Book Of Mormon & Archeology?

[Dan Vogel]

Dan Vogel:

Where is NaHoM refered to anywhere but the BoM?

I'm not sure what is meant by this question. I might suggest you search for other threads on Nahom where Uncle Dale posted maps that showed its location in Arabia. It's a name of a region, but the BOM makes it sound like the name of Lehi's camp site. I think it's coincidence.

[Dan Vogel]

USU,

Doesn't quite say Nephi made 'em out of steel, now, does it? Anybody care to venture a guess about "after the manner of it" means?

Maybe. But it hardly allows for a wooden club with sharp rocks on it, does it?

[Dan Vogel]

"There is zero archaeological evidence that any kind of cement existed in the Americas prior to modern times."

John L. Smith, "What about those Gold Plates?" The Utah Evangel 33/6 (September 1986): 8.

Edit:

Also...

Thomas D.S. Key, Sc.D., Ed.D. (Biology), Th.D. (1985), â??A Biologist Examines the Book of Mormonâ? (Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, XXX-VIII, 2, June 1985).

Key lists cement on his list of anachronisms (also highways).

It still doesn't occur in Mesoamerica in the land northward (as mentioned in Helaman) until long after it supposed to.

[Doctor Steuss]

It still doesn't occur in Mesoamerica in the land northward (as mentioned in Helaman) until long after it supposed to.

By all means correct me if I'm wrong (as I know that I am often wrong), but I thought the land northward was desolate?

Edit:

Nevermind Dan. Upon reviewing my mental database, I think I had my "lands northward" mixed up (i.e. land northward vs. land of desolation)... Sorry.

[USU78]

Maybe. But it hardly allows for a wooden club with sharp rocks on it, does it?

"Sharp rocks" hardly covers the ground of the razor-sharp obsidian blades inserted into the wooden frame now, does it? The gravity-aided flight downward and at an angle across the body of an enemy of obsidian blades is as effective as steel (the Spaniards thought it was maybe even better).

Is an implement that is used like a claymore (a slasher) less a sword than one used like a pilus (a poker)?

.

Or is function less important than material in this regard?

[Dan Vogel]

Ammon and the Mesoamerican Custom of Smiting off Arms

Do you realize how sharp obsedian can be?

Yes, but I don't see anyone but maybe a samurai worrior doing what Ammon supposedly did, but certainly not someone with bat with sharp rocks on it. The link you gave seemed to deal with taking trophies after death, not the ability of a worrior to cut off the arms of many attackers. I wouldn't think it a good strategy to try to cut off the arms of one's oppenents while in battle, which the author implied at the beginning of the essay but never substantiated.

[Brant Gardner]

Yes, but I don't see anyone but maybe a samurai worrior doing what Ammon supposedly did, but certainly not someone with bat with sharp rocks on it.

There is a Spanish account of a native taking off a horse head with a single stroke. I suspect that an arm would be easier.

[Mark Beesley]

A most interesting thread. Thank heavens for folks like Brant Gardner who have the time, inclination, and information to refute the multitude of lies, half-truths and distortions served up as fact by the critics. There was only one comment that I really feel qualified to respond to:

Homer led to the discovery of Troy, what has the BOM led to?

The Book of Mormon led to my conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and has led to the conversion of millions of other faithful Latter-day Saints.

[Dan Vogel]

A most interesting thread. Thank heavens for folks like Brant Gardner who have the time, inclination, and information to refute the multitude of lies, half-truths and distortions served up as fact by the critics. There was only one comment that I really feel qualified to respond to:

This is not a cheerleading session.

The Book of Mormon led to my conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and has led to the conversion of millions of other faithful Latter-day Saints.

Nor is it a testimony meeting. But I'm glad you get something out of it.

[Dan Vogel]

There is a Spanish account of a native taking off a horse head with a single stroke. I suspect that an arm would be easier.

Yes, I'm quite sure. My doubts aren't about sharpness, but about the dexterity with which one could wield it against simultaneous attack of many attackers. I'm also concerned that it doesn't fit the BOM's description of Laman-like swords.

[Mark Beesley]

This is not a cheerleading session.

Nor is it a testimony meeting. But I'm glad you get something out of it.

Well, I guess you could have just passed by my post without comment then, right?

[Dan Vogel]

Maklelan,

Now you're qualifying a general statement. Book of Mormon archaeology refers to archaeology that deals with lands, peoples and things mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Now, if you'd like to qualify it as "post-First Nephi Book of Mormon archaeology," or "New World Book of Mormon archaeology" then do so from the onset, but otherwise it includes everything discussed in the Book of Mormon. Question: Is there such thing as Akkadian archaeology?

I'm not trying to be tricky here. The thread started out on the subject of Mesoamerica. My first post was about Mesoamerica. As you seem to forget, I said:

So far, the BOM makes no direct connection to ancient America, and therefore there is no such thing as BOM archaeology. The burden is on believers.

You were the one who changed the subject to NHM, most likely as a diversionary tactic. Now I have quoted your fellow apologists on this matter; yet you persist in not accepting what is a rather simple matter.

Why not? If NHM is Nahom then everything has to be true as well. If you want to start the argument over and specify that you would like to compartmentalize the Book of Mormon narrative before engaging in discussion then we can start over.

Hopefully, the goal of BOM archaeology would be to do more than prove historicity; it should also explain something. But you have missed the point, which was even if one concedes historicity (Ostler, Dee, and Ferguson are believers), there still aren't any Nephite cities or artifacts to discuss.

In what other way could Nephi have recorded the name so that it would have any meaning to someone who didn't speak Sabean?

Does one change place names because they don't have meaning in another? I'm not sure how one writes Nahom in Egyptian or Reformed Hebrew-Egyptian. But since it's a soft H, how about NM? Who knows? But it's not a simple ironclad correlation.

We stick to exegesis, not eisegesis.

No, you don't. The place "was called" by whom? The text doesn't say.

Argument from silence.

True, but the silence doesn't help your case. It doesn't mean there weren't other people; it means the BOM failed to give further detail that could corroborate your identification. In this way, it is minimalistic.

If you want to argue that two exactly identical words in Semitic languages are only speculatively identical because one has the arbitrary addition of English vowels and the other does not then you betray a complete lack of understanding of transliteration techniques and Semitic languages in general.

Which may or may not correlate ... with the ancient place NiHM. If ancient Semitic languages had vowels and Nahom was a match, that would be more impressive.

Not true. Humans typically set apart an area for burial, and it can be near their settlement or far from it, and in the Ancient Near East burials almost always took place in a specified location. Along the Incense Trail there were burial grounds that were for the use of the travellers. Burial in a random location would run the risk of ritual impurity for others as well as the exposure of the carcass or its destruction by animals.

Of course, I know burial grounds can be located in different places. But humans bury their dead. It might be in the back garden, around the church yard, a cemetery, in catacombs, etc. The point being that the Nihmites had a burial ground isn't surprising. But the BOM only states that Ishmael was buried, nothing about with other dead. What were you saying about eisegesis?

A source, please.

I have quoted it in a previous post.

So you'd like to investigate them individually, but you'll base your argument on the weakness of isolated correlations.

And you'll try to bolster two vague correlations by linking them.

"Nothing" and "the general location" are two entirely different things, and knowing the general location opens up numerous doors, so please don't use hyperbole when it makes no sense to.

It's not hyperbole. The BOM doesn't say anything about Nahom besides general location.

OK. I like our evidence. We've got an altar, an inscription that amtches, a specific location with a matching landmark, a burial ground and dating that matches perfectly.

The BOM says nothing about an altar or the people who lived there. Nor does it mention a burial ground. The altar tells you the name NHM, and it's located in the general area you expected at the time you expected. But that's it. No direct link to the BOM. It could be just coincidence.

Not for this Bountiful, that's for the Potter Bountiful, which doesn't work. The one I speak of has all of the geological and geographical stuff exactly matching.

Interesting that at one time you would have cited the Potter Bountiful for support of NHM. Hence, the need to keep them separate.

So it's the chicken or the egg, and you say chicken if I say egg, but then you say egg because I say chicken. Circular reasoning. You can't cite historicity problems when investigating evidence that is acting solely to support historicity.

You can't deny the BOM is on a different footing than the Bible. The BOM needs some direct connection to Mesoamerica on which to build other assumptions.

I'll repeat the question that I asked earlier, and I would appreciate a serious response: Is there such a thing as Akkad archaeology?

This is the kind of loaded question Hamblin would ask. I don't know? But why do I suspect an imperfect analogy is about to follow? All to avoid the rather obvious observation about the nature of the evidence we have to deal with when we contextualize the BOM to Mesoamerica.

[Brant Gardner]

Yes, I'm quite sure. My doubts aren't about sharpness, but about the dexterity with which one could wield it against simultaneous attack of many attackers.

The Spaniards who encounted native dexterity were much more impressed than you are.

I'm also concerned that it doesn't fit the BOM's description of Laman-like swords.

You are aware that you are imputing a definition from 600 B.C. to an event closer to 100 B.C.? I can think of any number of reasons that a technology might change or be adapted in that period of time. Why would you think that Laman-like swords would still be influential after that long? Remember that obsidian provides a much sharper blade than most metal swords would have.

[Dan Vogel]

The Spaniards who encounted native dexterity were much more impressed than you are.

Do they describe this dexterity? Macahuitls seem more awkward and difficult to handle than swords.

You are aware that you are imputing a definition from 600 B.C. to an event closer to 100 B.C.? I can think of any number of reasons that a technology might change or be adapted in that period of time. Why would you think that Laman-like swords would still be influential after that long? Remember that obsidian provides a much sharper blade than most metal swords would have.

If I had the option, I think I would prefer a steel sword. It would seem macahuitls would be considered a step back in weaponry. Obsidian is brittle and breaks easily, especially against steel swords and metal armor.

[Brant Gardner]

Do they describe this dexterity? Macahuitls seem more awkward and difficult to handle than swords.

Yes. I am curious what your experience is with both macahuitls and swords that you are so certain of your opinion? Especially when it is contradicted by historical evidence.

If I had the option, I think I would prefer a steel sword. It would seem macahuitls would be considered a step back in weaponry. Obsidian is brittle and breaks easily, especially against steel swords and metal armor.

Again, you should read the chroniclers. Their swords weren't nearly as sharp. Their armor was hot, heavy. Most Spaniards doffed it in preference to the native quilted cotton. What you are saying is that you have fixed ideas based on modern preconceptions. The texts simply disagree with you. I think I'll stick with the accounts of those who were actually there. The descriptions of battles are much different than you appear to imagine them.

[Markk]

Hi Brant,

Here is a interesting verse concerning the sword,...

Ether 15:2 He saw that there had been slain by the sword already nearly two millions of his people, and he began to sorrow in his heart; yea, there had been slain two millions of mighty men, and also their wives and their children.

Nearly two million people killed by the sword, do you believe if this this battle actually happened it was fought with Macahuitls?

Mark

John 1:12

[David Bokovoy]

Nearly two million people killed by the sword, do you believe if this this battle actually happened it was fought with Macahuitls?

Interesting, Mark, that a Bible believer would raise this question. I suspect it is in part the Bibleâ??s tendency to follow the trends of ancient historiography in inflating numbers that has led historians such as Thomas L. Thompson to conclude:

"One cannot but question any alleged 'reliable pool of information'; I propose that we decline to be led by the biblical account and instead regard it, like other legendary materials, as formally ahistorical; that is, as a source which only exceptionally can be verified by other information." Thomas L. Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People from the Written and Archaeological Sources (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 115, 132.

When it comes to war stories, I really believe that it takes a far greater leap of faith to believe in the historicity of the book of Judges than the Book of Mormon. Judges is a depiction of a past, it is certainly not a depiction of the past.

Notice the inherent problem with chronology:

"The Judites attacked Jerusalem and capture it; they put it to the sword and set the city on fire" (Judges 1:9)

"The Benjaminites did not possess the Jebusite inhabitants of Jerusalem; so the Jebusites have dwelt with the Benjaminites in Jerusalem to this day" (Judges 1:21).

Judges 1:21, BTW, is simply a reworking of Joshua 15:63, yet notice the difference:

"The Judites could not dispossess the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem; so the Judites dwell with the Jebusites in Jerusalem to this day."

Also, Cushan-rishathaim Aram-naharaim (Judges 3:10)?

No monarch in the ancient Near East would have born the name "Dark Doubled Evil One." Just consider the rhyme and even metrical nature of his name.

To present this book as historical in the traditional western sense is really quite misleading. The same is true, of course, for much of the Hebrew Bible.

Fo me, it's much easier to believe that a large number of people were killed in ancient America by Macahuitls than it is to accept a story in which 1000 Philistines were killed with the jawbone of an ***, but to each his own (Judges 15:15).

[maklelan]

"Sharp rocks" hardly covers the ground of the razor-sharp obsidian blades inserted into the wooden frame now, does it? The gravity-aided flight downward and at an angle across the body of an enemy of obsidian blades is as effective as steel (the Spaniards thought it was maybe even better).

It was. Obsidian makes a much cleaner cut than any surgical scalpel. The Egyptians used them and some doctors use obsidian scalpels now.

[maklelan]

Maklelan,

I'm not trying to be tricky here. The thread started out on the subject of Mesoamerica. My first post was about Mesoamerica.

I jumped in late, so I realize our lines were crossed and you were under a completely different impression than me. I apologize for the mix-up.

You were the one who changed the subject to NHM, most likely as a diversionary tactic. Now I have quoted your fellow apologists on this matter; yet you persist in not accepting what is a rather simple matter.

I have never in my six years of membership in this church done anything at all in an attempt to divert the attention of anyone and I will thank you to refrain from insinuating that I am trying to manipulate the conversation. You also insist in reducing a complex matter down to "nothing."

Hopefully, the goal of BOM archaeology would be to do more than prove historicity; it should also explain something. But you have missed the point, which was even if one concedes historicity (Ostler, Dee, and Ferguson are believers), there still aren't any Nephite cities or artifacts to discuss.

It would show that they are there somewhere, though.

Does one change place names because they don't have meaning in another? I'm not sure how one writes Nahom in Egyptian or Reformed Hebrew-Egyptian. But since it's a soft H, how about NM? Who knows? But it's not a simple ironclad correlation.

It's much stronger than what an awful lot of scholarship is based on these days.

No, you don't. The place "was called" by whom? The text doesn't say.

You're right, the text doesn't name a person or group of people, but every other instance of a place name is accompanied with an explanation of who named it or why or both. It does not say that they named it where it does say that in every other instance. What makes more sense?

True, but the silence doesn't help your case. It doesn't mean there weren't other people; it means the BOM failed to give further detail that could corroborate your identification. In this way, it is minimalistic.

And the author stated that he was only including religious stuff. It's not minimilistic, it's topical, and other people was not the topic.

Which may or may not correlate ... with the ancient place NiHM. If ancient Semitic languages had vowels and Nahom was a match, that would be more impressive.

And where is the chart from which a level of impressiveness qualifies something as archaeology? I can show you volumes and volumes of journals written about a shard of pottery with nothing on if you want.

Of course, I know burial grounds can be located in different places. But humans bury their dead. It might be in the back garden, around the church yard, a cemetery, in catacombs, etc. The point being that the Nihmites had a burial ground isn't surprising. But the BOM only states that Ishmael was buried, nothing about with other dead. What were you saying about eisegesis?

I'm saying something about established Hebrew practice. Israelites didn't just bury their people wherever they could dig a hole. There's a lot more going on here than you're aware.

I have quoted it in a previous post.

Would you mind pointing it out for me?

And you'll try to bolster two vague correlations by linking them.

That's how coincidence is changed to correlation, by linking numerous "coincidences" together with each other in a way that cannot be coincidence. So far nothing in all of Arabia is at odds with the whole of 1 Nephi. Nothing at all.

It's not hyperbole. The BOM doesn't say anything about Nahom besides general location.

And location in relationship to another location with several very unique and specific qualities, which is amazingly only found in one spot on the entire planet, which just so happens to lie exactly in the spot that it should in relation to the first. The location also serves the exact same purpose and has the same name. You're leaving lots of stuff out in an attempt to make it same like a stretch.

The BOM says nothing about an altar or the people who lived there. Nor does it mention a burial ground. The altar tells you the name NHM, and it's located in the general area you expected at the time you expected. But that's it. No direct link to the BOM. It could be just coincidence.

Crazy coincidences seem to pop up every time someone investigates the Book of Mormon. WHat number of coincidences must match up perfectly before you'll stop flippantly dismissing them as the pipe-dreams of lunatics?

Interesting that at one time you would have cited the Potter Bountiful for support of NHM. Hence, the need to keep them separate.

I've never cited it. I was making sure that you weren't assuming that's what I was referencing, which you were.

You can't deny the BOM is on a different footing than the Bible. The BOM needs some direct connection to Mesoamerica on which to build other assumptions.

If Lehi's journey can be proven to be historical, is there a need to establish Mesoamerican archaeology before the Book of Mormon will be considered historical?

This is the kind of loaded question Hamblin would ask. I don't know? But why do I suspect an imperfect analogy is about to follow? All to avoid the rather obvious observation about the nature of the evidence we have to deal with when we contextualize the BOM to Mesoamerica.

Akkad was the biggest and most powerful city in the world for centuries and is mentioned as the capital of Sargon's Babylon, but not one shred of archaeological evidence has ever been produced to show it actually exists. Ask any archaeologist on this planet if they think it exists and they will unequivically say yes, but there's not a single potsherd to prove it. There are hundreds of archaeologists lookoing for it at any given time, and thousands of books have been written on it, but not a fingernail to show it was a real place.

[Markk]

Hi David,

Kind of off topic here, I believe you should go back and read all the posts to get in the flow. My question to Brant was not so much about war and people dieing, but that millions being killed by a club with rocks in it opposed to steel swords as discribed in the BoM...i.e. forged of steel, cankerd and rusted, having hilts..etc

War is a fact, war is real and there is ample evidence to know what man's capabilities are.

Why don't you way in David, do you believe that the BoM in context would support steel swords in a classic fashion, or wood clubs with sharp flint embedded? If the latter what part of the text would you use to support that?

Take care

mark

John 1:12

P.S. Still wondering who you believe the Elyon are in Deut 26 and 28?

[Brant Gardner]

do you believe that the BoM in context would support steel swords in a classic fashion, or wood clubs with sharp flint embedded?

Mark:

In context you can't say very much about the weapon used. The rare descriptions appear to describe slashing weapons, when the context shows action with the weapons. The lexical descriptions are a different animal because of the translation issue.

As for whether or not millions of people could be killed with a macahuitl, there is ample historical evidence to back that up. There should be no question of its capabilities, which I suspect were actually superior to the standard issue conquistador weapon.

We have a cultural bias that has us assume that what we are familiar with must be better. In this case, the historical evidence suggests otherwise.

[Luigi]

The problem we have here is the age old problem of apologetics. The problem is the basic assumptions of each party. Apologists assume the BoM to be an ancient text based on spiritual epiphanies. From there they base their interpretation of the text on what archeology tells them so as to justify their assumption. Therefore we see that sword=macahuitls, horse=tapir, steel=iron, etc. etc.

The critic, on the other hand, treats the BoM as being on trial. The text must prove itself. Therefore the critic is left to interpret the text in the manner that seems most probable given the meaning of the text in English and or its alleged Hebrew/Egyptian origins(ie the interpretation must come FIRST) and then he sees if what he finds in the alleged area of the BoM fits. However, the critic never can or will be able to prove that certain parallels or unlikely intrepretations are not possible (disproving the unprobable is not possible). Certainly I can never show that the author's intention was NOT to signify macahuitls with sword or tapir with horse. I can show that there would be relatively little logic behind it based on what most would consider a reasonable interpretation of the text and on historical precedence but I can never disprove it. The apologist, on the other hand, simply needs enough to justify his assumptions of historicity, so as long as he can get an example where one or two people in history compare a macahuitl to a sword or a horse to a deer or mistranslate steel as iron then he can always say it is 'possible'.

[charity]

luigi, the critic is in the same position, in reverse, as the apologist. The critic cannot admit the origin of the Book of Mormon on its face, so they have to reach for any criticism they can that will point out what they believe to be true--that the Book of Mormon is not what is says on its face.

So how is one different from the other? Just different directions. I would say the critic is even in a more difficult position. Apologists do not depend on scholarly explanations or archeological findings to confirm their view of what the Book of Mormon is. They have a spiritual witness that the Book of Mormon is what it says it is.

On the other hand, the critic is very much dependent on scholarly explanations and archeological findings to confirm their view. Because if the Book of Mormon begins to show evidence of its stated origins, they are in big trouble. They can't look to a spiritual witness that the Book of Mormon is a 19th century production.

[Luigi]

luigi, the critic is in the same position, in reverse, as the apologist. The critic cannot admit the origin of the Book of Mormon on its face, so they have to reach for any criticism they can that will point out what they believe to be true--that the Book of Mormon is not what is says on its face.

So how is one different from the other? Just different directions. I would say the critic is even in a more difficult position. Apologists do not depend on scholarly explanations or archeological findings to confirm their view of what the Book of Mormon is. They have a spiritual witness that the Book of Mormon is what it says it is.

On the other hand, the critic is very much dependent on scholarly explanations and archeological findings to confirm their view. Because if the Book of Mormon begins to show evidence of its stated origins, they are in big trouble. They can't look to a spiritual witness that the Book of Mormon is a 19th century production.

The critic starts with the position that the BoM must 'prove' itself. But that is the case for most archeologists with ANY text. When they are presented with a new text they ask 'why should I accept this document is ancient'? That may be as simple as the fact that a reputable scholar dug it out of the ground and the paper it was written on carbon dated to the appropriate period. On the other hand, some documents have to be evaluated for their consistency based on other forms of textual criticism. Archeologist, and scientists in general, do not consider spiritual witnesses manifested through one's feelings as a scientific tool to legitimize ANY document, so why should they make an exception for the BoM?

(Edit)-I will make one concession on this point though Charity. I will admit that most people in general when attempting to analyze the text might have the tendency to be hyper-critical in their evaluation of the historicity of the text simply based on their bias about texts claiming to originate from divine sources. On the flip side, however, one who is more accepting of such claims may tend to be overly lenient in their historical analysis of the text-unfortunately it is difficult to completely eliminate such tendencies from human character. It would be interesting to give the text to archeologists who were not familiar with the BoM's origins-which would require tearing out the part in the front about Joseph Smith translating-and see what their thoughts were-but I am fairly confident they would bring up many of the same issues presented by the criticc. I could be wrong though-I'm always open to that possibility.

[charity]

luigi, you misunderstand. I did not expect any scholar to accept any one's spiritual witness. What I said was, or tried to say, was that the critic has his/her own belief system on the line. If the critic sees evidence that the Book of Mormon is an ancient document, what do they so with the its history of prophets, angels, visions, etc?

But the apologist can present what evidence they find, and still know that if there are unanswered questions, it doesn't really matter. They are confident that all questions will be answered at some future time.