Grains In Mosiah 9:9

[Analytics]

I think this is an excellent, to-the-point summary of BoM apologetics: the point is to prove what could have happened, not what actually did happen.

The focus of the discussion is on barley now (where most posters happily throw in whatever cultivar they can google , as if all these subspecies are interchangeable) but if you look at the grains mentioned in the verse of the OP, the big elephant in the room is this: if these crops were cultivated during the Bom timeframe, the history of Mesoamerica would have taken a totally different turn from what we now know to be the case. Nobody would revert to beans or maize (or even rice) if they were able to grow wheat. The difference in nutritional value is just too big.

Maybe it could have happened, but it certainly didn't or we would have known it.

Well said--that is exactly how I see this.

[Robert F. Smith]

I think this is an excellent, to-the-point summary of BoM apologetics: the point is to prove what could have happened, not what actually did happen.

The focus of the discussion is on barley now (where most posters happily throw in whatever cultivar they can google , as if all these subspecies are interchangeable) but if you look at the grains mentioned in the verse of the OP, the big elephant in the room is this: if these crops were cultivated during the Bom timeframe, the history of Mesoamerica would have taken a totally different turn from what we now know to be the case. Nobody would revert to beans or maize (or even rice) if they were able to grow wheat. The difference in nutritional value is just too big.

Maybe it could have happened, but it certainly didn't or we would have known it.

The neas and sheum in Mosiah 9:9 could have been amaranth [as Zakuska notes in post #47], jocote (mombin), manioc (cassava),[1] or any sort of grains or food plants native to the Americas and unknown to Joseph Smith. They need not have been introduced from elsewhere. As a grain, amaranth has no peer, being far more nutritious than any other known grain. It went out of general use in Mexico due to its pagan religious use, under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church. It is a good example of a successful cultigen nearly disappearing from common use. The Mexican and Mesoamerican diet is very rich and nutritious, maize (corn) being one of the most successful cultigens on earth. There is no reason to imagine that use of barley and wheat thousands of years ago in an upland setting would necessarily be continued to the present. Particularly if those using it suffered a violent demise.

As a generic term for grain, sheum could not have been brought over in that linguistic form by the Nephites or Mulekites, but would have to have been brought over by the Jaredites from Mesopotamia, and then passed on to the Mulekites. As pointed by Livy and others, grains grow just fine in the temperate altiplano (high altitude) regions of Mexico and Mesoamerica -- the Land of Nephi probably being in highland Guatemala, rather than in the lowland rain forest (jungle).

<br clear="all"> [1] Manioc was recently discovered at Ceren, El Salvador, to be dated 1400 years ago to the time of a massive volcanic eruption (www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070820122541.htm , and www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616133940.htm ).

[Robert F. Smith]

Please read the book or watch the National Geographic video Guns, Germs, and Steel for a detailed explanation of where wheat and barley grow, and why that is a very important issue when studying the way civilizations have emerged.

You might want to ask why and how the great Olmec culture thrived in the swamps of lowland Tehuantepec and Veracruz state in Mexico. No wheat or barley there.

[Robert F. Smith]

What we know is that the Nephites had really big cities, and that all of the really big cities that existed in Mesoamerica during the Book of Mormon timeframe were Mayan cities.

What other theories are out there?

You may be thinking of the post-Book of Mormon Classic Maya of Yucatan. There were plenty of large non-Mayan cities before, during and after the Maya. These would include the cities of the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Oaxaca, Tenochtitlan, etc. The Book of Mormon peoples need not have been Maya, though the Lamanites may have associated with them. The Nephites were most likely closely related to Mixe-Zoque peoples in Chiapas (the Grijalva River Valley), Mexico.

[Brant Gardner]

I think this is an excellent, to-the-point summary of BoM apologetics: the point is to prove what could have happened, not what actually did happen.

The focus of the discussion is on barley now (where most posters happily throw in whatever cultivar they can google , as if all these subspecies are interchangeable) but if you look at the grains mentioned in the verse of the OP, the big elephant in the room is this: if these crops were cultivated during the Bom timeframe, the history of Mesoamerica would have taken a totally different turn from what we now know to be the case. Nobody would revert to beans or maize (or even rice) if they were able to grow wheat. The difference in nutritional value is just too big.

Maybe it could have happened, but it certainly didn't or we would have known it.

That is a pretty eurocentric statement. You are apparently unaware of the nutritional value of the corn/bean/squash combination for adding protein to a diet lacking much of that from animals. The nutritional value of the native crops supported very large populations.

You have also mentioned Jared Diamond. Please read him again to understand the reasons why innovations may not take hold, even when introduced. In the case of anything replacing corn, you need only look at modern traditional populations to notice that European grains still cannot unseat corn/beans as the staple (and corn in particular). Your assertion about what would have changed doesn't even flow from Diamond's book where you are getting some of your ideas.

[Kevin Christensen]

You misunderstand my point. I'm not arguing that wheat and barley haven't been found in Mesoamerica. I'm arguing that wheat and barley can't be grown in Mesoamerica.

And others here have argued that it actually is grown. My point has to do with perspective. Should I treat the grain issue in that verse as a puzzle or as a counterinstance? Do I give things time, or do I fold up my tent and go home? John Clark's 2005 presentation at the Joseph Smith Conference make an excellent case that the general trend over the past 180 years is unmistakably towards resolution of Book of Mormon problems. Against a wider, deeper perspective, both of open issues, known solutions and correlations, and an ongoing trend towards resolution of complaints, how much weight does this issue deserve?

I notice the verse cited comes from the record of Zeniff, when he leaves Zarahemla during a period when Benjamin can send and gather all of his people together "on the morrow." Small groups, small territories, with known trends towards being influenced by outside cultures, being absorbed or exterminated by outside cultures over time. What goes on agriculturally outside those small groups and territories? From my perspective, I don't expect widespread cultivation of all those grains. Rather, at that stage, at most I see the practice of two separate ethnic subgroups in limited areas within larger Mesoamerican cultures. Even if Benjamin's people and Zeniff's people cultivated those grains, it doesn't mean I should expect widespread Mesoamerican adoption as a general circumstance.

The Book of Mormon details the grain its people cultimated more often than what is construed as volcanic activity. The food issue is important.

Important, yes. But not exclusively so, nor the only testable issue, nor the easiest issue to define and test with finality. Nor would a failure in this issue provide a comprehensive explanation of the Book of Mormon. It's always a matter of deciding which problems are more significant to have solved.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[cdowis]

Are you suggesting by this last statement that sheum is a hit? I don't understand how.

What does this mean in the context of the Book of Mormon? As far as I can tell, you are suggesting something like this: The Lehites imigrated to the new world, where they became genetically engulfed in the local Mayan population. They brought with them the word "sheum", and the Mayans stopped using the word they'd previously used for one of their local foods

The mayans continued to use their own words. This was used exclusively by the Nephites.

(beans, perhaps?), and started calling it "sheum".

Obviously you know nothing about the text of the BOM. You are making stuff up which has nothing to do with the BOM itself, but your own fantasy.

Then, when Joseph Smith was translating the Book of Mormon and came across the word "sheum", he couldn't figure out know how to translate that as "bean", so he just left "sheum" there.

"Bean is your word. It was something unknown to JS, perhaps amaranth.

Is that basically it?

Edited August 19, 2011 by cdowis

[Analytics]

That is a pretty eurocentric statement. You are apparently unaware of the nutritional value of the corn/bean/squash combination for adding protein to a diet lacking much of that from animals. The nutritional value of the native crops supported very large populations.

You have also mentioned Jared Diamond. Please read him again to understand the reasons why innovations may not take hold, even when introduced. In the case of anything replacing corn, you need only look at modern traditional populations to notice that European grains still cannot unseat corn/beans as the staple (and corn in particular). Your assertion about what would have changed doesn't even flow from Diamond's book where you are getting some of your ideas.

I agree--from my Jared Diamond perspective, wheat and barley wouldn't unseat corn, beans, squash, etc. So if wheat and barley are crops not suited to take hold in the region, why was Zeniff planting it 400 years after Lehi? I would expect that after trying to make it work in the area for 400 years, it would either have taken hold or been forgotten about. Do you think Diamond would take issue with that?

If the book would have listed corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, chocolate, etc. as the food cultivated, it would be a significant, impressive hit. Listing what it does is a troubling miss.

[ERayR]

You misunderstand my point. I'm not arguing that wheat and barley haven't been found in Mesoamerica. I'm arguing that wheat and barley can't be grown in Mesoamerica.

/quote]

Anybody who would make a statement such as this shows a serious lack of knowledge of agriculture. It isn't that barley can't be grown in Mesoamerica it is that other crops grow better. I'll bet you would say that peanuts can't be grown in Idaho but I have grown peanuts in Idaho. They are not a large cash crop but some are grown.

[ERayR]

I think this is an excellent, to-the-point summary of BoM apologetics: the point is to prove what could have happened, not what actually did happen.

Nobody would revert to beans or maize (or even rice) if they were able to grow wheat. The difference in nutritional value is just too big.

Maybe it could have happened, but it certainly didn't or we would have known it.

Wrong , at least as far as beans go. Beans are a protein Wheat and Barley are carbohydrates. They serve different functions in a diet.

[Analytics]

You misunderstand my point. I'm not arguing that wheat and barley haven't been found in Mesoamerica. I'm arguing that wheat and barley can't be grown in Mesoamerica.

Anybody who would make a statement such as this shows a serious lack of knowledge of agriculture. It isn't that barley can't be grown in Mesoamerica it is that other crops grow better. I'll bet you would say that peanuts can't be grown in Idaho but I have grown peanuts in Idaho. They are not a large cash crop but some are grown.

Touche--What I said is something that somebody would say who knows nothing about agriculture other than what he learned in watching the National Geogrpahic documentary Guns, Germs, and Steel.

But still, wheat and barley are crops that thrive in temperate climates and at best, struggle in the tropics and subtropics, although there are a few spots in the highlands of Guatemala where barley can grow. But my overall point still remains: why, 400 years after Lehi landed in America, would Zeniff be planting old-world, temperate-zoned crops in Mesoamerica, when the local crops are so superior, especially for that region?

[Craig Paxton]

I think this is an excellent, to-the-point summary of BoM apologetics: the point is to prove what could have happened, not what actually did happen.

The focus of the discussion is on barley now (where most posters happily throw in whatever cultivar they can google , as if all these subspecies are interchangeable) but if you look at the grains mentioned in the verse of the OP, the big elephant in the room is this: if these crops were cultivated during the Bom timeframe, the history of Mesoamerica would have taken a totally different turn from what we now know to be the case. Nobody would revert to beans or maize (or even rice) if they were able to grow wheat. The difference in nutritional value is just too big.

Maybe it could have happened, but it certainly didn't or we would have known it.

Only in fiction can something exist and leave no evidence of its existence. It’s interesting that thousands of sediment core samples have been taken from the bottom of dozens of lakes and ponds in meso-America and throughout North America as well, in an effort to discover what plant life existed thousands of years ago. And fortunately real barley and real wheat leave traces of its existence through pollen which finds its way into the lakes and ponds surrounding places where it has grown.

To date…NO wheat or barley pollen has been discovered anywhere in Pre-Columbian North, South or Meso-America, Nothing, Nada, Zilch. In fact the ONLY place that wheat and barley existed in Pre-columbian America was in a book…The Book of Mormon.

[Brant Gardner]

Listing what it does is a troubling miss.

Others will have other opinions, but I find it no more troubling that reading about candles in the KJV.

I see the English text as a translation, and subject to translation issues. That tells me that I have to be careful using any specific vocabulary item as evidence either for or against. The historicity of the text depends on non-vocabulary items, and once established, forms the basis on which we can and should revisit vocabulary.

As with the anachronistic "candle" in the KJV, a translation anachronism does not necessarily represent an original anachronism. Since we don't have the original plates, it isn't as easy to discern as it is for the KJV, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a problem susceptible to investigation.

Edited August 19, 2011 by Brant Gardner

[Analytics]

Others will have other opinions, but I find it no more troubling that reading about candles in the KJV.

I see the English text as a translation, and subject to translation issues. That tells me that I have to be careful using any specific vocabulary item as evidence either for or against. The historicity of the text depends on non-vocabulary items, and once established, forms the basis on which we can and should revisit vocabulary.

As with the anachronistic "candle" in the KJV, a translation anachronism does not necessarily represent an original anachronism. Since we don't have the original plates, it isn't as easy to discern as it is for the KJV, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a problem susceptible to investigation.

That's a fair point.

I find troubling in itself, because the original plates are an anachronism in their own right--there just aren't very many good examples of civilizations closely related to Mixe-Zoque peoples in Chiapas who wrote in reformed Egyptian on metal plates, which they then buried in upstate New York.

But that's all besides the narrow scope of this thread. Thanks for weighing in.

[ERayR]

Touche--What I said is something that somebody would say who knows nothing about agriculture other than what he learned in watching the National Geogrpahic documentary Guns, Germs, and Steel.

But still, wheat and barley are crops that thrive in temperate climates and at best, struggle in the tropics and subtropics, although there are a few spots in the highlands of Guatemala where barley can grow. But my overall point still remains: why, 400 years after Lehi landed in America, would Zeniff be planting old-world, temperate-zoned crops in Mesoamerica, when the local crops are so superior, especially for that region?

The were partial to Barley bread? Or maybe beer?

I don't buy your hyperbole that they struggle to grow. Much of what is grown in an area is not determined by what will or will not grow but on the preferences and markets of the area. There is a little valley in Southern Idaho where I grew up that it was said you couldn't grow potatoes or corn. One year before I moved away I grew corn and it grew very well but there was no local market. They still don't grow corn, however, they now grow potatoes all over the valley. Because of improved transportation there is now a market for them.

Edited August 19, 2011 by ERayR

[Marcelo]

wheat and barley don't grow in the tropics or subtropics

Sorry, but this information is completely wrong. I'm a Brazilian and Barley and Wheat grown in tropics and subtropics.

Barley Production:

Wheat Production:

3 South States => subtropical area

Other Center States => tropical area

Edited August 19, 2011 by Marcelo

[Zakuska]

The were partial to Barley bread? Or maybe beer?

I don't buy your hyperbole that they struggle to grow. Much of what is grown in an area is not determined by what will or will not grow but on the preferences and markets of the area. There is a little valley in Southern Idaho where I grew up that it was said you couldn't grow potatoes or corn. One year before I moved away I grew corn and it grew very well but there was no local market. They still don't grow corn, however, they now grow potatoes all over the valley. Because of improved transportation there is now a market for them.

I have to chuckle to myself when people claim "things won't grow" in a "rain forest".

All it takes to grow a plant is a little dirt,enough water (but not TOO much water), good sunlight, a little cultivation.

I mean these people were growing "maize" all over the place for hecks sake. The conditions for growing corn is quite similar to that of growing wheat and barley.

Then they come up with the silly idea that "barley won't grow there".

:head-shake:

[Zakuska]

Sorry, but this information is completely wrong. I'm a Brazilian and Barley and Wheat grown in tropics and subtropics.

COOL. What part of Brazil? My wife was born in estado de Goias and raised in Brazillia.

[Analytics]

The were partial to Barley bread? Or maybe beer?

I don't buy your hyperbole that they struggle to grow. Much of what is grown in an area is not determined by what will or will not grow but on the preferences and markets of the area. There is a little valley in Southern Idaho where I grew up that it was said you couldn't grow potatoes or corn. One year before I moved away I grew corn and it grew very well but there was no local market. They still don't grow corn, however, they now grow potatoes all over the valley. Because of improved transportation there is now a market for them.

Your experience with corn and potatoes in Idaho differs from the experience of those who have tried to grow the temporate grains in the tropics and subtropics.

According to the documentary Guns, Germs, and Steel, European settlers settled in South Africa and pushed north, at the same time when European settlers settled in the Eastern U.S. and pushed west. The westward expansion in America was successful, because the crops they brought from temperate Europe (i.e. wheat and barley) were successful in temperate North America.

The European settlers in South Africa were successful there, because South Africa is temperate, too. However, as they pushed north out of the temperate zone and into the subtropics and tropics, the wheat and barley didn't grow, and the settlers failed.

[Ariarates]

That is a pretty eurocentric statement. You are apparently unaware of the nutritional value of the corn/bean/squash combination for adding protein to a diet lacking much of that from animals. The nutritional value of the native crops supported very large populations.

I did not say that native crops couldn't support millions. I know they did.

BTW, when you speak of "a diet lacking much of that [protein] from animals", what is your opinion on all the domestic animals the BoM mentions but were never found?

You have also mentioned Jared Diamond.

I don't think I have.

In the case of anything replacing corn, you need only look at modern traditional populations to notice that European grains still cannot unseat corn/beans as the staple (and corn in particular). Your assertion about what would have changed doesn't even flow from Diamond's book where you are getting some of your ideas.

Maybe it doesn't follow from Diamond's book but then again, I wasn't talking about that ;-)

[Analytics]

Sorry, but this information is completely wrong. I'm a Brazilian and Barley and Wheat grown in tropics and subtropics.

Barley Production:

Wheat Production:

3 South States => subtropical area

Other Center States => tropical area

If you define subtropics that way, all of Kansas is in the subtropics. That certainly isn't what I meant to imply.

So allow me to be more precise: Between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, it is very difficult to grow wheat and barley, as your maps demostrate.

[ERayR]

Your experience with corn and potatoes in Idaho differs from the experience of those who have tried to grow the temporate grains in the tropics and subtropics.

According to the documentary Guns, Germs, and Steel, European settlers settled in South Africa and pushed north, at the same time when European settlers settled in the Eastern U.S. and pushed west. The westward expansion in America was successful, because the crops they brought from temperate Europe (i.e. wheat and barley) were successful in temperate North America.

The European settlers in South Africa were successful there, because South Africa is temperate, too. However, as they pushed north out of the temperate zone and into the subtropics and tropics, the wheat and barley didn't grow, and the settlers failed.

[ERayR]

Your experience with corn and potatoes in Idaho differs from the experience of those who have tried to grow the temporate grains in the tropics and subtropics.

According to the documentary Guns, Germs, and Steel, European settlers settled in South Africa and pushed north, at the same time when European settlers settled in the Eastern U.S. and pushed west. The westward expansion in America was successful, because the crops they brought from temperate Europe (i.e. wheat and barley) were successful in temperate North America.

The European settlers in South Africa were successful there, because South Africa is temperate, too. However, as they pushed north out of the temperate zone and into the subtropics and tropics, the wheat and barley didn't grow, and the settlers failed.

Again, you are talking from a point of ignorance of agriculture. As Zakuska pointed out above "All it takes to grow a plant is a little dirt,enough water (but not TOO much water), good sunlight, a little cultivation".

Alas Someone convinced against his will is unconvinced still.

The failure of the northern push of settlers from South Africa while the success of the American push westward had more to to with the terain they were pushing into than with crop failure. Anybody should be able to understand that it is much more difficult to settle dense jungle than it is open forest and unforrested prairie.

Edited August 19, 2011 by ERayR

[Brant Gardner]

I find troubling in itself, because the original plates are an anachronism in their own right--there just aren't very many good examples of civilizations closely related to Mixe-Zoque peoples in Chiapas who wrote in reformed Egyptian on metal plates, which they then buried in upstate New York.

Let's see. The fact that there are no other examples of something that claims to be unique is evidence that it didn't exist? The lack of golden plates in a region where the Spanish melted down tons of gold art doesn't add to the problem of finding any kind of text?

Finally, the fact that we have so little writing of any kind from Chiapas doesn't seem to strike you as odd in any case? Surely you are not suggesting that they were illiterate? Prior to the find at San Bartolo, it might have been suggested that they didn't have access to writing that early, but now that is known to be incorrect. What we have learned is that there was writing on perishable materials long before there was writing on the stone monuments. So a set of documents intentionally hidden, and (according to the text) apparently in danger from enemies, becomes evidence of non-existence rather than absence?

I find your assumptions troubling, as they don't represent what is known of Mesoamerica or the Book of Mormon.

[Brant Gardner]

BTW, when you speak of "a diet lacking much of that [protein] from animals", what is your opinion on all the domestic animals the BoM mentions but were never found?

As far as named animals, my opinion is the same as for named grains. I consider them translation issues. However, as for a diet lacking in protein, I follow the example of Maya and Aztec cultures who similarly kept some animals for meat, but typically only at the higher levels of society. The majority subsisted with very little meat. So the historical situation would be similar to that apparently described in the Book of Mormon.