I probably read more Mormon apologetics than I do critical ‘anti-Mormon’ literature. And as a debater, I cannot help but be impressed by some apologists. They are often very inventive with their arguments—talented mental gymnasts, if you will.
Hugh Nibley was notorious for selectively mining ancient cultures for parallels to Mormonism. John L. Sorenson argued that when the Book of Mormon anachronistically mentions horses and elephants, what is actually meant is ‘tapirs‘ and ‘mammoths,’ respectively. Others like Louis Midgley played the postmodernist trump card that objectivity is a fiction and thus all perspectives (Mormonism included) are valid.
But not all apologists are so clever. Enter Kerry “The Backyard Professor” Shirts. Shirts has been published in FARMS and is one of the creators of FAIR, an LDS apologetics website. Many of his arguments are just downright lazy. Consider this video, where Shirts argues that the phrase “and it came to pass” proves the Book of Mormon is true.
*Facepalm*
Shirts rests his argument on the discovery of the Mayan glyph “Utchi.” In 1985, Mesoamerican scholar David Stuart translated this glyph as “to happen, or to come to pass.” Shirts believes this is huge, because it archeologically confirms the most common phrase (it occurs 1,297 times) in the Book of Mormon. I’m not impressed by his argument. I mean, is it really that incredible that the Maya had a word meaning “to happen, or to come to pass”? Of course not. It would be more incredible if they didn’t! That Shirts would exploit and explode so trivial a discovery signals, I think, the weakness of his position that the Book of Mormon is a historical document.
Don’t mistake my criticism of some Mormon apologetics for a criticism of all Mormon apologetics. Apologists fail to make a positive case for Mormonism, but they sometimes succeed at blunting cases against Mormonism. Reading Mormon apologetics over the years, I have been disabused of several arguments (even recently).
If you think you can make a stronger argument for the Book of Mormon than Shirts (and that’s setting a pretty low bar, frankly), I invite you to write a guest post for the blog. You just need to be a Mormon with some relation to Utah State University.
“… well that means, archaeologically, that vast majority of the Book of Mormon has been proven now, doesn’t it?”
Lol, the fact that it’s possible to express the most common phrase in the BoM in Mayan is supposed to be evidence? Wow. We should see if any ancient languages have phrases equivalent to “once upon a time”. That could be a sign that other cultures have ACTUALLY WITNESSED some of our favorite fairy tales!
Ha! Good one.
What about the occurrence of the name “Alma” in a property deed found with the Dead Sea Scrolls?
What about it?
The name Alma (and its variants) have been used by various cultures, including the Near East, for both males and females. Most prominently, it was a popular female name in Latin countries. So it’s not as though the name raised any eyebrows when the BoM was published. It’s a pretty simple name; I don’t think anyone should be surprised to see it crop up outside the Book of Mormon.
As to its occurrence in the Dead Sea scrolls specifically: Hebrew does not have vowels, so the name on the scroll does not appear as “Alma.” That is how many scholars have transliterated it, granted, but others have preferred “Allima.” The exact pronunciation and spelling of the word is up for debate. But suppose it is in fact “Alma.” What would this prove? All it proves is that a male name in the Book of Mormon was also a male name in the Near East. Finding Book of Mormon names is one thing. Finding Book of Mormon cities is another. The Book of Mormon recounts the centuries-long history of several civilizations. Had they existed, we should expect to find more than a few scant names with possible Hebraic origins.
On a more general note, our brains don’t do probabilities well. We are hard-wired to see agency and purpose behind everything. So what are likely accidental coincidences, such as “Alma” in the Dead Sea scrolls, are heralded as miracles. With the hundreds of names in the Book of Mormon, and the countless thousands of names throughout history, shouldn’t we expect at least some Book of Mormon names to share a correspondence with Mesoamerican and Hebrew names (along with many other cultures)?
Imagine you have a blindfolded man in a dark room with 1,000 darts (don’t worry, this won’t get kinky lol). There is a dartboard somewhere on one of the walls. The man throws the darts around the room—all 1,000 of them. Then, you flip on the switch and there are darts scattered everywhere. Two darts, however, managed to hit the dart board. They weren’t bulls eyes, mind you, just two hits. It would be silly to express amazement that two darts hit the board. You wouldn’t ask, “How could the blindfolded man possibly have known where the board was?” But this is precisely what Mormon apologists are doing. They only pay attention to the “hits” (like Alma in the Dead Sea scrolls or the NHM altar stone) and ignore the hundreds of wild misses.
For what it’s worth, Anon, I still think you made a stronger argument in one sentence than Kerry Shirts made in ten minutes.
2 things:
1. A culture with some form of written language is 99% likely to use that language to write their HISTORY (Embellished or otherwise) on rocks. Good luck writing down history without some way of conveying “and then this happened.”
Also, the symbols convey CONCEPTS, not phrases because that’s how language works. The word “arigato” is the Japanese representation for the CONCEPT of gratitude, not English phrase “thank you.” This argument hinges on the idea that all other languages, written and spoken, are dependent on having evolved from English (which is a perfectly tracable and relatively young language).
Sorry for beating a dead horse. The English language nazi made me do it.
Good point about words being symbols that convey concepts, not actual phrases. I wanted to articulate that same point, but couldn’t find the words.
I think people who try to prove the historicity of the Book of Mormon are doing more harm than good for the believing members of the church. The more evidence we get, the weaker their argument is. If you want to keep faith in the church, you should focus on the Book of Mormon being inspiring, and not worry if it is inspired. A literalistic interpretation is a losing battle.
I don’t care for the postmodern view, but am probably more of a post-positivist. There is indeed objective truth, and many of us can get at it but are all probably wrong in a lot of ways.
I agree, bad/lazy apologetics don’t help anyone, and they’re generally a waste of time, right up there with bad polemics. I generally try to avoid both as they cancel each other out.
Jon,
Good post. Though I enjoy the Backyard Professor (mostly because of his unique, feisty personality), I don’t necessarily disagree with the idea that he is a “lazy” apologists. Not a lot of his arguments are really innovative. Jeff Lindsey maybe another “lazy” one (though I don’t know if lazy is entirely the right word for him, since his site is so incredibly comprehensive! He has got something for everything!) Though I like to use Lindsey’s site as a starting point for information on any issue, few of his arguments and evidences are original to himself.
While I hope to address many of the common themes of LDS apologetics, and use a lot of the same evidence, I do hope I can be creative and original in putting together better arguments for them.
Also,
Regarding your comment about the Alma. I think arguing that it could be translated differently (because lack of vowels) is certainly a bit of a cop out. Regardless of how it gets translated, it is still the same name with the same meaning. And I honestly doubt that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdry spelled/pronounced every name as it actually was pronounced by the BoM people.
As far as “what it proves”, that depends on what side of the coin you are on. Perspective influences what you find persuasive (learned this the hard way in few debates back in the day). If you already believe in the BoM (or at least still consider it a viable option) then you are likely to find some merit in the “hits”, while if you do not you’ll find ways to rationalize them away.
Needless to say, I think you are not entirely reflective of the situation with you dartboard analogy. First, at this point I think it is demonstrable that Smith is doing better than 2/1000 when it comes to proper nouns in the BoM, with several (such as Alma) being as close to “bulls-eye” as it can possibly come. If you count names which don’t have archeology behind them, but have reasonable purposed etymologies, then his accuracy rate goes up even hire.
My biggest problem with your analogy is that you act like we have had all the lights turned on already, and can clearly see the dartboard and when all the darts in the room landed – but we can’t. BoM cities is a great example of just how dark it still is. As far I am aware, we don’t know the actual name of very many (if any) of the ruins down in Mesoamerica that date back to BoM times. That is, we don’t know what these cities were called by the native people in between 600 BC and 400 AD. So how do we know that none of those cities is Zarahelma? Or another BoM city? The fact is we don’t. Some light is shed on the dartboard, but still know just how many hits and misses there are. The fact that there are hits, however, is encouraging for those who believe. It gives us good reason not to dismiss the whole thing just yet, but to keep looking for more evidence.
As a side note, even if we did find out that a city in Mesoamerica was called Zarahemla, I doubt it would prove much to you and other critics, since Mayan and other Mesoamerican languages are less certain than the Near Eastern languages. There would always be an alternate way to translate it, which you could readily point to as a reason not to take the evidence seriously.
Anyway, simply put, one ought not to be to hasty in dismissing the BoM before all the light are turned on and we can see just how accurate our dart thrower really was.
“I think arguing that it could be translated differently (because lack of vowels) is certainly a bit of a cop out.”
How’s that? Jon is not the same name as Joan. Had some scholars never transliterated the word as Alma and universally agreed on Allima, Mormon apologists wouldn’t have taken notice. I mean, what Mormon would get excited by the discovery of the “Allima Scroll”? The names Alma and “Allima don’t even mean the same. Alma is possibly a Hebrew name, when Allima stems from the Aramaic word meaning “the strong one.” So I have to disagree. The pronunciation and spelling of the word is key.
“First, at this point I think it is demonstrable that Smith is doing better than 2/1000 when it comes to proper nouns in the BoM, with several (such as Alma) being as close to “bulls-eye” as it can possibly come.”
The number two in the analogy was somewhat arbitrary, so don’t get hung up on that. My point is that with all the names in the Book of Mormon, and all the names in the world, why should anyone be surprised that some words share a correspondence? Just last night, I typed in several made-up names into Google. It turns out that a couple of these names were of (relatively obscure) Persian origin. Would you then assume that I must have some intimate understanding of ancient Persia?
I haven’t dismissed the BoM. I’m open to there being compelling evidence for it, but the onus to provide such evidence is on Mormons. And as best I can tell, they have yet to find any (as evidenced by the flailing on display in Shirts’ video).
Don’t expect to find a city named Zarahemla. I think FAIR and FARMS has largely abandoned that hope. The Mormon apologists I’ve read don’t think there are actual or identifiable Nephite/Lamanite cities. Their argument seems to be that, consistent with limited geography theory, Book of Mormon peoples were relatively small and were integrated into already existing Mesoamerican civilizations like the Maya. FAIR writes: “The assumption by critics that LDS associate the Nephites and the Lamanites with “the Maya” is an oversimplification of the facts. Most Church members view “the Maya” as a single, homogeneous group of people whom they associate with the magnificent ruins of the Classic Mayan civilization found in Mesoamerica.” And the reason the apologists understand the Maya to be a distinct civilization is because what we know about the Maya and their culture does not cohere with the civilizations described in the Book of Mormon. So if there is a city named Zarahemla, it won’t be a city already indentified to be Mayan.
Mormons who wish to defend the BoM should take the position that Terryl Givens espouses in “By the Hand of Mormon”: Concede that the archeological evidence for the Book of Mormon is near-nonexistent, and instead focus on the literary complexity and internal consistency of the book.
Finally, you’re right about the “lights not being turned on.” But on my epistemological view, the lights will never be turned on. We can’t have that kind of certainty. We are left to rummage around in the dark. Carl Sagan called science a “candle in the dark.” It can help illuminate the dark room, and see some (perhaps most) of the proverbial darts on the board/wall, but the room will never be fully lit. Our beliefs and disbeliefs will always only be provisional.
You can indefinitely justify (to yourself) your belief in the Book of Mormon if you’re going to wait for the lights to be turned on. If we found hundreds of misses on the wall (and I think we have regarding the Book of Mormon as a historical document), you can always reassure yourself that there must be hundreds of more “hits” or “bulls eyes” on the board that are yet undiscovered—and won’t be until the lights get turned on. (Though do you even think the lights will turn on? Without darkness, there is no faith. It’s kind of like a cockroach in that respect; it scatters when the lights turn on lol).
We have to make provisional judgments. I take it that you don’t believe in six-day creationism, right? But those creationists could practice your same patience and urge you not to dismiss their narrow and literal interpretation of the Genesis story. “The lights will eventually turn on,” the creationists say, “and we—not the scientific community—be validated.”
So the question is not whether the lights are on or off, but whether there are sufficient misses to make a belief in the historicity of the Book of Mormon unreasonable.
Sorry, that was probably wordy and inarticulate. I’ll be happy to clear up any confusion I might have invited.
“The names Alma and “Allima don’t even mean the same. Alma is possibly a Hebrew name, when Allima stems from the Aramaic word meaning “the strong one.” So I have to disagree. The pronunciation and spelling of the word is key.”
Not so fast Jon. No, the names Jon and Joan are not the same, but English doesn’t exactly work like Hebrew or other Semitic languages. Besides, we still have names like Jon and John, or Shawn and Sean, which despite spelling differences, are the same. Now, as far as “Alma” and “Allima” goes, the key is not the changing up of the vowels, but the changing of the language. If it shifts from Hebrew to Aramaic, of course the meaning changes, even if you wanted to transliterate it as “Alma” for either language. But, if we just stick with Hebrew, it doesn’t matter if you want to say it as “Alma” or “Elmo” or any other possibility, it’s still the same Hebrew word with the same Hebrew meaning. I am no Hebrew expert, so I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that it how it works. Furthermore, whether it is Hebrew or Aramaic, we still only have a Semitic LM on the scroll, which is just as likely to be the source of the BoM name “Alma” either way.
(As a comical side note, while Jon and Joan are not the same name, did you know that Jon and Asia are? At least, according to behindthename.com, Asia is the Polish translation of the English Jon).
“The number two in the analogy was somewhat arbitrary, so don’t get hung up on that. My point is that with all the names in the Book of Mormon, and all the names in the world, why should anyone be surprised that some words share a correspondence? Just last night, I typed in several made-up names into Google. It turns out that a couple of these names were of (relatively obscure) Persian origin. Would you then assume that I must have some intimate understanding of ancient Persia?”
Wow, who would have thought you knew Persian? Haha. Anyway, point taken. And I already understood that the 2/1000 ratio was probably just something you pulled out of your butt on the spot. I just have a bad habit of responding to everything. Haha. With that said, though, I think we sometimes forget the context of the arguments being made on the apologetics side. Apologetics is mostly defensive (as opposed to offensive), so most apologetic arguments ought to be taken in context with the criticism it responds to. In the case of the name “Alma” it must be remembered that this name was specifically targeted as a blunder in the BoM for years (heck, some ignorant anti-Mormons still pock fun at it as if it was only a Latin female name), so among the names in the BoM which have been verified archeologically, Alma gets special attention from a lot of apologist because it directly responds to a specific criticism. The same perspective ought to be remembered when considering the “and it came to pass” apologetic argument, which responds directly to the criticism made for years that this was just a filler phrase used by Joseph Smith. Not sure how the Backyard Professor used it (didn’t take the time to watch the video), but I have seen some very skillful presentations on it, pointing out that the phrase occurs in the BoM in just the same way as it was used by the Mayan, and similar phrases in Hebrew and Egyptian. Of course this still has no significance to proving the BoM to be true, but it responds directly to a specific criticism.
“I haven’t dismissed the BoM. I’m open to there being compelling evidence for it, but the onus to provide such evidence is on Mormons. And as best I can tell, they have yet to find any (as evidenced by the flailing on display in Shirts’ video).”
Of course, I don’t think any such evidence exist, or ever will for that matter, either. Problem is you keep waiting for someone to prove it to you, and in all reality no one is trying to do that. So, all the arguments will always fall short in your mind, if for no other reason than the fact that none of them are meant to provide the kind of “compelling evidence” you are looking for. I think if one looks at the apologetic arguments and consider what these arguments are actually trying to prove (rather than what you think they should be proving), you might find that many of them are very successful in accomplishing their purpose. This of course still won’t convince you (again, that isn’t what they are for anyway), but you may learn to respect some of these arguments more.
“Don’t expect to find a city named Zarahemla.”
Of course, Jon, I don’t expect to find Zarahemla. I was simply using cities as an example of how far in the dark we are. I choose such as example because of your own comment that:
“Finding Book of Mormon names is one thing. Finding Book of Mormon cities is another. The Book of Mormon recounts the centuries-long history of several civilizations. Had they existed, we should expect to find more than a few scant names with possible Hebraic origins.”
Clearly such a comment implies that the BoM cities are a miss. My point is that they are still in the dark, and we don’t really know if they are a miss or not.
I agree that the lights will never be turned on, in fact that is my very point. Your earlier comments, however, imply that the lights have been turned on. Yes, this does mean that I can “indefinitely justify” my belief, but if you ask me it also means you can “indefinitely justify” (to yourself) your DISbelief. I feel we have equally valid positions on the matter.
I think mine maybe longer at this point. One last comment on Terryl Givens. He actually lives in my mission boundaries (though I never got to serve around him). I agree that there is more evidence for the BoM within the book itself. But attempting to prove (or at least demonstrate that its truth is reasonably possible), it through archeology and/or internal consistency don’t have to be mutually exclusive endeavors. Why not draw on what archaeology one can, and then also turn to what is in the book itself? I remind you again that many apologetic arguments are in response to criticisms, and that is especially the case with archeological arguments. You are right in that it is a weak position, which is exactly why critics are constantly bringing it up. Are you (or Givens) suggesting that we just be silent and let the critics slaughter us? If all you had was an untrained rookie to guard Kobe Bryant (or Michael Jordan in his hayday), would you just say “oh, you are not good enough to defend against him, so just don’t worry about guarding him.”? Of course not! You stick that rookie on him, and tell him to do everything he can to stop him. Most of the time it won’t work, but every now and then, it will. It’s better than nothing. Mean while you hope that the more evenly matched players to cover their defenders well enough to negate the effect the Bryant (or Jordan) has on the game. It’s same in apologetics. We do what we can to defend against the constant attacks on BoM archeology, and hope that our stronger arguments help us better maintain an atmosphere where in faith and belief may flourish. (that last line is a bit of a paraphrase of Austin Farrer)
Anyway, I’ve got to go to bed. I hope all of that makes sense. It probably doesn’t though.
Fair point on the names. Jon and Joan is not the same as Alma and Allimah. Still, you admit there is a difference—both in meaning and language—between those names. I’m suspicious of your claim that so long as the words have the same consonants (like “lm” in Alma or Elmo) they have the same meaning. But I plead ignorance; like you, I don’t know much about Hebrew. My main point about the presence of (what is possibly) the name Alma in the Dead Sea Scrolls is that it’s not a slam dunk for the Book of Mormon. An interesting development, to be sure, but little else.
“I feel we have equally valid positions on the matter.”
The room isn’t THAT dark, Neal. Ha ha. There is enough light, I think, to conclude that the hypothesis that the BoM is a translated ancient American history is unreasonable.
And a general response to your understanding of the role of apologetics: I agree; it’s largely a defensive enterprise. That’s why I wrote the following in my original post: “Apologists fail to make a positive case for Mormonism, but they sometimes succeed at blunting cases against Mormonism.” Shirts in this video, though, is on the offense. He said that the Mayan glyph in question “proves” the Book of Mormon to be true—quite the audacious claim, and one I know you’d disagree with.
I actually do know some Hebrew. Different vowels can drastically change the meaning of a word, and because names lack a context to figure out what the meaning is w/o vowels, it is nearly impossible to tell what the meaning of the “Alma/Allima” name is and whether it’s the same as the BoM “Alma”.
Furthermore, since there is overwhelming evidence against the BoM, we can safely assume that Joseph Smith/ whoever wrote the BoM just happened to choose a name that was Semitic. Not only do most of the other names not formed the way Hebrew actually forms names, but apart from the names stolen from the Bible, they’re nonsense.
Alma, though, is not a Biblical name and in Smith’s time was not recognized as Semetic. Alma was known back then, but as a Latin female name.
Exactly.
This is COMPLETELY disengenuous. I made this video as a SPOOF……you mean to tell me you DIDN’T catch that?! What kind of ninconpoop would possibly take this seriously? I am making FUN of critics who LOVE to say there is absolutely NOTHING in favor of the Book of Mormon archaeologically. I use the critics language of “proof” which, as anyone bothering to know my stance on this, would be more than well aware I do NOT use PROOF of any of the scriptures, as they are not meant for PROOF.
Thanks for giving me the laugh of my life though.
Best,
Kerry A. “Lazier than you’ll ever be” Shirts
If this was really a spoof, Mr. Shirts, then that fact was also totally lost on our readers—Mormon and non-Mormon alike.
You seemed to have missed my main criticism of your video, though. I’m glad we can both agree that the Mayan glyph “Utchi” does not constitute “proof” for the Book of Mormon. But that you even suggest it as evidence “in favor of the Book of Mormon archaeologically” is problematic. So it’s not only that your argument wasn’t good enough to be considered proof, it’s that your argument wasn’t good enough to be considered an argument.
Now, I’m not dismissive of all apologetics. As I noted in the original post, I have read some cogent apologetic arguments that have changed my mind. But some of your videos, including the one featured in my post, are just intellectually lazy. Instead of focusing on the stronger arguments for the Book of Mormon, you seem to employ a “kitchen-sink approach”—throwing anything and everything at the critics.
If you think I’m not being fair to you, then please refer me to some of your more responsible work.
Thanks for the comment, Mr. Shirts.