Book Of Mormon & Archeology?

[TAK]

I suggest you read several articles not found on Wikipedia. First, Professor Key's article "American Indian Languages before Columbus," which shares interesting correlations between Hittite, Sumerian and Uto-Aztecan. She's not Mormon, by the way. Then mosey over to Brian Stubbs' article "Elements of Hebrew in Uto-Aztecan: A Summary of the Data." It is a very thorough investigation into the striking similarities that exist between Semitic languages (and Egyptian) and Uto-Aztecan languages. Stubbs numbers the correlations, and they stop at 206. In the conclusion, however, he adds, "Much more could be presented. This summary constitutes less than half the data. There are more than 250 additional Sem roots with apparent reflexes in UA." It is a FARMS paper, but to show those doubters out there that our work is actually very respected, you may also read a reference to his article by non-Mormon Roger Williams Westcott, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Linguistics at Drew University. This gentleman was also past president of the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States and a Rhodes scholar. His article, "Early Eurasian Linguistic Links with North America," praises the conclusions of Stubbs. He repeats a bunch of Stubbs' correlations and then concludes: "Lest sceptics should attribute these correspondences to coincidence, however, Stubbs takes care to note that there are systematic sound-shifts, analogous to those covered in Indo-European by Grimm's Law, which recur consistently in loans from Afro-Asiatic to Uto-Aztecan. One of these is the unvoicing of voiced stops in the more southerly receiving languages. Another is the velarization of voiced labial stops and glides in the same languages." This gentleman is far more versed than your Google search, and he happens to disagree with your above statement, as do I.

If you don't feel like admitting you are wrong then I would appreciate your perusal of this evidence and, barring an admission of errancy at that time, an explanation of why your internet gives you a more enlightened perspective. You may take all the time you need.

If you are going to parrot Jeff Lindsey at least have the common decency to provide a link for the reader.

http://www.jefflindsay.com/bme8.shtml

[charity]

Dale, you make a good point. Just because one Christian group became enamored of the cross as a Christian symbol does not mean all will. Early, early Christians used a fish as a prominent symbol, for instance. And LDS don't use a cross at all.

[cdowis]

>You have the beginnings of some good questions - to which there are some very obvious answers. What happens when you take a culture that was heavily dependent upon olives and grapes and place them in a location where olives and grapes don't grow at all, or not well? etc

Also include differences in geography and climate. Any culture that Lehi brought with him would be buried under a thousand years of rainforest, etc, by his descendants.

[maklelan]

If you are going to parrot Jeff Lindsey at least have the common decency to provide a link for the reader.

http://www.jefflindsay.com/bme8.shtml

The only thing I took from that site was the credentials of professor Westcott. I have every one of those articles in my possession and quoted directly from them. You'll notice the part I quoted in the conclusion of Stubbs' article is not in Lindsay.

Pointing out where this information is presented does very little to undermine the argument. The ball is still in your court.

[antishock8]

The only thing I recognize from old christian architecture is crosses & religious paintings. But unless the Nephites painted Jesus, or used crosses one would not expect them to turn up in the ruins. So I doubt myself just because one Christian people did it every Christian people would would.

I do known Meso-America had atleast a similar history in that civilizations rose & fell upon this continent. What happens to paper records when a foreign army occupies the lands? Did the Nazi's enter Jewish area to preserve Jewish religious writings before taking those people to the camps? I am sure what wasn't burnt was buried. I do not how many paper type writings they produced as archeology hasn't revealed it. With the New Testament 5,000 manuscripts exist. With the Book of Mormom from then until it was translated was written upon plates & had no early copyists.

I may be wrong, but I don't recall the Book of Mormon referring to perishable paper, or papyrus type writings, or writing on animal skin. It does refer to durable metal records. So maybe written writings on other materials was far less common. They had the idea of preserving records on metal. Anything perishable unless hid up, or preserved would not survive.

The idea of plate type of record does not suggest they kept vast library's of texts. That seems to me to similarly fit the situation in Meso-America. Whatever perishable records they kept was not a large enough collection to survive to be found.

Why is it that we have records of the native peoples that lived here thousands of years ago? We can infer language, art, culture, religion... all sorts of stuff that isn't as mysterious as is being insinuated here. Yet, BofM civilzations that were extremely advanced and very large... well.... I'm still waiting to know where they are?

When I was in Peru and visited various museums in Lima, the Incan (pre-Spanish) culture was very well represented historically. So I'm not sure how one can conclude with on-going archaeological expeditions and cultural studies that it would be difficult to figure out who was what when we're talking about the sheer size of the populations as suggested by the BofM.

[maklelan]

I guess I wasted my time reading Cartesian Linguistics then... dang it. I was married to a woman who was a polyglot. She spoke five languages and was very interested in the linguistic origins of not only her languages, but language in general. I know this is going to drive you crazy, but I *gasp* read real books on the subject by real *gasp* scholars. That aside... it's not hard to draw correlations between any number of apparently unrelated languages. Without delving into minutia because it's pointless and detracts from the overall theme of the thread there are groups of languages as you know, which share a common ancestor languages, which then... it's theorized... at one point came from one to three Mother language(s). It is, of course, based in our physiology these commonalities... anyway... the point being is that you can make many links to many languages, but it still doesn't mean that they're connected in any significant way.

So let's go back to common sense, no? If you have a basis in one kind of language, even if other languages have influenced or dominated your native tongue, there will still be indisputable evidence of that first language. As you'll note, the BofM states that the languages were corrupted... not replaced... and thus one would expect much more of a linguistic connection to Hebrew aside from a few glottal stops or vowel combinations. This is a given. You have to make a stretch to make the connections you're suggesting.

So your ability to read real books makes your a priori conclusion about the validity of this argument superior to the conclusions of the former president of the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States? Your wife speaks five languages? Big deal, I speak five languages and I have eight more to go.

I can only conclude, because of the fact that you ridicule our scholars and the public opinion of them, that you didn't read my article. I did mention that scholars actual respect our work, and I showed it. The above bolded sentence is specifically addressed by that president of the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States, but you fail to recognize that. If you have read the entire article then I suggest you stick to just reading books and not commenting on them. You haven't read the articles and you don't even provide a word of evidence against their arguments. Your position is a joke.

[charity]

I can think of a few reasons why we can't hold the Inca up as an example, and then ask questions about a prior civilization.

1. The Inca had actual contact with a group that did not go into extinction. When they encountered the Spanish, we had witnesses to what they saw, what the Inca culture was like. These records, this experience, has come down us.

Who had contact with the Nephite civilization, recorded what their culture was like?

2. There is a matter of different geography. The high altittude of the Inca area means that relics had a greater chance of surviving than low land, tropical rain forest areas.

3. There is also a matter of time. The Incas were still around in the mid-1500's. The last of the Nephites was about 1000. I suppose 500 years or so isn't too big a deal.

[antishock8]

So your ability to read real books makes your a priori conclusion about the validity of this argument superior to the conclusions of the former president of the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States? Your wife speaks five languages? Big deal, I speak five languages and I have eight more to go.

I can only conclude, because of the fact that you ridicule our scholars and the public opinion of them, that you didn't read my article. I did mention that scholars actual respect our work, and I showed it. The above bolded sentence is specifically addressed by that president of the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States, but you fail to recognize that. If you have read the entire article then I suggest you stick to just reading books and not commenting on them. You haven't read the articles and you don't even provide a word of evidence against their arguments. Your position is a joke.

That's because it's unnecessary. The bottom line is that there's nothing that conclusively links Mesoamerican cultures to the BofM populations. It's hopeful speculation. That's about it. There's no reason to delve into the kind of silly comparitive studies you're hoping to do. That only lends the whiff of credibilty to your idea by simply placing it into that particular context I believe. If there was indisputable correlation your position would not be unknown to most of the world.

[TAK]

The only thing I took from that site was the credentials of professor Westcott. I have every one of those articles in my possession and quoted directly from them. You'll notice the part I quoted in the conclusion of Stubbs' article is not in Lindsay.

Pointing out where this information is presented does very little to undermine the argument. The ball is still in your court.

Your (Lindsey and FARMS that is ...) arguments are founded on conjecture and remote probabilities, and while that is helpful to those who are in need of a place to hang their testimonies on, it does not fly with most others including me.

[maklelan]

That's because it's unnecessary. The bottom line is that there's nothing that conclusively links Mesoamerican cultures to the BofM populations. It's hopeful speculation. That's about it. There's no reason to delve into the kind of silly comparitive studies you're hoping to do. That only lends the whiff of credibilty to your idea by simply placing it into that particular context I believe. If there was indisputable correlation your position would not be unknown to most of the world.

The truth comes out. Your opinion is true because thinking otherwise is idiocy and looking into the scholarship of people much smarter than you will ever be is pointless because your a priori idea cannot be untrue. Your only corroboration for your opinion is your lack of awareness of the multitude of scholarship on the subject. What a joke.

[maklelan]

Your (Lindsey and FARMS that is ...) arguments are founded on conjecture and remote probabilities, and while that is helpful to those who are in need of a place to hang their testimonies on, it does not fly with most others including me.

Only one of my three articles is from a Mormon source. Please address the scholarship of the other two or admit that you just automatically dismiss our scholarship without investigatign it because you care more about your opinion than the truth. Another completely ridiculous joke of an argument. Is anyone in this thread capable of actual debate? You'll hide behind my ad hominem as an excuse for not engaging the evidence, but it's really because you have no clue what you're talking about and haven't the foggiest idea how to hold up your opinion in the face of actual non-Mormon scholarship. No one ever engages the evidence, they just whine. Thanks for making your side look stupid. It helps us out a lot.

[USU78]

As you'll note, the BofM states that the languages were corrupted... not replaced... and thus one would expect much more of a linguistic connection to Hebrew aside from a few glottal stops or vowel combinations. This is a given. You have to make a stretch to make the connections you're suggesting.

I guess I'll have to list a few of the books I've read as well: Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, my grad school lingistics texts, blah, blah, blah.

Grimm's law is nothing to snort about, as you apparently do. Grimm's law proved the relatedness of Parsi, Farsi, Hindi, English, Russian, Italian, and Welsh. It led to the inference of a parent language, Indo-European. It led further to the inference of an even earlier and more widely influential parent, Indo-Hittite.

And upon fewer, in some instances, correspondences than our friend Stubbs has apparently demonstrated.

USU "I'll see you your polyglot spouse and raise you a Masters in German Philology" 78

PS:

He can learn a language in a fortnight -knows dozens of them. A sure mark of a fool.

[antishock8]

The truth comes out. Your opinion is true because thinking otherwise is idiocy and looking into the scholarship of people much smarter than you will ever be is pointless because your a priori idea cannot be untrue. Your only corroboration for your opinion is your lack of awareness of the multitude of scholarship on the subject. What a joke.

I'm not sure you're using 'a priori' correctly in context with my assertions, but we'll let that slide. I know it's fashionable to wallow in the logical fallacies, but let's just stick to content, no? Don't be so angry... we're just sitting around talking about things Mormon here. Btw, I'm still waiting for you to provide me with a rock solid BofM archaeological find. It would be exciting stuff to find something that correlates Christ's visit here to America with hard evidence... say like a mural, or a stone carving... something. I'm sure there are some pre-Columbian Christian artifacts somewhere?

[Dale]

I never have read a critic of the Book of Mormon that tried to discredit the book based on surviving Meso-American texts. No maps, texts have turned up from any of Dr. Sorenson's proposed locations that I am aware of.

[antishock8]

I guess I'll have to list a few of the books I've read as well: Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, my grad school lingistics texts, blah, blah, blah.

Grimm's law is nothing to snort about, as you apparently do. Grimm's law proved the relatedness of Parsi, Farsi, Hindi, English, Russian, Italian, and Welsh. It led to the inference of a parent language, Indo-European. It led further to the inference of an even earlier and more widely influential parent, Indo-Hittite.

And upon fewer, in some instances, correspondences than our friend Stubbs has apparently demonstrated.

USU "I'll see you your polyglot spouse and raise you a Masters in German Philology" 78

PS:

Thank you for the quick breakdown of "language epistemology". Been there. Done that. The only reason why I felt compelled to bring up the book reading, education, and whatnot was because some posters have a habit of making assumptons about other posters and I felt compelled to counter some of the insinuations put forth.

Regardless, it's not an outrageous idea that a 'corrupted' language that was once Hebrew would retain distinctly Hebrew-ish traits. This is further cemented by the idea that they had a recorded history, an advanced civilization, and a ruling class (indicating an education process of some sort). Simply because one culture ended up dominating and eradicating another culture doesn't mean that it completely abandoned those traditions immediately. These attributes, when combined, would succeed in promulgating lingual cohesiveness for a long time, I suppose. I have no doubt that other cultures throughout the world can serve as examples of this behavior... again... for advanced and highly populated civilizations as described by the BofM.

I never have read a critic of the Book of Mormon that tried to discredit the book based on surviving Meso-American texts. No maps, texts have turned up from any of Dr. Sorenson's proposed locations that I am aware of.

What does this mean? I'm curious.

[cdowis]

>Btw, I'm still waiting for you to provide me with a rock solid BofM archaeological find.

This is a trick. No matter what we show you, you can deny that it is "solid". Let's try the NHM archeological find, for example. I am sure that my theory will be borne out in your response.

>It would be exciting stuff to find something that correlates Christ's visit here to America with hard evidence... say like a mural, or a stone carving... something. I'm sure there are some pre-Columbian Christian artifacts somewhere?

What specifically is a "Christian artifact"? A crucifix, a picture of Mary? Only apostate Christians use icons. Christianity is in the heart, not some "stone carving". Check out the Ten Commandments.

How about a stone carving of a feathered snake specifically with the image of a man coming out of its mouth (symbol of the resurrection of Christ, perhaps). In mesoamerica, perhaps that was a Christian symbol. How will you recognize it?

Another antimormon silliness.

[USU78]

Regardless, it's not an outrageous idea that a 'corrupted' language that was once Hebrew would retain distinctly Hebrew-ish traits.

Who said it was? I was commenting on the prior point that a few glottal stops one way or another do not a correspondence make. I have actually read Stubbs' stuff, both his initial offering from several years ago, and the paper he gave at the FAIR conference this year. I'm never much impressed with comparative lexical lists, but when the lists are accompanied by systematic consonantal (don't care about vowels -- they shift too easily and randomly for my taste) shifts, retention of meaning and function . . . and the shifts imply a tripartite language family that corresponds with two different West Semitic dialects + Egyptian, I pay close attention.

The work is obviously in its infancy, and I fear for its completion, as there are damned few Uto-Aztecanists who have any Hebrew or Egyptian. The Grimms had lots of friends in their work connecting up East and West. Stubbs works mostly alone.

[Dale]

NHM by itself would not be impressive to me. It could by itself be a co-incidence. But with it fitting a travel route that is similar to 1st Nephi travel route is impressive. The Book of Mormon text if telling real events must fit the real world locations in some way.

If the text didn't seem to partially fit real world locations I would have given up on it long ago. Dr. Sorensons books impress me. It must bug some critics that a smart scholar could construct proposed maps based on a supposedly fictional text.

[fox_goku]

Your expectations of what peer-review does and doesn't do are far from reality.

Jerubaal, I have been peer-reviewed and have been a peer-reviewer for thirty years. The process works and it works well.

It is a huge mistake for BofM scholars to think that they cannot be fairly reviewed by (non-LDS) outsiders.

If the BofM is as solid as we think it is, then it is time for our BofM scholars to pony up and play the "scholarly game" fairly. BofM scholarship would be strengthened, papers would be tightened, and wild speculation would be minimized.

Yes, I understand that real peer review is used in some BofM studies. I am just hoping for a lot more. I want to read these studies with confidence. I cannot be an expert in all fields, and therefore I need to rely on the MOST rigorous means of quality control. There is no better method than peer review from the scholarly community at large.

[Dan Vogel]

NHM by itself would not be impressive to me. It could by itself be a co-incidence. But with it fitting a travel route that is similar to 1st Nephi travel route is impressive. The Book of Mormon text if telling real events must fit the real world locations in some way.

But does it? It's inland and on an elevation--not where I would expect it by the BOM's description. I would expect it to be in the "more fertile parts" along or near the coast. Assuming JS's authorship, where else would have them travel but to the Red Sea, along the coast, and then eastward along the southern coast? Geography books of JS's day mentioned the location for Bountiful was especially fertile and supplied with animals and fruits. Ultimately, Nihm is not a Nephite site or city, it's only a possible correlation at best.

If the text didn't seem to partially fit real world locations I would have given up on it long ago. Dr. Sorensons books impress me. It must bug some critics that a smart scholar could construct proposed maps based on a supposedly fictional text.

If the BOM is fictional, so are Sorenson's maps, especially if the BOM fits hemispheric geography better.

[Dan Vogel]

>Btw, I'm still waiting for you to provide me with a rock solid BofM archaeological find.

This is a trick. No matter what we show you, you can deny that it is "solid". Let's try the NHM archeological find, for example. I am sure that my theory will be borne out in your response.

Well, that's because it is. There is no evidence that the Lehites passed through there. Nor could there be. It's a possible correlation, which may or may not have significance. Even if one assumes BOM historicity, can one be certain that Nihm, and not some other lost and forgotten site, is Nahom? No, one cannot not be sure. When you are sure, then you will have solid evidence for the BOM.

>It would be exciting stuff to find something that correlates Christ's visit here to America with hard evidence... say like a mural, or a stone carving... something. I'm sure there are some pre-Columbian Christian artifacts somewhere?

What specifically is a "Christian artifact"? A crucifix, a picture of Mary? Only apostate Christians use icons. Christianity is in the heart, not some "stone carving". Check out the Ten Commandments.

It wasn't too long ago that Mormon apologists pointed to stylized trees for evidence of pre-Columbian Christianity. I'm glad things have changed. But you're inability to prove your theory is your problem, not the ciritics.

Only apostate Christians use icons? That would be your Mormon assumptions showing through. But I guess only apostate Mormons make gold Moroni statues.

How about a stone carving of a feathered snake specifically with the image of a man coming out of its mouth (symbol of the resurrection of Christ, perhaps). In mesoamerica, perhaps that was a Christian symbol. How will you recognize it?

I think Brant Gardner associates the feathered serpent with the Gaddianton robbers.

Another antimormon silliness.

Remarks like this are not conducive to productive dialogue.

[cdowis]

>It is a huge mistake for BofM scholars to think that they cannot be fairly reviewed by (non-LDS) outsiders.

I assume you can give a list of professionals intimately familiar with the text of the BOM who are willing and able to do peer-review.

I am sure that FARMS would be very interested in such a list of competent reviewers with such knowledge.

Can you share that list with us here?

You statement implies that LDS scholars are afraid of such review, so share your list with us and we can go from there.

[Hammer]

Is it our duty to convince the unconvincable? No. In fact not even the Holy Ghost or Christ will do that job. So why do we try so hard?

That is one question I can't answer.

[Dan Vogel]

Only one of my three articles is from a Mormon source. Please address the scholarship of the other two or admit that you just automatically dismiss our scholarship without investigatign it because you care more about your opinion than the truth. Another completely ridiculous joke of an argument. Is anyone in this thread capable of actual debate? You'll hide behind my ad hominem as an excuse for not engaging the evidence, but it's really because you have no clue what you're talking about and haven't the foggiest idea how to hold up your opinion in the face of actual non-Mormon scholarship. No one ever engages the evidence, they just whine. Thanks for making your side look stupid. It helps us out a lot.

It's hard to respond when you didn't tell us how this evidence supports the BOM. How far back to these languages go? ca. 600 B.C.E. or before? IIRC, I believe Brant Gardner has argued that the Lehites and Mulekites adopted indigenous languages.

[antishock8]

Is it our duty to convince the unconvincable? No. In fact not even the Holy Ghost or Christ will do that job. So why do we try so hard?

That is one question I can't answer.

I suppose it's to assuage your own nagging doubts? It takes a lot of faith to sustain a belief in the supernatural I think... and so apologetics help calm the alarm bells that ring when counterpoints are made to your claims. Regardless, it provides interesting dialogue, no?