Philological Society Puns

Hi there,

After 100 hours my Dark Keeper has finished his journey in Enderal. Upon my time spent with this game, numerous quests, dialogues and enviroments have resonated deeply within me. I enjoyed very much the setting's originality, it's very well executed mixture of motifs, myths and stories came together to make one of the best cRPG experiences I ever had. To be frank, there were times where my enthusiasm fired up as if I was playing a fully fledged TES game (if not more).

I heard many rumours before playing Enderal about the way this game critizes and puts into focus "religion" as a concept. But from my point of view, I felt quite an opposite: criticism isn't bad, and it largely leads to some better understandings of what a phenomena is or isn't - either via negation, either via countersignals. While gloomy at times, I think Enderal is one of the best attempts at discussing, representing and challenging religious topics in any games ever, period. It may be bleak and pessimistic, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have juice. Quite the contrary.

Outside of my Dark Keeper activities such as bashing inn doors, tomb raiding and soul-eating, I am an (IRL) academic researcher in Religious History, studying from a philological standpoint various texts and traditions. My specialization is on Coptic (Late Egyptian) sources, thus I am fairly aquianted with Gnosticism, Early Christianity and many strange cults that floated around the year 0.

From this point of view I have composed some scans about various moments and aspects of Enderal and of it's story/setting, so that people interested in "lore-picking" can reflect on the vast body of real-life historical references Enderal makes. As with TES, I believe that the analogy between complex fantasy lore and real-life lore enriches both sides of the story, increasing appreciation and inner learnings.

Reading notes:

A. Please do not take what is here as more than a personal, if somewhat "educated" speculation. The authors and developers of Enderal may have had motifs/intentions other that those reflected here; At times, they may have intentionally referenced some real-life concepts, otherwise not. I am not here to imply, just to reflect upon.

B. It goes without saying that all that is below is FULL OF SPOILERS. In this quest to valorize Enderal, we are going to spoil it a lot, (similar to how [Tealor tried to save the world by assuring it's almost destruction](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/

I've read the BOM a couple dozen times over the years. One of the early, non-spiritual evidences to me of the BOM was the presence of very distinct authorial voices in the text. I know I'm not the only one who has noticed this. Many studies have been done on the topic.

But as I have read the various studies over the years, and have watched the critical position evolve, I've begun to get the sense of a consensus emerging among non-believers and believers alike. Namely, that, yes, there are at least three (and possibly more) distinct linguistic voices in the BOM.

For believers, this is textual evidence that supports Joseph's claims about the BOM. For non-believers, this pricks a desire for a natural explanation.

Givens published about this in the Oxford Press (sorry you have buy the book). But here's an interesting summary, offering a non-believing explanation (contrary to the historical record, but non-believing nonetheless)

https://www.churchistrue.com/blog/book-of-mormon-wordprint-studies-2/

I'm curious. Take a gander; the blog link is very interesting and an easy read.

Do you agree that the BOM contains multiple, distinct voices requiring a natural explanation? Or not?

PS: This wouldn't be the first time a similar sort of concession was made. Dan Vogel seems to have conceded that Joseph had a set of plates and has offered fabricated tin plates as a natural explanation; Fawn Brodie speculated that JS had an instinctive ability to hypnotize people like Mary Whitmer (who saw Moroni and the plates) and the BoM witnesses, as a way offering a natural explanation for their testimonies.

PSS: I've flaired this as scholarship, but I don't vouch for the scholarship of the blog author in this area. I get the sense that he's an epistemic trespasser in this area (but it doesn't seem like rocket science either). But the link provides a lot of good information and source materials. Givens in his book simply reports on the studies and doesn't claim to be an expert in the area. And I certainly don't claim any expertise myself other than what I offer in the first two sentences of this post.

EDIT--More background on Stylometry:

To the late comer, reading the comments to this thread, you might think wordprint studies were akin to alchemy or voodoo, invented by "apologists" at BYU for the purpose of proving the BOM.

Any consumer of this sub should understand that the loudes

Do your worst!

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

How will these society look like and what will there differences be ?

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

Buenosdillas

They’re on standbi

Pilot on me!!

Dad jokes are supposed to be jokes you can tell a kid and they will understand it and find it funny.

This sub is mostly just NSFW puns now.

If it needs a NSFW tag it's not a dad joke. There should just be a NSFW puns subreddit for that.

Edit* I'm not replying any longer and turning off notifications but to all those that say "no one cares", there sure are a lot of you arguing about it. Maybe I'm wrong but you people don't need to be rude about it. If you really don't care, don't comment.

When I got home, they were still there.

I won't be doing that today!

[Removed]

You take away their little brooms

This morning, my 4 year old daughter.

Daughter: I'm hungry

Me: nerves building, smile widening

Me: Hi hungry, I'm dad.

She had no idea what was going on but I finally did it.

Thank you all for listening.

There hasn't been a post all year!

Why

It’s pronounced “Noel.”

After all his first name is No-vac

What, then, is Chinese rap?

Edit:

Notable mentions from the comments:

• Spanish/Swedish/Swiss/Serbian hits

• French/Finnish art

• Country/Canadian rap

• Chinese/Country/Canadian rock

• Turkish/Tunisian/Taiwanese rap

There hasn't been a single post this year!

(Happy 2022 from New Zealand)

Nothing, it just waved

Bob

Him: I can explain everything!

(It's his best joke yet I think)

Just to clarify, 12345678

So that I could frequently say, "I am going to walk 5 miles now."

Edit: My most popular post on Reddit! 😀 Thank you for the awards.

Me grabbing a soda from my (what I thought was) half full 12pk...

Notices there's only 2;

Me: "Awe man... This is a damn bird box!" Her: "What the hell does that mean?!" Me: (Pulls both cans out & shows them to her) "It's only got Toucans."

I'm not ashamed to admit the look on her face was glorious.

I was just sitting there doing nothing.

What did 0 say to 8 ?

" Nice Belt "

So What did 3 say to 8 ?

" Hey, you two stop making out "