Zosimus

The conservative answer is the correct one. TB was carried by seals to the Americas, and humans then consumed seals. Pre-Columbian mycobacterial genomes reveal seals as a source of New World human tuberculosis "We compared the genome - the entire genetic information - of these ancient strains with the modern bacterium that forms today's Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex and what we found was the ancient Peruvian strains were not typical European, Asian or African strains that we find in humans today," (source I can't find anything online about L. serricorne within the wrappings and crainums of Peruvian mummies. Could you link to where you found this info? Mummies and ‘impossible’ drugs: A new look to the Svetlana Balabanova’s ethnobotanical revisionism "Balabanova was not a credible scholar, which she demonstrated in many ways. She never referenced serious studies, not even one, on any subject, for example on the history of tobacco (such as Laufer 1924 and Goodspeed 1954), she was never interested in them when, from the perspective of a correct methodology, she should have started from a careful study of these texts to make credible counterproposals. Just as in the case of the tobacco beetles, for which this forensic chemist would have been better off if she had consulted professional entomologists, in dealing with ethnobotany it would have been better if she had consulted professional ethnobotanists. But that did not interest her, since her aim simply was to ‘alter our cultural history’ (Balabanova et al. 1993: 93), at any cost."

I think we keep asking the wrong questions. We keep asking "does X fit setting Y?" but the better question is "where does the text have the highest verisimilitude?" Alma 11 is a good test. Its a very specific economic system. So instead of asking "does this economic system fit Mesoamerica in 82BC?, the verisimilitude question would be "where in the ancient world did systems like this actually exist, with these metals, at this level of detail?" I haven't looked too closely at it, but my guess is Mesoamerica would score poorly, cocoa beans, jade, and textiles as medium of exchange, sure, but there's not much that looks like senums, amnors, ezroms, and ontis in Mexico. We could loan-shift our way there, but every loan-shift lowers verisimilitude. A setting where "gold" means gold scores higher than one where "gold" means "cocoa beans, maybe?" But Mesoamerica scoring poorly doesn't say anything about the verisimilitude of the Book of Mormon, it only says that yje Mesoamerica model has some weak points otoh If you consider the verisimilitude question in other limited geographies, the results are better. - Copper plates with lengthy inscriptions, Yes, but not Mesoamerica - Israelite diaspora communities dating to the first temple with copper plates, Yes, but not Mesoamerica - Monetary systems resembling Nephite monetary systems, Yes, but not Mesoamerica We could go down the list of steel, elephants, horses, chariots, silk. All these things really do fit into limited geographies that date to the Book of Mormon timeframe. Meaning the Book of Mormon has extremely high verisimilitude, if we take our thumb off the scales. Of course, verisimilitude doesn't prove anything about whether or not the Book of Mormon is history, but it does tell us where the Book of Mormon most closely resembles a real civilization, which is the prior question. I've been working out a comparative framework that checks for verisimilitude across all the major geography models, not just economics but the full range of material culture: fauna, flora, metallurgy, writing, weapons, government, the lot. I ran Alma 11 through the framework, and got these results. And since we were discussin writing on metal plates as historical evidence for the Book of Mormon, I also ran that test. Results are here.

This is pretty common across Asian economies. In Burma/Myanmar Chat and Thailand Baht are currencies named after the ancient Tical weights and measurements which was used alongside the Teal anciently and is still used in the markets today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tical_(unit) If you follow the link in the sources of that wikipedia article) there's an article called The Origin of the Tical that discusses the main theories for origins of the Tikal Near Eastern "shekel” Babylonian/Persian to India to Siam/China Arabic thaqal (“to weigh”) Proposed by le May, Dodd, some dictionaries. Chinese/Malay (tael, etc.) Recognizes tael → Khmer/Thai tamleng → baht (weight structure). Indian tanka via Mon/Burmese (Campos’ conclusion) Indian silver weight/coin tanka → Mon t’ke / tacka → Burmese tical (standard silver weight, 1/100 of a viss).

Yes, but we do know something about what Ether had compiled on the 24 plates from earlier Jaredite records that account all the way back to antediluvian times. And its very dark. Satan as the origin of the works of darkness Secret combinations have a Cainite origin in the antediluvian Old World, pre-dating the Jaredites Helaman 6:28 informs that the same being who inspired the Tower also led the Jaredites to the Americas and spread the works of darkness "Dark Plates" brought across the waters The Jaredites carried a record from the Tower (maybe earlier) containing the secret combinations of their fathers These "Dark Plates" were the vector transmitting the dark arts from Old World to the New World The daughter of Jared knows to reference them, so it's a living document within Jaredite culture Ether's Compilation Ether had access to the full Jaredite record tradition including the Dark Record His 24 plates therefore contained: The antediluvian/Mosaic material (creation → tower) which Moroni skips because the Jews already had it The secret combinations material likely drawn from the Dark Plates brought across the waters The Jaredite history from tower → destruction in New World which Moroni includes in his abridgment Moroni explicitly warns not to translate the dark stuff Sealed portion Vision or entire world history written down by the Brother of Jared in Old World (Moriancumer) and carried across the waters to the New World Am I missing something? Am I reading anything wrong?

I'm the same, so its set up in chronological order with numbering. Start with the intro, and then work your way through the numbered profiles, each bridging into the next: 00. The Long Search for a Single Ancient Wisdom 01. Annius of Viterbo 02. Guilluame Postel 03. Isaac Casaubon 04. Athansius Kircher There will be more profiles (presently 84 in the queue) added over time, all the way through Joseph Smith. Oh, get some sleep!

Jews in 600 BC wouldn't. A local (or global) flood was only a problem for Christians, who had a very different view of Adam, the flood and the role of Noah and his sons. Speculation about anyone surviving the global flood was highly dangerous because these things were fundamental: Adam sinned (the Fall) All humans descend from Adam (monogenism) Therefore all humans inherit original sin Therefore all humans need redemption through Christ and the Church Then the highly advanced civilizations of millions of people in the Americas were discovered. Some like La Peyrere speculated that these Americans were pre-Adamites, a line that did not descend from Adam and were unaffected by the flood. This enraged orthodox Christians, because it implied indigenous Americans didn't inherit original sin and had no need for Christ (and the Church) to save them from original sin. For this blasphemy, La Peyrere's books were burned. He was arrested and forced to recant, which he did. So if you're saying that Moroni didn't need to worry about getting the dungeon for believing there were Adamites that survived the flood in America, I'd agree. My point is Moroni had more ancient and accurate primary Jaredite and Nephite sources, therefore Moroni had better theology than what European Christians pieced together from the confusing Mosaic record that they misinterpreted to require that only 8 humans survived the flood, and we all descend from those 8 and all inherited their sin. My larger point is that Joseph restored exactly those two things (the extra-Mosaic Book of Ether + rejection of original sin), making it possible for us Mormons to speculate that there might have been people in the Americas before the Jaredites. Other Christians still struggle with this

Only you'd have been thrown in a dungeon for believing that at any point before the 19th century. This interpretation of Genesis is a 21st century adjustment that works well for us Mormons who don't subscribe to solo scriptura. Volumes and volumes had been written between the 15th and 19th centuries trying to work this problem out. But much of it was done anonymously or pseudo-anonymously out of fear. Often people just waited to die to publish, then their sacrilegious ideas wouldn't get them killed. Joseph Smith did work it out, but he couldn't do it with the Mosaic record alone. He had to restore other equally ancient texts and truths as more reliable witnesses. And even in 1845 American frontier, it got him killed

Yes, if Moroni was following something other than the Mosaic record (eg. a Jaredite account) then he didn't need to conform to the Biblical account, and we don't either But it gets more complicated, because this was the foundation of a longstanding war between Biblical apologists vs Deists and Biblical history skeptics. So for me it begins to feel that the Book of Ether is a response to that modern debate I haven't landed on a final conclusion yet, but if your interested in the search, its documented here. But one thing I'm sure of is the Book of Mormon is a consequential addition to the search for the pure original truth

I'm a big believer in everyone using AI as much as possible, it is a total unlock in our inputs and outputs. I could read AI output all day long because I've configured my agents to automatically reject what I think and tell me why I'm wrong and give me a I don't trust AI that hasn't been finely-tuned to reduce sycophancy, so I don't bother reading copy/pastes of AI prompts that are meant to be some sort of neutral arbitrator of forum discussions, that are also AI-generated. I don't mind AI output in a forum post if it is general reference, and not posted as a final conclusion or a zinger.

Because Moroni had access to Jaredite records, and the Jaredites had a record of their fathers from the flood to the tower period. That's a primary source. It's not more modern, its more ancient, and for that reason Moroni would have followed the Jaredite record over the Mosaic record IMO

See my views here See my views here I look forward to that day when we recognize that these AI-generated responses don't add a whole lot to the conversation. My day job is prompt engineering. From daily experience with every learning model out there, I know how easy it is to get Claude, or Grok or ChatGPT to affirm anything you want. I just skip over any comment that starts out "I asked Grok:" See above I anticipated you'd ask this, so I already responded here See here See here Ugo is discussing Lehite DNA, he doesn't directly discuss Jaredite DNA. I am referring to Jaredite DNA. I anticipate you'll again ask "what would "Jaredite DNA" look like, and how do we know that?" I propose it would look like Onge. See here Do you ever actually read my responses? Because you sure do ignore them well See above

Exactly, we can't be sure how the Jaredites understood the flood. All we have is Moroni's abridgment of their account. But Moroni does include one overlooked and extremely critical detail: "Now the daughter of Jared was exceedingly fair. And it came to pass that she did talk with her father, and said unto him: Whereby hath my father so much sorrow? Hath he not read the record which our fathers brought across the great deep? Behold, is there not an account concerning them of old, that they by their secret plans did obtain kingdoms and great glory?" The Jaredites had carried with them, across the sea, a record of their fathers. This is only a few generations after the flood, so they had a manuscript history as a primary source, and would have known a lot about the flood and the tower. Everything Moroni knew about the flood would have come through either the Jaredite 24 plates or the brass plates or anything he might have picked up from Lehi or Nephi's understanding of the Mosaic record. My guess is since the Jaredite records were the closest in time to the actual events, and were first person accounts of the flood and the tower and the migrations, Moroni would have followed that, while cross-checking brass plates and Nephite plates I fully agree, but this complicates things quite a lot because a local flood goes against the Mosaic record. If Moroni understood the flood as a local event, he only solution would be that Moroni was following an older Jaredite primary source like the one introduced in Ether 8:9. If Moroni was following the Mosaic account, then he'd understand that only 8 people survived the global flood, and the entire world was unpopulated. otoh If Moroni was following the Jaredite record carried across the deep (and I believe he was) then it could be that he understood the flood was not a catastrophic genetic bottleneck. He would not be troubled to square the Mosaic record with the millions of indigenous people that had been in the promised land for thousands of years before the Jaredites. BTW, ever since the Americas were discovered, this was a huge problem for the Mosaic record and Biblical apologists. Joseph Smith, whether through revelation or otherwise, resolved the problem with the publication of his translation of the Book of Ether. I am truly impressed with his work, and this is why I never want to get dragged into a back-and-forth about whether he was a fraud or not.

I can't really make sense of the phrasing either, because a literal meaning would be that no man had ever been anywhere in the world after the flood and the tower. All quarters were uninhabited. So maybe its talking about antediluvian populations? Either way, a literal reading of the text from the view of a 400 AD compiler would be that the entire New World was empty, there would have been noone there between the flood and the arrival of the Jaredites, unless another group left the tower and beat them to it. But that also wouldn't explain how there's no unique DNA signal that appears within indigenous populations around 2000 BCE.

The text clearly says: "And it came to pass that the Lord commanded them that they should go forth into the wilderness, yea, into that quarter where there never had man been." Ether 2:5 So we know that at least for the Jaredites around 2500-2000 BCE, there was no pre-existing population in their promised land, and we know that the Jaredites quickly became a civilization of millions. So why do we not find anything that resembles Jaredite DNA in ancient burials dating to the Jaredite timeframe of 2500 BCE to 600 BCE? They would have been the only people there according to the text, and there were numerous Jaredites (most agree at least a million or more) in the text, so why can't we find a signal that represents a Jaredite civilization in the Americas? The apologetic is that the empty quarter refers to the wilderness and not the New World and that we don't know what Jaredite DNA looks like. That's fair, but that implies Jaredite DNA is indistinguishable from the DNA of indigenous Americans that have been living in America since 15,000-20,000 years ago. That wouldn't be the case if they migrated from ANE into a population that had been isolated from ANE for 15 millennia. There would be a distinguishable Jaredite signal within the indigenous signal There is an interesting unique signal of DNA that pops up among the indigenous populations of South America that most closely resembles the Onge people, that I have argued could represent Jaredite DNA, but there are also problems with that solution

true, if the BoM is ancient, you need to sift Mormon’s interpretation from what really happened. But when the text identifies and describes things that a 400 AD indigenous American could not plausibly know, while leaving out a number of things we'd expect a 400 AD indigenous American to take for granted, the simpler explanation is that the author isn't writing that history in America before 400 AD

Read here, here and here and here and here. Watch here, here and also here. Please see above Thanks, -Zosimus

“Nephite" or "Lamanite" civilizations should look a lot like the civilization described in the Book of Mormon. We have an enormous amount of detailed data about that civilization, because they went to great lengths to document as much as they could on metal plates so we could learn about them. by reading the Book of Mormon?

Even the highly-respected scholar Matthew Black wasn't too bothered providing a speculative explanation over an extraordinary one: "[Matthew Black] then formulated a hypothesis, consistent with his lecture, that a member of one of the esoteric groups he had described previously must have survived into the nineteenth century, and hearing of Joseph Smith, must have brought the group’s Enoch texts to New York from Italy for the Prophet to translate and publish." (source) Given his expertise, I was intrigued by his suggestion, and poked around to find there was a lot of wild esoteric German, French and Italian material floating around in the 1820's. Anthon was putting some of it in a textbook he was working on in 1827. Since Anthon was also working with Edmund Barker on a compilation of Native American lore at the same time, I don't see it being totally impossible that the gold plate characters triggered a conversation of some of Anthon's wilder speculations on the origins of American Indians coming from Egypt. No proof for it of course, but since Harris did come back convinced that Anthon saw something authentically Egyptian in the characters, is it really so implausible?

See, I did not find any of these responses substantive. I was not really impressed with the "evidence" you alleged here. etc etc

I was paraphrasing your comment: "I think you abuse the phrase "Mormon prophet," as I don't think Strang qualifies." You poison the well with such things that cannot be so easily defined without back and forth for days. I would ask you how I have abused the phrase "Mormon prophet" and "why does Strang not qualify", but then we're sliding down the slope into definitions that we'll never agree upon. "Absolutely, Strang was a Mormon prophet", I'll say. "No, he was not", you'll say. "Not really impressed with your evidence, so not a substantive response", we'll both say. BTW These are not actual quotes, so no need to reply with three unique individual replies pointing out we never said the above. This imagined dialogue is only meant to be only an example of how frustrating this discussion has become Same endless loop. You say you gave evidence Strang fabricated plates. I'll say antagonistic comments by detractors is not evidence, so let's not go that way. You'll say something about me retreating with a non-sequitor, and then you'll still continue saying there's evidence out there that Strang fabricated plates. Ignoring the same comments by detractors of Joseph Smith that he had sand in his frock, or an empty chest. etc etc. And then there's this stream of responses from you that are absolutely impossible to respond to without investing hours into sorting out what you are referring to exactly: - "Quite an overstatement, this." - "See, I did not find any of these responses substantive." - "Again, not really a substantive response." - "I give you credit for this one." - "Not really responsive" (3x) - "I was not really impressed with the "evidence" you alleged here." - "It was at this point that you started to withdraw from the discussion with what I saw as a non sequitur" (even after I've responded to this numerous times) - "See, nobody has asked you that." I'm also OK with this conversation being over because I highly doubt anybody can make sense of it. But I'm also happy to continue, just need to respond to this single question: Restricting our focus to plates and witnesses, what did Joseph Smith do that James Strang did not replicate? Just focus on that one question, and please don't link me back to our previous conversations, if you can resist the temptation. One single question. And I'll follow up with one single response.

This whole exchange has become a non-sequitor. Moving on I've read and written way more than I care to admit about the copper plates of India, and still consider them to be the best evidence for a historical Book of Mormon. Over the years I've even gone to the extreme of constructing a Book of Mormon geography model based on the ancient Jewish and Christian plates of Cochin. So I'll be the first to admit and defend that it was completely possible for ancient Jews and Christians in a foreign land to etch Semitic words on metal and bind them together with rings. But over time, this exercise constructing a geography model that fit history (elephants, silk, steel etc.) kinda revealed to me that it won't ever really matter to anyone, critics and skeptics alike, if there is historical evidence for the Book of Mormon. Why? Because it still won't be more plausible than the possibility that Joseph Smith had heard about the Jews of Cochin with their records on metal plates and their elephants and horses and chariots, and wrote an American adaptation about all of it. These accounts were quite popular and widely discussed. But that's absurd, right? Yet it is exactly what Strang did. Where do you think Strang got the name Rajah Manchou? Rajah is exactly a Sanskrit word for king, and Manchou is of course as Asian a word as one could get in 1820s America. In imitation of Joseph Smith's gold plates, James Strang dug up a set of ancient Indian copper plates in Wisconsin

Not to beat a dead horse, but let's look at this closer because it feels unresolved somehow, and that will make discussion harder until its cleared up. This is how I see our exchange: Me: Advances arguments against the probative value of the Smith's plates and witnesses by comparing them to Strang's plates and witnesses. Smac: OK, but James Strang is not really a prophet and there's evidence that he fabricated his plates. Me: James Strang was considered a prophet by many Mormons, including Martin Harris and other witnesses to the gold plates, and there's no evidence he fabricated his plates beyond his enemies saying he did. Just like Smith had enemies that said he, for example, only had a smock full of sand or an empty chest or copper plates from the local print shop. But I don't want to waste time discussing what enemies said about either years later. Smac: OK, since you brought up Smith's moral character, let's look more closely at what all his detractors actually said. Me: Like I said, there are statements on both sides that the plates were faked or fabricated, and its too messy to bother with all those statements here. I'm not interested in defending the moral character, motives/actions or prophetic status of either Smith or Strang here. Its too messy and emotionally charged, I prefer not discuss it here. Ryan: But you brought it up, and now you are retreating from your stated claims? Me: No, I haven't retreated from arguments. I'm just not interested in discussing motives and character based on statements of the angry villagers 40 years after the fact. f Smac wants, we can discuss that in DM. Smac: So your explanation for why you made that statement (about you not being interested in defending actions) seems like a non-sequitur. Ryan: This was exactly my point as well.

I feel I've responded to all your distinctions, but not your long sprawling requests for clarification and follow up queries. One thing that would help is just responding to two or three questions at a time, in a few sentences. As many have said before me, it's very difficult to respond to your formatting. Restricting our focus to plates and witnesses, what did Joseph Smith do that James Strang did not replicate? See above I then responded to all 10 As I explained to Ryan, my comment is not a retreat, it is a clarification of scope. I’m interested in what the Smith and Strang plates and their witnesses can and cannot establish, regardless of which 19th‑century prophet we’re talking about. I am not interested in discussing whether or not Strang was a true Mormon prophet, or the witnesses and villagers who would claim over the next 40 years that Smith or Strang were fallen or false prophets and/or con artists and that they fabricated the plates and duped the witnesses etc. I hope this is finally clear No, as soon as you did, I responded to all 10. Here I never abandoned my arguments or retreated, but I did request we clarify scope. See above. And even then I was clear if you do want to discuss what witnesses had to say about the moral character or prophetic status of Smith, Strang, you can DM me. Nice, I'll respond in another thread because this one seems to be fully dedicated to your conclusions that I have abandoned my arguments and retreated from the discussion

I am indeed sooo confused, but its largely because your comment here that links to the very article about the metal plates that I responded to: When you said "You also have to acknowledge that some ancient and medieval metal records are actually quite lengthy" and then linked to the Gold Books article I assumed you were referring to the examples in the article you linked to there. As I still cannot find any mention of the Lengthy Plates article in that thread. That thread does say "Discoveries since that time have shown that many religious texts were indeed recorded on gold. Additionally, some examples of such artifacts were attached together to form what may properly be considered “books” analogous to the Book of Mormon." So it is really baffling that you consider my follow up to the claim in the article that "some examples of such artifacts ... analogous to the Book of Mormon" to be me "charging at windmills" But nevermind, misundertanding is now clear. Thanks

Correction: this should say the reasons why Smith excommunicated Cowery and Whitmer and why Young excommunicated Strang