Talk:Book of Mormon

"Reformed Egyptian" phrase from the text

There have been recent edits over whether the phrase "reformed Egyptian" is actually in the text of the Book of Mormon or whether it was coined by later commentators. I just want to briefly clarify that it does come from the text (Mormon 9:32 -- LDS edition), and has since the first edition, and is so cited at the very beginning of the reformed Egyptian article. ——Rich jj (talk) 17:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

That's good to know. The article should cite that reference so as to clear up this confusion so no other readers fall into it. --BenMcLean (talk) 19:45, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Restorationist

I was mostly incorrect in my edit summary when I said "there is no restorationist movement". It exists, and is actually called the Restoration Movement. Taivo is correct in saying that the LDS movement is not a part of the Restoration Movement, but like I said, the LDS movement (similar to the Jehovah's Witnesses) is still considered "restorationist" in the sense of Restorationism (Christian primitivism). ...comments? ~BFizz 16:55, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

"Restorationist?"

Regardless of the merits of the Restorationist/Not Restorationist discussion seen above and in the edit notes for the article, including this issue in our article on the Book of Mormon carries the article into an inappropriate level of detail.

Readers of this article must be presumed to be seeking information about the Book. If they want information about the nature of the LDS Movement, there is a link to an article on that topic.

Wanderer57 (talk) 05:27, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm OK with that for this article. But in general, if we call the LDS movement "Christian", it's usually wise to tag "restorationist" on there to indicate the significant departure from traditional Christianity. ...comments? ~BFizz 06:39, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

All inhabitants?

There's a dispute about the inclusion of "the" in this sentence of the lede:

The churches of the movement typically regard the Book of Mormon not only as scripture, but as a historical record of God's dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas...

May I draw to your attention to the verb "regard", which is in the present tense. We're talking about what churches say now, and they haven't really been definitive lately about whether it was the entirety of Amercia's inhabitants, though they generally suggest it wasn't. So it makes sense to omit "the" for this case. ...comments? ~BFizz 21:31, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. To change our wording from "with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas" to "with some ancient inhabitants of the Americas" or "with ancient inhabitants of the Americas" is in my opinion muddying the waters. One key point of discussion and criticism about the Book of Mormon over many years has been whether it is a historical record. This discussion continues.

If the churches inspired by the Book of Mormon have decided no longer to assert the claim that it is a historical record (because they no longer think it is, or because they believe so but are unable to offer proof) this change of stance is MAJOR NEWS to people interested in the Book. If this is the case, the "lede" section of the article needs to be forthright about the change, not just slip it under the radar by dropping or changing one word. If such is the case, it seems to me a more appropriate rewording would be:

"For over 120 years (approx.) the churches of the LDS movement typically regarded the Book of Mormon not only as scripture, but as a historical record of God's dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas. In recent years, the churches have moved to a less all-encompassing doctrine, that the Book is not a historical record, or alternatively that it is a historical record relating only to a small, unidentified group of ancient inhabitants of the new world."

(I offer this wording as a basis for further discussion.) Wanderer57 (talk) 17:45, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Wanderer57. Smith, the Book, and Church leadership right up into the modern era uniformly considered it to be the record of ALL the inhabitants (and I daresay there is a very large percentage of today's membership that still thinks that). If this is about the book, then that cannot be swept under the rug. --Taivo (talk) 21:09, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Reviewing the introduction, it clearly states that "[the Book of Mormon] is a record of God’s dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas". If the introduction says "the inhabitants", then I guess we're safe using the same phrase. As I was searching the article for information in the BoM intro, I noticed this source: Intro change in Book of Mormon spurs discussion. It is part of current ref #109, which is way too long, but that's another issue. The change was in 2006; if anyone is interested in documenting the church's apparently-changed stance about how widespread the BoM people were, this article will prove useful. ...comments? ~BFizz 00:45, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Book of Mormon Online Link

I removed the link again, because the link adding it had no explanation.

PLEASE explain changes in the Discussion page (aside from minor ones). This article and this subject is complicated enough without having editors pushing material in and out for unexplained reasons. Often the reasons for changes are more complex than can properly be discussed in edit summaries. Wanderer57 (talk) 19:23, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I added The Book of Mormon Online because this is a good link and it is a good resource for the Study of the Book of Mormon!79.209.51.63 (talk) 20:17, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Having apparently encouraged one editor to put their reason for adding a link on the Discussion page, it is only fair to ask editors who delete the link to join the discussion.

The term "linkspam" is jargon, not meaningful to many people, especially new editors. Wanderer57 (talk) 22:25, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

"Good resource for the Study of the Book of Mormon" is not a valid reason to be here. This article is not a promotion for the LDS faith, but a reference for the text of the Book of Mormon. The theological materials at the proposed link are not appropriate "study materials" for neutral readers of the BOM or neutral readers of this article. They are only for the faithful and not relevant to the discussion of the text, which this is. They are relevant for a discussion of the theology of the text, not the text itself. We have two text-only on-line editions of the BOM, which is absolutely appropriate--text-only. --Taivo (talk) 23:28, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Anonymous, please see Wikipedia policy concerning external links. ...comments? ~BFizz 04:12, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

"golden plate" edit and other changes

This is to explain the edit I just made:

- I removed "citation needed" beside "golden plates" in the lead section. In the context of the article, the clause "According to Smith's account, and also according to the book's narrative," is a sufficient citation. Anyone who doubts that the Book says "golden plates" can look in the Book.

It would be a different matter if the article asserted that as an objective fact the plates were actually gold. It doesn't, it says that according to the narrative in the Book, they were gold.

- I removed the bit about the number of copies that have been printed. It interrupted the point being made in the paragraph. An important and impressive statistic but I'm not sure it must be in the lead section.

- I removed the qualification "most of them" about the titles of the books. This gets into more detail than is essential in the lead section, IMO. Though it should have a place in the body of the article.

Changes really should be accompanied by explanatory notes, especially in an article as complex as this one. Wanderer57 (talk) 16:22, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Wait instead of actually citing the book, you're justifying removing the citation needed tag by saying people "can look in the book." That would seem to be what citations are for, to tell where the statement is made in the book? --BenMcLean (talk) 16:54, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I think this is relevant to your concern. Wikipedia:When to cite#When a source may not be needed Wanderer57 (talk) 17:48, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh thanks very much. Wikipedia has tons and tons of policy pages; way too many for the average person to read. I didn't know about that but I know now. --BenMcLean (talk) 17:53, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Too many citations for one phrase

A phrase in the Origin section, "Critics of the Book of Mormon claim the book was fabricated by Smith", has six citations after it. This amount of citations seems excessive and may be undue weight on a particular point of view. I thought it appropriate to come to the talk page first to recommend paring down the number of citations. 72Dino (talk) 04:18, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I received no response after a couple of days, so I trimmed some references. One sentence has ten references after it. I left three, which is more than sufficient to support the sentence. 72Dino (talk) 05:31, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation hat-notes

Previously, we had:

For other uses, see Book of Mormon (disambiguation).

to which was added also:

For the Broadway musical, see The Book of Mormon (musical).

which was removed because "The Book of Mormon disambiguation page has this musical included. Putting a link here also is unnecessary clutter" and then re-added because "It is not unnecessary clutter. The musical page actually has more hits than this page on a daily basis and so needs to be more directly link".

I agree with the reasoning to include it (or something like it), since this is the main article on the page (and I agree with that) but (at least for now) there's another one that readers are apparently often interested in finding. Our goal is to make it easy to find what one wants, and the single "other uses" link does not seem to do that--article is titled with the topic one wants, then start reading the article, say "huh?" then back up and find a link to DAB, etc. I think it's best to direct readers as soon as possible that they may actually not want to be here, but somewhere else instead. How about instead at a minimum:

This article is about the religious text. For other uses, see Book of Mormon (disambiguation).

Or maybe to help readers directly instead of sending them on a journey of discovery,

This article is about the religious text. For the Broadway musical, see The Book of Mormon (musical). For other uses, see Book of Mormon (disambiguation).

DMacks (talk) 19:46, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I definitely think a direct link to the Broadway musicals page is needed. If the page hadn't been attracting the views it had it wouldn't matter, but because the musicals page has more hits than this page I feel it is needed to guide people easier. Not to mention the show has recently been nominated for 14 Tony awards and demand in reading the page on the musical is likely to be very high after the ceremony. On May 3rd (the day of the Tony nominations) the page had a lot more views than normal. And the highest ever 2 days after the musical opened, hardly coincidence. I would therefore go for -

This article is about the religious text. For the Broadway musical, see The Book of Mormon (musical). For other uses, see Book of Mormon (disambiguation).

Mark E (talk) 19:56, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I can well believe that the Book of Mormon (musical) is currently getting more hits than the Book of Mormon, the book. I don't think this is a good reason to have an extra link. Clicking on the disambiguation page and then on the "musical" is hardly too exacting IMO.

I'll seek another opinion since Mark and I are split on this. Wanderer57 (talk) 21:44, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with Wanderer57 and think the sole link to Book of Mormon (disambiguation) is sufficient. If one to the musical is included, it will just be removed anyway in time once the musical ends its run. It's a kind of "recentism" bias, really. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 21:46, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Certainly. But for now, it's useful. When the musical ends and it's no longer an apparently highly likely target, I'd certainly support removing it again--WP is dynamic. DMacks (talk) 22:41, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I just don't think it's particularly needful, given the link to the disambiguation page. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:45, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

NOTE this was a two editor difference. A 3rd opinion was added while a note was being created at Wikipedia:3PO. Wanderer57 (talk) 21:57, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:3O. DMacks (talk) 22:39, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I vote to have both links as DMacks indicated above. To echo everyone else, the musical page is currently more popular. Also, please note that the musical is called The Book of Mormon. People accessing this article probably either search for it as "Book of Mormon" or just find it through the Mormon disambiguation page. Though I have no way of proving it, those searching with the "The" are probably looking for the musical, and therefore it should be more easily accessible. --warpedmirror (talk) 20:55, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

I personally think that it is not necessary to include the other page use on the main article, just list the disambiguation. If a reader wants to see another article on the topic, they simply can click that link and get their article, I see no need to list both.— JoeGazz  ▲  17:02, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

How about redirecting Book of Mormon to Book of Mormon (disambiguation)? That would give the reader the choice of which page they wanted to look for instead of automatically directing them to the religious text... Voyager640 (talk) 05:10, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

As it stands, if someone is taken to the article "Book of Mormon" when what they want is the musical, only one click is required to go to the article on the musical. The current format is commonly used in Wikipedia and it creates no significant problem. IMO it should be left alone. Wanderer57 (talk) 05:57, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

The religious text is by far the more common usage of the term in sources, so by guidelines the page is correct as it now stands. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 08:16, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

If people are really searching more often for the musical, it might make more sense to default to disambiguation. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC seems unclear on this; the guidelines on educational value and vital articles seem to be currently under discussion as well. Voyager640 (talk) 20:38, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Historical Authenticity Section Outdated

The section on historical authenticity is very one-sided and devoid of counterarguments and facts that directly disprove some claims. I'm speaking secondhand, and hope to edit this section with more formal citations. I'll be trying to find quality citations for the following:

• DNA evidence has been found linking modern pure-blood Native Americans and modern pure-blood Israelites, which is specific to tribes
• Archaeological evidence has been found supporting advanced Native American civilizations, more so than 16th-century explorers found, and other evidence(mostly focusing on the La Brea Tar Pits) showing that some of the animals mentioned in the Book of Mormon that were extinct on the American Continent when it was discovered by Europeans once existed.
• Semetic (Hebrew) phrases, which are often awkward when translated into English, exist in the Book of Mormon
• Semetic grammar structures exist as well, such as nouns preceding adjectives (river of water, altar of stones, instead of river or stone altar)
• The characters which Joseph Smith Jr. copied from the plates, which when verified by a scholar as "reformed Egyptian" (which scholar threw away the certificate when he was told of the plates) lead Oliver Cowdry to sell his property for the printing of the Book of Mormon
• Patterns of Native American and semetic poetic structure
• Hebrew rituals present in the Book of Mormon, such as oaths, and customs, such as casting of lots, and renting of clothing, covenant renwal speeches, and other traditions
• Joseph Smith himself being surprised on occasion by what he translated, such being unsure whether Jerusalem had walls (quite a risk to take in writing something you claim to be true).
• Length of time used to translate/write the Book of Mormon, which was 67 days, including the time for a 120 mile move, trips to Colesville (60 miles away) for supplies, church organization and proselyting, and writing 13 of the sections now included in the Latter-Day Saint text, "The Doctrine and Covenants" (85 days if you include the time to obtain the copyright).

I've made quite a shopping list here and might only include only the simplest points, but if anyone wanted to help me, that would be great! --Inthend9 (talk) 02:34, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Inthend9, your laundry list is pretty much crap based on POV-pushing pseudo-science. There is another article on Historicity of the Book of Mormon where these apologetic claims are more appropriately placed next to the actual science. (Some of them are already there.) You must be new to Wikipedia? Otherwise you would not be so gung ho about adding this stuff. This article isn't about argument and counterargument. It's an overview only. --Taivo (talk) 03:52, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Now I see that you're not new to Wikipedia, but you are new to this page. This page is very contentious and the text as it stands is the result of much long-running and careful discussion and consensus-building. It is best not to touch it without bringing your options here to the Talk Page first for consensus-building. If you just put it in the article, it will be reverted pretty quickly and you'll be told to bring it to the Talk page anyway. Might as well skip the aggravation of getting your editing reverted before bringing it here. --Taivo (talk) 03:56, 9 June 2011 (UTC)