Rajah Manchou

Not sure he's on the board anymore, but we now know that there was likely contact between South Americans and Polynesians previous to the European arrival in the Americas: DNA reveals Native American presence in Polynesia centuries before Europeans arrived "The researchers found that contact between Polynesian individuals and a Native American group related to present-day Indigenous people in Colombia occurred as early as A.D. 1150—two centuries earlier than indicated by the 2014 DNA study. The place where the researchers could detect the earliest sign of contact was in Fatu Hiva, an island in the South Marquesas. Fatu Hiva is much farther from South America than Rapa Nui, but it could be more easily reached than Rapa Nui due to favorable trade winds and currents, notes archaeologist Paul Wallin of Uppsala University in an editorial accompanying the study in Nature. Wallin, who also worked at the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, notes that the new results suggest that South Americans reached eastern Polynesia even before Polynesians from points west arrived, which would prove Heyerdahl “partly right.”

Found this article today and was reminded of this thread https://razib.substack.com/p/a-whole-new-world “So with all this, are we equipped to say who the first Americans were? I think when all is said and done, we will find that the earliest humans in the New World were more closely related to the Australians and Papuans, rather than modern East Asians. In other words, the first modern humans who were present in the New World did not contribute much ancestry to today’s Native Americans at all. Only the ancestors of today’s indigenous South Americans genetically absorbed these earlier people who preceded the Beringians. This must have occurred more recently than 15,000 years ago when the Beringians arrived, and if the evidence for variation in ancestry in contemporary Amazonians is replicated, pockets of these earliest Americans may have persisted down to the relatively recent past.” It’s looking like there were people in the Americas before the ancestors of today’s Native Americans arrived, and those people resembled the present-day inhabitants of the Andaman Islands.

Turns out @Fair Dinkum, that the Book or Mormon is a surprisingly accurate history of Austronesia. The SE Asian civilizations of Rahma and Komara rose and fell at the same time as the Land of Ramah and Cumorah in the Book of Mormon. Komara was founded by a warrior named Maroni, and around the close of the Book of Mormon these Komarans sailed into the Indian and Pacific Oceans carrying their genes from as far east as Madagascar and as far west as Brazil. The Comoros Islands were named after the Kumr or Komara of Southeast Asia. Here's one reference among many. Oh and the geography of ancient Komara and Rahma match the geographies of Cumorah and Rahma in the Book of Mormon. Land Northward Zarahemla Land Southward

That's right, so not much substance to the argument that the Church could not have been established anywhere but the United States in the mid-19th century. The Church as we know it today was practically established in the middle of the desert of Mexico by European immigrants.

The church would not have survived had the early Saints remained in the United States. They literally left because they had no religious freedom or rights.

Or it demonstrates that Jospeh was not the author of the Book of Mormon. My opinion is that the Zelph and Prophet Onandagus story was Joseph trying to expand the Book of Mormon narrative to align with Samuel Mitchell's hypothesis that there was a great battle between a fair skinned race (white Lamanites) and a darker skinned race (Lamanites) in Onondaga County, next to Wayne County. Samuel Mitchell had recognized the characters on the Anthon transcript as being an authentic oriental script, so it made sense to align the BOM narrative to Mitchell's theory.

Thanks for these references. I'll have to pick up Schooling the Prophet. I'm looking for any references of Joseph discussing any of the stories or characters in the Book of Mormon. Were there any times he, for example, spoke of Nephi breaking his bow, or the Lehites building their ship to cross the waters, or retelling King Benjamin's speech to his followers? I don't find anything, and it seems unusual.

Can anyone point me to examples or references of Joseph speaking publicly to his followers about the characters, geography or events found in the Book of Mormon?

Yes. Someone had gone to Dartmouth and scanned them, but I can't find the link at the moment. Another resource is Richard Behrens: Dartmouth Arminianism And Its Impact on Hyrum Smith And the Smith Family Dreams, Visions, and Visitations: The Genesis of Mormonism I'm suggesting that the origin story of the Book of Mormon narrative might seem remarkable to us today, but it appears to have been fairly commonplace among those who attended Dartmouth in the late 18th and early 19th century, including Hyrum Smith. For example, Behrens goes into some detail about Levi Spaulding's (Solomon Spaulding's nephew) conversion following a vision of light. Like I said earlier, I'm happily on the fence about Book of Mormon origins, and find all hypotheses to be almost equally interesting. I just don't see how it can be argued that the Book of Mormon could not have a natural explanation when there are other stories of such visions and golden books in the same time period told by people from the same school.

I've always liked the idea that Asael Smith's cousin Dr. John Smith, who taught Solomon Spaulding and Ethan Smith, was the inspiration (in the prophetic sense) of all three related narratives: Spaulding's Manuscript View of the Hebrews Book of Mormon Dr. Smith taught Hebrew and curated the Hebrew collection at Dartmouth Library. He also ran his own bookshop. He wrote the curriculum that was still in place when Solomon Spaulding's nephews, Ehtan Smith's nephew and Hyrum Smith all attended Moor's Academy at Dartmouth together around 1815. Dr. John's curriculum plus the stories about Native Americans (and Asian Indians) receiving the Gospel floating around Dartmouth in 1815 would have been a very likely source of the Book or Mormon narrative. All the elements were there under one roof. What's most interesting to me, is that this narrative was also carried by Spaulding's nephew from Dartmouth to India in the 1820s. I've been to the small village in Burma (named Chummerah) where, a year before the publication of the Book of Mormon, American missionaries discovered a tribe of Israelites who were waiting for Americans to return their lost Golden Book (inscribed on gold plates) containing their ancient spiritual history. Considering the timing (1812-1830) and the actors (eg. Spaulding's nephew and Hyrum Smith's classmate), I don't see how this could be a simple coincidence.

As someone who is happily on the fence about Book of Mormon historicity, I don't get the sense the tables have turned at all. Rather the arguments are getting more detailed and mature. instead of memes of Captain Moroni on a tapir people here are discussing the fine details about the hat that hid the light so that Joseph could view the stone.

What is your opinion of the eight Conneaut witnesses published in 1834?

Science

You're known to have a deep affinity to biased news sources. you are susceptible to their excesses

I've been in and out of Burma the past few decades, working with groups on the border. Many of them are also in hiding some have been thrown in prison. Although I agree with you that Oaks' talk will be comfort to the members of the Church in Myanmar, what is really critical at this point is that leaders in Congress condemn the military for not respecting the results of the election. Inexplicably 14 members of the House voted against such measures. Presumably to make some political point about election fraud, thinking a vote to condemn the Myanmar military might somehow invalidate their claims of election fraud in the US. 14 House Republicans vote against a measure condemning military coup in Myanmar I don't think those 14 give a rip about the Constitution.