{"id":66081,"date":"2018-10-07T11:35:24","date_gmt":"2018-10-07T17:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=66081"},"modified":"2018-10-07T11:36:30","modified_gmt":"2018-10-07T17:36:30","slug":"a-note-from-a-wren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/10\/a-note-from-a-wren.html","title":{"rendered":"A note from a wren"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\"It's<\/a>
The Boston Massachusetts Temple \u00a0 \u00a0(LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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From one of my still-incomplete manuscripts:<\/p>\n

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An anonymous correspondent for the Buffalo Spectator<\/em>, recounting his alleged encounter with a Mormon missionary, a fellow-passenger in a stage coach, supplies a striking illustration of what many early nineteenth century skeptics expected<\/em> to find in the Book of Mormon:<\/span><\/p>\n

I stated that I had read the book of Mormon enough to find in [it] the terms, \u201cgunpowder, marriner\u2019s compass,\u201d and several others of recent origin, introduced into a silly story of the exploits of one \u201cNephi,\u201d who, it appears, was rather a conspicuous character in the affair, and the story related to events which were said to have transpired about the time of Cyrus, say seven or eight hundred years before Christ!\u00a0 There are also references to pistols and other fire arms; and, what caps the climax for absurdity, we find a literal quotation from Shakspeare, in a narration of an occurrence some six or seven hundred years before the Christian era.\u00a0 When I named this, the passengers burst into an involuntary laugh, and one which was something increased by the poor Mormon, who remarked, that he presumed the line to which I referred, was borrowed by Shakspeare himself from the book of Mormon!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This idea, I confess, had so much of the novel about it, that I could not help joining with them in the laugh; the poor Mormon came in last and joined most heartily, when it appeared so manifest, that both he and his scheme were perfectly alike in respect to substance\u2014nothing but wind\u2014that I gave it up.\u00a0 Indeed, I felt a degree of shame that I had gone out to hunt so small game, that I had bent my bow and filled my hand with arrows, and gone forth to war with a wren.<\/strong>[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

But there are some problems with this invaluable and deeply devastating account, which was regarded highly enough to be republished in the 5 May 1837 issue of the Christian Watchman<\/em>, edited in Boston.\u00a0 The \u201cdirect quotation\u201d from Shakespeare\u2014presumably 2 Nephi 1:14\u2014turns out to be a parallel sentiment, and a fairly obvious one at that, rather than a \u201cdirect quotation.\u201d\u00a0 And it is paralleled by passages from ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Rome.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Moreover, terms like gunpowder<\/em>, pistol<\/em>, mariner\u2019s compass<\/em>, and the like, simply do not appear in the text of the Book of Mormon.\u00a0 Nor are there any other references to \u201cfirearms.\u201d\u00a0 The author and his uncritical editors seem merely to have been so certain that such obvious anachronisms would occur in a yarn spun out by an ignorant backwoods farm boy that they couldn\u2019t be bothered actually to check.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> N.a., \u201cMormonism: Scene in a Stage Coach,\u201d Christian Watchman<\/em> 68\/18 (5 May 1837): 1.\u00a0 I am grateful to Matthew Roper for bringing this estimable piece of religious journalism to my attention.\u00a0 Incidentally, Cyrus II, the Persian emperor and founder of the Achaemenid dynasty, lived in the sixth century\u2014not the eighth or ninth\u2014dying in 530 B.C.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Nibley.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Posted from Park City, Utah<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0 \u00a0 From one of my still-incomplete manuscripts: \u00a0 An anonymous correspondent for the Buffalo Spectator, recounting his alleged encounter with a Mormon missionary, a fellow-passenger in a stage coach, supplies a striking illustration of what many early nineteenth century skeptics expected to find in the Book of Mormon: I stated that I had read […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA note from a wren<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    From one of my still-incomplete manuscripts:   An anonymous correspondent for the Buffalo Spectator, recounting his alleged encounter\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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