Thursday, April 18, 2013

Stories from My Mission: Who in the world is Tina Danner?

[Author's Note: Those who have been following my blog for a while may have noticed that I never use my own name on my blog. There really isn't any reason for it, I just like having an "online persona" for my blog. The concept of having a pen name really isn't that uncommon, and in some cases it helps writers from getting their readers mixed up with their other works. So I am going to do something I normally don't do and that is mention my real name, because it is integral to the story.]

One of the subtle things about learning another language is learning how to pronounce the different sounds. Even with Spanish were the alphabet is essentially the same there are subtle differences in how certain letters are pronounced. For example, the most obvious ones that every student who learns Spanish learns right off the bat is the difference in how you pronounce a /j/. In Spanish it is pronounced with like the English /h/. Another very subtle and less known example is the difference in how /d/ and /t/ are pronounced in Spanish.

English has a very hard /t/ sound, and in the most extreme instance it sounds like we are spitting. In Spanish there is no such thing. The /t/ in Spanish sounds almost exactly (or even in many situations, exactly) like the English /d/ sound. It is not as close as the Spanish /b/ and /v/ which are effectively indistinguishable (and of course leads to some of the most common spelling errors in Spanish, and coincidentally a major test of whether or not someone is a native Spanish speaker).

So when I first got to Argentina and I had to introduce myself I would typically say something like, "Hola, me llamo Elder Tanner" with a strong English /t/ (note: all male Mormon missionaries use the title "Elder", even when we are speaking Spanish, which, because it is an English word, causes confusion). In my first area when I first introduced myself to the Church members they would all pause and then ask, "What was your name?" Some of the members had extensive experience with American missionaries so English (or American) names were not that unusual for them. But for others my name was very unusual, and the fact that the /t/ in my name was followed by an /a/ made the /t/ that much more pronounced (my companion's name was Elder Tenny, and he never seemed to have my problem with the /t/, except he had to deal with the fact that everyone wanted to pronounce it "Tennis", because of the /y/ on the end, which in Argentina sounds like /sh/).

In English, if I introduce myself as "Elder Tanner" saying "Tanner" with the normal English /t/ no one notices, since a strong /t/ is common. But in Spanish, the /t/ sounds hard and harsh. Which meant that people would try to imitate the way I said my name and would say, "Elder Ch-anner". There was one member who thought it funny and every time he saw me for the next 6 months would say "Elder Channer" with emphasis on the /ch/ and each time would practically spit his teeth across the room, and then smile slyly like he had just made the best joke in the world. I hated it.

But that was not the only misunderstanding with my name that happened on my mission, which finally brings me to the subject mentioned in the title, how I found out that I am "related" to Tina Turner. Before my mission I had heard of Tina Turner, and I even knew that she sang songs, but if you had shown me a picture of her I would not have recognized her, nor would I have recognized any of her music. After my mission I think I have listened to a grand total of two of her songs. But apparently she was uber-famous in Argentina, as in everyone, even in the most remote hamlet in the middle of nowhere, had heard of her. Even though they had all heard of her, to them there was no difference between the names Turner and Tanner (hey, there's not a lot of difference in English), so I had only been on my mission about a day when I first got the question, "Are you related to Tina Tanner?", except they would say it, "Tina Danner".

The very first time I got the question I was confused, because I had never heard of someone named, "Tina Danner" or even "Tina Tanner". I think my companion Elder Tenny realized the mistake the first time and corrected them and said, "No it's Tina Turner". After that first time I think I was asked if I was related to "Tina Danner" about once a week for the first three months. After that it slowed to about once a month or so, and I typically was asked the same question without fail at least once a month, and sometimes more, for the rest of my mission.

After my first area I learned to say my name with a softer /t/, but apparently in my second area I wasn't saying it soft enough since I still had a few people call me "Elder Channer" or maybe "Elder Danner". By my third area I had fully transitioned over to introducing myself as "Elder Danner" with a very soft /t/ that to an English speaker would sound like a /d/, but to Spanish speakers they could tell the difference, even if the /t/ was practically a /d/. I got a lot less confusion over my name after that.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Too hard, even for God?

I recently started reading The Social Conquest of Earth by Edward O. Wilson. Close to the beginning of the book I came across this quote:
"By what force of evolutionary dynamics, then, did our lineage thread its way through the evolutionary maze? What in the environment and ancestral circumstance led the species through exactly the right sequence of genetic changes? 
The very religious will of course say, the hand of God. That would have been a highly improbable accomplishment even for a supernatural power. In order to bring the human condition into being, a divine Creator would have had to sprinkle an astronomical number of genetic mutations into the genome while engineering the physical and living environments over millions of years to keep the archaic prehumans on track. He might as well have done the same job with a row of random number generators. Natural selection, not design, was the force that threaded this needle." (pp. 50-51)
I read that and thought, "Wait, so his argument against the existence of God, or at least the creation is: Because it is too hard and involves an incredibly complex number of interactions across several billion years, and because I would consider that too hard for any being that I can conceive of, it is therefore too hard for God. Thus he could not have done it. It must have been random because otherwise it would have been too hard for any being that I can conceive of."

So in other words, whether or not God could have created humans through a long and involved process, is limited by whether or not a single man can conceive of it being possible? That seems rather, um... limiting to me. I glad that the universe, and God doesn't limit themselves to only do what a single scientist, philosopher or even group of scientists and philosophers think possible. If that were the case, then the universe would be an awfully boring place.

This quote was also rather interesting because I had just read an article about how one philosopher's questioning of materialism and of randomness being the determining force behind our existence got him branded a heretic by the scientific and philosophical community. I put that philosopher's book on my "to read" list. I'll get to it after I finish The Social Conquest of Earth.

The rest of the book so far has been pretty interesting. I like it, even if the author occasionally takes unwarranted swipes at religion every so often. I also really get the sense that he is arguing against a conception of God that I also find untenable, and if that is how it really is then I too would agree with him, but it's not so I don't.

PS: Also when he mentioned "an astronomical number of genetic mutations" I was reminded of this quote from Richard Feynman:

Monday, April 1, 2013

Comparison of texts from 3 Nephi 20:23-27 and Acts 3:22-26

Astute readers of the Book of Mormon and the Bible may have noticed that in the book of 3 Nephi there is a passage that is nearly identical to a passage in the book of Acts. The two passages are so similar that critics of the Book of Mormon use the passage in 3 Nephi as "proof" that Joseph Smith just plagiarized the Book of Mormon from the Bible (and a vast array of other books). But before we get into that let us consider the passages themselves. Below I have a side by side comparison of the two passages.

The text in the passages is marked in various ways. If there are differences in the passages (i.e. parts of the text that do no appear in the other passage) those are marked with either red or blue. Variations (i.e. parts of the text that are similar but use different words) are marked in either rose or purple. There are also two quotes of other parts of the Bible in both passages. Those have been marked with green, with a link to the source of the quote after each quote.

Differences in the text are marked in RED.
Variations in the text are marked in ROSE.
Quotes are highlighted in GREEN.

3 Nephi 20:23-26


Differences in the text are marked in BLUE.
Variations in the text are marked in PURPLE.
Quotes are highlighted in GREEN.

Acts 3:22-26




26 The Father having raised me up unto you first, and sent me to bless you in turning away every one of you from his iniquities; and this because ye are the children of the covenant— 26 Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.

The first thing to note is that the passage in 3 Nephi is not a word for word quote of the passage in Acts. There are some significant differences between the two passages. Let me start with the "God/the Father" variation. In both verse 25 and 26 there are variations where the text in 3 Nephi uses the term "the Father" when referring to God, while the text in Acts uses "God". This may seem like a minor thing but in context it makes sense. In 3 Nephi Jesus always refers to God as "the Father" or "my Father" and thus the difference between the two texts fits with the broader context, i.e. there is no incongruity in the use of "the Father" in 3 Nephi.

Next, in the broader context the inclusion of this passage makes sense, both in Acts and in 3 Nephi, even though their main meaning in their respective contexts are different. In Acts Peter is addressing the Jews and uses the passage to explain to them that they have rejected the prophet that Moses had instructed the Israelites to listen to "in all things". That part of the passage seems to be the emphasis of Peter's larger discourse. But in 3 Nephi the emphasis, despite the very similar language, is on the covenant that "the Father" made with their fathers. Thus the same passage with almost the exact same language has a very different meaning based on the context. In Acts the emphasis is on the prophet rejected, in 3 Nephi the emphasis is on the covenants made.

Finally we can take a look at the two quotes with in the two passages. The second quote, in verse 25, is a quote from Genesis 22:18. There is a slight difference between how the passage in Acts gives the quote from Genesis and the text in 3 Nephi follows the Acts rendering, but there is no substantial difference in the meaning.

The first quote in verse 23 (Acts 3:22-23) is the more interesting one. Even though the passage in 3 Nephi follows almost exactly the wording found in Acts (and not the wording found in Deuteronomy), there is one seemingly minor difference. The "destroyed" in Acts is changed to "cut off" in 3 Nephi. This seemingly minor change is actually very interesting. The King Jame Version of the Bible (the version that Joseph Smith had available to him) uses the word "destroyed", but if Joseph Smith were plagiarizing this passage then why did he change it to "cut off"? It is a minor change, with potentially big implications. The thing is in the versions of the Bible that Joseph Smith had available they all read "destroyed", yet the passage in 3 Nephi uses "cut off". Interestingly many years later when it became popular for scholars/theologians/churches to make their own translations of the Bible this passages frequently got translated as "cut off" (among other things) instead of "destroyed". In other words that one word, "destroyed", in the KJV was at the center of a very minor Bible translation controversy, but it was only years later that revised translations of the Bible changed it from "destroyed" to "cut off". Perhaps they were all taking the lead from Joseph Smith! (not really, but if you want to read more about this then follow this link.)

In the end, if a casual reader happened upon these passages they might think that the version in 3 Nephi was copied from Acts, but a closer reading reveals some rather interesting and important differences that work in context and do not mark the passage as obviously or ignorantly copied to flesh out the text.

Now we can get to the really interesting question. How did it happen that a very similar passage is found in both the New Testament and the Book of Mormon? One response to this is that the both Peter and Jesus were inspired to say very similar words when teaching their respective audiences. This is the response used by some defenders of the Book of Mormon, and this response is used for other passages as well. The general idea is that because God is the ultimate inspiration for the scriptures it should not be that hard for Him to inspire two people on opposite sides of the earth to say or write the exact same thing.

This all assumes that the passage found in Acts originates from Peter. There is no other record of that passage in the Old World before Peter used it in his defense before the Jews, but it is not much of a stretch to think that someone else made a habit of saying something similar before Peter ever used it in his defense to the Jews. It is entirely possible that before Peter ever said it Jesus taught it to his disciples and they in turn taught it to others. When Jesus commanded his disciples to go forth and preach the gospel to all the world, he didn't send his disciples out by saying, "Go tell people some stuff and to do good generally. Oh and make sure you mention me. And baptize, yes baptize people.... That's all." He sent them out with a specific message, in many cases the message was memorized. His disciples spent much of their time with Jesus learning his sayings and learning (memorizing) his major sermons.

There is no indication that what we now know as the four gospels were not written down until at least 30 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the mean time the teachings and saying of Jesus were passed around by oral tradition, meaning people would learn (memorize) the sayings and sermons and would repeat them back to congregations or anyone who bothered to listen. This means that much of what the disciples taught was not original material. In this context it would not be unusual for Peter, when he had to defend himself before the Jews, to reach into his memorized database of sayings and teachings from Jesus and use and adapt a particular saying that Jesus had first taught his disciples. Thus it could be that the passage that is recorded in Acts 3:22-26 was first taught by Jesus and then later was used by Peter.

With this in mind we can return to the passage that appears in 3 Nephi. In this context we have Jesus teaching the Nephites the same things he taught in Jerusalem, so it would make sense that he would include something that he taught to his disciples in Jerusalem, especially Peter. Just because we do not have a record of Jesus teaching it to his disciples does not mean that he did not originate the saying that was later attributed to Peter. This way of thinking about the passages in 3 Nephi and in Acts also shows that when Jesus arrived at Bountiful he continued using the same method of teaching that he had used in his mortal ministry, that of oral tradition. And he made sure that he taught the same things to the Nephites that he had taught to the Jews in Jerusalem. And thus he fulfilled the commandment of the Father.