la-la Oddisms and Anachronisms
Plagiarism tied with string,
Repetition, tautology
I simply can't stop laughing and dribbling down my literary chin ...

Where do the Morbots keep their critical sensibilities?


Anachronisms: The Armchair Guide:

Steel: I Nephi 4:9 And I beheld his sword, and I drew it forth from the sheath thereof; and the hilt thereof was of pure gold, and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine, and I saw that the blade thereof was of the most precious steel.

Steel: 16:18 And it came to pass that as I, Nephi, went forth to slay food, behold, I did break my bow, which was made of fine steel; and after I did break my bow, behold, my brethren were angry with me because of the loss of my bow, for we did obtain no food.

Baptism: 20:1 Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, or out of the waters of baptism, who swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, yet they swear not in truth nor in righteousness.

• Baptism was not a practice of the Old Testament!

Cows & Oxen & Asses & Horses : 18:25 And it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men. And we did find all manner of ore, both of gold, and of silver, and of copper.

Steel & Ores in Abundance: II Nephi 5:15 And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance.

Barley: Mosiah 7:22 And all this he did, for the sole purpose of bringing this people into subjection or into bondage. And behold, we at this time do pay tribute to the king of the Lamanites, to the amount of one half of our corn, and our barley, and even all our grain of every kind, and one half of the increase of our flocks and our herds; and even one half of all we have or possess the king of the Lamanites doth exact of us, or our lives.

Wheat & Barley: 9:9 And we began to till the ground, yea, even with all manner of seeds, with seeds of corn, and of wheat, and of barley, and with neas, and with sheum, and with seeds of all manner of fruits; and we did begin to multiply and prosper in the land.

• What are neas and sheum?

Iron & Brass technology: 11:8 And it came to pass that king Noah built many elegant and spacious buildings; and he ornamented them with fine work of wood, and of all manner of precious things, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of brass, and of ziff, and of copper;

• No evidence of these buildings found

Horses & Chariots: 18:9 And they said unto him: Behold, he is feeding thy horses. Now the king had commanded his servants, previous to the time of the watering of their flocks, that they should prepare his horses and chariots, and conduct him forth to the land of Nephi; for there had been a great feast appointed at the land of Nephi, by the father of Lamoni, who was king over all the land.
• No pre-Columbian horses in the New World and no chariots!

Horses & Chariots: 20:6 Now when Lamoni had heard this he caused that his servants should make ready his horses and his chariots.

Horses: III Nephi 4:4 Therefore, there was no chance for the robbers to plunder and to obtain food, save it were to come up in open battle against the Nephites; and the Nephites being in one body, and having so great a number, and having reserved for themselves provisions, and horses and cattle, and flocks of every kind, that they might subsist for the space of seven years, in the which time they did hope to destroy the robbers from off the face of the land; and thus the eighteenth year did pass away.
Honey Bees: Ether 2:3 And they did also carry with them deseret, which, by interpretation, is a honey bee; and thus they did carry with them swarms of bees, and all manner of that which was upon the face of the land, seeds of every kind.
• Honey bees were introduced by Europeans in the 17th century!
Windows: Ether2:23 And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels? For behold, ye cannot have windows, for they will be dashed in pieces; neither shall ye take fire with you, for ye shall not go by the light of fire.
Cureloms & Cumoms & Elephants et al: Ether: 9:18 And also all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of man.
9:19 And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms.
Brass & Iron & Silks: 10:23 And they did work in all manner of ore, and they did make gold, and silver, and iron, and brass, and all manner of metals; and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper. And they did work all manner of fine work.
10:24 And they did have silks, and fine-twined linen; and they did work all manner of cloth, that they might clothe themselves from their nakedness. Ether 10

You mentioned this:

II Nephi 5:15 And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance.

But I personally love the two-verse self-contradiction (but it isn't an anachronism so I know why it's not in your list):

16 And I, Nephi, did build a temple; and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon save it were not built of so many precious things; for they were not to be found upon the land, wherefore, it could not be built like unto Solomon’s temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine.

If not gold and silver, what "precious things" did Solomon's Temple have that Nephi had to leave out? Was the original crusted in diamonds? It wasn't Swarovski's Temple.

squeebee Wrote:
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> If not gold and silver, what "precious things" did
> Solomon's Temple have that Nephi had to leave out?
> Was the original crusted in diamonds? It wasn't
> Swarovski's Temple.

Hilarious - and an excellent question.

Perhaps Nephi used a petrified pre-cursor to Jello, pineapple or lemon flavor of course.

Heathen! It would be shredded carrots!

Damn, I forgot -- you're absolutely right!

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2013 12:45PM by Fetal Deity.

The subject of Solomon's Temple came up a few days ago on RfM. I was originally under the impression that Solomon's Temple was inlaid with many types of precious stones; however, I searched in a few different Bible commentaries for detailed descriptions but could find no mention of precious stones being a part of the temple.

Cedar, fir and olive wood are indicated as being part of Solomon's Temple. And while the exact species of different woods used in the Old World temple might not have been available in America, suitable substitutions (as "precious" as those employed in the original temple) could certainly have been found in the "all manner of wood" accessible according to the BoM text.

Here's the entry from Wikipedia that summarizes my research findings:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon%27s_Temple#Architectural_description


So, yeah, I am now convinced that this is a pretty important contradiction.

This is one that really cracks me up. If Nephi lived in Jerusalem, he would be familiar with Solomons temple, and its construction. It would have been the engineering marvel of the Isrealites. He should also have known that to build Solomons temple and Solomons house it took 20 years, and 153,500 able bodied men. And they had an infrastructure of quarrys, etc, trading partner countries, people skilled in construction. Solomon also had a crap load of money to buy stuff off trading countries.

Nephi had split off from the Lamanites, and had a handful of men and a few of their kids.

Solomon's temple took 7 years to build. His palace and the temple together took 20 years. In any case, a handful of early Nephites couldn't have built anything comparable in 100 years.

Yeah, but you're forgetting one thing-Nephi kept all his boat-building tools. So, after building a ship, ALL BY HIMSELF, it was a piece of cake to build a temple, ALL BY HIMSELF. He had tools. Plus, his uncle was a TV Repairman, so he could do anything. And sure, they didn't have any other countries to trade with. Thats what Home Depot is for!

squeebee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You mentioned this:
>
>....
>
> If not gold and silver, what "precious things" did
> Solomon's Temple have that Nephi had to leave out?
> Was the original crusted in diamonds? It wasn't
> Swarovski's Temple.

Aluminum siding.

I just watched Nat Geo the other day: Americas before Columbus. There were actually honey bees, but they only pollinated certain species of plants. The European honey bee was introduced which pollinated multiple species. Horses were introduced to the Americas by the Spaniards. Also, there were no swine (pigs). They too were introduced into the wild deliberately by the Spaniards as they were an old world favorite. Pigs were a blight to the Indians as they would eat the freshly planted crops and seeds. Also, the Indians didn't practice animal husbandry so there would have been no herds. They would hunt their game as needed. Another trick they would use would be to set fire to the plains which would bring the animals to them. There were no metal weapons. Metal was of a primitive nature usually used for ornamental purposes. They used flint for weapons and cutting tools. the B of M does mention corn - the staple food of N. American Indians, but one food they didn't mention which was of great importance to the Incas - the potato. This was the most useful food source as it could be dried and the flour would keep for 10 years.

Nice verse :)

On the steel sword - I've seen some apologetic stretches that kinda cover it however, there is an even bigger problem IMO:

The hilt of pure gold.

It is very clear by the context of the BoM that it is not an ornamental sword. Most importantly Captain Moroni uses the sword in battle hundreds of years later.

A hilt of pure gold is completely impossible for a real sword. Gold is way too soft. More importantly it is way too heavy. The entire balance of the sword would be completely wrong and not be usable at all.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2013 12:51PM by The Oncoming Storm - bc.

Good observation. Obviously a JS tale to be sure.

Best regards and thanks for learned tapir-saddling cool stuff, have a chipper. mellow evening

Great summary!
I should add, though, that there were horses in pre-Columbus America. They went extinct during the Pleistocene era-- which raises an even bigger problem for the Church: The age of the earth.

Here's a little one: the parable of the olive tree in the vineyard from the Book of Jacob; OK, I'll accept a grove of olive trees planted along with grapes, although I don't think grapes are ever mentioned, which is a problem right there if Joe Smith somehow mixed up orchard with vineyard, and I don't think they grew olives in upstate New York.

Anyway, I know a little about olives, and in my experience the main thing about olive trees is THEY'RE TOUGH. This whole story is about an old screwed up olive tree that the guy planted and watched grow old--but the damn things are hard to kill, and they live hundreds of years!

OK, it's only a parable, but when Jesus spoke in parables I think he got the factual concepts right of the story right.

• What are neas and sheum?

Why, only the most favored food of Cureloms and Cumoms. Duh.

And anyways, what is a curelom or a cumom? And why didn't Smith substitute those two animal names with more recognizable animal names, like he did for horses (because they really aren't horses, they're tapirs! Or was it deer...).

Oh never mind. It's because the BoM is all made up fiction. And it's not even good fiction.

Spaulding sure had a great imagination.

He came up with some pretty heavy duty words and ideas, which didn't make any sense........

Also I find it unusual that Nephi never talks about his wife. It mentions it once and we never know her name. He also doesn't talk about any children he had. However we know all about his parents and Jacob and Joseph his brothers born in the wilderness.

If a young man gets married and is getting some action, his focus would shift to his new bride and children and would fade away from his parents and siblings, at least enough to mention her name.

And why in the heck would their meat need to be made sweet and not need to be cooked? Sweet meat??? Raw meat??? Cooking meat doesn't take all that long and tastes so good cooked.

In the BofM world, everything turns out wonderfully. Nobody gets sick and dies prematurely. They can build everything they need with no problems and they have all the tools they need. They can plant and grow everything. They can find all manner of precious things. They can write in an different language, Reformed Egyptian, and so can every scribe afterwords.

I live in Ontario. Canada has 2 official languages, French and English. I took French in high school. There are French tv stations. Sometimes our politians speak in French. ALL packaging in Canada MUST have ingredients and instructions in both languages. My mother grew up in a French speaking community in Northern Ontario and is fluent in French. My daughter went to a French immersion Junior high school, Quebec is the next province over....

But the thought of writing my family history in "Reformed French" would never even cross my mind. I wouldn't know how to do it, even with access to the internet.

Mulek is supposed to be a son of Zedekiah. Zedekiah was the king of Judah when Nebuchadnezer took over Isreal. Zedekiah was 21 when he started to reign and he reigned 11 years over Judah before Nebuchadnezer killed all his sons and blinded him. It doesn't say how many children he had but the oldest would be only 11-13, they were children.

Back then they were pretty thorough. If the king said to kill all of Zedekiah's sons, they would have to do it or be killed themselves. You had to do what ever the king said. And if the king said something, even he had to do it, even if he later realized it was a bad thing to have said.

So some how the BofM said that one of Zedekiah's sons survived and crossed the ocean and became the founder of the Mulekites.

It seems highly unlikely.