I'm going to take a page from Bezos and "disagree and upvote". I think the Book of Mormon (which I will hereafter abbreviate as BoM) is worth reading once, even if you are just curious about its contents. But I would not elevate it beyond elaborate fiction as its adherents do. I have been meeting with Mormons from our local ward for several months now, and these are my conclusions after long hours of research into both sides. (Disclaimer: I am a Christian and a staunch advocate of sola scriptura[0]. My opinions are biased.)
First, it is important to approach the BoM knowing that it has many problems. If it is divine truth and "the most correct book ever produced", as its author/"translator" Joseph Smith claimed, then its claims about history should be correct. After all, if the Bible says something about an ancient city like Jericho or Jerusalem, we expect to find archaeological evidence to support or refute this claim. When we apply this test to the BoM, we find that its recording of history has no support in archaeology. The MormonThink website (which claims to be objective but tends toward anti-Mormon positions) does a good job of summarizing these issues.[1] And archaeology is just one of the many irreconcilable problems. There are also the problems of geography (no one knows where the events described in the BoM actually took place), language (no evidence of "reformed Egyptian" has ever been found anywhere), and genetics (mitochondrial DNA shows no evidence for migrations of Semitic peoples to the Americas). Mormons defend these points with elaborate, seemingly plausible explanations, but as time goes on the lack of evidence becomes a louder and louder witness against the BoM.
Second, the BoM has issues with manuscript reliability. With the New Testament, we have approximately 5,800 manuscripts (varying in length) in the original Greek, and when you add in early translations into Coptic, Aramaic, Syriac, and other languages, we have around 25,000 such fragments. A small number of these fragments can be dated to within 50-150 years of the time of the original writing, which is incredible when compared to contemporary documents and does much to establish credibility. The large number of fragments is important for error correction: when textual variants occur (as they always do), you can usually examine multiple sources to determine what was in the original. For the BoM, on the other hand, we have no original manuscript, no "golden plates" inscribed with "reformed Egyptian". Only a few witnesses were supposedly allowed to see these plates, but whether they saw them with their physical eyes or saw them in a "vision" is up to your interpretation of their testimony. There is a very real possibility that these plates never existed or were merely a forged prop. Furthermore, if these plates did exist and there was only one copy, it would be extremely vulnerable to corruption. Without the source manuscript, we can never be certain that the official English translation (which has received at least 3,913 changes[2] since its original publication in 1830) is accurate. Joseph Smith's ability to translate anything by divine power is already in question because of his incorrect translations of Egyptian papyrus scrolls for the Book of Abraham.[3]
Third, and perhaps most importantly, most of what makes Mormons Mormon is, surprisingly, not found in the BoM. Despite being called "the fulness[sic] of the gospel", the BoM fails to talk (in detail or at all) about central Mormon doctrines such as temple ordinances, the celestial kingdom(s), baptism for the dead, and premortal existence. Most of these things are actually found in the later additions, particularly the Doctrine & Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. Certain of these newer doctrines actually conflict with the BoM. The BoM, for example, quite clearly supports trinitarian monotheism[4], a doctrine that has existed in Christianity since its inception and was formalized in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. Current Mormon doctrine denies this idea of the Trinity, and gives yet more elaborate explanations in an attempt to reconcile this doctrine with the BoM. This ends up creating more holes than it plugs, and reminds one of the attempts to reconcile the geocentric model of the solar system with observational data by simply adding more epicycles. By itself, the BoM makes few doctrinal claims that a typical Baptist or Methodist would take issue with. But after the doctrinal revisions of the 1830s and 1840s, many important members of the early Mormon church, including some of the witnesses to the golden plates, left to join other churches or start their own denominations.
If you do choose to read the BoM, do so with an open mind and with knowledge of the problems listed above and described in detail elsewhere. One certainly cannot deny that the Mormon church today is responsible for much social good, and that Mormons in general are kind, caring, and serving people with high moral standards. Like the Bible, the BoM has had a positive impact on the lives of many. Using this to claim proof of the BoM's divine origin is a logical stretch, but we fortunately live in an age where (in most places) such opinions can be held without fear of persecution.
As a mostly non-practicing, lifelong Mormon, I find most of your conclusions here reasonable. And I commend you for the open-mindedness required to look into a widely-maligned minority religion like Mormonism.
I would say, though, that the idea that more manuscripts necessarily implies a more reliable textual history is incorrect. The textual history of the Book of Mormon is incredibly simple, substantial parts of the original manuscript and the entirety of the printer's manuscript (a copy made of the original for purposes of printing it) both exist. For the New Testament there are no "autograph" manuscripts (original manuscripts) and the earliest manuscripts are at best a century after the originals. Reconstruction based on all of the numerous NT manuscripts really only serves to get you back to the point the the BoM text is already at, and not even quite there. See Royal Skousen's Book of Mormon Critical Text Project for more on this.
It took hundreds of years for trinitarianism to be adopted as a consensus, and prior to (and also after) the great creeds there was substantial disagreement about the nature of God. I wouldn't put too much stock in them as a doctrinal buttress. See "Voting About God" by Ramsey MacMullen.
Again, kudos for all your research into Mormonism, which I find to be a fascinating tradition, even if I now seriously question its truth claims.
Interesting approach! Coincidentally, I published an article [0] on this very topic last month. It uses sampling, so it's close to the approach mentioned in the Jamie Wong article you (and I) linked to, but with a path-tracing step capable of producing an SVG path definition. I'd be interested to see how the performance of these two methods stack up to each other for a given quality level.
I left my day job at the end of July to finally start working my way through a laundry list of ideas I've accumulated over the years. I had often toyed with the idea of side projects, but finding and sustaining the motivation to complete one just wasn't happening after a full day at the office. My current "self-employed" life may turn out to be unsustainable due to lack of income, but the jury's still out.
My current project is Move by Numbers [0], a sort of "Twitch plays chess" type of game with a comfortable pace, points, and levels. The idea of cooperative gaming has intrigued me recently, and this is my first foray into the space. Building it has been entertaining, but finding users and gathering feedback has been a struggle. I'm learning first-hand how difficult marketing is.
I also just published an article on tracing 2D metaball outlines [1], so if you enjoy visual explanations of algorithms, check it out.
Up next on my list is either a declarative charting language and cross-language interpreters for said language (data visualization is something I worked with a lot in my previous job), or a Japanese grammar textbook I've been dreaming about writing for several years now.
Greetings HN! OP here. This is a project I've been working on for about six weeks now. On the one hand it's an experiment to see whether a chess site not based on the usual one-on-one gameplay can garner any interest. On the other hand, it's an experiment in building a reasonably interactive game on the capital-W Web without resorting to JavaScript. (I've been on an anti-framework kick for a while now.) There's not a single script tag here, just the server and your browser having a friendly chat with HTML and CSS.
This is the first project I've ever released publicly, so even if it flops it's already a personal victory just to get something off my local disk and out in front of the world. I'd love to take your feedback and suggestions and to answer any questions you might have.
First, it is important to approach the BoM knowing that it has many problems. If it is divine truth and "the most correct book ever produced", as its author/"translator" Joseph Smith claimed, then its claims about history should be correct. After all, if the Bible says something about an ancient city like Jericho or Jerusalem, we expect to find archaeological evidence to support or refute this claim. When we apply this test to the BoM, we find that its recording of history has no support in archaeology. The MormonThink website (which claims to be objective but tends toward anti-Mormon positions) does a good job of summarizing these issues.[1] And archaeology is just one of the many irreconcilable problems. There are also the problems of geography (no one knows where the events described in the BoM actually took place), language (no evidence of "reformed Egyptian" has ever been found anywhere), and genetics (mitochondrial DNA shows no evidence for migrations of Semitic peoples to the Americas). Mormons defend these points with elaborate, seemingly plausible explanations, but as time goes on the lack of evidence becomes a louder and louder witness against the BoM.
Second, the BoM has issues with manuscript reliability. With the New Testament, we have approximately 5,800 manuscripts (varying in length) in the original Greek, and when you add in early translations into Coptic, Aramaic, Syriac, and other languages, we have around 25,000 such fragments. A small number of these fragments can be dated to within 50-150 years of the time of the original writing, which is incredible when compared to contemporary documents and does much to establish credibility. The large number of fragments is important for error correction: when textual variants occur (as they always do), you can usually examine multiple sources to determine what was in the original. For the BoM, on the other hand, we have no original manuscript, no "golden plates" inscribed with "reformed Egyptian". Only a few witnesses were supposedly allowed to see these plates, but whether they saw them with their physical eyes or saw them in a "vision" is up to your interpretation of their testimony. There is a very real possibility that these plates never existed or were merely a forged prop. Furthermore, if these plates did exist and there was only one copy, it would be extremely vulnerable to corruption. Without the source manuscript, we can never be certain that the official English translation (which has received at least 3,913 changes[2] since its original publication in 1830) is accurate. Joseph Smith's ability to translate anything by divine power is already in question because of his incorrect translations of Egyptian papyrus scrolls for the Book of Abraham.[3]
Third, and perhaps most importantly, most of what makes Mormons Mormon is, surprisingly, not found in the BoM. Despite being called "the fulness[sic] of the gospel", the BoM fails to talk (in detail or at all) about central Mormon doctrines such as temple ordinances, the celestial kingdom(s), baptism for the dead, and premortal existence. Most of these things are actually found in the later additions, particularly the Doctrine & Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. Certain of these newer doctrines actually conflict with the BoM. The BoM, for example, quite clearly supports trinitarian monotheism[4], a doctrine that has existed in Christianity since its inception and was formalized in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. Current Mormon doctrine denies this idea of the Trinity, and gives yet more elaborate explanations in an attempt to reconcile this doctrine with the BoM. This ends up creating more holes than it plugs, and reminds one of the attempts to reconcile the geocentric model of the solar system with observational data by simply adding more epicycles. By itself, the BoM makes few doctrinal claims that a typical Baptist or Methodist would take issue with. But after the doctrinal revisions of the 1830s and 1840s, many important members of the early Mormon church, including some of the witnesses to the golden plates, left to join other churches or start their own denominations.
If you do choose to read the BoM, do so with an open mind and with knowledge of the problems listed above and described in detail elsewhere. One certainly cannot deny that the Mormon church today is responsible for much social good, and that Mormons in general are kind, caring, and serving people with high moral standards. Like the Bible, the BoM has had a positive impact on the lives of many. Using this to claim proof of the BoM's divine origin is a logical stretch, but we fortunately live in an age where (in most places) such opinions can be held without fear of persecution.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_scriptura
[1] http://www.mormonthink.com/book-of-mormon-problems.htm#archa...
[2] http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/3913intro.htm
[3] http://www.mormonthink.com/book-of-abraham-issues.htm
[4] https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/31.21?lang=eng#p20