“Why don't you
"pray" to know if some purported history has Henry V going into
battle at Agincourt in a Hummer is TRUE?? Are you so certain that new evidence
(for Hummers several centuries ago) won't come forth to change the thinking of
experts? How limited is THAT kind of thinking??
In other words, you haven't been paying attention: the BOM is FULL OF
ANACHRONISMS, just as bad as Henry riding in a Hummer.”[1]
This is fairly typical of the kind
of mockery that critics heap upon the Book
of Mormon. But I’ve been going
through storage that includes hundreds of books. So I recently read several
about the Hundred Years War. This was a conflict between England and France
that, naturally, lasted on and off for 100 years. It started in the 1337 with
Edward III trying to expand England’s holdings and independence in Southwestern
France. They quickly won several
outstanding victories including ones at Poitiers and Crecy. Agincourt was
another outstanding victory in 1415 that ensured the French would continue to
try and avenge their loss. Shakespeare’s
Henry V immortalized the conflict by embellishing items like the St. Crispin’s
Day speech. This includes the famous line, “We few, we happy few, we band of
brothers.” This period witnessed the rise and murder of Joan of Arc as well.
The conflict ended in 1453 when the more widespread use of cannons ousted the
English from their fortifications. This
was also the same year as the invention of the printing press and the fall of
Constantinople.
So naturally it sounds ridiculous
to think that Henry the V had hummers. At first I thought about it
facetiously. If one of the soldiers was
humming on a wagon, to the point that he was nicknamed "the hummer"
then it wouldn't be an anachronism. It would be somewhat weird, but not
laughably outrageous as the critics imply.
But then I remembered there was a prominent group in England called the
Lollards. Some think the word comes from the Dutch for mumbling or English for
singing softly, similar to the word lullaby. This described a group of people
that followed the heresies of John Wycliffe.
I looked a little deeper, and the Gesta,
a medieval chronicle and one of the earliest sources for the battle,
discussed Agincourt in the same space as the Lollards. So the idea of people who hum, or hummers, at
the battle of Agincourt might not invite derision.
I know this author meant the
vehicle, but the funny thing about language is that one word can have many
different variations and mean various things. If somebody is unfamiliar with
the language, unfamiliar with the history, and the text has no clarifying
passages, they might think that hummer meant the vehicle, which is something
they could laugh at and mock; but it could really mean another thing that
actually enhances our understanding of the text. Just like hummer could mean
the anachronistic vehicle, or it could be another term for a Lollard. A chariot
in the Book of Mormon could mean what
you see in Ben-Hur, but it could actually mean a carried sedan or litter
accompanied by a ceremonial war animal. The first invites derisions since
common knowledge assumes they didn’t have the wheel.[2]
But the second actually enhances our understanding of the text, and helps us
overcome faulty assumptions.
I should add that in order for
critics use of the hummer to work, they have to do what critics usually do-
insist upon one and only one meaning of a word. So hummer can only mean the
vehicle. But language doesn't work like that. If I walked into a British bar
and asked for a football game, they would not show RGIII and the Redskins. It
wouldn't be called a bar either, but it would be a pub. When asked for a
football game they would show what Americans would call soccer. So one word can
contain multiple meanings for people who speak the same language in the same
era. The same word can mean many things especially when working with two
different languages from different eras as translation texts are, and as the Book of Mormon purports to be.
The reader can identify the exact
meaning of terms if there are passages that provide context. Unfortunately,
terms like chariot in the Book of Mormon don't
have the clarifying context that this critic provided for hummer. He started
calling it the “internal combustion kind” of hummer. But when the word chariot
is used within the text, there are no discussions of wheels, no discussion of
how exactly it was used, what the animal associated with it was used for, what
it looked like and so forth. In fact, there are only several mentions of
chariot in the entire text outside of the Isaiah chapters. Alma 18: 9, 10 and
Alma 20:6 says that horses and chariots were made ready. 3 Nephi 3:22 said that the people took their
chariots to their appointed meeting place.
So critics insist that chariot has
to mean the Ben-Hur kind. Even though a reader who strips away the assumptions
gained from popular knowledge would not know what exactly was being described. When
a person studies the passages context a new picture emerges. Mesoamerican Kings
were often carried on a sedan. The word chariot actually means several
different words in Hebrew, including litter or sedan. Mesoamerican kings also
travelled to war with a ceremonial animal designated as a war token.[3] So stripping away our assumptions of what the
text should mean, it is just as likely that the term chariot refers to a
carried sedan used by elites for transportation, accompanied by a battle beast
or ceremonial war animal.[4] This enhances the text since 3 Nephi 3:22
actually described a massive preparation of the Nephites for battle.
In short, when a critic attacks the
Book of Mormon by using such
obvious anachronisms such as hummers at the Battle of Agincourt, or chariots in
Mesoamerica, a person should study the language, history, and any clarifying
passages to better understand the text. Because you might find out that Henry V
did take hummers to battle.
[1]
CARM Discussion Board. Father JD October 10th 2013, http://forums.carm.org/vbb/showthread.php?164084-Breaking-News-and-Established-History&p=4839148#post4839148
(Accessed, October 12th, 2013.)
[2]
John Sorenson, though, has discussed
extensive evidence for the wheel in pre Columbian Mesoamerica. John Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex: An Ancient American Book (Salt Lake City, Deseret
Book, 2013) 350-356.
[3]
See Lintel 2 of temple 1 at Tikal.
[4]
Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness:
Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols. (Salt
Lake City, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2007) 4:287-288.
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