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I really enjoy how Jeff Lindsay reminds us that just because something was said or done in the year 2021, the year 1831 or the year 1631 does NOT mean that it could not have also been said or done in the year 631BC or anytime earlier or later.
I have found it fascinating how we tend to focus upon only what we know and not upon what we have never learned.
Although I can appreciate where Rick Grunder is coming from with his far-reaching but elastic hypothesis, I truly believe that an unbiased look at Jeff’s evidence as herein presented should alert one to the fact that there may be (there probably is/there undoubtedly is) more at play here than an arcade building, a rod stretching across a canal and some fruit trees in an orchard.
That being said, isn’t it amazing how all of a sudden Grunder is specifically assigning Joseph Smith and Joseph Smith, only, as the author of the Book of Mormon? What a genius the man was! What an amazing feat of authorship to dictate 500 pages without notes, Bible or anything else except for a hat, a stone and at earlier times some interpreters as his only aid. By the time he got around to redoing Nephi’s account, of course he’d dried up all his other ideas and therefore just had to use an arcade building, its maps and a nearby rod of iron in order to finish up. Wow! I can just see it panning out that way in my mind’s eye, even right now! That old charlatan pumped out 450 pages and ran out of steam at the end so he was forced to use Rochester as his muse… The theory almost sounds too good to be true, except as Jeff points out, the books of Nephi are anything but simplistic narration.
Jeff has laid out a very extensive rebuttal for Rick Grunder, et al, regarding Book of Mormon authorship. I highly doubt he and his crowd will be using it much as a research tool for their next endeavor, though. Still, for those of us who like to have tools of rebuttal, this is a nice compilation.
Thanks, William. Pained that I missed that error especially after examining his book, the old title page included. Fortunately, the HTML and the PDF have now been corrected. Thanks to the Interpreter staff and many thanks to you for the kind help.
Hi Jeff. Quick note: The Nonconformist preacher, *John* Bunyan, wrote Pilgrim’s Progress, not *Paul* Bunyan, the American folklore hero. Best.
Great work in demolishing this crazy theory, Jeff.
It seems to me that no one paid attention to that article from the Evangelical person about losing to the LDS apologetics people.
For me, I think it was Brigham Young that said about the Book of Mormon that either God wrote it or the Devil since no man could have written it. I think soon we’ll have to all consider that view.
I like how the Lord is working here. When the Book of Mormon was first translated and published, the evidences were not really there.
But as time goes on and the world descends more and more into wickedness and atheism, I like how the evidences for the Book of Mormon (and the Bible, for that matter) become stronger and stronger.
The Book of Mormon and its translation in particular I think is a strong if not the strongest evidence in favor of the supernatural. Lots of people saw angels, but Joseph introduced his to other people. Lots of people have seen visions, but Joseph produced the Book of Mormon, and anyone can see that.
As the world descends into darkness, I would not be surprised that we will find that mythical “Welcome to Zarahemla” sign someday; for people will reject God and Jesus even if they know He exists and lives today. After all, many have decided that God is bigoted and they hate Him.
So I predict more and more strong evidences to be found/allowed to be discovered. It’s a winnowing process after all.
I do have a question, though: the chiastic structure of 1st Nephi. The article sort of glosses over the fact there are three or four different proposed structures for 1st Nephi. Does this mean that evidences for them are not very strong?
Jeff
Thanks for this article. Yours and Bowen’s insight into the connection between the rod and the word are intriguing and revealing. It is refreshing to see your detailed response to such a simplistic conjecture.
About the only thing you left out is Stubbs’ linguistics. Of course, one cannot look beyond a “natural” source for the Book of Mormon for that would conflict with their “worldview”. After all Joseph Smith was “…nothing but an ignorant plowboy”. It is impossible for one so poor and unsophisticated to produce anything approaching what you have described.
I was really struck by this part of the RT quote at the beginning of this review:
The phrase “in a strictly historical sense” is fascinating here. It’s presented as if it were a modifying phrase — as in “Well, sure, the likelihood was low in a strictly historical sense, but…”
However, what we’re talking about here are historical events, and the question at issue is precisely a historical one: did or did not Joseph Smith encounter, while producing the Book of Mormon, maps of Arabia from which he could have gotten the information that a place with a name like Nahom existed in the region in which Lehi and his family were purported to have traveled? Thus, a less misleading rendering of the assertion “In a strictly historical sense, the likelihood of JS encountering one in rural Western New York wasn’t very high” would be as a simple acknowledgment: “The likelihood of JS encountering one wasn’t very high.” (And in light of the evidence, a more intellectually honest rendering would be: “The likelihood of JS encountering one is very, very low.”)