How To Find Nephite Artifacts

[rick7475]

The prob with such comparisons is that any similarities could simply be due to random chance. You need a *system* of writing, not just "letters that were a close match".

You should read the actual analysis by Jones. Two different artifacts found a distance apart with letters that match the Anthon transcript in over 90% of the cases. The sample is small, but the fact that characters on the Anthon transcript were found in Mesoamerica lends a lot of crediblity to the translation process.

[LifeOnaPlate]

One question:

It is now a common assertion of apologists that the American continents were well populated when Nephi arrived. But when was this concept first advanced? I never heard it until after the Native-American DNA studies were published.

It was advanced by Hugh Nibley in the 80's as well, and even before that, in an official Church priesthood manual from the 50's or 60's he penned called "An Approach to the Book of Mormon." Many members cling to the old ideas.

There has been a lot of Mormon lore, that upon closer examination, was claimed for the Book of Mormon, not by the Book of Mormon. For example, Nibley talks about his Sunday School teacher long ago who told him the Wasatch mountains were evidence of the earthquake in 3 Nephi. Now he knows that is absurd, and is a claim never made by the Book of Mormon itself.

[cdowis]

You should read the actual analysis by Jones. Two different artifacts found a distance apart with letters that match the Anthon transcript in over 90% of the cases. The sample is small, but the fact that characters on the Anthon transcript were found in Mesoamerica lends a lot of crediblity to the translation process.

A similar discovery is discussed here, except this may not be very "faith promoting". It lends alot of credibility to the "JS made up the whole thing" theory, as you would say.

http://p079.ezboard.com/fpacumenispagesfrm...picID=438.topic

Dale, are you here to make some comments?

(PS, you might find it useful not to be so cute in responding to my posts. I have been around for a very long time in these discussions)

[SolarPowered]

I want to make a caveat about this: I was at Teotihuacan in June of 1982. I saw workman building "ruins" exactly like those pictured above. In fact, those pictured might even be "ruins" I watched them build.

You will note that the stone and mortar both appear very fresh. Stonework near my home in California that was constructed within the last few decades appears far more weathered than that in the above photo.

From what I have read from scholarly sources, I do in fact believe that there is a lot of ancient cement that was used in that area. However, I have seen from personal observation that the Mexican government is not particularly concerned about historical accuracy at their "National Monuments" that bring in large amounts of tourist dollars. The tourists come to see ancient ruins, so they build ancient ruins for them to see.

[LifeOnaPlate]

But where are more of the actual ruins, I wonder?

[SolarPowered]

But where are more of the actual ruins, I wonder?

At Palenque I saw ruins covered with plaster with ancient paintings on the plaster. I think one can be fairly confident that those structures were in fact ancient.

[Olavarria]

At Palenque I saw ruins covered with plaster with ancient paintings on the plaster. I think one can be fairly confident that those structures were in fact ancient.

problem is, the lineage that ruled them is post-nephite.

[cdowis]

Her Amun,

So what you're saying is that any artifact we come across could theoretically belong to a Nephite civilization? The Book of Mormon makes no falsifiable claims about what a Nephite civilization would look like? How convenient.

You ask us for Nephite artifacts and you cannot tell us how to identify them.

How convenient.

[Gervin]

You ask us for Nephite artifacts and you cannot tell us how to identify them.

How convenient.

You ask us to identify Nephite artifacts but you cannot tell us where to look.

How convenient.

[LifeOnaPlate]

You ask us for Nephite artifacts and you cannot tell us how to identify them.

How convenient.

But that's exactly the point.

Anti-mormon writings say there are no Nephite artifacts, but cannot tell us exactly what those artifacts might be, should they be found.

[cdowis]

You ask us to identify Nephite artifacts but you cannot tell us where to look.

How convenient.

Look in mesoamerica, as we have stated many many times here and elsewhere. All you have to do is excavate a city from the BOM time period in mesoamerica, and **you** then tell us how to identify the artifacts as Nephite/Lamanite or other.

In fact several mesoamerican sites have been considered as potential BOM sites, based on the BOM text. All you have to do is look.

[rick7475]

A similar discovery is discussed here, except this may not be very "faith promoting". It lends alot of credibility to the "JS made up the whole thing" theory, as you would say.

http://p079.ezboard.com/fpacumenispagesfrm...picID=438.topic

Dale, are you here to make some comments?

(PS, you might find it useful not to be so cute in responding to my posts. I have been around for a very long time in these discussions)

Oh Puh-lease. So have I. And I remember Seymour Bloom and that thread from ZLMB very well when I used to post there years ago. There are many claims that show the characters in the Anthon transcript to be similiar to Tironian letters, Phoenician, Gaelic, Irish Ogham, Arabic shorthand, Latin shorthand , etc, (what an incredible linquist Joseph was to have chosen a sampling from all those sources, and a resourceful fellow to have gathered all those examples to use).

There are also two cylinder scrolls in Mesoamerica, properly documented and recovered, that also bear characters that match the Anthon Transcript. These are ancient Mesoamerican artifacts.

Perhaps the Mesoamericans were expert linguists who chose shorthand Tironian, Phoenician, Gaelic, Irish Ogham, Arabic, or Latin 2000 years ago to write on the artifacts?

Seems implausible that a farm boy who couldn't even spell 'characters' correctly having access to all sorts of varieties of shorthand techniques (some dead for 9 centuries) and the knowledge to chose from several different kinds of symbols from each.

[JNclone]

I suppose if I was wondering how to identify Nephite artefacts, I might look at some archeological parallels.

Thus we are dealing here with a text (the BoM) that refers to some events, places and persons acknowledged to be part of the real world (Jerusalem, and so on ...) but mentions some others whose reality is disputed (Nephites, King Benjamin, Zarahemla, and so on and so forth).

Early in the last century, some bright young scholars were convinced that the references in early Chinese historical sources to a dynasty known as Shang or Yin were simply legendary projections into the past of what they believed to be the earliest real Chinese dynasty, the Zhou (which began in the late 11th century BC). Alas, excavations from 1928 onwards at Anyang unearthed what was undoubtedly a late Shang capital, for inscribed oracle bones unearthed there bore the names of kings close to those named as Shang rulers in the sources the young scholars had written off as legendary.

So all we need is to unearth some written sources from a major habitation site of the right epoch, with at least some reference in inscriptions to King Benjamin and all the others - presumably in Reformed Egyptian or some version of Hebrew ... surely that would do it?

But in fact, as a seasoned reader of this board, I think I can show why no LDS should ever expect any such discovery to be made. I have repeatedly seen it stated here that God will never allow evidence for miracles to appear that would be convincing enough to render faith unnecessary.

Now by the very nature of its transmission, the BoM is a miraculous text, and we are repeatedly told that it is to be accepted by faith. If enough of its immense array of historical statements (i.e. more than just the odd one or two, which might be mere chance) were to be convincingly verified by archeological means then everyone would be forced to accept the Book of Mormon as miraculous, and Joseph Smith as a prophet. No faith would be needed.

Clearly God will never permit that. So no convincing proof of the historicity of the Book of Mormon will ever be found.

(Please point out if I have slipped up somewhere in this.)

[LifeOnaPlate]

I suppose if I was wondering how to identify Nephite artefacts, I might look at some archeological parallels.

Thus we are dealing here with a text (the BoM) that refers to some events, places and persons acknowledged to be part of the real world (Jerusalem, and so on ...) but mentions some others whose reality is disputed (Nephites, King Benjamin, Zarahemla, and so on and so forth).

Early in the last century, some bright young scholars were convinced that the references in early Chinese historical sources to a dynasty known as Shang or Yin were simply legendary projections into the past of what they believed to be the earliest real Chinese dynasty, the Zhou (which began in the late 11th century BC). Alas, excavations from 1928 onwards at Anyang unearthed what was undoubtedly a late Shang capital, for inscribed oracle bones unearthed there bore the names of kings close to those named as Shang rulers in the sources the young scholars had written off as legendary.

So all we need is to unearth some written sources from a major habitation site of the right epoch, with at least some reference in inscriptions to King Benjamin and all the others - presumably in Reformed Egyptian or some version of Hebrew ... surely that would do it?

But in fact, as a seasoned reader of this board, I think I can show why no LDS should ever expect any such discovery to be made. I have repeatedly seen it stated here that God will never allow evidence for miracles to appear that would be convincing enough to render faith unnecessary.

Now by the very nature of its transmission, the BoM is a miraculous text, and we are repeatedly told that it is to be accepted by faith. If enough of its immense array of historical statements (i.e. more than just the odd one or two, which might be mere chance) were to be convincingly verified by archeological means then everyone would be forced to accept the Book of Mormon as miraculous, and Joseph Smith as a prophet. No faith would be needed.

Clearly God will never permit that. So no convincing proof of the historicity of the Book of Mormon will ever be found.

(Please point out if I have slipped up somewhere in this.)

Close, but no cigar.

[SolarPowered]

I suppose if I was wondering how to identify Nephite artefacts, I might look at some archeological parallels.

Thus we are dealing here with a text (the BoM) that refers to some events, places and persons acknowledged to be part of the real world (Jerusalem, and so on ...) but mentions some others whose reality is disputed (Nephites, King Benjamin, Zarahemla, and so on and so forth).

Early in the last century, some bright young scholars were convinced that the references in early Chinese historical sources to a dynasty known as Shang or Yin were simply legendary projections into the past of what they believed to be the earliest real Chinese dynasty, the Zhou (which began in the late 11th century BC). Alas, excavations from 1928 onwards at Anyang unearthed what was undoubtedly a late Shang capital, for inscribed oracle bones unearthed there bore the names of kings close to those named as Shang rulers in the sources the young scholars had written off as legendary.

So all we need is to unearth some written sources from a major habitation site of the right epoch, with at least some reference in inscriptions to King Benjamin and all the others - presumably in Reformed Egyptian or some version of Hebrew ... surely that would do it?

But in fact, as a seasoned reader of this board, I think I can show why no LDS should ever expect any such discovery to be made. I have repeatedly seen it stated here that God will never allow evidence for miracles to appear that would be convincing enough to render faith unnecessary.

Now by the very nature of its transmission, the BoM is a miraculous text, and we are repeatedly told that it is to be accepted by faith. If enough of its immense array of historical statements (i.e. more than just the odd one or two, which might be mere chance) were to be convincingly verified by archeological means then everyone would be forced to accept the Book of Mormon as miraculous, and Joseph Smith as a prophet. No faith would be needed.

Clearly God will never permit that. So no convincing proof of the historicity of the Book of Mormon will ever be found.

(Please point out if I have slipped up somewhere in this.)

Yes, that's very close to what I would argue for some things. (And did recently argue with respect to the papyrus of the Book of Abraham.)

The term I would quibble with is "convincing proof." I think "convincing proof" is possible. It is "incontrovertable proof" that I argue will not become available. The papyrus of the BoA would be "incontrovertable proof." Things like the discovery of Nahom and the discovery of chiasmus in the BoM are only "convincing proof." There is a difference of degree that is extremely significant.

[cdowis]

Seems implausible that a farm boy who couldn't even spell 'characters' correctly having access to all sorts of varieties of shorthand techniques (some dead for 9 centuries) and the knowledge to chose from several different kinds of symbols from each.

It would be instructive to compare the shorthand writing to these seals as a control, to see if they are "ancient" writing.

A valid experiment must have controls to compare the results. He should have randomly taken characters from the transcript and shorthand writing system as a control, to see if there are significance to his results.

That is pretty basic scientific procedure.

[pcarthew]

Loquacious Lurker:

The interesting question is how Middle East artifacts, turn up in a book by a young very undereducated man of 1829 in rural New York?

Questions like this are excellent. They are often often pushed aside by the critics with little or no regard, however they are questions that plumb the depths of the soul...they cannot be answered truthfully with out coming to know that indeed he was a Prophet of God.

[poulsenll]

I want to make a caveat about this: I was at Teotihuacan in June of 1982. I saw workman building "ruins" exactly like those pictured above. In fact, those pictured might even be "ruins" I watched them build.

You will note that the stone and mortar both appear very fresh. Stonework near my home in California that was constructed within the last few decades appears far more weathered than that in the above photo.

From what I have read from scholarly sources, I do in fact believe that there is a lot of ancient cement that was used in that area. However, I have seen from personal observation that the Mexican government is not particularly concerned about historical accuracy at their "National Monuments" that bring in large amounts of tourist dollars. The tourists come to see ancient ruins, so they build ancient ruins for them to see.

One of the objects of Archeological investigations is to preserve and at times reconstruct the ruins. This is usually done based on caredfull study of the material remaining in the mound and that found in the area surrounding the ruin and information gleened from other areas of investigation.

I visited the ruins at Teotihuacan in 1955 and again in the 90s. In 1955, the area shown above was nothing more than piles of rubble at the base of the pyramid of the moon. Most of what you see are reconstructions based on the contents and location of the piles of rubble. Unfortunately much of the stone building material at Teotihuacan was carried away and used in building fences and buildings in the surrounding area.

There are however, in this same area some well preserved remains from the original structures including some beautiful murals and wall decorations. There is one particular painting of a jaguar painted life size on a wall near the small mounds in the picture.

Here is a photo lookung down at the area in front of the pyramis of the moon. You can see the mounds in the bottom of the picture before they were reconstructed.

Larry P

[Gervin]

Here is a photo lookung down at the area in front of the pyramis of the moon. You can see the mounds in the bottom of the picture before they were reconstructed.

Larry P

Does your camera have a "watercolor" setting? Because I've never seen a photo quite like that before.

[Gervin]

Look in mesoamerica, as we have stated many many times here and elsewhere.

"look in mesoamerica" isn't really much help; why look in mesoamerica?

All you have to do is excavate a city from the BOM time period in mesoamerica, and **you** then tell us how to identify the artifacts as Nephite/Lamanite or other.

Well, where do I find a BOM city to excavate? If you show me the location then I guarantee I can tell you how to identify the Nephite artifacts.

In fact several mesoamerican sites have been considered as potential BOM sites, based on the BOM text. All you have to do is look.

I don't have to look because I don't believe in Nephite cities. If I'm going to show you Nephite artifacts then you have to tell me where the Nephites lived with certainty. I'm not going to start digging unless you have some evidence that Nephites aren't fictional.

[gitxsanartist]

Loquacious Lurker:

We do have examples of Reformed Egyptian in the Old World context. I not sure as we could even know what it would look like in a Nephite context.

I think that we can accept as a given that "Nahom" has been found in modern day Saudi Arabia, and the Old World "Bountiful" in Yemen. As far as the New World archaeology correlation with the BoM goes, I think that we do not really know what it would even look like to begin with. Say we found a sign that said "Nephi slept here." in the early form of Nephite Reformed Egyptian. What would it look like? I have no idea. How would we even begin to translate it? Again I have no idea.

I'm as TBM as they come, and never believed that dinosaurs were the remnants of destroyed worlds. The extinction, and evolution of the dinosaurs works quite well for me.

It is interesting that the only real evidence of Hebrew/Nephite existence is found on the old world (not surprising), but nothing quite so convincing has ever been found on the new world. I am beguinning to think that the BofM is either not a historically accurate text or that the actual location of the BofM is some place other than the North/South American continents. My question is what other theories exist out there the support this view and what if any merit do they hold?

[LifeOnaPlate]

It is interesting that the only real evidence of Hebrew/Nephite existence is found on the old world (not surprising), but nothing quite so convincing has ever been found on the new world. I am beguinning to think that the BofM is either not a historically accurate text or that the actual location of the BofM is some place other than the North/South American continents. My question is what other theories exist out there the support this view and what if any merit do they hold?

I was under the impression you believe Joseph Smith or one of his contemporaries invented the book, or plagiarized ideas for it.

[SolarPowered]

It is interesting that the only real evidence of Hebrew/Nephite existence is found on the old world (not surprising), but nothing quite so convincing has ever been found on the new world. I am beguinning to think that the BofM is either not a historically accurate text or that the actual location of the BofM is some place other than the North/South American continents. My question is what other theories exist out there the support this view and what if any merit do they hold?

As has been asked ad nauseam, what would identify an artifact as "Nephite" if it were placed in front of you? There are many, many, many artifacts from Mesoamerica that may well be Nephite. No one as yet devised a test for "Nephiteness". Since you seem to be insisting that we identify Nephite artifacts, I invite you to propose a test that would allow us to distinguish between "Nephite" and "non-Nephite."

[rameumptom]

I have alawas heard the accusation that nothing "nephite" has been found in the ruins. That begs the questian, what is a nephite? What traits or background would a person need in order to be called a nephite? What traits would someone have in order to disqualify him as such? Once you define what a nephite is, then you would ask, "what would these people leave behind, and how would we recognize it?"

1)anyone who is not a lamanite. Jacob 1:13

2)political affiliation, loyal to the Nephi dynasty,kinda like Saudi, as in ibn Saud. Jacob 1:14

3)believer in the religion taught by Nephi and his descendants, kinda like a Sunni vs Shia. 4 Nephi 1:37

4) a blood descendant of Nephi. 3 Nephi 5:10

Given these definitions FROM THE BOM itself, what traces should we expect to find in the ruins or DNA? How would we recognize them? With two of these definitions, even DCP would be considered a Nephite!

Well, we have Mesoamerican names, like Lamani (Laman), and Xilom (Shilom) for starters, don't we?

How about Stele 5 from Ixtapa? While some scholars doubt (they always do, don't they?), it does show a tree of life, a man wearing a Jewish cap, the symbol of a crocodilian jawbone (jawbone = Lehi in Hebrew), and several other things that are found in Lehi/Nephi's vision of the Tree of Life.

How about cities made with cement?

How about that timeframes for the Jaredites correlate with the Olmec, and the Nephites with the Pre-Mayan?

How about that Reformed Egyptian and Mayan are both written with glyphs?

How about that the term "it came to pass" so frequent in the Book of Mormon, is also very frequently found on Mayan stele?

How about the Incan legend of a period of time when the sun disappeared for many days. The people prayed to their gods for deliverance. The Sun reappeared, and later that day a bearded, white God, Viracocha, came among the people to teach them of his ways, perform miracles, and then depart, promising to return?

Perhaps the legend of Quetzalcoatl (sometimes seen as a bearded white god) being associated with a fiery, flying serpent, which goes perfectly well with the fiery, flying, brass serpent on Moses' staff, described by the Nephite record? (in the Bible, it only states Moses' serpent is fiery, not flying).

How about the many Indian legends of coming here on boats from across the sea? How about those pesky archaeological artifacts that most scientists choose to ignore: Bat Creek Stone, The Los Lunas Decalogue, or other finds throughout the Americas (including evidence of Phoenicians in Brazil, etc)?

Yes, it is easy to state there is no evidence for the Book of Mormon, if we just conveniently choose to ignore the evidence that is actually out there!

[poulsenll]

Does your camera have a "watercolor" setting? Because I've never seen a photo quite like that before.

It is not my photo. Check out the original site for details.

http://www.world-mysteries.com/alignments/...storations2.htm

Larry P