Hello

@darthpatricia @PetGorilla @MattWhitlock Because his wife left him, and he left the church because he blames the church for his wife leaving him. This isn't an assumption, he admitted it.

@PetGorilla @MattWhitlock You have the weirdest boner for Mormonism.

Valuable to note that virtually none of the "Mormon wives" are "Mormon" and only a few are even "wives."

@JohnnyTani3 Bitter exmo. So called it!

@willole My background is Catholic and LDS.

@JohnnyTani3 @SaturdaysWar @thethreefates2 @Manhattva Straight quotation is actually 6.8%. Also, name the scholar who said 30%. I'm curious.

@willole @SaturdaysWar @thethreefates2 @Manhattva Yes, depending on how one qualify it. Solid 10 to 15% straight lifted. The rest is scented structure, phraseology, linguistic style and king James style Chiasmus. I’m trying to be conservative here. Some scholars go to 30%.

Tough.

@JohnnyTani3 @SaturdaysWar @thethreefates2 @Manhattva Plenty of religous texts have been produced. The fact that you're willing to die on the hill that it isn't unprecedented fascinates me. It strikes me as exmo reddit. Am I wrong? If it isn't unprecedented, show me the precedent

Outside the walls of Mormonism, it’s invisible. I’m not trying to be mean. The Book of Mormon has no secular appeal. No actual market exists for it. Nobody’s buying it off the shelf. It’s not assigned in high schools. It doesn’t circulate as marvelous literature in colleges for style or pros. Pre-Columbian scholars don’t mention it. Outside of BYU, it doesn’t even register as a footnote in legitimate academic discourse when it comes to great literature . It is irrelevant outside Mormonism, completely, measurably irrelevant.

@JohnnyTani3 @SaturdaysWar @thethreefates2 @Manhattva wait, 10-25 percent? Which is it? That's a wide range. And Chiasmus patterns weren't identified until well after production. And no, it's not damning in the slightest. When you're quoting, you make it obvious you're quoting. You've produced a catch-22 and you know it.

The Book of Mormon contains 10 to 25 percent of material directly lifted word-for-word from the King James Bible. Beyond that, significant sections borrow KJV phraseology, cadence, and rhetorical structures, including chiasmus patterns that are distinctly King James English, not Hebrew originals. More damning: the Book of Mormon reproduces the errors present in the 1611 KJV translation. A genuinely ancient text translated independently wouldn’t inherit a specific English translation’s mistakes. The fingerprints aren’t divine inspiration, they’re Joseph Smith copying the only Bible available to him, errors and all.

@JohnnyTani3 @SaturdaysWar @thethreefates2 @Manhattva But if you would actually like to know more from us, not from our enemies, look here. fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Bible_…

The complexity claim is a religious assertion, not a literary one. Scholars who actually study 19th century American religious texts find the Book of Mormon entirely explicable. Roughly 25% is lifted directly from the King James Bible, verifiable word for word. The rest draws from the theological debates dominating frontier revivals, popular millennial narratives, and the cultural lore of Joseph Smith’s upstate New York. Joseph had multiple editors to assist in its production. The book did not come out a creative vacuum. The witness testimonies? Every major religious tradition has supernatural witness accounts. Catholics have Fatima. Muslims have the companions of Muhammad. Hindus have countless divine encounters. Witness testimony inside a belief community isn’t evidence, it’s expectation. The speed of production argument is the weakest of all. Gifted storytellers working from existing source material. That’s not miraculous. That’s competence.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ The premise of the timeline, asserted only by believer testimony. 🤷🏽‍♂️

@SaturdaysWar @thethreefates2 @Manhattva @JohnnyTani3 Ok, name the theory, or leave.

@willole @thethreefates2 @Manhattva @JohnnyTani3 I don't have a theory. I only have others theories that are I believe are plausible. Happy to leave though. Enjoy your day...

@SaturdaysWar @thethreefates2 @Manhattva @JohnnyTani3 Yet you still do. You are still here. Present your theory, or leave.

I just don't want to engage with you, I'm not sure why you are struggling to understand this. I don't know how Joseph wrote it and I don't really care. I have studied a few theories that I feel are plausible. Im not going to mention the ones I like because then you will just shovel a bunch of apologetic drivel that I have heard a 1000 times before. Even if there were no plausible theories it doesn't change the fact that there is nothing about his story that is impossible. Therefore there is nothing for me to defend. If you could prove to me that Josephs story was impossible then maybe we would have a starting point. But you cant. You can only show that what he did was impressive.

@RavnReborn @JohnnyTani3 It actually does. You said "sell the copyright and walk away". That actually proves the opposite. Since it is a US based church, location very much matters.

@willole @JohnnyTani3 Does the location matter? I guess we can debate if they would have walked away after that but no real way to know.

Category error. If the Book of Mormon were purely secular, no theology, no heaven and hell, it would be forgotten like tens of thousands of other books gathering dust in history. That’s just the baseline for ideas without institutional backing. But here’s what’s actually happening: secular philosophies that move, Marxism, liberalism, capitalism, those books fly off shelves. People buy them. They compete in the open market. They survive through persuasion, not institutional pressure. The Book of Mormon? It’s given away free and still doesn’t move without the religious framework attached; The fear of hell and the promise of heaven. Outside of theology, outside the promise of eternal consequence, nobody’s buying it. That’s not a weakness of the secular world. That’s data showing the Book of Mormon can’t compete as an idea. It only survives as a theology. Those are different categories entirely:

@SaturdaysWar @JohnnyTani3 @thethreefates2 @Manhattva No, it's that you have failed to provide an alternative theory that accounts for all the facts.

@willole @JohnnyTani3 @thethreefates2 @Manhattva Your strategy seems to be shoving the burden of proof onto others because you can't meet it yourself.

@JohnnyTani3 @SaturdaysWar @thethreefates2 @Manhattva Conveniently ignoring the complexities of the book itself, the speed of its production, witness testimonies of the production and the lack of precedence for it. Basically, you handwave off everything that makes the account extraordinary without explanation. You played yourself

@willole @SaturdaysWar @thethreefates2 @Manhattva 🤷🏽‍♂️. I’m available after 6:

@RavnReborn @JohnnyTani3 Lol that's not true. They attempted to sell the copyright IN CANADA. But I'm sure you knew that already.

@willole @JohnnyTani3 FIRST, Joseph and Martin tried to sell the copyright and walk away from it entirely. With Martin telling his wife to stop nagging him and perhaps he would make a little money at it.

@Bar_tolmi @thebluetruther @grok name the books that have deconstructed this

@thebluetruther Name the books.

"This prophet Smith, through his stone spectacles, wrote on the plates of Nephi, in his book of Mormon, every error and almost every truth discussed in New York for the last ten years. He decides all the great controversies - infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the question of freemasonry, republican government, and the rights of man. All these topics are repeatedly alluded to. How much more benevolent and intelligent this American Apostle, than were the holy twelve, and Paul to assist them!!! He prophesied of all these topics, and of the apostacy, and infallibly decided, by his authority, every question. How easy to prophecy of the past or of the present time!!" -Alexander Campbell, Delusions: An Analysis of the Book of Mormon (1832)

@SaturdaysWar @thethreefates2 @Manhattva @JohnnyTani3 "I've seen several theories that are plausible" "Ok, name them" "No"

@willole @thethreefates2 @Manhattva @JohnnyTani3 Not interested in your apologetics and special pleading. You have already shown enough of your hand for me to know we have different standards of logic. I don't see any reason to continue.

@JohnnyTani3 Actually it does. You have nothing but deflections. Remember the original challenge: find its secular equivalent.

Position stands unrefuted: The Book of Mormon has never flown off secular shelves, not in Joseph Smith’s time when he tried to sell the copyright in Canada, and not now. Without theological infrastructure and the promise of salvation, or fear of hell it’s a dead text. History confirms it.

Already answered. It’s a category error. The Book of Mormon has no secular market because it was never built for one. Nobody’s buying it. It’s handed out free at doorsteps backed by the promise of eternal salvation and / or damnation. Remove the theology and it joins the tens of thousands of forgotten 1800s texts nobody reads. The book is not flying off of secular shelves. That’s not deflection, that’s the answer:

@SaturdaysWar @thethreefates2 @Manhattva @JohnnyTani3 Name it and I'll debunk it

I have seen multiple naturalistic theories that are plausible. Every option in the story of the Book of Mormon creation is going to be unlikely sounding, it was an anomaly for sure and Joseph accomplished something very impressive no matter how it was created. But you are a playing a game of God of the gaps here.

@JohnnyTani3 And I say at first because it wasn't made free until after the migration to utah, and well after that.

@JohnnyTani3 False. It was not free when it was published. Martin Harris mortgaged his farm to fund the publication, so it was sold, not given away at first.