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RE: Discussing Book of Mormon anachronisms

Comment a comment by Brandon U. Hansen (Brandon), published on 05 February 2010
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Who said anything about Mesoamerica? ;D

Seriously, though, my point was to emphasize the dearth of information on the subject. People read “chariot” and they picture Ben Hur – a weapon with wheels, pulled by horses, and (hopefully) with spikes on the axles for good close-ups.

That, of course, makes no sense with how the term is used in the BoM.

So, if using the word “chariot” is so misleading, why use it? If there weren’t wheels, why not say sled? If it wasn’t used as a weapon, why not say cart (or, if it wasn’t pulled by horses, hand cart)?

Well, I have good news and bad news: The bad – I don’t know the answer. I wish I had a nice, glossy, pull-out photo of the contraption (with a digitized date of 90 BC in the bottom corner and a note from an ancient scribe scribbled on the back saying “King Lamoni’s kickin’ chariot”) so I could determine if chariot is the best word to use or not, but I don’t. The good – It doesn’t really matter. There are many, many circumstances that could result in this situation that are completely consistent with my belief system.

So, it’s filed under “an interesting back and forth I’ll continue to follow,” but not under “proof the BoM is false” or “proof the BoM is true.”

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RE: Discussing Book of Mormon anachronisms by scottb :: NR7 :: Show

There are a lot of similar apologetics offered for the BoM’s anachronisms, but it always strikes me as kind of cheating a bit to go with “maybe that wasn’t the right word”. It seems you’re basically saying the book’s translation is poorly done.

After all, if “chariot” isn’t the right word there, and “elephant” wasn’t the right word in the Book of Ether, and “cattle” wasn’t quite the right term, and “goat” wasn’t quite the right term, and the “swine” were some other creature that only superficially resemble pigs, and “barley” and “wheat” were incorrectly used to indicate some other grains, “steel” wasn’t really steel, and “scimitar” may have been a curved wooden club, and all the other cases where this notion has been invoked are really so, then all of the content that can’t be checked otherwise must be presumed to have a similar level of problematic translation.

Posted 05 February 2010, Hide, Parent, Reply

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