Grains In Mosiah 9:9

[ERayR]

I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. I'm not even a gardner and don't pretend to have any expertise in these areas, so I appologize for expressing myself poorly and any confussion that may have caused.

Unlike myself, Dr. Jared Diamond knows some things about plants, so if you get the chance to read Guns, Germs, and Steel, I hope you take advantage of doing so.

I am sure Dr. Jared Diamond is quite learned in his field. Unfortunatly his field is not agriculture but rather it is geography and physiology, and that is not plant physiolgy but medical physiology. Were I to seek knowledge on a subject I would go to someone who had actually done that type of work. But then, that's just me.

For your information it is actually much harder to get plants from the tropics and subtropics to produce in temerate zones. The growing is not hard but tropical plants usually require a longer growing season and requires special care (greenhouses) to allow them to produce well. On the other hand taking plants from a temperate zone to a tropical or subtropical area provides ample growing season. So you see you are right in a way except you have it backwards.

Edited August 20, 2011 by ERayR

[cdowis]

I would suggest that these animals, along with the horses, were stolen from the Nephites. Perhaps their possession were indicative of the power of a king, like the crown jewels.

[Ariarates]

Your question got me curious about some of the aspects of food in the text.

Me too. I did a computer search on "cattle" and found the following:

Enos 1:21. And it came to pass that the people of Nephi did till the land, and raise all manner of grain, and of fruit, and flocks of herds, and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind, and goats, and wild goats, and also many horses.

Says here "the people of Nephi" raised all the cattle. Looks like it's juxtaposed to the verse before, which you quoted: Lamanites = hunters = raw meat = bad vs. Nephites = sedentary = cattle = good. While it's possible that the people raised this cattle for a privileged few, this doesn't logically follow from the text (though the text doesn't exclude that possibility either).

Another reference is 3 Ne 3 and 4, where the Nephites dig in to defend themselves and bring "their horses, and their chariots, and their cattle, and all their flocks, and their herds, and their grain, and all their substance" (3:22) and "the Nephites being in one body, and having so great a number, and having reserved for themselves provisions, and horses and cattle, and flocks of every kind, that they might subsist for the space of seven years" (4:4).

Again, this doesn't strike me as meat being reserved for the privileged few. I agree with your assessment that hunting and raw meat is used pejoratively here, but not in the sense that meat is considered bad per se. The juxtaposition of hunters vs. sedentary people has a very classic ring to it; I wouldn't be surprised if people in, say, a 19th century upstate New York farming community, thought that way about themselves (the sedentary, civilized ones) and the Indians (the savage hunter-gatherers).

Another reference, that very clearly contradicts your thesis, is found in 3 Ne 6:1-2: "And now it came to pass that the people of the Nephites did all return to their own lands in the twenty and sixth year, every man, with his family, his flocks and his herds, his horses and his cattle, and all things whatsoever did belong unto them. And it came to pass that they had not eaten up all their provisions; therefore they did take with them all that they had not devoured, of all their grain of every kind, and their gold, and their silver, and all their precious things, and they did return to their own lands and their possessions, both on the north and on the south, both on the land northward and on the land southward."

Looks like the BoM people had access to a lot more meat than the real Mesoamerican people (as per your own argument). Unless, of course, we have another translation issue on our hands and cattle really means pets ;-)

Edited August 20, 2011 by Ariarates

[Analytics]

The problem with your assumption is that because we have two cultures using them that they were therefore common. For all that records have been recorded on metal plates throughout history, it has never been the typical mode of writing.

The Book of Mormon doesn’t mention two cultures that use them, it mentions three; the Israelites (i.e. the brass plates), the Nephites, and the Jaredites. They sure seem common in the world of the Book of Mormon.

Now, let's add in some more history. Tlacaelel had Aztec records destroyed (he was an Aztec). This was ostensibly to allow for the reformulation of history without contradiction. So, knowing that model, knowing the ritual destruction of enemy's gods, and given the war of destruction waged against the Nephites, there is no reason for any non-Nephite nation to preserve any records they might have found and every reason to destroy them. Convenient or not, that is what the history of the area tells us is the most likely scenario.

Fair point. Is the same true for the old world? Would the Babylonians or Romans destroyed all of the copies of Moses’s writings which were inscribed on Brass plates?

Now, of course, if only we knew what "reformed Egyptian" was, we might be able to know if we have found samples, but the text gives us no hint whatsoever (save that no one else could read it, and that fits with a few of the recovered Mesoamerican scripts).

No. Two things. One is that we have no idea what reformed Egyptian was. It wasn't Hebrew and it wasn't Egyptian. That is about all we can say.

You don’t think the Anthon transcript gives us a ton of information about what reformed Egyptian looks like? The Anthon transcript shows that reformed Egyptian was written on horizontal lines, and does in fact seem to be related to the Mediterranean alphabets, including Egyptian.

Second, the point of my response was that the Grijalva river valley tells us so little about their writing system. If you are suggesting that because we haven't found plates that there were no plates is the same as saying that since there was no recovered writing in the Grijalva river valley that they didn't write on anything….

Just to put all of this back into perspective, what triggered this conversation was my passing assertion that the metal plates in and of themselves were anachronistic. Like wheat and barley, there is no evidence of records of metal plates existing in Mesoamerican civilizations. I think you make a fair point that maybe we shouldn’t expect to find recordings on metal plates, despite how common such records appear throughout the Book of Mormon.

[LeSellers]

Me too. I did a computer search on "cattle" and found the following:

Enos 1:21. And it came to pass that the people of Nephi did till the land, and raise all manner of grain, and of fruit, and flocks of herds, and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind, and goats, and wild goats, and also many horses.

Says here "the people of Nephi" raised all the cattle. Looks like it's juxtaposed to the verse before, which you quoted: Lamanites = hunters = raw meat = bad vs. Nephites = sedentary = cattle = good. While it's possible that the people raised this cattle for a privileged few, this doesn't logically follow from the text (though the text doesn't exclude that possibility either).

You probably know, but I want to clarify, that the word "cattle" does not mean "cows". It means all domesticated herd animals: goats, sheep, llamas, camels, oxen and other bovines, etc., just as AV biblical "corn" does not mean "maize", but "grain".

Your point about there being widespread meat eating seems no more than conjecture. While Israelites were herdsmen, it was as much an adaptation to the land where they lived as to their preferred diet. Raising meat animals is expensive (raising draft and riding animals is even more so). The larger the animal, the less economic sense it makes because the feed-to-food ratio gets less and less beneficial as the animal's size increases. The only rational support for animal protein (aside from our "evolutionary" need for it) is that mankind does not convert low-grade grass proteins into high-grade proteins very well, and not nearly as efficiently as ruminants, or even other herbivores, like horses. When there is a lot of grass, and few other crops, the best way to convert the available proteins into human food is using animal intermediaries. That's why there are a lot of cattle ranches in the West (of USmerica): we have a harder time raising most other food crops in our semi- and wholly-arid region than in many other places.

While it is plain that the Nephites did have food animals, it is much less so that meat was a staple. They only thing we really have to go on is that the Nephites were Jewish and followed the Law of Moses. Ergo, they needed sacrificial (Kosher) animals at least three times a year for the prescribed religious feasts. But that does not require that every family have its herds of sheep, cows, goats, and doves. At the dedication of the Temple, Solomon provided the entire sacrifice. This kingly practice would serve as a model for the highly observant Nephites.

Moreover, king Mosiah reminds us that he, as king, worked in the fields with his own hands, so as not to be a tax burden on his people. (Would that modern "leaders" were so diligent.) 'Tseems likely that his board was not so well furnished as what we read of Solomon.

22 And Solomon's provision for one day was thirty measures of fine flour, and threescore measures of meal, 23 Ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an hundred sheep, beside harts, and roebucks, and fallowdeer, and fatted fowl.

The hunter-gatherer lifestyle is less desirable, in God's view, than agrarian society, I'd agree. It is not the types of meats eaten (when they are), but the kind of people who tend to these lifestyles. The Lamanites were hunters because they had lost their civilization, and had become evil in doing so. It was not the other way 'round.

Lehi

[rodheadlee]

That map is a little misleading, because it shows barley production by country, not climate. Barley only grows in the grasslands of neastern Mexico, and doesn't grow near Mesoamerica.

That map is misleading because it only shows generalities, grasslands can be found in tropical latitudes at higher elevations, on the leeward side of the mountains. The trade winds blow in from the east, so a west facing hillside at an elevation of several thousand feet would be sufficient.

Costa Rica has 4 separate mountain ranges, including 12,000 foot peaks as well as arid desert regions. I'm pretty sure the same geographical conditions can be found through out Central America as well as Mexico.

[LeSellers]

Would the Babylonians or Romans destroyed all of the copies of Moses’s writings which were inscribed on Brass plates?

Whether they would have or not is not germane. The fact is the conquistadores and the padres did destroy as many of the texts as possible. And there were millions of pages of codices and other books burned or otherwise destroyed.

We Saints did not go back in time and burn them so there would be not corroborating evidence of the Book of Mormon. You might call it convenient that there are no contradictory documents from the period because those mythical dox were destroyed, but that's not the question. The question is, "Is the Book of Mormon 'true'?" Perhaps God arranged it so those document would be burned (I'm not saying He did, this is a hypothetical) so the confirming evidence would be difficult or impossible to discover so the Book of Mormon would have to be accepted solely on faith. Perhaps it was Satan (and I'm not saying this is what happened, either) inspired his own forces to eliminate the corroborating text. Perhaps the padres just acted of their own misplaced desire to convert all the poor, benighted Indians to Catholicism.

Which of the three options was what happened, there are no (or extremely few) text form the pre-Columbian period.

And it was not Saints who had anything to do with it.

Lehi

[Analytics]

I am sure Dr. Jared Diamond is quite learned in his field. Unfortunatly his field is not agriculture but rather it is geography and physiology, and that is not plant physiolgy but medical physiology. Were I to seek knowledge on a subject I would go to someone who had actually done that type of work. But then, that's just me.

Dude, you are just being obstinate now. The question of what crops grow where and why is a central question of Geography. Dr. Diamond is a recognized expert on the topics addressed in his book.

For your information it is actually much harder to get plants from the tropics and subtropics to produce in temerate zones. The growing is not hard but tropical plants usually require a longer growing season and requires special care (greenhouses) to allow them to produce well. On the other hand taking plants from a temperate zone to a tropical or subtropical area provides ample growing season. So you see you are right in a way except you have it backwards.

Since you reject what Geography professors say about it because you think this is outside of their field, here is some information from Dr. C. James Peterson with the title of “Professor, Wheat Breeding and Genetics”.

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/css/330/four/index.htm

• Wheat is a cool season crop that grows best at temperatures around 60 °F.
  
• It prefers the long summer days (like the ones you get further from the equator).
  
• It is tolerant of low temperatures, but is less tolerant of hot, humid environments.
  
• It uses C3 photosynthesis, which is less efficient in hot climates or under tropical conditions.
  

Not everything that grows in temparate zones grow better in the tropics.

Over the centuries, and especially the last few decades, wheat has become more broadly adapted and can now grow where it couldn’t before. Just because it now marginally grows in a few tropical regions doesn’t mean that the varieties that existed in the past could have done so.

The page shows major wheat producing countries. You’ll notice that tropical countries like Colombia and Ecuador are not on the list. Brazil makes the list, but as has been shown elsewhere on the thread, virtually all of its wheat is grown in the far south.

Brazil grew 3,203 kilotons of wheat, at the efficiency of 1.5 tons per acre. In contrast, Argentina grew 13,200 kilotons, at an efficiency of 2.2 tons per acre. Clearly, it grows better in more-southern Argentina than in Brazil.

The most efficient wheat farmers, however, are in Northern Europe. The Netherlands grow 8.2 tons per acre, the UK grows 7.9 tons per acre, and Belgium and France grow 7.4 tons per acre.

Edited August 20, 2011 by Analytics

[Analytics]

That map is misleading because it only shows generalities, grasslands can be found in tropical latitudes at higher elevations, on the leeward side of the mountains. The trade winds blow in from the east, so a west facing hillside at an elevation of several thousand feet would be sufficient.

Costa Rica has 4 separate mountain ranges, including 12,000 foot peaks as well as arid desert regions. I'm pretty sure the same geographical conditions can be found through out Central America as well as Mexico.

Fair point--I was speaking too general.

It would be interesting to compare the isolated places in Mesoamerica where Nephite food could grow to John Sorenson's map of where they could have lived. Does it line up?

Whether they would have or not is not germane. The fact is the conquistadores and the padres did destroy as many of the texts as possible. And there were millions of pages of codices and other books burned or otherwise destroyed.

We Saints did not go back in time and burn them so there would be not corroborating evidence of the Book of Mormon. You might call it convenient that there are no contradictory documents from the period because those mythical dox were destroyed, but that's not the question. The question is, "Is the Book of Mormon 'true'?" Perhaps God arranged it so those document would be burned (I'm not saying He did, this is a hypothetical) so the confirming evidence would be difficult or impossible to discover so the Book of Mormon would have to be accepted solely on faith. Perhaps it was Satan (and I'm not saying this is what happened, either) inspired his own forces to eliminate the corroborating text. Perhaps the padres just acted of their own misplaced desire to convert all the poor, benighted Indians to Catholicism.

Which of the three options was what happened, there are no (or extremely few) text form the pre-Columbian period.

And it was not Saints who had anything to do with it.

Lehi

Take a deep breath dude. It's okay.

The point is about whether or not books written on metal plates represent an anachronism. The Book of Mormon talks about those types of plates existing in the new world and in the old world. They seem anachronistic in both places—not just the places where the conquistadores sacked. Maybe God wants you to believe things that appear to be anachronism. You are free to believe that.

[Brant Gardner]

Me too. I did a computer search on "cattle" and found the following:

Enos 1:21. And it came to pass that the people of Nephi did till the land, and raise all manner of grain, and of fruit, and flocks of herds, and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind, and goats, and wild goats, and also many horses.

Says here "the people of Nephi" raised all the cattle. Looks like it's juxtaposed to the verse before, which you quoted: Lamanites = hunters = raw meat = bad vs. Nephites = sedentary = cattle = good. While it's possible that the people raised this cattle for a privileged few, this doesn't logically follow from the text (though the text doesn't exclude that possibility either).

I think you are correct that part of the function here is to contrast lifestyles. The "approved" lifestyle is sedentary, both in agriculture and animal husbandry. However, the attempt to use the collective "people of Nephi" to suggest that all of those people had animals and easy access to meat is contrary to known history (in most places in the world, and including Mesoamerica). Since the text doesn't tell us anything explicit, then the only way to get a decent handle on what the people of the text would do would be to compare them to known historical peoples, ergo, meat is limited and more available for the upper class.

Another reference is 3 Ne 3 and 4, where the Nephites dig in to defend themselves and bring "their horses, and their chariots, and their cattle, and all their flocks, and their herds, and their grain, and all their substance" (3:22) and "the Nephites being in one body, and having so great a number, and having reserved for themselves provisions, and horses and cattle, and flocks of every kind, that they might subsist for the space of seven years" (4:4).

Again, this doesn't strike me as meat being reserved for the privileged few.

I cannot say anything about how the text seems to you. I can make a comment about whether or not the information in the text can be read according the ethnographic analogy. According to known ways that populations work, having animals is logical and still having the meat more likely in the upper classes is much more common in almost all parts of the ancient world.

I agree with your assessment that hunting and raw meat is used pejoratively here, but not in the sense that meat is considered bad per se.

Oh no, the idea that it is pejorative is related to the "wild" not to the meat. The problem, as you note, is the juxtaposition of hunter vs. agricultural lifestyles.

The juxtaposition of hunters vs. sedentary people has a very classic ring to it; I wouldn't be surprised if people in, say, a 19th century upstate New York farming community, thought that way about themselves (the sedentary, civilized ones) and the Indians (the savage hunter-gatherers).

Pretty much any agricultural community, including 19th century NY.

Another reference, that very clearly contradicts your thesis, is found in 3 Ne 6:1-2: "And now it came to pass that the people of the Nephites did all return to their own lands in the twenty and sixth year, every man, with his family, his flocks and his herds, his horses and his cattle, and all things whatsoever did belong unto them. And it came to pass that they had not eaten up all their provisions; therefore they did take with them all that they had not devoured, of all their grain of every kind, and their gold, and their silver, and all their precious things, and they did return to their own lands and their possessions, both on the north and on the south, both on the land northward and on the land southward."

Looks like the BoM people had access to a lot more meat than the real Mesoamerican people (as per your own argument). Unless, of course, we have another translation issue on our hands and cattle really means pets ;-)

No, I don't see this as a translation issue. My issues with translation are with vocabulary, and this is conceptual. However, I have a hard time taking the bolded phrase as inclusive as you are using it. Ancient literature was written by people in the upper classes, and as a general rule, ancient literature used phrases like "every man" or "everyone" or "the whole world" as generics more than specifics.

[Brant Gardner]

The Book of Mormon doesn’t mention two cultures that use them, it mentions three; the Israelites (i.e. the brass plates), the Nephites, and the Jaredites. They sure seem common in the world of the Book of Mormon.

There was only one set of brass plates, and they were maintained as a sacred set. They are also arguably the models and reason for Nephite plates. I don't have a known model for the Jaredite plates.

That said, adding the brass plates does not fundamentally change any argument I made about the more limited nature of plates as a medium for writing.

Fair point. Is the same true for the old world? Would the Babylonians or Romans destroyed all of the copies of Moses’s writings which were inscribed on Brass plates?

i don't know. I do know that Mesoamericans did, and that seems to be a little more relevant.

You don’t think the Anthon transcript gives us a ton of information about what reformed Egyptian looks like? The Anthon transcript shows that reformed Egyptian was written on horizontal lines, and does in fact seem to be related to the Mediterranean alphabets, including Egyptian.

If you are suggesting that we don't have examples of that particular script, I can agree with you. However, there are a few remnants of several scripts in Mesoamerica for which there are too few symbols to allow for any hope of translation (or even identification with a language). What all of that tells us is that we don't have much information on all of the writing systems of the area. San Bartolo tells us that one language system was much more sophisticated much earlier than we thought. All of that tells us that it is dangerous to make a case about any script on the basis of current absence of evidence.

Just to put all of this back into perspective, what triggered this conversation was my passing assertion that the metal plates in and of themselves were anachronistic.

On that point, the anachronism is the formed plates themselves, not the writing. I do understand that there is no current data that shows metallurgy at that time and place.

Like wheat and barley, there is no evidence of records of metal plates existing in Mesoamerican civilizations.

This is not an argument of anachronism. This is an argument that a lack of examples must necessarily negate the possibility. That is not a legitimate argument, where anachronism of metal is (though I clearly don't think that is fatal either).

I think you make a fair point that maybe we shouldn’t expect to find recordings on metal plates, despite how common such records appear throughout the Book of Mormon.

Thank you. That is the intended point. the fact that exemplars of plates are not extant has a logical explanation. That is, certainly, a defensive argument and cannot be used to establish that metal plates therefore did exist. My position is simply that we need to argue historicity on other things where we can control evidence.

[Ariarates]

I have a hard time taking the bolded phrase as inclusive as you are using it. Ancient literature was written by people in the upper classes, and as a general rule, ancient literature used phrases like "every man" or "everyone" or "the whole world" as generics more than specifics.

Basically, that's a variation on the apologetic favourite "a horse is not really a horse", or in this case, "every man with his family and his cattle" is not really every man but just the upper classes. Moreover, when you appeal to ancient literature, you are assuming what needs to be proven, i.e. that the BoM is an ancient text to begin with. And finally, yes, when a text uses absolutes like "every man" of "the whole world", it can be a rethorical device, but in this case "every man" refers to a very specific, limited group.

If the native Americans in the BoM timeframe and alleged geography ate little meat, the BoM text doesn't reflect this. To be fair, it also doesn't specifically exclude it as a possibility but that's because the text is vague on the topic. You can read anything into an ambiguous text.

[Brant Gardner]

Basically, that's a variation on the apologetic favourite "a horse is not really a horse", or in this case, "every man with his family and his cattle" is not really every man but just the upper classes.

And your response is a repetition of the fundamentalist position that all texts are only to be understood the way a modern literal understanding would take them. I agree that there are two possible positions. However, I find so few cases where the fundamentalist position applies to any document (and particularly to any historical document) that I can't take it seriously as a requirement for textual interpretation.

Moreover, when you appeal to ancient literature, you are assuming what needs to be proven, i.e. that the BoM is an ancient text to begin with.

And when you appeal to a fundamental literal reading, you assume that the text is not what it claims to be, and therefore apply criticism to the text that is incompatible with its own declarations. While I agree that we should discuss historicity, the idea that one can determine a text's historicity by applying a reading to it that is inherently incompatible with historicity is simply forcing an assumption on the text without actually performing any analysis.

And finally, yes, when a text uses absolutes like "every man" of "the whole world", it can be a rethorical device, but in this case "every man" refers to a very specific, limited group.

Clearly we interpret this particular passage differently. I am amazed at your confidence that this particular passage necessarily defines individuals rather than groups. It makes your interpretation a highly unique reading of a text with little support in other uses of the term, and suspiciously related only to your preferred assumption of what you think it should mean. Why wouldn't we appeal to typical usage rather than a specialized and unique reading?

If the native Americans in the BoM timeframe and alleged geography ate little meat, the BoM text doesn't reflect this. To be fair, it also doesn't specifically exclude it as a possibility but that's because the text is vague on the topic. You can read anything into an ambiguous text.

I remember making the point that the text rarely tells us anything about eating meat, and what little it tells us is not useful for determining how much meat was eaten. In the absence of textual information, I turned to ethnographic analogy. In the absence of textual evidence, your return to a strongly asserted personal opinion. Of course, you have it and are welcome to it, but since you recognize that it is built on the absence of evidence, and it is contrary to known human history, I'll stick with the data from what human populations have done in the past.

[Ariarates]

Clearly we interpret this particular passage differently. I am amazed at your confidence that this particular passage necessarily defines individuals rather than groups.

You misquote me (for the second time). I talked about a "specific, limited group", not about individuals. The text is very clear that the story is about a limited (though large) group specifically identified as a group of Nephites, who practiced some kind of scorched earth defense strategy, acting in one body (it says so repeatedly), and then returning, again in one body, every man with his family and livestock.

It makes your interpretation a highly unique reading of a text with little support in other uses of the term, and suspiciously related only to your preferred assumption of what you think it should mean. Why wouldn't we appeal to typical usage rather than a specialized and unique reading?

Mine is not an interpretation. The story is pretty straightforward. Just follow the text.

I remember making the point that the text rarely tells us anything about eating meat, and what little it tells us is not useful for determining how much meat was eaten. In the absence of textual information, I turned to ethnographic analogy. In the absence of textual evidence, your return to a strongly asserted personal opinion. Of course, you have it and are welcome to it, but since you recognize that it is built on the absence of evidence, and it is contrary to known human history, I'll stick with the data from what human populations have done in the past.

I actually agree with your ethnographic analogy. I also agree that the BoM text is ambiguous (not to say silent) about meat consumption patterns. I am merely asserting that the BoM text does not support the archaeological data you introduced regarding meat consumption in your post # 7.

Another interesting aspect to this discussion could be the emphasis the BoM places on the evils of class distinctions. Maybe for another time...

[Ariarates]

You probably know, but I want to clarify, that the word "cattle" does not mean "cows". It means all domesticated herd animals: goats, sheep, llamas, camels, oxen and other bovines, etc., just as AV biblical "corn" does not mean "maize", but "grain".

I didn't know that cattle was such an all-inclusive term. That's not what I learned in school but hey, you're the native speaker ;-)

[Okrahomer]

I didn't know that cattle was such an all-inclusive term. That's not what I learned in school but hey, you're the native speaker ;-)

One online source regarding the historical meaning of the word "cattle": My link

[cdowis]

"We held the yearly fair. Everybody drove their car downtown to the civic center."

Clearly "everybody" means "everybody old enough to drive a car, who owned a car that was working, who was unable or unwilling to use public transportation or to share a ride with someone else."

There is a word for this linguistic feature where we do not need to spell out the entire meaning of a generalized word. Can't remember it off hand.

Now, "everyone drove their chariot", does this include infants, small children, even women, or.... more important... only those who do have a horse and physically able to drive it.

I thought this was simple common sense, but someone said "common sense isn't very common."

[Brant Gardner]

Mine is not an interpretation. The story is pretty straightforward. Just follow the text.

Which seems to be the very definition of a fundamentalist interpretation.

[cacheman]

I am sure Dr. Jared Diamond is quite learned in his field. Unfortunatly his field is not agriculture but rather it is geography and physiology, and that is not plant physiolgy but medical physiology. Were I to seek knowledge on a subject I would go to someone who had actually done that type of work. But then, that's just me.

For your information it is actually much harder to get plants from the tropics and subtropics to produce in temerate zones. The growing is not hard but tropical plants usually require a longer growing season and requires special care (greenhouses) to allow them to produce well. On the other hand taking plants from a temperate zone to a tropical or subtropical area provides ample growing season. So you see you are right in a way except you have it backwards.

The length of growing season is just one of many factors that determine the success of a plant in any given environment. Plants respond differently to things such as photoperiod, light intensity, red to far red light ratios, vernalization, chill unit accumulation, humidity, cold stress, heat stress, drought stress, flooding, soil pH, soil texture, soil structure, soil microbial life, weed, insect, and disease pressure, etc... Your answers are simplistic and in some cases, absolutely wrong. As an agriculturist and plant scientist who conducts research in plant eco-physiology and biogeography, I can vouch for the general ideas espoused by Dr. Diamond.

cacheman

[ERayR]

The length of growing season is just one of many factors that determine the success of a plant in any given environment. Plants respond differently to things such as photoperiod, light intensity, red to far red light ratios, vernalization, chill unit accumulation, humidity, cold stress, heat stress, drought stress, flooding, soil pH, soil texture, soil structure, soil microbial life, weed, insect, and disease pressure, etc... Your answers are simplistic and in some cases, absolutely wrong. As an agriculturist and plant scientist who conducts research in plant eco-physiology and biogeography, I can vouch for the general ideas espoused by Dr. Diamond.

cacheman

I am well aware of all this. However analytics assertion that wheat and barley would not grow in the tropics or subtropics is just not correct. With care of a farmer it can be grown. It probably can't be grown in all locations but it certainly can be grown. Perhaps with reduced yields to some extent. I think that it was part of what was brought with them. A cereal grain that they certainly would have been familiar with as it has been grown from the ancient past in the middle east. Something, perhaps that they thought enough of to give some special care.

Edited August 22, 2011 by ERayR

[Calm]

This thread reminds me of this one not too long ago:

Kemara's posts were particularly interesting to me.

[Robert F. Smith]

Quote from Analytics

You don’t think the Anthon transcript gives us a ton of information about what reformed Egyptian looks like? The Anthon transcript shows that reformed Egyptian was written on horizontal lines, and does in fact seem to be related to the Mediterranean alphabets, including Egyptian.

If you are suggesting that we don't have examples of that particular script, I can agree with you. However, there are a few remnants of several scripts in Mesoamerica for which there are too few symbols to allow for any hope of translation (or even identification with a language). What all of that tells us is that we don't have much information on all of the writing systems of the area. San Bartolo tells us that one language system was much more sophisticated much earlier than we thought. All of that tells us that it is dangerous to make a case about any script on the basis of current absence of evidence.

The potential linguistic connections are important, quite aside from what sorts of scripts were known and used in Mexico and Mesoamerica.

Following the work of non-Mormon anthropologist Pierre Agrinier Bach, for example, I long ago showed that the Sawi-Zaa languages of Oaxaca, Mexico, have strong linguistic connections to both Semitic and Egyptian HERE. Beyond that, however, a great comparative language expert at UC Berkeley (non-Mormon), the late Professor Mary LeCron Foster, formally introduced the theory that

"Linguistic reconstruction across hitherto postulated genetic boundaries demonstrates that Afro-Asiatic languages, and in particular ancient Egyptian, are genetically close, and possibly ancestral, to a group of geographically distant languages in both the Old and New Worlds. In the Old World these include Dravidian of southern India, Chinese, Malayo-Polynesian; and in the New World, Quechua of the Southern American Andes, and such Mesoamerican languages as Zoquean, Mayan, Zapotec, and Mixtec.”

in 1992 meetings of two learned societies ("Old World Languages in the Americas, 1, and 2"), and published her very broad views as “The Transoceanic Trail: The Proto-Pelagian Language Phylum,” Pre-Columbiana: A Journal of Long-distance Contacts, I/1-2 (1998), 88-114.

Edited August 22, 2011 by Robert F. Smith

[Ariarates]

Which seems to be the very definition of a fundamentalist interpretation.

Could you explain what you mean by fundamentalist and how my reading of the text qualifies?

[Brant Gardner]

Could you explain what you mean by fundamentalist and how my reading of the text qualifies?

The assumption/declaration that the text has a clear and self-apparent meaning, and appealing all discussion to that self-apparent meaning.

[Analytics]

Here is my summary of the counterpoints to the wheat and barley issue:

1- Wheat and barley grow fine in Mesoamerica, and there is no reason to doubt that Mesoamericans cultivated it there for at least 400 years. There is no problem regarding the fact that wheat and barley went extinct to the area and left no physical evidence of having ever been there.

2- Thinking that the Nephites actually cultivated what we call wheat and barley is based upon a fundamentalist reading of the text, which contradicts the very assertion that the text is legitimate.

3- Using the philosophy of Kuhn, we can comfortably place the whole issue on the shelf and focus on other things more in line with our paradigm.