A Secular Theory of Where the BoM Came From

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Pyreaux said:

rather that the person with the DNA in your custody was there.

But another possible one is these days is fake DNA.  Thankfully new tech is helping with that, but if I was a defense lawyer and my client assured me they were innocent, I’d be insisting the more accurate tests be done or the evidence be excluded or at least pull in experts showing the problem.  I suspect it’s going to be a chase where new tech makes DNA less reliable, better tech to show synthetic, better fakes…. rinse, repeat.

There is also the issue of intentional planting of DNA evidence.

And incomplete or forged forensic reports claiming DNA to force confessions or even used in court.

https://virginiamercury.com/briefs/ag-virginia-beach-police-forged-dna-evidence-presented-to-court/#:~:text=AG: Virginia Beach,state's Department of Forensic Science.

https://cbi.colorado.gov/news-article/colorado-bureau-of-investigation-releases-findings-from-internal-affairs-probe-into#:~:text=The Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is,Affected 652 cases between 2008 and 2023

The person being there is the least complicated scenario and if it’s a smash and grab at a convenience store or other low stakes crime, highest likelihood….but if the stakes were billions in inheritance, fake DNA or planted becomes somewhat more reasonable.

Quote

a parsimonious explanation isn't to claim the scene was contaminated

Contamination does happen and needs to be considered as a possibility or people will be falsely accused.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-dna-implicates-the-innocent/

Edited March 30 by Calm

[smac97]

25 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

A philosophic parsimony like Occam’s Razor is misapplied to forensic evidence. In a courtroom, if you find a specific person's DNA at a crime scene, a parsimonious explanation isn't to claim the scene was contaminated, another unknown person with identical DNA committed the crime, or that the matching DNA evolved spontaneously, rather that the person with the DNA in your custody was there.

Yes, parsimony would generally allow a prosecutor to raise that point as a presumption ("that the person with the DNA in your custody was there").  However, it is a rebuttable presumption, such that the defense would then present evidence that the crime scene had been contaminated, that there are plausible and non-nefarious explanations for the presence of DNA, or some other plausible defense (rather than fantastic, e.g., "person with identical DNA").

Occam's Razor is, or should be, a starting point, not an end unto itself.  Moreover, modern DNA is high-confidence, unambiguous, and replicated under strict chain-of-custody conditions. The mummy alkaloids are trace-level, from 1990s-era radioimmunoassay/GC-MS methods that have faced replication issues and contamination critiques. 

25 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

For the theory to work, we must assume a plant that has never been seen,

Seen by modern science, yes.  Is it possible that Africa could have had a plant answering to the forensic evidence at hand?  Silphium disappeared despite being amply attested to.  Is it possible that other plants could have been found/cultivated that disappeared and not attested to (except for what we now have in the "Cocaine Mummies")?

It is pure biogeographical speculation. Your friend is right that it conveniently produces the exact same complex alkaloid (cocaine) as the two known South American species. This is the weakest link in the skeptical literature, and it does smell like special pleading when contrasted with the chemical data actually recovered from the mummies.  That said, is it plausible?  

Meanwhile, what of the blue water Egyptian boats that traversed the Atlantic?  They have "never been seen" either, but they are required for the "transoceanic contact" theory to work.  It seems like both claims to parsimony are working against assumptions about things we have not seen.

25 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

has no fossil record,

Would fossils leave behind chemical indicators?

25 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

and conveniently produced the exact same complex alkaloid as two South American plants.

I must defer to you here.  Do the traces found in the "Cocaine Mummies" have "the exact same complex alkaloid" as the American plants?  

25 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

I don't have to assume the idea of seafaring ships. We know ancient humans had ships. We know the Ra II proved a reed boat can cross the Atlantic. We know the Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa. We know the Polynesians traded with South America, which is mainstream science now. Polynesian chickens were found in pre-Columbian Chile. DNA evidence proves that the Sweet Potato traveled from the Andes to Polynesia before Columbus. 

I think the argument is that we have to assume the idea of unidentified and undetected seafaring ships.  Hence the "middleman" theory.

25 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

There were all sorts of middlemen. The Egyptian got their marijuana from China. China sold it to the Scythians and Persians, who sold to the Phoenicians, who sold to the Egyptians. They were all notoriously secretive about their trade routes to maintain monopolies. They'd famously sank their own ships rather than let Romans follow them to the "Tin Islands" of Britain. If they traded in drugs, those are consumed. They won't leave behind much archeological evidence, but what would be left behind would be metabolites in the people who bought them, likely the dying elite seeking exotic medicines and pain killers.

So it's plausible that "middlemen" existed such as could have facilitating the transportation of Cocaine and Tobacco to Egypt, even though we do not have the particulars.  Such a notion is not farfetched because we have ample examples of transoceanic voyages, including those which transferred a plant from the Americas (sweet potatoes).

I am liking this.

25 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

Grok's claim Nicotiana africana explains the nicotine is chemically illiterate. N. africana is dominated by nornicotine. American N. tabacum is dominated by nicotine. The Balabanova study found a high nicotine-to-cotinine ratio, not a nornicotine profile. To suggest Egyptians used N. africana is like saying if someone who tested positive for caffeine actually just ate a lot of chocolate, the chemical is different.

Yes.  Grok is acknowledging this now (though framing it as an argument someone other that it raised).  Kinda funny.

The accepted Polynesian–South American contact (sweet potato and chickens) does show that pre-Columbian transoceanic exchange can be real with very little in the way of shipwrecks, ports, or conventional trade records.

I appreciate you working with me and my neophyte perspective in better understanding your argument (I repose little trust in Grok, but he can get the ball rolling).

Thanks,

-Smac

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Yes, parsimony would generally allow a prosecutor to raise that point as a presumption ("that the person with the DNA in your custody was there").  However, it is a rebuttable presumption, such that the defense would then present evidence that the crime scene had been contaminated, that there are plausible and non-nefarious explanations for the presence of DNA, or some other plausible defense (rather than fantastic, e.g., "person with identical DNA").

Occam's Razor is, or should be, a starting point, not an end unto itself.  Moreover, modern DNA is high-confidence, unambiguous, and replicated under strict chain-of-custody conditions. The mummy alkaloids are trace-level, from 1990s-era radioimmunoassay/GC-MS methods that have faced replication issues and contamination critiques. 

Seen by modern science, yes.  Is it possible that Africa could have had a plant answering to the forensic evidence at hand?  Silphium disappeared despite being amply attested to.  Is it possible that other plants could have been found/cultivated that disappeared and not attested to (except for what we now have in the "Cocaine Mummies")?

It is pure biogeographical speculation. Your friend is right that it conveniently produces the exact same complex alkaloid (cocaine) as the two known South American species. This is the weakest link in the skeptical literature, and it does smell like special pleading when contrasted with the chemical data actually recovered from the mummies.  That said, is it plausible?  

Meanwhile, what of the blue water Egyptian boats that traversed the Atlantic?  They have "never been seen" either, but they are required for the "transoceanic contact" theory to work.  It seems like both claims to parsimony are working against assumptions about things we have not seen.

Would fossils leave behind chemical indicators?

I must defer to you here.  Do the traces found in the "Cocaine Mummies" have "the exact same complex alkaloid" as the American plants?  

I think the argument is that we have to assume the idea of unidentified and undetected seafaring ships.  Hence the "middleman" theory.

So it's plausible that "middlemen" existed such as could have facilitating the transportation of Cocaine and Tobacco to Egypt, even though we do not have the particulars.  Such a notion is not farfetched because we have ample examples of transoceanic voyages, including those which transferred a plant from the Americas (sweet potatoes).

I am liking this.

Yes.  Grok is acknowledging this now (though framing it as an argument someone other that it raised).  Kinda funny.

The accepted Polynesian–South American contact (sweet potato and chickens) does show that pre-Columbian transoceanic exchange can be real with very little in the way of shipwrecks, ports, or conventional trade records.

I appreciate you working with me and my neophyte perspective in better understanding your argument (I repose little trust in Grok, but he can get the ball rolling).

Thanks,

-Smac

We don't need to find the specific shipwreck of an Egyptian Atlantic Vessel for it to be a strong possibility. We only need to show they had the seafaring capability, which we have seen. We have the Ra II experiment. Not only is it possible. We have the evidence of the cargo, that is the evidence of the vehicle. Not saying the Egyptians even need to be blue-water experts, the Egyptians just needed to be rich. We don't need to find a Polynesian ship or know how to prove they took the Sweet Potato from South America.

What's more unlikely, is a ghost plant, that nature has to invent a 17-carbon alkaloid with a specific tropane ring twice, in two different hemispheres, and then have it go extinct on one hemisphere without a trace.

Edited March 30 by Pyreaux

[Zosimus]

22 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

AI will likely tell you that Europeans brought TB to the Americas. Yet, there are Peruvian mummies that clearly died from TB based on the x-rays. DNA sequencing in 1994, researchers at the University of Minnesota and the University of Chicago extracted DNA from the lungs. The DNA was a 100% match for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This proved TB was somehow crossed the ocean to the Americas long before Columbus. Though the conservative answer is the bacteria had to have "hitchhiked" on animals, like seals from Africa or Middle East. But strains in Peruvian mummies require prolonged human-to-human contact to jump and mutate the way they did. Seals didn't spend enough time hanging out with ancient Peruvians to facilitate a massive cross-continental jump of a specifically human-adapted pathogen. A merchant ship, however, is a floating petri dish.

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

22 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

The Lasioderma serricorne is known as the "tobacco beetle" is native to Egypt. Archaeologists have found these specific beetles inside the wrappings and cranial cavities of these pre-Columbian Peruvian mummies. Beetles don't fly across the ocean. They travel in stored grain, dried plants, or textiles. If an Egyptian beetle is found inside a Peruvian mummy, it means there was an Egyptian product physically present in Peru.

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?

23 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

If ChatGPT has a better explanation for how an ancient Egyptian ended up with metabolized South American cocaine in her liver, or how Egyptian pests and bacteria got inside an ancient Peruvian, other than from global trade, I’d love to hear it. As I see it, there seems to have been an Egyptian diffusion in the Americas (1 Nephi 1:2).

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."

[Pyreaux]

2 hours ago, Zosimus said:

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."

The 2014 Nature study found pinniped (seal) strains of TB in 3 mummies that were on the coast, they used seal-bone tools, and ate seal meat and seals could be one source for weak TB, but it doesn't explain why the human-specific Mycobacterium tuberculosis is also present in other mummies. 

Identification of M. tuberculosis DNA in a pre-Columbian Peruvian mummy found IS6110, and Frontiers in Microbiology (2022) says IS6110 is the marker of "modern" human-adapted strains.

Alana Cordy-Collins and the Tobacco Beetle (Lasioderma serricorne) in Peru data comes from the analysis of Skeleton H33 at the site of Dos Cabezas. In these high-status Moche tombs (dated to 450–550 AD), beetle remains were collected from within the skulls and funerary bundles in a sealed, primary context, inside the cranial cavity of a mummy that had been buried for 1,500 years. References to this is in "The Art and Archaeology of the Moche" (Edited by Steve Bourget and Kimberly L. Jones).

The character attack on Balabanova is from Giorgio Samorini in 2024. Even if Balabanova were not a credible scholar (a subjective claim), her results were replicated. In 1995, Parsche and Nerlich conducted independent tests on the same mummies using GC-MS and found the same results.

Notice how Samorini’s critique focuses on her methodology and lack of references, but he cannot explain away the presence of cotinine. If Balabanova was "unprofessional", did her machines suddenly become unprofessional too? Balabanova's character doesn't change the molecular weight of the Benzoylecgonine found in the samples. If her data is wrong, show me the study that re-tested those mummies and found zero alkaloids. They can't, because the alkaloids are there. He has nothing to say about that.

Edited March 31 by Pyreaux

[Zosimus]

1 hour ago, Pyreaux said:

The 2014 Nature study (Bos et al.) found pinniped (seal) strains of TB in 3 mummies that were on the coast, and would be one source for TB, but it doesn't explain why the human-specific Mycobacterium tuberculosis is also present in other mummies. 

Identification of M. tuberculosis DNA in a pre-Columbian Peruvian mummy found IS6110, and Frontiers in Microbiology (2022) says IS6110 is the marker of "modern" human-adapted strains.

Is it certain that the “modern” human‑adapted strains didn’t also have seals as an earlier vector? Can we conclude for certain that IS6110 spread through human‑to‑human contact only, rather than also moving through earlier animal and hosts we haven’t sampled yet?

1 hour ago, Pyreaux said:

Alana Cordy-Collins and the Tobacco Beetle (Lasioderma serricorne) in Peru data comes from the analysis of Skeleton H33 at the site of Dos Cabezas. In these high-status Moche tombs (dated to 450–550 AD), beetle remains were collected from within the skulls and funerary bundles in a sealed, primary context, inside the cranial cavity of a mummy that had been buried for 1,500 years. References to this is in "The Art and Archaeology of the Moche" (Edited by Steve Bourget and Kimberly L. Jones).

I don't find any mention of L. serricone in the linked text. All it says is: "Three utilized samples of rope recovered from around the ankles and wrists of skeletons or isolated limbs; the fourth was done from a sample of fly and beetle remains collected from within the skull of H33. Because of the small size of the samples, all were analyzed by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS)."

How to determine these beetle remains were L. serricone?

1 hour ago, Pyreaux said:

Notice how Samorini’s critique focuses on her methodology and lack of references, but he cannot explain away the presence of cotinine. If Balabanova was "unprofessional", did her machines suddenly become unprofessional too? Balabanova's character doesn't change the molecular weight of the Benzoylecgonine found in the samples. If her data is wrong, show me the study that re-tested those mummies and found zero alkaloids. They can't, because the alkaloids are there. He has nothing to say about that.

The real question is how those traces ended up in those vials in the first place. Samorini is basically saying these results are so wild, and the reporting is so thin, that we shouldn’t rewrite global history yet. In other words, we shouldn't limit ourselves to results of 1990s positives from Balabanova and Parsche & Nerlich, versus other teams on other mummy sets that don’t see cocaine at all. Better to be cautious given the high likelihood of contamination. This is why nobody has given much weight to these results.

Edited March 31 by Zosimus

[champatsch]

20 hours ago, Calm said:

Isn’t the Lord or someone he directed a different “someone” than Joseph?

Do people default to thinking "the Lord" or "God" when they read "someone else"? No, they do not.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

Do people default to thinking "the Lord" or "God" when they read "someone else"? No, they do not.

I do.

Is it accurate?  Seems like it is to me, especially if one believes God is human.

If you want to say that “someone else” is likely confusing to people because most don’t think of God in that terms, I can see that, but to make a blanket statement that use of “someone else” can’t include God as an option…I see that as going too far.

Edited March 31 by Calm

[Navidad]

On 3/3/2026 at 5:16 PM, Ryan Dahle said:

It's sort of funny. Over the years, as I have observed critics of the Church try to grapple with this data, it has actually strengthened my testimony to some degree. Every time they deflect (try to avoid the positive evidence simply by highlighting more negative evidence) or resort to generalized explanations that rely on "coincidence" or on the claim that humans are capable of "extraordinary" things, I become increasingly convinced that they actually just don't have good answers for many of these lines of evidence.

To me, the fact that they can't admit that is somewhat telling. Sometimes you just have to acknowledge that your worldview can't currently accommodate certain types of data very well, and that opposing arguments are not only understandable but may be superior on those grounds. There are all sorts of things that LDS believers can't fully explain, and which at least on the surface appear to be contradictory or problematic for our worldview. So we try to grapple with those problems, pry into the underlying assumptions or traditional approaches that have been used to frame them, and explore various possible solutions. Yet, even then, we sometimes have to just admit that we don't yet have a good answer or explanation for something. But for us, that is okay. We don't have to win every battle. We don't have to have overwhelming proof, or be able to demonstrate that opposing viewpoints are obviously and categorically wrong in virtually ever way. We just need reasonable space to believe, which simultaneously allows room for faith (which I see as trusting in the spiritual evidence we have been given and continuing to seek it). It is a much more modest intellectual position. 

In contrast, it seems many critics of the Church are hypersensitive on this front. It isn't enough for the Church to be plausibly wrong. It has to be dead wrong--in a way that is so obvious that it is almost laughable. Belief can't be seen as a live option on the table that reasonable and competent people can take. It has to be a very firmly closed door. I think this is partly because anything less would very personally open them up to accepting that the Church could plausibly be true, depending on which arguments and supporting data and assumptions turn out to be correct. And I think that is just a very threatening proposition for a lot of reasons, probably many of them unique or personal to the individual. So what we see is that even in areas where the Church's truth claims have an obvious advantage (like the Three and Eight Witnesses or the complexity of the Book of Mormon), that advantage can never be admitted. Critics can't just say, "Oh, wow, that is pretty good evidence. While it isn't quite enough for me, I can see why reasonable people would find it fairly compelling, especially if they are having regular 'spiritual' experiences that they feel bring them peace, joy, and goodness in their lives." That just isn't a space that many critics can intellectually be in. It is too threatening to their worldview. 

To be clear, I'm not saying everyone who rejects the Church's truth claims feels this way. But it is a very pervasive attitude and paradigm adopted by (usually) the most vocal critics of the Church who engage on online platforms. 

It is good to be back on this forum. This is quite a thread . . . . so many topics in one thread. I will limit myself (aren't you glad?) just to respond to a couple:

1. I am not a critic of the Church. I am certain that as great a percentage of members of the LDS church are Christian as there are in any mainstream Christian group. I defend my LDS Christian friends to those few non-LDS Christian friends who would deny Christendom to my LDS friends, The vast majority of whom are Fundamentalists and not Evangelicals. To have my LDS friends insist that Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism are simply two points on the same continuum is like me insisting that my LDS and LeBaron friends are simply two points on the same continuum. I don't think most of you would go for that.

2. As most of you know, I live in Mexico, among the Mormon colonies, so I am genuinely interested in LDS Mesoamerican history. Even if I were inclined, which I am not, to try to disprove the historicity of the Book of Mormon as far as connections to Mexico, I would suggest that the responsibility is on the LDS to prove their claims. It is not on me to disprove them. Most of the focus on this thread is on the opposite; the naysayers can't disprove the book's historicity, therefore it stands redeemed. I would propose that it would be as equally as great a challenge for a non-LDS Christian to disprove the historicity of the Book of Mormon to a faithful and conservative member as it would be for a faithful conservative member of the Church to prove the book's historicity to the non-member. Especially to the non-member critic. Either side in that debate will land on the side of their faith-beliefs. Strong faith in either is virtually indestructible by facts. So virtually no one wins. Both lose. I have a wise South African friend who once said, “A good friend is one who shows his friend another view of the world, without making his friend's view wrong.” That is a paraphrase. It is a worthy aspiration, one I cherish. 

3. My focus in the above quote is on the last four lines. I thought it misrepresented much of non-LDS Christianity, including those who reject the Church's truth claims, until I finished the last few words at the end of the last sentence. It may very well be  a “very pervasive attitude and paradigm adopted by (usually) the most vocal critics of the Church who engage on online platforms.” With that caveat, we cut down the percentage of non-LDS Evangelicals who are that kind of a critic to the fringe. If we are talking about non-LDS Fundamentalists, we are talking about the fringe as well, albeit a greater percentage of the group. 

I have often taught that we Mennonites and Mormons are alike in having adopted a doctrine of undeserved persecution as part of our faith group's identity. The other day I was speaking to a group of LDS church members. One commented about how the Mexican revolutionaries had turned against the Saints in 1912 during the Mexican Revolution. I suggested to him that they did, but it wasn't because they were Saints. It was because they were perceived as rich, manipulating resources, non-Mexicans, and living in isolated colonies. I assured him the average revolutionary probably knew very little about the details of his Catholic faith, let alone that of the Saints. He was quite put out with me. You see, most of the Church's sacred history about the Saints in Mexico  presents that theme of innocent persecution. It is endemic to LDS history and has impacted its doctrines over the years. If you have ever heard of the Monroys here in Mexico, you have probably heard they were hanged for being saints—martyrs for the faith. They were indeed hanged, but the act was committed by carrancista soldiers who thought them to be zapatistas in recently conquered zapatista territory. We Mennonites greatly value a thousand page book about all our martyrs during the Reformation. We have that in common. Best wishes to all. 

[smac97]

17 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

We don't need to find the specific shipwreck of an Egyptian Atlantic Vessel for it to be a strong possibility.

I think the critique is that we we do not appear to have any record or evidence of the ancient Egyptians having transoceanic capacity.  

17 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

We only need to show they had the seafaring capability, which we have seen. We have the Ra II experiment.

I'm not sure this is accurate.  The Ra II experiment showed transoceanic travel was possible, but not that the ancient Egyptians actually had this capacity.

17 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

Not only is it possible.  We have the evidence of the cargo, that is the evidence of the vehicle.

This is where your argument is stronger.  The analogs of sweet potatoes and chicken are useful.  

17 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

Not saying the Egyptians even need to be blue-water experts, the Egyptians just needed to be rich. We don't need to find a Polynesian ship or know how to prove they took the Sweet Potato from South America.

A fair point.  The idea that we have anything close to a comprehensive history and evidentiary record of the ancients (Egypt, Phoenecians), or that we can speak definitively about transoceanic contact, is not well-founded.  Conversely, the "positive" evidence of transoceanic contact is, overall, pretty slim.  Enough so that we have more than conjecture, but not a smoking gun either.

17 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

What's more unlikely, is a ghost plant, that nature has to invent a 17-carbon alkaloid with a specific tropane ring twice, in two different hemispheres, and then have it go extinct on one hemisphere without a trace.

You are persuading me.  I'd like to do some further reading.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

2 minutes ago, Navidad said:

I would suggest that the responsibility is on the LDS to prove their claims.

A fair point.  

I think the premise, though, is that the Latter-day Saints have, for lack of a better term, presented a "prima facie case" for the Plates and the Witnesses.  Not to exacting legal standards (which would never be appropriately applied in this context anyway), but we have

• Joseph's narrative (JS-H, etc.),
• The Statement of the Three Witnesses,
• The Statement of the Eight Witnesses,
• The "unofficial" witnesses (Emma, Mary Whitmer, etc.),
• Fairly extensive historical evidence as to the background and character and credibility of the Witnesses,
• The absence of recantings from the Three/Eight Witnesses,
• Extensive re-affirmations of from the Witnesses, including those who became estranged from Joseph (David Whitmer in particular),
• Fairly extensive descriptions of the Plates, and associated evidence of their historical antecedents and general plausibility (e.g., tumbaga),
• The text itself and all its various indicia of sophistication and complexity (internal chronological and geospatial consistency, Hebraisms, Chiasmus, etc.),
• Fairly extensive historical evidence as to Joseph's education (strongly indicating he lacked the capacity to produce the text),
• Fairly extensive historical evidence as to Joseph's sincerity (e.g., his personal writings give no indication of connivance or ill motive),
• Fairly extensive historical evidence as to the circumstances of the dictation of the text (short timeframe, no corrections, Joseph picking up where he left off with no prompting, etc.), and so on.

All of this is secondary and supplemental to personal revelation per Moroni 10:3-5.  But as far as "evidence" regarding religious truth claims, the reality of the Plates is, in my view, effectively beyond reasonable dispute.  Even our most ardent and well-informed critics (Vogel, Analytics) concede this point.

What we're left with, then, is effectively three options:

1. The "Plates" were a cheap, cobbled-together sham object fabricated by Joseph Smith (or involving him); or
2. The "Plates" were a sophisticated and convincing sham artifact, enough to dupe the Witnesses; or
3. The Plates were an authentically ancient artifact and substantially as described by the Witnesses.

Options 1 and 2 have been under discussion.  The results of critics' efforts to reconcile one or the other of these with the extant evidence have been fairly unimpressive.

2 minutes ago, Navidad said:

It is not on me to disprove them.

Quite so.  @Analytics started this thread based on some questions I had posed.  I have since stated, many times over, what I would like to see from critics, and it is not an argument to "disprove" the Church's narrative, but rather an alternative theory about the Book of Mormon.

Anti-Mormons have had nearly 200 years to formulate a positive, coherent explanation for The Book of Mormon that accounts for the key data points (physical plates, witness statements, text origins/translation process) without heavy speculation, and have been overwhelmingly unable to do so, is interesting to me (not dispositive, just interesting).

I'm not asking critics to disprove what we believe about the Plates.  I am asking them to explain and defend what they believe about the Plates.

2 minutes ago, Navidad said:

Most of the focus on this thread is on the opposite; the naysayers can't disprove the book's historicity, therefore it stands redeemed.

Well, no.  The Book of Mormon stands without any coherent alternative explanation for its origins.  

The Latter-day Saints are not looking to "prove" the origins of the Book of Mormon on empirical or historical evidences.  These are secondary and supplemental to Moroni 10:3-5.  Instead, I think the Latter-day Saints are saying, in essence, "Hey, it's plausible.  It could have happened, and we believe it did.  We invite you to read read it, ponder its message, and pray to God and ask if it is what it claims to be."

Plausibility, not proof.  I think that's an important difference here.

2 minutes ago, Navidad said:

I would propose that it would be as equally as great a challenge for a non-LDS Christian to disprove the historicity of the Book of Mormon to a faithful and conservative member as it would be for a faithful conservative member of the Church to prove the book's historicity to the non-member. Especially to the non-member critic.

I don't see much symmetry here.  The Latter-day Saints have a pretty solid basis for their perspective on the origins of the Book of Mormon.  Critics and skeptics have conclusory, a priori assertions and guesswork, but nothing coherent and evidence-based.

2 minutes ago, Navidad said:

Either side in that debate will land on the side of their faith-beliefs.

I dunno.  I think a lot of people who read the Book of Mormon with an open mind and a seed of faith come can come away with a decision that puts them at odds with their current belief system.  

2 minutes ago, Navidad said:

Strong faith in either is virtually indestructible by facts.

Atheists and agnostics such as our @Analytics will dislike having "faith" attributed to their position on the Book of Mormon, and they will also dislike the notion that their perspective is based on things other than "facts."

2 minutes ago, Navidad said:

So virtually no one wins. Both lose.

I'm not sure about that.  We aren't looking to "win."  We are looking to present a case for plausibility, and then we let individual discovery and Moroni 10:3-5 do the rest.

Critics and skeptics, meanwhile, have been unable to articulate a coherent, evidence-based alternative explanation.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Navidad]

4 minutes ago, smac97 said:

A fair point.  

I think the premise, though, is that the Latter-day Saints have, for lack of a better term, presented a "prima facie case" for the Plates and the Witnesses.  Not to exacting legal standards (which would never be appropriately applied in this context anyway), but we have

• Joseph's narrative (JS-H, etc.),
• The Statement of the Three Witnesses,
• The Statement of the Eight Witnesses,
• The "unofficial" witnesses (Emma, Mary Whitmer, etc.),
• Fairly extensive historical evidence as to the background and character and credibility of the Witnesses,
• The absence of recantings from the Three/Eight Witnesses,
• Extensive re-affirmations of from the Witnesses, including those who became estranged from Joseph (David Whitmer in particular),
• Fairly extensive descriptions of the Plates, and associated evidence of their historical antecedents and general plausibility (e.g., tumbaga),
• The text itself and all its various indicia of sophistication and complexity (internal chronological and geospatial consistency, Hebraisms, Chiasmus, etc.),
• Fairly extensive historical evidence as to Joseph's education (strongly indicating he lacked the capacity to produce the text),
• Fairly extensive historical evidence as to Joseph's sincerity (e.g., his personal writings give no indication of connivance or ill motive),
• Fairly extensive historical evidence as to the circumstances of the dictation of the text (short timeframe, no corrections, Joseph picking up where he left off with no prompting, etc.), and so on.

All of this is secondary and supplemental to personal revelation per Moroni 10:3-5.  But as far as "evidence" regarding religious truth claims, the reality of the Plates is, in my view, effectively beyond reasonable dispute.  Even our most ardent and well-informed critics (Vogel, Analytics) concede this point.

What we're left with, then, is effectively three options:

1. The "Plates" were a cheap, cobbled-together sham object fabricated by Joseph Smith (or involving him); or
2. The "Plates" were a sophisticated and convincing sham artifact, enough to dupe the Witnesses; or
3. The Plates were an authentically ancient artifact and substantially as described by the Witnesses.

Options 1 and 2 have been under discussion.  The results of critics' efforts to reconcile one or the other of these with the extant evidence have been fairly unimpressive.

Quite so.  @Analytics started this thread based on some questions I had posed.  I have since stated, many times over, what I would like to see from critics, and it is not an argument to "disprove" the Church's narrative, but rather an alternative theory about the Book of Mormon.

Anti-Mormons have had nearly 200 years to formulate a positive, coherent explanation for The Book of Mormon that accounts for the key data points (physical plates, witness statements, text origins/translation process) without heavy speculation, and have been overwhelmingly unable to do so, is interesting to me (not dispositive, just interesting).

I'm not asking critics to disprove what we believe about the Plates.  I am asking them to explain and defend what they believe about the Plates.

Well, no.  The Book of Mormon stands without any coherent alternative explanation for its origins.  

The Latter-day Saints are not looking to "prove" the origins of the Book of Mormon on empirical or historical evidences.  These are secondary and supplemental to Moroni 10:3-5.  Instead, I think the Latter-day Saints are saying, in essence, "Hey, it's plausible.  It could have happened, and we believe it did.  We invite you to read read it, ponder its message, and pray to God and ask if it is what it claims to be."

Plausibility, not proof.  I think that's an important difference here.

I don't see much symmetry here.  The Latter-day Saints have a pretty solid basis for their perspective on the origins of the Book of Mormon.  Critics and skeptics have conclusory, a priori assertions and guesswork, but nothing coherent and evidence-based.

I dunno.  I think a lot of people who read the Book of Mormon with an open mind and a seed of faith come can come away with a decision that puts them at odds with their current belief system.  

Atheists and agnostics such as our @Analytics will dislike having "faith" attributed to their position on the Book of Mormon, and they will also dislike the notion that their perspective is based on things other than "facts."

I'm not sure about that.  We aren't looking to "win."  We are looking to present a case for plausibility, and then we let individual discovery and Moroni 10:3-5 do the rest.

Critics and skeptics, meanwhile, have been unable to articulate a coherent, evidence-based alternative explanation.

Thanks,

-Smac

Hi Smac: I don't see the debate about the historicity of the Book of Mormon as being very different (if different at all) from the debate about the historicity of the Bible. No one's salvation, eternal life, or the outcome of their judgment day encounter with Christ will depend on their position on the historicity of either book. A fine Evangelical scholar came out with a book in 2009 entitled "The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate." It rocked the boat on the literal interpretation of the historicity of the creation story in Genesis 1. It profoundly rocked the Evangelical boat, but everyone survived what in Spanish we call "Zozobra" - the anxiety over an impending sinking of the ship. There are probably more people in the world hoping to destroy the credibility, consistency, conformity (choose another c word) of the Bible than those interested in doing the same to the Book of Mormon. If one day they succeed, it won't hurt my faith at all, because my faith is in Christ, not in whether Jonah was swallowed by a literal fish. 

I have several LDS historian friends who are not fans of the historicity of either the Bible or the Book of Mormon. They still go to Sacrament Service, have callings, and hold their own personal beliefs. My guess is that the Mormon faith will survive as a branch of Christianity if The Book of Mormon were reduced to being a book of spiritual truth focused on the gospel of Jesus Christ. Isn't that what it is all about? I sincerely doubt you will ever find proof in Olmec ruins of the Nephites or Lamanites as portrayed in the Book of Mormon. Yet, people will continue to convert (non-believers), and non-LDS Christians will continue to migrate to the LDS Church. And vice-versa. I wish both my LDS Christian and non-LDS Christian friends would simply be content to know they have a book that points people to the Savior. 

I have consciously chosen not to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My decision has nothing to do with the Book of Mormon or the Moroni Test. I simply could not join a church that has as a core belief that it is the only and that all the rest are others, less than pleasing to the Savior. It is that exclusivity, which to my reading is not even found in the Book of Mormon, that keeps me from joining. It has nothing to do with the Book of Mormon's historicity. I can however, understand the importance of that historicity to many of you, as the same is true for many non-LDS Christians.

I acknowledge a great outpouring of kindness to me and my wife when she went through her open-heart surgery and when we lost our son during her recovery. The burden was overwhelming, as was our LDS friend's kindness. Yet, through all of that, it was clear we were still outsiders, outside of the church, outside of grace, outside of real fellowship, and outside of the permanence of the Holy Spirit. Take care. 

[Navidad]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

What we're left with, then, is effectively three options:

1. The "Plates" were a cheap, cobbled-together sham object fabricated by Joseph Smith (or involving him); or
2. The "Plates" were a sophisticated and convincing sham artifact, enough to dupe the Witnesses; or
3. The Plates were an authentically ancient artifact and substantially as described by the Witnesses.

Can I offer you a fourth?? Well, ok . . . I will anyway. Here goes:  4. The historicity of the plates doesn't matter. It is the shed blood of Christ on our behalf that matters.

I have a strong belief that when I get to Judgment Day, He is not going to ask me what I believed about the plates, or Jonah's big fish, or the Garden of Eden.

[Pyreaux]

On 3/30/2026 at 11:57 PM, Zosimus said:

Is it certain that the “modern” human‑adapted strains didn’t also have seals as an earlier vector? Can we conclude for certain that IS6110 spread through human‑to‑human contact only, rather than also moving through earlier animal and hosts we haven’t sampled yet?

I don't find any mention of L. serricone in the linked text. All it says is: "Three utilized samples of rope recovered from around the ankles and wrists of skeletons or isolated limbs; the fourth was done from a sample of fly and beetle remains collected from within the skull of H33. Because of the small size of the samples, all were analyzed by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS)."

How to determine these beetle remains were L. serricone?

The real question is how those traces ended up in those vials in the first place. Samorini is basically saying these results are so wild, and the reporting is so thin, that we shouldn’t rewrite global history yet. In other words, we shouldn't limit ourselves to results of 1990s positives from Balabanova and Parsche & Nerlich, versus other teams on other mummy sets that don’t see cocaine at all. Better to be cautious given the high likelihood of contamination. This is why nobody has given much weight to these results.

Ah, okay, she simply found the beetles, AMS dating text doesn't list the species name because an AMS paper is about dating of the remains and just finding the beetles. They were supposedly sent to Dr. Jean-Bernard Huchet, the world's leading expert on identifying insects in mummies, and he identified them as Lasioderma serricorne. I'm saying "supposedly", the sources are all in French, and the bulk of work is published in French. I had to ask AI to find and translate Huchet.

The Source: "Des Mouches, des Morts, des Offrandes : Archéoentomologie de tombes Mochica de la Pyramide de la Lune, Pérou" (Flies, Deaths, Offerings: Archaeoentomology of Mochica Tombs of the Pyramid of the Moon, Peru).

Publication: Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, Volume 48, Number 2, 2018, pp. 33–44.

Context: This research details the analysis of "bio-artifacts" (insect remains) found at Huaca de la Luna, a major Moche ceremonial site.

Key Excerpt (French)
"Parmi les coléoptères identifiés, la présence de Lasioderma serricorne (Fabricius) revêt un intérêt particulier. Ce petit anobiide, communément appelé « lasioderme du tabac », est un ravageur cosmopolite des denrées stockées. Sa présence au sein des dépôts funéraires mochicas, étroitement associée aux restes macrovégétaux (graines, piments, feuilles séchées), suggère qu'il a été introduit dans la tombe avec les offrandes végétales."

English Translation
"Among the identified beetles, the presence of Lasioderma serricorne (Fabricius) is of particular interest. This small anobiid, commonly known as the 'tobacco beetle,' is a cosmopolitan pest of stored products. Its presence within the Mochica funerary deposits, closely associated with macro-botanical remains (seeds, chili peppers, dried leaves), suggests that it was introduced into the tomb along with the plant offerings."

On 3/30/2026 at 11:57 PM, Zosimus said:

Is it certain that the “modern” human‑adapted strains didn’t also have seals as an earlier vector? Can we conclude for certain that IS6110 spread through human‑to‑human contact only, rather than also moving through earlier animal and hosts we haven’t sampled yet?

Modern human-adapted TB, Lineage 4, had to evolved to thrive in lungs with high oxygen, the seal TB is genetically distinct. It lacks the specific RD1 deletion and other "modern" markers that allow the human strain to be so infectious. Human TB was refined in the dense cities like in Ancient Egypt and modern Europe, it made specific deletions in its genome that make it highly contagious between people.  Even if the seal-strain TB spread human to human in Peru, it would still look like seal TB in its DNA. It wouldn't spontaneously transform into the Lineage 4 strain just by being passed around by humans. Peru mummies had "Human TB" from IS6110 markers found in 1994.

Samorini’s claim that "other teams don't see cocaine" doesn't mean anything unless he shows they tested the same mummies that three people found cocaine in. Calling the results "trace," the concentrations in the Egyptian mummies were high enough that, in a modern forensic lab, they would be considered heavy users. Calling Balabanova's worka single "thin" paper. It spanned a decade of research, was published in The Lancet and Naturewissenschaften, and was confirmed by Parsche and Nerlich (independent researchers not connected with her). Samorini is gaslighting by portraying these as un-peer-reviewed notes.

Edited April 1 by Pyreaux

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

The historicity of the plates doesn't matter. It is the shed blood of Christ on our behalf that matters.

If so, there is one very large point of historicity that must still stand…there must be a Christ who lived, shed blood, died, and was resurrected for us.  I assume you agree with this.  If not, can you explain please how our Lord’s shed blood matters if he never actually shed blood?

Edited March 31 by Calm

[Calm]

29 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

Its presence within the Mochica funerary deposits, closely associated with macro-botanical remains (seeds, chili peppers, dried leaves), suggests that it was introduced into the tomb along with the plant offerings."

Why not found its way on its own later attracted by the plant offerings?  Were the beetles carbon dated (I can’t remember if you mentioned this before or not and need to not get too deep into the thread again for now for various reasons).

Edited March 31 by Calm

[Pyreaux]

22 minutes ago, Calm said:

Why not found its way on its own later attracted by the plant offerings?  Were the beetles carbon dated (I can’t remember if you mentioned this before or not and need to not get too deep into the thread again for now for various reasons).

Forensic entomologists like Dr. Jean-Bernard Huchet also know Taphonomy, how things decay and settle over time. The beetle remains were sealed under massive layers of adobe brick and sediment in subterranean chambers. The beetle remains were part of the materials Dr. Alana Cordy-Collins sent for the AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) dating. The AMS report for the "fly and beetle remains" returned a date consistent with the Moche period (500 AD).

Edited March 31 by Pyreaux

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

I have several LDS historian friends who are not fans of the historicity of either the Bible or the Book of Mormon.  They still go to Sacrament Service, have callings, and hold their own personal beliefs.

I am glad to hear it.  I find that position logically incoherent, but I reasonable minds can disagree about such things.

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

My guess is that the Mormon faith will survive as a branch of Christianity if The Book of Mormon were reduced to being a book of spiritual truth focused on the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I don't think we'll ever see that, so it's all conjecture.

As I said here (emphasis added):

Quote

Can a person have faith in The Book of Mormon while simultaneously rejecting The Book of Mormon as to its historicity? I don't think so. Such a concept renders Joseph Smith a fraud and a liar, and the book itself a fraud and a lie. A fictional Book of Mormon has no real power, and renders it as nothing more than a quirky self-help book. It becomes no more relevant to the salvation of men than Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins or How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. These are useful books, to be sure. For some, they are even life changing. But The Book of Mormon declares itself to be the word of God through inspired prophets.

Can a person have faith in Christ while simultaneously rejecting Christ as an actual, historical figure? I don't think so. Rejecting the historicity of Christ renders Christ a fictional role model, like Atticus Finch or Gandalf. A fictional Christ has no power to atone, no power to forgive, no power to save.

{Similarly,} I think the Inspired Fiction folks have not really thought through the ramifications of their proposal.   The "fake but accurate," "I can reject what The Book of Mormon claims to be and what Joseph Smith represented it to be, but still accept it as scripture" type of reasoning is a fundamentally flawed line of reasoning. Elder Oaks aptly described it as "not only reject(ing) the concepts of faith and revelation that The Book of Mormon explains and advocates, but it is also not even good scholarship." This is why I find advocacy of this approach problematic. Such advocates are steering others up a spiritual blind alley; a path, I think, which sooner or later will culminate in a crisis of faith and/or a rejection of The Book of Mormon. After all, one who rejects its historicity has already rejected a substantive, even vital, part of the book. Rejecting the rest of it would seem to be just a matter of time.  I think an affirmative denial of the book's historicity will, sooner or later, become fatal to a testimony of the book. Ambivalence about historicity is perhaps possible, but affirmative denial is, I think, not compatible with an enduring and efficacious testimony of The Book of Mormon.

I am glad to hear that some Latter-day Saints can maintain their faith in the Restored Gospel while rejecting the Book of Mormon for what it claims to be, what Joseph claimed it to be, what all the prophets and apostles have said about it, and so on.  If they can make that position work with continued activity and fellowship in the Church, then I am happy to hear it.  Not everyone is as fortunate.

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

Isn't that what it is all about?

Yes.  Belief in a "fictional" Christ would not inspire much in the way of devotion, consecration, and enduring discipleship.  Belief in a "fictional" Book of Mormon is, for me, likewise problematic.  As Elder Oaks put it: "The argument that it makes no difference whether the Book of Mormon is fact or fable is surely a sibling to the argument that it makes no difference whether Jesus Christ ever lived."  And Kent P. Jackson: 

Quote

Can the Book of Mormon indeed be 'true,' in any sense, if it lies repeatedly, explicitly, and deliberately regarding its own historicity? Can Joseph Smith be viewed with any level of credibility if he repeatedly, explicitly, and deliberately lied concerning the historicity of the book? Can we have any degree of confidence in what are presented as the words of God in the Doctrine and Covenants if they repeatedly, explicitly, and deliberately lie by asserting the historicity of the Book of Mormon? If the Book of Mormon is not what it claims to be, what possible cause would anyone have to accept anything of the work of Joseph Smith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints given the consistent assertions that the Book of Mormon is an ancient text that describes ancient events?" (Historicity and the Latter-day Saint Scriptures, edited by Paul Y. Hoskisson, pp. 137-138.)

And then, of course, there are the Witnesses.  

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

I sincerely doubt you will ever find proof in Olmec ruins of the Nephites or Lamanites as portrayed in the Book of Mormon.

Nothing definitive, no.  But I think we will find further evidences to add to what we have, which let themselves to plausibility.  I think that's about as far as we Latter-day Saints want to go.

I am reminded of these 2017 remarks by Elder Holland: The Greatness of the Evidence

A good read.  Some excerpts:

Quote

One of the seldom-told but truly striking stories of conversion in all of scripture is the success the later Nephi and Lehi had on their mission to the Lamanites outlined in the book of Helaman. After a dramatic sequence of earthquakes and voices from heaven, of angels appearing and prison walls crumbling, Mormon records that the people “were bidden to go forth and marvel not, neither should they doubt. And . . . they did go forth . . . declaring throughout . . . the [region] . . . all the things which they had heard and seen, inasmuch that the more part of the Lamanites were convinced of them, because of the greatness of the evidences which they had received.”[4]

In his classic definition of faith the Apostle Paul suggests, with one of those paradoxes that so frequently crop up in the gospel, that evidence is still evidence even if it is not immediately observable. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,”[5] he wrote. For me a classic example of substance I hope for and evidence of things I have not seen is the 531 pages of the Book of Mormon that come from a sheaf of gold plates some people saw and handled and hefted but I haven’t seen or handled or hefted, and neither have you. Nevertheless, the reality of those plates, the substance of them if you will, and the evidence that comes to us from them in the form of the Book of Mormon is at the heart, at the very center, of the hope and testimony and conviction of this work that is unshakably within me forever.

I find this last bit, the bolded part, compelling.

Quote

It is with reference to evidence and in this case literal, corporeal substance that Luke introduces the book of Acts:

“The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,

“Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen:

“To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.”[6]

In one of the earliest such manifestations after His Resurrection, Jesus came to the eleven, inviting them to touch His hands and feet as He sat to eat meat and honeycomb.[7] To those who doubted, Mark says He “upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart.”[8] The message is that if members of the Godhead go to the trouble of providing “many infallible proofs”[9] of truth, then surely we are honor bound to affirm and declare that truth and may be upbraided if we do not.

Again, the bolded part.

The next bit is interesting:

Quote

My testimony to you tonight is that the gospel is infallibly true and that a variety of infallible proofs supporting that assertion will continue to come until Jesus descends as the ultimate infallible truth of all.

I think we'll get a panoply of such evidences, both spiritual and secondary/supplemental.

Quote

Our testimonies aren’t dependent on evidence—we still need that spiritual confirmation in the heart of which we have spoken—but not to seek for and not to acknowledge intellectual, documentable support for our belief when it is available is to needlessly limit an otherwise incomparably strong theological position and deny us a unique, persuasive vocabulary in the latter-day arena of religious investigation and sectarian debate. Thus armed with so much evidence of the kind we have celebrated here tonight, we ought to be more assertive than we sometimes are in defending our testimony of truth.

I think this thread has been just such a "religious investigation and sectarian debate."

I have asked our critics to formulate a coherent alternative explanation for the Book of Mormon, using whatever "persuasive vocabulary" and evidences and reasoning as they see fit.  Their inability (or, if you prefer, unwillingness) to provide one is, to me, quite interesting.

Quote

To that point I mention that while we were living and serving in England, I became fond of the writing of the English cleric Austin Farrer. Speaking of the contribution made by C. S. Lewis specifically and of Christian apologists generally, Farrer said: “Though argument does not create conviction, lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.”[10]

May we leave to Nephi, son of Helaman, the last word regarding our celebration of gospel scholarship tonight. Said he of that which God has given an “infallible proof”:

“And now, . . . ye know these things and cannot deny them [because of the] many evidences which ye have received; yea, even ye have received all things, both things in heaven, and all things which are in the earth, as a witness that they are true.”[11]

When such revelation comes, when that complete witness is borne to our heart and our head, then surely we will know how Martin Harris felt when, after considerable struggle of both body and spirit, he was able to behold the angel Moroni holding the gold plates, turning their leaves one by one before his very eyes. In response to that spiritual and temporal evidence he shouted for all of us, “Tis enough, ‘tis enough; mine eyes have beheld, mine eyes have beheld.”[12]

Wonderful stuff, this.

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

Yet, people will continue to convert (non-believers), and non-LDS Christians will continue to migrate to the LDS Church. And vice-versa. I wish both my LDS Christian and non-LDS Christian friends would simply be content to know they have a book that points people to the Savior. 

What are your thoughts about then-Elder Oaks comment: "The argument that it makes no difference whether the Book of Mormon is fact or fable is surely a sibling to the argument that it makes no difference whether Jesus Christ ever lived."

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

I have consciously chosen not to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My decision has nothing to do with the Book of Mormon or the Moroni Test. I simply could not join a church that has as a core belief that it is the only and that all the rest are others, less than pleasing to the Savior.

The Church's exclusivistic truth claims pertain to priesthood authority and its attendant ramifications (living prophets and apostles, an open canon, etc.).  We don't claim a monopoly on discipleship.  Far from it.

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

I acknowledge a great outpouring of kindness to me and my wife when she went through her open-heart surgery and when we lost our son during her recovery. The burden was overwhelming, as was our LDS friend's kindness. Yet, through all of that, it was clear we were still outsiders, outside of the church,

Isn't this your choice, though?  You don't want to join the Church.  I respect that.

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

outside of grace,

The Latter-day Saints have treated you in this way?

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

outside of real fellowship,

Might the Latter-day Saints be respecting the boundaries you have set up and maintain for yourself?

I've lost count of how many "Why I Left" narratives about how church members are nosy, intrusive, bothersome, etc.  And other narratives say we are standoffish, aloof, tribalistic.  We're in a heads-we-lose, tails-we-lose situation.

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

and outside of the permanence of the Holy Spirit.

That would be between you and the Lord.

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

Take care. 

And to you!

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

The Latter-day Saints have a pretty solid basis for their perspective on the origins of the Book of Mormon.  Critics and skeptics have conclusory, a priori assertions and guesswork, but nothing coherent and evidence-based.

I agree with this to a certain extent (not familiar enough with all the critics’ efforts to be draw a definite conclusion), but see it as expected whether or not the text is what it claims to be or a fraud.  Therefore, while interesting, it’s not particularly meaningful.

While I believe Saints have a good case for plausibility for the text with the evidence gathered so far***, I also think what the critics have to work with is a much more limited set of data even if much closer in time (which helps in ease of collection, but not in margins of error so to speak).  That makes their work harder, imo.

If one assumes (incorrectly imo) the text is a fraud, they do not have two hemispheres in which they can go looking for potential matches, they have a couple of northeastern states to work with.  They don’t have millennia of possibilities to shift through to find parallels, but maybe a decade at most and they have one man and his small entourage as the focus as opposed to the population of the mentioned hemispheres during those millennia.

If one assumes the text is a fraud (again I think it an unnecessary and ultimately incorrect assumption, but then I believe in the divine), they have to deal with the intentional hiding or destruction of the very evidence they need by those involved.

Just because there is inequality in opportunities to find evidence doesn’t mean we shouldn’t require it of critics for arguments against the text.  We shouldn’t give them freebies to balance out the lesser number of opportunities to find plausible evidence and concede they have supplied a solid, plausible, and supported case for the claim of fraud when they haven’t.  This search for history is not a game.  I am just suggesting acting like the critics have had equal opportunity and therefore it’s highly meaningful and weighs on the scale in favor of the text and the narrative surrounding it being truth because they have failed in collecting substantial and coherent plausible, positive evidence where Saints have been more successful is being unrealistic, imo.  The efforts are not that comparable.

Smac, while I noticed you added “without heavy speculation” to your criticism (a good call), I haven’t seen you address the issues of the likely comparative difficulty critics would have in finding evidence if the text was a fraud and why they are left to speculate (that would be on Joseph and others trying to hide the alleged fraud to a great extent if they were halfway intelligent, which they were by most credible accounts).  Perhaps I missed your rebuttal.

***I, of course, believe the text is revelation though the historicity of the text matters to me in the same way the Bible does, otoh Joseph’s story of finding the plates, etc…I see that as necessary history with the usual caveats of how history is never what actually happened, but perception of events that get altered over time as memories get visited and unintentionally rewritten.  I also think examining the text itself and connecting external evidence to it (geographical and other factors) has created a good case for plausibility.  When critics resort to relying on traditional interpretations and “plain readings” that require assumptions based on these as their strongest arguments, I find their arguments weak.  I also think a conspiracy involving more than a couple of people too likely to be leaked.

Edited March 31 by Calm

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

Quote

What we're left with, then, is effectively three options:

1. The "Plates" were a cheap, cobbled-together sham object fabricated by Joseph Smith (or involving him); or
2. The "Plates" were a sophisticated and convincing sham artifact, enough to dupe the Witnesses; or
3. The Plates were an authentically ancient artifact and substantially as described by the Witnesses.

Can I offer you a fourth?? Well, ok . . . I will anyway. Here goes:  4. The historicity of the plates doesn't matter. It is the shed blood of Christ on our behalf that matters.

I wonder why, then, Joseph and the Lord went to such efforts to clarify and establish historicity (in such a way as does not undermine individual agency).  What's the point of the Three Witnesses, for example? 

Quote

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen.

Within the Latter-day Saint paradigm, I struggle to read these things and reconcile them with "{t}he historicity of the plates doesn't matter."

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

I have a strong belief that when I get to Judgment Day, He is not going to ask me what I believed about the plates, or Jonah's big fish, or the Garden of Eden.

He may well do that.  He might also not ask you what you believed about the Bible.

I am undecided on some of the particulars of the biblical narrative, but I accept it broadly.  

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

5 minutes ago, Calm said:

Quote

The Latter-day Saints have a pretty solid basis for their perspective on the origins of the Book of Mormon.  Critics and skeptics have conclusory, a priori assertions and guesswork, but nothing coherent and evidence-based.

I agree with this to a certain extent (not familiar enough with all the critics’ efforts to be draw a definite conclusion), but see it as expected whether or not the text is what it claims to be or a fraud.  Therefore, while interesting, it’s not particularly meaningful.

I'm okay with that.  I think the Church has, in 200 years, come up with an impressive array of reasons to accept the Book of Mormon for what it claims to be.  Our critics have not made nearly as much progress in those 200 years.

5 minutes ago, Calm said:

Smac, while I noticed you added “without heavy speculation” to your criticism (a good call), I haven’t seen you address the issues of the likely comparative difficulty critics would have in finding evidence if the text was a fraud and why they are left to speculate (that would be on Joseph and others trying to hide the alleged fraud to a great extent if they were halfway intelligent, which they were by most credible accounts).  Perhaps I missed your rebuttal.

I have focused principally on the Plates and the Witnesses.  Our critics have access to the same evidences we do.

As for difficulty in "finding evidence" of "fraud," I'm not sure what you mean.  In my view, falsehoods are far more difficult to maintain than truths.  If Joseph came up with fraudulent plates, I think the falsities would be much more apparent.  Recanting witnesses (or even no witnesses at all), co-conspirators fessing up, plausible alternative candidates for authorship, etc.

As it is, the arguments against the Book of Mormon are falling by the wayside as time goes by.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

36 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

Forensic entomologists like Dr. Jean-Bernard Huchet also know Taphonomy, how things decay and settle over time. The beetle remains were sealed under massive layers of adobe brick and sediment in subterranean chambers. The beetle remains were part of the materials Dr. Alana Cordy-Collins sent for the AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) dating. The AMS report for the "fly and beetle remains" returned a date consistent with the Moche period (500 AD).

This is fascinating stuff.  Do you have formal training in this area?  Or are you just an enthusiastic and well-read sort of fellow?

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

53 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Our critics have access to the same evidences we do.

Which evidences are not necessarily the ones needed for evidence of fraud…such as manuscripts of drafts, for example.  These could be easily destroyed.  As could any physical evidence of fraud, which is one reason critics often mention Joseph removes the plates completely.  The destruction of the plates could easily be achieved by cutting them up enough so they were unrecognizable and dumping them in a lake.

For us, any evidence from over 2000 years, 2 hemispheres, etc can be useful.  All this “same evidences” available to the critics is useless to them for the most part for a positive narrative.  They only have short time period that would be relevant to find positive evidence if the book was a fraud.

There is also the problem of documentation of activity.  If someone was engaged in fraud would they be likely to intentionally leave records of clandestine meetings, etc as someone not engaged in fraud?

The co-conspirators keeping mum is one reason I listed as to why evidence opportunities to prove fraud would likely be limited to very few individuals as opposed to the thousands (millions?) available for defenders to choose from as well as being able to simply depend on made up characters for the narrative.  Even if they lacked CCTV in 1830, it would be harder to make a plausible nonexistent player for that time period than for 1500 years before that if only because of expectations (who expects to find birth, marriage, or death records of someone from 400 CE)?  Zelph is easier to claim than a scholar who supports the Book of Mormon as true (Anthon didn’t cooperate with it being an authentic text after all, doesn’t prove the text was a fraud, but he’s not the positive proof for Joseph you are requiring from the critics), so it would make sense for Joseph to try to limit engagement with others as much as possible, relying on verbal testimony, providing fewer opportunities for physical evidence to be examined and challenged.

Again, none of this should be seen as suggesting the critics are right.  I am merely addressing opportunities to create a positive, coherent narrative of a short-term, local fraud involving a few people vs creating a positive narrative being able to shift through thousands of years, practically limitless locations and people looking for plausible connections.

Edited March 31 by Calm

[Navidad]

37 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I wonder why, then, Joseph and the Lord went to such efforts to clarify and establish historicity (in such a way as does not undermine individual agency).  What's the point of the Three Witnesses, for example? 

I guess the same point as the men on the road to Emmaus. Do not the plates tell the story of the Savior? Cannot Christ use any means to draw people unto Himself? Could he not use Narnia, if He so desired? Maybe He did. Perhaps Lewis was inspired by the Holy Spirit in his wonderful storytelling about redemption. How about the Screwtape Letters? Any literality (is that word) in them. I think not. They were foundational in my early spiritual understandings. For me, The Book of Mormon, stripped of its historical context, is a much more uplifting and enlightening tool than Doctrine and Covenants or the Pearl of Great Price. Of course that is just me. 

[Pyreaux]

1 minute ago, smac97 said:

This is fascinating stuff.  Do you have formal training in this area?  Or are you just an enthusiastic and well-read sort of fellow?

Thanks,

-Smac

I have a lot of special interests and crystalized knowledge. I'll save stuff or usually, like this time, what happens, I've read it before, then I bring it up off the top of my head, and then I have scramble to find it or anything like it again. I usually can, I remember the key words or phrases, I don't remember other things like the names, I have to find stuff I don't remember again in the search. I think I recalled this beetle from an old Book of Mormon Central page a long time ago.