? Thanks. Pastychomper ( talk) 08:58, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
I've added some more details of American wild silks, which to my mind are clearly relevant given what is said about Sorenson's ideas. I've put them as a separate paragraph as they are not directly referenced by the Sorenson article and I don't want to stray into OR territory. I've also tried to clean up the section but there's more to be done. Given how strongly some people seem to feel about this article, I'd welcome others' (considered :) ) opinions on the relevance of what I've added. Thanks. Pastychomper ( talk) 12:25, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Doug Weller, you indicated a revert in the swords section as "original research." Which portions of the post is considered original research, pretty much all of it is just straight from the Book of Mormon text? I will gladly remove portions that are original research Geneva11 ( talk) 22:46, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
References
{{
cite web}}
: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url=
(
help)
I'm not sure that 100 BCE date is solid. I see this Mormon source [1] says "near to" although of course it isn't an RS. I can't take a proper look at this for 2 days, but there's [2] which is an unsearchable pdf that I'll be able to convert to Word. Also a search [3] Doug Weller talk 18:18, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
Rather than doing pros/cons of each "anachronism", this topic should be summarized with top-levels pros/cons.
The explanation of adieu is a basic rebuttal to many of the words.
Daniel H. Ludlow contends that it may have been the result of Joseph Smith choosing the best word available to convey the meaning of the original text. The word is found in the 1828 Webster's Dictionary so was considered an English word at the time of the Book of Mormon translation.
This argument posits that the Joseph Smith was limited by the language of his day. 600 BC the Bronze Age II was underway, and Nephi had a bow of steel. Laban had a sword of steel. We can't say "steel" means the Bessemer steel process. It does not, since that wasn't invented until the 1850s. What did "steel mean in 1828"? https://1828.mshaffer.com/d/word/steel
Similarly, if a Nephi descendant translated a record of Ether and it says steel, does that mean the original record said steel? This logic obviously falls under the "apologists" side. If Joseph/scribe recognizes an Isaiah verse, would he not open his KJV and just write it down?
Another important logical flaw in this page is the "black swan" problem. Scientific falsification (popperism) is not being applied to this page.
/info/en/?search=Falsifiability
The predation of mega-fauna theory is referenced in the topic, which has been widely challenged in archaelogical research. Man may have been in America for 200,000 or more years.
/info/en/?search=Quaternary_extinction_event#Arguments_against_the_second-order_predation_hypothesis
Finally, the amount of the earth that has been thoroughly reviewed archaelogically is miniscule. How many dig sites are there in the Sahara Desert? America? The book American Holocaust suggested that 30 million people were wiped out by the Columbus discovery and what followed (next 50 years). Other evidence, such as Before America suggests the number may be 100 million. The cities are lost and undiscovered in the rainforests of Brasil.
In summary, the logical arguments on this page are very flawed. I could easily see this page be reduced in size significantly. The "nature of the translation" and the "black swan" are generic rebuttals to the different anachronisms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.177.241.209 ( talk) 06:39, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure what anachronism is suggested here. As the source given demonstrates, adieu was an english word (or at least a widely recognized loan word) at the time of translation. Whether the book was divinely inspired or Joseph Smith's original creation, it seems reasonable for him to translate (or write) a word common in his time and language. The only way I could see this being an anachronism is if the claim is made the original (untranslated) text contained the French term; I'm not aware of any significant group making this claim, and certainly not Smith himself. As such, I think this section doesn't contribute to the article and could be removed. Does anyone know a reason it should stay, or a way it contributes positively to the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elliptical Reasoning ( talk • contribs) 15:19, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
Form the article, "No reformed Egyptian manuscripts or plates have ever been excavated by archaeologists." That's very likely to be true, but the only way to be sure would be to compare every excavated text with a known example of reformed Egyptian, and there is an obvious problem there. Further down, the article discusses the lack of texts that resemble Egyptian or Hebrew, so I've changed that part of the Background section to match. 62.6.59.86 ( talk) 14:20, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
Every point raised by this article has a weak response from an apologist editor. Many of these are absolute nonsense, like dating Leviticus to 1445BC or imagining that the word "horse" refers to deer.
I suggest we move the apologism to a dedicated section (rather than interleaving it throughout), and remove the obviously stupid bits. 86.18.4.28 ( talk) 17:27, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
I've just created a lot of subsections on the "apologist perspective." In so doing, I've realized this article may suffer from issues with false balance between the mainstream and the apologist perspectives. From WP:FALSEBALANCE:
That said: would it be appropriate to remove some or all of the apologetic responses throughout this article? It seems as though they are given equal - or in some cases, substantially more - weight than the mainstream, generally-accepted views of third-party scientists, archeologists, etc. etc. Trevdna ( talk) 23:22, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
Fair point.
Also feel free to edit the baptism thing if you disagree with how I did it. If it’s a good faith edit that makes the article better, I don’t get offended, promise ;) Trevdna ( talk) 17:08, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
Horses were present in pre-Columbian times. The horses section should be modified or deleted. See this BBC article. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230126-the-return-of-the-spirit-horse-to-canada Sakalava47 ( talk) 19:41, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
Doug, the article you cite doesn't address the BBC's main point and isn't as authoritative as the BBC. Sakalava47 ( talk) 23:11, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
On the other hand, when I checked up on the claim of DNA testing, I didn't find a good source. That's an issue I will try to track down. Sakalava47 ( talk) 23:22, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
There is a whole article about it here at Horses in the United States with lots of good references. Epachamo ( talk) 09:45, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
These anachronisms are pretty straightforwardly attested to as anachronisms. We don't write point-counterpoint articles on Wikipedia. I will be going through this article and removing "apologetics say" as WP:FRINGE WP:POVPUSH. You can keep apologetics in if anyone without an agenda to prove the veracity of the Book of Mormon has noticed. Otherwise, sorry, gang, Pseudoscience/pseudoscholarship OUT! jps ( talk) 11:58, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
This article should not be a debate, however, if there is a notable apologetic back and forth that is discussed in reliable independent sources, then it should be discussed here. An example is the Scopes trial. The entire scopes trial was a notable back and forth and literal debate. That said, much of what is in the apologist perspective is not located in independent, reliable sources and should be removed. Epachamo ( talk) 16:35, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
"The Book of Mormon mentions such and such.{citation to Book of Mormon} Scholars agree that such and such didn't exist in pre-Columbian America.{citation to source that doesn't mention the Book of Mormon}
There is nothing neutral here. It is an attack piece on faith, and it seems like it was recently made worse.
We simply don't know if ancient Americans had chariots, etc. Wood decays, and there are experts on both sides saying that the book of Mormom is reliable, and others who use semantic arguments to say it isn't. But this isn't settled science.
Brigham Young Was Right (
talk) 17:29, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your contributions, but I would respectfully ask you to slow down just a bit and gain consensus on the talk page before making such major edits. Cheers. Dumuzid ( talk) 23:33, 2 June 2024 (UTC)