{"id":110747,"date":"2025-06-14T17:27:40","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T23:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=110747"},"modified":"2025-06-14T18:42:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T00:42:05","slug":"records-writing-and-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2025\/06\/records-writing-and-language.html","title":{"rendered":"“Records, Writing, and Language”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"David<\/a>
The replica of the Book of Mormon plates used in the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s \u201cWitnesses\u201d film project (still photograph by James Jordan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This new piece went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u201cInterpreting Interpreter<\/em>: (Non-)Anachronisms \u2013 Writing,\u201d<\/a> written by Kyler Rasmussen<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

This post is a summary of the article \u201cAnachronisms: Accidental Evidence in Book of Mormon Criticisms \u2014 Chapter 7: Records, Writing, and Language<\/a>\u201d by Matthew Roper in Volume 65 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship<\/em>. All of the Interpreting Interpreter<\/em> articles may be seen at https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/category\/summaries\/<\/a>. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter<\/em> series is available at https:\/interpreterfoundation.org\/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A video introduction to this Interpreter article is now available on all of our social media channels, including on YouTube at https:\/\/youtube.com\/shorts\/goEdwNmVEVw<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Takeaway:<\/strong> Roper continues his examination of claimed Book of Mormon anachronisms, looking at 19 items related to records, writing, and language presented in the text. He concludes that 58% of these purported anachronisms have received subsequent confirmation in the archaeological record, with 5 items that are yet to trend toward confirmation (New World evidence of metal plates, inscriptions of Book of Mormon names and texts, and Hebrew and Egyptian inscriptions).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\"Caracas,<\/a>
Incidentally, the socialist rulers of Venezuela didn\u2019t INHERIT poverty. They\u2019ve ACHIEVED it.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My wife and I first heard of Brent Ward when his parents were serving in Egypt as representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> and he was, or was about to become, the United States Attorney for Utah. \u00a0I might be mistaken, but I believe that he came through Cairo to visit his parents there. \u00a0Anyway, I noticed that he had written an article for the Deseret News<\/em> and, after having read it, decided to call attention to it here: \u00a0 \u201cOpinion: Will we stand idly by as a son is torn from his Utah family and deported to one of the world\u2019s most inhumane prisons? Illegal deportations can never in good conscience be brushed off as mere administrative errors or excusable violations of law. They are matters of life and death.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been deeply disheartened by a few of the responses to the article that I\u2019ve seen over at the Deseret News<\/em>. \u00a0They have reacted by saying that the government is simply enforcing the law, and that the Venezuelan family in question should have obeyed<\/em> the law. \u00a0I hope that I will receive no such comments in answer to my posting of Brent Ward\u2019s article here. \u00a0I know nothing of the case beyond what Brother Ward writes but, if his account of the matter is accurate, the family did obey the relevant law and in this case, the government is neither enforcing the law nor obeying it. \u00a0That\u2019s pretty much the basic point. \u00a0If anybody writes to me declaring that the government is merely applying the law and that Uriel David and his family are simply criminals, I will instantly know that that person didn\u2019t trouble himself or herself to read the article before disagreeing with it. \u00a0Which is, by the way, very bad form.<\/p>\n

Uriel David should not be forgotten.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"North<\/a>
Goose-stepping soldiers during a military parade in North Korea (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m not a particular fan of Kristi Noem, who is currently serving as the United States Secretary of Homeland Security. \u00a0That said, I think that the outrage over the forcible removal of Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) from a press conference that she was holding in Los Angeles is somewhat overblown.<\/p>\n

Obviously, tackling a United States Senator, forcing him to the ground, and placing him in handcuffs for merely asking a question would seem reminiscent of a fascist dictatorship. \u00a0And recent crazy suggestions that California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass ought to be arrested provide an appropriately suggestive background for such reminiscences. \u00a0But the actual situation doesn\u2019t appear to be so simple.<\/p>\n

Senator Padilla didn\u2019t merely ask a question in his turn. \u00a0He interrupted a press conference. \u00a0Rather aggressively. \u00a0And, although he did apparently identify himself as a member of the United States Senate, it\u2019s possible, even likely, that, in the chaos of the moment, that his self-identification wasn\u2019t heard by everybody. \u00a0Did he really lunge toward Secretary Noem? \u00a0Apparently not. \u00a0But, while it\u2019s pretty easy to reach that judgment on the basis of repeated careful viewings of multiple video recordings from various angles, arriving at a snap judgment on the matter within a split second is rather more difficult.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m willing to cut security personnel a little bit of slack \u2014 not an infinite amount, but some<\/em> \u2014 when they\u2019re trying to protect a cabinet secretary against somebody whom they don\u2019t recognize but who has just shown up rather suddenly and is making a disturbance. \u00a0And (let\u2019s be honest here), the controversy that has given rise to the protests and the unrest in Los Angeles mostly centers on federal treatment of Latin Americans and their resentment of what they see as mistreatment<\/em>, and here was a Latin American male coming in hot who probably seemed to be angry.<\/p>\n

I think that both sides need to apologize for what appears to me to have been an unfortunate but not wholly mysterious misunderstanding. \u00a0There are, I think, genuine grounds for concern about the centralization of power in the hands of the federal executive. \u00a0There are even legitimate reasons to be worried about elements of the execution of MAGA priorities that genuinely seem (not only to others, but to me) to come uncomfortably close, in appearance if not (thus far) quite so much in substance, to the fascism of the 1930s. \u00a0But the unfortunate recent incident involving Senator Alex Padilla doesn\u2019t appear to me to rank very high among those concerns.<\/p>\n

\"Emperor<\/a>
Napoleon on his Imperial Throne, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1806) \u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here, for reference now and in the future and for \u00a0those who may not be familiar with them, are the standard lyrics to \u201cGod Save the King.\u201d \u00a0They are sung to the same tune as \u201cMy Country, \u2018Tis of Thee\u201d:<\/p>\n

God save our gracious King!
\nLong live our noble King!
\nGod save the King!
\nSend him victorious,
\nHappy and glorious,
\nLong to reign over us,
\nGod save the King!<\/p>\n

Thy choicest gifts in store,
\nOn him be pleased to pour;
\nLong may he reign.
\nMay he defend our laws,
\nAnd ever give us cause,
\nTo sing with heart and voice,
\nGod save the King!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 This new piece went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u201cInterpreting Interpreter: (Non-)Anachronisms \u2013 Writing,\u201d written by Kyler Rasmussen: This post is a summary of the article \u201cAnachronisms: Accidental Evidence in Book of Mormon Criticisms \u2014 Chapter 7: Records, Writing, and Language\u201d by Matthew Roper in Volume 65 of Interpreter: A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":25283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38843,28547,56,38840,1615,38837],"class_list":["post-110747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alex-padilla","tag-anachronism","tag-book-of-mormon","tag-el-salvador","tag-plates","tag-uriel-david"],"yoast_head":"\n"Records, Writing, and Language"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  This new piece went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: "Interpreting Interpreter: (Non-)Anachronisms - 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