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What's the Latest on Archaeology Evidence for BoM?


paulpatter

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Doc Petersen's very first point glosses over the D&C ("the Lord") specifically stating that the American Indians are in fact "Lamanites"; no qualifications, at, all.

Horses as "tapirs"? Give me a break! Israelites had been domesticating horses for centuries before Lehi's people emigrated.

"Smelt" or "molten", what's the difference? You can't melt unless you smelt.

That's enough of that.

Evidence for the BoM as literal history is very thin "on the ground", to say the least. Only by going looking for it, and using every possible snippet of empirical evidence to support the details as the BoM gives them (e.g. wheeled toys as evidence that the Lehites actually used wheels on vehicles/chariots), can an apologist put together "archeological evidence" for the BoM. And in my limited experience, the interpretation of said-evidence to support the BoM is never the best, simplest or least contradictory interpretation of it, i.e. it does not ever receive a consensus from non Mormon scholars, but rather flies in the face of accepted scientific interpretation of the evidence....

I guess in your self admitted "limited experience" you forgot to mention the Pre-Columbain Peruvian and Mexican Copper and Silver smelting. Oops! My link

Or is this your example of a the "best, simplest or least contradictory interpretation" from a non-LDS and prestigious source? Interesting.

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, "Where is the physical evidence of mining"? There is literally NONE whatsoever....

This is false. Kevin gave evidence for this.

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Doc Petersen's very first point glosses over the D&C ("the Lord") specifically stating that the American Indians are in fact "Lamanites"; no qualifications, at, all.

Horses as "tapirs"? Give me a break! Israelites had been domesticating horses for centuries before Lehi's people emigrated.

What do tapirs have to do with your bald, false, assertion that ""Where is the physical evidence of mining"? There is literally NONE whatsoever...."

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I think apologists and others should stop trying to find "evidence" for the Book of Mormon. Non-believers don't accept their research and believers don't need it.

While you're quite correct about how antis and other critics will not accept the evidence, it is also true that those in the middle need to know that the charges made by those critics are not irrefutably true.

The only means by which anyone is converted is through the power of the Holy Ghost. But if the potential convert doesn't ever ask the question, that power will not work in his life.

Lehi

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In an issue of the FARMS Review Daniel Peterson commented on the then recent discovery of "Several tons (tons!) of worked iron ores were very recently found at the Olmec site of San Lorenzo Tenochtitl�n, in southern Mexico.15"

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=9&num=1&id=248

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

Not only that, but researcher Rod L. Meldrum has found additional evidence of advanced metallurgy in Book of Mormon lands.

What Evidence is There for Book of Mormon Metallurgy?

The Book of Mormon mentions the use of gold, silver, copper, iron and steel. Is there any evidence of these metals among the remains of the ancient Hopewell Mound Builders in the Heartland of America? Intensive new research has revealed that non-Mormon secular scholars show the use of all of these metals by the Hopewell which was the highly advanced civilization that existed during the time frames of the Book of Mormon. You will see artifacts recovered from Hopewell burial mounds with these metals and much more.

What about steel swords mentioned in the Book of Mormon, is there any evidence for these in the Heartland of North America?

The evidence for Hopewell metallurgy is incredible, and right in the middle of Book of Mormon time frames.

And you can find out all about this, and more, for just $3 in a Webinar on Thursday (April 7).

There certainly appears to be much more evidence than critics might have imagined.

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Tailings, mounds of them, all over the place, are required to fit the BoM descriptions of Jaredite (pre Olmec, even) and Lehite metallurgy. That is what I mean by absolutely no evidence whatsoever. And Pre-Columbian is a non sequitur, when the evidence of metallurgy is all centuries after the BoM....

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How do you guys deal with this:

I was troubled to learn during several weeks of study that scientists outside of the sphere of Mormonism see absolutely no connection between ancient American Indian civilizations and the Middle East. The position the Smithsonian had taken was based on substantial volumes of scientific research. Essentially all non-Mormon scientists consider American Indians to be descended from Siberian ancestors who migrated to the Americas over 13-15,000 years ago across a Beringian land bridge. Nowhere was this evidence more starkly revealed than in the newly emerging field of human molecular genetics....

How could God permit all of his Latter-day prophets to teach this belief as if it was a fact when it clearly isn’t true? President Kimball was the prophet during my formative years. He spoke about tens of millions of Lamanites that inhabited the Americas and the islands of the Pacific. Millions of Native American and Polynesian members have patriarchal blessings declaring them to be descended from Manasseh, the tribe to which Lehi belonged. Consequently millions of Mormons believe they are descended from the Lamanites....

In the midst of his lengthy defenses of the Church, [scott] Woodward acknowledged that greater than 98% of American Indians came from Asia and that this conflicts with current thinking in the church regarding the whereabouts of the Lamanites today. [scott] Woodward confirmed that scientists at BYU had tested over 5000 American Indians from Peru and virtually all of their DNA lineages came from Asia as well. The ancestors of the three major civilizations in the Americas, the Aztecs, Maya and Incas, were essentially all derived from Asia....

...no American Indians have pre-Columbian Israelite DNA. The statement in the Introduction to the Book of Mormon was quietly changed by the church a few years ago and now says that the Lamanites “are among the ancestors of the American Indians”. LDS scholars who actually work in the field of human molecular genetics have now conceded that essentially all American Indians appear to be descended from Asian ancestors who migrated to the New World over 15,000 years ago and that Israelite DNA has not yet been found among their descendants.

http://www.exmormonscholarstestify.org/simon-southerton.html

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Tailings, mounds of them, all over the place, are required to fit the BoM descriptions of Jaredite (pre Olmec, even) and Lehite metallurgy. That is what I mean by absolutely no evidence whatsoever. And Pre-Columbian is a non sequitur, when the evidence of metallurgy is all centuries after the BoM....

Of course, change your original argument when evidence is presented.

CFR where the Book of Mormon states your claim?

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How do you guys deal with this:

Genetics isn't as simple as a DNA swab and there are numerous factors to consider. There is also a lot we don't know in regards to genetics and to make a definitive conclusion is way too early.

But it is not entirely true that there "has not been Israelite DNA found in Native Americans".

The Cherokee prove otherwise. My link

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Not only that, but researcher Rod L. Meldrum has found additional evidence of advanced metallurgy in Book of Mormon lands.

And you can find out all about this, and more, for just $3 in a Webinar on Thursday (April 7).

There certainly appears to be much more evidence than critics might have imagined.

If anybody goes or participates in the webinar I would be very interested in what they presented as "new."

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And let me be pre-emptive here since "refining" will be next on the list from those who automatically discount the evidence because it clearly doesn't fit their agenda.

Pre-columbian refining. My link

Just a glance at your purported evidence links shows that they all date after the BoM time period (certainly long after Nephi).

Is that right?

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I said: "Tailings, mounds of them, all over the place, are required to fit the BoM descriptions of Jaredite (pre Olmec, even) and Lehite metallurgy. That is what I mean by absolutely no evidence whatsoever. And Pre-Columbian is a non sequitur, when the evidence of metallurgy is all centuries after the BoM...."

Of course, change your original argument when evidence is presented.

CFR where the Book of Mormon states your claim?

I changed nothing. Evidence must be from the period, c. 2,000 BCE to c. 421 CE. "Pre-Columbian" is worthless unless it falls within the BoM period. As that is the first requirement, it didn't occur to me that anyone would argue for "evidence" far more recent as some kind of physical proof of the BoM details vis-a-vis metallurgy.

CFR, really? Just off the top of my head: Nephi (the First) making his tools from "ore". Then later, in America, he fashions "swords" for his people using "the sword of Laban" as the prototype. There is nothing in the text, anywhere, to suggest that Nephi resorted to some kind of degraded weapon, i.e. a macuahuitl because of lost metallurgy technology: that sort of exegesis is just apologetic grasping in the absence of ore tailings. Throughout the Nephite history references are made to iron, steel, copper, silver, gold, brass, "in great abundance".

There's this Jaredite reference:

and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper..” (Ether 10:23.) The pertinent part being "mighty heaps of earth", i.e. tailings. Only a small fraction of the total mass in ore refinement results in the metal sought; the vast bulk is "dross" and forms heaps when cast aside. (Look at the mine at Copperton, Utah, ferpetesakes!)

In my Web search for the "CFR" you requested, I came across this page on the subject of BoM metallurgy which I have not the time to read in depth just now. But what I have perused is apparently well researched and presented and very apropos to the subject of evidence of metallurgy in ancient America....

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I just noticed the Newark stone and batcreek are listed on the webinar, is he serious about using these as evidence?

Apparently.

J. Huston McCulloch makes a good case for them, but I guess any "professor of economics and finance" could do the same. He claims they (at least the batcreek stone) are at the Smithsonian, but I found no evidence of that.

What are you thoughts?

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I said: "Tailings, mounds of them, all over the place, are required to fit the BoM descriptions of Jaredite (pre Olmec, even) and Lehite metallurgy. That is what I mean by absolutely no evidence whatsoever. And Pre-Columbian is a non sequitur, when the evidence of metallurgy is all centuries after the BoM...."

I changed nothing. Evidence must be from the period, c. 2,000 BCE to c. 421 CE. "Pre-Columbian" is worthless unless it falls within the BoM period. As that is the first requirement, it didn't occur to me that anyone would argue for "evidence" far more recent as some kind of physical proof of the BoM details vis-a-vis metallurgy.

CFR, really? Just off the top of my head: Nephi (the First) making his tools from "ore". Then later, in America, he fashions "swords" for his people using "the sword of Laban" as the prototype. There is nothing in the text, anywhere, to suggest that Nephi resorted to some kind of degraded weapon, i.e. a macuahuitl because of lost metallurgy technology: that sort of exegesis is just apologetic grasping in the absence of ore tailings. Throughout the Nephite history references are made to iron, steel, copper, silver, gold, brass, "in great abundance".

There's this Jaredite reference:

and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper..” (Ether 10:23.) The pertinent part being "mighty heaps of earth", i.e. tailings. Only a small fraction of the total mass in ore refinement results in the metal sought; the vast bulk is "dross" and forms heaps when cast aside. (Look at the mine at Copperton, Utah, ferpetesakes!)

In my Web search for the "CFR" you requested, I came across this page on the subject of BoM metallurgy which I have not the time to read in depth just now. But what I have perused is apparently well researched and presented and very apropos to the subject of evidence of metallurgy in ancient America....

Hamblin has an excellent article about swords that is far from "apologetic grasping". What I find instead is that your "summary" of the apologetic position compared to what his article actually states are two very different things with the former being described in such a way as to make the latter look foolish. http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=66&chapid=734

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I said: "Tailings, mounds of them, all over the place, are required to fit the BoM descriptions of Jaredite (pre Olmec, even) and Lehite metallurgy. That is what I mean by absolutely no evidence whatsoever. And Pre-Columbian is a non sequitur, when the evidence of metallurgy is all centuries after the BoM...."

I changed nothing. Evidence must be from the period, c. 2,000 BCE to c. 421 CE. "Pre-Columbian" is worthless unless it falls within the BoM period. As that is the first requirement, it didn't occur to me that anyone would argue for "evidence" far more recent as some kind of physical proof of the BoM details vis-a-vis metallurgy.

CFR, really? Just off the top of my head: Nephi (the First) making his tools from "ore". Then later, in America, he fashions "swords" for his people using "the sword of Laban" as the prototype. There is nothing in the text, anywhere, to suggest that Nephi resorted to some kind of degraded weapon, i.e. a macuahuitl because of lost metallurgy technology: that sort of exegesis is just apologetic grasping in the absence of ore tailings. Throughout the Nephite history references are made to iron, steel, copper, silver, gold, brass, "in great abundance".

There's this Jaredite reference:

and they did dig it out of the earth; wherefore they did cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of copper..” (Ether 10:23.) The pertinent part being "mighty heaps of earth", i.e. tailings. Only a small fraction of the total mass in ore refinement results in the metal sought; the vast bulk is "dross" and forms heaps when cast aside. (Look at the mine at Copperton, Utah, ferpetesakes!)

In my Web search for the "CFR" you requested, I came across this page on the subject of BoM metallurgy which I have not the time to read in depth just now. But what I have perused is apparently well researched and presented and very apropos to the subject of evidence of metallurgy in ancient America....

Are you just messing with me?

"Tailings, mounds of them, all over the place" does not = "mighty heaps of earth" or Nephi making one sword. This is a classic example of the "normal way of dealing with the Book of Mormon 'scientifically' has been first to attribute to the Book of Mormon something it did not say, and then refute the claim by scientific claims that have not been proven".

The link you provided is as good as wikipedia, try finding the time to read it in depth and you will see the bias oozing out.

And who made this so called "requirements"? In addition, you started off with "mining" and was shown evidence in the now "required" timeline, yet you just ignored it and went to another argument. So I am just going to assume you are just messing with me.

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While you're quite correct about how antis and other critics will not accept the evidence, it is also true that those in the middle need to know that the charges made by those critics are not irrefutably true.

The only means by which anyone is converted is through the power of the Holy Ghost. But if the potential convert doesn't ever ask the question, that power will not work in his life.

Lehi

I disagree. There are too many theories and unknown factors amongst the apologists for their findings to refute much of anything. Their arguments muddy the waters as much as they help. My personal opinion is that the Michael Ash series of articles of the Deseret News has raised as many questions as it has answered.

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Bucklers are small shields Swedish14thcentury.jpg

I would use a image like this;

sorry my image didn't make it. Google Aztec warriors and you can see many holding small shields (bucklers). Mark Wright has a very good picture of a line of warriors all holding bucklers (I think from the Florentine Codice)

Seems like a good start on your web site. Although many of these postdate the Book of Mormon, it does show that they had them precolumbian.

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Those I saw (which, admittedly, was not every link on your site).

I asked in case I missed something. Are any of your smelting links from the proper time period?

As in the Book of Mormon timeline? No.

They are pre-Columian. Which I know you will disagree with, but it isn't far fetched to believe the technology was also used hundreds of years earlier.

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