Hugh Nibley's "Book of Mormon Challenge" challenges you to
duplicate the Book of Mormon yourself. You are to write a
history of ancient Tibet and have it meet a lot of criteria
that SUPPOSEDLY the Book of Mormon met (BIG emphasis on
"SUPPOSEDLY")

http://www.lds-mormon.com/challenge.shtml

My favorite one is:

17. Thorough investigation, scientific and historical evidence,
and archeological discovery for the next 125 years must verify
its claims and prove detail after detail to be true, for many of
the details you put in your history are still buried beneath the
soil of Tibet.


This reminds me of being a Mormon kid in the '50s when
information was not so available and what I knew about
Meso-American archaeology came through the pages of Church
magazines and Church filmstrips.

I remember when I first went away to college talking with a
grad student in archaeology whose emphasis was Meso-America. I
thought to myself "this is a golden opportunity--she knows the
details and all I have to do is connect a few dots for her and
bingo, a convert.

She, of course, handed me my hat, but she did it in a kind
way. That was one of my first exposures to how Mormons don't
know s**t about what they are talking about.

She was kind. It is interesting that nothing creates a bridge from Joseph Smith to either ancient America or Egypt. There is literally nothing so apologists and Mormons into the history of both are left with less than crumbs to build whole societies out of in the mists of time. These mists are still full of darkness and they get lost in them yet think they are enlightened by them.

The only thing they have on their side is the darkness of history to burrow into their ignorance of the obvious - Joseph lied.

I searched and searched The Harold B. Lee Library at BYU as a pre-teen and teen for hard evidence of Book of Mormon stories. They HAD to be there...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2015 08:16PM by Elder Berry.

Well you've reminded me of my BYU custodial dept days when me and a pal were tasked to work on a Saturday moving the archaeology dept inventory of unearthed artefacts. Got a good look at their sloppy and meaningless Potemkin pretence up close.

Its been done.

Avatar.

Why Tibet? Joseph wasn't writing the supposed history of some foreign country he had never visited--he was concocting a history about the land where he grew up and trying to connect it to the Bible stories he had also grown up with. Aside from the stupidity of it, this challenge makes no sense.

Edit: also, I take issue with their assertion that "what is produced by one man can always be duplicated by another." This is patently false--we are products of our time, upbringing, environment, heritage, genes, and a host of other factors. There was only one Bach. Just one Galileo. And, thankfully, one Joseph Smith.

"Included in your narrations will be authentic modes of travel"--oh, like horseback?

Edit again: In fact, here's my own rebuttal challenge--compose an oratorio in just over three weeks, for chorus, soloists and orchestra, with a libretto not in your native language. It must become one of the most-loved and most-performed choral works in the history of Western civilization.

Impossible? Handel did it, so obviously anyone can.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2015 10:48PM by vman455.

vman455 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why Tibet? Joseph wasn't writing the supposed
> history of some foreign country he had never
> visited--he was concocting a history about the
> land where he grew up and trying to connect it to
> the Bible stories he had also grown up with. Aside
> from the stupidity of it, this challenge makes no
> sense.

Joseph Smith lived near ancient Indian mounds. Most of the
ancient Indian mounds, which dotted the country side so much
that one writer said there's one in just about every farmer's
field, have been plowed under. Only the more spectacular ones
remain--Cahokia, Serpent mound etc. The history of the Indians
was a much-speculated thing in JS's day. A very popular theory
among the common man was that there was an ancient white race
that built the impressive mounds and fortifications (which were
described in print in JS's time and were visible to people in
JS's part of the country) but that the ancient white race was
annihilated by the dark-skinned savages. Variations of this
myth were so prevalent that it has been given the name "the
Mound Builder's Myth." It is the basic framework for the Book
of Mormon.

Interestingly, the BOM mentions buildings by the Nephites.
However the story starts with them in the land south of the
"narrow neck of land" and has them gradually moving northward
until they finally have the ultimate battle at the Hill
Cumorah. The buildings in the early part of the story are not
described in any detail. However when they get to the
Hill-Cumorah part of the world (the part where Joseph Smith
lived) the descriptions get more detailed and match
descriptions in print of ancient mounds and fortifications in
the New York area.


> Edit: also, I take issue with their assertion that
> "what is produced by one man can always be
> duplicated by another." This is patently false--we
> are products of our time, upbringing, environment,
> heritage, genes, and a host of other factors.
> There was only one Bach. Just one Galileo. And,
> thankfully, one Joseph Smith.

One Mohammad, one L. Ron Hubbard . . .

> "Included in your narrations will be authentic
> modes of travel"--oh, like horseback?

"authentic modes of travel" like wooden submarines that turn
over and spend a year submerged in water with animals and
people aboard. Sounds "authentic" to me LOL

> Edit again: In fact, here's my own rebuttal
> challenge--compose an oratorio in just over three
> weeks, for chorus, soloists and orchestra, with a
> libretto not in your native language. It must
> become one of the most-loved and most-performed
> choral works in the history of Western
> civilization.
>
> Impossible? Handel did it, so obviously anyone
> can.

Your oratorio must be given continuous performances, year after
year, for nearly three centuries (only Handel's "The Messiah"
qualifies).

This is a ridiculous argument and skirting of the real issue at hand. Nipley cannot come up with one substantial anthropological or archeological fact to back up ole Joey's fictional, boring book so he comes up with this challenge of writing your own book.


I'll bet some of the Q15 themselves have not made it through this book in its totality and really studied it. Rather, they earned their positions by honing their ability to jump as high as the cult told them to jump when they told them to jump.