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Major Book Of Morman Related Discovery Iron Ore Mine Discovered In Peru


Tramper

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From The Nephi Project. What do you think of this?

MAJOR BOOK OF MORMAN RELATED DISCOVERY

Iron Ore Mine Discovered in Peru

Since a pre-Columbian iron ore mine had never been discovered in the New World, critics of the Book of Mormon have scoffed at the book's claim that ancient Americans mined ore (see 2 Nephi 5:15, Jacob 2:12, Mosiah.21:27, Helaman. 6:11, Ether 10:23).

However, on 3 February 2008 several scientific websites announced that an ancient iron-ore mine has been discovered in Nasca, Peru.

The mine is believed to be at least 2,000 years old.

The discovery is gratifying to George Potter, since his new book (which will be available in the fall of 2008) proposes that Nasca was the possible site of the Book of Mormon's city of Bountiful.

See more at Science Daily

The Spanish conquistadors claimed that when they first invaded Chile, the Indians fought them with iron weapons.

All we need to find now is evidence of ore smelting and we have confirmed the Book of Mormon's claim that the Jaredites and Nephites made steel swords.

Joseph Smith prophesized that one day the Book of Mormon would be proven true by physical evidence.

The man was a prophet or an incredibly brilliant man, or in our opinion, both.

Contact Information

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

email: newsletter@nephiproject.com

web: http://www.nephiproject.com

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Get back to us when they find a iron smelter where the making of STEEL swords could have been made.

You mean in the "Holy Land" where the Bible speaks of steel bows and so forth?

2 Sam. 22: 35

35 He teacheth my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.

Job 20: 24

24 He shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall strike him through.

Ps. 18: 34

34 He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.

Jer. 15: 12

12 Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?

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You mean in the "Holy Land" where the Bible speaks of steel bows and so forth?

2 Sam. 22: 35

35 He teacheth my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.

Job 20: 24

24 He shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall strike him through.

Ps. 18: 34

34 He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.

Jer. 15: 12

12 Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?

NWT (JW Bible)

2 Sam. 22: 35 ......and my arms have pressed down a bow of copper.

Job 20: 24 ....a bow of copper will cut him up.

Ps. 18: 34 ...same thing...

Jer. 15: 12 Can one break iron in pieces, iron out of the north and copper? (? in the quote)

So I guess we have to argue translations and I'm at a disadvantage because I don't know anything of the bibles.

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If we did you'd likely just switch to complaining about horses again.

Maybe, a little like: The church is one of the fastest growing churches in the US because it's true.

The church is growing slowing because as something says somewhere: Staight is the way and narrow is the gate. Or something like that.

I can't argue this I'm too vague on details, so I'll leave it to someone else.

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However, on 3 February 2008 several scientific websites announced that an ancient iron-ore mine has been discovered in Nasca, Peru.

The mine is believed to be at least 2,000 years old.

Thank you, Tramper, for posting this interesting discovery.

Are there any links that lead to these "scientific websites"? I tried going through the link to the Nephiproject, but couldn't find anything there about it.

Also, Peru seems to be quite a bit south of the neo-orthodox LDS view for Bountiful, ala Sorenson, et al.

How was it Nasca, Peru, became identified with Bountiful?

Was this the place with the giant "alien air strips" and other carvings in the rock visible from the air that Van Danniken got so much mileage out of?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

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You mean in the "Holy Land" where the Bible speaks of steel bows and so forth?

2 Sam. 22: 35

35 He teacheth my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.

Job 20: 24

24 He shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall strike him through.

Ps. 18: 34

34 He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.

Jer. 15: 12

12 Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?

The Amplified Bible: 2 Sam. 22: 35 ..........bow of bronze.

New International Version: 2 Sam. 22: 35 .....bow of bronze.

and so forth and so on.

Edited to add NEW KINGS JAMES VERSION: 2 Sam. 22: 35.....bend a bow of bronze.

So what does the Joseph Smith Revised KJ version say?

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NWT (JW Bible)

2 Sam. 22: 35 ......and my arms have pressed down a bow of copper.

Job 20: 24 ....a bow of copper will cut him up.

Ps. 18: 34 ...same thing...

Jer. 15: 12 Can one break iron in pieces, iron out of the north and copper? (? in the quote)

So I guess we have to argue translations and I'm at a disadvantage because I don't know anything of the bibles.

I know you are not a JW...also Copper is too soft a metal for a bow. The point is words used to translate...the same for BoM as Bible. This does not disprove either.

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Since a pre-Columbian iron ore mine had never been discovered in the New World. . .

Perhaps this is a correct statement, but a bit misleading. The Olmec (at least by 1500 B.C.) are using iron ore and several deposits have been found. If that were all it took to prove the Book of Mormon - we've been there for years!

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Thank you, Tramper, for posting this interesting discovery.

Are there any links that lead to these "scientific websites"? I tried going through the link to the Nephiproject, but couldn't find anything there about it.

Also, Peru seems to be quite a bit south of the neo-orthodox LDS view for Bountiful, ala Sorenson, et al.

How was it Nasca, Peru, became identified with Bountiful?

Was this the place with the giant "alien air strips" and other carvings in the rock visible from the air that Van Danniken got so much mileage out of?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

The newsletter refer to this link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...80129125405.htm

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Get back to us when they find a iron smelter where the making of STEEL swords could have been made.

Steel swords in the ancient Middle East were not made in smelters or from smelters so why expect to find them in Ancient America? Carbonized iron weapons were made by heating the iron to a semi-soft state and hammering the metal where the metal would contact carbon. The metal was molten in the sense that it was malleable but not fully liquid as in current steel production.

In point of fact, the molten metal was never fully liquid in the case of iron weapons manufacture in the ancient Middle East or elsewhere. It still was molten, however. Another archaic meaning of molten I have yet to see discussed here is: "Brilliantly glowing, from or as if from intense heat." We need to ask the right questions of our data, not assume that modern definitions of melting and molten in the case of iron described the ancient definitions of the same.

It is the same with glass manufacture in ancient times. Glass was molten but as anyone who makes glass objects knows, one usually makes a thick, syrupy mass of molten glass to blow into various shapes. If the glass is fully liquid, it cannot be picked up, blown and shaped properly. This is so even in modern glass blowing.

Even modern sword makers know that the metal is never melted to liquid to produce the sword. A mass of molten (as in heated to softness but not fully liquid) iron is taken from the fire and hammered out. NO SMELTING PROCESS IS OR EVER WAS INVOLVED LIKE THAT SEEN IN MODERN STEEL PRODUCTION! Smelting would be necessary to extract the iron from ore but that would take place in a different location and swords were not directly taken out of the ore

Critics of the Book of Mormon assume that the molten mass of iron used to make the swords were liquid or that complex smelters were necessary, but this was not the case in the ancient Middle East with iron weapons manufacture. Why assume molten meaning melted to liquid and complex smelting operations in the case with the Jaredites or anyone else when there was not such going on anywhere in the ancient world?

What we should be looking at is: What types of iron ore are/were available in Mesoamerica? Which is more technologically feasible? What does it mean when we find words for metals in languages going back to possibly as far as 1500 BCE? These are the kinds of questions that should be asked and examined, NOT whether or not modern smelting and sword production techniques were used in Jaredite times.

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I know you are not a JW...also Copper is too soft a metal for a bow. The point is words used to translate...the same for BoM as Bible. This does not disprove either.

You're correct, I'm not a JW but my wife is so I keep everything I know about the bible stored in her head.

Yes, copper is too soft but bronze is something else. An alloy of mostly copper with tin and other elements added may be suitable. I don't know.

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Thank you, Tramper, for posting this interesting discovery.

Are there any links that lead to these "scientific websites"?

--Consiglieri

Here is an article on the discovery

It is getting headlines for being a mine of a material rather than being any proof of melting ore or anything similar. Also, Bro. Potter has been making an argument that this area is Bountiful.

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From The Nephi Project. What do you think of this?

MAJOR BOOK OF MORMAN RELATED DISCOVERY

Iron Ore Mine Discovered in Peru

Since a pre-Columbian iron ore mine had never been discovered in the New World, critics of the Book of Mormon have scoffed at the book's claim that ancient Americans mined ore (see 2 Nephi 5:15, Jacob 2:12, Mosiah.21:27, Helaman. 6:11, Ether 10:23).

However, on 3 February 2008 several scientific websites announced that an ancient iron-ore mine has been discovered in Nasca, Peru.

The mine is believed to be at least 2,000 years old.

The discovery is gratifying to George Potter, since his new book (which will be available in the fall of 2008) proposes that Nasca was the possible site of the Book of Mormon's city of Bountiful.

See more at Science Daily

The Spanish conquistadors claimed that when they first invaded Chile, the Indians fought them with iron weapons.

All we need to find now is evidence of ore smelting and we have confirmed the Book of Mormon's claim that the Jaredites and Nephites made steel swords.

Joseph Smith prophesized that one day the Book of Mormon would be proven true by physical evidence.

The man was a prophet or an incredibly brilliant man, or in our opinion, both.

Contact Information

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

email: newsletter@nephiproject.com

web: http://www.nephiproject.com

I'd like references for A) the claim about the Spanish conquistadores referring to the Indians having iron weapons, and cool.gif the claim about Joseph Smith prophesying "that one day the Book of Mormon would be proven true by physical evidence."

-Smac

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Vaughn hypothesizes that the Nasca people used the red-pigmented mineral primarily for ceramic paints, but they also could have used it as body paint, to paint textiles and even to paint adobe walls.
This iron was nothing more to them than pigment.
Vaughn and his team discovered a number of artifacts in the mine, including corncobs, stone tools, and pieces of textiles and pottery.
They didn't even make iron tools to help mine the iron.

An interesting find, but I don't see it pertaining to the BoM at all.

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MormonMason: Steel swords in the ancient Middle East were not made in smelters or from smelters so why expect to find them in Ancient America? Carbonized iron weapons were made by heating the iron to a semi-soft state and hammering the metal where the metal would contact carbon. The metal was molten in the sense that it was malleable but not fully liquid as in current steel production.

See other translations of the bible I quoted above that used the word copper or bronze. Was the word STEEL actually what is meant in the bible or just a mistranslation? All other translations that I have checked did not use STEEL but the word copper or bronze.

Maybe articles of iron or steel have been found from the bible times but were they from meteorities?

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I'd like references for...cool.gif the claim about Joseph Smith prophesying "that one day the Book of Mormon would be proven true by physical evidence."

-Smac

I emailed him for the reference on that as well.

As far as pertaining to the BOM, it goes to show that people were getting minerals out of the ground and that discoveries are bringing things to light that weren't previously known. In other words, the book is not closed.

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As far as pertaining to the BOM, it goes to show that people were getting minerals out of the ground and that discoveries are bringing things to light that weren't previously known. In other words, the book is not closed.

If it were one or two, or maybe even 5 things that were anachronistic in the BoM, I would maintain hope that they will be discovered someday, but there are SOOO many things. I just don't see all of them being discovered.

Also, there are many anachronisms in the BoM where much evidence contrary to what the BoM says has been found.

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Thanks for the link!

From this quote in the article, it looks like we still have a ways to go regarding metal weapons in the New World.

Even though ancient Andean people smelted some metals, such as copper, they never smelted iron like they did in the Old World," he said. "Metals were used for a variety of tools in the Old World, such as weapons, while in the Americas, metals were used as prestige goods for the wealthy elite."

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

If it were one or two, or maybe even 5 things that were anachronistic in the BoM, I would maintain hope that they will be discovered someday, but there are SOOO many things. I just don't see all of them being discovered.

Also, there are many anachronisms in the BoM where much evidence contrary to what the BoM says has been found.

Baby steps.

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I emailed him for the reference on that as well.

As far as pertaining to the BOM, it goes to show that people were getting minerals out of the ground and that discoveries are bringing things to light that weren't previously known. In other words, the book is not closed.

That seems to be the default position: all the discovery hasn't been done. We all agree on that. Frankly, I'm surprised that this ochre mine has gotten as much mileage as it has. It doesn't have anything to do with metallurgy or the Book of Mormon.

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MormonMason: Steel swords in the ancient Middle East were not made in smelters or from smelters so why expect to find them in Ancient America? Carbonized iron weapons were made by heating the iron to a semi-soft state and hammering the metal where the metal would contact carbon. The metal was molten in the sense that it was malleable but not fully liquid as in current steel production.

See other translations of the bible I quoted above that used the word copper or bronze. Was the word STEEL actually what is meant in the bible or just a mistranslation? All other translations that I have checked did not use STEEL but the word copper or bronze.

Maybe articles of iron or steel have been found from the bible times but were they from meteorities?

Most of the places translated steel in the Bible were indeed some form of metal containing copper. "Northern Iron" or "Iron from the North" may have been the precursor to Damascus Steel, Damascus being to the north of Palestine and the jumping off point to an attack on Palestine from Babylon. There is also a word for steel in the Hebrew language that occurs once in the Book of Nahum 2:4 (2:3 in the KJV and other English versions), but it is not translated steel in the KJV and in other translations. Consider the rendering in the NASB 1995:

The shields of his mighty men are colored red,

The warriors are dressed in scarlet,

The chariots are enveloped in flashing steel

When he is prepared to march,

And the cypress spears are brandished.

(bold emphasis mine)

The NWT renders the word for steel as iron. Here is a scan of part of a page in The Hebrew & Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, 3:929 [Study Edition, 2:929]:

post-7377-1202314450_thumb.jpg

Fact is, steel and ironworking have been known back to as early as 1500 BCE in the Middle East and possibly earlier. Remnants of iron-based swords have been found in Palestine, such as the Vered Jericho find dating to early Book of Mormon times.

So far as the translations go, steel means hardened metal and the process of hardening a metal was known in the time of the KJV as well as in Joseph Smith's time as steeling. Here is a scan of part of relevant page in Webster's 1828 Dictionary:

post-7377-1202317047_thumb.jpg

It also is likely that the translators went by what they understood to be the meaning of the passage in light of the fact that unhardened copper would have been useless as a weapon, particularly in a bow. The rendering derives from other translations older than the KJV. Most are not aware that the KJV was not a new translation but a revision of an older version of the Bible known as the Bishop's Bible. (See From the Translators to the Reader for their statement in full on what the translators were doing).

I quote from the preface:

But it is high time to leave them, and to show in brief what we proposed to ourselves, and what course we held in this our perusal and survey of the Bible. Truly (good Christian Reader) we never thought from the beginning, that we should need to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one, (for then the imputation of Sixtus had been true in some sort, that our people had been fed with gall of Dragons instead of wine, with whey instead of milk:) but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against; that hath been our endeavor, that our mark.

Anyway, steel was known in the ancient middle east and they did not use modern methods to produce it. That is, in fact, why it was so costly and in many nations that had steel in the ancient past it often was the metal of the elite rather than of the general populus. It was not made in large quantities like we make it in modern times. They did not have the processes we use now to make it cost effective. The chemistry was similar but the methodology was limited in ancient times.

We must not think to read our modern ideas into an ancient text in the case of either the Bible or the Book of Mormon. This is why we cannot think to look for smelters and expect that they will turn up wherever we look. The ancients did not use them. They took ore and heated it to the point of where the iron would become a molten mass, which they would then take and hammer into shape. We will be very lucky indeed to find one at all.

Additionally, on the other hand, there is evidence I have seen of smelted metal dating to 300 BCE. While it still is too late to address the Jaredites, it does address the fact that dates for smelted metal keep getting pushed back the more we look for the remains. I recall a find of a mass of a mixture of iron and copper in a pot found in Oaxaca (if I recall correctly), of which the archaeologist involved said that it had the appearance of having been smelted. If I recall the source, I will post it here. I found it intriguing to say the least. Add to this the interesting evidence that early Mixe-Zoquean languages had terms for metals in the language that glottochronology dates back to times before any evidence of smelted metals are found in the archaeological strata. If I recall what I did with that source, I'll post its citation as soon as I recall where I put it.

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