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So There's No Archaeological Evidence For The Book Of Mormon?


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I was under the impression the Nephites wrote on metal plates... They seem to last relatively well.

This is called moving the goal post which is something you are prone to do. Let’s make it simple for you. We know these people had a written record based on the advanced nature of their civilizations; unfortunately no written record has been found. Research on the bible has been going on for centuries and there are two billion people with a vested interest and far more deep pockets willing to fund research. Also, the bible is in a dry desert.

Contract to the Book of Mormon which does not provide a specific location for digging, has very little funding, and is in a very dangerous part of the world. Digs from 5 years ago left unattended are overgrown and lost. We also have far more theft that has been going on for far longer than in the middle ease. For some reason, people have been digging up and reburying relics in Mesoamerica for hundreds of years which makes dating anything very difficult.

 

You are still not convinced? The University of Alexandria was and is considered to be a real place by all sides of the argument but it’s foundation was only recently discovered about 5 years ago. A discovery that literally thousands of scholars have been searching for for a very long time. I think we can count on one hand how many scholars are looking for evidence of Nephites and they have no funding to do it. Not even the big guys in Salt Lake want to open their pockets.

 

What about the non-lds scholars? They are trying to find things too, although not about the book of Mormon. They want to learn all about these people but they are stumped. So not only are we not finding much proof of the Book of Mormon, we are not finding much proof of anything.  Since you have an impossible standard for the Book of Mormon, are you going to apply this same standard to the secular anthropologists as well? Are the Olmecs just the fantasy of a bunch of archeology zealots? 

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This is called moving the goal post which is something you are prone to do. Let’s make it simple for you. We know these people had a written record based on the advanced nature of their civilizations; unfortunately no written record has been found. Research on the bible has been going on for centuries and there are two billion people with a vested interest and far more deep pockets willing to fund research. Also, the bible is in a dry desert.

Contract to the Book of Mormon which does not provide a specific location for digging, has very little funding, and is in a very dangerous part of the world. Digs from 5 years ago left unattended are overgrown and lost. We also have far more theft that has been going on for far longer than in the middle ease. For some reason, people have been digging up and reburying relics in Mesoamerica for hundreds of years which makes dating anything very difficult.

You are still not convinced? The University of Alexandria was and is considered to be a real place by all sides of the argument but it’s foundation was only recently discovered about 5 years ago. A discovery that literally thousands of scholars have been searching for for a very long time. I think we can count on one hand how many scholars are looking for evidence of Nephites and they have no funding to do it. Not even the big guys in Salt Lake want to open their pockets.

What about the non-lds scholars? They are trying to find things too, although not about the book of Mormon. They want to learn all about these people but they are stumped. So not only are we not finding much proof of the Book of Mormon, we are not finding much proof of anything. Since you have an impossible standard for the Book of Mormon, are you going to apply this same standard to the secular anthropologists as well? Are the Olmecs just the fantasy of a bunch of archeology zealots?

We're not just asking for evidence of the BoM per se, but of ancient Near Eastern language, culture, technologies, plants, and animals. I can't imagine non-LDS archeologists failing to find markers of an advanced Near Eastern civilization if they actually existed. Remember we're not talking about a small group from a primitive culture that quickly died off or was absorbed into a large advanced culture, but of three groups of people who gave birth to civilizations with hundreds of thousands, even millions of people.

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You are still not convinced? The University of Alexandria was and is considered to be a real place by all sides of the argument but it’s foundation was only recently discovered about 5 years ago. A discovery that literally thousands of scholars have been searching for for a very long time.

 

"Literally thousands of scholars" have been searching for "the University of Alexandria" for "a very long time"? Now you're just making stuff up.

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We're not just asking for evidence of the BoM per se, but of ancient Near Eastern language, culture, technologies, plants, and animals. I can't imagine non-LDS archeologists failing to find markers of an advanced Near Eastern civilization if they actually existed. Remember we're not talking about a small group from a primitive culture that quickly died off or was absorbed into a large advanced culture, but of three groups of people who gave birth to civilizations with hundreds of thousands, even millions of people.

If you are looking this this then you are either willfully ignorant or intentionally deceptive. There has never been an expectation that we would find a near eastern civilization in the Americas. I have no idea why you would think such a thing. They were a messoamerican civilization. It has been well established that the Nephites arrived and joined a very large pre-existing population. They did not, by any stretch of the imagination, give birth to a civilization. They took over what was already pre-existing. 

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"Literally thousands of scholars" have been searching for "the University of Alexandria" for "a very long time"? Now you're just making stuff up.

No. The search for the university and library of Alexandria has been sought after for many generations. Virtually every Egyptologist that digs has likely had it in his or her mind to be the one that finds it. Now we have it. The fact that you are ignorant of this amazing find is of no consequence to me. 

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I was under the impression the Nephites wrote on metal plates... They seem to last relatively well.

 In my opinion the Conquistadors melted them all down in to gold ingots for travel. They went overland to Portobelo, Panama where they were shipped to Europe.There are 2 forts in the bay there where everyone used to fight over the gold from the Spanish to the British and pirates too. The Spanish brought missionaries with them and they left no book untouched burning smashing and melting any pagan writings, they completely wiped out the history of the indigenous peoples to retrain them in Christianity. I'm surprised you don't know that, I learned it in 6th grade history class.

Edited by rodheadlee
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Maya sacred books (by Spanish Bishop of Yucatan)[edit]

July 12, 1562, Fray Diego de Landa, acting Bishop of Yucatan – then recently conquered by the Spanish – threw into the fires the sacred books of the Maya.[73] The number of destroyed books is greatly disputed. De Landa himself admitted to 27, other sources claim "99 times as many"[citation needed] – the later being disputed as an exaggeration motivated by anti-Spanish feeling, the so-called Black Legend. Only three Maya codices and a fragment of a fourth survive. Approximately 5,000 Maya cult images were also burned at the same time. The burning of books and images alike were part of de Landa's effort to eradicate the Maya "idol worship", which he considered "diabolical". As narrated by de Landa himself, he had gained access to the sacred books, transcribed on deerskin, by previously gaining the natives' trust and showing a considerable interest in their culture and language:[74][75] "We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they (the Maya) regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction."[76] De Landa was later recalled to Spain and accused of having acted illegally in Yucatan, though eventually found not guilty of these charges. Present-day apologists for de Landa assert that, while he had destroyed the Maya books, his own Relación de las cosas de Yucatán is a major source for the Mayan language and culture. Allen Wells calls his work an “ethnographic masterpiece”,[77] while William J. Folan, Laraine A. Fletcher and Ellen R. Kintz have written that Landa‘s account of Maya social organization and towns before conquest is a “gem.[78]

 

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No. The search for the university and library of Alexandria has been sought after for many generations. Virtually every Egyptologist that digs has likely had it in his or her mind to be the one that finds it. Now we have it.

 

CFR.

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Bernardino de Sahagún's manuscripts on Aztec culture (by Spanish authorities)[edit]

The 12-volume work known as the Florentine Codex, result of a decades-long meticulous research conducted by the Fransciscan Bernardino de Sahagún in Mexico, is among the most important sources on Aztec culture and society as they were before the Spanish conquest, and on the Nahuatl language. However, upon Sahagún's return to Europe in 1585, his original manuscripts – including the records of conversations and interviews with indigenous sources in TlatelolcoTexcoco, and Tenochtitlan, and likely to have included much primary material which did not get into the final codex – were confiscated by the Spanish authorities, disappeared irrevocably, and are assumed to have been destroyed. The Florentine Codex itself was for centuries afterwards only known in heavily censored versions.

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The Lamanites were destroying books too.

Codices of the peoples conquered by the Aztecs (by Itzcoatl)[edit]

According to the Madrid Codex, the fourth tlatoani Itzcoatl (ruling from 1427 (or 1428) to 1440) ordered the burning of all historical codices because it was "not wise that all the people should know the paintings".[65] Among other purposes, this allowed the Aztec state to develop a state-sanctioned history and mythos that venerated the Aztec godHuitzilopochtli.

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The Spanish brought missionaries with them and they left no book untouched burning smashing and melting any pagan writings, they completely wiped out the history of the indigenous peoples to retrain them in Christianity. I'm surprised you don't know that, I learned it in 6th grade history class.

 

Are there any accounts of the Spanish melting indigenous writings that were on metal plates? That was your claim.

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Are there any accounts of the Spanish melting indigenous writings that were on metal plates? That was your claim.

Yeah, you have to go down to Portobelo and talk to the locals. I'll just say it was my opinion. I spent a month there. You can simply google gold shipping through Potobelo to see how much gold came through. They melted everything down, gold and silver.

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The German “newspaper” BILD brings us the story of German Mathematician Joachim Rittstieg, who studied the Mayan Codices and thinks he found the location of some lost gold treasure. This treasure consists of 2156 golden tablets on which the Maya inscribed their laws. The tablets are located in the old capital of the Maya Empire – Atlan. The location is revealed on page 52 of the Dresden Codex. The town Atlan was located where is now the lake Izabal in eastern Guatemala. It was destroyed October 30th 666 BC during an earthquake.

 

 

https://tcmam.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/mathematician-knows-location-of-lost-maya-gold/

Edited by rodheadlee
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If you are looking this this then you are either willfully ignorant or intentionally deceptive. 

 

The fact that you are ignorant of this amazing find is of no consequence to me. 

 

 

This is called moving the goal post which is something you are prone to do.  Let’s make it simple for you.

 

 

 

Why do you insist on replying in a condescending and insulting tone?  

 

 

It has been well established that the Nephites arrived and joined a very large pre-existing population. They did not, by any stretch of the imagination, give birth to a civilization. They took over what was already pre-existing. 

 

 

Well established?  Certainly you can back up your claim with scriptural references and/or statements from Church prophets.

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"The Spanish conquest of Guatemala was a protracted conflict during the Spanish colonisation of the Americas, in which Spanish colonisers gradually incorporated the territory that became the modern country of Guatemala into the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain. Before the conquest, this territory contained a number of competing Mesoamerican kingdoms, the majority of which were Maya. Manyconquistadors viewed the Maya as "infidels" who needed to be forcefully converted and pacified, disregarding the achievements of theircivilization.[2] The first contact between the Maya and European explorers came in the early 16th century when a Spanish ship sailing from Panama to Santo Domingo was wrecked on the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in 1511.[2] Several Spanish expeditions followed in 1517 and 1519, making landfall on various parts of the Yucatán coast.[3] The Spanish conquest of the Maya was a prolonged affair; the Maya kingdoms resisted integration into the Spanish Empire with such tenacity that their defeat took almost two centuries"

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_Guatemala

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It has been well established that the Nephites arrived and joined a very large pre-existing population. They did not, by any stretch of the imagination, give birth to a civilization. They took over what was already pre-existing. 

Oh really?  Well established by whom?  Certainly not the Church.  Please CFR, I'd love to see that!  I won't hold my breath, because I do like oxygen.

 

If you mean to say that modern science and understanding even remotely supports the idea of Nephites coming here, let alone mixing with indigenous tribes, that would be fun to see too.

Edited by Sevenbak
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Is this a serious question?

 

-guerreiro9

I was just about to post the same question

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We're not just asking for evidence of the BoM per se, but of ancient Near Eastern language, culture, technologies, plants, and animals. I can't imagine non-LDS archeologists failing to find markers of an advanced Near Eastern civilization if they actually existed. Remember we're not talking about a small group from a primitive culture that quickly died off or was absorbed into a large advanced culture, but of three groups of people who gave birth to civilizations with hundreds of thousands, even millions of people.

The more current view is that 40 people or so came over in a boat and lived among a larger culture, probably Mayan in the case of the Nephites, and probably the Olmecs in the case of the Jardites et al. 

 

This view is now pretty widely held.  In a case like that, there would be virtually no archeology to be found from the subcultures.

 

I am certain this is the direction these studies will take from here on.  The paradigm is shifting and even the church is recognizing it.

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The more current view is that 40 people or so came over in a boat and lived among a larger culture, probably Mayan in the case of the Nephites, and probably the Olmecs in the case of the Jardites et al. 

 

This view is now pretty widely held.  In a case like that, there would be virtually no archeology to be found from the subcultures.

 

I am certain this is the direction these studies will take from here on.  The paradigm is shifting and even the church is recognizing it.

I thought I would include some evidence for this view, though there is much more available.  I looks like this notion is being attacked.

 

Here are just two articles supporting this view.  It took about 5 minutes to find these and others, but these are on point to support my assertions above

 

Nephites were among other cultures, and this mix eventually led to apostasy

 

 

Syncretization of Nephite Beliefs

Until recently, we lacked the ability to trace the cultural influences that created Nephite apostasy in the same way that we could see how the Canaanite religion influenced Israelite apostasy. New information about the plausible location of the Book of Mormon in the New World opens the possibility of tracing the ways in which Mesoamerican religion served as the model for Nephite apostasy.10 Important to our understanding of Nephite apostasy is the realization that when Lehi and his family landed in the New World, they found other peoples in the land. Abundant evidence from the archaeological record [Page 32]attests that the New World was inhabited long before Lehi’s colony arrived, including the Mesoamerican region.11 Though the authors of the Book of Mormon do not explicitly discuss the preexisting populations they encountered, they do provide clues about their presence.12 This suggestion, while novel to some, is certainly not new.  Matthew Roper notes that:

"many Latter-day Saints over the years, including a number of church leaders, have acknowledged the likelihood that before, during, and following the events recounted in the Book of Mormon, the American hemisphere has been visited and inhabited by nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples not mentioned in the text. They also concede that these groups may have significantly impacted the populations of the Americas genetically, culturally, linguistically, and in many other ways.13"

 

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/the-cultural-context-of-nephite-apostasy/

 

Note that this article was published in Interpreter, founded by Daniel Peterson.  Note that the scholars writing the article were Brant Gardner and Mark Wright, quoting Matt Roper.  These scholars are hardly known as radical or "out there" but are pretty mainstream, and widely published.

 

And this article hints at the church supporting the change to the view that there were other cultures in the Americas before the Nephites arrived.  It was quite controversial 8 or so years ago when first published, but now the view is pretty much a yawner.   The times they are a'changin'

http://www.sltrib.com/lds/ci_7403990

Edited by mfbukowski
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Oh really?  Well established by whom?  Certainly not the Church.  Please CFR, I'd love to see that!  I won't hold my breath, because I do like oxygen.

 

If you mean to say that modern science and understanding even remotely supports the idea of Nephites coming here, let alone mixing with indigenous tribes, that would be fun to see too.

See above.

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I was under the impression the Nephites wrote on metal plates... They seem to last relatively well.

While I don't know for sure, the impression I get when reading the Book of Mormon is that writing on metal plates was a sacred, and uncommon duty entrusted to the ruling lineage.

It's very possible that the only plates that existed were the plates of brass, the small and large plates of Nephi and the plates of Ether.

So the task would not be to find plates like the plates of Nephi, it would be to find the actual plates Nephi engraved. A much more daunting task.

That's more a kin to finding the actual tablets upon which the 10 commandments were written, rather than a copy of a copy of a copy .... of the writing on the tablets.

When the actual 10 commandments are found then you can complain that we don't have the plates of Nephi.

-guerreiro9

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