Six onties of silver

[Zeezrom]

Had to share this comment inspired by the Reddit board. Joseph Smith invents a whole complicated monetary system invented by the Nephites just to convey that Zeezrom’s bribe to Amulek was a substantial sum of money. Then he never mentions their money again Lol.
Then Jesus comes in the story and he just quotes Roman laws and measuring systems from the Bible with no allowance for Nephites have different laws or measurements.

Then you have the whole “loose translation” apologetics where horses are just an English approximation of a tapir so that it would make sense to a modern day English audience. But no let’s leave Cureloms and Cumoms in the original source language with no explanation to make it sound exotic. Lol

The Book of Mormon is just such a plagiarized fustercluck.

[Red Ryder]

I never understood the currency journal. I thought why would they waste their time, energy, and gold plate space to “type” this all out? Seemed odd at the time.

Now I realize they were true prophets talking about the future Blockchain!

[jfro18]

Yep.

The currency is so stupid - it's mentioned briefly and then it's gone... then he uses it to replace farthing in the Sermon on the Mount with senine but then left the Aramaic word Raca and the Roman law of going a mile in there as if the Nephites would know those.

Yet a farm boy from the 19th century would ABSOLUTELY know farthing wouldn't make sense yet wouldn't understand enough to know that Raca would make no sense in the Americas and the Roman law or going a mile was... Roman.

[Zeezrom]

Yep.

The currency is so stupid - it's mentioned briefly and then it's gone... then he uses it to replace farthing in the Sermon on the Mount with senine but then left the Aramaic word Raca and the Roman law of going a mile in there as if the Nephites would know those.

Never made sense to me to use values of senines equal to 1,2,4, and 7. Has any culture ever used a base 7 mathematical system?

[Red Ryder]

Yep.

The currency is so stupid - it's mentioned briefly and then it's gone... then he uses it to replace farthing in the Sermon on the Mount with senine but then left the Aramaic word Raca and the Roman law of going a mile in there as if the Nephites would know those.

Never made sense to me to use values of senines equal to 1,2,4, and 7. Has any culture ever used a base 7 mathematical system?

I wonder if he was running code for the day of the week to keep his polygamous “relations” schedule written down?

Monday (1) and Sunday (7) were the Lawrence sisters?

Tuesday (2) and Thursday (4) were the partridge sisters?

Now I’m more curious why he used base 7?

Music theory and note arrangement is the other thing that comes to mind. A, B, C, D, E, F, G.

But I don’t believe he was musical in any sense. Wondering if his story telling schtik was rhythmic and how he spoke with his head in the hat?

Which brings me to the 7 types of story plots?

The 7 story archetypes are:

Overcoming the Monster
Rags to Riches
The Quest
Voyage and Return
Comedy
Tragedy
Rebirth

We can find most of these plot themes in the Book of Mormon.

[jfro18]

One possible reason for using 7 is that it's considered a powerful/magic number in the Bible.

https://www.learnreligions.com/number-7 ... ble-116363

I am a bit off here but I believe Matthew used it in the NT to try and tie it to the magic of 7 in the OT - they covered this on an Infants on Thrones podcast going over the Christmas stories.

[Corsair]

Let me risk validating Book of Mormon apologetics in one tiny way. The money system and payment of six Onties gives an idea of how much Zeezrom offered Alma to recant.

In Alma 11:3 judges get a senum of silver for one day of labor. In verses 11 through 13 we find that an onti equals 7 senums of silver or seven days wages. So when Zeezrom offers 6 onties to Alma this is 42 senums or nearly two months wages if you work 5 days per week. This was up to two months wages for a highly educated member of their society. It was no small amount.

I only tell you this so you can impress the TBMs in your life because Joseph Smith seems to have figured out an obscure way to sound clever with his money system. This provides only one internal consistency, but certainly does not give some external evidence.

[moksha]

Word problem

If Coriantumr were to hire Zaphod Beeblebrox to find and harness 10 tapirs to a steel chariot with the help of some local Cureloms and Cumoms, and they were paid on an hourly basis in silver onties, should Coriantumr divide the onties evenly between them, knowing that the Cureloms and Cumoms did not have the Priesthood?

[Just This Guy]

Word problem

If Coriantumr were to hire Zaphod Beeblebrox to find and harness 10 tapirs to a steel chariot with the help of some local Cureloms and Cumoms, and they were paid on an hourly basis in silver onties, should Coriantumr divide the onties evenly between them, knowing that the Cureloms and Cumoms did not have the Priesthood?

I could be up for the job, but first we need to establish the exchange rate between the onties and the Nigni*. Have you people call my people on Betelgeuse V. We can talk it over for lunch at Milliways.


* Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side.

[Zeezrom]

Let me risk validating Book of Mormon apologetics in one tiny way. The money system and payment of six Onties gives an idea of how much Zeezrom offered Alma to recant.

In Alma 11:3 judges get a senum of silver for one day of labor. In verses 11 through 13 we find that an onti equals 7 senums of silver or seven days wages. So when Zeezrom offers 6 onties to Alma this is 42 senums or nearly two months wages if you work 5 days per week. This was up to two months wages for a highly educated member of their society. It was no small amount.

I only tell you this so you can impress the TBMs in your life because Joseph Smith seems to have figured out an obscure way to sound clever with his money system. This provides only one internal consistency, but certainly does not give some external evidence.

You’re right in that there is some internal consistency and clever sounding things in the Book of Mormon. The one huge problem for TBMs that obviously arises is that Joseph went to great pains to detail a complex monetary system of coinage to flesh out the size of a bribe——yet all modern evidence shows not a single coin was used in Ancient America. Joseph would have been more believable having Amulek bribed with a herd of cattle or even cureloms!!! However in 1830 archaeology and carbon dating was just not a problem Joseph Smith was going to face and he knew it.

[Reuben]

Yep.

The currency is so stupid - it's mentioned briefly and then it's gone... then he uses it to replace farthing in the Sermon on the Mount with senine but then left the Aramaic word Raca and the Roman law of going a mile in there as if the Nephites would know those.

Never made sense to me to use values of senines equal to 1,2,4, and 7. Has any culture ever used a base 7 mathematical system?

How about wacky primes?

"The gold ones are Galleons. Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough." - Hagrid

I was going to say the only people who would invent a system like this are those who wouldn't have to use it... but before it was changed to decimal, the British system was totally wack.

https://coins.nd.edu/colcoin/colcoinint ... ions1.html

At least they seem to have used only 2, 3 and 5 as their base primes.

[Hagoth]

The plates had plenty of room to detail the entire monetary system, but the Nephites didn't record even "one hundredth" of the things Jesus said because there wasn't enough room on the plates. I guess they were a little fuzzy on priorities.

The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Nephite Coinage.

[Zeezrom]

The plates had plenty of room to detail the entire monetary system, but the Nephites didn't record even "one hundredth" of the things Jesus said because there wasn't enough room on the plates. I guess they were a little fuzzy on priorities.

The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Nephite Coinage.

Lol Nephite “Coinage” is another funny one for apologetics. I love how they responded to the fact that no ancient coins have EVER been unearthed in the Americas by saying they must have been referring to slabs of metal as coins. Kind of like horses as tapirs Hagoth??