Well, I have a testimony: I may be ignorant, but I am not lost.
(Hugh Nibley, Temple and Cosmos, 1992, 449).
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Pre-Columbian Traditions of Horses
According to the Chronicles of Michoacan, Montezuma sent messengers to Cazonci, the Tarascan king, informing him of the coming of the Spanish and asking for help. When the ambassadors delivered their message the king was troubled. He was puzzled by their claim that the newcomers rode on "deer."
The messengers answered:
Sire, those deer must be something like a story we know in which the God Cupanzieri played ball with another God Achurihirepe, won over him and sacrificed him in a village called Xacona. He also left the later's wife pregnant with his son Siratatapeci. When the son was born he was taken to another village to be raised, as if he were a foundling. As a youth he went bird hunting with a bow and on one of those hunts he came upon a yvana which said to him, "Don't shoot me and I'll tell you something. The one you think is your father is not because your real father went to the house of the God Achirihirepe to conquer, and he was sacrificed there. When Siratatapeci heard this he went to the village of Xacona to get vengeance on his father's murderer. he excavated the place where his father was buried, exhumed him, and carried him on his back. Along the way there was a weed patch full of quail which took to flight. In order to shoot the quail he dropped his father, who turned into a deer with a mane on his neck and a long tail like those that come with the strange people (Eugene R. Craine and Reginald C. Reindrop, eds., The Chronicles of Michoacan. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970, 63-64, emphasis added).
This same account also reports that when the Spanish arrived in central Mexico, "Some called the horses deer, others tuycen, which were something like horses which the Indians made from pigweed bread for use in the feast of Cuingo and to which the fastened manes of false hair" (63-64, emphasis added). Historian Hugh Thomas notes, "The Mexicans may have continued to think of these animals as deer. But perhaps some folk memory may have reminded them that there had once been horses in the Americas" (Hugh Thomas, Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 178).
Monday, October 28, 2013
And the Word Was God
[S. Kent Brown in Andrew C. Skinner and Gaye Strathearn, eds., Third Nephi: An Incomparable Scripture. Salt Lake City: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2012, 381].
I want to say something about text. . . . Jesus himself is the text because he bears in his body the proof of the atonement. And his body, of course, is the first thing he allows people access to—to touch the scars in his hands and his feet and his side. But when one thinks about ancient texts, one thinks about texts that are inscribed on stone, clay tablets, metal, wood, eventually papyri, which is a softer, more perishable material. Each one of those kinds of surfaces can be destroyed, but the resurrected, glorified body of Jesus cannot. And it bears, as it were, witness of itself, and it carries, in its own way, the text of his suffering and death and resurrection. In a concrete way, the immediate and eternal text is the Risen Jesus, bearing in his body marks that will never go away.
I want to say something about text. . . . Jesus himself is the text because he bears in his body the proof of the atonement. And his body, of course, is the first thing he allows people access to—to touch the scars in his hands and his feet and his side. But when one thinks about ancient texts, one thinks about texts that are inscribed on stone, clay tablets, metal, wood, eventually papyri, which is a softer, more perishable material. Each one of those kinds of surfaces can be destroyed, but the resurrected, glorified body of Jesus cannot. And it bears, as it were, witness of itself, and it carries, in its own way, the text of his suffering and death and resurrection. In a concrete way, the immediate and eternal text is the Risen Jesus, bearing in his body marks that will never go away.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Reinventing the Wheel
Individuals doing research sometimes have to confront the painful truth that they are not the first people to think of an idea. One trait that distinguishes the scholar from the tyro is that the scholar is aware of previous research in the field.
Back in 1993, Russell Ball thought that he was the first person to connect the the destruction in 3 Nephi with a volcano in his article in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies. Unfortunately, every point he made had previously been made about a half century earlier by Evan Fry in an article called "The Book of Mormon and the Crucifixion," published in the Saints Herald 1945. In all fairness to Ball, there is little way he could possibly have known about the earlier article. Both articles have since been superseded by Bart Kowallis's article in the 1997-1998 BYU Studies.
Back in 1993, Russell Ball thought that he was the first person to connect the the destruction in 3 Nephi with a volcano in his article in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies. Unfortunately, every point he made had previously been made about a half century earlier by Evan Fry in an article called "The Book of Mormon and the Crucifixion," published in the Saints Herald 1945. In all fairness to Ball, there is little way he could possibly have known about the earlier article. Both articles have since been superseded by Bart Kowallis's article in the 1997-1998 BYU Studies.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Lost in Translation: Hummers and Henry V
Morgan Deane has an insightful article on his always insightful Warfare and the Book of Mormon blog entitled, Henry V, Hummers, and the Book of Mormon.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Pre-Columbian Myths and Traditions of the Elephant
The Book of Ether references "Elephants" among the animals known to the early Jaredites during the reign of King Emer, where they are said to have been "useful" but not numerous (Ether 9:19).It is generally assumed that large elephant-like mammals such as the mammoth and the mastodon became extinct by the end of the Ice Age (circa 9,000 B.C.). Some native American myths and traditions suggest Pre-Columbian knowledge of species of mammoth or mastodon and may be considered evidence that small groups of these animals survived in certain regions until recent historical times.
It is possible that some of these traditions are rooted in native American discoveries of the bones of extinct fauna, while other myths seem to be founded on actual encounters with living species who had notable elephantine-like long noses which could sometimes trample and uproot trees (John R. Swanton, Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Washington: Government printing Office, 1911, 355). One Abenaki account tells of a great “elk” that could easily walk through more than eight feet of snow, whose skin was tough and had “a kind of arm which grows out of his shoulder, which he makes use of as we do ours” (Pierre-Francois Xavier de Charlevoix, A Voyage to North America . . . Dublin: J. Exshaw and J. Potts, 1766, 1:88). Naskapi tradition tells of a large monster that once trampled them and left deep round tracks in the snow, had large ears and a long nose with which he hit people. Another story tells of Snowy Owl, a Penobscot culture hero who, while searching for a wife and traveling to a far valley encountered what appeared at first to be hills without vegetation moving slowly about. Upon closer inspection he found these were the backs of huge animals with long teeth who drank water for half a day at a time and when they laid down could not get up. The hero was able to trap the large beasts by making them fall on sharpened stakes where he was able to shoot them (W. D. Strong, “North American Indian traditions suggesting a knowledge of the mammoth,” American Anthropologist 36 1934: 81-88). Similar traditions have been documented for native American groups from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico persuading some scholars that they are based upon a core memory of actual historical encounters with elephant-like beasts who may have survived in the region perhaps as late as 3,000 years ago (Ludwell H. Johnson, “Men and Elephants in America,” Scientific American 75 1952: 220-21).
Pre-Columbian Mexican traditions also speak of ogre-like giant peoples who inhabited central Mexico and were killed off after the arrival of Aztec ancestors. These tales attribute seemingly human characteristics to some of these legendary giants. Accounts say that some had long tapering arms and could tear up trees as if they were lettuce (Juan de Torquemada, Monarchia Indiana (Mexico: 1943), 1:38; Acosta, Natural And Moral History of the Indies. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002, 384). These legends, notes Adrienne Mayor, say “that the giants destroyed by the ancestors pulled down trees and ate grass, elephant-like behavior” and suggests that these stories may reflect “a vague memory of prehensile trunks, something like the `extra arm’ of the Giant Elk in Abenaki and Iroquios myth.” While it cannot be proven, she thinks it possible that “localized mammoth species (and other large Pleistocene animals and birds) may have survived to later dates in the Valley of Mexico and the Southwestern United States” and also that at least “some aspects of the legendary giant-ogres may have originated in ancestral memories of Columbian mammoths and may have been later confirmed by discoveries of fossils” (Adrienne Mayor, Fossil Legends of the First Americans. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005, 97, 77).
It is possible that some of these traditions are rooted in native American discoveries of the bones of extinct fauna, while other myths seem to be founded on actual encounters with living species who had notable elephantine-like long noses which could sometimes trample and uproot trees (John R. Swanton, Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Washington: Government printing Office, 1911, 355). One Abenaki account tells of a great “elk” that could easily walk through more than eight feet of snow, whose skin was tough and had “a kind of arm which grows out of his shoulder, which he makes use of as we do ours” (Pierre-Francois Xavier de Charlevoix, A Voyage to North America . . . Dublin: J. Exshaw and J. Potts, 1766, 1:88). Naskapi tradition tells of a large monster that once trampled them and left deep round tracks in the snow, had large ears and a long nose with which he hit people. Another story tells of Snowy Owl, a Penobscot culture hero who, while searching for a wife and traveling to a far valley encountered what appeared at first to be hills without vegetation moving slowly about. Upon closer inspection he found these were the backs of huge animals with long teeth who drank water for half a day at a time and when they laid down could not get up. The hero was able to trap the large beasts by making them fall on sharpened stakes where he was able to shoot them (W. D. Strong, “North American Indian traditions suggesting a knowledge of the mammoth,” American Anthropologist 36 1934: 81-88). Similar traditions have been documented for native American groups from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico persuading some scholars that they are based upon a core memory of actual historical encounters with elephant-like beasts who may have survived in the region perhaps as late as 3,000 years ago (Ludwell H. Johnson, “Men and Elephants in America,” Scientific American 75 1952: 220-21).
Pre-Columbian Mexican traditions also speak of ogre-like giant peoples who inhabited central Mexico and were killed off after the arrival of Aztec ancestors. These tales attribute seemingly human characteristics to some of these legendary giants. Accounts say that some had long tapering arms and could tear up trees as if they were lettuce (Juan de Torquemada, Monarchia Indiana (Mexico: 1943), 1:38; Acosta, Natural And Moral History of the Indies. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002, 384). These legends, notes Adrienne Mayor, say “that the giants destroyed by the ancestors pulled down trees and ate grass, elephant-like behavior” and suggests that these stories may reflect “a vague memory of prehensile trunks, something like the `extra arm’ of the Giant Elk in Abenaki and Iroquios myth.” While it cannot be proven, she thinks it possible that “localized mammoth species (and other large Pleistocene animals and birds) may have survived to later dates in the Valley of Mexico and the Southwestern United States” and also that at least “some aspects of the legendary giant-ogres may have originated in ancestral memories of Columbian mammoths and may have been later confirmed by discoveries of fossils” (Adrienne Mayor, Fossil Legends of the First Americans. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005, 97, 77).
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Noah Webster and the Book of Mormon
[I reproduce here a little piece I wrote years ago for the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 4/2 (Fall 1995): 142-46].
"The Book of Mormon critics," wrote Hugh Nibley in 1959, "have made an art of explaining a very big whole by a very small part. The game is to look for some mysterious person or document from which Joseph Smith might have gotten a few simple and obvious ideas and then cry triumphantly, 'At last we have it! Now we know where the Book of Mormon came from!'"1 Nibley's observation finds support in a recent article published by anti-Mormon writers Jerald and Sandra Tanner.2 While the Tanners' article is largely devoid of merit, it provides an excellent illustration of Nibley's point.
After perusing the pages of James Adair's book The History of the American Indians,3 the Tanners triumphantly announce what they describe as a "startling discovery." According to our zealous researchers, Adair's work contains a passage so similar to phrases found in Book of Mormon descriptions of Nephite fortifications "that we could not escape the conclusion that Joseph Smith either had the book in hand or a quotation from it when he was writing the Book of Mormon."4 The passage as cited by the Tanners reads:
In regard to the above comparison, several observations are in order. First, Adair's description is limited to one short paragraph, while the Book of Mormon references are spread out over four different chapters. Second, when one compares the two texts with each other it is obvious that the words do not appear in the same order—plagiarism might have been more plausible if the words had appeared in the same order. Some phrases are linked in Adair and yet divided up in a disjointed fashion in the Book of Mormon text and vice versa. Third, even where parallel words occur in the two texts they are not necessarily being used in the same way. Adair, for instance, uses the word equal to refer to distance, while the Book of Mormon passage uses equal in reference to opportunity. While the word breastwork is used in both passages, the Adair passage refers to a breastwork of clay while the Book of Mormon describes a "breastwork of timbers" against which earth was banked. There is no mention of "timbers" in the Adair passage.
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, both Adair's description and Joseph Smith's translation of the Book of Mormon are describing fortifications for warfare and would be expected to use similar English language to describe them. This can be rather easily demonstrated by examining the definitions of words associated with the concept of fortification. To illustrate this point we will list several words that appear in Adair's account with their definitions from Noah Webster's 1828 English dictionary:
Given the fact that the Book of Mormon is describing fortifications of warfare it should not surprise us that Joseph Smith, an early nineteenth-century translator, should use such words and phrases to describe defensive fortifications of an ancient American group. This example aptly illustrates one of the pitfalls faced by those seeking to identify nineteenth-century sources for the Book of Mormon. Many nineteenth-century parallels touted by critics as examples of Book of Mormon borrowings are, in fact, nothing of the kind, but are simply part of the English vocabulary of the translator's day.
Notes
1. Hugh Nibley, "The Grab Bag," in Hugh Nibley, The Prophetic Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1988), 175.
3. James Adair, The History of the American Indians (London: Dilly, 1775).
4. Tanner and Tanner, "The Book of Mormon: Ancient or Modern," 5.
5. Ibid., 6, emphasis in original.
6. Ibid.
7. Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. (New York: Converse, 1828), s.v. "fort."
8. Ibid., s.v. "fortification."
9. Ibid., s.v. "fortify."
10. Ibid., s.v. "breast-work."
11. Ibid., s.v. "bank."
12. Ibid., s.v. "ditch."
13. Ibid., s.v. "secure."
"The Book of Mormon critics," wrote Hugh Nibley in 1959, "have made an art of explaining a very big whole by a very small part. The game is to look for some mysterious person or document from which Joseph Smith might have gotten a few simple and obvious ideas and then cry triumphantly, 'At last we have it! Now we know where the Book of Mormon came from!'"1 Nibley's observation finds support in a recent article published by anti-Mormon writers Jerald and Sandra Tanner.2 While the Tanners' article is largely devoid of merit, it provides an excellent illustration of Nibley's point.
After perusing the pages of James Adair's book The History of the American Indians,3 the Tanners triumphantly announce what they describe as a "startling discovery." According to our zealous researchers, Adair's work contains a passage so similar to phrases found in Book of Mormon descriptions of Nephite fortifications "that we could not escape the conclusion that Joseph Smith either had the book in hand or a quotation from it when he was writing the Book of Mormon."4 The passage as cited by the Tanners reads:
Through the whole continent, and in the remotest woods, are traces of their ancient warlike disposition. We frequently met with great mounds of earth, either of a circular, or oblong form, having a strong breast-work at a distance around them, made of the clay which had been dug up in forming the ditch on the inner side of the enclosed ground, and these were their forts of security against an enemy. . . . About 12 miles from the upper northern parts of the Choktah country, there stand . . . two oblong mounds of earth . . . in an equal direction with each other. . . . A broad deep ditch inclosed those two fortresses, and there they raised an high breast-work, to secure their houses from the invading enemy.5The Tanners report that they were first struck by the words their forts of security: "These identical words are found in the book of Alma!" (Alma 49:18). In addition to this "striking parallel," these forts of security, surprisingly enough, are said to secure their occupants against an enemy. The Tanners further note parallel words and phrases such as the word breastwork (Alma 53:4) and a reference to the ditch and to mounds or banks of earth, which had been dug (Alma 49:18). "We find it extremely hard to believe that all of these similar word patterns could happen by chance." Since, as the Tanners argue, none of these words or phrases occur in the Bible, "The evidence seems to indicate that the source was Adair's book."6
In regard to the above comparison, several observations are in order. First, Adair's description is limited to one short paragraph, while the Book of Mormon references are spread out over four different chapters. Second, when one compares the two texts with each other it is obvious that the words do not appear in the same order—plagiarism might have been more plausible if the words had appeared in the same order. Some phrases are linked in Adair and yet divided up in a disjointed fashion in the Book of Mormon text and vice versa. Third, even where parallel words occur in the two texts they are not necessarily being used in the same way. Adair, for instance, uses the word equal to refer to distance, while the Book of Mormon passage uses equal in reference to opportunity. While the word breastwork is used in both passages, the Adair passage refers to a breastwork of clay while the Book of Mormon describes a "breastwork of timbers" against which earth was banked. There is no mention of "timbers" in the Adair passage.
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, both Adair's description and Joseph Smith's translation of the Book of Mormon are describing fortifications for warfare and would be expected to use similar English language to describe them. This can be rather easily demonstrated by examining the definitions of words associated with the concept of fortification. To illustrate this point we will list several words that appear in Adair's account with their definitions from Noah Webster's 1828 English dictionary:
FORT, n. . . . 1. A fortified place; . . . a place surrounded with a ditch, rampart, and parapet, or with palisades, stockades, or other means of defense; also, any building or place fortified for security against an enemy.7How are we to explain such "striking" similarities between the fortification vocabulary found in Adair's work, certain passages in the Book of Mormon, and those definitions found in Webster? Did Joseph Smith have both volumes of Webster's 1828 English dictionary "book in hand" while he dictated that text to his scribe? After all, with the exception of proper names, nearly every word found in the Book of Mormon can also be found in Webster. Must we now acknowledge Webster's dictionary as a primary source for the Book of Mormon narrative? . . . .
FORTIFICATION, n. . . . 2. The art or science of fortifying places to defend them against an enemy, by means of moats, ramparts, parapets and other bulwarks. 3. Works erected to defend a place against attack. 4. A fortified place.8
FORTIFY, v.t. . . . 1. To surround with a wall, ditch, palisades or other works, with a view to defend against the attacks of an enemy; to strengthen and secure by forts, batteries and other works of art; as to fortify a city, town, or harbor. 2. To strengthen against any attack.9
BREAST-WORK, n. . . . In fortification, a work thrown up for defense; a parapet.10
BANK, n. . . . 1. A mound, pile or ridge of earth, raised above the surrounding plain, either as a defense or for other purposes.11
DITCH, n. . . . The primary sense is a digging or place dug. . . . 1. A trench in the earth made by digging . . . for making a fence to guard enclosures or for preventing an enemy from approaching a town or fortress.12
SECURE, v.t. To guard effectually from danger; to make safe. Fortifications may secure a city.13
Given the fact that the Book of Mormon is describing fortifications of warfare it should not surprise us that Joseph Smith, an early nineteenth-century translator, should use such words and phrases to describe defensive fortifications of an ancient American group. This example aptly illustrates one of the pitfalls faced by those seeking to identify nineteenth-century sources for the Book of Mormon. Many nineteenth-century parallels touted by critics as examples of Book of Mormon borrowings are, in fact, nothing of the kind, but are simply part of the English vocabulary of the translator's day.
Notes
1. Hugh Nibley, "The Grab Bag," in Hugh Nibley, The Prophetic Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1988), 175.
"If someone will show me how to draw a circle," cries the youthful Joseph Smith, "I will make you a fine Swiss watch!" So Joachim or Anselm or Ethan Smith or Rabelais or somebody takes a stick and draws a circle in the sand, and forthwith the adroit and wily Joseph turns out a beautiful running mechanism that tells perfect time! This is not an exaggeration. The Book of Mormon in structure and design is every bit as complicated, involved, and ingenious as the works of a Swiss watch, and withal just as smoothly running. . . . The writer of that book brought together thousands of ideas and events and knit them together in a most marvelous unity. Yet the critics like to think they have explained the Book of Mormon completely if they can just discover where Joseph Smith might have got one of his ideas or expressions!" (Ibid.)2. Jerald and Sandra Tanner, "The Book of Mormon: Ancient or Modern," Salt Lake City Messenger 84 (April 1993): 5—10.
3. James Adair, The History of the American Indians (London: Dilly, 1775).
4. Tanner and Tanner, "The Book of Mormon: Ancient or Modern," 5.
5. Ibid., 6, emphasis in original.
6. Ibid.
7. Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. (New York: Converse, 1828), s.v. "fort."
8. Ibid., s.v. "fortification."
9. Ibid., s.v. "fortify."
10. Ibid., s.v. "breast-work."
11. Ibid., s.v. "bank."
12. Ibid., s.v. "ditch."
13. Ibid., s.v. "secure."
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