“A Critique of the Book of Mormon Article ‘Gasping for Breath Without a Head – The Story of Coriantumr and Shiz’ By Bill McKeever”
grego
(c) 2010
In this article trying to prove the Book of Mormon wrong (found at www.mrm.org/coriantumr-and-shiz ), Bill McKeever provides some research, references, and makes a few good points (kudos for doing much more than the average anti-Mormon article writer!). He does a good analysis of “smite” (and its forms) in the Book of Mormon.
McKeever writes: “Dr. Daniel C. Peterson, a colleague of Welch, offered what would seem to be a plausible suggestion. He wrote, “The most reliable way to determine what a given phrase means in the Book of Mormon, therefore, is to look at the Book of Mormon” (Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 5:73).” I agree with that statement, too. However, while using that as a guideline, it is never a rule that can’t be broken, especially in certain contexts. It is a guideline.
But McKeever misses on a few other points while chasing red herrings and straw-men (perhaps unintentionally).
Is “smote off” the best translation for Judges 5:26-27, or not? McKeever seems to put the Mormon apologists between a rock and a hard place in that discussion, but never answers the question himself—somewhat of a safe game to play, eh?
Is it possible that Jael smote off the head of the king? As in, beat the neck to pieces so that the head decapitated? I think so. I don’t think McKeever discusses that.
When Gary Hadfield et. al. (Mormon apologists) talk about an incomplete severing: “Moreover, linguistic analysis sustains the foregoing clinical analysis by confirming that the words smote off need not mean that Shiz’s head was completely severed by Coriantumr”—what does “not mean that shiz’s head was completely severed”? Does that mean that the head was still on? Or that Shiz was decapitated, but not at 100%? I think it means the latter.
Does the Book of Mormon have anything to say about that, either way?
Most importantly, McKeever seems to miss the big main point. See, whether Coriantumr smote off *all* of Shiz’s head or just most of it, the apologetics covers it either way. His article contains much about cutting off part of the head, and then there’s this, from http://mormonscholarstestify.org/841/m-gary-hadfield :
“Gary Hadfield writes: At the end of my thirty-three-year career as a medical school professor of neuropathology, I decided to attend one last scientific conference: the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in New Orleans, 2003. I had felt impressed to go at the last minute, though I had not submitted an abstract. Consider my wonder and surprise when I encountered a poster presentation, mounted by Canadian neuroscientists, which recounted the history of a French priest who had been guillotined some two centuries ago, but who got up and walked a few steps after losing his head (9). Just imagine the consternation and fear this produced in the spectators! This exotic case bolsters the account of Shiz, of coordinated muscular activity after decapitation, though the priest was obviously relying on spinal cord reflexes rather than brainstem control”.
On the other hand, regarding complete instantaneous (as one stroke would do) decapitation:
The website www.en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Anachronisms/Shiz_struggles_to_breathe says:
“This criticism has long been answered. In 1900, the Millennial Star described a case in which similar behavior was observed:
It is claimed that the rising on the hands after decapitation is an impossibility.
The following from a dispatch to the Liverpool Daily Post of February 1, 1900, on the occasion of the seizure of Spion Kop, in Natal, should effectually silence all criticism on that passage:
‘There was an extraordinary incident in Wednesday’s battle. One of the Lancaster men, while in the act of firing in a prone position, had his head taken clean off by a large shell. To the astonishment of his comrades, the headless body quietly rose, stood upright for a few seconds, and then fell.’”[3]
From http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/response/qa/bom_shiz.htm :
“One instance which we have noticed is referred to in the Popular Science Monthly, 1). 1 16 for June, 1892. The writer, Geo. L. Kilmer, says:
On the 17th if June, (1864?) in the charge of the Ninth Corps on the Confederate works east of Petersburg, a sargeant of the Fifty-Seventh Massachusetts leaped upon the parapet, and with his cap in his left hand and his musket in his right, stood cheering and gesturing with his arms to incite his comrades to come on. Suddenly a shell took off his head as completely as a knife could have done, but the tall form continued erect for some seconds, the arms still waving frantically but with ever-lessening sweep and power, until the forces of the body collapsed, when the headless trunk toppled over to the ground.
Again, Hawthorne relates that a sea captain once told him of an incident which was said to have occurred during the action between the Constitution and the Macedonia which was fought during the war of 1812, between Great Britain and the United States. The captain was, at tile time, powder-monkey aboard the Constitution, and saw a cannon shot come through the ship’s side. A seaman’s head was struck off, probably by a splinter, for it was done, he said, a.; clean as by a razor, without bruising the head or body. The unfortunate man, at the time of the Occurrence, was walking pretty briskly, and the captain affirmed that he kept walking onward at the same pace, with two jets of blood gushing from his headless trunk, till, after going about twenty feet without a head, he sank down at once with his legs under him.”
So, either way, the problem is adequately answered.
The most important part that McKeever leaves out of his article is this: is there any evidence, especially scientific, that disallows/ proves false the account of Shiz’s decapitation? I wonder why McKeever never touches that…?
And while McKeever gets into detail about how much of Shiz’s head got cut off—really, if someone cuts off 9/10 of someone’s head, does that count as “smiting off” their head? What about 3/4? 5/7? 3/5? Where is the point that you say, “Ok, stop, that’s not smiting off his head anymore”? McKeever doesn’t go there, and until he does, his points are pretty much a display of, at best, rearranging the chairs on the decks a little better—on the Titanic. He certainly needs much more to draw clearer conclusions that are more to his critical liking.
Here’s the article, which appears at Mormon Research Ministry’s website: www.mrm.org/coriantumr-and-shiz:
“Can a decapitated body lift itself up and gasp for breath? A story in the Book of Mormon seems to say so. The story is found in the Book of Ether and recounts a sword fight between a Jaredite king named Coriantumr (Ether 12:1) and Shiz, the brother of Lib (Ether 14:17)…
Ether 15:29 states that in the course of the battle, “Shiz had fainted with the loss of blood.” Taking advantage of the situation, Coriantumr took his sword and “smote off the head of Shiz.” But that isn’t the end. Verse 31 reports that “after he had smitten off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised upon (grego: this should be “up on”) his hands and fell; and after that he had struggled for breath, he died.” The question is, how can a man without a head raise himself and also struggle for breath?
Mormon apologists have offered many suggestions. In volume 3, page 556 of his book New Witnesses for God, LDS Seventy B.H. Roberts defended the notion that “a man with his head stricken off rising upon his hands” was not impossible. He then related a story told by a survivor from the charge at Balaclava. This soldier gives two incidences of men who were supposedly decapitated yet their bodies remained in the saddle. If this is possible, Roberts surmised that the story of Shiz must also be plausible.
Roberts isn’t the only one who has concluded that Shiz literally lost his head in this fight. Volume 2 of the Encyclopedia of Mormonism (JAREDITES) states, “An exhausted Coriantumr culminated his victory over Shiz by decapitating him. Near Eastern examples of decapitation of enemies are evident in early art and literature, as on the Narmer palette; and decapitation of captured kings is represented in ancient Mesoamerica.”
The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) has taken a different approach, one that is similar to that offered by George Reynolds and Janne M. Sjodahl in their Commentary on the Book of Mormon (6:201). They wrote, “May we not rather suppose that the fatal wound which he inflicted on his enemy was a ghastly gash in the head, or the neck, causing Shiz to struggle for breath, as stated? Moroni could properly say: “He smote his head off,” borrowing that expression from popular, colloquial language and using it in a figurative rather than strictly literal sense.”
In an article entitled The ‘Decapitation’ of Shiz (Insights, 11/94, p.2), FARMS’ writers Gary Hadfield and John Welch conclude that Coriantumr failed to cut the head of Shiz completely off. “Coriantumr was obviously too exhausted to do a clean job,” writes Dr. Hadfield. “He must have cut off Shiz’s head through the base of the skull, at the level of the midbrain, instead of through the cervical spine in the curvature of the neck.” Hadfield and Welch conclude that “fifty or sixty percent off would easily have been enough to get the job done, leaving Shiz to reflex and die.”
The writers attempt to explain the Book of Mormon phrase “smote off” by saying it doesn’t really mean to completely sever. In defense of this position, they refer to the biblical account of Jael and Sisera in Judges 5:26-27. In the King James Version this passage reads, “She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down; at her feet he bowed, there he fell down dead.”
The writers contend that the words smote off “need not refer to a total decapitation, for surely Jael did not cleanly chop off Sisera’s head using a hammer. Instead, the English words smote off here simply mean that Jael struck Sisera extremely hard…both Hebrew and Greek words translated as smote off mean ‘to hammer’ or ‘to strike down with a hammer or stamp,’ but not generally to smite off.” This explanation is odd since most Mormons pride themselves in believing the Bible “as far as it is translated correctly” (Article Eight, Articles of Faith). It is curious that the writers insist on defending the Ether passage by referring to the biblical book of Judges since they seem to already acknowledge that the passage in Judges could have been better translated. By doing so, they really haven’t vindicated Joseph Smith’s use of the phrase “smote off” at all. Instead they compel us to ask why they would use what they admit is an inferior translation to bolster their position. It is interesting that while other translations use the more common crushed, pierced, split, struck, or smashed, Joseph Smith copied the King James usage of “smote off” in his so-called Inspired Version.
Dr. Daniel C. Peterson, a colleague of Welch, offered what would seem to be a plausible suggestion. He wrote, “The most reliable way to determine what a given phrase means in the Book of Mormon, therefore, is to look at the Book of Mormon” (Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 5:73). The problem is, when we follow this guideline, we don’t see justification for the Hadfield/Welch explanation.
For instance, 1 Nephi 4:18 the Book of Mormon records how Nephi smote off the head of Laban. Dr. Hugh Nibley explained Laban’s demise by writing, “Laban was wearing armor, so the only chance of dispatching him quickly, painlessly, and safely was to cut off his head–the conventional treatment of criminals in the East, where beheading has always been by the sword, and where an executioner would be fined for failing to decapitate his victim at one clean stroke” (Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol.5, Part.1, Ch.5, p.101 – p.102, emphasis mine).
In Alma 17:37-38, Ammon was being attacked by men armed with clubs, and he “smote off their arms with his sword…he smote off as many of their arms as were lifted against him, and they were not a few.” FARMS’ researcher John Tvedtnes doesn’t deny that this also refers to a complete severing when he wrote, “There are other similarities as well. For example, just as King Mosiah’s son Ammon smote off the arms of a number of men who attacked him with clubs (Alma 17:27-39; 18:16), during the Trojan War King Menelaus cut off the arm of Hippolochus at the shoulder with a single sword-stroke” (Iliad 11.145-47). (FARMS, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Vol.4, Number 2, p.149.)
It could be that Mr. Tvedtnes is confusing Menelaus with King Agamemnon. Book 11 of Samuel Butler’s translation of the Iliad states that it was Agamemnon, not Menelaus, who “felled Pisander from his chariot to the earth, smiting him on the chest with his spear, so that he lay face uppermost upon the ground. Hippolochus fled, but him too did Agamemnon smite; he cut off his hands and his head-which he sent rolling in among the crowd as though it were a ball.” If this is the story to which Tvedtnes refers, it is a reference to a clean severing.
There is still one more Book of Mormon passage where the phrase smote off is used that leaves no doubt to a complete severing. Alma 44:13 reports the scalping of a Lamanite general named Zerahemnah. It reads, “And it came to pass that the soldier who stood by, who smote off the scalp of Zerahemnah, took up the scalp from off the ground by the hair, and laid it upon the point of his sword.” We know in this case it must mean a complete severing since the soldier had to pick the scalp up from off the ground.
In order to embrace this theory offered by Hadfield and Welch, are we to now assume that perhaps Nephi didn’t really cut off Laban’s head or that Ammon didn’t really cut off the arms of his attackers? Are we to also assume that perhaps Zerahemnah’s scalp was not cut completely off? To draw such a conclusion is to introduce an interpretation that ignores an accepted pattern for similar phrases in other portions of the Book of Mormon. In order to save Joseph Smith’s credibility, both Hadfield and Welch must inject a different interpretation for this one single verse. It is apparent that both Hadfield and Welch seem to be fully aware that a decapitated human has no ability to raise up nor gasp for breath. It is for this reason that they must offer what is certainly a strained excuse.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Book of Mormon Notes-- How deep can you dig? 
“Book of Mormon: Alma 15: Awkward News; If Only We Had Never Left; a Sad Tale” by grego
Tags: "Book of Mormon: Alma 15: Awkward News; If Only We Had Never Left; a Sad Tale", Ammonihah in the Book of Mormon, Book of Mormon, Book of Mormon commentary, grego, LDS, Mormon
“Book of Mormon: Alma 15: Awkward News; If Only We Had Never Left; a Sad Tale”
grego
(c) 2010
In Alma 15 we read of the men cast out of Ammonihah being told by Alma and Amulek of the fate of their wives and children:
Alma 15:1 And it came to pass that Alma and Amulek were commanded to depart out of that city; and they departed, and came out even into the land of Sidom; and behold, there they found all the people who had departed out of the land of Ammonihah, who had been cast out and stoned, because they believed in the words of Alma.
2 And they related unto them all that had happened unto their wives and children, and also concerning themselves, and of their power of deliverance.
I imagine that must have felt awkward: “We witnessed and survived our ordeal by the power of God, but your wives and children were murdered.” No doubt they recounted the discussion between Amulek and Alma:
10 And when Amulek saw the pains of the women and children who were consuming in the fire, he also was pained; and he said unto Alma: How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames.
11 But Alma said unto him: The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in glory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day.
12 Now Amulek said unto Alma: Behold, perhaps they will burn us also.
13 And Alma said: Be it according to the will of the Lord. But, behold, our work is not finished; therefore they burn us not.
Nevertheless, the men themselves had survived and been cast out and had survived. I wonder if their thoughts were turned in regret to their initial decision to live in Ammonihah, to sin, and then to stay in Ammonihah.
Alma 15:3 And also Zeezrom lay sick at Sidom, with a burning fever, which was caused by the great tribulations of his mind on account of his wickedness, for he supposed that Alma and Amulek were no more; and he supposed that they had been slain because of his iniquity. And this great sin, and his many other sins, did harrow up his mind until it did become exceedingly sore, having no deliverance; therefore he began to be scorched with a burning heat.
4 Now, when he heard that Alma and Amulek were in the land of Sidom, his heart began to take courage; and he sent a message immediately unto them, desiring them to come unto him.
5 And it came to pass that they went immediately, obeying the message which he had sent unto them; and they went in unto the house unto Zeezrom; and they found him upon his bed, sick, being very low with a burning fever; and his mind also was exceedingly sore because of his iniquities; and when he saw them he stretched forth his hand, and besought them that they would heal him.
6 And it came to pass that Alma said unto him, taking him by the hand: Believest thou in the power of Christ unto salvation?
7 And he answered and said: Yea, I believe all the words that thou hast taught.
8 And Alma said: If thou believest in the redemption of Christ thou canst be healed.
9 And he said: Yea, I believe according to thy words.
10 And then Alma cried unto the Lord, saying: O Lord our God, have mercy on this man, and heal him according to his faith which is in Christ.
11 And when Alma had said these words, Zeezrom leaped upon his feet, and began to walk; and this was done to the great astonishment of all the people; and the knowledge of this went forth throughout all the land of Sidom.
12 And Alma baptized Zeezrom unto the Lord; and he began from that time forth to preach unto the people.
Zeezrom didn’t know about the women and children being killed; he just thought Alma and Amulek had died. No doubt the deaths of all those people later weighed on him.
Later, Amulek no doubt mourned for his dead relatives; but not just because they had been murdered, but because they had likely died unrepentant:
Alma 15:15 But as to the people that were in the land of Ammonihah, they yet remained a hard-hearted and a stiffnecked people; and they repented not of their sins, ascribing all the power of Alma and Amulek to the devil; for they were of the profession of Nehor, and did not believe in the repentance of their sins.
16 And it came to pass that Alma and Amulek, Amulek having forsaken all his gold, and silver, and his precious things, which were in the land of Ammonihah, for the word of God, he being rejected by those who were once his friends and also by his father and his kindred;
18 Now as I said, Alma having seen all these things, therefore he took Amulek and came over to the land of Zarahemla, and took him to his own house, and did administer unto him in his tribulations, and strengthened him in the Lord.
It was a sad tale for everyone; the survivors somehow got on; but it was an eternally sad tale for the unrepentant.
Share this:
Like this: