Quote:
Originally Posted by Tex
This is most likely what I saw in the Israeli Museum. Explain to me why an expanded version of this idea couldn't be applied to Nephi.
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It
can be applied to Nephi, of course, but it all depends on what someone is looking to "prove."
If someone is looking to refute a specific argument, such as "ancient peoples never wrote on metal, let alone gold," then you've got something to work with. You can prove that it was physically possible to write on gold plates 2400 years ago.
But correlation is not causality (or something like that, so the statisticians say). There's no connection with Lehi et al. in content, time, or place - and even the purpose of the text is only loosely connected.
I suppose someone could make an argument that the existence of ancient documents on metal plates makes Joseph Smith's story more plausible, but I think the actual material the book was written on is a minor point of contention vis à vis other components of the story.
To me, it essentially proves nothing - but it doesn't disprove anything either. It's a red herring, other than the limited "physically possible" component I mentioned above.