http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865618775/Evidences-for-the-Book-of-Mormon-In-cover-of-darkness-and-the-turning-of-the-New-Year.html

Stunningly weak, that is.

Oh yeah! Silly me for thinking that in ancient Jerusalem they would have oil lamps and torches and stuff to help them see where they're going at night, and that wine stains are pretty distinguishable from being drenched in blood.

"upon closer inspection, we see that these details matter to the truthfulness of the story."

psst.... somebody tell Taylor Halverson he spelled truthiness wrong.

Sometimes a Ph.D. doesn't go very far, does it?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2015 02:40PM by Dave the Atheist.

After seeing so much stunning scholarship from the likes of Halvorsen and Daniel C. Peterson, I have to think a Ph.D. from BYU must be seen as a joke anywhere else.

WOW....I had to stop reading after
" If Laban’s clothes were later visible to Zoram, then perhaps if he did see any blood on the clothes he may have mistook it for spilled wine. More likely is that the darkness of night meant..."

Yeah I couldn't get very far.

What drives me crazy is things like "Perhaps if he did see blood then he must have mistook it. Or it was too dark..."
Let's pretend for a second that this story was real. The person writing the article has no flipping clue how dark it was, or if the blood (if there was any on the clothes) was mistaken for wine. But he puts it for as a valid argument. Like "This just makes sense."
But as we all know, the book is fake anyway. So dumb!

Why not bring up the fact that not only did God tell Nephi to kill someone, he was also told to lie and pretend to be Laban. If that isn't "lying for the lord" then I don't know what is.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2015 09:00AM by wanderinggeek.

How does that provide evidence for anything? In fact, the one statement their that can and has been thoroughly disproven is The BOM's relevance or relation is Near-eastern culture.

Why do they even bother trying? A much easier essay to write would be why a guy soaked in blood doesn't seem anything like a guy soaked in wine. I have experienced both unfortunately.

Cleared that up. I was going to ask.

"If Laban’s clothes were later visible to Zoram, then perhaps if he did see any blood on the clothes he may have mistook it for spilled wine"

To paraphrase, Jerusalem nights were dark without the artificial light to which we are accustomed in our day, so Zoram didn't see Laban's bloody clothes. Therefore, the Book of Mormon is true.

WTF?? It sounds like they're getting quite desperate.

That Nephi must have been a hell of an impersonator.

Not only can he look like Laban (height, stature, face, facial hair) but he can mimic Laban's voice so that even Laban's own servant can't recognize that Nephi is not Laban. Furthermore, Nephi is such a good impersonator that even Laman and Lemuel flee upon seeing him -- they can't even recognize their own brother!

How believable is this?

"How believable is this?"

Ummmm, not one bit.

Solomon Spaulding wasn't a very good writer anyway.

To ANALyze his poorly-written novel is laughable...

Harharharharhar!!!

So, the guy was so drunk that Nephi could take his clothes off and carefully fold them before he killed him; if the guy was so passed out why not grab the "family history" and get the hell out of there--Laban would never even know.

How sad is it that so many Mormon children have had coloring books with Nephi gazing heavenward--just before he lops off a guy's head...

Using the writer's logic, I could deduce that meaningful, subtle details are proof that a story really happened. Well, using that line of thinking, any work of fiction could be construed as being true!

I just read the "Letter to a CES director" for the first time yesterday. I've been ignorant.

Lots of greater, honest and genuine questions in the letter (as most here already know) than about Nephi's new clothes (criticism against the news article).

Nephi killed Laban then threatened to kill Zoram if he didn't join and go with. Later descendants of Zoram took umbridge to that. Nephites were far more ready and willing to adopt this murderous recruitment style as telling by the success of the robbers amongst them.

I no longer believe that the Book of Mormon is true after discovering the CES letter. But my personal opinion about the fall of Nephi's people before reading that letter hinged on this scene with Laban and then Zoram, in a karmic type pattern. This was after all, the first lethal enforcement of recruitment utilized by the eventual founder of the Nephites (Laman and Lemuel's recruitment didn't count), which practice would also be utilized by the bandits who got it from dissenting [Zoramites] as well as from "ancient date", as the story reads anyway. In the story, there would be no Nephite people were it not for this murderous scene. Murder was required and even commanded according to the telling. When later Nephite peoples took up murder for gain (after their first king Nephi) it was simply unsustainable (sounds obvious right, but Mormon 'Danites' are oblivious).

The servant Zoram's decision process was made under threat of death. Later dissenting Zoramites eventually embraced lethal recruitment measures in the form of the Gadianton robbers. Danite Mormons etc, followed suit to this day. The book does not appear to get [Mormons] closer to god but further away IMO.

EDIT: What good is an admission without a name? I am Archie S. Craig.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2015 12:00PM by rid.

I was thinking, too bad Nephi didn't have an invisibility cloak or poly-juice potion. As other have pointed out, if Laban was passed out drunk, why the need to kill him?

I hope Nephi also stabbed Laban's brain, otherwise, he'll come back as a flesh eating zombie.

dk Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> have pointed out, if Laban was passed out drunk,
> why the need to kill him?

Was this blood thirsty opening incident of supposed deity dictated murder in any of the original text(s)/ account(s) that Joe Smith plagiarized to create his POS BOM, or did Joe add in this incident on his own, as a personal favorite to get the (BS) story going, and due to his personal penchant for blood letting and being justified by God to do anything he wanted to?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ktfQ8b_-rs

Either lots of blood or lots of wine. They don't smell the same.

They strain at gnats and swallow whales. Textual evidence indeed. Let's start with something simple and unambiguously repeatable with today's technology: show me the evidence for those 60+ million lamanite descendants that SWK said are alive in the Americas and Polynesia.

This type of nonsense is indication of how ignorant, even an 'educated' Mormon can be!

Question, fellow exMos, how many of you have soaked your clothes, and/or seen someone else soak their clothes with so much wine, that it would be equivalent to the saturation of blood from a decapitation?

Silly



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2015 02:41PM by thewhyalumnus.

Exactly! I'd wager the author knows nothing about wine other than it's red.

"textual evidence" = circular reasoning

Nighttime was totally dark in the ancient world. They hadn't invented electricity or fire or the moon yet, you see.

You sold me, the church must be true.

Every LDS apologist out there would be on suicide watch.

The author of the article also leads Book of Mormon archeological vacation tours.

I'm thinking this is an advertisement for guided make believe trips. Maybe in the small print somewhere its says *paid advertisement*....

Maybe the essays and such are starting to affect his tour business?

"creeping-by-night story"...a Freudian slip if I've ever heard one.

If you can't see the clothes why change them?

That's it? What qualifies as scholarship in the lDS world is more mysterious than Reformed Egyptian. If they could just find one single coin from this supposed vast civilization.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2015 11:43PM by unabashed.