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From: jonw@tekmdp.UUCP (Jonathan White)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Re: The case against the Book of Mormon
Message-ID: <2123@tekmdp.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Aug-83 13:09:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekmdp.2123
Posted: Wed Aug 10 13:09:39 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Aug-83 13:23:39 EDT
Lines: 128

I must admit that I am disappointed in Russ' long-awaited reply to my original
"The case against the Book of Mormon".  He ignored most of my concrete
evidence, instead choosing to dwell on picky historical points, and then move
on to his own evidence (which I am then expected to disprove).  I hope for the
benefit of all net.religion readers that Russ will attempt to address all of
the questions raised in my original article.

   When you say there are "no pro-Mormon statements from reliable and informed
   [sources] who knew the Smith family intimately", it is a contradiction of 
   terms.  Those who actually knew the Smith family intimately joined with 
   them and you will reject them if I present them as a source.  

As you hint at elsewhere in your reply, many of the original members left
the church.  None of these people have anything complimentary to say about the 
moral character of Joseph Smith.  It is my opinion that only a couple of 
people outside the Smith family were actually part of the Mormon hoax, and the 
rest of the original members were dupes.

   Those who testify against them only will say that they knew about the Smith
   activities since they never implicate themselves as participating with 
   them.  

This statement is absolutely false.  I happen to know that Russ has read "The
True Origin of the Book of Mormon" by Charles A. Shook, which contains many
sworn affidavits from Smith's former neighbors.  Several of these people tell
how they were suckered into participating in treasure hunting schemes, and
swindled out of property by the Smiths.

   I don't know why you say that Joseph and his mother disagree.  In Joseph's 
   most widely published history he tells of the same event that you mention 
   from his mother.

The point was, Joseph was trying to deny that he had ever been a money digger.
This is nothing short of a bald-faced lie in view of the historical record.
When Joseph's mother states that Mr. Stoal "came for Joseph on account of
having heard that he possessed certain keys by which he could discern things
invisible to the natural eye," she is only confirming all the other historical
evidence.  If Mr. Stoal heard that Joseph was a user of peep stones, and he
hired Joseph to help him dig for treasure, then Joseph must have been a money
digger before meeting Mr. Stoal.  Clear?

   You quote from Professor Anthon's letter.  He actually wrote two letters 
   that discussed this visit.  He was not consistent in both letters.  But 
   the question is what are the motives.  Regardless of what actually 
   transpired with Charles Anthon, Martin Harris was apparently satisfied 
   enough after the visit to mortgage his farm to supply the money needed to 
   publish the Book of Mormon.

I believe that Harris was probably let in on the hoax after seeing Professor
Anthon, or else he was an incredible patsy.  Note that Russ has neatly
sidestepped my two main points:  1) Smith states that Anthon describes the
transcription as containing "Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic"
characters, when the Book of Mormon itself declares that the characters were
"reformed Egyptian."  2) Smith apparently thought that Anthon could verify the
translation even though reformed Egyptian was known to "none other people."
Why?

   You are correct that no Book of Mormon site has been positively identified.
   But only a very small portion of the KNOWN sites in Central and South 
   America have even been ex[c]avated. 

I don't know how accurate the second statement is, but there should be plenty
of sites in North America as well.  Remember, we're not talking about a few
isolated bands of people here -- we're talking BIG!  A single quote from
Helaman 3:8 should suffice:

"...they did multiply and spread...they began to cover the face of the whole 
earth, from the sea south to the sea north, from the sea west to the sea east"

   There is information that is showing that the Book of Mormon
   people are consistent with that area and no evidence has been found that
   would eliminate the possibility or discredit what the Book of Mormon says.

If the Smithsonian Institution states publicly that they see no connection
between the civilizations in the Book of Mormon and ANY known archeological
site, then that is good enough for me.  If I say there are pink elephants on
the moon, and you can't prove me wrong, does it follow that I am likely to
be correct?

   1. What was the motive for the hoax that you claim?  You claim that Joseph
   was helped by others.  Who?  And why didn't they expose the hoax after they
   left the church?

   2. How do you explain the Book of Mormon itself?  Why would 11 other 
   witnesses testify to its truthfulness and never deny that testimony even 
   though some of them left the church?

Historically, the motive for creating any religion has been to accumulate
power.  The subject of exactly how the Mormon hoax was perpetrated is
sufficiently complex to deserve a separate article.  (I'll be working on it.)
For now, I will just mention that none of these witnesses was generally 
regarded as honest by outsiders, and the witnesses who later left the church 
were described in such unflattering terms by the Mormons ("thieves and
counterfeiters") as to render their testimony worthless.

   3. How could Joseph have correctly described a journey south from Jerusalem
   with information that was not known to him at the time?  How could he tell
   about the travels along an ancient trade route that was unknown in 1830?

   4. Admittedly Joseph could dream up some name to put in the Book of Mormon,
   but why should they match Old World name patterns?  Names like Lehi and
   Alma have only recently been found to be valid names.

I'm not adequately competent in these areas to go to the original sources and
evaluate the evidence for myself, but I don't trust Mormon "scholarship" enough
to accept any of it at face value.  (These are the same scholars that have been
ferreting out various blunders and contradictions from the Book of Mormon since
it first came out.  As previously mentioned, there have been over 2,000 changes
to the book between 1830 and 1961.)

   5. Why should he include a style of writing that is not standard English
   but fits very well as Hebrew idioms as the origin of the Book of Mormon
   would require?

Since the Book of Mormon contains over 25,000 words plagiarized from the King
James Bible, I don't find this too surprising.

   6. And I haven't even come to the strongest proofs of the Book of Mormon
   yet.  Things like Chiasmus (a unique writing style), Stylemetry ( a computer
   author analysis technique), and many others; like yearly king festivals,
   patterns of battle, cave of Lehi, and other recent discoveries.

By all means, give us the details -- but first address the evidence in my
previous article that you dodged.

						Jon White
						Tektronix
						Aloha, Ore