Plates Of Brass Vs. Scrolls

[CASteinman]

Just so I'm clear, would The Book of Mormon be less believable if Joseph Smith claimed the entire thing had been inscribed in tiny letters on a small bean-sized stone?

Probably.

[MormonMason]

wow. Sad. The pages were probably melted down. They were obviously considered valuable by someone ... so what did they say? Lost forever.

Yes, very sad. Many ancient records have been destroyed like that and by other means. We are quite lucky/blessed to have what little we do.

[bcuzbcuz]

This is so odd, QB. Massive amounts of metal working in South America alone produced incredible piles of gold and silver objects. As you may or may not recall, when Atahualpa was attempting to keep Pizarro from killing him, he offered to fill a room22ft x 17ft 2ft deep, twice with silver and once with gold, in two months. Presumably he could do it, because the Incas had been quarrying and smelting gold and silver ore for hundreds of years. Where's the slag piles? Go look, I'm sure you'll find some. Either that, or they used the slag to bed their roads, who knows? Are you going to claim that they traded corn and beans with Chinese treasure fleets to obtain these riches?

There is no reason to suppose that Laban's sword could not be preserved over a thousand years, if there was a continuity of caretakers. There's piles of documents out of the Dead Sea area which were preserved for over 2000 years, after all. Even in a humid jungle it is possible to keep metal from rusting away, if you take care of it.

Slag heaps from gold and silver mines are easy to find. As noted, several of the Meso and South American peoples had bounteous gold and silver. Absolutely no slag from iron or steel production has been found, anywhere in North, Central and South America. No steel or iron objects from pre-Columbian times have been found, rusted or not. Significant rust deposit areas would also be evident if steel or iron weapons were used.

Edited March 19, 2013 by bcuzbcuz

[bcuzbcuz]

Part 2.

Thanks for the pictures. I asked for some reference of scale. Do you have any that show how big these metal plates were? Pictures with a person standing beside them or something similar?

[bcuzbcuz]

Here's a few visual samples from history that I've come across. Part 1.

I wouldappreciate if you would reference your sources. Most images when clicked upon show the plates but give no impression whatsoever as to size. I know some to be credit card size, but that is from my own search. If you have additional information it would be appreciated.

[bcuzbcuz]

Baloney.

Thin sliced baloney in such case. Do you have evidence of iron or steel being worked anywhere in the Americas?

[CASteinman]

Thin sliced baloney in such case. Do you have evidence of iron or steel being worked anywhere in the Americas?

Yes, of course I do. As do you.

But this is not necessarily relevant.

Edited March 19, 2013 by CASteinman

[Questing Beast]

Baloney.

I prefer SPAM....

[CASteinman]

I prefer SPAM....

Its almost the only way to enjoy pork these days. They have genetically engineered all the fat out of that animal so that only by sophisticated methods of processing can you get a semblance of flavor above the level of low grade recycled card board.

[bcuzbcuz]

Yes, of course I do. As do you.

But this is not necessarily relevant.

You're right, of course. I forgot Pittsburg. I was kind of hoping my statement implied pre-Columbian America but I didn't actually state that.

[CASteinman]

You're right, of course. I forgot Pittsburg. I was kind of hoping my statement implied pre-Columbian America but I didn't actually state that.

In addition to Pittsburg (which I confess I thought about posting a picture of in response), there is this:

"And I did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and of steel, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance."

Which is also evidence of pre-columbian steel working.

[bcuzbcuz]

Whatever happened to the gold plates of Darius of Persepolis. Almost all the photos available are merely retouched black and white photos, either turned or flipped from one of the shots taken in 1938.

Do the plates still exist?

[MormonMason]

I do not know whether or not the plates still exist at the moment. I shall have to do some checking around to find out. However, here is a photo showing the relative size of the plates.

ETA: I have not yet learned of their present location but I just became aware of additional gold plates of two other kings (Arsames and Artaxerxes II), dating to around the 4th century BCE. I post these below:

Edited March 19, 2013 by MormonMason

[Sevenbak]

I wouldappreciate if you would reference your sources. Most images when clicked upon show the plates but give no impression whatsoever as to size. I know some to be credit card size, but that is from my own search. If you have additional information it would be appreciated.

The pics are from a variety of sources I compiled years ago, and just kept in my photo bucket account. I can't find my source file, but it exists.

The point is that these are easily researched and found, as opposed to what the OP said. Ancient metal records, of many varieties, were used across the world. You'll be able to (ahem) dig up your own research.

You might have some luck with some of these references.

[Sevenbak]

I do not know whether or not the plates still exist at the moment. I shall have to do some checking around to find out. However, here is a photo showing the relative size of the plates.

ETA: I have not yet learned of their present location but I just became aware of additional gold plates of two other kings (Arsames and Artaxerxes II), dating to around the 4th century BCE. I post these below:

Another nice find!!

Truth shall spring out of the earth.

[nealr]

Slag heaps from gold and silver mines are easy to find. As noted, several of the Meso and South American peoples had bounteous gold and silver. Absolutely no slag from iron or steel production has been found, anywhere in North, Central and South America. No steel or iron objects from pre-Columbian times have been found, rusted or not. Significant rust deposit areas would also be evident if steel or iron weapons were used.

False.

The most striking evidence of craft specialization from this site [san Lorenzo, Veracruz, ca. 1200-900 BC] is the corpus of craved stone monuments, numerous, small carved stone disks, and tons of drilled iron ore cubes.

Recent work at San Lorenzo has revealed the remains of “workshops” for carving monuments and recycling monuments and of several large caches of multi-drilled, small, iron ore cubes.

Iron ores were also worked by lapidary techniques to produce parabolic mirrors and small, drilled cubes… Guillen has recently recovered over eight metric tons of drilled ilmenite (iron ore) cubes in various “workshops” at or near San Lorenzo.

All three of those quotes comes from John E. Clark, "Craft Specialization and Olmec Civilization," in Craft Specialization and Social Evolution: In Memory of V. Gordon Childe, ed. Verne Gordon Childe and Barnard Wails (U Penn, 1996), pg. 191-192.

There are other examples, I believe, beyond San Lorenzo, but that is what I have handy. Now I am not saying that this removes any and all problems of metal working in the Book of Mormon. But people discussing this ought to have accurate information. Critics have for a very long time been insisting that there is not evidence of metal working before 900 AD, or that there are no iron objects, etc. Such statements are simply false. There is a variety of forms of evidence of metal objects, knowledge of metal-working, etc., including iron objects, from pre-900 AD times in Mesoamerica.

[Questing Beast]

Mirrors are not weapons and armor. The Jaredites/Olmecs KILLED everyone of themselves off, using steel and iron weapons and armor. They "cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore", etc. It isn't there. Iron cubes of mysterious purpose hardly answer the Ether description....

[JAHS]

Here's some references about records written on metal plates:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/660224800/Roman-plates-at-BYU.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1371290/70-metal-books-Jordan-cave-change-view-Biblical-history.html

http://www.phoenician.org/alphabet.htm

http://www.bmaf.org/node/421

http://tcmam.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/mathematician-knows-location-of-lost-maya-gold/

[blackstrap]

The history of man convinces me that when someone find or constructs an item that is very hard and/or very sharp , the item is soon made into a weapon. If mirrors were made from iron and were heavy,hard or sharp , the next step would be to weaponize the item.

For those interested in anomalies,study the ruins around Lake Titicaca in the high plains and see what type of tools would have been needed to carve the near perfect stones and HOLES through the stones.Metal tools? At a minimum !

[nealr]

Mirrors are not weapons and armor. The Jaredites/Olmecs KILLED everyone of themselves off, using steel and iron weapons and armor. They "cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore", etc. It isn't there. Iron cubes of mysterious purpose hardly answer the Ether description....

I suggest you read my more post carefully. I never said they were weapons, nor did I say they settled the question of metal working in the Book of Mormon. In fact, I specifically said otherwise. Furthermore, look carefully at the comment I am responding to. It claims the are no iron objects of any kind. This is clearly false. What you are doing is called moving the goal posts.

All I am asking is that people who wish to discuss this issue actually be informed on the relevant research.

[MormonMason]

Mirrors are not weapons and armor. The Jaredites/Olmecs KILLED everyone of themselves off, using steel and iron weapons and armor. They "cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore", etc. It isn't there. Iron cubes of mysterious purpose hardly answer the Ether description....

You are under the mistaken impression that everyone in the Book of Mormon was using steel swords and that they made them all the time. Consider the sword used by the soldier of Moroni who struck off the scalp of a man who was an enemy. Did you ever in reading this passage notice the odd behavior of not piercing the scalp to display it to the rest of the men but of picking it up with his hands and placing the scalp on top of the end of the weapon? This was no steel sword.

And what of the swords of the Lamanites who became the people of Ammon? They could be stained by human blood and the stains not easily removed. That story makes a whole lot more sense in light of Mesoamerican usages. For the record, human blood comes off quite readily by rubbing metal swords in the grass or on cloth. The description in the Book of Mormon doesn't sound like what happens to metal swords but rather with weapons made of wood and obsidian. In that light, consider the "place of arms" that existed on a hill in the Book of Mormon. That sounds like the hills containing obsidian that were used for making replacement blades among other Mesoamerican culture cores.

You aren't going to find many, if any at all, metal swords in a culture like that. The only one known to have survived was the sword of Laban that had been preserved as an historical relic and which was seen by Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery and, if I recall correctly, others. For the record, Mesoamerican swords were superior technology to metal swords. These swords never rusted, had replaceable blades, were easily made with a minimum of technology, and do a whole lot more damage than a metal sword from that period (unless you were protected by wearing thick clothing of the kind used by various Mesoamerican peoples).

By the way, even this mention of thick clothing for protection in the Book of Mormon sounds Mesoamerican. The Nephites made armor of thick clothes. The Azteca, if I recall correctly, wore thick clothes composed of layers of leather or cloth filled between the layers with salt or sand. While too late to have had dealings with the Book of Mormon peoples, it is likely that other cultures also used similar technology from time to time.

I easily can see the Nephites abandoning use of steeling technology for making of weapons on exposure to such weapons in wars with those who wielded such wooden weapons. You will note that the use of the metal for swords is mentioned briefly at the beginning of the book but not at all in the later part of the book. The lone exception is in the Book of Ether but it is not really an exception because, chronologically, Ether comes before the whole rest of the Book of Mormon.

As to the iron, a Swedish archaeologist found in a pottery container, in southern Mexico, what looked like the remains of a mixture of smelted copper and iron. I do not have access to the source for that at the moment as I am not home with my books. But, I do recall that the same find also was mentioned briefly in one of Sorenson's books, An Ancient American Setting, if I recall correctly. You could look that up and obtain the actual archaeological report from that. The find dated to 300 BCE, if I recall correctly.

Edited March 20, 2013 by MormonMason

[CASteinman]

Mirrors are not weapons and armor. The Jaredites/Olmecs KILLED everyone of themselves off, using steel and iron weapons and armor. They "cast up mighty heaps of earth to get ore", etc. It isn't there. Iron cubes of mysterious purpose hardly answer the Ether description....

Moving Goalpost.

[CASteinman]

What you are doing is called moving the goal posts.

Oops. I just said that and then came across your post. It was an egregious example though.

[CASteinman]

You are under the mistaken impression that everyone in the Book of Mormon was using steel swords and that they made them all the time.

I apologize in advance. I am going to take a weird random segue off here, because it came to mind the minute I read your post.

If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down?

We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.

[MormonMason]

I apologize in advance. I am going to take a weird random segue off here, because it came to mind the minute I read your post.

If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down?

We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.

I actually didn't think I was addressing you but the other guy. But, OK.