As I was looking for something online on Book of Mormon names (perhaps for a future post), I stumbled upon a web-page critical of the church and a section in there about Book of Mormon names. It is introduced with a long, polemic sentence that I want to comment on
Hugh Nibley (among other LDS Apologists) has spent his life digging for any scrap of ancient evidence that remotely resembles something mentioned in the Book of Mormon, and then he uses the few forced scraps that he thinks by twisting can coincidentally match to come to the conclusion that “Yes indeed, the Book of Mormon must be of ancient origin” while he completely ignores the wealth of information that indicates that it can’t possibly be of ancient origin.
I am not going to comment too much on the loaded language, like "twisting", "forced scraps" and "remotely", but I would strongly argue that all the attested non-biblical Hebrew names and the numerous cases of wordplay used in relation to names in the Book of Mormon, among other things, are much more than mere scraps. A more sober way of describing this endeavor by Nibley and others is simply that they are looking into ancient Semitic languages for possible meanings and sources for Book of Mormon names.
This is why I find what happens next in the article amusingly ironic. The authors go on to look for any possible source in Joseph Smith's environment that may match or resemble Book of Mormon names. By doing so, they manage to "explain" the origin of Zarahemla, for example, by combining "Zara" (from Jesus' genealogy in Matthew 1:3) and "Imla" (an obscure name mentioned in 2 Chronicles 18:7), while "Onidah" in Alma 32 is supposedly taken from the Indian tribe, "Oneida", etc. Apparently, they fail completely to see any irony in this.
When discussing Alma, for instance, the web-page identifies "Almon" from Joshua 21:18 as the most likely influence. According to the authors, Almon is also a town in Quebec, even though I am unable to find it. The authors clearly believe, then, that Joseph Smith picked up this name from Joshua 21 and changed it a bit to form a character, Alma, in his mind, that was used when dictating the Book of Mormon text to his scribe. They obviously don't mention that Alma is a Semitic name, attested in non-Biblical sources unknown at Joseph Smith's time. After all, that is just another one of those remote, forced and twisted scraps that Hugh Nibley and other apologists are digging after. The fact that Joseph happened to get another authentic Hebrew name (Alma) when changing a different Hebrew name (Almon), was probably just a fortunate coincidence or a result of secret Hebrew studies!
I might be unfair using Alma as an example here. After all, for many of the Book of Mormon names, there are exact matches in other sources that Joseph Smith had access to. But there is really not much more than this one source: the Bible. The problem is that it has the exact same explanatory power, regardless of what you presume. If Joseph Smith made it all up, he pulled many of these names directly from the Bible. If these are authentic ancient Semitic names, it is expected that many of them match the Bible. The fact that we observe matching names between the Book of Mormon and the Bible is perfectly reasonable either way and does not favor one theory more than the other. At least not that fact alone. I would still argue that Joseph Smith finding and memorizing (because he had no notes and manuscript available during the dictation, according to witnesses) such obscure Old Testament names seems unlikely. But someone with a preconceived belief is typically mostly focused on how the observations support their conclusions. Which brings me to the next sentence from this web-page, just after the one I quoted in the beginning, and just as ironic as the first.
As a side note: the very interesting thing about apologists, whether they be Creation, Christian, or Mormon Apologist seems to make no difference, is they already have their conclusions formed BEFORE they look at the evidence. It seems to me that it should be the other way around. One should form conclusions after weighing the evidence rather than ignoring most of the evidence and searching until you can find some small piece of evidence to support your already drawn conclusions.
Do the author(s) want us to think that they started with no preconceived notion whatsoever about the truthfulness and authenticity of the Book of Mormon as an ancient text? That no bias was involved when searching for names in Joseph Smith's millieu rather than ancient Semitic sources? That they arrived at the conclusion that the Book of Mormon was false only after they had found those names?
The truth is, we all have our biases, and it is inevitable. I cannot erase my past experiences, observations and current knowledge and pretend that there is a 50/50 probability that the Book of Mormon is true/false. Nobody can. Even those who hear about it for the first time will have their initial thoughts shaped by their worldview. What seems to be a common misconception among critics is that their position is the rational and therefore unbiased one. In reality, there is no default or neutral position. They do exactly what they accuse believers of. In this case, we have two very illustrative, even comical, examples of that.
I think some critics would argue against my statement that there is no default position, because the scientific method suggests that the null hypothesis usually should be that something did not happen. So the critic would perhaps argue that the null hypothesis should be that the Book of Mormon is not ancient. But starting with that position, they should, according to the scientific method, look for evidence against it. Besides, I might just as well set up the equally valid null hypothesis that the Book of Mormon is not of modern origin, and demonstrate yet again that this is all about our biases.
So all that we really can do is to be aware of our biases. This Book of Mormon notes blog is, as stated in the subheading, written from a faithful perspective. When we post about something that highlights the improbability that Joseph Smith could have made it up or that the Book of Mormon authors had a worldview typical for ancient Hebrews, it is coming from that faithful perspective. We don't spend time looking for flaws or evidence to support an opposing theory, just like the authors of this critical web-page I stumbled upon are not looking into ancient Semitic languages to affirm Book of Mormon names.
It is perfectly fine for both the authors of the blog (Lord Wilmore and I) and the readers to acknowledge that this is coming from a faithful perspective. I have seen many blogs and websites critical of the church, but I have rarely seen that acknowledged or directly stated. On the contrary, I have seen several claim that they are considering all the facts objectively or being only concerned with truth. If anyone claims to be coming from a neutral, completely objective and unbiased perspective, they are either lying or ignorant of their own bias.
I labelled this a side note because this is not meant to be a response to church critics blog. It is not even meant to be a Book of Mormon evidence blog per se. We just enjoy going deep into the Book of Mormon and evidence sometimes presents itself as a consequence for those who are willing to consider the possibility of its authenticity. In the end, the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon is not determined by intellect, reason and science anyway. This is according to the Book of Mormon itself and so we are invited to evaluate it on its own premises.
Behold, great and marvelous are the of the Lord. How are the depths of the of him; and it is impossible that man should find out all his ways. And no man of his save it be revealed unto him; wherefore, brethren, despise not the of God. (Jacob 4:8)