Book Of Mormon Criticism: Lack Of Evidence Of Large Armies. A Find In Egypt Of A Persian Army Lost 2500 Years Is Intriguing

[Pinecone]

Straw man.  I don't know anybody that makes that claim.  They just aren't in the right places or am I to beleive somebody took time to haul them from the "Hill Cumorah" to where they are found.

Why do you interject such silly reasoning?

There was no inference on my part that bones were hauled from the Hill Cumorah to these mounds in Detroit. Or are you just showing off your wonderous intellect of a red herring?

Is your knowledge of the Book of Mormon so shallow that you have not learned there were battles for decades, during the entire adult life of Mormon? And these battles occurred over a wide expanse to the last at the Hill? And why do you believe bones should now be found around the Hill Cumorah when the slain bodies were never buried? Bones decompose. It's been over two millenia, the land has been plowed how many times from early settlers to the present time, and yet you believe today there should be bones scattered across it?

And you accuse of me a straw-man argument?

[MormonFreeThinker]

How do you know it's an exaggeration?

 

Good one, maybe it is not, maybe it is a good estimate. There were millions of people in Mesoamerica by the time the Jaradites were destroyed.

There is also evidence of wars in Mesoamerica in pre-classic times.   

 

 

If million really meant military unit, would not the spirit have conveyed that to Joseph Smith, or are we back to the literal translation of a language that the Nephites allegedly created and there is no example of anywhere?

 

 

No need, the purpose of the book of mormon is to teach gospel principles, not accurate numbers. 

Again, I think the 2 million was just an exaggeration, but it was certainly a calculation, not an exact number. 

 

Question, do you believe in the Bible? 

Edited November 29, 2014 by MormonFreeThinker

[Robert F. Smith]

How do you know it's an exaggeration?

 

 

If million really meant military unit, would not the spirit have conveyed that to Joseph Smith, or are we back to the literal translation of a language that the Nephites allegedly created and there is no example of anywhere?

Your statements here are incoherent, and I have never heard the claim that the Nephite language was created by the Nephites, or that there is no other example of it anywhere.  The Book of Mormon declares that it (and the Brass Plates) is written in Egyptian, while Hebrew was spoken among them.  At the same time, as any linguistics expert would expect, they admit that their language has changed over time (the Nephites were in the New World for 1,000 years!).  You are apparently unaware that Old English has evolved into Modern English, and that all languages follow that same pattern of change.

 

MFT gave you access online to a scholar who correctly pointed out that such technical terms for  military are used precisely that way in Hebrew literature on a regular basis.  Did you even bother to glance at it?

 

The technical terminology for military units is cut and dried, the use of hyperbole in biblical literature (and in ancient Near Eastern literature in general) is also quite common.  Everyone in the field understands that, yet you appear unable to grasp it.  Maybe you are emoting rather than thinking.  And maybe pretending to have a discussion is not the same as as having a real discussion.

[LinuxGal]

Is your knowledge of the Book of Mormon so shallow that you have not learned there were battles for decades, during the entire adult life of Mormon? And these battles occurred over a wide expanse to the last at the Hill? And why do you believe bones should now be found around the Hill Cumorah when the slain bodies were never buried? Bones decompose. It's been over two millenia, the land has been plowed how many times from early settlers to the present time, and yet you believe today there should be bones scattered across it?

 

Apparently the issue is not important to the Church, since there have been no professional digs conducted in the area, just a few amateur pokes and prods. BYU seems to focus in Mesoamerica.  There should be at least one temple like that of king Solomon.  Even after being largely destroyed by the Romans, the one in Jerusalem still has many artifacts such as the western wall.

[ERayR]

Why do you interject such silly reasoning?

There was no inference on my part that bones were hauled from the Hill Cumorah to these mounds in Detroit. Or are you just showing off your wonderous intellect of a red herring?

Is your knowledge of the Book of Mormon so shallow that you have not learned there were battles for decades, during the entire adult life of Mormon? And these battles occurred over a wide expanse to the last at the Hill? And why do you believe bones should now be found around the Hill Cumorah when the slain bodies were never buried? Bones decompose. It's been over two millenia, the land has been plowed how many times from early settlers to the present time, and yet you believe today there should be bones scattered across it?

And you accuse of me a straw-man argument?

 

What prompts you to resort to ad hominems?  

Edited November 29, 2014 by ERayR

[The Nehor]

What prompts you to resort to ad hominems?

Probably frustration with stupidity. I sympathize.

[ERayR]

Probably frustration with stupidity. I sympathize.

 

Thanks I needed that.

[morgan.deane]

Whether it was two million or not, there were at least a million Jaredites who died in the space of twenty or thirty years, and the Book of Ether doesn't say exactly how many were in the very last battle, but Ether 15:14 says that it took four years to gather all the people for the final battle, down to every last woman and child. The site where the battle took place was later "covered with bones" as mentioned in Mosiah 25:26-27:

 

Thanks for the response.  I think there are two issues at play here, the numbers of soldiers in the text (and I suppose issue one a would be where they should be) and then the relative ease of finding them.  I have different reactions to you based on the text so hopefully you don't mind this long post to let me explain why.  

 

As I said before, the numbers listed in Ether 15:2 are explicitly inexact. But there are a few ways to look at numbers. You can look at ancient populations and conclude those numbers are possible and even likely. You can look at the way military units often become indistinguishable from unit numbers.  Centurions, myriads, and the example posted by Mormon Free Thinker from the Bible are all a part of this.  Or you can look at the mistakes and problems with numbers in other ancient sources and see that "problems" with large numbers actually enhance the status of the BoM as an ancient text. A chapter of my upcoming book explains all of them but the last one is most interesting.  From my draft (without footnotes):

 

 

But the Book of Mormon is not false for possibly presenting exaggerated numbers; instead those wild numbers suggest that Mormon had the same editorial proclivities as other ancient historians.  In fact, having number problems would put the Book of Mormon in good company. Herodotus said the Persian army numbered in the millions. According to one scholar an army that big would have the beginning of the column in Greece before the end of the column even started!  The famed 19th century historian Hans Delbruck first discussed the important of critically examining the problems with numbers in military accounts, and taking ancient and medieval numbers with a healthy dose of skepticism for even the most reliable texts while still relying on most of the narrative to reconstruct the battles. “It is very hard,” said Delbruck, “[for even] a practiced eye, to estimate accurately rather large masses” of soldiers, let alone the various amateurs and priests that wrote the bulk of ancient writings.   Historian Kelly DeVries has discussed the imprecise nature of Medieval European military chronicles and similar problems in ancient sources.  As stated above, Edward Dryer doubts the numbers contained in the Imperial history of the War of the Eight Princes but still studied the primary sources for the conflict.    

 

 Error could have played a role in the changing of numbers. The difference in modern English between eight and eighty is only one letter.  The Chinese language had to adopt fraud proof versions of many numbers because it was so easy to modify them.  (So the character for two can become two thousand from a few careless or deliberately added strokes.)  Many manuscripts are damaged and hard to read.  Even something as recent as an account of Joseph Smith’s first vision has an illegible number that says either 15 or 16 for Smith’s age;  and the church’s Old Testament manual describes some of the problems with numbers in the book of Numbers.  

 

In other cases the wrong numbers result from deliberate modification.  For example Greek historians, much like Mormon, had an ethnocentric view of their world. If all a person read was Herodotus and Thucydides they would conclude that Westerners were the center of the world.  But when the Greeks are studied within their historical context, the first world Empire in Persia comes into better focus and the Greeks only existed as a primitive and wild backwater.  The Greeks wanted to communicate the message that free people fight better and their ideology clashed with and triumphed over the mighty Persians. So Herodotus wasn’t interested in an objective assessment of Persian strength like a modern historian, but would record the rumor and innuendo of the time, or choose a number that conveyed his truth and the message he was trying to share.  

 

To cite another example, Chinese writers would want to highlight how the previous dynasty lost the Mandate of Heaven, so they would inflate the size of the bad last emperor's army. Ancient historians often wrote not to tell what happened, but with a specific moral purpose. Hence, they didn't have the same scruples about bending facts to fit their story.  They considered themselves good historians explaining, in good Confucian fashion, why their Emperor had the Mandate of Heaven. Thus the historians of the later Tang Dynasty would have accepted larger numbers as fact, or properly inflated the size of the bad last emperor’s army that ended the previous (Sui) dynasty after his failed invasion of Korea.  

 

Finally, some numbers are used colloquially.  For example, one set of numbers in the Book of Mormon followed a same double same double pattern (Alma 2:19), and may have symbolic importance instead of representing exact numbers. This is similar to the modern "I've told you a million times" or Jesus using the phrase "seven times seventy" (Matthew 18:22) So if the Book of Mormon has the same problem listing exact number for deaths on battle or the size of armies, as other historical documents this puts it in good company. [end quote]

 

I know you're also making some point about their being bones that you can literally walk around and see because their so plentiful. Also from my draft:

 

That wrong assumption is the belief that battles, especially of this magnitude, are easy to find in the archaeological record. Critics contend that if the church really cared about the truth they would take a back hoe and start digging in front of the Hill Cumorah in New York.   In fact, battles, even when they are near identifiable locations,  are some of the hardest to find.  Scholars still debate the exact location of the Battle of Hastings, even though it is one of the most studied battles in Western history.  Many archaeologists still debate the location of a massacre of the Roman Legions in a German forest.  And only recently has a “lost army” of Persians been found...

 

Critics point out that these large armies should have produced large amounts of weapons, armor, and bones that easily have been found. Almost like the Triceratops refuse from the movie Jurassic Park, they expect to walk along and find ample evidence of the Book of Mormon.  Again, examples from history help dispel that notion. Even in arid climates which relatively preserve better than other locations, evidence of battles are hard to find.  David Webster sad that “if we had to rely only on archaeological materials, we would dismiss as inconsequential one of the most important compoents [i.e. warfare] in the structure and evolution of…society.”  Other Mesoamericanists agree that “warfare is extremely difficult to see in the archaeological record.”   The most vivid story that puts to flight the notion of stumbling across a treasure trove of battle remnants is from William Rathje. He described the story of British archaeologists that descended upon Hastings on the 900th anniversary of the battle (in 1966) expecting to find all sorts of evidence. All “the historical treasure trove they recovered consisted of a few human and horse teeth that survived the scavengers and the forces of nature…”   [End quote]  

 

 

From the Jaredite battle of the bones to the final battle of Mormon and Moroni was about 1000 years.  And there are no mentions of those bones after this period. Nor is the description in Mosiah very definitive on the number of bones, and area covered. So you combine that with the vast uncertainty over numbers and I think you are assuming way too much from the text that isn't there.  I do appreciate your comments and this thread, its not very often I get to discuss warfare in the BoM.  Though I'm finding I've already touched upon every one of this points (in a well reasoned and researched manner if I'm allowed to say), I just need to do a better job of letting people know.  

 

 

[i'm sorry for quoting so much, but I would rather cut and paste material on which I've worked far more than a short and in my opinion lousy rehash of material I've already written.]

Edited November 29, 2014 by morgan.deane

[Robert F. Smith]

Apparently the issue is not important to the Church, since there have been no professional digs conducted in the area, just a few amateur pokes and prods.

Actually the LDS Church has done some professional digging at more recent sites, such as the Joseph Smith log cabin, with excellent results: https://www.lds.org/ensign/1985/08/archaeological-work-at-the-smith-log-house?lang=eng .

 

BYU seems to focus in Mesoamerica.

Well, not quite.  The New World Archaeological Foundation (NWAF) has for many years conducted the most extensive and important digs in Mesoamerica, but most of them (though funded by the LDS Church) were run by non-Mormon professionals, and were focused on secular archeological interests -- because the Church specified that there would be no Book of Mormon research involved.  Just straight, professional archeology.  Some members of the religion dept at BYU wrote books and speculated, but few BYU anthropologists have commented on the issue directly (John L. Sorenson, John Clark, et al.), and the Church did not ask them to do so.

 

There should be at least one temple like that of king Solomon.  Even after being largely destroyed by the Romans, the one in Jerusalem still has many artifacts such as the western wall.

The Romans completely destroyed the Jerusalem Temple proper, although the Herodian retaining wall of the temple plaza still remains, on which now sit the Mosque of Omar and the Al Aqsa Mosque.

 

Any Israelite temple found in Mesoamerica would be like the Solomonic temple only in the likely tripartite design with sacrificial altar in front, not that it was an exact replica in size or value.  Nephi says that "it could not be built like unto Solomon's temple. But the manner of construction was like unto the temple of Solomon" (Ii Ne 5:16).  This was followed by other Book of Mormon temples being built for the next 10 centuries, and there were likely stylistic differences among them.  I wouldn't want to presume precisely what one of those temples might look like, and would prefer to allow the archeological facts to do the talking.

Edited November 29, 2014 by Robert F. Smith

[Thinking]

The Book of Mormon declares that it (and the Brass Plates) is written in Egyptian, while Hebrew was spoken among them.

 

Mormon 9:32-34 "And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech. And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record. But the Lord knoweth the things which we have written, and also that none other people knoweth our language; and because that none other people knoweth our language, therefore he hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof."

 

CFR that the brass plates are supposed to have been written in Egyptian.

Edited November 30, 2014 by Thinking

[LinuxGal]

Any Israelite temple found in Mesoamerica would be like the Solomonic temple only in the likely tripartite design with sacrificial altar in front, not that it was an exact replica in size or value. Nephi says that "it could not be built like unto Solomon's temple. But the manner of construction was like unto the temple of Solomon" (Ii Ne 5:16).  This was followed by other Book of Mormon temples being built for the next 10 centuries, and there were likely stylistic differences among them.  I wouldn't want to presume precisely what one of those temples might look like, and would prefer to allow the archeological facts to do the talking.

 

Well, that's the real trick, isn't it?  What archaeological facts supporting the Book of Mormon are there, be it Finger Lakes, Meso America, or the Arabian peninsula?

[ERayR]

Well, that's the real trick, isn't it?  What archaeological facts supporting the Book of Mormon are there, be it Finger Lakes, Meso America, or the Arabian peninsula?

 

I would suggest John L. Sorenson as a good source on this. 

 

An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon    or

 

Mormons Codex

[Robert F. Smith]

Well, that's the real trick, isn't it?

Well, of course it is.  Especially since history is not facts, but the interpretation of facts.

 

What archaeological facts supporting the Book of Mormon are there, be it Finger Lakes, Meso America, or the Arabian peninsula?

For a well-written, expert evaluation see John Sorenson, Mormon's Codex (BYU Maxwell Institute/Deseret Book, 2013).  Don't be intimidated by its size.  A summary of Sorenson's book is available on FAIRMORMON at http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2012-fair-conference/2012-reading-mormons-codex .

 

I take a slightly different approach in my “The Preposterous Book of Mormon: A Singular Advantage,” lecture, August 8, 2014, at the annual FAIRMORMON Conference, Provo, Utah, online at http://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PREPOSTEROUS-BOOK-OF-MORMON.pdf , but I deal therein with realia rather than ideological or religious tests.

Edited November 30, 2014 by Robert F. Smith

[LinuxGal]

For a well-written, expert evaluation see John Sorenson, Mormon's Codex (BYU Maxwell Institute/Deseret Book, 2013).  Don't be intimidated by its size.  A summary of Sorenson's book is available on FAIRMORMON at http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2012-fair-conference/2012-reading-mormons-codex .

 

He says he found a pass between land northward and land southward.  We got one on the border between Oregon and California. How do we know his pass is THE pass given in about eight places in the Book of Mormon.  He says there were human sacrifices among the Mesoamericans, and this matches the story of human sacrifices appearing among the Lamanites, but where's the audit trail connecting the two?  And so on.  I'm looking for something different.  I'm looking for evidence of a metallurgical industry capable of producing the steel that appears in 1&2 Nephi, Jarom, and Ether.  I'm looking for a temple that looks like Solomon's temple, not a pagan stepped pyramid.  I'm looking for evidence of horses that pre-date Columbus.  Simple pattern recognition, I can do that myself.

[Calm]

Why are you so certain you are looking for the correct thing?

[MormonFreeThinker]

  I'm looking for a temple that looks like Solomon's temple

 

The Book of Mormon doesn't say that the Temple looks like Solomon's temple, please read what the Book of Mormon says

"it could not be built like unto Solomon's temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine" (2 Nephi 5:16) 

 

"manner of construction" can be interpreted in many ways. 

 

not a pagan stepped pyramid.  

 

There are many ruins in Mesoamerica, not just pyramids. Have you ever read a book about pre-classic Mesoamerica? 

 

I'm looking for evidence of a metallurgical industry capable of producing the steel that appears in 1&2 Nephi, Jarom, and Ether. 

 

Metallurgy is an interesting Book of Mormon problem, I admit, but not steel. However, there is still much to be discovered in Mesoamerica, I always see news articles that say "earlier than previously though" about mesoamerica. 

 

Steel - Webster's Dictionary 1828

1. Iron combined with a small portion of carbon; iron refined and hardened, used in making instruments, and particularly useful as the material of edged tools. It is called in chemistry, carburet of iron; but this is more usually the denomination of plumbago. 2. Figuratively, weapons; particularly, offensive weapons, swords, spears and the like.  4. Extreme hardness; as heads or hearts of steel

Edited November 30, 2014 by MormonFreeThinker

[LinuxGal]

Metallurgy is an interesting Book of Mormon problem, I admit, but not steel. However, there is still much to be discovered in Mesoamerica, I always see news articles that say "earlier than previously though" about mesoamerica. 

 

Metallurgy apparently didn't get started in Mesoamerica until at least 600 years after Christ.  Copper was not even used in arms until the region was colonized by Spain and European smelting techniques were introduced. Who seriously believes the Jaredites forged steel in the era following the Tower of Babel (which I estimate was about 2,600 years before Christ)?

[ERayR]

Metallurgy apparently didn't get started in Mesoamerica until at least 600 years after Christ.  Copper was not even used in arms until the region was colonized by Spain and European smelting techniques were introduced. Who seriously believes the Jaredites forged steel in the era following the Tower of Babel (which I estimate was about 2,600 years before Christ)?

 

Check this out

 

http://www.sciences360.com/index.php/the-history-of-metallurgy-in-mesoamerica-8984/

[Svawd]

I don't care if he came up with these good stories looking into a hat at a rock, This book can help you day to day.

[MormonFreeThinker]

Metallurgy apparently didn't get started in Mesoamerica until at least 600 years after Christ.  Copper was not even used in arms until the region was colonized by Spain and European smelting techniques were introduced. Who seriously believes the Jaredites forged steel in the era following the Tower of Babel (which I estimate was about 2,600 years before Christ)?

 

Please read what I wrote in post 66, let me give you one example

 

"mummification started in ancient Egypt 1,500 years earlier than previously thought"

http://mq.edu.au/newsroom/2014/08/14/embalming-study-rewrites-key-chapter-in-egyptian-history/

 

Bytheway, evidence of copper smelting dates to about  600 AD in Mesoamerica. 

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8019270&fileId=S1946427400080696

 

Who seriously believes the Jaredites

 

Let me remind you what you wrote

 

I said any claim that science is "settled" (as in closed for further discussion) is offensive

Edited December 1, 2014 by MormonFreeThinker