Status of Lamanites?

[MikeWaters]

I was watching one of the Voom channels (equator I think) and they had a special on the guyana highlands. Rugged beautiful country.

It reminded me that there is so much in that part of the world we are yet to discover.

Who knows.

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by All-American

Arguing about which translation is best is like arguing whether it's better to lose by 2 or by 9.

Not sure what you mean by that, but I'd prefer a translation based on the best source materials and written in clear language over one based on source materials that aren't as reliable and were derived from the Greek translated into Latin and then back into Greek, and then into now archaic English. At least for me the NRSV gives me a lot more insight than the KJV does. I've read the KJV so many times though that I know what it says as I'm reading the NRSV. Passages that made little sense to me before have opened up and passages that were fine in the KJV often are stronger and better in the NRSV. Just my opinion. The poetry of the KJV is alright if you're into that kind of thing. I was more into science, history and languages in school than English and Lit though.

[All-American]

Originally Posted by BlueK

Not sure what you mean by that, but I'd prefer a translation based on the best source materials and written in clear language over one based on source materials that aren't as reliable and were derived from the Greek translated into Latin and then back into Greek, and then into now archaic English. At least for me the NRSV gives me a lot more insight than the KJV does. I've read the KJV so many times though that I know what it says as I'm reading the NRSV. Passages that made little sense to me before have opened up and passages that were fine in the KJV often are stronger and better in the NRSV. Just my opinion. The poetry of the KJV is alright if you're into that kind of thing. I was more into science, history and languages in school than English and Lit though.

Well, losing by 2 is better than losing by 9. I don't dispute that.

I don't pretend to be a linguistics scholar or somebody reasonably qualified to authoritatively comment on the Greek or Hebrew. What brushes I have had with reading from the "original" languages (and even Latin, as a generation between the original and the current English) have taught me that reading the Bible in the very best English is like watching TV in black and white. It does not compare with reading the words that fell off of the pen of the first scribes (so far as we can determine, anyway).

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by All-American

Well, losing by 2 is better than losing by 9. I don't dispute that.

I don't pretend to be a linguistics scholar or somebody reasonably qualified to authoritatively comment on the Greek or Hebrew. What brushes I have had with reading from the "original" languages (and even Latin, as a generation between the original and the current English) have taught me that reading the Bible in the very best English is like watching TV in black and white. It does not compare with reading the words that fell off of the pen of the first scribes (so far as we can determine, anyway).

well, I won't argue that. I wish I could read it in Greek. I actually took Greek 101 way, way back in my freshman year and enjoyed it. Then came the mission and I had already forgotten everything by the time I got back.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

IMO, this is an extremely important finding:



http://farms.byu.edu/publications/dn...NA_Feb2006.php

This is like tooblue saying prove there's no missing link. "Here's a possible explanation why there is no semitic DNA in American aborigines." I'm sure the possiblities are endless. Who cares? Show me one reputable person who even cares about these studies anyway. As if they were the sine qua non of anything. FARMS counting ant turds.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

This is like tooblue saying prove there's no missing link. "Here's a possible explanation why there is no semitic DNA in American aborigines." I'm sure the possiblities are endless. Who cares? Show me one reputable person who even cares about these studies anyway. As if they were the sine qua non of anything. FARMS counting ant turds.

It doesn't prove anything, but it does give reason to doubt that mitochondrial DNA studies on Native American populations can be used to disprove anything either.

Who cares? As many times as YOU personally referred to the lack of archeological and DNA evidence tying anything Middle Eastern to the America, I thought this might be interesting. If you don't care, then maybe you'd better shut up in the future about someone providing you a "mustard seed".

[Sleeping in EQ]

I expect that changes to the Intro of the 1981 edition would be done with a conservative tone (sort of like the recently announced "non-change" of the honor code), but I do think it is quite possible that there could be such changes in a new edition (and we're due for a new edition).

Editions of the BoM between 1865 and the early 1920s had Orson Pratt's footnotes. Elder Pratt had a way of specifying the location of BoM cities that would be shocking to Mormons today.

[YOhio]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

Editions of the BoM between 1865 and the early 1920s had Orson Pratt's footnotes. Elder Pratt had a way of specifying the location of BoM cities that would be shocking to Mormons today.

Don't leave us hanging. I want the salacious details!

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by YOhio

Don't leave us hanging. I want the salacious details!

The Maxwell Institute has the footnotes being from 1879 until 1920. They're probably right.

Here's a bit on it from the Maxwell Institute (FARMS):

"The question of precisely where the events chronicled in the Book of Mormon took place arises naturally since to date neither the record itself nor the Lord through his prophets has revealed its New World setting in terms that permit conclusive linkages to modern-day locales. Historically, Latter-day Saint speculation on the subject has spawned several possible correlations between the geography of the Americas and the geographic clues discoverable in the Book of Mormon. Two such interpretations have predominated: the hemispheric model (with Book of Mormon lands encompassing North, Central, and South America) and the limited geography model (a restricted New World setting on the order of hundreds rather than thousands of miles).

The earliest and best-known proponent of the hemispheric model was Orson Pratt, who espoused it as early as 1832 and continued to teach it for decades. Throughout the nineteenth century, many Latter-day Saint writers followed Pratt’s model, and eventually his geographical ideas were incorporated into the footnotes of the 1879 edition of the Book of Mormon. The popularity of the hemispheric model notwithstanding, it simply is not clear whether it was the result of prophetic revelation or merely the outgrowth of the personal ideas and assumptions of the Prophet Joseph Smith and other brethren. For this reason, certain anecdotal statements attributed to Joseph Smith regarding Lehi’s landing in Chile and the identity of a deceased “white Lamanite” warrior (whose skeletal remains were found by members of Zion’s Camp in western Illinois) are problematic and not especially helpful in efforts to reconstruct an authoritative geography for the Book of Mormon.

Neither Book of Mormon prophecies nor Joseph Smith’s account of Moroni’s visit requires an all-inclusive hemispheric setting. Moreover, the diversity of nineteenth-century opinion, even among church leaders, on key aspects of the hemispheric model is striking, suggesting fluidity of thought in the absence of prophetic revelation that could settle the issue. In the 1840s, the publication of John L. Stephens’s Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan—a best-selling book with fabulous illustrations of ruins in Central America attesting a high level of civilization—brought a measure of unity to the ongoing discussion by turning attention to Mesoamerica as a plausible arena of Book of Mormon events. Yet there were inevitable points of disagreement on crucial details, such as the location of Lehi’s landing, the lands of Nephi and Zarahemla, and the narrow neck of land that connected two major blocks of territory. In the ensuing decades, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints influenced ongoing discussion of the geographic question by refusing to endorse any one interpretation, emphasizing the doctrinal teachings of the Book of Mormon, encouraging more thorough scripture study in order to better sort out geographic details, and removing Orson Pratt’s footnotes from the 1920 edition of the Book of Mormon. The church clearly had no authoritative stance on what was, and remains, an open issue."

Apparently Pratt's notes are consistent with the Hemisperic Model of BoM geography.

I find it interesting that Pratt's notes are in the BoM for decades until the Church decided that it "clearly had no authoritative stance on what was, and remains, an open issue." No doubt many Mormons took their presence in the BoM as at least fairly authoritative, sort of the way people have taken McConkie's chapter summaries for the 1981 edition. Pratt was edited and most probably McConkie will be too (eventually).

[pelagius]

Originally Posted by YOhio

Don't leave us hanging. I want the salacious details!

SIEQ gave some nice background, but here is what some of the footnotes actually say. This is from a Book of Mormon I own printed in 1908 which means it is an 1879 edition done by Orson Pratt. For example, On page 155 footnote g reads, “The land Nephi is supposed to have been near Ecuador, South America” and footnote h reads, “The land Zarahemla is supposed to have been north of the head waters of the Magdelena, its northern boundary being a few days’ journey south of the isthmus.”

I am not sure they are salacious, but they are hemispheric.