Why Do We Look For Bones?

[bcuzbcuz]

Ok you got me.

There was no gold or silver in the Americas and no way of weighing these commodities. So the whole thing is a lie.

Is there a smiley for "drama queen"? Mining and smelting were technologies of the Olmec, Toltecs, Aztec (Mexica), Inka and Great Basin peoples. Silver doesn't exist as a powder form and flattens when hammered. Silver crystals are cube shaped. It can be ground down from a smelted form to create silver granules but tarnishes quickly.

Gold nuggets are rock like, gold can often be found interwoven with quartz, also rock like. Gold flakes and small granules can be extracted by panning but evidence seems to indicate the native peoples mined their gold and didn't pan for it. If you have any actual evidence of pre-Columbian natives panning for gold I'd be happy if you shared it.

Copper was also mined and can be found in nugget like kernels as well.

Whether or not native cultures found any value in or reason to measure the weight of their finds of silver, copper or gold is not recorded in any Spanish documentation telling about pre-Columbian uses. (My experience with the native peoples of Canada was that their language had expressions for enough or not enough, but did not count things. As one elder told me, "You either have enough or not enough, why count.")

I know what the Maxwell Institute claims about their interpretation of Alma 11 regarding weighing and measuring, but have you any evidence outside of their interpretation regarding measuring and weighing in pre-Columbian America?

Edited February 20, 2013 by bcuzbcuz

[bcuzbcuz]

Right again. Nobody prized gold at all, and they usually just threw it away. There is so much gold stuff because it was cheaper than dirt and nobody cared about it. Instead of making things of clay they used gold instead and would never give it as a gift because it was just trash.

Learn something new every day.

Are you acquainted with the Potlatch traditions of the coast peoples of Washington State, British Columbia and Alaska panhandle? They saw little value in gold objects other than that as a very malleable metal, as well as shiny, and therefore suited as adornment (later as jewelry). But there is little evidence that it was traded as a metal having value in and of itself. It was given after being made into an object.

Copper, on the other hand, was valued and given as gifts where bigger was better. Size was a symbol of power and wealth. Coppers could be displayed as status symbols.

The whole tradition of giving amongst the coast peoples lay not in the individual value of an item but in who gave the present and why. A gift could be turned down because the receiver felt the giver was not contrite enough, regardless of the beauty or size of the gift. If you read the story of the Inca ruler Atahualpa, his incarceration and killing by Pizzaro, you'll find a comparable story regarding gift giving and the reception of such gifts. The section on Atahualpa's ransom and how the Spanish broke many gold artifacts so they would take up less space is very telling. http://latinamericanhistory.about.com/od/theconquestofperu/p/08Atahualpa.htm

[ERayR]

Of course, I should have guessed it would be available on the internet. I read that silver dust is very popular for getting rid of vampires.

Too bad it doesn't work on obtuse critics.

[thesometimesaint]

Is there a smiley for "drama queen"? Mining and smelting were technologies of the Olmec, Toltecs, Aztec (Mexica), Inka and Great Basin peoples. Silver doesn't exist as a powder form and flatters when hammered. Silver crystals are cube shaped. It can be ground down from a smelted form to create silver granules but tarnishes quickly.

Gold nuggets are rock like, gold can often be found interwoven with quartz, also rock like. Gold flakes and small granules can be extracted by panning but evidence seems to indicate the native peoples mined their gold and didn't pan for it. If you have any actual evidence of pre-Columbian natives panning for gold I'd be happy if you shared it.

Copper was also mined and can be found in nugget like kernels as well.

Whether or not native cultures found any value in or reason to measure the weight of their finds of silver, copper or gold is not recorded in any Spanish documentation telling about pre-Columbian uses. (My experience with the native peoples of Canada was that their language had expressions for enough or not enough, but did not count things. As one elder told me, "You either have enough or not enough, why count.")

I know what the Maxwell Institute claims about their interpretation of Alma 11 regarding weighing and measuring, but have you any evidence outside of their interpretation regarding measuring and weighing in pre-Columbian America?

Scales are pretty ubiquitous. If for nothing more than seeing which weighs more.

Really we don't have to go all the way back to ancient American history. During the Gold Rush of 1849. Gold dust was used as currency until formal money arrived from the US Mints.

TTBOMK The Maxwell Institute is the only professional organization that accepts the Book of Mormon as an authentic ancient document.

Edited February 19, 2013 by thesometimesaint

[mfbukowski]

Is there a smiley for "drama queen"? Mining and smelting were technologies of the Olmec, Toltecs, Aztec (Mexica), Inka and Great Basin peoples. Silver doesn't exist as a powder form and flatters when hammered. Silver crystals are cube shaped. It can be ground down from a smelted form to create silver granules but tarnishes quickly.

Gold nuggets are rock like, gold can often be found interwoven with quartz, also rock like. Gold flakes and small granules can be extracted by panning but evidence seems to indicate the native peoples mined their gold and didn't pan for it. If you have any actual evidence of pre-Columbian natives panning for gold I'd be happy if you shared it.

Copper was also mined and can be found in nugget like kernels as well.

Whether or not native cultures found any value in or reason to measure the weight of their finds of silver, copper or gold is not recorded in any Spanish documentation telling about pre-Columbian uses. (My experience with the native peoples of Canada was that their language had expressions for enough or not enough, but did not count things. As one elder told me, "You either have enough or not enough, why count.")

I know what the Maxwell Institute claims about their interpretation of Alma 11 regarding weighing and measuring, but have you any evidence outside of their interpretation regarding measuring and weighing in pre-Columbian America?

Golly, after much research I found the answer to your question.

Google "Mayan economics and trade" and see what you get. I think I know where we get the expression "bean counters" now.

[mfbukowski]

The Maya did have a currency system, and used cacao beans, gold, copper bells, jade, and oyster shell beads as forms of money.

http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/exhibits/aztec/maya_commercial.html

[mfbukowski]

An examination of the linguistic and ethnohistoric data reveals nothing to contradict the notion that such a measuring system was present among the ancient Maya, and that multiples of 3, 4, and 12 are involved.

http://www.jstor.org...=21101675547633

Alma 11

11 And an amnor of silver was as great as two senums.

12 And an ezrom of silver was as great as four senums.

13 And an onti was as great as them all....

18 Now this is their number, according to their reckoning.

19 Now an antion of gold is equal to three shiblons.

None of this "proves" anything but I thought it was interesting. After all 3x4=12.

Enough of this silliness! The people weighed stuff and traded stuff. You don't have a civilization without it.

Edited February 19, 2013 by mfbukowski

[BCSpace]

One theory is that they were all eaten. Another is that they were subject to new diseases brought by the influx of Asian peoples.

I like the evil witch theory, the reverse of this one:

[Stargazer]

I'd be happy if you could provide any reference found anywhere in the pre-Columbian Americas where gold or silver were used as valued pieces, either for trade or as gifts. Alma 11 is very specific that the pieces of silver and gold had names according to their value. The names either apply to their shape, size, markings or weight, which ever seems hardly relevant.

The text in Alma specifically mentions wages and that people were employed. Do you have any evidence that the concept of employment existed anywhere in pre-Columbian America? Is there any reference in any of the Aztec, the Inca many finds that make any kind of a reference to wages?

Money is also mentioned in verse 20. Are there any references to the concept of money in pre-Columbian America?

The accumulation of silver and gold are not recorded anywhere as other than jewelry and adornment, even for royalty. Do you know of any reference where metals were accumulated for demonstrations of wealth? Feathers were considered more valuable than metals, were they not?

Do you have any examples from any carving from pre-Columbian Americas where metals were used for barter or purchasing? Did any "common man" have metals for these purposes?

I'd be happy, too!

You are all for disputing whether trade existed in ancient America, are you? Some of my ancestors used cowrie shells as money because they were sufficiently inland that such shells were rare, and thus formed a basis for exchange. In other places and with other people they used different media of exchange. That they did not call such media "money" is completely irrelevant.

It would be very peculiar if the Nephites, who hailed from the Middle East, didn't bring with them the concept of using gold and silver as a medium of exchange. Coins were a new concept in the Middle East when Lehi left Jerusalem in 600 BC, but they might not have been completely unknown, since the first coins developed in the context of Iron Age Anatolia and Archaic Greece around 600 BC. But the weights and measures mentioned in Alma 11 are not coins. Anyway, if a man grew some crop, say maize, and brought it in to the marketplace, what do you imagine he expected to receive in exchange for it from his neighbors? Whether it was gold or silver, or something else, surely you don't expect that he would wander around trying to get someone who really wanted beans to take his maize instead? On the off-chance that he could find someone in turn who wanted to trade maize for beans?

It is not outside the realm of possibility that the Nephites could have invented coinage, though. Everyone loves to insist that ancient people were a bunch of dolts who couldn't come up with an original idea to save their lives, but that is blatant bullcrap. I recall reading that the early Spanish explorers found the Incas or Mayans using surgical instruments made out of hardened copper -- using techniques that the Europeans had either lost or never developed.

[bcuzbcuz]

Too bad it doesn't work on obtuse critics.

I can be made to disappear with a mere sprinkling of pixie dust or gold dust, which ever you can find first.

[bcuzbcuz]

http://tarlton.law.u...commercial.html

The bibliography is impressive but the referencing and footnoting for the article and its generalized statements are sloppy at best. I would suggest you read http://jhmas.oxfordjournals.org/content/XV/4/342.extract#.

While it specifically deals with posology, its comments on "has not revealed any reference to measurement by weight in the administration of pharmaceutical preparations prior to the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores."

[bcuzbcuz]

Scales are pretty ubiquitous. If for nothing more than seeing which weighs more.

Really we don't have to go all the way back to ancient American history. During the Gold Rush of 1849. Gold dust was used as currency until formal money arrived from the US Mints.

TTBOMK The Maxwell Institute is the only professional organization that accepts the Book of Mormon as an authentic ancient document.

I've seen measuring scales from Roman Empire times. I took pictures of two of them while I was Tunisia during this past Christmas. They looked pretty much like standard scales of modern times, a balance bar and trays hanging from the bar. And as you stated, they were for comparing.

[Jude2]

I read an argument somewhere on the internet (wish I could find it) which said it is physically impossible for the horses introduced by the Spanish in the 1500s in Mexico to breed fast enough to become the herds of horses found on the plains 300 years later. The Spanish would have had first to bring over thousands of horses and then just set them free. The Nez Perce in Idaho had their Appaloosas which had to be bred for their spots before 1805 when Lewis and Clark arrived in camp.

His theory was that lost Chinese sailors brought horses here first. As early as the 1400s the Chinese had 400 ft ships with barges just for their horses. They could travel as far as Africa. He felt that perhaps some lost barges found their way to the Americas in a storm.

Then there is this guy who says;

“Asiatic saddle styles (pommels and crupper and breast strapping) appearing in North America as saddles for Native Americans seem to indicate that there are links between the ancient horsemen of Central Asia and the native horsemen of North America….. One of the mysteries that puzzled Dr. Goodrich was that the ancient Chinese writing on the topic of early Chinese saddles and saddle strapping used the same Chinese words used for chariot harnesses in describing the early saddle equipment. I believe that this may not be as confusing as it may initially appear. Could it be that the reason the same word was used was because the ancient Chinese incorporated the chariot harness into their original saddle and it remained a part of the Asian saddle from that time on?…..It’s my belief that the pommel horse exercise was used first by Asians and then later by other cavalrymen to practice rapid mounts, dismounts and other horseback movements. ….

It is amazing how closely the pommels (the pommel and cantle) on ancient Asian saddles resemble the pommel handles (rings) on the pommel horse apparatus. I am mentioning this because similar Asian like saddle pommels also appear on the saddles of Native Americans.

These Asiatic saddle styles (the pommels and crupper) appearing in North America as saddles for Native Americans seems to indicate that there were indeed direct links between the ancient horsemen of Central Asia and the horsemen of North America.”

http://www.chinesedi...america-saddle/

[CV75]

Edit: clarifying my question that in looking for bones we seem to ignore the huge question of how they all would have gone extinct?

I found the Bones!

[bcuzbcuz]

I'd be happy, too!

You are all for disputing whether trade existed in ancient America, are you? Some of my ancestors used cowrie shells as money because they were sufficiently inland that such shells were rare, and thus formed a basis for exchange. In other places and with other people they used different media of exchange. That they did not call such media "money" is completely irrelevant.

It would be very peculiar if the Nephites, who hailed from the Middle East, didn't bring with them the concept of using gold and silver as a medium of exchange. Coins were a new concept in the Middle East when Lehi left Jerusalem in 600 BC, but they might not have been completely unknown, since the first coins developed in the context of Iron Age Anatolia and Archaic Greece around 600 BC. But the weights and measures mentioned in Alma 11 are not coins. Anyway, if a man grew some crop, say maize, and brought it in to the marketplace, what do you imagine he expected to receive in exchange for it from his neighbors? Whether it was gold or silver, or something else, surely you don't expect that he would wander around trying to get someone who really wanted beans to take his maize instead? On the off-chance that he could find someone in turn who wanted to trade maize for beans?

It is not outside the realm of possibility that the Nephites could have invented coinage, though. Everyone loves to insist that ancient people were a bunch of dolts who couldn't come up with an original idea to save their lives, but that is blatant bullcrap. I recall reading that the early Spanish explorers found the Incas or Mayans using surgical instruments made out of hardened copper -- using techniques that the Europeans had either lost or never developed.

Trade or no trade is and was never the issue. Trade and exchange of goods, as someone has stated , are cornerstones of societies gathering and living together. The things that have value are, however, what the issue covers. Shells, jade, seeds, stones, feathers, food and services are recorded as trade objects. Measured quantities of gold and silver are not recorded. Whether the gold was in nugget form or granules is also not recorded in any records preserved. Gold was mined, smelted, hammered, formed into objects of desire but no record exists of the gold having an intrinsic value by measuring in pieces.

Coins in gold or silver was a foreign idea to the peoples conquered by the Spanish in both Mexico, Cuba, Yucatan or Peru. That much is recorded. That doesn't preclude coins existing, only that none have been found. Not surprising since the Spanish melted huge volumes of gold and silver into ingots or minted as coins of the realm and sent back to Spain. The Spanish saw little or no value in objects of beauty.

How trade was conducted in pre-Columbian times is poorly recorded. Observations of measurements for medicines were recorded but were very imprecise, stating that native medicines were distributed in "pinch" or "fistful". The Spanish did record market behaviors, such as purchasing tortillas, filled with a wide variety of fillings. And even that there were qualities of tortillas that were considered suitable for the poor (flour and seed scraped from the market floor with dirt and grit included). Graves of the poor have been found and their teeth evidence that their daily meals contained much grit. But the actual method of bargaining and payment was not recorded.

[mfbukowski]

Shells, jade, seeds, stones, feathers, food and services are recorded as trade objects. Measured quantities of gold and silver are not recorded. Whether the gold was in nugget form or granules is also not recorded in any records preserved. Gold was mined, smelted, hammered, formed into objects of desire but no record exists of the gold having an intrinsic value by measuring in pieces.

This is just stupid. The whole point was that what was measured in the BOM are weight/volume measurements- that could be used to measure anything- the point is that they were NOT COINS. It very clearly mentions measuring GRAIN using these measurements.

So forget about gold- who cares?? How do you trade "Shells, jade, seeds, stones, feathers, food"- as you admit they did???

By using the measurements listed! "I'll give you two scoops of jade for 10 scoops of your seeds-" "What? No way! make it 3 scoops and you have a deal!"

Substitute the terms given in the BOM and you have exactly the point. You have completely changed the original question into a question about gold dust just because I used that as an example.

The point is not WHAT was traded- that is totally irrelevant The point is that things were traded which required measurements and much is clear both from the BOM text mentioning grain, and the scholarly articles also mentioning trading grain.

[ERayR]

This is just stupid. The whole point was that what was measured in the BOM are weight/volume measurements- that could be used to measure anything- the point is that they were NOT COINS. It very clearly mentions measuring GRAIN using these measurements.

So forget about gold- who cares?? How do you trade "Shells, jade, seeds, stones, feathers, food"- as you admit they did???

By using the measurements listed! "I'll give you two scoops of jade for 10 scoops of your seeds-" "What? No way! make it 3 scoops and you have a deal!"

Substitute the terms given in the BOM and you have exactly the point. You have completely changed the original question into a question about gold dust just because I used that as an example.

The point is not WHAT was traded- that is totally irrelevant The point is that things were traded which required measurements and much is clear both from the BOM text mentioning grain, and the scholarly articles also mentioning trading grain.

He believes in the principle that when you have lost the argument divert attention any way possible.

[Stargazer]

Trade or no trade is and was never the issue. Trade and exchange of goods, as someone has stated , are cornerstones of societies gathering and living together. The things that have value are, however, what the issue covers. Shells, jade, seeds, stones, feathers, food and services are recorded as trade objects. Measured quantities of gold and silver are not recorded. Whether the gold was in nugget form or granules is also not recorded in any records preserved. Gold was mined, smelted, hammered, formed into objects of desire but no record exists of the gold having an intrinsic value by measuring in pieces.

OK, professor, prove your negative, please. You have such an exhaustive knowledge of Mesoamerican culture that you can make this kind of observation with a straight face?

Here is the problem, and there is no chance of falsifying it, so it has to stand as a proposition only. There was, according to the Book of Mormon, a culture in Mesoamerica (or the Great Lakes, if you prefer that other theory) with roots in the Middle East. The only record left by that culture stipulates that they had a system of weights and measures that resembled similar ones from their land of origin, and they used gold and silver as at least one part of their medium of exchange, which is, again, similar to the cultures in their land of origin.

If you want to bring up an apparent lack of the use of gold and silver as a medium of exchange in the surrounding cultures (among the people who were there before the Nephites), fine, but that lack pertains to those other cultures, NOT any others. You're arguing from ignorance, bcuzbcuz. I remind you that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Coins in gold or silver was a foreign idea to the peoples conquered by the Spanish in both Mexico, Cuba, Yucatan or Peru. That much is recorded. That doesn't preclude coins existing, only that none have been found. Not surprising since the Spanish melted huge volumes of gold and silver into ingots or minted as coins of the realm and sent back to Spain. The Spanish saw little or no value in objects of beauty.

So what if coins in gold or silver were a foreign idea to those folks before the Spanish conquered? Nobody said the Nephites were using coins in any event, so no surprise there. I'd actually be surprised if the archaeologists eventually discover coins. On the other hand, it is not outside the realm of possibility that some culture in Mesoamerica might at some point have independently invented coinage, but that it didn't catch on in any other culture and died out in the one that invented it. Like you say, we don't have any records of it. For various reasons, even if there were a coining culture at some point, the Spanish appear to have sucked up all the gold objects and shipped them home as ingots, so we may never discover one for that reason alone.

They were shortsighted idiots, in my not-so-charitable opinion. At the very least they didn't seem to realize that gold has no intrinsic value, only value that is related to its relative scarcity. At least for monetary purposes. And dumping all that gold on the market in Europe of course caused inflation, and in the end did not help Spain survive as a world power. They would have been better off to develop the economies of the New World, and taxed the results. Oh, well. If I had a time machine...

How trade was conducted in pre-Columbian times is poorly recorded. Observations of measurements for medicines were recorded but were very imprecise, stating that native medicines were distributed in "pinch" or "fistful". The Spanish did record market behaviors, such as purchasing tortillas, filled with a wide variety of fillings. And even that there were qualities of tortillas that were considered suitable for the poor (flour and seed scraped from the market floor with dirt and grit included). Graves of the poor have been found and their teeth evidence that their daily meals contained much grit. But the actual method of bargaining and payment was not recorded.

bcuzbcuz, there is plenty of room for gold and silver to have been used as a medium of exchange by a particular culture in Mesoamerica. For one thing, according to the available record, the culture did not survive to be seen by the Conquistadors (they were destroyed for all practical purposes by about 400 AD, meaning about 1,100 years before Cortez). Do you really think that an argument from ignorance is likely to hold water in such a case? Until Schliemann, nobody believed Troy had actually existed -- clearly an argument from ignorance ("Troy can't exist! There's no evidence of it!"). And look what happened.

[ControlFreak]

This is just stupid. The whole point was that what was measured in the BOM are weight/volume measurements- that could be used to measure anything- the point is that they were NOT COINS.

You obviously have the right to stretch the interpretation to be measurements of weight, but you'd have to be pretty dense to not admit that the most obvious conclusion is coins. BRM agrees and anyone reading the actual verse without a pre-existing objective would too.

4 Now these are the names of the different pieces of their gold, and of their silver, according to their value. And the names are given by the Nephites, for they did not reckon after the manner of the Jews who were at Jerusalem;

Claiming that "named" "pieces" of "gold" are in any obvious way meant to actually be standardized scoops of grain is a joke. The pieces of gold had an equivalent value in grain, but in no way does that imply grain was the means of trade when very obviously it was gold that was traded. Besides, if the gold and silver were just reference weights or volumes, why on earth wouldn't they use something more practical? That's absurd!

If you want to stretch it to mean that, by all means try, but don't pretend it's obvious.

Finally, if the gold wasn't in coin or other "piece"-like format for the purpose of exchange, what on earth is the "money" mentioned in verse twenty?

How did we get on coins anyway? I want to know where all the descendents of King Lamoni's flocks went. How could they have let them all die? Not just the goats, but the sheep and the horses and all other animals good for the use of man?

[bcuzbcuz]

I want to know where all the descendents of King Lamoni's flocks went. How could they have let them all die? Not just the goats, but the sheep and the horses and all other animals good for the use of man?

The only answer that fits is that, Yes, every single beast of burden or useful domesticated animal in the Americas was killed and/or eaten and the acidity of the ground wherever their bones landed was too acidic for even a single bone piece and/or tooth to survive as evidence of their ever existing. Furthermore, the peoples of the Americas did not make any clay objects, wooden, stone or bone portrayal of these animals, not did they ever paint any picture or tell any story of such animals either for use or for work. Still further, there has been a secret group of faithful devoted whose very mission has been to collect and destroy any fossils or bone finds of any said animals since physical evidence would weaken the true believers conviction and the believers need for faith. Absence of evidence is better than any evidence.

[ERayR]

The only answer that fits is that, Yes, every single beast of burden or useful domesticated animal in the Americas was killed and/or eaten and the acidity of the ground wherever their bones landed was too acidic for even a single bone piece and/or tooth to survive as evidence of their ever existing. Furthermore, the peoples of the Americas did not make any clay objects, wooden, stone or bone portrayal of these animals, not did they ever paint any picture or tell any story of such animals either for use or for work. Still further, there has been a secret group of faithful devoted whose very mission has been to collect and destroy any fossils or bone finds of any said animals since physical evidence would weaken the true believers conviction and the believers need for faith. Absence of evidence is better than any evidence.

Sarcasm duly noted. Sorry your biases won't let you consider reasonable alternatives.

[thesometimesaint]

http://resrustica.blogspot.com/2010/02/elephant-glyphs-at-copan.html

[bcuzbcuz]

http://resrustica.bl...s-at-copan.html

The translation of the glyphs attached to these figures is quite clear. The pictures are open for interpretation, especially since part of the originals are lost forever. The glyphs satiate, "The patron of Yax counted the year, 9 bak tuns, 15 katuns, 0 tuns, 0 unials, 0 kins, 4 ahau, 13 tax, when the heart was empty, of the God of Heaven and,when the heart was empty, of the God of earth, when the heart was empty of One sky.in-hand, Lord of the 16 yookins, it was planted in the ground, Great Sky God Chak was its name, It was in the image of Macaw mountain, Lord,Thus has been completed, 300 years, he scattered his offering, and conjured the image of the, Fiery God, Kawill, God of Lineages, the 13th successor of the founder, eighteen rabbit, holy blood lord of Copan."

No mention of elephants. No mention of Christ,

The pictures are interpretted as stylized pictures of Macaws.

There are excellent pictures at: http://www.flickr.co...n76/3254269007/

A very good video of stele and a computer imaging of the same at: vimeo.com 27830314

But the best is the hand drawn pictures of the site, before erosion and vandalism destroyed some of the glyphs and images in Catherwood's original site images in his and Stephen's book, "Incidents of Travel in Yucatan"

Catherwood didn't see elephants....maybe they aren't there.

In the end, we humans see images we want to believe are there. It's the way our brain works.

Edited February 22, 2013 by bcuzbcuz

[bcuzbcuz]

Sarcasm duly noted. Sorry your biases won't let you consider reasonable alternatives.

Reasonable alternatives stretch in many directions. Until someone has some actual proof of horses or elephants or wheat or steel in pre-Columbian America I'll choose to not believe in their existence. I can always change my mind. That option is, however, not open to you.

[Stargazer]

Reasonable alternatives stretch in many directions. Until someone has some actual proof of horses or elephants or wheat or steel in pre-Columbian America I'll choose to not believe in their existence. I can always change my mind. That option is, however, not open to you.

Well, this is the problem: you won't change your mind. That's a prediction. Oh, you might decide that the evidence shows "actual proof of horses or elephants or wheat or steel," but in no way will you move from your position that Book of Mormon is fiction.

Curious about your stance on the Nahom issue. You know what that is, right? Is the Book of Mormon correct in its discussion of a trade route between a place called Nahom (which in later days turns out to exist in the place the BoM says it did), moving due eastwards to a place named "Bountiful" in the BoM, which appears to correspond to an actual place on the east coast of the Arabian peninsula. What do think of that? Interesting but proves nothing?

As to the steel issue, the funny thing about the word "steel" is that it does not mean the same thing now that it meant to the King James Bible translators. We think of that stuff that your common "silverware" is made of (the implements you eat with every day, not the implements you bring out when you have company over). However, the KJB translators talked about "steel" in the Old Testament, in sections going back to 3,000 years ago, when there was no such steel and wouldn't be for millenia. In fact the old English word "steel" refers to something which has been strenthened. You've probably heard the word "steel" used like this: "He steeled himself for the expected blow." It doesn't mean that he turned himself into high-carbon steel, i.e. iron. It means he braced himself. The "steel bow" that Nephi broke could not have been made of carburized iron; it most likely was a composition bow, meaning it was made of common materials like wood, sinew and horn, built up in layers. His brothers bows were probably made of plain wood, thus it was easy for them to lose their spring. Are you still going to insist that when the Book of Mormon mentions steel it must absolutely be talking about iron smelted in a Bessemer converter?

As another thought, have a look at this: http://en.fairmormon...hronisms/Metals

I am not insisting that any of this proves the Book of Mormon to be true, but when it comes to things like metals, wheat, barley and such like, just because we are unfamiliar with these things in Mesoamerica does not mean that they absolutely couldn't exist.

And you're right that I don't have much choice. You can't prove a negative.

Edited February 23, 2013 by Stargazer