Book Of Mormon Evidence

[Brant Gardner]

I do not believe it can be disputed that, given the BoM time frame, any polity that could qualify for being Zarehemla or the City of Nephi would necessarily be a precociously developed polity.

It can, and I do - and I think you have to stretch definitions to make such a statement. See El Mirador and Nakbe and their assumed regional influence.

[beastie]

It can, and I do - and I think you have to stretch definitions to make such a statement. See El Mirador and Nakbe and their assumed regional influence.

El Mirador and Nakbe WERE precociously developed cities. That's why they are so notable.

You must misunderstand what I mean by a precocious polity - I mean one that developed and grew to a higher level of social complexity than most of the polities of the day.

[poulsenll]

Brant-

I'm happy to hear that you don't like that methodology either. If you ever do publish or post your views on the translation process, I'd like to be there to see it, hoping that it is truly self-consistent.

Having had the opportunity to do a prliminary reveiw of Brant's article, I find it very self-consistent and am hoping that he makes the revisions he feels necesary and gets it published.

Larry P

[serapha]

In fact, Dever has constructed his own theory about the earliest period of Israelite "existence" in "Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?". He relies very heavily on artifacts, such as pottery, and makes this statement, which is pertinent to BoM apologia:

I would argue that such direct, long-term continuities between earlier Canaanite pottery and later Iron I Israelite pottery, readily documented now, cannot be the result of coincidence. Nor can they be explained by continuing to regard the early Israelites as foreigners, newcomers to Canaan from Transjordan and ultimately from Egypt. To defend the latter view, one would have to argue that (1) these intruders brought with them no pottery traditions whatsoever, and (2) that upon arriving they immediately adopted the local pottery repertoire and replicated it exactly. That would be astounding, and also unprecedented in my experience. page 121

I have no doubt that some of you will not be reassured by the confidence of these scholars. I know that some of you will prefer to believe that they have overextended the possible knowledge, and that what they say doesnâ??t really matter much, in the end. It is my opinion that you would not be so dismissive of the knowledge of scholars if their analysis were more supportive to the Book of Mormon story, but that is just my opinion.

Hi there...

Then you are prepared evidences for a common piece of pottery from Jerusalem in the New World locations which are associated with the Book of Mormon?

Such as a common Iron-Age II lamp or bowl or that juglet to hold oil for the altar as in the potsherd from the Arabian desert?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_po....80.93586_BC.29

Iron Age II (1000â??586 BC)

During the period of the United Monarchy, Israelite pottery improved. Finishing techniques used a remarkable amount of red slip, applied by hand and smoothed with an irregular burnish. At the division of the kingdom, however, pottery styles broke into two separate traditions.

Samaria Ware is a general name given to the pottery of Israel (the northern kingdom), even though there is a wide variety of forms and styes. They can be put into two separate groups. The first is thick walled, with a high foot and red slip (sometimes burnished), most often shaped as bowls. The second is made of fine particled clay, and decorated with concentric stripes of red/yellowish colored slip.

Judean pottery is altogether different, and slowly progresses into more and more sophisticated types/styles. By the 8th/7th centuries BC, Jerusalem pottery was especially good. All over the southern kingdom, a technique known as â??wheel burnishâ? was used. This term describes how an orange/red slip was applied, while the pot was on the wheel, and then burnished to a gloss using the potter's hands or smooth tools.

I could snap a quick picture of red-slipped burnish ware if you need a guide.

And, as for quoting Dever, you might want to read further in the book....

"But such speculations lead us now to the most intriguing aspect of the pottery of this period. Can ceramic analysis enable us to identify our hill country settlers ethnically and to determine their origins?"

Well?

~serapha~

[beastie]

I've read the entire text, sera, and Dever does, indeed, believe it is possible to ethnically identify the settlers from archaeological evidence such as pottery and house construction. That was the entire point of his book.

I'm very confused by the rest of your post. You seem to be challenging me to provide evidences of Old World pottery in Mesoamerica. Brant (and others who believe Mesoamerica is the setting for the BoM) is the one to challenge for that evidence.

My opinion is that the BoM is not an ancient text from Mesoamerica, but rather a nineteenth century creation.

[Cold Steel]

1. The team did not find an "altar". They found stones that they deterined to be an altar without the knowledge of either an archaeologist or anthropologist present on the team.

2. One evidence that the pile of rocks was an altar was the presence of potsherds, and pots were used for holding oil. Hello? did anyone do a lipid analysis of the potsherds that were present to see if THESE pots were used for holding oil? No... again.... nothing but an assessment of amateurs without any evidences.

3. Even the suggestion of an altar goes contrary to what Jews believed. After the fall of the Northern Kingdom, the sacrifices were made by corporate worship in the temple in Jerusalem, may I remind you that this temple was built under the direction of God's instructions... Why would God change the form of worship back to individual sacrifice when He had directed HIS people into corporate worship at the Temple in Jerusalem?

Well, even without the altar, the place is a remarkable correlation. I suspect the rocks do constitute an altar and we'll wait for that, but so far I'm impressed with the canyon and the stream. It wasn't so long ago that critics were saying such a place didn't exist. Seeing both videos and stills, I believe this is a powerful candidate for Lehi's campsite.

I guess that NHM was being used in the right context, also, huh? That particular evidence carries the dis and crescent which are the symbols of the sun goddess. I guess the evangelistic efforts of this small group weren't significant enough to convert those living in the generalized area, just significant enough to provide a name in "the right time... the right place"?

Yes, I believe contextually it is the place. I would happily bet my life on it.

...one of my reasons for rejecting the Book of Mormon is because of the problematic areas concerning THAT snapshot of life in ancient Arabia.

Well, I would certainly love to see you write a peer-reviewed paper on that, and I mean that with all respect. If you can shoot down Joseph Smith there, you certainly have the advantage.

[Brant Gardner]

El Mirador and Nakbe WERE precociously developed cities. That's why they are so notable.

You must misunderstand what I mean by a precocious polity - I mean one that developed and grew to a higher level of social complexity than most of the polities of the day.

I know what you mean. What I have been saying is that your assumption of the type of polity that existed in Zarahemla is your creation and that is anachronistic because you made it that way. The evidence is against that proposition and closer to a regionalized trading area. There is no centralized control, only voluntary association. That is very different from what you are claiming - ergo not unusual against comparable time periods, only against the way you are reconstructing the text.

[beastie]

I know what you mean. What I have been saying is that your assumption of the type of polity that existed in Zarahemla is your creation and that is anachronistic because you made it that way. The evidence is against that proposition and closer to a regionalized trading area. There is no centralized control, only voluntary association. That is very different from what you are claiming - ergo not unusual against comparable time periods, only against the way you are reconstructing the text.

So again you are arguing I misunderstand the BoM, not Mesoamerican history.

Why on your own website did you state that Zarahemla had political control over Ammonihah?

[Brant Gardner]

So again you are arguing I misunderstand the BoM, not Mesoamerican history.

Why on your own website did you state that Zarahemla had political control over Ammonihah?

You don't believe anything else I say, why that? <grin>.

Ammonihah asserted that it was willing to accept a political ruler, but not the religious leader. It is actually difficult to know how to interpret that, given the number of ways that Ammonihah appears to have diverged from Zarahemla (and this was before Alma had abdicated, as it was a recent occurence when he arrived in Ammonihah).

For the record, I also disagree with your idea of what is precocious in Mesoamerica. You understand the politics better than you did a year or so ago, but you are still making some sweeping generalizations on the thinnest of evidence that is countered by a fair amount of data.

The preaching tour of Alma is precisely the kind of thing that demonstrates the exact opposite of the way you are using it. Alma was the chief judge and saw what he determined was rebellion in various cities (Ammonihah and the land of Antionum - the Zoramites). Rather than mount an army or exercise any other kind of political control over them, he attempted to heal the breach by preaching. When you suggest that Zarahemla must have had a political domination, you keep asserting that they exercised control. There is no evidence and Alma himself is counter-evidence for that.

So - I think you are misreading the Book of Mormon and the Mesoamerican data.

[beastie]

You don't believe anything else I say, why that? <grin>.

Ammonihah asserted that it was willing to accept a political ruler, but not the religious leader. It is actually difficult to know how to interpret that, given the number of ways that Ammonihah appears to have diverged from Zarahemla (and this was before Alma had abdicated, as it was a recent occurence when he arrived in Ammonihah).

I'm trying to figure out what you mean. I'm not saying that I will accept your word as authority.

You also stated, on your site, that the this event demonstrated that the separation of church and state was complete, in the Nephite world. You obviously had something in mind when you said that. What did you have in mind?

For the record, I also disagree with your idea of what is precocious in Mesoamerica. You understand the politics better than you did a year or so ago, but you are still making some sweeping generalizations on the thinnest of evidence that is countered by a fair amount of data.

So Nakbe and El Mirador were NOT precociously developed sites?

The preaching tour of Alma is precisely the kind of thing that demonstrates the exact opposite of the way you are using it. Alma was the chief judge and saw what he determined was rebellion in various cities (Ammonihah and the land of Antionum - the Zoramites). Rather than mount an army or exercise any other kind of political control over them, he attempted to heal the breach by preaching. When you suggest that Zarahemla must have had a political domination, you keep asserting that they exercised control. There is no evidence and Alma himself is counter-evidence for that.

See above question about separation between church and state.

[The Dude]

I'm thinking how could joseph smith have known that future believers would be able to cobble together a series of circumstantial hits to support his fictional novel? what kind of pointless question is that?

The problem with this characterization is that you have condemned much of history, and certainly what is "known" for Mesoamerica. There are so few documents that most of it is cobbled together from a series of circumstantial hits. That describes much of the entire field of ethnohistory.

No, I don't think I have condemned much of history. I'm not a historian or an archaeologist (so you may just puff out your chest and clobber me here) but I expect there to be open ended endeavors, and in parallel there are directed searches to confirm or disprove a specific hypothesis. The search for BoM purports to be the latter.

Has the hypothesis been confirmed? No. Like Dr. Poulsen said in the Lgt vs. Hgt thread:

Sorry, [there are] no archeological artifacts that can be connected to the BoM.

Do you disagree?

So. There is a circular argument going on with the NHM site. You have an interesting but questionable hypothesis: historicity of the BoM. You have an interesting but questionable site: NHM and all of its context. BoM believers easily forget that the foundation of this argument is their personal conviction (spiritual witness) that the BoM is a piece of ancient history. From there they think historicity of the BoM can serve as a crane to direct their search for archaeological parallels, when in fact this is a skyhook. To complete the loop, the NHM site becomes a second skyhook holding up the historicity of the BoM. There is nothing outside of this loop to support the claimed historicity of the BoM or the correctness of Potter's interpretation of the NHM site.

I understand that you are speaking of fortunate coincidence, but when fortunate coincidences keep piling together in particular ways, they are less likely to be coincidental. The trick is that you need more than one.

I accept the value of multiple correspondences, Brant, but the only thing that justifies a question like "how could Joseph Smith have known?" is an actual artifact connected to the BoM. Short of that, the rhetorical coup de grace is uncalled for. It will be resisted and on purely rational grounds it should be resisted.

...it can be debated that the NHM correlation is coincidental when viewed as a single piece of evidence (the name). It is less coincidental when added to the time depth. It is less coincidental when added to the location where a divergence in trails is "coincidental" with the description in the Book of Mormon. All of that is a series of coincidences that are much more compelling than just the name. However, even that could be coincidental if there were nothing more. I think the book Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem lays out a solid set of "series of circumstantial hits" that not only exceed chance, but depend upon a body of knowledge that is both newer and contradictory to much of what was formerly understood of the time period. And that is before we get to the New World which is my field.

...okay... your paragraph seems to build up to a climax, but then... there's still not a single artifact to support the BoM. Every correspondence is supported and directed by a skyhook grounded on your faith in the historicity of the BoM. Are you still telling me that if I wrinkle my brow at this I am "condemn[ing] much of history, and certainly what is "known" for Mesoamerica" ???

[The Dude]

You asked what I thought of NotQuiteMe's correspondence regarding the moundbuilder myths. NotQuiteMe was responding to Dr. Clark's arguments that Joseph Smith probably could not have known about various aspects of Mesoamerican life. The moundbuilders apparently had many parallels, indicating that Smith indeed could have known about these aspects because they weren't peculiar to Mesoamerica. The underlying discussion is about what Smith could have known. I agreed, but raised the question of how Smith could have drawn from so many souces in his day. I also concede that there were expectations concerning a restoration and questions raised concerning the origin of the Amerindians. These greatly added to Smith's success in bringing forth the Book of Mormon, but also could have sparked the idea in him if he did concoct the Book of Mormon.

Thanks for clarifying, Cold Steel.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that because of NotQuiteMe's moundbuilder parallels, the parallels identified by John Clark appear to be not really "peculiar to Mesoamerica" after all. That seems to negate Dr. Clark's rhetoric about "how could Joseph have known" about these specific details. John Clark could just as well have asked "how could 19th century americans have known about blah, blah, blah" and the answer is: "these parallels are not peculiar to Mesoamerica."

Well done!

You wondered "how Smith could have drawn from so many souces in his day." It's a fair follow-up question. Well, in my view, Joseph Smith need not have been the one-and-only source. If you buy into Uncle Dale's Spaulding-Rigdon theory or something like it, then anyone in a succession of contributors could have tapped into the popular moundbuilder myth. Ethan Smith knew a thing or two about the moundbuilders, didn't he? Alternatively, if you buy into automatic writing you can have Joseph Smith channeling contemporary knowledge from a spiritual version of the World Wide Web. (I do not favor this idea, BTW) Ultimately, I don't know what the chances are that JS knew about the moundbuilder myth all on his own. But the fact remains that many people were aware of the information that John Clark misidentifies as specifically paralleling ancient Mesoamerica. And that is something, isn't it?

[Not quite me]

You wondered "how Smith could have drawn from so many souces in his day." It's a fair follow-up question. Well, in my view, Joseph Smith need not have been the one-and-only source. If you buy into Uncle Dale's Spaulding-Rigdon theory or something like it, then anyone in a succession of contributors could have tapped into the popular moundbuilder myth. Ethan Smith knew a thing or two about the moundbuilders, didn't he? Alternatively, if you buy into automatic writing you can have Joseph Smith channeling contemporary knowledge from a spiritual version of the World Wide Web. (I do not favor this idea, BTW) Ultimately, I don't know what the chances are that JS knew about the moundbuilder myth all on his own. But the fact remains that many people were aware of the information that John Clark misidentifies as specifically paralleling ancient Mesoamerica. And that is something, isn't it?

My point was not that Joseph Smith or anyone else could have found these multitudinous sources in a library in New York City, but rather that the very things Clark cited as anomalies were actually part of the lore of the mound builders that were widespread in popular culture. One need not visit a library at all to repeat popular mythology. Hence we find in View of the Hebrew and the Spaulding Manuscript and a host of other sources the same mythology as that in the Book of Mormon, though expressed in different ways for different purposes.

And no, this is not some smoking gun against the Book of Mormon. If, as Brant has conceded, the mound builder myth is a plausible source for these items, then apologists like Clark need to stop saying that these "hits" are things a 19th-century American could not possibly know.

[Brant Gardner]

You also stated, on your site, that the this event demonstrated that the separation of church and state was complete, in the Nephite world. You obviously had something in mind when you said that. What did you have in mind?

In the ancient world there was seldom the possibility of separating religion from any other part of life. While that would have continued to be true in most areas, after Mosiah it was possible to have two different religions in the same city. Because religion supports social constructions, differing religious views of the world (not to be confused with modern church differences) pulled at Zarahemla proper. There was no governmental mechanism to create uniformity inside Zarahemla itself. Ammonihah was totally changed in its religious-cultural constructions. Alma went there precisely because it was separating from Zarahemla and he couldn't do anything about it - except hope to convert people and return them to the former religious-cultural structure. Ergo, no political control.

So Nakbe and El Mirador were NOT precociously developed sites?

It rather begs the question to call El Mirador and Nakbe precocious when they were both significantly developed, and perhaps more influential than many that followed. Perhaps other sites simply caught on later? San Bartolo should teach most of us to be cautious when assuming that the pre-Classic was qualitatively different from the Classic, which is the time period against which we tend to judge. "Precocious" is a label that has less and less meaning for the Preclassic as the evidence accumulates that it was very highly developed much earlier than expected.

So Nakbe and El Mirador are really not precocious as much as discovered later. They are redefining the picture of the earlier periods of Maya history.

[beastie]

In the ancient world there was seldom the possibility of separating religion from any other part of life. While that would have continued to be true in most areas, after Mosiah it was possible to have two different religions in the same city. Because religion supports social constructions, differing religious views of the world (not to be confused with modern church differences) pulled at Zarahemla proper. There was no governmental mechanism to create uniformity inside Zarahemla itself. Ammonihah was totally changed in its religious-cultural constructions. Alma went there precisely because it was separating from Zarahemla and he couldn't do anything about it - except hope to convert people and return them to the former religious-cultural structure. Ergo, no political control.

You seem to be skirting the issue, which is that Zarahemlaâ??s chief judge still exerted some form of political control over Ammonihah. One example could be controlling the monetary system as described in Alma 11. The reform movement in the BoM only deals with religious reform.

Of course you are correct that religion and politics could not be separated in Mesoamerica at all. So you are suggesting that the Nephites were an anomaly. The problem this creates is how large was this anomaly? How many cities were called â??Nephiteâ?, and what area did they encompass in Mesoamerica? This links into the next point:

It rather begs the question to call El Mirador and Nakbe precocious when they were both significantly developed, and perhaps more influential than many that followed. Perhaps other sites simply caught on later? San Bartolo should teach most of us to be cautious when assuming that the pre-Classic was qualitatively different from the Classic, which is the time period against which we tend to judge. "Precocious" is a label that has less and less meaning for the Preclassic as the evidence accumulates that it was very highly developed much earlier than expected.

So Nakbe and El Mirador are really not precocious as much as discovered later. They are redefining the picture of the earlier periods of Maya history.

The BoM population complexity requires a very advanced polity, like the most advanced described in the Classic period. The point is that these were notable polities that were far larger and more powerful than majority of other sites. So whether or not more advanced sites are discovered in the PreClassic period, the fact that these were the most advanced and powerful polities of their time period is a fact that is not going to change. Because of the social complexity described in the BoM, any polity that could be considered a candidate is going to be one of those more powerful and complex polities. Youâ??re not going to be able to use a Podunk minor site and present it as a potential candidate for Zarahemla or the City of Nephi. Youâ??re going to have to find a site along the lines of Nakbe or El Mirador.

This creates a real conundrum for you, because it is precisely these more powerful polities that influenced the entire cultural trajectory of Mesoamerica. It is inconceivable that the Nephites, who separated religion and politics and who would not have engaged in the trance-inducing practices of Holy Lords, could have controlled what would have inarguably been the most powerful polity of the day as well as other minor sites extending over practically the entire Mesoamerican region, and NOT have impacted the cultural evolution of Mesoamerica. Mesoamerica is unique because its power derived from ideology â?? so ideology is extremely important. It was the source of power. As I said in my Holy Lords essay:

To suggest that these powerful and influential polities were actually led by a Judeo-Christian group presents a significant challenge to Book of Mormon scholars in that these were the very cities leading the way in regards to ancient Mesoamerican culture in general, and in the notion of the Holy Lord in particular.

To avoid this problem, the entire face of Mesoamerican history would have to change. Cities like Nakbe and El Mirador would have to be so common that one more â?? the City of Nephi or Zarahemla â?? would not have inevitably had a major impact on the cultural evolution of the area. While it is not inconceivable that future polities will be discovered, I think it is extraordinarily unlikely that so many will be discovered that the entire history will have to be rewritten, which is what the BoM would require.

Look, for example, at suggesting Kaminaljuyu as the City of Nephi. That polity had an extraordinary impact on the rest of Mesoamerica â?? and yet the BoM would have us believe it was led by Judeo-Christians who would have abhorred the very practices and beliefs that become standard in the region. Kaminaljuyu was already a significant polity by the time the Nephites would have become its rulers as well. It had a major irrigation system by 700 BC and was erecting stelae by 500 BC. This was an extraordinarily powerful polity. It is unfathomable to suggest that it was actually led by Judeo-Christians when the evolution of the entire region demonstrates that the most powerful polities were leading the way in the Holy Lord Mesoamerican concept.

I spent many pages explaining this difficulty here:

http://zarahemlacitylimits.com/wiki/index....gship/Holy_Lord

[Brant Gardner]

You seem to be skirting the issue, which is that Zarahemlaâ??s chief judge still exerted some form of political control over Ammonihah. One example could be controlling the monetary system as described in Alma 11. The reform movement in the BoM only deals with religious reform.

I am skirting nothing. I am trying to explain why your idea of Zarahemla politics doesn't match the text. There is no political control. They might accept political allegiance, but there was no mechanism for control. When Alma wanted control the only option he saw was to try something different.

Of course you are correct that religion and politics could not be separated in Mesoamerica at all. So you are suggesting that the Nephites were an anomaly. The problem this creates is how large was this anomaly? How many cities were called â??Nephiteâ?, and what area did they encompass in Mesoamerica?

Yes, they were somthing of an anomaly in that they attempted to merge two different cultures into a single entity. Typically, you have a dominant polity that will override all other comers - such as Ahkentaton's reforms. However, the imposition of a new form is seldom complete. If a government exercises any kind of coercion, they can suppress the other religious form, but it tends not to do it indefinitely. Archaeological evidence typically indicates the retention of older religious forms even while new ones are implemented with the strong new government.

This is another reason that indicates the weak political force of the Zarahemla polity. They couldn't unify the religious preferences. While they were in the majority, all worked. When they weren't there was no way to control the schisms. Ammonihah was a different religion, telling us that while there was a political allegiance, there was no political requirement. Zarahemla couldn't enforce its preferences, even when Alma clearly held both political and religious power.

How many cities were "Nephite"? That is hard to answer because there are two different types of answers. Nephite in religion had fewer cities than Nephite in political (and probably economic) alliance. My point continues to be that there wasn't the kind of uniformity that you seem to think there was. The evidence doesn't support it.

The BoM population complexity requires a very advanced polity, like the most advanced described in the Classic period.

You keep saying that. I keep disagreeing. I disagree on both the nature of the polity and the idea that what you think happened waited until the Classic. I disagree with both propositions and don't see the evidence supporting either fo them.

The point is that these were notable polities that were far larger and more powerful than majority of other sites.

There isn't much in the text that indicates a very powerful Zarahemla at all. When the reign of the judges starts, they shed even the hope of having the strong government that the Classic king-oriented sites had.

So whether or not more advanced sites are discovered in the PreClassic period, the fact that these were the most advanced and powerful polities of their time period is a fact that is not going to change.

Except there is no indication that they were powerful or controlled much of anything. The textual evidence indicates a very weak hegemony that fractured easily and often, frequently inside the "head" city of Zarahemla itself. There are frequent removals of population who dissent who are not stopped.

The only strongl military response comes when the region is threatened from the outside. That cooperative effort is a very strong response, but very temporary. After the war is over, the ability to control the region is again lost and soon leads to a complete political dissolution.

Because of the social complexity described in the BoM, any polity that could be considered a candidate is going to be one of those more powerful and complex polities.

No, not at all. In fact, the nature of the social structures in the Book of Mormon argues directly against your interpretation.

It is inconceivable that the Nephites, who separated religion and politics and who would not have engaged in the trance-inducing practices of Holy Lords, could have controlled what would have inarguably been the most powerful polity of the day as well as other minor sites extending over practically the entire Mesoamerican region, and NOT have impacted the cultural evolution of Mesoamerica.

I wouldn't expect Zarahemla to control anyone. There is no evidence for that at all. They certainly traded with other sites and the influence of those economic and religious ideas create the social tension described in the text. There is, again, nothing that suggests that any Book of Mormon Nephite city was able to control any other location. Theirs was a hegemony of convenience, as easily broken as created. The single exception that I know of was during a war on a regional basis that mobilized the entire area against a common foe. Those are important excepting conditions.

To suggest that these powerful and influential polities were actually led by a Judeo-Christian group presents a significant challenge to Book of Mormon scholars in that these were the very cities leading the way in regards to ancient Mesoamerican culture in general, and in the notion of the Holy Lord in particular.

Again, your inference, not mine.

To avoid this problem, the entire face of Mesoamerican history would have to change.

Hardly. It fits precisely with the nature and timing of the populations in the Grijalva river basin, who had relations with each other but did not dominate anyone.

Look, for example, at suggesting Kaminaljuyu as the City of Nephi. That polity had an extraordinary impact on the rest of Mesoamerica â?? and yet the BoM would have us believe it was led by Judeo-Christians who would have abhorred the very practices and beliefs that become standard in the region.

First, that depends upon the accuracy of Sorenson's correlation, which may or may not be correct. Secondly, all Nephi influence left that city around 200 B.C. and my reading of the text suggests that the Mesoamericanizing of the culture had begun during Jacob's lifetime - which places things a couple of hundred years earlier than that.

Kaminaljuyu was already a significant polity by the time the Nephites would have become its rulers as well. It had a major irrigation system by 700 BC and was erecting stelae by 500 BC. This was an extraordinarily powerful polity. It is unfathomable to suggest that it was actually led by Judeo-Christians when the evolution of the entire region demonstrates that the most powerful polities were leading the way in the Holy Lord Mesoamerican concept.

I can accept that you can't fathom it. That doesn't guarantee that your analysis is correct. The city of Nephi experiences conflict with religious/economic/social ideas easily by 500 B.C. and the remnant off the Nephites leave by 200 B.C. On top of that, you are making the assumption that there is something in the erecting of stelae that might counterindicate Nephites. I can't think of what that would be.

Yours is the most sophisticated strawman argument I know of, but strawman it is. You have created a picture of what the Nephites had to have been like, and then show how they couldn't possibly be what you have imagined them to be. You are correct only in that you are disproving your own creation. It simply isn't supported by the text.

[beastie]

Brant,

Iâ??ve had enough interactions with you to know that you agree with my basic understanding of Mesoamerican polities. Iâ??m not sure what is going on here, whether my use of precocious has been misleading, or something else. But in the past you have agreed with Demarestâ??s basic summary (Demarest, The Ancient Maya, p 214)

The size and extent of polities

There have been many methods applied by scholars to estimate the territorial size and populations of Maya states. For many decades we have relied upon indirect measures based on archaeological data about the distance between sites, the volume of construction in sites, or the number of monuments, plazas, or structures (eg Adams and Jones 1981; Hammond 1974, 1975). More recently we have been able to shift to the historical record of the stone monuments and their inscriptions identifying the ruling of dynasties of the Kâ??uhul Ajaw and their political alliances, rituals, and wars (eg Marcus 1976; Culbert 1991). Critical to such interpretations are the emblem-glyphs and titles described earlier. A few texts even mention tribute payments by vassal polities (Stuart 1995). With such detailed data, it is possible to be more specific about which centers were dominant powers in particular periods and to plot their political relationships (eg Martin and Grube 2000). This epigraphic record portrays a very complex inter-elite political landscape throughout the Classic period.

As a minimal building block of Maya polities, the individual small polity, defined by a dynastic â??holy lordâ? title or emblem-glyph, has been estimated by some scholars as being one or two daysâ?? walking distances in diameter (Hammond 1991; Mathews 1985, 1988). Probably dynastic seats or â??capitalsâ? of such minimal polities were often about ten to thirty kilometers apart. We might speculate that this size for the realm of the average holy lord befits a â??theater-stateâ? in which the Kâ??uhul Ajaawâ??s personal presence and celebration of rites were central to the maintenance of his authority. For a time, epigraphers and archaeologists believed that the lowland Maya world in the Classic period consisted of only such small city-states interacting in a â??peer polityâ? system (eg Houston 1992; Mathews 1985, 1988; cf. Renfrew and Cherry 1986). Now, with more detailed information, we can study the tremendous variability in Maya polities and the historical development of structurally distinct regional states and pan-lowland, but short-lived, alliances.

In the Late Classic, polities had populations varying from several thousand at most major cities to several hundred thousand around some great regional capitals such as Calakmul, Tikal, and Caracol (eg Culbert and Rice eds. 1990; Hammond 1991; Sharer 1994; 467-473). All such demographic estimates for sites, polities, or regions are highly speculative calculations based on house mound counts, ceramic dating of mounds, ethnographic models for the number of persons per structure, and, usually, a calculation factor for â??invisibleâ? houses that lacked clearly visible substructure mounds or platforms. Combined with the epigraphic evidence on specific political formations, the speculative demography and settlement evidence allow broad, very tentative characterizations of Classic Maya political history (eg Culbert 1991).

In this discussion, when I refer to BoM polities I specifically mean the major polities mentioned in detail, such as the City of Nephi and Zarahemla. Can I assume that you agree these polities would be considered the â??ceremonial centersâ? of their area?

Now the question is what size and social complexity these centers would have to obtain to be consistent with the BoM story. The polities are obviously hierarchical, and are at least at the highest level of advanced chiefdom, wherein there is some ranking at two level of hierarchy. Actually, I think the BoM describes an even more advanced polity, at a state level, because it describes strict class divisions and seems to reference three levels of hierarchy. There are the commoners (some of them poorer than others), the lawyers, the judges, and the chief judge. An example of the obvious lower class can be found in Alma 32:

1 And it came to pass that they did go forth, and began to preach the word of God unto the people, entering into their synagogues, and into their houses; yea, and even they did preach the word in their streets.

2 And it came to pass that after much labor among them, they began to have success among the poor class of people; for behold, they were cast out of the synagogues because of the coarseness of their apparelâ??

3 Therefore they were not permitted to enter into their synagogues to worship God, being esteemed as filthiness; therefore they were poor; yea, they were esteemed by their brethren as dross; therefore they were poor as to things of the world; and also they were poor in heart.

4 Now, as Alma was teaching and speaking unto the people upon the hill Onidah, there came a great multitude unto him, who were those of whom we have been speaking, of whom were poor in heart, because of their poverty as to the things of the world.

5 And they came unto Alma; and the one who was the foremost among them said unto him: Behold, what shall these my brethren do, for they are despised of all men because of their poverty, yea, and more especially by our priests; for they have cast us out of our synagogues which we have labored abundantly to build with our own hands; and they have cast us out because of our exceeding poverty; and we have no place to worship our God; and behold, what shall we do?

In Mosiah, chapter 29, it also appears that not only would judges and lawyers be needed, but some sort of executive branch to determine what the laws would be by the

â?voice of the peopleâ?.

25 Therefore, choose you by the voice of this people, judges, that ye may be judged according to the laws which have been given you by our fathers, which are correct, and which were given them by the hand of the Lord.

26 Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your lawâ??to do your business by the voice of the people.

27 And if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land.

28 And now if ye have judges, and they do not judge you according to the law which has been given, ye can cause that they may be judged of a higher judge.

29 If your higher judges do not judge righteous judgments, ye shall cause that a small number of your lower judges should be gathered together, and they shall judge your higher judges, according to the voice of the people.

This does seem to describe a state. From Demarestâ??s text, page 58, we can compare chiefdoms to states:

Chiefdoms: Often larger societies in which social integration is facilitated by the existence of prestigious leaders who direct warfare and storage or redistribution of food. Individuals are ranked in their status according to their degree of kinship relationship to the chief. Chiefdoms sometimes have ceremonial centers as the focus of religious activities, redistribution, and social integration.

States: Societies with highly integrated, organized, and centralized leadership with a governing body or rulers. The power of the ruler is backed by coercive force, law, and/or religious sanctions.

I already know Brant will never agree that the BoM describes a state level of complexity, so just to enable the conversation to proceed at all, letâ??s go with an advanced chiefdom, bordering on the state level of development.

Even during the classic periods, it is only the most powerful, highly populated polities that can qualify for this categorization. Moreover, even these power polities only exerted control over smaller centers within a day or two walking distance.

So two points: a polity that could qualify for a major BoM city would, by definition, have to be one of the most powerful polities in the region in Mesoamerica, and these polities have control (even the loose control Brant wants) over an extremely wide region in Mesoamerica â?? wider than any known Mesoamerican polity. The cities described as â??Nephiteâ? literally stretch over almost the entire region (with the exception of Yucatan).

[Brant Gardner]

Iâ??ve had enough interactions with you to know that you agree with my basic understanding of Mesoamerican polities.

You have extended your readings into areas that don't necessarily hold. For example, the function of the emblem glyph is not nailed down and may related to a ruling clan more than a specific state function. Therefore, the extent of the emblem glyph and the walking distances are artificial designations that explain certain aspects of what is seen on the ground, but cannot be made to create the kind of limiting theory that you are suggesting.

So two points: a polity that could qualify for a major BoM city would, by definition, have to be one of the most powerful polities in the region in Mesoamerica,

I have no idea how you can support that statement. If you are saying that it is by your defintion, then I disagree with your definition. I disagree with the simple division between chiefdom and state. Mesoamerica does not fit that model very well. Much of the political interactions are simply unknown until the Classic and there is very little to suggest on what models they may have been built. Even the Classic cases do not reach the kind of dominance that you have suggested. You are correct that we don't see them until much later - most clearly in the Post-Classic.

and these polities have control (even the loose control Brant wants) over an extremely wide region in Mesoamerica â?? wider than any known Mesoamerican polity.

You keep trying to insert some kind of control when there no evidence of it. When differing locations have trading networks, what kind of control is exerted? When there are voluntary alliances, who controls whom? You are forcing a round peg into a square hold and suggesting that there is somthing wrong because it clearly isn't a square peg.

As far as regional influence goes, you cited the evidence of Teotihuacano influence in the Maya region long before the official entrada. How is that very extensive network smaller than the one described for the Nephites? Teotihuacan is influencing culture, architecture and who knows what else from farther away than any Nephite network. Why is it different?

The cities described as â??Nephiteâ? literally stretch over almost the entire region (with the exception of Yucatan).

The cities described as Nephite vary from pretty limited to some that cover the Grijalva river basin and some along the Gulf coast in the time before Christ. By the time the Nephite populations have any significant population above the narrow neck of land, they have lost the Grijalva river basin, so that region can't be added to their largest extent.

What kind of political structure do you call it if there are say three cities that say that they have some relationship, but they all feel free to have different social structures and religions.

[beastie]

Brant,

I don't care what label you attach to the type of polity described. Let's just see if we can agree on the description.

Do you agree or disagree that at least three levels of hierarchy are involved in the major Nephite cities? They are: chief judge, other judges with the power to get rid of the chief judge, lawyers, and apparently some sort of executive branch that could alter laws.

Agree or disagree?

[Brant Gardner]

Brant,

I don't care what label you attach to the type of polity described. Let's just see if we can agree on the description.

Do you agree or disagree that at least three levels of hierarchy are involved in the major Nephite cities? They are: chief judge, other judges with the power to get rid of the chief judge, lawyers, and apparently some sort of executive branch that could alter laws.

Agree or disagree?

Of course disagree - we couldn't start that easy could we? <grin>

After the move to the reign of the judges there is a poltical structure that depends upon judges. There are several of them. There is a single chief judge. The descriptions of how these judges function is that they are separately endowed with decision making power, but have some relationship (never actually demonstrated in the text) to the sitting chief judge.

There are lawyers, but their function is unclear. We get them described in Ammonihah and probably because of their presence there, Mormon seems antipathetic to them. They appear to work in conjunction with the judges, but when we see them arguing, it isn't points of law but rather religion. It is probable that the use of "lawyer" is similar to the label applied in the NT and referring more to scribes, or those who are literate and able to refer to written tradition.

Mosiah(2) is described as a lawmaker, but appears to be codifying laws that were already in place. This set of laws is established by fiat and there is no clear disagreement about the continuing nature of these social laws in any of the descriptions of Nephite society.

All of that, based on ethnographic analogy, sounds like the later Mesoamerican governmental style that empowered localized clans with some connection to both a central seat and to codified tradition. Most decisions are made at the local level. Local judges would be representatives of the ruling clan. Connection to and respect for the chief judge would happen on tolerance and local convenience. Decision making would be by council of elders, headed by the one appointed as the judge. Inside the political structure would continue to be the clan struggles to achieve a dominant position.

For the use of ethnographic analogy to work backwards to earlier times, see Rice, Maya Political Science.

[Merry]

I see another (I believe very relevant) culture that rejected royalty and advocated a judicially-based system of government.

Ask people of Mayan heritage if they can see parallels with the BOM in the traditions of their people.

[cdowis]

There is a circular argument going on with the NHM site. You have an interesting but questionable hypothesis: historicity of the BoM. You have an interesting but questionable site: NHM and all of its context. BoM believers easily forget that the foundation of this argument is their personal conviction (spiritual witness) that the BoM is a piece of ancient history. From there they think historicity of the BoM can serve as a crane to direct their search for archaeological parallels, when in fact this is a skyhook. To complete the loop, the NHM site becomes a second skyhook holding up the historicity of the BoM. There is nothing outside of this loop to support the claimed historicity of the BoM or the correctness of Potter's interpretation of the NHM site.

Your skyhook analogy does not seem to fit. A skyhook assumes there is no context for a discovery. You are ignoring that we are following a path according to the description in the BOM. We follow the path and make a discovery. We continue the path and then make a couple of other discoveries, the valley of Lemuel, and Bountiful. The latter is consistent in at least 12 points as described in the BOM, including several unexpected, such as iron ore.

This is no skyhook, dear fellow.

[The Dude]

Your skyhook analogy does not seem to fit. A skyhook assumes there is no context for a discovery. You are ignoring that we are following a path according to the description in the BOM. We follow the path and make a discovery. We continue the path and then make a couple of other discoveries, the valley of Lemuel, and Bountiful. The latter is consistent in at least 12 points as described in the BOM, including several unexpected, such as iron ore.

This is no skyhook, dear fellow.

Yes, dear fellow, the interpretation of those varied locations (NHM and it's Arabian context) as sites visited by Lehi and co requires faith in a questionable document, and that is one of two skyhooks I referred to. What happens if you think like a person who doesn't have that faith? Forget what you think you know about the BoM -- please try it, with all the imaginative will you can muster....

What do you see?

All of the sudden those sites no longer rise above the background of interesting Arabian geography. An oasis, a grove of date palms, an outcropping of rock, a sand dune, a fertile seacoast... there's not a single verified artifact to connect them to each other or to the Book of Mormon. You need the skyhook of faith to make them into a whole that supports your faith.

[Cold Steel]

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that because of NotQuiteMe's moundbuilder parallels, the parallels identified by John Clark appear to be not really "peculiar to Mesoamerica" after all. That seems to negate Dr. Clark's rhetoric about "how could Joseph have known" about these specific details. John Clark could just as well have asked "how could 19th century americans have known about blah, blah, blah" and the answer is: "these parallels are not peculiar to Mesoamerica."

Dr. Clark is eager to demonstrate that the Book of Mormon fits in well with Mesoamerica and, indeed, it just might; however, it must be conceded (apparently) that his parallels are not peculiar to that region. Still, it illustrates that Mesoamerican culture does not rule out the Book of Mormon. I believe that from a secular standpoint that Book of Mormon research should, for the moment, be exclusively directed towards that part of the world. I remain convinced, however, that evidence will remain quite elusive barring substantial discoveries.

You wondered "how Smith could have drawn from so many souces in his day." It's a fair follow-up question. Well, in my view, Joseph Smith need not have been the one-and-only source. If you buy into Uncle Dale's Spaulding-Rigdon theory or something like it, then anyone in a succession of contributors could have tapped into the popular moundbuilder myth. Ethan Smith knew a thing or two about the moundbuilders, didn't he? Alternatively, if you buy into automatic writing you can have Joseph Smith channeling contemporary knowledge from a spiritual version of the World Wide Web. (I do not favor this idea, BTW) Ultimately, I don't know what the chances are that JS knew about the moundbuilder myth all on his own. But the fact remains that many people were aware of the information that John Clark misidentifies as specifically paralleling ancient Mesoamerica. And that is something, isn't it?

I'll agree down to the part about the automatic writing, which I agree is scraping the bottom of the barrel. If the BoM did have its roots in numerous sources, it is true that each of those sources might also contain bits of known histories and traditions that it would be difficult to find in just one source. But reading the various fictions and other writings, even Spalding's, The Book of Mormon is like nothing else from that era. If Spalding or anyone else, for that matter, had used the same style of writing, that would have been a red flag. But it's unique. Spalding doesn't write in a style that is very far removed from other authors of fiction from his era (only he's not as good). If one were to produce a writing sample from Spalding that sounded even remotely like the Book of Mormon, it might have been curtains for Smith. But despite all that was known in the early 1800s, the BoM contains many parallels to writings that had not yet come to light. Had it appeared in 1999, it would have been picked to pieces as an obvious hoax. Many of these things have been argued extensively on these boards: chiasms, white fruit, Arabian geography, Hebraisms and idiom usage, glowing stones, etc., again, the critics remaining unimpressed and the beleivers thinking just the opposite. It's likely the Book of Mormon will remain unprovable for some time, and it's entirely likely that's the way it's supposed to be.

[cdowis]

Yes, dear fellow, the interpretation of those varied locations (NHM and it's Arabian context) as sites visited by Lehi and co requires faith in a questionable document, and that is one of two skyhooks I referred to. What happens if you think like a person who doesn't have that faith? Forget what you think you know about the BoM -- please try it, with all the imaginative will you can muster....

What do you see?

All of the sudden those sites no longer rise above the background of interesting Arabian geography. An oasis, a grove of date palms, an outcropping of rock, a sand dune, a fertile seacoast... there's not a single verified artifact to connect them to each other or to the Book of Mormon. You need the skyhook of faith to make them into a whole that supports your faith.

OK, I am a disbeliever for a moment.

What ties all these sites together? I have already given my theory. In 1820 JS was missing from the census records because he was visiting this region -- found these sites, researched the Egyptian names, etc. He went to enormous lengths to deceive the farmers in NY, in case they checked him out.

Makes more sense than the silly coincidence theory.