Any new evidence for the historical account of the Book of Mormon?

[erichard]

Apparently I'm more familiar with his website than you are. He's taken it down. Notice the links don't work? ...

you people are way over my head....

but if anyone is interested, i noticed that the links work on the archive of it at archive.org:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080112072945/.../commentary.htm

Richard

[Anijen]

hmm in view of Hashbaz' timely post I wonder if beastie will change and update her website and change the whole paradigm of her thinking on the matter?

[Nomad]

Some readers of this thread may be interested to note that I have, finally, started the thread I promised in the Pundit's forum. There you may find a somewhat abbreviated version of my response to beastie's assertion that the presence of a ball court in ancient Mesoamerica is prima facie evidence of human sacrifice occurring in that place. I also think that observant readers will see that the arguments used to debunk beastie's claims in this specific respect (i.e. the ball game) are often applicable to many of her more generalized claims as well.

[cdowis]

hmm in view of Hashbaz' timely post I wonder if beastie will change and update her website and change the whole paradigm of her thinking on the matter?

When I brought up the idea that the game was similar to church basketball, she just brushed it off with a wave of the hand. It will be interesting to see her reaction to this new data.

Will she just wave it off?

[beastie]

I am not Beastie but I get to be her man. She asked me to say that her electricity has been out since Monday and she will post as soon as everything comes back to life.

[lostindc]

you people are way over my head....

but if anyone is interested, i noticed that the links work on the archive of it at archive.org:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080112072945/.../commentary.htm

Richard

I love you but not in a gay way. I have been wanting to dig in this and I am in the process of ordering and receiving the books and can not wait.

Thanks

[lostindc]

I just scanned through many of the posts here and realized there is a huge debate going on about the ballgame, human sacrifice, and the Popol Vuh. Everyone here should read this short article by my non-LDS friend and very recent PhD from Harvard, Alexandre Tokovinine (one of the brightest new epigraphers in the field):

http://www.mesoweb.com/features/tokovinine/ballgame.pdf

In sum, he says that there is absolutely no epigraphic or iconographic evidence that ties the Popol Vuh to the ancient ballgame, and that any sacrifice that may have been done in relation with the ballgame seems to have been done as part of its initial dedication, but not a part of the game itself. And even the evidence for actual human sacrifice at ballcourt dedications is quite limited.

A note on the Popol Vuh: Tokovinine is not the only one to call into question the over-reliance on the Popul Vuh recently. In the past several years, we have moved away from interpreting all ancient Maya iconography through the lens of the Popol Vuh - we have come to realize that much of what we thought was related is not. This is not to denigrate the Popol Vuh. I spent all last week in the Popol Vuh workshop at the Maya Meetings at UT Austin (the same one Larry mentioned above), but we are learning to appreciate it more for what it is: a local history of the Late Postclassic K'iche' Maya, not a generalized "Bible" for all ancient Maya cultures. On that note, we have a hard time even generalizing religion from one site to the next in ancient Mesoamerica. As Stephen Houston stated, "All religion was local religion". The gods worshiped at Palenque were not the same gods worshiped at Tikal, and the gods worshiped at Tikal were not the same gods that were worshiped at Copan, etc. Each site had its own origin myth, its own gods, and its own rites of worship. Clearly there were some overlapping elements, enough that we can lump them together as "Maya", but they themselves thought of each polity as an independent player in the political and cosmological realms, and it was far more heterogeneous than introductory textbooks (like the ones Beastie seems to favor) would indicate.

Now I really will disappear to go work on my diss.

I was afraid someone like this would show up because I really do feel bad for Beastie. I think she is searching for truth and really believes that our faith has deceived her. I hope everything goes alright for her, but she does need to understand that she is in way over her head. Mesoamerican studies is a hobby for her whereas it is a lifetime of study and work for others and these others are competent, such as Gardner, and obviously this above poster, and they are able to blow her out of the water. Hopefully she finds no need to continue her studies in order to disprove THE CHURCH, but rather in order to increase in her hobby.

[beastie]

My power and internet has finally been restored, but it will take me a day or two to catch up. In the meantime, I strongly encourage interested folks to read Friedel's comments for themselves here:

http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/ois4.pdf

I haven't completed the essay yet myself, but it is quickly apparent that Friedel is not discounting the concept of divine kingship, which is what hashbaz's post strongly implies with this statement:

A Forest of Kings...is now thoroughly obsolete as a result in advances in textual decipherment and archaeology ("Maya Divine Kingship" in Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond)

in reply to my statements about Holy Lordism.

I will return for a more thorough reply after I finish both this essay and the ballgame essay. It's interesting how the ballgame discussion evolved, btw. Cdowis asked for evidence that human sacrifice was widespread in Mesoamerica prior to 200 AD, and the ballgames were just one of many pieces of evidence I shared to demonstrate just that. The interest in the ballgame has completely eclipsed what that discussion was all about, but it is interesting and I'll read the essay.

In the meantime, I've been compiling BoM verses that give us background information about the Nephite and Lamanite polities, and I will be back shortly to share the first portion of that.

[lostindc]

My power and internet has finally been restored, but it will take me a day or two to catch up. In the meantime, I strongly encourage interested folks to read Friedel's comments for themselves here:

http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/ois4.pdf

I haven't completed the essay yet myself, but it is quickly apparent that Friedel is not discounting the concept of divine kingship, which is what hashbaz's post strongly implies with this statement:

in reply to my statements about Holy Lordism.

I will return for a more thorough reply after I finish both this essay and the ballgame essay. It's interesting how the ballgame discussion evolved, btw. Cdowis asked for evidence that human sacrifice was widespread in Mesoamerica prior to 200 AD, and the ballgames were just one of many pieces of evidence I shared to demonstrate just that. The interest in the ballgame has completely eclipsed what that discussion was all about, but it is interesting and I'll read the essay.

In the meantime, I've been compiling BoM verses that give us background information about the Nephite and Lamanite polities, and I will be back shortly to share the first portion of that.

Really, you do not have too, it is entirely unneeded. You are going to have a hard time influencing LDS on this board. Why not look into the subject for strictly hobby purposes instead of trying to disprove the faith of another? Judging just by the differences in posts between you and the meso scholars you are wasting your time if you think your scholarship will level theirs.

[beastie]

Here are the citations that I cited from Forest of Kings:

â??If we judge the Maya only by our own definition of progress, they had few technological wonders. By our standards, they were a Stone Age people lacking even such rudimentary developments as the uses of metal and the domestication of beasts of burden. Yet few people today would deny that they possessed a high civilization and a complex social order. If the Maya did not invent an advanced scientific technology that harnessed natural energy, what then did they invent? The answer to this question is simple: They invented ideas that harvested social energy. The genius of the Maya was expressed through the creation of new visions of power. They invented political symbols that transformed and coordinated such age-old institutions as the extended family, the village, the shaman, and the patriarch into the stuff of civilized life.â? (page 97)

â??At the time when the institution of kingship was invented, the Maya were faced with cultural tensions so great they threatened to tear their society apart. Outside forces were upsetting the heretofore carefully maintained system of social egalitarianism. Trade, both between Maya communities and between the Maya and their Mesaoamerican neighbors, such as the Mije-speaking people of the Pacific Coast, the post-Olmec people of the Gulf Coast, the Zapotecs of the Valley of Oaxaca, and the Teotihuacanos of the central valley of Mexico, was generating a flow of wealth that was unequally distributed among the people. In a culture which regarded the accumulation of wealth as an aberration, this turn of events created unease and social strife. At the same time, the development of raised-field agriculture and extensive water-management systems created prosperity in regions which had the means to organize the labor pool necessary to maintain these systems. As contacts with trading partners already organized into kingdoms intensified, ideas of rank and privilege further exacerbated the differences in wealth and status that had grown with the success of these commercial and agricultural enterprises. A new leadership appeared within many Maya communities â?? one that was hierarchical in its nature.

We know that the problem the Maya were trying to resolve was one of social inequality because that is precisely the state of affairs that the institution of ahau defines as legitimate, necessary, and intrinsic to the order of the cosmos. The development of a high civilization always creates problems of social inequality, but such differences between people need not be manifested negatively. For the Maya, the kingship became the primary symbol and rationale for the noble class, the ahauob. Kingship addressed the problem of inequality, not by destroying or denying it, but by embedding the contradictory nature of privilege into the very fabric of life itself. The rituals of the ahauob declared that the magical person of the king was pivot and pinnacle of a pyramid of people, the summit of a ranking of families that extended out to incorporate everyone in the kingdom â?? from highest to lowest. His person was the conduit of the sacred, the path of communication to the Otherworld, the means of contacting the dead, and indeed of surviving death itself. He was the clarifier of the mysteries of everyday life, of planting and harvesting, of illness and health. He wielded his knowledge and influence to create advantageous trade agreements for his people. He could read in the heavens the signs which told him when to war and when to maintain the peace. The farmer, the stonemason, and the craftsperson might have to pay tribute to the king, but the king compensated them for their service by giving them a richer, more enjoyable, more cohesive existence. The people reaped the spiritual benefits of the kingâ??s intercession with the supernatural world and shared in the material wealth his successful performance brought to the community.â? (page 111)

Hashbazâ??s reply was as follows:

Freidel (2008) says of this book that Beastie is quoting:

QUOTE

A Forest of Kings...is now thoroughly obsolete as a result in advances in textual decipherment and archaeology ("Maya Divine Kingship" in Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond)

Now, given the context of hashbazâ??s comment, it is understandable that I interpreted his comments to mean that Friedel finds the above citations now obsolete. Since I was already familiar with Friedelâ??s short essay in Lords of Creation, about the Cerros evidence of kingship, I had reason to be skeptical that Friedel was actually suggesting that the above statements should be viewed as obsolete. In fact, I was already familiar with the fact that some particular details of Forest of Kings were later revised, such as the meaning of the Tikal event, and Iâ??m not surprised by other details being revised. That certainly is inevitable. But given the fact that I was familiar with Friedelâ??s comments in Lords of Creation, and given the fact that I know that many other scholars â?? ones that Hashbaz can hardly suggest are not well received, like Arthur Demarest â?? also accept the concept of Holy Lord, I am very skeptical of the seeming insinuation that the entire concept is now viewed as obsolete. Yet, given the context of Hashbazâ??s comments, itâ??s difficult to figure out any other point. So I was quite eager to read Friedelâ??s comments in context. I encourage anyone interested in the concept of Holy Lord to read Friedelâ??s comments. I intend to read all the essays, but that will take a while. Here are just a few comments from Friedelâ??s statements that support the citations I shared from The Forest of Kings:

Linda Schele and Mary Miller (1986) in the Blood of Kings catalogue brilliantly outlined key features of the divine kingship in terms not only of the textual records as then understood, but also through the correlation of that record with relevant features of the rich corpus of Classic Maya art. They described the rulerâ??s role as statesman, religious leader, and warrior. They also introduced the notion that Classic divine kingship could be extended into the Late Preclassic period based on collaborative work Linda Schele and I were doing during this time. Students of Lindaâ??s, notably Virginia Fields and F. Kenty Reilly III worked during the 1980s to anchor insignia and practices of the Maya divine kingship into the prior Olmec civilization of the Middle Preclassic period. Linda Schele and I published on Late Preclassic divine kingship in American Anthropologist, and that same year saw publication of our theoretical treatise on the evolution of Maya state ideology and religion as an adaptation to burgeoning social inequality in the lowlands.

Maya rulers and their families were the objects of royal cults in which they performed as deities (Friedel 1992). They were venerated and worshipped by their courtiers, nobles who functioned much as priests do in some other ancient civilizations. Divine performances documented through texts, images, and archaeological contexts included the ability to be reborn following death, the ability to conjure gods into existence, the ability to manifest as particular deities, the ability to consort with supernatural companions of a lethal character including war deities, the ability to manifest the central axis of the cosmos, and the ability to communicate with the dead. Following definitions of shamanism outlined by Mircea Eliade and others, Schele and I regarded these activities by Maya royalty to be prima facie evidence of the shamanic nature of the royal cult and Maya state ideology more generally. This is not to say that the Classic Maya lacked gods, for they had them in abundance. What they lacked were deity cults as such and organized priesthoods devoted to gods. They worshipped gods through the royal cults, and the intercessors for the gods were always the royalty where they existed. Lesser royalty in vassal polities performed in the same fashion as the representatives of great dynasties. As to religious activities in small towns and remote villages, what evidence we have suggest that public religion focused on the same panoply of gods found in the major centers. The manner in which the roles of royalty were filled by local patriarchs and matriarchs, shaman, midwives, bonesetters, and herbalists rmains an open and intriguing area of inquiry. One could accurately assert that the royalty functioned as priest in their intercessory capacities, but the overlappning of priestly responsibilities and shamanic abilities was evidently substantial and enduring.

I can find nothing in Friedelâ??s essay that would indicate he would now reject, as obsolete, the citations I shared from The Forest of Kings. He has some debate with Demarest over the extent of economic control exerted by these kings, but that hardly indicates a rejection of the entire concept. Of course, itâ??s possible I missed something notable in this essay, and invite others to correct me if they can and provide evidence that Friedel now rejects the entire concept of Holy Lord.

I suspect that if Hashbaz returns, he will protest that he never meant to imply that Friedel now rejects the concept of Holy Lord, but given how he chose to share that extremely abbreviated citation of Friedel in direct response to the summary I shared about Holy Lord, itâ??s hard to find a different interpretation.

BTW, here is Friedelâ??s full quote:

I was involved with the production of two books relevant to the ongoing development of Maya divine kingship, A Forest of Kings, which we dealt mostly with political history, and Maya Cosmos, in which we detailed our arguments for the Maya divine kingship as shamanic. While the former book is now thoroughly obsolete as a result of advances in textual decipherment and archaeology, the latter is still actively cited and critiqued for its views on the nature of the kingship.

Since the citations I shared dealt with â??the nature of the kingshipâ?, as repeated in May Cosmos, I doubt that Friedel would think that any statements made in The Forest of Kings about the nature of kingship are now obsolete.

[beastie]

Really, you do not have too, it is entirely unneeded. You are going to have a hard time influencing LDS on this board. Why not look into the subject for strictly hobby purposes instead of trying to disprove the faith of another? Judging just by the differences in posts between you and the meso scholars you are wasting your time if you think your scholarship will level theirs.

I know that there are some believers who are pretty impervious to any critique offered by nonbelievers, and who really only want to be told by apologists that they regard as authoritative that itâ??s ok to ignore anything critics have to say on the subject. There are some apologists who tell believers itâ??s ok to ignore me because Iâ??m not an expert. My response to that always has been that I donâ??t pretend to be an expert, and I mainly share citations from the real experts. Now Hashbaz is asserting that itâ??s ok to ignore these citations, because I canâ??t discern between respected work and disrespected work. Personally, I think that was an unfortunate choice due to the fact that I heavily cite from authors such as Arthur Demarest and Michael Coe, and na

[beastie]

I still haven't tackled the ballgame essay, and it will probably have to wait until tomorrow. However, I do want to get started on sharing the BoM verses I think are crucial to discussing the power and influence of the polities described in the BoM. Due to length, this will be divided into parts.

BoM complexity

Iâ??m going to share a few more scriptures that I think demonstrate the social and political complexity of the polities described in the BoM. Iâ??m going to include references to the Lamanite polities, as well, because that also requires explanation.

As Iâ??ve already mentioned, the BoM describes social strain due to increasing stratification very early in the text. From Jacob 2:

13 And the hand of providence hath smiled upon you most pleasingly, that you have obtained many riches; and because some of you have obtained more abundantly than that of your brethren ye are lifted up in the pride of your hearts, and wear stiff necks and high heads because of the costliness of your apparel, and persecute your brethren because ye suppose that ye are better than they.

14 And now, my brethren, do ye suppose that God justifieth you in this thing? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. But he condemneth you, and if ye persist in these things his judgments must speedily come unto you.

15 O that he would show you that he can pierce you, and with one glance of his eye he can smite you to the dust!

16 O that he would rid you from this iniquity and abomination. And, O that ye would listen unto the word of his commands, and let not this pride of your hearts destroy your souls!

17 Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you.

18 But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God.

19 And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do goodâ??to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.

This is somewhere around 544 BC. It cannot be much later than that date due to the fact that the brother of Nephi is speaking. I bolded the sentence that pretty much encapsulates the entire idea of social stratification. Obviously, this problem had already developed to the point of casing social strain, and resulting in a lower class that was naked and hungry. There were certainly polities in ancient Mesoamerica that were already this developed by this time period, but they were the most advanced polities, those who had achieved at least a chiefdom level of complexity. We are already facing the ongoing problem presented throughout the entire BoM â?? the type of polity described, if present in Mesoamerica, would be among the precociously developed poliites.

Even at this early point, the outsiders also adhered to, at the very least, a type of Judaism. The story of Sherem is a favorite example to prove the existence of â??othersâ?, from Jacob chapter 7:

1 AND now it came to pass after some years had passed away, there came a man among the people of Nephi, whose name was Sherem.

2 And it came to pass that he began to preach among the people, and to declare unto them that there should be no Christ. And he preached many things which were flattering unto the people; and this he did that he might overthrow the doctrine of Christ.

3 And he labored diligently that he might lead away the hearts of the people, insomuch that he did lead away many hearts; and he knowing that I, Jacob, had faith in Christ who should come, he sought much opportunity that he might come unto me.

4 And he was learned, that he had a perfect knowledge of the language of the people; wherefore, he could use much flattery, and much power of speech, according to the power of the devil.

5 And he had hope to shake me from the faith, notwithstanding the many revelations and the many things which I had seen concerning these things; for I truly had seen angels, and they had ministered unto me. And also, I had heard the voice of the Lord speaking unto me in very word, from time to time; wherefore, I could not be shaken.

6 And it came to pass that he came unto me, and on this wise did he speak unto me, saying: Brother Jacob, I have sought much opportunity that I might speak unto you; for I have heard and also know that thou goest about much, preaching that which ye call the gospel, or the doctrine of Christ.

7 And ye have led away much of this people that they pervert the right way of God, and keep not the law of Moses which is the right way; and convert the law of Moses into the worship of a being which ye say shall come many hundred years hence. And now behold, I, Sherem, declare unto you that this is blasphemy; for no man knoweth of such things; for he cannot tell of things to come. And after this manner did Sherem contend against me.

Again, I bolded the phrases that clearly indicate the Sherem adhered to a form of Judaism. Yet he was an outsider. This also had to happen around 544 BC due to the involvement of Jacob. This indicates the very early evidence of another ongoing problem for the BoM - outsiders, commonly referred to as Lamanites, often adhere to a form of Judaism themselves. This is why the identity of the Lamanite polity or polities becomes just as important as the identify of the Nephite polity or polities.

[beastie]

Between 420 and 361 BC even more details regarding social complexity are shared, in Jarom:

7 And it came to pass that they came many times against us, the Nephites, to battle. But our kings and our leaders were mighty men in the faith of the Lord; and they taught the people the ways of the Lord; wherefore, we withstood the Lamanites and swept them away out of our lands, and began to fortify our cities, or whatsoever place of our inheritance.

8 And we multiplied exceedingly, and spread upon the face of the land, and became exceedingly rich in gold, and in silver, and in precious things, and in fine workmanship of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron and copper, and brass and steel, making all manner of tools of every kind to till the ground, and weapons of warâ??yea, the sharp pointed arrow, and the quiver, and the dart, and the javelin, and all preparations for war.

This is clearly describing a society that has extensive craft specialization, which is another sign of social complexity. At the simpler levels of social complexity, there are simply not the numbers of individuals available to produce food efficiently enough to allow trade specialization to develop. To put it simply, if the entire group is busy in food production, no one has time to make â??machineryâ?.

The social strain first described in 544 BC continues throughout the entire course of the BoM. Yes, this was the same social strain that more precocious polities in Mesoamerica were experiencing, with the end result being Holy Lordism, which is a mechanism by which social stratification is justified and even religiously sanctioned. Contrary to what Brant has asserted about my statements, I am not just stating that we should see a trend of denying that larger trend. I am stating that, given the fact that the polities described in the BoM would have been among the more precociously developed polities in terms of social complexity, we would have seen their influence in terms of the solution they offered as opposed to Holy Lordism: Judeo-Christianity. We see this solution offered again in Mosiah 4, around 124 BC. This indicates that for the past 400 years some of the more precociously developed polities in Mesoamerica were offering this solution instead of Holy Lordism:

14 And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the evil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness.

15 But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another.

16 And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.

17 Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are justâ??

18 But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.

19 For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?

20 And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a remission of your sins. And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out his Spirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with joy, and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy.

21 And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another.

22 And if ye judge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your condemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God, to whom also your life belongeth; and yet ye put up no petition, nor repent of the thing which thou hast done.

23 I say unto you, wo be unto that man, for his substance shall perish with him; and now, I say these things unto those who are rich as pertaining to the things of this world.

24 And again, I say unto the poor, ye who have not and yet have sufficient, that ye remain from day to day; I mean all you who deny the beggar, because ye have not; I would that ye say in your hearts that: I give not because I have not, but if I had I would give.

25 And now, if ye say this in your hearts ye remain guiltless, otherwise ye are condemned; and your condemnation is just for ye covet that which ye have not received.

26 And now, for the sake of these things which I have spoken unto youâ??that is, for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before Godâ??I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.

This is obviously describing a society that is completely socially stratified. They are stratified to the point where there are distinct social classes, and a lower class that actually goes hungry, naked, and resorts to begging. From my understanding of how agriculture in ancient Mesoamerica largely worked, it is already doubtful that such a hungry, naked, and begging lower class would exist except in times of drought and famine, but we can leave aside that point in favor of my larger point â?? this is a firmly stratified classed society. Again, firmly stratified societies did exist in Mesoamerica during this time period, but they are regarded by archaeologists as the more precociously developed ones â?? the very ones that significantly influenced the evolution of Mesoamerican thought and worldviews.

[Mars]

I know that there are some believers who are pretty impervious to any critique offered by nonbelievers, and who really only want to be told by apologists that they regard as authoritative that itâ??s ok to ignore anything critics have to say on the subject. There are some apologists who tell believers itâ??s ok to ignore me because Iâ??m not an expert.

And with that I stop giving a rat what you write.

[beastie]

I just scanned through many of the posts here and realized there is a huge debate going on about the ballgame, human sacrifice, and the Popol Vuh. Everyone here should read this short article by my non-LDS friend and very recent PhD from Harvard, Alexandre Tokovinine (one of the brightest new epigraphers in the field):

http://www.mesoweb.com/features/tokovinine/ballgame.pdf

In sum, he says that there is absolutely no epigraphic or iconographic evidence that ties the Popol Vuh to the ancient ballgame, and that any sacrifice that may have been done in relation with the ballgame seems to have been done as part of its initial dedication, but not a part of the game itself. And even the evidence for actual human sacrifice at ballcourt dedications is quite limited.

A note on the Popol Vuh: Tokovinine is not the only one to call into question the over-reliance on the Popul Vuh recently. In the past several years, we have moved away from interpreting all ancient Maya iconography through the lens of the Popol Vuh - we have come to realize that much of what we thought was related is not. This is not to denigrate the Popol Vuh. I spent all last week in the Popol Vuh workshop at the Maya Meetings at UT Austin (the same one Larry mentioned above), but we are learning to appreciate it more for what it is: a local history of the Late Postclassic K'iche' Maya, not a generalized "Bible" for all ancient Maya cultures. On that note, we have a hard time even generalizing religion from one site to the next in ancient Mesoamerica. As Stephen Houston stated, "All religion was local religion". The gods worshiped at Palenque were not the same gods worshiped at Tikal, and the gods worshiped at Tikal were not the same gods that were worshiped at Copan, etc. Each site had its own origin myth, its own gods, and its own rites of worship. Clearly there were some overlapping elements, enough that we can lump them together as "Maya", but they themselves thought of each polity as an independent player in the political and cosmological realms, and it was far more heterogeneous than introductory textbooks (like the ones Beastie seems to favor) would indicate.

Now I really will disappear to go work on my diss.

The article was shorter than I anticipated, so I already finished it.

Iâ??m aware of the fact that there were variations in the ideology among various regions. Iâ??ve said nothing to imply otherwise. The references Iâ??ve made to panMesoamerican traits are the generic, over-arching traits that I doubt you would contest. While itâ??s interesting that the connection between the Popol Vuh and ballgames is being revisited, your linked article and your own statements affirm that human sacrifice was associated with the ballcourts. From the article:

As has been proposed by David Stuart, most monumental inscriptions are in essence dedicatory statements. The evidence suggests that the ballgame events recorded could be part of broader dedication rituals. Consequently, the human sacrifices mentioned or depicted could be in fact dedicatory, that is, associated with the ballcourt and its specific functions as a locus for the game (of this so special form of sacrifice), but not with the ballgame itself. The holy king would perform that sacrifice as a â??symbolic ballgameâ?? in a sequence of various dedicatory ceremonies. If this is true, was there a proper ballgame sacrifice at all?

Whether the sacrifice occurred within the actual context of the game, or simply during the dedicatory ritual, the fact remains that human sacrifice is associated with ballcourts â?? which was always my point.

[beastie]

We find another example of an outsider still self-identifying with Nephite history in Mosiah chapter 7, around 121 BC:

9 And he said unto them: Behold, I am Limhi, the son of Noah, who was the son of Zeniff, who came up out of the land of Zarahemla to inherit this land, which was the land of their fathers, who was made a king by the voice of the people.

He also self-identifies with Judeo-Christianity, later in chapter 7:

19 Therefore, lift up your heads, and rejoice, and put your trust in God, in that God who was the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob; and also, that God who brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, and caused that they should walk through the Red Sea on dry ground, and fed them with manna that they might not perish in the wilderness; and many more things did he do for them.

20 And again, that same God has brought our fathers out of the land of Jerusalem, and has kept and preserved his people even until now; and behold, it is because of our iniquities and abominations that he has brought us into bondage.

21 And ye all are witnesses this day, that Zeniff, who was made king over this people, he being over-zealous to inherit the land of his fathers, therefore being deceived by the cunning and craftiness of king Laman, who having entered into a treaty with king Zeniff, and having yielded up into his hands the possessions of a part of the land, or even the city of Lehi-Nephi, and the city of Shilom; and the land round aboutâ??

22 And all this he did, for the sole purpose of bringing this people into subjection or into bondage. And behold, we at this time do pay tribute to the king of the Lamanites, to the amount of one half of our corn, and our barley, and even all our grain of every kind, and one half of the increase of our flocks and our herds; and even one half of all we have or possess the king of the Lamanites doth exact of us, or our lives.

23 And now, is not this grievous to be borne? And is not this, our affliction, great? Now behold, how great reason we have to mourn.

24 Yea, I say unto you, great are the reasons which we have to mourn; for behold how many of our brethren have been slain, and their blood has been spilt in vain, and all because of iniquity.

25 For if this people had not fallen into transgression the Lord would not have suffered that this great evil should come upon them. But behold, they would not hearken unto his words; but there arose contentions among them, even so much that they did shed blood among themselves.

26 And a prophet of the Lord have they slain; yea, a chosen man of God, who told them of their wickedness and abominations, and prophesied of many things which are to come, yea, even the coming of Christ.

27 And because he said unto them that Christ was the God, the Father of all things, and said that he should take upon him the image of man, and it should be the image after which man was created in the beginning; or in other words, he said that man was created after the image of God, and that God should come down among the children of men, and take upon him flesh and blood, and go forth upon the face of the earthâ??

28 And now, because he said this, they did put him to death; and many more things did they do which brought down the wrath of God upon them. Therefore, who wondereth that they are in bondage, and that they are smitten with sore afflictions?

This is evidence of the trend that those outside Zarahemla self-identify using the same historical story the citizens of Zarahemla would use. I share this to demonstrate influence.

From the same group, Zeniff also self-identifies in a similar fashion, from Mosiah 9, 200 BC:

1 I, ZENIFF, having been taught in all the language of the Nephites, and having had a knowledge of the land of Nephi, or of the land of our fathersâ?? first inheritance, *and having been sent as a spy among the Lamanites that I might spy out their forces, that our army might come upon them and destroy themâ??but when I saw that which was good among them I was desirous that they should not be destroyed.

Later in the same chapter we read about an incident that demonstrates the power of the particular Lamanite polity in question:

6 And I went in unto the king, and he covenanted with me that I might possess the land of Lehi-Nephi, and the land of Shilom.

7 And he also commanded that his people should depart out of the land, and I and my people went into the land that we might possess it.

8 And we began to build buildings, and to repair the walls of the city, yea, even the walls of the city of Lehi-Nephi, and the city of Shilom.

9 And we began to till the ground, yea, even with all manner of seeds, with seeds of corn, and of wheat, and of barley, and with neas, and with sheum, and with seeds of all manner of fruits; and we did begin to multiply and prosper in the land.

10 Now it was the cunning and the craftiness of king Laman, to bring my people into bondage, that he yielded up the land that we might possess it.

King Laman must have been king of an extremely powerful polity, one that had the authority to command people in a different location to abandon their homes for a group of foreigners to inhabit.

Later, in Mosiah 21, we learn the name of the main city that these people were given to inhabit:

1 AND it came to pass that Limhi and his people returned to the city of Nephi, and began to dwell in the land again in peace.

So not only was King Laman powerful enough to force subjects in various locations to abandon their homes, but he was powerful enough to force the inhabitants of arguably one of the most powerful polities in that time period, Kaminaljuyu, to do likewise! Apparently the polity that King Laman ruled from was even more powerful.

This illustrates the importance of thinking about the Lamanite polity described as well as the Nephite polity. It becomes an even more important question as more evidence accumulates showing these Lamanites often still embraced some form of Judaism, and still embraced the same origin story as the Nephites. We learn more about those beliefs in Mosiah 10, around 178 BC:

11 Now, the Lamanites knew nothing concerning the Lord, nor the strength of the Lord, therefore they depended upon their own strength. Yet they were a strong people, as to the strength of men.

12 They were a wild, and ferocious, and a blood-thirsty people, believing in the tradition of their fathers, which is thisâ??Believing that they were driven out of the land of Jerusalem because of the iniquities of their fathers, and that they were wronged in the wilderness by their brethren, and they were also wronged while crossing the sea;

13 And again, that they were wronged while in the land of their first inheritance, after they had crossed the sea, and all this because that Nephi was more faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lordâ??therefore he was favored of the Lord, for the Lord heard his prayers and answered them, and he took the lead of their journey in the wilderness.

14 And his brethren were wroth with him because they understood not the dealings of the Lord; they were also wroth with him upon the waters because they hardened their hearts against the Lord.

15 And again, they were wroth with him when they had arrived in the promised land, because they said that he had taken the ruling of the people out of their hands; and they sought to kill him.

16 And again, they were wroth with him because he departed into the wilderness as the Lord had commanded him, and took the records which were engraven on the plates of brass, for they said that he robbed them.

17 And thus they have taught their children that they should hate them, and that they should murder them, and that they should rob and plunder them, and do all they could to destroy them; therefore they have an eternal hatred towards the children of Nephi.

This is very important evidence, due to the fact that the Lamanite polity being described in an immensely powerful one. No doubt this is one of the reasons apologists often choose Kaminaljuyu as the City of Nephi, because Kaminaljuyu was one of the most powerful polities of that time period. Of course, as Iâ??ve repeatedly stated on this thread, that is the crux of the problem â?? apologists consistently choose the most powerful Mesoamerican polities as BoM candidates due to the prerequisite social complexity. Yet these are the exact same polities that affected the entire trajectory of the Mesoamerican worldview.

I anticipate that Brant or others may claim that this description of the Lamanite worldview is unreliable, since it is being related by Nephites. The insinuation is that the Nephites not only exaggerated their own importance by inflating their numbers, didnâ??t bother to mention the others due to finding them insignificant, but that they also attributed worldviews to the Lamanites that were without the slightest justification. The Lamanites were really Mesoamericans who didnâ??t have any idea of the Nephite worldview, according to apologists. However, given the fact that the BoM at times directly quotes Lamanites referring to this same worldview, I find that an inadequate and frankly unbelievable suggestion.

[beastie]

anijen

hmm in view of Hashbaz' timely post I wonder if beastie will change and update her website and change the whole paradigm of her thinking on the matter?

Please read Friedelâ??s full comments, which I previously linked, and then let me know exactly what needs to be changed on my website.

Cdowis

When I brought up the idea that the game was similar to church basketball, she just brushed it off with a wave of the hand. It will be interesting to see her reaction to this new data.

Will she just wave it off?

The article that Hashbaz linked doesnâ??t assert that human sacrifice did not take place in association with ballcourts â?? it just asserts that the sacrifice took place during the dedicatory ritual, versus the actual game itself, and asserts that it was not always based in the Hero Twin myth.

BTW, you seem to have forgotten the entire reason we began discussing the ballgame â?? you asked for evidence of widespread human sacrifice in Mesoamerica prior to 200 AD. I provided just that evidence (nonballgame as well), and youâ??ve ignored it.

[Anijen]

beastie; This is obviously describing a society that is completely socially stratified. They are stratified to the point where there are distinct social classes, and a lower class that actually goes hungry, naked, and resorts to begging. From my understanding of how agriculture in ancient Mesoamerica largely worked, it is already doubtful that such a hungry, naked, and begging lower class would exist except in times of drought and famine, but we can leave aside that point in favor of my larger point – this is a firmly stratified classed society. Again, firmly stratified societies did exist in Mesoamerica during this time period, but they are regarded by archaeologists as the more precociously developed ones – the very ones that significantly influenced the evolution of Mesoamerican thought and worldviews.

My opinion of what is happening in the scripture you quoted is this;

There is no place for selfishness in King Benjamin's kingdom. He is telling the rich people people to share with the poor, the rich blame the poor for causing their own problems (kind of like today when the words "get a job" is yelled at a panhandler). King Benjamin is also telling the rich that they are beggars before God. God is the one who gave them their prosperity and is telling the rich since God has been merciful to them they in like need to share with the poor. He is also telling the poor will be condemned if they are not charitable they might not have substance to share but they do need to have that mentality to be charitable as if they had.

As far as saying "it is already doubtful that such a hungry, naked, and begging lower class would exist" I take a quote from Ancient Mexico and Central America Susan Toby Evans page206

In chiefdoms, kinship ties still integrate all families into a society wherein each family is socially ranked by how closely its is related to the ruler. In contrast, in states social strata emerge in which the whole stratum (or class) is ranked, vis-a-vis other classes. Kinship is still essential, but it supplies social cohesion within strata kinship does not provide a basis for relations between lower and higher ranking strata.

From this quote we can tell there was divisions in classes during the late formative period (300 BC - AD 1). King Benjamin was preaching against this and was advocating an egalitarian people.

[Hashbaz]

I do not reject the Maya practiced "Holy Lordism" (a term that has never appeared in any scholarly book or article, anywhere, at any time) nor did I imply that Freidel rejected it. Perhaps Beastie missed the part about me writing my dissertation on divine kingship among the Maya. The Freidel quote, which I abbreviated, was used to show Beastie's inability to discern what is current and what is not, and by Freidel's own admission, A Forest of Kings is not. She also seems to think that Arthur Demarest's work is somehow beyond reproach. In a private conversation I had with a Mesoamericanist (who I will not name) who is unquestionably more prominent that Demarest, I was told flatly "Demarest has lost it". Beastie also has a love affair with the works of Michael Coe, who retired 15 years ago and who mostly likes to talk about fishing these days. I saw Mike last fall, and he gave a presentation that was little more than a PowerPoint version of an article he wrote in the 70s. Yes, he was a great scholar. But he's been retired for a decade and a half now, and the field has continued progressing by leaps and bounds since he stopped actively participating in it.

As to the question of divine kingship, I have no doubt that the Maya practiced it. But I also see evidence for divine kingship all over the Book of Mormon. I reject the concept of the shaman-king, as does virtually every other Mesoamericanist other than David Freidel (see 'The Role of Shamanism in Mesoamerican Art' by Klein et al 2002 for a scathing critique). Divine kings are typically those who have a pedigree that traces back to a culture hero/dynastic founder, they interact with supernatural beings, act as intermediaries between their people and the gods, often by means of blood sacrifice, who receive a new name upon taking the throne (typically that of a celestial deity), and who will be deified after death because they are descended from gods themselves. We need only turn to King Benjamin, a man who has to reinforce his humanity to his people, a man who interacted with supernatural beings (he told his people that he was merely repeating the message that was given to him by an angel), he was descended from Nephi (the culture hero/dynastic founder/deified ancestor), and when his people are convinced by his message they cry out to him, not to God, to "apply the atoning blood" (Mosiah 4:2-3) that they might be forgiven. Benjamin, on the day of his son Mosiah's accession, wants to disabuse his people of the divine kingship mentality. He gives them all a divine pedigree that day - they become "children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters" because he had spiritually begotten them, and they were given a new name, the name of Christ (their Celestial deity), and they are all set on the trajectory to the glorious afterlife. In my view, the curious case of Benjamin buttons the Book of Mormon into Mesoamerica (sorry for the pun). The murals of San Bartolo depict the progress to divine kingship in a way that should resonate with temple Mormons. It begins in the paradise of creation, continues with scenes of sacrifice, progresses to scenes of resurrection, and ultimately depicts the enthronement of a divine king. The murals date to the first century BC, the time of King Benjamin. I am not saying the murals have anything to do with Benjamin; but I'm saying Benjamin's words and his people's reaction fit much more plausibly within a larger Mesoamerican population than Beastie seems to understand.

[beastie]

Anijen

From this quote we can tell there was divisions in classes during the late formative period (300 BC - AD 1). King Benjamin was preaching against this and was advocating an egalitarian people.

I have repeatedly stated that there were polities that were at an advanced stage of social stratification during this time period in ancient Mesoamerica. My point is that they were the more advanced polities of the period - the very type of polities that would influence the trend of the Mesoamerican worldview.

The specific point I was making in the post you quoted wasn't that social stratification didn't exist, but rather that the type of social stratification that results in an underclass that is starving and naked during times of the rest of the society's economic success doesn't really fit ancient Mesoamerica. Aside from disputes about how much the king controlled the economy, this was an agricultural based society wherein individuals largely provided for themselves through gardening and hunting. Of course royalty would always eat better than the underclass, particularly in terms of access to meat, but that doesn't mean the underclass was actually starving, except in times of actual drought, which would affect the entire community. That isn't the situation described in the BoM. In the BoM, during times of general economic well-being in the society, there was still a starving underclass.

[beastie]

I do not reject the Maya practiced "Holy Lordism" (a term that has never appeared in any scholarly book or article, anywhere, at any time) nor did I imply that Freidel rejected it. Perhaps Beastie missed the part about me writing my dissertation on divine kingship among the Maya. The Freidel quote, which I abbreviated, was used to show Beastie's inability to discern what is current and what is not, and by Freidel's own admission, A Forest of Kings is not.

The statements I quoted from Forest of Kings had to do with the nature of divine kingship. Your reply was that even Friedel thinks Forest of Kings is obsolete. What else am I supposed to conclude other than that you were implying that Friedel would find the actual statements I quoted obsolete? Of course I noticed youâ??re doing your dissertation on divine kingship, but you didnâ??t state what your thesis is. For all I knew, you could be attempting to debunk the entire idea. So I was sharing a statement that is not obsolete. In fact, Iâ??m pretty certain I referred to the fact that the Scheleâ??s interpretation of the Tikal event was revised on this thread â?? but if Iâ??m mistaken, I referred to it on my website. I think this demonstrates that I do have some ability to discern between what is currently accepted and what is not, within layman limits, of course.

Of course Holy Lordism hasnâ??t been used in any book or article â?? I stated that I was using the term to refer to the over-arching, panMesoamerican worldview.

She also seems to think that Arthur Demarest's work is somehow beyond reproach. In a private conversation I had with a Mesoamericanist (who I will not name) who is unquestionably more prominent that Demarest, I was told flatly "Demarest has lost it". Beastie also has a love affair with the works of Michael Coe, who retired 15 years ago and who mostly likes to talk about fishing these days. I saw Mike last fall, and he gave a presentation that was little more than a PowerPoint version of an article he wrote in the 70s. Yes, he was a great scholar. But he's been retired for a decade and a half now, and the field has continued progressing by leaps and bounds since he stopped actively participating in it.

Well, this is interesting. I originally was a little hesitant in referring to you throwing scholars such as Demarest and Coe under the bus, but I see my hesitation was unwarranted. BTW, I donâ??t think anyoneâ??s work is â??beyond reproachâ?, and of course recognize that there is healthy debate about many things. I deliberately chose statements that, in my experience, fairly reflect the consensus of respected Mesoamerican scholars. If you can demonstrate how those exact statements are erroneous or untrustworthy, then, by all means, do so.

You will not name the Mesoamericanist who is more prominent than Demarest who has asserted that Demarest has â??lost itâ?, so all have is your interpretation of his comments. That is unfortunate. So the upshot of your comments seems to be that we laypeople are justified in ignoring the work of scholars such as Demarest, Coe, and Friedel, and instead should pay attention to you.

Iâ??ll have to come back after work to respond to the rest of your comments.

[cdowis]

The specific point I was making in the post you quoted wasn't that social stratification didn't exist, but rather that the type of social stratification that results in an underclass that is starving and naked during times of the rest of the society's economic success doesn't really fit ancient Mesoamerica. Aside from disputes about how much the king controlled the economy, this was an agricultural based society wherein individuals largely provided for themselves through gardening and hunting. Of course royalty would always eat better than the underclass, particularly in terms of access to meat, but that doesn't mean the underclass was actually starving, except in times of actual drought, which would affect the entire community. That isn't the situation described in the BoM. In the BoM, during times of general economic well-being in the society, there was still a starving underclass.

"Of course", "I think", "it just does not fit (my concept of )mesoamerica".

Thanks for giving us your opinions on the matter. In case you had not noticed, there are no written records from this time period, so you opinions are based on very thin evidence.

I do know the difference between fact and speculation/opinion/guesses.

Beastie, it does not matter what YOU think, it does not matter that EVERY archeologist agrees with your opinions, it only matters what is FACT. Without these written records, we are almost blind when we speak in ****general*** terms of an agricultural society, where you make GENERAL CONCLUSIONS, applying them to a SPECIFIC time period and culture.

I see that you are having some difficulty graspinmg that concept. You throw out names and opinions as if it they were actual facts. I am not impressed.

[Honorentheos]

Thanks for giving us your opinions on the matter. In case you had not noticed, there are no written records from this time period, so you opinions are based on very thin evidence.

I do know the difference between fact and speculation/opinion/guesses.

Beastie, it does not matter what YOU think, it does not matter that EVERY archeologist agrees with your opinions, it only matters what is FACT. Without these written records, we are almost blind when we speak in ****general*** terms of an agricultural society, where you make GENERAL CONCLUSIONS, applying them to a SPECIFIC time period and culture.

I see that you are having some difficulty graspinmg that concept. You throw out names and opinions as if it they were actual facts. I am not impressed.

The problem with these statements are that they also apply with equal, if not greater, force to the fitting of the BoM narrative to the mesoamerican setting.

Again, it seems that the core of beastie's argument is that the Nephite culture described in the BoM should have left an influence of fairly large significance on the surrounding mesoamerican culture for which we should be able to find evidence today.

Would that evidence consist of adaptation of judeo-christian themes or beliefs? old world technology or social structures? the absence of conflicting mesoamerican traditions with those consistent with the Nephite culture described? (the core of the entire discussion on human sacrifice) or any number of other outside edge puzzle pieces that would serve to show where the BoM should fit.

The counter argument seems to be more that there is no Nephite-shaped hole, because the Nephite culture was not significant enough to have exerted this kind of influence on the surround mesoamerican cultures. And yet, there is evidence in the BoM that, at a minimum, they were culturally resilient enough to perpetuate this distinct, foreign culture through multiple centuries and generations of nephites while also adapting various typical mesoamerican traditions and beliefs. (i.e.- the divine king discussed above).

It seems that the question one has to consider is if the fact the BoM narrative can fit into a mesoamerican narrative at all is due to the malleability of the story itself rather than the accuracy of the theory? Once one gets past the physical limits of the narrative (which led to the decline in belief in the hemispheric model), is there really any culture that one could not create a feasible fit for the BoM if one had the will to do so?

In which case, when one says this -

"Without these written records, we are almost blind when we speak in ****general*** terms of an agricultural society, where you make GENERAL CONCLUSIONS, applying them to a SPECIFIC time period and culture."

- one is effectively describing the process that has given whatever substance there is to the LGT model currently in fad? It seems the case beastie is making is that the effectual blindness of limited information and speaking in general terms is what makes support of the BoM within a mesoamerian framework even possible.

[lostindc]

I know that there are some believers who are pretty impervious to any critique offered by nonbelievers, and who really only want to be told by apologists that they regard as authoritative that itâ??s ok to ignore anything critics have to say on the subject. There are some apologists who tell believers itâ??s ok to ignore me because Iâ??m not an expert. My response to that always has been that I donâ??t pretend to be an expert, and I mainly share citations from the real experts. Now Hashbaz is asserting that itâ??s ok to ignore these citations, because I canâ??t discern between respected work and disrespected work. Personally, I think that was an unfortunate choice due to the fact that I heavily cite from authors such as Arthur Demarest and Michael Coe, and na

[Brant Gardner]

Again, it seems that the core of beastie's argument is that the Nephite culture described in the BoM should have left an influence of fairly large significance on the surrounding mesoamerican culture for which we should be able to find evidence today.

Would that evidence consist of adaptation of judeo-christian themes or beliefs? old world technology or social structures? the absence of conflicting mesoamerican traditions with those consistent with the Nephite culture described? (the core of the entire discussion on human sacrifice) or any number of other outside edge puzzle pieces that would serve to show where the BoM should fit.

All cultures leave a mark. The question isn't whether or not there should be a mark left by the Nephites, but what the nature of that mark would be and whether it would be distinguishable from any other culture in the area. If they adopt the material culture of the region, then there is no way to tell from building styles or pottery that they had a different religio-political system.

The main problem with the underlying thesis is exactly what you suggest, that the expectation is that there be judeo-christian themes or some old world technology. The problem with that assumption is that those who propose it do not adequately question the assumption prior to using the assumption as evidence for negative evidence (that is, a problem because something isn't there). That is the reason that, at the point of logic, one must define what could reasonable expected for a Judeo-Christian material culture. If in iconography, then what could that look like if the last touchpoint to what we know of the artistic tradition is 600 B.C. (and clearly before any Christian iconography that we would recognize).

The counter argument seems to be more that there is no Nephite-shaped hole, because the Nephite culture was not significant enough to have exerted this kind of influence on the surround mesoamerican cultures. And yet, there is evidence in the BoM that, at a minimum, they were culturally resilient enough to perpetuate this distinct, foreign culture through multiple centuries and generations of nephites while also adapting various typical mesoamerican traditions and beliefs. (i.e.- the divine king discussed above).

No, not quite correct. There are a couple of issues as part of this discussion. The first (and most important) reason that there is no Nephite-shaped hole is that the only way we have of determining anything about the Preclassic is from artifacts (we do not yet have many texts and the one I know of cannot be read). That means that, from material culture alone, can we determine that there is a different kind of politico-religious system. In the Preclassic, we know that it is a time of transition from egalitarian communities/cities into more hierarchically stratified cities (at the top of the heap being the Divine King). That means that it is entirely possible to suggest that there was an egalitarian style Nephite nation, because there were many polities that hadn't yet made that transition. If you read the Book of Mormon against that social dynamic of changing structures, that is precisely the conflict that is describe around the time of Christ. There is a push for a hierarchical society in Zarahemla, and a resistance to it. This is somewhat analogous to the story of Cerros, that went from egalitarian to hierarchical (with a king) and then abandoned that strategy. We know, therefore, that the particular socio-political pressures described in the Book of Mormon reflect precisely the greater socio-political pressures that were present in that region and at that time.

The issue of the type of political structure is a different one. The issue here isn't the Nephites were so weak that they couldn't leave a mark. That would not be a correct assumption. No matter where they lived, they left something, because the text describes cities and sufficient population that something would be there. (As noted above, that is now a question of knowing what you are looking at/for).

The issue with polities is that beastie wants to create a Nephite political structure that she believes was so powerful that it should have been a dominant culture and therefore spread its influence in multiple ways across a region. This argument has problems on a couple of levels. The first is her ideas of what constitutes political power. She is using the evidence to bolster a conclusion she already came to rather than examining the complexity of information to find out what it tells us about the Book of Mormon. The second is the very assumption of what kind of influence one can see. We know some of that from the Classic period, but have less evidence for the Preclassic. Specifically, however, she is using a pan-Mesoamerican trait and suggesting that this is somehow tied to an individual polity. Therefore, since it is pan-Mesoamerican, an influential polity should have created another pan-Mesoamerican trait.

The logic of that doesn't even get out of the gate. I can't think of any part of that concept that fits any of the evidence available. The very fact that certain ideas cover an entire region, and are similar across antagonistic polities (each with their own sphere of influence) tells us that she is simply looking at the wrong kind of data to make her case.

It seems that the question one has to consider is if the fact the BoM narrative can fit into a mesoamerican narrative at all is due to the malleability of the story itself rather than the accuracy of the theory?

That is a legitimate question. There is certainly enough elbow-room in the text that advocates of a 19th century origin can construct a case that the Book of Mormon is a veiled autobiography. There are any number of imaginative ways to read the text. There is no simplistic answer to which one is right. Determining the correct reading of the text requires quite a bit of work. In the end, the best hypothesis is the one that encompasses the largest amount of data with the least effort, and handles the excepts in ways that still fit the overall thesis.

The Mesoamerican setting is the only such hypothesis that fits that category (though, sadly, it is a much more complex discussion that we will ever be able to have on a discussion board).