More Comments from Readers – Part VIII

Here are more comments that we have received from readers of this website blog:
Comment #1: “What kind of writing would have been done by the Nephites and Lamanites that left on the ships that Hagoth built and headed North?” Mr. Nirom

Writing for the Nephites was always in Hebrew except for those taught reformed Egyptian, and that was used strictly on the sacred record keeping

Response: This is strictly a speculative answer since there is no information regarding this at all. However, the answer is in two parts: 1) If someone on those ships was one of the Nephite record keepers who had been taught Reformed Egyptian, then it is likely whatever record they created would have been in that language. 2) It is doubtful, though, that one of the very few who knew Reformed Egyptian would have been among those going north. If this is the case, then their language would have been Hebrew only. Having said that, it would seem their overall language would have been Hebrew in any event (as it had been altered by them over nearly 600 years), meaning what they spoke and wrote in their daily lives, as it was with those in the Land of Promise.
Comment #2: “Verses 17 and 18 (1 Nephi 17) would seem to be proof against Nephi having such knowledge. The murmurs and complaints of his brethren were based on his not having that knowledge and not believing that he had been instructed in such by the Lord” Michael R.
Response: Absolutely. In fact, it is part of the earlier article posted on “It’s a Matter of Attitude, Part II. If Nephi, like so many theorists want to claim, was skilled in building and the crafts, why would his brothers think it odd that Nephi thought he could build a ship?
    The issue was not that Nephi could build things or work wood, or know construction—but that he could be a ship that could traverse the major ocean that faced them on the shores of Irreantum (Sea of Arabia).
Comment #3: “What do you think of the new resource at http://bookofmormoncentral.org?” Adam.
Response: A brief summary inspection and reading shows a very strong connection with FairMormon, which is a new name for FARMS, etc., and states in their blog: "Most of the articles are from FARMS, the Maxwell Institute, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, BYU Studies, and BYU Religious Education" which is a very strong association with the Mesoamerican theory and belief system. Only time will tell if they follow that path or actually develop something new that is more closely aligned to the scriptural record.
Comment #2: “Just exactly who are the gentiles, and does that term include members of the LDS Church?” Donald W.

Hebrews talking to the gentiles

Response: Since we deal in the Book of Mormon here, let us answer that from Nephi’s writings. To him, when he uses “gentiles” he is referring to all non-Jews, i.e., any person who was not a citizen of the Kingdom of Judah with its capital at Jerusalem. That makes Columbus and others who discovered and colonized America were gentiles to Nephi, including us, i.e., members of the Church, Joseph Smith, and basically all Church leaders. For Nephi, the term ‘gentile” was a cultural designation, not a racial one. (1 Nephi 13:4; 15:13). This is also confirmed in latter-day revelation, where we are called “sons of Jacob” but are “identified with the Gentiles” (D&C 109:58, 60). Nephi foresaw that the gentiles would take the gospel to all of the house of Israel including the Lamanites and the Jews.
Comment #3: ”You indicate that Ziff may be Bizmuth. But Bizmuth is listed in the 1828 Webster dictionary. (You actually have to look under bismuth where it also shows the z as an alternate spelling. Bismuth: a metal of a yellowish or reddish white color, and a lamellar texture. It is somewhat harder than lead, and scarcely, if at all, malleable, being so brittle as to break easily under the hammer, and it is reducible to powder. Its internal face or fracture exhibits large shining plates, variously disposed. It melts at 476 degrees F. and may be fused in the flame of a candle. It is often found in a native state, crystallized in rhombs or octahedrons, or in the form of dendrites, or thin lamens investing the ores of other metals, particularly cobalt. Wouldn't this rule Bizmuth out as Ziff? Of the other metals you list on your blog tungsten is not in the 1828 dictionary as you mention. Also vanadium is not listed (Wikipedia indicates it was not named until 1830). Would either of those be better possibilities?” Dave K.

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, the Russian-borne chemist and inventor and the formulator and  father of the periodic table

Response: Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, the Russian chemist and inventor from Tobolsk in Siberia, who formulated the Periodic Law, created his own version of the periodic table of elements, and used it to correct the properties of some already discovered elements and also to predict the properties of eight elements yet to be discovered. When he published the first periodic table of the chemical elements in 1869 based on properties, which appeared with some regularity as he laid out the elements from lightest to heaviest (based upon the count of nucleons in the nucleus of one isotope, not an actual weight of an average sample with a natural collection of isotopes). When Mendeleev proposed his periodic table, he noted gaps in the table, and predicted that as-yet-unknown elements existed with properties appropriate to fill those gaps. This became evident when Carlo Perrier and Emilio Segré discovered technetium in 1937, well after Mendeleev’s lifetime, who had predicted an atomic mass of 100 for ekamanganese in 1871, while Germanium was isolated in 1886, and provided the best confirmation of the theory up to that time, due to its contrasting more clearly with its neighboring elements than the two previously confirmed predictions of Mendeleev do with theirs.
    While Bismuth was discovered in 1546, the name did not become used until the 1660s and is still of uncertain etymology, a name from obsolete German and obviously would not have been known to the Nephites by such a name. Miners gave it the name of tectum argenti (“silver being made,” i.e., silver still being formed within the Earth (William Nicholson (1818); Mary Elvira (1937); and Carmen Giunta referred to it as stannum glaciate (glacial tin or ice-tin), and was also called Spanish White in the Glossary of Archaic Chemical Terms. But it was not until 1753 that bismuth was shown to be distinctly different and separate from lead and tin. The Inca used this metal, along with the usual copper and tin, in a special bronze alloy for knives (Robert B Gordon, John W Rutledge, “Bismuth Bronze from Machu Picchu, Peru,” Science 223, 1984, pp585-586).
    The point is, what name would you have chosen to introduce this metal? Well known today, in 1829, it was not a household word, and it is doubtful that Joseph Smith, a farmer, ever would have heard of it. Virtually unseen in nature, much of its modern use is based on the fact that it expands upon freezing, not a household activity in 1829.
    For Joseph Smith to have used bismuth in 1829, it would sounded like someone using Yttrium, a “rare earth element,” today. Ziff seems as good a word as any to have used.
    One of the factors that caused our leaning toward bismuth for ziff, is that it was in common use as a decoration in Peru prior to the Inca and used down through Inca times, just as it is described in Mosiah.
Comment #5: “Lehi referred to himself as a visionary man, yet he doesn’t talk much about visions as he does about dreams. What’s the difference?” Marlene O.

Lehi, like many others, received instructions and commands in a dream (1 Nephi 2:2)

Response: The answer to this, evidently, depends upon who you ask. Your question of whether they were dreams or visions or one of the same, at least in Lehi’s case in the Book of Mormon, seems to be answered that they were one of the same. Lehi calls himself “a visionary man and that he saw in a vision…” (1 Nephi 5:4), Nephi also wrote of his father that “for he hath written many things which he saw in visions and in dreams” (1 Nephi 1:16). The warning the Lord issued to Lehi came in a dream (1 Nephi 2:1), but Nephi also referred to Lehi’s dreams as a vision (1 Nephi 8:2, 36).
    The real question might be why does the Lord use dreams to contact people—why not just contact them in a vision while they are wide awake? The answer might be in the fact that when people are awake they can be so busy in other things, or in the work or efforts of the day, that the spirit simply cannot get through to them—at least, perhaps, not in the way needed. When I was a young bishop, my mind was busily engaged all day long in both work on my business career, and in running a large Ward. It wasn’t until nighttime that I cleared my mind from my daily efforts and in the twilight of sleep found a communion beyond the mortal world as many busy people do.
    The angel Moroni appeared to the young Joseph Smith at night when he was attempting sleep. In the fervent efforts of preaching to the people of Jerusalem, running a farm, and whatever business Lehi was engaged in, that he was too occupied for the Spirit to gain his attention—it seems that at least on one occasion, when Lehi came home exhausted from one of these endeavors, he threw himself on his bed and at that moment the Spirit carried him away in a vision (1 Nephi 1:7-8). It is one of the problems teenagers and young adults have when they fill their every waking moment with music, texting and other constant activity that is not conducive to the Spirit’s presence.
    Elder James E. Faust (second counselor in the First Presidency)  in his First Presidency Message of June 2006, “Voice of the Spirit” said that “there are so many kinds of voices in the world that compete with the voice of the Spirit,” and the prophet Nephi described four of these voices as: 1. Getting gain; 2. Lacking power over the flesh; 3. Gaining popularity in the eyes of the world; and 4. Seeking the lusts of the flesh and the things of the world (1 Nephi 22:23).